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Falling in love with Maia, hard and deeply, wasn’t something that Leigh Hunter wanted to do. He already had a beautiful, normal girlfriend, and Maia was anything but normal. Lovely, yes, but tortured, too. Maia sums herself up as, “…a bunch of parts that are a mess…Cutter, self-mutilator, anorexic, crazy, anxious, drunk girl.” But she intrigued and enchanted Leigh. His mother’s boyfriend described the attraction as, “A beautiful girl screaming trouble. I doubt there’s a man alive who could resist that at seventeen.” And so Leigh plunges in, despite Maia’s lack of encouragement, and finally wins her affection. But Leigh is in over in his head with Maia, and barely understands what she really needs. When he tries to come to her rescue, he instead botches everything, and brings their relationship to an end. This book is a rich exploration of Leigh’s complexity and intensity, and the depiction of Maia’s struggle with anorexia is heartbreaking. Freymann-Weyr is the Printz Honor Award winner of “My Heartbeat
Cameron, 16, can’t get his life together. He’s smart, but a C student, and not much interests him beyond some obscure music groups and smoking pot. But when his behavior veers towards the strange and uncontrollable, and he starts to see fire monsters and punk rock angels, he realizes he needs medical help. The diagnosis is an unexpected one: Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or “mad cow” disease. The remainder of the book is either a crazy Don Quixote-inspired roadtrip taken with fellow student and little person hypochondriac, Gonzo, or it’s merely Cameron’s imagination gone crazy and hallucinogenic while he slowly dies in the hospital. Ultimately, Cameron learns what it means to live with passion. Given that the book is about a teenager dying a horrible kind of death, it is also funny, wildly imaginative, and at times, introspective and wise. While this book is an action-filled read, it could have been more tightly edited. 2010 Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. Ages 14 and up.
This novel is based on Arthurian legend and takes place during the Crusades. The book was awarded the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award, and numerous other accolades. The narrator of the story is one, Arthur de Caldicot, a thirteen year old boy living in his father’s manor. His older and more athletically fit brother constantly abuses him verbally and his love of writing is continually scorned. Arthur’s only solace is an obsidian stone mysteriously gifted to him. He sees in it numerous events occurring in the life of King Arthur of legend. As the novel progresses, it becomes apparent that Arthur de Caldicot and King Arthur are linked; they are inhabitants of parallel universes. The novel describes Arthur’s growth and periodically inserts a bit of Arthurian lore, as portrayed by the seeing stone.
Marlfox is in characteristic Jacques style: a lengthy and satisfying yarn of adventure and exploits. The themes, character types (anthropomorphic animals), and content is similar to previous novels of the Redwall series.
The Secret Adversary is a stunning mystery by the best selling author Agatha Christie (1890-1976). This novel is an excellent alternative for readers of pop thrillers and mysteries, as it incorporates many of the same themes while using more refined language. The novel’s plot (which takes place in 1919) follows a young couple, Tuppence Cowley and Tommy Beresford, who are in search of excitement and money. They soon get both as a result of a chance encounter. Due to their unintentional eavesdropping in a café, they stumble onto the trail of Jane Finn, a lady who disappeared after the sinking of the Lusitania four years prior and who is the bearer of a tremendous international secret. They are hired by the enigmatic Mr. Carter (an assumed name, of course) on behalf of the English government, and meet Finn’s cousin, an American millionaire who is determined to find her. The amateur detectives discover that a criminal mastermind, Mr. Brown, is at the heart of it all, and spend the rest of the novel tracking him down.
Contemporary fiction has many merits in its prose and themes, yet an occasional perusal of more classical literature, relatively speaking, allows the reader a unique experience. For example, select writers from the 1900s have an unmatched style of writing; the polished and seamless quality of their novels is rarely found in more current publications.
This is an autobiography in graphic novel form by children's Caldecott award-winning illustrator and author David Small. In just over 300 pages of illustrations and sparse text, the reader feels the pain of a small boy growing up in a dysfunctional family whose medical father is rarely home and mother silently rages. David is diagnosed with a "growth" on his neck at age 11, but is not treated until 3-1/2 years later with what he thinks will be minor surgery. When he finally emerges two days later, David learns he is missing half his vocal chords, his thyroid, and has no voice. To top it off, he discovers quite by accident that he in fact had cancer and his parents had kept it a secret. David's anger and resentment send him on a quick spiral downward leading him to skip school, drive without a license and being sent to jail, move to a boys home, run away from the boys home and finally receive badly needed therapy, which ironically feels to David like the first caring and concern he has ever experienced. The illustrations seamlessly express David's emotions as he struggles to understand his situation and it's relation to his seemingly uncaring family. It is revealed that David's father was probably the cause of his cancer due to the excessive number of x-rays David was given as a child for his breathing problems, and that his mother was also dealing as best she could with identity issues of her own. This is a quick read, good for reluctant readers and those interested in biographies or graphic novels, ages 12 and up. It is debatable whether a traditional biography would have been as successful expressing all the emotion throughout this story as this one was in graphic form. The ending is hopeful, and as it turns out, David has had much success with his books, including the awards he has won for this book. It is a National Book Award finalist for adults, and won an Alex Award for adult books with a strong teen appeal. Highly recommended. 
This novel is the second book of the Inheritance Cycle, penned by the prodigious Christopher Paolini. As such, it is the second installment of the saga of Eragon, the budding Dragon Rider of the series, and Saphira, his loyal dragon. The plot of the novel begins a couple days after the close of Eragon: Eragon and Saphira are honored guests in Farthen Dur, the stronghold of the rebel faction, the Varden. In order to hone their magical abilities, and have a better chance of defeating the awesomely powerful, yet wicked, King Galbatorix, Eragon and Saphira travel to the elfin city of Ellesmera, where many magical secrets are revealed. Paolini also constructs two additional parallel plots and follows two other minor protagonists, Roran, Eragon’s, cousin, and Nasuada, the youthful leader of the Varden, whose development mirror’s Eragon’s own.
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