Reading Level: Junior High

Survival Tails: World War II

The messenger pigeon Francis is on a mission. He must carry an urgent message to code breakers so they can warn London of an upcoming Nazi attack. Francis wants to do his part to help win World War II, but while on a dangerous assignment, Francis is injured. Now Francis cannot fly and is stranded in the middle of the London Zoo, but he is still determined to deliver his message and help win the war.

While at the zoo, Francis meets the world-famous panda Ming. Since coming to the zoo, Ming has always been too afraid to speak. When Francis lands in Ming’s enclosure, Ming knows she must do something to help Francis and the other animals at the zoo. With the help of a kind zookeeper, two mischievous monkeys, and other friends, Ming fights to help Francis recover his strength. When the war finally arrives in London, Francis, Ming, and the other animals must work together to save themselves. . . and maybe even London itself.

The life of a carrier pigeon comes to life with the introduction of Francis, who is patriotic, brave, and dedicated to helping his country and others. Readers will fall in love with the fearless pigeon as he befriends the zoo animals. Francis’s mission is never far from his mind, and he continually works to find a solution to his problem. Because the war is told from the animals’ point of view, readers are given a unique view of World War II. Even though the focus is on the animals’ fears, the story doesn’t leave out the danger to humans.

Unlike Francis, panda bear Ming desires to be silent because she is afraid of making deep connections with others. At a young age, Ming was traumatized when she was taken away from her panda bear family. However, with the help of Francis, Ming is able to find her voice and help others. When Ming sees others take risks to help Francis deliver his message, she learns to put her own fears aside. Francis tells Ming, “Don’t let fear stop you from doing what you want to do. What you need to do.”

Survival Tails: World War II will grab readers’ attention from the very first page. The non-stop action and suspense will keep readers flipping the pages until the very end. Readers will connect with Francis and the other animals as they help each other survive. Francis’s dedication to the war effort and his friends is inspiring. Even though Francis is just a pigeon, he will leave readers with valuable life lessons and will encourage them to never give up.

The end of the book has historical background on the Blitz, a World War II timeline, and a glossary. At the end of the story, Francis says, “Hopefully, the world will have learned something from this tragedy. That is the one good thing that could come of it.” Survival Tails: World War II will help younger readers learn about the sacrifices made during World War II. The story will introduce younger readers to the events in World War II and help spark their curiosity about the time period.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A soldier brings an important message to a lieutenant general. When the soldier appears, “blood trickled down his face from beneath his helmet, dripping into his eyes, and his uniform was ripped and muddied.” The soldier says, “I came as fast as I could to get the message to you, sir. Didn’t even stop when the Nazis started shooting at me.”
  • When the Nazis bomb London, the panda bears saw “planes [that] flew in a V formation, like a flock of geese, gliding low over London, seeking their targets. Gunfire echoed around the city, then thud, thud, thuds in quick succession as the bombs landed. . . snaking trails of black smoke rose high into the sky.”
  • When Francis is trying to deliver a message, shots are fired at him. “As Francis flew closer, the gunfire came again, but this time he was ready. He easily dodged the bullets, then moved into position so that he still had the pillbox in sight. . . Francis passed safely out of range. . .”
  • Francis sees a plane start shooting. Then the plane “veered to the left[,] but caught its wing on one of the barrage balloon’s thick cables. Its entire left wing sheared off and the plane fell into a tailspin, exploding in a blast of blinding light and heat that erupted toward Francis.” Francis tried to fly higher to avoid being injured but “his wings finally gave up on him. He froze in midair for a split second before he began to fall.”
  • While walking around the zoo, Francis gets hit on the head. “It was an empty peanut shell. . . He pretended to walk away, but then spun to face his attacker, getting hit directly in the face by another nut.” His “attacker” was two monkeys, who were trying to have fun.
  • When Ming sees a polar bear for the first time, a blackbird tells her, “Sometimes I hang around here at feeding time, and it’s just a bloodbath! The way they use their sharp teeth to rip into the. . .”
  • When a Toucan takes the canister with the message inside, Francis goes after him. Fighter planes appear and “huge missiles fell from the sky in quick succession, whistling as they dropped lower, lower, lower, then hit their target with an enormous blast that threw both Francis and Toca off course.”
  • In order to get the canister back, Francis “opened his beak wide and, with a loud war cry, dove at Toca, knocking them both into a spin. Their wings and claws became entangled as they both struggled to break free, sending a flurry of feathers through the air as the solid, unforgiving ground rose fast and faster to greet them.” Francis gets the canister but is injured.
  • The animals watch as Nazis drop incendiaries over London. “All around them, more and more incendiaries fell from the sky, raining down like droplets of fire.” Fire quickly spreads around the zoo and animals panic. “The fires continued to rage all around them, and now, along with the incendiaries, bombs were being dropped. There were screams as humans ran for shelter. Their cries were drowned out by the echoing explosions and drones of planes—both enemies and allies—flying above.” The animals race toward a tunnel so they can hide. As they ran, a “bomb exploded within the zoo grounds and a huge geyser of water burst forth from the ground as it hit the main water pipe. Francis fought against the heavy spray, but his wings were waterlogged.”
  • As Francis looks for animals to help, his friend Paddy follows him. Paddy is injured, and Francis “wrapped his good wing around Paddy as the two hobbled along toward the tunnel. There was another explosion as the camel house as hit, blocking their path. Francis and Paddy were thrown back against a wall by the blast.” When Francis finds Paddy, he sees “a small bundle of bloodied fathers lay unmoving on the ground.” Paddy dies. The scene of the zoo being bombed is described over eight pages.
  • The zoo that the pandas were moved to is also bombed. “Before Ming could shout out a warning, the bomb landed just beyond the giraffes’ paddock. She threw herself at Tang and Sung and knocked them to the ground, sacrificing her own safety to shield them with her own body. Ming felt as though she were caught inside a firestorm. The explosion sent a fierce blast sweeping over them in scorching waves.” The humans put out the fire.
  • After the zoo was bombed, Francis notices “a few animals still wandering the zoo, looking as dazed and exhausted as Francis felt. . . Francis had seen humans with the same lost expressions at Normandy—those who had returned from the front line, some inured, some worse, with their eyes glazed over.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • In order to relocate the panda bears, they are shot with a tranquilizer gun. After being shot with the tranquilizer, “Ming’s vision blurred in and out of focus. Thang lay still beside her, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth.”

Language

  • Ming says someone is a coward.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Francis was sent to deliver a message, he “spread his wings, praying that they were ready for the long, dangerous journey ahead.”

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Harry can hardly believe his own ears when a giant man shows up on his eleventh birthday to tell him that he is a wizard. Yet it makes sense, as odd happenings have followed Harry all his life. Delighted to leave his unpleasant aunt and uncle behind, Harry goes to Hogwarts, the magical school that his parents both attended long before they were murdered by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tried to kill Harry as well, but the attempt backfired and destroyed him. Harry doesn’t remember any of this, as he was only a baby, but he is famous in the wizarding world for causing the downfall of the evilest wizard in history. People expect greatness from Harry Potter, but he knows nothing about the magical world. Will Harry be able to rise to the expectations of those around him? Or should he forge his own path?

The latter seems more likely when odd things start happening at Hogwarts. Trolls, a forbidden corridor, and a suspicious Potions teacher are at the heart of a mystery Harry finds himself entangled in. Can he find out what is hidden, and protect it from others who want it for more sinister purposes? Joined by his classmates Ron and Hermione, the young trio must rise to face incredible dangers, or else the wizarding world will be plunged back into a darkness that hasn’t been seen in eleven years, since He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named first vanished.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is a wonderful read from cover to cover. J.K. Rowling has not only created a wide cast of well-developed, lovable characters, but an entire world of magic and wonder. Although the series revolves around magic, the story does not encourage children to try magic on their own. Spells involve simple words. For example, saying luminos creates light. The books advance throughout the series, becoming longer and slightly more mature, although still appropriate for elementary readers.

Readers will be sucked in from page one, drawn forward by an enticing mystery and delightful adventures. There is also an illustrated version of this novel that will further engage reluctant readers with beautiful, full-page illustrations. Be sure to have book two of the Harry Potter series close at hand, because readers will be clamoring for more upon finishing Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • It’s mentioned that growing up, Harry often was bullied by his cousin, Dudley. “Dudley’s favorite punching bag was Harry, but he couldn’t often catch him. Harry didn’t look it, but he was very fast.”
  • Dudley punches his cousin. “‘Out of the way, you’ he said, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry fell hard on the concrete floor.”
  • When a letter for Harry arrives at the house, “Uncle Vernon had to wrestle Dudley to the ground to get the letter from him, which was made difficult by the fact that Harry had grabbed Uncle Vernon around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick . . . “
  • When one of Harry’s classmates is being mean, Ron’s rat bites him. “Scabbers the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Goyle’s knuckle—Crabbe and Malfoy backed away as Goyle swung Scabbers round and round, howling, and when Scabbers finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once.”
  • Ron and Malfoy almost get in a fight after Malfoy insults Ron’s family. “Ron dived at Malfoy just as Snape came up the stairs. ‘WEASLEY!’ Ron let go of the front of Malfoy’s robes.”
  • The next time Malfoy insults his family, “Ron snapped. Before Malfoy knew what was happening, Ron was on top of him, wrestling him to the ground. Neville hesitated, then clambered over the back of his seat to help.”
  • Harry sees Snape injured. “Snape and Filch were inside, alone. Snape was holding his robes above his knees. One of his legs was bloody and mangled. Filch was handing Snape bandages.”
  • Harry and Ron rescue Hermione from a troll. “Harry then did something that was both very brave and very stupid: He took a great running jump and managed to fasten his arms around the troll’s neck from behind. The troll couldn’t feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry’s wand had still been in his hand when he’d jumped.” The fight takes place over two pages.
  • Harry sees something horrible in the Forbidden Forest. “The cloaked figure reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal’s side, and began to drink its blood . . . The hooded figure raised its head and looked right at Harry – unicorn blood was dribbling down its front.”
  • When Harry finds the wizard searching for the Sorcerer’s Stone, he tries to escape but is attacked. “At once, a needle-sharp pain seared across Harry’s scar; his head felt as though it was about to split in two; he yelled, struggling with all his might . . . he looked around wildly to see where Quirrell had gone, and saw him hunched in pain, looking at his fingers—they were blistering before his eyes.” The fight takes place over two pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Uncle Vernon, “was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, ‘Go – cupboard – stay – no meals,’ before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.”
  • After a wild cart ride, Hagrid says, “Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts.”
  • During the Christmas feast, Harry sees “Hagrid getting redder and redder in the face as he called for more wine, finally kissing Professor McGonagall on the cheek, who, to Harry’s amazement, giggled and blushed.”
  • Hagrid hatches a dragon egg. Baby dragons eat “a bucket o’ brandy mixed with chicken blood every half hour.”
  • Hagrid can’t remember what he told someone in a pub. “I can’ remember too well, ‘cause he kept buyin’ me drinks.”

Language

  • Codswallop is used once.
  • Ron calls a troll pea-brain.
  • The word idiot is used a few times.

Supernatural

  • Harry Potter goes to a school of wizards and is a part of an entire world of magic. His studies include potions, charms, and the care of magical creatures. His school is in a castle with ghosts, enchanted ceilings, and portraits that move and talk. He encounters a giant, three-headed dog, unicorns, and living chess pieces. In short, Harry is surrounded by magic and supernatural occurrences every day of his life. As such, not all instances are listed here.
  • To cast a spell, wizards say a word and wave their wand. For example, saying luminos casts light.

Spiritual Content

  • There are ghosts in the castle, that behave like regular (although transparent) people. One of Harry’s teachers is even a ghost.

by Morgan Lynn

Star-Crossed

Matti has never wanted to be on stage before, but when her teacher announces that the eighth-grade play is Romeo and Juliet, Matti wants a part. Everyone expects Matti to be on the sidelines, but can she convince her teacher she deserves to be on the stage?

Matti had a crush on Elijah, but when the play begins everything changes. Gemma—a smart, pretty, British girl—gets the part of Juliet. Matti starts to wonder why she feels fluttery whenever she is near Gemma. If Matti was crushing on Elijah—a boy—could she also have a crush on a girl?

Many middle schoolers will relate to Matti as she struggles to understand her feelings. She also must figure out who she can trust with her secret. Even though she loves her friends, can they be trusted to not only accept that she has a crush on a girl, but can they also be trusted to keep Matti’s secret until she’s ready to reveal it?

Matti struggles with telling people she has a crush on a girl. When she tells her best friend and her sister, they both accept the news without shock and encourage her to pursue her crush. The story never delves into the negative reactions that others may have to her news.

Star-Crossed has plenty of dialogue and drama to keep readers engaged until the end. Throughout the story, the characters discuss Romeo’s and Juliet’s behavior and feelings of love. Although Matti’s story parallels Romeo and Juliet, the discussion of the play slows down the plot.

Middle school readers will fall in love with Matti and her friends. The characters include the typical mean girl, but also adds some unique characters. Tessa and her Shakespearean insults add humor. Matti’s inner thoughts add depth to the story. In the end, Matti’s story contains drama, crushes, family, and friendship conflict that will keep readers entertained. Star-Crossed is a romance appropriate for younger readers who want to learn about Romeo and Juliet.

Sexual Content

  • When Matti thinks about the play, she thinks, “All I could think about was Gemma kissing Liam, Liam kissing Gemma—and wondering why that image made my insides knot up.”
  • During play practice, the kids are teasing a boy about having to kiss Gemma. When the boys are talking, Gemma “marched over to Liam and smooched him on the lips.”
  • Matti wonders if she has a crush on a girl. If she did have a crush on a girl, “would it mean that you were gay, or a lesbian, or whatever word you were supposed to call it, if you liked only one particular girl?”
  • When Matti sees Gemma, her “heart zoomed.”
  • Matti reveals that she has a crush on a girl. Her sister responds by asking, “Have you ever kissed a boy?” When Matti says no, Cara replies, “Too bad. Because kissing a girl works the same way.”
  • Matti thinks that she can crush on boys, even though she currently has a crush on a girl.
  • During play practice, Gemma “smooched” Matti’s mouth. Then the two practice the scene that requires the two to kiss. When they have to kiss at play practice, “it made me (Matti) swimmy-headed.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • When talking about others or to others, often there is name-calling including dirtbag, moron, malt-worm, and doofus. For example, some said, “in my opinion Elijah’s a stuck-up dirtbag.”
  • Tessa went to a Shakespeare camp and learned Shakespearean insults that she uses throughout the story. A list of the Shakespearean insults is included at the back of the book.
  • When someone calls Tessa ugly, Tessa says, “I’m ugly? You’re like a toad; ugly and venomous. Thy face is not worth sunburning.”
  • One of the characters says “bollocks” several times. The character also calls someone a “prat” and a “dimwit.”
  • Dang is used three times.
  • Oh My God, OMIGOD, and God are often used as exclamations.
  • Holy Crap is said once.
  • While discussing Romeo and Juliet, a student asks, “Isn’t that kind of gay?” The teacher explains, “People may choose to identify themselves as gay, and it’s a word of pride. But the way you’re using the word, it’s just an insult, and there’s no room for that in this production, or in this school. “

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

The summer before his third year of school, Harry Potter accidentally uses magic on his aunt and has to run away from home. While he is worried about getting expelled, it turns out there is a much larger danger, one that no one wants Harry to know about. But, as usual, Harry knows more than he should. He learns that the convicted mass murderer Sirius Black has escaped from the wizard prison, Azkaban, and is coming for Harry Potter. Black was a follower of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and some think Black believes that killing Harry will bring the Dark Lord back to life.

Extra security precautions are taken once Harry arrives at school, all with the goal of keeping Harry safe within Hogwarts. But Harry is much more eager to sneak out of Hogwarts, as he longs to go on the school trips to Hogsmeade, a nearby wizarding town. With the help of his father’s invisibility cloak and a magical map, Harry soon has free reign of the castle. But will this newfound freedom be his downfall with Sirius Black on the prowl?

The third installment of the Harry Potter series raises the bar yet again, with an exciting and slightly more complicated plot that is full of exciting twists and turns. Our favorite characters are back, and we have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor named Lupin. Lupin is an old friend of Harry’s father, but he may be hiding a secret of his own.

