Linked by Gordon Korman

Linked by Gordon Korman 246 pages Link, Michael, and Dana live in a quiet town. But it's woken up very quickly when someone sneaks into school and vandalizes it with a swastika. Nobody can believe it. How could such a symbol of hate end up in the middle of their school? Who would do such a thing? Because Michael was the first person to see it, he's the first suspect. Because Link is one of the most popular guys in school, everyone's looking to him to figure it out. And because Dana's the only Jewish girl in the whole town, everyone's treating her more like an outsider than ever. The mystery deepens as more swastikas begin to appear. Some students decide to fight back and start a project to bring people together instead of dividing them further. The closer Link, Michael, and Dana get to the truth, the more there is to face-not just the crimes of the present, but the crimes of the past. With Linked, Gordon Korman, the author of the acclaimed novel Restart, poses a mystery for all readers where the who did it? isn't nearly as important as the why? This is a juvenile chapter book, but I still enjoyed it. The mystery was well written, as Gordon Korman's work always is. The suspense of finding out the real identity of the vandal stretches throughout the book. This book addresses the Holocaust and the KKK, so there was some sensitive material, but I enjoyed the story as well as the author's note at the end.

War Stories by Gordon Korman

War Stories by Gordon Korman 231 pages Twelve-year-old Trevor Firestone loves playing war-based video games and he idolizes his great-grandfather Jacob who came home from World War II a celebrated hero; now ninety-three-year-old Jacob wants to retrace his journey in memory and reality and return to the small French village that his unit liberated, and Trevor is going with him -- but not everyone in the town wants Jacob to come, and Trevor is going to learn an important lesson: real war is not a video game, and valor and heroism can be very murky concepts. I was not a fan of this book. It is a Mark Twain nominee for 4-6 graders but I feel like it was appropriate for that age. I felt it was too graphic with the violent details for elementary students. It did tell a neat story about the connection between a young boy and his great-grandfather and the boy learns a valuable lesson that video games are not the same as real war.

Masterminds by Gordon Korman

Masterminds by Gordon Korman - 323 pages

Serenity is the perfect town.  There's no crime.  Everyone is wealthy.  Life is wonderful.  Or is it?  When Eli finds a note from his best friend who was sent away from town saying some of the kids are special, he starts to wonder.  It will take him and four of his friends to discover what Serenity is truly like.

I listened to this book on audio and absolutely loved it.  It was a great adventure and suspense story for kids.  The audio was wonderful in that each of the five kids are narrated by a different person.  The stories weave together.  While the book could end with the ending given, I think it's obvious that there will be a second book dealing with the repercussions from the adventures in the first book.