Below By Meg McKinlay

What a great little mystery this book is.  Cassie was the first baby born on the day that the mayor of the town flipped a switch and intentionally flooded the old town of Old Lower Grange, making way for New Lower Grange.  Even though she never knew the old town she is drawn to the mystery of the town that lies beneath it.  Because Cassie was born prematurely, she has to swim everyday to build up her weak lungs.  She usually goes to a pool, but recently has been drawn to the forbidden lake to swim her laps.  As her and her friend secretly meet to swim, they begin to discover some secrets that someone in the town has hoped to hide.  I really enjoyed this book.  It is set in an Australian town and it was fun to think that you could go swimming during your Christmas break.  You couldn't do this is Nebraska!!

Sure Signs of Crazy by Karen Harrington

This was a charming book.  I really liked the main character, Sarah Nelson.  Sarah loves words (I love words also).  Some words she classifies as "trouble words." One of the "trouble words" for Sarah is "crazy."  She is carefully watching for signs that she will turn out crazy like her mother who is incarcerated at a mental hospital for a crime she committed when Sarah was 2 yrs. old.  This story takes place the summer before Sarah's 7th grade year and she is expecting a pretty boring summer, but this year, instead of having to go to her grandparents' home in Houston, she gets to stay at home and learns a lot about herself and her family in this summer.  She spends a lot of time writing to Atticus Finch (character of one of my favorite novels, "To Kill a Mockingbird") as part of a school assignment.  I hope it makes all of you curious enough to go pick up "To Kill a Mockingbird" after you read this.

Ashfall by Mike Mullin

A super volcano under Yellowstone National Park has erupted!  With the eruption came earthquakes and lots and lots of Ash.  Alex was excited about his weekend at home alone until this happens.  His world is plunged into darkness, ash and violence.  As the area looses power and food and everyday conveniences they kind of also begin to loose their humanity.  Alex tries to make his way to his Uncle's house in Iowa to find his family. I think 8th graders will really like this scary apocalypse novel.  A note to the squeamish and my vegetarian friends...they do have to butcher some animals to use for food (a rabbit and a pig).  This part is pretty detailed so if this is going to bother you, you may want to skip this part when you get to it.  There is a book two called Ashen Winter that we have in the library, but I have not had the chance to read it.  I liked the author's note in the back that gives us a little bit of information about the super volcano that really does exist under Yellowstone National Park.  Luckily for us, it has only erupted 3 times in the last 2.1 million years.  The last one was 640,000 years ago.