Storm Runners by Roland Smith (not yet AR)

I love pretty much anything by Roland Smith and this was no exception. I didn't realize it until the end when I was left hanging, but this is the first book in a new series. In this story, Chase Masters and his father travel across the country from one disaster to another. His father owns a construction company that specializes in clean-up and repair after disaster. The travel to Florida in anticipation of a huge hurricane. His dad is normally pretty good at predicting storms, so he leaves Chase with family friends on a farm about 50 miles north of where he thinks it will make landfall. This farm is a little on the unusual side, instead of cows and pigs, it has lions and elephants. It's the winter home to a traveling circus. When the storm does make landfall, it's not when or where anyone predicted. It hits right where Chase is as he is traveling home from school on a school bus. I'm not going to give away any more, but the cover should clue you in that it's a pretty exciting story!

Book Fair Update

The Book fair went very well. I am excited about all the new books that we were able to get. There are several that look really good. Go Long by Tiki and Ronde Barber and Storm Runners by Roland Smith look particularly interesting. I will try to get them cataloged and out in circulation as soon as possible!

As for what I'm reading:
I just finished Magky by Angie Sage. It is the reason I haven't been posting the past two weeks. It has taken me that long to read it! At over 500 pages, it's quite a long read, but that's not why it took so long. I hate to say this, but it just wasn't that interesting to me. It is about a family of wizards who have seven children. They actually had 7 boys, but one died as an infant and they adopted a baby girl. When the she is about ten her true identity is revealed. Jenna is the future Queen. She was placed with the Heap's to hide her after her mother was murdered. Marcia, the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, comes to get the Jenna and they are forced to leave town and hide with the Heap's aunt, who is the white witch. DomDaniel, the Necromancer, is an evil ex-ExtraOrdinary Wizard and he takes over the city. He wants to find and kill Jenna so that he can take over. It was all just a little too much for me. I have said before that I don't really like books about magic, but I thought after reading and liking the Magic Thief series I would give this one a try. It took me a long time, but I powered through as I am not someone to stop in the middle of a book. There were just too many things going on and not enough action, if that makes any sense. On a positive note, even though I didn't like the book, I know that there are a ton of students who have checked it out and loved it. If you like magic, then I think it would be worth the read. If you don't, I'd skip it.

Pants On Fire by Meg Cabot- I read this one last night. It was so cute. Typical Meg Cabot style. Katie is going to be a senior at Eastport High School in the fall. She works as a waitress at the local hang out serving quahogs to the Quahog football players. In the town of Eastport, the Quahogs are considered gods. The problem with Katie is that she hates quahogs (both varieties), but she is dating the super-cute kicker of the football team and participating in the Quahog Princess Pageant. She's beginning to think her brother was right all those years ago when he would chant, "Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!"

Academy Book Fair

Next week is the Academy Book Fair. We will be open on Monday through Wednesday from 8:30-2:40 and on Thursday from 8:30-6:30 to allow parents to visit before or after their conferences.

The Magic Thief: Found (4.9/7.0) by Sarah Prineas

Just finished the third installment of The Magic Thief series. Many are reading books one and two, so I don't want to tell too much about this one because it might ruin those. I will tell you that while on the search for his locus magicalicus Conn discovers where the magic comes from and why it is alive. Will he be able to prove it to the magisters before it's too late?
Overall, it's a good book that seemed to wrap up the series nicely. A must-read if you have started the series.

NOOKS went out today!

The Nooks went out for the first time today! I am so excited. Check out the pics on the Flickr feed at the bottom of the page. The Nooks currently have 34 books on them. They will be checked out for one week only so that as many students can get them as possible. We already have a huge list, but since we have 6 it shouldn't take too long. If you want to check out one, you will need to get a permission slip signed by one of your parents. We are the first school in the area to do anything like this. I am so proud of that. Thanks for all of the support!

As for what I'm reading, I just finished The Limit (4.4/9.0) by Kristen Landon. I am really into these futuristic novels right now. In it, families have spending limits set by the government. If they go over their limit, the government can take their oldest child and put them in a work house to help pay off the debt and get them back under the limit. Matt's family has never had to worry about money or their limit until one day at the grocery store the cashier tells them they are over. By the time they get home, a government worker is waiting to carry Matt away. He is carried to a facility and given an aptitude test to determine what he will be good at. Matt scores well and ends up on the top floor of the building, but right away he can tell that something is not right. I'm not going to give away the ending, but it is definitely worth the read. Fans of the Hunger Games and The Maze Runner series will really enjoy this book.
Currently reading: The Magic Thief: Found Actually it was just turned into the media center today, so I haven't started it yet, but I will let you know.

The Magic Thief: Lost (4.6/8.0) by Sarah Prineas

Finished it last night. I can't wait to get my hands on the third book. I like the way these are written, because although the majority of the story is told from Conn's perspective, we get glimpses of the other characters when we get to read their letters and journals.
This book picks up where the 1st left off. Conn believes magic is a living being, but he is unable to talk to it because of the loss of his locus magicalicus. After Shadows begin attacking the people of Wellmet, Conn causes a series of explosions in which the magic communicates with him. He learns that the magic is worried. It wants him to go to Desh and figure out what or who is controlling these Shadows.
I think all readers at this age group would enjoy this series. Fans of magic and fantasy will find it particularly exciting.

