Icon: AR Test

Boy Bites Bug

Will wasn’t trying to prove a point. He wasn’t trying to put his friend in his place. He just wanted to fix an awkward situation. So, he ate a stink bug. Now, everyone knows him as bug boy. His new popularity brings a host of confusion—he’s feuding with his old best friend and trying to navigate a new friendship. Will wants to do what’s right, but he’s not always sure what that is.

Boy Bites Bug is a fast-paced story that brings the struggles of friendship into focus. The diverse characters are authentic, funny, and bring heart to the story. Will has a hard time figuring out how to deal with his changing friendship with Darryl. Will thinks, “Darryl and he had been friends for a long time, but would a real friend make him feel crappy for trying to be a decent person?”

As Will and Elroy become friends, Will struggles with figuring out what racism is. Even though his new friend Elroy is from Minnesota, others see him only as a Mexican, and Will makes assumptions about Elroy because of his race. Will knows it’s wrong to give someone “crap about who he was,” but wonders if his own behavior and assumptions are racist as well.

The story shows strong positive relationships between Will and his family. Even though Will’s actions have negative consequences for his sister, his sister still stands by his side. Will’s sister is one of the best parts of the book because even though her bug-eating brother causes her problems, in the end, she supports him and even makes up a bug-eating cheer for him.

Boy Bites Bug will appeal to a variety of readers because Will and his friends struggle with real-life issues—friendship, family, and figuring out life. Through Will’s journey, the reader will learn about eating bugs “on purpose” as well as get recipes that include bugs. The gross factor brings humor as well as lessons about different cultures. In the end, Will realizes that making fun of people for eating bugs isn’t funny. He also learns an important lesson about forgiveness. He learns that “some apologies would never fix things, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t be made. It just meant they’d be harder to get out.”

Sexual Content

  • One of Will’s friends uses his father’s credit card for ridiculous items because, “his dad left Simon’s mom and taken off to Arizona with a girlfriend, leaving Simon behind with a credit card to make up for not calling much or ever visiting.”

Violence

  • Hollie accidentally gives a boy a bloody nose. “Hollie had been putting something on the top shelf of her locker when Jeremy sneaked up behind her and brushed her back. . . He’d surprised her, and when she jerked around, her elbow cracked his nose.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • During a presentation, Will talks about how many bugs can legally be in food. He said, “If one’s dad had a bear with it (pizza), he would drink twenty-five hundred aphids, too.”

Language

  • Light profanity is used throughout the story. Profanity includes crap, holy crap, holy cow, and heck.
  • Will’s sister said someone is “acting like a jerk.” She also calls her brother a “dork-face” and a “fuzz-butt.”
  • A boy calls the new boy a “cholo.” The boy “knew he’d crossed a line, but his jaw squared too-he wasn’t taking anything back.”
  • The kids in the book call each other names including bonehead, dork, jerk, loser, nerd, idiot and menso (stupid).
  • Will gets upset because his friend is making “the three of them look like prejudiced jerks.”
  • “Oh my gosh” is used as an exclamation.
  • At wrestling practice, Will changes quickly because he didn’t want “his bony butt hanging out in front of these guys any longer than necessary.”
  • Will said his father can cook, “but you only eat his chili if you want to shoot flames out of your butt.”
  • When Will is introducing someone to the sport of wrestling, he said, “If you think it’s gay, you should leave now.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

 

 

The Next Level

Ellie attempts a new project and accidentally makes a big mess. As punishment, her parents have Ellie help their elderly neighbor, Mrs. Curran. Ellie and her friends, Kit, and Toby, are supposed to help with little things like stuffing envelopes. However, when Ellie sees things around the house that need fixing, she puts her engineering skills to work.

Mrs. Curran assumes that Toby is responsible for fixing things around the house, even though they are Ellie’s ideas. Ellie wants to prove to Mrs. Curran that girls can do anything, even be engineers. How can Ellie use her engineering knowledge to change Mrs. Curran’s assumptions about engineers?

 Ellie, Engineer focuses on showing that girls can be smart and creative, but it also examines other stereotypes. Ellie makes many assumptions about “grandma-age people.” However, as she gets to know Mrs. Curran, she learns that those assumptions are incorrect. Through Ellie’s experiences, the theme becomes clear—making assumptions about others is wrong. Boys can play with dolls. Girls can be engineers. Not all old people are the same. Even though the story focuses on Mrs. Curran and her assumptions, she is not well-developed. However, in the end, Mrs. Curran’s perception changes, both about others as well as herself. The ending has a cute surprise that readers will enjoy.

Ellie, Engineer is a fun story about friendship and has the added benefit of teaching important lessons. Even though Toby acts like a know-it-all, Ellie realizes that “It didn’t seem right to be friends with Toby but still call him a name behind his back.” The story also reinforces the importance of asking permission before using someone else’s things.

Although the story’s plot is easy to understand, there is very little action that propels the plot forward. The first chapter starts out strong, with Ellie and her friends having an engineering disaster; however, after the first incident, the three friends do not discuss how to make the invention better. Instead, they seem to build a working elevator without much planning.

The story contains some fun illustrations of Ellie’s sketches; however, the story is text-heavy, which might make the story daunting for some readers. The story’s plot is easy to understand and would be engaging for elementary readers. Ellie, Engineer’s vocabulary isn’t difficult, but the sentence structure is complex. Strong female characters, important life lessons, and positive adult interactions make Ellie, Engineer a story worth reading. Ellie, Engineer would be an excellent choice for more advanced readers or to read aloud with a parent.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Spotlight on Coding Club!

Erin loves being on stage. When the school announces an upcoming talent show, Erin knows she can come up with a winning performance. Erin also agrees to help the coding club with developing an app to help score the contestants. Erin knows she’s taking on a lot, but she’s determined to distract herself. Erin doesn’t want to think about her father’s deployment and staying busy is her solution.

With operation distraction in full force, Erin’s anxiety gets the best of her. She wants to pretend that everything is okay, but her stress levels keep increasing. Her friends from the coding club have always been there for her, but Erin doesn’t want to tell them what’s really going on in her life. Will Erin be able to handle the pressure? If she tells her friends the truth, will they still like her?

The fourth installment of the Girls Who Code series has the same lovable characters but is told from Erin’s point of view, which allows the story to focus on a new conflict. Readers will get a look at Erin’s thought process as she tries to use humor to diffuse stressful situations. Erin tries to hide her true feelings from her friends. Readers will relate to Erin’s struggle with anxiety and her fear of telling others. The story makes it clear that having anxiety should not be viewed as an embarrassment. Erin is told, “I think it’s really cool that you talked to a therapist about this. Getting professional help was definitely the mature way to handle it.”

Spotlight on Coding Club uses texting bubbles, emojis, and simple vocabulary, which makes the story easy to read and assessable to younger readers. The fourth book in the series focuses less on the girls’ friendship and more on Erin’s personal struggle. Although Erin’s struggle is real, the story contains less action than previous books. Along with Erin’s personal struggle, Maya struggles with asking a girl on a date. Although dating is a topic many preteens are interested in, Maya’s romantic interests seemed forced and added little to the plot. In the end, Spotlight on Coding Club teaches a valuable lesson about friendship and anxiety but lacks action and suspense.

Sexual Content

  • There is a short conversation about Maya asking another girl out on a date. Later in the story, Maya asks the girl to the movies and it is “definitely a date.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • “Oh my god” is used as an exclamation three times.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Nightbooks

Alex is considered a bit odd by the other kids at school because he likes to spend his time writing scary stories. Disheartened by their constant teasing, Alex sneaks out of his apartment one night to burn his notebook. On the way to the boiler room, the elevator mysteriously stops on the fourth floor. Before he knows it, a witch named Natasha has imprisoned him in her magical apartment. Natasha loves stories, and Alex’s storytelling abilities are what got him captured—and what will keep him alive.

The witch has one other prisoner, a girl named Yasmin. She has long given up hope of escape and tells Alex that to stay alive he will have to continue telling Natasha hair-raising tales. But Alex is running out of story ideas, and he can’t focus on writing while consumed with thoughts of escape.

Nightbooks blends the fairy tale elements of Hansel and Gretel into a modern story that readers will love. Unlike Disney’s version of fairy tales, Nightbooks keeps the dark elements alive by delving into how a person becomes evil. This action-packed story is full of frightening elements, interesting characters, and several twisty surprises. As Alex, Yasmin, and a cat named Lenore join together to defeat Natasha, readers will cheer as the three try to stay alive and find a way to escape.

Alex and Yasmin aren’t the only well-developed characters. The witch Natasha is a uniquely interesting character because she is cruel, but she is also clearly frightened of the creepy, ever-changing apartment in which she lives. Although Natasha is obviously evil, her well-developed character gives the reader a glimpse into her history, adding interest to the story.

Throughout the story, Alex reads his own scary tales, adding another interesting element to Nightbooks. His stories do not distract from the main story, but add more frightening elements—dead children, vampires, and an evil teddy bear. Both Alex’s stories and the main narrative are creepy and scary, but the descriptions are not gory.

Many younger readers will relate to Alex, who feels like he is abnormal and does not fit in. A theme of normalcy is integrated into the story through Alex’s struggle with his desire to be like everyone else. In the end, he realizes, “So what if I write scary stories? I might hurt someone with nouns and adjectives, but I would never hurt someone for real.”

Readers will come away from this story with a message about the importance of courage, compassion, friendship, and accepting yourself. For those who like a fast-paced, frightening story, Nightbooks is a superb scary story for middle school readers.

Sexual Content
• None

Violence
• When Yasmin accidentally feeds a magical plant the wrong food, it produces “danglers.” When a dangler opens, a creature comes out. “Two red pinchers burst through the outer layer of the sac and dug into the wood, gaining purchase and dragging the rest of the body to freedom.” The creature shreds anything it touches. A cat named Lenore tries to catch the creature. “More sounds. Hissing. A buzzing noise, like a flying insect. A pot shattering. Lenore screeched in pain.” More creatures are born, and the kids try to fight them off. Alex “felt a sharp pain in his ankle. He kicked his foot and a furry lump sailed across the room. . . something landed on his lower back and immediately began to climb higher, claws tearing through his shirt and into skin.” The attack takes place over the span of a chapter.
• The witch gets angry with Lenore. “The witch opened her hand and a tiny fireball shot at Lenore. It seared the back of her fur, leaving a black streak against the orange. Lenore yowled in pain.”
• When the witch gets upset at the children that she has captured, she turns them into porcelain dolls.
• Alex tells a story about two brothers. The younger brother dies but comes back one night. The older brother, who was sleeping, felt “something jab him again, harder this time. The mattress lifted into the air for a moment before crashing back down onto its frame.” When Keith tried to get out of the bed, “a hand grabbed his ankle. It was cold and small but strong enough to jerk him off his feet. Keith crashed to the floor.” The story implies that the dead child takes over his brother’s body.
• When Alex, his friend, and the cat go into a passage, a creature greets them. “It had the body of a horse, but its black hair was missing in patches, revealing large swatches of oozing skin.” The creature attacks. “Alex screamed, certain that he was about to be impaled in several places, but the sharp tips of the horns fell just short of his body.”
• Aunt Gris and the witch Natasha fight. “Natasha snarled with frustration and unleashed a barrage of spells, one after the other; choking mist, nooses made of flame, twin skeletons brandishing iron swords. . . Aunt Gris leaped across the room and landed on her back. . .” There was a “short scream of pain followed by horrible crunching sounds—and then nothing at all.”
• At one point, the witch, “seemed determined to fit Yasmin’s entire head in her mouth.” When Alex throws a book of stories into the furnace, the witch tries to save the book, and “Yasmin shoved her from behind. [She] fell forward into the flames.”

Drugs and Alcohol
• None

Language
• Yasmin thinks Alex’s brother “sounds like a jerk.”

Supernatural
• A witch lives in a magical apartment that entices children to enter. “The apartment does what it can to get you inside. Different for everyone . . . Traditionally, it’s some sort of food that draws them. Kids are always thinking with their stomachs, you know.”
• The apartment needs dark magic to stay alive. The witch wants Alex to tell scary stories because “the thing about dark magic, though—it thrives on nightmares. . . When you read it a scary story, you soothe its aches and pains. And then it can rest easy again—at least for a little while.”
• The witch has a business that sells “magic-infused oils. . . A hex for that annoying neighbor, extra luck for a weekend getaway to Atlantic City. And love oils.”
• Alex writes a story about a girl who turns into a vampire when her reflection was stolen.
• Alex meets the original witch, Aunt Gris, who “ate children and devoured their youth.” The witch that captured Alex had “slipped a sleeping potion into [Aunt Gris’s] tea.” Natasha keeps Aunt Gris alive, but asleep.
• When Aunt Gris wakes, she is deformed. “Its fingers were candy canes ending in chiseled nails that looked very, very sharp. They twisted and cracked, testing their newfound freedom. . . Her ears and nose were in the expected places, but her face drooped like melted taffy, and her eyes were gold-foiled chocolate coins pressed deeply into malleable flesh.”
• When Aunt Gris dies, her magic dies and the porcelain children come back to life. “They recalled their names and everything about their lives up until the moment they entered apartment 4E. . . some of the children had been missing for a decade or more and hadn’t seemed to age in the intervening years.”

Spiritual Content
• None

Amy on Park Patrol

When Amy volunteers to help pick up trash at the park, she learns that new stores will be built on some of the park’s land. She’s worried about all of the insects and animals who make that park their home. Can Amy and her friends help save the park and the creatures who live in it?

Amy on Park Patrol teaches the importance of caring for the environment. Amy shows she cares about the environment by picking up trash, planting pollinator-friendly plants, and teaching about nature. Amy and her friends make a petition to save the neighborhood park. The petition process is difficult. Some want to save the park, while others are looking forward to having new stores. Even though Amy and her friends have difficulty gaining signatures, they do not give up on their plan.

Amy on Park Patrol’s main goal is to teach about the process of pollination as well as the importance of pollinators. The story focuses on insects and birds, which might disappoint some readers. However, younger readers will enjoy the adorable artwork that appears on almost every page. Large type, short sentences, and plenty of dialogue will help newly independent readers stay engaged.

Despite being part of a series, Amy on Park Patrol can be read as a stand-alone book. Amy on Park Patrol will engage younger readers while allowing them to see that children can make a difference in our world. After reading about the importance of pollinators, readers may want to plant some flowers of their own.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Rosie Revere and The Raucous Riveters

Rosie Revere loves engineering. When Rosie’s Aunt Rose and her friends—a group of women who built airplanes during World War II—ask her to complete an important project, Rosie is excited to help. One of the Riveters has broken both her wrists and can’t participate in the Art-A-Go contest. Rosie and her friends use all of their knowledge to invent a tool to help her paint. Building a paintapolooza comes with setbacks. When Rosie begins to lose hope, her friends step in to help. Will Rosie and her friends be able to finish the paintapolooza in time for the big event?

Readers will initially be drawn to Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters because of the cheerful illustrations but will continue reading because of Rosie’s personality. Rosie is a strong character who uses problem solving to create her inventions. Rosie’s struggle is realistic; she doesn’t find the solution to her problem without failure. When Rosie feels “frustrated and frazzled,” she uses smart strategies to refocus. For example, Rosie’s great imagination causes her to focus on what-ifs, and “when that happened, Rosie had to remind herself to stop and think differently.”

Rosie’s illustration notebook, which contains lists and alliterations, will engage readers transitioning to chapter books. Rosie and her friends use imagination and teamwork to help someone in need. The story portrays the older generation in a positive light, and through her interactions with the Riveters, Rosie learns the importance of strong friendships. The story’s positive message is clear: “The only true failure can come if you quit.”

After the story concludes, additional text is included: a poem about a valve, information on valves, and historical information about the Riveters. The book ends with a “think about this” section that guides readers to apply the story to their life.

Instead of focusing on a simple plot, the book delves into too many characters and too many subplots. For instance, Rosie misinterprets one character’s behavior, but later discovers that the person was allergic to sunlight. Although there is historical information about the Blue River Riveters, the facts do more to complicate the story. For beginning readers interested in engineering, readers may want to begin with the Ellie, Engineer series before moving to The Questioneers series.

Sexual Content
• None

Violence
• None

Drugs and Alcohol
• None

Language
• None

Supernatural
• None

Spiritual Content
• None

The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade

Sixth-grader Maverick dreams of being a superhero. The only problem is that he’s weak, friendless, and has a host of problems. His father died in the war in Afghanistan. His alcoholic mother brings home abusive boyfriends. His mother’s love of alcohol and inability to keep a job often leaves Maverick hungry and wearing dirty clothes.

Maverick holds on to a plastic sheriff’s badge that his father gave him. The badge reminds him to fight for those smaller than him—even if it’s hard to find someone that small. However, every time Maverick tries to defend someone else, his efforts always take a wrong turn.

The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade quickly pulls readers into the story because it’s told in a first-person point of view and showcases Maverick’s self-deprecating attitude and desire to help others. Even though Maverick has a host of problems, he has the heart of a hero. Readers will laugh out loud at his mishaps, cry at his misfortunes, and root for him every step of the way.

The supporting characters are so well-developed that their unique personalities jump off the page. As Maverick gets to know other people, his perception of them changes as he realizes that their actions are often misinterpreted. For example, the assistant principal who Maverick originally thinks is terrible, turns out to have a kind heart.

Domestic abuse and alcoholism are weaved into the story in a kid-friendly manner, which allows the reader to see the devastation caused by the two without giving frightening details. At one point, Maverick wonders if he will become an abuser like his dad. His aunt tells him that changing the patterns of life is difficult. “It’s hard. Sometimes making the right choices is super hard.”

The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade is a fast-paced, powerful story that shows the importance of kindness and standing up for others. In the end, Maverick realizes that he is not just a “shrimpy loser,” but an imperfect boy that can impact others through acts of kindness. Maverick learns that “Maybe I didn’t need webs to be a hero—or rippling muscles, or a bulletproof shield. Maybe, at the end of the day, I could just keep trying to look around for people who needed a hand, and then grab on to theirs with my own.”

Readers will keep turning the pages of The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade. Maverick is an unforgettable character that readers will remember for a long time after they finish the book. Maverick’s lessons of kindness and persistence will leave the readers with a sense of optimism. The Secret Sheriff of Sixth Grade is a must-read book for middle school readers.

Sexual Content

  • A girl tells Maverick that he can’t fight Bowen, but she was going to “kick his (Bowen’s) butt.” Then someone said, “Oh, she’s feisty, too! Is that how you like your women, Maverick? Big and spicy?”

Violence

  • Maverick’s mother has a string of “loser” boyfriends, who physically abuse her. Maverick gets home and sees his mom, “clutching at her left eye, and sobbing. Johnny was leaning over her, shouting so loudly that I could see the spit flying out of his mouth into her hair. . . His hand whipped through the air and cracked across my mother’s face so hard her head smashed against the couch cushion and bounced forward again.
  • Maverick sees a kid being picked on in school. In order to help, he “dropped my book bag, put my head down, and charged at Bowen . . . Too late, I dimly realized I had just knocked the little guy into a row of lockers. Oops. A split second later, my head and shoulders slammed into Bowen. . .“ Bowen is knocked into a trash can, and then the principal shows up and ends the fight.
  • Maverick’s father was a “firefighter on an artillery base. A mortar round came in at night, hit some gas cans, and set the barracks on fire.” His father died trying to save the men.
  • A father, who is a police officer, hits his son. “Before Bowen could say another word, his head rocketed sideways toward me and I heard him whimper. . . Bowen’s father had hit him, really hard, on the side of the head.”
  • Maverick comes home and finds his mother, “Holding a bloody towel under her nose . . . Mom looked down at the towel in her hand, and almost seemed surprised to see it there. Maybe she was. I could smell the alcohol rolling off her from across the room.” His mother passes out.
  • Maverick and Bowen meet at the park after school so they can fight. “He punched me, extremely hard, once. . . I felt a crack, and a slicking stab of pain. I stopped swinging, started to reach for my chest with one hand, and bent forward. As I did, Bowen swung his knee up, into that same spot of my chest. The impact jerked me fully upright. . . the entire left side of my sweatshirt was already soaked through with blood.” Bowen calls his father, who races Maverick to the hospital.
  • Maverick’s mother’s ex-boyfriend comes to the house. The ex-boyfriend and his mother argue. Before violence begins, Maverick “squirmed my way between them, and said, ‘hit me, Johnny.’” Johnny leaves. His mother celebrates by drinking “something clear that was not water.”
  • Maverick’s house burns when “your mother fell asleep with a lit cigarette.” Maverick’s pet is killed in the fire. Maverick thinks it’s his fault because, “I check in on her in the morning, and everything looked fine.”
  • Maverick thinks back to when his dad was alive. When Maverick was little, his parents began to argue, and “then I heard a sharp smack and a gasp from the porch. . . My mother had whipped a hand up to cover one side of her face. . .”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Maverick’s mother has a drinking problem, which Maverick thinks about often. Once he had to “drop out of T-ball when my mom drank up the fifteen-dollar T-shirt fee.”
  • When Maverick gets sent to the principal’s office, he doesn’t want to call his mom because “she didn’t have a car. She was probably hungover. Or still sleeping. Or, worst of all, drunk again.” Maverick calls his aunt and promises to tell his mother about being in trouble. He thinks, “I didn’t say that my plan was to wait until she’d had a bunch of drinks and was about to pass out.”
  • When assigned to make a poster about his life, Maverick thinks, “if I had been totally honest, I would have cut out a pile of vodka bottles. . .”
  • When Maverick’s mom loses her job, she “started drinking. And drinking. And drinking. . . Nothing got my mother up off the couch until the eighth day, when she ran out of alcohol.” His mother sold his father’s military medal of honor to pay for more alcohol.
  • Max is upset because his friend complained about his mom not doing laundry and now “his favorite clothes were dirty.” Maverick’s mother didn’t do his laundry, and Maverick had to worry about “when scary teen gangsters were smoking and drinking in front of the laundry room of our apartment complex, so I was afraid to do my laundry and had to wear dirty stuff to school.”
  • When Maverick’s mother’s ex-boyfriend shows up, he wonders, “Do I let him in? Should I offer him a beer?”
  • When Maverick’s aunt goes to his house, he worries, “What if there were bottles of booze all over the place? What if it reeked of cigarettes and last night’s garbage?”

