The Boy from the Basement by Susan Shaw

Charlie is a young boy in a sheltered world - too bad that sheltered world is the basement where his abusive father keeps him as punishment. Charlie's only experiences with the outside world were from when he was younger, and when he sneaks up at night to pee off the porch. The basement is cold, but if he's lucky, his mother has hidden an apple, or more often then not bread and peanut butter (the easiest thing to sneak for her). Too bad Charlie accidently gets himself locked out one night - and a fever makes his head swim so he ends up lost and waking up in a hospital. Readers follow Charlie as he heals, both physically and emotionally, at the hospital and at a good foster-home. However, Charlie has to survive his feverish nightmares first - and no one else seems to see the giant spider in the corner!

This book was such an engaging story that I couldn't put it down. I may have even driven rather fast from the bookstore I'd started skimming it, just so I could start reading it again when I got home. The story doesn't skimp on the harshness of Charlie's situation, so I wouldn't recommend the book for less mature and/or younger readers. However, this book could be a good book for talking about family health, physical health, and healing. It is also good for reluctant readers, and below grade level readers.

Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

So it appears we're going out of order on the series, but Gathering Blue is the second installment in the world begun with The Giver. While readers follow Kira as she struggles in a cruel world with a twisted leg, and her few friends (Matt is one of them, whom The Messenger follows). This book begins with Kira watching her mother's spirit slowly leave her body after death in the dying fields, and return to a burned home with a mean-spirited woman trying to take the land away from her and have her sentenced to death for being disabled. Readers will enjoy watching Kira grow into a woman in a few short months, and find the courage to change the world.

What I liked most about this book is the new perspective. With Jonas and Matty both we enter into the world of adolescent boys. Kira has both a woman's perspective, and challenges that both boys and girls can relate to. The girl's perspective is well balanced by her friends, Matt (a one syllable tyke who's always getting into mischief), and Thomas (another orphan who is an extraordinary "artist") who give a voice to the "world of men" as seen from the eyes of boys in Lowry's furturistic vision.