Four Star Books Read in 2015: Children and Young Adult

Children/Newbery:

Holes by Louis Sachar: Stanley Yelnats is under a curse. A curse that began with his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather and has since followed generations of Yelnatses. Now Stanley has been unjustly sent to a boys’ detention center, Camp Green Lake, where the boys build character by spending all day, every day digging holes exactly five feet wide and five feet deep. There is no lake at Camp Green Lake. But there are an awful lot of holes.
It doesn’t take long for Stanley to realize there’s more than character improvement going on at Camp Green Lake. The boys are digging holes because the warden is looking for something. But what could be buried under a dried-up lake? Stanley tries to dig up the truth in this inventive and darkly humorous tale of crime and punishment—and redemption.

Reviewed on blog in September 2015. 

The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder: The first time Melanie Ross meets April Hall, she's not sure they'll have anything in common. But she soon discovers that they both love anything to do with ancient Egypt. When they stumble upon a deserted storage yard behind the A-Z Antiques and Curio Shop, Melanie and April decide it's the perfect sport for the Egypt Game.
Before long there are six Egyptians instead of two. After school and on weekends they all meet to wear costumes, hold ceremonies, and work on their secret code.
Everyone thinks it's just a game, until strange things begin happening to the players. Has the Egypt Game gone too far?

I'd been aware of this book since I was a child, but had never picked it up. I was looking for a Newbery Medal book and found this on my shelf. It's incredibly charming and quirky and very readable. There are times when the children seem wise and articulate beyond their years, but there are also times when they are normal, extremely geeky children, and it all kind of balances out. There are also horrific things that, at first glance, don't seem to belong in a children's book, until you think more carefully about, oh, almost every children's book ever. I felt like Snyder gave her prospective child audience a lot of credit, and I like that. 

Young Adult:

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky: Charlie is a freshman.
And while he's not the biggest geek in the school, he is by no means popular. Shy, introspective, intelligent beyond his years yet socially awkward, he is a wallflower, caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it.
Charlie is attempting to navigate his way through uncharted territory: the world of first dates and mix tapes, family dramas and new friends; the world of sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, when all one requires is that perfect song on that perfect drive to feel infinite. But he can't stay on the sideline forever. Standing on the fringes of life offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a deeply affecting coming-of-age story that will spirit you back to those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

I borrowed this from my niece - still haven't seen the movie. I really liked it. I can't tell if I only think this because I already know it's been made into a movie, but the whole thing felt very cinematic. All of the relationship dynamics were very well-drawn and affecting in different ways. I have a fondness for epistolary novels anyway, and I thought the device was very effective here. 


I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson: A brilliant, luminous story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell.

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.
This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author ofThe Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.

Very glad I decided to read this before my self-imposed ban on YA lit (which never really came to anything, partly because I have no willpower, partly because it was kind of a stupid, arbitrary decision). For once the comparisons to other writers I love (John Green, Rainbow Rowell) seem warranted. I have a completely goofy, uncritical, moon-eyed crush on this book. I loved the exuberant writing style, the slightly implausibly witty and polished dialogue, the flawless rendering of adolescent (and adult) yearning and rage and sorrow and terror. The plot is contrived, but it's all so well done that it feels more like fate than clumsy artifice. I really, really liked it.

The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson: Seventeen-year-old Lennie Walker, bookworm and band geek, plays second clarinet and spends her time tucked safely and happily in the shadow of her fiery older sister, Bailey. But when Bailey dies abruptly, Lennie is catapulted to center stage of her own life - and, despite her nonexistent history with boys, suddenly finds herself struggling to balance two. Toby was Bailey's boyfriend; his grief mirrors Lennie's own. Joe is the new boy in town, a transplant from Paris whose nearly magical grin is matched only by his musical talent. For Lennie, they're the sun and the moon; one boy takes her out of her sorrow, the other comforts her in it. But just like their celestial counterparts, they can't collide without the whole wide world exploding.
This remarkable debut is perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Francesca Lia Block. Just as much a celebration of love as it is a portrait of loss, Lennie's struggle to sort her own melody out of the noise around her is always honest, often hilarious, and ultimately unforgettable.

Not quite as transporting as I'll Give You the Sky, but on the whole I've become a fairly ardent Jandy Nelson fan this year. A lot of readers have commented that Lennie is not a very likable character, which I'll grant. Grief can make people unlikable, and prone to making questionable decisions, and really frustrating to be friends or family members with, and I feel like that's the kind of 'unlikable' Lennie is. I heard the same thing from people about Quentin Coldwater in the Magicians trilogy, and when I asked the author about a question on Goodreads, he said that Quentin is depressed, and in that light it's understandable that people wouldn't find him likable. Some people have to have a sympathetic character in order to feel connected to a book, which is fair. It's usually not a problem for me if a character isn't uniformly likable, particularly if the character's history, context or underpinnings make their objectionable behaviour or demeanour understandable, which I feel is the case here. There's a little of the John Green syndrome here - all the characters are just so FABULOUS and eccentric and colourful, and teen-agers are fairly uniformly witty and articulate. Sometimes it all becomes a bit much. But Nelson writes with such energy and zest that this is eminently forgivable.

Dearly, Departed by Lia Habel: Love can never die.
Love conquers all, so they say. But can Cupid’s arrow pierce the hearts of the living and the dead - or rather, the undead? Can a proper young Victorian lady find true love in the arms of a dashing zombie? 
The year is 2195. The place is New Victoria - a high-tech nation modeled on the manners, mores, and fashions of an antique era. A teenager in high society, Nora Dearly is far more interested in military history and her country’s political unrest than in tea parties and debutante balls. But after her beloved parents die, Nora is left at the mercy of her domineering aunt, a social-climbing spendthrift who has squandered the family fortune and now plans to marry her niece off for money. For Nora, no fate could be more horrible - until she’s nearly kidnapped by an army of walking corpses. 
But fate is just getting started with Nora. Catapulted from her world of drawing-room civility, she’s suddenly gunning down ravenous zombies alongside mysterious black-clad commandos and confronting “The Laz,” a fatal virus that raises the dead - and hell along with them. Hardly ideal circumstances. Then Nora meets Bram Griswold, a young soldier who is brave, handsome, noble . . . and dead. But as is the case with the rest of his special undead unit, luck and modern science have enabled Bram to hold on to his mind, his manners, and his body parts. And when his bond of trust with Nora turns to tenderness, there’s no turning back. Eventually, they know, the disease will win, separating the star-crossed lovers forever. But until then, beating or not, their hearts will have what they desire.
In Dearly, Departed, romance meets walking-dead thriller, spawning a madly imaginative novel of rip-roaring adventure, spine-tingling suspense, and macabre comedy that forever redefines the concept of undying love.

I've tried a couple of steampunk novels and I usually find they don't work for me. But hey, steampunk zombies, I gave it a shot. The high-tech society paired with Victorian sensibilities is really interesting - they have these parasols that have gas-powered lamps in them and I totally want one. The zombie part works well too, and the romance is surprisingly believable, considering the circumstances. It's sort of a big, fun, gothic, event-packed adventure with satisfyingly cartoony villains and witty banter. Great fun.

Sorrow's Knot by Erin Bow: In the world of Sorrow’s Knot, the dead do not rest easy. Every patch of shadow might be home to something hungry and nearly invisible, something deadly. The dead can only be repelled or destroyed with magically knotted cords and yarns. The women who tie these knots are called binders.
Otter is the daughter of Willow, a binder of great power. She’s a proud and privileged girl who takes it for granted that she will be a binder some day herself. But when Willow’s power begins to turn inward and tear her apart, Otter finds herself trapped with a responsibility she’s not ready for, and a power she no longer wants.

This is a beautiful, ambitious, strange and incredibly sad book, weighty with archetype and metaphor. The characters, young and old, are complicated and flawed and sometimes frightening. I had to reread a few sections to figure out exactly what was being said. Bow's previous book, Plain Kate, was a really tough act to follow, and I still prefer it slightly. She really doesn't sugarcoat any of the big ideas or shrink from sorrow and sacrifice, despite writing for  young readers, which is admirable. I'm really curious to see what she does next.

The Archived (The Archived #1) by Victoria Schwab: Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.
Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was: a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.
Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous—it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost, Da's death was hard enough, but now that her little brother is gone too, Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself may crumble and fall.
In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption. 

Welp, let's see... a massive ghostly library where the entries are dead people, things that are sort of like zombies, really great writing and witty banter between a kick-ass female lead and a love interest who wears guyliner. Could this be any MORE in my wheelhouse? I've been intrigued by V.E. Schwab's writing since I read Vicious - she takes familiar tropes and puts incredibly original twists on them, so I always feel like I'm reading something really refreshingly different, and on top of that she tells a really great story.

Teeth by Hannah Moskowitz: A gritty, romantic modern fairy tale from the author of Breakand Gone, Gone, Gone.
Be careful what you believe in.
Rudy’s life is flipped upside-down when his family moves to a remote island in a last attempt to save his sick younger brother. With nothing to do but worry, Rudy sinks deeper and deeper into loneliness and lies awake at night listening to the screams of the ocean beneath his family’s rickety house.
Then he meets Diana, who makes him wonder what he even knows about love, and Teeth, who makes him question what he knows about anything. Rudy can’t remember the last time he felt so connected to someone, but being friends with Teeth is more than a little bit complicated. He soon learns that Teeth has terrible secrets. Violent secrets. Secrets that will force Rudy to choose between his own happiness and his brother’s life.

Pretty fantastic, on the whole. Surprising and different, at times violently repulsive. Hits you in the face with some unflinching questions about what you're willing to do with your ethics when someone you love is on the line. Every so often gets a little too glib and quippy and hilariously profane and slips into manic-pixie-dream-guy territory, but gets back on track. No Hollywood ending.

Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead: When seventh grader Georges (the S is silent) moves into a Brooklyn apartment building, he meets Safer, a twelve-year-old coffee-drinking loner and self-appointed spy. Georges becomes Safer's first spy recruit. His assignment? Tracking the mysterious Mr. X, who lives in the apartment upstairs. But as Safer becomes more demanding, Georges starts to wonder: how far is too far to go for your only friend?

Oh look, another author whose book I really liked and yet I liked her previous book slightly better; I'll bet that's REALLY ANNOYING for authors. When You Reach Me was an instant classic, in my opinion, riffing as it did on another instant classic while being just a really striking, romantic, melancholy, beautiful work in its own right. Liar and Spy is a lovely little book, and I don't mean that pejoratively. It takes talent to make a quiet, small story this charming and important.




Beware the Wild by Natalie C. Parker: It's an oppressively hot and sticky morning in June when Sterling and her brother, Phin, have an argument that compels him to run into the town swamp—the one that strikes fear in all the residents of Sticks, Louisiana. Phin doesn't return. Instead, a girl named Lenora May climbs out, and now Sterling is the only person in Sticks who remembers her brother ever existed.
Sterling needs to figure out what the swamp's done with her beloved brother and how Lenora May is connected to his disappearance—and loner boy Heath Durham might be the only one who can help her. 
This debut novel is full of atmosphere, twists and turns, and a swoon-worthy romance.

I have a soft spot for this kind of thing anyway, and this was done really well. The main character is sympathetic but not simpering, and she has a solid group of good friends so when the romance happens with the "only one who understands what she's going through" it doesn't happen in isolation, which is refreshing. The plot hook and world-building are  extremely engaging and the steamy southern atmosphere of the town and the swamp are cinematically vivid. It's magical - the twisted, dark kind.

Infandous by Elana K. Arnold: Sephora Golding lives in the shadow of her unbelievably beautiful mother. Even though they scrape by in the seedier part of Venice Beach, she's always felt lucky. As a child, she imagined she was a minor but beloved character in her mother's fairy tale. But now, at sixteen, the fairy tale is less Disney and more Grimm. And she wants the story to be her own. Then she meets Felix, and the fairy tale takes a turn she never imagined. Sometimes, a story is just a way to hide the unspeakable in plain sight.

Very mature and extreme for YA - you couldn't put this in a high school library without risking some extremely pissed-off parents. The weaving in of the myths with the story adds immensely to the work without detracting from the gritty realism. I'm not sure the twist was absolutely necessary, but I believe it wasn't used purely for shock value.

The Cracks in the Kingdom (The Colours of Madeleine #2) by Jaclyn Moriarty: The second in Jaclyn Moriarty's brilliant, acclaimed fantasy trilogy, THE COLORS OF MADELEINE!
Princess Ko's been bluffing about the mysterious absence of her father, desperately trying to keep the government running on her own. But if she can't get him back in a matter of weeks, the consequence may be a devastating war. So under the guise of a publicity stunt she gathers a group of teens -- each with a special ability -- from across the kingdom to crack the unsolvable case of the missing royals of Cello.
Chief among these is farm-boy heartthrob Elliot Baranski, more determined than ever to find his own father. And with the royal family trapped in the World with no memory of their former lives, Elliot's value to the Alliance is clear: He's the only one with a connection to the World, through his forbidden communications with Madeleine.
Through notes, letters, and late nights, Elliot and Madeleine must find a way to travel across worlds and bring missing loved ones home. The stakes are high, and the writing by turns hilarious and suspenseful, as only Jaclyn Moriarty can be.

I LOVE this wonderfully imagined series. I love the kingdom of Cello, I love the wonky magic that can kill you or make you crazy, I love the characters and the story and the people missing people and people finding people and the intrigue and the letters passed through the parking meter and everything, everything. Transports of delight, I'm telling you - transports. 

The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall by Katie Alender: In this asylum, your mind plays tricks on you all the time…

Delia’s new house isn’t just a house. Long ago, it was the Piven Institute for the Care and Correction of Troubled Females—an insane asylum nicknamed “Hysteria Hall.” However, many of the inmates were not insane, just defiant and strong willed. Kind of like Delia herself.
But the house still wants to keep “troubled” girls locked away. So, in the most horrifying way, Delia gets trapped.
And that’s when she learns that the house is also haunted.
Ghost girls wander the halls in their old-fashioned nightgowns. A handsome ghost boy named Theo roams the grounds. Delia finds that all the spirits are unsettled and full of dark secrets. The house, as well, harbors shocking truths within its walls—truths that only Delia can uncover, and that may set her free.
But she’ll need to act quickly, before the house’s power overtakes everything she loves.
From master of suspense Katie Alender comes a riveting tale of twisted memories and betrayals, and the meaning of madness.

Nice. Original story, compelling character, nice skewed take on the ghost story. The Dogs by Allan Stratton: Cameron and his mom have been on the run for five years. His father is hunting them. At least, that’s what Cameron’s been told. When they settle in an isolated farmhouse, Cameron starts to see and hear things that aren’t possible. Soon he’s questioning everything he thought he knew and even his sanity. What's hiding in the night? Buried in the past? Cameron must uncover the dark secrets before they tear him apart. This wasn't precisely what I was expecting - there was a little more reality than spooky story - but it was frightening and affecting.

A Path Begins (The Thickety #1) by J.A. White: Hand in hand, the witch's children walked down the empty road.
When Kara Westfall was six years old, her mother was convicted of the worst of all crimes: witchcraft. Years later, Kara and her little brother, Taff, are still shunned by the people of their village, who believe that nothing is more evil than magic . . . except, perhaps, the mysterious forest that covers nearly the entire island. It has many names, this place. Sometimes it is called the Dark Wood, or Sordyr's Realm. But mostly it's called the Thickety.
The black-leaved trees swayed toward Kara and then away, as though beckoning her.
The villagers live in fear of the Thickety and the terrible creatures that live there. But when an unusual bird lures Kara into the forbidden forest, she discovers a strange book with unspeakable powers. A book that might have belonged to her mother.
And that is just the beginning of the story.
The Thickety: A Path Begins is the start of a thrilling and spellbinding tale about a girl, the Thickety, and the power of magic.

After a weird period of not being able to settle down and finish anything, I finished a bunch of books in the space of a couple of weeks. I then went through a period of wondering if reading at this age is just a matter of nothing new under the sun. After reading extensively for thirty-plus years, it's understandable that not much seems completely original and surprising. That said, the echoes in this book of The Crucible, every Disney movie where the protagonist grows up motherless, every YA novel where there is a dangerous forest and/or magic is thought to be evil but revealed to just be misunderstood and dangerous in the wrong hands, are built on admirably, so it isn't just derivative. Kara is a good character. I did have some problems with people who take pleasure in cruelty being let off with the explanation that they're just poor simple folk who fear what they don't understand. I don't have a really strong sense of where the next book will go, but I will probably read it.

Mondays on the Margins: In Which My Mind Remains Stubbornly Closed

I went to the gym. I was going to literally just do that - step over the threshold just to see if I still could. I was in a good routine up until Christmas. Then I skipped January because I never go to the gym in January - all the new people plus the mid-winter blahs just make it a completely untenable situation. Then, due to various injuries and concomitant mood flattening, and getting the puppy, January just stretched out... and out.... and out...

So today I got up, got dressed, then told myself as long as I got INTO the gym, I could turn around and leave and get groceries and go home, if I wanted to. Since I didn't burst into flame or become magically surrounded by a pointing-and-mocking mob the instant I stepped in the door, I thought I'd do a few arm weights. It's a start. Sometimes it feels like all I'm ever doing is starting over and over, but I guess that's marginally better than just stopping and never starting again.

A woman approached me in the change room as I was getting ready to leave and asked if I could help her. I was worried that helping her would require some kind of arcane gym knowledge which clearly I do not possess, but she had put on a heavy backpack and all she needed was someone to reach the clips and join them together for her. She was extremely grateful and I was thinking that, when someone asks you to help them in a way that's extremely easy, it's like they're giving you a gift.

Then I came home and finished my second book review assignment. The instructor has encouraged us to be open to trying out genres we don't usually read, so I decided to combine two of those and read a Cowboy Romance. I could have piled even more genres on - there are Cowboy Mystery Romances, Western Christian Romances, Gay Cowboy Romances - probably not  Christian Gay Cowboy Romances, I guess - but I thought I'd start simple.

"Be open-minded", I thought. "Maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised", I thought.

A Western Romance: Paul Yancey: Taking the High Road (Book 8). So, it's a series. They're ALL called A Western Romance, with a different first name inserted, because they're about a family of NINE BROTHERS, and each book details the pairing up and marrying off of a different brother. I guess for every book that transcends its genre there has to be a whole lot of other books lying there being untranscendedly genre-ish.

Real actual book cover

Our hero (because in this book, he is not just a protagonist - he's a hero): "In common with every other member of the Yancey clan, Paul's character encompassed many sterling qualities, born and bred into him by conscientious but loving parents blessed with more money than time to spend on their rambunctious sons. He possessed the ability to take charge and prevail during any dicey situation; a practical, no-nonsense approach to problems; a compassionate helping hand when the situation warranted; and, most of all, the capacity to learn and adapt to events as necessary."

Conscientious but loving? Shouldn't that be conscientious AND loving? Blessed with more money than time to spend on their rambunctious sons? Was that supposed to be the opposite?

"There ain't nothin' like bein' out there, one with nature, fightin' the elements, risin' to every challenge." Dropping every g that threatens to pretty up the end of a word too much...

Paul needs a team to guide him through the Sierra Nevadas, so he settles on Ezra Ferguson and his son, Teddy... damn, Teddy has pretty eyes, and that strawberry blonde hair.. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME? Oh, thank God, he has BOOBS. "The twin mounds of a prominent and quite obviously feminine torso", to be exact. "You can't bring a girl up int' that rough country, not when --" Oh, fine, she can come, otherwise how will I I ever fulfill the tediously formulaic requirements of this series, without turning it into a Gay Cowboy Western Romance?

Teddy's fairly kick-ass, actually. Shoots a rabid wolf, slings the heavy saddlebags, and makes a mean campfire cherry cobbler. And Paul? He...DRIES THE DISHES, at one point, which probably would have had Teddy right out of her buckskins except her Paw was right alongside. To be fair, Paul does admire her intelligence, self-reliance, humour and ability to field strip a rifle almost as much as her begging-to-be-explored breasts. But then, just so we don't get any wrong-headed ideas about his manhood, we are assured that "he was a normal red-blooded American male, after all, not some eunuch stuck in an Oriental harem". Ahem. *Checks that the book WAS actually published in 2015*. 

All this I could sit comfortably with. It's a western, after all. A western romance. That takes place sometime not too long after the Civil War. But THEN, the whole group is attacked by a bounty hunter who has clear intentions of raping Teddy. She dispatches him with a cast iron frying pan - all good. THEN, as she's about to kick him, her father says "Ain't right t' go kickin' a man when he's already down, though, is it? Haven't I taught you better'n that?" SERIOUSLY? Yeah, I'm out. 

The whole thing had this curious way of meandering along in a courtly, old-fashioned vein and then suddenly jabbing you (hee) with a sudden shocking crudeness. The author bio says he was born to a poor family in the Fiji Islands, but "thanks to his own grit, determination and the support of his loving parents, he was able to embark on a journey that has seen him attain a good education and work in many parts of the world", and that he writes "drawing on his experiences in life and emulating the styles of his favorite authors". So maybe he's had some really weird experiences, or maybe he emulates really different authors in quick succession. Or maybe that's just how westerns roll these days, I wouldn't know. This book was certainly not a gateway drug. 

Mondays on the Margins Newbery Post: Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH

You know the great thing about doing a blog post series of your own volition with no pay and no deadlines? No urgency or unpleasant repercussions if you get busy and your husband leaves the country a lot and you lose the will to live for a few months. This is also probably the bad thing about doing a blog post series of your own volition with no pay and no deadlines. Anyway.

Not a clue how I missed this one on my first pass through childhood. Lynn (HI LYNN) lent it to me a few months ago, but I've been watching too much Supernatural and reading too much after Lucy goes to bed (which means ipad only) to attack the pile of actual books lately. Yesterday I got home from dropping Angus at basketball, went upstairs and declared that I would read the book at the top of the first pile my eyes fell on. And it was this book.

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH won the Newbery Medal in 1972. It's a great story, with strong characters and a fantastic plot that has suspenseful intrigue and strong motherly love and duty, as well as some quite dense moral questions. What I think I loved most is that, although it's clearly targeted at juvenile readers, the writing doesn't talk down to children AT ALL. In the description of young Timothy Frisby's illness, Robert O'Brien uses terms like 'hypochondriac' and 'delirious' without overexplaining them, and this continues throughout the novel with descriptions of farm work, forest geography,  laboratory procedures, power tools and and basic physics. This reminded me of how there was outrage expressed on social media at one point about words related to the natural world such as 'almond', 'blackberry', 'minnow' and 'budgerigar' had been dropped from the Oxford Junior Dictionary in favour of terms such as 'broadband' and 'mp3 player'. Was there just an assumption back then that children would know about this stuff, or would ask their parents? I feel like a book written right now wouldn't make those assumptions. Of course, I could be totally tripping. There is also death and lack of closure on one thread (Justin? Justin, come back!). I just really felt like Robert C. O'Brien told the story he wanted to tell without trying to dumb it down or make it more marketable, and I love that the Newbery committee rewarded that.

I haven't seen the movie either, although I'm ninety-five-percent sure it was sitting on a shelf in my best friend's living room when I used to go over there all the time. I have it on good authority that Justin, the rat described in the book as "alert, dark gray in color, and extraordinarily handsome", is extremely crushable in the movie (and I completely had a thing for Goliath from Gargoyles, so I'm not judging). I have also been told that NIMH stands for National Institute of Mental Health, although this is NOT revealed in the book, which nearly made me blow a gasket (I LIKE TO KNOW STUFF, OKAY?)

On Goodreads, the book's title is modified with The Rats of Nimh #1, but apparently the only #2 book was actually written by the original author's daughter, and the reviews are somewhat uneven. There's also a second movie, but the consensus seems to be that it was an abomination, and the description I found keeps changing the name Frisby to Brisby, so my hopes are not high. Unless.... wait..... the original movie seems to call Mrs. Frisby Mrs. Brisby too, WTF, all is ashes, why? Was Mrs. Frisby too reminiscent of a .... frisbee? And how do we all feel, just by the by, about the fact that she doesn't get to have a first name? Mrs. Frisby or Mrs. Jonathan Frisby, or Mrs. Jonathan, that's it. I mean, yes, she's all about the family, but.. Alice Frisby? Jane Frisby? Catherine Emily Frisby? I guess maybe good old Robert C. wasn't catering to women's libbers either.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and for the next few weeks I'm going to have a really hard time doing anything permanently harmful to the mice that keep getting into our garage. "Here, Mrs. Frisby, have a tiny blanket for poor little Timothy". I'm sure that will wear off in time.

Mondays on the Margins: Paper Books vs. Digital

So Lynn asked whether I usually read paper books or ebooks. Everybody say "Hi, Lynn", and then go over to her blog like I just did and get lost in a mini-wormhole of tiny potatoes and cool picture books (what's with all the hat-stealing animals, WHAT'S WITH THEM?).

We all know what my principles are worth. I mean, odds are pretty good that I will stand staunchly by rules such as the No Drop-Kicking Babies Rule and the No Leaving Mean-Spirited Comments on Blog Posts or Online Articles Rule, and I'm pretty sure I'll never set anyone's house on fire ON PURPOSE (look, there was a lot of caramel spilled, it seemed reasonable to turn on the self-cleaning function and the flames were all out within ten minutes - fifteen, tops - the smoke detectors didn't even go off). But other than that, don't believe me. "I will never start a blog". "I will never join Twitter." "I will never speak in public unless my children are being held hostage at gunpoint." These are all words that have left my mouth, and well, here we are.

So I did say I wasn't crazy about the idea of ereaders, but I didn't really trust myself to abjure them for all time.

A couple of years ago my sister and I got my mom a Kindle for Christmas. My sister told me to order it well ahead of time and it came quickly, so I had it to play around with for a few weeks. I actually fully expected that I would fall in love with it, but I didn't, really. My mom loves it, and she and my dad then gave my husband one for his birthday - he loves it too, for travelling.

That said, once I had an ipad and put the Kindle and Overdrive Media apps on it, my feelings changed. I could develop a sudden burning need for a specific book and obtain it instantaneously - this is a very dangerous thing. There's also the handy fact that I can read late into the night without the light on, which is beneficial for my poor husband, who learned long ago to sleep with a reading light shining on the other side of the bed, and also for family trips when we're all sharing a hotel room.

The ipad is kind of heavy, though, so I can only read on it if I have a pillow or something to support it. And the fact that ebooks from the library disappear when they've expired is good from the point of view of my continuing effort to finance my own wing of the Ottawa Public Library, and because I don't actually have to drive them back, but once in a while it's really vexing - a few months back I was in the middle of a really good book by Mo Hayder, and I thought I had one day left; when I got into bed I realized it was just after midnight and GODDAMMIT! I had to wait weeks to get it back again and then reread most of what I had read, which actually turned into kind of a cool reading experience. But I'm kind of suspicious of any book that can become unattainable due to a low battery.

I try to limit myself severely in the Kindle store, because it's way too easy to spend way too much money way too quickly. I try to limit myself (less severely) to library ebooks because once I borrow them I feel obligated to read them, and when downloading on a whim it's easy to load up on unanticipated dreck, and it also multiplies my problem of loading up on library books which then need to be read within a specific time frame, while the books I actually own wait even longer. It's so intoxicating, though! I'm borrowing a book RIGHT NOW when it's not even REGULAR LIBRARY HOURS! It's like I'm a library cat thief!

So anything I'm just borrowing from the library or that I want to travel with or just make sure that I can access any time, I'm fine putting on my ipad. But if I really love a book, I want to own the book. I've also realized that I have this habit, when I'm reading a book, of stopping fairly frequently to look at the author photo. I'm not sure if it's to remind me of whose book I'm reading, or because my feeling of my communication with the author changes as I read, or if it's something completely unconscious, but I feel kind of thwarted when I remember that I'm reading a book that doesn't have an author photo, and an ebook rarely does.

There's also the fact that, once you buy a Kindle version of a book, it stays in the cloud forever (as far as I know). Last month when I realized that I had book club in two days and had neglected to obtain the book, I bought How Should a Person Be by Sheila Heti for Kindle. I thought this was great - I could read the book in time. Then I read it and hated it, I mean, HATED it, and realized that I could never get rid of it now - its indelible stain sits there putridly in my digital library for all time.

I'm also a frequent and happy lender of books. I love knowing that part of my collection is out there in the world being loved by my friends (or at least getting some kind of action). But again, if I read a book digitally and love it enough that it needs to be lent, I can just buy a copy.

I did read a rather silly article by someone who gave away all her books and just bought e-copies of them. The descriptions of setting her books free in the wild was amusing and whimsical, but the notion that this made her somehow less materialistic than someone who owned the real books was perplexing. I still want to live in a house with books in it. I still love beautiful covers and real, turnable pages. Ereaders just mean I can carry even more books to even more places and read even when it's dark. So it's all good.

Day 20

Eve and I are home from the book fair and tired. We had an interview with her teacher who I already loved. She said Eve obviously doesn't face any academic difficulties, so she thinks they should focus on preparing for middle school and high school by working on the challenges of things like group work dynamics and subjects that Eve finds less engaging, like geography (poor kid has a little dead spot in her brain just like mine, where mapping skills should be). Then she said Eve was awesome, which, duh, but always nice to hear.

Then we went back to the book fair. It was crazy busy and crowded and I had to go out in the hallway every time somebody used debit or credit again and fighting through the throngs of people wearing winter coats made me claustrophobic and panicky,  but most people were awesome and we made a metric fuckton of money for the school library and by the end of the evening everything was hilarious and math stopped working in the library for a few minutes around seven o'clock and we thought about asking the principal if next year we could pipe oxygen into the library during the book fair like they do in Vegas. Then there was a lull and I walked around finding picture books and making them seem dirty (which wasn't that hard, really - There was an old woman who swallowed a stick? Oh what a trick, to swallow a stick? Seriously? Okay, she swallowed the stick to hit the puck, but come ON.) Then we played with the pom-pom pens that we had hidden behind the desk because the students kept whacking each other in the face with them. You click a little button that makes the pom-pom fly off, and it WAS oddly satisfying. 

Then we went to McDonald's and ran into some people who had been at the book fair, which made the night feel very small townish, in a good way. Then we came home and watched Bones. It started with a scene in a playground, and Eve said "oh, great. A bunch of kids are about to find a gross dead body. Why do we always watch this show while we're eating?"

Then she said something about dogs and I remembered that I had to show her this, which made me fall off my chair laughing earlier today. When she stopped laughing she said "WHY did she even sign him UP?" As a special bonus, we read the headline in the sidebar which said "Polish playground bans Pooh because 'it doesn't wear underpants'". 

And now I have to get ready for bed because Eve asked me if I would read the Bad Kitty Christmas book she got at the book fair to her just for fun. And I said I would. Because it does sound like fun.

Book Fair Day One

1) I thought of Nicole every time I said "the posters are five dollars each."

2) I thought "there's no way they sent us enough Frozen posters."

3) I told one grade six girl that the pointers were (also) five dollars each and she exclaimed "OH F..." and I gasped and she finished "OH FIVE, I only have FOUR, bummer!" That was exciting.

4) One little boy came back up the counter, clasping his Pokemon book and his Ninjago book, looked at me and the librarian and said 'You guys are the BEST'. 

5) I only screwed up simple addition once. Maybe twice.

6) I ranted (probably for the dozenth time) that all the erasers should be the same price, and whoever added a .50 to ANY price should be shot. Or relieved of their position at Scholastic. Or made to work the book fair without a calculator. Don't even get me started on the 1.25 highlighters.

7) There are no cake pop erasers this year so we haven't had to tell anyone not to bite the erasers. There are, however, pencils with Groucho Marx nose/moustache combos on them, which have been held up to many, many faces. I don't bother to tell them not to do it, but it grosses me out a little. 

8) I was disproportionately cranky about the 'borrowed' pencils for the wish lists. We started the day with almost twenty pencils, and after two classes we had almost none - rotten little pencil thieves. Some teachers were awesome about sending their kids back to return the pencils, some were ridiculously defensive - "most of my kids brought their own pencils" - THAT PENCIL AREA ON THE COUNTER DIDN'T EMPTY ITSELF, SIR. When I came home to grab lunch, I took some pencils back from last year's school supplies. They all have EVE A. carved into them. I will HAVE my pencils back.

9) The woman I volunteered with last year is coming on Wednesday and she's bringing a BABY. On Wednesday I will be working the BABY FAIR, and someone else can do the math and find the fucking unicorn books.

Our book fair was blessedly boner-free
Photo by IIII Chin

10) At one point, Katy the librarian came back to the desk to check the flyer because someone had asked her if we had a book. I asked her what she was looking for and she said "Do we have Fart Powder: Who Cut the Cheese?" This was particularly marvelous because Katy has a British accent, and after she said it a few times I was on the floor laughing, and told her I have to record her saying it so I can play it back when I'm sad. P.S. We did not have Fart Powder: Who Cut the Cheese. (You're saying 'fart powder' to yourself in a British accent now, aren't you? You're welcome).

11) I used to spend hundreds of dollars when I worked the book fair, on books for my kids. Today I spent twenty, on a cool washi tape craft kit, because ninety percent of the books are too young for my kids. That made me sad, but not as sad as I thought it would. 

12) Fart powder. 

Re-post: Book Review: Autism's False Prophets by Paul A. Offit, M.D.

I reviewed this way back in 2009. I wish I could say, five years later, that this kind of evidence-based research has made a bigger difference. If more people would read a book or two instead of getting their science from flaky movie stars and "shocking" Facebook postings....

This is a really well-written, timely, important book. And just thinking about it makes me tired, and sad and angry. Thinking about trying to write this review makes me tired. Because this book is well-written, timely and important, and it's completely preaching to the choir. It's not going to convince anyone who isn't already convinced, or leaning that way. The book itself contains the argument that explains why this is the case. I'm sure Paul Offit understands that he is preaching to the choir with this book, which makes it brave of him to have written it.

