Right Behind You, by Gail Giles

When he was nine, Kip set another child on fire. Now, after years in a juvenile ward, he is ready for a fresh start. But the ghosts of his past soon demand justice, and he must reveal his painful secret. How can Kip tell anyone that he really is--or was--a murderer?

Ok..I love Giles’ books. And SOOO many of my kiddos fight for her books—to read over and over again. Having been a high school teacher, she obviously knows that to write to hook readers of every sort.

And I loved this book. I read it in a day, less really. Giles’ books are always good for the reluctant reader, they don’t take long to get through AND you don’t want to put them down. Her characters are real, her settings are REAL, the things going on inside the heads of even the characters who are secondary—but I gotta tell you, few of these characters were REALLY secondary.

The only thing that got me? There was hope at the end—freakin’ hope! What’s that about???

Ordinary Ghosts, by Eireann Corrigan

Emil's brother isn't dead. Just gone. It's his mom who's dead, and his dad who's checked out completely. Emil's alone. Not in a teary-eyed, starving-orphan way. Just alone. As in: nobody to talk to, nothing to do.

Then he finds the key. Not a metaphorical the solution to loneliness was within me all along! key. No, a real key. A key that opens every single door in the elite prep school that Emil's forced to attend. Suddenly, Emil doesn't mind so much the he's a nonentities are much harder to pin down.

Soon, he's sneaking into the school at night to explore -- and falling for a girl who sneaks in for reasons of her own. The keeper of the key is supposed to be legendary but Emil will settle for barely coherent. He's spent a whole of his life dealing with disappearances. Now he has to see what it takes to make things stay.

I wanted Emil to DO more. I realize that this wasn’t central to the story. That the bigger issue was figuring out who he was now that his life was flipped upside down. And discovering who the people in his life really were. Beautiful coming of age and age of discovery story (I don’t think those 2 concepts are the same). Emil’s just an average kid dealing with what is, sadly (because of what it says about our society), an average existence. That’s what makes him so attractive as a character—he’s not any more special than you or I, and he’s dealing with the terms life has given him, the best way he knows how when he’s got little to direct him.

Skin Hunger, by Kathleen Duey

Sadima lives in a world where magic has been banned, leaving poor villagers
prey to fakes and charlatans. A "magician" stole her family's few valuables and
left Sadima's mother to die on the day Sadima was born. But vestiges of magic
are hidden in old rhymes and hearth tales and in people like Sadima, who
conceals her silent communication with animals for fear of rejection and
ridicule. When rumors of her gift reach Somiss, a young nobleman obsessed with
restoring magic, he sends Franklin, his lifelong servant, to find her. Sadima's
joy at sharing her secret becomes love for the man she shares it with. But
Franklin's irrevocable bond to the brilliant and dangerous Somiss traps her,
too, and she faces a heartbreaking decision.

Centuries later magic has been restored, but it is available only to the
wealthy and is strictly controlled by wizards within a sequestered academy of
magic. Hahp, the expendable second son of a rich merchant, is forced into the
academy and finds himself paired with Gerrard, a peasant boy inexplicably
admitted with nine sons of privilege and wealth. Only one of the ten students
will graduate -- and the first academic requirement is survival.

Sadima's and Hahp's worlds are separated by generations, but their lives are
connected in surprising and powerful ways in this brilliant first book of
Kathleen Duey's dark, complex, and completely compelling trilogy.

I get caught up in stories like this. I love the magic, the struggle with good and evil, and how the darker side seems to be carrying the book. I spent a good portion of the book wondering how the two story lines were connected, and making the jumps between the two. It all ties together VERY well, however, it doesn’t stand alone in my mind (it’s the first of a trilogy). The storyline doesn’t progress far enough for me to feel like I’ve gotten into the story (it felt like I was still in the background part of it).

Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale

When Dashti, a maid, and Lady Saren, her mistress, are shut in a tower for seven years for Saren’s refusal to marry a man she despises, the two prepare for a very long and dark imprisonment.

As food runs low and the days go from broiling hot to freezing cold, it is all Dashti can do to keep them fed and comfortable. But the arrival outside the tower of Saren’s two suitors—one welcome, and the other decidedly less so—brings both hope and great danger, and Dashti must make the desperate choices of a girl whose life is worth more than she knows.

With Shannon Hale’s lyrical language, this forgotten but classic fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm is reimagined and reset on the central Asian steppes; it is a completely unique retelling filled with adventure and romance, drama and disguise.

Oh my, what a wonderful read. It IS adventure, drama, romance—and fantasy all rolled into one. What a beautiful way to show that strength is found in so many different places. I think the real “surprise” in the story is Lady Saren, and how through her actions, Dashti is made into a stronger person—because someone has to be. There’s the amazing twist at the end, that you aren’t expecting—so very different from the typical fairy tale ending that all the retellings of Grimms fairy tales tend to ascribe to. The arrangement is a really wonderful way to do this—the diary of a girl who probably isn’t supposed to be able to keep one let alone have one.

Library2Play--Number 13, AISDCL20 #13

Tagging and Del.icio.us

Okay...first off, I've gotta rant. Maybe it's because I don't feel 100% today (frankly, 60% is asking a lot). I tried to register for Del.icio.us several times earlier this week. My standard username/password combo would've work just fine. However, 3 consecutive letters in my real name are the mimiced in my password (no, my password has nothing to do with my name. It just happened that way.). I tried several different ways around it. Nothing. I now have a combo that is going to be hard to remember because I've never used it before--ugh. Yes, I know I can write it down in a safe place, but that piece of paper would never be found again, it would be so freakin' safe.

Okay, rant over.

Now..tagging. I do this on my blogs. I think I already have a Technorati account, though I'm not sure I did more than register and look around for a little bit. I do, in fact, see the point. I'm just not sure I need to use this (personally), if I'm using something else. Feels like a bit of redundancy, and I'm anti-redundancy (for the sheer sake of being redundant).

I'm open to suggestion though--something more than the "but not everyone uses that other one" reason, please.