River Readers

When Elizabeth's parents died she went to live with Aunt Purdy and Uncle Burlap who are definitely not interested in her. So it isn't really a surprise when she comes home from school to find them gone on a Christmas break. What is a surprise is that they are sending her to Winterhouse. Winterhouse is a fantastic hotel run by Norbridge Falls. At Winterhouse Elizabeth meets Freddy another young guest staying for the holiday. They have a shared love of word ladders and anagrams and together enjoy the activities at Winterhouse.

Allora is a beautiful place filled with colorful houses and flying fish. The sea surrounding the town is tempestuous and wild. Alberto is the town coffin maker. He used to build all kinds of things but a plague took his family 30 years ago and now he only builds coffins. Young Tito comes into his life with his magical bird. Alberto built a coffin for Tito's mother not long ago not realizing she had a son hiding out in her cabin. Now Tito is hungry and lonely and seeks solace with Alberto. But a bad man is looking for Tito determined to take him away. 

Amal loves going to school and wants to be a teacher one day. When her mother has her fifth daughter Amal has to stay home from school and help with the housework and the other children. One day in the market she has a run in with a powerful local man. To pay her family's debt she is sent to be a servant in his household. Luckily she ends up as a maid for his mother, but life away from home is not easy.

The Lotterys are a large, diverse family made up of two sets of gay parents and 7 kids both biological and adopted. The parents won the lottery and decided to team up. So they now coparent, nobody works, they homeschool the kids, and they live in a big old house called the Camelottery. Sumac is the middle child of this family and has to give up her room when Grumps comes to live with them. Grumps had never met any of the family and doesn't approve of their livestyle. Yet the parents keep leaning on Sumac to try and help Grumps fit in and learn their ways.

Sunny is the third book in Jason Reynolds' Track series and it is probably the most personal of them all and the least about track. Sunny is the team's mile runner and decides he doesn't want to run anymore. He has been running for is mom who died giving birth to him and not for himself. What he would really like to do is dance, but he still wants to be part of the team. So Coach sets him up as the discus thrower. The book is set up as a series of diary entries as Sunny deals with his feelings about his mom, running and his dad. 

This was awesome! It was like a Broadway play on audiobook. Full cast, musical numbers, sound effects, and the narration of Jim Dale all in one fantastic book. It is basically the traditional story of Rumplestiltskin with just a bit extra. The actors are fantastic, the songs are hilarious and the entire productions was just a treat to listen to. I highly recommend this short audiobook.

Pages are approximate as this is audio only.

So Beartown is supposed to be a story about hockey, but it is so much more than that. It is a story about a town and the people in that town and how they react to a tragedy. Beartown itself doesn't have a whole lot going for it. It is a town in the forest where people seem to leave more than they stay. But it is a hockey town and they have a great hockey team. The junior team is set to become champions and if they do the town will rise again. But on the eve of that rise the star of the team, Kevin, rapes the general manager's daughter Mya at a party.

Lowen and his family apply to buy a house in Millville for $1. They are ready to move out of the city because Lowen's friend was recently killed in a shooting. When the family is accepted to the dollar program they are not all excited to move, but life in small town Millville quickly grows on the kids. 

This book tells the story of Dexter's survival of the Joplin tornado. Living in Missouri the Joplin tornado is something I am pretty familiar with. I remember seeing pictures of the destruction on the news. These stories are written so that kids can understand these terrible events as they experience them through the eyes of someone their own age. Are they the best written books? Not really, but kids love them. They are fast-paced and full of action. I actually enjoyed this story a bit more than I did the others I have read.

Tajo has been rescued after the events of the last volume and is now back in Salus. She is trying to find Roln's daughter to stop her from blowing up the dome. Of course that doesn't work so she then has to convince the people to rise up against the Senate and take the dome to the stars. I like where this story is going, but I will admit that the art is not my favorite.

Ellie and Melvin are back in this followup to The Fourteenth Goldfish. Melvin has been on the road for the past year and tired of it. He is also tired of "the puberty". So he and Ellie team up for the science fair. They have an axolotl that seems to have extra appendages so they feed bits of it to fruit flies to see what happens. Of course Melvin also experiments on himself. 

Cam discovers a mysterious Hotel Between one day in a place that never had a hotel before. The Hotel is a magical doorway that connects all over the world through a central hub. Cam's mother and father used to work for the Hotel but never told Cam or his twin sister Cassia. Mom died and dad disappeared leaving only wooden coins for the twins. They are being raised by their grandmother Oma who has to deal with Cassia's medical issues. Cam takes a job with the Hotel in the hopes that it will help him find his father and a cure for Cassia's spina bifida. But who can he trust?

One night Mateo sees a couple of skunks stealing his old tricycle. Of course no one believes him. His family thinks he has hidden the tricycle so his little sister won't get it. So Mateo finds the skunks and discovers they talk! 

Mateo is also having problems at school. His old best friend Johnny has moved on and become friends with the class bully. Mateo has befriended Ashwin, but they are kind of loaners at school. They are both interested in knights and medieval weaponry though. 

Barbara is dealing with a lot in this graphic novel. Her mom is dying, but Barbara can't accept that. So instead she kills giants. Not everyone believes her nor can many other people see the giants. This is Barbara's way of dealing with all the real emotional stuff going on at home and it makes for a powerful story. I am excited to see what they do with this for the movie.

Felix is your typical middle school kid except for one little thing. He and his mom live in a van. It was supposed to be temporary, but as the months go by it becomes more of the norm. His mom Astrid has slumps and can't keep a job. Despite the fact that Felix has no fixed address or place to call home he is doing pretty well. He is enrolled in a French immersion school and has reconnected with his best friend. He even has a girl friend Winnie. The icing on the cake is the audition for his favorite game show.