Teen Frankenstein (High School Horror Story #1)

by Chandler Baker

Pages: 336

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Story starts off with an intriguing premise, what if the high school age girl was the first scientist named Frankenstein to bring someone back from the dead. How would she and her best friend, lab partner, deal with the ethical implications? What would they do with the uh, person? during the day while they were in class? How does she keep Mom from finding out? A good beginning introduction to horror and science fiction for a young teen or even the right pre-teen. Some of the ethical questions brought up could lead to good classroom or book club discussion. Not scary at all for most adults and most older teens. 

Olivia Bean: Trivia Queen

Author: Donna Gephart
Pages: 278
Olivia loves trivia , she watches Jeopardy religiously as this was something she and her father loved. Now her parents are divorced and she has lost her best friend. Olivia's father moved across the country and doesn't seem to have much interest in her or her brother now. Will she get his attention?

cover blurb:  Olivia Bean knows trivia. She watches Jeopardy! every night and usually beats at least one of the contestants. If she were better at geography, she would try out for the show’s kids’ week. Not only could she win bundles of money, she’d get to go to the taping in California, where her dad, who left two years ago and who Olivia misses like crazy, lives with his new family.

Freaky Fast Frankie Joe

Pages: 248
Author: Lutricia Clifton
It's hard to move to a new place but even harder when it's with 6 people you don't know and one of them hates you. Frankie Joe has a rough time of it but makes new friends and just keeps trying and comes out better in the end.

Eleven-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four stepbrothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas, not realizing he is making a better life for himself than he ever had with her.

Four Seasons

Jane Breskin Zalben
316 pages

Ally is a piano prodigy and has attended Julliard since she was about 6 , she loves the emotion of the music she plays but is beginning to feel that she is missing out on life with all this practicing and pressure. This book follows her through one year of her life. 

Allegra Katz has been playing piano since she was four. But these aren't just any piano lessons. She studies at the Julliard School in New York, where careers are being formed—or not.

Between strict practice schedules, music classes, and regular school, Ally doesn't have time for much else. Sometimes she wishes she could break free, but she's never known any other way. Her parents—a professional violinist and a singer—would kill her if they knew she was thinking about quitting piano, especially her mother.

So she keeps on going, but as the months go by, she begins to ask herself, does she even love the piano? Why does she play? And how much longer can she stand the pressure before she breaks?

Farmer Boy Goes West

Author: Heather Williams
Pages: 298

Its hard not to read teen and childrens book when I work so close to the youth consultant :) thanks Naphtali!  It actually was nice to read an extension of the Little House on The Prairie books.  Here is the jacket blurb-  Almanzo Wilder is going west! He looks forward to the train ride that will take his family from their farm in New York to the bustling town of Spring Valley, Minnesota. But when they arrive, life isn't what Almanzo expected---and he misses his horse, Starlight. Is Minnesota the right place for the Wilders after all?