MISS PICKEL'S PICKS

This was the perfect mystery for me to read on a winter night: even though it's the ideal summer read, packed with long, hot days and secrets simmering under the sun, it was the perfect escape for me from the cold. Kaylani is spending the summer in the wealthy, historic community of Martha’s Vineyard. She’s been learning about the law to help her father, who is in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. She really wants to stay in Brooklyn to help her dad, but her parents want her to have a fun summer, so they send her to stay with family friends on Cape Cod. It isn’t a fun summer for Kaylani, though, because she’s stuck living with two snobby girls who don’t want anything to do with her.  While Kaylani is adjusting to life in this wealthy vacation community, a popular teen is found dead under suspicious circumstances and she can’t help digging deeper into what really happened. Her investigation takes her beneath the polished surface of Martha’s Vineyard, uncovering secrets, surprisin...

  I absolutely love funny books and I think my favorite comedy writer is Gordon Korman. Every time I read one of his novels I end up laughing out loud at almost every page. My favorite Gordon Korman book has been Restart , which is about a bully who gets amnesia and can’t figure out why he was so mean to people. Ms Fair ordered a few of Korman’s books for us this fall and the first one I picked up is Slacker . I can be very lazy, so I figured this would be the perfect book for me! The other thing that drew me in was the cover image of a beaver reclining with a game controller and a bowl of Doritos. The book more than lived up to its cover; Slacker is now my favorite Gordon Korman book! Slacker follows Cam, who thinks he has perfected the art of slacking. He does just well enough in school that he can slide under the radar and he can focus on what’s really important: playing his video game with his friends. But when the fire department ends up on his doorstep because he ignored his ...

  I always avoided playing Scrabble when I was a kid because I never wanted to think that much when I was playing a game! Recently, though, I’ve started playing again and I’m actually enjoying it—I feel like it’s really good exercise for my brain. So I was so excited when I saw Queen of the Tiles , since it’s a mystery set at a Scrabble tournament. The book totally grabbed me right from the first page. Every chapter starts with a word, the number of points it’s worth in Scrabble, and its definition. It’s so cool because the chapter word always connects to what happens in that section; for example, Chapter One’s word is prolegomenon , which means an introduction. Most of them are words I’d never seen before, and even though I probably won’t remember any of them the next time I play, it was still so fun to learn them as I read! Queen of the Tiles follows Najwa, whose best friend—and reigning Scrabble queen—Trina, died suddenly at last year’s tournament. Najwa has spent the year sin...