Title Summary Review

Sepetys’ first novel offers a harrowing and horrifying account of the forcible relocation of countless Lithuanians in the wake of the Russian invasion of their country in 1939. In the case of 15-year-old Lina, her mother, and her younger brother, this means deportation to a forced-labor camp in Siberia, where conditions are all too painfully similar to those of Nazi concentration camps. By Ruta Sepetys: In 1941, fifteen- Lina’s great hope is that somehow her father, who has already been arrested by the Soviet secret police, might find and rescue year-old Lina, her mother, and them. A gifted artist, she begins secretly creating pictures that can—she hopes—be surreptitiously sent to him in his own prison brother are pulled from their camp. Whether or not this will be possible, it is her art that will be her salvation, helping her to retain her identity, her dignity, Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and her increasingly tenuous hold on hope for the future. Many others are not so fortunate. Sepetys, the daughter of a Lithuanian and sent to Siberia. refugee, estimates that the Baltic States lost more than one-third of their populations during the Russian genocide. Though many continue to deny this happened, Sepetys’ beautifully written and deeply felt novel proves the reality is otherwise. Hers is an important book that deserves the widest possible readership. *William C. Morris Award Finalist *YALSA Top Ten Fiction Award Between Shades of Gray (Booklist) Historical Fiction 344 pages UG

By Pat Schmatz: Thirteen-year-old Travis, living in cramped quarters Travis lives with his alcoholic grandfather and his beloved dog, Rosco. When he and his grandfather move to a new town, the dog with his alcoholic grandfather, disappears, and Travis is devastated. Worse, he feels like a “bluefish,” his word for stupid. And, indeed, school is a struggle for longs for his old life in the him because, as the the reader soon discovers, he has a closely guarded secret. Things begin to change when he meets an country, and struggles in school to eccentric, extroverted girl who calls herself Velveeta. Though she has secrets of her own, she and Travis become friends and hide the fact that he cannot read, cautiously, with the help of an understanding teacher, begin to find ways to deal with their troubles and losses. Travis and but a persistent teacher and a Velveeta are sympathetic characters with believable problems. The story is well written and deals realistically with issues that special girl open his eyes to a new plague many teens. (Booklist) Fiction 226 pages MG world. Bluefish Title Summary Review

In late December 1938, German chemist Otto Hahn discovered that uranium atoms could be split, and just a few months later the race to build an atomic bomb was on. The story unfolds in three parts, covering American attempts to build the bomb, how the By Steve Sheinkin: This spy thriller Soviets tried to steal American designs and how the Americans tried to keep the Germans from building a bomb. It was the eve of examines the history of the atomic World War II, and the fate of the world was at stake, "[b]ut how was a theoretical physicist supposed to save the world?" It's a bomb, discussing the discovery of true spy thriller, ranging from the football stadium at the University of Chicago to the mountains of Norway, from the deserts of the behavior of uranium when New Mexico to laboratories in East Tennessee, and all along the way spies in the United States were feeding sensitive information placed next to radioactive material, to the KGB. Groups of photographs are sprinkled throughout the volume, offering just enough visual support for the splendid the race to build a bomb, and the character development in the writing. It takes a lot of work to make a complicated subject clear and exciting, and from his impact of the weapon on societies prodigious research and storytelling skill, Sheinkin has created a nonfiction story young people will want to read. A superb tale of Bomb: The Race to Build - and around the world. an era and an effort that forever changed our world. *Newbery Honor Book *Sibert Medal Winner *YALSA Nonfiction Winner Steal - the World's Most Dangerous (Kirkus Starred) Nonfiction 266 pages MG Weapon

By Matthew Quick: Finley, an unnaturally quiet boy is the only Finley pretends his earliest memory is shooting hoops in the driveway, where it was easy to zone out and forget what happened to white player on his high school's his family. Now a senior, Finley doesn’t talk much. “My mind is a fist and it’s always clenched tight, trying to keep the words in.” varsity basketball team. When his Keeping the silence is important in his neighborhood, where the Irish mob and black gangs clash. Snitches and their families are coach asks him to mentor a ruthlessly punished. He and his girlfriend, Erin, play varsity b-ball and dream of getting away. When Russ moves to the troubled African American student neighborhood, Finley is worried about the newcomer’s basketball superskills, but Russ has problems, too. After his parents’ murder, who has transferred from an elite he adopted the persona “Boy21,“ a benevolent, emotionless alien stranded on Earth. Finley’s glum reluctance to help Boy21 grows private school in California, he into surprising grace and friendship, and when Russ begins to heal, Finley confronts his own tragic past. Finley’s relationships are finds that they have a lot in sweet, supportive, and authentic. The revelation of what happened in Finley’s childhood is heartbreaking, but the hopeful ending common in spite of their apparent pays off. An unusual and touching story. (Booklist) Fiction 250 pages UG Boy 21 differences. Title Summary Review

By Michael Grant: In the near With science as soft as pudding (though, really, who cares—pudding is delicious), Grant envisions nanotechnology so advanced future, the conjoined Armstrong that brains can be rewired, memories manipulated, and senses hacked by robots and gene-spliced creatures the size of dust mites. twins, under the guise of the A war between two ultra-secretive, competing ideologies—one championing free will, the other promising enforced happiness—is Armstrong Fancy Gifts Corporation, being fought “down in the meat,” and Grant gleefully exposes the biological ickiness of the body going about its everyday business plot to create their own version of in paranoia-inducing scenes of nanobots scuttling across spongy brain matter or plunging probes into optic nerves. At the same utopia using nanobots, while a time, he doles it out on the macro level as two teens are enlisted to help stop a maniacal baddie and his team of “twitchers,” guerilla group known as BZRK who are planning to infiltrate the heads of the world’s most powerful nations. With simmering pots of near-nonstop action and the develops a DNA-based biot that can threat of howling madness or brain-melting doom around every corpuscular corner, Grant’s new series is off to a breathless, stop bots, but at risk of the host's bombastic start. (Booklist Starred) Fantasy Fiction 386 pages UG BZRK brain.

Lots of kids think they live in a zoo; Wahoo Cray actually does. Wahoo's dad, Mickey, was the best wild-animal wrangler in south By Carl Hiaasen: The difficult star Florida until an iguana, frozen solid in a flash freeze, fell from a tree and conked him on the head. Now, Mickey has migraines of the reality television show, and double vision, and the family's in such dire financial straits that Wahoo's mother has taken a temporary job. When offered "Expedition Survival," disappears good money for the use of Mickey's tame animals, there's no saying no to the production company of Expedition Survival!, a on location in the Florida "reality" show starring Derek Badger. The Crays, however, draw the line at harming any animal; and Derek doesn't think the Everglades, where they were filming scenes are "real" enough. The production company hires Mickey and Wahoo as guides on an Everglades location shoot, which is animals from the wildlife refuge complicated in true Hiaasen fashion by an abused, runaway girl from Wahoo's class, a toothy encounter with a jazzed-out snake, a run by Wahoo Crane's family, and disastrously unsuccessful live-bat brunch...and a vanishing star. Hiaasen's novel features a shy, deep-feeling protagonist who's also a Wahoo and classmate Tuna Gordon pragmatist and plenty of nature info and age-appropriate cultural commentary. Humorous adventure tales just don't get any more set out to find him. wacked...or fun to read than this. (Kirkus Starred) Adventure Fiction 290 pages MG Chomp Title Summary Review

Wein’s exceptional -- downright sizzling -- abilities as a writer of historical adventure fiction are spectacularly evident in this taut, captivating story of two young women, spy and pilot, during World War II. Wein gives us the story in two consecutive parts -- By Elizabeth Wein: In 1943, a the first an account by Queenie (a.k.a. Lady Julia Beaufort-Stuart), a spy captured by the SS during a mission in Nazi-occupied British fighter plane crashes in Nazi-France. Queenie has bargained Linden to write what she knows about the British war effort in order to postpone her inevitable occupied France and the survivor execution. She charms her captors (and readers) as she writes her report and, mostly, tells the story of her best friend Maddie, the tells a tale of friendship, war, pilot who dropped her over France, then crashed. Unbeknownst to Queenie, Maddie survived the crash; part two is Maddie’s espionage, and great courage as "accident report" and account of her efforts to save Queenie. Wein gives us multiple doubletakes and surprises as she ratchets up she relates what she must to the tension in Maddie’s story, revealing Queenie’s joyously clever duplicity and the indefatigable courage of both young women. This survive while keeping secret all novel positively soars, in part no doubt because the descriptions of flying derive from Wein’s own experience as a pilot. But it’s that she can. outstanding in all its features -- its warm, ebullient characterization; its engagement with historical facts; its ingenious plot and dramatic suspense; and its intelligent, vivid writing. *Printz Award Honor Book *YALSA Top Ten Fiction Award (Horn Book) Mystery, Code Name Verity Historical Fiction 343 pages UG

By Libba Bray: Evie O'Neill has Bray’s lavish supernatural thriller plunks a macabre series of occult murders into 1920s New York. Newly arrived in Manhattan, been exiled from her boring old seventeen-year-old Evie O’Neill doesn’t plan to fade into the woodwork. As she tells friends back home in Ohio, “I’m going to be hometown and shipped off to the written up in all the papers and get invited to the Fitzgeralds’ flat for cocktails.” The first half of this prediction comes true, but bustling streets of New York City. not in the way she expects. Evie’s Uncle Will runs the Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult, a.k.a. the Soon enough, Evie is running with “Museum of Creepy Crawlies.” Early on, Miss Addie, Will’s eccentric elderly neighbor, recognizes that Evie is a diviner, someone glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish with a special connection to the spirit world. Eventually Evie’s more-or-less secret power to access people’s memories by touching pickpockets. The only catch is Evie one of their possessions allows her to help Will track Naughty John, a truly eerie ritual killer who happens to have died fifty years has to live with her Uncle Will, earlier. Bray switches perspectives among a variety of characters, some of whom also have supernatural abilities: a Harlem numbers curator of The Museum of American runner and poet; a world-weary Ziegfeld Follies dancer; the rakish con artist who fleeces Evie and then falls for her. Wisecracking Folklore, Superstition, and the Evie is a likable heroine, and all signs point to intriguing complications and more malevolent spirits on the rise in succeeding Occult--also known as "The Museum books. *YALSA Top Ten Fiction Award (Horn Book Starred) Fiction 578 pages UG of the Creepy Crawlies." The Diviners Title Summary Review

This superb novel from Pratchett is not only a fine Dickensian novel- Dickens himself figures prominently. It follows a sewer- By Terry Pratchett: In an scouring "tosher" and thief named Dodger, "a skinny young man who moved with the speed of a snake," who, like a knight in alternative London ruled by a soiled armor, leaps out of a drain one night to protect a young woman who is being severely beaten. Two of London's most young Queen Victoria, Dodger, a famous figures, Charles Dickens and social reformer Henry Mayhew, appear on the scene a moment later. A complex plot gradually resourceful, homeless boy, unravels involving the identity of the mystery girl, known only as Simplicity, and the reasons someone powerful wants her dead. unwittingly prevents Sweeney Todd Making guest appearances are such luminaries as Benjamin Disraeli, Queen Victoria, and Angela Burdett-Coutts, the richest woman from committing murder. in the world at the time. Full of eccentric characters and carefully detailed London scenes, the tale embodies both Dickens's love for the common man and a fierce desire for social justice. *Printz Award Honor Book (Publishers Weekly) Fiction 360 pages UG Dodger

By Sarah Lean: Fifth-grader Cally Cally Fisher hasn't spoken for 31 days. As she explains in the prologue, "Talking doesn't always make things happen, however Louise Fisher stops talking, partly much you want it to." She knows that talking won't bring her mother back to life or keep her dad from selling their home in because her father and brother exchange for a small apartment so what's the point in saying anything. But when her mother appears one day wearing a bright never speak of her mother who red raincoat and the only other soul that sees her is a big scraggly dog, the girl knows she must find a way to convince her died a year earlier, but visions of father that the dog is the only thing connecting them to her mother. But her father's growing depression continues to separate the her mother, friendships with a family and Cally struggles to keep her mother from becoming a distant memory. When she meets Sam, who lives downstairs, the homeless man and a disabled boy, friendship that forms between the boy who can’t see and the silent girl manages to reunite a family, and each character benefits and a huge dog ensure that she from the bond. Truly a lesson in the power of love and loss, this story shows that learning how to listen is more important than still communicates. what's being said. *Schneider Book Award Honor (School Library Journal) Fiction 202 pages MG A Dog Called Homeless Title Summary Review

Bacigalupi returns to a dark, war-torn dystopian future in which severe climatic change and years of political upheaval have left By Paolo Bacigalupi: In a dark, the United States a bloodied and ravaged landscape. Bands of child soldiers roam from village to village. Against the backdrop of future America that has devolved this blood-soaked chaos, two unlikely allies, a crippled teenage "war maggot" and a half-man/half-beast genetically altered killing into unending civil wars, orphans machine, risk their lives and their freedom to save a boy forced into servitude by rebel soldiers. Mahlia and Tool venture deeper Mahlia and Mouse barely escape and deeper into the Drowned Cities, each fueled by unwavering loyalty. As they do, readers are given glimpses of proof that love the war-torn lands of the Drowned and humanity can shine through even the most unimaginable darkness. Arguably, the novel's greatest success lies in the creation of Cities, but their fragile safety is a world that is so real, the grit and decay of war and ruin will lay thick on the minds of readers long after the final page. The soon threatened and Mahlia will narrative, however, is equally well crafted. Told in the third person, the novel alternates between Mahalia and Tool's stories, have to risk everything if she is to allowing both characters the time and space to imprint themselves on readers' hearts. Breathtaking. (Kirkus Starred) Fiction 437 save Mouse, as he once saved her. The Drowned Cities pages UG

By Althea Kontis: When Sunday Readers will discover a fabulous fairy-tale mashup that deserves hordes of avid readers. Sunday Woodcutter is the seventh daughter Woodcutter, the youngest sibling to of a seventh daughter, living in the shadow of the memory of her eldest brother, Jack Junior, who disappeared on a cursed quest sisters named for the other six of his own. Sunday's siblings each have their own fates and secrets. It is Sunday, however, who becomes fast friends with a talking days of the week, kisses an frog, and it is Sunday's kiss that frees him--except she doesn't know. Kontis has deeply and vividly woven just about every fairy enchanted frog, he transforms back character tale readers might half-remember into the fabric of her story. She does this so seamlessly, and with such energy and into Rumbold, the crown prince of good humor, that readers might miss a few references, caught up instead in Sunday's cheer and vivacity, or in Grumble-the- Arilland--a man Sunday's family Frog/Rumbold-the-Prince's intense romantic nature. Absolutely delectable in the wizardly grace of its storytelling. *YALSA Top Ten despises. Fiction Award (Kirkus Starred) Fantasy Fiction 308 pages MG Enchanted Title Summary Review

Imagine waking up in a different body every day. A is a 16-year-old genderless being who drifts from body to body each day, living the life of a new human host of the same age and similar geographic radius for 24 hours. One morning, A wakes up a girl By David Levithan: Every morning with a splitting hangover; another day A wakes up as a teenage boy so overweight he can barely fit into his car. Straight boys, A wakes in a different person's gay girls, teens of different races, body shapes, sizes and genders make up the catalog of A's outward appearances, but ultimately body, in a different person's life, A's spirit--or soul--remains the same. One downside of A's life is that A doesn't have a family, nor is A able to make friends. A learning over the years to never tries to interfere as little as possible with the lives of the teenagers until the day A meets and falls head over heels in love with get too attached, until he wakes Rhiannon. A pursues Rhiannon each day in whatever form s/he wakes up in, and Rhiannon learns to recognize A--not by up in the body of Justin and falls appearance, but by the way A looks at her across the room. Levithan's self-conscious, analytical style marries perfectly with the in love with Justin's girlfriend, plot. His musings on love, longing and human nature knit seamlessly with A's journey. An awe-inspiring, thought-provoking Rhiannon. reminder that love reaches beyond physical appearances or gender. *YALSA Top Ten Fiction Award (Kirkus Starred) Fiction 324 Every Day pages UG

This companion novel to The Rock and the River is narrated by fourteen-year-old Maxie. Maxie lives for the Black Panthers. She’s By Kekla Magoon: In the aftermath willing to pay her dues performing mundane chores in the office, but she pines for the day she can accept responsibilities typically of Dr. King's assassination in 1968, reserved for older members. In 1968, Chicago hosted the Democratic National Convention with its attendant riots, and the Panthers Chicago fourteen-year-old Maxie (with Maxie and her friends in tow) are right in the thick of things. As the events of the summer segue into the fall, Maxie seeks longs to join the Black Panthers, to renew her romance with Sam, but their relationship is complicated by other factors. He’s still grieving for his slain older whether or not her brother brother, while she’s dealing with problems at home. Her mother’s lost her job and has taken in yet another boyfriend; her older Raheem, ex-boyfriend Sam, or her brother, Raheem, can barely make ends meet. When the Panthers learn that there is a traitor in their midst, Maxie is sure that friends like it, and is soon caught finding the mole is her ticket to the party’s inner circle. Maxie’s voice is the big draw here, providing readers with a ground-level up in the violence of anti-war and view of an important historical moment but also of the nascent sociopolitical zeal of adolescence. (Horn Book) Historical Fiction civil rights demonstrations. Fire in the Streets 321 pages MG Title Summary Review

By Margaret Willey: Through Four secrets? This mystery twists like kudzu, creeping ever closer to truths that, as readers, we both need to know and are afraid journal entries required by their to find out. Katie, Nate, and Renata are three junior high school friends locked up after being found guilty of kidnapping the class social worker at a juvenile bully, Chase. Their stories are told in nonsequential, piecemeal fashion via journals for their social worker, Greta Shield. Katie has detention center, middle-schoolers two diaries, one for Mrs. Shield and a secret one filled with screenplay-style dialogue; Renata communicates only in skewed, Katie, Nate, and Renata relate how nightmarish drawings; and Nate tells his story as if it were a Tolkienesque fantasy. Gradually, Greta Shield emerges as the they came to kidnap their protagonist, obsessed with digging up the truth. If Chase wasn’t really kidnapped, then why are all four kids sticking to their tormentor, Chase, a star athlete stories? Rich in unique voices, Willey’s story masterfully teases out information until the final pages—and the ultimate revelations from the town's most prominent are well worth the torture. (Booklist Starred) 227 pages Fiction MG Four Secrets family.

The Good Braider follows Viola on a journey from her home in ravaged Sudan to Cairo and finally to the folds of a Sudanese community in Maine. Viola's story, told in free verse, is read with a constant lurking sense of both dread and hope. In the opening scene she gazes at the curve of the back of a boy walking the street in front of her, only to view his senseless execution moments By Terry Farish: A story of loss, later. This tension never completely dissipates, though it takes on different forms throughout her story; by the end it is replaced courage and hope as a teenage girl not by the fear of execution or of the lecherous soldier who forces her to trade herself for her family's safety, but by the tension escapes war-torn Sudan to face the of walking the line between her mother's cultural expectations and the realities of her new country. Yet while Farish so lyrically challenges of a new life in America. and poignantly captures Viola's wrenching experience leaving her home, navigating the waiting game of refugee life, and acculturating into the United States, she's equally successful in teasing out sweet moments of friendship and universal teenage experiences. Viola's memorable, affecting voice will go far to help students step outside of their own experience and walk a mile in The Good Braider another's shoes. (School Library Journal) Fiction in Verse 221 pages UG Title Summary Review

