We've got a great list of books to vote on! Please read the summaries of each book before voting. You may also want to spend some time reading reviews or summaries of these books online, to help you decide how interested you are in each book.
The link to the survey was emailed out on Friday, April 19th, so check your in-boxes! All responses are completely anonymous. The survey will remain open until
noon on Thursday, May 2nd. Results will be presented at book group that evening and later posted on the blog.
(The following book descriptions are taken from GoodReads, Amazon, or from the person suggesting the book.)
And here are the nominees, in random order...
Winterdance
By Gary Paulsen
Fueled by a passion for running dogs, Gary Paulsen entered the Iditarod--the 1150-mile winter sled-dog race between Anchorage and Nome--in dangerous ignorance and with a fierce determination. Winterdance is his account of this seventeen-day battle against Nature's worst elements and his own frailty.
Paulsen begins a remarkable journey trying to acquire the appropriate dogs to pull his sled. He has to train himself for the hundreds of hours of running. He has to prepare himself for the lack of sleep and a lack of food, and then face all of nature’s elements while on the race. While all this sounds miserable, Paulsen tells his tale in a hilarious and incredible voice. One minute you're laughing hysterically, the next minute you're on the edge of your seat trying to read fast enough to know whether he's going to die. This is an exciting book detailing Paulsen’s great dog-sled adventure. (272 pages)
Mistborn
By Brandon Sanderson
It's Fantasy, but really good. It's got a female main character, which is somewhat unusual for this genre. It starts with the idea of what happens when someone is supposed to save the world but doesn't do a good job of it. It is the first in a series, but the ending is not a cliff hanger (I haven't read them yet and I'm still okay...). As an added perk, the author is LDS and his bio says he's from Lincoln, NE. (541 pages)
Half Broke Horses
By Jeannette Walls
Even if you haven't read The Glass Castle you'll love this book. It's a page turner: "Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did." So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town—riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. Later in life, Lily runs a vast cattle ranch in Arizona, along with her second husband and their two children one of whom is Jeannette’s memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.
Half Broke Horses depicts the freedom of rural life, its joys and struggles, and celebrates the courage and spirit of its protagonist. Jeannette Walls says the book is “in the vein of an oral history, a retelling of stories handed down by my family through the years, and undertaken with the storyteller’s traditional liberties.” Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa or Beryl Markham’s West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix readers everywhere. (272 pages)
I’d Tell You I Love You,
But Then I’d Have to Kill You
By Ally Carter
Cammie Morgan is a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, a fairly typical all-girls school--that is, if every school taught advanced martial arts in PE and the latest in chemical warfare in science, and students received extra credit for breaking CIA codes in computer class. The Gallagher Academy might claim to be a school for geniuses but it's really a school for spies.
Even though Cammie is fluent in fourteen languages and capable of killing a man in seven different ways, she has no idea what to do when she meets an ordinary boy who thinks she's an ordinary girl. Sure, she can tap his phone, hack into his computer, or track him through town with the skill of a real "pavement artist"--but can she maneuver a relationship with someone who can never know the truth about her? Cammie Morgan may be an elite spy-in-training, but in her sophomore year, she's on her most dangerous mission--falling in love. (284 pages)
That Quail, Robert
By Margaret Stanger
Who would have thought that from an abandoned quail's egg so much personality and affection would hatch out? Yet that is precisely what happened on Cape Cod back in 1962, as chronicled with love and honesty by the author. What happens when the human world becomes a substitute for Nature? Is the orphaned wild creature better off with its own kind, or with an adoptive family of a different species? Readers must judge for themselves in this charming tale about a delightful quail, named Robert.
Written with humor and pathos by an observant neighbor, who became Robert's Aunt and long term hostess, this slim volume is a gem about surprising family adjustments. Human emotions seem to have rubbed off on this impressionable birdling, who rapidly becomes a member of the family--even to requiring babysitters. You will chuckle and weep over her antics and trials. How human can a bird get? Once you spend some quality time with personable and endearing Robert, you will know the truth for yourself! (128 pages)
The Westing Game
By Ellen Raskin
The Westing Game is a wonderful, clever, and engaging book. It’s a murder mystery, a puzzle, and a treasure hunt, all in one, centered around a unique cast of characters. Mr. Westing is found dead in his mansion, and in order to win his fortune, sixteen would-be heirs must compete to win the Westing Game. Full of complexity and suspense, the plot lays all the clues before the reader but still manages to keep the solution secret until the very end. A well-written, twisty puzzle of a mystery, filled with fantastic clues, unforgettable characters, and countless red herrings. (182 pages)
Seeking Persephone
By Sarah M. Eden
The Duke of Kielder has more influence than Parliament, higher social standing than the Royal Family. No gentleman dares face him on the dueling field, nor risks testing his infamous temper. But His Grace is in need of a wife. Combine his fearsome reputation with a terribly scarred countenance and finding a lady willing to accept his hand becomes all-but impossible. When the Duke manages to secure a bride through a bit of trickery and an obscene amount of money, he is certain his problems are behind him. Except his purchased bride proves to be nothing like he expected. What is a man like the Duke to do with a bride who is gentle, loving and absolutely impossible to live without? (288 pages)
The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
By Kim Edwards
This book is about a married couple who give birth to twins. The husband delivers the babies and upon discovering that one of them has downs syndrome, gives that child away and tells his wife the baby died. The book then follows the lives of the couple and their daughter that was given away, and how their lives are affected thereafter. It’s very interesting and provides some good points for discussion. (401 pages)
Bruiser
By Neal Shusterman
"There’s a reason why Brewster can’t have friends – why he can’t care about too many people. Because when he cares about you, things start to happen. Impossible things that can’t be explained. I know, because they're happening to me."
When Brontë starts dating Brewster “Bruiser” Rawlins – the guy voted “Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty” her twin brother, Tennyson, isn’t surprised. But then strange things begin to occur. Tennyson and Brontë’s scrapes heal unnaturally fast, and cuts disappear before their eyes. What at first seems like their good fortune turns out to be more than they bargained for…much more. Golden Sower Award winner. (328 pages)
Walk Two MoonsBy Sharon Creech
Thirteen year old Salamanca Tree Hiddle (Sal for short) embarks on a car trip with her eccentric grandparents from Ohio to Idaho to be reunited with her missing mother. Sal is determined that her mother will come home before the tulips bloom. Along the way Sal tells a story to pass the time about a friend named Phoebe Winterbottom whose mother vanished and who received secret messages after her disappearance. One of them read, "Don't judge a man until you have walked two moons in his moccasins." Throughout her story, Sal also describes her changing relationship with her father after her mother left. Despite her father's warning that her mother is "fishing in the air," Salamanca hopes to bring her home. By drawing strength from her Native American ancestry, she is able to face the truth about her mother. Walk Two Moons won the 1995 Newbery Medal. (280 pages)
1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created
By Charles C. Mann
This book talks about the globalization of just about everything, and how changes in one part of the world affected other parts. It's much more entertainingly written than a lot of history books, and you don't need to have read a lot of history to enjoy it. (557 pages)
Uglies
By Scott Westerfeld
Tally Youngblood is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait for the operation that turns everyone from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to party. But new friend Shay would rather hoverboard to "the Smoke" and be free.
Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The "Special Circumstances" authority Dr. Cable offers Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever. (425 pages)
Prayers for Sale
By Sandra Dallas
Hennie Comfort is eighty-six and has lived in the mountains of Middle Swan, Colorado since before it was Colorado. Nit Spindle is just seventeen and newly married. She and her husband have just moved to the high country in search of work. It's 1936 and the depression has ravaged the country and Nit and her husband have suffered greatly.
Hennie notices the young woman loitering near the old sign outside of her house that promises "Prayers For Sale". Hennie doesn't sell prayers, never has, but there's something about the young woman that she's drawn to. The harsh conditions of life that each have endured create an instant bond and an unlikely friendship is formed, one in which the deepest of hardships are shared and the darkest of secrets are confessed. (305 pages)
Nation
By Terry Pratchett
The sea has taken everything. Mau is the only one left after a giant wave sweeps his island village away. But when much is taken, something is returned, and somewhere in the jungle Daphne—a girl from the other side of the globe—is the sole survivor of a ship destroyed by the same wave.
Together the two confront the aftermath of catastrophe. Drawn by the smoke of Mau and Daphne's sheltering fire, other refugees slowly arrive: children without parents, mothers without babies, husbands without wives—all of them hungry and all of them frightened. As Mau and Daphne struggle to keep the small band safe and fed, they defy ancestral spirits, challenge death himself, and uncover a long-hidden secret that literally turns the world upside down. . . .
Internationally revered storyteller Terry Pratchett presents a breathtaking adventure of survival and discovery, and of the courage required to forge new beliefs. (384 pages)
Willow Springs
By Jan Watson
This book is about a young girl from the mountains who ends up marrying a doctor from the city. It tells about how her life changes when she moves to the city and has to play the role of a lady and how she finds fulfillment in her new ambitions, working beside her husband in his clinic. But neither of them could predict the tragedy that will change their lives forever. It is a spring romance with drama about mental health and how we can overcome tragedies. (400 pages)
The Fault in Our Stars
By John Green
Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 13, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumors in her lungs... for now.
Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumors tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.
Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind. (368 pages)
Peter PanBy J.M. Barrie
Peter Pan, the book based on J.M. Barrie's famous play, is filled with unforgettable characters: Peter Pan, the boy who would not grow up; the fairy, Tinker Bell; the evil pirate, Captain Hook; and the three children--Wendy, John, and Michael--who fly off with Peter Pan to Neverland, where they meet Indians and pirates and a crocodile that ticks. (176 pages)
NurtureShock:
New Thinking About Children
By Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
In a world of modern, involved, caring parents, why are so many kids aggressive and cruel? Where is intelligence hidden in the brain, and why does that matter? Why do cross-racial friendships decrease in schools that are more integrated? If 98% of kids think lying is morally wrong, then why do 98% of kids lie? What's the single most important thing that helps infants learn language?
NurtureShock is a groundbreaking collaboration between award-winning science journalists Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. They argue that when it comes to children, we've mistaken good intentions for good ideas. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, they demonstrate that many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring--because key twists in the science have been overlooked. Nothing like a parenting manual, the authors' work is an insightful exploration of themes and issues that transcend children's (and adults') lives. (336 pages)
Heaven is Here
By Stephanie Nielson
Stephanie Nielson was an upbeat mother happily raising her young children and madly in love with her husband Christian, filled with gratitude for her blessed life. However, everything changed in an instant when Stephanie and Christian were in a horrific plane crash. Christian was burned over 40 percent of his body, and Stephanie was on the brink of death, with burns over 80 percent of her body. She would remain in a coma for four months.
This is such an inspirational story. Yes, the writing could have been more sophisticated at times, but the story rose above the writing. I appreciated how honestly she shared her intensely difficult emotional journey. It is easy to read her blog and to see the interviews about her triumphant recovery and think that she had some amazing ability to smile through the pain, but reading her book tells the story of how much she truly struggled to overcome intense emotional grief in addition to the unbelievable physical trials she has been faced with. I have so much respect for her willingness to share the dark path she took to get her to a place of genuine happiness and peace. This book is also very spiritually uplifting. Stephanie courageously shares the spiritual strength she received throughout her journey. My faith in God's love for each of his children has been further strengthened by reading this book. It gives spiritual strength and perspective on life's problems. (320 pages)
Captains Courageous
By Rudyard Kipling
You do not have to vote for this book. I, Lauren Sieg, hereby promise not to bring it up again, to suggest it for book club, or hold it against you in anyway. I will, in short, LET IT GO. If, however, you are interested, it is a book about the useless son of a millionaire who is washed off a yacht and picked up by a fishing boat, where he has to earn his keep. It is about work and parenting and respect and friendship and how all people should be useful. I really like it. (164 pages)
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
By Mitch Albom
Eddie is a wounded war veteran, an old man who has lived, in his mind, an uninspired life. His job is fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, a tragic accident kills him as he tries to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a destination, but an answer.
In heaven, five people explain your life to you. Some you knew, others may have been strangers. One by one, from childhood to soldier to old age, Eddie's five people revisit their connections to him on earth, illuminating the mysteries of his "meaningless" life, and revealing the haunting secret behind the eternal question: "Why was I here? (196 pages)
Finnikin of the Rock
By Melina Marchetta
2008 Printz Award Winner. Melina Marchetta crafts an epic fantasy of ancient magic, exile, feudal intrigue, and romance that rivets from the first page. Finnikin was only a child during the five days of the unspeakable, when the royal family of Lumatere were brutally murdered, and an imposter seized the throne. Now a curse binds all who remain inside Lumatere’s walls, and those who escaped roam the surrounding lands as exiles, persecuted and despairing, dying by the thousands in fever camps.
In a narrative crackling with the tension of an imminent storm, Finnikin, now on the cusp of manhood, is compelled to join forces with an arrogant and enigmatic young novice named Evanjalin, who claims that her dark dreams will lead the exiles to a surviving royal child and a way to pierce the cursed barrier and regain the land of Lumatere. But Evanjalin’s unpredictable behavior suggests that she is not what she seems — and the startling truth will test Finnikin’s faith not only in her, but in all he knows to be true about himself and his destiny. (416 pages)
