Rockin’ Reads

In the last two weeks I’ve read a few books:

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes. It was recommended by my friend Cari and I promised her that I’d try to read it too. I hadn’t read it before because I knew (somehow, not sure how) that it was “sad” and I wasn’t up for it. Even so, it was an interesting premise and story. I enjoyed it.

Small Steps by Louis Sachar. This is one I bought for school and wanted to read before I placed it in the library. This book focuses on one of the characters from Holes and his life after leaving the prison camp setting of Holes. Armpit is trying to live a good life and stay out of trouble. Of course, if there wasn’t trouble, there’d be no conflict, and that would make for a very boring book. Loved it!

TTFN [Ta Ta For Now] by Lauren Myracle. This sequel to TTYL is another novel in instant messages. It’s amazing that a story can be told without narrative to describe setting, but Myracle pulls it off. If you haven’t read TTYL, you’ll miss parts of the story, but the book was a good read none-the-less.

Last night I started a first novel by Ronald Cree called Desert Blood 9pm/8c about a kid who is adopted at the age of 14 by 26-year-old television/movie star Nick Hernandez. I only read the first chapter, so I don’t really know much about it yet, but it looks to be a good one. (Yeah, another one for school!)

Self-portrait by Jeanne Betancourt book one of the Three Girls in the City series.

I really liked this diverse group of girls. After her mother died, one moved from Wyoming to live with her father, one lives part time with her mom and part time with her dad, stepmom and baby brother, and one lives in the Bronx with her family in an apartment above her Grandmother’s house. They all end up in the same summer photography class where they end up paired off (in a group of three) together. They come from very different backgrounds and don’t even like each other, but by the end of the book, they realize they are becoming good friends.

Flush by Carl Hiassen is another eco-mystery similar to Hoot.

When his father ends up in jail for sinking the Coral Queen, a gambling boat, Noah is left to help figure out what’s really going on. His dad swears that the boat is illegally dumping their sewage holding tanks into the bay and it’s polluting the local beaches making them unsafe for kids and sealife. Noah enlists the help of a former boat employee with the unfortunate but apt nickname Lice but he goes missing and they’re pretty sure that he’s been killed by one of the Coral Queen’s goons. Will Noah find a way to prove that the Coral Queen is the cause of the sludge in the nearby bay? Will his father get out of jail and work things out with Noah’s mom before she heads to Canada with a fresh divorce? You’ve got to read this book to find out!

The First Part Last by Angela Johnson is a teen pregnancy story told from the point of view of the father-to-be.

Both of their parents taught them to be responsible and safe, but things don’t always work out the way we hope. When Bobby’s girlfriend tells him she’s pregnant, Bobby follows his dad’s advice and keeps his mouth shut about what she should or should not do. He lets her make all the calls. Somehow though, between the day he finds out (at 16) that he’s going to be a father, and the day that the baby is born, the decision to put the baby girl up for adoption is altered. Bobby faces the anger and frustration of his mother and the fear and exhaustion of being a first-time dad.

Click Here: To Find Out How I Survived Seventh Grade by Denise Vega
When Erin starts the school year at Molly Brown Middle School, she’s disappointed that she and her best friend Jilly won’t have any classes together. Erin uses her private webjournal to write down her thoughts and feelings about school. As she adjusts to life without Jilly, she discovers that she has different interests than Jilly and is able to be an important contributor to the Intranet Club’s Web Page. When the site is ready to go live though, her private journal is accidentally uploaded instead, giving everyone at school access to her thoughts, crushes, and frustrations with Jilly.

This was a great book! Look for it on the new book cart in the fall.