Is torture ever justified? Can a confession given under torture be considered the truth? What if the suspect is only 15? Set six By Anna Perera: Khalid, a fifteen- months after 9/11, this unforgettable novel is told through the story of teenage Khalid, born near Manchester, England, into a year-old Muslim boy from England, secular Muslim family. Close with his mates on the soccer field and excited about a girl in his class, Khalid grabs every spare is kidnapped while on holiday with minute at home to play war games online with his Pakistani cousin, Tariq, whom Khalid has never met. Then, on his first family his family in Pakistan and struggles trip to Pakistan, Khalid is suddenly arrested in the street, named an enemy combatant, beaten, and questioned, first in Pakistan, to understand when he is taken to then Afghanistan, and then Guantanamo Bay, where he is deprived of sleep, shackled, and water-boarded until he confesses to Guantanamo Bay and held without everything in order to stop the pain and get back home. Tariq is also a prisoner. Did he confess and betray Khalid? Were they charge. victims of bounty hunters? (Booklist Starred) Fiction 339 pages UG Guantanamo Boy

Still reeling from the death of her father, Jill resents her mother's plan to adopt a new baby. When soon-to-be birth mother Mandy arrives, she brings with her more than any of them imagined. Struggling with the loss of her like-minded father, guilt over By Sara Zarr: Told from their own her failings as a daughter and her heart, which she fears is permanently sealed, Jill is determined to dislike Mandy. Her viewpoints, Jill, in grief over the resentment, fueled by inconsistencies in the young mother's story, drives her to find an investigator. When a startling phone call loss of her father, and Mandy are exposes Mandy's darkest secrets, Jill finds herself more confused than ever. Mandy, who knows firsthand what it is like to grow up thrown together when Jill's mother unwanted and unloved, is determined to find a better life for her baby. But what if, in the meantime, she can find a better life agrees to adopt Mandy's unborn for herself? Told from the perspectives of both Jill and Mandy in alternating chapters, this moving story explores love, loss and child but nothing turns out as they whether a family can be more than the sum of its parts. Jill's cynicism is the perfect counterpart to Mandy's hopeful naivety. had anticipated. Likewise, Mandy's vulnerability highlights Jill's tough independence. Woven together from two simple threads, the resulting tapestry is as beautiful as it is real. A story that will resonate beyond its final page. *YALSA Top Ten Fiction Award (Kirkus Starred) Fiction How to Save a Life 341 pages UG Title Summary Review

By Nick Lake: In the aftermath of "I am the voice in the dark, calling out for your help." Amid the devastation of the recent Haiti earthquake, in a collapsed the Haitian earthquake, Shorty, a hospital, lies a teenage boy, waiting, hoping -- possibly in vain -- to be rescued. As he waits, his mind turns not only to the poor, fifteen-year-old gang member events in his own life that have led him to this point but also, in alternating sections, to the life of Haiti's great revolutionary, from the slums of Site Soleil, is Touissant L'Ouverture -- and the parallels between Haiti in the past and Haiti in the present are not lost on the reader. The boy trapped in the rubble of a hospital lives in one of the bleakest slums, and his life has been defined by violence, crime, and corruption: his father murdered, his sister and as he grows weaker, he has kidnapped, his own innocence compromised by gang activity -- and all of it sanctioned by the corrupt relationship between the visions and memories of his life of government and the gangs. There is a mystical thread that connects this boy not only to Aristide but to L'Ouverture, whose violence, his lost twin sister, and of presence seems to visit the boy in his ordeal. The boy draws strength from the inspiring but heartbreaking story of this noble Toussaint L'Ouverture, who revolutionary leader, providing the impetus to re-evaluate his own life. The leisurely pacing allows Lake to develop his unforgettable liberated Haiti from French rule in characters, harrowing settings, and lay the foundation for his timely and relevant themes. *Printz Award Winner (Horn Book) In Darkness 1804. Historical Fiction 341 pages UG

After her father has been missing in action for nine years during the Vietnam War, 10-year-old Hà flees with her mother and three older brothers. Traveling first by boat, the family reaches a tent city in Guam, moves on to Florida, and is finally connected By Thanhha Lai: Through a series with sponsors in Alabama, where Hà finds refuge but also cruel rejection, especially from mean classmates. Based on Lai’s personal of poems, a young girl chronicles experience, this first novel captures a child-refugee’s struggle with rare honesty. Written in accessible, short free-verse poems, Hà’s the life-changing year of 1975, immediate narrative describes her mistakes—both humorous and heartbreaking—with grammar, customs, and dress, and readers when she, her mother, and her will be moved by Hà’s sorrow as they recognize the anguish of being the outcast who spends lunchtime hiding in the bathroom. brothers leave Vietnam and resettle Eventually, Hà does get back at the sneering kids who bully her at school, and she finds help adjusting to her new life from a in Alabama. kind teacher who lost a son in Vietnam. The elemental details of Hà’s struggle dramatize a foreigner’s experience of alienation. And even as she begins to shape a new life, there is no easy comfort. *Newbery Honor Book *National Book Award (Booklist) Verse Inside Out and Back Fiction 262 pages MG Again Title Summary Review

By Shelly Pearsall: In 1945, Levi With a style reminiscent of Christopher Paul Curtis, Pearsall takes us along as 13-year-old Levi Battle searches for his father and is sent to find the father he has struggles to find his place in the world. It's 1945 and he is sent to live with his father who is stationed in North Carolina. After not seen in three years, going from finding out that his father has shipped out on a secret mission, Levi and a young soldier travel to Oregon to join up with the Chicago, to segregated North battalion. Much to Levi's surprise, his father is a well-respected officer in an elite, but little recognized, battalion of black Carolina, and finally to Pendleton, paratroopers. As father and son work on their strained relationship, a real threat calls the soldiers out to defend the Oregon Oregon, where he learns that his countryside. This well-researched novel brings to light some relatively obscure aspects of World War II. Coupled with rich father's unit, the all-Black 555th supporting characters and the folksy and humorous style in which it is told, this is a sure winner. (Library Media Connection) paratrooper battalion finally has a Historical Fiction 344 pages MG Jump into the Sky mission.

