Annotation: A young girl travels through space and time to rescue her father, a scientist who mysteriously disappeared while working on a top-secret government project, from an evil force that threatens to destroy her family and planet.

Book Talk:

What if, in the course of conducting scientific research for the government, your Dad stumbled upon an unbelievable discovery?

What if time travel wasn’t just theoretically mathematically possible, but in fact actually possible?

But what if something went horribly wrong and through a scientific accident your Dad mysteriously disappeared?

Would you trust three strange women with questionable names who don’t seem quite human to transport you throughout the universe on a rescue mission?

What if you faced unimaginable creatures and forces on unfamiliar planets to find your Dad, but in the process lost your little brother?

How far would you go and how much would you risk to save your family and your planet and return everyone home safely?

Awards:

• 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up
• ALA 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000
• Lewis Carroll Shelf Award 1965
• Horn Book Fanfare Best Book 1963
• Locus Poll All-Time Best Fantasy Novel 1987
• Locus Poll All-Time Best Fantasy Novel Before 1990
• Newbery Medal Recipient 1963
• Sequoyah Book Award 1963
• Thisrecording.com 100 Greatest Science Fiction or Fantasy Novels of All Time

L’Engle, Madeleine. A Wrinkle in Time. New York: Farrar, 1962. Print.

Image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/

The Giver

Annotation: In a futuristic fantasy world, where many of the contemporary world’s problems have been done away with, one boy is selected to take on an unbearable burden and learns the cost of his community’s supposed “utopia.”

Book Talk:

Jonas grew up in a community where everything was easy and nothing ever hurt. He and his family unit follow all the rules, and all of their needs are taken care of. Like the other kids in his age group, Jonas has put in volunteer hours at different jobs and anticipates the ceremony where they will all be assigned permanent positions within the community. Though his parents assure him that the community’s leaders will choose a role that he is best suited for, he can’t help but be nervous. When the day of the ceremony arrives, Jonas watches as each of his friends is assigned a role that really does suit them. Until it all goes horribly awry. Jonas never could have predicted, or even imagined, this. Now, nothing will be easy for Jonas ever again and everything he always trusted and believed about his community is about to change.

“Jonas did not want to go back. He didn’t want the memories, didn’t want the honor, didn’t want the wisdom, didn’t want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. He sat in his dwelling alone, watching through the window, seeing children at play, citizens bicycling home from uneventful days at work, ordinary lives free of anguish because he had been selected, as others before him had, to bear their burden.”

Awards:

•  ALA “100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000”
•  ALA “Best Book for Young Adults”
• ALA “Notable Children’s Book”
• Booklist “Editor’s Choice”
• Boston Globe-Horn Honor Book 1993
• Buckeye Children’s Book Award 1997
• Heartland Award for Excellence 1997
• Newbery Medal 1994
• School Library Journal “Best Book of the Year”
•  William Allen White Award 1996

Lowry, Lois. The Giver. New York: Delacorte, 1993. Print.

Image courtesy of http://www.loislowry.com/

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl

Annotation: The journal entries of 13-year-old Anne, a Jewish girl living in hiding during World War Two, have captured the imagination of the world for over fifty years. Anne’s thoughts and feelings about family conflict, first love and cultivating a personal identity are utterly timeless and relatable, despite her most extraordinary situation.

Review: Anne Frank had only just turned thirteen when her family went into hiding abruptly in 1942, after witnessing many other Jewish families in Amsterdam torn apart, sent off to work camps and worse fates, nearly impossible to believe. Over two years, Anne documented her most personal thoughts and feelings in her closest friend and confidant, her journal Kitty. She wrote about everything from the day to day activities in the secret annex the Frank family shared with an another family, their son Peter and a dentist; to more emotional topics like her increasingly critical perspective of her parents and her sudden and then fleeting romance with Peter. Amazingly, Anne managed to experience so much of what most girls her age do, despite the extreme limitations of her situation. The suspense of living in hiding and the very real danger, lurking just around the corner, never fully abates, yet readers may find they are, at times, just as distracted from it as Anne was as they get lost in her thoughtful, descriptive and honest writing style and her faith and hope in the life that she believes lies in front of her.


Awards: None yet

Frank, Anne. Anne Frank: the Diary of a Young Girl. Trans. B.M. Moovaart-Doubleday. 1952. New York: Bantam, 1993. Print.

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Weetzie Bat

Annotation: Imagine you're a quirky, eccentric teenage girl from the magical city of Losa Angeles and you're granted three wishes by a genie from a magic lamp that all come true; only not the way you expected! So begins the tale of Weetzie Bat who, along with her unconventional family, struggles to find and hold on to love, in the face of all the darkness and pain in the world.

Review: Weetzie Bat is a book for anyone who has ever felt different; whether it’s because of how you look, where you come from or even who you love. Weetzie leads a magical life, cruising around L.A. with her best friend Dirk, hitting all the coolest punk shows and iconic LA hot spots. Any girl would be crazy not to crush on Dirk, and and yet, he has a secret that explains why he doesn’t feel quite the same way about Weetzie. This is one of the first of many challenges that life throws Weetzie’s way and throughout the story, she faces them all head on, though often in less than conventional ways! When Weetzie is granted three wishes from a genie in a magic lamp, they all come true, only not at all in the ways that she imagined!

Just when Weetzie thinks she’s solved all her problems and has created a happy home with her best friends Dirk and Duck and boyfriend “My Secret Agent Lover Man,” life throws another wrench in Weetzie’s plans and she takes a risk that tests the strength of the groups’ loyalty to each other. Tragedies like AIDS, homophobia and the destruction of the environment are just as relevant now as they were when the book was first published in 1989, and they weigh heavily on Weetzie’s family. Even Weetzie, with her seemingly limitless positive energy, struggles with the unraveling of her parents’ marriage. But Weetzie Bat is a story about fighting demons, taking charge and giving in to the magic that is all around. The magic is love and it’s worth fighting for, especially when you can do it with best friends, a sultry boyfriend and your own rules that you figure out along the way!

*Fans of Weetzie Bat will likely enjoy Block’s subsequent stories about the same characters, which have been published as a collection titled Dangerous Angels,as well as in two separate collections, Goat Girls and Beautiful Boys. Also available is Necklace of Kisses, which revisits Weetzie and company twenty years into the future, and the forthcoming prequel to Weetzie Bat, Pink Smog, slated for January 2012 publication.


Watch a live reading of a Weetzie Bat screenplay the author adapted from the novel! 

"Francesca Lia Block Weetzie Bat Reading Part 1" Online Posting. YouTube, 14 September 2010. Web. 1 December 2011.

Awards:

• ALA Best Book for Young Adults
• ALA Best of the Best Books for Young Adults
• ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers
• 1989 Parents’ Choice Gold Award
• 2005 Margaret A. Edwards Award
• 2009 Phoenix Award

Block, Francesca Lia. Weetzie Bat. Anniversary ed.
    New York: Harper, 2004. Print.


Image courtesy of http://printmag.com/