Ship Breaker / Paolo Bacigalupi

Environmental collapse has caused inundation of the Gulf Coast and there is a huge gap between the underclass and the privileged few.  Nailer is a small boy whose diminutive size allows him to crawl through the ducts of abandoned ships, scavenging bits of copper and other metal for recycling in a community of hovels sheltering armies of workers who swarm over these ship carcasses until there is nothing left to salvage.   It’s a difficult existence, which is made all the more difficult by Nailer’s drug-enraged father.

When a hurricane sweeps a luxury yacht onto the shores of the ship breakers, Nailer and his friend encounter a survivor, a “swank,” a representative of the upper class who has everything while they have nothing.  Her safe passage takes them on a harrowing life-threatening adventure that they may not survive. 

Aficionados of The Hunger Games and Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies/Pretties series will latch on to the plot in Ship Breaker with its fast pace and futuristic dystopian setting.  It’s definitely a page-turner.

City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments) / Cassandra Clare

The latest installment in the Mortal Instruments series brings the newly-minted vampire Simon to the forefront. His unique attributes include being a “Daylighter,” able to walk in sunlight (unique for a bloodsucker), and carrying the Mark of Cain (courtesy of Clary) which has catastrophic effects for anyone or anything that wishes to raise a hand against him. Clary and Jace continue to be on-again-off-again, and the ending of CoFA seems to suggest that Jace may be going to the dark side.

Peter and the Starcatchers / Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson

I must admit I went into this blind.  If I had known Peter and the Starcatchers was written as a prequel to Peter Pan, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up— too many images of Disney’s animated feature flitting around in my head, the song “You can fly, you can fly, you can fly,” and visions of movie Peter Pans played by women in tights flying around on zip-lines like Mary Martin…

Well, thank goodness I went into it with no preconceptions.  It was a rollicking good adventure with pirates, mermaids, sword fights, and a mysterious treasure that has fantastic magical powers .  Peter and several other orphans are forced on to a decrepit ship bound for servitude with a mad king in some far-off kingdom.  On the way they are attacked by pirates and find their way to a desolate isle and forced by the angry natives into an enclosure with a horrible monster named “Mr. Grin”.  There’s so much packed into this book, it will keep you turning pages until the exciting climax.  Plus, there are more books to follow in the series.  Go on, check it out.  You will not regret it.
Grades 3-6

Cosmic / Frank Cottrell Boyce

Liam is extremely large for his age.  People keep mistaking him for an adult, which works in his favor when he wins a place in a “Greatest Dad Ever” competition.  His skills with technology and video games also work in his favor when he and his “daughter,” schoolmate Florida, embark on the prize trip, ending up in the Gobi desert at what appears to be an amazing adventure park, but is actually a space launch.  They experience the ultimate thrill ride when they and some other precocious contest-winning children hurtle into space on a secret trip sponsored by the somewhat mysterious Drax Foundation.  Once they discover that the new ride is much more than an elaborate simulation, they have to devise a plan to break free of the moon’s orbit and return to Earth.  This is an entertaining and frequently funny journey– after a bit of a slow start, things really pick up by the final pages. .  “Going into space isn’t like one of those video games.  If you die, you don’t get any extra lives.”  p. 214
Kids who enjoy video games, technology, or are interested in space will love Cosmic.  Feels like a movie might be in the works.  Frank Cottrell Boyce is the author of Millions.

Trash / Andy Mulligan

This unique YA novel reads like an adventure fantasy, but doesn’t take place in a fictional otherworldly realm, but rather in the horrific real-life  (but also, it has to be said, equally fantastic and otherworldly) landscape of a Third World megacity dump.

Raphael, Gardo, and Rat are boys who spend their lives picking through trash, looking for food and “treasure” in order to survive. One day they stumble across an unexpected item that changes their lives forever. The story ratchets into high gear once the item is found and the novel becomes a nail-biting thriller as the police (and other bad guys) chase after them as they try to solve the puzzle of a coded message leading to a sum of millions. It’s a great page-turner, but there is also a very serious undertone of social injustice in the harsh reality of their everyday existence, an existence which is not fiction.

Leviathan / Scott Westerfeld

Scott Westerfeld, author of Pretties and Uglies, turns his focus, in this new series, on an alternate futuristic history of World War I. 

In Leviathan Alek finds himself an orphan after his parents are killed in Serbia (sound familiar?).  His guardians spirit him out of Austria using an unusual war machine, a “walker,” an ambulatory biped armored tank (not so familiar).  The Clankers (Germany, Austria and their allies) have developed these advanced mechanical war machines while the Darwinists (England) have developed bio war machinery that employs animals and engineered (“fabricated”) beasts in ways that you have to read the book to believe.  Deryn, on the side of the Darwinists, masquerades as a boy to become a midshipman on the Leviathan, a huge whale-like (literally) airship.  The book charts the stories of both Alek and Deryn until they collide in a big way at the end.  This Jules Vernesque tale is a breathless chase from start to finish and will not disappoint.

Bruiser / Neil Shusterman

Brontë and Tennyson are twins, children of (do I need to say it?) English professors.  When Brontë starts hanging around with Brewster, Tennyson intervenes as the concerned overprotective older brother (older by minutes, that is).  In the process he befriends Brew (aka Bruiser) and the three begin a remarkable friendship.  Brewster/Bruiser has an unusual attribute—cuts, bruises, emotional pain, hurt of any kind transfer to him from the ones he cares for and loves.  Unselfishly, he vicariously assumes the wounds of his half-brother Cody’s beatings at the hand of their guardian uncle.  Bruiser resists forging relationships outside of his family because of the pain (literally) it inflicts on him.  So what new ramifications does his relationship to Tennyson and Brontë have on him?  Read this unique novel and find out!  It’s smart and clever and one you won’t put down.  By the author of Unwind .