New Releases

Here are three new titles hitting the shelves this week:
messy
Make it Messy: My Perfectly Imperfect Life by Marcus Samuelsson and Veronica Chambers
Delacorte Books for Young Readers

In this inspirational autobiography, world-famous chef Marcus Samuelsson tells his extraordinary story and encourages young people to embrace their mistakes and follow their dreams. Based on his highly praised adult memoir, Yes, Chef, this young adult edition includes an 8-page black-and-white family photo insert.

Marcus Samuelsson’s life and his journey to the top of the food world have been anything but typical. Orphaned in Ethiopia, he was adopted by a loving couple in Sweden, where his new grandmother taught him to cook and inspired in him a lifelong passion for food. In time, that passion would lead him to train and cook in some of the finest, most demanding kitchens in Europe.

Samuelsson’s talent and ambition eventually led him to fulfill his dream of opening his own restaurant in New York City: Red Rooster Harlem, a highly acclaimed, multicultural dining room, where presidents rub elbows with jazz musicians, aspiring artists, and bus drivers. A place where anyone can feel at home. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

delicateDelicate Monsters by Stephanie Kuehn
St. Martin’s Griffin

From the Morris-Award winning author of Charm & Strange, comes a twisted and haunting tale about three teens uncovering dark secrets and even darker truths about themselves.

When nearly killing a classmate gets seventeen-year-old Sadie Su kicked out of her third boarding school in four years, she returns to her family’s California vineyard estate. Here, she’s meant to stay out of trouble. Here, she’s meant to do a lot of things. But it’s hard. She’s bored. And when Sadie’s bored, the only thing she likes is trouble.

Emerson Tate’s a poor boy living in a rich town, with his widowed mother and strange, haunted little brother. All he wants his senior year is to play basketball and make something happen with the girl of his dreams. That’s why Emerson’s not happy Sadie’s back. An old childhood friend, she knows his worst secrets. The things he longs to forget. The things she won’t ever let him.

Haunted is a good word for fifteen-year-old Miles Tate. Miles can see the future, after all. And he knows his vision of tragic violence at his school will come true, because his visions always do. That’s what he tells the new girl in town. The one who listens to him. The one who recognizes the darkness in his past.

But can Miles stop the violence? Or has the future already been written? Maybe tragedy is his destiny. Maybe it’s all of theirs. — Cover image and summary via Goodreads

cut off Cut Off by Jamie Bastedo
Red Deer Press

A topical tale of one teen’s addiction to the Cyber World – and the Northern adventure that saved his life.

Fourteen-year-old Indio McCracken enjoys meteoric stardom as a guitar prodigy after his father posts a video of him playing. Things quickly go sour when Indio’s fame fuels his father’s dream of raising the world’s next Segovia. Robbed of a normal childhood and already feeling alienated by his mixed Guatemalan-Canadian heritage, Indio desperately seeks escape online by creating a virtual identity, an obsession that almost kills him. Facing school expulsion ? or worse ? unless he kicks his Internet habit, Indio is shipped off to a teen addictions rehab center in the wilds of northern Canada where the adventure of a lifetime awaits him.

We all depend on computers, smartphones, or other handheld devices for sharing information, keeping in touch, and entertaining ourselves. But what happens when our normal interaction with these useful tools crosses the line into addiction?

Award-winning author Jamie Bastedo explores the roots of one “screenager’s” passions and pitfalls in this timely tale of oppression, addiction, and deliverance. — Cover image via Goodreads. Description via publisher.