So can you tell I've been MIA since MASL? The last month of school is always a "fight to keep your head above water" blur and then I think we had summer break. It FLEW. And once again, I was too busy having fun to get my reading done. I did manage to knock out a few Trumans and my goal is to get a few more finished before kiddos show up in two (GULP! TWO?!) weeks and wipe the Truman shelf clean. So here are the ones I managed to finish this summer:
The Eleventh Plague: Stephen was born five years after the Collapse, when a huge war and plague changed life on Earth forever. He's never known anything other than roaming the country and living as a "salvager" to survive. Suddenly, he finds himself alone and needing help for his father--which leads him to the community of Settler's Landing. Settler's Landing has everything that the pre-Collapse world had: the residents live in actual houses and the children go to school and play baseball. It seems to be exactly what Stephen has missed his whole life. Then he meets a girl named Jenny who has different ideas about the world. When she and Stephen pull a prank that starts another war, the fate of Settler's Landing and Stephen's own future are at stake.
The Running Dream: Jessica's whole life revolves around running. But all that changes when her track bus is involved in an accident on the way home from a meet. Jessica wakes up in a hospital with one of her legs gone. All of a sudden it's not just running that's impossible--even figuring out how to get in the shower takes everything she has. To catch up on schoolwork, Jessica gets help from a girl named Rosa whose cerebral palsy has unfortunately always defined her. When a new leg offers the chance to run again, Jessica realizes how blessed she has always been and works toward a different kind of finish line.
Silhouetted by the Blue: Serena has big dreams for her seventh grade year. And when she gets the lead part in the musical, it seems like all of her dreams are coming true. But then there's everything at home. Her mom has died, her dad is down with the "blue," and her little brother, Henry, needs a parent, not just a older sister. Serena finds herself juggling laundry, grocery shopping, and cooking, not to mention her homework and play practice. How much can one girl handle and what happens when she finally admits that it's too much?
Lost in the River of Grass: It's hard to be excited about her class trip to the Everglades when Sarah just doesn't fit in. Instead, she's counting down the minutes until it's over. Then things start to look up when she meets a local boy named Andy who offers her an alternative to the next day's outing: a ride through the Everglades on his airboat. It's the perfect solution until something goes terribly wrong and Sarah realizes that no one knows where she is or who she's with. And Sarah herself barely knows this guy--and yet suddenly, she's relying on him to save her.
