Threads and Flames

Friesner, Esther. Threads and Flames. New York: Viking, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/9688825]

Booktalk:
Before Raisa even takes her first steps in NYC, she has managed to acquire a younger "sister," and she's managed to lose the older sister with whom she was supposed to live. Through the kindness of strangers, serendipity, and not a little bit of trial and error, she manages to get a great job that allows her to both support Brina, her younger sister, and look for Henda, her older sister. She's lucky; the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is one of the best places a girl can work in 1911.

Review:
I think the best thing about Threads and Flames is that Friesner provides oodles of information and context without ever making me feel that I'm reading a book about the plight of immigrants or factory girls and how the injustices they faced lead to the tragedy of the Triangle fire.* I was simply reading an engaging story about Raisa's new life in America, complete with a little bit of mystery, a little bit of (the cutest without being the least bit saccharine) romance, and a whole lot of my-gumption-is-both-my-greatest-flaw-and-my-greatest-strength. And yet I finished the book knowing a lot about how the ill-treatment of immigrants in general and factory girls in particular created the perfect storm of awfulness that caused so many deaths in the fire.

While the book is undoubtedly about the Triangle fire, Raisa doesn't even start working at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory until at least halfway through the book, maybe more. Usually, this delay of the "point" of the story would drive me batty, but in this instance, I didn't mind the wait. Raisa is such a fun character; she's so headstrong and determined to do what is right for her sisters, both Henda and Brina. It never occurs to her that she shouldn't take responsibility for Brina, even though she can barely take care of herself. I was rooting for her before she even got to Ellis Island. Raisa's little romance with Gavrel is also handled beautifully. When you're reading about Raisa who is on her own and working more than full time to make enough money to cover room and board for two people, it's easy to forget how young she is. Her relationship with Gavrel, however, with all of Raisa's do I or don't I feelings, constantly reminded me that she's just in her early teens. Their romance had all the little flutters of any middle grade romance, but with the added seriousness of two people, no matter how young, who work full time and both immediately start working even more when they "get serious." That's why they're both in the factory on the Saturday when it catches fire.

The fire itself is gruesome. The rush for the elevators after finding all the doors locked, the description of girls jumping from the windows rather than dying the flames, the display of unclaimed bodies that Raisa must search for Gavrel afterwards. The broken families who either found bodies to claim or were left with nothing. It's all so harsh. We see it all through Raisa who is still so determined to do what's right, who finds another job right away, and who becomes the strength and stability that Brina and Gavrel's family need in the fire's aftermath. Watching her continue on was possibly just as, if not more, heartbreaking as the fire itself. Slightly spoilery (highlight away): When the ending was happier than I would have expected, it did not feel like a cop-out on Friesner's part. I was just happy Raisa got a little bit of what she deserved. 

There was recently a request on the yalsa-bk list-serv for fiction books that teach the reader something. I wish I had finished reading this book in time to suggest it! Threads and Flames is so informative, but it's still great fiction too. I highly recommend it!


Book source: Philly Free Library


* This book reminded me very much of Annette Laing's books in that way. I kept wanting to re-read A Different Day to see how Raisa's factory experience differed (or in a lot of ways didn't) from Hannah's experience 50 years earlier and across the pond.

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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.

Instruments of Darkness

Robertson, Imogen. Instruments of Darkness: A Novel. New York: Pamela Dorman Books - Viking, 2011. Print.

[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8398153]

Booktalk:

This book opens with a body and a murder. In that order.

When Harriet Westerman finds a body on her property in the country, she rudely wakes up Crowther at some ungodly hour of the morning to help her investigate. News has spread that Crowther conducts research on human remains; he's convinced that the way a person lives and dies leaves marks on their body. In addition to the gash across its throat, this body has a ring bearing the crest of Harriet's neighbor in its vest pocket.

Meanwhile in London, Susan hears her father lamenting the loss of a ring that Jonathon, Susan's younger brother, liked to play with. The ring falls from her mind when she and Jonathon are witnesses to their father's murder in his music shop. Before dying, their father tells Susan to find a very important box hidden in the shop and asks Mr. Graves, a young family friend with hardly the means to support himself, to care for the children.

Review:
Instruments of Darkness is full missing heirs, hidden wills, unhinged trophy wives, absent husbands, headstrong women, shamed men, and more bodies to go with more murders. It's a fun and engrossing historical mystery that really has no dull moments. Even scenes away from the "action" had something to entertain: comedy in one story, grief and uncertainty in the other, drama and intrigue in both.

Ms. Robertson makes good use of the Georgian period in which she places her cast, using the Gordon riots heavily in one storyline and making the real John Hunter a connecting point between the two. For the most part, characters speak in that generic historical fiction kind of way that is unique to no period but "the past." This is good since real Georgian English would be a bit hard to follow, but I was a bit disappointed that there were a few phrases that stood out a modern. They weren't enough to pull me out of the story for long, but they stood out enough that I remember them. Additionally, though I loved Harriet, some of her boldness and forwardness seemed a bit too progressive for the time in which she lived. I don't know that I would have noticed, but put beside Susan, Miss Chase, and Harriet's own sister, Harriet is definitely a bit fiery.

Though this is an adult book, there is nothing in Instruments of Darkness to make it inappropriate for teen readers, though it is a bit light on the romance and heavy on the murder/mystery compared to comparable YA titles. Still, it is sure to be enjoyed by historical fiction and mystery readers and adored by those who revel in the combination of the two.


Book source: ARC provided by the publisher through the goodreads first reads program.

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One Crazy Summer - 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:


Williams-Garcia, Rita. One Crazy Summer. New York: Amistad - HarperCollins Publishers, 2010. Print.

[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/9160752]

Awards:

National Book Award Finalist, Young People's Literature (2010)
Coretta Scott King Award, Author (2011)
Newberry Honor (2011)
Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction (2011)

Booktalk:

     Mother is a statement of fact.
...
     Mommy gets up to give you a glass of water in the middle of the night. Mom invites your friends inside when it's raining. Mama burns your ears with the hot comb to make your hair look pretty for class picture day. Ma is sore and worn out from wringing your wet clothes and hanging them to dry; Ma need peace and quiet at the end of the day.
     We don't have one of those. We have a statement of fact.

p.14

It is not without a little trepidation that Delphine boards a plane with her little sisters to visit their mother in Oakland, California. When they get there, they're presented with a single room to share and told to walk themselves to get their own Chinese take-out for dinner. The end of their 28 day stay could not come soon enough.

Review:
This is a book that I want to tell you all about in quotes, because even in soundbites, it's so so good.

     My sisters and I had stayed up practically all night California dreaming about what seemed like the other side of the world. We saw ourselves riding wild waves on surfboards, picking oranges and apples off fruit trees, filling out autograph books with signatures from movie stars we'd see in soda shops. Even better, we saw ourselves going to Disneyland.

p.3

But they don't go to Disneyland just like they don't find a Mom or a Mommy in Oakland. They go to Black Panther Summer Camp. Delphine, Vonetta and Fern learn about the movement, about the Panthers themselves (who they've only seen in news stories), and about each other. Delphine, the only of the three who remembers her to begin with, also gets to learn about the mother that abandoned them.

