Brashares, Ann Forever In Blue: the Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood
Brashares really knows girls and young women, and describes their crises of confidence, intense friendship, magical thinking, and experiments with love and sex perfectly.
Corrigan, Eireann Ordinary Ghosts Absorbing tale of a modern Holden Caulfield whose mother recently died of cancer, whose brother helped her get the pills for the overdose and has since disappeared, whose father is cold and distant, and who sneaks onto the gracious prep school campus at night to explore buildings with a master key, plan a prank, and hang out with the girl who, mysteriously, works late at night in the pottery studio.
De Mari, Silvana The Last Dragon
Peculiar, translated-from-the-Italian flavor. The last elf, Yorsh, falls in with some humans and ends up raising the last dragon and helping to save some orphans and ragtag people from an oppressive, feudal-style dictatorship.
Hoffman, Mary The Falconer's Knot: a story of friars, flirtation and foul play A lively mystery set in 1316 Italy. 16-year-old noble Silvano da Montacuto, framed of murdering the husband of his crush, is sent to a Franciscan friary for sanctuary. Chiara, a commoner, was dispatched by her brother to its sister convent of the Poor Clares. Who knew the two teens, whiling away their time grinding color for painters in nearby Assisi, would get caught up in a mysterious morass of monastic murders?
Jocelyn, Marthe How It Happened in Peach Hill Annie & her con artist mother, who earns her living as Madame Caterina, spiritualist, arrive in Peach Hill, where Annie pretends to be an idiot so as to listen in on relevant gossip. But the idiot role chafes, and as Annie begins to grow apart from her controlling mother, everything breaks apart in surprising ways.
Jones, D W The Game
“Sent to a boisterous family gathering in Ireland by her overly strict grandmother, orphaned Hayley feels out of place until her unruly cousins include her in a special game involving travel through the mythosphere, the place where all the world's stories can be found, and where some secrets of her past are revealed.” Her aunts turn out to be the Pleiades and the Hesperides…
Klages, Ellen The GreenGlassSea
Comprehensively realized picture of life on The Hill, as the secret Los Alamos scientists’ colony during WWII was known. The story of two girls, Dewey and Suze.
Knox, Elizabeth Dreamquake
Really excellent sequel to Dreamhunter.
Levine, Gail Carson Fairest An interesting twist on the Snow White story, involving a kingdom where the people are passionate about singing and a very insecure young queen. Good.
Lockhart, E. Dramarama Sarah renames herself Sadye and she and her best friend Demi leave Ohio and head to drama summer institute. Demi – black, gay, flamboyant, talented—finds his first real home, but Sadye struggles and finds not so much a community as herself. (Lockhart suggests, but never shouts, that Sadye’s talents lie in directing; I’d be interested to read a sequel.) Good.
Luddy, Karen Spelldown “In 1969, the town of Red Clover, South Carolina, led by an enthusiastic new Latin teacher, supports thirteen-year-old Karlene as she wins her school spelling bee and strives to qualify for the National Bee, despite family problems and a growing desire for romance.”
Mieville, China Un Lun Dun
Murdock, Catherine Dairy Queen Excellent! A fantastic voice. D.J.’s father broke his hip so now she’s basically running the dairy farm. Meanwhile she works on making up her flunked English class, training snotty Brian for football season, and decides to try out for the H.S. football team herself.
Peck, Richard Here Lies the Librarian Peewee idolizes Jake and wants to be an auto mechanic just like him. But they’re dirt-poor and in 1914 paved roads haven’t made it to their little Indiana town yet. Their luck turns when some strong-minded Indianapolis library school students adopt their town’s tiny library and befriend them.
Ryan, Sara The Rules for Hearts Absorbing and real-flavored tale of Battle's summer before freshman year at Reed, living in a co-op with a flamboyant and emotionally intertwangled crowd of theater people.
Thompson, Kate The New Policeman “Irish teenager JJ Liddy discovers that time is leaking from his world into Tir na nOg, the land of the fairies, and when he attempts to stop the leak he finds out a lot about his family history, the music that he loves, and a crime his great-grandfather may or may not have committed.”
Wilce, Ysabeau Flora Segunda : being the magickal mishaps of a girl of spirit, her glass-gazing sidekick, two ominous butlers (one blue), a house with eleven thousand rooms, and a red dog Excellent!
Zarr, Sara Story of a Girl “I was 13 when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick… Tommy was 17… I’m not even sure I liked him.” Deanna’s dad has barely spoken to her in the 3 years since and she’s stuck with the role of “school slut” because Tommy told everyone. Her brother got his girlfriend knocked up, and her dad’s been out of work since he was laid off. Can this dysfunctional family get over its past? Very good story of the complex emotions, sexuality and social dynamics of middle & high school.
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