Fault Lines in the Constitution

Are you tired of Congress fighting all the time and never accomplishing anything?  Are you enraged when the winner of the popular vote is the loser of an election?  Blame it on the constitution!

This new book by husband and wife team Cynthia and Sanford Levinson details the arguments and compromises that created the constitution we have today and the modern limitations the framers never could have imagined.  Could we improve the constitution now? 

I absolutely loved this book!  It should be required reading in every U.S. History and government class.  For any citizen!  I doubt most of us understand the constitution, and this book explains things in an accessible and interesting way.  Highly recommended!

Space Runners: The Moon Platoon

It's 2085, and Benny Love grew up in the Drylands where he and his family live as nomads and scavenge to survive.  He can't believe his luck when the genius inventor Elijah West picks him for an all expenses paid trip to the moon.  This is a dream come true!  Not only will he get to spend two weeks in the first resort on the moon, the Lunar Taj with Elijah West and some of the earth's greatest minds, but he also gets enough money to take his family out of the Drylands for good. 

Soon after their arrival, a freak asteroid shower strikes the moon and the Lunar Taj knocking his new friend Hot Dog off her race track and stranding her on the moon's surface.  Drue, who may be a potential friend, but who is also kind of a jerk, convinces Benny and genius girl Jasmine to join him on a rescue mission.  This cements their friendship and gives them a bit of a reputation. 

Benny is sure the unauthorized rescue mission is a one-time thing, but it just feels like something not quite right on the moon.  When they can't get any information from Elijah about the asteroids, they decide to do some digging of their own and make a startling discovery about the real purpose of the Lunar Taj and the fate of everyone on earth.

Jeramey Kraatz's series starter is a fun science fiction thrill ride.  Its got secretive billionaires, drag racing on the moon, unlikely friendship, and mortal peril.  This is just good fun!  Highly recommended!

Letters to the Lost

Juliet has been in fog since her mother died in May.  It doesn't seem right that someone so vibrant and alive could die in a freak car accident.  Her mom was a photojournalist who documented the pain and beauty of the world, and now she's stuck with her boring father and her grief, so she writes letters to her mom and leaves them on her grave.

Declan is trouble.  People are afraid of him for his dark looks and barely controlled temper, but his probation and community service that really take it to the next level.  He feels responsible for the deaths of his father and sister, and he can't let the grief and guilt go, especially not with a distant mother and angry stepfather at home.  His community service assignment is to mow grass at the cemetery.  That's where he sees the letter.  He doesn't know who it's from, but he recognizes the pain it expresses, so he decides to write back.

What starts with reluctant letter writing soon becomes an email exchange, and these two troubled teens find themselves connecting in a real way despite the anonymity. 

Brigid Kemmerer's novel is perfect for Sarah Dessen fans and anyone who likes a side of anguish with your romance.  The bad boy thing doesn't really work for me, but I get that it does for other people.  I really love how Kemmerer plays with perception vs. reality in this novel, but the wrap up with Declan's family was a little too fast for me.  I'm sure the story will continue in the next book.  Recommended for grades 8 and up.

Twelve Days in May: Freedom Ride 1961

Even though the Supreme Court ruled segregation on interstate bus lines unconstitutional, it was still the rule in southern states.  On May 4th, 1961, a group of thirteen friends, black and white, old and young boarded buses headed south to make a statement. 

They hoped to draw attention to the lack of enforcement of desegregation laws in the south and to start a national conversation.  But the farther south they travel the more violence and hate they must endure.

Larry Dane Brimner's book tells the story of these twelve days with first person accounts and carefully chosen images.  Highly recommended.

Tiny Infinities

When Alice's dad moves out into a new apartment and her little brothers move in with her Aunt Ruth, Alice is left with her mother in their now empty house.  Since the accident, her mother has been different.  She was in the hospital for months, and even now that she's out, she can only walk with a cane, and she spends her days in bed either crying or railing about Alice's father and increasingly Alice's own shortcomings.

Alice decides she isn't having it.  She puts up a tent in the backyard vows to live there until her father comes home.  The one thing she can control about this summer is swimming, and she is determined to make it onto the Sharks record board by the end of the summer. 

With her former best friends away at camp and her family divided, Alice is feeling a little lonely.  That's when she meets Harriet, a new girl in the neighborhood.  Harriet is small but fast and obsessed with winning the school science fair, which won't happen for months.  When Harriet sees the fireflies in Alice's backyard, she's convinced they are the answer to her science fair dreams and convinces Alice to become her assistant. 

There's also a new family next door with an older son who makes Alice feel a little nervous in a good way, a toddler, and a daughter with a developmental disability.  Because of all her experience babysitting her twin brothers, Alice is the perfect fit to help out this family.  Piper doesn't talk and rarely even acknowledges people, but she seems to make an instant connection with Alice. 

