Staff Picks

In post-apocalyptic North America, two countries have replaced the former United States of America — The Republic and The Colonies.  Fighting against both of them is also a rebel group that calls itself the Patriots.  Though it isn’t clear if The Colonies are any better, readers can easy ascertain that The Republic is not so much a republic as a totalitarian regime.  This story is told from the alternating perspectives of characters named Day and June —  Day is an independent anarchist who refuses to work for the Patriots but still does everything in his power to sabotage The Republic in their war efforts against The Colonies; June is a military prodigy who got a perfect score on her entrance exams and has been fast-tracked through military training school.

I think the duel narration was a great way to make readers more sympathetic to characters on both sides of the spectrum and to gradually unfold details about what is happening both around the country and in Los Angeles [where both Day and June live].  The truth is, while life is clearly better for some people in The Republic, no one is truly free.

Guy Langman wasn’t really good at anything — quite the opposite of his dad who seemed to be amazing at everything without even trying.  Guy was rather thrown when his dad died (even though his dad was technically old enough to be his grandfather), and became suddenly intrigued by all things having to do with death.  So, it wasn’t exactly a stretch for him to accept an invitation from his best friend, Anoop, to join Mr. Zant’s Forensics Club.  (Especially since it provided a chance to impress some cute girls!)  For once in his life, Guy really cared about something and was actually good at it.  Which worked out rather nicely as some mysteries popped up in his own life…

American military personnel found Parvana in a bombed-out school building, so they brought her back to their base as a suspected terrorist.  Because she refused to speak, the interrogations continued day after day.  During that time, Parvana escaped into her memories — her flashbacks serving to provide readers with further information about her past.  With the information gleaned through those flashbacks, it was easy to see why Parvana didn’t feel comfortable talking to the soldiers who were interrogating her.  Between her experiences under the oppressive Taliban regime and the further struggles her family faced in the time after the Taliban was ousted, she learned that people in power didn’t always tell the truth and that speaking freely often made things worse.  Definitely an eye-opening book about what it means to grow up female in the Afghanistan and how the American military presence has both helped and hindered Afghanistan’s progress.

There are a lot of fairy tale retellings out there, but I was especially impressed by the fact that Cinder was both evocative of Cinderella and a major departure from the original story.  In this story, Cinder is a 16-year-old cyborg who constantly works to support and care for her evil stepmother and her two stepsisters.  She rarely has time for herself, but does her best not to complain because she knows her stepmother could easily “volunteer” her to be a test subject for letumosis [plague] vaccines instead.  While working in her booth at the market place one afternoon, she finds herself face-to-face with Prince Kai.  As it turns out, Cinder’s reputation as the best mechanic in New Beijing led Prince Kai to disguise himself so he could meet her and ask whether she would be willing and able to fix his droid, Nainsi, who suddenly stopped working.

Immediately after this clandestine meeting, though, Cinder’s entire life is turned upside-down because her stepsister Peony contracts letumosis and is put into quarantine.  Not only is Cinder worried about losing one of the only people in the world who actually cares about her, but her stepmother is blaming her for Peony’s illness!  Trying to balance her regular responsibilities, her promise to help Prince Kai, and her desire to help Peony, nevertheless, proves extremely difficult.  And while many girls in New Beijing would give anything to dance with Prince Kai at the upcoming ball, Cinder couldn’t care less about attending…  She has too many other things to worry about.  Yeah — this is definitely *not* your typical Cinderella story.

If I didn’t know the horrible truth, I might have thought McCormick had gone overboard with the horror and tragedy in this story. I sometimes find myself asking, as I read, “How much can possibly happen to one character?”   In this case, though, I knew that the novel was based on the true life story of a boy named Arn Chorn-Pond. This novel was only fictional inasmuch as Arn couldn’t possibly recall every detail of every day and every conversation he had over the course of 4 years. The sad reality is that the general timeline and events of this story truly happened to him, to his family, and to his country.

It still boggles my mind to think of how much devastation the Khmer Rouge wrought on Cambodia, especially since people rarely speak of it. How does a militant political group wipe out nearly 2 million people in just under 4 years without getting more than a footnote in many high school world history classes? People talk about the Holocaust and vow to never let something like that ever happen again, but they make no mention of Pol Pot’s reign of terror or the many genocides [some still taking place!] in African countries since the 1940s. It’s disgusting how often these events will go unmentioned just because it’s easier *not* to talk about it, and I applaud Patricia McCormick for writing this book.

I hope this story will help bring more attention to both the unfortunate history of Cambodia and to the subsequent efforts Arn Chorn-Pond has made to help other “children of war” and to keep Cambodian culture alive. For a historical overview of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, check out the Historical Overview of the Khmer Rouge at the Cambodia Tribunal Monitor. To learn more about the humanitarian organizations Arn Chorn-Pond founded in response to his experiences as a child in war-torn Cambodia, visit the websites for Children of War and the Cambodian Livings Arts.

Being the new kid at school can be really tough.  But being the new, fat, deaf kid in a school without an interpreter or a captioning system?  I can’t even imagine!  Luckily, Will Halpin has an uncanny ability to lipread and doesn’t much care what the “cool kids” think.  He has surmised, though, that everyone else is practically willing to kill each other for an invite to the upcoming birthday party of an über-popular jock named Pat.  This story isn’t just about the difficulties Will faced with main-streaming and making friends, though.  The real story is about how Will and Devon Smiley forged their new friendship while trying to figure out how Pat ended up dead during a field trip to the Happy Memory Coal Mine.

I enjoyed this story for a number of reasons, but first and foremost is the fact that there a good mix of humor and mystery.  It was definitely more Castle than CSI, if you know what I mean.  The fact that Josh Berk even managed to include a lot of information about deaf culture in a way that was neither clunky nor didactic was also awesome.  The original book cover is honestly the only thing I didn’t like about this book.  Luckily, it has been re-released with a new cover that is more likely to appeal to teens and also hints at the mystery within.

When I read The Giver, Gathering Blue, and Messenger, I thought it was a trilogy.  I had thought the story to be pretty well wrapped up at the end of Messenger, to be honest.  I was more than happy, nevertheless, to find out I was wrong.  Not only am I a big fan of Lois Lowry, but I have a major weakness for dystopias!

This story begins in the same society as The Giver, but Jonah is not the main character.  Instead, we see the society through the eyes of a young girl named Clair.  We are with Clair as she gets her work assignment — to be a birthmother — and also when the delivery of the “product” she was carrying goes wrong and results in a Caesarean.  Although she is made to wear a mask and can’t see the baby, she manages to find out that her baby, #36, was a boy.  A son.  Her love and longing for her son is unheard of in that society, so she has to pretend not to think about him and can never admit that she dreams about being able to raise him as her own.  I can’t say much more without major spoilers, but rest assured that this tale will reunite characters from all of the books in the series while demonstrating the lengths to which a mother will go for her child.

Maggie is suffering from memory loss, but she isn’t really sure whether she wants to get back those missing memories.  Why?  Because those memories would fill in the details of exactly what happened immediately before and after her boyfriend, Joey, accidentally fell to his death.  The story her friends gave her [and the police] is that Joey died as the result of a cliff dive gone wrong… but Maggie is afraid there might be more to it than a mere slip.  Could it have been something *she* did wrong?  After all, Joey had jumped from that cliff countless times, and he was supposed to be helping her with her first jump.  Her best friends — Adam, Shannon, and Tanna — are doing the best they can to support her, but they’re having a hard time even managing with their own grief in this tragic time.  A perfect blend of mystery and contemporary realistic fiction, especially if you’re in need of a good cry.

In this alternate history of World War I, the German forces [called Clankers] used steam-powered war machines like tanks and the Allied forces [called Darwinists] utilized living creatures as war machines.  The Leviathan, for example, was an airship made from a living whale-like creature.  Though it looked much like a Zeppelin, it was MUCH cooler because it depended on a complex ecosystem in which the waste-products of smaller organisms [living inside]  provided the helium-like substance that made it float.  Add that to the fact that people were walking around inside the beast/ship, and it’s not hard to understand why a science geek like me was just as enthralled by the Darwinists’ creations as I was with the whole rest of the story!  If you like action and adventure, and you’re not opposed to possibly learning something about world history, this is a book you should probably read.  (Just be sure to check out the author’s note in which Westerfeld explains which events/facts were true to history and which he created for the sake of his story.)