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.

Middle Grade Book Giveaway and Review: The Girl in the Well Is Me

I have THREE copies of The Girl in the Well Is Me up for grabs. For your chance to win, simply post a comment to the blog. Be sure to include your first name, city, state, and email. Deadline for posts is Thursday, February 18 at noon MST. Winners will be chosen on that date randomly by Randomizer. Check your email shortly after noon MST. Winners have 24 hours to respond to my email. Books will ship from the publisher. Publisher is able to ship to U.S. addresses. Good luck and start posting! Pamela


The Girl in the Well Is Me
by Karen Rivers
Algonquin Young Readers
2016
224 pages
ISBN: 9781616205690

Available March 15, 2016

Praise for The Girl in the Well Is Me:

"A brilliantly revealed, sometimes even funny, exploration of courage, the will to live, and the importance of being true to oneself. The catastrophe draws readers in, and the universality of spunky Kammie's life-affirming journey will engage a wide audience. Moving, suspenseful, and impossible to put down."—Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“I dare you to pick up this riveting novel without reading straight through to its heart-stopping conclusion. Karen Rivers has penned a dazzling voice, at once hilarious, heartbreaking, and searingly honest. The Girl in the Well Is Me is a triumph.”—Katherine Applegate, Newbery Medal-winning author of The One and Only Ivan

“A gripping story that doesn’t shy away from dark places but explores them with heart, humor, and light . . . This book will spark thoughtful conversations about choices, consequences, and what makes us who we are.” —Kate Messner, author of All the Answers

“Funny, surreal, occasionally heartbreaking…a compulsively readable story.” —School Library Journal

“This is a fascinatingly well told story that strongly reminded me of Libba Bray’s Going Bovine, but with a completely believable middle grade flavor.”—Teen Librarian Toolbox / School Library Journal

 

MY REVIEW:

Poignant, profound, and heart-warming, The Girl in the Well Is Me will speak to readers on every level. At times, laugh out loud funny, at times grippingly sad, at times over the top optimistic, at times irreverent, at times harsh, but at all times rich in voice and full of heart and character.

Kammie Summers  is a spunky eleven  year old uprooted from a comfortable existence  in New Jersey where her life was full of a loving family, shared jokes, expensive ice skating lessons, riding lessons and all the trappings of a upper middle class family. It all comes crashing down when her  father is arrested for embezzlement. Now Kammie  lives in a dusty town in Texas with her mother and brother in an old  trailer where  her mother is suddenly hoarding cats and her father is in prison. Kammie's mom works two jobs and her once fun and friendly older brother turns into  a  teenager with an anger problem. Kammie's grandmother recently passed away but Kammie fondly remembers all of her wit and wisdom. Kammie longs for her other life in New Jersey, her normal life. In Texas, she has nothing; all her dreams are dashed. There is no more laughter in her home. Their trailer isn't home; Texas isn't her home.

Kammie tries to make friends with a popular triad of mean girls who pretend they want her to join their group, but they trick her into standing on a piece of wood on the ground. The wood breaks, sending Kammie into an abandoned well. At first, Kammie is mad at the three girls. She knows they did it on purpose and are probably  laughing. As the hours pass and the girls seemingly abandon Kammie, she begins thinking about everything that brought her to this place, this well, where she could quite possibly die. Kammie begins to get claustrophobic and that makes her worry about her asthma. She can't have an asthma attack in the well, and even if she had her inhaler with her, she wouldn't be able to reach it. She can't move her arms at all; they are pinned to the sides of the well. As oxygen in the well begins to dissipate Kammie hallucinates about a coyote who speaks French and zombie goats and dying. She thinks of her dog Hayfield and cries. She cries about missing her grandmother, and about her dad and his lies, she cries that everyone over eleven is a liar.

Readers will LOVE Kammie. She has great heart, resiliency, strength and character. She holds a mirror up to the adults around her and shows their flaws. She holds that same mirror up for herself and realizes that she is a grape...and not a raisin like the liars--she wants her dad to be a grape.

Karen Rivers has crafted an intelligent middle grades read that should be a must read for all ages. Book clubs will have so much to discuss after reading this little gem. I expect the author to be inundated with state and national honors this year. Kudos, Karen Rivers!

So highly recommended I will shout it from the mountaintop (Mt. Franklin), READ this book immediately. It is truly that outstanding. It is a blessing that I was able to read and review the ARC; I am so lucky. Thank you, Algonquin!

Recommended grade 4-up and every reader of every age. This book will speak to you about life, love, truth, forgiveness, and family.

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

 

 

YA Book Giveaway: Notes from Ghost Town

Notes From Ghost Town
by Kate Ellison
Egmont
2013
336 pages

I have FIVE FREE copies of this exciting new YA title from the author of The Butterfly Clues!

Part mystery, part detective story, this title will resonate with teen readers!

For a chance to win, post a comment to the blog. Include your first name, city, state, and email contact. Deadline for posts is Feb. 27 at noon MST. Winners are chosen randomly by Randomizer. Winners will be notified by email on Feb. 27. Please check your email on that date in the afternoon. Winners have 24 hours to respond to my congratulatory email. Books will ship from New York courtesy of Katie and Egmont.

