December 8

Winter is a good time to check out a book, snuggle up on the couch and read.

Here are three new addition to the library.

Girls got game edited by Sue Macy
Gr. 6-9. Nine American women authors, including Virginia Euwer Wolff and Jacqueline Woodson, were invited to contribute original short stories about girls playing sports to this collection. Their contemporary realistic fiction mixes with a smattering of poetry sharing the leitmotiv of athleticism. The most successful stories offer engaging characters, artistically plotted action, and strong literary voices, and many of the selections, while featuring sports, are "about" other matters: first love, fitting in at school or within one's family, and other issues of early adolescence. Along with traditionally organized team sports, the sports chosen by the characters include synchronized swimming, tetherball, horseback riding, and stickball. All of the authors have other works in print suitable for this age group, and each story's endnote describes the writer's relationship to sports both as a girl and as a woman.

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner(Sequel to the Maze Runner)
Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end. No more puzzles. No more variables. And no more running. Thomas was sure that escape meant he and the Gladers would get their lives back. But no one really knew what sort of life they were going back to.

In the Maze, life was easy. They had food, and shelter, and safety . . . until Teresa triggered the end. In the world outside the Maze, however, the end was triggered long ago.
Burned by sun flares and baked by a new, brutal climate, the earth is a wasteland. Government has disintegrated—and with it, order—and now Cranks, people covered in festering wounds and driven to murderous insanity by the infectious disease known as the Flare, roam the crumbling cities hunting for their next victim . . . and meal.
The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and arrive at a safe haven in two weeks. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.
Thomas can only wonder—does he hold the secret of freedom somewhere in his mind? Or will he forever be at the mercy of WICKED?

Bullet Point by Peter Abrahams(Sequel  to Reality Check)
Grade 9 Up—Budget cuts spell death for sports programs at East Canton High so Wyatt, a sophomore on the varsity baseball team, is encouraged to move to Silver City to play ball and continue his chances at a college scholarship. Even though a technicality dashes his hopes to join the team, he's at loggerheads with his stepfather and, after a particularly dangerous blowup, decides to move anyway. In Silver City, he realizes that he is now living in the prison town where the biological father he's never met is serving life for murder. Meanwhile, he meets 19-year-old impulsive Greer, whose father is also in prison. Curious to know the circumstances involving Wyatt's father's incarceration, they investigate in the hope that Sonny is innocent. Told in a rapid-fire style, this novel aims at dimension but comes up a little shallow. Too many coincidences render some characters mere plot devices, and Wyatt often comes to emotional understanding too quickly, as when he first meets his father or deals with a confusing girlfriend. That being said, the book will be an easy sell to teens, who will want to keep reading to unravel the mystery surrounding Sonny. With descriptions of foreclosed properties and tough economic realities peppered liberally throughout, along with strong language and sexual situations, this title is as gritty and raw as today's headlines.