Struggles, Challenges, and Victories
By Hollie Parry and Cheryl Caldwell

Each character in December’s reviews, finds that they are forced face their own fears and insecurities in order to overcome the obstacles placed before them. Yet each also finds along the way to personal victory that a few good friends help make the journey worthwhile. 

We have been reading many books lately, about teens that feel alone and alienated from the people around them.  For one reason or another, they find that they just don’t quite fit in with the norm and wish that their lives could be different. We have also found a common theme through characters that must find inner strength to do the things that inevitably must be done, but seem impossible. Each character in December’s reviews, finds that they are forced face their own fears and insecurities in order to overcome the obstacles placed before them. Yet each also finds along the way to personal victory that a few good friends help make the journey worthwhile. 

Peacekeepers by Dianne Linden

Nell and her brother Mike are staying with their Uncle Martin, while their mother is in Bosnia with a Canadian military operation called Peacekeepers.  Nell is angry with her mother for leaving her family to go to a foreign country to help people she doesn’t even know. Nell doesn’t understand how needy people in Bosnia trump the needs of Nell and her brother. Nell goes to a school that she nicknames “JAWS,” and within the first few weeks is constantly pushed around by a bully.  When she tries to fight back by reporting the harassment, her problems only get worse as she is targeted by a group of bullies led by a belligerent, angry girl named Bonnie. As Nell faces torment and situations that she feels like entrap her, she finds out that what her mother is “fighting” for in Bosnia and what Nell must do take control of her own life are not so different.

An interesting story about how people can feel the same although their lives are very different.

The House on the Gulf by Margaret Peterson

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Britt thinks that her brother Bran can walk on water; especially when he finds a rent-free family summer house-sitting job that will allow their mother to go to school full-time. As Bran, Britt, and their mother move into the Marquis home for the summer, Britt begins to suspect that the house- sitting gig is just a little too good to be true. Curiosity sprung, Britt searches for clues as to whose house they are living in and why the stories Bran tells sound like lies. Things start making sense when Britt comes across the keys to a locked closet in Bran’s room. What she finds there and how the story unravels will keep you guessing until the end. 

Midnight for Charlie Bone by Jenny Nimmo

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Charlie Bone is an ordinary boy living with his mother and two grandmothers.  One day he opens an envelope to find a picture in which the people talk to him. He passes it off as a weird experience until his crazy aunts show up to quiz him on “being endowed.” Being endowed turns out to be a term used for people who have special extraordinary powers. Charlie soon finds out that he can hear the conversations of the people in the photograph that transpired as the picture was being taken. He also soon finds out that because he is endowed, he will immediately be transferred to Bloor’s Academy, a school for children who are geniuses. Charlie does not want to go to Bloor’s, but at the insistence of his family he attends the strange school. While there Charlie must uncover a mystery of a missing girl who Charlie thinks is being hidden in the school by the administration.  With the help of his uncle, a few other “misfit” children like Charlie, and a tip from three cats, he solves one mystery and finds another… this one much closer to home. Although this book is suspiciously close at times to Harry Potter, it is an interesting, fun read.

Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo by Obert Skye

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Foo is the name of the place where the dreams of all the people of the world live. Sabine (a powerful resident of Foo) plans to discover the hidden secret of a gateway that will allow him to leave Foo and rule over the real world. The hitch in Sabine’s plan is that by opening the gateway to Foo, Sabine will cause all dreams to cease to exist and as a result cause all people to cease to exist as well. He does not believe that this will happen and continues to push forward in his plot to rule the worlds. The precarious future of both the real world and the dream world rests on the shoulders of four unlikely friends; Leven Thumps, Winter, Geth, and Clover. With sleep, shadows, the elements, and evil Sabine against them, at times it is doubtful whether Leven and his friends will succeed in their mission to destroy the gateway to Foo. An exciting book, full of twists and upsets throughout.