‘Pete the Cat 5-Minute Bedtime Stories: Includes 12 Cozy Stories!’ by Kimberly and James Dean is an adorable storybook that any lover of children’s stories will find inviting. Each one of Pete’s tales is unique, in that he gets to do a lot of different activities and enjoy every moment of each one.

He gets to spend time as the Tooth Fairy, travel to outer space, go camping with his family, and pretend he’s a pirate searching for treasure. He also gets to take a train trip, become a firefighter trainee, and make something to sell at his school bake sale, among many other fun adventures.

Pete is always eager to be part of everything, and he loves spending time with his friends and family. This is a great lesson for kids, as they learn that playing pretend and being together can be just as exciting as, if not more than, watching a TV show or playing video games. There is so much to do and so much to see if you learn how to observe the world around you and find what interests you most. Any kid or adult who reads this book can find something fun to dream about after reading any one of these bedtime stories.

You can find ‘Pete the Cat: 5-Minute Bedtime Stories’ by James & Kimberly Dean here.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘Ty’s Travels: All Aboard!’ by Kelly Starling Lyons, pictures by Nina Mata, is an adorable story of Ty and his family. Wanting nothing more than an adventure to fill his day with wonder, he does his best to enlist his parents and brother in his fun escapades. The problem is, they’re all busy. Dad is making dinner, Mom is folding clothes, and his brother, Corey, is doing homework. So, Ty decides to make his own fun, and little by little, his family comes to play with him.

Ty’s imagination comes to life through the colorful, descriptive illustrations. While he creates a train out of a box and takes a trip through his house, imagining himself traveling through the countryside and into the city, he comes to find that fun is where you find it, and while you can search for it yourself, it’s always made that much more fun when you get the people you love to join you.

A fun ‘I Can Read’ book for developing readers, it is one not to be missed.

You can find ‘Ty’s Travels: All Aboard!’ by Kelly Starling Lyons here, releasing on September 1, 2020.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘Literally: Amazing Words and Where They Come From’ by Patrick Skipworth, illustrated by Nicholas Stevenson, is a creative book that details twelve interesting words. It showcases their older and more modern meanings not just through written definitions, but through colorful and telling illustrations.

All readers, from children to adults, can enjoy the chance to guess what the words might mean based on the images as presented on each two-page illustrated spread. The language families as described in the book, and for which a world map is provided at the end with the locations for each, brings about a neat look at the way in which words connect and how we may better understand them.

Skipworth and Stevenson have written and illustrated a book that is appealing and satisfying, bringing new and already known words to the forefront to showcase each one’s unique importance.

You can find ‘Literally: Amazing Words and Where They Come From’ by Patrick Skipworth here.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘Sabina: In the Eye of the Storm’ by Bella Kuligowska Zucker is an incredibly moving tale of the author’s search for survival during the Holocaust. Her story is one of sadness, uncertainty, pain, and loss, but it is equally one of navigating seemingly insurmountable odds and having something at the end of it all – her life. Painful memories of her life in Poland before the war, along with her time in Germany afterward dot the pages of Zucker’s eloquent and poignant memoir, ensuring that readers will root for her and stay invested in her life’s journey for every moment she is willing to share through her writing.

From a happy family to near brushes with death many a time, to impoverished ghettos, time on her own, and the loss of her identity, both in other’s eyes and her own as she tried to squelch her past to ensure her future, Zucker paints a hauntingly vivid and incredible tale of survival.

Her safety was always front of mind, despite never feeling safe, even in her own skin. The kindness of strangers and her whole-hearted attempts to subdue her past life saved her, even though her struggles seemed to grow greater each day.

A definite must-read for anyone who is looking for literature about this horrific time of the past and would like a first-hand account. Though Zucker never spent time in a concentration camp, her story nevertheless is harrowing and true. It embraces all of who she is, from her childhood to her means of survival during the war years, to her life after the war ended and she worked to find any semblance of the life she once knew – family included.

Any reader – young or older – will benefit from reading this tremendously heartfelt memoir.

You can find ‘Sabina: In the Eye of the Storm’ by Bella Kuligowska Zucker here.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘The Path We Take’ by Kylie Key shows how the choices we make and the things we think we want are not necessarily what make us happy in the end. Dominique is crushing hard on a boy in her school, and when things seem to be going her way with him, her whole world seems right. Until it doesn’t. She learns pretty quickly that anticipation and general longing are not necessarily equal to the end outcome.

When her whole life turns around after an accident that puts her gymnastics career in jeopardy, her older brother tries to find a way to bring renewed joy to her life. A doctor at the hospital, he sets her up with one of his burn victims, a young man slightly older than Domi whose story makes hers seem not so terrible in comparison. Meeting Malachi, who sometimes is called by his nickname, Spider, brings a new perspective to her situation, making her wonder if everything she is upset about is truly worth it.

