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My Sister's Keeper
By: Jodi Picoult

I read this book over the summer and absolutely loved it! It does have some charged political issues in it (designer babies), but nothing graphic. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who doesn't mind a longer book. Here is a link to a summary from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0743454537/ref=sib_fs_top/104-9083488-2739903?ie=UTF8&p=S00L&checkSum=52jmm99vtqWUXbO1EgsiLCf7WNRlYkOUepurlnuSJGc%3D#reader-link

Tallulah Falls

FIC FLE Fletcher, Christine

Debbie "Tallulah" Addy is a character that you'll love. Her loyalty to her friend and her determination to help her leads Tallulah on an adventure to discovering unlikely friendships and uncovering troubled ones. You'll love Tallulah--she's spunky and smart and determined. If you love animals, this book is full of them--dogs, cats and horses populate the pages and bring them to life. I really enjoyed this book and read it in two days.

The Joy Luck Club

FIC TAN Tan, Amy

Though June (Jing-mei) has sought to distance herself from the strange ways of her Chinese immigrant parents, when her mother dies, she is persuaded to take her place in the Joy Luck club, whose four elederly members have been meeting for years to play mah-jongg and exchange stories. As she hears these tales of the older generation--and tells her own tales of the new--June comes to a greater appreciation of her heritage. Tan herself tells a wonderful story, creating characters that are endearing, complex, and believable to us all. (LJ 2/15/89)

The Secret

158.1 BYR Byrne, Rhonda

Fragments of a Great Secret have been found in the oral traditions, in literature, in religions and philosophies throughout the centuries. For the first time, all the pieces of The Secret come together in an incredible revelation that will be life-transforming for all who experience it. In this book, you'll learn how to use The Secret in every aspect of your life -- money, health, relationships, happiness, and in every interaction you have in the world. You'll begin to understand the hidden, untapped power that's within you, and this revelation can bring joy to every aspect of your life. The Secret contains wisdom from modern-day teachers -- men and women who have used it to achieve health, wealth, and happiness. By applying the knowledge of The Secret, they bring to light compelling stories of eradicating disease, acquiring massive wealth, overcoming obstacles, and achieving what many would regard as impossible.

Copper Sun

FIC DRA Draper, Sharon Best known for her contemporary African American characters, Draper's latest novel is a searing work of historical fiction that imagines a 15-year-old African girl's journey through American slavery. The story begins in Amari's Ashanti village, but the idyllic scene explodes in bloodshed when slavers arrive and murder her family. Amari and her beloved, Besa, are shackled, and so begins the account of impossible horrors from the slave fort, the Middle Passage, and auction on American shores, where a rice plantation owner buys Amari for his 16-year-old son's sexual enjoyment. In brutal specifics, Draper shows the inhumanity: Amari is systematically raped on the slave ship and on the plantation and a slave child is used as alligator bait by white teenagers. And she adds to the complex history in alternating chapters that flip between Amari and Polly, an indentured white servant on Amari's plantation. A few plot elements, such as Amari's chance meeting with Besa, are contrived. But Draper builds the explosive tension to the last chapter, and the sheer power of the story, balanced between the overwhelmingly brutal facts of slavery and Amari's ferocious survivor's spirit, will leave readers breathless, even as they consider the story's larger questions about the infinite costs of slavery and how to reconcile history. A moving author's note discusses the real places and events on which the story is based. Give this to teens who have read Julius Lester's Day of Tears (2005). Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved



The Lovely Bones a Novel
Fic SEB Sebold, Alice
In the hands of a brilliant new novelist, and through the eyes of her winning new heroine, this tale of family, memory, love, and living is told by 14-year-old Susie Salmon, who is already in heaven. In the sweet, untroubled voice of a precocious teenage girl, Susie relates the awful events of her death and builds out of her family's grief the most hopeful and joyful of stories.



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FIC MCC McCormick, Patricia

REVIEW BY DEAN SCHNEIDER In this National Book Award finalist, 13-year-old Lakshmi lives in a hut, perched on a mountainside in the Himalayas. She loves the stunning beauty of the mountain's "long purple shadows," the tallow pumpkin blossoms that close in the evening as the white jasmine open. On nights when the moon is full, the hillside is bathed in a "magical white light, the glow of the perpetual snows that blanket the mountaintops." This beauty, however, contrasts with the ugliness of Lakshmi's fate as a young woman in that world. Children's lives are precarious, but girls' lives are expendable. Lakshmi's lazy stepfather does little work and spends his days gambling away money playing cards at the tea shop. The family is unprepared when monsoon rains come and wash away any hope of good crops and a better future. Lakshmi finds herself in Calcutta in the Happiness House, where she is forced into prostitution. At first, she believes she can do this despicable work and pay off her debt and return home, only to realize later that believing is stupidity, hope an affliction. In Patricia McCormick's beautifully crafted free verse novel, each poem is a hotline to the mind and voice of Lakshmi, and accumulations of detail delineate her circumstances and her inclination toward hope. Readers might see in her the fate of other survivors. When she looks in the mirror and sees a corpse, she might remind readers of Elie Wiesel at the end of Night, witnessing the same reflection after his time in concentration camps. When Lakshmi is told, "If they find out you can read and write, they will think you are planning to escape," the story of Frederick Douglass learning to read might come to mind. And when she realizes she will always be in debt, always cheated out of her earnings, hers is a sharecropper's experience, her own body the bartered crop. When Lakshkmi asks her mother, "Why must women suffer so?" her mother replies, "Simply to endure is to triumph," a resounding reminder of survivors of slavery and genocide in cities all over the world. Lakshmi's story of survival is told in poetry that will reach right into her readers' souls.

Bleach series Tite Kubo
FIC KUB
(Anime/Manga/Graphic Novels)
Book Description from Amazon.com

Ichigo Kurosaki has always been able to see ghosts, but this ability doesn't change his life nearly as much as his close encounter with Rukia Kuchiki, a shinigami and member of the mysterious Soul Society. While fighting a Hollow, an evil spirit that preys on humans who display psychic energy, Rukia attempts to lend Ichigo some of her powers so that he can save his family, but much to her surprise, Ichigo absorbs every last drop of her energy. Now a full-fledged shinigami himself, Ichigo quickly learns that the world he inhabits is one full of dangerous spirits, and along with Rukia, who is slowly regaining her powers, it's Ichigo's job to both protect the innocent from Hollows and to help the spirits themselves find peace.

Naruto series Masashi Kishimoto (Illustrator)
FIC KIS
(Anime/Manga/Graphic Novels)
Book Description from Amazon.com

Author Masashi Kishimoto made his debut in Weekly Shonen Jump in 1999 with Naruto, which won the Hop Step Award. Naruto must pass the difficult test to enter the Ninja Academy; deal with his rival, Konohamaru; and learn to get along with his new classmates, Sasuke and Sakura. Assigned to a three-person team, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura must survive a brutal test against their upper-level ninja instructor, Kakashi. Only two can pass — will Naruto be one of them?

Inside a Catholic Church: A Guide to Signs, Symbols, and Saints
246.9 CHA by Joseph M. Champlin

An illustrated guide to the signs, symbols, objects, and saints of the Catholic Church that explains their history, purpose, and significance