Teen Pick of the Week: A Death-Struck Year

A deadly pandemic, a budding romance, and the heartache of loss make for a stunning coming-of-age teen debut about the struggle to survive during the 1918 flu.

A Death-Struck Year
by Makiia Lucier

For Cleo Berry, the people dying of the Spanish Influenza in cities like New York and Philadelphia may as well be in another country--that's how far away they feel from the safety of Portland, Oregon. And then cases start being reported in the Pacific Northwest. Schools, churches, and theaters shut down. The entire city is thrust into survival mode--and into a panic. Headstrong and foolish, seventeen-year-old Cleo is determined to ride out the pandemic in the comfort of her own home, rather than in her quarantined boarding school dorms. But when the Red Cross pleads for volunteers, she can't ignore the call. As Cleo struggles to navigate the world around her, she is surprised by how much she finds herself caring about near-strangers. Strangers like Edmund, a handsome medical student and war vet. Strangers who could be gone tomorrow. And as the bodies begin to pile up, Cleo can't help but wonder: when will her own luck run out?

Riveting and well-researched, A Death-Struck Year is based on the real-life pandemic considered the most devastating in recorded world history. Readers will be captured by the suspenseful storytelling and the lingering questions of: what would I do for a neighbor? At what risk to myself?

An afterword explains the Spanish flu phenomenon, placing it within the historical context of the early 20th century. Source notes are extensive and interesting.

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Small Fry Pick of the Week: The Year of Billy Miller

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes
* Newberry Honor Book

Things to know about Billy Miller:

• He's worried about second grade
• He thinks bats are cool
• His little sister is annoying
• He had a spectacular accident this summer
• He doesn't like poetry much
• His dad makes really good cookies
• Ned is his best friend
• His mom likes rainy days
• He thinks Emma Sparks is a pain
• He can run really fast
• This is his year

Ages 7+

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Teen Pick of the Week: One Man Guy

One Man Guy by
Michael Barakiva

Alek Khederian should have guessed something was wrong when his parents took him to a restaurant. Everyone knows that Armenians never eat out. Between bouts of interrogating the waitress and criticizing the menu, Alek’s parents announce that he’ll be attending summer school in order to bring up his grades. Alek is sure this experience will be the perfect hellish end to his hellish freshman year of high school. He never could’ve predicted that he’d meet someone like Ethan.

Ethan is everything Alek wishes he were: confident, free-spirited, and irreverent. He can’t believe a guy this cool wants to be his friend. And before long, it seems like Ethan wants to be more than friends. Alek has never thought about having a boyfriend—he’s barely ever had a girlfriend—but maybe it’s time to think again.

"Michael Barakiva’s One Man Guy is a romantic, moving, laugh-out-loud-funny story about what happens when one person cracks open your world and helps you see everything—and, most of all, yourself—like you never have before" (macteenbooks.com).

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Small Fry Pick of the Week:Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times

Flights and Chimes and Mysterious Times by Emma Trevayne

Ten-year-old Jack Foster has stepped through a doorway and into quite a different London.  Londinium is a smoky, dar, and dangerous place, home to mischievous metal faeries and fearsome clockwork dragons that breathe scalding steam.  The people wear goggles to protect their eyes, brass grill insets in their nostrils to filter air, and mechanical limbs to replace missing ones.

Over it all rules the Lady, and the Lady has demanded a new son--a perfect flesh-and-blood child.  She has chosen Jack.  His only hope of escape lies with a legendary clockwork bird.  The Gearwing grants wishes or it did before it was broken-before it was killed. But some thins don't stay dead forever.

Ages 8-12


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Teen Pick of the Week: Everything Leads to You

A love letter to the craft and romance of film and fate in front of—and behind—the camera from the award-winning author of Hold Still.

Everything Leads to You
by Nina Lacour

A wunderkind young set designer, Emi has already started to find her way in the competitive Hollywood film world.

Emi is a film buff and a true romantic, but her real-life relationships are a mess. She has desperately gone back to the same girl too many times to mention. But then a mysterious letter from a silver screen legend leads Emi to Ava. Ava is unlike anyone Emi has ever met. She has a tumultuous, not-so-glamorous past, and lives an unconventional life. She’s enigmatic… She’s beautiful. And she is about to expand Emi’s understanding of family, acceptance, and true romance.

"The writing was beautiful. The story was interesting. The characters were so very well developed. Everything about this book was really well done. And it just appeared on the Best Fiction for Young Adults list of nominees. Highly recommended" (www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com).

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Small Fry Pick of the Week: How People Learned to Fly

How People Learned to Fly by Fran Hodgkins


People have taken dangerous risks trying to fly.  Some inventors built wings for their arms and flapped them like birds.  Some built balloons.  Some built machines that glided with the wind.  It wasn't easy, though, and it took a long time and much experimentation until people invented the airplane.  Read and find out how people learned to fly.

Ages 5-9


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Teen Pick of the Week: Girls Like Us

With gentle humor and unflinching realism, Gail Giles tells the gritty, ultimately hopeful story of two special ed teenagers entering the adult world. 

We understand stuff. We just learn it slow. And most of what we understand is that people what ain’t Speddies think we too stupid to get out our own way. And that makes me mad. 

Girls Like Us
by Gail Giles

Quincy and Biddy are both graduates of their high school’s special ed program, but they couldn’t be more different: suspicious Quincy faces the world with her fists up, while gentle Biddy is frightened to step outside her front door. When they’re thrown together as roommates in their first "real world" apartment, it initially seems to be an uneasy fit. But as Biddy’s past resurfaces and Quincy faces a harrowing experience that no one should have to go through alone, the two of them realize that they might have more in common than they thought — and more important, that they might be able to help each other move forward.

Hard-hitting and compassionate, Girls Like Us is a story about growing up in a world that can be cruel, and finding the strength — and the support — to carry on. 

"This story is as beautiful as it is dark, walloping readers in the face with the grim realities of the lives of girls like Quincy and Biddy. It’s a monumental statement that not only does medicine need to reform how it treats people with mental disabilities, but society as a whole needs a serious change of heart, outlook and attitude on how we treat people like these girls... Girls Like Us will break your heart, but you will be glad for it, because you will learn an invaluable lesson, and ultimately, the breaking will feel more like an uplifting breath of air" (Corrine Fox for Teenreads.com). 

Click on the title to place it on hold at the Ventress Memorial Library.

Read a great book lately? Want to recommend it as Pick of the Week? Email me!

Curious to see what other new and hot titles we've added to our collection? Check out the NEW YA Fiction boards on the Ventress Memorial Library Pinterest page!