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Staff Reviews: Action Adventure

Check out these reviews written by the staff of the Marathon County Public Library! (For reviews in all genres, visit our main Staff Reviews webpage.) Staff book reviews are also published at Goodreads.com; follow us for the latest updates.


Cover: 'The Shadow Hour'

"The Shadow Hour" by Melissa Grey

★★★★★ This follow up to "The Girl at Midnight" did not disappoint! Echo and her diverse crew may have survived their quest to discover the firebird, but the promised peace is a distant promise at best. Hidden away in a London safe house, they’ve escaped the detection of the two warring races (the Avicen and Drakharin) who covet the firebird and consider them...

Audience: Teens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure, Fantasy, Romance
Cover: 'Connect the Stars'

"Connect the Stars" by Marisa de los Santos, David Teague

★★★★ You could say that thirteen-year-old Audrey Alcott is obsessed with lying. She can’t help it. She instinctively knows when people are lying and it’s making her life so miserable that her parents send her to a six-week summer wilderness camp that promises attendees a “journey to confidence.” There she meets Aaron Archer, a kid with a brain like a walking...

Audience: Children, Tweens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure
Cover: 'The Girl Who Could Not Dream'

"The Girl Who Could Not Dream" by Sarah Beth Durst

★★★★ Imagine catching dreams, distilling them, pouring them into bottles and selling them to people searching for certain types of dreams. This is what Sophie’s parents do somewhat secretly in the lower level of their bookstore. Sophie, however, is not allowed to dream because when she does her dreams become real. Her octopus-like pet, Monster, came into her...

Audience: Children, Teens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure
Cover: 'Ice Dogs'

"Ice Dogs" by Terry Lynn Johnson

★★★★★ "Ice Dogs" is a very well written adventure book for tweens. The story is told from 14 year-old Victoria Secord's point of view, and follows her adventure of being lost in the Alaskan Wilderness. Victoria has grown up in Alaska and has been around dogsled racers most of her life. Following the death of her dad she takes to the races. While out on a run she...

Audience: Children, Tweens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure
Cover: 'Floors'

"Floors" by Patrick Carman

★★★★★ This book for tween boys is full of adventure and mystery. It is based in the Whippet Hotel, an exotic hotel geared for the rich. The main character, Leo, works for the hotel alongside his Dad. When Leo finds the first box, it starts him on an adventure throughout the hotel and the floors between the floors. For parents, there is none of the violence that...

Audience: Children, Tweens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure
Cover: 'The Sign of the Cat'

"The Sign of the Cat" by Lynne Jonell

★★★★★ Duncan McKay lives with his mother on the island of Arvidia and knows how to speak and understand the language of cats. His fearful mother is full of secrets, including information about his deceased father and mysteriously does not want him to excel at anything. In addition to Duncan’s questions about his identity, kittens on the island are disappearing,...

Audience: Children, Tweens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure
Cover: 'The League of Beastly Dreadfuls'

"The League of Beastly Dreadfuls" by Holly Grant

★★★★ Eleven-year-old Anastasia McCrumpet is snatched from her school library by two tiny “ancient” ladies claiming to be her great aunties; only she doesn’t have any great aunts. She is told that her parents have suffered an unfortunate vacuum cleaner accident. They take her, not to a hospital, but to a dreary Victorian home in the middle of nowhere that used to...

Audience: Children, Tweens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure
Cover: 'Ms. Rapscott's Girls'

"Ms. Rapscott's Girls" by Elise Primavera

★★★★ There are a lot of extraordinary things about the Great Rapscott School for Girls. The students arrive by air in E-Z open tab boxes, they are hand-picked from homes where the girls' parents are so busy they scarcely notice they’re gone, the school is located in a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, and the curriculum focuses on getting lost on purpose. The...

Audience: Children, Tweens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure
Cover: 'Batman: Earth One, Volume 1'

"Batman: Earth One, Volume 1" by Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Jon Sibal, Brad Anderson, Rob Leigh

★★★★★ "Batman: Earth One" goes back the beginning of the Batman saga, revisiting and recasting the murder of Bruce Wayne's parents and his eventual development into Batman. While the story remains basically unchanged, the brilliance here is in the details. Writer, Geoff Johns, creates a Gotham riddled with crime and hamstrung by political corruption on all levels...

Audience: Adults, Teens | Genre: Fiction, Graphic Novel, Superheroes, Action Adventure
Cover: 'The Boundless'

"The Boundless" by Kenneth Oppel

★★★★★ After three long years, teen-aged William Everett is dropped off at the train tracks in a town without a name to meet up with his father who is helping build the Canadian Pacific Railway.  The train they will be boarding is called "The Boundless" because of its size and magnificence.  After accidentally witnessing a murder and finding a train car...

Audience: Children, Tweens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure
Cover: 'The Winter of the Robots'

"The Winter of the Robots" by Kurtis Scaletta

★★★★★ It’s science fair time but Jim’s best friend Oliver always wants to build robots so he chooses a girl partner named Rocky.   He “borrows” cameras from his father’s security business and places them in a hidden junkyard in an attempt to study otters for their project.  They don’t find any otters, but discover strange noises and movement coming from...

Audience: Children, Tweens | Genre: Fiction, Action Adventure