Every middle and high school library should have at least one copy of this book.  It Gets Better is a compilation of essays and statements created by a huge variety of people, from Barack Obama to Ellen Forney to a freelance writer living in Los Angeles.  Each of the messages target teenagers in middle and high school who are bullied because of their sexuality.  Many of the messages tell personal stories of teenage bullying, and seek to communicate to bullied teens that life will get better after high school.  Even though this focuses on GLBTQIA teens, the message will hit home for any troubled young person.  Simply having this volume in the library will send a signal of hope and safe space to GLBTQIA patrons, and, hopefully, to everyone else as well.

There are perils aplenty in this fourth book in the Wolves of the Beyond series, and fans should be satisfied.  I found it interesting that author Kathryn Lasky has observed and researched real wolf behavior in order to write these books.  That’s evindent when the wolves enjoy feasting on the still-warm blood of an unlucky victim.  But these wolves seem to have human intelligence as well when they discuss dinner preferences for marmot or red squirrel over caribou.

If you’ve read the Guardians of Ga’Hoole books and the first three books in the Wolves series, this will be familiar territory for you.  As a first time reader, I had a time keeping up with new words like “gadderheal” and “raghnaid.”  I admire Ms. Lasky for her work.  It would not be easy to invent and name whole new countries and populations, and to keep the characteristics of each true-to-form in each appearance.  No wonder her readers keep coming back for more.

Book #5 in the Vampire Academy novel series, Spirit Bound, takes Rose Hathaway on a quest to free her imprisoned true love, Dimitri Belikov, who also happens to currently be a Strigoi, an evil undead vampire.  Strigoi are always hunting Moroi. but Rose has discovered a way to change Dimitri back into the Moroi he once was.  She is hopeful that their passion will ignite again, despite the fact that she has a boyfriend already.  Richelle Mead give just enough of the back story that a reader can pick up this book and read it as a stand alone, until the end of course, where the cliff hanger will make a reader want to find out Rose’s fate that is literally on the chopping block.  There is nothing that should offend anyone in high school or above.  The pace is clean and crisp and a surprisingly good read for another vampire story.  Movie rights have been sold and Rose’s female heroine is worthy of a chance at the big screen.  Book #6 is the end of the series, though there is a spin off series set for 6 books as well.  At 500 pages, these will take up shelf space and will attract a mainly female audience.

Azael Arevalo is a gangster who loves to do his tagging artwork.  He is loyal to his MS13 homies, a Mexican gang in Houston, Texas, because his own family life is so tragic.  So it’s no surprise to the reader as they learn that the alternating then and now chapter subtitles refer to Az’s life before and after landing himself in prison.  But he doesn’t know why he’s there specifically.  In the then chapters, we find out that his mother died shortly after his little sister was born, turning his life upside down.  After his father gives up custody of his sister to an aunt and because of his alcoholism, Az and his brother are pretty much on their own.  In the now, Az is tortured by having to watch therapy sessions of Lexi, a white girl who is also incarcerated.  He quickly figures out that there is a connection between why they are both in jail, but he can’t remember anything.  Az’s language is gritty and authentic, with sex on his mind as much as why he is where his is.  The redeeming qualities in this story come not only from Az as from Lexi as both will be true to themselves, even if it’s a truth the mainstream society rejects.  Ashley Hope Perez catches both the male and female voice of these characters with the spite and tension that teens in prison would hold.  This is an additional selection to add to collections.

With Brother/Sister, Sean Olin takes readers into the minds of two teenagers for whom the world is unraveling fast. Sparely written, deep but easy to read, Olin’s book lets us into the minds of siblings Will and Asheley Baird through their own words as they explain to interrogators how they came to be in the nightmarish fix they’re in: Will is a murderer and Asheley has abetted his crimes, all for what each thinks of as love.

As the plot unfolds, Olin gives us reasons for these two to be almost powerless in the face of their undoing…a disappeared, abandoning father; a drunken, hopeless mother who abrogated her duties, placing impossible burdens on the shoulders of her then-6 year-old son; Asheley’s boyfriend, abused himself, who makes things worse; an ineffectual stoned “step-dad”; and a cast of teenaged characters for whom the world is drinking, party-crashing, crushes, and sports.

Struggling to belong, hoping for happiness, Asheley wants friends but finds only she can control her brother’s increasing anger and violence. Will, desperately alone and torn with self-doubt, fixates on Asheley as the one he must protect at all costs, to whom he must dedicate his life as he inexorably becomes divorced from reality.  Sadly, it is the day of each one’s greatest triumphs that marks the beginning of their undoing.

Many themes make this a worthwhile book for readers, showing that without real parenting, lives can go woefully, tragically astray.

Highly Recommended

With Irises, award-winning author Francisco X. Stork paints the lives of two young women at a crossroads in consciousness and beliefs, faced with decisions that will either allow or destroy their most cherished dreams. Stork’s sensitive handling of an uncommon subject is a valuable journey that will help readers understand the choices we often must make as we weigh the costs of loving against the obligations we have to ourselves of living our own authentic lives.

Kate and Mary Romero have spent two years since the accident that left their mother in a vegetative state, living under the stern, restrictive, limited but loving influence of their father, Church of God Pastor Manuel Romero. His certainty that removing life-supports from his comatose wife would be a sin against God has left the family in service to the all-but-lifeless mother in the parish house provided by the congregation.

The sudden death of their father begins a process of awakening in older sister Kate, who burns to attend Stanford University and become a doctor, and in 16 year-old Mary, a gifted artist whose ability to ‘see the light’ and put it on canvas has vanished since her mother’s tragedy. Mary’s unsuccessful attempt to re-render the famous Van Gogh painting, Irises, has shown her how lifeless and dull her painting has become since her mother’s accident.

Both girls’ dreams, fostered and encouraged by their lively mother, crushed and denied by their father, bring each to the edge of despair at the contemplation of accepting endless servitude to their lifeless mother.

Vivid characters emerge to help the sisters decide whether to sacrifice their hopes to keep their mother “alive”, or to make the leap of faith called for in ending what their mother herself would call no life at all. As the faults of the father emerge, the sisters seek help from distant Aunt Julia, who has health problems of her own.

Having removed life supports from my own dying mother, I connected with the story. Soul and spirit combine in the painful process of letting go, giving this book its own luminous quality.

Highly recommended.