FINISHED:

Albert, Melissa. (2018). The Hazel Wood. New York: Flatiron/Macmillan.

[.]

STARTED:
Adeyemi, Tomi. (2018). Children of Blood and Bone. New York: Henry Holt & Co./Macmillan.

[Another title (like the one above...) that we're reading for our SFPL Mock Printz next month.]

*

FINISHED:
Kibuishi, Kazu. (2018). Supernova [Amulet #8]. New York: Graphix.Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Ukazu, Ngozi. (2018). Check Please! Book 1: Hockey. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

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STARTED & FINISHED: 
Westerfeld, Scott. (2018). Spill Zone #2: The Broken Vow. New York: First Second/Roaring Brook.

[.]

STARTED:
Springstubb, Tricia. (2015). Moonpenny Island. New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.

[Just one of my absolute favorite books, which I try to read every year.]

*

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

[.]

STARTED:
Holm, Jennifer L. (2017). Swing It, Sunny. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Neuvel, Sylvain. (2017). Waking Gods [The Themis Files: Book 2]. New York: Del Rey/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Tynion IV, James. (2017). The Backstagers: Volume 1: Rebels Without Applause. Los Angeles: BOOM! Box.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Neuvel, Sylvain. (2016). Sleeping Giants [The Themis Files: Book 1]. New York: Del Rey/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Neuvel, Sylvain. (2017). Waking Gods [The Themis Files: Book 2]. New York: Del Rey/Penguin Random House.

[Another adult book!  (It's a sequel to the last one...)]

*

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:
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:
Hale, Nathan. (2017). One Trick Pony. New York: Amulet/Abrams.

[This was a GREAT ONE!  Set in a future where the world has been decimated by a race of invading aliens, 3 young people are out exploring a cave, looking for any old technological items they can find.  They are part of a caravan of folks who are conservators of some of the last known remains of human civilization (books, films, technology, etc.).  The young explorers come across a treasure trove of forgotten tech, including a robot horse that bonds with the girl of the group.  Unfortunately, their waking up the long-buried tech alerts the Pipers (bubble-blowing aliens who eat technology... and humans).]

STARTED:
Konigsberg, Bill. (2017). Honestly Ben. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[REALLY enjoyed Openly Straight.]

*

FINISHED:
McMann, Lisa. (2016). Going Wild. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Reynolds, Jason. (2016). Ghost. New York: Atheneum/Simon & Schuster.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Dashner, James. (2016). The Fever Code. New York: Delacorte/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Lin, Grace. (2016). When the Sea Turned to Silver. New York: Little Brown.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Clarke, Susanna. (2004). Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. New York: Bloomsbury.

[FINISHED IT!  An enjoyable read, to be sure, though a bit plodding in places.  HOWEVER, never did I feel like, "I really want to give this up and read something else," nor did I finish it just to say that I did.  She built an entire world here, with complex characters, a full "alternate" history, and injected a whole bunch of deadpan humor.  And I just love that the only name we got for the "gentleman with the thistledown hair" was the "gentleman with the thistledown hair".  Currently in the middle of the BBC adaptation, and finding that it is remarkable true to the source material, annotations and all!]

STARTED:
Castleman, Virginia. (2016). Sara Lost and Found. New York: Aladdin/Simon & Schuster.

[Intrigued because it is about foster kids.]

*

FINISHED: 
DiTerlizzi, Tony. (2014). The battle for WondLa. New York: Simon & Schuster.


[.]


STARTED:
Hartinger, Brent. (2013). The elephant of surprise. Seattle: Buddha Kitty.

[4th in the Russel Middlebrook series (which includes The Geography Club).]

*

FINISHED:
Pinkwater, Daniel Manus. (1979). Alan Mendelsohn, the boy from Mars. New York: Dutton.


[.]


STARTED:
DiCamillo, Kate. (2013). Flora & Ulysses:  the illuminated adventures. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.


[.]


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FINISHED:
Yancey, Rick. (2013). The 5th wave. New York: G.P. Putnam's/Penguin.


[.]


STARTED:
Mull, Brandon. (2012). The candy shop war: Arcade catastrophe. Salt Lake City, UT: Shadow Mountain.


[He's one of my favorites...]

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FINISHED:
Schmidt, Gary D. (2012). What came from the stars. Boston: Clarion.

[.]


STARTED:
Burns, John. (2005). The many adventures of Pengey Penguin. San Francisco: San Francisco Story Works.

[A patron wrote it...]

*

FINISHED:
Walker, Karen Thompson. (2012). Age of Miracles: a novel. New York: Random House.

[Julia is on the cusp of her 12th birthday when the world changes:  the Earth's rotation begins to slow down causing the days to become longer.  Soon, the length of a day gets so long that the government steps in and decides that we should continue to live in a 24-hour cycle, with those who would rather continue to live by the rising and setting of the sun being labeled as outcasts who are forced to form their own communities.  In addition, everything we know about gravity and the Earth's magnetic fields begins to change, birds start falling from the skies, the tides are more extreme, whales beach themselves en masse, too much/too little sun makes it difficult for crops to grow, and a sickness strikes a number of the world's citizens.  This is the not-so-perky backdrop to Julia's typical preteen life navigating first love, her father's secrets, piano lessons, soccer practice, and difficult friendships with other girls.]

STARTED:
Steensland, Mark. (2012). Behind the bookcase. New York: Random House.

[Reviewing for ACL...]

*

STARTED & FINISHED:
Fearing, Mark. (2012). Earthling! San Francisco: Chronicle.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Lowry, Lois. (2012). Son. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

[.]



STARTED:
Hartinger, Brent. (2003). The geography club. New York: HarperCollins.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Hautman, Pete. (2012). The obsidian blade: The Klaatu diskos: Book 1. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[[Reviewed from ARC.]


Tucker Feye lives with his mother and preacher father, Adrian, in small-town Hopewell County, Minnesota. One day while fixing a shingle on the roof, Adrian gets sucked into a swirling disk and disappears, only to return a short time later denouncing his faith and with an odd girl in tow. After his parents then leave to find a cure for a mysterious illness that has overtaken his mother, Tucker moves in with his Uncle Kosh and decides to see what these swirling disks are about, jumping into one and getting transported to the top of one of the World Trade Center towers on 9/11. Though the novel’s first third has a sense of eerie mystery, once Tucker begins being transported through space and time via the portal disks, things get kind of convoluted and a tad confusing. There are a couple of different kinds of “beings” that Tucker encounters who aren’t clearly drawn or distinguishable, and one is never quite sure how all of the portals and their various worlds are interconnected. However, a compelling discourse on faith and religion in the digital age is here (“The greatest plague of all is upon us: The Digital Plague.”), as well as questions on the nature of time and space (“Is a future, once observed, still changeable? Or does the fact that we have observed it make it an immutable part of our personal past?”), adding to the novel’s mind-bending appeal. The first title in a trilogy, this one smacks of a lot of set-up, leaving a whole lot unanswered which one can only hope will be resolved in the next installments. That said, Hautman’s sci-fi tale is smart and thought-provoking with an intriguing cliffhanger ending that hints at jaw-dropping things to come.]


STARTED:
Wright, Bil. (2011). Putting makeup on the fat boy. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[Been in the mood for a young adult title with some strong gay characters.  This Stonewall Book Award winner should fit the bill...]

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