Most of us feel safe, walking down the streets of our neighborhood, but what would happen to you emotionally if that feeling was taken away?  This is the story of the journey of 13 year old Tracey and her journey back to trust and comfort.

I have read some books regarding people who risk their lives to meet the challenge of climbing high peaks.  I don’t understand taking that risk, sometimes sacrificing their lives.  However in the book Peak, 14 year old Peak Marcello journey up Mt Everest is more than a trek up the mountain. It a journey of self discovery, understanding family, and realizing what is important in the end.  I also appreciated the author including the current day  turmoil in Tibet imposed by China.

You know the story of Peter Pan? Did you ever wonder how/why Peter had the ability to fly?Why was there a “fairy” name Tinker who kept close to Peter? Why was the island that Peter and the Lost Boys lived on called Neverland?How come Peter never grew older? This book is great adventure about pirates, a special treasure, sailing on the ocean and find out who you truly are….

John Pollack was mired in the machinations of Washington politics, writing speeches for Bill Clinton after years of working for MI congressman John Bonior.  He decided to take a break from the rat race and fulfill a childhood dream of building a cork boat. His family had been saving corks since John was a small boy, but the collecting began in earnest when he left the White House.  Then the realization hit that he’d never be able to collect enough corks on his own.....   John Pollack’s adventure is one of providence, curiosity, kindness, love and devotion.  It’s a story you will miss when the reading comes to an end.

This non-fiction account of the 2006 growing season focuses on the Rhode Island pumpkin growers club and the father/son team of Ron and Dick Wallace, who are in the fight of their lives to grow a pumpkin topping 1,000 pounds.  The author explores the world of competitive pumpkin growing in a book that has all the elements of a great adventure:  joy, excitement, disappointment, tragedy, hope, grand expectation and triumph!  This is a riveting read!

Emilia and Jack have lost their newborn baby, Isabel, to SIDS.  Emilia, in her grief, is having trouble bonding with Jack’s son William from his first marriage, a marriage Emilia feels responsible for ruining. Emilia’s guilt, grief and general dysfunction threatens to scuttle the new family she is in, except for the unlikely turns of events by the people whom she has hurt most that redeem everyone and set them on a course to healing and understanding. This is a well-crafted, compelling read.

Mariam, an illegitimate Afgani girl, grows up amid the turmoil of her country in the latter half of the 20^th century and the first decade of the 21^st.  We experience her shame at being illegitimate, her guild over the suicide of her mother, and the hardness and misery of being a woman in the Middle East governed by the Taliban.  The story is at once sad and maddening while providing a rich history of what was once a beautiful land.  Every bit as good as Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.

Have you ever been falsely accused of something or gossiped about? Well this story shows how bad things can go when people assume the worst. Great characters and suspenseful plot kept my interest right to the end.

Paige Williams is running from a past she would rather forget and an ever present danger if she is found. And then a dead body pops up in her hot tub. The hurtling events and richly drawn characters collide in a breathless story of murder, the need to belong, and faith’s first glimmer. One woman’s secrets unleash an entire town’s pursuit, and the truth proves as elusive as the killer in their midst.

Married only three weeks when Nazi tanks thunder into Poland, 19 year old Emma Bau is left in a decrepit Jewish ghetto when husband is forced to hide. Emma escapes the ghetto and pretends to be gentile. Hired to assist a high Nazi official, the resistance urges her to use her position to get details of the occupation. Emma compromises her safety and marriage vows to help the cause. This book is based in part on actual events and is a heartrending story of hope, struggle and defiance in the face of overwhelming odds.

When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw—and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into their home and zoo buildings.  Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure while Antonina kept her household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants.  With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her.

