Celebrate Teen Read Week with us October 12 - 18, 2008. This year’s theme is “Books with Bite”! Do you have a story about a bite? Real or imagined, tell us about snake bites, dog bites, bug bites, shark bites, vampire bites - share them with us here and stop by for a prize after your response has been posted. Don’t forget to come by to check out our collection of books about things that bite!
Celebrate Teen Read Week with us October 12 - 18, 2008. This year’s theme is “Books with Bite”! Share your favorite recipe with us here and stop by for a prize after your response has been posted. Don’t forget to check out our selection of cookbooks when you have a few minutes.
Celebrate Teen Read Week with us October 12 - 18, 2008. This year’s theme is “Books with Bite”! Share your favorite scary book with us here and stop by for a prize after your response has been posted. All contributions should be about books that are appropriate for middle school students to read, you must include the name of the book and the first and last names of the author, tell us 3 things you liked about the book and why everyone should read this book. Don’t forget to write in complete sentences and check your spelling! Be sure to come by and check out our “Scary Book Table”!
Oh Rats! is a great non-fiction book all about rats. Some of the topics covered in this book include rat history, rat ancestors and relatives, relationships between rats and people, eating rats, ways rats bother humans, how to get rid of rats, diseases that rats can carry, rats as pets and rats that help people. Did you know that a single pair of rats could produce up to 359 million descendants within three years? Did you know that rats’ teeth grow an average of five inches each year and they can use them to chew through concrete and steel? If you would like a really interesting and really short book, you should read Oh Rats!
I put off reading this book for a really long time because I thought it was going to be a “sad dog book”, but actually it was more of an action-packed adventure story! Willie’s uncle gave him the best dog ever, Cracker. Unfortunately, Willie’s family is not allowed to keep a dog in their apartment and they decide to give Cracker to the U.S. Army to serve in the Vietnam War as a bomb-sniffing dog.
In the Army Cracker is paired with her handler, Rick. Rick wants to do something more with his life than just run his family’s hardware store, so when he turns 17 he convinced his dad to sign for him to join the army to serve in the Vietnam War. Rick becomes a dog handler and quickly bonds with Cracker and knows that Cracker will be the best dog in Vietnam. You’ll be on the edge of your seat when you read about the amazing missions that Cracker and Rick are sent on. This is a must read for dog lovers and action lovers!
One of Mrs. Kicker’s favorite books is Alabama Moon by Watt Key, so I knew that I had to read it. This is the story of Moon Blake, a ten year-old who grew-up in the wilderness with his Pap until Moon was ten years old. Pap taught Moon how to live off the land - they planted and hunted their own food and made their own clothes. Pap was very distrustful of the government after returning from the Vietnam War and passed along his fear of the government to Moon. When Pap died of a broken leg because he refused to see a doctor, an acquaintance turned Moon over to authorities. You’ll be on the edge of your seat following Moon’s adventures escaping from the police and the boys’ home and finally figuring out where he belongs.
The Trap by John Smelcer is set in a really cool location - Northern Alaska. In this land the sun only shines for a couple of hours each day in the winter - winters that are so brutal that the inhabitants lives revolve around just surviving. In this brutal land, an Indian teenager, Johnny Least-Weasel, spends his time working a few hours a day in the general store, taking correspondence courses from the University to earn his high school diploma and taking care of his elderly grandparents. His stubborn grandfather, Albert Least-Weasel, still goes out and checks his animal traps (imaginebig, scary, steel bear traps with terrible teeth) alone in the wilderness. When Albert doesn’t come home from checking his traps in a reasonable amount of time Johnny worries and sets out to find his grandfather on his own at his grandmother’s request, despite his uncle’s encouragement to wait out the bad weather. This story is one of life or death in a land filled with wolves, unimaginably cold temperatures and isolation told in chapters narrated alternately by Johnny and his grandfather. If you are looking for a quick, action-packed story this is the book for you!
Heat by Mike Lupica is the story of a young man, Michael Arroyo, and his struggle to keep his life together after the death of his father. Michael, his brother, Carlos, and his father, Papi, came to the New York from Cuba where Papi worked as a taxi driver and Michael was an incredible Little League pitcher. When Papi suddenly died, Carlos, just a few months away from turning eighteen, and Michael were able to continue living together in their apartment with the help of their neighbor, Mrs. Cora. Things were going as smoothly as they could until several Little League coaches called Michael’s age into question - he was too good to be only twelve years old. With no record of a birth certificate (they neglected to bring it along when they left Cuba) and many “Official Persons” asking too many questions, Michael and Carlos aren’t sure if they can keep-up their act much longer. This is a great book if you love baseball and still a good book if you don’t - romance, suspense and celebrity keep this story moving until the very end.
Normally I don’t gravitate toward weird outer-space sci-fi type books, but this one is on the 08-09 SCJBA list and I heard that it was really good and I’m trying to broaden my horizons, so…I really liked it! Two hundred orphaned human children reach the Rings of Orbis on their spaceship where they are made to work as slaves for the aliens in return for their habitation in Orbis 1.
The main character, JT, is treated differently when their ship docks and the children are checked out. JT is a “softwire” - he can communicate with computers by using only his mind. His abilities are a blessing and a curse and nearly cost him his life. This is a story of good vs. evil, you just don’t know who is good and who is evil. There are many twists and turns in this story and there are some questions left unanswered for the next in this series.
Have you ever had a secret? Have you ever had a secret that your life depended on? Gabe has a secret alright. It seemed like everything was finally working out for him. After spending years in foster care after his single mother died, Social Services found Gabe’s Uncle Vernon who agreed to adopt him. Gabe had a real home.
When Gabe returns home after his first day of sixth grade he arrives to a horrifying discovery. Uncle Vernon is dead. Gabe has no idea what to do, so he does nothing. Gabe goes to school the next day, only when he returns home again his uncle’s body is missing…that’s when the creepy and puzzling letters begin to appear in the mailbox. Follow Gabe on his journey to keep his life together while he uncovers the many mysteries of his past and faces the uncertainty of his future.
