In 1943, 10 year old Dewey sets out to join her father in New Mexico, where he’s engaged in “war work.”  She’s a mechanically minded girl who is teased by girls her own age, but happily finds that she gets along fine with the scientists on “The Hill.”  On the Hill, she finds adults who encourage her curious, engineering-focused mind and she finally has the chance to have a close relationship with her father.  Artistic Suze also lives with her parents on the secret  base, and she’s bored and tired of living in the dusty desert.   She misses her old life in Berkeley, where she lived in a nice, rambling house, not far from the UC campus where her parents are professors. She’s tired of all the rules on the Hill, and spending long, boring days while her parents are consumed with the secretive war work everyone is there to do.  When Dewey’s father is called away, she moves in with Suze, who initially detests her new, socially awkward roommate.  Over time the two draw closer, though, and their growing friendship is set against the tension on the Los Alamos compound as the secret project nears completion.

Klages slowly reveals the purposes of the project that this scientific community is engaged in and as their gadget comes to life, the ethical quandry that lies behind it comes into the forefront for both the adults and the kids who’ve spent so long and sacrificed so much to do their part to end the war.  Klages’ revealation of the nature of the project as Dewey and Suze as they watch their parents’ work is engaging and will certainly provide insight and knowledge for today’s readers into an important, but little known, part of American (and world) history. 

Klages’ clear prose captures the feel of both the 1940’s and that of middle grade kids coping with a myriad of age-appropriate issues: making friends, gender roles, peer pressure, lack of adult influences, and that it’s Ok to be smart and different from your peers.  There’s both loss and hope in the book, and no clear answers about the right and wrong of what the project is doing.  People’s emotions and fears, as well as their hopes and courage, are presented honestly and plainly and Klages demonstrates that even after terrible loss, miracles can occur. The world can be transformed, just like the desert sand was transformed into the green glass sea.

• Posted by Cori

Debut author Pat Walsh’s The Crowfield Curse is a captivating, enchanting, and engrossing mystery that lures the reader into the dark Medieval forest around the Crowfield Abbey, where we know we’re being watched by some hidden, unseen force.

In 1347, 14 year old orphan William Paynel lives in the English countryside with the monks at Crowfield Abbey.  On his regular day foray into the forest around the abbey, Will discovers a small, cat-like creature cruelly caught in a iron trap.   But it isn’t a cat Will has discovered: it’s a hob- a magical, talking creature, part man, part animal - one of the fay, or ancient magical creatures that once flourished in the old English woods.  Will takes the hob, whom he nicknames Brother Walter, back to the abbey to be tended by the wise healer monk, Brother Snail.  Discovering the hob in the forest is only the first strange occurrence that will soon befall kind-hearted Will: soon, he learns of the strong presence of ancient magic that surrounds the abbey; that a terrible secret is buried in the dark, dank hollow at the center of the forest; and that no one is really who they seem to be.

The Crowfield Curse is a strong debut that has everything just right: a smart,  likeable, easy-to-relate-to young male protagonist; a vividly imagined and expertly described sense of time and place; intriguing plot twists and an engaging mystery; a sense of magic and the supernatural, tinged with just enough danger; and excellently drawn supporting characters.  It’s easy to get lost in this delightful historical mystery and it’s a brilliant gem that definitely has me hooked.  I’m sure I won’t be the only one eagerly anticipating Will and his friends’ next eerie, exciting adventure.

• Posted by Cori

Thirteen Days to Midnight, the latest from Patrick Carman, is a thriller from page one.  Being indestructible may seem like a fantastic super power to have, but as Jacob Fielding quickly learns, the addictive allure of testing the limits of fear, the thrill of escaping harrowing accidents unscathed, and even saving another person from certain death, aren’t what they seem to be.  With every heroic act Jacob and his 2 thrill-seeking friends accomplish, the strange power that inhabits Jacob seems to grow stronger, darker, and more like a curse.  He knows something terrible is about to happen, but he can’t convince himself, or his friends, to stop before it’s too late.

This is a fast-paced, nail-biting thrill ride that is full of mystery, dark secrets and hard choices.   Carman constructs an engaging plot with lots of action and a compelling mystery that addictively draws the reader in, just like Jacob’s power becomes an addiction to him.  As he has done before, Carman creates teen characters who are easy to relate to and feel a lot like the kids you hang out with at school.  Without being too overbearing, Jacob’s struggle to accept the fact that his power is both a responsibility and has a price is a great metaphor for growing up and realizing that our choices have consequences, oftentimes greater than the thrill/gratification of the moment. 

Thirteen Days to Midnight gets you thinking about power, responsibility, freewill and choice, without even realizing it because you’re enjoying the roller coaster ride so much.  It’s a solid move by Carman towards an older audience who crave darker themes, harsher choices, and more substance behind the action.

• Posted by Cori

Jill Jekel is devastated by the murder of her father. When the police discover that he had been involved in illegal activities they lose interest in finding his murderer. Jill discovers that her father had been secretly working in his laboratory in the middle of the night and used her college savings account to fund his experiments!  Now with her mother falling apart, Jill tries to find “normal” again. When the mysterious, handsome Tristen Hyde gives Jill attention and support she finds herself curiously drawn to him. And when their chemistry teacher suggests they work together in a competition for a chance to win a 30K scholarship they find that they need each other both creatively and emotionally. Is the Robert Louis Stevenson classic a work of fiction or could Dr. Jekyll’s experiment have been real? Tristen and Jill need to find out!

I will definitely put Beth Fantaskey’s Jekel Loves Hyde in my classroom library for my 7th grade students. This combination of mystery and fantasy is a fun read and a study of good vs. evil. It’s suspenseful and sizzling, scary and satisfying. It made me want to go back and re-read the RLS classic and might lead teens in the same direction.

• Posted by Lisa

Summer always meant the beach house at Cousins Beach with Conrad, Jeremiah and Susannah. But now that Susanna’s died, her romance with Conrad has ended, and she’s estranged from Jeremiah, Belly faces an empty, lonely summer unlike any she’s ever had.

Conrad disappears from college and Jeremiah calls Belly to help find him. They go right to where they know Conrad must be: the summer house on Cousins Beach. Belly has to face the truth about her short-lived romance with Conrad; the tensions and pent up anger between the brothers; and a future that’s uncertain now that the boys’ mom has died. 

Jenny Han’s second book featuring Belly, It’s Not Summer Without You, is laced with grief and regret, full of longing for the way things were, and ultimately a tentative acceptance of the fact that life is uncertain and transitory.  Belly is a funny, awkward, and sweet character who feels authentic and is easy to relate to. Her self doubt and struggles to see the truth about Conrad and Jeremiah feel dead on true to girls at the age when you’re hoping for your first real love.  It’s Not Summer Without You is a light, sun-kissed perfect summer beach read that will make you revisit your first summer love all over again.

• Posted by Cori

Folly is a beautiful, lyrical, and richly textured story.  The idea behind the novel began by author Marthe Jocelyn imaging  a back-story to what may have been her own great grandmother’s struggle as a poor English country girl, living as a maid in London and becoming pregnant out of wedlock in the late 1800’s.  Fired, homeless, and poor, she’s forced to abandon her baby boy (Marthe’s grandfather) to an orphanage where he’s raised without knowledge of her and then as a teen sent out in the world to make his way. What would this have been like?

And so Jocelyn creates Folly. A dual narrative between a fictitious young Mary and James, as is later revealed, the son she abandoned at the orphanage. The voices are rich, feel pitch perfect, and immediately place the reader in the Merchant-Ivory like world of late Victorian London.  Mary’s life as a housemaid is completely torn apart after her impetuous, fevered, and all consuming romance with a feckless soldier, Caden Tucker (”liar, scoundrel, heart’s delight”), leaves her pregnant and alone.  Alternating between each chapter of Mary’s heartbreaking downfall, young James must leave the country home of his foster family and return to the foundling home in London where he must use his wits to survive and make a way for himself in a harsh, uncaring world.

Jocelyn creates Mary with a candid voice and tells her story with realism, strength and a credibility that is breathtaking at times. James’ innocence and resolve make the reader root for him survive the harsh life in the foundling house and shows that he is his mother’s son. To further enrich the story and Mary’s world, Jocelyn skillfully weaves in other voices: that of Eliza, a jealous maid who works in the house with Mary: and Oliver Chester, a lonely teacher at the orphanage  who makes a rare, special connection to James.  These characters round out the chorus of voices in this tragic, but ultimately hopeful, tale.

As a avid fan of historical fiction, I was especially touched by a thought Mary has midway through recounting her story: “Somehow I knew there were a gulch between what got writ down about history and what were remembered by the people who went along living it. No doubt the scholars checked their facts about battles and such nonsense, but weren’t those battles fought by boys who’d wished for their mamas, or bought peppermints or arm wrestled to win a bit of tobacco? Days went by, girls left home, children died, and who marked it all?”  As Jocelyn proves with Folly,  good historical fiction can immerse the reader into the world of those forgotten boys, girls, mothers and fathers. 

• Posted by Cori

Mackie Doyle doesn’t belong here; he doesn’t fit in; he’s a monster hiding in our midst; and he wants more than anything to fit in and be accepted.  When debut author Brenna Yovanoff’s fabulously eerie, engaging novel, The Replacement, opens, 16 year old Mackie tells us his recurring dream: it’s a dark night; he’s carried through tunnels; brought through an open window; a shadowy man telling him to wait quietly; and he knows in the crib of a human boy who’s been taken.

Mackie is a replacement; a cast-off offspring of the age-old race of faeries (the Good Neighbors, the Others) meant to stand in for a human child taken as a sacrifice for the benefit of the people of Gentry.  He’s grown up hiding this secret and yearns for a normal teenage life: close friends, playing his base in a band, and maybe even a girlfriend.  When the baby sister of a girl in his class dies, Mackie knows it was another replacement and he’s even more afraid of being discovered.   When Tate comes to Mackie for help finding her real sister, he’s drawn into the dark, dank underworld beneath his town and back the place where he came from.  Mackie has to choose whether to help Tate and the people of Gentry or submit to the will of the powerful faeries and other creepy dead things that hold the fate of the town in their power.

The world Yovanoff creates for The Replacementis dark, gloomy, eerie and so picturesquely drawn you’re on the rain drenched streets and wandering through the horrific House of Mayhem with Mackie, afraid of what grotesque thing may pop up next but unable to stop going further in.  Completely engrossing and enjoyable in and of itself, The Replacement is also a perfect metaphor for both a teen’s view of adulthood (the whole town’s behavior and inability to talk about or deal with the truth) and a teen’s feelings of otherness (not being able to fit in, being an outsider who’s yearning to be accepted).  The Replacement is a strong debut that promises even more well crafted, engaging, and pitch-perfect books to come.

• Posted by Cori

Do you know what it’s like to have a best friend? In Smells Like Dog, you will meet an interesting twelve- year- old boy who doesn’t exactly have that privilege. At least until an unexpected event takes place.

The morning started just like any other. Homer Winslow Pudding woke up on his family’s goat farm in Milkydale and finished his chores. He ate breakfast. And he thought about his most favorite thing in the whole entire world: treasure hunting. Just like his famous Uncle Drake Pudding, Homer wanted to be an amazing treasure hunter, working along Drake to find lost jewels and maps. Most of all, Homer wanted to get out of the goat farm and live a different life than his father wanted for him. It was difficult having different interests than your school mates, as Homer quickly found out. Although often taunted and teased, he developed a shell around him to ignore the insults and focus on his dreams.

Homer was sitting in his favorite easy chair reading a treasure map when the news came; wonderful Uncle Drake had died in an unfortunate encounter with an oversized tortoise. Although Homer is saddened by the news, he is grateful that his uncle left him his ‘most treasured possession’, a droopy dog with a strange coin on his color. Although you can not find out by looking at him, Dog has a very special gift that Homer discovers almost immediately.

In a matter of days, Homer and his older sister Gwendolyn have ran away from home to attend a special ‘V.I.P’ party in The City. While Gwendolyn’s mission is to meet Madame le Directeur, the director of the Museum of Natural History, Homer is hoping to find answers to all of his treasure hunting questions. While in the city, Homer meets a very nice girl with pink hair, an abnormally tall woman with many secrets, two bickering lawyers, and a friendly inventor genie. While Homer misses familiar Milkydale, he finds the adventures he’s been dreaming of in the city. While Gwendolyn thinks her brother is researching at the library, he really is finding the answers to secrets his uncle left. With the help of his newfound friends, Homer discovers something that no one else could find: a very rare map that contained the whereabouts of a famous treasure.

I enjoyed reading ‘Smells Like Dog’ because it had just the right amount of detail to keep me occupied, while telling an interesting story with a captivating plot line. ‘Smells Like Dog’ by Suzanne Selfors is a novel that must be added to your book shelf.

• Posted by Maddie

Let me start by saying I looooove Louis Sachar’s books! All of his work until now has been for an intermediate audience, 4th - 6th grade. Sideways Stories, There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom and Holes all read as if someone is telling the reader a good story. Sachar’s latest, The Cardturner, doesn’t disappoint in that regard. Alton is volunteered by his parents to work for his wealthy uncle over the summer after his junior year in high school. His mom hopes he’ll get into the old man’s good graces and leave the family part of his fortune. Alton’s job 4 days a week is to take his uncle to his bridge matches where he will read and play the cards under his uncle’s direction. Illness has made Uncle Lester (aka Trapp) blind. I don’t know any young adults who play bridge or maybe even know what bridge is. Sachar acknowledges that in the book as he once again speaks to the reader as a friend but the fact remains; a book about bridge will not attract new readers. Sachar himself is an avid bridge fan/participant. He does summarize the lengthy descriptions of bridge moves for the reader who isn’t interested in the strategy but to this non-player it might as well have been in Latin!  The book reads quickly and the humor is fun, if not sophomoric, for the YA audience.

I will recommend The Cardturner to my 7th graders reminding them of Sachar’s past jewels and hope that the presence of a card game their grandma plays doesn’t turn them away. I wish the author had wound this tale of self-realization, love, and respect around baseball or a video game simply because it would be easier to sell to a 21st century reader.

• Posted by Lisa

From bestselling YA author Darren Shan (Demonata, Cirque du Freak) comes Procession of the Dead, his adult fiction debut. Previously released in the UK as Ayumarca, Procession is the first book in Shan’s The City series. I have two notes right up front: 1) this book deals with more mature themes including sex, murder, crime and “sweet, sinister sin,” and it contains strong language, and 2) (more of a disclaimer) I have never read anything else by Shan, so when I picked up this book I had no expectations - regarding style, content, etc. and cannot tell you if it is similar to or completely different than anything he has written for YA.

Told in first person narrative, Procession of the Dead is Capac Raimi’s story. It begins with Capac’s journey into “the City,” a gritty urban sprawl dominated by the godfather/kingpin called the Cardinal. Capac’s dream is to become a gangster, and he’s traveling to the City to apprentice with his uncle Theo (who used to be a high-ranking gangster with the Cardinal’s blessing, but has fallen on hard times and is working his way back up the ladder). But there are bigger things in store for Capac than Theo’s little protection racket, and when he crosses paths with the Cardinal, his whole life changes. What Capac doesn’t know is how influential the Cardinal has been in his life, and while he is enveloped by the mysteries of the City — blind priests, mysterious assassins, and disappearing friends — he discovers that he may not know himself or anyone around him as well as he thinks, because nothing is what it appears to be.

I loved the feel of the City. It is at once a dark, gritty, urban environment, with an almost noir-like air about it. I visualized something like Frank Miller’s Sin City, immediately cloaked in darkness, with pops of color highlighting the unique attributes of each character. I loved how Shan describes the City for the reader–he gives you a feel for the different regions (which areas are the nicer parts of town, which are overrun by feuding gangs) without resorting to inserting a map. You get the feeling that the City is more of the main character than Capac, it holds the secrets, and is slowly unfurling them, one by one, to its inhabitants- which was probably my favorite aspect of the book.

There is an element of magic and myth that unfolds as the story continues, tied to ancient Incan culture and religion (which is the root of the unique name of the main character). While I can’t say I fully understand (perhaps I need to read the next two books), if you just go for the ride, Procession provides a dark, somewhat twisted, mysteriously fun one. So if you are curious to see what Darren Shan has to offer outside of the YA arena — or just want to let yourself want to be a gangster for a little while — pick up Procession of the Dead.