Reading Level: Junior High

Waking the Monsters

Mega robot monsters are popping up from the ground, and they’re too big for Hilo to battle on his own. Luckily, Gina can use her magic to help fight the battle. But the closer Hilo and Gina get to the secret behind the monsters, the closer they get to the secret of Hilo’s past. Do they really want to know what happened in the past?

Gina needs to help Hilo, but that means missing cheerleading practice and keeping her activities hidden from her mother. D.J. and Izzy are determined to keep their two friends safe, but every time a monster is powered down another one appears. With all of the unusual events, Hilo is now on the military’s radar. Can Hilo avoid being captured by the army? Is there any way that Hilo and his friend can stop the monster invasion?

The fourth installment of the Hilo Series has the same characters, but a host of new mechanical monsters that need to be defeated. Unlike the previous books, Waking the Monsters focuses on battle scenes. It takes Hilo and all of his friends working together to stop the creatures. Gina is allowed to shine by using her magical ability to help Hilo. Gina’s excitement at being Hilo’s “sidekick” brings humor to the fighting. During the battles, no one is seriously injured and the mechanical monsters are powered down instead of destroyed.

Hilo’s lost memory, the long battles, and the military joining the battle give Waking the Monsters a slightly darker tone than the previous books. However, Hilo’s desire to help others in creative ways will leave readers with a smile. The story has some humor based on farting and butts. For example, Izzy makes an owl that “farts roses” and she shows her friends how it works. Izzy also makes a chicken that speaks Portuguese and “when she gets mad, her butt falls off.”

Brightly colored illustrations will capture readers’ attention, but readers will want to keep turning the pages because of the engaging story and the likable characters. The detailed illustrations show exaggerated facial expressions which will help readers understand the characters’ changing emotions.  For maximum enjoyment, the stories should be read in order. Even though the first chapter recaps the events in the previous books, the story’s plots build on each other.

Readers will be endlessly curious about Hilo’s forgotten memory. The action-packed scenes, the friendships, and the mystery will keep readers turning the pages to the very end. If you’re looking for a story full of action and humor, the Hilo Series is a perfect choice.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Giant mechanical animals begin appearing from out of the ground. The first one, a giant turtle that breathes fire, is going to “smash a town.” Hilo and the turtle fight; Hilo blasts the turtle with an ice blast, and then the turtle hits Hilo who falls to the ground. The turtle then stomps on Hilo. Izzy does a “diagnostic scan” and figures out how to power down the turtle. The fight takes place over eight pages.
  • Over the next several days, other mechanical monsters pop up from the ground and Hilo fights them. One creature looks like an alligator. The fights take place over two pages.
  • A giant mechanical ape appears. The ape is able to detach his hand and grab Hilo. People run screaming as the ape gets closer to the town. Hilo’s suit is damaged and “his audio link in his helmet got bonked. He can’t hear [his friends].” A mechanical monkey and the army show up. Izzy makes a suit for Gina, who joins in the battle and she’s “fighting a giant robot monkey with magical wands.” The monkey learns how to “calibrate your blast and build up a resistance.” Gina uses magic to grow twine that wraps up the monkey. During the battle Hilo gets confused. Izzy is afraid that Hilo is “not in control and he might destroy the other robot.” Gina is able to create vines that go through the ape’s body; the vine takes down the ape by popping its arms off. The battle takes place over 21 pages.
  • While in a military institution, the scientist fixes the mechanical animal that then attacks. The scientist made the creature nine times stronger. Hilo shoots lasers at the creature’s head. Two army men shoot at the creature, but it deflects the shot and blows up the army men’s vehicle. Hilo saves the men and eventually takes the creature down with an ice blast. Hilo goes to sleep and falls to the ground. The scene takes place over eight pages.
  • While Hilo is injured a mechanical creature knocks over the military doctors and tries to communicate with Hilo. When the creature touches Hilo’s hand, it causes Hilo to remember the past. The creature shows Hilo’s home planet being destroyed and the creature says, “They made me into a weapon. They made me destroy my own kind. I asked them to let me stop. But they kept sending me back to destroy more. And more. And more. Just robots like you and me. Robots who were only doing what humans made them do.” Gina appears and uses magic against the creature. The scene takes place over two chapters.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • “Holy Mackerel” is used as an expression occasionally.

Supernatural

  • Polly is a magical warrior cat and an “apprentice sorceress third class.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Ugly Truth

School’s back in session for Greg Heffley, but this time without his best friend Rowley. After Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days where Greg and Rowley end their friendship, Greg is all alone to face the trials and tribulations of middle school. Everything around Greg changes when puberty starts to strike the middle school population and Greg’s Mom returns to her schooling. He finds himself dealing with the pressures of boy-girl parties, increasing responsibilities, and the meaning of getting older all without his best friend. Will Greg survive until winter break or will he have to face the “ugly truth”?

The Ugly Truth’s plot revolves around everything that happens in Greg’s life and is written from his 12-year-old perspective. The story contains a lot of bathroom and childish humor. At one point in the story, Greg puts a whoopie cushion on his Grandma’s chair. When she sits down on it, he can’t stop laughing. After Greg hid rotten eggs in one of his uncle’s pants, his uncle has to move out of the house. The humor is awfully crude and disrespectful at times, and throughout the story Greg is obsessed with trying to get a girlfriend.

Despite the book’s bathroom humor, The Ugly Truth has some positive aspects. Jeff Kinney has a natural talent for using humor to entertain while teaching important life lessons. The Ugly Truth addresses the issue of puberty and the challenges puberty brings in a fun manner. Kinney makes it easy for readers to see that everyone goes through puberty, and it is not something to be ashamed of. Many of the characters even show off some of their changes, like Rowley’s first zit.

The consistent funny black-and-white illustrations help bring Greg’s struggles to life. However, parents should be aware of the book’s drawings and jokes as Kinney often uses bathroom jokes such as Greg’s friends going behind the curtain to make fart sounds at the lock-in. Many of the jokes are inappropriate for really young readers. The topic of sexual health and puberty’s changes comes up often. In addition, parents will not want their children to emulate Greg’s behavior because he demonstrates qualities such as laziness, selfishness, and narcissism. But at the end of the story, Greg shows a sign of maturity and decides to be a better friend to Rowley. He makes the first move in patching things up between them instead of waiting for Rowley to come crawling back to him.

Readers should read the books in sequential order in order to get the full effect of Greg’s character and humor. Many of the events and jokes overlap from book to book. Despite the story’s flaws, readers will relate to Greg as he goes through puberty. The Ugly Truth is a funny, enjoyable story that will entertain and teach practical lessons.

Sexual Content

  • Greg has a major crush on his dental hygienist, Rachel. Greg says, “Rachel always lectures me about brushing and flossing and all that, but she’s so cute that it’s hard to take her seriously.”
  • Greg gets invited to Jordan Jury’s big party along with Rowley and agrees, saying, “I can definitely pretend I’m friends with Rowley for one night if it means I get to play ‘Spin the Bottle’ with a bunch of girls who are a whole grade ahead of me.”
  • Greg thinks about the pros and cons of going to Uncle Gary’s wedding. He thinks about the bachelor party he might be invited to and says, “And as a bonus, at the wedding, I’ll be paired with one of the bridesmaids. I’m just crossing my fingers that Sonja has some cute friends.”
  • Greg’s uncle is getting married for the third time.

Violence

  • After Greg’s big brother, Rodrick, accidentally spits in his father’s face, his father chases after him in the parking lot. Dad trips over the curb, twisting his ankle and having to go to the hospital.
  • Greg accidentally bites his new dentist.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Bathroom and immature humor are used frequently to entertain. Words like pee, bra, butt, and fart are used frequently.
  • This book is full of bathroom jokes. In one instance, Mom called a household meeting and says, “she was tired of having to clean the floor around the toilet because of our ‘lousy aim.’” Greg continues to tell the story of how he got stuck to the bathroom floor after Manny used the bathroom.
  • Greg fakes his mother’s instructions to his Grandpa when he is babysitting the three Heffley boys. The note tells Grandpa to spank Rodrick and has a picture of a naked butt.
  • Greg goes into a locked-in night at his school. Greg remembers, “Every once in a while, somebody would cut the cheese, and that made Mr. Palmero really mad because he couldn’t figure out who was doing it.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Matthew Perkey

Worthy

Everyone at Linden’s high school is obsessed with a new app called Worthy. The app posts pictures of couples and asks, “Is the girl worthy of the guy?” Some use the anonymous platform to post cruel comments. As the voting goes viral, not every couple can handle the comments that begin to collect. The comments aren’t only online: the app and the couples it features are the topic of every conversation at school.

At first, Linden is focused on other things like cute Alex Rivera, the Prom Committee, and her writing. But soon, Linden is just as obsessed with Worthy as everyone else. Soon, the app is causing problems between Linden and her best friend, Nikki. What will happen when the spotlight turns on Linden?

Readers will relate to Linden as she struggles with online bullying. Even though Linden knows that posting mean comments online is wrong, she doesn’t have a problem voting. As the story progresses, four different couples are featured on Worthy. Linden overhears many conversations about the couples that allow the reader to understand how superficial the voters are. As more and more teens get caught up in the voting craze, Linden is forced to evaluate her own motives for voting. When Linden and Alex are featured on the app, Linden finally realizes how devastating people’s comments can be.

In a world where so many teens are connected on social media, the story has a realistic conflict; however, there are so many minor characters that it is often difficult to keep track of them all. Because the minor characters seldom appear, readers may find it difficult to care about how the app affects them. It isn’t until the app focuses on Linden that the conflict becomes more suspenseful. The story is told from Linden’s point of view, which allows the reader to understand her insecurities and her fears as well as see her personal growth.

Worthy is a cute romance that has several positive aspects. Nikki, Alex, and Linden’s parents all make a short appearance in the story. Despite that each family is different, they are all portrayed in a positive light. The story shies away from profanity and sex. Even though the story drags at points, the positive messages in the book make it worth the read. Connor makes it clear that teens need to look past people’s appearances. The story also shows the damage that online bullying can cause in relationships. Worthy isn’t afraid to explore difficult topics and would be an excellent book to use as a conversation starter.

Sexual Content

  • While in the school hallway, Linden sees her best friend Nikki kissing her boyfriend.
  • Linden thinks about her neighbor, Max. “When we were twelve, we shared our first kiss in the treehouse his dad built.”
  • While sitting outside of Linden’s house, Alex “raises his hand, still caught in mine, and traces his thumb gently against my lips. My face explodes with heat, and when his hand slips away, I lean in toward him. The first kiss is soft. Just a touch. . .He leans back on the grass, pulling me against his chest, and we are kissing. And kissing. And kissing.”
  • While in the school hallway, Alex tries to kiss Linden, and she jerks “backward because I’m not expecting it and it ends up a totally awkward kind of face bump.” Linden is embarrassed and thinks, “I’m not so sure public displays of affection are my thing. . . It’s funny we weren’t awkward at all when we were kissing Saturday night. I blush and smile at the memory.”
  • At school, Linden notices two kids kissing and notices that the girl “gives him a kiss right on the mouth, completely oblivious to the rest of the group.”
  • While at Alex’s house, Linden thinks “about kissing him in my front yard.”
  • At a school assembly, Alex sits next to Linden and gives her a “quick kiss. This time our lips touch confidently, like we greet each other like this all the time.”
  • Linden imagines asking Alex to prom and “then we’ll kiss.”
  • While sitting in Alex’s car, he “cups [Linden’s] cheek in his hand . . . He runs a thumb along my bottom lip. Slowly. Then he leans in to kiss me—very softly—following along the line his thumb travels with his lips.”
  • Linden thinks about her best friend and remembers “when Nikki told me Martin Wells had kissed her behind the trees outside the playground.”
  • While at a quinceañera, Linden brushes “[Alex’s] thick black hair back off his forehead, my fingers lingering as they slide down his face. . . Then he turns his head and his lips are on my palm. The heat explodes into my cheeks.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Oh my God and OMG are used eleven times in total.
  • Crap is used once. When Linden accidentally throws the bowling ball the wrong way, she thinks, “crap.”
  • Freaking is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • While bowling, Linden doesn’t want her feet touching the shoes. She thinks, “Thank God for the thick boot socks I put on under my cowboy boots.”

A Match Made in Mehendi

Fifteen-year-old Simran “Simi” Sangha comes from a long line of Indian vichole – matchmakers — with a rich history of helping parents find good matches for their grown children. When Simi accidentally sets up her cousin and a soon-to-be lawyer, her family is thrilled that she has the “gift.”

But Simi is an artist, and she doesn’t want anything to do with relationships, helicopter parents, and family drama. That is until she realizes this might be just the thing to improve her and her best friend Noah’s social status. Armed with her family’s ancient guide to finding love, Simi starts a matchmaking service via an app.

But when she helps connect a wallflower of a girl with the star of the boys’ soccer team, she turns the high school hierarchy topsy-turvy, making herself public enemy number one.

Simi starts her sophomore year with the intent of standing out and being her true self. As she tells her own story, the reader gets an inside scoop on her thought process. Simi’s story bounces between her home life, her love life, and her school life. Simi is surrounded by a large and loving family. She also relies on her best friend, Noah, to help her through the day-to-day struggle of school.

The story’s large cast of characters doesn’t allow the author to give each person a unique personality, and many of the characters are not well-developed. Simi’s best friend Noah is struggling with his sexual identity, but his thoughts and feelings are never expressed, which makes it hard for the reader to connect with him. Readers may also have a difficult time because Simi’s family is from India, and they often use their native language; however, there are few context clues to help the reader understand the word’s meaning.

A Match Made in Mehendi gives the reader a look into Indian culture as well as the matchmaking process. The action slows down when Noah, Simi, and her brother work on the app. The matchmaking app is an interesting twist, but Simi seems more concerned with the app’s functionality than the couples the app matches.

Like many teens, Simi is trying to find her voice and stand up for herself. Simi’s story is unique and follows several couples as they try to navigate romance. However, the character-driven story does not contain a lot of action or conflict. Although the story has several interesting facets, A Match Made in Mehendi will easily be forgotten.

Sexual Content

  • While working on an art project at a boy’s house, the two take a break. “He leans close, picking a blade of grass from my hair, and for a second, I think he might kiss me.” But then the dog jumps between the two and the moment is over.
  • After a date, Simi’s “heart rate kicks up as he ducks his head and moves closer.” She thought he was going to kiss her and thinks, “I want him to. I have for so long.” But then, the boy “veers towards my cheek, laying the softest kiss there. It’s innocent and sweet, but all the same, shivers fan out over my arms.”
  • Simi’s friend Noah has a crush on a boy, but he isn’t sure how to handle it.
  • While at a gathering, Simi is talking to a boy. The boy “gently pulls me in toward him for a kiss. Except I’m so surprised, I knock over my cup of ginger ale before our lips can connect.” Simi tells him to try again, which he does. Simi thinks the kiss is “slow. Delicious. Sweet like ate-ki-pinni.”

Violence

  • A mean girl tricks Simi, then “as I crash onto my hands and knees, my phone careens through the air and smashes face down on the concrete.” The girl stomped on the phone, then “she laughs, does a haughty pageant wave, and keeps moving.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • During a dinner at Simi’s house, her dad “keeps everyone happy with drinks ranging from lassi and lemonade to Patiala pegs of his favorite single malt whiskey.”

Language

  • Profanity is used sparingly. Crap is used three times; holy crap and shit are both used once.
  • When Simi draws a picture of two people with hearts over their head, her sister says, “Good God.”
  • God, OMG, and dear God are all used as an exclamation once or twice.
  • Freaking is used five times.
  • Badass and kickass are both used once.
  • When someone takes credit for Simi’s artwork, she says, “They call it bullshit. Are you gonna tell her [the teacher] or am I?” Later she thinks the person is an “ass.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Simi’s grandparents got married, they were from different religions, but it wasn’t “a big deal.” Her grandparents “lit a lamp for both Wahe Guru and Mata Rani in our home after we got married and called ourselves doubly blessed.”

Guest: A Changeling Tale

Mollie knows that it’s dangerous to praise a baby. The Kinde Folke, who are anything but kind, may overhear and snatch the beautiful child away. Mollie loves her baby brother Thomas and somehow flattering words escape. She knows her baby brother could be snatched, but she isn’t expecting a hideous changeling to take his place. When her brother disappears, her father leaves town and her mother tries to keep the changeling alive. Mollie’s mother hopes that the Kinde Folke will take the changeling home and return Thomas.

Mollie watches the joy and strength leave her mother. In the hopes of saving her family, Mollie decides to sneak away and return Guest (the changeling) to the Kinde Folke. But the Kinde Folke do not want Guest back, and they will do everything in their power to keep Mollie from finding them. Determined, Mollie journeys over mountains and through forests filled with otherworldly foes. Can Mollie find the treacherous Kinde Folke and convince them to let go of her brother?

Mary Downing Hahn weaves a tale of frightening fairies who use trickery and violence to keep Mollie from finding her brother. Although the Irish folklore is interesting, none of the characters in the story are likable. Mollie is spoiled, mean, and says hateful words. The story hints that Guest’s father cares about him, but the man only steps in to help when Mollie and Guest are in danger. Even though Guest is described as a disgustingly ugly changeling, he grows as a person and realizes that his previous actions were wrong. Readers may be put off by the host of unlikeable characters.

As Mollie searches for her brother, she continues to make the same mistakes over and over again. If it wasn’t for the help of the traveler and sympathetic Kinde Folke, Mollie would have surely met her demise. In the end, Mollie is reunited with her brother; however, he is so mean and ill-tempered that the reader will wish that the fairy queen had sacrificed him as she had planned.

Mollie travels through the forest and has to overcome many difficulties. The changing relationship between Mollie and Guest will give readers hope. Throughout the story, several people ask Mollie, “Why must you speak your mind without giving a thought to what you say?” By reading Mollie’s story, readers will understand the need to think before they talk. Readers who are interested in folklore and the darker side of fairies will enjoy Guest: A Changeling Tale. Readers interested in folklore with mischievous and often dangerous characters should try better alternatives, such as 13 Treasures by Michelle Harrison or The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black.

 Sexual Content

  • Mollie finds out that Guest’s father is Madog. Guest’s half-brother says that Guest’s mother “should not have lain with Madog.”

Violence

  • Mollie’s mother thinks about taking the changeling baby to the crossroads. “Those who’d killed themselves were buried in this place. Murderers, too, and thieves, all those who weren’t allowed to lie in the churchyard. Changelings and unwanted babies had both been left here to die.”
  • A Stallion horse takes Mollie into the sky. When she asks to be returned, “I understood that the horse meant to dive into the lake and drown me. I lunged to one side, but the black threads of his mane wrapped themselves around me and held me fast. Into the water we plunged, going so deep, I thought I’d never see the sky again. . . I used all of my strength to push the silver heart against the horse’s neck. With a shudder, the stallion threw me from his back.” Mollie is able to swim to the surface, but the Stallion races after her. “And then, though I scarce believed what I saw, the horse changed to a man as beautiful and wild as the horse.” With the help of the traveler, Mollie is saved.
  • Guest tells Mollie that his birth mother does “not like me. Scream, hit, hurt me.”
  • Creatures “wearing tattered leaves and cobwebs” try to get Mollie to follow them. When she doesn’t, “they surrounded us, hundreds of them, no bigger than wasps. . . No longer pretending to be friendly, they pinched us, they bit. They pulled our hair as if they meant to yank it out. They tore our clothes as if they wished to strip us to our bare skin.” Mollie thrust the locket at the Tinies and “at its touch, the creatures shrieked in pain and spiraled upward.”
  • The Kinde Folke tricked Mollie into believing a wolf was her brother Thomas. The wolf “struggled to escape, and when I tightened my hold on him, he snarled and sunk his teeth into my arm. Shocked, I let him go. His lips drew back and exposed long, sharp teeth. Fur covered his body. . . As he leaned over me, poised to attack, I pulled out the locket and pressed it as hard as I could against one of his eyes. With a savage howl, he leapt backwards, one eye gone, nothing left of it but a smoking hole and the stench of burned flesh.”
  • One of the Kinde Folke appears to Mollie and her companions. When they go into a circle, “Green flames raced across the ground toward us. My skin tingled and my hair crackled. Guest and Aidan glowed as if they were burning from within. The flames vanished as quickly as they’d come, and a terrible silence fell.” When Aidan approached the woman, “the lady struck his face with her open hand. Aidan’s head snapped back and he raised an arm to protect himself from the second blow.” When the woman asks Mollie a question, Mollie stays quiet. “The air stirred before I felt the blow. Stumbling backwards, I almost knocked Guest down. He whimpered and held my skirt tightly.”
  • When Madog tries to keep Mollie from following the Kinde Folke, she “yanked the locket from around my neck and thrust it into Madog’s face. With a cry of pain, he sprang back.” When the Kinde Folke try to convince Mollie to go with them, she lifted “the locket high, I thrust it against their shoulders, their faces, their arms, their hands. The dancers screamed in pain.” The Kinde Folke flee.
  • The Kinde Folke plan on sacrificing Mollie’s brother. One of the Kinde Folke tells her, “Every seven years, we are sworn to give the Dark Lord of these lands a tithe. That’s the price we pay to roam the world as free as the wind.”
  • When a girl spills wine, the Kinde Folke’s queen called her a “stupid, clumsy girl.” The queen then “slapped Aislinn’s face so hard, the girl nearly fell from her chair.”
  • When Mollie steals her sleeping brother from the Kinde Folke, the Kinde Folke try to get him back. “The hounds were upon us, dark, long and lean, red-eyed and sharp-toothed, more like shadows than actual dogs. They ripped at the horses’ legs, leapt at their throats, and tried to pull us to the ground.” In order to escape, someone gives Mollie a pouch. Mollie “fumbled with the cord and then hurled the sack at the Kinde Folke. Its contents exploded in a flash of lighting. Small iron balls shot into the Kinde Folke crowded around us. They screamed in pain and tried to shield themselves.” Mollie and her companions are able to flee.
  • While Mollie and her companions are fleeing, “a strange darkness fell upon us. . . Thunder crashed so loudly the earth seemed to shake. Lightning exploded across the sky with a force that split the clouds.” The Dark Lord speaks, then he “destroyed the Kinde Folke just as he said he would.”
  • When Mollie brings her brother home, their father is afraid the Kinde Folke will seek vengeance. He says, “Remember what they did to the Millers’ barn and house—burned them both to the ground just because Mistress Miller refused to call them kind.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A shapeshifter gives Mollie a “pretty little blue bottle.” The shapeshifter said the bottle contained “my elixir of health.” But Guest hit the bottle, which poured onto the ground. When a butterfly drank the elixir, “in a moment, it lay still and the ferns around it withered.”
  • During a ceremony, the Kinde Folke drinks wine. When a girl drops a glass of wine, someone says, “Bring more wine. But give none to this one. She’s had more than enough already.”
  • Mollie’s brother is given a potion that puts him to sleep.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Mollie has an iron necklace that is covered in silver. When the necklace touches a Kinde Folke, the necklace hurts them.
  • The story centers around the Kinde Folke, who have magical powers. “Worst of all, if the Kinde Folke learned of a beautiful baby boy’s birth, they’d steal him away and leave one of their own sickly creatures in his place.”
  • Pookas, which are ghosts, “live in dark lakes and take lasses.” A Pooka turns into a stallion and tries to keep Mollie from entering the Kinde Folke’s Dark Lands.
  • Tinies lead people into the swamp and drown them.
  • The Kinde Folke try to trick Mollie. Two of them “glamorized to look like” her parents.
  • Mollie is given a cloak that had invisibility woven into every thread.
  • Some of the characters can shapeshift.

 

Spiritual Content

  • None

Across the Dark Water

Twelve-year-old Rahkki is a stable groom for the Riders in the Sandwen army, who must battle deadly spit dragons and hordes of warring giants. The Sandwens believe they have tamed all the wild pegasi in the lush jungles of the Realm and turned them into flying warhorses. But when a herd of wild steeds flies over their village, Rahkki and his clan mates are stunned.

Meanwhile, a small herd of pegasi has journeyed across a treacherous ocean to settle in a new and free land. Led by Echofrost and Hazelwind, the Storm Herd steeds are unaware of the Sandwen clan. But when the unthinkable happens, Echofrost and the rest of Storm Herd will have to come to trust the Sandwens, or both may not survive.

Pegasi, giants, fire-breathing lizards, and landwalkers come together in an exciting story full of suspense. Echofrost desires to be free and she has vowed that no pegasi will be held captive. When her friend Shysong is captured, Echofrost sacrifices her freedom in the hope that she will be able to help Shysong escape. But escaping the Landwalkers is more difficult than Echofrost could have imagined. She fights every Landwalker who comes near her. When a young boy tries to help Echofrost, Echofrost begins to understand that some Landwalkers can be trusted.

Across the Dark Waters uses Echofrost’s voice to highlight the pegasi’s plight and their desire for freedom, while Rahkki’s voice brings the landwalker’s complicated political system to life. The beginning of the story may confuse readers because of the many names and the detailed descriptions that are necessary to build the realm’s world. However, it does not take long until both Echofrost and Shysong are captured and the non-stop action begins. Readers will empathize with Echofrost as she tries to escape captivity, and they will also root for Rahkki as he fights to help the wild pegasi.

Although the publisher recommends Across the Dark Waters for readers as young as eight, younger readers may have a difficult time with the complex story that contains many references to the past in both the pegasi and the landwalker’s lands. The advanced vocabulary and sentence structure may also be difficult for younger readers. In her fight for freedom, Echofrost is treated brutally and, although the descriptions are not gory, there is blood and violence that may upset sensitive readers.

As the first installment of the Riders of the Realm series, Across the Dark Waters will be impossible for readers to put down. With battles, political intrigue, plot twist, and an unlikely friendship, Across the Dark Waters is a beautifully written, complex story that is engaging and exciting. The surprising conclusion will leave readers reaching for the next book in the series, Through the Untamed Sky. Readers who love horse stories will also want to read The Rose Legacy by Jessica Day George.

Sexual Content

  • When looking at the princess, someone asks Rahkki, “You like what you see?” Rahkki is told to “Keep away from the princess, yeah?”
  • When Rahkki’s brother Brauk is injured, Rahkki kisses his hand. His brother says, “If you’re going to practice kissing, could you use your own hand?”

Violence

  • Only women can inherit the throne. Queen Reyella only had sons. “Eight years ago, a bloodborn princess from the Second Clan named Lilliam Whitehall had pounced on Reyella’s weakness. She assassinated the boys’ mother and took her throne, becoming the Fifth’s new monarch.”
  • Rahkki thinks back to when the queen killed his mother. Rahkki “winced at a flash of memory—Queen Lilliam’s cold hand around his throat. He’d been four years old when she’s snuck into Fort Prowl, killed his mother, and then gone after him. . . But then another memory struck him: his mother’s round belly. She’d been pregnant too when Lilliam had assassinated her.”
  • The Storm Herd pegasi leave their land because of a battle between “two immortal pegasus stallions: Star the Healer and Nightwing the Destroyer.” Star and Nightwing use their supernatural power to try to destroy each other. “The earth shook and the land below her hooves fractured, creating fissures in the soil that spread like cracked ice.”
  • Later Echofrost thinks about “Nightwing’s treacheries: burning Morningleaf’s feathers with his silver starfire, turning hundreds of pegasi to ashes, stealing newborns from their dams, and murdering the five over-stallions of Anok.”
  • While flying over a human establishment, the Landwalkers try to shoot down the pegasi. “One adult retreated into his den and then returned carrying a bowed contraption. Soon he was shooting barbed sticks at the pegasi. One struck Shysong in the wing. . .and blood dripped from the wound.”
  • The Landwalkers capture Shysong. “Several lashings were looped around Shysong’s neck and legs. The mare bucked and kicked, but the Landwalkers steered their mounts out of her reach, keeping an equidistant circle around her body.” Echofrost tries to help her friend. “She rammed the closest enemy pegasus. . . The golden steed faltered, and her rider lost her balance, almost falling off.” The mare “kicked Echofrost in the flank and sent her spiraling toward land.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • After Shysong is captured, Echofrost allows the Landwalkers to catch her. The Landwalkers throw ropes at the Storm Herd. “One fell around Echofrost’s neck and then tightened around her throat. She reared back, and it clamped tighter, like the constricting grip of a snake. She opened her mouth to scream, but the noise came out a strangled gasp.” When the Landwalkers catch Echofrost, they cut her wings so she cannot escape.
  • Echofrost thinks back to the past. Another herd had captured her and “she’d been tortured and kicked. Yearlings had made a sport of yanking out her mane and tail hairs by the roots. She’d eventually been released.”
  • The Landwalkers take Echofrost captive. The Landwalkers “tossed ropes that tangled around her neck and hooves. They each held tight, and she couldn’t stop herself from struggling. The Landwalkers shouted to one another in excited voices and then gave a mighty tug, yanking her off her hooves. She hit the ground. . .They bound her wings and legs.”
  • While walking, someone threw a coconut at Rahkki. He was hit “in the back of the head and he flew forward, striking the ground so hard it knocked the breath out of him.”
  • In order to keep Echofrost captive, the Landwalkers need to cut her wings. Brauk “produced a stick similar to Harak’s and followed her, brandishing it at her throat. She lunged, jaws wide, and Harak leaped to help Brauk. They struck her chest, driving her deeper into the corner until her flanks brushed up against wood.” In order to put a halter on Echofrost, Brauk “clubbed her over the head so hard that her vision flickered. . . With a sharp tug, they yanked her off her hooves and she slammed onto the hard floor. Her chest [was] heaving as she absorbed the pain.” The scene is described over three pages.
  • Angry at Brauk, Echofrost tried to strike him, but Brauk “slammed his club down on her forehead, making her stagger into the barn wall. Her vision blackened, and she gasped for breath.”
  • While trying to tame Echofrost, Brauk “wacked her left shoulder, stinging the muscles there. . . . Echofrost dripped her head and limped along behind him, her shoulders stinging where he’d hit her.”
  • When Echofrost’s friends try to free her, the Landwalkers shoot arrows at the wild pagasi. One pegasus is slightly injured.
  • A giant grabs Echofrost. The giant “tightened his grip around her neck. Her vision darkened and her body went limp. . . The Gorlander held Sula [Echofrost] by her throat with both hands, trying to suffocate her so he could drag her away. Her tongue lolled form her mouth, and her eyes popped wide.” Rahkki grabs a dagger and “drove it toward the giant’s brain.” The giant “snatched Rahkki’s arm, and tossed him into the creek before the blade could find its mark.”
  • Echofrost tries to free herself from the giant’s grasp by twisting and kicking. “Her hooves sliced through the Gorlander’s goat-hide vest, raking red streaks across his moon-pale skin.” Brauk tries to help his brother and Echofrost. “Brauk parried in and out, slicking at the giant in sections from head to foot until the beast was streaked in blood.” When Echofrost gets free, she uses “her flightless wings to propel and balance herself, she reared and clubbed the giant with her front hooves. Meanwhile Brauk hacked at the Gorlander like he was chopping down a tree.” The scene is described over seven pages.
  • The giants attack the Landwalkers. “The giants lifted heavy shields and mowed down the front line of Sandwen soldiers, crushing them with their spears. The horde roared in unison and advanced over the bones of the dead. . . One [elephant] had a Sandwen warrior hanging off his tusk. The elephant tossed him off, and a giant speared the man straight through.” Rahkki takes the wild pegasi to his uncle’s farm.
  • While at the farm, a giant attempts to grab Rahkki. “The giant followed him, but as Rahkki predicted, he was too large to change course. His eyes widened, and then he slammed into the trunk. The tree cracked and splintered.” Rahkki’s uncle helps fight the giants. Rahkki stabs one “through her naked foot. She threw back her head and howled.” The giant grabs Rahkki and “shook him so hard his teeth rattled. . . The female giant tugged Rahkki’s arms hard enough to make him scream.” The giant ties Rahkki up and throws him into her sack.
  • Echofrost tries to help free Rahkki. A giant swings a weapon and “knocked her into the side of the barn. . . He swung at her again and knocked her into the side of the barn. With her head ringing, the giant stomped toward her—his bludgeon lifted.” The Storm Herd appear and help defeat the giant. The fight takes place over eight pages.
  • After Rahkki tries to free the wild pegasi, two guards beat him. “A guard lifted his club, his blue eyes flashing, and Rahkki threw his arms up to protect his face and head. He didn’t see the blow, but he felt it. Once. Twice. An earsplitting scream. That was him. . . Then one more blow. And darkness.
  • Someone teases Rahkki. One of his friends “coiled back her fist and punched him square across the jaw, knocking him off the bench.”
  • While Echofrost was being auctioned off, Harak uses his whip to bully Echofrost. Angry, Echofrost strikes out. “Echofrost whirled around and kicked out with both hind legs. She heard a sharp crack when her hooves connected with flesh. A body flew across the sand and struck the fence.” Echofrost accidently injures Brauk instead of Harak. Brauk is seriously injured.
  • After hurting Brauk, Echofrost thinks back to her brother’s death. “The dire wolves had attacked them. Their leader, a white she-wolf, had snatched Bumblewind and thrown him into a tree, cracking his head against it.”
  • During a contest, young men try to ride Echofrost. Every time someone gets on his back, Echofrost bucks them off. No one is injured. The scene is described over six pages.
  • While trying to find their herd, giants try to capture Echofrost and Shysong. Fire lizards, called burners, try to force the pegasi to the ground. “The burners caught up to Echofrost and attacked, shooting flaming tendrils at her and Shysong. There were hundreds of them moving as one creature, like a flock of sparrows. She twisted away when a few of her feathers caught fire. . . Shysong flew in to help. They kicked at the lizards, knocking some out of the sky.” The pegasi are able to escape.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • In order to treat Shysong’s injury, the clan’s animal doctor gave her a dose of “strong medicine.”
  • The queen’s table is laden with food and also has rice wine on it.
  • While at a pegasi auction, Rahkki notices that one of the pegasi has been drugged.

Language

  • The characters occasionally use “bloody rain” as an exclamation. For example, when Rahkki asked a guard to leave, the guard askes him, “Bloody rain, what yuh doin’ ‘ere so early?”
  • When someone shoots a pegasus, the queen calls them responsible idiots.
  • “By Granak” is used as an exclamation several times. For example, after the fight with the giant, Rahkki’s brother says, “By Granak, Brother. If you cry, I’ll break your nose.”

Supernatural

  • Queen Lilliam believes in omens. Before she will send her warriors out to battle the giants, the queen would consult with “their guardian mascot—Granak, the Father of Dragons. The queen would offer the gigantic lizard a fattened sow. If he ate it, they’d fight. If he didn’t, Lilliam would consider that a terrible omen. She’d keep the warriors home.”
  • Queen Lilliam won’t attack the giants because “her Borla had a bad dream, a vision. He said he saw the giant hordes on the move with over a hundred captured Kihlari steeds. . .So even though Granak ate the sow, the bad dream foretells defeat. She won’t attack until there’s a better omen.”
  • Nightwing “had woken from a four-hundred-year hibernation. . . He’d come to kill his rival, a young black stallion named Star.”
  • When Echofrost hurts a rider, a rumor begins. People think Echofrost killed the rider. “A Kihlara steed that killed a Rider was a bad omen—bad luck.”

