Dumplin'

by Julie Murphy

Aw, Willowdean! You can't help but smile and nod your head as you read this book. Will's dad isn't around, and she has spent her whole life with her mom and her very overweight Aunt Lucy. When we meet her, Lucy has just died of a heart attack, and Willowdean is reeling. She shared a special bond with Lucy, and she misses her terribly. Willowdean has weight issues of her own, and it's never really bothered her before, but then she meets Bo. He's gorgeous, and even though she thinks he's way out of her league, he likes her. All of a sudden, her insecurities rear their ugly heads. She can't bring herself to tell her best friend, Ellen, that Bo has been kissing her behind the dumpster at work, and the secret makes her feel farther and farther away from her tiny, beautiful friend. One day, while going through her Aunt Lucy's things, Will finds an application for the local beauty pageant, and gets a crazy idea--one that will turn just about all of her relationships on their heads.

The best part of this book has to be the characters, and while it's probably billed more as a romance, it's the friendship story of Ellen and Willowdean that steals the show. The group of misfits that Will hangs out with are hilarious and believable. Her flawed but loving mother is perfectly drawn. In fact, the only character who feels a bit flat to me is Bo. Even Mitch, the other third of Will's love triangle, is just so spot on. This book definitely deserves all the praise it's been getting recently!

(This one won't be in our middle school library, but you can find it at the public library or at a bookstore.)

Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek

by Maya Van Wagenen

Okay... here's what I like about this book. 1) Her overall message about the pursuit of popularity, and how it's basically something that is unattainable. It's great for teens to see others struggle, and make it to the other side. 2) I was born in South Texas, and thought the Brownsville setting was right on and pretty hilarious. She's right when she says that the story wouldn't have been the same if it had taken place somewhere else. That's about it. I just didn't find her experiment, or the excerpts from Betty's book, charming or funny. I was sad for her friends as she started table hopping in the cafeteria to make new friends, only to alienate the old ones. The fact that this young lady is so focused on becoming popular that she would do something this drastic is slightly disturbing. You might argue that this is simply a voyage of self discovery, but it's clearly not. She really, really, wants to be popular. In fact, she practically shivers with delight when her arch-nemesis tells her that everyone knows her name, and actually calls her popular. If the purpose of this book is to put a great message out there for teens, I'm not sure this is it.

by Sibeal Pounder

Tiga Whicabim doesn't know she's a witch until Fran the fairy shows up in her tiny shed of a home, shows her that her name is an anagram for I AM A BIG WITCH, and takes her down the sink pipes to Ritzy City. There she discovers that witches' hats are only pointy due to the journey up the pipes to our world, that witches love jam, and that she is one of nine girls slated to battle it out in the Witch Wars. The winner of Witch Wars gets to rule Ritzy City as Top Witch, but the stakes are higher for Tiga. If she loses, she'll have to go back to her shed with her horrible caretaker, who feeds her only cheese water. Not to mention the fact that she doesn't know a single spell. She'll have to work hard to outsmart mean girl witches Felicity Bat and Aggie Hoof, but luckily her new friend Peggy vows to help. The young witches, along with the sassy little fairies, make for a colorful and unpredictable cast of characters. Whimsical black-and-white illustrations throughout help readers envision this fantastical locale.

Isle of the Lost

by Melissa de la Cruz

All the evil villains of Disney movie fame have been exiled to the Isle of the Lost. A huge dome covers the island, keeping them from using any magic. They are relegated to eating scraps and wearing castoffs of the good citizens of Auradon, ruled by King Beast and Queen Belle. The children of Maleficient, Jabar, Evil Queen, and Cruella De Vil (respectively Mal, Jay, Evie, and Carlos) don't know any other life away from the island. Every aspect of their existence is focused on becoming more evil, and finding nefarious ways to entertain themselves. When Carlos invents a device that is meant to provide them with more cable channels, he inadvertently opens a hole in the dome, allowing a tiny bit of magic to reactivate Maleficient's scepter, the Dragon's Eye. The four go off on a quest to find the staff, each for their own selfish reasons. All the while, though, the descendants of the most evil villains to ever walk the earth are starting to (gasp!) show signs of caring for each other. And over on Auradon, Prince Ben, son of Beast and Belle, is having visions of a beautiful blue-haired girl he's never met, even though he's betrothed to Princess Audrey, daughter of Aurora. Disney lovers and fairy-tale fans alike will need to get their hands on this book.

