61. Maybe - Brent Runyon

For: Older YA (Gr 9+)
Published: 2006
196 pgs.
Rating: 4
Finished Monday, Dec. 15, 2008

Brian's older brother has died, we slowly find out how. Brian's grief is locked inside himself, and we follow his life and his thoughts as his family moves to an affluent area in Virginia. Here he becomes a junior at his new high school, finds a group of friends - they happen to be in the drama department - and he even gets a part in a play. We are very much in his head in this book, sharing his thoughts, his yearnings and his misgivings. His first...his only...thoughts about each girl he meets is sex, and he goes out with them whether he likes them or not, hoping, hoping...... He's really quite messed up. We are with him as he gets his license, meets new people, even sit in on his classes with him. And slowly, slowly he gets to face his brother's death and get on with his life.

I went up and down about my feelings about this book. I wasn't crazy about the protagonist, but the book is really well written, and I do feel like I was in Brian's head. Brian's screwed up head. You do end the book thinking he's going to be okay - but it's because he finally finds a female that he likes for herself. Where will this take him? Will his fickle feelings return so that he'll have to begin all over? We can only guess!

60. S is for Silence - Sue Grafton

AUDIO Read by Judy Kaye
For: Adults
Book Published: 2006
Audio Published: Dec. 2005, Random House Audio
10 discs
368 pgs.
Rating: 3/5
Finished Dec. 10, 2008

Kinsey Milhone's 19th investigation is written in a bit of a different style than the previous 18. This time, Sue Grafton goes back and forth between Kinsey's point of view in 1987, and the stories, feelings, and the 1953 observations of a number of the pertinent characters and suspects in the disappearance of Violet Sullivan. Daisy Sullivan, a very small child at the time of her mother's disappearance, really wants to know what happened 34 years previously. Because of the way the story's written, we get to see the motivations and attitudes of many characters, which was a great way to develop these characters. However, at the end of the story I felt like there were a lot of loose ends. It was wrapped up quickly, with the murderer coming after Kinsey, and ending without the reader knowing how the intricate murder took place, there was no motive that I could tell, so we don't really know why, and no real closer....very disappointing after staying tuned for ten discs and many weeks of listening. A major letdown, actually.

A quick summary: Violet Sullivan, a "tart", mother of baby Daisy and wife of an angry wife-beater, goes after men and whatever else she may want in a small California town. She feels very sorry for herself, but does nothing constructive to change her situation. She has a mysterious $50,000 (though there's foggy history behind it), a brand new convertible, and then disappears one night on the fourth of July weekend with her annoying little dog. Small town families, small town politics, and an interesting story. However, the ending really botched up a good rating for me.

59. Angels Flight - Michael Connelly

AUDIO Read by Dick Hill
For: Adults
Book Published: 1999
Audio Published: 1998, Brilliance (yup, these dates are correct)
9 discs
393 pages
Rating: 5/5
Finished Nov. 17, 2008

How does this guy keep thinking up such brilliant plots? Twists and turns and sitting in the car until I'm almost late to work....

Harry Bosch is called to head the team investigating a particularly tricky homocide. Howard Elias, a hated-by-cops and loved-by-blacks LA lawyer who has sued many, many LA cops, has been murdered. His most recent case, a powder keg involving the murder of a 12-year old white girl, could start race riots all over LA. The young black man he had been representing claimed that not only did he NOT do it, but that he'd been cruelly attacked while being questioned by the police. When Harry discovers what Howard Ellias has discovered - that the client is, indeed, innocent - a chain reaction is set off. Not only that, he's trying to quit smoking. AND he's partnered with an IAD jerk, Chastain, who tried to throw him to the wolves in the last book. But to top it off, his wife, Eleanor, has left him. Doesn't sound like she loves him enough. Poor Harry. Beautifully plotted and really well told, I couldn't stop reading/listening to this great yarn.

Hurrah, Harry Bosch! Keep 'em coming Michael Connelly!

58. Cycler - Lauren McLaughlin

For: Young Adults
Published: Aug. 26, 2008
256 pgs.
Rating: 5
Finished Nov. 16, 2008

I was picking through my pile of ARCs from last May's BEA, realizing that I can't read them all in a timely manner, choosing what to take to school to share with my students. I'd never really looked at this one, so when I read the back cover I left the piles all over the living room floor and started to read. And kept reading.

17-year old Jill McTeague does not have a teenager's "normal" premenstrual cycle. Oh no. For four days each month, her body is mysteriously transformed into a boy's body. Jill was initially horrified and appalled by this transformation, but her mother took it one step further. PLAN B was created, a way for Jill to blot out her four-day transformation and be able to live the other 24 days of her month as a normal teenage girl with a combination of self-hypnotism and meditation. During the male-four-days, she/he never ventured from the house, and Jill's absence from school was explained away with vague monthly blood transfusions. But, by blotting out thoughts of herself as a boy for four days, her mind created Jack, I guess you'd call it an alter-ego, who was very much a boy. Horndog boy.

The story switches back and forth, month by month, between Jack and Jill.

Really interesting characters. Her best friend, Ramie, gorgeous and unusual, a crazy-fashion designer. Her crush, Tommy, bisexual and caring, a dream...and dreamy ...guy. Her mother, control-freak extraordinaire with a screw loose. Her father, a man with a story that would make a great book itself....a house-bound guru meditation yoga freak who has taken to living in their basement. And Jack and Jill.

Somewhere I read this was a "dark comedy of sex, gender, and sexuality." Yes, yes, and yes! FUNNY, very funny. Asking great gender questions. And it's full of sex, oh yes. Greatly written, very satisfying, I would consider McLaughlin a very clever storyteller, indeed. I had originally given this a 4.5 rating, but I'm going back and changing it to a five. Many facets, and I liked them all. I think I originally took that extra half point because of all the sex, I don't feel totally comfortable sharing the book with my students, though I know some of them would LOVE it. But the sex parts WERE important, well written, and .... fun.

The setting, a small town on the North Shore of Massachusetts, is pretty much where I was raised. I could see the streets, the people, the beach, the yacht club, the high school.

I've turned the cover over, looking between the front and the back at least a dozen times. How did I miss it before this weekend? Write on, Ms. McLaughlin!

57. Living Dead Girl - Elizabeth Scott

For YA (ARC says 16+)
Published: Sept, 2008
176 pgs.
Rating: Unrateable
Read in one sitting, after school today

Tragic
Heartbreaking
Unforgettable
Disturbingly Disturbing
Older YA - NOT MS, for sure!

15-year old "Alice" was kidnapped from a school field trip when she was ten and in the fifth grade. Terrorized into thinking that her abductor, Ray, would kill her family, she submitted completely to him, mentally, sexually...and became an empty shell. He wanted a "little" girl, and has been starving her to keep her under 100 pounds, de-hairing her to keep her innocent-appearing, and rarely lets her out of his grip. Now he decides he needs a new, younger "Alice" and is forcing her to help him find and capture her. I hated it. I had to finish it. I couldn't stop. I had to find out what happened. Reluctantly.

Reader beware: though the descriptions are not what one might consider extremely"graphic", this book left nothing to the imagination. We see every painful, constant assault. But it was beautifully written and a fast read, though repetetive in places.

I'd love to think that this could and would never happen. Unfortunately, I am certain that it wlll, can, and has. What is our world coming to? I know they're out there. How? Why?

How would this young woman EVER be able to lead a normal life?

56. Little Brother - Cory Doctorow

For: YA
Published: April, 2008
384 pgs.
Rating: 3.5
Finished Nov. 8, 2008

Set in San Francisco just a year or two in the future, Marcus Yallow is a 17 year-old techno-geek high school senior. One afternoon he and his three best friends skip out of school to play Harajuku Fun Madness when they hear a huge explosion. A bigger-than 9/11 terrorist attack has destroyed the Bay Bridge, killing thousands. But they are in the wrong place at the wrong time - they are picked up by an unmarked white van, hooded, bound, and taken in a boat to an old prison. There they are held separately in deplorable conditions and questioned mercillessly, without any rights at all. This is what sets up the premise of the book.

Marcus, once released, becomes w15t0n, the head of XNet. Together with one of his buddies, Jolu, and his new girlfriend, Ange, he comes up with plan after plan to try to point out to American citizens that they are now living in a police state and that many of their constitutional rights are gone - or at least being ignored. Teenages begin working together to overthrow the DHS (Department of Homeland Security), who have become a ruthless, overbearing, self-righteous group of our-way-or-the-highway clones.

CONS
-Endless technical explanations
-Paced well in places, very slow in others
-No goodness showed in any of the bad guys -- come one!
-No texting? Hard to make a book set two or three years in the future believable without texting.

