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?