Horror/Haunted Houses/Ghosts
The Bell Witch: An American
Haunting
Brent Monahan
Forge 031215061X
This unusual and realistic portrayal of a poltergeist infestation is purported to be taken from a long hidden historical document. In 1817 the John Bell family became the object of a haunting with John being threatened by the supernatural presence and his nubile twelve year old daughter Betsy, physically assaulted by it. The detailed account paints a vivid picture of early 19th century Tennessee as seen through the eyes of the school teacher who eventually married Betsy. Reading more like non-fiction, readers who loved The Amityville Horror will love this.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Short Stories
From One Experience to Another
M. Jerry Weiss and Helen S. Weiss editors
Forge 0312862539
In this extraordinary collection fifteen well known authors take something from their own lives, an incident, a comment, something they read, and use it as a springboard into a story.
Joan Bauer takes an incident when she was a teen, falsely accused of shoplifting, and "rescripts" it into a tale of a young woman in the same situation who fights back and becomes a heroine in her own family. Joan Lowery Nixon's exciting tale of murder was inspired by her son going to the doctor alone and finding himself in the presence of death. Richard Peck's ghost story had its genesis in something he read but a very different something than that which Gordon Korman read leading to his tale.
This is a banner year for short story anthologies and collections but so far this is at the top of my list.
Crime/Woman Detective
Stone Angel
Carol O'Connell
Nova Audiobooks 1561009350
Normally I don't review audio books here (check out AudioFile for my published reviews) but an exhibitor at ALA gave me this for my 18 hour trip home and I enjoyed the three hours it played immensely.
Kathleen Mallory, NYPD sergeant and possible psychopath has returned to the small Louisiana town where her mother was stoned to death seventeen years earlier. In her wake she leaves a swath of death and destruction but not of her doing. With a few good friends she takes on the evil evangelical family that may have been behind the murder.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Problem
When She Was Good
Norma Fox Mazer
Scholastic 0590135066
Em Thurkill is constantly terrorized by her older abusive and mentally ill sister but still she runs away from home and her uncaring stepmother and father to live with Pamela in the city where she works to support them both.
John Marsden's Letters from the Inside is the only other title I can think of that touches on the subject of sibling abuse.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Humorous
Flyers
Daniel Hayes
Simon & Schuster 0689803729
Gabe Riley lives in a small town with his gentle, but taken to drink, decent lawyer dad and his brilliant but quiet younger brother. He and his friends make off the wall movies including their current effort that involves a family of swamp monsters in family therapy. Not a lot happens outside of a mystery involving the old man next door and a possible first romance for Gabe but the tale is compellingly told with characters so real they step off the page and introspective musings so subtle they fascinate.
Young Adult/Horror/Vampires
Soulmate: Night World
L. J. Smith
Archway 0671551388
Sixteen year old Hannah Snow goes to a shrink when she starts receiving terrifying warnings in her own handwriting. She warns herself away from a vampire named Thierry and then finds out she doesn't know if she can even believe herself. Starting off with a thrilling werewolf attack, this supernatural romance is a real page turner and a great example of its genre.
Young
Adult/Historical/Fantasy/Myth and Leg end
Inside the Walls of Troy
Clemence McLaren
Atheneum 0689318200
In part one, told from Helen's viewpoint, we meet a girl who is handicapped by her extraordinary beauty and characters of myth spring to vivid everyday life. Part two, told in Cassandra's voice, tells the insiders view of the fall of Troy and of her acquaintance with the fair Helen.
Graphic Novel/Coming of Age
Mind Riot
Karen D. Hirsch, ed.
Aladdin 0689806221
This wonderful collection of short comix includes contributions by Ida Marx Blue Spruce, Ann Decker, Phoebe Gloeckner, David Greenberger, Roberta Gregory, Glenn Head, Peter Kuper, Caryn Leschen, Diane Noomin, Kevin Quigley, Vicky Rabinowicz, Dean Rohrer, Carol Swain, Carol Tyler, Colin Upton, and Maurice Vellekoop. The stories cover a wide range of adolescent angst and the varied drawing styles are a delight to the eye. A worthy addition for library collections and in interesting collection for readers.
Horror/Monster
Reliquary
Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Forge 0312860951
This well done sequel to the best-selling Relic will keep readers involved and turning pages as a new threat challenges the safety of the people of New York. A police diver brings up a pair of entwined skeletons both missing heads and with mysterious possible teeth marks. Detective D'Agosta and FBI Agent Pendergast are back on the scene as the skeletons are taken to the museum because of the strange abnormalities that Margo Green and Dr. Frock may be helpful in interpreting. The world of the mole people, the houseless who live in the endless tunnels and rooms buried under the city are fascination.
Reliquary is a must read for fans of horror and a terrific beach book for others.
Young Adult/Suspense/Mystery
I Dream of Murder
Catherine Dexter
Morrow 0688131824
Jere's strange dreams of murder take an ugly twist when he and his friend Avery see the man from the dream at the zoo. He could chalk it up to his imagination but Avery sees him on her street. As Jere investigates he finds out that there really was a murder in front of his house exactly like in his dreams. He can't help but investigating throwing both Avery and himself into deadly peril.
I Dream of Murder is a good old fashioned mystery with broad appeal.
Young
Adult/Suspense/Supernatural
Gallows Hill
Lois Duncan
Delacorte 038532331X
Sarah Zoltanne is miserable in her new high school since her mother underwent a strange mid-life crises and moved them into a small town, forgoing friends and career. Begrudgingly she accepts the task of acting as a fortune teller in the school carnival where to her surprise she actually sees events in the crystal ball found in her late father's stuff. The class president and the daughter of her mother's boyfriend manipulate her into a partnership with them to make money off telling fortunes. Charlie, the overweight paperboy may be her only friend. As events escalate she has troubling dreams and visions linking her and the townspeople to the Salem witchcraft trials.
A riveting read.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Foster Care
What Child Is This?
Caroline B. Cooney
Delacorte 0385323174
If this were a movie it would become a beloved holiday classic. Eight year old Katie wants a family for Christmas and her older foster brother, Matt who isn't as closed off as he would like to be, tries to help her by hanging a paper bell on a giving tree at work with her wish on it. Insightful characterizations bring the teens and adults in this commuinty to life in this heartwarming tale. A very fine short work.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Violence
Shark Bait
Graham Salisbury
Delacorte 0385322372
Mokes' dad, the chief of police has told him to be in by six on the day that the navy puts into port on their Hawaiian island. Mokes friend Booley is going to get into a fight with a sailor and Mokes really wants to be there but he is trying to do what is right. He knows he must defy his father when he discovers that the service revolver given to him by his uncle has been stolen and the fight may turn into something far more deadly.
Salisbury always satisfies with his tales of Hawaiian life. Mokes is a likable character and more mature than characters in Salisbury's Blue Skin of the Sea and Under the Blood Red Sun. An excellent read.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Homelessness/Politics
No Turning Back: A Novel of South
Africa
Beverley Naidoo
HarperCollins 0060275057
Sipho flees his abusive stepfather and his pregnant mother to take to the streets of Johannesburg. He joins up with a gang of malunde, kids who live on the streets, earning a few coins at a time by lugging groceries and begging. After his gang is rounded up and herded into a large police truck they are thrown into a lake and the glue-sniffing members of the gang have the glue dumped into their hair. A man who owns a T-shirt shop takes him in and puts him to work. Sipho is taken under the wing of Judy, the shop owner's teenage daughter but he leaves when Judy's brother accuses him of theft and he realizes he will never be paid for his work in the shop. Out on the streets once again he looks for his malunde friend..
Uterlly believable, this tale gives the reader of view of hardship and survival
Young Adult/Suspense/Serial
Killer
Tenderness
Robert Cormier
Delacorte 0385322860
Eric Poole an eighteen year old serial killer is released from a juvenile correction facility while an aging detective tries to put a stop to his heinous avocation. A fifteen year old girl controlled by obsessions stalks Eric Poole and eventually hits the road with him. Damaged and vulnerable, some insights are offered into the psyches of this damaged duo but not enough to empathize or really understand. The good thing is that the bad guy gets his in the end. Unfortunately Margaret A. Edwards Award winner Cormier did not research the juvenile correction system. His depiction of the juvenile correctional facility was so far off base that the book lacked credibility from the beginning.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Literary fiction/Problem/Child Abuse
The Watcher
James Howe
Atheneum 0689801866
In this atmospheric novel a girl sits on the steps at a beach and watches. She sees the perfect family with the older brother who takes care of his little sister. She sees the virile lifeguard, safeguarding the swimmers. She sees life as she would like it to be not as the nightmare it is.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Problem
Cry Baby
Phyllis Karas
Avon Flare 0380785137
Egocentric fourteen year old Sam is more than distressed when her mother becomes pregnant. Mothers of teens and college students just shouldn't be having babies. And of course, Sam's special place as the baby of the family will be usurped. After a slow and whiney start the story takes off as Sam discovers who she is and becomes a stronger person.
Fantasy/Magic /Historical
The Stars Dispose
Michaela Roessner
Tor 0312857543
Red haired Tommaso is the son of the head carver and Piera, a cook in the kitchens of the Ruggiero's, occultists with close ties to the de Medici family. He is tied to Caterina the de Medici heir, by love, magic, and kinship on the wrong side of the blankets. As Florence faces peril from first the Black Plague and then under siege by the Pope, Tommaso apprentices to an artist and becomes the lover of Michelangelo.
