Angela Leeper, Author at BookPage | Discover your next great book!

by Angela Leeper

Squares, circles and triangles, sure. But who knew there were so many spirals around us? Just as she did in her recent Caldecott Honor title, Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, and Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature’s Survivors, Joyce Sidman challenges young readers to look at their environment with fresh eyes in Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature.

Sidman’s lyrical text opens with an unexpected observation: “A spiral is a snuggling shape,” exemplified by slumbering animals coiled tight to stay warm through hibernation. It continues with a look at what a spiral is (e.g., a clever shape in a butterfly’s proboscis or a spider’s web); what a spiral does (e.g., a snail shell that protects its inhabitant); and the need for spirals (e.g., an Asian elephant that uses its spiraling trunk to grasp food).

It’s not only in plants and animals that spirals are found. A bold spiral curves to make a breaking ocean wave, while a twisting spiral forms a classic funnel tornado. Still another spiral stretches “starry arms through space” to form a galaxy. To truly understand the formation and function of these spirals, children need to see them in action. In her signature scratchboard illustrations, Caldecott Medalist Beth Krommes does just that. From a fern’s curling leaves to a merino sheep’s horns to the tentacles of an octopus, the beautifully luminous illustrations depict both predictable and unusual examples of spirals.

For curious children (and adults), a concluding double-page spread offers more information on many spirals, as well as an explanation of Fibonacci numbers and the spirals they create. It may take several reads before children notice all of the swirling spirals, but each reading will be a stunning adventure to see how the world shapes up.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Pirouettes and puberty

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Don’t call 19-year-old Hannah Ward a ballerina, a term reserved for the stars of the prestigious Manhattan Ballet. As a dancer in the company’s corps de ballet since leaving home at 14, she’s a true bunhead, dedicating nearly every waking moment to her profession. Hannah’s world is an unusual mix of constant jealousy, as every girl tries to outperform the others for coveted soloist positions, and fierce loyalty forged out of years of devotion together. To remain competitive and to maintain their gaunt appearances, the dancers practice to near exhaustion before their three to four performances per evening and succumb to unhealthy diets that only lead to fatigue and injuries later.

Despite the anxiety in her shared dressing room, Hannah feels confident that she can advance as she enters the fall season. But when puberty strikes, causing her breasts to grow, she faces the impossible task of losing her curves. An even bigger obstacle—named Jacob—also enters the scene. Hannah, who’s never even been kissed, can only manage to spend a few precious hours with Jacob, and she begins to see how little of the city, and the world, she’s experienced outside of ballet.

In Bunheads, her eye-opening debut novel, former New York City Ballet dancer Sophie Flack gives readers a compelling look at the rigorous life of ballet dancers. Will Hannah forfeit everything, including Jacob, to take her dance to the next level, or can she give up the only life she’s known, and even her friends, to start over in the real world? Either path requires sacrifices in this unforgettable journey of self-discovery.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

A family of all shapes and sizes

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Patricia MacLachlan, Newbery Medalist for Sarah, Plain and Tall, delivers another heartfelt story of family and home in Waiting for the Magic. Just as William wonders who his fifth grade teacher will be when school starts, his professor father leaves home—again. In his absence, his mother decides that William and his little sister, Elinor, need a dog. Unable to decide which dog meets their needs, they return with four dogs of varying sizes and temperaments and a cat to boot.

The dogs’ arrival sparks some magic immediately when four-year-old Elinor and her grandparents start chatting with the canine newcomers. William, on the other hand, has never even thought about magic and certainly doesn’t believe in it. Although his grandmother suggests that he’s not young enough or old enough or brave enough to believe, he still resists the possibility that conversations are occurring between people and dogs.

William is quiet and steady, and when he discovers that his mother is expecting a baby, he musters the courage, with the help of his new dogs, to tell Mama that Papa should know about the situation. In light of his bravery, William begins to hear the dogs speak. But can he also find the courage to forgive when his father comes back? MacLachlan handles this scary and difficult parental separation with sensitivity, while Amy June Bates’ charming charcoal sketches and the dogs’ whimsical yet wise speech helps to lighten the mood.

Perhaps there’s more to magic than talking dogs, though. In distinct ways, the family members learn that real magic can be found at home among seemingly everyday events. Readers, who can’t help but be touched by this affirming story, will find themselves looking for magic in their own lives. MacLachlan has another classic in the making.

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Most of us rarely take time to notice the twinkling lights that adorn the sky on clear evenings, but Mary Lyn Ray’s Stars reminds us of the wonder that surrounds us—night and day. Caldecott Honor recipient Marla Frazee’s soothing graphite and gouache illustrations are the perfect accompaniment to the quiet, gentle text. The beginning endpapers sport a faint blue sky with puffy clouds, while the opening page grows a little darker and features a single star and a single sentence: “A star is how you know it’s almost night.”

