Cobain seen, chronicled, and still elusive

I know that when Don McLean sang about "the day the music died," he was referring to the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper. Say that phrase to me, however, and I think of my mom picking me up from school on April 5, 1994, and telling me that Kurt Cobain had committed suicide. Because this day stands out for me so much, and because I am a Nirvana fan like all good Gen-Xers, I was so excited to read the beautiful, tangible Cobain Unseen by Charles R. Cross. Thank you to the publicity department at Little, Brown for sending the review copy.

I know I'm supposed to read and follow the pictures along with the text, but I confess to flipping around and playing with all the pullout elements because the visual elements are so enticing and I'm a person who learns best by touching. The book includes replicas of all kinds of previously uncollected Cobain and Nirvana memorabilia. There are fold-out pages, pull-out cards and flyers, a Valentine, a copy of a letter to Cobain from Michael Stipe, even a card Cobain made in elementary school. Maybe it's me putting too much of a YA services slant on this, but I think the designers of this book must really be in touch with the next generation of Cobain fans, the generation that has grown up in a visual world and processes information much differently than Cobain's original fans did. As Cross takes us through Cobain's life, the accompanying pictures highlight not just his artistic talents but his sense of the morbid, which he had even as a child. Even after Nirvana gained fame, Cobain continued to bite the hand that fed him. For all his fame, he continued to speak against big businesses (including his record company) and was more dedicated to producing art than pleasing legions of fans. Even though there aren't that many professional pictures of him, in many of the photographs you can look at his eyes and see the sadness and depression that plagued him for much of his life. Cross's writing is unapologetic and just a step above functional, which works well when writing a biography of someone so extraordinary, someone who lived in art and combining words in new and provocative ways. Cobain's life speaks for itself, all Cross needed to do was sort it out. Cross does this well, showing us both the beautiful and the profane sides of Cobain's personality. Because of all the little doodads this might not be a book for every library, but it's definitely a book for any Nirvana fan to read.

Things to note: First, the final copy comes with a CD of Cobain reading from his journals, which was not included in my review copy. I can't wait to hear it, though. Second, this is not necessarily meant to be a reference book. There is no index or bibliography. There doesn't have to be, of course, I'm just noting it because librarians like to note these things.

Reading this book, I not only feel that I know more about Kurt Cobain, but I understand more. I don't necessarily feel that I know him. Very few people really did. But I know I'm going to go back to Nevermind and In Utero and give them a new listen, and I'm sure they'll take on new dimension since I know more about the stories behind their formations.

See more about Cobain Unseen at Rolling Stone and in the Seattle Times.

Diary of a...no, stay with me on this one

Everyone has a weakness. Mine is books with pink sparkly covers, and definitely books with pink sparkly covers written in diary format. Today's pink sparkly book in diary format is the fun, silly-yet-serious Diary of a Chav by Grace Dent. Copy acquired at the Fall '08 librarian/reviewer preview at Little, Brown (thank you muchly!). Erm...to clarify, my galley has a pink sparkly cover. The final version has a blue sparkly cover.

Shiraz Bailey Wood...even the name makes me smile...is a self-described chav, derogatory slang for white working-class Brits who like hip-hop and the fashions associated with it. She makes no apologies for being one and spends her days hanging around Claire's with the bad girls from school, or maybe with her best friend Carrie, whose wealthy mother had the Sistine Chapel reproduced on the ceiling of the family home with the family's faces painted on it. Her older sister, Cava-Sue, is on her way to becoming the family outcast due to her interest in studying acting at the higher education level. Shiraz wasn't planning on keeping a diary, but it was a gift from her grandmother so she might as well use it. She documents her hoop-earring, hip-hop listening days with flair and a lot of cursing. Oh, and there's some romance, too.

At first, this book can be hard to get into because it's so peppered with British slang. Anyone with experience in figuring out word meanings from context, though, should have Shiraz's rhythm down by page 5. I'd love to hear this in audio; I think an audio version would bring a lot of spirit and meaning to the text. What's great about Shiraz is that she doesn't make excuses for being a chav, nor does she aspire to some great refined lifestyle, but she is street smart and as the book goes on she starts to see value in being book smart as well. This is not some great revelation, either. Rather, a teacher recognizes that Shiraz is bright and encourages her to put her sass to good use. That, and Shiraz knows she doesn't want any job where she'll have to wear wellies and a hat ever again. I found this book hilarious and very real in that Shiraz lacks a lot of the self-awareness I see from teens in so much YA literature. She gets in trouble and fights with her friends and isn't sure what she wants to do with her life and is generally finding herself.

Subsequent books in the series are available in the UK and I'm anxiously awaiting their arrival in the US. Also, I have to say that this is one of the books this year where I like the US cover better than the UK cover. The UK covers aren't bad at all, I just like the picture on the US cover (which is the one at the top of this entry).


teen feedback in SLJ || at LB-Teens || at Poppy

Review: The Compound by S.A. Bodeen

Did anyone else see Top Design last night, where the challenge was to decorate a

fallout shelter? It was a serendipitous, if rather scary, moment, because I was on my couch reading S.A. Bodeen's The Compound at the time. I suppose that's what I get for not bothering to change the channel after Project Runway.

The plot: For six years, Eli Yanakakis has lived three stories underground in a lavish fallout shelter. On his ninth birthday, his father ushered his family away from what he said was a nuclear attack and into The Compound. The door to the compound is sealed and set to open in fifteen years, enough time for the nuclear waste from the attack to become harmless. The only people Eli has seen or communicated with for years are his mother, father, and two sisters. He desperately misses hamburgers, his twin brother, Eddy, his grandmother, and his dog. Though The Compound seems stocked with everything he could ever want, Eli knows there are many faults in his father's plan for survival. Their food supply is not what it should be. He catches his father lying about the ability to connect to the Internet. As the book goes on, Eli learns that his father's ultimate plan for a food source, what they call The Supplements, is not the result of poor planning but of his father's near-insanity. Eli knows he has to get out, but only his father knows the secret code to opening the door.

Why you'll love it: When I first picked up this book, I thought it was a dystopian novel. Dystopias in YA are really hot right now and I do love me some imperfect future worlds, but I thought the horror/psychological thriller factor went way up when I realized it wasn't a dystopian novel. Is the book perfect? No. There are some holes in the plot and characterization, but Eli's world is so absorbing, his character so interesting, that the reader doesn't care so much. Eli goes from having a life that every teen would envy to one that no one would want. It reminded me of Flowers in the Attic in many ways: A teen living in a golden cage, a parent's warped idea of safety, a question of gratitude, adapting to survive, protecting one's family, etc. In the span of this book, Eli changes more, grows more, than he has in the past six years. In order to escape, Eli has to put aside all the tactics he's adopted just to get through his daily life. He also has to face up to the question of how far he would go just to ensure his own survival. It's a hold-your-breath book, definitely one that fans of The Hunger Games would enjoy.

Enter The Compound || S.A. Bodeen || review at Charlotte's Library ||

Review: Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass

I picked up this book for two reasons: 1. I loved the cover art. 2. I loved Mass's previous offering, Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall. That's about it. I think there are many worse reasons to pick up a book, don't you?

The plot: Ally (short for Alpha), Bree, and Jack would never talk to each other if they all went to the same school. Ally has lived most of her life on the Moon Shadow Campground, which is miles from nowhere. She's an expert on astronomy and has never read a fashion magazine or watched a teen TV show. Bree, who spends hours on looking her best and securing her spot at the top of her school social ladder, is convinced that she was adopted into her family of academics. Her parents are astronomers and her little sister doesn't understand the point of eyeliner. Bree is brought to the Moon Shadow Campground by her parents, who have received a grant to be its caretakers for the next three years. Jack is, for want of a better description, a typical teenage boy. He's not interested in school and would rather spend his time in his tree house reading fantasy and science fiction novels and drawing pictures of aliens. After failith science, Jack is given the option of traveling with his teacher to Moon Shadow Campground to collect astronomical data and witness a solar eclipse. It's either that or make up the work in summer school. To Jack, there is no option.

Neither Ally nor Bree nor Jack is entirely thrilled about the days to come, but with nothing else around they have no choice but to get to know each other. Their isolation leads to some very cool discoveries about themselves, each other, and the universe (literally).

The good: Even though all the chapters in the alternating viewpoints are in first person, Mass does an excellent job of making the voices distinguished. It's easy to tell which character is talking when. Also, each character is at a crossroads in his or her life. Rather than turning their attitudes regarding the Moon Shadow Campground a complete one-eighty, Mass shows us that major life changes must be adjusted to. Even if you don't end up where you want to be, you can assimilate and make the most of yourself in an unfamiliar place without changing the basics of who you are. If I have one complaint about the book it's that Ally and Bree's younger siblings get a little too much screen time; they're cute but I would have liked more time with the main characters. But overall, I love that the setting is not in a school but still brings all the drama and self-discovery that is a teen's life.

The publisher lists this book as ages 8-12, but I don't think 13, maybe even 14-year-olds would find it too young. Those of you who lead book discussions may want to pick this one up.

Wendy Mass's blog || review at BookEnvy || Video review at The One-Minute Critic

The Latent Powers of Playing With Matches

Call it the John Green effect. Call it the Superbad effect (especially if David Krumholtz is involved. Whatever you want to call it, or if you call it nothing at all, more and more boy-centric YA romances are hitting the shelves. Last week, I read two that I enjoyed, and they get a joint review.

The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine by April Lurie follows a boy who is trying to keep his head on straight in his increasingly dramarific life. His mother left the family for another man. His father is never home because he's always working. His brother Randy is many things Dylan wishes he could be: intelligent, a talented musician, an artist. He's also a pothead with zero interest in succeeding in school. In most other YA novels, Dylan could tell his best friend Angie about his problems. The problem here is that Dylan wants to date Angie, who would rather just be friends. Even worse, Angie is dating a guy Dylan finds pretentious. With the help of health food, basketball, and a newly-hired housekeeper who cooks German food, Dylan navigates his way through crushes, pot, jam sessions, and being the star of Angie's independent film.

It sounds like a lot to cram into one book, but Lurie balances it all. Dylan is endearing even when he tries to keep the reader at arm's length. His crushes and frustrations are totally sympathetic. Given Dylan's family it would have been easy to write him as just another spoiled New York poor little rich kid. Dylan, however, has taken on a protector role not usually seen in the Rich New York Kids subgenre. Although he's no saint, he cares deeply about those around him and in order to maintain what he believes is an even keel, puts himself on the line.

April Lurie's blog || Review at Becky's Book Reviews

Playing With Matches by Brian Katcher is a first novel about the kid in high school no one wants to be. Leon Sanders is neither hot nor popular nor particularly brilliant. His friendships are more friendships of convenience than commonality, and his high school is out in the middle of Nowheresville, Missouri. The only kid in school less popular than Leon might be Melody Hennon, who has severe facial scars from a fire earlier in her life. When Melody and Leon are matched up as locker partners, Leon finds that Melody is friendly and they have quite a lot in common. There's no way they can be more than friends, though. After all, Melody is the school outcast and Leon likes Amy, the hot girl in his chemistry class. As time passes, Leon and Melody grow closer but all along he denies that he's dating her, even taking Amy to a school dance. Leon thought he'd be the last person on earth to get a date, much less be part of a love triangle, but there it is. Amy or Melody? The girl who would raise his social status or the girl who likes him for who he is? It's an easy choice for the reader to make but for Leon, not so much.

