Rampant by Diana Peterfreunde

Astrid knows unicorns don't exist. They are mythical beings. But her mom believes that unicorns not only exist, but that they are bloodythirsty, deadly creatures. Her mother is a little crazy, but then Astrid is forced to believe in her mother's stories when her boyfriend is gored by a unicorn and almost dies. As a reward for saving him, Astrid is dumped and humiliated before second period the next day at school. Her mother though is elated to be proven right and sends Astrid off to Rome to train in hunting unicorns.

Astrid quickly discovers that Rome isn't going to be the holiday she was hoping for. The cloisters are in disrepair. Cory, her roommate goes completely psycho whenever she sees their pet unicorn, and the few girls that arrive aren't sure about how to actually kill the unicorns that all of a sudden seem to be everywhere they go in Rome.

Being a unicorn hunter also requires sacrifices. Only virgins may be unicorn hunters and they are required to live in the cloisters like nuns for the rest of their lives. Astrid isn't prepared to make that kind of lifestyle choice, especially not after she meets the handsome and smart Giovanni one night when she sneaks out.

But as much as Astrid isn't sure about her future unicorn hunting, how can she turn back now, when unicorns are once more running Rampant?

We Were Here by Matt de la Pena

Miguel wasn't planning on running away from his group home, but when Mong, this scary, psycho kid asks him, he finally decides to go. After he messed up, his mom won't even talk or look at him, and Miguel really couldn't care less about anything anymore. So what the heck, why not just run away from everything and go to Mexico like Mong wants. His roommate Rondell, huge, black, and illiterate decides to come too.

The three boys get out okay. Miguel even manages to jack $750 from the cash box. But then things go wrong. Mong's cousin drives them north instead of south to the Mexican border. Now they have to travel through most of the state of California. They need to be careful with their stolen money and, most importantly, they have to avoid the cops. Miguel actually welcomes some of the problems. At least it keeps his mind off of what he did. What happened to his family. How his mom hates him now.

But Miguel is about to learn that the old adage is true - you can't run away from your problems. And that crazy as it seems, three unlikely teens may actually become the best of friends, if they can keep out of jail and make it to Mexico.

A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper

Her Highness Sophie, princess of the tiny island of Montmaray has a dilemma. Now that she just turned sixteen years old, she wants to go to England and be presented at court. But she doesn't want to go without her cousin Veronica, who would rather spend time working in the library on her book, A Brief History of Montmaray then going to parties and meeting boys.

Not that there's been any chance to do either in Montmaray. The tiny windswept island located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coats of Spain and France has very few people remaining on it, mainly the royal family, King John (Veronica's father who went insane when his wife left him), Veronica, Sophie, and Sophie's little tomboy sister Henry. As well as the housekeeper and a couple of villagers. The island has no electricity, no radio, no stores, the royal family is broke, and the castle is falling to pieces around them.

Although Montmaray used to play a vital role in European politics, the rest of the world has passed them by. But now it's 1936 and things are about to get more interesting, especially after two German Nazi officers arrive.

As Europe prepares to go up in flames, the history of Montmaray is about to change.

Battle of the Books

Well, we are in the last days of our Battle of the Books and the gloves are off! Which title is our school's favorite? The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult? The two library aides who suggested these books are getting crazier by the minute. I think I may need a lock on the ballot box!

This craziness came about because of my following the School Library Journal's second annual Battle of the Books. When I was looking for a contest for School Library Month, one of my student aides suggested our own battle, with each aide suggesting their favorite books. We started with 12 and had 4 brackets.

Bracket 1: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Hunger Games, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with The Hunger Games beating out my favorite wizard. I was very worried that the 2 Harrys would split the vote, but HG won fair and square.

Bracket 2: Generation Dead, Catcher in the Rye, and Geektastic. More people knew Catcher in the Rye so it moved on.

Bracket 3: The Host, The Book Thief, and My Sister's Keeper. This one I was not as sure of. The Host would get many of the Twilight votes (no Twilight because my one student aide just wanted it in there to increase his chance of winning, not because it was his actual favorite) but My Sister's Keeper has been extremely popular. And MSK received the most votes to enter the semi-finals.

Bracket 4 - Gone With the Wind, Unwind, and Johnny Got His Gun. Unwind ran away with this round.