This richly textured intimate look at sixteenth century Florence is a rewarding read. It does feel like the first of a series, though sequels are not mentioned. The exact instructions for summoning beings from alternate worlds are not included but recipes for some of the delicacies from the Ruggiero and de Medici kitchens are.
Crime/Amateur Detective/
A Killing in Quail County
Jameson Cole
St. Martin's Press 0312139969
Mark is being raised by his older brother, Deputy Sheriff Jess Stoddard in Bob White, Oklahoma in 1957. In an attempt to win his brother's approval he and his buddy the preacher's son Ferret head into the Bottomlands trying to find a bootlegger's still. In the course of the summer he finds young love with Ferret's cousin, TJ, a very accomplished girl and makes a deadly enemy in the suspected bootlegger who holds a grudge against his family. When a strange man who has befriended the teens is murdered, Jess becomes a suspect.
This is an outstanding tale, the sense of time and place providing a rich backdrop for the many layered characters.
Young Adult/Science
Fiction/Post Apocalyptic /Aliens
Shade's Children
Garth Nix
HarperCollins 0060273240
In a horrifying world where everyone over the age of thirteen is turned into a hunting machine or food, a band of teens under the direction of a computer program tries to sabotage the Overlords and evade their terrible lethal cyborgs constructed from the living tissue of dead humans. Gold-Eye escapes the dormitories only to be hunted down by Trackers and threatened by massive Myrmidons when he is rescued and taken to Shade's submerged headquarters where he teams up with others who are trying to figure out what caused "the change" that caused the disappearance of everyone past puberty and turned children into raw materials for the horrible deadly games played by the Overlords.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Coming of Age
Lone Wolf
Kristine L. Franklin
Candlewick 1564029352
After living an isolated life in the north woods with his home schooling father, Perry learns a lot about himself when a lively family full of girls moves in near by. His friendship with Willow and their mutual interest in finding a rarely seen wolf leads to an intense survival experience and a chance to enrich his lonely life.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Sexual Identity
Desire Lines
Jack Gantos
FSG 0374317720
Fancying himself a natural scientist, sixteen year old Walker observes the mating habits of a couple of lesbians from his school who meet in a deserted and overgrown golf course. He has a lot of fears, the local group of toughs who harass him are bad enough but when a itinerant teen preacher and his evangelizing family pick Walker's school to clean up from what they consider to be the scourge of homosexuality, he is singled out. To stop the harassment he tells about the girls leading to a tragedy.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Social Problems
Slave Day
Rob Thomas
Simon & Schuster 0689802064
Told from multiple viewpoints, this powerful look at the denizens of a high school and their lives is at times poignant, touching, disgusting, and true. Slave Day, a traditional fund raiser at Robert E. Lee High, auctions off the student council and teacher volunteers to be slaves from the morning assembly until the Homecoming bonfire at the end of the evening. In one day we see friendships beginning, relationships ending, and story of a teacher's life gone wrong. Thomas's subtle voice takes a moral stand without preaching in any way and his swift sure characterizations take us intimately into the lives of a geek, a budding African American activist, a rich girl, a football player, and others in just a brief 14 hours and 52 minutes. Thomas's star continues to rise in this his first book since his stunning debut novel, Rats Saw God.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Coming of Age
Angels on the Roof
Martha Moore
Delacorte 038532278X
Shelby would like to stay put for once but her flaky mom drags her off to a small Texas town to meet the elderly woman who had raised her. She discovers some things about her mother and learns the secret of the father she never met. Red Valley, peopled by likable but offbeat characters provides an interesting back drop for Shelby's quest to find her history and herself.
Young
Adult/Contemporary/Humorous
The Frog Princess of Pelham
Ellen Conford
Little, Brown 0316152463
In her usual enjoyable style, Conford once again brings a silly situation into the real world. Fifteen year old poor little rich orphan Chandler has never been kissed, her shyness mistaken for aloofness. Her odious cousin and guardian plans for her to go off to survival camp during a school break when he will be vacationing in Switzerland but Chandler wants to find some way, any way out of it. On the last day of school, Danny asks if he can kiss her with the hilarious result of her being transformed into a frog. Luckily the travel arrangements allow her to go unmissed as she and Danny try to find a way to return her to human form.
Crime/Police
Detectives/Women Detectives
Cop Out
Susan Dunlap
Delacorte 0385316003
In the tenth outing for Berkeley cop Jill Smith, she engenders the disdain of fellow officers when she attempts to find and clear private eye Herman Ott, one of her informers and a thorn in the side of the police department. Ott, decidedly weird, always dressing in yellow, has a very interesting past as Jill finds out in her investigation after he disappears subsequent to contacting her with a tip that he refuses to tell her. Dunlap plays fair with her readers, introducing the characters, many of them delightfully quirky, and laying out the clues as Jill discovers them allowing the reader to mentally detect along with the sleuth. Definitely a series to read.