(2) 4-6 Cisley's magician's-assistant mother vanishes during Uncle Asa's magic show. Asa forbids Cisley to leave their castle, forcing her to use her newfound magical abilities to create a black rose--the one thing that might bring her mother back. Disorientingly bizarre elements leave readers off-kilter for much of this idiosyncratic book, but the plot has the internal cohesion to tie up its loose ends.

Reviewer: Anita L. Burkam | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2015

(2) 4-6 In fictional 1923, calamity descends on Daniel's town in the form of mad Captain Sloper and his soldiers. Only after a visit to the mysterious island in the middle of the forest do Daniel and his friend Emily unravel the relevant puzzles. Townley's fanciful story is quirky and engaging; sentences hurry purposefully along, deepening atmosphere, theme, and plot.

Reviewer: Deirdre F. Baker | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2011

(3) 4-6 Illustrated by Mary GrandPré. Hap Barlo is apprentice to a poor shoemaker. A mysterious figure commissions a blue-jewel-encrusted shoe, setting off a chain of events leading to Hap's arrest and exile to Xexnax Mountain. There he's reunited with his father and leads a prisoners' coup. GrandPré's shadowy blue illustrations and the book's thoughtful design (including text in blue ink) contribute to this satisfying fairy tale.

Reviewer: Elissa Gershowitz

(4) YA With her psychotherapist, sixteen-year-old Dana explores her recurrent nightmares only to discover that they are fragments of two past lives, one in Renaissance England and the other in eighteenth-century London. She slowly realizes it is not only her artistic talents and family members that reappear in each incarnation, but also her nemesis. The telegraphed conclusion is partly offset by the well-wrought historical elements of this thriller.

Reviewer: Megan Lynn Isaac

(3) YA A prickly friendship with a blind jazz musician helps Sky, a talented teenage pianist, mend a rift with his widowed father, speak up when a classmate is harassed by a teacher, and find his own musical voice. The evenly paced novel believably captures the Bohemian spirit of New York's jazz world in the late 1950s.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta

(4) 4-6 Sylvie, a princess in a storybook, escapes from the margins of her pages and enters the dreams of one of the book's readers, a girl named Claire. A generation later, Sylvie crosses into the dreams of Claire's daughter Lily and inspires the young woman to write. This cleverly inventive novel contains some underdeveloped scenes but comes to a thoughtful and touching conclusion.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta