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In a barren and dusty world, 17 year old Banyan is a tree builder.  Using metal, twinkle lights and other junk, he creates forests like there used to be more than a century ago, before The Darkness, before the locust plagues.  Barely surviving, Banyan travels from town to town working for rich people who want to recapture something of a world that no longer exists.  Before he disappeared, Banyan’s father was a master tree builder and he passed on an art with scrap that makes Banyan’s forests really something to see. Working for some “rich freaks”, Banyan unexpectedly meets a strange woman with a remarkable tattooRead More →

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“Have you ever heard of suicide by river? You just wade out deeper and deeper, and before long the current carries you away. And by then there is nothing you can do about it.” (7)  When Kiandra was 7, her mother did just that. With no warning, no goodbye, nothing  – just walked into the river beside their home and let herself be swept away.  Now, 10 years later, Ki is still drowning in grief.  She won’t let her anger and confusion about her mother’s suicide go, hiding it deep inside, nursing it like a cancer.   Although her grieving father moved them far awayRead 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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In 2071, everything on Earth will change. On one fateful day, the lives of billions of people will end, suddenly, without warning and without explanation.  Certain cities will be spared, but they will be ruled by the terrifying fear that their fate will be the same as the “Silent Cities”: an instantaneous electrical pulse that will wipe out every living, mechanical, and fabricated object in its periphery.  The pulse comes from an Icon, embedded in the center of each “surviving” city by The Lords, an unseen race of alien life that is colonizing Earth and using what remains of the human race for slave laborRead More →

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Fred Hiatt‘s Nine Days is so much more than an action-packed thrill ride.  Don’t get me wrong, it is an action-packed thrill ride: a story that zips along at a breakneck speed, fueled by a cliff hanger at the end of every short chapter, rife with danger, and near death scrapes. But at the same time, Nine Days is also a story that explores freedom, social justice, human rights, and complex, real world problems.   I found it completely engaging and unexpectedly thought-provoking, enjoying the successfully executed thriller inspired by Ti-Anna Wang, the real daughter of a jailed Chinese dissident. 16 year old Ethan has beenRead More →

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How would you feel if you had to constantly move, change your name, appearance, and high school? Sadly, this is a feeling that Anna Boyd and her family know all too well. Anna’s parents and little sister are in Witness Protection and have had six identities in less than one year. Moving around is hard enough, but Anna has no idea why she and her family are in Witness Protection to begin with. Not only does Anna have to pick a new name and memorize her “childhood memories”, she is constantly being placed and taken out of various high schools during her senior year. HerRead More →

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Isis Ann Murray, known by her friends as Ice or Icie, loves language, Starbucks, smart-ass T-shirts, horror films, her iPhone, and Tristan.  With her best friend Lola, Icie engages in linguistic creativity, creating Ripples—words that lose their individual identities when they swirl into new forms, adding flavor to conversation.  Freaking idiot, for example, becomes fridiot, and terrifically boring becomes borrific.  Icie’s life is flowing as smoothly as life can for a seventeen-year-old whose dad is a nuclear physicist and whose mom works for the federal government, but she learns that, regardless of life’s banality or beauty, Psycho-style surprises can erupt. When Tristan—two weeks before prom—dumpsRead More →

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Readers of alien invasions, apocalyptic fiction, or exhilarating action-thrillers will not be disappointed with Rick Yancey’s latest novel, The Fifth Wave.  Reminiscent of Steven King’s The Stand , of P.D. James’ futuristic political-fable novel Children of Men, or of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game, Yancey’s book is super- intense and rich with nearly nonstop action.  In grand genre-blurring fashion, Yancey writes a book that is equal parts science-fiction and thriller, the first in a trilogy that promises to rival the popular  Hunger Games series. When aliens invade earth, their presence is felt in waves: Lights Out, Surf’s Up, Pestilence, Silencer, and the Fifth Wave.  After losing the powerRead More →

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Have you ever wished the rich gave a small amount of their money to the poor? Or even to the less unfortunate…?  Ash and Benjamin do just that in the story, Money Run, by Jack Heath. When Ash’s mother leaves with most of the money, Ash and her father are struggling to make ends meet. Her father begins working multiple jobs, but the income is not enough. Trying to pay the bills each month was hard enough but when their house is burglarized  everything changes. Ash comes home from school to find that the television, couch, computer, phone, her bed, and other furniture pieces have beenRead More →