Great Graphic Novels (#GGN2022) Featured Review of Villainous by Stonie Williams and Jef Sadzinski

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Villainous by Stonie Williams and Jef Sadzinski
Mad Cave Studios
Publication Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 9781952303067

Matilda “Rep-Tilly” Anderson is ecstatic when she’s paired as a sidekick with superhero great Showdown. Showdown is supposed to train her for superhero field duty, but instead, Rep-Tilly spends her time cleaning and picking up dry cleaning. During her “training,” Rep-Tilly learns that Showdown and the Coalition of Heroes are not always so heroic and actually kill people. When she begins to question the heroes and the Coalition, she must decide who she thinks is the real villain and if she wants to team up with the Shadow Order—the people she thought were villains.

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Best Fiction for Young Adults (#BFYA2022) Featured Review of The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris

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The Cost of Knowing by Brittney Morris 
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers 
Publication Date: April 6, 2021 
ISBN: 978-1534445451 

Since his parents’ death in a car crash, Black sixteen-year-old Alex Rufus has somehow developed the ability to see the future of any object or person his hand touches. Seeing himself scooping ice cream whenever he touches the handle of a scoop at work is not much more than a nuisance, but with every inadvertent foreseeing, Alex becomes more certain that his abilities are a curse. When Alex touches a family photo and sees a series of events leading to his brother Isaiah’s death, he resolves to do something, anything, to repair their relationship and save Izzy in what little time he has left. 

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#ALAMW19 Recap: Best Fiction for Young Adults 2019 Top Ten

During the Teen Feedback Session at ALA Midwinter, teens from Seattle and Oregon shared their opinions about the books on the Best Fiction for Young Adults 2019 list. With their input, the BFYA 2019 Blogging team determined the BFYA 2019 Top Ten:

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#BFYA2019 Nominees Round Up, December 10 Edition

The House of One Thousand Eyes by Michelle Barker
Annick Press
Publication Date: September 11, 2018
ISBN: 978-1773210711

When Lena’s subversive uncle disappears without a trace in Communist East Berlin, she risks everything to find out what happened to him.

Following her confinement in a mental institution due to her breakdown over the tragic death of her parents in a factory accident, Lena is released to live with her stern auntie in East Berlin. Because everyone thinks Lena is simple, she is allowed to work night shifts as a cleaning girl at the State Security Service’s headquarters; she lives a regimented, routine life and looks forward to Sunday afternoons spent with her beloved uncle Erich, a writer with subversive ideas and a loose regard for authority. One night following one of their Sunday outings, Erich disappears. Lena mounts a frantic search for him, one which leads her to dead ends everywhere she looks: his books vanished from the shelves of libraries and bookstores and all records of him purged from official files; it is as if he never existed. Desperate to discover what happened to him, Lena begins a quiet but dangerous investigation, snooping around Stasi offices in the dead of night, despite the watchful eyes of her coworker Jutta, her strict aunt at home, and who knows whom else. What she uncovers shakes up everything she thought she knew, casting new light on her parents’ deaths and making her question everything she had been told about the “Better Germany.”

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