Blog Archives
Adventure: Antarctica!
Jeff Hendricks’s Adventure: Antarctica! follows Danny Gage, a bright but emotionally rattled high school senior whose life seems to come apart in a single miserable stretch: he blows a crucial soccer moment, loses his girlfriend in the middle of an ill-fated promposal, and watches his parents’ marriage crack just as he misses out on a dream Hawaii internship. What begins as a consolation trip to Antarctica turns into something much larger, as Danny is swept through McMurdo, Wright Valley, penguin rookeries, ice dives, Erebus, meteorite hunts, and finally a genuinely gripping scientific discovery involving strange life in Lake Vanda. The novel is both a coming-of-age story and a science adventure, and it keeps braiding those threads together until Danny’s outward journey and inward one feel inseparable.
I found a lot to admire here. What stayed with me most was the book’s earnestness. Danny’s voice has an open, slightly wounded sincerity that gives the early domestic material real weight. The sticky-note promposal going sideways could have played as mere teen melodrama, yet it lands with a real sting, and the family scenes around the separation have an authentic awkwardness I recognized immediately. Later, when the novel shifts into Antarctic mode, it doesn’t abandon that emotional texture. Instead, the frozen setting seems to sharpen it. The homesickness, the odd intimacy of fieldwork, the way Danny’s perspective slowly widens as he learns to stop centering his own disappointment, all of that feels honest. I was especially taken by how naturally the book moves from adolescent embarrassment to wonder, then from wonder to actual peril. A scene with a meteorite turning up in Danny’s pack and the later crevasse and ice-cave survival sequence gave the book a real pulse.
Hendricks clearly loves Antarctic science, and that enthusiasm is contagious. The explanations about Lake Vanda’s stratified waters, cyanobacteria, meteorites on blue ice, and the practical rituals of surviving cold are folded in with enough narrative energy that they rarely feel like homework. The book is strongest when it lets curiosity itself become dramatic. Danny isn’t just learning facts. He’s learning how scientific attention works, how to notice, how to persist, how to be useful to other people. I appreciated that. The prose is more sturdy than dazzling, but it has moments of vividness, especially in descriptions of cold, wind, brightness, and physical exhaustion. The novel sometimes spells out an emotional beat just after it lands. But its warmth is part of its identity, and by the time Danny is moving among Yura, Tatyana, and Ms. Nichols with something like earned confidence, the book has built a persuasive case for science not as abstraction but as a human vocation.
I came away feeling genuinely fond of Adventure: Antarctica!. It’s a generous, heartfelt novel with real narrative momentum, and its belief in growth, curiosity, and second chances feels lived rather than manufactured. It tells a good story and honors science. I’d recommend it most readily to teen readers, STEM-inclined readers, and adults who enjoy adventure fiction with a strong emotional center and a clean sense of wonder. It’s the kind of book that remembers discovery is thrilling not only because of what we find, but because of who we become while finding it.
Pages: 459 | ASIN : B0GBQ4KWNC
The Jingu Magical Garden
In The Jingu Magical Garden, Lillian Jingu, the youngest daughter in a big Japanese American family living inside the Japanese Tea Garden in San Antonio in the late 1930s discovers a strange egg by the koi pond, hatches a tiny blue dragon she names Kokoro, and hides him with the help of her brother Kimi, a very dignified turtle, and a tough gray cat. At first, it feels like pure magic and mischief in a hidden garden. Then a crack in time opens, and Lillian and Kokoro are pulled into moments that show how war, rumor, and racism creep into their world and shake the life they love in the tea garden. The story braids fantasy with the real history of the Jingu family and the garden, all the way through World War II and beyond.
I had a soft spot for Lillian right away. She just wants to grow her hair long, wear a white Stetson, blend in at school, and also secretly raise a baby dragon who drinks Coca-Cola and eats sardines out of a tin. That mix of ordinary kid worries and wild magical stuff really worked for me. The family scenes in the Bamboo Room kitchen made me feel like I was sitting at the table, listening to sisters tease each other while their parents try to keep everyone fed and in line. Kokoro is goofy and sweet and a bit chaotic, so every time he bursts out of hiding I could feel my shoulders tense and my brain go “oh no, not now,” in the best way. Some chapters feel cozy and funny, and then the tone shifts, and I felt my stomach drop when hints of war and suspicion started creeping into their everyday life.
The book talks about anti Asian prejudice without turning into a lecture, and that made it more powerful to me. You see how quickly neighbors and officials can turn on a family that has done nothing wrong, and it hurt to watch, because we know this stuff did happen in real life and still echoes today. At the same time, the dragon and the time travel bits keep the story from feeling hopeless, almost like the past itself is reaching out to protect this family and their garden. I liked that the author doesn’t pretend everything gets neatly fixed, but she still gives the Jingus courage, humor, and dignity, and that mix left me sad and hopeful at the same time.
As for the writing, it has a very old radio show vibe in spots, with Buck Rogers and songs on the wireless and little period details tucked everywhere, and I thought that was charming. The garden descriptions are lush and detailed, so I could picture the waterfall, the stone paths, and the hidden corners where a dragon might hide, and those scenes slowed my breathing in a good way. The dialogue can be a bit old-fashioned in places, which fits the time period. Still, the emotional beats land. When the family faces public shaming, name changes, and the loss of their place, the simple language hits like a punch because you already care about these people and this garden so much.
I really enjoyed this children’s book. I would hand it to middle-grade readers who like dragons but can handle some heavier real-world stuff, kids around nine to thirteen who are curious about World War II on the home front, and any young reader who has ever felt caught between cultures or out of place. It would also be great for teachers or parents who want to talk about racism, resilience, and community in a way that feels authentic. If you want a story with cozy family meals, secret magical pets, and real history woven together, this one is a good pick.
Pages: 282 | ASIN : B0GCQV9TB9
The Thirteenth Cagebreaker: A Cantara Academy Novel
The Thirteenth Cagebreaker is a young adult fantasy set in a glittering, ruthless magic school where talent is currency and control is everything. We follow Sparrow “Roe” Kettler, a dockside voice mage whose mother vanished years earlier after attending Cantara Academy on the same kind of scholarship. When Roe arrives, the academy’s Designating Stone brands her as the thirteenth amethyst, the first student it has ever physically marked, tying her to a secret history of “Cagebreakers” and to a containment machine under the school that feeds on students deemed too dangerous. The book follows her first term as she scrambles to catch up academically, builds a fierce little found family, falls into a complicated maybe-more-than-mentorship with Blaise Arcement, and slowly uncovers a system that cages magic and calls it safety, all building toward a public confrontation that forces the powerful to answer for what they have built.
Roe’s voice is sharp and funny and aching all at once, full of dock slang and small sensory details, like the way her secondhand robes never quite sit right or how academy marble smells different from salt-wet wood. The writing balances that chatty tone with these sudden punches of poetry, especially when it talks about cages, about learning to make yourself small so people feel safe around you. The magic school setting is lush and cinematic, but what stuck with me more than the floating bridges and singing gates was the constant hum of class difference and scrutiny. Scholarship kids sit under the banners near the kitchens, sponsor families glide through the memorial halls, and every hallway conversation is edged with who has power and who is expected to be grateful.
What surprised me most was how much this fantasy plot about a containment Vault and a secret Cagebreaker Protocol ends up feeling like a story about being told your feelings are too loud. The author keeps coming back to this idea that systems call it “control” or “stability” when what they really want is compliance. Roe’s training scenes hurt, especially when teachers tell her to forget the work songs that kept her community alive or label her survival magic as “crude” and unprofessional. At the same time, there is a very tender through-line: Minna and the other scholarship kids who adopt Roe almost on sight, the quiet solidarity in the library stacks, and Blaise choosing truth over the legacy he was born to protect. The slow-burn romantic fantasy element feels earned because it is built out of hard choices and shared risk, not just witty banter. I did feel the book’s “Book One” status in the last stretch; the big machinery of the world is still turning when you hit the final page, but Roe’s emotional arc from scared scholarship girl to someone willing to testify in front of the Board feels complete enough that the ending lands.
The author is not shy about institutional abuse, parental abandonment, or the way grief sits in the body, and she flags that clearly right up front, which I really appreciated. The story keeps a thread of stubborn hope running through all of that, though. Roe does not magically fix the system with one song, and she does not become perfectly controlled or endlessly forgiving. She keeps choosing, again and again, to tell the truth, to ask better questions, to trust the people who have actually earned it. That repeated choice gives the book this grounded, almost defiant optimism. It feels less like a fantasy about a chosen one and more like a fantasy about a girl who refuses to let the people in charge decide what her magic is for.
If you like young adult fantasy that mixes a moody magic school, found family, and a slow-burn romance with sharp conversations about power and control, I think you will really click with this. It is especially for readers who have ever been told they are “too much” or who grew up squeezing themselves smaller to fit someone else’s comfort. If you are up for a character-driven, emotionally intense ride that feels like a friend taking your hand and saying, “You were never meant to live in that cage,” then this book is absolutely worth your time.
Pages: 457 | ASIN : B0G6LRSPM3
Tales of Spooner Pond: Supernatural Tales of Unforgettable Characters and Peculiar Gifts
In Tales of Spooner Pond, by Terry Rasner, a girl named Pippy Natalie Hyland discovers her “dreams” are less pillow-fog and more passport: she’s being called from ordinary North Star Ridge into Spooner Pond, a lush otherworld populated by talkative animal-humans (“palimals”) and overseen by Truggles, a towering, dog-and-panda-like guardian who insists she can learn to travel back and forth, and even bring a few friends along. The book opens with a domestic alarm (a bedroom wall turned into a map, furious parents, a counselor visit) and quickly widens into episodic adventures where strange gifts appear, loyalties form, and the geography of wonder becomes almost tactile.
What hooked me first wasn’t the premise, portal fantasies are a well-trod trail, but the particular grain of the telling: Pippy’s voice can be earnest, snarky, and suddenly luminous in the same breath. The adults are drawn with a kid’s exacting fairness (my favorite detail is how her father “towered…like a stout oak tree,” which is both affectionate and indicting), and that tension gives Spooner Pond a real narrative job: it’s not just escapism, it’s relief-pressure, a place where a child can feel chosen instead of merely managed. Even the language invents its own little rituals, “noggin nudger” moments, like the story is quietly training you to adopt its private vocabulary.
Once the “palimals” take the stage, I found myself smiling at how the book refuses to sand down its oddities. Kitty Joe, the oversized cat with his chewy idiolect and disconcerting carnivore pride, is both cuddly and feral; he’s the kind of character who can purr in your arms and, two sentences later, remind you he’d prefer his breakfast with a crunch. And the set pieces have a fable-like clarity, Barney becoming “Feathers,” learning to glide and then “fly” by turning ears into wings, is delightfully implausible in the way childhood logic can be: if you want it badly enough and you practice hard enough, anatomy negotiates. I admired the book’s stubborn commitment to its own cadence, unembarrassed, a little eccentric, and often genuinely sweet.
Terry Rasner’s YA novel feels best aimed at middle-grade readers (and read-aloud families) who like fantasy, portal fantasy, supernatural adventure, and magical creatures with a dash of moral weather, patience, courage, and loyalty, threaded through the spectacle. If you loved The Chronicles of Narnia, Spooner Pond offers a similarly sincere invitation, just with fur, oddball slang, and gifts that arrive sideways. Tales of Spooner Pond is a warm and peculiar pocket-universe where the weird feels like a kind of truth.
Pages: 288 | ASIN : B0G6VKNV2Q
Tests of Character
A Second Chance follows a faith-filled teen whose prophetic dreams, fractured family, and fierce love for her best friend collide with online grooming, violence at home, and the cost of believing God can still redeem what’s been broken. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I was listening to “Running up That Hill” by Kate Bush, and I thought, what would it take a teen to make a deal with God? And I expanded upon that because not everyone has a perfect life, and that makes youth vulnerable. Vulnerable youth are key targets for predators, in person and online. I wanted to show that through it all, faith can get you through it, and so can supportive, responsible friends and family.
