The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie--9.5 stars
www.fallsapart.com

Wow! The winner of the 2007 National Book Award is simply wonderful…amusing and entertaining and refreshing and SO well-written. The art was great, and you’ll laugh out loud…and you may find yourself thinking about things you’ve never considered before. Your heart will go out to Arnold (Junior) Spirit as he dares to leave the reservation to attend “an all-white school in the neighboring farm town where the only other Indian is the school mascot.”

Amy Sedaris, one of my favorite comedians, praises Junior Spirit’s “absolutely true diary” this way: “When my horoscope said I was going to meet someone tall, dark and handsome…who knew he’d be 14! Thankfully for me Arnold Spirit is one of the funniest, most endearing characters I’ve met in a very long time. This book is so original, I laughed consistently from beginning to end.”

The cartoonist Megan Kelso says, “Arnold Spirit’s offbeat coming-of-age tale will touch your battle-scarred teenaged heart.”

Buy it, borrow it, or put it on hold ASAP!


American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang –9.5 stars
www.firstsecondbooks.com/abc.html
www.firstsecondbooks.com/authors/geneYangBlogMain.html

If all graphic novels were this good, adults would finally understand what kids have been saying all along! This is the FIRST graphic novel to win the coveted Printz Award from the American Library Association, and even though I believe The Book Thief *should* have won, I still adore this book.. (I inhaled American Born Chinese in one sitting; it’s IMPOSSIBLE to put down. As soon as I finished reading it, I wrote to all the district librarians telling them how great it was, and then I wrote an AR quiz for it so that more kids would be tempted to pick it up.)

Please, Mr. Yang, I know you are busy teaching high school, but if you could please write more books, we would all be quite thankful…and hurry, please, if at all possible. The way you wove three story lines together was seamless and masterful!


Chance Fortune & the Outlaws by Shane Berryhill –8.5 stars
www.chancefortune.net/

A human teen manages to get into a school of kids with superhuman powers…powers that could destroy him during the school’s mandatory battle competitions. (Well, that’s certainly a plot you haven’t read before!) Clever, fast-paced, and well-written. I’m glad this first book in the Chance Fortune series made the Lone Star book list!

One of the best lines came in Chance’s initial rejection letter from the Burlington Academy for the Superhuman:

“We regret to inform you that we are unable to approve your application…Should anything change in regard to your normalcy, such as your obtaining superpowers by way of lab accident or exposure to unnatural radiation, please feel free to resubmit your application.” (Okay, that’s funny!)


Code Orange by Caroline Cooney--9 stars
www.teenreads.com/authors/au-cooney-caroline.asp

Well, this book is certainly different! You'll learn WAY more about smallpox and bioterrorism than you may want to, but I must admit that it was really interesting. (Yes, I was a history major in college. Nerd alert!!)

Mitchell ("Mitty" to his friends), a Manhattan teenager, may have accidentally stumbled on infective smallpox. Will he get sick and accidentally infect his beloved New York City? Will terrorists want what he has? Or did he just vaccinate himself so that he will be the only teenager in America who could survive a smallpox terror attack?

Hang in there through the historical parts; these will help you better understand how a bioterror threat could *potentially* sweep our nation. Those passages will also make you grateful that smallpox is a thing of the past….well, at least for now…



Cryptid Hunters by Roland Smith—8.5 stars
www.rolandsmith.com

Action-packed, to say the least! If you can suspend disbelief (there's a lot of pretty *unbelievable* stuff happening in this book) and really get into it, you will enjoy this one. (You will especially like it if you are intrigued by the thought of Bigfoot, El Chupacabra, and other mystical creatures people swear still roam the Earth!)

Some plot twists you'll see coming a mile away, some will take you by surprise, but you'll be happy when you get to the final chapter and realize a sequel MUST be in the works…



Death and the Arrow by Chris Priestley--9 stars
www.readingmatters.co.uk/book.php?id=196

What more could you want? Misty, gloomy 1700s London. Pickpockets. Graverobbers. Murder!

My only complaint about this book is how the clergyman is portrayed; it really bugs me how many books make fathers look like bumbling fools and clergymen to look clueless (at best) or evil (at worst). In the real world, most dads are really okay, and most people who live their life in Christ's service are good people. Grrr. On the whole, though, this short book was great...a real page-turner!



Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick--9 stars
jordansonnenblick.smartwriters.com/

Oh, wow. This isn't your usual Lone Star pick. The book's hero has a little brother with leukemia…who will become everyone's hero before the end of the book. Touching, realistic, funny, sad--this book has it all. (As a side note, Mr. Sonnenblick was encouraged to become a writer by his high school English teacher, Frank McCourt, who is one of America's most respected authors!)


East by Edith Pattou--8 stars
www.sfsite.com/11a/ea163.htm

A little LONG for most teens and a little too GIRLIE for most boys, it's still very good. I'm glad it was a Texas Lone Star selection.

It has a special charm for me because it reminds me of an old textbook my little sister & I loved as children. We spent many a cold New England night reading that book, looking at the gorgeous illustrations, and dreaming of wearing dresses as pretty as the ones we saw on those pages…


First Boy by Gary Schmidt--7.5 stars
www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/authordetail.cfm?authorID=2696

Well, no rave review here, but I loved that First Boy was set in New Hampshire because I grew up there! Even though this book has its flaws, it's still pretty good and it really reminded me of how beautiful it is to grow up in New Hampshire…and how native New Englanders HATE to ask for help or even acknowledge that they could use a hand!

How I got to N.H.: After being born in Corpus Christi, Texas (to two native Texans, BTW), my dad started working at an integrated church in Philadelphia…and back in 1965, there weren't a whole lot of integrated churches, even in Philadelphia, the so-called "City of Brotherly Love." A couple of years later, he helped start a church in Plymouth, New Hampshire. We lived there until I'd finished 5th grade so this is where I made almost all of my childhood memories.

First Boy sometimes uses phrases I heard growing up, like to "hotten up" a dish instead of "warm it up." And the descriptions of the grass, trees, cows, and colors triggered lots of memories for me.

This book has lots of action, but you'll see the end coming a mile away. Some parts are a little unbelievable, too. Oh, well…it still has evil bad guys, gruff good guys, a great setting, and a kid who dares to take on bad adults--bad, *powerful* adults. Here's hoping that kids will like it and will then go read the author's earlier Lone Star book, Straw into Gold, or his more famous book, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, which earned Newbery and Printz Honor awards!


For Bea by Kristin von Kreisler--9.5 stars
www.eyeonbooks.com/ibp.php?ISBN=1585422223

In the foreword of this book, Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (author of When Elephants Weep) says it best:

"Reading Kristin's account of Bea's life is like listening to a beloved aunt tell you a story you will remember for the rest of your life. If you liked beagles before, you will love them now. I urge you to clear your evening of other plans, sit down, as I did, with this precious book, and stay until you have finished. Be forewarned: Tears and laughter are highly likely!"

I was sick in bed Sunday. The only good thing about being sick is reading, and this book was like a balm. (Listen to the interview on the link above!) You SHOULD read this book if you love a good story; you MUST read this book if you love dogs.


Gideon the Cutpurse by Linda Buckley-Archer--8.5 stars
www.simonsays.com/content/destination.cfm?tab=25&pid=513180

Peter and Kate accidentally find themselves transported to the year 1763, and London is far different from the one they know and love. Will they get back? Can they even survive in a land of thieves and highwaymen?

I took this book on vacation to Virginia and read it in snatches on five different airplanes and as I sat in airport terminals. Good book…I liked how the author REALLY did her research about the London of the past--the food, the gaol (jail), the beggars, the public hangings, and even the expressions (you’ll never look at the word “bottom” the same way).

And here’s another thing I liked…the preacher in this book wasn’t a total idiot. Yes, he had his faults (who doesn’t?), but these kids learned that they could count on the parson in a pinch. He was brave, funny, compassionate…all the things you want in your minister!


A Great and Terrible Beauty --8 stars
www.libbabray.com/

Really good book. When I was in high school, I used to spend my hard-earned waitressing money on expensive tea and sip it in my bedroom reading Agatha Christie novels. This book would have been perfect for those cold, snowy Pennsylvania evenings.

Amazon says: A Victorian boarding school story, a Gothic mansion mystery, a gossipy romp about a clique of girlfriends, and a dark other-worldly fantasy--jumble them all together and you have this complicated and unusual first novel.

Booklist suggests grades 9 and up, and it was a Tayshas high school selection. (A few sexually suggestive scenes and the occult theme--plus the mature writing, in general--put this in the high school collection.)