The Witch of Blackbird Pond

by Elizabeth George Speare

The Witch of Blackbird Pond is the simple story of Kit, a wealthy girl from Barbados whose last family member on the island dies. She stows away on a ship to Connecticut to find her mother's sister, and encounters a way of life that is completely foreign to her.

This was one of my very favorite books as a kid, and I'm quite certain I read it ten-plus times. I was a little hesitant to reread it as an adult, for fear that some of its magic would now be lost on me. Instead, it felt like having lunch with an old friend.

I LOVE Kit Tyler. She was my hero as a girl, and she's my hero now. It's interesting to think about what little me must have seen in her. She's brave. She's generous. She's headstrong, but she knows when to call it quits. She's loyal, practical, and hard-working. She's stubborn and a little bit arrogant. She hates the snow, and because of her, I still have an unfulfilled dream of visiting Barbados one day.

Even though it has been many, many years since I last read this book, I knew exactly what was going to happen when Prudence dropped her doll in the water. That scene, among many others, was burned in my mind. That's good storytelling, and that's good writing.

Olive's Ocean

by Kevin Henkes

Martha Boyle's life is rocked when she hears a knock at her front door the day before she leaves for summer vacation. A woman introduces herself as Olive's mother, a girl Martha's age who was hit by a car and killed a few weeks before. The mom found an entry in Olive's diary that said that she hoped she and Martha could become friends, and that Martha was the nicest person in school. The diary page haunts Martha. Olive was a strange girl--an outcast--and Martha barely knew her. When she arrives at the coast to visit her grandmother, Olive is never far from her mind, but she's also got her own issues to deal with. The group of five brothers who live down the beach provide some interesting distractions, as does her deepening relationship with her grandmother. This is a beautiful coming of age story, with a lovable main character, and colorful extras. I think Martha's story will be with me for a long time.

This is What Happy Looks Like

by Jennifer E. Smith

When Graham Larkin accidentally hits one key too many and sends Ellie O'Neill an email about his pet pig by mistake, she can't pass up the opportunity to respond. They begin an email friendship that quickly turns flirtatious, and pretty soon, they're emailing every chance they get. They never exchange numbers, or even names, for fear of ruining the magic, but they know they live all the way across the country from each other--Graham in California, Ellie in Maine. There's something Ellie doesn't know about her pen pal, though. He's a movie star. Like, the hottest teen star in the country.

Graham finds out that his newest film project needs to be set in a quiet beach town, and suddenly he knows just the place. He suggests to the producers that they work in Ellie's hometown, and when he gets there, he sets out to try to find her. When he does, the connection is immediate, but Ellie has a secret of her own. Will they be able to get past all the drama in their lives and be able to be together?

This is not normally my kind of book, but I had heard so many good things about it I just had to give it a try. I'm so glad I did! Funny, sweet, and hopeful in all the right ways.

The Perfectionists

by Sara Shepard

I've never read the Pretty Little Liar books, but I am a huge fan of the show, so thought I'd try it out. Not bad--it's very, very, similar to PLL. The cute girls, the high fashion, the hoodies, the burying stuff in the yard. Yep, all there. And she took her time setting up the background of all the characters. It was awhile before I could keep them all straight. I totally enjoyed it, though, in a brainless, I don't have to think while I read this kind of way. Don't expect an ending, though, because there's not any semblance of a conclusion. We'll have to read book two to find out how it ends, apparently.

Note: This will be published in October 2014. I'm guessing it will probably only be at the high schools.

Summer of the Mariposas

by Guadalupe Garcia McCall

Five sisters, cinco hermanitas, are swimming where they shouldn't. They love this little spot in the river, though, where the water bubbles up into a little alcove. They've snuck to this spot many times before, but today, there is a body floating in their playground. They are afraid to call the police, for fear of getting in trouble for being there in the first place. They drag him out, find his wallet, and see that he lives across the border in Mexico, very near their abuelita, their father's mother. Their papa, a once popular Tejano singer, has left them with no explanation. This body has given them an excuse to make a journey to Mexico to find their abuelita, and maybe their papa.

Odilia, the oldest, has the first of many mystical encounters with La Llorona, just before they leave. She gives Odilia some cryptic advice and a magical earring, and the girls, dead body in tow, are on their way to Mexico. (La Llorona, by the way, is a famous Mexican folktale. Many others are sprinkled throughout the story, like Chupacabra, etc.)

This is a retelling of The Odyssey, which, to be fair, is not one of my favorite stories in the first place. I found it hard to believe that five little girls would ride to Mexico with a dead body propped up in the car next to them, and while I realize I'm supposed to suspend my disbelief a little bit here, I just couldn't get past it. The story of the sisters and their falling-apart family was the best part of the book, but unfortunately, so much more time was spent on the mystical elements, which just weren't as interesting to me.

17 & Gone

by Nova Ren Suma

Lauren is seeing things. Girls who have disappeared, all 17 years old. They are in her car, at her school, in her room. She feels like they're trying to tell her something. Like maybe how she can save them. The girls consume her. They ruin her relationship with her boyfriend, and paying attention at school is a joke. As she delves deeper into the mystery, you'll have to keep turning pages to find out what happens to the girls, and to Lauren.

I absolutely loved Suma's Imaginary Girls. This one kept me interested until the end, but I don't think it was even close to the same level as her first.

The Essence

by Kimberly Derting

In this second installment of Derting’s Pledge novels, Charlie is now the unlikely queen of Ludania, but the former, evil queen Sabara is not gone. Her spirit, or essence, resides within Charlie. The new queen, while inexperienced and uncomfortable in her role, has been able to make some sweeping changes across the country, including the banning of executions, and allowing freedom of speech. She still has much to learn, and sets off to a conference where she will meet the queens of the surrounding nations. At the conference, Sabara makes her sinister presence more and more clear. Her desires for the immortal Niko cloud Charlie’s own feelings for Max, creating a strange, and extraneous, kind of love triangle. Max, her love interest in the first novel, gets little page time, except as a foil for Charlie/Sabara’s feelings for Niko. While the majority of the story is told from Charlie’s perspective, intermittent point of view changes make the narrative choppy. Pair this with an undeterminable setting, along with too many supernatural/dystopian/fantasy elements mish-mashed together, and you’ve got a book with no real sense of direction.

Ghoulfriends Forever

by Gitty Daneshvari

This series of books features three teen monsters new to Monster High. Rochelle (a gargoyle), Robecca (a robot), and Venus (a Venus Flytrap), become friends as they learn their way around their new campus. They constantly encounter obstacles, from troll hall monitors who may or may not eat them, to teachers with severe emotional problems, to cute boys who aren’t their boyfriends. Every class, every location in the school, and every character’s name is a pun. The girls check out books in the Libury, shop at the Maul, and go to Physical Deaducation. The girls are adjusting well until a new teacher begins casting a spell over the whole school, and they set out to find a way to stop her.

This book was pretty silly, and all the monster puns got really old, really fast. If you like goofy, cheesy, humore, though, maybe this is the book for you!

Endure

by Carrie Jones

Zara, once human, is now a pixie queen in this fourth and final installment of the Need series. She has saved her boyfriend Nick from Valhalla, but he doesn’t remember her good deed, and is now repelled by her pixie-ness. That’s okay, though—she has Astley, her pixie king, and she sort of has feelings for him, too. Lots of pining over Nick ensues, as well as quite a bit of male posturing between Nick and Astley. As Zara deals with her personal problems, kids are disappearing by the handful in their town. The evil pixies are rising up, and the apocalypse is nigh if Zara, her friends, and the good pixies don’t intervene. This means war, and just about every supernatural creature ever dreamed up plays a role, from were-tigers to a half-zombie.

I had to read this so I could review it for a magazine, and to be fair, I haven't read the first three, so I had a hard time getting into it. It was a little much for me with all the crazy supernatural beings, but maybe it's just because I haven't read the others.

Song of the Sparrow

by Lisa Ann Sandell

Elaine lives with her father in a world of men--King Arthur's army camp. She sews, and mends, and cooks, and cleans, but loves her life. Handsome Lancelot is her close friend, but her heart also pounds every time he is near. Is it love? Could he possibly love her back? She doesn't get a chance to tell him before he leaves for his latest mission, but vows to herself that she will let him know how she feels when he returns. But he comes back with Gwynivere, who is intended to be King Arthur's new bride. She knows she shouldn't be threatened by this lady in fine clothes, but she sees a look pass between Lancelot and Gwynivere, and realizes there is more to their relationship than meets the eye.

A story told in verse, this is a lovely retelling of Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott. It's a fast read, with a sweet and satisfying ending.

