FernFolio

Boney, Itchy and Squeak are neighbours and best friends.  All three boys are odd; Boney, whose parents disappeared when he was a baby, lives with his neurotic aunt and her long-suffering husband, Squeak, whose mother ran off to work in a travelling cabaret, views the world from behind World War I goggles fitted with lens made to someone else’s prescription, and Itchy contends with a father who’s an Elvis impersonator and a mother intent upon redecorating their house.  Together, they built the club house in the tree behind their houses, have entered the yearly Invention Convention at their school, and weathered the attentions of the class bully, Larry Harry, and his henchmen, Jones and Jones.
Larry, aka the Fart King and Prisoner 95, seems determined to make the Odds’ lives unbearable.  He and the Jones twins regularly throw eggs at the boys’ clubhouse, and ambush them on the street.  Boney, Itchy and Squeaky are regularly assaulted by the bullies, especially during phys. ed. classes, which frequently end in one or other of the boys making a visit to the school nurse.
Since Larry has sabotaged their entries into the Invention Convention, the Odds have never won, even though Squeak is a scientific and engineering genius, but this year the friends are determined to win the grand prize of $500, and solve the bullying problem once and for all.  Squeak thinks he’s figured out how to build an Apparator, a device that can detect the presence of ghosts, and, since the ruins of the Old Mill are rumoured to be haunted, the Odds decide that it would be the perfect place to test Squeak’s invention, and plan Larry Harry’s comeuppance.
Little to the friends know that their plans will put them afoul of the Old Mill’s current occupant, or that a chance encounter with a dog will land them in hot water and about four thousand sequins!
Written by Natale Ghent, author of No Small Thing, The Odds Get Even is an action-packed adventure about three boys, their bullies and….. a ghost?
FernFolio Editor

When the bones of a young girl are found on the mountain, buried under the tree where she used to play, and four years after many believed that she had run away with her lover, shock and grief soon turn to suspicion.
For fourteen-year Dee Vale, an illegitimate child living her with her stern and unemotional Gran, the body’s discovery begins a dark and difficult period.  Her Gran, whose help during childbirth and whose teas and potions are asked for and consumed by neighbours too poor to call upon Dr. Hughes, the local physician, is called a witch by these same neighbours and, as the police investigation stalls, is accused of murder.  Her long-time friend, Billy, suddenly announces he supposes he’ll marry her, before taking up with Vivien, a sly and unpredictable girl whose family has moved into the abandoned house next door.  As she and her friend Clooey begin their final year at the school at Price’s Corners, Dee starts to dream of the two of them continuing onto the high school in the nearby town of Wallen, and of one day becoming a nurse, though she knows her Gran expects her to remain at home.  She makes friends with Clarence, a young soldier who has returned from the trenches missing parts of his mind and memories.
Gifted, or cursed, with the Sight and able from her earliest childhood to see ghosts, Dee becomes aware of the presence of a dark shadow up on the mountain, a shadow that seems to creep ever closer to her home, one that starts to stalk her.  Gradually, Dee becomes aware that a number of young girls have disappeared from the area around Price’s Corners and Wallen during recent years.  Her Gift allows Dee to read the resting place of one girl, and to relive the death of one of another, and she begins to realise that she might be the only person able to uncover the identity of the monster killing these young girls.  As the community’s mood turns ugly, and vigilantes threaten to take justice into their own hands, Dee must take a difficult stand against her Gran, her friends and neighbours, and risk her own safety, to find and stop a murderer before he can kill again.
Set in Ontario just after World War I, Haunted unfolds against the backdrop of small-town and small-minded fears and prejudice.  Dee, whose give name is Defiance, is a strong and remarkable young girl whose steadfast belief in herself and her friends, in the face of ugly rumours and accusations, is a testament to friendship and courage.  A tale that will haunt the reader…
FernFolio Editor

It’s hard to be the overweight and socially awkward daughter of a media superstar.  Living in the shadow of her mother, Mimi, whose talk show, You, You and Mimi, is watched by hundreds of millions of people all over the world, seventeen-year old Robin Schwartz struggles with apathy and depression.  Burned by classmates who became friendly with her only to meet Mimi and her celebrity friends, forgotten by her fun but irresponsible rock musician father, and ignored by her perpetually busy mother, Robin has everything that money can buy and nothing that she needs.  She knows that the only person who loves her is Anita, her mother’s housekeeper, and the only person who listens to her is her senile grandfather.  In recent years, the only contact Robin has had with her mother is by watching her on television.
When she finds a high school ring and photograph hidden inside a chair in her mother’s bedroom, Robin is perplexed.  She recognises her mother’s face in the photograph, but cannot imagine when and why Mimi might have visited Port Minton, Nova Scotia, or why someone on their high school’s hockey team would have given Mimi his championship ring.  Urged by Anita to get off the sofa and do something other than watch reruns of her mother’s show, and goaded by Selena, Anita’s teenaged daughter, Robin decides to go to Port Minton and find some answers.
When the bus driver drops her off at the side of the road in Port Minton, Robin discovers a fishing village that is largely abandoned, following the collapse of the fishery.  A guy in a battered old van picks her up and offers to drive her to nearby Shelton, where there is a hostel, and Robin is strapped into her seat before she starts to question the wisdom of climbing into the vehicle of a tall, well-built stranger.  She embarrasses herself by screaming and giving him a black eye, when he reaches across to let her out at the hostel, but Levi Nauss will help Robin by telling her about Port Minton, and introducing her to many of its former inhabitants.  Too bad she can’t find the courage to tell him who she really is, or why she’s come to Nova Scotia with questions, especially when it becomes clear that someone is trying to kill her.
Written by Vicki Grant, author of Quid Pro Quo, The Puppet Wrangler, and Pigboy, Not Suitable for Family Viewing tells the story of one teenaged girl’s journey in search of some insight into her emotionally absent mother, and about the friends, the self-acceptance and the mother she finds along the way.  A terrific book for readers from grade 7 up!
FernFolio Editor

With his father gone, it falls to eleven-year old Gregor to look after his two-year old sister, Boots, and keep an eye on their senile grandmother, since his mother works long hours to support the family.  On a hot July afternoon Gregor grabs the laundry, and Boots, and heads for the laundry room to get a couple of loads started before his mother gets home but, while he’s busy filling the washing machine, Boots toddles after her ball and gets sucked into the heating vent in the wall.  Horrified, Gregor jumps after her, and finds himself falling, falling into the Underland, a dangerous and exciting world hidden far below the earth’s surface.
Found by giant meter-high talking cockroaches, Gregor fears that he and Boots will be killed, but the little girl is thrilled with the “beeg bugs,” and soon appears to have them captivated.  The roaches take the two children to Regalia, a beautiful underground city which is home to a group of humans whose ancestors followed their leader, Bartholomew of Sandwich, underground some four hundred years previously.
Though the Underlanders and their young Queen, Luxa, treat Gregor and Boots like important guests, and give them rooms in the castle, they make it clear that they expect the two to remain in the Underland.  However Gregor is determined to get himself and Boots home, eager to leave the darkness behind and worried about their mother who has already weathered the disappearance of her husband.  With Boots secure in a pack on his back, Gregor sneaks out of the castle through its water supply, but is caught and almost eaten by giant rats.  They are rescued by the Queen’s guard, and taken back to city, where Gregor learns that the Queen’s advisors believe he is the warrior from the Overland whose actions may save the citizens of Regalia from the armies of the Rat King.  Gregor tries to explain that he is no warrior, and that he lacks the skills and experience they need, but the Underlanders are determined that he will lead the quest that will determine the fate of every creature in the Underland.
Giant talking animals, rats, roaches, spiders and bats, humans grown accustomed to life in a world without sun, cryptic prophecies, a proud and difficult young queen, a sly traitor who plots to overthrow a throne, a fearless and loving two-year old, and an ordinary boy desperate to get his sister safely home; all of these help to make Suzanne Collins’ story a thrilling adventure.  Gregor the Overlander is the first book of the Underland Chronicles.
FernFolio Editor

During Ireland’s Great Famine, in the 1840’s, the potato crops were struck with blight and turned to rotten mush in the fields.   For poor tenant farmers, who for generations had planted potatoes as their only crop, the blight spelled disaster.  Without food to fed their families, or a crop to sell for money to buy goods and pay their rent, Irish men left to look for jobs in England, but soon there was no jobs to be had, and people starved.
With her da off in England looking for work, Kit Byrne, fourteen, works long hours as a maid in the house of Lord Fraser, the English landowner, and helps her mother with little Annie, while her brother, Jack, helps old Lizzie, the village wise woman and healer, for an egg a day.  Though times are difficult, her mam’s devote belief that God will provide and her abiding hope in the future, help Kit and her brother and sister in the face of growing adversity.  Kit delights in her friendship with Millie, and enjoys stolen moments with Tom Lynch, son of the Frasers’ middleman.
But this winter, things turn harder, faster, than the winter before.  Kit is fired along with many of the other household servants by Lynch as a cost cutting measure.  Though she finds work helping Lizzie alongside Jack, she watches in growing alarm as no letter arrives from her father, and her mam and siblings get thinner.
In the year that follows, Kit watches as, unable to pay their rent, friends and neighbours are evicted from their houses by Lynch, others say good-bye before boarding ships to Canada, Australia and America, and other, too many others, die of starvation, overwork, fever, or grief.
Forced by bitter circumstance to become the head of her own family, Kit discovers in herself the determination to do anything it takes to ensure her loved ones’ safety and survival, even if it means imprisonment or death.
Written by Caroline Pignat, author of the wonderful Egghead, Greener Grass is a gripping account of one girl’s struggle to survive the Irish Potato Famines.  Pignat’s story is rich in historic detail, yet simply and movingly told.  Terrific!
FernFolio Editor

Early one July morning, a seventeen-year old girl named Del Thigpin sneaks out of the home of her foster parents, and down the street to where she has parked her 1983 Datsun, purchased secretly with the money she’s earned working at a video store.  After staging her own death from drowning at a nearby beach, she begins her journey into a new life as Elena Franco.
With a six-month supply of food, camping gear, and 134 dollars, Del plans to drive to Arizona, camp near a small town, and get a job to support herself.  Though frightened, at times, by her complete lack of family or friends, and uncertain about the future, Del is determined to leave behind the endless foster homes and social workers, and the cynical, mouthy and defensive young woman she has become to survive the circumstances of her life.  Adapting regularly to new foster parents and siblings, and new schools, has taught Del to keep her thoughts to herself, lie with creativity, and become whoever she needs to be in order to get by.  It has also made her a reader, and a lover of old movies, especially French and Italian films, and she has cobbled together a convincing set of stories about her part Italian family from her reading and viewing.  Del is also an observer of others, and has learned to mimic the behaviours of those around her as a way of entering into, in effect, borrowing, their lives.
On that July day, Del plans to get as far from Los Angeles as she can before her foster mother reports her missing, but a serious collision on the Santa Monica freeway stops traffic for hours, and she, and all of her fellow travellers, find themselves stranded in their vehicles.
Breakout is the story of that traffic jam, and what happens to Del and the others stuck on the freeway that day.  It is also the script for Elena Franco’s one-woman show about a day-long traffic jam on the San Diego freeway, that opens in Denver eight years after Del stages her escape from L.A.  Written by Paul Fleischman, it explores people’s obsession with running away from themselves and what happens when, for one day, they are forced to stop and confront that face in the rear-view mirror.  Fleischman’s insights into the human psyche, as represented first and foremost by Del and her alter ego Elena, are both tender and searing.
FernFolio Editor

After a year in Balgownie, a small town in the highlands, soon-to-be thirteen-year old Laurel “Lemmie” Ferguson is still haunted by what happened in Edinburgh before she and her parents moved away.  Ridiculed for her highly artistic approach to dressing, and her unusual, exuberant and sometimes clumsy behaviour, by the time Laurel left her private girls school in the Scottish capital, she had been turned on by her best friends, accused of lying and jealousy, sent to see a child psychologist, and tried to run away from home.
But life has definitely improved.  With the help of her terrific older sister, Rose Rouge, an art student in Edinburgh, Lemmie has learned marshmallow magic, an elaborate series of sign readings and good-luck spells designed by Rose Rouge to help Lemmie stay calm and face each day with confidence.  Though her sister isn’t able to visit often, Rose’s unexpected flying visits always seem to coincide with when Lemmie needs her most.
Lemmie has also made two wonderful friends since coming to Balgownie, Morven, a gangly and kind-hearted farm girl, and Jade Song, tiny, brilliant, knowing and wise.  Though they are as different from each other as chalk and cheese, the two girls are loyal and supportive, and Lemmie has shared with them many of the secrets of Rose Rouge’s marshmallow magic.  Though her other classmates at Balgownie Academy do occasionally comment on Lemmie’s clothes or joke about her clumsiness, she feels that they are laughing with and not at.
Then one afternoon, while she is standing on a sidewalk with Morven and Jade, Lemmie happens to catch a glimpse of a face in a passing car.  Shaken almost to the point of physical illness, Lemmie brushes off the concern of her friends, and rushes home to work a little marshmallow magic.  But another sighting confirms her worst fears, that the girl who made her life unbearable in Edinburgh has come to Balgownie.  Lemmie starts sleepwalking again, sparking her parents’  worry, and soon there are messages from school indicating that her behaviour at school has changed.  Will she once again find herself attacked and friendless, or, with Rose Rouge’s help, will Lemmie manage to confront her fears and safeguard the life she has build for herself in Balgownie?
Karen McCombie’s Marshmallow Magic and the Wild Rose Rouge introduces three very likeable and engaging characters in Lemmie and her friends, Morven and Jade, and perceptively examines the subjects of friendship, bullying, and individuality.  Everyone needs friends like Morven and Jade.  Everyone needs a teacher like Ms. McIver.  And everyone sometimes needs an older sister like Rose Rouge.
FernFolio Editor

