Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret by Liz Kessler


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Charming finish to this series. Touching at the end with (spoiler alert!) the humans and merpeople learning to get along. Emily gets a boyfriend, keeps her mermaid friend, and makes (or remakes) a human friend. It's a satisfying read.

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Cryptid Hunters and Tentacles

Cryptid Hunters is the first book in this series. Until Roland Smith wrote Tentacles, no one knew that it was a series. And he has done it again. Like his other books, Tentacles is action-packed.

In Cryptid Hunters, brother and sister Grace and Marty travel to the Congo with their uncle in search of a dinosaur. There are bad guys galore and staying alive in the jungle is not easy. Marty and Grace find that things are not what they seem and people are not whom they appear to be.

In Tentacles, the setting is the ocean. Marty and Grace are in search of a giant squid. Inventors with amazing new technology, really bad guys (and I mean really, really bad), and clever heroes make this book just as exciting and full of adventure as the first. There is also the distinct possibility (probability) that there will be another book in this series. I hope it doesn't take as long to write as Tentacles did!

Found and Sent

Hurray! The next book in the Missing series is out. I read Found last year and was fortunate enough to have dinner with the author, Margaret Peterson Haddix (thank you District 112 librarians!). What a wonderful experience.

Sent starts out with a bang. Jonah, through whose eyes we are experiencing the story, and his sister and best friend have traveled back to 1400's England. It's a great way to learn about a period of time that is unfamiliar to many of us (me, included).

Like all her books, this is action-filled and you immediately care about the main characters. If you didn't read Found, you should still be able to enjoy this book.

I highly recommend it for good 4th grader readers and on up through middle school. Of course, older readers will still enjoy it. I love reading her books!

The Chosen One

This book is a middle school through high school book. Not for elementary students! The Chosen One is about Kyra, a girl who grows up in a polygamous community. Her father has three wives and she has over twenty siblings. They live in a secluded community where the leader's word is law.

Kyra loves her family but also grows to love a boy she wants to marry. When she finds out that she has been "chosen" to marry her uncle, she rebels.

Reading this book is like entering a foreign country. The lifestyle and morals of this community are not those to which we are accustomed. The hypocrisy is apparent: the leaders live in large homes with air conditioning while the others live in trailer homes with no air conditioning in the desert heat. The leaders have computers while the followers are told that computers are evil. The leaders have libraries while the followers are not allowed to read anything but the Bible.

I highly recommend this book.

The Secret Keeper

Just having read two adult books which take place in India, I was intrigued by the thought of a Young Adult book that takes place in India. This book is written from the point of view of a teenager, Asha, who was raised in an unusual manner. Her father treated her like a son in that she was allowed to participate in sports.

However, when she reaches puberty that all changes suddenly. She can no longer play cricket (a British, baseball-like sport) and wear shorts. Her entire life changes. And she does not like it.

When her father leaves them to try to find a job in America, they must move into her grandparents' house where the environment is even more restrictive. She meets a boy from next door while spending time alone on her roof. Their friendship is forbidden--innocent though it is.

Asha must make a desperate sacrifice to keep her promise to her father--to keep her family safe.

This is a wonderful book and the reader will laugh and cry over the events which transpire. Also, for the reader who enjoys learning about other cultures--this is a sure winner!

London Eye

I had difficulty getting a copy of London Eye to read. I made the mistake of recommending it to customers at Borders (based on others' recommendations) and sold both copies. Then, there were no more books available. Finally, my school library borrowed one from another school lucky enough to have a copy.

The book is about a sister and brother who take a visiting cousin for a ride on the London Eye--a huge ferris-wheel type ride in London. He is given a ticket by a stranger and goes up alone. They watch him get on, watch his car go around, but he doesn't get out. They wait but he's disappeared. Because the police do not seem to be working hard enough to find their cousin, they decide to solve the mystery.

I loved this book for many reasons. First, I loved hearing the English words and slang. The book is written from the point of view of a child who is on the spectrum--which means he either has Asperger's syndrome or is autistic. Although not a major part of the book (the mystery is), it is very enlightening to read about his life--the challenges he faces trying to interpret people's emotions through facial expressions and body language. He says that because a mouth is upturned, that means that the person must be happy.

It's a hard book to put down once you start it. I would like to read a sequel to this--have the main character solve another mystery. And I don't always like sequels--so that tells you how much I enjoyed the story and the characters.

Traitor by Andy McNab

This adventure book is definitely a young adult book for those in grade 6 and above. The main character, Danny Watts, is a 17-year-old who tries to enlist in the Army. He is rejected and told it is because of his grandfather. It is explained to him that his grandfather was a traitor and because of that Danny cannot be trusted.

Danny, furious, vows to find his grandfather and make him suffer for Danny's rejection. What follows is Danny trying to find his grandfather while being followed by those in the Army who counted on that and want to find his grandfather also.

Andy makes friends with Elena, a computer genius, who helps him with the technology he needs throughout the series of four books. The sequels, Payback, Avenger and Meltdown are all equally fascinating and hard to put down.

Andy McNab spent his career in British Special Ops and the book is full of authentic details about the military and interesting spy information. I found the books hard to put down and could hardly wait to get the sequels.

These books are a must read for those who enjoyed Alex Rider when they were younger.