Rush for the Gold, Alienation

Feinstein, John. Rush for the Gold.

22 May 2012, Random House Children's Books

Susan Carol and Stevie are back, and this time Susan Carol is very close to making the Olympic team. She is approached by all sorts of agents and sponsors because she is not only a fantastic swimmer; she is also pretty. Her father is bowing to the pressure for her to wear logos at every interview, which confuses and angers her. Stevie, writing for the Washington newspaper, manages to go to the Olympic trials to be with her (their long distance romance seems to be working better than most), and when she makes the Olympic team, he goes to London as well. While in London, the politics and agent anxiety increase-- Stevie is yelled at for talking to Susan Carol and not getting proper permission to speak to other swimmers. He has to struggle with balancing his reporting with wanting to be with his girlfriend all the time. Susan Carol has to struggle with an increasingly overbearing father who wants her to fire her long time coach because he isn't "big time" enough, and with the pressure to win a gold--so that she can earn the big bucks in sponsorships. When it is clear that another girl, Elizabeth, is a better swimmer but not as pretty and personable as Susan Carol, Susan Carol becomes angry that looks count for so much. Is someone sabotaging Elizabeth because she isn't as attractive? Stevie and Susan Carol are able to use their well-honed investigative skills to figure this out.

Strengths: Even though this book is about a girl, the guys will still pick it up. I was oddly intrigued by all the swimming descriptions as well as the machinations of the agents. Feinstein's background as a sports news writer is always apparent, and that's a good thing when trying to hook reluctant readers. I love this series and would really like to see Mr. Feinstein write some stand alone titles about basketball or football.
Weaknesses: While the inclusion of actual athletes as characters will add immediacy to the story now, it will also cause it to date, like R.R. Knudson's Zan Hagen's Marathon. Also, because I am not at all familiar with swimming personalities, I wasn't sure which characters were based on real people and which were purely fictional.

Lewis, Jon S. Alienation. (3 January 2012)

Colt is back with his friends Oz and Danielle. They are concerned because the government is warning people away from a nuclear reactor meltdown, but the real problem is an alien virus from which no one recuperates. There are too many things going on to worry about that for too long. Oz's father, Lobo, has hired Krone, a Thule shape-shifting assasin, to kill senator Bishop, who is a friend of Colt's grandfather, The Phantom Flyer. Once Bishop is dead, Krone comes after Colt, although Colt doesn't really know why. It's time for the three to head off to CHAOS training, anyway, and of course they run into all sorts of problems on the way, like flying jellyfish attacking their jet! At the academy, the students learn to fly hoverboards and deal with the Thule invasion, while trying to be polite to more sympathetic life forms. Krone is still hunting down Colt, and when he finds him, shape shifts into Danielle's form and injects Colt with the virus! Who is more evil, Krone or Lobo? Will Colt survive the virus? What about his alien blood? And more importantly, when will the final book be out?

Strengths: Wow! It's impossible to write a review of this without exclamation points! They have antique jet packs! And have lots of fights! The chapters are short!

Weaknesses: While this is certainly an action packed tome that has the added bonus of comic strips in the front, it was a little lacking on character development and, well, reasons for things to be exploding. See? I have not completely turned into a 12-year-old boy!

The Whisper

Clayton, Emma. The Whisper.

This sequel to The Roar(2009) starts with an uprising of the implanted children, caused by Ellie and Mika being reunited. These children have been trained by the evil Gorman, a wizened character kept alive by drugs, to be his army, but Mika and a team of mutant children are trying to use the army for their own purpose, which is to overthrow Gorman. When the people of the North find out that there wasn't an animal plague that devastated the South and made it inhabitable, but that the people in the South wanted luxurious lifestyles for themselves and so imprisoned those who were less well-to-do in cramped housing in the North. When Mika and Ellie are sent by Gorman to spy on his evil counterpart, Raphael Mose, they decide to try to bargain with him, to no avail. There is great agitation in the North to blast down the wall and let the people from the North take over the South, but Mika realizes that humans are causing great damage to the planet, and doesn't think that the wall should go down until people are more conscientious about conservation. With the help of Helen, one of the richest women in the South, Gorman's assistant, and Mose's daughter, Mika and his army of mutants fight for a situation that will be equitable for all, but safe for the environment.

Strengths: This has lots of action, and a good but not overly preachy message. I liked Helen's character a lot, and the struggle Mika has to do what is right is well done. The book design is quite nice. The first book in this series has been a slow but steady circulator for students who enjoy dystopian science fiction.

Weaknesses: It has been so long since I had read the first book that I was confused a bit, but after I warmed up, I enjoyed it.

End of the Year Progress Report:The book fair is all done but the paperwork (and hauling out to the cafeteria to await pickup!) and the good news is that sales were high enough that we get cash profit. Book profit is okay, but since there are so few hardcover books, it's better to have the extra cash.

Still 350 overdue books, which makes me hyperventilate. Will start calling homes again. Sigh.

Have all of the nonfiction inventoried, with fairly few missing items. Will start shelf reading fiction, which desperately needs to be done. I straightened two shelves of "F ST" yesterday where not one book was in the right place. It's amazing that we can ever find anything.

And that book about the top basketball starts of 1993? And the "Young and Black in America" from 1970? Also not useful for biography reports. Plus it smelled funky.

I don't even count the days left. There are always, always too few!

Guy Friday-- Blood Sun

Gilman, David. Blood Sun.
27 December 2011
When Max finds out that Danny Maguire from his school is found run dead in an underground station, and two "secret service" men show up at his school, he knows that something is wrong. With the help of his friend Sayid, he steals a passport, makes appointments with scholars of Mayan civilization to uncover the mystery of an artifact that Danny mailed to him, and makes his way to Central America. The British secret service is trying to find him, but so is the trained assassin Riga, who is working for Cazamind, who has a secret in the rain forest he doesn't want Max to uncover. Max manages to pick up a friend, Xavier, in a drug deal gone bad, and the two go from Miami to the rain forest to try to find out what happened to Max's mum, an environmental activist (his father is in a care facility, recuperating from his last adventure). While there, he encounters all sorts of danger, from poisonous plants to voracious crocodiles to people who want him dead. With the help of Flint, a "plant thief" whose business was ruined by Max's mother, he is able to find out what did happen to his mother and bring this series to a close.
Strengths: Wow. Don't think I want to go camping with Mr. Gilman! Every page is a breathless adventure where death is seconds away... but Max manages to avoid it. Max is a great loyal character with a very strong sense of what is right. The adventure and action in this series cannot be beat, and the sense of place in every scene is fabulous. I want to go back to the British Museum right now. And maybe have lunch with Mr. Gilman, far away from poison frogs! Don't tell Anthony Horowitz, but this may be stronger than Alex Rider. VERY curious to see what is next from this author.
Weaknesses: Had a hard time figuring out what Riga was doing, and the ending was a bit anticlimactic.

Totally Random Tuesday

Kallen, Stuart. Time Travel (Mysterious Encounters)

After one of my students gave me a time travelers handbook, I thought "That's what I need! Instructions on how to build a time machine!!" Unfortunately, even though Chapter 4 is entitled "Building a Time Machine", there are no instructions. Dang! Just a lot of mumbo jumbo about whether Einstein and a bunch of physics people thought it was possible. So, back to square one. Perhaps my stamp pad needs to travel at the speed of light for the 1992-1997 date due stamp to take me anywhere. And the stamp existed in that time, so should be able to take me there. This book is of the opinion that travel to the past is especially unlikely-- who wants to travel to the future?

Did want to mention that there is a Time Travelers Convention being held on 7 May 2005. I didn't make it the first time, but I do have a stamp with that date on it, so when I figure out the stamp pad, I will be able to attend. This makes perfect sense! You only need to have ONE time travelers' convention!

Remember, Time Slip Tuesday is a recurring feature at Charlotte's Library that you should definitely visit!

Lorentz, Dayna. The Storm. (Dogs of the Downed City #1)

This book was received from Young Adults Book Central and is reviewed there.

Shep has been rescued from a life of dog fighting and enjoys life with his boy in their apartment in the city. When a giant storm comes, and the boy and his family leave Shep on his own, he doesn't know what to make of it. Another dog, Callie, barks at him from the fire escape, and he breaks a window, jumps out, and the two take off on their own. They soon realize that things are not right at all and end up in an apartment building, freeing the dogs that have been left. Many of these dogs are "yappers"-- small, pet dogs who are not ferocious enough to stand up to the wild dogs that constantly threaten the small pack that Shep manages to put together. The storm continues to rage, compromising the apartment building, and the group finds a veterinarians or boarding kennel to stay in. When the wild dogs come, will the "yappers" and the bigger dogs be able to fend them off and remain safe?

Strengths: Clearly, fans of the Warriors books will like this. Lots of action and fighting, even eating some squirrel (instead of vole). Shep has some philosophical issues about having been a fighter, and also about getting along with different types of creatures. I can easily gets behind a trilogy of these! The Pack (#2) came out in September, and The Return comes out 1 June 2012. Worth buying in PermaBound.

Weaknesses: Since it is from the dogs point of view, sometimes things are described as a dog sees them (elevators, refrigerators) which makes sense but nonetheless irks me a tiny bit.

Eye of the Storm

Messner, Kate. Eye of the Storm.

Jaden loves living in Vermont with her mom, a scientist who studies frogs, but when her mother needs to spend the summer in Costa Rica, she's excited to spend the summer with her father, stepmother and baby half sister in Placid Meadows, Oklamhoma. This is a community that her father's company, StormSafe, has created in a world that is constantly rocked by tornadoes and hurricanes. At a vague point in the future, the weather has become so bad that children no longer are allowed to ride their bikes, all houses have safe areas, and crops are predominately "DN-ature"; hybrids produced to be grown more quickly and uniformly. Jaden gets accepted into a summer meteorological program that StormSafe runs for children, and meets Risha, Alex and Tomas, who are all interested in figuring out how storms work as well. For Alex, it's very personal, because his family runs a farm that is quite battered by the storms, but which they do not want to sell to StormSafe. When Jaden is trying to figure out how to run her storm simulations, she runs across information that leads her to believe her father might not have the best interests of everyone at heart. Can Jaden and her friends safe Alex's farm, or will the increasingly bad storms wipe out everything they love, even Placid Meadows?

Strengths: Wow. Of course, I loved The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. And Sugar and Ice was fantastic. So I thought "Hmmm. Can Messner really pull off science fiction?" Boy, howdy, can she ever. I don't want to give away the plot, so couldn't really describe the entire last half of the book, but the list of brilliant touches in this is lengthy. The exact date when this takes place is vague, although we do have Jaden's grandfather killed right after 9/11. The every day technology that Messner introduces is brilliant. Data Slates that everyone carries, the genetically modified food-- and every time I would come across one, I would think "Hmmm. This could happen, and soon!" The names aren't overly goofy-- brilliant. The fact that several important characters turn out to be rather evil was a marvelous touch, and there was even some light romance. The suspense and action at the end were fantastic. While the main character is a girl, I see this being equally popular with the boys. Ms. Messner, you have hit this one right out of the park! If you want to quit teaching now and devote yourself to writing full time, you have my full support!

Weaknesses: Messner deserves better covers. And I wasn't wild about the name Jaden for a girl, even though it has a good, futuristic quality to it.

Spring Sports!

Wooo hoooo! I am halfway through the 2012 challenge of reading 600 books! I know, right? I've been really motivated by getting boxes of ARCs from Baker and Taylor, and being a reviewer for Young Adult Books Central. Do I really read five or six books on some days? Absolutely! An average middle grade book takes me about 45 minutes to read, so if I get home at 3:00 and can manage to stay up until 9:00, I can get a lot read. Much more fun than stuff like housework and feeding people. And I'm working.

Swan, Bill. Mud Happens.
In this second book in the series, Matt and the Lovey runners are back, but Ms. Wellesley can't continue as their coach after the school board decides that they can't train over the winter at the Civic Dome because of liability reasons. Matt and Ashely approach Joe Calder, the coach of the competitive Riders running club to work with their group, and he agrees only if they can get Ms. Wellesley to step up her training for the Olympic team tryouts. Matt has trouble pacing himself in his running, and finds help from an unlikely source-- the school custodian, Tony, who coaches the nearby Vikings club. When the group enters a race, will Matt's training pay off? Will he choose to join a different running club from his friends?
Strengths: Again, good details about running. I liked Matt a little more; he is happier having settled in from the family move, although his sister is struggling with college decisions, which is a nice touch.
Weaknesses: Canadian cross country is set up differently. I imagine the student who checked out the first book is about done; I'm curious to see what he thought. Recruiting student athlete from their home schools is frowned upon in the US, so it was odd to me that Matt had to make a choice!

Swan, Bill. Road Rage.
Matt and his friends are going to run the Alfie Shrubb race, so while their class is doing research at the library, Matt slips out to the museum that has a book on the man. He gets caught and has to do community service, but even worse, the valuable book that he borrows briefly goes missing, and the police get involved! His family is still struggling-- his sister with college decisions, and the family whether they should move back to London or not. Since Matt is in trouble, he doesn't get to run in the race but is put to work handing out water a good way from the end of the race, where he ends up helping a former world championship competitor who is struggling with MS over the finish line.
Strengths: I like the flirtation with Ashley-- very well done. I started to get to know the other characters in the book a bit better, and the portrayal of Matt being in trouble for being in the wrong place at the wrong time was well done. The inclusion of the runner with MS was also well done.
Weaknesses: I knew who had taken the book early on, but students might not catch that!

Lynch, Janet Nichols. Racing California.
Holiday House, 1 April 2012

Evan is thrilled when he meets biking legend Dash Shipley while working as a tour guide with a cycling company. At first, he is mistaken for someone else, but is still approached to be part of a racing team that Shipley is putting together. The training takes a huge amount of work, which makes it difficult for Evan to get through his senior year and have time to spend with his girlfriend, who wants to become a doctor as much as Evan does. Still, biking is what Evan loves best, so it is worth the hard work and sacrifice to be able to race with a team. Evan idolizes Dash, so when it becomes clear that Dash is not necessarily a nice guy, and doesn't feel that the rules apply to him, Evan has to decide if racing is really the path in life he wants to take.
Strengths: Lots of great descriptions of bike racing, which were fun to read. I ride a bike nearly every day, but I never get to ride up mountains! Evan is also an interesting character with a lot of drive, and it's hard to find books concerning students getting ready for college.
Weaknesses: One iffy scene with a bike groupie who brings Evan back to her room. Nothing happens, but they wake up together. One f-bomb, if I remember.

Middle Grade Monday-- Chomp

Middle Grade Monday is the brainchild of Shannon Whitney Messenger. A great round up of a variety reviews can be found at her blog, Ramblings of a Wanna Be Writer.

In other exciting news (in my world, which is pretty dull!), I have been asked to review books for Young Adult Books Central! They send me books, especially for middle grade boys, which makes me very happy!

Hiaasen, Carl. Chomp

Review copy received from publisher for YA Books Central.

Wahoo's dad, Mickey Cray, has a business renting exotic animals for film sets. While he is recovering from an iguana-induced concussion, Wahoo's mom has to go to China, and Wahoo accepts a contract to supply animals for Expedition Survival! during his summer vacation so the family has some money coming in. The star of the show, Derek Badger, stages most of the show, and there's never any real danger, and Mickey gets so annoyed with his showmanship that he sabotages the filming in small ways, to the amusement of Wahoo as well as the film crew. Wahoo needs some amusement-- he's still concerned about his father's headaches, as well as Tuna, a girl from his class. Tuna lives with her alcoholic, abusive father in a trailer in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart, and after her most recent beating has sought refuge with the Crays. When one of Derek's stunts goes terribly wrong and he is bitten on the tongue by a bat, the Everglades become dangerous for real. Tuna's father is hunting her down, Derek is roaming about in an infection induced state of paranoia that he will turn into a vampire like Dax Mangold from the Night Wing books, and Wahoo needs to make sure that Tuna stays safe and Derek's injury doesn't ruin his father's business. Sound hectic, complicated, and a bit hilarious? Absolutely.

Strengths: Derek is a great character, sort of the evil, bumbling twin of Steve Irwin. His own hubris makes it funny that Mickey Cray turns animal after animal against him without injuring him. Hiaasen always does great running-around-avoiding-danger; this reminded me a little of the late, great Donald Westlake. I am also glad to see that the publisher has kept the same style of covers-- Hoot came out in 2002, and the cover doesn't seem dated at all.

Weaknesses: There is no mystery in this, which I expected, and some of it does seem a bit mean spirited. Tuna's father is also rather disturbing. That said, I was never a huge fan of Hiaasen's other books, although they certainly circulate well, but this might be my favorite of his middle grade titles.

Conspiracy EVERYWHERE!

Carter, Ally. Out of Sight, Out of Time.

When a bruised and underweight Cammie wakes up in a convent in the Alps, she has not idea how she got there, but quickly finds out that her entire summer is gone-- and she can't remember it. She knows she ran away after Joe Solomon almost died, but doesn't know where she went or what she did. This is a problem, since the Circle of Cavan may or may not have taken her at some point and extracted information from her. Her mother and friends are glad to have her back, and Zach is now living at Gallagher Academy to keep him safe from his evil mother, but Cammie is having a hard time readjusting. She frequently blacks out due to her multiple head injuries, and occasionally shows some mad assassin skills that she didn't have previously! She and her friends try to figure out what happened, and whether or not the circle is still trying to kill her. Their research takes them to Italy, where it turns out Cammie made some startling discoveries. Can she follow all of the threads and get the answers that she needs... and still stay alive?

Strengths: Hard to write a review of this AWESOME book without giving too much away, but it was even better than the first four! The details of spying make me think that either the author is really good at research or has a background that she isn't telling us about. I love how supportive her friends are, how her mother and aunt are worried but not overly in her face, and how Zach doesn't doubt Cammie's abilities but checks up on her none the less. Also, the girl on the cover is not a stick. Hooray.

Weaknesses: Ms. Carter needs to take a tiny break from writing teen books and write one about a middle aged ,um, LIBRARIAN spy!

Gibbs, Stuart. Spy School.

Ben is surprised when he is recruited by the CIA to go to their Academy of Espionage, which is cleverly disguised as a geeky science academy because aside from some cryptography skills, he's not that smart. Turns out that he has been brought in as bait-- the word is put out that he invented a special code, and people start coming after him. The daughter of the man who recruited him, Erica, tells him that all is not as it seems at the school, and there is a mole that must be found. Of course, if Ben can find the mole, he might be able to stay in the school. There is a lot of personal peril-- bombs under the building, people kidnapping and drugging him... but Erica is always saving him. Is the mole a fellow student who just appears to be stupid? Is the principal as stupid as he looks? And what's up with Erica's father? Once Erica tries her own plan to flush out the mole (emailing from the principal's account that Ben has developed Jackhammer, a super code hacker program), will everything work out?

Strengths: Great cover, fun twist on standard spy stories, LOTS of action and adventure with bonus romance. Definitely will buy a copy of this.

Weaknesses: This is not quite as believable as Alex Rider or the Gallagher Girl books, since it walked right along the edge of Goofy. This will make it more popular with the under twelve crowd; I don't think it would do well in high school, whereas the other aforementioned works would.

Austin, Sean. Echo's Revenge.

Publication May 2012. ARC received from publisher.

Brothers Reggie and Jeremy escape from absent mother and her abusive boyfriend by playing online games, and Reggie is so good at "Echo's Revenge" that he gets a letter from the game maker inviting him to a focus group. He runs off, knowing the boyfriend doesn't want him to go, and meets a lot of the people he knows from the game. After the meeting, the company contact, Luca, gives Reggie a secret passwords and tells Reggie to contact him if he needs anything. Sure enough, when he gets home, Reggie is in trouble. He and Jeremy take off and try to head to their long-absent father's house. Not only are they picked up quickly for rides, but when they stop at convenience stores for food, they find that all of the gamers they know are on milk cartons as being missing kids! Something sinister is occurring, and sure enough, just as they reach their father's house, they are drugged, kidnapped, and taken to a secret mine where they end up working for Echo. How will they escape? What evil purpose does AAA Reality Games have? And will anyone ever believe their story?

Strengths: A lot of my students are interested in video games, and very few books include them. This not only has descriptions of the games (which must be interesting to someone, but I don't get it at all!), but the boys get trapped in a situation that is essentially one big video game. Good action and adventure; STB read this one very quickly.

Weaknesses: A bit confusing for me, since I don't understand video games. Also, have a sneaking suspicion that this is self published; the publisher is supposedly AAA Reality Games, but going to that web site causes one to be redirected to echohunt.com. Not a bad book, but might be hard to find in a library copy.

Mysteries!

McClintock, Norah. Last Chance. Robyn (Robbie) is in the wrong place at the wrong time during a protest about using animals for testing, and ends up on the wrong side of the law. Since her mother is a lawyer and her father is a retired policeman, she manages to get time volunteering instead of fines or a record... but she has to volunteer at an animal shelter, and she's terrified of dogs after being attacked by one when young. She manages to fit in fairly well, and ends up doing a lot of paperwork, but she has a problem working with Nick, a juvenile delinquent who is in a group of such offenders who are working with dogs that are so maladjusted they can't be adopted until they are trained. She has had run ins with Nick before, and when money goes missing from the shelter, she assumes that either he or one of the other boys is responsible. Is her anger at her parents and her dislike of being in the shelter clouding her judgement of Nick? The first book in a trilogy.

Strengths: I've been looking for something for fans of Sorrel's Fake ID and Ferguson's The Christopher Killer, and although this doesn't have a murder in it, it has a sort of gritty feel to it that I think my students will enjoy.

Weaknesses: Robbie is not really very likable, and the plot is a bit predictable.

Grant, Katy. Hide and Seek.
Chase's mother and stepfather run a small
motel and bait shop in Arizona near the White Mountains. He's tired of having to help with it, so enjoys getting out on his bike to do some geocaching with his GPS. When he finds a note in one of the boxes, it leads him to Sam and Jack, who are living with their father in a tent in the wilderness and struggling to have enough food. The more he gets to know the boys, the more suspicious he becomes that something isn't right with their situation. He looks up a missing children site on the computer, and finds out that Sam and Jack have been abducted by their noncustodial father. After calling thie mother, Chase goes to check on the boys, since Sam has been ill, and is discovered by their father, who hits Chase with a shot gun and abducts him! After a harrowing experience, Chase manages to escape and tries to make his way back home with the help of his GPS. Can he make it in time to save the boys? Will he make it home at all?
Strengths: Really good outdoor adventure combined with a good kidnapping story. Both are highly requested in my library. Definitely will buy a copy!
Weaknesses: Chase doesn't tell his parents that he is helping these boys, and doesn't let them know when he runs off the last time, but this is addressed as something that is not a good idea!

Middle Grade Monday-- India

Behera, Sanjiv. Vikram and the Enchanted Seals.
Rickshaw Books, Ebook received from author.

Vikram and his family travel from their home in California to India for the funeral of his grandmother. He meets and bonds with his grandfather, who gives him a very old family seal... right before he goes missing. When Vikram, his brother Jai, and a family servant, Manu, go looking for the grandfather, they meet Toral, whose grandparents have been kidnapped by horrible, giant monsters called Rakshasas. Toral's grandparents also have a seal,and the Rakshasas, led by the evil King Kama, think that they can rule the world if they can assemble all of the seals and destroy the Dharma Cube. Vikram knows that he can't let this happen, so the group, aided by some very clever langurs, set out to find the seals and destroy the Rakshasas. Vikram begins to realize that his purpose in holding the seal is to save the world from destruction, so even though he despairs at times, he holds fast to his purpose in order to fulfill his destiny.
Strengths: This was a well-written and well-plotted fantasy novel with great action scenes. While it has much in common with many other quest and/or "teens save the world from utter destruction" books, the refreshingly unique part it that the mythological base for this book is Indian and not Celtic. Other than Lloyd Alexander's The Iron Ring, I can't think of another middle grade book with an Indian setting. I also liked Vikram's longing for a relationship with his grandfather, and his desire to understand his culture of origin. For another review, check out Boys Read.org.
Weaknesses: The new cover is better than the old one, but at first I thought the "enchanted seals" were animals rather than seal stones, which didn't sound as interesting.

Thanks to a very kind offer from Mr. Behera, this Kindle eBook is available today for FREE! Here are his instructions:

The book will automatically be priced for free on the amazon.com website. Your readers just need to go to amazon.com, find the book, and the purchase price will be $0. No code necessary. Here is a link you can use: http://tinyurl.com/79xlyft

(Currently, the price is $2.99, but will change on Monday @ 12:01am pacific time.)

Ellis, Deborah. No Ordinary Day.
Valli works in the coal town of Jharia picking up stray pieces of coal, living with an abusive aunt and uncle. When she find out that these people were merely given money by her family to take her in, she runs away to Kolkata. When there, she is at first taken in by woman running a brothel (although this is not clearly explained-- I inferred it) until the woman realizes that Valli has leprosy. Valli lives on the streets for a while until she meets Dr. Indra, who cleans her up and tries to treat her injured feet. Valli balks at being cooped up inside and runs away, but eventually comes back to the hospital. Dr. Indra explains why her feet have no feeling due to the nerve damage caused by leprosy, and Valli decides to stay and get treatment because she wants to grow up to be like Dr. Indra.
Strengths: Ellis' work is always short and very powerful. We use The Breadwinner as a class novel in the 6th grade, and it is a very popular unit. No Safe Place is another powerful work.
Weaknesses: The short length of Ellis' work appeals to students, but I would have been glad to read more about Valli and her experiences.

It's Marvelous Middle Grade Monday! Hop over to Shannon Whitney Messenger's blog to see the complete listing of middle grade reviews for this week.

Outlaw, Night Fall Series

Davies, Stephen. Outlaw.
Jake is not unhappy at his posh British boarding school, but life is BORING there. He and his friends have a game of Geothimble going, where they steal an object from someone else, hide it, and that person has to use GPS technology to get it. While playing this game, Jake ends up walking over a wall into a prison, and then gets kicked out of school. He ends up with his ambassador father in Burkina Faso, which is better than being at school. At a fancy dinner one night, he and his sister, Kas, get kidnapped. Excitement is a good thing, kidnapping is not. Jake and his sister must use their wiles to survive.

At first they think they have been kidnapped by Yakuuba Sor, a wanted outlaw who operates on the Robin Hood principal of taking the righting of wrongs into his own hands, but when they escape their kidnappers and find themselves in Sor's camp, they know that something else is going on. Jake's father, the police, and the British secret service are all after Sor, so he must get them back to their father and prove his innocence. This means uncovering the problems in the police force, which makes Sor even more of a target.
Strengths: This was a wonderful adventure book, and a twist on the usual spy tale. Jake and Kas do not take their situation likely, and realize that they are in real danger and need to cooperate with their captors. The exotic setting is a huge plus.
Weaknesses: This is rather violent, with at least three people being killed. It's not done gratuitously, and points out some important information about the characters involved, but I mention it in case students are sensitive to it.

Books like Outlaw make it hard to feel really enthusiastic about something like the Night Fall series from Darby Creek. These short (106 pages), high interest, low level books are great for struggling readers, but they aren't great literature. I've read a couple that were particulartly creepy; Skin involved the murder of a cat. Ick. Luckily, at $13 for a Follett Bound or $6.00 for a paperback, they aren't terribly expensive. I'm debating. I have a lot of 8th grade boys who don't want to read anything at all.

Watson, Stephanie. The Club.
From the Publisher: " Josh and his friends find an old game that promises the players good fortune at the expense of those who have wronged them, but when their luck skyrockets and horrible things happen to their enemies, they try to end the power they unleashed."
This was the strongest of this batch, with a nicely creepy board game gone wrong. New kid Josh tries hard to fit in to his new school, and the local history aspect of a girl from the 1920s committing suicide is an interesting touch.




Karlsson, Val. The Protectors.
From the Publisher: "After the accident that killed Luke's mother, he begins to get messages from the bodies in the funeral home where he lives with his stepfather, who is acting even stranger than usual, and in trying to solve his mother's death, he uncovers a horrifying secret."

This one starts out with rather graphic descriptions of the jobs necessary in a funeral home for preparing a body for viewing. I found it rather hard to read, but students will probably be intrigued. Also includes abusive stepfather, which is always a popular theme. Can't think of many books set in funeral homes except for Coleen Paratore's The Funeral Director's Son!



Watson, Stephanie. Messages from Beyond.
From the Publisher: "Cassandra starts receiving text messages from Ethan, a boy her age who seems to know a lot about her. He says that he goes to her high school, but they always seem to miss each other. The school office has norecord of him. She learns that he died in an accident 20 years ago. Suddenly, strange things begin to happen to Cassandra."

This one had so many references to popular culture that it will not last long at all. It got to be a bit annoying after a while, especially since I was already uncomfortable about the girl being stalked.

Time Slip Tuesday--Day of the Predator

Scarrow, Alex. Day of the Predator.
Sequel to Time Riders.
Liam and Maddy, Time Riders stationed on September 10 and 11, 2001, are joined by Sal and and a new version of their support unit, Bob, now a woman named Becks. Liam and Becks are sent to stop the assassination of Edward Chan, the father of time travel, but when they are at that period in time, an explosion sends them back to the Cretaceous period... with Chan and several of the students and teachers! The group tries to survive and battles wily dinosaurs while trying to get a message through to 2001 about their coordinates. Meanwhile, in 2001, Maddy is trying to find the group as well as trying to get through to Foster, her mentor, on September 12. The message does get through, but brings with it new risks of time contamination, and the Time Riders have a lot of clean up work to do before they can go back to just monitoring.
Strengths: Dinosaurs bring lots of action to any story, so that was fun. I also liked the secret service agents, even if they were the bad guys.
Weaknesses: Still not entirely sold on the method of time travel presented in this series, but it does address the whole issue of time travel changing the world.


Make sure you check out Charlotte's Library for more books on time travel on many Tuesdays, as well as a fabulous round up on middle grade and young adult science fiction and fantasy reviews.

All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky

Lansdale, Joe R. All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky.

You think the present economy is making your life tough? Jack's mother has died of dirty pneumonia, and his father hung himself hours after his death. Jack has to bury them both after an enormous dust storm. About this time, Jane and Tony come to his farm; their mother ran off with a Bible salesman, and their father has been killed by his tractor overturning on him. Jane has a plan to drive away from their doomed Oklahoma community by taking Old Man Turpin's car, since he died in the storm sitting on his front porch. Once the trio take off, they run into one trouble after another-- they get caught up with some thieves, get shanghaied into picking peas, have to ride the rails, and generally live from one meal to the next until they accept some help from kind people.
Strengths: Reminiscent of Hunt's No Promises in the Wind, it is a good reminder of how absolutely dire the Great Depression was. When people complain today's situation to that time, I want to slap them. I don't think that things have gotten bad enough now that parents are sending their children away from home because they have no food for them. This was an excellent depiction of this point in history, packed with action and adventure. Definitely buying for my students who want more books on this era after reading A Long Way From Chicago.
Weaknesses: I wished this had a period photo on the cover. Good try, but the boy's jeans and shirt look brand new.

Z. Raptor!

Cole, Steve. Z. Raptor.
Adam is walking across New York City to meet his father for pizza when he is followed by creepy guys and kidnapped! They take him to meet his father and claim to be fighting against Genetech, the company creating mutant dinosaur fighting machine, but then tranquilize Adam and his father and whisk them away to a remote island. There, dinosaurs attack their boats, and Adam ends up stranded. He meets a small group of survivors who are being helped by Loner, a velociraptor who is fighting both the people who turned him into a sentient and vocal but violent mutant. The battle heats up, and it turns out that Genetech is even more evil than Adam already suspects. The ending of this book makes me strongly suspect that Z. Apocalypse will be the final book in this series.

Strengths: Another great British author for guys, Steve Cole also wrote Thieves Like Us and the sequel, the Wereling trilogy, and the Astrosaurs series, which made me sad because it was one of the very few books nominated for the Cybils award that I was not able to read because I could not locate a copy anywhere! Mr. Cole gets the Paul Zindel Gore Award for this tale of island survival.
Weaknesses: My copy of Z. Rex looks like it was chewed on by a Z. Doberman, so I may need to recover it so it is as equally shiny as the sequel.

A note: This book does not have an Accelerated Reader test. Most of the books I review are very new, and RenLearn does not create tests for most books right away. My school, which piloted this program back for our district in 1996 or so, has 3,841 tests. I'm not a huge fan of AR, but it's not inherently evil, and I am able to get students who consult me books that they like and that they are able to finish so that they can meet their AR requirements. It's been a struggle this year, with elementary students being used to online AR.

Guy Friday-- Adrenaline

Aronson, Marc and Patty Campbell. War Is...Soldiers, Survivors, and Storytellers Talk About War. (2008)

This collection of writing about various facets of war has an introduction by Marc Aronson that finally makes sense of why so many of my boy readers want to read about war. Aronson posits that "People like war." Why?

There is a certain rush of Adrenalin that the war experience provides. People who have been in wars, despite the horrific experience, are drawn closer to those with whom they fight; they feel more alive. This is a very complete collection showing things from how army recruiters are not entirely honest, to women who experiences harassment while serving, to an interview with a chaplain. The stand out, for me, were several essays by World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle. I had heard of him, but never read his work. Why his "The Horrible Waste of War" recounting what the Normandy Beach looked like after the fighting is not required reading in every high school, I don't know. It is powerful stuff, and beautifully written. I will definitely look up the collection of his columns, entitled Brave Men, and will definitely purchase War Is... for my library. Don't know how I missed it.

Sciezka, Jon. Guys Read: Thriller.

Release date 20 September 2011. E-ARC received from NetGalley.

From the publisher: "A body on the tracks. A teenage terrorist. A mysterious wish-granting machine.The world’s worst private detective. The second volume in the Guys Read Library of Great Reading is chock-full of mystery, intrigue, and nefarious activity. Featuring some of the best writers around, and compiled by certified guy Jon Scieszka,Guys Read: Thriller is a pulse-pounding collection of brand-new short stories, each one guaranteed to keep you riveted until the final page."

Again, that Adrenaline rush. Scary stories, suspense. The Guys Read: Funny Business has been very popular: there's something to be said for a book that says specifically on the front cover "This is for boys to read." I would give more description, but it is so hard to page back through an E-ARC to look at the short stories again. They were all good.

Henderson, Jason. Alex Van Helsing: Voice of the Undead.

I liked Vampire Rising so much that I nominated it for the Cybils Awards.The second book is a textbook example of how to write for the Adrenaline rush: Alex is chased by two cars, has blood sucking leeches thrown at him by Elle, is attacked by the leeches again in his dorm room, and then the dorm catches on fire. That's just the first two chapters! The boys from Glenarvon have to move in with the girls at LaLaurie school until repairs are made. Shades of Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy!) From there, we find out that the vampires are still trying to take out Alex, so Elle makes several more attempts on his life, and a character named Ultravox is brought in. He's trying to brainwash the LaLaurie girls to carry out an evil plan, using Alex's friend Sid's short stories to do it! This is an absolutely essential purchase if your library's Darren Shan books are in tatters. Still not enough of Ale'x sister, but I think there will be a sequel, and I can live in hope.

Adrenaline. Why things need to explode in the very first chapter of a book for some boys to find it intriguing! That said, adrenaline literally makes me sick to my stomach! I don't like scary books or movies, I don't sky dive, and quite frankly, making left turns in heavy traffic is as daredevilish as I care to get. That's why it's important for me to separate what I want to read from what my students want. If I had my way, we'd have a collection based off of the blogging of The Paris Hat! Ah, rec rooms and saddle shoes. A little more in my comfort zone.

Weekend Reading

Whyman, Matt. Goldstrike.
It's been a while since Icecore (2007), so I didn't think this would be a sequel; the subtitle (A Carl Hobbes Thriller) should have tipped me off! Still, this could be read alone. Carl and Beth, having escaped Camp Twilight at the Arctic Circle and faked Beth's death, and settling into a working class life in London. Beth is working at a perfume counter at Heathrow Airport (even though she has some gold bullion tucked away), and Carl gets a job at Sphinx Cargo. Because they ship priceless artifacts, Sphinx has a sophisticated computer system, named Cleopatra, that controls all functions of the building. Carl gets a job as a night watchman there, and starts to turn the computer to his bidding, trying to program it to protect him and Beth. Things go awry when Beth chafes at being unable to steal more bullion and is put in the sites of a bounty hunter who wants to turn Carl over to the CIA.

Strengths: Lots of action and suspense; excellent computer hacking. The descriptions of the computer system and the building are extremely cool!
Weaknesses: Is Carl becoming more evil? Beth certainly is. And what is their relationship? I'm just as glad it's not discussed more. A sequel could be interesting! Hope it doesn't take four years.

Kantor, Melissa. The Darlings are Forever.
Love, love, love Girlfriend Material, but something about this book did not entice me to pick it up. Once I started, however, the twee title made sense (recently deceased and very dear grandmother called them that) and I enjoyed the book. Three friends who have gone to elementary school together must go separate ways in high school. Jane goes to a performing arts school, Natalya goes to a posh private school, and Victoria is more concerned with her father's political campaign than fitting in to her new school. The three carve out some time to be together, but the story follows their separate problems. A sequel The Darlings in Love is already in the offing.

Strengths: More good stuff from this author, and the NYC setting is always exotic for my students. Like the realistic portrayal of separated friends who still try to remain together.
Weaknesses: Could have done without the safe sex week demonstration of putting a condom on a banana, but there wasn't anything really sexual about it, so I think it will be okay.

Lee, Y.S. The Agency: The Body at the Tower.
Mary Quinn is back, and her latest assignment from The Agency is to go undercover as a young boy working at the building site at the Houses of Parliament to discover why a man has fallen to his death from the clock tower. She must cut her hair, wear boy's clothing, live in a seedy rooming house, and work as a bricklayer's assistant. Not only does she uncover personal drama and corrupted business practices, but she is brought together with James Easton again, after his return from India, and the two continue their flirting relationship.

Strengths: Why is Victorian London so appealing? Lee's background is in this are of history, so the details are exquisite and realistic. The mystery is well-developed, and the characters are fun.
Weaknesses: Mary was found out a little too soon and too frequently for my taste, and while this propelled the plot forward, made me wonder about her suitability for the Agency. I'll look forward to the last book when it comes out!

Archer, E. Geek Fantasy Novel.
Ralph is glad to be free of his boring parents for the summer after receiving airline tickets and an invitation from family in England. His parents have always insisted that he never make a wish, and he finds out why-- many members of his family have died that way, and he soon finds himself imperiled on a quest of his own, fighting an evil aunt and thrust into a world that more resembles Ruinscape (Okay, RUNEscape!) than anything else. Snarky asides and deep investment in hard core fantasy themes sets this apart.

Strengths: Fantasy fans will adore this, from the geeky Ralph to his exploits with exploding bunnies.
Weaknesses: This is not for the casual fantasy reader. No maps, but presupposes deep love of fantasy. 

Also looked at Thanhha's Inside Out and Back Again, which sounded good (in 1975, girl moves from Vietnam to Alabama) until I realized it was a novel in verse. Students really, really dislike novels in verse, and since this is also historical fiction, this would just gather dust in my library. This, of course, practically guarantees it a Newbery mention; Fuse 8 already has waxed lyrical about it. The Page Turn details all the recent love.

Some good books, but hard sells

This Bill Wallace title from 1994, Blackwater Swamp, has a terrible cover. It's also a bit hard to get into-- Wallace spends a lot of time talking about how the main character moved around and has trouble making friends before jumping into a suspenseful mysteries with a number of nice twists. Ted and his family are living on the bayou in Louisiana, and there is a "witch" living nearby, as well as several local juvenile delinquents, one of whom befriends Ted and steals his autographed copy of Robert's Scared Stiff, which was sort of funny. I'd start students with something by this author like Trapped in Death Cave, and recommend this one without showing them the cover!

Received Karen Schwabach's The Hope Chest in my blogger exchange from Semicolonblog.com. I really liked the tale of a young girl in 1920 who travels to New York City in search of her sister, who is working as a Suffragist and has been ostracized by the family. Violet finds letters that her sister Chloe has sent her, but which her parents have hidden. When she gets to New York, she finds that Chloe has moved on, but with the help of Myrtle, an orphaned African-American girl, she finds her sister's coworkers and travels to Nashville where she is part of a Suffragist rally. A little written about period of history, and well done.


Erratum. The Other Book. Inkeheart. Endymion Spring. And now David Michael Slater's The Book of Nonsense. Sigh. I am so tired of evil books with controlling powers that I fear I will not do this one justice. Dex and Daphna's mother was killed shortly after their birth, while looking for unusual books. They are being raised by a family friend and their father, who continues their mother's work. Daphna has found a new antiquarian book store and spends a lot of time there-- before she visits with her father when he tries to sell a book he found and emerges from his encounter with the evil Mr. Rash not quite himself. Daphna must go and read for Mr. Rash, who is blind, and starts to uncover an evil plot that involving The First Tongue, a language which, if know in its entirety, can grant the speaker unlimited power. There's a lot of action and adventure; perfectly fine fantasy and I will look into obtaining the other four in the series. (For EFreak, the ISBNs for the book are
ISBN-13: 978-1-933767-00-0 ISBN-10: 1-933767-00-6)


Still, irked by two things. BAD LATIN ALERT: Page 123- Videre per alterum, which is translated as "to see through others". Per takes the accusative, but alterum is both neuter and singular. Alteros is what is needed. People, people. I know I am the only one who will find this error, but I haven't taught Latin for 15 years! Call up a university department of Latin, please. They will be thrilled to help you!


And really? The publisher is Children's Brains are Yummy, and their motto is "Creating the banned books of tomorrow." Okay. The name is disturbing, and the motto somehow ... just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. But it's Friday, and I may just be tired and cranky.