FINISHED:
Cuevas, Michelle. (2017). The Care and Feeding of a Pet Black Hole. New York: Dial/Penguin Random House.

[After being turned away at NASA, when she asks to see Carl Sagan so that she can give him a recording of her deceased father’s laughter for inclusion on the Voyager launch, 11-year-old Stella Rodriguez unwittingly has a black hole follow her home.  While Larry (as Stella names the black hole) begins to devour whatever it can, Stella discovers that as she throws items with memories of her dad attached to them into the black hole, it begins to appear as though the objects, and all of the feelings associated with them, never existed in the first place.  Cuevas has a gift for dry humor, fully evident in the 100 page, surreal journey (reminiscent of Roald Dahl and Norton Juster) that Stella and her brother take in a clawfoot tub while inside Larry; a journey that helps Stella work through her grief and regain an appreciation for “home” (“Sometimes what you think is a black hole in your life turns out to actually be a wormhole.  A portal.  A way home.”).  Cuevas’s own spot illustrations are sprinkled throughout the text, which is laugh out loud hilarious, touching, and a bit bizarre.]

STARTED:
Moore, David Barclay. (2017). The Stars Beneath Our Feet. New York: Knopf.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Medina, Juana. (2016). Juana & Lucas. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[.]

STARTED:
Mittlefehldt, Rafi. (2016). It Looks Like This. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.

[Reading for ACL to see if I deem it to be "distinguished".  When, while trying to entice someone to read it, they said it had to do with a boy in the Midwest who was dealing with coming out to his not-so-understanding family, I jumped up and said, "Sounds familiar.  I'll take it!"]

*

FINISHED:
Meloy, Colin. (2012). Under Wildwood. New York: Balzer + Bray.


[Prue and Curtis are reunited in this sequel to Meloy’s own Wildwood (Balzer + Bray, 2011), with Prue being drawn back to Wildwood by the voices of the vegetation there (a newly-discovered ability that she has), and Curtis having become a full-fledged Wildwood bandit-in-training.  The two of them embark on a quest to unite a fractured land by finding a just and rightful leader for Wildwood, along the way finding themselves underground and assisting mole people in a war to regain their throne from an usurper.  Meanwhile, Curtis’s parents leave his two sisters at an orphanage to watch the girls while they are away in Istanbul, having received a tip that Curtis may have been spotted there.  In typical fashion, the orphanage turns out to be a factory sweatshop run by a faded Russian movie starlet and her inventor boyfriend who is obsessed with finding a way into the Impassable Wilderness, sure that it’s potential as an industrial site is untapped.  There’s A LOT going on here, and it’s not until 400 pages into the novel that things begin to overlap and you understand how all of the storylines are related, but the language is rich and it does flesh out the woods more, exploring new terrain and expanding upon the world-building in the first book.  In addition, as with the previous tome, this one comes with fanciful and striking spot art illustrations (as well as a couple of full page, color plates) by Meloy’s wife, Carson Ellis. One of the major storylines deals with the topical issue of the growing economic disparity in the world and rise of rampant corporate growth:  after the Russian starlet Desdemona sees The 1% Journal on a desk, Meloy writes, “She didn’t understand the industrialist sensibility…  She’d fallen in with the crowd because she’d been attracted to the money… though she understood now that there was more to success and satisfaction than just blindly following the money.”  Whereas the first book could work as a contained story on its own, this one feels like a “middle book” – a bridge between stories – which, at the end, leaves all of the characters with things left to do and concludes with, “Their daily struggle, the tenuousness of their lives in the vacuum of power that has remained in the wake of a revolution, can wait until tomorrow.  Winter is passing.  A Spring will soon arrive.”  And the next installment can’t come soon enough.]

STARTED & FINISHED:
Kibuishi, Kazu. (2012). Prince of the elves [Amulet: Book 5]. New York: Graphix/Scholastic.


[.]


STARTED:
Martel, Yann. (2001). Life of Pi. New York: Harcourt.

[Re-reading before the film is released.  One of my favorites, so I'm glad to read it again...]

*

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...]

*

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

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Service, Pamela F. (2011). Alien envoy. Minneapolis, MN: Lerner.

