Rules; Reaching for Sun; Carpe Diem; Looks; Rebel Angels; Saga; True Meaning of Smekday; Wicked Lovely

Rules by Cynthia Lord, 2006
Overcoming : Disabilities & mental illness (autism, paralysis)
Family relationships
Best friends & friendship
Outstanding Fiction (Schneider Family Book Award, Newberry Honor book)
Rating : Loved
Frustrated with life with David, her autistic younger brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence. She is very excited to become friends with her new neighbor Kristi, but is embarrassed by the uniqueness of David. Her world is further complicated by a friendship with a young paraplegic named Jason that she meets at the clinic where David attends sessions.

Having grown up in a home with a younger brother who has Downs Syndrome, Catherine’s story really resonated with me. I loved her humor. I could identify with her insecurities. Though the ending is a bit neat, I loved how she used drawing to see things clearly or more easily, and to communicate with Jason. One of her rules is “Looking closer can make something beautiful.” I loved how she was able to become friends with Jason, and how, when they were one-on-one, she didn’t feel any awkwardness in her interactions with him, only thoughts of improving their communication with each other. I loved how real her insecurities and fears of being labeled weird or strange for having a “weird” disabled friend felt.




Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, 2007
Overcoming : Disabilities & mental illness (cerebral palsy)
Best friends & friendship
Family relationships
Lang arts hook (novel in verse)
Outstanding Fiction (Schneider Family Book Award)
Rating : Liked
Josie, who lies with her mother and grandmother and has cerebral palsy, befriends a boy named Jordan who moves into one of the rich houses behind her old farmhouse. Her left side is “connected by an invisible rubber band” and she “wrestle[s] to wrap [her] lips around syllables, struggle[s] with [her] tongue to press the right points.” The family farmed the land for generations, until grandma needed to sell all but five acres to pay medical bills and Josie’s mom’s education. The story is divided into four sections, one for each season, starting with winter. In spring, Jordan is chasing a butterfly, referring to it by its scientific name, when he comes upon Josie under a willow tree. She knows where it’s gone – the butterfly bush, and can name that plant and many others by scientific names too. In summer, she skips her summer occupational therapy sessions that her mom signed her up for, to hang out with Jordan, enjoying a friendship she never had before. When Gran ends up in the hospital, she blurts out her deception to her mom. “You didn’t bother to ask me. I didn’t bother to tell you.”

This story deserves to be read slowly and savored. The images are rich and feelings provoked by the poetry are real. However, I was impatient in my reading of it, and only got some of the enjoyment available there. Definitely could be read again.



Carpe Diem by Autumn Cornwell, 2007
Adventure & espionage
Family relationships
Character development (life skills)
World cultures & geography (southeast Asia)
Lang Arts hook (creative writing)
Rating : OK
Sixteen-year-old Vassar Spore’s detailed plans for the next twenty years of her life are derailed when her bohemian grandmother insists that she join her in Southeast Asia for the summer, but as she writes a novel about her experiences, Vassar discovers new possibilities. The gist of the story is : over-achieving, inflexible girl learns to put up with dirt and shows even unexpected courage when her situation becomes dangerous.

I was immediately attracted to the title and cover, but the voice caught me by surprise. It was very chatty, high-school-ish and I had to skip ahead to actually get through it. The secret of what made her life-coach mom and efficiency expert dad agree to the trip in the first place was intriguing, and its revelation toward the end probably would have had more impact if I’d read the whole story up till then.



Looks by Madeleine George, 2008
Overcoming (body image & eating disorders)
Best friends & friendship
School story
Rating : Liked
Despite Meghan Ball’s massive size, she’s the most unseen person at Valley Regional High. She can hang out in a niche in the hallway, and other students say things in front of her as though she doesn’t exist, unless she’s being harassed by J-Bar who is cruel about her size and sexually suggestive. She spends most of her days in the sick room. But then one day she shares the sick room with Aimee Zorn, a girl as thin as she is fat. Sprinkled among the plot were introspective observations about the ceiling or sky. We hear about binging from Meghan and self-starvation from Aimee. There are funny cameos from various teachers and office staff throughout.

The plot’s a bit predictable with the two girls getting revenge on the sneaky, two-faced Cara, but I mostly enjoyed the read.



Rebel Angels by Libba Bray, 2005
Fantasy-Historical-19th century Britain
Rating : Liked
Gemma and her friends from the Spence Academy return to the realms to defeat her foe, Circe, and to bind the magic that has been released. It is unclear where the loyalties of Kartik and the brotherhood of the Rakshana lie until the end, as well as that of the new teacher at Spence, the dismissed teacher Ms. Moore, the spectral girls in white, the Gorgon ship. While Gemma gains the attentions of a nobleman’s son, attends balls and the opera, receives gifts, she is hiding the role she has in the Realms.

I read this because I had read the first book this past summer and liked it. The story is set around Christmas, so my timing was good. I liked this one too. I like the characters and how they struggle against the suppression of their time, but I liked the romance and the novelty of the first story better.



Saga (Epic sequel) by Kostick, 2008
Science Fiction
Government & Politics
Rating : Loved
On Saga, a world based on a video role-playing game, fifteen-year-old Ghost lives to break rules, but the Dark Queen who controls Saga plans to enslave its people and those of New Earth, and Ghost and her airboarding friends, along with Erik and his friends from Epic, try to stop her. Erik comes into this new virtual world wielding his magic and blasting away until he comes to the realization that these beings are sentient. He then befriends them and works to dethrone the Dark Queen without any more murder. Ghost and her friends realize that the Dark Queen will not ever stop her quest for domination and is able to find a new way to rule Saga.

I love how the virtual world and corporal world are put on equal footing. I love how the virtual world evolved to include sentient beings. I love how this story included the characters for Epic, but that it was a totally new story.



The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, 2007
Gratuity is writing an assignment for possible inclusion in a time capsule about the Smekday Holiday and how it has changed in the year since the aliens have left. Her first attempt talks about Moving Day and how she and her pet cat Pig try to drive to Florida instead of taking a ride in the Boov ship, but she runs out of road and must trust a Boov to fix her car. When her teacher asks her to try again, she writes a part two subtitled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Boov.” This one begins earlier, before the Boov invasion, and tells how she loses her mom, how the Boov order everyone to move to Florida because of the “hostileness and intolerableness of you people” after five months of occupation, through the time of the previous essay, up until the invasion of the Gorg. After finishing that essay and having it accepted for the time capsule, Gratuity writes Part 3: Attach of the Clones. She tells about her trip from Florida to Arizona, escaping the Gorg, dodging the Boov, finding her mom, and using the Gorg technology against them by cloning Pig and sending the clones out everywhere until the severely allergic Gorg withdraw from Earth.

The interaction between Tip and the J.Lo is clever, like when they try to play car games, or when J.Lo tries to explain about the Boov genders: boy, girl, boygirl, girlboy, boyboy, boyboygirl, and boyboyboyboy. The development of trust, friendship, and eventually familiar love between them is believable and enjoyable to read. The story is illustrated with “snapshots” taken by Tip, comic sequences, drawings, and newspaper clippings. The similarities between the alien invasion and our treatment of Native Americans would be a good talking point for middle schoolers. That Tip is only eleven is the hardest point of the plot to swallow.



Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, 2007
The faery Summer King, Keenan, needs a Summer Queen, but the Winter Queen, his mom, made some sort of evil deal and now all his hopefuls turn into either the next Winter Girl with frost so deep in her bones she never warms up or summer fey with nothing but dancing on their minds. Though the faeries are normally invisible to mortals, Aislinn has always seen them. She knows they are powerful and dangerous, and when Keenan sets his sights on her, everything is suddenly on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her mortality. Contains about half a dozen swear words, one f-. Also, the characters are tattooed and pierced; the characters talk about sex, virginity, and chemical dependence; and there are one or two intimate scenes without being too explicit about any of it. I love the resolution Aislinn comes up with – how she accepts her fate without giving up her aspirations and dreams.

Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney; Trial of Kate Hope; Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City; Airman; Tasting the Sky; and Schooled

Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper, 2007
Sparrow is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter living in Lily Dale, NY, a town founded by spiritualists where most residents still practice the art in one form or another. Sparrow wants to be normal, and travels an hour each way to attend a high school out of town, but she sees a ghost her first day there and can’t maintain her deception that she has no seer gifts in the face of his constant badgering. So she starts talking to him, and eventually agrees to help his family know what happened to him, even if this means her new friends, including the ghost’s brother, will see her as a freak. I found this premise entirely entertaining, and enjoyed this read immensely.



Trials of Kate Hope by Wick Downing, 2008
In 1973, Kate becomes the youngest practicing lawyer, having received training by her granddad and passing the bar at age 14. With her granddad’s help, she works on a case about a dog slated to be killed for supposedly attaching a baby. I could not get into this story. I found the writing choppy, and I didn’t care about the characters. It was also too big of a stretch for me to accept that this 14-year-old was practicing law.



Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller, 2006
Ananka Fishbein discovers the Shadow City through a sink hole near her Manhattan apartment. This discovery leads her to Kiki Strike, a mysterious, petite, white-haired girl who seems to be able to antagonize ruffians in the park and the snottiest elite girls at school with impunity. After trailing her for days, Ananka (as urban archaeologist and access point to the most useful library in the city – her parents’ collection) is invited by Kiki to the first meeting of the Irregulars. With the other newly recruited members DeeDee Morlock (chemist), Oona Wong (master forger and computer hacker), Luz Lopez (mechanical engineer), and Betty Bent (disguise expert), the Irregulars explore the Shadow City. Their movements move from serendipity to purposeful as Kiki’s secret agenda is slowly revealed. Though it took me awhile to get into it, eventually I enjoyed reading this mystery / adventure story.



Airman by Eoin Colfer, 2008
“Conor Broekhart was born to fly” is the start to this story about a young man who is born in a hot-air balloon and never stops working toward flight. He is best friends with Princess Isabella of the small sovereign country of the Saltee Islands off the coast of Ireland. His dad is part of the king’s guard and he studies with a prominent scientist, Victor Vigny, who is also obsessed with discovering the secret of flying. However, the marshall of the Holy Cross Guard and high commander of the Saltee army, Hugo Bonvilian, kills the king and Vigny, framing Vigny for the betrayal. When he catches Conor looking on, he condemns him to prison while telling the rest of his family he was killed too. Believing his family and friends think he helped betray the king, Conor spends years in prison plotting his escape and growing bitter about how easily his supposed betrayal was accepted by those he loved. I kept thinking that this book would be science fiction or fantasy, but it reads more like an historical novel. The plot is complex, the writing tight. Conor’s growth from a young, carefree youth, to an embattled inmate, to a wiser adult is realistic and fascinating. I felt his pain, and the cautious hopefulness of the end hits the right chord.



Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (956.95) by Ibtisam Barakat, 2007
Framed at either end by short chapters written as a teenager, this memoir mostly relates the experiences of the author as a young child during the 1967 Six-Day War when she and her family had to flee their home, live as refugees in Jordan for a while, and then work to rebuild a home and secure family life while their land is under the rule of strangers. Some of the language is beautiful: “[The breeze] filled the curtains with a daily dance and softly kissed my face. Flapping my arms to let the breeze tickle me, for a moment I felt free, like a bird, tasting the sky.” I also loved how she considered Alef (the Arabic letter A) a friend that she could carry around in her pocket in the form of chalk. This is a memoir of impressions and childhood experiences where the reader is left to make his or her own meaning. The author includes a list of other related books at the back that all sound great.



Schooled by Gordon Korman, 2007
Capricorn and his grandma have lived on a commune farm by themselves for several years, so when grandma falls and needs to spend time in rehab, Cap is shipped off to a middle school were everyday attitudes and practices are completely foreign to him. The book is told in a variety of voices: Capricorn; Mrs. Donnelly, a former commune member and Cap’s social worker and host; Zach Powers, the “big man on campus” whose plans are thwarted by Cap; Hugh Winkleman, the residing nerd and destined for the humiliating class president nomination until Cap appeared; Naomi Erlanger, a Zach groupie until she’s won over by Cap; Sophie Donnelly, Mrs. Donnelly’s daughter who finds Cap’s presence in her home almost unbearable, at least at first; Darryl Pennyfield, another Zach groupie who accidentally tackles and then punches Cap; and Mr. Zasigi, the principal who doesn’t understand how clueless Cap is until he innocently misspends several hundred dollars of school funds. The plot’s a bit predictable, but the book’s quite enjoyable regardless. There are funny scenes about how things we don’t even think about may seem foreign to someone from the outside.

Savvy

Savvy by Ingrid Law, 2008
The Beaumonts always have interesting 13th birthdays, when their savvy first manifests itself. Her brother can create electricity, and her other brother can create hurricanes, so Mississippi “Mibs” is curious about what her savvy will be. Then her father is in a serious car accident and the preacher’s wife insists on throwing her a party anyway. Mibs becomes convinced that her newly discovered savvy can save her dad, if only she can figure out how to get herself to Salina, 90 miles away. She stows away on Lester’s pink Bible-delivering bus, inadvertently pulling along her brother Fish and the preacher’s kids Will Junior and Roberta “Bobbi” with her. Together with her little brother Samson, who was sleeping in the back, and Lill, who they pick up on the side of the road, every soul on that bus is changed through their extraordinary adventure together.

The writing is so full of similes that it was difficult to read at first, but then the story started pulling me along, and the message of the book is wonderfully cheering. We all have our own savvy, if we know how to look. I was able to read this book in about two sittings.

City of Ember; Zen and the Art of Faking It; Dear Jo; and Hot Lunch

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, 2003
In the year 241, 12-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a messenger, to run to new places in her beloved but decaying city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions. When she discovers a half-chewed message that looks like instructions, she knows she has to solve the mystery. When she sees “pipewo” she involves Doon, a friend from school who works in the pipeworks.

After seeing the new movie, I had to reread this book. The movie was OK, but I remember the book being fantastic. Where did the movie people go wrong? Was it not as good just because I already knew they were underground? After rereading the book, I think not. Even though I know they are underground, experiencing their excitement of discovering “moving light” for the first time, and the meaning of “boat” is thrilling. The movie cheapens this excitement with standard action-movie antics. Capturing the wonderment of seeing a sunrise for the first time is probably what the movie does best. The book, on the other hand, is well written and peopled with fascinating, original characters and a true spirit of discovery and rebirth.


Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick, 2007When 13-year-old San Lee moves to a new town and school for the umpteenth time, he is looking for a way to stand out when his knowledge of Zen Buddhism, gained in his previous school, provides the answer -- and the need to quickly become a convincing Zen master.

Other tags: basketball; Pennsylvania; small community; Woody Guthrie; dad in prison for fraud; lying; Asian-American adoptee; soup kitchen; library research; step-brother; school story; identity.

The most unfortunate thing about this book is the cover. The kid standing on his head seems about ten, which I know will turn off middle-schoolers. The story itself is funny. I enjoy Sonnenblick’s blend of humor and growth.


Dear Jo: The story of losing Leah and searching for hope by Christina Kilbourne, 2007
Written in the form of a journal, Maxine is depressed and scared. Her best friend has gone missing and she feels responsible and has survivor’s guilt. It could have just as easily been her. She enjoyed chatting and flirting and telling white lies online just as much as Leah. Now she sees a psychologist, avoids her friends, and is failing her classes. When the opportunity comes to help the police in the investigation, Max is scared but determined to do all she can. Leah wouldn’t have done anything less.

This story covers some serious subject matter, such as online predators and child exploitation, in a realistic and tasteful manner. The protagonist seems older than her supposed 12 years, but otherwise, the voice is believable. I didn’t love the story – it is a bit predictable – but it is completely grabbing my 13-year-old’s attention.


Hot Lunch by Alex Bradley, 2007
When she refuses to work with her assigned partner on an English assignment, Molly initially becomes enemies with Cassie, which escalates to a food fight, for which the consequence is forced work time in the lunch room. When their pranks behind the counter lead to the manager’s resignation, the principal makes them take charge of the lunch room. They must work there and provide the students with lunch indefinitely, unless the students think their lunches are better than those provided under the original manager for an entire week.

Written in first-person, Molly - a blue-haired, earphone-without-ipod-wearing, alternative-high-school-attending girl, tells her story of finding friendship with funny wit and attitude. The development of true friendship, appreciation for food, and true self-awareness is genuine and thoroughly enjoyable. I laughed out loud several times.

Night Tourist; Doppelganger; Cassandra's Sister; Coraline; and Here Lies Arthur

Night Tourist by Katherine Marsh, 2007
Edgar Allan Poe Award winner
Fourteen-year-old Jack Perdu misses his mom, who died 6 years earlier, but his dad won’t talk about her, nor take him back to New York where they once lived. After being hit by a vehicle and nearly dying, MC has some peculiar encounters, convincing his dad to send him to NYC to be examined by a specialist doctor whose a friend of his. The checkup consists solely of having his photo taken, which confuses him, and on the way out he finds a antique subway token that appears gold which he unintentionally takes with him. Waiting for his train home, he joins a tour group of Grand Central Station and enjoys experimenting with the echoing columns. He meets Euri there, quoting one of his favorite poems, who convinces him to follow her to Track 61. Thus begins his journey to the underworld where deceased citizens of New York City reside until they pass on. When he finally realizes where he is, he convinces Euri to help him search for his mom. Racing against the clock and from Cerebus, the three-headed guard dog of the underworld, he and Euri still have time to visit many of the famous landmarks of New York during the night, traveling as easily by air as in an elevator, passing through walls and floors as easily as doors.

Other tags: ancient languages; classics translator; school; child prodigy; family secrets; father-son relationships; ghosts; death

The story starts out slowly, predictably. Once in the underworld, the slow pacing gradually picks up, especially as the mystery of his mother’s story is unraveled. The author describes this underworld with some interesting details, some humor, and several allusions to Greek mythology. By the end, I was into the story and characters and cared about how things turned out.


Doppelganger by Mark Stahler, 2006
Told in first person, the heganger telling the story introduces us to his alien, predatory, parasitic race of doppelgangers, shape-shifters who kill humans and assume their appearance and life. They are without loving affection for their own or for humans, without attractiveness in their own forms, and no purpose other than to propagate their race, an act that happens almost without any free agency on the parts of the participants. When the narrator is abandoned by his mom and forced to live on his own, he wanders around trying to avoid killing, but eventually succumbs. He first kills a homeless drunk who is close to death anyway. While in that form, he is attached by an angry high schooler who he ends up killing as well. Though feeling guilty about what he has done, he assumes this boy’s life, who is called Chris, and ends up falling in love with his girlfriend, Amber, loving his sister, Echo, and even caring about what happens to his abusive and weak parents Harry and Sheila.

Other tags: Macbeth; high school; football; physical abuse

Though the subject is violent, though Chris’s home life is abusive and violent, and though there is sexual tension between Chris and a sheganger as well as sexual attraction between Chris and Amber that eventually leads to the act itself, the writing is subtle and respectful, not graphic nor extraneous. The doppelganger can only assume a victim’s life temporarily due to the instability of taking on a particular form, so any good Chris does, he knows, is only for a time. I found this theme (that time continually marches forward) as well as the other main theme that there are different ways you could be a monster, both intriguing to think about. I would recommend it to 9th graders and up.


Cassandra’s Sister by Veronica Bennett, 2007
Written in the 19th century style of Jane Austin, this story is an imagined recreation of the early life of Jane, her sister, Cassandra, and the rest of her family and social circle. Jane struggles against the limits placed on women during her lifetime, is jolted by a potential suitor for another woman, and is swept off her feet by a young Irishman during the course of three balls, only to never hear from him again. The pacing is a bit plodding, though I was pulled from chapter to chapter, wanting to see how it would end. However, the lack of forthright communication, especially between the sexes, and the portrayal of Jane as someone who would throw away true friendship and a secure marriage because of an infatuation with someone she talked with only three times depressed me. I had to go and watch “Becoming Jane” and then Keira Knighley’s “Pride and Prejudice” soon thereafter.


Coraline by Neil Gaiman, adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell, 2008 (741.5 RUS)
Coraline is longing for attention from her parents, who are busy with their work. The neighbors in her apartment house try to be friendly but keep calling her Caroline, and the cat won’t let her get very close. Then she passes through a mysterious bricked-up doorway into an alternative reality where an alternative mom professes her undying love for her, offering her anything she wants if only she will stay forever. But when Coraline realizes her alternative mom is dishonest, controlling, and evil, and that her real family and life are in danger, she uses her wits to outsmart the witch and restore her original life, which is most welcomed despite its imperfections. True love and honesty are preferable to days without them, even if her days would be filled with anything she could imagine.

I read a graphic novel version of this award-winning novel. Personally I do not enjoy this format as well as a traditional novel. Having to constantly switch between words and the visual clues pulls me out of the story more abruptly and repeatedly than straight narrative. However, for a student who likes this format, the graphics are full color and quite spectacular, and the story is sufficiently creepy to pull the reader along.


Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve, 2007
This story is a new imagining of the King Arthur legend where Merlin is Myrrdin, a bard who is convinced Arthur is the best bet for England’s future and is quite gifted at spinning a tale. He is also constantly looking for ways to create allusions and visual tricks that will reenforce his stories’ claims that Arthur is an heroic king, blessed by the gods, both Christian and pre-Christian ones. The story is told from Gwyna’s perspective, an orphan whose lord is killed by Arthur’s band and is rescued by Myrrdin. He has thought of a role she can play, given her unusual swimming talent, to help convince others of Arthur’s divine calling. She becomes the Lady of the Lake, which even Arthur is convinced of, and then transformed to Gwyn, Myrrdin’s nephew and assistant, to hide the deception.

My niece didn’t like how the legend was initiated through trickery, but I found it very believable and interesting. She did like the rest of the story, however, and so did I. Gwyna, as Gwyn, gets quite the exposure to the world of boys that would have been totally hidden from her as a girl, and then has a unique perspective when she returns to the world of women as Gwyna once again. Arthur is portrayed as one of many warring lords who happens to have the best story-telling working for him. This is a concept that still seems very true in this year of presidential elections.

Team Moon; Making It Home; and Hunger Games

Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon by Catherine Thimmesh, 2006 (629.45)
While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, and to a lesser degree Michael Collins (since he just flew the command module and didn’t walk on the moon), grabbed the world’s attention during the first moonwalk and are the ones in the history books now. But they would never have made it to the moon and back without the hard work, expertise, dedication, and passion of thousands of others that fully matched their own. This book covers some of the various systems that needed to be fully integrated and fail-safe to make the walk on the moon possible: lunar module (LM or “lem”), command module, launch pad and sequence, space suits, cameras, portable life support system (PLSS or “pliss”), decontamination processes, and chute deployment. Several unexpected difficulties presented themselves during the 12-day journey that required on-the-spot problem-solving from the experts and support crew, such as LM alarms, low fuel levels, frozen slug in LM’s fuel lines, windy conditions at the radar station in Australia, and film destroyed in a practice decontamination sequence just hours before their return. The author even outlines Apollo 11’s place in an incremental, comprehensive manned space program that began with Mercury and was then rolled into the Gemini program, and then into the Apollo program, up to Apollo 17.

After watching Apollo 13, starring Tom Hanks, I wanted to read more about the teamwork required to make a successful space program. This book captures the spirit of collaboration and passion these 400,000 participants brought to their jobs, and how truly miraculous the success of the mission was at that time. Even the president had an alternative speech ready just in case he would need to comfort the nation after a failure.


Making It Home: Real-Life Stories from Children Forces to Flee with an introduction by Beverley Naidoo, 2004 (305.23)
In this book, several children who are living as refugees all over the world tell their story of what happened to them and their families, what their life was like before war and violence made them flee, what their life is like now as a refugee, and what they hope for the future. The children are originally from Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Congo, Liberia, Sudan, and Burundi and are now living in a neighboring country or the U.S. Each section begins with an overview of the current situation in that country and key events leading to consequent violence and large refugee movement. The children’s narratives are short and simply written, but repeatedly witness the upheaval of war and violence and the pain of separation, hunger, and lose of security.

I read this book as part of the Middle School Literature Selection Committee. The overviews are four years out of date, but the human suffering is timeless. Taken in small doses, these stories could be powerful testaments to what every child needs and should have: family, food, safety, a future, and a place to call home. It is also a great introduction to some troubled spots in our world.


Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, 2008
Katniss Everdeen, nicknamed Catnip by her best friend and hunting partner Gale, is a sixteen year old living on the poor edge of poor District 12, part of a future country on the North American continent where the capitol is kept in riches by the labor and resources of the 12 outlying districts. When her sister’s name is drawn as a Tribute for the annual, televised Hunger Games, she volunteers to take her place. She and her fellow Tributes are taken to the Capitol, given some tasty meals and fancy costumes, receive some training from their district’s past winners, and then transported to a large, controlled-environment arena where they compete to the death. Katniss wants to survive so she can return to her mom and sister, but she is not the strongest Tribute nor good at being adorable -- a crucial quality for securing vital help from outside sponsors. Using her survival instinct, she follows the lead of her fellow Tribute from District 12, Peeta Mellark, who has convinced the viewers that he is in love with Katniss and killing her will not be possible. Her love for Prim is real, which prompted her volunteering, but she is mostly confused about her feelings for Peeta even while playing the love angle for her viewers and potential sponsors.

With complex characters that I root for throughout the book, and complicated relationships that weigh survival against humanity and life against love, I was totally captivated by the story and look forward to a promised sequel.

Epic, Somthing Rotten

Epic by Conor Kostick, 2004
Eric’s mother has died in the arena, failing to win her appeal for a new solar panel and must now start over from scratch. Eric has recently died as well on adventures his parents fear are frivolous. On a whim, he recreates himself as a girl swashbuckler and uses all his start-up points on beauty. In this world where the population uses a virtual reality game to solve all conflicts and run the economy, such loses and choices are serious business. When Eric’s father is sent into exile, he and his friends take a path in the game that no one has risked for generations, defeating a dragon, accumulating great wealth, and threatening both the society’s ruling elite and the game’s own nascent intelligence in the process.

This book was written by a fantasy-game writer and is a great read, just as entertaining as Heir Apparent. I liked the plot and the relationships between the friends.


Something Rotten (A Horatio Wilkes Mystery) by Alan Gratz, 2007
There’s something rotten in Denmark, and it stinks bad. Denmark, TN, has a polluting paper mill that is owned by the family of Horatio’s best friend, Hamilton Prince. Now Hamilton’s dad is dead and his uncle has married his mother. Sound familiar? Horatio promises to uncover motives, means, and opportunities to understand what really has been happening in Denmark.

Other tags: Copenhagen River. Pollution. Olivia Mendelsohn, the tree-hugging, cute ex-girlfriend. Trudy Prince, mom. Rex Prince, dead dad who appears from beyond the grave (in a video). Claude Prince, the uncle. Ford N. Branff, the ex-flame of Trudy’s.

A clever take on Hamlet, with humor and suspense. YA mysteries are not my favorite genre and I like this one more in the abstract than I did while reading it.

Dead & the Gone, Red Glass

The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer, 2008
A companion book to Life as We Knew It, this book covers the same catastrophic event of the moon being knocked out of orbit but from a different location – this time, New York City. Alex Morales, a senior who has worked hard to be top in his class, must try to take care of his younger sisters when both his parents are caught away from home when the disaster strikes.

Other tags: Puerto Rican American. Survival story. Catholic church.

This story is an interesting imagining of what life might be like should such an event occur, but I didn’t find it as gripping as the first book, maybe because the hardships are very similar. I liked it OK.


Red Glass by Laura Resau, 2007
International Reading Assoc. Award
This book covers the story of 16-year-old Sophie, a hypochondriac whose parents often help immigrants in need as they cross the Arizona border. When 6-year-old Pablo comes to live with them after his parents have perished, Sophie forms a close attachment as she reads him poetry and tries to make his smile. The next summer, she travels with her great aunt Dika, Dika’s boyfriend Mr. Lorenzo, Mr. Lorenzo’s son Angel and Pablo to Pablo’s hometown in Mexico and then on to Angel’s hometown in Guatamala. Along the way, she is able to let go of her phobias as she confronts real life-threatening dangers and inner strength to confront them.

It is a travel story of great growth, love, and friendship. It questions what makes a home, who is family, and how we become confident and complete individuals. I liked it OK.

2007-2008 Reading List

I am concluding my 2007-2008 school year blogging experience with the list of titles I read this year. I know this list isn’t quite complete, but it shows most of what I read. I aimed for 2 titles a week. I have listed 88 titles here. I know I haven’t included some I read at the cottage (Great and Terrible Beauty; I am Messenger; The Ear, Eye, Hands) plus some picture books, but other than that, this list pretty accurately reflects what I read this year. Not quite two books a week but I feel I accomplished much. I am much more familiar with YA literature now than last fall.

2007-2008 READING LIST
1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving. 394.264 (reviewed Nov 21)
Abdel-Fattah, Does My Head Look Big in This? (reviewed Feb 8)
Alexie, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (reviewed Mar 13)
Austin, Pride and Prejudice (reviewed Mar 5)
Averett, Rhyming Season (reviewed Jan 30)
Balliett. Chasing Vermeer (reviewed May 12)
Bauer, Don’t Call Me Ishmael (reviewed Nov 14)
Bodies from the Ash: Life and Death in Ancient Pompeii (reviewed Nov 21)
Boniface, Hero Revealed (reviewed Nov 21)
Bryant. Pieces of Georgia (reviewed Oct)
Buckley-Archer. Gideon: The Cutpurse (reviewed Sep)
Children of the Great Depression. 305.23 (reviewed Nov 21)
Chima. Warrior Heir (reviewed Sep)
Clements. Things Not Seen (reviewed Mar 5)
Cooney. Friend at Midnight (reviewed Apr 16)
Cooney. Hit the Road (reviewed Oct)
Crane. Red Badge of Courage (reviewed Apr 16)
Crocker. Billie Standish Was Here (reviewed Jun 30)
DeMari. Last Dragon (reviewed Jan 3)
DeTerlizzi. Field Guild (reviewed Jan 14)
DeTerlizzi. Lucinda’s Secret (reviewed Feb 8)
DeTerlizzi. Seeing Stone (reviewed Feb 8)
DeTerlizzi. Ironwood Tree (reviewed Mar 5)
DeTerlizzi. Wrath of Mulgarath (reviewed Mar 5)
Do Unto Otters (reviewed Mar 26)
Dokey. Golden (reviewed Sep)
Down the Colorado: John Wesley Powell, the One-Armed Explorer. 917.91 RAY (reviewed May 13)
Durst. Into the Wild (reviewed Feb 12)
Farmer. House of Scorpion (reviewed Sep)
Fitch. If I Had a Million Onions (poems) (reviewed Nov 11)
Flanagan. Ruins of Gorlan (reviewed Nov 11)
Fletcher. Alphabet of Dreams (reviewed Dec 5)
Flinn. Beastly (reviewed Mar 5)
Frederick. Mother-Daughter Book Club (reviewed Mar 13)
Funke. Inkheart (reviewed Jan 29)
Girl’s Like Spaghetti: Why You Can’t Manage Without Apostrophes! 428.2 TRU (reviewed May 12)
Guinea Pig Scientists. 616.027 (reviewed Nov 21)
Haddix. Uprising (reviewed Jun 30)
Hanley. Light of the Oracle (reviewed Jan 14)
Horowitz. Stormbreaker (reviewed Nov 14)
Hulme. Glitch in Sleep (reviewed Mar 26)
If the World Were a Village: A Book About the World’s People. 304.6 SMI (reviewed May 12)
Jaffe. Bad Kitty (reviewed Nov 14)
Johnson. 13 Little Blue Envelopes (reviewed Sep)
Kerley. Greetings from Planet Earth (reviewed Dec 11)
Levine. Fairest (reviewed Dec 14)
Lubar. Hidden Talents (reviewed Mar 5)
MacHale. Merchant of Death (reviewed May 7)
MacKall. Crazy in Love (reviewed Dec 18)
Marillier. Wildwood Dancing (reviewed May 7)
McCaughrean. White Darkness (reviewed Apr 16)
Meyer. Host, The (reviewed Jun 30)
Mull. Fablehaven (reviewed Sep)
New York Subways. 624.1 (reviewed Nov 21)
O’Connor. How to Steal a Dog (reviewed Apr 16)
Oh, Rats! The Story of Rats and People. 599.35 MAR (reviewed May 12)
Oppel. Airborn (reviewed Mar 5)
Patterson. Angel Experiment (reviewed Jan 14)
Peck. Teacher’s Funeral (reviewed Mar 13)
Pfeffer. Life As We Knew It (reviewed Jan 3)
Rallison. It’s a Mall World After All (reviewed May 27)
Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys. 371.823 (reviewed Jun 30)
Ruby. Chaos King (reviewed Apr 16)
Schmidt. Wednesday Wars (reviewed Dec 11)
Selznick. Invention of Hugo Cabret (reviewed Mar 5)
Shusterman. Everlost (reviewed Mar 13)
Shusterman. Unwind (reviewed Jun 30)
Skelton. Endymion Spring (reviewed Jan 14)
Skyscraper. 720 CUR (reviewed May 12)
Sonnenblick. Notes from the Midnight Driver (reviewed Apr 25)
Spinelli. Eggs (reviewed Sep)
Springer. Case of the Missing Marquess (reviewed May 19)
Taylor. Shadowmancer (reviewed Mar 5)
Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving. 394.264 (reviewed Nov 21)
Turner. King of Attolia (reviewed May 27)
Turner. Queen of Attolia (reviewed May 19)
Van Draanen. Flipped (reviewed Nov 14)
Vande Velde. Heir Apparent (reviewed Dec 5)
Vande Velde. Remembering Raquel (reviewed Mar 5)
Vrettos. Sight (reviewed Jun 30)
Wells. Red Moon at Sharpsburg (reviewed Mar 26)
Westerfeld. Blue Noon (reviewed Apr 16)
Westerfeld. Secret Hour (reviewed Mar 26)
Westerfeld. Touching Darkness (reviewed Mar 26)
Whelan. Listening for Lions (reviewed Jan 3)
Who Was First? Discovering the Americas. 970.01 FRE
Wooding. Storm Thief (reviewed May 19)
Zuzak. Book Thief (reviewed Jun 30)

The Host; Billie Standish Was Here; Unwind; Reading Don't Fix No Chevys; Uprising; Sight; The Book Thief;

The Host by Stephenie Meyer, 2008

Our world has been invaded by a parasitic life form and most humans are extinct, though you wouldn’t know it by just looking. The souls, as the alien life-forms are called, take over the human body and adapt the human lifestyle. At first, such deception was necessary so the humans would be unaware of their invasion, but by the time of this story, most humans are already hosts and such behavior is unnecessary and yet still practiced. On a mission to Chicago to find her cousin she believes is still human, Melanie is captured by the souls and becomes host to Wanderer, a soul that has lived on seven other planets in seven other forms of beings. But Mel refuses to be silent. From a small corner of consciousness, she thwarts Wanderer’s attempts to read her memory to find the rest of her human companions. Wanderer also inherits another unexpected obstacle from her host – the extremely strong emotion of love for her brother Jamie and boyfriend Jared that eventually leads her to be willing to sacrifice her own life to find them and then to save them.

Some additional memory-jogging tags: Survival. Resistance. Raids. Trust. Ian, loving the enemy. Uncle Jeb. Ian’s brother Kyle. Arizona desert. Underground caves and springs. Physical response to emotions.

At 619 pages, this book seemed short for how fast the story moved and how gripping the ideas were. I was haunted by its themes for a long while afterwards. What makes us who we are? Can love conquer all? What makes friends into enemies and enemies friends?

Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker, 2007

In the 1960s, in rural Missouri, Billie Standish is the 11-year-old daughter in one of only two families that don’t abandon the town when the river threatens to overflow the levees. In the absence of anyone else, she forms a friendship with her 80-something-year-old neighbor, Lydia Jenkins. When Miss Lydia’s son Curtis rapes Billie (in a scene that is emotionally powerful but graphically minimal), Miss Lydia promises her that she will not be hurt again. The next night she shots and kills Curtis as he is returning from the bar, claiming she thought he was an intruder rummaging through the town’s deserted homes.

Since the rape and murder take place in the first third of the book, they are the catalyst for what follows instead of the climax, contrary to what is often the case with such violent scenes. The rest of the book is about Billie and Lydia drawing ever closer together as they help each other through the pain and grief to the other side to a place where healthy relationships of love and trust are possible. The action takes place in first-person from Billie’s perspective from her 6^th-grade year to graduation. She learns about menstruation and how a woman gets pregnant, worries about being pregnant, forms a friendship with the boy Harlan from her class which eventually grows into a romance, learns a lot from Lydia about how to interact with her parents without being made to feel invisible, and loves Lydia through companionship and service until the end of her days.

Some of the growth and lessons feel tender, but the main catalyst feels contrived. Rape, incest, and murder seem too heavy for upper-elementary students, and yet the main character may be too young to attract the interest of older readers. And I could never really understand why it was set in the 60’s except to make it seem OK that Billie and Lydia keep such a violent act a secret.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman, 2007

In a future world where those between the ages of thirteen and eighteen can have their lives “unwound” and their body parts harvested for use by others, three teens go to extreme lengths to uphold their beliefs – and, perhaps, save their own lives. Connor finds out his parents have signed his unwind orders and, after making them feel as guilty as possible for a few weeks, runs away. Risa has grown up in an Ohio State Home for orphans and though she plays piano well, she doesn’t play well enough and the authorities sign her unwind papers to make room for new arrivals. Lev is the tenth child and has been raised as a tithe, knowing that after his thirteenth birthday, he will be unwound as a holy offering. Connor’s escape flight takes him to freeway where he causes Risa’s bus to crash, allowing Risa to escape as well, and Lev’s family car to stop long enough to pull Lev away, too.

Other memory-jogging tags: Fugitives from justice. Survival. Revolutionaries. Science fiction. Arizona. Civil war and compromise about abortion. Airplane graveyard. Terrorists. Pastor Dan, crisis of faith. Trust. Secrets. Roland, shark tattoe, bullies. Sonia, underground escape network. Abandoned babies, “storked”. Cyrus Finch, CyFi, pickpocket, harvested brain. Humphrey Dunfee. Admiral. Reputation. Rumors and exaggerated stories. Mobs and riots.

The premise of this book wonderfully captivating and thought-provoking. The plot pulled me right along, though the language is a bit stilted and even preachy at times. It really makes you think about what makes each of us who we are.

Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men (371.8235) by Michael Smith and Jeffrey Wilhelm, 2002

I read this in preparation for the Literacy class I’m attending in Park City this month. The authors extensively evaluated literacy habits and attitudes of 50 boys who span secondary education grades, national regions, and socioeconomic levels. Their conclusions about implications for teachers resonate with my values of inquiry-based projects and learning through fun.

Uprising by Margaret Haddix, 2007

Three immigrant young women become friends in turn-of-the-century New York (1911), becoming united in their pursuit of justice and rights for women. Betta comes from rural Italy and stays with his cousin (second cousin?) Pietro and the cheating Lucianos. Yetta’s family are Russian Jews and lives with her sister Rahel. Both girls work in the Triangle Shirtwaist factory on the lower East side. Jane enjoys a privileged upbringing, but her mom is dead and she feels as forced into a way of life as her soon-to-be-friends. The Triangle workers’ strike got the attention of many wealthy women at the time, but not much change and it took a fire that killed 127 workers to finally see some real improvements in safety laws and work conditions.

Some additional memory-jogging tags: Historical fiction. Friendship. Labor disputes. Economic disparity.

The chapters alternate between the three main characters, all framed within an opening and closing chapter where a grown-up Harriett asks Mrs. Livingston about what happened during the factory fire when she was only five. The narrative moves quickly and each chapter end left me wanting some more.

Sight by Adrienne Maria Vrettos, 2007

16-year-old Dylan wants to be normal, but when a vision comes, she must tell the cops where to find the body. So she hides her gift from even her closest friends. Then a new girl arrives, the first new student their same age to move to this isolated mountain town in several years and Dylan finds herself confiding what she hasn’t told anyone but her mom and the cops.

Some additional memory-jogging tags: Ghosts. Psychic visions. Inherited abilities. High school. Best friends. Missing children. Murder. Locals vs. weekenders. Quaintly rural vs. tourist trap. Secrets. Criminal investigation. New development. Suspense. Aunt Ruby and Peg. Pilar, best friend. Ben, closest neighbor. Thea and MayBe, next best friends. Teen pregnancy and child birth. Vandalism.

This was a pretty fast read (3-4 reading sessions), but the creepy factor is fairly high. The violence and swearing are about PG-13.

The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak, 2005

Printz Honor Book. This book has many characters, all of whom have a connection to Liesel Meminger. Death narrates the story as he looks over humanity in Germany during World War II. Death’s main fascination is with Liesel, the book thief. Death first sees her as he takes her brother as they are traveling with their mom to a foster family on Himmel Street, a poor district in Molching, Germany. In the church yard where they bury her brother, Liesel finds a book half hidden in the snow, The Gravedigger’s Handbook. Her foster mother is a harsh woman who swears all the time, but she grows to really love her foster father who plays the accordion, winks and smiles at her, and teaches her to read with her found book. Her best friend is Rudy Steiner, a boy next door as poor and passionate as she is. Death is busy, but whenever his path crosses Liesel’s, he is fascinated with her passion for words and life, despite her poverty, the war, her home life. One other significant relationship is with Max Vanderburg, a son of papa’s comrade from World War I who is Jewish and hides in their basement for a while. He paints over Mein Kampf and writes his own stories over the words of Hitler’s that bleed through in spots.

Some additional memory-jogging tags: World War II. Holocaust. Prejudice. War fervor. Stealing. Friendship. Mayor’s wife and library. Grief. Books and reading. Storytelling. Bomb shelters. Basement. Bombs. Jesse Owens. Painter. Washer woman. Hitler’s youth. Running races. Most of the swearing is in German, though there are scattered swear words, and several “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph”-s throughout.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It was detailed, complex, rich in character and personalities. It is a readers’ book, one of the most complicated and rich YA stories I’ve read. Death declares at the end: I am haunted by humans. I know I’ll need to reread it (and probably more than once more) to get all the allusions and connections and meaning, and I know I’ll enjoy it each time I do.

It's a Mall World After All; and The King of Attolia

It’s a Mall World After All by Janette Rallison, 2006
Charlotte works at the mall spraying perfume she thinks is too ridiculously expensive to think anyone should buy some. After seeing her best friend’s boyfriend flirting with another girl, she thinks her friend has a right to know and tells her about it. Expecting her to be sad and needing comfort, she is surprised the next day at school to find Brianna and Bryant still together. Bryant’s best friend Colton backs his story and continues to, even though Charlotte continues to have her suspicions. After contriving an invitation to a prep school party to spy on Bryant, she confronts interference from Colton who convinces her to leave Bryant alone in exchange for $1,000 from his dad’s company to fund a sub-for-santa service project for a school of a couple of kids she’s met at the mall, one of whom needs new shoes for his mom. Is that deal morally reprehensible? Has she sold her soul? When Colton asks Bryant to say he’s sorry for teasing Charlotte incessantly during junior high and he does without hesitation, can Charlotte start giving him the benefit of a doubt about this other girl?

I thoroughly enjoyed the story. It read like a long short story and captured the self-doubt and awkwardness of high school. It was a funny story about letting go of past resentments and forming relationships of trust.

Some additional memory-jogging tags: Bloomingdale’s. Santa and his elf. Sub for Santa. Service projects. School dance. NHS (National Honor Society). Economic disparity. Country club set. Private prep school. Wrestling. Shopping habits. California.


King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner, 2006
Though Eugenides gets homesick sometimes and wants to return to his homeland of Eddis, he wants to be married to the Queen of Attolia. But just because he is married to the queen doesn’t mean he wants to be king, and his attendants don’t want him, either. They play constant pranks on him, ranging from the annoying, such as serving food he can’t manage with just one hand, to the dangerous, such as releasing the dogs as he is passing. But he is still the Thief of Eddis with incredible skills at getting to the bottom of intrigue with a matching patience to wait until the truly guilty can be exposed and dealt with. With the unwitting help of the young and naïve guard Costis, Eugenides dismantles a threatening baron and his family, and succeeds in winning the respect and loyalty of the queen’s, and now also king’s, guard.

I was enthralled with this world and thoroughly enjoyed these stories with its political maneuvering and battle of the wits.

Some additional memory-jogging tags: Nobility. Court. Amputee. Kings and queens. Greek-like gods. Loyalty. Assassins and assassinations. Poison. Political intrigue. Sword fights. Homesickness. Playing the buffoon.

Who Was First?

Who Was First? Discovering the Americas by Russell Freedman, 970.01 FRE 2007
Columbus was the last one to discover the Americas, not the first. Freedman presents various artifacts and theories about who found the Americas before Columbus, such as the Vikings, Chinese, and the ancestors of the Native Americans. Well illustrated with colored and black-and-white drawings, paintings, maps, and photographs. Interesting stories about ancient explorers, as well as Columbus’ story.

Some memory-jogging tags: Christopher Columbus; Zheng He; Treasure Fleet of Ming Dynasty; Leif Eriksson; Erik the Red; Mayans; Tikal; Aztecs; Montezuma; Tenochtitlan; Michu Picchu; Olmec

MS Rating: Great

Queen of Attolia; Storm Thief; and Case of the Missing Marquess

Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner, 2000
When Euginides, the queen’s thief, is captured spying inside the neighboring kingdom of Attolia, the queen orders his hand cut off and him returned almost dead and supposedly rendered harmless to his home country of Eddis. But Euginides, with the friendship of his family and queen, eventually finds ways to aid his country in the on-going war with Attolia and their third neighbor, Sounis. The book is full of wit and insight into human nature, love for the most unlikely companions and for one’s gods, political intrigue, and interpersonal bantering and positioning. Very engaging. The fantasy is minimal, supernatural manifestations happening within the context of faith in one’s gods. The book reads much more like an historical novel.

Some memory-jogging tags: Medes; Magus from Sounis; kidnapping; mountainous regions; political positioning; amputation; fantasy

MS Rating: Great


Storm Thief by Chris Wooding, 2006
Rail wants to find a better life for himself and Moa in Oroko; Moa wants to escape Oroko altogether and find a better life beyond the horizon; and Vago wants to find out who created him. When Rail and Moa steal a powerful Faded artifact and end up running for their lives from the obese thief boss and her gang, they hook up with Vago who protects them from the Revenants but attracts the attentions of the Protectorate’s Secret Police. This is an imaginatively conceived science fiction about an island state and its people who are at the mercy of overcrowded ghettos and ruthless secret police and indiscriminant probability storms and deadly energy ghosts and incomprehensible technology. It reminded me of a more sinister City of Embers.

Some memory-jogging tags: golem; mozgas; oppression.

MS Rating: Great


Case of the Missing Marquess by Nancy Springer, 2006
Enola Holmes, Sherlock’s much younger sister, wants to find her mother who went missing on her 14th birthday, and to avoid boarding school and the much hated corset that her brother Mycroft is insisting upon. She follows clues that her mom left through a book of coded messages, finds the money her mom left her hidden in her rooms, and, on the day she is to go to boarding school, runs away. Before reaching London, she stumbles upon a case of a missing 12-year-old boy and risks her own safety and freedom to restore his. The clues of the book are fun to follow and the historical details add interest.

Some memory-jogging tags: tree house and frilly collars; cut throats; poverty and despair; docks; seedy neighborhoods; disguises; corsets and whalebone collars; dossers or crawlers; ciphers

MS Rating: Great

Down the Colorado

Down the Colorado: John Wesley Powell, the One-Armed Explorer by Deborah Kogan Ray, 2007 (917.91 RAY)
Each spread describes an episode or period of Powell’s life (1834 – 1902), accompanied with full-page illustration. The watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations are better showing the canyons than the people. Includes map, author’s note, chronology, and bibliography. You could read this book within a class period. One or more spread could be used as a lesson opener.

Oh, Rats!; If the World Were a Village; Skyscraper; Girl's Like Spaghetti; Chasing Vermeer

Oh, Rats! The Story of Rats and People by Albert Marrin, ill. by C. B. Mordan, 2006 (599.35 MAR)
A 2-3 class period read, this book is a history and trivia book about rats. The illustrations are red and black line drawings. It contains information about the myths of rats, encounters with humans through the ages, and modern partnerships between rats and humans. This is a high-interest read.


If the World Were a Village: A Book About the World’s People by David J. Smith, ill. by Shelagh Armstrong, 2002 (304.6 SMI)
This book is a very engaging and informative analysis of the world, reduced down to a comprehensible size – a village of 100 people. It presents facts about nationalities, languages, ages, religions, food, air and water, schooling and literacy, money and possessions, electricity, the past, and the future. There are two pages full of activities to do with children to help them develop a sense of their world. You can read the entire book in one class period, or use one of the analyses as a lesson starter. It could be used in geography, social studies, or math classes.


Skyscraper by Lynn Curlee, 2007 (720 CUR)
One side text, one side illustration, this book goes through the history of skyscrapers and describes the tallest ones. There are many facts that could be compared and contrasted. Most of the history is in the U.S, but by the end, the tallest buildings are being built elsewhere. It could be mostly, if not all, read within a class period.


Girl’s Like Spaghetti: Why You Can’t Manage Without Apostrophes! by Lynne Truss, ill. by Bonnie Timmons, 2007 (428.2 TRU)
Fun and fast illustration of the effects of using or not using an apostrophe. It could be used as a lesson opener, or for a pattern for students to make their own pages for a class book.


Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, 2004. Read by Ellen Reilly in a Listening Library production.
Caulder and Petra want to discover who stole a priceless Vermeer painting, but they are not sure what are clues and what are coincidences. Set in Chicago at the end of their 12th year, Caulder gains insights from his set of pentaminoes and Petra discovers clues from dreams and impressions to help solve an international art scandal. The playaway devise was very convenient, and the reader OK. I liked the story at first, but by the end it seemed too contrived, though I think MS students will enjoy the seemingly random connections.

Some memory-jogging tags: A Lady Writing. twelves. coincidences. University School. Families. Mystery

MS Rating: OK. It’s a little young (characters are 11).

Wildwood Dancing; and Merchant of Death

Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier, 2007
Jenica, 15-year-old girl living in the middle ages, wants to keep the family business going and her four sisters safe while their father is away trying to regain his health in a milder climate, but her older sister has fallen for Sorrow, who looks like one of those dangerous Night People, and her cousin Cezar is becoming more and more controlling and abusive. She finds comfort in the friendship she enjoys with her pet frog and seeks advice from the sorceress Draguta as well as the elf queen Ileana. Nothing comes without a price, and she almost loses her great opportunity for true love. From the book: Five sisters who live with their merchant father in Transylvania use a hidden portal in their home to cross over into a magical world, the Wildwood.

I found it a little hard to get into, but once into the story, thoroughly liked it. Jenica’s character is trying hard to hold things together, but is frustrated at every step by her chauvinistic cousin and her own insecurities.

Some memory-jogging tags: Dwarfs. Night people (vampires). True love. Dancing. Oppression. Magical kingdoms. Prejudices. Sisters.

MS Rating: Great.


Merchant of Death (Pendragon, bk 1) by D. J MacHale, 2002
Bobby Pendragon, a 14-yr-old basketball player who just has had his first kiss, only wants to return home but his uncle is sentenced to die and the Milagos are being brutally treated and indiscriminately killed. So, summoning bravery and wits he didn’t know he had, he proves Loor, a warrior teen, wrong by staying. The danger goes beyond the conflict between these two tribes, threatening the entire fabric of the universe if Saint Dane, the evil traveler with pet quigs, has his way. From the book: Bobby Pendragon is slowly starting to realize that life in the cosmos isn't quite what he thought it was. Before he can object, he is swept off to an alternate dimension known as Denduron, a territory inhabited by strange beings, ruled by a magical tyrant, and plagued by dangerous revolution. If Bobby wants to see his family again, he's going to have to accept his role as savior, and accept it wholeheartedly.

Fun read, written as a journal from Bobby on the other end of the flume to his friends back on Second Earth. This is the first of several in the series where Bobby, his Uncle Press, and Loor go traveling throughout the universe, encountering civilizations in crisis and trying to prevent Saint Dane from sending the universe crashing into total chaos.

Some memory-jogging tags: Trust. Courage. Explosives (tak). Exploitation of one society by another. Mining. Medieval society. Travel through time and space. Relying on others.

MS Ratings: Great.

Notes from the Midnight Driver

Notes from the Midnight Driver by Jordan Sonnenblick, 2006
After being assigned to perform community service at a nursing home, sixteen-year-old Alex befriends a cantankerous old man who has some lessons to impart about jazz guitar playing, love, and forgiveness.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was fully convinced that this was a brilliant plan. Not brilliant as in, ‘That was a brilliant answer you give in Spanish yesterday’ but more like, ‘Wow, Einstein, when you came up with that relativity thing, and it revolutionized our entire concept of space and time while also leading all of humankind into the nuclear age, that was brilliant!”

Some memory-jogging tags: Funny voice. Alex’s best friend is Laurie. Old man is Sol. Judge Judy. Lawn gnome. Drunk driving. Public performance. Benefit concert. Estrangement from child. Divorce. Reconciliation. Retribution.

MS Rating: Great

White Darkness; Red Badge of Courage; Friend at Midnight; How to Steal a Dog; Blue Noon; and Chaos King

The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean, 2005

Summary from inverso: Fourteen-year-old Symone’s vacation to Antarctica turns into a dangerous adventure because of her uncle’s obsession with seeking Symme’s Hole, an opening that may lead to the center of the Earth. The book is wonderfully flavored with several unique situations. Symone is very knowledgeable of the Antarctica and is fascinated with the explorer Captain Scott, known as Titus, to the point that she hears his voice in her head. Two of her fellow explorers are conmon, one of them her age and giving her much more attention than she is used to from boys. The extent of her uncle’s obsession and criminal insanity are slowly revealed as they travel to the ice pole. Symone’s only hope to survive is to use her knowledge of the frozen landscape as resourcefully as possible.

Wonderfully effective at capturing the magic of growth that is so often a part of a teen’s life.

Some memory-jogging tags: Deception. Survival.

MS Rating: Great.

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephan Crane, 1890s. Read by Frank Muller in a Recorded Books production.

Classic war story, originally published in monthly installments by an author who knew of war only through his brother’s experience in the Battle of Chancellorsville during the Civil War. Reading was very dramatic, especially the voices. Story was much slower than I expected. Most of it is the young soldier’s musings about his bravery, or lack thereof, and the alternating boredom and anxiety of the war. Language was at times very arcane and difficult to understand.

It was helpful to read this one in conjuncture with Red Moon at Sharpsburg to get a fuller picture of the era.

MS Rating: OK.

A Friend at Midnight by Caroline B. Cooney, 2006

Summary from inverso: After rescuing her younger brother abandoned at a busy airport by their divorced father, fifteen-year-old Lily finds her faith in God sorely tested as she struggles to rescue herself from the bitterness and anger she feels.

Reb goes to college and isn’t home to learn to love Nathanial (their half-brother) nor Kells (their step dad). But Michael and Lily truly do. When Reb comes home to announce her wedding, Lily’s refusal to attend if their dad is there threatens the family unity to breaking. Worrying about a missing Nathanial brings them all back from the brink and finally infuses Michael with enough courage to honestly and openly face what really happened a year earlier.

The story is gripping and moves along. It has a church-going and God-thinking element that will resonate with church-attending teens and that I found not too overbearing. Great message of friendship and forgiveness and giving someone time and space to make their own decisions.

Some memory-jogging tags: Church attendance. Families. Divorce. Remarriage and step-parents. Abandonment. School psychologist. Anger management. Friendship. Keeping a promise. Parent responsibility. Realistic fiction.

MS Rating: Great.

How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O’Connor, 2007

Summary from inverso: Living in the family car in their small N. Carolina town after their father leaves them virtually penniless, Georgina, desperate to improve their situation and unwilling to accept her overworked mother’s calls for patience, persuades her younger brother to help her in an elaborate scheme to get money by stealing a dog and then claiming the reward that the owners are bound to offer.

The squatter that Georgina meets lives by the motto, “Sometimes the trail you leave behind you is more important than the path ahead of you.” And he has another one, “Sometimes, the more you stir it, the worse it stinks.”

The story was a little slow. It felt a bit predictable, but by the end, the poignancy of the message struck me hard.

Some memory-jogging tags: Homelessness. Brothers and sisters. Conduct of life. Squatters. Journal keeping. Family problems. Dogs. Making a plan. Feeling guilty. Misleading appearances. School teachers. Previous best friends. Shame and embarrassment. Economic disparity. Realistic fiction.

MS Rating: Advisable.

Blue Noon (Midnighters, book 3) by Scott Westerfeld, 2005

Summary from inverso: The five midnighters from Bixby discover that the secret hour is starting to invade the daylight world, and if they cannot stop it, the darklings will soon be free to hunt again.

Rex has much more beast than any human ever had before, and more than the other midnighters understand. He and Melissa become closer than ever. Jessica and Jonathon are closer. Jessica’s sister gets very curious about what her sister is up to and inadvertently ends up right in the beasts’ path on the most dangerous midnight in centuries. The secrets of the previous generation of midnights shame the current midnighters and motivate them to make different choices. When the time warp threatens to entrap whole cities, the midnighters must work together with their unique talents to stop the danger.

Great ending to the trilogy.

Some memory-jogging tags: Supernatural. Alternative reality. Flying humans. Mind reading. Little sisters. Boyfriend / girlfriend relationships. Obscurity of the past. Ethical conduct.

MS Rating: Great.

The Chaos King by Laura Ruby, 2007

Georgie Bloomington is not finding life as the Richest Girl in the Universe very easy, even compared to her years in the orphanage. The Second Richest Girl in the Universe, Roma Radisson, and her two friends Bethany Tiffany and London England poke her and tease her every chance they get. She is also having a hard time talking to Bug (Sylvester). She meets a girl she thinks she can be friends with, but not before taking to turning invisible again, even though she promised her worried parents she wouldn’t. Now she has been “invited” to the punk’s art show and she must come or the vampires will bite her parents.

As I was reading, I kept thinking that this book has a very rich back story. After I was completely done with it, I discovered why. It was a sequel. No wonder. And it ends as if another book may be following, though I couldn’t find anything about that on the author’s site. Even so, the read was very enjoyable with quirky humor throughout.

Some memory-jogging tags: Invisibility. Flying humans. Magic pen. Bringing things to life. Snobbery. Cliques. New York Public Library. Library basement. Giant octopus. Giant sloth. Vampires. Visual art and art gallery. Pet birds. Weirdly cognoscente cat. Cryptic house cook. Mr. Fuss.

MS Rating: Great

Do Unto Otters; Touching Darkness; Red Moon at Sharpsburg; Glitch in Sleep; Secret Hour

Do Unto Otters: A Book About Manners (picture book) by Laurie Keller, 2007. An otter family thinks about what kind of neighbors they’d like. Cute cartoony illustrations and a very simple story may make this book too young for even the narrow purpose of introducing a TA character lesson.

MS Rating: OK. I wouldn’t have bought it if I had previewed it first. It was recommended by C Mitchel’s Bedside Rants and Raves blog.


Touching Darkness (Midnighters, bk. 2) by Scott Westerfeld, 2004. Jessica now knows her talent, and the primitive beasts are afraid. But now the danger leaves its previous bounds of the midnight hour. Humans are stalking Jessica, threatening her well-being during the other 24 hours. The midnighters discover what happened to all the older midnighters, and finds one survivor. The threat is repeating itself.

This is a great sequel, just as good as the first. A very high creepy factor and a sprinkling of swear words throughout may make this book unattractive for some readers.

Some memory-jogging tags: Conspiracy. Magic symbols and runes. Alternative reality. Greed. Beast-human hybred.

MS Rating: Great.


Red Moon at Sharpsburg by Rosemary Wells, 2007. The small north Virginia town of Berryville isn’t as big or well-known as its neighbors in the Shenandoah Valley, but is a beautiful corner of the world and well beloved by its residences. The Trimbles own acres of orchards and the grand Longmarsh Hall. The Spreckle spinster sisters are busybodies. Ester and Micah Cooley are the black “servants” of the Trimbles. The Pardoes are Quakers whose father is a lawyer and daughter Julia is best friends with the narrator. Finally, we have the Moodys. Mr. Moody is a tradesman who makes harnesses and encourages his daughter India to be as independent and curious as she wants, even though it is against the customs of the day, and worries her mom. Except for the first chapter that happens about 12 years prior, the story begins in 1861. The Civil War has begun, and life will never be the same. The Pardoes move to Ohio to wait out the war with relatives. The Trimples’ two sons enlist while the oldest son, Emory, stays behind on account of his asthma. The schoolmaster becomes the town’s first casualty and India is sent to Emory for tutoring, where she learns chemistry and biology and medicine and, eventually, falls in love with Emory. Before the end, the war comes to Shenandoah Valley. India’s father dies of disease. Emory leaves to help with caring for the sick and wounded and is captured and sent to a prison in Baltimore. India and her mom move in with obnoxious relatives to avoid destitution, but India cannot stay and runs back home. She and the Cooleys tend a Union officer who had his leg amputated at the hip and left barely alive in the Trimbles’ home. Against orders, they succeed in transporting him back from behind enemy lines.

This is a Civil War story with a lightness of voice, true to a teen’s limited perspective. Not a sweeping, epic-like, quintessential “experience,”, but rather a very personal account of how totally devastating war was for this girl, her family and neighbors.

Some memory-jogging tags: Virginia. Shenandoah Valley. Civil War. Medicine. Chemistry. Women’s roles, 1800s.

MS Rating: Great.


Glitch in Sleep (The Seems, bk. 1) by John Hulme and Michael Wexler, 2007.
Becker Drane fills out an application for “the best job in the world” and his life is changed forever. He becomes a Fixer for The Seems, the machinery behind weather, sleep, coincidences and everything else you always thought was just controlled by the laws of nature. Becker is the newest and youngest Fixer and is called up when a Glitch is loss in the Department of Sleep and causing Havoc, threatening a Ripple Effect. Toward the end, when Becker creates a dream for his mission-within-a-mission girl, he offers this hope, “Tomorrow, when you wake up, pretend that maybe The World isn’t what you thought it was. That the trees and the leaves and the wind – and even you – are part of the most magical place ever created, and something, somewhere, is making sure you’ll always be okay. Honest! I tried it and, yeah, it’s not always easy, but the more you do it, the more you realize it just might be real.”

All the word plays on common phrases made this a more choppy read for me. The story never really flowed well, though I found the premise unique and curious. My teen readers seemed to like this book.

Some memory-jogging tags: Training. Alternative reality. Gadgets. Team work. New Jersey.

MS Rating: OK.


Secret Hour (Midnighters, bk. 1) by Scott Westerfeld, 2004.
When Jessica moves to Bixby, Oklahoma, leaving behind her Chicago home and friends, she starts having strange dreams. But they are not really dreams, they are real experiences she’s having during the 25th hour. While the rest of the world – including people and rain and speeding cars -- is frozen, Jessica roams free. But there are creatures who like to stalk and eat humans that exist only during this midnight hour, effectively making this free time much more dangerous than anything Jessica has ever known. There are a handful of other teens who also experience the midnight hours, and by banding together these midnighters, each with their own unique talent, manage to evade the beasts for another day. Rex is a seer. He can see traces of where the dark creatures have been, and can read their lore. Melissa is a caster, able to read others’ thoughts and influence those thoughts as well. Dess is really, exceptionally good with math, able to thwart the midnight creatures with 13-letter words and multiples of 13. Jonathan, the most independent and least willing to follow Rex and Melissa’s lead, is a jumper. Gravity doesn’t have much hold on him during the midnight hour. By the end of the book, Jessica has discovered her own talent – a torch thrower. Modern technology such as a flashlight and wrist watch, which normally will not work during the midnight hour, work with her touch. The flashlight incinerates the beasts on contact.

The story is very fun. The premise is very original and the characters are believable and interesting to read about.

Some memory-jogging tags: Alternative reality. Good vs. evil fantasy. Mind-reading. Friendship. Relocation.

MS Rating: Great.

Everlost; Mother-Daughter Book Club; Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian; and Teacher's Funeral

Everlost by Neal Shusterman, 2006

Two young teens, Nick and Allie, are traveling in opposite directions when their cars collide, killing both. On the way to the light at the end of the tunnel, they collide again and fall into Everlost. The rest of the story is about them finding out about Everlost, what the dangers are, who has information, and how to get to where they’re going. Unique premise, gripping story. The ending has a high creepy factor, and leaves room for a sequel.

Some memory-jogging tags: Death. Supernatural. Adventure story. Life-after-death. Trust and betrayal. Friendship. Eternity. Monsters. Adult-less society.

MS Rating: Great.

Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick, 2007

Four middle-schooler girls and three of their moms form a book club to read and discuss together Little Women. Set in Concord, the home of Louise May Alcott, the story rotates between the different girls’ point of view as the story progresses through the school year. Emma’s mom is a librarian who loves Jane Austin (her brother’s name is Darcy) and Emma loves to write, including poetry, and is a little heavy. Candace just moved to town from California. Her dad recently died, her mom has been a famous fashion model, and her older sister looks like one. She, on the other hand, is a total tomboy and gets a spot on the boys’ hockey team. Megan is part of a cool Fab-Four group that acts superior than everyone else and treats them accordingly. Her mom is into health food and MIT but Megan is interested in fashion design. Jessie lives on a working organic farm while her mom is acting in a soap opera and living in NYC. The different voices don’t sound different enough and the story is predictable. I liked the setting, but lost my interest after just a couple of chapters.

Some memory-jogging tags: Little Women, Louisa May Alcott. Book clubs. School stories. Bullying. Concord, Mass.

MS Rating: OK.

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, 2007. Art by Ellen Forney

Fourteen-year-old Junior escape from the hopelessness and drunkenness on the rez begins when he hits his teacher with a 30-year-old textbook. The teacher comes over to apologize to Junior (!) and tells him to leave this place before his hope is lost. With the moral support of his family but not his best friend nor anyone else on the rez, and with no ride and no money, he starts attending the best rural school in Washington in the neighboring town of Reardan, 22 miles away. The story is funny, crude, heartbreaking, eye-opening, often simultaneously. The use of f— three or four times, and sh— and other swear words throughout, makes this book inappropriate for my middle school population.

Some memory-jogging tags: Reservation life. Coming-of-age story. Bullying. Drunkenness. School story. Basketball story. Best friends. Hopelessness. Death and grief.

MS Rating: No

Teacher’s Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts by Richard Peck, 2004. Read by Dylan Baker in a Listening Library production

If your teacher has to die, August isn’t a bad time of year for it,” says Russell Culver, fifteen, who’s raring to light off for the endless skies of the Dakotas. Maybe now with his teacher, mean old Myrt Arbuckle, in the ground, Hominy Ridge School will be shut down for good. But Russell, his brother Lloyd, Pearl, Flopears, Little Britches, and their other classmates do have school, with Russell and Lloyd’s 17-year-old sister as the teacher. Two of Russell’s classmates, his best friend Charles and Glenn from a no-account family, try to woe Tansy, as does a motored vehicle driver Eugene who ran their buggy off the road, first such accident in 1904 rural Indiana. At first I thought the story was hokey, but by the end, I was really enjoying it. It took awhile to get over the reader’s annoying style. Captures the rural school house experience well.

Some memory-jogging tags: Education. Teachers. Family life. Rural America. Humorous. Practical jokes. Early 20th-century American life.

MS Rating: Great.