Pre-Contest Reading

Terrance McArthur was so excited about the Staff Summer Reading Program that he started reading & reviewing before the contest actually began. Rather than throw out all the reviews, I'm posting them here so you can still get a chance to read them, but they won't count for the contest. Sorry, Terrance!

--Connie


Title: All We Know of Heaven
Author: Jacquelyn Mitchard
Category: Made Us Cry
Bridget and Maureen, two BFFs who look a lot like each other. Driving Maureen’s old car on a twisty road on a snowy night. One messy wreck. One girl dead. One girl alive, but horribly injured. One family grieving. Bridget’s family prays at her bedside. A boyfriend waits. Girl wakes from her coma…It’s Maureen!

A story ripped from the front pages, this fictional version follows Maureen’s battle to relearn walking, talking, and loving. She gets frustrated. She gets upset. She gets treated like dirt. She has sex. It’s rough to read, but the emotions are real.


Title: Breaking Dawn
Author: Stephenie Meyer
Category: Vampire
After Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse, Stephenie Meyer needed something big to end her series. Breaking Dawn is BIG! Bella and Edward are getting married! Bella wants to be a vampire! The tribal werewolves think the treaty will be broken! There are vampires from Italy, Alaska, Egypt, South America, England, Ireland, and more! Loyalty, betrayal, and confrontation! Birth, death, and infinity! If you have followed the Twilight saga, this is the big payoff, what you’ve been waiting for! If you don’t know what it’s all about, what are you waiting for? Read the first three, and then sink your fangs into Breaking Dawn!


Title: Falling Hard: 100 love poems by teenagers
Author: Betsy Franco (editor)
Category: Poetry, Romance

Don’t
show this
book of
poems
to your
father
mother
grown-up in authority.
They will
see
THOSE words
and be afraid
and say
you shouldn’t
read about
sex and
gender and
all those things
that are really
love.
If you
want to
feel the
heat and
joy and
pain of
people
growing up
like you,
read it.

Title: Gamer Girl

Author: Marianne Mancusi
Category: Gamers and Gaming
Maddy hates her parents’ divorce, living at her grandma’s, her new school, and the popular kids who are making her life miserable. Maddie loves Japanese manga comics, drawing her own manga, and the online computer fantasy-adventure game where she met the dashing Sir Leo. If you like manga and anime, computer gaming, romance, and ever wished you could get back at those stuck-up snobs that think they run the school, this is the book for you!


Title: Ghostgirl
Author: Tonya Hurley
Category: The Undead, Humor, Fantasy
When you die young, you don’t have to worry about high school, any more, Right? Wrong! Charlotte is stuck in a Dead Ed class with some really messed-up teens, learning to resolve their issues with life and death. She decides that she must kiss the guy she always dreamed about, and she’ll possess the boy’s girlfriend’s Goth sister to do it!

The hardbound cover looks great, makes you want to read it, but the book has its faults. It’s fumy, but it pushes too hard to get its jokes. The little warm-ups to each chapter sound like something from Dr. Phil, but they don’t always match up with the action. Most of the characters are pretty selfish, in it for themselves, so it’s hard to really root for them. Maybe you should look at the cover every few minutes, say “What a cool-looking book,” and go back to reading it until you have to look at the cover again to convince yourself it’s a cool book..


Title: InJEANious: 52 ways to DIY your denim
Author: Lauren A. Greene
Category: Fun Non-Fiction
Everybody wears jeans, but how do you make them look different, out-of-the-ordinary, “FABULOUS?” This book can make your jeans a unique statement of who you are. Paint, glue, rhinestones, a seam-ripper, lace, fur, fabric, and feathers can be used to turn old denim into new style. It can be as easy as gluing a lace doily to your pants, or as involved as cutting apart and rebuilding your outfit. If you don’t think you’re the crafty type, don’t panic; there are easy-to-follow directions on the sewing and distressing methods you will use. Don’t throw out those old jeans; get InJEANious!

Title: Invisible Touch
Author: Kelly Parra
Category: Latino Life, Real Life, Romance
Kara is three-fourths Hispanic, but her widowed mother didn’t raise her that way. She isn’t a psychic, but she sees signs on people’s chests that she can puzzle out to rescue them from problems and danger. When she sees a gun on a boy’s chest, what’s she supposed to do?
There’s romance, Latino culture, mystery, and a touch of the paranormal, witten by the author of Graffiti Girl. It’s better than an asada burrito at El Pollo Loco!

