Adventure Back in Time

You name me one kid who wasn't fascinated with dinosaurs as a kid and I will show you a fibber! Remember the first time you went to a museum and saw a dinosaur skeleton? Or watched one of those Discovery channel specials like "Walking with the Dinosaurs"? I am not going to lie, but I still have nightmares when I watch "Jurassic Park"! So who wouldn't love a story about a bunch of kids who end up back in time running from dinosaurs, right?! Well Chronal Engine by Greg Leitich Smith doesn't disappoint!


Alex and his brother and sister, twins Kyle and Emma, are being shipped off to their crazy, reclusive grandfather's house for the summer while their mother trots off to the far reaches of the earth to dig for bones. This is the same house where Tyrannosaur footprints were found fossilized in a creek bed. But their grandfather cut the prints off to the public years ago and now the kids get to see how the crazy old man really lives. Once there, things don't stop being strange. Their grandfather showed them his prized possession- the Chronal Engine.


The Chronal Engine is a time machine. The kids think it is just a large and rather strange decoration, but when their grandfather predicts his own heart attack and gives the kids a cryptic message, they suspect it isn't as useless as they once thought. When Emma is kidnapped and *poof* disappears into thin air, they know she has been taken back in time. Their only hope for saving their sister is to follow her, but that means a whole host of giant creatures that want to eat them, squash them, or just plain terrify them. Can they get to Emma before she becomes dinosaur food?


This was a really quick, fun little middle reader. It is definitely for the younger crowd, most likely late elementary to early middle school students. The story is fun and adventurous, and the characters are interesting. The story is relatively short, so there isn't a lot of background knowledge or a huge amount of character development, but for this age-group, that isn't a problem. You really don't want a cryptic, complex story for a middle reader. There are some plot holes as well, or things that aren't fully explained or resolved, but I imagine a younger student would be so wrapped up in the dinosaurs to notice!


The dinosaurs are really cool. In fact, I love that Alex is a dinosaur buff (shocker when his mom is a paleontologist, right?!). He is that great little kid who knows everything about dinosaurs and isn't afraid to hide it! The beauty of this kind of story is that it can show a kid that knowledge is cool! Without knowledge, the kids never would have saved Emma and gotten back home! I love a book that shows kids how being interested and smart is an asset, not something "nerdy"! So put this books on your shelves, teachers and librarians, because it is a fantastic middle reader and will be great for boys and girls alike. But be very, very still... there is a T-rex right behind you!

A Dragon Who Can't Leave Her Hunter

Dragons are real, but they aren't the same dragons of medieval times. They are Draki. Draki are dragons who can manifest and demanifest- turn into dragons or turn into their human forms. Jacinda has always been happy being a draki, but when her mother and sister took her away from the pride to the desert where her inner dragon started to wither, she fell in love with the one person she shouldn't have- a hunter. In Vanish, by Sophie Jordan, we see how that love led Jacinda down a path she never thought she'd find herself.


Jacinda committed the worst crime a draki could commit- she manifested into a dragon in front of a pack of hunters. Now they know the secret of the draki- that they can disguise themselves as humans. Jacinda's twin sister saves them though. Tamra had never manifested as a dragon, but when her family was in trouble she finally found her inner dragon- a shader no less. There is only one more important dragon than a fire-breather like Jacinda, and that is the shader. Shaders have the ability to confuse people and make them forget they saw a dragon. Now that the danger is temporarily over, Jacinda, Tamra and their mother must return to the pride where they are likely to be in a lot of trouble.


When they return to the pride, Tamra becomes the focus of everyone's positive attention. Jacinda and her mother become the focus of everyone's negative attention. They are being punished for running away and almost exposing the draki's secret. But Jacinda still can't forget her hunter, Will. When he stumbles into the pride's land, Jacinda decides to run away with him where she can finally be free of the pride's control. What she doesn't expect is for Will's family, a family of hunters, to be waiting for her. Can she escape the hunters? Or will Jacinda become an experiment like so many butchered draki before her?


This was a fun follow up to the first book and definitely took the story in a good direction. You saw more of the pride and the dragons, which was an interesting addition. The social situation in the pride is very feudal and is interesting to learn more about. I was also happy to see Tamra finally manifest and find her inner dragon. She was so sad in the first book that it was nice to finally see her come into her own! I think this is a good middle reader/YA series for any student who is breaking out of the middle reader books that are still rather immature but hasn't completely moved onto the more mature young adult novels. The language is simple and clean, but the story is fun and exciting. 

A Long, Difficult Road

Sometimes I wonder if authors forget that writing a young adult novel means they are writing for... young adults. Young Adults are not always the strongest readers. They aren't adults. In fact, for young adults, reading for pleasure is a huge part in developing their language skills, such as vocabulary, comprehension, and decoding. Therefore, I have no idea why authors would choose to write a YA novel and make it impossible for young adults to read... but sadly, that is exactly what Moira Young has done with Blood Red Road. She created an awesome story that I would never give to my students.

Saba lives in Silverlake with her family and not much more. There is almost nothing left in Silverlake besides her father's grieving misery for his dead wife. Saba and her twin brother, Lugh, are inseparable, but Saba has a tough time dealing with her younger sister Emmi. When riders come to their home, kill their father, and take Lugh away, Saba knows she will go to the ends of the earth to find her brother. She sets off to leave Emmi with an old family friend and find where the riders took her brother.

As soon as she deposits Emmi with the family friend, she realizes Emmi has followed her (and stolen the friend's horse). She agrees to let Emmi come along, and when they bump into a kooky old couple, the Pinches, they are grateful for the food and water the couple shares with them. As they finish their food, it becomes quickly apparent the old couple has drugged them and intends to kidnap them. The Pinches take them to Hopetown, the city filled with drugged maniacs, thieves, and crazy people. They intend to make Saba fight in the gladiator ring while keeping Emmi hostage to ensure Saba does as she's told.

In Hopetown, Saba starts to learn about this side of the world. The people of Hopetown are kept under control by the King and his drug, chaal. Enough chaal will keep anyone under control, but too much makes them crazy. The King harvests the chaal in the Freedom Fields and distributes it to keep his subjects coming back for more. Even his slaves are under the spell of the chaal. Hopetown is the worst, a place where drugged out lunatics pay to watch children battle and if someone loses three times, they run the gauntlet. The gauntlet is a narrow path surrounded by the citizens of Hopetown who literally rip the loser to pieces.

From Hopetown, Saba becomes an unbeatable gladiator nicknamed the Angel of Death, manages to team up with the Freehawks- a group of touch girls who want to tear Hopetown down from the inside out, and meets a guy named Jack who makes her forget everything she is supposed to be doing. Together, the group head off to the Freedom Fields to get back Lugh and make sure the King doesn't hurt anyone ever again. But can they make it in time?

The story is great. Honestly. It is exciting, well-paced, great characters, and there was a solid ending that can lead to a sequel but isn't a cliffhanger. I loved this story. The writing on the other hand? Hated it. With a passion. The story is written in Saba's point of view and told completely in her dialect, which reminds me of hillbilly slang. I could have tolerated this if it was only the dialogue in this dialect, but the entire 500 pages is written like this. And sometimes, the spelling changes have absolutely no effect on the pronunciation ("wurm" for "worm"), so it seems Ms. Young just wanted to make the book difficult to read. Once I had suffered through 20 or so pages, I got used to the writing, but every time I put the book down, when I picked it up again I had to fight for another 20 pages to get used to it again- it was frustrating. Add to that the complete lack of dialogue punctuation (quotation marks), and you have one big hot mess on your hands.

The result of this writing style means I have a fantastic, exciting YA novel I would never give to a Young Adult. Young Adults are still familiarizing themselves with spelling, grammar, mechanics, etc. Why would I give them a book that completely destroyed all the rules I have spent so long teaching them? As a little experiment, I brought the book to work and asked one of my strong readers to read the first few pages aloud to me (we read aloud every day). After five pages he gave up. He stumbled over every other word and could barely understand what he was reading because he spent so much time decoding ("pratikally" for practically). Those five pages effectively made this young man feel like he couldn't read again. What purpose did this language serve if it alienates the target audience?

So my advice for Ms. Young is to stop trying to ride the wave of YA dystopia and make a choice: you either write a YA book that young adults can read, or you keep the book as is and sell it to the adult post-apocalyptic/dystopia junkies. You can't have both. What you get is a book teachers and parents simply won't give their kids. And honestly, that is just plain sad because it was a really great story!

Is it Worth it to Survive If this is All There is?

I was excited to find another YA post-apocalyptic novel, but The Compound by SA Bodeen is SO much more than that. In fact, its level of twists, turns, and truly disturbing plot lines will keep you interested through every page.

Eli is the son of a brilliant billionaire, Rex, whose technological advances have rocked the world. When he finds out a nuclear attack has occurred, he rushes his family into The Compound, a shelter he has been working on for almost a decade in case just such a thing occurred. When they rushed to get in, though, their grandmother and Eli's twin Eddy are left outside. When Eli shouts that they have to wait for them as the Compound door closes, his father says, "At least I have one of you."

Life in the Compound has been growing increasingly precarious despite the monotony and the boredom. The food source that was supposed to last for 15 years has been compromised in many ways. The livestock grain was poisoned, the grow lights were actually normal bulbs, and the food supply would never last for the full 15 years necessary for the radiation to dwindle to safe levels. Rex has found a way to survive for longer, but the result, held behind the yellow door, is something no one in the Compound but Rex is willing to consider.

When Eli finds his brother's old computer and picks up a wireless signal (Rex had removed wireless capabilities from all the other computers), he beings to question why they are really in the Compound. Was there really a bomb? Did people survive? Could Eddy and Gram have survived? Is his dad telling them the whole truth? This novel will keep you asking crazy questions from beginning to end.

While there is no sex or real violence in this story, it is very disturbing in parts. The lengths Rex will go to survive will leave the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. At first he is a quirky rich man intent on protecting his family, but as the story unfolds, it is clear he is also more than a bit unstable. I would save this crazy story for a more mature reader, although the reading level is quite accessible. While the life in the Compound is fairly routine, Rex's madness is anything but. This is an amazing, creative, and disturbing story, but make sure not to read it on a dreary day!