Library Mama

It’s taking me a bit to get to reviewing this, but I made it through this whole book just on my breaks at work by the time I’d written up The Piper’s Son.

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta Life is somewhat difficult for Francesca Spinelli, whose mother has enrolled her at St. Sebastian’s, a school that prior to that year was all boys. Neither teachers nor students seem inclined to change their customs to allow for girls, and the only other girls for Francesca to hang out with are girls who were losers at her old school: crazy, radical Tara Finke, slut Siobhan, and accordian-playing loner Justine. Then things get even worse. Francesca’s mother Mia, always a major force to be reckoned with at home and at work, stops getting out of bed. Francesca and her beloved little brother Luca are sent to separate relative’s houses, while their father keeps trying to pretend that everything will just get better on its own. At school, Tara decides that the girls will make a list of demands, and that Francesca is the best person to bring those demands to their class representative, Will Tromball. Tromball seems to be a jerk who isn’t interested in changing anything – yet their eyes lock every time they see each other. Francesca keeps getting put into detention for things like trying to talk to Luca at school. In detention she meets guitar-obsessed slob Thomas McKee and weirdo Jimmy Hailler, whom she doesn’t really like but who keeps following her home and is able to accomplish the miracle of getting her mother to talk. There are lots and lots of plot strands here, with family, friends old and new, romance, and school, all swirling around Francesca and the identity she’s building for herself in the absence of the people who have in the past always told her who she is: her mother and her clique from her old school. The characters are clearly drawn and easy to root for, despite the (pardon) depressing topic of a seriously depressed mother. As in The Piper’s Son, families are shown as deeply loving despite their problems, friends worth living for despite their quirks. Though Francesca can draw strength from all of them, in the end, the only person who can save Francesca is herself.

As a note, having read both of these books with shared characters now, it was interesting to read Saving Francesca knowing how things with the characters were going to end up. In actual events, though, only a few big events from this book were mentioned in The Piper’s Son. Most of the past events discussed in that book are set in between the two books, which certainly makes it easier to read them separately.

Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock. Read by Natalie Moore It’s the summer between DJ Schwenk’s sophomore and junior years. She’s managing her family’s dairy farm, with both her parents unable to help and her little brother busy with Little League. Her two college-age older brothers are off coaching at a football camp. Busy, simple, boring. Then a family friend, the coach of the rival high school’s football team, asks DJ to coach his back-up QB. Brian is a rich and snotty quarterback already loathed by the entire Schwenk family. Naturally, DJ and Brian forge a connection as they’re running and bringing in the hay. But more than that, his casual insults make her think about what she does and why. DJ decides to find a way to do more of what she really loves – football. There’s also an interesting subplot with DJ’s best friend, Amber. This is a rare book with a protagonist for whom thinking and words don’t come easily. Natalie Moore brought DJ to life with a great Midwestern country teen voice. DJ's humor and honesty with herself kept me going straight on to the second book, The Off Season.

Here’s one that I started in my Dear Reader emails and then finished. The book was not at all what it seemed like it would be after reading the first 20 pages.

How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. Narrated by Kim Mai Guest. Fifteen-year-old Daisy is only a little nervous when she leaves her pregnant stepmother in New York to stay with her aunt and cousins in the English countryside. She loves suddenly being part of a large family, and the old farm house with its animals. Then, her aunt leaves the country for a few days. England is attacked and the borders are sealed, leaving four teens and nine-year-old Piper alone in the big house. Somehow, Daisy falls in love with her younger cousin Edmond (fourteen), who seems to be able to read her thoughts. In spite of the ickiness factor, but aided by the war, they have a tender romance that gets only as explicit as “not chaste”. Then the children get discovered and separated, the oldest brother joining the military, Daisy and little Piper to one house, Edmond and his other brother to another, hours apart. As the war gets worse, Daisy knows that it’s up to her to reunite the only family she’s ever felt she belongs in. And as food gets scarcer, the eating disorder she brought over from New York, while never made a focus of the story, starts to look very different.

At the height of the book, Daisy and Piper are traveling secretly across England by foot, foraging for food, and trying to find Edmond, whom Daisy can still hear faintly in her mind. What started off looking like a loveable family drama turns quickly into a survival adventure, with quite explicit and gory violence. If you’re up for that, the story is compelling, with steady action and characters you really care about. The setting is close enough to reality to feel close to home, yet just removed enough to keep it from being a direct commentary on current events. The tangential treatment of an eating disorder worked a whole lot better for me than writing a whole book focused on Girl with Eating Problem. The narrator of the audio book sounds utterly believable as a young teen, making the horrors she experiences that much more vivid. This is a book that will have you inventing reasons to keep listening.

Chicks with Sticks (It’s a Purl Thing) by Elizabeth Lenhard I was sucked in enough to go back and read the first one… where the second book was about the four knitting friends balancing their friendships while dealing with Boys, this first one was nearly equal parts creating the friendship and becoming addicted to knitting. It was still told from Scottie’s point of view, still addictive, girly fun. The knitting patterns in the back were also much easier – wish I could go from knitting a garter stitch scarf to knitting lace socks in the time it takes to finish two books!

Chicks with Sticks (Knit Two Together) by Elizabeth Lenhard Once again, I accidentally picked up the sequel first. Scottie, Tay, Amanda and Bella are four girls from different backgrounds who bonded over knitting in the first novel. Now they are the Chicks with Sticks, and have become trendsetters in their school. The book focuses mostly on Scottie, the Jewish girl, as she goes from fruitless crushes on almost any boy to her first kiss and the beginnings of a real relationship, and gets angsty about her favorite pastime becoming trendy rather than different. Tay, the tomboy, worries about becoming too entangled with her boyfriend. Bella, a biracial hippie girl, has decided to give up boys until college. Amanda worries that her boyfriends is in love with the idea of a rich and beautiful girlfriends (she’s both) rather than her. Through it all, the girls are sustained by knitting and their friendships. This teen novel is on the formulaic side, and hampered by the use of way too many internet abbreviations, even when they’re not on-line. I found myself guiltily enjoying it. If you like relationships and knitting, you probably will, too.

Full Service by Will Weaver It’s the summer of ’65. Paul Sutton, a farm boy from a small Minnesota town, takes a job at the local Shell station at his mother’s urging. She wants him to see more of the world than their tightly-knit religious community. Though he initially does it just to please her, there is a lot going on in the world, and it all goes through the gas station. There are the swarms of tourists going to the lakes, the hippies whose bus breaks down and the townfolk who scorn them, the secret high school lovers who make Paul their go-between, and the workers from Paul’s church, who warn him against losing the faith. Like a summer vacation itself, the novel starts out slowly, builds in intensity as the heat rises, then cools as the tourists go home again. Though it feels a tad slow for the teenage boy audience for which it’s presumably intended, Paul’s coming-of-age is authentic and compelling.

Magic Street by Orson Scott Card So the story behind the story is that a black friend of Card’s challenged him to write a fantasy novel with an African-American hero. Not just a sidekick – a real hero. Not a comfortable task for a very white author, but Card does an admirable job. Only two people in the comfortable black middle-class neighborhood of Baldwin Hills know where Mack Street came from – and the woman who got pregnant and gave birth to him all in the same day isn’t one of them. He grows up going in and out of all the houses in Baldwin Hills, firmly part of the community. He’s mostly happy, except that he can see people’s deepest dreams – and when they come true, it always hurts them. A girl who dreams of being a fish wakes up inside her parents’ waterbed, and is permanently brain-damaged by the time she’s found. Eventually Mack Street finds out that he is the center of a centuries-old conflict between immortals, and must decide whose side he’s on before everyone’s dreams start coming true. It’s good solid modern fantasy.

It’s been quite a while since I found the time to post. I’m feeling terribly behind, and also that I’ve forgotten one of the books I read. Hopefully not, and if it was something fabulous that you all really need to hear about – then hopefully, I’ll remember it to tell you about it. Anyway, I now find that I don’t have time to write up even the books I remember I read.

Every year, we buy books for the nieces and (usually) nephews for Christmas. I pick out books for them based on reviews, and then try to gobble them up between buying and gifting, to make sure they fit the recipient. This year, alas, I only got through two of them, but as Eric had read one and I had read another book by the same author for the fourth – well, we hope they work out.

We actually accidentally bought two books for this niece, but I was so charmed by this one that I returned the other one unread, even though it is the latest Traveling Pants book.
Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci Meet Victoria Denton, aka Egg, cinephile and senior in high school in Hollywood. She has always felt isolated and different from everyone else. Her head is shaved bare in honor of Egg, the main character from Terminal Earth, her favorite movie, but she’s sure that no boy would ask her out even if she did have hair. Then she meets Max, who forces her to take a new look at herself. How much of her isolation has she caused herself, and could there be life worth paying attention to outside of the movies? Egg’s journey is filled with real high school angst, plus the fun details of a teen living in Hollywood. Boy Proof is a teen girl coming-of-age novel, but Egg is such an appealing and convincing geek that I would recommend it to geeks of both sexes and all ages.

So I’m supposed to review a teen book for the library web site for next month. I think, “I could review another fun fantasy, but maybe I should see if the teen librarian has any good ideas.” So I go ask her. Lesson One: Do not, I repeat, do not, ask the teen librarian for assistance picking a book unless you have at least 15-20 minutes to spend listening to her talk about at least one book on every shelf in the section. Lesson Two: Teen literature can be really awfully depressing. Oh, wait, I already knew lesson two. That’s why I so often stick to fantasy.

Chanda’s Secrets by Allan Stratton Note that this book won a Printz award, the highest ALA gives to literature for young adults. As the book opens, 16-year-old Chanda, who lives in an imaginary but representative sub-Saharan country, is out shopping for a coffin for her 18-month-old baby sister, which the family can’t afford. And events do indeed go downhill from there. Chanda’s best friend starts skipping school to turn tricks to earn enough money to bring her scattered family back together, her parents having died of AIDS, though no one will admit it. Her drunken stepfather, her third since her father and two brothers died, leaves and looks to be very ill. She suspects her mother may have AIDS, too. It tries to end hopefully, will Chanda working for people not to be so ashamed of AIDS that they refuse to try to prevent it or treat it. But really, I can only recommend this book to people – probably teens – who feel that they need to drown themselves in a very depressing and very real problems not their own.

I’m not even sure I want to go so far as to put this one on the web site.

Way behind, but here we go....

Montmorency: Thief, Liar, Gentleman? by Eleanor Updale Well, you know, when someone puts a book in my hand and says, “Read this – you’ll like it”, I usually do read it. This one the teen librarian put into my hands. It’s a fine Victorian adventure of a swashbuckling type, even though there are no actual duels involved. Montmorency was an ordinary thief in Victorian England, when a fall injured him badly enough to make him a curiosity to an upper-class doctor – could he possibly be fixed? As he is escorted from prison to the homes and lecture halls of the upper class by the doctor, he hatches a plan to make a better life for himself using his new knowledge of the ways of the aristocracy and – most important – the brand new sewer system. At first, he plays his own servant, using a lower class persona to steal and an upper class persona to sell the goods. But soon, the line between pretence and reality blurs, and Montmorency becomes tangled in even bigger things.

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud You know I have a weakness for a good fantasy, and this one got starred reviews in all the publishing magazines. The story is set in an alternate-reality modern London, where wizards run Parliament. The narrative alternates between the third-person story of Nathaniel, a young and ambitious wizard’s apprentice, and Bartimaeus, the ancient and powerful djinni he calls up to serve him. The djinni was for me the best part of the story – in the audio book, his voice sounds like a jaded and snarky Tim Curry – tired of the magicians who always think they know best, proud of his own exploits. But the rest of the story was pretty disappointing for me. Yes, it was exciting and fast-paced, but the plot was motivated by nothing but fairly routine revenge, lots of politics, and little to no character growth. The only women in the story were weak characters who, though loved by our hero, did nothing in the end but inspire him to more revenge by their failure to survive. There was a very interesting subplot about a group of commoners trying to overthrow the repressive wizard government, but so far our characters are firmly aligned with the wizards. I can hope for more from the two sequels currently planned. In the meantime – it’s great stuff for adolescent boys who want fast-rolling adventure without too much subtlety.

No Ordinary Matter by Jenny McPhee The quote which begins this book says something along the lines of, “Truth is stranger than fiction only because we can’t make things up as strange as the truth.” The book then launches into a highly improbable plot that nevertheless manages to be both entertaining and thoughtful. Veronica Moore, soap-opera writer, has always felt in the shadow of older sister Lillian, a successful neurologist. Lillian has recently become pregnant, having chosen an unwitting sperm donor for a one-night stand. When the same man is hired as an actor on Veronica’s soap, she falls in love with him, but can’t tell her sister. In the meantime, the sisters have hired a detective to help them discover the secrets they think their father had when he died 25 years earlier. It only gets crazier from there.

