When I started reading this book I honestly had no idea what it was about. I’d read the flap and it struck me as a little…odd…a girl finds a mirror that belongs to a mermaid and she likes to surf? But I like mermaids, so I thought, “why not?” Lena lives in a small(ish) town…
It is a well known and well established fact that I don’t like to be scared. No horror movies. No R.L. Stein books as a kid and certainly no Stephen King. Yet the bulk of the appeal of Kimberly Derting’s The Body Finder to me was that it gave me the creeps. As in it…
So this was another case of “oh my gosh the cover is so pretty I MUST READ THIS NOW!” Also, I thought the blurb sounded interesting but, as I discovered while reading, I had completely misread the blurb. I don’t know how or why but I was expecting this book to be a fantasy. It…
When I saw To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee book on the banned books list I was confused. Who could have a problem with a heartwarming tale of children discovering the truth of the world around them? A story about a widowed man trying to raise his children the best way he can? Children…
We’re taking a short break from talking about banned books (although there is still an opportunity to gain an entry in to our banned books giveaways. Details at the bottom) to talk about the books celebrating their birthdays this month! Here are some books to get excited about this October. (Once again I stole all…
John Green’s Looking for Alaska is a gateway drug. It’s no wonder that SafeLibraries.org fears that it will change the way teenagers think. However it’s not the 281 occurrences of swearing, the three frankly awkward sexual scenes portraying the differences between physicality and emotional connections, or the teen drinking and smoking that they should fear….
Vivian’s life is anything but roses and rainbows. Her father died last year. Her mother is acting like an out-of-control teenager. The guys she used to used to hang with – nicknamed ‘The Five’ – are immature and jerks now. And one other thing… she’s a loup-garou, which is commonly translated as werewolf, living in…
When I saw Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time on the list of most commonly banned books, I was pretty confused. I was even more confused when I noticed the ALA had rated it the 22nd most banned book from 1990-2000 in their list of the 100. As far as I’m concerned, these books are…
This week we’re going to be doing something a bit different on WhatchYAreading. Instead of reviewing whichever book currently strikes our fancy , we’ll be reaching into the archives a bit for a very specific reason: to stand up for intellectual freedom. What prompted our little rebellion is that it happens to be the last…
Leah Cypess’s Mistwood has been sitting on my nightstand for a bit now. I kept telling myself, ok, Mistwood next, and then somehow something else always got put on top of it. Somehow this almost always guarantees that I love a book. I wish I knew why this always seems to happen, but I don’t….