Mikaila’s dreams play a major spiritual role. How did you balance portraying divine guidance without removing her agency as a character?
Many times, in life, we’re given tests–tests of character and even tests of faith that require us to use our own strengths and character to get through them. I wanted to focus on the internal and external struggles of passing those tests.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Friendship, because that is foremost important when you’re a teen. Secondly, I wanted to tell the truth about manipulation, loyalty, and faith under pressure.
How did you approach writing faith conversations so directly while still keeping the voice authentic to teens?
I thought about my nephews, who are faith-driven teens now, and what the conversation would look like from their perspective.
Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Instagram | Amazon
For Mikaila, faith is simple. When her best friend Chara is in a horrific car accident, Mikaila makes a promise to God: Chara’s life for her devotion. She is determined to guide her friend back to the light.
But an old friend from her past has other plans. He’s charming, intelligent, and seems to understand Mikaila better than anyone. Until charm becomes pressure. Until flattery becomes control. Mikaila finds herself trapped in a game she doesn’t understand.
Chara tries to warn Mikaila before the game turns deadly. But in a world of doctored emails and masterful lies, they discover that the most dangerous predator is the one everyone trusts. A Second Chance is a faith-lit YA suspense about the dangers we don’t see until they’re too close, and the courage it takes to run toward the light.
Life-Changing Injury
The Legend of Harry Gardner follows a Harvard student journalist, his connection with a football star, and the consequences of a life-changing injury. Where did the idea for this novel come from?
Although I’ve spent most of my writing life in the world of history and biography, I’ve always dreamed of writing a novel, especially one about college football in the 1920’s. The Legend of Harry Gardner is the result of that dream. The inspiration for the major character in the book is the celebrated sports figure, Hobey Baker, who is still considered one of the greatest American college athletes of all time – a star in football and hockey at Princeton. But it wasn’t just his sports heroics on the field that intrigued me, but his sense of character, humility, and sportsmanship, a trait I tried to instill in Harry. The “life-changing injury” incident came from a real Harvard football game in 1909, when Harvard Captain Hamilton Fish hit an opposing player so hard (not maliciously) that the player died the next day. Fish missed several games as a result, but then rejoined the team. As to “Peabo” Elliott, I guess I loosely based him on George Plimpton, the famous “participatory journalist” of modern times, who was from a well-to-do family, dabbled in sports, and was a keen observer of sports heroes.
Is there anything pulled from your own experiences included in Peabo or Harry’s storylines?
Playing high school football helped me get a sense of the sights and sounds and chaos of an actual game from ground level. Attending graduate school at Harvard (and attending several Harvard-Yale games) gave me a sense of place and the color and excitement of a college football game and the look and feel of the stadium.
What research did you do for this novel to get it right?
I read newspaper accounts – both in the Harvard Crimson and New York Times – of old college football games; read several books about Hobey Baker; re-read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise (a fictional character named Allenby is based on Hobey Baker); and read everything George Plimpton ever wrote.
Can we look forward to more work from you soon? What are you currently working on?
Yes, I am currently at work on a non-fiction book titled, Harvard Boys, about the intersecting lives of several extraordinary characters as they navigate – both personally and professionally – many of the most important events of the twentieth century: Revolutionary John Reed; columnist Walter Lippmann; World War I poet Alan Seeger; “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, Adolph Hitler’s favorite piano player; and artist Waldo Peirce. I’m also at work on a humorous collection of fictional short stories called Cat Bubbles, Roadsters, and Other Peculiar College Tales, about the adventures and misadventures of a colorful cast of college sports jocks, social gadflies, scoundrels, eccentrics, and one or two kind-hearted souls.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
Rise to Power
The False Princess follows a young princess preparing for her future role as queen as she becomes the target of a calculated assault. Where did the idea for this storyline in this fifth and final installment of your series come from?
It is an unfortunate reality that many people do not respect young women with power. And the whole series has really been leading up to Sitnalta’s rise to power and the fight she has had to wage to come into her own and take what is rightfully hers. So, it would make sense from a storytelling perspective that there would be those who oppose her and who don’t want to be ruled by her. As such, people like the Duke Sparrow would use any tool in their toolbox to take Sitnalta’s power from her and undermine her in any way possible.
