Probably Sentenced to Life at Seventeen—The Story of David Milgaard by Cynthia J. Faryon will appeal to middle school readers, though it certainly can be used as high-interest/easy reading in high school classes. I myself enjoyed the parallel scenes…
Author: petermarino
Peter is an English professor at SUNY Adirondack in Queensbury, New York where he teaches writing, speech, and the occasional literature class. He won the SUNY Chancellor's Award in 2006 for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activity. His first young adult novel, Dough Boy, about a fat and self-conscious but very funny high school sophomore, was published by Holiday House in October 2005 and is now available in paperback. It was nominated for the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults in 2006. His latest young adult novel, also with Holiday House, is Magic and Misery, about a teenage girl trying to balance her life with her best gay friend and her new boyfriend. It has been nominated for the American Library Association’s Best Books for Young Adults in 2009 and is on Booklist’s Top 10 Romance Fiction for Youth and was placed on the ALA Round Table Rainbow Books Bibliography.. He is finishing up three (yes three) new novels for young readers. Peter’s full-length play, The Grandma Show, co-authored with Tom Ecobelli, has had productions all over the country. His ten-minute play “Ralph Smith of Schenectady, New York...” has been produced in the 9th Annual New York City 15 Minute Play Festival, the Samuel French 2003 Short Play Festival, and SlamBoston! 2005. Another one-act, “The Good Samaritan,” won first place in SlamBoston! 2006.
Me and Momma and Big John
Me and Momma and Big John is an attractive and instructive picture book I found in the Austin Public Library while idly looking for titles to send (by way of retail delivery) to my new nephew. Speaking of infantile,…
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
I have the feeling I am easily impressed by illustration in picture books, probably because I can’t draw a triangle, but this book has magnificent tones and colors, and dimensional shapes that make me keep feeling the page for texture. The…
I Am #6: Harriet Tubman
Normally I wouldn’t select a series book for review, I could not put this one down. It’s a Scholastic primer for kids, but it refreshed my memory and taught me things I hadn’t known about the great emancipator. For…
Millie Fierce
Little Millie is not exceptional. She is “too short to be tall, too quiet to be loud, too plain to be fancy.” People ignore her during show-and-tell, no one notices when she enters a room, and she always gets the…
Bonyo Bonyo
Bonyo Bonyo, by Vanita Oelchlager, is a straightforward biography, told in the first person, with the voice echoing the oral tradition that once passed stories through generations. Bonyo was a Kenyan child from humble beginnings whose intrinsic determination and…
Six When He Came to Us: A Memoir of International Adoption by Ellie Porte Parker
This memoir is not actually aimed at young adults, though the prose is accessible enough for a teen interested in adoption issues to get through it easily. Porte-Parker’s straightforward, mainly chronological story traces the journey of her adopted son, Dima,…
Change the World Before Bedtime
Change the World Before Bedtime has a simple, upbeat premise about being stewards of the earth and of each other. As an activity book, there is no plot per se, but a series of suggestions for how to make others…
Guest Blog with Dr. Peter DeWitt: Dignity For All: Safeguarding LGBT Students
Peter DeWitt is the author of Dignity For All: Safeguarding LGBT Students (Corwin Press, 2012). Click here for my review. Cowhey (2012) writes, “When it comes to issues of family diversity, teacher self-censorship remains the status quo in many schools.…
Pale
Jed and his friends hate the Pales, people who at the moment after death have been given something called the Lazarus Serum. The potion keeps them animated, but like vampires and zombies, they are no longer technically living. They have…