Book Recommendations (Fiction)

Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
by Kinney, Jeff

Publishers Weekly Review: Middle school student Greg Heffley takes readers through an academic year's worth of drama. Greg's mother forces him to keep a diary ("I know what it says on the cover, but when Mom went out to buy this thing I specifically told her to get one that didn't say `diary' on it"), and in it he loosely recounts each day's events, interspersed with his comic illustrations. Kinney has a gift for believable preteen dialogue and narration (e.g., "Don't expect me to be all `Dear Diary' this and `Dear Diary' that"), and the illustrations serve as a hilarious counterpoint to Greg's often deadpan voice. The hero's utter obliviousness to his friends and family becomes a running joke. For instance, on Halloween, Greg and his best friend, Rowley, take refuge from some high school boys at Greg's grandmother's house; they taunt the bullies, who then T.P. her house. Greg's journal entry reads, "I do feel a little bad, because it looked like it was gonna take a long time to clean up. But on the bright side, Gramma is retired, so she probably didn't have anything planned for today anyway." Kinney ably skewers familiar aspects of junior high life, from dealing with the mysteries of what makes someone popular to the trauma of a "wrestling unit" in gym class.

Skellig
by Almond, David

Horn Book Review: The line between reality and fantasy can be very thin, and the interval between life and death even thinner. Michael becomes aware of both these truths in the course of this narrative, which begins when he and his family move into a new house. In addition to the usual anxieties accompanying such upheaval, he and his family are preoccupied with his gravely ill newborn sister. While investigating a collapsing garage on their property, he stumbles upon a stranger. From the very first page, Almond lets us know that we are in the presence of something extraordinary. "It was as if he had been there forever. He was filthy and pale and dried out and I thought he was dead." Simultaneously repulsed and drawn to him, Michael tries to keep the stranger alive with food and medicine. He meets a home-schooled neighbor, Mina, an odd girl who is a storehouse of knowledge about birds and William Blake, and takes her to see Skellig; together they glimpse wings growing from his shoulders…Mina and Michael move Skellig to an attic where he feeds on carrion brought to him by a pair of owls. He dances a mystical, Blakean dance with the two children, then, perhaps in a dream, visits the baby in the hospital and dances with her. She survives, and Skellig departs. Is he an angel? An owl-man? We're left with mysteries just beyond our grasp.

Crispin: The Cross of Lead (Newbery winner)
by Avi

Horn Book Review: Falsely accused of theft and declared a "wolf's head" (whom any man may kill), humble, pious Crispin flees his feudal village. Taken in as an apprentice by an itinerant juggler called Bear, Crispin learns about music and mummery, about freedom and questioning fate, and about his own mysterious parentage. Avi writes a fast-paced, action-packed adventure comfortably immersed in its fourteenth-century setting.