Tyler Moore spent most of his early childhood in and out of hospitals. He had cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening hereditary disease causing thick mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive tract. But Tyler wouldn’t let his disability stop him, so when he entered Harpers Ferry Junior High School he decided he would be…
Are you aware of “The Animal Code?” I didn’t think so. It’s a set of ethics all animals live by and includes never speaking to humans. Yes, we’ve all read about acts of courage animals have demonstrated over the years that reveal their inner fortitude, but never have any of them come forth to acknowledge…
Gnosticism is the belief that the material world should be shunned in favor of the spiritual world. With that theme in mind, Michael Sussman created a brilliant YA novel, Crashing Eden. Joss, a self-described “seventeen-year-old punk” bullied his brother unmercifully until a neighbor took over the chore. Not surprisingly, Eli, a middle school student, hung…
Three years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing both of Marlene Dotterer’s Time Travel Journal novels, Shipbuilder and Bridgebuilders for Big Al’s Books and Pals. I enjoyed those time travel YA books so much, I want to resurrect the reviews for your reading pleasure. Enjoy. -Pop Shipbuilder Casey Wilson, a coed at Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland,…
Lost and Found by Jeanne Bannon is one of 14 novellas in a newly released Kindle edition of Valentine Pets & Kisses. Fourteen award winning and best selling authors come together with novellas wrapped in a Valentine’s theme of romance and the cutest pets this side of your heart. I’ll be up front. I didn’t…
Pop evaluates a lot of books on his blog, so readers are starting to demand that he rate the books. On Amazon or Goodreads books are rated with one to five stars depending on the quality of the novel. Keeping that rating system in mind, Pop has decided on this following system for his blog. …
In celebration of Koren Thal’s 28th birthday, Solstice Publishing will release for publication Koolura and the Mayans on March 19, 2016. This novel is author Michael Thal’s third installment to the Koolura Series and his fifth published YA novel. In The Legend of Koolura, Koolura Akopyan received extraordinary psychic powers at birth from an alien…
The Empty World Series are four YA science fiction adventure books where characters from our world are transported to a planet light years from Earth through a portal built by an ancient alien technology developed before humans walked the Earth. If Portal Through the Pond (Empty World Series Book 1) holds the theme key to…
As a teacher fresh out of grad school and subbing for the Los Angeles Unified School District, I began reading YA fiction to uncover gems to motivate my students. I initially discovered Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly. Published in 1942 and considered the first book explicitly written for teens, Daly’s novel for girls had a…
In 2044 a soccer tournament determines which nation will lead and teens are the pawns.