F MCD McDonald, Joyce. Swallowing
Stones.
New York : Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers, [1999], c1997
The worlds of two teens are changed in ways unimaginable one summer. It was
Michael's 18th birthday party and was the party of the season. Life couldn't
be better. He was earning good money as a lifeguard, and was dating a gorgeous
girl. But while the party was in progress he and a friend went into the woods
to examine the rifle his grandfather had given him. They shoot it into the air.
One mile away Jenna is outside helping her dad who is repairing a leak in the
roof. As she looks up, her father tumbles off the roof with a bullet hole in
his head. He dies instantly.
F CHO Choldenko, Gennifer. Al
Capone Does My Shirts. New York : G. P. Putnam, 2004
Moose's family moves to Alcatraz Island in the 1930's so his dad can be the
maintenence man and prison guard. His sister is autistic and they hope to send
her to a special school in San Francisco. Moose has to adjust to the interesting
population of children living on the island, participate in a laundry scheme
and realize that he could run into Al Capone any day.
F FER Ferris, Jean. Bad.
New York : Farrar Straus Giroux, 1998.
Dallas loves the rush when she and her boyfriend, Ray are "skating",
their term for stealing. But one night it all becomes deadly serious and Dallas
is left.
F MYE Myers, Walter Dean. Monster.
New York: Harper Collins, 1999.
Steve Harmon is on trial for a crime he may or may not have committed. And by
using a unique viewpoint, W.D. Myers turns you, the reader, into Steve's judge
and jury. By telling Steve's story in alternating chapters of his personal journal
entries and a transcript of the trial proceedings, you are presented with all
the evidence of the supposed crime and allowed to come to your own conclusions
by novel's end. Did Steve act a lookout in a convenience store robbing and murder,
or was he just an unsuspecting witness who happened to be at the crime scene?
Will Steve's dream of becoming a screenwriter be fulfilled, or will he spend
the most important years of his life behind bars? Well? What do YOU think? (from
the Reading Rants website)
F KOR Korman, Gordon. Son
of the Mob. New York : Hyperion, 2002.
Seventeen-year-old Vince's life is constantly complicated by the fact that he
is the son of a powerful Mafia boss, a relationship that threatens to destroy
his romance with the daughter of an FBI agent. Very funny look at how parents
can really mess up your life.
F KOR Korman, Gordon. Son
of the Mob: Hollywood Hustle. New York : Hyperion, 2004.
Eighteen-year-old Vince Luca, son of mob boss Anthony Luca, goes away to college
in southern California hoping to escape his past, but soon his brother and a
series of "uncles" appear at his dorm, and before long he is caught
up in criminal activity once again.
F SEB Sebold, Alice. The
Lovely Bones. Boston : Little, Brown, c2002.
At the beginning of the story, 14 year old Susie Salmon is already dead. She's
just been brutally murdered by a quiet serial killer in her 1970's neighborhood,
and now she's in heaven watching the results of her death unfold down on earth.
It's painful for her to see her younger sister become older than Susie ever
will, her parent's marriage start to disintegrate as they grieve for her, and
the first boy she ever kissed begin to grow up and forget her. Maybe worse is
seeing Mr. Harvey, her murderer, continue to live contentedly in the house a
block away from her parents, as the search for her killer tapers off and is
finally closed. Susie finds that heaven doesn't mean eternal happiness. But
it helps that whatever you imagine becomes part of your own personal heaven,
and for Susie, that means an ornate gazebo, a high school that is all extracurricular
activities and no studying, and a gazillion dogs to play with and cuddle whenever
she wants. Susie is terrified that her family will forget her. But until they
learn to let her go they will never be healed. And neither will Susie. (from
the Reading Rants website)
F WER Werlin, Nancy. The
Killer's Cousin. New York : Delacorte Press, c1998.
The plot of this book is so stuffed full of murder, mayhem, suicide, ghosts,
romance and redemption that I hardly know where to start. So here goes--17 year
old David, after being accused and acquited of his girlfriend's murder, moves
out of his house and in with his aunt and uncle, in an attempt to forget all
the crap he's been through in the past year. But its hard to deal with his own
pain when his aunt and uncle are giving each other the silent treatment and
his freaky little cousin Lily is giving him the evil eye. Then, to make things
even worse, he starts to see a lighted form that may or may not be the ghost
of his other cousin, Lily's big sister who supposedly committed suicide. In
the middle of all this creepiness, David still finds time to fall in love with
the artsy hippie chick who lives in the front apartment of his uncle's house.
So, what's a guy to do? David starts sluething around in his family history
to try and learn a little more about his cousin's death and why Lily is such
a little weirdo. What he finds out will make your toes curl as this novel comes
to a crashing climax. A satisfyingly scary, psychologically thrilling read.
(from the Reading Rants website)
F FRE French, Albert. Billy.
New York : Penguin Books, 1995.
Set in the 1930s in a small Mississippi town the story is about racism and about
a ten-year-old boy who is convicted of and executed for murdering a white girl.
F DUN Duncan, Lois. Killing
Mr. Griffin. Boston : Little, Brown, c1978.
There was this teacher, see, who everyone hated because he actually, like, made
you earn your grades. So like, these four kids decided to pull this prank on
this teacher to get back at him for all the crap he put them through. It was
a great idea, see, they were going to blindfold him and tie him up so that he
would think he was being kidnapped, but like, they would just scare him, then
let him go. Only they didn't know Mr. Griffin had a weak heart. And that he
took medication for it. So like, they were really screwed when Mr. Griffin kind
of, well, died. Now four friends have a terrible secret and a body to hide.
Ever tried to keep a secret in high school? It's pretty much impossible, and
pretty soon, somebody's going to find out about Mr. Griffin. This nail biter
was written before most of you reading this were born. But it still has the
power to make your heart pound and bring your most hated teacher a bright, shiny
apple. (from the Reading Rants website)
F FIT Fitch, Janet. White
Oleander. Boston : Little, Brown, c1999.
When her passionate poet mother, Ingrid, is jailed for killing her ex-lover
(with poison brewed partly from white oleander flowers), Astrid Magnussen navigates
her way to adulthood through a series of Los Angeles foster families and juevenile
homes. Astrid's strength and resilience makes this compelling novel an inspiration.
(from Amazon.com)
F BRO Brooks, Kevin. Martyn
Pig. New York : Scholastic, 2002.
When Martyn Pig accidentally kills his slovenly and abusive alcoholic father
several days before Christmas, he decides not to call the authorities: he is
afraid the police won't believe him and, besides, he doesn't want his aunt given
custody of him. An avid reader of murder mysteries, he instead works with his
next-door neighbor (and secret crush), the aspiring actress Alex, first to hide
the death, then dispose of the body. As if the plot weren't already thick, Martyn
soon discovers that his father recently inherited a handsome sum of money. (from
Amazon.com)
364.1 CAP Capote, Truman. In Cold Blood. On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. A gripping true story.
F GLE Glenn, Mel. Who
Killed Mr. Chippendale?: a mystery in poems. New York : Lodestar,
c1996.
A murder mystery told in free verse poems, describing the reactions of students,
colleagues, and others when high school teacher Mr. Chippendale, loved by some,
hated by others, is shot as the school day begins.
Updated 11/28/05