Marcelo in the Real World

by Francisco X. Stork

The sound Marcelo hears in his head is like the most beautiful music in the world. But it's not quite music. It's like the feeling of music without the music actually being there. Lately, though, the internal music, or IM as Marcelo calls it, has been harder to hear and often it isn't there at all. Maybe there is no IM in the "real world." Marcelo would rather not be in the real world, he'd rather stay at Paterson.

Marcelo likes being at Paterson. It's a school for "people like him," although he's not quite like "people like him" either. The closest thing to what Marcelo "has" is Asperger's syndrome, but he's that's not really the best description either. Marcelo's father, Arturo, thinks that it's about time Marcelo left Paterson to learn to live in the "real world" and go to a public school for his senior year.

It'll be very difficult for Marcelo, so Arturo makes him a deal. If Marcelo can work at Arturo's law firm for the summer and learn to follow the rules of the real world, then Marcelo can return to Paterson for his senior year. But if he cannot successfully follow the rules of the real world, then Marcelo must go to the public high school.

The real world is tough to process. Marcelo is given a job in the mail room under the supervision of Jasmine who informs him that he's not to let other people in the office give him tasks to do. However, Arturo informs Marcelo that he should try to help out Wendell, the son of Arturo's partner, whenever he can. Is the real world always so complicated?

Things really get complicated when Marcelo finds a photograph of a disfigured girl in the trash. Marcelo wants to know what happened to her, but can Marcelo follow the rules of the real world and also solve the mystery of the girl in the photo? In the real world you have to make choices and choices have consequences. Will Marcelo risk his chance to stay at Paterson to satisfy his curiosity? Check out Marcelo in the Real World to find out!

Shift

By Jennifer Bradbury

Chris and Win, short for Winston, want to ride their bicycles across the country after graduation. They’re starting in West Virginia and plan to ride all the way up to Seattle, where Win says his uncle lives. The thing is, though, Win doesn’t have an uncle in Seattle. That’s just one of the things that Chris learns during his first week of college after finishing the ride….without Win.

Somewhere along the way they get split up and Win’s father pulls in a favor from an FBI agent “friend” of his to keep an eye on Chris after Chris shows up home by himself. Something had to have happened and Win’s father thinks Chris knows a lot more than he’s been telling everybody. But what did happen? How could best friends just lose each other like that and why hasn’t Win contacted anybody? Well, maybe he has…

To find out what happens next, check out Shift from the LFHS library!

Creature of the Night

By Kate Thompson

Bobby likes to steal cars and go joyriding. He also likes to steal iPods and other gadgets to sell. He and his friends use the money to buy drugs and alcohol. This is Bobby’s life in Dublin and Bobby thinks it’s a pretty good one. So, he’s not too happy when his mother packs him and his little brother, Dennis, up to go live in the country. He’s not too worried, though. He doesn’t plan on staying long.

The new place seems okay, but boring. The people seem nice, but are a little strange and act a little mysterious about the previous tenants of their new home. The last guy disappeared, but that’s not the weirdest part. The landlord’s mother tells them that they need to leave a bowl of milk out every night, for the fairy.

Fairy?

Bobby and his mother brush off the advice and think nothing of it until Bobby finds Dennis awake in the middle of the night, talking about visiting with a tiny old woman. Could it be true? Could there really be a fairy that comes into their home every night? Bobby doesn’t think so, but the more he learns about the house and who used to live there, the more he’s sure he wants to go back to Dublin and back to the life he used to have. To see how Bobby and his family deal with the strangeness of their new home, check out Creature of the Night from the LFHS library.

Favorite Books Continued

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

Juliet Ashton, an author, writes to her publisher expressing her desire to stop covering the aftermath of WWII, but Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams invites neighbors to write to Juliet with their stories, which puts her off at first but eventually helps her find inspiration for her next book, and her life. Interested?
Request it to our library!



Death Note Series (Vol. 1-12) by Tsugumi Ohba

Light Yagumi comes across a Death Note dropped by a Shinigami death god and vows to use this power to rid the world of evil; but when criminals start dropping dead, the great detective L is sent to track down the killer. Interested? Request it for our library!

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Trying to make sense of the horrors of World War II, Death relates the story of Liesel--a young German girl whose book-stealing and story-telling talents help sustain her family and the Jewish man they are hiding, as well as their neighbors. Check it out from our library!

Destination: Chicago...Take One

Explore the City of Chicago! Don't waste your money on gas or stand in the cold for the train. Take a stroll down the streets of Chicago with these mysteries, thrillers, graphic novels, and historical fiction.

Blackbird Singing by Jay Amberg

World-famous basketball player Robert "Sky" Walker and small-town detective Tom Hopkins are caught up in an increasingly dangerous web of violence, media mania, and massive egos, when Walker's nine-year-old daughter is kidnapped by a madman who wants fame more than he wants money.

Check it out!

Native Son by Richard Wright

Trapped in the poverty-stricken ghetto of Chicago's South Side, a young African-American man finds release only in acts of violence.

Check it out!



Caramelo by Sandra Cisneros

Celaya "Lala" Reyes, traveling from Chicago to Mexico City each summer, draws together stories of her Mexican-American family of shawl-makers, including her papa and Awful Grandmother.

Check it out!


Chicago Noir by Neal Pollack (Editor)

A collection of short stories by various authors that explore the rougher side of Chicago and the experiences of its residents.


Check it out!

Death In Uptown by Michael Raleigh

Private investigator Paul Whelan and a city cop comb Uptown Chicago for a murderer.

Check it out!



The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Depicts the conditions of the Chicago stockyards through the eyes of a young Lithuanian immigrant struggling in early-twentieth-century America.

Check it out!



The Deep End of the Ocean by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Beth Cappadora finds herself in the midst of every parent's nightmare when her three-year-old son vanishes without a trace from a Chicago hotel lobby, throwing Beth, her husband Pat, and their son Vincent into a turmoil that ravages their lives.

Check it out!



Coffee will make you black by April Sinclair

The story of an African-American woman growing up on the South side of Chicago in the turbulent 60s as she tests the limits of racism and refuses to accept the fact that just because she is African American she is inferior.

Check it out now!


Chicks with sticks by Elizabeth Lenhard

Four teenage girls from very different social cliques at their progressive Chicago high school become friends after forming a knitting club.

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The Bishop and the missing L train by Andrew Greeley

When Auxiliary Bishop Gus Quill, and the train he was riding on, seem to vanish into thin air, it is up to Bishop Blackie Ryan to find out what happened to the train and its passengers.

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I sailed with Magellan by Stuart Dybek

Presents eleven intertwined fiction stories in which narrator Perry Katzak presents a portrait of his life growing up in the 1950s and 60s in the neighborhoods of Chicago's South Side.

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Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

The driving forces of our culture -- restless idealism, glamorous material seductions and spiritual innocence -- are revealed in Dreiser's transformation of the conventional "fallen woman" story into a genuinely original work of imaginative fiction.

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Hardball by Barbara D'Amato

Cat Marsala, a freelance journalist, is thrust into danger when a bomb explodes next to her at the University of Chicago.

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Flight Dreams by Michael Craft

In order to save his career, investigative journalist Mark Manning must prove his hunch that a missing heiress is alive. At the same time, his denial of his sexual orientation is shattered when he finds himself attracted to a visiting architect.

Check it out!


Chicago Confidential by Max Allan Collins

Private-eye Nathan Heller finds himself being tracked by the FBI after they begin the first congressional inquiry into organized crime and realize that Nathan may know where more than a few of the bodies are buried.

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Jackson Park by Charlotte Carter

It is the Spring of 1968. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., the city of Chicago is a powder keg ready to explode. Against this tense backdrop, there is Woodson and Ivy Lisle, an elegant couple living in a shabby chic apartment hotel in Cook County’s Hyde Park. Both are proud patriarchs of a large, extended family, which includes their twenty-year-old grandniece, Cassandra, a college student standing at the crossroads— and on the brink of a troubling mystery involving the missing granddaughter of an old family friend. Fearing for the girl’s safety, Woody, Ivy, and Cassandra begin a determined investigation. What they uncover is a chilling link to an old murder case. Now a shattering secret of the past threatens all who try to expose it.

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A Killing Frost by Michael Black

Private detective Ron Shade agrees to help Maria Castro find her friend Juanita's missing fiance, but when the missing fiance is found dead in the river, Maria, whom Ron has become romantically involved with, refuses to let Ron turn the case over to the police, causing Ron to wonder if Maria is more involved than she has admitted.

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The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

Describes the life of Augie March, a poor Chicago boy growing up during the Depression, and his search for a career.

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The Beast of Chicago: an account of the life and crimes of Herman W. Mudgett by Rick Geary

A graphic novel account of the life and grisly career of serial killer H.H. Holmes, particularly focusing on his life in Chicago, where he was responsible for an unknown number of deaths in the late nineteenth century.

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Leavin' Trunk Blues by Ace Atkins

Nick Travers heads to Chicago, where he investigates the murder of blues producer Billy Lyons, but he soon learns that some people will go to any lengths to keep the events surrounding his death a secret.

Check it out!