Dope Sick – Walter Dean Myers

I am not sure what to think about Dope Sick by Walter Dean Myers.

Lil J. painfully makes his way into a run down building (crack house) in Harlem after being shot in the arm by police.  He can’t figure out how to get out of the building without being caught.  He hears voices and finds his way to an apartment where a young man is watching TV with a spectacular remote.

With this remote, not only can you see what is on broadcast television, but you can also see what is going on outside of the apartment building.  You can see what will happen in the future, and what has happened in the past.

Will Lil J. find a way out of his predicament?  He wasn’t the one who shot the cop when the drug deal went bad.  Where did his life go wrong?  If he could change one thing, would that make his life better?

Bloodhound – Tamora Pierce

Tamora Pierce’s second book about Beka Cooper, Bloodhound, is as adventurous as the first.

Beka has completed her Puppy training and is now a first year Dog (a full-fleged member of the realm’s police force, actually called the Provost’s Guard).  Alas, she is unlucky in her partner assignments.  Each time a partnership fails, she is sent back to work with Tunstall and Goodwin, her training Dogs (see book 1, Terrier, for Beka’s Puppy training).

Shortly after Beka is returned to her old partners for the fourth time, they hear fellow Dogs blowing the General Alarm on their whistles.  She, Goodwin and Tunstall run to the Nightmarket where a riot is breaking out due to the rise in prices of day old bread.  Why is the price rising?  Much of the grain crop has developed rot, and there are many more counterfeit coins in circulation then usual.  What can business do but raise their prices to cover the costs of their losses?  It is too bad that the bad coin could cause the realm to fall.

Beka still has her informants in the ghosts that ride the pigeons (oh, Slapper!) and she can hear whatever snatches of conversation the Spinners have intercepted.  From that information, and from what others have sniffed out, Beka and Goodwin are sent to find out where the bad money is coming from.

There are a number of helpful lists in the back of the book to help with the large cast of characters and glossary to help with the unusual and/or old fashioned terms.  Beka also picks up a new companion, a scent hound named Achoo, and we are given a list of her commands.

Expect good Dogs and bad Dogs, good Rogues and bad Rogues, good coin and bad coin, and all in all a good tail.  Er, tale.

“Achoo, mencari.”   (“Achoo, seek.”)

2009 Teens’ Top Ten Nominations

The Teens’ Top Ten Nominations list was released a few weeks ago.  This year the voting will be from August 24 to September 18, 2009 and the results will be released in time for Teen Read Week in October.

Cashore, Kristin Graceling
Cast, Kristin & P.C. Untamed
Clare, Cassandra City of Ashes
Collins, Suzanne The Hunger Games
Fukui, Isamu Truancy
Fukui, Isamu Truancy: Origins
Gaiman, Neil The Graveyard Book
Green, John Paper Towns
Harris, Joanne Runemarks
Hopkins, Ellen Identical
Lockhart, E. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Marriott, Zoe Daughter of the Flames
McMann, Lisa Wake
Meyer, Stephenie Breaking Dawn
Moran, Katy Bloodline
Ness, Patrick The Knife of Never Letting Go
Noel, Alyson Evermore
Palmer, Robin Geek Charming
Pierce, Tamora Melting Stones
Scott, Elizabeth Living Dead Girl
Smith, Cynthia Leitich Eternal
Smith, Sherri L. Flygirl
Weingarten, Lynn Wherever Nina Lies
Werlin, Nancy Impossible
Yee, Lisa Absolutely Maybe

Wintergirls – Laurie Halse Anderson

Lia needs to be weighed every week.  Before each weighing she gulps down as much water as she can and dons her yellow robe with the quarters sewn into the pockets.  She stands on the scale in front of her stepmother and she tips the scales at 107 pounds.  That number is too low.  (According to her stepmother.)

When she goes back to her room and uses her own scale, after peeing out the water and removing the robe, she weighs 99 pounds.  That number is too high.  (According to Lia.)  But it is goal number 1.

The book starts out with Lia being told that her old best friend Cassie was found dead in a motel room, all alone, early Sunday morning.    Lia tells no one that Cassie had called her many times starting late Saturday night.  Lia was too angry at Cassie to answer the phone.  And really, why should she answer a call from a person who abandoned her 6 months ago?

33 times Cassie called.   And now she is haunting Lia.

Lia has anorexia.  Lia is starving herself in control. Except she doesn’t know why Cassie was calling her, or what she wants now. Wintergirls is another riveting book by Laurie Halse Anderson.