Added to the Pile + 29

I've got a pretty good load this week! Thanks to a contest by Ari over at Reading In Color, I won Saving Maddie by Varian Johnson.


Joshua Wynn is definitely what you would call a good guy. He's a preacher's son who chooses abstinence and religious retreats over crazy nights and wild parties. Instead of joining his high school basketball team, Joshua spends his time leading the church's youth group.

One Sunday, Joshua's mind drifts from his father's sermon to a beautiful girl in the fifth row. She's gorgeous, wearing a dress cut down to there, and she looks like the little girl he crushed on as a kid. It turns out that Maddie Smith is back in town, but instead of throwing her a welcome-back picnic, the community condemns her for her provocative clothes and the rumors about her past. According to Joshua's parents, she's on the need-to-save list, though his mother isn't sure he's the one to do it. Still, Joshua can't stop thinking about Maddie's purple-painted lips, and he wants to help her find out who she really is.

But can Joshua save Maddie without losing himself? (book back blurb)

Thanks so Ilsa J. Bick and Lindsay of Carolrhoda Lab (Lerner Publishing) for Draw the Dark. If you guys haven't checked out Carolrhoda Lab, be sure you do! They have some pretty thought provoking titles!


There are things in Winter, Wisconsin, folks just don't talk about. That murder way back in '45 is one. The near suicide of a first grade teacher is another. And then there is 17-year-old Christian Cage. Christian's parents disappeared when he was a little boy, and ever since he's drawn and painted obsessively, trying desperately to remember his mother. The problem is Christian doesn't just draw his own memories. He can draw the thoughts of those around him. Confronted with fears and nightmares they'd rather avoid, people have a bad habit of dying. So it's no surprise that Christian isn't exactly popular.

What no one expects is for Christian to meet Winter's last surviving Jew and uncover one more thing best forgotten - the day the Nazis came to town. Based on a little known fact of the United States' involvement in World War II, Draw the Dark is a YA dark fantasy about reclaiming the forgotten past and the redeeming power of love. (book back blurb)

And thanks to Knesia over at Macmillan for The Gardener by SA Bodeen and She Thief by Daniel Finn.


Mason has never known his father, but longs to. All he has of him is a DVD of a man whose face is never seen, reading a children's book. One day, one a whim, he plays the DVD for a group of comatose teens at the nursing home where his mother works. One of them, a beautiful girl, responds. She is part of a horrible experiment intended to render teenagers into genetically engineered, self-sustaining life-forms who don't need food or water to survive. And before he knows it, Mason is on the run with the girl, and wanted, dead or alive, by the mysterious mastermind of this evil plan, who is simply called the Gardener.

Will Mason be forced to destroy the thing he's longed for most? (book back blurb)


Baz and Demi are master pickpockets, the scourge of the street. They weave through rich neighborhoods, past armed guards and luxurious shops, to slip bags off shoulders and wallets out of pockets before disappearing into the crowd. Their loot goes to Fay, who runs a gang of child thieves from her den in the Barrio. This sweltering slum is what passes for home to Baz, and Fay is what passes for family.

That all changes the day Demi steals a magnificent blue ring. Soon, the police chief and the Barrio's crime boss close in on Fay, and she begins to break under their pressure.

Baz has never doubted Fay before. She's never been apart from Demi, either. But soon, Baz is left alone to find her way through a world more corrupt than she's ever realized. Here, the lives of children are thrown away without a moment's hesitation. Here, the rich and powerful are just thieves on a larger scale. And somewhere in this wreck of a city, Baz must find the scraps of hope, the small acts of kindness, and the steely strength that will take her back to Demi and wash them both out of the Barrio for good. (book back blurb)