Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers.

Johnny lives an edgy life filled with Goth outfits, lots of drinking, and plenty of music.  When he discovers Debbie Harry, he finds someone who inspires him with her toughness and beauty.  Someone he would love to be like.  Johnny isn’t gay, but he’s not sure what he is exactly.  As Johnny copes with other issues in his life, including an overdose, he finds himself grappling with labels, love and sobriety.

Brothers has created a book that embodies the quest of teens who are different than those around them.  Johnny’s search for himself is told not only in his sexuality but through his struggles with addiction and his troubles with his mother.  The book has a deft coolness and an addictive readability.  It will be devoured by teens who are outsiders in any way.

The characterizations are wonderfully done as well.  Johnny is a believable teen grappling with many issues as is his girlfriend Maria.  The adults in the story are also multidimensional and honestly portrayed.  It is refreshing to find an adult character who can handle sexuality issues with such grace as Johnny’s Uncle Sam. 

Highly recommended for any outsider.  This book takes on issues that I haven’t seen handled in teen fiction before.  It is groundbreaking yes, but written so naturally and easily that it doesn’t read that way.  Just as it should be.

The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle.
Released in April 2008.

The author of The Poet Slave of Cuba returns with another historical verse novel about Cuba.  The book focuses on Rosa and her efforts to heal the sick and wounded throughout the many wars Cuba fought during the mid-to-late 19th century.  Rosa, once a slave but then illegally freed, learned to be a healer and then taught herself how to use the local fruits and fauna as remedies.  She hid in caves, huts and the jungle from many different people throughout the years.  Some people began as her enemies and then were healed by her and joined her side.  Others like Lieutenant Death continued to hunt her despite her kindness.  Most of the characters in the book are based on real people, but Engle had to extrapolate about their daily lives and their personal concerns.

Engle’s poetry is just as powerful and intriguing as that in her first book.  Once again tackling one of the darkest and most awful parts of any country’s history, her poetry offers a guiding light of beauty in the jungle-filled darkness.  Written in any other form, the bleakness of the subject could have been overwhelming, but Engle again succeeds in overcoming it into hope.

Another vital piece of Engle’s powerful art is her ability to create single complete poems that work alone and yet together create a complete history and story.   Here is one of my favorite poems in the book:

Rosa

Gathering the green, heart-shaped leaves
of sheltering herbs in a gial forest,

I forget that I am grown now,
with daydreams of my own,

in this place where time
does not seem to exist
in the ordinary way,

and every leaf is a heart-shaped
moment of peace.

If you enjoyed Poet Slave, then you must try this one.  Highly recommended for ages 12-14.

The Missing Girl by Norma Fox Mazer.

The five Herbert sisters live in a world where they are poor but safe in their small town.  Unknown to them, a man has started watching them, waiting to catch glimpses as they hurry off to school, trying to remain unnoticed.  The tension in the book builds as each girl takes risks that would be considered safe in any other book.  Until one girl takes one risk too many and goes missing.

Each of the girls has their own unique personality and problems, from wanting to escape to failing spelling.  Their strength (and the novel’s strength) comes from the fact that the girls are fascinating both as individuals and as a group.   The family dynamics are complicated not only among the sisters but also between their parents.  The pacing in the novel is deliberate and tense, slowly escalating to the point of no return.  

In the end, the book is immensely satisfying.  Girl power is definitely rocking in this book, even though none of the sisters would see themselves as powerful.  Mazer has created a novel where children are victims but not powerless, a novel that needs to be read and that teens will love to read.

Recommended for ages 12-15.