Spiritual Content

  • After a pegasus dies, they go to “the golden meadow.”
  • In the morning the tame pegasi “greet the sun. . . All the pegasi faced east” and nickered toward the sun.
  • When Echofrost is upset, she thinks, “Ancestors, help me.” Later when Echofrost is trying to kick her way out of the stall, she says, “By the Ancestors. That door is as hard as stone.”
  • Echofrost and Shysong are being put up for sale. To encourage Shysong, Echofrost says, “the Ancestors are with us.”
  • The Landwalkers believe that “Sunchaser was the moon spirit, and he was always brooding because he lived in the dark.”
  • When the Landwalkers see the wild pegasi, someone says, “Maybe they’re a gift from the wind spirits, or maybe they rose out of the foam in the sea, or maybe they’re fallen stars.”
  • Echofrost takes flight with Rahkki on her back. Intending to escape, Echofrost flies quickly away from the settlement. Rahkki “threw up a silent prayer to the Seven Sisters.”

 The 26-Story Treehouse: Pirate Problem

Life is never boring in a 13-story treehouse, especially when you add 13 more stories! Andy and Terry have added a bumper car rink, a skate ramp with a crocodile-pit hazard, a mud-fighting arena, an antigravity chamber, an ice-skating pond with real ice-skating penguins, a mechanical bull named Kevin, an Automatic Tattoo Machine, an ice-cream parlor with seventy-eight flavors, and the Maze of Doom–a maze so complicated nobody has escaped. Fun seems endless in their new 26-story treehouse!

Distracted by their new, amazing stories, Andy and Terry do not notice their new book is due Friday until their publisher, Mr. Big Nose, threatens to fire them. While writing their book about how Andy, Terry, and Jill, their animal-friendly neighbor, met, Captain Woodenhead suddenly appears. Threatening to destroy the treehouse and enslave Andy, Terry, and Jill on his ship, the trio must outwit and outsmart the captain and his evil crew before time runs out. Can the boys save their treehouse and fight off the pirates all while writing their new book?

The Treehouse Series is an imaginative series for young readers who are reluctant to read. Griffiths and Denton created a silly story that will have young readers laughing from beginning to end. Along with their crazy slapstick scenarios, Griffiths and Denton teach readers about the importance of friendship. Andy, Terry, and Jill must work together throughout the book to solve their complex problems. Without each other, Andy, Terry, and Jill would never have been able to perform “open shark surgery,” fight off pirates or escape the Maze of Doom. Also, the funny black-and-white illustrations contribute to a positive reading experience and will help younger readers transfer their reading skills from picture books into full-fledged novels.

However, The 26-Story Treehouse may upset some readers. Before his entire crew dies in a terrible shipwreck, Captain Woodenhead’s head is bitten off by a giant sea monster. Later in the book, he is pictured being eaten alive by man-eating sharks.

The 26-Story Treehouse has very simple vocabulary and sentence structure, reading more like a comic book rather than an actual chapter book. In the end, The 26-Story Treehouse is an easy-to-read story that will teach the reader practical lessons about friendship while causing readers to giggle.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • During a sea battle, Captain Woodenhead fights the large, greedy fish nicknamed Gorgonzola. “The pirate captain drew his cutlass and tried to spear Gorgonzola from the deck of his ship, but as he leaned over the side, the fiendish Gorgonzola leaped right out of the water and bit the pirate’s head clean off his neck!” After fashioning a new wooden head for himself, Captain Woodenhead was swallowed whole. Inside Gorgonzola’s stomach, he found some dynamite and his old head, which was moldy and waterlogged. After putting his head back on his shoulders, “he did what any self-respecting pirate captain would have done. He collected up all the barrels of dynamite, tied them together, lit the fuse, and blasted that beast to pieces!” Gorgonzola, a large sea monster, is pictured blasted to pieces for two pages.
  • If Andy and Terry don’t open the treehouse and let Captain Woodenhead in, he threatens to blow up the treehouse. The Captain yells, “Men, prepare the canon.”
  • After tricking the captain’s crew, Andy, Terry, and Jill are chased by Captain Woodenhead with a cutlass and gun in his hand. This is a one-page event.
  • At the end of the book, Captain Woodenhead threatens to kill Andy, Terry, and Jill. Then, the captain falls into the man-eating shark tank and there’s “a wild frenzy of flashing fins and teeth, and then all is quiet.” The Captain is eaten alive. This is illustrated over two pages and does show him in the mouth of a shark, but there is no blood or gore involved.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jill uses “Dr. Numbskull’s Sleepy Shark Sleeping Potion” to sedate the man-eating sharks before their “open shark surgery.” During the surgery, the shark’s kidneys and intestines are shown along with some of the ridiculous things they have eaten.

Language

  • After getting lost in the Maze of Doom, one of the penguins blames it on his “stupid GPS!”
  • Andy thinks that using their man-eating shark tank as a washing machine was one of Terry’s dumbest ideas. “You know, Terry has done some dumb things in the past, but this has got to be the dumbest ever!”
  • When he struggles to put on his swimsuit before he enters the shark tank, Andy says, “Stupid tight wetsuit.”
  • Captain Woodenhead enslaves Andy and Terry and forces them to swab the poop deck. Terry exclaims, “Oh, gross, there’s poop on the poop deck.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Matthew Perkey

Klawde

Klawde is not your average cat. He’s an emperor from another planet, exiled to Earth. He’s cruel. He’s cunning. He’s brilliant… and he’s about to become Raj Banerjee’s best friend. Whether he likes it or not.

Klawde had everything. Sharp claws. Fine fur. And, being the High Commander of the planet Lyttyrboks, an entire world of warlike cats at his command. But when he is stripped of his feline throne, he is sentenced to the worst possible punishment: exile to a small planet in a quiet corner of the universe… named Earth.

Raj had everything. A cool apartment in Brooklyn. Three friends who lived in his building. And pizza and comics within walking distance. But when his mom gets a job in Elba, Oregon and he is forced to move, all of that changes. It’s now the beginning of summer, he has no friends, and because of his mother’s urgings, he has joined a nature camp.

It’s only when his doorbell rings and he meets a fur ball of a cat that Raj begins to think maybe his luck is turning around.

Klawde does not like Earth. He doesn’t like humans. He doesn’t even like his human boy Raj. In order to leave Earth and get revenge on his home planet, Klawde has no choice but to reveal his real Identity to Raj. In order to get Raj to help him, Klawde tries to hide his true nature. He is hateful, evil, and continuously plotting and manipulating. On the other hand, Raj is completely ordinary and relatable. He is unhappy about moving and afraid that he will never make friends. Readers get an inside view of both Klawde’s and Raj’s thought processes because each chapter switches between the two characters’ points of view.

Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat is exceptionally engaging, humorous, and fun to read. Readers will appreciate the short paragraphs, the easy vocabulary, and the hilarious blue-and-black illustrations. Not only do the illustrations help the reader imagine the story’s events, but they also highlight Klawde’s various emotions of misery, distaste, and disgust. Readers will fall in love with the evil alien cat, understand Raj’s conflicts, and cringe when Raj’s mother expertly wields her power over the household.

Despite the humorous tone of the story, readers will learn the importance of friendship and working together. Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat mixes realistic human conflicts with an outlandish alien warlord cat to create an action-packed story that readers will love. Readers will be eager to pick up the next book in the series, Enemies.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • When Klawde was napping, his enemies came for him. “Before I could even unsheathe my claws, they pounced atop me. They tied me up and chained my paws, and then they dragged me from my holding cell into the Supremest Court of All Galactic Order.” When Klawde’s minion speaks up for Klawde, “someone smacked him on the back of the head.”
  • Klawde is taken to the veterinarian for vaccinations. When the veterinarian tried to give him a shot, “with a bloodcurdling yowl, Klawde flew at the vet’s face and latched on. The vet started screaming and flailing his arms around.” Later, Klawde explains how he attacked. “First, my claws ripped at its hands. Next, its face. Oh, how sweet the feeling! I left long red scratch marks all over its vile, furless cheeks. When I was but seconds away from murdering it, my Humans pulled me off.”
  • While at camp, Raj meets some kids that are bullies. When they were playing nature tag, “Scorpion and his pals took the kill-or-get-killed concept way too seriously. Their idea of tag was to shove the younger kids into the mud and try to step on us.”
  • When Raj’s father tries to give Klawde “dried food pellets,” Klawde bites him. Then Raj’s father put “the finger I’d just bitten into his mouth.”
  • While at camp, a group of bullies throws rocks at Raj and his group.
  • When Klawde goes to scratch Raj’s mother, she tells him, “If you try it, I’ll skin you alive and turn you into a fur hat.”
  • Klawde sneaks to Raj’s camp. During a game, Klawde thinks the camp’s counselor is “planning to devour my human—or worse!” In order to help Raj, Klawde “paused, took aim, and launched myself into the air. . . My aim was true, and I made a direct hit on the plant-monster’s head. My claws made quick work of its face. . . I showed the monster no mercy, but its strength was that of ten thousand cats. It grasped me by the neck and tore me off itself. Then it dangled me from its hideous leafy paws.” When the counselor grabs Klawde, Raj gets angry and jumps out of the tree. Raj lands on the counselor and Klawde runs away. The fight is described over five pages.
  • When Raj and Klawde return home, Raj calls Klawde “kitty.” Klawde tells him, “Don’t ever call me that again or I will vaporize you across ten galactic quadrants!” Then Klawde swipes at Raj, “leaving a bloody scratch on my finger. It hurt a little, but I didn’t care.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • In his thoughts, Klawde often calls others names. The characters also call each other names often, including losers, morons, idiot, fool, jerk, little babies, and rodent.
  • When a cat crouches in attack mode, Klawde thinks, “At least these Earth cats were not all meek morons!”
  • Klawde is given a mouse with catnip inside of it. In order to get another one, Klawde says, “Mrow,” and then he wonders, “What had become of me? I had said it! The idiot Earth cat word! These mouse dolls—this was how the Humans controlled felines. This was how they made Earth cats stupid! The fiends!”
  • When the TV remote is broken, Raj’s dad says, “Darn it!”
  • As part of a contest, Raj climbs up a tree. When he gets to the top, he wonders, “How the heck was I going to get back down?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Icebound Land

After a fierce battle with Lord Morgarath, Will and Evanlyn are captured. Erak, a Skandian warrior, forces Will and Evanlyn onto a ship destined for Skandia. Erak plans to sell the two young people as slaves. When the group returns to Skandia, Will and Evanlyn are separated. Their lives are full of grueling work, freezing cold nights, and hopelessness. Will the two ever be able to find each other? And if they do, is there any chance of escape?

Halt, determined to rescue his young apprentice, purposely defies the king. Expelled from the Rangers, Halt is joined by Will’s friend Horace as he travels toward Skandia. On their way, freelance knights block their way, demanding tribute. Unwilling to pay to pass every bridge, Horace uses his combat skills to challenge the knights. Unknowingly, Horace has attracted the attention of an evil warlord, Deparnieux, who plans to kill the young knight to prove his power. Deparnieux traps Halt and Horace, taking the two captive. Halt patiently watches, trying to learn the key to defeating Deparnieux and continuing the journey towards Skandia. Will Halt and Horace free themselves in time to rescue Will?

Unlike the two previous books, The Icebound Land focuses more on the characters’ individual struggles. Even though Will is held captive, his master, Erak, soon comes to respect the boy and he recognizes that Will is an honorable warrior. Erak tries to keep the two slaves, Will and Evanlyn, together. However, Erak is unwilling to let the two free.

After Erak takes a short journey, he returns to find Will addicted to the powerful narcotic, warmweed. Erak decides to help Will and Evanlyn escape. Erak knows that Will’s death is fast approaching, and the only way to save Will is to help him escape. Erak helps Will because “a boy like that, he’s a real warrior. He may only be knee-high to a gnat, but he’s got the heart of a true Skandian.”

While Evanlyn and Will hide out in a camping cabin, Halt and Horace are fighting their own battle. As Deparnieux’s prisoners, the two are faced with countless hours of boredom and must patiently watch Deparnieux’s cruelty. Halt knows the key to their survival is patience, but how long can they watch Deparnieux terrorize and kill others?

The Icebound Land has a darker tone than the other two books because it focuses on slavery, drug addiction, and the abuse of power. Throughout the story, several people abuse their power and treat others cruelly just because they can. The slaves are not immune to this problem. One slave, who is in charge of the others, purposely gets Will addicted to warmweed because Will stopped the man from beating a young slave. Erak is the only supporting character that shows kindness, but that kindness was born out of respect for Will.

As the third installment of the Ranger’s Apprentice series, The Icebound Land has less action than the previous books. However, readers who are familiar with the main characters will want to know what happens next. The Icebound Land continues to teach the importance of not being boastful or overconfident. The story does not wrap up any of the plot points, but instead ends in a cliffhanger. Readers will want to jump into The Battle for Skandia as soon as they finish the last page of The Icebound Land.

Sexual Content

  • Halt says, “I’ve heard it on good authority, that good King Duncan is not the lawful occupant of the throne. I’ve heard it said that he is, in fact, the son of a drunken privy cleaner. Another rumor has it that he was the result of his father’s fascination with a traveling hatcha-hatcha dancer.”
  • Horace and Halt see a young woman who is wearing a short skirt. Later, Horace thinks about the girl. “The memory of the girl, and her shapely legs, was causing his cheeks to burn with embarrassment again.” Horace asks several questions about the girl’s dress. Halt jokingly tells Horace the girl is a messenger, who needs to be able to run when necessary and the girl cannot run in a long dress. Horace believes Halt and “for a moment, Halt regretted his deception, feeling a slight pang of guilt. . . Then, the Ranger looked at those clear blue eyes and the contented, honest face of the warrior apprentice and any sense of regret was stifled. Horace had plenty of time to learn about the seamier side of life, he thought.”

Violence

  • A man named Folder “had murdered both of his parents after an argument over a horse.”
  • A group of ten men try to rob a carriage. Halt sees them and intervenes. One of the men “had a brief impression of something flashing past, just in front of his nose. Then, there was an almighty jerk on the raised collar of his cloak and he found himself pinned against the carriage by a quivering black arrow that thudded into the wood.” Halt ties them up.
  • Soldiers appear to arrest Halt for talking badly about the king. “As the Ranger spat out the last word, he had somehow scooped up the longbow from behind him and nocked and fired an arrow. It slammed into the wall behind the spot where the tavern keeper had been standing a second before, and buried itself deep into the wood panel, quivering still with the force of its impact.” Halt misfires another arrow and then “the corporal and his men leaped forward, swinging the short, heavy clubs that they carried, swarming over the small gray-and-green figure.”
  • While traveling, knights stand on bridges and demand money from the travelers. Instead of paying to pass, Horace challenges the knight and wins. This process happens several times. For example, the first time, Horace and the other knight duel and the knight loses his lance in the first pass. During one pass, Horace’s sword “slammed into the back of the other man’s helmet with a loud, ringing clang.” Horace doesn’t kill the knight, but his sword “put a severe dent in the helmet, and the concussion of the blow went straight through the steel to the skull of the knight wearing it.”
  • Evanlyn accidently spills soup on Slagor, a drunk sailor. “Slagor bellowed in pain and grabbed Evanlyn by the wrist, dragging her forward, twisting her arm cruelly so that she was bent awkwardly over the table.” Will picks up a knife, ready to kill Slagor, but Erak stops him from killing the man. After the incident, Erak reprimanded Will. “. . . Erak sent a backhanded fist crashing against the side of the boy’s head, knocking him senseless to the floor.” Will falls to the ground unconscious and has Will dragged to his living quarters.
  • While working, slaves are often slapped or whipped with a leather strap.
  • Will sees a slave being beaten up by another slave. “A thin, ragged boy was huddled on the ground while an older, larger youth flayed at him with a length of knotted rope. . . The boy’s face was heavily bruised, Will saw, and as he watched, a cut opened just under the smaller boy’s eye and blood covered his face.” Will grabbed the knot rope from the youth and stopped the beating.
  • Erak was sent to a settlement to inquire about missing taxes. “It had to be admitted that Erak’s version of investigating consisted of seizing the unfortunate Jarl by his beard as he lay sleeping in predawn darkness. Erak then threatened to brain him with a battleax if he didn’t make a rapid and upward adjustment to the amount of tax he was paying. . .”
  • An evil knight, Deparnieux, has one of his men drop a net over Horace. The net “dropped form the branches of an oak tree that overhung the road, draping itself around the head and shoulders of the boy. For a moment, Horace struggled uselessly in the folds of the net that enveloped him.” Horace and Halt are then captured and made prisoners.
  • Outside of Deparnieux’s castle, metal cages hang. “Horace could make out, to his horror, that the structures were iron cages, only an arm span wide, containing the remains of what used to be men. . . The figures inside were dried-out husks, blackened and shriveled by their long exposure . . . but others were newer and the men inside were recognizable.” One man was still alive—he was put in the cage because he had laughed at Deparnieux.
  • When trying to free Will, Evanlyn gives the watchman money to look the other way. The man “grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her closer to him,” demanding more money. “Then a frown came over his face as he felt a sharp pain in his belly—and a warm trickle running down his skin from the spot where the pain was centered. . . He backed off quickly, waving at the door and cursing her.”
  • A young knight appears outside of Deparnieux’s castle, challenging the man. Deparnieux killed both of the youths’ parents. As the two knights joust, “The young knight’s lance, badly positioned and at the wrong angle, shattered into pieces.” When the young knight begins to lose, Deparnieux “urged his battlehorse after him, following him relentlessly, raining blows on the sword, shield or helmet at will. Finally, there was a duller sound as Deparnieux’s sword struck a vulnerable point—the chain mail protecting the opponent’s neck.” The knight crumbles off his horse’s saddle and dies. The fight is described over two and a half pages.
  • Deparnieux and Halt combat. Deparnieux rides his battlehorse, while Halt stands in the combat field. Halt shoots arrows toward Deparnieux’s eyes. Deparnieux has no problem using his shield to block the arrows. After one pass, Halt shoots an arrow at Deparnieux’s back. “. . . There was a bright flash of pain in his left shoulder. . . he realized that, as he galloped past, Halt had sent another arrow spitting at him, this time aiming for the gap in his armor at the shoulder. . . the wound was a nuisance. A painful nuisance, he amended as he felt the hot blood trickling down his armpit.”
  • After another pass, Halt again shoots arrows towards Deparnieux’s eyes. As Deparnieux shields his face, “Deparnieux heard it. A dull impact of metal on metal—more a metallic thud than a ringing tone. He wondered what it was. Then he felt a small core of intense pain, a bright flare of agony, that began in his left side and expanded rapidly until it engulfed his entire body. He never felt the impact as his body hit the grassy field.” The combat scene is described over two and a half pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • An angry slave gives Will an addictive drug called warmweed. The warmweed was used to control the yard slaves. “Warmweed addicts looked forward to nothing, planned for nothing.”
  • Will becomes addicted to warmweed. When Will isn’t given the drug, “his teeth chattered and his body shook and trembled and heaved as he fell to the ground, rolling helplessly in the snow, his knees drawn up to his chest. One hand flailed uselessly at the snow, while the other was jammed firmly in his mouth.” When Evanlyn hands Will the drug, “Will seized the small handful of the gray, herblike substance with horrifying eagerness. . . his attention was totally focused on the drug and she came to realize how completely it ruled his life and his mind these days.”
  • Halt goes into a tavern. He tells the tavern keeper to fill his cup. “There was just the slightest slurring of his words to remind the tavern keeper that this would be the eighth or ninth time he’d refilled the tankard with the cheap, fiery brandy-spirit. . .”
  • When a group of seamen arrive at an island, they are given “brandy-spirit.” One of the men “drank half the brandy in one long gulp.” Later, Erak thinks that the man is a “useless drunk.”
  • While stuck on an island, a group of Skandians “filled their time with drinking and gambling.”
  • During meals, the Skandians usually drink alcohol. When Will and Evanlyn finally reach Skandia, they are taken to the dining hall where they see “nearly one hundred and fifty drunken Skandians eating, laughing and shouting at one another. . .”
  • While staying at a tavern, Halt “accepted a large beaker of red wine with his meal. Horace had settled for water.” While Halt and Horace ate, the room filled with people “coming to eat or to enjoy a few jugs of wine or beer.”
  • While in Erak’s private quarters, the two drink wine as they talk. Evanlyn “was beginning to relax a little and the wine sent a soft glow through her.”
  • While “guests” of Deparnieux, Halt and the knight are served wine with dinner.

Language

  • “Oh God” is used as an exclamation once. “My god” is used as an exclamation three times.
  • Damn is used ten times, mostly in conversation. For example, Erak says, “I hate the damn drug. I’ve seen what it does to people. No one deserves that sort of shadow life.”
  • In anger, Halt exclaims, “For God’s sake. . .”
  • Hell is used three times. For example, when Will and Evanlyn’s skiff begins to sink, Evanlyn says, “Roll like hell!”
  • Halt calls the kind a “poltroon. A coward. And a fool.”
  • Several times a person is called an “idiot.” For example, when a knight is blocking Horace and Halt’s path, Halt says, “Well, I suppose I’ll have to shoot the silly idiot. . . I’ll be damned if I’ll pay tribute to every jumped-up bandit who thinks the world owes him a free living.” Halt then calls the knights who act this way “morons.”
  • Evanlyn thinks Will is a “stubborn, pigheaded idiot.”
  • A knight attempts to insult Horace by asking him, “. . . are you a lying Araleuen dog who barks in the gutters?” The knight then calls Horace a coward and a thief. Later, he calls Horace a “whining pup.”
  • Halt calls the evil knight a swine. Later, the knight calls Halt a commoner. Halt says, “Guard your tongue, you lowborn cur!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Skandians believe that the Vallas are the three gods of vengeance. “They take the form of a shark, a bear and a vulture.” The Skandians’ king makes a “Vallasvow” to kill King Duncan’s family. Erak explains, “It’s when you hate so badly that you swear to be avenged, not just upon the person who has wronged you, but on every member of the family as well. . . It’s a death vow, of course, and it’s unbreakable. Once it’s made, if the person making the vow should ever recant, the Vallas will take him and his own family instead of the original victim’s.”
  • When Evanlyn frees Will, she “prayed now that the Skandian Jarl was right, and that it was possible for an addict, deprived of warmweed, to make a full recovery.”
  • After Will recovers from his drug addiction, he wakes up in an unknown place. When Evanlyn enters the room, he says, “Thank God you’re safe.”

 Middle School Mayhem

After being trapped in a locker for hours, Max Crumbly has discovered three burglars are planning to steal all the school’s new computers and his father’s vintage comic book. Max vows to stop them and get his book back. But after crashing through a ventilation shaft and landing on the burglar’s pizza, he is surrounded by three ruthless criminals. There is no hope in sight as Max is now trapped between the three burglars who are ready to tear him apart and three ruthless criminals. All of a sudden, Erin, his only friend at South Ridge Middle School, comes to the rescue. She shuts off all the lights giving Max valuable time to escape.

Trapped in the school, Max and Erin must get Max’s comic book back and trap the three burglars – Moose, Tucker, and Ralph – before the police arrive. After Max confines Moose in the cafeteria and Tucker in the gymnasium, it seems like Max might actually accomplish the impossible and outwit the thieves. But Ralph, the ringleader of the burglars, poses a much harder challenge for Max than his two cronies. Will Max be able to catch Ralph and save his dad’s comic book, or will he be caught by the most malicious criminal of them all?

Russell creates a character who is flawed just like any other boy his age but manages to work through his problems. Up against an impossible task, Max strives through self-doubt to outsmart and outwit the criminals to save the school’s new computer center. Throughout the book, Max grows as a person and he now considers the consequences of his actions. He also feels bad after he accidentally gets Erin grounded because she was helping him snoop around the school. Young readers can see Max as a role model. They can be inspired to work hard when all hope seems lost and help others whenever possible.

While parents might find the book repetitive and full of too much bathroom humor and slapstick comedy, younger readers will enjoy the story’s amusing mayhem. Many of the jokes come from Max either making a fool of himself or hurting the criminals in some way, like trapping Ralph in a room with a snake and setting his hair on fire. However, the large font, black-and-white illustrations, and consistently funny jokes will help young, reluctant readers transfer their reading skills from picture books into full-fledged novels. Readers should read the first book in the series in order to understand this one. This book also ends with another cliffhanger, so make sure you have the next book in the series The Misadventures of Max Crumbly: Masters of Mischief.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Ralph grabbed onto Max’s cape in the ventilation shaft. Max rolled over onto his back, brought both of his knees to his chest, and then kicked with all his might. “The chunky soles of my lost-and-found motorcycle boots landed squarely on Ralph’s very sweaty and very surprised FACE!!”
  • Moose chases Max and grabs him by his collar. Moose accidentally “butt-dialed the burner on the stove and set himself on fire.” While on fire, Max dumps a bucket of slime on Moose, wraps him in plastic wrap, and ties him to a pole.
  • Max knocks Turner out in the gym and ties him up in a soccer net.
  • Max shoots a rocket at Ralph. It misses but lights Ralph’s toupee on fire. “As Ralph slowly walked toward me, I noticed the strangest thing. The top of his head was smoking.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Max knew middle school was going to be challenging, but he never “expected to end up DEAD in the computer lab, wearing a SUPERHERO COSTUME, with four slices of PIZZA stuck to my BUTT!”
  • The students at Max’s school nicknamed him “Barf” after he threw up on his bullies’ shoes.
  • After Moose and Tucker complain they are hungry, Ralph shouts, “How about I rip out your spleens and shove ‘em down your throats?! Then you won’t be hungry anymore, you MORONS!”
  • When grabbing Max, Ralph snarls, “Hold still, you little RAT!”
  • When Ralph gets stuck in a ventilation shaft, Moose and Tucker try to pull him out. Ralph’s saggy pants fall off and he is pictured in his underwear.
  • Max said that releasing his pet turtles into the wild when he was younger was “the STUPIDEST thing I’ve ever done in my life!!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Matthew Perkey

 

 

 

 

 

Enter the Core

Max Tilt thinks his luck is finally changing thanks to his great-great-great-grandfather Jules Verne’s unfinished, unpublished manuscript, The Lost Treasures. Using the clues Verne left behind, Max and his cousin Alex were able to bottle the magical healing elements needed to cure his mother’s illness just in the nick of time.

But then Max and Alex discover that the vials were stolen by their former friend, Bitsy. She has plans to use them to save the world, but her plans might be much more deadly than they seem. And so now it’s up to Max and Alex to stop her before it’s too late.

Working against the odds, the two kids glean clues from one of Verne’s best-loved books, Journey to the Center of the Earth. In it, they discover a map to their most dangerous destination yet—the very core of the world. So, now the two cousins are off on their most unlikely, most important quest yet—literally to save the world!

Max Tilt: Enter the Core has everything that adventure seekers could want in a book: non-stop action, interesting clues to solve, and a wonderful cast of diverse characters. Readers will be taken on a heart-stopping hike into the center of the earth where prehistoric creatures survive. As Max and his friends travel down the dark corridors and enter creepy caves, they use their combined knowledge (and a couple of ancient talismans) to safely solve the clues that Jules Verne left behind.

Even though the same villain from the previous books appears, the villain creates suspense and conflict without taking center stage. Instead, the focus remains on the descendants of Jules Vernes and his friend Arne Saknusseumm. The story highlights the importance of doing what is best for humanity, instead of what’s best for yourself.

Because many of the characters appear in all three books in the series, readers will want to read the previous books first. Unlike the previous books, Max Tilt: Enter the Core leaves the topics of death and illness out and focuses on the adventure, as Max and his friends follow Jules Verne’s footsteps as described in Journey to the Center of the Earth. In addition to the adventure, readers will enjoy the interplay between Max and his cousin, Alex.

Max Tilt: Enter the Core has the perfect blend of action, suspense, and interesting characters. Readers will want to read to the very last page. The heart-warming conclusion will leave readers with a smile. Sci-fi and action-seeking readers should definitely pick up the Max Tilt Series.

Sexual Content

  • Someone saw Alex “kiss the lucky fellow.”

Violence

  • When the bus driver tried to help Bitsy with her backpack, she bit him. “For a big walrus of a man, the driver had an oddly dainty scream. He yanked his arm away, Bitsy’s mouth was left with the taste of stale coffee, laundry detergent and old polyester.”
  • Max gets upset and Brandon “grabbed him by the shoulders, but Max turned and kicked him.” Max began taking deep breaths to calm himself down.
  • While in a cave, a “white object dropped to the ground. A bone. Then a grinning white face burst through. As Alex let out a piercing shriek, Max dove to the ground. He covered his head as a cascade of bones and skulls rained on top of him.”
  • While in a cave, Max falls and slips down a passage and a creature grabs him. Max tried to run, but the thing “held Max tight—with arms, legs, or tendrils, he couldn’t tell. But it was smothering him, smushing his face into its fur, lifting his feet off the ground.” Max hits the creature with his flashlight. “As Max tried to wriggle free, he heard a scream. Something sharp stuck his left ankle. . . The beast let out a guttural moan. It let go of Max and he fell to the ground.”
  • A creature grabbed Max with its talons. “Max felt himself rise, in ridiculous pain. He let out a scream that seemed to come up from below his toenails.” The creature drops Max.
  • While in a cave, Brandon falls off a cliff. Later, Max’s group finds Brandon’s body and Brandon cannot be revived. A creature comes towards the body and Alex attacks the creature. “From the front of the creature’s torso, hidden under the thick mass of hair, an orange tentacle whipped forward. It wrapped around Alex’s arm and tossed her to the side like driftwood. She screamed in surprise, her trowel flying away and into the water.” Later, someone else “blindsided the creature from the other side. With a roar like a creaky door, the hairy thing fell back.”
  • When a crowd of creatures comes towards Max and his group, Brandon “went into a pitching stance, kicked, and hurled the rock into the advancing crowd.” There is a lot of screaming and confusion. Something touches Max and “Max yelled in shock, twisting his body always, instinctively spinning and kicking. His right foot landed square in the face of a furry, monkey-like beast with wings. It fell to the ground, whimpering, and immediately ran away.” Then, Max squirts raspberry Gatorade towards a creature’s eyes causing it to run away. The scene is described over three pages.
  • Prehistoric birds appear and try to snatch up Max and his friends. Before the birds can hurt anyone, “Three of the hairy creatures—just like the one who had poured the liquid over Brandon—were picking the birds out of the sky with their tentacles.” The birds fly away.
  • The villain throws “a small black pellet that missed Max by inches, hitting the wall. . .it exploded into fragments and black dust.” A man is killed, but his death is not described.
  • The villain pulled a gun from his pocket and threatened Max’s group. The villain throws pellets at Max’s group, and “it landed about four feet in front of [the door] and exploded.” No one is injured.
  • Max’s group sets off an explosive that collapses a cave. It is implied that the villain and his daughter die in the explosion.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • While hiking, Max and his group find a “plastic foil wrapper” of Xantax.

Language

  • Heck is used four times. Several times someone asks, “What the heck is that?”
  • When prehistorical birds appear, someone says, “Dear Lord.”

Supernatural

  • Max is given “one of the most powerful talismans of the ancients. . . While wearing this talisman, you will always face the true path.”
  • A creature puts “a clear liquid” on Brandon’s forehead and chest. “Brandon’s skin let out a hiss, sending up wisps of green smoke. . . Where the hissing liquid had touched his body, his pale greenish skin was darkening. From a series of thin lines along his forehead and torso, it spread like the branching of nerves, setting off blotches of deep color that grew and joined until he no longer had the same tinge as the lake.” Brandon’s body repairs itself and he comes back to life.
  • Two men drink a serum that makes them immortal. “The serum slowed the body’s aging mechanism—it destroyed the marker that signals the end of life. In curing disease, the curious side effect was eternal life.”

Spiritual Content

  • The plane that Max was on crashed in freezing water. “Saying a prayer, [Max] jumped out the door.”
  • Someone tells Max and his group that they should “Go back to your family and pray for the best.”

 

 

The Burning Queen

In the second installment of Tangled in Time, newly orphaned Rose finds herself time-traveling between the present day and the court of the two most memorable English princesses in history. When Princess Mary ascends the throne in sixteenth-century England, Rose is forced to serve her. Mary’s coronation is coming and Rose is put to work making elaborate gowns. But the religiously devout queen’s next plan is to begin her attack on the Protestants—by burning them at the stake!

Rose’s dad, master spy, and goldsmith for the court, urges Rose to escape to her home century, present-day Indiana, where Rose befriends a young immigrant named Marisol. Rose must protect Marisol from both middle school mean girls and the threat of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Rose is determined to rescue her father and her best friend Franny from the dangers of Queen Mary’s reign. Is she willing to risk everything to save the people closest to her?

Readers who have not read the first Tangled in Time will not be able to understand the events in The Burning Queen. The story focuses on Rose and her friend Marisol, who is undocumented and an unaccompanied minor. Because of her immigration status, Marisol is frightened that ICE will take her to a detention center. Through Marisol’s situation, the pro-immigrant message is clear. This theme is reinforced when a doctor says, “many of us have been migrants at one time in our lives. It is not a crime.”

The story has many inconsistencies and questionable events. Even though the time travel is explained, the explanation is unbelievable. For example, when Rose returns to the past, she somehow knows everything that happened in her absence, and no one noticed that she was gone. Another questionable event is that Rose returns to the past in order to convince her father to travel to her time period; however, when she returns to the past, she hides from her father. In addition, Rose uses modern words and phrases and when people in the past question her, she “blamed every modern phrase she accidentally uttered on West Ditch, her supposed home village.”

Rose has a fashion blog that includes sixteenth-century fashion and modern fashion. Several of her blog posts are included; however, the pictures are of poor quality and do not reflect a modern teen’s blog. Rose uses words from her school vocabulary list, such as ecumenical and alacrity, but she never explains the words’ definitions.

The Burning Queen has many inconsistencies and holes in the plot that even younger readers will question. The complex, confusing plot, the questionable events, and the large cast of characters will make it difficult for readers to stay engaged. Readers may want to leave The Burning Queen on the shelf. For those interested in stories about time travel, the Ruby Red Trilogy by Kerstin Gier would make a better choice.

Sexual Content

  • Some of the serving class are talking about Queen Mary being healthy enough to carry a child. Rose says, “I think she should bear a husband first. . . All I’m saying is it’s best to have a husband before having a child.”
  • While walking through the castle, Rose sees “two shadows entwined behind a pillar. One shadow was speaking. ‘Oh, I just want to kiss you, my darling. Kiss you and kiss you and don’t make me cry, milady, don’t make me lie, milady.’” Rose thinks it’s curious that the shadows’ words are similar to a modern song, “I just want to make out with you. I want to make time with you. I want to be true to you and only you. . .”
  • Rose has to climb underneath a dinner table to fix Queen Mary’s skirt. While under there, she recognizes a lady’s shoes. “Both her feet and those of the gentleman next to her were involved in an apparently lively conversation. What a hussy!”
  • On Rose’s blog, she wrote that a duchess “got around.”
  • Rose makes a comment that “Elizabeth would be the Virgin Queen.”

Violence

  • When Rose goes back in time, she discovers that Queen Mary “was burning Protestants. . . Burning, hangings, what would be next? Boiling in oil? Oh, the sixteenth-century mind was so creative in devising ways to kill people.”
  • As Rose learns about Queen Mary, she discovers that Lady Jane Grey was the queen for nine days, and in the end was imprisoned and beheaded.
  • Although Rose doesn’t see anyone burned, she comments about the smell and writes in her diary. “The queen seems not to smell it, and as far as I can tell she looks no bigger. If I was that baby, I wouldn’t want to be born. Imagine having your first breath of air filled with the stink of these murders. Yuck! Of course some seem not to mind the stink. . .”
  • Rose writes in her diary, “And I was told that often they tie bags of gunpowder between the victim’s knees to ensure that the person was not only burned but blown to bits.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Rose’s grandmother was “sipping a glass of sherry—just one glass on these cold winter nights.”

Language

  • A mean girl purposely trips Marisol, who drops her lunch tray. When food gets on another girl’s sweater, someone calls Marisol “stupido.”
  • Rose tells Marisol that the mean girls are “jerks.” Later someone else calls someone a jerk.
  • Heck and damn are both used twice. Darn is used four times and dang is used three times.
  • God is used as an exclamation three times. OMG is used as an exclamation eight times.
  • Someone uses “good Lord” as an exclamation.
  • Rose gets upset when a Frosty snowman kept singing a song. Rose thinks, “Go to hell, Frosty, and Melt!”
  • A lady calls a court jester a “loathsome dwarf.”
  • When Rose goes back in time, she uses the acronym TOD. When someone asks what it means, Rose says, “Turd of a dog.”
  • Jeez is used as an exclamation several times.
  • Rose gives her father a gift, and then thinks, “God, what have I done?”
  • Rose tells a girl, “Put a plug in your pug mouth.”
  • Someone calls Rose an idiot.
  • Someone uses “Oh God’s toes” as an exclamation.
    Supernatural
  • Rose’s father is from the 1500s and lived during Bloody Mary’s reign. Rose can go back in time to her father’s time period. In order to go back in time, Rose concentrates on a flower. “Marisol watched, mesmerized, as a vaporous mist began to form around Rose and she slowly dissolved, leaving just a shadow behind. Then a whisper came from the mist, ‘I’ll be back in just a minute or two.’”
  • The women in Rose’s family are able to travel back in time because “we have the gene.”
  • When Rose goes back to the past, she remembers events that she did not witness. “It was a memory she had not forgotten in the least, yet she had not directly experienced it. Her shadow had. Her ghostly counterpart that seemed to carry on without her.”

Spiritual Content

  • When Rose sees Princess Elizabeth wearing her locket, Rose prays, “Oh please, don’t let Princess Elizabeth figure out the secret to opening that locket!” Rose makes this prayer several times.
  • When Marisol falls down in the snow, Rose prays that her grandmother’s driver will answer the phone.
  • Queen Mary was a devout Catholic. Before her coronation, “there was talk of postponing the event. Holy oils that had been consecrated by the previous kings’ priests were used for coronations. But Mary was suspicious of the oil because those priests were Protestants and she was Catholic.”
  • During the sixteenth century, “the pope’s power cannot be questioned. Nor can Queen Mary’s.” When this information is introduced, Rose worries that her friend will be burned alive because she has a Bible. Rose “was absolutely dizzy with fear, with shock. She shut her eyes tight and tried to banish the image of Franny being tied to a stake. The kindling bursting into flames. Then another image came into her mind—the smugglers, the ones they called coyotes, circling Marisol. And the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers. . .”
  • On Christmas Eve, “Marisol was on her knees again, whispering her prayers in Spanish.”
  • Rose wants her Protestant friend to go to mass and pretend to be a devout Catholic. Her friend’s mother tells her, “Only God can see into your heart. He knows what your true faith is.” When Queen Mary is excited about having her baby, Rose thinks, “A baby whose mother had just given the order to set another human on fire for not believing as she did. No God in any religion on earth would want this. Of this Rose was certain.”
  • Queen Mary dictates in a letter, “I’m sure you will rejoice and be pleased with God’s infinite goodness in the happy delivery of our son/daughter.”
  • Rose writes in her diary. “I don’t think God is exactly Mary’s friend. If he is, I am profoundly disappointed in him. There have been ten more burnings!”

The Story Web

When Alice was little, she found a gigantic spider web deep in the forest. Her dad called it the Story Web and told her how its strands were woven from the stories that hold our world together.

Years later, Alice’s dad has gone away for reasons Alice is sure are her fault. Now she won’t even talk about her dad—and definitely no longer believes his far-fetched stories. But when animals in town start acting strangely, she can’t ignore them. The Story Web is in danger—and the fabric of their world is breaking. The only way to mend it is to tell honest tales from the heart, even if they are difficult to share.

The Story Web tackles some heavy issues including friendship, hurtful rumors, and PTSD. The story focuses on Alice; however, the story is told from a third-person point of view and often shifts; it includes both human and animal points of view. The always-changing points of view break up the story’s action and may confuse some readers.

Although the story has an interesting premise, the storyline tries to do too much and lacks action. Alice’s father was in the military and has PTSD. Despite this, Alice feels like she is responsible for making her father go away. Throughout the story, Alice reads letters from her father that have many references to The Odyssey by Homer. Greek gods and the theme of the hero’s journey are also incorporated into the story. Readers who are unfamiliar with the Greek references will be confused. Readers may also have difficulties with the advanced vocabulary, such as precocity, coalition, and reprobate.

The story highlights the importance of teamwork and discusses what makes a person heroic. Alice thinks, “Some superheroes want to be heroes. Like Batman or Captain America. They make it happen. Other ones don’t really have a choice.” Alice learns that being a hero isn’t like in the movies, instead “it’s showing up, doing your job—that’s what makes a hero.” Despite the positive messages, The Story Web may be difficult for readers to slog through.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • There is a rumor that Melanie’s aunt is a witch. People say, “She’d cut off your toes and feed them to her birds. She’d cast a spell on you and turn you into a crow.”
  • When a boy sees Lewis, he talks badly about Alice in order to start a fight. A boy tells Lewis, “Are you going to punch me? Go on, do it! I can’t believe wimpy Lewis Marble is actually going to punch someone!” An adult intervenes before anything happens.
  • When the smoke alarm goes off, Alice’s father thinks he is back in the war. “He lunged toward her, grabbed her around the shoulder, and pulled her roughly to the floor. . . He pressed her into the floor. She felt the ridges of the linoleum on her cheek. ‘Dad,’ she said, struggling to breathe under the weight of his body.” When Alice’s father realizes what he did, he runs to his bedroom and locks the door.
  • While in a crowded room, a man accidentally shoots a gun. “The gunshot reverberated round the old room. It rattled the metal folding chairs. It echoed off the huge lights that hung like bells above them. . . Mr. Sykes stared at the gun, mystified. . . He’d dropped it, and it went off. The bullet flew the length of the room just above the floor and left a small hole in the cinder-block wall.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Alice goes to a restaurant with her family and sees a man she knows. “Alan Sykes sat there, a golden-hued beer and a plate of cheese fries in front of him.”
  • Alice goes to the hospital to see her father, who is taking medication. Alice’s mother tells her, “I’ve been talking to the doctors the whole time, honey. They are being careful. It can be hard to get the dosage right, but what they have now seems good. . . I know that meds that work on your personality can seem weird and scary, but some people really need them. Like you wouldn’t look down on someone for taking acetaminophen for a headache, right? These meds are the same.”

Language

  • “What the—” is used twice.
  • “Oh my g—” is used once.
  • A boy calls Alice “Dingaling.”
  • Someone asks, “What kind of idiot would do that?”
  • Darn is used once.
  • Heck is used twice.

Supernatural

  • The story revolves around the Story Web, which is created when “the people tell their stories out loud or on paper, and the spiders weave them into the web. We’re always making and remaking it. It’s a very fragile thing.” The spiders gather the stories, weave them, and “the strands lace together, crisscrossing one another to make the fabric that ties the whole world together.”

Spiritual Content

  • Someone says that a true miracle is “when the supernatural world comes into the human world and helps out.”
  • Alice’s father taught her that “the constellations were set in the sky by the Greek gods whose stories he loved to tell.” The gods and constellations are described.

The Great Big Boom

When Gina disappears into a portal, no one knows where she is. But Hilo knows that friends don’t let friends disappear. Hilo and D.J. know they must find Gina and bring her home. They know jumping into a portal will lead them on a dangerous adventure, but they are determined to get Gina back. Can they find Gina and make it back to Earth before the portal closes?

Readers will fall in love with Hilo, the lovable living machine from another planet. The Great Big Boom takes readers on an epic adventure to a world where two clans have been battling for centuries. As Hilo searches for a way home, he struggles with regaining his memories. Hilo is afraid that he will discover that he is truly evil.

In the battle scenes, the characters spend more time running away than fighting and none of the characters are seriously injured. Hilo and D.J. go to “Oshun, the last magical planet” and find their friend Polly who loves to tell puns. Polly introduces Hilo and D.J. to a clan of fierce-talking cats. Readers will giggle at the sibling arguments and the silly antics of the Furback Clan.

Brightly colored illustrations will capture readers’ attention, but readers will want to keep turning the pages because of the engaging story and the likable characters. The detailed illustrations show exaggerated facial expressions which will help readers understand the characters’ changing emotions.   For maximum enjoyment, the stories should be read in order. Even though the first chapter recaps the events in the previous books, the story’s plots build on each other.

Hilo’s story demonstrates how one person can make a positive impact on others. Hilo learns that a person can always change for the better and that past deeds do not have to define you. The Great Big Boom keeps readers entertained with mystery, fighting, magic, and wonderfully complex characters. At the end of the story, readers will be eager for Hilo’s next adventure, Waking the Monsters.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • The military surrounds Hilo and D.J. with tanks but when the two boys beginning crying, “I want my mommy! Waaaaaah!” the army men get confused. The boys are put in a holding cell. Hilo holds an object and recites a spell: “Time is the stone that falls. Time is the river that crawls. Turn the water and rock. Turn back the sun and the clock.” The orb “can erase the memories of an entire world from two sunsets.” After the spell, a man lets the kids out of the cell.
  • A giant hamster-like creature that is carrying an alligator creature chases D.J. and Hilo. Someone uses lasers to hit the alligator creature and the hamster-like creature in the butt. The two creatures run away.
  • An elephant squid grabs someone and D.J.’s sister uses a magical blast to shrink the elephant squid. When the squid shrinks, the person he captured kicks him.
  • Hilo and his friends are gobbled up by a fish, who takes them to a sorcerer. The fish spits the group out of its mouth.
  • The Scale Tale Clan tries to attack Hilo and his friends, but the house they are in begins grabbing them and punching them. The Scale Tale Clan is able to capture one creature. When Hilo goes to save his friend, the Scale Tale Clan surrounds him with weapons, but Hilo uses an electromagnetic pulse to disable the weapons. The two clans battle each other.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The characters in the story call others names. For example, humans are called “hairless monkeys.” Other names creatures are called include putrid, slime-caked salamander, odorous toe crust from a troll’s diseased foot, snake face, and fish-bottomed dung herders.
  • Someone tells Hilo and D.J. that they stink “just like a buffalo’s keister.”
  • “Holy Mackerel” is used as an exclamation.

Supernatural

  • Hilo is a living, feeling machine that runs off of solar energy, can fly, and shoots lasers out of his hands.
  • Two kids use magic to turn their brother into a sandwich. Their mother shouts, “Turn your brother back before the cockroach eats him!”
  • Someone uses an incantation to bring Hilo’s memories back. The person chants, “Deep in the sea, below the murk. Beneath the cavers, trapped in dirt. Rise up from the ground, overturn the dark moss. Return to use the visions we have lost.”
  • A sorcerer uses a spell to put Hilo and his friends “inside of Hilo’s memories. Our bodies are entranced inside my house. Oh. . . We’re in Hilo’s head.”
  • The Scale Tale Clan has a “fire orb” that makes them weapons.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Lost and Found

Fourteen-year-old Ezekiel Blast is an outcast. No one at his school talks to him. All of his classmates think he is a thief because no one understands his unique talent for finding things. It’s not a superpower—it’s a micropower. But Ezekiel’s micropower has done nothing helpful because when Ezekiel returns a lost item to its owner, the owner assumes he is the one who must have stolen it.

Everything changes after Ezekiel meet Beth. Beth believes his power might be useful. When the two friends are invited to join a group of other teens with micropowers, Ezekiel realizes he is not alone. With Beth’s encouragement, Ezekiel begins testing his micropower and trying to discover how it works.

When a police detective appears at Ezekiel’s house, desperate for any help that will lead to a missing little girl, Ezekiel is determined not to help him. He doesn’t understand his micropower and is afraid of the cops. But when tragedy strikes, Ezekiel knows that he must use his talent to find what matters most.

Ezekiel is a character that jumps off the page and grabs the reader’s attention. Lost and Found is told from Ezekiel’s point of view, which allows the reader to understand his fear, his hurt, and his unusual talent. Beth, a proportional dwarf, befriends Ezekiel and encourages him to join a support group for those who have unusual powers. The interesting premise and the unusual characters will keep the reader’s attention. However, towards the middle of the story it suddenly takes a disturbingly dark turn.

When Ezekiel decides to help find the missing girl, the police officer tells him of disturbing cases of young girls who have been taken, put on a pedophilia pornography website, and then are murdered on screen. When Ezekiel’s friend Beth is kidnapped, Ezekiel is truly motivated to use his micropower to find her. During this time, Ezekiel also wrestles with feelings for Beth. Because Beth is a proportional dwarf and looks like a child, he worries that his romantic feelings for Beth will make him look “like the kind of guy who likes little girls.”

Another disturbing plot twist is when Ezekiel learns that Beth’s mother had died, and Beth hid her mother’s death in order to avoid being put in a foster home. Lost and Found gives the reader insight into the nature of friendship, but the dark content of the book may give readers nightmares. Readers may find many of the facts unbelievable and the long passage of the support group sessions tiring. Fans of Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game will be disappointed that Lost and Found is disjointed, and while Ezekiel is a likable character, this story isn’t as expertly crafted as Ender’s Game.

Sexual Content

  • When Ezekiel is called into the counseling office, he thinks that the counselors “all had little windows in the doors so that students couldn’t claim they were molested or abused by a counselor.”
  • When a police officer tries to talk to Ezekiel, Ezekiel walks away. When the officer follows him, Ezekiel says, “If you follow me another step, I’ll go on Facebook and tell everybody about the cop who followed me to school and tried to touch me inappropriately.”
  • Ezekiel’s friend wants to know why he doesn’t return lost items. He gives a hypothetical situation where he goes to a girl’s house to return a scrunchie. Ezekiel says that her parents would “want me on the sex offender registry for stalking their daughter.”
  • Beth tells Ezekiel that girls with “huge boobs” don’t run because they will give themselves a black eye. Then Beth says, “I’ve ruined big busted women for you.” Their conversation about boobs goes on for a page.
  • Beth won’t let Ezekiel inside her house. Ezekiel wonders, “What was the terrible secret she was hiding. That her mother was shacked up with some live-in boyfriend. . . That Beth was the unwed mother of a huge baby that ate whatever it could, including the feet and ankles of visitors?”
  • A police officer tells Ezekiel about girls who have been kidnapped. “The girls these guys kidnap show up right away on child-pornography websites, the ugliest stuff. It gets uglier and uglier and then they get killed on camera. We estimate the whole process takes a week, and then the girl is dead.”
  • Ezekiel is upset that he might have feelings for Beth because “she looks like a six-year-old for heaven’s sake. If by some ridiculous fluke I actually had feelings for her, I’d look like some kind of. . . I’d look like the kind of guy who likes little girls.”
  • When talking about Beth, Ezekiel tells his father, “She may be short, but she was starting to get boobs. . .I wasn’t staring but I’d have to be brain-dead or completely not-male to miss that.”
  • While talking about Beth, a boy tells Ezekiel, “So touch yourself . . .bet you have plenty of practice.”
  • Ezekiel’s father tells a Bible story about Joseph and Potiphara. Potiphara’s wife “got the hots for him and when her husband was out inspecting the troops, she suggested to Joseph that they might do a little hanky. Or panky, the book of Genesis isn’t clear. Joseph said no. She tore her cloak and began to scream that Joseph tried to rape her.”

Violence

  • When he was small, Ezekiel’s mother was killed. He thinks back to her death as, “it was wham, car hits Mom, Mom flies through the air and then lies in a shape no human should ever be in and he knew right then that she would never come back, not even as a cripple.”
  • When Ezekiel was younger, he found a kid’s bike and returned it. He says, “I knew where it belonged because the connection was so strong. Took it back and got the crap beat out of me and the cops were called and they didn’t charge the kid or his dad for the beating I got. . .”
  • The woman who helped kidnap a little girl is found dead. She “was dead on the kitchen floor, stabbed with the big kitchen knife that she probably picked up to try to defend herself. All the blood was hers, though, and so were all the prints. . .”
  • Beth kicked one of the kidnappers, who fell to his death. When Ezekiel finds Beth, he looks at the kidnapper’s body. “And he could see that there was no possibility that his spinal cord was attached to his brain anymore. Which was a moot point because the man’s head had landed on a pile of cinderblocks and much of his brain was a lumpy smear.” Later, Ezekiel thinks how hard it would be for Beth to kill a man, even if he was trying to hurt her. “The kicking, the falling, nearly dying herself, but then seeing the man sprawled there, neck broken, skull spilling out brains and blood.”
  • Ezekiel’s father used to work in a slaughterhouse. “One at a time they [animals] come up the ramp to his position and he kills them and they flop over and slide down to where the process of skinning and gutting them began, other guys turning them from a once-living body into a side of beef.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • While in an abandoned building, Ezekiel’s father says, “I’m surprised there isn’t a bunch of discarded drug paraphernalia here.” Ezekiel replies, “Most crack dens are more conveniently located, aren’t they?”
  • Beth says that the men who kidnapped her also drugged her. Later she tells another kidnap victim, “I can tell you that the drug they gave us made all the food taste like licking a bicycle tire.”
  • Ezekiel thinks Beth “could probably buy cigarettes and beer without showing i.d.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: ass, asshole, bastard, crap, bitch, damn, hell, pissed, prick, and shit.
  • When Ezekiel told his father that kids were moving to the other side of the street in order to avoid him, his father said, “chalk it up to coincidence, you narcissistic bonehead.”
  • People call others “idiot” occasionally. For example, Ezekiel’s father said, “An expert is just an idiot who used to be pert.”
  • Someone tells Ezekiel, “You’re a jerk.”
  • Ezekiel tells his dad that he wants to go trick-or-treating. His father says he can go, but Ezekiel will look “like a pathetic, greedy teenage moron.”
  • Ezekiel’s father tells him, “stop being a language nazi.”
  • Ezekiel calls a girl in his group, “Juh-anus.”
  • Ezekiel tells a police officer, “I’m a bastard.”
  • Someone calls Beth’s dad a “flaming frankfurter.”

Supernatural

  • Ezekiel meets with a group of kids who have different abilities. For example, one kid’s skin neutralizes odor, while another kid can make people yawn.
  • A boy in Ezekiel’s group can sense spiders. He tells the group, “There are always dozens of spiders within a hundred yards. I’m actually aware of spiders much further off, but it’s more vague.” He can also tell if someone intentionally or accidentally killed a spider.
  • When Ezekiel finds lost objects, he can tell who they belong to and how to find them. During the book, he tries to figure out how his power works.
  • When trying to figure out how to help Beth, Ezekiel thought about Beth and suddenly “he could feel himself falling.” He can feel what Beth was doing and feeling. “He could feel how raw and painful his muscles were, he could see how the skin had been scraped and abased on his arm from the struggle, from trying to grip the rough concrete of the floor.”

Spiritual Content

  • When Ezekiel’s mom was killed, Ezekiel wanted to know where his mother was. Ezekiel’s father said, “‘We didn’t know much about heaven but some part of us lived on after death yadda yadda.’ Ezekiel had listened when Mother took him to church so he was familiar with the idea, and that was not what he was asking.”
  • Ezekiel and his father have a conversation about God. Ezekiel’s father says he believes in God even though he doesn’t go to church. Ezekiel’s father says, “I believe in life after death. I believe the soul goes on.” Ezekiel’s father also keeps the commandments and prays. When the conversation shifts to prayer, Ezekiel’s father says, “If your definition is showing God the yearning of my soul, then yes, I’m praying right now.” Ezekiel’s father says that he prays to be a good father; he says, “I pray about other things. For nobody to lose any body parts while cutting meat. For the strength to not be as snotty with customers as you are with me. And no, that wasn’t a criticism. . .” The conversation lasts for about three pages.
  • When Ezekiel’s father wakes him up early, Ezekiel says, “Dad, God doesn’t wake up this early on a Saturday.”
  • When Ezekiel helps find a kidnapped girl, his father wants him to go to church. His father says, “I also had the crazy idea that you might want to say ‘thank God’ in a house of God.” Ezekiel and his father have a short conversation about God. His father tells him, “I spent a lot of time being enraged with God for not saving your mother. But then I realized that it was my whole family there on the sidewalk, my wife and my only child. I thought about what had been saved for me instead of what had been taken.”

The Burning Bridge

For years, the Kingdom of Araluen has prospered, but everyone knows the evil Lord Morgarath is plotting the kingdom’s destruction. Lord Morgarath has been hiding safely behind the impassable mountains. He’s been patiently building his Wargal army, waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

When Will and his friend Horace, an apprentice knight, travel to a neighboring village, they find a frightened maiden named Evanlyn. The young woman miraculously survived a Wargal attack. As the three journey towards Araluen, they discover the unsettling truth. Morgarath has finally devised a plan to bring his legions over the mountains. Will, Horace, and Evanlyn must warn the king’s army of the imminent danger of being crushed. While the three are surrounded by Wargals and are running low on supplies, Will and Horace are determined to save the king’s army.

The Burning Bridge continues the story of Will, a Ranger’s apprentice, and Horace, a Battleschool student. As Araluen prepares for war, the two young men accompany Ranger Gilan as he journeys to the neighboring county to seek reinforcements. The companionship and respect between the group paint a vivid picture of friendship during medieval times. Despite their friendship, each man must do what is best for their country, even if that means leaving a friend behind. The story uses a third-person omniscient point of view to focus on Will and Horace’s thought process, which allows the reader to understand their actions.

Although Will and Horace are only apprentices, they play a vital role in saving the kingdom. The apprentices’ actions are realistic because their skills are constantly being improved as they travel with Gilan. Each character, no matter their station, has an important role in the kingdom. From the king to the cook, each person helps in the war efforts. Readers will enjoy the positive male relationships as well as the introduction of Evanlyn, who is determined to help her country.

The Burning Bridge is a story of war, friendship, and sacrifice. The descriptive battle scenes focus on the destruction of war and never glorifies the battle. Each person, including the king, loses someone they love. Although the sacrifices were necessary, each character feels the loss. Even though the death scenes are not described in gory detail, lives are lost.

The Burning Bridge has many positive aspects: well-developed characters, a believable setting, and realistic, exciting conflicts. The story’s long descriptive scenes and advanced vocabulary (such as traverse, caprice, incognito, incipient, vehemently, and emphatically) make the story best-suited for strong readers. The Ranger’s Apprentice Series must be read in order because the plot builds on the previous book. Those who have read The Ruins of Gorlan will also enjoy The Burning Bridge.

Sexual Content

  • Will thinks about Alyss. Will “shifted uncomfortably as he thought of her. Alyss had kissed him after his homecoming dinner at the inn and he still remembered the soft touch of her lips.”

Violence

  • While traveling, Halt and Will come across a man who is surrounded by Wargals. The man’s “long sword held them at bay, but the Wargals were making small feinting movements toward him trying to find an advantage. They were armed with short swords and axes and one carried a heavy iron spear.” Halt approaches and tries to help the man. “Realizing the swordsman was distracted, he darted forward and ran the spear into his body. A second later, Halt’s arrow buried itself in the Wargal’s heart and he fell dead beside his stricken prey.” Halt shoots an arrow and his “second shot dropped the left-hand Wargal.” When a Wargal goes after Will, “Halt’s fourth arrow took it in the throat. At such short range, the arrow tore clean through. With a final grunting shriek, the Wargal fell dead on the grass.” The fight is described over two pages.
  • Two men, Carney and Bart, try to rob Horace and Will. Horace “darted forward and his sword flashed in an overhead cut at Carney. . . Carney barely had time to bring his own blade up in a clumsy parry. Thrown off balance and totally unprepared for the surprising force or authority behind the stroke, he stumbled backward and sprawled in the dust.” Horace knocks Carney to the ground and then swung his fist, “hammering the heavy brass pommel of his sword hilt into the side of Bart’s head.” When Bart tries to get up, Horace “turned and casually raised his sword, swinging it to clang, flat-bladed, against Bart’s skull.” The two men are tied up and eventually set free. The fighting is described over five pages.
  • Halt throws two nobles into a moat. “A group of servants were busy emptying the privy buckets into the moat when they were startled by a sudden drawn-out cry. They looked up in time to see a scarlet-and-gold clad figure sail out of a first story window, turn over once and then land with an enormous splash in the dark, rancid waters.”
  • Will and Horace see a group of Wargals pass by with prisoners. A prisoner, who was a miner, falls and causes others to fall down. “The two prisoners who had been brought down struggled to their feet, under a rain of lashes from their captors. The miner who had caused the fall lay still, in spite of the vicious whipping from the Wargals.” The dead prisoner is left on the side of the road.
  • Will and Evanlyn attempt to burn down a bridge in order to prevent the Wargals from crossing. Wargals and Skandian armies appear and try to stop the group. Will “nocked an arrow to the string and, barely seeming to aim, sent it hissing toward the lead Wargal. The arrow buried itself in the Wargal’s chest and he fell, crying out once, then lay silent.” Will and Evanlyn try to hide from the enemy, but a “rock took him in the side of the head and he grunted in surprise, then his eyes rolled up and he fell at her feet, dark blood already welling from his scalp.”
  • When Will is injured, a Skandian grabs Evanlyn. “The Skandian held her in a bear hug, her feet pressed onto the rough sheepskin of his vest, smelling of grease and smoke and sweat all but suffocating her. She kicked out, lashing with her feet and tossing her head, trying to butt the man who was holding her, but to no avail.” The bridge scene is described over six pages.
  • Halt and his men defeat a group of Skandians who were preparing a sneak attack. Although the fighting is not described, Halt says, “We caught them totally by surprise and cut them to pieces.”
  • During the battle, a bugler didn’t hear Morgarath, so Morgarath “whipped the man across the face with his leather-covered steel riding crop. . . The bugler, ignoring the agony of the whip cut and the blood that poured down his forehead and into his eye, raised a horn to his lips and blew. . .”
  • During the final battle against the Wargals, “fully half of his [Morgarath’s] Wargal soldiers were lying broken in the dust of the battlefield.” Part of the battle is described through Horace’s point of view. Horace “had watched as Wargals and horses had all died and their bodies sprawled now in the dust of the Plains of Uthal like so many scattered rag dolls. It had been fast and violent and confusing.”
  • Trying to escape the Wargals, a group of Skandians attack. “The Wargal tried to bring his iron spear up in defense, but he was a fraction too slow. The heavy ax sheared through his armor and he went down. . . But the Wargals hadn’t left their group unscathed. As he spoke, Nordal staggered and sank slowly to one knee. Bright blood stained the corner of his mouth and he looked hopelessly at his leader.” The man eventually dies.
  • Horace and Morgarath battle to the death. Before the battle begins, “Horace felt his throat go dry as he realized he was now fighting for his life.” As the two fight, “Horace’s left arm, his shield arm, was rendered completely numb by the terrible force of the blow. . . Now Horace used the shorter blade of his sword to lunge at the gap that had opened between shield and body and drove the point at Morgarath’s ribs. . .But the black armor held against the thrust, which was delivered from a cramped position and had little force behind it. Nonetheless, it hurt Morgarath, cracking a rib behind the mail armor, and he cursed in pain and jerked at his own sword once more.”
  • During the fight, Horace’s shield breaks. Morgarath took the opportunity and “slammed the double-handed hilt of the sword into the side of the boy’s helmet and onlookers groaned in dismay as Horace fell from his saddle.” Horace is dragged several meters and then regains his feet. The two enemies continue the fight on foot.
  • As the battle continues, Morgarath uses his broadsword. “The broadsword began its downward arc, splitting the air. And now Horace, throwing everything into one final effort, stepped forward, crossing the two blades he held, the dagger supporting the shortened sword. . . Horace’s knees buckled, then held, and for a moment Morgarath and he stood locked, chest to chest. . . Morgarath felt a deep, burning agony pour through his body as Horace slipped the dagger free and, with every ounce of his strength behind it, drove it through Morgarath’s chain mail and up into his heart.” Morgarath dies. The fight is described over eight pages.
  • The Skandians take Will and Evanlyn hostage, forcing them onto a boat. Halt follows, trying to catch up to the Skandians and save Will and Evanlyn. “Halt was riding without reins now as he unslung the longbow and laid an arrow on the string. At a full gallop, he sighted and released. The bow oarsman gave a grunt of surprise and lurched sideways over the gunwale of the boat as Halt’s heavy arrow slammed into him, transfixing his upper arm.” Halt continues to rain arrows on the enemy and hits several other men who “lay groaning in pain. The other was ominously still.” The scene is described over three pages.

Language

  • Damn is used nine times. Darn is used once.
  • When Gilan sees a village void of people, he asks, “What the hell is going on here?”
  • After reading a parchment, Baron Arald asks, “Pauline, do you understand what this idiot is getting at?”
  • Halt tells the baron that a nobleman “is a nincompoop and a fool.”
  • My God, by God, and Oh God are used as exclamations five times in total.
  • When looking at the enemy, someone says, “My god of battles, he doesn’t half give me the creeps, that one.”
  • “Gorlon’s teeth!” is used as an exclamation once.

Supernatural

  • Will sees a group of Wargals. “Bearlike in build, they had long muzzles and massive yellow canine fangs, exposed now as they snarled at their prey. They were covered in shaggy fur and wore black leather armor.”
  • Morgarath has control of the Wargals’ minds. “Without minds of their own, they were almost without fear.” Morgarath can give the Wargals instructions by using mind control. During the battle, “the Wargals heard the words and his [Morgarath’s] thoughts in their mind.”

Spiritual Content

  • While traveling through Celtica, the narration says, “the Celts had their own religion, which had to do with gods of fire and iron.”
  • When a Skandian is severely injured, he asks for his sword. “Skandians believed a man must die with his weapon in hand if his soul were not to wander in torment for eternity.”

Idun and the Apples of Youth

Twelve-year-old Idun is confident that she can take care of the apples of youth–the magical and delicious golden apples that keep all of Asgard Academy’s gods and goddesses healthy and young. But when it comes to sharing her thoughts, Idun feels insecure. Instead, Idun keeps her feelings hidden inside.

When Loki makes a deal with a giant disguised as an eagle, Idun must figure out how to save herself and her magical orchards. How can Idun save the apples of youth so the gods and goddesses don’t age?

Readers will relate to Idun’s conflict: she isn’t sure when it’s best to share her thoughts or keep them secret. Instead of telling others what she thinks, she often stays silent, which causes her to feel hurt and unhappy. Although the conflict is relatable, the story’s plot is choppy and follows the same format as the previous book. Predictably, Loki is “a worm in a rotten apple” and causes the disappearance of the apples of youth. The only surprise is that any goddessgirl would trust Loki not to betray her.

Idun and the Apples of Youth is full of fun apple puns, surprising shapeshifting, and a crush-worthy boy-god. When the apples of youth disappear, everyone begins to age, which brings in some silly situations that will make readers smile. Through her experiences, Idun learns that “speaking up for yourself isn’t necessarily selfish.”

The Thunder Girls series does not need to be read in order; however, readers who are unfamiliar with Norse mythology will want to read the glossary first. The easy-to-read story will keep younger readers entertained as a new villain flies into the picture and traps Idun. Even when Idun is in a perilous situation, she doesn’t sit around waiting for someone to save her.

Readers interested in mythology but who aren’t ready to tackle the Percy Jackson series will enjoy the Thunder Girls series. Interesting characters, fashion, and just the right amount of blush-worthy scenes will keep readers interested until the very end.

Sexual Content

  • A boy might like Idun. “As far as she knew, no boy had ever crushed on her before. The idea that Bragi might like-like her sent a jumble of emotions surging through her—shyness and panic, but also a little thrill of excitement.”
  • Bragi tells Idun, “It’s kind of true that I like you. I mean, like-like you. . .You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted you to know, that’s all.” Idun tells Bragi, “I like you, too.” Then she thinks that she “needed to think about what he’d told her for a while. If a crush was destined to happen between them, it would unfold in its own good time. No rush.”

Violence

  • While walking from a mall in the human world to the school, Idun stops to help a creature. “The creature whipped around to stare at her with its tiny eyes. . . ‘I’ve already found what I was looking for!’ it crowed. ‘Four tasty students! Ringy-ding-ding! And rooty-toot-toots! I’ll grind your bones and steal your boots!’” The girls run from the creature.
  • The large painted friezes that covered a wall come to life. The warriors in the friezes begin to attack. “With resounding battle cries, sculpted warriors hurled food across the room at foes on opposite walls. They grabbed turnips, carrots, potatoes, apples, bread rolls, and whatever else they found for ammo within their paintings.” The food fight lasts for three pages.
  • While on a skiing tip, Loki meets a giant eagle that is fixing a pot of soup. When the eagle begins drinking the soup, Loki yells at him to stop. Loki grabs a ladle and swings it at the eagle. “With one clawed foot, he [the eagle] grabbed the bowl end of the ladle as Loki swung it at him again. As Loki held fast to the handle end, the eagle chanted some sort of magic spell that went like this: ‘Deaked leadked geak!’’’ Loki is unable to drop the ladle, and the eagle flies off with Loki hanging off the ladle. Bragi and Honir ran outside and “they scooped up rocks from the ground and threw them at the eagle, trying to make it let loose of Loki. . . Much to Bragi’s surprise, as he was pondering various schemes, the eagle suddenly released Loki. Oomph! Loki fell flat on his back in the powdery snow.”
  • Loki and Idun plant apple seeds in Midgard. While planting, an eagle “came swooping from the trees toward them. ‘Whoa! Wait!’ yelled Idun as it seized her, hooking one of its claws in the back of her hangerock. At the same time, it lifted the handle of her half-full eski with its other claws.” When Idun yells for help, Loki runs away. The eagle takes Idun captive and locks her in a pantry.
  • Loki, who shapeshifted into a falcon, tries to fly Idun back to the school. When they are close, they see that the students pile sticks and shavings outside the wall. “Luckily, someone managed to strike flint and spark a fire just as she and the falcon dove over the wall. Whoosh! Flames shot up the very instant they were safely past. Hot on their tail, Thiazi the eagle-giant tried to pull back in time to dodge the fire. But without success. Pzzt!” When the eagle-giant saw Thor on the wall, he flew away.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • “Ymir’s eyeballs,” “Ymir’s nose,” and “Ymir’s elbows” are used as an exclamation. “Ymir was a frost giant who’d lived at the beginning of time. Slain by gods, his various body parts had been used to grown the nine worlds. And for some reason, everyone spoke of those body parts as slang.”
  • Loki calls a boy a loser.

Supernatural

  • Idun and her roommates go into a shop that has clothes that talk. When Freya puts on a cloak, she shapeshifts into a bird. When Freya puts the cloak on, “the new cloak tightened around her. Wings opened up from its sides. . . Freya took to the sky, her legs and booted feet becoming claws, and her head becoming that of a falcon with a sharp hooked beak.”
  • While planting apple seeds, he says a spell to help them grow. “Grow, little seeds. Sprout and blossom. May whatever you bear be healthy and awesome.”
  • When Idun is kidnapped, the students at the school no longer have the magical apples to keep them young. The students begin aging; this includes getting wrinkles, losing their hearing, and other problems that come with age. For example, “Once the most awe-inspiring, powerful god of all, Odin was now bent and frail.”
  • Idun was turned into an acorn that could speak. Eventually, “Loki murmured some magic words and poof. . . Idun was instantly her girlgoddess self again.”
  • The large painted friezes that cover a wall come to life. “These painted friezes cover all of the V’s walls and were peopled with heroic warriors who had died in battle. The warriors had been brought into the friezes by Odin’s Valkyries as painted figures that magically came to life toward the end of every meal.”
  • Freya has a marble that contains cats and a cart. When Freya says, “catnap,” the cats and cart grow. The first time Freya uses the marble she thinks, “if anyone had been watching at that moment, the cats and cart would’ve seemed to instantly disappear. However, in reality, they had only shrunk down to a single cat’s-eye marble.”
  • Freya has a necklace that has a “walnut-size, teardrop-shaped amber jewel dangling from its center. It gave her the power of prophecy.”
  • Loki can shapeshift. He has shoes that “were magic and allowed him to race like the wind, skimming over land and water.”
  • Idun sees Mimir, who “was bobbing up and down atop his water slide. Mimir had become detached from his body sometime in the past. But he—or rather, his head—had been magically brought back to life by Odin. And now that’s all he was—a head.”

Spiritual Content

  • The story focuses on Norse mythology and includes Norse gods and goddesses as characters.
  • The story focuses on Idun, who is the “girlgoddess of youth, and her magical and deliciously sweet golden apples were what kept all of the academy’s goddesses and gods healthy and youthful.” Every day Idun must pick the magical apples. “Plucking them from the trees was a task that only she could do. Because if anyone else—even Odin himself—were to so much as just touch one of the apples while it still clung to a tree, the apple would shrivel and disappear in a puff of smoke.”
  • Idun has a magic cart. “Idun pulled a tiny wooden box called an eski from the pocket of hangerock. When she gave her eski a shake and set it on the ground, it quickly expanded from the size of a single ice cube into a box large enough to hold today’s crop of apples.”
  • According to Norse mythology, “Long ago, the giant Ymir’s bones had become mountains; his hair, trees; his skull, the sky. Even his eyelashes became a wall that encircled the human world of Midgard.”

New Kid

Seventh-grader Jordan Banks loves drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade.

As he makes the daily trip from his Washington Heights apartment to the upscale Riverdale Academy Day School, Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds and not really fitting into either one. Can Jordan learn to navigate his new school culture while keeping his neighborhood friends and staying true to himself?

Jordan is an incredibly likable kid who struggles with fitting in at his new school where most of the students are affluent and white. Jordan’s experiences highlight the way privilege, bias, and racism affect people. New Kid tackles racism and colorism without feeling preachy; instead, Jordan and his friend Drew discuss how others treat them differently because they are African American. Both of the boys are frustrated that one of the white teachers doesn’t take the time to learn their names. When the teacher continues to get his name wrong, Jordan thinks it is worse than being called names because “They’re saying that you’re not even worth their time and are insignificant.”

Middle school readers will relate to Jordan’s struggles. Jordan wants to fit in at his new school, but he’s also afraid of losing his neighborhood friends. Readers will understand Jordan’s desire to be nice to a girl who is a bit odd, even though he doesn’t necessarily want to be her friend. Readers will be surprised by the caring way that Jordan solves the problem. Another positive aspect of the story is Jordan’s mother. She clearly loves Jordan, but sometimes her enthusiasm for hugs and taking pictures drives him crazy.

New Kid is an entertaining graphic novel that has brightly colored illustrations that are at times heartwarming and hilarious. Craft does an excellent job making the character’s feelings clear by focusing on the character’s facial expressions. Jordan’s artwork is shown in black and white illustrations, which highlights his feelings about a variety of topics, such as his mother’s picture taking, books written for African American kids, and his teacher. In the end, New Kid will entertain the reader and teach the importance of not judging others based on appearance as well as speaking up for what is right.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Two boys get in an argument at lunch. When they begin pushing each other, one boy drops part of his lunch and steps on an apple. The boy falls, but is not injured.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Someone calls a couple of the sophomores “real jerks.” Jordan’s grandmother told him, “You don’t have to like everyone, but you don’t have to be a jerk about it, either.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

When Fairies Go Bad

Everyone knows rule #1 in the dragon world: Never, ever mess with a dragon’s mama. So when Danny Dragonbreath’s mom gets kidnapped by fairies, Danny, his best friend Wendell, and know-it-all Christiana hop on the first bus to the Faerie realm to show those fairies who’s boss. But these are not the sparkly Tinkerbell kind of fairies. These guys play dirty. Escaping fairyland with Danny’s mom is no easy task, even for a sort-of-fire-breathing dragon.

When Fairies Go Bad uses fairy folklore to create a hilarious, action-packed story that will have readers giggling. When Danny’s mother is kidnapped by fairies, Danny and his friends, Wendell and Christiana, are determined to save her. As they march through fairyland, they must stay on the path in order to stay safe. However, several of fairyland’s creatures try to trick the three friends into straying off the path. Fairyland’s creatures are more silly than scary, and readers will enjoy seeing how the friends work together to keep focused on their goals.

While in fairyland, Christiana is cursed and all of her sentences must end in a rhyme. To add to the humor, Christiana also doesn’t believe she is really in fairyland. At one point she says, “Yet more talking mammal dreams? My subconscious is obsessed, it seems.” Christiana’s rhymes add humor to the story. Readers will enjoy the humor of the story as well as how Danny and his friends are able to free Danny’s mother.

Green and black illustrations add to the allure of the book. Drawings with dialogue balloons help break up the text and keep the action moving. Dragonbreath shows the value of friendship and will get even the most reluctant readers engaged in the story. Although When Fairies Go Bad is the seventh book of the Dragonbreath series, the story can be enjoyed as a stand-alone story. Readers who enjoy the Dragonbreath series may also want to try The Notebook of Doom Series by Troy Cummings.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Danny wakes up in the middle of the night because he hears a strange noise. “The music rose to a screaming whine, and something reached out of the fairy right, closed over Danny’s mother’s wrist, and yanked her into the right. She vanished. The music halted as if it had been cut with a knife.” Danny’s mother is kidnapped by fairies.
  • Danny finds his mom, who was locked in a cage by the fairies.
  • When Danny tries to talk to his mom, “the fairy king waved a hand. Danny’s mother’s voice cut off abruptly. Her mouth kept moving, but no sound came out. She realized she’d been muted. . .”
  • The fairy king threatens to turn Danny’s mom into a tree. Danny “had no idea what he’d do if the king actually did turn her into a tree. Take her home and plant her in a nice pot in the backyard? Keep her watered with coffee?”
  • Creatures follow Danny and his friends. “Figures staggered out of the woods, moving with jerky, shuddering steps. When they got a little closer, Danny realized that they were little more than sticks lashed together. They didn’t have heads or hands or anything, just twigs animated by some malign magic. . . Wooden claws closed on Danny’s shoulder. Another one grabbed at his mother. . .” Danny breathes fire and “the wood dried up beautifully. The twig-creature dropped him and staggered back.”
  • When the fairy king sends a guard after Danny and his friends, “Danny’s mother lunged at the fairy guard. The fairy plainly hadn’t been paying attention to her at all and went down under a hundred and sixty pounds of very angry female dragon.”
  • Danny threatens to turn a pig into bacon.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Danny’s friend looks at some mushroom in Danny’s yard. The friend says the mushrooms “look like an Amanita to me. They’re really poisonous. Some of them make you hallucinate too.”

Language

  • Christiana has been cursed and must rhyme all of her words. She tells Danny, “Thanks, dude. . . I think I’m screwed.”
  • While in fairyland, Christiana thinks, “We got too close to the mushrooms in your yard, and now we’re hallucinating hard.”
  • Christiana shows a fairyland creature a spook and asks, “Is this what you’re after, you ugly moose-pafter?”
  • Danny’s mother tackles a guard. The guard then asks, “What the heck was that?”
  • Danny’s grandfather says that fairies are “mean little cusses.”

Supernatural

  • A fairy says a curse, “Ash and bone and hag-skin fat, boar’s black tongue and snout of bat, the rhymer’s curse I lay upon thee—from dawn to dusk in heart of faerie.” After Christiana is cursed, all of her sentences have to rhyme at the end. When Christiana says a word that can’t rhyme, she has “the mother of all coughing fits. She rolled around, tearing up handfuls of grass and hacking.”
  • While in the fairies’ world, Danny and his friends must stay on the path because “the white stones seemed to act like a force field.”
  • When bushes begin to talk to Danny and his friends, Wendell says, “Fairies can disguise themselves as all kinds of things. I bet those aren’t really bushes.”
  • In order to break a fox’s spell, Christiana puts in the tear of the fox. “The tear fell onto the spell. There was a shout that seemed to come from all directions of the woods, and the spell gave a great hiss and fizzle. The fox leaped to his feet, did a backflip, and tore off into the woods.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

The Dog Who Lost His Bark

Patrick has been desperate for a dog for as long as he can remember. A dog he can play with and talk to. A buddy. A best friend.

In his young puppy life, Oz has suffered at the hands of some bad people. His mother told him that somewhere out there is a boy or girl just for him, but Oz no longer knows who to trust. When Patrick finds Oz, he is determined to coax the frightened little dog’s bark back. Then they can finally both be happy, can’t they?

The Dog Who Lost His Bark is a sweet story about a boy and his dog; however, the story hits some heavy topics. Patrick and his mother are spending the summer at his grandfather’s house. During this time, Patrick continues to ask where he will see his father again. His mother avoids the question until the very end. Then she tells him, Patrick’s father “found someone new for himself in Sydney last year, and she’s coming back with him.” Even though Patrick is clearly distressed with his father’s long absence, neither his mother nor father talk to him about the upcoming changes in his life. The story never resolves the conflict, which leaves the reader with many questions.

When Oz was a puppy, he was taken home by a family that was clearly abusive. Although the story does not describe the abuse in detail, younger readers may become upset when they see Oz mistreated and eventually thrown into a trash heap. Patrick goes to a shelter and chooses to take Oz home. Patrick knows he needs help in order to bring Oz’s bark back, so he consults books. Patrick is kind and patient with the sad puppy. However, when Oz poops in Patrick’s shoe, Patrick doesn’t take him outside or teach him where to go to the bathroom. Instead, Patrick keeps putting clean shoes in the room for Oz to use.

The story uses easy vocabulary and short paragraphs, and explains Oz’s emotions in easy-to-understand terms. Some words run together and are in all caps, such as BADSTUPIDDOG, which may cause some confusion for younger readers. Beautiful charcoal sketches appear on almost every page that convey the character’s emotions. Animal lovers will enjoy The Dog Who Lost His Bark; however, because the story contains animal abuse and parents separating, parents might want to read the story with their child.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A man and woman take Oz. They put him in a box and leave him in the car overnight without food or water. When they give Oz to their son, he begins poking Oz. “All the people were laughing now. It seemed they enjoyed the boy’s game. They laughed even louder when the boy lifted Dog by his tail, and Dog felt as if his tail would tear off.”
  • A man wraps Oz up in linoleum flooring and throws him in the dump.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Several times, a man calls Oz a STUPIDDOG.
  • After a boy knocks down the Christmas tree, “The big man made a sound: ‘OHMYGOD.’”
  • The boy calls Oz, “POOPOODOG” and “STUPIDPOOPOODOG.”
  • Patrick’s mother playfully calls Patrick “dopey.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Cape

Josie O’Malley’s family is all doing their part in fighting the Nazis. While her father is off fighting in the war, Josie’s mother works two jobs and Josie works at a diner to help pay the rent. Josie wishes she could do more—like all those caped heroes who now seem to have disappeared. Josie can’t fly and control weather like her idol, Zenobia. But when Josie sees an advertisement for puzzlers, she thinks maybe she can put her math smarts to use cracking puzzles for the government.

After Josie takes the test, the official throws all of the girls’ tests in the trash. Josie is disheartened, but it soon becomes clear that a top-secret agency has been watching Josie, along with two other applicants: Akiko and Mae. The three girls all love superheroes like Fantomah, Zenobia, and the Black Cat. The girls never dreamed that they would have powers like their favorite superheroes. But when a villain sets fire to a building and puts innocent people in danger, the girls step up to help and discover that they have new superhero powers. As the girls’ abilities slowly begin to emerge, they learn that their skills will be crucial in thwarting a shapeshifting henchman of Hitler, and, just maybe, in solving an even larger mystery about the superheroes who’ve recently gone missing.

Readers will fall in love with the endearingly imperfect girls who highlight the importance of helping others. The diverse cast of characters includes Josie, who is Irish, Akiko, who is Japanese, and Mae, who is African American. The diverse characters give the readers a glimpse of the prejudice of the time period. Akiko’s family was put in a Japanese internment camp even though her brother was fighting in the war. When Josie and her friends go into a restaurant, the manager chases them away because they don’t serve “their kind.” It is at this point that Josie realizes that “prejudices were a lot like allergies. They made it hard for us to really see.”

Josie and her friends love to figure out puzzles and secret messages. They give examples of different ciphers and explain how to decipher them. Even though Josie and her friends have the brainpower to solve puzzles, the girls are treated unfairly. At one point, Josie wonders if she really is just a “stupid girl.” However, she soon learns that others, including her Aunt Kate, are using their mathematical minds to help defeat the Nazis. Cape brings the ENIAC Six into the story and shows how the pioneer programmers did important work during World War II.

Even though the story talks about superheroes, the superheroes’ attributes are never fully explained. Despite this, readers will understand how the superheroes helped encourage Josie and her friends to be better people. Cape blends historical facts into an entertaining, action-packed story that teaches that girls can do anything. Themes of prejudice, friendship, and fighting evil are developed using kid-friendly descriptions. Even though some of the story’s elements are not fully explained, readers will still enjoy the story.

Cape might even encourage readers to learn more about World War II, and the story lists recommended resources for readers who want more. The story ends with historical information on the ENIAC Six, the spy ring, radio news reports, and a list of recommended resources. Cape will leave readers with a positive message that “you’re the one who decides what kind of person you’ll be.”

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A group of bullies steal Josie’s brother’s bikes. Josie tries to get them back. When she sees one of the boys who stole the bikes, she “whipped my broom out ahead of me and caught his feet, I sent him spilling onto the sidewalk. . . I pressed the handle of the broom to his chest, in the little round spot just between his collarbones.”
  • When a bully implies that Josie’s father is dead, she gets upset. Then the boy “shoved me back. I stumbled a few steps but caught myself. Without thinking twice, I dove for him, knocking him to the ground.” When Josie’s friends try to help her, the boy “and the others knocked Akiko to the ground.” One of the boys “kicked at” Mae who then, “stumbled onto the pathway, scraping one of her knees.”
  • Mr. Hisser tries to flee a building, but the Stretcher “reached out to grab Mr. Hisser. His long black arm stretched nearly the whole length of the room! Just as the Stretcher caught hold of Mr. Hisser’s suit collar, the room erupted in a burst of white light. . .” After the smoke clears, Josie “noticed a few sparks sizzling into the smoky air. All that remained of the Stretcher was a pair of black boots, a shimmery black cape, and a black mask.” Someone explains that “This is what we’re up against. . . A force darker than any of us could have imagined. With each attack, another caped hero disappears. Vaporized.”
  • Mr. Hisser set a building on fire. Josie, Akiko, and Mae use their powers to get people safely out of the building. No one is injured. The scene is illustrated over 11 pages.
  • Mr. Hisser and his crew plan to blow up a ship. The men put dynamite in fake rats. The girls attack Mr. Hisser, who turns into a snake and hits the girls with his tail. One of the girls is injured and Mr. Hisser carries her away in his snake mouth. The scene is illustrated over 11 pages.
  • Later, Akiko says she used fire to get away from Mr. Hisser. Although the scene is not described, Josie notices Mr. Hisser’s head, “which was red and blistery from a burn.”
  • Josie tells her brothers a story about their father fighting in the war. Their father was eating breakfast when he heard the air-raid sirens. “. . . Daddy raced upstairs as enemy fire strafed the quarterdeck. Dodging bullets and bombs, he rushed to an injured crewmate and threw him over his shoulder.”
  • A boy and his friends put a rope around a raccoon’s neck. In order to help the raccoon, Mae “unleashed a gale-force wind and knocked Toby and the other bullies to the ground. As they climbed to their feet, Akiko transformed into a bowling ball and knocked Toby out at the knees. Again he fell to the ground, this time scraping the palms of his hands.” During the confrontation, Josie “used a bit of telekinesis—staring at one, two, three, four, five heads, then flicking my eyes—to knock their skulls together.” The boys run away.
  • Mr. Hisser and his gang show up at a top-secret location. When he sees the girls, “Mr. Hisser flicked his dangerous rattlesnake tail and slammed it into the building, just above our heads. Wood and bricks exploded into the air, then crashed down around us. . . Akiko flung fireballs at his henchmen in the street.” During the fight, “his deadly split tongue shot from his mouth and slammed me [Josie] backwards into the lamppost. My head rang like a telephone, but I had to shake it off.” Josie saves some “innocent people,” then notices that she was bleeding. “One of the Hisser’s razor-sharp fangs must have sliced my skin.” Josie picks up a car and “using all the strength I could muster—and with searing pain shooting through my left shoulder—I heaved the car forward. It landed on the Hisser’s deadly tail with a devastating thud.” The action is described over 10 pages.
  • The action continues over 12 illustrated pages. One of the girls hits Hisser with a chair. People are hit with furniture, Hisser is wrapped in chains, and a man is hit over the head with a machine that is like a typewriter. The FBI arrive and arrest Hisser.
  • Hisser escapes. “Hisser’s hideous snake form fled the room, his scaly, serpentine body slithering around and around in a dizzying hypnotic threat. With a whip of his rattlesnake tail, he swatted Harry and the agents. They flew backward, slamming into the blinking black steal of the ENIAC machine.” One of the girls changes into a mongoose, and “she lunged for the Hisser’s throat with her sharp front teeth as Mae and I dodged out of the way.” The scene is described over five pages.
  • Hisser captures three women and attempts to kidnap them. Josie used “all my powers of concentration, I imagined the statue ripping off its pedestal and hurtling into the path of the Hisser’s oncoming car. As soon as I thought it, the statue followed the direction of my eyes and soared through the air, landing just in front of the Hisser’s wagon. Brakes screeched, but there was no time for the Hisser to stop.” Hisser is arrested and the captives are set free.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The characters call others names. The infrequent use of name-calling includes: marauding meatheads, lunkhead, knucklehead, fleas, dumbbell, knuckleheads, brats, and traitorous scum.
  • Hisser calls the girls names, including: Green Fungus and Emerald Irritant.
  • Several times, one of the characters uses “Hauntima’s ghost” as an exclamation.
  • Someone calls Hisser “demon reptile.”

Supernatural

  • In the story, superheroes exist and have different abilities, such as: flying, super-human strength, shape-shifting, telekinesis, causing weather events (like wind), controlling fire, teleportation, etc.
  • Josie Akiko and Mae link arms. When Josie talks about doing something good, “a beam of golden light burst from the center of our huddle, radiating upward from our connected hands . . . And the air hummed like it was filled with a thousand bumblebees. . . The crackling electrical charge exploded in my ears now, and energy shot through my veins. . .” Then the girls gain super powers, including how to fly. After the three completed their task, their “costumes suddenly morphed back into our regular clothes, right before our eyes.” This process happens several times.
  • When handling a difficult situation, Hauntima’s ghost appears and gives the girls guidance. Sometimes when Hauntima appears, she has an “angry skulled face.”
  • Mr. Hisser can turn into a snake.
  • Josie gets injured, but her injury heals quickly.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Storm Blown

A little rain and wind doesn’t worry Alejo—they’re just part of life at the beach. As his padrino says, as long as there are birds in the waves, it’s safe. When people start evacuating though, Alejo realizes things might be worse than he thought. And they are. A hurricane is headed straight for Puerto Rico. Worried that his padrino needs help, Alejo braves the storm in order to search for him.

Emily’s brother, Elliot, has been really sick. He can’t go outside their New Orleans home, so Emily decides to have an adventure for him. Emily wades out to a tiny island. For once, Emily wants her mother to worry about her. While hiding from her home, she befriends an injured goose and a shy turtle. Emily doesn’t know that a storm is racing her way.

As the hurricane rages across Puerto Rico and heads towards the United States, both kids will face life-threatening danger. Soon Alejo and Emily will be in the storm’s deadly path, but nothing has prepared the kids for Megastorm Valerie. Who will survive nature’s fury?

Like a wind-blown leaf in a hurricane, Storm Blown jumps from many different settings and points of view, which quickly becomes confusing. Although Alejo and Emily are the two main characters, the story also gives a glimpse of Emily’s father, the national climatic research center workers, as well as the animals trapped in the hurricane. Since the story includes so many points of view, Alejo and Emily are underdeveloped, which makes it hard for the reader to connect to them.

Storm Blown shows the devastation a hurricane can cause which leads to many daring episodes. However, some of the events are hard to believe. For example, Alejo, who does not know how to drive, is able to steal a van, drive through torrential rains, and arrive safely home. Alejo is so worried about his padrino that he braves the weather only to find an empty house. Although Alejo’s actions are brave, the reader will wonder why he and his padrino did not discuss a disaster plan. Instead, Alejo’s grandfather tapes a note to the kitchen table. In a world where natural disasters happen often, readers will question some of the kids’ daring deeds and actions.

Readers interested in extreme weather or survival stories will find Storm Blown difficult to read because of the many points of view and the challenging vocabulary. The story also ends abruptly and leaves the reader with too many unanswered questions. Instead of choosing Strom Blown, readers should try the I Survived series by Lauren Tarshis, The Raft by S.A. Bodeen, or Trapped by Michael Northrop.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Nature’s violence is shown throughout the book. A tree falls, hitting Joy. Emily goes to help her. “Swallowing a sudden nausea, Emily propped herself against the closest limb and pulled Joy to her feet. Joy swayed in the wind, blinking as the rain mixed with the blood in her matted hair. It ran down her arms in rivulets, and Emily tried not to gag as Joy hooked her elbow around her narrow shoulders for support.”
  • The helicopter pilot is injured when he was “pinned to the ground beneath a heavy limb. His face was contorted into a grimace, but he wasn’t moving. Not even as the dark water lapped against the side of his head, threatening to suck him deeper into the mud beneath their feet.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Several of the characters are given pain medication after an injury. Elliot is given pain pills, but he doesn’t like how “the pain pills made it so he couldn’t stay up for more than a few hours.”
  • When Elliot’s mother brings him pain pills, he saves them for later. After he got dressed, Elliot slipped “his pain pills into his pocket.”
  • While waiting for a hurricane, the hotel gives the guest drinks. “The hotel bar made so many Dark ‘n’ Stormies that they ran out of rum halfway through Alejo’s rounds, switching to something they were calling a Frozen Valerie.

Language

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

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Several times in the story, the characters pray for something. For example, Emily’s father “prayed that Sarah had fixed things up with their daughter.” When Emily’s father finally made it home, “Silas prayed for a miracle.”

 

 

Don’t Date Rosa Santos

Everyone in Port Coral knows that the Santos family is cursed by the sea. After all, two generations of Santos women have loved men who were lost to the ocean. Which is why, even though she’s lived in a coastal Florida town for most of her life, eighteen-year-old Rosa Santos has never even stepped foot in the ocean.

Rosa has the next few years of her life all planned out. In a few months, she’ll be graduating from high school with both her diploma and a two-year degree from the local community college. Then it’s off to a four-year university where she’s been accepted in a study abroad program at the University of Havana. She’ll finally be fulfilling her lifelong dream of traveling to Cuba, the island of her ancestors. She just hasn’t quite figured out how to tell her Grandmother. It won’t be an easy feat. After all, Mimi Santos has always refused to talk about Cuba.

But when an offer to buy the Marina threatens to destroy Port Coral, Rosa must set her plan aside and help put together a fundraiser to save her beloved hometown. It might be more difficult than expected, considering she’ll be working side by side with the distressingly cute Alex Aquino. Her growing crush wouldn’t be that bad, except Alex happens to be the one thing that ought to be strictly off limits to a Santos girl like her: a boy with a boat.

Rosa struggles with some uniquely heavy issues like inherited grief and the immigrant experience of feeling like she doesn’t quite fit into her own culture. Although these issues might be difficult for some readers to fully comprehend, they are important, especially for Latinx teens looking to find themselves in a story. These tough themes are balanced out by the more “everyday” issues Rosa deals with, including the college application process and harboring a secret crush.

Although there are plenty of adorable and romantic moments, the story itself goes beyond the typical rom com. Moreno makes a beautiful exploration into the many ways that love can manifest itself; from the years of love and loss that bind the Santos women together, to the thrill of a relationship just beginning, to the overarching love that creates a community. The characters are all well developed and both Port Coral and Cuba come alive on the page.

Readers are sure to fall in love with the complex story of the Santos women, which is equal parts heart wrenching and hopeful. Don’t Date Rosa Santos is a wonderfully diverse story about family, identity, and finding your place in the world.

Sexual Content

  • Mimi tells Rosa that if she could go anywhere in the world, she would go to Hawaii because “I like The Rock. He is very handsome.”
  • Jonas kisses his fiancee hand.
  • When Rosa is being teased about boys, she thinks “There had been kisses at parties and group movie things, but nothing to write home about.”
  • Rosa’s mother says, “You haven’t had a crush in forever.” This prompts Rosa to reflect on her recent crushes: “An older guy in my calculus class at Port Coral Community who always held the door open for me, and a girl from the ice cream shop who never wore the same name tag and told me I smelled like strawberries.”
  • Rosa’s friend Mike teases her about “running away with an Argentinian sailor.”
  • Rosa asks Mike if he would date her. She says, “I was just curious if you’d ever think of me like that.”
  • Rosa describes Alex, the love interest, as “a very cute sailor tattooed with the sea.”
  • Rosa runs into Alex at the dock. He asks her to sit, and she decides to stay because “I needed a moment and this little seed of a crush really wanted me to sit with him.”
  • Alex runs a hand over his beard, and Rosa finds herself “wondering how it might feel to run my fingers across his beard and maybe press my face to his neck. I frowned, surprised at myself. Talking by moonlight softened a lot of edges.”
  • Rosa and her friend have a conversation about Alex in which her friend describes him as “super hot.”
  • While stuck on the side of the highway, Alex and Rosa kiss for the first time. “He smiled and ducked his head. He captured my lips in a kiss that already tasted bittersweet.” The kiss is described for about half a page.
  • Rosa’s friend tells the boys that they missed their chance with Rosa because she is “out here getting kissed by cute boys with man beards and baked goods.”
  • When Rosa is getting ready for her first date with Alex, she is advised to “Scoop him up and throw some sprinkles on that. Drizzle the caramel. You get me. Doodle his name in that little journal of yours. Doodle it hard.”
  • At the end of their date Alex tells Rosa, “I like you like you.” The two kiss briefly at the end of the scene.
  • When Rosa agrees to be Alex’s second for the regatta, he kisses her “quickly.”
  • When Alex and Rosa win the regatta, he “pulled me against him and dropped a hard, grateful kiss on my lips.”

Violence

  • During an argument, Rosa’s mother opens up about the death of Rosa’s father. “Tell [Rosa] that my love killed him. . . I loved him too much, so the sea took him. When this whole town cried for the lost boy at sea, you looked at your own daughter and her growing middle and said it was the cures. That it was me.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Rosa says that the vejitos, a group of old Cuban men living in Port Coral, act “like a person could live forever on coffee, rum, and cigars.” She later describes them as smelling like “sharp aftershave and cigars.”
  • Rosa says that Junior, one of the Peña Cousins, “used to sell weed, but now he was focused on getting his mixtape to go viral.”
  • Rosa’s mother returns home drunk after she “bought a bottle of wine and sat at the end of the dock where I drank the whole thing before slipping a note inside and chucking it into the water.”

Language

  • Oh my God, God, Dios mio, Por dios, and Jesus are all used frequently as exclamations. For example, when Mrs. Peña mentions jazz band, Ana replies “God, don’t say that so loud.”
  • Profanity is used frequently. Profanity includes: damn, hell, crap, and asshole.
  • Ana tells her brother that her drums “cost more than your shitty car.”
  • Ana tells Junior not to be “a dick.”
  • Mimi gets angry about the current state of Cuba and exclaims “Carajo qué mierda.”
  • Rosa’s mother says “Come mierda,” a phrase that literally translates to “shit eater” which Cubans often use to mean “dumbass.”

Supernatural

  • The Santos Women believe that they are cursed. The men they love are destined to die at sea. Rosa explains, “The lullaby of my life is that to know the sea is to know love, but to love us is to lose everything. We’re cursed, they still whisper, but whether it’s by an island, the sea, or our own stubborn hearts, I don’t know.”
  • Rosa’s grandmother acts as the neighborhood curandera. According to Rosa “The neighborhood curandera oversaw concerns about struggling gardens, bad dreams, career changes, and terrible luck, and she brewed hope frothier window that smelled like herbs and dryer sheets.”
  • Mimi owns a magical wind chime. “There was a wood and steel wind chime that was steady when the day was nice, a little wilder with the rain, and as agitated as a scared kid when bad luck was coming.”
  • Rosa owns a magical backpack. “Mimi had sewn it before I started high school, enchanting it with powerful words so it would always carry whatever I needed and never get lost.”
  • Rosa’s mother coming home has interesting consequences. “She and the house were like warring siblings, and it always knew when she returned, because it stopped working. Food burned, candles wouldn’t stay lit, and worst of all, my laptop always struggled to find the Wi-Fi signal.”
  • Rosa’s mother practices tarot. “Sometimes there was a knock at the door, late at night when she was home, and a sad eyed soul waiting on the other side. Mom would sit with them, cards spread across the old wood table. My mother was a storyteller fluent in spells and heartache.”
  • Mimi keeps a notebook that has “ingredients listed for different oils and potions,” as well as accounts of miracle helpings back in Cuba.
  • Rosa says that she puts acorns on windowsills “so lighting won’t strike my house.”
  • When Ana loses her drum sticks, she asks Rosa to “Give me some brujeria, Rosa. Throw down some shells, fire up some smoke! I need that tracking-lost-things spell!”
  • Mimi uses magic to create a replica of Havana in the middle of Port Coral.
  • When Mimi is describing Cuba, she says that Tia Nela warned her not to leave. “She warned me our land was bleeding and the sea would demand a sacrifice.”
  • Rosa knows something is wrong because the wind chime “was wild with panic.”
  • Rosa and her mother participate in a ritual where they see and hear Mimi and Alvaro’s spirits. The description lasts for about three pages.

Spiritual Content

  • When Rosa asks if Mimi would ever return Cuba Mimi responds, “My spirit will, mi amor.”
  • Rosa has an altar set up in her room, which includes, “a couple of pastel candles and fresh flowers sat beside a faded sepia picture of my grandfather and the single Polaroid I had of my father.”
  • When he sees Rosa, a sailor makes an old warding sign, “To keep evil away.”
  • After Rosa’s mother returns home, Mimi cleanses the house. Rosa’s mother claims it’s because of her “bad juju.”
  • Mimi and Rosa both pray to saints and ancestors throughout the story. For example, when Rosa’s mother comes home drunk, “Mimi reached for the saint medallion on her nightstand and muttered a prayer.”
  • Rosa and Ana perform a cleansing spell. “[Rosa] exhaled a shaky breath before asking for protection and guidance. Anna dimmed the lights, watching me. With the swipe of a match, I lit the wick and held the egg over the flickering candle light for a few seconds before closing my eyes and mindfully holding it to the top of my head.” The description of the full ritual is spread out over about six pages.
  • Rosa cleans off her altar and asks her deceased father and grandfather for advice. She says, “I could really use some help with college. Can you see the future? Yeah, it probably doesn’t work like that. But maybe you can get together with my other ancestors and let me know what you think? Some clarity on this would really help.”
  • Rosa listens to one of Mimi’s patients talking about a healing miracle. The patient says that it was “like listening to someone describe a version of la Virgen.”
  • When Mimi is describing Cuba, she says “If her cities fall, if we’re all gone, may God watch after her.”
  • While at the hospital, Ana and her mother pray silently.
  • When Alex offers to spend the night, Rosa says that she needs to lose herself in “inherited rituals.”

by Evalyn Harper

Sisters

Raina wants a little sister, but once Amara shows up, things aren’t how she expected them to be. Amara cries a lot. She’s grouchy. To make things worse, Amara always has to get her own way. As the two sisters grow up, their relationship doesn’t improve. When their baby brother is born, the tiny apartment that they live in becomes even more cramped.

When the family is invited to Colorado for a family reunion, Raina’s mom decides to take a road trip without their dad. Being stuck in a car for three weeks doesn’t bring the sisters any closer. Instead, they argue their way across three states. Is there anything that will bring these two sisters together?

Sisters doesn’t just focus on the family car trip, instead, it continuously jumps back to the past to show how Raina and Amara’s relationship has always been full of conflict. Both girls are mean, argumentative, and do things just to irritate each other. Amara is a complete brat, while Raina tries to block out everything by wearing headphones and ignoring everyone. While younger readers may think the sisters’ behavior is silly, parents will not want their children to emulate the siblings’ behavior.

Throughout the story, the two girls are never disciplined. At one point, Raina’s parents give up their bedroom, so Raina can have her own space. Because the parents knew Amara would be “a little put out,” they let her get a pet snake. However, the family doesn’t research the pet before they purchased it, and the snake eventually ends up lost in the family van.

Sisters is a simple story told through both illustrations and text. Each page contains eight or fewer sentences. The easy vocabulary, simple sentences, and bright pictures make Sisters accessible to all readers. The brightly colored pictures do an amazing job at showing the facial expressions of the characters, which brings the character’s emotions to the forefront. Although the story will engage readers, parents may want to skip picking up this book and instead try Raina Telgemeler’s graphic novel Ghost which shows a healthy sibling relationship and has a positive message. Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson is also an excellent graphic novel that contains a positive message.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • While riding in the car, Raina ignores her sister, so Amara reaches over and punches her in the arm.
  • Amara’s pet snake tries to bite her.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Amara calls Raina a moron and an idiot.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None
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