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By: Katherine Huber
By: Katherine Huber
“I had one last chance to make a decision. One final opportunity to decide who I was going to be. I could step into that alley, stand up for Hassan - the way he’d stood up for me all those times in the past - and accept whatever would happen to me. Or I could run.
“In the end, I ran.”
Warning: This book may be too disturbing for you. It was for me. I couldn’t get through it. But every bit of it was so beautifully written that I was forced to acknowledge its wonder, even though certain scenes threw me off course. It tells the story of a young boy who witnesses something awful happen to his childhood servant and friend - and makes a choice that he regrets to the end of his days.
“On a good day, Chicken liked to wander. On a bad day, Chicken would bolt. But no matter what, Cat loved him as wide as the Golden Gate Bridge, as deep as the seafloor, and as fierce as a shark bite.”
Henry “Chicken” Gladwell is a boy with special needs. He needs constant surveillance. And this falls to his older sister, Cat.
Until . . .
Cat and Chicken go to visit their grandparents on Gingerbread Island - grandparents they’ve never met. It seems as though their summer vacation will be a disaster, but Cat and Chicken soon grow to love the elderly couple. Cat begins to branch out, to become her own person, to make friends. But one question sticks to the back of her mind - why won’t her mother associate with her parents?
“Now, for the first time in his twelve years of life, Jonas felt separate, different.”
Jonas lives in a Community in the far future, where everything is exactly the same, day after day. Until he is selected.
Jonas is selected to become the new Receiver of Memory - to bear the painful burden of the world’s violent past while the rest of the Community lives with no pain. He is forced to reassess life as he has known it forever and devise a terrifying plan to force the Community to shoulder the devastation and beauty of the past.
“‘I sat in the shelter with the wretched cat and I realized that no matter what the rules were, I should have kept you. Because it was also true that you belonged to me.”
In her entire life, Ada has never been allowed to go outside. Her violent mother is ashamed of Ada’s clubfoot and doesn’t permit it. Ada’s one comfort is her little brother Jamie, who she loves more than anything. So when Jamie is sent to live in Kent as a World War II evacuee, Ada sneaks out with him.
In Kent, they end up under the care of Susan Smith, a woman who has also known tragedy. Gradually, Susan, Ada, and Jamie become a family . . . but will Ada’s mother find a way to tear them apart?
“He makes the same mistake as the others when they look at a feeble-minded person and laugh because they don’t understand there are human feelings involved. He doesn’t realize that I was a person before I came here.”
Charlie Gordon suffers from a disability similar to Down Syndrome - his mind is weak. However, this does not interfere with his determination to gain knowledge. So when the opportunity comes for him to undergo an operation that will heighten his intelligence, he jumps at the chance.
The operation works, and Charlie’s IQ shoots sky-high. But will it last? And is the price too great to pay?
“I’d forgotten, but now, suddenly, I remembered.
“Jasper had reminded me how to be.”
Leah is a girl who has known heartbreak. She’s felt it every day for a year, when she was partially responsible for the death of someone she loved.
Then she meets Jasper, who has felt heartbreak too. Together, the girls explore tragedy and pain within their community. How far will they go for happiness?
“I was happy before I met him. But I’m alive now, and those are not the same thing.”
Madeline lives with a disease that renders her “allergic to the world.” She can’t leave her house. She has to eat special food.
She has no friends.
Until Olly.
Online, Madeline and her new neighbor Olly become friends - and suddenly, Madeline finds herself in love with him. To make matters both better and worse, he feels the same way toward her. Madeline will have to decide whether life or joy matter more as she challenges her many boundaries for the first time.
“Khalil, I’ll never forget.
“I’ll never give up.
“I’ll never be quiet.
“I promise.”
Starr Carter, who is Black, lives in a community that’s made up mostly of African Americans. However, she attends a fancy private school where the population is mainly white. And she is only sixteen when she witnesses her second shooting - of
Khalil, her childhood best friend, who is also Black.
Protests erupt across the country, stunning Starr, who must suddenly decide where she stands. Will she fight or will she hide? What will the tension inside her community do to her?
How can she stop the spread of hate?
“Sad feelings can take control of us and make us choose things we wouldn’t normally choose.”
This book is one of the few that can make me cry. It tells the story of Lemonade Liberty Witt, or Lem, who, after the death of her mother, is suddenly relocated to a tiny town to live with her grandfather - the grandfather she’s never known. There, she meets Tobin Sky, a slightly obnoxious boy who persuades her to join Bigfoot, Inc., a company he’s founded to aid the search for the legendary creature. Soon, Lem and Tobin are discovering things that they have never dreamed of - but nothing as important as Lem’s exploration of acceptance, kindness, love, and loss.
“I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.”
This is one of those books that leaves you woolly-headed at the end. One of the books that makes you too sad for tears, that tugs at your heart and doesn’t let go. One of the books that stays with you forever.
Henry DeTamble is a 28-year-old handsome librarian. Clare Abshire is a 20-year-old lovely college student. When they meet, they immediately fall in love, but there’s one catch - Henry suffers from CDD, or Chrono-Displacement Disorder, and he involuntarily time travels at random. This book tells the story of their marriage, their child, and their tragedies, ending with sadness, but also with hope.
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