"Race didn't used to matter..."

Black, White, Other by Joan Steinau Lester was fascinating and thought-provoking.  Nina is biracial, with a black dad and a white mom.  It didn't used to be a big deal, but now her parents are divorced, and it seems that family and friends are all making racial boundaries.  Where does Nina fit in?  She finds comfort and inspiration in a book her dad is writing about Sarah, Nina's great-great-grandmother who escaped slavery.  When Sarah has a frightening time running away herself, she realizes the difference between running to something - freedom - and running from something.  The author does an amazing job of getting inside a teenager's head with authentic thoughts, fears, and emotions.  Excellent.

Not your typical 11-year-old

The main character in Fiendish Deeds by P. J. Bracegirdle is definitely a little different!  Joy is 11 and she lives with her family in Spooking, "the terrible town on the hideous hill."  Think of words like dark, creepy, abandoned, overgrown...you get the idea.  But Joy loves it.  She and her brother Byron ride the school bus with the few other "Spooky" kids to Darlington, a town of perfect lawns, plenty of plastic, and boring, matching houses.  A contest to bring more people into the area results in a plan to build a water park (with a mermaid theme, much to Joy's horror) over the Spooking bog.  Joy is convinced that there's an endangered species living in the bog; she's determined to stop the project, but someone is determined to stop her.  Perfect for fans of scary stories who don't mind a bit of black humor, the story continues with Unearthly Asylum and Sinister Scenes.

Are you as clever as Sherlock?

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created the well-known Sherlock Holmes as an adult character.  What would Sherlock have been  like as a teenager?  You'll get an idea in Death Cloud by Andrew Lane.  Sherlock is 14 and he's stuck on the estate of his aunt and uncle for a boring summer.  Well...it starts OFF being boring, but soon Sherlock is entrenched in a murder mystery when he and his tutor stumble upon a dead body covered in bizarre red welts.  Add in another similar death, kidnappings, a pretty girl, and an evil plot to bring down the British Empire, and you've got a page-turning adventure! If you like the book, there's another one in the series: Rebel Fire is scheduled to be released in April 2012.

Tiny mice in a not-so-tiny adventure!

Fans of animal fantasy will probably enjoy the sweet and amusing Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck.  Helena and her younger mouse siblings live in the home of the Cranstons, who have decided to sail for Europe and find a husband for their elder daughter.  After stowing away in the luggage, the mice are soon caught up in life aboard ship, where a sophisticated mouse society ranges from Nigel the (mouse) steward to the Mouse-in-Waiting to Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria.  At the same time, the Cranston daughters are discovering shipboard romance, despite the constant social mistakes of their mother.  It's fun to read about life from a teeny-tiny point of view (like drinking soup out of thimbles!), and the author has a very clever way of turning a phrase.  Pencil illustrations add just the right touch.

Listen to your heart

Confused about who you really are?  The same was true for the main character in Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan.  It's the early 1900s, and Rachel lives in British East Africa with her parents.  After an influenza epidemic kills both of them, she falls under the "care" of the Pritchards, a money-grabbing couple whose daughter Valerie also died of the flu. They convince Rachel to impersonate Valerie and visit Valerie's ill grandfather in England.  Afraid that she'll end up in an orphanage and that the truth of Valerie's death would be the end of Grandfather Pritchard, Rachel goes along with the plan.  But what she doesn't expect is to actually become fond of the elderly gentleman, who's definitely wiser than the Pritchards suspect.  Not only are the descriptions of life in both Africa and England wonderful, but the way in which Rachel eventually tells the real story and figures out how to get back to Africa leads to a very satisfying ending.

An easy dose of humor

Sometimes good books are really short, and Flat Broke by Gary Paulsen is one of them.  Kevin is 14, and his allowance has been cut off for a month because of his problems with lying.  But the school dance is coming up soon, and Kevin wants to take Tina.  How can he get the money?  Go into business! Kevin's definitely a hard worker and can spot opportunities a mile away, and soon he's facilitating multiple poker games, cleaning neighbors' garages, selling cookies and coffee on a nearby college campus, and more.  And it's great...until things go wrong.  Everywhere. Fortunately, Kevin's pretty cool with that and learns a few lessons the funny way.  Do you think he ends up going to the dance?

Into the mysterious land...of Delaware

Do you like adventure with a heavy does of absurdity and craziness thrown in?  Then Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware by M. T. Anderson is just for you.  The tone of the book is very Indiana Jones-ish (yes, as in the movies), and it's almost impossible to summarize the plot.  Very short version: Jasper and his friends are after the bad guys in the mountainous (you read that correctly) land of Delaware.  Along the way, they encounter staring contests, dinosaurs, cannibals riding kangaroos, vaultapults (like giant spoons, they fling you through the air), Jasper's friend Drgnan Pghlik, a monastery, the evil Team Mom, a ginormous mountain squid, and of course, the blue glow of the flame-pits of Delaware.  Pretty wacky, right?  If you like it, be sure to check out other books in the Pals in Peril series, such as Whales on Stilts! or Zombie Mommy.