Language

  • Crud, darn, jerk, and holy cow are all used twice. Freaking is used seven times. Bonehead is also used.
  • “Oh, my god,” is used as an exclamation once.
  • Maverick is upset when the P.E. coach yells at him for not having the money to pay for his P.E. clothes. He thinks, “I don’t freaking have ten dollars.” Later, he thinks that the P.E. teacher had “Been a jerk about my problem.”
  • In a humorous scene, Maverick calls someone a “cheese tool.” Someone tries to explain what a cheese tool is. “A cheese tool is the little plastic rectangle that comes in a packet of cheese and crackers.” The group of kids that heard the comments were confused. “Half the kids seemed to be muttering things like, ‘Cheese tool? What a moron!’ But the other half were like, ‘Dang! Bowen got called a cheese tool!’”
  • Someone yells at a group of boys, “We’re all going to get in trouble, just because you three boneheads couldn’t control yourselves.”
  • Someone calls Maverick a “shrimpy little idiot.”
  • When a teacher talks about having a guest speaker, a student refers to the “special guest” as “special dorks.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

The Whispering Oak

In order to find the third piece of the magical Ember Stone, Tag, Skyla, and Blaze will have to cross the tornado-filled Shifting Sands. The Ember Stone can be found close to the Whispering Oak, but the way is dangerous and Thor’s spies are everywhere. Can the three friends save Perodia? Will Thorn’s spies beat them to Whispering Oak and find the Ember stone first?

The third book in The Last Firehawk series follows the same format as the first two books. The three friends travel to a new location, encounter Thorn’s spies, and meet new friends that help them find the next piece of the Ember Stone. New characters—talking bees and grumpy bears—add a new element to the story that brings interest. The three friends continue to use teamwork and must use logic to convince the bees to give them the Ember Stone.

The Whispering Oak will introduce newly independent readers to the adventure genre. The Whispering Oak should be read after the first two books in the series. Onomatopoeias make reading fun as well as add to the threatening mood. Short sentence structure, dialogue, and simple vocabulary make The Whispering Oak easy to read. Black-and-white illustrations appear on every page, which helps bring the story to life.

The book begins with an introduction to help readers understand the conflict. A two-page map of Perodia gives a visual of the geography and location of important landmarks. The last page of the book contains four questions and an activity, which will reinforce important comprehension skills.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Crag beetles try to stop the friends from getting through a tunnel. “The beetles climbed on top of each other—one by one, until there were no longer hundreds of beetles but one gigantic, mega beetle!” Tag charged the beetles “Knocking some beetles to the ground. . . “Tag continued using his dagger to break up the giant beetle, while Skyla attacked it with her paws and Blaze attacked it with her beak.” The friends are able to escape.
  • Tiger bats attack the friends. “They attacked again and again. Tag felt his wing getting weaker as he tried to hold off the bats.” Blaze is able to chase the bats away.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Thorn is an evil vulture that uses black magic called the Shadow; he hopes to destroy Perodia.
  • Firehawks “were magical birds who protected the Ember Stone—a stone that holds magic within.”
  • When a piece of the Ember Stone is placed on a map, “the map glowed, brighter and brighter. . . When Tag looked again, a small shining dot appeared on the map.” The magical map guides the friends to the next location to which they must travel.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Knights vs. Dinosaurs

For the Knights of Camelot, peace has brought boredom. They don’t have much to do, and most have never seen a dragon. During the knightly feast, the knights begin to boast about their heroic deeds. When Sir Erec boasts that he slew forty dragons on his last quest, Merlin decides to teach the knights a lesson and sends them on an adventure.

Four knights and one squire enter a cave and come out during another time. Suddenly, they are surrounded by the most terrible lizards of all: dinosaurs. Will the knights be able to survive the snapping jaws of these gigantic lizards?

Fast-paced, funny, and full of surprises, Knights vs. Dinosaurs blends graphic-style illustrations with a unique adventure. Black-and-white illustrations are scattered throughout the story, and several of the graphic-novel style battles appear over multiple pages. As each knight goes off alone, they encounter different terrible lizards. Seeing each knight’s perception of the different dinosaurs adds interest and humor to the story.

The knights engage in battle after battle, but the story still develops each knight’s unique personality. Sir Hector clearly loves books. Sir Bors believes that, “Might makes right.” The Black Knight is silent and skilled. The characters don’t only clash with the dinosaurs, they also clash with each other. In the end, the knights’ adventures teach them the dangers of boasting and the necessity of working together. The knights discover that each one of them has a specific talent and they need to take advantage of each person’s strengths and work together in order to survive.

For those who like knights, dinosaurs, and battles, Knights vs. Dinosaurs has an entertaining, engaging story that will keep readers turning the page. Younger readers may find some of the vocabulary difficult. In order to create the same feel as medieval times, difficult words such as lummox, smote, peruse, and inscrutable are used. This is the perfect book for reluctant readers who want to fall into a fabulously funny story.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When the knights leave the cave, a dinosaur “snatched him up in its mighty jaws. The beast lifted Bors twenty feet off the ground and shook him like a puppy’s chew toy. Fortunately, Bors’s armor held.” When the Black Knight enters the fight, “a broadsword to the lower leg made the creature toss Bors aside.”
  • The knights see a group of dinosaurs and the “attacking cows” stampede. “Erec was knocked aside. Bors tripped over Erec’s leg. His sword flew straight up, then came back down. Bors, eyes bulging, shifted just as the sword struck the ground an inch from his chest.” The knights retreat.
  • When two of the knights begin arguing, another knight tries to break up the argument but “was kicked in the shin for his effort. So he kicked back instead. They pushed. They slapped. They fell over. It was clanging and awkward.”
  • When Erec sees a dinosaur, he charges it with his lance. “The creature charged. Erec charged. His lance hit the creature directly between the eyes. The beast grunted, veering off to the side.” The battle is described in words and pictures over four pages. At one point, the creature “scooped him off the ground. It shook him once, twice, three times, then tossed him aside like a twig.”
  • One of the knights sees a group of dinosaurs that look like chickens. He assumes they are friendly, but one of them “locked its little jaws around Hector’s finger, clamping down hard with a row of tiny razor-sharp teeth.” Hector hits the dinosaurs with a book, but then “even more appeared. . . Hector tripped and was instantly set upon by the tiny, vicious cuties. They scratched, nibbled and pecked at the noble knight.”
  • A knight sees a dinosaur, and the two “squared off. They burst into action at the same moment, bludgeoning and punching, biting and kicking.” The two fight until a bigger, fighting dinosaur appears. Both the knight and the dinosaur run into the woods.
  • The knights take a swim in a lake. Suddenly, “The lake erupted beneath them as an enormous serpent broke the surface . . . the serpent dived for Erec.” The knights battle the serpent over the course of five pages. One of the knights throws a rock, and “it sailed straight to Magdelena’s hand, and in one smooth movement she brought it down on the serpent’s head. The creature ceased its struggle instantly and sank below the surface, down to the depths.”
  • A flying lizard grabs a knight and takes her to its nest. The knight almost becomes food for a newborn dinosaur.
  • The knights work together to fight a T-Rex. “Erec was the first to find himself lifted several feet off the ground. His armor kept the teeth from puncturing his vital organs, but the pressure of the monster’s bite was tremendous . . .” The battle is described in words and in pictures over ten pages. In the end, Sir Bors “brought his sword down on the monster’s foot . . .He swung one powerful fist in a precisely placed uppercut. The punch connected. The terrible lizard’s eyes crossed . . .” The dinosaur topples over and the knights escape. To prove that they battled the dinosaur, a knight “grabbed a single tooth and pulled and pulled and tore it right out of the king’s gum. It opened its mouth in a roar of pain.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The Black Knight takes off her helmet for the first time, and “wine was spit out in surprise.”

Language

  • Occasionally the knights call each other names including “dunderhead” and “oaf.” One knight is called a “bookworm.”

Supernatural

  • When Merlin sends the knights on a quest, they enter a cave and are magically transported into another time period.
  • Some believe that Merlin has an enchanted owl that writes and draws. Two knights argue about if an owl can write. One replies, “Merlin enchanted us to this wretched place. I should think he could manage to teach an owl to draw.” The ending of the book shows the owl working on a book.

Spiritual Content

  • None

Speak

Instead of looking forward to starting high school, Melinda is dreading it. She attended an end-of-the-summer party, which got busted after she called the cops. Now she is an outcast. Her friends, and even random strangers, hate her. Something terrible happened at the party. And one day, Melinda will speak about the terrible events. And that will change everything.

Because Speak is written in the first person, Melinda’s personality comes to life. Although Melinda often is sarcastic, the pain and uncertainty she feels come through. The reader knows that something terrible has happened to Melinda, and they know it has to do with “IT” and the end-of-the-summer party. However, the reader is left in suspense until the end of the story, when the horrible events of the party are revealed—Melinda was raped.

Melinda is dealing with some heavy issues—parents who only talk to her through sticky notes, feelings of depression, and the overwhelming desire to have someone like her. Speak focuses on Melinda’s struggle to understand what happened to her. At one point she questioned, “Was I raped?” When Melinda finally tells a friend about her experience, Melinda is accused of being a liar. And because no one knows what happened, Melinda’s rapist is able to continue to terrorize her. Although the story is told in a realistic manner and is teen-friendly, the events in the book may still be upsetting to some readers.

Much of the story focuses on Melinda’s inner dialogue, which allows the reader to understand her thoughts and feelings. Many of the adults in the story just don’t know how to deal with Melinda’s problems, which makes it harder for Melinda to talk. Even as Melinda struggles to speak, the message of the story is clear— “don’t expect to make a difference unless you speak up for yourself.” Melinda’s story will have a major impact on readers. Speak will be remembered long after you finish reading it.

Sexual Content

  • The school board decides to change the school mascot because “Home of the Trojans didn’t send a strong abstinence message, so they have transformed us into the Blue Devils. Better the Devil you know than the Trojan you don’t, I guess.”
  • While watching the cheerleaders, Melinda thinks, “the cheerleaders are much better at scoring than the football team is.”
  • Melinda thinks the cheerleaders “have parties wild enough to attract college students. . . They rent beach houses in Cancun during Spring Break and get group-rate abortions before prom.”
  • During biology class, the class laughs when the teacher says the word “reproduce” because “they have figured out it is related to sex.”
  • Melinda’s friend has a model shoot and Melinda thinks that her friend’s, “goosebumps are bigger than her boobs.” During the shoot, “the photographer keeps saying ‘Sexy, sexy, very cute. . . think boys.”
  • At lunch, a group of girls talks about a boy who is gorgeous and dangerous. One of the girls said, “Rumor—he sleeps with anything.”
  • When the school changes the mascot, the cheerleaders come up with a new cheer, “We are the hornets, horny, horny hornets.” During the cheer, they wiggle and shake. When the cheer makes it on the television, “the TV sports guy thought the song was cute, so he did a segment showing the ‘Hornet Hustle,’ with the cheerleaders shaking their stingers, and the crowd bumping and grinding their horny Hornet heinies.”
  • Melinda sees a girl kiss a boy in the hall, the girl “smiles and then she kisses him wet. Not a Girl Scout kiss.”
  • Melinda tells her friend about her experience, “I was stupid and drunk and I didn’t know what was happening and then he hurt . . . he raped me.” Melinda’s friend thinks she is a liar.
  • On the bathroom wall, someone writes that a boy “should get it (diprosomething) every morning in his orange juice I went out with him to the movies—he tried to get his hands down my pants during the PREVIEWS!”
  • When Melinda’s friend goes to the prom with a boy, he “was all over her with his hands and his mouth.” Melinda’s friend ditched the guy.

Violence

  • While on the school bus, someone throws a Ho-Ho and it hits Melinda in the back of the head.
  • During a pep assembly, a girl yells at Melinda, and then “the girl behind me jams her knees into my back. They are as sharp as her fingernails. . . The girl yanks my hair.”
  • While at a party, Melinda meets a boy. When he “pulled me close,” she felt dizzy. “He wrapped one arm around my back. His other hand slid down to my butt. I thought that was a little rude, but my tongue was thick with beer and I couldn’t figure out how to tell him to slow down. . .  He kissed me, man kiss, hard sweet and deep. . . He kissed me again. His teeth ground hard against my lips.” Melinda doesn’t like what is happening but isn’t sure how to stop the boy from continuing. “I can hear myself—I’m mumbling like a deranged drunk. His lips lock on mine and I can’t say anything. I twist my head away. He is so heavy. . . I open my mouth to breathe, to scream, and his hand covers it. . . shirt up, shorts down, and the ground smells wet and dark and NO!. . and he smells like beer and mean and he hurts me hurts me hurts me and gets up and zips his jeans and smiles.”
  • The boy who raped Melinda attacks her at school because “you started spreading lies, and now every girl in school is talking about me like I’m some kind of pervert . . . You are one strange bitch, you know that. A freak.” The boy tries to kiss Melinda, and when she pulls away he, “slams his body against mine. . . He curses and turns, his fist coming, coming. An explosion in my head and blood in my mouth. He hit me.” The attack takes place over three pages. In the end, Melinda breaks a mirror and “wrap my fingers around a triangle of glass. I hold it to Andy Evans’s neck.” Finally, the lacrosse team shows up and helps Melinda.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • While watching television, Melinda’s dad “drops ice cubes in a heavy-bottomed glass and pours in some booze.”
  • Melinda’s ex-friend, “puts a candy cigarette between her lips. Rachelle wants desperately to smoke, but she has asthma.”
  • Melinda friend tells her, “But you just can’t cut classes or not show up to school. What’s next—hanging out with the dopers?”
  • Melinda goes to a party where she and other teens are drinking.
  • During prom season, some kids talk about “which limo company won’t tell if you drink.”

Language

  • Profanity is scattered throughout the book. Profanity includes: bitchy, bullshit, crap, darn, and pissed.
  • “Oh my god” is used as an exclamation several times.
  • A girl calls Malinda an “asshole.”
  • Someone calls a girl a “bitch.”
  • Melinda is upset with a teacher and thinks, “I’m not going to let an idiot teacher jerk me around like this.”
  • According to the writing on the bathroom stall, a girl has pissed off a whole bunch of people. One person wrote in huge letters that she is a whore.
  • Melinda thinks it’s best to stay quiet because “All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie.”
  • When Melinda’s friend tells her they are no longer friends, Melinda tries “to think of something bitchy, something wicked and cruel. I can’t.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Melinda’s “parents didn’t raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. I think the Merryweather cheerleaders confuse me because I missed out on Sunday School. It has to be a miracle. There is no other explanation. Howe else could they sleep with the football team on Saturday night and be reincarnated as virginal goddess on Monday?”
  • When Melinda goes to the mall and finds that it is closed, she thinks, “It’s always supposed to be there, like milk in the refrigerator or God.”
  • A girl Melinda knows is “experimenting with Islam. She wears a scarf on her head and some brown-and-red gauzy harem pants.”

The Assassination of Bragwain Spurge

Elf historian Bragwain Spurge accepts a dangerous mission to catapult across the mountains, spy on the goblins, and deliver a peace offering to the goblins’ dark lord. No other elf has returned for the goblins’ land, but Spurge is determined to be the first.

Spurge’s host, goblin archivist Werfel, is excited to show the goblin culture to his guest. Instead of being great friends like Werfel had hoped, Spurge’s snobbish attitude and sneaky ways lead to an international crisis. Soon, the two are fugitives fighting for their lives. But in order to survive, and keep their nations from war, the two will need to put their cultural differences aside and work together.

A unique political story, The Assassination of Bragwain Spurge, is told from three points of view.  Werfel tells his version of events in first-person text; the pride and love he feels for his culture and his people shines throughout the entire story. Lord spymaster Ysoret Clivers writes reports to the elves’ leader, which allows the reader to understand lies that were told to Spurge. Spurge transmits pictures of his side of the story back to the elf kingdom. The beautiful, sometimes hilarious, black-and-white illustrations portray the goblin culture from Spurge’s perspective, often making the goblin world appear frightening.

Spurge’s story begins with illustrations of his travel to the goblin’s city. Because the story is told from three points of view, the same events can be seen through different perspectives, which allows the reader to understand how so many misunderstandings can take place between two people. Spurge portrays the goblins as frightening monsters, who leer at him and have disgusting habits. Despite Spurge’s conceited attitude, Werfel makes an excellent host, who is willing to die for the unlikable, unfriendly guest.

Many readers will relate to Spurge, who was bullied throughout school. Spurge has always been “the weed: unwanted by anyone.” Spurge accepted the dangerous mission because “I thought I would be useful. . . I thought I could be different than I was. I thought I could be one of them.” He is heartbroken when he realizes that he was used. Werfel points out that “just because you’re useful to the wealthy doesn’t mean they’ll reward you. It just means they’ll use you.” Spurge’s heartbreak and hurt make his previous behavior understandable.

Spurge and Werfel are not necessarily heroes, but in the end they band together to help bring peace between their people. The conclusion allows the reader to know that there is always the possibility of peace when two people begin to understand each other’s culture. The action-packed, visually inspiring, and funny tale teaches the value of friendship and understanding others’ perspectives. The Assassination of Bragwain Spurge will draw in readers because of the many illustrations; however, only dedicated readers will make it to the end of the book because of the changing points of views, the complexity of the plot, and the length of the story.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While giving the history of the goblin city of Tenebrion, Ysoret Clivers writes about twelve elves who went into the city. Only two came back alive, “but raving mad—unable to explain the horrors they’d seen, and not just because their tongues had been cut out. Their minds had been blasted.”
  • When being introduced to a goblin family, the host tells Spurge, “I, for one, am going to try right now to forget all the elves I killed in all sorts of ways during the war, and I am not going to think of all of my friends you people shot and stabbed and cut apart. Oh, and burned from the air. And imprisoned without food.” Another guest tells Spurge, “When most goblins took elfin prisoners, they cut off their arms at the elbow. Not me, sir. . . I always cut off your people’s hands right at the wrists.”
  • When Spurge was a child, the other boys would tease him. Ysoret Clivers and the other boys, “burned his desk with him tied to it . . . (and) dragged him down to the crypt and forced him to eat grave-worms or have his pale little head kicked in.”
  • When Ysoret Clivers displeases the king, a bodyguard cuts off his finger. “He spread my hand out on my desk and, taking out his ax—” By the end of the book, Ysoret Clivers has lost three fingers.  When the third finger is removed, blood splatters the page, but it is not described.
  • Spurge and Werfel are surrounded by bandits, who make the goblin give up his clothes. The bandit grabs Spurge, and “she spit in the elf’s face, then threw him backward to the floor. . . She kicked Spurge as hard as she could. Spurge writhed in pain.” Werfel stops the bandit from killing Spurge. But then “the goblins surrounded them, jabbing at them with short swords and knives, forcing them back toward the balcony railing and the darkness beyond it. . .” The bandits push the two off the balcony, but they are uninjured. The attack is described over a chapter.
  • A goblin challenges Spurge to a duel. The battle is described in 19 pages’ pictures. The goblin attacks Spurge with a mace, but Spurge is able to defeat him.
  • An elf knight hits Werfel’s pet. “One of the guards swung a sword and hit her with the flat. Werfel heard the crunch. Skardebek went whirling over their heads and hit the ground. She lay there twitching as the knights pulled their two prisoners away.
  • Werfel’s pet helps him and Spurge escape from the elves. “She darted forward and clamped herself angrily over the executioner’s hooded face. He gagged and clutched at her. . . Skardebek flapped away—and Spurge slammed the guard over the head with the pike. The man collapsed.”
  • As Werfel and Spurge are trying to escape, a knight sees them. There is a brief altercation. “Werfel grabbed his weapon. He shoved his hand over the man’s mouth. . . Skardebek flapped in his face and he choked. . .” Spurge hit “the guard in the stomach. The picket guard fell backward, the breath knocked out of him.”
  • When the elves and goblins’ leaders meet, a weapon detonates and explodes. The leaders and their armies disappear into a black hole. The meeting is described in pictures.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • To welcome Spurge, the elfin scholar, to the goblin city, a champagne fountain is prepared.

Language

  • When the goblins consider someone a friend, they insult them by calling them names. Spurge calls a neighbor’s children “little jerks” and “awful spawn.”
  • If the goblin’s find out Werfel is a spy, Ysoret Clivers writes that “we can claim that he was just a nincompoop or a madman.”
  • A goblin challenges Spurge to a duel, calling him a “cowardly, lily-livered, stitch-faced desperado.”

Supernatural

  • Spurge uses a communication spell to send pictures back to the elves. “Werfel could tell it was a spell because the elf was floating several inches above the bed, surrounded by crackling sparks.”

Spiritual Content

  • When a group of angry goblins surrounds Spurge and Werfel, Werfel “clenched his hands and started to say a prayer to Great Rugwith.”

Liz’s Night at the Museum

Liz has been dreaming about sleeping over at the Santa Vista Art and History Museum. But when the lights go out, Liz hears spooky noises, and she sees scary shadows. Are the strange sounds and shadows her imagination? What’s causing the noise? Will Liz’s museum sleepover turn into a nightmare?

Adorable artwork appears on almost every page, which helps readers visualize the events in the story. Large type, short sentences, and plenty of dialogue will help newly independent readers stay engaged.  Fun onomatopoeias are scattered throughout the story. Although the story focuses on Liz’s fear, and some of the pictures have a spooky feel, the story is more suspenseful than frightening.

Readers will be able to relate to Liz’s sleepover fear. The illustrations show the character’s emotions, which adds to the suspense. The fast-paced story will keep readers engaged. Several of the events are connected to each other, which helps readers understand the effect of having an active imagination. Despite being part of a series, Liz’s Night at the Museum can be read as a stand-alone book.

Younger readers will enjoy the animals, the friendships, and the artwork. Liz’s Night at the Museum would make an excellent addition to any reading list.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Roar of the Crowd

Manny has always been a star on the soccer team. This year, he has decided to try football instead. Manny is determined to get in the game even though it’s his first year as part of the Hudson City Hornets. Manny doesn’t want to sit on the bench, but compared to the other guys, Manny isn’t big. When he tries to tackle the offense, he ends up eating dirt. When the team loses, the coach sits Manny on the bench. Manny needs to prove that he is as tough as anyone else out on the field. Can he prove to his coach, his teammates, and himself that he belongs on the field?

Sports lovers will enjoy the play-by-play football action, both during the games and on the practice field. Many boys will relate to Manny because even though he is small, he still wants to make an impact on the field. Manny knows he is fast, but he worries because, “the other players had everything that he didn’t have—strength, height, confidence.” Throughout the story, the football players appreciate Manny’s efforts and even consider him part of the team, even though he sat on the bench for the entire game.

Although the story focuses on football, Manny’s family also appears frequently. Manny’s two-parent family is portrayed in a positive light. Manny’s little brother adores him, which adds depth to the family dynamics. One drawback of the story is a brief conversation in which Manny and another boy talk about a girl who is “short but built.” During the conversation, the boy makes it seem as if every girl in school “is after” the star football player. Because many children model behavior in books, parents may want to have a conversation about this event.

The simple plot and easy-to-understand vocabulary make The Roar of the Crowd an easy read for younger readers. Readers will learn the importance of focusing on an individual’s strength and never giving up. However, there are better sports books for younger readers, such as Soar by Joan Bauer or the Ballpark Mystery series by David A. Kelly.

