The Running Dream, by Wendelin Van Draanan (2011)

 

Goodreads

 

My rating:  8 out of 10 stars

 

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

Trouble, by Gary D. Schmidt (2008)

Goodreads

My rating:  10 out of 10 stars!!!

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

Compound, by S. A. Bodeen (2008)

Goodreads

My rating:  7 out of 10 stars
*creepy parts about "Supplements"

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Paper Towns, by John Green (2008)

Goodreads

My rating:  9 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual references, risky behaviors

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky (1999)

Goodreads

My rating:  10 out of 10
*language, sexual references, risky behavior

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

Looking for Alaska, by John Green (2005)

one hundred thirty-six days before
The week before I left my family and Florida and the rest of my minor life to go to boarding school in Alabama, my mother insisted on throwing me a going-away party.  To say that I had low expectations would be to underestimate the matter dramatically.

Sixteen-year old Miles Halter attends public high school.  He doesn't have any friends and his high school experience has been less than fun.  He actually wants to go to boarding school.  After learning about French poet François Rabelais's last words ("I go to seek a Great Perhaps."), Miles realizes that he doesn't have to die to start looking for his Great Perhaps.  He decides to attend Culver Creek Preparatory School in Alabama.

Miles loves to read biographies of famous people and remembers their last words.

I thought of the people I'd read about - John F. Kennedy, James Joyce, Humphrey Bogart - who went to boarding school, and their adventures - Kennedy, for example, loved pranks.  I thought of the Great Perhaps and the things that might happen and the people I might meet and who my roommate might be...

Miles's roommate is Chip Martin, aka the Colonel.  The Colonel shows Miles the ins and outs of Culver Creek and gives Miles his nickname:  Pudge.  Then he takes Miles to meet Alaska in her room.

We walked in.  I turned to close the door behind me, and the Colonel shook his head and said, "After seven, you have to leave the door open if you're in a  girl's room," but I barely heard him because the hottest girl in all of human history was standing before me in cutoff jeans and a peach tank top.

And so Miles's Great Perhaps begins.  Looking for Alaska is funny, shocking, and heart-breaking.  I absolutely loved it!

Rating: 10 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual inference, sexual situations, smoking, drinking 

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

Wild Boy: The Real Life of the Savage of Averyron, by Mary Losure (March 2013)

Summer and winter, the wild boy lived in the forest.

The first time people saw the wild boy, he was about 9 years old.  When he was around 10 years old, he was caught by a group of woodsmen and displayed in the village square.  He managed to escape and return to the forest.  Later, he was captured again, but instead of being put on display, he stayed with a poor old widow who lived in a cottage on the edge of the village.  For 8 days he was treated with kindness.  He escaped again.

He was less fearful of people because he realized they might give him food.

In January 1800, he was caught again.  Rumors had spread across the countryside about a wild boy, and officials wanted to know if it was true.  They also realized that scientists in Paris would be very, very interested in studying a real wild human.

The wild boy was 12 years old when he was caught stealing food from a garden.  Many believed he was deaf and mute.  Should he be in an orphanage?  An insane assylum?  A school of deaf and mute children?  For many years, the wild boy was treated not as a human, but as a specimen.  Until a hero came to teach him.

Wild Boy was an interesting read about the true story of a wild boy found in southern France in the late 1700s.  

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars

Not available at NOLS...yet!

Send Me a Sign, by Tiffany Schmidt (2012)

Hillary looked up from her phone, squinting at me in the afternoon sun before she pulled on the sunglasses perched on her head.  "There's nothing happening tonight.  Nothing."

Seventeen-year old Mia Moore is one of the most popular girls at her school.  She's beautiful, popular, a cheerleader, and has adoring parents.  Her life is enviable.

At the beginning of the summer before her senior year in high school, Mia has her three best friends over to sunbathe and relax by her pool.  One of her friends notices a bruise on her leg, and even though Mia blows off the question, she knows something is wrong because she has several bruises all over her body.  Her mom has made a doctor's appointment.

Drs called.  I moved your appt to today.  4 pm.

Leaving now.  Be ready when I get home.

After series of tests, Mia finds out she has acute lymphoblastic leukemia.  She wants to escape her diagnosis, not think about what's going to happen to her, and hide from the truth as long as possible. 

Mia is superstitious.  She looks for signs everywhere to help her make decisions.  She wears a four-leaf clover charm necklace (from her best friend and neighbor, Gyver), she reads her horoscope daily, and she has a horseshoe that she has in her bedroom and brings with her for hospital stays.

"I just need to feel normal for a few more hours.  Before my life becomes a mess of chemo and doctors and drugs."  The last barrier between me and detachment fell, and the doctor's words hit with suffocating reality.  "God...I have cancer."

Mia decides to keep her cancer a secret from everyone except Gyver.  Her mom not only supports this decision, she thinks it's the best for Mia.  But how do you keep cancer a secret when you're in high school?  

Send Me a Sign tells Mia's story of not only how Mia deals with having cancer, but also with keeping it secret from everyone she cares about.  Gyver is always there for her, but now her long-time crush, Ryan (one of the most good-looking, athletic, popular guys), wants to have a relationship with her.  It's really hard to like the characters in this book at the beginning, but Mia's story is gripping and heart-breaking.  

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual reference, drinking

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, by Jennifer E. Smith (2012)

There are so many ways it could have all turned out differently.

The past two years have been hard on seventeen-year old Hadley Sullivan.  Her father, a poetry professor, was offered a  once-in-a-lifetime chance - a fellowship at Oxford University.  Ever the homebody, he didn't want to go, but Hadley's mom convinced him he should go.  After all, it was only for four months.

Flash forward two years.  Hadley's parents are divorced and her father is remarrying a woman Hadley's never met.  Hadley is still angry with her father for leaving her and her mother.

This is where this novel begins.  Hadley is preparing to make the trip to London for her father's wedding.  She does not want to go.  After a series of mishaps and an argument with her mom as she dropped Hadley off at the airport, Hadley missed her flight.

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Luckily, she gets a seat on the next flight which departs three hours later.  And Hadley's whole world changes.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight is a sweet romantic story about Hadley and Oliver.  I really enjoyed the references to Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend.  If you like romance novels, you'll enjoy this one!

Rating:  7 out of 10 stars

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick (2009)

"Can you feel that, Private?"

Eighteen-year old Matt Duffy, a private in the army, is stationed in Baghdad, Iraq.  Six hours ago he was brought into the hospital; he has TBI, Traumantic Brain Injury from a Rocket-Propelled Grenade (RPG).  At first he can't remember anything that happened before the explosion, but he slowly begins to remember a few pieces of the memory.

"You don't remember?"

Matt shook his head.  Even that tiny gesture sent pain shooting through his skull.

"It was yesterday," Justin said.  "Remember yesterday?"

Matt tried to remember.  Nothing.

"You sure?"  Justin glanced over his shoulder, the way he did when he was scanning the rooftops for snipers.  "Nothing at all?"

"Why?  Did someone get hurt?"

Justin pinched his brow between his fingers.  "Only a couple hajis," he said.

As Matt tries to put the pieces of the memory together, he thinks of a young, homeless boy he befriended, Ali.  The last time he saw Ali was when they were patrolling the market near the al-Hikma Mosque.  Ali always stayed close to Matt, begging for anything he could sell.

"I keep seeing it in my head.  Or parts of it, anyhow."  He wiped his hands on his pant legs, not looking up.

"That's not unusual," she said.  "A lot of soldiers have flashbacks, disturbing memories, nightmares..."

"It doesn't make sense," he said, his voice cracking.  "I keep seeing him."

"Who?"

"This street kid," Matt said, toying with his plastic hospital wristband.

Purple Heart is a heart-wrenching story of Matt's experience in Baghdad.  This is a great book for teens who maybe don't know much about the war in Iraq, or maybe know someone who has been deployed there.

Rating:  9 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual reference

Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys (2011)

They took me in my nightgown.

Fifteen-year old Lina Vilkas was taken from her home as she was getting ready for bed by the NKVD, the Soviet Secret Police.  Her family was given 20 minutes to pack.  Her father is missing.

"Promise me that if anyone tries to help you, you will ignore them.  We will resolve this ourselves.  We must not pull family or friends into this confusion, do you understand?  Even if someone calls out to you, you must not respond."

Almost a year before, Lina's home country, Lithuania, was annexed into the USSR.  Others were rounded up and put into a truck with Lina, her mother, and her younger brother, Jonas.  Lina learns that her mother speaks perfect Russian.

Forty-six people are crammed into a cattle train car.  One of them is 17-year old Andrius Arvydas from a nearby town.  They travel for six weeks inside the crammed, filthy car.  Lina learns why they were deported.

"Stalin has a plan, my love.  The Kremlin will do anything to see it through.  You know that.  He wants Lithuania for the Soviet Union, so he's moving us out temporarily."

"But why us?" I asked.  "They already moved into Lithuania last year.  Isn't that enough?"

"It's not just us, dear.  I imagine he's doing the same to Latvia, Estonia, and Finland.  It's complicated," said other.

Lina witnesses hundreds of horrible things, things a human should never have to see or endure.

"How could they do this?" I asked aloud.  I looked around the train car.  No one spoke.  How could we stand up for ourselves if everyone cowered in fear and refused to speak?  

I had to speak.  I'd write everything down, draw it all.  I would help Papa find us.

Between Shades of Gray is the emotional story of Lina and her family as they're deported from their beloved home in Lithuania and eventually make it to the most desolate area of all in the Arctic region.  It was delicious and it broke my heart into a million pieces.

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*mild language, sexual inference

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

Stolen, by Lucy Christopher (2010)

You saw me before I saw you.  

Gemma was traveling with her parents from London to Vietnam.  On a layover in Bangkok, she went to a coffee stand in the airport.

"Let me buy it," you said.  Your voice was low and soft, like it was meant only for me, and your accent was strange.

Ty is in his mid-20s, too old to be hanging out with a 16-year old girl.

You must have thought of everything: a ticket, a new passport, our route through, how to get past security.  Was it the most carefully planned steal ever, or just luck?  

He steals her away to a desert in Australia.

"Why?"  I whispered.

"I had to take you."

Written as a letter to her captor, Gemma describes her experience.

So I wrote the only words I could think of:  imprisoned, confined, detained, constrained, incarcerated, locked up, interned, sent down, abducted, kidnapped, taken, forced, shoved, hurt, stolen...

Stolen is a beautiful, frightening story.

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual inference, drug reference, prostitution

To check out this book at NOLS, click HERE!

Every Day, by David Levithan (2012)

I wake up.
     Immediately I have to figure out who I am.  

Every morning, A wakes up in someone's body.  He only gets to stay in that body for one day, to live that life for one single day.  He is never the same person twice, but every person he's ever inhabited is the same age as it.  He also doesn't thinking of himself as male or female (my interpretation for writing this review).  On day 5994, A inhabits the body of Justin, a 17-year old jerk.  A meets Justin's girlfriend and everything changes.

I have spent years meeting people without ever knowing them, and on this morning, in this place, with this girl, I feel the faintest pull of wanting to know.  And in a moment of either weakness or bravery on my own part, I decide to follow it.  I decide to find out more.

They go to the ocean for the afternoon.

I want to give her a good day.  Just one good day.  I have wandered for so long without any sense of purpose, and now this ephemeral purpose has been given to me - it feels like it has been given to me.  I only have a day to give - so why can't it be a good one?  Why can't it be a shared one?  Why can't I take the music of the moment and see how long it can last?  The rules are erasable.  I can take this.  I can give this.

How does someone make a meaningful life living one day in other people's lives?  Every Day is a gorgeous read.  The resolution is perfect and I would be so disappointed if David Levithan every made a sequel or a companion novel.

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*sexual references, drugs, religion, mild language, gay relationships, sexual identity

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

What Came from the Stars, by Gary D. Schmidt (2012)

So the Valorim came to know that their last days were upon them.

Narrated from two points of view, the Valorim of Ethelim and Tommy Pepper of Plymouth, Massachusetts, What Came from the Stars is a book that feels like fantasy mixed in with delicious realistic fiction.

Tommy Pepper lives with his dad and little sister on a beach just outside Plymouth.  His mom died nearly a year ago, and Tommy and his family are filled with grief.  They miss her terribly.  His little sister, Patty, doesn't speak.  His dad rarely paints anymore.

On Tommy's 12th birthday, he received "The dumbest present in the history of the entire universe" from his grandmother:  an Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box.  In an attempt to hide his lunch box from his friends, something happens.  Tommy saw a quick flash of light from the window and when his lunch box crashed onto the floor.

Tommy Pepper looked down beneath the cafeteria table at his fallen Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box, and there among the spilled carrot and celery sticks, something...well, something glowed.  Tommy blinked.  Whatever it was, it really was glowing a little bit.  He reached down and picked it up.

A chain.  Green and silver.  Heavy.

After Tommy put on the chain, things started to change.  He could remember a far-off place. His memories of his mom returned and they were clear.

And with that wind in his face, and looking at the sea, and feeling the light fall on him from the first star, and with those he loved beside him, and his mother gone, gone, Tommy felt the chain warm, and he began to sing too. 

In another world, something tragic was taking place.  The O'Mondim, led by Lord Mondus, overtook the Valorim.  In an effort to save the Art of Valorim, Young Waeglim forged it into a chain and sent it to another world.  The Art of Valorim is the most precious and powerful gift.  Lord Mondus will do anything to possess it.

What Came from the Stars tells the story of the Valorim and Tommy Pepper.  The book reads like a typical gorgeous Gary D. Schmidt novel, mixed with science fiction elements.  My favorite parts included reading about Tommy and his family in Plymouth.  The science fiction elements were a bit tedious, but overall, a good story.

Hopefully, Gary D. Schmidt takes one of the characters from this book and spins it into another book, similar to Wednesday Wars and Okay for Now.  :)

Rating:  7 out of 10 stars
To check this book at out NOLS, click HERE!

The Fault in our Stars, by John Green (2012)

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

Hazel Grace Lancaster has terminal thyroid cancer.  She knows it's not *if* she dies, it's when.  The cancer has metastasized in her lungs.  She's lived with this disease since she was 13, fighting for each breath.  All of her treatment has been to extend her life, not cure her cancer. 

Luckily Hazel got into an experimental trial.  The drug didn't work in about 70% of people, but it worked in Hazel.  The tumors shrank.  

In the past eighteen months, my mets have hardly grown, leaving me with lungs that suck at being lungs but could, conceivably, struggle along indefinitely with the assistance of drizzled oxygen and daily Phalanxifor.

Hazel hasn't been to a regular school in three years.  Her parents and author Peter Van Houten are her three best friends.

I'd learned this from my aforementioned third best friend, Peter Van Houten, the reclusive author of An Imperial Affliction, the book that was a close a thing as I had to a Bible.  Peter Van Houten was the only person I'd ever come across who seemed to (a) understand what it's like to be dying, and (b) not have died.

To deal with her depression, Hazel is sent to a support group with teens who have cancer.  They meet in the basement of a church.  She meets 17-year old Isaac who has to have his one good eye removed and will be blind in a couple of weeks.  She also meets 17-year old Augustus Waters who has osteosarcoma; one of his legs had to be amputated.  He's been NEC (No Evidence of Cancer) for 14 months.

After the meeting Augustus invites Hazel to come to his house to watch a movie.  As she waits for her mom to pick her up, Hazel notices Augustus putting a cigarette between his lips.  Hazel is disgusted.  

"They don't kill you unless you light them," he said as Mom arrived at the curb.  "And I've never lit one.  It's a metaphor, see.  You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."

Hazel and Augustus begin spending time together.

Hazel has written letters to author Peter Van Houton for years, always to be unanswered.  Augustus   finds a way to contact the reclusive author and receives a reply.  He learns that Van Houton will answer Hazel's questions if she comes to Amsterdam to meet with him.  Hazel already spent her Wish the Genies gave her.  Augustus knows what he wants to do.

"Ah," he said.  And then, after what felt like a practiced pause, he added, "But I saved mine."

Hazel is so sick a trip to Amsterdam may be out of the question.  And she begins to worry about what will happen to Augustus when she dies.  She begins to pull away from Augustus.

"I'm like.  Like.  I'm like a grenade, Mom and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?"

"I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there's nothing I can do about hurting you; you're too invested, so just please let me do that, okay?  I'm not depressed.  I don't need to get out more.  And I can't be a regular teenager, because I'm a grenade."

The Fault in our Stars is an amazing read.  Even though Hazel and Augustus don't have a lot of time together, their relationship is incredible.  Funny, sad, smart, I loved this read.  As Augustus himself said, 

"It is a good life, Hazel Grace."

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*language, drugs, sexual inference, issues of death

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The Kill Order, by James Dashner (2012)

Teresa looked at her best friend and wondered what it would be like to forget him.

Thirteen years before Thomas and Teresa entered the Maze, Mark lives in a world that has been ravaged by heat and radiation.  Living in an encampment in the Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina, Mark and his friends have had to fight to survive the year of death and terror.  Life is not easy for the survivors.

The sun flares struck with little warning.

Mark and his best friend, Trina, try their best to be happy and make each day count, but the memories always keep coming back.

The memories.   They never let him go, not even for a half hour.  They always had to rush back in, bringing all the horror.

The Kill Order tells what happened with the sun flares struck the planet.  The intense heat and radiation.  How lucky Mark and Trina were to be underground on the subtrans.  How lucky they were to meet Alec and Lana.

At the camp, everything changed in an instant.

But their laughter was cut off by a strange sound.  Something Mark hadn't heard in over a year, and he hadn't expected to hear it ever again.

The sounds of engines in the sky.

This is the first sign of advanced technology since the sun flares.  The Post-Flares Coalition (PFC) delivers supplies to Asheville, but this berg is unmarked.  Five people wearing bulky rubber suits emerge from the berg, each holding a black tube like a gun.  They spray the survivors with darts.  Some are killed immediately.  Others die a much more painful death.

Alec and Mark make their way to the berg to learn more about this attack.  Sealed boxes with warning symbols.

Virus VC321xb47

Highly Contagious

24 Darts, Extreme Caution

Mark and Alec meet Deedee, a young child who has been abandoned by her village after they were attacked by a similar berg.  She had been shot in the arm, but everyone left her there, alone.  She is immune to the virus.

The Killing Order is an exciting read to learn about the devastation after the sun flares and about the virus, later called the Flare.  Filled with suspense, this was one of my favorites in this series.  

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars

To check this book out at NOLS, click HERE!

The other books in this series:

Shadow on the Mountain, by Margi Preus (Sept 2012)

Against the blue-black mountains, Espen's bicycle was just a tiny moving speck.

Norway, 1940

Nazi Germany invaded the neutral country, Norway.  The Norwegians were not prepared for the German attack.  Fourteen-year old Espen and his friends try to make sense of Nazi-occupied Norway.  Most of his friends want to get rid of the Nazis, but not everyone.

"Hitler envisions a 'new Europe,' a Europe of Aryan people only.  Blond, fair-skinned people - like us.  He wants to hold up Norway as a model."

Espen and Kjell used to be best friends.  They used to spend every waking moment together.    But that was before Germany invaded their homeland.

Espen's teacher asked him to do an errand.

"Don't tell anyone what you're doing," Mr. Henriksen had said.  "Not your sister, not your classmates - not even Kjell."

Espen meets Tante Marie on Fox Farm.  She gives him his code name, Odin, and he's now a part of the Resistance, delivering illegal newspapers.

"You know that every part we play in the underground, no matter how small it seems, is significant," Tante Marie said.

The resistance includes the military, civilian, and intelligence branches; each branch depends on the others.

Nazi-controlled Norway is a dangerous place.  Strictly-controlled laws are in effect, but despite the risks and dangers, Espen and his friends continue their work.  Eventually Espen becomes a spy.  

Shadow on the Mountain is a good read for younger teens who are interested in this time period, or teens who haven't read about other countries Germany invaded.  Based on a the real adventures of a Norwegian spy during this time period, it's an interesting read to learn how the Nazis were able to invade and control other countries, and how dedicated the majority of Norwegians were to finding their independence.

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars

Not available at NOLS...yet!

From What I Remember, by Stacy Kramer & Valerie Thomas (2012)

I am jolted away by sunlight, flooding the room.

Graduation is two days away.  Kylie is the valedictorian, Max is the best-looking guy at school, Will is Kylie's best friend, and Lily is Max's girlfriend.  Kylie and Will do not belong in the luxurious world of Max and Lily.  Their worlds never intersect.

Except when a teacher assigns a group project for seniors on the second to the last day of school.  She also assigns partners.  Kylie is partnered up with Max.  Kylie never skips an assignment, no matter what.  Max has no intention to doing the assignment.

Max does something he never has done before.  He texts Kylie and asks her to meet at a Starbucks before starts.  Kylie is relieved to finally get the final assignment done, but someone steals her backpack.  Her backpack with her laptop.  Her never-ever-backed-up laptop with her original screen play and valedictorian speech.

The chase begins!

Max and Kylie find themselves in Ensenada, Mexico, on a wild adventure.

From What I Remember is an entertaining read for an older audience.  The publishers say for kids 14 and up, but it's really more for 16-years and older.  But once you start this read, it's hard to put it down!

Rating:  8 out of 10
*extreme language, homosexuality, underage drinking, sexual inferences

Come August, Come Freedom: The Bellows, The Gallows, and The Black General Gabriel, by Gigi Amateau (Sept 2012)

Ma believed.  One Sunday before sunrise, she headed out early for church at Young's spring with her infant, Gabriel, swaddled and slung across her chest.

March 1777

Gabriel is a slave on Brookfield Plantation.  His ma and pa always believed that once the Revolutionary War was over, their children would be free.

What Ma believed was this: her youngest son would grow strong and grow free.  He would run pick an apple anytime he pleased, even if only to taste the good fruit given by the Lord, and see, from this spot, the amber sunrise painted by His hand.

After Pa was dragged away from Brookfield for wanting freedom, Ma tried to carry on as best she could.  Gabriel tried to make sense of things, believing that he could be free.  The master and his foreman saw things differently.

"Idle African hands are no good for Brookfield, Mr. Prosser.  Negroes that can read and write are dangerous.  I expect ones the size of him, 'specially so.  Considerin' he got his father in him, you might take some action, sir."

Gabriel is sent away from everything he knows.  He's sent to the capital city to be a blacksmith's apprentice.  Gabriel realizes that he can find solutions while he's working metal.

"When I bend over the anvil with my hammer, our people, our worries, and our river all melt together, and all my questions come out like a plan."

Gabriel is faced with a decision: earn money to buy his soul mate's freedom, or fight for freedom for all slaves.

Interwoven with authentic original documents, Come August, Come Freedom was inspired by the trial documents related to Gabriel's Insurrection.  

Rating: 6 out of 10 stars

Runner, by Carl Deuker (2005)

I've read about kids who hate their parents for being alcoholics.  I've never understood that.

Chance Taylor is a senior in high school.  His dad is an alcoholic.  The kind of alcoholic that can't hang onto a job.  They live on a broken-down boat in Seattle.  Chance's mom left.  When she told Chance she was leaving, he understood.

I'd heard them arguing at night.  I knew my dad drank way too much and worked way too little.  "You won't leave me too, will you?" I said.

"No, Chance.  I won't ever leave you.  I promise."

Running is the only thing Chance has ever really liked to do, and someone from his marina notices this.  He also notices the time of day Chance likes to run, and his route.  

After his dad has lost yet another job and can't make the moorage payment, Chance realizes he has to do something to pay the bills.  

"So listen, and listen carefully.  You're in trouble, and I can get you out of that trouble.  I'm offering you a job, kid.  Very good pay; very short hours."

Chance will get paid $200 a week to run his regular route.  But instead of simply touching the maple tree that's growing out of the boulders, he has to look for a package.  No questions.

Runner is a fast-paced, suspenseful read.  The plot is filled with twists and turns.  The chapters are short, so you just want to keep reading one more chapter.

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*mild language

To check this book at NOLS, click HERE!