By Rebecca Stead: Seventh-grader Life is lousy for Brooklyn seventh-grader Georges. His architect father has been laid off so they’ve had to move, and he never sees Georges adjusts to moving from a his mother now that she’s doing double shifts as an intensive-care nurse. School is no respite, what with former best friend having house to an apartment, his father's ditched him to sit at the cool lunch table and with bully Dallas’s endless torments. And so when he meets homeschooler Safer, efforts to start a new business, his who lives in his new building and offers to train him as a spy, Georges figures, why not? Their target is one Mr. X, who lives on mother's extra shifts as a nurse, the fourth floor and, according to Safer, has been behaving in some very worrisome ways. Wild parrots, Scrabble tiles, SweeTarts, being picked on at school, and the Science Unit of Destiny, and America’s Funniest Home Videos all factor into this smart, slightly noirish tale. Stead’s spare and Safer, a boy who wants his help elegant prose, compassionate insight into the lives of young people, wry sense of humor, deft plotting, and ability to present spying on another resident of their complex ideas in an accessible and intriguing way make this much more than a mystery-with-a-twist. (Horn Book) Mystery Fiction building. 180 pages MG Liar & Spy Title Summary Review

By Allie Condie: Cassia has always “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Cassia’s feelings of security disintegrate after her grandfather hands her a slip of paper had complete trust in the Society just before his scheduled death at age 80. Not only does she now possess an illegal poem, but she also has a lingering interest in to make decisions for her, but the boy who fleetingly appeared on her viewscreen, the one who wasn’t her match, the man she will eventually marry. What’s when she is being paired with her worse, she knows him—his name is Ky, and he is an orphan from the Outer Provinces. How could she love him as much as ideal mate, a second face flashes Xander, her match and best friend since childhood? The stunning clarity and attention to detail in Condie’s Big Brother–like world on the screen, and Cassia begins to is a feat. Some readers might find the Society to be a close cousin of Lois Lowry’s dystopian future in The Giver, with carefully doubt the Society's infallibility as chosen work placements, constant monitoring, and pills for regulating emotional extremes. However, the author just as easily tears she tries to decide who she truly this world apart while deftly exploring the individual cost of societal perfection and the sacrifices inherent in freedom of choice. Matched loves. (Booklist) Fantasy Fiction 369 pages UG

Hoose explores the tragedy of extinction through a single bird species, but there is hope for survival in this story, and that hope is pinned on understanding the remarkable longevity of a single bird. B95 is a 4-ounce, robin-sized shorebird, a red knot of the subspecies rufa. Each February he joins a flock that lifts off from Tierra del Fuego and heads for breeding grounds in the Canadian By Phillip M. Hoose: Chronicles a Arctic, 9,000 miles away. Late in the summer, he begins the return journey. Scientists call him Moonbird because, in the course of year in the life of rufa red knot his astoundingly long lifetime of nearly 20 years, he has flown the distance to the moon and halfway back. B95 can fly for days B95, also called Moonbird, without eating or sleeping but eventually must land to refuel and rest. Recent changes, however, at refueling stations along his following him through his migration migratory circuit, most caused by human activity, have reduced the available food. Since 1995, when B95 was captured and pattern and discussing the banded, the rufa population has collapsed by nearly 80 percent. Scientists want to know why this one bird survives year after year environmental problems that caused when so many others do not. In a compelling, vividly detailed narrative, Hoose takes readers around the hemisphere, showing them the rufa population to collapse by the obstacles rufa red knots face, introducing a global team of scientists and conservationists, and offering insights about what can nearly eighty percent. be done to save them before it's too late. Meticulously researched and told with inspiring prose and stirring images, this is a gripping, triumphant story of science and survival. *YALSA Nonfiction Finalist *Sibert Honor Book (Kirkus Starred) Nonfiction 148 Moonbird: A Year on the Wind pages MG with the Great Survivor B95 Title Summary Review

By David Almond: Prequel to This is the story of Mina, the girl next door who, in Skellig, helped Michael cope with the man he found in his garage eating dead Skellig. Creative, intelligent Mina flies and growing wings. Who was Mina before Michael arrived? Form as well as language bring Mina alive. Her journal introduces keeps a journal in her own us to this authoritative, imaginative, irascible child, and her entries appear in her childlike penmanship; the print is big and bold disorderly way that reveals how her when she finds a word she loves (“METEMPSYCHOSIS!”), and she uses concrete poetry as she plays with language and thoughts. And mind is growing into something what thoughts! Mina is homeschooled, because, well, because she’s Mina, and she needs expanses of time to think about myths and extraordinary, especially after she mathematics. She dreams of her dead father and wonders, wonders, wonders about birds. It is the birds that will lead readers into begins homeschooling under the Skellig—that, and glimpses of Michael and his family moving next door. This book stands very much alone, but the sense of direction of her widowed mother. wonder that pervades the smallest details of everyday life remains familiar. (Booklist Starred) Fiction 300 pages MG My Name is Mina

By Patricia McCormick: This is a work of fiction based on a true McCormick tackles a horrifying subject with grace while unsentimentally portraying the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge and story. When soldiers arrive in his Cambodia's killing fields. This novel is based on a real person, Arn Chorn Pond, who was 11 years old at the time of the country's hometown in Cambodia, Arn Chorn Communist revolution. Arn's narration balances a palpable and constant sense of fear, starvation, and humiliation with his will to Pond is separated from his family survive. Doing so involves great moral compromises, bravery, and a capacity for love and friendship despite the nightmarish and sent to a labor camp, where circumstances. McCormick divides the narrative into five periods: life before the revolution; in the camps, where Arn learns to play he works in the rice paddies until the music; his induction into the Khmer Rouge; his time in a refugee camp; and, finally, his transition to America. On how to he volunteers to learn to play an survive, Arn observes, "You show you care, you die. You show fear, you die. You show nothing, maybe you live." While never instrument--a decision that both shying from the ugliness and brutality of this genocide, McCormick crafts a powerful tribute to the human spirit. *YALSA Top Ten saves his life and lands him in Fiction Award (Publishers Weekly) Fiction 216 pages UG Never Fall Down battle. Title Summary Review

Lewis Michaux provided a venue for his fellow African-Americans to have access to their own history and philosophy at a time when the very idea was revolutionary. Michaux's family despaired of him, as he engaged in petty crime and was obviously headed in the wrong direction. He began to read, however, and discovered a connection to the writings of Marcus Garvey and others, and he determined that knowledge of black thinkers and writers was the way to freedom and dignity. With an inventory of five books, By Vaunda Micheaux Nelson: Tells he started his National Memorial African Bookstore as "the home of proper propaganda" and built it into a Harlem landmark, the story of Lewis Michaux who where he encouraged his neighbors to read, discuss and learn, whether or not they could afford to buy. His clients included built a bookstore in Harlem despite Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Langston Hughes and Nikki Giovanni. Nelson, Michaux's great-niece, makes use of an exhaustive widespread opposition. collection of interviews, articles, books, transcripts and FBI files, filling in the gaps with "informed speculation." Brief entries arranged in mostly chronological order read seamlessly so that fact and fiction meld in a cohesive whole. A stirring and thought- provoking account of an unsung figure in 20th-century American history. *Coretta Scott King Honor Book (Kirkus Starred) Biography No Crystal Stair with added Fiction 188 pages MG

By Lesléa Newman: On October 6, In 1998 Gay Awareness Week was beginning at the University of Wyoming, and the keynote speaker was Lesléa Newman, 1998, 21-year-old Matthew discussing her book Heather Has Two Mommies . Shaken by the events of Matthew Shepard’s death, the author addressed the large Shepard, a gay student at the audience that gathered and remained haunted by Matthew’s murder. October Mourning, a novel in verse, is her deeply felt University of Wyoming, was response to the events of that tragic day. Using her poetic imagination, the author creates fictitious monologues from various savagely beaten and left to die. points of view, including the fence Matthew was tied to, the stars that watched over him, the deer that kept him company, and This collection of poetry honors Matthew himself. More than a decade later, this stunning cycle of sixty-eight poems serves as an illumination for readers too young Shepard's memory. to remember, and as a powerful, enduring tribute to Matthew Shepard’s life. *Stonewall Honor Book Poetry 111 pages UG October Mourning: a Song for Matthew Shepard Title Summary Review

"I am Ivan. I am a gorilla. / It's not as easy as it looks." In short chapters, Applegate has captured the voice of Ivan, a captive By Katherine Applegate: When Ivan, gorilla who lives at the "Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade." When a new baby elephant, Ruby, arrives, Ivan promises the old a gorilla who has lived for years in elephant, Stella, that he will take care of her. He comes to realize that their years of captivity in such a restrictive environment a down-and-out circus-themed mall, are not what Ruby deserves. He hatches a daring plan that involves his own original artwork, a stray dog, the daughter of the meets Ruby, a baby elephant that custodian, and a zoo thousands of miles away. The choice to tell this story in the first person and to personify the gorilla with an has been added to the mall, he entire range of human thoughts, feelings, and emotions poses important questions to the reader, not only about what it means to decides that he must find her a be human but also about what it means to be a living creature, and what kind of kinship we all share. An author's note describes better life. the true incident that inspired this story and includes more information about the real Ivan. *Newbery Medal Winner (Horn Book) Fiction 305 pages MG The One and Only Ivan

It’s a familiar story: the magic season, the underdog overcoming all odds. The 1971 Macon, Illinois, high-school baseball team and its misfit coach went all the way to the state finals, knocking off powerhouse teams with enrollments larger than their entire central Illinois town. Coach L. C. Sweet, a free-spirited English teacher, had been a pretty good amateur ballplayer. His resemblance By Chris Ballard: Tells the story of to Frank Zappa and his unconventional ways—holding practice only if the kids felt like it, letting them sew peace symbols on a small-town baseball team from their caps, tolerating them “belting out ‘Yellow Submarine’ at the top of their lungs” as they arrived for away games—didn’t sit Illinois in 1971. well with the community. But the boys won. And when they beat formidable Lane Tech from Chicago to reach the state finals, even the naysayers couldn’t argue with Sweet being named Coach of the Year. Ballard writes very well and avoids the usual pitfalls One Shot at Forever: a of the “inspirational” story, the cloying platitudes and rah-rah nonsense. These kids were simply good ballplayers coached by a guy Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and with an open mind, a lot of common sense, and a zest for fun. *Alex Award Winner (Booklist) Nonfiction 254 pages AD a Magical Baseball Season Title Summary Review

"What I am is a person who's capable of loving other people. That's all that matters." This is the unwavering thrust of By Ellen Wittlinger: Grady, a Wittlinger's novel, narrated by Grady (born Angela), a transgendered teenage boy who is determined to show his true self to the transgendered high school student, world. Supporters include nerdy Sebastian, gorgeous Kita, and Grady's upset but protective mother, whose ability to be loving and yearns for acceptance by his supportive despite her confusion and unhappiness makes her the most complex member of the ensemble. The plot enriches a classmates and family as he thought-provoking discussion of gender roles and gender identity. Grady is ultimately both recognizable and likable -- an awkward, struggles to adjust to his new slightly insecure, occasionally eloquent kid devoted to family and friends, just trying to figure out where he fits in the world. (Horn identity. Book) Fiction 294 pages UG Parrotfish

Joylin, 12, has always been comfortable in her own skin. Then strange things start to happen. She begins to notice boys; her forever friend and b-ball buddy, Jake, begins to treat her differently on the court; and Joylin and her best girlfriend, Kaylee, develop different interests. Joylin feels like an "alien" who finds herself in "Planet Middle School" by mistake, "searching for that By Nikki Grimes: A series of poems spaceship/that's gonna take me home." She tries to morph from a tomboy in baggy jeans and an old T-shirt into someone more describes all the baffling changes at feminine, trying lipstick, heels, and a skirt, each with disastrous results. That she emerges from these oh-so-embarrassing episodes home and at school in twelve-year- effectively provides reassurance and hope. Joylin's voice is revealed in spare, well-paced verse. Young and adult characters are old Joylin's life. plausible, likable, and supportive of one another. The story is by turns touching and laugh-out-loud funny, and readers will appreciate the time they spend with Joylin, her family, and her friends as they live, grow, and learn as individuals and together. (School Library Journal) Fiction in Verse 154 pages MG Planet Middle School Title Summary Review

Set in 1969, Manzano's first novel offers a realistically mercurial protagonist struggling with her identity in Spanish Harlem. By Sonia Manzano: It is 1969 in Fourteen-year-old Rosa Mara Evelyn del Carmen Serrano is frustrated with life in El Barrio. Tired of working for her mother and Spanish Harlem, and fourteen-year- stepfather in their bodega, she takes a job at a five-and-dime and hopes to trudge through the rest of the summer. Everything old Evelyn Serrano is trying hard changes when her abuela arrives, taking over Evelyn's bedroom and bearing secrets of the family's involvement in Puerto Rico's to break free from her conservative tumultuous history. When a group called the Young Lords begins working to bring positive changes to the neighborhood, some Puerto Rican surroundings, but residents are resistant, including Evelyn's mother. Led by her grandmother's example, Evelyn begins to take an interest in the when her activist grandmother efforts of the activist group. As the months pass, the three generations of women begin to see one another's perspectives, and comes to stay and the Evelyn realizes the importance of her Puerto Rican heritage. Like most real-world teens, she changes subtly, rather than through neighborhood protests start, things one earth-shattering epiphany. The author effectively captures this shifting perception in the dialogue and Evelyn's first-person get a lot more complicated--and narration. Secondary characters of surprising dimension round out the plot and add to the novel's cultural authenticity, as do the The Revolution of Evelyn dangerous. Spanish and Spanglish words and phrases sprinkled throughout the text so seamlessly that a glossary would be moot. A stunning debut. *Pura Belpre Honor Book (Kirkus Starred) Fiction 205 pages MG Serrano

In Hartman's splendid prose debut, humans and dragons--who can take human form but not human feeling--have lived in uneasy By Rachel Hartman: In a world peace for 40 years. The dragons could destroy the humans, but they are too fascinated by them. As musician Seraphina describes where dragons and humans coexist it, humans are like cockroaches to dragons, but interesting. As the anniversary of the treaty approaches, things fall apart: The in an uneasy truce and dragons crown prince has been murdered, anti-dragon sentiment is rising, and in the midst of it all, an awkward, gifted, observant girl can assume human form, Seraphina unexpectedly becomes central to everything. By turns pedantic, lonely, scared, drily funny and fierce, Seraphina brings readers into grapples with her own identity her world and imparts details from the vast (a religion of saints, one of whom is heretical) to the minute (her music, in amid magical secrets and royal beautifully rendered detail). The wealth of detail never overwhelms, relayed as it is amid Seraphina's personal journey; half-human scandals, while she struggles to and half-dragon, she is anathema to all and lives in fear. But her growing friendship with the princess and the princess' betrothed, accept and develop her plus her unusual understanding of both humans and dragons, all lead to a poignant and powerful acceptance of herself. Dragon extraordinary musical talents. books are common enough, but this one is head and talons above the rest. *William C. Morris Award Winner *YALSA Top Ten Seraphina Fiction Award (Kirkus Starred) Fantasy Fiction 499 pages MG Title Summary Review

Ben has the talent to be a star on Broadway after high school, but instead “Broadway” just becomes his nickname with his By Harry Mazer: Wounded in Iraq buddies in Iraq. Ben’s e-mails to his longtime girlfriend Ariela portray a young man much changed from the one she and Ben’s while his Army unit is on convoy best friend, Niko, remember. When a blast sends Ben home with a traumatic brain injury, Ariela and Niko deal with Ben’s and treated for many months for condition differently. Screwball Niko becomes an introspective and constant companion to Ben’s mom and brother. Ariela, away at traumatic brain injury, the first school, buries herself in new relationships while keeping Ben in her heart. Ben emerges from a coma struggling to remember person Ben remembers from his anything about his past self, including how to speak, construct meaning, and recognize loved ones. Although the reader may earlier life is his brother who has despair at the tragic turn of a young man so full of promise, the ending offers a glimpse of light at the end of what will be a autism. Somebody, Please Tell long, dark tunnel. *Schneider Book Award Winner (Booklist) Fiction 148 pages UG Me Who I Am

A brooding, Dickensian novel with a touch of fantasy and a glimmer of hope, Schlitz’s latest opens in London in 1860, when lonely By Laura Amy Schlitz: When Clara Clara, the only remaining child in a doctor’s grief-stricken household, attempts to celebrate her twelfth birthday. Grisini the puppet vanishes after the puppeteer Grisini master is engaged to perform, along with the two orphaned children, Lizzie Rose and Parsefall, who serve as his assistants. Clara and two orphaned assistants were bridges the class divide to befriend the children. After kidnapping Clara for ransom, cruel Grisini disappears, leaving Lizzie Rose and at her twelfth birthday party, Parsefall struggling to survive on their own. They make their way to the country house of a bewitched woman whose magical suspicion of kidnapping chases the amulet gives her amazing powers while draining away her humanity. There they learn certain grisly secrets involving their cruel trio away from London and soon master, Clara’s fate, and the wealthy witch, who seeks to control them all. The magic of the storytelling here lies in the subtle the two orphans are caught in a depiction of menacing evil. After working its way insidiously through the characters’ lives, it is defeated by the children, who grow trap set by Grisini's ancient rival, a in strength and understanding throughout the novel. Vividly portrayed and complex, the characters are well-defined individuals witch with a deadly inheritance to whose separate strands of story are colorful and compelling. Schlitz weaves them into an intricate tapestry that is as mysterious shed before it is too late. and timeless as a fairy tale. *Newbery Honor Book (Booklist Starred) Fiction 384 pages MG Splendors and Glooms Title Summary Review

When a troubled runaway arrives in an isolated Chinese village where the moon has disappeared, he initiates a quest to find the missing orb and resolve his past. Escaping from home in a merchant's cart, Rendi's abandoned in the Village of Clear Sky, where the innkeeper hires him as chore boy. Bad-tempered and insolent, Rendi hates Clear Sky, but he has no way of leaving the sad By Grace Lin: An innkeeper's boy village where every night the sky moans and the moon has vanished. The innkeeper's bossy daughter irritates Rendi. He wonders discovers that a visitor's stories about the innkeeper's son who's disappeared and about peculiar old Mr. Shan, who confuses toads with rabbits. When mysterious hold the key to returning the Madame Chang arrives at the inn, her storytelling transports Rendi. She challenges him to contribute his own stories, in which he moon to the Starry River of the gradually reveals his identity as son of a wealthy magistrate. Realizing there's a connection between Madame Chang's stories and Sky. the missing moon, Rendi assumes the hero's mantle, transforming himself from a selfish, self-focused boy into a thoughtful young man who learns the meaning of home, harmony and forgiveness. Lin artfully wraps her hero's story in alternating layers of Chinese folklore, providing rich cultural context. Detailed, jewel-toned illustrations and spot art reminiscent of Chinese painting highlight key scenes and themes and serve as the focus of an overall exquisite design. (Kirkus Starred) Fiction 288 pages MG Starry River of the Sky

Blumenthal, a former business reporter, uses a speech Jobs made to a graduating class at Stanford as an inviting hook to draw readers in. He told his audience stories about the most important incidents in his life, beginning with his adoption, and how the By Karen Blumenthal: Chronicles dots of his life connected in mysterious ways. His adoptive father was skilled with his hands and a perfectionist, a trait Jobs the life and accomplishments of carried on, sometimes to extremes. The worst moments in Jobs’ life, like being fired from Apple, the company he built, led him to Apple mogul Steve Jobs, discussing bigger and better moments, and an eventual return to Apple, where he would give the world iPods, iPhones, and iPads. His final his ideas, and describing how he story was about his cancer, and his message was to “follow your heart and intuition.” Through original interviews, a smart use of has influenced life in the twenty- source material, and a wonderfully easy-going style, Blumenthal gives a full portrait of Jobs, with his many well-documented flaws, first century. Steve Jobs: The Man his original and far-sighted aesthetic, and his willingness to push himself and others to achieve the best—as he perceived it. This is a smart book about a smart subject by a smart writer. *YALSA Nonfiction Finalist (Booklist Starred) Nonfiction 310 pages MG who Thought Different Title Summary Review

By Sheila Turnage: Washed ashore Quick-thinking and precocious Mo LoBeau is hilarious in this modern-day mystery set in a small North Carolina town. The 11-year- as a baby in tiny Tupelo Landing, old discovers the true meaning of family as she searches for her "upstream mother." As a baby, Mo was found washed ashore North Carolina, Mo LoBeau, now during a hurricane and has led a quiet life with the Colonel, a cafe owner with a hidden past, and Miss Lana, the fun and colorful eleven, and her best friend Dale cafe hostess. Then one day, this idyllic town is turned upside down by a murder investigation. The twists and turns in the plot will turn detective when the amnesiac keep readers on their toes, and the humorous interactions between Mo and her quirky neighbors will keep them coming back for Colonel, owner of a cafe and co- more. While the story is amusing and mysterious, the author also skillfully touches on tough issues. The mood of the book stays parent of Mo with his cook, Miss light and keeps youngsters rooting for Mo in all of her adventurous endeavors, yet elicits empathy for the secondary characters as Lana, seems implicated in a they endure and conquer challenging circumstances. *Newbery Honor Book (School Library Journal) Fiction 312 pages MG Three Times Lucky murder.

It's no paradise. White-sand beaches and spectacular sunsets come with mud, mosquitoes and croc-infested swamps. But guided by By Jodi Lynn Anderson: Fifteen-year- fragile, insect-size faerie Tink, readers are drawn into this richly re-imagined Neverland. Adopted daughter of shaman Tik Tok, Tiger old Tiger Lily receives special Lily is proud and competitive, kept at a wary distance by her peers except for gentle Pine Sap, whose unconditional love she protections from the spiritual forces appreciates but doesn't return. Athletic Tiger Lily, nonathletic Pine Sap and Tik Tok, whose self-identity doesn't match his gender, of Neverland, but then she meets share a bond that's shaken after Tiger Lily rescues an English shipwreck survivor, then falls in love with Peter, following him into her tribe's most dangerous enemy-- an emotional wilderness as intoxicating and dangerous as Neverland itself. Tink's love and helplessness (faeries read thoughts but Peter Pan--and falls in love with cannot speak) become a source of tension and metaphor in this post-colonial fable that covers a lot of ground: wilderness and him. civilization, gender and power, time and change. Working with the darker threads of Barrie's bittersweet classic, Anderson weaves Tiger Lily an enchanting tale. (Kirkus Starred) Fiction 292 pages UG Title Summary Review

Hopkinson puts a human face on the Titanic's sinking in this riveting nonfiction chronicle of the ship's collision with an iceberg and the tragic aftermath. She threads together the stories of many passengers and crew members, focusing on a handful of By Deborah Hopkinson: Draws on survivors that includes an Argentine-born stewardess, a rambunctious nine-year-old British boy, a science teacher from England, and stories from survivors and archival an American teenager traveling with his parents. The author quotes these four and others freely, their voices forming a deeply photographs to describe the history intimate account of the tragedy. Hopkinson packs her thoroughly researched story with a wealth of information about the ship of the "Titanic" from its launch to itself, and her portraits of the shipmates are fully realized and often heartbreaking. Chapters detailing the sinking, the scramble for its sinking. lifeboats, and the harrowing wait for the Carpathia's arrival are fast-paced and riveting. Photos of the ship, the (purported) iceberg, telegrams sent to and from the Titanic, and of the survivors' rescue add significant context and amplify the immediacy of Titanic: Voices from the the drama. *YALSA Nonfiction Finalist and *Sibert Honor Book (Publishers Weekly) Nonfiction 289 pages MG Disaster

A resilient Mexican-American girl copes with familial obligation and loss in this free-verse novel. Drawing from her own teen years for inspiration, McCall highlights life in the borderlands: "En los Estados Unidos / I trained my tongue / and twisted syllables / to By Guadalupe Garcia McCall: form words / that sounded hollow, / like the rain at midnight / dripping into tin pails / through the thatched roof / of our Throughout her high school years, abuelita's house." Lupita's first-person tale captures pivotal moments of her high-school years in the border town of Eagle Pass, as her mother battles cancer, Texas, with glimpses back at her first six years in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. During her freshman year, Lupita discovers Lupita takes on more responsibility that her mother has cancer. While her mother fights the disease and her father struggles to support the family financially, Lupita for her house and seven younger sometimes becomes the de facto parental unit for her seven younger siblings. As she worries about food and money, Lupita siblings, while finding refuge in experiences troubles and triumphs of a teenage girl; her drama teacher, Mr. Cortez, helps her find an outlet for her talent and her acting and writing poetry. pain. Meanwhile, family members continue to draw strength and support from each other on both sides of the border. With poignant imagery and well-placed Spanish, the author effectively captures the complex lives of teenagers. A promising, deeply felt debut. *YALSA Top Ten Fiction Award (Kirkus Starred) Fiction in Verse 224 pages MG Under the Mesquite Title Summary Review

Due to a rare genetic disorder, Auggie Pullman's head is malformed, his facial features are misshapen, and he has scars from By R.J. Palacio: Auggie Pullman, corrective surgery. After much discussion and waffling, he and his parents decide it's time for him to go to a regular school for who was born with extreme facial the fifth grade instead of being homeschooled. All his life Auggie has seen the shocked expressions and heard the whispers his abnormalities and was not expected appearance generates, and he has his coping strategies. He knows that except for how he looks, he's a normal kid. What he to survive, goes from being home- experiences is typical middle school-the good and the bad. Meanwhile, his beautiful sister is starting high school and having her schooled to entering fifth grade at own problems. She's finding that friendships change and, though it makes her feel guilty, she likes not being labeled as Auggie's a private middle school in sister. Multiple people tell this story, including Auggie, two of his new school friends, his sister, and his sister's former best friend. Manhattan, which entails enduring Palacio has an exceptional knack for writing realistic conversation and describing the thoughts and emotions of the characters. the taunts and fear of his Everyone grows and develops as the story progresses, especially the middle school students. This is a fast read and would be a classmates as he struggles to be great discussion starter about love, support, and judging people on their appearance. A well-written, thought-provoking book.- seen as just another student. Wonder (School Library Journal) Fiction 315 pages MG