Rules; Reaching for Sun; Carpe Diem; Looks; Rebel Angels; Saga; True Meaning of Smekday; Wicked Lovely

Rules by Cynthia Lord, 2006
Overcoming : Disabilities & mental illness (autism, paralysis)
Family relationships
Best friends & friendship
Outstanding Fiction (Schneider Family Book Award, Newberry Honor book)
Rating : Loved
Frustrated with life with David, her autistic younger brother, twelve-year-old Catherine longs for a normal existence. She is very excited to become friends with her new neighbor Kristi, but is embarrassed by the uniqueness of David. Her world is further complicated by a friendship with a young paraplegic named Jason that she meets at the clinic where David attends sessions.

Having grown up in a home with a younger brother who has Downs Syndrome, Catherine’s story really resonated with me. I loved her humor. I could identify with her insecurities. Though the ending is a bit neat, I loved how she used drawing to see things clearly or more easily, and to communicate with Jason. One of her rules is “Looking closer can make something beautiful.” I loved how she was able to become friends with Jason, and how, when they were one-on-one, she didn’t feel any awkwardness in her interactions with him, only thoughts of improving their communication with each other. I loved how real her insecurities and fears of being labeled weird or strange for having a “weird” disabled friend felt.




Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, 2007
Overcoming : Disabilities & mental illness (cerebral palsy)
Best friends & friendship
Family relationships
Lang arts hook (novel in verse)
Outstanding Fiction (Schneider Family Book Award)
Rating : Liked
Josie, who lies with her mother and grandmother and has cerebral palsy, befriends a boy named Jordan who moves into one of the rich houses behind her old farmhouse. Her left side is “connected by an invisible rubber band” and she “wrestle[s] to wrap [her] lips around syllables, struggle[s] with [her] tongue to press the right points.” The family farmed the land for generations, until grandma needed to sell all but five acres to pay medical bills and Josie’s mom’s education. The story is divided into four sections, one for each season, starting with winter. In spring, Jordan is chasing a butterfly, referring to it by its scientific name, when he comes upon Josie under a willow tree. She knows where it’s gone – the butterfly bush, and can name that plant and many others by scientific names too. In summer, she skips her summer occupational therapy sessions that her mom signed her up for, to hang out with Jordan, enjoying a friendship she never had before. When Gran ends up in the hospital, she blurts out her deception to her mom. “You didn’t bother to ask me. I didn’t bother to tell you.”

This story deserves to be read slowly and savored. The images are rich and feelings provoked by the poetry are real. However, I was impatient in my reading of it, and only got some of the enjoyment available there. Definitely could be read again.



Carpe Diem by Autumn Cornwell, 2007
Adventure & espionage
Family relationships
Character development (life skills)
World cultures & geography (southeast Asia)
Lang Arts hook (creative writing)
Rating : OK
Sixteen-year-old Vassar Spore’s detailed plans for the next twenty years of her life are derailed when her bohemian grandmother insists that she join her in Southeast Asia for the summer, but as she writes a novel about her experiences, Vassar discovers new possibilities. The gist of the story is : over-achieving, inflexible girl learns to put up with dirt and shows even unexpected courage when her situation becomes dangerous.

I was immediately attracted to the title and cover, but the voice caught me by surprise. It was very chatty, high-school-ish and I had to skip ahead to actually get through it. The secret of what made her life-coach mom and efficiency expert dad agree to the trip in the first place was intriguing, and its revelation toward the end probably would have had more impact if I’d read the whole story up till then.



Looks by Madeleine George, 2008
Overcoming (body image & eating disorders)
Best friends & friendship
School story
Rating : Liked
Despite Meghan Ball’s massive size, she’s the most unseen person at Valley Regional High. She can hang out in a niche in the hallway, and other students say things in front of her as though she doesn’t exist, unless she’s being harassed by J-Bar who is cruel about her size and sexually suggestive. She spends most of her days in the sick room. But then one day she shares the sick room with Aimee Zorn, a girl as thin as she is fat. Sprinkled among the plot were introspective observations about the ceiling or sky. We hear about binging from Meghan and self-starvation from Aimee. There are funny cameos from various teachers and office staff throughout.

The plot’s a bit predictable with the two girls getting revenge on the sneaky, two-faced Cara, but I mostly enjoyed the read.



Rebel Angels by Libba Bray, 2005
Fantasy-Historical-19th century Britain
Rating : Liked
Gemma and her friends from the Spence Academy return to the realms to defeat her foe, Circe, and to bind the magic that has been released. It is unclear where the loyalties of Kartik and the brotherhood of the Rakshana lie until the end, as well as that of the new teacher at Spence, the dismissed teacher Ms. Moore, the spectral girls in white, the Gorgon ship. While Gemma gains the attentions of a nobleman’s son, attends balls and the opera, receives gifts, she is hiding the role she has in the Realms.

I read this because I had read the first book this past summer and liked it. The story is set around Christmas, so my timing was good. I liked this one too. I like the characters and how they struggle against the suppression of their time, but I liked the romance and the novelty of the first story better.



Saga (Epic sequel) by Kostick, 2008
Science Fiction
Government & Politics
Rating : Loved
On Saga, a world based on a video role-playing game, fifteen-year-old Ghost lives to break rules, but the Dark Queen who controls Saga plans to enslave its people and those of New Earth, and Ghost and her airboarding friends, along with Erik and his friends from Epic, try to stop her. Erik comes into this new virtual world wielding his magic and blasting away until he comes to the realization that these beings are sentient. He then befriends them and works to dethrone the Dark Queen without any more murder. Ghost and her friends realize that the Dark Queen will not ever stop her quest for domination and is able to find a new way to rule Saga.

I love how the virtual world and corporal world are put on equal footing. I love how the virtual world evolved to include sentient beings. I love how this story included the characters for Epic, but that it was a totally new story.



The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex, 2007
Gratuity is writing an assignment for possible inclusion in a time capsule about the Smekday Holiday and how it has changed in the year since the aliens have left. Her first attempt talks about Moving Day and how she and her pet cat Pig try to drive to Florida instead of taking a ride in the Boov ship, but she runs out of road and must trust a Boov to fix her car. When her teacher asks her to try again, she writes a part two subtitled “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Boov.” This one begins earlier, before the Boov invasion, and tells how she loses her mom, how the Boov order everyone to move to Florida because of the “hostileness and intolerableness of you people” after five months of occupation, through the time of the previous essay, up until the invasion of the Gorg. After finishing that essay and having it accepted for the time capsule, Gratuity writes Part 3: Attach of the Clones. She tells about her trip from Florida to Arizona, escaping the Gorg, dodging the Boov, finding her mom, and using the Gorg technology against them by cloning Pig and sending the clones out everywhere until the severely allergic Gorg withdraw from Earth.

The interaction between Tip and the J.Lo is clever, like when they try to play car games, or when J.Lo tries to explain about the Boov genders: boy, girl, boygirl, girlboy, boyboy, boyboygirl, and boyboyboyboy. The development of trust, friendship, and eventually familiar love between them is believable and enjoyable to read. The story is illustrated with “snapshots” taken by Tip, comic sequences, drawings, and newspaper clippings. The similarities between the alien invasion and our treatment of Native Americans would be a good talking point for middle schoolers. That Tip is only eleven is the hardest point of the plot to swallow.



Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr, 2007
The faery Summer King, Keenan, needs a Summer Queen, but the Winter Queen, his mom, made some sort of evil deal and now all his hopefuls turn into either the next Winter Girl with frost so deep in her bones she never warms up or summer fey with nothing but dancing on their minds. Though the faeries are normally invisible to mortals, Aislinn has always seen them. She knows they are powerful and dangerous, and when Keenan sets his sights on her, everything is suddenly on the line: her freedom; her best friend, Seth; her mortality. Contains about half a dozen swear words, one f-. Also, the characters are tattooed and pierced; the characters talk about sex, virginity, and chemical dependence; and there are one or two intimate scenes without being too explicit about any of it. I love the resolution Aislinn comes up with – how she accepts her fate without giving up her aspirations and dreams.

Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney; Trial of Kate Hope; Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City; Airman; Tasting the Sky; and Schooled

Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper, 2007
Sparrow is the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter living in Lily Dale, NY, a town founded by spiritualists where most residents still practice the art in one form or another. Sparrow wants to be normal, and travels an hour each way to attend a high school out of town, but she sees a ghost her first day there and can’t maintain her deception that she has no seer gifts in the face of his constant badgering. So she starts talking to him, and eventually agrees to help his family know what happened to him, even if this means her new friends, including the ghost’s brother, will see her as a freak. I found this premise entirely entertaining, and enjoyed this read immensely.



