Lowenburg, Bill. The Zorki Chronicles. 9781492274742. Charleston, SC: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2014. $15.29. 464p. Gr. 9+.
Miles Parker is not your typical high school senior. Sure, he doesn’t attend school as often as he should – only two teachers keep him engaged – but who could blame him? Mom died when he was 4 and workaholic dad is away on business for months at a time. But with all this freedom, Miles doesn’t drink, do drugs, or play video games as you would expect. He and his math genius best friend Bird read the classics, are vegan, and care about world events. Miles is a gifted athlete who has thrown in the towel on all school sports for reasons that are unclear, and now his main interest is taking photos with a vintage Russian camera, the Zorki, he picked up on eBay. Turns out some of those Zorki photos start his troubles. In a set of circumstances that would sound utterly contrived if not ripped from recent headlines, a famously attractive but completely unqualified woman – “Cowgirl” Connie – wins the presidency after a contested election, has now sent troops to Pakistan and Mexico, and is about to reinstate the draft.  Miles, Bird, and the very human cast of characters that inhabit this book take us on a page-turning trip through a frighteningly plausible present or near future where we’re fighting wars on multiple fronts and our personal liberties are continually threatened. A blend of political thriller and human drama, this book is a must-read for your politically engaged and socially passionate students as well as adults. Visit zorkichronicles.com and this book is also available in on Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle ereader format.
Realistic Fiction                  Kathie Jackson, Plymouth Meeting Friends School 

I typically read several books a week and give myself permission to give up on a book if I’m not engaged by page 100. So with that volume of type flowing through my brain, it happens only once or twice a year that I am sad to put down a book when I reach the end; this is one of those books. Set in a small Pocono Mountain town, much of the setting and many of the characters in this book felt very real and familiar to me. Dialog and situations are authentic, and while it’s teen-centric I would readily recommend it to my adult friends. The author employs a clever device: beginning each chapter with three news headlines, many of which could be torn from today’s papers, as a terrific way to establish time and place and set the tone. This is the second work by high school teacher librarian Bill Lowenburg – his first, Crash Burn Love, was  a monograph of photographs and essays about demolition derby – and I look forward to his next book!