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The Secret life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper
The Secret life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper 362 Pages
Middle/High School Read
Reviewer: Jessie, staff

Sparrow Delaney's goal is to be completely normal, which is kind of hard when your grandmother, mother and six older sisters are all spirit mediums. This year, Sparrow is starting a new high school surrounded by people who know nothing about her closely guarded secrets: her eccentric family and the small fact that she can see and talk to ghosts herself. Her closely laid plans to be normal begin to go awry when she meets the ghost of a persistent teen who is determined that Sparrow is the only one who can help him. This tale is both a ghost story, and a story of a girl trying to find her place in life.

 
Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey
Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey 357 Pages
High School Read
Note: Nominated for the 2007 National Book Award for YA
Reviewer: Jessie, staff

Skin Hunger is the first book in the Resurrection of Magic series. This dark fantasy novel alternates between two stories that are separated by hundreds of years. One is the tale of Sadima, an orphan with the ability to communicate with animals, lives in a world where magic has almost entirely been lost. She helps two young men try to uncover the lost secrets of magic. The second tale follows the life of Hahp, a student at a school that trains wizards-- a school that hides a terrible secret that could cost Hahp his life. This book ends in a cliffhanger that will leave readers wanting to know more.

 
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt 264 pages
Middle School Read
Reviewer: Gail, staff

The year is 1967. Lyndon Baines Johnson is President and the Vietnam War is raging.  You're a seventh grade boy named Holling Hoodhood. You have a teacher named Mrs. Baker who makes you read Shakespeare and memorize lines from his plays. You even have the dubious opportunity to act as a fairy named Ariel in Shakespeare's Tempest. For this role you wear yellow tights with white feathers arranged over a very conspicuous part of your anatomy. Mysteriously, fliers of you in your fairy costume end up plastered on every available surface inside your school. Later in the school year, two giant rats with clacking yellow teeth escape when you’re cleaning their cages in your classroom.  They live above the sagging ceiling tiles until they fall out when Mrs. Baker is being observed by the school board. What else could happen? A whole lot more.  Don’t miss it!

 
East by Edith Pattou
East by Edith Pattou 494 Pages
Middle School Read
Reviewer: Jessie, staff

East is based on the Norwegian fairy tale East of the Sun, West of the Moon. Rose is the seventh child of poor rural farmers who was meant to be a replacement for a dead sister. Unlike everyone in her family, Rose was born restless longing for adventure. One cold stormy night, adventure came to the front door of their small house in the form of a polar bear that spoke and offered the family prosperity in exchange for Rose. Rose and the polar bear become close, but a grave mistake leads Rose on a journey to regain what she inadvertently lost.  This fast paced book takes readers on a journey through forests, across the sea, and to the top of the world.

 
Poison by Chris Wooding
Poison by Chris Wooding 288 Pages
Middle/High School Read
Reviewer: Jessie, staff

Poison is a fast paced story that often has the reader on the edge of their seat. Poison is a sixteen year old girl who is sullen, strong willed, and dissatisfied to live in the Black Marshes where her tiny village is located. She wants a life of adventure like the stories she has read in books. When Poison’s, baby sister is kidnapped and replaced by a changeling, Poison gets her unexpected chance for adventure. Little does she know that the road ahead of her is filled with diabolical monsters as she journeys through the realms in search of her sister.

 
The Last Knight by Hilari Bell
The Last Knight by Hilari Bell 357 Pages
High School Read
Reviewer: Jessie, staff

This is the first book in the Knight and Rogue series. Sir Mike is not your typical noble. To escape from the unsavory duty of becoming his brother’s steward, Mike decides to become a knight errant-- a free knight that goes around the country performing valiant deeds-- at least he tries to. Sir Mike, with his squire Fisk (a former con man), accidentally frees a woman imprisoned for murder because he thinks that she is a damsel in distress. When the authorities catch them, Sir Mike and Fisk must stop at nothing to bring the “damsel” back to justice. It doesn’t quite work out like they plan which leads to many funny predicaments.

 
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper 302 Pages
High School Read
Note: Winner of the 2007 Coretta Scott King Award
Reviewer: Jessie, staff

Copper Sun is a harrowing tale of slavery in the American South. Fifteen-year-old Amari loses everything she holds dear in the course of one day when her peaceful African village is brutally attacked by slave catchers. She is taken, soon to become a slave sold into the clutches of a world where Africans are seen as property. Polly, a young white girl, faces a different yet similar fate. Polly is an indentured servant—a person bound to work off a debt that is not her own. The two girls form an unlikely friendship that gives them both the strength to escape their fate and seek freedom.

 
The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy
The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy Middle School Read
Note: Winner of the 2008 Edgar Award for Mystery
Reviewer: Jessie, staff

Loosely based on the Ancient Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice, The Night Tourist takes readers on a journey of adventure and discovery though the realm of the dead. Jack Perdu, a 9th grade Classics enthusiast, is sent by his father to see a mysterious doctor in New York City, a town he has not visited since his mother’s death there eight years before. Jack meets a girl at Grand Central Station who offers to show him the station’s hidden secrets. Little does Jack know that he will soon be stepping beyond the veil that separates the living from the dead. This book is a fast-paced ghost story that takes readers on a quest for answers through the ghostly side of New York City.

 
The Night Tourist by Katherine Marshall
The Night Tourist 232 pages
Middle School Read
Note: Winner of the 2008 Edgar Award for Mystery
Reviewer: Jessie, staff

Loosely based on the Ancient Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice, The Night Tourist takes readers on a journey of adventure and discovery though the realm of the dead. Jack Perdu, a 9th grade Classics enthusiast, is sent by his father to see a mysterious doctor in New York City, a town he has not visited since his mother’s death there eight years before. Jack meets a girl at Grand Central Station who offers to show him the station’s hidden secrets. Little does Jack know that he will soon be stepping beyond the veil that separates the living from the dead. This book is a fast-paced ghost story that takes readers on a quest for answers through the ghostly side of New York City.

 
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