Camas High School Library

Teen Life, Friendship

The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl by Melisa Keil

Alba loves her life living behind the bakery and waking up in a cloud of sugar and cinnamon, drawing comics and watching bad TV with her friends.  

But high school has officially ended and everyone else seems to be making plans to move on.  Meanwhile, a long gone guy has reappeared, her best friend is going off the rails, and her latest comic book creation is misbehaving.

Also, the world might be ending. Awkward.

Alba's life has been upended, and Armageddon might turn out to be the least of her problems.

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

Friendship, Death

Before We Go Extinct by Karen Rivers

Since watching his friend fall (jump?) from a skyscraper, JC, nicknamed Sharky, has been holed up in his room, obsessing about sharks and climate change, and texting his dead friend.

When his mom sends him to a remote island in Canada to visit his dad, Sharky meets a girl who just may show hiim how to live – and love – again.

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

 Graphic Novel, Teen Life

Original Fake – written by Kirstin Cronn-Mills, with art by E. Eero Johnson

A tale for anyone who's ever felt invisible.

An escalating sibling rivalry train wrecks and vengeance is a street-art act of war in this illustrated novel.

Frankie Neumann's always felt like the black sheep of his family.  compared to his tutuwearing nightmare of a sister and his parents, Bridget and Brett – Frank sinatra and Dr. Frank-N-Furter impersonators – he's the odd man out in a very odd family.  He's the introvert nobody ever sees.  

But Frankie's got his own secret artistic aspirations, and they're about to get him swept up in the art adventure of a lifetime.

When Frankie's approached by David and Rory, cousins and errand runners for the notorious and anonymous street artist Uncle Epic, they make him the offer of his dreams, giving him the chance to strike back at his sister and to hang out with the hottest girl in school.

But soon, the lines between art and real life start to blur, and Frankie has to find a way to rein in the chaos before things spiral out of control.

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

Teen Life

We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson

Henry Denton has 144 days to save the world.

Henry Denton knows his family is struggling to stay together. He knows his boyfriend committed suicide last year. What Henry doesn't know is why the aliens chose to abduct him when he was thirteen, and why they keep coming back to take him again. Henry is informed by his erstwhile captors that they will end the world in 144 days unless he stops them by deciding that humanity is worth saving.

The problem is, Henry isn't sure if he wants to save the world.

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

Dystopia, Short Stories

UnBound by Neal Shusterman

Set in the world of the UnWind Dystology, this collection of short stories by author Neal Shusterman shares more of what happens to Connor, Risa, and Lev after the destruction of the Proactive Citizenry.  Will they be able to live freely in a peaceful future?  Or will the dark forces of society that found it acceptable to "unwind" out-of-control teens by using them as transplant sources rise again?  Find out what is left for those once destined to be unwound.

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

Child Slavery, Fiction

Fifteen-year-old Amadou counts the things that matter. For two years what has mattered are the number of cacao pods he and his younger brother, Seydou, can chop down in a day. This number is very important. The higher the number the safer they are because the bosses won't beat them. The higher the number the closer they are to paying off their debt and returning home to Moke and Auntie. Maybe. The problem is Amadou doesn't know how much he and Seydou owe, and the bosses won't tell him.

The boys only wanted to make some money during the dry season to help their impoverished family. Instead they were tricked into forced labor on a plantation in the Ivory Coast; they spend day after day living on little food and harvesting beans in the hot sun–dangerous, backbreaking work. With no hope of escape, all they can do is try their best to stay alive–until Khadija comes into their lives.

She's the first girl who's ever come to camp, and she's a wild thing. She fights bravely every day, attempting escape again and again, reminding Amadou what it means to be free. But finally, the bosses break her, and what happens next to the brother he has always tried to protect almost breaks Amadou. The old impulse to run is suddenly awakened. The three band together as family and try just once more to escape.

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

Suspense

Code of Honor by Alan Gratz

Kamran Smith has it all. He's the star of the football team, dates the most popular girl in school, and can't wait to enlist in the Army like his big brother, Darius. Although Kamran's family hails from Iran, Kamran has always felt 100% American. Accepted.

And then everything implodes.

Darius is accused of being a terrorist. Kamran refuses to believe it, but the evidence is there — Darius has been filmed making threats against his country, hinting at an upcoming deadly attack. Kamran's friends turn on him — suddenly, in their eyes, he's a terrorist, too.

Kamran knows it's up to him to clear his brother's name. In a race against time, Kamran must piece together a series of clues and codes that will lead him to Darius — and the truth.

But is it a truth Kamran is ready to face? And is he putting his own life at risk?

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

Fantasy, Suspense

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker is offered a chance at a dealy heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams.  But he can't pull it off alone. . .

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can't walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Kaz's crew are the only ones who might stand between the world and destruction – if they don't kill each other first.

Teen Life

Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson

Sloane had been the one who yanked Emily out of her shell and made life 100% interesting.  But right before what should have been the most epic sumer, Sloane just . . . disappears.

All she leaves behind is a to-do list.  On it, thirteen Sloane-inspired tasks that Emily would normally never try.  But what if they could bring her best friend back?

Apple picking at night – Easy enough

Dance until dawn? – Sure.  Why not?

Kiss a stranger? – Ummm.

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

Romance

Dream Things True by Marie Marquardt

What did it mean to be free, she wondered, when she lived in constant fear that the people she loved would go to jail?

Evan and Alma have spent fifteen years living in the same town, connected in a dozen different ways but also living worlds apart – until the day he jumps into her dad's truck and slams on the brakes.

The nephew of a senator, Evan seems to have it all – except a functional family. Alma has lived in Georgia since she was two, surrounded by a large, sometimes smothering, Mexican family.  They both want out of this town.  His one-way ticket is soccer; hers is academic success.

When the two fall in love, they fall hard, trying to ignore their differences.  Then Immigration and Customs Enforcement begins raids in their town, and Alma knows that she needs to share her secret.  But how will she tell her country-club boyfriend that she and almost everyone she's close to are undocumented immigrants?

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

Romance

Bright Lights, Dark Nights by Stephen Emond

Walter Wilcox has never been in love.  He just wants to finish high school under the radar with his 2.5 friends and zero drama.  And then there's Naomi Mills, an adorably awkward harpist with a habit of saying the wrong thing at the right time.

It's inevitable that they're going to get together . . . but they're also on the unavoidable path to being torn apart.

When Walter's cop dad is caught in a racial profiling scandal, Walter and Naomi, who is African American, are called out at school, home and online. Can their bond (and mutual love of the Foo Fighters) keep them together?

It's a story about first love, first fights, and finding yourself in a messed up world, from the acclaimed author of Happyface.  

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

Science Fiction

The Uplift Novels by David Brin

David Brin is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction author.  His Uplift series is set in a future world where humans have been joined by genetically enhanced dolphins and chimps as they explore a universe full of superior alien races, many hostile to those from Earth.

Sundiver

In all the universe, no species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of an alien patron – except perhaps humans. Circling the sun, in the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for a journey into the broiling inferno of the sun to find out more about humans' place in the cosmic order.  But mysterious ghosts and murderous passengers threaten the ship's mission.

Startide Rising

The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed on the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history.  Above, in space, armadas of alien races clash in a titanic struggle to claim her.  Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret – the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.

The Uplift War

As galactic armadas clash in quest of the ancient fleet of the Progenitors, a brutal alien race seizes the dying planet of Garth.  The various uplifted inhabitants of Garth must battle their overlords or face ultimate extinction.  At stake is the existence of Terran society and Earth, and the fate of the entire Five Galaxies. 

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

Memoir

Jeffrey Liao  provided this student review of the non-fiction memoir Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard.

Scratch Beginnings

If you’re a teenager who is wondering what it’s like to be poor, read this book.

If you’re a liberal and believe the American Dream doesn’t exist, read this book.

If you’re a conservative and believe the homeless are just lazy, read this book.

If you haven’t heard or read Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard, you’re missing out.

Shepard’s memoir of his journey from “rags-to-fancier-rags” is a very enlightening book that I, admittedly, had trouble putting down.

Will you receive cultural insider knowledge on how the other half lives after reading this book?

Yes. Will you become a financial guru? Probably not. The point is, the purpose of this book is to prove two things: 1) that the American Dream does exist. 2) People who complain about what they don’t have are just whiners.

The book begins with Shepard providing context to his little social experiment. He states the motivation behind his wanting to do this (which was to prove the American Dream does exist), and how he made sure his experiment was controlled and unbiased. He chose a random city, only took an initial amount of $25 to spend, a sleeping bag and the clothes on his back. He establishes that his goal is to get a place to live in, own a car, and become a regular citizen of society, all within a year. Shepard then takes the train to Charleston, where he soon finds a homeless shelter called Crisis Ministries, but not before having several tense encounters with homeless people. At Crisis Ministries, he’s able to get a job, however, it pays very little, and it isn’t even a secure job (as every day is a new job somewhere else). While he still looks for ways to get closer to achieving his goal, he starts to form friendships with the people at Crisis Ministries, often hanging out with them and watching movies together. He discovers more about the personal lives of the homeless, and how they ended up in their poor situation.

As Adam progresses, it is very interesting to see how his attitude changes. See, in the beginning, Adam was absolutely determined to keep a low profile. He did not want to attract attention to himself, either by fighting or doing something illegal. However, after he finishes a stressful and abusive shift at a clothing store, he gets tired of Planet Plump’s (the manager of the store) mistreatment of Adam and his friends and decides to confront her. He transitioned from a very cautious man to a person who just did not care anymore. Adam wanted to just be himself.

Later, Adam discovers that he has a solid opportunity to land himself a job at a carwash, but declines since the wage was slightly smaller than he had wanted. Still though, it was a significant step towards official employment. In the end, he does get hired as a mover for furniture, and considered himself lucky that he got paired with “one of the best movers on the planet.”

In the end, Shepard succeeds in finding a secure job, a place to live, and fitting into society. He also accomplishes more than that, and in lesser time than he had expected.

So, with that summary in mind, I think that Adam’s journey to find the American Dream was very fruitful and was filled with revelations. It may have had its flaws, as Adam himself points out in his book, but I believe that while he may have gotten lucky at times, his story cannot just be ignored. It does have a lot of merits. He did as much as he could to keep his experiment random and as close to a regular homeless man’s situation as possible. And yet, he was still able to get a job and home in less than a year. In general, I recommend this book for anyone. The American Dream theme relates to everyone in different aspects. Like I said at the beginning of this review: If you think the American Dream does not exist, read this book. Adam provides a relatively concrete case that the A.D. is within America’s reach. You will be thoroughly intrigued by how he got so far with so little. If you’re a conservative who believes homeless people just can’t get a job because they’re lazy, you will be surprised when you read how much Adam’s homeless friends eagerly talk about getting a job. You will discover that they don’t spend all their money on drugs. Some of them were just a victim of circumstance.

This book is certainly comparable to Ehrenrich’s Nickel and Dimed, where she concludes that the American Dream does not exist. Adam’s purpose, as he stated in the beginning of his book, was to prove her wrong, essentially serving as a rebuttal to her book. These two authors were people who were trying to discover if the illusive America Dream truly existed. Personally, I think that Adam has a better argument, since his process of starting low and coming out high was a lot more controlled and more realistic than that of Ehrenrich, who allowed herself to use her credit card. Ehrenrich didn’t really have a consistent, legitimate process, so I do not believe her conclusion is supported by her experiment.

But that is all just my opinion. Everyone has their opinions. For me, Adam’s book made quite an impact on how I see the unfortunate victims of circumstance, who are out there in the world, trying to become better people but just can’t seem to find the right chances to do so. Adam has also boosted my confidence that the American Dream could actually be tangible, if not already tangible. Therefore, after considering that he started out with so little, and came out with a lot, I proudly give this book a 4 out of 5 stars.

