Category: Boy Meets Book

Everybody’s good at something. Most of us have a talent for stuff like soccer, playing the piano, or even geometry. In the book Stone Cold, 16 year old Denn finds out what he’s REALLY good at–playing poker. And not just for matchsticks, either. Denn is so good that he’s winning thousand dollar pots from adult players and buying cars and jewelery with no problem, because money talks. But the more Denn wins, the colder he feels–towards his parents, his friends, even his best girl. Denn may be raking in the dough, but he’s selling his soul doing it. Everybody’s good at something. But the thing you’re good at isn’t always good for you. If you liked the movie Rounders, give the reading roulette wheel a spin with Stone Cold–you’ll come out a winner.

Rock Kindle is a Revolutionary War buff. He knows every battle, general, and weapon. But all those facts and figures don’t always help Rock when it comes to the war he wages with his father. Rock’s dad is a militaristic control freak who enjoys snapping orders at his two sons and his fearful wife, who rarely leaves the house. When Rock and his brother Cliff help their friend Liza run away from her abusive home, Rock starts to wonder if he should start making plans to leave his own. But Rock doesn’t know if he has the courage to turn traitor against his father, even it means saving his brother, his mother and even himself. A good read for the teenage underdog in all of us.

The plot of this book is so stuffed full of murder, mayhem, suicide, ghosts, romance and redemption that I hardly know where to start. So here goes–17 year old David, after being accused and acquited of his girlfriend’s murder, moves out of his house and in with his aunt and uncle, in an attempt to forget all the crap he’s been through in the past year. But its hard to deal with his own pain when his aunt and uncle are giving each other the silent treatment and his freaky little cousin Lily is giving him the evil eye. Then, to make things even worse, he starts to see a lighted form that may or may not be the ghost of his other cousin, Lily’s big sister who supposedly committed suicide. In the middle of all this creepiness, David still finds time to fall in love with the artsy hippie chick who lives in the front apartment of his uncle’s house. So, what’s a guy to do? David starts sluething around in his family history to try and learn a little more about his cousin’s death and why Lily is such a little weirdo. What he finds out will make your toes curl as this novel comes to a crashing climax. A satisfyingly scary, psychologically thrilling read.

Paul Fisher may be a geek with glasses, but he can see a lot of stuff that his clueless parents seem to miss. For one thing, Paul is the only one who notices that his older brother Eric is a registered psycho, who tortures his classmates with his goonish buddy. But dear old dad is too caught up in the “Eric Fisher Football Dream” to notice that his place-kicking son is also a wacko, and Paul’s too busy trying to get in good with the soccer-jocks to try and explain. It’s going to take a bolt of lightening and a lost memory to finally make his family see what he’s seen all along. A gripping, suburban gothic read.

Robbie Jones has just shot the local convenience store owner with his father’s gun and nobody really knows why, least of all Robbie himself. Robbie’s story is told by all the bystanders of this crime that jumps right out of the headlines: his parents, his one good friend, the store owner’s wife and the girl that he wanted as his girlfriend, but who wanted nothing to do with him. The only way Robbie communicates at all after the shooting is through drawing his comic strip of Megaboy, superhero and protector of Earth. Was Robbie pretending to be Megaboy when he shot the gun? Or did he imagine that his crush, Tara, would be impressed with his actions? The reader has to come to his own conclusions about why Robbie did it, which is really the greatest strength of this slim, graphic-packed novel. You can read it over lunch, then think about it all day.

Eric Poole may be a reformed teen serial killer. But when beautiful prey like Lori Cranston throws herself at him, what’s a murderous madman to do? The only one who can save Lori is old Lt. Proctor, one of the only people who doesn’t buy Eric’s cool line of bull. These three people will be drawn together into an ever tighter triangle of murder and mayhem. Who will get the axe in the end, if anyone? If ya wanna know, ya gotta read…

Does that author look familiar? It should, since you’ve probably been assigned to read The Outsiders in about every English class since 6th grade. But did you also know that Hinton wrote other books about guys on the outs? Tex, our title hero, is just trying to get through life with as little conflict as possible, despite the fact that his dad is never around, he’s in love with his best friend’s sister, and his big brother just sold his horse. It may sound corny as a Garth Brooks song, but it’s not. There’s just enough rodeo grit in this story to make it real, and I promise you won’t fall off. (I could date myself by linking to the book cover with Matt Dillon on it, who starred in the cheesy but heartfelt Disney movie version, but I’ll save both you and me the humiliation!)

Where do you find the strength to get out of a bad neighborhood, a bad family, and a bad life, without losing your sense of humor? Well, if you’re Mick, a skinny Irish kid with an awakening conscience, you get “by with a little help from your friends,” but a lot of it has to come from within yourself. Follow Mick’s trials, in the three named books above, as he tries to make a clean break from his bigoted brother, his alcoholic parents and his narrow-minded neighborhood. But breaks like those are never clean, and Mick fights hard to resist the pull of his violent up-bringing to find a place where he can be himself. Don’t be scared off by the serious themes, because there’s a lot of laughs in between the fist fights and racial tension– just like life. These books are so real it’s scary.

What’s a Stotan? Walker, Nortie, Lion and Jeff are about to find out as they undergo the hardest week of their lives. They agree to accept the Stotan Challenge — a series of difficult physical tests of endurance. Four best friends on the swim team in their senior year, they think they are ready to face anything as long as they face it together. Don’t be fooled–despite the plot this is not just a book for swim jocks. No matter what group you belong to or belonged to in high school, you will dive into this read and swim all the way to the end!

Steve’s got a problem. His famous astronaut dad is getting on his nerves, he’s flunking out of school, and he just lost his girlfriend. The answer?? His school counselor thinks he needs to write about the last year of his life so that he can figure out where it all went wrong. Steve isn’t crazy about the idea (would YOU want to write a 100 page paper all about your life??) but he starts to write and finds out a lot about himself–maybe more than he wanted to know, but enough to find out what happened in his life–and how to make it right. And what’s with that funky title? Well, as they say here in library land–check it out, baby, and find out!