Books for Teens

Oggie Cooder doesn’t mind being different.  He does wish he had more friends, but the people in town just can’t accept his weird clothes and odd habits.  When he accidentally auditions for Hidden Talents and is chosen to appear on TV everyone in town starts to notice him.  It starts out as a blessing.  Oggie loves to Charve (Chew and carve- a word he created himself) cheese into sculptures of the states.  However, when Donnica becomes his manager, she wants to be famous at all cost.  Will Oggie make it all the way to Hollywood?  Make sure to check out Sarah Weeks’ novel to find out!

Alvin Ho is a great easy read.  In fact, it made me laugh out loud quite a few times.  Alvin wants to fit in with his classmates.  But, the only one who wants to be his friend is a weird little girl in his class.  Alvin just wants to be a guys guy.  But, alas it is not to be.  He even asks has father and brother for advice about making friends.  He is scared of many things and makes a disaster preparedness kit to take everywhere with him.  In the end, much to his surprise…he realizes maybe the best friend for him is a girl.

This is a great book for upper elementary students through middle schoolers.  I won this book in a raffle and I quickly finished the book.  It reminded me a lot of the movie National Treasure.  It is basically a treasure hunt book.  The main characters Amy and Dan Cahill are left the first clue by the grandmother.  Unfortunately, she left the same clue to many other relatives, so the race is on to see who can figure it out first.  The race leads to many historic places, with enemies ready to trap them at every turn.  Book one ends with clue #1 solved, but does this mean we have to read 38 more books to find out what the mystery treasure is?  I liked the book well enough, but I’m not sure I want to commit to reading 39 books.  Something that was cool is that each book comes with clue cards to help you decipher the big mystery.  You can go online and log in to find out more about the characters.  There are also additional card packs to buy if you want more clues.  I think kids will enjoy the internet connection and the chance to win prizes.  I went ahead and put this in my elementary library to see how the kids react to it.

The format of this book is incredibly appealing. At over 500 pages, it might be intimidating to a young reader until they pick it up and flip through the pages. Selznick’s book is a graphic novel told in pages of words alternating with pages of black and white drawings. It was a quick read, despite the length and I highly enjoyed reading it.

Hugo is an orphan. After his father died he has been hiding in a train station, maintaining the clocks in the building. The only thing he has left from his father is a broken automaton and the dream of repairing it. Hugo tries his best to fend for himself. He often has to steal food and parts for his repairs from a local toyshop. One day Hugo befriends the toyshop owner’s goddaughter at the movie theater. Later, he is caught stealing by Georges Melies, the shop owner. Georges takes Hugo’s sketch book as a penance for the theft. More than anything Hugo wants his sketch book back, so he begins to work for the shopkeeper to earn it back. Through the help of his new friend, Hugo is able to get his sketch book and repair the automaton. Once they turn on the automaton, it begins to draw a picture and write out a message.  Hugo can’t wait to see what it creates.  He is shocked to find at the bottom of the picture the automaton has signed Georges Melies’ name.  A mystery is to be uncovered.  What role did Georges play in the creation of the automaton?  Why did it draw a scene from Hugo’s father’s favorite movie?  The fast paced ending had me glued to my seat, eager to find out what would become of Hugo Cabret.

First of all let me start by saying, I just love books by Gordon Korman.  The first book that introduced me to this author was Shipwrecked: Island Book 1.  Gordon Korman has a knack for writing books that kids are just drawn to.  In No More Dead Dogs, the main character Wallace Wallace is the town hero.  Ever since he saved the day at last year’s football championships, the entire town looks up to him.  Wallace Wallace is a likable guy, all of us know someone like him.  He is a little sarcastic and tells it just how it is.  In fact, he never lies.  So when his English teacher assigns a book report on Old Shep, My PalWallace tells the teacher his honest opinion of the book.  Basically…he thinks it stinks.  As you might guess, his teacher (who absolutely loves the book) is not too impressed with Wallace’s report.  Wallace is assigned detention to work on rewriting it.  When Wallace shows up to detention, he is horrified to find out that his teacher Mr. Fogelman is directing a school play about Old Shep, My Pal.  In order to attend detention, Wallace can no longer go to football practice after school.  As soon as Wallace writes “an appropriate review” of the book, he’s released from detention.  However, Wallace who never tells a lie just cannot bring himself to write a positive review of the book.  Eventually, the longer he stays with the drama club, the more he begins to like them.  They listen to his ideas and before long the kids are listening to his ideas over what Mr. Fogelman had planned.  At first Mr. Fogelman is frustrated by the students changing around the play according to Wallace’s suggestions.  However when they try out what Wallace has in mind, Mr. Fogelman can’t help but agree that Wallace’s ideas are good ones.  Throughout the story is an underlying mystery.  Someone is sabotaging the play and making it look like Wallace is responsible.  The football team has a losing streak without Wallace and pretty soon, half the school seems to hate him for not writing a review for his teacher.  As more pranks are pulled on the play, his new drama friends start to believe he really might be responsible.  Wallace has to set things straight, so he decides to catch the prankster in the act.  I was completely surprised, by who turned out to be responsible for the cruel jokes.  In the end, Wallace does save the day (and gets the girl!) But, you have to read it yourself to find out how.

This is a fun suspenseful tale of the Jared, Simon and Mallory. When Simon’s cat goes missing, he has to find out what happened to it. When he doesn’t return, Jared and Mallory go to find him. This time they have the seeing stone to help them see what creatures are really lurking in the woods. While traveling through the creepy woods and a murky lake, they encounter a troll. After outwitting him, they stumble across a group of goblins roasting a cat for their dinner. Dangling above them are cages filled with other animals and their brother Simon. Jared and Mallory have to figure out how to get past the goblins to rescue Simon and make it back home safely. This book has just the right amount of suspense and tension for younger readers. My daughter and I read this book together in one sitting. We will be starting book three before Spring Break is over.