In September of 2000 Paula Huntley went with her husband, Ed Vilmore to Kosovo. Ed went as part of a group of lawyers that was helping the country reorganize their law system. Paula went along to teach English as a second language. This book never started out to be a book. Friends back home that received regular emails and correspondence from Paula encourage her to publish. She did. The book you have in your hands is speaks from her heart and the heart of her students. Paula fell in love with the place and the people. Her students fell in love with her. This is a GREAT read and very well written.

This is a very literary tale about two literary women. One who works in her father’s antiquarian bookshop and another who is an author who finally wants her story told. The book is great, but we have been told that the book on CD is even better. So if you’ve never tried listening to a book this might be a good time to try.

The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Taliban's backyard. Anyone who despairs of the individual's power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistan's treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schools - especially for girls - that offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortenson's quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.

Orphan, clock-keeper and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric, bookish girl and a bitter old man who runs a toy booth in the station, Hugo's undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy.  'The Invention of Hugo Cabret' is a mystery story with deep, emotional characters that will keep you at the edge of your seat. The amazing illustrations tell the story along with the writing and set the mood of the book. 

Eleven-year-old Elijah is the first child born into freedom in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves just over the border from Detroit.  When a former slave steals money from Elijah’s friend, who has been saving to buy his family out of captivity in the South. Elijah embarks on a dangerous journey to America in pursuit of the thief, and he discovers firsthand the unimaginable horrors of the life his parents fled.  This story is grounded in history, Buxton was a settlement in Canada and is now a historic site, and is buoyed with hope and comic energy.  As in his previous novels, Curtis is a master at balancing the serious and the lighthearted.

Electrifying...hilarious...a sprawling, picaresque novel about code making and code breaking, set both during World War II...and during the present day...Stephenson’s plots are complex; a treasure hunt that could easily take up a book in itself is just one more strand in Stephenson's web of looping, whirling, tangled storylines...This is a brilliant, involving, painstakingly researched and lovingly constructed novel that I'll be re-reading more than once.

Set in the 1860s and '70s, Maltman's novel evokes a Midwest lacerated by clashes between European and Native American, slave owner and abolitionist, killer and healer, nature and culture.  Asa Senger, a lonely 14-year-old boy, is at first wary when his father's sister, Hazel, arrives at his parents' Minnesota home after a long stay in a faraway asylum, but he comes to cherish the mysterious Hazel's warmth and company. Through her stories, Asa learns of his family's bitter past: the lore and dreams of their German forebears, their place in the bitter divide over slavery and, most complex of all, the bond between Hazel and the Dakotan warrior Wanikiya that deepens despite the violence between their peoples.  The novel sustains its tension right to the moment it ends and Maltman excels at giving even his most harrowing scenes an understated realism.

Cracking the case can get complicated and outrageously wacky when a family of detectives is involved.  Isabel "Izzy" Spellman, a San Francisco PI who began working for Spellman Investigations at age 12, thinks she wants out, but elects to take on a cold case while dealing with 14-year-old sister Rae, a nightmarish Nancy Drew, and parents who have no qualms about bugging their children's bedrooms.  When Rae suddenly disappears, Izzy and her family must learn some serious lessons in order to find her. Can the family that snoops together stay together? Stay tuned as a dynamic new series unfolds.

One hears of two girls trapped in a tower and assumes the story is about “Rapunzel”. However, if you thought that, think again. Shannon Hale takes a little known fairy tale called “Maid Maleen”, and with a bit of imagination and research, spins an incredibly original story set in the Asian Steppes. Dashti will impress even the most tepid lover of fairy tale heroines with her daring actions and unrelenting commitment to pursuing all that life holds for her.

In Diary of a Worm, Doreen Cronin attempts to give us a worm’s eye view on life. This is the charming story of a young worm, trying to record his everyday thoughts on life. This book is for all of us who wondered what it would be like to live underground and eat dirt all day. The illustrations and text in this book are charming, imaginative and guaranteed to make even adults grin. “Diary of a Worm” reminds us to keep an eye out for the little things in life, even worms. Oh, and to be careful where we step!