The Off Season & Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

             

The Off Season by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

After playing varsity linebacker in her school’s opening football game and scoring a touchdown on an interception, DJ Schwenk starts the school year feeling upbeat. But after People magazine publishes an article about her, all the attention embarrasses her. A shoulder injury in football puts her basketball season in danger, especially since her only chance of affording college will be on an athletic scholarship. All these problems become minor when her brother Win, in college on a football scholarship, is badly injured. DJ keeps Win company in the hospital and rehab. Trying to lift his spirits becomes DJ’s fulltime job until her parents get some help for the family’s farm and can join Win and DJ. As the family adjusts to what has become their “new normal,” their relationships shift to accommodate everyone’s new roles.

Ms. Murdock makes DJ such a true-to-life character that I feel like she could be a student at Berkeley High. Another feature I like about the book is the humor that keeps popping up, even in serious situations. This book is the sequel to Dairy Queen.

Front and Center by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Third in the Dairy Queen series. DJ Schwenk returns to high school after Thanksgiving, having missed 27 days of school caring for her injured brother Win. DJ wants nothing more than to return to being in the background in school and her hometown, but her brother’s injury and her prominence after playing football won’t allow that to happen. After learning that she has to contact college coaches who are interested in her in order to start the scholarship process, DJ works hard to overcome her shyness. At the same time she has two boys interested in dating her, a situation she never expected would happen to her. By the end of the book DJ has followed both her brothers’ and friends’ advice plus her own instinct and learned much about herself and how to achieve her goals.

DJ has become such a real person to me that I’m sorry this is the last book in the series. All the characters, from her family to her friends to her coaches and the people in her town have true to life personalities. I really want to know what will happen to them next. The author adds humor to both serious and minor situations, which I really liked.

Reviewed by Ms. Goldstein-Erickson

Cross My Heart and Hope To Spy by Ally Carter

Cross My Heart and Hope To Spy by Ally Carter

Before returning to her school, the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, for spring semester, Cammie Morgan stops at CIA headquarters for interrogation. The agents question her about Josh, her ex-boyfriend, referred to as the “Subject.” Since Cammie’s school is a training ground for spies, with a cover story of being an exclusive boarding school for rich, snobby girls, the agents want to be sure Cammie and the school have not been compromised. After the semester starts, Cammie and her roommates overhear her mother telling the Covert Operations teacher something mysterious. The girls learn that boys from Blackthorne Institute, a training school for boy spies, will be going to school with them for spring semester. How they move from competing with each other to carrying out a cooperative mission becomes a real challenge, complete with suspicious behavior from many sources. This is the second book in the Gallagher Girls series, with humor and action aplenty! I am especially enjoying getting to know all the characters and look forward to seeing what happens in the next three books in the series.

Review by Ms. Goldstein-Erickson

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter

Cammie, a sophomore at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, narrates this story of her adventures at school, which secretly trains girls to be spies.  The outside world, including the local town of Roseville, Virginia, believes the girls are all rich and spoiled snobs. As part of their training, they learn multiple languages, intensive world history, cultures, assimilation techniques and covert operations. On a practice operation in town, Cammie realizes a local boy sees her, even though she’s known as Cammie the Chameleon because of her skill at hiding in plain sight. When he starts paying attention to her, Cammie struggles between building a relationship with him and concealing her true identity. I loved the way Ally Carter made this story funny and seem like it could almost be true. This title is the first of five in the series, and I can’t wait to read the rest of them!

Reviewed by Ms. Goldstein-Erickson

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Since her two older brothers left for college, where they both play football, and her father was injured, DJ has been doing all the heavy chores on her family’s dairy farm inWisconsin. Because of the work required, DJ even had to quit basketball the previous season. When her father’s best friend, who coaches football for her school’s biggest rival, sends Brian Nelson, his quarterback, to help on the farm and get conditioned, DJ agrees to train him for a week. After they continue to work out, DJ thinks about playing football herself, but first she has to make up an F grade from sophomore English. She doesn’t even know if she’ll be allowed to play.

One of the best things about this book is the humor. Even when DJ’s telling about serious events, the author adds funny comments that sometimes even made me laugh out loud. One example is when DJ tells about how people laugh at her when she talks about farm life. She says, “So what. I know where your milk comes from, and your hamburgers.”

Dairy Queen is the first book in a series of three. The second book is The Off season, and the third is Front and Center. Watch for them on the blog and in the library!

Reviewed by Ms. Goldstein-Erickson

Hold Me Closer Necromancer by Lish McBride

Hold Me Closer Necromancer by Lish McBride

What I loved about this title is that it’s a book about demons, werewolves, etc. that doesn’t take itself too seriously. In fact, at times it downright funny! Sam flips burgers at Plumpy’s with his best friend Ramon, the new kid Frank and a hottie named Brooke. A college drop out, Sam’s a little frustrated with life, but can at least afford his own tiny apartment, even though his financial aid got cut off when he left school. Big changes happen for him and his friends when they’re playing an innocent hockey game on their break in the burger joint’s parking lot. They smash the taillight of a classic Mercedes, and when the driver returns, Sam realizes rather quickly that he is in for some serious trouble. Before the night is over, he’s had himself beat-up so badly he should have been put in the hospital, and discovered that the reason he’s never quite fit in is that he’s a Necromancer: he can raise the dead. That’s what the “crazy classic shiny car guy” was referring to with all those bizarre questions at Plumpy’s. Douglas Montgomery is evidently an extremely powerful necromancer, and is giving Sam a week to decide if the teenager wants to join him or be killed.

Before the week is even up, Sam finds himself kidnapped and imprisoned in a cell with the most beautiful girl (or perhaps a werewolf…) he has ever seen.  He, his family, the gorgeous Tia and her “pack,” and and his group of ragtag friends have to figure out how to escape, before Douglas runs out of patience and does away with both of the kids.

I enjoyed this book.  Sherman Alexie (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian) called it a SCARY funny for OR a FUNNY scary book and I completely agree.  I would encourage readers looking for something light or humorous to give this title a shot.

Here’s a video book trailer you can watch from home:

Secrets by Lauren Kunze with Rina Onur

Secrets by Lauren Kunze with Rina Onur

This book in the Ivy series picks up with Harvard freshman Callie Andrews returning to Cambridge from Thanksgiving with her family in California.  Callie is up to her neck in trouble: she’s being blackmailed by her magazine editor who has a copy of an incriminating video of Callie and her high school boyfriend; her perfect Harvard boyfriend Clint has told her he needs “space” from her,  her best college friend Vanessa has disowned her completely, and she’s made a huge mistake with the hottie from across the hall.

This book is just as quickly read as the first one; I read it in a long evening and simply couldn’t put it down.  While Callie and her friends may not be the most realistic portrayal of college students, they sure are the most fun ones I’ve read about lately.  This is the perfect book for summer beach reading, if you’re looking to forget about your own problems for awhile, or if you’re a Gossip Girl or Clique fan.

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan

This is one of those books I had heard great things about from students, but just put off reading for no real reason.  Boy am I sorry now because I loved it!  The story takes place in a town so ideal that when a boy is told by his teacher that he’s “definitely gay and has a very good sense of self” when he’s in kindergarten, his mom’s reaction is that he learned a new word.  Paul is surprised that his being gay is different, and rarely faces any homophobia in his small town, although he knows it exists elsewhere.  In the story, Paul is a high school sophomore, and his school includes a cross-dressing football quarterback, cheerleaders that ride Harley Davidson motorcycles and the Gay-Straight Alliance as the most popular club.  Although he’s had boyfriend’s in the past, Paul can barely catch his breath when he meats the new kid at school, Noah. Naturally, the course of true love is never smooth, especially when Paul’s ex starts coming around again, right after he’s convinced Noah that his feelings are real.

While this book is surely a romantic comedy, Paul’s honest narration keeps the plot feeling realistic as well as honest.  I rate this 5 *’s out of 5, and recommend it to all teen readers.  Fans of Alex Sanchez, Julie Anne Peters and Ellen Wittlinger will appreciate Levithan’s LGBT-friendly world.

