Suggestions on Summer Reading for YSL Users

Periodically, the book reviewer for YoungSaintLouis.com has taken a look back at books that have been reviewed in previous issues. We've done this at Christmastime for gift giving purposes and at the beginning of summer for those who want to dedicate part of their vacation leisure time to reading good books. Just to remind you, note that four books are reviewed in each issue. Clicking on the Past Issues tab at the top of the home page will take you to previous monthly issues. That way you can browse through previous book reviews and decide whether you want to try to secure a book that was reviewed earlier.

All books reviewed are available through Amazon.com and at Borders. Many of them are also available at Waldenbooks, since that store is a subsidiary of Borders. Most of them are inexpensive, ranging from about $4.95 to $6.95 in paperback. That's cheaper than a movie because you don't end up buying popcorn and a soda.

You might also find use for the Google search option on the Past Issues site that can help you locate a review of a book that meets the search criteria that you enter. The keywords that you enter have to reflect terms or names used in the review. Titles and authors don't always show up in the reviews, since the book covers are pictured right there with each review.

For this article, I pulled a dozen paperbacks off my bookshelf. These were books that for one reason or another stood out in my memory. The first three are books that in different ways involve a boy and his dog. "The Last Dog on Earth" by Daniel Ehrenhaft (April 2005) is the "heaviest" read of the three. It concerns a troubled boy who originally picks a wild-looking dog from an animal shelter just to spite his step-father. The boy trains this unlikely-looking dog to be his best companion. Their adventures center around a deadly disease that is leading to the deaths of all dogs as well as that that of hundreds of humans who have been bitten by infected dogs. Only this boy and his beloved pet hold the key to stopping the destructive disease. "The Summer of Riley" by Eve Bunting (February 2004) is a shorter, but only a little bit lighter read. In this one, the boy has to develop some skills he didn't know he possessed in order to keep his pet from being destroyed by ranchers intent on saving their stock. The third selection, "Kensuke's Island" by Michael Morpurgo (February2005) is about a boy and his dog shipwrecked on an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean. It just happens that an elderly Japanese soldier from World War II is also a secret inhabitant of the island.

There are four books with a girl as main character that I found unusually good reading. A highly suspenseful tale of murder and kidnapping set in present day Italy is one titled "Three Days" by Donna Jo Napoli (November 2004). The rest of the four deal with some period of the past. "The Staircase" by Ann Rinaldi (August 2004), based on a true story, has as its heroine a girl who, while her family moves westward, is left in a boarding school in 1870's Sante Fe, New Mexico. While she is struggling to survive among a group of snobbish and cliquish girls, she is witness to the appearance of a staircase in the school's chapel that many to this day consider of miraculous construction. "Dancing in the Streets of Brooklyn" by April Lurie (April 2005) is about a Norwegian immigrant girl growing up in the 1940's, toward the end of World War II. Finally, "The Secret School" by Avi (April 2004) has as its heroine a thirteen-year-old girl who needs to take over as teacher in her one room school house in order to keep the school from being shut down. The time is 1925 and the location is rural Colorado.

A short but high impact book about unfounded prejudice is one titled "The Jacket" by Andrew Clements (May 2004). Any middle-grader in an urban school can relate to the characters in this story.

The last three books I will mention are high adventure books. "The Boy in the Burning House" by Tim Wynne-Jones (March 2005) is a suspense filled thriller that has its hero dealing with a murderer and arsonist. "A Week in the Woods" by Andrew Clements (September 2003) is about a sheltered fifth grade boy who ends up trying to survive in a wilderness that would challenge adult survivalists. The title, "Mutiny" in the Pirate Hunter series by Brad Strickland and Thomas E. Fuller (March 2003) just about speaks for itself. A fourteen-year-old ends up on a ship with his uncle hunting pirates in the Caribbean of the 1680's.

Above all, have fun reading this summer!