Fairest of All

by Sarah Mlynowski

When 5^th grader Abby and her little brother Jonah move from Chicago to boring small-town Smithville, they think the exciting part of their lives might be over. Then Jonah discovers a hissing mirror in the basement. After he knocks on it three times, the mirror swallows them both up and spits them out in a fairy tale land called Zamel. They arrive just in time to witness Snow White’s evil stepmother attempting to poison Snow with an apple, just like in the story. They save her from that fate, but soon realize their huge mistake. If Snow doesn’t eat the poisoned apple, the Prince never gets to rescue her, and she never falls in love with him. They have actually ruined Snow White’s happily ever after. Somehow they have to get the Prince’s attention, but it won’t be easy. This is essentially Snow White retold, with enough amusing changes thrown in to keep tweens giggling. Some of the dwarves are girls, one of them is ridiculously handsome, and the magic mirror’s name is Gabrielle. While Snow White is annoyingly vapid, Abby’s conversational narration is witty and charming, and Jonah’s one-liners are snappy and cute. A sweet, light, fun adventure.

Fat Cat

by Robin Brande

Cat decides, for her science project, to go back to the time of the hominims, or cave people. She really, really wants to win the science fair. Her ex-best friend Matt is competing against her, and she can't stand to lose to him. She decides to use herself as an experiment, and go back, as close as possible, to eating and living as cave people did. No processed food, no technology, no cars except in case of emergency. An added benefit? Cat, a junk food junkie, begins to lose weight. She feels better, and guys start noticing her. So why isn't she happy? Why is she still thinking about Matt? And why does she hate him so much anyway?

This book is by the same author who wrote Evolution, Me, and Other Freaks of Nature, a story I really love, and I love this one, too. The love story will keep you guessing, and the experiment will almost make you want to give up fast food!

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters

by Natalie Standiford

The Sullivan girls have a love/hate relationship with their grandmother. For one thing, they call her Almighty, because that's how she behaves. She declares that the entire family has been written out of her substantial will because someone has offended her, and she won't reinstate them until the guilty party confesses. Each girl thinks it MUST be her, and what follows is the story of the sins of each sister--always a juicy read!

You get three stories in one with this book. It's funny, fresh, and touching. If you like The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (one of my faves) you'll enjoy this novel with strong female voices and an ending that will make you cry laughing!

The Poison Diaries

by Maryrose Wood

Jessamine's father is an apothecary (sort of an old-school pharmacist). She's become quite gifted at growing and handling his plants, but there is a locked section of the garden that he will not even let her enter. It's where he keeps the poisonous plants, and he seems afraid even at the mere mention of her entering. She respects his wishes, but one day, a young man who is extremely gifted with plants himself, is dropped off at their house and left in their care. Weed has a secret, and as he reveals pieces of the mystery to Jessamine, they fall in love. What does Weed know about the poison garden? Can he be trusted, or is he simply too dangerous for Jessamine to love?

What an interesting concept! The idea for this book came from an actual poison garden kept by the Duchess of Northumberland in England. To tell you what makes this story different would give too much away.

All We Know of Heaven

by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Summary: Bridget and Maureen are alike in so many ways. Petite, blonde, cheerleaders, best friends forever. A horrible accident--one lives, one dies. But the doctors get it wrong. They tell Maureen's family to plan a funeral, and Bridget's family sits at the bedside of a comatose girl they think is theirs. After realizing the devastating truth, the doctors must give miraculous news to one family, and destroy the lives of another. Maureen must overcome not only her physical issues, but come to grips with the grief and resentment of Bridget's family. Bridget's boyfriend stays by Maureen's side, however, and even though it seems wrong to both of them, they seem to be falling in love. Is he simply replacing Bridget, or can this love possibly last through all of the difficult times ahead?

My thoughts: I was fascinated with this story when it came on the news a few years ago. Something very similar actually happened, and while this is a fictional tale, the real event was pretty close to what Mitchard has written here. Even though the story veers off to be mostly a romance (which I normally don't enjoy reading as much) the story unfolds so dramatically that I couldn't help but be drawn in. Maureen's painful recovery, both physically and emotionally, is a strong testament to the power of love and family bonds.

I Heart You, You Haunt Me

by Lisa Schroeder

Summary: Ava's boyfriend has just died in a horrible accident. She's devastated, not only because she has lost Jackson forever, but because she feels responsible for his death. She misses him terribly, but soon after he dies, she starts to sense him around her. The smell of his aftershave permeates her room, the temperature drops, the radio tunes in, by itself, to a song that she feels might be a message. And then she sees him in her bathroom mirror, and she's knows he's really there. How can she ever leave her house now that Jackson is with her? But how can she truly live her life without leaving her house? Will her love and her guilt ruin her?

My thoughts: I love books in verse. It's so great to be able to quickly read a book from start to finish and be totally involved in the story without taking a break. This story was interesting, and sweet, and a tiny bit creepy! You don't find out until the very end how Jackson died, so that alone will keep you reading!