Struts & Frets by Jon Skovron

(Reading Challenge: Popular Paperbacks)

This is the sort of YA book I really enjoy-straight up realistic fiction ( I say realistic but the truth is in my adolescent I saw none of this in me or my friends, but, like with movies, that’s why it’s fiction) with some conflicts, some happy resolutions, and personal growth. I especially liked that the main character was a boy because even as an adult now I am still fascinated by the secret look into a boy’s point of view. Sammy, the boy, is a pretty well-adjusted kid. He lives with his single mom, is an aspiring musician, has some nice solid friends, is great friends with a girl who he thinks he might like to have be a girlfriend,  and is in a band.  Unfortunately his band is kind of a mess, especially because the lead singer is an enraged loose cannon. There several different threads to the story that all tie nicely together. One thread is his connection to his grandfather who is mentally slipping away into dementia. But the moments of clarity provide for some wonderful bonding, as his grandfather was a professional musician.  Then there’s the girl situation. I thought this was resolved pretty easily, which was, frankly, refreshing. And the losing their virginity part was very nicely done and very positive. Again, refreshing.

I especially liked seeing Sammy’s relationship with his male friends, including his best friend Rick, who is gay. Although Rick is out to Sammy he hasn’t dated anyone yet and doesn’t really want to discuss it. Sammy points out that this makes their relationship lopsided because if they’re friends and he can go on and on about wanting Jen5 (such a novel affectation-who do you know in real life who names themselves with a number? made me think of another book about Su5an Smith), shouldn’t Rick be able to dump on Sammy about his own dating angst? I thought Sammy was really sweet to Rick and I really liked their friendship.

The music in the story is great-Sammy’s description of what it’s like when he plays, his songwriting, the bands that get mentioned, the prospect of a career in music (the part where he sees a fairly successful guy he looks up to behind the counter of a coffee shop is great.)  And I loved it that at the end all the referenced songs were compiled in a playlist! I’m fairly certain that in my husband’s music library we’ve got all those songs and I’m going to ask him to make me a disc of it so I can have a listen. It was a nice touch to a nice book.

 

Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb by Jonathan Fetter-Vorm

(Reading Challenge:  Great Graphic Novels)

This was a fascinating book. And, since there is another big winner about the atomic bomb this year it looks like I’ll be learning a lot about this important event.

It covers the development of the bomb from the start, identifying the key scientific thinkers across the world who were figuring out atoms and fission. Then it comes to Robert Oppenheimer and the U.S.’s quest to built the first bomb.  This part was really interesting to me (the part explaining actual fission, not so much, despite the author and illustrator’s best attempts to simplify and explain clearly-I simply don’t get it!). Did you know that thousands of people in the U.S. were employed in this project-yet they didn’t know what they were working on? That it was so compartmentalized that no one could put the pieces together to figure out that’s what the project was? And this top secret method was so successful the CIA emulated in the future? That whole towns and factories were built just to produce parts that would be used in making the bomb? I didn’t know any of that and it was fascinating. Some other fascinating and horrible things I learned? That so much nuclear testing has gone on around the world that we all have a little radioactivity inside us. Can’t escape it. Also? That although we think of the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the most terrible things to happen in terms of warfare and death tolls, the firebombing campaign of Japan actually had a higher loss of life. It was a more drawn out attack, but worse.

I thought of the book as having two parts-the creation of the bomb and then the use of it. The latter section shows Truman considering the decision to use the weapon, the horror of the bomb, and Oppenheimer and the world’s realization that nothing would ever be the same politically because of this dreadful threat of nuclear war.

In clear words and pictures this very complicated and big event and subsequent topic is brought to life to the reader.  I really liked this and wish it had been around when I was in high school because I think it would have been very useful to read in history class!

Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller by Joseph Lambert

(Reading Challenge: Great Graphic Novels)

Although I know the basic facts about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, this book taught me a whole lot that I didn’t know.  It begins when Annie Sullivan arrives at the Keller house to begin teacher Helen and continues in a chronological fashion that is interrupted by flashbacks to Annie’s childhood. Turns out that Annie had a lousy early life-orphaned, kept in a home for the poor that was later the target of investigations for the horrible treatment people in it received, her only sibling dying from TB, and then finally getting sent to the Perkins School for the Blind.  She was smart and capable, but you get the impression that she was a difficult person to get along with.  Which may have made her just the right teacher for Helen, who was a wild thing when they first meet.

I liked how when Helen and Annie talked to each other their hands are shown signing into each other and then the words were above. Not speech bubbles unless someone was actually speaking aloud.  Much of the story is also told by Annie’s letters to her mentor, who is at the school for the blind.  The process of teaching Helen was fascinating.  I find it really hard to get my head around imagining being blind and deaf. In fact, it’s so distressing for me that when I do imagine it I have to quickly make myself stop.

There is more to the story, though, then just the whole “miracle worker” part.  Quite a bit of drama comes when Helen is older and she and Annie return to Perkins.  Although not students there, her old mentor wants to use their fame and publicity for the school and that makes Annie resentful and drives a wedge between them.  Then there is a fascinating plagiarism story that was apparently quite the scandal.

I liked this quite a bit, especially because I learned so much more to the Helen Keller story than I already knew.  There is a helpful afterward that gives even more information about different elements of the story.

 

A Flight of Angels by Rebecca Guay, Holly Black, Louise Hawes, Todd Mitchell, Alisa Kwitney, & Bill Willingham

(Reading Challenge: Great Graphic Novels)

Phew! That was a lot of contributors’ names to type out in the title field. But, they all deserve to be there because this is a story with different parts of it told and illustrated by different people.  A really neat frame story is set up to allow the different stories to be told. In a wood outside of regular civilization is where the faerie folk live. When one of them sees an angel fall from the sky they gather around and can’t decide whether or not to kill him. They decide to have a tribunal and each will tell a story to convince the “judge” that angels are essentially bad or essentially good. The judge is an innocent faun, who is the possession of a nasty hag. The frame story is illustrated in black and white with very angular lines.  Each story then told is by a different author with a different style-in both story and illustration.

The first story is by Louise Haws and called “Original Sin.” The illustration of this story was my favorite. Very beautiful, soft, romantic. Reminded me of painters such as Reubens and Botticelli.  It is the story of Adam & Eve and the angel who feeds them from the Tree of Knowledge, thus setting them into the world and apart from the animals. I thought this was a really beautiful telling of this story, and I especially liked when the Angel reveals to Eve who some of her daughters will be-such as Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth.

The next story is called “The Story Within the Story Within” by Bill Willingham. I didn’t care for this one as much in terms of illustration style. The setting is a bar for angels where a man sits down with a female angel who is drowning her sorrows and then she tells him her sad story, which is about another angel who is an old friend of hers, but whom she has been sent to kill.  The most interesting part of this story was reading about the target, a lovable f&*( up of an angel.  He keeps getting assigned to different departments but is never very good at them, until he finds he excels in the Cancer department as an angel of death.  I’ve always liked stories imagining that sort of thing (heaven as a workplace), so I did like that part.

The next story told is “Chaya Suvah and the Angel of Death.”  Darker pictures with striking dark lines immediately set the tone of this tale, set in a village in Russia. Chaya Suvah is an old woman who never leaves her house. She once made a deal with the angel of death that he could not take her unless she agreed to it–and she just won’t agree. This story has story has some witch-hunty elements, ancient Jewish tale elements, and also cycle of birth and death.

“The Guardian” comes next and I really liked the watercolor illustrations.  A clumsy young woman attracts the attention of a kindly angel who starts to be by her side constantly to prevent her from falling, tripping, dropping things.  As a maidservant these things make her the brunt of unkind words.  Soon the angel falls in love with her and takes human form so that they can enjoy their love together.  But such form is too difficult for an angel and she makes him leave her.  But, as a guardian angel he is never really far from her.  This was a lovely story start to finish!

The final tale is the story of how the angels fought in heaven and fell to hell and earth.  Those that did not fall all the way to hell are the ones who turned into the faerie folk.

