Creating Motivated Readers, One Video at a Time
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 ...
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-...
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 enem...
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 t...
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 o...
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 mo...
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 (t...
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...
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