Author: Matt de la Pena
Published: 2009 Miguel was ordered by a judge to live a year in a group home and to write in a journal so that a counselor could help understand his thoughts. We don’t know why Miguel is at the group home. We just know that he refuses to mention why in his journal. Miguel is living with a few other boys in the home. There’s a weird, crazy kid named Mong who spits on him. Sometimes he wakes up and Mong is standing over him just staring at him. There’s Miguel’s roommate named Rondell who carries around a bible with him everywhere he goes. Jaden, the counselor, is a cheerful guy who looks out of place in the group home and tries to get Miguel to open up and use his experience in the group home as an opportunity. One night, Mong asks Rondell and Miguel if they want to escape and run off to Mexico. Mong has a cousin who is coming to pick them up, all they have to do is get out of the house. Before he can stop himself, Miguel agrees and steals money from Jaden. Soon they are on the run. Their trip to Mexico doesn’t turn out the way they imagined. Miguel keeps writing in his journal about the adventures they have and we find out a little bit more about his family and why he was sent to the group home in the first place. This is a heartbreaking book about a boy who went too far and is having a hard time dealing with the guilt and the consequences. I love that this book is Miguel’s journal, so readers get to see the inside of his mind and really get to know Miguel as a character.
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Author: Frances Hardinge
Published: 2015 The Lie Tree is such an interesting and creative book. Faith and her family are moving to live on the island of Vane. Her father, a reverend and a scientist, has been publicly shamed and had his reputation ruined back where they used to live, so they are hoping for a new start. At first, no one seems to know about the rumors and secrets from before, but slowly people begin to hear and Faith’s family begins to be treated differently. Faith is asked suddenly by her father to help him move a mysterious plant in the middle of the night to a hidden cave to keep it safe. The next morning, her father’s body is found. Everyone assumes he committed suicide because of his guilt and shame, but Faith knows that he was murdered. She decides to learn more about her father and this secret plant he didn’t want anyone to discover. She steals some of his personal papers and journals and reads about what he was studying. She learns that if she tells lies to the plant and the lies spread, then the plant will tell her a hidden truth. This plant could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. Maybe that’s why her father was killed. Maybe the murderer is after her next. This book takes place in the past, so there is a lot about how women were thought to be less capable than men, especially when it came to science topics. Faith is extremely interested in science and nature, but she is held back by her time period and the men in her life. I loved the fantasy-aspect of this book as well. It is such an interesting concept! Author: Emma Shevah
Published: 2015 Dara Palmer wants to be a star. She believes she is going to be a famous actor one day, so when her middle school is going to be doing The Sound of Music, she is confident she’ll get the lead. When she tries out, the drama teacher Miss Snarling, uh… Miss Snelling, doesn’t even give Dara a part! Dara is crushed. She thinks that it’s because she doesn’t look like the main character of The Sound of Music because Dara was adopted from Cambodia. Dara decides she is going to write her own play about her life and that way she has to be the star. Dara is a very unique character. She believes in herself 100 % and doesn’t understand why her drama teacher thinks she’s not talented. Miss Snelling invites Dara to come to her drama group with other students to help work on her acting. Dara thinks that drama group is for people who are bad at acting and need help, so she is hesitant to join. The story also talks about adoption and the urge to want to know where you come from. Dara has a tough relationship with her sister Georgia who was adopted from Russia. This book is filled with illustrations and little bits of fake movie scripts Dara writes in her head. She is a hilarious character who finds out more about herself through the book. Author: Malala Yousafzai with Patricia McCormick Malala Yousafzai is an activist for education access to girls around the world. Malala grew up in Pakistan. She attended a school that her father started and tried her hardest to be the top of the class. She heard about other girls around the world who did not have the same opportunities she did when it came to getting an education, and she thought that wasn’t right. When the Taliban started to have power in Pakistan, the rights of the women there were denied in many ways. Schools for girls were bombed and destroyed, strict rules were made stating that women could not leave the house without a male with them, women had to cover up their entire bodies in proper burqas. Girls and women who violated these rules were often beaten and sometimes even killed. Malala began to speak out alongside her father for the rights of girls to receive an education. She started to become famous throughout the world. Soon, she started to receive death threats. Malala was scared, but she knew that her message was more important. One day on her way to an exam, two men stopped the van Malala and her classmates were riding. They asked which girl was Malala, and they shot her in the head, intending to kill her. Luckily, she survived and is living in England now telling her story and continuing her fight for women’s rights. I Am Malala is a great story about an amazing young woman who wanted change and is helping make that change happen. "The Taliban have shot me. But they can only shoot a body. They cannot shot my dreams, they cannot kill my beliefs, and they cannot stop my campaign to see every girl and every boy in school." Author: Traci Chee
Published: 2016 Sefia is on her own ever since her mother passed away, her father was murdered, and her aunt was kidnapped. She vows to find her aunt Nin and figure out who killed her father. The only clue she has is a strange object that she figures out is something called a book. In the land of Kelanna, books don’t exist. No one can read. People remember history and other stories by telling them over and over to others. Sefia teaches herself to read while she is on the run. She reads about all kinds of stories about pirates and adventures. Then one day she discovers that a story from her life is in the book. On her quest to find her aunt, she rescues a boy around her age. He is in a crate, being pulled by a bunch of men. She quickly finds out that he is a boy killer. He has to battle with other boys to the death. He, along with the other fighters, are marked with a big ring burned around their necks. Sefia rescues the boy, who cannot speak. He joins her to help find out who kidnapped her aunt. Along the way they discover why there are no books, why these boys are being forced to fight each other to the death, and many other dark secrets about Kelanna. This book was extremely fascinating. It is full of secret codes and clues and mysteries. I loved how the different stories connected with one another. This is the first book in the Sea of Ink and Gold series, and I am so excited to read the next one! Author: Carl Deuker
Published: 2016 Brock Ripley is the goalie of his soccer team. He is good at it, except for the fact that he chokes every time someone gets up in his face. He gets scared and tries to get out of the way. One day, while he is at the park playing soccer with his friends, the quarterback of the high school football team and his father ask Brock if he can help them practice for a little bit and be their wide receiver. Brock finds out that he is really quick and really good at catching Hunter’s passes. He decides to go out for football. The problem? Football is a very rough sport. Brock joins the football team, and he plays occasionally when they need him for a long pass. Brock is embarrassed of the fact that he will play games and not get his uniform dirty at all like the other players who have been tackled. Meanwhile, Brock becomes friends with a kid named Richie. Richie is extremely gifted at everything. Violin, school, chess, and soccer. The problem is that he gets bullied a lot by Hunter and his friends. Brock doesn’t seem to have the courage to stand up for Richie, just like he doesn’t have the courage to get tackled in football. When Hunter goes too far with bullying Richie, Brock has to decide if he has what it takes to be stand up and be brave even if it means being bullied himself. Author: Lauren Oliver
Published: 2016 Replica is a very unique book. There are two separate stories: Gemma and Lyra. You can read one and then flip over the book and read the other story, or you can read the two stories together, alternating between chapters. No one really knows what goes on at the Haven Institute, located on a private island. There are some rumors, and there are always protesters off the coast who call the people there monsters. They have no idea that doctors and researchers are over there creating clones. Lyra is a replica, another word for a clone. She lives at the Haven Institute. There are many other different replicas at the Institute. Replicas are treated as less than human. They are taught that they aren't worth anything, that their bodies belong to science. Instead of names, the replicas are just called numbers. The only reason Lyra isn't called 24 is because she and some of the other replicas came up with names for one another. Most of the replicas are sick because the replication process is not perfect; it causes diseases and side effects and usually it leads to an early death. Gemma is the main character of the other story. She knows nothing about the Haven Institute. One day while she is out walking, a man attempts to kidnap her. He calls her by name, and while she’s getting away he asks her what she knows about Haven. She decides to go down to Haven to start investigating because she knows her parents don’t want her near that place and she is extremely curious. When someone attacks Haven, the lives of these girls become intertwined. Lyra thinks that the doctors and the guards at Haven were there to protect the replicas--from their diseases, from the people on the outside who want them dead. But nothing is as it seems. This book completely blew my mind. I loved the format. I started with Lyra’s story and then read Gemma’s. I loved being able to make the connections between the two stories and be able to figure things out based on what I already knew from Lyra’s story. I was extremely impressed, and I am anxiously awaiting a sequel. Author: Meaghan McIsaac
Published: 2013 The boys in this book live in a volcanic pit called the Ikkuma Pit. They are known as brothers to one another. There are no girls or adults in the pit. Each boy is assigned a Little Brother. When the older brother becomes around sixteen-years-old, he leaves the pit forever. His Little Brother then takes on the job of becoming a big brother to a baby, raising it and teaching it the ways of the Ikkuma. Babies are left by their mothers to die, and it's up to the brothers to rescue them. The brothers don't really know where the babies come from. They just think that the babies were abandoned by their mothers because boys aren't valued like girls are to their mothers. They grow up thinking that mothers are evil. Urgle is the main character in this book. His nickname is Useless because he doesn't seem to be good at anything. He can't hunt, and he is weaker than the other boys. Some of the other boys make fun of Cubby, Urgle's Little Brother, because they think that Urgle can't teach Cubby anything worthwhile. Once a brother leaves the pit, nobody ever comes back. Except for Blaze. Shortly after Blaze comes back, Cubby is kidnapped by goblins and taken away. Urgle is the first to run after him, accompanied by some of the other brothers. Along the way, the boys discover more about why they live in the pit, why the babies are abandoned, why Cubby was taken, and who Blaze really is. Urgle also discovers that he is not as useless as his brothers think he is. Author: Deborah Wiles Published: 2010 In October of 1962, the United States discovered that there were Russian missiles armed with nuclear bombs in Cuba. The next thirteen days were what is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis, where the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated with one another. People everywhere were terrified of a nuclear war. After these thirteen days, the Soviet Union agreed to remove their missiles from Cuba as long as the U.S. agreed not to invade Cuba. Countdown is a historical fiction novel about an eleven-year-old girl named Franny. Franny and her classmates are all taught about how to keep safe in case of an air-raid attack. There are drills at school, so they should all know where to go and how to duck and cover, like Bert the Turtle tells them. In addition to worrying about the world coming to an end, Franny has some problems in her family. Her younger brother Drew is absolutely perfect, making Franny look bad all the time. Her older sister Jo Ellen has started staying away from home more and more and starts receiving mysterious letters, and her uncle Otts gets confused a lot and imagines that he and the people around him are in the army. Her classmates call uncle Otts a psycho, and Franny is embarrassed of him.
Countdown is filled with black-and-white images, quotes from famous speeches from John F. Kennedy regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis, song lyrics, fall-out shelter supply lists, and more. There are other important events in pictures that give context to the time period. I loved the format of this book. It brought historical events together with the different kinds of things that were going on in the world at the time. These things, along with Franny's story, created a big picture, and I learned a lot about the time period while reading this historical fiction book. |
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