Hana Banana Reads

The War Outside by Monica Hesse Age Range: 13 & up Release Date: September 25, 2018 Little, Brown and Company 9780316316699 “I know the way I am telling these stories seems mundane and boring. Horror grows out of mundanity. If you’re paying attention, it always starts small. We all tell the versions we wish were true.”* There are a lot of World War II stories. Some people claim to be tired of them. I, on the other hand, am always drawn to them. There are so many stories to tell during this time, so many atrocities committed, so many lives affected, how could anyone have possibly heard them all? Well, I am here to tell you, Monica Hesse’s newest is a story you haven’t heard before, and even if you consider yourself “tired” of tales set during this time, you should really give this one a shot. Haruko and Margot meet in Crystal City, Texas, an internment camp for those under suspect of working with the enemy. Neither of the girls has ever seen the places their...

Wild Bird by Wendelin Van Draanen Age Range: 12 & up Release Date: September 5, 2017 Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers 9781101940440 “‘Sometimes it doesn’t take much for what’s dormant to bloom.’” Fourteen-year-old Wren Clemens is alone. At least, that’s how it feels. She’s railing at her parents, railing at her sister, regularly getting drunk and high. She is in way too deep with shady friends-who-are-not-friends, and is now being dragged out of her bed at 4am and whisked off to wilderness therapy camp. Like that’s going to help. Wild Bird is a whirlwind of the best kind, the kind only Wendelin Van Draanen ( Sammy Keyes , Flipped , The Secret Life of Lincoln Jones ) can bring to life. Wren (yes… like the bird) has a tremendously difficult journey ahead of her, and while at first she fights and screams and rages, it soon becomes clear that the harsh Utah desert will eat her alive if she doesn’t slow down and accept a little help. She will make progres...

***Upcoming Release!*** The Speaker by Traci Chee Age Range: 13 & up Release Date: November 7, 2017 G.P. Putnam Son's Books for Young Readers 9780399176784 A slew of spectacular Young Adult fantasy books hit the shelves last fall, including quite a few strong debuts. One of the standouts was called The Reader by Traci Chee. With a gorgeous blue eye-catching cover and a synopsis to draw in any bookworm, The Reader was a knockout. It followed Sefia, an orphaned girl set out for revenge on the people who took her family from her. Her most treasured possession was a strange rectangular object previously guarded by her parents. An object called a book. In a world where the written word is unheard of, books holds power. And with that power come those willing to do anything to possess it. On her journey, Sefia rescues a mute young man by the name of Archer, kidnapped and forced into fighting rings for a ruthless pirate. Somehow, the notorious pirate Serakeen is ...

Girls Made of Snow and Glass by Melissa Bashardoust Age Range: 13 & up Release Date: September 5, 2017 Flatiron Books 9781250077738 “If they love you for anything, it will be for your beauty.” Mina carries these words with her, spoken by her father years ago. Since Mina’s heart is made of glass, she is told this renders her incapable of love. At sixteen, Mina leaves her southern home and travels to the north, where she sets out to win the heart of the newly widowed king and become someone worthy of love, believing she must use her beauty to do so. Sixteen years later, Mina is queen and her stepdaughter has grown up. Princess Lynet is constantly told how strongly she resembles her mother, but she would much rather take after her fierce and regal stepmother, the only maternal figure she has ever known. As Lynet grows, she comes closer to taking the crown, and Mina knows that one day they will be at odds. For the queen has no intention of letting that crown go. ...

The Hawkweed Prophecy  and  The Hawkweed Legacy by Irena Brignull Age Range: 13 & up Release Date: September 6, 2016 and August 15, 2017 9781602863132 and 9781602863149 Weinstein Books There was a time last year when an ARC of The Hawkweed Prophecy found its way to me. It had all the right elements to catch my intrigue: magic, schemes, wickedness… And witches. Witches are not currently as prominent in literature as I would like, and their presence is almost always guaranteed to catch my eye. However, for whatever strange universe/timing issue, I just couldn’t get into the story. It has been over a year, and having just been given the opportunity to read both The Hawkweed Prophecy and its newly published sequel, The Hawkweed Legacy , I decided to give it another go. Which just goes to show you, timing truly is everything. I could not put this dark and twisty story down this time around, and Irena Brignull, if you are reading this, my sincerest apologies fo...

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee Age Range: 14 & up Release Date: June 6, 2017 Katherine Tegen Books 9780062382801 Finally cracking open a much-hyped-about book can be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it’s exciting . You’ve been hearing great things about it everywhere, five-star reviews are all over the place, and you can’t wait to fall in love. On the other, high anticipation can often lead to the biggest letdowns. Happily, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue is of the former. This fun and flirtatious romp through 18th century Europe has been talked about for months . And I must say, it lives up to the hype. Henry “Monty” Montague is, quite simply, a rogue. But oh, of the most lovable sort. He can often be found drinking, gambling, or getting it on with a pretty boy or girl in the shadows. Mostly, Monty is looking forward to his Grand Tour of Europe. To getting out of his stifling home with its even more stifling expecta...

***Upcoming Release!*** A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares by Krystal Sutherland 9780399546594 Age Range: 14 & up Release Date: September 5, 2017 G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers Everyone is afraid of something.  Whether it be heights or snakes or small spaces, there’s an entity that triggers a nerve for everyone. For this reader, it’s spiders and what I like to call a very healthy respect for the ocean (It’s an incredibly complex and fascinating place, but let’s be realistic here. Anything that lives there can move a lot faster than I can and will undoubtedly see me before I see it.). Esther Solar doesn’t know what her great fear is, but she has a list of fifty possibilities. For the Solar family is cursed, and each member is destined to die by the hand of their fear. Therefore, as long as she keeps a list of possible fears to avoid, Esther can never develop a full-on phobia and risk death by, say…lobster. A Semi-Definitive List of Wor...

When Dimple Met Rishi by Sandhya Menon Age Range: 13 & up Release Date: May 30, 2017 Simon Pulse 9781481478687 You never know when you’re going to fall in love. Just as mysterious a phenomenon is who you will fall in love with . When Dimple Shah’s parents agree to send her to a summer program for aspiring web developers, she thinks they’re finally starting to understand her. To care about her hopes and dreams. Maybe they’ve even dropped this whole “Ideal Indian Husband” nonsense. What she doesn’t expect is another family to be in cahoots with her parents, or for this family to send their oldest son to the same program with the goal of winning her over. And Rishi Patel is for it. Dimple and Rishi are a delight. Dimple is ambitious and hardheaded, and when she discovers her family’s deception she refuses to take part. She did not come to this program to fall in love. She came to learn, and to win a shot at developing an app with her idol. Dimple is of the fir...

The Lines We Cross by Randa Abdel-Fattah Age Range: 13 & up Release Date: May 9, 2017 Scholastic Press 9781338118667 The people we love have a profound effect on us. The way we are raised influences our beliefs and our values, whether we end up agreeing with them or not. And very often, meeting another person can alter steadfast beliefs for the better and open you up to a whole new way of thinking. The Lines We Cross showcases this beautifully, telling the story of one teen’s eyes opening for the first time, and of another learning that not everyone is who they first seem to be. Mina is a refugee from Afghanistan. Though her family has lived in Australia for a decade now, she still feels boxed in this way by the community, and the traumatic experiences of her young life sit with her. This feeling is exacerbated even more when Mina and her family move across town so she can attend a prestigious prep school on scholarship. This is a major opportunity, despite the...

Eliza and Her Monsters by Francesca Zappia Age Range: 13 & up Release Date: May 30, 2017 Greenwillow Books 9780062290137 Eliza Mirk is an angsty teen. That’s certainly nothing new. She has a mom, a dad, and two younger brothers who drive her up the wall. She’s always being asked to come out of her room, to put her phone away, to get off the internet, to pull herself out of her own head and spend time with real people. What is unusual about Eliza is her art, an immensely popular webcomic called Monstrous Sea . Eliza keeps her identity anonymous, preferring to interact with the enthusiastic Monstrous Sea online community from the peripheral. Her creation is even lucrative enough to put her through school in the future. This popularity does not accompany her during school hours. As we all know, high school is rough. Teenagers can be judgmental and mean, and Eliza is weird from a traditionally social standpoint. She much prefers her online community. Then she meets ...

Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson Age Range: 13 & up Release Date: June 13, 2017 HarperTeen 9780062393548 Time jumping in a story can be tricky. If it isn’t done right, it leaves the reader confused and unsure of the thread of the narrative. At worst, it causes frustration with the book itself. Midnight at the Electric does not have this problem. Anderson starts her story in the year 2065. We then jump back to 1934, then again to 1919, and far from being frustrating, each new time jump pulls you in even farther than the one before. Our first narrator is Adri, a loner who doesn’t know how to connect with anyone around her. Her life’s purpose has been to go to Mars as a Colonist. When she finally gets the chance, Adri relocates to Kansas for her final months of training and lives with an elderly woman named Lily, her only living relative. In her early days on Lily’s farm, Adri stumbles across a collection of letters from a young woman named Lenore, ...

Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor 9780316341684 Age Range: 14 & up Release Date: March 28, 2017 Little, Brown Books for Young Readers Junior librarian Lazlo Strange has long been obsessed with the city of Weep. A mythical place cut off from the rest of the world, Weep is purely the stuff of legend. Even the city’s true name is lost. When the leader of Weep, a fierce warrior called Eril-Fane but known as the Godslayer, assembles a team and offers Lazlo the opportunity to see the long-lost city, the young man does not hesitate. Once in the mysterious place, he thinks all his dreams have come true, only to find that his actual dreams are soon filled with visits from a beautiful blue goddess. Wasn’t he told all the gods were dead? Sarai isn’t supposed to exist. Known amongst her small family of “godspawn” as the Muse of Nightmares, she dutifully spends her evenings using her strange power to silently terrorize the sleeping citizens of Weep. When the Godslayer brings ...