Digital Booktalk

Au Pair Girl by Judy Klass Janine Larson is a quiet, responsible kid. But her ditsy friends keep her out past her curfew, and her parents are angry she hasn’t found a summer job. They think she spends too much time hanging with her friends and her boyfriend, Dan. Her father arranges for her to spend a month as an au pair girl for Dr. Cargill and his wife; they take their two kids to an island summer vacation home, and Janine goes along. Janine slowly wins the trust of the little boy. She can’t get close to his spoiled, snooty sister. But she has bigger problems to worry about, with the rude, unpleasant parents – and the fact that there is something not quite right about the way Dr. Cargill arranges adoptions for “orphan” children. Once the Cargills suspect that Janine knows too much about what is going on, Janine finds that her employers have changed from difficult to deadly .

Serpentauria: Ark of Extinction by Erik Daniel Shein Sara Tsvetkov is not a typical 11 year old girl, and her mom and dad are not the typical run-of-the-mill parents in modern suburbia. They lead a team dedicated to saving and protecting animals, and discovering how to use nature to find cures for many deadly diseases that ravage mankind. Added in is the Tsvetkov’s quest to save the world’s endangered animals and bring once-extinct species back to life using recovered DNA and cutting-edge cloning techniques. A diary and medallion given to Sara’s mother Marina by her grandmother compels them to make a startling discovery in Peru. This discovery, and Marina’s work with and love of snakes, lead Sara’s father to exploring the use of natural venoms in the development of cancer-fighting medicines. That secret research into a cancer cure draws the unwanted interest of others. All want to steal the research and its byproduct, a fast-acting super-toxin with no antidote that makes its victims appear to have died by snakebite. The truth about Sara’s family and their work is revealed as we find that their secret facility concealed inside a South American mountain hides far more than anyone can imagine.

The Last Martin by Jonathan Friesen Thirteen year-old Martin Boyle, the most fearful hypochondriac born into a family of worriers, doesn’t want to visit the family cemetery. Truth is, none of the Boyles are thrilled about the annual trip to visit their war dead. But after strict warnings from Mrs. Boyle, Martin ventures into the private cemetery for a grim remembrance. He’s surrounded by stones that bear his name.

Karma Club by Amy Rose Capetta Madison Kasparkova’s world is destroyed when her seemingly perfect boyfriend cheats on her. After her mom takes her on a New Age retreat that gets the teen thinking about karma, she decides not to wait for the universe to set things right and enlists her friends’ help in seeking revenge on those who’ve ever hurt them. They create a Karma Club and go about evening the score with their enemies, such as replacing a mean girl’s acne medication with a Crisco mixture. Through their club, the girls learn how small choices can have dire or delightful consequences—for them as well as for others. Brody explores the lengths teenage girls will go to in order to restore balance in their chaos-filled lives. This fun, fast-paced read will bring a smile to the face of anyone who has dealt with high school’s ups and downs, and will make them think before they meddle with fortune.

The Limit by Kriten Landon With personal debt out of control, the federal government monitors spending and forces families who exceed their limit to undergo stringent measures to correct the problem. One option is for their teenage children to be sent to a workhouse where they can earn money to help reduce the family debt. Matt, a math and computer whiz, is not concerned for himself because his parents are smart enough and rich enough to play by the rule. But the unthinkable happens and, despite the fact that he is only in eighth grade, he is whisked off to a facility. His considerable intelligence and skills make him a “Top Floor”; he lives in luxury and is given intellectually stimulating work. Still, Matt realizes he is in a prison, and, with his hacker skills and the help of other Top Floors, determines to discover the truth.

Entangled by Amy Rose Capetta Cade lives in a world where humans are second-class citizens. Without a home planet, and unable to stop from falling into a detached sensory limbo called “spacesick,” people are at the mercy of the galaxy’s many other intelligent alien races. The teen protagonist is a tough loner, making a living on the fringes of a desert economy by playing club sets on her guitar. Her music is also the only thing that helps with the static in her head. She is unprepared for the day that the Noise finally quiets, and a mysterious holographic scientist reveals that she is an experiment, and has become entangled-or inexorably intertwined at the particle level-with a boy named Xan, who is in danger halfway across the known universe. Cade sets out on a quest to find him and makes a few friends along the way.

My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate — a life and a role that she has never challenged…until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister — and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan It would seem that Percy Jackson is just another New York kid diagnosed with ADHD, who has good intentions, a nasty stepfather, and a long line of schools that have rejected him. The revelation of his status as half-blood offspring of one of the Greek gods is nicely packaged, and it’s easy to believe that Mount Olympus, in modern times, has migrated to the 600th floor of the Empire State Building (the center of Western civilization) while the door to Hades can be found at DOA Recording Studio, somewhere in LA. With his new friends, a disguised satyr, and the half-blood daughter of Athena, Percy sets out across the country to rectify a feud between Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon. Along the way they must cope with the Furies, Medusa, Aires (a motorcycle thug), and various other immortals.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini Amir is the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir’s father’s servant are best friends. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule.