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A book written about WWII from a perspective rarely seen, that of a little boy who loaned his dog to the army because he wanted to make his daddy proud. That is exactly what Hobart “Hobie” Hanson did in Duke by Kirby Larson. Hobie’s dad is in Europe flying fighter jets for the American army in WWII. Hobie and his family, his mother and little sister June, have been doing everything they can from home to be good home front soldiers. They have planted a victory garden, Hobie makes model airplanes that are used to train soldiers, and each member of the family is workingRead More →

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The story of Sasquatch in the Paint, written by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Raymond Obstfeld, is one that the majority of us can relate to. We were all once that awkward kid in junior high trying to find a place to fit in, whether it was a position in the status quo or not, we all just wanted to have friends to sit with at lunch. In the seventh grade Theo had thought that he would forever be one of the nerds on campus, he and his best friend Brian had recently joined the Brain Train and could not be happier. The Brain Train was aRead More →

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A tale of star crossed lovers of a different sort unfolds in Page Morgan’s The Beautiful and The Cursed. The story takes place in 1890’s Paris, France, a time where royals ruled the world. Lady Charlotte moves her daughters, Lady Ingrid and Lady Gabriella, from an English mansion to a French abbey she plans to remodel into an art gallery. Her son, Lord Fairfax, was sent to France two months earlier to scout out the location. The move could not have come at a better time for Lady Ingrid. Her reputation in London had taken a nosedive when she accidentally set her friend’s home onRead More →

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Untold Damage by Robert K. Lewis is the classic tale of a fallen cop who is looking to regain control of his life. Mark Mallen used to be an undercover cop in the San Francisco Bay area attempting to uncover a drug lord who has been smuggling heroin into the city. He has been undercover for a little over a year and has not gone up in rank as much as he hoped. With a wife and new born child waiting for him to come home, he knows he needs to speed up the process. He decides that the best way to really get intoRead More →

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The way that we are treating our Earth is slowly but surely killing her. One day we are going to wake up and realize too late what our destructive behavior has done. In P.J. Hoover’s Solstice, Piper is living on an Earth that is feeling the full force of global warming. Her city of Austin, Texas, has done an adequate job of becoming used to the ever rising heat. Whether it is with misters that spray a cooling gel or glass domes that cover sections of the city when the heat surpasses 121 degrees, the city council is trying to save its citizens…or are they?Read More →

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The natural age progression occurs in everyone, in other words, we all get old. Usually, it just happens, it is a part of life, but imagine being forced to grow up, take care of multiple children, and fight a war you never prepared for, all the while you are worried about just surviving until morning. This is exactly what Dean and Alex Grieder experience in Emmy Laybourne’s Monument 14: Sky on Fire. The teenage brothers live in Monument, Colorado, one of many states that have recently been attacked by an air born virus that affects anyone with a blood type. The brothers and 12 othersRead More →

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Erica “Chia” Montenegro, a thirteen-year-old girl, is on her summer going into eighth grade. She quickly learns that her mother has breast cancer and is getting a mastectomy. Her summer drags on sad, her friends notice, and her mom gets the mastectomy. Then one day they take a trip to visit caurto de milagros. She makes a promise to God that she will do something good for her mother in exchange for her mom’s health. She finally decides that she will get 500 sponsors to a breast cancer awareness walk. It’s hard for her to balance school, family, friends, and her promise all at theRead More →

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What We Found in the Sofa and How It Saved the World by Henry Clark is an abnormally creative book about three middle-school friends who learn the meaning of friendship and trust while fighting evil, all with the help of a zucchini-colored crayon. The story begins with an old couch on the side of the road, of all things. River, Freak, and Fiona find a series of strange objects between the cushions, including the zucchini crayon, that lead them to an old mansion where a mysterious man lives. They quickly find that everything that’s been going on is much more  complicated than they’d realized –Read More →

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When cousins Zoe and Ian discover a mysterious glass puzzle in their Grandfather’s home in Tenby, Wales, they discover that their town is far more than they ever anticipated. They have always been adventurous, but when they put it together, horrible monsters called Scravens fly from the puzzle and escape into the town. They soon discover that the puzzle is a magical portal to another dimension; a dimension that the sunken island of Wythernsea has reappeared within. Can these two 11-year-olds really stop the Scravens from taking over their beloved town? Or worse, the entire world? The Glass Puzzle by Christine Brodien-Jones is a wonderfulRead More →