Sawkill Girls - Claire LeGrand

Shin Gozilla (2017)

IT - Stephen King

The Luck Uglies - Paul Durham

The Luck Uglies - Durham, Paul

Summary: Eleven-year-old Rye O'Chanter and her two friends delve into the secret lore of their village when mysterious creatures of legend reappear on the night of the Black Moon, leading them to the notorious secret society, the Luck Uglies.




Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Debut author Durham kick-starts his fantasy adventure trilogy with this cracker of an introduction. Rye O'Chanter—11 years old, unbelievably brave, and jaw-droppingly reckless—lives with her widowed mother and toddler sister in Village Drowning. The village is under the thumb of the ruthless and self-absorbed Earl Longchance. Years ago the village was terrorized by Bog Noblins, and Longchance claims the credit for driving them away. But legend says that honor goes to the Luck Uglies, a secret (some would even say criminal) society now banished and lost. When a supposedly extinct Bog Noblin turns up in the village, a power struggle ensues between Longchance and a man called Harmless, who holds the secret to the fate of the Luck Uglies. How Rye fits into all this is part of the drama and a lot of the excitement. Durham has created an impressively tactile world peopled with fully realized characters. His writing is strong and balanced, by turns funny and heart-stopping. There are no lulls in the story, which incorporates, in a completely original way, elements that will be familiar to fans of the genre. Antonsson's chapter-opening sketches further light the way. Readers will be sorry to see this bona fide page-turner end, at least until the next volume.

Check Availability

Battling boy - Paul Pope

Battling boy - Pope, Paul

Summary: As monsters roam Acropolis and swallow children into their shadowy underworld, twelve-year-old superhero Battling Boy steps in to save the city in the absence of genius vigilante Haggard West.


Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Comics' sci-fi rock-god Pope synthesizes the mythologies of Superman, Batman, and Hercules and sends them crashing into a monster-infested dystopia in this rollicking blast of adventure, the first part of a larger tale. When Acropolis' protector, Haggard West, dies in a battle with child-snatching ghouls, Battling Boy is sent down from the Olympian lightning cloud for his trial of manhood. His apparent defeat of a rampaging monstrosity gets him caught up in local politics, puts him in the sights of the hideous ghouls, and gains him the ire of Haggard West's daughter, who is looking to establish her own heroic credentials. Pope offers a latter-day superhero mythology that is also a glorious homage to shojo and, in fact, to heroism throughout history. This is a sophisticated tale for younger readers, but Pope manages to both grant full-scale wish fulfillment and acknowledge the limitations of young boys with equal aplomb. His art, meanwhile, looks like nothing else in comics, with ropy, sinewy figures, dynamic action, and gritty urban design all captured in panels that have the rough, subversive tone of classic punk album covers. Indeed, Pope's visuals might demand a larger canvas than the elegantly compact format First Second has afforded it. Copyright 2013 Booklist Reviews.

Check Availability

The lust lizard of Melancholy Cove - Christopher Moore

The lust lizard of Melancholy Cove - Moore, Christopher

Summary: Autumn in the sleepy California town of Pine Cove is turned upside down by the arrival of a Mississippi Delta blues musician, a huge sea serpent drawn to the sound of the steel guitar, the explosion of a tanker truck at a gas station, and a mysterious trailer that shows up in the local trailer park - (Baker & Taylor)



Booklist Reviews
Suppose that depression serves an evolutionary purpose, such as assuring that some prey will be too down to run from predators. Suppose an amphibious beast lurks in the Pacific and, recalling the tangy radioactive dressing in that submarine full of Russian sailors it found, follows a nuclear leak to a little California coastal town. Suppose that, because of a new patient's apparent suicide, the town shrink switches all her depressive patients from Zoloft to placebos. Suppose, too, that the sea beast attracts prey with pheromones. Now, remember that patients taken off antidepressants experience a libidinal surge, and what do you have? A lot of horny people about to be lunch for a big lizard, that's what. Such is the complex of premises animating Moore's clownish take on Godzilla that, before it gets a little saggy during the last hundred pages, is thoroughly, delightfully silly, like nothing so much as the old (1950s) Mad magazine parodies of popular movies and TV shows, but with a lot more sex jokes. ((Reviewed March 1, 1999)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

Check Availability