But, as Liz B. points out, this isn't necessarily a book about the Black Panthers or the 60s or even finding a mother. This is mostly a sister book. There's Fern, the baby, who has carried around a (white) baby doll for as long as anyone can remember and is always ready to throw out a "surely" in support of her sisters. Vonetta constantly seeks attention like the middle child she is, and she's desperate to make friends with the most fashionable girls at camp, even at the expense of her sisters. Then there's Delphine. She promised her Pa she would take care of her older sisters, like she always has, and it's her job to keep them out of trouble (and keep them from killing each other). She's saved up money to pay the fines on the books she checked out from the library to read to her sisters each night before bed. She plans activities for the three of them to do in order to make the most of their trip to California (I looked forward to their field trip to San Francisco almost as much as Delphine did). She tries to stand in between her sisters and her mother; she remembers how crazy her mother can get. She's the leader.

     She gave another "Hmp" and a headshake. "We're trying to break yokes. You're trying to make one for yourself. If you knew what I know, seen what I've seen, you wouldn't be so quick to pull the plow."
     I sort of knew what she meant, but someone had to look out for Vonetta and Fern while we were here.
     I stacked the plates in the sink and ran the hot water.
     "It wouldn't kill you to be selfish, Delphine," she said, and moved me out of the way to wash her hands. Then she went back to praying over her puzzle pieces.

p.110

It's Delphine, Vonetta and Fern, their relationship and interactions, that drive the story. They help each other get through what looks like a horrible situation until it becomes kind of fun. Together they're the Gaither sisters. They finish each others sentences, each knows just how to get under the other two's skin, and though they take sides two against one all the time, they all always stand up for each other in the end.

Though the story is, clearly, centered around Delphine and her sisters, the "supporting cast" is fleshed out and important. There are tons of people at the People's Center while the girls are at camp, but their teacher Sister Mukumbu, who Delphine recognizes as a "real teacher" right away, lends the tiny bit of normalcy that Delphine needs to settle into the camp and Oakland. There's also a boy, Hirohito. Though it's no where near a major storyline, I loved the awkward crushing that went on all around him. And, of course, there is the girls' mother. As the story progresses, she becomes more of a real person than the dismissive, nervous woman who picked them up (late) from the airport. We also find out just how much Delphine remembers about her and how much she misses having a mother (even if she won't admit it). The relationship between Delphine and Cecile (their mother) is built on more understanding than either of them want to admit, and watching it unfold was one of the most moving parts of this story.

Overall, One Crazy Summer was a wonderful book and totally deserving of it's numerous awards! It has it all: history, humor, emotion, drama, and annoying but lovable little sisters!


Book source: Philly Free Library


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Between Shades of Gray

Sepetys, Ruta. Between Shades of Gray. New York: Philomel Books - Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2011. Print.

[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10127764]

Booktalk:
In this, her debut novel, Sepetys tackles the heart-wrenching topic of Stalin's secret deportation of millions from the Balkan states during and after WWII. We see the atrocious conditions that mostly women and children must endure in their "work camps" through the eyes of Lina Vilkas, who knows, as do we, that the conditions must be worse for her father and the rest of the men in Stalin's prisons.

Review:
Clearly, this book is not a pick-me-up, but the spirit of endurance that Lina, her family, and her friends exhibit is inspiring. Between Shades of Gray tracks the slow progress of Lina, her brother Jonas, and their mother Elena from their home in Lithuania to a work camp in Trofimovsk in the Arctic Circle. They suffer many indignities (to put it mildly) at the hands of their Soviet captors (so many and so much that I stopped marking them in my copy). The beginning of the book, especially, is very similar to the beginnings of many other stories about this time in Europe. The lists, the beatings, the cattle cars.

I could go on and on about how the Vilkas and their group suffer. I could draw many parallels between their experience and those of Holocaust survivors. I could talk about how, at times, the weight of what they go through is crushing, but I don't want to. I want to talk about the points of light in this book that made the rest of it bearable (and when I say bearable, I mean in terms of the subject matter. The whole book is beautifully and compellingly written). Lina's memories of her father and of her cousin Joanna certainly help her through her trials, as does her art which she continues, and uses to her advantage in many ways, throughout the book. A sweet, little romance doesn't hurt either. But what really makes the work camps tolerable is what the deportees do for each other. Take this example from near the end of the book, when everyone is on the brink of starvation (and please excuse my page-spanning quote):

     "Do you think we should eat him [an owl]?" asked Janina.
     At first I was shocked. Then I imagined the plump body, roasting in our barrel, like a chicken. I poked at it again. I grabbed its wing and pulled. It was heavy, but slid across the snow.
     "No! You can't drag him. The NKVD will see. They'll take him away from us," said Janina. "Hide him in your coat."
...
     Other deportees looked at me.
     "Our mamas are sick. They need food. Will you help us?" explained Janina.
     People I didn't know formed a circle around me, sheltering me from view. They escorted me safely back to our jurta, undetected. They didn't ask for anything. They were happy to help someone, to succeed at something, even if they weren't to benefit.

pgs. 313-5*

Between Shades of Gray is an important book about a not-often-talked about event in history. For this reason, it will appeal to historical fiction lovers, and WWII aficionados. It's also an emotional read, with dashes of suspense and romance mixed into Lina's experience of oppression and, ultimately, loss. I highly recommend this powerful debut and look forward to whatever Sepetys has in store for us next!

Between Shades of Gray comes out on March 22nd!


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.

Heart of a Samurai - 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:

Preus, Margi. Heart of a Samurai: Based on the True Story of Manjiro Nakahama. New York: Amulet Books, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10054143]

Awards:
Newberry Honor Book (2011)

Booktalk:
Based on the true story of Manjiro, or John Mung as the Americans called him, Heart of a Samurai tells the story of the son of a lowly fisherman who, in the course of travelling the world, managed to forge US-Japanese relations and change the course of Japan forever.

Review:
I don't think Heart of a Samurai was a good fit for me, but I knew that going into it. After being shipwrecked right at the opening of the story, Manjiro and his friends are rescued by the John Howland. The John Howland was a whaling vessel. It hunted whales for their blubber, baleen, and the spermaceti in the heads of the especially lucrative sperm whales. The descriptions of the hunting, killing, and butchering of the whales is not overly graphic, but as someone who grew up with an uncle down the street from Sea World  (back when it was still an educational park rather than the kind of place that has roller coasters) and my own yearly unlimited pass, it was hard for me to read.*

But whaling is an important part of this book. It is Manjiro's quick thinking during a kill, along with his ability to quickly pick up the English language, that earned him his American name, John Mung, and a permanent place among the crew. At the end of the John Howland's time at sea, the captain even adopts Manjiro, now John, and raises him as his own, providing him with the best schooling Massachusetts could offer, an apprenticeship, and even his own pony. John's time in Massachusetts is fraught with prejudice. He's certainly not warmly welcomed by the whole of his new community. He faces taunts and bullying, and the captain and his wife even have to change churches twice before finding one that will accept their adopted son.

John's maturity and nobility when dealing with all of this seems to stem from his desire to live up to all that the captain has given him. While this is wonderful and may even be true, I wish that John had more faults that just the propensity to bounce right off his pony. Throughout the book he has fears and hesitations and the story definitely has conflicts, but John Mung never really does. I didn't feel like he was a realistic character who showed growth as a person rather than a historical figure.

