September Girls Read and Guys Read

Every month we have two book clubs for kids here at the Provo City Library! These book clubs are just for kids ages 9-12 and a caregiver. This month, our Girls Read book club will meet September 24 and our Guys Read book club will meet September 26. You can register now, using the library's online calendar.

Girls Read is reading

Fish in a Tree

By Lynda Mullaly Hunt

New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2015. 276 pages.

Ally has a secret. Though she is a talented artist and math whiz, she cannot read. Now, in her seventh school in seven years, she plans to follow her normal pattern -- acting out in class to distract her teachers from the truth. It's just, whenever Ally tries to read, the words on the page move around and transform. When she tries to read, she gets headaches from trying to concentrate so hard. And, what's worse, Ally's never had a teacher who believed in her before. Now, she has a new long term substitute teacher named Mr. Daniels, who has a new way of teaching and insists that Ally is smart. This realistic fiction novel is a great back to school story with a protagonist that readers will want to cheer for.

Guys Read is reading

Mark of the Thief

By Jennifer A. Nielsen

New York: Scholastic Press, 2015. 339 pages.

Nic is a slave working in the mines of Ancient Rome, when he is sent into a sealed cavern to search for the treasure of Julius Caesar. What he finds is Caesar's bulla - a magical amulet thought to have given the emperor his great power -- and now that power belongs to Nic. Suddenly, Nic is on the run from powerful men in Rome who will kill Nic to get the bulla. With his sister still enslaved, Nic has to figure out how to get her out and escape with his life. This high-adventure, historical fantasy novel is great for readers who like stories with lots of action. Written by Jennifer A. Nielsen, a Utah-based author, this popular series is an exciting way to start the year in Guys Read!

Comments

Review: The Factory

The Factory By Catherine Egan New York, NY : Scholastic Inc., 2025. Fiction. 306 pages. Thirteen-year-old Asher Doyle has been invited to join the Factory, a secretive research facility in the desert which ostensibly extracts renewable energy from the electromagnetic fields of its young recruits. But Asher soon realizes something sinister is going on. Kids are getting sick. The adults who run the Factory seem to be keeping secrets. And the extraction process is not only painful and exhausting, but existentially troubling. Asher makes a handful of new friends who help him with an investigation that turns into a resistance, which turns into...a cliffhanger! The Factory is a page-turning sci-fi with multidimensional characters, an intriguing plot, and refreshingly straight-forward writing. Egan weaves in detail about climate crises and social unrest, making the story's dystopian setting feel rich and plausible. With its sophisticated themes and accessible storytelling, I would recomm...

Review: Blood in the Water

Blood in the Water By Tiffany D. Jackson New York: Scholastic, 2025. Fiction. 255 pages. 12-year-old Kaylani McKinnon can't help but feel like a fish out of water. She's a Brooklyn girl spending her summer on Martha's Vineyard surrounded by wealthy family friends in their mansion. All she really wants is to stay home all summer where she her incarcerated father can easily reach her, and she can keep working to find ways to prove him innocent of fraud and embezzlement. Despite her protests, she finds herself on the island with the snooty granddaughters of her host. Soon after Kaylani's arrival, a popular teen boy is found murdered and she decides to conduct her own investigation. As she tries to discover what happened to Chadwick Cooper, Kaylani finds that not everything on Martha's Vineyard is as perfect as it appears. Thrillers for middle grade readers can be hard to find, but Tiffany D. Jackson succeeds in her first middle grade novel. A quick moving plot, tight d...

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry

National Geographic Book of Animal Poetry Edited by J. Patrick Lewis National Geographic, 2012, 183 p. Poetry In this beautiful poetry collection, the National Children's Poet Laureate, J. Patrick Lewis, has teamed up with the amazing photographers at National Geographic. The result is 200 poems about animals, all illustrated with stunning nature photography. The poems are well chosen and include rhyming, free verse, and shape poetry. Some of the poems are funny, many are contemplative and all are nicely typeset on top of the full color photographs. One of my favorites is a shape poem about flamingos, with a photograph of a flock of flamingos which seem to be standing the the shape of a flamingo (how did they do that?). Lewis ends the collection with a brief but interesting section about writing animal poetry. This selection is sure to turn any animal lover into a poetry lover.

Provo Library Children's Book Blog

Search This Blog