The Red Pyramid

By Rick Riordan
Carter, 14, and Sadie, 12, (brother and sister) have grown up apart. He has traveled all over the world with his Egyptologist father, Dr. Julius Kane, while Sadie has lived in London with their grandparents. Their mother passed away under mysterious circumstances, so when their father arrives in London and wants to take them both on a private tour of the British Museum, all is not necessarily what it seems. The evening ends with the apparent destruction of the Rosetta Stone, the disappearance of Dr. Kane, and the kidnapping of Carter and Sadie. More insidiously, it leads to the release of five Egyptian gods, including Set, who is their mortal enemy. Carter and Sadie discover the secrets of their family heritage and their ability to work magic as they realize that their task will be to save humanity from Set, who is building a destructive red pyramid inside Camelback Mountain in Phoenix.

This book is written as an audio recording that both children made. Occasionally they interrupt the story with a quip to their sibling. Funny book and full of Egyptian history.

*Warnings: Some swearing - mainly Sadie - who grew up in London and uses the English swear words.

The Chocolate War

Robert Cormier
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Jerry is starting a new Catholic boys school. His mother recently died and his father is often distant. When kids at school convince Jerry to be a part of their pranks he only does so to stay out of trouble. When Jerry realizes he doesn't have to be subjected to the other kids pranks he starts to stand up to them - daring to disturb the universe. They make his life miserable. Can Jerry withstand the mocking and torment of the other boys?

Warnings: This book is about teenage boys and there is a lot of talk about girls that is not polite. Also there is ALOT of swearing. There are other disturbing things in this book - mostly how people act which I cannot tell all without giving away the whole story. My advice to parents who have teens who are required to read this book...READ THIS BOOK WITH YOUR TEENS. Do not let them jump into this book unaware. The principles of this book are important to learn in life - but while they are important lessons to learn this is a very difficult way to lean about them. Not a book for young teenagers.

The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

Michael Scott
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers

Sophie and Josh Newman think their summer jobs at a coffee shop and a bookshop across the street are just perfect. Then strange things start happening - goons show up at the bookstore and kidnap the owner's wife - the owner of the coffee shop - and they also get away with a book that has important meaning to Nick Flemming, the bookstore owner (aka Nicholas Flamel). Join Sophie and Josh on an incredible adventure full of magical powers and wondrous creatures.

Monster

Walter Dean Myers

Publisher: HARPERCOLLINSPUBLISHERS

Steven can see his life like a movie script. While he is in court being tried for murder he writes down his thoughts as well as what he sees in the form of a movie script.

Cleverly written in the form of a movie script - including side notes, different types of shots, and voice overs.

Warnings: He spends quite a bit of time at the jail and at the jail a lot of the talk is crude.

Drums Girls and Dangerous Pie

Jordan Sonnenblick

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Steven is a typical teenage boy. He likes girls, loves drumming, and often finds his 5 year old brother, Jeffrey, annoying. One morning, Jeffy interrupts Steven's practicing asking for "moatmeal" aka oatmeal. While Steven is fixing the oatmeal Jeffy falls off the stool and his nose starts bleeding - really bad. After a trip to the emergency room Steven finds out his brother is sick - really sick - and things won't be the same any more. Can Steven cope with his brother's illness and help his parents as they try to keep the family together? As for the Dangerous Pie - you'll have to read the book to figure out what that one is!

The Bomb

Theodore Taylor

Publisher:Harcourt Paperbacks

Winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

Sorry, a 14 year old boy, lives on Bikini Atoll, a small island in the Pacific Ocean. Sorry thinks the worst thing in his life is that the Japanese have taken over their island. Then the American's come and free the islanders from the Japanese. That must mean the Americans are wonderful and good right? Sorry certainly thinks so - for a couple of months at least. Then the American's tell Sorry and everyone in his village that they will have to be relocated to another island for Atomic Bomb testing. Suddenly the American's are not the good people they once were. Can Sorry and his family make a stand against the American's and get their island back?

A Love Like Lilly

Kay Lynn Mangum

Publisher: Deseret Book Company

Jamie - usually called James - is a tomboy. She hates dresses, loves basketball, and is nothing like her older sister. After James' grandma dies, she comes to live with her grandfather for the summer. While working on cleaning out her grandma's things, she comes across an old photo album from the 1930s. Her grandfather proceeds to tell her stories behind the pictures, while he was in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and about how he met her grandmother.

This book tells stories from two different families and two different time periods. The CCC stories are based off the author's grandfather's journal.

The House of the Scorpion

Nancy Farmer

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Matteo Alacáran has been raised very sheltered. He lives with Celia who works at the big house all day. Matt is left alone. He is not allowed to go outside or interact with anyone else. Then comes the day when he breaks the rules. He finds out that he a clone of El Patrón - the boss/ruler of the nation of Opium. Most clones are kept simply for the use of transplants for the original donor. But Matt is different - he is El Patrón's favorite. He is educated (when the servant in the big house doesn't have him a cage) and he learns to think for himself. As Matt grows older he realizes that El Patrón has strange ideas of running a country. As Matt struggles to find what is right and wrong, he sets of on a series of adventures and meets several friends.

WARNINGS: EDGY! It's not an easy or light read - a lot of social and political issues are discussed in this book.

Gold Dust

Chris Lynch

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Richard Riley Moncreif loves baseball. Even more than baseball, he loves hitting the ball. Winning doesn't matter to him, just hitting the ball. Richard doesn't quite understand that not everyone loves baseball as much as he does. He doesn't understand why somone would attend a concert rather than practice in the batting cage. He also doesn't understand why several people don't like his new friend, Napoleon Charlie Ellis. Napoleon teaches Richard what racism looks like and shows him there is more to life than just baseball.

Revenge of the Cheerleaders

Janette Rallison

Publisher: Walker Publishing Company, Inc.

Chelsea, a cheerleader, doesn't have a perfect life. Her ex-boyfriend flaunts his new girlfriend every chance he gets. To add to the hurt, her little sister, Adrian, is dating Rick, a loser who thinks he has a future in the music industry. When Rick composes some anti-cheerleader songs and performs them in front of the whole school Chelsea and her friends decide it's time for revenge. Can the cheerleaders beat Rick at his musical game?

Storm

E. L. Young

Publisher: Puffin/Penguin Young Readers Group

Will, Gaia, and Andrew are geniuses. Will invents gadgets no one has even thought of before. Gaia has a photographic memory and learns languages by reading about them. Andrew is a computer genuis who earned his first million by the time he was 10. The three of them set off on an adventure to save another genius from harming himself, and perhaps the world.

First Part Last

Angela Johnson

On his 16th birthday, Bobby finds out his girlfriend is pregnant. And though people keep saying his life is going to change forever, Bobby doesn't quite realize it until the baby is born. When he decides to keep the baby everyone thinks he is crazy, but he just can't give up his baby. A truly touching story of parent to child love.

Warnings: Language and pregnancy is discussed often

Stuck in Neutral

Terry Trueman

Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books

Shawn McDaniel is apparently retarded. He can't speak, he can't walk, he can't even blink his eyes when he wants to. He can't eat without help and he has to be bathed and dressed by someone else every day. Shawn has Cerebral palsy.

Shawn has seizures as well. It is incredibly hard for his dad to watch this to the point that he finally leaves the family. Several years go by and Dad comes back to visit only a few times. However, this time he visits it seems he has something in mind to help Shawn to stop suffering so much.

An incredibly touching and realistic story. Great for someone who lives with a handicapped sibling or child.

Warnings: Some language and he mentions looking down the front of women's shirts.

Whirligig

Paul Fleischman

Publisher: Henry Holt and Company Inc.

Brent wants to be popular. At every new school he attends he searches for clues of how to be popular. But when he makes a terrible mistake and ends the life of someone else, he doesn't know how to fit in at all.

Then he gets a chance to make things right, or at least, more right. So he sets off on a journey to make whirligigs. His adventure takes him all across the United States. By the time he is done with the adventure he has learned more than just how to make a whirligig.

A touching story of healing and forgivness.


Warnings: Some language in the first chapter

The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp

By Rick Yancey

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing, Children’s Books, USA

Alfred Kropp, age 15, just doesn’t fit in. He’s too big, too awkward, and extremely unintelligent. At least, that’s what everyone says. He lives with his uncle, Farrell – his only living family he knows of. When a get rich quick scheme is presented, Uncle Farrell will stop at nothing to get the money. This puts Alfred into an extraordinary adventure full of modern day knights, robed men dressed in black, a helicopter strike, a high-speed motorcycle/car attack, mystery, and betrayal. A wonderful adventure story.

Would suggest – for someone who likes action movies and the history of King Arthur.

Warnings: Some swear words, violence, some graphic deaths (heads flying through the air, ect.)