Most people totally take for granted the food that arrives in their grocery story.  They also probably feel that their store gives them a large variety of fruits, vegetables and grains.  But many, many facts in The Story of Seeds will surprise readers and more than likely push them to try new varieties that are offered and/or buy from farmer’s markets and co-ops.  Only 150 of the 12,000 plant species are grown for sale in the world today.  Because of this, seed varieties have gone extinct.  This book examines both the factors that have led to this condition as well as the pioneers in cultivation and preservation that are trying to retain what we have left.  Who would have thought that seeds were a goal for capture in World War II?  Would one believe that there is a Doom’s Day Seed Vault in a mountain in Norway?  There is much to be said to the complexity of the world of seeds.  This book would be fabulous for a student wanting to research a unique topic.

Henry has the perfect life, or so it seems.  Born into the riches of Medina (aka land of Bill Gates and friends), he has made all the right moves to prepare himself for  Harvard Law School and a career as a politician.  With girlfriend Catharine by his side, this power couple couldn’t be stopped—until dark eyed, dark haired Anne Boylen crashes into their lives.  Henry’s whole being flips out whenever Anne appears.  There’s nothing he can do to stop his passion for everything that is different about Anne.  Though Anne is not the type of person who will bend over  to fit into a new crowd, to please Henry she is led into situations that totally compromise her.  The constant tension in the book is whether they will make it through together or apart.  A play on the love story of the real Henry VIII and Anne Boylen, readers can wonder how far the author will stray from history while being whipped up in some over the top lusty lines.  There is no outright sex but foreplay abounds.  Some will see this as too “oh, my” while others will drink it up like they did for Bella and Edward.  It could be a fun addition to most high school libraries.

Non-fiction texts are getting all of the spotlight because of common core standards and authors who choose interesting topics will get their books sold. So is the case with Chocolate: Sweet Science and Dark Secrets of the World’s Favorite Treat. Kay Frydenborg gives exceptional insight into so many aspects of chocolate. On the science side, readers will be intrigued to know how chemically perfect chocolate is as a source of food. Historically, the roots of chocolate go so far back in South American culture. Treated like money, people were killed for chocolate.

The second two-thirds of the book will most likely be enjoyed more by students as they get into the history and rivalry of commercialized chocolate producers like Cadbury, Hershey and Lindt. Different types of chocolate, new advances in chocolate and conncetions back to history round out this extremely well written book. Recommended by Junior Library Guild, Chocolate should be in most school libraries and all public libraries. Because why wouldn’t people like chocolate?

Lerner’s Inside Elections series is a timely look into how political parties, special interests, voters and the media function around elections in the United States. The book Voters: From Primaries to Decision Night by Robert Grayson details how voting works; primaries, caucuses and conventions; the campaign and voters; the electoral college; election day promises and problems; and counting the vote. This is 58 packed pages explained in an easy to understand, conversational tone for students. For example, Grayson writes “You may be thinking, ‘Wait a minute, I thought elections were decided directly by ordinary voters, not by special super-voters’” (34). He goes on to detail how the nation’s founders had a very different United States in terms of population, communication, and education level. Thus the electoral college, though it might be outdated today, was a justifiable means to get a more perfect end. Page layout, sidebars and graphics help make these classic ideas even more interesting. If your collection’s book on these topics are shabby, this is a really nice collection that will be worth adding this fall.

Richelle Mead continues to write dramatic, adventure twisting stories for teens and The Glittering Court continues with a kick ass heroine in Adelaide, a countess of Osfrid, who leaves all of her future well cared for life behind for the unknown world in The Glittering Court.  While the Court sounds like her life will still be jewels and parties, it is actually a version of arranged marriages where girls are paraded around to colonists in a new land.  What makes Mead a master of her craft is the twists and turns she plays like a well groomed poker player.  Adelaide remains true to her inner beliefs, lifts up others, and is super smart.  Mead creates wonderful role models for teen readers and The Glittering Court will entrance many.  Recommended.

Freakishly weird storms coupled with abnormal temperature patterns.  Horrible diseases plague the U.S. along with terrorist attacks.  Then, what happens when your parents and their church believe the Rapture is happening and you are left behind?  Vivian Apple wakes up to confront that reality and begin a road trip to a possible future, one that could be to the end of the world.  Vivian lives in a post Rapture world where a second Rapture will take up those who become believers.  But Vivian, as well as her best friend Harp, just can’t believe any of this is true.  In her search for the truth of her life, Vivian will encounter friendships and romance, as well as heart breaking pain at the hands of those who should love her unconditionally.  Vivian Apple at the End of the World will be liked by those who question what truth is and how people perceive it.

Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hitton is a novel written in free verse form as in the style of Brown Girl

Dreaming. It’s about a girl named Mimi whose family moves from Berkley, California to Vermont

*Japanese making Mimi multi-ethnic and feeling like an outsider in her new community. Not only

must she adapt to a new climate with cold winters, but she is in the middle of Junior High. It is set in

the late 1960’s and Mimi questions school policies such as classes being assigned by gender (really,

shop is only for boys). It also highlights historical events such as the first lunar landing.

I like the style of this book with many short chapters making it easy to pick up and put back down, for

busy people who tend to read books in short bits. It has Japanese words and customs sprinkled

throughout which increases the interest. It is a realistic book of a girl on the verge of discovery of who

she is.

Tiny Cooper is not Tiny.  He’s big boned and has a big presence too.  Additionally, he is gay and figuring out how to love in this novel written as a script for a musical by David Leviathan.  Hats off to Leviathan for accomplishing such a feat of writing.  The word choices are so terse, yet so loud and powerful.  Tiny wants to experience the type of love he sees his unconditional parents exchange to freely.  He tries this through multiple boyfriends, each who have their own agendas.  When Tiny does find love, his last partner becomes the one who can’t trust the love Tiny so desperately wants to give.  Ultimately, Tiny shares the message he has had to learn over the course of the story — that you have to fall to learn to trust.  And if you hit bottom, you just have to get up again.

The stage directions Leviathan incorporates are more impressive than the dialogue between actors.  In fact, because of the repetition within music, a reader can fast forward their reading.  Written for a high school audience and above, there are plenty of witty lines which just highlight the truth in certain stereotypes of gay men.   Tiny is jazz hands gay, proud of it, and makes his presence known to all.  It will be interesting to see if this gets picked up in my library.

This is a silly, funny story about the fashion world and the humorous drama that surrounds it. In a panic search for a fashion assistant just one week before Fashion Week, Cover magazine has a huge problem.  Mitford the giraffe saves the day.  She knows just the right new look, who to bring on as the most unique model and the latest “look” for this season.  Mitford’s dream comes true and Fashion Week is a success!  The wispy, sketchy drawings capture the mood of spontaneous design.  A delightful book!

The focus of this book is to investigate Internet privacy and the spying of companies and governments against their own employees and citizens.  There is an explanation of “cookies” and how they facilitate a third party viewing an internet account.  The legitimacy of surveillance for purposes of protection and the legal “greater good” of society is contrasted with the expectation of  individual’s constitutional rights of  privacy. A person may unknowingly allow a company access to private information by clicking user agreements. Digital privacy is at risk the world over and stricter controls are needed on data tracking. This book offers a brief, informative investigations of a growing problem.

Ebola: fears and facts  clearly discusses the terrible disease, the terror it evokes and the search for a cure.  The Ebola epidemic of 2014 killed nearly 10,000 people and terrified the world with the fear of an uncontrollable pandemic.  The book is clear and concise, using photos and graphs to explain the spread of the disease and how it is contracted. Although there is not a “cure” for Ebola,  methods have been developed to curtail the spread of the disease.  Care to not touch an infected body and a prohibition against eating bush meat are both effective.  In a brief clear manner, this book answers many questions about a world problem.  It could be very useful in writing a middle school report.

Fuel Under Fire assesses the fuel industry and its many problems.  It is an informative read to learn about the fossil fuel industry.  There is little discussion in the book about the spectrum of green fuel alternatives currently under development and commercially viable alternatives that are not being promoted by energy companies and investors in general.  Millions of dollars have been invested in renewable resources over the past couple of decades while billions of dollars are spent on fossil fuel projects.  The book missed the mark on electric cars in failing to point out how the market has advanced with the introduction of the Tesla electric car and the public demand for practical cars that consume less gas.  Alternatives are being developed but at a slow rate.  When the cost of fossil fuel becomes prohibitive, change will happen.

Liberia by Scholastic Press gives a concise overview of the beautiful, troubled African country of Liberia.  The book begins with the table of contents with definite subject areas to obtain the information a student may need for a research project. Starting with a historical perspective and the founding of Liberia by former American slaves, the book also includes information about the geography of a biodiverse country with statistics displayed with  charts and diagrams.  Many photos of the social life and traditions of the people add to useful information in this book. Recommended for students from the middle and high school grade levels.

The bright, colorful children’s book , Hurry Up, Alfie, playfully looks at the difference between a child’s sense of time and a parent’s.  While being coaxed to “hurry” to get ready to go to the park, Alfie is repeatedly distracted by his imagination.  He is gently encouraged to continue by his patient Mom.  The antics of Alfie are charming and the illustrations delightfully enhance the story. This is a very sweet book for kindergarten or first grade readers.

Review of Becoming Maria

         Sonia Manzano’s memoir, Becoming Maria, is an honest, heart-wrenching account of growing up in the chaotic world of Puerto Rican New York City in the 1950s. The recollections of her early life of severe poverty, parental strife and constant moving are stated with frank realism. There is voice of authenticity as she observes the events with curiosity, confusion and occasional anger. Passion for music and a natural talent for theater are her ticket to a different life.  She continues a split life while living in the barrio and attending a performing art high school.  She then earns a scholarship to the Drama department of Carnegie Mellon University. This memoir shows that drive, determination, hard work and a dream of a better future CAN change a life.  Sonia Manzano always knew she wanted more than to just repeat the life she saw around her.  This book is inspiring for anyone with a past they wish to escape and a dream to pursue.

Three Little Culottes is a children’s book about three pigs that stand up for themselves when their culottes (pants) are stolen from them in the middle of the night.  It is a nod to the traditional Three Little Pigs story in that each house they visit is made out of straw, sticks or bricks. Colorful illustrations using a collage effect of line drawings, photo cutouts and pencil sketches enhance the whimsy and playfulness of the book.  Humorous rhyme adds to the delightfulness of this charming book, with just a hint of French for an exotic flair!  The book begs to be read aloud with playful rhyme and the inclusion of silly words. The kindness and problem-solving lesson at the end gives an added depth and sensitivity to this sweet little book.

Part of its series Women of Action, Chicago Review Press presents these brief

biographies of women past and present who have made a difference that resulted in

betterment for all. These fighters for human, civil, reproductive, worker’s, farmers’

rights and world peace are engagingly presented by the author, who includes resources,

useful bibliographies and notes to aid readers in future study. Further, sidebars put

stories in the context of the locations and prevailing customs and practices of the times.

Ross crosses ‘barriers’ of age, place and time to highlight the bravery of 16

women who took action rather than accepting the status quo and in so doing, changed

the face of history and the lives of all women. Often, their activism carried a high cost –

jail, attack, assassination attempts, vilification, ostracism, and outraged society. Still,

they prevailed, gathering to their causes other strong, dedicated women to whom the

struggle was well worth the cost.

Readers learn about Megan Grassell (empowerment through bras), Margaret

Sanger (abortion rights), Alice Paul (Equal Rights), Maggie Kuhn (Grey Panthers), Sampat

Pal Devi (the Gulabi Gang), Dana Edell (Girl Power), Malala Yousafzai (girls’ education),

Mary “Mother” Jones (organizing), Vandana Shiva (food and farmers), Rigoberta

Menchu Tum (indigenous rights), Kalpona Akter (garment workers’ struggles), Jane

Addams (peace and the safety net), Ida B. Wells (anti-lynching), Buffy Sainte-Marie

(Native activism through music), Judy Baca (mural activism), and Leymah Gbowee

(Women in White for peace). Each exploration into these lives is fascinating, vibrantly

depicted and filled with new information about each woman in the context of her time.

It is an important document for times like these and a worthy new addition to collective biographies for you library.

Recommended.

CitizenKid, an imprint of Kids Can Press, offers a collection of books that inform

children about real issues in the world to inspire them to be better global citizens.

This graphic novel, Child Soldier, tells the harrowing true story of Michel

Chikwanine, a 5-year- old boy abducted from his village and his intellectual, activist

father and loving family, forced to join a filthy army of rebel terrorists and other

victimized children. Dehumanized, trained to commit unspeakable brutalities, the

children kill, maim, torture (often each other) in an endless hell of civil war. Threatened

with death if they try to flee, tanked up on drugs, abused and used, they also are told

they cannot return home because of the terrible stigma their societies attach to the

crimes and killings they have committed. Hope dies.

Already haunted by his ‘initiation’ in which, blindfolded, he kills his best friend,

after many months Michel does flee and finds his way home to a loving and forgiving

family which in turn suffers through the persecution and ultimate murder of Michel’s

father. The survivors finally make a new life in Canada, but the scars Michel carries give

rise to this book that tells the similar story of hundreds of thousands of boys and girls

forced to abandon their humanity, enslaved to thugs perpetrating hideous acts of war.

Beautifully, carefully illustrated, this book ends with information about the plight

of child soldiers in many parts of the world, making a case for abolition of this practice

to every level of government and the law, giving young readers avenues for activism. As

Michel’s father said: “If you ever think you are too small to make a difference, try

sleeping in a room with a mosquito.”

Highly recommended.

In Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash, the author creates a visually explicit story filled with detailed character development in a traumatic high school event.  The various stages of grief are followed as Alyse Aronson’s young life as a violinist is interrupted when her brother shoots and kills fifteen students at their high school resulting in Alyse’s guilt and internal struggles. The story follows Alyse’s life as she first hand discovers that the school shooter is her brother and the aftermath which follows her family who has been left behind to face the harsh realities of the school trauma. Throughout the book, the author has taken enormous care to develop all of the books characters and events in such heightened detail. However, these character descriptions can be excessively over developed and the reader could become lost within the narrative.  The intensively creative detailed language allows the reader to experience the range of emotions of a young high school student could feel in this situation, including the betrayal from her friends, parents, and a boyfriend.  The emotions are incredibly fierce and raw throughout the narrative.  Readers will appreciate the painstaking and haunting details which force them into such a terrible incident that is becoming too common in our high school communities.  All readers will travel this path with Alyse as she fights an internal struggle between loving her brother and wanting him back with their family to the unknown person who killed her friends and almost turned the gun on her.  Recommended for its point of view on a school shooting.

The Battle of Britain is one book of a 10 book series titled the Essential Library of World War II produced by Abdo.  A very readable book suitable for middle and high school libraries, author Tom Striessguth begins in medias res describing attention grabbing details of midair duels between Britain and German sources for the 1st chapter.  Once hooked, readers are escorted into Chapter 2 with the chronological march of events up to the Battle of Britain, the time period in which Germany’s focus was on bombing Britain from the air.  Students will not only learn about strategies deployed by both sides and weaponry used, but they should be able to glean critical pieces of information from the full page primary source photographs of men, women and the technology of the time.  Additional side bars add further dimensions to the snapshot in history.  What stands out to this reader is how well the author’s focus on the tactical maneuvers made by each side are interwoven with the realities of what life was like for average civilians as well as pilots.  Personalized accounts such as the story of RAF pilot Douglas Bader who was shot down over France, had already lost both of his legs earlier in the war, and was treated to dinner by a German pilot before being sent off to a POW camp.  The only drawback is a lack of maps when specific places are discussed.  For example, most students don’t know the distance between England and France or how close London is/isn’t to the coast.  Still, this individual book is worth ordering if one doesn’t have this battle covered in their collection and this librarian will be looking at the other titles as well.  Recommended.