Good luck and start posting! Pamela

Teen Thriller: Dark Eden

Dark Eden
by Patrick Carman
Katherine Tegan Books
2011
336 pages
Available November 1, 2011

watch the trailer here

Dark Eden is one of those rare books where you think you know what's going to happen, but you would be wrong--very wrong! This is a sleek psychological thriller for teens; it is the Shutter Island for the teen crowd.

Will Besting finally goes along with his parents' wishes to go into a special program where his psychiatrist assures them that he will come out a "new man," unafraid of his fears. The van takes him and six others to Ft. Eden, a deserted looking bunker out in the middle of nowhere and drops them off. There is no way to walk back to civilization.

Will knows the six other kids, but they don't know he knows them. Will began snooping in his psychiatrist's office when she leaves him alone. He has stolen the tapes of all six of his van-mates. He knows their deepest, darkest secrets and their crippling fears and nightmares. Will has a suspicious mind and when everyone goes into the fort, Will runs for the woods. His plan is to stay hidden and figure out just what Ft. Eden really is.

He finds a way in--he sneaks past the groundskeeper and hides in the cellar of her bungalow. There he finds a secret entrance into Ft. Eden. Will also discovers a video room with ancient equipment where he can eavesdrop on the six teens. He has video but not an audio feed so it's guesswork what people are saying. Will watches in horror as each teen is led to a dark room and fed images that will "cure" them.

When Marisa tells Will that everyone is cured, Will doubts it. What is Marisa's secret fear? And what happened to Avery?

The teens have to face their worst fears to get out. Creepy and twisted, Dark Eden will resonate with teen readers who like adventure and who crave dank cellars and things that go bump in the night.

Recommended grade 7-up. No language, no sex.

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

Dystopian Fiction Pick

Incarceron
by Catherine Fisher
Dial Books, 2010 (orginally published in Britain in 2007)
442 pages

Provocative, compelling, thrilling, dark, dangerous, gritty, and disturbing. This is a book that I dreamt about for a week after reading it. Not a novel that one will soon forget. Although it takes about thirty pages to set up, from there on, the reader will be enveloped in a fantasy world gone wrong. Creatures beyond description haunt Incarceron's walls.

The setting acts as a character in this dystopian fantasy. Incarceron is a prison that was set up to house the worst of all society--it has been sealed up for centuries and has evolved into a living, breathing, thinking entity. Like Hal, the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the prison takes over. It sees all and knows all. No one has ever escaped except one man; one man who has become a legend, a myth, and a fairy tale. Only Sapphique has escaped and knows the way.

Finn is not like the other prisoners; he remembers Outside. He is sworn to his oath brother Keiro and is tied to Gildas, a Sapienti who seeks the Outside. Because Finn sees visions, he is known as a starseer. He even has dreams of Sapphique leading him from Incarceron.

The warden of Incarceron holds the fate of the prison, and his daughter Claudia will marry and become Queen of the realm. That is, until she finds a key that unlocks Incarceron. Claudia and Finn are able to communicate through this key.

On the Outside, life seems perfect, and it is except that there is no freedom. "We are chained hand and foot...enslaved to a static, empty world where men and women can't read, where scientific advances of the ages are the preserve of the rich, where artists and poets are doomed to endless repititions and sterile reworkings of past masterpieces. Nothing is new. New does not exist. Nothing changes, nothing grows, evolves, develops. Time has stopped. Progress is forbidden." (Incarceron, p. 243)

Once Incarceron is threatened, the realm will tremble.

Book Two: Sapphique due out December 2010.

Highly, highly recommended grades 8-up. May not be suitable for younger readers due to violence. No sex, no language.


FTC Required Disclaimer: I bought this book for my library. I did not receive any monetary compensation for this review.

YA Pick

Lockdown: Escape From Furnace I

by Alexander Gordon Smith

Faber and Faber, 2009

273 pages.

In this gritty and disturbing YA novel, Smith creates Furnace Penitentiary, the "toughest maximum security prison in the world for young offenders." Furnace makes the U.S. prison system--even maximum security lockdowns like Rikers Island--look like a child's tea party. Framed for his best friend's murder, Alex gets a life sentence in this hellhole. Even though Alex is guilty of breaking and entering and bullying and fighting, readers will like him. He shows his true colors once he enters the Furnace. Championing underdogs and saving lives, Alex fights for the rights of the little guys. He stands toe to toe with the most brutal of the prison gangs, the Skulls.

The prison itself is wedged in a massive gorge beneath the Earth. Rock surrounds them on all sides. There is no escape, only death. There are no safeguards for prisoners' rights. In fact, the guards would rather see the prisoners dead than alive. The sadistic warden welcomes new boys by saying, "Beneath heaven is hell, boys, and beneath hell is Furnace. I hope you enjoy your stay."

Sometimes "they" come for you in the middle of the night. Sometimes you come back and most of the time, you don't. Alex is determined to find a way out. He enlists the help of his cellmate and two other boys who came in with him. They come up with a risky plan to blow a hole through solid rock using gas from the kitchen's stoves. If it works, they will probably die in the explosion. If caught, they will die. If they stay in Furnace, they are guarenteed death. This is a no-brainer for Alex. Readers will not be able to put this book down.

Exciting and ferocious. Action-packed. Reluctant readers will enjoy this thrill-ride. Highly recommended for YA collections, grade 7-high school.