When Loose Ends Meet

My Best Books for Youth in 2018

18 Dec 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

I am a Books for Youth reviewer for Booklist, a publication of the American Library Association, and I have the privilege of reading a wide variety of early, middle grade, young adult books each year. I enjoy reading debut novels, works from authors just a few books old, and books from established authors. I take joy in the fact that there’s such excitement in this world of books, and I love its changes, particularly in terms of diversity. My 2018 […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Middle Grade Readers, Young Adult Readers

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The Year I Didn’t Eat by Samuel Pollen

13 Dec 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

****Starred Review*** Gr. 6-9 For 14-year-old bird enthusiast Max Howarth, life is a challenge not only because he has family issues but also because he’s anorexic. He thinks about food 16 hours a day, and despite all the knowledge he has about his illness, its grip grows increasingly tighter. His journal—addressed to “Ana,” whose voice taunts him at every turn—is filled with his most intimate feelings about himself and the people and events in his life. Max’s journal entries alternate with […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Middle Grade Readers

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Light as a Feather by Zoe Aarsen

21 Nov 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gr. 9-12 In a small Wisconsin town, life is uneventful until Violet arrives. Invited to Olivia’s sixteenth birthday party, she livens things up by suggesting the girls play Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board. As Violet tells each girl’s violent death story, the girls chant and “levitate” the subject. What starts out as an innocent game turns into a paranormal string of events in keeping with Violet’s predictions, which McKenna desperately needs to prevent before she and her […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers

That's Not What I Heard by Stephanie Strohm

That’s Not What I Heard by Stephanie Kate Strohm

21 Nov 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gr. 7-12 Seniors Kim and Teddy, William Henry Harrison High’s golden couple, are apparently done. Quitsville. Uncoupled. The source of this hot gossip, freshman Phil Spooner, finds himself in the spotlight after passing along the story with an embellishment or two. Immediately, the school splits into Team Kim and Teddy Bear. The breakup fever spreads, and by the time the prom committee must make a final decision on the theme, there are four wildly disparate ideas (and teams) dividing the […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers

Five Feet Apart by Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry, and others

Five Feet Apart by Rachel Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry, and others

2 Nov 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gr. 7-12 Stella Grant has control issues. She also has breathing issues because of cystic fibrosis, and she must remain six feet away from anyone who could give her an infection. She has spent years in and out of the hospital, and now, instead of joining her friends on their senior trip, she’s fighting a simple sore throat that could ruin her chances for a lung transplant. Nevertheless, she hosts YouTube videos about CF and works diligently on her medicine-treatment […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Illness, Young Adult Readers

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Special Forces Book One: Unconventional Warfare by Chris Lynch

2 Nov 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gr. 7-9 Danny Manion is a fighter. Whether he’s beating up his brothers or challenging the system, Danny is always a hair’s breadth from being in real trouble. When he pulls a stunt that lands him in front of a judge, he’s given the choice of jail or a tour of duty in Vietnam. On the recommendation of his personal counselor, Danny opts for the army, where he becomes an integral part of a select team of misfit soldiers that […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Middle Grade Readers, Military-Warfare

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Our Year of Maybe by Rachel Lynn Solomon

15 Oct 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gr. 9-12 Sophie would do anything for her best friend Peter, a talented musician in need of a kidney transplant. She believes that the two of them are destined to be in love, but events don’t go as she imagined after she donates a kidney to him. Now able to attend high school in lieu of homeschooling, Peter becomes interested in Chase, a classmate who invites him to join his band. While Peter’s interests broaden, Sophie is left to pick […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Young Adult Readers

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It Wasn’t Me by Dana Alison Levy

1 Oct 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

Gr. 5-8 Having to go to school over break stinks, but circumstantial evidence surrounding vandalism brings six unhappy seventh-graders together for a justice circle facilitated by a favorite teacher. Like The Breakfast Club, each student carries a label by which they are automatically judged (the nerd, the princess, the jock, the weirdo, the screw-up), and this experimental gathering seeks to discover not only who destroyed Theo’s photographs but why. [Read More]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Middle Grade Readers

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Grenade by Alan Gratz

15 Sep 2018 by Jeanne E. Fredriksen

***Starred Review*** Gr. 4-7 Okinawa native Hideki is 13 when American forces storm his Pacific island during WWII, and he and his classmates are pressed into service by the Japanese army. They are given two grenades and told one is to kill the American “monsters” and the other is to kill oneself afterward. Ray, 18, is a Marine enlistee fresh from a farm in Nebraska and about to enter his first battle. Both boys share the fear of the unknown, […]

Categories: Appeared in Booklist/ALA, Book Reviews, Middle Grade Readers

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