Blood is important in Mare’s society. It tells who has the power, and who doesn’t. And Mare’s family, they
don’t have the power, or the money or the standing in society. Because their blood is Red. Not Silver. The Silvers have special powers that can make people do things, or even control elements. Mare tries hard to make up for the fact she knows she is a disappointment to her family. After all, she has no special skills. She basically steals things since no one has picked her to be an apprentice. And that means she’ll follow in her three older brothers’ footsteps and head off to war once she turns 18, which is coming up fast. Still, at least her younger sister has a skill and she will be able to save the family, or so Mare hopes.
But when Mare finds out that her best friend, who she thought was safe from heading to war, has lost his apprenticeship, she is desperate to find a way to save him. When a way presents itself, the cost is huge, but Mare still thinks it might be possible. The problem is, she has no idea just how much she will have to pay in the end.
Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard is the first book in a series that is both Fantasy and Science Fiction. Mare is thrown into a world she is unprepared for, yet must find a way to fit in or die. Or perhaps it would just be easier to bring down the entire ruling family? As with most beginnings to series, there are lots of ways the story could go. If you like impossible odds, and lots of twists this would be a good book for you!
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
Beauty, as she used to be called when she was little, knows she doesn’t like life in town, even if her two sisters do. She struggles with the expectations of what life might and probably will be like for her. Basically, finding someone to marry, setting up a house and then having children. But, does she really want that? Or should she just accept that is what happens when you get older and grow up. Like how she used to be called Beauty, but now goes by Yeva, since that is a more proper name. Yeva still longs for those old days with her father when she would go hunting with him in the woods. But since her father became a respectable merchant and moved the family to the city, those days seems like such a distant memory for both of them.
Abe has always had a “thing” for Mitzy, but has never been able to do more than just nod her way as he walks by her on his way home from school. Not that there is anything waiting for him at home. Just the every day life of one of the many who blend in and go about their lives.
Leora and her mother have just had to say goodbye to her father and husband forever. He has just died. Now they both wait for the moment when they can bring him home, after the Weighing of the Souls ceremony. They won’t bury him, they will instead bring home his “skin book.” Everyone, after they die, has their skin removed and bound into a book. This book will then stay with the family forever. After all, everyone’s story is on their skin. For every important event in a person’s life, in Leora’s world, people get tattoos. Everyone’s story is there for everyone to read, on their skin.
than most everyone else – but with power comes a price. When she uses her full magic, she hurts, and so does the earth. Hundreds of years of casters using full magic has been destroying the earth, so full magic casters are against the law – or at least they aren’t supposed to use full magic because of the damage it causes.
Rain is an amazing Neshu fighter – but there is one problem. She is a girl, and girls aren’t allowed to fight for their kingdom. Only boys and men are allowed that privilege. Rain has lived with the knowledge that she is whole whereas her dear twin brother Storm, suffered from a fever they both had when they were just little children. Storm has never been the same. He seems stuck in a child like state, even though they are both now 17 years old. Their father is a master at teaching the style of fighting known as Neshu, but as much as he tries, Storm will never be the fighter that Rain has become.
maybe something small. If you had a chance to redo it, would you? And just how many times would you want to redo it, if the same result kept happening? How much would you change what you did or didn’t do each time?
wants her mom and dad to officially call it quits, and she would love to finally understand math! Plus, there is this guy at school, Eric, who she thinks is pretty awesome…if only he’d stop looking at Lucy, another girl at school, long enough to see her!
there. And it seems she is to be made a meal of by the end of the day for a Dragon no less. However, when the Dragon does come, he isn’t quite what Alys thought he would be.
Books in the Middle: Reading for Middle School 