Malachi is kind and sensitive, and Domi begins to fall for him. As her interest in him grows, she worries about how he isn’t the kind of person whom her parents or her friends would expect her to be with, casting a pall on their relationship. Even though she loves talking to him, she doesn’t know that their relationship can truly go anywhere, and she’s afraid to express her true feelings to anyone – sometimes even Malachi himself.

With some issues that muddy up the predictability of the story, Kylie Key has crafted a warm, lingering look into the trouble that pain – of all sorts – can cause, and how sometimes you find your path where you least expect it.

You can find ‘The Path We Take’ by Kylie Key here.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘Inebriated’ by Katey Taylor is a hauntingly real look at the power of intoxication, whether it be in the form of alcohol, drugs, or the lure of partying. The story finds its footing exploring a world in which the allure of each of these tests various characters’ abilities to make morally sound choices.

Cait and her best friends Steph and Allie are high school girls headed into their senior year. They seemingly have it all – beauty, friendship, and the ability to get what they want when they want it. When Cait and Steph head out one night to Swank, a nightclub in San Francisco, to see Adrien Cross, their favorite musician, little do they know that this one night out is going to turn into a torrid love affair for Cait and Adrien. Despite being several years younger than him, having used a fake ID to get into the club, Cait’s attraction to Adrien, and vice versa, is too strong to contain. When she ends up going home with him after his concert, she loses herself in him. Their time together is seemingly over until he calls her after finding something of hers in his apartment.

While her life outside of her house is going great, hanging out with a hot musician, getting drunk and living life to its fullest, her home life is going down the drain. Her parents’ divorce, while she knew it was coming, weighs on her and causes her to use it as a means of acting out. She doesn’t consider herself to be lashing out at her parents. They don’t even know what’s going on. Yet, Cait’s decisions, despite seeming to be better than those of her friends at times, are more often than not questionable. When trouble strikes, she has to find a way to cope with her past decisions, along with those of her friends.

Truth and perspective, the reality of addiction, and the struggle to shape one’s life in a meaningful way while still being too young to know how to make wiser decisions than drinking all day long rule this novel. Katey Taylor has crafted a very telling and vivid picture of the way in which privilege and insecurity can go hand in hand. Looking forward to reading Cait’s next adventure in ‘Neon Nights,’ the sequel to this story.

You can find ‘Inebriated’ by Katey Taylor here.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘Dating My Nemesis’ by Michelle MacQueen and Ann Maree Craven is just as engaging as ‘Dating My Best Friend’ and ‘Dating the Boy Next Door,’ the two novels that come before it in the series. Mean girl Addison and loner Julian both were hurt by the loss of Cooper Callahan years before. Not only was Addison stuck on him, but Julian was his twin until the fateful day when he died. The book spends more time shedding light on Cooper’s motives that night which led to the accident that killed him. Addison finds herself dealing with the repercussions of what happened when Cooper finally showed interest in her, and Julian deals with wearing his brother’s face while being in love with the same girl that Cooper hurt so badly just before his death.

There is pain and heartache, but even more, there is truth, kindness, and understanding that stem from the honesty that Addison and Julian reveal to each other throughout the story. Even though that night tore their group apart and sent them all off in different directions, trying to deal with the accident in the only ways that allowed them to cope, they all share a bond that has thrust some of them back together and is seeming to bring Addison and Julian some of that same closure.

While Addison talks to an anonymous guy online about books, she finds that her life really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, heading the cheerleading team and dealing with mean girls like her supposed best friend. She finds strength in old friends when she needs help most, and while Julian tries to tell himself he won’t be there for her, he finds that it’s hard to stay away from the girl he’s always cared about, but hasn’t been able to reveal his feelings to because of his brother, Cooper, who was always deemed the golden child.

With cameos from the other characters that make up the first two books in the series, and with a hearty helping of romance, upset, and coming to terms with the past, MacQueen and Craven have done it again. Any contemporary novel by these two should surely be on every YA romance reader’s to-be-read list.

You can find ‘Dating My Nemesis’ by Michelle MacQueen and Ann Maree Craven here.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘Kissing Lessons’ by Sophie Jordan is a well-written, entertaining story about a variety of main characters, including Hayden Vargas, Nolan Martin, Emmaline Martin, and Beau Sanders. While Hayden is known to be the “bad girl” at school, Emmaline is much more on the opposite end of the spectrum, always thought to be the one to play it safe, especially with big brother Nolan around to make sure she doesn’t ever take things too far. When Emmaline hires Hayden to teach her how to attract boys’ attention and essentially make her over so she can be more like Hayden, Nolan has a problem with this. When he finds out, he and his best friend, Beau Sanders, don’t know how to react other than to think that this is a bad idea all around. But Emmaline remains steadfast. She will not be deterred and continues to enlist Hayden’s help.

