The color of rain Cori McCarthy

351 pgs.

Target audience: Ages 13-17

Rating: Wizard

Rain has lost all members of her family, taken by the authorities, except her little brother, Walker, who desperately needs a cure for the Alzheimer-like disease that’s been decimating the population of Earth City. The sick, the Touched, are treated with contempt and disgust. Rain needs to get to the Edge where the Mecs could help him. To pay for this she’d do anything, even prostitution like her friend Lo. After Walker has an accident her plea for help is answered by a charming pilot, Johnny, and Ben, his Mec assistant. Johnny offers her safe passage in return for her complete willingness. Despite Ben’s whispered warnings she agrees. Once on board, Walker is frozen in a capsule for the duration. She awakens to find dozens of girls like herself including Lo classified by color and pimped out to crew and passengers. Rain is made a red which means she’s exclusively Johnny’s girl. Fierce competition and fear keep the girls alive. Johnny’s methods are cruel and sadistic and he’s intensely possessive of his redhead. Rain is determined to visit her brother and with Ben’s reluctant help she discovers the true mission of this strange ship and what it means to the missing Touched from Earth City. This well written story is fast paced, nerve-wracking, and disturbing all at the same time. Rain is a likeable character and her plight is so horrific that the reader can’t help but root for her. The sex is mercifully not romanticized and details glossed over but the violent punishment and retribution dealt by Johnny are graphic and not for the faint at heart. Rain’s terror of what Johnny might do to her brother and her confusion about Ben's motives for helping her ring true. Recommended for older teens. (This book provided for review by Children's Lit - www.childrenslit.com)

 

Alien attack by Max Chase

111 pgs.
Target audience: Ages 7 to 10
Rating: Wizard

Peri is a pilot and a first year cadet at the Intergalactic Force Academy. It’s the year 5012 and all the planets in the Milky Way have banded together to form the IFA, an elite group of fighters sworn to protect and defend the galaxy. On a routine mission in their space pod, Peri and his half-Martian friend, Diesel, are attacked by an alien ship. But just before their pod is annihilated by DeathRays, they’re transported back to the station which is under attack. The two pilots are immediately forced aboard a cloaked ship that looks like a giant egg and told that they have their orders which of course they know nothing about. As Peri and Diesel desperately try to figure out how to fly this ship, the space station explodes leaving them as the last defense against the alien invasion. The black and white illustrations do a great job of bringing the text alive. The ship is stock full of cool gadgetry and fighting abilities. Add to that Martian curses, monstrous aliens, the deadly vortex that eats spaceships alive and it’s a recipe for an unstoppable adventure series. (This book provided for review by Children's Lit - www.childrenslit.com)

Adaptation by Malinda Lo

386 pgs.
Target audience: Young Adult
Rating: Dragon

The sky is falling! – well not really, but flocks of birds are falling to earth after causing planes all over the world to crash and burn. The airports are locked down, curfew is imposed and Reese and David on their way back to San Francisco after a debate tournament are trapped in the Phoenix airport. Their debate coach secures a rental car, but the exit routes are clogged with other travelers desperate to reach home. They finally end up making it as far as rural Nevada where their coach is killed in a carjacking at a gas station. Terrified, Reese and David flee north, but a bird flies into the windshield sending the car tumbling into a ditch. Reese and David wake up in a strange military hospital right in the middle of Area 51. They’ve both been operated on and appear completely healed. They sign non-disclosure statements and are escorted back home. Things get even weirder when Reese notices that her scars aren’t just healed, they’ve disappeared as if the accident never even happened. Her memories are sketchy except for a bizarre reoccurring dream. David is experiencing similar anomalies. Reese meets and falls for the beautiful and alluring Amber Gray, while harboring feelings for  David. This brief romantic  interlude seems random,  but Amber is later revealed to be at the center of the government’s web of secrecy. Disaster, government conspiracies, miraculous medical procedures, create a heart pounding science fiction thriller.

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (Advance Reader's Copy - to be published Feb 2013)

452 pgs.
Target audience: Young adult
Rating: Dragon

Get ready for a full-blast, futuristic roller coaster ride of fairytale fun in this spectacular sequel to Cinder. Scarlet lives and works with her grandmother on a farm in the small rural French town of Rieux. Her grandmother has gone missing and disgusted with the lack of success by the police in finding her, Scarlet sets out on her own to find out what happened. When a strange, charming and very handsome man named Wolf claims he can help her, Scarlet cautiously agrees. Meanwhile cyborg and missing Lunar princess, Cinder, escapes from the castle prison and with the unexpected help of another prisoner manages to elude capture on a stolen military ship. The worlds of Cinder an Scarlet collide when Cinder tracks down the woman who rescued her from Queen Levana when she was a child and by saving her life made her into a cyborg. Lunar Queen Levana raises the stakes in her war against the commonwealth by creating an army of human-wolf hybrids. The action is non-stop propelling the reader through the book at lightning speed. The new characters are integrated smoothly into the familiar structure emerging from the pages as if they’d belonged there all along. The author blends fantasy and science fiction into a wholly new and compelling concoction. If you love gripping action, fantastic plot and characters, and stellar writing, don’t miss out on this fabulous series, though it is recommended that they be read in order.

The obsidian blade by Pete Hautman

308 pgs.
Target audience: Young adult
Rating: Fairy

Tucker, son of the local minister, lives a quiet life in a small Minnesota town until a hazy disc appears floating in the air above the roof where his father is working. Then just as suddenly both dad and disc vanish right before his eyes. Later his dad returns no longer believing in God and bringing with him a strange girl who doesn’t talk and is apparently from Bulgaria. To top it all off, his mom starts to lose her mind. Life goes on this way until a year later when  both his parents vanish and Tucker goes to live with his Uncle Kosh.The strange discs Tucker keeps seeing were created by a discorporeal artist from the postdigital age as a way to travel into the past to witness major events in history. When Tucker travels through one to find his parents, he is swept from one event to the next in a dazzling display of human history including a close up look at the attack on the Twin Towers. Time travel is usually a big draw, but the level of complexity to the origins of the discs overwhelms the underlying story. Tucker is a flat and undeveloped character while the secondary characters pop in and out of the journeys through time without contributing much to the plot. This book will no doubt appeal to avid fans of the author and science fiction, but will not reach a wider audience.
(Book provided for review by Children's Lit www.childrenslit.com)

Xor: the shape of darkness by Moshe Sipper

295 pgs.
Target audience: Ages 9-14
Rating: Griffin

 On the day Lewis turns twelve, his life changes forever. His house is burned down killing his dad, leaving him alone, his mother having died in a car accident four years earlier. But that’s not all, Lewis is told he’s Lord Shaper from another planet, one which is in dire peril. Before he can come to grips with this alarming information, he’s taken to his home planet, Xor, where he receives shaper training. Things move pretty quickly for Lewis after this. Along with the Grand Magician, K’Bol, Professor Nand and Master Long, Lewis sets out on a quest to save Xor from the Realm Pirates who are destroying it piece by piece. This is a funny, imaginative and clever adventure perfect for middle readers, especially boys who love gadgets and inventions. The plot skips along at a nice pace right  up until the surprise ending. Lewis is a strong and likeable character, but the transition from curious, wide-eyed boy to the leadership role he plays in the quest is abrupt and feels unrealistic. The prologue about his mother’s accident though interesting does little to enhance the story. The dialogue could use some polishing to make it flow more naturally. The humor threaded throughout falls short when relying on popular culture, but zings with originality and authenticity when it stems from the author’s imagination. Moshe Sipper shows tremendous potential with this interplanetary debut. Recommend to fans of The true meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex and The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.
(Book provided for review by the author)