Cut off from the rest of the world by an enormous mountain, secured by a massive gated wall exists the city of Deliverance. The residents of Deliverance are special. They look like everyone on the other side of the mountain, but they all possess a form of telekinesis called psi. The people of Deliverance use their psi for everything including cooking, cleaning, getting dressed, driving, etc. Ocassionally, however, children’s psi powers do not develop and are labeled Freaklings. Of course, it is impossible for Freaklings to exist among the psi wielders; therefore, those children are sent to the nonpsi village outside the walls of Deliverance where they are taught to survive in a world where they must do everything for themselves.
Taemon was not born a Freakling, but he is different from other psi wielders. He has the ability to “mind wander” or see inside objects using his mind – a very dangerous power in the hands of the wrong person. Taemon’s brother, Yens, is extremely gifted at using psi and hungers for fame and power. As Yens starts to realize just how powerful Taemon really is, he begins to feel threatened and attacks Taemon in hopes of scaring him into explaining the root of his power. As a result, Taemon actually loses his ability to control objects with psi and must hide his handicap or be exiled from the city. Ultimately, Taemon must make a decision that will impact everyone in Deliverance and even beyond, but can he trust himself to make the right decision?
Posted by: Staci
DC Super Pets are fantastic easy readers. The text is clear, sentence structure is perfect for beginning readers, and they even use comic book style fonts and color to denote dialogue which helps beginning readers distinguish dialogue from the rest of the text AND adds a fun, comic book element. The illustrator, Art Baltazar has won the Eisner award and it shows in his illustrations for this book. The Eisner award is awarded to outstanding comic book artists each year. Backward Bowwow contains high gloss, bright illustrations that will draw kids into the stories.
Books set in future dystopias are all the rage right now. Usually society has become degenerate and evil, with a veneer of civility and promise. Only angry hormonal teenagers who are in love with multiple people at once can see the cracks in the facade!
I liked the premise of this book. Fuel is unavailable. All the cars, and buses and trucks cannot run. The highways are empty. So people start walking and bicycling instead and they use the highways because it’s easiest. Can you imagine walking 22 miles to work? Bicycles become necessities and are in high demand.
This book is hysterically funny. It tells the tale of three fluffy bunny aliens who come to take over and eat everyone on Earth. Kevin and Joules are twins whose parents drop them at camp while they go to a SPAM cooking competition. Yep, SPAM. Camp is not what they expect, especially when the adults all get eaten by 7 foot tall bunnies who force the kids to eat sugar. The twins and their friend Nelson must save the day. Much hilarity ensues and then the world is safe once more. A great book that is perfect for reluctant readers.
It’s 1979 and in New York City, sixth-grader Miranda and her best friend Sal have parted ways, though they aren’t sure why except that it all seemed to start when that new boy Marcus punched Sal in the stomach. Miranda is saddened at this loss of a friendship, but she has other things on her mind, too. For instance, she is helping her mom prepare for an upcoming stint on the tv game show $20,000 Pyramid, she is reading and re-reading her favorite book A Wrinkle in Time to figure out time travel, and she is receiving strange notes addressed to her that seem to predict the future.
This was a great sci fi book for kids. Mike is told about 8 hours before they are leaving that he is going to go live with his parents and sister on Mars. At the last minute, his sister is left behind. Almost immediately, Mike realizes that something fishy is going on. Suddenly, his mom has an assistant that looks a lot more like a bodyguard. Then, after a very garbled message from his sister, he finds out that his parents are trying to sabotage the ship! With the help of a very weird girl, Mike may just figure out what is going on before all is lost.
The Allbright Academy is an elite private boarding school turning out perfect young adults — beautiful, smart, capable leaders of community and even the world. It’s such an honor to be invited to attend this school. Franny was actually not invited to attend, but her younger sister Zoe was and would only attend if Zoe’s twin J.D. and Zoe’s older sister Franny could go too. The school is for overachievers and Franny had always considered herself perfectly ordinary, and happily so. However, once ensconced in this fabulous opportunity of a school, eighth-grader Franny actually sees so many improvements, so many changes for the better in herself, her sister, her friend Cal and others. Family and friends who don’t attend Allbright, aren’t sure the personality changes they see really are for ‘the better’. Instead, they see fake, robot-type people in place of their loved ones. What’s happening? 
I have never been frightened by a book. When I was a toddler, I could look at picture books full of dragons and dinosaurs and scary witches without ever turning a hair. When I recommend picture books to parents at the library, I have to continually remind myself that not all little children are as blase as I was. 
What if your mother thought that she’d been abducted by aliens? What if she told everyone at work about it? Embarassing, right? But what if she was right? What if she HAD been abducted by aliens, and it was only a matter of time until those aliens not only abducted her again, but Took Over the World?