Some people think that brave ones are the doctors and experts who say that mercury in vaccines or vaccines themselves have caused an autism epidemic. They think these people are brave because they are going against the medical establishment and Big Pharma, who are unscrupulous if not downright evil and only care about big profits, not about the lives or health of patients.

In fact, many, if not most, of these people are surprisingly well-funded and demonstrably unscrupulous when regarded a little more closely. Andrew Wakefield, the doctor who raised the possibility of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, is a prime example of this. On the strength of what was little better than a hunch, he published a paper in the Lancet that led to years of bitter controversy. Later it was discovered that he had claimed that his investigations were sanctioned by the Ethical Practices Committee, which they weren't. He had also received hundreds of thousands of dollars from personal injuries lawyers who were suing the government for compensation, which he failed to reveal. He paid researchers who produced favourable results for him. He disregarded information that didn't support his claims.

Despite all this, and multiple solid scientific studies that provide no evidence that the MMR has any link to autism (in fact, when Japan discontinued the MMR on the strength of Wakefield's paper, the rate of autism continued to rise), many people still will not be convinced. One of Offit's main points is that science is unfortunately a weak match for splashy headlines and celebrities who passionately advocate for unprovable theories, and claim that the medical establishment ignores them or tries to cover up their 'proof'.

Offit refers back to the silicone breast implant 'fiasco', in which the industry was basically decimated by anecdotal, unsubstantiated claims that silicone breast implants caused connective tissue disease. Massive class action suits were settled, although people who waited in hopes of winning more money individually were out of luck, since eventually the science showed no evidence to support the claims.

One of the major 'problems' with epidemiological studies, which are the most reliable, is that they cannot prove a negative. The most scientists can ever say is that 'there is no evidence' that the MMR or mercury has any link to incidence of autism. In the face of 'miraculous' cures and improvements touted by charlatans who offer chelation therapy and other useless and sometimes harmful 'treatments', this simply isn't sexy enough for the public.

Vaccines are not without risks, and no doctor has ever claimed that they are. Offit refers to incidents where vaccines caused sickness and even deaths. In all of these cases, the CDC detected the problem and halted the use of the vaccines. There was no cover-up, and the deaths caused by vaccines are far, far fewer than the deaths caused by the diseases the vaccines prevent.

In face of the various conflicts of interest, cynicism and suspicion surrounding this issue, Offit asks "if everyone appears to be in someone's pocket, who or what can be trusted? How can people best determine if the results of a scientific study are accurate? The answer is threefold: transparency of the funding source, internal consistency of the data, and reproducibility of the findings." Wakefield's results were never reproducible, or transparently funded.

There are many reasons why parents of autistic children would accept wild theories and unproven therapies over solid science. The so-called experts who propound these theories and therapies generally have simpler aims: publicity, and money. Some of them may actually believe they're trying to help autistic children, and their parents. They aren't.

Offit has been the target of public vitriol, accusations of being paid to say vaccines are safe, and death threats against him and his family. It was brave of him to write this book. I wish I could believe it would make more of a difference.

Mondays on the Margins. More or Less.

I've been in a weird reading place lately. My sweet spot is usually to have one fiction and one non-fiction book on the go, I try to alternate between genres and not go too long without a "broccoli book" (something that's good for me, that I usually end up enjoying more than I think I will), and when I'm in a rut I read short stories. But my focus is all over the place, and even while reading I find my mind wandering, and when I get into bed I can't decide what to pick up, and it scares me. Being a reader is such a huge part of my identity, and if depression or anxiety or getting-older hormones are disrupting that, well, that's not cool.

One thing I have to watch is over-using the library. I know, that sounds stupid doesn't it? But I splurged on three or four books that I really wanted to read at the beginning of the summer and I've only read one because of this habit I have of going to the library to pick up holds and then panic-grabbing two or three books off the shelf because GOD, WHAT IF I RUN OUT OF BOOKS? And then I go to the books that have a due date before the ones that don't. So it's NOVEMBER, and I haven't read Bark or Sorrow's Knot or Fly By Night, or the conclusion to the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series - it always sort of embarrasses me when I buy a book in hardcover and it comes out in paper before I've read the hardcover. I also surf around on the library ebooks and it's way too easy to borrow them without leaving the comfort of my bedroom. After the last two turned out to be complete dreck, I've decided I need to be more discerning about those.

So I've missed my window to read Dreams of Gods and Monsters sitting in the back yard between when it was too hot and got too cold. I guess I'll go for snuggled in my chair with many blankets on a snowy day. A really great book sort of demands a more auspicious reading setting, don't you think?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I've been turning up my nose slightly every time someone mentions The Goldfinch, because we did Donna Tartt's The Secret History in my book club many years ago and most of us, including me, found it shallow, melodramatic and silly. I got it out of the library for my mom, and she gave it back to me yesterday. I started reading it today and so far I'm finding it riveting. So there's that.

Mondays on the Margins: Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins (Newbery Medal Series)

I flat-out adored this book - I wanted to kiss its whole face. It's also the first one I've read where I really think the committee totally shit the bed on the whole "children are the audience" part of the criteria. As one Goodreads reviewer aptly put it, "the story is subtle as heck". It is so subtle - it is woven together out of hints and echoes and allusions. There were things I didn't catch until my second reading, and I am generally no slouch in the catching-things department (okay, I very often am a slouch in the catching-things department, but things like irony, and when something is a flashback in a tv show, which a lot of people have issues with, they really shouldn't be allowed to show flashbacks without the "5 years ago" tag, it's too confusing).

The criss cross reference is to the paths of the many pre-adolescent characters converging, diverging, glancing off of each other and sometimes failing entirely to meet. It is also the name of a radio program a few of the characters listen to while sitting in someone's father's truck on Sunday evenings - the radio program is clearly referencing the movie Strangers on a Train, but none of the characters know this; the program is about juxtaposition - unusual music, humorous skits and "what do you get when you cross a (something) with a (something else)? jokes", which is a beautiful little microcosm of the whole book, but has nothing to do with any of them murdering anyone.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is also a strong undercurrent - Dan, a football-playing character who sometimes acts like a decent human being and often is a mean or rude ass, who Perkins likens to Nick Bottom, the weaver who is turned into a donkey in the play. She says he is "under a spell, conferred by a magic jersey and a powerful potion of lucky genes and emerging hormones", and speculates whether he will "learn certain lessons, involving humility, compassion, respect, and independent thinking", or "remain a large, furry, willfully stupid animal". At Seldem Days, a sort of town fair, Dan shows up with Meadow, crushing the dreams of Hector, a sweet and thoughtful character who takes guitar lessons in a church basement with Dan and Meadow and had been hoping to connect with her himself. Dan is casually cruel to Hector, and then looks at another character with disdain. The next passage reads "There was a barely perceptible subdermal movement near his tailbone. There was a slight bray in his voice.     It was all still reversible." I don't want to underestimate ten-to-twelve-year-olds, but am I wrong in thinking this is pitched just a little too esoterically? If the play had been performed somewhere, or discussed, even, it would be different. But it isn't. 

It's almost like Perkins was so determined to craft a whimsical, tender, poignant coming-of-age story that she throws every stirring, lovely weapon in her arsenal at it - there are Conversations in the Dark, there is a Japanese Chapter in which there are many haikus - Hector goes into a sponge state and has a satori in the first damned chapter! 

I loved it all. I love the scene where Debbie and Patty strip to their underwear in the secret space made by a rhododendron bush and use smuggled seam-rippers to lengthen their bell-bottoms while the rain is "softly piffing on the leaves all around", because their mothers are "stranded in the backwaters of a bygone era" and "You could argue and argue, but they weren’t going to get it. At some point you just had to go change your clothes in a bush.”

I love the missed moment between Debbie and her mother, where Debbie is trying to tell her mother how lost and empty she feels after her brief, sweet first love experience, and her mother might have told her about the boy who bought her all the dog figurines in the box in the closet, but instead "their secrets inadvertently sidestepped each other, unaware, like blindfolded elephants crossing the tiny room," and her mother went to see whether she had turned off the burner under the hard-boiled eggs.

I love the missed moment between Debbie and Hector, when Hector gives Debbie back her necklace, which has traveled through various ways and means throughout the town and through many pockets, and they both see the new person the other has become that summer, but not at the same moment - "their moments were separated by about a second. Maybe only half a second. Their paths crossed, but they missed each other. The hardworking necklace couldn't believe it. It let out an inaudible, exasperated gasp.”

Yep, you read that right - at the last, the necklace becomes suddenly sentient. It's a ridiculous, glorious mess. I loved it, but to me it reads like a kids' book written for adults. I am unutterably grateful that it did win the Newbery Medal, though, (in 2006, I forgot to check until just now - although it reads like it takes place in the 70s), otherwise I likely never would have come across it. 

Mondays on the Margins: Newbery Medal Winner Island of the Blue Dolphins

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell was the 1961 Newbery Medal winner. I had seen it on library and bookstore shelves many times but never read it. The shocker for me when I flipped the last page was that it's based on a true story, about a girl who was alone on an island along the California coast for nearly TWENTY FREAKING YEARS. I also hadn't realized that there was a sequel, published sixteen years later, which takes place after the original protagonist has left the island and features her niece.

I do feel like this was written in a way that would be effective for a younger audience. The language is quite simple, and although the story is affecting (twenty years! Alone! On an island!), I sometimes found myself wishing for a bit more complexity. There would definitely be much to discuss if this book was taught in a classroom setting.

Nicole mentioned that she tended to read books with female main characters when she was younger - well, here you go. Not only is she the main character, for most of the book she's the ONLY character. Many of her people (the Ghalas-at) are killed off by a rival tribe (the Aleuts) near the beginning of the story. She illustrates that the women of her tribe are very capable, picking up the slack when many of the men have been killed: “During this time other women were gathering the scarlet apples that grow on the cactus bushes and are called tunas. Fish were caught and many birds were netted. So hard did the women work that we really fared better than before when the hunting was done by the men.” OH SNAP - take that, you patriarchal aboriginal dudes.

A ship of white men comes to help the tribe move, but the protagonist, Karana, realizes her younger brother has been left behind and leaves the ship to retrieve him. The ship leaves, and her brother is subsequently killed by wild dogs (I have no idea if this part is true - if it isn't, the author is kind of a bastard). So she hangs out, gathering food, learning how to build stuff (this statement rang so true for me: “I had seen the weapons made, but I knew little about it. I had seen my father sitting in the hut o winter nights scraping the wood for the shafts, chipping the stones for the tips, and tying the feathers, yet I had watched him and really seen nothing. I had watched, but not with the eye of one who would ever do it.”)

Photo by David McSpadden

She also has to fight off wild dogs, one of whom she eventually tames. She develops a special relationship with many animals on the island (again, this might be pure sentimental fantasy on the part of the author, although the man who 'rescued' her did say she was found living in a hut with a dog). At one point the Aleuts come back to hunt for sea otter, and she stays hidden from them but meets a girl who is traveling with them, and has a friend for a very short while. 

I like that Karana is such a strong, capable character, methodically going about using the skills she has and developing ones she needs to keep herself safe, fed and sheltered. 

It's a strange book. In a way it was like watching Castaway, that Tom Hanks movie - you can't conceive of spending hours watching or reading one person's lonely years like that. And then you do, and it's over, and you feel weird.