Revolution, by Jennifer Donnelly

This novel is an unusual pairing of realistic, contemporary fiction and historical fiction that works on many levels. Music lover Andi is devastated when her brother is killed and blames herself, because she was supposed to be watching him. Unable to cope with her grief, she barely hangs on by playing her music and using antidepressants. When her mother is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, her estranged father takes Andi to Paris, where she reluctantly begins researching her senior thesis on a famous French composer.

In Paris, she stumbles across a diary belonging to a servant of Louis Charles, son of Louis XVI and Maria Antoinette. The story then alternates between revolutionary Paris, and the servant’s valiant efforts to save the Prince, and Andi’s struggle to fight her demons and suicidal urges. The reader becomes fully invested in these two poignant stories as the suspense builds and the intense emotions of the plot lines converge.

This compelling, character-driven story is well-paced, with meticulous historical research/details and complex, engaging characters. Highly recommended. 2011

A. Basso

Summer Reading Is Killing Me, by Jon Scieszka

                                                          Summer Reading Is Killing Me

Joe, Fred and Sam, of The Time Warp Trio series, usually spend their adventures time traveling to another era via their "magic" book. Once there, they spend their time dodging dinosaurs, pirates or robots, while they seek their "magic" book, which will transport them home again.

In this book, Fred accidentally puts their summer reading list into the "magic" book. Instead of being transported to another time period, they and all the characters from the books on the list are transported to the Hoboken of The Hoboken Chicken Emergency by Daniel Pinkwater. There all the bad characters from the books have rounded up the good characters in the Hoboken Public Library. The bad characters, led by Teddy Bear, intend to replace the good characters in their books, after they crush them with the books in the library. Can the boys convince the bad characters that they are bad characters too, long enough to find the "magic" book, which is also in the Hoboken Public Library, and transport everybody back where they belong before the bad guys change literature forever? 1998

R. Rauch