Kenny and the Dragon ~Tony DiTerlizzi

–published 2008
–Simon & Schuster
–160 pages
–7/10

Young Kenny Rabbit is a hare with few friends. His doting parents frequently chide him for spending all of his time with his nose in a book and his best, and perhaps only, friend is the old badger who runs the bookshop from which Kenny borrows at will. Things begin to change the day Kenny’s father bursts through the front door declaring that a huge, ferocious dragon has turned up in a cave on Shepherd’s Hill where the Rabbit family graze their sheep. Full of equal parts curiosity and timidity, Kenny screws up his courage, dons a makeshift set of armor and weapons, and heads out in the setting sun to discover just what this “dragon” is all about.

What Kenny discovers is a friendship to last a lifetime. But if the people of the village have their way, that lifetime might be very short indeed.

Kenny and the Dragon is a tale of friendship, good food, a love of books and poetry, and above all is a story of a little rabbit who finds courage in the last place he expected–within himself.

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Dead End in Norvelt ~Jack Gantos

–published 2011
–Farrar, Straus and Giroux
–352 pages

–audio recorded 2011, read by author
–Macmillan Young Listeners
–7 hours (includes mp4 video interview)

–Awarded the 2010 Newbery Medal for excellence in children’s literature
–Awarded the 2012 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction

–10/10 stars

Young Jack Gantos is beyond thrilled. It is the summer of ’62 in the small Pennsylvania town of Norvelt and Jack has plans to enjoy every minute of his freedom. But that freedom is cut short when, in true boyish fashion, Jack makes a mistake that frightens his mother and his neighbor, Old Lady Volker, nearly to death. Thus ends the summer as far as Jack is concerned. He is grounded for the season with his only reprieve coming in the person of Miss Volker, who requires his help getting the obituaries of original Norvelt residents ready for the town paper whenever they happen to pass away. Jack can feel his own life passing away. But what Jack doesn’t realize is that he is about to have the most exciting summer of his young life, with events far beyond the adventures he had imagined for himself.

Part autobiography and part wonderfully constructed fiction, Dead End in Norvelt is a young adult novel that will captive the hearts and minds of readers young, old, and everywhere in between.

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