I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

I'd like to thank my readers for bearing with my blog hiatus as I went a-conferencing and would like to thank everyone who came out to MLA and came to my presentation on What's New in Young Adult Literature! (I talked about 175 books in the course of an hour. It was awesome.)

I had a great time and am now back home.

Tomorrow, I am hoping to finally get my challenge updates posted, as well as the winners of the England Prize draw for the Guardian Book Challenge. In the meantime, here are some book reviews! Huzzah! These are coming from my massive file of pre-written reviews.

The Explosionist Jenny Davidson

This really is just as good as everyone says it is.

Set in Scotland in an alternate 1930s, where Napoleon won Waterloo, the Hanseatic League still exists, and spiritualism is real and you can talk to ghosts through radio waves, Davidson weaves an excellent story of terrorism, murder, and political intrigue.

Sophie and her friend Mikael are investigating the mysterious murder of a famous medium when they realize the plot goes much, much deeper than they ever imagined and has ties to the highest levels of government. There's obviously a lot more to it, but the less I give away, the better.

The story is gripping and fraught with tension. The IRLYNS subplot is creepy, but in a way that's almost believable. (And when I say "almost" I don't mean that I didn't fully buy it, I mean, that I could pretty much believe that the IRLYNS subplot could be actually happening right now in our own world.)

Sophie's world is some much almost like ours, but not quite... there has to be a sequel coming, right? While the book ended in exactly the right place, there is so much left unanswered that I need more!

Guardian Julius Lester

Lester has a way of punching you in the gut with his books. Think Day of Tears and The Old African, not so much Cupid.

It's the Deep South, 1946. Zeph Davis is a psychopath that no one questions because his family owns the town. The preacher's daughter has become suddenly beautiful. Ansel (white) and Willie (black) have a friendship despite their racial differences, though always marred by the status differences between them because of their skin. This summer, they're learning to dream.

You know it will end in a lynching of an innocent man.

It's really Ansel's story. This lynching will be seen through the eyes of a young white boy.

The prose is spare, the chapters short, and the story only takes up 119 pages, a novella almost, really. The minimalist approach provides the greatest impact. He could have given us more, but by holding back, he gives his story more power and resonance.

After finishing, I had to curl up in a ball and not talk to anyone for awhile. After writing this review, I want to do the same.

Julius Lester (plus a few)

I do love books by Julius Lester.

Day of Tears? Fantastic! I had to read it for a lit conference and was extremely disappointed by the discussion we had on it. No one could get beyond "Gee, Slavery really sucked" to discuss why Lester's tale of it was such a powerful stand out in a sea of stories about the same general subject. No one brought up that it was one of the few stories to really explore the emotional impact instead of the physical one... powerful stuff.

In the hands of a lesser storyteller, The Old African would have been absolutely dreadful instead of being as wonderful as it is.

Most recently, I read Cupid: A Tale of Love and Desire. This is classic Greek Myth, but told in a vernacular, Southern African American story telling style.

Because of Lester's great skill, it totally worked and I loved it.

Psyche is beautiful to the point of it being a burden. Cupid is the son of Venus and a total mama's boy. When Venus (who is aging) is jealous of Pysche's incredible beauty, she orders Cupid to poison her with destructive love. (I have to say I was reminded of that exchange in Love Actually "I have say I'm a bit relieved, I thought it was something worse." "Worse than the total agony of being in love?!")

Anyway, of course, Cupid falls in love with her. He enlists Apollo's help. Apollo is not a fan of Cupid, so tells Psyche's father that she will marry a great monster.

In the end, Venus attempts to seek revenge and true love--both Psyche's love for Venus and various other deities' love for Psyche is put to the test.

I know some readers will (and are) annoyed by the storyteller's voice and his meditations on story, beauty, love, and lust, but I really really enjoyed it. I especially enjoyed the comments on how much work love is. You don't get that truth a lot in YA literature.

Shout out to Bookshelves of Doom for bringing it to my attention.

Now, to catch up on something I read last year, I didn't like Time's Memory nearly as much.

And here's where Lester's genius is more of a burden than a blessing-- I simply expected more from him.

The nyama spirit embodies Nat, a young man who is a slave on a Virginia plantation. He's in love with the Ellen, the plantation owner's daughter. Nat's father is the leader of a bloody slave revolt.

Highly mystical and spiritual, it just didn't work as well as it should have and ultimately left me dissatisfied. However, there is a lot going on in the book, so I would highly recommend it for book discussions.

Another I read at the same time, which won the Coretta Scott King Award is Sharon Draper's Copper Sun.

This is another fantastically written story about slavery. There isn't as much under the surface, but it tells the story of Amari, from her time in Africa through the middle passage and slavery. It also tells of her friendship with Polly, an indentured servant. The two run away--but instead of going North, they go South, to Spanish controlled Florida.

What I really liked about this book was the unflinching look at many things we usually don't see. We usually don't read of the coastal slave castle before being put on the boats, or how other Africans helped round people up to be sold.

We know of, but usually don't see in fiction, the rape of women by lonely sailors every night.

I also really appreciated how nuanced the characters were--there were good people and and bad people and people who were good and bad. Some of the good people where white, some of the bad people were black. Many authors, when telling a story of slavery, go the understandable route of making all white people bad. Or really, really good. Draper writes people as she knows them. No one's all good or all bad. And goodness doesn't fall on color lines.

By doing so, she writes a very accurate and incredible tale of slavery that covers what we learned in history class, and a whole lot more.

Musings

Ok, I have some book reviews all written up but they're on hold for now because I want to talk about the YREAD conference I went to at Carroll County Community College on Saturday.

Basically, a YA lit conference featuring none other than the very wonderful Jacqueline Woodson.

So, first off was her talk where she talked about her books and the writing process and her life and now I need to read everything she's ever written. The best part was when she was talking about censorship of From The Notebooks Of Melanin Sun. She said she would get class sets of letters where everyone in a 6th grade class had been assinged to write a complaint... full of typos! The first set or two she corrected the spelling and grammar and mailed them back. As Ms. Woodson says "At least teach them to spell before you teach them to censor."

Then came the book discussion bit. I had signed up to discuss historical fiction and needed to read the following:

Day of Tears by Julius Lester
Copper Sun by Sharon M. Draper
Eyes of the Emperor Graham Salisbury
The Book Thief Markus Zusak

So, I have to say, initially I was a little irked that apparently historical fiction can only be about slavery or WWII, but all the books were good (well, I didn't get to Copper Sun but everyone else liked it). I just need to say that The Book Thief was astounding. WONDERFUL.

Discussion was good. It was especially nice because it wasn't just librarians and teachers there were real, live teenages there! (GASP! I KNOW!) But... when it comes to literature about icky parts of history, there is something that bugs me. So many people can't get beyond "slavery was so horrible!" to get to the actual book. Yes. Slavery was horrible, but can we please discuss how the author gets that point across? Or how he makes his story memorable in a dearth of books on the topic? For instance, Lester doesn't get into the physical violence of slavery in Day of Tears and focuses solely on the emotional torture. Brilliant. Physical violence would have made the book over the top and made the reader disengage in order to tolerate reading... but he twists the knife just enough that you can't help but feel deeply for these characters. But yes, slavery was horrible and let's just harp on that.

Not that everyone in the discussion did that. I just needed to vent about personal pet peeves.

I picked up a copy of If You Come Softly and Show Way.

I also got the free give-aways of What Happened to Cass McBride? and Haters. And y'all know how I loves me some free books.

All in all, very very good. It was fun time and I did learn a lot. Plus, the sandwiches were tasty at lunch.

Clue into Reading!

Well, this year, the theme for Summer Reading is mysteries... so, here's a whole bevy of kiddie whodunits!

Chasing Vermeer Blue Balliet

What does it mean that Calder finds an old box with a painting by Vermeer and then finds the painting again hanging in a house? What does it mean that Petra dreams about a woman and then finds out that woman is in a valuable Vermeer painting that gets stolen? Petra and Calder are surrounded by weird coincidences and odd patterns. Why was this painting stolen? Who stole it? Is the theft linked to Ms. Hussey’s homework assignment about life-changing letters? Can Petra and Calder find the painting?

This is an tremendously well-done book. Balliet really brings Chicago's Hyde Park alive and I'm planning to spend tomorrow at the National Gallery of Art so I can see Vermeer's "A Lady Writing"! This is wonderfully illustrated by Brett Helquist (who is probably best known in kidlit circles for doing the Lemony Snickett books) and clues are hidden in his illustrations-- a whole new puzzle to figure out! This book is full of puzzles, patterns, messages that need decoding and coincidences and will have greater questions how what makes an art expert and who can own art...

The Wright 3 Blue Balliet

In this sequel to Chasing Vermeer, Balliet turns from Vermeer to Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect who designed a famous house in Hyde Park, right by Petra, Calder, and Tommy’s school. But the Robie House is old and falling apart and the university wants to tear it down to send different sections to different museums. Ms. Hussey’s class is on the case! Can a building be art? Can a piece of art survive if you take it apart? Can the kids save the house? Why does Petra keep finding copies of The Invisible Man? Is the jade fish that Tommy found Frank Lloyd Wrights lost talisman? What are those voices Calder hears from the house and who are those strange men breaking in? More importantly, will Tommy and Petra ever be friends or will Calder have to choose? With more secret codes and clues hidden in the illustrations, Balliet tops her previos work-- The Wright 3 has even more suspense and coincidences and patterns than Chasing Vermeer!

The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley

Sabrina and Daphne Grimm’s parents disappeared! They were taken right from their car and the only clue was a handprint made from red paint. After a year and a half in an orphanage they go to live with their grandmother, a woman that had always been told was dead. Their new town is weird and their grandmother is ever weirder–she thinks fairy tales are real and claims to be a detective to solve fairy tale crimes! According to Granny Grimm, they are descendants of the Brothers Grimm, and they weren't writing bedtime stories. Fairy Tale characters (or everafters) are real, and they're trapped in Ferryport and the Grimms are charged with keeping them there...

Buckley succeeds in creating a believable fantasy world where your favorite fairy tale characters have to blend in with "normal" people and work real jobs like the rest of us... really well done. I'll admit I thought this would be a bit of a breeze-through book, but the quality of writing was suprisingly good and engrossing.

The Fairy-Tale Detectives - Book #1

Sabrina can’t believe that her grandmother thinks fairy tales are real. She really can’t believe that fairy tale characters live right in Ferryport. She really, really, really can’t believe that a local farm house didn’t blow up and was really stepped on by a giant. But then Mayor Charming and Glinda the Good Witch are involved in a cover-up and a giant kidnaps Granny Grimm! The Grimm sisters know they need to help and enlist the help of Shakespeare’s Puck, Jack the Giant Killer, and the Magic Mirror. But even then, can they figure out how to save Granny Grimm? Who let the giant out? Why? And is that a red handprint?

The Sisters Grimm: The Unusual Suspects - Book #2

Sabrina and Daphne are off to school. Daphne loves being in class with Snow White as a teacher, but Sabrina’s having a tougher time–she keeps getting teased and beat up. Things don’t get any better when Puck joins her class! But even Daphne can’t deny there are monsters loose in the school and they’re killing people. There are red handprints all over. Even Mayor Charming is turning to the Grimm Sisters for help solving the case! But Sabrina's anger at not being able to find her parents is growing. Coupled with the increased activity of the Scarlet Hand and resentment towards the Grimm family by certain elements in the Everafter community, she expands this hatred to all Everafters in general and is hindering the investigation. This is an action-packed follow up to The Fairy-Tale Detectives and the cliffhanger ending will have you waiting for the next installment. As Daphne would say, This book is so punk rock!

The Lady Grace Mysteries Jan Burchett and Sara Vogler writing as Grace Cavendish

Lady Grace is a maid-of-honor to her majesty, Queen Elizabeth I, and her secret detective. Whenever there is something afoul at court, Lady Grace tries to figure it out, usually with the help of Ellie, the laundry maid, and Massou, the acrobat.

In addition to being well-done, exciting and suspensful mysteries, these are also obviously meticulously researched to paint an accurate portrait of life in Queen Elizabeth's court. These books also manage to shine where most historical fiction falls flat-- it offers enough detail and research without letting it get in the way of the characters and plot. There is an extensive glossary at the back of each book as well as historical notes. There is always a general note on Queen Elizabeth and Lady Grace and then there are other notes as the story dictates. The characters of Ellie and Massou act as a nice foil for showing the great disparity between rich and poor, even in the halls of Whitehall, and in letting readers know that life was not all gowns and feasting. They also allow Grace to go places to invesitgate that would normall be unheard of for a Maid-of-Honour.

Assassin

Much to Lady Grace’s displeasure, the queen is making her chose a husband to marry when she turns 16. Sir Charles is nice, but old enough to be her father. Sir Gerald is mean and stuck up. Sir Robert is quite handsome, but poor and doesn’t talk much. Which one should she choose? But after she makes her choice, one of her suitors is found murdered and another is accused of the crime. Who really killed the man and why? Can Grace, Ellie, and Massou figure it out?

Betrayal

Lady Sarah has run off and eloped with a sea captain! But when Lady Grace looks at the letter Sarah left behind, she knows it isn’t in Sarah’s handwriting. Maybe she really didn’t run away. Maybe she was kidnaped. Maybe she was kidnaped by pirates! In order to rescue her, Grace cuts off all her hair and dresses like a boy to explore Francis Drake’s ship with Massou. But then, the boat launches and Grace and Massou are trapped at sea and their ship is going into battle! Will Grace ever get back to England? Will she have to fight in a battle? Will she ever find Sarah? Was Sarah really kidnaped by pirates? And what will the Queen say when she finds out?

An excellent look at the Queen's navy and Elizabethan warfare and piracy!

Conspiracy

Lady Grace, the Queen, and the rest of the court are traveling through England to escape London during the worst plague months. While staying with Robert Dudley (the Earl of Leicester), they are joined by Prince Sven of Sweden. It is well known that the Queen and the Earl have been in love for a long time, but the Swedish Prince is out to marry Queen Elizabeth. Jealousies and tensions are running high as both men compete for the Queen’s hand. Things get worse when a series of accidents threaten the Queen’s life. Lady Grace is sure they aren’t mere accidents and is on the case! Who is trying to kill the Queen? Can Grace find out before they succeed?

Deception

It’s winter and the Thames is frozen over. People have set up a Frost Fair where you can shop, play games, and there’s even a tavern and a fire with a roating ox–right on the ice! The Maids-of-Honour have been learning to ice-skate and have fun at the fair with the Queen, but then Lady Jane falls down and discovers a hidden dead body. The corpse’s eyes have been covered with coins, but these are the new coins the Queen just commissioned–coins that are supposed to be under lock and key. When Grace looks closely at them she realizes that they’re counterfeit! How is a boatman connected with a counterfeiting scheme? How far up can this scheme go? The Queen has only given Grace five days to find out before she orders an official investigation. Can Grace find out in time? Every clue seems to be a dead end as she embarks on her most complicated–and dangerous case yet!

The Wright and Wong Mysteries Laura J. Burns and Melinda Metz

Orville Wright and Agatha Wong have been best friends since second grade. Now they’re in seventh grade and students at John Q. Adams Middle School in Bottomless Lake, Arizona. Agatha talks a mile and minute and Orville doesn’t talk much at all. Orville has a condition called Asperger’s. He likes logic and order and has a hard time understanding how people work and why they do the things they do. Orville doesn’t understand why you should smile at someone when you say “hi” or “thank you”. He is, however, a really nice guy. He’s also a genius. Not only does he know everything, but he also notices really tiny details and remembers almost everything. Between the two of them, Agatha and Orville can crack almost any case, but they might get into some trouble doing it!

With autism and autistic disorders on the rise, I have a feeling we'll be seeing a lot more characters like Orville.

The Case of the Prank that Stank

It’s the big football game against Lake Placid and the cool kids have a great idea for a prank. Even better, they need Agatha and Orville’s help. Well, they need Orville’s amazing skills with science and mechanics to make a fire-breathing lake monster. They have it all figured out, but when the big time comes, the field house explodes and the football field catches on fire! Everyone blames Orville for miscalculating the distance of the fire. Worse, everyone blames Orville and Agatha for the fact that everyone on the prank committee has a month of detention and all sports have been cancelled–not just for the season, but forever! Agatha was so excited to be accepted by the cool kids, and now she and Orville are social outcasts. Plus, Lake Placid is the rich town, Bottomless Lake is relativly poor. They've always been nasty rivals, and this has just made things worse. Agatha and Orville know it wasn’t the prank that caused the fire–Orville’s calculations are never, ever wrong. The timing was just a coincidence–or someone is framing them! Can Agatha and Orville figure out who really set the fire? Will anyone ever speak with them again?

The Case of the Nana-Napper

Nana Wong has disappeared! All she left was a hastily scrawled note that doesn’t sound like Nana at all! Agatha is convinced she’s been kidnapped. If that weren’t bad enough, now she has to stay with her Uncle Boonie, who doesn’t even have a couch for her to sleep on and makes her go to bed at 7pm! If she has to go to bed so early, how will she and Orville ever find Nana? Not to mention that they’ve been given a new case of proving Stu innocent of breaking one of his mother’s collectible plates. As they investigate, it looks like the two crimes might be related to each other and to a string of recent vandalisms. Will they find Nana in time? Will they ever get out of detention? Will Agatha have to sleep in Boonie’s old sleeping bag forever?

Holes Louis Sachar

Stanley Yelnats didn’t steal that pair of sneakers. They really did fall from the sky and hit him on the head. Sadly, the judge doesn’t believe him so he’s sent to Camp Green Lake for eighteen months. It was either that, or jail. Stanley blames the curse put on his great-great grandfather–the Yelnats family has been doomed to bad luck ever since then! The warden at Camp Green Lake is looking for something, so everyday the “campers” have to dig a hole that’s exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. It’s hard, tiring work and the Texas desert is hot. Stanley is always thirsty. The desert is full of rattlesnakes and scorpions and yellow-spotted lizards. If you get bitten by a rattlesnake or scorpion, you’ll be sick for a few days. If you get bitten by a yellow-spotted lizard, you’re dead. Can he escape? Will he ever get home? Sneakers don’t just fall from the sky, do they? Is Stanley really under a curse? What is the Warden looking for? And what will she do when she finds it?

This Newberry winner (and one of Silvey's 100 Best) interweaves three tales that come together to form a larger story about history, redemption, crime, friendship and fate. Really well done in that it has a huge larger message, but it's subtle and easy to miss--unlike so much literature that has a huge larger message and likes to bang you about the head with it as often as possible.

Full Stop

On Saturday (a day that was pouring down rain) I read Julius Lester's Day of Tears

It says it is a "novel told in dialogue" in that it's written as a series of monologues and dialogues. Emma is the daughter of Mattie and Will, two slaves on Pierce Butler's Georgian plantation. To pay off his gambling debts, Pierce holds the biggest slave auction ever held, selling over 400 people, including Emma, but not Will or Mattie. When the two-day auction starts, the worst rain in history starts up and stays going until it's done. Moving and well-done, I highyl recommend and see this becoming a staple in junior high classrooms.

Bird by Bird : Some Instructions on Writing and Life

I finished reading Anne LaMott's book on life and writing this weekend and absolutely loved it. I don't have anything really in depth to say, but I laughed out loud, I cried, and I got my journal out again and am back to work on a really really shitty first draft.

I'm also working on Carolyn Keene's The Secret of the Old Clock

I get such a guilty pleasure out of the Nancy Drew Graphic Novels that I thought I'd read the originals... man... these are really poorly written. What I really love is that in the first chapter, the Turner sisters say that their phone is out of order, but the next day, Nancy calls them. EXCELLENT. The main thing I've noticed though is that they've put 2 spaces after every sentence. When was the last time you saw that? (and this is the 2002 printing!!!)

And even more stuff...

I swear, when the children's notable book discussion is done on Wednesday, I'm reading the fattest, most complicated, most adult-type novel I can find. I love children's lit. I love YA lit, but man. That's all I've read for the past month and a half! War and Peace here I come! I think. The problem is, in my library, all classics are classified as YA anyway. Gah. I don't know. Ideas?

Anyway... more stuff I've read recently (and this is all in the week. Gah. I've been busy reading. I want to be busy knitting. le sigh

A Dance of Sisters Tracy Porter

Y'all know I love ballet books. This is a young YA/old children's book. A good bridge book between the two age classifications... and I liked most of it. Porter knows her ballet. She knows her crazy Russian ballet teachers. She knows the struggle of it. Delia is the younger sister in a messed-up family (Dead mother, distant father, rebellious witch-craft practicing older sister) and a promising young ballet dancer. This is the story about the relationship between the sisters, which was nice, but not as well done as Delia's struggle with ballet. Overall I liked it... kinda. The ending seemed really quick. To the point where I think Porter must have gone: "Holy crap! this is already 200 pages long! Must end now!" My other caveats are here. Where I totally give away the ending.