In the scheme of things, senior Higgs Bosun Bing’s last week at Sally Ride High School ought to be a dream, following his four years as a leader, a winner, a Harvard-bound super-achiever who had never before questioned his lucky life or his family-inspired goals. Instead, it becomes an out-of-control awakening as Higgs realizes, in painfully accelerating circumstances, how little the life he’s led so far has to do with who he really is, what his heart really desires, and what it may cost those around him.

It starts with a hypothetical question from his flighty but popular steady girlfriend. “If I needed a kidney, would you give me yours?” Unable to take the question seriously, he does not answer, and so finds himself vilified by her and her friends in ways that begin to unravel his future plans, his self-confidence and his image in the school. Lisa Yee has skillfully created a loveable central character whose journey towards self-awareness takes him into the company of a challenging Goth girl in an Airstream trailer, a person who is not what she seems. As the final seven days before graduation progress, we follow Higgs as he tries to discover who is making his life miserable in school and why this is happening to him.  And he finds true, clear-eye understanding that he wants to follow a far different career path than dentistry: Something like farming! The book explores themes of family, loss, friendship, peer-pressure, self-deceit, humor, love and self-discovery in a very readable way. Highly recommended.

Stella and Barry explore the idea of taking care of a person in Mini Goss’s Too Hot For Spots.  Barry is still in his pj’s when Stella arrives to play.  Stella says she’ll make him all better and proceeds to tap, squish and make Barry say “ahhh”. This would be the perfect book to accompany a Fisher-Price doctor’s play set as such toys take up a two page spread and Stella plays with all of them while trying to get Barry “all fixed.”  But of course, Stella wants to play the patient too, and her idea of chicken pox leaves both friends covered in red sticker dots.  The bright, warm colors and textures of these knit characters is charming and unique.  The end notes contain a small paragraph explaining their creation.  K-1 students will definitely enjoy its kid humor of tickles and giggles.  Recommended.

Goodnight, Good Dog is nice.  Period.  It is the explanation of a dog who doesn’t want to sleep even though everyone in the rest of the house is.  Finally he settles down and sleeps, dreaming of the things he liked during the past day.  The prose is simple yet slightly monotone. The best page is when the dog recognizes the lullaby rhythm of the title’s repetition as he curls up in him bed.  The illustrations are basically primary and secondary colors.  Such simplicity could only be for the benefit of the youngest of listeners, but this reader wonders if even that will hold their attention.  Not recommended for school libraries.

Aislyn Hollings, Ryan’s central character in this gripping, unusual book, has a serious social disorder, a deep and lifelong terror of speaking in public, of doing anything that draws attention to herself outside her family and small circle of friends. Debilitating as it is, this crippling imbalance has kindled her interest in gene therapy, to which end she’s engaged in research at a genetic engineering company, Nova Genetics, in Tacoma. Her oral presentation about her investigation into DNA and gene therapy in a scholarship competition goes awry due to her disorder, heightening the desperation and causing her to say yes to trying an experimental therapy, CZ88, developed by a professional on the staff of Nova Genetics, works, to Aislyn’s amazement, but the secrecy surrounding the drug and the side effects of the treatment soon expose the deadly consequences not just for Aislyn but for the others to whom this viral experiment has been administered.

The writing is tense and interesting, exploring a subject rarely represented in literature for Young Adults, opening the reader to the burgeoning, controversial world of genetic experimentation. “How much do we allow humans to change themselves and at what price?” asks the writer. What therapies are ‘right’ (like easing the suffering of those with Cystic Fibrosis like Aislyn’s little brother) and the sudden development of traits like instant charisma.

The book, 317 pages long, touches on themes of scientific integrity, responsibility, trust, copycat drugs, viral terror, military uses of bizarre inventions and the quest of a young woman to find a cure. It’s a great read.

Highly recommended!

Reviewer: Holly Gwinn Graham