The Book Outlaw

2011-04-20T19:30:00.003-04:00

I miss out on so much when I'm away.

Case in point,

YALSA announced the Teen's Top Ten, Amazon made me unhappy by ceasing their Scrooge-like behavior re: downloading free eBooks and the NYTimes told me it might be time to get rid of my iPod.

What's the deal universe?

Vampire YA Fiction

2011-01-19T17:22:00.004-05:00

Have any of you out there who are not the target demographic read Melissa de la Cruz's Blue Bloods series? If you have not then all I can say to you is think Gossip Girl meets True Blood.

The books are addictive to say the least. Unlike Stephanie Meyer's sparkle-vamps (who bless them still hold a love-hate place in my crotchety YA book loving heart) these are a return to the original myth of vampires being fallen angels.

I read four of the books in a week. And I wanted to know what happened next so badly that I even skipped one book that wasn't in and went on to the next. Happily I missed enough that it will be worth reading but not so much that I was completely lost from there on in the series, which is important.

Am I the only one out there who has gone completely fan-girl for Blue Bloods?

Welcome to the Dark Side

2010-12-27T10:22:00.005-05:00

Now that the Christmas insanity is over, I'll be back to blogging on a more regular schedule. Today I was on the NY Times homepage when the following discussion caught my eye: The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction.

Has anyone read this yet? I found the arguments to be nothing new, nor the contributors to be anything but the regular mix of popular young adult authors and english professors who have published books/articles on the subject. Their explanations as to why 'dark fiction' has become popular made me feel like I was sitting in my young adult literature class discussing the reasons why teens read fiction let alone dark fiction. Naturally the contributors referred to classic, popular, and notorious works of young adult fiction which the standard well-read Times reader would be familiar with or at least have heard of.

Could the Times not find a young adult librarian to participate in this discussion? Who else would be better to ask than an expert in the field, the very people who are there on the front lines assisting and seeing the choices teens make in regards to what they want to read. I'm hoping someone out there who is currently a young adult librarian will respond to that discussion.

Crossing the Tracks

2010-12-14T12:40:00.000-05:00

Since the William C. Morris Award shortlist was released the other week I'm currently working on trying to read the finalists. The Morris Award is an annual award given to a first-time author writing their debut young adult novel. This award is only two years old but an excellent idea, since it helps promote those new voices which might not receive as much attention as the old stand-bys or hip authors who have lots of buzz surrounding their person and their writings and no, Neil Gaiman I wasn't talking about you. Or you, Caroline B. Cooney for that matter.

The first book off the list I chose to read was Crossing the Tracks by Barbara Stuber. At first glance you might think the book is a work of historical fiction, but it isn't. Or at least it isn't in the way that you could argue Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains or Forge are historical fiction. By that I mean the setting (both time and place) are incidental as opposed to the driving force behind the plot. It could have just as easily taken place in the present day.

I'm glad it didn't. The 1920s setting in Kansas/Missouri is excellent because it is one of those areas of history that you don't see very often. You feel as though you were soaking up historical knowledge without the book beating you over the head, "WASN'T IT SO HARD BACK THEN?! PEOPLE WERE SO DIFFERENT." You get the point.

Iris Louise Baldwin is the 15-year old protagonist who is being shipped off by her dapper, shoe-store owning, neglectful widower of a father to be hired help to a Dr. Nesbitt and his elderly mother who live in Wellsford, Missouri. Iris wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact that her mother died when she was 6 and being sent away is essentially the last straw for her as far as her relationship with her father goes.

At the Nesbitt's Iris finds understanding and companionship through her developing relationships with the doctor, his mother, and a hobo dog named Marie. The only sour note is the tenant farmer Cecil Deets who makes Iris as well as the whole town uncomfortable with his drinking and suspected abuse of his daughter Dot. As in all good books, by the end Iris has grown believably as a character and the reader is left optimistic for her future.

I flew through this book because I enjoyed being immersed in the lives of Iris and the Nesbitt's in addition to the interesting portrayal of life in a small pocket of the Mid-West. I fear that only certain female teens and librarians will love this book since it isn't a contemporary setting full of snarky or scandalous teens. Because I don't think it will garner wide popularity I don't think it will win the Morris Award, although it really is a beautifully written and highly enjoyable work of young adult fiction.

Barbara Stuber, Crossing the Tracks, 2010, Simon & Schuster.

Zen & Xander Undone

2010-12-06T17:46:00.006-05:00

Amy Kathleen Ryan, Zen & Xander Undone, 2010, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children.

After their mother's death Zen and Xander Vogel deal with their grief in two very different ways. Zen, a black belt in karate spends most of her days helping to teach classes at her dojo and having conversations with her dead mother. Xander, who is headed for either MIT or Caltech after graduation wears 'slutty' clothing, drinks, experiments with drugs, and starts sleeping around with random guys. The book traces their grieving process which is marked by such events as receiving letters and gifts from their deceased mother ala P.S. I Love You, finding out a 'secret' from their mother's past, and going on a road-trip to find the truth of this secret.

The trouble is, a character like Xander is seen all too often in young adult fiction where a parent dies, and this makes her character less engaging than her sister Zen, who seems to be at least attempting to work through her grief internally rather than via rebellious behavior. There is also a half-hearted love triangle between the sisters and their neighbor which is hard to care about since the neighbor is kind of a jerky teenage boy who is clearly driven by his lust for Xander. And like in many young adult books, the father is hidden away (literally in this case, as he spends most of the book in the basement) from where he will minimally parent and minimally influence much of the action of the book until the end when the author brings him out to help wrap up the plot.

Should this be in a teen library collection? Yes, if only because of Zen's character which is so very different from most fictional teens dealing with grief. It's also better than many other books which deal with the death of a parent.

Series, Series, and more series . . .

2010-10-08T18:45:00.003-04:00

Is it just me or has there been an explosion of series being released for young adults? Lately it seems that nearly every time I've added a book to my to-be-read list, or discover one of which I was previously unaware, surprise! it's book #1 in a series. My guess is this is due in large part to the success of such series as Hunger Games and Twilight (which I steadfastly refuse to refer to as a 'saga'). I find it alternately frustrating and enjoyable.

It is frustrating because it seems to indicate a real push in the publishing world to release books which will become best-sellers or the next Twilight. But this leaves one to wonder where the great stand-alone books will come from in YA? I love books that leave me wanting more and unable to know for certain what happened to the characters after the story ended. The series being produced seem to answer that question all too thoroughly or else lead you to expect a detailed epilogue but only leave you hanging. Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It trilogy left us uncertain to the ultimate fate of her characters when all along it seemed she had brought them together so she could leave us assured of their ultimate fate.

The influx of series are enjoyable precisely because there are some stories which simply put, cannot be restricted to a single volume and others which should have quit after one. For every crappy YA-version of an adult series--I'm looking at you, James Patterson--there are well thought out characters and worlds whose next installation continue to be eagerly waited for. This also opens up more potential for teens to fall in love with a series when they may have previously been 'reluctant readers'. It also produces excellent results in popular genres like fantasy or scifi. I'm a huge fan of the Bloody Jack series in particular but some of the installations have been better than the others, and inevitably they will end and leave us dissatisfied, wanting more of the characters just as if they had been a single-volume novel. So it stands to reason that many authors don't really need to make their story into a series, just maybe a several hundred page work.

What series do you think are excellent and what ones do you think should have stopped after book one?

Get thee to a Master's Degree Program.

2010-09-27T10:31:00.011-04:00

I just finished Anthony Bourdain's Medium-Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook and the chapter "So You Wanna Be a Chef" in particular got me thinking about what it might look like if someone wrote an essay "So You Wanna Be a Public Librarian". What this essay would say, what advice it might dispense to aspiring public librarians or those of us who are fresh out of library school, MLS in hand, has been something I've been turning over in my mind. I can, of course, only speak from my own experience with librarians and the field of library and information science.

Would it advise attending library school? Since graduating in May of 2009 and plunging into a job market that was marked more by the desperation of employment seekers for a job, any job for which we might be qualified rather than competition for actual good jobs (of which there were few and far between) I've felt very strongly that my answer would be no. Or at least, not until one had a few years of professional level work experience under their belt. Coming from a New England State where libraries are not dependent upon meeting certain criteria in order to receive state funding, the public librarian job ads here fall into two different groups: M.L.S Librarian with several years of professional work experience and B.A. Librarian with limited to no professional work experience.

Some of this is due to the predominantly suburban/rural nature of the area. Many libraries aren't even open 30 hours a week let alone 40 to warrant needing more than one "professional" librarian on the pay-roll. And as we all have seen, more and more public libraries are suffering cut-backs in staff, hours, and worst of all budgets. So how would someone who wanted to become a public librarian in a New England state go about maximizing their employment potential? I suggest the following things.

1. Don't get your Master's Degree (Yet).

2. Get a library job. I don't care if it's part-time or a 10 hour a week job running story-time that only requires a B.A. If you are one of the lucky few who get a full-time librarian job with a B.A. don't think that means you'll get to skip graduate school. If you do not secure a full-time library job then go get a second job to support your library career. Sadly I cannot cite myself as the origin of this particular brilliant piece of advice, that goes to one of my former library school professors. The beauty of getting a library job before going to library school is that for many lucky souls their place of employment will offer tuition reimbursement ranging from limited to your whole degree, so keep this in mind. For when you do decide to traipse off to library school you could find yourself in less debt than those unfortunates who thought it was a brilliant idea to go from college to graduate school without spending a couple years employed in a public library first.

3. Join your state library association. You'll get to network with your local movers and shakers which will be invaluable when you are looking for a job post-grad. By attending state conferences you'll get exposed to the topics which public librarians are concerned with and will allow you to know what job skills libraries in your state look for in their librarians. On the degree front most state library associations offer scholarships for para-professionals (which would be you, the person with a B.A. who is working two jobs to support their library career). You can apply for those scholarships and if you're lucky you'll get one. Once you have completed steps 1-3 then young novice or mid-life job-switcher you can proceed to step 4.

4. Go to Library School. I mean it, GO. TO. LIBRARY SCHOOL. A physical campus where you can meet your peers, avail yourself of opportunities ranging from social to professional and learn the backbone of what makes a good librarian. I know many of you probably can't attend an actual school and complete your degrees online due to the demands of family, work and time constraints. If you find yourself in that position make an effort to at least attend one class at the actual campus. I can't say enough for how amazing it is to be surrounded by other wanna-be librarians. If you've followed my advice and returned to school after some time off working, you'll also benefit from being able to defer payment on those undergraduate loans which you've been working a second job to pay.

5. Get an internship. I did two internships while in grad school and I cannot tell you enough how many times that came up in job interviews. You'll put what you're learning in classes to work, and get something to put on your resume. Unlike college, you will often find paid internships where you essentially become part of the staff for the duration of the internship. Plus, libraries love graduate interns. We are the future of the profession and they want to help you be successful.

6. Continue working while in grad school. I'm sorry, did you think you were going to quit your job to devote your time to your studies and be a student again? I've had people in my classes who were working 40 hour a week jobs with families to take care of, sure they may have only been taking 2 classes at a time but they were still getting their degree. You don't have to complete grad school in a year and a half or two years, unless of course, you want to.

7. Get a Job.

I did not do the things I have suggest to you all, and sincerely wish I had. Most of the successful people I met at library school did what I have laid out above and got full-time professional positions. I who did not do that, am extremely lucky to have found a job in a library where although I am part-time, there are opportunities for further education and advancement. So don't do what I did. Do the above and I promise, you will be all the happier for it.

Sisters Red

2010-09-01T22:13:00.005-04:00

Jackson Pierce, Sisters Red, 2010, Hachette Book Group.

Scarlett March lost an eye defending her sister from a werewolf (called Fenris) in the same attack that killed their grandmother. Ever since then her raison d'etre has been to hunt the Fenris in hopes of saving other girls from a worse fate. Her sister Rosie is as deadly a hunter as her older sister but longs for a life that has more purpose than tracking and killing the Fenris. The two girls, along with their neighbor Silas, a woodsman by blood, spend their days and nights slowly but steadily chipping away at their enemy. But after a relocation to Atlanta, the trio find themselves unsure whether they are the hunters or the hunted.

I'm torn on how to feel about this book. By the time I was 1/3 of the way into it, I knew where the plot was going. I don't want to give too many details because I think it's not too difficult to figure the story out, yet the way Pearce wrote it was so interesting that I continued reading, and nevertheless found myself entertained by the ending I knew was coming. Most reviews, including the ones on the back of the book, focus on the 'love story' element of this work but I felt this was hardly the most noteworthy plot thread. I was most impressed by the way Pearce believably traced the tensions that arise between Rosie and Scarlett as they navigate the challenge of growing up and becoming individuals without completely severing the bond of sisterhood. On the other hand, I had distinct problems with how the female victims of the Fenris were portrayed, as essentially bringing their deaths upon themselves by what they wore and how they acted. The sisters themselves are strong female characters but the rest of the women in the work are simply regarded as 'Dragonflies' who are potential prey for the Fenris. If the work is meant to be a metaphor for violence against women then the author succeeds to a certain degree, but the depiction and fates of the supporting female characters leaves much to be desired.

2010-09-01T18:26:00.006-04:00

Library Run. This time picked up Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner by Stephenie Meyer, and Ilyria by Elizabeth Hand.

Right now I'm halfway through Sisters Red and unfortunately I'm about 99.9% sure I know exactly how the book will end, which I don't like. Here's hoping I'm in for a surprise.

Kaput Computer

2010-01-31T12:48:00.003-05:00

Back again, this time from an overly-long hiatus due to the insanity of the holidays and my home computer crashing. In the meantime I've naturally been continuing to read catching up on the YA books from 2009 I missed out on and savoring the brand spanking new releases.

I'll be posting again regularly starting this week. Keep an eye out for reviews coming your way.

Love is the Higher Law

2009-11-11T16:20:00.001-05:00

David Leviathan, Love is the Higher Law, 2009, Knopf.

Yeah, I know that September 11th was months ago. The only reason I’m talking about it now is that I picked up David Leviathan’s Love is the Higher Law on an impulse. At first I didn’t think I’d even want to read the book. It’s about teenagers living in New York City when the World Trade Center was destroyed, something which I didn’t need to relive (having been a teen myself at the time albeit in New England not NYC). But curiosity got the better of me.

Leviathan tells the story of three teens living in NYC who all have varying experiences of that day and the days and weeks afterwards. Yet the book is not so much about the events of that day as it is about how the teens are shaped by it, in the way that each generation is shaped by their own significant historical event. It is also feels like a bit of an ode to the brief period of time when we were in transition as a nation and a culture.

The book was a bit of a nostalgia trip for me. At one point a couple of the characters go to a Travis concert and the band is described thus “musically, they may be a blip on the Brit-pop radar—but in September 2001 they are big enough to sell out Radio City Music Hall” (81). It was amusing to me to read that since I remember thinking I was so indie for liking that band in high school. It also lead me to the question I now keep asking myself: whether Leviathan intended this book for those of us in our twenties who had our teenage world view interrupted by 9/11 or for those teens today who were still in elementary school when it occurred? I’m sure my reading of this work feels entirely different than someone who is a currently a teenager.

Has anyone else read this who was also in high school or college in 2001?

Happy Veteran's Day

2009-11-11T10:57:00.013-05:00

Have no fear, although I've been silent for the past week or so, I most certainly have been continuing to read. I routinely raid both the YA sections of the library I work at and the library of the town I live in. Therefore this week will be mostly mini-reviews so I can keep track for both my own memory and your own interest.

L.M. Meyer, Rapture of the Deep: A Bloody Jack Adventure, 2009, Harcourt's Childrens Books.

Having left us with quite the cliffhanger at the end of My Bonny Light Horseman, Meyer returns delivering Jacky and her friends from a number of scrapes. Thankfully Jacky returns to the sea where she dives for sunken treasure and Jaimy is stationed on a ship only a stone's throw away. But things never do go smooth for Jacky and though we know she will come out on top in the end, Meyer doesn't fail to keep both his readers and characters on their toes.

A preposterous number of former villians and friends make cameos in this book which leads one to wonder if Meyer is planning on wrapping up the series anytime soon? I love good historical fiction, which this book is, although the author has a knack for placing Jacky in the most historically significant places with some of history's major players. As Jacky's story progresses so does the maturity level of the subject matter, placing this book squarely in the teen category as opposed to tweens.

Suzanne Collins, Catching Fire, 2009, Scholastic.

I'm going to tell you straight off the bat, I didn't like The Hunger Games. In fact, I'm known at my library for being one of the few staff members who wasn't raving about what a great book it was. Some of that had to do with the fact that I didn't realize it was the first book in a trilogy (I know, I know) and the main bit had to do with the fact that I felt there was no real climax to the story arc of the first book. Which means by now you're all wondering why I read the sequel if I didn't like the first one.

I read it because I wanted to see how Collins did on the second book. My verdict? SO much better than the first one. I honestly felt like she could have started the story here if it weren't for the fact that the first volume (of the background story) is in fact, fairly central to the plot. Since I imagine most of you have read this I'll spare you a lengthy summary. For those of you who haven't, it deals with the aftermath of the Games including Katniss' relationships with Peeta and Gale and the burgeoning rebellion against the Capitol. Some critics complained that the book was basically Katniss agonizing over which boy to choose. I don't agree. These were secondary to the larger plot of the rebellion and dare I say, symbols of the ongoing struggle in Katniss' mind of whether she should do what the Capitol wants her to do, or help the rebellion for which she has become a symbol.

Gayle Forman, If I Stay, 2009, Dutton Juvenile.

Mia is a high school senior who lives in Oregon with her parents and little brother. While she agonizes over many of the same decisions as other teens (where to go to college, who she is exactly, and what to do about her boyfriend when she graduates) it is only after a car crash takes the lives of her parents and leaves her in a coma that she finds herself having to make the decision between life and death. Mia's body is left in a coma while her spirit wanders the halls of the hospital spying on her loved ones, the nurses, the doctors, and complete strangers who inform her decision. We also see what life was like for Mia before the accident through flashbacks which give insight into her character's decision making process.

God, this book was absolutely heart-wrenching to read. By the end I was teared up if not on the verge of straight out crying. It is a difficult book to read, more so than 13 Reasons Why was a difficult book to read. Possibly because despite the beautiful writing the book is a downer. Yet I would say that this is probably one of the best books published this year. The characters felt true-to-life, even Mia's hipster parents rang true without seeming phony. Just be warned, you shouldn't read this book if you're already feeling low because it definitely isn't the kind of book that although depressing leaves you uplifted at the end.

The Halloween Tree

2009-10-26T10:49:00.005-04:00

Today's post is inspired by the ladies over at The Hollow Tree, which is a great blog dealing with all things young adult fantasy. If you haven't been there already I highly suggest you check it out. This morning they were talking about the movie Hocus Pocus from 1993 which is one of my all-time-favorite Halloween movies. Which should come as no surprise since I clearly am kind of a wuss when it comes to horror (see my comments on Rick Yancey's The Monstrumologist). Their post got me thinking about other great Halloween movies which are kid-friendly but also evoke the spirit of the holiday, and although generally most teens I know have moved on to the horror fright fests as their movie of choice for Halloween, I was never one of those. So in honor of those teens out there like me, I give you.

Bradbury, Ray. The Halloween Tree. (1993)

This is the cartoon movie version of Ray Bradbury's short-story of the same name. Directed by Mario Piluso who helped bring many of the best comics of the 1980s it tells the story of four friends who race through time to save their friend Pip's soul on Halloween night. The movie doesn't stray very far from Bradbury's original short story, so if you've read it there won't be very many surprises. What the movie does well is evoke the spookiness and sense of anything-is-possible that comes from the night when children roam the streets trick or treating and the spirits of the dead might just be out there alongside them.

The best parts of the movie are Ray Bradbury's narration and the fact that Leonard Nimoy does the voice of Moundshround. Unfortunately this movie is not available to buy on DVD and hard to find on VHS. You can, however, watch it on YouTube.

Of course, you could always just read the short-story. :)

Scary Reads

2009-10-23T17:40:00.005-04:00

By the end of the day my box at work had two lovely books waiting for me to read this weekend. This more than made up for my having to physically restrain myself (almost) from reading the latest Bloody Jack Rapture of the Deep which just came in from B&T.

I have to admit to you that I did sneak a peek just to see if Jamie and Jackie would be thwarted or actually allowed to married . . . but no spoilers here.

Therefore this weekend I will be reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox and Warrior Girl in between forcing myself to finish The Monstrumologist which although I am only a couple chapters in has already made me consider putting it on my list of the scariest ya book I've read this year. That or the goriest.

What have you read (or are currently reading) that goes under your scary list?

Young Adult Reading Rooms!

2009-10-22T15:05:00.004-04:00

Can I just talk about how much I love well-designed teen rooms?

Today I went to a workshop at a small public library in the south-western part of my state. Like many libraries in New England it was in a brick building that had been added on to in order to enlarge the library. They had a sizeable children's room which was comfortable, spacious, and bright but it was the teen room which I couldn't get over.

Granted it was a small space which probably wouldn't fit more than 15 teens at a time (and a tight squeeze at that) but the way it was designed and decorated made this aspiring teen librarian's day. Mainly because I'm a sucker for libraries that give teens their own seperate space--no matter what size.

So, like I said the space was on the small size but it was well-lit by a combination of overhead lights and a window. The bookshelves were on three of the walls with one long bookshelf sticking out to divide the space up. There were brightly patterned but not childish rugs on the floor along with comfortable cushions with backs for seating in addition to a sort of bar table for kids to sit at and do their homework. Mini-displays highlighting Teen Read Week and New YA Fiction along with movie posters on the wall finished off the room. And the room had full sight-lines from the reference desk.

It really made me happy to see because it was a creative use of a space that could have been turned into a storage area. But it also got me thinking about what is absolutely vital to a successful teen room?

Personally I think having a seperate area, whether it is open or enclosed is one of the most important if not the most important features of a teen room. Then I would say that having the young adult collection in the room, decorating with posters of popular culture (music, movies, or even anime), as well as having comfortable and attractive seating are the next most important factors to a successful teen room.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get pictures since I forgot my camera, but I'll bring it with me next week and post some up for you to see.

The Treasure Map of Boys

2009-10-21T11:42:00.009-04:00

I made a library run yesterday and came out with 3 of the books on my 'to-read' list. Namely, The Treasure Map of Boys, The Monstrumologist and The Waters, The Wild. Since I've got a workshop tomorrow I thought I'd sneak in a review.

E. Lockhart, The Treasure Map of Boys: Noel, Jackson, Finn, Hutch, Gideon--and me, Ruby Oliver, 2009, Delacorte Press.

Ruby Oliver is doing well dealing with the events of the past year and a half which left her with a stolen boyfriend, a group of former best friends, and the not-so-pleasant experience of panic attacks. With her two friends Megan and Nora at her side Ruby is living her life the best way she knows how while making the normal mistakes of a heterosexual teenage girl. But things never go smoothly for Ruby and a slew of events leave her questioning what makes a good friend, what kind of boy is worth the trouble, and how to count her treasures.

Despite the prominence of her visits to her therapist, Ruby is not a neurotic character and if it were not for her panic attacks I would have questioned why she needed these visits in the first place. Instead they help serve to move Ruby forward as a character, pointing out her flaws in an objective and safe manner (as opposed to the way her peers deal with her). As for her focus on boys, it is a healthy amount that doesn't turn the book into a romance nor does it make her character come across as boy-crazy. Ruby's relationships with her two girl friends feel real even with their topical slang.

I hadn't read the previous two books about Ruby Oliver, so I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to pick this third one up. Instead of making new readers feel that they had to go back to read the first two in order to figure out what happened, E. Lockhart included enough information for new readers to have sufficient background without making those familiar with the story have to sit through a rehashing of the first two books. That was a relief as formulaic first chapters were a hallmark of the series I read as a tween--most notably The Babysitters Club. Young adult fiction is better without them despite the comfort of knowing what will probably happen.

Days of Little Texas

2009-10-19T12:30:00.006-04:00

R.A. Nelson, Days of Little Texas, 2009, Knopf.

Ronald Earl is a 16-year old boy who has been a preacher on the tent-revival circuit since he was a child. Known as Little Texas, Ronald has a gift for preaching and faith-healing. After a nearly-dead girl in a blue dress named Lucy is brought to him at a revival Ronald begins to see her everywhere the Church of the Hand stops. The trouble is Lucy shows up in places and at times when she couldn't possibly be there. So what is Lucy, exactly?

Meanwhile Ronald isn't entirely sure he wants to continue preaching, despite his gift for it. He longs to live a life more ordinary with school on the weekdays and church on Sundays. Not to mention he doesn't know how to deal with girls his own age, let alone women. This, combined with the mystery of Lucy come to a head when his guardian Miss Wanda Joy decides that it is time for him to begin his adult ministry by preaching on an island where legend has it the devil swept away the last man to dare hold a revival there.

It took me a while to get into this book, not because I found it to be slow-paced or badly written but rather because I can be a tiny bit neurotic about evangelical Christianity. Once I got over that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book which tells an evangelical Christian ghost story (despite the oxymoron in that statement as aparently evangelical Christians don't believe in ghosts). The main character Ronald is not a stereotype of a devout Christian: while the book is heavy on biblical references, proverbs, psalms, and quotations Ronald is a teenage boy who is tackling some of the same more earthly challenges of growing up. The supporting characters are well-drawn out and memorable; they too are neither sinners nor saints but humans who are faithful though flawed.

I'm not sure how teens will receive this book. If they are like me in their neurosis re: christianity than they may be slightly too prejudiced to continue on and realize how much religion is central to the book and yet the book itself is not meant to be an evangelical tool. While I keep hammering home that a central motif of this book is religion, I think it is more truthful to say that it examines the difference between religion and faith. And I have to ask myself, if the book had been a ghost story of another religious tradition or Christian sect would I have been so bothered by the bible tie-ins?

What I Saw and How I Lied

2009-10-13T17:52:00.007-04:00

Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied, 2008, Scholastic.

At last, a book that might just deserve its award.

1947

Queens, NY.

Evie, who has never known her biological father and grew up in the shadow of her mother longs for the day when she can be considered a 'grown-up' (which means being able to wear lipstick and smoke cigarettes). At the same time she is adjusting to life in post-World War II America where rations are a distant memory and her stepfather Joe Spooner is a living breathing prescence instead of words on a page.

When Joe whisks Evie and her mother off to Florida even though the school year has just begun, Evie doesn't see anything suspicious about this. Nor does she see anything fishy about the arrival at the hotel of Peter Coleridge, a handsome ex-GI who served in the same postwar company as Joe. Evie, of course falls in love with Peter and pursues him to her mother's displeasure. At the same time there is an undercurrent of tension and mystery despite the friendship of the Spooners, Coleridge, and the Graysons' (a couple her parents become friends with at the hotel). Instead the stage is being set for lust, murder, and betrayal, all of which leave Evie having to confront what really happened and who she needs to protect.

While it was not immediately obvious I don't think it was difficult to see where the story was going and how it would end. I loved that the plot had echoes of film-noir mystery and Old Hollywood glamour. Evie herself is a likeable protagonist whose difficult choices evoke the sympathy of readers. But what I liked the most is that the book dispells the notion that after World War II the soldiers came home, picked up their lives, moved to the suburbs, gave birth to the Baby Boomers and all was well and good. Instead the author takes the time to point out the hypocrisy that a country which helped close concentration camps would allow anti-Semitism to exist on its own soil. Fortunately this is done in a thought-provoking and subtle way without pounding you over the head but letting you draw your own opinion. The author also explores the lengths we go to protect the ones we love.

Overall, an excellent read and I understand why the book won the National Book Award for Young Adults.

Straight Science Fiction

2009-10-13T16:50:00.005-04:00

Last week while I was sitting at the Circulation Desk a teenage girl came up to me and asked for help finding a science fiction book to read. The kicker was, her teacher absolutely refused to accept anything but straight science fiction and absolutely, positively NO crossovers into such genres as horror or fantasy. This left me scratching my head for a minute.

Which it shouldn't have.

I mean how many of you automatically thought of Douglas Adam's Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy or Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game? Because I didn't. At least not at first.

Fortunately I'm not the only one at my library who reads books from the young adult section; my co-worker S. happened to overhear the girl and suggested those, along with a couple others: practically anything Scott Westerfeld, Mary E. Pearson's The Adoration of Jenna Fox, and a couple of ones from the adult section which I don't remember now.

The girl ended up checking out Westerfeld's Uglies and I was left with the realization that here was a genre amongst Young Adult Fiction which I was sorely lacking in experience. This is something which must be remedied so I'm asking whoever is out there to send your recommendations my way. It doesn't have to be 'straight science fiction' as this girls stubborn teacher was insisting (so it can have cross-over appeal) but it does have to be written for or something that appeals to a young adult audience.

I can't wait to hear your recommendations!

13 Reasons Why

2009-10-01T16:24:00.001-04:00

Jay Asher, 13 Reasons Why, 2009, Razorbill.

Hannah Baker committed suicide. But not before she left behind 13 tapes explaining exactly what and who it was that drove her to make the decision to die. Clay, who had a crush on Hannah, is one of the so-called “Baker’s dozen” [13 people] to receive the tapes with the command to listen and pass them on, lest their sins be revealed to a much larger audience. The problem is, he doesn’t belong on this list. Or does he?

In this work Jay Asher forces us to acknowledge the difficult truth of many teen suicides: it was not the individuals alone which brought them to that point. The tapes of Hannah Baker go completely against the usual psycho-babble which we are often treated to when someone kills them self (“It was no one’s fault”). Instead his protagonist has no trouble making sure those responsible know exactly what part they played in her decision.

Books dealing with suicide can be tough ground to cover in the young adult literature world. Part of this is because the topic is often one which teens are all too familiar with; which is not to say that people (parents, educators, librarians) should work themselves into a frenzy thinking that all teens are suicidal. These books are also difficult to write because they can all too easily become preachy works which end with the requisite supplemental material where *you can find help*.

Yet Asher has succeeded with a book that leaves the reader feeling every bit as voyeuristic as you imagine the characters must feel listening to Hannah measure out blame. The message is not an upbeat one—but one could hardly expect that from a work dealing with teen suicide. What it succeeds in doing, most poignantly at the end, is in reminding us that sometimes even the smallest dramas have larger repercussions. A fact which cannot be understated when dealing with teens.

Technorati Tags: jay_asher,suicide,tapes,tough_issues

A short review to whet your YA fiction reading appetites.

2009-10-01T14:39:00.001-04:00

Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah (NY: Orchard Books, 2007).

This book reminded me a LOT of Looking for Alibrandi [by Melinda Marchetta] because 1.) it's about living with a hyphenated identity as a teen; 2.) it takes place in Australia; and 3.) There is a crazy old lady who ultimately teaches the main character, Amal, a lesson about life by revealing her own big secret.

The plot centers around Amal, an eleventh grader who decides to take up the practice of wearing hijab (a head-scarf in her case) to demonstrate her faith, and the reactions of family, friends, and strangers that ensue, thereby causing her to rethink many aspects of her own life in addition to who she thinks she is.

While Amal’s exploits do not even remotely resemble those of the often, shall I say over-exposed teen in some ya fiction, her sense of ethics feels authentic. I also appreciated the frank discussion of the importance of faith in her life without it becoming too preachy nor something that teens who do not practice her religion (or any at all) cannot relate to.

2009-09-30T19:16:00.002-04:00

I'm back! With my degree and only a part-time job in hand, mind you, but new reviews will be forthcoming.

13 Little Blue Envelopes

2008-12-03T14:56:00.002-05:00

Maureen Johnson, 13 Little Blue Envelopes, 2005, HarperTeen.

Ginny's Aunt Peg died three months ago from a brain tumor, so what's she doing sending Ginny a package with 13 blue envelopes she is to open only as instructed? The first letter sends her to NYC where she picks up a plane ticket to London and an ATM card which her aunt writes will fund her "quest". What follows is an expedition through Europe that asks her to do such things as "ask Piet about Rembrandt's The Night Watch" and "make an offering to the Vestal Virgins at the Roman Coliseum." As Ginny makes her way through the continent she discovers the true story behind her Aunt's last two years on earth and finds herself shedding her shyness and inhibitions with every mile.

While the writing of this story is admittedly weak, the plot proves irresistible. Johnson takes a formulaic "backpack through Europe after high school graduation" story and turns it into something better although she does rely on many of the tropes one usually finds in those stories. Her characters could use some fleshing out, Ginny remains a bland heroine despite her apparent daring yet her interactions with the other characters she meets along the way are realistic which helps move the story along.

This is a good light read but not for teens who want the quintessential "backpack through Europe" story. Instead this is better for those who want a story about how people come out of their shells and make discoveries about themselves.

My Most Excellent Year

2008-12-03T14:13:00.001-05:00

Steve Kluger, My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park, 2008, Dial Books.

Written as a mix of school assignments, letters, emails, instant
messages, and diaries this book revolves around the memories of friends Anthony, Augie, and Alejandra who recall their 9th grade year when they each fell in love, fought, and found out who they really were. Anthony finally comes to term with the death of his mother by bonding with a deaf-kid named Huckey, Augie accepts his sexuality and Alejandra realizes she wants to be a Broadway actress rather than follow in the diplomatic footsteps of her entire family. Interspersed with the teenagers accounts are emails between various adult figures in their lives who comment on the changes these teens are going through.

This was an unusual book as one almost expected it to be a "guy" book despite the title's inclusion of love and Mary Poppins. This was not true. It was more of a book that one could see appealing to teens of both genders, however I do think that probably more girls than guys would read it because of the cover and the format which is popular among "teen girl" books. That being said it was a great read. The characters felt real, relatable, and their lives possible. My only beef is that the story is set in Brookline, Massachusetts and since I live in Brookline it was annoying to try to figure out what his new names for places in Coolidge Corner were. For example, was The Word Shop meant to be The Brookline Booksmith? Things like that irritate me in books, why couldn't he just use the real names? I'm not familiar with the NYC underground music scene but it seemed to me that David Levithan and Rachel Cohn did an okay job with using the real places in NYC as the setting for Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. The other slighter beef was that Augie's love for show tunes combined with his subsequent coming out seemed a bit too "stereotypical gay teen boy" for my taste. Fortunately the relationship between Augie and his bf transcended anything stereotypical.

I'm not sure the teenage boys I know would like this book, but I would certainly be willing to pull it out as a recommendation to anyone looking for a good fictional book.

Briar Rose

2008-12-02T03:00:00.004-05:00

Jane Yolen, Briar Rose, 1992, Starscape.

"I am Briar Rose." Those are the last words that Becca's Gemma (grandmother) says to her granddaughters before dying. Becca's older sisters pass it off as the delirium of an old woman but twenty-three year old Becca feels a nagging sensation that there may be some truth behind these last words, after all growing up, their household version of Briar Rose didn't match other kids versions--not even a little bit.

Going through her grandmother's things Becca discovers bits and pieces of the beginning of her grandmother's life in America that doesn't jibe with what her mother has always believed. For instance, that she [Becca's mother] was born in a European refugee camp in upstate New York. With this, Becca sets off on a journey to discover who her Grandmother and Briar Rose were--one and the same or pure fairy tale? What she finds takes her into the heart of Poland where the townspeople refuse to talk about what happened during the war. Piece by piece Becca learns the story of her Grandmother and that sometimes fairy tales can be more heartbreaking than the truth.

I'm not sure how to feel about this story. I generally like Jane Yolen's work, but I felt like Becca herself had a fairy princess complex going on. Furthermore it was creepy that Becca's thirty-five year old editor was hitting on her while also offering to help her solve her family mystery. The fact that the fairy tale is a metaphor for the Holocaust makes it difficult to read, especially when you know that worse things than what was described in this story took place. Still, Yolen knows that the people reading this may have not yet learned about that part of history in school and so she walks a fine line between too much information and not enough in a way that makes it resonate with the reader. Yet I find it hard to comment on the specific history which inspired this book without asking myself how much is too much and how much is not enough? All I know is that this book doesn't suffer from the same problem as The Boy in the Striped Pajamas which masquerades a a child's "Holocaust fable" but in reality I personally would have a difficult time recommending to a parent (keeping the ending in mind).

How I Live Now

2008-12-02T00:44:00.002-05:00

Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now, 2006, Wendy Lamb Books.

What is up with all these apocalyptic young adult novels? First there was Life As We Knew It, then there was Before the War Began and How I Live Now. Now, three books does not a trend make but I wonder how many other end of the world ya novels are out there lurking about? Nevertheless, this apocalyptic novel (or really just some kind of limited to England World War III) felt weird to me, mostly because I had just finished Twilight at the time and everytime they talked about her being in love with her cousin Edmond my brain translated Edmond as Edward and went, oooh vampires!

Basically, Daisy's father remarries and sends her to live with her Aunt and cousins in England who live in some sort of ramshackle manor house--think Cold Comfort Farm meets the Burrow--on the eve of a massive war that is about to break out across the country. This conveniently takes place after her Aunt leaves the kids behind to go take part in peace talks in Oslo the result of which make Neville Chamberlain look like a rocking Parliamentary figure. So the kids are left to fend for themselves while a nameless and faceless enemy moves from London to the English countryside. Meanwhile everything in the way of civilization is going kaput! and everyone is channeling World War II sacrifice and victory gardens, and then the cousins get separated and somehow the fact that Daisy is an American citizen means absolutely nothing until the very end.

The fact that this book is a Michael L. Printz award-winner doesn't make sense to me, unless its because it deals with controversial issues like the incestuous relationship between Daisy and Edmond or the fact that Daisy has an eating disorder that is only aggravated by the lack of food available. Even then I think that there are better books out there that deal with societal upheaval or apocalyptic type worlds and the fact that the cover is reminescent of Life As We Knew It isn't doing the book any favors since it makes readers think it will be like that work when in reality, the two have very little in common.

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles

2008-12-01T19:00:00.001-05:00

Patricia C. Wrede, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, 1990, Magic Carpet Books.

I'm a sucker for stories with strong female heroines, luckily for me Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles series fits that description. Cimorene is NOT your stereotypical princess, growing up she wanted to fence, learn magic, speak Latin, cook, and do hundreds of other things that simply "weren't done" by princesses. So on the eve of her engagement to a prince as silly as her sisters, she runs away to go offer her services as a Dragon's Princess--that being the last repectable role for a princess although one hardly offers to fill the position. Fortunately for Cimorene the dragon Kazul takes her up on her offer instead of eating her. And so Cimorene becomes the Dessert Chef-slash-Archivist of Kazul the Dragon.

The series main conflict revolves around the Society of Wizards of who are attempting to cause trouble by sucking up magic from other magical creatures (including dragons) and the Enchanted Forest itself. The cast of characters are familiar ones with a twist--the witch Morwen looks witchy but is clean, nice, the owner of numerous cats, and holds as her motto "None of that nonsense please" in the middle of a forest where princes are either enchanted or going on a quest, witches grow horrible plants for fun, and princesses are as silly as they always have been in fairy tales. We are taken from Cimorene's pre-dragon days to the ascent of her son to a throne (but I won't say anymore and ruin the story). Although the fourth book was actually written first, the three before it are the most action packed which one imagines will appeal to both die-hard fantasy fans and those who are a bit more skeptical. Of course, this critic could just be talking about herself.

Paper Quake

2008-12-01T18:41:00.001-05:00

Kathryn Reiss, Paper Quake: A Puzzle, 1996, Harcourt Paperbacks.

This book is a mix of historical fiction and mystery that revolves around a girl named Violet who after a tremor finds letters literally coming out of the seams of the building her parents new San Francisco floral shop is located in. Reading the letters Violet is startled to find parallels between the life of the girl who is writing the letters and her own: a sick girl who is plagued by cruel twin sisters. She also finds that V, who died sometime around the 1906 earthquake the decimated San Francisco, had dreams of a larger quake striking the modern city wreaking death and destruction--and now Violet is beginning to have those dreams herself. As the days pass and the Bay Area is shook by more tremors, Violet races to comb through the documents left from that time in order to find the answers: when will the big one hit and how can she warn everyone before it happens?

The book was an interesting take on modern day teens attempting to solve a mystery that happened decades before. Although there were some echoes of Caroline B. Cooney's Out of Time quartet, the book relied more on using historical documents than actual time travel in order to solve the mystery. There were some themes which I found unusual in a young adult novel, one in particular, the relationship between Violet and her sister Rose. Namely, Rose treats her sister with an attitude of resentment which often borders on outright hatred, since the healthier triplets are responsible for anything that happens to Violet's health although she has not had any health problems since she was a young child. Usually there is sibling discord in ya books but to see out and out hatred expressed was, for me, a first.

Unfortunately the actual mystery was thin and the solving of it was rooted far too much in pure coincidence than actual investigatory work. And as always we never find out the answer to the real mystery of the story, in this instance: was V murdered or did she die from her own weak heart?

An Abundance of Katherines

2008-10-27T17:15:00.001-04:00

John Green, An Abundance of Katherines, 2006, Puffin.

After Colin is dumped by his nineteenth girlfriend named Katherine, he suffers an identity crisis of sorts. If he is destined to forever be the Dumpee, he believes it must reveal some larger truth about who Colin (a child prodigy) will turn out to be: a failure. After all, he has never had his 'Eureka' moment, the one which would signal the advent of his genius. The only solution to this identity crisis is to take a road trip which leads him and his best friend Hassan to the tiny town of Gutshot, Tennessee. In Gutshot Colin and Hassan find Colin's 'Eureka' moment, a factory that makes tampon strings, and a girl named Lindsey all which share an interesting story.

I couldn't tell if this book was purposely trying to be cool or not. I definitely didn't get a hipster vibe from the tone of the characters, unsurprisingly because both Colin and Hassan are slightly socially inept: still you get the sense deep down that Green was trying to work the nerd chic angle here. He couldn't make his characters without a shred of hope, otherwise even nerdy kids wouldn't want to read it. It is certainly interesting to see the balance the characters strike between nerdyness without hope and nerdyness that promises to become more.

On the other hand, Colin's constant thought and conversation tangents were half amusing, half down right annoying. However I must stress this one thing. I did not believe for ONE minute that the kids in Gutshot would let Lindsey go from freak of the week to a member of the in-crowd. I'm from a small town myself and sorry John Green but that just does not happen. Ever. Furthermore Lindsey was your stereotypical nerd boys wet dream: a hot girl who used to be nerdy once upon a time and secretly has a thing for skinny nerd boys like Colin. Why is it that in teen movies and books the nerdy girl has to be a "hot" nerdy girl? Can't she ever just be plain or so-so, or unconventionally beautiful? I felt like it sent a message that its okay to embrace your nerdyness if you're female, but only if you're pretty too. Ugh.

When I Was a Soldier

2008-10-20T12:00:00.001-04:00

Valerie Zenatti, When I Was a Soldier: A Memoir, 2007, Bloomsbury USA.

In Israel when you turn 18 you enter the Israeli Defense Forces even if you are a woman.* Although Valerie immigrated with her family from France to Israel when she was 12, like her friends she will enter the IDF where she will serve for two years. Once she arrives at her basic training base she realizes that nothing has prepared her for the regimented and difficult life of the defense forces. And she must still deal with her life on the outside, knowing that she won't always be in the military.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this book is the interplay between society's and the military's expectations when it comes to the women serving in the IDF. Valerie and her friends have always known that they would enter the military upon graduation [unless they were Orthodox Jews or got married]. This is something which the average American female will not experience. Even though most males in this country are required to register for the draft upon their eighteenth birthday, there has not actually been a draft since Vietnam. So chances are they have not had that experience, unless they are planning to enter the military after high school graduation. As the book progresses we see the strain that Valerie undergoes as she attempts to reconcile the civilian aspects of her personality with the emerging military aspects of it. She experiences a thrill at becoming a member of the radar team who track pilots from neighboring Arab countries, listening in to them over the frequencies all day and learning practically every inch of her country and the ones that surround it.

Valerie comes to find herself at odds, she is proud of her service in the IDF but she is also counting the days until her release. She serves her adopted nation of Israel and yet yearns to return to France someday. An especially poignant scene centers around a bus trip back to the base which takes her through Gaza where the bus is stoned by Palestinians. Instead of being angry and indignant, Valerie is afraid and lets the reader know she understands why the Palestinians are angry at Israel. At one point in the book, she and many other soldiers question the purpose of the patriotic materials that make up part of their training. Some soldiers even debate the validity of Israel's occupation of Palestine with their superiors.

Although much has changed in that corner of the world since Zenatti wrote this book, at its very heart the unusual situation of a teenage girl serving in the military will be a draw for teens who want to see what it is like to live in a country where such service is required.

*You are not required to serve if you are a married woman, prohibited by your religion from serving, or have a physical or psychological reason which prevents you serving. Men serve three years and women two. (IDF)

Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico

2008-10-19T15:55:00.001-04:00

Malin Alegria, Sofi Mendoza's Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico, 2008, Simon Pulse Teen Fiction.

When Sofi Mendoza sneaks off with her friends to a Memorial Day party in Rosarito, Mexico she doesn't expect any trouble getting back into the United States once the weekend is over. Unfortunately for Sofi, her parents (both Mexican immigrants) never replaced the green card she received at age 4 when they crossed the border. Stuck in Mexico indefinitely until her parents can get things straightened out, Sofi must go stay with her Aunt's family in Rancho Escondido. Life there is completely unlike the life she has experienced on El Otro Lado as just another American teenager. As the days pass Sofi finds herself changing in subtle ways as she discovers how her life might have been had her parents not taken the risk and brought their family to the United States. Yet Sofi is worried, will she ever return home to graduate and go to UCLA?

Malin Alegria clearly understands and has experienced for herself many of the same things her protagonist experiences in this novel. Sofi lives on the border both literally and figuratively speaking. Although her parents are immigrants Sofi's life is mainly that of the average American teenager. Her parents constantly strive to assimilate, with the stark contrast that while their ethnic identity does them no favors at work, Sofi is seen as interesting and even exotic by her classmates. This is turned on its head in Mexcio where because Sofi cannot speak Spanish and she is clearly Mexican, she is looked down upon. The bulk of the book concentrates on the irony that Sofi who has lived in the United States for as long as she can remember and is due to graduate from a U.S. high school in a couple of weeks, must now either wait to get back home legally or join the thousands of people who everyday attempt to cross La Frontera illegally. The book also has Sofi dealing with the universal experiences of being a teenager: disobeying your parents, figuring out how to get your crush's attention, falling in love, and becoming more aware of the inequalities of the world that surrounds you as well what parts of your life you should feel blessed to have.

hole in my life

2008-09-22T17:04:00.002-04:00

Jack Gantos, hole in my life, 2004, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux.

I know I haven't read much YA non-fiction yet but I feel inclined to say this book is my new YA-non fiction fav. As in, I'm a total Jack Gantos fan-girl omg!!! Er, well sort of. I DID really like this work and when I become a Young Adult Librarian this book is going on my list of recommended reading. Read on and you'll see why . . . .

When you think of what makes a children's author I'm sure the words 'ex-con' don't exactly come to mind. Nevertheless Jack Gantos is a well-known children's author who once upon a time (as in back in 1973), was a nineteen year old who got busted by the Feds for taking part in smugging hashish into NYC from St. Croix. That's not his whole story though. Jack tells us about the period of a couple years where he went from high school graduate to one-time drug smuggler to his decision to become a children's author. Unlike other stories of getting in with the wrong crowd and how teenagers go bad, this isn't a problem novel; and Jack isn't about to tell you he regrets his behavior. Jack doesn't BS the reader, he knows you'd probably feel the same way if you did the same thing and got caught.

I'm kicking myself now because when I helped out at an awards ceremony for YA student writers last spring, Jack Gantos was the Guest of Honor. In fact, the people in charge gave out this book to the winners and Jack signed the copies. I should have bought a copy and got him to sign it, but oh well. In writing this book Gantos has done a superb job. While his character does engage in recreational drug use and some months of crime to smuggle that one load of hashish, he neither condemns his actions nor glamorizes them. They are what they are, his experiences, his decisions, his past. You may identify with it or else find it completely alien to your own life experiences. I haven't read anything else he has written (children's or otherwise) so I can't say how it compares to that. I can say that the style of his writing is engaging. You don't read it because it keeps you on your seat nor because you're secretly hoping Jack gets shot by the drug smugglers, it is the way he tells his story that draws you in and keeps you there even though you know all along how the story will end.

Eleanor's Story

2008-09-22T16:20:00.001-04:00

Eleanor Ramrath Garner, Eleanor's Story: An American Girl in Hitler's Germany, 2003, Peachtree Publishers.

The year Eleanor Ramrath turned ten, her parents moved the family back to Germany practically on the eve of Germany's invasion of Poland, and the subsequent outbreak of World War II. What was supposed to be a two year stint for her father to work as an electrical engineer turns into the family being forced to remain in Germany until the war is over. Living in Berlin, the family experiences the war firsthand, undergoing nightly bombing raids by the Allies, rationing, fear for their status as enemy aliens, and the constant hope they will emerge from this war able to return to America.

This book is one of my first forays into Young Adult Non-Fiction. I thought the plot was an interesting spin on the war-time memoir. Instead of the experience of an American living in the United States or a German living in Germany, Ramrath has the unique story of the experience of living as a German-American citizen in Nazi Germany. From the beginning you wonder if the parents will be allowed back into their adopted nation when the war is over (Ramrath and her older brother Frank were both born in the United States, her father was a naturalized citizen but her mother still had German citizenship).

The part of the book Ramrath does best are her vivid descriptions of how her physical environment changes over the years, months, and even hours of the war. You will not be able to forget the fates of those trapped under a neighboring apartment building. Nor will you fail to appreciate how devastating the bombings were to the city of Berlin. What Ramrath does NOT do well is to write about the physical and verbal abuse her father subjected his children to. She glosses over these aspects of her childhood as though it were the standard for anyone growing up during that time, which frankly I'm skeptical about. Ramrath also does poorly in describing what was happening to the Jewish citizens of Germany at this time. There is only one anecdote that deals with the treatment of these citizens (Her brother gives up his seat to an elderly Jewish woman and is screamed at by a fellow subway passenger). At a later point in the book she claims to have stumbled upon a "slave labor" camp, yet at the end of the book she makes the statement that she thought what happened to millions of people was a rumor until she was taught about it in history class upon her return to the US.

While I feel strongly about my critiques I also realize that the reason she glosses over much of this is because of her audience. She probably feels that it was not appropriate to discuss such topics as child abuse and the Holocaust to her projected audience. It brings up an interesting question to my mind, how much is too much discussion of such difficult issues in YA literature? I'm not sure myself as of yet. Probably once I read more I'll have a better answer for you.

The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch

2008-09-17T08:08:00.001-04:00

Joseph Delaney, The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch, 2006, HarperTrophy.

Thomas J. Ward is the seventh son of a seventh son who has the (mis)fortune to be able to see and hear things most people, excluding his Mam, cannot. It is because of his birth and gift that he is apprenticed out to the local Spook who goes about the County ridding it of witches, boggarts, and ghosts among many other evil things. The problem is Tom finds himself getting into worse and worse trouble after he strikes up a friendship with Alice, a girl with pointy-toed shoes, the kind of girl the Spook has warned him to avoid. And there's the problem with Mother Malkin, the witch imprisoned in one of the garden pits who Tom accidentally helps escape.

To say I'm not a horror fan would be the understatement of the year. When it comes to horror films I absolutely cannot watch them. Now, books of the horror genre are another story. Yeah, I can still spook myself if I'm reading the stuff at night (which is why I tend to save my occaisional forays into horror for daylight reading) but generally my mind doesn't linger on what happened the way it does when the blood, gore, and things that go bump in the night are presented on a movie or tv screen. Plus I was a total R.L. Stine Fear Street series junkie as a kid. This book is not like any of R.L. Stine's work. It is a clever mix of horror, adventure, and fantasy that creates a world similar to but set apart from the picture of England you have or know.

Delaney's characters are complex creations who make it difficult to predict where the plot will go despite the supernatural elements. We are not given all the insight and background needed to fully understand them but the reason for this is that the book is only the first in a series, so the author would not want to give us all the information right away. While there is hidden potential for a romance between Alice and Tom, the friendship is a curious one that alternates between a need for friendship, convenience, mutual admiration for the abilities of the other, and suspicion of what each is capable of doing and in Alice's case what she is capable of growing up to be. This is by far the most interesting relationship in the book and it will be fun to see how it plays out in the sequels.

The book itself has the appropriate amount of supernatural terror, gore (the description of Mother Malkin's cakes especially!), suspense, and plenty creatures of the night which will put a definite chill in the readers bones without giving them nightmares, even if I am a wuss who only read this book during the daytime. You'll want to call Mother Malkin, Madam Malkin after the Robes Shop owner in the HP series, but this witch isn't anything like the ones in JKR's popular world. Fantasy fans will enjoy the book but it has wide-reaching appeal that really should be enjoyed by any young adult (male or female) who likes to read.

Boy Meets Boy

2008-09-15T18:29:00.001-04:00

David Levithan, Boy Meets Boy, 2005, Knopf Books for Young Readers.

Paul has known he was gay since kindergarten. Noah's the cute artsy guy who just moved to town. Tony must revert to bible study subterfuge to get out of the house. Joni&Chuck can't be separated. Kyle may or may not hate Paul. And Infinite Darlene (formerly known as Daryl) makes juggling the dual title of star quarterback/homecoming queen look effortless. Set amongst a backdrop of a semi-utopian community that made even this liberal skeptical, the book tells the love story between Paul and Noah set against the sub-plots of their friend's dramas, duels, and Dowager dancing. You may not know better than the school bookie what the odds are Paul & Noah end up together but the journey to what may be is a well-written escape that should appeal to fans of Levithan's prior work.

As sweet and fun this story reads, it's setting in a sort of liberal utopia makes even this reader skeptical. Like Nick and Norah's Infinte Playlist it is really hard to believe that teenagers (even wealthy ones) talk, think, and act like the characters in this work. That being said, the book is a safe space and thus it feels revolutionary. The fact that Levithan includes a transgender character (Infinite Darlene) is pretty amazing considering that this group of teens rarely get mention even in books on teenage sexual health and sexuality. I could see this book potentially being challenged because of it's loving and accepting language about the varieties of sexuality however it is for that very reason that it is vital to include it among ones young adult fiction collection.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

2008-09-15T17:47:00.001-04:00

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, 2006, Random House Children's Books.

I actually really hate editions of books that blast COMING SOON TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU ZOMG!!! on the cover. In fact I've been known to not buy a book even though I really wanted it simply because it's got annoying amounts of promotional advertising on or in the book itself. I made an exception for this book because my local library didn't have a copy I could take out and for the love of all YA novels that look snarkily hip and fresh and a million other things I wanted to read the darn book.

Man, was that a bad choice. I have a confession to make to you all. I wanted to like this book. Badly. Namely the previews for the forthcoming film adaption make it look so bad ass that I expected said bad-assery to have originated with the book. That SO did not happen. But instead of complaining ahead of time about my personal feelings regarding this novel, let us move on to the review.

NICK is a whiny, broken hearted bassist in a queercore band. Having just been dumped by his girlfriend Tris, he's naturally less than pleased to see her show up at his gig with her latest guy in tow when he's got no one. So what else can he do but ask the girl standing next to him to pretend to be his gf?

NORAH is a snarky rich girl from Jersey with no other plans than to keep her bff Caroline safe from the clutches of sketchy guys, and oh yeah, go work in the same South African kibbutz next year as her terminal ex-bf Tal. She happens to be standing next to Nick when he sees Tris headed his way and thus decides to ask a random stranger to be his gf for the next five minutes.

What follows is a night that takes these two from a punk-rock club in Lower Manhattan to all around the hipster circuit of New York City. Evading ex significant others, trying to keep tabs on your friends, watching transexual nuns in burlesque perform The Sound of Music and happening on a surprise show by mutual favorite band Where's Fluffy? may just turn a five-minute pretend relationship into something real.

With this formula one would think the book is set up for success, sure to please the reading needs of any YA reader. And while I have seen many gushing reviews of the work on the Visual Bookshelf app through Facebook, I've gotta say something tells me you either love this book or you hate it. With all the name-dropping of NYC clubs, hotspots, and retro music the characters feel a bit plastic. My biggest problem with the book was the lack of chemistry between Nick and Norah who were supposed to be beginning like, THE most significant relationships of their young adult lives. I'm actually convinced that Nick and Norah were written to be David Levithan and Rachel Cohn but in their teenage years. I haven't read any of Rachel Cohn's previous work so I cannot speak for how this compares with that, and I've only read one other David Levithan, Boy Meets Boy, but compared with that I think DL did a better job in that book.

What do you think?

Forever

2008-09-15T17:04:00.000-04:00

Judy Blume, Forever, 2007, Simon Pulse.

Back in middle school this was THE book to check out among my friends of the female sex. In fact we were pretty impressed that our school library even had this book and let us check it out. Although I may be under the impression that everyone and their mother has probably read this book at some point in their pre-teen or adolescent life, for the purposes of my YA Literature Class this will be the first book I write about. I'm still a Judy Blume fan and even now when I am no longer a teenager, I cannot bring myself to dislike this book. My friend, if you do not like Judy Blume then you probably ain't gonna like this book.

Kath and Michael are high school seniors who begin dating after a New Year's Eve party. Despite having relatively little experience in dating and the physical side of it, the two plunge into their relationship without thinking what the future (namely graduation) will bring to it. As the months pass Kath and Michael precariously navigate their way through the varied emotions and complications that a physical relationship between two teenagers brings. Nevertheless Blume's novel is a gentle introduction into the pleasures and perils of the emergence of teenage sexuality.

As I said before, I'm a JB fan. This book is a book that when I read it today, it still resonates with me; not because it is what I am currently experiencing but rather because it reminds me how it felt to be a teenager making dating and relationship decisions. Unlike Seventeenth Summer, Blume's Forever is well-written enough that the material doesn't seem so out-dated that you feel like you're reading a historical fiction.

For more Judy Blume go to her website: http://www.judyblume.com