Kid Reads New Book Reviews

Reading Level:  Grades 9 and up

Franciso is a celebrity in his Spanish Harlem neighborhood.  He is a top student, popular, and a gifted basketball player.  He has a wonderful girlfriend and loving supportive parents.  For his senior year he is offered a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school in upstate New York.  Franciso  knows this is his ticket out of the 'hood and into a better life for him and those he loves.  But his best friend fears that Francisco will leave him behind.  A visit home sets in motion events that lead to bad decisions, betrayals, and tested loyalties.  This is a riveting book that readers will not want to put down.

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Another book about a minority scholarship student is  Tequila Worm by Viola Canales.

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Reading Level: Grades 6 and up

What sort of person becomes a Rhodes Scholar (one of the most prestigious academic honors in the world) and then signs on to become a Navy SEAL?  Eric Greitens will take you on his journey that led him from refugee camps in Rwanda and Bosnia, the slums of Bolivia, the rigors of Navy SEAL training to the battlefields of Iraq and then home.  In this adaptation for teens of his best-selling novel you will meet an extraordinary person you will not soon forget.

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Other books by Eric Greitens

Reading Level: Grades 6 and up

Xanthe Jane (don't call her Xanthe) has always loved vampires, as stories, but she knows they aren't real. Then one night she is woken up by a cellphone playing the theme from Dracula and discovers that she is in a coffin, in her grave, and her vampire sire is exhuming her. When her sire is chased off before she can finish digging Jane up, Jane is left to figure out how she could be a vampire when she's never been bitten and what is she supposed to do now, in this tongue-in-cheek vampire novel.

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More books by Helen Keeble

Reading Level:  Grades 8 and up

This tense well crafted thriller opens with 16-year-old Noa waking up on a metal table in a warehouse with an incision in her chest.   Much like a young Dragon Tattoo's Lisbeth Salander Noa  is a tough, smart orphan who has been mistreated by the system and was able to use her considerable computer skills to establish a life on the border of society.  After her escape, she meets up with wealthy, privileged Peter who has hacked his way into some files in his father's office.  Both teens  find themselves on the run.   Will they elude capture long enough to get some answers? Who are these men who are chasing them and why are they after Noa and Peter?  What has done to Noa?  What is the connection to Peter's family?

WARNING:  This is the first book in a trilogy.  Book one leaves you hanging. You'll want to keep reading, but you can't.

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