Beastly by Alex Flinn

The guy who used to be Kyle Kingsbury has been transformed by… well… a witch, after standing up the wrong girl for prom.  But he gave a rose to the girl taking the tickets, and for that he gets a chance to redeem himself.  His father is a news anchor and never home anyway, but when he thinks Kyle’s new appearance could jeopardize his job (or his ratings!), Kyle gets a house to himself (and his housekeeper, and his tutor) to do with what he likes, as long as he stays inside and out of sights and has, you know, no contact at all with the outside world.  He has two years to be kissed by someone who truly loves him, someone he loves truly in return.  Will he find someone who can look beyond his appearance?

Beastly is scheduled to be made into a movie, with Neil Patrick Harris playing Kyle’s blind tutor, and Vanessa Hudgens and Mary-Kate Olsen playing two of the girls in Kyle’s life.

Review by Kathleen from a library copy.

Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You by Peter Cameron

James Sveck may not be the most likeable guy.  In the summer after high school, he’s decided that he doesn’t want to go to college after all.  He’d rather take the money his dad would have spent on four years at Brown and buy a house in the midwest.  This would be a complete change of pace for James after his upbringing in New York City with his artist and art gallery owner mother and hot-shot lawyer father.  As the summer progresses, James doesn’t really know what he wants, and what starts out as friendly joking with the other guy who works at his mother’s gallery might have more consequences than James thinks.

Review by Kathleen from a library copy

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things by Carolyn Mackler

Virginia feels out of place in her family.  Her mom is a fitness junkie, her dad only likes skinny girls, her older sister is in the Peace Corps, and her brother is off at college.  Oh, and her best friend just moved to Washington for the year.  And now Virginia’s mom wants to take her to another doctor because of her weight.  Honestly, she thinks her weight is more of a problem for her mom than herself.  Even the doctor tells her she’s completely healthy.  And even when her brother gets kicked out of college for the semester while they “investigate” the charges against him, Virginia still feels like she’s the black sheep of the family, and no one wants to talk about what’s really going on.  So it’s easy for her to take her friend Shannon up on her offer to fly out to Seattle for Thanksgiving.

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things was given a Printz Honor award.

Review by Kathleen from a library copy

Waiting For Normal by Leslie Connor

Addie’s mother has never done anything by half measures.  She’s always been an “all or nothing” kind of person.  So now that Addie’s mother’s marriage to Dwight has gone from all (married, two kids with Dwight) to nothing (divorced, no custody of those two kids, and living in a trailer), Addie has to pick up the pieces.  She loves her stepdad, and her stepdad takes better care of her than her mom does.  Her mom would rather sleep all morning, watch daytime TV and chat online while she “works on her business plan.”  But meanwhile, in the real world, Addie is running out of food, and her mom keeps running out.  Addie just wants something normal.

Review by Kathleen

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Miranda knows her mom wants to be on The $20,000 Pyramid.  It’s their ticket out of the dingy apartment.  Miranda’s mom works at a law firm, and her boyfriend Richard, aka Mr. Perfect, works there too.  And everywhere Miranda goes, whether home or school or Belle’s store, she brings her copy of Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time with her.  She loves the story of Meg and time travel and rescuing her father.  But when she starts getting mysterious notes, Miranda doesn’t know what’s going on.  She has to unravel the mystery of what the notes mean, who the Laughing Man by the mailbox really is, and what’s going on with her friends.  And the truth is a lot stranger than even Miranda can imagine.

When You Reach Me won the Newberry Medal for 2009.

Review by Kathleen

Peeled by Joan Bauer

Hildy Biddle is the star reporter at her high school’s newspaper.  Usually the school newspaper covers the events at the school, and events like the crowning of the annual Apple Blossom Queen, but this year, the school has a new event to cover.  There are strange things happening at a farm at the edge of town, and the local newspaper is claiming it’s a ghost and printing all of the gossip.  But when the school newspaper does some real digging on the story, they get shut down.  Hildy and her fellow journalists have to go underground to print the real news and solve the case.

You can visit Joan Bauer at her website.

Review by Kathleen

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

Isabel lives with her epileptic sister Ruth on Miss Mary Finch’s farm when the old woman dies.  Miss Mary had promised Isabel that when she died, Isabel and her sister would be freed from slavery, but Mary’s nephew Robert has other ideas.  He claims not to be able to locate the will, and says the lawyer is out-of-town, so, in an effort to expedite the sale of the estate, he decides to sell off Isabel and Ruth.  Thus begins their harrowing journey to New York and into the midst of the Revolutionary War.

Laurie Halse Anderson is a masterful storyteller, and, I have on very good authority, wonderful in person (she sang “Happy Birthday” to a friend of mine at the American Library Association’s Annual Conference in 2009).  She was the 2009 winner of the Margaret A. Edwards award for body of work in young adult literature.

Be careful with this book, though, because it ends on a cliff-hanger.

Review by Kathleen

The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper

Sparrow Delaney is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter in a family of mediums.  She lives in Lily Dale, NY, famous for mediums, psychics, and the supernatural – a veritable metropolis for ghosts and those seeking loved ones who have “Crossed Over.”  But now Sparrow has a chance to go to a high school thirty miles away, where no one knows her crazy family or expects her to be able to talk to ghosts.  That’s the plan, anyway, and it starts going awry the first day when she notices a cute guy in her history class… and the cute ghost flicking him in the ear right behind him.  Can Sparrow keep on pretending that she isn’t a medium?  Why is Luke always haunting her?  And is he really haunting her, or is he trying to get through to Jake?

The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney is designed for younger teens.  The ending leaves open the possibility of a sequel.  This is good for a quick read.

You can visit Suzanne Harper at http://www.suzanneharper.com/.