​If you believe in faeries, you should read this book as everything you thought about truth and the fierce beauty of that in-between world will be confirmed. If you don’t believe, you should even more so read this book so that you can experience that twilight world where dreams can be real and faerie “makings” encompass everything from transfiguration to keys made of poems and dance.
Clare is 14 and returned to Ireland and the domed underground house of her birth and the yew tree that grows within.  She is the latest of the tree’s guardians; her dead mother and all those grandmothers before her are a legacy.
Within the tree’s between place, she meets Finn, a boy part fairy, part human who she knew as a toddler.  Together they embark on quest to save the two worlds from forever closing which would cut the human world off from the ability to dream and create and the fairies from the ability to love.
Finn’s father Balor is a hideously fierce and unfeeling opponent to be faced and bound before he can destroy the gateway for ever. Here be true magic, both bright and dark. Gorgeous, haunting and wonderfully strange.  Dare to enter this world.


​Tessa's Picks, 5th-8th grade, Fairy tales, Fantasy, Supernatural

Jordan Sun is beginning her junior year at the Kensington-Blaine Boarding School for the Performing arts and once again she does not get cast for the fall musical.  Her low alto 2 voice is jeopardizing her whole life!  A cappella is a real thing at this school; there is more than one group and they have elite status.  Think Glee. Then she gets a mass email. The Sharpshooters have an opening in their group.  Unfortunately it is an all-male group. Is this going to stop Jordan whose voice range is a perfect fit? No. She becomes Julian Zhang. The hair gets cut, baggy clothes bought, tips on how to walk and move from trans kids on-line and voila. Jordan-Julian gets the spot.  The book focuses on Julian and how moving through the world as a male is a revelation to Jordan.
Enter the Sharps.  All seven of them become real people who you are invested in. They are such a diverse group.  Jordan is bisexual and Chinese, and also represented are Japanese, queer, Sikh, Indian, learning disabled, and underrepresented body type. Jordan’s ethnicity and economic status have made her feel like an outsider on campus.  Friendships are formed and Jordan feels part of a group for the first time.  If the Sharps win the Holiday competition, they will be opening for an internationally known group and tour Europe over break.
Family economic trouble looms and all may come crashing down.  Jordan is an engaging character as she struggles to find out who she is and where she is going.   You leave this book wanting to follow all the characters’ stories into the future.
 

​Tessa's Picks, 8th Summer 2018, Character driven, Contemporary fiction, Friendship, People of color, School stories

Maddie and her friends are excited to audition for the eighth grade play Romeo and Juliet.  There is plenty of drama happening on the middle school stage already with crushes, mean girls, cliques and rivalries.  New girl Gemma with her good looks, British accent, and kind, cheery personality is a shoe in for Juliet.  Maddie likes her, a lot, maybe as more than a friend.  When the boy playing Romeo drops out only weeks before opening night, there is only one person who the director sees as a possible replacement.  Is this Maddie dream role or her worst nightmare?  Sprinkled with the Bard’s words, as well as the fun to be had using Shakespearean insults, this story will appeal to theatre geeks everywhere.  



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Tessa' Picks, 4th-7th grade, Character driven, Contemporary Fiction, Friendship, LGBTQ, Romance