Today's featured review comes from one of our Round II judges for Young Adult Fiction, Kelly Jensen, who blogs at STACKED. She's a librarian in Illinois with a lit background who especially enjoys reading teen literature. At STACKED, she and her co-bloggers strive to review books for readers as well as to draw in non-readers.
One of her favorite reads of 2009 was Cybils finalist How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford. It's a book that's been making waves around the kidlitosphere for sure. While dealing with powerful themes of family, friendship, and loss, Kelly notes that it doesn't get didactic or heavy-handed:
It was clearly a well-planned book but it wasn't oversculpted nor manicured to a point. It was left with enough room to make connections and pull together ties for each reader to take away something personal.
Read the full review here.