Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein.

So, I finally read this. FINALLY.

Good lord people. I know you said it was good, but HOLY MOLY it's amazing. I was worried because I knew some stuff going into it. Like, I didn't know any plot twists, but I knew that there were a lot of them. I knew the narrator wasn't totally reliable. I was worried that knowing this would somehow lessen the impact when I came across them in the narrative.

Nope.

Queenie is a British spy, caught behind enemy lines after her plane crashes into German-occupied France. She's in prison, regularly interrogated by the Gestapo. She is a coward and has caved. If she tells them everything she knows, she can survive a little while longer. If she tells them everything, hopefully she will only face the firing squad instead of being sent to Ravensbruck to be worked to death. If she is lucky.

In addition to her guilt at collaborating, there is the guilt over the death of the pilot of the plane and Queenie's best friend. Her confession tells their story of friendship and loyalty and ultimate disaster over French skies.

The fact that Queenie is not entirely reliable should be fairly obvious-- the text of the book is her written confession (and Gestapo notes). She includes things meant to poke fun at her interrogators and get them into trouble.

It is a very hard book to talk about without just spilling EVERYTHING about it.

It is exquisitely and precisely crafted, yes. But it is also a wonderful story of friendship and adventure. Lots of talks of planes and flying (Wein herself is a pilot and it shows). Parts of it are very, very grim. I mean, it takes place in a Gestapo prison, it's going to be very, very grim.

I love that a spy book for teens can also be this literary. I love that the historical fiction doesn't seem very olden timey, while still being accurate.

This has won a million awards so far, and it deserves them, and I think its one that teens will also enjoy.

I love, love, love this book and can't wait for Wein's next, Rose Under Fire, which is about a female pilot that does end up at Ravensbruck, and comes out in September.


ARC Provided by... the publisher, at ALA

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Where Things Come Back

Where Things Come Back John Corey Whaley

This is a book that lives up to the hype. I read it after it won the Morris, after it won the Printz. I read it after my librarian friends gushed all over it. I went in with high expectations, and it blew me away.

The town of Lily, Arkansas, is taken by storm with the possible sighting of the Lazarus Woodpecker, a bird long thought to be extinct. Cullen likes to mock it. His brother, Gabriel, is a bit more zen about it. Then, Gabriel disappears without a trace. Cullen tries to hold it together. His best friend, Lucas, is there for him every step of the way. Girls get involved and the town is still obsessed with that stupid woodpecker.

In another story, Benton Sage goes to Ethiopia on his mission trip. Mission work is more about helping and less about preaching, which Benton can't handle. He comes home obsessed with the Book of Enoch, a lost gospel. His obsession with the book spreads as he tries to come to grips with his failure in Africa.

The stories alternate between chapters. You know they have to collide, but you'd never entirely sure how. The Benton Sage storyline, in particular, kept me guessing and wondering where it was going to go. The Cullen Witter storyline is a bit more straightforward, especially for frequent readers of YA.

I loved Cullen's voice. I loved the portrayal of his relationship with his brother and his best friend. Cullen manages to walk that line of being sarcastic teenage boy without being annoying. (I would have been so in love with him in high school.) I also really loved the sense of place. Lily is a main character in Cullen's storyline. Whaley is from a small town in the south and it shows, because he paints it so well-- the geography, the people, and the excitement when there's finally something to get excited about it. It also gets point for being a small town that's filled with normal people, not quirky characters.

But, I also really liked the Benton Sage storyline (which not a lot of people talk about--I was actually rather surprised when this other storyline started up because I didn't remember hearing anything about it.) It's a different voice and a different feel. The obsession with the Book of Enoch, and the failure of the mission trip bring in questions of belief and faith that tie back to the themes of the other storyline, even before the two plots meet. You know I love a good book that explores faith and religion without being faith-based/inspirational fiction. The questions of faith are hard and messy and felt different than most that I've seen in fiction, especially YA fiction, but I can't explain why.

