FINISHED: 
Jackson, Tiffany D. (2018). Monday's Not Coming. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Johnson, Maureen. (2018). Truly Devious. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Wang, Jen. (2018). The Prince and the Dressmaker. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Bertman, Jennifer Chambliss. (2018). The Alcatraz Escape [Book Scavenger #3]. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Johnson, Maureen. (2018). Truly Devious. New York: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Balliett, Blue. (2018). Out of the Wild Night: A Ghost Story. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Gemeinhart, Dan. (2018). Good Dog. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Larson, Hope. (2017). Goldie Vance: Volume Two. Los Angeles: Boom! Box.

[.]

STARTED:
Westerfeld, Scott. (2017). Spill Zone. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

*

FINISHED:

Larson, Hope. (2016). Goldie Vance: Volume One. Los Angeles: Boom! Box.

[.]

STARTED:
Larson, Hope. (2017). Goldie Vance: Volume Two. Los Angeles: Boom! Box.

[.]

*

ABANDONED:
Milford, Kate. (2017). The Ghosts of Greenglass House. New York: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

[Over a week and a half... and I still couldn't finish it...  I LOVED the first book, but this one was just too dense and obtuse (see: review of first book) for my taste.  I'll freely admit that when I recently read The Westing Game, I found it completely confounding - just no idea what I was supposed to get from it.  And that book is the closest I can think of to this series.  She's a fantastic writer, just a tad esoteric for me.]

STARTED:
O'Reilly, Jane. (2017). The Notations of Cooper Cameron. Minneapolis, MN: Carolrhoda/Lerner.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Ruby, Laura. (2017). The Shadow Cipher [York: Book 1]. New York: Walden Pond/HarperCollins.

[Seventh grade, white twins Tess and Theo live in the eccentric Morningstarr Tower with its zig-zagging elevators in a modern - though “alternate” - New York City, the building having been constructed over 150 years ago by the Morningstarr family who helped to develop the city with steampunk-y technologies.  When a real estate magnate buys their building with the intention of knocking it down to redevelop, the twins, along with their Latino neighbor Jaime, spurred on by a mysterious letter, hatch a plan to solve the 160-year-old Old York Cipher created by the Morningstarr family, hoping that in doing so their building will be deemed too important to destroy.  The alternate-New York setting, with its vaguely steampunk feel, keeps the reader on their toes, going along in a familiar world until mention of someone with a gene-spliced raccoon or big cat for a pet, some mechanical spiders in a woman’s purse, solar-powered cars, and a robot servant who brings breakfast.  Chapters alternate being told from the perspective of each of the three main kids, with a break-neck pace that has them running around New York following obscure clues found in cleverly obscure places such as etched on the underside of a heating stove, behind paint in a gallery painting, and one puzzle that is solved by noting the locations of tokens scattered around the apartments in their building.  Though this puzzle-driven book doesn’t allow the reader to try to solve along with the protagonists, this first book in a new series – with a doozy of a cliffhanger – is briskly paced with thoroughly vivid settings to draw one right into the action.]

STARTED:
Springstubb, Tricia. (2017). Cody and the Rules of Life. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Wolk, Lauren. (2017). Beyond the Bright Sea. New York: Dutton/Penguin Random House.


[.]

STARTED:
Donoghue, Emma. (2017). The Lotterys Plus One. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Smith, Ronald L. (2017). The Mesmerist. New York: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

[In Victorian England, 13-year-old, white Jessamine helps her mother in swindling those who wish to contact the dead, and comes to discover that her parents were members of the League of Ravens, a group of folk with special abilities who protected England from an evil necromancer named Mephisto.  When Jess figures out that she, too, has an ability (to read people’s memories) she goes to live with Balthazar, the old head of the League of Ravens, and two other young people with special powers, and the three of them take it upon themselves to banish Mephisto forever when it appears that he has returned and is spreading disease throughout London.  Smith’s follow up to his eerie Hoodoo (Clarion, 2015) is equally creepy, dripping with mood and a heavy sense of foreboding, with tense, claustrophobic battle sequences against ghouls in the newly constructed London Underground, and the repeated use of the rhyme/song “Ring Around the Rosie” that will elicit chills.  When London becomes overrun by a mysterious disease (caused by Mephisto) and townspeople look for a scapegoat, ultimately settling on immigrants (“Foreigners out of our England!”), one can’t help but call to mind Brexit, the “Muslim Ban”, and other similar events in the current tide of nationalism.  This is one that more mature scary story fans should thoroughly enjoy.]

STARTED:
Wolk, Lauren. (2017). Beyond the Bright Sea. New York: Dutton/Penguin Random House.

[Newbery buzz...]

*

FINISHED:
Westerfeld, Scott. (2017). Horizon [Horizon Book 1]. New York: Scholastic.

[A group of kids find themselves stranded on a strange "island" after their plane crashes, with all of the other passengers having mysteriously disappeared.  They find a strange device that can mess with gravity, are attacked by vines and odd birds, and can't figure out where they are... there are two moons in the sky... could it be they are on a different planet?  Just looked at his blog, and Westerfeld describes it as LOST meets HATCHET meets LORD OF THE FLIES, which is kind of accurate.  For some reason, it just didn't completely click with me... and it should have been right up my alley.]

STARTED:
Crowder, Melanie. (2017). Three Pennies. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[Looking forward to this one!  AUDACITY and A NEARER MOON were two of my absolute favorites from 2015.]

*

FINISHED:
Wood, Maryrose. (2015). The Unmapped Sea (Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place #5). New York: Batzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Goldberg, Susan. (2017). Gender Revolution [Special Issue]. Journal of the National Geographic Society, 231(1).

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Bertman, Jennifer Chambliss. (2017). The Unbreakable Code [Book Scavenger #2]. New York: Henry Holt/Macmillan.

[Thoroughly enjoyed the first book in this series, and the author, who is also thoroughly enjoyable, came to my library for a reading/signing after Book Scavenger came out.  She emailed me a few months ago to let me know that the sequel was coming, and asked if I'd like an advanced copy.  Well, of course!  It finally came the other day, along with a lovely note from Ms. Bertman saying that I should look on page 349.  She name-checked me in the Acknowledgments!  And, I'm proud to have been called out on this one because it's REALLY FUN.  I'm going to say that it actually improves upon the original in that it is much more streamlined and singularly focused.  Kids all across the world will enjoy it, but living here in San Francisco and getting to read about kids traveling all over this city is amazing.  Jennifer, FANTASTIC job!]

STARTED:
Madonna, Paul. (2017). On to the Next Dream. San Francisco: City Lights.

[My husband said that I had to read this one.  I guess that it mirrors our situation, though, hopefully not too much because it seems to deal with his being evicted from his San Francisco apartment...]

*

FINISHED:
Standish, Ali. (2017). The Ethan I Was Before. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Kelly, Erin Entrada. (2017).  Hello, Universe.  New York: Greenwillow/HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Wegelius, Jakob. (2017). The Murderer's Ape. New York: Delacorte/Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Yoon, Nicola. (2016). The Sun is Also a Star. New York: Delacorte/Random House.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Oliver, Lauren, and H.C. Chester. (2016). Curiosity House: The Screaming Statue. New York: HarperCollins.

[All exhibiting remarkable abilities (mentalism, super-strength, bendability, etc.) Thomas, Pippa, Sam, and Max are tweens living in, and performing with, Dumfrey’s Dime Museum which is falling on hard times.  In an effort to draw crowds, the owner, Mr. Dumfrey, begins using mannequins to stage grisly tableaux of recent murders (which involve people the protagonists know), that seem to be connected to bad-man-on-the-loose Rattigan who “created” the tweens (and may still be after them).  Presumably catching the reader up on the events of Book 1 early on, it wouldn’t be entirely necessary to have read the previous installment to understand what is going on, but is probably a good idea.  Slow to get moving after slogging through a number of false starts, this second episode features intriguing, somewhat fleshed-out characters with nothing much to do.  Only really necessary where the first book is already on shelves.]

STARTED:
Grunberg, Greg, and Lucas Turnbloom. (2016). Dream Jumper: Book 1: Nightmare Escape. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 

Stewart, Trenton Lee. (2016). The Secretkeepers. New York: Little, Brown.

[.]

STARTED:
Wolff, Jana. (1997). Secret Thoughts of an Adoptive Mother. Honolulu, HI: Vista Communications.

[.]

*

FINISHED: 
Avi. (2016). School of the Dead. New York: HarperCollins.

[Tony and his family move to San Francisco so that he can attend the alma mater, The Penda School, of his afterlife-believing, recently deceased Uncle Charlie.  Upon starting seventh grade at his new school, Tony not only begins to see the ghost of his dead Uncle, but also that of a long dead student, while finding out that over the life of the school, students have been mysteriously disappearing every seven years.  Avi’s latest has its moments where the reader will be fooled by some red herrings, as Tony eventually finds himself caught between a ghost who needs his help, a group of students called the Weird History Club who investigate the odd goings on at the school, and teachers who advise Tony to stay away from the Weird History Club… thus putting him in a position where he’s not sure who to believe has his best interest at heart, and wondering if there is anyone that he can trust.  This aside, the story being set in San Francisco seems inconsequential, and rather than building real tension, this is a standard ghost story with few real scares that feels padded and overlong (not helped by the lack of chapter designations), giving the impression that it could’ve made a much more effective short story.]

STARTED:
Springstubb, Tricia. (2016). Every Single Second. New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[Rereading before writing a formal review for ACL.  As previously mentioned (and seen by the author!), MOONPENNY ISLAND, from last year, was one of my ABSOLUTE FAVORITES, so I'm trying this one again to solidify my feelings.]

*