Roy Eberhardt has recently moved to Coconut Grove, Florida, from Montana with his parents, and is putting up with the usual nonsense that adolescent kids inflict on newcomers. He eats lunch alone in the cafeteria, except for the occasional presence of Garrett, a skateboarding air head, and is trying to navigate his way past the attentions of Dana Mathison, the school bully.
One morning, Roy looks out the school bus window (his face is being mashed up against it by Dana), and sees a boy streak by on foot. What catches Roy’s attention about the kid is that he’s fast, and he’s running barefoot. When he doesn’t see him in the halls of Coconut Grove’s only middle school, Roy begins to wonder who the runner might be. He starts to watch for him from the school bus, and, when Roy finally spots the runner again, he frees himself from Dana’s strangle hold, darts off the bus and runs after him. After a chase that cuts through neighbourhoods and across a golf course, Roy is knocked unconscious by a flying golf ball.
Back at school, Roy is cross examined by the Vice Principal, who claims he’s broken Dana’s nose, threatened by Dana, and warned off taking any further interest in the mysterious barefooted runner by a rather physically intimidating girl named Beatrice Leep. But Roy refuses to give up on tracking down the kid, further intrigued by Beatrice’s behaviour.
Roy is also following with interest the developments on a building site at the corner of East Oriole and Woodbury. Future home of another Mother Paula’s All-American Pancake House, the site’s being plagued by problems. First, the survey stakes keep getting pulled up. Then alligators turn up in the portable toilets placed on the lot for the construction team.
Roy begins to wonder whether there might be a connection between the barefooted runner and the trouble at the building lot. Soon Roy finds himself making the acquaintance of Mullet Fingers, a fugitive from Juvie Hall, and an overeager new police recruit named Office Delinko. Though these two appear at first to be on opposite sides of the law, both are linked by the nests of three mated pairs of burrowing owls on the Mother Paula’s Pancake House building site.
Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot is a fast-paced adventure with an environmental twist that combines humour with an edgy realism. Though there are no fairy tale endings, there is a satisfying victory over big business and corrupt government. Hiaasen is also the author of Flush and Scat.
FernFolio Editor

Keladry of Mindelan has her heart set on becoming a knight.  Though her parents worry that it might prove too difficult a challenge even for a girl with Kel’s courage, she is determined to join the pages being trained at the court of King Jonathan.  Since a new proclamation has decreed that girls be permitted, even Lord Wyldon, the page training master, cannot refuse her admission, though he is adamant that girls do not belong.  Instead, Lord Wyldon puts her on a year’s probation and makes it clear to Kel, and to everyone else, that he expects her gone long before the year is over.
But at ten years old, Keladry is tall, sturdy and strong.  After six years with her diplomat parents at the court of the Yamani emperor, she has learned the value of patience and outward calm.  With the ladies of the imperial family, she has also learned a lot about hand-to-hand combat from one of the famous Shang warriors.
Kel manages well enough during the early weeks of training, helped by her page sponsor, Nealan of Queenscove, and largely ignored by the other pages.  She has been warned by her older brother that she must expect some hazing, and that, no matter what, she must never back down to a bully, or tattle on one either.  She carries out the foolish tasks set for her by the older pages, and learns to avoid the spiteful little traps set by those who’d just as soon see her go, but discovers she’s not going to be able to ignore the nasty Joren of Stone Mountain.
Joren delights in tormenting the new pages, finding and exploiting their weaknesses, and humiliating them at every opportunity.  With Neal’s protection, Kel avoids the worst of Joren’s tricks, but, when she sees him abusing a fellow first-year page, Kel realises her sense of honour demands that she take him on.  Gradually, the young girl discovers that she possesses the courage and fortitude to do the right thing, even in the face of adversity and that, perhaps, she is not as friendless as she had believed.
First Test is written by Tamora Pierce, author of the Circle of Magic books and many other fantasy books.  It is the first of four novels about the adventures of Keladry of Mindelan.  A wonderful story of honour, courage and daring in a magical world.
FernFolio Editor

Raised by a god-fearing, and embittered father, and a mother who has quietly stopped practising her women’s magic because of her husband’s disapproval, Jack has been accustomed to sorrow and disappointment, and to working hard from dawn to dusk tending the sheep and the crops, gathering firewood, hauling water, and carrying food to the village Bard.  Though he works cheerfully, his parents’ love and attention is focused on his five-year old sister, Lucy, with her golden hair, pretty face and insistent manner.  Captivated, Jack’s father has invented stories about the little girl, telling her she is actually a lost princess whose real parents live in a beautiful castle.
When the village Bard chooses Jack as his apprentice, the boy moves into the old man’s cottage, where he begins to learn about music and magic, and discovers the joy and power of the natural world.  At first, he relishes his new life, quickly developing a deep affection for the wise and caring old man who endeavours to teach him, and delighting in his fledgling magic skills.
Then one night Jack is awakened by the Bard who is caught in the grips of a nightmare, one visited upon him by an enemy from across the sea.  Recognising the impending danger, the Bard explains to his apprentice that years before, when he was Bard to King Hrothgar, he helped a hero named Beowulf defeat the monster Grendel.  That monster’s sister Frith, queen to King Ivar the Boneless, who is half-troll and therefore possesses a dangerous amount of magic herself, has sworn to find the Bard and kill him.  A shape-shifter, Frith has ridden the nightmare over the sea from Ivar’s hall in the North in search of the Bard, and now that she has found him, only chaos and destruction can follow.
Too soon, ships are spotted off the coast, and the Bard identifies the raiders as Berserkers, who drink a strange potion and become something other than entirely human.  Alerted by the Bard, the villagers abandon their cottages and hide in the forest, while the old man and Jack remain to summon a thick fog, hoping to confuse the raiders.  Jack’s sister, Lucy, long used to getting her way, refuses to stay in the forest and return to the village, where she is captured by the berserkers.  Torn between his duty toward the Bard, and his affection for his sister, Jack allows himself to be seized by the raiders, hoping that he will somehow be able to protect and free the little girl.
Jack and Lucy are taken north to the lands of Ivar the Boneless and Queen Frith, where Jack become slave and bard to Olaf, the giant of a man who captured him, while his golden-haired little sister is given to the queen.  After hearing the poem sung by Jack in Olaf’s honour, and greedy for her own glory, Queen Frith demands that the boy sing a poem for her.  Terrified, Jack begins to sing, drawing on magic to help him, but things go awry and somehow Jack undoes the spell that makes Frith appear beautiful, and causes all of her long, red-gold hair to fall out.
Furious, Queen Frith vows to kill Jack, until she is reminded that he is the only one who can undo the effects of his magic.  When it becomes apparent that, as an apprentice bard, Jack does not know how to restore the queen’s beauty or her hair, the half-troll issues an ultimatum.  Jack will go on a quest into Jotsunheim, the land of the trolls, to find Mimir’s Well and drink the song-mead which it contains, .  He will then return to Ivar’s hall and undo his magic in time for the harvest festival or Lucy will be sacrificed to the goddess Freya.
So Jack sets off with Olaf and Thorgil, a bad-tempered and hot-blooded shield maiden, to brave the many dangers of Jotsunheim.  Along the way, they will be almost overcome by the sweet and deadly perfume of a meadow full of giant flowers, attacked by a troll-bear, and have to do battle with a nest of dragonlets.  On that journey, Jack will learn a great deal about himself and others, both human and non-human alike, and he will come to understand that, as the Bard once told him, “the world’s a frightening place, full of glory and wonder and danger.”
Set against the backdrop of the 800s, when Viking raiders pillaged Saxon villages along England’s coast, and drawing upon medieval and Norse legends, The Sea of Trolls is a complex and richly-detailed adventure with strong and believable characters.  It is written by three-time Newbery prize winner Nancy Farmer, whose other books include A Girl Named Disaster.
FernFolio Editor