Georgia Christgau

Nov 22, 2024 | slj.com | Georgia Christgau |Amanda MacGregor

. Oct. 2024. 304p. Tr $19.99. ISBN 9780823457137. COPY ISBN Gr 9 Up–Ros Demir, 16, can dive into a cold lake in the dark on a dare but lacks the confidence to ask Lydia, her best friend since childhood, why she spread the nasty falsehood at summer camp that froze their relationship two years ago. She’s alienated her current bestie, Eleanor, by planting an impulsive kiss on Eleanor’s secret crush to make someone else jealous.

Sep 30, 2024 | slj.com | Kathleen Glasgow |Georgia Christgau

Gr 9 Up–Would you want a Polaroid of yourself if half your face resembled “a crushed eggplant”? Neither does 15-year-old Bella, but she doesn’t have a choice. Every day at Sonoran, a residential facility in the Arizona desert for teenagers with substance abuse issues, there’s another Polaroid—to document each kid’s progress in a 30-day recovery program, any infraction of which results in starting over at Day 1.

Sep 13, 2024 | slj.com | Rebecca Skloot |Georgia Christgau

. Mar. 2011. 400p. pap. $18.99. ISBN 9781400052189. COPY ISBN Gr 9 Up–The author’s high school biology teacher mentioned the name Henrietta Lacks in a class in the 1990s, but when Skloot asked for more information, he said no one knew who she was. But her cells were famous: before she died in 1951, a doctor had put a slice of her tumor in a petri dish, and the cells, called “HeLa,” continued reproducing.

Sep 13, 2024 | slj.com | Georgia Christgau

. Feb. 1994. 368p. pap. $18. ISBN 9780679745587. COPY ISBN Gr 9 Up–A slick forger named Dick Hickock hatched a plan to rob a rich rancher in western Kansas, and just before he was released from prison, he found his accomplice: Perry Smith, an unstable loner who’d maybe killed a man. Rumors abounded in prison; maybe that wasn’t true, and maybe the Clutter family didn’t have a safe full of cash.

Aug 1, 2024 | slj.com | Randy Ribay |Georgia Christgau

Gr 9 Up–National Book Award finalist Ribay juggles skillfully and with great heart a Filipino American family history as told by four generations of fathers and sons in alternating chapters. Readers first meet 16-year-old Enzo, the youngest, in Philadelphia at the start of the 2020 pandemic. “Murder hornets” is the euphemism he names the anxiety he’s in therapy for, which kicks in big time as he learns about the virus killing people.