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.

The Squad: Perfect Cover by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Bayport High School's varsity cheerleading team is composed of the most beautiful, the most athletic, the best-dressed, and the most popular girls in town. Toby Klein may be a black-belt in karate and an expert computer hacker but she has no school spirit, dresses badly, and has a tendency to beat up the guys who pick on her younger brother. She is horrified to be invited to join the cheerleading team until she learns that the girls are actually highly trained spys for the United States government Their cover is perfect - who would expect anything from a cheerleader?
What follows is lots of great clothes and accessories that double as spy gadgets, lots of girl bonding and gossip, lots of wildly improbable technology (a huge spy complex under the school). The reader really needs to suspend disbelief for Squad books (their is mention of Charlie's Angels but it reminded me even more of the Teletoon show "Spy Girls), but this looks like a fun series for those who are happy to do so.

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Ruby is living by herself in a broken-down old farmhouse after her mom takes off on her. In a few months she will be eighteen and legally independent but when social services learns of her situation she is obliged to live with her older sister, whom she has not seen for many years. Suddenly, she is living in a beautiful house and going to a private school, but Ruby is uncomfortable with the situation. Because she feels that everyone she has ever cared about ultimately leaves, she is determined not to get close to anyone or to rely on anyone. But life doesn't work that way. As the people around her, including the popular guy next door, begin to find their way into her life, she finds that they too have problems and secrets to deal with. While Ruby and other characters are well-developed and the plot an interesting one, I found that the dialogue was a bit unbelievable. Lessons about relationships are provided through conversations and I kept thinking that people really don't talk like this. However, Sarah Dessen is tremendously popular and this would be a good bet to recommend to teen girls who like books about working through problems in relationships. Another one, in the same genre, but much shorter is Sweethearts by Sara Zarr

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Poor Percy. He's been kicked out of six schools in six years for being a troublemaker but he doesn't begin to know the meaning of trouble until his math teacher turns into a monster and tries to kill him while on a class visit to the museum. It turns out that Percy's dad is a Greek god, Poseidon, no less, and life for the offspring of the immortals tends to be dangerous and short. Percy must head to Camp Half-Blood where along with other children of Greek gods he can learn skills that will help him to survive. But after being accused of stealing Zeus's lightning bolt he must set out on a quest to find it before all-out war breaks out between the gods with humanity as the casualty.

There is plenty of action in The Lightning Thief but it is also laced with lots of humour, much of it emanating from the modern twist Riordan gives the Greek gods. The Camp Director happens to be Dionysius, punished for some past infraction by being forced into doing good works with youth; Mount Olympus is on the 60oth floor of the Empire State Building; chapters have amusing titles such as "Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death".

Kids who are not familiar with Greek mythology may be tempted to do more background reading. Those who are, will be amused by how Riordan incorporates the ancients into a modern story.

Highly recommended for tweens.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

I know that Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight" is the hot teen book right now, but I honestly couldn't get into it. The setting was great - all that rain and fog was just right for a vampire theme. But I got tired of Bella mooning over Edward the vampire and kept wanting to shriek at her "Focus on your studies!" "He's totally unsuitable!" "What are your parents going to say?" sigh..it must be my age showing.

However, I loved City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. Yes, there are vampires and romance. There is also tons of action and a wonderfully twisting plot. Fifteen-year-old Clary becomes involved with teens who belong to a mysterious group called the Shadowhunters. They are embroiled in an attempt to find an ancient cup possessed of great powers, before former Shadowhunter Valentine gets his hands on it. It does sound like a pretty standard plot, but it grabbed my attention with complex characters and relationships, clever plot surprises, and entertaining dialogue.

A fun read and the first in a series.

The Case of the Missing Marquess: An Enola Holmes Mystery by Nancy Springer


Enola Holmes definitely belongs to my "cool girl" list. This much, much younger sister of Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes is growing up as something of a wild child. When her mother mysteriously disappears (to escape the restrictions of Victorian society), Sherlock and Mycroft arrive at the family estate and are properly shocked by their hoydenish sister's upbringing. They decide that she should be packed off to a boarding school where she can learn how to behave as a proper young lady. Enola, however, has very different plans. She gives her brothers the slip, runs off to London, and sets herself up as a detective where she soon is involved in solving a kidnapping case. But despite her incredible competence, she feels very much alone - spell Enola backwards - and longs to connect with Sherlock who is always a step or two behind in catching her sister. Great 19th century London atmosphere, wonderful characters, and a page-turning story in this first book in a series

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

When Daisy's father and stepmother send her to live in rural England with her aunt and cousin, the country is on the brink of war. At first, life seems idyllic to the teens, free from adult supervision when Daisy's aunt must leave the country to participate in peace talks. But when war breaks out, the farm is taken over by the army and the boys are forced to take refuge with one family while the girls are sent to another. Here Daisy sees the fallout of war - food and medicine shortages, a disintegrating infrastructure, and violent deaths. But she also sees people who are trying to milk cows, harvest crops, and perform other vital but unfamiliar tasks. Witnessing this, she is eventually pulled out of her self-absorbtion to perform her own acts of heroism - caring for her young cousin as they cross enemy territory to get back to the farm and reunite with her cousins. Although a short novel, Where I Live Now covers a lot of ground. The kids initially enjoy the war vicariously, then are thrust into the middle where they struggle to survive and finally must deal with going on with life after the war ends. Recommended for teens.

So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane
I read this book quite a few years ago and recently have been catching up with some of the other titles in the Wizard series. Premise of this first book in the series is that Nita - bookworm and science geek - takes refuge in the children's department of public library to escape a group of bullies. While there, she spots a book entitled "So You Want to Be A Wizard" and as she reads, realizes that she posesses many of the characteristics needed to train to become a wizard. So begins this series, where wizards work to slow entropy in the universe by fighting against dark forces.
Nita is a well-drawn character who over the course of the series matures, as she encounters challenges and even tragedies in both the real and fantasy world. Despite the premise of young adults training to become wizards, the series is very different from the Harry Potter Books. The magic is rooted in science, particularly physics, and the wizards must always be careful to balance their use of magic against the energy available in the universe. A strong series and highly recommended

Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams

Ingrid Levin-Hill's hero is Sherlock Holmes. For several years, the eighth grader has kept a copy of his "Complete Adventures" on her bedside table, and spends a lot of time thinking about how Holmes figures out the world around him. "The more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling..." Holmes tells Dr. Watson.

Everything in Ingrid's world seems pretty commonplace. She lives in a 1950s Cape Cod house located in small cozy town where nothing much happens. She goes to school, plays soccer, fights with her brother - all pretty mundane stuff.

But a wrong turn on the way home from soccer practice lands Ingrid on the doorstep of local eccentric Cracked Up Kate and life starts to get pretty weird. Kate is murdered later that night and Ingrid is going to be in big trouble unless she can retrieve her soccer shoes from Kate's house before the police figure out who they belong to. Next, Ingrid is forced out of her lead role in a local production of "Alice in Wonderland" after the producer is injured under suspicious cirumstances. Somewhere, there is a connection between these two events, and with years of studying the techniques of the world's greatest fictional detective, Ingrid is determined to figure it out.

Abrahams does a wonderful job in creating a three dimensional world in Down the Rabbit Hole. Adults who have read his thriller "The Tutor" will recognize some of the same characters, redrawn for a younger audience, but also in my mind, further developed and more enjoyable.

Ages 10 through 14 (and any age if you enjoy a good mystery)

Glass Houses by Rachel Caine
Claire may be brilliant but because she is only sixteen her parents refuse to let her go to a big university like Harvard or MIT. They figure that Claire would be safer and happier attending a small college in a small town. They figure wrongly. After Claire's bullying room-mates push her down a flight of stairs she finds refuge with three teenagers living in a comfortable, shabby, old house. She feels safe with her new friends but her sense of security disappears when she learns that the town is controlled by vampires who don't hesitate to dine on unprotected humans such as herself.
Part of the appeal of Glass House is the juxtaposition of the frightening confrontations with the supernatural (as well as the bullies) with the mundane activities of everday life. Claire needs to get to classes on time, groceries have to be bought, house-mates have to get along. At the same time, bullies need to be dodged and vampires dealt with. And just what is up with housemate Michael who only seems to appear at night but disappears as soon as the sun starts to rise?
Recommended for older teens