 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban will keep readers guessing until the very end. This story continues the theme of not leaping to conclusions based on someone’s appearance or background, and subtlety explores what true friendship looks like. The themes, plot, and language of this book are slightly more mature than the first two books, as the Harry Potter series gradually grows in complexity throughout the seven books. However, this novel will still be appropriate for most elementary-aged students. There is also an illustrated version of this novel that will further engage reluctant readers with beautiful, full-page illustrations.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Malfoy insults a hippogriff, a magical creature that is half horse and half bird. The hippogriff scratches him in retaliation. “It happened in a flash of steely talons; Malfoy let out a high-pitched scream and next moment, Hagrid was wrestling Buckbeak back into his collar as he strained to get at Malfoy, who lay curled in the grass, blood blossoming over his robes.”
  • Malfoy bullies Ron and Harry. Eventually Ron “finally cracked and flung a large slippery crocodile heart at Malfoy, which hit him in the face.”
  • When Malfoy makes fun of Hagrid, Hermione slaps him. “Harry and Ron both made furious moves toward Malfoy, but Hermione got there first—SMACK! She had slapped Malfoy across the face with all the strength she could muster. Malfoy staggered.”
  • Ron is kidnapped and when they try to follow, Harry and Hermione are attacked by the Whomping Willow. “All they could see now was one of Ron’s legs, which he had hooked around a root in an effort to stop the dog from pulling him farther underground—but a horrible crack cut the air like a gunshot; Ron’s leg had broken . . . Hermione gasped; she was bleeding too; the Willow had cut her across the shoulder.”
  • When Harry comes face to face with the man responsible for his parent’s murder, “A boiling hate erupted in Harry’s chest, leaving no place for fear. For the first time in his life, he wanted his wand back in his hand, not to defend himself, but to attack . . . to kill.”
  • Harry, Ron, and Hermione fight with Sirius Black. “Hermione was screaming; Ron was yelling; there was a blinding flash as the wands in Black’s hand sent a jet of sparks into the air that missed Harry’s face by inches . . . But Black’s free hand had found Harry’s throat – “
  • Harry, Ron, and Hermione come face to face with a werewolf. “As the werewolf wrenched itself free of the manacle binding it, the dog seized it about the neck and pulled it backward . . . They were locked, jaw to jaw, claws ripping at each other – ”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Aunt Marge drinks wine with dinner. “Aunt Marge had already had quite a lot of wine. Her huge face was very red.” After dinner, “Uncle Vernon brought out a bottle of brandy.”
  • At a pub, the barman asks the Minister of Magic, “Will you be wanting anything? Beer? Brandy?” The minister opts for a pot of tea.
  • It’s stated that Hagrid “had been drinking a lot” when he thought he was going to be fired and that “he seemed to be having difficulty getting them into focus.” What he was drinking is not specified.
  • Professor Dumbledore tells Hagrid that he, “could do with a cup of tea. Or a large brandy.”
  • Hagrid gets drunk while celebrating, and Harry sees him, “weaving slightly as he walked. A large bottle was swinging from his hands.”

Language

  • Damn is used once. Harry’s Aunt Marge says, “It’s damn good of Vernon and Petunia to keep you. Wouldn’t have done it myself.”
  • Shut up and crap are said a few times. Ron says, “I’m not going to take any crap from Malfoy this year.”
  • Bitch is said once. Aunt Marge says, “You see it all the time with dogs. If there’s something wrong with the bitch, there’ll be something wrong with the pup.”
  • A magical piece of parchment calls Professor Snape an “ugly git.”
  • The commentator calls a player “cheating scum” at a Quidditch match.

Supernatural

  • Harry Potter goes to a school of wizards and is a part of an entire world of magic. His studies include transfiguration, charms, and divination. His school is in a castle with ghosts, hidden passageways, and a Whomping Willow that attacks anyone who gets too close. He encounters hippogriffs, wizards that can shapeshift into animals, and time travel. In short, Harry is surrounded by magic and supernatural occurrences every day of his life. As such, not all instances are listed here.
  • Although the series revolves around magic, the story does not encourage children to try magic on their own. To cast a spell, wizards simply say a word and wave their wand. For example, saying luminos casts light.
  • Professor Trelawney makes a prophecy about the Dark Lord when Harry is the only one in the room. She does not remember making the prophecy afterward. “The Dark Lord will rise again with his servant’s aid, greater and more terrible than ever he was.”

Spiritual Content

  • There are ghosts in the castle that behave like regular (although transparent) people. One of Harry’s teachers is even a ghost.

by Morgan Lynn

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry is ecstatic to be attending the Quidditch World Cup with Ron and Hermione. While the match is spectacular, the appearance of Death Eaters casts a dark shadow over the event. While most people think that the old followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named were acting alone, Harry and a few others are concerned that odd happenings may mean something more sinister is coming.

If Harry thinks his troubles are over when he returns to Hogwarts for his fourth year, he is sorely mistaken. A magical tournament is taking place at Hogwarts with students from other magical schools coming to compete. Harry should have fun watching the tournament with Ron and Hermione—but someone secretly enters his name into the competition. Chosen as a school champion, Harry is forced to get past a dangerous myriad of monsters and challenges, all the while wondering who entered him into the tournament and if their goal is to make sure Harry ends up dead.

While Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is twice the length of the earlier books in the series, the book does not drag a bit! Fascinating new characters from other schools of magic, a once-in-a-lifetime tournament, and growing danger from He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named make this an absolute page-turner. The length, action sequences, and sinister climax of this novel make Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire a slightly more mature book than the last, as the series gradually grows in complexity throughout the seven books. While still appropriate for elementary readers in terms of content, the ending may scare more timid readers. It includes someone that Harry knows dying; he does not see the death, but he does see the body directly afterward.

A whirlwind of adventure and mystery, this is another must-read that will delight elementary to young adult readers so much that they will want to read it again and again.

Sexual Content

  • Ron says he will “go starkers” before wearing the dress robes that his mother bought him.
  • Ron says his brother, “wouldn’t recognize a joke if it danced naked in front of him.”
  • Fleur kisses Harry and Ron on the cheek after they rescue her sister.

Violence

  • A man is murdered by He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. “There was a flash of green light, a rushing sound, and Frank Bryce crumpled. He was dead before he hit the floor.”
  • Uncle Vernon panics and starts throwing things. “Uncle Vernon, who had lost control completely, seized a china figure from on top of the sideboard and threw it very hard at Mr. Weasley, who ducked, causing the ornament to shatter in the blasted fireplace.”
  • A group of Death Eaters, former followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, attack some muggles (non-magical people). “High above them, floating along in midair, four struggling figures were being contorted into grotesque shapes . . . the smallest Muggle child . . . had begun to spin like a top, sixty feet above the ground, his head flopping limply from side to side.”
  • As punishment, Professor Moody turns Malfoy into a ferret and bounces him up and down with his wand. “The ferret bounced higher and higher, squealing in pain.”
  • Harry and his class learn about the forbidden curses in their Defense Against the Dark Art class. One is the Cruciatus Curse, which causes pain. Another is Avada Kedavra, the killing curse. The professor demonstrates the curses on a spider.
  • During a verbal fight with Ron, Harry throws a badge at him. He “chucked it, as hard as he could, across the room. It hit Ron on the forehead and bounced off.”
  • Harry is attacked by grindylows. “He kicked out, hard; finally, he felt his foot connect with a horned skull, and looking back, saw the dazed grindylow floating away.”
  • After a shocking discovery, Hagrid receives hate mail. He says they included things like, “Yeh’re a monster an’ yeh should be put down.” And “Yer mother killed innocent people an’ if you had any decency you’d jump in a lake.” He says “They’re jus’ nutters” and says the best thing to do is to throw the letters away.
  • When Karkaroff spits at Dumbledore, “Hagrid seized the front of Karkaroff’s furs, lifted him into the air, and slammed him against a nearby tree.”
  • Harry hears Cedric being tortured, and then sees him, “jerking and twitching on the ground.”
  • Cedric and Harry battle a gigantic spider. “He was lifted into the air in its front legs; struggling madly, he tried to kick it; his leg connected with the pincers and next moment he was in excruciating pain.”
  • To revive He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, a spell of blood, bone, and flesh is used. “The surface of the grave at Harry’s feet cracked. Horrified, Harry watched as a fine trickle of dust rose into the air.” A Death Eater cuts off his own hand for the spell, though Harry closes his eyes during that part.
  • He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tortures several people, including Harry, with a forbidden curse. “It was pain beyond anything Harry had ever experienced; his very bones were on fire; his head was surely splitting along his scar; his eyes were rolling madly in his head; he wanted it to end . . . to black out . . . to die . . .”
  • Cedric is killed. “A blast of green light blazed through Harry’s eyelids, and he heard something heavy fall to the ground beside him . . . he opened his stinging eyes. Cedric was lying spread-eagled on the ground beside him. He was dead. For a second that contained an eternity, Harry stared into Cedric’s face, at his open gray eyes, blank and expressionless as the windows of a deserted house.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Mrs. Weasley drinks a cup of tea with a “shot of Ogdens Old Firewhiskey” after an emotionally fraught day.
  • A team of giant, magical horses are said to only drink single-malt whiskey.
  • The fat lady, one of the magical portraits in the castle, drinks a box of chocolate liqueurs.
  • Winky, a house elf, starts drinking heavily after she is fired. “‘Winky is getting through six bottles a day now,’ Dobby whispered to Harry.”

Language

  • Damn and shut up are used a few times.
  • Ron tells Malfoy to “eat dung.”
  • During an event, Ron yells at a judge. “You lousy, biased scumbag!”
  • The word git is used twice. For example, Ron calls his owl a “feathery git.”

Supernatural

  • Harry Potter goes to a school of wizards and is a part of an entire world of magic. His studies include transfiguration, charms, and defense against the dark arts. He goes to school in a castle with talking portraits, singing coats of armor, and a poltergeist. He encounters dragons, merpeople, and Forbidden Curses. In short, Harry is surrounded by magic and supernatural occurrences every day of his life. As such, not all instances are listed here.
  • Although the series revolves around magic, the story does not encourage children to try magic on their own. To cast a spell, wizards simply say a word and wave their wand. For example, saying luminos casts light.

Spiritual Content

  • There are ghosts in the castle that behave like regular (although transparent) people. One of Harry’s teachers is even a ghost.
  • A spell causes He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s wand to produce echoes of its most recent spells. As he killed several people, shadowy ghosts of those people appear briefly. “The smoky shadow of a tall man with untidy hair fell to the ground as Bertha had done, straightened up, and looked at him . . . and Harry, his arms shaking madly now, looked back into the ghostly face of his father.”

by Morgan Lynn

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is back. Harry saw him with his own eyes. However, the ministry does not want to believe that the most powerful dark wizard in history has returned. In an effort to discredit Harry Potter’s story, they spend the entire summer publishing articles about how Harry is a troubled boy who lies for attention. By the time Harry returns to Hogwarts, it seems like everyone in school thinks he is a liar. Even worse, the Ministry has appointed the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, who is determined to bring every aspect of Hogwarts under her personal control.

While the world turns a blind eye, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is gaining strength. Connected by the strange bond that formed the night He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named tried to murder the Potters, Harry begins seeing flashes of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s thoughts and emotions. While he is fascinated by them, the adults surrounding him urge Harry to shut He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named out of his mind. Will Harry’s stubbornness be his downfall? Or can he use his unique connection with the Dark Lord to prevent more bloodshed?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a similar length to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, continuing the trend of a longer page count. The tone of this book is slightly darker and more serious, with plenty of edge-of-your-seat moments to keep the pages turning. Readers will love seeing more of our favorite Goblet of Fire characters, including (the real) Professor Moody, Tonks, Lupin, Sirius, and more.

For the first time, Harry and his friends start to explore dating. Harry goes on a date with Cho and kisses her once, while Ron starts dating Lavender Brown, causing a rift in his relationship with Hermione. While these exploits do not become the main plot point, they do add interest to the story. Readers will relate to Harry as he muddles through his first date and will understand his frustration when adults insist on treating him like a child.

This book may not be a good fit for younger elementary readers due to the longer page count, darker tone, and slightly more mature content in terms of language and kissing. However, more mature elementary students and junior high students will thoroughly enjoy this next Harry Potter adventure.

Sexual Content

  • Hermione kisses Ron on the cheek before a Quidditch match. “‘Good luck, Ron,’ said Hermione, standing on tiptoe and kissing him on the cheek.”
  • Harry goes on a date with Cho. They go to a café, and he is uncomfortable that everyone is holding hands because “perhaps Cho would expect him to hold her hand.” Then another couple “started kissing over their sugar bowl.”
  • Cho “gave [Harry] a swift kiss on the cheek and hurried off.”

Violence

  • Uncle Vernon grabs Harry when he thinks he has been using magic. “Two large purple hands reached through the open window and closed tightly around his throat . . . for a few seconds they struggled, Harry pulling at his uncle’s sausage-like fingers with his left hand.”
  • When Dudley and Harry are attacked by dementors, Dudley panics and punches Harry. “WHAM! A fist made contact with the side of Harry’s head, lifting Harry off his feet. Small white lights popped in front of Harry’s eyes.”
  • Hagrid tells a story about a tribe of giants he visited. After a fight, “the sun came up [and] the snow was scarlet an’ his head was lyin’ at the bottom o’ the lake.”
  • Harry and Cho kiss, but the kiss is not described.
  • Mr. Weasley is attacked by a giant snake. “He reared high from the floor and struck once, twice, three times, plunging his fangs deeply into the man’s flesh, feeling his ribs splinter beneath his jaws, feeling the warm gush of blood.”
  • Harry sees a memory of his father at school when Snape and James got in a fight. “Snape had directed his wand straight at James; there was a flash of light, and a gash appeared on the side of James’ face, spattering his robes with blood.”
  • Hagrid is ambushed. “Hagrid took two massive swipes at his closest attackers; judging by their immediate collapse, they had been knocked cold.”
  • Harry is caught sneaking into Umbridge’s office. His friends are caught too, including “Neville, who was trapped in a stranglehold by Crabbe and looked in imminent danger of suffocation.”
  • A giant gets in a fight with a herd of centaurs. “Fifty arrows went soaring through the air at the giant, peppering his enormous face . . . pebble-sized droplets of Grawp’s blood showered Harry.” Harry then flees.
  • Harry and his friends are cornered by followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and a fight ensues as they try to escape. It takes place over an entire chapter but is not graphic. “He turned in time to see her flying through the air. Five Death Eaters were surging into the room through the door she had not reached in time; Luna hit a desk, slid over its surface and onto the floor on the other side where she lay sprawled, as still as Hermione.”
  • Sirius is killed by a spell. “The second jet of light hit him squarely on the chest. The laughter had not quite died from his face, but his eyes widened in shock . . . ”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Harry knows that his cousin has been “smoking on street corners,” but the smoking is not shown.
  • At a dodgy bar, Ron says, “I bet that bloke would sell us anything, he wouldn’t care. I’ve always wanted to try firewhisky.”
  • Dobby says he has used the Room of Requirement, “when Winky has been very drunk . . . and he has found antidotes to butterbeer there, and a nice elf-sized bed to settle her on while she sleeps it off, sir.”
  • Harry catches a “whiff of stale drink” when he meets Sirius.
  • An eccentric teacher often gives “off a powerful smell of cooking sherry.”
  • Harry and his friends often hang out in a pub. The adults there sometimes drink mead or firewhisky, but students do not. Once, a journalist “jumped so badly that she slopped half her glass of firewhisky down herself.”
  • A student in passing asks Harry if he wants to “chip in a couple of Galleons? Harold Dingle reckons he could sell us some firewhisky,” but Harry isn’t listening.
  • Before their exams, a large trade in brain stimulants pops up, such as powdered dragon claw, which is supposed to make you clever. After finding out the dragon claw is “actually dried doxy droppings,” it “took the edge off Harry and Ron’s desire for brain stimulants.”

Language

  • ‘For God’s Sake’ and ‘Good Lord’ are used as exclamations a few times. “Good Lord, boy, they told me you were intelligent.”
  • The word ‘codswallop’ is used once.
  • ‘Damn’ and ‘git’ are used several times. Once, Uncle Vernon says they were “too damn soft for our own good.” Another time Fred calls Snape a “git” behind Snape’s back.
  • Fred calls Malfoy a scumbag.
  • Hell is used once. Hagrid asks, “who the ruddy hell are you.”
  • While at a planetarium, Ron says, “Harry, we saw Uranus up close! . . . Get it, Harry? We saw Uranus.”

Supernatural

  • Harry Potter goes to a school of wizards and is a part of an entire world of magic. His studies include divination, potions, and defense against the dark arts. He goes to school in a castle with magical rooms, hidden passageways, and a phoenix. He encounters a giant, nifflers, and house elves. In short, Harry is surrounded by magic and supernatural occurrences every day of his life. As such, not all instances are listed here.
  • Although the series revolves around magic, the story does not encourage children to try magic on their own. To cast a spell, wizards simply say a word and wave their wand. For example, saying luminos casts light.
  • Professor Trelawney made a prophecy about the Dark Lord before Harry was born. She does not remember making the prophecy afterward, but it is stored in a secret Hall of Prophecies hidden in the Ministry of Magic.

Spiritual Content

  • There are ghosts in the castle that behave like regular (although transparent) people. One of Harry’s teachers is even a ghost.
  • After his godfather dies, Harry asks a ghost if his godfather will come back. The ghost says no, because “He will have . . . gone on.” When Harry asks him what comes after death, the ghost says, “I know nothing of the secrets of death Harry, for I chose my feeble imitation of life instead.”

by Morgan Lynn

Under Suspicion

When the police show up at Highcrest Academy, Friday isn’t expecting them to take her to the police station. She has to clear her name with the help of a vagrant she meets. Life is no easier once she gets back to school, as she quickly jumps in to investigate a quiche back-off scandal as well as discover why holes are being dug everywhere.

The second installment of the Friday Barnes mystery has many of the same characters. Friday’s best friend Melanie spends all of her time sleeping, skipping out on classes, and obsessing over Friday’s love interests. Melanie’s nemesis Ian is willing to do anything to earn a scholarship, even framing Friday for a crime she didn’t commit. Many of the characters are portrayed as rich kids who are willing to do anything, including lie and cheat, to win. Besides the cast of characters from the first series, cute boy Christopher makes an appearance, which gives Melanie another boy to tease Friday about.

Throughout the story, Friday focuses on several smaller mysteries that end up all coming together for a big reveal at the end of the story. Throughout the story, Friday uses her power of observation to solve mysteries. Although Friday is socially awkward, she is clearly a genius who isn’t afraid to show that she is smart. Friday understands her weaknesses, which include social interactions. Even though the girls at the school ignore her, she is still willing to help them when they are in need.

Black and white illustrations appear every 4 to 8 pages. The illustrations help bring the quirky characters to life as well as show some of the action in the story. Although the Friday Barnes Series does not need illustrations to get readers to turn the pages, they add a nice touch and are often humorous.

Unlike many children’s books, the Friday Barnes Series doesn’t shy away from larger vocabulary words. Friday is a genius, and her vocabulary includes words like laboriously, repugnant, extrapolate, and fastidious. Even though readers may not understand all of Friday’s references and words, this doesn’t take away from the book’s enjoyment. Friday’s curious personality jumps off the page. Even though the reader knows that she will solve every case, there are plenty of surprises. Friday Barnes Under Suspicion is the perfect mix of dry humor, action, and suspense.

Sexual Content

  • When Friday and Ian are arguing, Melanie says, “You should write down some of this witty banter so you can read the transcripts to your grandchildren one day.” Another person replies, “I didn’t know Barnes and Waincott were planning to start a family.”
  • In order to get Friday to run, a boy grabs her hand. “Friday was surprised. No boy had ever held her hand before. It didn’t tingle like in the romance novels, but it did feel nice in an inexplicable, visceral way.”

Violence

  • The school gardener is found unconscious. He was hit in the head with a tool “but only because someone took the tool and swung it at him. . .”
  • Someone threatens to break Friday’s arm. He says, “I know that if I used my knee as a fulcrum and your forearm as a lever, I could snap your elbow like a dry twig.” He then uses a zip tie to secure her on the top of a lawn mower grass catcher.
  • Someone soaks Friday’s hat in gasoline and “produced a lighter from his pocket and set Friday’s hat alight.” Then the person, “threw the flaming hat through the broken window, then calmly walked back to where Friday was tied up.” The fire alarm went off and the school was evacuated.
  • When someone swung a spade towards Friday’s head, Ian tackles the person. “Ian had knocked him over and they were wrestling among the rosebushes.” The person brandishes gardening sheers at Friday and Ian. When the person goes to flee, Malcom, “burst out from the bushes at the edge of the forest and came sprinting down the slope towards the lawn mower. . . Malcom pivoted himself up and raised his fist to deliver a blow.” Friday yells at Malcom, who stops himself from hitting the person.
  • Malcom tells a story about someone who, “tried to trick an eighty-five-year-old lady. . . Little did he realize she was a retired professional wrestler. She hit him over the head with her walking frame, then held him in a leg lock until the police arrived.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Twice, someone calls Friday an Idiot.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Five Feet Apart

Stella Grant has cystic fibrosis, making her no stranger to hospitals and surgeries. Despite her precarious lung function, she’s pretty used to being in control. That is until a handsome hospital newcomer, Will Newman, arrives, sending Stella into a whirlwind of feelings she’s never experienced before. Feelings she didn’t think she’d ever get to experience.

Will is bad news for Stella. His floppy black hair and sea-blue eyes are no danger compared to his incredibly aggressive and contagious form of CF, B. Capaecia. Not to mention that he refuses to follow the doctor’s orders or participate fully in his treatments, which drives Stella absolutely mad.

A not-so-classic forbidden love story ensues. Stella and Will must figure out how to navigate their relationship while maintaining their required distance apart. With their feelings growing and changing, those five feet apart began to feel larger and larger.

Five Feet Apart is a sweet romance with elements of fierce friendship and family turmoil. Stella and Will start out seeing each other as complete opposites but come to realize they have a lot in common. The most important thing they discover is how much they care for one another. Five Feet Apart is not only informative about Cystic Fibrosis, but also witty and entertaining.

Teens will be drawn into the character’s drama right from the start. Both Will and Stella are likable characters, who have their quirks and unique attributes. The story alternates between Will and Stella’s point of view, which makes it hard not to feel for and relate to both characters.

Following the same type of formulas as The Fault in Our Stars and Everything, Everything, Lippincott delivers an emotional, easy-to-read novel chronicling young love. Even though the story’s plot is familiar, Five Feet Apart is worth reading because it describes not only the common turmoil of teenage romance but also puts these commonplace emotions in an uncommon setting, which makes the story thought-provoking and fresh. Romantic and heartwarming to the extreme, this book will command the reader’s attention from start to finish.

Sexual Content

  • Stella is resting during the evening, when she gazes “out the window as the afternoon fades and sees a couple about my age, laughing and kissing as they walk into the hospital.”
  • Stella realizes that Will is letting his friends use his bed for sex. “Oh my god. Gross. He’s letting his friends do it in his room, like it’s a motel.” Stella confronts Will, saying “You letting your friends borrow your room for sex isn’t cute.” Will takes this to mean Stella has something against sex, to which Stella proclaims, “‘Of course not! I’ve had sex.’”
  • Will is reflecting on his encounter with Stella and says she actually looked kind of hot.
  • Stella is describing Poe’s romantic life. Stella describes his past relationships, “Before Michael it was Tim, the week after this it could be David.”
  • Stella has convinced Will to follow his medicine regimen in exchange for her letting him draw her. She tells him there will be no nude drawings allowed.
  • Will asks Poe if he and Stella have ever “hooked up.”
  • Will jokes to Stella that since he can’t meet Bob Ross, he’ll “just have to settle for sex in the Vatican.”
  • Stella is preparing for her first date with Will. Stella “put on some mascara and lip gloss, smiling at the idea of Will seeing me not just alive, but with makeup on, his blue eyes gazing at my gloss-covered lips. Would he want to kiss me?” She also enlists Poe’s help to pick out an outfit. “I pull out a pair of skimpy, silky boxers, eyeing them. I couldn’t. Could I?”
  • Will and Stella are on their first date. While on the date, “She reaches for her silk tank top, her eyes fixed on mine as she pulls it slowly off to reveal a black lace bra. She drops the tank top onto the deck of the pool, my jaw going with it. Then she slips down her shorts, stepping carefully out of them and straightening up. Inviting me to look.” Will looks at her, but knows he can’t do anything more than that.

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Will is reminiscing on his time in public high school, “where my old classmates are slowly chugging their way to finals.”

Language

  • Oh my god and my god are often used as exclamations.
  • Stella says goodbye to her friends leaving for Cabo. “Your plane is at, like, the ass crack of dawn tomorrow.”
  • Stella says the food at prom didn’t suck. She later says she’s been at this hospital for a “freaking decade.”
  • All of the CF patients mention not wanting to “piss off” Barb, because she’s such a “hard ass.”
  • Will and Stella often refer to their circumstances as shitty or bullshit.
  • Will is dreaming about his future once he turns 18. “I could sketch the landscape, draw a final cartoon of me giving the middle finger to the universe, then bite the big one.”
  • Damn is used often. Barb and the adults in the story often use “damn” when a surgery doesn’t go well.
  • Fucking is used occasionally. Some examples are “Are you fucking kidding me,” “That is a complete mind-fuck,” and “All you see of me is my fucking disease.” For example, when Will is in a fight with his mother on his birthday, he screams “all you see of me is my fucking disease.”
  • Poe and Stella call each other a bitch and an asshole during a fight. These words are only used in this encounter.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Will finds Poe sitting in the hospital’s church. When Will asks why he’s there, Poe replies “My mom likes to see me in here. I’m Catholic, but she’s Catholic.”
  • “So what do you think happens when we die?” Will asks Stella.

by Tori Gellman

The War Outside

Margot’s German-American family lived in a small Iowa community. After attending a rally, her father is detained in the family internment camp in Crystal City. In order to keep the family together, Margot and her mother follow him. Since being in the internment camp, her mother’s health is deteriorating and her father is changing. Instead of being a loving father, he is spending time with Nazis and learning how to hate.

Haruko wants to pretend that Crystal City is just another town. She’s made friends and goes to school. On the outside, she looks calm, but on the inside, she is stricken by fear. She questions her father’s innocence and wants to know what he is hiding. Her soldier brother, who is fighting in the Japanese-American unit of the US Army, is also keeping secrets. Haruko wants to know the truth, but will the truth help her family or destroy it?

A dust storm throws Haruko and Margot together. Despite being of different ethnicities, the two start a secret friendship. The two begin to trust and rely on each other. Can this fragile friendship last in the desert prison camp or will the two discover that hate is stronger?

The War Outside gives readers a glimpse of the fear caused by World War II and explains why the internment camps came to exist. Margot’s family highlights how being imprisoned in an internment camp begins to change everyone. Margot’s father’s anger begins to control his actions, and he begins spending time with Nazi sympathizers. Margot struggles with the fact that she loves her father, but doesn’t approve of his actions. Margot knows that “marching with a Nazi swastika is not like algebra, where you can get the wrong answer but be right some of the time. This is all wrong.”

The story is told from the perspectives of both Haruko and Margot, which allows the reader to understand the motivation of both characters. The struggles of the internment camp bring Haruko and Margot together, and they both have romantic feelings for each other. While the girls’ attraction is hinted at, the topic is not explored in depth which makes it hard to relate to the girls’ strong feelings for each other. In the end, Haruko wonders how she can make a decision based on a moment, “for a person I have known barely a month? For a feeling that was so fast and so strong, and that I can barely even describe?” The reader is left wondering the same thing—why are the two girls so devastated by the other’s actions?

There are several family conflicts that should have been explored in more detail. Even though it is clear that the girls love their families, the story lacks family interaction that would have brought their relationships into focus. In the end, the characters lack development, the ending seems rushed, and the conclusion falls flat. Although the story is an interesting read, it will be easily forgotten.

Sexual Content

  • Margot and Haruko hide so they can talk. As they are talking, “I (Haruko) press my index and middle finger to my own mouth, which suddenly feels hot and swollen, and hold them there for a minute, and then I take those same fingers and press them against Margot’s. Her lips are chapped. She closes her eyes. . . I feel my pulse, very faintly, in the tips of my fingers, pressing against the cool of Margot’s lips, and slowing so that every beat crashes in my ears.” The two are interrupted.
  • While talking to Haruko, Margot “has a sudden urge to touch her nose, her hair, to go with her to the icehouse where it’s dark and private. There is throbbing, deep in the pit of my stomach.”

Violence

  • Haruko accidentally hit her sister. Her sister’s “mouth falls open and she reaches to where there are four white finger-shaped lines appearing on the side of her face.”
  • Haruko thinks back to when “a car drove past and the window rolled down and the driver threw a bottle of soda at us that splashed all over our clothes.”
  • While in the internment camp, Margot finds out that someone “painted swastikas on the barn and burned the house to the ground.” Her family has no home to return to.
  • Margot’s father tries to hit his pregnant wife. When Margo stops him, she “reached for his hand and he pulls away from me, and then I’m off balance and spilling to the ground. My mother rushed towards me, but she’s forgotten about the fallen chair. Her foot twists around the rung, and instead of shooting her hands out in front of herself for support the way I did, she’s kept them wrapped around her midsection, protecting her baby.” Her mom ends up with a bruised face.
  • There is news that at another internment camp, a riot began and, “guards fired into the crowd with a machine gun. . . Two people died.”
  • Two girls drown in the swimming pool. They are “pulled out of the pool, limp as rag dolls.” When people get upset, a guard points a rifle at the people.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The general store sells cigarettes and German beer.
  • Some of the men at the internment camp are “building secret distilleries to get drunk on grain alcohol.” This is discussed several times.

Language

  • Thank God, for God’s sake, and Oh God are used as exclamations several times.
  • Someone calls Haruko a “yellow bitch.”
  • A man tells Margot that she would like his son because he’s “not an ass like me.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • During a funeral, the mourners “sing hymns that most of us know by rote. We recite the Apostles’ Creed, we recite the lord’s prayer.”

 

I Am Underdog

Kemba isn’t good-looking or popular. He’s a nobody. Kemba thinks he is too lame to have any friends. He goes through the day unnoticed, but he wishes he was cool like the computer game superhero Underdog. Underdog helps the weak but Kemba gets beat up by the sixth-grade bully. When Kemba witnesses an act of cruelty, will he find the strength to speak out?

Designed to engage struggling readers, Kemba uses short sentences, simple vocabulary, and an easy-to-follow plot. Simple black and white sketches appear on almost every page. The sketches help break up the text and make the book more accessible. However, the sketches are not detailed and look a bit like doodles. Because the story is written for struggling readers, the characters and plot are not developed and the story does not include detailed descriptions.

Kemba’s struggle to fit in is realistic and relatable. His fear of talking to others and being rejected is one that many readers will understand. Kemba struggles with bullying and learns the importance of speaking up for those weaker than him. I Am Underdog will engage its target audience—reluctant, struggling readers. I Am Underdog will entertain those who enjoy reading graphic novels and are not ready for text-heavy books.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • At lunch, Richie and his gang come up to Kemba. “Richie ripped off Kemba’s jacket. He threw it into a puddle. . . Richie and the other boys laughed. They stomped on it. Then they left, still laughing.”
  • While walking home, Kemba sees a boy “holding a girl by her arm. She was crying. . . ‘You are mine,’ the boy shouted. ‘Don’t you forget it!’”
  • Richie throws a boy’s lunch on the ground.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • After Richie is mean to another kid, Kemba yells, “You’re evil, Richie Mason! You stinking creep!”
  • Someone calls Richie a jerk.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Summer Ball

Danny’s team has won the national championships. Now he, Ty, and Will head to Right Way Basketball Camp, a prestigious summer camp for kids who are serious about improving their basketball skills. Now that Danny is thirteen, he worries his height may finally be the obstacle that keeps him from truly competing with his peers.

When Danny gets placed with an old school coach who seems to believe Danny would do better in soccer, he becomes more determined than ever to prove that size isn’t everything. This sequel to Travel Team brings new characters and the same love of the game as the first book. The main characters from Travel Team also show up in this sequel. However, new friends such as Zach and Rasheed add a new dynamic to the group.

The novel shows the stereotypical summer camp, along with the problems that come along with it such as homesickness, bullying, and a struggle to fit in. This story, while similar to the first, is still an entertaining read that dives into friendships on the court. Danny and his new friend Zach learn how to deal with bullies and how to overcome obstacles through hard work.

Throughout the story, Danny must overcome several obstacles. The reader will understand Danny’s feelings as he tries to deal with these different conflicts. Although Danny had to deal with some difficult situations, he perseveres and is able to come up on top.

Summer Ball has scenes that depict the character Lamar bullying Zach and Danny, one time physically. The rest of the scenes describe Lamar gives them a hard time on the court or in passing. They are not violent scenes, but they may upset sensitive readers who have struggled with bullying in the past.

As a sequel to Travel Team, readers do not need to read the first book to enjoy Summer Ball. However, reading Travel Team will help to better understand the characters and their relationships. Overall, Summer Ball is an entertaining sequel with a predictable plot. After reading Summer Ball, sports enthusiasts will want to hit the court and play some ball.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Zach, Danny, and Lamar get into a fight. While verbally bullying them, Lamar ruins Zach’s basketball by breaking off a needle inside it. Then “Zach stepped back and whipped it right at Lamar’s head, the ball either catching Lamar on the side of his head or his shoulder. . . he grabbed Zach by his shoulders and started shaking him, hard. Zach’s head bounced around like he was a bobblehead doll.”
  • After Danny stood up for Zach, “Lamar took his big right hand, the one he had on Zach, and flicked it into his stomach like a jab.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Crap is used twice.
  • When he doesn’t want to hang out and go to the movies, Will calls Danny a “knothead.”
  • When Danny tells his dad about his difficult coach, his dad says “Oh, God . . . Did he give you all that BS about. . .”
  • A bully named Lamar asks Danny, “But what’s the point if you can’t get the dang ball to the dang basket?” He also calls Danny a “midget” four times in this scene.
  • When she finds out about her son’s knee injury, Ali Walker uses “Good Lord” as an exclamation.
  • A character says in exasperation, “Oh, sweet Lord.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Danny thinks about how some players are trying to make their practice into a “guard’s game. The way God intended, as Richie Walker liked to say.”
  • Danny is practicing on his own, trying to fix his mistake from the previous game. He thinks, “Like the hoop gods—his dad was always talking about the hoop gods, as though they watched every single game—were giving him a do-over.”

by Hannah Neeley

 

Minecraft: The Crash

Bianca doesn’t think before she acts because her best friend, Lonnie, has always been there to catch her when she falls. But when Bianca and Lonnie are in a horrific car crash, Bianca learns that thoughtless actions can lead to severe consequences for her and for others.

Bianca wakes up in the hospital with painful injuries. She is afraid to find out what has happened to Lonnie—did he survive or has Bianca lost her best friend? To avoid the painful truths of reality, Bianca jumps into the virtual reality world of Minecraft. When she meets a glitching avatar that might be Lonnie, Bianca vows to do everything she can to help Lonnie in the virtual world.

Bianca teams up with Esme and Anton, two other kids who are in the hospital. While in the Minecraft world, the kids must face dangerous mobs that are generated by their fears and insecurities. With the help of her new friends, can Bianca overcome her fears and return to reality?

Minecraft: The Crash begins with a graphic crash scene, which leaves Bianca wondering what happened to Lonnie. Bianca’s resulting fear and guilt conflict drive much of the story. Her time in the Minecraft world adds interest to those who play the game, but fans may not like that the story does not stay true to the actual Minecraft game. Instead, the author changed many of the game’s elements to fit the story’s plot. On the other hand, if someone is not familiar with the Minecraft game some events will be confusing.

Bianca, Esme, and Anton interact like typical teenagers—they argue and disagree, but they also work together (most of the time.) Esme and Anton show the importance of working together to solve a problem. They also encourage Bianca to face her issues. Esme and Anton are likeable characters who stick with Bianca through everything. However, Bianca is hard to relate to because she comes off as a self-centered person who is dishonest when it benefits her. Although Esme and Anton are doing everything they can to help her, Bianca does little to contribute to the group’s plan. Instead, she does what she wants even if it may cause harmful consequences to others. Although she feels guilty for causing the car accident, she has not learned from the event.

The length of the book, the complexity of the plot, and some difficult vocabulary combine to make Minecraft: The Crash more appropriate for middle-school readers than younger readers, as does the fact that the story deals with the difficult topic of death. Although Bianca recognizes that she is to blame for Lonnie’s death, the ending of the story does not acknowledge the long-term ramifications of the car crash or the pain Lonnie’s death caused others. Despite these drawbacks, this book will keep readers who want to jump into the Minecraft world entertained with battle after battle.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Bianca and her friend are in a car crash. Bianca could see the driver of the other car; “his head lurched back as his green car collided with our blue one.” During the crash, “there was the smell of smoke. And the taste of blood. And the scrape of something against my body that felt like it had gutted me open somewhere in the middle. I wondered if I’d been halved.” Bianca is seriously injured. Her friend dies.
  • While in the Minecraft word, Bianca meets a zombie mob. She began “plowing through green guys with the sword like an Amazon warrior. . . I was screaming and chopping and generally having a great time until one of them hit me, and the energy bar at the top of my vision went down half a heart.” The battle takes place over three pages. During that time, Bianca kills zombies. When she kills one, “green slime burst in pixelated arcs that fell on the ground and disappeared in seconds.”
  • While in the Minecraft world, Bianca tries to go into another player’s house. She triggers an explosion and “blocks exploded, lava erupted, and a series of sparks bloomed in front of my eyes.
  • Spiders charge the three kids. Bianca “picked up my sword again and hacked at the charging spider. It broke into blue pieces and fell to the ground . . .” Then Anton “did a spin and swiped at another spider. It broke apart, but the river of spiders just kept pouring out of the house.”
  • A group of villagers attacks and “they all turned on us, mercilessly raining down blows. . . Anton got the brunt of the blows.”
  • While in a tunnel, zombies attack. Lonnie and Esme “started slashing through the mob. . .” Later, creepers appear. As Bianca tried to escape, “creepers pressing in. One on the far end popped and set off a chain reaction.”
  • Witches begin throwing potions at the group. As Bianca was fleeing, “a potion hit me and exploded. My movements instantly became slower. My heath bar over my head dipped. . . . Ashton kept on hitting until the witch died.”
  • A line of endermen appear and “this group seemed to be gunning for us, arms outstretched in attack mode. . . I swung my sword, just missing it, and giving it enough time to reach me. My health points took a big hit when it landed a blow. . . The endermen pounded me with its fists. I put my arms up, unable to do anything else. . .” The battle takes place over two pages.
  • Endermen attack the group again. Endermen “rained down on us like black hail. . . Esme fired arrow after arrow into the crowd of them. I hacked my way through at one side . . .”
  • When Bianca’s friends try to get her to leave the game, she “thought about the TNT I had in my inventory, and how I needed a distraction. It suddenly appeared and detonated instantly in front of us. We were blown back in different directions. My heath bar took a major hit.” Bianca’s friends were “thrown back into the exit portal.” They were forced out of the game.
  • A slime mob attacks a house. Bianca “charged in, giving my best warrior yell. I bashed through the little slimes that were at my feet while keeping the skeletons away from Lonnie.” The battle takes place over three pages.
  • Zombies come into a bobby-trapped house. When the zombies got to the door, “there was the click of a trigger, and the sound of a low whistle that got louder and louder, and then bam! Both of them got smashed by an anvil.” The battle takes place over two pages.
  • While in the bobby-trapped house, Bianca steps on a pressure plate. She runs, but “a series of flaming arrows flew towards us. Most stuck in the ground, burning in place, but a few of them hit us. The sharp stab of the arrow piercing me was bad enough, but the fire . . . I started to crawl away, but Lonnie sat where he was, pinned by three arrows that hit his legs and arm. . . d” No one is seriously injured.
  • Zombies attack again. Bianca “continued slashing with my sword while pushing Lonnie backward, away from danger. . . a zombie hit me, sending me sprawling. My body felt leaden as I hit the floor, and I didn’t know if I had the energy to escape the approaching zombie. . . “ Lonnie pulls her to safety.
  • Bianca and Esme get into an argument. Bianca “pushed her to the ground and started to hit her with my fist, but she was back up on her feet a moment later, punching back. . . I pulled my hands up to shield my face, hoping the blows would end soon, and a moment later she stopped.” Someone pulls Esme off Bianca.
  • A scarred enderman appears and Bianca “thrust upward with the sword. I caught the enderman’s arm. It staggered back a step, but then reached around with its other arm to strike me. . . the enderman’s arm flashed out, lightening quick, thwacking my face. The blow burned like fire. . .” Esme shoots the enderman, but others appear. Anton has TNT so he “lobbed the bombs over our heads as we kept firing. . .” The group is able to escape. The battle takes place over 2 ½ pages.
  • Witches ambush Bianca. “They pelted potions, and I warded them off with my sword as best I could. Then I charged the closet witch—the one on my right—slashing until it died, droppings ticks and glass bottles.” Someone saves Bianca.
  • Wither skeletons with swords attach the group. “Anton killed one at close range by sticking its torso, and one of Esme’s arrows found its target, destroying the third one.”
  • Ender pirates attack. Bianca tries to escape, but one “extended its hand and knocked me over. I fell to the floor, but I didn’t seem to have taken much damage. The fighting continued around and over me for a second before I regained my footing.” The battle continues for 3 ½ pages and ends when Anton detonates an explosion, “The yellow and orange of the bomb was bright against the sky. . . I (Bianca) jumped up onto the rail, and dove into the water as the pirate ship blew up behind me.”
  • Someone steps on a pressure plate and enemies appear. “The silverfish looked vicious, and they came straight toward us with their jaws unhinged, as if they meant to take a bite out of anyone who got close enough. . . They swarmed around us, unrelenting and hideous, but our armor kept us relatively safe. . .” They escape through a portal.
  • Bianca and her friends jump through a portal, but an enderman appears and grabs Bianca. “The enderman grabbed me by the hand, pulled me backwards, and threw me down on the ground. It kneeled over me, wrapped its hands around my neck, and squeezed. I choked for air. My legs and arms flailed as I tried to dislodge myself from the enderman’s grasp.” The game glitches and Bianca reappears somewhere else.
  • In a final battle, Bianca and her friends fight a dragon. “Its eyes blazed as it charged straight toward us. I could feel the heated air radiating from its flapping wings. . . The dragon dropped its wing and clipped Anton on his back. He lurched forward, landing at Lonnie’s feet and staring up at the sky.” The battle takes place over 10 pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • While in the hospital, doctors gave Bianca painkillers. When she woke up, she “considered that the drugs were making me loopy.” Later Bianca’s father is told that doctors have “administered the strongest painkillers we can under the circumstances. . .”

Language

  • Darn, jeez, heck, and crap are each used one time.
  • Pissed is used five times. For example, Bianca thinks that another player “looked pissed.”
  • Anton says that Esme is “a jerk sometimes.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Dragon Pearl

Thirteen-year-old Min lives an ordinary life. No one knows that her family comes from a long line of fox spirits. Her family hides their powers, and Min’s mother doesn’t allow any of them to use fox-magic. Instead of shape-shifting and using Charm, Min always appears as a human.

Min dreams of leaving her dust-ridden planet and joining her brother Jun in the Space Forces. When Min gets older, they hope to see more of the Thousand Worlds together. Then an investigator appears and informs the family that Jun has deserted. The investigator thinks Jun is searching for the mythical Dragon Pearl that is rumored to have tremendous power.

After reading a strange message from Jun, Min knows that something is wrong. Min runs away to search for her brother. During her journey, she will meet gamblers, pirates, and ghosts. She will have to use deception, sabotage, and magic. Min will need all of her courage to complete her journey. Will she be able to find the answers she needs to find her brother?

Sci-fi enthusiasts will enter an imaginative world that includes Korean mythology. The Korean mythology is seamlessly integrated into Min’s story and helps create an interesting world. The story is a perfect blend of mystery, action, and space travel. Although most of the story is fast-paced, parts of the story are difficult to read because of long descriptions.

Dragon Pearl is told from Min’s point of view, which allows the reader to understand her thought process as she searches for her brother. Middle school readers will enjoy reading about Min because of her daring actions and can-do attitude.

Although Min has spent her life hiding her magical abilities, once she leaves her house, she consistently relies on Charm. Readers may question how she can be so skilled using her Charm when she has had no practice. Another bothersome inconsistency is that Min notices when other supernaturals use their powers, but no one notices when Min uses her Charm. Even though Min uses her Charm to deceive others, she is still a likable character. At the end of the book, Min realizes that she should rely less on magic, but it would have been nice to see Min use her brain to solve some problems throughout the story, instead of always using Charm.

The ending is a little predictable, but there are enough surprises to satisfy readers. Middle school readers who are interested in mythology may want to begin with the Percy Jackson Series or Aru Shah and the End of Time, which have better character development as well as humor. Overall, Dragon Pearl creates an interesting world filled with magic. The danger, magic, and mystery will draw readers into the story and keep them engaged. However, some readers may struggle with the long descriptions and difficult vocabulary.

Sexual Content

  • Some people wear “a small symbol next to the name that let me know they should be addressed neutrally, as neither female or male.” One of the characters, a goblin, is gender neutral and referred to as they.

Violence

  • When an investigator finds out that Min is a fox, he “snatched me up by the throat. I scrabbled for air, my fingernails lengthening into claws, and tore desperately at his fingers.” Min turns into a block of metal and fell on the man’s foot. When he lets her go, “I snatched a saucepan and brought it crashing down against his head. He fell without a sound.”
  • Mercenaries attack the ship that Min is on. Min “cried as a burst of violet fire hit us in the side.” The scene takes place over nine pages. Someone pulls Min “behind the copilot’s seat. Great timing: A bolt sizzled over me, where my head had been just a second earlier. . . Two more bolts flew over my head. I peeked around the side of the seat and fired once at the first shadowy figure I saw. I heard a yelp.” Min is hit and “slid out of consciousness.” Later, Min discovers that one cadet died.
  • A person accidently crashed into Min, who is appearing as a boy. Min “emitted a strange yell when the person’s knee accidently connected with my crotch. I was going to have to be more careful about guarding that part of my body!”
  • A space ship is attacked, and the Goblin is injured. “Sunjin jumped back from their workstation, clutching their side. An enormous burning line of light had seared the goblin from the neck all the way to their waist, as though someone had slashed them with a whip of fire. . .”
  • Min discovers that the colonist, “stopped making offerings to the pox spirits, and the spirits took their vengeance by wiping out the colony.”
  • Min helps two mercenaries escape. They get on a ship and the pilot, “blew open the hatch with a missile at short range. . . Acceleration slammed us sideways as our ship veered hard to starboard, then rolled.”
  • Min turns into a bird, and someone shoots at her. “Fire pierced my right wing. . . I plummeted, struggling. . . The pain made me light headed.”
  • A man grabs Min. “I stifled a gasp as his fingers dug into my flesh and he yanked me toward him, wrenching my injured shoulder.” The ghost helps Min escape.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Min knocks the investigator unconscious, her family discusses using a “subtle poison” to kill him.
  • Min questions a guard, who tells her that he got his information from a “drunk spacer who was spilling secrets last night.”
  • Min meets a guard who had, “the flushed skin of someone who had been drinking too much cheap wine, and he reeked of the stuff.”
  • For a few hours, Min works in a gambling hall where she serves wine and uses “Charm to encourage customers to relax.” While working, she gives wine to customers.
  • When Min is injured, she is given a dose of painkiller.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • The main character is a fox spirit, who lives as a human. A fox spirit can, “shape-shift into whatever she wants: human, animal, even a dining room table.” Fox spirits can choose to be female or male. Fox spirits can also use Charm “to manipulate human emotions and make people see things that aren’t there.”
  • Besides fox spirits, there are other supernatural creatures, “such as dragons, who can control weather, and goblins, who can conjure things out of thin air.”
  • Shamans can communicate with ancestors and spirits.
  • Throughout the story, Min uses Charm to disguise herself. The first time, she made, “myself plainer, drabber, harder to see.” She also uses Charm to turn into an inanimate object several times. The majority of the story, she disguises herself as a cadet who had been killed. The cadet is a ghost and gave Min permission to pretend to be him.
  • The story revolves around the Fourth Colony, “whose entire population had perished when they’d angered disease spirits a few centuries ago.” The ghosts of the colonists haunt the planet.
  • A ghost is one of the supporting characters. “Ghosts weren’t necessarily unfriendly, but many of them became vengeful over time, especially if the unfinished business that bound them to the world of the living went unresolved.” Later in the story, the reader learns that “most ghosts were bound near the site of whatever had felled them.”
  • Ghosts can be dangerous because, “wrongful death warped people’s souls and made them vengeful toward the living.”
  • Several times, the goblin uses his magical sport to create food. The first time the goblin uses the magic, “Sunjin waved the sport, and a box of chocolate-dipped cookies magically appeared.”
  • People are looking for the Dragon Pearl, which could, “transform an entire barren world, give it forests and seas and make it suitable for habitation, it could just as easily destroy a world, turn it into a lifeless desert.”
  • Both people and space ships have an energy flow, which affects luck. “Just like you could have flows of good or back luck in a room, depending on how furniture and ornaments were arranged, there could be flows of good or bad luck across star systems and beyond.”
  • Min meets her brother’s ghost. “Through the disheveled locks I recognized the face—what remained of it, anyway. Half of it flickered with ghostly flames, as though he were on fire. Between that, and the hair, I could barely see his surviving eye.”
  • A shaman was “going to rid the Fourth Colony of its ghosts by singing us into the underworld.” The ghosts stop her.
  • Min uses the Dragon Pearl to give the ghosts a proper burial. “The ghosts shimmered, and I could sense their joy.”

Spiritual Content

  • A pilot whispers a “spacer’s prayer that heaven would see us safely through the gate.”
  • When Min’s escape pod crashes, she “prayed to every ancestor I knew to watch over us.”
  • Min sees that the dead colonist “didn’t have gruesome lesions of smallpox, the disease that gods had once wielded to teach humankind respect. . .”

The Penderwicks at Last

The Penderwicks are back for the final installment of Jeanne Birdsall’s beloved series about family, friendship, and adventure. The entire family is coming together once again for a wedding, and it just so happens to be at their favorite place in the world, the Arundel estate. Lydia, the youngest Penderwick sister, is now eleven years old and is a boundless ball of dancing energy, excited to experience the wonderful place that she has heard so many stories about. New surprises await as the charming family returns to the estate where it all began.

Following the same simple, yet charming style of the first four books, The Penderwicks at Last is a delightful read. However, it is the least interesting of the series. Although it has the trademark humor and wonder that captivated readers from the beginning, this book tends to drag and lose momentum. Curious readers excited to discover the fate of the family that they have grown to love may find that part of the magic has faded.

The best elements of the book include when Lydia interacts with her family, rather than what the majority of the book focuses on–her relationship with her new friend Alice. As Lydia becomes a better person over the course of her stay at the enormous estate, she learns important lessons about kindness, friendship, and familial bonds.

The story revolves around Lydia as she navigates and discovers Arundel for the first time. She begins to understand the secrets of what makes the Berkshire estate so magical to her family, from the gardens to the rolling fields, allowing the reader to feel the wonder and excitement along with her. Since Lydia was only in the last two books of the series, she is less fascinating than her siblings are. Readers willing to overlook this will find it an enjoyable tale of weddings, space alien movies, and new friendships.

Although The Penderwicks at Last can be read as a stand-alone novel, readers will find the story more amusing if they have read the previous books. Younger readers may find the diction difficult and may not be interested in the older characters and their adult problems.

Despite disappointments for long-time fans of the series, Birdsall uses her trademark style to create a story that is still pleasant to read. Mimicking the mood and story arc of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, The Penderwicks at Last is a feel-good story for readers of all ages.

Sexual Content

  • Batty has a boyfriend from college named Wesley who is a dedicated art student. “Lydia liked him more than any of Batty’s boyfriends from high school. Indeed, he was among her top four or five picks of all her sisters’ boyfriends put together.”
  • Jane has distinctive views about love in her life. “She cared only about becoming a great novelist. Everything else was secondary, including love and romance. Those she’d sworn off after a few heartbreaks had used too much of her writing time.”
  • When they were young, Enam promised to marry Lydia when they grew up. When Enam gets a girlfriend when he is older, Lydia “wasn’t awfully upset, but was also comforted when Aunt Claire told her that boys–even her own two sons–can be dopes when it comes to love, and then took Lydia out for ice cream and a movie.”
  • Tifton perpetually is getting married, divorced, and remarried.
  • Alice tells Lydia the story of how her parents fell in love. “Dad met her when they both started teaching . . . and fell in love with her because of how talented she was, but then he had to beat out the math teacher, the gym teacher, and also Mom’s boyfriend from college before he could win her heart.”
  • When Lydia is trying to stage a procession rehearsal for the wedding, Rosalind, “sneaked off with Tommy to hide behind the pavilion, where they thought they couldn’t be seen.” Alice laments that they are kissing again.

Violence

  • Lydia dislikes a girl in her dance class. Lydia wishes that she could, “do something dramatic about her dislike–shout it to the world or kick Deborah in the shins.”
  • Alice has a conspiracy theory about Mrs. Tifton murdering her husbands in her giant mansion. “She could have poisoned them and used the ax to chop them into pieces. Look right there….I bet that’s blood.”
  • In a tragic scene of Ben’s sci-fi movie, Alice acts out the part of a dying alien who gets murdered. They shoot this scene several times and Alice is regarded as being very good at it.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Jeffrey comes back home to Arundel. “He spotted me at the tunnel and thought, What the heck is that, and do I need to protect my friends from it–”

Supernatural

  • Arundel is described as a magical place. “Jane had said that the stone pillars were a magical boundary that kept out the real world.”
  • Alice believes that all of Mrs. Tifton’s husbands became ghosts after she allegedly killed them. “The husbands could now be ghosts, waiting for their revenge.” These ghosts make Lydia reluctant to sleep alone in the mansion.

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Morgan Filgas

 

 

The Last Kids on Earth and the Cosmic Beyond

Jack and his friends are looking forward to their first Christmas celebration since the monster apocalypse. Jack wants to show the monsters the joy of sledding, snowball battles, and gift giving. But their winter plans are put on hold when an evil human villainess begins hunting them.

The villainess hopes to create a portal to bring Ghazt, the general of the undead, to Earth. But first she needs Jack’s monster-slaying tool, the Louisville Slicer. When his prized weapon is stolen, will Jack and his friends be able to get it back? Will they be able to stop the villainess’s evil plan?

The Last Kids on Earth and the Cosmic Beyond takes a step back from monster fighting and focuses more on the kids’ winter activities. In order to show the monsters that snow is fun, the kids do a series of snow activities including ice fishing and snowball fights. But the activities make the “monsters extra freaked out. They’ve become afraid of snow in both flake form and ball form.” Readers will laugh as Jack and his friends try to show the monsters their traditions. Through these humorous scenes, readers will learn the importance of understanding different cultures. The story shows that some people may find different traditions strange because they have never heard of them.

Like the previous books, the story will keep readers entertained with its fast pace, funny scenes, and epic battles. The easy-to-read text contains dialogue bubbles, alliteration, and onomatopoeias that make reading the story a joy. The black and white illustrations that appear on almost every page bring the kids’ world to life as well as add humor.

At first, The Last Kids on Earth and the Cosmic Beyond may look like just another graphic novel. But the characters are surprisingly well developed and readers will come away with a valuable lesson about the importance of community. When Jack and the kids seek out a Warg, Jack realizes that “maybe she was watching because she felt that feeling, that’s the worst of all feelings. That feeling of being, like, left out?”

This story can be understood without reading the previous books in the series, but for maximum enjoyment readers should read the books in order. Readers will enjoy The Last Kids on Earth and the Cosmic Beyond. The story keeps the same humorous, non-frightening format as the previous books.

Sexual Content

  • Jack has a crush on June. At one point, June “looks deep into my (Jack’s) eyes. I’m wondering if this might be sort of a romantic moment or something. . .” It’s not.
  • When Dirk is bitten by a zombie, he is “stretched out on the poker table. . . I expected it to be like a scene from one of those TB shows with doctors running around emergency rooms. You know the ones, where they spend like half their time saving lives and the other half making out in the hospital closets?”
  • Meathook grabs Jack, and his “gray-purple tongue snaps and smacks me across the face. I half expect it to follow that with a French kiss of death.” Meathook grabs Jack’s weapon and then lets him go.

Violence

  • While catapulting in a sled, the kids jump out of the sled before they slam into a monster. “There’s a gulp—and the great beast’s belly rumbles. The sled has been swallowed.”
  • An “above ground-like octopus” attacks Jack. Before the monster can hurt him, “a rolling library cart slams into the monster. There’s a wet SPLAT and the monster is suddenly airborne, sailing across the library.”
  • A zombie tries to bite Jack, but June stops the zombie by putting her gum in its mouth.
  • An evil human villainess captures the kids. In order to escape, Jack throws “a handful of dry, shredded gum into her face.”
  • Meathook tries to smash the kids, but they use a string of lights to try to trip him. Jack “sees the string of lights snapping in the air and then—THWACK!—the harpoon slams into Meathook’s scaly hide.” The trick does not work, but “the string of lights circle around me (Jack). My butt’s jerked from the seat.” During this battle, a zombie bites Dirk. Evie grabs Jack, but then, “a pair of zombies soars past our heads. Like, airborne undead. . .Another zombie sails past us. Its pinwheeling arms nearly take Evie’s head off. . . ” The scene is described over seven pages.
  • Meathook grabs Dirk. Jack sees Dirk, “sagging, spinning, hanging from the monster’s tongue.” The two disappear.
  • In an epic battle that takes place over several chapters, Meathook tries to stop Jack and the others from helping Dirk. “His one massive paw swipes, slashing the air, engulfing me. . . Quint cries. He’s scooped up, too. Our heads clonk tougher and my world spins.” Meathook captures all three kids.
  • Jack escapes Meathook and jumps on Evie’s back. “It’s a whole hero-villainess piggyback situation. My hands grasp her cloak.”
  • Jack and his friends have been “overrun by the undead. . . the zombies are on us! Quint’s robes are shredded! Teeth sink into June’s shoulder pads! A dripping mouth on Quint’s wrist. Hands tearing open my big white puffy pants. . . The zombies are flung backward on the heels. It’s like they’re being yanked by invisible strings.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Crud is used twice. When a monster goes to hit Quint, Jack yells “crud.”
  • Dirk calls Jack a dork. Later he calls the evil villainess’s zombies “her dork collection.”
  • Freaking is used once.
  • Ghazt tells Evie she is a fool twice.
  • Evie calls Jack an “idiot boy.”

Supernatural

  • A new monster appears called Meathook. His characteristics include, “Big fist! Powerful Paw! Action Arm!”
  • Monsters that look like eyeballs appear. When Jack sees the “goo-ball things” he thinks, “It’s a reminder of just how bizarre the world is now that the sight of a rolling, gooey, eyeball creature only medium weirds us out.”
  • Warg has “spiny bone tentacles, and an outer eyeball layer. When the monster stomps on the floor, “at once the eyeballs roll toward her. They leap up, veering at her like some coat of peeping pupils.”
  • Ghazt is the general of the undead.
  • Dirk begins turning into a zombie. When Dirk moans, “it’s an awful combo cry: a howling human and a groaning zombie, mushed into one awful noise.”
  • Something happens to the Louisville Slicer that makes it “different. It has some new power because of what happened.”

Spiritual Content

  • Evie, an evil human villainess, is a worshiper of the Destructor of Worlds. While trying to understand the villainess, the kids find a book that explains that the worshipers want to build a portal. Quint explains, “Apparently, these worshipers had some success. They called themselves the Cabal of the Cosmic. . . Any creature can be a Servant—they need not be from a specific dimension.”
  • The evil human villainess plans to use a three-step ritual to bring an evil being from another dimension. Part of the ritual is to “capture an undead human being. . . place the artifact in the zombified human’s hands to open a portal, allowing Ghazt to enter the zombified body. Ghazt will then take control of that person’s body. Forever.”

Amber House

Sarah had never seen Amber House, the family estate until her family traveled to Maryland in order to sell it. The house has been in the family for three hundred years, but Sarah doesn’t care – that is, until she starts seeing visions of its past. It turns out the women of Amber House have the gift of seeing the home’s echoes, and not all of them are moments for which the family would like to be remembered.

Despite her fear, the lure of hidden diamonds keeps Sarah at Amber House, digging to uncover its secrets. As her family gets closer to selling the estate, Sarah becomes more attached, desperate to save her family’s heritage. But when her little brother gets trapped in the in-between world of spirits and memories, Sarah realizes her family heritage is darker than she had ever imagined.

Filled with beautiful imagery, Amber House is a delight from beginning to end. The constant unraveling of numerous mysteries is complemented by the troubles of a normal teenage girl—parental discord, family drama, and a sprinkle of romance that complements the story while not becoming overbearing. In a surprising feat, the main and supporting cast of characters are all well-developed, creating a story full of people to root and long for.

While this story has a fair amount of violence, it is not graphically described. For a young adult novel, the sexual content and language are also refreshingly mild. The book is a must-read because of the well-developed cast, beautiful imagery, and a delectably unique storyline. Also, the main character, Sarah, is extremely likable. Overall, Amber House is a joy to read and it leaves readers desperately hoping the sequel can live up to its predecessor’s impressive feat.

Sexual Content

  • Sarah’s dad cheated on her mother before the start of the book. “He’d gotten a little too close to Sammy’s overly friendly pediatrician back in Seattle.”
  • It’s mentioned in passing that the founder of John Hopkins Hospital “fell in love with his first cousin, Elizabeth” and that neither one “of this tragic pair ever got married.”
  • Sarah idly flips through a magazine and sees a Cosmo article titled, “Ten Spicy Ways to Do It in the Summer!”
  • At a party, Sarah follows Kathryn “up the carpeted steps, her nearly naked bottom exactly two steps up and directly in front of my face. No cellulite, I noted.”
  • Sarah and Richard kiss several times. “He leaned over, put his finger under my chin. He hesitated a moment, then gave me the softest kiss. I liked it. I liked it a lot.”
  • Richard’s friends go swimming in their underwear. Sarah sits on the side and watches. “Chad stopped undressing when he got down to his boxers. He took a running jump and cannonballed into the pool. Kathryn—now in nothing but a matching bra and panty set—followed.”
  • Sarah’s mom thinks the senator wants something from her. “He may be looking for a – companion. . . Or maybe he’s more ambitious. He’s single, I’m newly wealthy, and he doesn’t seem to like it much when your father is around.”
  • Sarah sees a man and woman kissing in a vision, but the woman seems to see Sarah too. “‘You’re watching, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘What, honey?’ the man said, not stopping, slipping the shoulder of Fiona’s dress down to reveal bare skin. ‘It’s all right,’ she said to the door—to me. ‘Sometimes I watch too.’”
  • Sarah sends her best friend an email. “You will not believe where I am. . .in the bedroom of the Abercrombie model…and no, we’re not doing anything except picking up some party clothes, you filthy-minded hussy.”
  • Sarah and Richard kiss in the garden. “He kissed me again, harder, more urgently, his hands folding my face, and I found myself kissing him hungrily, my fingers in his hair.”

Violence

  • Jackson tells the story of a “car accident when I was three. Burned me pretty bad all over my left side. . . got a head injury and a few broken ribs, but I survived. My parents didn’t.”
  • Sarah sees a young girl trying to drown a baby in a vision. “Oh, God. Two little fists flailing; the dark curls on the top of a small head submerged under roiling water. A black woman ran up, shoved the girl back, and snatched the baby from the tub.” The girl tells the woman, “You can’t save it, you know. The gypsy told Papa it has to die.”
  • Later Sarah sees the same black woman being whipped. “He stopped in front of a black woman, stripped naked to the waist, bound by her wrists to a low branch of the tree. ‘Where’s the child, you damned witch?’ She did not answer. . . and bleeding welts crisscrossed the white stripes of old scars on both sides of her spine. Dark drops sprayed from the blow, and I could see that the crop’s leather was stained wet brown.”
  • A woman and her husband get in a fight. The woman “screamed, turning and swinging the thing in her hand down in an arc. He saw her at the last second and parried the thing with his forearm. Then he swore, reaching for the gem-set handle suddenly protruding from his shoulder…’Lock her in the nursery,’ he said. ‘I never want to see her again.’”
  • Richard punches Jackson when he catches him dancing with Sarah. “I could smell the sour notes of champagne, and I could hear it in his voice…Richard turned and struck him in the face. ‘Shut up!’ Blood beaded on Jackson’s lip, purple-red in the half light.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Sarah overhears someone talking about her deceased grandmother. “I heard her liver failed, but with all poor Ida suffered, it was no wonder she drank.”
  • Sarah’s mother finds “a stash of medical supplies in a narrow cupboard that contained mostly liquor.” She then “came out with a bottle of vodka and poured herself an inch over ice.”
  • Sarah almost falls down after riding a horse for an hour. Richard says, “Woah, Parsons, you look like you’ve been hitting the sauce.”
  • Richard drinks at Sarah’s party. “I noticed a nearly empty champagne flute at his elbow and wondered if it was his. The dealer didn’t seem to question it.”

Language

  • God, hell, and Jesus are used as exclamations.
  • When Sarah bruises her forehead, her mother says, “Oh my God, what the Hell did you do to your face?”
  • Sarah’s mother says, “Jesus, I can’t take this today.”
  • Sarah says that “spending an evening with a hundred strangers is her idea of hell.”
  • A kid says Amber House has “got a damn cemetery right on the property.”
  • When Richard loses a race, Sarah hears him “choking out a few choice four-letter words.”
  • A friend says Sarah made “an ass out of Richard in front of all his friends. . . It was about time someone took him down a peg.”
  • Sarah’s mom says, “You think I’m some kind of conniving bitch because I want to use the senator’s connections?”

Supernatural

  • Sarah sees visions of Amber House’s pasts when she touches certain objects. Some are harmless and fun, but some are frightening. “A woman stood in the shaft of moonlight. . . She might have been carved of stone. A spider ran down a lock of her hair, and air escaped me in the smallest gasp. . . The voice rose almost to a scream. ‘You think you are safe? You think I can’t hurt you? I can. I can get you. I can find you in your dreams.’”
  • Sarah’s visions of Amber House are passed down among the woman of the family. Jackson says, “Ida saw things too. She called them echoes. When she touched certain things, little bits of the past came to life for her. She said they were the house’s memory.”
  • An old woman named Nanga can see visions of the future, allowing her and Sarah to interact on several occasions. “She can see the future. And because I can see the past, we could talk to each other.”
  • A woman in Sarah’s vision tries to stop her husband from burying their dead son. “’He’s not dead,’ she said, horror in her voice. ‘He’s sleeping. I’ve seen him in my dreams. His spirit comes to me. I won’t let you put him in the ground.”
  • Sarah gets her fortune told at her birthday party. She is told, “I have never seen a board that spoke so powerfully of change as this one.”
  • When Sammy goes into a coma, Sarah sees her brother’s face in a mirror. Jackson says, “There’s an old superstition that spirits can be trapped in mirrors.”

Spiritual Content

  • At her grandmother’s funeral, the housekeeper covers all mirrors with black cloths. The housekeeper says it is “just a southern superstition. . . to help the departed’s soul cross over and not get trapped in the looking-glass world. . . People used to believe you could see through to the other side in a mirror. To the place where souls go after death before they move on to their final destination.”
  • Sarah and her mother go to church to socialize. “It had been years since I’d been inside a church. My mother liked religion about as much as she liked anything else supernatural. But she led the way up the steps the next morning.”
  • “I fell asleep still thinking about people watching me, thinking that the eyes in Amber House were kind of like the eyes of God, knowing every failing. Except God could forgive.”

by Morgan Lynn

Shark Wars

Gray is bigger than the other sharks in his clan and when his stomach rumbles, Gray follows the food and gets into trouble. Gray is banished from his reef and is forced to journey into the Big Blue. Luckily, his best friend Barkley goes with him. As they hunt for food, they enter an ocean world where the battle for hunting grounds is fierce. Gray and Barkley must find out which sharks are friends and which sharks are foes. How will the two friends keep from becoming someone else’s dinner?

The action-packed story follows Gray, who struggles with his large size and his hunger. Because the story is written in the third person point of view, the reader knows that sharks are keeping secrets from Gray. The reader knows that Gray should not be so trusting, adding suspense to the story.

Shark Wars creates a believable world where sharks rule the underwater realm. As the shark clans fight for food, Gray struggles to learn fighting skills, as well as to determine which sharks are trustworthy. Gray learns that even though he doesn’t like a fellow shark, that doesn’t mean they cannot work together for the good of the group.

As Gray meets other fish, he wonders if he is “swimming a good current.” In the end, he discovers the importance of loyalty and standing up for his friends. Shark Wars teaches the importance of doing what is right. The author tells Gray’s struggle for survival in an interesting way. Altbacker includes shark language such as landsharks, shiver, chop chop, and greenie. The cover of the book has a picture of each shark, which allows readers to understand the size and physical differences of characters. With 248 pages and no pictures, Shark Wars is a good choice for fluent readers. For those wanting a story that combines sharks, friendship, and fighting, Shark Wars will keep you entertained. But be warned, once you read Gray and Barkley’s story, you will be hooked and want to have the next book of the series waiting on the shelf!

Sexual Content

  • Valenka rubs up against the male sharks when she is trying to convince them to do something. For example, when trying to convince Goblin to do something, Valenka, “rubbed against him and whispered in his ear.”

Violence

  • A tiger shark attacks Gray and Barkley. “Gray heard a satisfying ‘Whufff!’ as he rammed the shark in the soft underbelly by his liver. The tiger tried to turn but was momentarily paralyzed. Barkley hammered the dazed attacker next. Or he tried. Because of his small size, he bounced off like a sea horse against hard coral.”
  • Gray’s clan is attacked and many of them are sent to the Sparkle Blue. The attack is not described, but Gray is upset. “A reddish haze descended over his eyes as he thought of someone eating sharks from his shiver family.”
  • Goblin and other sharks attack Gray and his friends. “Gray swam towards Goblin, who taunted the sawfish by nipping at his tail as his other shiver sharks laughed. Gray picked up his pace by ferociously whipping his tail back and forth. . . Gray hit the great white in the side, doing no real damage but forcing him from Snork.
  • The sharks play a game where they try to eat wahoo, which are really fast fish.
  • A shark, Thrash, taunts a mother turtle and threatens to eat her babies. The shark “lazily slid with the current so he was now facing the turtles and blocking them from the safety of the greenie. He gnashed his teeth together. “ ‘Just swim inside! You won’t feel a thing’ . . . Thrash laughed and then opened his mouth to bite the momma turtle in half with his jagged teeth. She screeched in fear. . .” Another shark appears and stops Thrash.
  • Thrash taunts a beta fish, then gets beat up by it. “Then the little fish caught Thrash by the tip of his tail with its frilly fins and somehow swung him in circles! And fast. . . The little fish threw Thrash into the distance, several body lengths away.”
  • Two shark clans battle. “The cries of bloody victory and death receded until he only heard his heartbeat and the water whisking past his gills. Gray rammed one attacking bull hard, sending it spinning away just before it could bite Thrash. . . Goblin battered a blue shark away from Churn, then bit a dorsal fin off another.” Several sharks die. The battle takes place over four pages.
  • A group of Goblin’s shiver sharks set a trap and attack others. “Ripper barreled into Shell, knocking him senseless. . . Barkley didn’t even feel the tiger’s impact on his side. Suddenly he felt the water cool and sweet, and he was floating by the Coral Shiver reef.” The sharks are put into a cage.
  • In a fit of anger, Gray “whirled and gave Striker a tremendous tail slap to the face. Gray actually felt it all the way up to his spine.”
  • When Gray tries to free his friends, other sharks try to stop him. Thrash “launched himself at Gray, who barely missed losing his left fin. He jammed Thrash as he passed flank side with his dorsal fin, raking the tiger.” The battle is described over three pages.
  • There is an epic multipage fight between Goblin’s clan and another clan. “Everything was flashing teeth, blood, confusion, and above all, the thunderous fin of the Bluefin siege flashing by, a relentless, speeding, silvery mass. . . He [Gray] butted two attacking bulls off the safe area, and both were sucked into the Run as if jerked away by a giant octopus tentacle. . . Striker smashed into Shell’s pursuer, biting him in the gills and forcing the dying shark into the current.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Gray gets stuck. When his friend teases him, Gray yells, “Shut your cod hole and push!”
  • A fish calls other fish “morons.”
  • Heck is used three times. For example, Goblin asks, “Who the heck are you?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Sharks that die go to the “Sparkle Blue.”

The Sword of Summer

Magnus Chase isn’t your average 16-year-old kid. After a terrible incident that killed his mother, Magnus was forced to survive on the harsh streets of Boston for two years. Then everything changes, and not necessarily for the better when Magnus discovers the truth about his parentage. This knowledge is dangerous, and after attempting to outmaneuver his suspicious Uncle Randolph, Magnus lands in more trouble than he ever has before.

Escaping who he believes to be evil, Magnus falls into the hands of his worst enemy, a fire giant named Surt. Magnus dies and his soul is sent to Valhalla, the hall of warriors who will fight with Odin during Ragnarok (the end of the world). This is the beginning of an unlikely story of emotional growth, the development of strength, and the family found in friendship.

Fans of Rick Riordan’s previous works will be pleased as they travel into a fascinating world of Norse mythology. A character from the beloved Percy Jackson and the Olympians series even makes a cameo, making a fun crossover between magical worlds.

This family-friendly adventure is an exciting ride throughout. The characters are well developed and believable, but the sheer amount of characters may become confusing for less attentive readers. Nevertheless, even the timidest readers will enjoy this story as it is filled with well-placed humor. The plot is action-packed, leaving readers excited to turn the next page.

Although this book is entertaining and amusing, there are battles with monsters throughout the book that may upset some readers. The battles are not told in gory detail, but characters are injured and must deal with the consequences of their battles. Ultimately, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard: The Sword of Summer is a delightful read full of humor, action, and magic.

Sexual Content

  • Samirah has an arranged marriage to Amir Fadlan. When Magnus questions her feelings on the matter, Sam responds, “Ugh! You don’t get it. I’ve been in love with Amir since I was twelve.”
  • Every time a giant comes to barter or make a deal with Freya, the goddess of love, sex, beauty, fertility, and gold, they always ask for her hand in marriage.
  • Magnus’s father Frey lost the Sword of Summer because he fell madly in love with a frost giantess. The only way that he could heal his heart was by offering the Sword of Summer to Skirnir.
  • Freya has lots of dwarven children. Every time she wants jewelry made by dwarves, she goes to Nidavellir and marries a dwarf in exchange for their craftsmanship. These one-day marriages each end with a child. This interaction is not described beyond this, but it is acknowledged that Blitzen is a child of Freya and a dwarf.
  • Magnus describes his first kiss when he is involuntarily given mouth-to-mouth by a goat. “My only previous experience with kissing had been with Jackie Molotov in seventh grade, behind the bleachers at a school dance…. Anyway, with apologies to Jackie, getting mouth-to-mouth from a goat reminded me of her.”
  • In the past, a son of Loki was sent to Valhalla and fell in love with the lead Valkyrie, Gunilla, but he “betrayed her. Turned out she was a spy for [Loki]. Broke her heart.”
  • After Halfborn nearly sacrifices his life for Mallory in battle, they are on good terms, and it appears that there may be romance in the future for them. “As my hallmates headed back home, I was happy to see Halfborn Gunderson slip his arm around Mallory Keen’s waist. She didn’t even cut his hand off for doing so.”

Violence

  • Magnus engages in a battle with the fire giant, Surt. “I smacked Surt in the head with my rusty sword. . . The blade didn’t seem to hurt him, but the swirling flames died. . . Then he punched me in the gut.” Later in the battle, “Surt kicked me in the ribs and sent me sprawling. . . Surt must have kicked me hard enough to trigger a near-death hallucination.” After a brief time period, Magnus’s sword begins to act on its own and guides Magnus’s actions. “It spun in an arc, dragging my arm along with it, and hacked into Surt’s right leg. The Black One screamed. The wound in his thigh smoldered, setting his pants on fire . . . Before he could recover, my sword leaped upward and slashed his face. With a howl, Surt stumbled back, cupping his hands over his nose. . . Just as he reached me, my sword leaped up and ran him through.”
  • Magnus describes his death. “I actually died. One hundred percent: guts impaled, vital organs burned, head smacked into a frozen river from forty feet up, every bone in my body broken, lungs filled with ice water…. It hurt. A lot.”
  • When getting a tour of Hotel Valhalla, Magnus is “pushed down as a spear flew past. It impaled a guy sitting on the nearest sofa, killing him instantly.” The guy is already dead, so this is just a temporary “death” as he will regenerate in a few hours.
  • Magnus and all those who inhabit Hotel Valhalla observe how newly inducted einherjar (inhabitants of Hotel Valhalla) died. In one video, a warrior “saved a bunch of kids at her village school when a warlord’s soldiers had tried to kidnap them. She’d flirted with one of the soldiers, tricked him into letting her hold his assault rifle, then turned it on the warlord’s men . . . The video was pretty violent.”
  • Mallory is excited to “see the new boy get dismembered.”
  • The einherjar participate in practice battle exercises to prepare for Ragnarok, when the nine worlds will fall. One of these “battles” is comically described, but each “death” is also shown. Many characters get shot, punched, or stabbed to “death” in the heat of battle.
  • In a dream, Surt threatens Magnus by saying, “When we meet again, you will burn, son of Frey. You and your friends will be my tinder. You will start the fire that burns the nine worlds.”
  • Samirah attacks Magnus after he leaves Valhalla. “She charged from behind the concession building and kicked me in the chest, propelling me backwards into a tree. My lungs imploded like paper sacks.”
  • An eagle drags Magnus away from his friends to convince him to do something for him. “The eagle veered, slamming me into the fire escape. I felt my ribs crack, like vials of acid breaking inside my chest. My empty stomach tried unsuccessfully to hurl.”
  • When Blitzen competes in a dwarf craftsmanship competition, Magnus acts as his bodyguard. “A random dwarf charged me from the side-lines, swinging an axe and screaming, ‘BLOOD!’ I hit him in the head with the hilt of my sword. He collapsed.”
  • Otis, a goat who belongs to Thor, marvels at Magnus’s talking sword. Otis exclaims, “I’ve never been killed by a talking sword before. That’s fine. If you could just make a clean cut right across the throat-”
  • For Odin to learn the secrets of the runes, he sacrificed an eye and “fashioned a noose and hanged himself from a branch of the World Tree for nine days.”
  • Magnus attacks and kills two giantess sisters. Magnus threw a knife and, “The spinning steak knife hit her in the chest. It didn’t impale her . . .She lowered hands, grabbing instinctively for her chest, which allowed Jack full access to her nose. A second later, Gjalp was lying dead on the floor next to her sister.”
  • The book concludes with a giant final battle in which warriors of Valhalla fight fire giants and attempt to rebind Fenris’ wolf. Within this battle, several warriors get hurt and three Valkyries die, including Gunilla. “Blitzen was so angry—between the Wolf gloating about his dad’s death and Surt stealing his fashion ideas—that he howled like Crazy Alice in Chinatown and rammed his harpoon right through the giant’s gut. The fire giant stumbled off, belching flames and taking the harpoon with him.” “Halfborn Gunderson buried his axe in the breastplate of a giant. X picked up another fire-breather and tossed him off the side of the ridge. Mallory and T.J. fought back-to-back, jabbing and slashing and dodging blasts of flame.”
  • Magnus’s Uncle Randolph is poisoned by Loki. “Randolph smelled the poison before he felt it. Acrid steam curled into his nostrils. The side of his face erupted in white-hot pain. He fell to his knees, his throat seizing up in shock.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Magnus thinks, “Random police and park rangers I could deal with. Truant officers, community service volunteers, drunken college kids, addicts looking to roll somebody small and weak—all those would’ve been as easy to wake up to as pancakes and orange juice.”
  • The mead of Valhalla doesn’t contain alcohol as it is magical goat milk that tastes like a mixture of delicious flavors. However, this topic makes Magnus share his own experience with alcohol. Magnus says, “Yes, I’ve tried alcohol, thrown up, tried alcohol again, thrown up.”
  • The god Aegir is a brewer who “spends all his time at the hops shop, or going on brewery tours with his buddies…. He’s always talking about microbrews. He has a cauldron a mile wide!”
  • Magnus and his friends go to Nabbi’s tavern and the dwarves that he travels with order mead (not the Valhalla kind).
  • Thor, the thunder god, “loved drinking mead.”
  • When the group comes across giantess sisters, the enormous monsters are drunk. Magnus thinks, “They’d obviously been hitting the mead pretty hard.”

 Language

  • Profanity is used a few times throughout the book. Profanity includes ass, dammit, crap, and idiot.
  • Many characters exclaim, “Gods of Asgard” and “gods” as a form of profanity.
  • When Gunilla introduces a new video system that shows how einherjar die, “the warriors cheered and banged their mugs, drowning out the sound of Sam cursing next to me.”
  • Magnus is angry towards a Valkyrie that he dislikes and thinks, “No, but your dad was apparently a jackass!”
  • While trying to escape Valhalla, “Mallory cursed in what was maybe Gaelic. Our little hallway group was a veritable United Nations of Cussing.”
  • When attempting to arrange his dead body, Magnus’s “hands had come unclasped so I appeared to be giving everybody the finger.”
  • When Blitzen talks about his mother’s requests, he says, “She wants her damnable earrings.”
  • Thor could “cuss like a drunken, creative sailor. ‘Mother-grubbing scum bucket!’ he yelled (or something along those lines. My brain may have filtered the actual language, as it would’ve made my ears bleed.)”
  • Magnus wants to comfort Hearthstone. “I wanted to hug the poor guy, bake him a batch of cookies, and tell him how sorry I was about his crappy childhood, but I knew he wouldn’t want pity.”

Supernatural

  • The story exists in a world where Norse mythology is real, including all of the gods, heroes, and monsters. For example, Magnus is the son of Frey, the god of peace, fertility, rain, sunshine, and summer.
  • In the beginning of the book, Magnus doesn’t understand why Blitzen hates daylight. He says, “Maybe he was the world’s shortest, stoutest homeless vampire.”
  • Two magical, evil wolves broke into Magnus’s apartment and killed his mom when he was fourteen. “From the hallway, two beasts emerged, their pelts the color of dirty snow, their eyes glowing blue.”
  • Surt is a fire god and has powers. “Around Surt, flames began to swirl. The firestorm spiraled outward, melting cars to slag heaps, liquefying the pavement, popping rivets from the bridge like champagne corks.”
  • Due to Magnus being a demigod, he has magical abilities. He doesn’t have a problem in extreme temperatures, can walk through fire, can heal others, and mentally communicates with horses.
  • There is a vala who is a “seer. She can cast spells, read the future, and… other stuff.” She can also read/use the runes, which is a form of non-inherited Norse magic.
  • Hearthstone is an elf, and Blitzen is a dwarf. Their identity gives them special abilities like fashion sense, craftsmanship, and rune magic.
  • As an einherjar, Magus acquires super strength, has more muscles, and has accelerated healing.
  • Heartstone uses rune stones and eventually becomes a runemaster. These stones allow him to perform magic, usually to help his friends on their quest.
  • The group encounters Mimir, a disembodied head who floats in water and knows the secrets of the nine worlds.
  • The Sword of Summer is a magical weapon that Magnus wields. It can speak and fight on its own. Magnus transforms it into a stone on a chain that he wears around his neck. Magnus “could easily pull it off the chain. As soon as I did, the stone grew into a sword. If I wanted it back in pendant form, all I had to do was picture that. The sword shrank into a stone, and I could re-attach it to the necklace.”
  • Valkyries can fly, camouflage magically, and teleport back to Valhalla in a poof of light.

Spiritual Content

  • Norse gods are real, but they are not worshipped. They are treated more like characters than all-knowing deities.
  • Magnus describes the place where his funeral occurs. “It was set up like a chapel: three stained glass windows on the back wall, rows of folding chairs facing an open coffin on a dais. I hated this already. I’d been raised non-religious. I’d always considered myself an atheist.”
  • Magnus says, “If there is an Almighty God up there, a head honcho of the universe, He was totally laughing at me right now.”
  • Samirah is Muslim and wears a hijab. When arguing with Magnus she says, “A good Muslim girl is not supposed to hang out on her own with strange guys.”
  • Thor is described as watching television religiously. Then Magnus says, “Can I say a god did something religiously?”

by Morgan Filgas

Refugee

Three kids. Three different time periods. Three refugee families flee their countries. Each family faces unimaginable dangers. But they have no choice but to press on and hope for a better tomorrow. Although decades separate them, they discover that they are all connected in the end.

Joseph is a Jewish boy living in 1930’s Nazi Germany. His family boards a ship set for Cuba. They hope to avoid the concentration camps and certain death. But will a country on the other side of the world take them in, or will they be sent away?

Isabel is a Cuban girl in 1994. Her family faces hunger, violence, and an uncertain future. But when her father is threatened with jail, the family sets out on a homemade raft. They hope to make it to Miami. Can they make it to America and keep their family together?

Mahmoud is a Syrian boy in 2015. His country is being torn apart by war. Violence, death, and destruction are everyday occurrences. When his family’s neighborhood is destroyed by bombs, they head towards Europe. Can they safely make it to a country that welcomes refugees?

Refugee sheds light on the historical and political aspects of each time period. Readers will learn about Kristallnacht, The Night of the Broken Glass, as well as the history of how the war in Syria began with Assad bombing his own people. Isabel’s story also explains the U.S. policy of “Wet Foot, Dry Foot.” The end of the book has historical information as well as a section on what readers can do to help.

Each section of the story is told from a young person’s point of view. This gives the book a tragic feeling because none of the young people have any control over the events that lead to their need to flee. The harrowing story of each family does not shy away from the harsh realities of the time period. Each family has stories of cruelty, violence, and death, which are often described in graphic and frightening detail.

The goodness of random strangers is seldom. However, in Josef’s story, a Hitler Youth protects Joseph, and the captain and most of the crew of the ship treat the Jews with respect. The story shows how small deeds can make a huge impact. Even though the story shows the kindness of a few, cruelty and violence overshadow the kindness in the book.

As Mahmoud and his family try to escape the violence, he realizes that it was easy for people to forget about the refugees until “refugees did something they didn’t want them to do—when they tried to cross the border into their country, or slept on the front stoops of their shops, or jumped in front of their cars, or prayed on the decks of their ferries—that’s when people couldn’t ignore them any longer.” Mahmoud struggles with wanting to stay invisible but wondering if he needs to be visible. “If you were invisible, the bad people couldn’t hurt you, either. If you stayed invisible here, did everything you were supposed to, and never made waves, you would disappear from the eyes and minds of all the good people out there who could help you get your life back.”

The publisher recommends Refugee for readers as young as nine, but younger readers may be upset by the horrors of war and the tragic decisions the families must make in order to survive. Younger readers who are interested in World War II may want to begin with the books Lifeboat 12 or Resistance, which also tell compelling stories without the graphic violence.

Refugee is an engaging story that brings the suffering of refugees to light. The situations that the characters face are emotional, but the characters could be better developed. Since each chapter focuses on a different family, the story was often disjointed. Some readers may have a difficult time following a story that changes characters every chapter. The book shows the reasons the family left but doesn’t mention the difficulties that countries face when dealing with thousands of refugees coming into their country.

Although the story is easy to read, the book’s emotional impact is hard-hitting. Refugee takes the reader on a harrowing journey where each family must deal with a tragic loss of life and cruelty from others. Refugee shows how families have been impacted in past and current times. The story gives voice to the current refugee crises and shows the desperation of people who want to live without fear of death.

Sexual Content

  • While in Havana, Isabel sees “couples kissing under palm trees.”
  • Isabel’s grandfather flirts with a young girl. He tells her, “Your face must be Summer, because you’re making me sweat!” Isabel knew that “Lito was giving her piropos, the flirtatious compliments Cuban men said to women on the street.”

