BookWrites

Hurt Go Happy

2010-05-10T21:39:00.002-05:00

A life in silence is difficult enough without an oppressive mother who refuses to allow learning a new form of communication. This is the life of 12 year old Joey Willis in the book Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby. Joey, deaf since age six, meets a signing chimpanzee named Sukari and his owner, Charlie, who teach her about communication and love. Through the power of friendship, Joey’s mother learns the validity of sign language and overcomes her embarrassment and guilt about Joey’s disability. In the second half of the novel, Joey is away at the California School for the Deaf when she learns that since Charlie’s death, Sukari has been sent to a medical testing facility. Joey fights the red tape to rescue her chimpanzee friend and attempts to help her recover from her traumatic experience.

Winner of a Schneider Family Book Award, Rorby’s work is a call to action for Deaf and animal rights. She challenges the prejudice against American Sign Language and helps the reader understand what it is like to be deaf. Her detailed and emotion filled sequences in the medical testing facility urge retribution against those who abuse helpless creatures. Told in first person point of view, Joey relates well to the target audience of 10 to 15 year olds but readers of all ages get wrapped into the drama of Sukari’s journey to recovery. Sukari is described with such tenderness and care that the reader falls in love with the chimp. Joey, herself, is an unexpected hero. In spite of her disability, the abuse from her father, and the disagreements with her mother, she courageously journeys to the laboratory to rescue her friend and maintains that friendship to help Sukari heal from her post-traumatic stress.

At times, Hurt Go Happy comes across as a bleeding-heart animal novel written as propaganda against testing laboratories but Rorby’s afterward details the true cases of animal abuse and child abuse which led to this book. She also tells the story of Belinda, the signing chimp who inspired Sukari. One of Rorby’s hopes is that this book will be taught in elementary and middle school classes. In the back of the novel, she gives a reader’s guide which includes writing and research activities, discussion questions, and an email address so classes can contact her with questions or make an appointment to speak over the phone. An overall emotional and inspiring book, Hurt Go Happy is a story of triumph and overcoming obstacles.

Wallflowers Listen

2010-05-05T14:28:00.002-05:00

It would have been great for me AND my graduating high school class to have been introduced to Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, written just ten years ago, before we stepped foot into our new school of four years. Most of us had no clue what we would be up against. I , however, was a peer mediator, which put me right center in the business of all the gossip and problems that faced my classmates. Charlie, the main character, uses his spare time by writing letters to a person unknown about all the things he notices and encounters as he is the 'wallflower' on the wall. The setting is one where most of my peers could relate: home, school, friend's house, party, and popular hang out, while with others, it could have been a lesson learned before experiencing what could happen. The read for me was a huge eye-opener of the non-fiction tales which are kept hidden behind closed doors. Since the story is told i the first person point of view, with Charlie always speaking, a touch of sincerity is added to the the emotions expressed.

This novel is all fact, just with different character names, and the opinion of Charlie. I was in high school just a little over six years ago. The things discussed in The Perks of Being a Wallflower have not disappeared. I prove it is a fact by listening to the news ad hearing about tragedies that are affecting high school students due to the actions of a teenager who feel like a 'wallflower'. Often times these tragedies are closely connected to feelings that don't reflect what Charlie says, "If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am. And I don't want them to carry it around inside. I want them to show me, so I can feel it too." A world of confusion is hard to grasp and hold on to. Charlie writes in one of his letters, "So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be." It is the trying to figure out those feelings that lead many into destruction.

Scary.

The novel for me is a constant reminder for me to always try to help someone who just wants to be heard. I was never the 'wallflower' but the words Charlie spoke made me feel like I was there, and I so desperately wanted to help him. We never know if Charlie is writing to someone he knows, if he is just writing a daily diary, or even if he mails the letters off. Because many times these stories are never heard, teenagers act out on their emotion, making the worst decision possible, "I would die for you, but I wouldn't live for you." Chbosky put these words into text and now all that is left to be done is for them to be read.

Review: The Road by Cormack McCarthy

2010-04-27T19:29:00.001-05:00

I hadn’t heard of Cormack McCarthy’s The Road until it was assigned to the senior class as an outside reading novel. Wanting to be the most knowledgeable student teacher I could be, I went out and bought all of the books that were assigned. I was surprised at what the book entailed. While this novel was not originally intended for youth, I think it holds many lessons in which they can use throughout their life, and also is an entertaining story. It’s a post-apocalypse world where necessities are limited and the road is long. Cannibals are a regular occurrence and there is no down time. There is no warmth of sun and it is always winter. Not exactly the ideal setting for a young child. This novel is solely about the laws of survival and what a father will do for his son. There are no laws, no rules, and no repercussions of wrong doings.

This is by no means a pleasant tale, but it’s impossible to put it down. All of my students that read it absolutely fell in love. The only problem they encountered while reading was getting used to McCarthy’s writing style. There are no quotation marks and the story blends together. What could be chapters are merely asterisks marking a new scene, but I suppose that’s what makes the story such a good read. There never is a good stopping point, so you never really want to put it down.

The bond between the father and the son would bring tears to any readers’ eyes. Their relationship brings a multitude of discussion possibilities to any classroom. The fathers plan is to keep his son safe and alive, no matter what. They are constantly on the road, in search for supplies and a place to sleep. I think this metaphor for life is one that students could really wrap their brain around and relate it to their own lives. What would they do for another? What would their family do for them? To what extent could they survive in an alien world?

Every time I look at The Road on my bookshelf, I want to read it again and again. I just can’t get over how it is wonderfully written. At the end, I literally cried, both with sadness and relief. I would definitely recommend this book to a high school student, or to anyone I come to encounter.

To Disturb or Not to Disturb...That is the Question

2010-04-26T14:14:00.001-05:00

Reading and reviewing Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War is like taking a slice right out of today’s current events. With cyber bullying and peer pressure at a seemingly all-time high, this young adult novel’s main theme of standing up for individuality is absolutely relevant in today’s youth culture.

I found the stark honesty rang true and I think many teens/students will recognize themselves or someone they know in Cormier’s well-developed characters. The story itself is engaging, with a fast-moving plot and catchy dialogue that quickly draws you in to the characters’ lives. The emotions run high in this book, however, and this raises the intensity level in several parts of the story. It is not for the weak-hearted. Or the weak-spirited.

Protagonist Jerry Renault, a self-determined freshman at a private New England high school, ponders the existential question that is posted inside his locker: “Do I dare disturb the universe?” When The Vigils, a secret, student-run society, begin to give out “assignments,” Jerry dares to challenge them. This shakes the system and the school begins to split at the seams. At first Jerry is seen as the hero, someone who dares to stand up for himself. But through intense manipulation on the part of Archie and the other Vigils, the one-time hero begins to look like the villain. Through it all, Jerry is just trying to stand up for what he believes in.

A teenager with all the normal adolescent boy “urges,” Jerry normally tries to avoid conflict. Still missing his deceased mother, and irked by the monotony of his dad’s work life, he dreams of doing “something” with his own life. When the Vigils keep him from participating in the chocolate sale as one of their assignments, it seems like the perfect opportunity to extend his boycott of chocolate and set himself apart from the rest of his peers. Cormier describes his defiance in these terms: “Cities fell. Earth opened. Planets tilted. Stars plummeted. And the awful silence.” The poster in Jerry’s locker of a man walking alone on a beach, with the quote from T.S. Eliot: “Do I dare disturb the universe?” is what propels him into this experiment that will not only change his life, but also the landscape of Trinity High School.

Jerry’s story is not unlike the story of many of today’s teens—those feeling the inner need to express their individualism while at the same time being pressed or pulled to conform to the crowd’s expectations. Cormier explores the deep questions; whether or not this book will become a classic remains to be seen but, for right now, it should be mandatory reading for all high school freshmen.

Number the Stars

2010-04-26T13:35:00.001-05:00

Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars is the story of a Danish girl, Annemarie, who must grow and learn from the changes in her world in Nazi occupied Denmark. She is faced with the struggle to hide and help her Jewish friends escape, as well as cope with the loss of her older sister and her ever growing realization of the true dangers that she and her family face from the Nazi soldiers. The novel is a relatable heroine tale that portrays Annemarie as the struggling protagonist who finds her bravery and saves many people in the end. Lowry even describes at the end of the novel that there were some parts of it which were inspired by the real life stories of Danish people who gave everything to save their Jewish friends.
Number the Stars is an easy to read story from the Holocaust but is one that is not so gruesome and detailed that younger readers could not enjoy it. The protagonist is easy for a younger person to connect to because she grows in understanding throughout the book, just as young people really do. Through her growth, the story naturally inspires bravery and the belief that no matter how old one is, they can still make a difference. For example, Annemarie must go back to the docks when her mother realizes that the package they were to leave with the Jewish family they were hiding was left behind. Annemarie runs through the forest and tells herself children’s stories to maintain her focus, but when she is stopped by some Nazi soldiers she must think on her feet and she convinces them to let her go, thus allowing her to deliver the package in time. She doesn’t feel brave because she cried, but her uncle gives a sort of “moral of the story” by telling her that bravery isn’t being strong, but doing what you know is necessary in spite of any danger.
Overall, the story is very poignant and well told. The characters are realistic and their reactions are genuine. Lowry has created a rounded story that envelopes the reader as they continue. It is similar in message to other Holocaust stories, such as Diary of a Young Girl and Night, but it gives the story from a non-Jewish standpoint, providing a new perspective that isn’t always focused on. It shows the dangers that both sides of the “resistance,” as it is referred to in the novel, and shows the loss that often occurred for the people trying to rescue Jewish families through the eldest daughter’s , Lise, death. Number the Stars would be excellent to help in a course where the Holocaust is studied to allow a look into the lives of those affected without scaring young people with the details. It is memorable and very touching and difficult to stop reading. Annemarie is a character that could have been a next door neighbor or someone a reader grew up with, which makes the story that much more lasting in the mind after it is done.

Trackers Book Review

2010-04-26T12:08:00.001-05:00

BOOK REVIEW: Trackers by Patrick Carman

Patrick Carman introduced the media-enhanced novel to the world with his well-known adolescent series Skeleton Creek, featuring video clips accessed by the internet sporadically through the novels. With this fresh and innovative approach, Carman attempts to embrace the direction in which society is headed: the world of technology. With “book nooks” and other media-enhanced literature, Carman connects with a generation more comfortable with technological lingo (text, internet, facebook, twitter, blog, etc.)

Carman’s latest masterpiece, Trackers, also includes video clips throughout the work, but in a much more intricate way. This novel revolves around the lives of four teenage kids (much older than the characters in the Skeleton Creek series). Adam (the main narrator), Emily (the level-head), Lewis (the nerd), and Finn (the mellow skate-boarder) all bring something unique and special to the team of Trackers. Adam’s dad owns a computer repair shop, so Adam has been introduced to the world of technology at a very early age. His father prepares a room for him to tinker with the unsalvageable computers known as “The Vault.” Adam has surpassed his father in technological knowledge. “The Vault” is where Adam invents several quirky devices: the Orville, the Belinski, the Deckard, and the Trinity. Each of these devices serves different purposes - whether it be GPS, navigation, surveillance, etc. The antagonists of the novel, Lazlos and Zara, hack into Adam’s system, steal his ideas, and blackmail him into helping them break codes. However, eventually the Trackers team up with Lazlos and Zara when they find out the antagonists are actually employees of the ISD (Internet Security Directive) and want them to join the forces to help stop criminals. Carman ends the novel in an open-ended way, hinting that Trackers will have a sequel.

The book is written in dialogue form- dialogue between Adam and a law enforcer of some sort, most likely an attorney. The law enforcer questions Adam and as the story progresses, piece by piece, the story comes together to reflect the reason for the questioning/interview in the first place. Trackers, unlike Skeleton Creek, adds even more complexity to the novel. For one, several Appendixes can be found in the back of the novel. These appendixes include a code for a secret language used in the novel as well as the transcripts for the video clips- in case internet access is unavailable.

Trackers falls short in comparison to the Skeleton Creek series. Several aspects of the novel seem forced. The chemistry between the characters is lacking, the technological language is a little over-used and too complex- making the novel tiresome, and the ending does not necessarily lead one to wait anxiously for the sequel. The codes are not utilized enough. It seems as though Carman was attempting to take on too many complexities and as a result did none wholeheartedly. I give it 3 stars.

Word Count: 473

Review: Numbers by Rachel Ward

2010-03-17T11:35:00.002-05:00

Numbers by Rachel Ward

Buy It Now: on Amazon.com

Description: Since her mother’s death, fifteen-year-old Jem has kept a secret. When her eyes meet someone else’s, a number pops into her head - the date on which they will die. Knowing that nothing lasts forever, Jem avoids relationships, but when she meets a boy called Spider, and they plan a day out together, her life takes a new twist and turn. Waiting for the London Eye, she sees everyone in the queue has the same number - something terrible is going to happen. (from the author's website)

This review is based on a free review copy received from the publisher.

TDF Pamela's Review:

I know I tend to quibble over genre classifications, but I can't help it. As cluttered as I am, I do like to neatly categorize things. I tell myself it's OCD, heh. My nonfiction bookcase is divided up by subject, and that drives my mother crazy. Of course, she likes to organize her books by size, which makes my eyelid twitch so...

Numbers is one of those books that's difficult to classify. I've seen it advertised as science fiction, but it's definitely not that. Amazon has it listed as "Spine-Chilling Horror," which made me laugh. That's a genre? Awesome! The book follows Jem, the protagonist, who for as long as she can remember has seen numbers when she looks at people. Those numbers just happen to be the date that person will die, and unfortunately for Jem, she realized this after her mother's death of an overdose. After being shunted around the foster care system in London, Jem has become a withdrawn, troubled teenager who refuses to make friends. Why bother, she thinks, when they're just going to die on her anyway?

But she finds herself drawn to Spider, one of her classmates, and Jem begins to think of him as a friend despite knowing that his numbers show that he only has a few weeks to live. When the two witness a terrorist attack on the London Eye--after Jem realizes that everyone in line has that day's date as their numbers, she and Spider run for it, stealing cars and walking across the countryside to try to escape from the bleakness of their lives in London. Unfortunately, the police are looking for them as witnesses to the bombing, and since they're both troubled kids, they know the system isn't going to be kind to them.

This is one of those books that I feel strange saying I enjoyed. It's a bleak book with very little hope to it, and that's one of its strongest points. The majority of YA/teen books I've read end with at least a glimmer of hope, even if they're incredibly depressing. It feels like publishing companies need to impart some sort of "keep your chin up" message to their young readers, as if every piece of literature written for anyone under the age of 21 should be used as a tool for teaching. While I think that readers of all ages can and often should learn something from what they read, I am completely against the idea that books for children and teenagers should be didactic. I think fiction should be entertaining, and if the reader learns something, more power to them.

Numbers is not a book about learning to navigate the foster care system and becoming a well-adjusted adult as a result of what you've learned. It's about a girl who is very, very messed up, and understandably so. She found her mother dead of an overdose at a young age, and has been basically neglected by the system ever since. On top of that, she knows when every single person she meets is going to die. That would screw up even the most well-adjusted individual. Jem actually irritated me at points, particularly when she and Spider are having to walk cross-country. She spends a lot of that time complaining and whining, and while it was annoying, it also fit her perfectly. She's a teenager who has never been out of London before. While she's not accustomed to an easy life, she's certainly not used to having to slog through mud and go hungry. Her actions and reactions make perfect sense, even as she starts to mature and realize exactly what is going on around her.

Ward's characters are by far the strongest aspect of this novel. Even the supporting characters, like Jem's foster mother and Spider's grandmother, while not entirely fleshed out, still made me feel like they had personalities that Jem only sees peripherally. Spider, too, is nicely fleshed out even from Jem's point of view. You get a sense of his way of thinking, his problems with the world, with being viewed with suspicion because he's a black teenage boy in predominantly-white Britain.

This brings me back to the bleakness of Numbers. It is highly effective because it isn't the kind of book that will wrap everything up neatly, after school special style. If it had ended with sunshine and daisies and everything's a-ok, I would have felt cheated. This isn't a story that needs a happy ending, and it's definitely better served by not having one at all.

However, this isn't to say that the novel doesn't have problems. While the characterization and tone are great, the plot and pacing are uneven. The story moves along at a good clip for the first part, but when Jem and Spider go on the run, it starts to get bogged down, and by the time they're caught, I found myself wishing that something big would happen, just to break up the monotony. The ending itself, while satisfying in that it fit the tone of the rest of the novel, did seem a bit contrived, as if it relied a bit too much on a "make the reader gasp" ploy.

The biggest flaw, for me, was that Ward just didn't do enough with the numbers. She makes references to psychic powers--Spider's grandmother can see auras--but by the end of the book, the numbers went nowhere. I see a lot of people referring to this book as science fiction or paranormal, and I just can't agree with those labels. Jem's ability to see the death numbers could have been an amazing twist to the story; why can she see the numbers, for example? What's the spur behind these psychic powers? Unfortunately, this is never addressed, and I felt like the numbers just trailed off into nothingness.

Despite this, I did find this an enjoyable read. I finished it off over the course of a day, and it did keep me hanging on. I was up way too late trying to finish it because I didn't want to have to wait until morning. It's a solid debut for Rachel Ward, and I think her writing will only improve.

Review: Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

2009-10-20T10:40:00.002-05:00

Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve

Buy It Now: OR on Amazon

Description: The author of the best-selling and critically beloved Mortal Engines quartet has written a stunning prequel. Fever Crumb is set a generation before the events of Mortal Engines, when cities are just beginning to devour each other. Is the mystery of Fever, adoped daughter of Dr Crumb, the key to the secret that lies at the heart of London? (from Amazon)

Fever Crumb has been adopted and raised by Dr. Crumb, a member of the Order of Engineers, where she serves as an apprentice. At a time when women are not seen as reasonable creatures, Fever is an anomaly, the only girl to serve in the Order. Soon, though, she must say good-bye to Dr. Crumb--nearly the only person she's ever known--to assist archaeologist Kit Solent with a top-secret project. The assignment involves a mysterious room that rests beyond a maze of tunnels and once belonged to Auric Godshawk, the last of the Scriven overlords, and Fever must help Kit unlock it. The Scriven, not human, ruled the city some years ago but were hunted down and killed in a victorious uprising by the people.

As Fever's work begins, she is plagued by memories that are not her own, and Kit seems to have aparticular interest in finding out what they are. All Fever knows is what she's been told: She is an orphan. But whose memories does she hold? And why are there people chasing her, intent on eliminating her? Is Fever the key to unlocking the terrible secret of the past? (from the book jacket)

This review is based on a free copy received from the publisher.

TDF Pamela's Review: A

As the description says, this book is a prequel to the Mortal Engines series, which I have not read. Luckily, it is written so well that prior knowledge of the events of Mortal Engines isn't needed to enjoy the heck out of this book.

Fever Crumb was raised by Dr. Crumb in the Order of Engineers and is a very rational girl. However, her commitment to the Engineers' rationality is strongly tested when the secrets of her past begin to resurface and she finds herself in the middle of a dangerous search for ancient technology.

While the characters themselves are fascinating and well-developed, what I found most enjoyable about this book was the setting. It is set in London, but it took me a while to figure out exactly when it takes place. The current technology is almost steampunk in feel, but there are constant references to "Ancient" tech that is basically the technology of our time. I love the feel of the book, as if our world is recovering from a massive catastrophe and is hanging onto the old technology found by archaeologists, even though they haven't the faintest idea of how to reproduce it.

The little details that Reeve throws in both enhance the regressed future setting as well as making the book pretty darned funny. Fever is nearly run over by a group of religious practitioners wearing "robes and pointed hats... chanting the name of some old-world prophet, 'Hari, Hari! Hari Potter!'" I was actually reading this while my class did group work, and I got some very strange looks when I snorted with laughter. Little touches, too, like B@ttersea, a pub called the Blogger's Arms, and the use of 'blog' and 'blogger' as a swear word on par with 'bugger' are graceful additions to the place and time that barely remembers our time.

And Reeve's writing is often just funny on its own. My personal favorite line, in a scene where Engineers are leaving the giant statue head that is their headquarters:

...But by then a whole crowd of Engineers were coming out of Godshawk's nostril like a highly educated sneeze...

The only major complaint I have about this book is that the plot feels rushed at times. Fever is immediately thrust into her new duties, which is actually an excellent way to begin a book, by tossing the reader right into the action, but the rest of the events in the book seem to happen at a breakneck pace, especially when rushing toward the climax. It's a bit exhausting, and I found myself wishing it had been drawn out just a bit more.

But overall, I very much enjoyed this book, and I'm currently on the hunt for the Mortal Engines series. I love the setting and want more!

This review is also published at The Discriminating Fangirl.

Copper

2009-09-12T14:03:00.003-05:00

We've often seen the boy-and-his-dog comic and cartoon characters: Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Sherman and Peabody, even Elroy and Astro Jetson. Invariably the dog is-- like real dogs-- an unshakable optimist. Not Fred, the dog in Copper. He predicts things will go wrong. When they do, he isn't even happy being right. Copper, his boy, is the optimist here, a beacon of positive, shining joie de vivre. Their strange adventures into lands full of interesting creatures, often aboard strange modes of transportation, never fail to entertain Copper, for he finds a lovely philosophical lesson everywhere he goes.

Kazu Kibuishi is no stranger to the graphic novel genre. Scott McCloud said, "His work is so beautifully drawn that it hurts my head to look at it." He created and edits the comic anthology Flight and his graphic novel Amulet 2 has just debuted at #2 on the New York Times Bestseller List, under "Graphic Novels."

Copper has been an online comic for a while now. The book states that it is for ages 8 and up, but as a chronological adult I thoroughly enjoyed it. The section at the end showing his techniques for creating this, from the low-tech crow-quill pen dipped in the bottle of ink, to digital colorization, is fascinating. Want to learn how to do this kind of creative work? He's teaching "Storytelling for Comics and Film" class in Seattle starting next week.... well, maybe I won't be able to make it. But the idea that storytelling is the nucleus of a work such as Copper is an important concept. Perhaps a paper can be written on this idea...

Manga Book review of Fruits Basket Volume 1

2009-06-29T22:20:00.000-05:00

Fruits Basket is about a Japanese family named Sohma, who generation upon generation have been cursed by the twelve spirits of the Eastern Zodiac. No one in the family knows the reasons why they were cursed, only that with each generation a few are born who can turn into the various animals of the Zodiac when they are hugged by the opposite sex. However, there are two who are born different, the god of the Zodiac and the cat who was tricked by the rat and forever left out of the Zodiac. The god of the Zodiac is the one who binds the members into a bond, forever attempting to celebrate the final banquet of the Zodiac with all twelve spirits together in one last celebration. The feisty cat is the most cursed, only he can have three forms; human, cat, and were-cat. He is forever struggling to gain entry as a member of the Zodiac, but is always defeated by the luckiest member of all, the rat.

The first volume springs from a group of misfits who form a family bond due to isolation. Three cousins of the Sohma family; Yuki the rat, Shigure the dog, and Kyo the cat, have been segregated from the Sohma ancestral family home to live somewhat isolated without anyone to care for them. Through a chance meeting, Yuki and Shigure find young Tohru Honda, a student in the same school as Yuki and Kyo, living in a tent on their property. They learn that she has lost her mother and refuses to burden any of her family or friends with her problems. Quickly the four form a friendship when Tohru, who is invited to live in their home as a maid/mother-figure, accidentally hugs the three cousins and they turn into their animal Zodiac. Tohru of course, is somewhat stunned when the three in animal form begin to argue about what to do with the hilarious situation. Shigure, the oldest cousin at twenty seven, decides to talk to Akira Sohma, the head of the family and the god of the Zodiac, about Tohru Honda. Akira decides to let Tohru keep the family secret and live in the house with Shigure, Yuki, and Kyo.

With Tohru’s gentle kindness, she links the three misfits into a family. Shigure becomes a father figure, Tohru the mother figure, and Yuki the son. Nevertheless, Kyo develops feelings of love for Tohru, but senses that he will never be worthy of her love and will not tell her his feelings until much later.

As the story progresses into twenty-three English translated volumes, each Sohma member who is cursed with the animal spirit is introduced. With the exception of a few, most are abandoned by their parents and are tormented with a need to rid themselves of their animal spirit to live a life of freedom. Since Akira Sohma is the god of the Zodiac, the twelve are drawn to him in a bond that they cannot deny but wish to purge and end the curse.

Unbeknownst to the cursed members, Tohru Honda holds the key to their salvation. Through love, understanding, and gentleness, each member is slowly able to liberate their animal spirit because the curse, after so many generations has weakened. Never before have all twelve members including the god and the cat; have existed at the same time.

Fruits Basket is a touching romantic story of love, family, and the need to fit in. Those who peruse Fruits Basket are compelled to read all volumes because the story progresses so intricately, that it weaves its mysteries into our very hearts.

Cathy's Book

2009-06-29T22:07:00.005-05:00

Okay, so I've been TRYING to get this thing online--since movies take up more space, uploading has been a pain. Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this video that talks about Cathy's Book. Hope you enjoy, and I can't wait to see what you think!

Skeleton Creek

2009-06-29T16:31:00.007-05:00

Imagine a group of friends huddled together, lit by the gentle flicker of candlelight as they listen to the suspenseful words of a ghost story. Now imagine them bathed in the soft glow of a computer screen as they watch the startling images of a ghost video. Which experience is more spine-tingling fun?

You don’t have to pick. Patrick Carman’s Skeleton Creek fuses the ghost story and ghost video into an encounter more frightening and entertaining than either can be alone.

Book One in the series begins with words in a diary format. In fact, the novel itself is crafted to look like a blue composition notebook with “SKELETON CREEK” scrawled as the title and “RYAN’S JOURNAL” written in red marker on what appears to be masking tape. A collage of white skulls has replaced the typical marbled pattern of most composition notebooks. In actuality, the novel has a nicely bound hardback cover.

The sense of authenticity, first created by the cover, is the hallmark of the story. When you leaf through the pages you will see the journal format continues with lined pages and a hand-written style font. Anything other than Ryan’s words or drawings appears to have been taped into the book—this includes printed emails and other documents, scanned images and even the publishing information. The “paper” of these additional materials appears to be a different color and texture than that of the journal itself and each category has its own unique font. Of course, even a small child can see that this is all just an illusion created by the printer, but it enhances the audience’s ability to suspend their disbelief.

The ghost videos are produced by Ryan’s friend and co-conspirator, Sarah. In Romeo-and-Juliet fashion, the two are being kept apart and therefore forced to communicate secretly through email and Sarah’s video messages. Ryan is also injured and basically housebound, but in spite of their challenges, the two manage to investigate strange occurrences at an abandoned worksite called the Dredge.

Sarah’s videos are also designed to appear authentically “homemade.” They are shot from one camera’s perspective and most are edited using basic techniques. Sarah pans and zooms like a typical amateur videographer, and when she is moving, the shot has that familiar handheld shake which my mom calls “Frankenstein walking.” That term is certainly appropriate for this ghost story.

Of course, there are clues that the videos are professionally done. The sound and lighting is much better than most amateurs achieve. There is also a rather annoying flicker added to the video. I think it has dual purposes: first, to make it seem more authentic (not seamless) and second to build tension (the “trackiness” does not seem to happen randomly). I have never seen such a flicker on any homemade videos—certainly not on digital film like Sarah is using.

The web site where you watch the videos is also too intricate and polished to feel like a typical teenager’s personal site. The site is fascinating, frightening and easy-to-use, however, and I would trade that for authentic amateur any day of the week. You can check it out: SarahFincher.com. Of course, you can’t watch Sarah’s spooky videos without the passwords hidden in Ryan’s journal, but the eerie site offers some other points of interest.

Overall, the well-crafted authenticity allows readers/viewers to dive deeply into story, immersing themselves in tension and fear. Ryan’s words provide the background, details and suspense that Sarah’s films can explode into terror and shock. Some of her video simply tells what she has figured out on her own, but the footage recorded at the Dredge offers a few fun surprises.

Certainly this story can be enjoyed alone, but I highly recommend that you share the experience one dark night with a few of your closest friends. Ones you like to scream and laugh with. And remember, this is just Book One.

History in Words and Pictures: Real History. Real People. Real Enlightening.

2009-06-25T11:48:00.006-05:00

High school American History, eleventh grade. Boring. Few students enjoyed it, except for me. But I was already a history monster, and I sat up and paid attention. Not like those others, shooting spitwads, passing notes and slam books (I always had a page full of retorts and cruel remarks that some thought were hilarious under my name.) Rarely was actual history thought about during those classes, back in 1968 and '69. How frustrating it must have been to teach that! It probably isn't much different today.

But wait! Out on the cyber-horizon-- it's a bird... it's a plane... it's Super-Historian! Yes, kids, that's right. Geeky but enlightening, Super-historian Howard Zinn, who was a history professor back in my high school days, as well as an ant-war activist and marcher in Civil Rights protests right alongside Dr. King, has just what the bored kid needs. Start by watching this:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m9T96ZU74R9W3/ref=flash_player_2_preplay

That's right, kids, a graphic adaptation of A People's History of American Empire. Mike Konopacki did the art, historical photos are included, and much of the dialogue is based on lectures shown in the film about Dr. Zinn You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train. This is truly a multi-media package.

First, a warning: this isn't actually the same history that your high-school textbook showed you and your teacher tested you on; it's more of the "underground" version. ""American Empire" says it, though... Ever wonder about those pesky Sandinistas down in Guatamala, that Reagan was so hot about killing? (Remember Iran/Contra? Probably not much. But that was all about helping those who were fighting against the Sandinistas, the side chosen by Reagan and his cohorts to support because those Sandinistas were no doubt Socialists.) Anyway, they took their name from one Augusto Sandino, in the early part of the twentieth century. His story starts on page 212, and by the time you finish it you'll understand exactly what a "banana republic" is... if you make it that far.

But if you start at the beginning, the first story you'll read and see (that's the glory of words-with-pictures! They stick in your head) is about the massacre at Wounded Knee, the final stroke of Manifest Destiny getting the pesky Native Americans out of the way of white folks.

You will learn of the Zoot Suit Riots, as well as the true story of the Rough Riders' charge up San Juan Hill (and I must admit there are occasional discrepencies; Teddy Roosevelt was drawn on horseback. But the Rough Riders' horses were somehow on the next ship and hadn't reached the battle zone yet.) Oh-- and you'll understand a whole lot better the current attitude toward the possibility of American intervention in Iran, because the story of how our CIA overthrew a democratically-elected government there in 1953, then established a long-absent Shah on the Lion Throne... they have every right to not want our "help"!

So dig into this People's History (as opposed to the history texts written by, and approved by, the educational-industrial complex), and learn. --MaryK

A Little Malice Anyone?

2009-06-19T19:43:00.003-05:00

Take a black feather, a twig, cat hair, a tear, a lock of your hair, and set them on fire. Say “Tall Jake, take me away” six times, and you’ll be gone. You probably won’t like where you go. But others can see you—in the pages of a comic book called Malice. What happens when you get there? You might live. If you’re lucky. Or unlucky. Malice is both a comic book, one that is supposedly only a rumor, but it exists, and a place, one that is supposedly only a rumor, but it exists. It’s not pleasant there as Seth and Kady find out. Kids die. Some escape. Some don’t want to escape. Seth and Kady just want to find their friend and put an end to the madness.

Malice by Chris Wooding (author of Poison, Storm Thief and others) is described as part novel, part comic. The novel itself is well-written and compelling. The comics are strangely unsettling. Sometimes I couldn’t quite figure out what I was looking at. But I think that’s intentional. Malice, though, is part of the grand experiment occurring in teen reads in that it blends genres, just as Skeleton Creek (one of my favorites) uses videos and Cathy’s Book includes physical artifacts and goes beyond the book to the internet. And the mystery itself is just grand. How can they escape Malice? What happens when they do? Why would anyone want to return? Who is Tall Jake? What’s up with that cat? How about a little hypnotism? Okay, maybe it gets a little far-fetched sometimes. But it’s fantasy! The characters are funny, serious, brave, and scared. My kind of teenagers.

But drats. I don’t know the end. I have to wait for part 2.

Speak

2009-04-28T20:30:00.001-05:00

Speak
By Laurie Haise Anderson

This book is about a young girl, facing the trials and tribulations of being in high school, and also facing her own ordeal. What the reader knows is that the main character is having trouble. Her grades are dropping in school, her social life is pretty much absent, and she is distant from her family. Something is eating at her, something she is trying to suppress far back into her memory, so far back so she will not have to think about it anymore, not have to suffer anymore. She has mood swings and her body is changing, she cannot fit into her clothes anymore. She hides away in a closet in her high school, her hideaway where she feels comfortable. Eventually you find out that the summer before she had gone to a party. She got drunk and one of the boys, who she refers to as “It”, raped her. She calls the police, but she gets afraid and runs home, leaving the attacker free from prosecution. She goes through the next school year, suffering and falling apart. Her attacker tries to assault her again in the end, but she finally stands up for herself and overcomes her ordeal. Everyone finds out the popular boy raped her and he pays for what he had done. She realizes that she should have spoke up about it earlier, instead of repressing it. She is in the end, empowered, and free of what was literally eating at her.
This book is excellent. I think it would be a benefit for adolescences to read it because it teaches young women what to do and what not to do in a rape situation. Melinda, in the beginning, called the police after she was attacked, but because she was afraid, she ran home. Perhaps it was because she was ashamed. She felt it was her fault, she was drinking, and it was her fault that this happened to her. But it was not her fault and she had no reason to be ashamed. She is quite and timid throughout the book, but in the end, she gets a voice and she begins to heal. She is no longer a victim.
I believe this is one of the best books I have read. This is because the character was so real. I often wondered if Anderson, herself, had been attacked, because what Melinda goes through, what she thinks about, her physical state, are feelings a victim of rape goes through. I connected with the character and it made me think of all the women who do not report a rape. It made me want to speak out, like Melinda did in the end. She finally had a voice and I think this is a great book, in that it is a tragic truth that needs to be empowered and given a voice. Melinda is a hero, she doesn’t start out that way, but she is definitely a hero in the end. And who knows how many women she saved from suffering the same fate she did, just for speaking out and demanding justice. I think that is what we need to convey to adolescences, speak out against injustices, no matter what kind, it is the right thing to do, and this book is a perfect example of just that.

Go Ask Alice

2009-04-24T13:27:00.006-05:00

Go Ask Alice was one of the first books I really sat down to read. Many books I’d read before were simply assignments and held no interest with me. It was very easy to relate to the protagonist from the very beginning. She brings to light the everyday problems people face but never really discuss. The kind of hardships most people in society endure, but ignore at the same time. The most interesting part about the relationship with the author and the reader is curiosity.

Since this is a diary, you get the true aspect of her day to day life over a long period of time. You share the same sense of anxiety awaiting the next days events. The impact this book has on the reader is mare intense since she was living it while she was writing it.

The fact that this diary is anonymous is even more enticing. We all know journals are private, so there must be something worth reading if they published it. While reading this, I felt as if I were going back and reading my own journal. I was constantly overwhelmed with a sense of nostalgia as I experienced her maturing with the turn of every page. The lingering thirst for understanding of what it was really like during the drug years are quenched while living vicariously through the protagonist.

The media always expresses what it was like back in the 1970’s with movies like Dazed and Confused or That Seventies Show. Although we get a glimpse of what the drug culture was like, we aren’t shown first hand. This young girl goes from the most popular girl in her home town, to a stranger in a new city. When she comes home for a visit, her friends seem to have matured a bit faster than she has. Her new experiences lead her to a vicious downward spiral with very small hope of emergence.
Although this journal was discovered and published in 1971, it didn’t become popular until it was re printed in 2008. This book is a must read for every teenager. Although learning through your mistakes is effective, learning through someone else’s may save your life.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

2009-04-20T15:35:00.002-05:00

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick is an extremely interesting and entertaining book on every possible level. The first detail about the book that drew me in, was its status somewhere between novel, graphic novel, and picture book. The illustrations are not only extremely well done, but are necassary to understand the story, for they fill in the gaps that the written story leaves out.

Alongside this very effective hook is a story that mixes fact with fiction. The young protagonish, Hugo Cabret, is an orphan at the start of the story and is as alone as he could be for his drunken uncle who was caring for him, if you could call it that, and was apprenticing him to his trade as the upkeeper of the train station's clocks has disappeared and Hugo is forced to keep up appearances so he won't end up in an orphanage. While he is doing this, he is also attempting to fix an automaton that his father worked down before his death and the burning down of the museum that he worked at. This leads to a journey of self-discovery both for the young Hugo and many of the other characters that surround him. Intertwined with this story is a history of both early film and one of the earliest film makers. Similar to Hugo's story, the history is very intriguing and draws the reader in even deeper, making them want to find out more on their own.

These different facets of the book all combine together to make something both more interesting and more entertaing than the parts seperated. Although the book is a fairly quick read, it is one that, in my opinion, can be revisited many times and which will reveal more of itself to those that are interested in the subject and pursue it.

Twilight

2009-04-20T11:16:00.007-05:00

No doubt that this saga has already been written about but I now turn my pillow over to sleep on the cold side! Yes, of course, I am talking about the Twilight saga. Much like the movie, the beginning of the novel was a little slow, hard to get into but then at some point I was an addict. Like Bella was Edward’s own personal brand of heroine, I could not get enough of the essence of these characters for myself. I found myself losing sleep over wanting to know what was going to happen next.
Stephenie Meyer created a world within a world where fantastical creatures such as vampires and werewolves rome and live amongst us. They feed and cause damages and tragedies that humans just can't seem to figure out. Vampires are not merely creatures of the night, but also of the morning, noon, and evening. Their skin sparkles like diamonds in the sunlight and they have unbelievable superhuman capabilities, yet they can be as tender and passionate as their self control allows towards humans.
This saga is the story of Bella Swan, a seventeen year old girl who moves from sunny Arizona to rainy, cloud-covered Forks, WA. Here, the mystery and the love story begins between she and Edward Cullen, the "seventeen" year old vampire who captivates nearly all of his female readers.
Meyer did a fantastic job of creating a new perspective of the fantasy world that lives around us, while we are completely unaware of their existence. I now compare every vampire book, story, novel, and movie to the sleepless, free-reigning, night and day vampires of Stephanie Meyers.
Bella’s character tends to frustrate me at times, however, because this strong-willed, independent girl becomes extremely needy and clingy in book two. Yes, her heart is more than broken, it is torn in two but when Alice shows up after “seeing” Bella’s death, there was nearly a feel or sense of homosexuality between Bella and Alice. Alice was the only connection Bella had to her Edward, so she would crawl into Alice’s arms and nuzzle her face into Alice’s neck, to smell her and fall asleep in her arms.
Some of the aspects of the novels and the story line that I love are Meyers’ development of the relationship between Bella and Edward. So many tweens and teens are reading these novels and Meyers keeps a moral boundary within them. Edward stood strong with his old values of not having premarital sex with Bella; despite the fact that he thought he would kill her. The scenes after they are married were tastefully written and did not seem too inappropriate for young teens.
I do recommend these novels to anyone who likes good fantasy and supernatural phenomena in their stories. I believe Twilight would be a good book to spark interest among classroom readers to discuss character traits, foreshadowing, and setting within a novel. Kudos to Stephenie Meyer. You have a fan here!

The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

2009-04-19T22:39:00.001-05:00

Rarely is the protagonist in a young adult novel a balanced portrait of a mature human being, but especially when she is a nine year old who wishes to become a witch. Tiffany Aching, raised on a farm, embarks on an adventure to recover her brother, who has been kidnapped by the Queen of the Fairies. Armed simply with a frying pan and her grandmother’s book on sheep diseases, Tiffany encounters the Nac Mac Feegle, a group of six-inch tall, rowdy, tattooed Scots who are notorious for drinking, stealing, and fighting anything that comes their way. The Mac Feegles, those of the title, act as guide to Tiffany on her adventure to the grey, wintry Fairyland, a place where one becomes lost in one’s dreams. Such is the world created by Terry Pratchett in The Wee Free Men (HarperCollins, 2003).
Tiffany Aching is entirely believable. Told in the form of a fairy tale, the book is magical and enchanted, but not because it is a fairy tale. What sets it apart from similar literature is how intelligent Tiffany is. Rooted firmly in the land and the folk wisdom that has been passed to her from her Granny Aching, Tiffany is common sense personified, a child of enormous pluck who believes more than anything that what is just and true will prevail. Fueled as much by indignation as by a desire to rescue her brother, Tiffany suffers the common doubts of a young girl trying to find her identity in the greater world, but does so with a dedicated aplomb that is simultaneously comic and inspiring. Relying on her intuition, Tiffany is a feminist and a humanist who does not easily suffer fools, and she is as direct and unembellished as the land she loves.
The book combines folk wisdom, myth, and superstition into a cleverly executed narrative that turns the fairy tale on its head. Fairyland is a dreadful place that nobody would want to live unless by force, and the Chalk, which in an urban world could be seen as rustic—if not archaic—is a place of enchantment.
If the purpose of literature is to inspire and entertain, then Terry Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men is certainly on point. Smartly written, insightful, and sometimes hilarious, the plot moves at lightning speed without lag. This novel fulfills all its promise, although it in an unexpected and welcome fashion.

3 Willows

2009-04-19T22:14:00.003-05:00

3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows is a young adult novel written by Ann Brashares. It is a continuation of the popular series, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and offers its readers an easy yet meaningful read. This book gives a look at life through the eyes of three young teens: Jo, Polly, and Ama. These girls find themselves facing difficult situations during their summer between middle school and high school. As they part ways for the summer, the young ladies face problems alone without the help of their two best friends.
In her novel, Ann Brashares addresses common difficulties that teenage girls go through. It lends hope to struggling teens that are trying to find their way in a big and unforgiving world.
The novel is easy to relate to. Remembering my life as a young teenager, several issues clicked with me and I wish I had read this book when I was fourteen. Issues of self-worth, beauty, the value of intelligence, independence, race, and divorce are tackled by the witty actions of Jo, Polly, and Ama.
Being a follower of the Sisterhood, I thought that this novel was going to be a repeat of its predecessors. Surprisingly though, it isn’t. 3 Willows has its own elements and story line that separates it from any of the previous novels by Ann Brashares. The girls in this book are easy to relate to. They have different personalities and attributes that separate them from the girls in the Sisterhood. It is almost as if the qualities of Ama, Jo, and Polly equate to the qualities of one well-rounded person. This gives every reader a chance to connect with the characters and measure their lives with the changing willow trees. Measuring their lives by the lives of the 3 Willows, the girls learn to love themselves for who they are and not by who the world wants them to be.
I highly recommend this book to every teenage girl because it teaches the basic lessons of life in a graceful and amusing way. This eloquent novel shows its readers that you are only young once, so don’t let your insecurities and fears keep you from reaching your highest potential.

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gailman

2009-04-19T21:17:00.001-05:00

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman is anything but your typical bedtime story. The story is a gothic version of The Jungle Book. Gaiman does a masterful job at making a graveyard seem like a perfectly acceptable place for a young boy to grow up. I am sure Gaiman’s ghostly story has the likes of Henry James, Jane Austen, and Edgar Allan Poe jumping for joy in their graves.
A hideous crime is being committed in the opening scene. A man named Jack has just murdered three of a four member family. The youngest of the family, a toddler, wonders out the front door and over the hill to the local graveyard. The graveyard offers the toddler safety from the man seeking to kill him and becomes the main setting for the story. The graveyard houses a very diverse group of residents with deaths that range from centuries ago to relevantly modern times. The story proves out that it truly does take a “graveyard” to raise a child. Everyone takes part in the rearing of Nobody Owens, the name give to the toddler after he arrived in the graveyard. The living child is raised by the dead. There is one called Silas, a character that is not quite living and not quite dead, who becomes Nobody’s guardian. Silas helps Nobody make sense of his past and offers him hope for his future. A future that eventually will have to take place among the living. Nobody will leave the only home he has ever known, the graveyard.
Some may have issue with the first line of an adolescent book beginning with, “There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.” Please don’t let this prevent you from enjoying this book and encouraging adolescents to read the book. The murder of Bod’s family has already taken place and is not given much description at all. It is truly secondary to the sense of family and unconditional love that is represented in this story.
Everyone loves a good ghost story, especially children. This book offers readers a great combination of a suspenseful gothic tale and a coming of age story. I highly recommend this book as a great way to introduce the gothic genre to young readers.

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

2009-04-19T15:02:00.005-05:00

Sometimes you get used to the idea that Young Adult literature is something, well, simple. That Young Adult literature is just light, fluffy stuff to give to teens so that they'll read more. Things like Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events, a sort of intellectual pack of Skittles. Being a college student, I fell into this trap. When I heard about Unwind by Neal Shusterman, I picked it up, expecting a somewhat mediocre horror story, intended to scare kids. Certainly a refined, intelligent and more mature college student such as I couldn't be provoked by a work from the Young Adult section.

I was very, very wrong.

Neal Shusterman's novel is a very, very dark work of literature. I will be honest with you, gentle readers, this novel is not for the faint of heart or the closed minded. It's a dystopian look at life America, and a chilling examination of one of the most controversial issues in modern America: abortion.

Unwind takes place in a future America, many years after the resolution of a conflict referred to as "The Heartland Wars", a brutal civil war between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice factions within the nation. In this brave new world, human life is protected from conception to the age of thirteen, thanks to the 'Bill of Life'. However, from the age of 13 to the age of 18, an unwanted child may be retroactively aborted, so long as the child remains 'alive'. This process, called 'Unwinding', essentially reduces a child down to his or her component parts, which are then used for organ transplants for anyone who needs them.

Our story centers around three teenagers that meet by sheer accident. All three face this fate, but for different reasons: Connor, a problem teen who is being Unwound because his parents cannot deal with his behaviour problems, Risa, an orphen who is being Unwound to cut costs at the adoption facility, and Lev, a 'tithe' from a rich religious family who is willingly being Unwound. Their stories, presented individually from their point of view, combine to give us a chilling journey through this strange, yet familiar world; from their escape, though many close calls and places of safety, until the climax at the Unwinding facility.

Shusterman's dystopian world seems all to real to us. His villians aren't cartoonish malefactors who cackle with glee as they seek to harm our protagonists; they're policemen who are just doing their jobs, adults who unthinkingly buy into the idea of Unwinding, and a government that has all but sanctioned their death. Their evil isn't dramatic or ostentatious; it's quiet, subtle, and banal, the evil of bureaucracy, greed and apathy. His heroes or their allies particularly heroic either: the majority of them teens on the run, put under constant stress that forces them to become all-too pragmatic dispite still being immature. They have tempers, beliefs, and hopes, and questions about the 'big' things in life we would expect teens to have. Even though the heroes do triumph in the end, their victory is costly, and their future outlook uncertain. Presented in Shusterman's clear, concise writing, we're presented with characters who are neither black nor white, but a decidedly realistic shade of gray.

Another of the book's strengths is that doesn't tell us how the world has changed, it shows us, and it pulls no punches. It shows us how easy it is for people to accept something as barbaric as Unwinding if it's given a palatable veneer. In this world, children are 'valued'. They don't die during the unwinding, they 'live on in a divided state'. Unwinding facilities are called 'Harvest Camps', where the condemned are fed, sheltered and entertained by cheerful nurses and doctors. We're shown how something well-intentioned, like the 'Stork Initiative' (if you find a baby on your doorstep, it's legally yours) can be made tragic by human selfishness. We're shown how something like Unwinding can effect everyting from the medical industry (why bother trying to cure diseases when you have a ready supply of fresh donor organs to draw from, especcially since that pesky problem of rejection is taken care of) to religion (apparently, ten percent of what you own also includes your children), to parenting (Don't want your divorced spouce to have your child? Unwind him! Your teenage son is violent and always getting into trouble? Unwind him! Have one to many daughters when you want a son? Unwind them!). It also shows us, in graphic, chilling detail, exactly what the procedure is, from the point of view of one of the characters in the book's cast. This is a world that is not only horrifying in it's implications, but equally as horrifying in its realism.

Given this is a book about abortion, you might think that Shusterman would come down on one side or the other. He doesn't. He presents both sides equally, and with equal condemntation. In this abortionless world, he shows us adoption centers crammed to bursting with disposable children, schools with nurseries for teen moms, and desperate young mothers leaving children on doorsteps. In a world where you can choose to have your child Unwound, he shows doctors who cheerfully chat about basketball as they dismember living people and a society that supports the wholesale slaughter of children. Yes, abortion has stopped by the Bill of Life, but as one observation in the book states, "the Bill of Life was supposed to protect the sanctity of life. Instead, it just made it cheap." This neutral stance presents neither side as completely right nor wrong, and the book carries it off with skill.

