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Kim Tomsic
Showing posts with label Harper Collins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harper Collins. Show all posts

Friday, July 5, 2013

DESTINY REWRITTEN a book review


Destiny Rewritten by KathrynFitzmaurice (Harper Collins Katherine Tegen Books) is a charming and absorbing tale. This book will capture the imagination of your eight to thirteen-year-old readers. It’s chock-full of fun quests and unique characters.  But let’s start at the beginning, where the epigraph sets the tone:
          In this short Life
          That only lasts an hour
          How much—how little—is
          Within our power
          –Emily Dickinson
How much do our decisions influence our future, or is everything up to destiny? It’s a fun premise to consider, and that’s what I love—a book full of possibilities.
 
JACKET FLAP: Eleven-year-old Emily Elizabeth Davis has been told for her entire life that her destiny is to become a poet, just like her famous namesake, Emily Dickinson. But Emily doesn't even really like poetry, and she has a secret career ambition that she suspects her English-professor mother will frown on. Then, just after discovering that it contains an important family secret, she loses the special volume of Emily Dickinson's poetry that was given to her at birth. As Emily and her friends search for the lost book in used bookstores and thrift shops all across town, Emily's understanding of destiny begins to unravel and then rewrite itself in a marvelous new way.

Twelve-year-old Emily approaches her quest with a spirit of pluck, creativity, and contagious mania. And in her hometown of Berkley, California, there’s a whole pack of interesting characters to meet—her spy-obsessed younger cousin Mortie (who may or may not be on some sort of reconnaissance mission), her friends at school, thrift shop owners and the local tree huggers.


Katherine Tegen Books, February 2013
Realistic Fiction
352 pages
ISBN-10: 0061625019
ISBN-13: 9780061625015 
Recommended for grades 4-6


Thursday, May 3, 2012

Review of Newbery Honor Book: Inside Out and Back Again


I am personally drawn to books featuring Asian culture: A Single Shard, Snowflower and the Secret Fan, and Double Luck are a few of my favorites. Now I have a new title to add to my list: Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai. This middle grade book features main character who is born in Vietnam, but flees with her mother and brothers to Alabama where they seek refuge from the war raging in her country. Although a cowboy and his wife serve as ’s sponsor family, life at a new school is not a day on the ranch. suffers teasing about her speech and her Asian looks, and she is forced to find a way to fit in.
 How can you resist a book when a main character states: “…at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama.” This from a character who is smart, feisty, and authentic equals a book with angst, humor, and drama.

Product Details

·        Reading level: Ages 8 and up

·        Hardcover: 272 pages

·        Publisher: HarperCollins (February 22, 2011)

·        Language: English

·        ISBN-10: 0061962783

·        ISBN-13: 978-0061962783

Available at:

Boulder Bookstore in Boulder (or by mail)
Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver
Barnes and Noble (and be sure to say hello to Jeff at the Boulder location!) 

Saturday, September 3, 2011

JUNIPER BERRY a book review


The cover art for M.P. Kozlowsky's debut book JUNIPER BERRY  promises "A tale of terror and temptation." Kozlowsky delivers the trepedation in spades.

Imagine you're an only child and your parents are comprised of the best parts of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt--loving, kind, famous and beautiful. They are dream parents who adore you until something inexplicable and horrible changes everything. How would you solve what went wrong and what would you trade to get your world back?

JUNIPER BERRY is a middle grade mystery complete with famous parents, a monocular, a barking Kitty, and the very odd boy next door. But more than that, it's a Tim Burtonesque tale that offers up balloons with fright and whispers distant echos that remind readers of books like Neil Gaiman's Coraline.

JUNIPER BERRY
author M.P. Kozlowsky drawings by Erwin Madrid
Middle Grade Fiction ages 8 and up
Walden Pond Press (an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers) April 26, 2011
ISBN 10 0061998699
ISBN 13 978-0061998690
List Price: $15.99

RATING: 5 out of 5 lollipop rating

Buying links:

TATTERED COVER BOOK STORE (On shelves now)
Boulder Bookstore
Barnes and Noble
The Strand






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