All Shook Up by Shelley Pearsall (261 pages)
Thirteen-year-old Josh has lived with his mom in Boston since his parents divorced eight years earlier. Unfortunately, his mom has to go to Florida to care for his grandmother who has broken a hip and Josh is forced to head to Chicago to stay with his dad for a few months. He isn't sure how things will go, but he is more than surprised to find out that his dad isn't working at his old job anymore. Instead, his job is dressing up as Elvis and performing concerts in various places! Josh is mortified when his dad is offered the chance to perform at his school, so he makes up a fake contest flyer and mails it to his dad. The flyer says there is a $5000 prize for the best Elvis impersonator and that the winner will get to compete in Las Vegas. Josh is just trying to get out of the humiliation of having his dad perform at his school, but the prank goes way too far. What can he do to stop Elvis from taking over his life?Miss Simer's Rating: **1/2
In this futuristic society, Miri, along with the other fifteen-year-olds, is expected to showcase her Talent before she can be Masked. However, Miri has not yet discovered her true Talent, and the Masker allows Miri to have an extra year to find her Talent. Miri sneaks into the Masking ceremony and watches as her friends' talents are taken by the Masker and their life's energy is drained to dullness. The Masker finds Miri and instantly decides she has seen too much and must be Masked as a house servant, the lowest job of the society. Before she can be Masked as a house servant, Miri escapes to the surrounding Deadlands and discovers the Secret Valley. Here she finds instruments, singing, beautiful landscapes, and the truth behind Masking and the Masker. Can she return to her society to save her people from being puppets for the Master? If you like The Giver, you will love this book!
High school junior Alex Gregory has hit a bit of a rough patch. He was angry with him mom so he decided to drink (a lot!) of alcohol and get behind the wheel of her car and take it for a spin. Luckily, Alex crashed into a neighbor's lawn gnome and wasn't seriously hurt and didn't hurt anyone else, but the consequences of his actions takes him to court. The judge sentences him to 100 hours of community service at a nearby nursing home, and he is assigned to "befriend" crotchety old man Solomon Lewis. With a big attitude and an even bigger vocabulary of Yiddish terms, Sol is definitely a handful. He is ill with emphysema (lung disease), but he remains feisty. Despite the reasons he was put into the situation, Alex is able to hone his guitar skills with Sol's help and become a better friend to Laurie, his best friend since childhood.
Leo Caraway is the leader of his high school's Young Republicans, he has earned a full scholarship to Harvard, and he is just counting down the days until college. While taking an end-of-the-year Algebra exam, Leo says "pinball" to a neighboring student to help him remember how to find vectors, and then he is accused of cheating and stripped of his Harvard scholarship. Desperate, Leo decides to track down his biological father - the lead punk rocker of the band Purge - and beg him for Harvard tuition money. When he finally meets Marion X. McMurphy AKA "King Maggot," he is surprised by how fatherly the man turns out to be. Leo joins the band on their summer tour as a roadie and gets to know the life of a rock star. Join Leo on his path to self-discovery in this rocking novel by Gordon Korman!
Troy Billings is a 6 foot 1, 295 pound, seventeen-year-old living in
