WAIT TILL HELEN COMES by Mary Downing Hahn
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Molly genuinely wants to be friends with her stepsister, Heather. When the whole family moves out to an isolated home in the country, Molly hopes that she and her new little sister will be able to do things together–or at least get along. But Heather is spoiled and self-absorbed and shows no interest in getting along with Molly or her brother, Michael. In fact, she seems determined to get them in trouble with their mother and stepfather whenever possible. As they get settled into their new house, however, Heather’s torments become more sinister. She begins threatening Molly with an imaginary friend called Helen, and Molly begins to suspect that Helen is not as imaginary as her parents believe. With her parents blaming her for the destruction that Helen causes, it is all up to Molly to figure out who or what Helen is and to protect Heather from her new “friend.”
Mary Downing Hahn has written some great ghost stories for children. Wait Till Helen Comes is one of my favorites. It is scary and suspenseful without relying on the shock value of grotesque content. Elementary and middle grade readers who enjoy ghost stories should definitely check this one out!
If you liked Wait Till Helen Comes, you might like The Seer of Shadows by Avi.
THE BONE GARDEN by Tess Gerritsen
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When Julia bought an old fixer-upper house in rural Massachusetts, she was looking forward to gardening–a relaxing project to keep her mind off of the divorce. But when she unearths a human skeleton which shows signs of premortem trauma, she finds herself getting swept up in a mystery that began in 1830s Boston. She meets Henry Page, an 89 year old man with family connections to her new estate, and they begin searching through boxes of old letters, many of them written by the famous Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Along with Julia, the reader begins to hear the story of seventeen-year-old Irish immigrant Rose Connolly and medical student Norris Marshall, the son of a lower-class farmer. While Norris, Wendell, and their fellow doctors try to discover the cause and treatment for a fever epidemic that claimed the life of Rose’s sister and many other recently pregnant women in the hospital, Rose tries to protect her late sister’s child from her abusive brother-in-law, Eben. Norris and Rose’s stories become intertwined when nurses and doctors from the hospital begin to be murdered and mutilated with a distinctive pattern of knife wounds. Norris and Rose are the only two people to have seen the murderer (a figure cloaked in black with a mask like a skull), but no one believes them, and due to their lower-class status and circumstantial evidence, they both become murder suspects. Meanwhile, it seems people besides Eben are after Rose’s baby niece. The key to the mystery may be found in an old locket that Rose pawned to pay for her sister’s burial.
If you like thrillers and find medical history interesting, then this is the book for you! Gerritsen weaves details about Victorian medical knowledge (or lack thereof), body-snatching surgeons, and the medical education system of the time into a suspenseful mystery plot. The present day plot is kind of cheesy, but only comprises a small fraction of the novel. Readers who like suspenseful forensic mysteries or historical fiction thrillers will likely enjoy this novel.
If you liked The Bone Garden as a historical mystery, you may be interested in The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale. If you liked The Bone Garden as a medical thriller, you might like the Lincoln Rhyme books by Jeffrey Deaver.
11 BIRTHDAYS by Wendy Mass
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From birth, Amanda and Leo were destined to be best friends. They were born on the exact same day and for ten years had always celebrated their birthdays together. But at their tenth birthday party, Amanda overheard Leo make a nasty comment about her, and suddenly the idea of sharing another birthday party with Leo seemed repulsive. So for her eleventh birthday, Amanda decides to plan a party on her own. But Leo plans his party for the same day, and all of their friends are forced to choose whose party to attend. And of course Leo’s party is much cooler than Amanda’s. Finally, the terrible day ends and Amanda goes to bed, hoping to forget that her eleventh birthday ever happened. Unfortunately, when she wakes up, she discovers that somehow it is her eleventh birthday again. Everyone else at home and at school seems oblivious to the repetition, acting out their day in the exact same way they did before. The only people aware of the time loop seem to be Amanda and the one person she doesn’t want to be stuck with: Leo. Amanda and Leo are forced to begin rebuilding their friendship as they try to figure out what is going on and how to break out of the endless loop of eleventh birthdays.
This book has some fantasy elements, in terms of the time loop (reminiscent of the film Groundhog Day), but it mostly focuses on friendship and forgiveness. The characters and their situations are easy to relate to, though it will likely appeal to girls more than boys, as Amanda is our narrator. I would recommend this story to middle grade readers who enjoy realistic fiction about school and friendship.
SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson
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High school has very defined social rules. Most of them are comical. People divide into cliques that all have absurd dress codes and behavior expectations. Everyone is supposed to be incredibly enthusiastic about the school’s crappy sports teams and the mascot that seems to change every other day. Melinda can see the absurdity of the high school social environment because she is an outsider. She has no clique. She has no friends. The people who used to be her friends will barely even look at her after what happened at the party over the summer. It had been Melinda who called 911, but not because of the drinking. She called because of what happened to her outside, that no one knows about except her and the boy she now thinks of as “It.” Melinda has not told anyone what happened; she doesn’t say much of anything anymore. Her grades are slipping, attempts at friendship failing, and even the desire to have friends seems to be slipping away. Only something about art class still seems compelling to her, though she isn’t much of an artist. As her parents and teachers get increasingly frustrated and concerned, Melinda struggles to navigate the rules of high school and to find a way to express what happened over the summer.
Melinda is a wonderful narrator. Her observations about the high school world are snarky and 100% accurate. You may not expect to laugh at a book with as heavy subject matter as this one, but Speak is about more than just rape. This incredibly well-written and nuanced novel will be accessible to anyone who is or has ever been in high school, and Melinda’s journey toward finding her voice is a powerful one. The subject matter is heavy (though not graphic) and may be upsetting to some readers, so use your judgment. But this is one of my favorites–possibly because Melinda and I have a very similar sense of humor and reaction to high school.
THE SISTERS GRIMM by Michael Buckley
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Ever since their parents disappeared, Sabrina and Daphne have been shuffled around from foster home to foster home. All of their new homes have been terrible by Sabrina’s standards, and she has grown quite skilled at escaping from them. When an old lady claiming to be their grandmother, “Relda Grimm,” summons the girls to live with her, Sabrina starts planning an escape before they even arrive in Ferryport Landing. Their father always told them their grandmother was dead, so the old lady must be either crazy or evil, and either way, Sabrina and Daphne will need to escape. Once they meet the old lady, however, it becomes clear that “crazy” is the more appropriate adjective. Not only does she believe that she is the girls’ grandmother, she also seems to believe that all of the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales are historical fact, and that the fairy tale creatures still live magical lives in Ferryport Landing! Young Daphne seems to believe the old lady’s stories, but Sabrina knows better. Her perspective changes, however, when Granny Relda is abducted by an actual, real, live giant. Unable to ignore the fairy tale reality any longer, Sabrina and Daphne prepare to take up the Grimm legacy as fairy tale detectives. Their first mission: to rescue their grandmother from the clutches of the giant.
The Sisters Grimm is the first book in a series of fairy tale detective stories. The books are very humorous, and the modern imaginings of the fairy tale characters are a lot of fun. The stories are heavier on the fantasy action than the detective work, but there are a fair number of clues to unravel throughout. I recommend The Sisters Grimm to upper-elementary readers who enjoy humorous fantasy stories.
If you liked The Sisters Grimm, you might like Fablehaven by Brandon Mull.
A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L’Engle
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Meg tends to get into trouble at school. She’s very stubborn and quick-tempered, and although she’s brilliant at math, she can’t seem to complete the work the way her teachers want her to. Most of the fights she gets into with her peers revolve around defending her little brother Charles Wallace from accusations of being stupid or different–and around defending her firm belief that her father is coming back. Although he’s been gone for years on a secret mission for the government and they’ve had no contact, Meg, her brilliant scientist mother, and Charles Wallace (who is, in fact, the most brilliant of them all) are convinced that he is coming back. But what Meg does not expect is that one stormy night, three mysterious old women will whisk her, Charles Wallace, and their neighbor Calvin off the face of the Earth, to some distant planet where their father has been fighting an evil darkness that threatens to engulf the universe. Now, her father is imprisoned, and it is up to the three children to rescue him before the darkness overwhelms his soul.
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of this classic children’s book’s release. A Wrinkle in Time is not just a great sci-fi novel. It explores themes of love and family, the balance between independence and relying on a parent, and the coexistence of courage and fear. This is a great coming-of-age novel that starts a fantastic sci-fi series. I highly recommend it to children and to teens!
If you like the eccentric characters, check out Saffy’s Angel and The Westing Game.
RUNNING THE BOOKS: THE ADVENTURES OF AN ACCIDENTAL PRISON LIBRARIAN by Avi Steinberg
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Avi Steinberg did not plan on becoming a prison librarian. In fact, he once planned on devoting his life to the study of the Torah and Talmud. But after a Harvard education, a falling-off from Orthodox Judaism, and a brief career as an obituary writer, he finds himself on the staff of a Boston “correctional” facility. The experience challenges him in ways he could never have expected. He spends his day cracking jokes with pimps, scouring the library stacks for forbidden messages between prisoners (and secretly saving them), leading prison creative writing groups, and struggling to balance his professional work, his almost-friendships with inmates, his often-dashed hopes for the inmates’ futures, and his knowledge of the terrible crimes many have committed.
Running the Books is both funny and touching. It is entirely character driven, not always chronological, and occasionally confusing. But if you enjoy reflective memoirs and character studies, I definitely recommend this book. I greatly enjoyed it.
THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak
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The first time Death met Liesel Meminger, the book thief, she was on a train with her mother and her little brother, traveling to a foster home near Munich where the children could escape the shadow of their father’s identity as a Kommunist. It was the little brother’s soul that Death had come to collect. As he cradled the little boy’s soul in his arms and watched the living grieve, Death did not know that he would meet the book thief two more times during her childhood, nor that he would find her journal in the wreckage of a bomb-torn city and would read it again and again, memorizing her story and always carrying it with him. He shares Liesel’s story with the readers in his own way–recounting the mischief she concocts with Rudy Steiner, the complicated but ultimately loving relationships in her foster family, the struggle of learning to read, poverty and hunger in the Third Reich, the terrifying business of hiding a Jew and the powerful friendship that results from it, the complex intertwining of patriotism, loyalty, and morality–all over-layed with Death’s observations of the tragedy of war and the enduring hope and beauty of life.
Ultimately, it is the words—of the author, of the characters, of the past—that bring the story to life so vibrantly and unforgettably. This is a book to be savored. It is at once heartbreaking and heartwarming. There are no real plot twists; Death tells you the ending at the beginning. The book is about the journey of the characters and their complex, beautiful relationships. Zusak does not neglect even the minor characters, making them all irresistibly complicated and human. I warn you, you will fall in love with characters in this book, and their stories will stay with you–as they did for the narrator, Death. Your heart will likely break at some of the tragedies they endure. But it is worth it for the journey you share with them, just as Death demonstrates that even the shortest lives captured in Liesel’s journal have profound and enduring beauty and meaning. The Book Thief has been my Favorite Book Of All Time since I first read it in 2006, and it will take an extraordinary book to ever supplant it in my affection. I cannot recommend it highly enough for teens and for adults.
If you liked The Book Thief for its themes and characters, you might like The Fault In Our Stars by John Green.
If you liked The Book Thief for its subject matter and narrative style, you might like Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut.
THE SECRET OF PLATFORM 13 by Eva Ibbotson
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London’s King’s Cross Station has many secrets, but its best kept secret lies behind Platform 13: a magical entrance to another world that only opens for nine days once every nine years. The last time the portal opened, the baby Prince of the magical Island was kidnapped by a wicked, selfish woman called Mrs. Trottle who was unable to have children of her own. The portal closed before the Prince could be rescued. Now, nine years later, a group of unlikely heroes (a giant, a wizard, a fey, and a young hag named Odge) travel into the human world to find the young Prince and bring him home. Odge and her companions are quite optimistic about their chances of returning with the Prince, but when they find “Raymond Trottle,” they are dismayed to discover that he is a spoiled, rotten, horrible boy and not the sort of prince they want at all. Still, for the sake of the King and the Queen, they are determined to bring him home, and so they enlist the help of a servant boy, Ben, as they try to convince Raymond to return to their magic world.
The Secret of Platform 13 is a wonderfully written magical tale that elementary-age fantasy readers will definitely enjoy. It is one of my favorite fantasy books for that age group. Read-alikes include most other books by Eva Ibbotson (Dial-a-Ghost, Island of the Aunts, etc.), books by Roald Dahl (Matilda, The Witches, The Twits, etc.), the early Harry Potters (1-3), The Real Boy by Anne Ursu, Magyk by Angie Sage, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, and Diana Wynne Jones’ Chrestomanci books (Charmed Life, The Lives of Christopher Chant, etc.).
MOON OVER MANIFEST by Clare Vanderpool
Abilene and her father Gideon have always been together, even when times were tough and Gideon couldn’t find work. But the summer of 1936, Gideon sends Abilene away on a train to the town of Manifest, Kansas, where he says an old friend Shady will take care of her. Knowing (or perhaps hoping) that Gideon will come and collect her at the end of the summer, Abilene tries hard not to grow attached to Manifest. But as she tries to search for her father’s footprint in the town, she stumbles upon a story of the town’s past that is too fascinating and mysterious to ignore–a story of con men, war, immigrant cultures, and spy from the Great War (the Rattler) who just might still be around the town. Abilene and her friends try to piece together the past from a box of old letters and keepsakes, the town’s newspaper archive, and an old gypsy woman’s oral history. Every day they seem to get closer to the Rattler’s true identity. And although Abilene can’t figure out why Gideon never shows up any of the old stories, she is determined to find him somewhere in the town’s past.
Moon Over Manifest isn’t another one of those depressing Newbery winners about grief and loss. It is a beautiful story of a young girl’s quest to learn more about her father’s past. Set during the great depression, Abilene’s story is an historical fiction within an historical fiction: the focus being on the rich heritage of the town, the stories of the immigrants who settled there, the challenges they faced, and their success in building a town they could all be proud of. Well-researched and full of engaging storytelling, Moon Over Manifest will appeal to historical fiction readers and those who like triumphant stories of the success of underdogs. I highly recommend it!
Susan the Librarian 