Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins

I was once a pacifist.

When I was in high school I seriously considered becoming a Quaker or Mennonite because I read that those Christian denominations have a history and tradition of pacifism. One small glitch was that there weren’t too many Quakers or Mennonites in San Angelo (West Texas) to encourage me in my (pacifist) pilgrimage.

When I became an adult, I put away childish things, and yes, I realize how patronizing that statement sounds. I know that Christian pacifism, practiced as a life decision and a way of life, would be incredibly challenging and difficult. And war is certainly not the final answer to much of anything. But in this world I believe that self-defense and even violence are sometimes necessary evils.

All that introduction is to say that Mitali Perkins’ new book, Bamboo People, made me think again about these issues, and I love books that make me think. Bamboo People is set in modern-day Burma where the Burmese government is carrying on a vendetta against the tribal peoples of southern Burma, specifically in this novel, the Karen people, or Karenni. (Actually, according to Wikipedia, it’s a little complicated. The Karenni are a subgroup of the Karen or maybe a distinct but related group.)

In 2004, the BBC, citing aid agencies, estimates that up to 200,000 Karen have been driven from their homes during decades of war, with 160,000 more refugees from Burma, mostly Karen, living in refugee camps on the Thai side of the border. Reports as recently as February, 2010, state that the Burmese army continues to burn Karen villages, displacing thousands of people.
Many, including some Karen, accuse the military government of Burma of ethnic cleansing. The U.S. State Department has also cited the Burmese government for suppression of religious freedom. This is a source of particular trouble to the Karen, as between thirty and forty percent of them are Christians and thus, among the Burmese, a religious minority. ~Wikipedia

Chiko is a Burmese city boy, educated by his doctor father who is now in prison for using his medical skills to help a leader of the resistance movement. Chiko feels as if he is in prison, too, since he cannot read English books in public or even leave the house for fear of being drafted into the military or imprisoned for some imagined or real infraction of the law.

Tu Reh lives in a Karenni refugee camp just across the Thai border from his ancestral home. The Burmese soldiers burned his village, and now Tu Reh longs for an opportunity to take revenge.

When these two young men meet, Chiko, an unwilling draftee into the Burmese army, and Tu Reh, accompanying his father on a mission of mercy, their decisions will mean life or death, possibly for many people. Is it possible to defend the helpless and also show mercy to one’s enemies? Although it’s not over-emphasized in the book, Tu Reh’s family are obviously Christians, and a lot of the tension in the story has to do with the application of Christian concepts of justice, mercy, hospitality, and healing in a difficult and complex situation. If not pacifism or revenge, then what? How do we balance and make the right decisions?

The key scene in the novel is at the end of chapter three. Tu Reh has become responsible for a wounded Burmese soldier, Chiko. Tu Reh’s father tells him, “I won’t command you, my son. A Karenni man must decide for himself. Leave him for the animals. End his life now. Or carry him to the healer. It’s your choice.” Then a little later in chapter four, Tu Reh’s father tells him, “One decision leads to another, my son. God will show you the way.”

Profound, good stuff.

And here is the most recent news article I found about the conflict between the Burmese government and the Karenni. The news is not good.

And you can read more about Karenni refugee resettlement in the U.S. and how you can help here.

What I Read in South Dakota

Jul19

My motto is, “Never go anywhere without a book.” Our trip to South Dakota was no exception to this rule. Although we saw beautiful scenery, experienced the inspiration of Mount Rushmore, and enjoyed a day at the lake with family and friends–and I ate more good food than any one person should—, I still managed to squeeze in some reading time.

They Never Came Back by Caroline B. Cooney. Recommended by Jen Robinson. Typical Cooney. A case of mistaken identity, or is it, turns into a family mystery and crisis, when Cathy/Murielle must confront the truth about her parents and her past. This one is quite similar to The Face on the Milk Carton in some ways. If you’ve read that one and want to read it again, reworked, you’d like They Never Came Back.

The Big Steal by Emyl Jenkins. Recommended by Carrie at Reading to Know. Cute ‘n cosy mystery, not really a murder mystery, but rather centering on antiques and theft and family history. Antique appraiser Sterling Glass is hired to determine the truth about an insurance claim filed by the museum at Wynderly, home of Hoyt and Mazie Wynfield, now deceased millionaires who furnished their manor with all sorts of novelties and antiques, some of which may not have been what they seemed. I enjoyed it enough that I’d like to look up the first in the series, called Stealing With Style. You might like it, especially if you’re interested in both mysteries and antiques.

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter. I really like the Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter. Suffice it to say that my 15 year old daughter read this book, the fourth in the series, and then we had to stop by the bookstore in Sioux Falls to buy books two and three. I already had the first book in the series at home and refused to buy it again. These books are clean and fun and light-hearted and just right for a vacation time read. Semicolon review of I’d Tell You That I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You.

The ones I didn’t finish:

Good Behavior: A Memoir by Nathan L. Henry. I dipped into this one, an ARC that I was sent by the publishers and that is due out in July, 2010. All I can say is this story is supposed to be a “moving story of redemption” about a sixteen year old who’s sent to jail for armed robbery. I’m sure Nate’s story “tells it like it is.” But I looked at the ending (because the middle didn’t look headed toward redemption at all), and it looks as if Nate is trusting in his own will power and desire to make something of his life to keep him out of trouble. I strongly doubt it will work, and even if he does stay out of jail, he has nothing to give his life meaning other than learning and writing. No Holy Spirit. No Jesus. No God. No church. What happens to Nate when he faces death or suffering? How does he choose good over evil, except in a pragmatic attempt to keep himself from going back to jail again? The book is “gritty” and full off-bombs and other crude and profane language, not to mention sex and murder fantasies and actual violence. Not recommended.

Run With the Horseman by Ferrol Sams. Recommended by Laura at Lines in Pleasant Places—in a comment here.I stuck with this one a lot longer because the writing is delightful. But I finally got tired of Porter Osborne Jr.’s fifteen year obsession with sex of all kinds. The book is very Southern, very funny in places, and as I said quite well-written, but there’s an awful lot of speculation in areas I just wasn’t in the mood to visit.

Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home by Kim Sunee. Recommended by My Friend Amy. Korean American adoptee searches for her identity in France in an illicit relationship with an older man. I felt sorry for Ms. Kim in her lostness, but I lost interest in the search which seemed to be going nowhere interminably, although the recipes were interesting.

Bad Books?

Jun28

From an article in Touchstone by David Mills:

The young adult books I read startled me by how dreary they were, even when they were most chipper. The world they describe is ultimately a trivial and a tawdry and a boring one. There is much evil in them, but the evil does not frighten or challenge because the authors do not see it. The good in them is usually weak, tepid, ineffective, a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on, not a gallant knight on a glorious horse. The salvation in them is equally weak, more often resignation than transformation.

Read the entire article, and then come back and tell me: agree with Mr. Mills or disagree? Can you give specific examples to support or refute his criticisms?

Ice by Sarah Beth Durst

Jun27

This novelization of the old folk tale “East of the Sun, West of the Moon” is riveting, exciting, and broadly heroic. I’ve been reading Ms. Durst’s blog for a while, and I’ve enjoyed her comedic fractured fairy tales (see here and here, for example). But Ice is not a comedy, even though Cassie, the heroine, and her Bear husband do share some lighthearted banter in between harrowing and tragic scenes of suffering and devastation.

The story is similar to the more familiar “Beauty and the Beast” or the even older “Cupid and Psyche”,” but it takes place in the far north and involves a Polar Bear King rather than a transmogrified beast or a Greek god. Ms. Durst has transplanted the story from Scandinavia to Alaska, but when you get close enough to the North Pole, it’s all North anyway. And very cold and icy. Cassie’s father is an Arctic researcher and scientist, and her mother is dead. Or perhaps, as Cassie’s Gram tells the story, Cassie’s mother is the daughter of the North Wind and a prisoner in the troll’s castle, east of the sun and west of the moon.

The style and substance remind me of the books of Madeleine L’Engle, especially A Wrinkle in Time and Troubling the Sea. There’s the same mingling of science and scientific research with story and fantasy and magic and also same sense of “more things in heaven and earth, Horatio.” The religious underpinnings lean a bit toward reincarnation; the Polar Bear King is actually a munaqsri, a sort of Death Angel who claims the souls of dying polar bears and gives the souls to newborn polar bears, thus ensuring the continuation of the species. However, there’s a bit of Christian-ish imagery, too, in the ending (an ending I won’t spoil for you, but I thought it was wonderful).

Also echoing L’Engle in the Great Conversation, Durst has created a heroine in Cassie who is strong and determined, if sometimes impetuous. Cassie has a lot to overcome, a journey to an impossible destination, friends who want to stop her for her own good and for that of the child she is carrying, and her own ambivalence about the pregnancy and her relationship to Bear, who is her husband and her mother’s rescuer and father to her child. The story as Ms. Durst tells it is about trust and about persistence in the face of insurmountable odds and about self-sacrifice and what that means when the choices are all painful and imperfect.

At any rate, when I compare this book to L’Engle, I’m giving it high praise indeed because Madeleine L’Engle is on my list of top ten or twelve favorite authors. Sarah Beth Durst has written a book that I enjoyed and thought about after I finished. I wondered whether I would make the choices that Cassie made. I wondered what I would do to stop my daughter from making the choices Cassie made. I wondered how in the world authors make such wonderful storybook worlds for us to inhabit for a day or an afternoon.

Thanks to Sarah Beth Durst and to the authors of many other books that have brightened and enriched my world.

Here’s a list of a few other fairy tale adaptations that we have enjoyed here at Semicolon house or that we hope to enjoy:
Other retellings of East of the Sun, West of the Moon
East by Edith Pattou. I read this one a couple of years ago, but didn’t review it. I like Ice better.
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George

From Beauty and the Beast:
The afore-mentioned Beauty by Robin McKinley.
Rose Daughter by Robin McKinley. A different version of Beauty and the Beast.
Beast by Donna Jo Napoli.

The Sleeping Beauty
Spindle’s End by Robin McKinley.
Enchantment by Orson Scott Card. Semicolon review here.
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen.

Cinderella-ish
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.
Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley. Brown Bear Daughter’s review.
Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix.
The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry.
Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George.

Other Folk Tales Ride Again
A Curse Dark As Gold by Elizabeth Bunce. (Rumpelstiltskin) Semicolon review here.
The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale. Semicolon review here.
Zel by Donna Jo Napoli. (Rapunzel)
Princess of the Midnight Ball by Jessica Day George. (The Twelve Dancing Princesses)Semicolon review here.

Beautiful by Cindy Martinusen-Coloma

Jun25

I added Beautiful to my TBR list because it was one of three finalists in the Young Adult fiction category for the 2010 Christy Awards. I just finished the book, and clicked over to the awards site to make sure I had that information right. Lo, and behold, the winners of the Christy Awards for Christian fiction are to be announced tomorrow evening at a ceremony at in St. Louis, Missouri.

I can’t say Beautiful is the best of the three finalists nominated for the award since I haven’t read the other two, but I did find this novel about self-image and suffering to be both absorbing and unusual for the genre of Christian fiction. The story is about two sisters, Megan and Ellie, Irish twins, who are so different from each other that most people don’t even know they’re related. Megan is “the emo, the goth, the bad sister.” Ellie is the good girl, popular, pretty, perfectionist, over-achieving. The story is really about the senior year in high school for both girls and about how one night, through sudden tragedy, everything in their family and in their world changes.

The theme of sibling rivalry isn’t a new one. But this book kept surprising me. Just when I thought the book was about Ellie, (even though it’s told in third person, we read about Ellie’s thoughts from the beginning), the point of view would switch to Megan and her rather sarcastic views about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Then, as soon as I adjusted to Megan’s voice, the focus would move back to Ellie. And the theme wasn’t just one note, either. The book was about sibling rivalry, yes, but also about coming of age and suffering and where-is-God-when-it hurts. And it’s a tale of beauty and the beast: who are you when your face, your physical self, is broken and altered and your beauty and competence and direction are taken away?

This book would be good as a discussion starter in a young ladies’ or mother/daughter book club. In fact, my copy from the library had discussion questions in the back. I also thought about the possibility of pairing this book with the nonfiction classic, Joni by Joni Eareckson Tada. Joni, who became a quadraplegic after a diving accident as a teenager, writes with an openness about her struggles with seeing and knowing God in the midst of suffering and disappointment that would serve to illuminate the fictional struggles of Ellie who also deals with both pain and disfigurement in an honest and believable way.

There’s some “God talk” in the book Beautiful, but it’s really minimal. Although Megan and Ellie have obviously grown and changed by the end of the story, neither of them “has it all figured out.” Each girl is on a journey, and the journey doesn’t end with the book’s ending.

I don’t know if Beautiful will win a Christy Award tomorrow night, but I do recommend it a good, thoughtful read.

Escaping the Tiger by Laura Manivong

Jun9

Ms. Manivong says that this fictional account of a Laotian family trapped in a refugee camp in Thailand after escaping from the Communist Pathet Lao regime in their native country is based on the true story of her husband and his family.

“My husband, Troy Anousone Manivong, spent eight months in Na Pho refugee camp in 1988, when he was eighteen years old. While Vonlai is a fictional character, many of his experiences are a reflection of stories my husband shared with me over the years. But their experiences also differ in far greater ways.”

Escaping the Tiger is about Vonlai, 12 years old at the beginning of the book, his sister Dalah, and his Meh (Mom) and Pah (Dad). As the story opens Vonlai and his family do manage to escape from Laos, but they find much more hardship and suffering to face in a refugee camp in Thailand, Na Pho. In fact the camp is in some ways worse than life Communist Laos, so the book is about the family’s struggle to hold on to hope of a better life. The wait for an interview and papers and approval to emigrate to France or to the United States is interminable and tedious and sometimes dangerous. SOme of the Thai people want the Laotians to disappear or return to Laos. And Vonlai and his family face the constant fear that the world has forgotten about them and that it will never be their turn to find a new life in a free country.

Manivong’s book is not long, only 210 pages, and the protagonist is a boy when the story begins, although he grows to be a young man of sixteen before the book’s end. Perhaps those two aspects of the book as well as the publisher’s imprint, HarperCollins Childrens Books, explain why the book was classified in the juvenile section of my library. I thought it was wonderful book, evoking my sympathy and desire to do something to help, but it’s definitely more than I would want my eleven year old to read. Vonlai’s sister must face the violence of a lecherous Thai camp guard, and although the scene is not graphic or explicit, the threat of rape is definitely obvious —and of course, very sad and probably true-to-life. I would give this one to young adults, especially those who already know the adversity that life can bring or those who need to know how blessed they are in comparison to many young people in the world.

More fiction set in Laos:
Little Cricket by Jackie Brown. Another story of refugees escaping to a camp in Thailand, and eventually to the U.S. Middle grade fiction.
Tangled Threads: A Hmong Girl’s Story by Pegi Dietz Shea. Middle grade fiction, takes place mostly in the U.S. after this Laotian girl has already immigrated from Laos via Thailand.
The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill. Murder mystery featuring a Laotian coroner in the 1970’s. The series is up to six, the latest published in 2009, The Merry Misogynist. Adult fiction.
Carpe Diem by Autumn Cornwell. A sixteen year old American girl goes backpacking through Southeast Asia, including Laos, with her eccentric grandmother. YA fiction.

Additions?

Exposure by Mal Peet

Jun8

Wow! Carnegie Medal winner Mal Peet has written a different book about fame, much more sophisticated than Claim to Fame (see below). Inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, this novel is focused, not so much on jealousy, but on the perils and tragedies of celebrity. Otello is a soccer star, a black man who’s just signed a contract with a team in the southern part of an unnamed South American country. Desmerelda is a white pop idol, and also the daughter of a powerful politician who happens to be one of the team’s owners. When Otello and Desmerelda fall in love, the spotlight of celebrity becomes so blindingly focused on every detail of their lives together that it becomes impossible for them to make any good decisions. And since, unbeknownst to either Dezi or Otello, the couple have an enemy who is willing to do whatever it takes to destroy them, well, it’s a tragedy of epic proportions.

A long time ago when I read Othello, I remember wondering why Iago was so intent on destroying Othello. Jealousy? Revenge against the world for slighting him? Monetary gain? I had the same question throughout this novel. As Otello’s evil enemy works his scheme to completely sabotage Dezi’s and Otello’s success and ruin their lives, he never tells us why he wants to destroy these superstars. Is it envy? Or money? Or has Otello done something to this man to make him angry and bitter? The ending of the book implies that the entire plot was a long con to gain more money for the evil Iago character, but it doesn’t make complete sense. “Iago” is already rich, and he seems to have some deeper motive for hating Dezi and Otello. I liked the fact that, just as in Shakepeare’s play, we never really know why this all had to happen.

In a tragedy the hero is supposed to have a “tragic flaw.” Shakepeare’s Othello is a jealous man, easily deluded by Iago’s lies. Otello in Exposure seems to be good man. He’s not jealous like his namesake or greedy and ambitious like Macbeth or imperious and full of pride like Lear. If anything, Peet’s Otello is a Hamlet, unable to decide what to do or whom to trust or to understand why he is caught in a web of deceit that will bring him to his ultimate disgrace and downfall.

It’s a sad, sort of hopeless, tragedy, and the parallel story about a trio of street kids whose lives become intertwined with those of Otello and Dezi is not much more hopeful. Bush, the street beggar, and his friend, Felicia, do have a bit of a happy ending, but it’s mixed with tragedy, too. Nevertheless, as much as I like to have a smidgen of optimism in my stories, this one feels right. It’s a jungle out there, and fame and celebrity are not a protection but rather an invitation to evil people to see what dirt they can find or manufacture to bring down the high and mighty. And great was the fall thereof.

If this one is eligible for the next round of the Cybils, I’m going to nominate it. It was published in Britain in 2008, but the U.S. edition came out in October, 2009, just on the cusp of the nomination period. It wasn’t nominated in 2008 or 2009. So I’ll have to see. But it would be a shame to have this one overlooked because it’s that good.

Other Shakespeare-inspired YA novels:
Hamlet, A Novel by John Marsden
Enter Three Witches by Caroline Cooney.
Ophelia by Lisa M. Klein.
Lady Macbeth’s Daughter by Lisa M. Klein.
The Third Witch: A Novel by Rebecca Reisert
Ophelia’s Revenge by Rebecca Reisert
Dating Hamlet: Ophelia’s Story by Lisa Fiedler
Romeo’s Ex: Rosaline’s Story by Lisa Fiedler.
Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors.
The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper.
Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston.

Any additions to the list?

Claim to Fame by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Jun7

“This is my secret. I would call it a hidden talent, but talents are supposed to be happy possessions, something to rejoice over and nurture and maybe even gloat about. My secret skill has brought me nothing but pain. At any given moment I can hear anything anybody says about me., anywhere in the world.”

I like Margaret Peterson Haddix’s books. I enjoyed The Shadow Children series, The Missing series, and her stand alone novels such as Leaving Fishers or Double Identity. Claim to Fame is another good, solid entry into Ms. Haddix’s catalog of short but thoughtful YA fiction.

The premise is good: child actress Lindsay Scott finds that she can suddenly “hear” anything anyone says about her anywhere in the world. She’s about to go crazy from all the babble and gossip, good, bad and indifferent, when she finds a place where she can escape into silence. But now after five years as a recluse, things are changing again. Lindsay must find a way to deal with her “gift” as an adult and not a self-absorbed teenager.

Of course, that’s the key. Don’t we all have to find a way to use the gifts and cope with the disabilities we have without being self-centered, attention-seeking narcissists? It’s a part of growing up, and at 52, sometimes I’m still working on it.

One of the urchins says she wants to be famous. (She plans to achieve this fame on Broadway.) I told her earlier today that fame as a goal wasn’t really worth the effort. She asked if I would be ashamed of her if she became famous, and I told her that I’d rather she had a goal to become excellent. If she becomes an excellent artist or actress or engineer or sales clerk and becomes famous as a by-product, I’d be proud of her. But fame by itself is rather empty. Ask Lindsay Scott, fictional celebrity, who hears all about herself every time she leaves her house in an echo chamber that points out all of her failings, insecurities, and vulnerabilities incessantly. Fame ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Margaret Peterson Haddix on the inspiration behind Claim to Fame.

For the Win by Cory Doctorow

Jun7

Book #3 for Mother Reader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge
Reading TIme: 5 hours
Pages: 475

Workers of the World Unite! Let the Games Begin! It’s The Sting (Robert Redford, Paul Newman) on steroids and inside/outside a computer game!

Mr. Doctorow knows a lot about economics and about computers and computer games. I don’t know much about either.

Mr. Doctorow also has a gift for telling a good story. And he ties up the loose ends a lot better than the writers on LOST did.

I enjoyed this techno-thriller by author of Little Brother even though unions and computer games are not my thing. I learned a lot about economics and banking and derivatives and hedge funds currency and inflation and deflation, but I still don’t understand any of them.

The characters made the book:

Mala is a brilliant fifteen year old gameplayer from the Mumbai slum of Dharavi. Her nickname is General Robotwallah, and she leads an army of gamers in battle over the internet each day.

Jiandi is the host of The Factory Girl Show, broadcast over the net to twelve million Chinese factory workers every evening.She listens to their questions, give answers, and encourages the factory girl to fight for justice.

Leonard, aka Wei-Dong, is a seventeen year old game-obsessed high school student from Los Angeles who somehow ends up helping the Webblies, a new union of workers from all over the world, who are uniting to fight for better pay and conditions for illegal gameplayers and for other oppressed workers.

Connor Prikkel works in Coca Cola Games Command Central, hunting down illegal gold farmers and monitoring and adjusting the games to work as perfectly balanced economies. Connor is a gamerunner, and he hates “third-world rip-off artists” who cheat and mine the games for virtual gold and other assets.

Matthew Fong lives in Shenzhen in Southern China, and he’s determined to build his own successful gold-farming operation despite threats from the bosses and harassment from the police.

Big Sister Nor is the mastermind behind the Webblies, a union struggling to organize gamers from all over the world and get them just rewards for their labor and safe workplaces.

It’s a good book, even if I’m not so sure about the politics involved. By the way, you can download and read Doctorow’s book for free. Mr. Doctorow believes that he’ll make more money and everyone will be happier if he makes a name for himself by giving away his his books on the internet. My copy came from the library.

The Long Way Home by Andrew Klavan

Jun5

Book #2 for Mother Reader’s 48 Hour Book Challenge
Reading TIme: 2.25 hours
Pages: 345

Andrew Klavan takes a subtle dig at his own book in a paragraph near the middle of The Long Way Home, the second book in the Homelanders series of YA thrillers.

“I missed Rick and Miler and Josh. I missed having someone to kid around with and talk to. I missed long conversations about girls and sports and arguments about whether Medal of Honor was cooler than Prince of Persia and why part 2 of any trilogy was never as good as parts 1 and 3. I missed being with the guys who knew me best and liked me just the way I was. I missed my friends.”

Yeah. What he said. This book was fun, but not quite as suspenseful as Book 1 of the series, The Last Thing I Remember*, and probably not as satisfying as the last book in the trilogy that comes out in November 2010, to be titled The Truth of the Matter. In fact, I would suggest waiting until November and then grabbing the the set of three books for any pre-teen/teen guys on your Christmas list —and another set for yourself.

Here’s why:
1. The books are suspenseful. Maybe I’m just dumb, but I haven’t figured out yet why Charlie has amnesia and is missing a whole year of his life or why the bad guys in the story think he was on their side and has betrayed them. Nor have I figured out how Charlie West is going to get out of the mess he’s in.

2. The bad guys are bad, and the good guys are good. Not a lot of nuance here. I think that’s a good thing. I think all of us, teenage guys especially, need heroes and a way of seeing the world as a place where they can tell the difference between good and evil and align themselves/ourselves with the good.

3. Lots of action. Several scenes are really violent, bad guys get beat up, and karate is used freely. Also there are car chases and motorcycle chases and on-foot chases, lots of movement. KarateKid, age 13, would like this aspect of the books.

4. In this series, boys are boys, and girls are girls. The protagonist, Charlie, is a boy, and he and his friends tease and mock each other mercilessly. Charlie’s girlfriend, observing all this male bonding, says (more than once), “You guys are so mean.” Also, the girlfriend, Beth, is a girl. When she’s in danger she doesn’t wimp out, but she also doesn’t take over and become the heroine of the story. Charlie is the hero, and Beth is his helper and inspiration.

5. No sex and no foul language. There is some chaste romance; Charlie and Beth eventually kiss. But these are good kids with their priorities in place, and they respect each other. Not all teen guys are thinking of one thing only all the time, and they don’t need to be told endlessly that every other teen guy is thinking of that one thing all the time.

6. Author Andrew Klavan also has his priorities in place, and I can trust him to deliver a good, fast-paced, satisfying ending to this series. That’s why I feel comfortable recommending the third book in the series before having read it. Thirteen or fourteen is about the median age for this series, and guys will like it better than girls, mostly because of Reason #3.

*I read The Last Thing I Remember during my Lenten blog break, and I wrote in my journal at that time: “Yeah! A middle school boy book! A book that celebrates faith, karate, self-defense, and American values without being didactic or cheesy!”

Semicolon

Books we must have though we lack bread.

Archives