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!