Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Wooding, Chris. STORM THIEF

Wooding, Chris.
STORM THIEF
New York : Scholastic, 2006

What do you get when you combine two teenagers, a golem, a crime boss determined to get what she wants, ghosts that can take over your body and a probability storm that could wreak unbelievable havoc at any time? The Storm Thief by Chris Wooding. Probability storms rule life in Orokos, when they come anything could happen, you could go from being right-handed to left- handed. You could find that your arm is now your leg. You could grow a tail. You could find yourself needing a special apparatus to breathe, because your lungs no longer work. Both Rail and Moa are an unlikely duo who have both been affected by the probability storms in their own way. Rail can no longer breathe without an apparatus and Moa has gone from right-handed to left-handed. As they try to escape the thief lord Anya-Jacana, and hide a prized treasure from her, they meet up with many interesting characters including the Golem who has a dead bird, something that hasn't been seen in Orokos in years, hanging around his neck. They also find out they are in possession of a mysterious object which can open doors in the wall and start to discover the secrets of Orokos and what causes the probability storms. (New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read Award committee)

Westerfeld, Scott. MIDNIGHTERS: THE SECRET HOUR

Westerfeld, Scott.
THE SECRET HOUR
New York : Eos, 2004.

Long, long ago it was determined that there should a time when man was not present. So an hour was set aside from each day, and every night at midnight the world as we know it stops and life forms long forgotten emerge. Now, if you happen to be born at the stroke of midnight, there are two things about you that are special. One, you have access to that hour, and two you were born with secret, special powers. There are only a few places on earth that are open to this other reality and one is a seemingly ordinary little town in Oklahoma. When the story opens fifteen-year-old Jessica Day’s family has just moved to Bixby Oklahoma, and Jessica is feeling rather dismal about the local high school and its populace. It is still so soon after moving that her room is littered with half emptied boxes. She notices them stacked about in the still, dark of the room, when she wakes up in the middle of the night, and they echo her feeling of not belonging. She notices that it is quiet, absolutely quiet, and the sky outside her window is full of tiny, sparkly diamonds of light. She is very drawn to the diamonds outside her window and she reaches out into the night air. As she does, the sparkly diamonds become tiny droplets of still rain that drop at her touch, and behind the movement of her hand a small, black tunnel of empty night air forms. Jessica has entered the midnight hour. Soon she will learn that she is one of a small group of people in town who know the hour, each with special abilities they must master quickly, for they are about to face an ancient evil that lurks in that hour and wants out. Book 1 of the Midnighters series. (New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read Award committee)

Somper, Justin. DEMONS OF THE OCEAN : VAMPIRATES

Somper, Justin.
DEMONS OF THE OCEAN : VAMPIRATES
Boston : Little, Brown, 2006

Connor and Grace’s father always sang a sea shanty to them about the vampirates, but they never imagined it could really be true. When their ship goes down in a storm, Connor is rescued by pirates and becomes convinced that he saw his sister being pulled from the water by the mythical winged vampirate ship. His determination to rescue his sister sets the course for this rollicking high seas fantasy adventure. Book 1 of the Vampirates series. (New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read Award committee)

Smelcer, John. THE TRAP

Smelcer, John.
THE TRAP
New York : Holt, 2006

My name is Albert Least-Weasel. I am an 80 year-old Inuit trapper. I am the only person for miles around. I am returning home from my trapping cabin. I have forty miles of trap lines and no one ever insults my pride by coming near them. We Inuits have great respect for our elders. On the way home to my wife and grandson I have been checking my trap line one last time. This is such a beautiful time and place; so quiet, so cold and so still. Winter is coming in hard. The days are short and the nights are a cold nineteen hours long. I can hear wolves in the distance and can feel the temperature plummet. That’s my sled over there – only 12 feet away. I left my hat on the seat of the yellow snowmobile before I stepped into the waist-deep snow. The sled carries two quarters of moose meat and my backpack of survival gear. It carries some more warm clothes and my gun, and supplies to tide me over on the trip home. I have been trapping for over 60 years and know what to take with me. It is so quiet and so beautiful here. The wilderness seems to speak to me. It’s getting colder. I am thinking about trapping, my family, my life, my survival skills. I am standing just under the branches of a huge tree. The frozen rabbit, my bait, hangs just above my head. I am all alone in this beautiful white wilderness. It is getting colder and I can hear the wolves in the distance. It is getting colder and darker. This is the last trap I will check. It is getting colder and the wolves are getting nearer. This was the first time I ever made a mistake. It is getting colder. My foot is caught in The Trap. (New Hampshire Isinglass Teen Read Award committee)