Leon's confusion and honesty come through clearly, with a good dose of humor. While teen girls, or anyone who's ever been one, will probably roll their eyes at Leon and say, "Boys are so dumb!" it's always easy to see exactly where Leon is coming from in regards to his relationships with Melody and Amy. He doesn't mean to be a jerk. He doesn't mean to manipulate. All he's doing is following his earnest feelings, and that's what gets him in trouble and makes him look like a jerk to outsiders. Fact is, though, Leon is somewhat overwhelmed by his feelings and really not up to making the "right" decision. All he can do is go with his gut until his friends put him in his place.

I think the most interesting thing to observe about these two books, and what might be a forthcoming trend in YA, who knows? is the lack of plot. Wait! This is not a bad thing. As Stephen King pointed out, our lives don't have plots; they're mostly a series of events influenced by others. Both Dylan Fontaine and Playing With Matches capitalize on the idea that we can only take on life as it comes to us, and high school romances are complicated. I'm curious as to who will read these books, but I think those that do should enjoy them, as I did.

How to ditch the boring book you're reading and pick up this one instead

If you feelin' like a jock, girl, go and brush your fairy off
Walk everywhere girl, go and brush your fairy off
Fairies is crazy, baby, don't forget Fiorenze told you
Get that fairy off your shoulder

(With apologies to Jay-Z)

Today's book: How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier, coming in October 2008 from Bloomsbury.

The plot: In a slightly alternate world, many people have fairies. These fairies allow their humans to have one special power. Some fairies make their humans adept at finding loose change. Charlie's (short for Charlotte) mother has one that allows her to always know where her children are. Charlie's best friend Rochelle has a clothing fairy, meaning everything looks great on her and is always on sale. And Charlie? Well, her fairy is useless as far as she's concerned. She's got a parking fairy. If she's in a car, that car is guaranteed to get an amazing parking space. Quite useful if you've got a driver's license or you live in Bergen County. Useless to Charlie, who can't even drive. Charlie's fairy has become the bane of her existence, so she hatches a plan to get rid of it by walking everywhere and therefore starving the fairy of having anything to do. It works until a school bully kidnaps her and forces her to ride around with him so he can get great parking spaces. Now Charlie's fairy is back to full strength. In order to ditch her fairy, she hatches a plan with her sworn enemy, the popular-but-only-with-boys-thanks-to-her-fairy Fiorenze. Charlie and Fiorenze find what they believe is the perfect solution to ditching their fairies and getting new ones.

But we all know the old saying: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

Why you'll love it: First, it's funny. There is never enough humor in YA, and HTDYF is not only funny, but it's a smart, sarcastic kind of funny. Charlie is a prickly yet completely endearing character and Justine makes you feel sorry for her fairy plight. She is loyal to her friends but even more so to her personal cause of fairy-ditching, making her a great self-centric teen. (This is a compliment, I swear!) The world Justine has created is fascinating, too: It's a mix of different world slangs and educational system. Charlie attends a sports-centric high school and loves being an athlete, and there's a whole hierarchy of different kinds of high schools and how cool you are depending on which one you attend. I can see wide appeal in this book. It's for those who love humor, for those who love romance, for those who love (or hate!) urban fantasy, and for those who really like to see the bad guy go down in the end. This is definitely a book to keep an eye out for.

(My personal fairy is a never-forgetting-the-books-I-read fairy, which I find to be fairly useful in my line of work. My youngest sister has a parking fairy, but as far as I know she's never tried to ditch it.)

It's Impossible not to love this book

I do not consider myself a gifted writer, but I do enjoy writing my blog entries, reviews and the occasional work for publication in professional journals. When I was a tween and into my early teens, I thought I wanted to be a writer. My mother still thinks I want to be a writer (perhaps because she's not repaying my library school loans each month) and my husband is somehow convinced I'm going to write the Great American Novel one day.

But as I've told Lara Zeises, there is no point in me becoming a writer because I could never in a million years even come close to writing half as well as Nancy Werlin. This woman can write anything and write it brilliantly. Her stories tunnel deep into your psyche and they stay there.

The plot: I have to laugh, because the plot sounds horrendous when I break it down. Lucy, beloved foster child and avid runner, is raped on her prom night and gets pregnant. She decides to keep the baby and learns of a curse that has plagued generations of her family's women and makes them go crazy after they all give birth at eighteen. There's a ballad and a diary and Lucy falls in love and gets married to Zach, a boy she's known all her life. But it's more than that. Lucy knows that her mother, Miranda, is insane, but what she doesn't know is that Miranda only went insane after giving birth to Lucy. Through Zach, Lucy comes into possession of Miranda's diary and learns that she too is doomed to go insane. Before Lucy gives birth, she must complete three tasks set forth by the Elfin King, who fell in love with one of her ancestors and cursed their lineage via a ballad, a version of "Scarborough Fair" known to very few. All of these tasks seem impossible at first glance, but using a little ingenuity and human smarts Lucy, Zach, Soledad and Leo come up with a plan to break the curse.


Why you'll love it: This is a "No, trust me!" novel, just like The Book Thief. The plot of The Book Thief sounds horrendous when broken down, too: This book is about a girl growing up in WWII Germany and she steals books and it's narrated by Death. When booktalking both The Book Thief and Impossible, you have to say, "No, trust me!" to the person listening to the talk, because if they do they're in for something wonderful. Lucy is pragmatic, intelligent, and literal-minded. Soledad and Leo and Zach are more artistic and emotional, and together all of them make a great team. Alone, none of them could have even attempted to break the Scarborough family curse. Together, they show the power love has over something that seems insurmountable.

I know some people are going to read this book and complain about how good and perfect Zach is, so I wanted to address that. You're reading the blog of what seems like the only librarian...or maybe the only woman...in the world who finds the "bad boy" completely unappealing. This is my personal preference, and it taints what I read. I have never been attracted to bad boys, either in literature or in real life. I have no sense of danger. I like rules and order and good behavior. I would never want to date Sirius Black and Edward Cullen positively turns my stomach. Because of this, I adored Zach. I loved that there was a "good boy" in this book, and that he was so pure of heart and character. I loved Zach's dedication to Lucy. We should all be so lucky to have someone in our lives who loves us so much.

Read Nancy's thoughts on writing Impossible.

Every year, I read hundreds of books. I tend to not think much of about half of them, enjoy another thirty percent or so, love another eighteen percent, and then, rarely, there are those few books that cling to my heart and soul. Impossible is one of the clingers-on. I can't wait until more people have read this because I am dying to discuss it.

Shift (your mind, your views, your opinions)

Shift by Jennifer Bradbury is a classic mystery, not so much in the "whodunit" vein, but in the "howdunit." When the book opens, we meet Christopher, a college freshman in Atlanta. He's approached by an FBI agent and asked about the cross-country bike trip he took from West Virginia to Washington over the summer with his best friend, Win. Win is both Chris's best friend and his worst enemy. Just before the end of their bike trip Chris and Win parted ways. Chris hasn't heard from Win since. Neither has anyone else.

Win's rich, powerful, domineering father is convinced that Win is dead and Chris is somehow responsible. He's hired investigators to tail Chris and even goes so far as to threaten Chris's family in nonviolent but definitely hurtful ways. Chris gets a clue that leads him to believe that Win is alive, but he wants to verify it for himself before telling Win's dad or anyone else. To find the truth, he'll have to lie, run away (albeit temporarily) and retrace moments of the bike trip that seemed insignificant at the time but now are heavy with meaning.

Why you'll love it: Ah, the great tradition of the YA road trip novel. PPYA is even doing an entire road trip list this year. I love a good sinister twist to my literature and Shift definitely has it. Chris is smart but not wise beyond his years, making him a great protagonist. His dedication is not just to Win but to his family, himself and the mystery of where Win disappeared to. He is perceptive and honest...and perceptive enough to know when to be dishonest. The story moves back and forth in time but is easy to follow, so there's never any confusion as to what's happening when. Suspense comes not just from the constant wondering of whether Chris will find Win, but if he'll find Win, dead or alive, in time to save himself and his family from the wrath of Win's dad. There are lots of literary and Biblical (my favorite) allusions, too. This is one of those perfect summer reading books; it's heavy enough to engage your brain but not heavy enough to fry it.

Many thanks go to the children's publicity department at Simon & Schuster for sending me this book.

The five people you meet in Stealing Heaven

Elizabeth Scott's first book, Bloom, was nominated to PPYA last year, and after I read it I just HAD to snag the one galley of her second novel, Perfect You, that was available at one of the Simon & Schuster previews I attended. Elizabeth was very kind and sent me a copy of her third novel, Stealing Heaven, for review.

The plot: Danielle, seventeen, has never attended high school, had a room or even a home she could really call her own, or made a true friend. In fact, she doesn't even introduce herself as Danielle to the people she meets. In every town she has a different identity. She's not in witness protection; she's a thief. Her parents, professional thieves, have raised her to know everything there is to know about security systems and hiding her real identity. With her dad now out of the picture, Danielle and her mom have taken to stealing silver from the homes of rich people. Why silver? It's valuable enough to make them some serious cash when sold, but it's not the first thing people look for when (or if) they figure out they've been robbed. Danielle and her mother move to Heaven, a shore town which I thought was on the East Coast until I read a line about the sun setting over the ocean, which it only does on the West Coast. Either way, there's a beach and it's a small town. There's also a very rich family with a very nice daughter who wants to be friends with Danielle. There's also a friendly cop with a crush on Danielle. Danielle figures that Heaven should be just like all the other towns she and her mom have lived in, until two things happen. First, Danielle finds herself forming relationships with the people of Heaven, something she's never done before. Second, her mother develops a terrible cough that won't seem to go away.

Why you'll love it: More than anything, the detailed writing makes this farfetched plot work really well. She does it all by creating interesting characters who always have something going on beneath the surface. Danielle is conflicted about her life of crime; she knows it's not right but it's the only life she's ever known. Her mother is nontraditional, to say in the least, and with her father in prison she hasn't got much of any kind of adult role model in her life. Danielle likes to think that she has built a barrier between herself and other people, but that barrier is broken by understanding and truly good people. Near the end of the book, Danielle has to stand up for herself, a feat not so easily accomplished when you've led the life she has. There's romance, intrigue and humor that grow from a cast of quirky characters. Danielle's personal fight against change and her developing her first meaningful relationships are a joy to watch.

Here's a little friendly advice: You should read this book

Siobhan Vivian is cool if for one reason only: She's got two first names. I'm always envious of people who have a first name for a last name (such as Michael Thomas or Jennifer Taylor) because I have a last name for a first name (Carlisle Webber). Besides that, she's from Rutherford, and their library is a member of BCCLS. I want to thank Siobhan for having her publicist at Scholastic send me a copy of her book A Little Friendly Advice, because I enjoyed it.

The plot: Ruby is NOT having a great week. Sure, it's her sixteenth birthday and she gets to spend it with her closest friends and her mom gives her an amazing present (a Polaroid camera), but in the middle of her party her long-absent dad shows up. Ruby's not interested in hearing what her dad has to say. After all, he's the reason she and her mom had to move and her life's not been the same since. The one person Ruby is sure she can confide in is her best friend Beth...until she finds Beth's been hiding a letter Ruby's dad wrote to her, telling her he'll be in town for the week. How could Beth betray Ruby like that? Does Ruby even want to see her dad? To further complicate things, Ruby's falling for the very cool Charlie, an aspiring photographer who's a recent transplant to Akron, Ohio, from Pittsburgh. This has either got to be the best time for Ruby to get a boyfriend...or the worst. As the week goes on, Ruby does a 180 on her friendship with Beth and the way she feels about her father.

Why you'll love it: Regardless of how you feel about Stephen King's books, you have to love his part-memoir, part-instruction book On Writing. In it, he talks about plot vs. character, nothing that our lives are largely shaped by people rather than events. What Vivian has done is shaped an event around people, bringing us a great cast of characters with a lot of heart. She's really captured the way that time seems to pass so slowly when you're a teen, and how much can happen in a week of school, friends, and parties. Ruby and her friends could be found at any high school in America. They love each other, they fight, they make up, they include, they exclude, everything. As an added bonus, the book takes place in the Midwest, and we all know how I feel about that. This is a great next read for fans of what I like to call smart-chickbooks: Sarah Zarr, Justina Chen Headley, Laurie Halse Anderson, etc.

Parting is all she knows of Hell (review of All we Know of Heaven)

Jacquelyn Mitchard is a quiet gift to the genre. Her YA books don't get huge splashy marketing campaigns or movies or fan clubs, but THEY OUGHT TO. Her first YA offering, 2007's Now You See Her, continues to haunt me nearly a year after I read it. Her second YA book, All We Know of Heaven, is out this month, and it is worth a read.

The plot: Best friends Maureen and Bridget have been inseparable since kindergarten. Now in high school, they are nearly identical in appearance, with their short but strong stature and similar green eyes. Driving through snow just before Christmas, Maureen's crappy white Toyota crosses the center line of a highway and hits a truck head on. The truck driver is unharmed but both Maureen and Bridget are rushed to the hospital with a myriad of injuries. One of the girls dies and the other is in a coma for six weeks; the doctors are unsure that she'll ever be anything more than a vegetable.

The text message goes out the evening of the accident: M IS DOA.

Maureen's family holds a funeral and burial and are just starting to move on with their lives when the girl everyone believes must be Bridget comes out of her coma. For a while she's in and out of reality, but she is sure of a few things: She is not in heaven, she is not dead, and she is not Bridget.

When Maureen is finally able to communicate her true identity, her small Minnesota town isn't sure whether to ostracize her or embrace her. She's got a long road to go towards recovery, a road filled with physical therapy, romance, fighting and communication breakdowns. Maureen has to rebuild not only her body's abilities but her life, which in many ways both physical and emotional can never be the same. Bridget's family hates her for surviving and half the town doesn't know what to make of her. The one person who stays loyal to Maureen is Danny, who used to be Bridget's boyfriend, but the one person Maureen wants more than anything is Bridget. For the first time in her life, Maureen has the opportunity to stand on her own talents, out from under popular (if domineering) Bridget's shadow. Unfortunately, the accident has left her with communication problems.

Why you'll love it: If you're thinking, "I saw that episode of House!" well...you did. This book is based on that same true story used for the plotline of an ep of House. But what the episode of House doesn't go into is what happens to friends and families affected by the accident long after most of the pieces have been picked up. All we Know of Heaven is all about the pieces Maureen has to pick up after the accident, and how grieving affects those close to both her and Bridget. While her family stands by her, she has to learn a new place socially, take on new pursuits and adapt to the idea of not being able to do the things she once loved to do. Using a third-person narrative (YES! What is with all the first-person books lately?), Mitchard is able to step back from the characters and allow the reader to see how the accident and loss of Bridget deeply affects a wide cast of flawed characters. It's funny; most authors who tell instead of show end up writing really awful books, but Mitchard doesn't. She does a LOT of telling rather than showing, but somehow it works, perhaps because her narrative voice has a wisdom to it you can only get with the omniscient viewpoint. In any event, Mitchard uses a "telling" narration to her advantage.

Like Now You See Her, this is a haunting book, one that should generate discussion.

This most excellent book: A novel of love, friendship and the complications of relationships

Danielle of the Cliffside Park library has been raving about My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park, so I pushed it a few slots forward on my to-read list.

The plot: This is the chronicle of 2003, an important year in the lives of high school freshman Augie Hwong, Alejandra (aka Ale) Perez and Anthony Conigliaro (aka Tony, Tony C, T.C. or Tick, depending on who you are). In letters to a First Lady, a dead mother and various theater divas, the three teens share hilarious, heartwarming stories of falling in love with everything from boys to girls to theater. T.C., a baseball fanatic, gets batting instructions from six-year-old Hucky, who quickly becomes a friend. He also spearheads a political campaign involving baseball at Manzanar to catch the eye of politically aware Alejandra. Alejandra, raised by diplomats, is destined for career in either politics, which her father heartily approves of, or theater, which he most definitely does not. Augie, T.C.'s brother in all but blood, is gay and out to everyone but himself. He falls for jock Andy, but is Andy ready to take their relationship public? Interspersed with Ale, T.C. and Augie's letters to their idols are hilarious communications between parents, school counselors, congresspeople and celebrities. In the end, there's a madcap romp worthy of any Broadway comedy involving Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins, a train to New York City and Vanessa Redgrave (briefly).


Why you'll love it: Let's start with a downer, because really, there are many uppers: This is not a perfect book. It drags through the middle and the storyline about Hucky, especially in the end, is pretty contrived. But I was willing to overlook a lot of that (and you should, too) because Augie, Alejandra, and T.C. are warm, caring and delightfully over the top. Tired of patrons who complain that all teen books are depressing? Give them this book and prove them wrong. T.C. and Augie's friendship is unwavering; they overlook the petty things in favor of their loyalty to each other. Although T.C.'s mother is dead and this is a source of angst for him, he always thinks fondly of her and wants his single dad to be happy. Alejandra uses her diplomatic skills to stand up for herself and show her parents that she's taken control of her own life. Augie's parents have known forever that he's gay, and they support him no matter what. Most importantly, this book is a terrific study in what it means to love someone and the many facets love has. (And woe to English for only having one word for "love!") Love comes in many forms in this story, from crushes to missing a family member to a deep bonding of souls to helping someone less fortunate than you. In the end, everyone loves and is loved, and that leaves the reader with a happy feeling. Which I think is something we could all use more of.

My reputable review of Frankie Landau-Banks

Once upon a time, I was very hot and sweaty. It was June of 2007 and I was carrying my weight in books around the Javits Center while wearing 4-inch heels. It was Book Expo America, held on one of the first really warm days of the year, and whoever thought to put a huge convention in a center too small to hold it, when said center is half made of glass, is crazy.

During this once upon a time, it so happened that my friends and I ran into some YA authors we admire. All of us were standing around talking and I noticed that the woman on my right was none other than the very talented E. Lockhart. And she was holding a book in one hand with her name on the cover.

"Oh," I said, "do you have a new book coming out? I can't wait to read it. I loved Dramarama."

"Here," she replied, handing me the book.

SERIOUSLY? I just about fell over dead from fangirling.

It was one of the shining moments of Book Expo. And the book she handed me was The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, one of the shining books of 2008.

The Plot: All her life, Frankie Landau-Banks has been labeled as someone to be protected, her family's Bunny Rabbit, someone who is in need of sage advice and wise words. She's sick of it. Frankie, ace debater and ultimate Frisbee enthusiast, wants people to see her for her greatest talent, which is manipulating people (not in a bad way). She has a keen eye for social structure and an analytical mind, and she uses these talents to infiltrate an all-boys secret society at her school, of which her boyfriend Matthew is a member. Assuming the identity of the society's leader, Alpha, she gets the boys to pull some amazing stunts. In four months Frankie goes from unknown to girlfriend of the popular guy to secret campus puppet master to simultaneously revered and reviled by her classmates.

Why you'll love it: Like Frankie, there is much to this book beneath the surface. At first glance, it's a book about a girl, tired of being pigeonholed as sweet and innocent, who masterminds one of the unsweetest, uninnocentest series of pranks her prestigious boarding school has ever seen. One way to see it would be that it's a book about breaking from the shell of expectations that everyone else has built around you. The reader knows from the beginning that Frankie is dissatisfied with the way people see her and she wants to make herself noticed for being something other than Zada Landau-Banks's little sister. The way I see it, it's a book about belonging. Matthew's way of belonging is to not rock the boat too much with his friends. Alpha's way of belonging is to draw everyone to him with his supreme confidence and irreverence. Frankie does what she does because she needs to belong and needs to be recognized as a leader in the groups to which she belongs. The book has a very Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler feeling to it, in which an outside narrator with wisdom and omniscience tells the story of Frankie's social journey. The use of point of view can usually make or break a book for me, and just like I hold up Invisible and Inexcusable as examples of how to use first person, I will be holding this book up as an example of how to use third person. The peripheral characters are both fantastic and completely believable. Lockhart's use of both esoteric and witty-yet-confused teenage language gives the book a refined edge. This is a definite candidate for this year's Printz and I hope the committee doesn't overlook it.

The book to keep you up at night: Wake

Yes, I have already reviewed this book for Teenreads.com, but I enjoyed it so much I wanted to do a short entry about it here: Wake by Lisa McMann.

The Plot: Janie can see into other people's dreams. She knows who's been to class naked and who's got a secret crush on whom. Problem is, she doesn't get a choice of when and where she visits dreams. If someone nearby falls asleep, she falls in. It wasn't so bad when she was younger, and she can deal at home as long as her alcoholic mother passes out behind her closed bedroom door. But now she's a junior in high school, and demanding homework schedules and early starts to their days mean a lot of people fall asleep in class. She's more or less learned to deal with it. No more sleepovers. No college roommate. But one night, she's driving down Waverly Street and falls into a nightmare so terrible she crashes her car. The nightmare belongs to Cabel Strumheller, reputed drug dealer and the object of Janie's crush. As Janie and Cabel grow closer she is determined to help him out of his nightmare...but how?

Why you'll love it: It's all about the sparse writing. Since this is McMann's first book I don't know if the quick, almost disjointed writing is her trademark or a style she adopted to evoke Janie's dreamworld, but whatever it is, it works. Most of the paragraphs are one sentence long. This serves to make the book move incredibly fast with a sense of otherworldliness. The details are wonderful and the reader really gets an idea of Janie, her friends, and her surroundings without drowning in description. There's a twist at the end that isn't completely unpredictable but is satisfying. This book is heavy on plot but the characters are still quite interesting and human. It's something you can finish in one sitting, and you'll be left wondering what other people dream about.

No need to be Undercover about this book

Sometimes I pick up galleys at Book Expo or ALA and they get buried at the back of a shelf or put in the "to read later" pile and I forget about them and miss some books that are absolute gems. Such is the case of Undercover by Beth Kephart.

The plot: Picking this up, I expected it to be a somewhat lighthearted Cyrano retelling, somewhat like Tucker Shaw's very enjoyable Flavor of the Week. What I got was a quiet study of one girl's experience with love, with the cute boy at school and her father, and also herself. Elisa is invisible at school to everyone at school except the boys who want her to write love poetry for the girls they plan to court. Elisa, like the Victorian poets, finds much solace and truth in nature. She walks through the woods near her home, collecting items for a box of inspiration, and all the while she misses her father, who travels much of the time for work. Her existence is relatively unremarkable until she is asked to write a love poem for Lila, the most popular girl in school. In writing, she becomes close to Theo, the boy she's writing the poems for, invoking Lila's wrath. The book makes no bones about the Cyrano De Bergerac parallels; in fact, Elisa is studying it in English class and her teacher, inspired by Elisa's insight and wisdom, encourages her to go on to college and study writing. The one secret that Elisa is keeping from almost everyone is her ice-skating; while her mother is at home missing her father, Elisa takes herself out to the frozen pond and jumps and spins. Lila, convinced that Theo is cheating on her with Elisa, is out to destroy Elisa's hope of winning a local skating competition.

