Reading Level: Junior High

The Minor Third

Theo Stein-Meyer likes being a part of the Magical Misfits. They had been together since the beginning of summer and have become good friends while helping to protect Mineral Waters from the nefarious troupes that come to town. With his trusty violin bow, Theo completes the team with his levitation skills, his unruffled calm, and proper manners.    

But when a girl named Emily starts to spend more time with the group, Theo is notably drawn to her. They quickly bond over their shared interest in not only magic but also music. Emily appears to understand the pull he feels between music and magic, and between friends and family.  

Then a famous ventriloquist arrives in town, and the Misfits are sure that he is up to no good. When their mentor, Mr. Vernon, unexpectedly gets called out of town and tensions bubble among the friends over their differences, it comes to question if the group can come together to stop another member of the Emerald Ring. Under pressure from both his friends and his family, Theo must make a choice about where—and with whom—he belongs.  

Theo is in the spotlight in this installment of Magical Misfits. A limited third-person perspective lets the reader learn about Theo’s interest in magic and music as well as his struggle to decide whether to practice magic tricks with his friends or perform music with his family. Readers will relate to Theo’s dilemma of having to choose to live up to his family’s expectations for him or be there for his friends. This causes a rift between Theo and his family and deepens the falling-out amongst him and his friends.  

Theo doesn’t want to disappoint his family or friends, especially when both want him to take part in their respective performances for the talent show. His siblings and parents encourage him to play the violin, and whenever he performs with them, he feels like he belongs. On the other hand, his friends support him in practicing magic. Theo feels like he can be himself around his friends too, even with their occasional tiffs. But when his friends realize that the ventriloquist is behind their recent quarrels, they finally mend the cracks in their relationship. With that, the Magic Misfits learn a valuable lesson: friends can overcome any obstacle if they work through the problem together. 

Occasionally, an omniscient unnamed narrator chimes in with a recap of the story’s events, which blends in seamlessly with the overall narration. As a bonus, black and white pictures are scattered throughout the novel and help readers visualize the setting and the action scenes. In order to more fully engage readers, there are how-to magic tricks sprinkled throughout the story. These sections contain instructions for performing the magic tricks, along with illustrations to reference. Tricks such as levitating a roll of bread and making a card rise from one’s palm are easy to do, but adults are encouraged to help with these activities.   

The Minor Third is a lively and riveting story that gets its energy from the tension of being true to oneself while living up to family expectations and dealing with positive peer pressure. Combined with phenomenal narration and vivid descriptions, the striking visuals of various styles complement an incredible story. Readers will enjoy reading about the friendship between Theo and his friends and how they patch up their relationship as well as stop the ventriloquist. If you are looking for stories about magic, friendship, and secrets, give The Minor Third a read! Readers who enjoy Magic Misfits will also enjoy the magical world created in the Kingdom Keepers Series by Ridley Pearson. 

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Near the vestibule of the magic shop, the Magic Misfits see a person smoking a cigarette. 

Language    

  • Theo’s friend calls him a jerk. 

Supernatural  

  • Many of the characters use tricks related to illusion or trickery, such as Carter’s sleight-of-hand or Theo’s levitation. They are in no way similar to supernatural magic or the paranormal.  

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

The Game Master: Mansion Mystery

Rebecca Zamolo has managed to foil the Game Master’s plans before, but this time the Game Master has snake-napped Nacho, her good friend Miguel’s pet. No way is Becca going to let the Game Master get away with this dastardly plan. When the clues lead Becca and her new friends in the direction of the one house in their entire neighborhood that none of them ever want to go near, they know they have no choice but to screw up their courage and dare to investigate if they want to rescue Nacho. 

But the problem is that getting into the super spooky house is way easier than getting out. The Game Master is up to their old tricks, and Becca, Matt, Kylie, Frankie, and Miguel are going to have to face their fears and use all their smarts and strengths to solve the puzzles and games and save the day. 

Mansion Mystery is another action-packed adventure from the super-sleuthing team Rebecca and Matt Zamolo, stars of the popular Game Master Network.  

In the second installment of The Game Master Series, the kids must face their deepest fears in order to defeat the Game Master and find Frankie’s pet snake. In this spooky adventure, the kids no longer argue and disagree. Instead, they work together and encourage each other to face their fears. While most of the challenges are harmless—collecting squirmy bugs, making it through a maze, eating mud pudding—in order to escape the mansion the kids must take a perilous walk on the mansion’s roof and climb into a huge tree. When the kids find a tree house, they realize that the Game Master has been using a telescope to spy on them and the Game Master has detailed notes of each person’s behaviors. Unfortunately, instead of being completely freaked out by this, the kids believe that the Game Master may be someone who wants to be their friend.  

While the plot is farfetched, the easy-to-read story will appeal to young readers because the fast-paced mystery focuses on friendship and working together. Another positive aspect of the story are the black and white illustrations that appear periodically. Readers will relate to the diverse cast of characters, who have common fears such as a fear of spiders. While the mansion has some creepy elements such as a red stain that could be blood, it is spookily mysterious instead of scary. 

While The Game Master Series lacks character development and the plot is at times unbelievable, readers will still enjoy the escape-room-styled mystery. In the end, the kids are only able to escape the mansion by working as a team to overcome their fears. Readers who enjoyed The Game Master Series should also check out the Zeus The Mighty Series by Crispin Boyer; both series are engaging and show the importance of using a person’s individual talents to overcome an obstacle.  

Sexual Content  

  • None 

Violence  

  • None 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • Heck is used four times. 
  • Darn is used three times. 
  • Dang is used twice. 
  • Holy fruits and holy cats are both used as an exclamation once. 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Towers Falling

Ten-year-old Dèja Barnes doesn’t like living at the shelter. She doesn’t like that her dad doesn’t work. And she definitely doesn’t like her new school, where they asked her to do projects on their homes and families. Dèja knows her dad is unwell and prone to violent mood swings, but it’s not until her class learns about September 11th that she begins to understand her dad has been hiding something from her. 

In Towers Falling, the reader is taken on an introductory journey through the events and aftermath of 9/11 through the eyes of Dèja and her friends and family. Through Dèja’s friend, Sabeen, the reader learns about Islam and Islamophobia in the United States post-9/11. Through Dèja’s father, the reader witnesses the fear that enveloped that day, as her dad escaped the North Tower but lost his friends and colleagues. 

Although much of the book is about American history, the most prominent recurring theme is community. Dèja makes connections and learns that community can be what you’re born into, like being American or feeling community with her family. But community can also be found, like in her friends or her school. Since Dèja’s story is also about poverty, she especially wants to be accepted by her classmates even if she pushes back at times. Ultimately, the book ends with Dèja feeling comfortable in her found communities and more connected to her dad when he finally shares his experiences.

Towers Falling helps readers understand the events of 9/11, especially for younger readers who were born after 9/11, much like Dèja and her friends were. Although the book doesn’t go too deep into exploring a lot of the discrimination that Sabeen’s family has experienced, Rhodes gives enough information for the reader to understand some of the inner workings of Islamophobia. The same can be said for Dèja’s dad’s mental health issues – although they’re mentioned, they aren’t the primary focus.

Towers Falling is a good story about community and it will inspire readers to explore these events in US history further. Dèja finds her communities and learns to embrace them, loving them for what they are. Through her, younger readers can start to understand what it means to treat others with compassion, regardless of skin color, nationality, religion, or any other difference. Readers who want to learn more about 9/11 should add Molly and the Twin Towers by Jessika Fleck and Somewhere Among by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu to their reading list.


Sexual Content 

  • None. 

Violence 

  • Dèja hates her family’s cramped living situation. When her mom says that there’s no use complaining, Dèja thinks, “But it makes me want to burst, hit or break something.” Dèja has feelings like this throughout the book, as she’s frustrated that her family can’t do anything about their situation.
  • While living in the homeless shelter, Dèja is always on edge. She says, “I walk the halls with fists ready.”
  • During lunch, Dèja, Sabeen, and Ben share what they know about slavery and the genocide of the indigenous people of North America. Dèja mentions, “Apache. They were overrun. Killed. Their land was stolen.” The kids continue this conversation for several pages.
  • Dèja accidentally scares her siblings when she mentions, “Pop doesn’t hit, but he’s still scary when he’s mad. And he can be mad about anything – coffee too cold, rain or no rain, wind, too little or too much, even paint on a shirt.”
  • Towers Falling details the history of the events of 9/11 and how they connect to Dèja’s family. There are descriptions of violence and death associated with the events throughout the book. When Dèja asks about the Twin Towers, one student says, “Dead. They’re dead.” Another student says, “Like my cousin. I didn’t know him.”
  • Ben shows Dèja videos of the Twin Towers burning. He says, “Terrorists attacked the Twin Towers on 9/11.”
  • Dèja describes the contents of the 9/11 videos, saying, “Flames – yellow, orange, and red – bubble and lick . . . there’s no sound, but I know there must be people inside the tower hurt, screaming.” The video description lasts for several pages.
  • Dèja is sent to the principal’s office and she thinks they’ll physically punish her. She thinks, “Maybe that’s where they have straps and whips? Paddles to punish kids?”
  • Some kids bully Ray, Dèja’s younger brother. Dèja describes, “Sometimes one of them grabs Ray’s arms and swings him like a tetherball. Ray’s too terrified to scream. I’ve got to rescue him. Punch the big kid on his shoulder, yelling.”
  • Dèja hears her dad crying at night. She thinks, “Last time I heard such a sound was when Mrs. Anderson’s son got shot by a drive-by. She was in the street, holding Eddie’s body.”
  • Dèja, Ben, and Sabeen watch the planes crash into the Twin Towers. Dèja narrates what she sees, saying, “On the cell phone, the explosion is soundless, but I can imagine sounds – screaming, tearing, slicing through concrete, steel, and glass.” When the second plane hits, Dèja says, “People are falling – no, leaping – out windows. Escaping fire, heat. Suffocating heat.” This scene continues for a few pages.
  • Dèja’s history class goes over various attacks made on American soil. The teacher, Mr. Schmidt, writes about the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and Pearl Harbor as examples. He also writes about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Mr. Schmidt clarifies for the class, saying it was “with a truck bomb. It failed.” This scene lasts for a few pages.
  • Dèja’s dad tells her about what happened when he was working in the North Tower on 9/11. He says, “One, two, four, five, eight, ten flights of stairs. I was exhausted. Lungs aching. Still folks coming down, sounding like an elephant herd. Two men were carrying a man in a wheelchair. . . ” The description of his experience that day lasts for several pages.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Dèja talks about her experience in homeless shelters. She says, “Shelter gangs aren’t about guns and drugs. They’re about roaming, stealing, keeping an eye out for what can be taken.”
  • Dèja describes the folks milling outside the homeless shelter. She says, “A few are a mess – dirty and stinky. Loud. Drinking beer wrapped in a paper bag.” Dèja occasionally describes some of the other homeless folks as “drunk.”
  • Dèja’s dad takes aspirin for his illness, which is unnamed but related to his mental health issues and being in the Twin Towers when they were collapsing. Dèja mentions that “when we can afford it, he uses an inhaler.”
  • At school, Dèja and her classmates build towers out of art supplies. Her friend Ben picks up a pipe cleaner and says, “Sherlock Holmes cleaned his pipe with these. Between smokes.” Dèja replies, “Sounds worse than cigarettes.” 
  • Dèja and Ben see a sign on the subway that says, “Have you spoken to your kids about drugs?”

Language 

  • Mild language is used often. Terms include dumb, loser, shut up, and nerd.
  • Sabeen discusses her experiences with Islamophobia. Sabeen says, “When I’m at the store by myself, the cashier sneers, ‘Go back to Saudi Arabia.’ Turkey’s closer to Greece, two countries away from Saudi Arabia.”
  • Dèja thinks about discrimination. She narrates, “I knew blacks were discriminated against. Also, poor people, homeless people. I didn’t know Muslims were too.” 
  • In history class, the teacher explains, “Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We call them terrorists because they are not representative of a single nation. Instead, they’re ideologues . . . narrow-minded people, incapable of independent thought and critical thinking. America has been engaged in a new kind of war . . . a war on terror.”

Supernatural

  • Ben frequently mentions the media. At one point, he mentions that he wants to watch the Broadway musical Wicked, which is “about the witches of Oz.”

Spiritual Content 

  • One of the girls in Dèja’s class, Sabeen, “wears a headscarf.” Sabeen’s mother is described as being “covered head to toe in black cotton. Only brown eyes show.”
  • Sabeen is asked why her mom wears all black. Sabeen explains, “It’s a niqab. For modesty.”
  • As this book deals with the events of 9/11, there are somewhat frequent discussions about Islam. They are somewhat detailed, and often they revolve around the treatment of Muslims in the United States post-9/11. One student in Dèja’s class declares, “Muslims did it.” Dèja’s friend Sabeen, who is Muslim, says, “That’s not true. I mean it is but it isn’t true.”
  • Sabeen shows Dèja and Ben a drawing of her family’s house. She says, “Home is divine. Blessed by Allah.” She then explains to Dèja that Allah is Arabic for God.
  • Dèja mentions her own relationship with religion. She says, “Pop doesn’t believe in church. But before moving to Avalon, Ma would take me, Ray, and Leda to church.”
  • Miss Garcia has the students list the social units they are part of, and the students list things like, “Church, Synagogue, Girl Scouts” and so on and so forth.
  • Ben has to explain to Dèja that “it was terrorists. Muslim terrorists” that flew planes into the twin towers. This comes up because Dèja doesn’t understand why Sabeen is upset about 9/11.
  • Sabeen has Dèja over to her house, and Sabeen’s family makes traditional Turkish food, and some discussions of Islam take place. For instance, Dèja is asked if she prays, and Dèja responds, “No. Just when Ma takes me to church . . . But I wish for things.”
  • Ben makes a reference to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series. When Dèja and Sabeen ask what it is, Ben explains to Sabeen that “It’s pretty Christian.” Sabeen responds, “A Muslim can’t read Christian stories? A Christian can’t read about Muslims?”
  • Dèja’s dad talks about his experience in the North Tower on 9/11. He mentions a lady who always wore what he called church hats because they looked like “any second she was going to sing gospel.”

Donut Go Breaking My Heart

Sheyda is a behind the scenes girl. She loves helping in the kitchen of Doughlicious, the donut shop run by her best friend’s family. And Sheyda loves designing stage sets while others perform in the spotlight.

Then lights, camera . . . surprise! Tween heartthrob Cabe Sadlier is filming his next movie in Doughlicious! Sheyda’s outgoing BFF, Kiri, is sure this will lead to stardom and perhaps a date with Cabe. But somehow it’s Sheyda who gets picked for a small role in the film.

To make matters worse, Cabe seems spoiled and rude. Too bad he’s so cute. Can Sheyda overcome her stage fright, get to know the real Cabe, and find her own kind of stardom?

Told from Sheyda’s point of view, Donut Go Breaking My Heart, is the perfect book for middle school readers who are trying to navigate their tween years. Sheyda is a relatable and likable character who often feels invisible because of her shyness. Since Sheyda doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, she often keeps her thoughts and emotions to herself, especially when it comes to her best friend Kiri. To Sheyda’s surprise, she finds herself really liking Cabe. But she doesn’t want to upset Kiri, who thinks Cabe is her ticket to stardom. Sheyda’s understandable conflict will keep readers engaged.

Donut Go Breaking My Heart sprinkles in friendship drama and family fights which give the story depth. Young readers will find plenty of sweet moments between Sheyda and Cabe, and these moments will keep readers engaged even though the story has a typical romance plot. Many of the conflicts are caused by Sheyda hiding her true feelings. However, Cabe helps Sheyda learn the importance of speaking up for herself. As Sheyda and Cabe’s relationship evolves, they both learn about themselves. One of the best aspects of the story is that both characters learn the importance of not judging someone based on their appearance.

Middle-grade readers who want a cute, clean romance will find many sweet moments in Donut Go Breaking My Heart. The story teaches the importance of communicating your feelings instead of trying to hide them. Plus, Sheyda’s story will encourage readers to step out of their comfort zones and try something new. For another story that revolves around friendship and crushes, check out Pugs and Kisses by J.J. Howard.

Sexual Content

  • Kiri pretends to sprain her ankle so Cabe will help her walk. As they leave a theater, they are surrounded by reporters. To get publicity, Kiri “beamed up at [Cabe], and then kissed him on the cheek.”
  • Cabe asks Sheyda to run a scene with him. As Sheyda looks at the script, she’s freaked out because there is a kissing scene. During the scene, her “heart was melting. . . And suddenly the rest of the world was dropping away because Cabe’s lips were moving toward mine. Then they met mine, and the world stopped existing entirely. . . His lips were so soft. . . I wanted the kiss to last forever.” Then the kiss was over.
  • After Cabe and Sheyda share their feelings about each other, Cabe “took my face in his hands. His mouth met mine in a soft, sweet kiss. I tasted the faintest trace of icing on his lips. . .” 

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • None

Language

  • Omigod is used as an exclamation often.
  • Darn is used once.
  • At first, Sheyda thinks Cabe is a jerk.
  • Sheyda meets an actress who is known as “the wicked witch.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

Out of Sight, Out of Time

At the end of the last school year, Cammie decided to leave the Gallagher Academy. The Circle of Cavan will not stop trying to kidnap her until they get the answers they need, and the people around her were in constant danger because of it: Bex, Liz, Macey, and Zach. Cammie will not allow anything bad to happen to them. In order to protect the people she loves most, Cammie decides to spend the summer holiday following in her father’s footsteps and hunting for the Circle. 

Then Cammie wakes up in a remote convent in the Alps. Her body is weak and covered in wounds. Her hair is short and midnight black. And tomorrow is the first of October.  

Cammie is whisked back to school, but she remembers nothing—nothing—of what happened over the summer. Did she find any answers? Was she captured by the Circle of Cavan? Her mother and teachers beg her to let it go; they warn her there are things she may not want to remember. But Cammie can’t let it go. Bit by bit, she begins to piece together what happened last summer. And the more she does, the bleaker the future becomes.  

