Books I'm looking forward to:

Happy Birthday, Madame Chapeau, by Andrea Beaty and David Roberts: Same team as Rosie Revere, Engineer, with the added bonus of being about fashion.

Young Charlotte, Filmmaker, by Frank Viva: Charlotte is a fan of "old musicals, Hayao Miyazaki films, and all-black clothing" and makes movies on her phone. OBVIOUSLY I need to take a look.

Matisse's Garden, by Samantha Friedman and Cristina Amodeo: Last summer, some of my library kids got into doing Matisse-style collages due to our Summer Reading Program. Therefore...

Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor, by Jon Scieszka and Brian Biggs: A new humorous hybrid chapter book series? I CAN'T KEEP THEM ON THE SHELF, YES PLEASE.

Fleabrain Loves Franny, by Joanne Rocklin: Historical set in 1952 about a girl recovering from polio who reads Charlotte's Web and proceeds to make friends with a flea on her dog's tail. IS IT GOING TO MAKE ME CRY? PROBABLY.

Ensnared, by A. G. Howard: I had issues with Splintered and Unhinged, but that doesn't mean I don't want to read the finale!

A Cure for Dreaming, by Cat Winters:

I felt like I was the only person in the world who wasn't totally ga-ga for In the Shadow of Blackbirds, and thus, the only person in the world who wasn't totally dying to read this one. Then I found out it dealt with suffragettes, and now, yes, I AM TOTALLY DYING TO READ IT. Hypnotism and women's suffrage and (I assume) romance and, according to a friend, BICYCLE BLOOMERS in 1900 Oregon. COUNT ME IN.

Books I've already read:

El Deafo, by Cece Bell:

Loved it so much I read the whole thing at the circ desk, and showed it off to every patron who came in the door.

Winterkill, by Kate A. Boorman:

Other than the distinctly Canadian setting—or, well, I assumed it was set in Canada, what with the specific mix of cultures and ethnicities and languages (English, French, First Peoples), the climate and landscape, and the fact that the author is Canadian—and other than the reliance on dreams for discovery and decision-making (though that element reads more like simple plot contrivance than a totally integrated aspect of the worldbuilding), most of what Winterkill offers up has appeared elsewhere.

Paper Airplanes, by Dawn O'Porter: Apparently I never wrote about this one? There's a blurb on the front that likens it to Louise Rennison, but it's much more realistic than the Georgia books, and quite a bit darker. It's a really engrossing story about friendship, and suddenly I'm wanting to re-read it—if only so I could describe it in more detail.

Hold Tight, Don't Let Go, by Laura Rose Wagner:

Hold Tight, Don’t Let Go is a survival story, but it’s not a survival story like The Hunger Games or Ship Breaker. It’s less about action-oriented survival—the moments in which Magda faces physical danger are brief and rare (though that doesn’t make them any less harrowing)—than it is about emotional survival, about working one’s way through grief, and about choosing to make your own way forward instead of waiting for life to work its way back towards the familiar.

Unhinged, by A. G. Howard:

Alyssa’s growing affection for Wonderland and her ultimate acceptance of her birthright is a long, sometimes annoying journey, but the beauty she sees in it—even amid the occasionally macabre and sometimes downright horrifying—is undoubtedly there.

In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters:

The book has a lovely design, and the story has lots of cool factors—it's set during the Spanish influenza pandemic, and deals with WWI, shell shock and Spiritualism—but the mystery wasn't remotely mysterious, and most of the character interactions just fell flat for me. But maybe I read it on an off day.

See the full catalog here.

By the catalog: Abrams, Fall 2014-Winter 2015.