Grand and Humble by Brent Hartinger

Premonitions. Dreams. Visions. Oujia Boards. Psychics. Secrets. Revelations. Two teenage boys. One the son of a senator. The other the son of a single father. One popular. The other a geek. One paralyzed by panic attacks he can’t control. The other inundated with nightmares. Both picturing their own deaths. Two separate lives on separate courses. The one thing Harlan and Manny have in common is the intersection of Grand and Humble, the intersection of their lives, the intersection that will make you question your understanding of fate and destiny.

Nothing But The Truth by Avi

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and Nothing But the Truth? If you’ve watched enough courtroom dramas, you’ve heard that oath being taken. Telling the truth should be simple, right? Well, I’m here to tell you that the truth can be a little more complicated than you’d think. The thing I find more difficult than the truth would be rules. Rules, rules, rules. They are everywhere and it seems like people are always making up rules to make life harder. But the place they bother me the most is in school. The rules say you have to go everyday for 8 hours from age 5 to 18. You have to listen to some know-it-all teacher drone on and on about stuff that is boring and out of date. Then there are rules that if you aren’t passing every subject you can’t go out for sports. Whatever! My stupid English teacher hates me and that’s why I’m failing her class and why I can’t run track. Now that stupid teacher is trying to tell me there is a rule against humming the national anthem. Excuse me? I can’t believe that something as harmless as humming could cause such a raucous, make news across the country, and affect so many people’s lives. But it has…So there you have it. Nothing But the Truth.

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

What do you think of when you hear a church bell ring? Maybe it reminds you of a wedding, a celebration? Maybe you think of it as marking a time of day, such as morning, noon, and night? Possibly as signaling time for worship and prayer? What if the joyful sound of the church bells weren’t so joyous? What if they began to signal death and what if they never stopped ringing? How would you feel? Would it worry or scare you or drive you crazy? For Mattie Cook and the city of Philadelphia in the late hot summer of 1793, the tolling of the church bells signified that a mysterious illness, yellow fever, had claimed another victim. At first the bells tolled once or twice per day but within weeks the bells rang constantly. Fear and panic set in as the death count climbed and cemeteries began filling up. “Bring out your dead, bring out your dead!” was the call from the streets. The rich people fled the city in an attempt to escape the outbreak and those who couldn’t leave were at the mercy of doctors who were willing to try useless and dangerous methods to rid the patient of the disease. Worried that Mattie will fall ill with the fever, her mother sends her away to the country to wait with friends. But due to quarantines in nearby towns, she never makes it and she too falls ill with the fever. Will Mattie be strong enough to make it back to Philadelphia and survive this deadly disease? Fever 1793 is based on the actual tragedy that befell the nation’s capital city.

Endgame by Nancy Garden

Have you ever been picked on? Misunderstood? Felt like you’d lost all control? Meet Gray. He’s a 14-year-old freshman whose family has just moved from Massachusetts to Connecticut. His parents have assured him that this year will be different, a chance to forget about all the bad stuff that happened at Parker Middle School. But as it turns out, for Gray nothing is going to change. He’s still gonna be the kid who gets picked on, pushed around, bullied, and beat up by the big tough jocks. But this time, the abuse has escalated and Gray can’t say anything about it because the adults seem to just brush it off as mild teasing and even if he did tell, the jocks just do more damage. Too make matters worse, Gray’s dad treats him as bad as the jocks do. Gray can only take so much and when the last straw snaps, he does the only thing he can think of to make the pain go away and six lives are drastically changed forever. Let Gray tell you the truth about what caused the extreme chain of events that altered his life.

**If you've ever wondered what would make someone feel like violence was the only answer and what could be going on in the mind of a school shooter, this powerful novel is the one for you.**

Fly on the Wall by E. Lockhart

Ever wonder what it would be like to just watch the world from another perspective, say a fly on the wall. Gretchen did. She was tired of her life. Her parents just told her they are getting a divorce and she must sort through her things and get rid of the “junk”. She attends the prestigious Manhattan High School of the Arts and doesn’t fit in. Her art teacher is continuously criticizing her art work. She loves Spiderman and is great at drawing in the comic style. Plus she has a huge crush on Titus, a junior who doesn’t seem to notice her. Gretchen’s mom is leaving on a 10 day cruise and her father is going to Hong Kong. Gretchen is dreading the time alone, especially since her only friend Katya seems to be busy all the time. It is then she makes her ill-fated wish, “to be a fly on the wall of the boy’s locker room”. She sits down to finally read her homework assignment, Kafka’s Metamorphosis.
Will Gretchen enjoy her new life as a fly? What will she learn about herself and her classmates from her new perspective? Will she ever find a way to get back to her real life or will she be stuck as a fly forever? How would you feel about being just A Fly on the Wall?
**WARNING. Gretchen's experiences as a fly do take place in the boy's locker room and she gives descriptions of what she sees. Also there is swearing in this book. If either of those things bother you, you may want to steer clear of this one.**

Sweet Sixteen Princess by Meg Cabot

There are 3 days until Mia’s 16th birthday. Lilly won’t stop talking about Lana’s party on a yacht and Grandmere has invited the MTV show My Super Sweet Sixteen to film Mia’s birthday extravaganza with 100 of her closest friends for a weekend in Genovia. All Mia wants is a regular birthday party that doesn’t include Lilly playing 7 Minutes in Heaven with a Nepalese busboy who wasn’t her boyfriend. Will Mia get her wish or will her Royal Sweet Sixteen be just another day in the life of Genovia/America’s most infamous princess.

Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe

Pseudo CSI Equipment (Blush brush, eye shadow, tweezers and makeup bags): $25
Suite at Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas: $300
A Las Vegas-sized mystery with keen fashion sense, witty one-liners, and footnoted conversations between friends: So Mastercard (AKA…$PRICELESS) and Totally Visa (Everywhere you want to be).
Little Life Lesson 1: If you want to have a fun, relaxing, uneventful summer vacation, do not go on a family vacation to Las Vegas. Especially if you are like Jasmine and have no innate superpowers.
Little Life Lesson 2: If you fail to heed this warning and go on said vacation, remember to really SEE what is happening. It is not merely a coincidence when a wild cat jumps on you, a little boy yells for you to save the cat, and then you ruin a wedding by trampling the cake and knocking the bride into the pool. Still not a coincidence when instead of being punished, Hotel Security upgrades you and your parents to a suite.
Little Life Lesson 3: Have a great group of friends on speed-dial, who can sense when something is awry. Hopefully these friends have great superpowers, which can aid in your crime solving skills.
Little Life Lesson 4: See again #2. Not everything is as it appears. Don’t just look but SEE. A fashionable pair of cowboy boots can double as a compartment for holding lipstick and deadly Designer Imposters body spray. Look at every THREAD of evidence carefully.
Little Life Lesson 5: Understand that while some people’s superpowers are obvious to the naked eye like keen fashion sense or voice imitation, some of us harbor superpowers within ourselves that we don’t realize until they are put to use.
Little Life Lesson 6: If you want a fun, relaxing mystery, try Bad Kitty by Michelle Jaffe.