The Iron Trial

The Iron Trial
by Holly Black &
Cassandra Clare

From the publisher:
"Most kids would do anything to pass the Iron Trial.

Not Callum Hunt. He wants to fail.

All his life, Call has been warned by his father to stay away from magic. If he succeeds at the Iron Trial and is admitted into the Magisterium, he is sure it can only mean bad things for him.

So he tries his best to do his worst - and fails at failing.

Now the Magisterium awaits him. It's a place that's both sensational and sinister, with dark ties to his past and a twisty path to his future.

The Iron Trial is just the beginning, for the biggest test is still to come . . ."

This book was recommended to me by some of my 8th graders who absolutely love it. I can't say that I loved it, but I mildly enjoyed it and can see why middle schoolers would love it. My main problem was that I didn't connect to the main character. I thought he was obnoxious and unsympathetic (like Dark Harry in The Order of the Phoenix .... no, Harry was much less obnoxious and much more sympathetic). Could it have been my annoyance with his name? Callum.... pronounced Cal-um... correct? And yet his nickname is Call. I'm sorry, is that supposed to be pronounced the way it is spelled, or the way a nickname for Callum should be said? It drove me crazy because I can not read the word Call as Cal. Actually, though, I didn't feel connected to any of the characters. The plot was interesting, and there was a big twist at the end that I didn't see coming. I thought the world-building was cool - an underground magic school where the lichens and fungus taste like all your favorite foods, but believe me I would much prefer my magic school to be in beautiful Scotland next to a mysterious loch. I'm going to tepidly recommend this one for adults, but strongly recommend it for middle schoolers. 

Areas of concern: (Actually a pretty clean read, which is surprising coming from these two authors.)
*A mother's violent death and her instructions to "Kill the Child"
*A scary wolf-attack scene (I put that in because I had a daughter who was scared silly of wolves :) )
*Death of a student
*Several instances of bullying

Suggested Ages:

Kirkus Reviews - Ages 9-13

School Library Journal - Grades 5-8

The Paladin Prophecy

The Paladin Prophecy
by Mark Frost

From the publisher:
"Will West is careful to live life under the radar. At his parents' insistence, he's made sure to get mediocre grades and to stay in the middle of the pack on his cross-country team. Then Will slips up, accidentally scoring off the charts on a nationwide exam.

Now Will is being courted by an exclusive prep school . . . and is being followed by men driving black sedans. When Will suddenly loses his parents, he must flee to the school. There he begins to explore all that he's capable of--physical and mental feats that should be impossible--and learns that his abilities are connected to a struggle between titanic forces that has lasted for millennia.

Co-creator of the groundbreaking television series Twin Peaks, Mark Frost brings his unique vision to this sophisticated adventure, which combines mystery, heart-pounding action, and the supernatural"

This is a fun ride of a book that hooks you from the very beginning and doesn't ever let up. The action is continuous, the characters are incredibly fun, the plot lines are a little confusing, but all in all it is a very entertaining book. The characters were my favorite part. The main character, Will, is a good young man who loves his parents and tries to do his best without drawing attention to some of his extraordinary skills. When strange things begin happening and he has to run away, he meets Nando, a taxi-driver who immediately becomes a friend that goes to many great lengths to help Will. I loved Nando for his good heart, his courage, and his smart-alecky remarks. When Will arrives at his new school, I fell in love with his roommates - especially the hysterical Nick. Why oh why did I not mark some of his quotes?! And why has a movie not been made of this yet? It would definitely make a good one. Fun, fun, fun.

Areas of concern:
*Quite a bit of bad language. Around 30 uses each of the "d" word and the "h" word. 8 uses of the "a" word, and 1 use of the "s" word. 
*This is nit-picky, but a group of male and female teenagers share a sort of apartment with a common kitchen and living area with their bedrooms jutting off from the common areas and no supervision aside from a creepy evil guy who makes surprise inspections.

Suggested Ages:

Publisher's Weekly - Ages 12+

School Library Journal - Grades 7+

Reawakened

Reawakened
by Colleen Houck

From the publisher:
"When seventeen-year-old Lilliana Young enters the Metropolitan Museum of Art one morning during spring break, the last thing she expects to find is a live Egyptian prince with godlike powers, who has been reawakened after a thousand years of mummification.

And she really can't imagine being chosen to aid him in an epic quest that will lead them across the globe to find his brothers and complete a grand ceremony that will save mankind.

But fate has taken hold of Lily, and she, along with her sun prince, Amon, must travel to the Valley of the Kings, raise his brothers, and stop an evil, shape-shifting god named Seth from taking over the world.

From New York Times bestselling author Colleen Houck comes an epic adventure about two star-crossed teens who must battle mythical forces and ancient curses on a journey with more twists and turns than the Nile itself."

I was very disappointed in this book, but strangely unsurprised by my disappointment. When I read this author's Tiger's Curse , I absolutely loved it! Unfortunately I read it a second time a couple of years later and found it incredibly cheesy and kind of annoying. So since Reawakened is pretty much a rewrite ofTiger's Curse , I found it cheesy and annoying as well, but even more so. I had to force myself to keep reading this. I didn't feel any connection to the characters, the mythology rambles were incredibly boring, and I didn't feel any chemistry between the main characters. Lilly kept making snarky American-girl comments that, I'm sorry, a reanimated mummy who hasn't seen the world in 1000 years would never understand, so why she kept making them I don't know. Have I used the word annoying too much? 

All that being said, I think my 8th graders will love it. The Tiger Saga is one of our most popular series, so they will eat this up as well. And I do love that this author never uses bad language and keeps the romance clean. I'll keep buying her books for my library for those reasons alone. 

Areas of concern:
*An evil god is trying to take over the world and re-animated mummies (who are surprisingly gorgeous) are trying to stop him. There are some non-graphic but disturbing scenes of violence and torture. 
*One scene of passionate kissing.
*The main character is bonded to a reawakened mummy who sometimes needs to draw her energy to keep himself awakened and it causes the girl quite a bit of pain.

Suggested Ages:

Publisher's Weekly - Ages 14+

School Library Journal - Grades 7+

I Survived the Attacks of September 11, 2001

I Survived
The Attacks of September 11, 2001

From the publisher:
"On the day that shocks the world, one boy just wants to find his family. A powerful addition to the gripping I SURVIVED series.

The only thing Lucas loves more than football is his Uncle Benny, his dad's best friend at the fire department where they both work. Benny taught Lucas everything about football. So when Lucas's parents decide the sport is too dangerous and he needs to quit, Lucas has to talk to his biggest fan.

So the next morning, Lucas takes the train to the city instead of the bus to school. It's a bright, beautiful day in New York. But just as Lucas arrives at his uncle's firehouse, everything changes -- and nothing will ever be the same again"

This is a very quick and easy read that should appeal to reluctant readers (it took me about a half an hour to read). I think this is the first year at our middle school where all of our students were born after September 11, 2001. This event is history to them, and it is history that I feel is important for them to learn and know. It shaped the world they live in. 
The author's personal 9/11 experience at the end was just a interesting and educational as the story itself. I hope students will read this one.

Suggested Ages: 
Kirkus Reviews - Ages 9+

So B. It

So B. It
by Sarah Weeks

From the publisher:
"You couldn′t really tell about Mama′s brain just from looking at her, but it was obvious as soon as she spoke. She had a high voice, like a little girl′s, and she only knew 23 words. I know this for a fact, because we kept a list of the things Mama said tacked to the inside of the kitchen cabinet. Most of the words were common ones, like good and more and hot, but there was one word only my mother said: soof.

Although she lives an unconventional lifestyle with her mentally disabled mother and their doting neighbour, Bernadette, Heidi has a lucky streak that has a way of pointing her in the right direction. When a mysterious word in her mother′s vocabulary begins to haunt her, Heidi′s thirst for the truth leads her on a cross-country journey in search of the secrets of her past"

This is a sweet, easy read that I finished in one sitting. At times heartbreaking, funny, sweet and touching, it kept me reading happily while hoping for a good ending. Heidi, our little heroine, has been raised in a very strange household and comes to a point in her life where she is desperate to learn where she came from. As she goes on her quest, she meets some interesting people and her eyes are opened up to the world around her. I didn't really buy into the whole "luck" theme, and I'm not sure how I felt about parts of the ending, but I still enjoyed the book. I believe this was the author's first middle grade book, and I will definitely be looking at her others. 

Areas of concern:
*A mentally disabled mother raising a daughter who has no idea who her father or any family members are. 
*A friend who lies to hide the truth.

Suggested Ages:

Publisher's Weekly - Ages 10+

School Library Journal - Grades 6-9

One Dog and His Boy

One Dog and His Boy
by Eva Ibbotson

From the publisher:
"Eva Ibbotson's final masterpiece, a tale of a boy and dog who were meant to be together.

All Hal had ever wanted was a dog. "Never!" cries his mother. "Think of the mess, the scratch-marks, the puddles on the floor." But on the morning of Hal's 10th birthday, the unbelievable happens. He's allowed to choose a dog at Easy Pets, a rent-a-pet agency (a fact his parents keep from him). The moment he sees the odd-looking terrier, he knows he's found a friend for life. But no one tells Hal that Fleck must be returned. When Hal wakes up on Monday morning, Fleck is gone. If dog and boy are to stay together they'll have to run away. . . . From the renowned Eva Ibbotson comes a tale laced with humor and brimming over with heart, stunning in its beauty of the love of all things dog."

I am a huge Eva Ibbotson fan, and while this book did not disappoint, it wasn't my favorite. This is the last book she wrote before she passed away at the age of 85, so I am very happy she finished it. It is sweet and charming, and like all Eva Ibbotson books, the good characters are very, very good, and the bad characters are so terrible they are almost like cartoon caricatures. My dog lovers at school will love this one, as it is practically an ode to dogs. The dogs in the book are really the stars. They are loyal, funny, loving and heart wrenching. I adored every one of them. 

I mentioned that this one isn't my favorite by this author, but I did enjoy it. I haven't read all of her books for children (she also writes books for adults that I love - although they are now marketing them for Young Adult instead of adult, and I - and the author - don't agree with that). My favorite of her children's books is definitely Journey to the River Sea , followed closely by Star of Kazan and The Secret of Platform 13 - and yes, that was written before Harry Potter came into existence. I love her writing and her heart and her proclivity for always having good overcome evil.  Happy endings abound. 

Areas of concern:
*Terrible parents are depicted. Obviously a parent who would rent a dog for their son's birthday and not tell him that the dog had to be returned are not good parents. They are, in fact, so ridiculous that it doesn't seem real, and at the end they try very hard to change.
*Runaway children on their own with a bunch of dogs.
*Technically the dogs have been stolen by the children.

Suggested Ages:

Kirkus Reviews - Ages 9-14

Publisher's Weekly - Ages 8-12

SIX

Six
by M.M. Vaughan

From the publisher:
"* Kirkus Starred *
Parker and his sister will do whatever it takes to find their father in this adventure packed with action and mystery from the author of The Abilityand Mindscape.

Parker and his family share a secret: they can, with the help of advanced technology, communicate between themselves through their thoughts.

When Parker, his dad, and sister Emma move to New York three years after his mother's death, Parker is having a hard time. He misses London and his friends, his father is distracted with his new job, and Emma is looking out for him instead of the other way around.

And then Parker's dad, on the cusp of a technological breakthrough, is kidnapped. Thanks to a message his dad sent via thoughts before the signal cut off, Parker is suddenly on a rescue mission. Now Parker and Emma, along with their friend Michael and Polly the pig, must find this person - the only link to their father; but the search asks more questions than it answers. But all the signs point to one thing: the company his dad works for is up to something big. Huge. A perfectly sinister project that threatens far more than Parker's family. A project called SIX.

* Kirkus - Starred Review *

Three kids, a pet pig and a helpful chauffeur must unravel a mystery of cosmic proportions.

Twelve-year-old Parker is struggling with his family’s move from England to upstate New York. Parker has a new nemesis. His inventor father has mounting job stress. Only his 10-year-old sister, Emma, seems to be acclimating. With a specialized program for the deaf at their school, friends and a new pet pig, she is thrilled. Keeping secrets in the Banks family is difficult, thanks to his father’s invention, which allows each of them to hear one another’s thoughts—but Parker’s father is hiding something from his family that could change everything if it comes to light. When Parker and Emma’s father disappears, the two siblings enlist Michael, a fellow victim of bullying and an uber-wealthy computer genius, to help them find him. Unfortunately the only people willing to lend a hand are a conspiracy theorist and a patient at a psychiatric hospital. Creative details, likable characters—Brendan, Michael’s chauffeur, stands out especially—and an X-Files–worthy mystery keep the pages turning, but it is the supportive and loving Banks family that makes this story shine. A surprise ending will encourage readers to think beyond the text and grapple with some real-world dilemmas.

Inventive, entertaining and thought-provoking."

I am going to keep my eye on this author. I really enjoyed her first book, The Ability , and now I really liked this one. I was just talking to someone the other day about how the science fiction genre so often contains no science. That is not the case in this one. Science abounds, and it is very interesting science. There was a lot of action and suspense surrounding the science, and the children in the story have to go to great lengths to uncover secrets about the firm their father worked for. 

I liked the characters of Parker, Emma and their dad. I found it refreshing to have a deaf character who was never treated like a person with a disability. Emma is tough, loyal, compassionate and fiercely devoted to animals and the environment. Parker is believable as a boy who is just trying to survive a new school and bullying. Dr. Banks is a loving father with a tremendous amount of stress and pressure on him that the children don't understand. They have no idea that everything he is doing is to keep them safe, so it is sad when they resent him and all the time he takes away from them on his work. Another character, the new friend Michael, has kind of an Artemis Fowl feel to him. Not in a bad way (I can't stand Artemis Fowl), but because he had unlimited resources, computer genius, absent parents, and servants who would do whatever he said. Add all of those characters to an interesting plot, and we have ourselves a winner. Middle school students should love this one! 

Areas of concern:
*Grief over a lost mother/wife.
*A kidnapped father leaving 2 children on their own.

Suggested Ages:

Booklist - Grades 5-8

Publisher's Weekly - Ages 8-12