Sophie is the oldest of three girls and she knows she has very little hope of an interesting future. When her family runs into money problems, Sophie’s sisters go off to be apprentices and Sophie stays home to work in the family’s hat business. Meanwhile, a mysterious castle appears on the horizon, said to be home to a young wizard who likes to suck the souls of young girls. After Sophie is cursed by the Witch of the Waste, she ends up making a bargain with the demon who powers the moving castle. She will help the demon break his contract with the Wizard Howl, and the demon will break the curse on her.

I stayed up all night to finish this book and absolutely loved it. Diana Wynne Jones consistently writes wonderful, fascinating, mysterious, and magical tales.

Hi! I’m currently reading The Book Thief and The Burn Journals. Both of these are more teen lit than tween lit. However, as soon as I can, I’m going to start working through this year’s Mark Twain nominees.

Now that I have a blog management system that allows me to have multiple writers, I would love to solicit reviewers. Anyone who reads books aimed at tweens and teens is eligible. If you already review tween and teen lit on your own site and want to mirror the reviews here (with a link back to your own site,) you certainly can do that. Kids are welcome to review here. Register and comment on this post if you’re interested in reviewing books for this site. If we’ve already reviewed a book you want to talk about, you can post your review in the comment section or add a trackback!

I did get to read City of Ember, which was very fun to read. I can see why it won the Mark Twain Award. I can’t wait to read the sequel, People of Sparks.

Last week, I finished how i live now by Meg Rosoff, so I owe you guys a review. I know I’m a little late reading it, but better late than never.

I’m going to a big library conference tomorrow and I’m bringing along some books from work for the authors to autograph. I will be bringing Looking for Alaska by John Greene and Black Juice. I will also bring my own copy of Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. So, I will read these books and I promise to post reviews if I get the books read during the conference!

My spring break reading list includes The Ravenmaster’s Secret by Elvira Woodruff, The Gorillas of Gill Park by Amy Gordon, and Crandall’s Castle by Betty Ren Wright. My boss was not very interested in that last book. I also hope to get to City of Ember by Jeanne du Prau.

I haven’t forgotten about this site! My teachers are keeping me so busy with required reading that I haven’t had a chance to read for fun! I’ll be reading Life is Funny for one of my classes, so I’ll post my review here after I read it.

I tried to read Crescent Dragonwagon’s To Take a Dare over the summer, but it was a non-starter. The storyline was interesting– I’ve always liked books about road trips– but it was like she was describing the book she planned to write, rather than showing what the character was doing. I ended up abandoning it a few chapters in.

A Time for Dancing, by Davida Wills Hurwin, is the story of best friends Jules and Sam, who are dealing with Jules’ diagnosis of cancer. This book alternates chapters in each girl’s voice to look at how Jules’ cancer affects everyone around her.

This book has a five-star average rating on Amazon, with 168 reviews. I would have loved this book when I was about 15. I loved it now, but we all know how sometimes adults pick books teenagers would find extremely boring. This one is especially good if you like to read about best friends, death, or cancer.

This book wasn’t nearly as wonderful and hilarious as I was led to believe. Since I’m probably the last person to read this book, I won’t spend a lot of time talking about the plot. It was an interesting look at four girls’ friendships and what they go through during their first summer apart.

Carmen was my favorite character. I thought what her dad did to her was inexcusable and she had the right to be furious. He totally betrayed her. I can’t even remember the other characters’ names.

Nancy Farmer’s The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm is a thriller set in Zimbabwe in 2194. A high-powered government official’s over-protected children go on an adventure and end up deeper than they thought. When they disappear, their parents hire a misfit detective agency that always seems to be about half a step behind the kids. This is an interesting look at a potential future where plastic is a highly-prized commodity, but old spirits still do battle. It’s a very exciting book, but at some points, I started to get tired of all the scrapes the kids got into. However, the end was worth every minute.

The readers of this book might skew a bit young, but this book definitely tackles issues that are interesting to older readers. I especially love the juxtaposition of futuristic worries with spirit myths of the past.

A review by a New York 6th Grader
A review by another novelist
A review by a Washington girl
St. Charles (IL) public library says if you like this book, you’ll love the books on their list.