title: The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise
author:  Matthew Crow 
description: Gr 8 UpFifteen-year-old Francis has enough problems. His awkward sense of humor alienates his peers, his older brother only comes home to steal food from the pantry, and his mom is still mourning the death of his little sister. The last thing Francis needs is a leukemia diagnosis. He is given an extended stay in the teen cancer ward of the local hospital and has nothing but time on his hands. At first, his roommates do not appreciate him any more than his classmates did. But then the indomitable Amber moves in and Francis's world changes. Amber understands Francis in a way that no one else ever has. She dares him to be different, and soon they fall in love. As their lives become more intertwined and Francis slowly gets better, he realizes that Amber may not be able to follow him through recovery. Francis and his family are humorous and special. Readers will welcome the different British cultural idiosyncrasies in this cast of characters. Unfortunately, Amber falls flat. She is an extreme manic pixie dream-girl stereotypeone with which readers are probably already familiar. She never has time to really develop on the page, so the romance between her and Francis is unexpected and hard to understand. The story of young love in the cancer ward has been done before and other titles have been more masterful with the topic. Recommend to readers who simply cannot wait for John Green's The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012) to come back on the shelf.Morgan Brickey, Marion County Public Library System, FL
zlib_text: **Owlknight**
  
  Darian’s Tale _I_ Owl 03
  
  Mercedes R. Lackey and Larry Dixon.
  
    
    
  
  We’ve got soul.
  
  We’ve got each other.
  
  We’ve got the whole world to embrace.
  
  This one’s for you.
  
   __
  
  _One_
  
    
  
  ![](Images/image00196.jpeg)
  
  A shrill whistle caught Darian’s attention, and he looked up and over the lake
  of k’Valdemar Vale, shading his eyes with his hand. As he expected, he saw
  Snowfire waving at him from his “balcony,” three-quarters of the way up the
  side of the cliff that edged the far side of the lake.
  
  Actually, it would have been more accurate to say that he saw a tiny figure
  with white hair waving from the balcony - at this distance he couldn’t have
  said for certain that it was Snowfire. It wasn’t Nightwind, though; her hair
  was still raven-wing black.
  
  The sky above the cliff shimmered with a light, pearly opalescence, although
  it was perfectly possible to see the clouds and blue sky beyond the new Veil,
  a magic shield that protected k’Valdemar.
  
   _I would never have believe