PROS
-Makes you think......HARD.....
-Deals with a very important, timely subject
-Keeps you guessing
-Raises questions that need to be asked
-Marcus' reactions are very real: elation, crying, being over-the-top scared, horny - you do get to know, and understand, and root for, this young man
-Lots of references to interesting things - the beat writers, places and areas in San Francisco (yeah, City Lights Bookstore!), hippie and yippie history, Orwell's 1984

PRO AND CON, both
-The sex scenes. I really want some of my 7th and 8th graders to read this. I have two in particular in mind, but the sex scenes, which I think are important and very well written. are not appropriate at all for these two young techno-geek men who would otherwise eat up this book. No objections for the readers who can handle and understand this VERY smartly written (and really, quite small) part of the story.

And, hey, this is my ONE HUNDREDTH post!

55. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks - E. Lockhart

For: Young Adults
Published: March, 2008
352 pgs.
Rating: 4/5
Finished: Oct. 30, 2008
2009 Printz Honor

This is a SMART book for young adults. It has feminist overtones, and makes you think.

Frankie Landau-Banks has "blossomed" in the summer between her freshman and sophomore years at Alabaster, an elite private school in northern Massachusetts. Really blossomed. She snags the attention of Matthew Livingston, the cutest and most popular senior, and he quickly becomes her boyfriend. She loves hanging out with his crowd, but when she discovers that he is part of a 50 year-old secret society that is ONLY for boys, something is awakened in her, and she comes up with a brilliant plan to make Matthew notice her for more than her body and her cuteness.

Frankie becomes the mastermind behind all sorts of plots that befuddle the administration, but she does it secretly by pretending, online, that's she's part of the Loyal Society of the Bassett Hounds. "Alpha", Matthew's best friend and the "alpha" leader, takes all the credit. But when Frankie is found out, her plans to impress Matthew with her brains backfire.

The relationship between Frankie and Matthew is not developed enough for me. What in heaven's name does she see in him? She is clever, very smart (she even reads Wodehouse!), and quite a feminist. I could believe how she'd become infatuated with Matthew, but I couldn't believe that it would last very long. She's not superficial, and he is. It was a mesmerizing read, though. Once she began planning her escapades it was fun to watch them all play out.

54. Trunk Music - Michael Connelly

AUDIO Read by Dick Hill
For: Adults
Book Published: 1997
Audio Pub: 2006, Brilliance Audio
13 discs
383 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished: Oct. 26, 2008

Another winner from Michael Connelly! A couple of new characters, a marriage, trips between LA and Las Vegas, Harry Bosch's sharp tongue and inablility to follow orders, twists and turns, intricate plots loops, and Dick Hill's superb reading make yet another winner. I've already reserved Angel's Flight, the next book in the series.

A year has passed since Harry's last outing. He has had his earthquake-ruined house rebuilt and returned to work at the Hollywood Homicide Bureau. He has a new boss, a very likeable female named Grace Billets. Finally, someone who sees how smart and honest Harry is, seems like an honest cop, and trusts him. That alone was quite satisfying.

Dirty movie producer Tony Aliso has been found shot and stuffed in his trunk just off Mulholland Drive. It looks like a gang hit, and his activities are traced to Las Vegas, where he is a frequent visitor. We find out that he is laundering money for the biggest "wheel" in Vegas, has a girlfriend there, and his twenty-year marriage to his wife, Veronica, has been a sham now for many years. Introduce a sleazy strip joint manager (who ends up not being who and what he seems to be), the FBI, a planted murder weapon, and the sudden appearance of a woman from Harry's past, and you have Trunk Music. Just when you think you're heading for the finale, another surprise hits the fan. Good stuff.

Biggest question now, where will Connelly go with the scenario he's set up for Harry Bosch? How much time will elapse between this book and the next? And what will he have happen during that time period, behind the scenes. How many more unheard-of people from Harry's past will suddenly appear? Ahh, I can't wait to find out!

53. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins

For: Tweens & YA
Published: 9-14-08
ARC: 407 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished Sat. Oct. 25, 2008

This was one of the many ARC's I got in May at the BEA Conference in LA. I couldn't wait to read it, and once I finally got the chance and started, it was really hard to put down. A real page-turner for sure. Its premise is really horrible, but fascinating. It leaves me with this question: Where are the abundance of reality shows we've been watching multiply in the last few years leading us?

Katniss Everdeen lives in the future, in what is now considered Appalachia, coal country. It's called District 12. America is no longer America, it's called Panem, with a new capital called...The Capitol. She is 16 and has been the food provider in her family ever since her father died in a coal mining accident years before. However, before his death he'd taught her how to sneak into the woods (strictly forbidden) to trap and kill game. She has become an outstanding archer, and with her friend, Gale, is able to provide their critically impoverished, very hungry families with food and supplies, though not much. The entire district is poor, poor, poor.

Every year Panem holds "The Hunger Games". Two young people between the ages of 12 and 18 are chosen by lottery each year to represent their district. Thus, 12 boys and 12 girls leave their homes to take part in the "games", televised throughout the entire country, mandatory to watch, and, like any sporting event, bet upon. The goal? Fight . to . the . end. Be the last person of the 24 left and you become the winner, the hero of Panem. Brutal? Yup. Scary? Yup. Unbelievable? You'd think so, until you read this story.

Of course, because this is the story being told, Katniss becomes the female competetor for District 12. The boy chosen is Peeta, the baker's son (who we find, has had a crush on Katniss since he first saw her as a five-year-old). In a way there are no suprises, since this is the first book of a series of three, we're almost certain that Katniss is going to win. But what about Peeta, who we come to care about and route for? And how will her family survive without her? And what's going to happen in the next two books?

Suzanne Collins has created an intricate story with twists and turns (I kept asking myself :how many ways is she going to have kids die?) Creatively. Expressively. Violent, but not devastatingly so. Sounds really horrible, grizzly, ridiculous - especially to me, an extreme peacemonger. But I couldn't put this book down. It's like Twilight - I hated that the young girl could become so lovestruck that she would do anything to be with a young man, but I couldn't stop reading. Romance? Yes, The Hunger Games also has romance, but a romance with a lot of question marks. I can't believe how much I enjoyed a book with so much violence. But how many of us, in our own minds, ask: What is this world coming to?

Stephen King has written a great, detailed review of the book in Entertainment Weekly, which is also on the Amazon website for the book. If you want to know more, read it at this address: http://www.amazon.com/Hunger-Games-Suzanne-Collins/dp/0439023483/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225039782&sr=8-1

This book has had quite a few starred reviews, but I think it's going to be viewed in the same way as Twilight. I may be very wrong (I usually am), so we'll see. Happy reading!

52. When It Happens - Susan Colasanti

For: Young Adults (for sure)
Published: 2006
Setting: New Jersey
310 pgs.
Rating: 3.5 for fun
Read: Oct. 10, 2008
Read in one long sitting

This was a very satisfying, predictable, high school romance with a happy ending. Just what everyone wants and needs once in awhile, no matter how much they say they don't.....

The Washington Post says: "When It Happens is sort of like high school itself: The outcome may be predictable, but what's really important is what happens along the way." It is, indeed, a "fun romance", as it quotes on the back cover.

The story is told alternately between the two protagonists, both high school seniors, Sara, a very bright, hard-working young lady, and Tobey, a very bright self-proclaimed slacker who is a music afficionado. We go through Sara's crush on Dave, a really good-looking, popular jock who she discovers, very shortly after they begin dating, has nothing remotely in common with her, and at the same time we observe Tobey's yearnings for Sara. Tobey is a really sweet, sensitive, sexy too-good-to-be-true-or-bellieved young man that every mom wants to think is just like her own son.

Sara has two best friends with whom she shares all, Tobey has two best friends with whom he shares most, the popular crowd are typically mean and self-centered...there are no surprises here, but no frustrations, either....just an enjoyable read with a satisfying ending.... and doesn't everyone needs that kind of fix once in awhile, especailly on a Friday night before an extra long weekend?

51. Brooklyn Bridge - Karen Hesse

Illustrator: Chris Sheban
For: Middle Grades
Published: September 2008
225 pgs.
Rating: 5/5 Tops
Read and finished: Oct. 9, 2008
Endpapers: Map of Brooklyn with important places noted. I referred to this map often.

Five years since Karen Hesse has written a new novel, and it was well worth the wait. I can hear kids saying, "I don't get it", and I'll say...."you're not supposed to get it yet. You will, soon, and it'll be worth it."

