Starts with a Walk February 26, 2024

Class can be boring, or interesting, depending on what comes out of Hoodie’s (yes, like the sweatshirt) friend’s mouth. Because his best friend, Moshe Tzvi could make some interesting arguments with the Rabbi during halacha class where they were all learning about Jewish law. But on this particular day, Hoodie was more interested in the girl who was dancing outside the window of his school. Clearly, the girl was not an Orthodox Jewish girl, the only kind that Hoodie was supposed to notice, if he noticed any girls at all, which he also wasn’t supposed to do.

Still, something about the girl was compelling and against what little better judgement he had, he goes for a walk and he finds the girl and her dog again. And, once again, for some bizarre reason, he feels like he needs to talk with her. And that begins what turns out to be perhaps the best and worst thing to ever happen to Hoodie, at least up until that point in his life – which admittedly isn’t that old, since he is fifteen.

What Hoodie doesn’t realize though, in that moment, is that his actions will have lasting impact on his community as well as the town they have just recently moved into. Tensions are already high in Tregaron since the Orthodox Jewish community moved in, and what Hoodie and the girl do brings the feelings right to the surface.

The Life and Crimes of Hoodie Rosen by Isaac Blum is certainly written for those with a basic knowledge of Judaism, and many references will go over the heads of those not familiar with some of the words, however, Hoodie questioning what he’s been taught his whole life will ring true for any teenager looking to figure out where they belong and the meaning of it all.

Recommended for grades 8 and up.

Trouble Trouble Trouble September 4, 2023

What happens when you do something that might make sense to you, but no one else? Grape has that happen…a lot! So much so, that he finds he could get kicked out of his school and be sent off to another one. One without his friends and well, who really wants to get booted out of their school?

It all started when he was just a baby. At least, that is what Grape’s best friend thinks. Because when he was little, he fell backwards and cracked his head and had to wear a helmet to protect it for a while. His best friend, Lou, thinks that is when the spiders got in and started telling Grape to do goofy things. Because something must be causing him to do what he does, right? Things that always seem to get Grape into trouble. And what about that name? Well, there is a story behind that as well!

The problem is, he has to write down to his principal why he did the thing he did to maybe get kicked out of school and how it all led up to that moment. And for Grape, that means he has to go all the way back to figure out just why he does what he does. He just hopes what he writes will be enough to keep him where he wants to be.

Grape! by Gabriel Arquilevich is a look back in time, 1976 to be exact, and how one boy tries so very hard to be the student that he knows he can be, but how the results never quite match up with what he had envisioned! This book is a fabulous and fun read that will keep anyone turning the page to see what bizarre and hilarious situation Grape will find himself in next.

Recommended for grades 6 and up for anyone wanting a great story.

In the Blink of an Eye January 16, 2023

When one day his eyelid swells up and won’t go down, Ross can kiss being normal goodbye. Because it turns out he has cancer in his eye, or right behind his eye and in order to keep his eye, he will have to go through a lot of radiation treatments. He has two best friends, Abby and Issac. Abby is a solid friend and sticks by him, but Issac basically ghosts him. And trying to fit in, in middle school is hard enough, but when you have to do strange things to keep your eye, it is hard to make new friends.

To make things even worse, someone is making some really mean cartoons that are circulating around the school – ones that are about Ross and he has no idea who is doing them. Sometimes his one bright spot is actually going to his radiation treatments, where one of the technicians is super cool and starts Ross down a path that he never saw for himself.

Wink by Rob Harrell is both humorous and serious by turns. Ross has to learn to navigate his treatments, his diagnosis, his family and friends as well as school. It is a lot for any 7th grader! Especially when all he thinks he wants is to be normal, almost to the point of being invisible.

Recommended for grades 6 and up.

Completely Made Up October 3, 2022

It all started with a comment. A completely inappropriate comment made by their physical education teacher. One that Will was not going to let slide by, and of course, it meant that she got in trouble for it and ended up in detention. The worst part for Will was the fact that Harriet heard what the coach said to Ruby, and just gave him a pass. But that isn’t very surprising for Will because she knows Harriett is a total suck up to all the teachers at their elite high school in Australia.

But when Harriet shows up later that day in detention with Will (not because she got into trouble but because Harriett is trying to suck up to the teacher who is monitoring detention that day) they do strike up a conversation and shocker – Harriet admits that what the coach said was actually not very nice. And perhaps he is sexist. But then Harriet really throws Will for a loop. She tells Will if she is so upset about it, she should do something about it. The question is, what? What could Will do that would make any kind of a difference. And from that conversation, Amelia Westlake is born! And little do Will and Harriet know, but their collaboration will indeed change things at their school, forever!

Amelia Westlake was Never Here by Erin Gough is a fabulous book! I loved all the humor and all the ideas that the girls came up with to point out the foibles with their school. The book is for mature students since there is a lot of swearing and some mature content, but it is all realistic to the situations and the age of the characters. Start reading this book, and you’ll have a hard time putting it down!

Recommended for mature 8th graders and up.

Reading the Signs June 13, 2022

Jalen loves baseball. But he has a problem. He wants to get onto the best travel team in his area, but that costs money. Money he and his dad don’t have. So it just so happens that his best friend Cat lives next door to a famous Yankee’s player, James Yager, better known as JY. And it just so happens that Jalen knows there are baseballs that this famous player has hit and signed – which are worth money. If he can only get his hands on those baseballs, Jalen’s money problems will be over, or so he thinks. So he and his friends devise a plan that they believe will get Jalen the money he needs.

However, no one expected for Jalen to get caught…by JY himself! Luckily he is able to get away, but that seems to be where his luck ends, because he sees JY again, at Cat’s birthday party! And unfortunately, JY recognizes him as the boy that was stealing his baseballs. Yager seems determined to make Jalen pay for his crime, but when Yager gets an unwanted phone call, Jalen has an idea.

Jalen realizes his he might have another way to solve his problem, and it involves the famous player!

Baseball Genius by Tim Green is for readers who love baseball and for those (like me) who don’t! It is a fun and entertaining book.

Recommended for grades 6 and up.

Eating Cactus July 13, 2020

Gus is about to get a mouthful of cholla, a horrible spiny cactus that will hook into you and you need pliers to pull it out! Yeah, because of Bo, the resident bully and his lackeys. Gus’ face is getting closer and closer to the nasty stuff when Rossi comes to Gus’ rescue – sort of. Bo is mad because Rossi, a girl, beat him AGAIN in the motor cross bike race. And the next day is the big race, the one that the winner will get a new motorbike and go to camp to learn more about racing bikes. So, Rossi showing up doesn’t really help Gus that much. Until Bo demands Rossi’s bike to let Gus go free, which means that Bo will for sure win the race and the prize. When Rossi agrees to it, Gus can’t believe it. Bo doesn’t deserve to win after all, and he’s such a jerk.

Now Gus is determined to get the bike back for Rossi in the next 24 hours. He goes to Bo to beg for the bike back and says he’ll do anything. First mistake. Bo says he wants a piece of gold from Frenchman’s Mine – an old gold mine where people have DIED because of cave ins. Is Gus really going to do this, just to get back Rossi’s bike? Sure looks that way. But how can Gus get gold out of a gold mine where anyone who has gone in it last 100 years has died?

24 Hours in Nowhere by Dusti Bowling is a great book. It is funny and keeps the story moving right along. It takes an impossible situation and finds the humor in it and life when things seem so bad, there can’t possibly be anything to laugh at.

Recommended for grades 6 and up.

A Major Competition June 8, 2020

Caitlyn is not happy when her mom tells her they will be moving from New York to a rinky dink little town in the middle of nowhere Vermont. Without even consulting Caitlyn – about any of it! Caitlyn had a hard enough time starting middle school in sixth grade with people she knew, but now she’s expected to start 7th in a strange new place with all kids she’s never met before? Caitlyn has a list of rules that her friends back home helped her come up with – to make sure she fits in right away.

However, as soon as she meets her follow 10 classmates – yes, TEN – as in there are only TEN other kids in all of the 7th grade – Caitlyn realizes her list isn’t going to help her much. There aren’t enough kids for there to be any specific groups, let alone any kid who even remotely reminds Caitlyn of anyone from home! The school is housed in an old mansion and they still have recess and at lunch all the older kids have to sit with younger kids and babysit them. It just seems to get worse and worse.

But the thing that gets Caitlyn right away, is how all the 7th graders miss a boy named Paulie Fink. It’s all they can talk about. How he used to pull these amazing stunts and he was so good at pulling pranks on even the teachers. Everyone misses Paulie Fink – everyone but Caitlyn who never even met the kid. Yet, one day an idea takes hold of the group and they decide they will find a new Paulie Fink. And guess who they put in charge of locating a new one? Yup, Caitlyn.

The Next Great Paulie Fink by Ali Benjamin helps us all see where our little attempts to fit in might actually be us just being mean. What happens when we realize the people we think we want to push away, are actually the people we want to bring closer.

Recommended for grades 6 and up.

Humor Born from Struggle December 16, 2019

Imagine growing up knowing your very existence was against the laws of your country. That you couldn’t say “Dad” in public to your own father, because you could be taken away from your mother and put in an orphanage, and your parents could be arrested. All because of race. Welcome to Trevor Noah’s life.

