Pavi Sharma's Guide to Going Home by Bridget Farr

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!  Pavi Sharma is a foster kid and has been for a while.  The house she is in now is a single mom and son.  It is great!  But it wasn't always that way.  Pavi has a "business" of helping foster kids with their new placements.  She researches the family they're going to and if they are going to a new school, etc. She meets Meridee at the community center for fosters and decides she is going to help her because she finds out Meridee is going to one of Pavi's previous placement homes and it is not good.  

This book seems so real.  I love the diversity of characters, emotions, the way kids can not handle their life the way an adult might, but also the heart they have to help each other even when their physical appearance might not seem like it.  

Events in the Life of a Cactus series by Dusti Bowling

Book 1

Aven is adopted, red headed, 13 years old and armless.  She was born without arms, but loves to make up wild stories about how she lost her arms.  Her dad lost his job as a restaurant manager and decides to accept a job in Arizona managing an amusement park called Stagecoach Pass.  As the family moves to Arizona, Aven has to get adjusted to life where she has to "fit" in again.  She makes a friend, Connor, who has Tourette's and then another friend Zion.  Through it all she and Connor start trying to find out the mystery of Stagecoach Pass's owner and what happened to him.

Aven is back and she is heading into high school.  After moving to Arizona and finishing her 8th grade year, she if feeling pretty good about life getting back to normal.  High school is scary though.  Connor has moved and will be going to another high school, but Zion will be with her.  Connor meets another girl at his new school with Tourette's and Aven feels a little jealous.  A boy at HS seems to like Aven, and even though Zion warns her of how mean he was in middle school to him, she tells him people can change.  Then Aven is humiliated and withdraws into herself and loses her confidence, deals with the loss of people, and finding herself again.  

The Middler by Kirsty Applebaum

Jed is the eldest, Maggie is the middle and Trig is the youngest.  Maggie always feels like she is the worst.  Jed gets all the privileges just for being the oldest.  Their community sends the eldest off to camp to prepare for war when they turn 14.  Jed and Lindi are heading off soon. In school they've been taught that "wanderers" are dirty, dangerous and deceitful.  The Mayor has also informed them they are nearby and to report if they find any.  Maggie encounters a girl in the woods who happens to be a wanderer and decides if she can  "catch" her she will be a hero just like Jed.  What she finds out though is that things are not always what they seem.

Great dystopian for middle grades.   It was a little slow at first, but soon built up speed and then I couldn't put it down.  

Hotaka by John Heffernan (Through My Eyes series)

Set on the coast of Japan, this book gives a look at the earthquake and following tsunami of 2011.  Hotaka and his friend, Takeshi, are headed back to school when the alarm rings.  They and their classmates head up the hill where Hotaka lives to avoid the tsunami.  As the two boys leave their group to go get Hotaka's mom to bring the car, they see elderly people stranded. Takeshi wants to help and as they do they save all the elderly, but Takeshi becomes exhausted and is swept away by the water.  Hotaka was hit by a deck and knocked unconcious.  As he recovers he looks for Takeshi and his grandfather everywhere.  

Three years later, we see how Hotaka and his town are recovering and his new friends, Osamu and Sakura.  They are organizing a memorial event, they begin to question why money is being spent on a sea wall, that will probably not help, and how all of them are still dealing with the loss of their former lives.   

If you are a historical or like stories of survival/ disaster this one's for you!

Virals by Kathy Reichs and Brendan Reichs

This is the first book in a series of 5

Well, if you like lots of adventure, mystery and intrigue along with some science fiction thrown in this is the book for you!  Set outside of Charleston, NC on some small islands, Tory Brennan is newly acquainted with her father after her mother passed away.  Dr. Tempreance Brennan (the tv show Bones is based on her) is Tory's aunt.  Tory is a smart kid, but also pushes her limits, is sneaky and very opinionated. She lives on an island with other people whose parents work for the local university doing research.  The three other kids she hangs around that live on the island are boys.  As Tory and her friends discover one of the wild dogs from another island where her dad works and researches is missing they start to notice other mysteries.  An old dog tag, a mysterious lab, and murder.  After they find the missing dog, who is very sick, the group starts to show signs of sickness themselves from taking care of the dog.  But what they think the illness is will change them all in the end.  

If you like James Patterson's Maximum Ride series this is one for you!!

The Deceivers by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Greystone Secrets 2)

In the second book in the series, Emma, Finn, and Chess are living with Natalie and her dad.  Natalie's mom and Mrs. Greystone were left trapped in the other world.  The kids are working on trying to decode Mrs. Greystone's secret message, but are not having much luck.  They think they have figured something out though and  get back to the house and find the level along with signs it has been moved.  This makes them worried.  They decide it is not safe to use it in their house so they sneak off to Natalie's house to try to go back through that way.  They make it back through and find lots of clues, Natalie's grandma is still alive, the red headed lady who helped them is in Other-Natalie's house as a cleaner and a big party is going to happen.  Lots of twists and turns and the ending leaves room for a third book.  Yay!

Amina by J. L. Powers (Through My Eyes series)

Amina lives in war torn Somalia.  Al-Shabaab has taken over their town of Mogadishu.  Amina lives with her mother, father (who is a famous artist), brother Roble, and her grandmother.  Her mother is pregnant.  Her father is an artist who is controversial and many Al-Shabaab doesn't like his message.  One day they come for him and take him away.  As Amina and Roble go to find their uncle, Roble is also taken by Al-Shabaab and there are only the women left.  Now, they have no income form her father's paintings and start to struggle to feed themselves.  Great first person point of view of what it could have been like to live in that situation.

The book was a little slow at the beginning and the words were a little confusing until I got used to them, but it did finally take off and was a good survival story.

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