Eyes of the Emporer by Graham Salisbury

Fascinating book about a part of WWII history I'd never heard of before.

Out to sea, the ocean breathed slow and soft, a body sleeping under silk.
Inland, fresh white clouds grew up out of the mountaintops.
He stopped and squinted at me, shadows from the tree spattered all over him.
Basic training was like swimming with barracudas--you were always on edge; somebody screaming in your face hour after hour, day after day.

How the Light Gets In

Although I didn't enjoy the ending, I loved the character development and the voice.

The Mercedes smells as though it has just come out of its plastic packet.
But within moments of closing my eyes, my brain springs open, like a flick-knife.
Flo is an example of a smudge; a dull, untidy mind containing bad copies of original thoughts.

Smiles to Go by Jerry Spinelli

And he would explain it to me, and though I couldn't really understand, still I would feel something, a cool fizzing behind my ears, because I was feeding off his astonishment.
I mean, feeling myself lose it like that--I wonder if it was anything like BT's plunge down Dead Man's Hill: off the edge of self-control and down the slippery slope of my own words.
I'll carry my thoughts with me like soda in a cup, sipping through a straw whenever I feel like a taste: during class, on my skateboard, lying down to sleep, especially then.

Savvy by Ingrid Law

Kind of a take-off on The Wizard of Oz. Well-written.

It's just that it hadn't crossed my mind yet to pray for Poppa, and again I felt selfish and shamed and bad enough to have a house come land PLOP down on me, leaving nothing but my feet sticking out; that's just how wicked I felt.

Student quote

The book was magnetic, as if it were a magnet and I were a paper clip. --Jeongpyo

pictures of hollis woods by Patricia Reilly Giff

The white house: crumbs on the table, kids fighting over a bag of Wonder bread.

It was wonderful, the first place the sun hit every day, so that squares of light turned the room to lemon gold.

And so I drove in that field in the summer-evening light, Steven shouting directions as I lurched through the ruts, bucking, stalling, starting up again with gear-grinding noises.

We'd sail up and down the aisles of DeMattia's Food Store, picking and choosing: ravioli, and a pink can of shredded tuna for Henry.

catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

Disney is our collective stepparent, the nice one who tells us bedtime stories and bakes cupcakes.

My lab partner snorts. "Family classic [Alice in Wonderland]," she mutters. "Mind-altering drugs, demented hatters, and a homicidal queen." She opens her Spanish book to the pluperfect subjunctive.