YA Not-Just-Books Book Club

Try one of these:

The Perfect Shot by Elaine Marie Alphin

In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais

On the Devil's Court by Carl Deuker

Night Hoops by Carl Deuker

Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper

Jump Ball: A Basketball Season in Poems by Mel Glenn

Rebound by Bob Krech

Hoops by Walter Dean Myers

Slam! by Walter Dean Myers

Game by Walter Dean Myers

Ball Don't Lie by Matt de la Peña

Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws by Janette Rallison

The Hoopster by Alan Lawrence Sitomer

Black and White by Paul Volponi

Rucker Park Setup by Paul Volponi

Playing without the Ball: A Novel in Four Quarters by Rich Wallace

Review of The Poison Diaries by Maryrose Wood

2011-04-29T16:13:00.001-04:00

I have to say I’m not sure how I feel about this one. I liked the beginning: Jessamine keeps a diary of her lonely life with her father in a remote cottage in Northumberland. Her father, Thomas Luxton, isn’t a doctor, or a butcher (what he calls surgeons), but when people are sick, they send for him He is called an apothecary, but he considers himself a gardener, nevermind that many of the plants he grows are poisonous. In fact, he has a special walled garden that’s kept locked, which is full of all varieties of poisonous plants. Jessamine’s life changes when the local owner of an insane asylum drops off a strange, orphaned teenaged boy who’s accused of curing the inmates of their madness. It’s hard to believe that in that time period (late 18th century?) Jessamine’s father would have left her alone in the cottage for days at a time with a boy her own age, but it’s more believable when you realize later in the story that he has nefarious plans for them. Thomas Luxton would give anything to learn ancient secrets of healing plants that have been lost through the ages, and it appears that the foundling boy, Weed, somehow has that knowledge. The story gets pretty wild, but it’s certainly suspenseful. I would have to call this a fantasy since the plants talk to weed, and Prince Oleander, the Prince of Poison, is masterminding it all. Review by Stacy Church

Review of Trash by Andy Mulligan

2011-04-29T15:52:00.001-04:00

I loved this book! The story is told in a number of different voices, as each person tells of their involvement and contribution to the development of the drama. Behala is a rubbish-town, populated by dumpsite boys (and adults). People live in boxes, stacked up high; of course no one has running water or toilets. Dumpsite boys spend their days (and often their nights, too) picking through the trash, looking for plastic, paper, tin cans, cloth or rags. There’s a Mission School, and even though most of the kids have to work instead of attend, Father Julliard and Olivia try to watch out for them, giving them the occasional bit of money or food. The day everything changed started with Gardo and Raphael finding something unusual –a small leather bag containing a wallet, a folded-up map and a key. They’re just happy to have the money, but when the police come to Behala questioning everyone about whether anyone has found anything unusual, they start to realize that there’s more to the story than just some lost money. The boys can’t let it go until they find out what it’s all about, and they enlist the help of a boy named Rat who’s shunned by pretty much everyone in Behala to help them hide what they found. There’s murder, political corruption, embezzlement, and a code that can only be cracked by visiting a dying man in prison. It’s a great story, and uplifting to read about boys growing up such crushing poverty displaying such heart and courage. Review by Stacy Church

Review of Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins

2011-04-23T12:15:00.001-04:00

This is another well-written story by Mitali Perkins, this time set during the conflict in Burma (renamed Myanmar) between the military rulers and the ethnic minority Karenni. Chiko is a book-smart boy trying to avoid being forced into the military like most boys his age. Tu Reh is a Karenni refugee who hates the Burmese soldiers for burning his home. Chiko responds to an ad in the paper for boys who want to becomes teachers, but finds that instead it is a trap to force boys to serve the military government. The two boys are destined to meet, and through their relationship, work through their feelings about what’s going on in their country. I won’t say there’s a happy ending, but both boys show great courage and heart. Review by Stacy Church

Review of Life, After by Sarah Darer Littman

2011-04-22T13:52:00.001-04:00

Life, After is a window into a culture and time period that I knew almost nothing about –Argentina during “the Crisis" in the late 1990’s, when the nation’s banks failed. People left Argentina after losing everything, many of them were Jews who emigrated to Israel, or the US. Dani’s home life is miserable –her mother works long hours at the hospital to try to support the family after they lost the family business. Her father is depressed, and only comes out of his depression to yell at Dani and her younger sister. Her aunt died in a terrorist bombing when Dani was 7, and her father has never gotten over it. Dani’s best friend left for Israel. She does have a boyfriend (her novio), but his family decides to move to Miami. After Dani’s mother was injured in a protest outside her hospital, she finally convinces Dani’s father that they should move to America, too. Although some parts of the story seem too pat (how quickly Dani makes new friends and finds a new boyfriends in America, and how her dad’s depression lifts so completely once he decides to take medication), I really enjoyed Life, After for it’s portrayal of what life in Argentina was like –the food, the political history, the family values, and the difficulties Dani faces as she tries to fit into a new school in a new country. Review by Stacy Church

Review of Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

2011-04-22T13:36:00.001-04:00

I guess Ship Breaker is technically classified as science fiction, because there are creatures called half-men that are engineered to be part human, part tiger and part dog. Its set in a futuristic world, which, because of its bleakness, seems post-apocalyptic, but I guess that’s just how things turn out to be. Nailer scavenges copper wiring from wrecked clipper ships, but he knows that as soon as he grows too big to fit into the passages his usefulness will be over. His father is a foul-tempered bully whose temperament is made worse by the drugs (crystal meth?) he uses. Nailer thinks he’s found a way out of the poverty and drudgery of his life when he and his crew-mate Pima find a newly wrecked clipper ship. They plan to take all the salvage and keep it to themselves. As they’re pawing through the wreckage, they come upon the body of a girl, crushed under the weight of furniture, but as they go to cut off her fingers to get the rings she wears, her black eyes blink. Pima is all for finishing her off, but somehow Nailer just can’t do it. His decision to save the girl changes the course of his life, for better or worse it’s hard to tell. The savagery of Nailer’s world is well told in this story, but there’s plenty of heart, too, and a really interesting rendering of how New Orleans evolves after the hurricane. Ship Breaker kind of reminds me of Salt by Maurice Gee. It’s pretty clear that Bacigalupi has left the door open for a sequel. Review by Stacy Church

This month’s book: Edenville Owls by Robert B. Parker

2011-04-22T12:54:00.001-04:00

This book has it all: drama, suspense, sports, history, romance. Bobby and his friends play basketball, but since their junior high school doesn’t have a gym, they are an unofficial team –no coach, no uniforms, and they hitchhike to most of the games. When Bobby finds out there’s an extra slot in the local tournament, the Owls really get down to it. Bobby starts hanging around the high school practices to see how they practice, and he tries to get the Owls to do the same drills. The suspense comes into play with their new (and attractive) teacher, Miss Delaney. One day when Bobby is staying after school for detention, he looks out the window and sees a man threatening Miss Delaney. He scares the guy off by yelling out the window, but he just can’t let it go until he finds out who the man is and why he’s hassling Miss Delaney. The ensuing surveillance turns up Nazi connections (the book takes place just at the end of WW II), a secret marriage and a phony identity. The romance comes with Bobby’s best friend, Joanie, who Bobby maybe has more feelings for than he realized. The Owls are great friends –always there for each other, even when they clash about what to do on the basketball court or who is Joanie’s boyfriend. If you’ve read any of Parker’s adult novels about the detective Spenser, you’ll recognize his character in the young Bobby. There’s a ton of historical information inserted in separate sections of the book that really set the scene of the time period. Review by Stacy Church

Review of Flirt Club by Cathleen Daly

2011-04-21T19:37:00.001-04:00

If you love Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, this is the book for you. Flirt Club consists mostly of letters back and forth between Isabelle and Annie (also known as Cisco and the Bean), with a few journal entries thrown in for good measure. Cisco and the Bean share the hilarious disability of being unable to flirt with boys. As Bean (Agent #66) writes to Cisco (Agent #88) “SO, I think our next undercover, secret-agent-girl operation should be learning how to FLIRT! What do you think, No. 88? …let’s see if we can adopt identities that don’t clam up, blush, stutter, sputter, and basically run away and die around boys…Write me back if you can, my little pork chop.” The writing is very funny, and of course, the voices of the two girls are much too clever to be the voices of two actual girls, but that’s ok because it’s so darn funny. At the end of the first meeting, here’s what the girls wrote:

“In Conclusion/Things we have learned at Flirt Club:

1.Smiling,questions/showing interest are a good start. (The worst thing that can happen is that someone feels cared about.)

2. Hair flipping is not a good approach for either of us.

3. I am considering throwing things (that don’t hurt) at an ADT (Actual Designated Target).

Review by Stacy Church

Review of Rose Sees Red by Cecil Castellucci

2011-04-21T19:19:00.001-04:00

Despite a somewhat melodramatic beginning, this is a really engaging story about two teen-aged girls living in New York City: Rose, an American girl and Yrena, a Russian girl. They’ve lived next door to each other for a couple of years, and although Rose and her brother, Todd, see Yrena in the mornings (they leave for school at the same time), and Rose and Yrena have watched each other through their bedroom windows, they’ve never met until the evening Yrena climbs through Rose’s bedroom window and is suddenly there. Rose’s brother spends a lot of time fantasizing about Yrena, and they’ve both made jokes about the KGB and CIA agents who stand watch outside Yrena’s house, It’s the 1980’s, and the Cold War is on between Russia and the US. Rose goes to Performing Arts High School where she studies ballet. Yrena studies ballet also, but has no passion for it, although her dancing is brilliant. The entire book takes place in the 24 hours after Yrena comes to Rose’s house –they sneak out to join some other Performing Arts students on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art because Yrena wants to go to a real American party. The funny thing is that Rose is completely withdrawn socially. She decided to go to Performing Arts HS even though her best friend, Daisy, told her their friendship was over if she didn’t go to Science with her. For once Rose stood up for herself and decided to do what she loved, which was dance. She’s so afraid of being hurt in another friendship that she makes no effort to make any friends at her new school, and it’s only because she’s trying to show Yrena a good tiime that she gets out of the house. The girls’ disappearance practically causes an international incident. Rose Sees Red opens a window into a time period not written about very often in children’s or young adult literature, and readers will probably find it hard to believe that Russia and the US were so openly distrustful of each other. Review by Stacy Church

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Review of Cloaked by Alex Flinn

2011-04-08T13:43:00.001-04:00

Not a lot of books can carry off a story based around a teenaged shoe repairman, but that part of the story isn’t the problem with Cloaked. I love the details about Johnny’s life running his family’s shoe repair business in a swanky hotel in Miami. Johnny’s family is poor, especially since his dad disappeared, and he’s trying to keep things going so his mom can pay the rent, and, he knows a lot about shoes. It’s not often you hear a teenaged boy talk about Manolo Blahniks. And on the sly he designs his own shoes and makes up models with the scraps of leather left over from repairs. The problem with the story comes more with the fairy tale aspect. Of course there’s a quest, with the promise of the visiting princess’s hand in marriage if he can find the frog her brother was turned into by the evil witch. The princess’s accent is tiresome. The talking swans are cool (they used to be human, so with special earbuds Johnny can understand what they’re saying). I don’t mind the travelling cloak, or how clueless Johnny is about who he really likes. But honestly, the plot is so hard to follow there were times when I went back and reread to see if I missed something that would explain what was going on. I enjoyed the first half of the book, so maybe if you’re a big fan of Alex Flinn’s other books, you can hang in there through the whole thing. Review by Stacy Church

Review of See What I See by Gloria Whelan

2011-04-08T13:26:00.001-04:00

Gloria Whelan’s latest book tells the story of Kate Tapert as she prepares to leave home to attend a prestigious art school where she has won a full scholarship. No one knows that her father is the famous Dalton Quinn, a reclusive people-hating artist who has fallen into obscurity. Dalton left Kate and her mom years before, and her mom is distraught when Kate tells her she plans to live with Dalton while she attends school. The truth is that Kate wrote to Dalton, but never heard back from him. Showing up on his doorstep unannounced is just one of the bad decisions Kate makes. She finds out firsthand how nasty he can be, but when she learns (by snooping in his bedroom) how sick he is, she decides she has to stay and take care of him. Although I enjoyed reading See What I See, I often found myself questioning how realistic it was for Kate to be making the choices she made: lying to her mother about what was going on, giving up her own work to help her father get ready for one last show. I don’t think this is Gloria Whelan’s best, but it’s still worth reading. Review by Stacy Church

About Melissa Glenn Haber

2011-03-24T20:16:00.001-04:00

“When I was writing The Pluto Project, for example, one of the main challenges I had in revision was making the two main female characters different from one another. While I was first writing the book, I didn’t really distinguish clearly between their characters. My editor helped me see that the two girls were really very different—one of them, Alice, was very smart, unsentimental, and a great match for the main character, Alan, while the other, Juliet (the one Alan likes) is committed, passionate, but not exceptionally bright. Once I realized my editor was right, I found lots of places where I had given Juliet dialog that really belonged to Alice, and I began to see that the brilliant ideas Juliet had really needed to come from other characters. And doing that made the book much richer, because it adds to the story that Alan (who really values wit and intelligence) should find himself attracted to someone for her passion and not for her brains. Plus, it makes the book more real, to have supporting characters who are really their own people.”

To read the full interview with the author of The Pluto Project check out her website http://www.melissaglennhaber.com/oaqs.php

More Books about Teens as Detectives

2011-03-10T20:45:00.001-05:00

Down the Rabbit Hole: An Echo Falls Mystery by Abrahams

Rat Life by Arnold

The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin by Berk

The Musician's Daughter by Dunlap

The Christopher Killer: A Forensic Mystery by Ferguson

The Dying Breath: A Forensic Mystery by Ferguson

Something Rotten: A Horatio Wilkes Mystery by Gratz

Lulu Dark Can See through Walls by Madison

The Venetian Policeman by Rabb

The Death Collector by Richards

In Too Deep by Rushford

From Charlie's Point of View by Scrimger

Live and Let Shop by Spradlin

Creature of the Night by Thompson

The Uninvited by Wynne-Jones

Review of The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman

2011-02-20T16:29:00.001-05:00

Reading this book reminds me of why I love Pete Hautman (author of Godless, Rash, Sweetblood). The writing is terrific: quirky, funny, believable. The Big Crunch is divided into four sections, one for each season, and it follows the relationship of Wes and June. June is the new girl at school, a role she knows all too well. Her father is a workout specialist, which isn’t what you would think –he’s hired to come in and help companies that are in trouble get out of trouble. So most of his jobs are temporary, and June’s mom and dad have a number of annoying phrases they use to try to get June on board with having to move all the time, things like, “There is no reverse gear in time machine.” Wes spends the first part of the book running away from June, who he calls Aqua Girl because of the color of her eyes. She tries to stay away from him, too, because her goal is to not get too attached to anyone. In other words, find an ok, boring, but nice, boyfriend, who in this case is Wes’s best friend, Jerry. Of course once Wes and June get together, it blows the friendship apart, and then June’s dad has to move for a new job, and she doesn’t even get to finish the year at her new high school. Hautman gets the push/pull of Wes and June’s relationship just right. One minute they’re doing crazy things so that they can be together, and the next minute they’re wondering what the heck they’re doing. Even while you root for them to work everything out, you know how unlikely it is, given all the circumstances (including their age) conspiring against them. Still, the ending is about as hopeful as you could ask for. Review by Stacy Church

This month’s book: The Pluto Project by Melissa Glenn Haber

2011-02-20T15:32:00.001-05:00

This book isn’t new, but somehow I just discovered it. 14-year-old Alan works hard at being unobtrusive (just one of the words his favorite teacher, Mrs. Perry, uses to describe him, others being misanthrope, cynic, curmudgeon), trying not to get noticed by Rory Frankel and his gang, who spend most of their time beating up Morris Kaufman, just like they have since elementary school. Alan lives in a big empty house, almost empty even of furniture, with his dad and his aunt Trish, who moved in after his mother died. Alan and his group of friends spend a lot of time hanging around in a culvert by the side of a road, listening to the conversations of passersby, and pretending to solve crimes by discovering clues to the activities of CRAP, Conspiracy Rule American People. “The whole thing had all started off as a joke. Of course it still was a joke, but not the way it had been when they’d first started the game…” In fact, Alan comes to believe it isn’t a joke at all, when he thinks they’ve heard a conversation linked to the assassination of the governor. Alan is amazing at finding meaning in lines of poetry at school, and he becomes obsessed with finding meaning in the clues he discovers in the culvert. I’ve just learned there’s a word for this: pariedolia, which means the tendency to ascribe meaning to random stimuli. Alan also becomes obsessed with the new girl at school, Juliet (“like the play), and as his obsession grows, he neglects his other friends. Alan’s home life is pretty terrible, and the pressure of his father forcing his new girlfriend, Cheryl, into Alan’s life, along with Alan’s belief that he is the only one who can stop another assassination attempt, pretty much drive him around the bend. I love everything about this book –the characters, the suspense, the sadness, Alan’s poetic interpretations. Review by Stacy Church

Review of The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff

2011-02-10T19:52:00.001-05:00

The cover of The Replacement definitely wins the contest for creepiest book cover ever. No one else at the library even wanted to hear me talk about the story after seeing the cover. Now I, on the other hand, love the cover, and it really matches the creepiness of the tale inside. Mackie Doyle is different than everyone else in the small dismal town of Gentry. Even though it says right on the cover that he’s a replacement (a changeling, if you will), it takes a while for the reader to really understand what that means. Apparently, the town of Gentry has a dirty secret that no one has spoken out loud about for a long time, and Mackie is determined to make them face it. Because he’s the one replacement who didn’t die young like he was supposed to. Mackie can’t live with the horrors of his life anymore –his sickness at the smell of blood, the way his skin burns if he goes onto consecrated ground (awkward since his dad is a minister) – and he can’t stand watching other people suffer, like his classmate Tate, whose baby sister has just gone missing, so he finds his way underground to Mayhem and wages war with all kinds of demons to save the town of Gentry from their grasp. The underworld creatures are so creepy, and there’s romance, too. I don’t usually like horror books, but the combination with fantasy kept me from putting this one down. Review by Stacy Church

Is It Really Reading?

2011-02-03T18:57:00.001-05:00

Here’s a question for you: If you read a wordless graphic novel like The Arrival, is it really reading? What does “reading” really mean, anyway? Well, here are the first four definitions of “read” according to dictionary.com

–verb (used with object)

1. to look at carefully so as to understand the meaning of (something written, printed, etc.): to read a book; to read music.

2. to utter aloud or render in speech (something written, printed, etc.): reading a story to his children; The actor read his lines in a booming voice.

3. to have such knowledge of (a language) as to be able to understand things written in it: to be able to read french.

4. to apprehend the meaning of (signs, characters, etc.) otherwise than with the eyes, as by means of the fingers: to read braille.

So I’d say yes, reading The Arrival really is reading.

Favorite Quotes from Shaun Tan

2011-01-27T19:27:00.001-05:00

I think stories that represent the world as hopeless or dark are valid and some of them I really enjoy but the truth is that there is hopefulness in every situation.

Drawing a good picture is like telling a really good lie – the key is in the incidental detail.

--http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/27/shaun-tan-unexpected-details

All fiction is false; what makes it convincing is that it runs alongside the truth.

I just find myself strongly attracted, in an empathetic way, to images of isolated figures moving through vast, often confounding landscapes.

I would go so far as to say that all art and literature is about some kind of disconnection, brokenness or discrepancy.

I'm very interested in things that are overlooked, and in trying to find value in things that are not considered valuable.

--http://www.bookslut.com/features/2009_07_014748.php

Want To Read More Books about Immigration?

2011-01-27T18:39:00.001-05:00

Check out these titles about the immigrant experience:

Fresh off the Boat by de la Cruz

Threads and Flames by Friesner

Uprising by Haddix

Voss: How I Come to America and Am Hero, Mostly by Ives

Someone like Summer: A Novel by Kerr

Life, After by Littman

Riot by Myers

A Step from Heaven by Na

Habibi by Nye

The Night of the Burning: Devorah's Story by Wulf

Learning To Fly by Yee

This month’s book: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

2011-01-13T18:39:00.001-05:00

What a pleasure to come back to this book! The Arrival is a graphic novel completely without words (unless you count the ones in an imaginary language). The setting it futuristic, but the artwork is all sepia tones and distressed-looking pages. The beginning is heart-breaking: the first pictures are of household items, then a family picture, then you see the picture being wrapped and packed in a suitcase, then a picture of a wife with her hand over her husband’s hand on top of the suitcase, and it’s clear that they’re very sad. The husband tries to comfort his wife and daughter as they see him off at a train, and the wife and child return to a city overshadowed by some kind of danger, represented by a serpent-like tail. In Part II we see the man on an ocean journey with many other people. They arrive to a scene much like Ellis Island –long lines, physical exams and paperwork. Then you finally get a glimpse of the city the man has arrived in. The artwork is amazing, and clearly shows how strange and disorienting the city is for the new arrival. Many people have pets, all amazing fantastical creatures, and a particularly adorable one, who becomes his constant companion, is waiting for him in the room he rents. Part III follows the man as he tries to find work. He encounters people who help him, and each of their stories is told in a series of images. Most of the people are fleeing terrible things. In Part IV he tries a few jobs, and is told more personal stories of other immigrants. In Part V he sends for his family, who come to join him in the new land. The books ends with his daughter passing on to a new arrival the kindness shown to her father when he arrived in the new land. There are parts of the book I don’t understand (what is the dragontail menacing his old land?), but some things I understand better as I read the book over again. The Arrival conveys the new immigrant’s bewilderment at his new surroundings better than any book with words ever could. Review by Stacy Church

Want to read more books like The Gravedigger’s Cottage?

2010-12-30T18:25:00.001-05:00

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

Me, the Missing, and the Dead by Jenny Valentine

‘tis the season…

2010-12-30T18:13:00.001-05:00

I guess for me it’s ‘tis the season to be busy! Sorry for neglecting the blog. Interested in learning more about Chris Lynch?

Some things you probably don’t know about him:

Before he became a writer, he worked as a furniture mover/truck driver and a house painter!

He went to Emerson College (right here in Boston)

His favorite television show is The Simpsons (why am I not surprised by that?)

If you want to read an interview with him, check out this link http://authors.simonandschuster.com/Chris-Lynch/16756570/author_revealed

Review of The Gravedigger’s Cottage by Chris Lynch

2010-12-09T20:19:00.001-05:00

First of all, I apologize for my delay in posting this review!

