Chelsea Reads

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

2011-08-23T20:38:00.002-05:00

The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

2011-08-23T20:28:00.001-05:00

Does the town of Gentry willingly sacrifice one of its children from time to time in order to maintain a certain lifestyle? Does Mackie really belong or is he a replacement for a stolen child?
This is a story of battling underworlds, their careless control of humans, and of Mackie’s effort to retain his humanity.

Rash by Pete Hautman

2011-08-22T07:24:00.000-05:00

The USSA, the United Safer States of America, is a nation obsessed with safety: Safety helmets for walkers! But it needs an underclass: Someone has to do the dirty work. Harsh laws that keep some safe also ensure that a sizeable portion of the population, like many of Bo's family, will end up in prison factories. Bo ends up in one with a seriously psycho warden. (Reminiscent of Sachar's Holes)

The Death of Jayson Porter by Jaime Adoff

2011-08-22T07:05:00.001-05:00

Life just doesn't seem worth living for sixteen-year-old Jayson - not trapped in the inland Florida projects where he struggles to keep up at school and with life while suffering the abuse of his hard hitting and hard drinking mother. The drop from the eighteenth floor balcony looks like a good way out.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

2010-02-17T19:00:00.002-05:00

This IS NOT a book for boys. They could not possibly enjoy sophomore Frankie's getting the better of the most powerful senior boys in her school.
Get over the fact that the school is a boarding school for the white, seriously over privileged mostly WASPish future leaders of the country and enjoy Frankie's triumphs.

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell

2010-02-17T18:54:00.002-05:00

This has been described as a historical thriller. The rules by which 15-year-old Evie is expected to live and the nature of the anti-Semitic racism may be post World War II, but everything else is now. Nobody is what they seem to be, and Evie has to grow up super fast when three people go out in a boat and only two return. This suspense will have you reading fast – and if you never really got the “literary device” of foreboding, you will know it after reading this great suspense.

Impossible by Nancy Werlin

2010-02-12T14:41:00.002-05:00

Can Lucy escape the family curse, to give birth as a teenager and then descend into madness? Boyfriend Zach and foster parents fight alongside her to overcome the evil magic of a malignant Elfin Knight in this suspenseful, romantic fantasy.

Bonechiller by Graham Mcnamee

2009-08-31T21:27:00.002-05:00

This is the author who wrote "Acceleration" with a serial killer involved. Here, the serial killer has been killing teenagers in Arctic Canada for decades. But what is the killer? A nightmare? ...Bigfoot, Yeti...

Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez

2009-08-31T21:20:00.002-05:00

When the main characters in a story are 11-year-old sixth graders, older potential readers too often believe the book is not for them. This story of traditional, patriotic, struggling Vermont dairy farmers and alien, hard-working, struggling farm laborers, will cause most readers to pause for thought... and then to be really anxious for the well-being of all the people they meet here.

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

2009-06-19T12:20:00.002-05:00

In The Time Machine, published in 1895, the traveler travels in the fourth dimension, time, through thousands of years and is attacked by Morlocks. (It was another ten year's before Einstein's theory of relativity described the weird things that can happen with time.)
Many of you going into Grade 12 will have chosen this book because it is thin. We warned you the vocabulary is very difficult.

A Thousand Spendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

2009-04-03T12:44:00.002-05:00

I read this book when it first came out and enjoyed it even more than The Kite Runner. I was prompted to write about it today as there is discussion in the news of a law being processed in Afghanistan which would, in contravention of the country's constitution, reduce the rights of women. A book like this reminds us how poorly women rate in many parts of the world.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

2009-04-03T12:40:00.003-05:00

In this heartrending, unforgettable story, Death reluctantly tells the story of foster child, Liesel in Nazi Germany. She needs to steal, not only food, but books, to survive, and it is a book that saves her life as those around her perish.

Notes from the Midnight Driver by Sonnenblick

2008-01-25T09:20:00.000-05:00

After having a crash DUI, Alex is sentenced to spending time with a feisty old man in a nursing home by a judge with a sense of humor. Along with his childhood friend who "looks like a terrifying Goth pixie", Alex discovers there is much more to Sol than meets the eye.

Son of the Mob by Gordon Korman

2007-11-01T12:20:00.000-05:00

His father is the mob boss that her father is out to catch!

Tenderness by Robert Cormier

2007-11-01T10:56:00.000-05:00

Eric, just released from juvenile detention, is looking for tenderness - in the company of innocent girls.

Acceleration by Graham McNamee

2007-11-01T10:05:00.000-05:00

Duncan finds a little leather book - a diary of "a serial killer stalking his prey in the subway . .... What would you do with a book like that?" (From the jacket)

Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger

2007-10-29T12:08:00.000-05:00

A story of young love and self discovery, as funny and painful as young love often is, perhaps more so. The setting for much of the story, Tower Records on Newbury Street, Boston no longer exists, but the local references in this book still add interest.