Lost in the River of Grass, the story of a two teenagers lost in the Everglades, is an absolute nail-biting, breath holding page-turner.

Written by a native Floridian, Ginny Rorby, this young adult novel appears on the Truman Award final nominee list for 2013-14.

The adventure story of how a local boy, and an urban girl ostracized by her field-trip classmates, survive four days in the Everglades with nothing but a knife, a can of Spam, and half a bottle of Gatorade, while wading neck high in swamp water and fending off alligators, wild boars, fire ants, cottonmouth, water moccasin and rattlesnakes, will keep the reader’s heart racing. An excerpt from chapter 13 provides a example of the suspense:

I raise my head to look at the gator, estimating the distance between us to be only about ten yards. It has closed its eyes, but there is something else moving through the grasses near the trail…Whatever it is slides slowly beneath the flattened grasses…”There’s another, Andy!” I grab his arm. My cry startles the gator, but it’s too late. Like a flash of lightning, a giant snake strikes the side of the gator’s face. “Holy Christ.” Andy jumps up and jerks me to my feet. I bite my fist to keep from screaming. Blood whooshes in my ears. Minutes ago, Andy and I walked right past that snake.

Issues of class, bullying, and race make this more than just an adventure story. However, this book is so suspenseful that the reader will be tempted to read the entire 255 pages in one sitting to discover whether the teens (and the orphaned ducking the girl rescues) will make it out unscathed.

Thirty four action filled baseball stories by authors including Zane Grey, James Thurber and Garrison Keillor, make up this expanded edition of Baseball’s Best Short Stories. Featured stories begin with the famous baseball poem from 1888, Ernest Thayer’s ‘Casey at the Bat’ and continuing with stories from the early 1900’s, into the 1920’s, through the 1940’s and 50’s, and into modern times with Brendan DuBois’ 2001 ‘A Family Game.’  This collection reflects the best stories of American’s favorite past time and will be enjoyed by any baseball fan.

Cheerleading, a title in the Science Behind Sports series from Lucent Books, is a 100 page report on what body parts are in motion while performing cheers and dance moves.  The first chapter gives an historical overview of the development of cheerleading into the competitive sport it is today.  The final chapter covers some psychological aspects of cheer, including crowd management, stress, and positive speaking.  There’s nothing spectacular about this book.  It fits a need if one exists in showing that cheerleading is a physically active sport.  But there aren’t many references to research studies or data from scientific journals to make this very authoritive.  This reader would actually encourage students to supplement this with much more web research.

Abdo Publishing has got the right style going on with their Contemporary Lives biography series.  Glossy pages full of color photos, sidebars, and to be honest, font at a size 14, really makes the information easy to get through.  Specifically, Lisa Owings writing about Adele was very intriguing.  Owing keeps readers interested by her own exciting diction such as dazzled, rocketed, belted, and fizzled.  Her writing also focuses on the emotional side of the Adele, allowing readers to feel Adele’s excitement, passion, and soul for music.  Any student in middle or high school would enjoy this  100 page biography.  Other artists in the series that this librarian plans to pursue include: Beyonce, Drake, Cee Lo Green, Jennifer Lawrence, Jennifer Lopez, Nicki Minaj and Kanye West.  Highly recommended for school and public libraries.

Merle is 18 and ahead of her time in 1978.  Head strong but a drifter at heart, art school seems like the perfect path out of her isolated Appalachian upbringing.  But she flounders, drops out, lives in poverty and steals spray paint to graffiti her Radiant Days tag around town.  Her sexuality is explored, but is not the intent of the novel.  Instead, readers are introduced to Arthur Rimbaud circa 1870– Merle’s cosmic twin.   Hand switches to writing in 3rd person as readers look through a window into the poet’s turbulent teen life.  Chapters then switch back and forth between Merle’s 1st person voice and Rimbaud’s 3rd until the two finally meet.  Driven together by a magic key and a lock house, the two learn about each others art and ultimately about themselves in the course of one night in which they cross between 1978 and 1870.  Leaping through that mystic void of time allows each to see that they have a purpose in their own lives that will focus their art.  Hand’s writing is very lyrical and allows for introspective opportunities for the read as well.  A daunting novel to attempt, this is a heady work that artsy high school students will grapple with and most likely enjoy.

Life in rural China is excruciatingly painful for Jade Moon.  Without her mother and under the Zodiac sign of the Fire Horse, she is a quick to speak, hot tempered, feisty young woman in a society that would never let her be true to her spirit.  She yearns for freedom — that which America could bring if she follows the aptly named Sterling Promise, her adopted cousin, to the United States.  Dreams of Jello and unbridled opportunity give strength to this Fire Horse as her new world does not match up that of her imagination.  The realities of how Americans treated Chinese immigrants coming into Angel Island in the 1920’s as well as the underground gang-like world of San Francisco’s Chinatown come from Kay Honeyman’s fastidious research.  This research also provided the thread for the Romantic narrative woven into the storyline through the Chinese oral tradition of storytelling that Nushi, Jade Moon, and Spring Blossom share with the reader.  The Fire Horse Girl is an excellent piece of literature that blends multiple worlds, has action that both male and female readers will enjoy, and will allow for rich classroom discussion.  Highly recommended for 8th – 10th grade humanities classrooms to adopt into their curriculum as well as for classroom, school and public libraries to promote.

The Rising of water has created a new world order for humans.  Most of the earth is now covered by oceans.  Whole townships live within floating structures.  Humans have even adapted to be able to live entirely subsea.  Yet economic commerce retreated to basic supply and demand.  These forces combine to give Ty and Gemma a mission they never want to go on again.

Ty’s Dark Gift of sonar will help them overcome human and animal attacks, but will is be enough to locate his kidnapped Ma and Pa?  Mind games make for another level of mystery in this fast-paced middle level novel.  There is a deepening fondness growing between Ty and Gemma but everything is totally appropriate for its intended audience.  Kat Falls very creative dystopian story is full of imaginative details that should impress all readers.  In Ty, she has made a compassionate, charismatic role model for boys and girls.

Blend a detailed lesson on discovering your personality/learning type with Marie and Law’s first hand knowledge of 82 possible colleges/universities majors and enviroments from across the spectrum and you see the potential their text Find the Perfect College for You has for students who just don’t know where to start their college search.

Every high school student does some sort of learning styles inventory during their school career.  Marie and Law’s inventory asks readers to evaluate themselves in being either:Introverted or Extroverted, Sensitive or Intuitive, Thinking or Feeling, and Judging or Perceiving.  Once a student identifies their learning style, the 82 colleges are listed with a description of how that college meets different combinations of the learning styles.  For example, this reviewer scored a E, S, T, J combination.  Using the index, I can find colleges that match my learning styles based on their values, structure, and the majors and minors offered.  With clear, realistic examples of each throughout the text of the learning styles for each college listed, a student can walk away with a pretty hardy list of colleges that might best fit their learning style.   I think this text would be especially  helpful for those students who don’t “fit the mold” or don’t “like the structure of organized mass education”.  They will be exposed to some smaller, unique schools.  It’s a great idea to connect learning styles to the style of the college and every career/college center should have this available for students to check out.

This biography of this well-known writer is excellent in that it is direct and factual. Inspiration for so many of Myers’ books is from his life.  The subtitle of this book, Urban Fiction Author, emphasizes the main focus of Walter Dean Myers’ writing.  He writes to speak to the unrepresented, disillusioned, struggling teenager that has no voice or sense of direction. Myers never forgets the challenges he faced as a young, under-educated black man growing up in Harlem in the 50s. Trying to overcome his own speech impediment, he began writing and reading poetry, winning his first writing prize at age 13. He has written over 20 books, many of which have been recognized for his ability to speak to young adults in an authentic voice. His work targets the disconnected, shy, lonely, frustrated young person that is trying to understand his world and hoping to figure out his role in that confusing, ever-changing scene.  Myers does not shy away from the tough topics, addressing them with humor, understanding and persistence. The only drawback is that it is every page is text.  Not a single picture to give interest.   Still, this biography is a useful addition to a middle or high school library as an example of a successful adult who does achieve his life-long dream, through guidance, inspiration, and most of all persistence.  It is fascinating to read the life story of such a prolific writer.

Bianca struggle for self-control is edgy and probably a bit too sexy for a school audience in Kody Keplinger’s The Duff (Designated Ugly Fat Friend). The storyline is pretty predictable but the redeeming value is Bianca’s reflective, smart, sometimes in-your-face voice as the narrator.  Bianca is best friends with two girls she believes are much more attractive than her.  To appease her friends, she often sits on the sideline of their teen hangout while they dance the night away. Enter Wesley Rush, one of the most attractive and sexually active boys in the school.  Wesley informs Bianca that he’ll hang out by her in order to attract her best friends’ attentions because she’s the DUFF of the group.  After drowning him in Cherry Coke, one would think Bianca would have nothing to do with him again.  But then the plot gets interesting, and quite hot.  Biance turns the tables, or bed, so to speak on Wesley.  To escape her stress about being the DUFF, as well as her parents imminent divorce, she turns to Wesley, who will sleep with anything. Throughout the story, Bianca goes from highs to lows.  She’s honest with her intentions, but sometimes a bit too self absorbed, like EVERY teenager out there. There is a happy ending in it all, and upper high school or public library patrons will probably enjoy this more than they might admit in person.  (Blush, blush).