BOOK OF THE WEEK

 

Week of 9/17 Diva
In Alex Flinn's novel Breathing Underwater the main character Nick struggles to manage his anger and what he has done to his girlfriend Caitlin. In Diva, Caitlin tells her story through online journals about seeing Nick after his abuse was stopped by a restraining order. To escape Nick and her old high school Caitlin auditions for a performing arts school. Her opera singing gets her a coveted spot at the school where she meets new friends and becomes more comfortable with herself. A quick read with a few surprising plot twists about Caitlin's mother.
   
Week of 9/10  

Sold

Lakshmi tells her story in free verse poems about her hard life in a remote mountain village in Nepal and her journey to a big city in India where instead of working as a maid she is enslaved in a brothel.

   
Week of 5/07  

Mister Monday

Arthur Penhaligon, destined to die at a young age, is saved by a key shaped like the minute hand of a clock, but his survival invokes the wrath of the mysterious Mister Monday who will stop at nothing to get the key back. Arthur is forced into a desperate quest to unravel the secrets of the key, save the world from a plague and discover his true fate.

   
Week of 4/16 God Went to Beauty School by Cynthia Rylant
In sparse, quirky poems readers learn what God may think of cable television, poker games and other human endeavors.
   
Week of 2/26 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Oskar Schell is an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist Oskar is a brainy, precocious, charming, confident, unusual 9 year old boy whose father has been his god. For all his brilliance, Oskar can find nothing to help him out of the misery into which he has been pitched when his father dies at the World Trade Center on 9/11. 'I'll wear heavy boots for the rest of my life,' he says. With his mother locked in a grief of her own, Oskar battles to untangle his turbulent feelings. Loss is complicated by fear, resentment, guilt and anger. He is confounded. And then he finds, in his father's closet, a key he has never seen before. Seizing on this key as a mysterious 'clue', he sets out on a quest through the five boroughs to find its lock and find a connection to his father and his death. But Oskar is not the only victim in his family. His grandparents--his father's parents--survived the Dresden fire-bombing, his grandfather so profoundly affected that he eventually lost the power of speech and leaves his pregnant wife to return to Dresden before Oskar's father is born. So this is a book about loss, and about individual suffering amid (and following) cataclysmic events. From the very first page it is a hugely involving read; the voice of Oskar Schell is utterly engaging. His character is so beautifully realised, one would go with him anywhere. All told, this book is a heartbreaker: tragic, funny, intensely moving. (Wearing heavy boots lightly. (Book Review) Glazebrook, Olivia. Spectator June 11, 2005 v298 i9227 p40(1). Online Student Resource Center. Retrieved February 23, 2007.)
   
Week of 2/19 An Innocent Soldier by Josef Holub
It is 1811 and every available young male is being drafted to fight with Napoleon's Grand Armee. While Adam, a farmhand, is only 16 and underage, his farmer turns him over to the army in place of his own son. Adam thinks this is a mistake that will be corrected and works hard, while having to endure being mistreated by a sadistic sargeant. He is saved when a young aristocratic lieutenant needs a servant, and his situation greatly improves. In this tale these two become unlikely friends and march from Germany to Moscow together with Napoleon's ill-fated invasion of Russia. As you follow their journey, you will experience all of the horror, drudgery, and agony of war. There are vivid descriptions of the endless walking, hustling for boots and warm clothing, gnawing hunger, and sickness. The boy grows from being a scared child to an obedient servant, to becoming a capable and resilient, if arguably less innocent, soldier. This view of history is fascinating.
   
Week of 2/12 Looking for Alaskaby John Green
Sixteen-year-old Miles' first year at Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama includes good friends, good times and great pranks, until everything changes when his new friend Alaska is killed in a fatal car crash. He is filled with questions about life and death, love and loss. Looking for Alaska, by John Green, deservedly won many book awards.
   
Week of 2/5
With gorgeous, full-color spreads and hip, vivid design, this "un-cyclopedia" for the Internet generation gives fresh and fascinating contexts for classic information--making looking up information easier than ever! (from powells.com)
   
Week of 1/29 Feed by M.T. Anderson
For Titus and his friends, it started out like any ordinary trip to the moon - a chance to party during spring break and play with some stupid low-grav at the Ricochet Lounge. But that was before the crazy hacker caused all their feeds to malfunction, sending them to the hospital to lie around with nothing inside their heads for days. And it was before Titus met Violet, a beautiful, brainy teenage girl who has decided to fight the feed and its omnipresent ability to categorize human thoughts and desires. (from powells.com)
   
Week of 1/22 Do-Over by Rachel Vail
This is the story of 13-year-old Whitman, who has to deal with the anger he feels towards his father when his parents separate, his own interest in several girls, and the heady feeling of acting in his first play. (from powells.com)
   
Week of 1/15 King by Ho Che Anderson
Ho Che Anderson's graphic novel biography of the Reverend Martin Luther King documents the life of the most compelling civil rights leader during the most violent and tumultuous period of struggle for basic human rights in 20th century America. (from powells.com)
   
Week of 1/08 A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
A Northern Light takes place upstate New York in 1906. Sixteen-year-old Mattie's family is poor, her mother has died, and her father depends on her to care for the family. This is a time when women marry, have babies and help run farms, but she is a talented writer who dreams of attending college in New York City and becoming a writer. Against the wishes of her father and fiance, she takes a job at a summer inn where she discovers the truth about the murder of a young female guest and about herself. Based on a true story.
 
Week of 1/1 Bone 1: Out from Boneville by Jeff Smith
The Bone adventures tell the story of a young bone boy, Fone Bone, and his two cousins, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone, who are banned from their homeland of Boneville. When the cousins find themselves mysteriously trapped in a wonderful but often terrifying land filled with secrets and danger — and special new friendships — they are soon caught up in adventures beyond their wildest dreams. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 12/18 Travel Team by Mike Lupica
Twelve-year-old Danny Walker may be the smallest kid on the basketball court — but don't tell him that. Because no one plays with more heart or court sense. But none of that matters when he is cut from his local travel team, the very same team his father led to national prominence as a boy. Danny's father, still smarting from his own troubles, knows Danny isn't the only kid who was cut for the wrong reason, and together, this washed-up former player and a bunch of never-say-die kids prove that the heart simply cannot be measured. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 12/11 Peter and the Starcatchers by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Discover richly developed characters in the sweet but sophisticated Molly, the scary but familiar Black Stache, and the fearless Peter. Treacherous battles with pirates, foreboding thunderstorms at sea, and evocative writing immerse the reader in a story that slowly and finally reveals the secrets and mysteries of the beloved Peter Pan. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 12/1 Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce
While Alanna fights a bitter war with Scanra in the North, Aly stays at home, trying to figure out what to do with her life, and how to emerge from her mother's shadow. Impulsively, she takes a boat ride, and is snatched by slave traders ignorant of her identity. Aly ends up in the household of a family that has fallen out of favor with the vicious King Oron, who sends them into exile while demanding most of their wealth. Meanwhile, Aly is approached by a 'local sea god, among other things,' as Kyprioth (the trickster of the title) introduces himself. He sets her a wager: keep the family's children safe for the next three months, and she will be returned home — plus Kyprioth will convince her father to let her become a spy (an idea to which both her parents are vehemently opposed). If she fails, she must act as Kyprioth's servant for one year. Pierce luxuriates in her setting, moving the action along at a pace that might seem sluggish to some, but will be just right to her legion of devotees. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 11/27 Tending to Grace by Kimberly Fusco Newton
Cornelia Thornhill wears neglect like a pall. She avoids eye contact with others, stutters badly, is presumed to be slow at school, and likens herself to a stone, hard and strong way down inside. Taken out of school during ninth grade by her shiftless mother, she is dropped off at the rural New England home of Great-aunt Agatha while mother and her boyfriend depart for places out west. This lonely, virtually invisible girl both misses and resents her absent parent. The short, image-rich, first-person chapters echo Cornelia's anger and stubbornness as she describes her new living situation with the folksy, forthright Agatha. They argue, stop talking, and Cornelia even packs her bag to run away. What brings these unlikely companions back together is their grudging interdependence and Cornelia's recognition that nature-loving Agatha, locally dubbed the Crow Lady, has been as misunderstood as she. Cornelia begins to see her aunt's kindness through the eyes of Bo, a local girl whose nonjudgmental friendship helps Cornelia to grow. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 11/20 King Dork by Frank Portman
Losers Sam Hellerman and Tom Henderson have shared an alphabetical-order friendship for most of their years in school. The nerdy twosome now attends Hillmont High School, where they are tormented relentlessly by students and faculty alike. Tom and Sam make up mythical bands-complete with accompanying musicians, song lyrics and album covers-twenty-five bands to be exact. Catcher in the Rye is the mainstay of the Hillmont English Department, and Tom is totally against the "Catcher Cult." Leaving the book behind at school with an assignment due, he rummages through his deceased father's teen library hoping to find a replacement copy. When he does, he discovers messages, secret codes, and a funeral card tucked inside. So begins the mystery of unraveling the real cause of his father's death and who is the mysterious "Tit" who corresponds with his dad in the book's margins. At the same time, Tom is learning to attract hot girls while avoiding a loopy associate principal who runs a teen porn ring. Although the writing is very clever, the sentences ramble on. The sarcastic humor will appeal only to mature teens with an interest in 1960s novels, heavy metal music, oral sex, and random beatings. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 11/13 Persepolis by Marjana Satrapi
Marjane Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 11/6 Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
It's 1939, in New York City. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just pulled off his greatest feat - smuggling himself out of Hitler's Prague. He's looking to make big money, fast, so that he can bring his family to freedom. His cousin, Brooklyn's own Sammy Clay, is looking for a partner in creating the heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit the American dreamscape: the comic book.

