Neal Shusterman strikes me as an original, thoughtful author. I read The Eyes of Kid Midas hoping it would be as good as Full Tilt and I was not disappointed. In this story, 7th-graders Kevin and Josh climb a mountain while on a school camping trip. At the top they find a very unusual pair of glasses, and when Kevin puts them on he realizes that they give him the power to make things magically appear. When they get home, Kevin and Josh go shopping, using the glasses' power to conjure up a whole houseful of cool stuff. Then things start to go wrong, like when the storm that Kevin created back in the mountains starts advancing toward town. This book is funny but also exciting and thought provoking. It's a good one to recommend to reluctant readers.
One of my favorite children's authors, Eva Ibbotson, wrote The Dragonfly Pool, so I of course wanted to read it. World War II serves as a backdrop to the story, but I would hesitate to give this book the "historical fiction" label because most of the story takes place in 1939, 
as the war is just beginning. Tally, the main character, travels to the countryside from her home in London to attend a rather unusual boarding school called Delderton, where children are not required to attend class and are encouraged to express themselves. At first she doesn't want to go because she is happy at home with her father and two aunts, but a school trip to participate in a folk dancing festival in Bergania soon changes Tally's attitude. Here she meets Karil, Bergania's prince, and they become friends, but events conspire to keep Karil isolated from his new friends. Then Karil's father is assassinated and the Delderton students must try to rescue Karil from suffering the same fate.
I didn't enjoy this book as much as I have her others, perhaps because it was not written to be funny, as the others were. It's an absorbing and touching story, though, and I would certainly recommend it to young teens looking for something with adventure and a happy ending.
The Dragon of Never-Was, by Ann Downer, is the sequel to Hatching Magic. 
In this story, Theodora and her father visit the Scottish island of Scornsay, where her father is to study a mysterious scale that a young boy found. Is it a dragon scale? Or is it just some strange animal that humans have not yet discovered? While they are there, Theodora begins to grow into her magical powers. She also meets two new friends, Colin and Catriona, who help her explore the island and discover some of its ancient mysteries. I liked this story a lot. I especially liked William, Theodora's ghostly puppy familiar, and the funny domestic scenes of Merlin taking care of Vyrna, the dragon hatchling who was left behind in the previous book.
Marguerite de Angeli's The Door in the Wall was the Newbery Medal winner in 1950. Set in medieval England, this short book tells the story of Robin, the 10-year-old son of Sir John de Bureford. Robin, as the son of a nobleman, is supposed to become a knight, but he becomes ill and loses the use of his legs. To make matters worse, this happens when both his mother and father are away and unable to care for him. At first, Robin feels sorry for himself and behves badly toward those charged with caring for him. He soon finds himself utterly alone, unable to even get out of bed, let alone care for himself.
Fortunately, a kind monk named Brother Luke takes Robin to the monastery where he lives and takes him under his wing. Brother Luke encourages Robin to have a positive attitude and work on improving his skills. Robin learns to read, write, and carve. He also exercises to strengthen his arms so that he can make his way around on crutches.
This is a very positive story about accepting and making the best of our lot in life and our individual gifts. I liked the story's historical setting, its simplicity, and its exciting plot.
Peter Pan in Scarlet, by Geraldine McCaughrean, is "the first-ever authorized sequel to J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan." The set-up is this: something has gone wrong and Neverland is in trouble. Wendy, John, and the Lost Boys, who are now grown up and living in London, begin to have terrible dreams. They decide to return to Peter Pan's home to see if they can help. Of course, they must become children again so they can fly, so they borrow some of their own children's clothes and magically shrink to fit them. While in Neverland they go on a great quest to Neverpeak to find Hook's treasure chest, and they experience many dangerous adventures along the way.
I found this book rather odd and disjointed, and I had to force myself to keep reading. The last third or so of the story flowed nicely, but getting to that point was slow. Perhaps it was all the trouble in Neverland that bothered me. In this book, fairies are nothing short of malevolent, the lagoon has been poisoned, the forest burns down, and Peter becomes ill and almost dies. This is not the happy, carefree place that I remembered, and it's not that much fun to visit. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone but the most die-hard Peter Pan fans.
