grief

Zen & Xander Undone

| Tasha

Zen & Xander Undone by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Zen and Xander are sisters who lost their mother a year ago.  In his grief, their father removed himself from their lives, living in the basement and rarely talking to them.  Each sister coped with the loss differently.  Zen, narrator of the book, immersed herself even more in martial arts.  Xander started more and more risky behaviors, coming home drunk or high with questionable guys.  Zen found great pleasure in kicking one of those guys in the head, though it injured her back.  It certainly did feel good though.  As the two girls drift further apart, a mystery brings them back together.  They discover that their mother left a valuable statue to a man they have never heard of.  Now the two of them have to decide whether to solve the mystery or return to their grief apart.

A beautiful depiction of sisters who are best friends but very different from one another, this book also explores grief with an openness that is breathtaking.  I particularly appreciated the intelligence of both of the sisters, both of them bright and filled with humor, caustic at times.  Their complex relationship was depicted in a realistic way, never straying too far from the core of sisterhood that held them together. 

Xander is a particularly complex character, drowning her grief in booze and drugs and throwing in a lot of risk at the same time.  She is difficult to like, until you realize that you are seeing her only in small glimpses.  Otherwise her behavior is shielding her from the reader.  In the end, she is what makes the book gritty and realistic.  She is the barbed truth of grief and coping.

Ryan’s writing is impeccable with a great ear for dialogue, a modern style without relying on any branding to keep it current, and a genuine appreciation for teens.  She manages not to be didactic about grief at all, allowing both girls to find their own way not as examples for others but as individuals.  Both sisters move through the loss of their mother in well rendered ways, even their mistakes making great sense. 

A humor-filled book with great depth, this reads like John Green with girls thanks to the smart sisters.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from library copy.

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Remembering Crystal

| Tasha

Remembering Crystal by Sebastian Loth

Zelda is a young goose who adores her friend Crystal who is an aging turtle.  Despite their age difference, the two of them enjoy many of the same things.  They love reading books, swimming together, taking trips and talking about life.  But one day when Zelda goes to the garden, Crystal is not there.  The other geese try to explain that she was old and is gone, but Zelda doesn’t believe them.  She searches for Crystal and when she can’t find her begins to remember what Crystal taught her about art and the world.  After some grieving, Zelda realizes that Crystal will be with her always.

A warm, sweet book that speaks to the impact of losing a friend, pet or a grandparent. Though short sentences, Loth slowly exposes readers to the special friendship of the two characters.  It is this lingering pace and tone that makes the book work so well as you have time to think and appreciate while reading.  Loth also keeps the illustrations simple.  They are pleasingly presented on paper that is marked, creased and aged.  Beautifully and gently presented.

Books on death can verge on the saccharine at times.  This book manages to be sweet and fresh thanks in part to the humor of the book and the illustrations.  Appropriate for ages 3-6.

Reviewed from copy received from NorthSouth.

Mockingbird

| Tasha

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

Released April 15, 2010.

In this small novel, Erskine has combined the tragedy of a school shooting with the unique voice of Asperger’s syndrome.  Caitlin’s older brother, Devon, has been killed in a school shooting along with others.  As Caitlin struggles to understand the emotions around her and the feelings she herself has, she has to do it for the first time without her brother helping her.  She tries to do it without flapping her hands, without burying herself in her father’s sweater, but she does retreat to her safe places like under the dresser in Devon’s room.  Her world is black and white, just like her award-winning drawings, color only confuses things.  But as the days go by, Caitlin begins to connect with other people in new ways and perhaps through her own literal understanding of things she just might find closure and help others find it too.

I don’t feel that I can encapsulate this book in a paragraph.  It is so much larger than I can describe, so much more profound and uplifting.  Erskine has taken two ideas that seem very divergent and created something amazing from them.  The two become more vital and important joined into a single book than they would have been separately.  Caitlin’s own grief is explored in such a literal and detached way that it becomes even more painful to witness.  Her inability to speak her emotions hands them over to the reader to feel for her.  We all become a part of her syndrome and feel it to our bones.

Through the lens of Caitlin readers also get to witness the grief of others.  Get to wince when Caitlin puts something too bluntly.  Cry when she is unable to understand.  Rejoice when connection is made, no matter how small.  Through Caitlin we get to see difference as a sliding scale that we too fit on somewhere.

This is a book about one family, one tragedy, one girl, but it reaches far beyond that.  It is a book about surviving, about scrambling for connections, about living life in color.  It is about fear, about being alone, and about reaching out despite how very hard it is.

I think we are going to hear a lot about this book with its large scope of ideas offered in a small package through the eyes of a brilliant girl.  I hope we do hear a lot about it.  It should be read in classrooms, discussed and embraced. 

Beautifully written, this book has the power to unite.  Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from Advanced Reader Copy provided by Philomel.

Tess’s Tree

| Tasha

Tess’s Tree by Jess M. Brallier, illustrated by Peter H. Reynolds

Tess loves her tree.  She loved to swing from its branches, play in its leaves, and read underneath it.  But when a big storm blows through, the tree loses a few of its largest branches and becomes unsafe.  The tree had to be taken down.  Tess doesn’t take this well, she is immensely sad, angry, and forlorn.  Then she decides that her tree needs a funeral, which allows everyone even some adults who loved the tree when they were children to come and celebrate it.

This book is a winning combination of treehugging (literally) green and understanding loss.  Brallier’s very short text is inviting and clear. The book doesn’t linger on the death of the tree, but on the recovery afterwards and the feelings it creates.  Reynolds has created clever and sweet illustrations for the book that give it a sense of lightness while never minimizing the loss that happened.

Great for young children grappling with any sort of loss in their lives, as it is made easier to understand and bear when it’s a tree.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed at Great Kid Books.

A Map of the Known World

| Tasha

A Map of the Known World by Lisa Ann Sandell

Cora is starting high school, the high school where her dead older brother, Nate, was known as a screw-up and a waster.  He died several months ago in a car accident, driving without the headlights on.  Now her life is marked by his loss.  Her mother is hovering, critical and verging on hysterical while her father drinks away his feelings alone and isolated in his den.  Cora escapes from their chaotic life through her art, drawing places on the map and dreaming of actually being there.  In high school she is in an advanced art class where she meets Damian, Nate’s best friend and the boy who walked away from the fatal crash.  Damian is the focus of Cora’s parents’ anger, but as Cora gets to know him, she learns more about her brother and finds connections with him that she hadn’t known existed.

Sandell’s writing is quite simply amazing.  From the first page, I was thoroughly hooked as she drew me into Cora’s life with poetic grace and unobtrusive style.  She writes with a confidence and ease that carries the reader along, sure that there is something worthwhile to discover here.  The dialogue is pitch perfect, including the hurtful, hateful fights with her parents that are so raw that the reader almost bleeds.  The use of art as a connecting and bridging force is also well done.  Not overly played upon, but important and soulful.  Cora is a girl worth spending time with, her character deep and fascinating.

Highly recommended, this book is beautiful, tense, haunting and glorious all in the same breath.  Simply amazing.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.