Lockdown: Escape from Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith

Lockdown: Escape from Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith is about Alex Sawyer, a troubled teen who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. He and his best friend, Toby, broke into a house to rob it, but were attacked by mysterious looking men in black suits and a monstrous "being" who appeared to be stitched together and wearing a gas mask. The blacksuits shot killed and framed Alex. As a result, Alex was sentenced to life imprisonment in Furnace, a new prison built into a deep rocky crevice especially for violent kids. Every night something new and horrifying awakens Alex from his sleep - skinless, vicious dogs terrorizing and eating the inmates, the "wheezers" marking certain cells and taking the inhabitants after stabbing them with a needle, and of course, the taunts and jeers from the resident gangs within the prison. And the day isn't much better - having to perform "hard labor" chipping rock walls, cleaning toilets, doing laundry, or preparing the prison food which is a mush made from rotten and moldy left-overs. Alex contemplates suicide nearly every day until he and his roommate, Donovan, and friend Zee figure out a plan for escape. If they get caught, they will be killed - they may be killed anyway! But they believe it is worth the risk for just the chance to escape the Furnace.

This was a really exciting book. It reminded me of an angrier cross between The Maze Runner and The City of Ember. At first, I didn't really even like Alex. He was a jerk and a bully. But then, as he tried to live through the horrors of Furnace, his character changed and he began standing up for the same kinds of kids he would have tormented in his old life. The book ends on a huge cliff-hanger, which makes me want to read the second book, Solitary, right away - it comes out December 21st, 2010!

Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko

Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko is the sequel to Al Capone Does My Shirts (a Maud Hart Lovelace nominee from the 2007 - 2008 school year). It takes place at Alcatraz, the island prison just off the coast of California, in 1935, during the time Al Capone was imprisoned there. The civilian residents on the island have their laundry done by the convicts. As a result, Al Capone is able to slip a note to Moose, the main character, asking for a favor. Moose is reluctant to do a favor for a criminal, knowing he might end up in really big trouble - either with his parents, the warden, or in debt to Al Capone! But, Moose feels obligated to help because he knows Al Capone somehow got Natalie (Moose's autistic sister) into a special school from which she had previously been denied entrance twice. Moose decides to do the favor, which is to buy yellow roses for Al Capone's wife and deliver them to her on the ferry from the main land. Unfortunately, this starts a chain of events which Moose never could have predicted - ending in an escape attempt by three convicts!

I liked this book, though not as much as Al Capone Does My Shirts. The sequel had the same characters - Annie, Moose's baseball playing friend from the island, Piper, the warden's scheming daughter, Jimmy, Moose's fly-breeding friend on the island and his sister Theresa, Scout, Moose's friend from school on the main land, and Janet, the most hated guard's daughter. There was a lot more drama from the prison in this book. It really showed more of the 'nastiness' of the prisoners. I really liked the author's note in the back, explaining the research behind the story and the facts about Alcatraz and its residents through the years. This book comes out in September, 2009.