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Boys of the Beast by Monica Zepeda

Hi, my name is Felix. I am 11 years old and I like to play sports (soccer, basketball, swimming and skiing). My favorite flavor of ice cream is cookie dough. I like to read fantasy, realistic fiction, and sci-fi.

Boys of the Beast is an amazing book for many reasons but what really stood out to me is that it takes three cousins who are different in so many ways and brings them together.  Oscar is suffering from mental health issues because his dad died in a school shooting. Ethan has come out to his parents as gay but hasn’t told them that he has an online boyfriend. Matt has parents who him to go to a Christian school and become a doctor even though he wants to go to film school at UCLA. Though brought together by the unfortunate event of their grandmother’s death, this leads to something positive when Matt inherits her car and they all decide to go on a road trip to Albuquerque.  

The cousins decide to take a detour through Berkeley and LA  so that Ethan can meat his boyfriend and Matt can see the UCLA campus. These adventures help them discover more about themselves and each other. Their car breaks down outside of Phoenix which means they have to stay at Oscar’s house. Here Oscar has to deal with his family’s sad past. Luckily he has the support of his cousins and their newfound friendship to help him can face this painful moment. 

I found this book an amazing experience to read because I really felt the characters needs and hopes. I really liked how it felt like I became the characters.  I will leave it to you to read the book to find out why it’s called Boys of the Beast.

Find it in print here.

Winter Town by Stephen Emond

My name is Jasmine. I am 11 years old and live in Ketchum, Idaho. I love ski racing, snow/winter, and many other fun things.

Winter Town by Stephen Emond, is a novel based around two teens, Evan and Lucy. Evan and Lucy did everything together when they were young: drew comic slides, read lots of fantasy, made up life stories for the grave’s occupants in the neighborhood cemetery, and walked the streets endlessly talking of anything and everything. They were inseparable. That is until Lucy’s parents divorced and she was forced to move to Atlanta. Every year Evan looks forward to her year round visit at Christmas time. 

This year, when Lucy arrives back in town, she doesn’t look, or act anything like Evan remembers. Lucy is like a whole new goth version of herself. At first Evan and Lucy get off to a bad start. However Evan starts to realize she is her old self deep down. Lucy seems to fold in on herself, hide under her new exterior and act like a new Lucy. So what, exactly, is Lucy hiding? What happened to her over the last year that could potentially break her and Evan apart?

Winter Town is told from two different perspectives, and has Evans comic drawings between each chapter. I have mixed feelings about this book. I liked how there was a lot of growth in the characters and the change between Lucy and Evans’ feelings about each other. However I didn’t love that the overall theme of the book kept changing. What I mean by this is one moment it would be romance the next it would be accepting change, yet they did not combine it. Wintertown is perfect for anyone who loves a feel good book on a cold wintery day. 

Find it in print here.

Spaced Out by Stuart Gibbs

I am Thijs. I enjoy reading (maybe a little too much) and being outdoors. I have a younger brother and my favorite dessert is root beer floats.

This moon based alpha novel is creative, eventful and full of mysteries. Spaced Out is a story not fully related to one of the author’s other books called Space Case. You will understand this book more if you read Space Case first.  In the very end of Space Case, the main character Dash finds out Zan is an alien. This book is about when the baes commander, (Nina the Machina) goes missing dash the main character goes on an adventure to go find her. 

When the story starts Dash is showing Zan the movie Star Wars.  Dash is trying to explain what humans think aliens are like.  Suddenly, the biggest jerks in the universe, the Sjoberg’s kids, (Lily and Patton), burst into Dash’s family’s room because they thought he was talking to Roddy. Dash confesses he is not talking to anybody, but Lily and Patton do not believe him.  Dash quickly corrects himself and says he is not talking to anybody here, because that sort of is true. Zan is not really at the moon base.  She is just projecting a mental image in Dash’s brain, which makes it seem as if she was actually there. Dash wonders why the Sjoberg kids are so upset at Roddy, but before he can figure that out Patton leaps at him.  From here the story takes off with many adventures that are entertaining.

If you want to find out if Dash escapes the Sjoberg kids and learn more about Zan, check out this book at the library.  You will not be disappointed by this engaging book.   If you are a fan of science fiction this is a perfect book to read this summer.  I am looking forward to reading some of the author’s other books, like Spy School.

Find it in print here.

The People of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau

I am Thijs. I enjoy reading (maybe a little too much) and being outdoors. I have a younger brother and my favorite dessert is root beer floats.

The People of Sparks is a wonderful sequel to The City of Ember.  If you have not already read The City of Ember make sure to check it out before reading this book.  After reading the first book I could not wait to read this book!  It did not disappointment me. I actually enjoyed the second book more than the first.  The reason I enjoyed the second book more was because there are other towns involved in the story and they have sun, not only darkness.  I found it interesting that the people of Ember had to learn everything about this new world. For example, the red ball in the sky they are unfamiliar with and the green material beneath their feet.

The story starts when a boy from the town of Sparks named Torren see’s little specks coming down from the hillside. He goes to tell the people of Sparks about what he saw. The town of Sparks gathers to see the newcomers.  Two kids from the new arrivals step forward and say their names are Doon and Lina.  They ask if their people from the City of Ember can stay in the town of Sparks.  The three mayors of Sparks discuss the matter. In the end the mayors decide that the people from Ember can only stay for six months. They will be provided with food and taught to start a town of their own.  Will the people of Ember be able to make it in this strange new world?  Do they have what it takes to live in this new world?

Find it in print, eaudiobook and CD here.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

Hi, I am Sarah. I am fourteen years old and an avid reader; it is one of my favorite things to do. Inspired by authors’ creations of magnificent places and surprising havens built by simple letters, I aspire to be an author and, meanwhile, nurture the love to write.

Incarceration, in the US, is the primary form of punishment for any sort of felony, according to Bryan Stevenson. But there’s a lot more to it than what meets the eye: a system that is more broken, punitive, and corrupted than helpful. It’s a system that relies on racial discrimination rather than actual facts, and it’s the system that incarcerates hundred and thousands more people each year. 

Within these mounting numbers is another problem: death row. When a system is as broken as it is, the death penalty is disproportionally borne by innocent people wrongfully accused due to a lack of understanding.

As a young lawyer, Bryan Stevenson recognized this problem and has since done as much as he can to solve it. He formed the Equal Justice Initiative, or EJI, in order to provide the legal support that innocent people, condemned to die, need—and for free. In this inspiring memoir, Stevenson shares his stories and the stories of many he has worked to save from death row: hardworking men wrongfully accused of murder, people with mental illness imprisoned rather than receiving the treatment they need, and countless children and people in abusive scenarios only trying to survive. 

Just Mercy reveals the brokenness of the criminal justice system in America, and, through empathy and compassion, sheds light on the humanity we need to find in order to fix it—and the knowledge that it’s a long way up from here.  

Find it in print here.

Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

Hi, I am Sarah. I am fourteen years old and an avid reader; it is one of my favorite things to do. Inspired by authors’ creations of magnificent places and surprising havens built by simple letters, I aspire to be an author and, meanwhile, nurture the love to write.

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a book that, to me, fundamentally proves that stories are the thread that connects us—no matter how time or distance separates us, stories bring us together… and sometimes in the most unlikely of ways. With an imagination to rival many authors I’ve read and the writing skill to fantastically share it, Anthony Doerr has created a masterpiece. His chosen story? The tale of Aethon, a man who longs to be free of his human form to seek a glorious city in the clouds. 

Set in three different timelines and three distinct settings, this book follows characters at turning points in their lives, from fifteenth-century children Anna and Omeir on opposite sides of a war, to boys Xeno and Seymour struggling to find themselves in a world that won’t accept them for who they are, to thirteen-year-old Konstance traveling through space alone.

This book is Anna reading her sister Atheon’s journey, it’s Xeno directing a group of fifth graders set to perform it five hundred years later, it’s Konstance copying the version told to her by her father, far away in space. It’s the thread that connects them all in the unlikeliest of ways.

This is a book so full of stories that each could stand on its own, but together, it spells a remarkable and spectacular tale of the human condition and the things that connect us. It’s a story for everyone, relatable, meaningful, and a celebration of books everywhere. 

Find it in print, ebook, eaudiobook and CD here.