Curse of the Blue Tattoo: being an account of the misadventures of Jacky Faber, midshipman and fine lady By L.A. Meyer

Disguised as a boy, Jacky Faber has been having a grand time as a midshipman aboard H.M.S. Dolphin. Now the masquerade is over, and she has been packed off to a private school to learn to be a lady. But Jacky is not the type of girl to sit quietly learning to embroider. Soon she is embroiled in adventures such a horseracing (to win a bet and save her the estate of her best friend's father), sneaking out at night to sing at a local tavern (to earn money to get back to England) and solve the mystery of a maid who died in suspicious circumstances.

Jacky is a great character - plucky, a bit crude, energetic, and also underneath her streetwise exterior - vulnerable.

There is adventure, humour, mystery, and a bit of romance in this energetic novel that keeps zipping along to the last page.

Keepers of the Flame by Jennifer Armstrong

Five years have passed since a virus killed most of the world's adults. The children who have not died, scavenge for food and shelter in the ruins of towns and cities. They cling to their memories of the pr-virus (fire-us) world, but these memories are distant and distorted. A small group of teens and children are travelling up the coast of Florida and for the first time in five years they have come across adults. Living in a mall, these adults welcome the group warmly and invite them to stay. However, there is something peculiar about these adults....

While this is a trilogy, it was easy to jump into book two without reading the first book. It's a great seat-of-pants adventure with some real depth to the characters and their will to survive.

Just finishing up The City of Ember by Jeanne Du Prau, as a read-aloud. The premise drew us into the story immediately - a city that has existed under the earth for so many years that its inhabitants no realize the existence of a world above them. This city has been stocked with all the necessities of life and draws its light from a huge generator. But now the supplies are running low and the generator is wearing out. Blackouts are more and more frequent and although unspoken, there is a fear that some day the lights will go out permanently. When young Lina finds a manuscript, she is convinced that it provides information that will lead Ember's inhabitants away from the city and to safety. Unfortunately, her little sister Poppy has eaten chunks of the manuscript but with the help of a friend, Doon they begin to decipher the message and make plans to escape from Ember.

Because Du Prau doesn't give much away in "Ember" we often paused in our reading to speculate. Who built the city? Why? Are there people above ground? Given that all copies of the next book in the series are currently out of the library, I figure that lots of kids had similar questions and were eager to find the answers.

The Recruit by Robert Muchamore
I only got about half-way through this one before handing it over to a ten- year-old who was looking for something to read. We compared notes when he got to about the same point in the book that I had reached, and it seems that our opinions were somewhat different.
First, a quick summary. 11 year old James is mathematically brilliant, but a little too quick with his fists and prone to get into trouble. When his mother, a successful fence for stolen goods, dies, James ends up in group home where he starts to run with a gang. He gets picked up by the police, but before he is charged, he is recruited by a mysterious group called Cherubs. Cherubs is a secret branch of M15 and consists of kids 11 to 17 who perform missions for this British spy agency. James undergoes a rigorous 100 day training before receiving his first assignment.
I certainly thought that The Recruit is a page turner as did my 10-year-old reviewer. However, while I thought that the training was down-right abusive, my co-reviewer thought it was all pretty cool. This is the first in a series about Cherubs. While definitely grittier than the Alex Rider spy novels, it will definitely appeal to kids who are fans of spy novels, which are currently an incredibly popular genre.
On a quick note, James Patterson has done a cross-over from adult into teen novels with his Maximum Ride series. It features a group of genetically enhanced kids who are being pursued by unknown killers. If this isn't trouble enough, they need to save the world from unspecified threat. These are real page-turners with short chapters and lots of action. While past titles in the series have been marketed to teens and tweens, apparently the next book out is going to be marketed across the board to adults, teens, and tweens. I guess the publishers want to squeeze as much out of this series as possible.

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz
14-year-old Alex Rider is orphaned when his uncle, a spy for the British government, is murdered. When the spy agency M16 gives him a choice between going to an orphanage or going undercover for them he reluctantly chooses the latter. His mission: infiltrate the organization of multibillionaire Herod Sayle who will be donating a state-of-the-art computer to each school-child in Great Britain. Is Sayle genuinely thanking his adoptive country through this fantastic gift or are does he have a different motive. Alex is sure that the sinister multibillionaire is up to no good but how to prove it with only a couple of days before the computers will be in the hands of children across the country? Since Stormbreaker is the first in a series, we know that Alex will prevail, but what a page-turning adventure! Armed with a fistful of cool gadgets and a blackbelt in karate Alex must battle the nefarious Sayle and his minions to save not only his own life but a whole generation of children.
The Alex Rider books don't need to be read in any particular order to enjoy them, although Stormbreaker does provide background to Alex's involvement in M16. However, given that these books don't spend much time on the library shelves just grab whichever title is available and enjoy!
Great for boys 10 to 14