Rick Riordan Webcast

Fallout

This is a compelling "what if" story.  During the 1960's the United States and Russia were stockpiling nuclear weapons in an effort to intimidate each other.  This all came to a head during the Bay of Pigs crisis when Russia placed missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States.  In reality, both sides backed down, and nuclear catastrophe was avoided.

Fallout is Todd Strasser's imagining of what might have happened if Russia had dropped the bomb.

Scott's dad decides to build a bomb shelter in the back yard just in case.  This causes a lot of laughter and derision from his neighbors who don't think World War III is going to happen, but Scott's dad just wants to be prepared.

When it does happen, those same people who laughed at his family are fighting their way into the shelter.  But Scott's father has only stocked enough food for four people.  Can ten people survive on food for four long enough for the radiation levels to drop?  To make matters worse, Scott's mother slipped when she was climbing into the shelter and smacked her head on the ground.  Now she seems to be in a coma, and there is a lot of blood.

Scott has never seen the adults in his neighborhood fight before, but being locked in the shelter is bringing out the worst in everyone.  Underneath the fighting and the hunger is the nagging thought of all the people who probably didn't survive.  The book alternates between the present in the shelter and the past in the months leading up to the bomb.  This puts the loss of all the friends and teachers who were part of Scott's life before in context.

This would be a great book for discussion and an interesting paring with The Diary of Anne Frank.

Poison

Kyra is on the run for the attempted murder of Princess Ariana who also happens to be her best friend.  I know what you're thinking.  Maybe she was framed.  Nope, she really did try to murder the princess, but there is more to the story than that.

With the help of a special pig who can sniff out anyone, Kyra tries to find the princess, whose gone into hiding, in order to save the kingdom.

Kyra was living a quiet and successful life as a master potioner with a specialty in poisons before things went wrong.  She worked well with her two partners and was even engaged to be married, but her life was not destined to be easy.

With the help/hindrance of a cute boy named Fred, Kyra tries to outwit the palace guard and her fellow potioners to save the kingdom!

This is a fun read filled with romance and adventure!

This is Bridget Zinn's debut novel.  Sadly, the author died from colon cancer in 2011.

Tweens Read Book Festival

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Across a Star-Swept Sea

Persis Blake is the flirtatious, ornamental, and obsessed with fashion.  She's also the best friend to Princess Isla, ruler of Albion.  But everyone knows Persis is the girl you call when you need advice on fashion, flirting, and parties.  Everyone knows Peris Flake.

That's why it's the perfect cover.  In public Persis plays a foolish rich girl.  In private she is the Wild Poppy, leader of a league of spies who risk life and limb on rescue missions to the neighboring island of Galatea.

Long ago the world and all it's inhabitants where nearly destroyed.  A small number of people escaped by going into orbit around the planet.  When they landed, two kingdoms developed.  The working class on both islands was made of reduced.  People with limited mental capacity due to generations of genetic manipulation.  Know a woman named Persistence Helo has created cure, and there on no more reduced.

On Albion, the ruling class and the regs are learning to mix together and change centuries of class division.  On Galatea, the ruling class remained intent on repressing the regs to maintain their own power.  This has led to a violent revolution where Citizen Aldred is capturing aristos and subjecting them to chemical reduction and forced labor.  To Citizen Aldred, all aristos are bad.

This is where Persis comes in.  With a variety of disguises, the Wild Poppy and her team snatch aristos from Aldred's clutches.  Things get complicated when Justen Helo, grandson of Persistence and foster son of Citizen Aldred himself shows up saying he has become disillusioned with the revolution.

At the urging of Princess Isla, Justen and Persis embark on false romance to explain his presence in Albion.  The grows ever more dangerous for Persis as she must fool this boy even as she unexpected begins to develop feelings for him.  Are Justen's motives as pure as he purports, or is he hiding secrets from Persis, too?

This companion novel to For Darkness Shows the Stars is a sci-fi adaption of one of my favorite classics, The Scarlet Pimpernel.  It's full of adventure, romance, and betrayal.  What's not to love?!  I hope Diana Perfreund will continue the series based on my favorite classics!

The Testing

It's graduation day for Cia, and all she can think about being chosen for Testing.  If she doesn't make the cut, she will have no choices for further education.  She will simply have to chose a job and stick with it.
So when she hears the news that she has been chosen, she is overjoyed.  If she passes all the tests, she will get to study at the university just like her father did.  The night before she is to leave, her father takes her aside and gives her a vague warning.  He can't really remember anything about his testing, but he does have nightmare of blood and violence.  The only help he can offer is to be careful.

This puts her on edge, but once a student has been chosen, she must follow through.  Besides, Cia still wants the chance to learn more.

The initial phase of testing seems normal enough, but soon things become deadly, and the candidates turn on one another.  Who can Cia trust as tries to survive the most dangerous test of her life?

Cia knows the government is just trying to find the best leaders for the future, but each test leads her to question the system even more, and she has a terrible feeling that failure is not an option.

Fans of The Hunger Games and Divergent will enjoy Joelle Charbonneau's fast-paced dystopian thriller.