What Ever Happened to Goodbye

YA FIC DES

Following her parents' bitter divorce as she and her father move from town to town, seventeen-year-old Mclean reinvents herself at each school she attends until she is no longer sure she knows who she is or where she belongs.

Mclean’s parents divorced two years ago after her mother’s extra-marital affair. She now travels from town to town with her father as he takes on manager positions at different restaurants. In each town, Mclean not only changes her name, but transforms herself into an entirely different personality. She’s been a drama queen, an over-achieving honors student, and a varsity jock. Finally in Lakeview, after meeting Dave, she suddenly starts using her real name, putting down roots, making friends, and tries to be someone she’s never been before: herself.

“The strangest thing about all of that was that, before, in my old life, I hadn’t been any of these things; not a student leader or an actress or an athlete. There, I was just average, normal, unremarkable. Just Mclean.”

But who is she now?

Ship Breaker

YA FIC BAC

Would you sell a stranger's arm for a chance to live or just to eat? In the future, natural resources and fossil fuels are depleted, water levels have risen and a popular currency is body parts. Nailer, a young teen, lives with his drug-addicted and dangerous father who would easily sell off his son in pieces for the right offer. To make even starvation wages, Nailer must work strenuous hours stripping old oil tankers of precious copper, steel and any leftover oil deposits. He’s a ship breaker.

 One day, a “city killer“ storm blows in and a clipper ship is beached on the nearby shore. This isn’t just any shipwreck, it’s a valuable shipwreck, a “Lucky Strike” and Nailer and his friend Pima are the first to discover it. Nailer and Pima know that just a handful of what’s on the ship can help them start brand new lives, they’ll never had to break a ship again. However, silver, gold and china aren’t the only valuable thing on the ship. They also find, Nita, a young and beautiful survivor. She promises them a privileged life if they help her. Nailer must now decide whether to help Nita or help himself. Should Nailer trust her? Or should he do as his father would do, which is slit her throat and sell off her body parts?

Code Talker

YA FIC BRU

"Strong words outlast the paper they are written upon."

Six-year-old Ned Begay leaves his Navajo home for boarding school, where he learns the English language and American ways. At 16, he enlists in the U.S. Marines during World War II and is trained as a code talker, using his native language to radio battlefield information and commands in a code that was kept secret until 1969. Rooted in his Navajo consciousness and traditions even in dealing with fear, loneliness, and the horrors of the battlefield, Ned tells of his experiences in Hawaii, Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Guam, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. 

Check out the official website of the Navajo Code Talkers by clicking here.

The Smile

YA FIC NAP

In the Florentine countryside, Monna Elisabetta struggles to become the noblewoman she's destined to be. Although her father is challenged to keep his silk business thriving during difficult economic times, Monna's mother is planning to give her an elaborate 13th birthday party in order to meet a suitable husband. But upon Mamma's sudden death, the event is canceled, and Monna turns her grief into preparing meals and working alongside her father. His friend Leonardo da Vinci has introduced her to Giuliano de' Medici, who becomes smitten with her smile. When her father remarries into nobility, Monna is forced into an arranged marriage, despite the fact that she has given her heart to Giuliano. 

(Summary from School Library Journal)

Never Fall Down

YA FIC MCC

“I see all this, smell the blood . . . But I don’t feel anything. If you feel, you go crazy.”

When soldiers arrive at his hometown in Cambodia, Arn is just a kid, dancing to rock 'n' roll, hustling for spare change, and selling ice cream with his brother. But after the soldiers march the entire population into the countryside, his life is changed forever. Arn is separated from his family and assigned to a labor camp: working in the rice paddies under a blazing sun, he sees the other children, weak from hunger, malaria, or sheer exhaustion, dying before his eyes. He sees prisoners marched to a nearby mango grove, never to return. And he learns to be invisible to the sadistic Khmer Rouge, who can give or take away life on a whim.

One day, the soldiers ask if any of the kids can play an instrument. Arn's never played a note in his life, but he volunteers. In order to survive, he must quickly master the strange revolutionary songs the soldiers demand—and steal food to keep the other kids alive. This decision will save his life, but it will pull him into the very center of what we know today as the Killing Fields. And just as the country is about to be liberated from the Khmer Rouge, Arn is handed a gun and forced to become a soldier. He lives by the simple credo: Over and over I tell myself one thing: never fall down.
Based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, this is an achingly raw and powerful novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace, from National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick.

country is about to be liberated from the Khmer Rouge, Arn is handed a gun and forced to become a soldier. He lives by the simple credo: Over and over I tell myself one thing: never fall down.

 

Based on the true story of Arn Chorn-Pond, this is an achingly raw and powerful novel about a child of war who becomes a man of peace, from National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick.

(Book Description from amazon.com)

The Boy Who Dared

YA FIC BAR


In October, 1942 when 16-year-old Helmut Hubner listens to the BBC news on an illegal short-wave radio, he quickly discovers Germany is lying to the people. But when he tries to expose the truth with leaflets, he's tried for treason. Sentenced to death and waiting in a jail cell, Helmut's story emerges in a series of flashbacks that show his growth from a naive child caught up in the patriotism of the times, to a sensitive and mature young man who thinks for himself.

(Book description from Amazon.com)

The official book trailer, including author Susan Campbell Bartoletti discussing her novel:

Picture the Dead

YA FIC GRI

On the home front near Boston in 1864, Jennie feels her twin’s presence like “a wave crashing over me” moments after he dies in a Union field hospital. Over the next year, she senses his presence and, more strongly, that of her fiancé, their cousin Will, who also died in the war. Will’s brother Quinn arrives home wounded, gaunt, and haunted by his experiences. When his painful revelations change the way she thinks about Will, Jennie faces hard choices and tries to contact the dead for guidance in discovering the truth. Brown’s evocative black-and-white drawings of photographs, letters, and other documents such as newspaper clippings appear between chapters in four-page, black-paper sections representing Jennie’s scrapbooks and, equally, possible evidence in the mystery.

(Review from Booklist)