When The Earth Shakes; Earthquakes, Volcaneoes and Tsunamis by Simon Winchester

Who knew that a scientist could writing  an interesting, readable, and at time scary story of 3 of the ways that the very earth that we live on can kill you? If you love watching shows that show destruction and death that Mother Nature seems to enjoy doing more lately, this book is for you. The author tells about how he actually experience some of these and lived to tell about it. He even broke the law to get the last interview of one of the most famous victims of Mt. St. Helens explosion that proved that yes, even in the United States there are volcanoes. Lots of great pictures and resources to find more death and destruction. Who knew science could be this fun? Just right up Evil Mutant Librarian's alley. 

Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Lanesha lives with her Mama Ya-Ya, the midwife who delivered her and kept her after her mother died at her birth. Mama Ya-Ya is old and tries her best to raise her with very little money but lots of love. School is where she feels out of place with a few friends.  Smart and curious in a place where big dreams are not the norm, she finds encouragement from a teacher who believes in her. She is looking forward to her birthday, but there is a storm brewing in the Gulf that Mama's dreams keep telling her will be the end of their world. It is up to Lanesha to get ready and as others leave, she and Mama do not. It is only after Katrina hits that Mama understands what her dreams mean. They are in big trouble and it will take everything Lanesha can think of to save herself, the dog in her care, and one of her friends. But it will take the love of a mother who has always been there when the flood forces Lanesha to do things she didn't think she could do.  Which mother is it, the one who raised her or the one she knew that never really left her? Does a mother's love really ever die?

The Princess Curse by Merrie Haskell

Reveta has seen a lot in her 13 years, which has helped her to become a bright and strong person. She will need to be both when living in the  kingdom of Sylvania with her soldier father who has finally retrieved her from the safe place her mom left her when she died.  She is pulled into a mystery that has to be solved - where do the 12 princesses go at night and how do they get out of the locked place that their father the king has them every night? When a friend is hurt trying to solve this, Reveta knows she has to solve it or else. What she didn't know is that she will have to make a choice that no mortal should have to make. When she makes it, she is drawn into another mystery that has even more at stake. If you love fairy tales, myths, and plot twists, you will love this book. Would you have made the same choice or do you have the courage to live with your choices?

Far North by Will Hobbs

If you love the Hatchet series, try this and you will find a new author who you will love. Gabe is in boarding school in Northwest Territories of Canada to be closer to his only parent, his dad. His roommate Raymond is one of the First Nation people but comes to school with an electric guitar and a hockey stick.  When Raymond's great uncle Johnny Ravin leaves the hospital to go home, the boys join him on the plane. When the pilot decides to show the boys some of the beauty of the wild country without letting air traffic controllers know, the trouble begins. It will be up to the boys to get themselves and the other survivor out, but being modern teens do they even know how? Johnny Ravin's worries about how the old ways are being lost may be right - how do you survive if you have lived your life dependent on others to supply all your needs? How many ways are there to die in the wilderness of Canada? Read this and you will learn about too many.

How to catch a Bogle by Catherine Jinks

Your life must have been hard if you think you have it made if you are used as bait to catch supernatural demons that eat children. Birdie is an orphan who thinks she has it made because she isn't in the workhouse, begging, or stealing for a living. Alfred makes a living as a Bogle catcher and Birdie's special talent makes a good living for both of them. When Miss Eames, a rich society lady, learns of their activities, she wants to learn more about how they work. She also wants to give Birdie a better life but Birdie is loyal to the man who found her after her mother died and gave her a home. When some pickpockets come up missing, the trail leads to one of the most evil men in London and this man will kill to keep his "experiments" a secret! As Birdie, Alfred, and Miss Eames get closer, the more danger everyone is in. Will Birdie's new friend come in time? And if she does, will Birdie take the path that leads to a better life if she lives to do it? If you like fast paced mysteries with lots of clues, you will love this.

Call of the Klondike: a True Gold Rush Adventure by David Meissner & Kim, Richardson

What would make sane men suddenly leave and travel to the cold up north at a time when our modern warm clothes did not exist even in their dreams? Was it the economy that was even worse than a few year ago? Or was it gold fever that seems to strike out of the blue? In their own words, Stanley Pearce and Marshall Bond tell about how they got their fathers to foot the bill so they could find their fortunes. Both were college educated and had mining backgrounds so they were able to get to the Klondike in northern Canada ahead of those who also watched miners bring a ship full of riches to Seattle. Real pictures from the time help you understand what really happened and the dangers they faced. What supplies did they need to survive and how hard was it getting there in the first place? Maybe part of the trail leading to the gold fields called Dead Horse may tell you part of the story. Can cold really freeze your nose and how could you not even know it? How did the book Call of the Wild get involved in all of this? Did they get rich? The bigger question is why sometimes you really need to lie to your mother and have to get away with it or else. If you are ready for a real life adventure where life and death get too close, enjoy this one.

Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School Book the First) by Gail Carriger

You think your parents don't understand you. Sophronia doesn't want to be like all the other young ladies in her world of 1851 England (if you watch Downton Abbey you may understand). When she finally gets her mother so angry, she is shipped off to a finishing school -Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Qualities. That is the last place she wants to be, or so she thinks, but on her way she learns from her travel companions it is not your "normal" finishing school and she is what they call a covert recruit. As she is trying to find out what that is, the stagecoach is attacked by something you will not find in our history of England. This is only the start of surprises and quickly she learns that she may fit in more than she thought. If you think your teachers are weird, you have not met the faculty of this place. I would fit in easily. But there is a more pressing problem than learning how to curtsy and teatime manners while knowing how to hide the knife in your dress. Something has turned up missing and if the school doesn't hand it over, it might not be around much longer and its students may go with it. If you love a fast paced story full of the unexpected and humorous twists, this is for you. All I know is I want the pet dog she hides in her suite at school. I know I am a cat person, but I think that dog is the coolest dog in any book I have ever read. 

Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms: Magic, Mystery & avery Strange Adventures by Lissa Evans

Stuart Horten is not happy to move back to his father's home town. He had to leave his friends and a cool house to go to a small home with 3 noisy girls next door who like to write bad things about them in their "newspaper." But once he learns about the mysterious disappearance of his great uncle Tony, life gets more interesting. Turns out his dull father was left a clue to solve what really happened to Uncle Tony but didn't bother to do it. So Stuart sets off on the cold trail that leads to places where he will only get in trouble if he goes. On his quest, he doesn't know who he can trust, but he has to do something before they tear down Tony's abandoned house which might have the final clue to lead to the surprising ending. When he realizes that he is being followed, life gets more dangerous with every clue. If he does find the truth, will any of adults believe him? If you love a good mystery that is not easy to know where it is going, this book is for you.  

Lincoln's Flying Spries: Thaddeus Lowe and the Civil War Balloon Corps by Gail Jarrow

Before airplanes and satellites, armies still needed to know what each other were doing or even if they left under the cover of darkness. 150 years ago, balloons were the new high tech and brave (or stupid depending on your definition of those words) men rode high to do the spying. Thaddeus Lowe was the most famous and daring - he wanted to prove that he could take a balloon across the Atlantic Ocean but war broke out, so he volunteered to help the Union cause. How much trouble could a man in a balloon could get into? Being shot out of the air or being captured was a possibility any time you went up, but something else stopped them cold. Was it the technology that was lacking or was it humans' lack of vision?   When did the first aircraft carrier really exist? What were those "Quaker Guns" the balloons helped to find? (FYI - Quakers don't believe in war, so what is with those guns???) When did the first balloon trip happen across the Atlantic? Did those Confederates get their own balloon? How did Custer get involved with all of this? If you want the answers, keep reading this book.  If you have missed pictures in those books you have to read for school, you will enjoy the ones here.  They are really from the era so don't ask me why they are in black and white.

Across the Great Barrier by Patricia Wrede

I have not let myself read a whole series in almost 20 years, but I had to read the sequel to The Thirteenth Child.  The reason the sequel made this blog is you don't have to read it to understand the story (but you will want to anyway after you read this book). Eff has always had trouble controlling her magic. She has lived in the shadow of her twin brother and liked it that way. But now she has to figure out what she will do with her life as she graduates school. With others starting to believe she could be a powerful magician, she just wants to be left alone. But a trip across the great magical barrier brings her to a land where regular animals can kill you if the magic ones don't get you first.  If you don't understand the rules, you can get killed even if you are on the "safe" side. Her twin, Lan, has never been one who respects the rules and learns that with magic, not doing so will get someone killed quickly. But it will take both of them to help the settlers when a new magical animal shows up and there is evidence it has been in the area before with terrible consequences. If you like history and fantasy, just imagine what our country's history would be like if there was really magic in the world. Beware, you may have to read the last in series The Far West just like I did. I have too many authors to read to keep reading books by authors I have read but this series made me read it. Will it make you?

Blizzard! by Jim Murphy

125 years ago this day, many people in New York city found themselves fighting to stay alive.

Without the modern weather forecasting we have today, no one saw it coming. Even other places in the Northeast were hit even harder.  Hurricane Sandy hit the coast with wind and water, but this blizzard was just as powerful and it lasted 3 days. Who will survive, the young woman trying to make to the city on the trian that use coal stoves to heat the cars, the lawyer who decides to walk the long blocks or the factory workers trying to get home? What about the animals? Horses pulled everything and how can they survive being outside in this storm? Life and death struggles that  we think could not happen today, but please read and learn from their mistakes. Mistakes in a blizzard could cost you. If you like the Weather Channel, you will love this.

The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman

Elizabeth's life takes a turn for the better when she helps a homeless woman and her teacher takes notice. He helps her get a job at the most unusual library -New York Circulating Material Repository. (I think I might have gone to library school with a few of the librarians) There is where she starts to find some real friends and gets pulled into solving who is taking some of the most interesting items which are kept in the basement in Grimm Collection.  Who can be trusted and who can't? When Elizabeth leaves her sense of direction as collateral for one of the items from the Grimm Collection so she could borrow it and the item can't be returned as she got it, she has to find the answer to the mystery.   (After you read about a few items in the Grimm Collection, you may be tempted to leave your first born just to get your hands on them.)  Is that a real bird that keeps showing up or is it magic? Is it really a good idea to run out of a library when you are only 6 inches tall? Could some of the patrons be the key? How does her and others interesting magic sense help?  Is her stepmother somehow involved? Can a girl whose life is so similar to Cinderella's really save herself from ending up in a new Grimm Fairy Tale? Please let me know which special collection in the basement you would love to get into. I might get back to you about which one is my favorite.

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Normally, I don't include books that are picked up without my help, but since the movie was not that great, you might miss a great read. For those of you who thought the movie was great, you got to read the book to see why most of my students didn't. Percy doesn't fit in at school or home. His step dad is awful and his mom has sent him to boarding schools, but loves him enough to keep him safe any way she can. He doesn't understand until events send him to Camp Half-Blood, where he learns who his real dad really is and why this fact has been a problem his whole life. This news is only a start of  the adventures that will either kill him or worst end civilization. I have to admit, I missed at least one mythical monster coming. Will you? If you love Greek Myths or a fast paced adventure, you will not be able to put this down. I wonder if deep down Percy would want to trade places with a regular, normal middle schooler (as if there are any of those). Would you really want to trade places with him? Read this book before you answer that question.

Z For Zachariah by Robert c. O'Brien

For those of you who loved the strong heroine of the Hunger Games, this is a must read. Also set in the future where those adults messed up the world, Ann Burden believes she is the only one left. It was always said the valley she lived in with her family had its own environment. No matter what happened to rest of the world, it kept everyone safe that lived there. But when her family and the others left to find help, they never came back. She was left behind just in case the telephones started working again. With only her brother's dog to keep her company, Ann found a way to stay alive, but she kept a look out for any strangers that might have made it through. One day she saw smoke from a fire and each day that smoke came closer. Ann quickly planned how to stay safe, but did she really need to? Who is this stranger and how did he survive? The chilling answers test her survival skills and make her finally realize that the dog must die.  What would drive her to doing that to the one living being who has helped keep her sane? Would you do the same? Would you?

Thirteenth Child by Patricia C. Wrede

What if our history had magic in it? What would be different? Does a belief really mean that an innocent child can be bad or great because of the number of their birth order? Eff is a twin. She is the 13th child, but her twin brother Lan is the 7th son of a 7th son. She will be a bad seed and her brother will be a great magician, at least according to her uncle. To escape her uncles', aunts', and cousins' beliefs, her parents agree to let her Dad take a job as professor of Magic in a land grant college at the edge of the wilderness on the Mammoth River. It is a frontier town just like the ones in our history, but magic keeps the mythical beasts like dragons, unicorns,and woolly mammoths from the settlements. Adventures are always around the corner and danger is nearer than anyone wants to think. As Eff and Lan grow up, they learn that there is more than one type of magic. But which is best, the one that gave their relatives their beliefs and their father teaches, or the one a favorite teacher learned from her parents? With many twists, characters, and weird facts that seem so similar to our history, the tension builds until the their world starts to blow apart and the matter of who is the real powerful one is questioned in a fight to not die or see their father's death before their eyes. See if you can figure out what part of our history has been changed by just adding a little magic.

The Dragons of Spratt, Ohio by Linda Zinnen

Set in the real place called The Wilds, a wild animal preserve that was once a strip mine in southeast Ohio, John gets the shock of his life when he sees a dragon flying around. While he is very excited, his mom is upset that the zebras are getting eaten. Zebras are expensive and she has to fight for every dollar from both the state and federal government. When both parents leave to go to Washington D.C. to fight for funding, John is left to care for the late dragon's eggs. (His dad has to go to keep Mom from doing great bodily harm to too many senators even if some of us might enjoy that.) Somehow, his Dad's sister who lives in France finds out about the dragon and shows up with too much stuff that could mean she is taking her job of research and development for cosmetics company a little too seriously. What can a high school nerd do to protect the cute little dragons if his only help is the sister of his best friend, who seems to only think about style and beauty? Never underestimate a teenage girl when the going gets tough, and boy, does the going get tough. Someone or something is not going to make it out alive. To find out who, read the book. The surprise twist will not be expected and no, it isn't that Ohio has dragons. People in Michigan always think the weirdest things about Ohio. To learn more about The Wilds, just go to: www.thewilds.org/about/

Closed for the Season by Mary Downing Hahn

After about the 5th student told me this was the best book they ever read, I knew I needed to read it. Other books by this author are also popular and had to have multiple copies bought. Now I see why. How would you like to find out that you are not just the new kid in town, but you also live in a house of an unsolved murder. Logan just wants to fit in with the students at his new junior high when school starts, but events will probably stop that. His next door neighbor wants his help solving the murder and once they start, they have to see it through. Whoever killed Mrs. Donaldson has started to notice their search and now they may be the target. If you like plot twists, you will love this. For those of you who read the last few pages to see what happens, it won't work. The author has solved the it sooner and you will have to read it to find out who did murder that poor sweet little old lady. One of the characters will not be who you think that character is. It fit the plot but it was a shock. For those of you who are picked on by the popular kids, you will really love the ending.

Into the Wild by Erin Hunter (Warriors series)

This is the book that has started 3 different series about 4 clans of wild cats trying to survive in an unforgiving world and the fights with each other. Rusty is just a kittypet (house cat) who takes off to wild, but he might be the answer that the leader of ThunderClan's saw as she dreamt. Does he have what it takes to help the clan when other clan breaks tradition and tries to take all the clans land for itself? Can he be a warrior or is he just a soft pet of Two legs? You need to read the books in order so you won't get lost, but each series has its own story line. Reading this one first, you will learn how one cat can make a difference to a whole world of cats. Not only for cat lovers, if you enjoy battles between warriors, you will love the action in the fights between the clans. Warriors are not made, they are born, but training will keep warriors from dying before their time. But remember, the worst enemies can be the closest friends if they choose to be.

The Forest of Silence by Emily Rodda (Deltora Quest series)

First book of a series that EML was told by too many students she had to get for the library, it is a great adventure filled with many dangers that the characters barely survive. When a king lets down his people by not doing his duties, evil overruns the kingdom. His main duty was to wear a magical belt that kept the evil powers at bay. After many years of war, 2 brave young men set out to find the stones from that belt that have been hidden across the kingdom. If those stones can be found and the belt put back together, the heir to the throne will be able drive the evil powers out. While both think it won't be that difficult, it takes a surprise creature's help to keep both of them from dying before the adventure even starts. If you read this one, plan on reading all 8 to see how this quest will end.

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Mysterious Mr. Benedict is looking for children, orphans in fact, to send undercover to the Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, a school that the only rule is there is NO rules. Ads placed in papers for gifted students bring many, but only a few finally pass the tests he gave. It seems that the whole world is in the middle of terrible problems and upsets, and some how the institute is involved. If his spies fail, no one will miss them if they are orphans will they? You get to take the tests along with the characters. See if you can pass them. EML didn't and we all know how smart librarians are. Dangers are every where and the upsets are too close to what is happening in our world now. Maybe this is not that fictional? What if.....