FINISHED: 
Bryan, Ashley. (2016). Freedom Over Me. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[.]

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

[.]

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FINISHED: 
Whitehead, Colson. (2016). The Underground Railroad. New York: Doubleday/Penguin Random House.

[.]

STARTED:
Marciano, John Bemelmans. (2016). Mischief Season [Witches of Benevento, Book 1]. New York: Viking/Penguin Random House.

[.]

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FINISHED:
Alexander, Michelle. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press.

[To be fair, I only read the Introduction and one of the chapters... because that is what we were asked to do as part of a book discussion group that I'm now a part of!  When I have time to engage in something that I don't need to review, I'll likely give it full read because it seems like required reading.]

STARTED:
Gidwitz, Adam. (2016). The Inquisitor's Tale. New York: Dutton/Penguin/Random House.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Mull, Brandon. (2014). Sky Raiders (Five kingdoms #1). New York: Aladdin/Simon & Schuster.

[On Halloween night, sixth grader Cole and a couple of kids from his school are transported, via a passage in a haunted house, to a mysterious world called the Outskirts where they are then held as slaves.  Cole, however, on his quest to rescue his friends, ends up being recruited to be a Sky Raider, pillaging castles kept aloft by float stones, and eventually agrees to help one of the five daughters of the High Shaper of the Five Kingdoms (all long-rumored to be dead) get her powers back, power that is currently manifested in a large beast named Carnag.  Mull has once again constructed a fascinating fantasy world – this time full of flying ships, floating castles, magical objects, and characters who have the ability to “shape” (“to rearrange things and to imbue them with new qualities”).  Cole is a somewhat generic protagonist who doesn’t seem all that concerned with the fact that he is in a strange world full of odd creatures with no (detectable) means of ever getting back home.  In addition, Cole easily loses sight of his main objective – freeing his friends – only occasionally ever even referring back to them at all.  Mull, as usual, though, spins a yarn filled with enough action and intriguing detail to ensure that this series opener will appeal to devotees of his previous works.  [Review based on ARC.] .]


STARTED:
Hale, Shannon. (2014). Dangerous. New York: Bloomsbury.


[.]


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FINISHED:
Aronson, Marc, and Marina Budhos. (2010). Sugar changed the world: A story of magic, spice, slavery, freedom, and science. Boston, MA: Clarion/Houghton Mifflin.


[.]


STARTED:
Wood, Maryrose. (2013). The interrupted tale (The incorrigible children of Ashton Place #4). New York: Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins.


[LOVE this series.]

*

FINISHED:
Durbin, Frederic S. (2012). The star shard. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

[.]

STARTED:

Beil, Michael D. (2012). Summer at Forsaken Lake. New York: Knopf.

[By the author of the Red Blazer Girls!]

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FINISHED:
Jones, Allan, and Chalk, Gary. (2010). The Six Crowns: Trundle's quest. New York: Greenwillow/HarperCollins.

[.]

STARTED:
Ness, Patrick. (2011). A monster calls. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

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FINISHED:
Lester, Julius. (2005). Day of tears: a novel in dialogue. New York: Hyperion.

[.]

STARTED:
Anderson, M.T. (2010). The suburb beyond the stars. New York: Scholastic.

[.]

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FINISHED:
Shan, Darren. (2010). The thin executioner. New York: Little, Brown & Co.

[After being publicly humiliated for his perceived weakness by his executioner father, Jebel embarks on a mythic quest to ask a fire god for invincibility in hopes of being able to return to his home and win a competition to be the new town executioner. Accompanying Jebel is a slave, Tel Hesani, whom he knows he will eventually need to sacrifice in order to appease the god, though along the way Jebel learns tolerance and the fact that it’s the journey, not what’s at the end of the road, that really matters. Shan, author of the popular vampire series Cirque du Freak (Little, Brown, 2001) has penned a (trademark) gory homage to Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which includes cons, cannibals, and involuntary graverobbing. Most characters are a bit one-dimensional and the quest story is nothing new, but Jebel’s paradigm shift in regard to what he has always learned is traditionally “right” or “normal”, and the examination of religious differences (though somewhat heavy-handed) are important lessons. Plenty of blood is shed through realistic human-on-human stabbings, slicings and beheadings which should satisfy young adult horror fans [Reviewed from ARC.].]

STARTED:
Houtman, Jacqueline. (2010). The reinvention of Edison Thomas. Honesdale, PA: Front Street/Boyds Mills.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

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FINISHED:

Sheth, Kashmira. (2010). Boys without names. New York: Balzer + Bray.

[Nominated this one for our Distinguished List:

Gopal and his family flee rural India with barely more than the clothes on their backs in an effort to escape debt and find work in Mumbai. Once there, Gopal is determined to help out by finding work only to be lured into slaving in a sweatshop gluing beads onto frames without any hope of being able to leave/escape. Five other boys are also being held captive with Gopal by a man whom Gopal has nicknamed Scar, and when Gopal arrives, the boys are so defeated and powerless that they have lost their identities and become nameless. Gopal opens up to the other boys by telling them stories which are accounts of actual events in his life, and, ultimately, it is because of his telling these autobiographical kahanis that he and the other boys begin to get to know each other, eventually revealing/gaining their actual names rather the nicknames that Gopal has assigned to each. Gopal is a likeable and exemplary character with whom the reader sympathizes as he is tirelessly concerned with his families’ well-being, doing everything he can to find a way to make money and make things less desperate for his young twin siblings. Although the novel takes awhile to get going (Gopal doesn’t end up in the sweatshop until a third of the way through) and the ending is a bit abrupt, this is an encouraging, and often harrowing, tale of a strong young man who ends up stifled and enslaved, but, through the power of self and storytelling, ultimately finds his freedom. (Reviewed from ARC.)]

STARTED:
Stork, Francisco X. (2010). The last summer of the Death Warriors. New York: Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

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