Out of Sight, Out of Time diverges from past books as it wades deeper into the mystery that has surrounded the Circle of Cavan. Less focus is given to Cammie’s school as Cammie struggles with confusion, feeling lost, and how her friends and Zach were changed by her disappearance. After she returns to school, Cammie’s state of mind is questioned by everyone—herself included. At times, the first-person point of view takes on a dreamy quality, as Cammie gets sucked back into the trauma of what happened last summer. Though it is implied that Cammie was tortured, there are no graphic descriptions of her experiences.  

Since it has a different feel from the previous books, readers will either love or hate Out of Sight, Out of Time. As she pieces together a frightening picture of her summer, Cammie’s fragile mind leads her to doubt if she can trust herself. However, it is easy to relate to Cammie’s struggles with her friends, who are mad at her for leaving them behind. The mysteries built up over the last several books slowly fall into place, queuing this series up for a dramatic showdown in the next and final book in the series, United We Spy.  

Out of Sight, Out of Time has high stakes, suspense, action, and mystery galore. All our favorite characters are back, including Macey’s friend Preston Winters. From Rome to the Alps, Cammie will stop at nothing to find answers, to fix whatever went wrong last summer, and to finally finish her father’s mission.  

Sexual Content  

  • When Zach and Cammie reunite after the summer, Zach kisses Cammie. “Zach’s lips found mine. His hands burned as they left my arms and moved through my hair, bracing the back of my neck . . . And then he kissed me again, and the kiss was all that mattered. He pulled back, traced his lips across the tender place on my head.”  
  • When Zach and Cammie split up on a mission, “he squeezed my hands and kissed me gently. ‘For luck,’ he said.” 

Violence  

  • When a teacher startles Cammie, she reacts instinctively. “It felt like someone else who was turning, grabbing the hand, and kicking at the leg closest to me. That girl was spinning, using gravity and momentum to push the two-hundred-pound man toward the railing.” Later, she sees the bruise marks that she left on the man’s neck.  
  • A sniper aims for Cammie but hits a teacher, Dr. Steve, instead. His blood splashes Cammie. “I’d never realized how pale Dr. Steve’s skin was until it stood in contrast to the red blood that was oozing down his arm.” Dr. Steve survives.  
  • Then, Cammie kills the mysterious sniper, who was about to kill Bex. “Bex lunged, striking the man, but he didn’t fall. And as he shifted his weight, Bex crashed to the ground . . . She tried to block the blow, but the man was so strong. And the next thing I knew, there was a splatter of blood and Bex was screaming, her face a mix of shock and fear and . . . relief as the man fell to the ground and didn’t move again. The gun was in my hands. My finger was on the trigger.” The struggle takes place over two pages.  
  • A man guides Cammie to an alleyway where the Circle is waiting to ambush her. When Cammie realizes it is a trap, she “was already spinning, kicking him to the ground, knocking his head against the stone wall and starting to run . . .” The fight to escape takes place over seven pages. 
  • During the fight to escape, Cammie’s car crashes. “My head snapped, and the car spun. I was faintly aware of the sensation of being weightless and then rolling, over and over. The crunching metal made a sickening sound. Shards of glass pierced my skin.” Cammie is shaken up with some cuts, but otherwise is okay.  
  • Cammie flees from Zach’s mother, leader of a splinter group of the Circle. As Cammie flees, she “felt a blow to my back. I fell, crashing against an outcropping of rocks . . . my right arm slammed against the ground. Pain shot from my elbow to my shoulder as if lightning had struck.”  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • None 

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

The Tiger’s Nest

On an island nation in the Indian Ocean, the explorers venture through a vast underwater world and take part in a friendly robotics competition. But the tides of good fortune change quickly.

Suddenly, Team Cousteau jumps into action to rescue a faculty member from the brink of disaster. Meanwhile, the team follows Cruz’s mother’s clues to a magnificent tomb and center of spirituality that is precariously perched on the side of a cliff. There, Cruz is confronted by a familiar foe who is determined to stop him from completing his most important mission of all: retrieving the final pieces of his mother’s cipher. In this life-and-death showdown, Cruz witnesses the ultimate sacrifice and uncovers a hidden message that makes him question his own mortality.  

The Tiger’s Nest continues to teach readers about nature in a fun and exciting way. As the explorers head to their next destination, Morne Seychellois National Park in Seychelles, they learn about the dangers that sea turtles face and make a fake egg that can help protect sea turtles’ nests. The egg is based on real technology that conservationists use to protect hatchlings. Helping sea turtles is essential because “only about one in a thousand sea turtles survives to adulthood.” The explorers also travel to a coral reef where they learn about symbiotic relationships between algae and coral, as well as the reasons the coral is dying.  

The Tiger’s Nest has plenty of suspense, action, and adventure for science and technology-loving readers. Unfortunately, each book has a similar pattern where Cruz tries to protect his friends by ditching them. In this installment, Cruz’s actions lead to the death of a beloved teacher. Instead of exploring the unintended consequences of Cruz’s actions, he is absolved of any responsibility and underlying guilt. While Cruz claims he is concerned about others, his risky behavior puts others in danger. It has become apparent that his only concern is finding the cipher that his mother left behind. 

Readers will have to suspend their disbelief because many of the events are farfetched. Despite this, The Tiger’s Nest has positive aspects such as introducing readers to conservation efforts and technology. Readers will enjoy the illustrations which are a mix of photographs and drawings, giving the pictures a touch of realism. Plus, the book includes a section titled The Truth Behind the Fiction; these pages combine pictures and short blurbs on professions mentioned in the book. 

The Tiger’s Nest has a diverse cast of characters who are smart, capable, and willing to work as a team. However, they are not expected to be perfect and often make mistakes. The explorers’ friendship and adventures will keep readers engaged in the series despite its flaws. Readers eager for more books filled with action, adventure, and mystery can find all three in both the Charlie Thorn Series by Stuart Gibbs and the City Spies Series by James Ponti.  

Sexual Content  

  • Cruz tells a girl in his class that he’s not romantically interested in someone else. “Suddenly, her lips were touching his. He tasted coconut lip balm. Softness. Warmth. Cruz felt dizzy, but not like any dizzy he’d ever known. . . He was a jumbled mess of terror and joy.”

Violence  

  • While flying to Bjitam, the plane Cruz and his friends are on begins to jerk uncontrollably. “Suddenly, Condor rolled sharply to the left. Cruz’s shoulder smashed into the fuselage wall. He heard the overhead bins popping open. Out the window, Cruz saw the green and white snow-tipped trees coming up to meet them.” Eventually, the pilot is able to land safely, and no one is injured. The book implies that Nebula, a pharmaceutical company who doesn’t want Cruz to find the ciphers, tampered with the plane. The scene is described over two pages.  
  • After Cruz finds another piece of the cipher, Mr. Rook corners Cruz outside the monastery. Mr. Rook “was holding his arm straight out in front of him. A gun was pointed directly at Cruz.” When Cruz refuses to give him the cipher, “something whizzed past his nose. Cruz jumped back.” Mr. Rook threatens to kill Cruz. 
  • In order to save Cruz, one of the instructors, named Taryn, jumps in. “Mr. Rook and Taryn were locked in battle. . . As the two struggled, their thrashing kicked up a dust cloud.” Taryn pushes Mr. Rook over a cliff. Taryn slumps to the ground. “Blood was seeping through her shirt.” Taryn dies from her wound. The entire fight scene is described over four pages.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • None 

Language    

  • One of the explorers, Sailor, uses “bloody” as a curse word several times. 

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • Cruz goes to a monastery, where he “said a quick prayer of thanks.” 

The Tiara on the Terrace

In The Wig in the Window, Sophie Young and Grace Yang caught the culprit from a decades-long cold case. Sophie and Grace have been taking a break from crime-solving ever since they solved the biggest crime in Luna Vista, but now the girls are back together to solve another crime. Things are kicking up now that everyone is getting ready for the 125th annual Winter Sun Festival, a town tradition involving floats, a parade, and a Royal Court of local high school girls. 

When Festival president Jim Steptoe shows up dead on the first day of festival preparations, police blame a malfunctioning giant s’more feature on a campfire-themed float. But Sophie and Grace are sure the mysterious death wasn’t an accident. Teaming up with their ingenious friend, Trista Bottoms, the girls go undercover as helpers to the snooty Royal Court girls. 

Once again, the narrative squarely focuses on Sophie’s perspective. This close point of view helps the reader understand the Winter Sun Festival’s operations and Sophie’s work as a helper of the Royal Court. Readers will relate to Sophie’s go-getter attitude and will be charmed by her smarts. Sophie learns not to make assumptions about how someone should act based on their appearance. Sophie also deals with the pains of adolescence, specifically with growing apart from Grace.

Sophie struggles with the rift between her and Grace. Since Sophie and Grace started helping the Royal Court, Grace has been getting along with the popular girls, causing Sophie to feel like they’re drifting apart. Instead of talking about espionage and spies, Grace gabs about fashion and boys. Sometimes, Sophie feels like she can’t understand Grace. Eventually, after they talk out their differences, Sophie realizes Grace’s changing interests doesn’t mean Grace will stop being her friend. Like Grace said, “There are a lot of ways to be yourself.”

The Tiara on the Terrace is a thrilling and exciting story that concentrates on the changes a person undergoes while under peer pressure. Grace and Sophie’s conflict about their interests and hobbies drives the narrative, which teaches empathy and appreciation for different perspectives. Mystery-loving readers will enjoy Sophie and Grace’s banter as they’re working on the case because of the references to different codes, like Morse and Polybius.

Once again, the consequences for Sophie and Grace’s sleuthing, such as reading private emails, are nonexistent for the sake of the plot. There aren’t many adults who can help or stop the girls from investigating criminal activity. Still, this book has lessons on conflict resolution and learning from one’s mistakes. As Mrs. Sparrow, an adult who helped Sophie figure out how to apologize to Grace, stated, “Sometimes friends make mistakes they can’t ever take back. . . But that’s not what happened here . . . I’ve had enough of my own friend trouble to know the difference. We made mistakes. And we fixed them.” Readers who enjoyed Sophie and Grace’s search for the murderer at the Winter Sun Festival can find more mystery in the Kat Wolfe Series by Lauren St. John and the Friday Barnes Mystery Series by R.A. Spratt.

Sexual Content 

  • At the parade, someone asks Sophie’s crush if his “cutie-patootie father” is around.
  • There are many instances where Grace shows affection towards her crush, Sophie’s brother. For instance, Grace was embarrassed that her crush caught her “shaking her butt in the air” at an impromptu dance party. 

Violence 

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • None

Language   

  • “Oh my god” is said twice.
  • One of the popular girls exclaims “Oh shoot!”

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • Before running through piles of flowers, Sophie prays that her friend Trista took allergy medication.

The White Giraffe

The night Martine Allen turns eleven years old is the night her life changes completely. Martine’s parents are killed in a fire, so she must leave her home to live on an African wildlife reserve with a grandmother she never even knew she had. When Martine arrives, she hears tales of a mythical animal living there – a white giraffe. They say no one has ever seen the animal, but it does leave behind footprints. Her grandmother insists that the white giraffe is just a legend, but then, one stormy night, Martine looks out her bedroom window straight into the eyes of the tall, silvery animal. Could it be just Martine’s imagination, or is the white giraffe real? And if so, why is everyone keeping its existence a secret?

The White Giraffe is the perfect book for anyone who has ever dreamed of going on an African safari. After tragedy befalls Martine, she gets sent to Africa where she is overcome with a sense of wonder at the beauty of Africa’s wildlife. However, she is also frustrated because she knows the adults in her life are keeping secrets from her. St. John brings Martine’s story to life with a mix of joyous encounters with wildlife and the confusion of being surrounded by secretive adults. The blend of suspense, suspicion, and surprises will keep readers flipping the pages until the very end. 

Even though Martine isn’t necessarily a relatable character, she is interesting and likable. Like many, Martine struggles with loneliness and the desire to have friends; unfortunately, the kids in Martine’s class are bullies who harass classmates who are different. Plus, Martine’s struggle to understand her own power is made even more difficult because of her classmates’ taunting, and her grandmother’s strange silence. Despite these difficulties, Martine is willing to put her life in danger to care for injured animals. This, along with the strange prophecy about a white giraffe, highlights Martine’s love of animals. 

While the story’s pacing is fast with both action and adventure, The White Giraffe clearly shows the greedy nature of humans who poach and capture animals for material gain. In addition, the story gives a brief look at racism when Tendai, who works at the animal reserve, shares his personal experiences of police brutality. Because of this experience, Tendai realizes that “only a man can crush you inside, in your heart, for no reason other than the color of your skin.” Despite this, Tendai has forgiven his abusers because “sometimes the thing that hurts your enemies most is to see that you are not like them.”

The White Giraffe takes the reader into the African bush and leaves them with a sense of wonder. Readers will gain a new appreciation of the people who strive to save wildlife. The story also has important life lessons, including showing that no one is perfect. When Martine makes a mistake, she is not chastised, instead her friend says, “We all make mistakes, chile. That’s human. But not everybody had the courage to admit what they done and go out into the world to try to mend things.” Readers who love animals and would like more exciting stories about helping animals should add the Vet Volunteers Series by Laurie Halse Anderson and the Zoe’s Rescue Zoo Series by Amelia Cobb to their reading list.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • Martine learns that her grandfather, Henry, died but “the events surrounding it were still shrouded in mystery. The police theory was that Henry had stumbled upon a gang of poachers trying to steal a couple of giraffes or maybe kill them for trophies. . . There had been a struggle. When it was over, Henry had been fatally wounded.”
  • On a field trip, Martine’s classmates chase her, intending to cause her harm. However, she is able to hide and stay safe.
  • Tendai tells of a time when he was beaten because of his skin color. Tendai’s “back and broad chest were crisscrossed with fifty or sixty thick, raised scars. It was as if someone or something had tried to cut him into a million pieces.” 
  • After Martine sees Tendai’s scars, he tells her about a police officer who “tore my shirt. . . I’m sorry to say I punched him as hard as I could. After that, Tendai remembered very little. When he regained consciousness, he was in a prison hospital covered in welts.”
  • Martine and Tendai are watching a kudu when “a bullet ripped into the tree trunk above Tendai’s head, simultaneously spraying him with splinters and terrifying Martine. . . a second bullet hit the kudu in the throat. Blood spurted from his neck in a fountain and he dropped to the ground and lay still.” 
  • Martine’s classmates torment her by writing witch “all over her books, and on another occasion she opened her pencil case to find a hairy baboon spider—an African tarantula—lurking inside.”
  • One day, the kids at school surround Ben and start saying that “he’s a waste of space,” a “runt” and a “mongrel.” One boy says, “You’re like one of those sad-looking dogs you find down at the shelter.”
  • Someone captures the white giraffe, Jemmy. When Martine finds him on a cargo ship, “Jemmy was lying on the floor, his legs at odd angles. His white and silver coat was covered in cuts and matted blood.” 
  • When Martine and Jemmy get to the deck of the cargo ship, the poacher, Alex, yells “Raise the gangplank!” Jemmy “swept across the deck, striking Alex a glancing blow with his hoof as he went. Alex dropped like a stone.” Martine and Jemmy escape.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • A woman teaches Martine how to use healing herbs. 
  • When Martine finds the giraffe on a cargo ship, she also sees two leopard cubs that “were clearly drugged.” Martine leaves them behind. 

Language 

  • Because Ben won’t talk to the other kids at school, they say he is “deaf, stupid or a nutcase.” One of the girls calls Ben “Bonkers Ben.”
  • Martine’s grandmother calls a woman a “crazy old magic woman.”

Supernatural

  • An African legend believes that “the child who can ride a white giraffe will have power over all the animals.” Martine learns that she is the child in the legend.
  • When Martine touches an injured, dying goose, her hands “heated up to the point that they were practically glowing. After a few seconds, the Egyptian goose jerked and its eyelids flickered. She loosened her palm. It shook out its wings and flew into the darkening sky.” Afterwards, Martine’s classmates think she’s a witch that used voodoo or black magic to heal the goose.
  • When a kudu is shot, Martine helps it. “Martine places her hot hands over the kudu’s dying heart and began pressing down every few seconds. Under her touch, the beat grew stronger and the kudu’s skin became warm.” A few minutes later, the kudu “gets on his feet . . . and bounded weakly away.” 
  • A woman named Grace uses bones to tell the future. Martine’s grandmother explains, “Africans with second sight throw bones the way Western fortune tellers use crystal balls and tarot cards.” The woman told Martine’s grandmother that “the bones had told her that a tragedy would bring [Martine] back to Sawubona. . . She said that if you came of your own accord, the gods might be appeased and the tragedy would be averted.” After the woman’s prediction, Martine’s parents were killed in a fire.
  • Grace takes out a pouch and dumps out “a collection of small bones, a portion of porcupine quill, a guinea fowl feather, and a couple of elephant hairs.” Then “a thin spiral of blue smoke rose from the objects on the floor. It flattened out and blurred images began to flash across it.” The vision helps Martine save the white giraffe.
  • When Jemmy is injured, Martine “put her hands on the white giraffe’s heart. Unbidden, technicolor memories of their time together came flooding into her mind. . . Martine was aware of her hands becoming hotter and hotter and a pure feeling, like love, flowing through her.” Jemmy recovers and they are able to escape.

Spiritual Content 

  • None

Ghost Boys

When twelve-year-old Jerome Rogers is shot and killed by a police officer, his ghost watches his family and the world around him shake in the wake of his death. Upset and frustrated, he doesn’t understand why this had to happen–why a police officer would confuse a kid with a toy gun for a grown man, and why no one administered any medical care at the scene. Jerome is mad that this often happens to black folks like him. Then, Jerome meets another ghost boy named Emmett Till, who teaches him about the United States’ long legacy of discrimination against black people, and especially black boys.

Jewell Parker Rhodes’ Ghost Boys is a gripping story about violence, grief, and the devastation caused by systemic racism. Jerome laments about how he’ll never get to grow old, and that he has to leave his family behind. He witnesses the court proceedings deciding the fate of the police officer, and he sees his family’s reaction when the judge decides that there is not enough evidence for a trial. It is wholly unfair, and Jerome struggles with this unfairness throughout much of the novel. It is by Emmett Till’s explanation of history that Jerome learns he can still look after kids who have been wronged and that maybe we can take steps toward change.

