Firebug by Lish McBride SCBAYANOM1617

[Martha]

Firebug by Lish McBride is a YA supernatural fantasy. I brought a copy home from school this weekend, and was looking forward to reading it. It's been a long time since I've read supernatural fiction -- loved Stephen King in my twenties and Ann Rice in my thirties -- so felt like it was a good time to read something in this genre that so many of my students love. I have mixed feelings about this book.

Thumbs down: as a reader -- I fell asleep twice in the first hundred pages. I did finish the book, and was delighted when I could put it down. I don't mind snarkiness, but got a little tired of Ava's.

Thumbs up: as a school librarian -- since it's a fairly low Lexile level, and the typesetting of the edition I read has a tall leading, it is something that I think many reluctant readers can handle. I did enjoy the ending.

Resolution: since I'd never read McBride before, but have seen so many good reviews of her work, I downloaded a couple of her novellas/short stories and read them.

Burnt Sugar (listed here on GoodReads as Firebug 0.5) was published free online by Tor and is available at http://www.tor.com/2014/12/10/burnt-s... It was a funny and delightful read. Love the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale with a twist. It also introduced the Coterie and main characters Ava, Ezra, and Lock very well. I wish I had read it first.

I'm going to make a QR code and paste it in my library's copy of Firebug with a note encouraging readers to read it on their iPads.

[Heather]

I, also, had trouble with reading this one, but everyone else on the committee loved it AND all of my teen reviewers at school loved it, too! So, how can I argue against it if the kids are gonna read it?

[Martha]

I think a lot of students will love it, too!

[Cathy]

Thanks for telling me more about it! When trying to decide what to read next, this one was way low on the list for me. KNowing that it has appeal to low readers raises it some for me, but not that I might fall asleep!!

[Martha]

In case anyone would like to use these --

Here's the QR code for the Tor short story
https://goo.gl/18isSK

and here's the doc that I'm going to print, cut, and paste inside the book https://goo.gl/RPsfFZ

[Cathy]

That's fantastic! Thanks Martha!!