Why you'll love it: Normally, I don't like to use the word "lyrical" when I review. Maybe it's my music background; lyrics can be anything from Un Bel Di to Smells Like Teen Spirit. But I felt that the language here deserves the "lyrical" adjective. I thought it flowed beautifully, observant and able to relate much of Elisa's emotion to the nature around her. I could hear the rising and falling pitch in the narrative. The peripheral characters are interesting but not so interesting that they take away from Elisa. Normally I'm a bit wary of hypersensitive, hyperobservant teen characters, but by building Elisa into a world of nature and classic literature, Kephart makes the reader thoroughly believe in Elisa's wisdom. Lila is cruel but doesn't slip into Evil Overlord dialogue. And Theo...I like him. He's a great boyfriend without being too perfect. This is a fast read, but the truth of humanity Kephart writes about will stay with you for a long time.

Beth Kephart's blog is at beth-kephart.blogspot.com.

Audrey, don't wait! (to read this book)

I confess, I judge books by their covers. The minute I saw the cover of Audrey, Wait! by Robin Benway, I wanted to read it. I am happy to say that the pink-yellow-orange sunburst surrounding the girl in a black sweater and jeans (which is what I have on today, incidentally) did not disappoint. Thanks to Penguin Group for the ARC.

The plot: Think of a song with a person's name in the title. "Eleanor Rigby." "Amanda." "Angie." Did you ever wonder who Eleanor and Amanda and Angie were in real life? Maybe they were the lead singer's ex-girlfriend. That's who Audrey was.

Audrey Cuttler, normal high school student from California, loves loud music, indie rock, her overweight cat, and her awesome best friend Victoria. What doesn't she love? Her boyfriend, Evan. Lately it seems that Evan's been paying more attention to his band, the Do-Gooders, than to Audrey. She goes over to his house to break up with him, and as she's leaving Evan calls out, "Audrey, wait!"

It's the phrase that launched a thousand hits.

Evan writes a song about their breakup and calls it, "Audrey, Wait!" And wouldn't you know it, the night the Do-Gooders first perform the song is the night they finally get the A&R guy from that record label to come and hear them. Suddenly, "Audrey, Wait!" is a hit and Audrey is an accidental star. Now everyone wants to dress like her, listen to the same music she does, and gossip about her. She's offered a reality show and free lip gloss. While Audrey wants to be normal and pursue a relationship with James, her coworker at the mall ice-cream shop, the papparazzi is recording everything from her trips to the record store to her makeout session with the lead singer of another band.

Why you'll love it: You know what I really hate about YA lit sometimes? The endless witticisms. Who really talks like that? Although Audrey is smart and sarcastic, just what you'd expect from a girl who lives for bands like Taking Back Sunday, the dialogue never sounds like it's trying to hard to be something Joss Whedon would write, and I love it. Audrey's self-aware struggle to maintain normalcy in the face of critical Hollywood is hilarious. I also love that she has two relatively normal parents who still expect her to do the laundry and feed her cat on her way to stardom. There's a wonderfully sweet (and not just because of the ice cream) romance. Everyone lives happily ever after thanks to Audrey's grounded personality, wit, and wisdom. When you close this book, you'll feel happy and maybe turn your music up in your car and really, who could ask for more?

Robin Benway's MySpace

Coming soon: AudreyWait.com

My adoration of Jenna Fox

Mary Pearson is a terrific writer, so I was very excited when I opened a package from Holt and saw an advance of her new book, The Adoration of Jenna Fox. If you've read her previous YA novel, A Room on Lorelei Street, expect something very different. Jenna Fox is just as good in terms of quality, but it's got a much different tone

Because this book won't be out until April 2008, now is a good time to stop reading if you don't want to be even remotely spoiled.

The plot: A long time from now in a state far far away (California), seventeen-year-old Jenna Fox awakens from a year-long coma. What she can't figure out is why she has a phenomenal grasp of everyone's history except her own. She knows the entire text of Walden but doesn't remember that she always called her grandmother Nana, not Lily. Her mother is reluctant to let her go to school or drive, and she never sees her father anymore; he still lives in Boston. When she is allowed to go to school, it's to a local charter where all of her classmates have something wrong with them. When she tries to log onto the Net to find out the details of the car accident that took a year of her life, her access to the information is denied. There's a hidden key in her mother's mattress to a closet, and that closet contains a secret Jenna is desperately trying to crack. Eventually, her mother and father do tell her the truth about her missing year. Or at least, they tell her most of the truth. The rest...she remembers.

Why you'll love it: There's always lots of talk about the theme of identity in YA lit, and here Pearson has taken it to its furthest extreme. Jenna has to figure out who she is with no memory of who she used to be. She's surrounded by people who tell her half-truths and she gets the feeling she's an inconvenience to them. Pearson has built an amazing futuristic world where science may be quite different from what we know now but the basic human condition, that we want to know ourselves and be loved by others, has stayed very much the same. The line on the front cover asks "How far would you go to save someone you loved?" I think the real question here is, "How far would you go to save yourself?" (Of course, the question of how far you'd go to save the one you love is one that drives the book, but I think the other one is far more overreaching.) This is a creepy, creepy book along some of the same the lines of David Lubar's True Talents and Nancy Werlin's Double Helix. It also reminded me of Airhead by Meg Cabot, which I'll review at a later date. And it's already been picked up for a movie.

Mary Pearson's Jenna Fox page.

The best book I should have read in 2006: A Drowned Maiden's Hair by Laura Amy Schlitz

We all have to-read lists. Mine...if I piled all the books on top of each other it would probably stretch to the moon. But I was able to knock one off The List last week: A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama by Laura Amy Schlitz, who won the 2008 Newbery Award for Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!

I admit that until last week A Drowned Maiden's Hair was nowhere near the top of my to-read list. I'd heard good things about it, sure, and it generated a lot of buzz on Adbooks, but I had other books I wanted to read first. Then I attended a meeting for the Garden State Teen Book Awards last week at which my friends Liz and Sophie gave such wonderful, impassioned booktalks that I went home and borrowed the book that evening.

Why oh why did I wait so long?

A Drowned Maiden's Hair looks imposing when you pick it up. It's enormous and clearly historical fiction and for those of us who aren't good at history by any stretch of the imagination, it's not really one of those books that makes us think MUST READ THIS NOW. But once you open it, you won't put it down. It's fast-paced and the language and characters are nothing short of brilliant.

The premise: Maud Mary Flynn, age eleven, lives at the Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans. She isn't the prettiest or the nicest girl in her class, but she is clever and she likes to make a little trouble every now and again. When the book opens, Maud is singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in one of the school's outhouses in order to keep up her spirits. She knows that at least one of her fellow orphans will be adopted today. At eleven, and not outstandingly pretty, Maud knows her own chances of adoption are slim. Her singing attracts one of the women who have come to adopt a little girl, though, and she ends up going to live with the Hawthorne sisters: businesslike Judith, charismatic Hyacinth, and straitlaced Victoria. With the Hawthornes, Maud wants for little. She has nice dresses, a room of her own, and modern Victorian amenities. But all is not perfect. She has to hide upstairs if a visitor comes, and she cannot go to school. She is a secret child.

What's the secret? The Hawthorne sisters make their living by doing seances, and they're complete frauds. Maud is their key to getting Mrs. Lambert, a wealthy woman with a dead daughter, to pay them enough so they can get out of debt. Maud is going to pose as the deceased Caroline and satisfy all the spiritual (as in ghosts, not religion) wants of her grieving mother.

What's the problem? Maud is too smart and too wanting of freedom to blithely follow all the Hawthorne sisters' rules.

Why you'll love it: First, Schlitz can do descriptions like no one out there. So many authors go overboard and bog their stories down with descriptors. Schlitz achieves the perfect balance of giving the reader a clear view of the setting but letting it shape rather than interrupt the story. Second, the characters fit well into a melodrama but are also very human and believable. Hyacinth is Dolores Umbridge for historical fiction, sweetness and light outside but give her enough time and she'll show her true nature. The bond Maud develops with the Hawthornes' housekeeper, Muffet, is inspiring. This is 400 pages that feels like 200, with a wide range of both love and cruelty. Moral ambiguity is the driving force, raising questions about other people's happiness and what you have to do to survive.

Move this one to the top of your to-read list. It will make you shiver, gasp, and laugh all at once.

Review of The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt

Copy picked up at Book Expo America.

The Plot: On Wednesday afternoons at 1:45, everyone in Holling Hoodhood's seventh-grade class at Camillo Junior High either goes to Hebrew school or Catechism. Everyone, that is, except Holling, who is Presbyterian. On Wednesday afternoons Holling receives Shakespeare lessons from the toughest teacher in school, Mrs. Baker, who is out to get Holling (or so he says). Despite his better efforts Holling finds himself falling in love with Shakespeare's language. As Holling's seventh-grade year progresses a series of events including yellow-toothed rats, yellow tights with feathers on the butt, running like Jesse Owens, and cream puffs combine with Shakespeare to change the way Holling views his family, his friends, and himself.

The Good: This is a highly literary work that's also a joy to read. And if you've ever participated in the endless debates about what the Newbery and Printz award mean in the grander scheme of children's literature, you'll know that's saying something. First, the historical setting also has meaning to Holling and his family; the book is set in 1967 because that zeitgeist is an integral part of Holling's thoughts and actions, not just because it can be set in 1967. Second, for all the seriousness that is the Vietnam war and Shakespeare there is quite a lot of humor, often slapstick, that will definitely appeal to the middle-school crowd. Holling is witty and intelligent but also your very typical seventh-grader. Girls confound him. School lunches are terrible. His older sister is moody. The first thing he learns from Shakespeare is not the beauty of love and freedom, but how to curse. As the work progresses, Holling sees that his teacher can be human (even realizing that teachers aren't born behind desks with red pens in their hand) and the Perfect House his father maintains is...slightly less than perfect.

Dare I say this is one of the greatest children's literary accomplishments of 2007? Even if it isn't, all's well that ends well.

crossposted at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy

Review of Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Thirteen Reasons Why (also written as Th1rteen R3asons Why) by Jay Asher, copy from publisher, Penguin/Razorbill.

The Plot: Clay Jenkins spends the longest night of his life listening to a set of tapes he received in the mail. The tapes were made by his classmate and crush Hannah Baker, who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Clay doesn't know where on the tapes Hannah will talk about his role in her life. All he can do is listen to Hannah's voice, follow the map of the town she left in his locker, and learn how his classmates, some of whom he barely knows, factor into life-altering (and life-taking) events. Hannah's tapes shatter reputations and reveal secrets that could ruin people's lives. Those who are mentioned on the tapes are instructed to listen and pass the tapes on to the next person on the list, thirteen people in all. In the course of the night, Clay learns the profound effect that rumors and reputations can have on a person...and that not all good (or bad) reputations are deserved.

The Good: Convergence.

I'd really like to leave it at just that, because I can think of no better word to describe what goes on in this book. I think the only book I've ever read that illustrated the concept of convergence as well as Thirteen Reasons Why does is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I also loved the idea that the protagonist of this book is not the narrator. To me, there's no such thing as a reliable first-person narrator and Asher uses Hannah's unreliability brilliantly. Clay cannot argue with Hannah, cannot present an alternate viewpoint of Hannah's stories. All he can do is hear her side and try to reconcile her thoughts and actions with what he knows about himself and his classmates. Hannah is not the most likable of protagonists; I often found her grating, obnoxious, and proud of her victim status. At the same time, though, I found her, as Clay does, hypnotic. As Hannah ties seemingly unrelated people together, the larger picture of what led her to commit suicide grows more horrific. She knew many dark secrets but chose to keep them to herself, only revealing them on the tapes. The idea that one person could be in so many places at just the wrong...or maybe the right...times and gain the knowledge to destroy a lot of other people makes for a fascinating and bleak read. You're never sure who to root for, but that's half the joy of reading this book.

Links:

Thirteen Reasons Why
Jay Asher's MySpace
Author profile @ Random House

(crossposted at A Chair, a Fireplace & a Tea Cozy)