young adult fiction
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The Bear by Claire Cameron
The Bear by Claire Cameron My rating: 4 of 5 stars The UGDSB has just chosen this book as our board-wide novel for secondary students and author Ms. Cameron will be visiting schools in May 2015. After reading this terrifying novel, I am nervous about the problematic areas in Cameron’s choices. As a parent, I…
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Launching a book club with a riddle
My White Pine book club is growing stale. The same few students join every year (which is awesome) but I’m not reaching as far as I’d like to in my secondary school of 1200 students. So I’m trying an additional book club this year in a different format. The book I’ve chosen is “This Dark…
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Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman My rating: 5 of 5 stars Absolutely fabulous. You’ve got to really like dragons (and luckily I do) but Rachel Hartman will have a fan in me forever after this. I hope she’s busy writing a sequel as after I was done I immediately looked for the next one. This is…
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Drama by Raina Telgemeier
Drama by Raina Telgemeier My rating: 5 of 5 stars I am so thrilled that there is a female protagonist who loves theatre and isn’t dying to be onstage. Callie is a great role model for pre-teens and teens alike as she is the master of her own learning of stagecraft in order to help…
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Nightschool: The Weirn Books Vol. 1 by Svetlana Chmakova
Nightschool: The Weirn Books, Vol. 1 by Svetlana Chmakova My rating: 4 of 5 stars I have to admit that this is the first Manga I’ve ever read, although I’m an emerging fan of the graphic novel format. The artwork varies with the characters’ emotions from mysterious and flirtatious, to outraged and scary. The colour…
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Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
I really enjoyed the tone of Satrapi’s writing….a combination of harsh truth and the quirky humour of a young teenager. Whether Satrapi has written this memoir as a young woman or older, she remembers accurately what it was like to appear fundamentalist in her public life but to be a rebellious teenager in her personal…