Unwind is a deeply unsettiling book, that would best be set for older teens who can probably handle the subject material and some of the more disturbing ideas it presents. If you've read books like 1984 and Lord of the Flies, you might enjoy Unwind's complex and dystopian world. However, don't read it, unless you plan on following it with something more positive and uplifting. You'll need it.

Bone: The Dragonslayer Book 4 by Jeff Smith

2009-04-18T22:37:00.003-05:00

I came across the graphic novel Bone: The Dragonslayer one day as I was going through my son’s bookshelf to find something to read for this book review. To be honest, I had never heard of a graphic novel before. As I looked at it, I determined it to be a glorified comic book only with better binding. Well, despite my initial reaction, I decided to read this book. I found out from my son that this book is 4th in a series of nine books by the same author, Jeff Smith. However, since this is the only one my son owns, and I am too cheap to go out and buy the first one, I will have to start with the 4th book.

The first thing I noticed about this book is that there isn’t any background information at the beginning of the book to set the reader up for this story. I found that very frustrating. Smith is apparently writing to an audience that would have read the book from the beginning of the series, or this is a gimic to get readers to buy the other installments. I’m going with the latter. I had to go to the publisher’s website (Scholastic Books) to get a background for this story. When I found the website, I discovered that this series revolves around three ghost-like creatures who are from the town of Boneville. They are Fone Bone, Smiley Bone and Phoncible P.(Phoney) Bone. I’m not sure where the name Fone came from, but both Smiley and Phoney are what their names imply in relation to their characteristics. Fone, however, is characterized as the quiet hero who will always do what is right no matter the cost to himself. He is definitely my favorite of the three.

This novel doesn’t mention how the Bones family arrive in the town they have come to call home, Barrelhaven. However, as in most towns, there are people who like the Bones and people who don’t like them because they are different. Of the people who do like them, Grandma Ben and Thorn should be noted. Grandma Ben is unlike any grandmother I have ever seen. She is super strong and is able to fight off huge rat creatures the size of bears. One of them describes her best as “strong and hard as a knotted old tree.” I want that grandmother. Thorn is her grandaughter. She is your typical teenager trying to figure out her place in the world. She never smiles and there is always a gloomy feel to her. I don’t want that teenager.

The story revolves around the threat of impending doom to Barrelhaven. There are dragons, rat creatures and unknown dark forces in the distance whom the town fears will attack at any moment. Phoney Bone, forever looking for the next scam, has convinced the town that he will slay the dragon, which turns out to be false because he knows that dragons are peace-loving. While that storyline proceeds, Fone Bone travels with Grandma Ben and Thorn roaming the forest and fighting whatever comes their way. (I never could figure out why they were in the forest.) You wouldn’t catch me there. But a secret is revealed in the forest that creates a rift between Thorn and her grandmother. As a result, Thorn and Fone Bone go back to Barrelhaven just in time to help sort out the chaos Phoney Bone has created, however there is still a continuous threat of danger on the way. Finally, the story ends with a “to be continued” note at the end.

In the end, I came to the conclusion that the characterization in this story makes all the difference in whether someone likes the story or not. The storyline itself leaves much to be desired, but as with other book series, I’m sure the final book will be the best due to the fact that all questions are finally answered. My son has become so attached to these characters, he began begging me to buy the rest of the series the minute he was done with book 4. I will more than likely buy the series because I want to know what becomes of the characters, as well. Who knows, maybe we can create our own graphic novel book club at home where all his friends can come over, drink milk, and discuss the literary elements of the series, or not. A mother can dream, can’t she.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

2009-04-18T20:29:00.003-05:00

In my years of reading, I have never come across such an entertaining and captivating story. I could not put the book down until I had finished reading it. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling is about a young boy who learns after years of being mistreated by his only living relatives, that he is a wizard and his parents were too. Not only is he a powerful wizard, but he learns that one of the most powerful wizards of all-time, Lord Voldemort, had killed his parents and tried to kill him. But his story did not end on that fateful night, and years later, he learns the truth about his heritage and just how special he truly is. Harry learns after being accepted to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. His admission to this specialized school gives him a chance to escape the Dursley home to develop his skills in sorcery. His journey from the uncomfortable closet under the staircase to the great halls of the Gryffindor house. Harry's life is changed for the better, from the friendships he gains to the athletic prowess he exudes in the classic sport, Quidditch. But as with all good things, they must come to an end, and that happens to come with a few confrontations with shady characters who Harry feels might want him hurt or dead. The ultimate confrontation comes when he learns of the reappearence of Voldemort. Harry's triumphant rise from outcast to hero is a worthy read that will please readers again and again.

The main problem that I forsee in teaching this book to a class is the close-minded approach that a lot of parents feel about the subject of magic and witchcraft. One of the most entertaining things about the book was the candies that the Hogwarts students got to eat throughout the book. The funniest of these was Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, ranging from chocolate and peppermint to booger and vomit. The book is packed full of strange creatures and funny events that give it a certain feel that keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering what will Harry, Ron, and Hermione get into next. This book will definitely hook readers into reading the entire series of Harry Potter books.

Check out Skelton Creek by Patrick Carmen

2009-04-17T13:53:00.004-05:00

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick

2009-04-03T16:16:00.008-05:00

I will admit that I do judge a book by its cover - I need to get over it. Otherwise, I will miss out on hidden treasures like The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. I am not mechanically inclined. I can barely turn a screwdriver. The word “invention” scared me away. I immediately thought I was going to read boring details about some kind of invention that I knew I would not understand. Boy, was I wrong. Do not let the size fool you. It is a thick book. But, Brian Selznick, a Caldecott winner, combines original drawings and historical pictures to create not only an interesting read, but also a visual masterpiece.

Set in 1931, Selznick mixes history with fiction. Hugo, the son of a clock maker lives with his neglectful uncle in a train station maintaining the clocks. One day Hugo finds an old notebook with his dead father’s belongings. In the notebook he finds an intriguing drawing. His search for the inspiration behind the drawing sets Hugo on an adventure. The mystery begins with the notebook and ends with Georges Méliès, a real-life French filmmaker who fictitiously now works in the train station.
Each page has a black border as if the reader were watching a movie screen. Further, when the words end the pictures take over. The black and white pencil drawings effectively advance the story. The pictures zoom in and out creating the feel of watching a movie in a theater. Paying homage to early filmmaking, Selznick also includes vintage pictures of films such as A Trip to the Moon.

Completing this masterpiece, Selznick infuses history into the novel. He prints the book using a 12-point Monotype Bulmer font. The font, named after William Bulmer, was an eighteenth-century English printer. The paper is 80# Finch Opaque Vellum that is thread-sewn in 16-page signatures. Needless to say, the novel is visually and physically stunning. Brian Selznick does not stop with just telling a story. He creates an experience. Without neglecting a single detail, Selznick weaves magic into every thread-sewn page.

Educators will love this book; the history alone lends itself for use in the classroom. This novel reaches the casual reader, the fan of graphic novels, film buffs, and yes, the not-so-mechanically inclined.

Elizabeth Haydon's The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme: The Floating Island

2009-04-01T12:51:00.010-05:00

Meet Charles Magnus Ven Polypheme, a Nain (dwarf-like creature with a lifespan four times as long as a human's) that ends up on the magically haunted island of Serendair. On his 50th birthday he finally starts his life on the open sea to Inspect a ship that he and his family just finished constructing. Attacked by Fire Pirates and left for dead, a merrow (mermaid) named Amariel rescues him and keeps him alive until Captain Oliver Snodgrass saves him from the sea. He soon learns that his rescue was not by accident.

During his adventure, Ven finds himself trying to solve the mystery of death and disappearances at the crossroads of Crossroads Inn, owned by the captain's wife. Falsely accused of thievery and murder, Ven is thrown in a jail to write out his story and ultimately finds out that he's the only one on Serendair who can summon the mystical Floating Island.

Surrounded by different races, talking cats and invisible people: the magic of the world, I believe that this is a journal of finding one's self. The Floating Island creates a world full of undiscovered fantasy and places you right beside Ven in his adventure. The book is written in a way that drags the reader in. Third person, but with loose journal entries entirely in Ven's handwriting and experiences.

"The first rule of good puzzling--see things as they are, and not as they seem" (pg.227). Though the king of Serendair gives the tagline, Ven seems to twist it in a way and uses it to solve his own puzzle.

Haydon seems to have a love and fascination for beaches and the ocean by the way she explains every color to the last detail. Her characters are gorgeous and very much alive in your mind. Luck and becoming lucky are also big topics in her world, the one who deserves the luck will win the luck. Haydon's writing is intriguing and creative, her well thought out Floating Island is a beautiful place one the reader can escape to and enjoy for hours on end.

The sequel, I'm sure, will commend Haydon's talent so I look forward to finding and picking up The Thief Queen's Daughter.

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

2009-03-29T22:54:00.003-05:00

In 2005, now acclaimed teen novelist Stephanie Meyer published the first of four novels relaying a tale of a love-struck teen and an extraordinary vampire. One must ask themselves, “why out of the many vampire novels, did Meyer’s succeed so greatly? Will Stephanie Meyer go down in history and be named among the best, or will the “Twilight” fad fade away after a few short years of fame?

Seventeen year old Bella Swan chooses to move to Forks, Washington after her mother remarries. As she begins her new life, Bella finds that there is much more to Forks than meets the eye. Eventually, Bella finds herself in love with Edward Cullen, a dreamy, courageous teen-vampire. As Edward and Bella battle to beat the odds by staying together, they face a more challenging obstacle: and enemy vampire.

Although the story is intriguing and entertaining, Meyer is no where near the greatness of other authors such as Anne Rice. The “Twilight” series while compelling, is only another teen-love story which will soon come to an end. The simple writing of Meyers may be exactly what drew in so many young readers. Meyers combination of simple sentences and an easy-to-follow plot leads her to the path of a great book, but not necessarily a classic.

I believe that Meyers has great ideas and a fascinating story, but an elementary style of writing. The main reason that Meyers book is so popular is because she has powerful characters. Her characters will draw a reader into the novel and make them want more. Without the role of Edward Cullen, for instance, Meyer’s book wouldn’t be near as popular as it is today.

“Twilight” is definitely a must read and a great all-around book, although I do not think it will be put on the same bookshelves as “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Catcher in the Rye,” or Gone with the Wind.” It will not become a classic.

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier

2009-03-25T18:20:00.006-05:00

Dimple Rohitbhai Lala isn't your average New Jersey girl. From her inauspicious breech birth, to her gods-loving parents, she always knew she didn't fit in with her average American surroundings.

We are introduced to Dimple on her 17^th birthday, recently dumped and feeling more aware of her different status than ever. Even her name marks her as a freak: Dimple Lala, an ode to her more-than-ample hips and different heritage. In contrast, her best friend Gwyn is the picture of All-American-ness: blond, thin, great wardrobe, and a constant supply of boys.

The only place Dimple feels truly at home is behind a camera. As a young girl, Dimple understood a little Marathi, but soon after “Any memory of language was checked at customs.” Her loss of language was a huge piece of her missing identity, as it left her unable to communicate with her beloved Dadaji, her mother's father.

Soon after came the pictures. Able to communicate visually with her grandfather, the camera both gives her a voice, as photographer, artist, even dutiful granddaughter, while simultaneously shielding her—after all, you can't be the star if you're behind the lens.

Ironically, her photography soon becomes centered around Gwyn, who is only too happy to be the star of Dimple's photos. Although Gwyn seems to have it all, throughout the book we find that Gwyn has more than enough problems of her own: absentee parents, boy problems, and identity issues. While Dimple wants nothing more than to blend in, Gwyn longs to stand out.

One aspect Dimple was not prepared for was her parent's introducing her to a boy. An Indian boy. A chino-wearing, living at home, good Indian boy. Dimple is beyond horrified. An arranged relationship is the epitome of what sets her family apart from everyone else on their suburban block. Luckily, Karsh is a persistent guy, and his influence opens up a new world to Dimple.

Through Karsh, Dimple is introduced to the desi scene—a movement trying to bring South Asian identity the respect and discussion it deserves. For the first time Dimple is introduced to other South Asians who are also caught between identities. But even there Gwyn manages to take over, intruding ever more obviously on Dimples relationships.

Not surprisingly, Dimple and Gwyn's relationship becomes extremely strained. Although irritating and obnoxious, Hidier did a good job of rounding out Gwyn's character so we can't judge her too harshly. Contrasting Gwyn's physical beauty are her many hidden flaws. In many ways she is searching for herself as much as Dimple is.

Hidier deals with many sensitive topics in a well-rounded and realistic way. In particular I liked the incorporation of Kavita, Dimple's cousin from India. Homosexuality isn't the easiest issue to deal with in an adolescent novel, but Hidier does a fabulous job, adding another layer of identity to work with, and making it possible for nearly any reader to find a way to connect with this book.

By the end of a novel, I almost felt tutored on the ways on Indian life, but not in an obtrusive way. It gives a fascinating insight into Indian culture. Even the title, Born Confused, refers to a slur on South Asians, ABCD, which stands for American Born Confused Desi. By incorporating this into the fabric of the narrative, Hidier removes any power the label may have and reinforces the theme that it's ok to be confused, to not have all the answers.

In many ways, this book is a traditional happy-ever-after, but Dimple is such a likable charter, you can't help but be glad it ends that way. Hidier has done a fantastic job of capturing what it's like to be a teenage girl who doesn't perfectly fit in. It reminded me of many traumatic moments from my own adolescence (shudder) but also reinforced that sometimes, everything does work out in the end. I highly recommend this novel, if only to remind yourself of how far you have come from an angst-ridden teenager.

The Alchemyst: Timeless Battle of Good & Evil by Michael Scott

2009-03-25T18:18:00.003-05:00

Michael Scott’s The Alchemyst: is a story of good vs. evil. It’s a tale of twin brother and sister, Josh and Sophie, who are suddenly thrust into a world of magic. The alchemist, Nicolas Flamel, who is the guardian of an ancient book of spells, the Codex, is attached by an evil magician who works for the Dark Elders. Josh, who works for Flamel in a bookstore, suddenly finds himself in the midst of a battle between the two magicians. Josh’s twin sister, Sophie, works just across the street in a coffee shop notices strange things happening in the book store. It is discovered that Josh and Sophie are actually prophesied about in the Codex, and this is where the story takes the reader into a land of magic and myth.
Scott weaves allusions of various myths, science and different religious teaching into his book to create the fantasy world.
Besides the conflict of good magician vs. evil magician, Scott creates conflict between the twins, who have been best friends throughout their entire life, when Sophie’s magical powers are awakened before Josh’s powers. Josh is then, predictably, approached by the evil magician, John Dee.
The reader is left wondering which way Josh will go at the end of the story. Will he remain by the side of his sister or choose the evil John Dee because of the slight he feels by not having his own powers awakened?
There was one part of the book that caused me to disconnect from the story. Nicholas Flamel goes to a magical warrior, Scathech, for help. Scathech, “2nd generation,” speaks with an Irish accent and takes the twins to her grandmother’s, The Witch of Endor – “Dora,” who is purported to be “1st generation” and speaks with a New York accent, for help. The gap in the generation between grandmother and granddaughter were disconcerting to me. Also, the New York accent was weird since The Witch of Endor was alive before human kind, and a New York accent is by no means “an old world” language – even in modern times, The United States, is a young country. This bothered me so much, it was hard for me to continue to be lost in this fantasy world.
However, The Alchemyst is captivating, interesting and entertaining despite the awkward part with The witch of Endor and Scathech.

2009-03-25T09:48:00.006-05:00

Clay by David Almond

From the beginning of this novel I observed a young boy consumed by evil thoughts transition to a young boy who combated evil thoughts.

The boy who endures this transition is named Davie. Davie and his best friend Geordie are actively involved in church as altar boys. And, at the same time, create havoc by stealing, threatening other children with knifes, and exchanging evil thoughts of killing others.

A troubled boy by the name of Stephen Rose is sent to live with his aunt, who was referred to as Crazy Mary. It turns out that Stephen has an unusual gift: he is able to make living creatures from clay.The moment Stephen and Davie met, they feet drawn to one another. The friendship between Stephen and Davie grow, and Stephen shares his secret life giving ability to Davie. Stephen wants to create this creature to protect himself and his friends. The two mix the clay together with their spit and stolen communion to bring to life the life size creature, one they will name Clay.

I find the relationship between Davie and Stephen unusually close. I sense a homosexual bond between the two. They feel drawn to one another from the very beginning. Stephen taunts Davie’s girlfriend by kissing Davie on the cheek. And, they have a baby together – Clay, so to speak. Instead of sperm, spit is used to create a being. The communion, the body of Christ, is used to purify the creation.

However, Stephen’s plans for Clay are far from pure. He tries to train Clay to kill people by placing molds of clay angels in the palms of his hands and commanding the creature to crush them.

Davie is appalled by the grave situation he has gotten himself into, and seeks to put an end to the creation by commanding the creature to lie down, rest, and die in the cave where Clay was created. Stephen walks in and discovers what Davie is doing, and the two fight. Stephen disappears after waving his hand in front of Davie’s face as if he is bringing Davie out of a trance.

I enjoyed this story by David Almond, just as I enjoyed Skellig. Religion played a huge role in the creation of Clay. Stephen often played the role of God and made reference to Christianity, and even told his mother he wanted to be a god when he grew up.I also saw striking similarities between Clay and Frankenstein. The two creations were conjured up by no will of their own and were abandoned. Davie and Dr. Frankenstein were similar, as well. Davie, at one time, commanded Clay to go away, just as Dr. Frankenstein told his creation. Davie was worried that he and Stephen had the ability to create a multitude of creatures like Clay, and Dr. Frankenstein was concerned of an entire lineage coming from his creation. Also, Stephen and Dr. Frankenstein both share the desire to become gods.

With all this being said…I would definitely recommend this story. It is truly fascinating he wrote about a boy who has the ability to give life. However, I think it is unusual that this boy was so violent. I did not see this sort of violence in Skellig. Toward the end he confessed that he had the ability to take away life and was responsible for his father’s death, and the death of a neighborhood bully. After Davie witnesses such evil, he realizes the imperativeness of goodness in the world and changes his ways. I believe that is the message that David Almond is trying to make.

Dirty Laundry by Daniel Ehrenhaft

2009-03-24T21:23:00.004-05:00

Imagine that Gossip Girl met Nancy Drew. If you can, then you have a pretty decent idea of the storyline to Dirty Laundry.

Carli, actress/diva extraordinaire, takes on a role in a new teen mini-series involving snobby private school students. Her director and agent demand she do research before filming, and toss her into the alias of Sheila Smith, transfer student to the Winchester School of the Arts.

Fellini, better known as FUN, is the son of Carli's new boss. He is also Carli/Sheila's new babysitter. In addition, he is the ex-boyfriend of Darcy Novak, the missing student that shrouds Winchester School of the Arts in a dark cloud of mystery and suspicious characters.

The novel reads as a diary, from both Carli and FUN's perspective. Personalities clash, secrets are shared, promises are broken, and all of it happens in the midst of a missing person's investigation. The most intriguing character in the novel is Darcy, who actually doesn't share a leading role in the novel, save for being the center of attention, which is a feat for a character who never steps into the limelight. It would be comparable to an actor/actress winning an Academy Award for a movie and never being seen in the film, only mentioned. Shocking, but true.

The novel was set up to read from a high school student's perspective, however, I had a hard time remembering these kids were still in high school. It was almost as if the author opened the dictionary and tried to throw in as many five-dollar words as he could work into the plot. I never remember including five syllable words into my vocabulary during high school, but it seems to work for this novel. The author works it into the plot, letting these interesting word choices fall into FUN's vocabulary, creating a dual personality to FUN: the class clown versus the reserved and intelligent poet.

In fact, the characters are all given leveled personalities, and this adds to the effect that no one is who you think they are, and no one can really be trusted. It adds an effective amount of suspense to the story, just enough that you actually find yourself wanting to know what happens in the end.

Overall, the novel was well written, and had a considerably unique storyline (which is in itself a difficult task these days). Stories involving too much emotional teen drama and he said, she said usually do not appeal to me, but this one kept me interested. I'd recommend it to anyone who has a soft spot for teen soaps and/or an interest in crime dramas.

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

2009-03-24T10:11:00.002-05:00

Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

Description: Rule #3: Don't stare at invisible faeries.

Aislinn has always seen faeries. Powerful and dangerous, they walk hidden in mortal world. Aislinn fears their cruelty—especially if they learn of her Sight—and wishes she were as blind to their presence as other teens.

Rule #2: Don't speak to invisible faeries.

Now faeries are stalking her. One of them, Keenan, who is equal parts terrifying and alluring, is trying to talk to her, asking questions Aislinn is afraid to answer.

Rule #1: Don't ever attract their attention.

But it's too late. Keenan is the Summer King who has sought his queen for nine centuries. Without her, summer itself will perish. He is determined that Aislinn will become the Summer Queen at any cost—regardless of her plans or desires.

Suddenly none of the rules that have kept Aislinn safe are working anymore, and everything is on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her life; everything.

Faerie intrigue, mortal love, and the clash of ancient rules and modern expectations swirl together in Melissa Marr's stunning 21st century faery tale. (from Harper Collins)

The Fangirl’s Review: A

I have a weakness for modern faery stories, that deal with the intrigues of the faery courts and the mortals who become entangled in their webs, and Wicked Lovely delivers.

Aislinn, a mortal girl with the Sight, the ability to see faeries, finds herself the object of a particularly powerful faery's interest. And unfortunately, there is nothing Ash wants more than to not see faeries; she wants to go to college, date her friend Seth, and be a normal girl. But when Keenan, the Summer King, chooses her, being a normal girl isn't in the cards anymore. She must choose between being the Summer Queen and death, because once a faery chooses a mortal, there is no going back.

Marr writes a story that is immediately engrossing; the first chapter introduces faeries through Ash's eyes, and for her, faeries are not lovely and alluring. They are terrifying, sadistic creatures who like to harass the mortals who cannot see them, and they do even more horrible things to the weaker faeries. Ash can see all of this, but she cannot for one second allow the faeries to know that she sees them, and so the reader is drawn into her fear and anxiety, which makes for a much more interesting story for me. If the girl had just fallen into the handsome faery king's arms and then faced the court intrigue, there wouldn't be as much conflict within the story itself. By making Ash resistant to the very idea of being a faery, much less becoming the consort of Keenan, Marr has set up the future books in this series for a great deal more character and relationship development.

I love that Marr has made her faeries dangerous, too. While there are some who are good-hearted, many, especially those of the Dark and Winter Courts, are downright evil. Beira, the Winter Queen, is deliciously creepy and functions very well as this book's villain. Other faeries, namely Keenan and Donia, the Winter Girl and Keenan's former lover, are very nicely fleshed out and are very sympathetic, believable characters. Ash is a likable protagonist, and it is very easy to sympathize with her fear and anxiety. The only character who seems a bit flat to me is Seth, Ash's mortal friend. He's almost too perfect, beautiful in a Goth sort of way, independent at a young age, incredibly loving and supportive of Ash. He's very likable, but at the same time, I found myself wishing for some flaws just to round him out a bit.

My only complaint about Wicked Lovely is that the ending felt very rushed. So many conflicts are resolved in a rather short span of pages, and I had to skip back a page or two to find out exactly what happened to so-and-so once or twice. But other than that, this is a beautifully written, complex story. I'm going to have to run out and buy the next book in the series, Ink Exchange, as soon as I can.

Medium Multimodality Presents: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

2009-03-22T14:20:00.005-05:00

Hey everyone! I am back with another review! I had intended on reviewing this book much sooner, but I finally did it. I also figured since my column is titled "Medium: Multimodality" I might as well do something multimodal. So I am presenting my first VodBook--my version of a multimodal book review. Sometimes they might just be audio, but I thought that since many people relate this book more to the movie, I would present this with a few audio clips from the movie (not to mention screencaps for something to look at while you're listening) so I hope that you enjoy this!

Let me know what you think!

