Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead

Although I picked this novel up at our middle school book fair, it is written for adults, and Scholastic took care to place an "Adult Bestseller" sticker on the front cover so there wouldn't be any confusion. The adult content warning is for some strong language, violence in the form of Civil War battle scenes and their aftermath, plus a few brief passages about intimacy and a sexual assault.
In the same style as Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road, this book follows 14-year-old Robey Childs as he heads out from his West Virginia mountain home to find his father during the height of the American Civil War. What Robey thinks is going to be an adventure when he gets the opportunity to leave his family farm for the first time turns out to be a brutal and honest journey of self-discovery as the young man quickly realizes the ways of human nature and the truths about war. If you're looking for a story full of hope and optimism, this isn't it. Along his travels, Robey meets con artists, scoundrels, thieves, murderers, rapists, and other evildoers, along with pious zealots, injured victims, and others like himself who are simply searching for deliverance from the horrors of the times.
While I found this book riveting in its prose, and almost unable to put it down, I had to take a couple of breaks just to ease the tension building within the chapters. This is a well-crafted work and one I highly recommend, but only to readers who, like the coal black horse of the title, have the strength, stamina, and endurance to see the journey through to its completion.

Partly Cloudy by Gary Soto

"Oranges" is one of my all-time favorite poems. In just a few lines it perfectly captures that elusive feeling of what it means to be young, poor, and in love. It can be found in an older collection of poems by noted writer Gary Soto. Now he has a new collection of poetry out that is sure to be just as popular. Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing is a slim volume that can be read quickly, but will probably be savored at length for its insight into young love. The first half of the book is written from a teenage girl's point of view, and the second half is from a young man's. I would recommend this title to teens, because it will show them that these new feelings they are experiencing are (or have been) shared by people the world over. I would recommend it to my older friends, to remind them of that special feeling--that "spark"--of what falling in love felt like the first time. Suitable for 8th graders and older due to some mature subject matter.

Big Red by Jim Kjelgaard

Fans of boy-and-his-dog hunting stories like "Where the Red Fern Grows" and "Old Yeller" will really like this novel. While you can pretty much guess what is going to happen by the end of the book, based on events in the opening chapters, it is the journey getting there that will keep readers interested and eager to find out exactly how the events will unfold. My only complaint--and it's a minor one--is the sometimes hokey-sounding dialect the characters use when they speak. I realize the book was written in another time, and the dialogue is supposed to convey the rural setting, but sometimes it's just a bit overdone. Other than that, this will be one I highly recommend to boys looking for hunting and adventure stories. I was a little late to the game in finding this classic, but I am glad I finally did. Now I'll have to sample some more of this author's similar works.

Starclimber by Kenneth Oppel

Set in an alternate turn-of-the-20th-century world, Starclimber is book three of a series started by Airborn, and continued in Skybreaker. Oppel is great at putting his characters into harrowing situations and letting them use their smarts to get themselves out of trouble. This book is a little different from the first two in that the two main characters are a little older and a little more worldly in their outlook. There are some truly eye-rolling moments that stretch the limits of credibility, even for such lightweight sci-fi material as this. (Without spoiling the story, let me just say it involves a monkey on board a space ship and leave it at that.) The ending, while satisfying on one level, left me shaking my head and thinking, "That'd NEVER happen in real life!" Is it an interesting read? Yes, if you've already been following the series. Is it an outstanding read? Not really....but it did keep me entertained for a few hours on a long holiday weekend.

The Sorceress by Michael Scott

Book three in the series The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel continues in the same vein as Mr. Scott's two earlier titles, The Alchemyst and The Magician. This comment is not meant as a slight, though, as readers of the two previous books will understand. Mr. Scott is a gifted writer who knows how to keep a plot taut and pages turning. So much of the current series fiction for adolescents tends to get watered down and repetitive, but not so with this one. Like John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice series, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel just keeps getting better with each new telling. Readers can expect lots of action, mystery, strange characters, surprising plot twists, and more.

The adventures in book 2 continue to alternate between Europe and San Francisco. The Sorceress finds our legendary twins escaping from Paris, France to London, England with plenty of villains and monsters fast on their heels. Guided by Nicholas Flamel and friends, Sophie and Josh are supposedly the select twins of legend who will unite their powers to foil the plans of the Dark Elders of the Shadowrealms who want to destroy the earth. They are on the run from Dr. John Dee and his frenemy, Nicolo Machiavelli, plus their assorted henchmen, monsters, and demons. Meanwhile, Perenelle, Nicholas' wife, is imprisoned on the island of Alcatraz near San Francisco where a menagerie of creatures from the depths of the underworld continue to make her life a living nightmare.

