This month’s book: Fetching by Kiera Stewart

What a great idea!  Use dog training techniques to shape your enemies’ behavior!  Olivia decides she’s had enough of being tormented by Brynne and her mean group of friends.  If she can use training to change a dog’s behavior, why not a person? The first step is: body language.  If you are someone who’s always tormented by bullies, you need to cultivate a strong assertive presence (think Cesar Milan!) –head up, shoulders back. “Basically, the way you walk and stand and talk tells everyone how you feel about yourself  It can say that you’re in charge and you know what you’re doing, or it can say ‘loser.’” Olivia has a hard time convincing her fellow Bored Game Club members that her plan can work, but they gamely (ha ha) try to ignore any bad behavior –even when it makes them feel like wusses.  Then Olivia teaches them about looking for cues that bad behavior is about to occur: “’You know how when a dog starts to get upset, sometimes its hair stands up on its back, or it might start to growl…There’s always some type of cue before an attack, and we’ve got to start noticing these signs…Because once you see the cues, you can create a distraction.’”  They’re having some mild success, but what really gets things going is when Olivia decides they have to step up the training by using treats (gum, cookies, post-it notes) to reward good behavior (anything from Corbin passing by Mandy without making an insulting noise, to actually witnessing one of Brynne’s minions standing up to her).  It isn’t long before the balance of power has shifted: Olivia’s friend Mandy, formerly a social outcast who outlined her lips with Sharpie, is running for class president, and their lunch table is so crowded with popular kids that there’s no place for Olivia anymore.  It also isn’t long until Olivia feels sorry for the formerly-popular, now-outcast Brynne.  When Olivia finds out that her best friend Delia shared some very private information about Olivia’s mentally-ill mother, Olivia turns to Brynne to fill in for the friends she’s turned against.  The class election provides plenty of drama, especially after Olivia tells Brynne the reason for her social downfall: that Olivia trained the other kids to dislike her.  This is a very clever book, and the techniques will be recognized by anyone who has familiarity with dog training.  In the end, Olivia promises to never use dog training on humans again, but I think a little calm, assertive behavior can go a long way towards improving your relations with the people around you!  Review by Stacy Church

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

It’s 1968, and 8^th grader Doug has just moved to the small town of Marysville, in upstate NY.  He has no friends.  He is living with his angry, abusive father, and a bully of an older brother, who, after only a few days in the new town, is already falling in with the wrong crowd. Doug doesn’t particularly like the idea of moving to this new town, or a house he calls “the dump,” especially since everyone in town already considers him a bad egg, or a “skinny thug” just like his Dad and brother. He struggles against being the bad kid that the police and most of his teachers assume him to be. Doug truly wants good things to happen, although he feels that if something good happens, then something bad will too; it’s as if he is always waiting for the other shoe to drop and remind him of his low place in the world. Doug finds an unlikely ally in the fiery Lil Spicer, whose father offers him a job delivering groceries. Doug begrudgingly takes the job because he has nothing else to do, but his life is forever altered when he wanders into the library and comes face-to-face with the plates of John James Audubon’s birds in a book under glass.

“I went over to the table to see how come it was the only lousy thing in the whole lousy room. And right away, I knew why. Underneath the glass was this book. A huge book. A huge, huge book. Its pages were longer than a goodsize baseball bat. I’m not lying. And on the whole page, there was only one picture. Of a bird. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.

He was all alone, and he looked like he was falling out of the sky and into this cold green sea. His wings were back, his tail feathers were back, and his neck was pulled around as if he was trying to turn but couldn’t. His eye was round and bright and afraid, and his beak was open a little bit, probably because he was trying to suck in some air before he crashed into the water. The sky around him was dark, like the air was too heavy to fly in. This bird was falling and there wasn’t a single thing in the world that cared at all. It was the most terrifying picture I had ever seen. The most beautiful. I leaned down onto the glass, close to the bird. I think I started to breathe a little bit more quickly, since the glass fogged up and I had to wipe the wet away.”

The power of the Audubon paintings causes an intellectual awakening in Doug. The local librarian starts teaching him ho to draw, and he discovers that the library is a safe haven from his terrible home life. Doug’s friendship with Lil is the driving force that helps him discover friendship and goodness all over the town. He finds the strength to endure an abusive father, the suspicions of a whole town, and even the tragic return of his oldest brother from Vietnam. Together they find inspiration in learning about the plates of John James Audubon’s birds, and have a hilarious adventure on a Broadway stage. There are many themes in this story, some devastating and others wildly funny, but ultimately the book is about the healing power of friendship and art. Review by Lizzy Healy

This month’s book: Flip by Martyn Bedford

As I was reading over my review of Flip, I remembered how much I liked it, and I thought, “Hmmm…why don’t I use this for this month’s book?”  So, here you go.  For the review, see below.

Review of Flip by Martyn Bedford

Alex wakes up one morning after a night out, and he’s in a strange bed in a strange house.  Someone is shouting for him from downstairs, but they’re calling, “Flip!” He’s sure it’s just some kind of mix-up, until he gets his first look in a mirror and doesn’t recognize the person he sees. How did he end up in someone else’s body? Can he get anyone to believe that he isn’t who they think he is? And what happened in the 6 months since his last memory as the old Alex, and his first memory as Flip? About the only one who knows that Alex isn’t Flip is the Garamond family retriever, Beagle, who growls at him each time he sees him. Alex is confused and desperate, but, at the same time, he’s kind of fascinated by his new life and family. There are some great things about being Flip (being popular at school is one.  Having any number of girlfriends is another), but he’d rather be himself again. Flip’s family and friends are bewildered by his new habits (really his old habits), and it’s funny to watch Alex having to deal with a body that doesn’t work the same way his own does. When he abandons cricket and hanging out with his crude friends, his buddies are really worried. Then he falls for a sensitive, intelligent girl. Alex finds other people on the internet who have experienced what they call psychic evacuation –when a soul leaves a body and enters another body, usually because of the imminent death of their own body. I’ve watched lots of movies that involve people swapping bodies, but it’s always with someone they know. It’s really intriguing to watch Alex try to navigate a life as someone he’s never met, and surrounded by people he doesn’t know. There’s plenty of suspense as Alex tries to figure out why his soul took over Flip’s body, and how he can get back into his own before it’s too late. Review by Stacy Church

Want To Read More Books Like Me, the Missing, and the Dead?

Here are some more books about life going on after a death in the family

Defining Dulcie by Paul Acampora

Boy2girl by Terence Blacker

Feels Like Home by e. E. Charlton-Trujillo

A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd

The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson

Let's Get Lost by Sarra Manning

Girlhearts by Norma Fox Mazer

After the Wreck, I Picked Myself up, Spread My Wings, and Flew away by Joyce Carol Oates.

Cures for Heartbreak by Margo Rabb

A Gathering of Shades by David Stahler, Jr.

Broken Soup by Jenny Valentine

Jenny Valentine

Here’s what Harper Collins Publishers has to say about Jenny Valentine, author of Me, the Missing, and the Dead:

Jenny Valentine worked in a food shop for fifteen years, where she met many extraordinary people and sold more organic bread than there are words in her first book. She studied English literature at Goldsmith's College, which almost made her stop reading but not quite. Her debut novel, Me, the Missing, and the Dead, won the prestigious Guardian Children's Fiction Prize in the UK under the title Finding Violet Park. Jenny is married to a singer/songwriter and has two children. She lives in Hay on Wye, England.

When asked in an interview by The Bookbag what her inspiration for the book was, Valentine said:

Ah, well I knew a lady called Eileen when I was nineteen and she was about eighty. She was the first disgracefully behaved old lady I had ever met and I thought she was brilliant. When she died she was cremated and her ashes were left on a shelf - not a mini cab office - but somewhere very odd. The difference is I don't think Eileen minded, but Violet does.

This Month’s Book: Me, the Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine

This is a story about looking for clues to solve one mystery, only to find that the solution is inextricably linked to the central mystery of your life. The story starts with Lucas finding “a tenner” in his coat pocket after staying too late at his friend’s house and deciding to take a cab home. In the mini-cab office, he sees an urn up on a shelf and when he asks about it, is told that it was left in a cab 18 months ago. Lucas can’t stop thinking about the abandoned urn; in fact, he thinks the inhabitant is talking to him. He finds out her name is Violet Park, and he concocts a plan with his grandmother, Pansy, (who swears all the time, but without actually saying the word, “just mouths it with her face screwed up”) to liberate Violet from her purgatory. One of the things I really love about this book is how detailed and original the descriptions are. For instance, when Lucas is looking out over the heath, unable to sleep: That part of the heath is covered with enormous crows. They’ve got massive feet like they can’t believe how big they are. They all look like actors with their hands behind their backs, rehearsing the bit in that play when the king says, “Now is the winter of our discontent…” Lucas’s family is pretty messed up –his father disappeared five years ago, and they’ve never been able to move on. Lucas idolizes his father, which drives his mother insane, and his sister is just angry. Lucas has quite a funny voice, and the story is broken up by lists, such as this one about parents. “You start off thinking they own the world, and everything is downhill from there. Parents do so many things to wake you up to the idea that they are less than perfect.

• Speak like they think teenagers speak (always wrong, excruciatingly wrong).
• Get drunk too quickly or too much.
• Be rude to people they don’t know.
• Flirt with your teacher and your friends..
• Forget their age.
• Use their age against you.
• Get piercings.
• Wear leather trousers (both sexes).
• Drive badly (without admitting it).
• Cook badly (ditto).
• Go to seed.
• Sing in the shower/car/public.
• Don’t say sorry when they’re wrong.
• Shout at you or each other.
• Hit you or each other.
• Steal from you or each other.
• Lie to you or each other.
• Tell dirty jokes in front of your friends.
• Give you grief in front of your friends.
• Try to be your mate when it suits them.”

As I’ve already hinted, by the end of the book, Lucas has solved more than one mystery, and has come to some sort of peace with the world, and his mother especially.  Review by Stacy Chur