39 Clues: Storm Warning, by Linda Sue Park

Caribbean- Bahamas and Jamaica.

Personal Days, by Ed Park

Well, this was the second third-person plural office life narrative I've read recently, and this was no Then We Came To The End, which wildly observant readers of this blog will remember I chose as the best Adult Fiction I read in 2008.
But, to be fair, if it weren't for Then We Came To The End, I might have loved this a whole lot more. As it was, with a hell of a baseline for comparison, I loved it a lot.
The first section was, by far, the best. It kind of went downhill from there.
Funny, wry, set in a landscape surrounded by Starbucks and haunted by the staplers left behind those who wer taken in the Firings, it was a great read and one that felt very real- if awfully familiar.

A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park

Odd but good book.
Orphan Tree-Ear lives under a bridge with crippled Crane-Man in 12th century Korea.
After an accident caused by curiosity, he begins to work for a local potter- a master craftsman.
Lots of pottery talk, and then a voyage.
I think this was a strange choice for the Newbery (2001)- it was so very pottery-focused, and the culture is so very foreign, and the names- well, not my favorite kind of thing, but it was a good book- I just don't know who would voluntarily read it.