(4) 4-6 A slight overview of the destructive storm that devastated Houston and southeastern Texas in August 2017. Felix briefly discusses the nature of hurricanes; the storm's course and immediate impact, including severe flooding, property damage, and trauma; and the disaster's long-term effects. Color photographs aid in understanding the hurricane's severity. "What You Can Do" and "Historic Hurricanes" spreads are appended. Reading list, websites. Glos., ind.

Reviewer: Luther B. Clegg

(3) YA Houston teen Piper did not expect the second half of senior year to include serious boy troubles (her boyfriend comes out as gay), her emotionally explosive sister's pregnancy, and unforeseen complications to attending her dream art school in NYC. Thankfully, Piper's art keeps her going. Cagan writes Piper's journal-like narrative with an honest yet insightful teenage viewpoint of a realistically complicated life.

Reviewer: Jeannie Coutant

(4) YA African American Taja Brown struggles to live up to her parents' expectations of her. While they dismiss her brother's promiscuity, they invite Taja's boyfriend over for dinner and hand them both a purity pledge to sign. Despite some inconsistencies in Taja's characterization, the novel effectively captures the difficulties of growing up with conservative Christian values that social pressures (and cute boys) may challenge.

Reviewer: Michelle H. Martin

(4) YA As category five Hurricane Danielle bears down on Houston, Jillian finds herself fighting for survival alongside handsome River, the former star quarterback who was sent to juvenile detention under mysterious circumstances. Some awkward perspective shifts mar the narration, but personal revelations and romance unfolding against the backdrop of a natural disaster lead to plenty of suspense and excitement.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl

(4) YA Seventeen-year-old Riley's father has been on death row since being convicted of several murders when she was little. Riley has always believed him to be innocent, but when he unexpectedly confesses his guilt to her, her frustration and skepticism spur her to uncover the truth. While this mystery is somewhat convoluted and predictable, it offers readers a compelling premise.

Reviewer: Norah Piehl

(4) YA Locked Out series. DeQuin wants to avoid the cops, but his friends give him a beating for running away from a fight (Right). Deja, seventeen, has agreed to raise her mom's new baby until Mom gets out of prison (Heaven). The books' open endings may frustrate some, but this series about urban teens with incarcerated parents should appeal to reluctant readers. There are three other spring 2015 books in this series. Review covers the following Locked Out titles: Doing Right and Raising Heaven.

Reviewer: Lisa Catherine Findlay

(4) 1-3 Ballpark Mysteries series. Illustrated by Mark Meyers. REVIEW MISSING

Reviewer: Miriam Lang Budin

(4) YA After getting into a drug-dazed gang fight, Azael wakes up in a detention facility unlike any he has been to before. Denied all contact with the outside world, Azael spends his days observing an unfamiliar female inmate, Lexi, and trying desperately to remember what occurred during the incident. Although the gritty voice and intriguing story builds suspense, the clichéd revelation is disappointing.

Reviewer: Randy Ribay

(4) YA Seventeen-year-old Marisa puts her dysfunctional, nearly poverty-ridden family above everything, including her passion for AP calculus. Struggling to help support her family, have a social life, and pursue her dream of studying engineering in college, she nearly loses herself--until the too-tidy ending. Pérez's perspective on Mexican American culture in Texas is authentic; the gritty setting and hard-knocks characters carry the story.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen

(2) 4-6 NASA asks thirteen-year-old Scott, son of an Air Force flight instructor, to man a pre-Apollo 11, top-secret spaceflight to the moon with a crew of chimponauts. Kerr makes the wouldn't-it-be-cool-to-be-an-astronaut dream a reality here, with a story that's entirely plausible yet thoroughly imaginative. He ups the boy appeal with authentic dialogue and plenty of heavy-duty astronaut info and jargon.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2008

(3) 4-6 Twelve-year-old Mieka and her artist father fly to Houston to visit her estranged grandmother, staying with Mieka's aunt and cousins in their luxurious home. Papademetriou captures well the awkwardness of trying to fit into a family. There is little drama, but the Houston setting is vividly drawn, and Mieka is an observant narrator, concluding that "normal" is something that doesn't exist.

Reviewer: Susan Dove Lempke

(4) YA In this autobiographical volume, Appelt recalls a childhood and adolescence spent missing her father--first as he works overseas and later as he leaves her family to marry another woman. Each memory is presented in a single paragraph, some only a sentence or two long, giving the book an impressionistic, often poetic quality; readers may find the format (which hopscotches back and forth in time) choppy and confusing.

Reviewer: Peter D. Sieruta

(2) YA Williams weaves two tales in the first-person narrative of twelve-year-old Shayla: the story of Shayla's older sister and her sexual awakening; and the story of Kambia, Shayla's soon-to-be best friend, whose fantastic stories of transformation hide her real-life abuse. Inventively voiced if not always convincing in its narrative particulars, this first novel serves notice of a writer to watch.

Reviewer: Susan P. Bloom | Horn Book Magazine Issue: March, 2000

(4) YA When the investigation of an attempted murder links the victim to sixteen-year-old Kristi, the artistic teenager turns amateur detective. Zipping around Houston for clues to the victim's identity and his motives for compiling a folder's worth of information about her, Kristi exposes an art forgery ring and struggles with unsettling questions about her own past. Nonstop suspense offsets the overdose of coincidence.

Reviewer: Tanya D. Auger