My name is Fin Garrett and this is my book and this is my story.

There will be some silliness, lots of my sucky drawings, a pop quiz and fun homework assignments, three or four family photos, and a few of my favorite memories. Caution: Sometime the story will get a little sad. But it won’t always be sad.

I began disappearing this past June, right after what I call The Terrible Day That Changed Everything…

Fin writes his story a lot like Greg in Diary of a Wimpy Kid. He draws a lot of pictures and he tries really hard to explain what is happening in his life and how he feels about it. At first, you wonder if this is a superhero story. Maybe Fin really IS turning invisible, but then you get to the part about the terrible day that changed everything and the book becomes something much different. Fin is right, his story does get a little sad, but the best thing about Fin’s story is how you watch him live through the sad thing and then start to figure out how to live with the sad thing having happened.

I don’t know how to say anything else unless I tell you what the sad thing is, but I don’t want to give it away. Just undertand that this book might LOOK like one of Greg’s Wimpy Kid diaries but it has more emotional punch to it. It has really funny parts. I think you will like Fin and he’ll make you laugh. He’ll also, well, he he’ll also probably make you cry a little bit too. Isn’t that just like a good friend in real life?

I loved this book because the terrible thing that changed everything in Fin’s life also happened to me, and the way he describes his feelings are so like how I felt. Fin seemed real to me and I believed the words in his journal. Listening to Fin is like listening to a close friend tell you his story. And in the end, Fin’s right, his story isn’t always sad.  It’s good to know that people can and do live through sad things. They learn to be happy and laugh again.  Author: Evan Kuhlman

• Look Inside The Last Invisible Boy
• The Last Invisible Boy Exerpt and Sample Art from the Author

Like I said, this book is a lot like the Wimp Kid Diaries, so if there is anybody left out there who hasn’t read about Greg - get to it!  Umbrealla Summer and The Girl Who Threw Butterflies are about kids like Fin who have had to adjust to a major change. These two books might make you cry a little bit too, but both will leave you feeling good in the end.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The Umbrella Summer

The Girl Who Threw Butterflies

Reynie, Sticky, Constance and Kate are locked in, in fact they’re prisoners, but this time their captor is none other than Mr. Benedict himself, as well as Rhonda and Number Two. In order to keep the kids safe from Evil Ledroptha Curtain, the grownups have the kids stashed in a safe house. Ledroptha wants his evil Whisperer machine back and the grownups are sure that he would kidnap the kids in a second and hold them for ransom. The kids are safe…but bored out of their genius little minds!

Constance is extra cranky, especially after a stranger shows up claiming to be her father and challenging Mr. Benedict’s adoption of her.  In an emotional meltdown, Constance runs away - an act that sends the grown-ups and the Society outside the safe house in hopes of finding her…just what Ledroptha and his minions The Ten Men want. The kids are now vulnerable and fall into a carefully constructed trap. But Ledroptha isn’t the only brain capable of setting and springing a trap. These kids are smart and motivated by something powerful - the desire to save the family they’ve built for themselves in The Mysterious Benedict Society. A terrific addition to The Society’s adventures. Author: Trenton Lee Stewart

• Look Inside The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
• The Mysterious Benedict Society Official Website
• Could you be in the Society? Try some of these Games for the Gifted and Logic Challenges

If you haven’t read the first two, don’t miss The Mysterious Benedict Society and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey, each one is excellent, action packed fun.

Wilson David the fifth, or “Wil,” for short, is about to turn 12 years old. He can’t wait for his birthday because it signals the day he can take over his older brother’s paper route. The David boys have delivered The Cooper County Caller newspaper to the people in tiny Steele, Pennsylvania for as long as anyone can remember. The first David boy to deliver the route was Wil’s Grandfather.

Wil has been practicing and is more than ready to take over. He can fling newspapers as he rides his bike past houses. He can fling them so that they land squarely on people’s porches, right by the door, but not blocking the door - perfect. Wil’s also ready for some spending money of his own and has his eye on a laptop computer.

Wil’s dreams are brought to a screeching halt the day before his birthday when the newspaper calls and tells him that they have cancelled home delivery in Steele and no longer need a paperboy. Wil is devastated. That laptop vanishes before his very eyes, but what’s more, he doesn’t get the chance to do what all of the David boys have done for three generations…deliver the daily newspaper.

The more Wil thinks about it the more unfair it seems. His laptop dreams start to fade as he considers the fact that the people in his town will no longer be able to read the daily news or even look for jobs in the classified ads. Steele is so small, there is no cable TV. The newspaper is the only way most of the people in the town get any news.

Find out why the people in Steele call Wil “Wil of Steele”. What can one boy do to fight injustice? The Cooper County Caller is about to find out.  One boy rallying one tiny town - it’s the little guys against the big corporation.

• Look Inside The Last Newspaper Boy in America
• Sue Corbett’s Official Website
  Sue Corbett’s Newspaper Carrier Video Contest open to boys and girls between the ages of 8 and 16. One winner will be selected from entries received each month, September through December 2009.

More books featuring kids who fight for justice by taking on something bigger than themselves:

Nic Bishop is on a roll cranking out animal books with stunning pictures and interesting information. Spiders, Frogs, Butterflies and now, Marsupials. Nic’s motto seems to be, “have camera, will travel.” This time he heads to Australia where the world’s largest concentration of marsupials live.

Mammals are warm-blooded animals that have fur and raise their babies on milk. Mammals are dogs, cats, cows, bears, etc. Marsupials are a special kind of mammal whose mothers raise their babies inside a furry pouch. The most well-known marsupials are probably kangaroos. But there are lots of marsupials - opossums, koalas, wombats…and bettons, bilbies, potoroos & dibblers. I’ve never even heard of those, have you? This book will give you an up close look at these furry little pouched creatures. Some of them look made up - like someone took parts of different animals and stuck them together.

One of the marsupials is a tasmanian devil - like Taz on Looney Toons. The real tasmanian devils don’t really look like Taz, they look like cute mini black bears. Their behavior, though, is more like Taz. They get really excited when they eat and like to fight over food, their favorite being animals that have been dead for so long they smell bad. Yuck! They also have really, really strong jaws that can crunch through bones. When I think about those habits, then I can picture crazy, slobbery Taz and see where he got his name.

Nic Bishop’s Official Website

More Nic Bishop animal books you might like:

Cass and Max-Ernest from The Name of This Book is Secret are back in another sense-filled adventure as members of the secret Terces Society. Cass and Max-Ernest have been inducted into the Society as agents keeping the world safe from the evil Midnight Sun, people who will stop at nothing (even murder!) to carry out their plans to live forever. Their previous adventures involved the senses of smell and sound. This time around, it’s taste, and what tastes better than chocolate? Nothing!

Cass’s mom is obsessed with the blind chef Señor Hugo and is invited to one of his exclusive dinner parties. Cass and Max-Ernest come along and are suprised to learn that at these parties the guests dine in complete darkness so that they can focus on their sense of taste. Partway through dinner Cass gets a feeling something isn’t right and when she shines a contraband light, she and Max-Ernest realize that all of the tables in the restaurant are empty and Cass’s mom is nowhere to be found. Señor Hugo has kidnapped Cass’s mom and is demanding the legendary Tuning Fork for her safe return. Somehow, he knows about Cass and Max-Ernest and The Terces Society. What is the Tuning Fork and what does the chef want to do with it? You can bet that The Midnight Sun and the creepy Dr. L and Ms. Mauvais are in on it too. Author: Pseudonymous Bosch

• Look Inside This Book Is Not Good For You
• Listen to an Excerpt of This Book Is Not Good For You
• This Book Is Not Good For You on CD
• Official Secret Series Website

Chocolate plays an important part in this Cass and Max-Ernest adventure. Chocolate is loved the world -over, now you can find out the secrets behind its power:

• Exploratorium: The Sweet Lure of Chocolate
• The Field Museum Chicago: All About Chocolate
• Hershey Video Tour: How Chocolate is Made
• Neuroscience for Kids: Discovering the Sweet Mysteries of Chocolate
• The Cocoa Tree The story of chocolate from Aztecs to rainforest ecology to modern manufacturing.

Here are the first two in the Secret Series with Cass and Max-Ernest: The Name of This Book is Secret and If you’re Reading This It’s Too Late. If you like these, you might also like the rest, each are about kids having incredible adventures, but without wands or dragons or spells. These kids fly airplanes, shrink, hypnotize people, solve puzzles and more.

In Amulet Book 1: The Stonekeeper, Emily and Navin teamed up with some of their Great Grandpa Silas’s robots to rescue their mother who had been transported to an alternative world and was captured by a tentacled creature. The kids traveled inside a house invented by Great Grandpa Silas. The house can transform into a giant robot and move on their command. Emily wears an amulet that wields power in the alternative world. The kids recovered their mom, but she is poisoned.

In Amulet Book 2: The Stonekeeper’s Curse, the family is safely back in their robotic house but their poisoned Mother has not awakened and is growing weaker. The kids point their house toward Kanalis, a mysterious and beautiful city, in hopes of finding an antidote for the poison. The kids’ mom is fighting for her life against the poison. Emily is fighting to figure out the power of the amulet she wears and how to control it. The amulet seems to be fighting to control HER.

At the same time, the family is being pursued by the Elf King’s son, Trellis, who needs to prove his abilities and loyalty by capturing them. The elves are NOT cute and have the most evil looking mouths full of shark-like teeth. What do they use those teeth for? I’m sure Emily and Navin do not want to know. In Kanalis the kids find that there is an underground resistance, an army of citizens fighting to free themselves from the elves. This group knew their Great Grandpa Silas and recognize the power of Emily’s amulet

This story is action scene upon action scene. Be sure to look at the Look Inside link to see the lush artwork - this is a graphic novel whose pictures tell the story as much as the words. Author: Kazu Kibuishi

• Look Inside Amulet 2: The Stonekeeper’s Curse
• Scholastic: Official Amulet Website
• Amulet Blog
• Amulet Comic Book Maker
• The Amulet Characters
• Video: Look Inside Kazu Kibuishi’s Notebook
• Watch Kazu Draw Amulet Characters
• Watch Kazu Talk about Book One: The Stonekeeper

Don’t miss Amulet 1: The Stonekeeper and if you like the idea of a kid fulfilling a prophecy to save an alternate world, there is a whole series of Star Wars graphic novels too. In Robots from Everyday to Out of This World you can find out about real robots - maybe Miskit isn’t that far from reality! Finally, In Robots! get some great ideas for drawing your own robotic creations.

Lucy’s Mom and Grandma run a small town pharmacy. Lucy hangs out there a lot to help out. She straightens shelves and runs the cash register too, but her favorite part of the pharmacy is the beauty aisle. Lucy reads all the boxes and tries out the samples and even though she’s only twelve, she’s kind of an expert.

The problem with the pharmacy is that it is in trouble. There is a lunch counter and soda fountain that nobody is visiting anymore. Too many people are going to Wal-mart instead of their small main street pharmacy. Bills are not getting paid and there’s talk that the family may have to sell their house.

When the local homecoming queen comes in with a major hair disaster, Lucy is able to fix her up for the big night. The beauty queen and her friends become loyal customers.

You saved my friend from horrible hair humiliation at homecoming. You’re like a a hair-care prodigy.

Word gets around and Lucy is soon dishing out beauty tips, make-up lessons, doing nails and offering beauty advice. While kids are there for beauty tips, they begin ordering from the soda counter and buying things. When Lucy joins her school’s Earth Club, her plan really begins to come together, she’s determined to open an Eco-Spa right in her family pharmacy and save it from going out of business

While on the internet, Lucy discovers a grant application for businesses going green. With the help of her college age sister Lucy puts together the grant proposal to make her eco-beauty dreams come true. Will her Mom and Grandma stop bickering long enough to listen to her plan? Do they notice that Lucy has loyal customers of her own, returning for their beauty treatments before the prom and graduation? Do they realize that Lucy has a plan, a real business plan, even if she is just a kid? This is a story for any kid who has ever been frustrated by grownups that won’t take them seriously, just because of their age. Old people don’t want discriminated against because of their age - neither do kids!

Lisa Greenwald Official Website

Here are some books about other kids who take charge when there is something to fix or fight for. They also don’t like grownups not believing they are capable of big things.

Don’t miss World Origami Day tomorrow, Saturday, November 7 from 10:00am to 4:00pm. Drop in and try some paper folding with the Indianapolis Regional Origami Network (IRON) of Folders. This program will be held in The Learning Curve. Questions? Call Central Library 275-4100.

February 10, 2010 is the opening of The Lightning Thief Movie. That day will be here before we know it but you still have time to start…or finish the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series if you haven’t yet! 

• #1: The Lightning Thief on CD and Downloadable Audiobook
• #2: The Sea of Monsters on CD and Downloadable Audiobook
• #3: The Titan’s Curse on CD and Downloadable Audiobook
• #4: The Battle of the Labyrinth on CD and Downloadable Audiobook
• #5: The Last Olympian on CD and Downloadable Audiobook

The author of the Percy Jackson books, Rick Riordan, has announced TWO new series that will begin in 2010.

The Kane Chronicles
Just last week Mr. Riordan announced a brand new series called The Kane Chronicles. The first book in the series will come out May 4, 2010. He says, “my Egyptian mythology series will be called the Kane Chronicles, and the first book’s title is The Red Pyramid. The series follows brother and sister Carter and Sadie Kane, who accidentally help unleash the Egyptian gods into the modern world, and then discover they are the only ones who can set things right. ”

• Rick Riordan Official Blog
• Rick’s Official Website
• Welcome to Camp Half Blood

Watch this movie - Mr. Riordan reads the first part of The Red Pyramid.

Camp Half-Blood Series (Official Name Not Known)
Mr. Riordan also announced a new series about Camp Half-Blood. In his blog he said, “I’ve launched into the new Camp Half-Blood series and am having a great time with it. I get SO many emails from worried readers saying please, please, please, please (times fifty) write more Percy Jackson books, but all I can say is chill, guys. I’m putting a new twist on things but it’s not the end of Percy and friends by a long shot. You’ll see where I’m going with it winter 2010 when the first book comes out, and I think you’ll be pleased (and I hope a little shocked and amazed!) but that’s all I can say for now.” I haven’t seen anything more concrete about the date other than winter, 2010, so I guess we just have to wait and see…and be a little shocked and amazed…which will be fun!

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure is a story that is being written online by several different children’s book authors. A new chapter (episode) comes out every 2 weeks. The whole adventure will take one year to complete.

Jon Scieszka started off the crazy adventure on October 9. Today, Episode 3 came out written by Kate Dicamillo. Epidsode 4 came out today written by Susan Cooper.

Start at the beginning if you need to:

• Episode 1 by Jon Scieszka - A set of twins, Joe and Nancy, are on a train. They have run away from the circus and have in their possession a letter from parents they never new they had. The letter is mysterious and tells them to “follow the clues.” What they don’t know, is that there is a ticking bomb under one of the bridges their train will pass over in a very short amount of time.
• Episode 2: The Lost Clue by Katherine Paterson - Joe and Nancy are pursued by Boppo, a demented clown, and try to escape from the train and from Boppo, before the bomb explodes.
• Episode 3: The Found Clue by Kate DiCamillo. Boppo is in hot pursuit juggling meatballs…and a another bomb! And now somebody else might be after Joe and Nancy too!
• Episode 4: Dig That Pig by Susan Cooper. Actually, it’s not a someBODY else after Joe and Nancy, it’s a someTHING…a crazed pig to be exact and they encounter a roller skating baby and a white haired genius. Whew.

Tune in November 20, 2009 for Episode 5 by Gregory Maguire

Bobby and Holly have been friends since forever. They know boys and girls aren’t usually best friends and they know their friends at school wouldn’t understand, so they have a strategy they call “The Parting Place”.  They walk to school together everyday, but when they get to “The Parting Place” about a block from their school, Bobby speeds up and Holly slows down…just so they won’t be seen together. It works.

But then the week before fourth grade starts, Bobby starts to notice some weird things about Holly. She starts caring about her hair and misses a traditional rock hunting afternoon with Bobby because she’s going shopping with Jillian. On the first day of school their friendship hits a definite bump in the road:

“Hey Bobby, wait up!” Holly was running to catch up to him.

Bobby stared at her in disbelief. “Why are you wearing that? It’s not Halloween.”

Holly smoothed the sleeve of her light blue dress. The big white bow around the waist reminded him of toilet paper. “It’s new,” She said proudly, “Do you like it?”

Bobby shook his head. “Nope.”

Oh, man. NOT smooth. And it’s downhill from there!  When Bobby and Holly are both nominated to run against each other in their class election for Student Council Representative an all out boys vs girls war begins. What’s the best strategy when your arch rival knows your weaknesses and all your secrets? Game on! Author: Lisa Yee

• Read Chapter 11 Bobby vs. Girls
• Official Website Bobby vs. Girls (Don’t miss the Fish Tricks videos!)
• Read an Interview with the author Lisa Yee

Bobby isn’t the only boy mystified by girls. Alvin Ho is allergic to them! Holly isn’t the only girl mystified by boys. Sheila Tubman never has understood Peter Hatcher. Here are some more funny books that showcase the battle between boys and girls: