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I approached Isabel's War with a bit of trepidation--it's a WW2 novel with heavy mention of the Holocaust (although set in the US) and I feel like way too many books have been published over the years that use the pain of that war to gain easy sympathy. (You know who I'm talking about.)

Isabel's War is something different however, it opens in a summer vacation hotel ala Dirty Dancing for one, and the title character is a twelve-year old American with a healthy chip on her shoulder and an awareness of her own shortcomings that is quite refreshing.

(Her mother is also the world's most critical women, but Isabel can deal with her.)

Isabel meets teenage Helga, the newly arrived German niece of her mother's good friend, while at Shady Pines. The girls are quickly thrown together as adults will do to kids, ("I'm sure you girls will get along just fine!"), and though they have little in common, a small friendship begins to develop. Soon enough though Isabel's family is thrown in to turmoil, and must return home, when her older brother enlists. She doesn't expect to see Helga anytime soon but then the family friend becomes ill, Helga needs a place to stay for awhile and just like that the girls are practically 24/7 together.

One of the things Perl did so well with this novel is let Isabel and Helgo become friends slowly. There's no rush to BFF-dom here and the fits and starts in their relationship make both girls easier to relate to. Two other great characters are Isabel's friend Sibby and her mother who are heavily involved in the news of the war (Sibby's father is a merchant marine). They force Isabel to become more engaged and it is through their influence that she begins to ask Helga smart questions about her past and finally uncovers just how she came to America.

There's some very good history in Isabel's War, especially about the Kindertransport which is rarely covered in teen history or literature. It's also nice to see how Sibby's mother learns about the horrors Jewish people faced in Europe--she makes a point of telling Isabel that you have to read the small parts of the newspaper on the back pages to get the whole truth. As this was how news of the Holocaust slowly came to the world, it's a nice touch that Perl has it explained that way in the text.

There's a bit of Nancy Drew appeal to Isabel's War; all of Helga's secrets get revealed and Isabel is relentless to get to the truth. There is also some self-righteous fury here aimed at willfully ignorant adults and some expected coming-of-age angst. It's all good and I enjoyed this novel a lot.

It is not often that I come across a grand tale that unfolds over decades and includes adventure across the land and sky, the pounding drums of war, religion, politics, romance, fast cars, fast boats, the love of a parent to a child, and characters who sweep you along with their words, actions and heart.

Frankly, it's almost exhausting to list all the parts of Vango: Between Sky and Earth that I enjoyed.

Vango takes place in Europe between the two world wars. Written by Frenchman Timothee de Fombelle and translated by Sarah Ardizzone, there is a rhythm and tempo to the language that speaks to its historic nature. It reads easily but not casually; I truly felt like I was reading a book written in the 1930s although the pages move with more of a comic book speed than I expected. (This is a very good thing by the way.)

The title character, Vango Romano, is a young man who bursts onto the opening pages as he is accused of murder in Paris. Quickly the text moves from his rooftop escape, to the police, to those who witnessed his escape, to a mysterious meeting in Sochi, Russia and and then back sixteen years to Vango's own childhood in Sicily. The reader might be a little confused at first as the action jumps quickly in and out of different characters and back and forth across the map and time, but soon enough it becomes clear that everything is connected. (Also, the time periods and locations are clearly marked at each chapter.) Studying those connections is part of the joy in reading here, as Vango's life became more and more significant as each page turns.

There is no magic in Vango, this is realistic historic fiction where the bad guys are terrifying enough without adding fangs and fur. As the heroes and villains circle each other and the clues are dropped to Vango's past and future, the novel moves from thriller to mystery to political intrigue. By the final pages it all comes together and everyone plays their parts in grand fashion.

Big moves, big action, big issues are the stuff Vango: Between Sky and Earth are made of. Next up is the sequel, out now in Europe, Vango: A Prince Without a Kingdom. which I'm really looking forward to reading.

Set in 1983 Berlin, Going Over is a combination of romance and coming-of-age that dwells a lot more with the fallout of the Cold War than just about any book I have read for teenagers. It works because the plot is driven less by the international politics of containment then the angst of Ada, 16, and Stefan, 18, who are separated by the Berlin Wall. They don't have hopes of changing the world, they'd just like to hang out together when they want to which is not easy with all the concrete and guns between them.

Basically, Stefan's got to go over the wall.

Before we get to the adventure aspect ,(which is comparatively quite brief), Kephart immerses readers in the complicated relationship between Ada and Stefan, whose grandmothers are childhood friends who became separated when the wall was constructed. Over the years Ada and her grandmother traveled to East Berlin to visit, (a relatively common occurrence readers may not know about), and what began as a friendship between the children slowly became more.

Stefan's life is small; his future predetermined by the stringent rules of education and work that dominate socialist society. Ada, a graffiti artist who lives with her mother and grandmother and works in a small day care, is wide open to possibility. Her Germany can be grim as well, but the chance of what might happen next is something she embraces. Ada is all about taking big leaps and encourages (practically forces!) Stefan to consider big leaps as well. Fearlessness doesn't come easy to East Germans however, not with so many examples of how badly things can go when you try to be brave.

In hoping to persuade Stefan to leave, Ada collects reports on successful crossings and smuggles them in to him to read. (These are all true.) Bit by bit, Stefan forms a plan, while on the other side Ada watches and waits and dreams of a world where they are both able to imagine a future of their choice.

Going Over is a teen novel of far bigger ideas than most I have come across. The setting is brilliant and the split narrative, between Ada and Stefan, provides readers with a close look at just how different Berlin became after the split. (Which also makes the reunification that much more impressive.) There are so many novels set during WWII, while the Cold War remains stubbornly overlooked. I'm thus delighted with what Kephart has done here and find these characters, in their decidedly European setting, to be different in the best way. It's a thought provoking title with exceedingly likeable characters and a great ending; all of which make Going Over a winner.

[Post pic courtesy LIFE of a mother & daughter speaking across the wall in August 1961.]

I surprised myself the first time I read The Bell Jar by falling hard for Sylvia Plath's autobiographical novel of a young woman in New York City and the fallout of her stressful summer. It was the Plath angle that sparked my initial attraction to Meg Wolitzer's Belzhar but that ended up being a way more complicated novel than I expected (with a truly amazing twist).

Introspective Jam Gallahue is a classic Plath heroine. Depressed over the death of her boyfriend Reeve, Jam has been sent by her parents to a "therapeutic boarding school" in Vermont. Selected for enrollment into a small English class, she and her fellow students immerse themselves in The Bell Jar and find themselves experience strange dreams attached to the individual traumas that brought each of them to the school.

Wolitzer uses the class to bring the misfits together and the mysterious dreams cause them to bond rapidly as they share their experiences and why they came to the school. Jam watchers a lot, observing her classmates and tentatively making friends. Mostly though she immerses herself in her dreams and memories of Reeve, rehashing every moment of their brief but powerful romance. It's a classic boarding school set-up and then Wolitzer hits readers with the wallop of a twist that blows every inch of the plot out of the water and yet also makes perfect sense.

I liked the teens in this novel and I think Wolitzer did a good job of showing how some things that bring us down can be remarkably small but still nonetheless devastating. And I liked how Plath fit into the novel and how seeing The Bell Jar through the eyes of Jam and her friends made me reconsider that novel a bit more as well. If Belzhar ends up being a way for readers to find Plath, then that is a really good thing and why I think that an excellent gift for teenage girls in particular would be copies of Belzhar, The Bell Jar and also Mad Girl's Love Song and Ariel: The Restored Edition.

More on Sylvia Plath at Brain Pickings.

After two quick trips to points both east and west, here is the current status of my reading life:

1. Lies in the Dust: A Tale of Remorse from the Salem Witch Trials by Jakob Crane/Art by Tim Decker. This graphic novel tells the story of Ann Putnam Jr., 14 years after the trials. Ann was one of the girls at the center of the accusations that led to the deaths of the so many. I never knew that she felt remorse--honestly I never thought too much about what happened to any of the girls. Crane does a great job of pulling readers in to Anne's adult (and that of the siblings she raises) and shows how much the attitudes of Salem's residents changed. (It's interesting to me that they blamed her rather than themselves.) Crane also explains why Ann did what she did & the influence her parents had on her actions.

Tim Decker's spare black & white line drawings are the perfect complement to the story, with sad and soulful eyes that can not be denied. A great read for 8-12 year olds (or teens who want to know what happened.)

2. The Family by David Laskin. Oh, this one hurt. Laskin tells the story of 3 branches of his Jewish family--the one that emigrated to the US and became financially successful (founding Maidenform bras!), the one that emigrated to Palestine and still lives in Israel today and the one that stayed behind in Eastern Europe and was 100% killed in the WW2.

It's not a memoir but a history and nearly impossible to put down. I liked that Laskin removed himself from the story and let the history speak for itself. So much to say on this book but mostly, that it needs to be read.

3. Dark Metropolis by Jaclyn Dolamore & The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters. I am putting these 2 in a piece with Celine Kiernan's Into the Grey about offbeat scary stories that I'm pitching to LARB.

Dark Metropolis is set in an alternate world similar to a certain degree to Europe during the two world wars. Thea's mother has been suffering from separation from her father, believed to be killed in a recent war. Thea supports them by waiting tables in a swanky Jazz Age-ish club along with her best friend Nan. When her friend goes missing, Thea turns detective and teams up with Freddy who is at the heart of the mystery.

In The Cure for Dreaming, budding suffragist Olivia lives in Portland, OR in 1900 with her father while her absent mother works in the theater in NYC. A hypnotist arrives to give shows in town and Olivia's dad hires him to "cure her of her dreams" and accept her role as a dutiful daughter (and future wife for some fine young man). Olivia and "Henri" bond on a serious level and end up changing some minds and seeing the world in a different way. (Though don't expect the happy ending that my summary might be suggesting.)

Both of these are good reads and creepy in unexpected ways and I'm looking forward to writing about them (and Into the Grey).

4. 14 Days to Alaska by Troy Hamon. Sounds exactly like the title suggests--an engaging journal of two brothers on a plane trip from Ohio to King Salmon, AK in a small single-engine aircraft. Part of the hook here is that the author was learning to fly as they went and the airplane was his brand new (57-year old) purchase. Hamon is funny and honest and the trip itself is pretty interesting. I'm reviewing this one for ADN.

5. Rewilding Our Hearts by Marc Bekoff. For Booklist, so that's all I can say!

6. The Public Library by Robert Dawson. I really loved this so much. Great pictures and wonderful essays. I think it needs to be widely read--Dawson does a great job of showing just why libraries are such a vital part of America's past & present (and future). I think a lot of folks who might not get that would understand better after this book. It's important and beautiful and powerful; probably one of the best books I've paged through this year.

7. Right now I have 2 more books going for Booklist, both of which need to be reviewed by the 14th. Otherwise, I'm going through a backlog of magazines which is always a good way to spend some time.

In the next few days I'll catch up on my reviewing and writing and share some cool family history pics among many many other thins I need to blog about!

I just read and enjoyed immensely Ransom Riggs's Hollow City, the sequel to Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children. Fans of the first book need only hear that the second exceeds it in every way, (which is pretty amazing as that book was fantastic), and those who have missed both and love a good story (regardless of whether you like young adult, new adult or just plain adult) really ought to read these books immediately.