Naming Ceremonies by Mandy Ross
Birth and Growing Up Ceremonies by World Book “How does one welcome a baby into the community?” a friend recently asked me, “Especially if you don’t want to promise to raise him exclusively in one religion?” Well, as it turns out, books on such things for adults are in short supply. Instead, I found these two books. They’re aimed at children, but have helpful and interesting information on how birth is celebrated in different cultures, with double-paged spreads featuring traditions from major religions and cultures. The World Book offering includes general coming-of-age ceremonies with the naming and birth ceremonies covered in the Ross book. The Ross book seems geared towards slightly younger children, with potentially unfamiliar terms bolded and defined in the glossary. Overall, though both are good resources with lots of information and pictures, I felt that the Ross book with its more limited focus was able to cover the topic better. It focused more on current traditions and the people that follow them, with fewer stereotypical statements such as, “Children in the middle ages were often abandoned” or “All Native American cultures lived in harmony with nature,” which seem to me neither helpful nor relevant.

Certain Women by Madeleine L’Engle This is, I admit, a 15-year-old book by a favorite author, which I was re-reading for comfort fare. L’Engle is one of my favorites for her ability to write about complex things happening to complex people, and yet have the stories be about hope, not despair. This story follows Emma Wheaton, successful actress and daughter of the wildly famous actor David Wheaton. As the story opens, they and various other family members are taking a last cruise in his small boat as he is dying. David Wheaton has seen himself much like the Biblical David, especially regarding the many wives that both of them had (there’s a handy chart in the front to keep them straight.), and dreamed of starring in the play about King David that Emma’s now-estranged husband never finished writing. Chapters take their names from the wives of both Davids, and the story alternates between the present and Emma’s past, including scenes from the play. It’s not as complicated as it sounds, and an engaging and thoughtful book.

I have this feeling that most of the people who read these humble entries left teen books behind in their teen years and have not looked back. I, however, regard children’s and teen books as comfort fare, to be returned to whenever life gets a little rough. The characters always grow and even the toughest situations are usually viewed with optimism – much more cheerful than adult books. And this week, with airplane rides and visits to the doctor, I definitely needed cheerful reading. So, at the risk of boring my audience:

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan In a town where PFLAG has higher attendance than the PTA, and the homecoming queen is a drag queen and the star quarterback, Paul meets the boy of his dreams. While the course of true love isn’t entirely smooth, this is the first-ever gay romance where the gay part of the romance isn’t cause for large doses of angst. Leaving the gay-related angst out makes room for probably the sweetest, most touching teen romance I’ve ever read. It’s guaranteed to leave you feeling warm and fuzzy and just a little happier about the world.

Goose Girl by Shannon Hale A friend of mine once mentioned that she thought fairy tales weren’t very applicable to modern-day life. Pardon? Princess Anidori never felt very comfortable being a princess or talking to people, but she is prepared to marry a prince she’s never met to save her kingdom. On the long journey there, her lady-in-waiting convinces the guards that she would make a better princess than Ani. The few guards loyal to Ani are killed, and Ani hides as a goose girl to escape herself. Having lost her country and her identity – and still in danger of losing her life – Ani must work hard to figure out who she really is and where she can fit in. OK, so maybe her situation is a little extreme – but how many of us haven’t had to reinvent and reevaluate ourselves? Relevant to your life or not, this is a beautiful and compelling story of betrayal and redemption.

Alice, I Think by Susan Juby Redemption again. In this case, Alice is trying to redeem herself from her aging-hippie parents, who were cruel enough to let her start first grade dressed in a burlap hobbit costume. Now in high school, and home schooled since the fateful hobbit incident, Alice knows she must try normal society again, or be forever doomed. Her counselor, Death Lord Bob, encourages her to make a list of Life Goals. Coming up with the goals is easy – making them happen is another thing entirely. Yes, it’s an angsty teen, but her misadventures on the road to normalcy are laugh-out-loud funny.

And on a completely unrelated note, The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy by Vicki Iovine This was recommended to me by several friends, and it is indeed chock full of useful information. Figuring that there are plenty of books out there already to give you the medical advice, this one focuses solely on how to deal – with morning sickness, with the Pregnancy Police, with being too big for your regular clothes but too small for maternity clothes. The collected advice of the author and her Girlfriends are presented with a view towards practicality and humor. The advice is pretty mainstream – the author is firmly in favor of giving birth in the hospital, for example, where a doctor will be there if something goes wrong and someone else will clean up afterwards. But, even if you are leaning towards home birth and a family bed, there’s plenty of useful advice in here for everyone.
[Updated 2007-09-17] I've since changed my mind about this book. It's great for its humorous take on pregnancy, and encouraging you not to worry too much. But the practical advice is often just plain wrong - she tells you that things just don't matter that do, like eating, exercising and whether or not to breastfeed. And, from friends who've done it, if you hire a midwife for a home birth, she will clean up for you, too.