Mr. Fowler's Recommendations:
Eli Frieden lives in the most boring town in the world: Serenity, New Mexico. Only thirty kids live in the idyllic town, where every lawn is perfectly manicured and everyone has a pool and a basketball hoop. Honesty and kindness are the backbone of the community. There is no crime in this utopia.
Eli has never left town…. Why would he ever want to? But everything changes the day he and his friend Randy bike to the edge of the city limits. Eli is suddenly struck with a paralyzing headache and collapses. Almost instantly, a crew of security—or “Purple People Eaters,” as the kids call them—descend via helicopter. Eli awakens in the hospital, and the next day, Randy and his family are gone.
As Eli convinces his friends Tori and Malik to help him investigate Randy’s disappearance, it becomes clear that nothing is as it seems in Serenity. As the clues mount to reveal a shocking discovery, the kids realize they can trust no one—least of all their own parents. So they hatch a plan for what could be the greatest breakout in history—but will they survive? And if they do, where do they go from there?
Eli has never left town…. Why would he ever want to? But everything changes the day he and his friend Randy bike to the edge of the city limits. Eli is suddenly struck with a paralyzing headache and collapses. Almost instantly, a crew of security—or “Purple People Eaters,” as the kids call them—descend via helicopter. Eli awakens in the hospital, and the next day, Randy and his family are gone.
As Eli convinces his friends Tori and Malik to help him investigate Randy’s disappearance, it becomes clear that nothing is as it seems in Serenity. As the clues mount to reveal a shocking discovery, the kids realize they can trust no one—least of all their own parents. So they hatch a plan for what could be the greatest breakout in history—but will they survive? And if they do, where do they go from there?
The Maze Runner
This is the first book in a trilogy by James Dashner, who was born in GEORGIA. The setting of the story is an isolated area where a group of boys are being held, almost as prisoners. Thomas is the new arrival and he gives everyone hope of escaping, but they must get through the maze that surrounds the compound. Amazingly, Thomas has memories of another life in which HE designed the maze!
This is a great book that I know you will enjoy.
This is a great book that I know you will enjoy.
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I just finished this book, and the sequels as well. If you liked The Giver or City of Embers, you will love this book. If you want to borrow my copy, let me know. Check out the link:
http://www.scholastic.com/thehungergames/
http://www.scholastic.com/thehungergames/
Schooled By Gordon Korman
Capricorn ("Cap") Anderson, thirteen, enters a middle school when his guardian grandmother, Rain, is injured. Previously, Rain had home-schooled Cap. Rain and Cap had led an almost completely isolated life on a sixties-throwback commune. Decades earlier, there had been a small group there, but as the story begins it's just Rain and Cap.
Cap has been so isolated that he has never seen television, knows nothing about the Internet, and hasn't a clue about how a bank check works. The large (1100 students) middle school that Cap enters is full of stereotypical shallow, cynical, and insensitive adolescents. Cap soon falls victim to cliques and bullies who conspire to make his life miserable. However, Cap's naievete and good nature help him to turn things around and become popular at the school.
Cap has been so isolated that he has never seen television, knows nothing about the Internet, and hasn't a clue about how a bank check works. The large (1100 students) middle school that Cap enters is full of stereotypical shallow, cynical, and insensitive adolescents. Cap soon falls victim to cliques and bullies who conspire to make his life miserable. However, Cap's naievete and good nature help him to turn things around and become popular at the school.
Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers
In 2003, in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom, young Robin Perry already wonders about "an enemy we can't identify and friends we're not sure about." Myers dedicates this novel to the men and women who serve in the United States Armed Services and to their families, and he offers a powerful study of the strange war they have been sent to fight, where confusion and randomness rule. Why are they fighting? Whom are they fighting? When will they be hit next? Narrated by Robin, nephew of Richie Perry, the main character of the landmark Fallen Angels (1988), this companion expertly evokes the beauty of Iraq and the ugliness of war. Given the paucity of works on this war, this is an important volume, covering much ground and offering much insight. Robin's eventual understanding that his experience was not about winning or losing the war but about "reaching for the highest idea of life" makes this a worthy successor to Myers's Coretta Scott King Award-winning classic.
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan (first book in the series)
The escapades of the Greek gods and heroes get a fresh spin in the first book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series, about a contemporary 12-year-old New Yorker who learns he's a demigod. Perseus, aka Percy Jackson, thinks he has big problems. His father left before he was born, he's been kicked out of six schools in six years, he's dyslexic, and he has ADHD. What a surprise when he finds out that that's only the tip of the iceberg: he vaporizes his pre-algebra teacher, learns his best friend is a satyr, and is almost killed by a minotaur before his mother manages to get him to the safety of Camp Half-Blood--where he discovers that Poseidon is his father. But that's a problem, too. Poseidon has been accused of stealing Zeus' lightning bolt, and unless Percy can return the bolt, humankind is doomed. Riordan's fast-paced adventure is fresh, dangerous, and funny. Percy is an appealing, but reluctant hero, the modernized gods are hilarious, and the parallels to Harry Potter are frequent and obvious. Because Riordan is faithful to the original myths, librarians should be prepared for a rush of readers wanting the classic stories.
Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes (for mature readers)
"This is almost like a play for 18 voices, as Grimes...moves her narration among a group of high school students in the Bronx. The English teacher, Mr. Ward, accepts a set of poems from Wesley, his response to a month of reading poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Soon there's an open-mike poetry reading, sponsored by Mr. Ward, every month, and then later, every week. The chapters in the students' voices alternate with the poem read by that student, defiant, shy, terrified. All of them, black, Latino, white, male, and female, talk about the unease and alienation endemic to their ages, and they do it in fresh and appealing voices...Beyond those capsules are rich and complex teens, and their tentative reaching out to each other increases as though the poems they also find more of themselves."
The Terrorist by Caroline B. Cooney
A provocative look at an American family living abroad, destroyed by a not-so-random act of violence. Billy, 11, a brash but lovable all-American boy, accepts a package from a stranger in a London subway station and becomes the victim of a bomb. His grieving 16-year-old sister is obsessed with capturing the unknown terrorist. An average student at the London International Academy, she alienates her circle of friends as she begins to suspect each of them. Laura, the typical Cooney heroine, is rather self-centered, plodding through life until tested by trauma. She and her family play the roles of well-meaning, but rather ignorant Americans, oblivious of the world in which they live. Plausibility takes a back seat to plot toward the end as Laura neatly places herself in the hands of the cold-hearted villain. Not since Barbara Parks's Mick Harte Was Here (Knopf, 1995) has a deceased sibling been so carefully memorialized. Indeed, readers come to know the short-lived Billy better than many of the other characters, including the vaguely draw villain, whose motivation is never really clear. Cynicism rather than honor is the victor at the tale's conclusion; it ends not with a bang, but a whimper.