Middle Grade Pick: Rules for Thieves

Rules for Thieves
by Alexandra Ott
Aladdin
2017
320 pages
ISBN: 9781481472746

Alli Rosco escapes the orphanage by climbing the wall and escapes into the town square. She is excited to be free and alive, but quickly realizes she has no plan. What will she do now? Where will she go? How will she eat? Alli is smart and resourceful and knows she will have to steal to survive.

Alli runs into trouble in the market and is "wounded"  but lucky for her, she meets Beck. Alli has been infected with a poison curse and needs money for the cure before it kills her. Beck tells her that the only way she is sure to survive is to travel with him to the Thieve's Guild, an underground network that protects its own and whose members work to steal the kingdom's greatest treasures.

Beck is unsure whether Alli will be accepted but she goes along with him. They venture deep into the mountains and the cold where the Guild has their secret hideaway.

Alli and Beck are tasked with a dangerous mission--one that is nearly impossible. Alli is getting worse. They are racing the clock and the authorities.

Rules for Thieves is a delightful romp. Alexandra Ott sets up a believable world from the first pages. Alli is everything readers want from a heroine.

Highly recommended grade 5 and up. This book is likely on the Scholastic Book Fair.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Action Pick: Boy X

Boy X
by Dan Smith
Chicken House
2017
288 pages
ISBN: 9781338065640

Available February 28, 2017

Kdnapped, drugged, and transported to a remote location, Ash wakes up in a bed surrounded by stark white walls. He remembers bits and pieces of being kidnapped along with his mother, and he begins searching this hospital (prison?) for her. The place is deserted and Ash cannot find any clues about where he is until he sees the view from the front doors. It looks like he is stuck in the middle of a jungle somewhere. Ash exits the doors, goes into the forest and sees a girl about his age. She tells him he is on Isla Negra, Black Island, and that her father works inside the BioSphere (the building he woke up in). Ash and Isobel go inside to search for her father and Ash's mother.

 Gunshots ring out, a helicopter crashes, the building is sealed, and their  parents are locked inside of a lab.  There they were exposed to Kronos, a poison that will kill them in 24 hours unless they get the antidote. Ash feels strange and disoriented. He has a heightened sense of smell and hearing. Ash is changing, and he's not the only one.

Ash is determined to save his mother's life but he'll need the help of Isobel to cross the island, find the thieves, steal the poison back along with the antidote, and stay alive long enough to deliver it to BioSphere and save his mother and Isobel's father.

What is BioSphere and why is Ash's mother involved? What happened to Ash when he was unconscious? And who wants to change him?

Fast pacing and non-stop action make this a must read for reluctant readers. Each chapter shows a clock showing hours and minutes left that the kids have to get the poison and cure. Readers will feel on edge as Ash races to save the world and his mother.

Highly recommended for action and adventure junkies. Anyone who loves a medical mystery/government cover up story will love Boy X.

Grades 4-8.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received the ARC from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Book Club Pick: Life Among Giants

Life Among Giants
by Bill Roorbach
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
2012
331 pages

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A sweeping saga, an epic tale, a story replete with steamy seduction, passionate romance, boundless sorrow, and relentless yearning, Life Among Giants is Gatsby-ish in its description of an era in American history when rock stars ruled and English rockers  invaded. Skirts were short and the summer of love was possible.

David "Lizard" Hochmeyer is seventeen and a talented football star. He leads his school to gridiron victories but gets kicked off the team for not cutting his hair. Lizard is a standout and could care less what the coach thinks. Older sister Kate babysits for the neighbors--British rock legend Dabney Stryker-Stewart and his beautiful but dangerous wife Sylphide. Their son Linsey is "profoundly challenged" and Kate helps out with his care. David is enthralled with Sylphide, a famous ballerina who haunts his dreams and threatens his future. The famous family lives at High Side--the mansion across the pond from David's ordinary three bedroom family home. High Side is a proper mansion and the Stryker-Stewarts are the golden couple and darlings of the press.

Lizard goes off the college and plays football for Princeton and later signs a contract with the NFL playing for the Miami Dolphins. In all those years, he keeps tabs on the beautiful Sylphide--he cuts out news and magazine clippings for a scrapbook of all her escapades and dreams of her constantly.

The story  continues as Lizard learns to cook and returns to his boyhood home, taking up residence and watching the mansion across the pond. David and Kate question the past--the death of Dabney and the deaths/murders of their parents. The court ruled it an accident but there is their dad's missing briefcase and the FBI case against his company. Sylphide plays a part in all the drama, and Kate blames her for every death. Lizard is blinded by love and desire.

Lizard opens a restaurant with friends Etienne and Ru-Ru and they become a culinary success. The real story of Dabney's death is revealed and a plan to punish the murderers comes together. Revenge is sweet, but to get away with murder is oh-so sublime!

You won't forget Life Among Giants. It is likely to stay with you a lifetime--the larger than life characters of Lizard and Sylphide will join the ranks of literature's great lovers--Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Isolde. Author Roorbach has created a masterpiece of mythic proportions. This is a novel that can be read again and again. It's that good. I loved Life Among Giants and it has made it to my best books of all time list along with To Kill a Mockingbird and The Shadow of the Wind.

Highly, highly recommended for mature readers grade 9-up. Language, mature situations, murder, romantic triangles.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Gothic Romance Pick: The Dark Unwinding

The Dark Unwinding
By Sharon Cameron
Scholastic
2012
336 pages
Available September 1, 2012

visit the author's website here

Gothic, gorgeous, glooming and grand, The Dark Unwinding will captivate teen readers with its spunky heroine Katharine Tulman and her deep and dark family secrets. Katharine slaves over keeping the books for her witchy Aunt Alice until Aunt sends her to the countryside to her uncle’s estate on the windswept and lonely moors. Katharine is to find proof that Uncle Tully is batty, so that he can be sent away to an asylum and Aunt Alice and her greedy, gluttonous son Robert (Katharine’s cousin) can inherit the family fortune. Katharine feels she has no choice, since she is reliant on Robert and Alice to provide her with room and board. She has no money of her own and no other family.

Upon arriving at Stranwyne Keep, Katharine takes in the monstrous, looming Victorian palace and its grounds. Mrs. Jeffries, the cook, is dismissive and rude; Uncle Tully is nowhere to be found and Davy, a little waif of a boy, is a silent enigma. Katharine spends a restless night in a spooky red room, and vows to meet her uncle in the morning.

Uncle Tully’s workshop is a fantastical, whimsical place where creativity and invention thrive. He has created amazing puppets, steam powered machines, and inventions that no one has ever seen before. Katharine finds that Tully is not demented; he is a genius! He does have quirky habits that may seem strange to some people: he only winds his clocks on specific days, playtime is on a regimented schedule, and Tully can do the most difficult math problems in his head in less than a second. When Katharine discovers that her uncle employs over 900 men to work in his village and keep the workshop running, she vows that she will shut it down. This is Fat Robert’s inheritance, after all.

A strange turn of events finds Katharine torn between her family—she has come to love eccentric Uncle Tully and even mean Mrs. Jeffries, she feels protective of Mary, her constant companion, and she is attracted to Lane, her uncle’s helper. Can she offer the proof that will put her uncle in the loony bin? What will happen to Stranwyne Keep and all the people?

This luscious novel has all the elements that romance readers could want. Think Jane Eyre with a bit of steampunk thrown in. A spooky, creaky mansion, deserted moors, howling winds at night, crazy machines and inventions, a mean housekeeper, a silent orphan, a poisoning, a plot to send Katharine to the asylum, a childlike, genius inventor, a handsome helper, a wolf in sheep’s clothing (a villain), a plot to destroy England, and a wee bit of romance.

Highly, highly recommended for fans of steampunk and romance. This is a remarkable read that is not to be missed. Grades 7-up.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.

Super Sleuth Pick: Poison Most Vial

Poison Most Vial
by Benedict Carey
Amulet
2012
215 pages

What a breath of fresh air! In a market teeming with paranormal and dystopian fiction along comes a little old mystery, Poison Most Vial, a new murder mystery that features a smart and quirky girl named Ruby Rose who has to do some sleuthing to clear her father of murder charges. Ruby enlists her best friend, gangly but loveable T. Rex and a mysterious elderly neighbor the kids see watching the neighbohood's every move (shades of Hitchcock's "Rear Window").

When Dr. Ramachandran is found poisoned at DeWitt Polytechnic University, the police suspect Ruby's father. After all, her father has access to all the labs, he was present the night Ramachandran was found, and he served the professor hot tea on the night in question.

Ruby has to do something and do it quickly; her dad is her only relative, and if she loses him, she'll have no one. With T. Rex's help, Ruby writes a letter to the Window Lady, the neighborhood snoop. They're surprised when she leaves them a note with name of a lawyer who can help Ruby's dad and access to the city's medical examiner. It seems that Window Lady is a retired toxicologist; she really knows her poisons.

The kids begin investigating the murder and as they delve deeper and deeper into it, several things become clear: Ruby's father is innocent, there is more than one person who may be guilty, and the college is keeping secrets of its own.

It takes a murder and a poison to bring Mrs. Whitmore, the Window Lady, out of her apartment, but when she finally emerges, she's the driving force behind the investigation.

I loved the play on the title Poison Most Vial--the vial used in science labs instead of "vile" meaning disgusting. The cover is an eye-catcher and should entice fans of science and mysteries. From Library Media Connections: "it (the book) should be on hand in every elementary and middle school library." I loved the fact that the kids were afraid of the lurking and mysterious neighbor who hid in her apartment but she ended up befriending them. This just goes to show--don't make snap judgements.

Recommended grades 5-up. Early readers may not be able to follow the chapters about insulin, poison, and vials. No language.

FTC Required Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. I did not receive monetary compensation for this review.