The Semi-Finals:
The Hunger Games easily beat Catcher in the Rye.
My Sister's Keeper was ahead of Unwind, though not for lack of trying by my student aides to influence votes. Ahh, politics in action.

The Final Round!
Voting ends tomorrow and my two student aides are actively lobbying for votes, even wanting to take ballots out around the school. This could get interesting! I must say this has been my most popular contest yet with over 150 people voting in at least one of the rounds. All students who vote are entered into a drawing for no library late fees until the end of School Library Month 2011 which is a popular prize.

Hopefully I'll be able to survive the voting madness!

The Compound by S.A. Bodeen

The Compound. For the last 6 years, Eli and his family have been living underground in this huge complex his billionaire father built in case of nuclear war. When war came, the family rushed to the shelter that would protect them. But not everyone made it. After the door closed, Eli realized his twin brother Eddy and his grandmother were still on the outside.

Now 15, Eli has shut himself off from the rest of his family. They all go through the motions, waiting until 15 years are up and they can return to the surface once the radiation has diminshed. Eli's dad has planned for every contingency, food, clothes, even creating a huge library and media room with thousands of books and dvds. But problems occured with the food supply, so that is running out sooner than expected. The alternate plan is too horrendous to even contemplate. Now Eli is beginning to think that his dad is keeping something from them all.

Did anyone survive above in the real world? What is his dad hiding? Eli wants answers, but the only way to get them is to escape the compound and his dad won't let anyone leave.

Eli once had all the time in the world, but now time is running out in the Compound.

Gentlemen by Michael Northrop

Four friends - Micheal, Tommy, Mixer, and Bones. No one seems to care much for them, so they all look out for each other. But then Tommy disappears. He's run off before but not for this long. Meanwhile, the boys' English teacher, Mr. Haberman, is acting very strange. First off there's the matter of the big plastic barrel he had in class. He won't tell what was in it, but it sure seemed like a body. And he's dropping hints in class that he knows what happened to Tommy. The boys are beginning to find it plausible that Haberman murdered Tommy.

But who would believe them and how do they prove it?

Candor by Pam Bachorz

Candor, the perfect town. And Oscar Banks is the perfect son. Or so everyone thinks.

Oscar is class president, straight A student, and Mr. Popular. All the kids in Candor look up to him. He is also the only bad kid in town, not that anyone knows. His dad, the town's founder, controls everyone with subliminal messages, exhorting the residents of Candor to eat healthy, study hard, obey their parents, and "respectful space in every place". Oscar fights the mind control by creating his own messages. He even has his own business helping new teens escape to the real world. And then Nia Silva arrives.

Nia is an artist with a troubled past. She's different from every Candor kid and Oscar falls for her, hard. But as much as she's unconsciously resisting the messages, it won't be long before Nia turns into just another boring Candor clone. And Oscar knows the only way to save her is to lose her.

In Candor, you are what you hear.

Readathon

We had a readathon a while back to raise money for the school library. We held it on the half day at Homecoming, which was both a good and bad choice. About half of the English classes participated and students read approximately 4000 pages, raising $250 (thanks Kyle's dad!). Ms. Tramonte's 3rd period class read the most and received a pizza party from Domino's pizza. Thank you Domino's for supporting our readathon!We may have to have a read-off in the spring as Ms. Tramonte's 7th period class disputed the results.

I'm planning for this to be an annual event and next year we should have more participation. Happy reading!

King of the Screwups by K.L. Going

Liam Geller has screwed up yet again. His dad found him drunk on top of the desk with an almost naked girl. This time, instead of yelling at him or grounding him, Liam's dad throws him out. There's no way he wants to stay with his military grandparents so his mom arranges for him to stay with his gay uncle in a trailer park.

Liam is not happy to see the uncle he barely knows and his uncle seems to be conflicted about his staying there. On his first day of school he gets in trouble and things go downhill from there. No matter what Liam does, he screws everything up. So he decides to change. His dad doesn't like the fact that he's popular, so, he'll be unpopular and maybe even join an academic club or two. But of course he screws even that up.

The one thing Liam is good at is understanding fashion and modeling, a trait he inherited from his mom, a former international supermodel. He even gets a job at the only clothing store in his uncle's small town. But Liam can't be proud of his success as it makes him even more popular than ever and that is the last thing that will impress his dad.

When will Liam realize that he needs to be true to himself and not his dad, instead of being the King of the Screwups?