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Time Series by Caroline B. Cooney

Jan27

It’s been my month to discover the young adult novels of Caroline B. Cooney.

First I read a historical fiction novel, Goddess of Yesterday set in ancient Greece. Good solid story.

Then, I read Fatality, a thriller about family secrets and suspected murder. I really liked it, too.

Next, I picked up all four of the books in a series about time travel; a girl, Annie Lockwood, from the 1990’s travels back a hundred years to the 1890’s and experiences romance, but also confusion and betrayal. The four books in the series are:

Both Sides of Time by Caroline B. Cooney.

Out of Time by Caroline B. Cooney.

Prisoner of Time by Caroline B. Cooney.

For All Time by Caroline B. Cooney.

Even though I thought some of the period details and the characterization of the 1890’s as a time period were a bit simplistic, reading the first book was addictive. I had to read the other three to find out what would happen to Annie and to her 1890’s beau, Hiram Stratton, Jr.

The second book in the series takes the reader into both a mental institution and a tuberculosis sanatarium of the late nineteenth century. Reading this story of a young man confined in an insane asylum by his evil, rich father complemented the factual information that I gained from reading this book, also earlier this month. I love it when my reading dovetails that way.

O.K., the series is YA romantic froth, but froth goes well with hot chocolate and cold January evenings. I went back to the library a few days after reading these books and picked up another very different series of four novels by the same author.

BY the way, speaking of time travel, Cindy asked the other day if I was looking forward to the season premiere of LOST. Yes, we’ve being re-watching all the episodes from the beginning to prepare ourselves for the fourth season. And, yes, I know it’s nerdy, but we enjoyed it. I’ll probably post this week, before Thursday, on what I’ve learned by re-immersing myself in LOST. However, the short version is: not much and I’m still confused.

The Gender Gap in Middle Grade Fiction Nominees for the Cybil Award

Jan7

Books whose main character is a boy: 22

Books whose main character is a girl: 43

Books with both a boy and a girl as main characters: 6 Isle of Swords by Thomas Wayne Batson, The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies, If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period by Gennifer Choldenko, Ms. Zephyr’s Notebook by K.C. Dyer, Regarding the Bees by Kate Klise.

Unclassified: 3 The Cat on the Mat Is Flat, Annie: The Mysterious Morgan Horse, Cork and Fuzz.

One interesting thing is that several of the books attempt middle school romance, usually disastrous, while others go for BFF relationships between a fifth or sixth grade boy and a girl. No Talking by Andrew Clements is more realistic about this age group, I think, as the boys and the girls compete in a no talking contest, and Clements still portrays the underlying interest in the opposite sex without pretending that boys and girls as best buddies is typical in elementary school. Even in seventh or eighth grade, the girls are much more interested than the guys usually are.

In an earlier post, I listed all the Cybils nominees in which there was what I called “an ambiguously platonic friendship” between a middle school aged boy and girl: The Social Experiments of Dorie Dilts: Dumped by Popular Demand by P.G. Kain, The Queen of 33rd Street and the Broken Bike Boy by Sharon Flake, Perch, Mrs. Sackets, and Crow’s Nest by Karen Pavlicin, The Wild Girls by Pat Murphy, Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer, Ms. Zephyr’s Notebook by K.C. Dyer, Leap of Faith by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, Home of the Brave by Katherine Applegate, Lucy Rose: Working Myself to Bits and Pieces by Katy Kelley, Qwikpick Adventure Society by Sam Riddleburger, The Middle of Somewhere by J.B. Cheaney, Way Down Deep by Ruth White, A Crooked Kind of Perfect by Linda Urban, Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance by Eleanora Tate, Isle of Swords by Wayne Thomas Batson.

Of course, some of the friendships were more ambiguous than others. In some of the books with seventh and eighth grade protagonists, it was obvious that the boy and the girl were more than “just friends” or wanted to be more than just friends. In books with younger characters, the girl and the boy were often portrayed as simply friends with no complications stemming from gender or romance. Two of the more realistic situations were:

The Middle of Somewhere in which twelve year old Ronnie meets thirteen (?) year old Howard, the two become friends and work together to find Ronnie’s lost little brother. It’s obvious in the book that Ronnie and Howard are interested in one another romantically, but taking it slow as behooves young teenagers.

Lucy Rose: Working Myself to Bits and Pieces by Katy Kelley, in which Lucy Rose is teased unmercifully by the class bully about her friendship with Melonhead and a central element in the book is Lucy Rose’s attempt to keep her friendship with Melonhead intact while avoiding the stigma of “being in love”.

And in all of this “gender gap” stuff, it’s the boys who lose out. More books are written for girls, fewer for boys. The ratio is 22:43, girls win. And I think it gets worse as we move into young adult fiction. See this post at Chasing Ray for a much more articulate discussion of this phenomenon.

What I’m trying to say, poorly but trying, is that just sticking a guy in the book as the girl protagonist’s “best friend” or “latent romantic interest” won’t work to make boys want to read the books. Karate Kid, my ten year old boy, reads books with both male and female main characters, but the books have to have something else, usually action and lots of it, to hold his interest. He’s not much interested in fictional romance, and I really doubt he will be anytime soon, maybe never. Brown Bear Daughter, age 13, reads mostly books about girls, but one of her favorites from the Cybils list was The Mysterious Benedict Society, a book with a group of children at the center, two boys and two girls. She likes mystery, spies, and a touch of romance.

Girls and boys both read Harry Potter and love it. So, what does it take to get the typical middle grade or high school boy interested in reading a book? And whatever it takes, should publishers and authors be producing more of it?

Children’s Fiction of 2007: Isle of Swords by Wayne Thomas Batson

Dec19

If you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping, I’d suggest you rush right out and purchase a copy of Isle of Swords by Wayne Thomas Batson for the 9-16 year old on your list, especially the adventurous, piratical type. (Don’t we all have at least one of those?) Isle of Swords is pubished by Thomas Nelson Publishers, but it has a lot more in common with Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island and with the movie Pirates of the Caribbean than it does with the typical “Christian fiction” found on the shelves of your local Christian bookstore, even though you may have to look for it at the Christian bookstore because of the publishing imprint. Or order it from Amazon.

As far as plot elements, we’ve got treasure, a mysterious island, shark-infested waters, a treasure map, flogging, cutlasses, swords, guns, the British navy in pursuit, and explosions and swash-buckling battles galore. The characters are:

Declan Ross, captain of the pirate ship The Wallace,
Anne, his motherless daughter whose ambition is to join the pirate crew,
Cat, a mysterious castaway with amnesia,
Jules, Nubby, Midge, Red Eye, and Stede, members of the crew of The Wallace, each with his own memorable characteristics,
Bartholomew Thorne, the most ruthless pirate in the Caribbean and the sworn enemy of Ross and his crew,
Jacques St. Pierre, a half-crazy Frenchman with a penchant for blowing things up (perfect part for Johnny Depp in the movie adaptation),
and Padre Dominguez, member of a secret society, a holy order, sworn to protect the greatest treasure ever collected in one place, The Treasure of Constantine on the hidden and perilous Isle of Swords.

The ethical dilemma of having your hero, Captain Ross, be a violent, thieving pirate is dealt with in two ways. First of all, Declan Ross is a pirate with a heart; he eschews murder and violence unless it’s necessary in self-defense, and his crew is sworn to obey the captain and the ship’s articles. Check out Article #2:

Article Two: ‘The crew of The Wallace in a time of engagement shall willingly offer just quarter to any who request it. We shall not needlessly murder or do bodily harm to our foe. Neither shall we impress men into service. We shall not torture prisoners. Nor shall we mistreat women or meddle with them without consent. Any man who does violate this article shall suffer swift death.'”

I doubt there were many pirates with a code like that one, but it does serve the purpose of helping the reader to sympathize with the pirates, the good pirates that is. Also, Declan Ross and his crew are men who have been honest sailors in the past, but have been discharged by their own countries’ navies when the war between the British and the French was over, and now they have no honest way to make a living, according to the book. So mostly the “good pirates” fight the bad pirates, and the British Navy chases any pirate ship it can find in an attempt to bring them all to justice (hanging).

Isle of Swords is a rip-roaring pirate story in the tradition of POTC, but not too derivative. I think those who enjoy a fast-paced adventure story will love it. It is somewhat violent, so if that bothers you . . . Otherwise, read it over the holidays while it snows outside and dream of high-seas adventure in the tropics.

Young Adult Fiction of 2007: Cracker: The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata

Dec8

Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Award winning book, Kira-Kira as well as last year’s Cybil Finalist for Middle Grade Fiction, Weedflower. They’re both great books, and this new book, Cracker is just as good. But unlike Kira-Kira, a book about a Japanese American girl named Katie remembering her childhood, and Weedflower, the story of a young middle school age girl who is sent with her family to a Japanese interment camp during WW II, Cracker is not about being Japanese American, and it’s not about a young teenage or pre-teen girl.

It’s a war story about a seventeen year old young man named Rick Hanski and his experiences as a dog handler in Vietnam toward the end of the American involvement in Vietnam’s civil war. Cracker is Rick’s dog, a German shepherd, and part of the story is told from the point of view of the dog. This switch back and forth from Rick’s point of view to Cracker’s doesn’t always work. Sometimes the change from one to the other is even done in mid-paragraph with no warning, but the story’s so good that I was willing to ignore the difficulties in role changing that I had to jump through as a reader. Ms. Kadohata doesn’t anthropomorphize Cracker, the dog, too much, but Cracker’s thoughts are a little bit sophisticated for a German shepherd.

Yeah, this book is for dog lovers, but it’s also for guys, or girls, who are thinking about joining the military. Or it might be just the book for sending over to a soldier friend in Iraq or Afghanistan. I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone younger than, say, twelve years old, however. The language is relatively clean, and there are no “mature situations” as they say in the movie disclaimers, but the violence of a real shooting war is described in all of its, well, violence.

Rick, the protagonist, is a great character. He’s been told that he’s a “generalist” not a “specialist”, that her doesn’t really “apply himself”, and that he doesn’t have any particular gifts or talents. Nevertheless, Rick decides that he’s going to “whip the world.” He doesn’t know how or where or when, but as he kind of stumbles into the army, then into dog handling, then over to Vietnam, Rick grows into a man of integrity and purpose. I want to give this book to Computer Guru Son, age 22, but I know he wouldn’t read it with the picture of the dog on the front and the subtitle “the best dog in Vietnam.” That subtitle makes the book sound and look way too juvenile, and I’m afraid it’s going to be a hard sell to those young adults that I think would really enjoy it the most.

Cracker: The Best Dog in Vietnam by Cynthia Kadohata is nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction.

Children’s Fiction of 2007: Dear Jo by Christina Kilbourne

Nov27

Back when I was a teenager, the book Go Ask Alice was published (1971), the purported journal of a heroin addict who ended up committing suicide by overdose. I remember reading the book and believing every word of it. I also remember as an adult that I found out it was probably a fictional account, and I was disappointed, but not terribly surprised. Cautionary tales read like fiction somehow because everything in the story combines to carry the message.

Dear Jo is another cautionary tale written in the form of a journal, but this time the moral of the story is “don’t meet stranger through the internet because they might be internet predators or even murderers.” Maxine, the journal writer, is writing about her feelings in aftermath of the disappearance of her best friend, Leah. Leah went out to meet a boy she first met on the internet and never came back. At the beginning of the story, it’s been six months since Leah was last seen, and it doesn’t look as if she’ll ever be found.

This novel doesn’t claim to be the journal of a real person or based on a true story, but just as Go Ask Alice warned kids of the 70’s of the dangers of drugs, Dear Jo warns kids of the twenty-first century of the dangers of the internet. And just as Go Ask Alice didn’t keep a lot of kids from experimenting with drugs, I doubt a book like this one will keep kids off the internet. (In fact, Brown Bear Daughter read it, liked it because it was so sad, and immediately asked if she could get a Xanga.) However, it may make them think twice before engaging in risky behaviors such as corresponding with pseudonymous guys or arranging meetings with strangers.

The story itself is decently written with lots of pop culture references: Avril Lavigne, the Goo-Goo Dolls, downloading MP3’s, Bratz dolls, Bob the Builder. Many of these references will be dated in only a few years, but maybe the information about internet safety will be dated by then, too. Predators and police alike may have developed new methods and new gimmicks by even next year. All an author can do is include the most current information possible and hope that parents and kids take heed.

I did have a little trouble with the time element in the book. A lot of Maxine’s journal is her memories of Leah and what happened before Leah was abducted. Then, the narrative switches to events that are happening six months after Leah’s disappearance and following. And sometimes Maxine writes about what happened immediately after Leah left. So the sequence of events gets a little confusing. But I think most kids would be able to keep up with what happened when.

The book does describe some pretty serious crimes: abuction, murder, and child endangerment. However, the descriptions are never gratuitously graphic, but more matter of fact. Most of the book deals with Maxine’s feelings as a survivor and her struggle to come out of her depression and make something good or redemptive out of a very bad thing. Dear Jo would be a great book to have available in every library and to reccomend to teens and pre-teens who spend a lot of time on the internet. (Are there any kids who DON’T spend time on the internet these days?) It’s propaganda, but it’s good propaganda for a worthy cause. And the story is absorbing enough to keep kids reading all the way to the end where the obligatory page of “tips for internet safety” is printed. I just hope they read those tips, too —and use them.

Dear Jo has been nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction, and here’s what another blogger thought about it:

Charlene Martel of The Literary Word: “Via way of this journal, we follow along this painful story of loss and tragedy. A story that is all too real as these things can, and do happen all the time. It’s a great book in that it really brings home the message about the perils of the internet and why parents should be more “hands on” in supervising when their kids use it.”

Texas Lone Star List

Nov20

The Texas Lone Star list is a recommended reading list developed by public and school librarians from the Young Adult Round Table. The purpose of the list is to encourage students in grades 6, 7, or 8 to explore a variety of current books. The Lone Star list is intended for recreational reading, not to support a specific curriculum. Due to the diversity of this age range, Texas librarians should purchase titles on this list according to their individual collection policies. Each book on the list has been favorably reviewed for grades 6, 7, or 8 in a professional review source.

Berryhill, Shane. Chance Fortune and the Outlaws. Starscape, 2006.
Bryant, Jen. Pieces of Georgia: A Novel. Knopf, 2006.
Flinn, Alex. Beastly. HarperTeen, 2007.
Hale, Marian. Dark Water Rising. Holt, 2006.
Halls, Kelly Milner. Tales of the Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May or May Not Exist. Darby Creek, 2006.
Harper, Suzanne. The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney. Greenwillow, 2007.
Haydon, Elizabeth. The Floating Island: The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme. Starscape, 2006.
Holm, Jennifer L. Middle School is Worse than Meatloaf: A Year Told Through Stuff. Atheneum, 2007. Semicolon review here.
Korman, Gordon. Schooled. Hyperion, 2007.
Kostick, Conor. Epic. Viking, 2007.
Lurie, April. Brothers, Boyfriends, & Other Criminal Minds. Delacorte, 2007.
McNish, Cliff. Breathe: A Ghost Story. Carolrhoda, 2006.
Resau, Laura. What the Moon Saw: A Novel. Delacorte, 2006.
Salisbury, Graham. Night of the Howling Dogs. Wendy Lamb, 2007.
Schmidt, Gary D. The Wednesday Wars. Clarion, 2007. (I read part of this one, for what it’s worth, and didn’t care for it.)
Scott, Michael. Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel. Delacorte, 2007.
Smith, Roland. Peak. Harcourt, 2007.
Sonnenblick, Jordan. Zen and the Art of Faking It. Scholastic, 2007.
Stead, Rebecca. First Light. Wendy Lamb, 2007.
Stewart, Trenton Lee. The Mysterious Benedict Society. Little, Brown, 2007. Semicolon review here.

Again, thanks to the Cybils, I’ve read a couple of these. There’s some category overlap since we’re considering some of these books as middle grade fiction (grades 3-7) for the Cybil, but the Lone Star Award is for middle school books (grades 6-8).

Children’s Fiction of 2007: Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance by Eleanora E. Tate

Nov16

I like historical fiction. I liked this book set partly in Harlem, New York City, 1921 and also in Raleigh, N.C. But I must say that the author is a namedropper. Every single famous or semi-famous black American who could have been expected to show up for a cameo appearance in Harlem in 1921 is in this book: Caterina Jarboro, Duke Ellington, Bert Williams, Marcus Garvey, James Weldon Johnson, even Madame C.J. Walker, who was dead by the time of the story, but living on in her prosperous business of providing hair care products for “Colored folks’ hair.” Then, too, the author uses historical events and places to lend authenticity to her story: the lynching of two black men in North Carolina in 1921, the North Carolina Negro State Fair, the first musical produced on Broadway starring black entertainers called Shuffle Along, and many historical markers and occasions.

I did feel as if I were in a Black history class every once in a while when I read the book, but then the story would come along and pick me back up and deposit me inside a narrative about family and friendship and forgiveness that was absorbing and universal in its themes. Celeste, the main character, lives in Raleigh with her father and her Aunt Society. Celeste’s mother died four years before the beginning of the story. In the first part of the book we spend some time getting to know Celeste (shy and quiet, but talented at playing the violin), Aunt Society (grouchy and strict), Celeste’s Poppa (hard-working and indulgent toward his only daughter), and Celeste’s almost mythical Aunt Valentina who lives in a mansion in Harlem, an actress who drives a big car and wears fancy clothes.

Then, everything changes for Celeste when her beloved Poppa must go to a sanatorium to rest and recover from tuberculosis. Aunt Society can’t take care of Celeste, and the only option left is for Celeste to go to Harlem and live with Aunt Val. Harlem life isn’t anything like what Celeste expected, and later the book changes course once again when Celeste must leave all the friends she’s made in Harlem to go back to North Carolina. The characters in the novel are complicated and multi-dimensional, and Celeste must learn, as she grows up physically, to grow in her assessments of other people, to forgive, and to understand, even as she becomes more confident in her own decisions and abilities.

I think I’ll give this book to my sixteen year old daughter who’s studying twentieth century history this year. We’re covering the decade of the twenties, and even though my dear daughter is a little older than the target audience for this book, she could learn something and enjoy reading it.

Other views:

Celebrate With Books: “This is a delightful book, rich with a strong female character, who is witty and very self reliant. The author (Tate) makes the reader feel as though you are there in 1921 Harlem, New York.”

A Fuse #8 Production: “It’s so frustrating that I liked this book. I liked it so much. I thought the story of Celeste was fascinating and that the arc of the story said some wonderful things. But there were at least 75 pages that could and should have been taken out right from the start.”

Eleanora Tate’s website (including a study guide for Celeste’s Harlem Renaissance)

Children’s Fiction of 2007: Bearwalker by Joseph Bruchac

Nov15

Possible taglines for the movie version:
Class camping trip turns to horror story when the mythical Bearwalker comes to life.
OR A young Mohawk boy faces his fears and becomes an unlikely hero.
OR Bears and humans shouldn’t mix; see what happens when they do.
OR Dances With Wolves meets Friday the Thirteenth. Only this time it’s bears.

OK, so I’m not going to be hired as a movie publicist anytime soon. Bearwalker was actually a great story; it would be especially appealing to guys who like adventure mixed with nature mixed with a little bit of horror and violence. The plot device of “greedy relatives try to buy up the wilderness in order to turn it into a parking lot or a housing development” is a little thin, and naming the villain Jason seems to be a rather-too-obvious nod to Friday the Thriteenth and its sequels. Nevertheless, it’s an entertaining story with some lessons on the appreciation of Native American culture embedded not too deeply for junior school readers to pick up and take to heart.

In fact, there’s nothing too deep about this one. It’s straightforward adventure with some Native American traditions and customs and love of nature, especially bears, thrown in for spice. Boy Scouts, campers, bear lovers, and red-blooded boys and girls should love it. The Mohawk Indian mysticism is not carried too far, but it is there if that sort of thing bothers you. Baron, the Mohawk protagonist and hero, is a member of the Bear Clan, and he carries a wooden carved talisman in the shape of a bear with him wherever he goes. This bear charm either inspires him or actually helps him, whichever way you want to read the story, and he also gets help and/or inspiration from the ancient stories and customs of his people, who have respected and even revered the Bear for many centuries.

Like I said, I wouldn’t try to read too much into the Native American philosophy or the back-to-nature message; it’s mostly a horror/adventure story with a happy ending.

More reviews:

BookLoons: “Joseph Bruchac’s Prologue sets the tone of Bearwalker with a Mohawk folktale about an otgont. Half-human and half-animal, it leaves large bear tracks that switch to human tracks en route, and is considered responsible for disappearances of village people. Lore tells that the otgont was once a human who lusted for the power of a bear, and that the transformation requires the sacrifice of a relative’s life.”

Becky’s Book Reviews: “Baron’s heritage of stories with strong and brave heroes and scary monsters may just save the day. If you are in the mood for a thrilling adventure–a wilderness adventure–then this is the book for you.”

I wrote this last year about Mr. Bruchac’s WW II story, Code Talker: Code Talker by Joseph Bruchac. A Navaho boy, Ned Begay, hears about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, disguises his age, and joins the Marines. Because of his ethnic background and fluency in the Navaho language, Ned is given a special assignment that tests his commitment, patriotism, and endurance.

If you read either Code Talker or Bearwalker and like it, Mr. Bruchac is a prolific writer who’s written many books, picture books, fiction, nonfiction and even plays, mostly with a Native American flavor and theme. Here’s a link to his website where you can get more information.

Young Adult Fiction of 2007: If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period by Gennifer Choldenko

Nov14

Brown Bear’s Review:
This book has two main characters.

First, there’s Kirsten McKenna, a slightly plump girl with a genius younger sister named Kippy, two parents who fight all the time, and a giggle that Kirsten insists, to use it, you have to be “…size three and named Barbie.” She also has a best friend named Rory. But suddenly, Rory doesn’t seem like the best friend she had been. She’s been hanging around with Brianna, the queen bee of Mountain School, whom Kirsten hates. Her mom keeps giving her unwanted advice, and Kirsten dislikes the way her father calls her a genius when everyone knows that’s Kippy, not her.

Then, there’s Walker Jones, who’s being sent to a private school and is trying his best to stay out of trouble, somewhat aided and abetted by his cousin, Jamal, with whom he went to school before switching. Even though Walk has better friends now, like Matteo, his mother, Sylvia, is still afraid he’ll wind up in juvie hall. Walk says, “Don’t have to worry, Momma. Before I go bad I’ll let you know, send a Hallmark card ready-made for the occasion…’On the Eve Your Son Messes Up’,” but Sylvia doesn’t think it’s funny.

Kirsten and Walker are similar to each other. They go to the the same school, they are in the same grade, and they are friends. But there is one, seemingly important, difference: One is white and the other is black.

I enjoyed this book. It was a very good story and it was funny. I love a book that can make me laugh out loud.

There were, however a couple of things that bothered me. For one thing, the two main characters, who were supposed to be in seventh grade, seemed to act much older than that. Maybe it was just me…?

Also, the book starts out involving, mostly, Kirsten and Walk’s problems at school and how they deal with them there and at home, and for about two thirds of the book, this is most of what the story is about. However, the key part of the story, which takes place in about the last third of the book, doesn’t really involve the school at all. There is very, very little foreshadowing of what happens at this point.

But despite this, it was a good book, funny and interesting.

Sherry’s thoughts:

The two main characters alternate chapters; one chapter is told from Kirsten’s point of view, in first person, and then the next is told from Walk’s point of view, but in third person. I found this switch in persons, especially, somewhat confusing, and I couldn’t really discern the author’s purpose in organizing the book this way. Also, Brown Bear’s right: the kids in the story do act more like ninth or tenth graders. The mom in the story is disturbing. Her emphasis on popularity at any cost is not doing her daughter any good at all, and mom’s problems seem to overwhelm her parenting abilities and make her into Monster Mom.

This book may be more appropriate for older kids, young adult rather than middle grade. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for children who are still in elementary school. There are plot developments, the ones Brown Bear refers to at the end of her review, that would confuse many younger children.

If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period has been nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction.

More reviews:

Becky’s Book Reviews: “Anyway, the book is well written. And it’s a fast, enjoyable read. While not all the characters are likable, all are well-developed.”

In the Pages: “I absolutley HAD to read this one as I loved her book, Al Capone Does My Shirts. I will preface by saying it didn’t hit me AS HARD as Al Capone, but I did like it, and I think teens will enjoy it as well.”

Books4Ever: “This is a great story with a major surprise that really looks at what it means to be a family. The book switched off perspectives between Walk and Kirsten which gives you many sides to what life is like for these two middle schoolers.”

Code Orange by Caroline Cooney

Oct9

After reading The Hot Zone back in August, and incidentally scaring myself silly since I read it IN the hospital emergency room, I’ve developed something of a layman’s interest in infectious disease and epidemic. Code Orange is the story of a rather annoying sixteen year old student at an elite private school in New York City. Mitty, short for Mitchell Blake, is a rich indolent kid who doesn’t care about school but does care about impressing Olivia, the smartest girl in his class. (“Mitty didn’t expect to be loved for his brain, but he didn’t want to be discarded for his total lack of brain either. . . “) He decides to look through some old books his mother bought from a doctor’s library and see if he can come up with a topic for his science report on infectious disease. Unfortunately, he finds something inside one of the books that is more than he bargained for —something that might make him the Typhoid Mary of New York City and a target for bioterrorists who want what he has.

Mitty was such a believable character. He’s an irresponsible, somewhat charming, sixteen year old as the story begins, and as a mom, I wnted to slap him and tell him to wake up, grow up. (OK, I’ve never slapped anyone in my life, but I wanted to figuratively slap him.) But the point of the story is that Mitty is sixteen, not grown up, forced to confront a problem that is so much bigger and more serious than he is at all prepared to encounter or resolve. And Mitty does it. He bumbles around on the internet, figures out possible alternatives, refuses to panic (partly because he doesn’t realize how much there is to panic about), and eventually becomes a hero, a very unlikely hero, but a hero nevertheless.

I thought this YA title, published in 2005, was fascinating and a little scary in its own right. It’s sobering to think how easily terrorists with the right knowledge and the wrong bacteria or viruses could attack the U.S. or other countries with something that would be very difficult to fight: a disease. Other than the fact that it’s not so dramatic as a bomb or a gun, I don’t know why bioterrorism on a large scale hasn’t been tried successfully already. I suppose it would be harder than one might think to “plant” a deadly virus without infecting oneself and with a likelihood of infecting large numbers of other people.

Anyway, if you have an interest in disease, viruses, smallpox, terrorism, or adventure, Code Orange is a great story. I’ve never read any books by Ms. Cooney although she’s quite a prolific author having published more than 70 books for young adults. I have another of her books in my reading basket, Enter Three Witches, published this year. It’s about Macbeth, and I’m looking forward to reading it.

Caroline Cooney: Teacher Resources

Epidemic, Pandemic, and Plague in Children’s Books: An Annotated Bibliography by Semicolon.