Violence

  • During WWII, Nazis break into Josef’s home and “threw him to the floor. Another shadow picked up Ruth by the hair and slapped her. ‘Be quiet!” the shadow yelled, and it tossed Ruth down on the floor beside Joseph.” The strangers trash the house, gather his family into the living room, and arrest his father.
  • A group of Hitler Youth attack Josef after school. The group “fell on him, hitting and kicking him for being a Jew, and calling him all kinds of names.”
  • During a medical check, Josef’s father becomes agitated and starts mumbling. Josef “slapped his father across the face. Hard.” Josef tells his father that the medical examiner is “a Nazi in disguise. He decides who goes back to Dachau. He decides who lives or dies. . . .” Josef’s father is scared into silence.
  • Crew members ransack the room of Josef’s family. “They swept Mama’s makeup and perfume off the vanity and smashed the mirror . . . they tore the head off Ruthie’s stuffed bunny.”
  • While in a concentration camp, Josef’s father says how the Nazis choose one man to drown every night. “They would tie his ankles together and his hands behind his back and tie a gag around his mouth, and then they would hang him upside down, with his head in a barrel. Like a fight. . . They would fill the barrel with water. Slowly. So they could enjoy the panic. So they could laugh. . . He would thrash around and breathe water until he drowned. Drowned upside down.
  • Josef’s father jumps into the ocean and when a policeman tries to help him, Josef’s father yells, “Let me die! Let me die!” Josef’s father survives.
  • A group of men tries to take over the ship. One of the passengers slam “the helmsman and sends him tumbling to the floor. The mutineers quickly surrounded the other sailors, threatening them with their makeshift clubs.”
  • When Cuba sends the ship away, a policeman “swept the gun back and forth, and the other policemen drew their pistols and did the same.” The captain is able to convince the passengers not to attack the police.
  • While he is running from Nazis, soldiers shoot at Josef. “A pistol cracked, and a bullet blew the bark off a tree less than a meter away. Josef stumbled again in panic, righted himself, and kept running.” Josef and his mother are caught and taken to a concentration camp.
  • Boys attack Mahmoud’s friend because he is a Shia Muslim. “. . . Khalid had been curled into a ball on the ground, his hands around his head while the other boys kicked him. . . With a battle cry that would have made Wolverine proud, Mahmoud had launched himself at Khalid’s attacker. And he had been beaten up as badly as Khalid.”
  • Mahmoud’s mother was a nurse who came home “every day with horror stories about people she’d helped put back together. Not soldiers—regular people. . . Children with missing limbs.”
  • Mahmoud’s entire neighborhood is bombed. “The walls of his apartment exploded, blasting broken bits of concrete and glass through the room. . . His breath left him all at once and he fell to the floor with a heavy thud in a heap of metal and mortar.” No one in his family is seriously injured.
  • While trying to escape, Syrian armed soldiers stop the car at gunpoint and then pile in the backseat. As they are traveling, “gunfire erupted. .. and bullets pinged into the car.” One of the soldiers is killed. “Mahmoud screamed again and pushed the man away . . .” The scene is described over four pages. The family hides in a ditch until they can escape.
  • The rubber dinghy that Mahmoud and other refugees are in pops. “The cold water was like a slap in Mahmoud’s face. . . He tumbled backward, head down in the murky water, his arms and feet thrashing, trying to right himself. Something else—someone else—fell on top of him, pushing him deeper down into the water.” Later Mahmoud takes a life jacket off of a dead man so that he and his mother do not die.
  • As Mahmoud and his mother tread water, they grab onto a dinghy. A man “reached down and tried to pry Mahmoud’s hand from the dinghy. . . He sobbed with the effort of fighting off the man’s fingers and hanging onto the dinghy.” A woman takes Mahmoud’s baby sister but leaves Mahmoud and his mother behind. They survive.
  • A taxi driver pulls a gun on Mahmoud’s family and demands money.
  • When a group of refugees swarm the Hungarian border, soldiers “hurried to stop them, firing tear gas canisters into the crowd. . . Mahmoud’s eyes burned like someone had sprayed hot pepper juice in them, and mucus poured from his nose. He choked on the gas, his lungs seized up. He couldn’t breathe. . .”  Many of the refugees are arrested and taken to a detention center.
  • While being taken to a detention center, Mahmoud’s dad yells at a soldier, who then “whacked him in the back with his nightstick, and Mahmoud’s father collapsed to the ground. . . He kicked Mahmoud’s father in the back, and another soldier hit Mahmoud’s father again and again with his stick.”
  • While in town in Cuba, people riot in the streets. People “yelled and chanted. They threw rocks and bottles.” Isabel sees her father “just as he reared back and threw a bottle that smashed into the line of police along the seawall.” When the police catch her father, a policeman beats him. The scene plays out over four pages.
  • As a group tries to flee Cuba, “a pistol rang out again over the waves. . . The police were shooting at them.” The boat is hit, but no one is injured.
  • While Iván is cooling off in the ocean, a shark bites him. “The water around Ivan became a dark red cloud, and Isabel screamed. . . Iván’s right leg was a bloody mess. There were small bites all over it, as though a gang of sharks had attacked all at once. Raw, red, gaping wounds exposed the muscle underneath his skin.” Iván dies.
  • Before Iván’s body is pushed into the ocean, someone shoots a shark. “The shark died in a bloody, thrashing spasm, and the other sharks that had been following the boat fell on it in a frenzy.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Joseph sees a man, who “staggered a little, bumping into things as he tried to move through the tight little room. Joseph had seen drunk people leaving pubs in Berlin the same way.”
  • When Josef’s mother goes to the doctor to get a sleeping draught for her husband, she “told the doctor the sleeping draught was for me. . . and he made me—made me take it right there.”

Language

  • When the Nazis break into Josef’s house, one of the men laughs because “the boy’s pissed himself.”
  • A group of kids are called “Jewish rats.”
  • At a funeral, Josef’s father says, “At least he didn’t have to be burning in the hell of the Third Reich.”
  • “Oh, God” is used an exclamation once. “Oh, my God” is also used as an exclamation once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Mahmoud and his family practice the Muslim faith. The prayer ritual is described through Mahmoud’s actions.
  • Mahmoud’s father says, “God will guide us.”
  • After taking a lifejacket off a dead man, Mahmoud says a prayer. “Oh God, forgive this man, and have mercy on him and give him strength and pardon him. Be generous to him and cause his entrance to be wide and wash him with water and snow and hail. Cleanse him of his transgressions. . .Take him into Paradise, and protect him from the punishment of the grave and from the punishment of hellfire.”
  • Mahmoud’s family and other refugees pray. Mahmoud “recited the first chapter of the Qur’an, Mahmoud thought about the words. Thee alone we worship, and thee alone we ask for help. Show us the straight path.”
  • After Joseph’s apartment is bombed, his mother cries, “Thank God you’re alive!”
  • During a funeral, a rabbi says a prayer, and “the mourners said together, ‘Remember, God, that we are of dust.’”
  • When Iván dies, his mother wants “to say something. A prayer. Something. I want God to know Iván is coming.”

Lifeboat 12

Life for thirteen-year-old Ken is difficult. His father is out of work. He thinks his step-mum dislikes him. He often gets into trouble, and the Nazis are bombing his city. But when he is given the chance to be evacuated with ninety other boys and girls, Ken isn’t excited. He wants to stay home. However, Ken’s father says he’s lucky to be chosen to go to Canada aboard the SS City of Benares.

When the children board the luxury ship, Ken can’t believe his good luck. He’s making new friends, eating delicious food, and doesn’t have to endure his stepmom’s glares. When the ship is 600 miles from shore, everyone thinks they’re safe. They’re wrong.

Five days after they leave port, an explosion rocks the ship. They’ve been torpedoed. With the

Baranes sinking quickly, Ken rushes to Lifeboat 12. Ken, five other boys, one woman, and 39 men are all crammed onto one lifeboat. Will Lifeboat 12 be rescued? If not, how will they survive lost in the ocean?

Lifeboat 12 is a gripping story that will keep readers turning pages until the very end. Beautifully written in free verse, every word develops the characters and advances the plot. The author uses alliteration, onomatopoeia, and sense words to give a clear, sharp picture of World War II. Hood describes the events of World War II without showing the gory details of death while keeping the intensity of danger at the forefront.

The story is told from Ken’s point of view and is divided into three sections—Escape, Afloat, and Rescue. Each section describes Ken’s day-by-day experiences. Since the story is told from a thirteen-year-old’s perspective, the descriptions remain appropriate for even younger readers. Ken’s thoughts and emotions add to the intensity of the story and allow the reader to understand his conflicting emotions. The conflict will keep readers engaged; they will want to know if Ken survives his harrowing experience.

Although Ken’s story is fictionalized, the events and many of the character’s words are based on Hood’s research. Even though the story is filled with historical information, the book never sounds like a history book. Instead, Ken’s experiences and observations bring history to life in an engaging story that is difficult to put down.

Hood’s research, which appears at the end of the story, includes more information about Lifeboat 12, photos of the children, and a list of survivors. The research also includes information about the Lascars. Seeing the pictures and reading Hood’s interview notes has an emotional impact on the reader as it is impossible to deny the horrors and the kindness of people. For readers who would like more information about the topic, the book contains a list of interesting websites and videos.

Even though the devastation of World War II is clear, Lifeboat 12 shows the courage and kindness of others. Ken said, “I survived thanks to the kindness of people I didn’t know, people who were all different, people who wanted to help.” Lifeboat 12 is a suspenseful, gripping story that everyone should read, not only for the historical value but because it is a captivating story that will leave you gripping the edge of your seat. Ken’s story will remain with readers for a long time to come.

Sexual Content

  • While hiding, Ken hears a woman say, “Sweetheart, of course I love you! But don’t kiss me here! It’s not proper.”

Violence

  • The Nazis bomb England several times; however, the bombing is not described in detail. The first time the bombs drop, Ken hears “Boom!” He knows the bombs are close because “blasts shatter the air. The earth shudders. Margaret wails.” The families “huddle under the table. Blasts flash in the dark, momentarily exposing the fear on our faces as the table jumps and the cutlery rattles.”
  • During one air-raid Ken’s family goes to a shelter. The shelter is “damp and dark inside, lit only by a candle stuck in a flowerpot, casting eerie shadows on the wall. . . My family and I hunker down, listen to the drone of the planes, the ack ack ack of the antiaircraft guns, then the high-pitched whistle and BAM! Of the bombs.”
  • The ship that Ken is on is torpedoed. “BAM! I jolt awake, jumping up in the dark. The floor shudders, the night split with sounds of splintering wood, creaking metal, clattering glass. Then nothing.” As the boat is being evacuated, “two more explosions flash in the night, the light exposing a horror show—people clinging to overturned lifeboats, swimming to overloaded rafts, grabbing at floating deck chairs with flailing arms beseeching hands.” The boat eventually sinks.
  • One of the chaperones tells a story about a fictional character, the hero sees a prisoner who “was bent over in pain, a torture device called a thumbscrew beside the coded papers on the table.” The hero “crashes through the window and knocked over the candle. Bulldog landed a punch; Peterson went down. . . Bulldog slung the prisoner over his shoulder. . . and ran through the door. . .”
  • One of the men jumps into the ocean even though he can’t swim. Some men try to reach him, “but the waves whisk him away. He surfaces again, coughing and calling, but he’s too far gone. . . with a one-two punch from the sea, he goes down, for the last time.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • One of the chaperones tells a story about a fictional character whose drink had been drugged, causing him to pass out.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • When someone tries to catch a seagull to eat, a man says, “harming a seabird is bad luck, is what it is. . . They carry the souls of dead sailors. Kill one and it’ll be an albatross around all of our necks.”

Spiritual Content

  • “As the ship is being evacuated, people pray. Some pray to God. Others pray to Allah.”
  • One of the children’s chaperones is Father O’Sullivan. He tells someone “God be with you.”
  • Father O’Sullivan and the children, “say grace before and after our meal.”
  • One of the men says, “Allah the Compassionate will save us if He so wishes. Or He will send storms if He thinks it best. God is wise.”
  • While on the lifeboat, “my friend prays to Allah, and like many of his fellow crewmen, bows to the east five times a day.” Ken sees “other crewmen crossing themselves as Father does.”
  • When a ship is near, Father O’Sullivan tells the boys to pray. He says, “Come now, we must help the Lord lead that ship this way.”
  • When Ken sees an airplane, he “prayed like I’ve never prayed before.” Others pray as well.

The Impossible Crime

Mac is an ordinary kid who likes to play video games. While at the arcade, the Queen of England’s corgi appears with a note stating, “pick up the phone.” The Queen of England needs Mac’s help. Someone is planning on stealing the Crown Jewels. With the help of beefeater Holcroft, Max tries to keep the Crown Jewels safe. But when they disappear from a locked room, Mac must use all of his knowledge to discover not only who did it, but why.

The Impossible Crime uses humor, riddles, and corgis to teach readers about English history. The fast-paced plot has several of the same interesting characters as Mac Undercover, but isn’t as outrageously funny as Mac Undercover. However, readers will enjoy the silliness of the story, the dialogue between Mac and the Queen, and the surprise ending. As the story unfolds, readers will learn historical facts, geography, and different meanings of words. Each new fact is integrated into the story in a seamless manner, which makes learning fun.

Mac tells his own story with humor and uses lists and reputation to help readers follow the mystery. The Impossible Crime will entertain even the most reluctant readers for many reasons. Short sentences and simple vocabulary will help readers build confidence. Every page contains large black, green, and orange illustrations that add to the humor of the story. The illustrations and text work together to provide clues, create humor, and keep the reader interested to the very end. The Impossible Crime is a fun, easy-to-read book that is a great choice for any reader. It is also a perfect book for parents to read aloud to their children; the short dialogue is a great opportunity to use different voices for the characters.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In 1671, Colonel Blood tried to steal England’s crown jewels. When Edward took Colonel Blood to see the jewels, “Colonel Blood threw the cloak over Edwards’s head! The men tied up the god Keeper like a sheep in a sack. Then they hit him with mallets. . . Then they stabbed him.’”
  • Holcroft goes after Mac with an axe. “He turned to me and brandished his axe. . . I backed into a corner of the library as Holcroft slowly came towards me.” Mac orders Holcroft to put the axe down and he does.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Mac asks a man, “what the heck are you doing?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying

Twelve-year-old Rowan is destined to be Queen and her twin brother, Rhydd, is to be Royal Monster Hunter. Rowan would give anything to switch places, but the oldest child is always next in line, even if she is only older by two minutes. She resigns herself to admiring her monster-hunting aunt’s glorious sword and joining her queen mother for boring diplomatic teas. But tragedy shatters the longstanding rule, and Rowan finds herself hunting the most dangerous monster of all: a gryphon.

Accompanied by a feisty baby jackalope and a giant wolf that barely tolerates her, Rowan sets off on a journey that will see her join other unlikely allies: a boy with monster-hunting ambitions of his own, and a girl hiding dangerous motives. It will take all of Rowan’s skills, both physical and diplomatic, to keep this adventure on track. The future of her kingdom depends on it.

Rowan and her brother Rhydd follow their aunt on a hunt that ends in a bloody battle and death. The heart-stopping battle is not for the faint of heart. Armstrong uses detailed descriptions of the battle between beast and man. Even though many of the monsters in the story are deadly, Rowan respects the monsters because she has been taught to only kill monsters if there is no other choice.

The story is told from Rowan’s point of view, which allows the reader to understand her concern for others. Rowan often acts overconfident; however, in the end she learns the importance of listening to others and working as a team. The know-it-all princess befriends a baby jackalope and their relationship will make readers long for a jackalope of their own. Through her journeys, Rowan learns that no man or beast should be forced to follow another. People should only follow a leader by choice, not by force.

The cute book cover may give readers a false impression. A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying hits on some heavy themes: the importance of family, duty, conservation, indentured servitude, and political ambition. Rowan is kidnapped, almost killed multiple times, and has a face-to-face encounter with a giant spider and a deadly gryphon. The frightening encounters may leave some readers with nightmares. A Royal Guide to Monster Slaying is full of action, danger, and monsters who aren’t afraid to kill humans. The imaginative world is unique, fascinating, and will keep readers turning the pages. Readers who want an excellent adventure will want to follow Rowan as she learns how to become the next Royal Monster Hunter.

Sexual Content

  • Rowan is sneaking through the castle when she hides from a guard and a maid. Rowan listens to their conversation and learns that “she caught him flirting with the maid of a visiting lady. She’s upset, and he’s trying to tell her it meant nothing, and I’m stuck in a window alcove, wishing they’d just kiss and make up. . . Then the guard and maid do make up. And they do kiss. They don’t stop kissing. I don’t watch them, of course. That’s gross. But I can tell they’re kissing by the noises, which are also gross. They kiss and whisper, and whisper and kiss.”

