Blue Lock, Vol. 2

Kaneshiro, Muneyuki. Blue Lock, Vol. 2. 2019. 208p. ISBN 9781646516551. Available in the graphic novels section of the library.

With a round-robin starting in Pod 5, as announced at the end of Blue Lock, Vol. 1, Team Z first faces Team X and their striker. Isagi suggests the team should focus on one player, but because everyone thinks of themselves as the best striker, no one agrees to take on the other roles. A series of games of rock-paper-scissors seal the positions, but the grumbling does not stop. They soon realize that unlike them, Team X came up with a plan of attack that every pass is thrown to their striker, who scores a goal against an inexperienced goalie every time. Team Z breaks down, with everyone trying to do their own thing, and even stealing the ball from each other to be the one who scores a goal and gets to remain behind if the team is eliminated. Predictably, the team loses the match.

In the debrief, they agree to a new plan. Each player has a special weapon they can draw on, whether it be an amazing jump, the ability to read the field, or the best-left sidekick. Team Z creates a new battle plan where each player will have 10 minutes to serve as striker and a particular strategy will be executed.

Their next match occurs against Team Y. Unlike Team Z, Team Y focuses on defense, and only when the opportunity presents itself do they pass it forward, leading to a goal. With a score of 0-1, Team Z faces elimination. But then Isagi realizes that Team Ys formation is not built around their striker but around their midfielder, who, like Isagi, can read the field better than most. Armed with that knowledge, Isagi passes his turn to execute their plan and instead focuses on stopping Team Y's strategist. Will the gamble pay off, or will the team go home?

The Great Pet Heist

Ecton. Emily. The Great Pet Heist. Book 1 of the Great Pet Heist series. 2020. 256p. ISBN 9781534455368.

The morning Butterbean throws up on the floor, she is blissfully unaware that her life and that of all of the other animals in elderly Mrs. Food's apartment is about to change. When Mrs. Food comes out of her bedroom, she slips on the vomit and falls, hurting her head. Thankfully. Mrs. Food had an alarm button, and is able to call for help. The ambulance arrives, and she is taken away to the hospital, leaving the animals behind.

Suddenly, Butterbean the wiener dog, Walt the cat, Oscar the bird, and Marco and Polo the rats find themselves alone. How will they feed themselves? Who will take care of them? How will they have enough money to pay for their expenses? On top of it all, they are visited twice a day by Madison, a girl who resides with her aunt in the building, and Madison seems to always come at the most importune times, when they are busy plotting how to survive.

Putting their resources together, they discover that Butterbean has acquired a gold coin from the Scary Man, a resident who gives her the creeps. If he has a gold coin, perhaps there are more! Walt and Oscar soon hatch a plan to discover the apartment in which the Scary Man lives, then break in and take the gold. Working together, the pets put their plans into motion, and successfully retrieve the gold. Scary Man is violent, however, and when he takes Madison hostage, thinking it was her who stole the gold based on a button left in the apartment (Polo, one of the rats, had taken the button and it was her most prized possession), the pets now must undo their heist, but figure a way to capture Scary Man ...

A humorous story told from the pets' perspective, the animals are relatable, their worries very human, and their ways of dealing with stress and anxiety all to realistic. Fans of mystery and high jinx tales will enjoy The Great Pet Heist.

The story continues in The Great Ghost Hoax.

Reconnect: Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging

Lemov, Doug, Hilary Lewis, Darryl Williams and Denarius Frazier. Reconnect: Building School Culture for Meaning, Purpose, and Belonging. 2022. 272p. ISBN 9781119739975. 

The smartphone is undermining the mental health and education of our children. It is becoming a plague, causing anxiety, depression, anguish, and thus affecting the learning that children perform in schools. Many schools are now in the process of banning cellphones, from limiting their use to specific times of day to outright bans on campus. In Reconnect, several distinguished educators argue that schools must improve the sense of belonging that students experience when they are present to improve their lives and the learning that occurs.

Drawing on extensive experiences and studies that examined high-performing schools, the authors suggest multiple pathways that can be used to build a learning environment where students feel loved and protected, where they are free to be themselves and socialize with their peers in a risk-free environment. A practical guide for how schools can change how they operate to facilitate the reconnection of their students to the society they live in, Reconnect provides a guide to improving the environment and helping students become more confident and better learners. 

Maximum Ride, the Manga, Vol. 2

Patterson, James and NaRae Lee. Maximum Ride, the Manga, Vol. 2. 2009. 262p. ISBN 9780759529687. Available in the graphic novels section of the library.

Shocked to discover in Maximum Ride, the Manga, Vol. 1 that their father-like figure Jeb is not only still alive but is in fact still working for the School, Max finds herself a captive along with Angel, and witnesses that many others have been experimented on at the School with various animal DNA genetic manipulations. When Jeb tells her that her entire existence is designed to save the world, Max is not only dubious, she really doesn't care. 

