Girls In Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood

Brashares, Ann. Girls In Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood. 2005. 338p. ISBN 0-385-72935-9. Available at FIC BRA on the library shelves.

For a second summer in a row, the magical pants that four best friends share helped them survive being apart. Now that they have graduated from high school and are ready to head off on their own to four different colleges miles apart from each other, Tibby, Lena, Carmen and Bridget once again decide to split custody of the pants. From the last day of school to a day at the beach to celebrate their last day together, summer has never felt so short.

Carmen is surprised to discover that her mother is pregnant and expecting a child with her new husband David just as she’s leaving their apartment. Happy at having a little brother but fearing being replaced, Carmen considers changing her choice of colleges to be closer to home so she can help out. Tired of babysitting, she agrees to work with Lena’s grandmother, taking her to appointments and keeping her company.

Tibby is ready for film school, and works at the movie theatre this summer, but what felt new and exciting has become repetitive. Her relationship with Brian is complicated, and she still misses Bailey. Her three-year-old sister is on the move, and in a moment of inattention she falls out of Tibby’s window while reaching for the apple tree, and ends up in the hospital. Tibby experiences guilt and feels responsible for her sister’s accident.

Lena’s enrollment in a summer art program and her future projects at art school are threatened when her father walks in during a modeling session when a fully nude male model sits on a stool in the middle of the room for all to see. The death of her grandfather last year has led to her grandmother living with them, much to everyone’s discomfort. Grandmother would rather not be here at all, but back in Greece in her home, even thought it would be lonely. Plus, she still thinks of Kostos.

Bridget returns to camp, but runs into Eric who also happens to be there as a counselor. Worse, they both have to work together. She has pursued him relentlessly when she was fifteen, but now at seventeen she’s wiser. Yet, she retains the hope that maybe they will connect. But now it’s her turn to be pursued by one of the male campers, and she immediately feels bad for her actions two summers ago.

As the girls navigate their last summer before moving out, their relationships will change yet will remain as strong as ever.

Land of the Lustrous, Vol. 1

Ichikawa, Haruko. Land of the Lustrous, Vol. 1. 2017. 192p. ISBN 9781632364975. Available in the graphic novels section of the library.

All of Earth’s intelligent life was wiped out eons ago, leaving the planet bare. Over time a crystal-based life form evolved and returned to inhabit the planet. Called the Lustrous, each crystal humanoid is a gem made of precious material. They can be chipped and broken, but not destroyed as long as enough pieces of them remain to be put back together and healed.

Descendents of the humans who escaped to the moon before the collapse of their civilization on Earth are bent on capturing the Lustrous to use them for decorations and as ornaments. The Lunarians launch successive attacks, hoping to catch the Lustrous unable to defend themselves, but roaming patrols of Lustrous protect their home against these attacks.

Phosphohyllite would really like to fight. She would love to be useful. But the most brittle of gems, Phos is instead tasked with creating a natural history of Earth. Ignoring where to even begin with writing such a story, Phos talks to all of the gems, and discovers that Cinnabar, due to her unique ability to focus light and function at night, has been effectively banished to the night to patrol, when the Lunarians never attack. What makes her different is also deadly to the other gems, tarnishing their brightness.

When she finally meets Cinnabar, Phos makes a promise she may not be able to keep: She will find her a new job, one that uses her talents and that don’t involve having to work the night shift.

The Lunarians are crafty, however. When they return to Earth to launch yet another attack, this time they bring a giant snail with them ...

The Second Summer of the Sisterhood

Brashares, Ann. The Second Summer of the Sisterhood. Book 2 of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. 2003. 373p. ISBN 0-385-72934-0. Available at FIC BRA on the library shelves.

Last summer a pair of jeans from the thrift store saved four girls from a terrible summer apart. At nearly seventeen, the four friends find themselves heading in different directions again. Lena will be working all summer. She and Kostos broke off their relationship, but she soon discovers that Kostos has come to the United States to pursue an internship in New York City. They can see each other every weekend, when he will make the trip down to Washington. Kostos, however, has a secret that will crush Lena.

Tibby is attending a summer program at Williamson College. There she struggles with acceptance by friends she perceives as cooler, and ignores Brian’s overture towards more than friendship. It takes making a mockery of her mother for her first production to realize that the story she really should tell is Bailey’s, her young friend who died of leukemia last summer.

