Hatin' on Necromancer

by Lish McBride

I don't know about you, but I'm a big scaredy cat when it comes to books and movies. That's probably why I didn't love Lish McBride's book, Hold Me Closer, Necromancer. Now you're probably wondering why I still included it as a Bulldogs Read book for this year...Well, first off, Mr. Owens could not stop raving about it last year and said that boys will absolutely love it. Secondly, it is set in Seattle with a skateboard riding, burger flipping hero, which is pretty cool. And finally...

Lockdown

by Walter Dean Myers

Reese has been at Progress juvenile detention center for over two years now, but it seems the only progress that's been happening there is kids moving from juvy jail to real jail. That is Reese's greatest fear, so he is doing his best to make sure he gets out on time, if not early. But it seems there is always something, or someone, trying to pull him back into the system.  When he gets a spot in the work release program working at a senior citizens' home, Reese feels like...

Prime Baby

by Gene Luen Yang

Okay, so the cover makes this graphic novel (New York Times comic strip) look like a book for little kids, but it is hilarious, a little bit sarcastic, and definitely a read that anyone with an annoying younger brother or sister will appreciate (I think I was that annoying younger sister!!). This is the story of Thaddeus, who hates his new little sister, mostly because she is not very smart (she can only say "gah") and she gets all of the attention from his parents. Once he becomes convinced she is an alien, he starts...

A Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

by Brenda Woods

If you could get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for anything at all, what would it be? What do you want to be known for? This is the topic behind Ms. Hart's 10th grade creative writing assignment that gets nine teenage students talking and each telling their own story of challenge and hope for the future. From dealing with a possible career ending basketball injury to overcoming...

Bruiser

by Neal Shusterman

Whoa! I did not see that coming. I thought this book was realistic fiction to start, but then the plot took an abrupt turn that left me with my mouth hanging open. Sixteen-year-old twins Tennyson and Bronte aren't the closest of siblings, but Tennyson is concerned when his sister starts dating Brewster "Bruiser" Rawlins, an antisocial delinquent that was voted "Most Likely to Get the Death Penalty" by the entire school. But as the twins grow closer to Bruiser, they discover his frightening secret that...

Boys Without Names

by Kashmira Sheth

Eleven-year-old Gopal has just moved with his family from his rural village in India to the big city of Mumbai, leaving his friends and beloved countryside behind. With his father missing and his family in need of cash to survive, Gopal makes the unfortunate decision to trust a boy he meets in the city who offers him work at his uncle's "factory." But there is no factory, just a stuffy "sweatshop" where Gopal and five other boys are imprisoned and forced to...

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty

by G. Neri

Gang violence, a young boy trying to prove himself and find family and protection, Chicago 1994. This is the true story of Robert "Yummy" Sandifer, who, at the young age of just 11, shot and killed a 14-year-old girl Shavon Dean in his neighborhood.  Yummy was then on the run for three days while there was a massive manhunt for him, or, as the story's narrator calls it, a "boy hunt" because that's what he was. Caught up in an older gang called the Black Disciples, this graphic novel account of this true story makes you question whether Yummy was a cold-blooded killer or just another victim of the gang world's control over...

Ruth and the Green Book

by Calvin Ramsey

Think picture books are just for little kids? Not so with Ruth and the Green Book. This is a great short read about a young African American girl named Ruth, whose family decided to go on a road trip one summer from Chicago to her Grandma's home in Alabama after they purchase their first car. But the South is very different in the 1950s than her hometown of Chicago, as Ruth soon realizes after being turned away from bathrooms, restaurants, and hotels time and time again because they are for "whites only."  Their road trip becomes a whole lot safer, though, when they are given the Green Book, a guidebook that...

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing,Traitor to the Nation: Volume I: The Pox Party

by M.T. Anderson

Set in Boston on the brink of Revolutionary War, this is the story of 16-year-old  Octavian, a young slave who doesn't know he is a slave...yet. That's because, ever since his pregnant mother was stolen from her African village and sold to a rich and quite peculiar philosopher living in Boston, Octavian has been raised with a life of great privilege.  He has had all of the advantages that a son of a wealthy white man in that time period would have--the finest clothing, private tutors, an education in violin, Latin and Greek--exactly the opposite of what you would expect for an African slave living during that time. What Octavian doesn't know, though, is that he is part of an experiment and...