Creepy Vampire tale by Marcus Sedgwick

The cover of My Swordhand Is Singing is a little reminiscent of Poe's "Tell-Tale Heart" - a red eye stares in fright beyond the reader, while the face is spattered with drops of blood. The novel is appealingly creepy, and a little gory as well. Peter has been roaming from town to town with his alcoholic, ne'er do well woodcutter father, always going farther from civilization and deeper into the forest. When they finally settle in a tiny village, something starts bringing the dead back to life, and Peter's father's mysterious past is finally catching up to him. *** Sedgewick is an understated and fine writer - this reads like a retelling of a folktale, which is close to what it is. *** Other great Gothic tales include, well, anything by Edgar Allan Poe, Phillip Pullman's Count Karlstein, the novels of Chris Wooding (The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray, Poison), and Neil Gaiman's Coraline. Or try Cynthia Leitich Smith's website for other recommendations.

Book Club, Jeanne DuPrau

We are kicking off this year's book club by reading (well, mostly re-reading) Menlo Park author Jeanne DuPrau's City of Ember. Lina and Doon were born in a city entirely illuminated by artificial light. They've never held a flashlight, never lit a fire, never even seen the sun. When the generators that power their city start to fail, Lina and Doon discover a long-forgotten clue that just might help them escape their dying world. *** Read (or re-read!) the book before the movie comes out in October. *** Sign up in the library to join us for a book discussion at lunch on September 26. *** Read the fourth book in the series, The Diamond of Darkhold! I really liked it - it was the one most likely to remind you of the first novel. *** Come hear DuPrau discuss her new book at The Menlo Park Public Library on October 3 at 7:00 p.m. ***

New and Noteworthy

Check out Voya's Nonfiction Honor List to get last-minute ideas for your summer reading here. The reviews (not available online) included a few books I can't wait to get my hands on - maybe you are ahead of the curve and this is old news. But just in case, you may want to check these out (of your public library - we're not open for TWO more weeks!): Sovay, Celia Rees: historical fiction about a female highway robber. The Calder Game, Blue Balliet: the food court at my mall back home on Lawn Guyland was called "Calder Court" after the giant baby's mobile hanging over the place. Turns out Calder was a REAL, FAMOUS artist, and his sculptures (along with a boy who shares his name) are disappearing in Balliet's latest art and math themed mystery. Things That Are, Andrew Clements: Bobby and Alicia are again in danger as they decide whether or not to help someone else who has turned invisible. The Sky Inside, Clare B. Dunkle: the reviewer compared it to Among the Hidden and Holes - she had BETTER not be kidding! Twice Upon a Marigold, Jean Ferris: oh, wait, someone donated that to the library! And it was on my summer reading list - what happened to that??? The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman: What was I just saying about Gaiman needing to write more for our younger yet sophisticated audience? Woo-hoo! Superior Saturday, Garth Nix: the penultimate book in his Keys to the Kingdom series is out. The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary E. Pearson: Jenna wonders if life is worth living when her consciousness is saved after her body is destroyed in a car accident. Magician: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flammel, Michael Scott: the sequel to The Alchemyst, by the author who visited Hillview in the Spring of 2007. Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, Naholo Uehashi: for manga fans, translated from the original Japanese. * And, of course, you don't need ME to tell you that Breaking Dawn, Stephenie Meyer's new book, is out. I'm rooting for the werewolf, but I know I'm in the minority here. You'll need to tell me how it ends - I'll never get to it!

Waiting for Normal, Leslie Connor

Leave it to Addie to make the most out of living in a trailer right under a train overpass in a sea of asphalt near a toxic dump site. But while she finds amazing friends at the mini-mart next door, Addie knows it's not normal for her mother to disappear for days. And she gets a distressingly brief glimpse of what normal might feel like when she visits her ex-stepfather and her half sisters in their new home, with their new mother. How can she go back to eating canned soup in an empty trailer after that? * My buddies at Kepler's introduced this gem to me and they did not steer me wrong. This is not another "oh my life is so hard" book, but keep the tissues nearby just in case.