Goddess Boot Camp (4.7/9.0)

I finished the sequel to Oh My Gods over the weekend. I love this series. It is super cute and totally relatable to teenage girls. Well, not the being a goddess part, but everything else! In the last book Phoebe learned she was a descendant of the goddess Nike and had superpowers. In this book, Phoebe's powers are going haywire and she must learn to control them. Her stepfather enrolls her in Goddess Boot Camp, which as it turns out is run by her stepsister Stella and Adara, her boyfriend's ex! She was looking forward to just relaxing this summer, but that's certainly not going to happen!

Currently reading: Lost, the sequel to The Magic Thief. Interesting so far. Book club is currently reading The Magic Thief, so I am trying to hurry because I know a lot of you will want it.

Oh My Gods

Finished it last night. Loved it! It was kind of a cross between The Clique series and The Lightning Thief.  Pheobe, a high school senior, is forced to move to a small Greek island when her mother remarries. Upon arriving at the island, she learns that it's purpose is to house a school for descendants of the Greek gods. Typical teenage girl drama with a little supernatural powers thrown in. This is the first book in the series and I can't wait to read the second.

Two new adventure titles

Hide & Seek (4.5/9.0) by Katy Grant- Students who enjoy Will Hobbs' books will definitely enjoy this one. Chase, a 14 year old boy who lives in the White Mountains of Arizona, sets out on his bike to find a geocache. A geocache is basically a box of items that someone has hidden. "Players" list the coordinates in a website and others use that information to find it. Once you find the geocache you log your find in a journal inside and trade something you have brought with something in the geocache. It's a neat concept for people who enjoy outdoor sports like biking and hiking. Chase locates the geocache 5 miles off the paved road hidden in a tree trunk, but something is wrong. The contents of the box has been left scattered around the area and he finds a strange note in the log book. "WE NEED FOOD". Chase decides to keep a check on the box and find out who left the message. But what he finds surprises him...

Jump (4.6/9.0) by Elisa Carbone- Since this was written by the author of Blood on the River, a historical-fiction book I really enjoyed, I thought I would really like this one. It was only so-so in my opinion. P.K. and Critter (seriously, those are the names) are high school students with serious problems. P.K. thinks her parents don't understand her and she is about to be shipped to a boarding school for her senior year. Critter is an escapee from a mental hospital. He was placed there by his parents after he tried to commit suicide. Both are huge mountain climbing fans, so they run away together to climb mountains. The outdoors mountain climbing parts of the story are actually very good and adventure packed and are certainly enough to make the book worth reading without all the other drama. I'm not sure why the author felt the need to add the suicide/mental health issues because they really don't advance the story. Seems to me like it is a ploy to get nominated for some awards. This is clearly the type of thing critics love. I wager it will be on the GA PEACH award list in the near future. This is totally the kind of book they go for. Nothing in it was overtly offensive, and Critter actually says attempting suicide was a bad move and tries to convince someone else not to, so I will keep it in the mc, but I will label it for 7th and 8th only. (I'm pretty sure that has got to be a run-on sentence. Sorry Hoppy! I did use "comma + conjunction" to link the independent clause with all those subordinate clauses.)

Currently reading: Oh My Gods by Tera Lynn Childs- I'm only about 100 pages in, but my first impression is that it is a very cute book! The female version of the Lightning Thief.

See you tomorrow! Hope you enjoyed the week off!

Snow Days!

I have been a lazy bum for the past two days. Seriously, I don't think I can watch another rerun of House Hunters! I will go crazy. I am reading all day tomorrow. I promise. I have plenty to keep my busy. The stack of books beside my nightstand keeps growing when it should be shrinking. I guess we got too many good books in the order last week. It's a nice problem to have.
Amidst all the reruns, I did manage to finish two books:
Double Eagle (5.1/8.0) by Sneed B. Collard III was the first one I finished and I thought it was very interesting. It is based on the concept that once the Confederacy took control of the US mint in New Orleans they printed their own double eagle gold pieces. Of course there is no historical basis for this, but it is the stuff of southern myths. It very much made me think of the movie Sahara with Matthew McConaughey since they were searching for this mythical gold in the movie. It is a book that I think middle school aged students would enjoy. It is targeted at boys, but it is a good enjoy story that I think girls will enjoy it too. I would suggest this for older students because of some language used in it. They main characters are 14-15 yr old boys, so H-E-double hockey sticks comes up occasionally.
Buffalo Gal (4.8/6.0) by Bill Wallace was the second. I saw this on my old bookcase when I went home for Christmas and I remembered liking it. It is a quick read about Amanda, a girl in the early 1900's, who travels to Oklahoma/Texas because her mother has decided to help save the remaining buffalo. They travel through Texas on horseback to find and round-up of a small herd of buffalo to move them to a ranch in Oklahoma where they will be safe from poachers, etc. Along they way they must face snakes, storms, and the harsh Texas wilderness. A cute story that 5th/6th grade girls will love. When we get back, I'll cover it and put it out on the new books shelf.