Hayden, meanwhile, finds herself attracted to Nolan, and even though Nolan finds that they seem to have a connection that he isn’t finding with his current girlfriend, Priscilla, he is not ready to act on anything. Despite trying not to, he thinks of Hayden in much the same way that others do – as the bad girl who it isn’t a good idea to be associated with. However, when he learns more about her, he finds that there is more to her than meets the eye, and it causes him to question how he sees her. In the meantime, Emmaline works to make herself more in Hayden’s image, not knowing that there is someone waiting in the wings who thinks about her the same way she thinks about him.

The chemistry between the various characters in the book is often electric, making it extremely hard to put the book down. The way that the “kissing lessons” are presented as the title of each chapter make the reading all that much more engaging and imaginative. It is definitely worth picking this book up and finding out what other books Sophie Jordan has written!

You can find ‘Kissing Lessons’ by Sophie Jordan here (to be released on June 2, 2020).

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘Perfectly Misunderstood’ by Robin Daniels tells the story of Jayden and Mike, two high school students who seem to be polar opposites. While Jayden works hard, she finds herself struggling in Spanish and needing the help of a tutor. When she gets paired with Mike, she can’t help but feel that her teacher must be playing a cruel joke on her. Mike is the epitome of what seems to be a dumb jock. He doesn’t speak in proper English and acts “too cool for school”. She can’t imagine what her teacher is thinking.

As time goes on, though, Jayden is surprised by how smart Mike really is and how he is giving off a presence that isn’t really him. At the same time, Mike sees Jayden as annoying and more trouble than she’s worth, but somehow they start to grow on each other.

The way they are bothered by each other ends up, somewhat predictably, leading to romantic tension, but the lead-up to this is well-written and creates interesting dynamics between them. It is nice to see Mike’s worry about how he’ll be perceived if he’s found out to not be as dumb as he comes across. There is a vulnerability there that comes to a head when his secret is unraveled. Similarly, Jayden’s best friend is always trying to make her realize how her words can sting, especially when it comes to Mike, and her realization that everything isn’t always about her grows as the story goes on.

Robin Daniels has a variety of other books that are surely worth checking out after reading ‘Perfectly Misunderstood’.

You can find ‘Perfectly Misunderstood’ by Robin Daniels here.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*

‘TBH, This is SO Awkward: A Novel in Text’ by Lisa Greenwald is quite interesting in that it is written almost entirely in text messages. In this day and age, text messages are the norm, and kids would often rather talk via text than spend time on the phone. Even when they are seeing each other, more often than not they can be found with phone in hand. So, it comes as no surprise that main characters Gabby, Cecily, and Prianka (G, C, and P when sending texts) have their messaging down pat. Having been best friends since forever, they are so used to talking to each other that they find it difficult to include the new girl at school, Victoria, in their group chats.

Victoria already feels out of place, but when she tries to begin chatting with the girls after being paired up with one of them as a reading partner, she begins to feel left out in the cold. In some ways, this is understandable. She has started at a new school and is struggling to fit in, while doing everything she can to make herself feel like she does fit in. She talks to her old friends at home, and it is clear she misses them. Yet it feels a little over the top that when she doesn’t get to be friends right away with the girls she’s aiming to be friends with that her mother steps in, talking to the principal about it. Even though it is clear that some kindness needs to be worked on throughout the storyline, it also feels as though a point is trying to be made about bullying, but everyone does have the right to be friends with whomever they please, without anyone telling them what they can or can’t do. The book does a nice job making a point of this, showing multiple viewpoints from the text messages of different characters and showing how there are, in fact, multiple perspectives to everything. One person’s opinion on a matter doesn’t constitute the only opinion, and this is a vital point for anyone, from middle school students to adults, to understand.

It is important to remember that the girls in this story are middle school students. They are trying to find their place in school, but while some have friends, others are trying to create new friendships. The story is true to the conundrum that many middle schoolers find themselves in. There are so many ways to second guess oneself, and middle school is a time when many do just that. Empathy is an all-important subject that must be broached, and Greenwald does a fine job of showing how text messages, whether written in jest or sent accidentally, causing undue pain, can truly affect people’s feelings and thought processes.

A worthwhile and fast read that will help any reader understand the lengths one wants to take to fit in and the trouble that can go along with it all.

You can find ‘TBH, This is SO Awkward: A Novel in Text’ by Lisa Greenwald here.

*Review originally posted at YABooksCentral.com*