Godless Pete Hautman

Basically, one boring summer, Jason wonders what if the water tower were God? And so he starts a church worshipping the water tower and it's fun and then gets totally out of hand. His friend Shin takes it way too far (and is a true believer?). The local bully tries to subvert it to make them go along with his reckless ways and in the end, it all blows up in Jason's face. As you know it must. Well written and award winning, I loved this book excpet for this one thing. It asks tough questions about the church and organized religion, but never really questions whether or not there is a god, but just what his/her form is and the proper way to worship.

Who Am I Without Him? : Short Stories About Girls and the Boys in Their LivesSharon Flake

Despite the title, this is actually a good book for boys and girls. A collection of short stories about teenage looooooove and relationships, it's a fast read and some of the girls are really really really stupid over their boys in ways that only 15 year olds can be. I will say that this is about mainly urban, black teens (but a range of classes) and it didn't speak to me much as someone who grew up white in a small city. Parts of teenage stupid loooooooove are the same the world over though and those parts really got me thinking about how stupid we used to be.

Body Bags: A Body of Evidence Thriller #1Christopher Golden

This is a forensic thriller. Pulpy. Not great literature. I couldn't put it down. I may or may not go on and read some of the other titles in the series. I'm not sure yet. Basically, freshman in college Jenna Blake gets a job as a pathology assistant in the morgue. People are dying from some weird disease that turns their brains into mush, and makes them go on murderous rampages before dropping dead, including her advisor on the first day of class. Conspiracies that only Jenna can see and figure out ensure. My main problem with the book is that it got some details really really wrong. These are small details. For instnace, at one point Jenna puts on a "baby doll tee with spaghetti straps". Um, baby doll tees don't come with spagetti straps. That's a tank top, not a baby doll. Not a big deal, but if he can't get a t-shirt right, I wonder about the science. That and she has dial-up in her dorm. No one in the late 90s had dial up in the dorms. T1 baby! Woo!

When We Were SaintsHan Nolan

This is a beautifully written and moving novel. Archie lives in the country on a farm in rural Appalachia, is home schooled, and never gotten along well with his bible-thumping grandfather and is a bit taken aback when his grandfather's last words are "you are a saint". Is it prophecy? Or a curse? Enter Claire, who has visions on the Virgin Mary and a plan for them to become saints. Powerful stuff that questions the true believers, the estatics, and what it means to be a saint. Could be good teaching stuff if paired with the writings of St Clare and St Francis of Assisi. Could also be seen as really offensive and sacriligeous by the more sensitive.

The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch Joseph Delaney

This is the first book in a promising new children's series. Tom is the seventh son of a seventh son and is apprenticed to the Spook, a lonely job of protecting people from super natural trouble. So Tom begins learning about Boggarts and Witches, Ghasts and Ghosts and how to bind them and talk to them and whether they are good or bad... spooky, kinda scary, well-written and just plain good, I look forward to the next installments!

The Old African Julius Lester, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

A beautiful, subtle, moving, and magical tale about slavery and the strength of the human spirit and collective memory. And the pictures by Pinkney make this a book to be savored and poured over time and again.

Maritcha : A Nineteenth-Century American GirlTonya Bolden.

God, this book sucked. There's no way around it. Maritcha is a middle-class free-born black girl in Manhatten that was born in 1848. Although she did eventually sue Rhode Island for the right to attend public school, she was not overly remarkable and this could have just been a nice book that looks into a segment of America in history that we don't really ever see or talk about. But! It is poorly written. It reads like Bolden doesn't know how to write for children (which is weird, because she does) and so just dumped down the story. Take the case of the New York draft riots in 1863:

A march on the draft office followed the rally and before long--mayhem! Telegraph poles--hacked down! Rail tracks--yanked up! Wooden fences--ripped apart!

Instead of fully coneying the destruction and horror, it sounds almost silly and does a great injustice to the reader. That and the font is really hard to read. More than once I read 1863 and 1868.