Bridget dropped out of soccer during the year, blowing her chance at scholarship from a big university. When she discovers letters her maternal grandmother wrote her family, she decides she must reconnect with her and learn more about her own dead mother. She travels to Alabama, where she pretends to be someone else but soon finds herself living under that new identity with her grandmother, helping her clean the attic and removing personal memories that help Bee reconstruct a better view of her mother. As the same time, her abandonment of soccer was premature.

Last summer Carmen made an impression on Krista, her step-sister. Krista runs away to live with Carmen. At the same time, Christina, Carmen’s mother, re-enters the dating scene with a co-worker, throwing Carmen for a loop. Has she been holding her mother back all this time?

Through it all, the four best friends exchange the jeans. For the first part of the summer, the jeans are not used, but when Christina wears them Carmen throws a fit and decides to break her relationship with David so she will not be left alone. As the summer progresses, however, and as each girl’s relationship deepens, the jeans once again help make everything right. And as tragedy strikes, all four friends will be reunited and able to support each other.

Pretty

Sayre, Justin. Pretty. 2017. 222p. ISBN 978-0-448-48417-4. Available at FIC SAY on the library shelves.

At thirteen, Sophie has already experienced more abuse and worries than most kids. Her parents are divorced. Her White father is French and lives in Paris. Janet, her Black mother lives with Sophie in Brooklyn, and is a fashion editor. But she’s also a drunk, and for years Sophie has suffered in silence as Janet drinks herself into oblivion every night. Some nights Janet makes it to bed okay. Most nights Janet passes out before landing in her bed. Sometimes Janet gets violent and hits Sophie. Always Janet berates Sophie for not being good enough. Sophie lives in fear of the bad days and counts her blessing every time her mother makes it by herself to her bed. Sophie always manages to escape early in the morning and makes her way to school with her friend Ducks.

Following a particularly violent encounter, Sophie attends school and hangs out with her friend Allegra, who’s very interested in boys, especially Brian. Ryan, Brian’s friend, shows some interest in Sophie, but she’s not sure how to reciprocate or even whether she’s actually interested. When she returns home that night, she finds that her aunt Amara, a successful university professor, has moved in and Janet has left on a trip for an undetermined period of time. Suddenly Sophie doesn’t have to worry about her mother passing out, or hitting her. But her aunt also has expectations. She wants Sophie to tell her about her school day. She supervises homework. She takes Sophie to church. And as restrictive as her aunt’s way of parenting feels, it also feels comforting.

With a more stable home environment, Sophie can now fully focus herself on her school life. It’s complicated with Allegra, who seems to hold against Sophie the fact that she is pretty. She’s not certain whether she likes Ryan, but he sure talks about himself a lot and never asks questions about her own life. Her friends Ellen and Ducks are there for her, but is she there for them? Through Janet’s absence, Sophie will discover what it means to be true to herself.

Lucky Broken Girl

Behar, Ruth. Lucky Broken Girl. 2017. 242p. ISBN 978-0-399-54644-0. Available at FIC BEH on the library shelves.

Recently immigrants from Communist Cuba, the Mizrahi family has escaped the regime with a bare minimum of possessions. Finding themselves living in New York City, the extended family is enjoying freedom but life can be difficult at time. Ruthie’s father works six days a week to put food on the table, while her mother works around the house to ensure that everyone eats well and is clothed properly.

Ten-year-old Ruthie and her brother enjoy their lives in Queens, but she also misses many aspects of Cuba including the food and some of the customs. Living in a cosmopolitan building filled with recent immigrants, Ruthie shares her time with her brother and with friends, including Danielle, from Belgium, and Ravi, from India. First placed in the dumb class at school, she is soon promoted to the smart class once her English gets better.

Unfortunately for her, the Sunday before her move to her new class, the family visits an aunt and uncle on Staten Island in her father’s new car, but a tragic car accident that costs the lives of several teenagers sends her to the hospital with a broken leg. The doctor soon informs her that she will need to spend at least six months in a body cast stretching from her ankles to her chest. She will not be able to seat, move, or even go to the bathroom without help. Her mother now becomes her full-time care giver.

Stuck in bed with nothing to do, Ruthie suddenly has nothing but time on her hands. With a teacher coming to visit every other day, Ruthie soon catches up to her studies and improves her reading skills. But with no chance to experience life outside the four walls of her bedroom, Ruthie’s shrinking world forces her to develop a resilience she did not expect, and she realizes that friends and family are always there for her, even in the worst of times of one’s life.

For another story of Cuban children fleeing their island and integrating into life in the United States, take a look at The Red Umbrella, a story of adaptation in the face of adversity.

When My Sister Started Kissing

Frost, Helen. When My Sister Started Kissing. 2017. 193p. ISBN 978-0-374-30303-7. Available at FIC FRO on the library shelves.

When Claire and Abigail’s mother died, the family was heartbroken. Spending every summer at a cabin on the lake, the sisters saw comforting reminders of their mother everywhere. Now that it is summer again, they dread returning to the lake. Their father has remarried, and his new wife is pregnant with their half-brother. Worse, all signs of their mother, from her old easel to her favorite chair to the board games and her books have disappeared from the cabin.

For Claire, however, all of these changes are nothing compared to what is happening with her sister Abigail, who insists on being called Abi. This summer, Abi is boy crazy, and her secrets mean that Claire must cover for her. Unsure of herself, Claire can’t help but wonder why Abi would act this way. As the summer progresses, and as Abi’s affections seem to be divided between two different boys, Claire decides she can’t make excuses for her anymore. But as their family seems to be drifting apart, the lake imparts lessons that just because things are changing doesn’t mean that they will not remain meaningful.

Written in verse, this short book features three points of view, that of Claire, Abi, and of the lake itself observing the sisters. A coming of age novel, readers interested in family relationships will appreciate the dynamics that are at play between two sisters struggling with new feelings and emotions.

American Born Chinese

Yang, Gene Lueh. American Born Chinese. 2006. 233p. ISBN 978-1-59643-208-6. Available in the Graphic Novels section of the library.

Jin Wang’s parents are Chinese, and arrived in America only a week apart, yet did not meet until a year and a half later. They dated and married, and eventually Jin was born. The family lived in San Francisco’s Chinatown for nine years before moving out. Jin went to a new elementary school, where he was the only Asian student in 3rd grade, aside from Suzy Nakamura. Jin had to acclimate to a hostile classroom where many of the kids picked on him. In 5th grade, he meets Wen Chen, a new student from Taiwan. Wen tries to make friends with Jin, but Jin is not interested, until Wen takes out a new Transformer. They then become best friends.

The Monkey King is one of the many deities of the Chinese. Rulers of all monkeys in Flower Fruit Mountain, he was denied entry at a deity party, and took it out on all of them by fighting them and winning. Already a Kung Fu master but feeling excluded, he decided to learn more and achieved even more enlightenment. Angry with him, the other gods try to arrest him, only to be defeated again. Eventually, Tze-Yo-Tzuh, He who was, is, and will ever be talked to him. In his hubris, the Monkey King defied his wishes, and was sentenced to lay under a pile of rocks for 500 years.

Cousin Chin-Kee comes to visit Danny once a year, and every time he manages to embarrass Danny so profoundly that he has to change school. This year is no exception. Danny is furious that his cousin is here. A perfect Chinese stereotype, Chin-Kee is smart, too eager, and mispronounces his Ls and Rs. And he manages to humiliate Danny at every turn by being too Chinese.

These three stories all merge to form one tale of acceptance of oneself and one’s ethnic heritage. In this fast-paced graphic novel, Jin discovers that to be happy he needs to be true to himself and his Chinese origins.

Felix Yz

Bunker, Lisa. Felix Yz. 2017. 282p. ISBN 978-0-425-28850-4. Available at FIC BUN on the library shelves.

Felix Yz (pronounced Is) was spending quality time with his father in his cutting edge laboratory when something went horribly wrong. During an experiment, a rift to the fourth dimension was opened, and an entity fused itself with Felix, provoking intense physical pain and modifying his genetic make up. His father was killed, and Felix was never the same again.

Now thirteen-year-old, Felix does not remember a time before the presence of Zyx, as the family has called the creature. Extremely intelligent and friendly, Zyx can easily communicate with Felix in his mind, but he can only express himself to the outside world through seizures or by using a keyboard to type messages. Zyx’s existence is known to only a few people, and must remain a secret to prevent government agencies from hearing about this new being.

The laboratory where the experiment took place has been rebuilt, and scientists have been working hard on finding a way to separate both entities. Knowing full well that there is a risk he could die during the separation, Felix is nevertheless willing to go through it. He will miss Zyx, but he’s ready to live the rest of his life without another presence in his mind.

So the countdown begins to the Procedure. With only thirty days left, Felix has to prepare for the worst as he hopes for the best. Family truths will be revealed, his interest in another boy explored, he will play chess against a Grandmaster, and he will experience a hint of the fourth dimension where Zyx lives. When it comes right down to it, what are the most important things in Felix’s life?

Written as a blog where Felix document the last thirty days of his life before the Procedure, his feelings and emotions are raw and uncensored. Fans of introspection will appreciate Felix’ outlook on life and his desire to live to the fullest despite his accident.

Every Exquisite Thing

Quick, Matthew. Every Exquisite Thing. 2016. 288p. 296 mins. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

Seventeen-year-old Nanette O’Hare’s life is unremarkable. Along with her friend Shannon, Nanette is the star of the varsity soccer team at her high school, and has scored more goals than all of the other players put together. In school, she is an average student, with no ideas on what her future will look like. During her junior year, her English teacher gives her his own personal copy of an old out-of-print book called The Bugglegum Reaper. In this book, the main character, Wrigley, rebels against society and bullies and rages about quitting, though it’s never made clear what he wants to quit. Nanette takes to the book and it instantly becomes her own personal bible.

When her English teacher mentions that the author lives in the same South New Jersey town they do, Nanette endeavors to meet him. A recluse, the author never allowed another run of his book to be printed and has chosen to prevent his work from circulating. He and Nanette strike an unlikely friendship. A few months later he introduces her to Alex, a poetic high schooler who also loves The Bubblegum Reaper. Soon the two of them are not exactly dating, but they are experiencing thoughtful conversations and moments.

Nanette can see that Alex is troubled, however, and when he decides to defend a middle schooler named Oliver just like Wrigley did in The Bubblegum Reaper, the law catches up with him and he is sent to Reform School. Nanette cannot contact him there. Troubled by this and by other experiences, Nanette soon discovers that to be true to oneself can be very expensive emotionally. As she burns bridges and experiences a meltdown of her relationships, Nanette feels even more lost than before. Can she muster within herself the courage to discover what she really wants and force the world to accept her as she really is?

Talk to Me

Ellis, Sonia. Talk to Me. 2016. 164p. ISBN 978-1-943431-23-6. Available at FIC ELL on the library shelves.

Fourteen-year-old Sadina Reyes loves her sister, but seven-year-old Maddie suffers from selective mutism,  which results in her not talking very much to her own family members, and never to a stranger. This causes problems for Maddie at school, and Sadina’s friends know her as the girl who doesn’t speak. Sadina would really love to help her sister, but she’s not sure what she can do.

Sadina loses Maddie at the mall after she and Rio, her best friend, go into a computer store, and it takes forever to find her at the pet store. Worse, that night someone breaks into Sadina’s house and steals something out of her mother’s office desk, and Maddie is the only one who notices the robber. The event traumatizes her and now she can’t even talk to her family. Her mother, who is an engineer working on a brand new battery for cellphones, reveals that the only thing that has been stolen is her coworker’s phone, who had left it at the house after dinner the previous night. On that phone was the only evidence that Flynn has been embezzling money from the lab where they both work, and now Sabina’s mother is about to take the rap for the missing money.

Meanwhile, expensive software has disappeared from the school’s computer lab, and Rio is the prime suspect. It doesn’t help when Sabina remembers that Rio had been eyeing this software with envy at the computer store, and her suspicious increase when she discovers that he has installed the same software on his computer at home.

Now she’s got to help her mother by proving that Maddie has seen that the thief was Flynn, and that Rio did in fact not steal the software. Working with the computer club at school, Sadina hopes that they can reprogram Maddie’s cat robot, named Bella, into a cat that can actually talk to her through artificial intelligence and record her answer. If Maddie won’t speak to humans, maybe she’ll speak to Bella! At least, that’s what Sadina hopes...

Crows & Cards

Helgerson, Joseph. Crows & Cards. 2009. 348p. ISBN 9780618883950. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

In the 1830s on the bank of the Mississippi, Zebulon Crabtree is old enough to leave home and find himself a trade. At least, his parents think so. With many mouths to feed at home, they believe it’s time for the boy to go make something of himself. And since he’s afraid of water, of heights, of splinters, and of just about anything, Zeb is turning down every idea his father throws at him. Which is why Zeb finds himself on a riverboat on the Mississippi River heading south to St. Louis where he will be an apprentice to his uncle, who is a tanner. Being allergic to fur is just too bad for him.

Zeb doesn’t plan on following through with his parents’ plan, however. On board the boat he meets Chilly, a pure gentleman of the South. Hearing of Zeb’s unfortunate destiny, Chilly offers to take Zeb up as an apprentice in exchange for the $70 he was supposed to give to his uncle. Chilly is a gambler extraordinaire, and he tells Zeb he can introduce him to the life of the Brotherhood, a group that takes money from the rich and gives it to the poor orphans. Of course, none of that is true, but Zeb is enough of a rube to fall for it.

Soon Zeb finds himself the unwitting accomplice of a man bent on fleecing most of St. Louis in his gambling den. Zeb runs a telegraph, a wire that tells Chilly the cards his opponent has so that he can make the appropriate bets. But in this sea of denizens, Zeb also meets a slave cook who looks out for him, and old professor versed in the art of cheating, a con artist running a medicine show, as well as an ancient Indian chief and his pretty princess daughter. Though blind, the old man can see through the spirits, and Chilly is more than eager to try to win the gold crown he received from the King of Prussia. Zeb’s ride through St. Louis will be a memorable one!

Great Teacher Onizuka: 14 Days in Shonan, vol. 3

Fujisawa, Toru. Great Teacher Onizuka: 14 Days in Shonan, vol. 3. 2012. 200p. ISBN 9781932234893. Available in the graphic novels section of the library.

In Great Teacher Onizuka, Vol. 2, Onizuka managed to rescue Katsuragi from the group that had kidnapped her with the help of her police father and motorcycle gangs he was once affiliated with. Still at the White Swan, Katsuragi reconnects with her father, who has resigned his position with the police force to spend more time with her, and they take tentative steps toward normalized family relations. This success, however, is tempered by the fact that Shinomi, an old flame of his, also works at the White Swan. The two of them don’t reconnect at all, and Onizuka finds himself having to rebuild bridges in his very inadequate way.

Meanwhile, he’s also concerned about Seiya. Abused by his mother’s boyfriend, the middle schooler has acquired a gun and plans on shooting both of them. And in the background, the man who supervises the White Swan along with several other institutions and who is enamored with Ayame, the director of the White Swan, and he’s concerned that she will find Onizuka attractive. With both of these challenges in front of him, Onizuka is about to be even busier than he has been!

Nathan

Ouriou, Susan. Nathan. 2017. 151p. ISBN 978-0-88995-547-9. Available at FIC OUR on the library shelves.

Nathan’s life is changing. Grampa lost his wife last year to a heart attack, and his Alzheimer’s has progressed enough that he can’t live on his own anymore. Adam, the local bully, keeps on trying to hurt Nathan, and even steals his basketball. And, at ten, Nathan is once again heading back to school in the fall without a friend.

Despite his Alzheimer’s, Grampa brings to Nathan a connection to a heritage he didn’t know he had: Grampa’s mother was a member of the First Nations, but as an orphan she was placed in the Canadian residential school system where her culture and language were systematically eliminated. Kids’ heads were shaved, they couldn’t speak their language, and they were transported hundreds of miles away from home so they could never see their families. Nathan didn’t know any of this, and is happy to begin discovering where he came from.

Nathan also makes a new friend, who has just moved in the neighborhood. Max and Nathan have many things in common, one of which is being bullied by Adam who immediately begins chasing Max the first time he sees him. Max is also Jewish, and his people experienced the Holocaust. In a sense, both Nathan and Max’s ancestors suffered at the hands of people bent on exterminating them.

With Adam lurking and with Grampa getting worse, can Nathan learn enough about himself to develop the courage to stand up and be his own person?

It All Comes Down to This

English, Karen. It All Comes Down to This. 2017. 368p. ISBN 978-0-544-83957-1. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

In 1965, the Civil Rights movement is in full swing in the United States. The Civil Rights Act was just passed the year before, but Jim Crow laws remain on the books in much of the country. California is more free than most states, but even there being African-American is to be part of the struggle for equal rights. For twelve-year-old Sophie, however, these issues are nothing but background noise.

As a member of the only African-American family in her neighborhood, she will be entering 9th grade along with her best friend Jennifer, who also happens to be twelve also as well as white. Her older sister Lily, meanwhile, will be moving to Atlanta to attend Spelman College, a black college. Sophie will find herself alone with her mother, who owns an art gallery, and her father, who is lawyer. Sophie dreads the countdown to August.

A trio of sisters down the road from Sophie have a pool, but she cannot swim there as their parents forbid colored people. Sophie is often reminded that she is African-American, but she doesn’t see what race has to do with it. Interested in writing and acting, Sophie and Jennifer seize the chance to audition for a community play, but she knows she will be the only African-American kid to audition. She plans on memorizing not only her part but all of the play, just to get a fighting chance.

With her parents’ marriage falling apart and a mistress in the picture, Sophie finds herself spending more time alone with Mrs. Baylor, the new housekeeper. Lily, meanwhile, finds herself attracted to Nathan, Mrs. Baylor’s son, who’s blacker than night while Lily could almost pass as white. This attraction is frowned upon by their mother, through the bias that lighter skin is better.

As Sophie experiences racism and as the summer days slowly drain away, the racial tensions in Los Angeles near the boiling point. Can Sophie learn to cope with the cards she’s been dealt? For a boy’s perspective on a similar theme, read Armstrong & Charlie, taking place a decade later in Los Angeles.

Dangerous Lies

Fitzpatrick, Becca. Dangerous Lies. 2015. 416p. 616 mins. ISBN 978-1-48142492-9. Available as an audiobook from Overdrive.

Stella has just moved to Thunder Basin, Nebraska. It is the middle of nowhere, with not much to do. She used to live in Philadelphia, but she can’t tell anyone. Stella is not her real name. She’s in the witness protection program because she saw a dangerous drug dealer and the head of the local cartel murder another dealer right in her house, in front of her drug-using mother. And that dealer then severely beat Reed, her boyfriend. With the dealer and his crew looking for her, the U.S. government is protecting them both in exchange for their testimonies. While in Thunder Basin, she will live with Carmina, a retired police chief, and cannot communicate with her boyfriend, nor reveal her true identity.

With nothing to do, Stella quickly finds a job at the local diner, and begins to meet new people, pretending to be a foster care kid from Tennessee. Stella also meets Carmina’s neighbor, nineteen-year-old Chet Falconer. Stella finds herself attracted to Chet, but since she doesn’t plan on being here very long she sees no need to become friendly with him. As days, then weeks pass, however, and Reed never communicates with her through their secret email account she accesses at the local public library, Stella becomes worried at the prospect that the dealer’s men found him. At the same time, her attraction to Chet continues to grow, and Stella feels torn between the two of them.

Meanwhile, local high school baseball captain and sure major league prospect Trigger, who also happens to be the town bully, has set his sights on Stella and makes her life miserable. Plus, he looks familiar to Stella, and he also looks like he recognizes her from somewhere. With Trigger lurking around her, drug dealers chasing her, and Chet’s dark secrets, danger is lurking everywhere. As she’s about to discover, dangerous lies could get her killed...

Johnny Tremain

Forbes, Esther. Johnny Tremain. 1987. 322p. ISBN 0440442508. Available at FIC FOR on the library shelves.

With the death of his mother, Johnny Tremain moves in with the Lapham family in Boston so he can become a silversmith apprentice with old Mr. Lapham. The Laphams had lost their children, but took care of their grandchildren, and they planned to marry Cilla and Johnny together so the business could stay in the family. But in 1773, at fourteen, Johnny is not really interested in Cilla. Of the three apprentices, he is the better one and he can craft silver as fine as Mr. Lapham in his heyday.

When Mr. Hancock requests a silver dish to match one Mr. Lapham made decades ago, Johnny agrees to make it. Filled with pride in his work and in his abilities, however, Johnny has been less than charitable towards the other apprentices, so Dove, one of them, decides to get even. During the manufacturing process Johnny burns his hand badly when molten silver pours on it, and he becomes crippled.

No longer able to work as an apprentice, Johnny is lost and doesn’t know what to do. The sin of pride has cost him everything. Eventually, Johnny meets Rab, another youth who secures work for him as a rider who delivers newspapers. In 1774 Boston, the colonists are railing against British authority and taxes being levied by the King. The entire city is divided between Patriots and Loyalists to the Crown, and crippled Johnny is able to maneuver between both sides though he supports the Patriots. As Johnny gets more involved with the Sons of Liberty and running messages for them, he re-evaluates his life, including his interest in Cilla. And when British troops depart Boston in the night, Johnny knows that this is the match that will light the powder keg and ignite the Revolution. Can Johnny make a significant contribution even though he is crippled?

