Elisabeth's May 2013 pick

Sanderson's worldbuilding ability shines in this novel, a first YA offering from this fantasy giant. An alternate earth contains just enough place names and events to provide a sense of familiarity to ground the alternate history and the fantastical events of this novel, and the physics and math based magic provides a credibility that "Abracadabra" just can't match. The characters of this novel suit the late middle school crowd of readers, but the serious tones of the novel will still hold the interest of a high schooler.

Elisabeth's June 2012 review 

Ruby and Simon, twelve-year-old twins, are passing their first summer at their family's new farm in Wisconsin, when a mysterious man shows up to explain that the strange weather they've been having is attached to Simon's mood and that Simon is the youngest (and potentially the most powerful) Storm Maker the world has ever seen.
A delightful middle-grade reader with a girl narrator telling the story, but centered around her twin brother (thus making it palatable for readers of either sex).
It is a delight to read a book that has average protagonists. Normal teens with normal tantrums and intelligences, confusions, and fears. Thrust into overwhelming and frightening situations, they act like twelve-year-olds, not politically saavy adults or exceptionally gifted and talented wonder-kids. It is no mysterious family secret or hidden bloodline, just chance that gifts Simon with his powers.
Written well for the age group, not dumbed down ("for kids") but rather written with an age-empathic vocabulary and sentence structure.

Elisabeth's February 2012 pick

I wept.

I wept and I would still read it again. I am tempted to leave the review at that. "I wept." This book is wonderful and terrible, and well-written. John Green has the singular ability to write like people (teenagers especially) feel, to distill into words a feeling, an impression, in a very non-literary sort of way. He is also excellent at sympathetically channeling the singular misery and drama that teenagers feel. Give this to the teenager in your life who might also like Jodi Picoult.

King Hugo's Huge Ego is a delight! Written in rhyming quatrains, each page has the bouncing, contagious feel of a limerick (not a dirty one, thank you very much) which trips and rolls off the tongue. This story was a lot of fun to read to children.