The World Made Straight by Ron Rash

Ron Rash’s book, The World Made Straight, is a work of fiction. 


It’s about a seventeen year old boy named Travis Shelton. Travis wanders into the woods near his home one day while fishing. That’s when he discovers a patch of marijuana plants big enough to make him a lot of money. On his third trip up to the patch of pot plants, he steps right into the jaws of a bear trap. 

After hours on the forest floor, he is released from the bear trap and brought into the house of the farmer who set the trap. Before he is brought to the hospital, the farmer, Carlton Toomey, cuts Travis’ Achilles tendon in half with his pocket knife as a lesson for him to keep his mouth shut about the plants. 

Shortly after that, Travis moved out of his parents’ house to live with Leonard Shuler, a one-time school teacher who now deals a little pot and pills to make ends meet. Travis becomes his student, of sorts, and these two outsiders become increasingly involved as they learn about the community’s violent past and the corrupt present with which they have to deal.

Tommy K.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

The book, Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline is a great book overall. The main character must solve puzzles and outsmart other players and enemies in a virtual videogame world which has taken over the lives of many people in the real world. The inventor of the game passed away and left various puzzles and clues which will lead to all of his fortune in the real world and his power in the oasis. And that is a lot considering he was a billionaire.

Wade, the main character, is one of the best at pop culture from the 80's and the puzzles in the game are about that. While making friends and becoming famous along the way, he must fight against time because a large Imperialist Corporate company named the Sixerâs sponsors a team just to solve the puzzle and reach the prize. They do everything possible including cheating and even killing for it. As the contest goes on, Wade and his friends, who vowed never to help each other with the puzzles, team up. They have no other choice as the Sixerâs come dangerously close to solving it and taking over the oasis and all of the power and money earned by finishing the puzzles.

But, not on Wade's watch. He will do everything possible to stop them as he fights in a historic battle. Will he lose and have the Sixerâs take over or will he win and become the most rich and famous person in the world?

Mason A.

The Alex Awards: Written for Adult Readers, But Not Totally Lame

Every year, the American Library Association (yes, there is such an organization) gives out a number of awards for books. There is a branch of the association that is just for librarians who work with teenagers. Yes, a whole branch of the organization made up of people whose job it is to just work with teenagers. It's called YALSA.

So, YALSA has the best awards (in my opinion) because they get to hand out awards for the books that are written for or would appeal to teenagers. How cool is that? Anyway, most of  the awards are for books that are written for a teen audience. But one of their awards, the Alex Awards, are given out  to 10 books that were written for adults, but they are that have special appeal to teenagers.

Most of the titles are usually fiction, but they have some good nonfiction ones mixed in as well. The Alex Awards for 2013 were announced this week and we will be getting a copy of most, if not all of them. Check out the current winners on the YALSA website.The award goes back to 1998 and the awards and covers and descriptions of the winning books are also linked on the site.

Alex Award: Current Winners and Archives

If you want  to see which Alex Award winners the LRC has, just do a search for Alex Award, just go to our library catalog and type in Alex Award.