Little Giant of Aberdeen County

by Tiffany Baker

In an upstate New York backwater, Truly, massive from birth, has a bleak existence with her depressed father and her china-doll–like sister, Serena Jane. Truly grows at an astonishing rate—her girth the result of a pituitary gland problem—and after her father dies when Truly is 12, Truly is sloughed off to the Dyersons, a hapless farming family. Her outsize kindness surfaces as she befriends the Dyersons' outcast daughter, Amelia, and later leaves her beloved Dyerson farm to take care of Serena Jane's husband and son after Serena Jane leaves them. Haunting the margins of Truly's story is that of Tabitha Dyerson, a rumored witch whose secrets afford a breathtaking role reversal for Truly. It's got all the earmarks of a hit—infectious and lovable narrator, a dash of magic, an impressive sweep and a heartrending but not treacly family drama.

Among the Hidden

Junior

By Margaret Peterson Haddix.

Among the Hidden is the first book in the Shadow Children. It grabbed my attention from the beginning and I enjoyed reading the whole book. I look forward to reading the next books in the series, and hope they are as good as this one!


From Amazon.com:

Born third at a time when having more than two children per family is illegal and subject to seizure and punishment by the Population Police, Luke has spent all of his 12 years in hiding. His parents disobeyed once by having him and are determined not to do anything unlawful again. At first the woods around his family's farm are thick enough to conceal him when he plays and works outdoors, but when the government develops some of that land for housing, his world narrows to just the attic. Gazing through an air vent at new homes, he spies a child's face at a window after the family of four has already left for the day. Is it possible that he is not the only hidden child? Answering this question brings Luke greater danger than he has ever faced before, but also greater possibilities for some kind of life outside of the attic. This is a near future of shortages and deprivation where widespread famines have led to a totalitarian government that controls all aspects of its citizens' lives. When the boy secretly ventures outside the attic and meets the girl in the neighboring house, he learns that expressing divergent opinions openly can lead to tragedy. To what extent is he willing to defy the government in order to have a life worth living?

The Lorax

by Dr. Seuss

Amazon.com Review
When Dr. Seuss gets serious, you know it must be important. Published in 1971, and perhaps inspired by the "save our planet" mindset of the 1960s, The Lorax is an ecological warning that still rings true today amidst the dangers of clear-cutting, pollution, and disregard for the earth's environment. In The Lorax, we find what we've come to expect from the illustrious doctor: brilliantly whimsical rhymes, delightfully original creatures, and weirdly undulating illustrations. But here there is also something more--a powerful message that Seuss implores both adults and children to heed. The now remorseful Once-ler--our faceless, bodiless narrator--tells the story himself. Long ago this enterprising villain chances upon a place filled with wondrous Truffula Trees, Swomee-Swans, Brown Bar-ba- loots, and Humming-Fishes. Bewitched by the beauty of the Truffula Tree tufts, he greedily chops them down to produce and mass-market Thneeds. ("It's a shirt. It's a sock. It's a glove. It's a hat.") As the trees swiftly disappear and the denizens leave for greener pastures, the fuzzy yellow Lorax (who speaks for the trees "for the trees have no tongues") repeatedly warns the Once-ler, but his words of wisdom are for naught. Finally the Lorax extricates himself from the scorched earth (by the seat of his own furry pants), leaving only a rock engraved "UNLESS." Thus, with his own colorful version of a compelling morality play, Dr. Seuss teaches readers not to fool with Mother Nature. But as you might expect from Seuss, all hope is not lost--the Once-ler has saved a single Truffula Tree seed! Our fate now rests in the hands of a caring child, who becomes our last chance for a clean, green future. (Ages 4 to 8)

The Glass Maker's Daughter

Young Adult

By V. Briceland

I enjoyed this book but felt the writer could have done much more with the ideas and characters that were created.  The ending was blunt and it seemed like the author ran out of ideas and just ended the story. 

From Kirkus Reviews

There are some imaginative moments and one very good idea in this muddled fantasy, but also a lot of clunky dialogue, cliched expressions and dei ex machinae. Risa looks forward to being chosen to study her family's trade, glassmaking, when the two moons above Cassaforte align, and she's heartbroken and confused when neither of the gods chooses her. Her city, with its shining buildings and glimmering canals, is soon in greater trouble, though, as Risa's noble parents are held captive and a usurping prince demands the crown. Risa and the brother-and-sister team of Camilla and Milo, her guards, are given much trouble as they try to untangle the web of intrigue and fit it into the magic that makes Cassaforte safe and secure. Risa's place in that web resolves itself finally in a rescued beggar who turns out to be not such a mysterious figure after all. Obvious connections to the culture of medieval Venice, from glass to silk to music to gondolas, provide color but not depth.

So B. It

Junior

By Sarah Weeks

So B. It: This Junior book was recommended to me by a patron who said it was "awesome".  After I read the back of the book I knew I needed to find out more.  The book is about a young girl named Heidi It who is raised by a mentally challenged mother and a neighbor,  Bernie,  who has angoraphobia.  Heidi desperately needs to find out how she came to live in the apartment with her mother, who her mother is and why she can only speak 21 words with the most mysterious being Soof.   The book details Heidi's journey when she is 13 and how sometimes the answers that she wants are not what she needs. 

People of the Book

By Geraldine Brooks

 I found this book to be rather hard to get into, initially.  There is a lot of background that needs to be established before the real story can begin, and though the milieu is interesting, it is also a bit tedious.  Once you get past the first part, though, the book gets increasingly easier to read.  Thus far, I am very much enjoying this novel.

From Publishers Weekly
Reading Geraldine Brooks's remarkable debut novel, Year of Wonders, or more recently March, which won the Pulitzer Prize, it would be easy to forget that she grew up in Australia and worked as a journalist. Now in her dazzling new novel, People of the Book, Brooks allows both her native land and current events to play a larger role while still continuing to mine the historical material that speaks so ardently to her imagination. Late one night in the city of Sydney, Hanna Heath, a rare book conservator, gets a phone call. The Sarajevo Haggadah, which disappeared during the siege in 1992, has been found, and Hanna has been invited by the U.N. to report on its condition. Missing documents and art works (as Dan Brown and Lev Grossman, among others, have demonstrated) are endlessly appealing, and from this inviting premise Brooks spins her story in two directions. In the present, we follow the resolutely independent Hanna through her thrilling first encounter with the beautifully illustrated codex and her discovery of the tiny signs-a white hair, an insect wing, missing clasps, a drop of salt, a wine stain-that will help her to discover its provenance. Along with the book she also meets its savior, a Muslim librarian named Karaman. Their romance offers both predictable pleasures and genuine surprises, as does the other main relationship in Hanna's life: her fraught connection with her mother. In the other strand of the narrative we learn, moving backward through time, how the codex came to be lost and found, and made. From the opening section, set in Sarajevo in 1940, to the final section, set in Seville in 1480, these narratives show Brooks writing at her very best. With equal authority she depicts the struggles of a young girl to escape the Nazis, a duel of wits between an inquisitor and a rabbi living in the Venice ghetto, and a girl's passionate relationship with her mistress in a harem. Like the illustrations in the Haggadah, each of these sections transports the reader to a fully realized, vividly peopled world. And each gives a glimpse of both the long history of anti-Semitism and of the struggle of women toward the independence that Hanna, despite her mother's lectures, tends to take for granted. Brooks is too good a novelist to belabor her political messages, but her depiction of the Haggadah bringing together Jews, Christians and Muslims could not be more timely. Her gift for storytelling, happily, is timeless.

The Next Thing on My List: A Novel

by Jill Smolinski


From Booklist
June Parker's life is meandering along until a freak car accident leaves Marissa, her 24-year-old passenger, dead and June wracked with guilt. June discovers a list Marissa had been keeping of 25 things she wanted to do by the time she turned 25. After a run-in with Marissa's brother, June resolves to complete the list. Kissing a total stranger and throwing away her scale prove far easier than pitching an idea at work or changing someone's life. But June approaches the list with aplomb, daring to speak up about being passed over for a manager position, and becoming a Big Sister to a quiet, studious Latina teen named DeeDee. But when June uncovers a secret of DeeDee's, she realizes changing someone else's life might involve changing her own as well. Clever and winning, Smolinski's novel will have readers rooting for June as they eagerly turn the pages to keep up with her progress on the list.