Outrunning the Darkness

Outrunning the Darkness Anne Schraff

Are you familiar with the Bluford High series? If you're a teen librarian, I'm guessing yes. If you're a general fan of YA, maybe not.

I don't know about other libraries, but I CANNOT keep Bluford on the shelf. It's inner-city After School Special-y that is GREAT for reluctant readers. Each book has a different main character and issue, but all the kids go to the same school.

Anyway, Outrunning the Darkness is the first book in a new series by one of the Bluford authors. It has the same vibe, but scales a bit older, so... once your readers outgrow Bluford or have just read them all, Urban Underground is up next. I can't keep this series on the shelf either.

But... I have to wonder why. They're just not... that good. It's predictable and the writing is rather stilted.

In this volume, Jaris is dealing with a depressed father who has taken to drinking. He lets his father's words get to him and is afraid he might end up in the same dark cave. At the same time, there's a pretty girl he likes but she's going to go on a date with a jerk! His grandmother is meddling in all of their family's business and everything is just awful, but salvation might come in the form of school play, which is written by a hip new playwright from New York and being debuted at his school! But... it's just a stage adaption of Tale of Two Cities? How do those go together, I don't know. But, Sydney Carton plays a big role for Jaris and his family, so, yeah.

But here's an example of the writing:

"You know, Trev, sometimes I worry that my parents will break up. Mom hates it when Pop gets all moody and drinks before coming home. She always calls her mother and cries on her shoulder and then Grandma Jessie tells her she's be better off without Pop. I worry that they'll split up," Jaris said.

"You got a good pop," Trevor said. "Mama took our old Ford in to Jackson's, and some other mechanic told her it needed a ton of work, and then your pop just tinkered a little bit and said we'd do fine. He's a good mechanic and he's honest. My mama trusts him. Everybody does. Old Jackson his boss sometimes gives him a hard time, but Jackson tells other people your pop is the best man he's ever had working for him."

"I wish my father was proud of what he did," Jaris complained, "but he's always putting himself down, calling himself a grease monkey. He wanted to go to college when he was young and now he's dissapointed and he turns everything dark. He feels so hopeless and he sort of takes it out being sad and grumpy with Mom. I wish I could make him see he's a winner." (pp65-66)

The dialog isn't realistic and the voice is just off.

So, it's not my cup of tea. I've read 1 because it's so popular and won't read the others. But, the teens cannot get enough, so I shouldn't be hogging copies from them anyway! Overall, this is a series that I'm not like "OMG YOU MUST READ THIS!" BUT! If you're a librarian and don't have this series, or work with teens and aren't familiar, you need to know these books.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

Urban Fiction for Teens

This spring, I read some urban fiction, especially that aimed at teens. For those who don't know, urban fiction (also called street lit, because it got started with self-published authors selling their books on the streets) deals with characters in lower-income urban areas. It's gotten really popular and there's quite a range these days. (Sometimes I compare it with romance, there's Jane Austen and there are bodice-rippers with Fabio on the cover. They're both romance but they're VERY different types of books with very different readership bases!) When one usually thinks of more "classic" urban fiction, it tends to be more plot and less character driven. This type is not a genre I normally read or normally enjoy, so please keep that in mind when reading these reviews. It's not my cup of tea. BUT! It's really popular with the people I work with and sometimes it's good to get out of your comfort zone, so that's why I pick it up from time to time.

Bluford High: Lost and Found Anne Schraff

Darcy is not having an easy time of it. After her grandmother had her stroke, Darcy and her little sister are growing apart. Darcy doesn't like the crowd her sister is hanging out with and the music she's listening to. To top it off, her science teacher as paired her with a a real nobody for their big project. Darcy needs to maintain a good GPA to get out of her neighborhood, but how can she when she's working with Tara?

To make matters worse, she's pretty sure that someone has been following her for a few days. And a threatening note was left on her desk.

Bluford High is super-popular at my library. They're short, fast reads that focus more on plot than character development. Bluford High is in a rougher part of town--the kids are poorer. Darcy's dealing with absent parents--her dad's long gone and her mom works nights at the hospital. BUT they're pretty clean. They're great books for kids who want urban fiction but aren't ready for some of issues/situations/language usually found in urban fic. (For instance, one Bluford title, The Bully, was the principals "book of the month" at the local junior high last fall.) Excellent for reluctant readers, especially.

UPDATE 10/14/2009 Sorry, this new policy of saying where EVERY book came from is going to take awhile to get used to! Copy from: the library!

Hotlanta Denene Millner and Mitzi Miller

Sydney and Lauren Duke may be twins, but they're as different as night and day. It's been years since their mother remarried and took them out of the ghetto and into the stratosphere of Atlanta's African-American elite, but something is happening to pull the Duke twins back to their old neighborhood. Sydney wants to reconnect with her father, who just got out of jail and Lauren has met a guy she can finally trust and open up to, even if he isn't from the wrong side of the tracks.

What the twins find are secrets--small petty high school stuff they keep from each other, and big ones that threaten to tear their family apart. When somebody turns up dead, everything threatens to blow.

The mystery doesn't get resolved in this book, it basically just gets set up. And I don't really care and I'm not going to pick up the next book in the series. It was pretty obvious that the surprise bad guy was going to be the surprise bad guy. I didn't connect with any of the characters and while it was a fairly breezy read, I forgot most of it as soon as I set it down. It's an interesting mix of genres--Rich Mean Girl and Urban Fiction that I know a lot of teens love (and I know a lot of teens who love love love this series), but it just didn't do anything for me.

UPDATE 10/14/2009 Sorry, this new policy of saying where EVERY book came from is going to take awhile to get used to! Copy from: the library!