A couple of people can see Jerome’s ghost and interact with him. His grandmother has some inkling that he’s there, but Jerome spends most of his time speaking with Sarah, the daughter of the police officer. She grapples with internalized biases, and they help each other understand that they can still create change for the better, even though their worlds are categorically messy. It is through Sarah and Emmett Till that Jerome comes to accept his death and realizes that sharing his story will hopefully help prevent events like this in the future.

Rhodes doesn’t hold back in Ghost Boys. Although this book details violence and tragedy, she does an excellent job using these details to move the plot along and help the characters grow. Her choice to include the historical case of Emmett Till is also well done, and Emmett’s inclusion in the book helps balance out Jerome’s other primary interactions as a ghost. 

Ghost Boys is an emotionally difficult book, and the target audience should be middle-grade readers and older readers who find themselves ready for this intensity. The tragedy of this book is not that it is violent, but rather that this is our unfortunate reality. The names of real-life black people killed by the police are scattered throughout the book, reminding us that this book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. For all the gravitas that Ghost Boys brings, it is an important read for understanding grief and compassion, and by the end, there is still a glimmer of hope that maybe people can change for the better.

There are many great book options for middle-grade readers who want to explore racism in more detail including  The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine, A Good Kind of Trouble by Lisa Moore Ramée, From The Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks, and The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson.

Sexual Content 

  • Jerome dreams about what it would be like for him to be able to grow up. On his list of things he would’ve done, he mentions, “Real is me having a girlfriend. (Maybe.)”

Violence 

  • The protagonist, Jerome, is shot and killed by police officers who mistook his toy gun for a real one. As a ghost watching himself outside his body, Jerome describes his body, saying, “Laid out flat, my stomach touching ground. My right knee bent and my brand-new Nikes stained with blood. I stop and stare at my face, my right cheek flattened on concrete. My eyes are wide open.”
  • Jerome’s Ma pokes him while emphasizing that she wants him to be educated. Jerome says, “Sometimes the poke hurts a bit. But I get it.”
  • Jerome is afraid of some bullies at school because they “like to dump [his] backpack. Push [him], pull [his] pants down. Hit [him] upside the head.” This is a common occurrence when Jerome describes his time at school. 
  • Jerome notes that the new kid, Carlos, is going to get a beating from the school bullies. Jerome says, “New students are beat-down magnets.”
  • The bullies attack Carlos in the school bathroom. Jerome describes, “Mike punches Carlos. He falls backwards. Then, Mike and Snap are both kicking Carlos. In the stomach. The head.” This scene continues for two pages. 
  • Jerome stands up to the bullies on behalf of Carlos, and Carlos pulls a gun on the bullies, surprising everyone. Jerome describes, “We all turn. Carlos has a gun.” It turns out later that it’s a plastic toy, and that’s how Carlos got it past school security.
  • Jerome doesn’t like seeing his mom upset. He says, “seeing Ma crying makes me want to crush, slam something into the ground.” He does not act on these impulses.
  • Jerome’s dad is upset over his son’s death at the hands of a policeman. While speaking with the rest of the family about the injustice, Jerome describes, “Pop’s fist slams the wall. The drywall cracks. I’ve never seen Pop violent.”
  • Many references are made to slavery and violence against black people in the United States. Jerome’s dad says, “Tamir Rice, 2014. He died in Cleveland. Another boy shot just because he’s black . . . No justice. No peace. Since slavery, white men been killing blacks.”
  • Sarah, the daughter of the police officer, can see Jerome’s ghost. She tells him that she’s sorry, and Jerome thinks, “If she wasn’t a girl, I’d think about hitting her.”
  • Ever since her dad killed Jerome, Sarah’s parents have been arguing. Jerome and Sarah both hear noise coming from downstairs. “A door slams. Sarah’s mom and dad are shouting. Glass breaks.”
  • Jerome becomes angry, and in his ghost form his “hand connects. Peter Pan flies across the room. The book hits the wall, drops to the floor.”
  • Emmett Till died in 1955. He was lynched by a group of men, and the scene lasts for two pages. Jerome watches Emmett’s memories, describing, “The husband fires the gun, sparks fly. Emmett’s spirit rises. With barbed wire, the men lash Emmett’s body to a large wheel. They drag, shove the wheel into the river. Watch it sink. Blood stains the riverbank.”
  • In one of the final chapters, the reader experiences Jerome’s death in first person. Jerome says, “Pain slams me. Two fire sticks are inside me. Burning, searing my right shoulder and lower back. What happened? What happened to me?” This description goes on for a couple of pages.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Jerome says that, “I know Ma will remind [Grandma] to take her blood pressure pill.”
  • Jerome describes a lot a few blocks away from his home. He says, “A meth lab exploded there and two houses burnt.”
  • Jerome describes some drug dealers who happen to deal two blocks away from his school. He says, “drug dealers slip powder or pill packets to customers, stuffing cash into their pockets. Pop says, ‘Not enough jobs, but still it’s wrong. Drugs kill.’”
  • After killing Jerome, Sarah’s dad “drinks, stares at the TV.”

Language 

  • Mild language is used occasionally. Terms included are stupid, dumb, and crazy.

Supernatural

  • Jerome dies and becomes a ghost, watching over his family for much of the book.
  • Jerome meets Emmett Till’s ghost, who was a real-life boy who was killed in 1955.
  • From Sarah’s window, Sarah, Emmett, and Jerome can see “a shadow. Then, another. And another. Another and another. Hundreds, thousands of ghost boys standing, ever still, looking up, through the window into our souls.” It is then clarified that these are the ghosts of thousands of black boys who have been killed.

Spiritual Content 

  • Grandma has “premonitions . . . worries about bad things happening.” She tells Jerome that she receives these premonitions in the form of bad dreams.
  • Grandma has superstitions, and Jerome states that she likes to do things in threes because it’s “Grandma’s special number.”
  • Grandma tells Jerome, “Three means All. Optimism. Joy . . . Heaven, Earth, Water. Three means you’re close to the angels.”
  • For Jerome’s funeral, Reverend Thornton makes an appearance. He says to Jerome’s family, “We should pray.” To this, Jerome’s dad says, “What for? Jerome’s not coming back.”
  • Grandma expresses her belief in spirits and the afterlife, saying, “Every black person in the South knows it’s true. Dead, living, no matter. Both worlds are close. Spirits aren’t gone.” Her words are dismissed by the reverend and by others as mere superstition. 
  • Emmett Till talks about his mother’s beliefs, saying, “‘Family and faith,’ that’s what mattered, she said.”
  • Jerome’s grandma has an altar to her late husband. Jerome describes, “Every Sunday, Grandma lights candles and talks to a picture of Grandpa in a sailor’s uniform.”
  • Carlos tells his dad that he “wants to honor Jerome” on Day of the Dead. The Day of the Dead ceremony goes on for a chapter.

Kat Wolfe Investigates

After a break-in at their London home, Kat Wolfe and her veterinarian mum decide it’s time to move to the country. Dr. Wolfe’s new job on England’s Jurassic Coast comes with a condition: They have to adopt Tiny, a huge Savannah cat who resists Kat’s best attempts at cat whispering.

Kat starts a pet-sitting agency to make pocket money, but then the owner of her first client, an Amazon parrot, vanishes from his gadget-filled mansion. Only one person shares Kat’s conviction that he’s the victim of foul play: Harper Lamb, an American girl laid up with two broken legs thanks to her racehorse.

Kat and Harper team up, but what starts out as mystery-solving fun turns deadly for the duo. When all clues point to a nearby army base, can they count on their unruly animal friends to save the day—and their lives?

Kat Wolfe Investigates is a highly entertaining story that has mystery, suspense, and many other positive aspects that make it perfect for any mystery-loving reader. Readers will fall in love with Kat, who tries to stay out of trouble but gets thrust into the middle of a deadly mystery. At first, Kat tries to do the right thing by taking her concerns to Sergeant Singh, the only policeman in town. However, the Sergeant doesn’t believe Kat. So, Kat and her friend, Harper, begin their own investigation. Even when the two realize that the investigation could be dangerous, they continue their quest to find answers and save Kat’s client.

Not only is Kat a loveable character, but she is also surrounded by a slew of interesting characters – both human and animal – of all ages. Harper is a computer whiz, Kat’s friend Edith is a retired librarian, and Kat’s mother is the town’s only veterinarian. There is also a talking parrot, a Savannah cat, and a racehorse. The animals and humans blend to make a heartwarming story of friendship that has surprising pockets of laugh-out-loud humor. In addition, Kat’s story shows that “you should never rush to judgment—particularly when it comes to people you don’t know.”

Kat Wolfe Investigates is an excellent story that has a large cast of characters and a complex plot that takes the reader on an adventure with several surprises. Middle-grade readers will find themselves admiring Kat’s determination, bravery, and kindness. However, the content may disturb younger readers since the story has a believable villain who is responsible for other people’s deaths and who tries to have Kat and Harper “exterminated.” In the end, Kat catches the culprit and the story concludes on a happy note. For more mystery fun that features a spunky heroin, check out the Friday Barnes Mystery Series by R.A. Spratt and The Curious Cat Spy Club Series by Linda Joy Singleton.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • While pet-sitting, Kat sees a man outside of the house. She thinks the man might be a burglar, so she hits a button to turn on the outside grill. “A towering inferno shot out from the barbeque on the deck. . . The soldier let out an agonized yell and reeled back, clutching his forehead.” Later, Kat finds out that the man’s “left eyebrow is now slightly shorter than the right, but otherwise he was unscathed.” 
  • Darren, an “exterminator” sneaks into Dr. Wolfe’s office. Her desk has so many files on it that all he sees are “her eyebrows.” The man doesn’t realize the eyebrows actually belong to a monkey. “The eyebrows made an excellent target. He aimed his revolver right at them. It was a starting pistol, not a real gun. . .” He threatens the doctor and then leaves. 
  • When the exterminator goes to leave, Eva, the monkey “flew at him and sank her teeth into his ear. Disorientated in the dark reception area, Darren swirled around in agony. Eva bit down harder. . .”
  • Darren breaks into Kat’s house. “As Darren padded across the tiles, starting pistol in hand, Tiny (Kat’s Savannah cat) ambushed him from the top of the kitchen cupboard, crash-landing on his back and sinking his claws and teeth into Darren’s neck.” Darren’s has several injuries, “a scratch had rendered one of his eyes useless. The other was swollen from the bite he’d incurred at the animal clinic.” 
  • While investigating Ramon, the owner of the parrot, Kat finds out that his squad was on a mission, “but someone leaked the plans and the Russians ambushed their unit. Mario was killed and the other five soldiers were killed.” Later, someone starts killing soldiers with an undetectable poison.
  • On a dark, rainy night Kat rides onto a military base. “A harsh beam swept the ground, bathing them in light. A warning shot cracked. A shrub exploded almost at their feet.” The shot scares the horse, who takes off running.
  • When Kat makes it to the gate at the base, a soldier stops her. The next thing Kat knew, “she was staring into the barrel of a rifle.” Kat is taken to the base and given a towel to dry off.
  • At the base, Kat discovers that the villain is the chef. The man captures Kat and threatens to kill her with a gun. Before the villain can kill her, Kat’s grandfather, the Dark Lord, “stepped from the shadows.” To save Kat, the Dark Lord throws his gun down. “The chef clamped an arm around her throat.” Kat reacts by pulling a martial art move. “A short, sharp tug on his chef’s jacket, a lunge, and a twist, and Chef Roley soared over the gymnasium. He crash-landed on the studio floor below and was out cold.” 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Harper shows Kat a picture of a group of men in a photograph. The men were on a boat with “beers in hand.”
  • After a monkey bites Darren, he takes “two painkillers with a can of soda.”

Language 

  • Ohmigod is used twice.
  • Oh Lord is used as an exclamation once.
  • Harper tells Kat that someone is a jerk.
  • A man in the military tells a man, “Damn fine job you did.”
  • A soldier says, “My God.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

Odder

Meet Odder, the Queen of Play:

Nobody has her moves.

She doesn’t just swim to the bottom,

She dive-bombs.

She doesn’t just somersault,

She triple-doughnuts.

She doesn’t just ride the waves,

She makes them.

Odder spends her days off the coast of central California, practicing her underwater acrobatics and spending time with a good friend. She’s a fearless daredevil, curious to a fault. But when Odder comes face-to-face with a hungry great white shark, her life takes a dramatic turn, one that will challenge everything she believes about herself—and the humans who hope to save her.

Humans love otters because they are adorably cute, but Odder weaves a story that gives the otters personality. Odder is an adventurous otter who readers will quickly fall in love with. Best friends Odder and Kairi are complete opposites. Cautious Kairi is always reminding Odder to be more careful, but Odder gets caught up in the excitement and often forgets.

One day, Odder is so focused on finding a tasty crab to eat that she goes too far out in the bay. A hungry shark sees the otters and takes a bite of Kairi. In order to save her friend, Odder attacks the shark. Later, humans find Odder and she’s taken to an aquarium to get medical attention. Odder is consumed with grief over the loss of her best friend. Later, she learns that Kairi survived the shark attack and she is also at the aquarium!

However, the shark attack has changed Odder, who is no longer fearless. When Odder is reunited with Kairi, she has just lost her pup and has become a surrogate mother. While Kairi has always been careful, she wants the pup to be returned to the ocean. At first, Odder thinks that keeping the pup safe is the most important job for a mother. But when Odder becomes a surrogate, she learns that “teaching and loving are different words for the same thing” and that “the world is not meant to be feared.” 

Odder is inspired by the true story of a Monterey Bay Aquarium program that pairs orphaned otter pups with surrogate mothers. Applegate uses beautiful free verse to bring Odder’s ocean world to life as well as to teach readers interesting facts about the ocean’s biodiversity and otters’ importance in keeping the ocean healthy. The survival of otters is important because they are a “keystone species. . . they are nature’s glue, holding habitats together.” Odder will give readers a deeper appreciation for the beloved otter and for the people who are helping save the species. 

From the start, Applegate weaves a beautiful story about friendship, love, and the gift of freedom. By the story’s end, readers will be able to view the world from an otter’s point of view and will have a new appreciation of ocean life. In addition, through Odder’s experiences, readers will be reminded that all wild animals should have the chance to live in their natural habitat. While Odder is an entertaining and easy-to-read story, it is a must-read because of its educational value.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • One day, Otter and Kairi get too close to the bay and a shark sees them. “Odder sees the terror in her friend’s eyes.” The two try to swim away, but Odder “hears a strangled cry, and turns to see the shark has nipped her friend’s tail, as the awful stench of blood blooms in the water.”
  • In order to save Kairi from the shark, Odder attacks the shark. “As [the shark] moves in for the kill, he’s met with sheer movement, flipping and twisting, an eruption of bubbles, the reek of fear.” Because of Odder, the shark can’t go after Kairi, and “so he veers and there she [Odder] is and his mouth is open wide and waiting and clamp snap gnash she is trapped in his jaws.” When the shark tastes Odder’s fur, he drops Odder.
  • After the shark lets Odder go, she swims to the shore. She has a “gaping wound on her belly” and is “drained of blood and hope.” Humans find her and take her to an aquarium to be cared for. 
  • Odder tells the story of the Fifty, when “humans were killing us for our fur.” The back of the book explains the story in more detail.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • None

Language   

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

Now is the Time for Running

In the poor village of Gutu in Zimbabwe, Deo and his family live in one room. The people of his village are starving and struggling. Deo doesn’t even have a proper soccer ball to play with – just a bag of leather and twine – but this village is the only place he’s called home. When government soldiers destroy Gutu for housing “dissidents” suddenly Deo has lost his family, his home, and his happiness all at once. Deo’s mentally disabled older brother, Innocent, is his only remaining relative. Deo must get Innocent to safety in South Africa, but the journey to a better life is harder than he could ever imagine.

First, Deo and Innocent leave Zimbabwe. As they travel, they see a country torn apart by the government’s purge of dissenters. They narrowly escape run-ins with soldiers and travel through dangerous wilderness to cross the border. They spend some time at a farm, but danger arises when the local workers don’t like that refugees have stolen their jobs. The promise of a better, safer life lies in the city of Johannesburg. Once again, Deo and Innocent uproot themselves and travel to the city.

However, Johannesburg doesn’t turn out to be the haven they heard about. Instead of fighting against the government, the people in South Africa are fighting each other. Groups of radicals are calling for “foreigners” – the refugees from other African nations – to go home or be eradicated. They destroy refugee-owned shops and ruin their homes. During one of these raids, Innocent is killed. 

Without his brother, Deo doesn’t know what to feel. In fact, he wants to feel nothing at all. The book resumes almost two years later with Deo addicted to drugs and living on the streets. His life changes by chance when a soccer coach sees Deo’s skill with the ball, and suddenly Deo is given a place to sleep, warm food to eat, and a reason to live: playing soccer.  

At first, his team is a far cry from a family. Deo thinks they come from too many different places to understand each other. However, Deo’s coach convinces them that their strength lies their differences. They play successfully at the Street Soccer World Cup, also known as the Homeless World Cup – a competition that brings refugees and street kids together for the chance to change their lives. The story doesn’t reveal how the final match ends, but for Deo, his new life is just beginning. 

Inspired by true events, Now is the Time for Running is a journey of displacement through the eyes of a young man. Deo tells it like it is – he doesn’t shy away from the situation in Zimbabwe despite how much pain it causes him. It’s necessary to note that this book does not shy away from the horrors of civil war, poverty, and intolerance. While this book is not for the faint of heart, the lessons and truths it brings to light are meaningful and powerful. As a narrator, Deo goes through more in a few years than many people suffer through in their whole lives, but this doesn’t make him less relatable. Deo wants to protect the people he loves and to be happy – goals that anyone can relate to.

The first lesson of this book is clear: Deo never gives up. His unrelenting goal to protect his brother and escape the disastrous situation in Zimbabwe shows that he is continuously determined to have a better life. Even after Innocent dies and Deo struggles with addiction, he gets back on his feet through the soccer program. Despite great odds, Deo shows that people can always make the choice to persevere towards their goals. 

