Seventh grade P.I. Matt Stevens has just been handed his toughest assignment to date: discover who took out Nicole Finnegan, a.k.a. “Nikki Fingers,” the most dangerous middle school squirt gun assassin since Machine Gun Kelly was a lad. Just when Nikki had decided to quit wise-guy Vinnie Biggs’ crime ring of hall pass forgers and Pixy Stix dealers and go straight, she is nailed by a mystery shooter using her past favorite weapon of choice: a giant-sized Super Soaker. At Franklin Middle School, once you’ve been soaked in the crotch with a squirt gun in front of everyone, it’s nowhere but the Outs for you. And as Matt has observed far too many times, once you’re Out, it’s impossible to get back In. Lives are RUINED with a single pump of the Soaker. Now Vinnie Biggs has hired Matt to find out who had the guts to splatter his former favorite shooter. Could it be Kevin Carling, Vinnie’s second-in-command, whose heart was broken by Nikki when she was at the height of her sixth-grade fame? Or maybe it was Joey “the Hyena†Renoni, whose signature high-pitched “hehehe†was heard at the scene of the soaking. What Matt is rapidly discovering is that anyone who knew and loved someone splashed by Nikki Fingers isn’t sorry to see her get her just desserts, and they’re clamming up faster than a bunch of eighth-graders who are on their third warning from the middle school librarian. Will Matt be able to solve the crime and earn the twenty bucks Vinnie is waving under his nose like a Snickers to a starving man? (“Twenty bucks was a lot of money. I mean, there’s stuff I wouldn’t do for twenty bucks, but the list was pretty short.â€) Or will Nikki just fade away into the ranks of the Outs, a sad victim of her own squirt gun karma? Newbie author Ferraiolo brings the laughs with this hard-boiled middle school homage to classic detective tales like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. Ferraiolo cleverly mixes Mafioso with middle school in a way that is witty and fresh, while always making sure the bad guys get detention and the good guys get their homework in on time. Like Joey Renoni, I couldn’t stop giggling at the end of every Sam Spade-inspired exchange or turn the pages fast enough to find out whodunit.
100 Girls by Adam Gallardo and Todd Demong
Itty-bitty blondie Sylvia Mark doesn’t look like much. But piss her off, and she’s liable to go all Hulk on you. Except, not green—just really, really strong. Meangrrl Colleen finds that out when she tries to warn Sylvia off her fine boyfriend, and ends up in a Colleen-shaped locker dent with a broken arm for her trouble. While Sylvia at first chalks up her overnight might to puberty-gone-wild, her disturbing dreams of bio-vats and rivers of blood hint at a dangerously different reason. Meanwhile, in a secret government lab, Dr. Tabitha Carver looks over her collection of super-girls in jars, awaiting the return of the missing four so she can activate her army of baby goddesses. Four girls were kidnapped from the lab at the start of Carver’s precious cloning project. Now one of those girls is beginning to manifest her powers. And due to an instinctive impulse that is leading her closer and closer to her test-tube origins, Sylvia is rounding up the other three for a final violent confrontation with Carver that could end up rocking the entire world. My teenage friends, you have no idea how much serious ass-kicking is contained in this lil’ GN. Suffice it to say that it is on the order of my fav comic girl Fray and her bad-ass cousin Tank Girl, and just as cosmically awesome. And if square-jawed, pouty-lipped Sylvia looks familiar, it may be because Simon & Schuster just recently picked up this independent production that originally debuted on Dark Horse’s website, then was published in a seven issue series by Arcana Studios back in ’04. Now S&S have collected all seven issues of Sylvie in this suh-weet paperback for your uninterrupted viewing pleasure. So get off the couch already, head to your closest library or bookstore and get your own Girl! (Batteries and kung fu superpowers not included.)
Paper Towns by John Green
“To find Margo Roth Spiegelman, you must become Margo Roth Spiegelman.†High school senior Quentin Jacobsen has suffered unrequited love for alterna-hipster-grrl Margo Roth Spiegelman since the two of them discovered a dead body in the park of their Orlando subdivision when they were nine years old. Q never forgot how Margo seemed more fascinated by than terrified of the dead man, a fact that began to form the basis of his admiration from afar. Though Q trods the Nerd trail during high school while Margo glides down Popular path, when Margo is wronged by an ex-boyfriend, its’ Q she turns to for help in exacting her revenge. After a fun-filled night of creative pranks from the driver’s seat of his mom’s mini-van, Q is looking forward to exploring his new and improved relationship with the one and only Margo Roth Spiegelman. Except, the next day, Margo disappears. And if Q wants to know what it feels like to kiss those lips he’s worshiped from a distance, he’s going to have to follow the series of cryptic clues Margo left behind. But graduation is looming and time is running out. As the trail grows cold, Q wonders if Margo even wants to be found. And then his thoughts wander to an even darker place: was the best night of his life the last time he would ever see Margo Roth Spiegelman alive? John Green scores again with his own particular brand of smarty-McSmart adolescent-angst awesomeness. His intricate, intimate portraits of intellectual band geeks, gamers and fringe kids are so refreshing in a teen lit. world drowning in the superficial sea of Gossip Girl and her ilk. Plus, he just makes me laugh out loud with descriptions like this: “Those of us who frequent the band room have long suspected that Becca maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children.†Margo comments that the planning is often more fun than the actual doing, and while I would agree that the end of Q’s crazy quest left me wanting more, I wouldn’t have traded the journey for anything!
The Mystery of the Fool & The Vanisher by David and Ruth Ellwand
One day while exploring the South Downs, author David Ellwand saw a will-o’-the-wisp that led him to a dilapidated shack and a mysterious padlocked chest. After taking the chest home and breaking the rusty old lock and chain, Ellwand discovered the box was full of curios, and the crumbling journals of one Mr. Issac Wilde. Wilde was a photographer who helped document the excavation of a famed “faery hill,†in the late 1880’s, coincidentally the same hill Ellwand often visited on his rambles through the English countryside. Wilde’s journal told of a greedy archaeologist named Gibson Gayle who was determined unearth a Neolithic flint mine, despite the claims of the locals that the site was sacred to the Faery folk. Wilde heeded the villagers’ warnings as more and more evidence of the faeries’ existence materialized under the worker’s spades, while Gayle scoffed at all of Wilde’s efforts to dissuade him from digging any further. Dig Gayle did, and what he eventually found caused his mysterious disappearance and an open end to Wilde’s journals. Using clues from the journal, Ellwand tries to find Wilde’s last, great daguerreotype, which would irrefutably support his claim that faeries do indeed exist. But is Elllwand ready to face his fears and travel deep into the woods of the South Downs to look for the missing piece of Wilde’s legacy? Does Ellwand believe in faeries? After reading about what happened to Gayle and Wilde, can he afford not to? I leave it up to you to decide if Ellwand’s gorgeously wrought book, which evokes both Griffin & Sabine 
Bliss by Lauren Myracle
It’s 1969, the war (excuse me, “military actionâ€) is raging in Vietnam, Charles Manson is on trial for mass murder, and fourteen-year-old Bliss In-the-Morning-Dew is fresh off the commune. Her hippie parents have fled to Canada to escape the draft and left Bliss high and dry with her prissy southern grandmother in Atlanta. But this is not a tragedy. Bliss discovers that she actually likes real soap, clean sheets and remote-controlled television. She’s even looking forward to making friends at the chi-chi private school her grandmother has enrolled her in. That is, until she steps on campus and hears the otherworldly voice that keeps whispering in her head, speaking of blood, death, and sacrifice. Until she explores the abandoned third floor of the school’s oldest building, once a convent, and discovers the room of the young novice named Liliana who plunged to her death to escape the soul-cleansing whip of a sanctimonious Mother Superior. Until she finds out that one of her new chums actually plans on becoming a vessel for the vengeful Liliana and needs Bliss’s blood to seal the deal! OMG, Lauren Myracle, who knew you were hiding a bloody butcher knife behind that Mayberry smile? Myracle, lately she of the sweet, pastel-covered stories of girlhood has returned to her darker, a la Rhymes with Witches roots with this delicious package of scary goodness all wrapped up in a blood-soaked bow. Lately I have been pissing and moaning about the fact that there is not enough true YA horror to fill the desperate need of teens everywhere for some good old-fashioned thrills and chills. Well, I’m here to tell you that YA horror is BACK because Lauren Myracle has BROUGHT IT with this spine-tingling nightmare that is 1/3 Carrie, 1/3 classic Lois Duncan, and the rest gorgeously gory urban legend. The YA horror gauntlet has been THROWN my adolescent, Stephen-King-reading friends, and I can’t wait to see how many YA writer-peeps start penning their own terrifying tales in order to reach the bar raised by this bloody Myracle!
Impossible by Nancy Werlin
The main character of Nancy Werlin’s latest novel, seventeen-year-old Lucy Scarborough, happens to be a pregnant teenager, but this shockingly original hybrid of fantasy and psychological thriller is like no pregnant-teen-story you’ve ever read. Besides dealing with the same problems as any young mother-to-be, Lucy also has to contend with the conditions of an age-old curse that landed her in this situation in the first place. See, in Lucy’s family, all the women get pregnant as teens, give birth to daughters, and then promptly go insane. The daughter grows up and the cycle starts all over again. This is all due to the fact that one of Lucy’s ancestors refused to return the romantic affections of the evil Elfin King, and he in turn cursed her and all her future generations with schizophrenic madness that kicks in during late adolescence. There is only one way to break the curse: perform the three impossible tasks described in the balled Scarborough Fair. For hundreds of years, no Scarborough woman has been able to solve the puzzle. But this is the twenty-first century, and with the help of the Internet, a supportive family and a solid boyfriend who believes in her, Lucy may just be the first Scarborough with a real shot at banishing the Elfin King forever. This perfect blend of contemporary teen angst, romance, and myth had me racing through the pages to find out if Lucy beat the clock on going crazy while simultaneously Googling the lyrics to Scarborough Fair to see if I had any better luck at solving the riddle. And the climax, well, you’ll just have to see for yourself, but it literally gave me goosebumps. (For the record, evil fairies scare me!!) But you shouldn’t be afraid to look for this impossibly good book at your local library or bookstore.
Mad Kestrel by Misty Massey
In a world where evil magicians called Danisoba steal away small children who display any hint of mystical talent, orphan pirate girl Kestrel works hard to hide her ability to whistle up the wind. But she may be forced to show her hand when her beloved Captain Binns is arrested by the Royal Navy and sentenced to hang for his dastardly deeds. Kestrel is frantic to save him. But if she allows her talent to show, any sailor worth his salt will sell her out to the nearest Danisoba for top dollar. So instead she relies on more earthly means to orchestrate the save of the century. Hampered by a mutinous crew, a disappearing ship, and a double-dealing jack o’ napes named Philip McAvery, (who may or may not be on her side but is far too good looking to be trusted either way) Kestrel has to decide if she’s willing to risk life and liberty to save the man who has been like a father to her. Shiver me timbers! This thrilling paperback original reminded me of my all-time favorite series, Bloody Jack
Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt
Fourteen-year-old Henry lives in a classic, been-in-the-family-for-generations Massachusetts house with his perfect mom, dad, sister, and uber-perfect older brother, Franklin. Henry’s life is, in a word, perfect. But while PERFECT is all very well and good, the one thing it doesn’t prepare you for is TROUBLE. One cold spring day, on Henry’s birthday no less, Franklin is struck by a car while out running and falls into a coma. The driver is a Cambodian classmate named Chay Chouan, and the accident serves as fuel to an already smoldering racist fire between the old New England families in Henry’s town and the immigrant Cambodian families who have begun to settle there. Bricks are thrown, harsh words are said, and Henry’s perfect world is turned upside down. His father never leaves the house, his mother barely speaks, and his sister refuses to set foot outside her bedroom. The only thing Henry knows will make him feel better is to make a pilgrimage to Mount Katahdin in Maine, a hiking trip he had planned with his brother. Henry does eventually make that climb. But how he ends up doing it with Chay and a wonderful canine character simply named “Black Dog,†by his side is a powerful, subtle story of ultimate sacrifices, surprising secrets, and hard-won forgiveness. By book’s end, Henry has painfully learned that perfection comes at a price, and trouble can lead to truth. Penned by the author of one of my top ten favorite books of 2007, this smart, literary character study/mystery is a book worth lingering over and quoting from. Whatever you do, don’t let the humdrum earth-tone cover dissuade you from digging into the crackin’ good story underneath.
Rapunzel’s Revenge by Shannon and Dean Hale, illustrated by Nathan Hale
Yee haw! Shannon Hale and her hubby Dean have taken the tired old princess-in-a-tower-tale and re-imagined Rapunzel as a rootin’ tootin’ cowgirl, complete with scarlet lassoin’ braids, and a sassy sidekick named Jack (yeah, he of the magic bean fame). As in the original, Rapunzel is taken as an infant from her mother by a wicked witch in payment for some stolen…lettuce (for those of you not in the know, “rapunzel†is actually a salad green) and raised in isolation. But instead of sitting helplessly in a tower, she uses her mile-long braids to escape the tall tree-prison fashioned by said wicked witch Mother Gothel, and goes in search of her real mom, who has been forced to slave away in Gothel’s brutal mining camp. On the way she befriends huckster Jack, rescues a ransomed youngster, drives a pack of wild coyotes across the border, and wrestles a giant rattlesnake to death. This fearless ‘Punzie is more Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett than lovelorn Lady of Shallot, and ten times as fun! Hale & Hale’s brilliant cowgirl creation is brought to vivid, full-color life by Nathan Hale’s (no relation) rich illustrations, which resemble a grittier William Joyce. I haven’t had so much fun since Bloody Jack
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Sixteen-year-old Katniss knows what it is to be hungry. Ever since her father died in a mining accident, she has been the sole breadwinner for her family, teaching herself how to hunt with snares and arrows in the dark woods that surround District 12. Now it’s time for the annual Reaping lottery, when Kat’s futuristic fascist government forces each District to send one girl and one boy (known as Tributes) to compete in the Hunger Games, sort of like Survivor—except, to the DEATH. When her sweet little sister Prim’s name is called, Katniss immediately volunteers to go in her place, along with Peeta, the brawny baker’s son. Thrown into a harsh landscape with little resources, each Tribute fights to stay alive as the cameras track their every move for the entertainment of the crowds back home. No one expects the scrawny girl from the poorest District to last very long. But Katniss is tougher and smarter than she looks. She knows how to hunt and forage, and she cunningly builds an alliance with the physically stronger Peeta. But there can be only one Tribute left alive. Does Katniss have what it takes to wipe out the competition, including loyal Peeta? This disturbing, fascinating novel is reminiscent of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery
The Crazy School by Cornelia Read
Sarcastic, twenty-something amateur sleuth Madeline Dare, grown-up child of hippie parents, takes a job as a teacher at an elite, if fairly cult-ish private school for troubled teens. The head guru in charge, Santangelo, promises desperate parents results, no matter what technique he has to employ to get them, including isolation and humiliation. Madeline, who’s having nasty flashbacks about her own dad’s bizarre child-raising methods, is having serious doubts about whether she can continue to teach using Santangelo’s “unorthodox” techniques. Then, two of her fav students turn up dead and Madeline rejects the hypothesis that the kids offed themselves and instead begins to dig for evidence of corruption at the highest levels. Turns out that pseudo-suicides are the LEAST of what shady Santangelo has under his ridiculously pretentious opera cape. This bitterly funny mystery by Edgar Award-nominated author Cornelia Read has a great cast of teen characters, but the best voice is that of jaded, wickedly witty slacker sleuth Madeline Dare herself. This is one seriously dark comedic nailbiter.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, with illustrations by Dave McKean
Meet Nobody Owens. He hasn’t had a haircut in well, ever, his usual uniform is a gray winding sheet, and his best friends are a vampire named Silas and a long-dead girl named Liza. That’s because Nobody (or Bod for short) has been raised in graveyard with ghosts (Mr. and Mrs. Owens, to be specific) for parents and tombstones for playthings. When Bod was a toddler, an assassin known only as Jack crept into his house and murdered his entire family. While the monster was at his diabolical work, Bod quietly wandered out of his room and into the nearby graveyard. He was discovered by the Owenses, who decided to raise him themselves with the help of Silas, who could move about in human society and and secure food for the child. As Bod grows, he learns many useful things from his adopted family, like how to Fade, Dreamwalk, and make Fear, all the while knowing that the man who killed his family is still out there—and eventually he will have to face him. While the creepy quotient is not quite as high as Gaiman’s insta-classic Coraline, The Graveyard Book has a certain Burton-esque Nightmare Before Christmas quality that gives it an all-ages appeal. Both frightening and funny (and sometimes frighteningly funny) this latest supernatural goody from Master of Magic Gaiman is hopefully haunting a library or bookstore near you.
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson
Seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox has just woken up after being in a coma for a year. Disoriented and confused, she remembers nothing of the horrible car accident that caused her imposed sleep. Her parents are strangers, her memories full of holes. Gradually, she gets to know the Jenna of the past through the hundreds of hours of film her parents shot of their beloved only daughter. Who is that perfect smiling creature? Jenna can’t even begin to imagine knowing her, let alone being her. Slowly, she begins to reclaim her life by starting school again, making new friends, and sparking a romance with shy boy Ethan. But even as she plunges into her new life, she is plagued by questions about her old one. She used to be a ballerina. So why, after weeks of being out of bed, is her walk still so ungraceful? How is it that she is regaining memories she never even had her first time around—like her infant baptism? When Jenna gets a bad cut, she suddenly understands with hideous, perfect clarity exactly how far she has come from the girl she used to be to the person she is now. Pearson’s gradual revealing of Jenna’s true identity is masterful, as she teases readers with a shocking revelation that is just out of reach. Reminiscent of Eva
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
Sometime in the near future, silvery parasitic aliens infiltrate the human population, bringing peace and love but causing their hosts’ personalities to be erased. Melanie Stryder is a seventeen-year-old post apocalyptic street fighter with a bad attitude who also happens to be stunningly gorgeous. Wanderer is a 1,000-year-old well-traveled female alien soul who, despite being parasitic, is altruistic to the point of martyrdom. The two of them are both attempting to occupy Melanie’s body and making a sorry hash of it. (Souls are surgically inserted into the base of the neck by doctors who have already been Body-Snatched.) Melanie is trying to keep the location of her small rebel human outpost a secret from her parasite, but eventually the soul breaks through and seeks out Melanie’s man, Jared, her little brother Jamie, and a rag tag assortment of other folks who have managed to evade having their brain stems coated with memory-wiping silver silly-putty. When Melanie’s body first shows up at the secret desert camp under the direction of Wanderer, the insurgent humans are all for murdering her on the spot, but Wanderer wins them over by giving voice to Melanie’s thoughts and discovering to her own surprise that she actually digs these passionate, violent, lusty life forms. Things get complicated when two of the men in camp both fall for the dystopian Sybil—Jared, Melanie’s hot, older-man savior-type, and Ian, a brooding bad boy who has lost his heart to the selfless Wanderer, who he calls “Wanda.†Sound familiar? It should–Meyer treads some of the same supernatural romantic love triangle ground she traveled so well in her enormously popular Twilight series. If you liked those books, you’re gonna love this one. Personally, Meyer’s melodramatic dialogue drove me a little nuts, but I did dig her descriptions of Wanderer’s past worlds, and the sympathetic alien’s fascination with this planet. Clocking in at over 600 pages, it’s also not going to be easy to stuff in your backpack. If you prefer your interspecies romances with a few less pages and a bit more grit, you may want to pick up a copy of the now classic Blood and Chocolate, one of my all time fav romantic horror stories, instead.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
In a San Francisco of the near future, seventeen-year-old Marcus Yallow is a master hacker with a monster grudge. When the San Fran Bay Bridge is blown to smithereens by terrorists, Marcus and three of his best friends are hauled away as suspects by the Department of Homeland Security. They are interrogated, beaten, and denied food—FOR DAYS–just for being in the vicinity of the blast. After finally convincing his captors he knows nothing about the bombs, Marcus is released after signing documents swearing he’ll tell no one about his terrifying experience. He goes home to parents who are so happy that he’s alive that they buy his story of being quarantined due to possible exposure to biological toxins. But the world is not the way he left it. His beloved hometown has turned into a place where 24/7 surveillance is the name of the game. Law-abiding citizens are routinely shaken down if they deviate from their usual patterns by one iota. The DHS treats everyone like a potential terrorist threat. But Marcus refuses to accept the new police state and instead hatches a radical plan to jam the government’s circuits and return power to the people once and for all! How he manages to pull that off is the basis for this amazing sci-fi novel by tech-blogger Cory Doctorow. Clearly influenced by the events of September 11, 2001, stories from Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act and George Orwell’s classic 1984, Doctorow gives us a frighteningly contemporary glimpse at how easily the government can take away our civil liberties under the guise of keeping us “safe.” Totally timely and full of fascinating techno-talk that even the Google-challenged can understand, Little Brother is a fast-paced, thought-provoking read that will leave you searching for your own way to “jam” the Man! Want to know how Marcus does some of his techno-tricks? Check out Doctorow’s LB blog or connect with him on MySpace or Facebook.