Title: Japan Ai: a tall girl’s adventures in Japan
Author: Aimee Major Steinberger
Category: Memoir, Graphic Novel, Many Cultures (Worldwide)
Imagine being a six-foot-tall American girl in Japan. Aimee, an animator who wrote for magazines about dolls, took her best friends with her and encountered lost luggage, beautiful temples, and all-girl musicals, dressed as a geisha, took the wrong train, and explored the company that made her favorite dolls. Written and drawn in a manga style, the book cheerfully shows the differences between American and Japanese people, and the ways we are all the same. There are weblinks to parts of her story that were left out, and pictures of the real people and places.

Title: Kristen: a clique novel
Author: Lisi Harrison
Category: Series, Romance, Real Life
Kristen is a member of the Pretty Committee, but she didn’t get to travel the world for the summer. She was earning money as a math tutor for a nine-year-old girl…whose brother happened to be a surfer hunk! Can she be more than a “buddy” with the surfer/skateboard crowd, how will she stop a rich hottie from getting the guy, and…where did all that Jell-o come from?

I thought this book would be all about the importance of clothes and money, and it is, but Kristen’s family doesn’t have money, and she starts to question the worth of clothes. On top of that, Kristen is really smart, and she has a group of brains-over-beauty friends that might become more important to her than the Pretty Committee.

Title: Life Sucks
Author: Jessica Abel
Category: Graphic Novel, Undead, Vampires, Humor
Being a vampire is glamorous? Tell that to Dave, who is forced by the Romanian vampire who made him a creature of the undead to work as night manager of a convenience store. He won’t drink blood, so he doesn’t have any magical powers. On top of that, he’s in love with a Goth girl who falls for a Goth vamp-pretender and a surfer vamp who is no good. Who does a vegetarian vampire have to kill to get the girl?

It’s funny, goes under the image of vampires to imagine what it would be really like if somebody else had control of your life…or soul…or unlife.

Title: More Stuff on My Cat
Author: Mario Garza
Category: Humor, Fun Non-Fic
Because his cat didn’t move when he put things on it, Mario Garza of Fresno started taking pictures of his stacked-upon cat and created a website, www.stuffonmycat.com. People sent pictures of their cats, and he made a book out of them. He didn’t stop, and they didn’t stop, and now there’s More Stuff on my Cat: 2x the stuff + 2x the cats = 4x the awesome. There are cats in costumes, cats under food, cats in glasses, and cats under cats! Look for the duct tape cat, the cat in the purse, bikini cats, the Hershey kisses cat, a Dalek cat, and a cool cat in the refrigerator!


Title: The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: Ninth Grade Slays
Author: Heather Brewer
Category: Vampires, Undead, Humor, Fantasy
Vladimir Tod is a teen-age vampire, his parents are dead, and a vampire slayer is on his trail. Between school bullies, his best friend’s cousin coming to town, and the beautiful girl he is too shy to talk to, his life is a mess. Then, his uncle takes Vlad to Siberia to learn how to use his vampire powers. Will it help? Will it save him…from ninth grade?

If helps if you know vampire lore to get the jokes (“Tod” means “Death” in German, one city is Stokerton [Bram Stoker wrote “Dracula”], Vlad goes to Bathory High [Countess Bathory bathed in blood to stay young]), but the book is goofy high-school fun…with fangs.


Title: Out of the Pocket
Author: Bill Konigsberg
Category: Queer Lit, Real Life
Bobby is a quarterback, a star, recruited by colleges, and he’s gay. How will his family react? His coach? The team? College recruiters? Bobby has told a few friends, but he isn’t ready to tell the world…until a newspaper article does it for him.
The football sequences have an intensity that shows how well the sportswriter-author knows the game, and the decisions and conflicts ring true. Yes, this is a book about a gay character, but it turns out to be a really good sports book.

Title: Paper Towns
Author: John Green
Category: Mystery and Suspense
Margo and Q (for Quentin) were next-door neighbors since they were two, they found a dead body when they were nine, and a few weeks before graduation, Margo showed up at Q’s window, dressed in black, asking him to drive her around Orlando on errands of revenge. Now, Margo is missing, and Q tries to follow the clues she left (posters, notes, Walt Whitman, maps) to find her…or her body.