Which character in The Sitnalta Series have you most enjoyed writing for?
I obviously love Sitnalta. She was the catalyst for the whole series, and her arc and the changes she goes through have been very fulfilling to write. However, the character of Ipsinki really grew on me. His shifting from the almost cowardly soldier to the leader he ends up as was a lot of fun to write.
How do you approach writing highly emotional scenes?
I approach them with honesty. What is the purpose of the scene? What feelings do I want to convey? And what emotional journey do I want to take the readers on? For me, a good story makes you feel things, and that’s what I aim to do. I feel that if I’ve accomplished that, I’ve succeeded as a writer.
What comes next for you? Are you currently working on a new series?
Right now, I’m in the midst of a middle-grade novel set in the real world. But what I’m excited to let you know is that I’m not done with Sitnalta and her family. Not just yet. The sequel series, The Children of Colonodona, will be coming out fairly shortly. I’m working with the same cover artist, and I have the four manuscripts ready and waiting.
Author Links: GoodReads | Instagram | Facebook | Website | Amazon
Desperate for revenge over the death of his evil friend, the Duke Sparrow finds himself in the possession of some information that will rock the foundation of Colonodona’s monarchy. As the Princess Sitnalta comes of age, Sparrow unleashes his plan for chaos, throwing everyone Sitnalta loves into danger, as he questions whether or not she is fit to rule. Seeing the mistrust and mutiny in her subjects, Sitnalta questions everything she thinks she knows about herself and her past as she makes some hard choices and sacrifices to keep her family safe, and to secure the future of her kingdom.
Alex in the Annex
Alex in the Annex follows a group of eighth graders who stumble upon a sealed wing of their school and end up awakening powers they never expected to have. The story blends mystery, friendship, and a creeping sense of danger as Alex discovers he can move objects with his mind, Rachelle learns she can conjure fire, and their friends develop powers of their own. The annex becomes a kind of crucible where abilities grow, relationships shift, and the kids have to decide who they trust and who they want to be. The book starts as a simple adventure and slowly builds into something bigger, stranger, and more emotional than the characters ever imagined.
I found myself slipping easily into Alex’s head. The writing has a straightforward, conversational style that made the whole tale feel familiar, almost nostalgic, like hearing someone tell you a story during lunch at school. Author Jeremy Scholz writes about middle school feelings with a kind of earnest charm. The crushes, the awkward moments, the fierce loyalty to friends, the shaky confidence, all of it hits in a way that’s both sweet and sometimes a little painful. The scenes in the annex are some of my favorites because they carry that mix of fear and excitement that comes with doing something you know you probably shouldn’t be doing. The powers feel fun, but they also feel messy, which matches well with the characters.
There were moments when the dialogue made me smile because it felt so true to how teens when adults aren’t around. And then there were moments when the emotional beats surprised me. Watching Rachelle’s confidence flare up right alongside her fire, or seeing Alex wrestle with how he feels about both Rachelle and Charlotte, gave the story this little ache that snuck up on me. I didn’t expect the book to lean as much into the idea of belonging, but that thread runs through everything. The annex isn’t just a spooky, locked hallway. It’s the place where these friends start figuring out who they actually are.
By the end, I felt oddly proud of them, which is not something I normally say about fictional characters. The story’s heart is big. It’s messy. It’s sometimes chaotic. But it feels honest, and I appreciated that more than I expected. I kept thinking about the author’s note, too, where Scholz talks about escaping into stories and finally finding the space to write the ones he’s carried for so long. You can feel that love for imagination in the way the book unfolds.
I’d recommend Alex in the Annex to readers who enjoy heartfelt supernatural adventures, especially younger teens or anyone who remembers that strange middle school mix of bravery and fear. It’s a quick, warm story that plays with superpowers but really leans into friendship and identity. If you like books where ordinary kids discover something extraordinary and have to figure out what that means for their real lives, this is a good one to pick up.
Pages: 306 | ASIN : B0FSLKL3MH