Sexual Content

  • Another boy tells Manny that a girl is “out of your league.” The boy said that she is “after Firorelli” who is a football player. The boy jokes that the girl “can probably run him down faster than you could.” The boy thinks that “every girl in the school seems to be after him (Fiorelli).”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • When Manny was tackled, he said “crap.”
  • When someone shoved Manny, he said “screw you.”
  • A football player said “crud.”
  • The boys say butt occasionally, such as “Get ready to sprint your butt off, man.” Manny also told his friend that he “ran my butt off.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Manny and his family attend mass on Sunday morning. “But all during the sermon he thought about those kickoffs, how he’d been so overpowered by the blockers.”

 

Midnight Sun

Katie can’t be in the sun. Even the smallest amount of sunlight will cause her great pain because of a rare disease, forcing Katie to sleep during the day and lead an isolated life at night. Her best friend Morgan and her widowed father are her only companions until one night, Katie goes to the train station to play her guitar. As she plays her music, a chance encounter opens her world and her heart.

All-star athlete Charlee Reed thought his life was planned out for him until he met Katie. When he sees Katie playing her guitar, everything changes. He doesn’t know about Katie’s rare disease, but he’s determined to steal her heart.

Midnight Sun’s plot is typical, predictable, and cliché. Despite that, many teens will relate to Katie’s desire to be normal and her struggle to lead a life that matters. Katie’s love interest Charlie—handsome, kind, and generous—is every girl’s dream. The two quickly fall in love and force each other to step out of their comfort zones and follow their dreams.

Midnight Sun follows the same format as The Fault in Our Stars and Me Before You. Romance fans will enjoy this book because of its strong character development. This story encourages readers to follow their dreams and tells them anything is possible. However, the use of cursing and texting abbreviations such as FOMO seems unnecessary. Because of Charlie, Katie seems to accept the progression of her disease and her impending death with little emotion. Although she wonders what death will be like, her acceptance of dying young does not ring true.

Cook missed an opportunity in this novel to focus on the dangers of drinking. Even though Charlie, drunk and foolish, injured himself and lost his scholarship, Charlie still goes to a party and plays beer pong. During the party, drinking to excess is depicted as fun, without much risk. Although this book has some flaws, it is an easy-to-read story that will please readers looking for a character-driven romance.

Sexual Content

  • Katie fantasizes about Charlie. She wishes she could invite him into her room, “Run my fingers through that gorgeous hair. Kiss him.”
  • Morgan is excited that Katie is “meeting up with the guy you’ve lusted after for a decade.” They have a conversation about hooking up. Morgan says, “I am not losing my virginity to a guy I’ve talked to exactly twice in my life.”
  • Charlie and another girl used “to hook up once in a while . . . But it’s not something I’m proud of or want to repeat or anything.”
  • Charlie tells Katie that kids often grind when they dance. Then he shows how it’s done. “He puts a hand on my lower back and starts swaying his hips side to side like a pendulum. I follow his moves.”
  • Charlie kisses Katie. She thinks, “It is pure magic, so everything I ever hoped it would be, I can’t even move or think or breathe for a second. But then instinct kicks in and I feel everything, everything. My nerve endings tingle, my brain is on fire, my heart is a goner.”
  • Charlie and Katie kiss several times. It is described, but not in graphic detail. The first time, “he softly kisses me. He adds just the right amount of lips, tongue, and time.” Later, they kiss again and Katie thinks his lips “taste like sugar and cream and pure goodness . . . I’ve never felt so buzzed on life.”
  • Morgan kisses a boy, but it is not described. Later, Morgan said that she did “make out” with the boy.

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Katie, Morgan, and Charlie go to a party where teens are drinking and playing beer pong. Charlie explains the rules of beer pong and then he and Katie play. Katie doesn’t drink, but her friends do.
  • Katie, Morgan, and Charlie go to a party where the host bought a keg, but doesn’t know how to open it. Morgan complains, “This really is a tame, safe, parent-friendly party!”
  • While playing guitar at the train station, Katie sees a man who “seems drunk.”
  • At a party, someone says, “And that girl over there, she has a prescription drug problem.”
  • When Charlie is drunk, his friend “bet me I couldn’t jump off the roof into the pool and I clipped the edge and I’m an idiot.” He injured himself jumping, which led to him losing his scholarship.

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, bitches, crap, damn, jerk, freaking, hell, shit, and WTF.
  • “Goddamn” is used once.
  • Morgan said, “Tonight is going to be fan-fucking-tastic, and so are you!”
  • A girl calls Morgan a “douchebag.”
  • “Oh my God,” is used as an exclamation several times.
  • Morgan tells Katie, “it took gigantic cojones to come to this party.”
  • When Morgan gets her diploma, she “strikes a pose and mouths, Yeah, bitches!”
  • A friend of Katie’s dad “has great stories about what a little pain in the ass my dad was as a kid.”
  • Morgan calls a popular girl a “whore” and “flaming crotch rot.”
  • An advice columnist writes, “everyone has their shit sandwich. The only difference is some people aren’t willing to talk about it.”
  • Morgan tells Katie, “You’re a hot, young, badass woman in charge of her own life, and you text him whenever you damn well please.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Katie wonders what happens after a person dies. She wonders if death is “just you, in the dark, awake and aware. I sincerely hope not, because that would be unnecessarily cruel.”
  • Katie’s mother died in a car crash when she was younger. Katie wonders what happened when her mom died. “Was there a white light, did her grandparents escort her to heaven? Will she get me when it’s my turn? Or will it just be blackness, a big void, a curtain coming down and that’s it, like I never existed at all?”

 

 

 

 

 

My Father’s Words

A terrible accident takes the life of Fiona and Finn’s father. Lost in grief, a friend suggests Fiona and Finn volunteer at an animal shelter. They meet two dogs that need their comfort. As Fiona and Finn help the dogs, they reflect on their father’s words.

Beautifully written, My Father’s Words will captivate readers from the beginning. Being told from Fiona’s point of view allows the story to focus on the family’s grief and how each member of the family responds differently to grief. Fiona worries that her brother has lost his ability to laugh. Introducing the two shelter animals adds heart as well as a little bit of humor.

Fiona and Finn’s father’s caring attitude and wisdom come through as Fiona and Finn think about his actions and words. Finn struggles with whom to blame for the accident that killed his father, but in the end, he realizes, “I can’t blame her anymore. I can’t blame her little boy. And I can’t blame my father.” Finn comes to accept that his father’s death was an accident, and no one was at fault. The story imparts another lesson when Fiona recalls how her father taught her that when a problem can’t be solved, you need to be able to let go.

The two siblings face varied emotions—love, anger, blame, and concern for others. As they process their emotions, they learn the importance of helping others. One of Duncan’s patients, Thomas, helps Fiona with her own grief; through their phone calls Fiona reexamines her belief that Thomas was a “nut case.”

Simple words, short sentences, dialogue, and short paragraphs—many are only one sentence—make the story accessible to younger children. However, because of the topic of death, My Father’s Words would be a good book to read with an adult, who can understand the emotional impact of losing a parent. Anyone, regardless of age, would benefit from reading My Father’s Words since it shows how a loved one is never truly gone. This emotionally engaging story will leave readers in tears, but also with the feeling of hope.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Declan’s will said that he wanted people to “eat cake, drink champagne, and play basketball” at his funeral.

Language

  • Fiona thinks that one of her father’s patients is a “nut case.” Once her father heard her call someone a “nut case” and he “talked to me about the dignity of people.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

 

 

 

 

Soof

Aurora knows all the Heidi stories. All of her life, Aurora has heard about Heidi and how Heidi brought her family luck. But sometimes Aurora thinks her mother doesn’t feel so lucky to have her as a daughter. Her mom thinks she’s weird and wants her to have friends. Aurora has her dog, Duck, as a best friend, and Duck’s friendship is enough.

When Aurora’s mom announces that Heidi is coming for a visit, everything changes. Her mom is obsessed with making everything perfect for Heidi’s visit. Right before Heidi’s visit, bad luck hits the family. When a fire damages their house, Duck disappears, and Aurora and her mother begin fighting like alley cats.

Aurora knows her mother believes in Soof, which means love. But she’s left wondering if her mother loves Heidi more than her.

Although Soof is the companion novel to So B. It, Soof can be read as a stand-alone novel. However, reading So B. It will help readers understand the relationship between Aurora’s mother and Heidi. Soof, which is told from Aurora’s point of view, focuses on Aurora’s struggle to feel loved. Aurora doesn’t mind being labeled as “weird” and not having friends; however, her mother has taken her to several doctors to see if she is “on the spectrum.” Aurora sometimes wonders if her mother was hoping to have a daughter like Heidi, not a weird daughter like herself.

Aurora is a complex character who understands herself, yet still feels insecure. The interactions between Aurora and her family drive the story. Her imperfect family is portrayed in a positive light. Even though Aurora’s family loves each other, the reader can understand why Aurora feels threatened by Heidi’s visit.

 So much of the story focuses on Aurora’s internal conflict that the story lacks action. Although Aurora and her parents are interesting characters, the complicated family issues that drive the story may be difficult for younger readers to understand. For readers who are interested in family dynamics, Soof would be a good choice. So much time is spent building suspense around Heidi’s visit that the short interaction between Heidi and Aurora is a disappointment.

Soof teaches the importance of communication as well as accepting yourself, even if others think you are weird. The satisfying conclusion of the story will leave readers with a smile and a feeling of hope. The easy vocabulary and short sentences make Soof an easy read; however, the story will be best suited for readers who are ready to delve into the interpersonal relationships of families.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • On Aurora’s parents’ anniversary, her parents have champagne with dinner and Aurora has sparkling cider. During dinner they, “clinked glasses, and after a few more toasts my parents were both a little tipsy and I was ready for bed.”
  • Aurora and her mom meet a woman who is smoking a cigarette.

Language

  • Aurora’s dad says “darn” once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Aurora is looking for her dog she says, “Dear Saint Anthony, please come around, something’s lost that must be found.”

 

The Crystal Caverns

Tag, Skyla, and Blaze band together to search for the next piece of the magical Ember Stone. They must find the stone before the powerful vulture Thorn. Finding the Ember Stone will help Thorn increase his power. Thorn also wants the last firehawk, Blaze. Can the three friends save Perodia from Thorn’s dark magic?

The second book in The Last Firehawk Series has a new adventure as the three friends seek the next piece of the ember stone. The three friends brainstorm ideas on how to get into and out of the Crystal Caverns. The addition of a new friend, a seal, gives the story additional interest.

While in the frozen world of the Crystal Caverns, the friends must defeat Thorn’s spies, the ice leopards. Blaze and his friends need to work together to defeat Thorn’s spies. Readers will enjoy seeing Blaze learn to use his powers. Even though he has not mastered his powers, he does his best to help his friends. Readers will learn the importance of helping others as well as working together. The Crystal Caverns has the right amount of suspense and action to keep younger readers interested without adding details that might scare them.

Although The Crystal Caverns can be read as a stand-alone book, readers will enjoy the story more if they have read The Ember Stone first. The Last Firehawk Series is written for newly independent readers and will appeal to readers seeking adventure. The story has many elements that will keep readers interested. The illustrations show emotion, and the ice leopards add danger and suspense to the story. Onomatopoeias are scattered throughout the story, which makes reading fun as well as adds to the mood. Short sentence structure, dialogue, and simple vocabulary make The Crystal Caverns easy to read. Black-and-white illustrations appear on every page, which helps bring the story to life.

