TEETH & MARCO IMPOSSIBLE - Two MORE Awesome Reads by HANNAH MOSKOWITZ!

 





TITLE: TEETH

AUTHOR: Hannah Moskowitz
 
RELEASE DATE: January, 2013

FORMAT/PAGE COUNT: Kindle/290 pages

PUBLISHER: Simon Pulse

PURCHASED: Amazon

SYNOPSIS:



A gritty, romantic modern fairy tale from the author of Break and Gone, Gone, Gone.

Be careful what you believe in.

Rudy’s life is flipped upside-down when his family moves to a remote island in a last attempt to save his sick younger brother. With nothing to do but worry, Rudy sinks deeper and deeper into loneliness and lies awake at night listening to the screams of the ocean beneath his family’s rickety house.

Then he meets Diana, who makes him wonder what he even knows about love, and Teeth, who makes him question what he knows about anything. Rudy can’t remember the last time he felt so connected to someone, but being friends with Teeth is more than a little bit complicated. He soon learns that Teeth has terrible secrets. Violent secrets. Secrets that will force Rudy to choose between his own happiness and his brother’s life. (From GOODREADS)


REVIEW:

Teeth. This is another pure Moskowitz title. A little bit of magical realism, a la Zombie Tag. We have Rudy, who is forced to live on a magical island because his brother can only survive by eating the fish that can only be harvested on said island.

Rudy feels an instant bond with the fish boy, Teeth. Moskowitz does a great job creating this truculent, jealous and envious little fish boy. With typical Moskowitz magic, the reader will actually like Teeth. I felt a lot of sympathy for him when his full story came out...as I'm sure other readers will also sympathize for him.

Rudy has a lot to deal with, living on an island away from the life he knew. In untypical Moskowitz fashion, he deals with his brother's illness in a rather dark way. The reader gets the sense that Rudy's brother is a burden...the cross he has to bare.

Some complicated and intriguing relationships here. Moskowitz fans will love this one about as much as her other offerings!

SIZE: 4


TITLE: MARCO IMPOSSIBLE

AUTHOR: Hannah Moskowitz
 
RELEASE DATE: March, 2013

FORMAT/PAGE COUNT: Kindle/256 pages

PUBLISHER: Roaring Brook Press

PURCHASED: Amazon

SYNOPSIS:
Thirteen-year-old best friends Stephen and Marco attempt a go-for-broke heist to break into the high school prom and get Marco onstage to confess his love for (and hopefully steal the heart of) Benji, the adorable exchange student and bass player of the prom band. Of course, things don't always go according to plan, and every heist comes with its fair share of hijinks. (From GOODREADS)


REVIEW:

I'm a bit reluctant to call this my FAVOURITE Hannah Moskowitz title. Not because I don't think it deserves it, but because I'd rather it share that place with Zombie Tag. Don't make me choose!

Marco loves Benji. And Stephen, his best friend, wants to help him get into the high school prom so Marco can profess his love to Benji. The sleuth team has been cracking cases for a very long time, but somewhere along the way on this newest case there are signs that this may be the last one. Moskowitz is brilliant in this story of two best friends and the jealousies and compromises and idiosyncrasies that go into making their relationship such a wonderful base to an awesome story!

Hannah wrote an amazing story here. The reader will follow these friends all over town as they take on this new adventure. From the tux rental store to the prom. Hijinks and gut-wrenching truths and observations will push the reader forward to an amazing and satisfying end. I don't want to say much about this...the reader will have to take my word for it. THE. BEST. MOSKOWITZ. EVER.

Size: 5.5

Small Medium at Large - Review

Title: Small Medium at Large

Author: Joanne Levy

Release Date: July 3, 2012

Format/Page Count: Kindle/208

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Purchased: Amazon

Synopsis:

After she’s hit by lightning at a wedding, twelve-year-old Lilah Bloom develops a new talent: she can hear dead people. Among them, there’s her overopinionated Bubby Dora; a prissy fashion designer; and an approval-seeking clown who livens up a séance. With Bubby Dora leading the way, these and other sweetly imperfect ghosts haunt Lilah through seventh grade, and help her face her one big fear: talking to—and possibly going to the seventh-grade dance with—her crush, Andrew Finkel. (From GOODREADS)

The Book Trailer for Small Medium at Large

Expectation: Levy had me at the title! This is yet another title I became aware of while on Twitter. Thank Twitter for all my finds lately! My expectation was high for this book, based solely on my love of the title. (-:

Market/Genre: Middle Grade/Contemporary with a dollop of supernatural/paranormal

Review:

It has been a while since I read a middle grade novel…at least a few months. My first thoughts on Small Medium at Large were; kid-friendly, a delight to read, fun and funny, well written in a great age-appropriate voice and, well…FUN (It bears repeating).

