Summer on the Moon

Fogelin, Adrian. Summer on the Moon.
ARC received from Peachtree Publications. Read about the blog tour!

Socko lives in a rundown apartment building in a rough area of town. His mother Delia works at Phat Burger and brings home leftovers for them to eat, and he and his friend Damien are looking forward to a summer of hanging out and skateboarding. Around the time that they feel they can no longer stay away from local bully Rapp and his gang, Socko's mother gets an offer she can't refuse-- her grandfather, the General, offers to move them to a brand new house in a new subdivision if they will take care of him. Socko isn't happy about leaving Damien, and not wild about taking care of an ornery, wheelchair bound, complaining old man, but he makes a friend in Livvy, the daughter of the ill-fated Moon Ridge Estates, and the two hang out in the nearly empty subdivision. While Socko and Livvy try to make the Estates in to a viable neighborhood, Socko's friends in the old neighborhood seem to be in danger from Rapp, and Socko has to decide how and if he can help them while still working to improve his own current conditions. This interesting story explores the importance of home-- both the physical place and the people who inhabit it.
Strengths: The skateboarding and inner city gang problems are topics that interest middle grade students tremendously.
Weaknesses: There's a little too much about the grandfather's eccentricities and not enough skateboarding. I haven't seen the final cover, but I'm not overly wild about this one. Stock photos would be a better choice.

Peachtree is having a Blog Tour for this title, at the following sites. Check it out!

Monday:

Boys to Books (review)

Barbara Watson (Q&A with Adrian )

Tuesday:

There’s a Book (review and Q&A with Adrian )

Ms. Yingling Reads (review)

Maestra Amanda’s Bookshelf (review)

Wednesday:

Boys to Books (Q&A with Vicky Holifield, editor)

Thursday:

Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers (Guest Post by Adrian )

Friday:

Maestra Amanda’s Bookshelf (Guest Post by Adrian )

Kloepfer, John. The Zombie Chasers: Sludgment Day. (#3)
Zach's parents (and most of the world) have been turned into zombies, but Zach and his friends have the antidote and are ready to save the world! First they have to drive across the country and locate the food scientist Duplessis, who helps them make more antidote as well as antizombification popcorn (it looks like brains, right?). During their trip to get there, they meet up with zombie Elvis impersonators, have a show down in the Mall of America, and fight a zombie BurgerDog meat man. Many illustrations accompany this.
Strengths: The kids LOVE zombie books, and this is gross without being overly gruesome. I can see a second grader reading it, and the 6th graders adore this series. The 8th graders, however, are FAR too cool to be seen with Zombie Chasers.
Weaknesses: Lots of death and destruction, but there is the feeling that it isn't permanent. The cartoonish illustrations, while a bit stomach turning, somehow make this seem less serious-- the level of gore in this could be pretty disturbing if the book were done in a slightly different way. Still, great for reluctant readers! And there is still probably one more book to come.

Happy Valentine's Day

Whittenberg, Allison. Tutored.
Wendy's father is a well-to-do, educated black man who is vehemently opposed to black people who have not made something of themselves, so he is not happy that Wendy is volunteering with a tutoring center in an economically disadvantaged part of town. While there, she meets Hakiam, whose mother got tired of raising him and put him into foster care. Having had enough of that, he moves from Cincinnati to Philadelphia to help his cousin Leesa raise her premature baby, Malikia. He doesn't really have a plan. Wendy does-- it includes going to college at Howard University in order to reconnect with her ethnic heritage, a plan that her father does not embrace. Wendy and Hakiam are strangely drawn to each other, and start to date. Wendy helps Hakiam take care of little Malikia, and tries to get him to secure a job and continue his education, but when things go wrong with the baby, he's not sure if he can hang on.
Strengths:I don't know that I have read anything that covers black-on-black prejudice, so this was interesting and will be a good addition to my romance books.
Weaknesses: The pictures of Wendy and Hakiam appear only on the back cover! There are a
few instances where this verges into more high school territory-- Hakiam smokes marijuana, and there is a party or two-- but these events are not glamorized. I also didn't feel what attraction these two had to each other, but they apparently did.

Meyer, Marissa. Cinder.
Cinder is the best mechanic in New Beijing, so when Prince Kai brings her his android to repair, she is not overly surprise, but is very flattered. She knows that she will not get to the big ball because her stepmother Adri is putting all of her resources into sending Cinder's stepsisters, Peony and Pearl. When Peony is struck down with letumosis, the plague that is going around and which also kills the king, Adri volunteers Cinder to participate in research to try to find a cure for the disease. During this research, Cinder finds out that she is actually immune to the disease. In the meantime, the Lunar Queen Levana comes to earth to console Kai about the death of his father and to try to set up an alliance with Earth... by marrying Kai. Cinder realizes that she can see through Levana's glamor, and her continued work with the doctor in the research facility leads to some startling truths about herself. Can Cinder save Earth from Queen Levana, save her sister from the plague, believe that Kai likes her more than Levana, and make it to the ball?
Strengths: This is one of those books that didn't appeal to me but which everyone is reading, but I was drawn in from the first page and really enjoyed it. There are so many good twists on the Cinderella story, plus intergalactic intrigue. I also liked that it was science fiction without being completely dystopian. Really a "wow" of a book!
Weaknesses: There was a lot going on, and since this is a fairly long book (390 pages), a bit more tightening would have strengthened the story for me.