The book begins with an introduction to help readers understand the conflict. A two-page map of Perodia gives a visual of the geography and location of important landmarks. The last page of the book contains four questions and an activity, which will reinforce important comprehension skills. Readers who love animals and a good adventure will enjoy The Crystal Caverns.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Ice leopards, who are under Thorn’s control, come after Tag, Skyla, and Blaze. “Skyla loaded an acorn into her slingshot. Quick as a flash, she shot it into the left eye of one of the leopards. The leopard fell back and roared . . . The leopard swiped its claws at Tag, but he ducked just in time.”
  • While in a cave, ice leopards try to get the Ember Stone. Blaze throws fire bolts at icicles to make them fall. “They yelped as the huge icicles came crashing down! Crash! Large icicles smashed to pieces on the ground, right in front of the ice leopards.”
  • The ice leopards make another attempt to get the Ember Stone. “Skyla shot acorns at the other ice leopard, but they bounced off its thick, spotted fur. Skyla was cornered. . . The leopards yelped and fell to the ground as Blaze screeched again. . . Blaze screeched and the ice leopards’ icy teeth shattered. . . The leopards scrambled to their feet and ran away.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Thorn is an evil vulture that uses black magic called the Shadow; he hopes to destroy Perodia.
  • Firehawks “were magical birds who protected the Ember Stone—a stone that holds magic within.”
  • When a piece of the Ember Stone is placed on a map, “the map glowed, brighter and brighter. . . When Tag looked again, a small shining dot appeared on the map.” The magical map guides the friends to the next location to which they must travel.

 

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

 

Since You’ve Been Gone

Emily was ready for summer. She had it all planned out: she and her best friend Sloane would find fun part-time jobs, go on weekend trips, and take everyday adventures together. However, everything changes when Sloane mysteriously disappears, leaving behind a list for Emily to accomplish. Seeing this as the only way to get her best friend back, Emily is determined to finish the list. The list contains thirteen tasks designed to push Emily’s comfort zone like “riding a horse” or, even scarier, “kissing a stranger.”

Emily embarks on a completely unexpected summer filled with risky exploits, play-writing parents, and new friends that allow her to discover who she is as an individual, not just half of a whole.  Since You’ve Been Gone is a delightful novel that makes the reader long for those days of summer that seemed endlessly filled with possibilities. Fans of Morgan Matson’s other books will be thrilled by this adorable adventure that is in her same spellbinding style.

This book is perfectly appropriate for teen readers and is relatable in many aspects through the struggles Emily faces to discover her individual identity. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of romance throughout the book and sexual content is found on several occasions, so parents of younger readers may heed caution. Despite this, Since You’ve Been Gone is a delightful book full of hilarious scenes in which the readers feel as though they are part of a group of friends. The characters and plot make Since You’ve Been Gone well worth reading.

Sexual Content

  • Sloane and Emily make a plan to find “summer boys.”
  • A boy absentmindedly stares at Sloane when she is at a craft fair, and he unknowingly picks up a macaroni necklace during his entrance of her beauty.
  • Items on Sloane’s list include skinny dipping and kissing a stranger.
  • When Emily goes to The Orchard, a popular hangout place, a couple of parks next to her car and “started furiously making out in the front seat.”
  • When Emily sees Frank lift up his shirt to reveal his surprisingly ripped abs, she “felt my feet tingle.”
  • When Emily meets Dawn for the first time, Dawn is crying about the fact that her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend.
  • Sloane’s boyfriend, Sam, was “sliding his arms around Sloane’s waist and kissing her cheek.”
  • Emily’s parents’ play has a kissing scene that Emily and Frank almost have to perform.
  • Emily makes out with a stranger in the small pantry of Frank’s house. “His lips were on mine . . . he wrapped his arms around my waist, and started kissing me for real . . . And soon I was kissing him back, my pulse racing and my breath catching in my throat, his hands twined in my hair. It was only when his hands slipped under the hem of my shirt . . . that I came out of the make-out trance.”
  • Emily’s former boyfriend Gideon is a “good kisser.” They kiss a few times in the book.
  • Sam kisses Emily, making Sloane break up with him.
  • Emily and Frank kiss in her car as the rain is pouring down on them through the sunroof. “And it was a kiss that felt like it could stop time . . . We were kissing like it was a long-forgotten language that we’d once been fluent in and we were finding again, kissing like it was the only thing either of us had wanted to do for a long, long time, kissing with the urgency of the rain that was pounding down all around us . . . His hands were tangled in my hair, then touching my bare back, and I was shivering in a way that didn’t have anything to do with the cold.”
  • At the conclusion of the novel, Frank and Emily engage in a passionate kiss that is not described in detail.

Violence

  • When attempting to break into her own house, Sloane falls over the windowsill and lands “with a thump that I could hear even from the ground.”
  • A character commits arson in the play Bug Juice that Emily’s parents wrote.
  • Frank hits Collins on the back affectionately and Emily remarks, “I had no idea why boys, when they become affectionate, got violent.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At the apple orchard where many parties are held, there are ladders, and “only the bravest‒or drunkest‒people ventured up them.”
  • The Orchard is described as having, “a small group smoking. There was a keg and a stack of red Solo cups, an open cooler at his feet.”
  • Emily gets a cup of beer that was “mostly. . . a cup of foam.” She “took a tiny sip, wincing at the warm, metallic taste, wondering how much longer I had to stay.”
  • Collins hits on a girl who is, “smoking a cigarette and talking on her phone.”
  • Sloane acquires fake IDs for herself and Emily to go into a bar and hear one of their favorite bands perform. Emily does not go in the first time, but returns after Sloane has gone missing. Within the bar, she sees “the shelves of liquor stretched up almost to the ceiling.” When she orders a diet coke, the bartender asks her if she wants it “with rum,” to which she refuses.
  • At Frank’s birthday party, Emily gets tipsy.
  • When Emily sleeps over at Sloane’s house, she is sent to get a bottle of wine from the fridge for them to drink while they binge watch Psychic Vet Tech.

Language

  • Phrases using the word “god” as an exclamation are used frequently.
  • Profanity is used frequently throughout the novel. Profanity includes holy crap, hell, and damn.
  • Collins jokingly insults Frank and says, “You complete moron. I thought I was going to have to get the ladder and pull you out like a damn cat!”
  • Emily thinks that some people at a party think that she is a “narc.”
  • A girl in a bar says, “Jared has been cheating on me with some skank named Penelope.”
  • Frank says to Emily, “Don’t be stupid.”

Supernatural

  • When thinking of Sloane’s mysterious disappearance, Emily says, “I was negotiating with some cosmic dealer who could guarantee this for me.”
  • An example of the trivial text exchanges between Sloane and Emily is, “Have you noticed it’s been a while since anyone’s seen the Loch Ness monster?”

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Morgan Filgas

Fire! Fire!

When a shop burns down on Orange Street in Selinsgrove, nine-year-old Hilde follows the smoke. Hilde discovers that Mrs. Brown thinks her candles started the fire. She’s so upset that she won’t leave the house. Without Mrs. Brown, the town’s pet parade will be canceled. Can Hilde find a hot tip that will lead her to the true cause of the fire?

This fast-paced mystery comes to life with illustrations on every page. Like the previous books, Hilde uses real-life skills, models questioning skills, and shows the importance of being observant. In this story, Hilde also explains the importance of treating witnesses with tenderness and respect. She clearly cares more about people’s feelings than getting the scoop.

Younger readers will enjoy reading about the interesting characters, injured birds, and a fun pet parade. Besides investigating the fire, another mystery is added when the store owner’s parakeet disappears. The satisfying conclusion of the story is wonderfully illustrated. Readers will fall in love with the pets who are dressed up for the parade.

Short paragraphs, simple word choice, and black-and-white illustrations that appear on every page will keep younger readers engaged. Even though some characters reappear in each book, each story can be understood without reading previous books. Like the previous books, questions and activities appear at the end of the book. Readers will want to follow the clues and see if they can solve the mystery along with Hilde. Fire! Fire! is an engaging story that animal and mystery lovers will enjoy.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The “mean-agers” are a group of teenagers “known for their rotten attitudes.” When a bird poops on Hilde’s shirt, one of the mean-agers tells her, “It looks like we aren’t the only ones who think you make a better toilet than a reporter.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Resistance

Chaya Linder is living in Nazi-occupied Poland. Her Jewish family is in danger. Her sister is deported to one of the camps and her brother disappears. After losing their two children, Chaya’s parents have given up hope. In an effort to make a difference, Chaya becomes a courier and travels between the ghettos of Poland. She takes lifesaving supplies like forged papers and food. Sometimes, she even smuggles out children.

When Chaya joins a resistance cell, she hopes to use the Nazis’ supplies to help her people. When a mission goes wrong, most of Chaya’s network is killed or captured. Alone, with nowhere to go, Chaya isn’t sure what to do. When Esther, a former member of her cell, appears, Chaya begins a journey to the Warsaw Ghetto where a large uprising is being planned. Chaya is determined to save as many lives as possible, even if she loses her own life. Her only desire is to live or die with honor.

Told from Chaya’s point of view, Resistance gives the reader a grim picture of the persecution Jews received during World War II. The story begins with suspense, which continually builds as Chaya survives her ordeals, while many of the other resistance members are killed. Many of the events are violent, and although they are not described in bloody detail, death is common. Although the publisher recommends the book for ages 8-12, the descriptions of death and torture would make this a difficult book for younger readers.

As Chaya’s world crumbles around her, the reader gets a better understanding of why some Jews did not fight back. Some of the Jewish people were so overcome by fear, or some didn’t believe the stories of the death camps, so they didn’t fight back. Others refused to fight because they believed that killing was wrong—even if they were fighting to save their own life. Several times in the story, the characters discuss the morality of killing the Nazi soldiers. In the end, the story makes it clear that leaving the Ghetto in order to survive, or staying in the Ghetto are both valid choices. “We’ll all die one day, no one escapes that fate. Our only decision is how we live before that day comes. Our path requires courage, but so does theirs. Both paths are ways to resist.”

As Chaya and Esther travel to Warsaw, they meet people from all lifestyles and religions. This helps the reader understand people’s different responses to the Jews. Some of the Poles ignored the problem, while others took advantage of the Jewish people, and even physically attacked them. Yet, there were still many Poles that risked their lives to help save the Jews. In the end, the story shows that there were evil people as well as good people who were willing to die fighting.

Resistance ends with the events of the Warsaw Uprising, which gives the reader a vivid description of the death of many civilians, and resistance fighters. The cruelty of the Nazis and the heroic deeds of the Jews are depicted. Although the story gives a historic perspective, sensitive readers may be upset by the death the surrounds Chaya and the Jewish people. Resistance ends with a list of the historical resistance fighters who fought for their people and should be considered heroes.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Chaya’s father is stopped by a Polish police officer who, “ripped out pieces of my father’s beard, one fistful at a time. With every tear, my father grunted with pain, but he said nothing and offered no form of resistance. The crowd that had gathered pointed at him and laughed, as if humiliation and pain were some kind of joke.”
  • Chaya and some others were stealing provisions from a train car when “a gunshot rang through the night and Jukub yelped with pain.” Charya shot a Nazi soldier who was “running toward us with his pistol out, shouting for his comrades.”
  • The resistant fighters attack a café. One threw a grenade through the window. Soldiers, “began to emerge, many with obvious cuts on their faces or uniforms. They became the target of my first grenade. . . My third went inside the café and exploded with enough force to blow some of the bricks off the building.” The surviving Nazis began shooting, and Chaya “saw bodies in civilian clothes fall.”
  • Some of the resistance fighters who survived were sent to Montelupich Prison were, “If the Draengers were there, then they had experienced torture worse than anything I could imagine, and even what I could picture turned my stomach. They would be kept at the edge of death in an attempt to make them talk.”
  • While in a ghetto, Esther drops potatoes, and “two desperate women suddenly became five, and then all of them fought for anything that was left. To get it off Esther’s shoulders, one woman knelt on her back. They were suffocating Esther, but the only thing that seemed to be in their vision was the bag.”
  • When Chaya and Esther are trying to escape from a ghetto, a boy who is helping them is shot. “Henryk hadn’t yet shut the window before a bullet caught him from behind. He fell forward across the windowsill. . .”
  • When Esther is hiding in a barn, the Gestapo finds her. “Ester was hit again and probably knocked unconscious, because she made no other sounds.”
  • In order to create a distraction and save Esther, Chaya cuts the gas line to the Nazi’s trucks and then lights the gas on fire. The gas, “immediately ignited a booming fire that popped the truck’s hood open and set the engine aflame . . . The last truck exploded into the air with a booming sound that would be heard for kilometers around.”
  • When Chaya found Esther, she was tied to a tree’s trunk. When Chaya got closer, “I noticed the bruise was even worse than it appeared from a distance. There was a cut on her cheek too, and other smaller bruises on her neck and probably elsewhere that I couldn’t see.” Esther’s arm was injured as well.
  • Esther recounts what the Gestapo did to her. She was put in a dark room, and “someone slapped me or hit me to get my attention, and they were telling me what would happen if I didn’t talk.”
  • The end of the story focuses on the Warsaw uprising, the description of the battle is told over ten chapters. The resistance fighters throw Molotov Cocktails on the soldiers. When the first explosives were thrown, “bodies fell, and the troops who survived it scattered.” During the battle, Esther threw a “fuel-filled wine bottle” onto a tank, and “the top hatch burst open like a popped cork. Flames shot from within the tank.”
  • During the battle, the Nazis “found the hospital. . . They killed everyone inside. Revenge for our fighting.” How the patients died was not described, but Chaya thinks, “I didn’t want to know, or think about it.”
  • The Nazis have a long-barrel machine gun that they use to kill the Jews. A sniper killed the gunner, “who kneeled over his gun, dead.” Chaya throws a grenade at the vehicle and “the explosion knocked me off my feet.”
  • The Germans escorted civilians and “each was placed on their knees, row by row by row. . . A fighter rose from her knees with a gun. . . She took aim at one of the commanding officers and fired, hitting him squarely in the chest.” Then an officer “gave the order to shoot and every Jew on the street was killed.”
  • Chaya is shot in the leg. When she looks at the wound, she “saw blood spurting from my thigh, almost like everything was happening in sudden slow motion.”
  • When a SS officer sees Chaya, “his hand unfolded, revealing a grenade. . . He pulled the pin and raised his arm to throw it. Then a bullet whizzed past my ear, hitting the grenade itself, which exploded in his hand.”
  • German soldiers would throw poison gas grenades into the sewer system, just in case Jews were hiding in there. As Chaya and a group were trying to escape, poisoned gas was thrown into the sewer, and “Then I heard a splash, and in the light beneath the manhole, I saw Mr. Pilzer’s body go down. He didn’t fall like a dead body would. Instead, he used himself as a shield from the gas, deliberately spreading out his clothes to contain as much of the smoke as possible.”
  • Esther intentionally leads a soldier away from a group of Jews. “A few minutes later, the silent darkness was broken by a single shot fired inside the sewer line.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Several times during religious services, people passed around wine.
  • Chaya thinks that on Adolf Hitler’s birthday, he probably had, “a hearty slice of birthday cake to go with a glass of wine.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • As Chaya and Esther were hiding from Nazi soldiers, Chaya was upset that Esther did not do a better job as a lookout. Chaya thought, “Even God wouldn’t expect me to forgive her.”
  • During Shabbat, Chaya, “covered my eyes with my hands, giving myself a private moment with God to ask for healing, happiness, and prosperity.”
  • Chaya and Esther are about to take a trip, and Esther thinks the snow is a warning. Esther said, “Maybe God is telling us to wait one more evening.” Chaya replies, “Maybe God is offering to cover our tracks if we hurry.”
  • One of the characters tells Chaya, “The greater our need, the nearer our God, no?” A boy replies, “And God is very near now.”
  • Chaya asks a group of teens if they will try to escape the ghetto. A boy tells her, they will remain because “We’ve given our lives to God. Whatever happens to us now is alright.” The group discusses the moral implications of staying or trying to escape to fight. One of the group members tells Chaya, “The highest honor we can give God is to die in His name.” Another character said, “Defending one’s life in the moment is allowed. But killing them is different. That’s murder!”
  • Chaya and Esther discuss their belief in God and his promises. Chaya said, “I believe in God’s promises. . . But I’ve run out of patience waiting for them. I believe in God’s laws, but. . .” They also discuss if killing Nazis is murder. One of Chaya’s friends believed that “God has given us the right to defend ourselves.”
  • When Chaya and Esther miss Shabbat, Ester is upset. Chaya tells her, “God will understand, Esther! He understands why we missed Shabbat, and why I wear the crucifix. He understands the gun inside my bag, and if I have to use it again, then I hope He will understand that too . . .”
  • The evening before Passover, a group discussed God. One of the men, Tamir, gave encouraging words, “Didn’t Moses once say to our people, ‘Be strong and courageous! God is the one Who goes with you.”  Chaya thinks that Tamir was “giving praise and honor to a God who might not save him from his fate. But he did so, confident that this coming fight was worthy of God’s blessings.”
  • Esther found a belt buckle in one of the Nazi soldier’s bags. The buckle had an “eagle standing on top of the Nazi swastika” with the words “God With Us.” Chaya thinks about how the Christians are beginning to prepare for Easter. She thinks, “how could these soldiers commit such atrocities on this day, all while wearing an emblem that suggested God supported their actions?”
  • An escaped prisoner tells Chaya, “Hitler wants no Gods other than himself.”

 

Crossing the Line

Dalila Sandoval, the daughter of one of the wealthiest lawyers in Mexico, is focused on her future. She is turning 18, but she already knows exactly what she wants from life—until she meets Ryan Hess. He is a “bad boy” who doesn’t fit into her life, but when she looks into his blue eyes, a flame of desire comes alive.

Ryan Hess has one goal—to prove he can become a great boxer. He flees an unhappy family life and travels to Mexico in the hope of convincing a famous retired boxer to train him. He does not want to be pulled into Dalila’s life or her problems, but he can’t stop himself from falling for her. Despite their immediate attraction, forces outside of their control quickly rise to conspire against them. Is there any way their love can survive?

Dalila and Ryan are two star-crossed lovers who, like Romeo and Juliet, fall in love quickly. Each chapter flip-flops between Ryan and Dalila’s point of view, allowing readers to understand both character’s thoughts and feelings. The beginning of the story is predictable, and the supporting characters are underdeveloped. Despite these drawbacks, readers who enjoy a good love story will be drawn into the couple’s drama and enjoy the unique angle of a rich girl from Mexico falling for a poor American.

Crossing the Line is not a book for those wanting a plausible story based in reality. Ryan spends all his time thinking about proving himself in the boxing ring, but once Dalila steals his heart, he quickly forgets about his dream. Dalila has no qualms about lying or using her body to beguile Ryan. Even though Ryan knows that Dalila is manipulating him, he overlooks her flaws and vows to stay by her side as she tries to figure out if her father is involved in the Mexican Mafia.

Crossing the Line is full of mystery and has a whirlwind ending full of surprises. The story follows the typical story line—boy and girl don’t want to fall in love, but are forced together by outside forces. For older readers who want a steamy, action packed romance, Crossing the Line will keep you entertained.

Sexual Content

  • When Ryan was new to town, a girl and he “hooked up at a party.”
  • After Ryan’s mom found out she was pregnant, her boyfriend, “ran off with some bimbo stripper he’d met at a dive bar.”
  • When Ryan was younger, his mom “had a history of bringing random guys to the trailer, but she wasn’t a whore. She was hoping one of them would stick around enough to take care of her.”
  • While at a concert, Ryan’s friend said, “I think that girl over there with the spider tattoo on her face just grabbed my ass. I feel violated.”
  • Dalila’s friend “might be a flirt, but she’s not into one-night stands or hookups.”
  • Dalila tries to convince a police officer that she is Ryan’s girlfriend. “I bury my hands in his thick hair and touch my lips to his. I’m determined to make this make-out session look convincing. . . the touch of his soft but firm lips against mine sends delicious sensations zinging up my spine. I’ve kissed boys before, but I’ve never felt goose bumps all over like this.”
  • The day after Ryan’s fight, Dalila tends to Ryan’s wounds. “And when she bends over to tend to the cut on my cheek, her cleavage makes my groin twitch.”
  • At Dalila’s birthday party, she and a friend take a walk in the gardens. “Before I can pull back, he presses his lips to mine and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me close. I’m not ready for this. . . I push him away, glad when our lips separate.” The boy thinks she is playing games and “presses his body to mine again, so close that I can feel how much of a distraction he wants to be.” Ryan sees the two and the boy leaves.
  • Ryan and Dalila kiss several times. Once when they kiss, Ryan’s “breath hitches as she steps so close, I can feel the heat of her skin against mine. Without hesitation, she reaches up on her toes and her sexy, full lips meet mine. They’re soft and wet and full of passion. I hate myself as I take hungry possession of her mouth . . . My lips are still on hers as my tongue instinctively darts out, taking this kiss to the next level. . . her tongue darts out and meets mine.”
  • Ryan tells a story about when he, “got an erection during the swim unit freshman year. One of the girls noticed and screamed it out to the entire class.” He tells another story about his mom’s boyfriend. Ryan did not like him so he took a girl’s phone and “text[ed] the guy all this sexual stuff hoping my mom would see it.” Ryan’s mom broke up with the man.
  • Dalila goes to where Ryan is staying and takes a shower. Thinking about her in the shower, Ryan’s “body is reacting, willing and ready to be called into action.” The shower scene takes place over four pages and the two end up in the shower together. Dalila’s “breath hitches as he leans down and gently licks my wet skin, the sensation sending shock waves through my veins. . . His hot, wet tongue graces my earlobe and then his lips place tiny, light kisses on my mouth. A fire burns within me that I’ve never experienced before. . . This feeling is like a drug and I want more.” They do not have sex, but “we both explored and experimented and drove each other insane. . .”
  • Ryan and Dalila’s truck breaks down in the middle of the desert. Alone at night, they kiss and Dalila, “still straddling me, lifts my T-shirt that she’s been wearing all day over her head. Her fingers go to the front hook of her sexy lace bra and she releases the material, making me feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. It falls down her shoulders revealing her full, perfect breasts. I swallow and my breathing gets ragged as her hands reach for my zipper.” They then have sex, but it is not described in this scene.
  • Later, Ryan and Dalila have sex again, and it is described over two and a half pages. “She steps closer and reaches out, touching my chest with her soft, delicate fingers. . . I close my eyes and feel the brush of her gentle kisses on each bruise, starting with my shoulders and moving down to my chest and lower. . .When her panties and shorts fall to the floor, she focuses her gaze on the ground. . . My fingers trace a path from her taunt stomach to those perfectly shaped hips and I settle my palms on her amazing backside. I pick her up by her bottom.”

