Firelight, Hidden,Vanish

Title: Firelight, Hidden, and Vanish
Author: Sophie Jordan
Pages: 323,
Content: PG
Language: PG (o "f")
Level: High School/Upper Middle
Recommendation: Good Read

 Summary: A hidden truth. Mortal enemies. Doomed love. Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. But she longs for freedom to make her own choices. When she breaks the most sacred tenet among her kind, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a draki—a descendant of dragons whose greatest defense is her secret ability to shift into human form.

Review: Each book follows the adventurous, dangerous, and sometimes downright heartbreaking path of Jacinda.  Teenage life is hard, even when you are not draki.  All three books kept my fingers turning the pages up until the very end.  Not generally a fan of science fiction, I really enjoyed all three books in this series. I read the first one, having NO idea what the series was about. A fresh new series for teens who love vampires, werewolves, or "otherworldy" or "supernatural" themes.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Title: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Pages: 272
Content: G
Language: PG
Level: Middle/High School
Recommendation: VERY Good Read

Summary: Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything? Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row. A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

Review: I truly enjoyed everything about this book.  Good language, good content, good story!  It is crazy to see how much of one's life can be shared while on a 7 hour flight to London.  There are many underlying themes to this book that come through conversation!  It was a delight to find a book that's content was suitable for all students.  Thank you Jennifer Smith!

Dead End In Norvelt

Title: Dead End In Norvelt
Author: Jack Gantos
Pages: 352
Language: PG
Content: PG
Level: High Elem/Middle/High School
Recommendation: Must Read

Summary: Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a fiesty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launced on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. Endlessly surprising, this sly, sharp-edged narrative is the author at his very best, making readers laugh out loud at the most unexpected things in a dead-funny depiction of growing up in a slightly off-kilter place where the past is present, the present is confusing, and the future is completely up in the air.

Review: LOVE LOVE LOVE this book.  I began reading this book to my children (ages 12, 10, 8) on a car trip....we read for HOURS!  All of us thoroughly enjoyed this book!  I seriously can't say enough.  Quirky, Funny, Tender, Hilarious!  I want more of this kind of book!!!!!!