ANOTHER GREAT DEBUT!
We are so fortunate that we have another wonderful author coming to our school. She is a debut author, whose wonderful debate experiences in college, led to her job as the debate consultant for the Tony-nominated Best Play on Broadway: What the Constitution Means to Me.

Her Debut novel, is a middle grade book titled Pippa Park Raises her Game.  It is essentially an ode to Great Expectations, or perhaps a wonderful new version of it.

Pippa lives with her sister and brother-in-law, since her mom had to move back to Korea.  She is dealing with juggling her love of basketball, her struggles with math, and just generally being a young teen, when she suddenly receives a scholarship to a private school.

She now has to adjust to new friends, and a host of other issues.

This was a great story, and will make a wonderful read aloud as well.

Another Debut: this one a compelling MG novel

Wow, another compelling middle grade novel. I have had some ups and downs with "adult" books, but the MG and YA novels I have read recently have been home runs. 

From the Desk of Zoe Washington is a debut novel from Janae Marks.  I loved it. In addition to being a MG novel, it is a mystery. It touches on friendship, families, racism, and the issue of wrongly convicted prisoners.  The Innocence Project, and other groups like it, have recently been in the news for freeing innocent prisoners.  It is a complex topic, that is beautifully, and skillfully told here.

I will wager that any young person reading this, will want to explore the issue more, after reading this lovely novel.

Decent Debut

I truly enjoyed this well written debut.  Had recently read a self-published book whose plot left quite a bit to be desired, then read a new best seller that has been promoted everywhere, and was bored by that (try not to name books that disappoint me).
The Tenant featured characters I cared about, and a plot that kept me guessing.
I am hoping it might be the start of a series, as the police detectives would be a good pair to follow.
I enjoyed the fact that the plot involved a landlady writing a book, a murder mystery, only to realize her plot has been put into reality.

There were perhaps a few too many red-herrings that proved to be awful people, but not the murderer; made me think parts of Denmark are just too bleak, but I really enjoyed figuring out who the guilty party was.