Violence

  • Ryan thought about committing suicide, but someone saw him, “sitting on a park bench with a pocketknife it my hand,” and talked him out of it.
  • Ryan thinks back to a time when he got in a fight at school. When the boy talked badly about him, he “whacked willie with a solid left hook. Willie fell and I was immediately on top of him, punching him repeatedly as frustrated tears streamed down my face. My fist kept flying until three lunch supervisors hauled me away.”
  • Ryan sees a boy slip something into a girl’s drink and he confronts the boy. When the boy goes to give the girl a drink, Ryan’s “fist connects with Skyler’s jaw. The guy stumbles backward and falls to the floor.”
  • Ryan’s stepfather tells Ryan that his father “killed someone, shot him in a bar fight.”
  • Ryan goes to an underground bar and fights other men, but the fighting is not described.
  • At Dalila’s birthday party, someone shoots at her family’s compound. Ryan shields Dalila. “Another pop pop pop fills the air and I suck in a horrified breath. . . Fresh blood drops from Ryan’s side onto the floor.” Ryan only has a flesh wound.
  • After spending the night together, Ryan takes Dalila home. Her father’s bodyguards beat up Ryan. “Without a word or grunt, he punches me in the gut. His fist feels like a steel mallet. Fuck, that hurt. . . Gerardo punches me in the gut with that mallet fist of his two more times. I don’t want to crumple to the ground when the clowns release me, but the pain takes over my resolve and all of a sudden I’m eating dirt.”
  • A man and his gang attack Ryan. “I take a few of them out before I’m surrounded. I’m not giving up, not even when someone whacks me on the back with something other than a fist. The punches and kicks don’t stop, and slowly my body gives up.” Ryan blacks out and is dumped in an alley.
  • Dalila hears a gun shot. When she runs towards the sound, “my entire body goes numb as I see Papa holding a gun. He’s standing over a body lying in a pool of blood.” Later she finds out that her father did not kill the man.
  • Someone kills Dalila’s abuela as revenge. Ryan and Dalila find “Abuela Carmela, who’s lying on the floor, soaking in her own blood. . . Dalila’s hand flies to her mouth and a helpless cry pierces the air at the sight of her grandmother riddled with stab wounds.”
  • At the end, several cartel members surround Ryan and Dalila. Ryan threatens them and “I see the fire flash out of the barrel of his gun.” Ryan is shot. “Something cold pierces my gut and my shoulder. I know I’ve been hit.” Someone grabs Dalila “and attempts to run out with her as his shield. . .” Before he can do that, “shots ring out” and the man “falls to the ground, his body riddled with bullets. He’s dead.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ryan’s mother is an alcoholic. At a funeral Ryan wonders, “how much alcohol she downed before she showed up here.” Ryan refers to his mother’s drinking often.
  • Ryan smokes a cigarette at a funeral.
  • At a dinner party, the guests are served “some kind of amber-colored brandy.”
  • At a concert, people are able to order a drink from the bar. A boy offers to buy a girl a beer, but she just wants a soda. The boy buys the girl a soda, but slips something into it.
  • Ryan meets a man in a bar; the guy has a “half-empty bottle of beer in front of him.”
  • Ryan’s mother said she heard, “you were running drugs across the border.”
  • Dalila goes out with her friends and sees a boy she knows. The boy is with his friends. “One of them is laughing loudly and the other has bloodshot eyes. They’ve definitely been drinking.”
  • Ryan goes to an underground bar where “there’s a big dude at the door who looks like a poster child for the overuse of steroids. In lethal doses.” The people in the bar are also drinking.
  • Dalila’s parents throw her a birthday party and one of the boys was holding a beer.

Language

  • Profanity is used in the extreme. Profanity includes: ass, bastard, bitch, crap, dick, damn, douch-bag, fuck, hell, motherfucker, piss, pendejo, puta, and shit.
  • When Ryan sees a girl, he flips her off.
  • Ryan’s motto in life is “fuck being a hero.”
  • Ryan’s stepfather calls him a bastard several times.
  • When Ryan stops a boy from kissing someone, the boy says, “Oh, and the next time you cock-block me like that, I’m gonna make sure you never get hired in Mexico again. By anyone.”
  • After Ryan is shot, he stays the night at Dalila’s family home. His friend tells Ryan, “I’ll bet my left nut that sleepin’ on an expensive mattress will make you crave the good life, especially if the rich chick finds her way into it.”

 

Supernatural

  • None

 

Spiritual Content

  • When Ryan reminds his stepfather that they are not family, his stepfather says, “Thank the mighty Lord for that.”
  • The story talks about the Day of the Dead.

Screenshot

Skye had big plans for her life, including getting a summer internship at Senator Watston’s office. Sky makes sure that her social media account always reflects her best self. Then her best friend, Asha, posts an embarrassing video of Skye at a sleepover. Once the post is deleted, Skye thinks everything will be all right.

When Skye gets a threatening text, with a screenshot from the video attached, she’s afraid her carefully crafted image will be ruined. The person threatens to share the embarrassing photo if Skye doesn’t do whatever they say. How far will Skye go to keep the picture under wraps? And who is trying to ruin her life?

Teens will relate Skye as she faces many real-life issues that come with being a teen in a world obsessed with social media. Screenshot tackles real issues that teens face including body image, dating, changing friendships, and online bullying. Most of the book is written from Skye’s point of view, which allows readers to understand her confusion and anguish. However, other parts of the story awkwardly switch to a third-person point of view. This adds depth to the story as it allows the readers to see into the lives of other characters and understand their struggles.

The one drawback to the story is the relationship between Skye, Emma, and Asha. The three girls have been “inseparable” since they were ten years old. However, after the beginning of the book, the three friends rarely have any interaction. The fact that they all are keeping secrets from each other, have negative feelings about each other and don’t encourage each other, makes it hard to feel invested in their friendship. In the end, the reader is left wondering why the three girls were friends in the first place. In the end, Skye learns to be more confident and less consumed with her image. She also learns the importance of standing up for herself.

As Skye struggles with her own image, she begins to see other teens differently and realizes that outward appearance can be deceiving. The easy-to-read story has engaging dialogue, short sentences, and text messages scattered throughout. For those looking for a quick, entertaining story that won’t make you think too much, Screenshot will hit the mark.

Sexual Content

  • Luke is Skye’s “first real boyfriend. The first guy who ever kissed me in the school hallway.”
  • Luke and Skye kiss three times, but the kisses are never described. For example, Skye gave Luke “a quick kiss on the lips.”
  • Ryan’s cousin found out that “Ryan had never had an actual girlfriend. He’d gone on dates-to school dances and movies-and had even kissed a couple of girls.”
  • Skye talked to her best friend about everything including her, “first kiss I shared with Ned Blakely behind the gym in middle school.”
  • Skye has a new boyfriend. When he comes over, “I kiss him full on the lips. Soft. Tentative . . . My head feels fuzzy and I can hardly breathe.” After that first kiss, “he finds my mouth and kisses me again. I melt into his body. This feels so different from when Luke and I would kiss. But different in a good way.” They jerk apart when Skye’s sister walks into the room.

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Skye goes to a pizza shop full of college students and “the place is full of empty beer glasses.”

Language

  • “Oh God” and “OMG” are used as exclamations several times.
  • One of the character’s father calls his wife a “stupid idiot.” The father yells, “Why would anyone marry such an ignorant pig? Look at yourself.”

Supernatural

  • Ryan’s grandmother wants to move because “there’s an old white woman ghost that hangs out in the hallway near the bathroom . . . Ghost aren’t a laughing matter to my Lola. That’s why she wants new construction. No ghosts.”

Spiritual Content

  • A Kmart employee used to give other employees samples of lattes “until a cashier told him that was practically stealing. Mr. King is super active in the New Life Baptist Church. So I no longer get free caffeine samples and Mr. King has to pray a little extra for his generosity.”
  • Skye thinks her friend doesn’t need to work out because, “for some weird reason only known to the god of genetics, she doesn’t have to.”

Bear on the Loose!

Nine-year-old Hilde is determined to find a story for her newspaper. When she hears sirens, she follows the sound and discovers there may be a bear on the loose in Selinsgrove. Hilde knows people love animal stories, and she’s ready to hunt down the facts. Hilde and her sister, Izzy, follow the tracks into the forest. When Hilde gets tangled in a prickler bush, and then sees a black blur run by, Izzy is ready to call it quits. Can the two sisters find the bear before someone gets hurt?

A fast-paced mystery designed for younger readers, Bear on the Loose! integrates new vocabulary into the story. Hilde’s reporter’s notebook contains illustrations as well as repeated key facts. Throughout the story, Hilde shows the importance of being observant and models questioning skills. When two younger children say they saw a bear, Hilde questions the kids and finds out that they hid when they heard a growl. She tells the kids, “I report facts. The fact is that you heard a growling noise. But it is also a fact that you did not see a bear.”

Several people warn Hilde and her sister to avoid the bear. However, the two girls follow the bear tracks into the forest, and then use berries to tempt the bear into coming into their yard. They eventually call a wildlife officer to come capture the bear, but the story doesn’t focus on the real danger associated with wild animals.

Short paragraphs, simple word choice, and black-and-white illustrations that appear on every page will keep younger readers engaged. The Lysiak family has many positive interactions, and the two sisters work together toward a common goal. Another positive aspect of the story are the questions and activities that appear at the end of the book. Readers will want to follow the clues and see if they can solve the mystery along with Hilde. Bear on the Loose! is an excellent story that has the added benefit of teaching younger readers skills they will use in their daily life.

Sexual Content
• None

Violence
• None

Drugs and Alcohol
• None

Language
• The “mean-agers” are a group of teenagers “known for their rotten attitudes.” When two of the boys appear, Izzy is worried that they are angry with them. When Izzy tries to explain, one boy says, “Don’t pee your pants.”

Supernatural
• None

Spiritual Content
• None

Tell

David isn’t sad that his stepfather is dead. However, he didn’t expect to become the prime suspect of his murder. The detective investigating the case is convinced that David is keeping secrets—and he’s right. David knows the truth about his stepfather’s death. But can he convince the police that he’s not guilty of shooting his stepfather and leaving him to die?

Tell, published by Orca Book Publishers, is specifically written for teens who want to read short, high-interest novels.  The story focuses on David and his struggles with his stepfather, Phil. The easy-to-read story shows the harsh realities of life without going into graphic descriptions. Even though David tells his own story, the mystery of his stepfather’s death leaves the reader wondering if David is actually the murderer.

The suspenseful story has a dark undertone. David struggles with his brother’s death, his mother’s deceit, and his stepfather’s manipulation. As David interacts with his mother, her uncaring and lying nature becomes obvious. In the end, Tell shows that sometimes the monsters in people’s lives are the ones living under their own roof. The sad ending can lend itself to some good discussion between parent and child.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • David’s brother, Jamie, “drowned when he was eight years old.”
  • David thinks Phil intentionally let his brother die. David said, “Phil could have saved him. Phil was right there. He was a good swimmer. He could have saved Jamie, but instead, he did nothing.”
  • After Phil goes to an ATM, a man approaches him. “Phil shoved him away and swore at him. He turned away from the guy. Then I saw the guy take out a gun. He pointed it at Phil . . . The guy shot him.” When David approached Phil, “he was making a sort of gurgling sound . . . Then Phil stopped making that noise. . . and I ran.” David didn’t get Phil help because Phil didn’t help his brother.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Throughout the story, people talk about how David’s stepfather would drink beer. Sometimes he goes to the bar and drinks. He would also play poker with his friends and they would drink beer.
  • David said that Phil carried the picture of his dead brother around because “he got a lot of sympathy from it. One time he told me he got a lot of free drinks too . . .”
  • Jack, a friend of David’s mother, “took a quick gulp of beer” while he was talking to Dave. Jack is also seen drinking beer several times in the story.

Language

  • Profanity is used a few times. “Ass” is used once. “Damn” and “pissed” are each used twice. When Phil gets home from work, his stepson would act up, which “really pissed Phil off. . . “
  • A character said Phil could be a “jerk.” Later, David said he “wanted his mom to know what kind of jerk she married.”
  • Phil calls David a “pain in the ass.”
  • “Oh my god” is used as an exclamation once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

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