“So Much Closer” is the story of a journey.  Initially Brooke, who is a senior in high school, thinks her journey is the transition she makes from living with her mother in New Jersey to living with her father in New York City.  This she does to follow her crush, Scott Abrams, who has moved to NYC himself.  Obstacles along the way include leaving her two best friends in the world, moving in with a father who ignores her, and the realization that Scott has a girlfriend.  In this girl-likes-boy, girl-gets-boy, girl-loses-boy story, the reader learns that what we think we want isn’t what’s necessarily right for us.  The book wraps up with Brooke realizing that her journey to NYC was actually what she needed to discover herself as she puts together a plan for college and a major she feels passionate about, while learning about healthy relationships along the way.

In this sequel to Z. Rex, thirteen year-old Adam, and his video game-making father, are once again on the run from hyper-evolved dinosaurs.  It’s technology-gone-bad in this thought-controlled video game, where Adam and his brainy dad try to rid the world of dangerous velociraptors.  This is the perfect series for kids who love video games or dinosaur sci-fi’s.

At Victory School for Super Athletes, where every athlete is gifted in sports, Kenzie is a gymnast with super strength. The tryouts for the advanced gymnastics team is tomorrow, and Kenzie is very worried after last week when she accidentally broke the balance beam. She learns from her coach and the other athletes at her school that she needs to have confidence that she can control her strength. Kenzie has a great tryout and is sure to make the team.  This story is a great lesson to kids to believe in themselves. This book comes with a glossary and gymnastics history page.

Mallory is so excited to get the lead part in the school play, but her best friend, Mary Ann, doesn’t seem so happy. When Mallory learns her lines, rehearses, and gets even more excited, Mary Ann seems to get more distant. Mallory even writes a mean email about Mary Ann and sends it. Soon, it is show time and Mallory and Mary Ann rekindle their friendship after Mallory learns that Mary Ann was distant because she was fearful of soon being a new big sister. Great friendship story, and a great example of cyberbullying.

Kate is so excited to learn that her new home borders an enchanted forest. She and a friend, Luke, discover fairy houses, containing mysterious clues, that were hidden in the forest. Mrs. Lennox, a grouchy neighbor who owns the forrest, accuses the two of vandalism until she sees the fairy houses and identifies the houses as her mother’s creation and creations of her own from years ago.  Mrs. Lennox decides not to sell her forest to developers, but to preserve it for the animals and children to enjoy.

“Bear had a dream.” He wanted to be a comedian. He’d practice his jokes in front of his mirror, but stage fright always set in when he was “in front of a crowd…What is a bear’s favorite baseball team?…Why the Cubs, of course!…Do you know the proper way to hold a bat?…By its wings!”

Bear’s ready to perform, but on stage he’s so nervous he repeatedly gives the wrong punch lines for his jokes. Off he runs to “the local watering hole, orders a root beer, crumbles up his jokes, tosses them over his shoulder, and exhausted he falls asleep. Emmy the hummingbird, a real comedian, finds Bear’s jokes at the watering hole and reads them. When bear wakes up, he and Emmy come to an agreement and Emmy performs Bear’s jokes on stage.

Freddie Ramos has purple sneakers that give him super speed and the ability to jump excessively high. Freddie likes to use his super hero abilities to help others, and gets the chance when a tree falls across the train tracks of the train his mom takes to get home from work. With super speedy shoes, Freddie zooms to the station to have the train stopped. He also used his special shoes to solve the mystery of the purple squirrel in his school and is able to set the squirrel free.

Freddie Ramos has a pair of purple sneakers with wings on the side that gave Freddie the power of super speed. Unfortunately, Freddie’s shoes are hard to control. He asks Mr. Vaslov, the apartment maintenance man who invented the shoes, to invent a control for the them. Freddie finds a new controller for his shoes, but Mr. Vaslov has disappeared. The controller doesn’t control when Freddie can use super speed, but gives Freddie incredible jumping height, allowing him to see Mr. Vaslov who is stuck on the top of a roof. Mr. Vaslov is very thankful that Freddie saved him!

Freddie Ramos receives a package with a pair of new purple sneakers with wings on the side that gave Freddie the power of super speed. Freddie looks for ways to use his super speedy shoes to help others, and finds the ultimate chance when he saves a small puppy from getting run over by a car. Freddie finds out that Mr. Vaslov, the apartment maintenance man who also is a male role model, is an inventor who made the shoes.

YOU, the reader, are the main character in this story, and you make the choices in this adventure. You are awakened and suddenly have the title of captain in a spaceship that is heading straight for a black hole while battling saboteurs and aliens.  Your journey gives you beg decisions to make.  Do you… accept the title of captain… shoot the alien that is attacking you… shut down the computer before being sucked into the black hole… try to make friends with the aliens,  join an alien crew on their spaceship, etc… However, the wrong choice is certain death. (Which could happen in a variety of ways!)  This book has colorful graphic novel pages mixed throughout. Kids will love making such critical choices!