Taming the Star Runner

Author

Julie Reece Deaver

There are friends we can't imagine living without.

Morgan and Jimmy were kids together, whirling around the porch on hot summer days. They've been friends forever, and by now they know each other inside out. They do everything together--from cutting high school to go into the city to coaching...

Author	Margaret Mahy
ISBN	0140365990

Carnegie medal-winning supernatural romance from Margaret Mahy.

The face in the mirror. From the moment she saw it, Laura Chant knew that something dreadful was going to happen. It wasn’t the first time she’d been forewarned. But never before had anything so terrible happened. The horrifyingly...

Author	Karen Cushman
ISBN	0547231849

Fans of Karen Cushman's witty, satisfying novels will welcome Meggy Swann,newly come to London with her only friend, a goose named Louise. Meggy's mother was glad to be rid of her; her father, who sent for her, doesn't want her after all. Meggy is appalled by London,dirty and noisy, full of rogues and...

Author	Gordon Korman
ISBN	0590462318

Forget about winning, they're just trying to score!

Corey Johnson never dreamed Little League could be so humiliating. But that was before he joined the Feather Soft Tigers.

It's bad enough that the team uniforms have pictures of toilet paper on them-thanks to their sponsor. But...

Author

Paul Zindel

Another surprising bookstore find. I'm glad I'm reading this at 30 and not at 15. I think I would have liked it then, but I would've understood it in a different way, probably more intuitively but less concretely.
The main characters, Louis (Marsh) Mellow and Edna Shinglebox, get to know each other...

Author	Chris Crutcher
ISBN	0060507837

This short story collection serves as my introduction to Chris Crutcher as an author.

These stories are easy to read despite dealing with social situations and moral dilemmas: self-esteem, reaction to death and dying, prejudice and discrimination, or family relationships.

I...

Author	Robert Cormier
ISBN	0440215560

★ ★ ★ ★ 1/2

We All Fall Down marks only the second Young Adult book that I’ve ever read and the first I’ve read by choice. The first novel, not surprising, was by the same author, which I read more than a decade ago--maybe closer to two decades--when I was trapped some place (I don’t...

Author	Susan Patron
ISBN	1416939989

"Eleven is much more intrepid than only ten."

On the eve of her eleventh birthday, Lucky wants to let loose and become intrepid; she's ready for life to change. But Hard Pan (population 43) drones on like it always has: Lincoln all tied up in knotty matters, Miles newly diagnosed as a genius but...

Author	Marcus Romer
ISBN	1583421548

By far, Rumblefish was my favorite S.E. Hinton book when I was a young teenager. I know that The Outsiders is generally considered the best of her young adult work, but I think that Rumblefish is a better book on several levels:

1.It is more honest about the lives of young adults. The Outsiders...

Author	Lynne Reid Banks
ISBN	0380706490

You may think Houdini is a strange name for a hamster, but if you've ever heard of the late Great Houdini, the most amazing escape-artist of all time, you'll understand how I got my name. I'm proud to say that there hasn't been a cage built that can hold me. I can climb, dive, wriggle, squeeze, or gnaw my way...

Author	Lauraine Snelling
ISBN	1556612036

The Golden Filly series by Snelling is a terrible series that is best left avoided. The golden filly still has not appeared in this book. This one is better at character development and is "horsier" than the previous book.

Although marketed as a clone of the popular Thoroughbred series, Snelling's...

Author	Louis Sachar
ISBN	0747555249

'Why did the guy eat two dead skunks for breakfast?' 'Because dead ones squeal when you stick the fork in.' Gary W. Boone knows he was born to be a stand-up comedian. It is the rest of the kids in the class who think he is a fool. Then the Floyd Hicks Junior High School Talent Show is announced, and he starts practising...