Library Newbies

It's like an infomercial.

BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!

The Summer of Broken Things

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

I had no idea what this book was about so I figured I'd better read a few pages and get an idea.

24 hours later, I finished it.

I can't say this book is action packed and full of mayhem and mystery, but it definitely hooked me somehow. I mean, there's not even a hint of sci-fi in this thing, and yet, I still read it! Ok, not that I never read anything EXCEPT sci-fi, I'm just saying this isn't my normal kind of book interest. Still, something intrigued me about this one and I really didn't want to put it down. Here's my reap.

Avery is pretty, athletic, outgoing, popular, and rich. She's hoping to spend the summer at soccer camp with her best friends, but instead, her father decides to whisk her away to Spain for 8 weeks. While for most of us, we'd probably be cool with that, Avery is not. To make it worse, her dad says she's allowed to bring 1 friend, and then tells her that friend will be Kayla Butts, 2 years older than Avery, and who has been teasingly called 'butt-girl' since forever. Avery hasn't associated with her in years. Kayla is everything Avery isn't. Mousey quiet, poor, not athletic in the slightest, introverted, and definitely far from popular. While she doesn't necessarily see Kayla as an enemy, she has an overall aversion to the girl because of their vast differences.

Right from the get go there's tension in the trio, unsurprisingly. Less than a week into the trip, Kayla and Avery discover something their families have been hiding from them for their whole lives, and something that is currently happening right at the moment. Both events lead to an extremely turbulent time for the 3, and the fact that they are stuck together, across the ocean from home, makes it all the more stressful...

Each of the chapters alternates between Kayla's perspective and Avery's perspective. It's a device the author uses masterfully to really connect the reader to the 2 girls. While you might think one is to blame for something, the perspective then shifts and you find that maybe the other actually is, or maybe neither of them are, they're just misunderstanding each other. It's both frustrating, but at the same time, insightful. I loved it.

This is a good read for anyone. Nothing graphic, nothing racey, and not even a huge heaping of over-drama that, for a young adult book, is pretty surprising. The characters are believable, both in personality and actions. Definitely a book for anyone.

Vote for Women! American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot

by Winifred Conkling

(copied from Amazon because I only have so many hours in a day and as much as I love books, I can't read them ALL...)

For nearly 150 years, American women did not have the right to vote. On August 18, 1920, they won that right, when the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified at last. To achieve that victory, some of the fiercest, most passionate women in history marched, protested, and sometimes even broke the law—for more than eight decades. From Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who founded the suffrage movement at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention, to Sojourner Truth and her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, to Alice Paul, arrested and force-fed in prison, this is the story of the American women’s suffrage movement and the private lives that fueled its leaders’ dedication. Votes for Women! explores suffragists’ often powerful, sometimes difficult relationship with the intersecting temperance and abolition campaigns, and includes an unflinching look at some of the uglier moments in women’s fight for the vote. By turns illuminating, harrowing, and empowering, Votes for Women! paints a vibrant picture of the women whose tireless battle still inspires political, human rights, and social justice activism.

The City on the Other Side

by Mairghread Scott and Robin Robinson

GRAPHIC NOVEL FORMAT! (Psst..that means it's a pretty fast read! ;) )

(Thanks, Amazon, for your synopsis)

In The City on the Other Side, a young girl stumbles into a pitched war between two fairy kingdoms, and the fate of San Francisco itself hangs in the balance!

Sheltered within her high-society world, Isabel plays the part of a perfectly proper little girl―she’s quiet, well-behaved, and she keeps her dresses spotlessly clean. She’s certainly not the kind of girl who goes on adventures.

But that all changes when Isabel breaches an invisible barrier and steps into another world. She discovers a city not unlike her own, but magical and dangerous. Here, war rages between the fairies of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Only Isabel, with the help of a magical necklace and a few new friends, stands a chance of ending the war before it destroys the fairy world, and her own.

From Mairghread Scott and Robin Robinson comes a colorful fantasy graphic novel set in early twentieth century San Francisco.