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In Sarah Weeks' new novel, instead of a cat, she writes about a dog plus the usual friendship between a girl and a boy set in a small town with seemingly random characters and unrelated stories.
There are 100 colors of nail polish created by BB, the new beauty shop owner in Royal, Indiana. Melody and her friend Nick are off to the new beauty parlor to find out who her father is calling "Honey" over the phone. Her mother died when she was born and life has just been about Melody and her father since then.
Has he found a wife finally? Who could it be? She desperately wants her father to be happy and has been making the same wish on her birthday for as long as she could remember but is her dream about to burst when she hears that her awful math teacher is also getting married?! Could her father be marrying her?!!
Honey is a magical tale of loss, love and the search for a happy ending for everyone. A solid and lovely story as good as Pie that's perfect for a summer read.
For readers in 4th - 6th grades.
THE TWINNING PROJECT by Robert Lipsyte has a little bit of something for every Tween. There's bullies getting beat up, football and band practice, families that don't get along, meddling teachers. Tom and Eddie are twins, living on different Earths, 50 years apart. Sound confusing? On Earth 1, Tom spends his time moving from school to school after he avenges the many underdogs being picked on by school bullies. Tom just hasn't been very happy since his Dad allegedly died, and he is surprised to hear his intergalactic twin is having the same kinds of feelings. Eddie isn't quite the rebellious type, though. He is more of a goodie two-shoes, even if it means it goes against his own beliefs to follow authority.
If you can get past the chapters switching back and forth between characters, you are really going to enjoy this mysterious science fiction story!
For grades 6 and up.
July 2014
A review from Mr. B. at the Grandview Branch:
Seventh
grader Louise changes her name to Thumbelina (small and mighty like herself).
She then resigns as star of the school’s gymnastics team, partly in response to
a series of threatening notes from less qualified team members. Recently
re-named, now free from team sports, Thumbelina has received her first “mash
note.” Her best female friend Reni and her best male friend Henderson (Reni’s
older brother) spend the bulk of the charming and delightful top plot trying to
discover the source of the mash notes. The most likely suspect seems to be the
even older pizza delivery guy, Benny, The
Boy on Cinnamon Street.
Cleverly woven beneath, around, and through these funny,
warm, well written episodes, we find the deeper real plot. Thumbelina lives
with her grandparents. She has few memories of Dad, and fewer still of her
seemingly distant Mom. While pizza delivery guy Benny isn’t the source of the
mash notes after all (sorry for the Spoiler), he IS the key that unlocks
Louise’s trauma-rattled brain, revealing the blocked memory of her mother’s
suicide. Once the harrowing memories have been confronted, Louise/Thumbelina returns
to the sport she loves, supported by the author of the mash notes (and his
sister), her grandparents, and a new inner peace. Phoebe Stone has constructed a readable tale about likable
youngsters who face a real-world personal tragedy in a realistic manner. She
knows her subject well – when she was eleven, her father committed suicide.
AGE: 11-14