This a book full of sadness. The sadness of losing a parent (or two). The sadness of losing a pet (or a long list of pets). The sadness of moving to a new house in a new town, and then finding out your new house is called “The Gravedigger’s Cottage,” and that you and your brother are referred to as “Diggers” or “Diggerkids.” The sadness of watching your remaining parent withdraw further and further into his own anxieties until it seems like he doesn’t have any space for you anymore. Fortunately, the book isn’t all about sadness –it’s also quite funny. Even the stories of the pets deaths have a certain black humor to them, although I have to tell you that I had to skip over at least one of them. I love the way Sylvia tells the story of her life with her brother (half brother, actually), Walter, and her father. Her father has moved them to this cottage by the sea, supposedly to start a new life in a place not haunted by all those deaths, but after they move in, their father starts to obsess about fixing what’s wrong with the house (which is a lot). Soon he’s not leaving the house at all, not even to do their annual back-to-school shopping trip, and it’s up to Sylvia and Walter to snap him out of it. Review by Stacy Church

This month’s book: The Gravedigger’s Cottage by Chris Lynch

2010-11-17T17:42:00.001-05:00

Copies of this month’s book are available in the YA Dept. Review to follow!

Want to Read More Books Like Abarat?

2010-10-27T20:53:00.001-04:00

Warriors of Alavna by Browne

Artemis Fowl series by Colfer

The Dark is Rising sequence by Cooper

The Named by Curley

Dingo by de Lint

Darkhenge by Fisher

Interworld by Gaiman & Reaves

Stravaganza series by Hoffman

The Dream Merchant by Hoving, translated by Velman

Firestorm by Klass

Magic or Madness by Larbalestier

Saving Juliet by Selfors

Gateway by Shinn

The Dreamwalker's Child by Voake

The Web of Fire by Voake

Clive Barker

2010-10-27T19:51:00.001-04:00

Clive Barker was born in Liverpool, England, at 1:00 am on the morning of 5 October 1952. He grew up there and went to Dovedale and Quarry Bank schools - the same schools that John Lennon of the Beatles had been to a few years before Clive! He then studied English and Philosophy at Liverpool University. Whilst at school he wrote - stories, comic strips and plays - and together with his friends formed a fringe theatre group which mounted productions both in Liverpool and, later, in London. His first books, The Books of Blood, were published in 1984 in England and Clive began to concentrate on writing fiction rather than plays. Publishing both short stories and novels for adults, he moved to Beverly Hills in Los Angeles in 1991 where he next wrote his first published book for 'all ages' – The Thief of Always. Clive has directed and produced films, written for television and exhibited his paintings in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York, as well as working on comics, models, video games and toys. The first volume of the Abarat series was published in 2002 and made the New York Times' bestseller lists, as well as winning a number of awards.Abarat II followed in 2004, winning a Bram Stoker award. Clive is currently working on both volume three of The Abarat Series for all ages and his next novel for adults, The Scarlet Gospels. –from www.clivebarker.info/youngfaq.html

Some thoughts about Abarat

2010-10-21T18:26:00.001-04:00

Doodling

Remember how Candy doodled wavy lines on her notebook? And she kept thinking about them as she was leaving school? I love the description of the lines, and how in her mind they changed from being black lines on gray, recycled paper to being bright, and then moving: "The wavy lines were rolling across the darkness inside her skull, rolling and breaking, the brilliant colors bursting into arabesques of white and silver."

Destiny

When Candy is trying to decide whether to help John Mischief, to risk drawing the attention of the horrifying Mendelson Shape, she thinks about destiny and fate. "In a curious way it made sense that she was here because she had to be here...Why else, after living all her life in Chickentown, should she be here - in a place she'd never been before - today?"

More about Doodling

On page 52, Candy "thought of the doodle she'd made on her workbook; the way it had seemed to brighten in her mind's eye, inspiring her limbs to move. It was almost as though the doodle had been a sign, a ticket to this adventure." And then on page 63, we come across the symbol again, on the surface of the turquoise-and-silver ball Candy finds in the tower: "And elegantly engraved on its blue-green surface was a design she knew! There it was, etched into the metal: the doodle she'd drawn so obsessively in her workbook." There's a lot in this book about fate. Clearly, Candy was fated to have this adventure. How do you think the wavy-line doodle fits into this? Was it put there purposely (by someone?) as a clue to help Candy know what to do, a sign for her to follow? Or is it just a detail that is present in certain places, that Candy somehow tunes into?

Mendelson Shape

So what did you think of the first bad guy in the book, Mendelson Shape? I'm not sure which is scarier, the description of him ("…there was something spiderish about his grotesque anatomy. His almost fleshless limbs were so long, she could readily imagine him walking up a wall.") or the picture. I haven't encountered many scarier images than that of Shape climbing up the tower in pursuit of Candy, singing his horrid little nursery song.

Clive Barker

2010-10-21T18:01:00.001-04:00

“In 1995 Clive began painting huge dream-images which were wholly unlike his previous paintings. He began to think of them as the illustrations for a collection of 25 tales; a 'Book of Hours' which would describe all the emotions of a day, hour by hour (with an extra, mystical 25th hour). The Book Of Hours became a whole world - The Abarat - and as the paintings kept coming, so the story grew and grew into a series of four, and then five books..”

To read more about Clive Barker and how he wrote the Abarat series, check out his website http://www.clivebarker.info/youngabarat.html

This month’s book: Abarat by Clive Barker

2010-10-02T15:14:00.001-04:00

This book is the first of author/illustrator Clive Barker's promised four book series: The Books of Abarat. It took him 4 years to complete the original artwork (100 astounding, disturbing paintings) for this book, and the second book, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War, contains another 100 equally bizarre original paintings. I don't want to say much about the plot of the book because I feel that half of the fun is trying to figure out what the heck is going on. But I do want to give those of you who haven't started the book yet a piece of advice: skip the prologue and jump right in to the main part of the book. The prologue will just confuse you and possibly make you think you're going to hate the rest. I promise, it's nothing like the prologue. Clive Barker's genius is his imagination, and he shows it most in his characters. Take for instance the Lord of Midnight, Christopher Carrion. The lower half of his head is surrounded by a translucent collar filled with blue fluid, in which swim bright, flickering forms, which he clearly takes pleasure in, smiling if one of them grazes his face. The shapes? "Carrion had found a way to channel every nightmarish thought and image out of the coils of his brain and bring them into this semiphysical form. He breathed the fluid, the flickering forms ran in and out of his mouth and nostrils, soaking his soul in his own nightmares." Whew! Wait until you see the picture - page 125, by the way. Anyway, it's not really a horror book, despite the grotesque bad guys. The heroine is Candy Quackenbush, who is destined to save the Land of Abarat, an archipelago of 25 islands, each existing in one distinct hour of the day, and one for "the time outside time." That's enough for now. Start reading!

The Most Famous Case of Faking It: Pygmalion

2010-09-15T17:10:00.001-04:00

Pygmalion: A Romance in Five Acts (1912) is a play by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw. Professor of phonetics Henry Higgins makes a bet that he can train a bedraggled Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle to pass for a duchess at an ambassador's garden party by teaching her to assume a veneer of gentility, the most important element of which, he believes, is impeccable speech.

Check out these modern film adaptations of Pygmalion:

Pygmalion (1938), a film adaptation by Shaw and others, starring Leslie Howard as Higgins and Wendy Hiller as Eliza.
My Fair Lady (1964), a film version of the musical starring Audrey Hepburn as Eliza and Rex Harrison as Higgins.
She’s All That (1999): a modern, teenage take on Pygmalion.

Faking It or Reinventing Yourself

2010-09-09T17:38:00.001-04:00

If you like Zen and the Art of Faking It, take a look at some of these:

Ten Things I Hate about Me Abdel-Fattah

Perfect Mistake: A Privilege Novel by Brian

Sara's Face by Burgess

Secrets of My Hollywood Life: A Novel by Calonita

They Never Came Back by Cooney

Burned by Hopkins

I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want To Be Your Class President by Lieb

First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover by Perkins

Missing Persons series by Rabb

Just in Case by Rosoff

Stealing Heaven by Scott

Fake ID by Sorrells

Bio of Jordan Sonnenblick

2010-09-01T17:34:00.001-04:00

“My favorite school subject was always English, although I was pretty good at everything except sitting still and being quiet. I’m pretty sure my teachers didn’t know what to make of me, because I got straight A’s, but got in trouble constantly. This didn’t stop until I was in my first semester at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. The girl of my adolescent dreams was in my freshman English class, and one day when I was making jokes nonstop, she turned to me and hissed, “Why are you so immature?”

At that moment, I instantly became a model citizen.

At Stuyvesant, I met a creative writing teacher who completely changed my life. His name was Frank McCourt, and my senior year was his last year of teaching. He taught me a ton, mostly through one Yoda-like saying that he repeated to me all year. I would write the funniest piece I could, and the class would be cracking up as I read my work aloud. Then, as soon as the noise subsided, Mr. McCourt would say, “Jordan . . . Jordan. Someday you’ll head for the deep water.” Head for the deep water – great advice if you want to be a writer. Or a salmon.

Mr. McCourt gave me a big creative writing award at graduation, and then retired to work on what would eventually be his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela’s Ashes. His parting words to me, recorded in my yearbook, were, “Yes, you’ve got the comic talent. But there’s deeper stuff waiting to come out. You’re a born writer.” Admittedly, he probably wrote the “born writer” part in hundreds of yearbooks. But the part about “deeper stuff waiting to come out” became the marching orders for my entire writing
career.” excerpted from “A Little Bit About Me” http://www.jordansonnenblick.com/bio/

To watch a video interview with Jordan Sonnenblick: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=135

This month’s book: Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick

2010-08-25T20:05:00.001-04:00

San Lee is an 8th grader transferring into a new school in the middle of a semester, and, once again, he's the new kid in a new school in a new town. But he has the same old problems, only now they're worse than ever because his dad is in prison, and his mom is working constantly to try and support them. At every new school, San makes himself over to become someone who can fit in, but this time he says, "I was sick of pretending to be like everyone else --the artificial slang, the Internet research on sports I didn't care about, the endless watching of MTV so I could learn song lyrics, dance moves, cool clothing brands." Then, in the cafeteria on his first day, he meets a wild-haired girl who spends every lunch period singing and playing an old, beat-up guitar. Next, in social studies class (which he happens to have with the wild-haired girl, Woody), he just happens to know the answer to a question about Zen Buddhism, and his new identity as Buddha Boy is launched. Since he's the only Asian in the school, everyone takes his expertise for granted. So he rushes to the library after school to read up on Buddhism and begins to fake it. He gets paired up with Woody to do a project on Buddhism, and the time involved in their dual project of volunteering at a soup kitchen and learning how to shoot baskets the Zen way gets him into trouble with his mom, who suspects him of becoming a liar like his father. This is a very funny, heartfelt book by the author of some other terrific books: Drums, Girls & Dangerous Pie, it’s sequel After Ever After and Notes from the Midnight Driver. Review by Stacy Church

You Say You Want a Revolution… More Books about Rebels and the Overthrowing of Governments

2010-08-25T19:46:00.001-04:00

The Pox Party: Taken from Accounts by [Octavius Nothing's] Own Hand and Other Sundry Sources; Collected by Mr. M.T. Anderson of Boston

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation. v. #2 The Kingdom on the Waves: Taken from Accounts by His Own Hand and Other Sundry Sources; Collected by M.T. Anderson of Boston

Chains: Seeds of America by Anderson

The Year of the Hangman by Blackwood

Rebel Angels by Bray

The Pale Assassin by Elliott

The Red Necklace: A Story of the French Revolution by Gardner

Just Jane: A Daughter of England Caught in the Struggle of the American Revolution by Lavender

Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdom by Paterson

Woods Runner by Paulsen

Sovay by Rees

Or Give Me Death: A Novel of Patrick Henry's Family by Rinaldi

Cast Two Shadows: The American Revolution in the South by Rinaldi

Chanda's Wars by Stratton

Specials by Westerfeld

Want To Read More Books like The Hermit Thrush Sings?

