Love, Ruby Lavender

Author: Deborah Wiles
Review Writer: Book Girl
Ruby is looking forward to having a great summer. But then everything goes wrong. Her best friend, partner in crime, fellow chicken stealer and grandmother is taking a long trip to Hawaii. Plus her archenemy Melba Jane is meaner than ever. But then things start to look up when she makes a friend called Dove. Ruby is sure that she and Dove will be good friends; until Melba shows up and starts to tell the tragic story of how Melba Jane's father and Ruby's grandfather died when their car started to go off the bridge and into the road. Can Ruby turn her summer around?

"Good garden of peas! What a summer!"

The Firefly Letters

Author: Margarita Engle
Review Writer: Book Girl
This book is set in the time when Cuba still had slaves. Fredrika is from Sweden. When she comes to Cuba she thinks it is Paradise. Except for the slaves. The women in Cuba have a lot of rules the Fredrika doesn't follow, such as covering your head from the moon. She and a girl who lives in Cuba called Elena have a plan to free Cecilia, a slave. Will it work?

Journey to the River Sea

Author: Eva Ibbotson
Review Writer: Book Girl
Maia is an orphan whose parents got killed in an accident. Maia goes to a boarding school. However she finds out she has relatives across the ocean in Brazil. She goes to live with them and their governess. The family is not very nice and Maia is forced to be shut up inside the house all day. Then she makes friends with the natives there and everything changes.

Princess Academy

Author: Shanon Hale
Review Writer: Book Girl
Miri, named after a mountain flower, has lived on Mount Eskel all her life. Mount Eskel is the only place in Danland where you can mine linder, a prized building material. All the people who live in the village on Mount Eskel are very poor and often are very hungry. Life on Mount Eskel is predictable until one day when Miri's world is torn apart. The priest of the king has prophesised that the prince's future wife will come from Mount Eskel. All the eligible girls, including Miri, are sent to a Princess Academy where they will learn manners so that the prince may choose one of them at a ball. At the academy the girls are miserable, homesick and subjected to cruel punishment for breaking unfair rules. But one day Miri discovers a secret that will change their lives forever.

Trial by Journal

Author: Kate Klise
Review Writer: Cool Aunt Holly

Book Girl recommended this book to me, and I'm glad she did! It's the story of Lily Watson who is chosen to serve on the jury of a murder trial. Bob White is accused of killing Perry Keet, a boy from Lily's class at school. Everyone thinks that Bob did it, including Lily, but as the trial goes on, Lily starts to have some doubts.

Instead of a regular "narrative" form, the story is told using newspaper clippings, letters, and entries from the journal that Lily keeps during the trial. One of the best things is all the imaginative names of the characters!

This book is fun to read, and you can learn a little bit about what happens during a trial. (Although, if you're ever on a sequestered jury, I don't suggest that you sneak out like Lily did!)