Whittier Warriors

Are you a fan of CSI or Bones?  If so, this series is for you.  Alane Ferguson has written a good forensic mystery.  Cameryn Mahoney is a seventeen-year-old with dreams to become a forensic pathologist.  She is in a great position to do so with her father being the county coroner.  The budget problems have prevented the county from hiring an assistant for him and the work load has been too much.  So, he asks Cameryn to be his assistant and she accepts, even though her Mammaw (Irish way of referring to grandmother) doesn’t want her to.  Mammaw thinks that her focus on death and forensics is a danger to her soul and will lead her down a dark path in life.  Cameryn simply wants to use science to allow the dead to tell the tale of their death.

Silverton, Colorado is a silent, sleepy town where nothing much happens.  There hasn’t been a case of murder in years, but all that changes when a serial killer decides to make a resident of Silverton his next victim.  Rachel is a friend of Cameryn’s, they even worked together at a local diner.  Losing a friend is hard enough, but for Cameryn it is even harder.  She not only has to feel the loss, but has to suffer through the details of processing her body as a crime scene and participate in the autopsy.

Cameryn decides to investigate the murder with the help of a few friends, but mostly on her own.  She is a strong and clever character and a wonderful role model for girls.  Alane Ferguson sets up a possible love interest for Cameryn with the new sheriff’s deputy as well as a long running story line that can continue throughout the entire series.  The sequel is titled The Angel of Death.  This book is appropriate for upper middle school grades and above.  The only determining factor will be how well you can stomach the details of the stages of a decomposing body and of course the procedures of an autopsy.

What if Alice in Wonderland were a true story? What if Lewis Carroll listened to Alice recite her story and thinking she had a sympathetic ear in an unsympathetic world told of all the amazing things that happen in Wonderland? What if instead of believing her, he thought she was making up the outlandish story by using her overactive imagination? This is precisely the idea behind THE LOOKING GLASS WARS.

Young Alyss Heart is a princess in the prosperous world of Wonderland. Her mother, Queen Genevieve and her father King Nolan love her dearly, doting on her any time they can. Everything is as it should be at the beginning of her seventh birthday, her friends, including her best friend Dodge, family, and servants are all enjoying themselves and eating tarty tarts to their hearts content. Only King Nolan is absent, but he is on his way. He has been taking care of military matters with King Arch, the leader of the neighboring Borderland.

However, evil is quickly approaching. Alyss’ Aunt Redd is leading her army of soldiers into Wonderland to take over. Redd feels cheated of the crown. She feels she should be Queen of Wonderland, instead of her sister Genevieve. Redd, after killing her own mother, leaves Wonderland and begins to plot her coup.

The moment trouble is announced at Heart Palace, Queen Genevieve takes Alyss with her into the royal chambers hoping for safety, but Redd busts her way in. The only way Genevieve can save Alyss is to send her into the looking glass along with the royal body guard, Hatter Madigan. They escape, but are being followed by Redd’s deadly assassin, The Cat. Their only chance is to jump into the Pool of Tears and swim to safety. However, the Pool of Tears is a place that no one has ever returned from. They have no idea where it leads. Hatter and Alyss get separated; Alyss lands in England and Hatter in Paris.

Alyss eventually ends up in an orphanage and is adopted by the Liddell family and made to feel extremely silly for talking about Wonderland. That is, until she meets the man who turns out to be Lewis Carroll. She tells her story and he begins to write it down. When she finds out he turned it into a children’s fairy tale she is outraged and never speaks to him again.

Hatter spends thirteen years going from place to place, using the unusual mode of transportation of water puddles, searching for Alyss. Finally he sees a copy of Alice in Wonderland in a store and tracks her down. He finds her on the day of her wedding to the Prince of England. Hatter takes her away and manages to reach Wonderland. After being reunited with her tutor, Hatter, and especially Dodge, who she has missed the most, Alyss learns to use her imagination again and takes on Redd for the well being of Wonderland.

This fantastical story is exciting and entertaining. Any fan of the story of Alice in Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll will love reading the “real” story. The imagination of Frank Beddor is amazing.

Frances has been feeling anxious lately. The sound of an ambulance racing down the street causes her to panic. She has a secret that has been causing her more and more distress. Other than her family, only her quirky best friend Ann Mirette knows. The secret is creating a dark cloud over her seemingly perfect life. She has a loving adopted family, a wonderful house, and has just met a dreamy guy from Louisiana named Nix that grows more important to her everyday.

Eleven years ago Frances was know as Shine. She had three younger sisters and lived out in the country with her mother, Afton Jelks. It is clear from the flashbacks in the story that Afton has mental problems and is putting the four girls in harms way, but nothing prepares the reader for the truth of what happened. Your heart will break as you watch Frances come to terms with the day her world changed forever.

Afton Jelks has been residing in a mental hospital since the courts sentenced her there after finding her guilty by reason of insanity for the deaths of her three daughters. Afton Jelks smothered her daughters one by one on a spring day when Frances was seven-years-old. The only reason Frances survived is because a man reading an electric meter heard the struggle and busted in the house and allowed Frances to escape.

The memories are coming to the surface now that a lawyer contacts Frances to tell her that her mother has been released to a halfway house and would like to see her. Frances has mixed feelings but eventually, against the wishes of her parents, decides to make the journey to see her mother. With the help of Ann Mirette and under the guise of attending a weekend school trip, she and Nix hit the open road. They follow one clue to the next to find the exact location of the halfway house. What they find once they arrive is shocking and extremely dangerous.

R.A. Nelson, the author who brought you Teach Me, has written another powerful novel that will leave you stunned into silence.

Mick Sullivan and Boot Quinn have been enemies since the day they first met. They have had countless fist fights and have already been suspended once in the first month of their eighth grade year.

Mick Sullivan is big for his age which make people think he likes to fight way more than he does. Actually, Mick likes to read more than anything else. He considers the library his second home. Mick’s father is constantly trying to get him to be tougher and get him involved in sports, but Mick just doesn’t enjoy them. Boot doesn’t have many friends. He likes to play the guitar and wants to someday be in a band. His biggest goal for the day is to give Mick a hard time by teasing him about his father who has a drinking problem. Both boys have difficult home lives that they really keep hidden from everyone else. They also like Tabitha Slater, the most popular girl in the eighth grade.

Things start to change when a new principal comes to the school. After their latest fight, instead of suspending them again, he assigns the boys to come to the office to play games for an hour every day. This extra time together, without adult supervision, leads to some heated exchanges and ultimately some extremely devastating consequences for both Mick and Boot. While cooperation and civility don’t happen in the traditional sense, they do start to learn about each other.

Carol Gorman, the author of the Dork in Disguise series, takes us on the emotional rollercoaster of middle school where what your friends think is what drives the majority of your decisions and with most people there is more than meets the eye.