The New York Times' Notable Children's Books of 2007

My 9-year-old read this book as part of her third grade study of Cinderella stories. She liked it because it combined so many different Cinderella tales.

This is a good addition to the Uglies series. At first I was disappointed because it didn't follow Tally Youngblood (the protagonist of the first three books), and though Aya Fuse is annoying at times, she developed into a relate-able character. The scary thing about Extras is how close it is to our own reality. Even without living in a post-apocalyptic world, modern-day communication is eerily similar to how people communicate in Aya's Japan: complete with everyone having their own feeds & ranking, vying for cyber & national popularity like [insert name of any social networking site here]. I don't want to give anything away, but suffice it to say that, like the first book, it gets you thinking about the morally gray aspects of freedom & control. You're torn between wanting people to have freedom, and putting restrictions to keep people from destroying the planet with that freedom.

The final book in the Harry Potter series, and one of my personal favorites. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and I was not disappointed. Harry, Ron and Hermione go on a quest to retrieve and destroy the remaining horcruxes, and find themselves along the way. It was a great ending to a great series that I grew up with.

The author, Shaun Tan, transports the common immigrant story to a foreign planet with strange creatures, monsters and vegetation. He depicts billboards, newspapers and other signs with an alien language, making the only letters in the book completely illegible. In this way, Tan elicits an incredible level of empathy for his protagonist, as the reader experiences some of the same confusion as the story's hero.

Heartbreaking and hilarious! Two different combinations, one inspiring book of overcoming obstacles.