Will Perenelle be able to flee from her captors? Can the twins develop newfound powers and insights before it's too late? Has their rag-tag team lost the opportunity to escape with their lives? Will Nicholas have a chance to reunite with his beloved wife before they both die? And what evil power is keeping an eye on things in America anyway? Read The Sorceress by Michael Scott to find out!

The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd

The narrator of this British children's novel is Ted, a young lad with a mum, a dad, an older sister named Kat, a love of all things meteorological, and Asperger's Syndrome--a genetic condition closely associated with Autism. Ted is getting professional help for his illness and learning to cope in a "normal" world as best he can. He understands that reading body language is much more difficult than reading words off a page, or even predicting the weather. He knows that people don't always mean what they say, and that idioms--expressions of speech--shouldn't be taken literally. He can decipher the London underground (subway) route maps easily, but what he can't figure out--at least, right away--is how his cousin, Salim, got into a sealed pod of the London Eye ferris wheel and suddenly disappeared right in front of him and his sister. Was he kidnapped? Did he really enter the ride? Is he hiding out to avoid moving to New York? And what about the stranger who gave him the ticket in the first place? How does he fit into this puzzle? And how is Salim's mom going to react when she finds out her only son is missing? This book is an engaging mystery, but it also examines family relationships, and provides a glimpse into what life can be like for a person with Asperger's Syndrome. Readers will observe that Ted has a nervous habit of flapping his arm and/or humming when he is under stress. We find out that Ted is very literal in his communications with others, and that he has almost no sense of humor. We also realize that Ted is extremely intelligent and very observant, but lacks basic common sense in most situations. Ted is often dismissed outright as being in the way, a nuisance, and not worth listening to, but it is his methodical and analytical mind that eventually saves the day--and his cousin Salim. I think the point of this story is that communication is the key to understanding, no matter what the situation, and that's a pretty valuable lesson for anyone to learn.
A copy of this title is available from Stone library and is recommended for grades 6 and up. It is a finalist for the Texas Lone Star Reading list for 2009. The Irish author died of breast cancer in 2007 only weeks after this book was published. Her family maintains a website in her memory at www.siobhandowd.co.uk

Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer

This is the first book in what I assume will be at least a 5-volume saga: The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod. Author Heather Brewer captures the essence of being a typical middle-schooler in much the same way Greg Kinney does in his Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, only this time the main character is your average run-of-the-mill teenage vampire instead of an adolescent wimp. And I don't see this series as competition for the market seemingly created by Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga, but rather as a complementary companion series. Where Meyer's books are more focused on inter-species romance, Brewer seems more interested in human-vampire friendships. Without trying to sound sexist, think of it as 'chick flicks' vs. 'buddy movies'. The Vladimir Tod books are a bit more blunt, humorous, and action-oriented, and will likely find a quick audience with boys, while the Twilight books have more emotional tension, introspection, and finesse, and seem generally more suited to girls.

Vlad is being raised by Nelly whom he thinks of as a doting aunt. She conviently works as a nurse in their small-town hospital and has access to the local blood bank, taking home bags of plasma just before they've reached their expiration date and have to be destroyed. (After all, he is a growing boy, and in order to feed Vlad's ravenous appetite and help him hide his condition, she has to find a way for him to 'feed' somehow!) Nelly was the best friend of his late mother, a human who was married to his vampire dad and died with him in a mysterious house fire some three years ago. Being half-human makes Vlad the first of his kind and even more of an oddity to both the human and the vampire world. It's tough enough 'fitting in' at your average middle school, but imagine going through all that adolescent angst as a genuine outcast. That's the gist of this book.

Vlad is trying his best to pass as a normal teen when he is anything but. He is aided by his best friend Henry who knows Vlad's secret. (Vlad had 'tasted' Henry when he was a curious 8-year-old.) The boys are involved in the usual middle school activities of club meetings, homework, playing sports, avoiding bullies, and getting up the nerve to ask beautiful girls to the dance. Those mundane everyday events suddenly seem important to Vlad when he realizes he may lose them forever. A chance discovery of his dad's diary, the finding of cryptic symbols carved in their neighborhood, the sudden disappearance of his beloved English instructor, an oddly mysterious substitute teacher who seems a little too interested in Vlad's family history, and a dark stranger in town all lead Vlad to believe he, Henry, and Nelly may be in grave danger. (Emphasis on the 'grave' part.) What do all these occurences have in common, and what do they have to do with Vlad? He has to find out the answers before it's too late. Read book one in The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod to find out more. A copy is available at SMS library and is recommended for sixth grade and older.
Younger readers will just enjoy the story--equal parts Goosebumps and Harry Potter, with just a dash of Stephen King. Older readers might be intrigued by the allusions included (Stokerton is a neighboring town; D'Ablo is the bad guy). All in all a good read.