September 2013

Compound

Posted on September 28, 2013 by webmaster

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The Compound
by S.A. Bodeen

In a burst of panic about a nuclear attack, nine-year-old Eli, his sisters, and his parents move into an underground bunker built by Eli’s billionaire father. It is an enormous complex, with rooms similar to those in the family’s Seattle mansion. Only his grandmother and twin brother don’t make it in.

The first six years of the planned 15 have been fairly routine, but now some food has spoiled, and certain things just don’t seem right, or even possible. Eli is starting to have doubts about his father’s motives, explanations, and sanity.

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Eli’s father has a solution… provided they jettison all morals and ethics. Repulsed and already suspicious, Eli begins investigating his father’s claims, and sets up a family death match against a man who grows increasingly irrational and sinister but no less powerful.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
570L	Middle School	272	Thriller/Suspense	2009	0312578601

Unidentified

Posted on September 28, 2013 by webmaster

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The Unidentified
by Rae Mariz

In a startlingly plausible dystopian society, the school system has failed to the point that the government gives over control of national education to corporations. These conglomerates have banded together to create what are known as Game Centers. Here students like Katey Dade, or Kid, go to “school” in refurbished shopping malls. They swipe cards to get in and out, they carry issued cell phones with GPS trackers, they post continuously to profile pages and status feeds (similar to Facebook and Twitter), while administrators and corporate officials monitor their every move.

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Students who achieve the highest scores in games, set the coolest fashion trends, and gain the utmost popularity are “Branded”, instantly assisting the corporations to plug their wares. Kid coasts, never looking to become Branded, but then she is taken up by not just one corporate sponsor, but two, as a “trendspotter”.

As she tries to balance new expectations with betrayals by lifelong friends and new relationships, Kid also begins to question the societal structure around her. Drawn to the prank-pulling group calling themselves The Unidentified, she longs for her previous anonymity and blissful ignorance of the shady dealings all around her.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
780	High School	304	Fantasy	2010	0061802085

Giver

Posted on September 28, 2013 by webmaster

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The Giver
by Lois Lowrey

In the ‘ideal’ world into which Jonas was born, everybody has sensibly agreed that well-matched married couples will raise exactly two offspring, one boy and one girl. These children’s adolescent, sexual impulses will be stifled with specially prescribed drugs; at age 12 they will receive an appropriate career assignment, sensibly chosen by the community’s Elders. This is a world in which the old live in group homes and are ‘released’ –to great celebration– at the proper time; the few infants who do not develop according to schedule are also ‘released’, but with no fanfare.

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Until the time that Jonah begins training for his job assignment: the rigorous and prestigious position of Receiver of Memory he, too, is a complacent model citizen. But as his near-mystical training progresses, and he is weighed down and enriched with society’s collective memories of a world as stimulating as it was flawed, Jonas grows increasingly aware of the hypocrisy that rules his world.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
660L	Middle School	192	Science Fiction	2002	00440237688

Blizzard

Posted on September 28, 2013 by webmaster

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The Blizzard
by John Nez

Melanie Hondel is the all-American high school student. She is popular, pretty, and attracts the attention of more than a few boys. One of them is Chet, who Melanie thinks is handsome enough, but whose determined self-reliance she has always found a bit strange and hardly romantic. When Melanie refuses the advances of a classmate, Tommy, and is beaten by him, she flees into a blizzard, where she falls through the ice. Her cries for help are heard by Chet, who is able to save her.

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They find refuge in an isolated cabin, where they shed their icy clothing and huddle together for warmth…in a bed. Rescuers arrive the next day, followed closely by Melanie’s father, and there is confusion and anger. Mr. Hondel insists that Chet be arrested and refuses to accept his daughter’s explanation, thereby leaving everyone convinced that Chet is dangerous.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
NA	High School	188	Drama	2010	0984568069

Cromwell Dixon’s Sky Cycle

Posted on September 28, 2013 by webmaster

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Cromwell Dixon’s Fly Cycle
by John Nez

In 1907, a 14-year-old boy named Cromwell Dixon took to the sky in a flying bicycle that he designed and built with the help of his mother.

