17. Inkheart

By: Cornelia Funke

Level: YA

 

Meggie first learns about the book the night she finds the stranger lurking outside her bedroom window.  Meggie and her father must flee a dangerous madman because her father read him out of a book.  This same madman, Capricorn, is bent on overtaking the world and never going back to his own.  To do this he wants to bring a friend out of the book Inkheart and this requires Meggie’s father Silvertongue, otherwise known as Mo, to read the friend out.  To avoid Capricorn’s nefarious schemes Meggie, her father, and their friends escape and try to rid the world of Capricorn.  This is the first book in a trilogy that ends with the publication of Inkdeath this past Fall.

16. Savvy

By: Ingrid Law

Level: YA

 

Mibs Beaumont is turning 13.  This is her special birthday when she gets her “savvy”.  In her family, each member gets their savvy at the age of 13.  Her brothers’ savvies work with electricity and water.  No one knows what Mibs will be.  Then the unthinkable happens.  Mibs father is in an accident and is in the hospital.  At Mibs makeshift birthday party, that she did not want, she ends up running away, with her brothers and the pastor’s kids, to find her father and wake him up in the hospital.  Through many adventures Mibs learns how wrong she was about her savvy and how everyone has a little savvy in their lives, maybe not as big as those in her family, but there nonetheless.

15. The Last of the High Kings

By: Kate Thompson
Level: YA

J.J. Liddy despairs of his daughter Jenny who roams the Irish highlands in barefeet and all weathers. In addition, J.J. has to convince his daughter Hazel to have a fake baby and find a way for his friend Mikey Cullen to reach the top of a local mountain. Jenny does not understand her family. They have all of these emotions that she does not comprehend, she also does not understand why she must go to school when her friend the puka teaches her how to listen to the wind. The puka wants Jenny to make friends with the ghost of a boy who is tied to the mountain. When the ghost is gone, the puka assures Jenny that he and his family will stop the erosion of the earth’s resources that humans have wrought. The story develops slowly and is bewildering at times, but this is intentional to create just the right amount of tension to resolve the eventual conflict between the puka, J.J. Liddy, and the rest of the characters.