The Death Cure, by James Dashner (2011)

It was the smell that began to drive Thomas slightly mad.

Thomas has been in complete isolation for three weeks.  Thomas has endured the Maze and the Scorch Trials and has been infected with the Flare.  All at the hands of WICKED.  What's next?

WICKED had taken his life and those of his friends and were using them for whatever purposes they deemed necessary.  No matter the consequences.

On the 26th day, the door opened:  Rat Man.

"Do you think we enjoy all this?  You think we enjoy watching you suffer?  It's all been for a purpose, and very soon it will make sense to you."

Rat Man admitted that WICKED has done some awful things to Thomas and his friends, but he insists that it's all part of a plan that Thomas not only agreed to, but helped set in place.

"You are obviously well aware that we have a horrible disease eating the minds of humans worldwide.  Everything we've done up till now has been calculated for one purpose and one purpose only: to analyze your brain patterns and build a blueprint from them.  The goal is to use this blueprint to develop a cure for the Flare.  The lives lost, the pain and suffering - you knew the stakes when this began.  We all did.  It was all done to ensure the survival of the human race.  And we're very close.  Very, very close."

The virus is man made, airborne, and highly contagious.  Thomas learns that he and most of his friends are Munies, and on the outside they are really, really hated. 

The Death Cure is the third and final book in the Maze Runner trilogy.  Can Thomas and his friends stop WICKED from starting another round of trials?  Can they find a cure?  Can Teresa and Brenda be trusted?  Is this the end of our world?  You'll enjoy this thrilling, and often times terrifying, adventure.

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*mild language

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

Goliath, by Scott Westerfeld (2011)

"Siberia," Alek said.  The word slipped cold and hard from his tongue, as forbidding as the landscape passing below.

Goliath, the third book in the Leviathan series, picks up exactly where Deryn and Alek left off in Behemoth. Leviathan, a thousand-foot-long airship made from the life threads of a whale and over one hundred other species, is traveling farther from Europe and the war.  No one will confirm their destination.

"If anything," Volger said, "we should be headed southwest by now, toward Tsingtao."

Alek frowned.  "The German port in China?"

Alek, son of the late Archduke Ferdinand and a Clanker prince, is on the Darwinist ship.  The war between the two technologies (Clanker and Darwinist) is spreading faster every day.  His best friend is Midshipman Dylan Sharp, a girl disguised as a young man so she can fly with the British.  Only Count Volger knows she's a girl.

First the Russian Czar sent a message.  Then the Leviathan picked up mysterious cargo in Russia. 

"There must be a clue in that cargo we picked up from the Russians."

The ship's destination, Tunguska, is an endless fallen forest.  The trunks of the trees had been stripped of their bark and they all pointed in the same direction.  The captain of the airbeast has ordered a rescue.

Dylan helps rescue the 28 men who have made an encampment to protect themselves from the fighting bears.  Leading the group is Nikola Tesla - Clanker boffin, maker of German secret weapons - who says he has always known the cause of the fallen forest.

"I've always known the cause.  I was only curious about the results...I must remain secretive at the moment, but soon the world will know."

Tesla worked for the Clankers until he saw what the war was doing to his home in Serbia.  Alex's parents were killed by a group of Serbian revolutionaries, a plot organized by his granduncle and Germany.

Tesla has created a massive weapon to end the war:  Goliath.

"Tesla is a Serb," Volger explained slowly. 

"Our country attacked his homeland,

not Germany."

Alek felt the weight of the war settling

on his shoulders again. 

"My family is to blame, you mean."

Goliath is an exciting resolution to the Leviathan series.  Find out if Deryn can keep her secret.  Can Tesla's weapon end the war?  And what is Alek's destiny?  Meet interesting characters in Tokyo, Mexico and the United States. 

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*mild language

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

Crossed, by Ally Condie (November 2011)

I'm standing in a river.  It's blue.  Dark blue.  Reflecting the color of the evening sky.

Far from her safe home in Oria Province, Cassia Reyes is in a work camp looking for Ky. 

If I'm going to find Ky, it has to be soon.

Ky is somewhere in the Outer Provinces.  Young men are sent to abandoned villages so the Enemy thinks the Society still lives there. 

Do you time in the villages and we'll bring you home in six months.  We'll give you Citizen status again.

No one lasts six months.  Ky has been here for 12 weeks.  There isn't any way the boys can defend themselves because the ammunition isn't real.  Replacements are sent, but they are much too young.  Ky is familiar with the area of their new village assignment; he decides it is time to run away.

Can Cassia find Ky?  What is Xander's secret?  Does the rebellion exist?  Who will Cassia choose?

Crossed offers more insight into the history of Society and the Rising.  It's a delicious read, especially if you enjoyed Matched.

Rating:  9 out of 10 stars
To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The Berlin Boxing Club, by Robert Sharenow (2011)

As Herr Boch finished the last lecture of the school year, I sketched one final caricature of him into the margins of my notebook. 

His mom is agnostic, his father is atheist.  Fourteen year-old Karl Stern grew up in a secular household; he has no religious background or education.  Living in Berlin in 1934, Karl and his family are Jewish.

Karl, a gifted cartoonist, is a student at Holstein Gymnasium.  He doesn't look Jewish with his light hair.  There is a group at his school who Karl calls the Wolf Pack; the Wolf Pack likes to terrorize the five Jewish students who attend the school.  

Up until that moment I had managed to avoid them, assuming that I had kept my background hidden.

Unfortunately the Wolf Pack eventually caught up to Karl and beat him up.  Karl is tall and skinny, terrified of fighting, terrified of people finding out he is Jewish.  Later that same evening Karl meets Max Schmeling, der Meister, the champion boxer, hero of Germany.

Max and his wife buy two paintings from Karl's dad who owns an art gallery.  He pays for one, but offers a barter for the second.  He offers to teach Karl how to box.

"Surely you can't put a price on private boxing lessons with Europe's greatest heavyweight?"

Max offers boxing lessons because he believes every boy should learn to defend himself.  And thus begins Karl's transformation, beginning his training on the three hundred.  Then, he trains at the Berlin Boxing Club. 

Karl is in love with Greta Hauser and she wonders why he wants to fight.

      "Then what's it for?"

     "To prove something."

     "What...but why does that matter?"

     "To prove to myself that I'm not afraid."

Germany is not a safe place for Karl and his family.  As the Nuremberg Laws go into effect, Karl's life is forever changed.  The Berlin Boxing Club is a gripping novel that explores what Berlin was like in the early 1930s as the Nazi government rose and started to dominate Europe.  Boxing helps Karl reinvent himself, but in the process he learns what's worth fighting for. 

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*Issues of religion, circumcision, Nazi Germany, Holocaust

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The Eleventh Plague, by Jeff Hirsch (2011)

I was sitting at the edge of the clearing, trying not to stare at the body on the ground in front of me. 

Fifteen year-old Stephen Quinn has only known what life is like after the war, the Collapse, and the chaos that followed.  The war with China had started five years before Stephen was born.  Reacting to what should have been a minor incident with American students, the United States launched nuclear weapons at China and its allies; China responded with P11H3, the Eleventh Plague.

The last reliable news anyone heard before the stations went off the air said it had killed hundreds of millions in the United States alone.

The Collapse quickly followed P11; everything just shut down.

Stephen, his father, and his grandfather have survived by scavenging for items to trade, avoiding other people, and staying on the trail.  Danger lurks everywhere.

After Grandfather dies, Stephen and his father run into slavers.  In an effort to save others, Stephen's father makes a decision that will change their lives forever.

Stephen finds himself in the safety and security of Settlers Landing, a place where people live in houses, kids attend school, play baseball and have real friendships. 

"Who are you people?" My voice sounded strange and distant, like pieces of wreckage bobbing along on dark water.  "What is this place?"

Stephen meets Jenny, a Chinese-American girl who is a defiant prankster.

"Jenny, I don't know.  If we get caught - "

Suddenly Jenny and Stephen find themselves in the center of a battle that will change their lives, and the lives of everyone they love, forever.

The Eleventh Plague is an exciting read for students who haven't read many futuristic dystopian books. 

Rating:  7 out of 10 stars

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

Slob, by Ellen Potter (2009)

My name is Owen Birnbaum, and I am probably fatter than you are.  This isn't my low self-esteem talking.  This is pure statistics.  I'm five foot two and I weigh 156 pounds.  That's 57 percent fatter than the national average for a twelve-year-old boy.

In addition, Owen is very intelligent.

They had my IQ tested in the second grade.  I won't tell you my score.  Actually, I can't tell you my score because I promised my mother I wouldn't do that anymore.  I used to tell everyone.

Owen faces humiliation and bullying at school every day, but things get out of hand when someone steals his beloved three Oreo cookies from his lunch box.  And he thinks it was Mason Riggs, one of the scariest kids at his school.

In his attempt to find the culprit, Owen has to come to terms with other losses in his life. 

Most of us would probably like Owen.  Most of us probably knew someone who was similar to Owen.  Slob is a great read to help teens learn how important it is to take time to not judge someone by the way he or she looks.  They're probably a really great person.

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

How to Save a Life, by Sara Zarr (January 2012)

I am writing in response to your Love Grows post from Christmas Day.

I think I might have what you're looking for.

It should be available on March 1.  Or around March 1.

Six weeks ago Jill's mom announced she was going to participate in an open adoption.  It hasn't been quite one year since Jill's dad was killed in a car accident. 

I've tried convincing myself it has nothing to do with me.  It's Mom's right to do this.  Yet I can't help thinking, Am I not enough?  Mom and I have had our issues...It has occurred to me that she sees the baby as a do-over.  A chance to correct my failings and to finally have a child that's all hers.

Eighteen year old Mandy Madison Kalinowski is eight months pregnant.  She knows she can't ever return to her mom.  She met Jill's mom on an adoption website and agreed to the open adoption.  The only communication they had was through email.  Now that Mandy is in Denver, she's not sure what she should do.

Maybe I should tell her that I have doubts, too, that there are small moments when I remember July and feel sure what this baby is evidence of and want to keep it.  That it's the only evidence I have.  And that's why, in the end, even though there are those small moments, I want to protect it by keeping it far from me and where I've come from.

How to Save a Life eloquently describes how Mandy and Jill arrived at this very moment, which will affect how they deal with this life-changing situation.  I think it's a delicious read that teens should read with a parent to have some important conversations.

Rating:  9 out of 10 stars
*teenage pregnancy, language, issues of sexual abuse

Not available at NOLS...yet!