New year, fresh starts. Though at first it feels like a sorrowful ending, Rachel's new life begins when she leaves Africa for England, former youngest child Scott is starting his first year of high school and discovers that his world will change even more now that his mom is pregnant, and a narrow field of choices widens once the girls of Mount Eskel have a chance to go to school.

Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan

Listening for Lions is an enchanting story in the tradition of The Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson. Rachel's medical missionary mom and dad die when the 1918 flu epidemic reaches east Africa. Anxious to stay in the culture where she is comfortable and known, Rachel is cautiously hopeful when she is taken in by the neighboring English colonists, though their families have never been friendly and she knows they don't treat their workers fairly. Living with the Pritchards is worse than Rachel could have imagined - their daughter Valerie has died of the flu and the Pritchards want Rachel to return to England and impersonate Valerie so as to inveigle money from an elderly relative there. At every step along the way, Rachel tries to determine which choice would be the honest, truthful one, and despite many missteps, she remain firm in her desire to recover her own identity and return to Africa. I enjoyed the sense of place in Kenya and Rachel's struggles to become the daughter that would have pleased her parents.

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar

It's Scott's freshman year of high school and everyone is changing, especially the newly desirable Julia, who has blossomed into beauty over the summer. Scott's pursuit of Julia through involvement in after school activities provides a comedy of errors - he joins the school paper, tries out for the school play, runs for student government, only to find that as soon as he's committed to something, Julia has moved on to another interest. On the home front, mom and dad are expecting a surprise new baby, to whom Scott writes journal entries on how to survive high school. One of his most important pieces of advice is to stay friends with all the kids you knew from elementary school during middle school, in case, like Julia, they suddenly become much more interesting in high school. Scott's journals highlight his struggles as a writer as well as the difficulties his older brother Bobby has with reading, providing a strong literacy theme. Lots of laugh out loud funny parts.

The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

The title sounds like this is fluffy contemporary fiction, but it's actually a very involving fantasy. The people of Mount Eskel have always been second class citizens in the kingdom so all parties are surprised when one fall emissaries of the King arrive. They announce that the King's priest's have decided that the Prince's bride will come from this remote outpost populated by poorly educated miners and their families. Eligible girls are assembled at a hastily organized Princess Academy to learn appropriate manners so that they can be introduced to the prince in the spring. Miri's a bit of a misfit in Mount Eskel; she has never been strong enough to work in the mines but she has decidedly mixed feelings about being inspected by the Prince and can't imagine life in the royal city. The power of education transforms all of the princess candidates, who learn and progress despite the initial doubts of their haughty instructor. There's plenty of action interwoven with themes of exclusion, friendship, and the importance of family ties.

Chris Gustafson is the Library Teacher at Whitman Middle School. Do you have a question for Chris? Email her at cgustafson@seattleschools.org