Submitted by Katherine G., 7th grade, to help promote the Book Fair.

A Dog’s Purpose by W. Bruce Cameron is about a dog who is reborn into many different lives. Each one, he believes, has a purpose. Throughout his journey, he teaches readers the simple pleasures of a dog’s life and the reasons dogs live by our side as we go through much more complicated lives than them. 

I liked this book because the author really lets the reader into a dog’s mind and communicates real emotions to them. He lets you see life from a whole new perspective and pinpoints the important things in life that we share with man’s best friend. A dog’s purpose can also be carefree and funny!

You might like this book if you have a dog or are a dog person. If you have ever thought, “what might that dog be thinking?” this is the book for you. Or if you simply might like a book that tells the tale of a dog’s life, purpose, pleasures and challenges, give it a try! A Dog’s Purpose is a thoughtful, fun book that can be thoroughly enjoyed.

Recommended for grades 6-9. 

Submitted by Rebecca S., 9th grade, to help promote the Book Fair.

Griffin Bing has been framed. A Super Bowl ring has been stolen, and all of the evidence points to him. It’s up to his friends to prove his innocence, which means they need a plan. The only problem? The Man With a Plan has to sit this one out. 

This is a great book packed with suspense, adventure, and mystery.

Recommended for grades 5-9. 

Submitted by Bobbie, 10th grade.

Cameryn Mahoney (nicknamed Cammie) is 17 and she lives with her father and grandma. Her mother sent her a letter saying she was still alive and wanted to see her soon. Cammie gets super excited to see her mom, but her dad doesn’t let her. Her friend Kyle is attracted to her, and being the most popular guy in the school, he gets to talk to her very easily. She opens up to him about her mom, and he listens and helps her. Then they start to date. Kyle finds the body of Brad Oakes, who is their English teacher. Cammie gets very interested in the case. She wants to be a forensic pathologist, so she works as an assistant to her father who is a coroner. Telling Kyle all of the inside information about the case, Cammie soon finds out that all is not as it seems. Will she be able to solve this mystery with so much else going on?

Recommended for grades 9-12. 

Submitted by Bobbie, 10th grade.

Tessa’s best friend, Noelle, was kidnapped in 8th grade. When Noelle disappeared, so did a piece of Tessa. One day, two years later, Noelle finds a way to escape. The man who had kidnapped her, Charlie, is arrested and put in jail where he is subsequently stabbed and killed by a kitchen worker. Reporters from all over the world bombard Noelle with questions, but mainly they want to know why she didn’t escape before now. Noelle, who now calls herself Elle, has changed, and in spite of not wanting anything to do with her old friends and her old life, Tessa finds a way to help break through to her. During the process, however, Tessa has to come to grips with the reality of who Noelle/Elle has become. Tessa’s boyfriend, Max, ensures that she doesn’t lose herself by putting Noelle and her needs ahead of her own. 

This book was a fantastic read. It was a real page-turner.

Recommended for grades 9-12.

After experiencing critical and commercial success with his second novel, author Henry L’Hôte spends five years researching and writing his next novel. He wants to do something that nobody has ever done before: a flip book containing both fiction and non-fiction elements pertaining to the Holocaust. Unfortunately, the publishers do not believe that the book will be a commercial or a critical success, and so Henry decides to give up writing altogether. He and his wife, Sarah, move to an unnamed (but “great”) city and Henry loses himself in the anonymity of waiting tables, acting in local theatre productions, and taking clarinet lessons. When he receives a package that contains a short story by Gustave Flaubert, an excerpt from a manuscript, and an entreaty for Henry’s help by the author of the manuscript, Henry is intrigued. He traces the package to a taxidermist’s shop and through a series of increasingly strange visits, the taxidermist reveals most of the manuscript to Henry, whose suspicions that it is an allegory about the Holocaust are ultimately confirmed in a brutally violent ending.

What a complete and utter disappointment this novel was! I was one of the millions who adored The Life of Pi, Martel’s second novel, and so I immediately picked up on the autobiographical tone of this story. My interest was piqued with the story-within-a-story (the taxidermist’s manuscript) and the allegorical characters (a donkey named Beatrice and a howler monkey named Virgil), but as the taxidermist revealed himself to be stranger and stranger, the manuscript also became increasingly bizarre. The connections to the Holocaust were too subtle for me to pick up until Henry started to piece it together, and then it became about as subtle as being hit over the head with a board. The brutal ending—in the main story, not necessarily in the manuscript—came out of nowhere, and I was left feeling cheated on so many levels. I do not believe that too many high school students would finish this novel, even if they chose it because of their love for The Life of Pi.

Not really recommended for grades 10-adult.  

When Rose’s neighbor, the girl from the U.S.S.R., knocks on her window one October night in 1982, neither of them is prepared for how their lives will be irrevocably changed. Rose doesn’t have any friends, but since Yrena is a fellow dancer, they hit it off immediately. Yrena wants to join Rose’s brother and his friends in their garage, but Rose quickly talks her out of the “uncool” Dungeons and Dragons scene. Instead, Rose invites her to a party that she had heard about earlier that was taking place on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Even though this is completely out of character for Rose, she somehow feels as though she can reinvent herself with Yrena since they are virtually strangers. The two girls ditch the KGB and CIA agents that are constantly watching their houses and they meet up with some of Rose’s acquaintances from the High School of Performing Arts. The party soon turns into an all-nighter when Rose discovers that Yrena is going back to the Soviet Union in a few days and that she has never experienced New York City. After a night of visiting many of the more popular tourist destinations, Rose and her new friends form lasting bonds and learn that even though their countries are at war, people everywhere are basically the same.

Leg warmers, Dungeons & Dragons, Reagan-bashing, no nukes rallies…I felt like I was back in high school, but with a way cooler crowd than the crowd that I hung out with. Spontaneously dancing, jamming, and breaking into song never happened anywhere I went in high school, but then again, I never attended the High School of Performing Arts in New York City. Although the 1980s context was very familiar to me, it might not make much sense to contemporary teens who haven’t learned about the Cold War. The dialogue was a little heavy-handed whenever the teens were talking politics, but fortunately that only happened a few times. Mostly this was a fun book that celebrated the arts, friendship, and being true to yourself, and when you think about it, those themes not only transcend country borders, but they are timeless as well.

Recommended for grades 9-12. 

This is the fifth book in what started out as the Wedding Planner’s Daughter series but has now morphed into the From the Life of Willa Havisham series. It picks up where the last book left off, with Willa standing on the beach, being told by a boy with a British accent that he is her brother. Willa doesn’t believe him at first, and if the boy didn’t have her father’s striking blue eyes, she probably never would have believed him. As if having a brother wasn’t shocking enough, Willa’s brother declares that he believes that their father is still alive. Willa doesn’t know how to tell her mom and her new stepfather about Will Havisham’s existence and his theory about Billy Havisham surviving the hot-air balloon crash into the Atlantic Ocean. It doesn’t help that her boyfriend, JFK, and her best friend, Mariel, are far away at the moment and it seems as though Willa has nobody to talk to about everything that’s been going on. 

I haven’t read the other four books in this blended series, but based on this book, I’m not going to waste my time. It’s not that it is horrible, it just doesn’t have much substance to it. I want to like Willa. She loves books and candy and she apparently saved the town library in one of the other books, but her lack of a backbone when it comes to telling her mom about Will’s existence frustrated me, and the need to call her ex-pastor to get advice on how to tell Will the truth about their father was downright laughable. Furthermore, the books that Willa reads, her “skinny-punch” books, are not books that most 14-year olds are reading for pleasure, and they are certainly not books that I would characterize as quick reads. I also found the whole “I’m missing my boyfriend who is in Florida for a baseball internship and I’m wondering why he won’t call or text me” storyline tired and way too drawn out. The cover photo has absolutely nothing to do with the story. Willa doesn’t link arms with Ruby and Tina while watching the fireworks; she leaves the bonfire party and watches the fireworks alone on the widow’s walk of the Inn. The mermaid sighting is apparently supposed to be a sustained metaphor throughout the book for believing in things you can’t see, but it just comes across as random. 

Not exactly recommended for grades 7-9.

Arrested for armed robbery at age 16, Nathan Henry spent a year in jail while awaiting trial. Since Nathan was a juvenile, he was kept apart from the rest of the adult population, which was a blessing for him since his time in jail could have been a lot worse. As it was, Nathan spent a lot of time reading while he was locked up. Jim Morrison biographies, Kerouac’s On The Road, Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Rimbaud’s Season in Hell, and Ginsberg’s Howl quite literally changed his life. “Something was happening; a new world was opening up for me. I could see suddenly that a great conversation was going on, had been going on since human beings began to write, and I wanted to be a part of it.” (p. 42). 

Nathan Henry’s story is told in chapters alternating between his time in jail and his childhood. And what a childhood it was! With a psycho for a father, Nathan didn’t really have much of a chance of having a normal childhood. He doesn’t present his childhood as an excuse for how he turned out; rather, he matter-of-factly presents his story and it’s up to the reader to decide how much of a role his upbringing played in determining the person he eventually became. At times this book is disturbing (animal slaying mixed with torture was a big part of his childhood) and at times it is heartbreaking. The ultimate message, however, is that people can change, people can overcome anything, and everyone has the power within themselves to decide whether or not they will do the right thing. 

Recommended for gr. 10-adult. 

In Life As We Knew It, Miranda’s life was forever altered after a meteor hit the moon and knocked it out of orbit, causing earthquakes, volcanoes, loss of power, and food shortages. The Dead and the Gone introduced Alex and Julie Morales and described their struggle to survive after the meteor strike. In This World We Live In, the Morales’ show up at Miranda’s house along with Miranda’s father, stepmother, baby half-brother, and another man, Charlie. Miranda and her family are already feeding one more person—Syl, the girl that Matt met and married while on a fishing expedition with Jon—but they welcome the needy newcomers. Alex is determined not to overstay his welcome. His plan is to take Julie to a convent in New York and then travel to Ohio to enter a monastery, but those plans are disrupted when they discover that the convent no longer actually exists. When a new disaster strikes, life is altered yet again, and both groups need to decide what to do next.

I had been so anxious to find out what happened to Miranda and her family, but this sequel left me feeling dissatisfied. There are gaping holes in the story and a lot of things are left unexplained, but the worst is the ending. Readers are once again left wondering what will happen to Miranda and her family. There may be another book, but at this point readers might be losing interest. The relationship between Miranda and Alex seems forced and unbelievable, and Miranda’s decision at the end of the book regarding Julie is bizarre and terribly out of character. I recommend it for people who have read the first two books in the series, but readers need to be warned in advance that they will not receive any sort of closure with this latest installment.

Recommended with reservations to gr. 9-12.

Taking up where Catching Fire left off, readers learn that District 12 has been bombed to oblivion and all of the surviving residents have been relocated to the underground world of District 13. Katniss’ mother, sister, and best friend Gale are among the survivors, and while Katniss is grateful for that, she feels increasing guilt for Peeta’s abduction as well as for the destruction that has been wreaked upon the Districts by the Capital. As the Districts pressure her to become their Mockingjay in every sense of the word, Katniss finds herself struggling with her new reality. As Katniss and her team get closer to infiltrating the Capital, the more futile everything seems, and readers find themselves asking the same questions that Katniss asks: Where do you draw the line when you are at war? What should you be willing to do in the name of justice? At what point do you begin to ask yourself what is right and what is wrong?

Many have claimed to be disappointed in this final book of the Hunger Games trilogy, but I was not. It was definitely darker and more violent than the first two books, and many of the most beloved characters were killed, but war is like that, isn’t it? Those who seem the most disappointed in the novel tend to focus on the outcome of the love triangle, but for me that was never the main focus of the trilogy. The epilogue, I admit, was a little much, but it does leave readers with hope…something that is lacking throughout the rest of the novel. I can’t say that I loved Mockingjay, because it was so sad and dark and painful, but I loved the series and I don’t think it could have realistically ended any other way. Please leave me a comment if you disagree. I’d love to hear other opinions.

Highly recommended for gr. 9-12.