Brought outside by Ari, chief of the Erasers, a childhood companion and Jeb's own son, Max and Angel escape with help provided by their friends Nudge, Fang, Iggy and Gassy. Armed with new information on the location of a secret facility in New York City that possesses their demographics, including the family they came from, and spurred on by Nudge, who really wants to meet her birth family, the flock heads east. In New York, Max starts receiving messages in her head that cripple her. A voice is providing her with details and locations, but there's no way she can trust everything it says. 

Several encounters with Erasers lead to the presumed death of Ari, but Max and the flock successfully exfiltrate information about their birth. Noting that all of their families were from northern Virginia, Max decides they should next head to Washington D.C....

The story continues in Maximum Ride, the Manga, Vol 3.

Alive

Sigler, Scott. Alive. Book 1 of the Generations Trilogy. 2015. 345p. ISBN 9780553393101.

M. wakes up in a coffin. Terrorized, the twelve-year-old manages to break out of the confine of her wooden box, only to discover that there are 11 other wooden boxes in the room. Muffled sounds from another box indicates that someone else is trapped, so M. grabs a bar laying nearby and breaks the cover. Inside is another girl, about 15 or sixteen, who is relieved to be free, but who claims to also be 12, and that today is her birthday. Looking at herself, M. realizes she also has the body of a teenager. She doesn't remember much about her life, only having snippets of information. She can't even remember her own name, nor can she recall the faces of her parents.

In the room, they discover four more kids who are alive, and six who died in the coffins. All of the survivors are confused and scared, but M. takes control, and soon the group is roaming the hallway, looking for an exit. The hallway is straight and is inclined upward, indicating they must be buried deep within some sort of structure. When they come across another larger group of kids, M. contests their leader's command, and Bishop, who led the group, reluctantly yields to her. At heart, all of them are still 12, with predictable childish reactions.

As they search for food and water, the combined group encounters a feral pig, and soon come across a room filled with farmland, vegetables, fruits, and pigs. But just as they hunt the pig, the pigs are hunting them, and some of their comrades fall victims to the pigs' voracious appetite.

When one of M.'s new friend is kidnapped by strange monsters in the farmland, they escape back to the hallway, only to return to their point of origin. Suddenly it dawns on them that they are prisoners on a gigantic starship. And the monsters that hunt them are themselves, only adult and deformed by radiation and years spent in isolation in space. Will M and her group discover a way to escape this hell?

The 80's and 90's: Power Dressing to Sportswear

Lomas, Clare. The 80's and 90's: Power Dressing to Sportswear. 1999. 32p. ISBN 9780836826036. Available at 391 LOM on the library shelves.

Following the swinging 1970s, fashion adapted to new materials and designs. The 1980s saw the rise of the supermodel, young and beautiful men and women who showcased the best clothes produced by famous designers. The showing of wealth became ostentatious, with rich people flaunting their prosperity. The world also saw technology enter the fashion world. Items like the cellphone and the pager became fashion accessories. The roles of men also evolved, with more involvement in the family, caring, and sharing.

In the 1990s, fashion moved from the colorful and shiny to the more drab and shabby. Grunge, which evolved out of Seattle, impacted fashion with dark colors, combat boots, and flannel shirts. Simultaneously, girl power with groups like the Spice Girls hit the scene, showcasing female talent and powerful women in a man's world. 

Fashion both followed social evolution and influenced society and as the century came to a close, the best aspects of previous decades became enmeshed in the flavor of clothes circulating.

Bleach, Vol. 2

Kubo, Tite. Bleach, vol. 2. 2004. ISBN 9781591164425. Available in the graphic novels section of the library.

Chad is a student at Ichigo's school, and he is strong as an ox. When he found a talking parakeet in Bleach, Vol. 1, he agreed to protect it against the monster that was chasing him. The strange marks that had just appeared on his body indicated to Ichigo and Rukia the Soul Reaper that Chad might be affected by a Hollow. They encouraged Chad to check in at the clinic run by Ichigo's father.

Unfortunately, when Ichigo finally arrives, Chad has already left the clinic through a window. Ichigo and Rukia begin chasing for him through the streets, hoping to find him before the Hollow does. Up to now, Rukia has had to knock Ichigo unconscious to release his soul so he could hunt Hollows. To assist the process, she purchases a pill he can take to immediately release his soul while a spare soul will inhabit his body and act like him while he's performing his Soul Reaper duties. The soul Rukia purchased was defective, however, and it decides it really likes Ichigo's body.

As Ichigo and Rukia seek Chad, the parakeet, and the Hollow that hunts them both, Ichigo's body has a new personality that seeks to impress the girls at school ...

The story continues in Bleach, Vol. 3.