April Girls Read/Guys Read

Did you know that we have two parent/child book clubs every month at the Provo City Library? They are for children ages 9-12 and a caregiver. This month, they will meet April 23 (girls) and April 25 (guys). These will be the last book club events until fall, so be sure to preregister under the Kids Corner/Program Registration tab on the library website. We have two great books to discuss this month:

Girls Read

Beauty

by Robin McKinley

Harper & Row, 1978. Fiction. 247 p.

Beauty is a retelling of the classic story of Beauty and the beast. In this version, kind Beauty (who does not think she is actually beautiful compared to her sisters) leaves her family behind when her father returns home with a stolen rose and a threat from the Beast who he stole from - his life in exchange for the rose. Beauty, determined to be brave and save her father's life, chooses to live in the enchanted castle and hopefully tame the Beast. This is a fairy tale retelling so beloved and so classic that it is almost canon in its own right. The fairy tale is mostly represented accurately, but the characters come to life in such unique new ways - this is a romance for the ages.

Guys Read

Last Day on Mars

By Kevin Emerson

Walden Pond Press. 2017. Fiction. 325 p.

Liam has spent his entire life on the planet Mars. It is Earth year 2213 and the Sun has began to go supernova, sending Earth's population to Mars in retreat while they build the necessary spaceships to travel to a planet many light years away. With less than 24 hours until Mars will meet the same end as Earth, Liam and his sister Phoebe are the last kids on the planet as their parents put the finishing touches on one last project. As they are saying goodbye to their home, Phoebe and Liam make a surprising discovery - unbeknownst to humans, there is extraterrestrial life after all.

Comments

Review: A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall

A Strange Thing Happened in Cherry Hall By Jasmine Warga New York: Harper, 2024. Fiction. 211 pages. A painting has been stolen from the Penelope L. Brooks Museum and sixth-grader Rami Ahmed is worried he's the main suspect. His mother works at the museum as the lead custodian and Rami spends a lot of time hanging out at the museum while she works. On the day the painting went missing, the only people there were the security guard Ed, the cleaning crew, and Rami. Then, a mysterious girl appears in the museum. She floats around from room to room and only Rami can see her -- and she looks exactly like the girl from the missing painting. To prove his innocence and help figure out who the floating girl is, Rami partners up with an aspiring sleuth at school named Veda and the two dive into unexpected situations as they try to solve the mystery. This is a cozy mystery that is focused mostly on characters and ambiance and only a little on the mystery itself. Don't read this book if yo...

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: The Amazing Generation

The Amazing Generation: Your Guide to Fun and Freedom in a Screen-Filled World Written by Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price Illustrated by Cynthia Yuan Cheng New York: Rocky Pond Books, 2025. Informational. 226 pages. In a kid-friendly adaptation of his best-selling book, The Anxious Generation , Jonathan Haidt teams up with Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone , to bring the power of good information directly to the hands of those that this issue affects most directly — kids on the cusp of getting their own smartphones. The book presents information about the drawbacks of having a smartphone and social media too soon in clear and easy-to-understand language, with eye-catching graphics and pop-outs. Throughout the book, quotes from real teens and young adults, called screen "rebels" by the authors, emphasize the points the authors are trying to make. Fictional characters are featured throughout in a graphic novel story, which further emphasizes the po...

Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Search This Blog