The Apothecary

by Maile Meloy

Age group: 10+
Rating: ****` (4.5 stars)
Type: Fantasy/historical fiction

It's 1952. Janie Scott used to live in Los Angeles, but when the government started following her home from school because her parents were communists, her family moved to London. Her school is strange, and she doesn't really like it in England until she meets Benjamin Burrows, an interesting boy who dreams of being a spy and whose father is the apothecary down the street. Under the cover of playing chess, they spy on a Russian, Mr. Shiskin, the father of Sergei, a boy at Janie's school. And one day, he leaves a message in a newspaper, which is then picked up by... Benjamin's father! The message reads:

Jin Lo has been taken. You'll be next. 

Janie and Benjamin discover a mysterious book called the Pharmacopoeia, filled with recipes for magical potions written in Greek and Latin. The elixirs are more incredible than ever--invisibility potions, transformation potions, potions to make you temporarily mute and potions to turn you into salt. But bad people, evil people who want the book for the wrong reasons are coming. Janie and Benjamin must protect the book, keep it away from Russian spies (who could be anyone) and stop a nuclear bomb from exploding. But they can't do it alone--enlisting the help of a snobby girl, a scruffy street boy, and many magic elixirs, Janie and Benjamin embark on an incredible adventure.

I remember a really long time ago my mom got this book out for me and I was not interested in it at all. Now, I have absolutely no idea why. What really makes this book interesting is the potions. They turn it from a regular historical fiction into a fantasy historical fiction, which really can make all the difference. It's a really great story as well. The Apothecary had a fast buildup. It got exciting quickly and stayed that way. Maile Meloy is a very talented writer. I recommend this book highly.

Beauty Queens

by Libba Bray
Age group: 13+
Rating: **** (4 stars)
Type: realistic fiction, mystery

The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream Pageant are on their way to the competition, when their plane unexpectedly crash-lands on an uninhabited island covered in tropical plants and animals.
What a way to start the day! Most of the girls die in the crash, and others are wounded. Miss New Mexico even got an airplane tray stuck in her forehead! Finally, Miss Texas, a girl named Taylor Rene Crystal Hawkins takes charge. She idolizes Ladybird Hope, former Miss Teen Dream, and supposedly knows exactly how to run a group of beauty queens abandoned on an island. But even with a leader, the girls don't have much experience in survival skills. Should they be practicing their dance routine or hunting for food? Sunbathing in bikinis or building a shelter? Each girl has their own specific problems, from dealing with transgender-ness to having an obsessive mother to actually hating pageants and just joining so they can ruin it. Not all of them agree and get along, but somehow they have to manage... or else they die!
But not everything is what it seems... MoMo B. ChaCha, president of the Republic of ChaCha, is developing some sort of weapon to destroy The Corporation and... the Miss Teen Dream Contestants! And he may be having an affair with Ladybird Hope! Can the girls manage to get off this island and save themselves and save their world?
This book is really, really funny. For your entertainment, The Corporation provides many ads for their products throughout the book--Lady 'Stache Off, Git R Done, the TV show Patriot Daughters, and the movie Wedding Day 3: Third Time's the Charm--which are exceedingly funny and lighten the mood of the book, even with sinister things happening in the book. Even if this book does have some swear words in it, I definitely recommend it. It shows the bad side of things like beauty pageants. I have heard that the audiobook version of this is very good as well.

Tuck Everlasting

by Natalie Babbitt

Rating: *****
Age: 10+
Type: Fantasy

One day at the height of summer, ten-year-old Winnie Foster ran away. Her parents never let her go past the huge iron gate separating her yard from the main street without them, and she felt trapped and upset. So she ran away to the woods behind her house which she owned. There she met a boy, Jesse Tuck, drinking from a spring. Winnie wanted to drink too, but Jesse wouldn't let her, for some reason. But after a talk with the other Tucks (Jesse's brother, Miles, mother, Mae, and father, Angus Tuck), she finds out why. Apparently if you drink from the spring, you'll stay exactly as you are forever. That's what happened to Jesse, Miles, Mae, Tuck, and their horse. However, Winnie can't tell anyone, because if she does, everyone will want to live forever, and that would be bad. It's magical for Winnie, and even if the Tucks take her to their house for the night, they're going to bring her home the next day. But there's a man in a yellow suit who wants to use the spring for his own sinister purposes... Can Winnie and the Tucks save their secret? When Mae hits the man in the head--hard--with a shotgun, rendering him unconscious, and is caught by the sheriff, it doesn't help matters. The Tucks are accused of kidnapping, and if the man in the yellow suit dies, which he might, then Mae gets the gallows. But Mae can't die, and if she's hanged everyone will know! Winnie must help the Tucks, before it's too late.
This book is really great. It has a lot of deep thoughts in it. It makes you think. It's interesting to see how Winnie changes from the start of the book to the end. She gets more thoughtful and mature. You also get to see the Tucks' different views on life and everlasting life. This book is also really sad. Natalie Babbitt makes you really like the characters and then at the end you feel sorry that they have to leave. This book is very emotionally touching, at least for me. Even though this is a book I had to read for school, it would be something I'd read again on my own time. I recommend it to everybody.
There is a movie version of this book, also titled Tuck Everlasting. It is NOT as good as the book. They changed a lot of things, and it's not as emotionally touching. My advice would be to read the book instead of seeing the movie, or read the book before seeing the movie. They basically changed it into an action-adventure movie.

Scorpia Rising

by Anthony Horowitz
part of the Alex Rider series, book 9 (the last one)

Rating: ****` (4.5 stars)
Age group: 10+
Type: Fiction

Scorpia is a terrorist group with recruits from all over the world. They are notoriously hard to catch and powerful beyond belief. However, there is one spy who has bested them before--MI6 member Alex Rider. Even though he's only 15, he's very good at his job. Even if Alex,  is a great spy though, he just wants to be a normal boy. But Alan Blunt, head of the MI6 (a British spy organization), wants Alex to take a mission in Cairo, Egypt, where a child is needed. The job? Infiltrate the Cairo International College of Arts and Education, the CICAE, and keep an eye on the principal, Erik Gunter, who might be trying to kidnap the wealthiest kids in the school. But what MI6 doesn't know is that  whole thing is a trap set by Scorpia to get rid of Alex once and for all. So when Alex is captured by Scorpia, he's in deep trouble.
This a great book. Anthony Horowitz is really good at writing action scenes. He makes them intense and suspenseful. He's also good at describing things, and that plus the action make for a really good book. There are a lot of sinister characters who make great antagonists, and the protagonists are proportionally good. Anthony Horowitz puts his characters into many sticky situations and he doesn't always try to protect them. Most of the time, they're on their own, and he even lets some of the good guys die. Overall, really wonderful book.

Boy2Girl

by Terence Blacker

Rating:***` (3 1/2 stars)
Age group: 12+
Type: Realistic fiction

Matthew Burton's cousin is coming to do more than visit--he's living with Matthew's family for a while, because of his family. Sam Lopez is moving to England from America and it's a big change for him. He's kind of an outcast, and one day Matthew's group he hangs out with sets him a deal: if Sam pretends to be a girl for 5 days to infiltrate a girl group at school, he can be part of their gang. It works, and soon everyone's convinced Sam (Samantha) is a girl, but after 5 days, Sam doesn't want to stop. He just keeps going. Then his father comes to town, and he must hide from him. And on top of that, he still has to break the news that he's a boy!
This book is very interesting. Sam does a strangely good job of being a girl. However it's one of those stories where the narrative changes quite a lot. Other books like that change every chapter, but here the narrator changes every few paragraphs. It's kind of unnerving. And also the girl's group at school is called the B****es which is slightly strange, even though they have a good explanation for it. But other than that, this is a pretty good read.

Chew on This

by Eric Schlosser

Rating: ***** ( 5 stars)
Age group: 9+
Type: non-fiction

This book describes the disgusting reality behind fast food--from the customer service and the employee treatment to the slaughterhouses and preparation of the food. The author follows the food fresh from birth to dead, on your plate. There are many pictures throughout, which add to the paragraphs and stop it from being a massive wall of text. However this book isn't for the faint of stomach. Describing things such as gory employee injuries--one unfortunate worker was turned into lard when he fell in a vat--and what really goes into your hamburgers--hint: it has something to do with body waste--don't read this volume if you favor your chicken nuggets!
I especially liked this book because it was very informative and interesting. It was nice to finally know the truth about fast food. It was also interesting to find out how people create television ads, because they do that very strategically. My favorite part was probably the employee injuries because they really are gory. It shows how much these places cover up.

The Wednesday Wars

by Gary D. Schmidt

Rating: **** (4 stars)
Age group: 10+
Type: historical realistic fiction

Holling Hoodhood's teacher hates his guts. Why else would she possibly make him read Shakespeare outside of class?
It's 1967 and Holling has a lot to worry about. There's a war going on in Vietnam. He has to keep a good reputation since he's going to inherit Hoodhood and Associates, the architecture family business. Cream puffs. His crush, Meryl Lee, who doesn't always like him and whose father owns a rival architecture company. Mean kids at school. Oh, and there's a pair of giant rats lurking around too. So why does Mrs. Baker have to add reading Shakespeare to the stack?
Eventually, though, Holling learns to appreciate Shakespeare and the Bard starts to improve his life. But after an unfortunate newspaper article featuring him--him!--wearing only yellow tights and white feathers around his butt, it all comes back, with even more worries to haunt him.
This book is very realistic and doesn't seem like historical fiction when you read it, except for the mentions of war. For example, they practice going under their desks in case there is a bomb. Holling has a believable and slightly sarcastic voice that is fun to read. This book is also pretty good, because even if all Holling's worries seem unconnected, Shakespeare ties them all together so it's not a scattered plot. Mostly this book is told with Holling's sarcastic voice but some parts are more sentimental. Overall, this is a really great book.