Percy Jackson and the Olypians Book Two: The Sea of Monsters

Written by: Rick Riordan

First line: My nightmare started like this.

Why you should read this book: Miraculously, Percy Jackson has almost made it through seventh grade without being attacked by a monster or expelled from school, until the very end of the year, when a very peculiar dodgeball game goes very, very wrong. Teamed up once again with the clever Annabeth, and befriended by a loving but immature Cyclopes, Percy returns to Camp Half-Blood to find the once safe haven a threatening, and threatened, place. Now the three are off on another quest, one which may decide the fate of western civilization.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You've turned to the dark side.

Dave at Night

Written by: Gail Carson Levine

First line: From the start, I’ve always made trouble.

Why you should read this book: In a far cry from her fanciful princess stories, Levine recreates the grittier and more violent world of a boys’ orphanage in the roaring twenties, the place to which Dave Carom is sent after his father dies in a work-related accident and none of his relatives are willing to take in a known troublemaker. While the orphanage has its horrors, including lack of heat, an abusive, thieving headmaster, and a pack of food-stealing bullies, it also has a sense of camaraderie, as Dave finds all the boys his age look out for each other. By day he enjoys art lessons and plots to recover his stolen property; by night, he forges a secret new life, sneaking away from the home to rub shoulders with the gems of the Harlem Renaissance and an old Jewish gonif who knows a thing or two about getting the best of those with power.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You don't feel that children should have property rights or any say in their environment.

This Strange New Feeling

Written by: Julius Lester

First line: Jakes Brown didn’t know what to think that July morning when he saw the young black man waiting for him by the toolshed.

Why you should read this book: Based on actual historical accounts and fleshed out by the hand of the storyteller, this book describes the heartbreak, difficulty, and triumphs of young lovers who are also slaves in the antebellum American south. Of the three stories, two have happy endings, and the happiness of those endings seems dependent on the characters’ understanding that there can be no peace for a black person without a strong drive to renounce the entire institution of slavery and make ones way to the north. No mere romance novel, this book discusses the love of two people for one another against a backdrop of rape, violence, degradation, and socially acceptable abuse.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You don’t get why your neighbors keep begging you to take down that Confederate flag.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

Written by: Jeff Kinney

First line: For me, summer vacation is basically a three-month guilt trip.

Why you should read this book: Everyone’s favorite self-involved slacker is back, and Greg Heffley knows that his mother is out to ruin his perfect summer vacation, which would involve sleeping all day and playing video games all night. If she’s not forcing him to read the classics, pay off his debts, play with that really weird kid down the street, or dragging him to a baby water park, she’s back on her eternal crusade, encouraging him to have a relationship with his dad. The series that your kid who hates to read loves to read offers the perfect summer escape from the losers.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You only allow your children to read books that build character. Or you force your children to read books that build character.

Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

Written by: Bill McKibben

First line: Imagine we live on a planet. Not our cozy, taken-for-granted earth, but a planet, a real one, with melting poles and dying forests and a heaving, corrosive sea, raked by winds, strafed by storms, scorched by heat. An inhospitable place.

Why you should read this book: Global warming, the author's data shows, is not a possible threat for our grandchildren, but a reality that has already begun transforming our lovely blue planet into a hot, dangerous, alien world. Climate change has been set into motion, and all calculations show that we have already surpassed the maximum level of atmospheric carbon dioxide (that would be 350 parts per million) necessary to keep thing comfy and verdant. After presenting pages and pages of chilling and disturbing evidence that we've screwed nature and she's going to screw us right back, McKibben describes what we need to do to survive on this new planet: cutting energy usage, investing in renewable, sustainable energy resources, and pulling back from unchecked and dangerous growth and globalization to create vibrant, functional, and self-reliant communities based agriculture, energy, and human networks (don't worry; we get to keep the Internet).

Why you shouldn't read this book: Possibly the most depressing work I have ever read; if you're enamored of your denial and think that oil and fossil fuels are the future, taking this book seriously could come as a real boot to the head.

Philip Hall Likes Me. I Reckon Maybe

Written by: Bette Greene

First line: Mama set my morning bowl of steaming grits on the flowered oilcloth.

Why you should read this book: Some local folks suspect that when God was handing out brains, Elizabeth Lorraine Lambert—Beth—stood around to take a second portion. She’s smart enough to outwit a gang of turkey thieves, get a refund from a miserly and cheating merchant, start earning money to go to college, and even figure out how to save her friend’s life. The only thing she can’t do, it seems, is get the best of Philip Hall, the cute boy who plays guitar and acts like a friend as long as the other boys aren’t around to see.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You reckon it’s OK to steal and rip people off so long as you’re smart enough not to get caught.

A Different Kind of Friend

Written by: Vivian Schurfranz

First line: Leah Dvorak threw down her pen and stared out the window.

Why you should read this book: Leah thinks she’s academically hopeless, and has nothing to look forward to but a long year of being grounded for failing math quizzes, until she decides to interview the old Witch of Tall Tree Lane for his English assignment. It turns out Mrs. Fox is neither old, nor a witch, but a lovely woman whose tragic past has turned her into a recluse who spends all her time caring for sick animals. Now Leah’s grades are improving, and she’s learning to care for animals too, but the rest of the neighborhood, and Leah’s friends, still think Mrs. Fox is a witch.

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You hate animals.

Sasquatch

Written by: Roland Smith

First line: As far as I knew, Dad had never been hunting.

Why you should read this book: When Dylan’s mom goes to Egypt to finish her Ph.d., his dad unleashes what seems to be a full-fledged mania, becoming involved with a group of aggressive Bigfoot hunters determined to kill a cryptid and make their names and fortunes. His dad claims that he wants to stop them from hurting the gentle creature that once saved his life, and Dylan, who needs to know if his father is crazy, sneaks into the woods on the slopes of an active volcano with a reticent retired biologist to follow the group. Is there something amazing hiding in the woods, and will Dylan learn the truth and help his father before someone—or something—gets hurts?

Why you shouldn’t read this book: You’re too busy shooting sonar into Loch Ness.

Five-Finger Discount

Written by: Barthe DeClements

First line: After Mom left for work, I finished emptying the packing boxes.

Why you should read this book: While Jerry's dad is in prison for stealing cars, he feels the stigma of being PK (a prisoner's kid) and strikes up an unlikely friendship with another PK: Grace, who suffers a different kind of stigma as a preacher's kid. While Jerry struggles to outwit a young extortionist who knows his secret, he and Grace form an uneasy understanding, but Jerry has learned things from his father that Grace cannot approve of. Is Jerry doomed to grow up a thief, too, or is there another way of getting what you want?

Why you shouldn't read this book: Some stealing with no consequences, some kid-on-kid violence.

Among the Dolls

Written by: William Sleator

First line: The poplar trees along the roadside shimmered in a light breeze, and there was hardly a nip in the autumn air.

Why you should read this book: Vicky acts out her frustrations in not receiving a ten-speed bike for her birthday on the occupants of the antique dollhouse she received in its place, and her home life degenerates until the day she wakes up a tiny doll trapped in that same doll house, now victim to the cruel patterns she has inflicted on the little dolls. Abused by the figurines that she once thoughtlessly abused, she comes to understand that her aggressive behavior has affected the world around her, and now she's trapped and likely to suffer even more unless she can figure out how to get back home. This short, kind of frothy kids' book does a good job of demonstrating the need for empathy, but does not delve too deeply into the psychology of its characters.

Why you shouldn't read this book: You're already scared of dolls.