STARRED REVIEW
December 07, 2015

Gifts for ravenous teen readers

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Do you have a teen on your gift list whose bookshelf holds their most prized possessions, who has crushes on fictional characters and who seems more interested in make-believe lands than the real world? You’re in luck: These three new books make ideal gifts for the book-obsessed teen.

STARRED REVIEW
December 07, 2015

Gifts for ravenous teen readers

Feature by

Do you have a teen on your gift list whose bookshelf holds their most prized possessions, who has crushes on fictional characters and who seems more interested in make-believe lands than the real world? You’re in luck: These three new books make ideal gifts for the book-obsessed teen.

December 07, 2015

Gifts for ravenous teen readers

Feature by

Do you have a teen on your gift list whose bookshelf holds their most prized possessions, who has crushes on fictional characters and who seems more interested in make-believe lands than the real world? You’re in luck: These three new books make ideal gifts for the book-obsessed teen.

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LITTLE GOLDEN BOOK
Two classic fairy tales combine with a trademark Neil Gaiman twist in The Sleeper and the Spindle. Originally published without illustrations in the anthology Rags & Bones: New Twists on Timeless Tales, edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt, Gaiman’s tale melds the darkest elements of Sleeping Beauty and Snow White for something familiar yet wickedly updated. Warrior queen Snow White (though she’s not named outright) has just survived her yearlong sleeping curse and is preparing to marry a man she’d much rather not. When three dwarfs warn her that a sleeping curse spreads toward her lands, she and her short-statured companions take off to save Sleeping Beauty and the many, many people who have fallen victim to the curse. While Gaiman’s short tale offers moments of whimsy and humor, the black-and-white illustrations by Kate Greenaway Award winner Chris Riddell, gilded here and there with metallic details, make this book worthy of any bookshelf. From the delicate spiderwebs that spread over the sleeping citizens to the sagging, loose skin of a creepy old woman who guards Sleeping Beauty, Riddell’s illustrations elevate The Sleeper and the Spindle to nothing less than an object of art.

WOMEN OF SCIENCE
Women have more access to education and career advancement than ever before in history. However, they certainly haven’t achieved parity with men, with women making up only a third of scientific researchers worldwide. And all too often, the scientific contributions of women throughout history have gone unacknowledged. Following up the award-winning Magnificent Minds, Pendred E. Noyce’s Remarkable Minds spotlights 17 more pioneering women in science, engineering, mathematics and medicine. Spanning seven countries and three centuries, the brilliant heroines of Remarkable Minds are forgotten no more, from a French noblewoman to the granddaughter of slaves, from women who hesitated to call themselves scientists and those who became winners of the Nobel Prize. For all the many advancements highlighted here, perhaps what readers will remember best of all is the stories of women helping women, advising and advocating for each other and celebrating each other’s achievements.

ROOKIE’S SENIOR YEAR
Rookiemag.com is an online, independent magazine written by young women, for young women, and Rookie Yearbook Four is the latest compilation of the very best art, essays, photographs, playlists, DIY tutorials, guides and interviews from June 2014 through May 2015. In the tradition of yearbooks, this is also the last in the series, as editor and founder Tavi Gevinson grows up, graduates, moves out and waves goodbye to this format of Rookie—while promising that the mag and its community will continue. In Rookie’s senior yearbook, readers explore essays on rape culture, heartbreak, humility, role models, college admissions, sex, crushes and love; on honoring yourself, your body, your BFF and your creativity; on transitions big and small. There are themed playlists with power anthems, poetry and photography by teens, interviews with Donna Tartt, Laverne Cox, FKA twigs and Genevieve Liu (the founder of Surviving Life After a Parent Dies, or SLAP’D), plus so much more. In Yearbook Two, Tavi wrote that “the closest thing I have to the sense that someone, somewhere is watching over me is the knowledge that everything I could possibly feel has been articulated by another human being in art.” Here it is, as powerful as it is playful—everything a teen girl’s heart has ever felt and may ever feel.

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Get the Books

The Sleeper and the Spindle

The Sleeper and the Spindle

By Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell
Harper
ISBN 9780062398246
Remarkable Minds

Remarkable Minds

By Pendred E. Noyce
Tumblehome Learning
ISBN 9780990782902
Rookie Yearbook Four

Rookie Yearbook Four

By Tavi Gevinson
Razorbill
ISBN 9781595147950

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