The Ivy by Lauren Kunze with Rina Onur

The Ivy by Lauren Kunze with Rina Onur

This irresistible book had me sucked in by the first page.  Really!!! Although it’s basically a chick book like the Gossip Girl series, the main character is a California blond who’s beginning her freshman year at the most prestigious of all the ivy league schools–Harvard.  And she doesn’t fit in at all.  Although Callie definitely has the brains and grades to be at the school, she didn’t go to one of the New York prep schools, doesn’t wear pearls to the dining hall, and doesn’t dress in designer clothes. In fact, she wears jeans, t-shirts and rubber thongs to her first week orientation activities!  In contrast, Callie’s three roommates couldn’t be more different from her.  Mimi’s from France , looks like a model and seems to wake up with a different boy each morning.  Preppy Vanessa dresses in designer duds, and seems to be consumed with finding the hottest boy on campus to brand as her own territory.  Lastly, there’s Dana, the devout fundamentalist Christian from Goose Creek, South Carolina who doesn’t even think girls should date in college.  Add to this the fact that Callie’s longtime boyfriend Evan breaks up with her in a text message during first week of classes, and you can see that the drama in this quick book will be nonstop.

The writers (both recent Harvard grads themselves) take humorous look at various aspects of the ivy experience, from the Final Clubs (secret societies) to the over-the-top parties to the excessive competition to write for one of the school publications.  I have to admit that I could not put this book down until I finished reading it.  It’s not my usual type of genre, but Callie and the whole ivy league college experience, yes I know it is unrealistic, captivated me immediately.  I can’t wait for the sequel to come out!  I recommend this to teen readers who are fans of Gossip Girl, the Clique books, and stories with a lot of drama.

The Perks of a Wallflower by Stepehn Chbosky

The Perks of a Wallflower by Stepehn Chbosky

This short title has long been a favorite here at Berkeley High. (In fact, I just bought two new copies to replace some falling-apart ones!)  The story’s narrator, Charlie, is a ninth grade student whose best friend committed suicide the previous spring.  As he enters high school, he becomes a loner, the “wallflower” watching and describing what he sees without much emotion.  The book is told in a series of letters Charlie writes to his “dear friend,” although the reader never learns who this is.    He writes honestly and with a a keen sense of observation, describing high school life as he experiences it.  A group of older students adopt Charlie as a friend, and through them he learns about life, both the good and the bad.  His new best friend Patrick is gay, so Charlie discovers what it’s like to live in a homophobic community.  He falls hard for Patrick’s beautiful sister, Sam, and learns about unrequited love.  Charlie has his first date is with the self-involved Mary Elizabeth, but that relationship falls apart badly when he is honest at a party about who he would most like to kiss (Samantha, of course).  Charlie also experiences casual drug and alcohol use, the ritual of the Rocky Horror Picture Show movie, and being mentored by his English teacher, who literally gives the teen his own favorite books to read and talk about later.

Even during my most recent reading, this book captured my interest from the first few pages.  Charlie’s open and naive voice reminds me of myself as a high school freshman, and many of the kids I see these days, even though many of them have a practiced veneer of  “coolness.”   I think teenagers find it easy to identify with Charlie’s emotions and reactions to his new experiences, and this is one of the reasons this book has stayed so popular even though it is over ten years old.  As of February 2011, the book is being made into a movie starring Logan Lerman (Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightening Thief) and Emma Watson of Harry Potter fame.
I recommend this title to all high school readers–it’s a short, fast read that everyone can identify with.

Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

This book didn’t sound that interesting to me, but it surprised me and was actually pretty great.  In fact, once I got into the story, I had a hard time putting it down to get other things done.  It tells about Piper, a funny, smart, sarcastic high school senior who happens to be deaf.  Although she has hearing aids, her hearing is negligible, but when she sees the winners of the local Battle of the Bands contest rocking it on the front steps of the school, she can’t help but join the crowd, and ends up being one of the last ones to leave.  When the egotistical lead singer and Piper get into a battle of the wits, she ends up challenging the band and signing on as its manager.  She has only one month to get Dumb a paying gig!  She calls the members the Five Flavors of Dumb for a good reason: they couldn’t be more different.  If she can manage to get them to listen to her and each other, they might actually be able to make the record demo they won in the contest, and get a real job.  In addition to this fast-paced, music-centered plot, there are threads about Piper’s family accepting her deafness, her quest to afford college now that her parents have spent her college fund on her baby sister’s cochlear implants, and the band’s drummer Ed Chen, who she’s known forever and now suspects he might qualify for more than just a friend.

What I especially liked about the story is the writer’s appreciation for Seattle’s favorite rock sons–Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain.  Piper and the band members learn about each fallen rocker, and begin to envision their own sound and music within the local music scene.  I highly recommend this to all teen readers!

Spoken Word about libraries!

Taylor Mali is a spoken word poet who emerged out of the Poetry Slam movement.  As a former teacher, many of his poems celebrate the vitality of teaching and learning, all with a wonderful, laugh-out-loud sense of humor.  You can look at this poem about libraries from your home computer, unless you are clever enough to get around the school’s filtering software.  Come in and share a thought or so about it with me for to be put in a drawing for a free, new book!

The Last Summer Of The Death Warriors by Franciso X. Stork

The Last Summer Of The Death Warriors by Franciso X. Stork

This is a book that’s not afraid of examining life’s big issues: death, revenge, family, racism, violence,  and hope, just to list a few.  Fortunately, the writer doesn’t let the story get bogged down in all this, but moves it along at a fairly brisk pace.  The book takes the reader into the lives of two boys in crisis, brought together by a set of unusual circumstances.  Pancho has just lost his last living family member, his mentally challenged sister who died under mysterious circumstances in a motel room.  Since the police listed her cause of death as “undetermined” but he is sure something is fishy, he is resolved to take revenge against the man he believes had something to do with her death.  Daniel, known as D.Q., has a form a cancer that seems to be ending his life, sooner rather than later.  He lives at St. Anthony’s Orphanage, where his mother left him years ago when she couldn’t deal with being a single parent.  He’s writing the Death Warrior Manifesto, a philosophical guide to living each day to its fullest.

Although D.Q. is not convinced that any medical treatments can help him at the point, he agrees to try an experimental treatment in Albuquerque, so his estranged mother will let him become legally emancipated and live out his short life at St. Anthony’s, where he feels at home.  Pancho agrees to go with him to help out, with a secret plan to find his sister’s “killer” and exact his revenge.   Even though each boy is travels for his own reasons, their journey becomes one of learning about themselves, as much as the apparent reason for the trip.

I liked this book a lot and must say it touched me emotionally the way not that many books do.  Its questions about life, death and friendship stayed with me long after I finished the last page.  I would recommend this to readers looking for a book with deeper meaning, readers who enjoy novels that make them think about life and death and the meaning of it all.

King of the Screwups

King of the Screwups by K.L. Going

Liam Geller can’t seem to do anything right, at least according to his super successful CEO father.  Despite the fact that he’s one of the most popular guys at his school, is great at sports, and dresses like the cover of GQ, he can’t keep himself from screwing up in his dad’s eyes.  When his parents catch him nearly naked with a beautiful, young classmate on his dad’s home office desk, it’s the final straw.  He’s outta there; banished to his ultra-strict military grandparents in Nevada.  For once, Liam’s mom, a gorgeous former super model, intervenes between her son and her emotionally abusive husband.  She arranges for Liam to stay with his dad’s brother, who he calls Aunt Pete, a gay, glam-rocker, who lives in a trailer park and DJ’s a late night radio program.

As you can probably guess, there’s lots of room for laughter in this story, but even more, it touched me the way Liam believed he is such a bad person for not living up to his dad’s impossible expectations.  I really liked this story, and recommend it to anyone interested in family dynamics and a hearty belly laugh.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan

This great book was co-written by two super amazing YA writers: John Green (Waiting for Alaska and Paper Towns) and David Levithan (Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist with Rachel Cohn and Boy Meets Boy).  This hilarious story is about two different teens named Will Grayson (each written in alternating chapters by one of the two writers) who end up meeting through a series of weird circumstances at a porn store called Frenchy’s in Chicago.  Both Will Grayson’s have tons of issues and seem to work at making themselves miserable.  However, by the end of the story, both have learned some about themselves, each other, life and love.  A huge shout out to character Tiny Cooper, a wonderfully flamboyant 300 lb. gay football player and musical theater maestro extraordinaire.  I hope they decide and write a whole book about him!!!  His humanity, sense of humor and lust for life won me over the first time I met him in the book.

Obviously, I highly recommend this book to all readers, especially fans of Green and Levithan.

Here’s an online interview with John Green you can see from home.  As part of it, he even reads the first few pages of the book to us.

Carbon Diaries 2015

Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd

Set in London, this sometimes funny novel answers the question: What happens when the environment goes completely out of whack and Great Britain is the first nation to voluntarily ration carbon for each citizen, forcing everyone to decrease their energy use by at least 60%.  In a practical sense, what this means is that people cannot “afford” to drive their cars much anymore, heat their home adequately, or  use all the electricity they want.  What it means for the main character Laura is that she has to limit her cell phone use, take ridiculously short showers, and save up carbon points just to practice with her band.  The government hooks up “smart meters” in everyone’s home so each family member can check the progress of their personal carbon ration allotment. If they go over by too much, the meter starts shutting things off!

While all this sounds (and is!) pretty serious and devastating, this book is saved from being bleak by it’s snarky and irreverent narrator, 15-year-old Laura.  When she’s not busy failing her courses at school, she’s the bassist in her eco-punk band called dirty angels.  Her story is told in the form of diary entries, liberally illustrated with sketches, emails, and posters, allowing readers a glimpse into her day-to-day life in a world where people are finally having to deal with the repercussions of global warming.

This is a must read for fans of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother and other futuristic fiction,  and readers who like humorous, sarcastic and realistic teenage  narrators.

Ten Things I Hate About Me

Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah

What I liked about this book was that its main issue is how to fit in with a culture that’s completely different from your family at home. Jamilah Towfeek dyes her hair blond , wears blue contacts lenses and calls herself Jamie at school to disguise her Lebanese-Muslim heritage from the kids at her high school. Although she’s not ashamed about who she is, the cool students at school make fun of anyone who looks “ethnic.” (Can you imagine that happening at BHS? We’d all be making fun of ourselves!) While surfing online, Jamilah befriends a local boy and realizes that she can be herself and have people like her for who she really is. Her school and home identities collide when her band is asked to play at the school’s formal dance. Does she have the guts to show her classmates who she really is??? Read Ten Things I Hate About Me to find out!

In the Forest of Hands and Teeth

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

This is truly one of my favorite books from this fall!  It’s the story of Mary who lives in a land and time very different than our own. In Mary’s world, a chain link fence surrounds the village, protecting the townspeople from the Unconsecrated who live just beyond the fence.  These eternally hungry undead being inhabit what has become know as the forest of hands and teeth.  One bite from an Unconsecrated dooms you to become on also; a choice Mary’s mother made in order to join her husband when he became one of the undead.

In this post-apocalyptic world, a religious order called the Sisterhood rules the community.  Their rules don’t always make sense, but disobeying is not an option–Mary discovers that the punishment for this is banishment into the Forest of Hands and Teeth.  Unfortunately for her, Mary dreams about the ocean, ” a place where there was nothing but water as far as you could see an that it was always moving, rushing toward you and away,” that her mother used to tell her stories about.  She dreams about leaving the confines of the village and harsh rules of the Sisters.  One day she gets her chance to escape, but that journey is one she may not survive.

Here is a great video you can look at when you’re not at school.

Another Faust

Another Faust by Daniel and Dina Nayeri

The publisher sent me an ARC (advanced readers copy) of this book over the summer, and I finally got around to reading it.  Definitely a fun read.  Email me @ alexand278@aol.com if you would like to be the first to read this new title.

Indie Girl

Indie Girl by Kavita Daswani

Indira Konkipuddi, known as Indie to her friends, has dreamed of a career in the fashion industry since she was eleven.  Despite her neurosurgeon dad’s insistence on good grades and Ivy League possibilities, Indie knows she absolutely MUST be chosen for the internship at Celebrity Style magazine, even if it means chasing the editor’s limousine to get her attention!  When she actually accepts a summer job as the editor’s babysitter, she’s sure Aaralyn Taylor will have to see her fashion savvy and creativity and offer her the coveted internship position.

However, warnings should have gone off in her head when Aaralynn tells her that  “people from your part of the world are good with domestic duties.”   Oblivious the the racial slight at her Indian heritage, Indie, gives the nanny job her all, but learns a lot more about life than fashion.  Along the way she visits Milan, but only as the hired help, even though she overhears a conversation that may help save Celebrity Style.  Although the may not be the deepest novel I’ve ready lately, curling up with it is a wonderful way to spend a rainy weekend afternoon.

Currently available at the Berkeley Public Library.

Kabul Beauty School

Kabul Beauty School : An American woman goes behind the veil by Deborah Rodriquez

This is the perfect book to read for that Non-fiction book project so many teachers are assigning this year. It is the story of how a hair stylist named Debbie goes to Afganistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. At first she is going not just to help, but to escape an abusive home situation. But she finds herself falling in love with the country, and ends up starting a beauty school to help the women support their families and become more independent. What I especially appreciated about her story is that she is able to laugh at herself and her own mistakes, using affection and humor to teach the women how to find strength in thier own abilities.

This is currently on order for the library.