Escape Under the Forever Sky

Lucy should be thrilled to be living in Ethiopia; her dream is to study African animals, but her mother keeps her locked within the walls of their small American community.  Besides that, her mother is the American ambassador to Ethiopia and is always busy.  It seems like Lucy only gets to see her when she is forced to attend boring events with other ambassadors.  To make matters worse, her father took a job in Indonesia, so Lucy rarely sees him.

Everything changes when Lucy and her best friend, Tana, sneak out to hear a band at their favorite cafe.  Now Lucy has been kidnapped!  She doesn't know where she is or what will happen.  Should she wait around to see if the kidnappers will release her, or should she risk an escape?

Lucky for Lucy she loves African animals!  At least she's spent most of her down time reading and studying.  Maybe that will give her some kind of advantage in this thrilling adventure.

I loved this book!  It's got danger, adventure, and the magic of Africa.  Even though Lucy is in mortal danger for most of the story, the reader never looses the sense of magic and mystery that is Africa.

Be sure to read the author's note at the end to learn how the Eve Yohalem based the most amazing part of the story on real life!

Hero

Zach Harriman's father is the man who saves the day.  He's always gone on some secret mission, but he always comes home again until the day when Zach gets a feeling that something terrible as happened.  Now his father is dead, and nothing will ever be the same.

Even as he grieves for his father, he notices strange things happening to him.  He has strangle energy and powers he's never had before, and he's losing his cool much faster than he once did.  Zach was always good at basketball, but now he's got amazing coordination and lightning fast reflexes.  Sometimes this is pretty cool, but he's mostly confused.

He meets a mysterious stranger who calls himself Mr. Herbert and seems to know a lot about Zach and his father, but Zach's own uncle doesn't trust him.  Zach has always trusted Uncle John, but now he's confused about him, too.

Who can Zach trust now that his world is turning upside down?  Everyone seems to know secrets about his father that Zach never imagined.  Something is coming; Zach can feel it.  Will he be ready to take his father's place as hero when the time comes?

Mike Lupica's new book has all the action of his sports stories with a superhero twist!

Benjamin Franklinstein Lives!

Before his death, Benjamin Franklin and an the Promethean Society devised a plan to keep Franklin in suspended animation until some time in the future when he would be needed again.  Now, a stray bolt of lightning has awakened Franklin, but he can't find his caretakers anywhere.

He does find Victor, whose mother owns the house where Franklin has been "sleeping" in a secret subbasement for all these years.  Victor loves science,but he also loves perfection.  He can calculate odds and risk factors based on past experiments to create a science project with a 97% chance of winning the science fair, but this new friend will challenge all his assumptions.

With a mix of science, guesswork, humor, and happy accidents, Victor and Ben will make amazing discoveries, figure out a way to keep Franklin from turning into an starved electro-zombie, and learn that science is all about risk.

This books is filled with illustrations and charts that are part science and part science fiction.  It's a fun mix of monster movie, science fiction, and American history.  Check out the website here!

Benjamin Franklinstein Lives! is on the 2012-2013 Bluebonnet list and on the Campbell 6th grade reading list for next year.

Misty Gordon and the Mystery of the Ghost Pirates

Misty Gordon is not the most popular girl in Ashcrumb.  Her father owns a business called D.E.A.D. that buys furniture and belongings from the recently deceased and sells them in an antique shop.  The other kids call her vulture and make fun of her second hand clothes.

But things get really crazy when she finds a pair of glasses belonging to the local fortune teller, Madame Zaster, and she begins to see things in a whole new way.  Suddenly the dead aren't quite so dead, and Ashcrumb's charming history may not be as true as everyone thinks.

If Misty wants to save Ashcrumb, she'll have to decipher a prophecy, find some Greek gods, and escape an escapee from the local mental institution named May Nays with a passion for a certain sandwich spread!

This book is on the 2012-13 Bluebonnet list.