by Barb Langridge | Jun 17, 2011 | Humor
Contagious, comedic, cantankerous, and full of teen angst and teenage spasmic hyperbole, Notes From the Blender is a hilarious romp of a ya novel. Told in chapters by Neilly and Declan, both male and female readers will laugh out loud at the characters and most...
by Barb Langridge | Jun 16, 2011 | Chick Lit
Francine Hall is facing a quadruple threat: she is 14, the age when conformity is crucial. She lives in a small town in Ohio, where everyone knows everything about everyone. It is 1956, smack in the middle of the Conformity Decade. And Franny was born with a withered,...
by Katy Manck | Jun 16, 2011 | Paranormal
Ever-drawn to the ocean, Lena wants to learn to surf with her friends. But her father forbids it, reminding her of his near-drowning as a championship surfer years ago, and her stepmom agrees with him. If only her mother were still alive to take Lena’s side in this...
by Barb Langridge | Jun 16, 2011 | Non-Fiction
The concept of what a neighborhood is to young children is often abstract. The alphabet book Welcome to my Neighborhood! puts us in the setting of a Barrio. Author Quiara Alegria Hudes walks us through different places and faces of a city neighborhood making...
by Barb Langridge | Jun 16, 2011 | Picture Book
You know how flies can be aggravating? Well in this story called, Tiny Little Fly, this tiny little fly is no exception. In this story he manages to bother a tiger, a hippo, and an elephant, who are much larger and stronger than he is, and still survives. This fun...
by Barb Langridge | Jun 16, 2011 | Non-Fiction
This is a true story about two sisters, Abby and Julia Smith, who lived in Glastonbury, Connecticut, on a farm in the late 1800’s. These sisters refused to pay an unfair amount of taxes that the town leaders (all men) wanted them to pay to make up for lost tax...
by Barb Langridge | Jun 14, 2011 | Historical Fiction
While reading this historical novel I thought of nursing heroines Nightingale, Barton, and Dix, the shocking and dramatic statistic that over twice as many Civil War soldiers died of disease and preventable wound infection instead of actual bullets (the novel helps...
by Barb Langridge | Jun 13, 2011 | Picture Book
The Fantastic 5 & 10¢ Store is indeed a fantastic rebus story that young and old would like. Figuring out the story through graphics and words is a fun challenge that most kids would welcome. Benny Penny comes up with the idea of hanging twinkling stars on the...
by Barb Langridge | Jun 13, 2011 | Non-Fiction
This is a picture book biography about Odetta Holmes. Odetta was a legendary folksinger who in the prime of her career at the end of the 1950’s became an influential presence for many popular folk singers who started building their careers in the 1970’s....
by Barb Langridge | Jun 13, 2011 | Picture Book
The Desperate Dog Writes Again is the sequel to Eileen Christelow’s Letters From a Desperate Dog. In this continuation the main dog character Emma, discovers that her owner, George, invites a stranger, Loretta, into the house and Emma thinks she might be harmful...
