Shelf Life

Welcome to the LHS Reading Blog! If you would like to post a book review, comment, poem or other original writing just e-mail it to Mr. Doyle at tdoyle@muhsd.k12.ca.us

The CYRM committee has announced the nominees for next year and they have picked some great books.

In the Young Adult Category:
Shattering Glass by Gail Giles is about high school social experiment that ends in violence. You will be hooked from the first paragraph. We already own a couple of copies of this book.
F Gil

Hanging on to Max by Margaret Bechard is about a high school boy who refuses to let his girlfriend give up their baby for adoption. Can Sam raise Max on his own? And is that what is best for the baby? We already have copies of this one too.
F Bec

Emako Blue by Brenda Woods is about the effects that a young girl’s life and death have on her fellow students. Four friends who were brought together by the beautiful and talented Emako grieve her tragic death and tell how she changed their lives.
Coming soon.

In the Middle School/Jr. High Category:

Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan is about a young girl, her brother, and their grandmother running to Mexico to find the kids’ missing father and to escape from her abusive mother. We already own this title.
F Rya

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko tells the story of Moose and his family. It is 1935 and Moose’s dad has gotten a job as a guard at Alcatraz. Can Moose adjust to life on “The Rock” and the difficulty of living with an autistic sister?
Coming soon.

Letters From Wolfie by Patti Sherlock is about a boy named Mark who volunteers his beloved dog to serve as a guard animal in Vietnam in hopes of helping soldiers like his brother. But when the army refuses to tell him when he will get his dog back he begins to worry.
Coming Soon

The CYRM deadline is March 24th. All books must be read, reading logs submitted (or AR quizzes taken), and votes cast by that date. If you read the books last smester you can still vote. See Mr. Doyle as soon as possible.

Cal works for the Night Watch, a secret, extra-governmental agency that has operated in New York City since colonial times. Cal’s job is to hunt down parasite-positives (a.k.a Peeps). The parasite alters the host’s physiology and brain chemistry, making them stronger and faster, giving them heightened senses, sensitivity to light and an extreme hunger for meat– the rarer the better. The parasite is transmitted through bites or an exchange of bodily fluids. In other words, vampirism is an STD.

As the book opens Cal is hunting down his ex-girlfriend Sarah. Cal finds her in a warehouse in Hoboken with her brood of rats. He manages to subdue her for the transport squad to take her into custody. Cal has to hunt down all of his exes because he infected them with the parasite. Cal is a rarity, a carrier who does not become a full-blown Peep. With Sarah in custody Cal has found all the women he infected. Now he must find the woman who infected him, Morgan. His hunt for Morgan leads him to Lace, budding journalist, to whom he is drawn. Their investigation uncovers some bizarre goings on under the city and within the Night Watch itself. Is someone in the Night Watch protecting Morgan? And are there things worse than Peeps stalking beneath the city?

Westerfeld’s take on the vampire story is original and refreshing. The fiction is mixed with science as Cal gives occasional discourses on parasitology, some grisly enough compete with main story. If you liked Klause’s The Silver Kiss, Anderson’s Thirsty, Hautman’s Sweetblood, and Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ books you will love this one.

Mr. Doyle

Walter Mosley is best known for his mystery stories (Devil in a Blue Dress, Bad Boy Brawley Brown) but he has also written some excellent science fiction books (Blue Light and The Wave). In his first foray into young adult literature he has written a unique story that combines mythology with historical and science fiction. 47 is a slave in antebellum America. His master is vicious and conditions in the slave quarters are brutal. Mosley makes the reality of slave life more vivid than any history book or even any novel I can remember. 47 struggles to survive until a mysterious new slave appears. Tall John, like High John the Conquerer of African-American mythology, comes from far away (“beyond Africa”) and has strange powers. He tells 47 that he has been searching for him because 47 is destined to lead his people out of bondage. Tall John also teaches 47 that he has a destiny to fulfill in a wider struggle against evil.

Mosley ably show not only the depths of human depravity and the incomprehensible brutality of slavery but the strength of the human spirit and how, in many of the characters, kindness and dignity survive despite the violence and degradation. Though there is nothing gratuitous, this is not a book for the squeamish.

Mr. Doyle

This may be the best book I have read in 5 or 10 years. In places it is so heart breaking that it is difficult to read. It is beautifully written and the protagonist, Amir, seems so real that you can’t help thinking it is an autobiography (it is not).

Amir, as a child, betrays his truest friend Hassan, the son of his father’s servant. Hassan is as kind and loyal a person as you will find in literature. His heart-felt refrain, “For you, a thousand times over,” still haunts me as it did Amir. The betrayal is so awful that it defines Amir’s entire life (as he tells us in the first line of the book).

Amir and his father flee Afghanistan and the Soviet supported communist government. They land in the U.S. where Amir grows into manhood and marries. As an adult Amir is unable to connect with his father and is never able to be truly happy, even with the love of a good woman. After his father’s death Amir learns that Hassan and his wife have been killed by the Taliban. Amir travels to pre-9/11 Afghanistan to rescue Hassan’s son and to attempt to redeem himself. He must face down the brutal Taliban regime, international bureaucracies, and the demons of his youth.

It is certain to become a classic.

Mr. Doyle