Shift

Shift

by Jennifer Bradbury

Atheneum, 2008

ISBN 9781416947325

254 pages

4 (out of 5) STARS

Plot Summary

Imagine you and your best friend head off on a cross-country bike trek.

Imagine that you get into a fight — the cheap s.o.b. won't kick in any cash.

Imagine you stop riding together.

Imagine you reach Seattle then come home alone, still p.o-ed.

Imagine the FBI is now at your college dorm.

Imagine finding out that your former best friend never made it home.

And imagine that he had actually been carrying over $20,000 in cash with him.

Imagine your world shifting....

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2874897-shift

Critical Evaluation

I found this book on the same list that I found the book Reality Check. Located here. Reality Check was okay, but Shift was wonderful! First, the idea of riding a bike cross country without any real plan sounds like a great adventure. Then having your friend totally disappear and then not reappear in time for college provided a very interesting mystery. This is one of the best mystery, but not scary, stories I have read in awhile.

Reader’s Annotation

Best friend Chris and Win go on a cross country bike ride. But only one returns.

Information about the author

"I grew up and attended college in Kentucky, and worked a few summers at a boy's camp in North Carolina. I met my husband there and we spent our honeymoon biking across the southern U.S. After that, we moved to Washington State, where I taught high school English for eight years. Most of my time was devoted to working with ninth-grade writers. Now, I'm a stay-at-home mom who manages to write a little every day (almost!) during my daughter's nap time." (http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2008/07/author-interview-jennifer-bradbury-on.html).

Genre

Mystery.

Curriculum Ties

This book would be great to use during a unit about character development especially when talking about perseverance. I could also be used in a P.E. or exercise unit.

Booktalking Ideas

Have you ever wanted to do some something physically challenging? Do you think you could bike across the whole country? What would you do if your best friend went missing?

Reading Level

Ages 12 to 17.

Challenge Issues

N/A

Why Included?

I included this book because it is a good suspenseful mystery, yet not scary. It is also a good coming-of-age story. I found this title on a list of good books for teens produced by my library.

Reality Check

Reality Check

by Peter Abrahams

HarperTeen, 2009

ISBN 9780061227660

330 pages

3 (out of 5) STARS

Plot Summary

After a knee injury destroys sixteen-year-old Cody's college hopes, he drops out of high school and gets a job in his small Montana town, but when his ex-girlfriend disappears from her Vermont boarding school, Cody travels cross-country to join the search.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5323360-reality-check

Critical Evaluation

This book is just okay. I gave it a 3 star rating because reading it was not unpleasant but it does not really have any redeeming qualities that makes me think about it, remember it or want to read it again. I did not really like any of the characters. Cody has no direction or goals in his life. At the end of the book Clea goes home with Cody. But to what end? What is their future together? I am glad she was found and is safe, but now what? I guess the book did not really move me or interest me. The mystery part was interesting though. And teens may quite easily enjoy the suspense and mystery.

Reader’s Annotation

When Cody's girlfriend goes missing from college, he travels cross country to join in the search to find her.

Information about the author

"As a boy, I read voraciously, almost anything I could get my hands on, but I enjoyed adventure stories the most. I wasn't one of those unhappy kids who loses himself in books. I was a pretty happy kid who did it. We had a summer cottage in Quebec. My grandmother would come up on weekends, bringing me a kind of popcorn I liked and a stack of books. There would be famous ones, like Treasure Island, and not-so-famous ones, like Red Pete the Ruthless. I can still recall the last scene of that one--Red Pete, buried up to the neck between the high and low tide lines, surrounded by his stolen gold, waves lapping closer. Can't you just hear the hiss of the bubbles? I could, even if the writer hadn't bothered to imagine that part. I loved a powerful story.

And still do, but I became much more demanding in my reading. Besides all the usual things - depth of characterization, atmosphere, the telling details--I grew to want that extra something that's so hard to pin down, related to the voice of the writer and the resonance of the story, which I think of as the spirit of the book. So many novels have none at all, but the great ones--Pale Fire, The Comedians, Crime and Punishment to name a few that affected me--glow with it.

Closer to my own field, I've been influenced by Graham Greene. I refer especially to what he called his entertainments. They are crime novels as far as I'm concerned(A Gun for Sale, Stamboul Train, Brighton Rock), and that's what I do. One of the problems in crime fiction is the evanescence of the reading experience, how light these stories--no matter how crammed with noir--really are. Greene's are weighty, and what momentum he establishes when they get going! With Greene, there's also the voice, so sympathetic at times, at other times off-putting, often both at once. I love how he does that.

But that's just another of the wonderful things about reading, this intimate and changing relationship between the book and the reader. No other form of entertainment--not movies, not TV, not the Internet--comes close for me. I feel very lucky that I've been able to add a few new stories to the collective body of written work." (http://www.peterabrahams.com/bio.html)

Genre

Mystery.

Curriculum Ties

psychology. peer relations.

Booktalking Ideas

*To what extent would you go to find a loved one that was missing?

Reading Level

age 12 and up

Challenge Issues

N/A

Why Included?

I found a great list of young adult books at the Austin public library. This was a book on the mystery list.

Rift

Rift

by Beverly Birch

Egmont, 2006

ISBN 9781405215893

285 pages

3 (out of 5) STARS

Plot Summary

In a vast African landscape, four teenagers and a journalist vanish without a trace from a camp below a steep rock ridge. As Ella, the sister of one of the missing girls, helps Inspector Murothi piece together what happened, she realizes there are terrifying possibilities for her sister and the four others. There has been sinister behavior and bullying in the camp where the missing were staying. Has there been foul play? Then one of the missing turns up—but with no memory of what has happened. As the search helicopters continue their constant hum over the rock ridge, Ella and the inspector begin to wonder whether they are already too late.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1228423.Rift

Critical Evaluation

This book moved very slowly. The mystery part was interesting. Four students and one journalist went missing. And at the beginning there are no clues as to where they would have gone. Some of the other members of the camp are a bit sinister and distract the reader but nothing else really happens in the book. Overall, I still enjoyed the book because I don't mind a slow read but it was not what I expected.

Reader’s Annotation

Four teenagers and a journalist disappear from camp in the vast African landscape.

Information about the author

"Beverley Birch is a published author and a narrator of children's books and young adult books. Some of the published credits of Beverley Birch include Rift, Shakespeare's Tales: The Tempest (Shakespeare's Tales), Julius Caesar (Shakespeare's Tales)." http://www.jacketflap.com/beverley-birch/16432

Genre

Mystery.

Curriculum Ties

archaeology.

Booktalking Ideas

*Four students and one journalist have disappeared without a trace from your camp in the unknown African landscape. What can you do?

Reading Level

ages 12 and up

Challenge Issues

N/A

Why Included?

This book had appeal because it was a mystery set in Africa.

Kiss Me Kill Me

Kiss Me Kill Me

by Lauren Henderson

Delacorte Press, 2008

ISBN 9780385734875

260 pages

3.5 (out of 5) STARS

Plot Summary

When 16-year-old Scarlett Wakefield transfers from St. Tabby’s to Wakefield Hall Collegiate, she is relieved that no one knows her dark, haunting secret.

A few months ago, Scarlett was invited to an elite party with a guest list full of the hottest names in British society, including Dan McAndrew. Before the party, Scarlett had only imagined what it would be like to have her first kiss with Dan, but on the penthouse terrace, Dan leaned in close and she no longer had to wonder. Their kiss was beautiful and perfect and magical, and then . . .

Dan McAndrew took his last breath as she held him in her arms. No one knows how or why Dan died, and everyone at St. Tabby’s believes Scarlett had something to do with it. But now that she’s safely hidden away at Wakefield Hall, Scarlett would rather forget that it ever happened.

Only she can’t.

Especially when she receives an anonymous note that will set her on the path to clearing her name and finding out what really happened to the first and last boy she kissed.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2005138.Kiss_Me_Kill_Me

Critical Evaluation

This book was great. It is an odd combination of mystery, romance, and maybe even moving into chick lit. That being said, I greatly enjoyed it. Scarlett is very funny. She reminds me a bit of Angus in Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal snogging by Louise Rennison. This book contained the time honored teen traditional of ditching your real friends for 'cooler' friends and then bad things start to happen.

Reader's Annotation

Scarlett has her very first kiss with the handsome Dan, but then he dies in her arms.

Information about the author

Lauren Henderson was born in London and educated at Cambridge, where she studied English literature. She worked as a journalist for newspapers and music magazines before moving to Tuscany to write books, work as a waitress, learn Italian and party through the rest of her twenties. Finally, after eight years, she dragged herself away and, lured by “Sex and the City”, moved to Manhattan. She has now moved back to settle in London, long-suffering husband and an unfeasibly large cat in tow. Lauren’s interests include trapeze, pole-dancing, watching “America’s Next Top Model” on TV, and cocktail-drinking.

Lauren has been described in the press as both the Dorothy Parker and the Betty Boop of the British crime novel. She also writes for many UK-based publications, including Grazia and Cosmopolitan and several national newspapers.

http://www.laurenhenderson.net/lauren.html

Genre

mystery. romance. humor.

Curriculum Ties

allergies. interpersonal relationships.

Booktalking ideas

*If something awful happened to you, but it wasn't your fault. Would you still want to change schools?

Reading level

ages 14 and up

Challenges Issues

N/A

Why included?

I found this book on a list of recommended teen reads from my local library.