It's a book that might take a bit of a hand-sell, even though it shouldn't. On the other hand, I think if you just read the first page aloud, it'll get teens sucked in:

I was seventeen years old when I saw my first dead body. It wasn't my cousin Oslo's.

Also, did you see TATAL's coverage last week of this book?

I got to meet and talk to Whaley at ALA this year. He is super nice and gracious and has a kick ass tatto of the Lazarus woodpecker on his arm. I can't wait to see what he does next.

Book Provided by... my local library

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VOTE SARAH!

Every year, ALA gives the Printz Award to a "book that exemplifies literary excellence in young adult literature."

But it's not the whole of ALA that does this-- it's a committee of librarians, some elected and some appointed that read through mountains and mountains of books and work together to find the best ones.

If you are an ALA and YALSA member, you get to vote for committee members.

I think one of the people you should vote for Sarah Bean Thompson. Many of you may know her as the very cool and awesome force behind GreenBeanTeenQueen.

I asked Sarah a few questions about the Printz and books to help you get a better feel as to why she should be on the committee.

What makes a book truly Printz worthy?

I think for a book to be truly Printz worthy it has to be a book that will engage readers and get them talking. It has to be a book that librarians can pick up and be proud of (although there will always be disagreements!). But I think it has to be a book that librarians can read and say "this is why I do what I do-why I serve teens, why I read YA, and why I advocate for teens and YA lit." I also think it should be a book that best represents YA lit-that shows non-YA readers the value of YA literature. And I do think there should be some reader appeal too, although that's not the focus of the award or even mentioned in the criteria. But you want teens to read Printz books and hopefully they love them. But even if they don't, at least they can have a great discussion about it.

What's your favorite Printz winner or honor?

I have so many that I really love, but I think my favorite would have to be A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly. It's historical, it's mystery, it's coming of age, and all woven together so well that you don't even realize the author is mixing everything in.

What books got overlooked by the Printz committee?

Funny books get overlooked by all award committees-not just the Printz! I think sometimes we forget that funny books can teach us just as much as a literary drama. I also think it's harder to pull that off in a funny book, so maybe that's why they so often get overlooked. But I love the fact that Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging is a Printz honor-I'd love to see more books like that make the list!

What excites you the most about the possibility of serving on the Printz committee?

I'm most excited about getting to talk about YA with other librarians for a year! We get to analyze, discuss, fight, argue, and praise books-how awesome is that??



It's super awesome! Remember to vote and remember Sarah when choosing people for the Printz!

Nothing

Nothing Janne Teller, trans. from the Danish Martin Aitken

On the first day of Year 7, Pierre Anthon stands up and announces "Nothing matters...I've known that for a long time. So nothing's worth doing. I just realized that." He then walks out and spends the rest of his days hanging out in the plum tree outside the commune he lives on.

His classmates have been raised to believe that they matter, that they were going to amount to something, to be someone. They have to walk by Pierre Anthon's plum tree to get to and from school. When they pass, he pelts them with plums and his ideas on life "It's all a waste of time... Everything begins only to end. The moment you were born you began to die. That's how it is with everything. The Earth is four billion, six hundred million years old, and you're going to reach one hundred at the most! It's not even worth the bother."

His plums and words find sore spots, and they set out to prove him wrong. The best way the class can think of to prove life has meaning is to make a heap of the things they find meaningful in their lives. Some are objects (sandals you waited for all summer) some are symbols (the flag, the church's crucifix). But it's quickly apparent that the students don't want to part with things that really mean the most to them, so the other students decide. Once you're forced to give up what's most meaningful, you pick the next student and what they have to give up.

It gets dark quickly as the students start choosing objects in revenge for what they were forced to lose.

And then... when the heap is finished. Will it still be enough to convince Pierre Anthon that he's wrong?

I love the language in this book.

"Nothing matters," he announced. "I've known that for a long time. So nothing's worth doing. I just realized that." Calm and collected, he bent down and put everything he had just taken out back into his bag. he nodded good-bye with a disinterested look and left the classroom without closing the door behind him.

The door smiled. It was the first time I'd seen it do that. Pierre Anthon left the door ajar like a grinning abyss that would swallow me up into the outside with im if only I let myself go. Smiling at whom? At me, at us. I looked around the class. The uncomfortable silence told me that others had felt it too.

We were supposed to amount to something.

Something was the same as someone, and even if nobody ever said so out loud, it was hardly left unspoken, either. It was just in the air, or in the time, or in the fence surrounding the school, or in our pillows, or in the soft toys that after having served us so loyally had now been unjustly discarded and left to gather dust in attics or basements. I hadn't known. Pierre Anthon's smiling door told me. I still didn't know with my mind, but all the same I knew.

All of a sudden I was scared. Scared of Pierre Anthon.

Scared, more scared, most scared. (page 5-6)

Agnes is our narrarator, but she's a bit anonymous-- she functions more as an every student. I do, however, love her habit of repeating important words three times at different levels of extreme (hard, harder, hardest).

I love the language. I love when a translated work gives us a flavor of the language it was written in not by sprinkling the English with the original language, but by giving us a different turn of phrase, a different lyricism, a different rhythm-- when it makes us look at our own native tongue differently.

It's almost sparse in places, but that helps with the tension and the loss and the uncertainty.

I also love how damn sure these kids were that Pierre Anthon was wrong, and how much they had to prove it to him. Because they knew he might be right, but they fight his nihilism with everything they have because they can't live in a world where nothing matters.

I like such optimism in such a dark and morbid tale and it's that optimism that drives them to do such things. It's a bit perverse now that I write it out like that.

I also like how well we get to know the students solely by what they were asked to give up and how they react.

This was both a Batchelder and Printz honor title, which I think it deserves. It also won several awards in Europe.

It's one of those slight books that packs a lot of punch. I've been carrying it around for days to write about it, but every time I sat down, I wanted to think about it more. It's haunting that way.

Book Provided by... my local library

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Going Bovine

Going Bovine Libba Bray

I wasn't expecting to like this one. I wasn't a huge fan of A Great and Terrible Beauty, which is the other Bray I've read. Some people I know loved Going Bovine, and some didn't. Most of the criticisms were things where I thought "ok, that's also stuff that bugs me in a book." So, I figured this one wasn't for me. And then it won the Printz, so I felt obligated to read it.

And! Yay! I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it!

For those who don't know, Cam is an apathetic teen who gets mad cow disease. He embarks on a road trip with his friend Gonzo and a yard gnome who's really a Norse God. Along the way he's helped by a punk rock angel. Cam is not the most likable of characters, but that doesn't mean he's not believable as a character. He's selfish before he finds out he's dying, and when he gets sick, he doesn't see it as an experience to turn his life around. Instead, he gets pissed off. Which, while not likable and not what we tend to see in books, is frankly, the same thing I would do.

I didn't like Cam in the beginning, but I loved his voice, so I didn't mind that I didn't like him. I really liked Cam by the end.

I most loved the happiness cult and what the snow globe company does to protect people. (Yeah, that's vague, but I don't want to spoil it.)

This draws a lot of inspiration from Don Quixote, which I haven't read (but I have read a few plot summaries, and seen the Animaniacs version). Bray's not shy about the Don Quixote connections (Cam's reading it for school) and c'mon! The angel is named Dulcie!

My one complaint is that much of the tension comes from wondering if Cam's adventures real or a hallucination brought on by his brain's disintegration. The truth is too obvious too early. I wanted her to stretch that out further. While I knew what was what, I didn't want my feelings to be confirmed that early...

The other was the end, which I'll talk about here, because MAJOR SPOILAGE.

But overall? A really great book that's really enjoyable on the surface, but underneath lurks an homage to great literature and lots of other little things that make it secretly amazing.

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.