But my biggest problem with Heart of a Samurai isn't a problem with the book at all; it's a problem with how it was described to me (and to everyone else on the front cover of the finished copy). Manjiro's life was clearly an adventurous one, but only because it actually happened. This is not an adventure book, and I think we're doing it and its readers a disservice by describing it that way. For an adventure book, it drags in places, like most of John's time in Massachusetts and the various points in his life when he's sitting around waiting to starve to death. The actual "high seas adventures" don't take up a lot of the text. Instead, it's rich with historical details and based on the life of a real mover and shaker in the international politics of the mid-1800s. Don't give this to your adventure lovers. Give it to your history buffs instead.


Book source: ARC picked up at ALA


* A historical note at the end of the book has an environmental section that talks about the long-term effects of whaling as portrayed in the book. The suggested reading also lists several books about the industry. These balance out the praising of the whaling industry that goes on in the text, but that still didn't make it any easier for me to read.

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Illyria

Hand, Elizabeth. Illyria. New York: Viking, 2010. Print.

[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/2569090]

Awards:
Shirley Jackson Award Finalist (Novella, 2007)
World Fantasy Award (Novella, 2008)

Booktalk:

No one had ever heard of DNA back then, not in my family anyway, and our grasp of genetics was practically nonexistent. But, because our fathers were identical twins, their children had all been told -- warned -- that we were closer than the other cousins.

"More like stepchildren," said Aunt Dita.

"Half-brothers and -sisters," my mother corrected her.

"Kissing cousins," said Aunt Roz. That would be the cue for everyone to cast a cold eye upon Rogan and me.

p. 8-9

Review:
Illyria feels like it's set in some make-believe world where eccentric aunts never age, miniature theatres come to life, every house has a ghost light, and where Maddy's childhood crush on her cousin Rogan can turn into a not-so-secret love affair. But it's not. Maddy and Rogan's story takes place in a cul-de-sac in a town outside New York City populated by the descendants of a once well-known actress. But that doesn't keep any of the above from being true. Hand just makes it all seem surreal.

In this not quite a fantasy world, the ick factor of Maddy and Rogan's relationship is missing. There is disapproval from the family and their classmates make fun of them, but their romance is just another (doomed) romance. And it is doomed, right from the beginning, and not just because they're cousins. There is something off about Rogan, something that sets him apart from everyone else, and it's what attracts Maddy to him. It haunts the entire story in the beautiful way that it haunts Maddy. It stays with you.

I know I'm not doing this book justice, but that's hard to do with my overwhelming book crush! Seriously, everything about this book is lyrical, magical, gorgeous. But just in case you're interested, here are a few more reviews from:

Liz @ A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Jenny @ Forever Young Adult
Tasha @ Kids Lit (Menasha Public Library)


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.

The House of Dead Maids

Dunkle, Clare B. The House of Dead Maids. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8873918]

Booktalk:
When Tabby Ackroyd arrives at Seldom House, she finds her place there unlike any other job she's ever had. She's a maid, specifically the Young Maid, but she's not really expected to do anything until the Young Master, her charge, arrives. No one knows the Young Master's name, including the Young Master who refers to himself as Heathen Git. Tabby is determined to save the boy, who she calls Himself, and bring him to the light despite the darkness of Seldom House. And despite the previous Young Maid, now dead, cold and eyeless, who won't leave Tabby and her charge alone.

Review:
This cover grabbed me at ALA. I walked past the huge poster of the girl with no eyes probably a dozen times before I decided I just had to have a copy of this book. That girl on the cover is so enthralling. And a little disturbing. And she doesn't disappoint. This book is enthralling. And a more than a little disturbing. Tabby's life at Seldom House is odd, creepy, and plagued by ghosts, some seemingly kind and some openly menacing.

The House of Dead Maids has a wonderfully creepy and complicated set-up. It is hard to guess what is really going on at Seldom House with its old maid and young maid, neither of whom are actually maids, and its old master and young master, neither of whom act like the wealthy landowners they're supposed to be. Everything is a bit...off, from the way the house is run to the way the townspeople react to those in it. In the beginning, it's not so weird that it alarms Tabby, every town and house has its quirks, but it does make her feel vulnerable and a little off-kilter. It's in this state that she starts to encounter the ghosts, one in particular that she might have know in their lives before Seldom House. The mood ranges from a little dark to pretty darn scary. When we finally see what is really going on at Seldom House, there are a few holes left in the story, but they do not detract from the rapidly increasing creepy factor that just keeps getting higher the more things are explained.

Much has been made of The Heathcliff Connection in this book. Himself, or Heathen Git, is supposed to grow up to be Brontë's Heathcliff, and Tabby, a real historical person, grows up to be the Brontës' maid and teller of late night ghost stories. While this is kind of cool, I do think that The Heathcliff Connection is being emphasized a bit too much (on the blogs, by the publishers, in the jacket copy). It didn't seem to have too much to do with the stories, The House of Dead Maids or Wuthering Heights. Tabby's real life connection to the Brontës, on the other hand, was pretty interesting, especially when an explanation involving the hauntings at Seldom House is given for why the real life sisters cared for this maid so devotedly for her entire life. The epilogue offers more information about the historical Tabby, which I found very interesting and much more related to the story in this book than the (I felt) forced Heathcliff Connection. The epilogue also contains a plug for the author's website where there is more information about the historical Brontës, Wuthering Heights, and Tabby Ackroyd.


This is a very spooky, scary story that is a perfect Halloween read, and with the extra awesome cover it will be perfect for Halloween displays as well. For Brontë fans, The Heathcliff Connection will be an added bonus to a book that is a great keep-the-lights-on story for the rest of us as well.


Book source: Arc picked up at ALA.


PS - And there are illustrations! Little ones at the beginning of each chapter. Some of which make that cover art look as harmless as a tea party.

The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall - 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. Any book highlighted on Tween Tuesday also counts for the In the Middle Reading Challenge! This week's book is:

Hahn, Mary Downing. The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall. Boston: Clarion Books, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/9790662]

Booktalk:
When Florence's uncle sends for her, taking her from Miss Medleycoate's Home for Orphan Girls and offering her a place in his home, she thinks her life must be finally looking up. When she gets to Crutchfield Hall, she finds her uncle to be wonderful and caring but away a lot on business. She's left with a crotchety aunt who doesn't bother to hide her dislike of Florence, her sickly cousin James who refuses to leave his bed, and the oppressive memory of James' older sister Sophia who died a year earlier. But then Sophia's memory stops just being oppressive; Sophia becomes...persuasive.

Review:
Mary Downing Hahn was the author of my childhood nightmares.

Her books, especially Wait Till Helen Comes, terrified be as a child. The only time in my entire life that my mother limited the content of my reading was to not allow me to read her Hahn's books after dark. As I've admitted before, I scare easily, but Hahn's books scared everyone. I have a distinct memory of my friends Karen and Paige and I reading one of her books out loud at a slumber party. Later that night we were dared to go outside by Paige's sister. That's it, just go outside. We couldn't do it. Paige's sister put all our underwear in the freezer as our "consequence" for turning down the dare. We felt lucky. We were in the sixth grade. I'm pretty sure that stopped my torrid affair with Hahn's book, but I still remember them.

It was with this background that I picked up The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall, expecting to be scared. And I wasn't. It's not that I'm so grown-up now or so desensitized by years of scary books and movies that I hadn't been in late elementary-middle school. I admitted just a couple months ago that I couldn't read The Dead Boys right before bed. It's that Sophia wasn't all that scary. She's mean, but not evil; jealous, but has no power/knowledge to get what she wants. She's just a sad, spoiled girl who doesn't want to be dead and who will hang around grabbing everyone's attention with her antics and tantrums until she gets what she wants: a second chance at life. Because it's just nor fair! Especially when James gets to live. Sophia terrorizes James and tries to get Florence to help (and sometimes succeeds).

But it still wasn't scary.

Because the whole story revolved around Sophia and Florence and James' fear of her, The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall kind of fell apart for me. Younger readers who are not quite ready for the super-scary stuff but are still looking for a Halloween book will be happy with this one.

Readers who aren't expecting Mary Downing Hahn to always remind them why Joey is right to be afraid of little girl ghosts* might be happy with it too.


Book source: Arc picked up at ALA


*I tried to find a clip, but no dice:


Chandler: Joey, there was a little girl who lived here, but she died like 30 years ago.
(Joey's eyes double in size)
Joey: (frightened) What?
Chandler: Ha! I'm just messing with you.
Joey: That's not funny! You know I'm afraid of little girl ghosts!
- from http://www.friendscafe.org/scripts/s10/1014.php

You can also watch the whole episode online, if you want the visual. The scene I'm referencing is at about 17:30. :)

A Different Day A Different Destiny - 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. Any book highlighted on Tween Tuesday also counts for the In the Middle Reading Challenge! This week's book is:

Laing, Annette. A Different Day, A Different Destiny. Statesboro, Georgia: Confusion Press, 2010. Print. Snipesville Chronicles 2.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/10082476/]

Booktalk:
The Professor, doing what she does, manages to drop her modern calculator somewhere in the past. The changes this creates in the past causes changes that reach forward to our present day where it leaves a rift in time and drags Hannah, Brandon, and Alex back in time to right things. Again. Only this time they're all in 1851; Hannah in Scotland, Brandon in England, and Alex back in Snipesville where all their adventures started in the first place.

Review:
Laing has done it again! She's managed to cram a whole lot of information into an entertaining story (with a bit of actual danger thrown in this time) and created a dizzying web of characters connected to each other, the characters in Don't Know Where, Don't Know When, and Hannah, Brandon, and Alex's present day lives. Some of these connections are pretty obvious (the Gordons that Hannah lives with are the grandparents of the Scottish Mr. Gordon from the first book and a young girl in Balesworth who is the spitting image of Verity turns out to be her great-grandma), but that certainly didn't detract from their stories. And most of the connections I didn't see coming until the series of big reveals toward the end. I think that's the most amazing thing about these books for me: how some of the details all work out so seamlessly without being so obvious that I figured them out halfway through the book.

Hannah, Brandon, and Alex thought they had things bad in WWII England, but their experiences in the last book are nothing compared to what each of them goes through in 1851. Alone. In 1851, all three of them are considered adults, expected to earn a wage and take care of themselves. They each have to deal with this realization and figure out how to make their own ways and survive before they can even begin to think about how to find each other and get back home. The way that the book shifts between their stories was very clear and easy to follow. And for anyone (like me) for whom the year 1851 doesn't ring a bell, they are doing this all in the midst of preparations for Prince Albert's Great Exhibition and a growing disapproval across England and Scotland of the lingering institution of slavery in America.

Alex, still in Snipesville, comes face to face with slavery. As he travels to Savannah looking for work (with the help of a modern calculator he found in a cotton field to boost his mathematical skills), he is accompanied by a slave, Jupe, who is about his age. No matter how he tries to treat Jupe as an equal, Jupe never opens up to him or fully trusts him. Alex does manage to keep Jupe with him by lying about who legally owns him, keeping Jupe from being arrested, punished, or sold because he ran away. The situation with Jupe is complicated by the fact that Alex genuinely likes his employer, even though Mr. Thornhill buys and sells slaves in the course of his land sale transactions. This conflict eventually tears at Alex, and he remains upset and a bit broken at the close of the book. The question of how otherwise good people could participate in or even condone slavery is never answered here, which is probably as it should be.

Hannah and Brandon are free from the emotional and intellectual turmoil that Alex must endure in 1851. They're both left in horrible working and conditions by their trip back in time. Brandon "comes to" already in the pitch black dark of a coal mine (which seemed extraordinarily cruel to me) and eventually makes his way back to Balesworth. On the way he lives in a workhouse, becomes a professional mourner, and is, once again, a novelty to those around him. People assume that Brandon is a former slave, especially after he tells people that he was born in America. England, having recently abolished slavery in their own country, is on a crusade to have the same happen in America. Many people, especially the upper class women, want to know Brandon's thoughts on the subject and want to hear all about his experiences. The fact that he has to fabricate these experiences based on what he learned in history classes doesn't seem to bother anyone.

Hannah, of course, has the most tumultuous time. She's forced to be a piecer in a mill, first cotton and then jute, and earns pennies a week. She's fired twice and almost starves to death in between. She has a lot to complain about, but what Hannah is the most worried about is her lack of shopping opportunities. Her attitude is, once again, off-putting for most of the book, which is a shame as her storyline was the one I was the most interested in. At some point during her ordeal, it seems like Hannah may be learning something from the life she's living. She makes friends and finds herself in a family; she agitates for workers' rights (to hang out in the park) and gives an upper class woman who lives off mill profits the scare of her life by walking her through a tenement neighborhood. Still, as soon as she is rescued by the Professor and given a fancy dress and a bit of pocket money, all those hard-learned lessons fall right out of her head. She can't even be polite to a waiter, and why should she? It's his job to serve her. Ugh. I was really happy when the Professor ditched her again and she had to become a house maid.

Even with my disappointment in Hannah's character development, or lack thereof, I really enjoyed A Different Day, A Different Destiny. I also learned a lot about the working class in the British Empire during the Industrial Revolution and British involvement in the American Abolitionist Movement.


Book 1: Don't Know Where, Don't Know When
Book source: Review copy provided by the author. Thanks!

Don't Know Where Don't Know When 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. Any book highlighted on Tween Tuesday also counts for the In the Middle Reading Challenge! This week's book is: 


Laing, Annette. Don't Know Where Don't Know When. Statesboro, Georgia: Confusion Press, 2007. Print. Snipesville Chronicles 1.
[Book cover credit: Provided by the author. Thanks!]

Booktalk:
When Hannah and Alex are so rudely torn from their happy lives in San Francisco to move to the middle of nowhere Georgia, Hannah expects her entire life to turn into one huge snooze-fest. They're both forced to go to summer camp at Snipesville State College, where Alex manages to make a friend and Hannah manages to find a Starbucks instead of her camp. When Alex and his new friend Brandon spot Hannah ditching, they decide to join her, and they all end up heading to the library. After finding an WWII identity card in a book and having a weird encounter with a professor, all three decide to head back to the Starbucks. Only when they leave the library, they're no longer in Snipesville and Starbucks hasn't yet been invented.

Review:
I'll admit, the opening of this book was a little slow for me. All the time spent with Hannah and Alex before they go back in time (and before they even get to Georgia), didn't really do anything for me. BUT, if you stick it out through Hannah's whining about how unfair her life is (actually, this continues throughout the book), they'll meet up with Brandon and end up in WWII England where things get very cool. In WWII England, Hannah, Alex and Brandon are all evacuees for the London, sent to the English countryside to escape the Blitz (exactly like the Pevensies in The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe!). Hannah and Alex are taken in by an almost welcoming couple. Brandon, who is black, is taken back to London. Though black children were also evacuated during the bombings of London, it was much harder to find people to take them in. Also, black people weren't all that common in England during this time, so Brandon spends the entire book being kind of a novelty. Hannah and Alex are left to get used to the British countryside during the war and desperately try to find out what happened to Brandon in a society that doesn't tell unpleasant things to children. Meanwhile, Brandon runs away from the man who took him back to London and is presumed dead after a bombing.

But he's not dead; he's really in WWI England. He's even in the same town as Hannah and Alex, just 25 years earlier! Brandon manages to find friendly people (with some help) and even a job, but being black is a much rarer thing in 1915 than it was in 1940. And the attitudes toward black people weren't all that great either. In her acknowledgments, Laing states that the past is not particularly politically correct, which is true, and neither is her portrayal of it. The scenes set both in 1915 and in 1940 are rich in historical detail, including the attitudes of the people in them. While Alex seems to go along pretty fine throughout the story, Hannah is constantly bristled by the treatment of children (what she considers a beating, everyone else considers a well-deserved spanking) and Brandon is constantly affected by peoples reactions to him as a "colored" young man. Though Brandon makes it through his time traveling experience suffering from nothing more than hateful words, the black people he meets both during The Great War (WWI) and WWII do not fare as well.

I managed to get completely caught up in this book. There is a story inside a story that needs solving in order for Hannah, Alex and Brandon to make it back to 21st century Georgia, and though they don't understand how or why, it is connected to their present day lives. Also, given that he's in the same town, Brandon's experiences in 1915 England have some really close ties to the people he, Hannah and Alex meet in WWII England. There were so many ways that all of these connections and different-name-same-person instances could have been screwed up or over simplified, but Laing manages to make them all make sense and even manages to make some of them surprising. My only disappointment in this area was Peggy, and it totally wasn't Laing's fault. I simply wanted 1915 Peggy to grow up to be a different person, but not everyone can live up to their full potential (I'm still angry about who she grew up to be, but I don't want to ruin the surprise).

In short, this is a great time travel book. I wasn't so caught up in the logistics of the time traveling that I lost the ability to be caught up in the times where they ended up. It's also a great look at the day-to-day lives of some of the people left behind in England during the fighting of each world war.


Now, about the cover: If you see slightly older reviews of this book around the blogosphere, or even look this book up on amazon (librarything, goodreads, etc.) it has a different cover where the kids are not in silhouette. While I would usually be all for actual kids rather than kid-shaped shadows, especially when one of the main characters is a POC, I really don't like the old cover. It is, to be honest, why it's taken me two months to get around to reading and reviewing this book. The older cover is on the copy I received. It looks so much more like a history book than a time travel history book, and we all know there is a HUGE difference between the two. While Don't Know Where has the potential to be about kids sent to the past to learn all about it, most likely in a school-type setting, that's not what this book ends up being. But that is what the old cover portrays. I don't know why, but the new cover art for the second printing, in addition to matching the cover art on the sequel, gives it more of an adventure or fantasy feel to me. Kid-shaped shadows are a bit cartoon-y, I guess, and apparently that's what I need in order to feel like I haven't been "assigned" a book specifically to learn from it.

And, yes, I've always been a huge fan of historical fiction but hated studying history. How did you know? :)


Book source: Review copy provided by the author. Thanks Annette!

Gringolandia

Miller-Lachmann, Lyn. Gringolandia. Willimantic, Conn.: Curbstone Press, 2009. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8139206]

Awards:
ALA Best Books for Young Adults (2010)
Americas Award Honorable Mention

Booktalk:
Daniel's life is pretty good, but not perfect. His mom is a grad student so there's not a lot of money, his sister is getting to the age where she's real angsty and annoying, and every year his mother heads a letter writing campaign to free his father from a prison in Pinochet's Chile. Still, Dan's pretty happy. He plays in a band, has a great girlfriend, and speaks with a sexy accent leftover from his Chilean childhood. Then Daniel's mother gets word that her husband will be released and allowed to join his family in America. That should make everything finally perfect. But when Daniel's father is released, he is a physically broken and psychologically scarred shell of the father Dan remembers.

Review:
Gringolandia opens with an Author's Note explaining the very real circumstances and events in Chile that lead up to what is experienced by the fictional characters in the book. A short bibliography for further reading is also provided. Usually this kind of thing goes at the end of the story when readers are more likely to be interested in picking up 4-5 books on the topic. I thought it was a weird choice to put the note and bibliography at the beginning...until I started reading.

Miller-Lachmann expects a lot of her readers, in a good way. Her author's note allows her not to take precious page space away from the story later. For example, we see Dan's father derisively call the States "Gringolandia" and refuse to learn English. We see the disdain he has for the USA and for his wife's choice to bring the family there. Miller-Lachmann doesn't tell us that his dislike (to put it kindly) for America is because the United States government helped Pinochet gain power in Chile. She trusts us to put two and two together, which she is only able to do because she explained Pinochet's rise to power in her opening note.

Because, let's be honest, not many Americans know that much about Chile and certainly don't know that much about what it was like to live through the turbulent times Dan and his family live through, hence the need for the author's note. I don't read a lot of historical fiction about specific events (which I guess this is, even though it makes me feel really old to call the decade in which I was born history), but much of the historical fiction published in the States of this type is about very well-known events. Even if the average American reader doesn't know the ins and outs of the actual event, they know the basics. Think about how much historical fiction is set during WWII or the French Revolution, or is about Anastasia Romanova. Gringolandia fills a huge gap. I can't think of any other historical fiction for teen readers about South America, let alone about Chile. In fact, a search in WorldCat for "historical fiction" and "South America" only returns 78 books, including duplicates for large print titles. "Historical fiction" and "Chile" returns 84, and those numbers don't even begin to touch on the intended audience of the titles.

Even if there were tons of titles about political prisoners under Pinochet, I think that Gringolandia would still stand out. Without repeating events, this story is told from three distinctive points of view: Dan's, his father's, and his girlfriend's. Dan's father, Marcelo, talks about what it was like in prison (and believe me, even the polite version presented here can get graphic), but the strong point in his narrative is his passion for a free Chile. He doesn't regret the actions he took that led to his arrest; he desperately wants to continue that work, regardless of the consequences, now that he's been released. He's also going through some serious PTSD that is tearing his family apart. His perspective is contrasted with Dan's. Dan doesn't really know what his father did (you can't be questioned about what you don't know), and he doesn't understand how his father could put himself and his family at such great risk for a cause. He certainly can't understand why his father doesn't want to just move on and make the best of things. Like his father, Dan has trust issues and a serious flinch in the face of policemen, but without the conviction that helps his father work through these issues. Courtney, Dan's girlfriend, is all fired up about what happened to Marcelo and what is happening in Chile in general, but she is also woefully naive. Semi-spoiler: There is a great scene when they all return to Chile. Courtney decides to join a women's protest and things go as wrong as humanly possible. From Dan's POV: "Courtney. I think she can't believe these [soldiers] will do anything to her--like her pale skin and blond hair are a Plexiglas bubble around her, keeping all the bad things away" (241). It's kind of the perfect way to describe her attitude throughout the entire book. End spoiler. Courtney breaks through to Marcelo when no one else can by believing whole-heartedly in what he believes in, guided by a simple sense of right and wrong and of fairness.

There is so much going on in this book along side of so much actually happening. I'm not going to lie, it's intense and not always easy to read. But it is so worth it! Not only will the reader learn about events not often discussed in American history classes, but they'll also get to know some ridiculously complex characters and watch them make impossible choices for themselves and the greater good.