And that brings and end to the storytelling and now the tribunal is over and the boy must decide the angel’s fate! Have angels been proven to be essentially good, or essentially bad troublemakers?

I overall really liked this. It was a very quick read and I was impressed at how successfully these different stories worked together. Because of the framework it made sense to have the stories have different styles both of writing and pictures.

Every Day by David Levithan

(Reading Challenge: Best Fiction for Young Adults)

First book for the Reading Challenge! Not the first book I started, though. I have Terry Pratchett’s Dodger out and had read a few pages, but then I picked up Every Day and it was a more immediately compelling book. I just love the concept for this book: a person experiences his/her life by waking up each day in another human’s body.  I was trying to explain the book to my husband and kids and first of all, it’s hard to not use any pronouns. The person calls itself A, so that’s what I’ll do, too.  I also thought of A as simply a soul.  The kids immediately wanted to know how he was born and who his parents were. Good questions kids! Where did A come from? A tells us this has been his (yes, I’m going to use a male pronoun) whole life and he does remember being little and when he realized not everyone experienced this. That they got to see the same parents the next day.

This book was a good combination of a)all the questions you might have about this concept, both factual and philosophical, such as where did A come from? is A a soul? can A die? how separate is our body from our soul and what impact does it have on our lives? and so on.
b)the “fun” idea of exploring a different body every few pages and showing how A can really experience so much more than we ever could-life as someone beautiful, abused, blind, loving, funny, popular, outcast, gay, straight, etc.
c)the love story between A and Rhiannon.

Rhiannon is the first person A has ever told his secret too.  He first meets her when he is in her boyfriend Justin’s body.  They have a wonderful day together. And although A has always tried hard not to stray from the body’s usual behavior (I really loved reading how A accesses information and fits in), it’s love at first sight with Rhiannon and he can’t bring himself to be the usual jerk that Justin is.  The next day when he discovers he is not too far from Rhiannon he drives back to see her again.  Once Rhiannon believes A and begins to see A in various bodies there is a whole new set of philosophical and practical questions-how could they keep seeing each other? What end could they possibly have?  I was really impressed with how Levithan managed to satisfactorily wrap up the story.

The only thing that I didn’t think was perfect was the thread of loving a person for who they are, not their gender. It was, frankly, a bit heavy-handed. A just can’t get over that the body of a girl or boy would make a difference to Rhiannon and brings it up many times. And yet, the one time A is in the body of an obese person that is repulsive to him, he understands why Rhiannon doesn’t want to kiss him.  I felt that in a story that emphasizes the message of a soul vs a body it was a pretty insensitive response to the overweight body and wanted to cry “pot calling kettle black!”

That was just one sting in a really great story with a really interesting concept. I love to think about things like this and it was a fun story for that. A great start to the reading challenge!

 

Challenge Accepted! (for 2013)

I really enjoyed last year’s Hub’s Best of the Best Reading Challenge and was really looking forward to this year’s.  The 2013 version begins TODAY and is called the 2013 Hub Reading Challenge.  It includes the same awards and lists as last year, with a couple of additions. This year the Stonewall Award and Schneider Family Book Award.  And also this year there is a very convenient list of all the eligible titles so you can check off as you go.

I’ll be keeping track here as I would with any book, but also setting up a shelf on Goodreads.  Books I’m most looking forward to and will likely start with include Bomb (which was a multiple award winner), The Diviners (which I’ve had a copy of sitting around in my room for many months),  and I may just read the Song of the Lioness quartet because I loved these books very much and was thrilled to see Tamora Pierce win the Margaret A. Edwards Award because of them. Gotta be honest-I’m not very interested in reading the Printz winner. I’m also interested in the Steve Jobs biography and Love and Other Perishable Items. And, of course, I’m looking forward to discovering some good graphic novels.

If you like reading, are always on the lookout for good books, want to expand your reading horizons, whatever-I encourage you to sign up for this challenge (just go to the original blog post and leave a message in the comments). It’s open to everyone!

