Recently Read...

I just finished The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart and really enjoyed it. Frankie is a sophomore at an elite boarding school and she is initially thrilled when the big man on campus chooses her as his girlfriend. She soon discovers that he is only interested in her pretty surface, not in her as a whole person of intelligence and wit. Frankie knows more about him and his secret life than he realizes, and he shows no interest in learning more about her. Frankie feels misunderstood and underappreciated by everyone around her, so she infiltrates the all-male secret society at the high school and designs a series of pranks that have the entire school talking. Just not about her or the messages she was trying to send. The plot is more complex than this thumbnail, but I don't want to give too much away.

This was an entertaining read, and Frankie is a believeable character who I came to admire, in spite of her "crimes". I want to read more by this author, E. Lockhart, to see what I've been missing. We have a copy in the Young Adult collection at Canton and at Fines Creek.

Another recent read that I enjoyed was Olivia Kidney by Ellen Potter, from our Juvenile fiction collection at Canton. It touches on themes of loss and family upheaval, and might be a sort of therapeutic reading choice for kids going through a divorce or death in the family. Olivia is a feisty 12 year old who feels out of place in her new school. The story opens with her trying to find her keys so she can get in the apartment building where she has just moved in. All of the action takes place in one busy, strange, magical kind of day. I enjoyed it so much that I'm planning on reading the next two books in the series.

What have you read lately? Did you love it, like it, hate it or just feel "meh"? I'd love to know!