For Ty, the present-day is all a lie, as he tries to stay alive in the Witness Protection Programme long enough to testify in a London gangland murder trial. Only his childhood memories are real…maybe.
His mum Nicky has gotten herself into a slight complication, there’s a guy shot to death on the doorstep of their latest safe house, and even Ty’s memories don’t seem to be true anymore.
Bottling up his worry and anger, desperately yearning to reconnect with the one friend who understood him, Ty’s impulsive actions may be the undoing of all the careful preparations made by the police and lawyers to finally bring down the ruthless London crime family.
This stunning sequel to When I Was Joe brings the gritty realities of life for less-privileged London teens into sharp focus while faithfully taking us into the careening thoughts of a teen brain pushed to the brink. You must read these two books – World Wednesday standouts! **kmm
Book info: Almost True / Keren David. Frances Lincoln Children’s Books, 2010. [author’s blog] [publisher site]
Recommendation: Finding a dying man on his doorstep, Ty knew that the London gang had found his latest “safe place” – so much for the Witness Protection Programme keeping him and his mum Nicky out of harm’s way until he could testify at the murder trial.
Ty’s aunt snatches him out of the hands of the police, telling no one – not even Nicky – where she’s hiding him. And suddenly, he’s in the large home of the grandparents that he doesn’t even remember – the parents of his dad, who left him and Nicky when Ty was very small. Nothing about this makes sense to him – why have his grandparents let him and Nicky live in near-poverty when they are rich? After all these years away, is his dad really coming to see him?
The trauma and stress of leaving the school that knew him as popular Joe, where he finally had friends and was succeeding on his own, where no one knew his past – it’s just too much for Ty, and the nightmares about the murder return.
Will Ty’s memories keep playing tricks on him? If he can’t contact anyone outside, how will Clare at school know that he’s okay? How did the crime family gang find him and his mum in their third hiding place? Is Nicky safe somewhere now?
A contemporary story that just won’t let you go, Almost True is the sequel to When I Was Joe – read them in order, and hang on, as Ty stays one step ahead of the killers… we hope! (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
A rock star at 14?! It’s up to Alexis to navigate around other people’s choices (bad and good) while staying true to herself.
Joyce Raskin knows what she’s writing about since she’s a bassist with the band Scarce (back together after time off for other projects) and even has a series of beginning guitar lessons for girls on YouTube! Rock on!
A fast, fun read that demands your favorite rock music in the background. **kmm
Recommendation: Uncoolness and zits, that’s life for Alexis, until her brother teaches her to play bass guitar for his band. Eventually, she masters the bass (blisters!). Eventually, her body catches up with other teen girls (at last!). Eventually, she has a boyfriend (yay!), then a heartbreak (cry!), then some fame (wow!), and some major disappointments (parents!).
Fast-moving chapters chronicle this eventful year in Alex’s life – her skateboarding and punk rock adventures, making a record with the band at age 14, her former-hippy parents supporting her big-time before going super-strict!
Written by a former teen-rocker (who still plays in a band!), Misadventures includes getting-started information about guitars, learning chords, writing songs, and sticking to your dreams – major girl power in a small package! (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
Aiden and Maddy are the last surviving members of their family whose homesteading dreams turned into a row of graves on the bleak Kansas prairie.
Their unlikely savior is gruff Jackson, recruiting for the even-tougher demands of the Pacific Northwest’s logging camps, who only agrees to take along Maddy if Aiden signs on for an extra year of logging work to pay their way West.
Friendly Nez Perce, not-always-friendly U.S. Army soldiers, and the dreaded smallpox shadow the wagon train, as they traverse open range, strain up mountain grades, and struggle across rivers.
Aiden toughens up as they travel, but will he be able to hold his own against the roughs and rowdies of the lumber camps? Adventure, peril, and possibilities fill this gripping tale of the West.
**kmm
Book info: The Devil’s Paintbox / Victoria McKernan. Random House, 2009. [author bio] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: The shoe leather soup is gone, so Maddie and Aiden will starve to death soon, just as their family did on the Kansas prairie in 1865. But over the hill rides Jefferson J. Jackson, recruiting workers for the lumber camps in Washington.
He allows the teens to join the wagon train going west, warning them that “any way you can think up to die is out there waiting” on the trail. Aiden agrees that his first two years’ wages will go to Jackson in payment for their travel, and they head west, away from the graves on the hillside, away from the dried-up homestead.
Jackson is all too correct, and dangers face the travelers day and night – rampaging rivers to cross, wolves stalking them, Indians who might attack, and diseases with no cures.
Aiden works with his bow and arrow, bringing in deer and rabbits for his sister Maddie to cook. He meets friendly Indians who cross their trail from time to time, teaching him bareback horse riding and improving his hunting skills.
But soon smallpox, “the Devil’s Paint”, appears at a nearby fort, and the deadly disease threatens them all. The wagon train’s doctor soon runs out of medicines, the Indians blame government-issued blankets for the epidemic, and survival is now a gamble for everyone.
Will Aiden make it to the lumber camp? How will a scrawny, malnourished 15-year-old keep up with strong men and dangerous work? Smallpox is just the first challenge that he must face as he tries to live long enough to grow up. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
That’s the life-changing question that 12-year-old Esther faces, as we go back to the Irish Potato Famine of 1845 on this World Wednesday.
As the blight makes potatoes rot when they’re dug up, poor Irish rental farmers and their families starve to death with their main food source gone. While having just one variety of potato planted all over Ireland contributed to the problem, the Famine was largely caused by the laws forbidding Irish Catholics from owning land.
When Esty’s father is killed trying to help starving farmers, she and her mother and granddad no longer have a home, and Esty must hire out as a servant. Emigration out of Ireland is offered – many travel to the United States, but Esty has carefully read the newspapers discarded by her employer and finds a way for her family to get to the goldfields of Australia.
The Mahers will face bandits, harsh weather, backbreaking toil, and outright prejudice as they dig for gold in Ballarat in this exciting story based on history.
Recommendation: Surely the potato blight won’t hurt Esty’s family, her papa being agent for the landowner, right? But the famine in 1840s Ireland cuts deep, and 12-year-old Esty finds herself hired out as a servant, with Mama and Grandpa sent from their big house to a tiny cottage.
As the large landowners continue evicting the tenants who can’t pay rent or feed their families because of the blight, more rebellion springs up. Esty reads the newspapers discarded by her employers and dreams of taking her family away from the famine, off to the goldfields of Australia.
Such a long journey, from Ireland to the other side of the world! And what perils along the way to the goldfields at Ballarat – thieves, wild weather and worse!
Can Esty really find a way to get her family all the way to Australia? Will they be tough enough to survive the pioneer conditions at the edge of the Outback? Can they find gold or will Ballarat be one more heartbreak for the Mahers?(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
On this Mysterious Monday, meet Jack, who has a rotten life at the dismal orphanage, escaping through comic books, dreaming of superheroes …
In his not-so-super life, how could he imagine that those evil robots and superheroes are real or that HE has a superpower?
You’ll find this exciting showdown between robo-zombies, ninjas, and superheroes as Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation in hardcover and as The Accidental Hero in paperback.
The Secret War, book two of the series, will be published on August 9, 2011, so watch for Jack’s continuing adventures – and be on the lookout for robo-zombies! **kmm
Book info: The Accidental Hero (originally titled: Jack Blank and the Imagine Nation) / Matt Myksluch. Simon & Schuster, 2010 (hardcover), 2011 (paperback). [author’s website] [publisher site: hardcover & paperback] [author video]
Recommendation: Jack’s hidden stash of old comic books is his only refuge from endless chores and bullying at the orphanage where he was abandoned as a baby 12 years ago. Captain Courage! Laser Girl! Evil circle-eyed Robo-Zombies who turn their victims into Robo-Zombies!
While bailing water from the orphanage’s basement, Jack hears strange noises from its sunken stairway. Suddenly a Robo-Zombie appears, aiming its rocket-cannon arm at him! Jack flees into the surrounding swamp, but can’t escape from the Robo-Zombie. Backed up against the generator shed, Jack wishes once again that he had superpowers and is shocked when he can make the generator blast his attacker.
Of course, no one at the orphanage believes Jack was attacked, instead blaming him for blowing up the generator. But the special agent who comes to question Jack about the Robo-Zombie is convinced and takes him away so he can report directly… to the Imagine Nation, where those with superpowers really do live!
Jack meets his comic book heroes there, as well as other legendary beings. Even though the agent tells Jack that this is his birthplace, the Imagine Nation’s borders are closed to outsiders because of Robo-Zombie attacks years before. When RZ nanites are detected in Jack’s blood, he’s suddenly on the run in this strange world. But why haven’t the RZ circles appeared around Jack’s eyes yet? Why is he still flesh and blood instead of cables and circuits?
Can Jack discover his superpower and learn to control it? Will he be the salvation of the Imagine Nation or its destruction? His new friends stand ready to help him prove his innocence, but superscientist Jonas Smart is ready to dissect Jack, just to make sure… (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
Is bad luck something you’re born with or something that you can rise above? Are bullies part of every school and neighborhood? Does the world look different when seen through your camera’s lens?
This is a great summer story as Tugs investigates a mystery that the grown-ups in town just can’t seem to see. Wishing you plenty of pie, family, and fireworks this holiday weekend! **kmm
Recommendation: Tugs is good at reading and good at running, which keeps her ahead of the Rowdies gang in their small Iowa town in 1929. Independence Day is next week, so she writes a patriotic essay, like every other 12 year old in town, and practices with Aggie for the 3-legged race. Thank goodness, she doesn’t have to run with her short, tubby cousin Ned this year. And she has some tickets for the raffle of a Brownie camera, too! Of course, no one in the Button family is lucky at all, so she’s not getting her hopes up about anything.
Uh-oh, it’s time to worry when Mama has a pie ready for lunch (Buttons always have pie when something bad happens). Granny is moving in, taking her bedroom! Well, at least Tugs can escape to the cool quiet of the library, browsing through the dictionary and reading old newspapers. This newcomer Harvey Moore is so busy collecting money to start a newspaper in Goodhue that he isn’t really starting it at all, so Tugs starts investigating.
On the fourth of July, it’s time for the 3-legged race, the raffle drawing, and the essay contest announcement. Will it be time for pie at the Button family table again? Can Tugs stay ahead of the Rowdies? Does the world look different through a camera lens? And how did Tugs get her first name anyway?
The summer of 1929, surrounded by cornfields and caring, is a great place to be with Tugs and her pie-baking family, as she wonders about luck and persistence in this easy-reading story. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy courtesy of the publisher.
Plastic trees, pre-fab food, every social and business interaction online only – sounds a little tempting when you’re caught in traffic on the way to school or trapped in yet another blah-blah-blah lecture course.
But if every minute of school occurs online, the only people you see day in and day out are family members, the only birdsong you ever heard was historic digital audio, the only way you know your thoughts are your own is… well, you couldn’t be sure of that, could you?
A prediction? A cautionary tale? Welcome to a future where DigitalSchool shapes young human minds while all other living things become obsolete…
*kmm
Recommendation: School is completely online in 2060, so Maddie rarely sees anyone in person, except her mom and dad. Why does this Justin guy want to meet her at a face-to-face Tutor session? She could just see him online 24/7, like her other friends all over the world. Anyway, her dad grounded her till age 18 after she went into his DigitalSchool master computer two years ago.
Her parents say that Justin is dangerous, that his parents were terrorists, that he’s only trying to see 17-year-old Maddie because of her dad’s DigitalSchool business. But Justin actually speaks to her like a thinking human being, showing her the real Portland with pastries instead of nutri-bars and live musicians instead of soundfiles online.
It seems that not everyone is happy with DigitalSchool. Justin wants her to sneak more information from her dad’s computer so they can crash that system and give kids the chance to get outside, away from computer-simulated beach views and back to the real sand and sea, away from thousands of online friends they’ve never seen and back to interacting with real friends.
During a dangerous DS student “rescue” with Justin, Maddie has to decide whether she’ll abide by her dad’s authoritarian rules or risk losing her place in 2060’s society.
Can she trust Justin?
Could she really live where trees aren’t plastic and sunsets aren’t on a computer screen?
Is there something malicious in DigitalSchool, something bad enough for Maddie to risk life in prison?
A glimpse of a potential future where keeping the peace may be more dangerous to humanity than allowing conflicting ideas… (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher through NetGalley.com.
As a school librarian living in India, Monika is writing from the heart. She’s seen too many children who must work instead of go to school, no matter how intelligent they are, because the debts of their family are so overwhelming. The orphans scavenging recyclables from the railway station trash are still there, despite the info-tech revolution sweeping their country.
The author’s book trailer gives us a glimpse of the grim reality and many obstacles that Akash faces as he struggles to get schooling in this luminous story leavened with hope.
**kmm
Book info: Saraswati’s Way / by Monika Schroeder. Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher site]
My Book Talk: Akash’s talent for math can’t stop the drought in his village in India, can’t grow enough crops to pay back the money his family owes, can’t cure the fever that strikes his father. So he must leave school and the village at age 12 to work off their debt in the landlord’s stone quarry. Everything is fated, his family says – the heavens have control of earth, and we cannot change what is fated. But Akash prays to Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom, that someday, somehow, he will return to school to learn more math and English.
Akash finds that his hard work at the quarry only nibbles at the family’s debt, so he could work there until he was an old man before he paid it off. Not content that fate will keep him at the quarry forever, he sneaks onto a train bound for the huge city of Delhi where he could earn money faster.
The New Delhi train station is like a city itself – huge and crowded and noisy. Akash falls in with a group of orphan boys who collect bottles and boxes for money. Soon he meets up with people who want to help him and people who want to use his talents only to earn money for themselves.
Can Akash keep himself safe in Delhi? Can he survive and earn money for his family in honest ways, as his father taught him? Will he ever get to school again, or will he remain homeless and poor like so many other youngsters in his crowded country?
A fascinating story with too-real situations, you’ll root for Akash as he strives for wisdom, trying to follow Saraswati’s Way in his fight for survival. (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
There’s no “fun” in this dysfunctional family, as a violent teen’s mental illness rules over the household. When Will threatens to kill his horse, what else could Yancy do but saddle up Shy, grab his journal, and head for the California hills?
It’s hard to say why their parents can’t see how dangerous Will truly is, but Yancy’s spent his whole life waiting for them to understand, and he just can’t wait any longer. The pictures in Yancy’s journal help tell the story in this strong debut novel about a tough subject.
**kmm
My Book Talk: When his psychotic big brother threatened to kill Yancy’s horse, he wasn’t kidding. So Shy and Yancy head up into the foothills, away from the stable where Will cut off Shy’s tail, away from high school where everyone knows his brother is crazy, away from the house that’s no safe place at all.
Yancy, the good son, has wound up with the bad life in this household, where their parents follow the “expert” advice to react calmly to Will’s “conduct disorder” while Will viciously beats Yancy and sneaks beer and pot into the garage under their noses.
With Yancy gone, their parents will have enough time to deal with Will, right? And Yancy can find a job somewhere in the ranch country over near Palmdale that can keep him and Shy fed and sheltered, right?
But until Tavo the ranch hand rescues them after days on the trail and the last of their food, Yancy isn’t really sure that they will be okay at all. Tavo’s stories of his family and village in Mexico, his willingness to help Yancy keep Shy safe and well – these images and stories begin to fill the pages of Yancy’s journal instead of his fury at his brother’s dominance over the whole family.
Do Yancy’s parents even miss him, since Will’s outbursts fill up the whole house, all the time? Can he stay on the ranch with Tavo, or will the ranch owner change his mind again? (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
Life on the 
As a school librarian living in India, Monika is writing from the heart. She’s seen too many children who must work instead of go to school, no matter how intelligent they are, because the debts of their family are so overwhelming. The 
There’s no “fun” in this dysfunctional family, as a violent teen’s mental illness rules over the household. When Will threatens to kill his horse, what else could Yancy do but saddle up Shy, grab his journal, and head for the California hills?