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Last week were the big award announcements at ALA. As usual I watched the live webcast and squealed with excitement over the titles. And, as has been the way for many years now, noted that I’d never heard of or read some of the winners. That said, many of the picture books and easy readers were very familiar to my household. Since I stopped working and my kids aren’t quite old enough I usually am not familiar with any of the Newbery contenders.  This year’s winner was The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. Since she made her bread and butter by writing the wildly popular Animorphs series, I had to think she must be feeling pretty smug and happy right now to be recognized for writing the best children’s chapter book of the year.  Anyway, I put it on hold immediately and picked it up the next day and was able to read it in one day. It’s wonderful! Now, this sort of book is right up my alley-touching, sensitive, an animal at its heart. It tugs on your heartstrings and I cried at the ending (and a few other places as well.)

Ivan is a gorilla who lives in a “domain” (cage) in a circus themed mall.  His companions are a little stray dog who sleeps on his stomach and a big elephant. Sadly she has an injured foot and the terrible keeper/owner won’t have it treated.  Ivan doesn’t remember his early wild days, but elephants never forget and Stella is able to tell him story after story of life in the jungle and things that have happened to her over the years.  Ivan loves art and painting and the owner sells his paintings in the mall gift shop.  The mall is somewhat lackluster and run down and a failing business.  To spice up business he purchases a new animal–a baby elephant.  If you’re not already thinking this is going to be a little sad and weepy from the domains, to the lonely existence, think about where that baby elephant came from. It’s terrible! Lest all the humans in the story be awful, the night keeper’s young daughter is a kind soul who talks to Ivan and cares about him. She loves drawing as well, so they are kindred artist souls. Ivan makes a vow that he will get the baby elephant out of the mall and into a place with others of her own kind.

This is such a sweet and heartbreaking and spare story.  Yes, it was a fast read because the sentences were spaced far apart on the page. But, as Ivan tells us, that’s because gorillas are not real chatterboxes. They only say what it is important. And so, every sentence of this book carries an impact and is beautifully written.

This was a really wonderful story and when I read that it was based on a true story I cried even more. I was really impressed how, in a story that included animals talking, there didn’t seem to be fantastical anthropomorphism.  All the elephant and gorilla behaviors were consistent with what scientists really do know about their behaviors, actions, and families.

Daybreak by Brian Ralph

#25! I did it! I completed the YALSA Best of the Best reading challenge.  Now, I have to admit that this morning I wrote about #24, which was Scorpio Games, and I was fully prepared to read right up until the final day (Saturday) The Notorious Benedict Arnold.  It seemed a fitting ending-a book I wouldn’t normally read, but one that I expected would surprise me with its fascinating insight into American history’s popular punchline. But then I picked up another one of the books on the list that I’d gotten, Daybreak, and saw that it was much shorter, as well as a practically wordless graphic novel.  So obviously I read that. In the time it took for Paul to read the kids their bedtime stories.  It feels like cheating, but it’s on the list, so it counts. And hey, maybe I’ll read about Benedict Arnold after all (but not until I finish Divergent, which I read all of 5 pages of at lunch today and am hooked on.)

So, Daybreak.  For someone who really hates zombie stuff, I seem to be reading a lot of zombie books lately.  One of the things I dislike about them is how they are so relentless and humanity will never win and so I feel that all zombie stories are, from the outset, hopeless.  In Daybreak you feel a little tricked-there’s a cute dog, a helpful one-armed fellow-hey, maybe this post-apocalyptic zombie world won’t be so bad! But of course, it is.
What is so interesting about this book is that you, the reader, are placed in the position of being one of the characters. The other two characters talk to you, and when you move what you see changes.  It’s most effective (and a bit disconcerting.)  I did have a little difficulty following some of the frames-trying to “see” in the dark and trying to distinguish differences between panels. The gore was very minimal, for which I was grateful. The color palette was actually really effective-not black and white, more like a dark sepia.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t dislike this, but I didn’t love it.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

This is the 24th book I’ve read in the reading challenge, and I wasn’t even sure I would read it at all.  It was a 2012 Printz Honor book and when it won and I read about it I was just not interested. I knew it had something to do with horses and a race, but the cover was unappealing to me (and made me think it was Grecian?). Well, as Paul said, now I must eat crow.  Because this book captivated me, impressed me, sucked me in, and I gave it FIVE STARS.  I’m going to go so far as to say that I, personally, would have loved to have seen it win the Printz. I just thought it was that good.

The story is set on the small remote island of Thisby. Kate, aka Puck, Connolly loves the island, even though it’s rough going for her and her two brothers ever since their parents died.  Sean Kendrick also loves the island, and he too is orphaned.  The strange element to the island are the water horses, or “capall uisce” (I found it irritating that it was something like 96 pages in before there was a clue to the pronunciation of this.)  The capall live in the sea, but they emerge from it.  If you can capture one and control it, it will be the fastest strongest biggest horse you ever ride.  However, they are vicious, unpredictable,  dangerous, and they yearn for the sea.  They can tear a man apart in minutes.  Kate’s parents died when a capall took down their boat, while Sean’s father died during the Scorpio Race.  This is an annual race where men ride the capall, many will die, and mainland folk come to watch and also to buy horses.  Sean works for the main horse farm on the island and he is an indispensable horseman.  He rides Corr, a big capall, and has a way with him.  Unfortunately, Mr. Malvern owns him and will not sell him to Sean.  Sean has won the race 4 times now.

When Kate finds out that not only is her eldest brother going to leave the island, but also that they are going to lose their house, she enters the race.  No woman has ever raced before and there are plenty of people opposed.
I found myself desperate for both Kate and Sean to win, but knew that only one could.  It’s interesting reading a novel and knowing that the whole thing is leading up to this one event, and it has the potential to be frustrating or boring as you wait for the main event.  However, that is not the case here.  This book was great-the alternating viewpoints, the growing relationship between Kate and Sean, the vividly realized island, the pull of the magical capall–it all fit together perfectly and was beautifully written. One of the things that’s interesting about it is that although it contains a magical mythological element, I would not in any way consider this a fantasy novel.  It was completely realistic.
I absolutely loved this!

Enclave by Ann Aguirre

( spoilers begin in second paragraph!) This was another must read straight through finish it in a day or two book! I enjoyed this very much and felt like it combined elements of various books I already like.  In the beginning, when we meet Deuce, who lives entirely underground in what you assume are the ancient New York City subway tunnels, I kept thinking about Neal Shusterman’s terrific book, Downsiders. Deuce’s life in the enclave is a difficult one.  You are either a brat (a young child), a Hunter, a Builder, or a Breeder.  The Elders keep strict control over everyone.  As a new proud fierce Hunter Deuce’s job is to go out and hunt meat for the enclave, as well as protect the enclave by fighting the Freaks.  These are sort of zombie like creatures.  Deuce is as good a fighter as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and in every graphic fight she has I pretty much pictured her fighting like Buffy. It’s a pretty dreadful life, but what else is there? That’s just the way it is.  There are other underground enclaves, but they are several days away.

After being paired with Fade, a mysterious Hunter, Deuce, for the very first time, begins to realize that maybe the Elders don’t know best.  In the second part of the novel she and Fade are aboveground (topside!). Can you even imagine that, much like City of Ember, she is emerging into a world with the sun,which she didn’t even know about? And, unfortunately, the Freaks live aboveground as well, and instead of enclaves there are violent gangs.  The world Deuce sees is one that is clearly post-apocalyptic, though what happened? Was it plague or nuclear or environmental disaster? We don’t really know.  This section of the book was my favorite (and a relief to be aboveground because it was freaking me out to have my head completely underground in the dark smelly sewers).  It was following the comfortingly reliable formula of refugees trying to find a “better place”, which due to my reading of other novels, I assumed would be a settlement of people who lived neither underground nor were zombies.

I thought the author did a great job of seeing this world through Deuce’s eyes.  Her wonder at everyday objects, which at this future point are no longer everyday things but the reader can figure out what they are from clues, is great.  The changing dynamics between her and Fade and their two other companions was compelling and believable.  This is clearly set up to be the first in a trilogy (or maybe even just a sequel?) and I can’t wait to read #2!