The Hunger Games

Collins, Suzanne.  The Hunger Games.  New York: Scholastic Press, 2008.  Print.

Awards

2008 New York Times Notable Children’s Book

2008 New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

2008 Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller

2008 Publisher’s Weekly Best Books of 2008: Children’s Fiction

2008 Cybil Award for Fantasy & Science Fiction

2008 Kirkus Best Book

2008 School Library Journal Best Books

2008 Booklist Editors’ Choice

2008 LA Times Favorite Children’s Books

2008-2009 (Winter) #1 Children’s Indie Next List

2009 ALA Notable Children’s Book

2009 ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults

2009 ALA Amelia Bloomer Project List

2009 Indies Choice for Best Indie Young Adult Buzz Book Honor

2009 Children’s Choice Book Award

2009 ALA YALSA Teens’ Top Ten

2009 New York Public Library Stuff for the Teen Age

2009 CCBC Choices

2010 USA Today Bestseller

Teen Choice Book of the Year Finalist

#1 New York Times Bestseller

Wall Street Journal Bestseller

Annotation

Selected to participate in the Hunger Games, Katniss knows that in order to win she has to survive the harsh environment of the arena and kill off all of the other players, regardless of whether they're friends or enemies.

Booktalk

It’s not enough that Katniss has to fight for her life everyday, risking death in order to sneak out of town so she can hunt and gather in the woods.  Now she’s in the biggest fight of her life: the Hunger Games.  Televised throughout the districts, Katniss knows everyone will be watching her and she also knows SHE HAS TO WIN.  Winning means ensuring her future and her family’s survival as well as helping out her town.  But winning also comes with a price: Katniss is pitted against someone else from her district, a boy named Peeta who once snuck her a loaf of bread when she had nothing to eat.

In order to win the Games and save her own life, will Katniss be able to kill the boy who may be in love with her…the boy who may be her only true ally…the boy who once saved her and her family from starvation?  Even if Katniss lives through the Games, can she live with her guilt?

“May the odds ever be in [her] favor!”

*This book was recommended to me by Nicole (19 years old) because it's "the best book in the series...there's more adventure and depth" in the first one compared to the others.  For her, the novel revolves around Katniss's decision, essentially "sacrificing everything for [her sister] Prim and then having the added burden of not letting her or the town down on top of simply trying to stay alive".*

Image credit:  http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/works.htm

Rapunzel's Revenge

Hale, Shannon and Dean Hale.  Rapunzel’s Revenge.  Illus. Nathan Hale.  New York: Bloomsbury U.S.A Children’s Books, 2008.  Print.

Awards

2009 YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens

2009 ALA Notable Children's Books

2009 ALA Popular Paperback

2009 Leah Adezio Award for Best Kid-Friendly Work

2010 ALA Amelia Bloomer Project Bibliography List

2011 Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Readers Choice Award

Utah Book Award for Children’s Literature

Cybil Award

Annotation

Rapunzel, along with her sidekick Jack, wants to free her mother and the townspeople of Gothel’s Reach from being under the control of evil Mother Gothel.

Booktalk

Rapunzel grows up inside Mother Gothel’s villa where there’s always food to eat and the garden is always green.  Curious about the outside world, though, Rapunzel decides to climb over the wall that guards her home and is shocked by what she sees.  Being on the outside reveals to Rapunzel Gothel’s evil ways: how she is starving the townspeople by drying up all their land and how she stole Rapunzel from her real mother years ago as punishment for a crime committed by her father.  In a race against time Rapunzel and a friend she meets along the way, Jack, are now on a mission to destroy Gothel and free everyone from the clutches of her evil magic. 

Gothel is powerful though and she has growth magic on her side.  Will Rapunzel and Jack be able to fight off her and her henchmen?  Will they be able to get to Gothel’s villa in time before she hurts Rapunzel’s mother?  And most importantly, will they be able to survive the journey to the villa, first having to fight off “a rampaging boar…a pack of outlaw kidnappers…a horde of blood-hungry coyotes…a sea serpent…[and] Tina’s Terrible Trio”?

If Rapunzel and Jack can’t solve the mystery and figure out where Gothel is getting all of her extraordinary power from, everyone’s lives will be in extreme danger…

Image credit:  http://www.squeetus.com/stage/books_rap.html

The House on Mango Street

Cisneros, Sandra.  The House on Mango Street.  New York: Vintage Books, 1984.  Print.

Awards

1985 Before Columbus American Book Award

Annotation

Esperanza describes growing up in a Latino section of Chicago and living in a run-down house on Mango Street, while hoping and working hard to have a better life.

Booktalk

What would you do if you felt you were trapped by the place where you living?  If you wanted a real house, but got a temporary one instead?  If you felt like you were “a red balloon, a balloon tied to an anchor”?  Esperanza feels like Mango Street is holding her back.  She doesn’t have a best friend, she only has her sister Nenny but she’s annoying most of the time.  She doesn’t have a real house, the kind her family always dreamed of buying with a staircase on the inside.  Instead, she has the small red one on Mango Street where the bricks are crumbling and the front door sticks.  She wants new shoes; she wants a new name; and later, she wants a new job.  Despite all of this, Esperanza knows that the street is teaching her valuable lessons and it is in this house that she transforms from a little girl into a woman. 

Different from other novels, Esperanza tells her growing-up tale in The House on Mango Street in short chapters, or vignettes, each one their own complete story.  Take the journey along with her and find out if she ever leaves that little, red, falling-apart house behind, trading it in for a dream home: “quiet as snow, a space for [her]self to go, clean as paper before the poem”.

Image credit:  http://www.sandracisneros.com/major_works.php?work=house