Book of the Month

 

May 2008

The Wednesday Wars
By Gary Schmidt

ESCAPED RATS AND SHAKESPEARE?

During the 1967 school year, on Wednesday afternoons when all his classmates go to either Catechism or Hebrew school, seventh-grader Holling Hoodhood stays in Mrs. Baker's
classroom where they read the plays of William Shakespeare and Holling learns much of value
about the world he lives in.

April 2008

Beastly
By Alex Flinn

MORE THAN SKIN DEEP?

A modern retelling of "Beauty and the Beast"
from the point of view of the Beast, a vain
Manhattan private school student who is turned
into a monster and must find true love before
he can return to his human form.

March 2008

The Princess Academy
By Shannon Hale

MARRY A PRINCE? NOT MIRI!

While attending a strict academy for potential princesses with the other girls from her
mountain village, fourteen-year-old Miri
discovers unexpected talents and connections
to her homeland.

February 2008

The White Darkness
By Geradline McCraughrean

A WHITE HOT READ. . .

Printz Award Winner for 2008.
Taken to Antarctica by the man she thinks
of as her uncle for what she believes to be a vacation, Symone--a troubled 14 year old--discovers that he is dangerously obsessed
with seeking Symme's Hole, an opening that supposedly leads into the center of a hollow Earth.

January 2008

The Golden Compass
By Philip Pullman

FOR A MAGICAL ADVENTURE. . .

Accompanied by her daemon, Lyra Belacqua sets out to prevent her best friend and other kidnapped children from becoming the subject of gruesome experiments in the Far North.

December 2007

A Great and Terrible Beauty
By Libba Bray

IF YOU LIKE TWILIGHT. . .

After the suspicious death of her mother in 1895, sixteen-year-old Gemma returns to England, after many years in India, to attend a finishing school where she becomes aware of her magical powers and ability to see into the spirit world.

Sequel: Rebel Angels, and coming in December,
               The Sweet Far Thing

November 2007

The Absolutely True Diary of a
Part-Time Indian
By Sherman Alexie

 
LIFE ON AND OFF THE REZ. . .

Budding cartoonist Junior leaves his troubled school on the Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white farm town school where the
only other Indian is the school mascot.

October 2007

Football Genius
By Tim Green

IT'S FOOTBALL SEASON

Troy, a sixth-grader with an unusual gift for predicting football plays before they occur, attempts to use his ability to help his favorite team, the Atlanta Falcons, but he must first prove himself to the coach and players.

OR

Dairy Queen
By Catherine Murdock

FOOTBALL--NOT JUST FOR BOYS!

After spending her summer running the family farm and training the quarterback for her school's rival football team, sixteen-year-old D.J. decides to go out for the sport herself, not anticipating the reactions of those around her.

September 2007

Love, Stargirl
By Jerry Spinelli

STARGIRL IS BACK!

Still moping months after being dumped by her Arizona boyfriend Leo, fifteen-year-old Stargirl, a home-schooled free spirit, writes "the world's
longest letter" to Leo, describing her new life in Pennsylvania.

 

August 2007

Uglies
by Scott Westerfeld

WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE PRETTY?

In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be
there. But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty.

July 2007

Raven's Gate
by Anthony Horowitz

WHO CAN STOP THE ULTIMATE EVIL?

Matt, a troubled 14 year old English boy, uncovers an evil plot involving witchcraft and the site of an ancient stone circle. Everybody who tries to help Matt winds up disappearing or dead. Ultimately, Matt is the only person who can stop the ultimate evil from being unleashed.

June 2007

An Abundance of Katherines
by John Green

A LOVE EQUATION. . .

Having been dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, recent high school graduate and former child prodigy Colin sets off on a road trip with his best friend to find some new direction in life and a theorem for love.

May 2007

American Born Chinese
By Gene Luen Yang

GROWING UP IS TOUGH!

A power hungry Monkey King, a crazy cousin "Chin-Kee," and a new friend all come together to make Danny's life miserable. How is he supposed to survive school and find popularity? Find out in this graphic novel. Winner of the Printz award.

April 2007

Things Left Unsaid: A Novel in Poems
By Stephanie Hemphill

For Poetry Month. . .

After a lifetime of conforming to the image of what her parents and high school friends want her to be, Sarah must come to terms with her own identity when her destructive best friend tries to commit suicide. Told in the form of free-verse poems.

You may also like these books in verse:
Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes
The Braid by Helen Frost.

March 2007

The Book Thief
By Markus Zusak

Death Tells a Story...

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors.

February 2007

Forever in Blue:
The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood
By Anne Brashares

FRIENDS and LOVE. . .

As their lives take them in different directions, Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget discover many more things about themselves and the importance of their relationship with each other. They are growing up, but they will always love and count on each other. This is the last of the series.

January 2007

Sold
By Patricia McCormick

A CHILDHOOD BETRAYED

Thirteen-year-old Lakshmi, though poor, enjoys
her life until the Himalayan monsoons wash away her family's crops and she is sold to a brothel in India by her stepfather. She remembers her mother's wisdom, "Simply to endure is to triumph," until the day comes that
she can reclaim her life.

December 2006

Kringle
By Tony Abbott

NOT THE USUAL CHRISTMAS STORY...

In the fifth century A.D., as order retreats from Britain with the departing Roman Army, orphaned, twelve-year-old Kringle determines
to rescue his beloved guardian from the evil goblins who terrorize the countryside by kidnapping and enslaving humans and, in the process, with the help of elves and others along the way, discovers his true destiny.

November 2006

The End
By Lemony Snicket

CAN IT REALLY BE????

The end. Lost at sea, the Baudelaire orphans, along with the evil Count Olaf, wash up on the shore of an island populated by an oddly placid group of inhabitants, and they try to decide whether or not they are truly safe. Read it to find
out just how this end ends.

October 2006

How to be Popular
By Meg Cabot

FRIENDS, ENEMIES, TRUE LOVE. . .

You are such a Steph! Sixteen-year-old
Steph Landry finds an old book on how to
be popular and decides to change her social status by following its advice, much to the bafflement of her two best friends.

September 2006

Twilight
By Stephenie Meyer

VAMPIRES AND FORBIDDEN LOVE

When seventeen-year-old Bella leaves Phoenix to live with her father in Forks, Washington, she meets an exquisitely handsome boy at school for whom she feels an overwhelming attraction and who she comes to realize is not wholly human.

August 2006

I Was a Non-Blonde Cheerleader
By Kieran Scott

FRIENDS, LOYALTY, AND FUN

As a brunette on the all-blonde cheerleading squad at her new Florida high school, sophomore Annisa Gobrowski tries to fit in with her popular teammates without losing the friendship of Bethany, the only other non-blonde at the school.

July 2006

Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary "Jacky" Faber, Ships Boy
By L.A. Meyer 

 

 PIRATES, MUTINY, and SURVIVAL

In honor of the latest Pirates of the Carribean movie, we have a swashbuckling tale of high seas adventure.  Reduced to begging and thievery in the streets of London, a thirteen-year-old orphan disguises herself as a boy and connives her way onto a British warship set ting off to search for pirates.

 

June 2006

The Amulet of Samarkand
By Jonathan Stroud

 

Wizards, Djinnis, and Magic. . . .

When Nathaniel is humiliated by a powerful wizard, he vows revenge.He devours magical
texts and hones his magic skills, finally mustering the strength to summon the 5,000-year-old djinni Bartimaeus. After stealing the powerful Amulet of Samarkand, the boy magician plunges into a situation more dangerous and deadly than anything he could ever imagine. This is the first of the trilogy.

May 2006

Flush                                               
By Carl Hiaasen

       
If you liked Hoot, you'll love Flush!

Noah's dad is so mad that the Coral Queen casino boat is dumping raw sewage into the waters of the Florida Keys that he sinks it. When the boat is refloated and his Dad goes to jail, Noah aims to succeed where his father failed, surviving one catastrophy after another.

 

April 2006

Small Steps

By Louis Sachar

 

Framed for murder, falling in love,
and taking small steps...

"Armpit" is trying to do the right thing a couple of years after his release from Camp Greenlake. But X-Ray is back, ready to convince Armpit that scalping tickets is a good idea. New friends include Ginny, a little white girl with Cerebral Palsy, and Kaira DeLeon, the star of the show.

 

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