Welcome

Welcome to my book blog. I hope that you will come often and explore some of the books we have available at the Wonewoc-Center School Library. I will try to post books as I book talk them or just read them for the fun of it. I hope you will join this blog and add your comments. I would love to hear your comments about these books and others. Happy Reading! Mrs. Chipman
Showing posts with label JH/HS fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JH/HS fiction. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Escape from Baxters' Barn by Rebecca Bond



Burdock the barn cat is a loner who has experienced repeated rejection. So when he learns that all the farm animals are in grave danger—their owner is devising evil plans, they’re locked in their pens with no evident escape route, and a fierce storm is brewing—Burdock realizes he “could go it alone.”
However, when the animals plan their escape, each contributing skills, encouragement, and ideas, Burdock faces a moral quandary: “Saving yourself seemed right. Obviously abandoning your companions seemed wrong. But what if saving yourself meant abandoning them?”
When Burdock resolves his quandary, he participates in a clever team effort in which the animal friends escape and find a place they can truly call home.
246 pages

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Shattered Glass by Teresa Toten

Shattered GlassToni has always had nightmares about fire, and she also has burn scars but no idea how she got them. So when fire destroys the orphanage she has grown up in, she is ready to make her way to Toronto, where she hopes to discover the truth about the mother she believes hurt and then abandoned her. Toronto proves to be both daunting and exciting for Toni, whose charm and innocence attract attention—not always positive—wherever she goes. Buoyed by the music she hears at the folk club where she finds a job, and encouraged by her glamorous landlady, Toni unearths shocking information that contradicts everything she believes and makes her re-evaluate what she feels for all the new people in her life.

235 pages
Series Website

Read the Secrets Series:
The Secrets Boxed Set
"

Thursday, October 8, 2015

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

What I Saw and How I LiedWhen Evie's father returned home from World War II, the family fell back into its normal life pretty quickly. But Joe Spooner brought more back with him than just good war stories. When movie-star handsome Peter Coleridge, a young ex-GI who served in Joe's company in postwar Austria, shows up, Evie is suddenly caught in a complicated web of lies that she only slowly recognizes. She finds herself falling for Peter, ignoring the secrets that surround him...until a tragedy occurs that shatters her family and breaks her life in two.

Lexile  HL 620
284 pages

Book Talk

Book Trailer

Book Trailer 2- longer



Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers

Sunrise Over FallujahRobin "Birdy" Perry, a new army recruit from Harlem, isn't quite sure why he joined the army, but he's sure where he's headed: Iraq. Birdy and the others in the Civilian Affairs Battalion are supposed to help secure and stabilize the country and successfully interact with the Iraqi people. Officially, the code name for their maneuvers is Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the young men and women in the CA unit have a simpler name for it: WAR.

In this novel, Walter Dean Myers looks at contemporary war with the same power and searing insight he brought to the Vietnam War in his classic, Fallen Angels. He creates memorable characters, like the book's narrator, Birdy, a young recruit from Harlem who's questioning why he even enlisted; Marla, a tough-talking, wisecracking gunner; Jonesy, a guitar-playing bluesman who just wants to make it back to Georgia and open a club; and a whole unit of other young men and women, and drops them in Iraq, where they are supposed to help secure and stabilize Iraq and successfully interact with the Iraqi people. The young civil affairs soldiers soon find their definition of "winning" ever more elusive and their good intentions being replaced by terms like "survival" and "despair." Caught in the crossfire, Myers' richly rendered characters are just beginning to understand the meaning of war in this powerful, realistic novel of our times

Lexile 780
282 pages

Book Talk

Book Trailer

Does my Head Look Big In This? by Rand Abdel-Fattah

When sixteen-year-old Amal decides to wear the hijab full-time, her entire world changes, all because of a piece of cloth...

Sixteen-year-old Amal makes the decision to start wearing the hijab full-time and everyone has a reaction. Her parents, her teachers, her friends, people on the street. But she stands by her decision to embrace her faith and all that it is, even if it does make her a little different from everyone else.
Can she handle the taunts of "towel head," the prejudice of her classmates, and still attract the cutest boy in school?

Lexile 850
360 pages

Book Talk

Book Trailer

A Curse as Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce

A Curse Dark as Gold
Charlotte Miller has always scoffed at talk of a curse on her family's woolen mill, which holds her beloved small town together. But after her father's death, the bad luck piles up: departing workers, impossible debts, an overbearing uncle. Then a stranger named Jack Spinner offers a tempting proposition: He can turn straw into gold thread, for the small price of her mother's ring. As Charlotte is drawn deeper into her bargains with Spinner-and a romance with the local banker-she must unravel the truth of the curse on the mill and save the community she's always called home.



lexile 840
395 pages

Fables, Folk Tales and Myths
Fantasy

Book Talk

Book Trailer


Monday, September 14, 2015

Sweet By Emmy Laybourne

The luxurious celebrity cruise launching the trendy new diet sweetener Solu should be the vacation of a lifetime. But Laurel is starting to regret accepting her friend Viv's invitation. She's already completely embarrassed herself in front of celebrity host Tom Forelli--the hottest guy ever!--and she's too sick to even try the sweetener. And that's before Viv and all the other passengers start acting really strange. 

Tom knows that he should be grateful for this job and the chance to shed his former-child-star image. His publicists have even set up a 'romance' with a sexy reality star. But as things on the ship start to get wild, he finds himself drawn to a different girl. And when the hosting gig turns into an expose on the shocking side effects of Solu, it's Laurel that he's determined to save. 

Emmy Laybourne, author of the Monument 14 trilogy, takes readers on a dream vacation inSweet that goes first comically, then tragically, then horrifyingly, wrong!

272 pages

Monday, August 10, 2015

Kalahari by Jessica Khoury

When an educational safari goes wrong, five teens find themselves stranded in the Kalahari Desert without a guide. It’s up to Sarah, the daughter of zoologists, to keep them alive and lead them to safety, calling on survival know-how from years of growing up in remote and exotic locales. Battling dehydration, starvation and the pangs of first love, she does her best to hold it together, even as their circumstances grow increasingly desperate.

But soon a terrifying encounter makes Sarah question everything she’s ever known about the natural world. A silver lion, as though made of mercury, makes a vicious, unprovoked attack on the group. After a narrow escape, they uncover the chilling truth behind the lion’s silver sheen: a highly contagious and deadly virus that threatens to ravage the entire area—and eliminate life as they know it.


Sarah and the others must not only outrun the virus, but its creators, who will stop at nothing to wipe every trace of it.
354 Pages
Lexile 790

Thursday, June 25, 2015

The Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman




This is what the copy of this book looks like in our library.
But perhaps we should have gotten this cover....
Which one grabs your attention?? Regardless of your answer you should grab this book. 
It is a quick read, because it sucks you right in. 

Jason is having a bad day. The kind of day when you just don’t feel like yourself. Only for Jason, it’s not just a feeling. He really isn’t himself. Not anymore. Who is he? That’s the problem. Jason isn’t sure. And it’s not just him. Everyone in town is acting weird. His friends. His parents. Everyone. Billington is usually such a normal town. As Jason is about to discover, nothing will ever be normal again… 

A classic science fiction novel from bestselling author Neal Shusterman is back in print. -

230 pages
Lexile 850

Book Trailer

Thursday, January 15, 2015

Deadline by Chris Crutcher


How can a pint-sized, smart-ass eighteen-year-old make his mark on the world from Nowheresville, Idaho—especially when he only has one year left to do it? When Ben Wolf learns his senior year of high school will be his last year, period, he is determined to go out in a blaze of glory.

That means not letting anyone know about his diagnosis. It means trying out for the football team. It means giving his close-minded civics teacher a daily migraine. It means going for the amazingly perfect, fascinating Dallas Suzuki.
But living with a secret isn't easy . . . What will Ben do when he realizes he isn't the only person who's keeping one?

Lexile 880
316 pages

Monday, October 27, 2014

Ketchup Clouds by Annabel Pitcher

Dear Mr. S. Harris, 

Ignore the blob of red in the top left corner. It's jam, not blood, though I don't think I need to tell you the difference. It wasn't your wife's jam the police found on your shoe. . . .

I know what it's like.

Mine wasn't a woman. Mine was a boy. And I killed him exactly three months ago. 
Zoe has an unconventional pen pal--Mr. Stuart Harris, a Texas Death Row inmate and convicted murderer. But then again, Zoe has an unconventional story to tell. A story about how she fell for two boys, betrayed one of them, and killed the other.

Hidden away in her backyard shed in the middle of the night with a jam sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other, Zoe gives a voice to her heart and her fears after months of silence. Mr. Harris may never respond to Zoe's letters, but at least somebody will know her story--somebody who knows what it's like to kill a person you love. Only through her unusual confession can Zoe hope to atone for her mistakes that have torn lives apart, and work to put her own life back together again.

Book Trailer
261 pages
lexile 890




Saturday, August 30, 2014

The Maze Runner by James Dashner


When Thomas wakes up in the life, the only thing he can remember is his first name. 
His memory is blank. 
But he is not alone. 
When the lift's doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade- a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls. 

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don't know why or how they got to the Glade. 
All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them has opened. 
Every night, they are are closed tight. 
And every 30 days, a new boy is delivered in the lift. 

Thomas was expected. 
But the next day, a girl is sent up-the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. 
And more surprising yet is the message she delivers. 
Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried in his mind. 

Book 1 of the Maze Runner series. 
Be sure to continue the story with Book 2- The Scorch Trials and Book 3- The Death Cure. 

Video Book Talk
Author Website and video

Movie Trailer
Movie Trailer 2

Monday, August 18, 2014

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Uglies is set in a world in which everyone has an operation when they turn sixteen, making them supermodel beautiful. Big eyes, full lips, no one fat or skinny. You might think this is a good thing, but it’s not. Especially if you’re one of the Smokies, a bunch of radical teens who’ve decided they want to keep their own faces. (How anti-social of them.)
Uglies is a trilogy-plus-one, with Extras being a “companion novel” and told from a different point of view. Uglies (Uglies, #1), Pretties (Uglies, #2), Specials (Uglies, #3), Extras (Uglies, #4).
425 pages
Lexile 770

Sunday, August 10, 2014

The Here and Now by Ann Brashares

An unforgettable epic romantic thriller about a girl from the future who might be able to save the world . . . if she lets go of the one thing she’s found to hold on to.
Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.

This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn’t come from a different country. She came from a different time—a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins. 

Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they’re from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth. 

But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves. 

242 pages
Lexile HL 670

Book trailer
Author Interview

Levianthan by Scott Westerfeld

It is the cusp of World War I. The Austro-Hungarians and Germans have their Clankers, steam-driven iron machines loaded with guns and ammunition. The British Darwinists employ genetically fabricated animals as their weaponry. Their Leviathan is a whale airship, and the most masterful beast in the British fleet.

Aleksandar Ferdinand, a Clanker, and Deryn Sharp, a Darwinist, are on opposite sides of the war. But their paths cross in the most unexpected way, taking them both aboard the Leviathan on a fantastical, around-the-world adventure….One that will change both their lives forever.

440 pages
Lexile 790

Video Book Talk

Friday, July 18, 2014

Cold Calls by Charles Benoit

A college-bound soccer player who only makes a single mistake. A goth girl who hides her past. A dutiful daughter whose questions go too far. Three teens from different schools and different walks of life have one thing in common:
I know your secret.
Cold Calls book coverA mysterious voice whispering into their phones, controlling their actions and anticipating their reactions. Each one blackmailed into bullying specifically targeted schoolmates. When the three meet in a mandatory anti-bully counseling program, they team up to find the stranger who threatens them—before time runs out and their shattering secrets are revealed…
A chilling thriller.
An unsettling mystery.
A provocative exploration of bullying, culpability, and the cost of keeping secrets.



278 pages
Lexile HL 770


Monday, July 14, 2014

Divided We Fall by Trent Reedy

.
In this stunning trilogy opener, Reedy envisions a near-future America on the verge of disaster, where political discord, economic crisis, and a controversial new law have created tension between state and federal governments. Enter 17-year-old Pfc. Daniel Wright, a football-playing, truck-driving, country music–loving high school senior and member of the Idaho National Guard. When his unit is called to help with a potential riot in Boise, things get out of hand, eventually sparking a full-blown conflict between Idaho and the Feds. Caught between duty to family, loyalty to the military, and his own sense of honor, Daniel becomes a pawn in a much larger game between governor and president. In a story line tied to current affairs.


Danny Wright never thought he'd be the man to bring down the United States of America. In fact, he enlisted in the Idaho National Guard because he wanted to serve his country the way his father did. When the Guard is called up on the governor's orders to police a protest in Boise, it seems like a routine crowd-control mission ... but then Danny's gun misfires, spooking the other soldiers and the already fractious crowd, and by the time the smoke clears, twelve people are dead.

Video Book Talk
Author Website
CBS Interview with the Author Trent Reedy
374 pages
Lexile HL 760

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Enclave by Ann Aguirre



WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE
In Deuce’s world, people earn the right to a name only if they survive their first fifteen years. By that point, each unnamed ‘brat’ has trained into one of three groups–Breeders, Builders, or Hunters, identifiable by the number of scars they bear on their arms. Deuce has wanted to be a Huntress for as long as she can remember.

As a Huntress, her purpose is clear—to brave the dangerous tunnels outside the enclave and bring back meat to feed the group while evading ferocious monsters known as Freaks. She’s worked toward this goal her whole life, and nothing’s going to stop her, not even a beautiful, brooding Hunter named Fade. When the mysterious boy becomes her partner, Deuce’s troubles are just beginning.
Down below, deviation from the rules is punished swiftly and harshly, and Fade doesn’t like following orders. At first she thinks he’s crazy, but as death stalks their sanctuary, and it becomes clear the elders don’t always know best, Deuce wonders if Fade might be telling the truth. Her partner confuses her; she’s never known a boy like him before, as prone to touching her gently as using his knives with feral grace.
As Deuce’s perception shifts, so does the balance in the constant battle for survival. The mindless Freaks, once considered a threat only due to their sheer numbers, show signs of cunning and strategy… but the elders refuse to heed any warnings. Despite imminent disaster, the enclave puts their faith in strictures and sacrifice instead. No matter how she tries, Deuce cannot stem the dark tide that carries her far from the only world she’s ever known.

This book is not available at school- but it is available at the Wonewoc Public Library. Go check it out!

Monday, April 14, 2014

The Secret of Lying by Todd Mitchell


James was the guy no one noticed —another fifteen-year-old living in a small town. So when he gets into the American Science and Mathematics Academy (or ASMA), James decides to leave his boring past behind. In a public boarding school made up of nerds and geeks, being cool is easy. All it takes is a few harmless lies to invent the new James: rebel, punk, street fighter. Everyone’s impressed —except for the beautiful Ellie Frost, whose icy demeanor holds an inexplicable attraction for James, and the mysterious ghost44, an IM presence who sees right through his new identity.
          But James is riding high —playing pranks and hooking up with the luscious Jessica Keen. Things seem perfect until he begins having strange dreams of a dark city haunted by demons. As the line between dreams and reality blurs, James begins to wonder: What’s the price for being the coolest guy around?

This book is not available at school- but it is available at the Wonewoc Public Library. Go check it out!




Monday, March 31, 2014

Revived by Cat Patrick

Revived by Cat Patrick
Do you ever wonder whether you’re making real friends if you have to lie to them about your life?
Daisy Appleby was a little girl when she became one of the first subjects in a covert program that tests a drug called Revive. Now fifteen, Daisy has died and been Revived five times. 
Each death means a new name, a new city, and a new identity. The only constant in Daisy’s life is constant change. Then she meets Matt and Audrey McKean, charismatic siblings who quickly become her first real friends. But if Daisy’s ever going to have a normal life and lasting relationships, she needs to escape from an experiment that’s much larger—and more sinister—than she ever imagined.

Book Trailer

This book is not available at school- but it is available at the Wonewoc Public Library. Go check it out!