The other main theme of the story is not as apparent, but it’s one of the reasons readers see repeated instances of violence as Deo searches for a new place to call home: The “us vs. them” mentality. While present throughout the whole book, such as when the soldiers massacre the people of Gutu or when Innocent is killed in the anti-refugee riots, this issue comes to a head in Deo’s soccer team. After fighting breaks out amongst the teams, Deo’s coach teaches them that the true strength lies in their differences. The coach says, “Each of you brings something special to this team. Zimbabwe has brought me guts and determination; from Kenya, I get lightness and speed; from Mozambique, superb ball control and agility. . . It is because we are not the same that we are stronger than any other team in this competition! All of you have learned to play soccer in different parts of Africa. Our combined playing style is like no other in the world.” Once the team listens to the stories of their fellow teammates, they understand that they all have suffered, but they can all move forward together. 

Now is the Time for Running is a powerful book that teaches that strength does not lie in forcing everyone to be the same; it comes from accepting that everyone’s differences bring something new and unique to the table. Readers who want to learn about history through the eyes of an athlete should also read The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow.

Sexual Content 

  • The guards punish Innocent by taking his clothes away. When Deo rescues him, Innocent throws a fit about being naked, but Deo convinces Innocent to come with him by saying that the soldiers might take both their clothes. “We don’t want the soldiers to come back and take my clothes too. Then we’ll both be naked. . . Can you imagine everyone laughing at our butts and our balls bouncing around?” 
  • One of the women that Deo and Innocent stay with is a sex worker. 
  • Two of the soccer players, T-Jay and Keelan, have a short exchange. When T-Jay says Keelan has a “cute butt,” Keelan gives him the middle finger. 
  • Innocent always carried a condom. Keelan says, “Perhaps your brother knew more about sex than you think.” Deo replies, “Innocent didn’t like girls much. He saw safe-sex ads everywhere, and he thought that condoms would keep him safe from girls.”
  • During a game, Deo describes, “Keelan. . . scored her third goal and headed straight to me. I was sitting on the bench when she threw her arms around me and kissed me on the cheek.”

Violence 

  • Deo punches a kid named Pelo who calls him crazy on the soccer field. “Pelo does not have the chance to finish what he’s saying because he has to deal with my fist in his mouth. . . ” Another kid pulls Deo away before the fight continues.
  • When Deo sees soldiers carrying guns, he thinks about the damage guns can cause. “I have seen a cow cut in half from a burst from one of those guns.” 
  • Deo knows stories about the violence brought by the soldiers. The soldiers “went to Chipinge when the people were angry from hunger, so angry that some of them were killed. Auntie Aurelia told us that her niece was one of those who were hungry. She did not say how she bled to death.”
  • Commander Jesus comes to Deo’s village, Gutu, to kill dissenters of the government. Commander Jesus says, “In the back of my jeep there is a drum filled with blood. The blood came from people who voted wrongly. My life is to drink human blood. My supply is running low. I have come here to kill dissidents. . . You are going to eat eggs, after eggs hens, after hens goats, after goats cattle. . . . Then you are going to eat your children. After that you shall eat your wives. Then the men will remain, and because dissidents have guns, they will kill the men and only dissidents will remain. That’s how we will find who they are, and then we will kill them.” 
  • The soldiers and Commander Jesus hurt Grandpa Longdrop. Deo witnesses “an awful crunch and [I] see Grandpa Longdrop collapse in front of me. His eyes look dazed. He tries to get up, and I try to reach him to tell him to stay down, but then Commander Jesus kicks him. He crumples.” 
  • Deo’s mentally disabled brother, Innocent, comes to defend Grandpa Longdrop. “Innocent runs screaming toward Commander Jesus with a stick raised high above his head. He cracks it down on Commander Jesus’s outstretched hands.” The soldiers attack Innocent. “The soldiers beat Innocent with their rifle butts. What is worse than the sound of wood against the bones of your brother?. . . Innocent does not cry. He lies like a baby, curled up, his hands and arms covering his head. . . Innocent is pulled to his knees. His face is crooked, his eyes black balls. Blood trickles from his broken nose.” Innocent later recovers from these injuries.
  • Commander Jesus has the soldiers beat all the residents of Gutu. “The soldiers beat us as we lie on the ground. . . Useless hands against hard sticks. Elbows cracked. Heads smacked. Screams. Flashes of wood. Soldiers grunting. And pain. Lots of it.” 
  • After the beating, Deo assesses the townspeople’s injuries. “Grandpa Longdrop lies on the ground, his head in my [mother’s] lap. Sometimes he groans, and sometimes he is so quiet that I am afraid that he will never wake up. . . The backs of my legs hurt where the soldiers’ sticks fell, but this is nothing to what others have suffered. One of Lola’s brothers has a broken arm. Bhuku’s [mother] has a split in her head that bleeds and bleeds. Shadrack’s little sister could be dead.”
  • The soldiers pull a truck driver out of his car and kick him before letting him run away.
  • The soldiers take Innocent as punishment for hitting Commander Jesus. Deo finds him later. “A naked body is lying in the middle of the [cattle pen]. The man’s wrists are tied to pegs in the ground. His ankles are tied to the end of a log that stretches his legs wide apart. There is a sack over his head. . . I notice ants crawling all over his body. . . There is dried blood at the side of his mouth, his nose is broken, and his eyes are all puffy.” Innocent says the soldiers also peed on him.
  • The soldiers end up killing everyone in Deo’s village. “Gunshots rat-a-tat-tat across the valley. . .I crawl forward into the noise of people dying. The soldiers are shooting. People are running away. Some are falling. Now the soldiers hold their guns as if they mean business. Their guns bark, come alive in their hands, their bullets rip into the earth, the walls, trees, pots, chairs, and flesh. I watch. I am too afraid to turn away. People scream; their cries are cut in half by bullets.” 
  • Deo finds his mother (or “Amai”)  and Grandpa Longdrop among the dead villagers. “Amai is lying face down. Her arms are thrown out in front of her as if she is trying to grab something out of her reach. Her back is covered with a damp patch of blood. . . I find Grandpa Longdrop. He stares up at the sky. His mouth is open. He does not look like Grandpa Longdrop anymore. I find Shadrack. Dead. There is Lola. Blood where her face should be. Her brothers are lying not far away.” 
  • During a soccer game, Deo gets angry and kicks a boy named Aziz. “I charge [Aziz] from behind and deliberately kick his ankles. He falls, and the players on his team shout at me.. . . Aziz gets up, inspects his knee. It’s bloody.”
  • When crossing the border, two of the men in the group climb an electric fence and are electrocuted. “The two men run ahead, faster than us. They are the first to reach the fence. They start climbing. . . The wire fizzes, crackles, and the men shriek and fall to the ground as the electricity burns them.” The men are dazed but recover. 
  • An anti-refugee gang pulls a shopkeeper named Ahmed from his store and beats him. “Hands grab Ahmed and pull him onto the street. He screams as many sticks fall on him. . . Ahmed’s white robes turn red with blood.” It’s unknown whether he lives or dies.
  • Deo finds Angel, a sex worker, beaten up by one of her clients. “Angel is covered with blood, beaten. She lies on her bed, curled up in a ball. Her face is swollen. . .” Angel explains that her clients “were tired of paying a kwerekwere [a foreigner]. They wanted it for free.”
  • Deo finds Innocent’s dead body on the ground during an anti-immigrant raid. “I see the shape of a human head, lying on its side. The shape of an arm and a hand. . . I reach the body of my brother, facedown on the ground, covered with rubble.”
  • A refugee named Muhammad commits suicide by jumping into the ocean. “Muhammad had had enough of what he called a life without hope and without country. . . so he chose to run to the blue horizon. [The police] sent out a boat to fetch [Muhammad], but they never found him.”
  • While playing soccer, T-Jay and Deo get in a fight. “T-Jay lashed out at me with his elbow. The blow caught me squarely between the eyes, and for a moment I thought I was going to fall down. But instead of taking me down, it was like a switch that flicked on inside me. My fist found its way up T-Jay’s nose and my knee said hello to his balls. . . he got in quite a few good punches before my nose started bleeding. I stopped kicking T-Jay only when I heard [the] whistle bursting my eardrum.”
  • Keelan explains how she ended up in South Africa. Soldiers came to her town to punish the people who had voted wrongly. Her father, the community leader, was killed. Keelan says, “they had chopped off his arms with a machete.” 
  • T-Jay shares his story too. His father lost his foot when he stood on a landmine. T-Jay’s father “couldn’t work anymore, so he stayed at home. He beat the crap out of me until the social services took him away.” 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Captain Washington, a family friend of Deo, drinks after he learns Deo’s mother is dead. Captain Washington “brings back a bottle of booze. He pours himself a drink and swallows it quickly…At least when he drinks, he is no longer crying.”
  • After his brother dies, Deo gets addicted to sniffing glue, a common addiction for street kids in South Africa. Deo says, “the glue makes everything weightless.” He also calls it the “magic tube.” Deo talks about getting high off glue and the withdrawal symptoms, which include vomiting and muscle aches. 
  • Deo notices that some of the other kids on his South African soccer team are also “glue-tube heads.”
  • T-Jay’s father was an alcoholic.
  • T-Jay says it’s too late for him to go back to school because he got into drugs.

Language   

  • The story contains some profanity. Shit is used a few times; damn is used three times.
  • Deo says fear smells worse than “dog crap.”
  • A rude man calls Mai Maria, a woman who helps Deo and Innocent cross the border, a “filthy Rasta woman.”
  • Angel calls someone a “bitch.”
  • The slur kwerekwere is used occasionally. It is a derogatory term for foreigners or outsiders. It is used by gangs of people who want to expel the refugees from their country.
  • The guy who sells Deo glue says, “get your ass down here.”

Supernatural 

  • There is a rumor that Mai Maria is a witch who eats children. 

Spiritual Content 

  • The Methodist Church is mentioned throughout the story because they sometimes provide food and shelter for refugees or struggling communities. Once, Deo stays in a shelter set up by the Methodist Church. 
  • Deo talks about Spirits. “Grandpa Longdrop says that there are two kinds of people, those who believe in the Spirits and those who don’t. . . I understand the Spirits of the Wind, the Spirits of the Rocks, and the Spirits of the Trees are all those who have died and live on in other ways. I understand that they watch over us, that they can sometimes be angry because we forget them. And it is said that when they are angry, they can sometimes punish us. But this thing of the beating [by the soldiers] is too big to blame on the Spirits. They would not allow such a painful thing to happen. If I believe in Spirits, why would I believe in something that causes such pain? Surely the Spirits had nothing to do with what has happened in our village.”
  • Deo sings an ancient Spirit song passed down by his family to prompt Innocent into a fit so they can distract a group of soldiers. “It is always terrible to see Innocent when he has one of his fits. . . People are afraid of Innocent when he becomes like this. They think he is possessed. They think that the Spirits have taken over his body.” The lyrics of the song are not included in the story.
  • One of the items that Innocent carried with him was a pocket Bible with a note inside from their father. The note reads: “To Innocent and Deo, This is not a book of laws but a book of love. It will always be your salvation.” 
  • The soccer team from the Philippines at the Homeless World Cup chants, “For God and for country!” 
  • Bishop Desmond Tutu, who has come to oversee the Homeless World Cup, thanks God and says to the players, “God bless you all!” 

The Door in the Dragon’s Throat

A mystery as old as the desert sands . . . 

When teenagers Jay and Lila Cooper and their archaeologist father travel to Nepur, an uninviting land of deserts and danger, they must search to uncover the truth behind an ancient legend. Locals claim that inside a dark cavern called the Dragon’s Throat is a forbidden Door that brings certain death to anyone who tries to open it.

Armed with the knowledge that God is more powerful than any legend or curse, Jay and Lila plunge into the Dragon’s Throat, determined to find what awaits them on the other side of the door. However, danger awaits in unexpected places. Will the Dragon’s Throat claim Jay’s and Lila’s life or will God keep them safe?

The Door in the Dragon’s Throat delivers an exciting, action-packed story that shows the fear that legends and superstitions can cause. As soon as the Coopers arrive at the Dragon’s Throat, strange and frightening things begin to happen. Despite this, the family is positive that God will keep them safe and reveal the secrets of the Dragon’s Throat. This fast-paced story will keep readers guessing what strange event will happen next. Since the story’s focus is the mystery behind the Dragon’s Throat, the characters are not well developed. However, one thing is made clear—the Coopers put their trust in God, even in difficult situations.

The mystery of the Dragon’s Throat is paired with strange events that give the story an eerie tone. Even though several of the characters are terrified of the Dragon’s Throat, the story isn’t frightening. Instead, the events give the story plenty of suspense that will keep readers engaged. The story’s conclusion revolves around the book of Revelations; however, the explanation is so short that it is slightly confusing. Despite this, the story reinforces the importance of trusting God in every aspect of your life.

Readers who want an action-packed book that teaches Biblical principles will enjoy The Door in the Dragon’s Throat. The Coopers’ belief in God helps them navigate difficult situations and leads them to share God’s word. One of the recurring themes is that God is more powerful than any other god. In addition, the story also shows the destructive nature of greed. Readers who enjoy discovering ancient secrets should also read the Secrets of the Seven Series by Sarah L. Thomson or the Pride Wars Series by Matt Laney.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • Jay and Lila accidentally disturb a king cobra. “The snake’s head was only a few inches from the sand when a pebble fell. The head came up again, and the same hawking sound spewed out of the snake’s gaping white mouth. Suddenly the snake’s head disappeared in a spurt of blood.” Dr. Cooper shoots the snake.
  • When opening a shed, an old man grabs Lila. “The old man grabbed her up violently and with powerful strides began to run across the barren circle, his hot breath chugging into her face, his grip strong and steady.” When Lila’s brother and another run towards them, the old man drops Lila. 
  • The old man kidnaps Jay and Lila. “Jay and Lila were huddled on a floor against a very small, dark, musty bungalow hidden deep within the intricate maze of winding streets.” The kids learn that the old man doesn’t want to hurt them, but he wants them to help him get rid of a curse.
  • Gozan, an employee of the country’s president, believes there is a treasure in the Dragon’s Throat and he is convinced the treasure should be his. Gozan pulls a gun on Dr. Cooper and his children. He forces the family to go to the Dragon’s Throat.
  • While in the Dragon’s Throat, a terrible earthquake begins. The Coopers see the country’s president on a ledge. “There was a long, terrible scream, and Jay looked just in time to see the president go tumbling off the ledge, tumbling over and over until he disappeared into a deep crevasse.” The president is presumed dead.
  • Jay runs to lock the door of the Dragon’s Throat. “The Door seemed to know what he was doing. It shot, it heaved, it quaked, and Jay’s body was tossed and whipped about as he hung onto the key. . . His legs and chest slapped against the hot bronze metal of the Door, and he could feel the searing heat scorch his clothes and singe his skin. Terrible pain poured over his body and shot through his aching arms.” Jay locks the door before he is injured.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • None

Language 

  • None

Supernatural

  • When Gozan sees an old man, he says the man is, “The Shaman! A magician! Immortal! He is part of the legend surrounding the Door. It is said he guards it, and that he has great power to destroy anyone who dares to violate the ancient curse.”

Spiritual Content 

  • Dr. Cooper, his two kids, and the other members of his group are Christians. Throughout the book there are many references to God and the characters pray often. Since the book is Christian fiction, not all the references are mentioned below.
  • The president of a middle eastern country invites Dr. Cooper to investigate the Dragon’s Throat, which has been cursed. However, Dr. Cooper is not afraid of the curse because his group serves “a mighty God who is greater than any curse, and His son died to free us from all curses.”
  • When Dr. Cooper’s kids are in danger of being bitten by a deadly snake, Dr. Cooper prays, “Lord God, grant to me the lives of my two children!” The Cooper kids are unharmed.
  • When Dr. Cooper and his group are overtaken by a strange fear of the Dragon’s Throat, they overcome their fear by remembering that they are God’s children and that, “Greater is HE who is in us than he who is in the world.” The group’s fear dissipates, and they continue their exploration. 
  • Gozan is terrified of the Dragon’s Throat. While following Dr. Cooper’s group into the cavern, Gozan prays, “May the gods protect me. May the spirits of my ancestors protect me.” 
  • An old man has a chest that has been handed down through his family. The man believes that “only Shandago, God of the Earth, can open the chest, and only at the proper time.” The old man says he is a “Chaldean sorcerer, a wizard. All my ancestors and family were Chaldeans and magicians, well-versed in the ancient mystery religions of Babylon. For centuries we have worshiped the spirits of nature, the moon, the stars. . . and Shandago, the God of the Earth.”
  • Jay and Lila tell the old man how to accept Jesus into his life and “be set free from any lying, evil gods that might be controlling your life.”
  • While some believe the Door in the Dragon’s Throat leads to the treasure, it doesn’t. Dr. Cooper explains, “There are demons behind that Door, Gozan, countless demons specially appointed to torture and destroy mankind.” The book connects the demons to Revelations, chapter 9.

Dark Blue: Color Me Lonely

Kara Hendricks and Jordan Ferguson have been best friends since kindergarten. By now—sophomore year—they’re more like sisters, really. Jordan has always been the leader in the friendship, but still she’s the perfect friend. That is until Jordan started hanging out with a new “cool” crowd and decided Kara was a popularity liability. 

Devastated, Kara feels betrayed and abandoned by everyone—even God. How could Jordan do this? Why did God let this happen? Yet for all the hurt and insecurity, these dark blue days contain a life-changing secret. Now that Jordan is gone, Kara has the chance to discover something about herself that she never knew before. But first, she must learn to trust again. It won’t be easy.

Kara’s story deals with universal themes of self-worth, identity, and loneliness that anyone who has suffered a loss will relate to. However, readers may find it difficult to sympathize with Kara because of her self-pitying attitude. When Jordan starts hanging out with the cheerleaders, she tries to include Kara in her new friend group. However, Kara is so uncomfortable that she begins to avoid Jordan. Since Kara’s insecurities drive much of her action, when the friendship finally ends, Kara turns to daydreaming about scenarios that would hurt Jordan. From the start, the girls’ unhealthy relationship is portrayed in a negative manner, so when the friendship ends there is little emotional impact.