The Disappearances

Murphy, Emily Bain. The Disappearances. 2017. 400p. ISBN 978-0-544-87936-2. Available as an eBook from Overdrive.

It is 1942, and fifteen-year old Aila Quinn’s mother, Juliet, has just died, and her father has just been drafted by the U.S. Navy to fight in the war. With no other relatives in the small town of Gardner, Connecticut, Aila and her younger brother Myles are sent to live with Mathilda and Malcolm Cliffton in another small town called Sterling a few hours away by train. Mathilda was Juliet’s best friend when they were growing up, and Aila vaguely recalls her coming to visit them when she was four with her son Will. Present at the funeral, she volunteered to house the children while their father was away.

Pulled away from everything, Aila is resentful of her mother’s death and her departure from everything she knows. Wanting a souvenir from her mother, she takes her old copy of Shakespeare’s complete works and discovers a ring and a message addressed to Stefen and hidden in the book. In the message Juliet tells Stefen she loves him. Aila has never heard of Stefen, but her mother always kept her childhood a secret.

Arriving in Sterling, Aila quickly discovers that all is not well. The town, along with two other villages, have lost several ordinary things present everywhere else. Titled the Disappearances, these elements have vanished one at a time, every seven years, over the last thirty five years. There are no smells in Sterling. No vivid colors. No stars in the sky. No dreams. No reflections in mirrors. And the next Disappearance is coming soon. The people of Sterling have developed variants, dust that can temporarily alleviate these missing things, but for the most part they do without.

The disappearances began on the day that Juliet was born, and she is known as a catalyst. Aila quickly realizes that the people in town feared and hated Juliet, for she was the only one who regained a Disappearance when she left the town. As Aila begins to investigate this mystery, she discovers that the Disappearances appear related to Shakespeare’s plays, and her mother had taken extensive notes in her book. The more she digs, however, the more she discovers information about her mother she did not know. She also begins to fall for handsome Will, who likes her as well.

But a powerful actor is bent on insuring that no one solves the Disappearances, for there is profit to be made selling variants. With the next Disappearance fast approaching, can Aila navigates small town politics and enemies before it is too late?

One For Sorrow: A Ghost Story

Hahn, Mary Downing. One For Sorrow: A Ghost Story. 2017. 293p. ISBN 978-0-544-81809-5. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

In 1918, Annie is about to start 6th grade at a new school, and she is nervous. What will people think of her there? She will have to make new friends and learn how to survive in a brand new social structure. With the Great War in full swing, times are tenses and prejudices against German immigrants rampant. Annie is fortunate that both of her parents are employed. She has nice toys and wears new clothes. Others are not so lucky.

On her first day of school, Anne meets some of the other six graders, but before she’s able to introduce herself to a group of girls led by a redhead named Rosie, she is intercepted by Elsie, who immediately tries to make Anne her friend. Elsie is pushy and she makes sure that Annie does not play with the other kids during recess. She even invites herself over to Annie’s house, and wiggles an invitation for dinner out of Annie’s mother. Annie is frightened by Elsie, and she wishes she had never met her.

Unfortunately for Elsie, on top of being pushy, her father is German. Elsie is thus ridiculed at school for being slow and for being a Kaiser-lover. When Elsie becomes sick, Annie seizes the opportunity and begins hanging out with Rosie and her friends. Upon Elsie’s return, she attempts to get Annie to play with her, but Annie refuses, and she soons becomes another one of Elsie’s tormentors.

At about the same time, the Spanish Influenza begins to strike down residents indiscriminately. Soon families are quarantined and people die. Even the funeral parlors can’t keep up. When Annie and her friends come upon Elsie sitting alone on a swing in a park, they harass her and sing a mean song before ripping away her breathing mask. Elsie contracts the flu and dies. Annie is stricken with remorse. Following an sledding accident in the cemetery, Annie becomes haunted by Elsie, who swears to destroy Annie’s life. With a ghost only she can see affecting the real world, Annie soon finds herself in a psychiatric institute. Can Annie figure a way to make it up to Elsie before her own life is ruined?

Hahn serves another dose of spooky in this well-written tale partly inspired by stories her own mother told her of this time period. Fans of Closed for the Season and Deep, Dark and Dangerous will appreciate this new creepy tale.