Celebrate Teen Read Week by voting for your favorite young adult title from a list of books nominated by teen reading groups from around the country.
Tried and Found Wanting
I’m becoming more and more willing to give up on books that are not doing anything for me after the first fifty or hundred pages. One reason blog reviews are so useful: they indicate for me whether or not I should persevere in hopes of finding something worthwhile.
Full Dark House–Fowler. Recommended by author Anne Perry.
Homestead–Lippi Recommended by Carrie at Mommy Brain.
Housekeeping—Robinson. I loved Gilead, but I couldn’t get into this one, her first novel.
Inheritance of Loss–Desai. Strange people, and not because it’s set in India.
Night Inspector—Busch. A Civil War sniper, post-war, obsesses over his war experience. Maybe something else happens later?
Raising Demons–Jackson Recommended by At a Hen’s Pace —in a comment here. I found the first half of the book amusing, but I just lost interest along the way.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel –Susanna Clarkson. I found that I couldn’t face a thousand plus pages of bringing magic back to Britain. Is there something else there that I missed by not finishing?
Confederacy of Dunces–Toole Recommended in a comment here. The main character was a dunce, and I don’t suffer fools gladly. Well, maybe what’s-his-face had something to teach or say, but it didn’t reveal itself in the first one hundred pages.
The Man With the Red Bag by Eve Bunting. In my quest to read children’s fiction published in 2007, I picked up this book at the library. It was predictable, and I didn’t finish. I didn’t really care what the man had in his red bag, and I knew from about page three that it wasn’t a bomb.
Children’s Fiction of 2007: No Talking! by Andrew Clements
From Karate Kid:
No Talking is the title of a very good book that I just read. It is about a boy named Dave, who, while studying about India, read about a man called Ghandi. Ghandi once said, “I sometimes stop talking for awhile, just to clear my mind.”
Dave was amazed by this and decided to try it, though later that day he was to give the report on India! When it was time to present his half and for a girl named Lynsey to present hers, he just started to cough, and cough, and cough, AND COUGH! Later Lynsey asked him why he was like that earlier. He had never really liked Lynsey, and that feeling most definitely went both ways. He didn’t answer Lynsey, and then they went to lunch.
He was usually a BIG talker at lunch, but today… it was different. He listened to Lynsey talking at the other table. She was talking about this sweater that this one person that she didn’t like had gotten and tried to give it to her. Of course she turned it down and the girl walked off. “I bet if you stopped talking for five minutes your head would EXPLODE!” He didn’t really mean to say that but he was sorta glad he did. For he and Lynsey later made a sort of war. No talking for two whole days unless a teacher asked you something and even then you could only answer with a three word sentence! I liked this book, and it is nominated for the Cybil Award! So buy it and read it soon!
From Sherry:
I’ll just add that the story has an interesting premise, and the results of the no-talking war or experiment or whatever are quite educational for all involved—kids, teachers, parents, even the school principal. I’ve often thought a moratorium on talking for a day or a vow of silence on my part might produce some growth in me and some useful reactions in others. Maybe we’ll try it out one day soon.
I’ve never read Frindle or any others of Mr. Clements’ books, although I have heard of him. I think I’ll recommend some of his other fiction to Karate Kid since he enjoyed this one so much. Does anybody have any other favorite books by Andrew Clements to suggest?
Children’s Fiction of 2007: Louisiana’s Song by Kerry Madden
If a sequel makes you want to go back and read the first book in the series, I’d say that’s a fairly good recommendation. I read Louisiana’s Song because it’s one of the titles nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction. It was so good and I had so many questions about the family in the story, I had to make a special trip to the library to find a copy of Gentle’s Holler, the first book about the Weems family who live in a “holler” (had to explain that word to twelve year old Brown Bear daughter) in the hills of North Carolina.
From Kerry Madden’s website: ” . . . you know one editor told me to cut them all but Gentle and Livy Two. I didn’t take that advice. But it took me a good long while to get their voices from all swarming and swooping up in a pack…The first thing I did was make Becksie bossy and Jitters a copycat.”
I really liked the fact that the story, told in two volumes with a third to be published, is about a large family, mom and dad and ten kids. And each child does have his/her own personality. The family isn’t perfect, but they are a big, loving family. The difficulties of raising such a family in poverty with a devoted, but financially irresponsible, father and a worried and always pregnant mother are not minimized. The narrator of both books, Livy Two, so called because her older sister Livy One died as a baby, sees the problems in her family clearly, but she also sees the strengths in her parents and her brothers and sisters and usually chooses to focus on those advantages rather than on the many areas of weakness and misfortune. Livy Two is both a sharp observer and a big talker, and she uses those abilities, plus her songwriting and singing talents, to help the family and to tell their story in the book.
I also liked the depiction of the Appalachian culture, its strengths and weaknesses. The Weemses are a reflection of the mountain values and customs, even though they’re fairly new to Maggie Valley. They love their “passel of young’uns” and their bluegrass and country and their clogging and their life in the holler. They don’t put much trust in doctors, and they don’t accept hand-outs. Daddy Weems reminds me of my own grandfather, a salesman who was always going to make a big sale and come home rich. For Mr. Weems, its a banjo hit that’s just around the corner, just as soon as those folks in Nashville learn to appreciate the songs he writes and buy one of them.
Although the author uses beautiful language to describe the setting and events of the story, this isn’t just a “set piece.” Someone over at the Cybils website, in discussing “child-friendly” books, noted that books that just appeal on the basis of language or style aren’t likely to be the ones that most appeal to kids. Louisiana’s Song and Gentle’s Holler both have plenty of action: lost children, a snake attack, hornets, accidents, and family tension all combine to keep the pages turning and the reader engaged. Great storytelling.
Read Gentle’s Holler first. If you like it, and I think you will, Louisiana’s Song is the sequel. The third book, Jessie’s Mountain, is due out in 2008.
Little Willow interviews Kerry Madden.
Kelly Herold interviews Kerry Madden.
Cynthia Leitich Smith interviews Kerry Madden.
Lecticians review of Gentle’s Holler and Louisiana’s Song.
Am I the last person in the kidlitosphere to read these books?
Children’s Fiction of 2007: The Story of Jonas by Maurine Dahlberg
I’m thinking that to start with this book needs a better title. It’s good solid historical fiction; teachers might very well enjoy reading the book aloud, especially during a unit on slavery and American history. Kids who were interested in the topic of slavery and the pre-Civil War period might pick it up. However, the title is not too catchy.
“Son, your Master William may not put shackles on your feet, but as long as he keeps you ignorant, he’s got shackles on your mind, and they’re every bit as binding.”
So, you could call the story Mind Shackles or Unshackled. As Jonas, a slave from Missouri, accompanies his master’s rotten son, Percy, to the gold fields of Colorado, the boy Jonas, who has never known anything but slavery, learns that the world is wide and that his mind is as good as anyone’s. Jonas meets Sky, the daughter of the wagon train’s doctor, who treats him like a person instead of like a piece of property. He also learns that he is a skilled cook and that the cruelty of the master/slave relationship is not an inevitable part of life.
“But now he realized that once you started thinking about setting yourself free and living your own life, you couldn’t rest. He’d heard folks at home call it ‘getting bit by the freedom bug.’ Now he was beginning to believe the freedom bug had bitten him hard, just like a big old horsefly.”
Another possible title: Freedom Bug. Jonas starts hearing about the possibilities of freedom since the wagon is in Kansas, a free state. He also recieves bad news from back home in Missouri that makes him want his freedom even more. This book has a nice change in setting from the usual historical fiction about slavery which are often set in the deep South. This book, instead, takes us to the Midwest and farther west and dramatizes the plight of slaves who travelled, along with their gold-hungry Southern masters, into the free states and territories where they saw freedom first-hand and developed a hunger for it. The date is antebellum, 1859, when the news of gold in Colorado near Pike’s Peak gave many in both the North and South gold fever. In the author’s note at the end of the book, Dahlberg quotes a contemporary newspaper report, “Southerners are on their way there (Colorado) with slaves, from every Southern state.” Dahlberg theorizes for the sake of the story that at least some of those slaves got the “freedom bug” as they served their gold-seeking masters.
I liked the story. Cover art: OK. Title: boring.
Children’s Fiction of 2007: Camel Rider by Prue Mason
Camel Rider, first published in Australia in 2004, was published in its first US edition in 2007, making it eligible to be considered for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction. And it’s been nominated.
I read the book a couple of weeks ago. It’s set in a fictional city, Abudai, that’s “typical of any one of the many oil-rich states in the Arabian Gulf.” The two main characters, Adam and Walid, are both both non-natives of Abudai. Adam is the spoiled son of an Australian pilot who has a job working for Abudai Airlines. Walid is a Bangladeshi boy, sold into virtual slavery to become a camel rider for a man called Old Goat and his partner Breath of Dog. (You’ve got to like those names, or nicknames. Walid doesn’t have a real name; according to the book, “walid” means boy.)
When war comes to Abudai, Adam and Walid are both lost in the desert. They find each other and manage to communicate despite their lack of a common language. So, Camel Rider is basically a survival story with a little bit of multicultural understanding mixed in. And coming of age, growing up. The most interesting parts of the book deal with the misunderstandings that come about when Adam and Walid try to work together to escape the desert and avoid Walid’s captors who think they own him. The differences in cultural norms, which could have been laughable had the two boys not been in such a critical situation, become a microcosm of the worldwde misunderstandings and differences that cause war between countries.
I’m a little tired of reading about spoiled rotten kids who eventually turn out to save the day or win the prize or something else great. (Code Orange by Caroline Cooney, Spelldown by Karen Luddy) Rotten kids thrown into crisis don’t always rise to the occasion. Sometimes, they crash. Nevertheless, the adventure part of Camel Rider, when Adam, who’s nearly thirteen years old, grows up and begins to act like a fairly responsible kid, is engaging, and there’s the added advantage of learning something about the customs and culture of the Arabian pennisula in a relatively painless way. Then, of course, without the plot device of Adam’s irresponsibly running away at a critical moment, there would be no story.
Camel Rider was nominated for the Cybil Award by Kristen of pixie stix kids pix (say that fast three times), and although I searched her site for a review, I couldn’t find one. If you’ve reviewed the book, please leave a comment, and I’ll link.
Poetry Friday: Apple Poems
I became distracted and didn’t finish all my apple posts in September. So here are some excerpts from a few apple poems with a link in each instance to the entire poem. The painting is called Apple Gatherers by Frederick Morgan.
Apple Haiku: Stolen Apples
After Apple-Picking by Robert Frost:
My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
The Apple Orchard by Rainer Marie Rilke
Come let us watch the sun go down
and walk in twilight through the orchard’s green.
Does it not seem as if we had for long
collected, saved and harbored within us
old memories?
An Apple-Gathering by Christina Rossetti
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.
Movie News
Ariel at BitterSweet Life tells me that they’re making a movie based on one of my favorite books, A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Van Auken. Wow, I hope they do a good job with this one. One good sign is that the screenwriter is Barbara Nicolosi, a blogger and an intelligent one to boot. (Her blog: Church of the Masses)
Mommy Life Barbara’s recommending the movie Ushpizin (available for rental).
The movie version of Khaled Housseini’s The Kite Runner comes out in early November. I have a feeling I won’t be able to watch it because there are scenes in the book that I couldn’t watch enacted on a big screen. It was, and is, a great book nevertheless.
I’m not sure about this movie either. It’s based on the book Into the Wild by John Krakauer, and it’s about adolescent rebellion and adventure gone awry. I haven’t read the book, but I might see the movie anyway.
Autumn Rain recommends the movie Wit with Emma Thompson. I think I’ll have to add this one to my movie queue.
Has anyone seen this Snow White-goes-to-college movie, and is it rated PG-13 for something that I would not want to see? It sounds cute and funny, but I’ve been fooled before.
Things That Scare Me
I just linked to Michelle’s blog called Scribbit, and she’s having a writing contest for October. The idea is to write a post on the topic “Things That Scare Me.”
Time for true confessions. There are only three things that I can think of that really scare me: freeways, cockroaches, and dentists. All my other fears can be classified under one of those three general headings. I live in Houston so that I can pretend to confront my fears while practicing the same avoidant behavior I would anywhere else.
I’m afraid of freeways because I don’t merge well. I never have. I look back, and look in front of me, glance at the speedometer, and then freeze. “Get me safely off this ramp,” I pray, “and I promise I’ll never get on one again.” I haven’t been on a freeway since 2004, Hurricane Rita, when I had to drive during the evacuation. Since the traffic was only moving at about ten mph, I had my fear under control. I wasn’t really afraid of the hurricane. I do OK with weather. It’s merging onto freeways that terrifies me. Houston has lots of freeways. I don’t drive on them. I believe that’s a wise decision, and I’m sure that if you’re reading this piece and live in Houston, you will agree that we’re both safer with me off the on ramp.
Houston also has lots of roaches. Large flying roaches. I tell my husband, who to tell the truth isn’t too fond of the nasty little creatures either, that I’m not afraid of them, just respectful. Cockroaches and I maintain a healthy distance. Engineer Husband can kill them, pick them up, dispose of them. I woke up once in the middle of the night with something wet in my hand. You guessed it: I didn’t sleep soundly for a week. This fear of cockroaches is symbolic of the irrational fears that we all have. I know that a dead roach, or even a live one, won’t really hurt me, but it doesn’t matter. I can’t stand the little buggers.
Dentists. I’m not really afraid of dentists. A dentist at a party or a dentist visiting our church is not a fearsome thing. I’m really afraid of pain. A dentist once gave me what she called a “palatal,” a shot in the palate in the roof of my mouth. I have birthed eight babies, some without epidurals, and I have never experienced such pain. My teeth can rot out of my mouth before I will ever let a dentist give me a palatal again. This fear is emblematic of the fear of the unexpected, especially the unexpected suffering for which I’ve had no time to prepare myself. With babies, you have nine months to get ready, arrange for anesthesia if necessary, but you never know when you might get a shot in the . . . palate.
So there’s the fear that is the better part of valor. Don’t drive onto the ramp if you know you can’t merge. There is the fear that’s obviously irrational, but fairly harmless. Why pick up the roach if you have a husband who’s willing to demonstrate his manhood by doing it for you? And there’s the very real fear that something really bad will hit me in a soft spot, and I won’t be ready, won’t have the courage or the endurance needed to make it through. That last fear I know I can’t avoid forever or always pass on to someone else. No one can go to the dentist for me. The only way is to keep going and pray that I’ll have the strength if and when I need it. And protect that soft palate as best I can.
Children’s Fiction of 2007: Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson
N.D. (Nathan David) Wilson, the author of this adventure story, is the son of pastor Douglas Wilson. I read some of the younger Wilson’s satirical writing in Credenda/Agenda a long time ago, and I realized then that both Mr. Wilsons had a wicked sense of humor. This satirical streak shows itself in Leepike Ridge infrequently, but still appears at times.
I really liked the following exchange, so very representative of the conversations that take place every day between practical, reasonable husbands and totally frustrated wives. In this case, Elizabeth’s son, Tom, is missing, and her male friend, Jeffrey, has been called in to help find Tom:
“So,” Jeffrey said, “where do you want me to look?”
Elizabeth sighed. She was trying very hard not to yell. Jeffrey had come when she’d called, and he’d nodded while she’d described her early morning search along the stream and up the hill behind the house. But he had yet to look anywhere himself.
“You’re a guy, you tell me,” Elizabeth said. “Where would you have gone?”
“I hid in the basement once. But you don’t have a basement, do you?”
“No, Jeffrey, we don’t,” she said. “The house is on a rock. Most people don’t bother digging a basement into solid rock.”
Jeffrey stared out over the small valley floor with its stream and willows. And then he looked at the ridge on the other side and up at the ridge on the other side and up at the ridge behind the house with its small peak.
“Any more ideas?” Jeffrey asked.
“Jeffrey, why don’t you just start looking? I’ve already looked everywhere I could think of.”
“I think its important that we do this rationally.”
Elizabeth shut her eyes and took a long breath. “Jeffrey.”
Jeffrey reised her hands. “No, hear me out. I have an idea. Let’s walk through a number of theoretical options before we make an applied search..”
“Jeffrey,” Elizabeth said, standing up.
“Yes?”
“Let me know when you’ve figured it out. I’m going to follow the stream.” Elizabeth was already walking down the stairs.
“Do you want me to call the police or local radio stations or anything?”
“Wait till I get back.”
“What should I do?” Jeffrey asked.
“The laundry,” Elizabeth said.
Jeffrey watched her tromp through the tall grass toward the stream, and then he got up and went inside. He couldn’t find any laundry.
Wonderful. I had my two oldest daughters read that passage, and they both laughed appreciatively. I had Computer Guru Son read it, and he looked at me and said, “So? What?” Now you know why Leepike Ridge will appeal to moms and teachers. I don’t know how Mr. Wilson managed to Get It, but he obviously does.
This take-off on Tom Sawyer, Robinson Crusoe, and The Odyssey should also appeal to boys especially. It has caves, tunnels, hidden treasure, wild water rafting, and wilderness (sort of) survival. There are bad guys, good guys, dead guys, blood, raw food, and near-dismemberment. What more could a boy want in a book? Girls, too. After all, we girls can Get guy stuff, too.
The pacing is good, and although I had a little trouble believing that the foam insert from a refrigerator box would last through the kind of trip that Mr. Wilson describes in the novel, I was willing to suspend disbelief. After all what do I know about it? I’ve never ridden any kind of raft downstream. Some of the other events and circumstances in the book can only be described as inventive and imaginative. A house chained to the top of an enormous rock? A sarcophagus in a cave? In Idaho? Trust me, as strange as it sounds, it all works. At least it did for me. I’m going to read this one out loud to my son. I think we’ll have a great time with it.
Leepike Ridge, by the way, has been nominated for the Cybil Award for Middle Grade Fiction.
More reviews of Leepike Ridge: