Friday Finds: Friday, August 28th 2009

Friday Finds was formed over at Should Be Reading -

"The idea is to share, every Friday, about books that you’ve recently discovered (never heard of before) that sound really good!"

Dear Julia by Amy Bronwen Zemser
Publication Date: October 14th 2008 (Greenwillow Books)

Elaine Hamilton has never wanted to be the center of attention. She'd like nothing more than to cook quietly in her kitchen, mastering French cooking with the recipes of the great Julia Child.

So how did she end up with cameras zooming in on her and a crowd cheering her on?

Well, it involves . . .

an eccentric best friend named after a font,

five lively brothers constantly asking, “What's for dinner?”

a rotten fig and a weakness, a feminist congresswoman mother,

a yoga-practicing father,

a chest full of unsent letters,

and many, many roast ducks.

Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell
Publication Date: February 10th 2009

Nothing ever happened in Ondine, Louisiana, not even the summer Elijah Landry disappeared.

His mother knew he ascended to heaven, the police believed he ran away, and his girlfriend thought he was murdered.

Decades later, certain she saw his ghost in the town cemetery, fourteen-year-old Iris Rhame is determined to find out the truth behind "The Incident With the Landry Boy."

Enlisting the help of her best friend Collette, and forced to endure the company of Collette's latest crush, Ben, Iris spends a summer digging into the past and stirring old ghosts, in search of a boy she never knew.

What she doesn't realize is that in a town as small as Ondine, every secret is a family secret.

Skin and Bones by Dawn Metcalf
Publication Date: Spring 2010

SKIN & BONES: When sixteen-year old Consuela Bones discovers that she can remove her skin, revealing a lustrous mother-of-pearl skeleton, she slips into a parallel world known as the Flow; a place inhabited by archetypical teens with extraordinary abilities. Crafting skins out of anything – air, water, feathers, fire – she is compelled to save ordinary people from dying before their time. Yet now someone is murdering her new friends, one by one, and Consuela finds herself the focus of an intricate plot to end the Flow forever when all she really wants is to get back home, alive.

The Summer I Got a Life by Mark Fink
Publication Date: November 20th 2009 by WestSide Books

Andy Crenshaw’s summer just went into the toilet. His father got a new job and cancelled their dream vacation to Hawaii. Andy and his older brother, Brad, are shipped off to a farm in Wisconsin to stay with an Aunt and Uncle they hardly know. Brad has little use for Andy, except to torment him. What begins as a minor disaster turns into a life-changing experience. Andy discovers a whole new world and has his first blush with love in the person of Laura, a piano prodigy and town celebrity. Laura is a remarkable girl, who, despite having to deal with a major life trauma, is funny, resilient, full of life, and to Andy’s delight, just a little crazy. Andy’s adventure includes chasing a pig through a mall, surviving a near-death driving lesson, and coming face to face with his first dead guy. He also has a side excursion with his brother that will redefine their relationship forever.

The Returners by Gemma Malley

Publication Date: March 2nd 2010 (Bloomsbury USA Children's Books)

Will Hodge's life is a mess! His mother is dead, he has no friends and he thinks he is being followed by a strange group of people who tell him they know him. But Will can't remember them ...at first. And when he does he doesn't like what he can remember. While Will is struggling with unsettling memories, he learns that his past is a lot deeper than many people's, and he has to find out if he is strong enough to break links with the powerful hold that history has on him. This compelling novel, set in alternate future, challenges readers to consider the role we all have to play in making our society, and asks how much we are prepared to stand up for what's right.

Ruby Unscripted
by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma
Publication Date: May 5th 2009

Sometimes the best moments in a girl's life are the unscripted ones.

Ruby Madden moves to an affluent town in Marin County, California, believing her dreams are coming true, but her hometown life is drawing her back. Her not-so-secret crush finally likes her. Her older brother decides to stay behind with their newly remarried father. And her best friend gets a boyfriend who's all wrong for her.

And Ruby's new life isn't as easy as she envisioned. Marin High School is a place for the rich and famous with their BMWs, chic clothes, and liberal beliefs-a place where she clearly doesn't belong. Even with her new job at the Underground Coffeehouse & Cinema, she is unsure of how to act and feels insecure about who she is.

When she tries out for an amateur film group, the puzzle pieces finally begin to fit. And who is this mysterious guy who's messing with her heart?

Tombstone Tea by Joanne Dahme
Publication Date: August 24th 2009

In order to be accepted by the “in crowd” at her new high school, Jamie accepts a dare to spend one night in a local cemetery collecting rubbings from ten gravestones. Once inside the gate of the dark and frightening burial ground, Jamie meets Paul, a handsome boy who works as a caretaker at the cemetery. Paul explains to Jamie about Tombstone Tea: a fund-raising performance in which actors impersonate the people buried in the cemetery. The actors are supposedly rehearsing on this particular evening, but Jamie quickly discovers that they aren’t actors at all but the ghosts of men and women buried in the cemetery. When one woman decides to adopt Jamie to replace her lost daughter, our heroine fears she may never escape the cemetery.

Full of rich history and filled with a cast of ghostly characters, the third eerily descriptive novel from Joanne Dahme is just as creepy as her first novel Creepers.


Savannah Grey by Cliff McNash
2010 by Orion Children's Books

15 year old Savannah Grey has never felt she's belonged. She keeps her distance, so she's surprised by her attraction to the new boy Reece. Then strange things begin to happen: nature, it seems, is exerting an overpowering force on the world. Birds behave strangely; gusts of wind blow leaves so fiercely they seem to lure people away. And Savannah learns she has supernatural powers. Nature has a purpose for Savannah and her friends. For they are on course to meet the vile and evil Orcrassa, who wants to destroy the world by corrupting nature. And it wants Savannah Grey to help realise its savage intent