Unfortunately, there is nothing unique about Dark Blue’s plot. Instead, it revolves around the typical stereotypes – a goth girl, a nerd, and an academic high achiever. None of the supporting characters are well developed and Kara begins spending time with some of her new friends, not because she truly likes them, but because she’s so desperate not to be alone. The connection between Kara and her new friends feels forced and unauthentic, especially since so many of their conversations are about their belief in God. But through these lunch time discussions, Kara begins to realize that God is the only best friend she needs.

Another negative aspect of Dark Blue is Kara’s long and tedious inner musings. Most of Kara’s interactions with others are short and do little to develop Kara’s personality. Instead, the story has long passages that focus on Kara’s thought process. Because Kara is so caught up in her misery, it is difficult to relate to her. 

Dark Blue reminds readers that God is with us even during difficult times. While it is important to connect with others, only God can fill the emptiness that is inside of us. Once Kara accepts God’s love, she is finally able to look at life in a more positive light. While Dark Blue’s message will resonate with readers, the lack of character development and the typical plot structure are not very memorable. However, readers who are dealing with loss and loneliness will find comfort in the book’s message.

Sexual Content 

  • At school, Kara sees some “couples hanging onto each other like they can’t bear to let go, a few even making out.” 

Violence 

  • Edgar’s mom was up for parole, but it was denied so “she hung herself.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Kara’s friend, Amy, smokes cigarettes and is part of the “pot-smoking Goth group.”
  • When Amy and her friends show up at a school dance, Kara thinks “Some of them are high or drunk or both. Including Amy.” Later, Amy pukes. 
  • Kara’s friend, Edgar, has a father who is a recovering alcoholic and a mother who is in jail for drugs.
  • While talking about Edgar’s home life, Amy says that she’s “used all kinds of lame excuses to get drunk.” 

Language 

  • Freaking, crappy, and crud are used rarely. 

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • When Jordan becomes part of the cheerleading squad, Kara thinks, “Maybe it’s because I prayed that Jordan did so well. Maybe her success was God’s way of getting even with me for being so hopelessly selfish.” 
  • Kara and her friends often discuss their belief in God. For example, during lunch, some of the kids talk about freedom of religion. A girl says, “I don’t think our government should tell us to pray either. But I don’t think they should tell us that we can’t.” The conversation lasts for a page. 
  • Kara asks her friends, “I mean do you think it’s true that you can really have a close relationship with God?” Two kids in the group discuss their beliefs. A boy who goes to church three days a week says, “God made us all unique people. . . I need to go to church a lot and read a lot and pray a lot.” The conversation lasts for three pages. 
  • Because of Kara’s depression, she thinks about giving “this God-thing a shot.” However, she feels like she wants to make a deal with God so her life will go back to the way it was before Jordan dumped her as a friend. Kara thinks, “And I’ve got to wonder whether it’s worth the risk of blowing it with God just because I think I might be able to swing some sort of deal. . . my life is cruddy enough without going and making it worse by messing with someone like God.” Kara’s inner musings last for a page.
  • One of Kara’s friends, Edgar, says, “I think God is calling me to be a missionary.” He then explains why he believes this. The conversation lasts for about a page. 
  • When Amy offers to give Edgar a makeover, he says, “I’ve been asking God to do something to change me. I’ve been praying to become the kind of guy that other people will listen to.” 
  • Edgar considers Jesus his best friend. 
  • Kara goes to church with Edgar. The youth pastor discusses how “God designed us to feel lonely” and only God can fill the lonely ache inside of us. 
  • After the pastor speaks, Kara isn’t sure how to ask Jesus into her heart. The pastor explains how she needs to “invite Jesus to come inside of you. And once you’ve done that, your life will never be the same.” The church scene is described over five pages.
  • Edgar tells Kara that “God wants us to make good choices. . .But most of all I think he just wants us to love him and to let him into all the ordinary and sometimes gory details of our daily life.”

The Star Dunes

A major discovery forces the Explorer Academy into the limelight in The Star Dunes, but Cruz has much more on his mind than fifteen minutes of fame. A new face on board the ship makes Cruz’s worlds collide. On route to Africa, Team Cousteau is now down a major player, and Cruz can’t help but be preoccupied by the hole in his life. The discovery of his mom’s next clue leads him to the most exotic location yet – a vast desert. With no other information to lead the way, an unlikely ally helps Cruz pursue another piece of the puzzle. Then just as things seem like they might turn out alright, Dr. Fanchon Quills has a technological breakthrough that gives Cruz a glimpse into the past and reveals more about his future than he really may want to know. 

In this adventure, Cruz and several other explorers go to the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest where they learn about how humans have put gorillas in danger. “Habitat loss, war, hunting, disease—they have reduced the entire population of mountain gorillas to two protected areas.” The mission also allows the students to learn about African elephants that are endangered because of. Through the explorers’ experiences, readers will learn about the animals’ loss of habitat and about conservation efforts.  

Cruz’s quest to follow his mother’s clues and find the formula for a lifesaving drug is admirable. However, his single-minded focus and risky behavior continually puts others in danger. In addition, readers may find it difficult to understand Cruz’s unwillingness to be honest about Nebula’s attempt to end his life. Even though Nebula kidnapped Cruz’s father and poisoned Cruz’s friend, Cruz still keeps secrets that could help keep himself and others safe. To make matters worse, none of the adults punish Cruz for repeatedly sneaking off to search for clues. Instead, the adults only focus on Cruz’s positive attributes despite his bad behavior. 

While The Star Dunes is action-packed and the mystery intensifies, this installment of Explorer Academy has many events that are difficult to believe. Nebula has shown that they are smart enough to infiltrate the Academy and repeatedly get access to Cruz’s room, which makes their inability to capture or kill him implausible. In addition, the Academy faculty continually choose Cruz for missions over the other explorers which is unbelievable, especially since Cruz continually breaks the rules.  

Despite The Star Dunes flaws, Cruz’s fast-paced adventure allows readers to experience other cultures as they learn about the importance of wildlife conservation. The well-written story includes illustrations that appear every two to twelve pages. Many of the illustrations are a mix of photographs and drawings, which gives the pictures a touch of realism. The story will appeal to many readers because it includes a diverse cast, interesting technology, and teaches about wildlife. The Star Dunes concludes with Cruz reading a cryptic letter from his mother that will have readers reaching for the next book in the series, The Tiger’s Nest. 

Sexual Content  

  • Before leaving for a mission, Bryndis goes to tell Cruz goodbye. “Cruz found himself looking into her eyes. . . He felt cool lips brush his cheek, and then she was scurrying back down the hall in her polar bear slippers.” 

Violence  

  • While following his mother’s clue, Cruz takes a self-driving car. While on a deserted road, another truck hits them. “They were accelerating, but so was the truck behind them. Cruz could only dig his fingernails into his seat and watch the speedometer rise. . . Suddenly, everything was a blur. Cruz saw white lights and red dust and Dugan’s face and white lights and red rocks and Dugan’s face. . .” After Cruz’s car crashes, the truck takes off. The scene is described over three pages. 
  • While in the desert, two men chase Cruz and Dugan. “Cruz felt a jerk. Someone had a hold of his pack. He tried to pull away but couldn’t. . . Suddenly, his feet were out from under him. He was on his stomach being dragged backward. Cruz was trying not to choke on sand. . .” Both Cruz and Dugan escape. 
  • While on a mission, Cruz and his team see poachers aiming at a pangolin and its pangopups. Cruz “could see the hunter bring the weapon to his shoulder. . . The hunter was lining up the animal in his scope. . .” Cruz orders his mechanical bee, Mell, to attack. Then “the hunters were running in circles, wildly swatting the air around them. . . Mell was still stinging, zipping this way and that to strike her targets. Cruz sprayed the hunters with his octopod. Both cried out, fell to their knees, and threw their hands over their eyes.” The poachers are arrested. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Someone put a deadly toxin in Cruz’s duffle bag, but it was “Bryndis [who] was exposed to the deadly toxin. The poison was absorbed through her skin.” Bryndis is given an antidote, but she is still extremely sick. 

Language    

  • Darn is used once. 
  • After a truck knocks them off the road, Dugan says, “Nothing like some idiot who thinks it’s funny to go around frightening people.”  

Supernatural 

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

Minecraft: Mob Squad #1

The village of Cornucopia is practically perfect in every way. Plenty of food, cozy homes, and a huge wall to keep everyone safe from the scary world outside. What more could a kid possibly need?

Well, a lot, actually.

Mal, a fearless girl, needs adventure, and her friends are right there with her. There is Lenna, a dreamer whose family underestimates her every day, and Tok and Chug, two brothers who love to build stuff (Tok) and smash stuff (Chug). They’re best friends, and in a town whose grown-ups value safety over bravery and fitting in over standing out, they’re the bad apples.

But when a mysterious mob sneaks past Cornucopia’s defenses, the village is in huge trouble. And nobody knows what to do. Finally faced with the adventure they’ve always wanted, Mal and her friends defy the rules their elders have always followed and set out beyond the wall for the first time.

On their journey across the Overworld, they discover wonders they’ve never dreamed of and dangers they’ve never imagined. To save the day, they’ll have to prove they’re more than bad apples. They’re the Mob Squad!

Minecraft fans will love Mob Squad’s action and adventure. As the four friends venture out into the unknown, they quickly learn that they aren’t “bad apples” like the people of Cornucopia have labeled them. Instead, they begin to understand how their unique talents are perfectly suited for the world outside of Cornucopia’s wall. As they fight mobs, they discover more about the world as well as themselves. Through their experiences, the kids gain confidence and realize being different is what makes them special. 

The Mob Squad shows the world of Minecraft from the viewpoint of the four friends. Readers will enjoy seeing aspects of the game through their point of view. Each chapter alternates between the four kids; however, the characters’ voices are not very distinct so readers will need to pay attention to the name that appears at the beginning of each chapter. 

Mob Squad’s quick pace will keep readers interested with plenty of action, adventure, and battles against mobs. The battle scenes are suspenseful, but not long or gory. However, what makes The Mob Squad shine is the friendship between the kids. Not only do they learn to survive on their own, but they also learn the importance of teamwork. When the kids save the town, they realize that their destiny doesn’t have to be chosen by their family, but they can choose to do what is best for themselves. Readers will be eager to learn what happens to Mal, Lenna, Tok, and Chug in their next adventure which appears in Mob Squad: Never Say Nether.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • A group of boys corner Tok in an alley. Tok’s brother, Chug, punches the leader of the bullies, Jarro. Then Chug “lands a kick right in Jarro’s backside.”  
  • Tok was running into town when Jarro put his arm out causing him to fall flat on his back. Chug is “just about to give in and woop some rumpus when a shadow looms over us all.” An elder stops the fight. 
  • Once the four friends leave Cornucopia, they fight mobs often; not all fights are listed below. On the first night out of Cornucopia, Tok forgets his cat outside. However, Chug and the others must help because zombies are waiting for them. Chug is “hacking at one monster, but it hits him back, and he grunts in surprise. . .” Lenna shoots arrows and “one of the zombies makes a splattery hiss and flops over dead. . . Lenna aims for the two zombies on the left with her arrows, one after the other, while Chug and Mal hack away at the one with the sword and helmet.” 
  • During the fight, Chug and Mal work together. “Mal swipes at [the Zombie’s] legs with her diamond pickaxe, and the moment it turns to groan angrily at her, Chug deals a massive blow against its back with his sword, and the zombie finally falls over.” The fight is described over three pages.
  • Skeletons start shooting at Lenna. Lenna describes, “On instinct, I throw the torch at the skeleton and use its moment of distraction to reach into my pocket and prepare my own weapon. I fire off two shots before it returns an arrow.” An arrow hits Lenna in the leg. “It feels hot and dull, and I yank it out and shoot it right back at the skeleton, destroying it.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • While in the wilderness, zombies attack the Mob Squad. Lenna takes down a zombie. “We’re all feeling confident, right up until someone runs around the corner and hits Mal with an ax.” Mal “stagger[s] back, seeing stars. . . The monster sprints at me again, axe raised, and my arm feels dead. An arrow lodges in the creature’s chest, and then Chug darts forward and gets in a strike with his new diamond sword.” 
  • The kids have to fight evokers, vindicators, and other mobs. When a vex attacks, Lenna takes “it down with two fiery shots. . .I’ve landed two shots on it when Poppy yelps and something slashes at my legs. I look down and see a spectral fang rolling past. My leg burns with pain, and I stumble.” No one is seriously injured.
  • The story concludes with vexes, vindicators, and other mobs attacking Cornucopia from inside the wall. One of Cornucopia’s members, Krog, is commanding the mobs. As the mobs climb out of an underground cavern, “three vindicators barrel out, axes ready, grunting. Chug and [Mal] engage them, working as a team as Lenna keeps harrying the vexes with flaming arrows. . . More vexes fly out, and one lands a hit on my back before Lenna can nock another arrow. The cry of pain flies out of my mouth before I can stop it.”
  • During the battle, “more vexes swarm out the door of Krog’s house, followed by their evoker. Ghostly white fangs ripple up from the ground, hitting Dawna [a resident of Cornucopia] in the leg and making her scream. . . Dawna reaches for one of Tok’s swords, takes her first swing at a vex, and incredibly, lands a solid hit.”
  • As the battle continues, someone grabs Lenna. Lenna “flail[s] and shout[s] . . My elbow catches someone in the face—I feel the pop of their nose at the solid hit, and they grunt and drop me.” Lenna discovers the person is her sister.
  • Tok is surprised when he hears “a snort and look[s] up to find a huge beast snarling at me. It’s like a cow crossed with the biggest, ugliest rock I’ve ever seen. It paws the ground with an enormous hoof and charges.” Tok runs for his life, leading the beast into a narrow alley. Tok jumps onto the beast’s back. “The creature screams and throws me, and I skid on my back across the cobblestones. It hurts. . . . I look up, and all I see is a ton of stinky beast butt. I raise my sword. . . I stab it.”
  • When the villain, Krog, begins throwing harmful potions at the Mob Squad, Tok hits him on the head with an iron sword. Krog “topples forward.” In the end, Krog is arrested and the mobs are defeated. The village attack is described over 30 pages.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • A vex puts a potion on all of Cornucopia’s crops, causing them to die.
  • Chug licks a potion off the floor. Afterwards, he describes how he doesn’t “feel every rib when I breathe. I can do cartwheels again.”
  • Someone throws a slowness potion at Mal. The potion makes her do everything “super slowly.”
  • Krog throws a poison at Mal.  Once the poison hits her, “her cheeks are sinking in, there are purple hollow pooling made her eyes, her lips are going dry and cracked.” Mal feels “like being sunburned on the inside, like I’m drying out, all my blood turned to ash.” Mal drinks milk which reverses the effects of the potion.
  • Krog throws a potion of weakness at Chug. Chug’s arms feel like they “are made of noodles. I can barely lift the sword.” When he drinks milk, his strength returns.

Language 

  • Chug insults Jarro by saying, “You’re a thief? You certainly stole all the ugly around town for yourself.” 
  • Because of her imagination, Lenna’s family refers to her as “loony Lenna” and “liar.”
  • Lenna’s sister calls her an idiot.
  • The town people call the Mob Squad “Bad Apples.”
  • An adult calls the Mob Squad kids “rapscallions,” “scalaways,” and “dunderheads.”
  • Darn is used three times.
  • Chug tells his brother to “shut your piehole.”
  • Twice, Chug calls someone a jerk. For example, when thieves steal from Chug and his friends, he calls one of the men a jerk. 

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

Only the Good Spy Young

After the events of last semester, Cammie could use more normal in her life. Well, as normal as the life of a spy-in-training can be. But people are still after Cammie, and she is no closer to finding out why. Even worse, the CIA seems to think Mr. Solomon is working on the side of the enemy. Cammie and her friends struggle to believe it, but true or not, they know it’s long past time for them to find some answers of their own.  

With her mother keeping secrets, an unlikeable new teacher, and Mr. Solomon in question, Cammie doesn’t know who to trust. But she has her roommates, Macey, Bex, and Liz, and the four of them will have to be enough. The stakes are higher than ever as the four friends hack into the booby-trapped sublevels, decode a secret journal, and break into the infamous Blackthorne Institute. There is no room for mistakes. At this level, mistakes are deadly.  

Only the Good Spy Young ramps up the action in an exciting story packed with twists and turns. This installment deepens the mystery and leaves readers wondering why the Circle is trying to kidnap Cammie, if Mr. Solomon is a friend or a foe, and why Zach keeps appearing every time Cammie is in trouble. Cammie feels as if her world is turned upside down and isn’t sure who can be trusted. While the mystery adds suspense, the highlight of Only the Good Spy Young is the relationship between Cammie and her friends—who always have her back. 

Through first-person narration, Carter creates a fun story full of relatable characters and explores teen romance in a wholesome way that is perfect for teens. While the beloved cast is back, this installment gives Zach a prominent role which will leave readers swooning. The moments between Zach and Cammie are adorable. Adding Zach to the spying, action, and danger makes Only the Good Spy Young one of the best books in the series.  

With a strong cast of smart girls, a relatable protagonist, and the perfect blend of humor and suspense, Only the Good Spy Young will keep readers flipping the pages until the very end. Make sure you have the next book, Out of Sight, Out of Time, on hand, because this installment ends on a tantalizing cliffhanger.  

Sexual Content  

  • A teacher “accidentally spilled his latest invisibility concoction over Madame Dabney, and her white blouse was becoming more and more invisible by the second . . . At the front of the room, Madame Dabney (who, by the way, wears way sexier bras than anyone would have guessed) started dabbing at the front of her blouse with an antique tablecloth.”  
  • Zach keeps tabs on Cammie, watching her to make sure she is okay. One time he visits her while ice skating and “pressed his lips hard against my forehead for a split second—nothing more—and when he finally let me go and disappeared back into the trees, I thought that I might fall.”  
  • Before a dangerous mission, Cammie and Zach kiss. Cammie “kissed him—longer and deeper than I ever had before . . . we were just two people kissing as if for the first time, as if it might be the last.”  
  • Zach kisses Cammie goodbye at the start of summer vacation. “And then his arms were around me. When he kissed me it was hungrier somehow, as if this moment was all we had, and we had to taste it, drink it, savor it, and not waste a single drop.” 

Violence  

  • When Cammie finds a stranger in her room, she goes on the defense. Cammie “stepped back and grabbed the arm that grabbed at me, spinning, using my attacker’s own momentum to fling him through the open bathroom door and to the other side of our room. He smashed into a dresser and sent a lamp crashing to the floor . . . before he could say a word, a Louis Vuitton suitcase came flying into our room, struck the man squarely on his face, and dropped him to the floor like a stone.” Macey heard the struggle and threw her suitcase at the man, who turns out to be a new teacher at the school. His face is bruised, but he is okay.  
  • When Cammie meets the man responsible for her father’s death, she “brought my hand up along the side of his face—hard. It was just a slap—nothing special. Hardly something they would ever teach in P&E. And yet I felt like doing it again.” 
  • A member of the Circle interrogates Mr. Solomon. “The woman struck Mr. Solomon’s face so hard that blood sprayed across the room.”  
  • Cammie and Zach fight Zach’s mother, the leader of a splinter group of the Circle, and her henchmen. Their struggle takes place over three pages. Cammie describes, “I parried away another of [Zach’s mother’s] blows, and when I countered, I landed a swift punch to her kidney and another to her face . . . Across the room, Zach had taken an old sword from the wall and was fighting two men at once.” Both Zach and Cammie eventually get away, and are okay.  

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • Cammie and her roommates drug an apple with truth serum, then interrogate their teacher/suspect. “It took four seconds for Liz to take the syringe from her bag. Her hands were shaking as I pulled the apple from my tray and held it beneath the table.” After their teacher eats the apple, they ask him some questions.  

Language    

  • None 

Supernatural  

  • None 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

The Okay Witch

Thirteen-year-old Moth loves everything witchy. She spends much of her time watching shows and reading books about witches, but she soon discovers that witches are not the stuff of spooky stories, movies, and fantasy. 

After a run-in with some eighth-grade bullies, something strange happens. Moth soon discovers she is a witch and her town, Founder’s Bluff, has a centuries-long drama with witches. If that’s not surprising enough, her family is at the center of it all. When Moth’s powers show up, things get strange. She finds a magic diary, meets a talking cat, and discovers a hidden witch world. Through these, Moth unravels more secrets from generations past, learning more about the town, her family’s history, and herself. 

The graphic novel The Okay Witch focuses on Moth, allowing the readers insight into Founder’s Bluff, the history of the witches, and how Moth acclimates to being a witch. Readers will relate to the seemingly fast and strange changes in Moth’s life. Moth is excitable, passionate, and stubborn. She butts heads with her mother occasionally. Moth’s mother doesn’t want her to get involved with “witch-stuff” because Moth’s mother thinks that “witch-stuff” is dangerous. However, by listening to her mother and her grandmother, Moth realizes her mother was trying to make her more aware of the attention her powers will bring and the weight of the responsibility in learning the history of the witches.

The drawings in this graphic novel are colorful and do an excellent job of portraying the characters’ emotions through their facial expressions. Reluctant readers may like that most pages do not have words but instead tell the story through drawings. Readers will love the switches from soft pastels to saturated colors, which not only makes the characters pop off the page but also makes it easier to tell the difference between the diary entries and the real world. 

Moth learns about her family history, her grandmother’s cohort of witches, and how Moth herself fits into it. Her grandmother and mother have figured out where they feel they belong in terms of being with or without their kind; now Moth gets to find the answer for herself. When Moth’s grandmother tells her about finding solidarity with the witches, Moth decides to watch and think about what she wants to do with her magic. Through this interaction between Moth and her grandmother, The Okay Witch shows the importance of family and legacy as well as the personal choice each person must make in order to make life fulfilling. 

Though many readers will enjoy reading the graphic novel The Okay Witch, the plot is not unique and there is too much focus on Moth’s understanding of the past and not enough focus on the present consequences of being a modern-day witch. While not unique, The Okay Witch is a good story for readers who like stories about the everyday lives of fictional witches. Readers who enjoy graphic novels about friendship should also read Stargazing by Jen Wang. Ravenous by MarcyKate Connolly tells a unique story involving a witch, and readers who want to know more about historical witches should read What Were the Salem Witch Trials by Joan Holub.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • Mayor Kramer kidnapped Moth’s mother. Moth goes to the Kramer residence to get her mother back. However, she badmouths Mayor Kramer’s family’s ancestors and ends up angering the ghosts living in the paintings. The ghosts are depicted grabbing Moth and holding her up against a pillar. 
  • To help her daughter, Moth’s mother distracts the ghosts and is seen whacking them with several objects, including a potted plant and a sword, to no avail. Moth and her mother use magic to eradicate the ghosts. The ghosts are seen disintegrating into tiny, green pieces that eventually disappear. This scene occurs over seven pages.
  • To attempt to defeat Moth and her mother, the ghosts try to possess Moth’s friend but fail. However, they succeed in possessing the mayor. The possessed mayor lifts Moth’s mother up to a broken window to throw her out of it, but Moth, in desperation, uses magic to get rid of the ghosts. The ghosts are seen going up in green smoke. This scene lasts for two pages. 

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • None

Language   

  • Two students call Moth “Mothball.” 
  • A bully calls Moth and her friend “mutants.”
  • A girl says “OMG.”
  • Judge Nathaniel Kramer, one of the mayor’s ancestors, calls the witches “she-devils.”

Supernatural 

  • Moth Hush is a witch, like her mother and grandmother. She spends a lot of time around her mother, who doesn’t want her to practice magic. However, Moth learns a lot of spells when her mother isn’t looking. Throughout the course of the story, she uses a lot of charms and spells. In short, she involves herself with magic whenever she can. As such, not all instances of magic will be listed here. 
  • Witches cast magic spells in many ways. The magic can be done non-verbally with intent behind the spell, incantations, gestures, or a mix of the three. For example, Moth’s grandmother levitates a few photographs by lifting her hand. 
  • There is a realm called Hecate where the witches from Moth’s grandmother’s cohort live. The witches offered a piece of themselves to Hecate, the goddess of magic, in order to seek refuge from the regular humans that were trying to hurt them. 
  • When someone dies, “their spirit may still hang around if they have unfinished business. . . Some ghosts possess bodies and objects and buildings.” For example, Mr. Laszlo is a ghost because he wanted to help Moth be the best witch she can be. He possesses a black cat and shares the body of the cat.   

Spiritual Content 

  • Moth’s grandmother tells a story about how the Sun became good. “Once the Moon was the only light in the world, and there was only night. Until the Moon was called away on business by our dear Hecate. So Moon said to her daughter Sun, ‘Keep watch over the world. Be a good girl and go around the whole thing. But forget not that you are precious, bright and fearful hot. If you get too close to the things below, you’ll burn them up in your fire.’”  

The Tea Dragon Festival

A worthy sequel to the debut graphic novel The Tea Dragon Society, The Tea Dragon Festival immerses readers in a charming fantasy realm where humans and dragons dwell in harmony. Readers may recognize cheerful bounty hunters, Hese and Erik, from the previous installment in the series, but the couple appears noticeably younger and are able-bodied, as this story takes place before Erik’s debilitating injury in battle. 

New characters include Rinn, a young chef learning to use natural ingredients in their recipes with the help of their grandmother, Gramman. While foraging in the woods outside of Silverleaf Village, Rinn stumbles upon a shapeshifting creature named Aedhan who has been asleep for eighty years. Aedhan belongs to the Shining Wing clan of dragons, whose duty it is to oversee the Tea Dragon Festival and protect Silverleaf Village. 

Soon Hese and Erik arrive from their bounty hunting escapades and reveal that they have been tracking a forest spirit that has the power to make its victims sleep for decades without aging. They follow clues to a magical glade and tell the spirit that if it wants to share memories of its flourishing species from thousands of years ago, it should make people dream for a matter of hours rather than decades. The creature bows its head and leaves peacefully. 

When it is time for the Tea Dragon Festival to begin, the village sets up decorations and shares a bounteous feast of home-cooked recipes made from foraged ingredients and tea leaves that will allow Aedhan to glimpse the memories and events during the eighty years he was asleep. Rinn and Aedhan share this meaningful meal and notice their new feelings for one another. Rinn decides that they would rather enjoy cooking as a hobby than as a vocation. Hese and Erik set out on new adventures hinting at the events of the other two books in this lovable trilogy. 

Nonbinary readers will likely identify with Rinn, as well as Aedhan, who remarks that dragons are capable of shifting between male and female forms. Queerness is not called into question or judged in their world. The Tea Dragon Festival also provides positive representation for disabled people, especially the deaf or hard-of-hearing and users of sign language. 

Like in The Tea Dragon Society, O’Neill’s endearing artistic style continues to immerse readers in a flourishing realm that values family, traditions, nature, and following one’s heart. The story is introduced with an author’s note about the depiction of sign language in italicized captions, to distinguish it from verbal dialogue without diminishing its value as a form of communication. 

The Tea Dragon Festival is an adorable companion to its precedent and fluently builds readers’ curiosity about the third installment in the trilogy. Although the premise of making peace with the forest spirit rather than slaying it is appealing, its execution is anticlimactic. The story does not explain how Hese and Erik avoid succumbing to slumber in their encounter with the creature, nor how they manage to communicate with it. Other than this oversight, this graphic novel shows an impressive capacity for storytelling, art, and positive representation. 

Sexual content 

  • None 

Violence 

  • Aedhan fights off a large griffin to protect Rinn and their little sibling, drawing blood from a painful gash. 

Drugs and Alcohol  

  • When brewed into tea, leaves harvested from the small household pets known as tea dragons have the power to send the drinker into a trance and glimpse their own memories or past events experienced by those around them. 

Language  

  • None 

Supernatural 

  • The book includes multiple fantasy creatures, such as shape-shifting dragons, anthropomorphic birds, and humans with features like tails, horns, furred ears, or goat legs. 

Spiritual Content  

  • None 

What We Saw

When best friends Abbi and Skylar witness a clandestine meeting between a mysterious woman and someone in a dark van, they’re thrilled. Finally, a mystery to spice up the summer!

Who could these people be? Why are they meeting? Are they spies? Criminals? The two girls are determined to find out. But then a local woman goes missing and is found dead in the woods. And Abbi and Skylar realize that their detective work could hold the keys to solving her murder. Suddenly, sleuthing isn’t so fun anymore.

As tensions rise and their friendship frays, the girls find themselves in increasing danger, and must choose between keeping a secret or exposing a life-altering truth.

What We Saw is told from Abbi’s point of view and her best friend, Skylar, also plays a significant role. Nevertheless, readers may have a difficult time relating to either of the girls. Of the two, Skylar is more adventurous, but she is also jaded because her father is a “cheater.” On the other hand, Abbi is more fearful and often follows Skylar’s lead, even when she knows she shouldn’t. Both girls are secretive and hide things from their mothers because they don’t want to get into trouble. Even when the girls realize they have information about the missing woman, the girls don’t come forward at first. Both girls are immature and self-absorbed which makes it difficult to connect with them.

When Abbi discovers who killed her teacher, Ms. Sullivan, Abbi’s only concern is not letting her mom find out what she’s been up to. Instead of telling her mother the truth, she keeps quiet because “right now, I need a mom who loves me, not one who’s too mad at me to care if I go to jail. I’ll lie my head off to keep her on my side as long as I can.” First of all, Abbi isn’t thinking clearly since she has done nothing illegal. Secondly, Abbi’s mother is portrayed as a reasonable, caring parent who isn’t going to hate her daughter. In fact, when Abbi’s mother finds out part of the truth, she tells Abbi that she will never hate her.

While What We Saw is supposed to be a thriller, there is very little suspense besides the description of the creepy woods that is close to the girls’ treehouse. Instead, Abbi focuses on the typical boring events of the summer—going to the pool, going to the mall, and hanging out with Skylar. In addition, the story often goes off on an unnecessary tangent such as Abbi thinking about the books she’s reading. Another example is when Abbi sees her art teacher leaving Victoria’s Secret and thinks, “She’s my teacher. I don’t want to know she wears lacy bras or sexy lingerie.” These events slow down the pace and do little to advance the plot. 

To make matters worse, the story’s conclusion doesn’t show any personal growth in Abbi. When Abbi goes to Ms. Sullivan’s funeral, Abbi still focuses on herself. Abbi misses her teacher and thinks about Ms. Sullivan’s paintings, but she’s not concerned about the other people who are affected by her death. After the funeral, Abbi thinks of “Skylar and me and the strange distance that’s opened between us. . . I wonder what eighth grade will be like.” Unfortunately, What We Saw lacks the suspense and mystery that is typical in Mary Downing Hahn’s stories. Mystery-loving fans will want to skip What We Saw and instead explore a book with more depth and insight. For a mystery wrapped up in suspense, you can read The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel by Sheela Chari or Isabel Feeney, Star Reporter by Beth Fantaskey.

Sexual Content 

  • As the girls are biking through town, a “beat-up red pickup slows down long enough for the driver to bang on his door and yell something gross at us.” Skylar says the person is “a perv.”
  • Skylar’s father is a “cheater” who ran off with a woman. Skylar brings this up often.
  • Skylar and Abbi are in a tree house when they see two cars stop at the end of a dead-end road. Skylar says, “Maybe the woman is married and she’s meeting the man in secret. Or maybe he’s the one who’s married. Or they both could be married—to other people.”
  • Abbi watches a news report on her teacher’s death. “Ms. Sullivan was assaulted and killed in the woods near Marie Drive. A thirteen-year-old boy found her body under a pile of branches and trash near the train tracks.” 
  • Skyler thinks that two of her teachers, Ms. Sullivan and Mr. Boyce, were having an affair. She says, “Ms. Sullivan was a cheater, too. She knew he was married, she knew he had a kid, but all she cared about was breaking up his marriage so he could be with her. In some ways, she’s worse than he is.”

Violence 

  • Two mean boys from Skylar’s school, Carter and Jason, see the girls on their bikes. “Jason tightens his grip on Skylar’s handlebars, and Carter blocks me. . . Carter makes a move to grab my [Abbi’s] backpack, and I duck away. My feet tangle in the pedals and the bike and I topple over.” Abbi has blood “running down my leg from a cut.” 
  • Skylar finds her brother smoking pot with some of his friends. Her brother says, “Calm down, Skylar, it’s just pot. It’s legal in some places now.”
  • While at Dairy Queen, a man named Paul “grabs Jason by the shirt and says, ‘Keep it up and I’ll punch your face in.’” Abbi’s mom’s boyfriend jumps in and calms Paul down. The boyfriend says that Paul “has issues…Drugs and stuff.”
  • Carter and Jason see Skylar and Abbi coming down the treehouse ladder. As Jason goes up the ladder, he grabs Abbi’s backpack and she falls “not far enough to kill me, but it hurt when I landed hard on my butt.”
  • Carter and Jason get into a fight. “Jason punches Carter, and Carter punches him back. They grab each other like wrestlers and grunt and strain and struggle until Jason’s face turns so red I think he’s dying of heatstroke.” Abbi breaks up the fight.
  • Skylar and Abbi follow Carter and Jason into the woods where they see an old trailer house. A drug dealer, Paul, and his dog Diablo appear and when Diablo smells the kids, they all run. Paul shoots at them as they leave. Skylar, Abbi and Jason stay together, but Carter runs off in another direction.
  • Jason tells the girls how Ms. Sullivan died. After Ms. Sullivan wanders into the woods, she finds Paul’s old trailer. Then, Paul sees her. “He must’ve been out of his mind on drugs. . . He accused her of being after his drug money. . . he hit her. And he hit her, and he hit her again, and he just kept hitting her. And she was yelling, fighting back, but, but—”
  • A police officer tells Abbi that Paul is in jail. When the police went to arrest Paul, they found Carter “badly beaten. He’s in the hospital being treated for severe dog bites and fractures.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • A boy at school smokes cigarettes.
  • Skylar found pot in her brother’s bedroom. Later, Skylar’s brother tells her, “Buying that stuff was a once-in-a-lifetime mistake.”
  • Twice during dinner, Abbi’s mom and her boyfriend have a beer.
  • Skylar and Abbi go to their teacher’s house to get advice. In his kitchen, “the recycling bin overflows with beer cans.” Later, when they go back to his house, Abbi notices that he “smells like beer and coffee.”
  • Carter and Jason were selling drugs for Paul. 

Language   

  • The kids in the story occasionally call other people names such as moron, jerk, druggie, and idiot.
  • Carter blows cigarette smoke in Abbi’s face and says “Bowwow, ugly dog.” 
  • Hell is used once.
  • Jason says that Paul is a “freaking crazy man. A psycho.” 
  • Oh my God is used as an exclamation twice.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • When Abbi finds out her teacher was murdered, she asks, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to people like her? I don’t understand.”

Wild & Chance

When a girl wakes up trapped on a sinking ship with no memory of who she is, she has nothing but her instinct to survive. As she fights her way to freedom, she quickly discovers two incredible facts: she is a dog and she can understand human speech. Soon, she befriends a thirteen-year-old boy named Chance who gives her a name of her own: Wild. 

But Wild and Chance find themselves running for their lives, pursued by relentless Animal Control officers. Joined by a mysterious hacker girl named Junebug, the unlikely trio fight for survival while trying to solve the mystery of Wild’s extraordinary strength, super-intelligence, and high-tech collar.

Wild’s heart-pounding story will grab readers from the very first page when she almost dies in a yacht explosion. After surviving the ocean, a dog fighting ring, and Animal Control, Wild thinks her problems are over. When Chance befriends Wild, the two connect over the discovery that they are both looking for a home. However, the two are forced to flee as they realize that Maelstrom, a secret military organization, will stop at nothing to silence Wild forever.

Readers will instantly get wrapped up in Wild’s fight for survival. Wild’s unique perspective shows her struggle to fight against her breeding—she was genetically engineered to make humans love her and then kill them. Wild has no desire to hurt anyone, but she must constantly fight her instincts. Despite her past, Wild is determined to keep her new friends, Chance and Junebug, safe. However, Wild isn’t completely sure that Junebug can be trusted. Despite this, Wild is determined to keep her promise to Chance and reunite him with his mother.

Even though Wild is a dog, many readers will relate to her desire to understand her past and determine her own future. The fast-paced mystery is full of action-packed chases, several intense dog fights, and a dramatic conclusion that will leave readers in tears. Wild, Chance, and Junebug are complex characters who are thrown together by circumstance but connect through friendship. While Wild & Chance is a heart-stopping, entertaining book, readers who want to avoid violence should instead read the Wild Rescuers Series by Stacy Plays and the Survival Tails Series by Katrina Charman.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • Wild wakes up on a yacht that smells of gasoline. She sees a boat of soldiers off to the side. One soldier shoots a flare. “There’s a loud whoosh as the flare hits the yacht and the fuel ignites. The explosion comes less than a second later, a thunderclap that shakes the entire vessel and causes the deck to tilt at a steep angle.” Wild jumps into the ocean before the yacht sinks.
  • A man captures Wild and takes her to a dog fighting ring. Not wanting to fight, Wild tries to get off the platform. “I try to run between [the bystanders’] legs to get away, but they kick at me, boots connecting with my hindquarters.” 
  • Wild is forced to fight Thunder, a rottweiler. “The moment I turn, he leaps at me, mouth open wide as he springs for my neck. . . It seems there’s no way to escape this fight, but I no longer want to escape. I want this dog’s throat in my teeth.” Wild forces herself not to kill Thunder. Instead, she twists “to the side, flinging Thunder away from me, hearing him yelp as the big dog goes airborne across the pit. . . “. The dog fight is described over three pages before Wild finds a way to escape the fight.
  • Wild comes across a kid who is corned by a group of boys. “Without warning, the older kid punches him in the stomach, doubling him over. The boy tries to get away, but he’s trapped between a brick wall and the three kids hovering over him.” The older boy hits the kid again and Wild jumps in. Wild is “overwhelmed by a desire to protect the skinny boy. . . I bare my teeth and roar at full volume.” The bullies leave. The scene is described over two pages.
  • Chance hides Wild in his closet. The next morning, two men dressed as animal control appear offering money in exchange for the dog. In the exchange, the men reveal that they plan to kill Wild. When Wild runs, “both officers flick open their zappers and sparks fly. . . The small officer points his zapper in my direction, and an arc of electricity shoots out like a lightning bolt.” In order to escape, “I spin and kick him in the chest with my hind legs, hard enough to knock him backward into the small officer and send the two of them crashing to the ground.” Wild and Chance run. The scene is described over four pages.
  • In order to remove a GPS tracking device, Wild uses her teeth to bite it out. Wild bites “down, ignoring my disgust, and get a fang into my skin. I feel a sharp pain as my tooth pierces the flesh. . .” The dog removes the tracker and throws it out the window.
  • Chance, Wild, and Junebug get picked up by a police officer, who puts them in the back of his police car. The kids know they are in trouble when the police officer drives past the police station and begins heading to a remote location. On the way there, a truck intentionally runs into the police car. “The truck hits us at full speed. Metal grinds against metal and glass shatters. For a few seconds, the patrol car is airborne, and then it crashes down hard, rolling over on itself, flinging us violently from side to side.” The kids and Wild wake up with their wounds cleaned and no serious injuries.
  • In order to find out why Wild has special abilities, Wild and her friends go to see Dr. Pao, who lives in a fenced compound. While there, they hear an explosion. “Another explosion knocks us to the ground, and the rear wall of the compound shatters in front of me. . . A wall of electricity floods the compound, beams crisscrossing, smashing whatever they touch.” Dr. Pao shows the kids a way to escape.
  • As the kids try to escape the soldiers that are on the compound, “Junebug rears back and kicks him hard in the groin, cutting off his sentence and doubling him over with a grunt of pain.” Junebug runs, but Chance disappears. Wild finds Chance. “A Maelstrom soldier has an arm around Chance’s throat, holding him tight. He also has a fully charged zapper with sparks flying from the tip.” Wild free Chance and the two escape. The chase scene is described over eight pages.
  • Another specialized Maelstrom dog is sent to kill Wild. Wild describes, “The dog turns to Chance, his eyes red, drool flowing. He charges without warning . . . I howl and attack, my heart pumping, eyes blind with range. I crash into him from the side, catching him off guard, and my jaws close around his neck.” When Wild realizes that the dog will hurt the children, Wild twists “and throw[s] him high into the air, as hard and as far as I can.” The dog falls over a cliff and dies. The scene is described over four pages.
  • Wild has a flashback to before she was on the yacht. Wild was placed with a family so she could spy on the mother. Once Maelstrom had enough information, Wild was ordered to kill the family. Wild refused and instead, she “lunged at my handler, clamping down on his arm, stripping him of the zapper, and attacking him. His screams are the ones I’ve been hearing in my nightmares.”
  • General Rupani, a Maelstrom soldier, holds Chance captive in order to force Wild to kill a family. Instead of killing the family, Wild breaks into the Maelstrom command center. “The soldiers realize what’s going on and come at me, but I’m moving on instinct, arcing in the air and smashing as I go, a whirlwind of legs and body strikes, and take out the entire room in a matter of seconds.”
  • In order to save Chance and Wild from her father, Junebug takes a zapper “using it like a baseball bat and striking the general in the back of the head with a loud smack. General Rupani grunts and his eyes roll back into his head.” The escape scene is described over six pages.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • A man finds Wild who is thirsty and hungry. In order to capture Wild, the man gives Wild “a little something. . .to relax you.” The drug makes Wild fall asleep.
  • When Wild wakes up, she’s in a warehouse with a bunch of rich people who are drinking cocktails.
  • Chance’s mom is in drug rehab. Chance tells Wild, “She isn’t a bad person, Wild. She’s an addict. The drugs make you do things you wouldn’t do if you were thinking straight.”

Language   

  • Bullcrap is used once.
  • Heck is used twice.
  • Damn and darn are both used once.
  • As Chance and Wild are running from Animal Control, they hear a helicopter. Chance shouts, “Animal Control doesn’t have friggin’ helicopters!”
  • Junebug says, “My dad can be a real jerk sometimes.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

Ride On

Victoria has always loved horses. But riding in competitions is high stakes, high stress, and shockingly expensive. And even though Victoria’s best friend Taylor loves competing, Victoria has lost her taste for it.

After a heartbreaking fight with Taylor, Victoria needs a new start—at a new stable. A place where she doesn’t have to worry about anything other than riding. No competition, no drama, no friends. Just horses.

Edgewood Stables seems ideal. There are plenty of horses to ride, and Victoria is perfectly happy giving the other riders the cold shoulder. But can she truly be happy with no friends?

While Ride On will specifically appeal to horse-loving readers, the graphic novel also has a universal theme of friendship which all readers will be drawn to. Victoria’s past is murky and, although it is slowly revealed, she never explains why she has rejected all her friends including her yearbook friends. Despite the fear of rejection, Victoria slowly warms up to Norrie, Hazel, and Sam; while they all share a love of horses, it’s their love of the sci-fi television series, Beyond the Galaxy, that brings them all together. This adds both an interesting twist and some humor to the story.

Many readers will relate to Victoria’s insecurities as well as her desire to have a well-rounded life that doesn’t completely revolve around horse competitions. In a world where competitive sports are the norm, Ride On reminds readers that they do not need to let one thing consume all their time. Instead, they can love horses, cosplay, and hanging out with friends. Along the way, the story explores the importance of friendship as well as getting over fears. These lessons are wrapped up in a good story with interesting, relatable characters who often struggle with being different. Seeing the characters grow and connect is heartwarming as well as entertaining. 

The graphic novel’s artwork uses vivid colors to bring the characters to life. One of the best aspects of the illustrations is the characters’ facial expressions and body language—both of these will help readers understand the characters’ emotions. The horse pictures are wonderful as well. Some pages tell the story only through pictures, while other pages have up to seven sentences per page. This, along with the easy vocabulary, make Ride On accessible to most readers. 

Ride On highlights everyone’s need for companionship and validation. The graphic novel is a character-driven story that doesn’t have a lot of exciting conflicts. However, the characters are interesting enough to keep readers hooked. The conclusion holds several surprises that show the true meaning of friendship. Similar to Ride On, the graphic novel series Eagle Rock by Hope Larson is another coming-of-age story that explores the need to find your passion.

Sexual Content 

  • None

Violence 

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • None

Language   

  • Crap is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

A Grimm Warning

While his sister, Alex, decided to stay in the fairy world to become a fairy trainee, Conner hasn’t had any adventures and he’s starting to like it that way. While he misses the Land of Stories and its endless fun, the real world has presented Conner with exciting opportunities, such as a school trip to Europe with his crush, Bree. While Alex busies herself with her upcoming acceptance into the Happily Ever After Assembly – the council of kings, queens, and fairies – Conner travels to Europe for a reading of three recently recovered stories written by The Brothers Grimm that had been sealed away for 200 years. 

But the final story reveals a grave warning for the fairytale world, and Conner knows fate has brought him here to decipher the message. He must warn Alex and his friends that General Marquis, a French officer from Napoleon’s Army, wanted to launch an attack on the Land of Stories centuries ago. The Brothers Grimm were able to delay them until the present time, but very soon a portal will open and the French Army will pour into the fairytale world to wreak havoc. Conner must warn them before the army arrives. 

Bree, who has been suspicious of Conner’s tales, tags along as they travel through Europe with the help of a German boy named Emmerich and search for an entrance to the Land of Stories. Conner warns Alex of the coming threat, but sadly, Alex has news in return: The Fairy Godmother, their grandma, is sick. Despite their grandmother’s impending death, the twins work together to rally the kingdoms and prepare for war. Though the battle is difficult, the fairytale world is able to beat back the French Army, but the victory is bittersweet. The Fairy Godmother passes away and now Alex must step up and take on the role of Fairy Godmother. But at least through everything, the twins still have each other.

Alex and Conner are entertaining and relatable narrators. Alex’s serious and scholarly nature contrasts Conner’s witty and easy-going personality, making them a fun duo. As the twins grow older, this installment of the Land of Stories attempts to deal with more mature themes, such as first love and the death of close family members. However, Alex and Conner always support each other during rough times. The twins’ selflessness is admirable, as is their dedication to doing what’s right even if it interferes with their personal desires.

Though the plot for this novel was a bit more outlandish than the previous stories, the Land of Stories series stays true to its themes of relying on family, protecting one’s friends, and staying brave in the face of evil. Additionally, one of main conflicts in this book is that to defeat General Marquis’ army, all the factions in the fairytale world will need to work together. The kingdoms haven’t always seen eye to eye, and they have also excluded certain groups like the elves and troblins (the name used to refer to the troll and goblin community) due to past grievances. However, everyone is stronger together. Alex says, “Every creature is an individual and we can’t punish an entire race for mistakes made by individuals. As easy as it is to label large groups with the reputation of their ancestors, it isn’t right.” 

With the new council in place, Alex and Conner hope that the Land of Stories can recover from the war and move towards a more united future. However, the book ends by suggesting that the twins’ greatest personal battle is about to begin: a strange, masked prisoner who vows to eliminate all fairies is caught stealing an unknown potion from the twins’ late grandmother’s bedroom. It seems that Alex and Conner will still have plenty of adventures ahead of them. Readers who enjoy epic stories with feats of bravery should also check out the Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series by Rick Riordan and the Kingdom Keepers Series by Ridley Pearson

Sexual Content 

  • Conner makes a joke to Alex about how their personalities are so different. Conner says, “Alex, I’ve been impressed by you since the womb. I’m sure your part of the uterus was much neater and more organized than mine.” Alex replies, “Really, Conner? A uterus joke?”
  • Goldilocks and Jack, members of the Land of Stories, kiss at their wedding. “Jack and Goldilocks locked lips and their crowd of guests cheered wildly.”
  • Rook, a village boy who Alex is crushing on, kisses Alex several times throughout the story. “Rook stepped even closer to [Alex] and placed a hand on the side of her face. He looked into her eyes for a moment and then slowly leaned his head closer to hers. . . Rook kissed her for the first time.” Later, Alex says that her favorite days are the ones that end with a good-night kiss from Rook. 
  • Bree kisses Conner on the cheek. Conner says, “I’ve come to the conclusion that I might – possibly – maybe – do have a crush on you.” Bree replies, “I have a crush on you too.” 

Violence 

  • General Marquis threatens the Brothers Grimm. “. . . The brothers were gagged again, their hands retied behind their backs, and the black sacks placed over their heads. . . “ Then the general says, “Find a portal in two months or I’ll make you watch as I personally kill everyone you love.”
  • The talking lion statue explains how Mother Goose and the Brothers Grimm made the magical portal open. “Mother Goose took a dagger and made a cut in her hand and one in Wilhelm Grimm’s hand . . . they held their hands tightly together and let some of the magic from Mother Goose’s blood flow into his.”
  • When the portal is opened and all the French soldiers fall out, the scene is gruesome. “Hundreds of men and pieces of equipment rained from the sky . . .  many soldiers barely missed being crushed by the carriages or cannons or horses that fell beside them . . . Most of [the soldiers] held their heads in agony or vomited.” 
  • General Marquis executes an old man who helped the soldiers. “‘Unfortunately, you know too much,’ [General Marquis] said. ‘Get rid of him.’ The old man screamed. ‘No! Please! I have a family!’ he pleaded, but it was no use. The general didn’t have an ounce of mercy to spare. [The soldiers] dragged the old man into the foggy woods and his screams echoed through the trees around them. A moment later a gunshot was heard and the woods were silent again.”
  • While Alex and Conner are on the back of one of Mother Goose’s geese—Lester—a cannon shoots him. “A rogue cannonball bolted through the sky and blasted through Lester’s right wing. The gander squawked in pain as he and the twins began rapidly descending toward the trees on the horizon. . . They crashed hard into the ground. . . Alex and Conner were too wounded to get to their feet. They both had broken several bones. They heard Lester squawking in the distance – he was perhaps in even more pain than they were.” Alex and Conner fall unconscious. Their injuries are magically healed by a witch. 
  • A witch describes how she healed Little Bo Peep’s broken heart. “I cut out a small piece of Little Bo’s heart, the part that was full of hurt and longing for the men in her life, and I turned it to stone.”
  • General Marquis shoots two of his soldiers. “General Marquis turned to [the soldiers] and shot them both in the foot. They fell backward and slid down the canyon walls. They moaned as they tried to get to their feet. A low growling noise vibrated up the canyon walls and the [soldiers’] moaning increased. A series of deafening screeches echoed next from the canyon, but they weren’t human. . . the camp heard the [soldiers] scream as they were eaten alive” by a dragon.
  • The battle between General Marquis’s army and the Land of Stories takes place over nearly 40 pages. A few people’s deaths are described. There is some violence, such as when Alex fights back by using magic. “Alex swished her wand through the air at [the soldiers]. Their rifles were transformed into long-stemmed roses that pricked their fingers before they could shoot.” 
  • When Rook betrays Alex, she gets angry and lashes out violently. “Without thinking, Alex took her heartbreak out on the soldiers charging at her. She cracked her wand like a whip and a burst of white light sent the soldiers flying into the air.” 
  • Gator, a troll, dies in the battle. “Gator was too small to fight the soldier off alone and lost his balance. The soldier stabbed him in the stomach and Gator fell to the ground. . . the little troll died before he could say another word.” 
  • Little Bo Peep dies. “Bo Peep clutched the side of her chest. . . [she] collapsed on the ground and became very still. . . Little Bo Peep had died of a broken heart.” 
  • The unicorns help fight the dragon. “The unicorns stabbed their horns into the dragon’s feet and he roared in pain. The dragon picked the unicorns up with his front claws and threw them into the forest. . . The dragon grew impatient and scorched the remaining unicorns with his breath.” 
  • The dragon turns on General Marquis and kills him. “The dragon took a deep breath and exhaled a long and powerful fiery geyser from his lungs. The geyser hit the general and he was consumed in its vicious flames. When the dragon stopped, the ground beneath the general had been scorched black and General Marquis was gone.” 
  • The Fairy Godmother kills the dragon. “A long, silvery trail erupted from the tip of the Fairy Godmother’s wand. She happily waved her wand in the air as if she were conducting an orchestra and the trail slashed through the air like a giant whip. The trail grew longer and longer by the second. The dragon jumped back and forth, trying to avoid it. Eventually, the trail was so long the dragon tangled himself in it when he tried flying away. . . She cracked her wand like a whip again, and the trail that was wrapped around the dragon grew brighter and brighter. The others covered their eyes at the blinding sight and the dragon burst into clumps of ash.” 
  • When defeating the dragon, the Fairy Godmother exhausted her powers. “The Fairy Godmother’s eyes closed for the final time. Her body became weightless in [the twins’] hands, transformed into hundreds of bright sparkling lights.”  

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Mother Goose gets poisoned while in a tavern. 
  • Mother Goose says, “Last time I officiated a wedding, Puss in Boots drank all my bubbly.” 
  • Mother Goose has a flask hidden in her hat and “takes a swig” from it twice. 
  • Mother Goose talks about a tavern that she went to with her “drinking buddies.” 
  • Mother Goose wakes the unconscious Conner by splashing him in the face with alcohol. “Mother Goose removed her flask from her hat and splashed [Conner’s] face with the liquid inside.”

Language   

  • General Marquis calls Mother Goose an “old lush.” 
  • Mother Goose calls Lester, her goose, “mattress filler”
  • Queen Red Riding Hood refers to her rival Bo Peep as “Little Bo Bimbo” and, “A pain in the shepherdess.” 
  • When the fairies don’t want to join the war, Conner says, “Screw the code.” 
  • Conner calls Rook a “stupid boy who needs a haircut.” 
  • Conner refers to the evil enchantress Ezmia as a “narcissistic wench.” 
  • General Marquis calls Conner a “stupid, pathetic, ignorant little boy.” 

Supernatural 

  • All fairytale stories are true in the Land of Stories . . . there is a portal connecting the Land of Stories to the human world, called the Otherworld.
  • Because Alex and Conner’s mother is from the human world but their father is from the Land of Stories, they have a bit of magic in their blood which brings them good luck.
  • The Fairy Godmother can do magic. She is described by General Marquis as someone who “wears robes that sparkle like the night sky, has white flowers in her hair, and carries a long crystal wand.” She can travel between the fairytale world and the Otherworld as well as transform objects. 
  • Mother Goose is another main character in the story. She can do magic, such as teleport, and she travels on a giant goose named Lester. 
  • Mother Goose escapes the Marquis by using magic. “She reached out an open hand and the golden egg floated straight out of the box and into the wagon where she sat. And, with a blinding flash, Mother Goose and the golden egg disappeared into thin air.”
  • Conner has a magic mirror that allows him to contact the fairy world so he can talk to Alex. He uses it periodically throughout the story.
  • Alex uses magic to transform her clothes. “Alex picked up her crystal wand from her nightstand and waved it around her body. Her plain nightgown was instantly turned into a long, sparkling dress the color of the sky, and a headband of white carnations appeared on her head.” 
  • Alex has a unicorn. Unicorns have silver horns that can guide them to people in need. 
  • As part of Alex’s fairy training, she goes out each day and performs three wishes to townspeople in need.
  • Conner and Bree get information from a talking lion statue. 
  • Conner and Bree open the portal to the fairy world with a magical panpipe.
  • The twins cast a magic spell that teleports all the soldiers of the Land of Stories’ kingdoms to the same place. “The world appeared in slow motion as they raised the wand above their heads. The twins could feel magic rush through their bodies and into the wand in their hands. . . a gigantic blast of white light erupted from the tip and surrounded them… Alex and Conner had turned themselves into a shooting star that bolted across the sky faster than anything had ever traveled before. . . Upon seeing it, every soldier of the armies, on duty or in hiding, turned into his or her own sphere of light and instantly shot through the sky to join the twins.” 
  • General Marquis hatches a dragon, the first of which to be seen in the fairytale world for many years. “The dragon emerged from the trees and landed at the edge of the fairy gardens. He was almost as tall as the fairy palace. Red scales covered his body and a forked tongue slipped in and out of his sharp teeth. He had two horns and sharp spikes covered his head and traveled down his spine. Two large wings grew out of the dragon’s back and a long tail whipped around behind him.” 

Spiritual Content 

  • Mother Goose says, “Thank God.” 
  • Conner sees a painting of Jesus in a castle in Germany. 
  • When the dragon attacks and there is little hope left, Conner says that the only thing they can do is pray. 

Not That Kind of Girl

Natalie Sterling has made one thing clear: nothing will get in the way of her having a successful senior year of high school. She has big plans, such as applying to colleges and becoming Ross Academy’s student council president. Natalie doesn’t have time for distractions, and she certainly is not like the other girls, who get hung up on boys. But the road to success is not easy. On the first day of school, Natalie takes Spencer under her wing – a girl who has grown up considerably since Natalie used to babysit her long ago. Spencer likes getting attention and she’s not afraid to show it. Meanwhile, Mike Domski, a vulgar football player, is running against Natalie in student council. Still, Natalie stands strong: she is not the kind of girl who gets distracted.

Things start to change after Natalie is elected president. She fights with her best friend Autumn, who despite getting bullied over a failed relationship, still wants to go to parties and talk to guys. Autumn is willing to forgive the people who spread rumors about her, but Natalie can’t understand why her best friend would even associate with those people. Not to mention, Natalie’s caught the eye of one of Mike’s friends, Connor, who kisses her one night after school. Worst of all, Natalie starts to like him in return. 

Natalie’s perfect senior year crumbles. She sneaks out to see Connor nightly, letting her grades suffer in exchange for secret kisses. Natalie’s confidence wavers as she thinks about how people would perceive her if they find out. She might have feelings for Connor, but she says that “the realization that other people would judge what I’d done spoiled everything.” Their relationship becomes strained and awkward when Natalie can’t accept Connor outside their private nights. In addition, Natalie doesn’t speak to Autumn for weeks, and constantly butts heads with Spencer over the way she chases male attention. Disaster strikes when a nude photo of Spencer circulates, and Natalie knows that Mike is the culprit. Spencer begs Natalie not to get involved, but in an effort to protect Spencer, Natalie gets Mike in trouble. Retaliation is swift – Mike reveals that Natalie has been seeing Connor, and suddenly the perfect class president is perfect no more.

When Natalie’s whole world crumbles, she decides that her reputation is not as important as her relationships. Natalie has to accept that some part of her does like boys, and that she loved her time with Connor. The book encourages girls to explore their sexuality as long as they’re comfortable and in control of the situation. Natalie learns she’s okay not having perfect grades or being the perfect student council president. She says, “It didn’t matter if I was the kind of girl who had sex, or the kind of girl who had her portrait on the wall in the library, or the kind of girl who got into the best college . . . I just needed to be okay with all the kinds of girl I was.” She reconciles with Spencer and Autumn, and even asks Connor out on a real date. Not That Kind of Girl ends with Natalie accepting that she can be focused on her goals while still having a relationship. 

This story is narrated in the first person and is an interesting take on high school drama. It can be quite vulgar when the students talk about each other and the things they’ve done, but it is not a complicated read. In fact, Not That Kind of Girl is not the kind of book you’re expecting – the narrator, Natalie, is not the typical “hero-like” narrator. Instead, Natalie is incredibly judgmental about people’s actions and concerned about how she’s perceived, which ruins many of her relationships. While readers may find it hard to stomach Natalie’s harsh criticism, this is a story about a character who learns to be more accepting. 

Natalie realizes that she’s been hypocritical and that it’s not possible to know someone by making assumptions. Natalie used to believe getting into a relationship was a girl’s downfall, but she realizes how wonderful it can be. Natalie starts to understand that just because someone likes boys doesn’t mean that they don’t aspire to do other things. Some readers may have trouble relating to Natalie, but a key aspect of the book is learning to accept that everyone has a different idea of success. At the beginning of the story, Natalie believes that a girl can’t have a relationship and be successful, but the events of the story prove her wrong. Readers can learn a lot from Natalie’s willingness to admit her wrongs and her attempts to be more open-minded. Not That Kind of Girl shows how, when confronted with challenges and opportunities that redefine you, you can either run away or face them head-on. Natalie realizes that her fear of how people perceive her is negatively impacting her life. When she accepts the person she always refused to be, Natalie finds freedom and happiness where she least expects it.

Sexual Content 

  • Natalie says guys will have a successful high school experience if they “wear a condom.”
  • Natalie describes an infamous high school couple as people who “fooled around.” According to Natalie, the girl “took things slow, preferring sweet kisses while walking through piles of crispy autumn leaves over half-naked wrestling matches.” 
  • Natalie describes how two students, Autumn and Chad, almost hooked up in the locker room. “Chad greeted [Autumn] with a grin. A moment later, before they’d even said hello, they were kissing. Which quickly turned into groping. . . Chad tried to convince her with words, with kisses. . . He pleaded with her to stay. After all, she’d barely touched him, and he was so turned on. . . [Autumn] leaned in to kiss [Chad]. A cute peck aimed for the tip of his nose, to make it all okay.” Autumn leaves to go back to class and Chad starts to ignore her. 
  • Natalie says that before this incident with Autumn and Chad, Chad’s “inability to get off with a freshman had become a running joke. . . He’d complain of blue balls after he’d drive [Autumn] home, or hump his locker door in mock frustration after [Autumn] hugged him good morning.” Everyone knew that he was going to hook up with Autumn in the locker room, but when it didn’t happen, he needed an excuse, so he started a rumor that Autumn smells bad. He starts to call Autumn “Fish Sticks” and breaks up with her.
  • Natalie says everyone forgets about the “Fish Sticks” incident months later, “when a junior supposedly had a three-way in her parent’s shower.”
  • Spencer bends down in the hallway, accidentally revealing her underwear. Natalie says, “The girl was kneeling on the floor. . . Her pleated uniform skirt tipped forward like a ringing church bell. A small triangle of lavender mesh barely shielded her rear from the entire hallway.” 
  • Natalie tells Spencer that people can see her underwear. “When you bent over before, you could see everything. And a bunch of boys were enjoying the view.” After Natalie leaves, Spencer bends down again, “her butt back on display for everyone. The eyes of the passing football players flitted to the left as if Spencer’s ass gave off a high-pitched noise at a frequency only boys could detect. One of the guys snatched a binder and flapped it furiously toward Spencer’s rear end, trying to make a strong enough breeze so her skirt would flutter up even higher.” 
  • A jock, Mike Domski, runs for student council with a poster “with a cartoon version of [himself], smoking a cigar and flanked by two busty bikini girls.”
  • Natalie says that one day Mike Domski will marry “a pregnant stripper.”
  • Mike vandalizes Natalie’s student council campaign poster. Originally the poster said “Vote For Natalie, a Leader with Experience.” Mike “had taken a marker and done some doodling at my expense. He had given me a mustache, drawn two enormous penises (one for each of my hands), and a bunch of question marks hovering over my head. He’d crossed out Leader and written VIRGIN on top of it. And squeezed the word NO in before Experience.”
  • When Natalie gets mad at Mike, he says, “I have to say Natalie, your level of intensity is pretty hot. . . I’m actually getting a chubby.” When Natalie tells him to stop, Mike says, “I’m only kidding with you. . . You could never give me a hard-on. You’re like. . . dick repellent.”
  • Natalie drives by a house party where the boys from the football team run out in front of her car drunk. “I tried to inch my car forward, but [it was] pinned by the human roadblock, forced to witness their drunken celebration.” 
  • While the football players surrounded Natalie’s car, “Mike Domski tossed aside a beer can and started humping my hood ornament. . . . ‘I’m trying!’ he moaned. ‘Oh, God, I’m trying!’ After Mike pretended to bring my Honda to orgasm, the laughing boys made their way up the front lawn.”
  • Spencer says that Natalie and Mike have “sexual tension.”
  • When Natalie asks Connor to donate wood for a bonfire, Mike says, “Natalie wants your wood. Bad.” Natalie says, “I don’t need anybody’s wood. I can buy my own wood. . . ” She later realizes what she said and “dream[s] about a tragic accident where Mike’s crotch caught fire.”
  • Spencer and her friends wear inappropriate shirts to school. “Each shirt had a pair of bulbous footballs positioned like pasties over their boobs. And above them, the same single word was printed across the chest, curling in a perfect arch. Rosstitute.” This is a combination of Ross Academy and prostitution. When one of the teachers tells Spencer to change, she takes off her shirt in the hallway. “She took off her shirt, right there, in the middle of the hallway. Her bra was a pink gingham number, with a tiny rosette in the center, underwire working overtime to hoist and enhance a modest amount of cleavage.” 
  • Natalie overhears the football boys talking. Mike says, “I’d like to make that Spencer girl’s titties my business. . . Did you see her dancing? I mean, she’s practically a stripper.” One of the players reminds Mike that Spencer isn’t interested in him because she likes Connor. Mike replies, “You think a girl like her will turn celibate because Connor shuts her down? Trust me, man. The Domski will make it happen. And none of you guys better try and cock block me.” 
  • A football player says, “That skinny blond freshman would be cute if she weren’t totally flat. I might as well feel up my little brother.” 
  • Mike says that Natalie is “the kind of chick who’d cut off your balls in the middle of the night. . . I wouldn’t be surprised at all to hear Natalie has a bigger dick than I do.”
  • Spencer says that girls aren’t permitted to have “sexual needs” in the same way guys are. “I won’t be villainized because I happen to like being sexual. . . Forcing girls to be ashamed for doing the things that come naturally to them – it’s a ridiculous double standard, and we should all, frankly, tell anyone who judges us to screw off.” 
  • During an all-girls meeting, one of the girls admits that she gave a guy a hand job to prove that people treat her differently because she experimented with her sexuality, “My brother found out I gave a hand job to one of his friends, and now he won’t even look at me.” Spencer says, “That’s horrible! Because I bet your brother wishes a girl would give him a hand job. But because you’re his sister, you’re dirty.” 
  • Spencer shows Natalie a picture of “a back-to-school pictorial, where a sexed-up vamp of a teacher stood on her desk in fishnets and stilettos, with schoolboys cowering in a pile on the floor.” 
  • Connor kisses Natalie. Connor “took another step. A big step, closing the gap of air between us. And then he kissed me. He grabbed me and kissed me, and his whole body tensed up. . . When I felt him pull away, I leaned forward and kissed him harder. . . This kiss had heat behind it.” 
  • On Halloween, Spencer dresses as a “slutty construction worker.” The outfit “consisted of a skintight little denim minidress cut to look like a pair of overalls. She had a tight white cami on underneath, and the whole thing fit her like a corset, her boobs bubbling up over the top. The skirt stopped right underneath her butt cheeks, and when she dipped and bent to the music, you got flashes of a pair of electric orange booty shorts. . . She really, truly looked like a stripper.”
  • At the Halloween dance, Natalie notices Connor looking at another girl. Natalie says, “Of course guys like Connor were going to notice the scantily clad girls dancing in front of them. . . Immunity to booty and boobs did not occur in teenage boys.”
  • Spencer tells Natalie she looks hot. “Natalie, you have such a good body. Your butt looks totally hot in those pants. Why are you hiding it from everyone?. . . You could get any guy in this room, if you just loosened up a little.”
  • Connor and Natalie meet secretly in a shed behind Connor’s house, where they kiss. Natalie “leaned in and kissed him fast. . . And then he kissed me. This time with lips parted, as if he was whispering into my mouth. . . His hands moved up to my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. He was warm, hot even. I wrapped my arms around his neck, tucked my fingers down into the back of his collar. My whole body folded into his warmth, and then we both lay down. . . We were moving and pressing and shifting all over each other.” They end the kiss after a while. 
  • Spencer tricks Mike into meeting her at a movie theater. Later, she tells the story to Natalie. Spencer says, “I told Mike to whip it out and have it ready for me. He wrote back, You nasty little girl. . . Anyway, a bunch of girls and I were already hiding in the very last row, and we could see him shimmying and wriggling in his seat. I ducked out and found the manager and let him know that there was a boy with his pants down in theater twelve.”
  • While Natalie and Connor kiss, he tries to undo her bra. “Connor pulled me on top of him, and his hands slid up my back again. . . His fingers tucked underneath my bra strap, then he pinched the closure, trying to pop the hook open.” Natalie stops him.
  • Natalie tells Connor that she knows he lost his virginity in eighth grade. She says that everyone knew that Connor had gotten really drunk and had sex with a girl on New Year’s Eve.
  • Natalie gets a splinter in her rear while in the shed. Connor has to help her pull it out. “Suddenly my left butt cheek burned bad enough for me to gasp. . . I rolled over to my knees and stuck my butt up in the air. . . I unzipped my pants and pulled my jeans down. I’d never been undressed in front of a boy before.” 
  • Natalie looks at herself in the mirror and is unhappy with what she sees. “I wished that I had bigger boobs. . . I turned sideways and stared at the dimpled skin on my upper thigh.” Natalie wondered, “Is this the kind of stuff Connor would see if I let him look at me naked?” 
  • Spencer uses the gesture of wiggling a pinky to make fun of Mike. She says, “I invented a hand gesture to make fun of Mike Domski. It means teeny peeny, and it’s caught on like wildfire.” 
  • Spencer asks if Natalie’s guy is “all good down there” to which Natalie replies that she’s a virgin. Spencer says, “Like a total sex virgin? Or a straight-up intercourse virgin? Because I haven’t had complete sex with anyone before, either, though I’ve done lots of other stuff.”
  • Natalie and Connor have sex. “I lifted up my T-shirt and shimmied out of my pants. I unhooked my bra and slid down my underwear. . . I took Connor’s clothes off too. . . I rolled on top of him and let gravity press us together. Lips, chest, abdomen, thighs. I wasn’t planning to have sex with him. Only now it was all I wanted. . . The entire world fell away until it was just me and Connor. Finally.”
  • A naked picture of Spencer starts to circulate at school. Connor shows Natalie the picture. “Nothing could have prepared me for seeing Spencer like this on the tiny pixelated screen. Her curls, her puckered lips, her bare breasts cast forward toward the cameraman.”
  • Connor gets mad at Natalie for defending Spencer. Natalie says, “Mike takes naked photos of a fourteen-year-old girl and spreads them to the whole school, and I’m the one who did something wrong? . . . I wish that Spencer had kept her freaking boobs covered up… I also wish that the whole school didn’t think I’m a slut.”

Violence  

  • When Mike Domski calls Autumn “Fish Sticks” in the cafeteria, Natalie “reached for the closest object and hurled it at Mike. That turned out to be a slice of my pizza, and it hit him square in the chest.” 
  • Spencer says she wants to cut Autumn’s ex-boyfriend’s balls off because he started the “Fish Sticks” rumor.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Natalie says there is a “smoker’s tree” at her school.
  • Autumn takes Natalie to a party where there are guys smoking and drinking. “We came upon a big boulder. . . A bunch of guys sat on it, drinking beers and blowing smoke into the night sky.”
  • Natalie says that girls avoid the bathroom by the teacher’s lounge, so they don’t get caught smoking cigarettes. 
  • At the Halloween dance, Natalie smells beer on Connor’s breath.

Language   

  • Curse words like ass, shit, bitch, and damn are used occasionally.
  • Occasionally, the teens call each other names such as asshole, bitch, boners, sluts, and nympho.
  • Spencer says, “Mrs. Dockey was just bitching about Principal Hurley not approving her costume budget for the school musical. She actually said that she ‘can’t put on the Wizard of Oz with fucking bedsheets and a burlap sack.’”
  • A football player calls Connor a “lucky bastard” for getting Spencer’s attention.
  • Spencer says that she’s “not looking to shack up with some pervert.”
  • When Natalie tries to host a girls-only event, Mike wants to sign up. He says, “This girl’s night is more of a vaginathon. No dick allowed.” Spencer steps up and says, “That’s right, Mike. No dicks, no dickheads, no cocks, no penises, no wieners, no weewees, no boners, no dongs, no dill weeds, no scrotums allowed. Which, I think, are all adjectives used to describe you.” Mike gives Spencer the middle finger and leaves. 
  • Natalie and Autumn look at Halloween costumes, which Natalie finds too revealing. She says that she’s not going to be “slutting it up” on Halloween. At the Halloween dance, Natalie calls Spencer a “stripper” and calls another girl “Slutty Sherlock Holmes.”
  • Natalie calls Connor “as big of a dick as Mike Domski.” 
  • “Oh God” or “My God” are both used occasionally. 

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • Natalie thinks about a biblical story when things feel awkward between her and Connor. “I thought about Adam and Eve. How they’d been so happy, playing naked in the garden. And then in one moment, it all turned to shame.”
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