Active Voice

By Derek Landy [Librarything - Amazon]

When Stephanie’s Uncle Gordon dies and leaves his house and fortune to her, she finds that she’s also inherited her fair share of dangerous secrets – not to mention the friendship of the walking, talking, magic-wielding skeleton Skulduggery Pleasant. A detective by trade, Skulduggery is investigating the mysterious circumstances surrounding Gordon’s death, which he believes are tied in with a plot to bring back a race of evil, destructive gods and destroy civilization as we know it. Together with Ghastly the magical boxing tailor and Tanith the goofy-but-ruthless swordswoman, and armed with a little bit of magic and a whole lot of snappy patter, Stephanie and Skulduggery must navigate a network of conspiracies and double-crosses in order to unlock Uncle Gordon’s secrets and save the world.

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By Patrick Carman [Librarything - Amazon]

Like the other denizens of Tabletop, Atheron’s middle level, eleven-year-old Edgar can’t read. So when he comes across a secret book that was left to him years ago, he has no choice but to climb the almost-sheer cliffs separating Tabletop from the ruling level, the Highlands, in search of someone to read his book to him. There he befriends a quiet, bookish boy named Samuel, who reads in the book the hidden truth behind Atherton’s recent earthquakes – the Highlands are collapsing into Tabletop. As the people of Tabletop discover the treachery of those in power and prepare to make war on the Highlands, Edgar embarks on a desperate journey to the desolate Flatlands, Atherton’s lowest level, where he may find the answer to the mysteries of Atherton’s very existence – and, possibly, its destruction.

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By Jane Yolen [Librarything - Amazon]

Austar IV used to be a planet-wide penal colony, but these days it’s a gambling world—people come from all over the galaxy to bet on the dragon fights. For Jakkin Stewart, a bond servant, those fights hold his hope. He’s managed to steal a hatchling from his Master and is raising and training it in a secret desert oasis, hoping that when it’s big enough, he can take it to the fights and win enough money to buy his freedom.

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By Alan Snow [Librarything - Amazon]

Arthur has lived underground with his grandfather his whole life, until one night, while foraging for food, he witnesses a sinister group of men on a cheese hunt – even though hunting wild cheeses has been outlawed for years. Soon Arthur finds himself wrapped up with the cheese hunters and their mysterious plan to destroy the city of Ratbridge. With the help of his fellow underground denizens, the clever boxtrolls and the shy cabbageheads, plus a ragtag crew of piratical humans, rats, and crows, Arthur must stop Snatcher and his fellow Cheese Guild members before they eliminate Ratbridge – and the peaceful creatures living beneath it – forever.

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By James Patterson [Book One: Librarything - Amazon / Book Two: Librarything - Amazon]

Her name is Maximum Ride. She’s 98% human, 2% bird. And the girl can fly.

Max and her flock—that is, the other five mutant kids with wings—are on the run. They escaped from the despicable School where they were created, kept prisoner, and experimented on, but their only human ally, a former whitecoat scientist named Jeb, has gone missing…or gone back to the badguys. No matter where they go, the Erasers (bloodthirsty human-wolf hybrids who obey only the whitecoats) are after them, trying to kill them…or worse, bring them back to the School.

For the last few years, they’ve been safe. But when the Erasers show up from nowhere and kidnap Angel, the youngest member of the flock, Max has to do what she’s always feared and go back to the School. The only upside? They hope that somewhere at the School is information about why they were created, and who their parents are…if they even have parents. In the second book, the search for information on their origins continues, but this time a Voice in Max’s head complicates matters by insisting that she’s wasting time which would be better spent, you know, saving the world.

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By J. V. Hart [Librarything - Amazon]

James is not your average boy. With his lanky build, long black curls like candles, and sinister, aloof demeanor, he would be set apart from his peers at Eton even without the shame of being born a bastard hanging over his head – not to mention the fact that he bleeds yellow. He is also clever and fearless, however, and soon wins the admiration of his house (the Oppidans), the friendship of the loyal “Jolly” Roger Davies, and the love (he hopes) of the beautiful Ottoman Sultana Ananova. But ill fate dogs James, and before long he is exiled to sea, the first step in a chain of events that will turn him into the dreaded Captain Hook.

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Cornelia Funke (translation by Anthea Bell) [Librarything - Amazon]

Inkheart is about a girl, Meggie, whose life turns into a fantasy story when strange people begin chasing her father, trying to bring him and a mysterious book to a villain named Capricorn. Along the way, they befriend a grouchy book lover, Elinor, and have strange dealings with a traveling showman, Dustfinger.

When the group is caught and kidnapped, Meggie learns that her father, Mo, has the magical ability to read characters out of books…but in doing so, he reads someone else in. Her mother long ago disappeared into the book “Inkheart” as out came Capricorn, Dustfinger, and one of Capricorn’s henchmen. Though Mo has tried many times to read Meggie’s mother back out, he’s never succeeded—he doesn’t have any control over his ability.

Then it turns out that Meggie has inherited her father’s ability…and Capricorn plans to use her to read an even more horrible, murderous creature out of the book.

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By Jeanne DuPrau [Librarything - Amazon]

Nickie Randolph wants Greenhaven, her family’s ancient estate in the small town of Yonwood, to be her new home. She’s tired of Philadelphia, and with the world in the state it’s in, big cities aren’t safe. Neither her aunt nor her mother wants to take care of the big hulking house now that her great-grandfather has died, but Nickie talks her aunt Crystal into taking her along when she goes to fix up the house for sale, and she fully plans to spend that time convincing her aunt to keep the house so the family can move in and be together…someday, when her father gets back from his top secret government project. Since she’s got a plan anyway, Nickie adds two more goals: to fall in love, and to do something to help the world.

But things in Yonwood aren’t as perfect as she imagined. Like everywhere in the country, the town is worried about an almost inevitable war, but the town thinks it will be spared. A local citizen, Althea Tower, has had a vision from God of the world on fire, and now in a fevered fit she gives commands from the Lord. Most of the town’s members have decided to do their best to follow the Prophet’s orders, even when they’re hard and require sacrifices, like no singing. But things start to get worse as the world gets closer to war. People who don’t obey the Prophet are singled out and shunned, and are forced to wear electronic bracelets that produce noise designed to drive them crazy.

At first, Nickie thinks following the Prophet is the way to go…but when she inadvertently betrays her only friend in the town and almost gets an innocent man arrested, she starts to wonder. Then the Prophet gives an order that seems impossible to accept, and Nickie has to decide once and for all what she believes.

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By Rebecca Rupp [LibraryThing - Amazon]

Ever since he lost his grandfather’s pocket watch with its mysterious inscription, Choose time or lose time, Alex has been in what you might call a funk. Time seems to be racing past him too fast, and since it all ends eventually, he thinks, why even bother? That is, until a strange old woman tells him to look for his watch on the blue moon, where all lost things go.

Once Alex and his dog Zeke hitch a ride on a spaceship piloted by three-foot-tall moon rats, he teams up with Tetley, the runt of the moon rats, plus Miss Mumsley, a prim suffragette who has lost her heart, and Simon, an Elizabethan math nerd who has lost his way. From there he has three days to find his lost watch before the moon ceases to be blue and he’s trapped there indefinitely. The companions must navigate through weird allegorical locations like the Inn of Abandoned Plans, the Pointless Tower, and the Cave of Lost Tempers, while avoiding the Time Eaters, who do exactly what their name implies. Complicating things is Urd, youngest of the Norns (Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters, similar to the Greek Fates), who wants to steal everyone’s time to keep herself eternally youthful.

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By Jodi Lynn Anderson [Librarything - Amazon]

May Bird and the Ever After is the story of socially awkward ten-year-old May Ellen Bird and her hairless cat, Somber Kitty. It’s just been May, her mother, and Somber Kitty for her whole life, and May just doesn’t fit in at school, no matter how hard she tries. Really, the only place she does fit in is the woods of Briery Swamp…Until she falls into a strange, hidden lake, and when she climbs out, she can see ghosts all over.

Strange things start to happen, culminating with May and Kitty falling through the lake into the bizarre Ever After, a land of ghosts, spirits, specters, goblins, ghouls, demons, and other assorted creepy evil types. The Ever After is a dangerous place, especially for cats and Live Ones, and despite having received a desperate plea for help, all May wants to do is get out—before the Bogeyman or Evil Bo Cleevil catch her and turn her into nothing.
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