Karen Hesse, PHOENIX RISING

YA about a girl Nyle whose community experiences nuclear disaster at The Plant not far away. Usual gritty Hesse, with a strong girl protagonist and an evacuee boy/friend who takes up residence in the "back room" (where everyone in Nyle's family dies); he too dies at end, from radiation poisoning. Good Gran, evil Ripley, and a girlfriend named Muncie. Not bad, but feels somewhat standard YA.

Irene Latham, LEAVING GEE'S BEND

Good tween/YA book. Her first novel, and well-written. Great first lines: "Mama pulled a chicken egg from behind the azalea bushy in our front yard and narrowed her eyes. 'Ludelphia Bennet! You go back in there and get your eye patch!'"
An eye patch? Hm!
Turns out Lu wears the eye patch because of a wood chip that flew from her father's hatchet; there's no doctor in Gee's Bend, AL, so when Mama takes sick, Lu has to cross the river and go to Camden to find a doctor. Hence, leaving Gee's Bend. But on the way to the doctor she meets the Angry Crazy White Boss Lady Mrs. Cobb who has never been able to have children (when Mama had too many that came early and died, and nearly killed her in the process). Lu's central activity is stitching quilts, and she hangs onto the needle and bits of cloth she collects as talismans against evil. Didn't quite do it for me as an "organizing" force to her psyche, but that may be because I don't quilt. But at least she didn't turn out to be yet another girl-who-longs-to-be-a-writer.

Ann Rinaldi, A BREAK WITH CHARITY: A STORY ABOUT THE SALEM WITCH TRIALS

YA Historical fiction.
Not Rinaldi's best but all her trademarks present: trouble, a bad historical moment, well-drawn and flawed characters with good intentions. Good for the 13-15 girl crowd.

Jenna Blum, THOSE WHO SAVE US

This is a first novel, and it's pretty well written. Like a lot of novels I'm seeing lately, it's told bouncing between points of view, which I happen to like. In this case it's past/present. But this is a Novel With A Purpose. Not saying it's not a valid purpose. The premise is that Trudy, whose mother was the German mistress of a Nazi officer and an assistant in a bakery in Weimar, is a college professor interested in hearing and videotaping stories from average Germans during the war. Naturally she encounters some horrid Germans who still hate Jews; some decent Germans who helped hide Jews; and one man who is Jewish and reads a blistering prepared document for Trudy's camera.
The tough part, narratively speaking, is that the last interview is with a man who just Happens to be from Weimer and just Happened to see Trudy's mother delivering bread one day and just Happened to have met a man named Max in the Buchenwald camp, and just Happened to know that Max was in love with Trudy's mother and had a child with her out of wedlock. OH MY GOODNESS! Trudy thinks. You mean, I'm not the daughter of a horrible Nazi officer? I'm the daughter of a Jewish doctor? And the book ends. The good thing is that Anna, Trudy's mother, refuses to acknowledge the truth of what this man says. That feels psychologically real to me, and saves the book from being a melodrama. Worth a read. I give it a B.

Alan Bradley, THE WEED THAT STRINGS THE HANGMAN'S BAG

A fun book--from the author who wrote "The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie." But although the 11-year-old protagonist has a fairly original, feisty voice, and has a nice array of bizarre interests (including poisons), the point of view (and narrative power) is somewhat limited by her age and some typical tween brattiness. But a fun read, worth two hours of time.

Elly Griffiths, THE CROSSING PLACES

A fun new series featuring a detective heroine who is more than just a few eccentric traits cobbled together to make a personality. The book is plot-driven, good on setting and dialog, and contains some creepy characters. I wish there were more twists and that the criminal had more motivation than just madness for his acts of cruelty ... which I always feel is a bit of a cheap way out for a writer. But this was a good, quick read. I would read the next.