The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies an Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb

The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World's Most Notorious Nazi by Neal Bascomb
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The pursuit and capture of Adolf Eichmann after 15 years as part of the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews was a profound and thrilling read. The secret plan was thoroughly planned by Jews who personally survived the Holocaust and lost loved ones in the concentration camps and the government officials of Israel. A highly recommended read for young adults and adults as a reminder of the atrocities by Hitler and the Germans against the Jews. Six million were exterminated and many were shot, beaten, starved and worked to death in addition to the furnaces of the concentration camps.

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Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this stunner of a book for the 2014 Hub Challenge and I wanted to know more about this Island of Blessed as Eric Seven visits to write a story about the island's secrets and beauty and seeming simplicity. As Eric meets the friendly island people, he falls in love with Merle who has always lived on Blessed. As days pass, Eric sleeps deeply, rides a bike, drinks tea, swims and tries to remember what he is supposed to be doing. Sedgwick uses short stories to flash back and forward as the story of Blessed is revealed. I especially enjoyed the storytelling that weaves Eric and Merle's love through the ages as they search for each other. Their names change during the time of the Vikings; and other characters after they die become wolves and vampires and always there is a dragon flower on the island with properties that can heal or hurt. The mystery and beauty of Sedgwick's writing kept me turning the pages.

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Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak

Getting the Girl by Markus Zusak
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In re-reading this book for the 2014 Hub Challenge, I wanted Cameron to succeed, I wanted him to get the girl, and Zusak does a great job of showing Cameron's insecurities, his depth of character, and how getting the girl changes his relationship with Ruben. Even though he doesn't have her for long, and Ruben beats him up, it is his sister who helps Cameron find himself through poems and observations. Cameron is a strong protagonist who finds his place in his family and in the world with his questions and pining about relationships with girls. Cameron gets my vote any day as the Wolfe brother who matters.

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Fighting Ruben Wolf by Markus Zusak

Fighting Ruben Wolfe by Markus Zusak
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As a new high school librarian in 2003, this was one of my favorite and first books to read. This book started me as a Markus Zusak fan. In re-reading it again for the 2014 Hub Challenge, this book of two Australian brothers who fight to make money to help out their father with his finances is still a winner of family dysfunction, sibling rivalry, and the tough life of the Wolfe brothers. Ruben is a natural at fighting, wins all the girls, and has no fear. Cameron, the younger brother, is sensitive, not really great at fighting and has many fears. My students loved this book; the readers, the reluctant readers, and the urban fiction readers (and reading teachers) all liked this book.

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I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusack

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I re-read this book as part of the 2014 Hub Challenge and it is still one of my favorite books. Ed thinks of himself as a loser; he drives a cab and loves his best friend, Audrey (who doesn't love him back), and I will never forget his coffee drinking dog, The Doorman. When Ed foils a bank robbery, he begins to receive playing cards in the mail, directing him to different situations and we see how well (or not) he handles the different missions. It is the slow, sure way that Ed becomes a different person by helping others that impacted me the most. I loved reading hangdog Ed and seeing him become a better person with each person he helped. A very satisfying read:)

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The Scar Boys by Len Vlahos

The Scar Boys by Len Vlahos
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I got my ARC at ALA Midwinter in Philadelphia and this book is so good on so many levels. It is about Harbinger Jones, whose voice is real, authentic, knowing, and damaged. He is scarred (both mentally and physically ---he was hit by lightning, while tied to a tree by a bully)as a child and this disfigurement follows him (in waves) throughout the book, and will his entire life. It is a story of friendship, a love of music, a band tour, and ultimately how Harry succeeds as a person and friend. I loved Vlahos' words, characters and the depth of his feeling for Harry, his parents, Johnny, Richie and Cheyenne; highly recommended. This is a great guy book, but girls will love it too and also adults.

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Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I read this book for two reasons, with the first being it is the Goodreads February Discussion for Books Hot Off the Presses
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
and the second is my participation in the 2014 HUB Reading Challenge
http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2014/.... This book is on the list of the 2014 Top Ten Best Fiction for Young Adults. Rose Justice is a transport pilot, who grew up outside Hershey, PA. It is during the war that Rose's plane is intercepted, she is captured by the Germans and taken to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she is a prisoner for six months. Rose and the other captives (who are there much longer)endure beatings, torture, experimentation, and deprivation. It is during her imprisonment and after, as she recuperates in Paris that the full story emerges. What was so wonderful about this story was the "family" Rose formed while in Ravensbrück and it was these bonds that enabled them to endure and in many cases, survive. Wein weaves the importance of family throughout the whole book; with Rose's Hershey family, her pilot friends who are her family before her capture and the Rabbits, Lisette, Irina, Roza, Karolina and others who are her camp family. Rose uses her poetry and storytelling with her concentration camp friends to as a way to remember life before and survive each day whatever way they could. It is during her imprisonment (and after) with the Hamburg Ravensbrück Trials and the Doctors' Trial against Nazi war criminals that Rose emerges as a much stronger person; a writer and medical student, and is able to bear witness in her own way to the atrocities of the camp and let the world know the names of all 75 of the Rabbits who were maimed (and many killed) by Nazis due to their experimentation. Readers will love the women (pilots, survivors, and those who do not survive) in this book; their bravery, fury, compassion, defiance, craziness, and beauty. Highly recommended!

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If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch

If You Find Me: A Novel by Emily Murdoch
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh boy! I loved this book; the grittiness grabbed me from the first page of Part 1 The End - revealing the hard scrabble existence in the deep, dark woods for fifteen year old Carey and her younger sister, nine year old Janessa. Carey is such a strong protagonist revealing their mother (drug addicted and bi-polar, off her meds) has been gone for two months and it is getting pretty desperate for the girls to subsist daily. But Carey never worries for herself, only for Janessa, who stopped speaking a year ago. They are forever changed when social services and Carey's father find them and "rescue" them. But that is not how Carey sees it; since her mother poisoned her long ago with tales of her father's anger and abuse. Carey and Janessa must now deal with a world of abundant food, clothing, people and many things they never had (toothpaste, toothbrush, showers, family, school, boys. Part II The Middle has the them going to school and navigating their new life. As Carey and Janessa harbor secrets from their years in the woods, they are slowly realizing what "family" really means with their father, his wife, and her daughter. But it is the beloved family dog, Shorty, with whom Janessa forges an immediate and unbreakable bond. As Carey begins her first day of school, she is saved by Ryan Shipley, after her stepsister, Delaney ditches her. He becomes her friend, protector, and maybe more? In Part III The Beginning, Carey and Janessa love their life with their family, but Carey and Janessa both know they must confront their past and secrets in the woods for true healing. Carey's character goes through many changes but she is throughout the book she is respectful, fiercely protective of her sister, a true friend, and grappling with new emotions, and feelings, and what she becomes in telling the secrets is an even stronger person with a forever home and a new beginning.

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HeartBeat by Elizabeth Scott

Heartbeat by Elizabeth Scott
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Teen for this compelling, sad, and deeply affecting book. Emma suddenly loses her mother, when she dies while pregnant. Emma is plunged into a grief so all encompassing, she loses her sense of self and who she was before; a great student with plans for college and a future. Struggling mightily through this book (posttraumatic stress disorder), Emma can’t forgive her stepfather, Dan (who she loved before) for deciding (without consulting her) to keep her mother on life support in order to give the baby a chance at life. Emma really becomes hateful, angry and explosive in the way she constantly talks to Dan about her “dead mother” and questions everything in her life. As she fails classes, morns not being able to have “more time” with her mother, she begins to become a person she does not recognize but she can’t control her feelings and reactions. She has a supportive best friend, Olivia, but it is bad boy, Caleb Harrison, who is performing community service in the hospital where her mother is, that Emma begins to connect with over their shared grief and loss. Will Emma forgive Dan (and herself) in the wake of her mother’s death and daily visits to her bedside? This is a deeply affecting story and I loved the friendship and romance aspect of the book. As an adult, I understood the trauma that Emma suffered but couldn’t seem to rise above and I worry that this aspect of the book might not speak to teens (simply because they don’t understand Emma’s constant thoughts and dialog) but Elizabeth Scott did a masterful job in portraying Emma’s and Caleb’s self- disintegration. It is difficult to read their hurt, grief, feelings of betrayal for 256 pages, but the deep themes will resonate and spark discussion.

