Month: September 2010

White Cat – Dark and Delightful

| Tasha

White Cat by Holly Black

Curse working is illegal because it can so easily be misused and disguised.  Curse workers are able to change your memories, give you good or bad luck, change your emotions, and even change you into something else.  Cassel comes from a family of curse workers who continue to use their gifts illegally.  His mother is currently in prison because she worked someone’s emotions.  His brothers work for one of the crime bosses.  Cassel has deliberately created a life separate from his family.  But he can’t run from the fact that he killed his best friend a few years ago.  Cassel can’t do curse work but that doesn’t stop him from pulling a con.  At his private boarding school, he is a bookie for all sorts of bets.  But things start to fall apart when Cassel wakes up on the roof and can only remember following a white cat in his dreams.  The school sends him home and requires him to see a doctor before he returns.  As Cassel tries to find a way to game the system and return to school, more odd things start to happen, leading Cassel to figure out exactly what his mobster family has been up to. 

Holly Black has created a great mashup of mobsters and fantasy.  In this compelling novel, she has given us a clever and twisted world that is well-built and completely brought to life.  A large piece of her success is her protagonist.  Cassel is charming, intelligent and easily cons readers into liking him.  Thanks to being an outsider in the crime world, he is a great way to introduce readers to this skewed and amazing world that Black has created.  Equally successful is Black’s pacing and story.  The action sequences are inventive and taut, they are contrasted effectively with the slower, subtler moments of the novel.  It is beautifully constructed. 

A crime spree of a novel, this book will have readers clamoring for the second one in the Curse Workers series as soon as they finish the first.  Don’t handle this one with kid gloves!  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from copy received from Simon & Schuster.

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2010 PEN USA Literary Award Winners

| Tasha

The PEN Center has announced the 2010 PEN USA Literary Award Winners and Finalists.  They have several categories.  Here are the winners for Children’s/Young Adult Literature:

Winner:

Paul Fleischman: The Dunderheads

Finalists:
Kate DiCamillo: The Magician’s Elephant

Benjamin Alire Saenz: Last Night I Sang to the Monster

Liz Garton Scanlon: All the World

Half Brother: Stole My Whole Heart

| Tasha

Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel

In 1973, thirteen-year-old Ben moves with his family to Victoria from Toronto.  He not only has to deal with leaving his friends behind and moving to a new city and climate, but he has a new little brother.  His new “brother” Zan is a chimpanzee, taken from its mother when it was only days old and brought to Ben’s house to be part of an experiment conducted by both of his parents in whether chimps can learn language and how being raised as a human child will affect him.  At first, Ben is caught up in his own teen concerns: a pretty girl and how to be an alpha male in his new school.  But slowly he warms to Zan and eventually grows to consider him a real sibling.  As Zan learns to sign and communicate, the divisions between his parents’ two approaches become magnified and their approaches to parenting Ben as well.  All too soon, Ben is forced to confront the truth about the experiment and its result.  The question will be answered, what kind of brother will Ben be to Zan?

Oppel really had his work cut out for him here.  Bring the 1970s to life with all of its unique perspectives and style plus write a convincing teen boy character and finally create an animal character that rings true.  And he manages it all with great style.  The time period is deftly created from small touches, never hitting readers over the head with it.  Ben is a boy who is easily related to by readers.  He struggles in school, would rather be with his friends or outdoors, and has a big crush on a girl.  At the same time, he makes classic mistakes with the girl, frustrates his parents, and gets in plenty of scrapes.  Nicely, Ben’s crush echoes what is happening with his father and the experiment.  He’s not a perfect hero, but because of that he reads as a real person with plenty of emotional depth.

Zan, the chimp, is a wonder of writing.  By turns he charms, aggravates, frightens, bites, mauls, tantrums, and adores.  He is never written as a human child, never given human emotions.  Oppel never loses sight of the fact that Zan is pure animal, that loss of perspective is left to Ben.

The book is deep and haunting.  At times even before things unraveled, I read it with a pit in my stomach, knowing that something was going to unravel the Eden that was being portrayed.  It is a book that explores experimentation on animals, what makes us human, what the animals in our lives mean to us, and what it is that connects us all to one another.  It is a book of self exploration, the clarity of comprehension despite the pain, and what one must lose to do right by those we love.  In short, it is a glory of a novel.

A great read that is impossible to set aside, this book will stay with you long after you finish it.  If you are like me, you will finish it with deep gasping breaths, tears and great satisfaction.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic.

It’s Time to SPEAK Out

| Tasha
Laurie Halse Anderson

Image by ALA – The American Library Association via Flickr

Laurie Halse Anderson shares the news on her blog that Speak has been called “soft pornography” because of its two rape scenes.  What?!  How in the world can anyone be turned on sexually by rape scenes written in the voice of the victim.  Rape scenes that are violent, repugnant and filled with violation.  How ill.

Huge thanks to Anderson not only for bringing our attention to this latest threat to teen books in schools, but also for having the courage to write Speak in the first place.  Speak is one of those books that lives under your skin, allows you to deeply understand what it is to lose one’s voice.   Speak, unfortunately for Wesley Scroggins (really, could he have a better name?  It’s a perfect character name) is the sort of book that readers, librarians and teachers appreciate and deeply love.  It is a book worth yelling for, worth speaking for. 

Follow the Twitter feed on this subject at #SpeakLoudly.

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Booktrust Teenage Prize 2010 Shortlist Announced

| Tasha

The Booktrust Teenage Prize shortlist for 2010 has been announced.  Actually, I was announced a bit ago, but I managed to overlook it.  Here it is, just in case you missed it too:

The Enemy by Charlie Higson

Nobody’s Girl by Sarra Manning

Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace

 

Revolver by Marcus Sedgwick

Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes

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Guardian Children’s Fiction Shortlist Announced

| Tasha

The short list for the 2010 Guardian Children’s Fiction award has been announced.  It includes one debut author and four veterans:

Ghost Hunter by Michelle Paver

Now by Morris Gleitzman

The Ogre of Oglefort by Eva Ibbotson

Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes

VOYA’s Nonfiction Honor List 2009

| Tasha

These top picks for teen readers were selected from 150 nominations.

Allen, Thomas B., and Roger MacBride Allen. Mr. Lincoln’s High-Tech War: How the North Used the Telegraph, Railroads, Surveillance Balloons, Ironclads, High-Powered Weapons, and More to Win the Civil War.

Barnhill, Kelly Regan. Do You Know Where Your Water Has Been? The Disgusting Story Behind What You’re Drinking.

Benson, Michael. Beyond: A Solar System Voyage.

Bryant, Megan E. Oh My Gods! A Look-It-Up Guide to the Gods of Mythology.

Bryant, Megan E. She’s All That! A Look-It-Up Guide to the Goddesses of Mythology.

Buller, Laura, and Richard Walker. Open Me Up.

Butcher, Kristin, and Martha Newbigging. Pharaohs and Foot Soldiers: One Hundred Ancient Egyptian Jobs You Might Have Desired or Dreaded.

Cotter, Charis. Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors.

Ferris, Julie. Ask Me Anything: Every Fact You Ever Wanted to Know.

Franco, Betsy, and Michael Wertz. A Curious Collection of Cats.

Gold, Rozanne, and Phil Mansfield. Eat Fresh Food: Awesome Recipes for Teen Chefs.

Grant, Reg. Slavery: Real People and Their Stories of Enslavement.

Hillstrom, Kevin. The Dream of America: Immigration, 1870-1920.

Hillstrom, Laurie Collier. The Attack on Pearl Harbor.

Hines-Stephens, Sarah, and Bethany Mann. Show Off: How to Do Absolutely Everything One Step at a Time.

Johnson, Jennifer. Gettysburg: The Bloodiest Battle of the Civil War.

Lewis, Barbara A. The Kid’s Guide to Service Projects: Over 500 Service Ideas for Young People Who Want to Make a Difference.

Mann, Charles C., and Rebecca Stefoff. Before Columbus: The Americas of 1491.

Miller, Brandon Marie. Benjamin Franklin, American Genius: His Life and Ideas, with 21 Activities.

Pluto, Terry, and Brian Windhorst. Lebron James: The Making of an MVP.

Salinger, Michael, and Sam Henderson. Well Defined: Vocabulary in Rhyme.

Smith, David J., and Shelagh Armstrong. If America Were a Village: A Book About the People of the United States.

Smith, Hope Anita. Mother Poems.

Stone, Tanya Lee. Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream.

Swanson, James L. Chasing Lincoln’s Killer.

Turner, Tracey, and Ben Hasler. Deadly Perils: And How to Avoid Them.

Walker, Paul Robert. Remember Little Rock: The Time, The People, The Stories.

Wallach, Marlene, and Grace Norwich. My Self: A Guide to Me.

Wilson, Hannah, Catherine Brereton, and Philip Steele. Warriors: Morituri Te Salutamus = We, Who Are About to Die, Salute You.

Winston, Robert M. L. Evolution Revolution.

It’s a Book – Subversive and Smart

| Tasha

It’s a Book by Lane Smith

This is signature Lane Smith in every possible way.  A donkey and a gorilla sit in a living room together.  The donkey has a laptop, the gorilla has a book.  The donkey is puzzled by this book.  How do you scroll?  Does it blog? Where is the mouse?  The gorilla answers again and again, “No, it’s a book.”  Finally, the donkey gets the book in his hands and refuses to give it back.  The gorilla stands up to leave, heading for the library when the donkey offers to charge it when he’s done.  All leading up to the final line: “You don’t have to… It’s a book, Jackass.”  This is like a long lead up to a perfect punch line. 

I shared this book with my sons, aged 9 and 13.  They both adored it.  They got the references to blogging, video games, charging and mice.  By the final line, they both had huge grins on their faces and both looked rather slyly at me to see if I had realized what I had said.  Then we all laughed and read it again. 

Smith has created a book that will be enjoyed by adults and older children.  Young children will not get the references to the technology and will not get the punch line.  So let’s not waste time discussing whether that last line is appropriate for  preschoolers or story times.  The entire book is not for them. 

Smith’s wonderful art is modern, sleek and yet has a timeless quality to it.  It is ideal for this mashup of technology and books.  The day I got it in the mail, I took it to one of our staff luncheons.  It was read aloud, everyone loved it.  I’m going to have it tucked with my things for the upcoming state library conference.  They will all enjoy it.  And I expect plenty of the same looks my sons gave me and plenty of laughter too.

A picture book for adults and older children, this is one to read aloud to librarians and teachers rather than the other way around. 

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

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Ballet for Martha: Bravo! A Beautiful Performance

| Tasha

Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan, illustrated by Brian Floca

This is the story of how three great artists came together to create a classic American ballet.  Aaron Copland’s music inspired the original story and dance of Martha Graham and then in turn Isamu Noguchi created the minimalist sets.  All of these have become iconic so it is a pleasure to understand how the three collaborated on the creation, each drawing from the others ideas but also adding their own to make an ever more powerful ballet.  This picture book manages to capture the arc of creativity and also the ideas behind the ballet itself.

Greenberg and Jordan have somehow managed in so few words to tell two stories.  They reveal both the story of the collaboration between the creators of the ballet and also the story of that the ballet itself tells.  The text also gives insight into the design elements of the sets, the simple power of the music, the creative process of choreography.  This is truly a look at what it takes to be a master composer, choreographer and artist.  The text invites the reader in, explains the elements and leaves one in awe.

Floca’s watercolors are alive and vivid.  They offer a real look at the costumes and sets but also offer stirring glimpses behind the curtain and into the artistic process.  His use of color is subtle yet strong, really allowing the original creativity of the collaboration to shine.

Highly recommended, this book is a breathtaking look at a ballet.  Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

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