Bunker 10, J.A. Henderson

A handful of genius teenagers who live on a hidden military base are hatching an elaborate escape plan so that two of them can go on a date. What they don't know is that deep below, on the tenth level underground, a dangerous experiment has mutated one of them beyond recognition, and she is desperately trying to escape and wreck havoc on the world. * Okay, so don't read this if you're looking for something deep. But it will keep you guessing until pretty much the last page - lots of fun twists and turns. The body count is pretty high, but the gore factor is fairly low. Good for non-sci-fi fans too.

The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

What are you waiting for? Summer is slipping through your fingers! And it's the perfect time to read these books. In fact, little JT is listening to The Hobbit before naptime and bedtime - she even says Bilbo! When I first read the books, in fifth or sixth grade, I skipped over all the descriptive passages. But Tolkien wasn't a professor of language for nothing - this stuff is seriously beautiful - read it out loud if you don't believe me. And even the umpteenth time I re-read Tolkien, I have hard time putting it down. I KNOW what's going to happen next (and you may, or may think you do, from the movies) but that isn't the point. Look for the humor - Gandalf (and everyone else, but Gandalf is funniest) is always making fun of those hobbits. * Already a fan? Re-read it! Already did this summer? Try James A. Owen's Here, There Be Dragons, which includes a lot of Tolkien references. I didn't find it as clever as Owen thinks it is, but it was fun. * I wish I could list all the authors in Tolkien's class, but I think he stands alone. For another beautifully written, read between the old-fashioned language for the humor, magic-infused, action doesn't pick up until at least a hundred fifty-pages but you're still interested all the way along, epic book, try Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

Interworld, Neil Gaiman and Michael Reeves

In the regular world, Joey Harker has no sense of direction. Turns out, all his direction sense lies in between the worlds. Joey is a walker, someone who can cross between the alternate universes that are created every time a vastly important decision is made. All kinds of Joey Harkers (different genders and species) share this gift, and with it the burden of maintaining the balance between the forces of magic and the forces of science that strive to take over all the worlds. * I've been waiting for a Neil Gaiman sci-fi or fantasy book that would be fully appropriate for middle schoolers. (We have his Coraline at Hillview and it is one of the creepiest horror books I've read! Most of his stuff is a little, um, not appropriate for our library. But check it out someday - I think he may be my current favorite author...) Here he's teamed up with Michael Reeves, who does TV, computer games and a lot of Star Wars novels. Put Gaiman's awesome imagination together with Reeves's masterful plotting, and you get a wildly inventive and compulsively readable novel. I'm hoping for a sequel!

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

When her brother dies on the train while their mother takes them to live with a foster family, Liesel steals a book from the ground at his funeral. Her foster father uses this unlikely title (The Gravedigger's Handbook) to calm her when she wakes from nightmares about her brother, and to teach her to read. This extraordinary story is narrated by Death, who is takes time out of his grueling job (it is the 1930s in Germany...) to keep tabs on Liesel. You can mostly trust the hype on this one - I'm very picky, and occasionally saw the effort Zusak was making in crafting his elegant prose. But usually I was moved, and often to tears... The effect lasted for days... Zusak wrote this one for adults but it's marketed in the US for teens. IMDB says there's a movie coming out...

Ursula K. Le Guin

Every summer I read at least one book for adults: this summer I treated myself to Le Guin's new book, Lavinia, a fabulous look at the founding mother of Rome. Le Guin was my favorite author in my teen and young adult years, but her work isn't for everyone. That's because her books are definitely NOT plot driven; they are driven by characters that always resonate and themes that are fully integrated into the writing and plots. She is one of the best writers out there and has recently been publishing tons of great stuff. Here are some of her books you might like: In A Wizard of Earthsea a powerful and proud young wizard in training is hunted by a darkness he releases when he casts a dangerous, forbidden spell. First in a series. The recently-published Tales of Earthsea was a real delight. Avoid the Sci-fi channel miniseries at all costs. Gifts: Aristocratic but poor, Orrec blinds himself to keep from using his powers to harm others, while his childhood companion Gry learns to use her power of communicating with animals to help them rather than hunt them. The Lathe of Heaven - When George Orr discovers that his dreams become reality, he falls into the hands of a psychotherapist who tries to use George to change the world. Perhaps her most conventional work, this sci-fi book for adults has teen appeal. (Her classics are The Dispossessed, about a physicist on an anarchist planet, and The Left Hand of Darkness, about a human envoy to a planet of androgynes. I couldn't comprehend these until high school and didn't appreciate them until college, but a recent Hillview grad said LHD was "kafkaesque" and loved it.)

Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Sherman Alexie

For my first book of the summer, I chose the complete opposite of a beach read. Junior risks complete ostracization when he leaves his Spokane reservation to attend an all-white school 22 miles away. He copes with the pain, and with more grief than anyone should face in five lifetimes, by keeping a sense of humor as well as drawing cartoons. Often completely (though appropriately!) profane, this book made me laugh and cry throughout. Just a taste: Junior gets the idea to leave the res from his math teacher after Arnold breaks his nose. Why did Arnold break his nose? Because when he saw that his decrepit math book once belonged to his mother, he threw it across the room in frustration. Why did his teacher think Arnold should leave? Because Arnold, besides being one of his brightest students, is one of the only who still thinks he deserves better than a forty year old school book. As a teacher in a well-supported school district, that really moved me. Click here for links to audio clips of the book as well as reviews.

The Dead and the Gone, Life as We Knew It, Susan Beth Pfeffer

I stayed up way past my bedtime last night finishing The Dead and the Gone. (Hillview students may remember that this is the book about Alex Morales taking care of his younger sisters in New York City after his parents go missing in a world-wide climate catastrophe.) I'm sad to report that while it's really gripping, I didn't find it as involving as Life as We Knew It (the original story, about a girl and her family coping with the same tragedy in rural Pennsylvania). What Alex has to cope with to survive is certainly gruesome (looking for his mom in the morgue that was Yankees Stadium, searching the corpses that litter the streets for items to barter for food) and some scenes, especially those involving babies, made me want to cry. But he is much less introspective than Miranda (from the other book) was and I think that kept me at a distance. And though I had some uneasy dreams, it's nothing like the terror I felt for days after finishing Life as We Knew It. Your mileage may vary: I'm probably numbed to the gore from years of horror movies, and maybe less introspection is more your style. So don't let me keep you from trying this out - after all, I was compelled to lose sleep to finish!

Fun Sports Fiction

Looking to read some good sports fiction? Try Mike Lupica, a sports writer who pens great novels for teens about baseball and basketball. Walter Dean Myers's and Chris Crutcher's sports books are also great but definitely for older teens. If you're ready to move beyond Matt Christopher but still want a quick read, try Rich Wallace (Winning Season series) Dan Gutman (Satch and Me, etc.), or Gene Fehler's Beanball. For sports stories featuring girls, try Catherine Murdock's Dairy Queen, about a girl who plays football (not the soccer kind of football!). Kristi Roberts writes about baseball in My Thirteenth Season. Liz Tigelaar tackles soccer in Pretty Tough.

Gone, Michael Grant

Imagine if everyone over the age of 13 suddenly disappeared. And your town was enclosed in a 20-mile radius barrier. And your friends - and enemies - suddenly started developing supernatural powers. Kind of a cross between Lord of the Flies, Heroes, and Shade's Children, this one is a page-turner! I was a little disappointed not to see more closure at the end - Grant is clearly setting himself up not just for a sequel but an entire series. But I couldn't put it down! Oh, this doesn't come out until late June. My buddies at Kepler's set me up with an advanced reader's copy! :)

Schooled, Gordon Korman

If you liked Stargirl, give Schooled a read! Capricorn Anderson has spent his entire life on a 1960s-style, hippie commune with only his grandmother Rain for company. When Rain is badly injured, social services sends Capricorn to a normal middle school. With long curly hair, tie-dye shirts and homemade shoes, Cap is the number one target of ridicule; he's even elected 8th grade president, an "honor" reserved for the biggest loser at school. Will this naive, altruistic and completely innocent young man be corrupted by modern values? Or will some of Capricorn's good vibes rub off on everyone else?

Evolution, Me and Other Freaks of Nature, Robin Brande

Mena's first year of high school is turning out to be miserable. Her former friends hate her, her parents barely tolerate her, and she isn't even welcome in her church anymore. (It's complicated, but basically she apologized to someone and he's using her letter of apology to sue a bunch of people for harassment.) Things start to get interesting in science class when her lab partner turns out to be a cute nerdy type and her former friends protest the unit on evolution. I couldn't put this one down! Sweet romance and some weighty issues.

The Ear, The Eye, the Arm. Nancy Farmer

In 2194, Zimbabwe's Chief of Security keeps his country safe from gangs. But when his three children escape their hypersecure compound seeking adventure, they are quickly kidnapped and sold to work in a plastics mine. Three mutant detectives with psychic abilities search for the children, whose own attempts at saving themselves only get them deeper into trouble. When the children fall into the hands of Zimbabwe's only remaining gang, the deadly Masks, it's a race against time to save them. I can't say enough good things about Nancy Farmer. I've read three of her books and they all feature the most unusual settings, like futuristic Central America (House of the Scorpion), and complicated characters, such as the brutal but principled Viking leader in Sea of Trolls. All three are a little dark, but not without hope!

Elsewhere, Gabrielle Zevin

Even in death, Liz can't get a break. After her untimely demise at 15, she finds herself in Elsewhere, which is a lot like Earth. People have homes, families and jobs (Marilyn Monroe is a therapist!), and can even watch events on Earth through binoculars. But instead of growing up, everyone grows down, getting younger each year, until they are sent back to earth as newborns. Liz can't believe that she will never be 16 again!

Samurai Shortstop, Alan Gratz

The age of the Samurai is over. Just over - it's 1890, and Japan's Emperor has recently ordered all Samurai to give up their swords. Rather than do so, Toyo's uncle commits ritual suicide, right in front of Toyo (NOT for the squeamish!!!). Still reeling over his uncle's death, Toyo has been sent to Japan's most exclusive boarding school. The older kids there mercilessly haze the younger ones, beating them senseless in the middle of the night. Toyo gains a measure of respect because he's really good at baseball. But then his father starts teaching him the ways of the Samurai, and Toyo begins to worry that his father intends to commit suicide, and wants Toyo to assist him... Readers will cheer for Toyo as he outwits the older boys, laugh with him and his funny friend Futoshi, and worry along with him about his father. And the sports scenes are cool - they play baseball in flip flops! Check out the book's website.

Shug, Jenny Han

What happens when you fall for your best friend, but he doesn't fall for you? Unfortunately for her, Annemarie (Shug) Wilcox is about to find out. The perfect summer novel! Author Jenny Han has not forgotten what it's like to be a seventh grader. Check out her website at www.jennyhanwrites.com

Summer Reading Lists

The summer reading lists will be distributed soon through Core classes. Be sure to start early and leave yourself time. Not so much time to finish your books - that's a given! But time to decide that you don't like the book you picked, to STOP wasting your time reading a free-choice book you hate, and to FIND a book you'll REALLY love. Now, this doesn't apply to assigned books, like The Outsiders - but I haven't ever met anyone who hated that book! Check out the reading links if you need help finding a good book, or talk to your public librarian. Or me, if you get an early jump on this. View the summer reading lists here. Happy Reading!