Books of the Week

YA/ Issues/ Sexual Identity YA/ Mystery and Suspense
Plum-Ucci, Carol
What Happened to Lani Garver
Harcourt Brace 0152168133

Claire is a cancer survivor and happy to be part of the in crowd at her island high school. Her best friend is cruel but Claire finds much in her that she likes until a new kid, Lani Garver, starts school. At first glance nobody can tell if Lani is a boy or a girl. This does not go over on the macho island where the Fish Frat rules. As animosity heats up toward Lani, he and Claire become great friends. He helps her recognize her eating disorder and she begins to believe that he may be a “floating angel. This is truly an incredible book. It starts off with Claire reflecting on the last time she saw Lani, struggling in a freezing sea and then flashes back through their time together. Definitely a best book.

Fantasy/ Epic Fantasy/ Alternate and Parallel Worlds
Zettel, Sarah
A Sorcerer's Treason: A Novel of Isavalta
Tor 0312874413

Knock-your-socks-off page-turning epic fantasy featuring a strong female protagonist and a captivating world. Lighthouse keeper Briget Lederle is swept into a parallel universe when she rescues a very odd man from the icy waters of late 19th century Lake Superior and thrust into a magic filled world rife with political intrigue. One of the best fantasy novels of the year and not to be missed.

Fantasy/ Faerie
Hoyt, Sarah A
Ill Met by Moonlight
ACE 0441009832

Will Shakespeare a struggling young school teacher returns home one evening to find his wife and baby daughter are missing; sticks and leaves in their beds. Returning from a fruitless visit to his in-laws trying to find them he meets a mysterious Dark Lady in the forest. But, who is she really or rather what is she or he is the question. Young Will must find his way in the world of faerie a glittering world he finds at the edge of vision and off the well trod path, if he is to save his family. A lovely first novel.

YA/ Science Fiction/
Farmer, Nancy
The House of the Scorpion
Atheneum 0689852223

Matteo leads a sheltered life hidden away in a tiny house out in the fields and left alone every day when Celia goes to work. With the doors bolted and the windows nailed shut he is supposed to hide if anyone comes around but one day two older kids see him and bring back Maria who is about his age. When they threaten to leave her alone outside he panics, fearful that the chupacabras and other dangers on the outside will get her. He breaks the window and jumps through not aware that his feet will be cut to shreds. The children take him back to the mansion of El Patron where it is discovered that he is a clone and not even human. He is El Patron’s clone and has inherited many of the gifts that allowed El Patron to carve a country between Azatlan (Mexico) and the US that uses mindless drones to grow, harvest, and process the fields of poppies that yield the drugs that make him wealthy. Matteo, beloved of El Patron finally comes to the realization that all he really is is a collection of spare parts and with the aid of Celia and Tam Lin, his body guard escapes to Azatlan where he is enslaved with other orphans. One of my top three favorites of the year so far because of the superb world building, thrilling plot, and well drawn characters.

Crime/ Caper
Siler, Jenny
Shot
Henry Holt and Company 0805072039

Lucy's husband Carl has just been killed in an accident and now strange things are happening at her home outside Denver. A burglar has broken in. Then, when returning to a visit to her brother who is suffering from Gulf War Disease, she encounters her husband's former boss and a scary man removing everything from her husband's office including his computer. Kevin, a discredited MSNBC reporter and a guy she grew up with turns up looking for Carl who had requested a meeting at a Rockies game, telling him he had a story for him. Together they embark on an investigation of the company Carl worked for, after teaming up with Darcy the burglar, an-ex-con who is trying to keep her incarcerated sister safe. Breaking into the biotech company Carl had worked for they find his boss murdered. Their search takes them into a conspiracy that involves biological weapons, and the causes of the disease that had killed Lucy's newborn son. It is quick read with page turning action following an astute depiction of front range Colorado. yes 9/7/2002 6/6/2002

YA/ Humorous
Grant, Cynthia D.
The Cannibals
Roaring Book Press 0761316426

Tiffany, head yell leader at a Hiram Johnson High, either in the future or on an alternate time line, faces adventure and romance in her senior year. After her boyfriend is exiled by his parents, she meets a gorgeous new boy named Campbell but mishears his name as Cannibal and has t-shirts and sweatshirts emblazoned with Cannibals made up for the entire yell squad. Things really heat up for her when a movie company wants to film a teenage slasher movie at the high school and she campaigns for it since it may be her big chance as a model and actress. Meanwhile Campbell hangs in there as a friend, even though she thinks they are a couple.

YA/ Contemporary/ Activism
Hiaasen, Carl
Hoot
Knopf 0375821813

Having moved to Coconut Cove from Montana, friendless Roy Eberhardt is finding himself the target of a middle school bully untill one morning, from the window of the school bus as he is being choked, he sees a boy running barefoot and his imagination is captured. Bonking the bully in the nose he gives chase and his life becomes entangled with that of a young police officer. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or oops the building site of the new Mother Paula's pancake house, Curley the forman is experiencing a series of setbacks to construction ranging from alligators in the Travlin Johnnys, to pulled survey stakes, to Cottonmouth Mocasin snakes with glittered tails. When Roy does catch up to the running boy who is called Mullet Fingers he becomes friends with Beatrice a big tough middle school soccer player who is Mullet Finger's step sister. Together they fight the company that wants to bulldoze the building site and bury several families of burrowing owls. Over the top Hiaasen humor with a strong environmental flavor. All Hiaasen fans will want to read this.

YA/ Contemporary/ Romance YA/ Contemporary/ Coming of Age
Dessen, Sarah
This Lullaby
Viking 0670035300

Remy won't go our with musicians and has a whole canon of laws relating to romantic relationships but when the ever so persistent Dexter, a musician, shows up he battles down the barriers she has erected. With a mom married numerous times and a musician dad who left her nothing but a well known song he wrote with never seeing her she is cynical to the max.

Fantasy/Dark Fantasy
Gaiman, Neil
American Gods
HarperCollins 0380789035

Just before his long-anticipated release from prison, Shadow discovers that his wife has been killed in an automobile accident, along with a friend who was to have been his employer. On his release, he meets the mysterious, charismatic Wednesday, who introduces him to the old gods who are on the verge of war with the new gods. Definitely one of the best books of the decade. 2001 Bram Stoker Award, Hugo Award, Nebula Award!

YA/ Issues/ Pregnancy and Teen Parents
Bechard, Margaret
Hanging on to Max
0761315799

Seventeen year old Sam takes on the responsibility of parenting his infant son Max but finds life as a single parent rough going even with the support of an alternative high school for teen parents. A delightful romance with a former crush sends him in a different direction than planned. Reading this one in bed will give you tears in your ears.

Historical Fiction/ Memoir
Golabek, Mona and Lee Cohen
The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival
Warner 0446527815

Fouteen-year-old Lisa Jura, a piano prodigy, and the middle sister of three, is chosen by her parents to leave Vienna and go on the Kindertransport to London. Her first placement in a grand country home did not give her the opportunity to play the piano so after saving her money for a bicycle she ran away back to London and was temporarily placed at the Kindertransport youth hostel on Willesden Lane where she made close friends, got a job in a uniform making factory, got to play the piano, dodged the bombings, and worried about her family. When the Mrs. Cohen, the matron of the hostel reads an ad in the paper for auditions for the Royal Academy of Music and the teens in the house and just about everybody she knew worked toward making her dream come true. A happy ending of a sort when the three sisters are reuinited even though their parents were lost in the Holocaust. This is a fictionalized account of the true life experiences of the author's mother.