The Red Pyramid

The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan, Hyperion 2010

     When estranged siblings Sadie and Carter Kane are reunited for their semi-annual visit there is something odd about the family trip to the British Museum's Egyptian Wing. When their father breaks apart the Rosetta Stone to release five ancient Egyptian gods their entire worlds fall apart. Julius Kane is possessed by Osiris and captured by Set, the god of chaos. Sadie and Carter are swept away to New York by their Uncle Amos before the magicians from the House of Life may capture them.
     In New York Amos's house is the New York base of the House of Life, and full of mysteries, along with some out-of-the-norm pets: Khufu, a baboon, and Philip of Macedonia, an albino crocodile. Amos explains that Sadie and Carter are the Blood of the Pharaohs--descended from ancient royal lines. But before they can begin to train as magicians of the House of Life Amos vanishes and their home is under attack. Sadie's cat, Muffin, transforms into the cat Goddess Bast before they children's very and leads them to the safety of a portal. However, before they can truly escape, Bast is attacked by the scorpion goddess Serquet. The two are rescued by Zia, a magician from the House of Life.
     Zia brings Sadie and Carter to the House of Life headquarters where they meet Iskandar, the Chief Lector and Head of the House, who invites the Kane children to train there. Both Sadie and Carter begin to spirit travel in their dreams: Carter has visions of Set planning to destroy North America and conquer the world, and Saide has visions of the Egyptian Pantheon and their struggles to maintain Ma'at--the order of the universe. After a particularly restless night at the House of Life, Zia leads Sadie and Carter to a test which will determine their expertise. Before they can finish though, Iskandar is found to have died after two thousand years as Chief Lector, and his replacement, Desjardins orders their execution for housing Isis and Horus. Zia sends them on their path to end Set's plan, but the House of Life is hot on their trail.
     In the end Sadie and Carter are faced with life-altering choices and must surrender to their destinies to save the world from Chaos. Blending human creativity with the power of the gods, they change the course of history and set the stage for an even greater battle. Sadie and Carter's story examines and challenges the ideas of fate and convention, the House of life is mired in convention refusing its members the chance to defeat the enemies who truly challenge Ma'at and use all the resources available. Sadie and Carter learn the value of friendship and family ties as they discover their true motives and shed the false motivations to find themselves.
     This is the first in a new series from Rick Riordan chronicling the adventures of Sadie and Carter Kane as they discover more about themselves and their ancestors in order to help balance order and chaos in the universe. The book is appropriate for readers as young as third grade.

City of Ashes

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare, 2008 McElderberry

     After discovering she is a Shadowhunter and that her mother had lied to her for the greater part of her life, Clarissa Fray is avoiding her new-found brother and the world he represents. Clary stays with Luke, her werewolf godfather, in his home while her mother is in the hospital in a coma. Simon, Clary's best friend, has professed his feelings, and the two try out a relationship of something more than friendship; somewhat unsettling for Clary as she still has feelings for Jace (her long lost brother).
     Clary's silence is unsettling for Jace--he is torn between how he should care for his younger sister and how he does care for her. He begins to hunt demons to take the edge off, rather than because it is his job, and the Lightwood children begin to worry. Things escalate when Isabelle and Alec's mother Maryse Lightwood returns and banishes him from the institute.
     Leaving the Institute, Jace goes to a downworlder bar where he picks a fight with Luke's werewolf pack. When one of the Lycanthrope children is attacked by a mysterious figure, the pack calls on Jace to help. When Jace refuses, wallowing in self-pity for being kicked out of his only home and Clary's silence, Luke intervenes and stops the pack from murdering him. Luke convinces Clary to talk to Jace and the two convince him to return to the Institute and speak to Maryse.
     The Shadowhunter's Inquisitor comes to investigate Jace's involvement with Valentine at the end of City of Bones. She is a cold woman and shows an extreme dislike for Jace from the get-go, when Jace's arrogance angers her, the Inquisitor locks him in cells in the underground Silent City of the Silent Brothers. While he is there, Valentine steals the Soul-Sword of Raziel the Angel using a fear demon to kill the Silent Brothers. Coupled with the murder and draining of several downworlder children, Jace, Clary, Simon, Isabelle, and Alec piece together Valentine's plan to turn the Sword against the Nephilim and give it power over demons.
     In their quest to rally aid, the group enters the faery realm. Jace and Clary discover their father had done something to give his unborn children special capabilities, though the two deny anything special. When she is tricked into eating some of the fairy food, Clary is nearly trapped, but the queen offers her freedom at the "kiss she most desires." Simon thinks the kiss is from him, but it is when Jace kissed Clary that she is freed. The turn of events causes a rift between Simon and Clary, who had been becoming closer and closer.
     Simon storms away when they return to the human realm, only to be brought to the Institute by Raphael, the leader one one of New York's vampire clans. Simon had ingested some vampire blood during his time as a rat, and when he broke into the vampire nest, Raphael's clan attacked him and began the process of turning him. They bury Simon and watch the transformation of his vampire re-birth. Clary and Simon begin rebuilding their relationship and Clary gives up her contact with Jace as penance for her part in Simon's new status. While they're trying to figure out how to tell his mother, Maia (one of Luke's pack) is attacked on Luke's front lawn. Clary calls the Shadowhunters and Magnus Bane to heal her, but Luke is injured when the demons sent after Maia catch him and Magnus must help him as well. Jace and Clary hurry to Luke's rescue and fight his assailants, who flee when they catch a glimpse of the Mark Clary recieved from her mother in a dream.
     When the two return to the house talk turns to Clary's use of the runes: the opening rune she used in the Silent City was much too strong to be a simple opening rune, yet it was. She puts forth the idea that her special ability was the ability to put more power into the runes than they possessed on their own, and to create new runes. Clary creates a "fearless" rune and the group tests it on Alec, who declares to the world that he is dating someone, but Magnus silences him when he begins to say who. Alec wakes and is defensive, claiming not to remember anything--a sign the rune worked.
     They decide to turn in for the night while Maia and Luke heal, but Jace sneaks away on Raphael's demonic motorcycle to meet with Valentine on a ship in the middle of the river. He promises Jace not to kill his loved ones if Jace will return to him, but Jace refuses. When he returns to the other Shadowhunters, the Inquisitor accuses him of siding with Valentine and threatens to kill him if Valentine doesn't return the Mortal Cup and Soul Sword. Jace tells her his father won't make the trade, but the Inquisitor insists a father's love will trump his desire for power--she hopes to take revenge for the death of her child.
     Maia leaves Luke's home, but on her way to visit Simon, the fear demon attacks her and brings her to Valentine. Meanwhile, Valentine comes for Simon. Clary, Luke, Jace, and Magnus go after Maia and Simon and manage to rescue Maia. But when Jace finds Simon, he has already been drained of blood. Jace allows Simon to drink from him and restore his life, then joins the fray on the ship's deck. The Inquisitor and New York's Shadowhunters join the battle against Valentine's demon army. The Inquisitor stops Jace in the middle of the battle, and is surprised when she sees a star-shaped scar on his shoulder. She nearly immediately gives her life for him causing him to question her change of heart.
     When Clary is kidnapped by one of Valentine's demons, Jace follows. Valentine declares he knows Jace joined the fight against him because of his not-quite-brotherly feelings for Clary, revealing that he knows the fear demon took her form at their first encounter. In return Jace tells Valentine that their second encounter ended with the demon's death in the form of Valentine himself. Jace gets Clary's stele to her, allowing her to blow the ship apart at the seams and end the battle.
     Clary falls into the river, to be plucked out by nixies sent by the Faery queen. They return to shore where dawn is quickly coming. Simon discovers that Jace's blood allows him to survive the daylight, unlike his fellow vampires, and life returns to some semblance of normal. Luke and Clary discuss his feelings for her mother, and Clary convinces Luke that it's beyond time to reveal those feelings to Jocelyn, despite her comatose state. She follows a similar path with Jace, but before she can tell him, Jace says he will only love her like a brother, breaking her heart. Befoer she can process the hurt, however, one of Clary's mother's companions from Idris says she knows how to wake Jocelyn.
     Throughout the battles and tangled love connections, Clary Fray learns to deal with her new-found family, especially the strange feelings she has for her brother. Her story is one of self-discovery and learning to take control of her own life, she fights for what she believes in and uses what power she has discovered to care for those who she loves. Clary is a role model for any young woman to take as an example; though her relationship with Jace is questionable, there are hints of life not being quite as it seems. Clare's City of Ashes is a vivid read and plays into the supernatural genre well. An ideal audience are high school aged readers, like the main characters, however any lover of supernatural fiction will find something enjoyable in the telling.

Rampant

Rampant by Diana Peterfreund, 2009 Harper Teen

     Astrid Llewelyn is a pretty normal sixteen-year-old, for a girl whose single mother lost her promising career as a scholastic researcher to become a single mother obsessed with man-eating killer unicorns. Astrid has grown up thinking her mother was crazy, hearing the terrifying stories about the creatures and their powers, and hearing the lament that unicorns are extinct. Until Astrid meets one who gores her boyfriend, nearly killing him.
     When the small goat-like creature nearly kills Brandt, Astrid's world is turned upside down: not only is her crazy mother not so crazy, but she insists that Astrid travel to Rome to learn to hunt unicorns. With her life falling apart, Astrid agrees to her mother's plans and travels to Rome. While there she meets several other young women who fulfill the strict requirements to become a Unicorn Hunter: female, virgin descendants of Alexander the Great.
     Each of the young women are from one of the great Hunter families and Cory, Cornelia Bartoli of the Leandrus line, insists that each of the families possessed a talent that is inherent in the young women's DNA and therefore they are skilled just as their ancestors were. She is gung-ho about the mission the Cloister has reclaimed and ushers the new recruits through an orientation immersing them in the new unicorn-inhabited world they must acknowledge and thrive in.
     In contrast, Astrid and her cousin Philippa are determined to have some fun on their trip to Rome and sneak out of the convent several times to meet their new friends Seth and Giovanni. In between learning to be hunters and trying to discover as much about unicorns as possible they actually manae to form some sort of relationship with the two young men. Neil, the Hunters' guardian, trainer, and big-brother, is furious when he discovers Phil's field trips--afraid of losing any Hunters. But isolation from the world they grew up in makes it difficult for the girls to cohabit after several weeks. On their first sanctioned outing the young women run into a re'em, large as an ox, and discover their abilities are in no way a match for such a massive unicorn. Somehow they succeed but it signals a shift in the attitude of the Hunters.
     Soon afterward Neil and the girls discover their corporate sponsor, Gordian, has broken contact and vanished. Before the Huners know what to do about it, they lose one of their own to an over-amorous boyfriend. The rage she feels when Seth forces Phil pushes Astrid to roam the city, but before she can exact her revenge Astrid passes out on a park bench.
     That night she dreams of a conversation with Bucephalus, a conversation which is continued when Astrid nearly dies during a battle with the kirin. Bucephalus explains that the extinction of Unicorns was an agreement allowing both Unicorns and Hunters to live peacefully for hundreds of years. Their re-emergence was a breach of the contract and Bucephalus required the aid of the Hunters to bring the rebel kirin back under control. He also gives Astrid clues on how to speed up the emergence of the Hunters' abilities to make them a match for the upcoming battles. Bucephalus gives Astrid the opportunity to let the other Hunters believe she has died.
    She calls Giovanni to help her back to the Convent and arrives in just enough time to stop the Hunters from breaking apart and giving up their fight. She encourages them toward the inevitable clash between the rebel kirin and the Hunters where they discover their contact at Gordian has one final betrayal in store.
     Rampant blends unicorns into our world as if they always existed. It deals with ideas of destiny and duty as results of self-discovery and how being robbed of those choices can either destroy or strengthen the victim. Concepts of sexuality and rape are addressed in terms that can both simplify and complicate the ideas for young readers. However, it is handled in a manner many young women encounter.
     The story is a flair of "what would happen if unicorns really existed in our world?" and is done very well. Rampant is aimed at middle and high school readers, though anyone who enjoys fantasy can enjoy it.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, 1999 Bloomsbury Publishing

     Harry returns to the Dursleys' house for the summer after his first spectacular year at Hogwarts. Very few things have changed: Harry is still at the beck and call of his aunt, uncle, and cousin, but he has been moved from the cupboard under the stairs to the upstairs second bedroom. While the Dursleys are hosting a dinner party a house-elf, Dobby, appears to Harry and attempts to warn him away from returning to Hogwarts. However Dobby's methods only cause more problems at the Dursley home encouraging Harry to return to school at the earliest opportunity.
     That opportunity is presented when Ron, Fred, and George Weasley steal their father's flying car and break Harry out of Number 4 Privet Drive. Harry spends the rest of the summer at the Burrow with the Weasley family.
     Preparations for school go awry when Harry mispronounces Diagon Alley and the Floo network (magical transportation from fireplace to fireplace) sends him to the dark-arts center, Knockturn Alley. Hagrid rescues him and returns Harry to the Weasleys in Diagon Alley. Harry and Ron's family meet Gilderoy Lockheart--a famous wizard taking up the position of Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts--who insists upon a picture with Harry for the papers. Returning to Hogwarts is again difficult for Harry and Ron when the barrier onto the Platform refuses to let them through; they borrow the flying car again, following the train, but crash into the Womping Willow when they try to land it. They manage to make it to Hogwarts, but Mrs. Weasley sends Ron a Howler proclaiming her displeasure to the entire banquet hall and threatening to yank him out of school if he misbehaves.
     Harry, Ron, and Hermione discover that his fame is all Lockheart is willing to talk about and his classes become monuments to his accomplishment, rather than teaching opportunities. Things get even stranger than normal at Hogwarts when Mrs. Norris, the caretaker Filtch's cat, is petrified and someone writes in blood on the wall "The Chamber of Secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir beware." The trio does some research and discovers Salazar Slytherin had created the Chamber of Secrets during the building of Hogwarts, it houses a monster only the heir can control.
     Harry comes under suspicion when he speaks Parseltongue at a meeting of Lockheart's dueling club--Slytherin was known for his ability to speak Parseltongue. When Harry finds Nearly Headless Nick and an annoying Gryffindor first-year petrified he becomes the number one suspect. Harry and his friends suspect Malfoy and disguise themselves as Crabbe and Goyle to test their theory. Malfoy is not the heir, but he reveals the chamber was opened fifty years before. Things are quiet but soon a mysterious journal appears in a flooded bathroom. Harry writes in the journal and it writes back: it houses the spirit of Tom Riddle, a student who, fifty years previously, falsely accused Hagrid of opening the Chamber of Secrets getting Hagrid expelled.
     It isn't until Hermione is petrified and sent to the Hospital Wing that the boys learn what the creature is or how it travels the castle. The basilisk slinks through Hogwarts at the beck and call of the heir and those lucky enough to escape its direct glance are simply frozen in place rather than immediately killed. But with Hermione lost Harry and Ron hurry to find Hagrid, hoping to discover the heir before he or she can do more damage to the school. Before they can speak to him, Hagrid is taken to Azkaban prison for opening the Chamber and releasing its terrors on the school. His only advice is to "follow the spiders" as they flee Slytherin's creature. Harry and Ron follow the spiders into the Forbidden Forest where they come across Aragog, a giant spider and pet of Hagrid's. Aragog points them to the girl killed fifty years before, a girl found in a bathroom. The only answer is Moaning Myrtle, a ghost living in the bathroom where she died.
     Harry and Ron drag an escaping Lockheart along with them as they enter Myrtle's bathroom. Using Parseltongue, Harry opens the chamber, but must leave Ron with an incapacitated Lockheart when he causes a cave-in with Ron's broken wand. Within the chamber proper, Harry discovers a semi-solid Tom Riddle over Ginny's prone form. Riddle tricked Ginny into opening the chamber and acting for him until he was strong enough to reform and take over his inheritance. Riddle calls the basilisk to kill Harry, who cannot fight back as he cannot look at the creature.
     Dumbledore's phoenix, Fawkes, appears with the sorting hat and blinds the basilisk, infuriating Riddle. The phoenix drops the hat and it produces Godric Gryffindor's sword, giving Harry a chance against the giant serpent. He defeats the creature, but is bitten by one of its poison fangs. Fawkes's tears heal Harry's wound, but Riddle is solid and attacks him. Harry stabs the journal with the basilisk fang and it bleeds ink as Riddle disintegrates into nothing.
     Harry and Ginny return to the cave-in and, with Lockheart and Ron, the school where they reunite with the Weasleys. Ron and Harry are commended, the basilisk's victims are revived, and all returns to normal. Harry confronts Lucius Malfoy, Draco's father, for slipping the journal to Ginny and tricks him into releasing Dobby the house-elf, earning Dobby's eternal gratitude. Harry reluctantly returns to the Dursley home for the summer holidays.
     In this second novel, Harry encounters a crisis of identity: while he knows he is not the perpetrator of the crimes, his entire school is not so convinced and the evidence against him grows. Harry must deal with the difference between what he knows to be true and what the people around him believe, yet he manages to maintain his sense of self, listening to his mentors' advice--we are a sum of our choices, rather than our abilities. Dobby's appearance and the accompanying prejudices mirrors challenges of race and personhood that appear throughout our society, as do the issues of magical and non-magical beings and their access to the magical world. One major theme that is magnified through Lockheart and Riddle's Diary is the acceptance of information without looking into motivations or biases. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is about muddling through appearances and deciding whom to become based on personal wants and desires, rather than the dictates of society. The ideal audience is older elementary to middle school, though anyone can find something enjoyable in the story.

Jake Drake, Teacher's Pet

Jake Drake, Teacher's Pet by Andrew Clements, 2001 Aladdin Books

     Jake is just a normal fourth grade boy: he enjoys school and hanging out with his friends, but Jake becomes concerned when his teacher is paying special attention to one of Jake's classmates. He spends the entire day worried the other boy is becoming teacher's pet and it reminds him of a week at the end of third grade when he unintentionally became every teacher's pet.
   Jake goes on to narrate his week, how no matter how hard he tried everything he did seemed to please the teachers. Even the loss of rock-paper-scissors and cleaning up after lunch got the applause of the principal. Jake's classmates began to turn against him, but after some gutsy conversation with the principal Jake's problems were resolved.
     Any child who has been the ridicule of classmates for their status as teacher's pet can relate to Jake in this misadventure. It is through remembering to be himself that Jake becomes just another student again; reminding young readers to be themselves, despite what other students may think.
     The Jake Drake series is focused toward middle elementary students with illustrations and large print for learning readers.