Darwen Arkwright

Tween Tuesday was started over at Green Bean Teen Queen as away to highlight awesome books for the 9-12 yr olds or Tweens. This week's book is:

Hartley, A.J. Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact. New York: Razorbill - Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2011. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/11243909]

Booktalk:

     Darwen stood up and turned. Behind him the forest continued, but -- suspended in midair, exactly at the height he had hung it on the back of the door -- was the empty mirror frame, and through it he could see the shelves and coat hangers in his bedroom closet. For a moment, all the strangeness fell away and a single word came to mind.
     "Cool," he said into the night.

p.45-46*

When Darwen gets to Atlanta he's far from home with no friends, a business-minded aunt, and the specter of a stuffy prestigious private school looming over his head. A magical world only he can see on the other side of his closet mirror is just what he needs. Until things start going wrong there too. Darwen just has to save that other world, even it it means he also has to make some friends in Atlanta he can trust with his secret.

Review:
Darwen immediately falls in love with the world through his mirror (as did I). It's lush and quiet and exciting, and he almost immediately makes a new friend. In short, it's nothing like Atlanta, where the weather's hot but the tea is only lukewarm, which is nothing like the small town near Manchester that Darwen used to call home. As things start to go badly in Silbrica (mirror world) and Darwen and his new friends become more involved in finding a solution, the more we find out about Darwen's past and how he ended up in Georgia. He is so very sad and doesn't want to let anyone in. I thought that his issues were just going to be left unresolved once the action in Silbrica got going, but I was happily surprised to see that Silbrica and the "real world" were much more connected than I could have imagined in that and other respects.

Darwen briefly mentions that he has one Black parent and one white, something that, in the past, made him feel like he never belonged in either group. This is not, however, an issue for him at his new school in Atlanta (his newness and lack of familiarity with American football provide more than enough fodder for the bullies). In this prestigious school for which tuition must be paid in advance, class is a much bigger divider than race. In this respect, Darwen should be good -- his aunt is a successful businesswoman, after all -- but his blue-collar Manchester accent (as opposed to a posh one from London) gets in his way. On the other hand, Darwen's friend Alexandra is avoided by everyone because she is just so annoying (so so annoying), and yet approved of by Darwen's aunt (who also finds her exhausting) because of Alexandra's mother's success and refinement. His friend Rich, who is super smart, kind, and polite, is looked down upon by classmates and Darwen's aunt alike because of his family's "white trash" farming background. All three of them feel their outsider status acutely, which is part of why they end up becoming friends even though they have little in common.

All of these real life concerns pale, both in Darwen's mind and in the reading, in comparison to Mr. Peregrine and his mirror shop of gateways to Silbrica. Though the beauty and the magic of the place does not last long for Darwen, he sees enough of it to know that the world on the other side of the mirror is special, that it is a place worth saving, and that he is a part of it. The more horrible the situation gets there and the more horrible the creatures Darwen et. al. encounter, the stronger his determination to save it (and the stronger the intensity of the story) becomes.

This is a really fun, adventurous read. Though it is a bit darker, I think it fits well with other secret-world-in-the-wardrobe-type books, and it will be a good book for readers ready to graduate from those books but not yet ready for the content in older YA fantasies.

I'll leave you with one last quote to seal the deal:

     "... Well, this is excellent."
     "Excellent?" Darwen repeated. "I almost got killed!"
     "Almost is such a wonderful word, don't you think?" said the shopkeeper with a wink. "So full of wiggle room and loopholes, so not-absolutely-anything. Almost killed means still very much alive, which, I'm sure you will agree, makes all the difference. So, the only remaining question is, when are you going back?"

p.145-6*

Darwen Arkwright and the Peregrine Pact comes out next week!


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.


*Quotes and page numbers are from an uncorrected proof and may not match the published copy.

Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

Open Wounds

Lunievicz, Joseph. Open Wounds. Lodi, NJ: Westside Books, 2011. Print.
[Book cover credit: lunievicz.com/open-wounds/]

Booktalk:

"The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me"
...
I met my cousin on the street. Sister Bernadette closed the front door behind me, her parting words echoing in my ears. "Mr. Leftingsham is your guardian by law of the state and by law of the Lord, Cedric. You are ours no longer. May the Lord be with you."

p.88-9*

Cid has always been the kid nobody wants. His mother died when he was born, leaving him with a father who could never forgive him for his fatal birth and a grandmother who could never forgive him for his Jewish mother. When he inevitably gets left at an orphanage, he thinks he'll be there forever. A man like Lefty, a cousin he never knew existed, is the last person he'd expect to claim him.

Review:
Cid's already lived a rough life by the time Lefty takes him from the orphanage. He's spent most of his childhood as his father and grandmother's punching bag, watched most of his neighbors be evicted from their homes, watched his grandmother kill herself to avoid the same, been taken in to a loving home and then left behind. And that's all before he really even hits teenage-hood (and before we hit the 100 page mark). But that's not to say that it's all bad. Cid has two great best friends, Siggy and Tomik, and he goes to the movies, "church," with his grandmother every Saturday. And out of that comes Cid's dream of becoming a fencer.

The bright and the horrible are wonderfully balanced in these opening pages. You never quite forget one while you're reading about the other. And they set things up perfectly for Lefty's grand entrance. The Great War left him horribly disfigured, crippled, and cranky, but life with him gives Cid opportunities he never would have had otherwise. Together they form a little family (aawww - but not that obvious. Lefty and Cid are both way too tough for all that), but more importantly, Lefty sets Cid up with daily fencing lessons with the crazy, drunk  Russian on the roof. Once Nikolai gets involved, Open Wounds quickly becomes a sports book. There's training and fighting and sore muscles and exhausted bodies. But there's also stage-fighting with a Shakespeare company, a cute girl, a reunion with Siggy and Tomik, and the reappearance of their childhood bullies. Again, the beautiful balance. There wasn't so much plot that the fencing stopped being important, but at the same time, I never felt lost in a book centered around the practice of a sport I've only seen in movies.

Now, I don't read a lot of fencing books (though I'm considerably more interested in them now), but I do read a lot of ballet books. I always try to comment on the accuracy of the dancing or the attitudes towards it. I can't do that here, but Richie can (sorry, his site doesn't do direct links). If he says Open Wounds is good, you can bet that it is and that the swordplay therein is up to par (and he does). This will be a hit with readers who are looking for sports books, but historical fiction and hard-knock-life fans will love it as well.


Open Wounds comes out May 25!


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher.


*Quotes and page numbers are from an uncorrected proof and may not match the published copy.

Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

I Am J

Beam, Cris. I Am J. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/9923971]

Booktalk:
Coming out sucks. Whether you're coming out as someone who eats peanut butter out of the jar (and double dips), kind of likes Taylor Swift's new album, or is some permeation of queer, admitting that you fall outside of what everyone around you expects is awkward, emotionally draining, and often terrifying to think about.* Sometimes it just seems easier to go live your life somewhere far away where no one will know you as anything but a queer Taylor Swift loving peanut butter fiend. That's why when J decides that he has to bite the bullet and start living life as the man he knows he is inside, he runs away. His Puerto Rican Catholic mother and his super-macho dad will never understand or accept him. Better to start over on the other side of town.

Review:
I was a little scared of this book. I knew that Beam had it in her to realistically portray the transgender experience, so my expectations were super high. I also knew that a book like this has the potential to be filled with well-meaning stereotypes in order to present the most inclusive picture: of trans folk, of Puerto Rican New Yorkers, of the dream of being a "real boy," and more. I loved this book. J really rang true to me as a character and as a transguy, and his experiences, though not universal (thankfully not everyone has to move out or change schools in order to transition, though some undoubtedly do), were realistic. I Am J was everything I hoped it would be.

But I did have a couple of problems. I found it hard to believe that J, who has been looking around on the internet for information and support since he was eleven, hadn't heard about T (testosterone injections) or a (chest) binder until he was seventeen. I'm willing to let that go as it allows the reader to learn about these things at the same time that J does. I don't think it would have been such a problem if the book wasn't so obviously written by someone who, like J's support group leader, "talk[s] about the 'gender binary' and 'those of trans-masculine identification' as easily as reciting the alphabet" (243).** There were so many terms and concepts, including terms that confuse J, that were not defined in the text. A couple of them were even written in abbreviated forms, something that gives me hope that they'll be fleshed out and this won't be an issue in the final copy. Still, Beam is a very very knowledgeable woman, as evidenced by her previous work of non-fiction Transparent. She seemed to have a difficult time balancing her wealth of knowledge with the naiveté of her narrator.

I'm also hoping the list of resources at the back of the book will be more complete in the final copy. I don't think anyone could put together a concise list of resources on any topic, but especially a fairly new (to the public) one like this, that every reader would find complete. That said, I was still dismayed to see only female-to-male resources, especially as the separation between ftms and mtfs is bemoaned by Beam's characters. I was also sad to see TYFA (Trans Youth Family Allies) left off the list. Though their main focus is on kids much younger than J, the ladies at TYFA are rockstars at convincing school administrators of the necessity of single-serve, gender-neutral bathrooms for the safety of all students, not just those that are transitioning. Though bathroom issues are only briefly touched on in I Am J, they are some of the most distressing of day-to-day concerns for many gender-variant people, and organizations or websites that help gender-variant youth deal with these problems belong, in my opinion, on the list of resources in the back of this book.

This may look like more criticisms than praise, but it's really not! I loved I Am J, and I applaud Beam for taking on the issue of transitioning in the context of cultural and familial expectations, and the fallout from not meeting those expectations, in an accessible and authentic way. Not to mention that she wrote a pretty great story of a teen trying to find his direction and place in the world, regardless of all the issues that J has to deal with. I think this is a must buy for libraries serving youth; it's Luna for the guys.


I Am J comes out March 1st!


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher.


* By the way, now you know all my secrets.


**Quotes and page numbers are from an uncorrected proof and may not match the published copy.


Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

Nothing

Teller, Janne. Nothing. Trans. Martin Aitken. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/1567168]

Awards:
ALA Best Fiction for Young Adults (2011)
Batchelder Honor (2011)
Printz Honor (2011)

Booktalk:
Pierre Anthon has decided that nothing matters. He's also decided to sit in a plum tree and harrass his former classmates until they come to the same conclusion. They have to make him stop. They have to show him that there is something that still holds meaning. In order to do so, they each must sacrifice something that holds a great deal of meaning to them.

Review:
Disturbing does not even begin to cover it.

Nothing is a tiny book. It's shorter than most and more narrow. The story takes up slightly more than 200 pages, and those pages contain a lot of white space. Still, it is probably the most disturbing book I've ever read. And almost not even in a good way. Don't get me wrong, Nothing is a wonderfully written book. Not a single word is superfluous and yet the story feels expansive. We see the whole thing from Agnes' point of view, and yet the feelings of others and the crowd mentality of the group are clear. It's got a kind of terrible, terrifying beauty to it. As one LibraryThing reviewer said, "There is no age appropriate for this book."

As Agnes and her classmates try to collect things to counter Pierre Anthon's nothingness, things take a definite turn towards the sinister. If they're going to prove meaning, these things must really mean something to the person who has to give them up. And each time someone has to give something up, they get to choose what the next person has to lose:

When Dennis had first handed over the last four of his Dungeons & Dragons books, it was as if the meaning started to take off. Dennis knew how found Sebastian was of his fishing rod. And Sebastian knew that Richard had a thing about his black soccer ball. And Richard noticed how Laura always wore the same African parrot earrings.

p.35

This accumulation of things starts out as mean and a bit vindictive, but it very quickly spirals out of control until it is not just things that are being accumulated. Friendships break up, kids get in trouble, alliances are formed, and people get both emotionally and physically hurt.

Watching what these kids require of their friends and classmates, what they deam worthy sacrifices to the "heap of meaning," was like driving past a multiple car pile-up on the freeway. It's gruesome and terrible, but you can't help but look. I finished this book in a single day, holding my hand over my gaping mouth for the last 50 pages or so (and more than a few times before that as well). I was repulsed and hooked at the same time. This is an engrossing and haunting read.


Book source: Philly Free Library

Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

Hereville - for Tween Tuesday

Tween Tuesday was started over at Green Bean Teen Queen as away to highlight awesome books for the 9-12 yr olds or Tweens. This week's book is:

Deutsch, Barry. Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword. New York: Amulet Books, 2010. Print.

[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8463290]

Awards:

Sydney Taylor Book Award for Older Readers (2011)

Booktalk:
Mirka is what some may call a willful child. She skips classes, doesn't care about her reputation, and is quickly learning her step-mother's art of turning any argument in her favor, regardless of logic. She also wants to be a dragon-slaying hero. With a new witch living in the woods surrounding Hereville, it looks like her dreams may come true.

Review:
I'm not a big graphic novel reader; I can usually live with or without them. When you spend a whole book just reading the text and having to remind yourself to pay attention to the pictures, it takes some of the fun out of the experience. That was not the case here. Deutsch's illustrations and text compliment each other beautifully, speeding things up in suspenseful moments and slowing things down when Mirka is doing the same. Part of this may be due to the subdued colors (most of the book is in shades of tan, with nighttime scenes in blues and purples) which allow the text and images to blend well together. But I think the real reason I was able to get into this in a way that rarely happens for me with graphic novels is that it's based on a comic, and you can tell. Deutsch makes the text part of the picture (check out page 8 in this preview of the book). It's not all POWs like in a superhero comic, but it's all still integrated, making it very easy to read.

Mirka lives with her father, step-mother, brother and 7(!) sisters in Hereville, an insular Orthodox Jewish community. Throughout the book there are some things about Orthodox life that are explained to the reader, such as the importance of the Shabbos and the differences between rebel, pious, and popular Orthodox girls. Yiddish words used in the text are also defined in footnotes on each applicable page. Still, for the most part, Deutsch forgoes the explanations of or about the Orthodox faith or lifestyle and instead shows them in action through Mirka. For example, she never hits the older boys who are bullying her brother with her hands, but with sticks and rocks (it's warranted and not violent). Later one warns her that the rules forbidding unmarried people of the opposite sex to touch each other will not save her from retribution (p68).

But rather than being a book all about an Orthodox Jewish girl, Hereville is primarily a book about a young girl who wants to slay dragons and meets a witch. Mirka's encounters with the witch (and her pig and the troll) are satisfyingly creepy without being too scary, and Mirka's over the top bravery and rash judgement fail her a couple of times. She has fights with her siblings, she sticks up for her little brother, she bonds with her step-mother. Mirka is just a normal girl with some adventurous dreams and aspirations.


Just for extra fun, here is my favorite page as shown in the original web comic. It perfectly showcases the art of the argument that Mirka is soaking up from her step-mother. :)


Book source: This was a wonderful Christmas present!

Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

Princess of Las Pulgas

McKenzie, C. Lee. The Princess of Las Pulgas. Lodi, NJ: Westside Books, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10735832]

Booktalk:
After the death of her father, Carlie's mom has to sell the beach-front home that Carlie and her brother grew up in and move the family to low-income Las Pulgas, literally The Fleas. Carlie is unwilling to fit in with the kids at her new high school, embarrassed to let her old friends see her new reduced circumstances, and unable to hold a real conversation with her mom or her brother. Even her cat runs away leaving Carlie completely alone. The only thing she has left are the memories of her father's advice in her head.

Review:
Poor Carlie. After watching her father slowly die of cancer, a move across town might seem trivial; upsetting, but trivial. Fights with her mom, not getting asked out, rude neighbors, or a "pushy" English teacher (in the Tina Fey Mean Girls way) might also seem trivial. But all together? Carlie is helplessly watching her life fall apart around her.

Carlie's main problem with her new life in Las Pulgas is all the "poor people," as she sees them. Almost everything she dislikes about the people around her can be attributed to, in Carlie's mind, the fact that they are poor, or at least more poor and classless than the people she new in Channing. Even though Carlie and her family are in Las Pulgas because of financial problems, she doesn't see anything that she could have in common with her new neighbors and classmates. She puts on a tough front, but it's pretty obvious (to everyone) that she's just scared. McKenzie portrayed this beautifully. Even though we see the whole thing from Carlie's point of view, we can see (though Carlie cannot) that the people she interacts with in Las Pulgas can see that she's just trying to make it through without ever trying to fit in. She holds herself apart both because she feels she's better than those around her and also because the kids at her high school terrify her, something they pick up on all too easily. Eventually she makes a couple friends, but there is no Big Lesson about class consciousness. ::sigh of relief::

And through all of this growing and learning on Carlie's part, there are play rehearsals. The junior class is putting on Othello, and Carlie has been cast, against her will, as Desdemona. Opposite smokin' hot Juan. And Juan, very sweetly, refuses to take Carlie's crap. He calls her out on her assumptions about her classmates and about him. He drives her nuts (in good and bad ways), but he also protects her from some of her other, scarier, problems at Las Pulgas High.

For a while, this pile-up of problems distracts Carlie from the pain of losing her father. It's not as though she forgets about him or even stops being sad. She's just dealing with all of this other things first. But her father's advice keeps sounding in her head telling her to be strong, something she doesn't know if she can do anymore. When she finally faces her feelings about her father (with the help the scene in which Desdemona must say goodbye to her father), it is so real. Spoiler: And I love that she is mad at him for dying at the same time that she feels guilty for wanting him to die in order to end his pain. Anger towards a deceased love one, simply because they're gone, is something that is not shown all that often, though it is somewhat normal. Carlie doesn't rage against God, she rages against her father in the course of her grief.

The Princess of Las Pulgas is an honest look at how Carlie deals with huge upheavals in her life, both a huge change of lifestyle and the death of her father. It still manages to be a suspenseful, romantic, and uplifting read.



The Princess of Las Pulgas is available for purchase now!


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher.

Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

The Girl Who Could Fly for Tween Tuesday

Tween Tuesday was started over at Green Bean Teen Queen as away to highlight awesome books for the 9-12 yr olds or Tweens. This week's book is:


Forester, Victoria. The Girl Who Could Fly. New York: Square Fish - Feiwel and Friends, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/4147503]

Booktalk:

"I'm a flier," she whispered and felt a strong sense of relief and pride. It felt so natural to be in a sky full of clouds and have birds flying past. Like a homecoming. She also noticed that flying up high made all of the things she left behind on the ground seem not as important. They were so small, after all, and the sky was so big.

p. 24

But things on the ground have a way of catching up with Piper McCloud. Eventually her special talents land Piper a spot in the prestigious, yet unheard of, I.N.S.A.N.E.. And even though Piper is exceptional and anything but normal, she goes to the Institute of Normalcy, Stability, And NonExceptionality in the hope that she'll finally have a place where she can be a flier and still fit in.

Review:
If you can't tell from the above quote, The Girl Who Could Fly is a beautifully written book about an introspective girl. Except that this introspective girl also has a bit of a temper, an inability to lie convincingly, and the bad habit of sticking up for what is right even when it has the potential to ruin her. I loved reading this book. Piper's adventures at I.N.S.A.N.E. were both the normal kinds of things a young girl who has never been allowed to attend school might have (if you've never seen a bully, how do you react to a mega-bully in a mixed-age classroom?) and the kinds of things that you'd expect to happen at a school for kids with superhero abilities.

Before things go south at I.N.S.A.N.E., Piper is the poster child for doing what she's told and standing up to bullies, or kids who like to electrocute littler kids, just as an example. Having grown up on a farm with only her parents for company, Piper is in many ways older than her 10 years. This might be a problem for some readers, especially when Piper waxes poetic about how they should all have goals in life and take the hard road as long as it's the right one. But Piper is just so genuine that I couldn't manage to be bothered by it. Her conviction (some might call it stubbornness at times) comes through the page, and it's easy to see how the other kids can go along with her, even when they think she's a little odd.

Unlike similar books, TGWCF has some more fantasy to it. Each of the kids at I.N.S.A.N.E. has some kind of special ability, each of which is important to the story and important to their plans. Other than their abilities (and little bits of backstory), many of the other kids are pretty one-dimensional. Still, Piper manages to make friends, and those friends are fully realized characters. This book definitely has a lot of precocious kid elements to it, especially when the kids all start working together. I think it will be a good fit for fans of the Lemony Snicket books or The Kneebone Boy.


Book source: I bought it.


Links to Amazon.com may be affiliate links for the Amazon Associates program. If you buy something through this link, I may receive a referral fee.

Buddha Boy

Koja, Kathe. Buddha Boy. New York: Frances Foster Books - Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/91406]

Awards:
BCCB Blue Ribbon Book (2003)
Book Sense Summer Pick Teen Readers (2003)
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2004)
ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults - Religion: Relationship with the Divine (2007)

Booktalk:

"What is that?" from Megan in her usual drama-queen way: but it was a sight, really, this skinny bald-headed kid in a size million T-shirt, backpack humped and lumpy as a turtle's shell, making his way across the cafeteria like a rabbit crossing the freeway: this way, that way, looking all around. "An exchange student? From Mars?"

p.5-6

But Jinsen is no alien. He's just a new kid with an outlook on life that differs from everyone else at Rucher High. Associating with Jinsen, quickly dubbed "Buddha Boy," would be social suicide, which is why Justin is dreading their new group assignment, the one that requires him to meet Jinsen at his house after school. But  Justin and Jinsen have more in common than they think and, social suicide or not, Justin finds himself standing up for Jinsen, even when he won't stand up for himself.

Review:
Buddha Boy reminded me a lot of What Happened to Lani Garver. It has that same feeling of hurtling towards disaster running along in the backgroun of the whole thing. In the forefront, however, there is a great story about Jinsen and Justin. Jinsen seems not to care what anyone thinks of or does to him. Good thing, too, since he dresses, looks and acts odd, none of which gets him a bunch of friends. He practically invites kids to bully him when he starts to beg for lunch money in the cafeteria. Most of the kids do just that, either actively by throwing pennies or worse or passively by ignoring Jinsen altogether. Justin, instead, asks him why he's different.

The two boys have more in common than Justin had originally thought; they are both artists. Koja's use of language, especially when describing the boys' artwork, is beautiful. You can really see the works of art that Justin and Jinsen are creating as you're reading. Stemming from that, the rest of the book is simply lyrical. The story, even though it is set in a contemporary high school and deals with some pointedly cruel bullying, has the far away feel of a fairytale. Justin tells this story and it somehow manages to feel like it's happening in the present tense and like it's already happened at the same time. Regardless of the subject matter, it's beautiful. When you add Jinsen's attitude and actions, and the way he affects and changes Justin, the whole thing is really breathtaking.

I only had one complaint, and it's not exactly a deal-breaker. During the course of Justin and Jinsen's growing friendship, Jinsen explains a few things about Buddhism, but mostly smiles and lets Justin figure things out for himself. Jinsen lives by example. This is great and fits well with his reaction to the bullying in the story, but I did wish every once in a while that Jinsen would give a straight answer to Justin's questions. There doesn't seem to be a lot of young adult fiction dealing with Buddhism,* so it would have been nice for this one to be a bit more informative.

I loved Koja's writing and have since picked up a few of her adult books from the library just to get more of it (in addition to special ordering Under the Poppy).



Book source: Philly Free Library


*Or at least I couldn't find very many. I really wish librarything or goodreads allowed boolean searching...

Noah's Castle

Townsend, John Rowe. Noah's Castle. 1975. Seattle, Wash.: October Mist Publishing, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: Provided by publisher]

Awards:
A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (1977)

Booktalk:
When a financial crisis makes it impossible for England to import food, the country begins to fall apart. When Barry's father starts hoarding food in the basement rather than helping those in need, those on fixed incomes such as the elderly and the infirm, the Mortimers begin to fall apart as well.

Review:
It took me a long time to get into this book. Barry's father is just so horrible, even before he starts hoarding, that I didn't think I could handle a book full of him. For example:

"You always used to be at work all day until we moved here," Mother pointed out.
"That was before the present crisis," said Father. "Now I have the shopping to do."
"It was you who insisted on doing it," Mother said. ... "I sometimes wonder what I'm for. Just cooking and cleaning, I suppose. I might as well be a servant."
"A servant would need wages," Father said -- unaware, I was sure, of any cruelty in the remark.

p.43

Except that he is aware. He spends the entire book making belittling comments about Barry's mother and older sister Nessie, mostly about their inferior, womanly minds. And, for the most part, they just took it. Nessie gets all riled up about it, but only in front of Barry. No one stands up to Father. It wasn't until Barry started to doubt his father that I started to get into Noah's Castle. Then Nessie started actively defying her father and it really started to get good.

Of course at the same time, problems much bigger than a horrifically controlling and sexist head of household are looming all around the Mortimers. As food goes beyond "scarce" right to "rare," people around them start to starve. Barry, Nessie and their mother have to deal with the guilt of knowing that they have plenty when so many other people are suffering and dying of want. Father, on the other hand, feels no guilt. Those people are ill-prepared and none of the Mortimers are allowed to share with them, not matter how hungry, elderly, young, or sick they are. This conflict is the core of the novel. As much as you want to help the needy around you, how do you give away all of your food, not knowing when you may get more, knowing that it means your sickly little sister may go hungry? It's an impossible question with no rights answer, and none is given in the book. But the rights and wrongs of everyone's actions are explored.

Of course, the wrongness of the sexism isn't explored to its fullest, but maybe that would be a bit too much to ask of a book originally published in 1975. Luckily, Nessie struggles against her father's beliefs and bullying and seems like she'll escape the Mortimer house unscathed.


Book source: Review copy provided by the publisher.

Refresh Refresh - Mini-Review

I have a bad habit of checking books out from the library, reading them, copying down quotes I think I might want to use in my review, and then returning them to the library. Given the volume of books I read, those quotes don't help me that much if I wait too long to sit down and write the review. The books that I'm "mini-reviewing" left an impression on me and I feel that I can recommend them without hesitation, I just can't remember enough little details to write full reviews.

Novgorodoff, Danica. Refresh Refresh. Adapted from the screenplay by James Ponsoldt; based on the short story by Benjamin Percy. Color by Hilary Scamore. New York: First Second, 2009. Print.

[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8599085]

Booktalk:

A small town is turned upside down when most of the men, Reservists, are sent to Iraq. The local recruitment officer tries to work his magic on the remaining men in town, including about-to-graduate high schoolers Josh, Cody, and Gordon. They manage to avoid him while trying to deal with lives without their fathers. Home life is different for each but hard for all as they try to learn to be men without a wide range of role models around. They spend their days being as macho as they can in public, going as far as to start a fighting club and take on local bullies, while in private they're glued the their computers, awaiting emails from their fathers.

Mini-Review:

I don't really know how to write a review of this book, which I guess is why I haven't. It's so sad, all around, and so hopeless in so many ways. The three boys that are at the center of the story aren't the only ones affected by the war, most of the town is, so there isn't really anywhere for them to go to get away from the worry and fear that they themselves feel. Each of them deals with it in their own ways, coming together for their fights. The prevailing feeling is pain. The fights just make that pain physical, shared, and visible.

Most of the story is told through the artwork. The dialog and text are pretty sparse. It works so well in this graphic novel that I can't imagine the short story it was based on. The lack of words make the faces and feelings take on so much more meaning and, in the end, the feelings are what this book is about. And it's beautifully drawn. The images pulled me into the story in a way that I don't know if the short story would have.

Anyway, I really thought Refresh Refresh was very good, but I know that I'm not doing it any kind of justice here. Ninja Librarian's review made me check it out, so I'll let her convince you too. :)

Book source: Philly Free Library

Tender Morsels

Lanagan, Margo. Tender Morsels. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/5439594]

Awards:
Amazon.com Best Books (Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2008)
BCCB Blue Ribbon Book (2008)
A Horn Book Fanfare Best Book (2008)
Locus Recommended Reading (Young Adult, 2008)
Publisher's Weekly Best Book (Children's Fiction, 2008)
School Library Journal Best Book of the Year (2008)
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2009)
Printz Honor (2009)
World Fantasy Award (Novel, 2009)
And many more...

Booktalk:
Liga's life is a brutal one. She lost her mother long ago and is now confined to life with her father. He won't let her go into town, where jeers of "the poacher's daughter" follow her. Instead he confines Liga to their home, where she is made to take up her late mother's role as wife, fulfilling wifely duties in the upkeep of their household and her father's marriage bed. When this life becomes too much to bear, Liga decides to end it. When she tries to throw herself and her daughter by her father over a cliff, she is rescued and taken to her personal heaven. Everyone is kind, and life is safe. Lisa raises her, now two, daughters in this place, but her heaven was not made for them. It begins to crack, letting elements of the real world in, until, finally, it becomes clear that they all must get out.

Review:
Brutal does not even begin to cover it. Liga's life with her father is a nightmare. It is clear that she is repeatedly raped by her father. It is not graphically described in the text, but is in the forefront of Liga's thoughts often and so often "discussed." The miscarriages he forces her to have through the use of teas and herbs, on the other hand, are described in graphic detail. The fact that Liga has no idea what is happening to her when she miscarries is, I think, part of why they are described in such detail. Even though she thinks about it often, her mind shies away from the acts her father performs on her. Her shame and self-preservation together keep the detail out of these account. As she slowly comes to realize that the rapes, teas, miscarriages, her monthly blood, and babies are all related, each of these acts in her past are revisited. And things don't even get better after Liga's father dies! Left alone in their cottage with only her infant daughter for company, Liga is gang-raped (again, not graphically described, but not exactly glossed over either) by a group of town boys. This is what finally makes her want to end her own, and her baby's, life.

That's the opening of the book. It's hard to read.

The first time I checked this book out of the library, I couldn't read the whole thing. Long before the gang-rape and attempted suicide, I returned the book. I didn't decide to check it out again until the Common Sense debacle with Barnes and Noble came out (see the comments for where Tender Morsels is mentioned). Still, I didn't get around to actually checking it out until a few weeks ago. I was determined to get through the horrible parts so that I could see Liga in her heaven, and after reading all of that, I needed to see Liga in her heaven. So many other readers had said that the wretched beginning is worth it once you get to the rest of the story , not to mention that I figured the whole book couldn't be ruined by the opening, given its many awards.

It is worth it.

The rest of the story is a fairytale. It is actually based on Snow White and Rose Red. Once Liga's daughters are old enough to have personalities, Tender Morsels becomes their story. It is about Branza and Urdda learning who they are as people and learning how to make their own way in what is, literally, their mother's world. Their story is beautiful, and I think the ugliness that preceeds it helps to make it so. Urdda grows up to be the awesomely headstrong and smart young woman that I always look for in book. I want a whole other book full of her, especially once she leaves her mother's heaven. Branza's nice too, but I clearly have my favorite.

But here is my dilemma: By the end, I really liked this book and I would love to recommend it, but to whom? I don't agree with the Common Sense rating at Barnes and Noble, that Tender Morsels is not appropriate for anyone under 18, but I do think that I may hesitate to recommend it to young adults that I do not know extremely well. What do you think? For those of you who have read this, to whom do you recommend it? Those of you who haven't, knowing all of the horrible things that happen, do you think you ever will?


Book source: Philly Free Library

Crossing

Fukuda, Andrew Xia. Crossing. Las Vegas: AmazonEncore, 2010. Print
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/9711953]

Booktalk:
Xing, who would love it if you would just call him Kris, has always been an outsider. He's one of two Asian kids in a small-town high school, and unlike Naomi (his fellow non-whitey and best friend) he does not have a magnetic personality, really good grades, or budding hotness to win over his classmates. Most of them don't even think he speaks English, even though they've been sitting in classes together since grade school. Mostly, everyone just ignores Kris, which suits him just fine. When kids at school start disappearing without a trace, everyone in town goes on edge. Everyone, that is, except Kris. He thinks his outsider status will keep him safe; what's the point in kidnapping someone no one would notice is missing? And when his tormentor becomes one of the disappeared, things start going downright well for Kris. Right up until they don't.

Review:
There are some books that you stay up all night reading because you just have to know what happens. Then there are books that you stay up all night reading because you really don't want to turn off the lights.* Crossing falls gracefully into both categories.

The whole story, the story behind the disappearances, is told by Kris. We see his classmates, his one friend, the town, through his eyes. Kris kind of goes through the motions of his life, the ultimate observer. It isn't until he starts singing lessons before school that he gains some confidence and things really start happening both to and for him. If it weren't for the missing kids, this would be a very different story, one about an unpopular, unspectacular kid who, with a little adult attention and encouragement, finally comes out of his shell, makes friends, and is recognized by his peers. Well, almost. The disappearances are good for Kris. He's no longer bullied at school, and when the guy he's understudying goes missing, he gets the lead in the school musical. It's easy to see why Kris is the perfect suspect.

The first couple of pages of the book make it seem as though Kris is just that, at the very least: a suspect. For most of the story, however, that's not how it looks like things should go. Other things in his life, his crush on Naomi, the new girl Jan, and his music lessons, are more important than the missing kids. The disappearances are almost peripheral to Kris's story; he's to busy being a freshman for the disappearances, which make his life a little bit more livable, to worry him. When the disappearances, and the rumors surrounding them, come crashing into Kris's life, they are really creepy. Don't turn the lights off creepy. Everyone is paranoid and thinks they are being watched; Kris is chased. They've all "seen" the person watching them; Kris sees no one. He manages to brush these things off, most of the time, but they come back in strange ways.

But Jan, herself, is what creeped me out the most. She is new and an outsider, like Kris, and she eventually clings to him. Her desperation and hopelessness scared me. She is a truly haunting character. She's an important part of the story, in a nuts and bolts kind of way, but she's very much a side character. On one hand I wish there had been more of her in the book, especially in the aftermath part of it, but on the other hand, I don't think it would be the same story if she had been more present in it. The whole point, I think, is that Kris, Jan, and, to some extent, Naomi are kids no one notices. We only see what Kris sees, and even he doesn't really see Jan for a lot of the book.

The ending wasn't really a surprise, but the story did throw me for a few loops getting there. The mystery still exists, even if you think you know who did the deed.


Crossing will be available on April 27th!


Book source: Review copy from publisher.


*It was so much easier to maintain my tough chick facade when all I did was read in private and proclaim, "Scary movies suck; let's rent a drama." Now it seems like all I do is admit that books that include some being you can't see chasing/watching/haunting/whatev-ing someone scares me.

What Happened to Lani Garver

Plum-Ucci, Carol. What Happened to Lani Garver. 2002. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, Inc., 2004. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/68056]

Awards:
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2003)
ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults (Own Your Own Freak, 2005)

Booktalk:

"You need to go out in the waiting room and find yourself a floating angel."
"A what?"
"They come with you on visits like these. They hold your hand and they tell you good stuff and make sense of this world so you realize it's not so bad--"
"Oh, I came with a friend. He's out there." I jerked my thumb toward the waiting room. "Thinks he's at a family reunion. Not much help."
"That's cuz he's a friend. Floating angels aren't friends; they're real angels. They're real. Didn't you see any of 'em out there?" His beaming smile flashed, and I gathered he was pulling my leg, the other option being that he was nuts. I decided to be polite and not hate myself more.
"Uh, no. What do they look like?"
"Like faggots. ... Angels don't have a gender. So what they gonna look like?"

p. 89

Because Lani Garver looks like he might be one and because he makes Claire's life, which she's losing grip on, sane, Claire thinks Lani might just be her floating angel. Unfortunately, the rest of Hackett, a small island off the Jersey Shore, sees nothing angelic about a young, clearly queer boy invading their little island. Just as Lani brings new complications to Claire's life in the midst of all the goodness, his friendship with her is his lifeline on Hackett Island, but her popular cheerleader status makes it impossible to fly under the radar the fish frat, this small island's crew of good ol' boys.

Review:
This book was hauntingly good, in my opinion. You know right from the start that something horrible is going to happen to Lani, so everything in the book feels like foreshadowing. Watching Lani and Claire hurdle toward this inevitable end is heartbreaking, even as you cheer on Lani's continual "I don't care what they think" attitude. Claire is a bit more cautious than he is. As she grows and changes over the course of the novel she cares less and less what her friends and the fish frat think of her, but she knows what they are capable of doing to Lani and herself. However, her growing sense of the injustice of it all, in combination with her new-found temper, still trips her up. The way things end up happening in the end is not how you would expect, at least it wasn't the way that I had put it together in my head.

The best thing about What Happened to Lani Garver is its honesty. For example:

I shook my head, embarrassed by my curiosity but more embarrassed by how none of this made sense to me. "We're talking about a guy with a girl, who propositions you once, and then called you a faggot. What is a person like that?"
"Do you mean, is there a clinical name for someone like that?"
"Well...yeah."
"Dunno. I think they call it 'hypocritical.'"

p81

It's an honest question, one that I'm sure more people than fictional Claire would like an answer to. Small teaching moments like this are peppered throughout the book in a natural and conversational way. Also, the language, as I'm sure you noticed in both of the quotes, makes me cringe, but, as the girlfriend pointed out, this was how we all talked in high school, before we knew it wasn't PC. The dichotomy of the way words like "faggot" are used by the fish frat and the way they are used by Lani and his friends is very striking. And though the feeling that we can say it about our own but you can't say it about us is confusing (which is true of a lot of words about a lot of groups that are considered either derogatory or familiar depending on who is saying them to whom), it appears naturally here without forced explanations of why it is or isn't okay.

My only complaint about this book are the floating angels themselves. They're made up by the author. She explains in an interview at the back of the paperback version that she didn't want to alienate any followers of a specific religion by pulling from the traditions of another. While that is awesome, the concept of floating angels is an interesting one and I wanted to know more about them, but, of course, nothing else exists.

Warning: There are three chapters worth of the bad thing that happens to Claire and Lani. It's told from Claire's perspective and she goes in and out of consciousness for a lot of it, so it doesn't end up being graphic. It is still pretty upsetting and might be downright detrimental reading for someone who has gone through this type of experience themselves.

Book source: Philly Free Library