The Unfinished Angel

The Unfinished Angel is Sharon Creech’s most recent novel. Readers at my school are currently reading Hate That Cat (companion book to Love That Dog) also by Sharon Creech…it is on our middle school reading list this year. Everyone will find the narrator, an angel who has yet to find her calling, extremely entertaining. She doesn’t understand “peoples” and their ways. She has been at the top of a tower in the Swiss Alps for as long as she can remember. Things change when she meets an odd girl named Zola. Zola is different from anyone she has observed. Zola reaches out to the angel and asks her many inquisitive questions that make the angel a bit uncomfortable. Zola believes she is an unfinished angel and wants help from the angel. This story made me laugh out loud. I especially loved the personalities of the orphaned children who live in the village. Will Zola and the angel be able to save them? I listened to this story in audiobook format – the narrator was excellent. Click on the video below to hear Sharon Creech read an excerpt from her book.

The Strange Case of Origami Yoda

I have multiple copies of The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger and they have been flying off my shelves. No sooner do I shelve a copy, an eager patron snatches it off the shelf. I had to place a hold for myself to be able to read this entertaining, humorous book over the holidays. It is told in multiple stories by middle schoolers who are asking advice from an Origami Yoda. The nerdiest kid at school, Dwight, has created a finger puppet, Origami Yoda, who answers questions in Yoda-like dialogue. At first, the students are skeptical…it has to be Dwight giving the advice. Things start to change when the students realize that there are just some things that Dwight couldn’t have known. The text is easy to read and the book has illustrations as well. Instructions for creating your own Origami Yoda are at the end of this quick read. This is a good book recommendation for those readers who have read Jeff Kinney’s entire Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and haven’t found another “great” book to read. The video below is the author showing you how to make your own Origami Yoda. In addition, this is on the Texas Bluebonnet Reading List 2011-12.

Girlfriend Material

Girlfriend Material, by Melissa Kantor, is a great recommendation for those readers looking for a book that presents teen relationships and romance. Katie is looking forward to hanging out with her best friend in her hometown, Salt Lake City, for the summer. Her parents are having problems in their marriage once again and this time it looks like it may be a bit more permanent. Her mom has decided that she and Katie will spend the summer in Cape Cod with family friends. Unfortunately, things only get worse when Katie is shunned by Sarah, the gorgeous teenage daughter of her mother’s friends. Katie loves Ernest Hemingway’s, The Sun Also Rises, and dreams of being as carefree as the main character, Lady Brett Ashley. She believes she is destined to be just ordinary. Things start looking up when she runs into Adam at the country club AND at the local library. Adam has the same interests as Katie. Could he be her first real boyfriend? Adam is keeping something from Katie. Will she turn out to be girlfriend material after all? Readers will also want to check out Melissa Kantor’s Confessions of a Not It Girl.

Incarceron

I listened to Incarceron by Catherine Fisher on audiobook with numerous interruptions. Therefore, I have a guest blogger giving her insight to this fantasy which is on the Texas Lone Star 2011-12 reading list. My guest blogger is an amazing 8th Grade Language Arts teacher who is working on her Masters degree in Library Science.
I really enjoyed this book and will probably read the next one to see where the story goes. Claudia lives in a world constrained by time. Her world is in the not too distant future, but the ruling class has imposed the Victorian era on everyone, so the people live with the fashions, technologies, and rules of that time. She is about to be married to the prince, who is cruel and stupid, but whose mother is cunning. Her father is the warden of Incarceron, a prison no one can escape. It's been hundreds years since Incarceron's creation, and generations have been born and died there. Finn is one of its inhabitants, but he believes he came from outside Incarceron; he just can't remember his previous life. Finn and Claudia each come into possession of a key that allows them to communicate with each other, and they try to puzzle out the mysteries of Incarceron together while Finn tries to escape his prison and Claudia tries to escape hers. Click on the book trailer video below.

The Hunt for the Seventh

The Hunt for the Seventh by Christine Morton-Shaw is a must read for those of you who love ghost stories and mysteries. This is another great read from the Texas Lone Star list 2010-11.Jim and Sally’s father is still grieving their mother’s death. Thinking that he will give his family a fresh start, he takes the position as head gardener of Minerva Hall. The family is allowed to live in a section of the castle-like grounds. The first sentence of the book is –“Somebody died here once”. Actually, six children have died over many years – all on the summer solstice every thirty years. The grounds hold the statues of these children. The ghost of a child tells Jim to find the seventh. The only person on the grounds that he can communicate with is the master’s autistic son, Henry. Henry speaks in riddles and makes very little eye contact. Jim keeps seeing frightening things and soon relives each child’s death. It is up to him to stop the prophecy that is destroying Minerva Hall. Readers who like The Hunt for the Seventh will want to read Morton-Shaw’s The Riddle of Epsilon. Click on the book trailer video below for more information.

North of Beautiful

Justina Chen Headley’s novel, North of Beautiful, is a powerful read for many reasons. It is currently on the 2010-11 Texas Lone Star reading list. Terra describes herself as being perfect in every physical way except for one. She camouflages this one physical defect, a port wine stain birthmark on one side of her face, with a lot of heavy makeup. Terra has had numerous procedures to remove her birthmark in the past to no avail. Terra’s birthmark isn’t her biggest problem. Her father, a cartographer (a person who studies maps), is a bitter and controlling man due to his own insecurities. He constantly verbally abuses her mother who has gained so much weight the past couple of years. He also doesn’t support Terra’s dream of going to an art school. Terra and her mother literally crash into a teenager, Jacob, who was adopted when he was a little boy from China and his mother, Nora. Headley does a superb job of embedding all of the elements of a map into this story – strong symbolism. In fact, Terra and her mother join Jacob and Nora on a trip to China – the very country that brought upon Terra’s father’s failure as a cartographer. Terra will fall in love along the way and discover what beautiful really means. Justina Chen Headley also has a teen network website called readergirlz. Click on the book trailer below for more about the book.

The Grimm Legacy

The Grimm Legacy, by Polly Shulman, reads like a movie. This adventure was highly recommended by a student who has read hundreds of books in my library. When Elizabeth’s mother passes away, her father remarries. She instantly has a new stepmother and stepsisters. Her father cannot pay for her ballet lessons or private school tuition, because he is paying for her stepsisters’ college tuition. Do you know a fairy tale like that? Elizabeth chooses to research the Grimm Brothers for a history project at her new public school. Her teacher recommends her for a new job as a page at the New-York Circulating Materials Repository – which houses the Grimm Collection. Patrons check out items rather than books at the Repository. The Grimm Collection contains magical items from each of the fairy tales. Things become strange! Items from the Collection are missing and others have been replaced by fakes. A large bird follows the pages once they leave work. Who is taking the items and why? How can Elizabeth prove she is not involved? What will happen when magic gets in the wrong hands? This book has the right combination of fantasy, romance, and fractured fairy tales to keep you reading! Readers may want to check out Shulman’s other book, Enthusiasm. Click on the book trailer below for more information.