It’s a journey of discovery, learning bits and pieces about Margo and himself. His friends are colorful and vulgar, some clues go nowhere, but it’s an amazing trip. This book won the 2009 Edgar award for Best Young Adult Mystery.

Title: Pillage
Author: Obert Skye
Category: Fantasy
Beck’s mom is dead, and his rich uncle never comes out of the dome on top of his mansion. When he moves to Kingsplot, Beck discovers that he can make plants grow, and they will protect and help him, but he grew things that amazed him. This fantasy has a family curse, dragons, betrayal, evil magicians, mystery, good food, and a basement that isn’t supposed to be there. Written by the author of the Leven Thumps series, it’s scary and funny, full of action, and filled with suspense to the very end.

Title: Ringside 1925
Author: Jen Bryant
Category: Historical Fiction
Could you imagine getting arrested for saying that one-celled animals evolved into complex animals? In 1925, it happened to a teacher named John T. Scopes in Dayton, Tennessee. It was a big trial, on the radio and in all the papers, and famous lawyers worked on both sides of the case. What was it like for the people in the town? Jen Bryant uses free verse (it doesn’t rhyme most of the time) to tell the story of a true event from the viewpoint of made-up characters: teenagers, a sheriff, an African-American, a minister, a reporter, and others. It reads fast, but don’t miss the details that tell you what life was like, back then.

Title: The Boxer and the Spy
Author: Robert B. Parker
Category: Mystery and Suspense
Jason is dead. The grown-ups say he committed suicide and he was on steroids. Terry doesn’t believe it, and he and Abby start to ask questions that make grown-ups try to stop them. Terry is learning to be a boxer, and this is his biggest fight—and his first.
Robert B. Parker writes adult mystery series books that have been made into movies and a series for TV (“Spenser” and “Jesse Stone”). This is his second mystery for the Teen/Young Adult market. The mystery is very simple, and who is to blame is spelled out from the beginning. What is most interesting is the way the teen-agers use their own abilities to outsmart the people who are supposed to be helping them become good citizens.


Title: The Dead and the Gone
Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
Category: Sci Fi, RLW Live
When an asteroid crashes into the moon, Alex Morales is more concerned about becoming senior class president and getting into a good college. After high tides, tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, freezing weather, and disease, his parents and big brother are gone and he’s trying to take care of his sisters. He survives by doing things he wouldn’t have imagined only months before. This book takes a tough, New York City look at events Pfeffer created for the small-town-based The World as We Knew It, but it has more graphic descriptions of death and violence than the earlier book.


Title: The Juvie Three
Author: Gordon Korman
Category: Social Activism, Real Life
Gecko was a getaway driver. Terence was a hustler who planned thefts for gangs. Arjay was convicted of murder. Doug Healy puts them all into his halfway house, an apartment in New York City, to get them turned around and on the right path. The neighbors and social workers just want to see the boys locked up. It doesn’t help when Healy winds up with a concussion and amnesia. The three decide to pretend Doug is still with them, so now they have to really go to school, do community service, and attend group therapy to stay out of juvie and prison. Maybe the experience will make them better people, after all.

Of course, the events are in the not-in-the-real-world category, but that’s where the fun is, watching the guys react to things they didn’t expect, like love, fame, and getting a conscience.

Title: Who You Wit’?
Author: Paula Chase
Category: Real Life, Street Lit, Series
Lizzie wants the girls to agree to an abstinence pact, but she doesn’t know that Mina and Brian have already had sex, and she hasn’t run the idea past her boyfriend. Kelly is haunted by her relationship with drug-dealing Angel. Jacinta’s period is late, and Raheem is talking about being a daddy.

The Del Rio Bay series treats the chastity agreement as unusual and teen sex as the norm. The actions do have consequences, but things are tied up nicely (relationships are repaired, friendships are patched up)…until the next book.

Title: Zombie Blondes
Author: Brian James
Category: Horror
Do you ever wonder about…cheerleaders? They dress alike, look alike, get special treatment. Did you ever wonder if they were…evil?
Hannah was new in town, and she wanted to be accepted, special…like Maggie and the cheerleaders. Lukas tries to warn her, but people in horror stories never listen until it’s too late, don’t they?

It’s kind of snarky, and it takes a long time until the cool and gross stuff starts happening, but you’ll enjoy it…if you’re not a cheerleader.