2010-07-28T17:43:00.001-04:00

Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

The Hunger Games Collins
Catching Fire Collins
The House of the Scorpion Farmer
Gone Grant
Hunger Grant
Turnabout Haddix
Hole in the Sky Hautman
The cure Levitin
Tomorrow, When the War Began Marsden
The Host Meyer
Shade’s Children Nix
Z for Zachariah O'Brien
The Transall Saga Paulsen
Life as We Knew It Pfeffer
The Dead and the Gone Pfeffer
The Last Book in the Universe Philbrick
Nation Pratchett
How I Live Now Rosoff
Bones of Faerie Simner
Welcome to the Ark Tolan
The Uglies Trilogy Westerfeld

This month’s book: The Hermit Thrush Sings by Susan Butler

2010-07-21T17:46:00.001-04:00

The Hermit Thrush Sings is a futuristic, post-apocalyptic science fiction novel that takes place in the state of Maine, which after a horrible disaster where a meteor crashes into the earth, is now a small country called Maynor. The meteor caused the release of radiation from nuclear power plants, and everything is thrust back in time. There’s no technology, people are ruled by an oppressive government, and there is no freedom. There are mutant species caused by the radiation exposure, and humans who have mutations are called “defectives,” and are sent to The Institute to live. One mutant species is the birmba, a combination ape/bear that is thought to be very dangerous to humans.

Leora is an orphan who lives with her stepmother, who following the death of Leora’s father and sister, remarried the governor. She has a younger stepsister who torments her because Leora has webbed fingers on her left hand. She lives in constant fear of being sent to The Institute. She keeps her hand hidden, except when she’s alone when uses it to draw amazing pictures which foretell the future.

When Leora overhears plans to send her to The Institute as punishment for setting free a baby birmba that was going to be sent to the government for experimentation, she decides to run away and try to find her long lost sister Reba. She’s heard rumors that Reba isn’t dead, and is in fact part of a band of rebels that is planning to overthrow the government.

This book is very suspenseful, and the reader feels carried along with Leora as she discovers her own bravery, and the special powers of her webbed hand. Review by Stacy Church

My Favorite Quotes from Shooting the Moon

2010-07-15T20:52:00.001-04:00

"We were stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, a flat piece of real estate that threatened to burst into flames every afternoon from June through September." page 11

“The Colonel was born to run the show, and he had a drawer full of medals and ribbons to prove it.” page 11

“You wouldn’t think that some crazy thing Cindy Lorenzo said to you, something made up in her halfway working mind, could hurt your feelings, but Cindy’s words could pinch as hard as her fingers.” page 60

“But the Colonel seemed to want me to be happy, and he seemed genuinely pleased when I was happy, and that struck me as a pretty good definition of love when you got right down to it.” page 80

“…but usually having the Colonel in the house was like having an opera going on. He was big, he was loud, he had a lot to talk about.” page 87

“He was a big talker, someone who liked words for words’ sake, the sound of them, the way you can pile them up in your mouth and make a poem if you spill them out the right way.” page 92

Want To Read More about the Topics in Shooting the Moon?

2010-06-30T17:48:00.001-04:00

Fiction about the Vietnam War

Search and Destroy by Hughes

Fallen Angels by Myers

Too Big a Storm by Qualey

Fiction about Photography

The Seer of Shadows by Avi

Born Confused by Hidier

Shadow-catcher by Levin

Flash Burnout by Madigan

The Red Thread : A Novel in Three Incarnations by Townley

A Little Friendly Advice by Vivian

Razzle by Wittlinger

Teens as Photographers

Picture Perfect by Alphin

Prom Dates from Hell by Clement-Moore

Rain Is Not My Indian Name by Smith

This month’s book: Shooting the Moon by Frances O’Roark Dowell

2010-06-17T19:55:00.001-04:00

I was hooked on this book from the very first sentence, "The day after my brother left for Vietnam, me and Private Hollister played thirty-seven hands of gin rummy, and I won twenty-one." Jamie Dexter is a card shark, and an army brat. She and her brother TJ grew up in the army. Their father, who they call the Colonel, liked to say, "The army way is the right way," and they believed it. Jamie tells her own story, and she lets you know right off the bat how confident she is, but you can hear a hint of how much she will come to learn during the course of the story. "I was six months away from turning thirteen and I thought I knew everything." It's the summer of 1969, and TJ enlists in the Medical Corps instead of going to college like his family had planned. Jamie doesn't understand why her father isn't happy --she and TJ have always believed that going to war is the greatest thing possible. She thinks it must be her mother who is putting pressure on the Colonel to get TJ to stay home. She asks TJ to write her letters, but instead he sends her rolls of black and white film, and tells her to develop it herself at the rec center. Jamie started volunteering at the rec center just before her brother left, and has struck up a friendship with Private Hollister. He introduces her to another soldier who teaches her how to work in the darkroom. At first, TJ's pictures are of the landscape and some of the nurses he works with. But with each roll of film he sends her, the images become more disturbing, and she is reluctant to develop them. He also shoots pictures of the moon, his favorite subject. Things come to a head when Jamie finds out that her friend Private Hollister may be sent to Vietnam, where his brother was already killed. This story is about the war in Vietnam, but mostly it's about a family and a girl growing up in a difficult time. Review by Stacy Church

About Elizabeth C. Bunce

2010-06-02T17:29:00.001-04:00

“I write historical fantasy for young adults, and discerning not-so-young adults. “Historical fantasy” means my work is influenced by real places and cultures of the past, but I get to make up (or fudge) the details! Right now I’m working on a collection of stories based on Greek mythology, as well as a high fantasy novel about a thief mixed up in a religious civil war.

I’ve been writing as long as I can remember, even before I knew it was a job! I’ve always been interested in literature, folklore, history, and culture, so I studied English and anthropology in college. But I’ve only ever worked as a writer (although not all my writing jobs were as interesting as being a novelist).

I’m a native Midwesterner, currently living in the tall grass prairie near Kansas City with my husband and our dogs. When I’m not writing, you can find me with a book, a dog, or my needlework in hand, sometimes all of the above, which makes for some furry embroidery.” –from elizabethcbunce.com

A historical costumer who cuts, sews and embroiders, Elizabeth C. Bunce also has a strong interest in mythology, traditional stories such as myths, fairy tales and legends, and Egyptology, as well as the folklore of ghosts and folk magic. She received her B.A in English and Anthropology from the University of Iowa, with an emphasis in traditional storytelling. "My background in anthropology is a perfect complement to my work as a novelist," says Elizabeth.
"I've always been interested in fairy tales for their adaptability, and retellings such as Robin McKinley's classic Beauty really sparked my imagination as a young reader," says Elizabeth. "The ironic thing is that, of all the fairy tales out there, Rumpelstiltskin was probably my least favorite-I was troubled by the anti-Semitic overtones in the Grimm version, and disturbed by the fact that the miller's daughter betrays the only character in the story who tries to help her."
"I was always fascinated by the fact that in a story about the power of names," continues Elizabeth, "the heroine is anonymous. Unlike most fairy tales, the story is named for its ostensible villain, and the heroine doesn't have any name at all! I wanted to know more about that girl-what she was thinking and how she found herself in such desperate straights. I also wanted to find out about Rumpelstiltskin's back-story. Why was he so desperate to have the miller's daughter's child?"

"The heart of the story-spinning straw into gold-took on a unique resonance for me," says Elizabeth. "As a needlewoman, I am very familiar with gold thread, and so it was natural for me to envision the mill, then, as a textile mill-not the traditional grist (flour) mill of the fairy tale. My early research lead me to local period woolen mill museum, where the inner workings of Stirwaters came to life for me. One of my favorite moments in writing A Curse as Dark as Gold came during my first tour of Watkins Woolen Mill. The tour guide lead us past these huge spinning machines, and casually said, ‘These machines are spinning jacks. The men who operated them were called jackspinners.' Jack Spinner! Suddenly, my Rumpelstiltskin character-the man who spins straw into gold-had an absolutely perfect name."

Elizabeth C. Bunce currently lives with her husband and their dogs near Kansas City, Missouri. – from Scholastic.com

Interested in Reading More Fairy Tale Retellings?

2010-05-26T17:28:00.001-04:00

Block The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold

Dokey Golden

George Princess of the Midnight Ball

Haddix Just Ella

Hale Enna Burning

Hale The Goose Girl

Hale River Secrets

Harrison The Princess and the Hound

Hawes Black Pearls: A Faerie Strand

Lo Ash

McKinley Rose Daughter

McKinley Spindle’s End

Napoli Beast

Napoli Bound

Napoli Crazy Jack

Napoli The Magic Circle

Napoli Spinners

Napoli Zel

Pattou East

Pike Wings

Tomlinson Aurelie

Yolen Briar Rose

This month’s Book: A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce

2010-05-12T19:57:00.001-04:00

This is a wonderful retelling of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, which I'm sure most of you are familiar with (you know, the weird little man promises to spin a roomful of straw into gold in exchange for something which will be named at a later time, and the poor deluded girl agrees, never dreaming that what she will have to give up is her child. Or... she could guess the little man's name and be released from her bargain). So when I started reading this book, I didn't think there would be much suspense, what with knowing how the story ends and all. But the way the author tells the story is so intricate and the characters so engaging, that you never really see what's coming (although there were times when I wanted to shout at her, "No, he's going to take your baby!") The story reads like historical fiction --Charlotte Miller's father has passed away unexpectedly, and now she is in charge of the family's woolen mill, on which the entire town depends for their income, and which has been plagued by bad luck as long as anyone can remember. She has her younger sister to help, and a previously unknown uncle shows up to "help" them, although it turns out he has nefarious plans of his own. A banker that her father had secretly taken out a loan from turns out to be an unlikely ally, and in fact, he and Charlotte fall in love. But as things spin out of control at the mill, Charlotte refuses his help. Did I mention that her sister became so desperate that she followed some ancient instructions to summon fairy help and conjured up a strange little man (remember that from the fairy tale?) who agrees to spin a roomful of straw into gold in exchange for a cheap ring that Charlotte received from her mother. The money from the gold thread saves the mill, temporarily, but of course their involvement with the little man, Jack Spinner, almost ruins them. Instead of guessing his name, Charlotte has to figure out what Jack Spinner's history is in order to remove the curse from the mill. I can't say enough about what a great book this is. It's a very accurate portrayal of the industrial revolution and the magical part of the story is really pretty minor (although the plot hinges on it), so even if you don't usually like fantasy, it's a great read.

Review of Eli the Good by Silas House

2010-05-05T16:38:00.001-04:00

There is so much sadness in this book. The first paragraph kind of tells it all:

“That was the summer of the bicentennial, when all these things happened: my sister, Josie, began to hate our country and slapped my mother’s face; my wild aunt, Nell, moved in with us, bringing along all five thousand or so of her records and a green record player that ran on batteries; my father started going back to Vietnam in his dreams, and I saw him cry; my mother did the Twist in front of the whole town and nearly lost us all. I was ten years old, and I did something unforgivable.”

Whew. The story lives up to all of that, too. In fact, there’s even more sadness. Eli’s best friend, Edie, is abandoned by her mother, and has to live with her alcoholic father. Eli finds out (by eavesdropping, which he indulges in whenever possible) that the reason his Aunt Nell moved in with them is because she has cancer. His mother and Nell are very close, but Eli's father and Nell --not so much. While Eli’s father was off fighting in Vietnam, Nell was protesting the war, and because of one very famous photograph, everyone in the country knows her, which Eli's father takes as a personal affront. Eli watches everything, and, despite the closeness of Eli’s family, he doesn’t really feel taken care of by anyone. He’s never forgiven his mother for something he overheard her say to his father once, “I love you too much. More than anything. More than anybody.” Eli’s great sadness is that he feels his mother doesn’t love him or his sister as much as she loves their father. The writing in the book is so beautiful, and it really captures the essence of the time (1976). Review by Stacy Church

Review of Wings by Aprilynne Pike

2010-05-05T16:36:00.001-04:00

I have to say that despite what might be the most outlandish concept for a plot in the history of literature (ok, that’s overstating it a bit), this book is actually pretty good. Laurel is just starting to attend the local high school after being homeschooled all her life. She’s not happy, but things haven’t gone too badly on her first day –she’s made some friends, she’s not too far behind the other kids in her classes, and she even gets a cute guy named David to eat his lunch outside with her. But then she feels a strange lump in between her shoulder blades. For some reason, she doesn’t tell her parents, even though every day it gets bigger and bigger. Finally, one day it opens up into a huge….flower. That’s right, flower. She still doesn’t tell her parents. She binds the petals down and wears loose clothes. Wait, it gets even weirder. She goes back to visit her old house with her parents, and when she goes into the woods for a walk, she’s approached by a strange-looking green boy, who tells her that she’s a faerie, and that faeries are not animals/humans, they are plants. So if you’re willing to suspend disbelief long enough to accept that Laurel never noticed she doesn’t have a heart beat, or blood in her veins, and never thought it was that unusual that she doesn’t eat food except for canned peaches, you will enjoy this book. It has an exciting ending that involves trolls, Laurel and David being weighted down and thrown in the river, saving Laurel’s dad (who was poisoned by the trolls), and Laurel telling her parents the truth about her faerieness. Oh, and by the way, one of the pieces of information that the green boy passed on to Laurel is that, for faeries, pollination is for procreation, sex is just for fun. Review by Stacy Church

Review of Chasing the Bear, a Young Spenser Novel by Robert B. Parker

2010-05-05T16:35:00.001-04:00

If you haven’t read any of Robert Parker’s Spenser novels, you might be confused by the chapters of this book that are set in the present day, where Spenser is talking to his girlfriend Susan, and being prodded by her to recall episodes from his childhood. But you certainly don’t have to have read the Spenser books to appreciate the great stories that he tells. Spenser grew up in a completely male household. When his mother died, his father’s two brothers moved in to share the parenting duties, so Spenser grows up being taught to think for himself, to cook, and how to throw a mean right hook. When Spenser’s best friend, Jeannie, drives by in a car driven by her mean, drunken father, and mouths “Help” at him out the window, he knows he has to go after her. He’s scared, but he knows that if he goes to get help he’ll lose them, so he follows them to the jetty, and then out onto the river in a rowboat, with only his dog Pearl for help. It’s an exciting story, and my favorite one. Throughout the book, Spenser tells Susan that he spent his life looking for his one and only love, and she is it. The book is truly an adventure book for boys, but it doesn’t hurt to hear such a heartfelt message from so tough a guy. Review by Stacy Church

Review of Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

2010-05-05T16:34:00.001-04:00

This is a book about a young woman questioning her faith --and she has good reason to question it. Her father is the pastor in a small town with one post office, one hardware store, only one restaurant that’s open on Sundays, but seven churches. Even though everyone knows pretty much everything about everyone else, something no one seems to know is that Sam’s mother is a drunk. Then Sam’s mom is in rehab, court-ordered after a drunken-driving accident, and Sam is left alone with her father, who seems to have infinite time for his parishioners’ problems, but no time for his own daughter or to visit his wife in rehab. The author describes Sam’s disillusionment perfectly when giving Sam’s reaction to a poster in the youth group room that shows a bunch of happy, multicultural-looking teens and the slogan: Community Happens! “I stared at that poster and pictured myself in it, smiling, knee-to-knee with the other youth group kids, who would be my best friends…Because, as we’re reminded all the time at church, community happens through sharing…I believed in the theory, and expected that once I hit high school my life would be filled with all this understanding and friendship and spiritual bonding, and my faith would come alive, just like the poster promised. It hasn’t really happened that way.” Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, a 13-year-old member of the youth group, Jody, disappears. Sam’s lack of faith intensifies, and it’s clear that part of the problem is her lack of faith in her own father. As he’s getting ready to leave to visit the family of the missing girl, this is how Sam sees him: “He was strangely calm-looking, his tan face smooth, his hair in place, jaw set. It dawned on me that in a way he’s been prepping for a tragedy like this all his life; he’s like an actor getting his ultimate role. For someone whose career is believing in God and convincing other people to, this is exactly the kind of thing that would give him a chance to really prove that everything he’s been saying is true.” I absolutely love this book. It’s a perfect combination of characters, setting and plot. Review by Stacy Church

Review of The Death Collector by Justin Richards

2010-05-05T16:33:00.001-04:00

What could possibly be scary about an elderly man coming home for tea? Oh yeah, it’s because the man coming home for tea is dead –“Four days after his own funeral, Albert Wilkes came home for tea.” The dog certainly knows there’s something wrong. He yelps and backs away from the nightmarish figure, but can’t escape being dragged out of the house for his daily walk. Then there’s Eddie Hopkins lurking about trying to find a likely mark for his pick-pocketing skills, who sees the old man and his dog. “…as he passed, Eddie caught a whiff of him…Eddie could almost taste the smell that was coming off the old man. A cloying, slightly sweet smell that spoke of decay and neglect. A graveyard stench.” The atmosphere in this book is great, and the characters are fun, even if they are a bit typical –the young thief with his own code of honor, the strong young woman who’s smarter and braver than most of the men in her life, and the naive but sincere young man who’s instantly smitten with said young woman. Anyway, there’s quite a lot of adventure to the story, a bit too much for my taste in the second half of the book. It seems like one chase is barely over before the bad guys have set upon the trio again. There is a lot of ingenuity to the monsters constructed by the industrialist Augustus Lorimore in his quest to take over the world and readers who don’t like a dull moment will probably find the amount of action just right for them. Review by Stacy Church

Interview with M. E. Rabb from Teenreads.com

2010-04-28T17:25:00.001-04:00

Author Information
M. E. Rabb was born in Manhattan, raised in Sunnyside, Queens, and now lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband Marshall. She's published short stories and essays in various magazines including Seventeen, Mademoiselle, and The Atlantic Monthly. Her series of young adult novels, MISSING PERSONS, is about two sisters from Queens who run away to the Midwest and become private detectives.

INTERVIEW

July 2004
Q: Where did you get the idea for MISSING PERSONS?
MER: A few years ago, I gave a reading at a Barnes & Noble in Manhattan of a story that featured a teen narrator. An editor was in the audience and asked me if I had any ideas for a teen series. I then came up with the characters of Sam and Sophie Shattenberg, two sisters who've lost their parents and run away from home. Around the same time, I met a woman who was working for a private detective. She told me all sorts of funny stories, and I decided I'd make Sam and Sophie into detectives. I've always loved mysteries --- our father used to read Sherlock Holmes stories to my sister and me when we were little, and I devoured the Nancy Drew books and Sue Grafton's mysteries. And I always secretly wanted to be a detective myself.
Q: Why did you decide to have the sisters leave their home in New York City and run away to the Midwest?
MER: Sophie and Sam's experience in Indiana is based partly on my own experience attending college in Indiana. While growing up in New York City I'd always fantasized about living in a small town in the Midwest, near farms and horses and cows. (I think this fantasy came from reading too many Little House on the Prairie books as a kid.) When I first arrived in Indiana I was in for a major culture shock, but I quickly grew to love it.
Q: That seems funny that you longed to move to a small town, since so many girls in small towns dream of growing up in New York City.
MER: Even though New York City has a reputation for being such an exciting place, when you grow up there it's really not very exciting at all. It's just home --- a home that's often dirty, smelly, and way too crowded!
Q: THE ROSE QUEEN and THE CHOCOLATE LOVER are as much about the sisters and their relationships and romances as it is about the mysteries. Was this a conscious decision?
MER: My favorite parts of mystery novels are often the sections that discuss the characters' inner lives and relationships. In Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone mysteries, I love the parts that discuss Kinsey's personal life and romantic interests. And I often thought while reading Nancy Drew, "Enough about the clue in the diary. Are you going to kiss Ned or what?!"
Q: In THE CHOCOLATE LOVER Sophie struggles to come to terms with her Jewish identity. Was this an important issue for you too?
MER: I didn't think too much about being Jewish until I lived in Indiana. In New York City you can kind of take being Jewish for granted. There are a lot of Jewish people in New York, and Jewish culture is everywhere --- Jewish food is commonplace, and Yiddish is intermingled in most people's vocabulary. In Indiana I tried to make matzo ball soup for Chanukah and the man in the grocery store had never heard of matzo meal. He said, "Check in the ethnic section, near the salsa and the soy sauce." I knew in theory that Jews were a minority, but I'd never felt it until I left New York City. Being in a non-Jewish environment actually made me feel more Jewish than I'd ever felt before, and that was a surprise to me. I decided to put that experience in the books.
Q: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
MER: I've kept a journal since I was ten years old, and I've written in it almost daily since I was fifteen. Keeping a journal has been extremely important to me as a writer --- it's made me realize that I can't live without writing. Writing helps me make sense of the world. I'm often not sure what I think of an experience until I see it before me on the page.
Q: You also write literary fiction for adults. What's the difference between writing for adults and writing for younger readers?
MER: You can be goofier in young adult fiction. An asthmatic cat appears in the third MISSING PERSONS novel, THE VENETIAN POLICEMAN. It would be difficult to write asthmatic cat scenes in a serious adult story!
Q: Sophie in THE ROSE QUEEN discusses the books that have meant a lot to her. What books have been important to you?
MER: THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, and I CAPTURE THE CASTLE were very important books to me as a teenager. Anne Frank, Anne Shirley, Scout Finch and Cassandra Mortmain are such strong, inspiring role models. Those books helped me figure out who I was and who I wanted to be, and helped shape my dreams and ambitions.
Q: In THE ROSE QUEEN and THE CHOCOLATE LOVER there's a lot of humor mixed in with sadness over the loss of Sophie and Sam's parents. Is this based on personal experience?
MER: Unfortunately my sister and I also lost both of our parents early, although we weren't as young as Sophie and Sam were when they lost theirs. Part of our way of dealing with it was to try to keep our sense of humor as much as possible, even during the worst times. There's sort of an archetypal "orphan" character that appears in lots of young adult novels, but I wanted Sam and Sophie to deal with the loss of their parents in a real way. For instance, the loss is part of what makes the sisters so close, since they're the only family they have left. This was true for my sister and me also. And there are scenes where Sophie decides she needs to just put the grief out of her mind --- this was true for me, too.
Q: What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
MER: Never give up. That's the most important thing to remember. It's so easy to be discouraged, but you have to believe in yourself and keep writing no matter what.

-Teenreads.com

Want to Read More Books about Teens as Detectives?

2010-04-21T17:51:00.001-04:00

Abrahams Down the Rabbit Hole : An Echo Falls Mystery

Arnold Rat Life

Berk The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin

Dunlap The Musician's Daughter

Ferguson The Christopher Killer : A Forensic Mystery

The Dying Breath : A Forensic Mystery

Gratz Something Rotten : A Horatio Wilkes Mystery

Haddon The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

Madison Lulu Dark Can See through Walls

Portman King Dork

Rabb The Venetian Policeman

Richards The Death Collector

Rushford In Too Deep

Scrimger From Charlie's Point of View

Thompson Creature of the Night

Wynne-Jones The Uninvited

Interested in Reading More Books about Missing Persons?

2010-04-21T17:40:00.001-04:00

http://www.skeptictank.org/hs/vanish.htm

Try these other titles about missing persons:

Brooks Black Rabbit Summer

Green Paper Towns

Hautman, Logue Snatched

Sorrells Fake ID

Strasser Wish You Were Dead

Westerfeld So Yesterday

Wynne-Jones The Boy in the Burning House

How to Disappear

2010-04-14T16:32:00.001-04:00

I found a surprising number of websites giving advice on how to disappear.

http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/45/Disappearing.html

How to Disappear from Facebook and Twitter

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1954631,00.html

Here’s a great story about a writer for Wired Magazine who tried to disappear

http://www.wired.com/vanish/2009/11/ff_vanish2/

This month’s book: Missing Persons book one: The Rose Queen by M.E. Rabb

2010-04-08T20:36:00.001-04:00

This is the first volume in a really fun and well-written mystery series: Missing Persons. Sophia and Samantha Shattenberg have to make new lives for themselves after their father’s death if they want to avoid having to live under the rule of their evil stepmother Enid, a tall, wiry woman who, Sophia said, “Called us ‘the young ladies’ in the same tone she used for ‘the rodents in the subway.’” Sophia and Sam’s mother disappeared years before, last traced to Indianapolis, so is it just coincidence that the girls head there to make their new start? They are aided by Sam’s best friend Felix, who hooks them up with a not-very-scary minor criminal (he has a huge orange tabby cat named Cubby, pictures of Cubby and copies of Cat Fancy magazine in his office, and his nana sends him homemade ravioli) who helps them establish their new identities with fake birth certificates, social security cards, and a driver’s license for Sam. Their new (old) car breaks down in Venice –”the Europe of the Midwest, see our beautiful canal” –and they decide they might like small town life. Unfortunately for them, things are not as quiet in Venice as they thought they would be. Noelle, local mean girl soon to be Queen of the Rose Parade, hates Sophia on sight (“As Rose Queen, I’m going to do my best to help Venice’s underprivileged residents. The dwarves, the pasty, the orphans.”), and when she’s murdered after last being seen getting out of Sam and Sophia’s car, Sophia becomes the prime suspect. Of course they decide they’d better solve the murder themselves, before someone discovers their true identities (they did steal $300,000 that was supposed to be inherited by the evil Enid). Review by Stacy Church

Positively Poetry at the Westwood Public Library

2010-04-07T17:13:00.001-04:00

Positively Poetry at the Westwood Public Library is a celebration of poetry that includes the publication of an anthology of original poetry by students in grades 3 - 12, a public reading from the anthology, and sometimes a writing workshop or two!

Send us your poems for The Westwood Library's 2010 Poetry Anthology. All students in grades 3 - 12 are invited to send one original poem for inclusion in our 2010 anthology. Poems should be no longer than 30 lines, and must have family friendly language and content. Deadline for submissions is April 16. Email us at westwoodpoetry@yahoo.com and include your full name, grade, name of your school, phone number and email address. Check out our poetry blog at westwoodpoetry.blogspot.com, where some of the poems will be published.

Looking for Reviews of Newly Released Young Adult Books?

2010-04-07T16:27:00.001-04:00

Check out the Westwood Public Library’s other young adult blog, YA Show and Tell, for reviews of new young adult books. Some recently reviewed books:

Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr

Chasing the Bear by Robert Parker

Salt by Maurice Gee

Eli the Good by Silas House

Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Bio of Gary Crew, Author of Angel’s Gate

2010-03-31T17:46:00.001-04:00

Dr Gary Crew, author of novels, short stories and picture books for older children and young adults began his writing career in 1985, when he was a high school teacher. His books are challenging and intriguing, often based on non-fiction. As well as writing fiction, Gary is a Associate Professor in Creative Writing, Children's and Adult Literature, at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland and editor of the After Dark series.

He lives with his wife Christine on several acres in the cool, high mountains of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland in Queensland, Australia. He enjoys gardening, reading, and playing with his dogs Ferris, Beulah, and Miss Wendy. In his spare time he has created an Australian Rainforest Garden around his home, filled with Australian palms. Gary loves to visit antique shops looking for curios and beautiful objects.

Gary Crew has been awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the year four times: twice for Book of the Year for Young Adult Older Readers (Strange Objects in 1991 and Angel’s Gate in 1993) and twice for Picture Book of the Year with First Light in 1993 (illustrated by Peter Gouldthorpe) and The Watertower (illustrated by Steven Woolman) in 1994. Gary’s illustrated book, Memorial (with Shaun Tan) was awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia Honour Book in 2000 and short listed for the Queensland Premier’s Awards. He has also won the Wilderness Society Award, the Whitley Award and the Aurealis Award for Speculative Fiction.

In the USA he has been twice short listed for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Allan Poe Mystery Fiction Award for Youth and the Hungry Minds Review American Children’s Book of distinction. In Europe he has twice been and twice the prestigious White Raven Award for his illustrated books. Among his many Australian awards is the Ned Kelly Prize for Crime Fiction, the New South Wales Premier’s Award and the Victorian Premier’s Award. He has been short listed for both the Queensland Premier’s and the Western Australian Premier’s awards for Fiction.

--from Goodread.com

Interested in reading more fiction set in Australia?

2010-03-25T20:52:00.001-04:00

http://listverse.com/2008/03/07/10-modern-cases-of-feral-children/

Anything by Jaclyn Moriarty and John Marsden

Ten Things I Hate about Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Dreamrider by Barry Jonsberg

Dingo by Charles de Lint

Genius Squad by Catherine Jinks

Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

Am I Right or Am I Right? by Barry Jonsberg

Breathe by Penni Russon

The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly, Completely Lost It by Lisa Shanahan

Does My Head Look Big in This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Magic Lessons by by Justine Larbalestier

Undine by Penni Russon

Things You Either Hate or Love by Brigid Lowry

The Book Thief by by Markus Zusak

The Riddle by Alison Croggon

I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta

Interested in finding out more about feral children"?

2010-03-10T16:57:00.001-05:00

Take a look at this website for info on:

10 Modern Cases of Feral Children

The Syrian Gazelle Boy

Jean-Claude Auger, an anthropologist from the Basque country, was traveling alone across the Spanish Sahara (Rio de Oro) in 1960 when he met some Nemadi nomads, who told him about a wild child a day’s journey away. The next day, he followed the nomads’ directions. On the horizon he saw a naked child “galloping in gigantic bounds among a long cavalcade of white gazelles”. The boy walked on all fours, but occasionally assumed an upright gait, suggesting to Auger that he was abandoned or lost at about seven or eight months, having already learnt to stand. He habitually twitched his muscles, scalp, nose and ears, much like the rest of the herd, in response to the slightest noise. He would eat desert roots with his teeth, pucking his nostrils like the gazelles. He appeared to be herbivorous apart from the occasional agama lizard or worm when plant life was lacking. His teeth edges were level like those of a herbivorous animal. In 1966 an unsuccessful attempt was made to catch the boy in a net suspended from a helicopter; unlike most of the feral children of whom we have records, the gazelle boy was never removed from his wild companions.

Oxana Malaya

Oxana Malaya (Оксана Малая) (born November 1983) was found as an 8-year-old feral child in Ukraine in 1991, having lived most of her life in the company of dogs. She picked up a number of dog-like habits and found it difficult to master language. Oxana’s alcoholic parents were unable to care for her. They lived in an impoverished area where there were wild dogs roaming the streets. She lived in a dog kennel behind her house where she was cared for by dogs and learned their behaviours and mannerisms. She growled, barked and crouched like a wild dog, sniffed at her food before she ate it, and was found to have acquired extremely acute senses of hearing, smell, and sight.

Kamala and Amala

The most famous wolf-children are the two girls captured in October 1920 from a huge abandoned ant-hill squatted by wolves near Godamuri in the vicinity of Midnapore, west of Calcutta, by villagers under the direction of the Rev JAL Singh, an Anglican missionary. The mother wolf was shot. The girls were named Kamala and Amala, and were thought to be aged about eight and two. According to Singh, the girls had misshapen jaws, elongated canines, and eyes that shone in the dark with the peculiar blue glare of cats and dogs. Amala died the following year, but Kamala survived until 1929, by which time she had given up eating carrion, had learned to walk upright and spoke about 50 words.

This month’s book: Angel’s Gate by Gary Crew

2010-03-03T16:02:00.002-05:00

I first read this book years ago and have never quite forgotten it, so when I was thinking about a book for this month I decided to read it again. What a surprise to find that not only do I still love it, I think I appreciate it even more now. Angel’s Gate is a mystery, but it’s one of those mysteries that’s more than just a mystery. There is a murder, but the real suspense involves the existence (or not?) of two only-partially-glimpsed wild children, and the dangerous situation they are in. After a man is found murdered, rumors start to surface of him having a child living with him. Some people also claim to have seen another figure under a tarp in the back of his truck, and it is speculated that maybe he had two children living with him out in the bush. Everyone is looking for them, some to help them, but someone (the murderer) may want to silence them. The book takes place in the hills of Jericho, Australia, where Kimmy is growing up in an old building that also houses his father’s office and clinic (his father is the town doctor, his mother the nurse). Because the building used to be a barracks for soldiers, there are bars on the basement windows where the old cells are. When the first child is caught, the police naturally bring her to the doctor’s office, and she is kept in one of the cells while Kimmy’s parents try to nurse her back to health and rehabilitate her. Kimmy befriends her and is frightened by her obvious fear whenever she hears boots scrunching on the gravel outside the windows –she whispers, “Mister.” Is Mister the killer? The story is complicated by the bad nature of one of the local policemen, Ben Cullen. Angel’s Gate gives a very detailed picture of life in a small town in Australia, and also paints a vivid picture of growing up in a family with a controlling father and an older sister who refuses to give in to him.

Some of my favorite passages from Back Home

2010-02-24T17:14:00.001-05:00

“Everybody needs a fort.

You can live without a lot of things in your life, things other people might say you need. But all you really need is a fort. It can be small, but it has to be sturdy. It’s the place you can go when you don’t have anywhere else to go. A place where there won’t be a lot of questions. A place where people won’t be looking at you or making judgments or assumptions about you. A fort is all about protection.” (page 1)

“My mother likes to make speeches. She’s one of those people who believes she can get out ahead of things –bad things, I mean –by preparing everybody in advance, by speaking slowly and carefully about the sadness or confusion or frustration you’re about to feel. It’s almost like she’s trying to put a frame around things, to sort of steer the world in the right direction, or at least have a say in how other people feel. I don’t mind. I know why she does that. Adults need to have a lot of control over what happens.” (page 4)

“…the word accident was not the kind of word you could count on. It wasn’t a word that held its meaning. It changed. It shifted. It could be one thing in relation to one person; it could be something totally different in relation to another person.

Accident was just not a word you could ever trust.” (page 29)

Traumatic Brain Injury

2010-02-11T18:04:00.001-05:00

If you’re interested in learning more about traumatic brain injury, like what Rachel’s father suffered, try this website on preventing, treating and living with TBI http://www.brainline.org/landing_pages/Family.html. The website is an off-shoot of the government’s Defense and Veteran’s Brain Injury Center, and includes videos of survivors of brain injury and people who are coping with and living with TBI.

Recently, snowboarder Kevin Pearce suffered a traumatic brain injury during training. One month after his accident, Pearce was transferred from University of Utah Hospital to Craig Hospital, a world renowned center for specialty rehabilitation and research for people with traumatic brain injury. Here are links to a couple of press releases about the accident and Pearce’s recovery. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/outposts/2010/01/snowboarder-kevin-pearce-1.html http://www.examiner.com/x-7400-Vermont-Amateur-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d4-Vermont-snowboarder-Kevin-Pearce-moved-to-new-rehab-facility

If you like Back Home…

2010-02-03T17:26:00.001-05:00

Interested in reading some other stories about people recovering from brain injuries? I was surprised to find so few books, but here are a few:

Climbing the Stairs by Padma Venkatraman

Trigger by Susan Vaught

Finding Grace by Alyssa Brugman

This month’s books now available!

2010-02-03T17:23:00.001-05:00

Copies of Back Home by Julia Keller are available for check out in the YA Dept. of the Westwood Library

This month’s book: Back Home by Julia Keller

2010-01-28T19:01:00.001-05:00

Back Home is the story of what happens to one girl’s life when her dad returns from the war in Iraq with sever injuries: he’s lost an arm and a leg and suffered a traumatic brain injury. Rachel is 13, her sister Marcy is 8 and their little brother Rob is 4. Their mom is the kind of parent who doesn’t keep secrets from her kids, even though she tends to give speeches, “My mother…is one of those people who believes she can get out ahead of things –bad things, I mean –by preparing everybody in advance, by speaking slowly and carefully about the sadness or confusion or frustration you’re about to feel.” Rachel feels that she can’t ask silly questions like her little sister, but she wonders how much of a person needs to be intact to make you still the same person as before. At first, her dad doesn’t seem to really be there at all. Not only does he not communicate, but he doesn’t respond to things going on around him. The hospital said he should be able to do things for himself (like take care of his “personal needs”), but he doesn’t seem to want to. Then Rachel realizes: “It’s not that Dad didn’t want to do things. It’s that the part of his brain that told him to do things was one of the parts that was injured. So what looked like laziness wasn’t laziness at all. When it looked like he just didn’t care, it wasn’t that he didn’t care. Caring, it turns out, comes from your brain. I know that’s a strange way to think about it, but it’s true: caring comes from your brain. The part of my father that wanted to do things wasn’t there anymore.” This is a beautifully told story, and even though the ending might not be what you hope it will be, it is certainly realistic.

Back Home will be available for pickup in the YA Dept. Monday, Feb. 1

Reviews of Bog Child

2010-01-15T11:49:00.001-05:00

Interested in reading some other reviews of Bog Child? Here are some links to a couple of reviews that I enjoyed.

Guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/mar/08/featuresreviews.guardianreview28

Teenreads.com http://www.teenreads.com/reviews/9780385751698.asp

The Troubles

2010-01-13T17:31:00.001-05:00

If you’re like me, you don’t know a whole lot about the political situation in Northern Ireland. Here are some books to take a look at if you’re interested in learning more:

A History of Northern Ireland, 1920 – 1996 by Thomas Hennessey

The Committee: Political Assassination in Northern Ireland by Jack Holland

The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict between the IRA and British Intelligence by Tony Geraghty

The Troubles: Ireland’s Ordeal 1966 – 1996 and the Search for Peace by Tim Pat Coogan

The Irish Troubles: A Generation of Violence, 1967 – 1992 by J. Bowyer Bell

Biting at the Grave: The Irish Hunger Strikes and the Politics of Despair by Padraig O’Malley

From an interview with Siobhan Dowd

2010-01-06T16:49:00.001-05:00

Born of Irish parents, the youngest of four girls, I was raised in a South London suburb. Despite the red buses and red post boxes, Ireland was bred in the bone. We were brought up as Irish-Catholic, went to Catholic schools with other Irish-Catholics, and spent our magical childhood summers playing with our Irish cousins in Ireland’s County Waterford. While there, we lived in a remote cottage with no water or electricity. We washed in water collected in rain barrels and read by gaslight.

The four of us used to liken ourselves to the girls in Little Women, which meant I was the spoilt one, Amy–the short straw.

From the age of seven, I scribbled down poems, ghost stories, and mystery stories and completed my first novel at the age of nine. It was about Anne, the daughter of a harried innkeeper in Bethlehem, and very, very holey (yes, that is how I spelt the word). But it fixed my aim to write for a living when I grew up.

By a long and circuitous route, I’ve finally attained this goal. In between going to Oxford University and studying Classics, working to promote human rights for the writers’ association PEN, doing a Master’s degree in the social sciences, and living on both sides of the Atlantic (I worked for PEN American Centre in New York City between 1990 and 1997), I was always writing something. I wrote diaries, letters, entertainments for my nieces’ and nephews’ birthdays, as well as hundreds of nonfiction articles and reviews for newspapers and magazines. In a secret drawer, I kept a gargantuan adult manuscript-in-progress: I rewrote it four times before putting it aside.

Then I submitted a short story about a young Irish Traveller boy for Skin Deep, an anthology about racism aimed at young adults (Puffin, 2003). What joy when it was accepted! Encouraged, I wrote A Swift Pure Cry in three intensive months in the autumn of 2004.

The story was inspired by two shocking events that occurred in Ireland in 1984. The first was the tragic death of Anne Lovett, aged 15. Unable to seek help when she fell pregnant, she died of exposure and haemorrhaging while trying to give birth on her own in a grotto to the Virgin Mary in the village of Granard, County Longford. Her child also died. Members of her community pleaded in their own defence that they had been unaware of her predicament.

The second case was that of ‘the Kerry Babies.’ A baby boy was found with multiple stab wounds, abandoned on a beach out on County Kerry’s Dingle Peninsula. The Gardai accused Joanne Hayes, a woman in her 20s who was known to have been pregnant out of wedlock, of having murdered him. She said she had buried her own baby boy, who had died, in a local field. I won’t describe here the bizarre train of events that unfolded, but the result was an independent tribunal and a nationwide furore. To date, the murderer of the stabbed baby boy and his parentage remain a mystery.

Perhaps it was a haunting sense of something unresolved in these tragedies that impelled me to write A Swift Pure Cry. Certainly, the story seemed to write itself. Shell Talent and her (completely fictional) story of loss and discovery must have been germinating in the back of my brain for 20 years.

Today, every day I don’t write feels like a lost day. I never believe that a story will be finished until I’ve typed the last period. And it is always a miracle if I get it down before being run over by a juggernaut.

The calm beauty of Oxford, where I live, and a kind, witty husband prevent me from being so doom-laden that I can’t write at all. I’m currently halfway through my fourth novel . . . and I’m being very careful crossing the road.

From Random House: Teachers @ Random “Spotlight On Siobhan Dowd”

Liz’s Review of Before I Die by Jenny Downham

2010-01-06T16:35:00.001-05:00

Before I Die by Jenny Downham is a story about Tessa, a 16-year-old girl with only months left before she is killed by her cancer. It is about a list Tessa made of things she wanted to do before she died. The problem for Tessa, is that she has only a short period of time and her list involves as much time as she has. Also, her list is kind of crazy (involving saying “Yes” to everything for a day, and committing a crime --shoplifting) At first, when Tessa makes the list, she is eager to do it, but then, after her world gets torn apart, between her best friend hating her, the neighbor she fell in love with saying, “If anything happened between us, it would be like, what’s the point?” meaning, if they fell in love or hated each other or never met, why would that matter because she’s dying. Tessa finds out she is even shorter on time than she thought, and that she is definitely going to die. No miracle can save her now. The problem takes a new turn when Tessa goes on vacation with her best friend Zoey, and find out that she is PREGNANT! Tessa decides to cross off one of the things on her list so she can have the baby named after her. Will she fall in love with the neighbor again?? Will she live to finish her list?? Review by Liz C.

Liz’s Review of Maximum Ride by James Patterson

2010-01-06T16:33:00.001-05:00

Maximum Ride by James Patterson is a story about Max, a young girl, who is genetically modified to have wings (they’re 98% human, 2% bird). It is about Max trying to keep her family, or “Flock” together. The problem for Max is that scientists, like the ones who created Max & her flock, want to get rid of them, because they have “Souls,” or ethics. The scientists want to create a world where only the strong and genetically altered live. At first, when Max lives with their creator she believes she is “Normal,” but she soon discovers the harsh reality of betrayal. Then, Max moves with her flock, and then, Max's old childhood friend, Ari, now an Eraser (70% human, 30% wolf) leader, tracks them down, kidnaps Angel, and transports her back to the School to live like a lab rat again. The problem takes a new turn when Max and her flock find out that they didn’t spend their whole life at the lab, they have parents!! They want to learn about their pasts and their destinies. They spend the rest of the series looking for their past. Max finds out who Ari really is, and she find out who her FATHER is!! The brother, and 2nd oldest, Fang, starts to fight with Max. Max learns that even the “Bad guys” have families, feelings, and ethics. Review by Liz C.

Review of Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

2009-12-30T16:34:00.001-05:00

I listened to this book on CD, and the beautiful Irish accent of the reader, Sile Bermingham, had me mesmerized from the very start. This book is written by the author of another of my favorite books, The London Eye Mystery. I don’t know a lot about the political struggle between Northern Ireland and Ireland, but I know a bit more after reading Bog Child. As usual, I appreciate history more when it’s related in a personal story. Fergus is out with his Uncle Tally, having crossed over the border into Ireland to illegally harvest turf, when he discovers a body in the bog. He insists on contacting the authorities, and when archaeologists come to extricate the body, they realize that it’s been there for a long, long time. Fergus feels a strange affinity for the dead girl, even dreaming about her and how she came to end up in the bog. He is also struggling with his own feelings about the struggle for independence. His brother is in prison, and has gone on hunger strike, like Bobby Sands, to protest Ireland’s refusal to label him as a political prisoner. Fergus also is approached by a friend of his brother’s, and coerced into carrying packages across the border on his daily runs. As if this isn’t enough, he finds himself falling for the daughter of the head archaeologist. The writing in this book is beautiful, and Fergus is a great genuine character. The book is funny and sad, my favorite combination. Review by Stacy Church

This month’s book now in! Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd

2009-12-30T15:49:00.001-05:00

This month’s book, a wonderful story of a boy growing up on the border of Ireland and Northern Ireland, is now available for pickup in the Young Adult Dept. Review to follow.

75 belongings

2009-12-16T16:51:00.001-05:00

I’ve been mulling over Larry’s claim to only have 75 belongings. I think he was cheating, because he didn’t have to count any of the things that belonged to his parents, but which he used to make his life comfortable on a daily basis. I know, I know, he did go live in that hole in the ground, but that was only temporary. Now here are the things that I would have trouble doing without. I would add books, but instead I’ll have a library card, which will give me access to endless numbers of books, magazines, etc. Theoretically, I could use the computers there, too, but I’d really rather have my own.

Stacy’s Review of The Gospel According to Larry

2009-12-01T11:28:00.001-05:00

I first read this book right after it came out in 2001 (wow, that was 8 years ago!) and absolutely loved it. I eagerly awaited the publication of the sequels and devoured them as well. I chose the book for this month’s selection at the urging of some teens who love it, and I was so happy to find that on rereading, I enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Of course the set-up of having the author pretend that the book they’re publishing is someone else’s manuscript given to them for safekeeping has been used before, but it does work for Tashjian, and is pretty much necessary for the way she wraps up the story. The main character, Larry, is funny, and for me it’s totally believable that a dorky high-school kid would set up a web site where he could publish his own personal rants about society. It’s also believable that people would stumble on the web site and take it to heart, particularly when the subject is anti-consumerism. And poor Larry, all he really wants to do is move from friends with his best friend, Beth, to something else. Some parts of the story are not so believable (would any teen, even a dork, sit at the make-up counter in a department store to talk to his dead mother?), but are entertaining enough to overlook the believability factor. And really, an underground room that he dug himself? Didn’t anyone ever tell him about the dangers of a cave-in? I love the photos of Larry’s possessions that he posts on his website to see if the clues can lead anyone to guess his identity.

This month’s book: The Gospel According to Larry by Janet Tashjian

2009-11-27T17:04:00.001-05:00

Available now in the Young Adult Dept. I’ll post the review soon!

Fantasy Trilogies

2009-11-04T17:33:00.002-05:00

Sometimes nothing beats a good trilogy. Try some of these other great fantasy trilogies.

http://www.bartimaeusbooks.com/bart_guide.html

Juvenile

N.E. Bode – The Anybodies
Kevin Crossley-Holland- Arthur
Nancy Farmer – Sea of Trolls
Susan Fletcher – Dragon Chronicles
Cornelia Funke- Inkheart
Charlotte Haptie – Karmidee
Brian Jacques – Castaways of the Flying Dutchman
Elizabeth Kay – The Divide
R.L. La Fevers – Lowthars Blade
Katherine Langrish - Troll
Tanith Lee – Dragonflight
Tanith Lee - Unicorns
Ann McCaffrey – Harper Hall
Cliff McNish - Silver
Cliff McNish - Doomspell
William Mayne – Hob
Ian Oglivy – Measle Stubbs
Christopher Paolini – Inheritance
Philip Pullman – His Dark Materials
Guillaume Prevost – Book of Time
Emily Rodda – Deltora Shadowland
Kate Thompson – Missing Link
Kate Thompson - Switchers
Megan Whalen Turner – Thief
Anne Ursu – Cronus Chronicles
Jane Yolen – Young Merlin

Young Adult

Hilari Bell – Farsala
Holly Black – The Good Neighbors
Holly Black - Modern Fairy Tales
Terry Brooks – Genesis of Shannara
Terry Brooks - Original Shannara
Terry Brooks - Voyage of Jerle Shannara
Terry Brooks - High Druid of Shannara
Michael Cadnum – Book of the Lion
Kate Constable –Chanter of Tremaris
Clare Dunkle – Hollow Kingdom
Catherine Fisher – Oracle Prophecies
Geoffrey Huntington – Ravenscliff
Justin Larbalestier – Magic or Madness
Juliet Marillier – Bridei’s Court
William Nicholson – Noble Warriors
Garth Nix - Abhorsen
Tamora Pierce – Beka Cooper
Tamora Pierce - Daughter of the Lioness
Sherwood Smith - Wren
Jane Yolen – Tartan Magic

Bart’s Guide to London

2009-10-21T17:06:00.001-04:00

Bartimeaus’s Guide to London, from the author’s website

This month’s book: The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

2009-10-14T17:42:00.002-04:00

This long, involved, original and exciting fantasy is the first book of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, and is set in an alternate London, during a time when England is in the power of magicians who hold all government offices. The one dirty little secret that magicians don’t want the commoners to know is that on their own they have no power at all. What little power they do have is gained through the various demons (efrits, djinnis and other spirits) they summon and control with elaborate rituals and protections that force the demons into servitude. Nathaniel is a boy who was sold by his parents at the age of six into apprenticeship to a pompous and stuffy mediocre bureaucrat, Arthur Underwood, who doesn’t see the boy’s exceptional talents. Underwood tutors Nathaniel in magic, but as the pace is so slow and boring, Nathaniel takes the initiative to advance his education behind his master’s back. When he is ten Nathaniel suffers a very public humiliation by an up-and-coming politician Simon Lovelace. He takes revenge by using some of secretly gained knowledge to summon a powerful 5,000-year-old djinn named Bartimaeus. He instructs Bartimaeus to steal an artifact called the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace. Little does Nathaniel know that Lovelace himself stole the Amulet (and killed its original owner) and will stop at nothing to get it back. Lovelace has big plans for all of England that involve the Amulet (think overthrow of the government). As if Nathaniel doesn’t have enough problems, he finds out that Bartimaeus has learned his real name, which makes it possible Bartimaeus to gain his freedom from Nathaniel, and to take his revenge on him.

The story is told in alternating chapters: a third-person narrative about Nathaniel (not a sympathetic character by any means, being whiny and self-absorbed), and first-person by Bartimaeus, who is cynical, wise-cracking, and has an extraordinarily high opinion of himself. Bartimaeus’s chapters are filled with very funny footnotes explaining the finer points of magic, details about different planes of existence, types of demons, and the history of magic and the world. Don’t be tempted to skip the footnotes; they’re my favorite part of the book. Review by Stacy Church

Down the Rabbit Hole

2009-09-30T16:33:00.001-04:00

Ok, here’s my list of references to “down the rabbit hole.”

page 85: when Ingrid is trying to break into Cracked-up Katie’s house to steal back her soccer cleats, and she pushes open the basement window, gets facedown on the ground, wriggles back into the opening feetfirst. “She could just let go. Alice, down the rabbit hole.”

page 97: when Ingrid is running from the police in the woods in the middle of the night, and finds herself on the top of a hill overlooking the Falls, on the opposite bank from Prescott Hall, “Griddie, deep down the rabbit hole.”

page 328: the conversation between Vincent and Ingrid at the special rehearsal, the two of them alone in Prescott Hall,

“I know, but I still think it’s meant to be a fun thing.”

“A fun thing?”

“The whole story of Alice,” said Ingrid. “Falling down the rabbit hole, having all those adventures.”

“Not all adventures are fun…”

page 357: when Ingrid goes back to Prescott Hall in the middle of the night and decides to climb in through the cat door, “This one was big enough for a real big cat, maybe even big enough for a girl Ingrid’s size. She tried it—yes, just big enough. She wriggled through to the other side: down the rabbit hole.”

Hmmm…there are only 4. I can’t find the 5th one. If you find it, let me know.

Down the Rabbit Hole

2009-09-24T18:06:00.001-04:00

How many different references can you find to going down the rabbit hole? Does it always mean the same thing? I found 5, not counting the original reference in the book Alice in Wonderland. Check back later to compare notes.

About the Author: Peter Abrahams

2009-09-16T16:50:00.001-04:00

I was born at a time when the last woolly mammoths still walked the earth. My mother taught me most of what I know about writing. She got a pretty good idea that she'd better make me into a writer—since I'd never succeed at anything else—when my preschool teacher told her the following story:

One rainy day the teacher took my class on a make-believe walk. We were indoors, the walk was real, and the sights were not. For example: "A car's coming class," my teacher said. "Everybody stop." We came to a puddle. "Here's a puddle," my teacher said. Everyone walked it around but me. I plodded straight through. "Petey, what about the puddle?" my teacher asked. "I've got boots on," I said.

There you have the nascent writer: uncooperative, attention-seeking, and tiresome. My mother rolled with it.

I graduated from Williams College with an actual degree and went to work as a spearfisherman in the Bahamas. Later I worked a bit in radio, and found I was better suited to working on my own—and what could be more alone than writing? So far I've written 22 novels. These include 17 crime fiction novels, among them Oblivion; End of Story; Lights Out (Edgar best-novel nominee); The Fan (made into a movie with Robert DeNiro); the New York Times bestselling Echo Falls series for middle-schoolers (beginning with Down the Rabbit Hole, an Agatha winner); the new YA Reality Check (2009); and, under the name Spencer Quinn, Dog On It, an New York Times bestseller and first in the Chet and Bernie mystery series. I'm now at work on a YA for publication in 2010 called Bullet Points.

I'm married with four children, most of them now grown-up, or doing a perfect imitation thereof. I live on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, overlooking a salt marsh. We have a great dog named Audrey. She does everything backwards.

reprinted from HarperCollins.com Photo By Dan Cutrona

Review of Down the Rabbit Hole

2009-09-10T19:16:00.002-04:00

It’s hard to know where to start. I read this book, the first in the Echo Falls Mystery series, 3 years ago not long after it came out. I read and enjoyed the sequels, Behind the Curtain and Into the Dark, but it wasn’t until I reread Down the Rabbit Hole that I realized how great the first book is. I’ve already quoted my favorite passages, so you can see for yourself how witty the writing is, but I want to tell you, the plot is really well laid out also. The story follows Ingrid, budding actress, talented soccer-player, and devotee of Sherlock Holmes, in the aftermath of the murder of Echo Falls’ most eccentric resident, Cracked-Up Katie. There are lots of side stories (Why is Ingrid’s football-playing brother, Ty, suddenly so pumped up that he can beat their grandfather at arm wrestling? Will their grandfather stop at nothing to prevent the sale of the family farm? What’s up with the new dark version of Alice in Wonderland that the director who’s replacing the recently-run-over-by-a-piano director, Jill, is making The Prescott Players perform? Can Alice really be menacing?) but they don’t detract from the unfolding of the central mystery. As smart as Ingrid is, she has to make some not-so-smart choices sometimes, but those are believable too.

Some of my favorite quotes from Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abrahams

2009-09-09T17:19:00.001-04:00

Ingrid’s thoughts on having her braces adjusted: “Adjustment meant tightening. Tightening didn’t hurt much while it was happening, but every turn of the screw made a squeaky sound that seemed to come from right inside Ingrid’s head, and reminded her of the Shackleton IMAX movie she’d seen a few weeks before on a class trip –that scene where ice floes slowly crush the ship to death.”

Ingrid’s conversation with the foreign taxi driver: “’You are pressing for time?’ he said… ‘What time is it?’ Ingrid said. The driver snapped open his cell phone. ‘Five on top of the button,’ he said.”

Ingrid’s musings about algebra: “X. All those math people had a big—what was the word? Mom used it all the time –fetish. That was it. Fetish…They made a fetish about x, couldn’t keep their hands off it.”

Ingrid’s thought about old people: “Old people didn’t seem to laugh often, but when they did, they loved it, kind of surprising themselves by how much…”

Ingrid’s description of her complexion: “…not just a regular zit, but a zit with a blackhead in the middle –a one-in-a-million dermatological freak show, maybe the basis for some researcher’s prize-winning paper.”

This month’s book now in!

2009-08-26T15:36:00.001-04:00

This month’s book is Down the Rabbit Hole, An Echo Falls Mystery, by Peter Abrahams. Review to follow.

Post-apocalyptic Fiction

2009-08-12T17:21:00.001-04:00

The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm is post-apocalyptic because it takes place after some terrible event occurred that altered life as we know it. If that sort of fiction intrigues you, try these other books. They all take place after some horrible event –plague, nuclear disaster, alien invasion –you name it!

Juvenile Fiction

The Hermit Thrush Sings Butler
The Roar Clayton
The Last Dragon De Mari
The City of Ember DuPrau
The Other Side of the Island Goodman
Among the Hidden Haddix
Phoenix Rising Hesse
Gathering Blue Lowry
The Giver Lowry
River Rats Stevermer