Display: Young Love

Danny Constantino's First (and Maybe Last?) Date
By Paul Acampora
New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2020. Fiction. 218 pages.

Between going to the middle school dance with his celebrity crush and watching his mom campaign to be the next town mayor, Danny has a lot to learn about life in the spotlight. --Editor

Bye Forever, I Guess
By Jodi Meadows
New York: Holiday House, 2024. Fiction. 284 pages.

Eighth-grader Ingrid runs a popular blog anonymously and has online personas more popular than she is, but when a wrong-number text message offers her a chance at connection, Ingrid opens herself to the opportunity to make a real live friend. --Editor

Toads & Diamonds
By Heather Tomlinson
New York: Henry Holt, 2010. Fiction. 278 pages.

A retelling of the Perrault fairy tale set in pre-colonial India, in which two stepsisters receive gifts from a goddess and each walks her own path to find her gift's purpose, discovering romance along the way.--Editor

That's What Friends Do
By Cathleen Barnhart
New York: Harper, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, 2020. Fiction. 340 pages.

Told in two voices, middle-schoolers Sammie and David's long-term friendship is endangered when new student Luke begins flirting with Sammie just when David decides to confess his crush on her.--Editor

Crushing It
By Joanne Levy
New York: Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division, 2017. Fiction. 229 pages.

Seventh grader Kat struggles with awkwardness while trying to help her popular best friend and cousin, Olivia, get together with her own crush, Tyler.--Editor

Comments

Review: Faker

Faker By Gordon Korman New York: Scholastic Press, 2024. Fiction. 214 pages. 12-year-old Trey is used to starting over at a new school -- he has the routine perfectly memorized: make new friends, introduce his dad to the wealthy parents of his new friends, and "Houdini" themselves out of there before they get caught running their latest scam. Trey's dad is a master con artist, and Trey has just been promoted to full-partner. Their new scheme for the next big score brings them to the affluent suburb of Boxelder, TN where Trey's dad has cooked up a fake electric car company for investors to buy into. The only problem is that Trey is starting to grow tired of moving around and never putting down roots, especially after forming a fast friendship with Logan and developing a crush on Kaylee, a socially conscious girl in his class. As Trey longs for a normal life, is there any way he can convince his dad to get out of the family business? Gordon Korman is a perennial favorit...

Review: The Bletchley Riddle

The Bletchley Riddle By Ruta Sepetys and Steve Sheinkin New York: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2024. Fiction. 392 pages. It's spring of 1940, Hitler has swept through most of Europe, and people believe England will be next. Half Polish-Jewish, half American Jakob has been recruited from Cambridge to Bletchley Park where they are working on deciphering the enigma machine. Jakob's sister Lizzie, meanwhile, is being forced to move from London to Cleveland to live with her grandmother after her mother disappeared in a 1939 attack in Poland. Lizzie manages to escape the keeper her grandmother sent for her to bring her to America and makes her way to Bletchley, where she's eventually given the task of delivering messages between departments. When secret messages begin appearing with Lizzie's belongings, she must decipher them to find the truth about her mother's past and location, while keeping the secrets away from the MI5 agent that seems a little t...

Dragon Run

Dragon Run by Patrick Matthews Scholastic, 2013. 336 pgs. Fantasy Al Pilgrommor is excited for Testing Day, when he will receive his rank, a tattooed number on the back of his neck, and a path forward to his future occupation and life. He feels confident because his parents were fours on a scale of seven, but he is worried for his friend Wisp who doesn't have much of a chance of scoring above a two at best. But when Al is scored a zero, he not only has no prospects, he may lose his life as the dreaded Cullers are unleashed to kill him and his family to purify the land's bloodlines. Al's world is ruled by dragons--the lords and supposed creators of humankind--so he thinks that even if he survives, he will have to make his living as a beggar or thief. But when Al sticks up for his Earther friend in front of Magister Ludi, he is drawn into the struggle of a secret organization hoping to destroy the Cullers, and perhaps the dragons them...

Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Search This Blog