Waiting On Wednesday: Middle Grade & Young Adult titles

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

 There are a couple of titles in the MG and YA world that I am particularly interested in (even though these are not my favorite genres) as I am on a never-ending quest to find books that my girl will read.

1. Ask Amy Green    Boy Trouble
by Sarah Webb
Middle Grade Fiction, published by Candlewick Press in August 2010

Description:

Her sassy teenage aunt writes an advice column. But what if Amy needs boy tips of her own? A witty, genuine take on the ups and downs of friends, family, and first romance.
Thirteen-year-old Amy Green has a lot to juggle: handling her divorced parents, minding her messy baby siblings, and navigating the snobby popular cliques at school. So when her cool but crazy seventeen-year old aunt, Clover lands a job giving advice for the teen mag The Goss, Amy jumps at the chance to help out as her sidekick. Of course Clover, being Clover, doesn’t just want to answer readers’ letters, she wants to solve their problems . . . personally. From stamping out malicious rumors to giving a cad his comeuppance to creating the perfect web page, the two come up with some clever hands-on  schemes that bring happiness to many unhappy girls. But when Amy falls for the cute but aloof boy in her art class — and her own friends start snubbing her big-time — can she find a way out of her own dilemma? 

2. My Worst Best Friend
    by Dyan Sheldon
    Young Adult Fiction, published by Candlewick Press in August 2010.

Description:

Gracie and Savannah are best friends --and utterly unalike. Savannah is beautiful, outrageous, and irresistible to the opposite sex. Gracie is shy, smart, and would rather be studying lizards than meeting boys. Still, they’ve made a surprisingly great team, and (until now) it seemed as if nothing could come between them. But lately, Savannah’s talent for lying and manipulating is becoming harder to ignore. She’s fallen head over heels for an elusive college boy, and Gracie can’t help wondering: is her friend as confident as she seems? When Savannah gets between Gracie and her crush, the line separating best friend from worst friend is crossed. The best-selling author of CONFESSIONS OF A DRAMA QUEEN takes a smart, funny look at friendship, staying true to your identity, and moving on.

That's that for now, more kids fiction will be mentioned next week.
What are you waiting impatiently for?

Waiting On Wednesday:The Hollow Tree By Jacob G. Rosenberg

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

While attending BEA this year I picked up catalogues from several publishers and there is an abundance of great-sounding upcoming titles that I will be spotlighting for what seems like the rest of the summer and fall.

The first on the list is The Hollow Tree by Jacob G. Rosenberg that's coming out in October 2010 from Independent Publishers Group.

Publisher's summary:

A parable of war and the unthinkable atrocities that humanity perpetrates in a time of cataclysmic social change, this novel by a master storyteller is also a poignant story of love, war, and human resilience


"To be an unbending adherent in a world of stony realities,' Herbert had remarked, 'is to ask for trouble. Not because of one's allegiance, but because such an ally will be forced to conform or be squashed, trampled on or in the end annihilated by the crude laughter of fate."


The Hollow Tree is a story of love and loyalty in a time of war. Sometimes love isn't convenient, and loyalty doesn't always serve justice when the brutality of war sweeps away all before it. Yet somewhere in this darkly disturbing fable a tiny spark of hope beckons life anew as Jan Milder, its young protagonist, travels the roads of his mysterious destiny. Although it is written as a novel, this story recalls Jacob Rosenberg's prize-winning autobiographical memoirs, East of Time and Sunrise West. This deeply moving book is the final legacy of a master storyteller.

Jacob G. Rosenberg (1922–2008) was born in Lodz, Poland. After the Germans occupied Poland he was sent with his family to the Lodz Ghetto, and eventually transported to Auschwitz. Except for one sister (who committed suicide a few days later) all the members of his family were gassed on the day of their arrival. In 1948 he emigrated to Australia. He has published three books of poetry in English, a collection of stories, and the award-winning autobiographical memoirs East of Time and Sunrise West.

Waiting On Wednesday: Broken by Karin Slaughter

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

Karin Slaughter is a fairly new discovery of mine. I have only read one of her books, Undone and I absolutely loved it. I pretty much devoured it in one day. I am very happy that another one of her books is coming up.

