Reviews written by Jason Gallaher

I never thought anything good could ever come from eating a bug. Once I read Lynne Jonell’s GRASSHOPPER MAGIC, I realized I was completely wrong. GRASSHOPPER MAGIC is the third book in the early reader Magical Mix-Up series that follows the Willow siblings. These four kids just...

Who knew that stealing a baby could be so philosophical? Emil Ostrovski, that’s who, as evidenced by his debut novel THE PARADOX OF VERTICAL FLIGHT. THE PARADOX OF VERTICAL FLIGHT follows eighteen year-old Jack immediately after the unplanned birth of his son. In going to the hospital...

When I was 10, I joined the Boy Scouts and promptly quit two weeks later. Turns out mulling about the wilderness and heaping on the survival training just wasn’t for me. If I could have joined the Sugar Man Swamp Scouts as seen in Kathi Appelt’s THE TRUE BLUE SCOUTS...

Purple and white gooey juice-filled cysts. That’s the result if you’ve ever wondered what would happen when you multiply the devastating effects of corporate neglect seen in “Erin Brockovich” by about ten. That’s also what you get when you read Corina Vacco’s “My Chemical Mountain.” “My Chemical...

“Brilliant. Completely brilliant.” Those were my thoughts upon finishing Maggie Stiefvater’s THE DREAM THIEVES, the second book in The Raven Cycle series. THE DREAM THIEVES is the follow-up to Stiefvater’s THE RAVEN BOYS, set in a quiet yet very supernaturally active Virginia town. Blue and the...

Nothing frightens me more than rotting, brain-hungry zombies. So color me (unpleasantly) surprised when I realized Sherrilyn Kenyon’s INFINITY is chock full of these undead, oozing monsters. Rather than cringing in fear, however, Kenyon’s witty and action-packed writing had me raucously flipping each page to be sure those moaning freaks...

Each time I went to my Great Grandma Lucy’s house, I never dared go into the guest room. That’s where her collection of dolls stared at you so intently it looked like they could climb right into your soul. After reading Holly Black’s marvelously creepy “Doll Bones,” I think it...

Throw spiders, snakes, or scorpions at me and I’ll be perfectly fine. Rodents, however, are a different story entirely. I’ll be crying and squealing on top of a chair in no time. So going into Richard Peck’s “Secrets at Sea,” I wasn’t sure how connected I could get to his...

“The Surprise Attack of Jabba the Puppett” follows Tommy and his gang of friends as they try to thwart a new enemy: FunTime, or as it’s more appropriately labeled from time to time, The FunTime Menace. FunTime is supposed to help McQuarrie Middle School students excel at the upcoming statewide...

Having just recently received my bachelor’s degree, university classes and all they entail are fresh on my mind. After reading Joelle Charbonneau’s “Independent Study,” I am thanking my lucky stars that higher education is nothing like it is in Charbonneau’s dystopian America. “Independent Study” is Charbonneau’s follow-up...

In all honesty, I had never read an anthology of short stories for middle grade readers before I picked up “Guys Read: Other Worlds” that Jon Scieszka put together. I was hesitant at first, but after diving into this book, I realized my hesitations weren’t needed for a single second....

Being lactose intolerant, I’ve never gone gaga over anything focused on milk. Neil Gaiman’s “Fortunately, the Milk,” however, is the best time I’ve ever had reading about dairy products! “Fortunately, the Milk” follows a caring father as he heads to the corner market to get his kids...

After an unfortunate incident during a tae kwon do lesson when I was 8 years old, I vowed nothing could ever persuade me to try martial arts again. I’m completely rethinking that conviction after reading Jo Knowles’s “Living with Jackie Chan.” “Living with Jackie Chan” is a...

Throw anything at me concerning kids being mystically chosen for some magical group and you’re pretty much guaranteed that I’ll instantly fall in love. Whether it’s Hogwarts newbies throwing on the Sorting Hat to determine their House, or Camp Half-Blood kids getting put into cabins based on their godly moms...

Now I know the dystopian trend in YA is on the downswing, but sometimes I just crave reading a book about a totalitarian government ruining the lives of an energetic protagonist and her family after the world as we know it was destroyed by nuclear war in the not-too-distant future....