There are two major and one minor alternating storylines happening. You could remove the minor one with no problem - I almost wish it wasn't included, but I guess I can see why it is. This minor story line happens at the end of most chapters, and is a quote from one of the newspapers of the time (New York Times and Brooklyn Daily Eagle) about Coney Island. For example: "Leaving the worries of the world outside the gate, visitors come to be entertained and to become part of the entertainment." -- The Brooklyn Daily Eagle. Coney Island becomes almost a character in the story, a setting that drives our protagonist's feelings in many ways - desire, envy, jealousy, and, I guess, selfishness.

Joseph Michtom (rhymes with victim) lives in 1903 Brooklyn. Born there, the eldest son of Russian immigrants who have been lucky and "struck gold", he lives with his parents, baby brother and 10-year old sister in a crowded apartment in an apartment building in a Brooklyn neighborhood where everyone knows everyone else. His parents have created the first TEDDY BEAR, after they read about Teddy Roosevelt's refusal to shoot a bear, and it's an insant, overnight success. This throws the entire family into a bit of a turmoil, since they all have to pitch in and help.

There's a large extended family, three paternal aunts who live on the lower east side of Manhattan and, for some reason, refuse to cross the bridge to Brooklyn, a maternal uncle who is a "free thinker", and many, many interesting immigrants that the family befriends. There are many, many intriguing sideplots, including Joseph's sister Emily's opportunity to run a community library at their home, their baby brother Benjamin's almost fatal case of grippe (that's what my own grandmother used to call it when I got the flew as a kid!), different ways that hard-working people can help others, and buying and owning real estate in turn-of-the-century New York.

The third storyline is about the various abandoned/runaway/lost/exploited kids that live under the Brooklyn Bridge. Throughout the story we get to know these kids in eloquent, interesting short blurbs, and the reason is finally revealed at the end of the book.

Wow. Talk about weaving a book together! A quickish read, but much fodder for deep thinking and lots and lots of historical happenings thrown in (sheep and a shepherd in the park in Brooklyn in 1903, the Brooklyn Superbas baseball team - ever heard of them? immigrations from Russia, citizenship, and of course, Coney Island the way it used to be.

50. Fly on the Wall - E. Lockhart

How One Gir Saw Everything
For: YA
Published: 2006
182 pgs.
Rating: 3.5/Fun
Finished: Oct. 8, 2008

This is the third E. Lockhart novel I've read - all for the TARC YA Reading Group. Lockhart's audience is the female late middle-school/early high-schooler who likes romance novels. I recommended this book to an 8th grader who as been emrboiled in the Clique series (gag), and she liked it a lot. It's led her to others of this genre that are SO much better than the Cliques.

Gretchen Yee, a 16-year-old half-Jewish, Half-Chinese comic book artist, attends the Manhattan School for the Arts, where no one want to be normal or "average". This is tough for her, because that's exactly how she considers herself. Nonetheless, she dies her hair bright red in an attempt to fit in. She has a best friend, Katya, but holds herself off from many of the other students. Literature and Drawing are the two subjects she's having trouble with - Drawing because her art teacher is trying to get her to abandon the comic book style that she loves, and literature because....well, she really doesn't care about literature. The sophomore class is currently studying Kafka's Metamporhasis, and she could care less. She has a huge crush on Titus, a classmate that also appears to be a very nice young man, popular with the Art Rats (the sophomore drawing program), but laments that she doesn't understand boys at all.

One weekend she is magically changed into a fly in the boy's locker room, where she resides for a week, not understanding how she got there or if she'll ever be able to return to her own life. What she observes for this week will change her life, change her confidence in herself, and help her understand boys a whole lot more.

It's a great premise, and I like the way bullying and homophobia are handled. It's an entertaining story, seemingly lighthearted but with a couple of pretty powerful messages included.

49. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Sherman Alexie

Illustrator: Ellen Forney
For: Young Adults
Published: 2007
National Book Award
230 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished Sept. 22, 2008

The first time I ever heard of Sherman Alexie was when I traveled cross-country in 2002 and stopped in a cool little bookshop on the southwestern coast of Washington, just before hitting Oregon. I'll have to try to figure out where that was. I purchased a really cool Alaskan painting in that little town. That's where I picked up Alexie's The Toughest Indian in the World, and I'd never heard of him before. In May, at the BEA convention, I heard him speak. I am now a fan.

This is Sherman Alexie's first YA book, and it's a doozy. It's autobiographical, seriously funny and incredibly sad. 14-year old Arnold "Junior" Spirit, born and raised on the Spokane Indian Reservation, just outside Spokane, Washington, decides to leave the rez school and attend the all-white school over 20 miles away in Reardan. He loves to read and he's very smart, and he knows this will be the only way to make something of himself. He becomes ostracized by the entire tribe other than his immediate family. However, he perserveres, transforming from the geeky Indian kid that everyone ignores to a well-liked basketball hero and smart student. During this year, many of the people he loves and admires die...his father's best friend, Eugene, who is always good to him, his grandmother, the smartest, kindest person he's ever know, and his older sister, who hid out in the basement of their house for years until she fled to Montana to get married and live in a trailer that looked like a TV dinner. His best friend, Rowdy, totally abandons him, his father is frequently drunk, he has little to eat and sometimes no way to get to school other than walk.

Junior is a budding cartoonist, and Ellen Forney's cartoons throughouot the book compliment the text well.

There are probably a hundred or more quotes that really hit me in this book. "I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats." "I wish I were magical, but I am really just a poor-ass reservation kid living with his poor-ass family on the poor-ass Spokane Indian Reservaton." "Like the coffin was settling down for a long, long nap, for a forever nap." And "Gordy gave me this book by a Russian dude named Tolstoy, who wrote: 'Happy famiies are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.' Well, I hate to argue with a Russian genius, but Tolstoy didn't know Indians. And he didn't know that all Indian families are unhappy for the same exact reasons: the fricking booze. Yep, so let me pour a drink for Tolstoy and let him think hard about the true definition of unhappy families."

Sherman Alexie is now an extremely successful author, husband, and father of two. A success story. Big lump in the throat. Real big lump. Real.

Impressive.

48. The Last Coyote - Michael Connelly

AUDIO Read by Dick Hill (++)
For: Adults
Book Pub: 1995
Audio Pub: 1995 Brilliance Audio
13 hrs.
528 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished: Sept. 15, 2008

Boy, I love Michael Connelly's plots and characters. You really get inside Harry Bosch's mind a little in this installment. It was sit-in-the-car-and -listen-until-you're-late good. I'm almost sorry it was over!

Harry Bosch is on temporary suspension from the LAPD because he threw Harvey Pounds, his lieutenant and boss, into a window head first. He WAS a snide, stupid son-of-a-gun. Part of the telling of this story comes as he sits and talks to his appointed police psychiatrist, a thoughtful, compassionate Hispanic woman named Carmen Hinojos. During his forced hiatus, he decides to look into the 1961 murder of his mother, an LA prostitute named Marjorie Lowe. Clues take him to a past DA Arno Conklin, Conklin's largest backer, Martel, a pimp named Johnny Fox, two homicide cops that had been on the case....and to Florida and Las Vegas. Also causing a dilemma is the ruination of his hillside home from earthquakes. Bosch just can't win. And even at the end of the book, Harry is contemplating leaving the police force as penance for getting at least one innocent person killed. Oh - and it looks like he might have even fallen in love!

Harry Bosch loses a little of his tougher-than-nails exterior in this novel. Hill's reading includes Harry's attitude and trepidation and heartbreak. Wow, he was good. And so was the storytelling. This guy has to be my all-time favorite mystery writer. I can't wait to read Trunk Music, Connelly's next Bosch creation.

47. Waiting for Normal - Leslie Connor

For: Middle Grades
Pub: 2008
290 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Read: Sept. 3, 2008 (Happy Birthday, Gail!)
"Pollyanna for the 21st Century" OR "a modern-day survival story"

Oh. My. I just finished The Rules of Survival. Now this. So similar. Mothers who should not be mothers. What is the definition of mother? Addie would figure that out, using Websters and her great dyslexic brain, and add it to the vocabulary book that she keeps. She wishes she had the "Love of Learning" like her mother and younger sister. But because she has reading and spatial problems, she thinks this can never be.

Addie's "Mommers" (this was, for some reason, a very irritating name for me) is, I'm sure, bipolar. It's all or nothing. Totally all or absolutely nothing. She's had two husbands, three children, and before the story is over will have lost them all, but have another kid on the way. Dwight, the stepfather that has raised Addie as his own, is not able to take custody of her when he divorces her mother, although he does take the two "Littles." He takes Addie and her Mom to live in the only place he has, an old, tiny trailer on a busy street corner in the city of Schenectedy, NY. He takes the two Littles and goes to reconstruct an inn in nearby Vermont.

Mommers meets up with a man and spends more and more time with him, leaving 12-year-old Addie alone in the trailer. Addie makes close friends with the people who own the mini-mart across the street (one dying of cancer, the other gay). She learns to love to play the flute, and takes great care of her hamster, Picolo. Things get worse and worse until she unwittingly, while alone for an extended period, burns down the trailer.

This IS a very predictable book. But it's predictable in a good way, I think kids need more happy endings. Connors has included a little bit of everything in the story, major timely issues. But instead of being TOO much, everything she brings up touches all of our lives....a little cancer....friends or family members who are gay, or struggle with a mental disorder, or have very little money...sad people, happy people, neglected people, all or nothing people.....Snow storms and broken-cars and feeling helpless and alone.....

One review I read said that this book is a great example of "showing, not tellling." Exactly! Beautifuly writing. A smart, witty protagonist. A plot that keeps you hooked. A great read. If only I hadn't needed tissues!

46. The Rules of Survival - Nancy Werlin

For: Young Adult
Pub: 2006
273 pgs.
Rating: 5/5
Finished: Sept. 2, 2008
POWERFUL

Beautifully written, this heartbreaking story is in the form of a letter from 18-year old Matthew to his 9-year old sister, Emmy. Until three years previously, Matthew, Emmy, and his just-barely younger sister Callie have lived in a horrifying world with their mother. Nikki, in South Boston. She is crazy. It's never give it a name, but she's got to be some sort of schizophrenic, bi-polar, narcissitic crazy stalker woman. They never, EVER know what to expect from her: love, screams, violence, or even a knife to their neck...all in the name of "fun". The kids have coped, learning "how to survive" for years, until Matthew realizes that her demons have invaded her soul and someone's going to be hurt badly.

Supposedly these children come out emotionally unscathed. Their strength, their saviness, their instincts are all unbelievable, yet....believable. At the end of the letter, Matthew tells Emmy that he knows he'll never actually give her the letter. Perhaps it's been a catharsis for him.

Wow. Next Tuesday my Teacher Book Club will be discussing this. I'll write more then. I can't wait to hear their insights.

45. O' Artful Death - Sarah Stewart Taylor

For: Adult
Genre: Mystery
Pub: 2003
Pages: 280
Rating: 1.5 (first half) 4 (second half)
Finished: Sept. 2, 2008

I started this book a month ago, on advise from my daughter-in-law. Sweeney St. George is a professor at Harvard, expert in gravestones as well as the lore and history surrounding cemeteries. And a murder mystery to boot. Right up my alley, including a New England setting. But I tried and tried and tried to get into the story. It was painfully slow. Long explanations to set up the scenes. Boring. I kept putting it down. Yet I kept coming back to it, because Heather has mentioned so many times that she really likes Taylor's work. So yesterday, blowing my nose, coughing, uncomforatable, I curled up on my bed with this book, determined to plow through it. I did. I'm glad. The second half was great.

Sweeney accompanies her best fried Toby to Vermont for the Christmas holidays. They stay at his aunt and uncle's huge home in the artist colony of Byzantium. (This so reminds me of the summer colony in Northeast Harbor.) She is fascinated with a gravestone that is beautifully done, a sculpture, actually, unsigned and mysterious. Mary Denholm died in 1890 at the age of 18. Tragic. A mystery to be solved. Was she murdered? Why? Who was the sculptor? At the same time mysterious events are taking place on the "island", including burglaries and not one, but two murders. What's going on? Research follows, at the library, historical society, in Cambridge (ooo, I love it). Even some romance is thrown in, with mysterious Ian from England. Sweeney has a photographic memory and a mind for puzzles. She puts all the clues together and wraps up a mystery that you don't totally see coming.

This is Sarah Stewart Taylor's first book. I'm hoping that it took her awhile to figure out her pacing and that the stories that follow will be more like the second half of this book than the first. I will give the next one a try one of these days. I'm still hacking and coughing, but glad I didn't give up this time. Redemption!

44. Bronte's Book Club - Kristiana Gregory

For: Middle Grades
Pub: 2008
150 pgs.
Rating: 3.5/5
Read: Aug. 31, 2008

Bronte has just moved from the desert of New Mexico to a house on the water in southern California, where her parents will run a restaurant on the pier. The summer drags before her and she knows no one. She loves to read. Sunbathing will be hampered by her red hair, fair complexion, and lack of a binkini-body. Then she has a brainstorm.