Lilah Bloom is 12. She comes from a broken family (that term really needs to be refreshed—a lot of families these days are not so much broken, as they are realigned). As the story opens, we are at Lilah’s mother’s wedding. Everything is going well until the real fun is about to begin—the dancing. At the outdoor reception, Lilah is literally on the threshold of the temporary dance-floor when the skies darken and a tempest brews.

This is when Lilah is struck by lightning!

Thankfully, she makes a speedy recovery. No lasting damage, but a challenging new talent. Lilah becomes aware of disembodied voices. Levy has written these voices so tremendously well that the reader can sense she had a blast bringing this story to life. What must have been a difficult task for Levy was keeping a story like this so utterly kid-friendly. With humour, excellent characters, friendly and mischievous—but by no means dark—ghosts, and a plot that could stand on its own without the supernatural element, Levy accomplishes this in spades!

Throughout the course of the story, the reader is introduced to several ghost characters. One of the delightful things I found about these characters is that they were actually so well portrayed I could envision what each of them looked like, even though, obviously, there were no physical descriptions to speak of. We have Lilah’s Bubby Dora (her grandmother), Prissy LaFontaine (fashion icon extraordinaire), Mr. Finkel (Andrew Finkel’s father—Andrew being the boy that Lilah is head over heels for) and also watch for the young boy ghost Lilah runs into in her school.

There are some truly delightful scenes in this book, scenes that will make your middle grade reader giggle and totally relate to. Keep your eye out for the bra shopping scene and slumber party—truly authentic! Also, there are some great father/daughter scenes with Lilah and her dad—funny, poignant and powerful scenes (also funnily awkward scenes as Lilah and Dad discuss his new dating life).

A sign of a great middle grade book is its ability to resolve the issues of the main characters without coming off as too cheesy or predictable. Small Medium at Large does this. There are plenty of things going on in this story. Levy deals with bullying, divorce, death, first crushes, jealousy—you name it. Her ability to tie up all the threads in a satisfactory way is astonishing. Perhaps one of my favourite threads was the one with Lilah and her grade eight nemesis, ‘Dolly’ Madison. Of course, Dolly was going to be the bully of the story—she’s far superior to Lilah and her friends, being as she’s in grade eight and they’re mere grade sevens. Thankfully, though, Levy played this thread perfectly. Another sign of a great middle grade story is that not all bad characters are all bad and not all good characters are all good. I’m confident readers will love the way this thread plays out. I won’t go into details—as I don’t want to give away any spoilers—but sometimes help comes from the most unlikely of places.

If you have a young reader in your life, share this book with them! I’m sure it will become an instant favourite for them. Lilah’s a good kid—they’re gonna love her!

Expectation: Met and surpassed. I am not surprised that I fell in love with this wonderful book! It will be my go-to for gift-giving for years to come!

Size: 5 (1/2)

LOOK FOR A SHORT AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT/INTERVIEW with Joanne Levy in the near future!

 

Spotlight - Hannah Moskowitz - YA/MG Writer Extraordinaire!

Hannah Moskowitz - YA/MG Author - Collector of Magic Gay Fish

If you live under a rock, inside a cave, on an uncharted island...then, chances are, you know nothing of the wonder known as Hannah Moskowitz. If there are any magic gay fish swimming around that island, however, then chances are you are already a fan of Hannah's.

I first fell for Hannah with the release of her debut novel, BREAK. Released in August, 2009, by Simon Pulse, Break is a fascinating look at a boy named Jonah and his journey to becoming a stronger person. It's a beautiful story filled with broken bones and redemption.

After Break, I couldn't wait for Hannah's next book. In what seems like record time, she gave us INVINCIBLE SUMMER, ZOMBIE TAG and GONE, GONE, GONE. Coming in January, 2013, we'll also have her TEETH. Also in 2012, we'll get MARCO IMPOSSIBLE. What seems impossible is the pace of Hannah Moskowitz's book release schedule!


Moskowitz is one of my favourite authors. She can write brothers better than any writer I've ever read. And it seems she is quite prolific. Unless something changes, we can look forward to having many, many more Hannah Moskowitz titles to add to the collection!

If you haven't picked up Hannah's books yet, the time is nigh. You do not want to be left behind. The train is leaving the station, and it's moving at lightning speed!

I have reviewed 3 of Hannah's titles on this blog. You can read them HERE, HERE & HERE.

You can visit Hannah at her website HERE
Follow her on Twitter HERE 
Visit her blog HERE  

Just remember, when you become a follower of Hannah Moskowitz, you become a Magic Gay Fish! Buy Hannah's Books. You'll thank me after you read them.


Hannah Moskowitz books on AMAZON.CA
Hannah Moskowitz books on AMAZON.COM


And, yes, you can PRE-ORDER both Teeth & Marco Impossible.


"We are all queer fish, queerer behind our faces and voices than we want any one to know or than we know ourselves." --F. Scott Fitzgerald

Zombie Tag - Review

Title: Zombie Tag

Author: Hannah Moskowitz
Release Date: December 20, 2011
Format/Page Count: Kindle Edition, 240 pages

Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

Purchased: AMAZON

Synopsis: Wil is desperate for his older brother to come back from the dead. But the thing about zombies is . . they don’t exactly make the best siblings. Thirteen-year-old Wil Lowenstein copes with his brother’s death by focusing on Zombie Tag, a mafia/
capture the flag hybrid game where he and his friends fight off brain-eating zombies with their mothers’ spatulas. What Wil doesn’t tell anybody is that if he could bring his dead brother back as a zombie, he would in a heartbeat. But when Wil finds a way to summon all the dead within five miles, he’s surprised to discover that his back-from-the-dead brother is emotionless and distant.  In her first novel for younger readers, Moskowitz offers a funny and heartfelt look at how one boy deals with change, loss, and the complicated relationship between brothers. (From GOODREADS)

Expectation: Extremely high. Poor Hannah Moskowitz had a LOT to live up to--most recently, INVINCIBLE SUMMER. It's hard to live up to the expectations of a reader who loved your last work.    

Market/Genre: Middle Grade, Zombie, Hannah Moskowitz Brothers (Yes...Hannah seems to be starting her own genre. And doing frighteningly well at the dynamics between brothers) (-:

Review: 

“Graham and I spit on our hands and promised we would never, ever grow up. He’s not going to get out of that just by dying.” ~ Hannah Moskowitz, Zombie Tag

“Talking to you is like talking to myself.” ~ Hannah Moskowitz, Zombie Tag (This is a truism for ALL brothers in the throes of their child years together. It’s a shame we forget it when we grow up.)

ZOMBIE TAG has very little to do with zombies. Don’t tell Hannah Moskowitz I said that. I will deny it vehemently.

This was, quite frankly, a beautiful read. You can see by the synopsis that it really does have a lot to do with zombies. But the undercurrent of this book is not quite an undercurrent. It screams to the reader from the gate. This is a Peter Pan tale. This is a story about the complications of being a brother, and about not ever wanting to lose the bonds that brothers have in childhood. It’s about knowing when it’s okay to be intimate with your brother and knowing when it’s not okay. It’s about knowing when to wrestle and hurt each other. It’s about sleeping out in a tent under the stars and talking to each other about the wonders of life and the fear of death when it’s dark and you can no longer see each other and you know precisely what the other one looks like; the expression on his face, the way his hands are worrying into fists and stretching out into wings at his sides as he describes the way he thinks death might be. This is a story that every brother should read. And a story that everybody who was never a brother of a brother should read so they know that boys can have big hearts too, boys can be intimate and filled with dreams too.

Okay. What you see above is not quite a review. It was more about the emotional rollercoaster I went through yesterday as I read ZOMBIE TAG. I’m still relatively new at reviews. I’ll try to bring it back down to earth now.

Wil. Wilson. He’s a kid who has lost his older brother. There is the story. Moskowitz sets up the world in which Zombie Tag takes place with amazing skill. The reader is brought into this contemporary setting that is almost like home. In it, children are playing a game created by young Wil (& his brother, Graham). Zombie Tag is the game. As soon as I started reading those first scenes, I was brought back to my childhood. I could perfectly envision ‘our’ group playing Zombie Tag during a sleepover—creeping through the dark house crying out for BRRRRAAAIIIINNNNSS and banging on closed ‘barricaded’ doors, searching for humans to feed off of. The whole time, our parents sleeping obliviously in their bedroom. It was so real, I could almost swear we did this!

There is, though, a little difference between the world we live in and the carefully constructed world in which Moskowitz chooses to put us in with this story. The world where Zombie Tag takes place has a past history of real live zombies. Around 30 years ago zombies walked the earth for a brief time. There is no real solid evidence, though, of what went on from the time they left their graves to the time they were discovered dead in another location. There’s just the empty graves and the bodies in a different location. Clearly, zombies HAD walked.

Wil and his friends have fun playing Zombie Tag, but Wil has ulterior motives. He LIVES zombies. He devours everything he can find out about zombies. He misses his brother SO much. If only…

Moskowitz puts the reader deep into the land of brothers with this story. Through Wil, we understand what it’s like to be both beaten and protected in the same day by one’s older brother. We see those soft moments of whispered words between brothers, and we see those moments of meanness that older brothers dole out just to see the younger brother squirm. And we understand that under all the crap, under the beatings and the name callings and the leave-me-alones there is this bond that can not be broken. Not by the span of years between you and not in death. Wil suffers terribly over Graham’s loss, over the loss of his protectiveness and the loss of his soothing and the loss of his its-gonna-be-okay talks. He might even suffer over the loss of the not so nice things that Graham put him through as his big brother. That’s what it means to have a brother. There’s good and bad and it’s very easy for this brother to imagine missing both, should they be suddenly taken.

Yeah, this is a tale of zombies. It’s a tale for children and teens and near-teens. But it is also one for everybody else. And it is also NOT a zombie tale. I’m not going to tell you a whole lot about what goes on in Zombie Tag. I’ll just say that Wil DOES discover a way to get his big brother back. And that he is faced with a dilemma bigger than that of suffering the loss of his big brother, once he does bring him back. With the friends he played Zombie Tag with, Wil will figure things out.

It’s hard to grow up. It’s one of the hardest things we’ll ever do. And when you make a pact with your big brother to skip this part of your life, you REALLY believe it. You believe it because, in the moment, it just seems right. You don’t want to lose those whispered conspiratorial moments with the boy you look up to. You want to be able to be comforted by that larger than life hero for forever. Because nobody can comfort him like he does. You want to run to him at night when you have a nightmare, no matter how old you are, and get under his sheets and feel safe. But Moskowitz knows this isn’t possible. She weaved a perfect Peter Pan tale with ZOMBIE TAG. It will pull on your heartstrings long after you finish the book. For me, it was a wickedly poignant look at brothers. I don’t know how Moskowitz is so wise and knowing when it comes to the relationship that two brothers have…but she is a master at it. Her mastery was witnessed in BREAK and in INVINCIBLE SUMMER and, now, more than ever, in ZOMBIE TAG.

Don’t let the MG market rating fool you. If you are 40 or 90, you’ll love this book. I’m going to call it a classic. Some may scoff. Some may say a classic can’t have cartoon boys on the cover. A classic’s cover wouldn’t depict one boy hitting another boy over the head with a spatula. But I defy you to prove me wrong. READ IT. You’ll understand where I’m coming from. The Peter Pan in me wants to laugh and cry, simultaneously. The brother in me wants to buy more copies. I have 3 brothers. None of them are dead and none of them are zombies. But imagining myself in Wil’s shoes kept me completely invested in the story. Thank GOD I’m not him. And thank Hannah Moskowitz for an incredible read, yet again!

 

SIZE: 5 (.5)

Expectation was blown out of the water. This should be on Young Adult shelves and Adult shelves too. It's Christmas soon. My brothers and I don't usually exchange gifts. I'm sending a print copy of ZOMBIE TAG to my older brother. I know he'll 'get' it. (-: