Prolific author for both children and adults, Ridley Pearson has written another edge-of-your-seat, action/adventure book in his Kingdom Keepers series. Book V of the series, The Shell Game, takes the five Kingdom Keepers–Finn, Maybeck, Charlene, Willa, and Philby–on a Disney cruise infiltrated by Disney villains. Disney World is under seige and it’s up to the Kingdom Keepers to save the day. I’m not quite finished reading the book, but true to form, Ridley Pearson takes...
Matched by Ally Condie: Dystopian YA romance. Twilight meets The Hunger Games. Nevermore by Kelly Creagh. Suspenseful YA romance. Twilight meets Edgar Allen Poe. Great reads!
Susan Beth Pfeffer’s the dead & the gone (Harcourt 2008) is a companion story to her previous YA novel Life as We Knew (Harcourt 2006). The novel takes the same cataclysmic disaster, but this time tells the story from the perspective of Alex Morales, a seventeen-year-old boy living in New York City. When a meteor hits the moon and pushes it closer to the Earth, the change in gravitational pull causes massive worldwide destruction. Tides...
Seems like everyone likes a treasure hunt. Add to that a web of historical artifacts, ancient symbols, and mythic beliefs, and you’ve got such stuff as The DaVinci Code and National Treasure are made of (to paraphrase Shakespeare). You’ve also got the stuff of the YA Novel Ring of Fire: Century Quartet #1by Pierdomenico Baccalario and translated by Leah D. Janeczko (Random House, 2006) has mystery, action, and seemingly endless clues that make you think everything...
A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper (Alfred A. Knopf 2008), is a great young adult novel written as the diary of sixteen-year-old Sophie FitzOsborne. Sophie and her cousins are the royal family of Montmaray (population approximately twelve), a tiny fictional island that lies between England and Spain. All the parents are dead, except for one crazy uncle, so the FitzOsborne cousins pretty much fend for themselves as they care for a crumbling castle, a crazy relative, dwindling funds, and subjects who keep...
Written as a diary, Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Harcourt 2006) tells the survival story of sixteen year old Miranda and her family. When a meteor collides with the moon, everything on Earth changes. The moon is pushed closer to the Earth and the change in gravitational pull causes massive worldwide destruction– tides rise, magma surfaces, tectonic plates shift, and soon the earth is enveloped by natural disasters–tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes. Volcanic ash darkens the sky, temperatures...
For those of you who loved The Hunger Games, author Suzanne Collins has written a sequel, Catching Fire (Scholastic, 2009). The story picks up where Hunger Games left off, with Katniss awkwardly trying to choose between Peeta and Gale and living a life of ease as a Hunger Games champion. But things start to fall apart when Katniss discovers that her and Peeta’s dual survival was seen as an act of rebellion and has encouraged uprisings...
The Amazing Race, American Idol, Project Runway, The Biggest Loser, Man vs. Wild, Dancing with the Stars–reality shows are all over television. But what if winning Survivor meant being the last one left alive? What if the bloody battles of the Roman gladiators had been broadcast as reality TV? Reality TV meets Lord of the Flies in the gripping new YA thriller The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) by Suzanne Collins. The Hunger Games takes place in a brutal and...
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson (Henry Holt, 2008) is a fantastic young adult book–a sci-fi novel that has the creepy thrill of a scary movie. Teenager Jenna Fox wakes from a coma to discover that she remembers nothing of her past. She has to relearn how to talk, walk, eat, live. Her adoring parents have taken video after video of her childhood, and Jenna watches old family movies of herself in an attempt to discover who she is, or at least...
Like historical fiction? Then try Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (Simon & Schuster, 2008). It looks at slavery from a different vantage point, that of the American Revolutionary War. With their mother dead and their father sold long ago, thirteen year old Isabel and her younger sister Ruth are slaves at the mercy of their mistress in Rhode Island. Although she promised to free the children after her death, their mistress’ greedy relative sells...