I read Gringolandia as one of my PK books, but the fact that Courtney's dad's a pastor didn't even come up in my review. It's important to her character and back story, but not all that important to what is going on with her, Dan and Marcelo. The big PK moment is when Dan, her boyfriend and the person she is the most close to, says something at lunch implying that Courtney couldn't possibly know what he's going through at home. Her family and home-life are too perfect. This is followed by a one-line chapter from Courtney's perspective: "Dan doesn't know everything about me" (64). It could have been said by almost all the PKs I've read about in the last month.


Book source: Philly Free Library
Thanks to MissAttitude at Reading In Color for the recommendation!

Nothing Pink

Hardy, Mark. Nothing Pink. Asheville, N.C.: Front Street - Boyds Mills Press, Inc., 2008. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/5968322]

Awards:
ALA Rainbow List, Young Adult Fiction (2009)

Booktalk:
Vincent has been praying, for as long as he can remember, to have the burden of homosexuality lifted from him. Every time his father leads an altar call, Vincent goes to the front of the congregation to be prayed over and have hands laid on him. It hasn't worked yet, but Vincent is not giving up. He knows God hasn't abandoned him; he can feel His presence. Vincent just needs to be patient and avoid temptation. Then Vincent meets Robert, at his father's new church of all places, and everything changes. As Vincent gives up praying for deliverance and spends more and more time with Robert and the two become more and more involved, Vincent still feels God in his life. Maybe all of these years he's been praying for the wrong thing.

Review: (kind of spoilery, but the ending is mostly what you hope it will be anyway)
Nothing Pink is a pretty straight forward coming out story. That said, it's a very well done coming out story. Vincent does a lot of struggling within himself, with the help of his strict Baptist upbringing, about his sexuality. He does everything he can to try to change himself including making out with girls, avoiding TV shows featuring guys in tight pants, and a whole lot of praying. But this is not the focus of the book. This all happens before the book starts, though it is alluded to throughout the beginning. The book actually starts on the day things start to get better, the day Vincent meets Robert. Even though Vincent still has doubts about the morality of his relationship with Robert and has to hide the extent of their relationship from his parents, this is mostly a happy book about Vincent's first love and eventual acceptance of himself.

A lot of Vincent's happiness with himself hinges on religion, or rather, God. His relationship with God factors largely into Vincent's life and the story. Vincent is moved by his father's sermons, hymns, and prayer. He acutely feels God's presence in his life. He is a devout and upstanding Christian, except for his sexuality. That's why he's so confused and hurt by God's lack of response to his prayers to be straight. As he becomes more comfortable with Robert and his relationship with him, he becomes more convinced that God is okay with it too. It's great. His parents, however, do not agree. When they figure out what's going on, they give him a talking-to that centers around this oft heard sentiment:

"We love you, Vincent...But God hates the sin of homosexuality, so we must hate it too, son."

p.99

To their credit, they never say that God hates Vincent, and they stress that they love him unconditionally, though Vincent doubts that their version of "unconditional" should count when they hate something that is so much a part of him. I did get the feeling that the mom, at least, would come around at some point after the end of the book.

During the talk with his parents and later when he is at church camp, Vincent does a lot of defending himself. In his own head. I love that he didn't have to stand up and be out and and proud right away or a spokesperson/defender of all people queer in his Baptist community. Sometimes that's all you can do, and it's great that Hardy provides this positive role model of someone who can only hold it together for himself but is still not weak. Outwardly, Vincent simply stops asking God to make him straight. Internally, he does a lot of building himself up, and that involves a lot of "God-talk." The religious over tones and general message of God loves the gays becomes a bit redundant and heavy-handed toward the end. This is definitely not a book for readers uncomfortable with Christianity. I appreciated the message, but it did kind of take over the book in a couple of places and pull me out of Vincent's story. But given how heavy-handed much of the anti-gay, religious literature can be, I had to forgive this repeated positive religious message.

Also, and this surprised me a bit, the book is set in the 70s. It's not overly obvious and so led to some confusing moments for me, such as when Vincent lists the TV shows he avoids and its clear that I should have recognized the titles. Other than that, only the feathered hair and continual Barry Manilow references tipped me off (and the title verso, which is where I got the actual decade of the setting from). And I do mean continual, with the Barry Manilow. You'll be singing Copa Cabana for days after reading this one.


Book source: Philly Free Library

Secret Keeper - 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.

Perkins, Mitali. Secret Keeper. New York: Delacorte Press - Random House Children's Books, 2009. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/7462206]

Booktalk:
When Asha's father moves to New York to look for work, he leaves his family in the care of his brother. Asha and her elder sister Reet are both pulled out of school, where Asha especilly excels, and are forced to live in a house that is much more traditional, and therefore restrictive, than their own. As they adjust to these changes, their mother sinks into depression and money begins to run out. When Uncle decides that a good marriage for Reet, who is beautiful and attracting a lot of attention, will fix both of these growing problems, Asha must take drastic measures to keep her family intact until her father sends for them.

Mini-Review:
The best part about this book is the descriptive language that Perkins uses throughout. Everything is so lush and easy to feel or visualize. At the same time, she doesn't coddle her readers, most of whom aren't familiar with 1970s Indian dress and customs; she does not go to great lengths to spell everything out. Because she lets you kind of figure things out for yourself as you go along (with the help of a glossary of Indian words at the back of the book) there were no obtrusive info-dumps to pull you out of the story. Some people may want more description of the customs and traditions acted out in the book, but I was happy to get on with the story!

Asha is young and chafing in her girl-hood. She had a pretty free and open childhood, learning how to do things like play tennis and cricket, but all of that stopped when she got her period and she had to become a proper young lady. Further restrictions are placed on her and Reet when they move to Uncle's house. The contrast of their lives inside the house (always inside the house) to that of her male cousin Raj is pointed, both to the reader and to Asha. Watching Asha come in to her own and start to make decisions for her family in this environment is all the more amazing. Because the story centers around this aspect of Asha's life, as well as how her growing confidence can or cannot save her sister and mother, I think that this would make a great middle grade read as well.

I really enjoyed Secret Keeper and look forward to reading more of Mitali Perkins' books in the future! She's also a prolific blogger over at mitali's fire escape.


Book source: Philly Free Library

Once

Gleitzman, Morris. Once. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2010. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/820104]

Awards:
KOALA, Fiction for years 7-9 (2007)
YABBA, Fiction years 7-9 (2007)
CBCA Honor Book, Younger Readers (2006)

Booktalk:
Once there was a boy named Felix who lived at an orphanage in Poland, only he wasn't an orphan. Almost four years ago Felix's secret alive parents left him with Mother Minka, at the orphanage, so they could travel and find out why their bookstore had to close.

Once Nazis came to the orphanage and burned all the Jewish books in the library. Then Felix knew the answer to his parents' problem. See, Felix not only has secret alive parents, he's also secretly Jewish. Maybe if his parents sold more books that the Nazis liked, their bookstore wouldn't have to close.

Armed with this revelation, Felix leaves the orphanage to find his parents. Instead of them helping and protecting him, maybe Felix can save them, just this Once.


Review:
Doesn't the whole premise of this book stress you out? It stressed me out. For a book of 163 pages* I had to put it down more than a couple of times because I was just too nervous for Felix. He was so young when his parents left him at the orphanage. This is, presumably, why they didn't tell him why they were really leaving him in the hands of a bunch of nuns, and the nuns certainly didn't tell him either. How could they? How could they explain that to 6 year old Felix when he entered the orphanage? Besides, if Felix didn't pray to God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary, the Pope and Adolf Hitler like the rest of the orphans, he'd stand out.