Despite disappointment (an early prototype caught fire) and mistakes (a too-heavy vehicle), the teen persevered. He eventually made a glorious showing in his flying bicycle, soaring above the highest buildings in his hometown of Columbus, OH. Later that year, Dixon entered his Sky-Cycle in the St. Louis Airship Carnival, taking home a prize.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
780	Elementary School	32	Adventure	2009	0399250417

Sock n Boots

Posted on September 27, 2013 by webmaster

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Sock ‘N Boots Share
by D.K. Smith

Sock ‘n Boots Share begins with a question…why should you share? Sock and Boots set off with two packed lunches to have a day of play at the park. After hours of summer fun in the sun, the hungry pair return to look for their lunch boxes on the picnic table where they left them. Surprise! Sock’s lunch has been finished off by birds, so only Boots’ lunch is left in his lunch box. In response to Socks’ tears, Boots says cheerfully, “

Don’t worry … I have a bunch, we can both share my lunch.”

Sharing makes both friends happy.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
NA	Elementary School	32	Moral Lesson	2010	0557526140

Girl Who Could Fly

Posted on September 27, 2013 by webmaster

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The Girl Who Could Fly
by Victoria Forester

Somewhere in the U.S., in a small farming community called Lowland County, a girl named Piper McCloud is born to a simple, God-fearing farmer and his wife. Piper has a special talent: she can fly.

When her talent for flying is discovered, a charismatic director of a special school takes Piper under her wing. She arrives at an amazing place with multiple floors and discovers a lot of other kids with extraordinary powers, too – as well as a nefarious plot to remove their special talents by altering their DNA.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
830	Middle School	352	Science Fiction	2010	0312602383

If I Stay

Posted on September 27, 2013 by webmaster

If I Stay
by Gayle Foreman

The last normal moment that Mia, a talented cellist, can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents’ corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. As she ponders her state (Am I dead? I actually have to ask myself this), Mia is whisked away to a hospital, where, her body in a coma, she reflects on the past and tries to decide whether to fight to live. Via Mia’s thoughts and flashbacks explores her life, her passion for classical music and her strong relationships with her family, friends and boyfriend, Adam.

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Mia’s singular perspective also allows for powerful portraits of her friends and family as they cope: Please don’t die. If you die, there’s going to be one of those cheesy Princess Diana memorials at school, prays Mia’s friend Kim. I know you’d hate that kind of thing.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
830	High School	272	Drama	2010	014241543

Accidental Adventures of India McAllister

Posted on September 25, 2013 by webmaster

The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister
by Charlotte Agell

India McAllister hopes that fourth grade brings her plenty of fun and adventures in her small town in Maine. She camps out and looks for UFOs with her friend Colby, tries to catch her father’s new bird that gets loose in the house, and takes walks into the woods with her dog. India is also navigating a number of personal issues, including her parents’ divorce, confusing feelings for her father’s implied boyfriend, embarrassment over a plaster breast that hangs in the living room as a reminder that her mother survived breast cancer, and the fact that she was adopted from China.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
690	Middle School	160	Adventure	2010	0805089020

Nineteen Minutes

Posted on September 24, 2013 by webmaster

Nineteen Minutes
by Jodi Picoult

These are the words that seventeen-year-old Peter Houghton says when he is found after a school shooting spree huddling with a gun in his hand by Detective Patrick Ducharme. An outcast who had been bullied since kindergarten, Peter kills ten, including a teacher, and injures many more.

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At first glance, it looks like a straightforward act of revenge, but things are revealed to be more complex. One of his victims is Matt Royston, the boyfriend of his former childhood friend, Josie Cormier, and others are members of the in-crowd, but others have seemingly no relation. In the days before the trial, and in the days leading up to the shooting, we are given the backstory, told mostly from Josie’s, Peter’s, and their mothers’ viewpoint. We learn of the incessant teasing this boy received, adults’ unsuccessful attempts to help him fit in, and of the stormy relationship between Josie and Matt.

During the trial, we hear from the victims who survived and the devastation the crime has wrought on their lives. In the end, the reader may still be undecided whether Peter is primarily a victim, perpetrator, loyal friend, or all three, but that is the point.

Lexile Level	Content Rating	Number of Pages	Genre	Date Published	ISBN Number
890L	Young Adult	460	Thriller/Suspense	2007	0743496736

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