Violence

  • Even though monster fights are illegal, “people still poach jackalopes for their antlers, which they think can be ground up as a cure for infertility.” Rowan finds a baby jackalope, and finds the dead mother. “The mother jackalope lies on the ground, her body riddled with arrow piercings. The killer took only her antlers.”
  • While in the forest at night, Rowan comes across four older kids. Rowan pulls her sword, and one boy “snorts. One of the other boys takes a slingshot form his pocket. The girl draws a knife.” When Rowan doesn’t flee, “a stone strikes my temple. I spin on the boy with the slingshot, and my sword spins, too. The tip of it catches his sleeve, and he yelps as if I’ve stabbed him.” When the kids realize that Rowan is the princess, they run off.
  • When Rowan gets too close to a unicorn, “the beast bites my butt. . .and the jackalope leaps from my head onto Courtois’s neck and sinks his teeth in right below the unicorn’s horn.”
  • The Royal Monster Hunter and her group find a manticore. As they track the monster, Rowan smells “a coppery one that makes me flinch. I can’t be a monster hunter and not recognize the scent of blood.” They find the manticore in a barn and Rowan “can hear it, making horrible ripping and gulping noises as it devours its prey. I can smell it, too, its dank must overpowering the smell of the livestock.”
  • In order to kill the manticore, Rowan’s aunt Jannah jumps on its back. In order to tire the beast, “she rides the manticore until the beast stops bucking and rearing. . . Jannah didn’t hop on the beast’s back for fun. The position just lets her sink in her dagger in exactly the right spot. One hard thrust and the manticore stiffens. Then before it has time to feel more than a flash of pain, it slumps to the ground.” In order to teach others about the beast, Jannah “opens the beast up… notice the size of the heart, the placement of the internal organs.”
  • While inspecting the manticore, a gryphon grabs Rowan in its talons. Rowan’s brother, Rhydd, tries to help, but “the beast holding me strikes at him. Blood flies. The beast lets out another ear-piercing shriek and slams me into the barn floor, talons pinning me there. . . The beak seizes Rhydd and flips him into the air, then lets go. As he falls, the beak grabs him again, this time by one leg. There’s a sickening crunch. . . The beast drops my brother’s leg. Rhydd falls to the floor.” The gryphon takes flight with Rowan in its beak and hunters shoot arrows at it. “An arrow buries into the underside of the beast. Then another and another. . . An arrow slices the fabric of my trousers, and I let out a cry. . . I grit my teeth and wrench it [the arrow] free. Then I stare at the sharp arrowhead, dripping blood.” Rowan keeps slashing at the gryphon, and then she slashes “the foreleg as hard as I can.” The beast drops Rowan and she hits “the ground. Pain slams through me and then. . . Darkness.” The scene takes place over four pages, but the battle continues.
  • When the gryphon lands, “a figure runs from nowhere. She [Jannah] leaps. Her sword slashes at the beast’s rear flank. . .The gryphon wheels on her. Its beak swings her way. . . she swings the sword, but the gryphon’s beak closes around her sword arm. . . The powerful beak closes with the same sickening crunch I heard when it seized Rhydd. Then it throws Jannah. Before it hits the ground, it grabs her again, this time by the leg, just like it did with Rhydd. . . The gryphon has Jannah by the leg. It lashes back and swings her. . . Swings her at a rock. Jannah’s head hits that rock. There is a crunch. . . She’s on the ground, blood streaming from her arm and her leg and her scalp.” Jannah dies. The battle scene is described over eight pages.
  • As Rowan tries to chase a monster away, “something hits my arm and knocks me off balance. As I stumble, I see an arrow lodged in my sleeve.” Rowan drops to the ground, and “I’m leaping up when another arrow whizzes past. It hits the warakin in the shoulder. The beast squeals in rage.” Rowan is able to drive off the warakin before anyone gets hurt.
  • As a pegasus attacks Rowan, the jackalope jumps on her back. The pegasus “flies up with great flaps of her wings, and Jacko clings to her, squealing. She dives, and he tumbles, and I scream. Then he’s dangling from her mane, his claws tangled in it. The pegasus tosses her head, and Jacko goes flying.”
  • Rowan’s companion Warg is a giant wolf. He hunts at night and “when he returns, the blood on his muzzle tells me he’s eaten.”
  • When Rowan tries to give a pegasus a sedative, the pegasus “wheels and rears. One hoof hits that sore shoulder again. I stumble, and I see another hoof coming straight for my head. My arm flies up. Her foreleg is delicate enough that I knock it off course. As I scramble out of the way, she comes at me again. This time, she grabs my tunic in her teeth and whips me off my feet.” Rowan gives the pegasus the sedative and then “she lies there, legs splayed and bent, her head drooping.” Rowan realizes that giving the sedative to the pegasus was wrong. The scene is described over five pages.
  • Rowan comes across an overturned wagon. A couple says their baby is stuck underneath the wagon. When Rowan crawls under the wagon to help, a man “wrenches me by the hair. I try to swing at his face, but there isn’t enough room. I yank out my dagger and slice his arm instead. He snarls. I slash the blade as I back out. Someone grabs my legs. Hands grapple at me from the wagon wreck. . . The young man shoves a sack over my head. I scream under it. Scream and kick and punch. As he hauls me away, my feet tangle, and I fall. He keeps dragging me, the sack cutting into my throat.” Rowan is captured and put in a cage.
  • After Rowan escapes, she watches a boy talk to Alianor. Rowan thinks that the two worked together to capture her, so Rowan hits “him square in the back, and he lands face-first with an oomph. I try to pin him, but he’s twisting, and he manages to get onto his back and throw me aside. That’s when Jacko attacks. He jumps onto Dain’s face and digs his claws in, legs wrapped around Dain’s head. . . Jacko sails from nowhere. He lands on Dain’s lap and sinks his teeth into the boy’s stomach. Dain yelps. . .”
  • While climbing a tree, Rowan disturbs a spider’s nest. Spiders begin dropping onto Rowan and Dain. A spider gets under Dain’s tunic and Rowan tries to “reach up under the fabric and pull out the spider. As I do, he yelps and bats at the back of his tunic. Another lump scuttles underneath. Then Dain yelps louder, in pain now. . .” Rowan discovers that the spiders are jba-fofi. “According to legend, only baby jba-fofi live in trees. The adults are too big for that. They’re the size of dogs, and they build trapdoors on their burrows. When any unsuspecting prey passes, they jump out and drag it in.” Rowan and Dain are able to get out of the tree.
  • As Alianor walks in the forest, “the ground opens, and a giant spider grabs her leg. . . She falls face-first as the spider drags her into its lair. The ground closes and they’re gone.”
  • In order to save Alianor, Rowan crawls into the spider’s lair. She finds “a fawn wrapped in black spider silk. The corpse is desiccated—drained of blood. I shiver as I shift the carcass aside. . . I  continue along. . . This time when I reach down I’m touching a soft-and-hard bundle that I know is wrapped prey. I try to keep going, crawling over the bundles, flinching as the dried bodies crackle within.” Rowan finds the spider, but before she can do anything, the jba-fofi springs. “It’s on me before I can even free my blade. . . The spider’s two front legs wrap around my chest. It pulls me toward its jaws, and Jacko shrieks, leaping on the beast. . . Jacko jumps onto the spider, sinking his fangs onto its back.” To get away from the spider, Rowan starts a fire and “shoves more mummies into the fire, stretching them in a line between us and the jba-fofi.”
  • Rowan searches for Alianor. “Then I see her head, completely wrapped in black webbing. I grab the webbing and pull. It sticks to my fingers and holds fast, refusing to break. With my trembling hand, I pick up my dropped dagger. I feel for her mouth, find it and slice the webbing as carefully as I can. . . I open her mouth. There’s more webbing in there. I yank it out and then press my hands against her chest and . . . Alianor coughs.”
  • As Rowan and Alianor try to escape, “something wraps around my [Rowan’s] leg. As I fight, it pulls hard, and I’m flipped onto my back. . . I kick as hard as I can. The spider squeals. I crawl back on my elbows and knees. I’m flipping over when powerful fangs grip my leg. . .” Dain is able to pull Rowan out of the spider’s lair and the pegasus attacks the spider. The spider scene is described over sixteen pages.
  • Lanslet, a teenager, attacks Rowan hoping to kill her. “He lunges at me. I leap forward to counter, and that isn’t what he expects. Our swords clang. . . My sword strikes his arm. He never even flinches, just draws his sword back and— An arrow hits his shoulder.” One of Rowan’s companions shoots arrows at Lanslet and “Malric hits Lanslet square in the back. The young man goes down with the Warg on top of him. Malric’s teeth sink into Lanslet’s collarbone, ripping away the leather. Lanslet screeches, and running footsteps sound as someone shouts an alarm.” Rowan is able to escape. The fight is described over three pages.
  • A gryphon comes after Rowan and her companions. “Malric charges. The gryphon rears like a horse, its talons flashing, but Malric feints to the side. When the gryphon twists to parry, Malric leaps, teeth sinking into the beast’s foreleg.” Malric pretends to be injured so the gryphon will attack him and the kids are able to hide in a cave.
  • Malric tries to sneak past the gryphon. Malric is “crouching to jump when the gryphon grabs him around his neck. . . The gryphon throws Malric. Warg hits the cavern wall, and that crunch rings out. That terrible crunch I will never forget—the one I heard when the gryphon pitched my aunt head-first into a rock.” Malric is injured. “Inside the cavern, the gryphon stomps about, shrieking in rage. That’s all I see. The gryphon. . . and a blood-smeared wall.”
  • Dain soaks arrowheads in a sedative and shoots them at the gryphon. “The gryphon lunged. Dain dives to the side. The gryphon’s beak snaps. It catches Dain’s bare foot. He drops the arrow as he falls clear of the beast and rolls across the cavern floor. . . As the beast turns, I see the angry red scabs on the foreleg I injured a week ago. I swing my sword right at the same spot. The blade slices in. The beast lets out a terrible screech of pain and rage.” The beast succumbs to the sedative and goes unconscious. The scene with the gryphon is described on and off for thirty-six pages. No one is seriously injured.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone has to taste the queen’s food and drink to make sure it is not poisoned.
  • Rowan gets angry that the pegasus isn’t friendly, so she gives her a sedative.
  • In order to capture Rowan, her captors drugged Warg.

Language

  • Rowan thinks unicorns are “jerks.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Rowan’s father wrote an inscription on the inside of a book that he gave her as a gift. As she reads the message, Rowan misses her father, but thinks, “he’s watching from the others side, and he’s there every time I add a new page or a new fact or a new sketch.”

Dreaming Dangerous

Brassmere Academy is the only home Plum has ever known. Hidden deep in the woods, Brassmere is home to orphans who have extraordinary abilities. Each night when Plum lays down to sleep, she travels into dream worlds, where her best friends Vien, Gwendle, and Artem meet her. While dreaming, the friends go on exciting journeys and fight dangerous monsters.

During a dream, Artem tells Plum, “They’re coming for us. One by one, until they find the one they need.” When she wakes up, Artem is missing. No one knows where Artem has gone. Plum is convinced that the adults at the school cannot be trusted.

Plum, Vien, and Gwendle search for their friend. As they find clues in both the dreaming and waking worlds, they uncover many secrets. Plum has always considered the director, Dr. Abarrane, a trusted adult, but now she wonders what dark secrets he keeps. Brassmere has always kept the children safe from the outside world, but is the real danger inside Brassmere’s walls? Will Plum and her friends be the next to disappear?

Told from Plum’s point of view, Dreaming Dangerous quickly jumps into the mystery of Brassmere Academy. Right from the start, the reader understands the strong bonds of friendship between the four friends. The friends travel into the dream world, where they encounter imaginative worlds full of monsters. Plum spends an equal amount of time in the real world and the dream world, which adds drama but also may cause some confusion.

Dreaming Dangerous is a compelling story that has the perfect amount of suspense and scare factor for younger readers. Readers will be drawn into the story because of the interesting dream world, the children’s abilities, and the mystery surrounding Brassmere Academy. The ending of the story shows the violent death of Plum’s mother and the evil nature of Dr. Abarrane. However, the death is not described in gory detail. The only negative aspect of the story is the abrupt, confusing conclusion that leaves many questions unanswered.

Many readers will be drawn to Dreaming Dangerous because of the well-develop characters, monsters, and mystery. The fantasy story is at times creepy and frightening. For readers who like Gothic-style mysteries, Dreaming Dangerous is an easy-to-read, fast-paced story that will entertain until the very end.  

Violence

  • While in a dream, Plum falls. “Sword pointed downward, Plum leaned into the momentum of the drop, landing hard on the head of some giant, scaled creature. An alligator, she suspected. She jammed her sword between its eyes and it thrashed and roared. . . Blood stained her sword and her shoes. . . The giant alligator would not die quickly . . . a set of sharp teeth had snared her ankle and pulled her underwater.” Plum’s friend appears and saves her. The battle with the alligator happens over four pages.
  • While in a dream, Plum sees a monster. When she asked the monster a question, “its mouth became so wide that it was big enough to devour a girl like Plum in a single bite. And that’s what it did. . .” She falls down the monster’s throat and lands in a town.
  • The gargoyles that stood guard over Brassmere came to life. The gargoyles flew towards the school. “One of the gargoyles was barreling through the overarching glass window of the grand foyer. The other had scaled the side of the building that housed the dormitory, and its giant swinging tail was shattering the windows. . . All the birds and insects in the wallpaper had escaped and were buzzing and flapping at the ceiling and remaining windows, trying to find a way out.” No one was injured.
  • Plum wakes up Melinda, who was in a trance. When Plum touches her, “Melinda raised her head and looked at Plum, her mouth curled into a vicious snarl. And then, Plum was airborne, flying backward by the metal in her boot buckles and the buttons of her coat, until she hit a wall, hard, and everything went dark.”
  • In a dream, Plum sees the young Dr. Abarrane kill a woman and take her baby. When the woman tries to argue, “Dr. Abarrane didn’t bother to argue. He pulled the trigger . . . the woman had fallen to the ground. Dead. The baby screamed and fell into a fit of tears.”
  • Dr. Abarrane chases after Plum and Artem. He tried to inject Plum with a syringe, but “a metal tray hit him in the side of the head, hard. All it took was one blow and he was down.” The kids were able to escape.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Plum is given a “strange purple liquid” through an IV. The liquid makes her sleep, and she is unable to wake from her dream.
  • After Artem disappears, Plum finds him in a building that looks like a hospital. When she finds him, he has an IV “that dripped in a bag over his bed. Plum recognized that odd purple liquid; it was the same thing Dr. Abarrane had given to her that morning. . .”
  • Plum overhears a nurse talking about the death of a boy. The boy was given “three doses of blue. . . The immediate effects were an increase in physical strength and energy.” The fluid killed the boy.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • The orphans who live at Brassmere Academy all have special abilities. The main characters share their dreams. Some “could bend and move metal if they concentrated.” Others could “charm animals” or “communicate with their thoughts.”
  • While in a dream, Artem “could always breathe underwater.”
  • While in a dream, Plum and the others travel to a town. Plum thinks what they saw “happened in the past, and somehow I was able to see it.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

Bad Mermaids Make Waves

Beattie, Mimi, and Zelda planned to spend the summer on land with temporary legs, but their trip is cut short when they receive a message ordering them to return home. The queen of the Hidden Lagoon, Arabella Cod, has been fishnapped. It’s up to the three friends to figure out what has happened to Arabella. When they return to the Hidden Lagoon, they discover that some seriously bad mermaids have taken over. With the help of a talking seahorse, the three go on a dangerous journey to discover who has fishnapped Arabella. Will the three be able to avoid the bad mermaids and chasing piranhas? Can they discover who the true villain is?

Readers looking for a fast-paced and silly mermaid mystery will be drawn to Bad Mermaids Make Waves because of the beautiful cover and the fun black-and-white illustrations throughout the story. The illustrations bring the magical mermaid world to life and help readers visualize the many crazily outfitted characters.

As Beattie, Mimi, and Zelda swim through the mermaid kingdom looking for clues, they interview those who may have had a hand in Arabella Cod’s disappearance. The mystery solving is more silly than serious and the three spend much of their time being chased. Bad Mermaids Make Waves will satisfy readers who like riddles, puns, and seriously silly fun.

The three main characters and a talking sea-horse, Steve, interact in hilarious ways. Another added bonus is the news-like articles from Clamzine and The Scribbled Squid that are dispersed throughout the story. The Scribbled Squid writes, “gossip and lies and things you should definitely buy,” while Clamzine gives snapshots of important characters in a fun way.

Bad Mermaids Makes Waves weaves mermaids, fashion, and mystery into a silly story that will engage reluctant middle school readers.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Arabella Cod is fishnapped by a human.
  • Piranhas chase the three mermaids. Mimi uses fin-fu, which is “a little like human kung fu, only with fins” to battle the piranhas. Mimi “was doing a weird single-finder chopping move and pinging them away.” The piranhas finally swim away.
  • The mermaids chase someone who stole a car. Beattie jumps on a shark and chases the car. “The shark lunged and snapped down. The clam car shot forward . . . the shark lunged and crunched! She opened her eyes just in time to see the robber mermaid shoot out of the car and down the alleyway.”
  • The mermaids sneak into someone’s house to investigate. When they are caught, Beattie gets stuck in the door that was shaped like fish lips. In order to get Beattie unstuck, “Mimi casually turned and fin-fun chopped the fish lips. The entire sandcastle crumbled into a pile in one dusty explosion of sand.” The mermaids then escape.
  • Someone fishnaps Goda Gar. “There on the bow was Goda Gar, being tied up with seaweed streams and carted off by the chomping piranhas.”
  • The three mermaids are captured. When a seahorse tries to help them, a shark “bit down hard on Steve. . . Beattie cried as the wriggling little sea horse went limp and floated down toward the mermaids in a trance below.” The seahorse’s “shell top is ruined,” but he’s okay.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Someone used a “powerful magic, old magic, dark magic” to control the mermaids. Somehow the mermaids’ nails are stamped with piranhas, which allows the piranhas to track them.
  • Someone found the Ruster Shells, which are “two magic shells with crocodiles carved on them.” When mermaids see the shells, they fall into a trance and do everything they are told. Whoever wears the shells can control others.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

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