It was heartbreaking to watch Felix do things like return to his family's home in what used to be a Jewish neighborhood, try to flag down a truckload of soldiers when he needs help, or pray to Adolf Hitler to keep him safe, as he's been taught to do. He really has no idea what is going on in Poland and the rest of Europe. He has no idea that at ten years old he is a hunted man. His realization that it is not Jewish books that the Nazis hate, but Jews themselves, is painfully slow, and yet I never once doubted the authenticity of Felix's thought processes and take on the situation around him. As Felix's naivety lessens to make room for the huge weight of his new knowledge, it is sometimes hard to believe that he is only ten, or even that he is the same boy that I met at the beginning of the book. This is not to say that Felix's voice lost any of its authenticity, he is just aged so much by what he has to go through.

Even given the subject matter, and the violence does get a bit graphic by the end, this is a beautiful book. The stories that Felix makes up for himself and others to get them through the really hard times, the people that help Felix along the way, and the hope and compassion that Felix just never loses make this an (almost) uplifting story. The ending is not horrific or magically happy. It has that Living Dead Girl or The Giver factor (Does he make it to a better place or to a "better place"?) that is a bit open to interpretation. ETA: Except that it isn't. The sequel, Then, is available in the UK and will hopefully be available in the US soon.


Once will be available for purchase in the US on March 30th, next Tuesday!


Book source: Review copy from publisher, via the yalsa-bk listserv.

*This page count is from an uncorrected proof and may not match the published copy.

Year of the Horse

Allen, Justin. Year of the Horse: A Novel. New York: The Overlook Press, 2009. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/8981909]

Booktalk:
Every boy in St. Francis knows who Jack Straw is. Every boy in the country probably knows who Jack Straw is. He's the fastest gunslinger in the West. When he shows up at Lu's family's shop to visit with Lu's grandfather, Lu naturally eavesdrops so he'll have stories to tell his friends at school the next day. Instead, he's woken up early the next morning to leave with Jack as his explosives expert, a title that both this grandfather and late father each held, but that Lu himself does not identify with and feels he can't live up to.

Review:
Lu, the child of Chinese immigrants; Henry, first a slave then a Union soldier and now free; Chino, once just a Californian and now a Mexican with no homeland; and of course Jack Straw, also a former Union soldier and now a privateer of sorts; are all hired by John MacLemore, former Confederate loyalist, and his daughter Sadie to get their gold mine and homestead back from the man who murdered Sadie's mother. They travel across mountains, canyons, plains, and deserts. They also deal with Mormons (one of whom really wants to make Sadie one of his wives), dwindling supplies (Oregon Trail style), fatal weather, Confederate soldiers, many forms of racism, and, of course, actual demons.

That's right. This is a Western/fantasy, and as such, it's pretty unique.

I'll be honest, the first half, almost pure Western, was a bit slow for me. I liked getting to know the large cast of characters and found their trials pretty interesting, but I wasn't truly hooked until the fantasy set in. When it did, I felt the need to devour the second half of the book to find out what would happen to everyone. At the expense of my beauty sleep. The forgotten journal of a man no one remembers that is covered with Lu's grandfather's Chinese writing, ghost-riders that pretend to be shooting stars, were-coyotes in the middle of an unlivable desert. And none of that even begins to encompass what Lu, et al. are really up against. It's good stuff. I highly recommend this book for fantasy readers who are sick of paranormal romances taking up all of the magic in young adult lit right now and for adventure readings who might be willing to let the truth stretch a little. Neither group will regret the small step outside of their comfort zones.


Now on to the serious stuff. One of the greatest things about this book is the large cast of multicultural characters. We are also given main characters that hail from both sides of the recently ended Civil War, in addition to soldiers in saloons with differing loyalties. This book does NOT use the /fantasy part of its description to make all of these people live together harmoniously. From the author's note:

"Not all of the characters in this book are to be admired, however. History, as it turns out, is littered with men and women (and boys and girls!) possessed of vile, even shocking beliefs, language and manners. As your narrator I will admit having felt tempted to censor the more disturbing bits of racism from the nineteenth century folk that people these tales. But as fact is my watch-word, I have resisted that temptation."

p.7

And it's true, Allen doesn't remove the racism from the story. I don't think the n-word makes an appearance (not that Henry is called by his name by anyone outside the group), but Lu gets called a chink often (not within the group), or better yet, referred to as "Jack's chink." What Allen does, instead of removing the racism from the book, is take all of these characters beyond their stereotypes for the readers. Yes, Lu starts out as the explosion expert because, genetically, he must know how it's done, right? He is Chinese, after all. But then we also see Jack teaching Lu how to blow up a boulder early on in the trip. All of the other characters similarly move beyond their stereotypes: the rich Confederate and his wild-child daughter, the religious former slave and the nature-conscious Mexican, a variety of mystic and/or violent American Indians and the wife-hunting Mormons. It's all very Breakfast Club, except without the all-white cast.


Book source: Philly Free Library

This book fulfills the Bad Blogger category of the 2010 Challenge; I heard about it during the Unsung YA Blogger Blitz.

The Silver Blade

Gardner, Sally. The Silver Blade. New York: Dial Books, 2009. Print.

[Book cover credit: www.librarything.com/work/8275701]

Booktalk:
In France The Revolution rages on, claiming more victims each day. Just about anyone with royal aspirations has long since left the country or already died in its name. But there are still some left in France who are at great risk: those with titles, remote but dangerous connections to the royal family, or the air of financial success. They will do anything to get to England safely. Rumor has it that the man for the job is The Silver Blade. His clients disappear right under the noses of the Revolutionaries who are charged with their capture. In their place, the small silver blade of a child's toy guillotine appears suspended in thin air. Everyone with a need to leave the country is desperate for The Silver Blade's services. Not that anyone knows who he is, which is just how Yann likes it.


No spoilers for this book here, but there are definitely spoilers for its prequel, The Red Necklace.

Review:
The Silver Blade is just as intrigue, romance, and action-packed as its predecessor. Yann pulls off daring escapes, clever tricks, and ridiculous disguises. Sido struggles to get settled in England, where her Aunt and Uncle are the social center of French émigré life and where her Aunt hopes Sido will find a financially secure husband. Sido and Yann each pine for the other, and they communicate through letters that could put them both in danger. This is all well and good. Touching, emotionally complicated, blah blah blah.

The real problem is Kalliovski. He's not quite as dead as we were all lead to believe at the end of The Red Necklace.

But it is his face beneath the hat that makes all the rest quite forgettable. Those black eyes do not look human, so dark and dead, eyes from which no light shines. His skin is like tallow wax, his hair, swept back, is black, his lips a red wound. This is a face of nightmares.

Kalliovski goes walking here every night, the smell of blood drawing him time and time again to the guillotine. It is like a fine wine to his nose, a perfume to savor. He takes a last deep breath, inhaling the scent of death before setting off toward the Pont Neuf. He walks without a shadow to mark his passing.

p.9

I thought this was going to turn into a vampire book. I was really disappointed and worried, for a while, thinking that Kalliovski was going to drink all the blood left in Paris. I shouldn't have been; Gardner is way too classy for that. She draws on some obscure Gypsy legend that was briefly mentioned in the first book to explain Kalliovski's not-dead-ness instead, and it doesn't involve blood-sucking.

Things get a lot more magical and dark in this installment of Yann and Sido's story. Yann, himself, goes through a lot of self-doubt and darkness in his own heart, leaving Sido, Tệtu and everyone else behind while he basks in his own self-pity. But he grows and becomes stronger. This is, once again, his story. At least this time he gets to be on the cover of the book.


If you're interested in other cover art for this book, after my look at the covers of The Red Necklace, you can see a few on LibraryThing.


Book 1: The Red Necklace
Book source: Philly Free Library

The Heretic's Daughter

Kent, Kathleen. The Heretic's Daughter. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2008. Print.
[Book cover credit: librarything.com/work/5352636]


Booktalk:

"You're in here because you're low and ugly. I'm here because I'm my mother's daughter."

p297

Sarah Carrier was arrested for witchcraft, along with her mother and brothers and plenty of other people, during the Salem witch trials. She was arrested because her mother was thought to be the "head witch" in their town. Having a husband that everyone's afraid of, a mentally challenged son who managed to survive small pox, and a successful farm all being signs of serious dealings with the devil, of course.

Review:
On the one hand, this book has a lot going for it.

• Kent does a wonderful job at drawing out the connection between the mass hysteria around these trials and other things going on at the time such as small pox, Indian raids, slim harvests, etc.
• Kent is an actual descendent of Martha Carrier, Sarah's mother and one of the first women hanged during these trials. I don't know if this changed the way she wrote this book (how could it not), but it's pretty cool to think about while reading.
• If you have a lot of background knowledge about the Salem witch trials, this presentation should hold something new for you. At the same time, prior knowledge is not a requirement for enjoyment.

On the other hand, there are also some issues.

• The opening premise of the book is that Sarah Carrier Chapman, now an old lady, is writing her account of her mother's trial and the year leading up to it, for her granddaughter. The book opens with a letter explaining this. I kept waiting for this to be important or to meet the granddaughter (or even Sarah as an old lady), but it never happened. Just telling the story would have been a lot less complicated and the only change needed would be to leave that letter off in the beginning, that's how much disconnect there was between the letter and the story.
• Throughout the book Sarah's father's past is shrouded in mystery, but it is extremely important. His past is what keeps him from being among the accused. Her mother has a book detailing his past that Sarah isn't allowed to read until she comes of age. When she's finally an adult, she reads her mother's book then puts it in a trunk. It would have been nice if she had let us in on a little bit of what was in that book, especially if this is supposed to be an account for Sarah's granddaughter so that she can know her family's history.
• This is clearly a book about the Salem witch trials, but the whole first 100 pages or so are the build-up to the trials and a kind of explanation of Puritan life at that time. This build-up helped put the trials into historical context and definitely made it easier to see how things like small pox and fear of the locals left the Puritans desperate for someone to blame for their misfortunes, like witches, but I spent about half of the book feeling like I was waiting for the story to start.

Suffice it to say, I had mixed feelings on this one. It was a good read, but not a particularly satisfying one. The most interesting part, to me, was the changing relationship between Sarah and her mother. Unfortunately this is not the driving force of the novel, though it is an important part. I think if Kent had made this book either entirely about their relationship in the face of the trials or entirely about the circumstances that made the trials possible, The Heretic's Daughter would have been a great read. Trying to make it about both just didn't do it for me.

Book source: Philly Free Library

Splendor

Godbersen, Anna. Splendor. New York: Alloy Entertainment-HarperCollins Publishers, 2009. Print. A Luxe Novel 4.

Once again, it is impossible to talk about this book without talking about the books that came before it. If you have yet to finish Envy, don't read my review of Splendor. Just look at the pretty picture on the cover (it's Lina this time).

Booktalk:

• Carolina is actually an heiress now and uses her money to get a house within view of Leland's. Coincidence? Of course not.
• Elizabeth is settling into her new life with Mr. Cairns away from the public eye. Women who are "in the family way" are better not seen.
• Penelope is recovering. Polite people won't say that she's recovering from a miscarriage, but really impolite people don't mind letting it slip that she wasn't ever actually pregnant.
• Henry and Teddy are off to war, but only one of them gets there.
• And Diana. Diana is in "Paris." At least that's where the Gamesome Gallant would have you believe she is.

In the last installment in The Luxe series, things never go as you would expect. There is a death, a new-found love, an uncovered plot, a steamy affair, a wedding. Someone is thrown from her high horse as someone else decides to share in her bounty. And someone decides to run away and start life over somewhere else. Again. There are no neat little bows in this ending, except for those on Penelope's dresses, but did you really expect everyone to get to live happily ever after?

Review:
These books have never really been heavy on the historical details, and neither is this one. If you worried after Envy that Godbersen would let her pretties be set aside so the boys could go off to war (honestly, I'm still unclear as to which war they went off to), breathe a little easier. Henry lives the good life in the army just as does anywhere else he goes, and Teddy, who really does see combat, is back in the States by the time we see him. Both of the guys, and a few others, have important roles, starring you might say in the case of Henry, but this book is still about fancy rich girls in pretty dresses and their intrigues.

There were a lot of ends to tie up in order for Splendor to be the final book in the series. Some storylines had miles to go before they could make it to the last page. Godbersen took all the room she needed to tell Diana and Henry's stories, they are everyone's favorites after all, but that left little room for other storylines that also needed endings. Penelope and Carolina seemed to get a fair share of the page space, but their stories weren't as fleshed out as they had been in previous books. Elizabeth's story was downright anemic. She had one or two big scenes where important things happen, but the story was slim on the build-up and then managed to wrap up so very nicely a page later. After all she's been through, maybe Godbersen felt that Elizabeth deserved to be calm for most of Splendor and then have a happy ending dropped in her lap. Lord knows hers was the only traditionally happy ending provided.

I could have lived with all of the focus being on Diana and Henry (who couldn't) at the expense of Carolina and Penelope and even Elizabeth. I do wish that the stories overlapped more. Yes, Diana visits her pregnant sister. Yes, Penelope and Carolina attend a couple of the same parties. Of course Penelope's husband is still snubbing her in favor of Diana. Their stories aren't really connected by much else. There's a whole lot less gossip, plotting and backstabbing going on than in the other books. But what I really missed in this book were some of the minor characters that were so multidimensional and so alive in previous books. Aunt Edith only got one really good appearance, Buck is practically a prop, and the elder Mr. Schoonmaker hardly even gets to yell at anybody! He does get to change the course of EVERYTHING though, so he shouldn't be too upset. And Mrs. Holland? Who's she?

But even with all of this, I still loved Splendor. It wasn't until after I was done reading (a whole 4 hours after purchase) that I felt a bit let down in places. What Godbersen gives us is really good and really enthralling. I just wish she'd given us more. Le sigh. I'm so sad it's over!


About the ending (spoiler-free)
I wasn't going to talk about the ending, but after reading reviews on amazon, goodreads and librarything, I feel like I have to. I really liked the ending. This series does not end with the good people all happy and in love and the bad people publicly paying for their sins. How would you figure out who falls into which category anyway (except for Elizabeth and Penelope who embody good and evil so distinctively)? Disney did not write this, and I'm glad Anna Godbersen did not compromise her characters to make it seem like he did.




Book 1: The Luxe (on amazon)
Book 2: Rumors (on amazon)
Book 3: Envy (my review)


Book Source: I bought it.