Jennifer Hubert's Blog, page 36

Season's Greetings!

Dear teen peeps,
Reading Rants is taking a winter break until January 5. Andrew and I wish you all a lovely holiday season filled with happiness and hot chocolate. Come back in the new year for more reviews of poppin' 2010 titles. Until then, if you're looking for something to read over your school's winter break, [...:]

Ten Most Underappreciated Teen Books of 2000-2009

Oh, I love lists! I love making my end of year book lists, and I love reading everyone else's! But when a decade comes to a close, you have the opportunity of a lifetime to make an extra-special, super-significant (if only to me:) BIG book list. So I decided to compile a list of the [...:]

10 Most Underappreciated YA Books of 2000-2009

Oh, I love lists! I love making my end of year book lists, and I love reading everyone else's! But when a decade comes to a close, you have the opportunity of a lifetime to make an extra-special, super-significant (if only to me:) BIG book list. So I decided to compile a list of the [...:]

2009 Top Ten

Please note that there has been absolutely no attempt to balance this list by age, gender or genre. These are just my "from-the-gut" favorites of the books I read this year. (While I love all my Top Ten books the same, I just might love HOW TO SAY GOODBYE IN ROBOT a tiny bit more:) [...:]

Under the Dome by Stephen King

Their first sign was the small-engine plane crash. By the time the huge Irish Airlines jet crashed a few days later, they were already beginning to understand that the situation was not good, and wasn't likely to get better. They are the townspeople of Chester's Mill, Maine. There are about two thousand of them, give [...:]

You Don't Even Know Me: Stories and poems about BOYS by Sharon G. Flake

Though I am grateful for many things this Thanksgiving weekend, one item that tops my list is Sharon G. Flake's new collection of short stories and poems featuring teenage boys and their angst. She is one of the hippest authors for teens around, and a new title from her is ALWAYS cause for celebration. This [...:]

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Philip Hoose

On a spring day in 1955, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin refused to give up her seat on a public bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was dragged from the bus by two adult police officers, called "Thing" and "Whore," and put in a jail cell. She was scared out of her mind, but she was tired of [...:]

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor, with illustrations by Jim Di Bartolo

Remember your first kiss? While I'm sure it was exhilarating, it was most likely a great deal tamer than the supernatural busses that take center stage in Laini Taylor's delicious collection of fantasy romances. In "Goblin Fruit," a lonely girl wishes for love, but finds something else entirely behind a new boy's perfect lips: "The [...:]

Bad Apple by Laura Ruby

Tola (short for Chenerentola, Italian for "Cinderella") Riley's life is like a fairy tale. But not one of those pretty pink-tinted ones—more like the one where small children get lost in a dark forest, or the one where the girl finds pieces of her husband's past wives hacked up behind a secret door. Tola's as [...:]

The Monstrumologist by Rick Yancy

In 1888 New England, young orphan Will Henry serves as an apprentice to Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, a scientist who performs the secret practice of monstrumology, or "the study of life forms generally malevolent to humans and not recognized by science as actual organisms, specifically those considered products of myth and folklore." In this series opener, [...:]