Trials of Kate Hope by Wick Downing, 2008
In 1973, Kate becomes the youngest practicing lawyer, having received training by her granddad and passing the bar at age 14. With her granddad’s help, she works on a case about a dog slated to be killed for supposedly attaching a baby. I could not get into this story. I found the writing choppy, and I didn’t care about the characters. It was also too big of a stretch for me to accept that this 14-year-old was practicing law.



Kiki Strike: Inside the Shadow City by Kirsten Miller, 2006
Ananka Fishbein discovers the Shadow City through a sink hole near her Manhattan apartment. This discovery leads her to Kiki Strike, a mysterious, petite, white-haired girl who seems to be able to antagonize ruffians in the park and the snottiest elite girls at school with impunity. After trailing her for days, Ananka (as urban archaeologist and access point to the most useful library in the city – her parents’ collection) is invited by Kiki to the first meeting of the Irregulars. With the other newly recruited members DeeDee Morlock (chemist), Oona Wong (master forger and computer hacker), Luz Lopez (mechanical engineer), and Betty Bent (disguise expert), the Irregulars explore the Shadow City. Their movements move from serendipity to purposeful as Kiki’s secret agenda is slowly revealed. Though it took me awhile to get into it, eventually I enjoyed reading this mystery / adventure story.



Airman by Eoin Colfer, 2008
“Conor Broekhart was born to fly” is the start to this story about a young man who is born in a hot-air balloon and never stops working toward flight. He is best friends with Princess Isabella of the small sovereign country of the Saltee Islands off the coast of Ireland. His dad is part of the king’s guard and he studies with a prominent scientist, Victor Vigny, who is also obsessed with discovering the secret of flying. However, the marshall of the Holy Cross Guard and high commander of the Saltee army, Hugo Bonvilian, kills the king and Vigny, framing Vigny for the betrayal. When he catches Conor looking on, he condemns him to prison while telling the rest of his family he was killed too. Believing his family and friends think he helped betray the king, Conor spends years in prison plotting his escape and growing bitter about how easily his supposed betrayal was accepted by those he loved. I kept thinking that this book would be science fiction or fantasy, but it reads more like an historical novel. The plot is complex, the writing tight. Conor’s growth from a young, carefree youth, to an embattled inmate, to a wiser adult is realistic and fascinating. I felt his pain, and the cautious hopefulness of the end hits the right chord.



Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood (956.95) by Ibtisam Barakat, 2007
Framed at either end by short chapters written as a teenager, this memoir mostly relates the experiences of the author as a young child during the 1967 Six-Day War when she and her family had to flee their home, live as refugees in Jordan for a while, and then work to rebuild a home and secure family life while their land is under the rule of strangers. Some of the language is beautiful: “[The breeze] filled the curtains with a daily dance and softly kissed my face. Flapping my arms to let the breeze tickle me, for a moment I felt free, like a bird, tasting the sky.” I also loved how she considered Alef (the Arabic letter A) a friend that she could carry around in her pocket in the form of chalk. This is a memoir of impressions and childhood experiences where the reader is left to make his or her own meaning. The author includes a list of other related books at the back that all sound great.



Schooled by Gordon Korman, 2007
Capricorn and his grandma have lived on a commune farm by themselves for several years, so when grandma falls and needs to spend time in rehab, Cap is shipped off to a middle school were everyday attitudes and practices are completely foreign to him. The book is told in a variety of voices: Capricorn; Mrs. Donnelly, a former commune member and Cap’s social worker and host; Zach Powers, the “big man on campus” whose plans are thwarted by Cap; Hugh Winkleman, the residing nerd and destined for the humiliating class president nomination until Cap appeared; Naomi Erlanger, a Zach groupie until she’s won over by Cap; Sophie Donnelly, Mrs. Donnelly’s daughter who finds Cap’s presence in her home almost unbearable, at least at first; Darryl Pennyfield, another Zach groupie who accidentally tackles and then punches Cap; and Mr. Zasigi, the principal who doesn’t understand how clueless Cap is until he innocently misspends several hundred dollars of school funds. The plot’s a bit predictable, but the book’s quite enjoyable regardless. There are funny scenes about how things we don’t even think about may seem foreign to someone from the outside.

Savvy

Savvy by Ingrid Law, 2008
The Beaumonts always have interesting 13th birthdays, when their savvy first manifests itself. Her brother can create electricity, and her other brother can create hurricanes, so Mississippi “Mibs” is curious about what her savvy will be. Then her father is in a serious car accident and the preacher’s wife insists on throwing her a party anyway. Mibs becomes convinced that her newly discovered savvy can save her dad, if only she can figure out how to get herself to Salina, 90 miles away. She stows away on Lester’s pink Bible-delivering bus, inadvertently pulling along her brother Fish and the preacher’s kids Will Junior and Roberta “Bobbi” with her. Together with her little brother Samson, who was sleeping in the back, and Lill, who they pick up on the side of the road, every soul on that bus is changed through their extraordinary adventure together.

The writing is so full of similes that it was difficult to read at first, but then the story started pulling me along, and the message of the book is wonderfully cheering. We all have our own savvy, if we know how to look. I was able to read this book in about two sittings.

City of Ember; Zen and the Art of Faking It; Dear Jo; and Hot Lunch

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau, 2003
In the year 241, 12-year-old Lina trades jobs on Assignment Day to be a messenger, to run to new places in her beloved but decaying city, perhaps even to glimpse Unknown Regions. When she discovers a half-chewed message that looks like instructions, she knows she has to solve the mystery. When she sees “pipewo” she involves Doon, a friend from school who works in the pipeworks.

After seeing the new movie, I had to reread this book. The movie was OK, but I remember the book being fantastic. Where did the movie people go wrong? Was it not as good just because I already knew they were underground? After rereading the book, I think not. Even though I know they are underground, experiencing their excitement of discovering “moving light” for the first time, and the meaning of “boat” is thrilling. The movie cheapens this excitement with standard action-movie antics. Capturing the wonderment of seeing a sunrise for the first time is probably what the movie does best. The book, on the other hand, is well written and peopled with fascinating, original characters and a true spirit of discovery and rebirth.


Zen and the Art of Faking It by Jordan Sonnenblick, 2007When 13-year-old San Lee moves to a new town and school for the umpteenth time, he is looking for a way to stand out when his knowledge of Zen Buddhism, gained in his previous school, provides the answer -- and the need to quickly become a convincing Zen master.

Other tags: basketball; Pennsylvania; small community; Woody Guthrie; dad in prison for fraud; lying; Asian-American adoptee; soup kitchen; library research; step-brother; school story; identity.

The most unfortunate thing about this book is the cover. The kid standing on his head seems about ten, which I know will turn off middle-schoolers. The story itself is funny. I enjoy Sonnenblick’s blend of humor and growth.


Dear Jo: The story of losing Leah and searching for hope by Christina Kilbourne, 2007
Written in the form of a journal, Maxine is depressed and scared. Her best friend has gone missing and she feels responsible and has survivor’s guilt. It could have just as easily been her. She enjoyed chatting and flirting and telling white lies online just as much as Leah. Now she sees a psychologist, avoids her friends, and is failing her classes. When the opportunity comes to help the police in the investigation, Max is scared but determined to do all she can. Leah wouldn’t have done anything less.

This story covers some serious subject matter, such as online predators and child exploitation, in a realistic and tasteful manner. The protagonist seems older than her supposed 12 years, but otherwise, the voice is believable. I didn’t love the story – it is a bit predictable – but it is completely grabbing my 13-year-old’s attention.


Hot Lunch by Alex Bradley, 2007
When she refuses to work with her assigned partner on an English assignment, Molly initially becomes enemies with Cassie, which escalates to a food fight, for which the consequence is forced work time in the lunch room. When their pranks behind the counter lead to the manager’s resignation, the principal makes them take charge of the lunch room. They must work there and provide the students with lunch indefinitely, unless the students think their lunches are better than those provided under the original manager for an entire week.

Written in first-person, Molly - a blue-haired, earphone-without-ipod-wearing, alternative-high-school-attending girl, tells her story of finding friendship with funny wit and attitude. The development of true friendship, appreciation for food, and true self-awareness is genuine and thoroughly enjoyable. I laughed out loud several times.