Subsequent pages allow readers to explore other ways stars enter our lives. We can make our own stars out of paper to become a sheriff or to place on a wand and make wishes or to lift our spirits when we’re not feeling as shiny as a star. We can find stars around us, from the yellow stars on vines that become October pumpkins to the snowflakes of winter.

Ray then brings us back to the stars that began the book, and the background darkens again as children get ready for bed and families huddle together to watch more and more stars emerge. But wait! There’s another surprise as the families look up to see a different form of stars—fireworks. Finally, the brightly colored smoke of the fireworks gives way to a black sky with increasing stars, while concluding endpapers depict the vastness of the night sky.

This stunning collaboration between writer and artist gently reminds us that shining stars bring beauty to the world. Stars will encourage young readers and listeners (and their parents) to gaze with new appreciation at the night sky.

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

A near-future story that’s both bitter and sweet

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Having tackled amnesia and the afterlife in previous novels, Gabrielle Zevin turns to the future in All These Things I’ve Done. Unlike many of the proliferating dystopias that have taken over young adult literature, this glimpse at the year 2083 is funny and romantic as 16-year-old Anya Balanchine looks back at one wild year in the heart of New York City.

In a Prohibition-like age in which speakeasies dole out illegal chocolate and caffeinated beverages, Anya is just trying to keep her family out of trouble until she turns 18. With her notorious chocolate crime boss father and former CSI mother dead from “mafiya” hits, an older brother with mental challenges from an unsuccessful hit, an overlooked genius little sister and a grandmother kept alive as guardian with a host of machines, Anya has become the real head of the household.

Her life becomes even more complicated when her ex-boyfriend is poisoned by bars of her family’s black-market chocolate—and she’s the prime suspect. To make matters worse, her brother has gotten involved in the family business, and Anya can’t resist new student Win Delacroix, whose father is running for District Attorney. With her head and her heart constantly at odds, feisty Anya must decide what’s right for her in the face of unusual family and relationship dynamics.

Anya’s predicaments are reason enough to like this witty story, but her amusing narration, complete with notes to the reader, adds to the enjoyment. Although she doesn’t understand the significance of such sites as “Little Egypt,” a club that used to be a museum with a grand collection of Egyptian art, or such dated expressions as “OMG” from the era of her grandmother (born in 1995), readers will appreciate the humor. Just like chocolate, the story’s dark bitterness is sweetened by Anya to form a delicious treat.

Children's & YA, Picture Book

Children's & YA Picture Book

A garden of memories

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Whether he’s humorously reminding readers of the power of the printed word in It’s a Book or taking a nonconformist look at the founding fathers in John, Paul, George & Ben, author-illustrator Lane Smith never ceases to amaze. His latest endeavor, Grandpa Green, offers a unique perspective on family relationships that will resonate with both children and adults alike.

A young boy walks through a topiary garden and narrates the life of his great-grandfather, who wanted to study horticulture but went to fight a world war instead, met his future wife in a café and returned to have a large family. While the boy, rendered in ink, blends into the background, his great-grandfather’s lush and meticulously sculpted bushes and hedges, created with watercolor, oil paint and digital paint, tell the real story.

It’s not long before readers notice that the boy is gathering gloves, eyeglasses and other items misplaced by his great-grandfather along the path. Though his great-grandfather is now forgetful, the boy knows that as long as the garden flourishes, his memories will always be preserved. To sum up the boy’s sentiments, a double-page spread shows the old man’s handiwork in all its glory. Even more surprises hidden in the illustrations await observant readers, who will find Grandpa Green an unforgettable blend of story and art.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

Back from the dead

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Small-town life has never been funnier than in Jack Gantos’ Dead End in Norvelt. The 11-year-old main character, who suffers from profuse nosebleeds, also happens to be named Jack Gantos. Jack is enduring the summer in his hometown of Norvelt, Pennsylvania, a model community created during the Great Depression and renamed to honor Eleanor Roosevelt. While not strictly autobiographical, the story’s gothic humor is classic Gantos.

The summer of 1962 should be carefree for Jack, but when he accidentally fires his father’s WWII Japanese rifle and mows down his mother’s corn to make way for the backyard runway his father is planning, he is permanently grounded. His only reprieve is helping his neighbor, Miss Volker, with her unique obituaries of the last of the original Norvelters. Suffering from severe arthritis, which even “cooking” her hands in paraffin wax can’t cure, Miss Volker enlists Jack as her scribe. In the process, the boy learns the importance of history, especially now that his economically depressed town is dying like the ancient Lost Worlds he’s been reading about while cooped up in this bedroom.

When a string of Norvelter old ladies start dying, there’s no time for anything but obituaries (not even sneaking out to play baseball with Bunny, who knows a million dead-people jokes since her father owns the local funeral home). The story takes on an air of mystery when it appears that several townsfolk could be responsible for the deaths. Maybe Jack could figure things out better if he weren’t also afraid of a group of Hells Angels bent on revenge for the death of a buddy; if he didn’t have to dig a fake bomb shelter as a ruse for his father’s runway; and if his nose would ever stop bleeding.

Sure, this boy’s life is over the top, but readers would expect nothing less from Jack Gantos (either one of them).

Children's & YA, YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction YA

Suspended in time and space

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

After 62 years in stasis, a chemically induced hypersleep that suspends the aging process, Rosalinda Samantha Fitzroy—or simply Rose—awakens, still 16 years old, to discover not only that she’s been slumbering in a forgotten subbasement all these years, but that she’s the sole surviving heiress, a princess if you will, to an interplanetary empire known as UniCorp. In Anna Sheehan’s futuristic young adult debut, A Long, Long Sleep, this sleeping beauty bears no resemblance to the Disney princess. Rose’s chilling story explores the emotional aftermath of lost time, dreams and love.

As Rose tries to assimilate in her new Uni Prep school (the best in the solar system), she learns the history of the last half-century, including the Dark Times, in which a population boom was followed by a resurgence of tuberculosis and bubonic plague, as well as widespread infertility. Flashbacks to Rose’s youth slowly reveal her numerous stays in stasis (really making her 100 years old), the long-term effects of her abusive parents and her first love with Xavier, whom she met when he was an infant and she was seven years old, though he grew to surpass her in age.

Although Rose finds some comfort in her friendships with princely, handsome Bren and Otto, a mute human-alien hybrid created by UniCorp who understands the briar patch she has formed around her heart, she still longs for Xavier. And adjustment would definitely be easier if there weren’t a Plastine, a plasticized human corpse, programmed to find and kill her. Outrunning this nearly indestructible assassin and finding its original programmer add layers of adventure and mystery to this already intriguing science fiction story.

Whether comparing Rose’s story to other Briar Rose and Sleeping Beauty variants, wondering about her complicated situation or simply enjoying the thrilling suspense, readers will hope that Rose can find some happiness ever after in a complex world.

Children's & YA, YA Fiction

Children's & YA YA Fiction

Meta rock’n’roll fantasy

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Robert T. Jeschonek takes metafiction to the extreme in his teen novel My Favorite Band Does Not Exist, which features no fewer than three alternate realities. Idea Deity has an unshakable fear that he is a character in a novel and that its malevolent author has doomed him to die in chapter 64. When not worrying about his fate, he’s working on his hoax website about a fake band called Youforia and marveling over its legions of followers on YoFace and Yapper. In alternating chapters, Reacher Mirage, lead singer of Youforia, wonders how so many people know about his secret band when they haven’t even gone public yet. (He’s waiting for that magic feeling, so quit pressuring him.) Interrupting Idea’s and Reacher’s stories are dog-eared chapters out of Idea’s favorite book, Fireskull’s Revenant, a parody of bad fantasy writing that features the ongoing battle between Lord Fireskull and his mortal enemy, Johnny Without. As the story—part Spinal Tap, part Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and part its own surreal invention—twists and turns, these four characters begin to parallel one another.

Confused yet? That’s all part of the fun in this urban fantasy that exudes tongue-in-cheek humor as it mocks everything from politics and the internet to literature and parenting. With the help of a (literally) two-faced character, Idea and Reacher (or is that Fireskull and Johnny?) not only confront their difficult pasts and their uncontrollable fears, but just may restore the Chain of Realities to their worlds. To reveal any more would spoil the intricate and irreverent plot; to call this novel unique would be an understatement.

Children's & YA, Middle Grade

Children's & YA Middle Grade

California dreamin’ for equality

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

In this bittersweet story based on actual events, Mexican-American Sylvia Mendez and Japanese-American Aki Munemitsu share a bedroom in Orange County, California, from 1942 to 1945. Well, sort of. After Aki’s father, who’s considered a threat to national security, is taken away and Aki, her mother and her brother are sent to an internment camp in Arizona, the Mendez family leases the Munemitsu asparagus farm in California.

In alternating chapters, the girls express their confusion and frustration when they are denied basic freedoms. Sylvia, eager to start third grade in a school with new textbooks, is told that she must attend the Mexican school, which is further away, only prepares students for menial jobs and gives them out-of-date, hand-me-down textbooks and scarred, secondhand desks. Meanwhile, Aki and her family must cope with meager housing and supplies and an almost three-year separation from Aki’s father.

Despite their physical distance, both girls share a love for dolls and develop a friendship via letters. And despite their different ancestries, both families share a common goal: equality. As Aki’s brother must decide if he can serve in the military of a country that doesn’t recognize him as an American, Sylvia’s father sues the local school system on March 2, 1945, for her right to attend the closer white school. Author Winifred Conkling used court records from the real-life case to include some of the courtroom dialogue, almost verbatim.

