Girl, Stolen by April Henry

Scholastic Publishing

Cheyenne Wilder, a sixteen-year-old girl has just stepped into a nightmare. She's sleeping in the back of her car while her step-mother gets her some medicine for her pneumonia. A strange man gets into the car and starts driving away... with her in the car. Terrifying? Yes! Now add to that situation the fact that Cheyenne is blind. What starts as a car theft turns into a kidnapping scheme when the thieves find out Cheyenne is the daughter of Nike's president.

This story is an excellent choice for middle school readers. It has all the suspense and action most kids enjoy in a good book. I especially liked how April Henry developed Cheyenne's character; explaining how she learned to uses her senses,both physical senses and emotional senses, to survive in a sighted world.

Stolen, by Lucy Christopher.
Gemma is traveling with her parents. While in an airport, the cup of coffee she ordered at the stand is paid for by a stranger, a man called Ty with entrancing blue eyes, a man who pays attention to her. He seems familiar some how...

Ty drugs Gemma and takes her away to the Australian outback to be with him forever. Who is Ty? Why did he decide to kidnap Gemma? Will she be able to escape such an isolated and hostile place? Will she want to?

This book is an amazing book of survival. We learn what happens to a person who has to do what is needed to survive. Fascinating! Definitely, a MUST READ!!

What a great tale of Nicky Flynn and his new dog, Reggie. Nicky has had a rough couple of months. His parents just separated. He just moved to the Boston suburb of Charlestown with his mom. Which means a tiny apartment with no bedroom of his own, a new school. Life can't get much worse. Then his mom brings home a dog. Reggie is a retired seeing eye dog who takes over Nicky life. That's a good thing! With Reggie faithfully at his side through good times and bad. Nicky and Reggie walk through the streets of historic Boston finding the clues to life and finding new friends along the way too

Library Books on the Kindle, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Amazon

Library Books on the Kindle, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Amazon

Two book to choose from.

Doesn't it seem that we start one book then inevitably forget it and start a second, third, etc. Many students and adults find difficulty in following two stories. Maybe it's the multitasking mom thing but I'm okay with it. In fact, for me it's like overindulging in food; I always have room for more. So... what am I currently reading?

Book 1: "The Help" by Katheryn Stockett. A young white woman, Skeeter, comes back from college with the drive to follow her career path in Journalism unlike her friends who chose to give up their dreams to marry and have children. She convinces the maids of prominent socialite families to write about their experiences serving white people. Set during the Civil rights era of the early 1960's, the story delves into the relationship and expectations women during this time when women's rights were still evolving and the dangerous times for African American's searching for a voice for equality.



Book 2: "Thirteen Reason's Why: by Jay Asher. Clay Jensen comes home to a package filled with several cassette tapes from a girl who committed suicide two weeks earlier. In the tapes she explains the thirteen reasons why she decided to take her life.

Both books so far have been intense and intriguing. I actually find similarities in the way both books explore the relationships the girls/women have with the men in their environment. In both cases the women are fit into stereotypical roles that they rebel against in completely different ways.

I would recommend either to higher middle school to high school and up.