Reviewed by Lucero C. Ortiz-Cruz

Wings is a remarkable debut about a 15 year old girl named Laurel.  Laurel had been a homeschooled vegan all her life – not the typical teenager.  Her parents bought a bookstore in Crescent City because of financial problems which forced them to leave Orick and sell their home. 

Laurel doesn’t feel like she fits in at Crescent City High School with the other students. A little bit after her arrival Laurel feels a bump on the back of her neck growing larger and larger until one day it disappears and in its place are huge flower petals hovering over her head.  At school she is falling for a cute boy named David who is clearly into knowing her as well.  Laurel wants to know more about her “wings,” so she goes to her old home and finds more creatures like her, fairies!

Although everything seems magical and glittery-perfect, it’s not.  There are trolls trying to buy the land Laurel’s parents are selling.  To save her “kind,” Laurel must find a way to pursuade her parents to keep the land even though they desperately need the money.  As if that wasn’t hard enough, there also surges a love triangle between Laurel, David, and Tamani (a male faerie).

This novel has everything – magic, romance, and danger.  Everything you thought you knew about faeries will change.

Reviewed by Mrs. Walker

I’ve always loved vampire stories, but since the mayhem surrounding the Twilight series erupted, I’m asked almost daily for “books like Twilight.”  So, I’ve been reading more vampire stories than ever.   The Vampire Diaries comes the closest of any to being “like Twilight,” but guess what – it was written more than 10 years BEFORE Twilight.  And, I have to wonder if Twilight author Stephanie Meyer may have been influenced by this vampire classic.

A few of the startling similarities:  Well, for starters, both Twilight and the Vampire Diaries are told in four novels.  Vampire Diaries novels are MUCH shorter, and each book contains two of the novels, so there are two books in total to read to complete the series.

Startling Similarity #2:  The premise:  Human girls meets vampire boy at high school, they fall in love, they battle all the human-in-a-vampire-world/vampire-in-a-human-world problems.  In this case, the “new kid” is the vampire boy, Stefan, for whom mega-popular Elena falls for immediately.  Stefan at first seems to entirely hate Elena, but we soon learn he’s simply masking an uncontrollable attraction to her (hmm, sounds familiar).  In Twilight the attraction is based on the smell of Bella’s blood, in Vampire Diaries, it is Elena’s uncanny resemblance to Stefan’s former love Katherine.

Startling Similarity #3:  The main characters.  Stefan is a brooding, guilt-consumed, reluctant, but ”good,” “vegetarian” (aka non-human diet) vampire who tries repeatedly to keep Elena from continuing a relationship with him for her own good.  Elena is strong-willed and pursues their relationship with complete abandon – the need to be with Stefan is more important than anything to her.

Startling similarity #4:  Evil vampire enters the picture and wants human girl.  Vampire boy must save human girl.  In Vampire Diaries, the evil vampire happens to be Stefan’s older and stronger vampire brother Damon with whom he once battled for the love of Katherine and whom he must now battle for Elena.

There are many other little similarities between the stories, so I can’t help but wonder how much Twilight might have been influenced by this series.  Others obviously share this thought.  Just Google “twilight vampire diaries” and you’ll find a number of websites where readers discuss which one they like better.   For me, I’m still a bigger Twilight fan, but if you’re jonesing for another story in a similar vein, I’ll quickly admit that Vampire Diaries is a good read.

Reviewed by BJ Rosen

Inkspell is a never ending spiral of excitement.  Cornelia Funke is back once again with the latest book from the Inkspell series.  Starting with the new characters (and some of the old), this book will be sure to deprive your time until you’ve read it.  In other words, it’s that feaking awesome!

In the last book, if you’ve already read the first book Inkheart, you learned of Capricorn’s death.  And Dustfingers’ thievery.  Without going into too much detail, Dustfinger gets read back to his own world by Meggie or her fother Mo!  Suspicious, huh?  Well, news reaches her and she ends up in Dustfinger’s world.  Trippy yet.  Well the excitement doesn’t stop there.  Apparently, Capricorn’s angry mother is plotting revenge on her son’s death and is holding Meggie’s family ransom.

Will the fate of the last Ink Readers be diminished by an unmaskable hate or revenge?  Or is there more at stake in the other world of Dustfingers?  Well, I guess there is only one way to find out, and that is to stop reading this article and read the book for yourself.

P.S. The movie Inkheart will be coming out in January 2009 while the third book Inkdeath is out now!

Find all Inkworld novels in the Fiction section under FIC Fun.

Reviewed by BJ Rosen

If you read the first book (Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment), then this is where the excitement really begins.  After learning of the cast and charaters in the first book, the action continues with Ari coming back to life!!  Is that really possible?  I have an idea, but for the time being you should read it for yourself.  The story starts with a fight between Ari and Fang which Fang winds up losing and ends up in the hospital.  Well, things get really freaky when the FBI show up after the discover of Fang’s wings (which is explained in the first book).  After this event, interesting plots begin to unravel such as the new Max may be a clone.   Trust me, the fun is just about to begin in this series.  Be sure to look for the third book in the Maximum Ride series, Saving the World and other Extreme Sports.

Find all Maximum Ride titles in the Fiction section under FIC Pat.

Reviewed by BJ Rosen

DNA lifeforms (being 98% human and 2% avian) Max, Angel, the Gasman, Nudge, Iggy, and Fange.  Pretty much you can tell this story is fictional just from reading the 98% human and 2% avian.  Without being too explanative, this story is nonstop action, confusing mysteries, and has some unanswered questions that leads to the next book.  This book introduces the the altered DNA kids and explains why they have wings (yeh, they have wings!) – they were prisoners of some mad experiment which they excaped two years back.  All in all, I personally think this book and series is great.  This book is almost like a comic book without the pictures.  It will keepy ou on your toes from start to finish.  Be sure to check out the next book in the series Maximum Ride: School’s Out Forever.

Reviewed by Karlene Shippelhoute

Do you want to be popular?  Well, everybody wants to be – or at least Steph Landry does.  Ever since the “Super Big Gulp” incident in 5th grade, Steph has been the least popular person in her class.  But things are about to change?

Steph has brought in her secret weapon, a hand-me-down book called How to Be Popular!  She is sure that after her master plan is through, no one will ever say, “Don’t pull a Steph” again.  Who knows, she’s even hopeful she’ll get the guy too!

Reviewed by Cody Gillen

Heavier Than Heaven was a gripping yet shocking tale of the life of Kurt Cobain.  The book describes in great detail the life of a man who seemed determined to lead a life of self-destruction.  The life of this unwilling frontman is inspirational, motivating, and is one of the greatest stories anyone can read.

Reviewed by Maria Hernandez

The book is kind of confusing at first because the author starts when the main character is older, and then she goes back to when she was younger.  The story gets better though because Juana’s (the main character’s) childhood is very tough.  She is poor and lives in a bamboo shack.  She had already lost two baby sisters and she loses a third one when her house floods and when holding her on top of a table, she falls asleep and lets go of her.   This is a great book.  I give it 5 stars.

Find the book in the Fiction section under FIC Gra.

Reviewed by Marco Montecinos

This book is the continuous adventures of Harry Potter and his two best friends Ron and Hermione at Hogwarts.   Their adventure this year is to find all of Voldermart’s pieces of souls in hopes that Harry can destroy him once and for all.  I really liked this book.  I would recommend it if you like reading or want to be entertained by a cool story.  I recommend you read all the previous books first though.

Reviewed by Karlene Shippelhoute

Jane Harris wants to know “what could possibly go wrong.”  She has only decided to follow her friends Holly & Mark to Italy to help them elope.  Jane, a cartoonist, couldn’t be more delighted that she’s going to Europe.  But when Jane hears that Mark’s best friend Cal is coming along too, she couldn’t be more disappointed.  Not even the beautiful Italian countryside can bring them out of their hate-at-first-sight relationship.  Little does Jane realize she may be forced to suck it up & deal with Cal if it means saving her best friend’s wedding.  Who knows, Jane may even find love of her own during this whole fiasco and learn that every boy’s got one (a heart that is!).