New England Children's Bookselling Advisory Council

Fall Reviews, 2007

This list is our annual attempt to identify as many high-quality titles as possible from among the numerous new July-December middle-grade and young-adult fiction books. NECBA booksellers read ARCs from as many publishers as possible, and review and rate as many of as we can.

From these titles, a Top Ten list has been selected as a service to our general bookstore colleagues who are less familiar with the genre.

As is ever the case, contributions are uneven, with some publishers supplying a very large fraction of the galleys, and a few reviewers supplying a very large fraction of the reviews. Such reviews are, by their nature, never soon enough or inclusive enough. Nevertheless, this list is bound to alert the reader to at least one or two-and probably more-excellent titles s/he might have missed.

Read all NECBA Reviews for Fall 2007 [pdf, pop-window, 680k]

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
by Sherman Alexie
(Little, Brown / 978-0316013680 /$16.99)

Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the only other Indian is the school mascot. (Ages 14+)

The Arrival
by Shaun Tan
(Scholastic / 978-0439895293 / $19.99)

In this wordless graphic novel, a man leaves his homeland and sets off for a new country, where he must build a new life for himself and his family. (Ages 10-adult)

The Aurora County All-Stars
by Deborah Wiles
(Harcourt / 978-0152060688 / $16.00)

For most boys in a small Mississippi town, the biggest concern one hot summer is whether their annual July 4th baseball game will be cancelled due to their county's anniversary pageant, but after the death of the old man to whom twelve-year-old star pitcher House Jackson has been secretly reading for a year, House uncovers secrets about the man and the history of baseball in Aurora County that could fix everything. (Ages 9-12)

A Crooked Kind of Perfect
by Linda Urban
(Harcourt / 978-0152060077 / $16.00)

Ten-year-old Zoe Elias, who longs to play the piano but must resign herself to learning the organ, instead, finds that her musicianship has a positive impact on her workaholic mother, her jittery father, and her school social life.
(Ages 8-12)

Elijah of Buxton
by Christopher Paul Curtis
(Scholastic / 978-0439023443 / $16.99)

In 1859, eleven-year- old Elijah Freeman, the first free-born child in Buxton, Canada, which is a haven for slaves fleeing the American south, uses his wits and skills to try to bring to justice the lying preacher who has stolen money that was to be used to buy a family's freedom. (Ages 9-13)

The Pig Who Saved the World
by Paul Shipton
(Candlewick Press / 978-0763634469 / $15.99)

Continues the epic tale of Gyllus, a talking pig, as he and his friends, ex-priestess Sibyl and poet Homer, set off on the high seas in search of Circe, who can return Gryllus to his human state, but first they must free some captive gods and, perhaps, save the world again. (Ages 9-12)

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow
by James Sturm; illustrated by Rich Tommaso
(Jump at the Sun/ Hyperion / 978-0786839001 / $16.99)

Told from the point of view of a sharecropper, the graphic novel narrative follows Baseball Hall-of-Famer Leroy "Satchel" Paige (1905?-1982) from game to game as he travels throughout the segregated South. (Ages 10+)

Thirteen Reasons Why
by Jay Asher
(Razorbill / Penguin / 978-1595141712 / $16.99)

When high-school student Clay Jenkins receives a box in the mail containing thirteen cassette tapes recorded by his classmate Hannah, who committed suicide, he spends a bewildering and heartbreaking night crisscrossing their town, listening to Hannah's voice recounting the events leading up to her death. (Ages 14+)

Time to Smell the Roses
by Michael Hoeye
(Penguin / Putnam / 978-0399244902 / $15.99)

While immersed in wedding plans, Hermux is hired to find the son of the patriarch of the DeRosenquill rose dynasty. In the process, he discovers a homeless teen, fields of dying flowers, and killer bees. (Ages 9+)

When I Crossed No-Bob
by Margaret McMullan
(Houghton Mifflin / 978-0618717156 / $16)

Ten years after the Civil War's end, twelve-year-old Addy, abandoned by her parents, is taken from the horrid town of No-Bob by schoolteacher Frank Russell and his bride, but when her father returns to claim her she must find another way to leave her O'Donnell past behind. (Ages 10-14)

And one more; as always, in a category by itself:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
by J.K. Rowling
(Scholastic / 978-0545010221 / $34.99)

Burdened with the dark, dangerous, and seemingly impossible task of locating and destroying Voldemort's remaining Horcruxes, Harry, feeling alone and uncertain about his future, struggles to find the inner strength he needs to follow the path set out before him. (Ages 10-adult, though many younger readers also loved it)

Reviewers: