John Dreamer by Elise Celine Saving Baby Doe by Danette Vigilante The Milk of Birds by Sylvia Whitman      
John Dreamer
Meet the author
Elise Celine
(Ages 13+)
Saving Baby Doe
Meet the author
Danette Vigilante
(Ages 10+)
The Milk of Birds
Meet the author
Sylvia Whitman
(Ages 14+)
     
Home Author Archive Dear Reader Notes Get KidBuzz Info

Margie Gelbwasser

Dear Librarian:

When you grow up multicultural, which traditions do you embrace and which do you shun? Born in Russia, I came to the United States when I was three years old. However, the struggle of trying to fit in with both my American friends and my Russian home plagued me throughout my teens.

Alyssa Bondar, a Russian-Jewish teen in New Jersey, walks this same tightrope in INCONVENIENT. Amid a popularity-hungry best friend and her first crush, Alyssa must also cope with her mother's alcoholism — something her Russian family believes is just a "normal" part of life.

Family alcoholism continues to remain a shameful secret for too many teens. And too many cultures still adhere to the stereotype that it can't happen to them. To learn more about INCOVENIENT, a 2011 Sydney Taylor Notable Book for Teens, and win a signed copy, contact me via my website: www.MargieWrites.com.

Margie Gelbwasser

"The story is both hilarious and heartbreaking,... the situations are universal.... The story, especially the ending, is honest and unsentimental about the difficulties Alyssa faces."—Booklist

"...Alyssa's story is a refreshing take on the YA problem novel, one that refuses melodrama and favors instead the powerful significance of the smaller moments of life-a smell, a look, a flash of a memory." —School Library Journal

"Gelbwasser realistically portrays the shifting emotions of a teenager navigating complicated situations and conflicting loyalties. This is a complicated drama of people sinking to the lowest common denominator and rising to their best selves to do the right thing."—VOYA


Inconvenient / Margie Gelbwasser / Flux

Price: $9.95 / ISBN: 978-0738721484 / Published: November, 2010

Ages 7-12 / YA


Margie Gelbwasser is one of our featured authors this week. Click here to view her reader comments and feel free to use them in your newsletters.



© Copyright 2005 by AuthorBuzz