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The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh

The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley, Laura McHugh, Random House, and Spiegel and Grau for this advance copy of a thrilling, disturbing read. This novel, taking place in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri, is captivating from the first page. Lucy Dane is shocked and bewildered to find out her childhood friend, Cheri, who disappeared, is found dismembered one year later. In the small town of Henbane, everyone is rocked by this grisly discovery. For a while, the town is cautious and rife with innuendo and theories. Lucy’s mother also disappeared when Lucy was a baby and was never found. It is how these two parallel mysteries connect and the effect it has on family (and kin) in Henbane that make for a spine tingling, can’t put it down, suspenseful read. The suffocating small town atmosphere is creepy with their suspicion of “outsiders” and their belief in witches, magic, lies and secrets, but Lucy is a strong female character who will not stop looking for answers. For book club, there would be so many great discussions and I know I will be recommending this as a great cross-over young adult title.

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Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans during World War II by Martin Sandler

Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans during World War II by Martin W. Sandler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Martin Sandler's book is the compelling story of the banishment over 120,000 Japanese Americans living on the West Coast of the United States. Japanese Americans were forced from their homes due to hysteria after the bombing of Perl Harbor. They had no notice and had to leave homes, businesses, pets, and possessions to move into internment camps for the duration of WWII. Sandler uses photographs, interviews, quotes, and sidebars (backed up with extensive research) to tell about this very dark part of American history. Each chapter consists of information with certain pages containing large font (to stand out)and within these chapters sections highlighted areas of importance, like Dorothea Dix and Ansel Adams photography to document the internment, but their differing viewpoints. Another section is Titled, Expressing Feelings Through Poetry and shares examples of children's poems from camp classrooms. Within the camps were the Isei and the Nisei, nurses, doctors, writers, teachers who work hard to end the isolation and depression many felt. Sports, like baseball, became an important way for the Japanese Americans to fight boredom. There were those who created gardens, made jewelry, and found other ways to beautify their substandard lives. The camps were harsh and crowded, hot during the day and very cold at night; there were long waits to for lunch, dinner and laundry of 2-3 hours. There were many Japanese Americans who served in the 442nd Regiment and Nisei who served as interpreters and translators and they had a very profound impact on the US's victory. The chapters on how the Japanese Americans fared after the war and as the years wet on were so interesting. Today the Japanese Americans are working hard to make sure this does not happen to anyone ever again. They are strong supporters of the Muslim communities in the aftermath of 9/11 because they look like the enemy and have experienced discrimination like the Japanese Americans.
The book ends with Place to Visit, Visiting the Sites of the Relocation Centers, Further Reading and Surfing, Websites, Sources and Bibliography.

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We Were Here byMatt De La Pena

We Were Here by Matt de la Pena
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A great pick for our February book discussion this month with my librarian friends! I just loved Matt's other book, Mexican White Boy Mexican WhiteBoy and We Were Here is just as compelling. Miguel is in juvi for a crime he doesn't reveal but he is totally guilt ridden about. He gets into an argument with Mong, an Asian with a severely scarred face, many other problems and health issues---scary, scary kid. When Rondell arrives; Miguel already knows him there is more of a flow to his daily life. Miguel reads lots of books, records in his journal (judge's orders) hangs out with(and makes fun of)Rondell. It is when Mong breaks them out to escape to Mexico and get jobs, that life totally changes for the three escapees. Miguel acts hardcore but he is hiding a lot behind his Mexican bravado. As they travel (and hide) to Mexico, there will be life lessons Miguel (and Mong and Rondell) work through as they come to terms with themselves, family, and their place in the world. A riveting, adventure with Miguel and friends. Reluctant readers (and teens who enjoy urban fiction) will relate to all three characters and their dilemmas.

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