Summer Reading Start

Now that I've started my summer job at the beach, I have time to read again! Here are some books I read to kick off my summer:

This dystopian YA takes place in a world that has vanquished Death. To combat overpopulation, the world has designated Scythes, who glean people at their own will. With themes of technology and medical science advancing to the point where humanity isn't even human anymore, the books is reminiscent of The Giver. I can't wait to find out happens in the next book, Thunderhead.

I always love Helen Frost's poetic stories. This story is told mostly from the viewpoint of Claire, describing how her family is swiftly changing. Her mother died years ago, her father has remarried, her step-mother has a baby on the way, and now her older sister Abigail seems more interested in boys than anything else. Both sisters realize that things will never go back to the way they used to be.

I loved this story! I read it in one day. Coincidentally, this story also centers on a girl named Claire. Claire's biggest concerns in life are being second chair sax in the school band, being the oldest student in her dance class while her friends have been moved into the advanced section, and avoiding a boy named Ryder. This all changes in a heartbeat when her father suddenly slumps over during breakfast from a stroke. As he begins the long road to recovery, Claire swallows her own troubles and worries, trying to help out at home more. By seeing her father in this new way, it also allows her to look at others in ways she had not considered before.

Willow Chance is a genius, but after a tragedy claims the lives of her parents, she finds herself without a family or support network. However, like the plants that she studies, she finds a way to nourish the seed within herself, and put down roots.

This one was another one that I loved, and read in a matter of hours. Beautifully illustrated historical fiction about the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Gerta managed to survive the ghetto, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and can scarcely believe it when British soldiers arrive to liberate the camp. She survived, but there is a difference between surviving and living. After the liberation, Gerta must learn how to live again; live with the memories of the people she lost, live through the music she makes with her father's viola and her own voice, and decide how she wants to live her life, now that she knows nothing will ever be as she expected. Reading about the Holocaust always exhausts my emotions, but I would go back and 'read' the illustrations in this books again and again.