Twilight By Stephenie Meyer

2009-03-18T22:49:00.006-05:00

I have always wondered if the people around us are more than what they seem to the eye. I speculate if people have extraordinary powers or abilities that make them different than normal people. You always watch movies and shows or read books where a main character has a special gift. In Twilight, you are introduced to a similar scenario, where vampires walk around earth with humans without detection. Bella Swan, a human, meets a guy named Edward Cullen, a vampire, in a small town named Forks. Bella is introduced to a world she did not know existed. This is what first caught my attention in the book; because Edward, the vampire, can go to school, interact with humans all in the daytime. However though he can’t be in sunlight, not that he was burn, but because “his skin literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.” He doesn’t have fangs or sleeps in coffins (he actually does not sleep at all) like the vampires we have been introduced to before. Throughout the story, Bella and Edward fall in love and will do anything to protect each other from harm. This part of the story intrigued me, because most often the man saves the woman. In most cases in this story, Edward is saving and protecting Bella from harm. However, Bella is willing to sacrifice her life to save Edward from dying and is determined to become a vampire like Edward so she can stay with him forever.

I found that most people either loved the book or hated the book, there was not many in between people. I really enjoyed the book because it caught my attention right off the bat. It gave you a new representation to look at vampires instead of the traditional image we have been presented with through the years. The way love is characterized in this story is so powerful and strong that you can image in your mind that these two people have fallen for each other. Most people dream of this kind of love where no matter what happens in the past or present, no matter who are you are you will remain together and will do anything for each other. This book has suspense, thrill, love and sometimes even humor that keeps you from putting the book down. This has been one of my favorite books that I have ever read. It not only entertains the thoughts I have had about the supernatural but it’s been put in a twist to give me a different view of thinking.

The Faerie Path by Frewin Jones

2009-03-18T16:16:00.016-05:00

“The Realm of Faerie and the Mortal World lie close together…But there are places where the veil between the two worlds is very thin, where the Faerie and the Mortal World almost touch.”

According to Rathina, a faerie princess, the Faerie and Mortal Worlds are liminal spaces to one another, but only one faerie is destined to lift the veil between the worlds and walk freely back and forth. This faerie is her youngest sister, Tania—the seventh daughter of King Oberon and Queen Titania (one of several Shakespearean references). As with most faeries, Tania does not receive her destined ability until she turns sixteen. So at midnight on her sixteenth birthday, just hours before she is to wed the Duke of Faeries, Tania makes her first attempt to slip behind the veil, and she disappears from her Faerie World.

500 years later Tania is recovered and returned to the Faerie Realm in her most recent reincarnated form, sixteen-year old Anita Palmer. At least the faeries seem sure Anita is Tania, but Anita has no memory of any previous lives. So Anita is torn—literally and figuratively between two worlds. Her identity becomes the question, as with most teenagers. All the faeries remember her and are determined not to lose her again, but she has no memory of any of them. Instead of dealing with this issue initially, she convinces herself the Faerie World is just an amazing dreamland. She decides to just enjoy the beauty and fun while she sleeps, but when she wakes up she is still in the Faerie Realm. Anita still won’t accept that the world is real until she experiences great pain there. Once she accepts this, she insists on returning to the Mortal World to explain to her parents why she has disappeared. This begins the difficult process of learning how to control her ability of walking between worlds.

It seems easy to see the Faerie World as an analogy for the adult world. They are two worlds that coexist and run parallel, but there are only certain places (and times) a person is allowed to freely pass back and forth. The Mortal World in this story is set in London, but at least in America, sixteen is seen as a first step into adulthood. That world may seem exciting and fun at first, but eventually its darker side becomes visible. One of the abilities every teenager must master is how to negotiate between their roles in different “worlds” or contexts. And of course, they must attempt to reconcile their various roles into one “self” in order to answer the eternal question: “Who am I?”

The Faerie Path is interesting though it is told in a rather straightforward manner. I am fascinated by liminal spaces, and it is unusual how Anita/Tania is allowed to travel back and forth between two parallel worlds. The seven daughters of Oberon and Titania each have unique personalities (like the seven dwarves), and Eden and Rathina even offer some complexity. The plot is filled with twists and turns—and even depth if the reader is willing to take the right perspective. Overall it is a light read, a bit of a page-turner and ultimately a cliff-hanger. It is the first book in a series of four. Perhaps in later books Anita/Tania’s identity (or more precisely—subjectivity) is dealt with more thoroughly. That would add brilliance to the sparkle of this pretty tale.

Allie Finkle's Rules For Girls Best Friends and Drama Queens by Meg Cabot

2009-03-16T22:00:00.004-05:00

Meg Cabot's newest book in the Allie Finkle Series; Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Best Friends and Drama Queens Cabot depicts a picture of fourth grade girls standing their ground rooted in innocence while others get lost in doing what seems popular. Allie for the longest time has been the newest student in Mrs. Hunter's fourth grade class - well not anymore move over Allie and await the tidal wave known as Cheyenne - and she comes all the way from Canada!

Mrs. Hunter has big news for Allie the day the students come back from Christmas break. Allie no longer gets to sit by her very best friend Erica. She's moved to the back of the room with Joey Fields - Yes BARKING HOWLING JOEY FIELDS, Patrick Day - Hyperactive bouncy PATRICK DAY - Allie isn't at all thrilled but feeling she has no choice but to comply with her teacher's request she moves to the back of the classroom holding back her tears.

Cheyenne moves into Allie's old seat and tries to turn all the girls into boy crazy - fast girls; she gets a few to chase after boys at recess times then the girl is supposed to kiss them. Allie, Caroline, Sophie, and Erica seem to be the only girls totally against this - and it's when Allie is told that she is "going to go with" Joey Field's that she says "NO!" Standing up for her beliefs - that in fourth grade kids are just kids - nobody should be looking at anybody in boyfriend or girlfriend terms. Cheyenne then calls Allie a "big baby" the students are dismissed from their school day and Allie runs home and straight into her room and into her closet where she clings to Mewsie, her cat; and cries and cries and cries - Her dad, her uncle, and her brothers try to help her but sh refuses them - and her mom finally gets home and sweetly takes charge she goes into the closet with Allie, and gently holds her and allows Allie to just talk it out. Her mother want to call Mrs. Hunter right away - but Allie begs her not to do so because she's afraid Cheyenne will continue to bully her and Allie's other friends even more.

That night some parents call Mrs. Hunter and Mrs. Hunter has a firm talk with her class that they are too young to consider such relationships and breaks all the "couples" up right then and there.

Through the Allie Finkle Series Meg Cabot teaches some valuable lessons and helps shape a young persons' character through Allie's adventures - There is at the end a part where Cheyenne turns her ankle and falls onto some ice on the ground. Allie, doesn't laugh at her because "that wouldn't be very mature of [her]... it's wrong to take delight in the pain of others. That's a rule (pg. 200)." Each chapter is frought with morals, values, and lessons that young people can easily grasp, and incorporate them into their daily lives.

This is a great book because it deals with mean girls and nice girls and the boys left to survive in between all the DRAMA!!!!

The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly

2009-03-11T17:00:00.011-05:00

When a novel is as captivating as John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things it is almost impossible to pry yourself from the story to focus on reality. Connolly not only masterfully displays his knowledge in his fairy tales and folk lore, but engulfs the reader in his own creative imagination as well. This novel not only exclaims to be read, the cover is as alluring as the text itself. I had passed the book while in line at the book store this past winter; needless to say, I was sold. Luckily I had the luxury of being able to read this story during the winter break. The novel being a daunting 442 pages had taken a couple days of reading to finish, definitely no Ayn Rand or J.K. Rowling but, it was a lengthy read. That is not to say that every moment lost in Connolly’s world was not enjoyable.

The story begins, as all fairy tales should, with “ONCE UPON A TIME” painting a bleak backdrop of the protagonist, David, and his feeble attempts to save his sick mother. The reader is immediately throw into a dark story of lost and love, about loneliness and desire, as David’s world falls apart around him. After his mother pasts away his father remarries a woman by the name of Rose giving birth to his step brother Georgie. As they move to the countryside of England to avoid the havocs of World War II, David slowly loses himself in stories and books.

The words Connolly had chosen for these chapters create the long dragging feeling to the reader similar to Donna Jo Napoli’s Zel as Zel slowly lost her sanity in the tower. The time seemingly slow to the reader unfolds David’s secret hatred and jealousy of both Rose and Georgie, and then as the negative feelings grow his world begins to change. He begins to hear books talk to him and dreams of a Crooked Man, a creepy evil man with a foul sense and unimaginable power capable of sending chills up the readers spine, the obvious antagonist of the story. Before long David is finds the secret of the house he stays and ventures into a dark whole in the garden sending him crashing into the fantasy world.

David’s growth throughout the novel is apparent on the surface as he builds courage braving monsters, witches, hunters and wolves. The story capture’s adolescence at it’s greatest hour; a boy trapped in an infernal nightmare, overcoming it with his growing dream to go home, all while becoming a man during the process. Although the story is told in a third person point of view Connolly strives to weave the reader in and out of David’s thoughts as he matures. As he learns about the cruelty of individuals of death and hate David is forced to show the humanity to give him the strength to carry on. With the help of friends and foes along the way David learns to become more accepting of Rose and Georgie leading up to the finally decision, ultimately deciding the fate of every character in the story in that moment.

A major theme of this novel would be the feeling of loss and abandonment. David is propelled through the story relentlessly running into allies and enemies, building and destroying bonds between life and death. With the controversial issues involved homosexuality, kidnapping, death, murder, jealousy, and much more; Connolly states his beliefs through David. As David grows and takes his paths making the choices between wrong and right Connolly brings his character to life being more than his creator, but being his conscience through his experiences.

The Book of Lost Things does not only provide the action, adventure, and fantasy of the world of folk lore; it also wraps the all the elements in a tortilla of horror and suspense creating a delicious atmosphere in the story for the reader to devour. Although the book can often be labeled as a “pleasure read” and will likely never reach the doors of a classroom. The Book of Lost Things deserves it’s applause for it’s captivating nature, David’s realization of the precious things in his life can be a lesson well learned for generations to come. Connolly steps outside his usual bounds turning old fairy tales into an astoundingly twisted meal for hungry minds.

The Green Glass Sea and White Sands, Red Menace by Ellen Klages

2009-03-07T08:56:00.005-06:00

Historical fiction walks a fine line between storytelling and research. In this pair of books, Ellen Klages describes a time during and after World War Two when the world was changing in ways that were not understood at the time, and are not often discussed today (certainly not for a Young Adult target audience) very often. Using a third-person voice, the actions and emotions of the two primary protagonists are shown over a five-year period encompassing the bildungsroman of Dewey and Suze, and the changes happening in their immediate families and the world in general. The era in which the atomic bomb was developed and first used can be considered a coming-of-age for the United States, the first time this country was definately ahead of the technological curve. Decisions were made at the "Buck Stops Here" top that have had lasting effects we can still see today.

Why would a contemporary young reader be interested in such literature? Perhaps they would like to examine what it may have felt like to have been alive during that time. Maybe a reader is dealing with disruptions in her own life and reading about others' coping choices could be beneficial. If a reader is like I was as a teenager, the history from an insider's point of view would be interesting. Also, there is an undercurrent of what really happened on the Home Front, from gasoline rationing to the unavailability of such a simple thing as hamburger meat-- except that the group of elite scientists were regularly fed steaks "to keep them happy." And finally, the anti-nuke protest movement started the very day the first bomb was exploded near Alamogordo-- among some who had been instrumental in developing it. This is a bit of history that is hard to find even for adult readers.

These books can also be examined from a feminist point of view. During the war, women became an intrinsic and valued part of the work force at all levels. Here we watch Suze's mother, a nuclear chemist, change from being an enthusiastic member of an important team, to an out-of-work intellectual at war's end. She has to deal with both her horror at what she had helped birthe, and the fact that her husband chose to move on as a member of the next project under Werner Von Braun, and becoming a disgruntled stay-at-home mom in a boring small town rather than return to her professorship. Her choices are every bit as much a coming-of-age as the growing teenagers face.

To me, these books are fine examples of historically insightful, entertaining storytelling.

The Green Glass Sea

It was so secret that they weren’t allowed to tell anyone anything. The scientists were to be addressed as Mr. and Mrs., their address was a post office box (and letters were censored), there was barbed wire and sentries with M-1 rifles and dogs and motorized patrols and passes to be shown entering or leaving. There were families, and the kids went to school while their parents worked on the secret thing. Whatever it was. What happens when a group of people are thrown together for a secret project on “The Hill”, and their children not only have to get along, but learn to get around the guards and live as normal life as possible?

In 1943, 10-year-old Dewey was put on a train in St. Louis to join her father somewhere in New Mexico. He had been a professor at Harvard and their life together had been much happier and simpler in Boston before the war, and especially before the secret. Suze’s parents had both been professors at UC Berkeley and now they work on it, whatever it is. And these two girls don’t like each other at all; Dewey is little and “different” and Suze, the same age, is too tall and bossy. When they are thrown together against their will and forced to be roommates, will they figure out how to co-exist?

There are interesting choices that must be made here, and this book discusses freedom, frailty, friendship, and feelings in an introspective way. The simple times were fading fast and hard decisions abounded for all. Could Dewey, with an engineer’s mind and a knack for taking things apart and putting them back together, learn to relate to Suze, a budding artist who is also discovering ways of taking things apart and putting them back together, in a completely different fashion? What happens when some but not all of the adults experience a crisis of conscience…?

Ellen Klages captures the piece of history known as The Manhattan Project through the eyes of two adolescent girls, and paints a picture of that period during which simplicity was blown up in a secret explosion which fused the sands of New Mexico into a green glass sea.

White Sands, Red Menace

It’s 1946. Suze and Dewey are like sisters because Dewey’s father was killed right before the war’s end and she had nobody else… except for her long-gone mother who had abandoned her at age 1. The family had moved to Alamogordo where the rocket team led by leading German scientist Werner Von Braun continued with the Nazi program. Suze’s father is an enthusiastic part of that, which leads to a dichotomy within the family; Suze’s mother is no longer working on the nuclear program but has become an activist against it. Dewey and Suze have learned to collaborate and they are building an ongoing Rube Goldberg style contraption combining the best of each girl’s talent.

The real-life problems inherent within the town are examined when Suze befriends a Hispanic girl from south of 10th Street (“Little Chihuahua”) and learns an art technique from the grandmother; locals resent the outsiders’ meddling in things the way they’ve always been. Can friendship rise above racism? Will the family survive the difference of opinion and philosophy between the adults? Will Suze ever understand that Dewey is not competing for the love of Suze’s mother just because they can talk science together, seemingly leaving Suze out of this? And who is that mysterious woman in the black leathers who shows up in town on a Harley motorcycle?

Ellen Klages followed her first book with one that can stand alone but is better in tandem. Real problems face these two highly intelligent, misfit girls in a time when all the women who had been equal and valued working contributors in the war effort are expected to go back home and simply be happy that the war is over. How they learn to deal with a racist society, what they do to maintain their own friendship while developing other relationships, and where they go for advice and solace all combine to create a factual picture of New Mexico and America at that time in history.

Margo Lanagan's Tender Morsels

2009-03-02T17:33:00.003-06:00

An abused child, victim of incest and gang rape, is magically transported to a fantasy land of peace and happiness with her two daughters. Their world is interrupted by an inexperienced witch who tears a hole between fantasy and reality while pushing a greedy little person with Rumpelstiltskin-like powers through in hopes to make him happy and wealthy. In the real-world town of St. Olafred, they hold a festival honoring the humanity of men by dressing up like bears and chasing women (based on the real festival in Prats de Mollo: http://www.anglophone-direct.com/fete-de-l-ours-prats-de-mollo). At two separate festivals, a bear dressed man is transported to the fantasy becoming an actual bear in the process. Each interact with the family with good and bad consequences. Finally, another witch is brought to repair the hole and brings the family back in the process. One daughter becomes a witch, the other marries one of the bear-men who returned to human form after disappearing from the fantasy. The poor girl in the beginning of the story is now a mother-in-law and matron of a family. She finds approval and peace in the real world at last.
Based on the Grimm fairy tale of "Snow White and Rose Red", Tender Morsels is the ultimate story of transformation. An abused child becomes a mother then a matron. A girl goes from child to wife (the Snow White character, Branza), her sister from child to witch (the Rose Red character, Urdda). A witch transforms from poor and lonely to rich and loved. Two boys are literally transformed into bears but become men in the process. In this story of growth, reality and fantasy combine to capture lost innocence. A highly sexual book, the theme of innocence runs rampant as the mother’s fantasy world attempts to protect the children but the intrusion of others and their haunted paternity forces them to transform to women. The many themes in this book make it a great topic of discussion and comparison to other works (especially fairy tales). I maintain that this could easily be the sole topic of a sixteen week college course.
This book is captivating to say the least. This is one of those books that a person cannot seem to stop thinking about. I found myself analyzing it over and over in my head for days. There are people and things that I loved yet actions and circumstances that I hated. Because of the nature of Liga’s (the mother/abused child) background, it starts off very dark and depressing. This is completely necessary to help understand her urgency to protect her daughters and her vulnerability to living a fairy tale life. At times I was sickened by the behavior of the characters and other times I wanted to run and give them a hug. Lanagan makes a unique choice of having three first person narrators as well as the typical third person narrative throughout. Oddly enough, two of these first-person narrations are not major protagonists in the story, one is killed off half way through, another is only important for a few chapters then disappears. When she switches, the reader must reacclimate himself to the new narrator and his particular style and focus. I found myself becoming enthralled with it. Many times, Lanagan gives a climax and immediately switches story lines, leaving the reader hanging on for more. This can get annoying, but Lanagan finds a wonderful balance between suspense and finality. As for the ending, I must say though it is pleasant, it is not a fairy tale ending. I believe this is Lanagan’s emphasis that life is not and never will be a fairy tale.

Dive into Don Calame's Swim the Fly

2009-02-07T22:29:00.013-06:00

I’ve heard that boys (after they reach puberty) think about sex. A lot. Reports vary from every 15 seconds to every 42 seconds. Maybe those figures are just urban legends, but I’m not so sure. I do know that Matt, Sean, and Coop of Don Calame’s Swim the Fly think about it a lot. And talk about it a lot. I’m glad I’m not them--not because they think about sex all of the time but because they get into the craziest situations in order to fulfill their wish to see Mandy Reagan in the buff. You know those scary movies where the girl thinks it’s a good idea to walk down to the dark basement when she hears something that shouldn’t be there? Somehow, the boys think it’s a good idea to dress as girls in order to get into the women’s locker room at the Community Center, where Mandy is sure to undress after her workout. But first, they get caught dressed as girls by Sean’s sister and her friend. There Matt is, “Dressed in Cathy’s frilly pink blouse and denim skirt. My face made up like a cheap stripper. Listening to Cyndi Lauper.” Too bad Matt gets an explosive case of diarrhea while in the women’s locker room. Matt would’ve been much better off having a V-8 instead of that power drink. Too bad about everything else that follows—and there’s a lot. I am sooo glad I’m not them.

And don’t forget Grandpa Arlo who is hot on the trail of the very recently widowed Mrs. Hoogenboom. Grandpa has some nerve—he wants to ask her out at the funeral home. Well, not “out” exactly. For coffee. And at the end of the wake. No use waiting around.

Honestly, when I read some of the blurbs that described the novel as hilarious, I had my doubts. It takes quite a bit to impress me. I like maybe 1 out of every 20 novels I read, and it’s pretty hard to make me laugh. But it really is funny, full of toilet humor (literally), the kind that made me groan and shake my head and sometimes laugh out loud. It’s rowdy and irreverent. The dialogue is snappy and engaging and Calame truly knows how to create quirky, memorable characters. I suppose someone will say that the boys objectify girls. Just remember, karma has a way of dealing with that. In the most excruciating ways. Payback times two.

Candlewick. The novel will be available in April, 2009.

Monkey Town: What a Super Read!

2009-01-29T09:12:00.007-06:00

I wish I would’ve written this novel. Monkey Town: The Summer of the Scopes Trial is both a wonderful read and great to listen to. I’ll admit that I, like many others, didn’t have all the facts of the Scopes “Monkey Trial,” the infamous trial wherein Scopes, a high school teacher in Dayton, TN, a small, dying town, is put on trial for teaching Darwin’s theories of evolution in his biology class. Dare I admit that the film version of the story, Inherit the Wind, had to a large extent informed my understanding of this important time in history? I won’t. After reading Monkey Town, however, I did some research (namely I got my hands on Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion). Ronald Kidd’s 2007 novel is a superb fictionalized retelling of this episode.

The novel is a study in contrasts, whether it’s conveyed through the debate between evolution and creationism or through 15-year-old Frances Robinson when she plays “The Moonlight Sonata” with the cynical and critical H. L. Menken, who is less-than-kind to the town and less-than-biased regarding the trial. She plays the right hand and he plays the left (a fine metaphor): “I looked at our two hands. One large and one small, one rough and one smooth, as different as two hands could be. They moved together . . .” The novel is also full of lovely nuggets as when Menken makes some observations about truth: “Grits are the blandest food in creation. They taste like library paste. . . . If you add cheese and garlic, they’re delicious. That’s the way it is with the truth. You can offer it up bland or you can add a dash of criticism and exaggeration, season to taste and serve.” Kidd has turned what could be plain grits into grits with cheese and garlic. Delicious.

The novel, whether printed or recorded, reminds me of To Kill a Mockingbird. The narrator is both charming and disarming. The outcome won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows about the trial. Scopes loses. There is no question that Scopes taught evolution in his classroom. Scopes’s attorney, Clarence Darrow, loses. Indeed, in order to further the cause, he must. Darrow asks the judge to find Scopes guilty because Darrow “cares more about his precious cause [“teaching science in school”] than Johnny. . . . That way he can appeal the verdict to higher courts.” And after all, “It wasn’t about John Scopes. It never was.” Kidd, however, is a winner. And readers will be winners as well. Bravo.

Patricia McCormick's Sold

2009-01-28T15:02:00.002-06:00

Lakshmi is a thirteen year old girl in Nepal. She loves her mother, her baby brother, and her little goat, Tali. She lives a simple life: she helps her mother clean their hut; she works in the fields, caring for her family’s crops; she attends school, learning how to read and write; she spends time with her best friend, Gita, laughing, playing, spying on the boy Krishna, Lakshmi’s betrothed. However, Lakshmi has more than her share of trouble. After her father died, her mother was fortunate enough that another man was willing to marry her and take on an almost grown daughter, but he spends his days gambling away any money Lakshmi and her mother bring in from the selling of crops. And Lakshmi says he looks at her like he looks at the cucumbers she raises to sell, wondering how he can make more money off her.

Then Gita goes to the city to work as a maid for a wealthy family. Her income allows her family back in the village to purchase a new tin roof for their home, pots and pans for her mother to cook with, glasses for her dad, and a wedding dress for her older sister. Lakshmi wishes she could do those things for her mother and her baby brother, and one day, her stepfather comes to her, giving her that opportunity. Excited but anxious, Lakshmi looks forward to her new life.

It is not long before the young girl discovers that something is wrong. She is not taken to the city but all the way to Calcutta, India, where she is deposited at a brothel: Lakshmi has been sold into prostitution. Her naivete shattered, her innocence in ruins, Lakshmi learns to survive in part because of the relationships she builds with the other women of the brothel and in part because words she remembers her mother saying become her mantra: “Simply to endure is to triumph.”

Patricia McCormick’s Sold is an incredible read on many counts. Told in blank verse vignettes, it is beautifully written; it is one of those books that, regardless of its topic, you will want to read again and again. Carefully and personally researched, McCormick’s text serves as an expose of sexual slavery and a much needed wake up call for it chronicles the stories of thousands of children and women who have been sold into sexual slavery. Lakshmi’s voice, her perspective as she moves from an innocent child to an unwilling brothel resident, draws the reader in and breaks the heart.

It is a difficult read but it is a story that must be told. Some reviewers believe this text is appropriate for children 12 and up. I believe it is more complicated than that. Some children may be mature enough to read this story at an earlier age. Some may need to wait a while. I recommend parents base their decision on the maturity of the individual child. But I recommend this text for any adult.

The Walrus gives Sold solid gold status.

Jerry Spinelli's Milkweed

2009-01-28T14:53:00.005-06:00

Award winning author Jerry Spinelli tells of the fall of Warsaw, Poland, 1939, through the experiences of a naive orphan boy who never completely understands the dangerous world in which he lives. In a poignant retelling of the Holocaust, Spinelli examines the lives of children and adults, Jews, Gypsys, and Germans, who search for ways to survive the war zone Warsaw has become. Some hide or run away. Others join the ranks of the Jackboots. Some board a train to nowhere.

He is a small boy whose earliest memory is of running, of being dragged by an older, red-headed boy into the comparative safety of a stable in Warsaw, Poland. He does not remember his given name, but knows that he is often called Stop-thief, Stupid, Jew, Gypsy, and Filthy Son of Abraham. He remembers “a booming laugh” and “riding a shoulder,” but he does not remember the particulars of his family. He knows that his “new” family, the group of boys that congregate in the stable, allow him to be a part of their group because he is such a good thief. And because they give him companionship, he endures their often harsh teasing and the name calling. More importantly, from Uri, the leader of the group, he learns the value of being invisible. Later, he uses his skills to feed a young Jewish girl and her family when they are relocated to the Warsaw Ghetto, and his life comes to revolve around his relationship with Janina and her parents. Then his life is ripped apart once again when she and what is left of her family are shipped off to a “resettlement” camp. Misha, as Uri names him, survives the bombing of Warsaw and the “cleansing” of its ghetto in the face of incredible odds. In fact, he goes on to marry and father a child. But because he repeatedly suffers the loss of “family,” Misha will always be somewhat incomplete.

Reading this book can be a rather bittersweet experience: Spinelli tells a compelling story, and yet, it is most difficult to witness the atrocities inflicted on the Jews and the Gypsys by the invading Nazi forces, particularly through the eyes of a child. Misha sees Jewish men scrubbing the sidewalk with their beards; he observes mobs striping and humiliating Jewish businessmen in the streets; bodies on the sidewalk become common place. And yet, certainly children did witness such atrocities; in fact, they suffered the same vile treatment at the hands of the Germans. So, although The Walrus gives Milkweed top marks, she does so with a note to the parents of younger readers: Be aware of the content AND be available to talk about it!

Goo goo g’joob!

China Mieville's Un Lun Dun

2009-01-28T14:41:00.003-06:00

Signs ought to tell you something, right? It all began with a strange woman coming up to their table at the café, a woman dressed in a bus driver’s uniform—one who treated Zanna, the unofficial leader of the group, as though she was a rock star or something! Like she was going to ask for her autograph! Weirdness! There was the graffiti on the bridge over Iverson Road, way up higher than anyone could have reached—graffiti that read: “Zanna For Ever!” in yellow paint. Then there was the letter that came in the mail. Well, at least the postman brought it and handed it to Zanna personally—a letter that had neither a mailing address nor a return one; a letter that read: “We look forward to meeting you, when the wheel turns.” And animals began acting very strangely when Zanna was around. There was the fox on the playground. One that did not run away or even cringe as the group of girls approached. Instead, it held their gaze—especially the gaze of Zanna. In fact, just as the bell rang to signal the end of the break, the fox bowed its head at her and then ran off! And dogs bowing instead of barking! Birds circling over Zanna’s head! Spirals of smoke appearing then disappearing in the roadway…

Zanna and her best friend Deeba are about to begin a journey, one that leads them to Un Lun Dun, the mirror image of London, a place where trash and items that have been discarded by the residents of London go to “live.” Once they arrive in this alternate world, the two girls learn that Zanna is the Chosen One—the One that will rescue Un Lun Dun from the Evil Smog. However, of course things do not go as planned. This IS Un Lun Dun after all! Zanna fails in her attempt to rid the Uncity of the Evil Smog, leaving Deeba, the, ahem, UnChosen One, to lead the Good Guys against the Bad Guys…or is it the Unbad Guys against the Ungood Guys?

To Unravel (pun intended) the mystery, Deeba must discover the connection between the Evil Smog and the broken umbrellas or, as they are known in Un Lun Dun, unbrellas. Who can she trust? As she searches for answers, Deeba discovers that more is at stake than she first imagined, for every major city on the planet has a corresponding Uncity!

Confused? Intrigued? Of course you are! China Mieville’s 2007 fantasy, based on the notion that our no-longer-needed-cell phones, computers, televisions, even rubbish like empty milk cartons, have to go somewhere, leads you on a fantastic journey where nothing is as it should be or even what you think it might be in an alternate universe. A must read for science fiction and fantasy fans. Or even for those who just want to be entertained.

The Walrus gives Un Lun Dun a high five! Goo goo g’joob!

Donna Jo Napoli's Zel

2009-01-28T14:25:00.006-06:00

Have you ever read a fairy tale and decided that the characters that inhabit the story are just plain old chumps? I mean seriously, why didn’t Cinderella just walk out on her wicked step-mother and her two majorly ugly step-sisters? Surely she could have found a job at the local Mal-Wart or worked the drive through at Prince’s Burgers. And how could Snow White have been so stupid as to accept food from a stranger? Or keep house for seven men? I mean, come on! Where are those feminists when you need them? In other words, what do fairy tales have to say to contemporary readers? Many authors have sought to “modernize” the fairy tale so that it appeals to contemporary audiences. Donna Jo Napoli’s Zel, a modern day version of the fairy tale Rapunzel, offers a more plausible rendition of the traditional tale, one that fleshes out the characters allowing for greater connections between the reader and the characters she meets.

Zel is a young woman on the cusp of adolescence. She and her mother live a rather modest lifestyle far from the nearest village, but they are happy. Zel enjoys the company of her mother and finds fulfillment in her painting. Mother is happy as long as she has Zel to herself and works very hard to keep Zel isolated and dependent, controlling the child’s every move. Zel is equally determined to marry someday and have a family. There are other secrets between the two women: Mother has plans to ensure that she has Zel all to herself and to entice the child to give her soul over to the power of magic. Zel has plans to plant her radish seeds so that she can eat radish whenever she pleases. In fact, Zel has plans to plant an entire garden!

As the story opens, the two are planning their annual trip to the nearest village: Mother, though not particularly excited about sharing her daughter with the people of the village or exposing Zel to their “common-ness,” or contamination, wishes to purchase a present for Zel’s birthday; Zel just wants a chance to visit with people because she so rarely has the opportunity to interact with anyone other than Mother. To add to her worry, Mother must leave her daughter alone in the company of others for the first time while she purchases Zel’s birthday present. In the course of the visit, Mother finds the perfect present for her daughter, and Zel meets a young man who piques her interest to the extent that she sketches him. Mother is disturbed by the picture for she does not want Zel to marry but to spend her energies in pursuing magic much like Mother has done. Suddenly she realizes that she must take drastic measures to ensure that Zel will never marry: she will imprison her in a tower. However, her plan is complicated by the fact that Zel will not go willingly, so, for the first time, Mother lies to Zel, telling her that there are those that want to kill her and that they must take action immediately to protect her. Frantic, Zel does all that Mother asks her to do and suddenly finds herself a prisoner in a tower from which there is no escape. As Zel languishes in her tower, visited only by her mother, the Prince spends his time looking for the young woman he met in the village, the one that was not afraid of him, the one that did not defer to him in any way. Zel waits, Mother plots, and the Prince searches.

While this tale ends much like other renditions of Rapunzel, the fact the Napoli explores the motives behind the actions of Rapunzel (Zel), her mother, and the Prince makes this book a fun read. Napoli’s text still contains magic and a degree of coincidence and, yes, romanticism, and yet, the characters and the plot have greater depth, making the story more interesting to contemporary audiences.

The Walrus says, “Two tusks up for Zel!” Goo goo g’joob!

Walter Dean Myer's Monster

2009-01-28T14:09:00.004-06:00

Picture this: Steve Harmon, a 16 year old high school student, is writing a screen play. It is the story of his life. You might ask: What does a 16 year old boy know about life? Steve might answer: More than he ever wanted to know.

Late in the afternoon of December 22, a drugstore on 145th Street in Harlem is robbed and owner Alguinaldo Nesbitt left dead on the floor. Four males, Richard Evans, 22, James King, 23, Osvaldo Cruz, 14, and Steve Harmon are arrested. According to the Prosecutor, King and Evans carried out the robbery, Harmon cased the drugstore ahead of time and gave the all clear, and Cruz was the lookout posted on the sidewalk in front of the store. King and Harmon are charged with felony murder. Evans and Cruz have already admitted their part in the crime and are testifying against King and Harmon in return for reduced sentences.

Before and during his trial, Steve is held in the Manhattan Detention Center, Cell Block D in New York City. He might as well live on another planet. Life in the detention center is horrifying. Inmates violently assault one another. Sometimes for little or no reason. Other times for sex. As he struggles to understand how he came to be in this place, as he works to maintain both his sanity and his identity, Steve begins to write and produce his own personal film in his head. He remembers time spent with his family, but he also recalls occasions where he made less than smart choices in both his behavior and his companions. He remembers his favorite class at school, his film class with Mr. Sawicki and the class project he was working on when his life suddenly fell apart. He recalls the day he was arrested, the look on his mother’s face. He remembers the day his father broke down and sobbed. Some of his memories are presented in the form of a journal or diary, his horror, his fears, his desperation apparent in every entry. Sometimes he remembers what was happening in the background, a Road Runner cartoon, his brother holding a comic book. Sometimes he remembers conversation: the court stenographer hoping this trial lasts for a while so that her paycheck will be bigger; one of the guards talking about his kids, another about termites.

Walter Dean Myers’s Monster is a gripping tale about a young man facing an uncertain future.
An excellent read with a highly creative format, this book provides an inside look at prisons and the court system, juxtaposed against normal, day to day life. As Steve struggles to answer his questions, the reader is drawn into the conflict: What is normal? What is important? How do our words and actions affect others? IS Steve the monster others think him to be? Was he simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Is this someone’s idea of a joke? Or is he simply fooling himself?

The Walrus gives Monster two tusks up! Goo goo g’joob!

The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman by Louise Plummer

2008-12-06T23:41:00.003-06:00

This book is written in first person by Kate. She does not want to write a book such as “those books” that talk about love stories full of pink color, honey words, and of whole pages describing all the movements of a tongue in a kiss. She doesn’t want to tell a story like this and she does not want to use THE ROMANCE WRITER'S PHRASE BOOK, but it is a teen love story so that sometimes it is pink, honey-told, and the kisses (sometimes) can be described with the help of the THE ROMANCE WRITER'S PHRASE BOOK.

Kate’s father is a linguist and she wants to follow in his footsteps. She is able to guess the origin of a person by listening at her or his accent. I liked this detail because I’d like to become a linguist and when I was in Italy I did the same thing with the people I met for the first time. I tried to guess the city where they come from listening to their pronunciation and, you know what? Most of the time I was right! I didn’t know what was this book about before I began to read it. This is the magic thing of the books. It can happen that it is the book that finds you and you can recognize in it something that belongs to you or that happened to you or it can give you a new and interesting point of view on something you was reflecting on.

Kate’s love story is very similar to a lot of other love stories: he, the hero she wants to love, is wonderful and unreachable. The antagonist is her best friend; she is cuter and more provocative than her, she uses the lip gloss and it lasts on her lips, she has a beautiful body and the right hairstyle, she knows what to say what to (not) wear, and she always conquers the guys she likes.

In this story the heroine is prettier than beautiful, cleverer than sensual, taller than made up.

The environment is her parents’ house, during the Christmas holidays when the snow falls. There is the Christmas tree scene, the puzzle moment, the ice-skating BIG moment. There is also the crying part, a rage day, and a number of very funny pages.

If someone asked me if I read love stories’ books, I answered “NO!” or “May be only once, when I was in the dentist’s waiting room” or something similar.

And it is true. If I knew that this was a love story book, probably I would not read it. But if I begin to read, or listen to, or watch a movie about a love story I cannot stop.

Even if love stories are similar one another, they are also always different, and then, I really can’t wait for knowing the details about a first kiss, or a love declaration. I admit it, I believe that for this aspect I will always be a teenager. I need to know that the romantic side of the life survives and that sometimes happens that someone experiences it. Someone, certainly not me: it’s the Murphy’s law: if you are romantic, if you like the full-of-honey sentences, and would enjoy, once a time, a pink day, then yours will be the most cynical of the boyfriends!

Top 8: Round Up The Usual Profiles

2008-12-06T11:14:00.003-06:00

Okay, how many of you reading this blog have a MySpace account? What about Facebook? How would you feel if one or both of these accounts were hacked into as someone decided to change your info and replace it with top secret information that only you would know? What would you do? You would search to figure out who would do such a thing!

Did I catch your attention? I know that Top 8 got my attention when I was looking for new books to read! Katie Finn creates Friendverse, which would become the newest Facebook, where sixteen year-old Madison MacDonald was hacked not once but three times. Her mission was to find out who would do such a thing…well and to pass her junior year of high school.

Top 8 combines the classic detective story with a technological twist. As Madison searches to find her “hacker” she learns a lot about herself and the effect that she has as one of the most popular girls in school. The interesting thing, to me at least, is that this story looks at how an online social network could potentially affect life.

Madison really takes her Friendverse life seriously—or at least her friends do. Similar to MySpace, her “top friends” (even the position of which friend is where) are really important. The Number One position is reserved for the boy/girl friend, and if the user is single, the Number One is the best friend. People’s feelings get hurt if they are left off of friends’ lists. Apparently catfights have broken out because people have dropped out because someone dropped another from a list. Go figure!

Coming from someone who has a MySpace and a Facebook account, I love chatting with friends on these spaces but maybe I don’t take it that seriously. Maybe it’s because I don’t have time or something. I guess that is something I’ll have to look at later…

Since I love technology, this book got my attention because there is technology all over it! Finn recreates web pages throughout the text that describe major changes that happen to Madison…(I don’t want to say too much because I want you to have the opportunity to read it) and that happens a few times in the book. Since this book is centralized online there are chats displayed through the text in addition to text messaging, and other ways of multimodal communication.

I love Madison! She’s is a great character. Think about it, she’s smart and works to keep her cool even though it has to be really tough to have nearly all of her friends angry with her because she couldn’t control the fact that her computer was hacked; however, through this all she ends up learning who her friends really are. It’s a lesson that everyone goes through at some point in their life.

This is Katie Finn’s first book, and I am looking forward to seeing what she comes up with after this book. Top 8 keeps you reading—the plot is interesting and most of us these days can relate to it, unless you want your social status to become virtually non-existent and all of that…but that would pretty much be a different story all together. Anyway, you really need to check this book out! You won’t be disappointed!

Forever In Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood

2008-12-06T11:03:00.006-06:00

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is one of my favorite movies! When I saw it in 2005, I went to the theater, LOVED IT, and well bought all of the books that were out at the time, the soundtrack, and went and watched it again the very next day. (I didn’t know until we were at the movie that it was based on books) You can imagine how happy I was to find out they made a second movie! Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 came out on DVD a few weeks ago and as a celebration, I wanted to review the last book of the Traveling Pants Series, Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood.

When the movie came out, this was also reprinted under the same title of the movie which might actually confuse people because the movie is a combination of the last three books so if someone were to pick up the new fourth book, well they might be lost!So, that means that if you want to read this after watching the movie—make sure that you read the other books first! (Enough of my disclaimer—on with the rest of the review!)

So at this point, Tibby, Carmen, Lena, and Bridget are about to embark on their latest adventure—College! As the pants keep them together through their different experiences, the girls are afraid that their friendship is actually splitting apart. As they go their separate ways, we continue to learn how they are “together and apart”.

I know that this book doesn’t have technology, but the series was made into a movie. I think part of the reason why I love the books is because the movies weren’t exactly faithful adaptations; however, they made changes that actually make both stories realistic. For some reason, I didn’t find myself hung up over the fact that they didn’t use every word of the written text. Although, as I think about it, it is possible that one could consider the fact that they mailed the pants, old school technology—gotta love snail mail, right?

In any case, I love these characters and I think that part of the reason why the book series (especially this one) works so well is because when I read it, I find myself relating to all of the characters in different ways. I think there is a part of us that wants to be daring like Bridget, or quirky like Tibby. (In fact, I have named a friend of mine Tibby because she reminds me so much of that character.) For those of you who have read the books, I’d love to hear if you agree with me! (or if you don’t, that’s okay too!)

I was truly sad for this series to end! I wanted to find out what happened to the girls after that summer! I was a little curious to see what happened to them when it wasn’t summer although I did think it was really interesting to learn what all you could do during the summer. They were really busy, which is why I guess the pants worked for them.

Those pants taught those girls and us too a lot about life, love, and friendship. I look forward to re-reading the books again and again, perhaps after I snuggle up with the movies and relive some memories!

Poison - Chris Wooding

2008-12-05T17:47:00.008-06:00

Have you ever wondered what happens when you leave the room? Perhaps everything goes quiet and still. I used to wonder about that until one day I found it was true. That was the day I discovered that I was the character in a storybook. This discovery nearly washed me away with a flood of turbulant emotions. Anger, frustration, confusion, fear. If an author was controlling my destiny instead of me, what was the point in doing anything? I was just about to give up when I realized I had another option. I did not have to be a puppet to someone else's whim. I could leave my storybook. If you are curious about what happened next you can take a peek into my adventures.

Now I am reviewing other characters' stories, and I must say they have my sympathy. The first book I am reviewing, Chris Wooding's Poison, could not be more appropriate. You see, in this tale the most powerful man in the realm, the Hierophant, confides in Poison that she is actually a character in a story he is creating. At this point, you can guess how she feels. Yep--just like I did. So after almost drowning in the wave of emotions, she simply lays down to die. She has been struggling so bravely throughout the entire book, but now she cannot see the point in anything. Luckily for her (and the other characters) she is convinced by a good friend to not give up. What do you think would happen to the other characters if she had died? I am sure you can guess that they would all have disappeared. In fact, as she nears death, they begin to waste away in front of her eyes.

But I have started at the end, so now I will go back to where Poison's tale begins, "once upon a time" in a treacherous “black marsh”--an inhospitable area like all of the fringe places where the humans have been forced to flee by the powerful phaeries. The same phaerie folk who steal Poison’s sister and replace her with a changeling at the beginning of her story. Poison is determined to find her sister in the Phaerie Realm and bring her home again, even though through phaerie tales she knows well the danger of such a quest. But even she cannot anticipate the bizarre and terrifying experiences she will have along the way. In the looming, gothic manor which is the liminal passing place between the realm of Man and the Realm of Phaeries, she must evade Maeb, the Bone Witch. This twisted, hulking guardian is both deaf and blind, but she can hunt Poison down by her smell. After narrowly escaping into the phaerie land, Poison later has to outmaneuver a giant arachnid on its monstrous web and outwit ghoulish, schizophrenic Asinastra, Lady of the Spiders. These physical and intellectual battles seem like insignificant trifles, however, once she meets the Hierophant in his vast labyrinth of a library. It is here Poison learns she is merely part of the book he is creating and almost gives up on life.

What does Poison do once she decides she wants to live--even if she is a character in someone else's tale? Well, you will have to read to find out. It is a truly remarkable story--whoever's story it is!

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

2008-11-23T03:10:00.018-06:00

In the quiet darkness of my bedroom as a young child, I would assure myself that if anyone tried to sneak in my window, my stuffed animals and dolls would come to life and save me. I was very protective of them, and I believed they felt the same way about me. In The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, I think young Abilene shares this belief. She loves her hand-crafted, debonair rabbit made of china and soft rabbit fur.

When she must leave him each school day, she gently kisses his ears and assures him she will return “home” to him. She places him at the window so he can wait and watch for her, but what he waits for is the moment the sky grows dark enough that he can watch his own reflection, instead. Nothing compares to himself.

Abilene is oblivious to Edward’s vanity, but her grandmother is not. Old, wise Pellegrina is the one who commissioned his creation for her granddaughter’s seventh birthday, and she is the one who can see straight though his blue painted eyes right into his selfish heart. One night she tells Edward and Abilene a fairy tale about a “princess who loved no one and cared nothing for love, even though there were many who loved her.” A witch turns the loveless girl into a warthog and in that form she is killed by the men who are trying to save her. Edward feels strangely unsettled by this story and by Pellegrina’s piercing gaze throughout.

That gaze and story will come back to haunt him. Everything seems fine until Abilene’s family takes a cruise across the sea and Edward is accidentally thrown overboard. Then he ends up face down on the ocean floor where he feels his first emotion—fear. Fear for himself. As he lays stuck in the muck for months, the grandmother’s story comes back to him, and he finally begins to analyze it. He angrily decides Pellegrina has cursed him. She is responsible for his plight. These are the thoughts that fill his china head for two hundred and ninety-seven days, until finally a raging storm rips him from the sea bottom and hurls him into the air. A fisherman’s net snags Edward and thus begins his journey. The fisherman and his wife take special care of Edward and when their jealous daughter tosses him into the dump, he finally feels something in his heart. He misses them.

A hobo’s dog discovers Edward there, and he travels comfortably with them and other hobos for almost seven years. They have an understanding—about journey and loss. Then one night a railroad worker throws Edward from a train and he is alone again. Soon a woman finds him, and she sees his potential right away. Potential as a scarecrow for her garden. A young boy who works for her has other ideas. Bryce saves Edward from his wooden cross and takes him home to his little sister who is deathly ill. Sara Ruth loves him fiercely and his heart breaks when she dies. Her grieving brother turns the china rabbit into a puppet for entertainment on the sidewalks of Memphis. When the homeless boy can’t pay all of his café check, the owner swings Edward high into the air and crushes his head into jagged pieces. Bryce then makes a heart-wrenching sacrifice for love. He forms a deal with toy mender. If the craftsman will fix Edward, the boy will allow him to have the rabbit.

While Bryce is losing another loved one, Edward experiences a remarkable vision. He finds himself walking to the front door of Abilene’s house and discovers inside all of the people he has come to love—everyone except Sara Ruth. The others show him that she is now a constellation sparkling in the heavens. As he wishes he could fly to her, he realizes he has wings. He joyfully begins his flight to join her, but the others pull him back to earth. They cannot bear to lose him again. At this point Edward regains consciousness and finds himself alone with the toy mender.

Once he is mended and displayed on the toy shop shelf, Edward must make a decision. Has he been hurt so badly that he has given up on love or can he find hope in his heart? I won’t reveal the ending, but in a way, the ending is not dependent on Edward’s dramatic decision.

This is one point I found troubling about this book. Long ago I read that it is important for the protagonist in a children’s book to be active. Maybe this is because adults want children to feel empowered—“child, you control your destiny!” Of course, this isn’t exactly true, but most adults don’t want to encourage children to feel powerless.

But powerless is what Edward often seems to be. People find him, take care of him or mistreat him until he is taken from his owners and the cycle begins again. In the meantime, Edward is experiencing all manner of emotions, from pride to humility, arrogance to love. Unfortunately, no one is aware of how he is feeling except the other toys and seemingly Pellegrina. If Edward had completely given up hope on that shelf, there is no reason that the action at the end would have changed in the least. He would not have grown as a character, which is important, but the “Miraculous” action would have occurred anyway.

Perhaps DiCamillo is making a statement about how some children feel in the foster care system. I am not sure. Maybe she is arguing that we cannot control every aspect of life, but we can control how we react. I don’t know. It certainly seems possible. Or she may have just crafted a story about a toy rabbit, and she felt couldn’t let him move his arms and communicate to people. That would completely take away the hauntingly realistic feel of the book. The liminal quality occurs because toys might be feeling emotions like Edward, but we have no way of knowing.

That gets to the heart of my problem with this poetically written, beautifully illustrated novel. Following DiCamillo’s rules, years ago my toys might have hated me— I just didn’t know it. I believed they would save me, but maybe like Edward early on, my toys cared only for themselves. Well, I knew then that my toys loved me, and as silly as it may sound, I won’t doubt that now. I don’t want any child to doubt that they know the heart of their dearly loved toys. This book may not be intended for children, but the child in this adult is not sure how she feels about Edward’s Miraculous Journey either.

Adrian Tomine. Summer blonde, Chris Oliveros, Hong Kong 2003

2008-11-16T23:19:00.006-06:00

One book, four stories.

I found “Summer blonde” by chance in the library: it was classified as a “youth book” that is for adolescent or young-adult readers.

Well, I picked it, I read it, I loved it.

Four gorgeous stories with the power to make you so sympathetic that it’s like you’re reading a very emotional fiction book: you can’t do anything else, you want only to read… as you do when you read some of that fiction book that, in the end, you put on your favorite bookshelf.

They are four black and white drawn graphic novels and the weird thing is that they seem like watching a movie. Reading the stories I believed that the characters were real people with tangible problems.

The main characteristic, well, the one I think belongs to all the four stories, is the ambiguity. Adrian Tomine, the author, photographs pieces of life of his characters making us perceiving they are borderline dangerous. Up to the end of the story you have this defined awareness: characters are ambiguous and live on the edge of the normal daily life (a not so happy one).

The title of the book is taken from the second story in which a man fall in love with a blonde girl. She doesn’t know it, she meets him only when he buys something in her shop. He is depressed and when finds out that she is dating his neighbor, he acts a weird: he is jealous, angry, and envious. He succeeds in creating a lot of problems for his neighbor and the beloved blonde. The reader is left hanging without a resolution, as in the other three stories and this makes each novel very provocative.

I believe that the most provocative of the three stories is “Hawaiian Getaway”, I really loved it. It is intense, emotional and very sympathetic. Hillary Chan, the “star” is an Asian girl in a bad moment of her life: she got fired, has no friends, looks like depressed, her roommate moved out. Besides, Hillary’s mother has a special power to make her feel guilty and frustrated. When everything is wrong, and only a bomb could create more problems, something special happens, as once or twice happens in the life. It could be a possibility to change her life, or only a very good day.

I love the illustrations and the drawings of Adrian Tomine, and I think that, particularly in this story, they are made by a very sensitive hand. The strokes are very well delineated and you sre completely aware of the characters’ feelings. In fact the emotions are not only perceptible by the faces, but also by the bodies, posture and the kind of clothes. He draw realistically. I think he is a very good artist. Besides, he can use the language well in many ways: rendering the mandarin accent of Hillary’s mother or the informal and everyday speech of the American speakers. Pictures are bright and clear, but there is also an interesting use of the black which in some frames tells us how we are “listening”. “Alter Ego” and “Scared bomb” are respectively the first and the last story. Probably they are also the darker stories and the protagonists are almost frightening. I needed to go back and read again to try to understand. Ambiguity is everywhere and the only reasonable thing is that each one finds his/hers own answers.

My suggestion is to read this book; it is really a work of art.

Mirror Mirror, Gregory Maguire

2008-11-13T19:40:00.008-06:00

Gregory Maguire has proved himself again. The enormously popular author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Lost has consistently given readers a minutely detailed world in which they can lose themselves. Mirror Mirror, a retelling of the fairytale Snow White is a small cut above the rest of Maguire’s books, in my opinion. Mirror Mirror offers a very different story from other fairytale “retreadings” – it shoots through multiple twists, illustrates background stories of many characters, allows the complex, multi-faceted characters to “speak” in their turn – all the while managing to stick to the storyline of Snow White.

The story begins in Spain of 1502. Vicente de Nevada is the head of the farming estate, Montefiore. His only daughter, Bianca, keeps company with the old, crotchety, smart-aleck cook Primavera Vecchi and with the priest of Montefiore, Fra Ludovico. Everything on the estate is peaceful and life moves interrupted until the day that Vicente de Nevada unearths a strange but beautiful mirror while unplugging a small pond. He hangs it in his house – it doesn’t seem to serve any other purpose than to show the reflection of those who look into it. Soon afterward, Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia arrive at Montefiore to force the charge of finding three legendary Apples from the Tree of Knowledge of Eden upon Vicente de Nevada. He struggles against the conniving siblings’ will, but as they are children of the Pope, resistance is futile, and Vicente de Nevada reluctantly leaves his daughter Bianca in Lucrezia’s rather careless care. Cesare, a frivolous, mentally-decrepit man, goes off to find objects, men and women that please him, while Lucrezia is left at Montefiore to commandeer Montefiore and watch over Bianca. It is during this time that she becomes entrapped by what she sees inside the mirror.

No character in this book, not even Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia, is as clear-cut as “good” and “bad.” While motives can be perceived as evil, there are motives under those motives that leave questions in the reader’s mind as to who they really are under their facade, why they are doing what they are doing, and what would they be if they had not been born into the situation they were. It brings up a question that Maguire also brought up in Wicked: Are people born wicked? Or do they become wicked through their environments? The dash of ambiguity that Maguire peppers in adds further complexity to the characters that, on a surface level, might considered evil and manipulative.

I will readily admit that it took three readings to receive all the small details and smaller plot points Mirror Mirror had to offer. The broken bits of poetry that don’t seem to make sense on the first reading, and the “dwarf’s” speeches are strange and abstract. This is a multi-leveled storyline that begs not to be read quickly.

This is not a children’s book, and not even a young adult book. While there are no sexual scenes in the traditional sense of the phrase, Maguire has never been one to mince words in any of his books when it comes to sex or his thinly veiled and strong dislike of organized religion. I note that Maguire apparently despises religion (particularly the Christian religion) in Wicked, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and Mirror Mirror. This – and several explicit sexual mentions – is likely to be offensive to some readers.

Maguire knows what makes an impact on his readers – a phenomenal sense of imagination and the ability to communicate his imagination onto paper. He is a true lover and creator of words both unfamiliar and hilarious. But his imagination would have been virtually nothing if not for his ability to weave a story that involves the reader, invites the reader’s opinions and questions, and insists on being read multiple times. Surely, Mirror Mirror deserves a place on the “Classics” shelf alongside Maguire’s other works.

I Wouldn't Go There: Elizabeth Scott's Living Dead Girl

2008-11-06T11:24:00.007-06:00

I don’t like to take the time to review books that I’m not wild about. In fact, I have urged writers on this blog to avoid outright negative reviews. Why, I ask, would you want to spend time on writing a negative review when so many negative attitudes exist anyway? But, they haven’t always listened to me, and now I’m not going to listen to my own advice.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m always looking for “edgy” books for young readers, where authors take a chance, where they resist the urge to provide a tidy ending. I search for ambiguity, for uncertainty frequently compels readers to return to a book to search for answers when none are to be found, and think about it over and over again. That is one of the hallmarks of a well-written book, at least for me. Thus, when I read a review that Living Dead Girl lets readers get into the character’s head, and other reviews that described it as gripping, difficult to put down and so on, I thought, I’ll give it a try. I shouldn’t have. I wish I hadn’t.

LDG is the story of Kyla Davis, age 10, who is abducted by a truly sick man, Ray. He renames her Alice, perhaps as a way to evoke Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the speculation of Lewis Carroll’s own preoccupation with young girls. Ray starves her to keep her from “growing up” and rapes and brutalizes her. When Ray grows tired of her after 5 years, he enlists Alice to help him find another young girl.

One reviewer said the book made her feel like a voyeur. I agree. More specifically, it reminded me of the compulsion, when driving down the road and seeing an awful, awful accident, to look, to rubberneck as the traffic reporter says on television. Why do I look? I hate that about myself. I hate it that I even think about looking. It also reminds me of the popularity of shows like Jerry Springer, where the audience seems to thrill at the sight of others debasing themselves in public. In fact, Alice watches some of those shows. Scott uses them to critique a blame-the-victim culture. However, that this book has received so many positive reviews says more about a culture that watches other people’s pain from the safe distance of television or a book. As for the claim that it’s well-written? Does shock and awe make something well-written?

It makes me kind of crazy when I hear adults say “this isn’t a kid’s book!” when that adult doesn’t agree with the portrayal of young people doing things that young people do. Or those who make it their responsibility to make decisions about what everyone reads (see, for instance, http://www.wmtw.com/video/17339497/index.html). But honestly? This isn’t a book for anyone--unless you want to see blood on the highway.

Santiago Wilfred, In My Darkest Hour, Gary Groth & Kim Thompson, 2004

2008-10-26T20:58:00.011-05:00

Ok. I took a while to digest this book. I suggest only older teenager read it and only if they are ready to look at every weird and strange and also disgusting scene, only if they are not right-thinking or just attached to good manners. You will like this book only if you don’t feel bad to look at and read an offensive way to deal with religion, politics, relationships. I am 30 years old and I still don’t know if I was ready to read this book. Maybe there are a lot of things more extreme, more provocative, but, I admit it, I am a little disoriented.

I’ll try to describe you “In my darkest hour”, but I assure you: it’s not so simple.
First of all: the approach. The first thing I noticed when I began to read it, was that it’s really a multimedia “container”: a lot of different fonts—from the bad handwritten to the most classic printed. One hundred and twenty eight pages full of pictures—drawings and photographs mixed—black and white pictures, or black, white, and yellow or black and white with sepia tones. Then, every media appears in the pictures: the radio or the tv are often on giving some news, and then the cinema, the computer, e-mail and letters, phones and cell phones—all the communication tools are present. These are only some of the variations you can find in this fantagraphic novel. When I saw this multimodal narrative, I thought: “cool!” Going ahead in my reading I found out the contents conveyed are often not so cool.

The story. I have to warn that at the beginning it isn’t clear what is the story about. Images, people and dialogues shift from a focus to another and, in fact, this shifting gives also the perfect perception that Wilfred Santiago, the author, wants to demonstrate us: a chaotic, still realistic, life story.

Actually the story is about Omar, a Latin American man, who has a quite squalid life and seems to have a bipolar disorder. He drinks too many alcoholic beverages—often he sleeps on the floor because of the alcohol and isn’t able to reach his bed—, he smokes too much, he betrays his girlfriend, Lucinda. He doesn’t want to get his diploma in culinary arts and he isn’t interested in nothing, but women, of course.

The shifting. Something changes when Lucinda decides to break up with him. First he becomes aggressive and then begins to cry.
From that moment his aim is “focus on how to get Lucinda back”. Obviously in the meanwhile he has a sort of story with another girl, but it is not a relationship, more a kind of.

The epilogue. A period of desperation and depression, then he begins to meet Lucinda as a friend up to when they get to live together loving each other. Now Omar seems to have a serene and normal life, well, a sort of. Maybe.

Some reflection. I like the idea of putting together so many different styles and ways to communicate. As a matter of fact in our life it is something common to be overwhelmed by a lot of inputs, information, and messages given in many different ways. Besides. I’m not some kind of bigot or impressionable person, but I think that some pictures are too vulgar. If Wilfred Santiago wanted to describe the decay in its drastic shape, he succeeded in with this “fantagraphic” novel.

Tim Sievert, That salty air,Top Shelf Productions, Canada: 2008

2008-10-26T20:45:00.008-05:00

I come from a sea city, Naples, in Italy. The gulf of Naples opens into the Mediterranean Sea and since I was a child the sea has been an important part of my life. Now I am an adult and still miss the sea, when I can’t see it for a long time or at least listen to the waves on the beach.
Every summer I used to go with my family to the seaside and my brother and I swam for hours with the scuba mask on our faces to see the amazing world that lives under the sea. However, next to the love for it, next to the beautiful memories I have of it, I was taught to respect the sea, in two different senses: on one hand you have to keep it clean, you have to take care of the creatures and the plants that live in it, the other sense is that you have to know that the sea can be dangerous, therefore the relationship with the sea involves that you have to know what you can do, where you can go and when, depending on the climate, the wind, and the geographical place.

“That salty air” is a graphic novel about a fisherman, Hugh, and his relationship with the sea. He has a house by the sea where he lives with his wife, Maryanne.

Hugh is a quite satisfied man, he loves his job and “that salty air” around him when he is on his small boat. He respects the sea, taking what he needs and leaving alive and in peace all the rest, as that small sea horse that he finds in the grab-all.

One day, some bad family news arrives and he, desperate, uncorks his rage against the sea. But, as I said, sometimes the sea can be dangerous. An octopus appears, and it seems to be the judge, who sees justice done. Hugh has taken off something from the sea, with violence, only to give vent to his rage, forgetting the love for his wife, for the sea, and for that salty air.

The octopus decides to take off something from him on the basis of some kind of eye-for-an-eye rule. Have you ever touch the arms (as I saw in Wikipedia the tentacles is the word only for squids and cuttlefishes) of an octopus? There are suction cups on them and if it is big as in the drawings of this novel and if it hugs you as it does with Maryanne, you have no hope to survive.

When Hugh is going to loose Maryanne and the baby growing in her tummy, he is desperate, he understands how his family is important in his life and so asks the octopus to take him instead of his wife. The octopus frees the woman. But the love of Maryanne, and her request to leave him alive make Hugh safe. However the rules of the nature want Hugs to pay for his ill-omened behavior and so the octopus takes something very important as a “payment”. Hugh and Maryanne come back home together on their boat at the crack of dawn.

All the images are black and white and the feelings and the facial expressions are very well conveyed.
This book is the debut of a twenty five years old artist, Tim Sievert. I think that it is a great graphic narrative, emotional and deep, full of very realistic feelings that, mixed with the fantasy, shape a very interesting reading.

Twilight's Glamour

2008-10-26T14:47:00.022-05:00

What does it mean to you to be human? I can’t say that I think about it often and I am not sure how much I value it. After all, what are the alternatives? Being an animal? Death? But what if you could trade your “humanness” for heavenly beauty and unearthly power? Of course, we know from mythology there is always a price for such divine gifts. What if these celestial qualities were balanced with relentless dark desires—the instinct to attack humans and consume their life energy? Combine this with the strength to do so at will even if you maintain the aversion to murder. And immortality. But is immortality a gift or a curse? Or both?

If I were tempted to exchange my mortal life for this supernatural existence (as the cover suggests), I would have to wrestle with these issues long and hard. 17 year-old Bella, in Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, does not seem to struggle with her decision. She sees this inhuman eternity as blessed infinity with her vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen. Edward attempts to warn her of the pain involved in the transformation process, the torment of his murderous impulses and the complications of never aging. Bella apparently ignores all of his hard-won wisdom, just as she ignores his advice to not become involved with him in the first place. Somehow for Bella, being with Edward is worth the risk of instant death. Edward is tortured by her unique scent; it deliriously entices him to be near her, but it also overwhelms him with the urge to drink her all of her blood. Bella teases him with the word masochist, and he jokes back that she is suicidal. But are they right?

Bella often comments on Edward’s ethereal beauty—his marble statuesque physique, dazzling golden eyes, “perfect nose” and “flawless lips”. She feels unworthy of his love or even attention. She finds it difficult to speak or even think when he smiles at her. Does his appearance, his fairy-like “glamour”, place her under a spell which dissolves her survival instinct? Or does she see society as a hierarchy of beauty and her suicidal tendencies spring from another source?

What about Bella’s parents? If she chooses to lose her humanness, she dissolves her ties to the life they gave her, her ties to them. She will be forced to live with Edward and his “family” of vampires. And even though she has not been accepted by Edward’s “sister”, Rosalie, (and might even be hated by her) Bella seems to dream of trading families as well as forms of existence. The rest of the unusual family cares for her or finds her entertaining, but like Edward, Rosalie has the power to kill Bella at whim. This does not give Bella pause.

Her life with her own parents has more normal problems. Her parents divorced when she was a baby, and she has lived with her mother in sunny Phoenix since that time. Now her mother has fallen for a young baseball player and she seems willing to trade Bella for a life with him in Florida. Bella offered to move in with her distant father in gloomy Forks, Washington, and her mother allowed her to do so.
Bella’s father is used to living alone, and Bella is almost like a ghost in his house. A ghost that cooks and cleans, but who has little direct interaction with him. He cares about his daughter, but doesn’t know how to show her or even how to talk to her.

Vampire Edward may want to kill her on a primal level, but he certainly knows how to spotlight her with attention. Life with him is never boring or normal, either—it is visceral and physical. Bella feels alive with her undead boyfriend. Maybe that is why she is not afraid to trade away her limited human existence to experience life with him for eternity.

Take away Edward’s vampire “glamour” and is he just another dangerous guy with abusive tendencies? An escape from distant, self-involved parents and mundane problems? I think most of Meyer’s fans would argue that Twilight minus the fantasy would not be Twilight—it would just be dark. It is the liminal quality which spins the threads of this adolescent problem novel into a silken web of romance.

This is the youtube trailer for the Twilight film being released November 21, 2008.

This image is a gateway to the Official Twilight movie site (twilightthemovie.com).

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

2008-10-26T13:05:00.003-05:00

After I went and saw Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (which will be my next review), I found this book and was intrigued.

Think about it: You have been best friends with a guy since you were little, you’ve fallen for him but he’s gay. You know that he’s gay and yet you still hold out for that tiny hope that he might decide that he isn’t and that he’s really in love with you, especially since you two practiced kissing together when you were thirteen. Some people would just give up, but not Naomi. Even before we enter the story it’s complicated. Ely is the son of a lesbian couple, one of which slept with Naomi’s father and caused the divorce of Naomi’s parents. Instead of breaking a friendship apart, it only brings them closer together. Well, until now…

What happens when best friend kisses your boyfriend? It’s one thing if you cheated on your boy/girl friend with the opposite sex but with someone of the same sex…It definitely changes some things in the relationships of all of them. The irony is that Ely and Naomi have what they call the “No Kiss List”: a list of men that neither of them can kiss in an effort to protect each other’s relationships and somehow Naomi’s boyfriend wasn’t on the list because, well, they both thought that Bruce II wasn’t his type.

This is a book that deals with relationships in very interesting ways. As most of you may know by now, I don’t like to “spoil the endings” so I’ll let you go find it and read it for yourself. You’ll find that it is a pretty engaging read.

Most of the characters get their own chapters as they tell their parts of the stories. I enjoy getting inside the heads of the characters in a story because sometimes the motives just aren’t clear when you have a narrator. I don’t like feeling like something is missing, and I have noticed that this approach could be a great way to do some creative writing if you want to get into the character’s head without it all getting too confusing.

My favorite part of the story is when Gabriel creates a playlist for Naomi. Since you probably haven’t read the book at this point, I get that I am pulling a random scene for you but I am a music nut and I love how he uses music to tell her what he is thinking and even more importantly, how he feels about her.

Using the idea of a mixed tape, he puts together songs and writes an explanation for why he chose them (leading up to him asking her out). If you don’t know much about the songs, even after you read his reasons for choosing them you are more than likely not going to understand some of the implied meanings from the music lyrics. I am not saying that you need to go and search for the lyrics online (unless you are a music nerd like I am) but I am saying that the scene is much more meaningful if you are able to make those types of connections.

Overall, I love how these two authors have collaborated to make this book. I am not sure how exactly they have arranged it (because there are several ways that they could have done it) but it really works.

Until next time!

Lauren Myracle: rhymes with witches

2008-10-25T14:18:00.005-05:00

High School. The phrase can mean a lot of different things but usually people think that the “social hierarchy” is broken up of those who are popular, and those who wish that they were. Well, that’s at least what Jane thought when she entered her freshman year.

The “Bitches” were the most popular girls in the school. The four of them, one from each grade level, decide who is popular and who is not. Each year, the upper three choose a girl from the freshman class that has the “most potential”. They have to want it more than any other girl and they have to be prepared to give up what they have to get it. As far as storylines go, that sounds pretty standard. Jane gets put to the test, and she realizes that she doesn’t want what they have, not to mention that some really “strange” things start happening. She didn’t want to believe her friends when they warned her but I am not even sure that I would be able to “give up” a new found popularity. Would you? Do you even think that you might have what it takes if you were in her situation?

I am going to let you check out whether it’s too late for her or not and what she does to resolve her issues. Or maybe she doesn’t resolve them?

My reviews usually in some way are informed by some of the media used within them but in this case, it has none. I saw the title of the book and I was really intrigued. Most of you are probably familiar with Lauren Myracle (specifically through the ttyl series) and I thought that this book would be different, and believe me I was right. She does incorporate brief chat sessions and such in the novel but I think one of the things that really struck me is that it despite everything, technology was at a minimum. Perhaps that is what made the impact of the story more interesting. The subject matter was one that we can all relate to in some form or another but Myracle provides little twists to the story that don’t make it as predictable as other stories about the girl who tries to gain popularity during high school. I mean, this book isn’t going to be what you expect and I read the book in two hours, flat. Just couldn’t put it down.

After I finished reading the book, I did something I don’t usually do. I read the “About the Author” section. I don’t really want to go into why I don’t do that, but I wanted to briefly talk about something that I found very interesting that she said. She mentions that she had read Flowers for Algernon (if you haven’t read it, you need to. It is quite a good read.) and wondered if it was possible to “manipulate popularity”. I started to think about what exactly that means, especially in the context of this book. This isn’t going to make too much sense to you now, but I know it will once you read this book. It might help if you read Flowers for Algernon as well (otherwise it’s an empty reference). Think about that though, manipulating popularity. How much of that do we see now in what we would call, “the real world”? What do you think?

Jeff Kinney: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

2008-10-25T10:58:00.007-05:00

How many of you write in a journal? I know that I do (well, when I have time) and I write all sorts of things that at least I find interesting. Occasionally, if I am not journaling on my computer, I find myself doodling as well, to get ideas or sometimes just for the fun of it.

When I first saw this book, one question came to mind. What is the difference between a journal and a diary? Ok, so being that I am a girl, and girls are more likely to have had a diary, I feel like it is safe to answer this question. As a kid, a diary for me was one of those pink thick books that had a small lock on it in order to keep other people out because a diary isn’t a diary unless it has that small lock and the gold printed

DIARY

right in the middle of the top center of the book. Sometimes one might see a “KEEP OUT” or something like that but that was the gist of it. Now a journal is something different to me because a journal doesn’t have that kind of prerequisites that a diary does. You don’t have to label it or anything like that. People wouldn’t necessarily know that it is a journal unless they were nosy and decided to read it.

So, I have a reason for why I went into that lengthy explanation is because Greg Heffley begged his mother for a JOURNAL, not something that said the word DIARY. Instead of listening to her son, Greg’s mom got him a red diary to write in. He didn’t even want it but she insisted.

Making the best out of a particularly bad situation, Greg decides to tell us his story through pictures and words. He draws his friends, family, and the situations that he finds himself in as a kid in middle school. Greg knows that he isn’t completely innocent throughout this whole thing, but in some ways he’s got a pretty raw deal. He draws himself as a “wimpy” kid: small, scrawny, and well easy to push around.

(Have any of you seen the TV show “Doug” from Nickelodeon? I am not sure if it’s still on TV anymore but they kind of look like that. That’s what I thought of anyway; maybe after you read the book you can give me a newer reference.)

Anyway, the book itself is hilarious! As the reader, you can see where you might want to tell Greg, “Don’t do it!” and then laugh because he did it anyway. I don’t want to tell about specific stories necessarily because I don’t think I can tell you about it all as well as he can. When you read the part where he “joins the swim team”, think of me because I cracked up laughing. You’ll just need to read it in order to figure out what I am talking about.

As far as different medias, I mentioned that this story contains a lot of graphics. I am not sure if I would call this a graphic novel because it doesn’t necessarily LOOK like a lot of the graphic novels that I have seen, and after all it’s a diary. Maybe I was just intrigued by getting to look at someone in different way. Would you want someone reading your diary?

John Green: An Abundance of Katherines

2008-10-25T10:23:00.004-05:00

Who would have thought that a mathematically based narrative could possibly be interesting? Personally, I struggle on the math front but you never know! You too could be walking through a bookstore…wait a minute. I bet you don’t want to hear about how I found the book, just mainly what I think about the book.

If I were mathematically inclined, I would include a graph that would resemble a parabola that would predict whether you would enjoy this book. It sounds silly but that is along the lines of what Colin does in this book. He’s been dumped several—no nineteen times by girls named Katherine. Not Kat, Cathy, Rina, or any other substitute will do, it must be Katherine. Why? He’s a mathematician and a linguist who likes to anagram in his spare time.

After nineteen times of being the “dumpee”, Colin and his friend Hassan go on a road trip for the summer that lead him to Gunshot, Tennessee. Population: Blink and Miss, but they stop to see the grave of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and end up getting a job collecting interviews from factory workers for an oral history project.

Did I mention that Colin is practically a genius? I have to say that it is one of the things that I really like about him; however, he doubts himself a lot. Hassan even tells him that most of the things that he knows are completely uninteresting but they really do help him build his character. Colin is a good guy who is unsure of himself and I think that is part of the reason why you want to root for him. You want him to figure out his theory so that he can move on with his life (and perhaps stop obsessing about girls named Katherine!)

Green does a fabulous job interweaving mathematical concepts into a wonderful narrative. It’s even easy to follow, even if you don’t necessarily understand what the math means. Early in the story, the narrator promises that he isn’t going to use any more math, but he can’t do that because math is what drives this story—well that and Colin’s car (lovingly called “Satan’s Hearse”)

My particular column focuses on media and how it affects the narrative and I must say that this book uses an extensive amount of footnotes. It isn’t hard to follow but I must say that they will make you chuckle. Not only are there translations of other languages, but there are visual representations of the math equations. Even if you don’t get it, they are still fun to look at. I thought about it as an internal monologue of what might have been going on in Colin’s head.

I know I keep focusing on the math, but the theory behind The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability is actually explained at the end of the text. Green asked a friend, Daniel Biss, to explain this whole theory would work from a mathematical point of view. Talk about dedication to accuracy!

I found this book by accident, but I am really glad that I decided to buy it and read it. It took me on an unexpected adventure and I couldn’t put it down. I won’t decide to declare a second major in math, but it definitely made me appreciate the usefulness of it down the road.

words are not enough

2008-10-24T18:25:00.009-05:00

Sometimes words can be substituted by images and sometimes you can explain images with words, but often the more interesting messages are conveyed by the “team work” of words and images. WATERTOWER is the product of the team work of the writer Gary Crew and the illustrator Steven Woolman. It’s rare that someone puts together writing art and graphic art to reach a so much harmonious connection. This book has in fact won the Australian Children’s Picture Book of the Year Award in 1998.

The words are white on black background and the images have vivid and warm colors: there is a preponderance of red, orange, and yellow tones. You have to read everything, I mean, also the images: if you want to gather the clues and rebuild the puzzle from its pieces, it’s not enough to only look at the images, you have to observe them very carefully, you have to look for the details. You have to do it also for a practical reason: while reading you are obliged to continuously turn the book, even upside-down and this incredibly gives rhythm to the reading act and makes you involved into the story: it is a multimedia in various and weird senses.

The principal character of the story is not a living creature, but an “egg-shaped tank” with iron rusted legs, place at Shooters Hill; the landscape is a small Australian town where most of the people have red caps and dress with blue jeans and white shirts.

Spike Trotter and Bubba D’Angelo, two teens of the village, decide to go up and then into the tank for a swim. They know that people says that it could be dangerous, “but it’s worth it, hey?” Spike is brave and defiant, Bubba is more reluctant and fearful. The inside of the tank is dark and Bubba does not feel comfortable with the water. He looks for Spike in the darkness, but he can neither find nor hear his friend. He goes out of the tank and his pants aren’t there. Spike arrives and reassure Bubba: he will run toward Bubba’s house to take other pants.

Like in a movie with the voiceover, the words describe us what Bubba does or thinks, while the images show us Spike that goes through the town up to the window of the room of his friend. Nobody in the village can see him because everybody is looking at the tank, something is happening, something they perfectly know but that always capture their glances.

The images illustrate a quite and sunny day, but the words announce that something threatening is about to happen.

Some people with perverse smiles and white lighted eyes are looking up and we know that even if they seem satisfied, something terrible is going on to Bubba. His face is terrified and after this, he has a nasty look, his eyes aren’t the same, Spike cannot recognize his friend. Something has happened and when you look better at Bubba, you find out that he has a symbol on his hand: an almost closed circle of segments. You go backward because at the end of the book you understand that this is not a graphic novel as the most you read, here you have to stare at the images and you can identify the unsaid. Going backward you’ll notice that the same symbol is on the tank, on the red caps and on the hand of a man…

InkDeath, Cornelia Funke

2008-10-23T12:56:00.006-05:00

The eagerly anticipated third installment of the InkHeart trilogy has finally arrived, and it was every bit worth the wait! The characters, the plot, the terror, the excitement, and InkWorld itself was every bit more real and realized in this book.

For those of you who don’t know the story, it is about a girl discovers her father’s voice entices characters out of the pages of books every time he reads aloud, his love of books is so complete. When something comes out, however, something else must go in, and he has no control over what those might be. He has already accidently read some particularly nasty characters, and an intriguing fire dancer, out of the pages of a book called InkHeart, only to discover that his beloved wife was read into those pages as well.

Not to ruin the story for you, but Mo and Meggie are eventually read into the book themselves where they fall under the InkSpell, caught like flies in a web of words in which they may, or may not have control over.

InkDeath concludes their tale. Mo must face his most difficult challenge yet. He must save InkWorld from a cruel tyrant, delivering him to death. And he’s on a time limit. The only catch; Mo made the tyrant immortal in the second novel to save his wife and daughter. Don’t think him a bad fellow though because the book bears him out as a hero of the highest order. He’s clever, brave, handsome, has a voice like honey, and a heart of gold to match, but a heart can be a dangerous thing in a world where cruelty and survival of the fittest and most traitorous rules.

The plot is definitely fantastic, and there is so much going on you’ll find yourself wanting to read all three again and again. For instance, how much power do the words we use have over our destiny, shaping who we are and controlling the outcome of our lives? It’s the characters in which Funke excels however. In the first book you come to care for Meggie and Mo as well as a few other minor characters. In the second she develops them into living, breathing people whose nightmares and tragedies become a part of yourself. In InkDeath they whisper the story to you as if they are sitting beside you as you read.

Mo, who battles with the story itself as it swallows his identity and replaces it with a Robber called the Blue Jay, and Dust Finger the fire dancer, both of whom faced death once already and returned from the “white women” to right the wrongs in InkWorld, truly come alive by the end of the story. Of all the characters I’ve read (and I’ve read a few, take my word for it), these two rank high within a list of top ten to twenty. Anyone familiar with R. A. Salvatore’s Black Elf trilogy who fell in love Drizzt and Zachnaefin will want to read these books and savor a new hero well worth reading multiple times over.

All three of the InkHeart novels are lengthy (between 400-660 pages), so I can only sing so many praises to entice you into treating yourself to a fine set of writing by a talented, award winning author. All I will say is that the story of Mo and Dust Finger are only two of the many stories within a tale that truly weaves the reader into it like a spider’s web. Come get caught in the words. You won’t be sorry you did.

**Judge Jordana’s verdict: The InkDeath Penalty!

Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese

2008-10-22T22:17:00.006-05:00

Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese is actually three stories rolled into one. First there is the story of the Monkey King and his conflict with the other gods because they don’t recognize him as a god, and they don’t invite him to their party. Thinking perhaps his lack of invitation was just an oversight, a mistake, he presents himself at the party. However, he is laughed at because he is only a monkey, and they are, after all, gods. Then, when they try to throw him out, he becomes angry and trashes everyone and everything and then goes home to pout.

Next the reader is introduced to Jin Wang, a young Chinese American boy, moving to a new house and a new school in a new neighborhood. Here the audience witnesses all the erroneous assumptions made about Jin because of his Chinese heritage: that he is not American even though he was born in San Francisco; that even though other people of Chinese heritage eat dogs, Jin’s family probably stopped that practice as soon as they moved to the United States; that he is probably either related to Suzy Nakamura or engaged to her with plans in the works for them to marry when she turns thirteen because they are both of Asian descent; and that he is described as buck toothed even though he is not. His only “friend” is a fifth grader named Peter Garbinsky who mistreats him, i.e., stealing his lunch, using him as a tackling dummy, threatening to make him eat his (Peter’s not Jin’s) boogers if he does not give him (Peter) his (Jin’s) lunch. When Peter moves away to Pennsylvania, Jin is, once again, friendless. Then Wei-Chen Sun, a new boy from Taiwan enrolls at Jin’s school, and he wants to be friends with Jin. But Jin does not want to be friends with Wei-Chen, that is, not until he takes out his new transformers. Suddenly Jin is interested, and the two boys become best friends.

Finally, Wang introduces the story of Danny, an all American teenager, whose drooling over his friend Melanie is rudely interrupted by the arrival of his awful cousin Chin-Kee from China. Wait a minute! Danny, all American teenager, has a Chinese cousin??? Yep, you heard me right. And, Danny’s cousin looks like the stereotypical Chinaman and exhibits all the “expected” behaviors: he wears a queue; he is dressed in traditional dress; he is buck toothed; he claps his hands when happy or excited; and he speaks with a strong accent (unable to pronounce the letters “r” and “l.” Then, Chin-Kee slobbers all over Melanie (much like Danny did in the opening of the scene).

As the book progresses, the reader discovers more about each of the main characters: the Monkey King sets out to make himself the best, most super god of them all. But in order to do this, he thinks he must become less monkey-like and more god-like. Jin Wang develops a crush on a girl named Amelia Harris, but he is afraid to approach her. Then he decides that looking more like the popular white kid at school will help his cause. And Danny’s fear that he will be connected in any way with his Chinese heritage causes him to freak out when Melanie refuses to go out with him even though she says it is because she does not want to jeopardize their friendship.

I won’t spoil the end of the story for you. But I think you will like it. I certainly do.

The Walrus gives Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese three tusks up! Goo goo g’joob!

Pssst!
Do walruses have three tusks?
I don’t think so...
What do you suppose she means?
Ummm…I don’t know.

Anderson, Laurie H., Speak, Puffin Books: 2001, 198 pp.

2008-10-22T20:44:00.012-05:00

Both an ordinary and an extraordinary story. It tells about a weird world in which nobody understands you, lunch is a stressing moment, your best friend changes her name and suddenly hates you. A very strange world where often you need to hide, where you are not able to really demonstrate your feelings, a world where you feel guilty if someone hurts you, a world where everyday you wear the wrong shirt, the wrong skirt. But this is not the extraordinary part of the story. It deals with adolescence and you know, when you are a teen the extraordinary wonderful events and the extraordinary painful events are ordinary.
It is an extraordinary story because beside all the problematic concerns of adolescence, there is a secret, a terrible distressing event that made the adolescence of Melinda Sordino harder. It’s extraordinary because the story is also a process of recovering from that event and overtaking it (as far as it is possible) through small steps in everyday life.
The reader feels involved in some way in that process and keeps going beside Melinda. She doesn’t speak, she doesn’t want to speak—better, she says only few necessary words, and only when she decides to say them—but she thinks and is very ironic and smart: nobody among her teachers and schoolmates knows it, but we, as readers know what she thinks and often we smile at this. We know that she named her English teacher Hairwoman, that she would like to have some friends and that she has her own ideas. We know also that despite any teenager says he/she wants to have a distinctive personality, Melinda has it. She has critical thinking and she doesn’t like something only because other people do. We can read her thoughts and see that she would have a lot of things to say, and in a very sharp-tongued way, if she spoke.
"My parents didn’t raise me to be religious. The closest we come to worship is the Trinity of Visa, MasterCard, and American Express. I think the Merryweather cheerleaders confuse me because I missed out on Sunday School. It has to be a miracle. There is no other explanation. How else could they sleep with the football team on Saturday night and be reincarnated as virginal goddesses on Monday? It’s as if they operate in two realities simultaneously. In one universe, they are gorgeous, straight-teethed, long-legged, wrapped in designer fashions, and given sports cars on their sixteenth birthdays. Teachers smile at them and grade them on the curve. […] In Universe #2 they throw parties wild enough to attract college students. They worship the stink of Eau de Joke. They rent beach houses in Cancùn during Spring break and get group-rate abortions before the prom".
During her first year at the High School Melinda builds herself up, she learns how to make people respect her, she learns not to be a victim. But this is not simple and when she would escape, then she sleeps in her closet or hide in the secret, forgotten, small, and dirty room full of brooms and old sponges in the school. Melinda finds the strategy to defend herself also against the imposition of the professor who wants an oral reading of her paper, and like the suffragettes of her paper she fights against those things that aren’t fair; but she fights without speaking. The story nearly whisper on how David Petrakis, her “Lab Partner,” becomes her friend. He helps her in the “battle,” but he also helps her to understand that even the suffragettes needed their voices and their screams to contend their rights.
The character of Melinda is very strong and her irony, which is shared only with the readers, tells us also how teens are often unaware of their skills both intellectual and social. A book that’s worth reading, be it only for the interpretations Melinda gives of the dynamics inside the school between students and teachers and among students as well.
David Petrakis is a minor character but he shines in the story for his ethics, his braveness and probably because any reader expects that there is (or there will be) some sort of feeling between him and Melinda.
Towards the end of the book, the secret is revealed. Melinda realizes what happened, she does not feel guilty anymore because now she has learned how to paint a tree with her feelings, how to sow some seeds to make the flower grow; now she can speak. She can say: “I said no”.

Scott Westerfeld's Extras

2008-10-22T11:50:00.014-05:00

Aya Fuse is a fifteen-year-old ugly looking for a phenomenal story to kick so that her face rank will climb above 1,000. In a reputation based economy, one in which others judge you by how famous you are, she knows that only a really fantastic story will bring about the reputation surge she is looking for. Quite by accident, Aya happens to see a group known as the Sly Girls, a group some believe is just a myth, meg-leving on one of the late night super trains. Knowing that a story about this group will like totally kick her rank up to where she wants it to be, Aya takes her hovercam, Moggle, and sets out to follow Eden, the leader of the Sly Girls, as she sets off for a late-night rendezvous with her clique. Unfortunately, Aya is discovered and forced to send Moggle to the bottom of an underground reservoir of water to prove that she is not just another kicker looking for a story to boost her face rank. Moreover, she is forced to leave Moggle behind when the Sly Girls leave the underground lake, taking Aya with them.

Eventually, Aya retrieves her faithful hovercam and, by trickery, pulls together a story not about the Sly Girls meg-leving, but one about a group of aliens Aya and the Sly Girls discover stealing metal and using it to make bombs! The scariest part is that they already have enough bombs to destroy thousands of cities! Or at least that is the conclusion Aya, her brother Hiro, and his best friend Ren come to. But the best part of all is that when Aya’s story kicks, her face rank starts zooming to the top of the charts! Everyone is listening to her story! And it is a good thing, too! Her new face rank allows her to move into a super fancy, highly protected apartment—a place where she (and her brother and Ren and Aya’s new boyfriend Frizz) can hide from the aliens who are looking for the one who blew the whistle on them! Enter Tally Youngblood, heroine of the first three novels in the series, and her sometimes best friend Shay to rescue the frightened foursome. Except, that after they are all captured by the aliens, and, on the way to the aliens’ hideout, Tally tells them that she allowed them to be captured so that they can infiltrate the aliens’ hideout and destroy their arsenal of bombs!

The technology in Aya’s world is just to die for! You can view the Internet with just a mental “click” that calls your “monitor” into place---on your eyeball! How cool is that?! The walls even contain GIANT monitors where you can watch multiple leads at once! And, in order to have enough information for all these feeds, hovercams are everywhere, taking pictures of anyone who holds a face rank above 1,000. Westerfeld takes paparazzi to a whole new level!

Scott Westerfeld's series is an interesting read, but I found that the last two novels did not quite live up to the promise of the first two. First, I was disappointed that Tally was not the focus of the fourth book. I wanted to know more about what life was like in the wilds. And I wanted to know more about her relationship with David. Could they put the past behind them in order to have a future? Could a highly sophisticated human machine such as Tally push past her modifications, look beyond the physically imperfect David to the really good person he is inside? Could David see past her mods to find the still vulnerable human living inside the highly specialized body? Second, I struggle with the aliens, the real Extras of the story. Even though I recognize that Tally and Aya live in a world in which sophisticated surgery allows you to choose to look however you want to look, allows you to specialize your physical appearance to the current fad if you like, I found it difficult to accept the aliens. Perhaps this was due to their radical modifications. Perhaps I had trouble connecting their politics with their actions. Finally, there was just so much going on it was difficult to keep up with the story line at times. While that is always a possibility with any of the books in this series, the last two books seemed particularly convoluted.

The Walrus gives Extras one thumb up! Goo goo g’joob!

Scott Westerfeld’s Specials

2008-10-22T11:41:00.020-05:00

Revenge is rarely completely satisfying. Sometimes it takes a while for the conflict (the original and its payback) to work its way out. Sometimes it is never worked out, and the bad feelings linger. But what if it is your best friend (ok, ex-best friend) who turns on you? What if she traps you in a situation from which there is no return?

Her latest capture by Special Forces results in Tally Youngblood becoming a Special—not because she chooses to but because her ex-best friend Shay, now a Special too, is in the position to make her one and actually goes through with it! And all in the name of revenge! Now Tally, along with all the Cutters who are following Shay, is a member of that chillingly beautiful, terribly strong, unbelievably fast group of “soldiers” that carry out the directives of the authorities (i.e., Dr. Cable)! In fact, to quote Shay, they are “special Specials” (Pretties 367). To make matters worse, Shay is the commander of their particular group, and she is determined to make Tally’s life miserable. Talk about a friendship going south!

But as they work together, Tally and Shay become close again, and when Tally finds out that her boyfriend Zane has been returned to New Pretty town rather than made a Special like her and Shay, she convinces Shay to help her with a plan that will show Dr. Cable that Zane is Crim enough to be a Special. Their plan is to break into and destroy the city armory, convince Zane to run away to the New Smoke (thus making it look like he was behind the break in), and then follow him and bring him back to the city to pay for his crimes. Tally believes this “crime” will prove that Zane is worthy of becoming a “special Special.”

Of course, their plans go awry. Shay and Tally get into an argument. Shay goes in search of the New Smoke to look for Zane, while Tally tracks the Crims down south and falls into a trap set by Zane. As Tally and Zane talk, they kiss, but Zane is not well, and he shakes. Tally, her own body honed to machine-like status, cannot stand his shaking, his weakness, and runs away and hides. From her hiding place, she sees a helicopter arrive and the Crims all pile on board. Tally, hitching a ride on the struts of the aircraft, soon discovers that the New Smoke has been incorporated into the city of Diego, a place where the “dress code” is much less stringent. Or perhaps the better phrase might be “more open.” Soon after she arrives, Fausto, one of the Crims, tries to inject her with the cure for “Specialness.” Tally escapes, but is injured in the process, and in her weakened state, unable to evade Diego wardens who believe her “Specialness” a danger to the community. After her arrest, she is hospitalized, and her doctors decide to operate on her to make her less Special. Saved at the last minute by Shay, Tally notices that something is different about her newly-best-used-to-be-ex-best friend: Shay has been cured. Moreover, Dr. Cable has blamed the city of Diego for the destruction of the armory at Ugly/New Pretty town. She and her forces are just outside the city of Diego and attack is imminent.

Dr. Cable and her troops render the city of Diego helpless and then leave, allowing its infrastructure to fall apart before they come back and finish taking over and making it into a city of oppression just like Shay and Tally’s hometown. The two girls decide they must return to their own city and confess that they destroyed the armory, not Shane, not the city of Diego. But before they leave, Tally must find Zane. When she finds him, she discovers that his prognosis is not good. She tells him goodbye, leaves the hospital, and, as soon as the others go to sleep, returns to her city to try and stop the war.

Like his earlier books in this trilogy, Westerfeld’s Specials has many themes that speak to the very issues many of us face today. But he is particularly interested in understanding how our assumptions are shaped and how deeply they are ingrained into our culture. Is Maddy right? Are all pretties stupid? Of course not. Are all uglies smart? No. Does having a machine like body make you special? Not necessarily. Granted, there are many twists and turns in this text in particular that may make it difficult to keep up with all that is going on, convolutions that may even be a bit off putting. And there are times when the plot seems a bit forced, especially when Tally is in Diego. But Westerfeld’s comments on our fascination with physical beauty are right on target, especially his exploration of mass surgery(ies) for the enhancement of one’s physical appearance. Perhaps his text is simply a warning against believing that outward beauty is more important than who we are on the inside. Perhaps it is a warning against becoming so self-involved that we cannot see beyond the physical appearance to the real person underneath. Perhaps he is warning against being what other’s think we should be rather than being who we think we should be. Perhaps he is just asking us to consider the possibilities.
The Walrus gives Specials one and a half tusks up! Goo goo g’joob!

I have enjoyed reading the first three books in this series, Uglies, Pretties, and Specials. At times I got frustrated with the almost constant setbacks suffered by Tally and the rebels; they never seem to get a break. Other times I was impressed that Tally has her moments of weakness—that she is never presented as perfect or infallible, and I appreciated the fact that she spends time thinking about how her actions affect others and that she feels remorse for what she sees as bad decisions. There were times when I became bored with the story even as I realized that Westerfeld was laying ground work for ideas or even conflicts that would show up later in the text. These slow moving sections are particularly apparent in Pretties when Tally is stranded in a section of the wild that is unknown to her. In fact, that whole section of the text seems a bit forced. Moreover, there are times that the third book has the same problem. At those points in both texts it was difficult to get caught up into the book because I kept noticing Westerfeld’s devices for moving the story forward. All that said, the series is definitely worth reading, and overall…

The Walrus gives the first three books of the series and overall two tusks up! Goo goo g’joob!

Scott Westerfeld's Pretties: I feel pretty! Oh so pretty! Like-totally!

2008-10-22T11:08:00.010-05:00

The fact that Tally Youngblood cannot remember exactly how she came to be a New Pretty does not appear to bother her. After all, life as a New Pretty is definitely dizzy-making: one long round of parties, champagne, and hanging out with your special group of friends. For Tally, that special group is the Crims—New Pretties who base their current “coolness” on their former Ugly penchant for disruption and rebellion—and her special guy is Zane, the leader of the Crims. Life is pretty good (no pun intended). Then a visit from an old friend bringing an odd gift from the past reminds her of her life in the wild. The gift contains a letter and two small white pills. Upon reading the letter Tally realizes that she has lost many of her memories from that time, including the knowledge that the operation Uglies undergo to become Pretties also results lesions in the brain, lesions that lead to a feeling of apathy and making Pretties easy to control. While Tally knows that raising one’s adrenaline levels helps to push this apathy aside, a condition Zane and the Crims call being bubbly, it is not a cure. Moreover, the letter reveals her purpose for turning pretty: to be a human guinea pig—to use her own body to test the veracity of the pills. Wanting to do something about these brain altering lesions, Tally looks at the two small white pills, the medication that could cure her lesions, but, knowing that they are experimental, she is afraid to take them. Zane offers to take her place, but Tally fears for his well being, too. Finally, not remembering that the two pills are intended to be taken together, Tally takes one pill and Zane takes the other, and her New Pretty life begins to unravel.

When Shay, Tally’s best friend, finds out that Tally gave the extra pill to Zane rather than her, she becomes angry, and in her anger, recalls all the mistakes Tally made while living in the wild. In a tiff, Shay pulls away from the Crims, taking several members of the gang with her and forming a new group called the Cutters. While Crims use crazy stunts to achieve the adrenaline rush that is necessary to push the apathy away, Cutters slash themselves. Meanwhile, Zane begins having horrible headaches that make him terribly ill. Eventually, Tally, Zane, and the remaining Crims devise a plan to escape from New Pretty into the wild where they can join forces with Tally’s old friends from the Smoke (now the New Smoke). But their plans go a bit awry; as a result, everyone makes good their escape except Tally, and she finds herself alone and stranded in an area of the wild that she does not recognize. Captured by a strange group of primitive uglies that think she is a god, Tally learns many things, but most importantly, she learns more about the brain lesions: she finds out that they are not an unfortunate side effect of the New Pretty surgery but the result of a specific plan.

Tally eventually escapes from the land of the primitive uglies and finds her way to the Ruins where she is reunited with David, her boyfriend from the past. With David’s help, she is also reunited with Zane and the other Crims who escaped with them. But Tally’s adventures are not quite over. Her battle with the authorities has just begun. Who will win? Who can she trust? Will she always be a New Pretty searching for new ways to escape the powers that be?

In his second book of the Uglies trilogy, Scott Westerfeld’s Tally Youngblood, true to her modus operandi (always willing to take on seemingly impossible tasks in search of the truth and what is right), leads us back into the wild where she tries once again to join forces with the New Smoke as they fight against the dangerous oppression of the authorities in Ugly/New Pretty town. Lots of action, a dash of mystery, and Tally caught between the affections of two men make for some pretty good reading. There are times when the pace slows a bit, particularly when Tally is stranded in the wild, but overall, Pretties is a good read. Once again Westerfeld asks us to consider (question?) our assumptions about others based on their appearance and our interpretations of their actions. What does it mean to be pretty? Ugly? Uneducated? How do labels affect how we see ourselves? How we see others? Westerfeld encourages the reader to look beyond the obvious and consider other possibilities.

The Walrus gives Pretties two tusks up! Goo goo g’joob!

Wow! The Hunger Games

2008-10-20T20:51:00.004-05:00

Wow. Just wow. About an hour ago, I finished listening to Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games. Stunning. I’m still digesting it. Here’s a synopsis of the book. Think of the television show Survivor, but the contestants are teens, and the prize is getting to live. As with Survivor, the drama is televised (and actually, it’s reminiscent of the film adaptation of Stephen King’s Running Man in that way but even more menacing). It contains elements of the cruelty of the Roman gladiator games (the basic premise of those games being to satiate a voyeuristic desire to watch someone else’s bloody demise), but it’s worse in many ways, probably because it puts teens into situations that most adults wouldn’t survive. I doubt that I would. Two characters rise to the forefront: the narrator, Katniss—“Kat”— and Peeta. They are fascinating, determined, smart, and sensitive characters. Collins pays an enormous tribute to teens in this way.

I can’t help to think that where Running Man began, long before the now-so-popular “reality” shows, The Hunger Games continues, but it’s taken to the extreme. It’s not uncommon for authors to put teens into perilous predicaments (Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and many more). That reflects a very long practice in the western tradition and is reminiscent of the fairy tales told by the Grimm brothers. In some ways, The Hunger Games returns readers to a period, when life was, as Hobbes (not the comic strip character) observed that life was “nasty, brutal, and short.”

I saw one review indicating that The Hunger Games includes a fairly traditional love triangle. I’m not so sure. Most of the time, relationships in young adult lit have some sort of resolution that makes everyone happy. Don’t count on that here. That’s all I’m saying. Well, I’ll say this: as the minutes ticked down (remember, I listened to it) to what Kat would do, I thought “Collins can’t possibly resolve this.” Okay. I won’t say anymore about that.

Honestly, there were times when I shouted “YES!” and did a little dance, and other times I moaned, “Nooooo! This can’t happen!” It takes a lot to elicit that kind of response from me. I want to read more, and while that might not matter to anyone but me, I’ll stick by my guns that Collins has written an engaging, even breathtaking and often heartbreaking, adventure. The Hunger Games leaves me starving for more.

Curious Coraline

2008-10-16T00:55:00.020-05:00

If you lived in a house with 14 doors and only one of them was locked, which would you be interested in? The 13 which you can open and close or the 1 which can only be opened by a cold, black rusty key which your mother keeps on top of the kitchen doorframe?

I guess it depends on whether you are the curious type.

If you aren’t—then be careful not to pinch your fingers in the doorways.

If you are—you may have a few more serious dangers to worry about.

Coraline is most definitely curious about the locked 14th door. So she persuades her busy, distracted mother to retrieve the key and open it. Strangely the doorway only reveals a brick wall.

If Coraline had only been mildly curious, this would have been the end of her little tale (and no one would ever read her story).

But, Coraline is “curiouser and curiouser” (thank goodness!) and the next time she time she opens the door (after sneaking down the cold, black key), the doorway reveals something very different—a dark passageway. One that smells old and damp and slow. One that leads to a world which appears quite similar to her own at first glance.

But appearances can be deceiving, and when you enter a liminal space, you should always be careful to do more than just glance. Upon closer observation, peculiarities reveal themselves to Coraline. The portrait hanging on the wall contains the same boy watching bubbles, but there is something disturbing about this boy, as if he were planning to do something nasty to the bubbles.
There’s her mother in the kitchen and yet…her skin is too pale, her body too tall and thin and her nails are now red and curling. If eyes are the windows to the soul, what does it mean that hers are now replaced with big black, plastic buttons? This is not her mother, it is her other mother.

Oh, but this other mother gives Coraline so much attention--it’s as if Coraline is the center of her world. Her other father is not absorbed in his work the way her real father is, and like her other mother, he can’t take his plastic eyes off of her. Indeed, everything seems more interested and more interesting in this other world. Her toys can fly and the picture in her books shimmer and writhe. Underneath her bed are fifty rats that perform stunts and sing to her. Outside she sees the big black cat she recognizes from home, but here it talks to her. All of her (normally) older neighbors are here too, each with a bizarre new twist.

As fascinating as this world is, when her other parents reveal their plan to swap her eyes with a matching set of shiny buttons, Coraline decides to return to her old (somewhat boring) world with her real (very busy) mother and father. Her other mother is not happy to let Coraline out of her red-nailed clutches, but suddenly she seems powerless to stop her. Could that tiny stone her real neighbors had given her have something to do with that? It was just as Coraline gripped that stone with a hole in it that her other mother’s hand “scuttled off” of her “like a frightened spider.” Coraline rushes back to the doorway, and as scary as the dark passage seems, her smiling, waving button-eyed parents are more frightening.

Back home again, she tries to step back into her dull routine, but it isn’t long before she realizes her parents are missing. After she finds them trapped inside a hallway mirror, she realizes she is going to have to return to the other world and fight her other mother to save them. So once again she enters the musty, inky blackness of the passageway—a small girl on a quest to save her parents, armed only with a stone with a hold in it. She doesn’t know if she will ever make it back to her old world again, and if she does, who is to say what might follow her?

Coraline’s darkly humorous tale resounds with echoes of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and even more so, Through the Looking-Glass. Not only do both girls begin by exploring a world which appears to be the mirror image of their own world, but in actuality contains animated portraits and talking animals (particularly a cat). They also both meet a violent, controlling woman who engages them in a game for high stakes.

But courageous, scheming Coraline is not polite, curtseying Alice. She does much more than converse with unusual creatures as she explores a liminal space; Coraline has to come up with a strategy to save her parents from a devious tyrant, even if that means she has to be deceptive herself.

(spoiler alert)

When Alice finds herself safely back in her living room after her looking-glass escapades, the only question for the reader is—who dreamed her adventure? At the end of Coraline’s tale, the question is—is the nightmare over?

Watch exciting trailers for the book and the 3D film premiering in February 2009!

Through the Looking-Glass Darkly

2008-10-15T02:35:00.014-05:00

When I was a child, I used to climb atop the pale blue counter in my bathroom to perform experiments on the little girl on the other side of our huge, silvery mirror. I believed that if I were clever enough I might catch her making a mistake. In my ballet class we had to mirror the movements of our instructor, Miss Hogue, so I knew which ones were hard to follow. But no matter which difficult moves I initiated, the other little girl never had trouble matching them perfectly. I would also imagine the world which lay just outside her bathroom door. Because of the door’s position, I could never catch more than a shadowy glimpse. Even from that tiny slice, I could sense it was somehow more mystical and undefined than my own world.

I was not as lucky as Alice is. She gets to climb right through her living room mirror and explore that other world on her own. When I was her age, I am not sure if I would have been brave enough to enter that liminal space all alone as Alice did, but I like to believe I would. Of course, this is not Alice’s first adventure into an alternate realm, so maybe that eases her fears of the unknown. And her first entrance was not by choice; she simply fell in through a rabbit hole (though, of course, she fell in because she was curious enough to chase the white rabbit).

Once through the mirror, Alice discovers that while everything that was visible from her original side appears ordinary, everything that was not visible is very different indeed. Books are printed backwards—a mirror image of the books in her world. As in Wonderland, the literature seems to be a bizarre version of works Alice is somehow familiar with. “Jabberwocky,” for instance, resembles a heroic poem, but many of the words seem “made up.”

The portraits and clock faces are animated here, and even the tiny chess pieces lying near the hearth are alive. Strangely enough, Alice is invisible to the chess pieces though she can touch and move them. It is not until Alice reaches the garden outside that she gets to interact with the red and white kings and queens on their own level.

Not surprisingly, getting anywhere in this “opposite” world is difficult. When Alice sees the red queen at a distance, she cannot reach her by walking straight toward her; as the talking flowers explain, she can only reach a place by walking in the opposite direction. This might be because all of Alice’s moves in this book are chess moves. She is a pawn on a huge forested chess board where brooks mark the boundaries between spaces. Eight moves later, Alice is a queen herself, but only after encountering a menagerie of bizarre characters.

The world beyond Alice’s looking glass resembles her light, whimsical Wonderland, but it is somehow darker. Just as a monstrous crow casts a giant shadow across the woodland, there seems to be a shadow of melancholy cast over the entire tale. Alice seems to be less sure of herself (though only 6 months have passed since her last adventure). She even forgets her name for a while. In fact, several of the characters question the use of names and their meanings (including the Gnat, the Fawn and Humpty Dumpty). Time is also fuzzy here. The White Queen lives life backwards, and because of this she has two memories – of the past and the future. Alice seems to have some trouble having even one.

There is a rather sorrowful transience to this looking-glass world. When Alice gathers a bouquet of lovely rushes, their beauty and sweet scent melt like snowdrops, and Alice doesn’t even notice. The White Knight who later rescues her seems comical at first, but then he sings her a low-spirited ballad about an “old man [he] used to know.” There is also something sadly final in the way he asks Alice to wave good-bye to him as he disappears from her view.

Once again, Alice’s adventure is played off as a dream (though she is not even sure it is her dream). Though this dream makes some remarks on society, as Alice’s Wonderland dream appeared to do, it also explores Alice psyche. This looking-glass world seems to reflect the liminal space between child and adult. Alice is losing her childhood, and Lewis Carroll seems to be mourning this loss.

I can understand. I miss that little girl in the mirror myself.

Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

2008-10-13T10:45:00.006-05:00

Only Neil Gaiman can write a book that makes you yearn to be a part of a graveyard with ghosts, vampires, and werewolves as your most intimate and trusted friends; where the hero is truly Nobody, and living is the saddest part of life. The Graveyard Book was just recently released by Gaiman and was literally twenty years in the making. It’s worth the wait.

It begins, not surprising with an author like Gaiman, with a murder and a dark mystery. A boy’s family is murdered in their sleep, and the only surviving member, a boy barely a toddler, is saved only by chance (if you believe in such a thing) as he toddles out of harm’s way, up a hill and into a local graveyard. There as the murderer follows to finish the job he began, the boy is quickly adopted by a ghost woman and her husband as the ghost lady answers the call of the recently deceased boy’s mother to protect her baby. With that, the boy becomes a member of the graveyard, given the Freedom of the Graveyard which includes many of the ghostly abilities and protections of his haunted family, and is bestowed with the unusual name Nobody Owens. And a unique guardian, Silas, one who knows all there is to know of living in between, in the borderland of here and there, life and death.

In an ironic twist, Nobody (Bod) Owens is only safe with the dead behind the locked bars of the graveyard gates, and his greatest threat is going out into the world to do the one thing that separates him so totally from the only family he has ever known; living. Sadly this means there can only be one kind of ending for our, let’s be honest, fearful hero, and that is a sad one. For a book that begins in a graveyard you can expect that it must end with some form of goodbye. And while Bod begins the book alone, he must necessarily end it that way as well. I won’t say anymore except that Gaiman’s endings are usually bittersweet, so yes there will be plenty of sweet mixed in to swallow those hard but true lessons.

While the plot and story are fantastic (we are talking about Gaiman after all), there is something much deeper and moving happening in this book. For anyone who has ever felt truly alone, who feels the pain of their favorite character like their own, and longs for the lives of those they read about in fiction, this is a call for you to go out and live. Don’t worry because Bod will show you how.

Perhaps this review is deceiving in that you see the sadness and the thoughtful lessons given precedence over what this author is able to accomplish, and that is making it a joy to read. Don’t worry, Bod’s sorrow and bittersweet joy is still a fresh wound and so my focus is on what lies ahead for this tragic hero, but what lies ahead for you is a great book with a fabulous, unique story in the vein of Bradbury’s From the Dust Returned, but with more of a focused, linear plot and a little less lyricism, making it a more contemporary and narrative style read. The characters are fantastic, and you will want to go move to your nearest graveyard. Just make sure you check out the neighbors first because the graveyard is full of danger for the unanointed.

** Judge Jordana’s Verdict: Life with Nobody Owens and Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. It will be in my coffin when I move in.

"Does Not Happen!"

2008-10-10T14:39:00.016-05:00

“Does not happen!” says Mau consistently through Terry Pratchett’s Nation—his latest (and I’ve heard possibly his last: “Does not happen!”) novel. And through Mau’s intelligence, daring, bravery, sheer will, and a little help from the gods, his declaration often becomes truth—even when he has to figure out how to milk a pig. That’s a pretty good trick.

As much as I like Mau, however, Daphne is the character I adore, the one who makes me laugh at her audacity, her wit, her understanding of human nature, her battle with how a “proper” girl should act and how a girl stranded on an island must act in order to survive. I’ve heard her compared to Tiffany of his The Wee Free Men. Yep. It’s true. The story is different, but Pratchett’s unerring dialog and humor surface once again through Daphne in Nation. And that’s what makes Pratchett’s books so wonderful—that ability to comment on humans’ odd desire to behave badly or the oddities of human communication through humor. Take Daphne’s understanding of metaphor. She has a conversation with Mau (a “savage,” which, of course, he isn’t) about Isaac Newton’s childhood as a boy who “said he felt that he had been like a little boy playing with pebbles on the beach while a great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before him.” Mau, who has only ventured off of his island once is shocked—he’s never seen Newton on his beach! But Daphne has the perfect response: “Well, er, not this beach, obviously. . . . Possibly not even any beach. It’s what trousermen call a metaphor. A kind of lie to help you understand what’s true.” I’m tucking that one away for use later.

And then there are the gods. Mau and Daphne get help from the gods of the island—the ancestors. Daphne and Mau talk to them (and the gods respond), dare them, cajole them, shout at them, and shame them. It works most of the time. I suppose that’s where the ambiguity exists. I believe in the gods of the island. Not everyone will. If I’m not mistaken, Daphne implies that God of Christianity might be a little on the ambiguous side as well.

Nation feels like historical fiction and it feels like . . . like something else. Admittedly, in the author’s note, Pratchett confesses all of this happens in a “parallel universe, a phenomenon known only to advanced physicists and anyone who has ever watched any episode of any SF series anywhere.” Everything is a parallel universe to me. I’m pretty sure one exists in my own backyard.

Thank you, Mr. Pratchett. I say to you, “Does not happen!"

If you had the chance to change the way you look, would you take it?

2008-10-08T18:34:00.003-05:00

Tally Youngblood misses her best friend Peris.

Less than a week ago, Tally and Peris were cruelly separated when Peris turned pretty, a process most teens in their city go through when they turn sixteen, a process that renders them beautiful but necessitates a move across the river that separates Ugly Town and New Pretty Town. But because Peris (and all her other friends) is older than Tally, she feels alone and abandoned because she is now the only “fifteen” left in their dorm on the unfun side of the river. And while all she has to do to be reunited with him is to lie low—stay out of trouble for the next two months and twenty-six days—staying out of trouble is not something Tally is particularly good at.

Refusing to stoop to associations with the littlies that remain in her dorm and bored with her own company, Tally slips out one night to visit Peris. Because she believes she is the only fifteen left in Ugly Town, Tally is surprised to meet Shay, another ugly who shares her birthday, as she returns from a late night, illegal foray into New Pretty. Excited to find someone with whom to spend the remaining days before she becomes a pretty, someone to turn pretty with, someone who likes taking a few risks, Tally is shocked to discover that Shay has no intention of turning pretty! In fact, she has never even developed her “morphs,” the software that allows her to compile a file of all the ways the doctors might make her pretty when she turns sixteen! Torn between her new friend and her old, between her desire to look like she has always wanted and the way she has always looked, Tally begins a journey that leads her to a frightening discovery: something happens to your brain when you turn from ugly to pretty…

This time the risks might be too great—even for Tally.

The first book in Scott Westerfeld’s “trilogy,” Uglies, beyond presenting a quick paced, hard-to-put-down narrative that takes you on a wild ride from Ugly Town to the hideout of the Rusties by way of New Pretty Town, highlights our own value systems, asking us to consider some very difficult questions, questions addressed to adults and teens alike: What we are willing to give up in order to be physically “beautiful”? Our individuality? Our physical connections to our parents—our children—our siblings—our friends (You have your mother’s eyes; your dad’s chin; you look just like your brother)? Are we willing to give up our minds, that sense of consciousness that defines who “I” am? What intellectual/emotional connections to our family and friends might be left behind once we become pretty? Is that good? Bad?

What is really cool about Westerfeld’s book is that while he certainly probes our affection (obsession?) with beautiful bodies, it is not the only obsession he addresses, nor does he “arrive” at any answers for you. There is no preaching in this book. Rather, he demonstrates the difficulty of discovering and evaluating the values of our family and community and the conflicts we face as we seek to define our own. Westerfeld recognizes that no one can make that decision for you: it is one you must make for yourself.

The Walrus gives Uglies two tusks up! Goo Goo G’joob!

Savage

2008-10-08T03:23:00.000-05:00

Dark and primal, a cave lies hidden beneath a decaying chapel. In its shadowy depths, a boy skulks. A boy without family or past. A boy who hunts and kills and eats rabbits raw as blood runs down his grimy face. A wild boy—a savage. This savage creeps through the woods and stalks children. And if anyone catches a glimpse of his hulking form, he hacks them with his ax, eats their flesh and hurls their bones down an abandoned mine shaft.

But “The Savage” is just a story which Blue is writing. A primitive fragment of his imagination…or is it?

One night Blue has a dream. He is the shadow lurking in the cave. His hands are bloody as he rips the rabbit meat from its fragile bones. Even after his mother awakens him, the wild scent still lingers in his nostrils. But it was only a dream.

When Blue can’t fall back to sleep, he continues weaving his story. The savage is changing. He had watched Blue and his sister one afternoon as they picnicked in the forest. He had not hated them, and so now he mimics their movements and speech. He had also seen another boy that day—a horrible boy, ugly and stupid with a smoky stick wedged between his lips. Now the savage wants to find this other boy, Hopper, and get rid of him. Deep inside the boy is still wild, cruel and vicious, so he crawls from his cavernous lair and breaks into Hopper’s house. The savage towers over Hopper, his ax raised high ready to strike the boy as he sleeps in his bed.

Suddenly Blue stops writing. He is not heartless and believes the savage is not either. Hopper's cruel words had stabbed Blue’s aching heart just after his father died, but Blue would not have the savage cut open the malicious boy’s heart. Instead the savage hits him twice with his powerful fists until Hopper begs for mercy. The savage taunts the quivering boy, his wild face dangerous in the moonlight, then leaves him to his fear.

Once out on the street, the savage brandishes his ax in triumph and dances as he had seen Blue’s sister, Jess, dance that sunny day. Perhaps that is why the savage visits the little girl’s bedroom next.

As Jess lies innocently dreaming, the savage raises his grimy hand and rests it gently on her forehead. She does not awaken. He tries to speak sweet words to her, sweet like the poem Blue had read that day, but he can only grunt softly in the darkness.

The next morning, Jess has a muddy mark on her forehead, and Hopper has a bruised and battered face.

But it was only Blue’s story. The savage couldn’t be real, could he? If you crawled beneath the crumbling chapel, would you find a wild boy crouched in the shadows, a bloody ax grasped tightly in his grubby hands? Or if you stared deeply into Blue’s eyes, would you find the savage lurking there instead?

David Almond, author of The Savage, provokes many questions, but he does not give many answers. You must search his captivating narrative and your own psyche if you wish for resolution. But maybe you would rather savor the ambiguity and keep all possibilities open.

David McKean, illustrator, only deepens the mysteries with his nightmarish images—all ink and shadow. Except for the blood, which splashes sickly red across Hopper’s terrified face. McKean’s artwork tells the story within the story, Blue’s story. He captures the savage’s primitive expressions and furtive movements, as well as the otherworldly quality of his whole existence. The artist’s contortions of time and space suggest a psychological point-of-view. Is this because the savage is a repressed manifestation fighting its way to Blue’s conscious mind, or simply because it is Blue’s story and that is how he imagines the savage?

The deeper you reach into the novel, the further its complexity is revealed. Layer upon layer upon layer of story, frame within frame within frame—mirroring the multi-leveled mind itself.

Is Almond exploring a liminal space where a primitive boy has crawled out of our primeval past? Or is he exploring the liminal spaces of our mind, where primitive man and woman have never truly been left in the past?

Why not both?

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Be aware: does contain violence and possibly disturbing images.

Almond, David. The Savage. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick, 2008. 79 pages.

UK bookcover

Candlewick Press Rocks!

2008-10-05T11:10:00.001-05:00

Thanks to Candlewick Press for sending us books to review. I gave most of these books away to teens on a visit to Greenville (TX) H.S. I have to say, it hurt to give them away without getting to read them first, but we're hoping the recipients will write reviews on them. If that happens, it's worth it.

Admittedly, I didn't give EVERYTHING away. I kept some books so I could read them including, David and Ruth Ellwand's The Mystery of the Fool and the Vanisher. I passed it on to Judge Jordana (see reviews below). I also kept What the Dickens by Gregory Maguire (of Wicked fame). It's on my "to read" list after I listen to Terry Pratchett's Nation and read Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book published by HarperCollins (I'm enjoying both novels, by the way).

But again, thanks to Candlewick Press. I've always been impressed with them. They take chances with the books they publish; they respect their readers. What's not to like?

The Mystery of the Fool & The Vanisher, David and Ruth Ellwand

2008-10-03T12:16:00.003-05:00

I’ll admit it, one of the things that I love most about adolescent literature is the unabashed use of illustration, and The Mystery of the Fool & the Vanisher is a perfect example of this. The story can easily stand alone, but the BEAUTIFUL, haunting illustrations that consist mostly of photographs compliment the story so well that it makes a good book excellent.

The story is made up of two main plots that weave together throughout the text. The first part of the book is written in the form of a diary, and reads in almost an encyclopedic manner for the first few pages, however this is an encyclopedia of the weird, the “fae”, or “faery.” Anyone that reads fantasy knows we’re talking elves, pixies, willow-the-wisps, and changelings, and while the diary entries begin with the tone of a burning desire for these things to be real, they will end with the satisfying horror that they are, and just as dangerous as fantastic. And the pictures that accompany this section are particularly gothic and maintain a fuzzy, vague quality that both haunts and intrigues, reinforcing the mood the whole way; a blur one moment, concrete and very real the next.

Part two begins upon the discovery, not necessarily that fairies are real (which he does discover in part one), but upon a mysterious chest that transforms the desire of the author into a full-fledged obsession. This is the danger when entering that other world where art, fantasy, and desire collide.

Within the chest is the story of a photographer who is initiated by that other world, accepted for his willingness to accept and believe, and perhaps even more so for his ability to empathize with their desire to be left alone by the material, as opposed to the natural world in which they inhabit.

I won’t give the story away anymore since this book is well worth the read. It should be said, however, that this story works because the author is able to maintain the quality that something haunting that we must see, that alternately vexes and intrigues, protects and endangers us, is just beyond our grasp. In fact, I turned the last page of this book with a cry of shock that it was actually over, and must still puzzle out precisely what Ellwand has accomplished with his ending. If there is a theme or moral, as we are so want to search for in our literature, it is that vague feeling that there must be something more, or rather that it is both a real and necessary condition to fully appreciate life.

I know this is perhaps a rather deep review, making much about a relatively short, simple book, but the contrasts embodied within and illustrated throughout this text make it necessary and valuable for discussion. It is not just simple and attractive, but also complex and ugly. It is the contrasts, between the real and the fantastic, man and nature, light and dark that cannot be overlooked because this deceptively simple book highlights each of these so very well.

So for this book Judge Jordana came down off the bench and instead puts it to the jury for a vote. Is this book guilty or innocent . . . and of what? Well it just might be both. You’ll have to read it for yourself to find out.

Who is the Fool? What is the Vanisher?

2008-10-01T15:48:00.004-05:00

I’m not sure I can do justice to David and Ruth Ellwand’s The Mystery of the Fool & the Vanisher (Candlewick Press, 2008). Nevertheless, I’ll give it the old college try, which is appropriate since I’m in a college setting. Even though it is a relatively short book (just over 100 pages, many of which contain only images on them), it is one that deserves to be wandered through at a leisurely pace, to be touched, to be examined closely and carefully, even if the compelling narrative dictates that readers run headlong through it. It also deserves multiple readings to experience the book to its fullest.

The Fool & the Vanisher is written in three parts. Part I consists of Ellwand’s journal, notes and photographs (stunning, eerie, and uncanny photographs), as he wanders through the Downs, a notoriously mysterious place, which requires caution and an open mind. He recounts how he finds a flint stone with a hole in it and follows a ball of light that he sees. Ellwand eventually finds a chest that once belonged to Isaac Wilde, a photographer who lived in the late 19th century. Mr. Wilde, it seems, encountered some very unusual things on his photographic journey, which occurred from January 18 to June 2, 1889. His adventure is recorded by means of a phonograph journal and photographs. Wilde’s encounters at an archeological dig are the subject of Part II. And what is it that Mr. Wilde discovers? Ancient artifacts with unusual powers and creatures most of us have only heard of or seen in our dreams. Part III returns to Ellwand’s observations and his own discoveries about Wilde’s claims.

I think I would like to visit the mysterious Downs and see what Ellwand and Wilde saw. However, it would be at great risk as is evidenced by what happens to Gibson Gayle, who might be intelligent, but who clearly lacks insight or the ability to see beyond his nose. Ultimately, this is about being open to possibility. And yes, there’s a great deal of ambiguity.

The Fool & the Vanisher is the most beautiful book I have seen in a very long time. I was bewitched and remain that way. I’ll still be thinking about this book tomorrow and tomorrow and . . .