Inspired by the infamous rebuking of Senator Elizabeth Warren while reading the words of Coretta Scott King during the confirmation hearings of then-Senator Jeff Sessions, author Chelsea Clinton introduces 13 women in “She Persisted” who have shown persistence throughout American history. The women she chose to include this book are varied in race and career… View more
Finding an engaging and interesting story to read to younger children isn’t necessarily difficult. Finding an engaging and interesting story that can help with word recognition can be. By using repetition and rhyme to describe a colorful cast of characters build a robot, children will have the opportunity to repeat phrases and make predictions with… View more
Winner of the 2015 Newbery Medal for The Crossover, poet Kwame Alexander draws on rules of sports as the background for life lessons of hardship, perseverance, and focus. In The Playbook: 52 Rules to Aim, Shoot, and Score in This Game Called Life, he uses sports analogies (predominately basketball as you might imagine from the cover)… View more
By this point, most know of the harrowing story of bravery of Nobel Prize-winning Malala Yousafzai. Taking the very real story of how a young girl in Pakistan was shot by the Taliban for fighting for young girls’ rights to an education and interpreting it for children is no easy feat but Raphaele Frier and… View more
A growing trend in readership and publishing comes in the form of the graphic novel. Perhaps a connection with the film industries penchant for comic book superheros, readers are reaching out for bright colors, bold pictures, and quick interchanges of graphic novels. One should not assume that though the interactions between the characters are brief… View more
Dan Harris, current co-anchor of ABC News’ “Nightline” and co-anchor of the weekend edition of “Good Morning America,” has worked with ABC News since 2000 and has become a regular fixture on the channel’s various news programs. Following a long stint covering war in Baghdad in 2003, he returned stateside suffering symptoms he did not… View more
“Attachments” is lovely. It takes place at newspaper towards the end of 1999 with the Y2K “crisis” in full swing. Beth is funny, engaging, writes for the entertainment section, and has been dating a local rock star for nine years. Her best friend Jennifer is delightful, witty, works as a copy editor, and has a… View more
The fifth and final book in the Percy Jackson series was, as you might imagine, an adventure of mythical proportions. It begins with Percy and Co. waging yet another battle against Luke/Kronos, one that ends in a stalemate sending Percy into the depths of the ocean. Being the son of Poseidon and all, this is… View more
“Hollow City” picks up where “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” left off with Jacob, now a part of the 1940s world of Peculiar Children and discovering his own peculiarity. Their time loop however has been discovered and attacked by the dreaded Hollows and Wights, neither of which should be physically capable of entering the… View more
Despite being a relative newcomer to the magical world of fantasy, Ransom Riggs makes a darn good introduction. The first in the “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” series begins with Jacob Portman, a rather uninterested and uncommitted average teenager in Florida who is, well, bored. He’s bored of his life as it is and… View more
