Until it’s grown, you don’t known if that weedy stuff is crabgrass or horrible, clawing grassburrs.
Likewise, Jacob didn’t realize that the monsters that Grandpa warned him about were real until it was too late, as he looks up from the dying man to see the horrifying creature…and the monster sees Jacob.
Author Ransom Riggs started collecting old photos some years ago, drawn to the captions often written on them. For the most peculiar images, he began inventing their backstories and what the oddest captions might have been.
In this thriller, Riggs’ imagination has gone far beyond those idea seeds planted by the old photos, as he brings the “peculiar children” to life, as well as the monsters that pursue them…and Jacob.
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My Book Talk: Jacob stopped believing in Grandpa’s monster stories years ago, but what else could kill someone so thoroughly? Fatally attacked, Grandpa gasps that Jacob “must go to the island” where he will be safe, as he sees the blackened creature of his nightmares disappear into the Florida woods.
Now 16 year old Jacob has the nightmares, the monster alternating with the old photos of “peculiar children” who were his grandpa’s friends at the Welsh orphanage which rescued him from the Holocaust – an invisible boy, the floating girl…real or faked? Clues found at Grandpa’s house convince him that he must find that island and the orphanage, or go insane!
Thankfully, his psychiatrist agrees, so Jacob and his dad head for Wales, and the mystery grows deeper.
If the orphanage was bombed-out in 1940, how did Grandpa get there later?
Why can Jacob hear voices in the old building when no one else can?
Who is following them on the tiny island?
As the past and present tangle and unravel, Jacob finds the old photos to be new truths as the monsters pursue children for their peculiar talents. A chilling debut novel for very mature readers which ponders how the balance point between good and evil loops through human history… (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
But what if the monstrosity was purely inner? These are the monsters of Fire’s world, the monsters whose dazzling physical beauty and powers of mind control are an irresistable lure and a snare to entrap mere humans.
As a monster-human hybrid, Fire knows the power of her beauty, yet her human half strives to overcome it. In an unstable kingdom attacked by monster creatures as well as human treachery, Fire may be the key to a possible peace… or utter ruin.
Fire is chronologically a prequel to Cashore’s stunning debut novel, Graceling. Each story can stand alone, but you’ll want to read both. Check the author’s blog for her progress on their sequel Bitterblue.
Book info: Fire / Kristin Cashore. Hardback – Dial Books, 2009. Paperback – Firebird, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: In these days of war, Fire travels watchfully to her music students’ homes in the mountains. But Fire is a human-monster, capable of controlling minds, far more dangerous than any bandits. Raised by a foster family of humans, she has become a master archer, like her foster brother, and loses herself in her music to forget her father.
She’s determined not to become like him, her full-monster father who ruled the king’s mind and being as they stripped the Dells of its safety, emptying the treasury for pleasures and drugs. Cansrel and King Nax are dead now, leaving unprepared young King Nash on the throne, with lords in the North preparing to battle him for the crown.
An assassin whose mind is completely blank, King Nax’s widow in voluntary exile, the armies of Lord Myddogg and Lord Gentian gathering in the North, the increasing number of monster-animals attacking humans, first with their irresistible beauty and then with claws and teeth – can the Dells survive such threats and dangers?
When Prince Brigan asks Fire to travel to the King’s City to help them hold the kingdom together by using the powers of her mind, she wants to refuse. Is she truly their only hope? Can she resist the lure of continuing to manipulate people’s minds after the crisis has past? Is there any future for the last human-monster in this suspicious, vicious world?
A companion to Graceling, Fire’s story stands on its own, asking questions about humanity and responsibility and society in a fantasy world that may be too much like our own. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
Linus tried to transform himself into someone cool, to find friends in a strange land, to understand a new culture. Will getting so close to a mamba make it happen?
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My Book Talk: Linus can reinvent himself as a cool, bold guy when his family moves to Liberia for his dad’s new job at the U.S. Embassy. Middle school in Dayton in the 1980s was tough enough without being known for panic attacks, so even going to Africa is bound to help, right?
When they walk down the airplane steps onto the hot runway asphalt, a deadly black mamba snake is the first thing Linus sees of Africa! Black mambas are supposed to be very rare, shy of people… so why is the Embassy residence area called Mamba Point?
Before school starts, Linus and his older brother Law (who changed his name from Larry on the way over from the States) explore their new neighborhood. Most kids of Embassy employees hang out at the pool, so Law is there all day, every day. Linus meets Matt downstairs, who introduces him to role-playing games with many-sided dice and crazy situations. He visits the library for comic books to draw from and a book about snakes, especially the black mamba.
Linus spots black mambas all over, even in the residence courtyard, when others don’t see them at all. He even goes so far as to bring his black mamba into his closet to keep it close by as a pet. Then a local vendor tells him of ‘kaseng’ – the idea that some people have a deep connection to certain animals, perhaps even sharing some characteristics with them. Slowly, Linus becomes more assertive and self-confident much like the black mamba he has come to know. Could he really share a ‘kaseng’ with the friendly black mamba who begins to visit him?
When their parents go away for the weekend, Law decides to throw a party, and things go farther out of control than either brother could imagine. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
Surviving disaster is one thing. Living beyond the confines of your grief is another. Making memorials to mark the passing of loved ones should help ease the pain…
In this sequel to Green Angel, Ash begins to heal, as the memories of her former world cry out to be recaptured, the captives to be freed, the forbidden technologies whisked out of sight of the invaders. And so she writes down the memories, travels to hear the stories, uses the machines, regardless of the peril.
Are there parallels to our own history in the events of Green’s world?
Can we learn to see different stories as reasonable, to live together in peace?
May this hopeful tale lead us to hopeful times.
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Book info: Green Witch / by Alice Hoffman; illustrated by Matt Mahurin. Scholastic, 2010. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Book Talk: Green had watched as the City burned, consumed her family, turned the world to ash as the Horde tried to destroy all technology. Scarred, then healed, she now watches her garden grow tall and strong near the memorial stones for her father, her mother, and her sister.
The village folks come to Green’s farm and tell her their stories, so many stories that she must make new paper to write them all down (books are the first things that the Horde destroys). And they tell her of “the witches,” the wise ones who never come to the village, who have special powers after The Fire. But Green will only write down a story directly from its source, so she journeys to find each of the witches and learn their stories, her sister’s dog as her companion.
When the Finder of hidden technology asks her to help rescue his sister from the Horde’s prison, Green uses the stories of the witches to guide them. Might she find her lost love, as well?
This beautiful sequel to Green Angel shows hope shining through the ashes of war and destruction. (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)
This book scares me on so many levels, and there’s not a vampire or ghost or werewolf or war anywhere in it. How could Gemma’s parents cope with her disappearance? I just can’t imagine their terror and desperation.
May 25 is National Missing Children’s Day – it’s heartbreaking that this recognition even has to exist. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has resources so you can learn how to keep yourself and the children you know safe.
I’ve visited the Outback, so I know how far away from everything and everyone Gemma finds herself, out in the Red Center of Australia…
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My Book Talk: He watched Gemma for years – at the park, in her room – then he stole her, drugged her coffee, and took her away from her parents at the Bangkok airport. Now she’s in a desert, miles and miles from any town, continents away from her London high school, alone with him. Ty says that he’ll keep her there with him…forever.
What makes a man plan so intently, stockpiling food and supplies to last a decade, building a house in the depths of the Outback? How can get on the very same plane as Gemma or get a fake passport for her or smuggle her through airport security?
Will she be with Ty forever? How long will he leave her body to herself? Will she ever see her parents again? Under a sky filled with more stars than the cities can ever see, on the flatness of an empty land, Gemma’s questions fill her journal, going on and on like the red sands of the desert, as far as she can see… (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image 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…
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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.
Today I’ve invited fellow Blogathonner Stephanie Suesan Smith to talk up her favorite YA books for WordCount Blogathon Challenge 2011 guest post day. She’s selected a great fantasy series which has withstood the test of time – Enjoy!
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—– Recommendation: There are many books that were published well before Harry Potter that contain magic, quests, and the fight between good and evil. One such series that was published starting in 1965 is as vibrant today as when it was written. Although the settings contain no computers or cell phones, The Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper takes us to a world within our world just the same.
Written for preteens, the stories are so ageless that I still re-read them when I need to remind myself that it is up to each of us to do our part in order that the end result comes out all right. The stories are set in Britain and are an arc of Arthurian quests without that being the overwhelming feature of the books.
Over Sea, Under Stone is the first book and is more of a prequel than a part of the series. Start with it, but know that even better things are coming. Three children go to Cornwall with their parents to vacation with a distant relative. While rambling in the home, the children find a map to a treasure. With the dark trying to obtain the map on one hand, and the light trying to help the children, it is a race to see who reaches the object first.
The Dark Is Rising is one of my favorite books to read on a bad day when the rain is coming down and the shadows won’t go away. The British celebrate Christmas differently than Americans, and perhaps that is part of the magic of this book. It is set to the tempo of the twelve days of Christmas as a young boy, Will, becomes an adult in the world of beings who fight for or against the Dark. He is the last of his order to complete this task, and failure means the fight is lost.
Greenwitch is a book dealing with a pre-Christian ritual and belief about the sea and powerful spirits leaving there. It is well known fishermen are superstitious and believe in things others do not. The children from the first book are joined by the one from the second to recover a lost object held by one of these spirits. No force can compel this spirit to part with the needed talisman. Can friendship?
The Grey King is the gathering. The Grey King is a powerful evil spirit working to keep the Light from winning. Will goes to Wales to stay with relatives after an illness. He must overcome the evil and help the light as the last gathering of forces begins. The final battle looms as time grows short.
Silver on the Tree is the last book in the series. Will and all his kind go on a final quest to rid the earth of the Dark and leave it safe for mankind. Each child, Will, his three friends from the first book, and a fourth from the fourth book, is tested by the Dark and the powerful earth magic that governs how the quest must be followed. Will they succeed? Will it be enough?
People who like the Harry Potter series will like these books. The violence is much less obvious in this series. The books can be read again and again as more is discovered in each reading.
Book info: The Dark Is Rising boxed set, by Susan Cooper. Paperback: 1088 pages
Publisher: McElderry (August 21, 2007) [author’s official website] [publisher site]
Guest blogger bio: Stephanie Suesan Smith mainly uses her Ph.D. in clinical psychology to train her dogs. She is also a master gardener, member of the Garden Writer’s Association, and woodworker. Stephanie writes on almost any nonfiction topic and has had some unusual experiences that contribute to that ability. Getting pooped on by a rattlesnake probably ranks tops there, but things just seem to happen to her. View more of them at www.stephaniesuesansmith.com. View her photos at photos.stephaniesuesansmith.com. View her woodworking at wood.stephaniesuesansmith.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.
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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.
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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.
Ley lines and legendary figures from Native American/First Peoples mythology.
Bioplague and a Gaia/Earth that can no longer heal itself.
Our potential future, Kelsa’s world, so much at stake.
Read this first book in the Raven Duet outside, under a real, living tree.
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Book info: Trickster’s Girl / Hilari Bell. Clarion/ Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011. 268 pg [author’s site] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.
My Recommendation: As Kelsa is burying Dad’s ashes in the scrap of forest left near the city, a young man with no ID chip approaches her, wondering why she doesn’t believe in magic. Ha! Her father just died of cancer, that curable everyday problem, worrying about the bioplague dropped by terrorists in the Amazon rainforest, the antidote that didn’t work, the deforestation of whole countries that followed. Magic in a world of aircars and compods and microchefs?
This isn’t hocus-pocus magic, Kelsa finds out, as Raven transforms himself into a fish, a bird, right before her eyes. He describes how humankind’s demands have blocked the ley lines of spirit, keeping the earth from healing itself. Now forests can’t fight off the bioplague and humans can’t fight off curable cancers and worse natural disasters loom ahead.
Kelsa has a flicker of magic in her soul, and Raven needs her help to unblock key nexus points on the ley lines from Utah to Alaska with a Native American artifact. But first they have to rob a museum to get it, then slip away from the police without worrying her mother.
Surviving in the wilderness as her dad taught her, escaping from agents of spirits who’d rather erase humanity and start earth anew, riding bikes and motorcycles over mountain trails toward nexus points, crossing boundaries without passports…
Can Kelsa really help the earth heal itself?
Is Raven the Trickster telling her the whole truth?
This is the first book of Bell’s new series based in a high-tech, high-security future United States whose only hope is the magic recounted in ancient folklore. (one of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandhug.com)
Until it’s grown, you don’t known if that weedy stuff is crabgrass or horrible, clawing grassburrs.
Moving… I’ve done it all my life, during the summer, during the school year, but I never moved to 
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?