Neal Shusterman's latest book, Unwind, is on YALSA's 2008 Teens’ Top Ten Nominees list, so I wanted to read it. Since it was checked out, I decided to try another of Shusterman's books, Full Tilt. Wow! This book is powerful. A group of three teens go in the middle of the night to what they think is a private, invitation-only amusement park. 
It turns into their worst nightmare. I'm not usually a horror fan, but this book is different, because the rides at this park are custom made from the psychological landscape of those riding them -- tapping into their worst fears and the demons from their past that they have have never been able to shake. The rides are all extremely dangerous, and the main character, Blake, soon sees that many previous riders never made it out. He discovers that he has to make it through seven rides before the park will let him go.
The reason he and his friends, Maggie and Russ, went to the partk, though, is that they want to save Blake's brother, Quinn. The story explores not only the lingering guilt Blake feels for having survived a school bus crash when he was seven years old, but also the complex relationship he has with his crazy, risk-taking brother.
I had a little trouble getting into this book, because the seven ride set-up seemed a bit too pat, but their were plenty of surprises later on to make it well worth the effort.
In Suddenly Supernatural: School Spirit, by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel, 13-year-old Kat has just begun seeing spirits, just like her mother, who is a medium. She at first is not at all happy about this turn of events, but she learns to first accept her lot in life and later to embrace it. That is, she learns to see her strange ability as a gift, rather than a curse. I like Kat, her mother, and Kat’s best friend, Jac, a lot. They are people whose gifts set them apart from “normal” run-of-the-mill people. It’s definitely not always easy for them, but they seem to know that being different isn’t always a bad thing. That in itself makes this book worth reading for me.
Once I finished H.I.V.E.: The Higher Institute of Villainous Education, by Mark Walden, there was simply no question that I would immediately and rapidly read its sequel, The Overlord Protocol. Now I impatiently await the third book in the series. I haven’t had so much fun reading since I first discovered Harry Potter.
In fact, H.I.V.E. shares many characteristics with Hogwarts. It is a secret private school with very selective entrance requirements. Instead of magical ability, though, students at H.I.V.E. are required to have extraordinary potential to become evil geniuses. For example, 13-year-old Otto Malpense (notice that the characters’ names are suggestive, like those in Harry Potter) who is one of the new recruits as the first book opens, has spent the last several years of his short life running the orphanage where he has lived all his life, and recently caused the British prime minister to totally embarrass himself on television, effectively ending his political career. The students take classes such as “Stealth and Evasion” and “Villainy Studies.” They are even sorted into different streams: Alphas, Henchmen, Technical, and Political/Financial.
There is plenty of breathtaking action to keep the pages turning, along with quite of bit of James Bond-type gadgetry, finesse, and humor. This series is a definite winner!
The Luxe, by Anna Godbersen, is set in 1899 New York, and follows the lives of several upper-class young women. Readers learn on the first page that one of these women, 18-year-old Elizabeth Holland, fell into the Hudson River and died. The author uses Elizabeth’s funeral to introduce her readers to turn-of-the-century high society New York, where the rich attend balls given at each others’ mansions and rely on servants to cook their meals, clean their houses, tend to their horses, and even help them into their fine clothing. The main story explains what happened in the month prior to Elizabeth’s premature and tragic demise.
This book is another that appears on the 2008 teens’ top 10 nominations list. I enjoyed the story but I found it predictable and rather shallow. Many of the characters seemed like cardboard cutouts rather than real people. I understand that the author is working on a sequel, and I have to admit that despite my criticisms, I will be eager to read the new book as soon as it comes out! This is one of those guilty pleasure books, I suppose – hardly “quality” literature, but fun to read just the same. 2008 teens’ top 10 nominations
Into the Wild is the first book in Erin Hutner's Warriors series. Rusty, who is a pet cat, decides to join ThunderClan, a group of wild cats. Rusty is re-named Firepaw, and he begins training to become a ThunderClan warrior so that he can help defend against rival clans in the area. 
Firepaw also has to worry about treachery from within his own clan, though. There is plenty of adventure here, and the series promises plenty more.
I liked this book, but I did have a difficult time keeping all the names straight, because so many of them end with -paw! It was also strange thinking of housecats as warriors. Once I got past those two problems, I enjoyed the suspenseful story, as well as the complex relationships among the cat characters. This seems like a great series for kids who like both animals and adventure -- very similar to Brian Jacques' Redwall series.