Although the story ends with the return of Aki’s family to their farmhouse, an enlightening afterword explains how history unfolded. Conkling provides photos of the real Sylvia and Aki and information about Japanese internment camps, but perhaps the most profound element is the record of the Mendez lawsuit, which not only inspired the end of school segregation in California in 1947, but influenced the landmark lawsuit Brown v. Board of Education, which made school segregation illegal nationwide in 1954. Change and friendship may start small, but their impact can be far-reaching.

Picture Book

Picture Book

The thrill of the ride

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Whoever coined the term “deceptively simple” obviously had something like Frank Viva’s debut picture book, Along a Long Road, in mind. Created digitally as a single, 35-foot-long piece of art, this story of a lone cyclist is less about the short text (sometimes only one word per page) and more about the experience he brings to young readers and listeners. The retro-style illustrations sport minimal background colors—cream, blue and black—and a touch of red in the cyclist’s jersey. Children’s eyes and hands will be drawn to the raised yellow road, which they can trace with their fingers on each page.

When the cyclist sets out on his ride, a lighthouse appears in the background and a dragonfly hovers above. As he journeys up and down a hill, into a tunnel, over a bridge and through a town, his body positions and expressions give clues to the strenuousness and enjoyment of the ride. When he can reach his full speed on a straightaway, his smile and already extended body appear to stretch even longer. Items in the foreground and background, such as a snail inching uphill and a roaring jet, also help identify the rider’s pace, while another clue set in the rider’s path foreshadows a quick bump in the road.

Never far from shore, the cyclist comes full circle to his starting point, this time with the moon illuminating the water, the lighthouse sending out a beam of light and a bat flying overhead. As he continues along the road, young readers will want to turn back to the beginning and follow along again—and again.

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

The persistence of memory

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Every day at 4:33 a.m., high school junior London Lane’s mind resets and her memory is wiped clean for no apparent reason. Much like Drew Barrymore’s character in 50 First Dates, who suffers from anterograde amnesia, London forms no new memories of each day’s events. But she can “remember” memories of events that will happen to her in the future. Relying on meticulous notes from the days and weeks before, she pieces together her life for the current day, from what she should wear and which classes have homework due, to why her best friend, who is dating one of their teachers, refuses to speak to her, to how Luke Henry, the cute guy who picks her up each morning, has become her boyfriend.

Part romance and part thriller, London’s story intensifies when she notices that she has no memories of her future with Luke and a recurring memory of a funeral begins to haunt her. Will the funeral be for Luke, her absent father or even a stranger she hasn’t met yet? With the discovery of a hidden envelope in her mother’s closet and help from Luke and their growing love (“I wonder whether my heart keeps time even when my head doesn’t”), London realizes that her funeral memory from the future may actually be from the past. Stuck between these two times, she must find out if her breakthrough in memory is the family tragedy that’s been kept secret all these years and what impact her memories hold on the future.

Forgotten is a thought-provoking debut novel and a glimpse at the mysteries of the brain. Experiencing London’s dilemmas, readers can’t help but ponder the importance of their own memories.

YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA

Surviving a primitive dystopia

Review by Angela Leeper

by Angela Leeper

Born under a full moon at midwinter, 18-year-old Saba and her twin brother Lugh live in a dry and desolate wasteland left behind by the Wrecker civilization. Their Pa learned how to read the stars, but that skill can’t save him when the King’s henchmen, high on a drug called chaal, kidnap Lugh—killing their father in the process. Saba’s not sure if “eether Pa was readin the stars wrong or the stars was tellin him lies.” But she does know that she has to rescue Lugh—at any cost.

Spare storytelling plus one very tough heroine equal nonstop adventure in this atmospheric dystopian debut novel, told in Saba’s primitive dialect. As the plot unfolds, Saba braves fighting warriors, sandstorms fierce enough to uncover abandoned Wrecker cities in seconds and other undesirable surprises. Sometimes the real battle, though, is with her own guilt and the responsibility she feels to her family, and even to what’s left of humanity. Aiding Saba on her quest are her tagalong younger sister (whom she can’t seem to leave behind—no matter how hard she tries), a renegade group of female revolutionaries and the quick-witted—and frustratingly handsome—Jack. Fans of the Hunger Games and Chaos Walking trilogies will welcome this exhilarating new series.

Angela Leeper

Finding nature’s infinite patterns

Pirouettes and puberty

A family of all shapes and sizes

Twinkle, twinkle, little star

A near-future story that’s both bitter and sweet

A garden of memories

Back from the dead

Suspended in time and space

Meta rock’n’roll fantasy

California dreamin’ for equality

The thrill of the ride

The persistence of memory

Surviving a primitive dystopia

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