City of Lost Souls

Clare, Cassandra. City of Lost Souls. Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2012.

City of Lost Souls "is a sprawling urban fantasy packed with just about every type of creature known to the genre". -Publishers Weekly

YALSA's top Teen Books of 2009

The City of Lost Souls is the fifth book in the Mortal Instruments series.  This book contains the first part of the dramatic conclusion, which is finished in the next (final) book of the series.

Sebastian is missing and Clary needs to find him before it is too late.  She asks the Fair Folk Queen for her assistance in finding him.  The Queen reluctantly agrees to help, but the assistance comes at a steep price.  Clary must find and return the two Faerie rings.  They were stolen years ago and hidden deep within the institute library.  When she is deep within the library walls she discovers that Sebastian and Jace are bound by magic.  Can Clary free Sebastian from the enchantment?  Will the dark alliance with the Queen be revealed?  Readers need to prepare themselves for a suspenseful cliffhanger.

Anna C. age 14 recommends "Start this series at the beginning of Summer so you can read all of them without school interrupting."

A Wrinkle in Time

L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time. New York: Square Fish, 2007. Print. 9780312367541; Paperback; $7.00; 245 pages

Awards

1963 Newbery Medal

1965 Sequoyah Book Award

1965 Lewis Caroll Shelf Award

Meg Murry’s father has mysteriously disappeared.  In her attempts to unravel the mystery she meets Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which, who show her and her siblings how to travel through time and space.  Together the group attempts to free her captured father from the Black Thing.

Index Card Trick:

Dark and Stormy night

Tesseract

Calvin

Uriel

The black thing

Camazotz

IT

Unwind

Shusterman, Neal. Unwind. Reprint. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2009.

Awards and Honors

2008 ALA Top Ten Picks for Reluctant Readers
2008 ALA Best Young Adult Book list
2010 Japanese Sakura Medal
2008 Bank Street Best Books of the Year
2010 Washington Evergreen YA Book award List
2010 Oklahoma High School Sequoyah Award List and
2010 Oklahoma Intermediate Sequoyah Award List
2009/2010 Texas Lonestar Award List and
2009 Texas Tayshas Award List
2009/2010 Virginia Readers Choice Award List
2009/2010 Indiana Rosewater High School Book Award nominee
2010 Utah Beehive Award Nominee
2009/2010 Missouri Gateway Readers Award Nominee
2010 Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award List
2009/2010 Vermont Green Mountain Book Award
2010 Rhode Island Teen Book Award List
2010 Arizona Grand Canyon Reader Award List
2009/2010 Georgia Peach Award List
2009/2010 Florida Teens Read Award List
2009/2010 Maryland Black-Eyed Susan Book Award List
2010-2011 One Book for Nebraska Teens
2010-2011 California Young Reader Medal Nomination
The United Kingdom Coventry Inspiration "Simply the Book" Award
2009/2010 Kentucky Bluegrass Award List
2010 South Dakota YARP Award List
2011 Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award

Set in future America, after the second civil war.  Children are now allowed to be "retroactively aborted" by sending them off to be 'unwound.

America is rocked by a second civil war, fought over abortion.  Unwanted children may be discarded on the doorstep or "unwound" by donating the body parts.  Three children: Lev, Connor and Risa have learned that they are to be "unwound" and decide to flee.  They are hoping to buy enough time until they reach eighteen and are exempt from unwinding.  They follow a future underground tunnel of supporters until they are discovered.  Can they escape their fate? Or will they be another victim of the unwind?  

Ember T. age 14 recommends this book because "the characters are very believable; you find yourself cheering them and crying when things go bad."

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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2007. 230 pages. Hardback. $16.99, ISBN 13 978-0316013680

Awards:

Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults, YALSA 2009

Best Books of 2007

Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, Fiction and Poetry

California Young Reader Medal

National Book Award for Young People's Literature

Odyssey Award

Voted Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults from Young Adult Library Services Association

Arnold Spirit, a geeky Native American and his friend Rowdy explore reservation life through cartoons and humor.  He attempts to overcome the pitfalls of reservation life, but the effects of alcoholism and poverty abound.

Things that are going wrong in Arnolds life:

1. -hydrocephalus, teeth
2. -poverty, dog
3. -Rowdy
4. -his mother’s book
5. -new school
6. -basketball

Batman Volume 1: The Court of Owls.

Snyder, Scott, Greg Capullo, and Jonathan Glapion. Batman Volume 1: The Court of Owls. 2012. New York, NY. DC Comics. ISBN 13: 9781401235413 Pages: 176 Hardbound US $24.99

This volume collects the first six issues of the modern reboot of the classic Batman franchise.  In this new edition, Scott Snyder incorporates new background elements into the Gotham City mythos.

Before Batman, before Bruce Wayne, Gotham was a city in decline.  Bruce Wayne decided to stand up and make a difference.  As he administered his own justice, he gathered enemies, like Joker, Penguin, Killer Croc, Clayface, Two-Face, Professor Pyg, Scarecrow, and the Riddler.  This reboot offers a new twist on the batman mythos.

Coraline

Gaiman, Neil. Coraline. HarperCollins, 2002. Paperback ISBN 13 978-0380977789 $6.99

Awards: 

• Publishers Weekly Best Book (WINNER)

• Book Sense 76 Pick (WINNER)

• Child Magazine Best Book of the Year (WINNER)

• New York Public Library's "One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing" (WINNER)

• Amazon.com Editors Choice (WINNER)

• ALA Notable Children's Book (WINNER)

• ALA Best Book for Young Adults (WINNER)

• New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age (WINNER)

• IRA/CBC Children's Choice (WINNER)

• Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award Masterlist (Vermont) (WINNER)

• Bram Stoker Award for Best Work for Young Readers (WINNER)

• Hugo Award for Best Novella (WINNER)

• School Library Journal Best Book (WINNER)

Annotation: Coraline has moved to a new flat.  Inside are fourteen doors.  Thirteen are locked; the fourteenth contains a strange world that is both similar and strangely different.

In this highly imaginative story Neil Gaiman creates a modern fairy tale.  Coraline, bored with her conventional life, finds a door leading to an alternate reality.  The world seems perfect, everything that is wrong in the real world is solved in the "other house."  But her other mother has sinister plans.  Coraline must rescue her parents and solve the mystery of the ancient portal.  She must summon all of her courage and wits to outfox the other mother and solve the riddles.  I highly recommend this book to teens, pre-teens and adults.  

Damien L. age 14 suggests "if you have seen the movie, don't expect the novel to match...it's good for it's own reasons.

A Street Girl Named Desire

Blue, Treasure.  A Street Girl Named Desire: a Novel.  One World, Ballentine, New York, NY.  2007 ISBN 978-0345493286.  336 pages.  Paperback $11.26

Desire is born on the streets on Harlem and is quickly taken away from her drug addicted, prostitute mother.  After years of neglect and torment in foster homes she find a loving home.  Her talent in the church choir leads to her discovery by a record label executive who promises her everything.   In her path to fame Desire faces the same problems that plagued her birth mother, drugs, sex, violence.  Can she overcome the brutal realities of the world or will she be another street girl, named Desire?

Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging: confessions of Georgia Nicolson

Rennison, Louise. Angus, thongs and full-frontal snogging: confessions of Georgia Nicolson Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY 1988.  ISBN 978-0064472272 247 pages Paperback $8.99

Awards/Honors:

--Not Just for Children Anymore! (Children's Book Council)

--Michael L. Printz Honor Book

--Book Sense 76 Pick

--IRA/CBC Young Adults’ Choice

--New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age

--ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

 Georgia Nicolson is an awkward teen with an awkward family, and she is trying to make sense of all the things that are wrong in her life: school, family, acne and boys.

Georgia's list of things that are going wrong:

1. -her Cat Angus and his crazy behavior
2. -her self consciousness and acne
3. -English slang terms, tosser, knickers, snogging
4. -her “stupid dad”
5. -discovering her sexuality (bras, thongs and boys)
6. -her three year old sister, and the pains of family life