Brandon Sanderson gently spoofs the Harry Potter books with his very funny fantasy, Alcatraz versus the Evil Librarians. This book tells the story of an orphan named Alcatraz Smedry who discovers that he has a special "talent" for breaking things.
Really -- his family and the others who know about the lies evil librarians have been telling for so long consider Alcatraz's habit of breaking things to be a special talent. His grandfather has a "talent" for arriving late. In fact, all the Smedry family members are revered as powerful oculators and are leaders in the effort to fight against the evil librarians' dastardly control of the world's information. What is an oculator, you ask? Evil librarians? Don't worry, all is explained, but readers will need to learn quite a bit of new vocabulary in order to follow the plot.
The story is fast-moving and exciting, but Alcatraz, who is the story teller, often interrupts the narrative with thoughts about the writing or reading process, or comments about himself. Most of these interruptions are pretty funny, but I did get annoyed with a few of them. Overall, though, I really enjoyed this book, and my 12-year-old son read it very quickly, too, which tells me he must have really liked it. I look forward to reading more of this series.
I had difficulty getting started with The Underneath, by Kathi Appelt, perhaps because I knew it was going to be a sad book, filled with pain and heartache. 
It is that, but it is also quite suspenseful toward the end, and really a very good story. The main characters are three cats (a mother and her two babies) and a dog named Ranger. The four animals become a family when the cats come to live under a house in the woods that is owned by the dog's owner, Gar Face, who is a truly evil man and mistreats Ranger. Another story involves magical characters who lived in the same woods about one thousand years before, giving the reader a sense of the forest's rich history and power. The writing is poetic and beautiful -- very different from other books I have read. I would probably not recommend this books to every child because the story unfolds slowly and the reader must be very patient -- just like the 1000-year-old snake who bides her time for that many years while buried in a jar under a giant tree. For those readers willing to stay with it, though, this book pays off well in the end.
Anything But Typical, by Nora Raleigh Baskin, caught my eye as I was perusing the new books shelf at the library because I saw the word neurotypicals on the back cover. 
It reads, "Neurotypicals like it when you look them in the eye. Just because you are not looking at someone does not mean you are not listening." Jason Blake is a 12-year-old boy who wants to be a writer. As he tells us about his own life, we get a good sense of what it is like to live on the autism spectrum. Jason realizes that his behavior often causes people to think he is strange. The thing is, he always has as good reason for behaving the way he does; it's just that other people are not always able to see or understand those reasons.
In the story, Jason's mother takes him to Dallas, Texas to attend a Storyboard convention. Storyboard is an online social networking site for aspiring writers, and Jason has been a member of the site for about three years. He is terrified that he will have to meet one of his online friends in person there, and that she will not like him anymore once she sees him.
I really loved this book. The author seems to really understand how autism can affect a person's world view. It's great to see a well-written, engaging story about a talented, caring boy who is not only learning to cope with his difference but is also teaching others about the value of his unique way of seeing the world.
I ran across The Beasties, by William Sleator, when I was helping a patron at the library to find books about ecology. 
In this story, loggers' clearcutting a forest has the unintended effect of harming a strange human-like animal family knows as "the beasties," who live underground. The beasties are missing body parts -- an eye here, a nose there, and they have taken to abducting loggers and those who work with them in order to get replacement parts. It's rather grisly and more of a horror story than I expected. The writing is simple and, to my ear anyway, uninspired. I read one of Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak books a long time ago, and I was reminded of that story while reading The Beasties. Horror fans will probably love this book, but it simply was not the type of book I enjoy. I do appreciate the pro-enviromental message of the story, however. The idea that cutting down trees is akin to mutilating the members of a secret family of "beasties" may be far-fetched, but the visceral images this story invokes are still powerful.
The Declaration, by Gemma Malley, describes a dystopian civilization where most people take "longevity" drugs that allow them to live forever. In this sci-fi society of the year 2140, only people who "opt out" of taking the drugs are allowed to have children.
Any child born to someone taking the drugs is deemed illegal and is sent to live at an orphanage-type institution called a surplus house. Surplus children are taught that they are totally worthless and that their very existence is a sin. Their best hope is to learn to be a "valuable asset" and work as a servant to a "legal." The main character, Anna Covey, lives in a surplus house headed by a bitter, cruel woman named Mrs. Pincent. In the beginning, Anna prides herself on following the rules and wants very much to become a valuable asset. However, things change when Peter arrives. Anna begins to see that she deserves better, and she and Peter plan to escape. From then on the story becomes very exciting. This is one I read aloud to my boys, and we are looking forward to starting the sequel, The Resistance.
