Going Bovine

by Libba Bray. New York: Delacorte Press, c. 2009. 480 pages. ISBN 9780385733977

A disappointment to his parents and an embarrassment to his twin sister, lackadaisical Cameron Smith is simply getting by in high school when he gets the news he has a disease that is going to kill him--Creutzfeldt-Jacob or "mad cow" disease. Clues from a punk angel (or a hallucination?) lead Cameron to break out of the hospital with a video game-obsessed dwarf and take them on a quixotic road trip in search of a Dr. X, the cure and possibly a chance to save the world.

2010 Michael L. Printz Award Winner

Salt

Salt by Maurice Gee. Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2009. 252 pages. ISBN 978-1-55469-209-5

Volume One of the Salt trilogy.

Hari and the others of Blood Burrow suffer starvation, enslavement and death under Company. Pearl lives a life of luxury and ease but she is under control of Company and has been promised in marriage to a powerful man. While these two come from different worlds, they are connected in their talent to use their minds to speak to people and animals. Both on the run for different reasons, they are soon united in their quest to save the world from a deadly terror found in Deep Salt.

2008 winner of the New Zealand Post Book Award for Young Adult Fiction