A mom and a bookseller, Tanya Zavestoski Turek has been blogging since 2008 at Books 4 Your Kids, where she highlights amazing but possibly overlooked children's books, especially picture books and chapter books. This year she's a Round II judge for Elementary and Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Recently, Tanya reviewed SFF finalist Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes, a fantastical tale of spirituality, inner strength, and unexpected supernatural abilities that takes place during the events of Hurricane Katrina. Tanya goes in-depth in her review, closely examining the plot as well as giving her opinion of the book:
[T]he amazing, wonderful, beautiful thing about a book, a good book, a really well written book, is that it can open you up to the difficulties then carry you through the sadness and the pain to the happy ending, especially when it is layered with metaphors and narrated by a character with a remarkable outlook on life as Ninth Ward is.
Read the full review here.