Alison Reads

The fourth book in a series of five. Twelve-year-old Gregor and his three-year-old sister Boots return to the Underland and help Queen Luxa find out why all the mice have suddenly disappeared. This book tackles some difficult questions, such as when war is appropriate, genocide, and how to deal with an unstable power-mad leader. Creative, […]

At the age of 16, when his magical powers manifest themselves, Halcyon Blithe joins the navy and is posted to a dragonship, where he learns naval regulations and exposes a traitor. There is plenty of action and the book should appeal to boys. However, the writing doesn’t flow terribly well, and it’s obvious that the […]

Hero moves to a new school and on the first day of sixth grade endures teasing about her name. (She was named for a character in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.) She is befriended by an 8th-grade boy and helps her next-door neighbor find a missing diamond. In the course of solving that mystery, she […]

This is a YRCA 2008 nominee for grades 10-12. I’m not sure why, because it’s an adult book about a 20-something ordinary young man who discovers that his father was Anansi, the trickster god, and that he had a brother who inherited all their father’s magical abilities. A wonderfully inventive story that weaves together African/Caribbean […]

Twelve-year-old Rachel has grown up in East Africa, but when her parents die of influenza in 1919, she is sent to live in England. Containing elements of A Little Princess and The Flame Trees of Thika, this book eloquently describes the life of a missionary child in colonial Africa and the adjustments she must make […]

Basically a collection of character studies loosely tied together by the controversy concerning a planned bypass road which would destroy St. Anne’s Well, a local shrine. Binchy portrays the contradictions of modern rural Ireland and shows us the value of love, thrift, and a good haircut.

Three 15-year-old girls from different backgrounds, each with serious family troubles, pick peaches at a Georgia orchard for the summer and become fast friends. Very southern — you can feel the heat and humidity. Faces inevitable comparisons with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and is not nearly as good. A 2008 YRCA nominee for […]