Virtuosity by Martinez, Jessica
 | | School Library Journal Gr 8 Up-In this riveting novel, 17-year-old violin prodigy Carmen Bianchi is forced to question everything she believes when she falls hard for a rival musician. At first, she is, with her manager mother's encouragement, completely focused on her career and winning the Guarneri Competition. On her mother's orders, Carmen even takes prescription pills to steady her nerves during performances. When she meets Jeremy King, her main compe...More |
Hurricane Dancers: The First Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck by Margarita Engle
 | | Publishers Weekly Newbery Honor-winner Engle (The Surrender Tree) continues to find narrative treasure in Cuban history. Like her other novels in verse, this one is told in multiple voices (too many, in fact), some based on historical figures. The action takes place in the early 16th century aboard a pirate ship captained by Bernardino de Talavera, a failed landowner who literally worked his Taino farmhands to death then, rather than face prison, s...More |
One More Thing by B J Novak
 | | Publishers Weekly Novak's debut contains a buckshot 64 fun and funny short stories crammed into a single volume. Part Etgar Keret, part McSweeney's, these tidy tales from the alum of TV's The Office depart from the "how I became famous" comedian's biography for a decidedly more literary turn. The collection's opening story, "The Rematch," is a clever sequel to a classic in which the hare pressures the tortoise...More |
