What We Become, a companion novel to Those That Wake, could stand alone but it’s not going to win any awards.  Main characters Mal and Laura, along with their foils Rose and Aaron respectively, are fighting against the “Old Man” who plans to harness the ability to control all human beings’ minds.  There is a lot of violent action in this story set in a futuristic New York city.  There’s also the romantic emotional pulls of trying to get Mal and Laura to reunite.  This is where this reviewer is left wondering which young adults will be attracted to the story and why?  The dystopian plot or the romance, girls or boys?  It’s a story.  It’s ok.  It was given to our book review group in 2015 though it was published in 2013.  Clearly the publisher is just getting rid of spare copies.  Explicit language advisory to those that need it.

Detective Gordon: The First Case is the perfect book for kids who have finished beginning chapter books and are ready for a longer story.  It’s about a squirrel who has had their winter supply of nuts stolen and went to the police, an old toad, for help.  The old toad, Detective Gordon, goes to the scene of the crime and determines to investigate, telling the squirrel to go home and to keep warm inside, away from this freezing weather.  After awhile a shivering little mouse comes out with an acorn.  She took it because she was so hungry.  She helps Detective Gordon become un-stuck from the snow and together they go back to the police station.  She becomes his assistant.  The story goes on in such a fashion showing compassion for the needy, and is a story reminiscent of days gone by.  This would be a perfect read aloud for the younger grades.

I found reading NOMAD to be like putting together a large jigsaw puzzle in which some of the pieces are missing. Bit by bit, I reasoned out that this was the second book in a series. I enjoyed the story-line at the end of the book and am glad I read the entire thing, but feel many younger reader would not do so if they hadn’t read the first book. Somehow, the book’s front cover did not lend itself to this discovery, though the praise on the back of the cover for AMBASSADOR should have. The cover art is intriguing for the genre and sci-fi reader.

Gabe Fuentes, it turns out, is an intergalactic ambassador to the planet Earth. The people of Earth do not recognize there even is such a thing because the embassies on Earth have gone to ruin. [ Here the missing puzzle piece may have implied the ancient embassy was an Aztec temple in Mexico. I do not know for sure.]  Gabe and the other ambassadors have special abilities that allow them to travel through a dream state of consciousness when and where their actual bodies are not able to travel. There are special translators which allow Gabe and other the ambassadors to see each other in human-form, even when the species do not naturally look that way. These translators, also, help with languages between the species. The translations aren’t always easy for Gabe to understand, like ” Our faces have grown wide for you.” (p. 178) which means, “She’s proud of us.”

Somewhere along the line [another missing puzzle piece] Gabe and the ambassadors have come across the Outlast who travel through space destroying all the species they come across. It is Gabe’s mission to stop this from happening to Earth which is in the Outlast’s direct path of flight.

Gabe makes it back to Earth, with  one ambassador (Nadia) helping from space, and another (Kaen) helping him on Earth.  They land in Mexico which is familiar to the other (non-Earthen) ambassador. They cross into the United States only to be caught and locked up in  an immigration detention facility in Arizona.  For Nadia’s part, she must explain to the Machinae “Why they  should care? I need to explain to an utterly alien consciousness why genocide is bad.” (p. 252) One Outlast makes it to Earth and finds Gabe, the rest are stopped by the Machinae’s decision to oppose genocide at the hands of the Outlast.

This book will appeal to girls who love fairies and fantasy.  Ali has the perfect sister whom their parents praise and she will  do anything to get the attention she thinks she deserves.  She signs a contract agreeing to raise 100 fairies, recruit another child to so the same, in return for one wish.  Right there Ali should have seen a red flag:  100 for one?  Not fair.  But Ali sees no problem, until it is.  The fairies turn out to be lots of work and lots of trouble, all for one wish.

Seeing the future across the curve of time, travelers from another world (one who loves to talk in rhyme), a magical hat that acts as transport and can expand to easily fit five people, an ancient wizard and a special secret.

An adventure through time and space. Ten year old Flor Bernoulli of Brooklyn, New York, has to save the world and the life of a new found friend. Aided by Dr. Pi, a pie-baking wizard thousands of years old, a nosy neighbor Mrs. Plump (who doesn’t like sugar, “just tea and toast please”) and a pair of twin men from another world, Mr. It and Mr. Bit. Flor has to protect a singular cosmic fire that keeps nature in balance throughout the universe

Dr. Pi explains the spiral to Flor: “It gets bigger and bigger without changing its shape at all.” And he reveals to her that, “…we are all like the Spiral. Though we change and grow and learn through life, something deep in us remains the same. Just like the Spiral, which gets bigger and bigger, but never changes its proportions. And so, we too are always changed, and ever the same.”
An interesting way to bring mathematical concepts into the literary realm.

(Newest cover)