The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen by Susin Nielsen

Bullies come in all shapes and sizes and sometimes we forget that. Some of our adult library patrons are bullies and we hesitate standing up to them. So imagine how a high schooler who has been subjected to bullying for years might feel. Well, Jesse Larsen was one such teen and he did something about it that affected himself, his family, his school and his community.

In the aftermath if IT, as Henry K. Larsen refers to it in his Reluctant Journal (only written because his therapist suggested it might help), Henry explains how everyone feels and the lasting impact of his brother’s murder/suicide at the local high school. One parent won’t talk about it. The other parent is hospitalized for depresssion. Henry’s best friend, the sister of the bully, isn’t allowed to talk to him any more. Friends stopped being friends and instead became antagonistic. There are feelings of guilt. Another consequence: Henry’s family crumbled. He and his father moved to a new city where Henry could/had to start over again making friends, dealing with the tragedy.

The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen is another entry on the important topic of bullying. Henry is only a high school freshman. He’s a little chubby and nerdy. Of course, cliques are already established at school and he, unavoidably, joins the geek clique…which is subject to bullying. Susin Nielson has written for such TV series as DiGrassi and knows how to reach the middle school/lower high school audience. The characters, although somewhat stereotypical, are ones you root for (at least the good guys). The dilemma of “telling a parent or teacher” is touched on. The feelings of guilt are a major factor in the book. Whose fault are these tragedies?

In the instant news world we live in, it seems like every minute there’s a news article on Yahoo or Facebook or Twitter about bullying. I’m sure we all know some family that has been affected by bullying. I don’t think there can ever be enough good books on the subject and The Reluctant Jouranl of Henry K. Larsen, winner of the Canada Council for the Arts Governor General’s Literary Award, joins a growing list of worthwhile books on a difficult subject.

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Teen Chick Lit – Beach Reads

Okay, I admit it. I like teen chick lit…well, some of it anyway. Sarah Dessen has always topped the list and I used to get ARCs of her books to review from VOYA. I’d have to finish it in a hurry so Abbe could read it. You know what you’re getting, but that’s okay. Her books are good any time of year, but they’re great beach reads.

So is This is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith. If Smith isn’t a teen household name, she should be. Her books are fun and well written. Happy is her latest. Ellie and Graham find out what happens when an email goes to a total stranger. Taking place in Maine, it’s got all the trappings of a good beach read, including a beach.  There’s mystery, romance, picnics, 4th of July festivals. I rest my case.

Smith’s other books that I read include The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and The Comeback Season.

Sarah Dessen’s latest love story, The Moon and More, is coming out in early June. Of course I’ve got my reserve in on that one. But if you’re longing for a good romance, try her previous book, Along for the Ride. Lately she’s been referring to previous characters or situations in her new books, so maybe start from the beginning and see how many embedded references you can find.

I”m sure there are other Beach Read favorites that I have but I can’t think of them at the moment. I’m sure they’ll come to me but in the meantime, let me know your Teen Chick Lit-Beach Read favorites.

By the way, look at yourself in the mirror when you read This is What Happy Looks Like, because, indeed, it is.

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eleanor & park by rainbow rowell

If you think that Romeo and Juliet is the ultimate love story, then you obviously haven’t read eleanor & park by rainbow rowell. If you have, you know better.

Eleanor is a big boned girl with exceedingly red and exceedingly curly hair who dresses in an exceedingly unique way. On her first day of school, she boards to school bus, only to find no one willing to move over and let her sit. That is until Park, a short, skinny half American, half Korean kid, sitting in the back of the bus, right in front of the cool, taunting kids, takes pity on her indecision and whispers “Jesus-fuck, just sit down“. An auspicious beginning? As you can gather, that becomes Eleanor’s permanent seat.

As the days progess, they ignore each other on the bus and in the several classes they have together. But one day, Park notices Eleanor reading his graphic novels over his shoulder on the way to school…so he reads a little slower, making sure she’s finished the page. Then he starts bringing her comic books from home and leaving it on her bus seat. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

What makes eleanor & park so special? Oh, so many things. The story of course. You know something will happen to thwart their relationship and you kinda know what it is, but you so wish it wouldn’t happen. Who would want to break these kids up?

Rainbow Rowell has so so so accurately described the insecurities felt by the ‘not in crowd’ around self image and romance and sex, it’s amazing. You can picture Eleanor and Park as they hesitate to admit their attraction, hold hands or kiss. The way they see themselves, the fat girl, the skinny Asian dork, is so palpable.

And finally, Eleanor and Park’s individual stories. The degrees of dysfunction. The concept of parental love.

I truly cannot think of a thing wrong with this book. This is no sappy love story. It’s true and genuine and totally entrancing.

I got my copy of eleanor & park signed by ms. rowell at the Mega-Teen Author signing at Books of Wonder a few weeks ago. Of course, Abbe took that copy (it was addressed to both of us, so I guess she has some right to it). Ms. Rowell, in the short signing time, was just as charming as are her book characters. This is by far, one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in a long time. I can’t say enough about it.

If you want a totally hypnotizing book, eleanor & park. I did not want it to end.

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Using Words to Paint a Picture

I was thinking about this this morning. But it really started yesterday when I was chatting with Beth Kephart at Books of Wonder (which is a marvelous children’s bookstore–be prepared to buy when you get there…but that’s another post). Beth asked me how I liked a book by another author who was signing there and I said I liked the book, but it wasn’t literary.

That started me thinking. What made Beth’s book worth buying and having in my personal library while the other book was enjoyable but borrowed from my public library? Most of the authors I read tell you stories. By the end of the book you know what happened, have a good sense of the characters, their thoughts and feelings and come away satisfied.

With Beth’s books, though, you know more. You know what the characters look like, whether they have straight or frizzy hair, whether they comb it to the side, whether it looks like a bird’s nest or a waterfall. You know what the sky looks like, its color, texture, whether there are clouds and if so, what their shapes are and whether they are moving or static. You know what the trees look like, the sound the leaves make as they sway in the wind, the texture of the bark.

Of Estela in Small Damages I wrote: “…perfection. The image of brusque, plump Estela, the cook who does not give love easily, but once she does it is with her whole heart and soul, is vivid.”

About Flow: The Life and Times of the Schuylkill River, I quoted “Blueback herring and eel, alewife and shad muscle in to my wide blue heart, and through… The stony backs of snapping turtles on the shore, muskrat, shrew, and from the unlanterned forest, the bark of a fox, the skith skith skith of snakes over leaves…..”

One author uses pen and paper (do they still do that or is it keyboard and monitor?) to relate a story, a set of events. Another converts that electronic medium into a canvas, rich in color and texture. While there is room for both kinds of books, it is this latter kind of book that ends up in my bookcase.

I’ve described some of Beth’s books as ‘ethereal’ in texture. Some more so and some less. But they are all canvases upon which you will see a broad array of colors and textures, shades and lines through which you will visualize the world you are reading about.

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Beth Kephart

I have been a fan of Beth Kephart and her writing ever since I read House of Dance several years ago. I don’t even remember what prompted me to read it. However, since then I own and have read all of her young adult fiction and most of her adult non-fiction. As I said, I’m a big fan.

This virtual world of ours allows us to become “friends” with people without ever having met them in person or spoken one word to them. And so it has been with Beth and me for several years now. We have let each other into our lives a bit, gotten to know each other through “status updates” and emails and especially through Beth’s blog posts. I’ve come to admire Beth because of her marvelous books, tales of her teaching at the University of Pennsylvania, her ability to balance a crowded business life, writing life, dance life and family life and most of all for her obvious caring about family, friends and fans. All of this through online activity.

Well, today I had the pleasure of meeting Beth in person and it truly was a pleasure. Many of us have had the opportunity of meeting someone we’ve admired from afar and that person has not lived up to the high expectations we’ve set for them. Not so with Beth. I found her to be charming and warm and it felt like we were old friends right from the beginning. Along with being a talented author, Beth nurtures other authors and seeing her banter today with A.S. King makes one understand why writers, both established and novice, seek out her guidance.

I don’t lavish praise often, Beth, but meeting you, finally, has been a highlight. You have made my life brighter through your writing and your friendship. Thank you! I hope our friendship lasts for many years and we meet often.

And for those of you who are uninitiated, while I love all of Beth’s books, I’ll admit that I have certain favorites. In the Young Adult arena, they are (in alphabetical order) Dangerous Neighbors, Nothing But Ghosts and Small Damages and in the adult arena Flow, Ghosts in the Garden and Still Love in Strange Places. Susan’s favorites are Undercover and You Are My Only.

Today was a very special day for me for many reasons, meeting Beth being just one of them. I hope everyone had something special happen to them today. More coming soon.

Goodnight to all.

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Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

There is this atmosphere in New Orleans. The heat and heavy humidity. The moss draped over the branches of ancient trees. The galleries on the second floors of homes. The excesses that mark everyday life. The permissiveness known but rarely discussed. 1950s New Orleans is captured wonderfully in Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys and anyone who has been to New Orleans can picture the scene.

Any book that starts with “My mother is a prostitute. Not the filthy, streetwalking kind.” has something to offer. The narrator, Josie, named after a Madam, is seventeen. She’s been on her own since age seven, sleeping above the bookstore in which she works. She also works every morning cleaning up the night’s remainders after the girls at Willie’s brothel, where her mother works when she isn’t running away with Cincinatti, a dangerous but petty thief.

When the sophisticated and handsome Forrest L. Hearne, Jr. (in from Tennessee for the Sugar Bowl) enters the bookstore and engages her in intellectual conversation, she puts him on the list of fantasy fathers. When he is found dead the next day of an apparent heart attack, she feels something is wrong.

Josie’s longing to leave the Big Easy, disassociate herself with her past, is her overriding goal. She is smart and college is a dream spurred on by an acquaintance, Charlotte, who attends Smith and prods Josie to apply. But how do you leave your mother who is up to her eyeballs in the Hearne affair? How do you leave the gruff but benevolent Willie or the ‘nieces’ in her house? And Cokie, the cab driver who befriended them when they arrived in New Orleans.

There are all kinds of characters in New Orleans and they appear in Out of the Easy; the ones you hate and the ones you love. Sepetys’ writing is vivid. Her story is engrossing. Her characters are your friends. It’s three months into the new year and already my Top 10 lists has a lot of candidates. I’m betting Out of the Easy will make the final cut. It’ll be that easy!

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Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

I began reading Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman at the suggestion of my kids. A book about good and evil and the Apocolypse, Satan at one point basically says that people have dreamed up more horrid and inhumane ways of torturing each other than even Satan could come up with. Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys’ haunting debut novel is testament to this fact.

While much has been written about the atrocities of Hitler during World War II, little has been written about the atrocities of Stalin in the early 1940s as he annexed the Baltic States of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. Lina, a fifteen year old Lithuanian, her ten year old brother and their mother are startled one evening by the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB, pounding on their door and telling them they have twenty minutes to pack their things. Thus begins a brutal 10 year journey that only some will survive, taking them across Russia to Siberia and ultimately to the Arctic Circle.

Man’s inhumanity to man is evident on every page as Lithuanians are categorized as “thieves and prostitutes”, beaten up, spit upon, made to work long hours with little nourishment; made to endure extreme cold with no wood for a fire or warm clothing. As I read this, I couldn’t imagine the joy the NKVD derived from taunting their captives who had nothing. I couldn’t fathom how the Lina and the other prisoners persevered under such dire circumstances, how they maintained their faith in returning home and how any of them survived at all.

Sepetys also describes how some of the captives were so self-centered as to do nothing for their comrades while others were so selfless, doing for everyone, even those who would not return the gesture.

Although it is impossible to feel Lina’s pain without having experienced her journey, readers will come as close as possible to living alongside the characters. Despite the stomach churning atrocities being described, I couldn’t put the book down because of the way Sepetys describes how people bolstered each other, how Lina drew her surroundings at first to keep up her spirits and later to document her life. I was amazed to find out from the Acknowledgements that even when finally allowed to return to their homelands, merely discussing their deportation was cause for imprisonment or a return to Siberia.

Between Shades of Gray is a must read. We all must hope that reading and talking about the atrocities of the past will eliminate them in the future.

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Starting From Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

I just finished the most tender story, Starting From Here, a debut novel by Lisa Jenn Bigelow. Not that it wasn’t topical. It was. I just enjoyed every reading moment.

Colby lost her mother to cancer a year and a half ago. When we meet her, her girlfriend, Rachel, is breaking up with her.  Colby is devastated. Her father is a long haul trucker who is rarely around, so Colby is on her own.

Van, her best friend, wants to walk along the highway collecting cans…he’s a little short on cash. As they’re walking, a dog befriends them. When they walk away, the dog stays put but Colby decides they should take the dog with them. She runs towards it and, frightened, it runs into the road in front of an oncoming car. In a panic, Colby stays with the injured dog while Van runs to get Scarlett, Colby’s truck (great name, huh?) and they take the dog to the vet. In order to save the dog, its right hind leg needs to be amputated.

Starting From Here is the tender story of the recovery of the dog, Mo, and of Colby. Unlike most books, there are no characters you dislike, even Rachel, after breaking up with Colby is likeable. Readers can visualize everything and every act that Colby makes rings true…the continuing hurt after her mother’s death, her reaction to Rachel’s break up and her reluctance to let someone else into her life, the bond she forms with Mo.

Hey, I’ll give you that the end is too happily wrapped up. But, you know what? I needed just such an ending at just such a time. Not every book has to end on a sad note or prove a painful point.

If you just want a tender, enjoyable read, Starting From Here by Lisa Jenn Bigelow is where you should start. I’m already looking forward to her next book. Hey, Lisa, don’t make me wait too long.

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Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

“I AM A COWARD. I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was…But now I know I am a coward.” Talk about good opening lines/paragraphs. Code Name Verity was a book mentioned by Beth Kephart in her recent keynote address regarding the Future of YA Publishing. What a riveting book.

The first part is told by Verity (code name) after her capture and imprisonment by the Nazis. Verity makes a deal with the SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer von Linden–her story for her life. Her story, though, must include information valuable to the Third Reich such as codes and code names, air bases, etc. It starts with her meeting Kittyhawk (code name), a young girl who wants to be a pilot and progresses to the point of her parachuting into France and being captured. It is a roller coaster ride of plane rides and spy training and role playing. Along the way it describes her relationship with Kittyhawk and, in grusome detail, some of the torture techniques used by the Nazis to loosen tongues of captives.

Part 2 begins at the point Kittyhawk’s plane is struck by anti-aircraft guns and she tells Verity to parachute out. Kittyhawk ultimately lands her broken plane in France and is met by the Resistance who hides her until she can return to England. Along the way, she takes part in some interesting diversions. Kittyhawk takes the story to its agony inducing, heart racing conclusion.

I started reading Code Name Verity in dribs and drabs, a few minutes here, a few minutes there. But that (a) doesn’t do it justice and (b) when you read it for longer stretches you won’t want to put it down. This is not your typical run of the mill WW II novel. Not by a long shot. It’s a story about bravery and relationships and doing the right thing. It is about the clash between what you do and what you portray to others…how you do or don’t live with yourself.

Code Name Verity has already made it to many Top 10 lists and I’m sure it will be on mine if I ever get a chance to compile it.

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The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver

If one thinks there is a lack of imagination in the world, one need look only as far as Lauren Oliver’s The Spindlers. It is full of wonderful imaginary characters (or are they imaginary?). Everyone knows that the spindlers come at night and steal children’s souls, replacing them with spindler eggs so that more spindlers can be born. When Liza wakes up one morning and her brother Patrick isn’t really Patrick anymore, with his glassy eyes and lack of emotion, she is panic-stricken. While brothers and sisters have their ups and downs, generally they do love each other.

Of course her mother sadly thinks she’s making up yet another story, but Liza knows she must rescue Patrick’s soul before it’s too late. She ventures into the basement, with a broom as her only weapon, moves a bookcase covering a hole in the wall and enters the Below.

The first thing she meets is a rat almost her size named Mirabella. Mirabella is wearing a newspaper skirt, a hideous wig, a hat and enough makeup and mascara to scare anyone…including Liza. This is the delicious beginning of a dangerous journey the two take to reach the spindler’s nest, meeting along the way troglods, nids, lumer-lumpens, nocturni and more.

These days, when kids grow up too fast, when they are bombarded at a young age with activities that will get them into a good college, a good dose of fun and fantasy is the prescription for bringing back childhood. (It even works for adults who have forgotten the wonders of childhood.) Lauren Oliver has supplied a goodly dose of adventure. I was with Mirabella and Liza every minute of their journey, beside them on the dangerous River of Knowledge, there when Liza had to outsmart a three headed dog, there in the troglod market. Knowing in my heart that Liza would save Patrick’s soul, I couldn’t wait to get to the next adventure, to get that much closer to what I knew to be a satisfying ending.

We all know that Lauren Oliver is a talented writer. She writes in multiple genres for middle schoolers and high shcoolers. Liesl & Po is another wonderful fantasy book of hers. So, if you’re looking for something wonderful for your child to read OR you yourself want something wonderful to read, pick up The Spindlers and Liesl & Po. It is imagination at its best.

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