Camas High School Library

Mystery

Who Killed Christopher Goodman? by Allan Wolf

Everybody likes Chris Goodman.

Sure, he's kind of weird.  He wears those crazy bell-bottoms and he really likes the word ennui and he shakes your hand when he meets you, but he's the kind of guy who is always up for a good time and is happy to lend a hand.  Everybody likes Chris Goodman, which is why it's so shocking when he is murdered.

A multi-voiced narrative that includes the perspective of the killer and is inspired by a true and shocking crime from the author's own past, the book endeavors to answer the first question that comes to mind in moments of unthinkable tragedy:

How could a thing like this happen?

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Family, Romance

Just Fly Away by Andrew McCarthy

Ever wish that you could just fly away?

When fifteen-year-old Lucy Willows discovers that her father has a child from a brief affair, an eight-year-old boy who lives in her own town, she begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her home and her life. 

As her father's secret becomes her own, Lucy grows more and more isolated from her friends, her family, and even her boyfriend, Simon, the one person she thought understood her.  When Lucy escapes to Maine, the home of her mysteriously estranged grandfather, she finally begins to get to the bottom fo her family's secrets and lies.

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Family relationships

Gem & Dixie by Sara Zarr

Gem has never know what it is to have security.  She's never known an adult she can truly rely on.  But the one constant in her life has been Dixie.  Gem grew up taking care of her her sister when no one else could: not their mother, whose issues make it hard for her to keep food on the table, and definitely not their father, whose intermittent presence is the only thing worse than than his frequent absence.  

When their dad returns home for the first time in years and tries to insert himself back into their lives, Gem finds herself with an unexpected opportunity: three days with Dixie, on their own in Seattle and beyond. 

But this short trip soon becomes something more, as Gem discovers that to save herself, she may have to sever the one bond she's tried so hard to keep.

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Romance, Supernatural

Every Day and Another Day by David Levithan

These two books tell the same story from two different perspectives.

In Every Day, A wakes each moring in a different person's body, a different person's life.  There is never any warning about where it will be or who it will be.  A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live:

Never get too attached.  

Avoid being noticed.  

Do not interfere. 

It's all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon.  From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply.  Because finally A has found someone to love – day in, day out, day after day.

* * *

Rhiannon's side of the story is told in Another Day.  For Rhiannon, every day is the same.  She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin, even established guidleines by which to live:  

Don't be too needy.  

Avoid upsetting him.  

Never get your hopes up. 

Until the morning everything changes.  Justin seems to see her, to want to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day – a perfect day Justin doesn't seem to remember the next morning.  Confused, depressed, and desperate for another day as great as that one, Rhiannon starts questioning everything.  Then one day, a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with, the one who made her feel like a real person . . . wasn't Justin at all.

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Dystopia, Science Fiction

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

A World With No Hunger, No Disease, No War, No Misery

Humanity has conquered all those things, and has even conquered death.  Now scythes are the only ones who can end life – and they are commanded to do so, in order to keep the size of the population under control.

Citra and Rowan are about to learn that a perfect world comes only with a heavy price.  They are chosen to apprentice to a scythe – a role that neither wants.  These teens must master the "art" of taking life, knowing that the consequence of failure could mean losing their own.

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Military, Science, Nonfiction

Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach

Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you'll never see our nation's defenders in the same way again!

Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries – panic, exhaustion, heat, noise – and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them.  

Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the US Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat.  She visits the fashion design studio of US Army Natick Labs and leans why a zipper is a problem for a sniper.  She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds.  At Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security.

The author samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee.  She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks?  How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit?  Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks?  

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Mental Illness, Teen Life

Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman

Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench.

Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior.

Caden Bosch is designated the ship's artist in residence, to document the journey with images.

Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head.

Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny.

Caden Bosch is torn.

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Gender Identity, School Life

Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin

The first thing you're going to want to know about me is: 

Am I a boy, or am I a girl

Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid.  Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl.  The thing is . . . Riley isn't exactly out yet.  And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection, the pressure — media and otherwise — is building up in Riley's so-called "normal" life.

Just settling in to a new school, and  developing feelings for a mysterious outcast, Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell the truth of what it's really like to be a gender fluid teen.  But the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter discover's Riley's real identity, threatening exposure.  

Riley must make a choice: walk away from what the blog has created — a lifeline, new friends, a cause to believe in — or stand up, come out, and risk everything.

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Mystery

Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig

His girlfriend has disappeared. 

How can he uncover her secrets without revealing his own?

Flynn's girlfriend, January, is missing.  The cops are asking questions he can't answer, and her friends are telling stories that don't add up.  All eyes are on Flynn — as January's boyfriend, he must know something.

But Flynn has a secret of his own.  And as he struggles to uncover the truth about January's dasappearance, he must also face the turth about himself.

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Teen Life, Grief/Loss

The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson

Andrew Brawlely was supposed to die that night.  His parents did, and so did his sister, but he survived.  

Now he lives in the hospital.  He serves food in the cafeteria, he hangs out with the nurses, and he sleeps in a forgotten supply closet.  Drew is in hiding from his past, his guilt, and those who are trying to find him.  

Then one night a boy named Rusty is wheeled into the ER, burned on half his body by hateful classmates.  His agony calls out to Drew like a beacon, pulling them together through all their pain.  In Rusty, Drew sees hope, and a future.

But Drew knows that life is never that simple.  Death roams the hospital, searching for Drew, and now Rusy.  Drew lost his family, but he refuses to lose Rusty, too, so he's determined to bargain with Death and settle his debts once and for all.  But Death is not easily placated, and Drew's life will have to get worse before there is any chance for things to get better.

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Mental Illness, Teen Suicide

A World Without You by Beth Revis

Seventeen-year-old Bo has always had delusions that he can travel through time.  When he was ten, Bo claimed to have witnessed the Titanic hit an iceberg, and at fifteen, he found himself on a Civil War battlefield, horrified by the bodies surrounding him.  So when his worried parents send him to a school for troubled youth, Bo assumes he knows the truth: that he's actually attending Berkshire Academy, a school for kids who, like Bo, have "superpowers."

At the academy, Bo falls in love with Sofia, a quiet girl with a a tragic past and the superpower of invisibility.  But even the strength of their love isn't enough to help Sofia escape her deep depression.  After she commits suicide, Bo is convinced that she's not actually dead, that she's stuck somewhere in time – that he has somehow left her in the past, and that now it's his job to save her.

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Friendship, Teen Life

Goldfish by Nat Luurtsema

I am Lou Brown

Social outcast, precocious failure.

5' 10" and still growing.

I was on the fast track to Olympic Superstardom.

Now, I'm training boys too cool to talk to me.

In a sport I just made up.

In a fish tank.

My life has quickly become very weird.

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Friendship, Loss, Violence

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

Alex Craft knows how to kill someone. And she doesn't feel bad about it. When her older sister, Anna, was murdered three years ago and the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best. The language of violence. While her crime goes unpunished, she relegates herself to the shadows, unremarkable in the high school hallways.

But Jack sees her, and so does Peekay. Their lives are set on a collision course that will change them forever.

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Memoir, CHS Author

Aspergers and Other Superpowers; The Autobiography of an Oddly Blessed (and Cursed) Child by Maximillian Marciel

A memoir written by a graduate of CHS about his experiences growing up in Hawaii, in Camas, and with Asperger's.

What awaits the curious reader who ventures into these strange pages is a coming-of-age sort of thing – a story about a young boy and his mental disability, Asperger's Syndrome.  It can be sad at times, and perhaps happy at others, but I at least guarantee that it will somewhat entertain you.  But hey, who am I to judge?  See for yourself, you crazy animal.

– Maximillian Marciel

Teen Life

Stand Off by Andrew Smith

The sequel to Winger, fifteen-year-old Ryan Dean West, now a senior at Pine Mountain Academy, becomes captain of the rugby team, shares his dormitory room with a twelve-year-old prodigy, Sam Abernathy, and through the course of the year learns to appreciate things he has tried to resist, including change.  Dealing with grief, ghosts, nightmares, and romantic challenges in additon to rugby brings on a slew of insecurities related to his own past.

Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters