Stacking the Shelves (18)

I bought one book (well, actually just a short story) this week and took several more out of the library.

Purchased

I'm an ardent fan of Alan Bradley's Flavia de Luce, the young sleuth in 1950s England. When I discovered that Bradley had released a short story in which the eleven-year-old budding chemist solves another murder, I knew I simply had to have it. So, I used some of the gift card money I received for Christmas to quickly purchase The Curious Case of the Copper Corpse.

This was a major departure for me as I have previously refused to buy short stories. Heck, I won't even download the freebies. But I do make an exception when the short story (or novella, even) is set in a well-established series that I have already been reading.

Borrowed

I've declared 2015 to be my year of focusing on tween/mid-grade and teen/young-adult fiction. So, I borrowed some books from the library to kick off this activity. I selected the four books of Steve Brezenoff's Return to Titanic series.

Reviews tell me that the story begins in Time Voyage when Tucker and his best friend Maya are spending their Spring Break helping Tucker's mother set up an exhibit of items from the Titanic to commemorate the 100th anniversary of its one and only voyage. While handling a boarding pass, the 8th graders are catapulted back to 1912, the day before the Titanic is to set sail. There, the two kids from the twenty-first century meet Liam and his family who are due to board the ship. They now have two objectives: convince Liam's family not to sail on Titanic and figure out how to return to their own time.

The fact that there are three other books in the series should be clue enough that they aren't done with the Titanic. Apparently they bounce back and forth between 2012 and 1912, with the tension ratcheting higher and higher as the Titanic nears its fateful collision with an iceberg.

I'm looking forward to settling down and reading the entire series. These are chapter books intended for independent elementary readers. Some reviewers say 2nd grade and up, but with the protagonists being junior high age, I'd probably say they'd be more appealing to the upper elementary student. Once I've read them, I'll have a better idea.

So how did you do this week? Any new books? You're invited to tell us all about it by joining the fun at Stacking the Shelves. According to the reviewers at Tynga's Reviews who host the meme:

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!