Bronte posts posters (hey, I see where the word POSTER comes from) around the pier and beach advertising a book club for girls who like to read. Eventually four girls join her and friendships form, are tested, and strengthen. They read Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell together, and some of their field trips are prompted by what happens in that book. One of the girls, Nan, lives on a sloop where they gather frequently. Willow, whose mother wants her to be a model or actress, is a slow reader, which she tries to keep secret. Lupe's family owns a bakery, and Jessie harbors a secret that makes her sad and sullen. We watch their friendship and the summer unfold together.

I've gotten so used to reading edgy YA novels that this seemed tame and bland at first. However, its message about being a good friend is strong and each girl's story is compelling. The setting; on the beach, surfing, on the ocean, and on the pier, are well-drawn. At one point they disobey parental instruction and almost drown, but working together they all pull through.

I have a fifth grader who loved Because of Winn-Dixie and is constantly looking for a book much like it. I'd say this fits the bill perfectly .

43. The Amazing Life of Birds - Gary Paulsen

The Twenty-Day Puberty Journal of Duane Homer Leech
For: Middle School
Pub: 2006
96 pgs.
Rating: 3.5/5
Finished Aug. 31, 2008

I laughed, snickered, and guffawed my way through this book.

Ah, so humiliating to be twelve. Zits (appearing, disappearing, moving from one place to another on your face) - cowlikcks (when you try to cut it off, the resulting bald spot starts a rumor that you have ringworm and the whole school is tested before a ringworm epidemic can break out) - falling over - tripping over shoelaces...many times, and usually in the lunch line (and involving getting covered with various horrible lunch items) - knocking over library shelves (!!) which results in urine testing for drug use - jamming fingers in yoru locker - getting knocked into, knocked flat, and knocked senseless playing volleyball in gym class - need I go on? Even his name, Duane Homer Leech, christened DooDoo by friends early in life, is a thorn in his side.

Throughout it all, through his bedroom window, Duane watches a newborn bird being fed and nurtured, starting out helpless and ugly, slowly getting feathers and fuzz, then learning to fly, more or less coinciding with his own journey through the beginning of puberty. Thus the title of the book. Wish they'd chosen another title, however. I don't think this one works...at least not for me. (I also noticed that the paperback version is subtitled his 19-day puberty journal instead of 20-days. Wonder what gives?)

Dedication: "To my son James, in gratitude. Having missed my own puberty, because I lived through it, watching you go through yours provided a wealth of research material. Thank you."

I loved it. But would kids? I'm going to have to nab a copy for the classroom and try it out on some of the middle school boys.

42. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl - Tanya Lee Stone

For: Young Adult
Pub: 2006
230 pgs.
Rating: 4/5
Finished: Aug. 30, 2008

After I'd read the first third of this book, I realized I'd read it before. So I looked it up and I had - when it first came out. I'd given it a 2.5 rating. It's written in verse, and I've read a lot of verse novels since then. And I've read a lot of books recently about teenage girls that can't figure out boys, so they're anxous fragility is still in my mind. But I do wonder why I apparently like this book so much better now than I did when I first read it.

Written in three sections by Josie, then Nicolette, and finally Aviva, the girls talk about a good-looking, sexy, too-good-to-be true senior that has swept them all of their feet, gotten away with as many "favors" as he can, then broken their hearts. Josie finds Judy Blume's FOREVER in the school library and writes a warning to other Beach High Girls. It comes to light that he has done the same thing to many, many of the girls in this high school in his four years there.

He is never named. I like that. There is nothing to admire in him, it seems to make him a lesser person, which he is. And this book, and the previous two that I just read (The Boyfriend List and The Boy Book), remind me of the thoughts and feelings and anxiety that teenage girls go through. Since I work with them every day, this reminder is a very good thing. I had sort-of forgotten. Hard to believe since it was only yesterday I was that anxiety-ridden teenage girl....

Addendum 9/3, A review I read that will help me remember the book:
"WOW - I devoured this book. The title is so appropriate yet misleading: the story of one guy and the girls he uses, one after another. Each girl tells her own story, leading the reader through the intense passion of a crush, the decisions to call, to kiss, to love, to leave. Written in verse, the language is packed with sensory imagery. Judy Blume's Forever plays an integral role as girls' notes to one another in the back of that old library book comfort and console. High school (and even mature middle school girls) need to read this book before they find themselves in similar situations; this would be a good companion novel to Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak."