Stories from Miss Bunsen's School for Brilliant Girls

Light as a Feather [series: Miss Bunsen's School for Brilliant Girls]
by Erica-Jane Waters
128 pages; ages 7 - 9 years
Albert Whitman & Company, 2019

Miss Bunsen’s School for Brilliant Girls is a new chapter book series that celebrates STEM STEAM. Pearl, Millie, and Halinka are a tight trio of friends who tackle all kinds of challenges throughout the series.

In Light as a Feather they are trying to design and build a flying machine for the Annual Girls of Science Games Day. A famous astronaut has issued a challenge: to build their flying craft from environmentally-friendly materials. The winning team gets to spend a week at her space center, plus a trip into space aboard a shuttle.

I like how the three friends work as a team, and their plan to use recycled metal from drink cans and re-purpose other materials. When a fire breaks out and destroys their machine, they rebuild, making do with old tomato cans, rubber hoses, wire whisks, and a few other intriguing “found” items. But will their craft remain airborne long enough? And can they pedal it fast enough to win?

This is the second book in the series about the trio of best friends who attend a funky old school. The school is old, underfunded, and perpetually plagued by squirrels.

The first book in the series, If the Hat Fits features an invention/engineering competition. If they win, the money could help keep the school open.

And there’s a third book coming out next spring: Penny for Your Thoughts. The blurb from the publisher says that Pearl, Millie, and Halinka put their problem-solving skills to the test in a maze competition. But… they find themselves trapped in a strange maze, and Miss Bunsen has to give up her book of secrets in order to set them free. They will need to keep their wits to solve their way out of the puzzle.


Review copy provided by the publisher.

23 Minutes

23 Minutes
by Vivian Vande Velde
176 pages; ages 12 - 16
Boyds Mills, 2016

Fifteen-year-old Zoe has a secret power: she can travel back in time to relive events she wants to change. There are only a couple caveats: she can only travel back in time 23 minutes, and whenever she changes things it never ends well. Plus people think she's crazy.

So when she steps into a bank to get out of the rain - and finds herself in the middle of a robbery gone wrong - Zoe tries to help. By going back in time.

There are two things that I really like about this book: the consistency of this magical power; and that small changes have unexpected results. While Zoe has this talent/superpower, she's not sure what all the rules are. So when someone dies in the bank robbery, she thinks that maybe she can go back in time to save a life. On round two, she calls the police - only this time it ends up worse.

She tries again. And again. And each time some little thing results in a horrible ending. And then there's that third caveat: she has a limited number of attempts to try to get things right.

What I like about Zoe is her grit. She could give up - this is too much for a 15-year-old kid. Especially one as messed up as she is. She might be unlucky, but she's no coward.

Review copy provided by publisher.

Desert Dark

Desert Dark
by Sonja Stone
336 pages; ages 12 & up
Holiday House, 2016

If you're looking for a tale of mystery and suspense, adventure and survival, love, coming of age, and the universal battle of good versus evil, then this book is for you. Think: Harry Potter mixed with Bourne Identity....

Sixteen-year old Nadia Riley is a genius with puzzles, and when her calculus teacher challenges her to solve a puzzle, she does it within a minute. It's an equation that she sees as a polyalphabetic cipher... a code puzzle like the ones she's been doing all her life.

When Nadia is offered a spot at  Desert Mountain Academy, she jumps at it. But the elite, government-funded boarding school turns out to be a covert CIA program that trains students for Black Ops.

Nadia's schedule includes the usual classes as well as Arabic, martial arts, and target practice. There are also campus-wide competitions called "survival courses" that feel a lot like Outward Bound. Toss in a crush on the team leader and a news leak about a double agent on campus, and you've got the perfect recipe for disaster. Or murder.

This is a fun book to read, a page-turner that will keep you burning the midnight oil til you flip the last page. Wondering when it will be turned into a movie... Review copy from publisher.

The Devil's Dreamcatcher

The Devil's Dreamcatcher
by Donna Hosie
272 pages; ages 15 & up
Holiday House, 2015

This is the sequel to The Devil's Intern - which you may remember involved a lot of paper shuffling and a time turner. And a guy named Mitchell Johnson.

This time we're following Medusa Pallister, currently a trainee patisserie chef with aspirations to become an intern in Hell's accounting office. Because it would get her out of the kitchen. And because it would mean reporting to Septimus, the Devil's right-hand man - a former Roman general and pretty hot guy. Getting the job would also mean working with the other intern, Mitchell Johnson, someone she thinks she remembers from 1967... an apparition she thought was an angel.

She actually saw two more apparitions - they turn out to be Elinor and Alfarin, members of Team DEVIL. When Medusa becomes part of the team she thinks she'll finally get some answers. Instead, she gets big problems: the Devil's dreamcatcher has been stolen and the team must find it before his most horrific thoughts are loosed upon the world.

To do the job, they need to coordinate with Team ANGEL, from Up There. And they are not to be trusted. There are files to read and memorize, strategies to iron out, and the mission which seems impossible. There are also banshees, skin walkers, and unspeakables - plus death-defying feats and lots of complications.

Perfect for people who like the TV series "Dead like Me", Gina Damico's trilogy about young reapers: Croak, Scorch, and Rogue, and spy thrillers. Review copy provided by publisher.