House Rules by Jodi Piccoult

Jacob Hunt is a teenage boy with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, and like many kids with AS, Jacob has a special focus on one subject, forensic analysis. He’s always showing up at crime scenes, thanks to the police scanner he keeps in his room, and telling the cops what they need to do. But then his town is rocked by a terrible murder and, for a change, the police come to Jacob with questions. All of the hallmark behaviors of Asperger’s–not looking someone in the eye, stimulatory tics and twitches, flat affect–can look a lot like guilt to law enforcement personnel. Suddenly, Jacob and his family, who only want to fit in, feel the police spotlight shining directly on them. And over this family the soul-searing question looms: Did Jacob commit murder?

Emotionally powerful, House Rules looks at what it means to be different in our society, how autism affects a family, and how our legal system works well for people who communicate a certain way–and fails those who don’t.

Reviewed by Mrs. Vaughn

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Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien

Laugh and love! Novella length, no one’s heard of it and it is my favorite Tolkien. Great adventure, hilarious fairytale/swashbuckler parody, and really, perhaps the best old annoyed-with-the-world dragon ever written, the terrifying and oh so bored, Chrysophylax Dives!

Reviewed by Mrs. Bolden

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The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

This is a deep, spellbinding novel that moves between contemporary times and one of the most fascinating, controversial, and disturbing periods of American history–the Salem witch trials. Harvard graduate student Connie Goodwin needs to spend her summer researching and preparing for her doctoral dissertation in order to please her faculty mentor, Mr. Chillingworth.  But when her eccentric mother, Grace, asks Connie to help handle the sale of her grandmother’s old house near Salem, Connie can’t refuse.  As she investigates into the mysteries of the abandoned home, she discovers an ancient key within a seventeenth-century Bible.  The key contains a yellowed fragment of parchment with a name scrawled upon it: Deliverance Dane.  This discovery launches Connie on a quest—to find out who this woman was and to unearth a rare artifact of singular power: a physick book, its pages a secret repository for lost knowledge.    As the pieces of Deliverance’s story fall into place, Connie is haunted by visions of the long-ago witch trials, and she begins to understand that she is more tied to Salem’s dark past then she could have ever imagined.    Written with conviction and grace, “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” travels seamlessly between the witch trials in the 1690s and a modern woman’s story of mystery, intrigue and revelation.

Reviewed by Johanna ’12

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Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott

Funky, unconventional, sharp and warm, full of great stories of true faith and messy lives. Here’s an example that is all that needs to be said:   “It’s funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools – friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty – and said ‘do the best you can with these, they will have to do’. And mostly, against all odds, they do. ”

Reviewed by Mrs. Henegar

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The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jeanne Birdsall

By far the best book I have ever read,  this book inspired me to be adventurous and never hold anything back.  It is the well written story of four sisters, their dad, and their unforgettable hound during their summer vacation in Massachusetts.  It describes the funny, memorable, and thrilling adventures they endured that summer.  This book includes many ups and downs while taking your mind on the thrill of a lifetime!

Reviewed by Susanna L ’16

*Note, this book won the National Book Award for Young Adult Literature in 2005.

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