Book details:

Title: Broken

Author: Karen Slaughter

Publish Date: June 22, 2010

ISBN: 0385341970

Book Synopsis from the author's website:

When the body of a young woman is discovered deep beneath the icy waters of Lake Grant, a note left under a rock by the shore points to suicide. But within minutes, it becomes clear that this is no suicide. It's a brutal, cold-blooded murder. All too soon former Grant County medical examiner Sara Linton - home for Thanksgiving after a long absence -- finds herself unwittingly drawn into the case. The chief suspect is desperate to see her but when she arrives at the local police station she is met with a horrifying sight -- he lies dead in his cell, the words 'Not me' scrawled across the walls. Something about his confession doesn't add up and deeply suspicious of the detective in charge, Lena Adams, Sara immediately calls the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Shortly afterwards, Special Agent Will Trent is brought in from his vacation to investigate. But he is immediately confronted with a wall of silence. Grant County is a close-knit community with loyalties and ties that run deep. And the only person who can tell the truth about what really happened is dead. 

I. CAN'T. WAIT. !!!

Waiting On Wednesday : Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

I do not have very long to wait since the book below is going to hit the shelves next week, April 27th. I admit I haven't read all Allende's books but the ones I did were positively charming and this upcoming book of hers promises to be just such a little gem.

Publisher's description:

Born a slave on the island of Saint-Domingue, Zarité -- known as Tété -- is the daughter of an African mother she never knew and one of the white sailors who brought her into bondage. Though her childhood is one of brutality and fear, Tété finds solace in the traditional rhythms of African drums and in the voodoo loas she discovers through her fellow slaves.

When twenty-year-old Toulouse Valmorain arrives on the island in 1770, it’s with powdered wigs in his baggage and dreams of financial success in his mind. But running his father’s plantation, Saint Lazare, is neither glamorous nor easy. It will be eight years before he brings home a bride -- but marriage, too, proves more difficult than he imagined. And Valmorain remains dependent on the services of his teenaged slave.

Spanning four decades, Island Beneath the Sea is the moving story of the intertwined lives of Tété and Valmorain, and of one woman’s determination to find love amid loss, to offer humanity though her own has been battered, and to forge her own identity in the cruellest of circumstances.

Island Beneath the Sea by Isabel Allende will be published in hardcover by HarperCollins on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010.

Waiting On Wednesday : The Astronomer by Lawrence Goldstone

This is my very first installment of Waiting On Wednesday hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine. I really like this meme but I always hesitated to join because I just can't come up with upcoming releases every week. However, I decided that it doesn't really have to be every  week but only when there is a book coming up that I am extra excited about. And I have just learned of such a book.

The Astronomer by Lawrence Goldstone is coming in May, 2010 from Walker Books.

Here's what the publisher says:

Set against the religious intolerance of sixteenth-century France, an intricate suspense thriller
revolving around a plot to kill Nicolaus Copernicus.

1534, Paris. A student at the Catholic Collège de Montaigu, serving as a courier for the Inquisition, is
murdered by members of an extreme Lutheran sect for the packet of letters he is carrying. His friend
and fellow classmate Amaury de Faverges—the illegitimate son of the Duke of Savoy and an expert in
astronomy and natural science—is recruited as his replacement and promised a decree of legitimacy if he
can uncover the secret that threatens to overturn Catholicism and the reign of François I.

Working undercover, Amaury journeys south to the liberal court of the king’s sister, Marguerite of Navarre,
the alleged heart of the conspiracy. The deeper he probes, the more Amaury is forced to confront his own
religious doubts; and when he discovers a copy of Copernicus’s shocking manuscript showing the sun at
the center of the universe, he knows the path he must follow.

Replete with characters and events from history—from the iconoclastic Rabelais to the burning of heretics
in Paris to preacher John Calvin and Copernicus himself—The Astronomer is a powerful novel of love and
betrayal, and a thrilling portrait of what might well have happened at a hinge point in history when science
and ancient religious belief collided.

I am especially looking forward to this book because it involves Nicolaus Copernicus, "my homeboy", a very famous historical figure from my native country of Poland.