Growing up, at least when he was under ten, Trevor lived under the system known as Apartheid. This meant that the government had instituted a system of racism and figured out a way to classify everyone. Based on your skin color (and language which in many cases was set by your skin color), your life was set. If you were black, you lived in the worst parts of the country, had little education, and were destined to work menial jobs your whole life. Coloreds (people of mixed ancestry from colonial days) were in the second rung and the whites occupied the top tiers of society and controlled not only the government, but also the economy.

Now, being just a kid, Trevor didn’t really get all of this. So when he went to visit his grandmother, he didn’t understand why he couldn’t go outside and play with his cousins in Soweto – a black only township – that had been created by the government as a place to house black workers. He couldn’t go outside because Trevor was mixed, or colored, although he wasn’t colored because of colonial times. His mother, who was black, had decided she wanted a child. And she picked a white man from Switzerland to be her child’s father. Trevor’s years growing up were filled with pranks, close calls and a real story of finding oneself in the midst of poverty and hope.

It’s Trevor Noah: Born a Crime by Trevor Noah is a funny, tragic, uplifting story giving insight into another whole world. The part in the book where he talks about his good friend, Hitler, is really eye opening. Many children in South Africa are named Hitler. He gives a really interesting and thought provoking answer for why.

Highly recommended book for grades 8 and up.

What We Leave Out September 23, 2019

Joel has it all figured out. For example, he’s figured out that the school could actually save money by buying all the juniors and seniors cars and it could be less than the annual transportation budget. Or maybe motorcycles if the cars turn out to be too expensive. He also knows how to really let people know how he feels by writing text messages to them and then, just not sending them. Yup, he has his whole life figured out, for sure.

Or maybe not. Most assuredly not. In fact, Joel is pretty messed up. He misses his best friend, Andy, but well, he’s gone because of what happened. He’s in love with a girl named Eli, and has been since the 7th grade, but can’t work up the courage to tell her because he’s two inches shorter than she is and he might actually be shrinking rather than getting taller, he is a hypochondriac, and might have just punched in the face the only other person who could possibly want to be his friend. So yeah, nothing is going right for him.  

So Joel just pretty much tries to follow Eli around and she’s such an amazing person who truly wants to make the world a better place and when that thing that happened to Andy happened, it was Eli who started to sit with Joel in the school cafeteria. And so when she decides to do her junior year community service semester at a local soup kitchen, Joel has no reason not to join her and every reason to, since Eli is pretty much his every reason.

It is at the soup kitchen that Eli and Joel start to get to know Benj – a new kid at school who no one really knows what is up with him only that he blurts out the most random stuff – and all the regulars that come into the soup kitchen, including a guy that Joel names Rooster, just because he always gives names to the ones that don’t talk. Joel feels he’s just keeping his head above water, and soon he realizes it won’t be enough as one thing after another begins to pull him under.

Words We Don’t Say by K.J. Reilly is a priceless book that touches on some of the most heart wrenching topics facing society and our teens today. This book will make you laugh out loud and cry and cross your fingers for all the people you meet along the way. Just an absolute delight to read and an unforgettable book.

Highly recommended for 8th grade and up – due to heavy use of language, but in this reviewer’s mind, appropriate to the book and the character.

The Well Boy August 19, 2019

When Sam Abernathy was four years old, James Jenkins threw a ball up in the air so high that everyone playing the neighborhood game of SPUD ran really far – so far that Sam took that one extra step before the ball was caught…and fell down a well. A well that put his little Texas town on the map, and led to T-shirts being sold that all said “Pray for Sam,” and resulted in Sam not speaking for quite some time after the whole incident. So he started school a bit later than usual, but he must have been absorbing a lot, because now that he’s supposed to be in sixth grade, he’s just been skipped ahead to 8th grade.

Now, starting middle school is a pretty big deal, but to be starting middle school as an 8th grader is crazy, at least that is how Sam feels. And when he finds out that James Jenkins – the boy who caused Sam to fall down the well, at least in his mind anyway – has been held back and is repeating 8th grade, well, life just keeps getting worse as far as Sam is concerned.

After falling down the well, Sam has been worried about taking a wrong step, both figuratively and literally! His parents are more than happy to step in and plan all those steps out for him, especially since he’s tested so high. His father has decided that Sam will get into high school early and then go on to MIT and make amazing advances in the areas of Math and Science. The only problem with that plan, is that Sam has no interest at all in Math and Science. Instead, he sneaks downstairs at night to watch cooking shows, and tries out all his recipes on his best friend Karim. All while he’s pretty sure that James Jenkins is planning to murder him, because he appears to have all the attributes of an actually murderer, at least as best Sam can figure out!

The Size of the Truth by Andrew Smith is a delightful book about a boy who has grown up believing in one story, only to slowly figure out that story was clearly written in a different language. It is hard to make a book humorous without going over the top, and this book does it. This was a really fun read.

Recommended for grades 6 and up.