Having survived four waves of alien attacks, having watched her family get killed off one by one, Cassie is so, so tired of running and hiding, but she forges on, because of a promise to his little brother to come get him from the camp, a promise she is not sure she can keep anymore.  How do you get help when no one can be trusted and when you can't tell the enemy from your fellow human beings?

The 5th Wave is Rick Yancey's new offering and it's quite a departure from his other books. It's been getting a lot of buzz and glowing reviews, and it looks like something that will be fitting for our blog.  The book does pretty well in maintaining tension through the 450+ pages, and not providing any descriptions of the aliens makes the story more suspenseful and creepy. "Don't trust anyone" is indeed a good motto for any survivors in Cassie's world, and readers will be doubting who is the good guy, if there is even one. However, the romance was forced and poorly written and did not work for the story at all.    (I thought we're not trusting anyone here) The story was also a little too predictable so while you want Cassie to reunite with her brother, you never doubt that it will happen. It was more the story of Ben Parish, Cassie's old classmate, that gave me incentive for me to read on.

I read that aliens are going to be the next big thing in YA. Let's see how others stack up to the 5th Wave.

First book of the C.H.A.O.S. series
Colt McAlister has spent a day with real life aliens. Not that he remembers it. CHAOS (Central Headquarters Against the Occult and Supernatural) made sure of that when they invited Colt to a facility posing as a regular military academy to test his abilities and potential. Colt may have lived his whole life in ignorance and bliss, but when his parents were killed in a car accident, he got a tip from a stranger: Your parents were murdered. Your mom was about to expose the omnipotent Trident Industries' mind control scheme and so they had to get rid of her.  And from that point on, Colt's normal life is turned upside down, when he discovers more than he ever wants to know about a secret organization and his grandpa's secret past.

I want to like this book, and when I read the first six chapters, I did kind of like it. A little thrown off because you were hit with the story without much explanation, but kids training to be secret agents battling extraterrestrials? Nothing super original, but it can be fun. The story then took a turn once the first CHAOS scene is over, and Colt and the readers both have to go through a lot of secrecy from all the other characters, and impatience started to seep in.  There was too much conspiracy talk and the escaping from evil guys scenes got a bit repetitive. Some of the alien creatures and the high-tech weapons and vehicles were pretty cool, and there were some interesting story threads, but not enough to hold my attention. Danielle and Oz, the other two major characters in the book, are much more personable than Colt, which doesn't help either. Invasion did receive positive reviews, and a sequel is coming out in January 2012, so this may be a good one to include in your teen collection for your sci-fi readers.

Judging from the response to booktalks I've done, most older elementary and young teen guys are usually intrigued by unsolved mysteries involving deadly monsters, hauntings and extraterrestrials. This interest shouldn't be surprising, seeing as many teen guys are interested in science fiction and horror. Unexplained Phenomena, published by Capstone Press, is a new non-fiction series covering the topics of ghosts, cryptids, aliens and demons.

I took a look at two of the books from the series: Searching for Aliens, UFOs and Men in Black and Tracking Sea Monsters, Bigfoot and Other Legendary Beasts. Each book presents the the information like a mystery case to solve, laying out the evidence (alleged sightings, folklore, scientific facts, etc.), then offering a verdict and/or possible explanations. The layout is appealing, with lots of photos and illustrations and short snippets of text. Information is presented in a variety of ways: diagrams, maps, timelines, photos and coloured boxes with interesting facts. You can easily scan and pick out different parts of each page to read, and you don't have to read all the information chronologically to understand what is being presented. A glossary and lists of recommended books and websites are included at the end of each book.

The text is easy to understand -- but also pretty brief so this probably won't satisfy someone looking for an in-depth or more scientifically detailed read on these topics. The exploration of various scientific and historical explanations just skims the surface and is definitely not comprehensive. I would say this series is more suitable for upper elementary or young teens, as the material is on the simplistic side. Saying that, this series makes for a fun, quick, non-intimidating read. Reading about real-life "Men in Black" and dinosaur species that might still be alive sure kept my attention...

Thank you to Capstone Press for making copies of these books available to the Boys Do Read Blog writers. 

Stone Arch Books, imprint of Capstone Press, recently released a new series of comics/graphic novels called Good vs Evil. Each book has two storylines, one pictured above each other. The top panels show the story from the antagonist's point of view (in reddish hues), while the bottom panels reveal the perspective of the protagonist. You can read each line one at a time or look at both top and bottom panels at the same time. What results is an interesting glimpse into the different perspectives held by different characters.

I've read two books from the series so far: Alien Snow and The Awakening. 


In Alien Snow, a young boy, Noah, enters a shop to buy a spaceship model. But instead of selling him the model, the shop owner makes Noah look into a snow globe and traps him inside it. It turns out that the shop owner is an evil alien collecting human specimens.


The Awakening is set in Tokyo, where a girl finds a tape player at the subway. When she turns the music on, a monster under the subway wakes up and hunts her down.

At the end of each book is a 'visual glossary' that points out details in the illustrations that give you clues about the story's setting and foreshadowing as well as particular drawing techniques and their purpose.  'Visual questions' are also listed at the end of the books -- questions about the illustrations, plot, title, and author's intent in using certain images. For example, one question suggests that the reader run the words 'alien snow' together when saying it to see if they can figure out another meaning to the title (sounds like 'aliens know'). Include is also information on how the book (or comics in general) are created, from manuscript to pencil drawings to adding colour.

I really liked how the stories were told mainly through illustrations (there's very little narration or dialogue) and the endings were open ended (and a bit bizarre and disturbing!). I found that these aspects, combined with the different perspectives pictured by the two storylines, really made me engage with the plot more, requiring me to slow down to decipher what was really going on. At first glance I thought the double storyline would be a bit gimmicky, but after actually reading the books, I found I liked comparing the different viewpoints. I think this series opens the way for some good discussion and would be great for upper elementary/teen bookclubs or school novel studies. And I think think kids and teens will totally eat them up...

Thank you to Stone Arch Books, imprint of Capstone Press, for making copies of these books available to the Boys Do Read Blog writers. 

With the recent passing of Steve Jobs, there has been much about what he helped do to create the modern world.  Much of the focus is on his more recent achievements, such as helping conceive the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, but his influence starts much farther back, in the early days of microcomputing with the Apple I.  His influence reminded me of previous visionaries.  To whit, Arthur C. Clarke, Stanley Kubrick and  2001: A Space Odyssey.

Published in 1968 as a companion work to the film of the same name, it was ahead of its time in many of the predictions it made.  While not particularly accurate on a large scale (no bases on the moon, no tourist travel to space stations, etc.), computers were represented relatively accurately in their abilities.  Sure, there are no superintelligent computers out to kill us, but they do play a mean game of chess.

The story itself is about the evolution of man from its apelike origins to space exploration, all due to a big black monolith that just sort of sits there, in Africa, then the moon, and finally orbiting Jupiter (or Saturn, depending on which version you are reading).  And then some weird stuff that no one understands.

David Gerswhin is lying in bed next to Zelda. This is the closest he's ever got to a girl (and a super hot one no less) and it should be one of the most romantic moments in his life, but alas, he knows that all Zelda can think about is Johnny Depp. No, not like your average crazy-about-Johnny's-good-looks-and-bad-boy-image girls.  Zelda is a warrior from the planet of Vahalal and she is on a mission to kidnap her chosen one, aka Johnny Depp, back so that he can, well, help make babies to prevent the extinction of her Amazonian-like race. Yes, at first David and his therapist father thought Zelda is delusional too, but after she's showed off some of her out of this world space moves, he's convinced of her crazy story and content to be her loyal Pudin (basically like a slave, pronounced "pudding") and race around Paris with her till she finds Johnny, all the while thinking why oh why is he not the right match. 
This is one wild adventure. Funny at times and plenty weird and ridiculous, and it's one of those books you just have to shush your inner voice of reason and just run with it. David's mom is a total riot, and the ruthless Vahalalians are equally entertaining. A good summer read.
» Read an interview with the author on School Library Journal.