Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

Kate Malone is the “good girl” who may think of a sarcastic response but settles for what people would expect the pastor’s daughter to say. She is the cross country runner and straight-A student who pushes herself to excel in everything she does. She is the girl who is crazy enough to apply to ONLY ONE COLLEGE! When neighbor, and school outcast, Teri Litch ends up living at Kate’s house (because her own house suffered major damage in a fire), Kate’s “nice girl” act is about to get out to the ultimate test… And when Kate finds out that she didn’t get into MIT, “Bad Kate” threatens to take over. I don’t know of too many authors who can manage to fit both heart-wrenching and hilarious into the same book, but Laurie Halse Anderson makes it look easy.

Happy Reading!

Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson

I often end up listening to an audiobook because my previous audiobook is over, this new audiobook is checked in, and I haven’t yet gotten around to reading the “actual” book, even though I have wanted to.  Sometimes, though, I end up with an audiobook because I have been told that the reader did such an amazing job that it would be silly to read the book for myself.  This is a case of the latter.  Laurie Halse Anderson always does a great job capturing an authentic teen voice in her novels, and that “voice” was really amplified by the reader — Katherine Kellgren.  I knew, right from the start, that Ashley Hannigan was going to be an awesome character…  Especially when she said,

“Normal kids (like me) thought high school was cool for the first three days of ninth grade. Then it became a big yawn, the kind of yawn that showed the fillings in your teeth and the white stuff on your tongue you didn’t scrape off with your toothbrush. Sometimes I wondered why I bothered. Normal kids (me again), we weren’t going to college, no matter what anybody said. I was getting by.”

Despite the fact that Ashley proclaims herself as “normal,” there is one major thing that many people would consider extremely abnormal…  Ashley could care less about her senior prom.  Even though it seems to be the only thing many of her classmates have to look forward to, she really thinks the prom is a waste of time and money.  Everything changes, though, when the faculty advisor steals all of the prom money.  Ashley’s best friend and next-door neighbor, Natalia, is the head of the prom committee, so Ashley ends up getting rope-a-doped into trying to save the prom with next to no money.  Often hilarious (especially because of Ashley’s crazy family), this book will appeal to everyone from “normal kids” who don’t care about prom to prom-lovers on the fast track to the Ivy League.

Happy Reading!

Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson

I have heard many kids and adults talking about this book, and I have wanted to read this book for years — but I have always thought of it when kids were coming in to get it for their summer reading assignments (and I didn’t want to request a copy because I didn’t want to keep a kid from getting it in time to do his/her homework). I finally saw it on the shelf when I was working during a non-summer season, so I decided to hurry up and check it out. Boy, was I glad I did!

This was one of the best historical fiction books I have EVER read — a story of how one girl [barely] lives through a the Philadelphia yellow fever epidemic of 1793. This epidemic actually killed about 5000 people, which amounted to roughly 10% of Philadelphia’s population, over the course of 3 months. Each chapter begins with a quote from a primary source document, such as a letter or a newspaper article, which helps to emphasize the actual mind-set and reactions of people at that time. Now I know why so many teachers have added this book to their summer reading lists!

Happy Reading!

Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson

This is one of those books that I picked up just because the cover looked so cool.  I had absolutely no idea what the book was about, and the back of the book didn’t tell me much either.  Didn’t matter!  Laurie Halse Anderson is a great author, and the cover caught my eye…  Nothing was going to stand between me and this book!

Needless to say, I was very happy that I went with my gut on this one!  The basic gist of the book is that this kid Tyler Miller goes from total geek to completely hot rebel when he gets caught spray painting graffiti on school property.  How does that happen?  Well, he lost the geek/dork label because he had the nerve to spray paint some insults about the principal’s genitalia.  And he ends up getting “hot” because of all the manual labor involved with his community service (working with the janitorial staff at his high school) and the job he gets (doing landscaping work) in order to pay for the damage he caused.

Adding to the tension of a normal teenage existence, nevertheless, Tyler has (1) a little sister, Hannah, who is now in high school and dating his best friend, Yoda, (2) an unexpected reciprocation of feelings from his long-time crush, Bethany Milbury, (3) whose twin brother, Chip, is Tyler’s worst enemy and (4) whose father is his father’s boss.  It’s not bad enough that Tyler has already let his father down by committing “the foul deed,” but now he is daring to try and move on with his life by taking advantage of his new social standing…  What is a guy to do?

Happy Reading!