Sand Dollar Summer by Kimberly K. Jones

  
"Don't ever doubt that a mere second can change your life forever."

  Wanting to make pizza isn't really a big deal now is it? That's what it used to seem like to Annalise and Free  until that Friday. Their mom left to get pizza ingredients and ended up not coming home.  They come home school to only find out that their mother has been in a horrible car accident. They get to the hospital and see their mom laying their, broken and bruised. After about a week of recovery, Lise and Free's mom comes home at last so summer can begin.  They don't realize what their summer is gonna turn out like until she tells the about a surprise trip to Fiddle Island, Maine. They make the long journey up to a small broken shack on the corner of the island.  A house where Free and Lise's mom used to travel every summer and she deiced to do the same with her kids this year.  Lise hates the island, but over time learns to enjoy it with her new friends Arthur and Ben, and moms old friend, Michael.  A few weeks into summer, Lise meets Ben, an old fisherman who lived on the island for years.  She one day finds a sand dollar laying on the beach.  Ben sees her pick it up and talks to her about why she doesn't like it there, and why she is there.  So Ben gives her this advice "So I guess your like that sand dollar their.  I've noticed that the biggest, toughest shells are the ones that crack and shatter, but the light, little ones float above it all and it lands safe and sound. Sometimes not even where they belong, like here" (89). From their on she goes back to talk to him daily, learning to find the good inside of the bad.

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

 

 "You can't stop the future. You can't rewind the past.  The only way to learn the secret is to press play."

   Imagine having your crush commit suicide, and then realizing YOU are part of the reason why.   That's what happens to Clay Jensen in Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.   Clay comes home from school one day to find a shoe box, full of tapes.  He listens and realizes that they are tapes Hannah Baker, his previous crush, has recorded. There are 7 tapes, each with two sides, except for the seventh.  "Thirteen tapes, because there are thirteen sides to every story"(9).   As he listens to tapes, he thinks it must be a mistake.  Then the tapes say "I Almost forgot.  If you're on my list, you should've received a map"(11).  He pulls the map out of his backpack.  Shocked and scared of what’s to come.  He goes about his night listening to the tapes and following the map.  Waiting for his name to pop up. What’s his story? What are the secrets? Read Thirteen Reasons Why to find out the story behind Hannah Baker and her suicide.