This well-paced novel about Eddy, a middle-school boy, helps you to understand the struggles of living with Autism.  Eddy has a brilliant mind for science.  He knows the scientific Latin name for all plants and animals.  He has an incredible memory for facts — the story is interrupted often with “Random Access Memory of Edison Thomas” facts.  When Eddy makes mistakes, as middle schoolers often do, he recites the period table to calm himself down.

Eddy becomes obsessed with the fact that a traffic policeman loses his job, causing an unsafe crossing intersection for pedestrians.  To deal with his stress, he puts his inventive mind to work, taking parts of various pieces of machinery and a garden hose and devising a traffic-calming device.  Proud of Eddy one moment, and embarrassed for him as  he deals with bullies the next, the reader easily gets caught up in the emotions of Eddy’s life.

Set in West Virginia in the 1940’s, Jimmy Cannon is from a family that has been in the railroad business for generations.  Jimmy himself is looking forward to joining his father and older brothers one day, after he completes high school.  Each chapter is dated “All Hallows’ Eve” one year later, so we watch Jimmy in this coming-of-age story and the relationship he has with his father, but anyone with a fascination with railroads will enjoy this book.

The story opens shortly after the fatal car crash of a wife and mother to three boys.  The father deals with his grief by selling their house and buying a 30-foot sailboat.  He announces to his boys that they’re going to sail around the Bahamas for a year.  The protagonist is 15-year old Ben, the oldest, who is grief-stricken and angry with his dad for pulling him away from his friends at a time he needs them the most.  In close quarters with no where to go pout, this sea adventure becomes a story of survival when their father disappears (whether intentional or accidental) and a great storm has the young boys fighting for their lives as they’re forced to battle the waves alone.  Stranded on an island for 3 months, the boys learn to live off the land, encounter sharks and a life or death situation which binds the brothers together in a way that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

Slow moving at first, readers need to stick with this book to the page-turning end.

15-year old immigrant Vospop Vsklzwczdztwczky writes letters to his friend Meero back in Slobovia in very broken English in this outlandish tale (Donut try to pronounce me).  The comic-book-like storyline is filled with adventure of the extreme kind as Voss uncovers a sinister hospital for immigrants — actually containing a Shock Chamber to kill the patients and sell their vital organs for big money.  The humor overshadows the gore, making this book a good choice for readers who enjoy off-beat humor.

This is a little nonfiction book from the Pebble First Guide series. I always like the set up of these books. This book focuses on nocturnal animals such as bats, crocodiles, eels, fireflies, frogs, etc. Thirteen nocturnal animals are introduced in a basic field guide format. Each animal is showcased in facing pages with 2/3 pictures, a map, and characteristics (length, weight, what it eats, where it lives and some facts). These are great little books, easy for little ones to read with the format and have great pictures. I just always wonder about the size. They are pretty small and they get lost in the shelves pretty easy.

In book 4 in the Winnie Years series, best friends Winnie, Dinah, and Cinnamon head to a camp in South Carolina to help save the population of sea turtles.  With a houseful of other teens, the boy-crazy trio make new friends and deepen their relationship with each other.  While Dinah and Cinnamon find boyfriends this summer, Winnie feels insecure about her boyfriend, Lars, at home in Atlanta.  While mostly a funny, summer romp of a story, I would caution elementary school that there is talk of erections and bare boobs.  Cleverly, the author has eighth grade Winnie making up a “To Do Before High School” list — subsequent chapters are named after items on this list.  Readers cheer Winnie on as she is able to one-by-one cross off items from the “To Do” list.

Impressive was the life of Indira Gandhi, daughter of the Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India.  As a matter of fact, during political strife, Nehru was in and out of prison, yet a series of letters between father and daughter allowed him to continue to shape his daughter’s beliefs.  Eventually, Indira served as Prime Minister, too.  Though she believed in Democracy, she herself ruled as a dictator.  She suffered from a difficult marriage, the death of several close family members, and was eventually assassinated herself on a day she strayed from the norm and didn’t put on a bullet-proof vest (because she was appearing on TV and did not want to appear heavy).  Written at a fifth-grade level, this book has more politics in it than may interest the typical middle school student, but that background was important to include in a biography of her life.

Frequent, harsh language and the rape of a foreign exchange student make this book a “High School only” soccer story.  Our protagonist is Jonny, a second-rate soccer player dealing with unpopularity, abandonment by his father, and the death of a former girlfriend.  Jonny is constantly falling short of his friend Kyle, who is athletic and smart.  As often happens in books, as in real life, we learn that the popular students who seem to have everything going for them, have their weaknesses revealed by the end of the story.

This book is all about soccer! The book discusses the World Cup, great matches, shocking results, great goals, penalty heartaches, World Cup madness, and World Cup stats. Each chapter has  facing pages focusing on one aspect of the World Cup. The book gives a nice start with the history of the World Cup starting in 1930 and about the current 2010 World Cup. Going into great matches next such as, England Vs. West Germany in 1966 fun facts and statistics are given and so forth. The book has LOTS of information, an attractive layout and great photos. I especially liked the yellow additional info and stat boxes. I found the book to be little text heavy, but I really liked the World Cup stats graph and records at the back of the book. There is also a find out more section, glossary and index. Every soccer fan will like this book and it would be perfect to showcase when the World Cup is going on.

This is another Lightning Bolt Book and is from the series, Famous Places. This book focuses on the Everglades. The book starts with welcoming the reader to the Everglades, “a giant wetland in southern Florida.” The book tells about the Everglades and what animals are found there, along with the importance of this wetland to humans. The book also teaches students about the water everywhere, the plant life, the animal life, and the changing Everglades. The book also has a map of the area, fun facts, glossary, further reading and index. The book has great information on this place and amazing photographs. The layout of the text and photos makes this a really attractive book kids will pick up. While  I would love to have the entire set, it is a really nice addition to any elementary library that can stand alone.