Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

I truly enjoyed Johnny Tremain which was a 1944 Newbery Award winning book. This book is historical fiction, set during the beginning of the American Revolution. The weaving in of historical figures such as Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock was quite interesting and lended a great deal of authenticity to the book. The build-up of tension in the colonies to the point of the first battle of the American Revolution was quite intense.

Johnny Tremain is also a wonderful story about the transition of an arrogant, self-centered boy into a sensitive teenager. Johnny Tremain is the apprentice to a silversmith and he is far and away one of the best silversmith apprentices in the area. He is also attractive, strong, and intelligent. The combination of gifts in his life make him overly proud and often unkind to those around him.

Due to a practical joke that goes horribly wrong, Johnny loses the use of his right hand for any kind of detail work. Therefore, all of his dreams of becoming a silversmith are destroyed. The challenges he encounters as he deals with his new limitations and the kind and evil people he meets combine to slowly change Johnny's personality for the better.

I highly recommend the book to anybody who enjoys excellent historical fiction.

The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

When this book starts off Matt is just a baby.  He lives in a place called Opium, a strip of land from part of the US and what used to be Mexico.  Matt is the clone to El Patron, the lord and ruler of Opium.  Clones are something to look down on in Opium.  They are seen as less than animals; livestock.  By law clone's brains must be destroyed at birth, but the old vampire El Patron didn't want that- and he is so powerful he got away with it.

Opium is frozen in time because of the multi-hundred year old El Patron.  Old shows, ways of transportation, old fashioned stoves, and eejits are all the norm.  With exciting, brave, heart-warming people like Tam Lin, Maria and Celia, and an exciting plot with lots of twists and turns, you are in for a ride!

Told from the perspective of Matt, this is exciting, moving, and a great book about human rights and what it means to be a person.

Nancy Farmer is a three-time Newbery Honor Author.  The House of the Scorpion has won a Newbery Honor Book award, American Library Association Honor Book, and is a National Book Award Winner.

This is one of my favorite books!  I would highly reccomend it to fans of the Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and Maximum Ride.