Guinea Pig Scientists: Bold Self-Experimenters in Science and Medicine, Dendy and Boring (Y)
This was a review book for me: I loved the premise, the title, the cover, and the illustrations at the start of each chapter. But you know a biography isn’t so well written if you just get annoyed at your heroic subjects. Bah. Two stars for the graphic elements only.

Invisible, Hautman (Y)
Another mock award nominee, but a really great one. Like Confessions of a Crap Artist, but not written on speed and with an actual ending. Wooo! Five stars!

Never Hit a Jellyfish with a Spade: How to Survive Life’s Smaller Challenges, Browning
The review in Publisher’s Weekly said that it was very funny, but hard to take all at once (it was originally a column in The Guardian). How right they were. Four stars, but I’m saving the rest for later.

Hungry Planet: what the world eats
Families from all over the world photographed with a week’s worth of groceries. Pictures glorious, text sometimes a little heavy on politics and light on analysis. With recipes. Three stars.

Heavy Metal and You, Krovatin (Y)
The last mock award nominee I have to read. The publisher is Push, which specializes in first-time novelists: this is a good thing, but you can sometimes tell it’s a first novel. Not terrible, not great, original premise. Two stars.

Dungeon vol. 1: Duck Heart, Sfar & Trondheim (Y)
Dungeon and Dragon and Duck: a hero-making adventure with great art and a sly sense of humor. Four stars.

Code Orange, Cooney (Y)
Teen finds smallpox scabs, breathes them in, becomes walking time bomb that can be used as a weapon! Three stars for good thriller with not good characterization.

Taylor Five, Halam (Y)
I was expecting another thriller, but ended up with a fairly sophisticated novel with a teen protagonist. Clones, orangutans, tropical politics, and survival. Three stars for a good book that I will have a hard time knowing how to sell.

Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth & John Wilkes Booth, Giblin (Y)
This is (or should be) a future award winner. This is really up there with the best books written for teens I have read. It is the story of Lincoln’s assassin and his brother, the world famous actor, but that hardly sums up the intrigue and detail in this book. And excellent illustrations. It was honestly hard to put down. Five stars and a hearty huzzah.

Red Land, Yellow River, Zhang (Y)
When teachers at the Junior High schools that I work with assign the students to read a book about a Pacific Rim country, they actually usually want something involving suffering (the fun and happy books do not seem to be educational enough, I guess), so I’ve been reading lots of books involving the Cultural Revolution. I like that this one is short, easily accessible, nicely illustrated, and true. This would be a good pick for a junior high or high school student who has some difficulty reading. Three stars.