Black Helicopters by Blythe Woolston

I’m Valkyrie White. I’m fifteen. Your government killed my family.

Ever since Mabby died while picking beans in their garden — with the pock-a-pock of a helicopter overhead — four-year-old Valley knows what her job is: hide in the underground den with her brother, Bo, while Da is working, because Those People will kill them like coyotes. But now, with Da unexpectedly gone and no home to return to, a teenage Valley (now Valkyrie) and her big brother must bring their message to the outside world — a not-so-smart place where little boys wear their names on their backpacks and young men don’t pat down strangers before offering a lift.

Alternating past-present vignettes in prose as tightly wound as the springs of a clock and as masterfully plotted as a game of chess, she ratchets up the pacing right to the final, explosive end.

A teenage girl. A survivalist childhood. And now a bomb strapped to her chest. See the world through her eyes in this harrowing and deeply affecting literary thriller.

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Lexile HL580
166 pages

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen

The first time she saw him, she flipped. The first time he saw her, he ran. That was the second grade, but not much has changed by the seventh.


Juli Baker devoutly believes in three things: the sanctity of trees (especially her beloved sycamore), the wholesomeness of the eggs she collects from her backyard flock of chickens, and that someday she will kiss Bryce Loski. Ever since she saw Bryce's baby blues back in second grade, Juli has been smitten.

Unfortunately, Bryce has never felt the same. Frankly, he thinks Juli Baker is a little weird--after all, what kind of freak raises chickens and sits in trees for fun?

Then, in eighth grade, everything changes. Bryce begins to see that Juli's unusual interests and pride in her family are, well, kind of cool. And Juli starts to think that maybe Bryce's brilliant blue eyes are as empty as the rest of Bryce seems to be. After all, what kind of jerk doesn't care about other people's feelings about chickens and trees?

This is a classic romantic comedy of errors told in alternating chapters by two fresh, funny new voices.

Video Book Talk

Lexile 720
212 pages

Au Revoir Crazy Earopean Chick by Joe Schreiber

It’s prom night—and Perry just wants to stick to his own plan and finally play a much anticipated gig with his band in the Big Apple. But when his mother makes him take Gobija Zaksauskas—their quiet, geeky Lithuanian exchange student—to the prom, he never expects that his ordinary high school guy life will soon turn on its head.

Perry finds that Gobi is on a mission, and Perry has no other choice but to go along for a reckless ride through Manhattan’s concrete grid with a trained assassin in Dad’s red Jag going eyeball to eyeball with Russian mobsters and teen angst, high-velocity bullets and high school bullies, all thanks to the most beautiful girl that ever almost got him killed.

Infused with capers, car chases, heists, hits, henchmen, and even a bear fight, this story mixes romance, comedy, and tragedy in a true teen coming-of-age adventure—and it’s not over until it’s “au revoir.”

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Lexile 800
190 pages

Shooting Star by Fredrick McKissack Jr.

Jomo Rogers finished his first year on varsity hearing "if onlys," as in, if only he were bigger.

His talent on the field is easy to spot, and local papers and college recruiters are taking notice. But with his best friend on speed dial for recruiters at big-time college programs, and treated like a king at football-crazy Cranmer Academy, Jomo decides he wants to be more than merely good, he wants to be the real deal...now.

Taking his coach's lecture about commitment to heart, Jomo plunges into a new workout regimen that will make him stronger and faster. But is that enough? A little juice-as in sterioids-might be the difference between being good and being great. It's an easy choice that is about to make his life a whole lot harder.

Lexile 720
273 pages

Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick

When soldiers arrive at his hometown in Cambodia, Arn is just a kid, dancing to rock 'n' roll, hustling for spare change, and selling ice cream with his brother. But after the soldiers march the entire population into the countryside, his life is changed forever. Arn is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp: working in the rice paddies under a blazing sun, he sees the other children, weak from hunger, malaria, or sheer exhaustion, dying before his eyes. He sees prisoners marched to a nearby mango grove, never to return. And he learns to be invisible to the sadistic Khmer Rouge, who can give or take away life on a whim.

One day, the soldiers ask if any of the kids can play an instrument. Arn's never played a note in his life, but he volunteers. In order to survive, he must quickly master the strange revolutionary songs the soldiers demand—and steal food to keep the other kids alive. This decision will save his life, but it will pull him into the very center of what we know today as the Killing Fields. And just as the country is about to be liberated from the Khmer Rouge, Arn is handed a gun and forced to become a soldier. He lives by the simple credo: Over and over I tell myself one thing: never fall down.




Based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, this is an achingly raw and powerful novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace, from National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick

A few words with Arn




Lexile: 710
211 pages

Here Lies the Librarian By Richard Peck

The book opens with a tornado wrecking havoc on a small Indiana town. When fourteen-year-old Peewee (whose real name is Eleanor), her big brother Jake, and their relatives Colonel and Aunt Hat Hazelrig and Sparks, their garage dog, take shelter in the basement of the family auto repair facility, they don’t know what to expect when they emerge. When they do, they find that their property has suffered very little damage, but the twister has made its way through the graveyard that lies between their property and the town, exposed caskets in its wake. One of them was the not-much-loved town librarian; the library has been closed since the librarian died. The library had been damaged by the tornado as well.

Peewee helps out her brother at his repair shop until four young ladies stop to have a tire mended and realize with a start that when Peewee takes off her cap, she reveals herself to be a girl. The four young women are library students from Indiana University and are shocked that the small town’s library is closed, and that no funds exist for its revival. As they are all from wealthy families, they appear at the town board meeting with plans and funds to refurbish the library. The town board accepts.

In the meantime, Jake is putting the finishing touches on a car he’s built to enter the ten-lap Hendricks County Fair against the Kirby brothers’ auto business. One morning, Jake finds his beloved car missing from its garage and immediately assumes that the Kirbys have stolen it only to have Grace, a librarian and the heiress of the Stutz Bearcat fortune offer up her car for Jake to drive. Jake takes her up on her offer only to injure himself in the first few rounds. Grace and Irene talk Eleanor into finishing the race, and not only does she finish, she wins.

Lexile: 780
145 pages

The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts by Richard Peck

"If your teacher has to die, August isn't a bad time of year for it," says Russell. Russell Culver is fifteen in 1904, and he's raring to leave his tiny Indiana farm town for the endless sky of the Dakotas. To him, school has been nothing but a chain holding him back from his dreams. Maybe now that his teacher has passed on, they'll shut the school down entirely and leave him free to roam.

No such luck. Russell has a particularly eventful year of schooling ahead of him, led by a teacher he never could have predicted-perhaps the only teacher equipped to control the likes of him-his sister Tansy.
Despite stolen supplies, a privy fire, and more than any classroom's share of snakes, Tansy will manage to keep the school alive and maybe, just maybe, set her brother on a new, wiser course.

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Lexile: 750
190 pages