[Zack is an alien from the planet Izbor who was physically altered and sent to Earth as an Alien Agent for the Galactic Patrol. On Halloween night, Zack, the Alien Envoy to Earth, is picked up by fellow agents and whisked away in their spacecraft to meet with the Galactic Council who are deciding whether or not to invite Earth to join the Galactic Union. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy trip as the Kiapa Kapa Syndicate, who seem to have uncovered Zack’s true identity and are bent on making sure that he doesn’t make it in front of the Council, seem to be hot on their heels. Service has crafted a brisk, rollicking adventure with just the right amount of action and a healthy dose of hilarious description (“Zythis cleared his several throats.”), and even manages to slip in social messages about race relations (“When our people learned how to change the face of living things, we made it so that everyone was born a different color. That way there could be no groups of one color hating people of another color. Everyone was different.”) and commentary on how we treat our planet (“These people of Earth have not only endangered their own world; they could threaten the peace of the entire galaxy! A study of their history shows them to be a hopelessly reckless, warlike people.”). Gorman’s modern-cartoon illustrations appear in just the right amount – not too often or too sparse – and add the right zing, giving face to some of the more bizarrely described alien beings. This sixth installment in the Alien Agent series (Carolrhoda, 2008) works perfectly well on its own as a brief outerspace adventure that reluctant readers should find particularly appealing.]

STARTED:Potter, Ellen. (2010). The kneebone boy. New York: Feiwel & Friends.

[.]

*

FINISHED:
Cottrell Boyce, Frank. (2010). Cosmic. New York: Walden Pond.

[.]

STARTED:
West, Jacqueline. (2010). The books of Elsewhere: The shadows. New York: Dial.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

*

FINISHED:

Clarke, Arthur C. (1968). 2001: A space odyssey. New York: ROC/Penguin.

[.]

STARTED:
Tyler, Anne. (2009). Noah's compass. New York: HarperCollins.

[A new Anne Tyler novel! A new Anne Tyler novel!]

*

FINISHED:

L'Engle, Madeleine. (1962). A wrinkle in time. New York: Dell/Yearling.

[.]

STARTED:
Stead, Rebecca. (2009). When you reach me. New York: Wendy Lamb/Random House.

[Yippee! Looking forward to it!]

*

FINISHED:

Teague, Mark. (2009). The doom machine.. New York: Blue Sky/Scholastic.

[.]

STARTED:
Korman, Gordon. (2001). Island: Shipwreck. New York: Scholastic.

[Giving the three in this series a go. I don't think I've read anything by Korman before, and this series has always intrigued me. Must be due to my overwhelming love for LOST.]

*

STARTED & FINISHED:

Abadzis, Nick. (2007). Laika. New York: First Second.

[Graphic novel about the first little dog in space. I read it because it's being voted on in our ACL group to see if it is outstanding enough to be on the year-end Distinguished list. The woman who gave it to me to read was, literally, crying just thinking about how Laika dies in the end. I thought it was really good and a compelling read. The Russian names get a bit confusing to follow, but, otherwise, it's much recommended reading.]



Wolf, Allan. (2007). Zane's trace. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

[Read for ACL review. Will post review when I get done with it. Done:

An epileptic teenager with a family history of mental illness, Zane Guesswind abandons the walls of the bedroom on which he has scrawled the thoughts that haunt him with a Sharpie and steals his brother’s car for a final road trip. While on the road to his mother’s gravesite where, upon arrival, he intends to shoot himself, Zane surreally deals with elements of his past such as his father’s abandonment of the family, his mother’s suicide, and the history of the gun that his mother used in her deed – a Revolutionary War pistol that has been passed down through his family line. Along the way, Zane picks up a hitchhiker named Libba who may be more familiar to him than he realizes, and has dreamlike conversations with his ancestors who appear to him as drive-thru fast-food workers and motel desk clerks. Despite the (often) unsettling details of Zane’s life, the underlying message here of confronting and dealing with family demons in an effort to pave a new future for oneself is a vital one that will ring true for many teenage readers. Told in brisk, narrative prose poetry, this disturbing road trip novel is nihilistic at times, likely a bit too much so for most tastes, but is worth the ride. Included is an extensive author’s note detailing the authenticity of the locations described along the way in the novel, as well as biographical references, internet sites for further information, and a number of suicide prevention resources.]



STARTED:
Michaels, Rune. (2007). Genesis Alpha. New York: Ginee Seo/Atheneum.

[Reviewing for ACL.]

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