Inspired by their own fantasies, fears, and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and the otherworldy Mistress of the Night, Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men. The golden age of comic books has begun, even as the shadow of Hitler falls across Europe.(from powells.com)
 
Week of 10/30 Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Stephanie Meyer's thrilling debut novel is a love story with a bite. In this suspenseful and sensual tale, 17-year-old Isabella moves to a small town in Washington State and gets more excitement than she bargained for when she falls for an enigmatic classmate -- who happens to be a vampire. Filled with fantastic mystery and romance, it's a heart-stopping novel that captures the struggle between defying our instincts and satisfying our desires. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 10/23 Midnighters: The Secret Hour by Scott Westerfeld
After Jessica Day moves to Bixby, she enjoys popularity but also becomes the focus of a few sunglasses-wearing outcasts. Curious about all the interest from Rex, Melissa, Dess, and Jonathan, Jessica soon learns that it's not without cause: She is a "midnighter," a person who can move about during a magical, condensed 25th hour that begins at midnight. Jessica is fascinated at first -- especially when she learns she has special powers during the "blue time" -- but her interest turns to horror when her safety is threatened by ever-growing "darklings," shadowy entities that want to stop Jessica from discovering and using her gift. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 10/16 Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman

Callum is a naught, a second-class citizen in a society run by the ruling Crosses. Sephy is a Cross, and daughter of the man slated to become prime minister. In their world, white naughts and black Crosses simply don't mix - and they certainly don't fall in love. But that's exactly what they've done.

When they were younger, they played together. Now Callum and Sephy meet in secret and make excuses. But excuses no longer cut it when Sephy and her mother are nearly caught in a terrorist bombing planned by the Liberation Militia, with which Callum's family is linked. Callum's father is the prime suspect...and Sephy's father will stop at nothing to see him hanged. The blood hunt that ensues will threaten not only Callum and Sephy's love for each other, but their very lives. (from powells.com)
 
Week of 10/9 If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince? by Melissa Kantor
This modern Cinderella story has clever touches and adds a twist. After her father's marriage, Lucy is forced to live with her stepmother and two stepsisters on Long Island while he wraps up work back in California. When she inadvertently attracts the attention of Connor, the cutest senior jock at school, she goes from friendless to popular. But Lucy begins to realize she and Connor have nothing in common beyond their love of basketball; she doesn't connect with him the way she does with artist Sam. Meanwhile, her stepmother treats Lucy like a maid and even gets her in trouble with her dad. The author has some fun updating Cinderella: Lucy has to work taking coats and carrying dishes at her stepmother's dinner party, and instead of the ball, this novel culminates at the prom.
 
Week of 9/25 The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black
When their great-aunt Lucinda Spiderwick is sent off to an asylum, the Grace kids move into her creepy old mansion with their mother. Strange goings-on lead these city kids to discover an old book filled with pictures of fanstastic creatures. It holds clues to recent odd events, and the key to an even bigger mystery. Read all five!
   
Week of 9/18 How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

 

Daisy, New York City native, is trapped in England when war breaks out. Separated from her cousins in a foreign place, she struggles to survive and reunite with her family.