When Alice hears Piper speak, she excited, but the girls parents are furious and call her a liar.  Her own mother turns against her and says Alice was cruel to get their hopes up.  Now she's determined to find proof. 

J.H. Diehl's new book is a nearly perfect middle school coming of age story.  It's about understanding the difference between perception and reality and the sad realization that things don't always work out the way we want.  But sometimes there is a little magic in the world, and things can turn out right after all.  Recommended.

Seafire

Caledonia Styx captains an all-girl crew aboard the Mors Navis in a post-apocalyptic world that uses the advanced technologies of the past to power a world of violence and piracy.  Aric Athair rules the seas with his powerful navy manned by young men who are stolen from their families and drugged into loyalty.

Cal wants nothing more than to destroy Aric and all he represents.  Her own family is dead because she let her guard down with one of his men.  Now, she and her crew seek ways to eat away at his empire.  With her best friend, Pisces, and the rest of her young but skilled comrades, she's doing her best.

After a failed attack, Pisces returns to the ship with a boy from Aric's army.  Pisces says he saved her life, that he wants to turn traitor, but all Cal can see is that boy who betrayed her and killed her family long ago.

As a compromise, she keeps him imprisoned rather than killing him, but he swears he has important information.  Caledonia and Pisces' brothers aren't dead.  They were captured and taken into Aric Athair's fleet, and this boy knows how to find them.

Caledonia doesn't know if she can overcome her prejudice to trust this boy or even if she should, but if there is a chance her brother is alive, she has to take it.

Natalie C. Parker's adventurous tale of an all female pirate crew is fantastic read with multicultural characters full of pathos and contradiction.  My only real complaint is the ending.  I hate cliffhangers, and this is a doozy!  Recommended for grades 8 and up for violence, but it's an all-female crew, so the misogyny and threats of sexual violence on women typical in pirate stories are happily absent.

Strange Star

Felix is excited for this evening's gathering at Lord Byron's house.  He's hoping for the opportunity to serve the guests because tonight the guests are supposed to tell stories to scare Lord Byron, and Felix knows it will be good. 

But the stormy night is interrupting by a pounding on the door.  When Felix opens it, he discovers a girl collapsed on the ground.  Lizzie has traveled from England to Switzerland to tell her tale and to seek justice. 

It is a tale of lightning strikes, death, and abuse at the hands of a clever, but immoral scientist. 

It is a tale that will inspire one of the most enduring horror stories of all time, the tale of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

I really wanted to like this new book by Emma Carroll, and there were parts of it I really did, but it just seemed really disjointed to me.  Why begin the story with Felix, a former African slave and then just go nowhere with that plotline?  Lizzie's story is compelling, but the structure just didn't feel right to me. 

The Storm Runner

Zane Obispo hates school, mostly because the other kids bully him violently.  He's been homeschooled for the past year, living out in the middle of nowhere with just his mom and his dog, Rosie.  Out there, no one will bug him about his one small leg and foot.  No one can explain it, but Zane has to deal with the limp, the can, and the obnoxious middle schoolers.

He spends a lot of his time exploring the dormant volcano in his backyard, and he doesn't want to give up the solitary life, but his mom got him a scholarship at a Catholic school nearby, and Zane's carefree days are over. 

That's when things get crazy, Zane sees what looks like a spaceship crash near the volcano, and something that seriously looks like an alien comes out.  Then this girl named Brooks he meets at school tells him he is godborn and destined to release an evil god from an ancient relic.  The Mayan gods are real, and they are a bloodthirsty bunch!  Oh, yeah, she's also a shapeshifter who can turn into a hawk.  Umm...Zane thinks she's crazy until it all starts to come true. 

When his beloved dog Rosie dies, Zane makes a deal with the god of death, Au-Puch to get her back.  Now he and Brooks have to find a way to stop Au-Puch before he destroys the world.  Zane is supposed to become the storm runner, but how can run when he can barely walk?

This new series by J.C. Cervantes under the Rick Riordan imprint is perfect for fans of the Percy Jackson books and anyone who loves a good fantasy adventure.  What puts this one above the rest is Zane's weakness, the thing he's hated his whole life, the thing that has been a handicap and a torment turns out to be a strength.  Highly recommended.

A Problematic Paradox

Nikola Kross gave up on getting along with the other kids at her middle school long ago.  They have nothing in common, and she finds their antics ridiculous.  She'd rather be doing experimental chemistry anyway.  Her guidance counselor tells her she wouldn't be such a target for bullies if she would just act a little more normal.  Nikola things this is ludicrous. 

When a horribly ugly and awful smelling girl approaches her on the way home one day, Nikola is puzzled but gets away easily.  It's only when she gets home to abandoned big box store/scientific lab/home she shares with her father that she realizes something is wrong.  Her dad is gone, kidnapped by the ugly stinky girl, and Nikola finds herself enrolled at a strange boarding school for geniuses.

While she tries to find a way to contact her father, she learns the truth.  Aliens have been here all along.  Some of them, called The Old Ones, have never really changed, and they like to collect smart people.  Some of them decided to adapt long ago and are more like humans though still pretty strange. 

For the first time, Nikola's classes are fun and engaging, and she's actually making friends instead of avoiding bullies.  But...her father is still missing, and Nikola is convinced the Old Ones are somehow penetrating the school's defenses.

Eliot Sappingfield's new book is a fun sci-fi adventure for the smart kids.  Recommended!

#Prettyboy Must Die

After totally failing at his first assignment as a CIA operative, Jake Morrow, is on the verge of losing his spot in the agency.  It's the first thing he's really cared about since his parents died, and he's not about to go down without a fight.

Now he's enrolled at an elite private school as Peter Smith.  As far as the CIA knows, he's laying low, but he chose the school on purpose.  There was a hacker at the job gone wrong, and he has reason to suspect that hacker will be at his new school.

His entire career could be over though when a girl snaps a pic of him shirtless running at the track and posts it with hashtag prettyboy.  Before he knows it, he's trending on social media, but he's getting nowhere with his investigation. 

Is it just a coincidence that terrorists attack his school?  Are they here for him or maybe the hacker?  Peter is out of class when things start going wrong, so maybe he has a chance to stop the terrorists, save his friends, and get the girl.

Kimberly Reid's new book is a fast-paced spy adventure with plenty of convenient coincidences.  Even if the plot strains credulity, I love that the protagonist is an African American male and his raised-in-a-bunker best friend provides plenty of comic relief.  Recommended for grades 8 and up for profanity.

City of Ghosts

Cassidy's parents publish books as The Inspectres.  Her mom provides the emotion and atmospheric believers point of view, and her dad the history-loving skeptic.  But what they don't realize is that Cassidy can see ghosts for real.

Since her accident when she lost control of her car, plunged into an icy river, and nearly died, she can sense and see all kinds of ghosts including her best friend.  Jacob isn't just a ghost; he's also the person who pulled her from the river and saved her life.  They've been best friends ever since.

Her parents are thrilled when a TV network wants to develop a show based on their books.  It's off to Scotland for the summer whether Cassidy likes it or not.  No warm days on the beach free of ghosts, except Jacob.  Instead, she's head to cold and damp ghost central.

Edinburgh has an even higher ghost popular than Cassidy imagined.  They are everywhere.  At almost every corner she feels compelled to cross over into their world. She also meets Lara, a girl who can also see the dead but who scoffs at Cassidy's sightseeing in the world of the dead.  Lara believes her job, and Cassidy's too, is to send the dead on to whatever comes next.

Cassidy isn't sure how she feels about this, but when she makes an epic and potentially fatal mistake, Lara is the only person who can help her.

Victoria Schwab's series started is the right amount of fun and spooky for the middle school audience.  I'm excited to read more and meet ghosts in cities around the world.  This is a great concept and a great cover.  Recommended!

Black Panther: The Young Prince

T'Challa loves his life in Wakanda as the son and heir of the ruling Black Panther.  But when danger threatens the secretive nation, T'Challa's father decides to send him and his best friend, M'Baku to Chicago for safety.  T'Challa believes he should be in Wakanda defending his home and father, but his father is firm.

Despite his frustrations, he and M'Baku are excited for their first trip to America.  They wonder if it will be like the movies.  The boys are staying at the African Embassy, but they will be incognito, no one can know their true identities, and they will be attending the local public school instead of a private one.

American life is a truly eye-opening experience.  There are things they enjoy--like junk food and their new friends Sheila and Zeke, but there is one boy who give T'Challa (or T. Charles, as he is known in America) a bad feeling.

Gemini Jones is an athlete and a bully who is obsessed with power, but it's more than that.  There's something strange about the skull ring he always wears, and he has an uncanny ability to collect followers.

While T. Charles is happy to pursue academics with his new friends, Marcus (M'Baku) is more interested in sports and quickly gets caught up in Gemini Jones's web.  Can the young prince solve this mystery in time to save his friend?

Ronald L. Smith's book is entertaining, but it's a little hard to believe.  T'Challa's father sends him away to protect him, but the boys have no real supervision.  They head out to catch a city bus on their own on the first day of school with no idea of what their aliases with be.  Then the school just registers them with no paperwork?

Aside from that, the mystery is engaging and conflict between the two former best friends feels realistic.  Kids will read this regardless of its flaws.