Memoir – Racial Identity

Erik Brainard provided this student review of Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin.

Black Like Me Review

Most people know of the hardships that blacks faced throughout most of American history, from enslavement in the 1700’s and 1800’s, to facing oppression to this day even after being freed in the late 1800’s. However, for a long time, whites had no idea what it was like to be of African descent in America, and none were brave enough to go against the grain and discover what it was like. However, this all changed when in 1961, white author John Howard Griffin published his book Black Like Me, documenting his experiences playing the societal role of a black man in the south during the late 1950’s and 1960’s. Using various dyes and exposure to UV lights, Griffin successfully changed his skin color from Caucasian to African American. Griffin writes in a diary style, with each chapter being a new day, with a date for each. Griffin accurately describes his experience as a black man and his information stays relevant even to this day.

The book begins with Griffin pondering the idea of living as a black. He questions; what adjustments would a white man need to make to live as a black in the south? Griffin then goes on to describe the steps that he took to prepare himself for this change, including how he got his family on board, and his experience finding a dermatologist who would help him. When Griffin finally starts his treatments, he finds them painful, and they often cause him nausea. However, because of his dedication, he pulled through and completed the process. The first time Griffin looks at himself in the mirror after his treatment is a major event in the book, showing one of the main themes: losing and regaining identity. When Griffin looks in the mirror, he doesn’t recognize the man staring back at him, and he feels scared. This foreshadows how different his life is about to become, and symbolizes his departure from the white community and his entrance into the black one. Throughout his experience as a black man, Griffin finds the condition of living to horrible. He is constantly on the receiving end of racial slurs and at one point a white man almost attacks him before Griffin chases him away. It is also very hard for Griffin to find a job, and to even find a restroom to use. Obviously, most educated people today already know that blacks had a very hard life before the civil rights movement, but Griffin’s firsthand view and white man’s perspective are really a nice change from other accounts, simply because Griffin is able to make comparisons between these two different lifestyles, something that genetic blacks can’t do. Griffin then goes on to describe his time after his six-week experiment. When he first publishes an article in 1960 describing his experiences as a black man, Griffin receives huge amounts of praise from around the world, and is invited to appear on multiple major television shows to be interviewed. However, he doesn’t quite get as much praise in Mansfield, TX, his home town. The overall attitude there remains racist, and Griffin and his family feel threatened, so they move to Mexico.

In the book, Griffin does a superb job of keeping the story pretty interesting and entertaining, while also keeping it historically accurate and informative. The blending of these two aspects really make Black Like Me a special book to read. Because of it being an interesting story, the book can be read for pleasure, and can be assigned to high school students and it won’t bore them to death. On the other hand, because of its historical relevance and accuracy, this book can be used for anyone looking to study the life of blacks in the 50’s and 60’s, and can be considered a primary source from this era. Whatever the reason for reading may be, chances are Black Like Me will satisfy the reader. However, the book is not flawless. The main issue is that Griffin’s writing style is not the most exciting. He doesn’t use much imagery when describing, and this occasionally makes reading feel like a chore. Another flaw is the way that the chapters are set up. Each chapter is one day, which in theory sounds like it would work, but doesn’t work quite so well in the book. Since on some days more things happen than on other days, the chapter length can vary quite a bit, and this disrupts the flow of Griffin’s writing.

All in all, John Howard Griffin’s book Black Like Me is still relevant to this day. Whether the reader wants a book to read just for pleasure, or they want a historically accurate book from the Civil Rights Era, Black Like Me will be satisfactory. Although it does have some flaws such as lack of descriptive language and unusual chapter structure, the positives certainly outweigh the negatives.

Nonfiction

Bella Alexander provided this student review of the non-fiction memoir Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. 

Fickle and Timed

What is there to do when the living wage can’t actually be lived on? For most working Americans, it’s finding ways to cut back, even if that means making the decision between paying the rent or feeding their children. But for Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, it resulted in a whole lot of complaining, some relatively minor stress, and an eventual return to her cushy upper middle class life. This book had an intended message that I found to be quite powerful, that is, the wages around the country that we expect working Americans to survive on, even utilize to pull themselves out of poverty, are extremely inadequate. However, although I commend Ehrenreich’s efforts regarding her going out and attempting to experience the life of a wage slave-might I add, when the economy was perhaps a better place for minimum wage workers than it is now-her writing style continually exuded a very detached, almost “holier-than-thou” perspective on what she went through. Even though Ehrenreich and I walked away with the intended message of her toils, what stood out to me more than the purpose of the composition itself was the attitude of upper class citizens towards those lower than them on the socio-economic ladder, represented by the subtle quips and snarky comments made throughout the book.  Ehrenreich was set on proving that the living wage is not livable. That is what she accomplished. But in my mind, Nickel and Dimed is not only a testament to how skewed our take on the minimum wage really is, but also a testament to the bias that the wealthy have towards the poor and the severity of social stratification between classes in our country, as told by someone who embodies the aforementioned phenomenon.

In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich embarks on a mission to prove that the minimum wage simply isn’t enough. From serving in Florida to scrubbing in Maine to selling in Minnesota, we follow Ehrenreich on her pilgrimage through the life of a working class citizen and are with her as she experiences almost first hand the struggles and realities of situations simulated by her own. She pays special mind to the documentation, analysis, and observation of people she encounters throughout her brief time making it in the world of the working, and overall comes away with a reinforced understanding that the living wage is truly unlivable.

Ehrenreich makes it clear within the first few pages of her memoir that she did not want to do this experiment, stating that it was meant for “someone younger” than herself, “some neophyte journalist with time on her hands.” It is with this sentiment that Nickel and Dimed begins, and also with this sentiment that the entire book is written. Ehrenreich gets a taste, similar in fashion to how a child who does not like broccoli tastes broccoli, of the life of a working class citizen. Despite setting rules for herself regarding finances, jobs, and housing, she self-admittedly smashes each of these rules to pieces at one point or another, sometimes even more than once, which in my mind all but demolishes the scientific validity of her experience, which is ironic because she out rightly states in the beginning of her book that she wanted to make this as scientific an experiment as possible, and this is fitting that she should want this, I suppose, as she does have a PhD in biology that she refuses to let the reader forget.

In addition, Ehrenreich’s writing is chalk full of contradictions. For example, she states "The 'working poor' are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor to everyone else." However, she still, in my mind, fails to fully grasp this concept herself while she continually resents and reproaches all those who she was forced to serve. Another flaw within Ehrenreich’s writing is her at times too humanitarian based actions, as if she were some savior come to rescue her lower class work mates from their depths of despair, as when she was working at WalMart and talked with a fellow employee about improving their situation that perhaps they could have done it had she been able to afford working there any longer.

All in all, Ehrenreich is very aware that she has no place or right to be telling this type of story from the perspective of people she will never fully understand because she chooses not to. Her brief escapade into the world of the working poor was limited in both will and true insight, therefore making her personal experiences essentially irrelevant. However, despite her nauseating personality and upper class slander, the point was delivered with some rather valuable content to accompany it.

There is a saying that goes something like, “Don’t judge someone till you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” In Ehrenreich’s case, she reluctantly decided to make the tumultuous journey into the world of the poor in their beat up sneakers, shuffled along for several steps or so, decided that her feet hurt too much and that the shoes were ugly, then sprinted back to her cushy life. If this attitude is commendable in our society, save for the overall message which in my mind could have been portrayed almost as effectively from behind a desk considering the overall invalidity of Ehrenreich’s little adventure, then what really is there to do for those trying to get by on the living wage that clearly can’t be lived on? If they’re not Barbara Ehrenreich, all there is to do is survive.