But what I've been thinking about is what a good job Riggs did at crafting both of these books around the photographs he illustrates them with.

Riggs finds odd photographs in the usual settings: flea markets, antique stores and via collectors. In Miss Peregrine many of these were comprised of the individuals who made up the story: the peculiar children. In Hollow City he goes much further in using photos to illustrate not only people the children meet (and animals) but also significant events that occur throughout the novel. Clearly, the pictures were key to plot development and how he accomplished this is truly inspiring to me as a writer.

The other thing about the 2 books is that they remind readers how pleasurable it is to read illustrated novels. I greatly enjoy Barbara Hodgson's novels for this reason and Riggs has made me a big fan with how well he integrates his quirky postcards (which Quirk Books presents so beautifully in these lushly designed editions).

As to the plot--there's time travel (primarily late 19th to mid 20th century), "peculiar" children with all manner of odd talents (control of bees, weighing lighter than air, communicating via echolocation, etc.), and a major war between good and evil (of course!). World War II plays a big part in Hollow City, which allowed Riggs to use some evocative images (including the cover) and also amps the peril the main characters find themselves in.

But.....none of that is why I wanted to write about these books. My biggest reason to recommend them is to persuade adults to give them a go. Yes, there is a slight teenage romance going on here but it is subtle and kind and will ring true for many. More importantly the overall story is escapist fiction at its best; thrilling, creepy, smart and also quite hopeful. It's like nothing else I have read and reminds me a lot of Bradbury at his Something Wicked This Way Comes best.

Good books + cool photos. What's not to love? :)

Read Chap 1 of Hollow City at Ransom Riggs's site.

The graphic novel This One Summer by cousins Jillian and Mariko Tamaki is one of those books that really requires a teen sensibility to fully appreciate. Adults can certainly read it (and enjoy it) but I think if you are a 12 or 14 year old (girl especially) then This One Summer would have special appeal.

The set-up echoes the plots of many other summer novels from the past: Rose and her parents arrive at their cabin in Awago Beach for their annual vacation. Windy and her mother and grandmother are nearby, just as they are every year. Rose and Windy are set for some familiar hijinks: hanging out at the beach, bonfires and picnics, bike rides and, this year, renting some classic horror movies from the local store and getting the crap scared out of them them while their parents are none-the-wiser.

There are some serious undercurrents however--Rose's parents are in a troubled marriage and the source of their conflict, which plays out in dozens of little tense-filled moments throughout the book, is an ongoing object of concern for Rose. Also, she develops a small crush on the high school boy who works at the store and his turbulent relationship with a local girl becomes something she and Windy study with great interest. How couples work, or don't work--the whole concept of romantic love--is the mystery that unfolds for Rose as the summer continues. Windy is a little younger and for her it is mostly a game to watch but for Rose, there is a wistfulness that anyone who survived middle school will recognize. She pines for something that she is not yet old enough to understand. (This is pretty much everything you need to know about middle school.)

This One Summer isn't a sweet story though. The girls are pretty typical girls. They sling a few bad words around, testing them out for effect, and they are all about noticing the older teens, what they have, what they do, how they interact. The girls listen for everything and gather information on sex and flirting, pondering it like miniature Jane Goodalls in the wild. This is where reviewers really and truly must channel their inner teen to appreciate the book and understand how important and common these interactions are and how brilliantly the author and illustrator nail the essence of teenage girl.

[Momentary aside--I can still tell you the names of the first girl and boy in my 6th grade class to make out. I can't tell you much else I learned that year but Gary & Leighann, those two, (and the drama their kissing brought to a hundred lunchtime conversations when I was 12), I will never forget.]

I will be very surprised if This One Summer is not challenged at some point. There are parents who will not be happy to see the language or the sexual suggestions that Rose & Windy spy on. And I'm also sure there are reviewers who will say that not enough happens in this story or that the events are too melodramatic. For me though, it all rang as spectacularly authentic. Teenagers sit around and talk about each A LOT. They flirt, they fall in and out of relationships and sometimes things move far too quickly. Younger teens study the big kids, they follow, they stare, they spend hours talking about what they see. Not a lot happens in This One Summer but it is about as true to real life for most kids that you could hope to find.

That's why it's going to get challenged, and also, why so many teenagers, (again, girls especially), are going to read it again and again.

You really could see this one happening.

Lots of folks have compared it to Stephen King and it certainly is reminiscent of his multiple point-of-view novels with smart characters standing up to a vast conspiracy that includes lots of people behaving very badly and some crazy and some blood and some good guys who die as well as a lot of bad ones. BUT...that comparison does nothing to diminish what a great big fun read this is. The characters are all fantastic and the teen protagonists especially are well-rounded, three-dimensional and even those who only appear for a page are two are memorable and cut to the bone.

The plot, from the opening pages of unexplained murder, moves at a breakneck speed and even when you find out what is going on it doesn't slow down until the last pages. Perhaps the best compliment I can pay Wasserman is that she reminds readers what a big good entertaining read can be when it's not relying on fangs, fur or undead, which frankly have become crutches lately for far too many lazy writers.

A more thorough review will follow in my column but in case you were wondering about this one, have no doubt that The Waking Dark is worth every penny. I loved it, from start to finish.

For as long as I can remember I have had a ridiculously romantic vision of lakeside resorts from the early to mid twentieth century. I love seeing pictures of people walking along lake shores and riding wooden speedboats and gathering on big wide verandas. It's the pictures I'm sure - they just look so wonderful and conjure up all those happy family ideals that I know are bunk but can never resist.

I just wanted to play cards on a veranda during a rainstorm I guess, with no distractions from television or telephone, just see the lake and drink lemonade and everyone loves everyone.*

Reading Molly Beth Griffin's lovely YA novel Silhouette of the Sparrow brought all of this back and more; I just inhaled this book and can't recommend it enough. It's set in 1926 on a lake in Minnesota with Garnet, who has been sent away from home as her parents struggle through a difficult time. The wealthy relative who's supposed to watch over her is her father's cousin and a major snob but Garnet is happy to be someplace faraway, someplace where she can think about all the changes about to come her way. (Should she marry the perfectly suitable boy back home who's threatening to propose, will her WWI vet father be okay, is she crazy to be dreaming of college?)

Garnet is a girl stuck in a strange period in American history, when women had the right to vote and hemlines were rising and anything seemed possible but marriage was the only truly acceptable path and motherhood was expected and college was still a distant dream for most. Garnet is like so many young women of her time - brave enough to imagine a different future but incapable of how to make it happen. Everything changes in Minnesota for her however, because in Minnesota Garnet meets Isabella and everything about the two of them together is just wonderful.

Plus Garnet is a silhouette artist who cuts amazing images of birds and wants to study the natural world in college, especially ornithology. How could you not adore her?

Here's just a snippet from the book that I loved:

"I looked over at Isabella - those perfect lips, that short hair starting to dry with little tufts sticking up at funny angles, those boyish clothes all rumpled and soaked. I wanted to tell her secrets I hadn't even told myself yet."

"...secrets I hadn't even told myself yet." Isn't that lovely and so perfectly what it is to be a teenage girl? Silhouette of the Sparrow will be formally reviewed in my July column; highly recommended for anyone who ever had a wistful heart...

*You would think reading Kate Atkinson's The Awakening would have cured me of the romantic view of such summertime resorts, but still I cling to it...just can't let go!

Rachel Sa's The Lewton Experiment jumped out at me from the catalog as a girl detective/girl reporter mash-up that takes place in a town that has been mysteriously devastated by a nearby Big Box store. Our heroine is seventeen-year old Sherri who has landed a job as a reporter for the newspaper at the small tourist town of Lewton where her aunt and uncle own and operate a B&B. It is a little odd that she got the job - it seems hard to believe a teenager would be this lucky, but Sherri is too delighted to care. Then she steps off the bus to discover a boarded up downtown and desolate streets. Lewton is just about dead and everybody - even her family - just wants to talk about Shopwells.

(We can call it Walmart, if you want.)

Sherri finds a lot of weird really fast, starting with her uncle, who works at Shopwells and is not at all himself and her aunt who seems to be compulsively shopping for things she does not need. The newspaper isn't interested in covering the negative impact Shopwells has on the town and no one is interested in explaining how last year's summer reporter went from writing about Shopwells was doing to the economy to working for them. Sherri decides to go into the belly of the beast and investigate the store which is where things get all tense and also very funny.

Sherri is a great character; she doesn't waste a lot of time wondering what to do or second guessing her instincts. It's obvious that something is seriously wrong (made all the more clear as the few remaining stores seem to close up overnight), and when she finds herself succumbing to a store-induced euphoria and shopping with abandon, she knows enough to be really freaked out the next day. I liked how she followed clues and broken into offices and went looking into file cabinets and computer files and archives. I liked how she wouldn't let go of the story and I liked how through it all Ra tossed out some really silly moments (what everyone ends up buying is hysterical) and her villains be a bit cartoony. But....and this is a big but....there's one dying romance and one budding one in this book and neither does a thing to help the story. In fact, having Sherri juggle boys in the midst of a criminal investigation just got in the way of the plot and really ruined all the goodwill that I felt for the novel.

When she arrives in Lewton, Sherri and her boyfriend Michael back home are on the ropes. They exchange several phone calls throughout the book, all of which slow down the plot, until Michael conveniently shares that he has spent some time with another girl. This gives Sherri the out she was looking for to break up with Michael without being a bad person, something that would have been necessary if Michael never existed in the first place.

The local guy, the one Sherri wants to date but can't because of Michael, is Ben who works at a diner in in Lewton and becomes involved in her investigations. Ben is smart, a little dubious of all of Sherri's rather wild assertions but game to jump onboard and get to the bottom of things. The two end up on the road tracking down someone on the inside at Shopwells who might have some information when they end up staying at a hotel (separate rooms). After barely exchanging a kiss, having no discussion of dating or anything meaningful at all, Sherri wanders into Ben's room, say's "who needs sleep anyway" and pulls Ben down to the bed.

Cut scene. Hours later the chase for information begins again.

Ben existed, until that moment, primarily as a buddy for Sherri so she wasn't the only sane person in town. He was becoming a potential love interest with only a few pages left in the book, it seemed unlikely. Then boom - there's sex (apparently), the nefarious plot gets uncovered, all is revealed and they end up kissing again in Ben's apartment. This is apparently because Sherri could not be happily ever after without a boy, any boy, even a boy she barely met and slept with for no good reason.

I can't believe I'm saying this but the sex scene that occurs only 100% in this book has to be one of the more gratuitous sex scenes I've come across in a book in ages.

What I think - and I have no idea if this is true - is that either the author or editors thought romance was critical to the success of The Lewton Experiment. However, none of them wanted that romance to be too graphic so it is barely here, dropped in every few chapters and while it exists, won't get the book banned (for sure). But being unnecessary, it is distracting and clunky. What could have been a cute young teen mystery ended up being a roundly unsuccessful YA- wannabe.

Sigh.

From The Other Normals* by Ned Vizzini (author of It's Kind of a Funny Story). This is an exchange between protagonist Perry and his new friend Sam who are bonding over an RPG called Creatures & Caverns. It's a perfect example of keeping perspective when life gets you down.

"I believe in something. Whatever else I do during the day, I always make sure to remember, 'Nobody knows how the pyramids were built.' You know? You go through life worrying about your little assignments from school, trying to be smart, playing the game, and meanwhile nobody can explain how the pyramids exist. Two-point-five to fifteen tons, each block. Five thousand years ago."

"Who do you think built them? Aliens?"

"It doesn't matter. Aliens, magic....Until someone explains the pyramids to me, how'm I gonna take life serious? You want to start a new game?"

*My original plan was to include it in my November column but I think because of it's paranormal turn it will fit better in December. I'll keep you posted.

**September's column should be up shortly - all NF titles focused on science and scientists. Great stuff!

My dream school was sometimes Notre Dame, sometimes any one of those fabled and famous former girls schools in New England. (And sometimes it was the University of Hawaii but I think everyone wishes for that one at least once.) The reality was a school in my hometown and living with my mother and stepfather for the first three years of college which meant that until I was 20, life was pretty much the same as it was when I was 16. In retrospect, I would have done things differently but back then I didn't have anything other than big expensive dreams of distant schools that were as unreal to me as Oz or Wonderland. I didn't know enough about them to really know how to get to them and honestly I didn't know enough to even know if they were reasonable choices for me. They were just dreams and still remain so even today.

In Dream School author Blake Nelson sends his college freshman Andrea Marr off to Wellington College in CT, the place she believes will be life changing. The reality, of course, is not nearly as dazzling but Nelson doesn't stack the deck with outrageous events; he lets Andrea's school experience unfold in ways relatively dull and ordinary. She makes friends, takes classes, dates, parties and tries to figure out who she is and who she wants to be. Disillusionment with Wellington creeps in slowly as she forms a disconnect with some of her classmates and instructors but Nelson lets the reader slowly work out if Andrea is the problem, or if the school is. Nothing is obvious, not even the sudden crushing issue that turns Andrea's world upside down in a moment.

Everything in Dream School, even the more outlandish moments, will seem familiar to anyone who ever attended college. (Parts of it are so familiar they seem almost eerie.) More than anything else though it is Andrea, with her sometimes naive, sometimes arrogant perspective, that makes the novel sing. She is equal parts confident and terrified, bubbling with eagerness one moment and desperate to hide another. In other words, she is very nearly every teenager in the first excited moments of leaving home. (Remember that stunning moment when Rory gets told she might not be cutting it in Yale? That is Andrea every step of the way.)

Dream School worked for me because it is as messy as life, because it doesn't shy away from the issues of drugs, alcohol and sex that every teen faces when they are out on their own and because Andrea is neither preternaturally smart nor eye-rollingly stupid. I loved this kid, even when she screwed up. I know her, I understand her and there are certainly moments (after I finally left home) when I was her. This is a great summer read - I'll have more about it in my formal review in the column this November.

Spoilers!

In reading Francisco Stork's recent YA novelIrises, I'm more than a bit disappointed by what seemed to me to be a lot of heavy-handedness on the part of the author. I enjoyed his last book, Last Summer of the Death Warriors, and even though it had a dark subject, I thought Stork did a decent job of not taking advantage of his readers' emotions. That is not the case with Irises however, a book that pulls every one of your heartstrings and then some.

The story centers on sisters Kate and Mary who have a loving family in the [flashback] opening pages but by the second chapter are in difficult straits. Their mother is in a permanent vegetative state after a car accident two years before. She is kept at home and cared for by a part time nurse, her teen daughters and husband. The husband, a pastor, then dies suddenly of an apparent heart attack. Kate, who is 18 and soon to graduate, was hoping to go to Stanford (they live in El Paso) on scholarship. She has not told anyone in her family about this. Mary, a 16 year old artist, wants to stay in El Paso, pursue her art and care for Mom. They have no income (other than Kate's part time waitress job at her boyfriend's father's restaurant), and rent their home from the church. The church wants them out in two months to make room for the young (22) visiting pastor who has decided to stay and fill the now vacant pastor's job. And their only living relative, their mom's sister, comes for the funeral, asks a lot of hard (but necessary) questions and then reveals she is battling breast cancer and can't help anyone and needs to go home to CA. Kate's boyfriend does ask her to marry him so he can fix everything (he's also a senior in high school) but she's not so sure she loves him especially when the gorgeous new pastor hits on her while suggesting she pull her mother's feeding tube.

Oh - and the $100,000 life insurance policy on dad doesn't get paid because the company claims their father lied and had a congenital heart defect he never admitted to.

Did you follow all that? One parent dead, one apparently never waking up, no money, about to be homeless, scholarship hanging by a thread, underage sister needs a guardian, (she has met a hot artist guy though who wants to be her friend) (his problem is he is in a gang and thus might die or kill someone at anytime), and hot pastor guy wants to offer guidance about ending mom's life (there's a lot of stressing that mom is not really alive which is...odd) but also wants to move into their house and get in big sister's pants. Talk about some drama! There is nothing going right for these girls and so of course they spend all of their time not discussing the problems with each other and blunder around talking to everyone else for most of the book.

HOSPICE. Have these people never heard of hospice and how they can provide information and counseling in this situation??? And the family doctor who comes weekly to take care of mom? How about talking to him? And mom has no insurance? It all "ran out"? Can anyone explain this? And dad brought mom home after one bad nursing home experience or because a doctor told him he could have the feeding tube removed which insulted him or because the insurance ran out (all of these are mentioned)? And Kate is eighteen and everyone thought she was going to college in Texas but she never applied there? Or did she fake apply? And how was her dad going to pay for it if they have no money (which apparently what they all figure out after he dies)?

And would any sister really talk to a guy she barely knows (new pastor) and a lawyer she met while waitressing one night, (and thus doesn't know), about letting her mother die before she talks to her sister? Oh - and the pastor guy is of course a narcissistic mega-church wan

I am reading Winter Town right now for my May column and there is a scene that gave me serious pause. The protagonists are two teens who grew up together and have come to a point where their long friendship is transitioning to romance. Okay, that's pretty standard in the YA world. Lucy is going through a rough time and Evan is there for her, just like he has always been. In fact, they share a tender moment after Evan helps Lucy through a particularly awkward moment when she is visiting his house for Christmas and, either because she has been drinking or she is bulimic or she is just completely stressed out, Lucy races to the bathroom so she can spend a few minutes throwing up. Evan is sympathetic, Evan is concerned, Evan looks at Lucy and Lucy looks at Evan and they kiss.

She apologizes for throwing up first, of course.

In my vast experience with vomiting (both my own and others) I have never, not once, seen a moment where someone feels overwhelmed with passion after throwing up. And honestly if the vomiter did feel that way, I can't see who on earth would want to kiss them in that moment. Seriously. IT'S NOT SEXY AND WE ALL KNOW IT.

What annoys me so much about this is that as a reader, it derails me from the narrative in a major way. I'm reading along, wondering what is going on with Lucy, how many times Evan will have to get hit over the head before he realizes he has a crush on her and then, well, then all I can think about is how disgusting it would be to put your tongue inside the mouth of someone else mere moments after they were done throwing up. Just like that Lucy and Evan are dead to me. Clearly there is no way I could possibly identify with them - I find vomit to be unpleasant (and sometimes nausea inducing when it is done right in front of you) and yet these these two characters are apparently able to be turned on by it. (Okay, that isn't fair but you get my point.)

Winter Town is not the first book to have a scene like this one but after reading it last night I just had enough. I will return to the book and finish it and review it and not beat the author up (much) over this scene but I felt compelled to draw a line in the sand here. Vomit is not about romance, folks, and we really need to stop pretending that it ever could be. Really. Let the girl go home, brush her teeth and clean up before she kisses someone. PLEASE.

Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony & Rodrigo Corral is a heavily illustrated book, an app and a website. (Which is actually on tumblr.) It is the big new thing in transmedia - a story that transcends multiple media formats and has been hailed by Kirkus as "Eerie and edgy--and effective as Poe". Well, that's some pretty high praise but just the mere idea of Chopsticks was enough to get me excited to read it. The book is the story of teen piano prodigy Glory who falls for new boy next door Francisco ("Frank"). They make mix CDs for each other, chat late at night, send back and forth youtube clips and drawings, etc. The book is designed around all these exchanges plus lots of other ephemera like photos, newspaper clippings and invites pertaining to Glory's performances, notes from school, etc. There is very little text - the whole thing is about the images which take the reader through the death years before of Glory's mother, her performances and European tour and growing love for Frank. Along the way we start to see Glory fall to pieces under performance pressure and she ends up in a rest facility making plans to run away with Frank. Then the authors toss out a big twist that is straight out of any gothic title ever written and there you go. That's the story.

I'm okay with using plot tropes from a zillion years ago because if done well any story will hold a reader's attention. What bothers me about Chopsticks though is I think it excels more as "the next big thing in storytelling" then an actual story. Glory is a cipher - you never really get in her head, there are no long diary entries or letters or emails to show how she feels only brief postcards about wanting to go home and missing Frank. Nothing emotionally affecting. I wanted to be inside this character's head - I needed to be - but the authors did not give me that perspective. So I never really cared about her which I think diminishes the story greatly because if you don't care about Glory then there isn't a whole lot else to the book.

I did not download the app (it costs money and there is a limit to my reviewing curiosity) but I have been to the website. I was thinking maybe it would have a diary to read or blog posts from Glory or her father or something similar but no - in fact the site is similar to many traditional book sites. There are embedded youtube videos, but you could visit them by typing in the text from the book. There are close-ups of items pictured in the book, but nothing additional. You don't get anything more about the characters from visiting this site. (Or if you do I missed it entirely.) The app apparently plays the music Glory & Frank talk about in the book but again, I could track that down on my own. Nice addition but it doesn't get me any further insight into what makes this girl tick and when all is said and done, that's what I needed.

I think Chopsticks is very pretty but suffers from a weak story. Other than the plot twist, I'm not seeing what makes the book memorable and more importantly even with the twist I did not care about this character. So, are the critics excited about it just because it is the first book from a major publisher to crossover from print to app and website? I give them points for making the extra effort but I think we all need to remember that without a strong story in the first place, none of the bells and whistles matter.

I am a person who likes going to the web to learn more after reading a book. Heck, after finishing THE GROUP last week I went looking for Mary McCarthy's house online. (It's in Seattle!) I read author interviews all the time, I like to see where books are set, I'm curious about who characters are based on. I love the idea of transmedia. But first, the story has to work and in the case of Chopsticks, I think the

During the diversity panel discussion at KidLit Con I brought up a quandary I was facing with Beth Kephart's upcoming psychological thriller, You Are My Only. The book centers around two young women and what happens to them nearly a decade apart in time: Sophie who was kidnapped as a baby and is now, at fourteen, beginning to wonder why her life is so odd and her "mother" so secretive and Emmy, Sophie's true mother who suffered a breakdown after she was taken and was involuntarily committed to a state asylum. The action is all about whether or not Emmy will get out of the asylum or lose her mind and whether Sophie will uncover the truth in time to escape her captor (who has raised her as if she was her own daughter). But inside all of this tension there are secondary characters who gave me pause and prompted my question at the conference.

Sophie is supported in her search for the truth by the very cute boy next door and his two delightfully literary and extremely kind aunts. He lives with them because his parents were killed in an accident when he was young - Aunt Cloris, he explains, was his father's only living relative. Sophie ponders this and asks how that is possible, as he has two aunts. Helen is not his relative he explains and then, in a moment, Sophie grasps that the two women are a couple. She then processes the information, realizes the little clues she has missed that pointed in this direction and...carries on. The two women are not the point of the story, I told the conference attendees, Sophie & Emmy and their predicaments are what matters.

So, I asked the room, in terms of diversity but keeping in mind how to best serve this teen novel, do I mention that Cloris and Helen are lesbians in my review?

There were a lot of opinions - a lot of them. Mostly I threw this out there to make everyone think about a very specific example because while we all spend a lot of time saying diversity matters we don't get specific on what we do about diversity in our reviewing of individual titles. And honestly I wasn't sure what I was going to do at that point. If I mentioned Cloris and Helen being lesbians that might make some readers shy away but if I ignored it wasn't I losing an opportunity to show how GBLTQ characters can be present in a story in a supporting role where being gay is not the point of the plot - or even a tiny subplot?

Many people came up to me that evening with thoughts on what I should do and while I was interested in all of their thoughts what most impressed me was how different they were. Some folks said I had to mention it while others asked why go there if it would hurt the book's sales. Back and forth and back and forth it went. I certainly managed to get folks talking (and thinking) but no consensus emerged. I left the conference still unsure of what I would do and honestly, until I was writing the review itself I was on the fence.

And then I decided - if an author is going to create such cool characters then really, it was my job to celebrate them.

Beth Kephart guest posted at My Friend Amy last week and wrote about Cloris & Helen. Here is why I fell so hard for this couple:

Cloris and Helen belong to Sophie. She needs them and their kooky ways, their endless baking, their shiny Airstream, their Alice-in-Wonderland dioramas, their love for Willa Cather--to show her what is kind and good and right in this world. To show her a salvation version of normal.

I don't know if I have succeeded in best serving the book by mentioning Cloris and Helen are a lesbian couple in my

One of the more iconic teen books of the past twenty years is THE FACE ON THE MILK CARTON. The basic premise is that average everyday teen discovers her whole life is a lie when she recognizes her face on the "Have you seen this missing child" ad on the side of a cafeteria milk carton. It's pretty much everything Harry Potter but without the wicked cool wizarding world. (Okay, it's actually nothing like Harry Potter other than the whole "your life is not what you thought it was" angle but you get the idea.) I've been thinking about what happened to Janie in that book a lot lately as I just finished Beth Kephart's YOU ARE MY ONLY which has a similar basic storyline (girl kidnapped young and as a teen tries to put together the clues to discover the truth about her life) but with a lot of other twists and turns. While it is certainly as beautifully written as all of Kephart's books (she truly has an elegant way with words), it is the plot that caught my attention this time. YOU ARE MY ONLY has legs, big time, and I think if its teen audience finds it they are going to embrace it just as much as the Caroline Cooney classic.

So, basic rundown is that twenty year old Emmy leaves her baby in the front yard swing for a couple of minutes and when she comes back outside the infant is gone. Emmy, who has no family of her own and is trapped in an abusive relationship with her high school boyfriend (who was not thrilled to pieces about the baby in the first place), quickly falls apart and in the midst of a nervous breakdown finds herself not saved by her spouse but rather committed to a state asylum. Her story, told in alternating chapters, is all about not only losing a child but losing all control of you life. As this is basically my personal nightmare (thank you Charlotte Perkins Gilman), I found Emmy's story particularly compelling and kept the pages turning to make sure she somehow, someway got the heck out of there.

The whole asylum thing really is my nightmare.

The second storyline takes place in the future as fourteen year old Sophie who has been homeschooled all her life and shuffled from town to town the minute someone gets too curious, starts to think that just maybe her obsessive controlling "mother" isn't making the right decisions. She finds courage to ask questions and take chances after being befriended by the boy next door (cute boy!) and his aunts, all of whom fall hard for Sophie and show her what a normal loving (not paranoid) family looks like. Sophie races against the clock to find out what her "mother" has been hiding, while every other chapter shows Emmy hoping against hope that one day she will find her missing daughter. The tension builds in both narratives as you get caught up in all the hoping and looking and waiting and will Sophie get caught???

I saw a lot of teen appeal in YOU ARE MY ONLY as Beth gives readers not just one girl trying to break free but two and honestly I'm not sure which character I found more appealing. There is also a lot more here, like Willa Cather and Johannes Kepler and kite flying and one very cool dog (who does not die!) and while the tension is fairly relentless it is not gratuitous or violent or, for lack of a better word, lame. This is just the story of two girls each trying to figure out who they are and who they should be and clinging every second to the lives they want to have. It's a book about being strong enough to insist on the truth, and never giving up no matter how hard life gets.

It's pretty much the best kind of power trip you can want for a teenage girl to read.

Full review to follow in the October column but if you're a reviewer on the fence I strongly urge you to give this one a chance - you won't be disappointed. (And teen librarians take note because this is one you need to order!)

I read Marcus Sedgwick's WHITE CROW in an absolute fury last week after Liz tweeted that I should move it - posthaste - to the top of my TBR pile. This one starts slow and seems predictable when reading the contemporary storyline. Rebecca and her father have moved to a small seaside village after some unexplained trouble back home. She is a typical teen who has been uprooted from the boy she thought was wonderful (but quickly realizes was always a jerk) and is determined to be bored out of her mind. It's not difficult to be bored in Winterfold though as it is tiny and aside from the tourists hitting the water really doesn't have much going on. Rebecca's father is depressed and a bit desperate and she is pissed off. The summer is shaping up as a classic teen rebellion but this is Sedgwick writing so really, you know this plot is going to go off in all sorts of unexpected directions.

Is.It.Ever.

Along with Rebecca's third person story, you also have Ferelith's first person observation. She lives in Winterfold, is also very unhappy and sees Rebecca as a potential friend. There is, of course, way more to Ferelith's story than you could possibly expect and the collision of these two girls with all their attendant baggage is really something to behold. Sedgwick does amazing things with them, with how desperate teenagers can be, how cruel and needy and downright diabolical. But never, not for one single second, does the author turn this into a sensational or outrageous story. The fact that you could see it all happening, that at some point in your life you probably knew two girls who would fit these roles perfectly, is part of what makes the book so great.

It is really and truly impressive and I agree with Liz that it's some of Sedgwick's best work. (I would say more but my review will run in the October column.) (That would be the scary, Bradbury-esque column in case you've forgotten.)

Oh - and there is also a second storyline from 1798 involving earlier inhabitants of Winterfold and the evil that men do. And yes, it all ties together and yes, there is an author's note that explains just how true that old storyline is. Ugh.

My only complaint is the book's cover which I think is going for the gothy vamp market (there is never any mention of that much eyeliner in the story) and sadly will likely steer boys away from the book. (Even though it's about two girls, trust me - it will scare the crap out of the boys just fine as well.) I would have preferred something that was truly gothic instead of gothy. So I went with the crow pic for my post. (That is the power of the blogger though - we get to choose our images!)

WHITE CROW by Marcus Sedgwick; if it's on your TBR pile then move it to the top. Now.

[Post pic from gothicrow's etsy site - it sold last year.]

Even though she suffers through every page, I do love it when Leila takes on Theodore Boone, boy lawyer. As for John Grisham - he really really should be sorry for this one. (And why is this a bestseller? Aren't people even trying to be discerning readers anymore??!!)

I can't call Dreamland Social Club by Tara Alterbrando a "wicked cool overlooked book" because it isn't due out until next month, but I feel like there hasn't been nearly enough pre-publication buzz on this one and it is so good I have to say something now even though my formal review won't run until June.

I loved it. From start to finish Dreamland has to be one of the best rides I've been on in ages and the fact that it is YA really doesn't matter. If you've ever longed to go home again - or for a place where you feel at home - then you will enjoy it. Also if you are the slightest bit nostalgic for amusement parks, seaside towns, first love, deep friendship, CONEY ISLAND!!!! and all things carnival then you must read this one.

The basic story has teens Jane and Marcus returning to Coney Island with their father to live in the house that belonged to their late grandfather. The family has lived all over the world due to Dad's job (he designs roller coasters) and never met their mother's family (she passed away when they were young). This is the chance to see where they came from, grow some roots, get back on their feet financially, etc. That's the set-up and aside from the somewhat exotic setting, there's nothing to think this novel will be anything other than "family comes together" kind of pleasant diversion. But Alterbrando has a lot more in store for her readers than what you expect which is why Dreamland is such a rich reading experience.

There are multiple plot threads at work here. Jane is looking for insight into her mother's life (to be expected) and fascinated by the memorabilia that her grandfather has collected (both grandparents worked at Coney Island). There is a carousel horse in the living room that might really belong to someone else and his grandkids want it back. Coney Island is under threat from developers who have a vision that differs dramatically from it's past and surveying that past shows that not everything was wonderful way back when. Plus there are a ton of kids at Coney Island High that might want to be Jane's friends or not. They include more than one dwarf, a giant, a tattooed bad boy, and a lot of other kids who seem to hearken back to the freaks of old and yet in most cases are way more normal than the physically normal kids (of course). But it's not as easy as just who fits in and why. Dreamland is also about deciding what fitting in means - both to Jane and to the teenager her mother once was. And that all means finding her mother's past at Coney Island which involves lots of travels in what is and what was. What's especially refreshing is that Altebrando doesn't try to be sly about any of this; Jane acknowledges the kids around her, admits her desire to find out about her mom, voices the questions you expect her to be considering and then keeps moving deeper into her new life. There are no tricks to this novel, which frankly was the biggest surprise at all. I'm so used to authors trying to manipulate teen readers (teach us a lesson, please!) that I don't know what to do when it doesn't happen.

Maybe it's the historian in me or maybe it's because I'm going home next week to a different kind of wacky place (Florida) but even though I've never been to Coney Island I fell hard for it while reading Dreamland Social Club. I loved these kids, I loved what they wanted and hoped for (even the ones who are less than sweet) and I loved the life Jane pursues. It made me happy to read this book and boy howdy - do we all ever need a happy book these days. But it's not just that, it's how damn smart and thoughtful it is that made me love it.

I loved it, and I think the rest of the world ought to read it so they can love it too.

[Luna Park at Coney Island circa 1930 - it fig

Going through notes and piles of paper and links so expect some shorter linky type posts for a bit. I wanted to highlight Melina Marchetta's upcoming book THE PIPER'S SON (March 2011). I rarely do this but the excerpt in the catalog is what made me request this one. Have a look:

When the nurse calls out his name again and Tom opens his eyes, Francesca Spinelli is sitting there, wearing fifty emotions on her face like she always did when they were at school together. He doesn't tell the nurse that she's lying. They're not friends. He has no idea how the hospital even tracked her down. These days his contact with her is limited to that once or twice a week they cross each other's path at the Union, unavoidably one of those incestuous inner-west things where everyone ends up drinking or working at the same pub. And you know how it happens. One day you pass strangers by and think, I used to hang out with them. But that was a world before dropping out of uni and parents splitting and two nights of everything with a girl whose face you can't get out of your head and relationships falling apart and favorite uncles who used to call you Tom Thumb being blown to smithereens on their way to work on the other side of the world.

[That's the Aussie cover and I love it - but I'm sure we'll end up something dramatically different in the US. Which annoys me to no end. PIPER'S SON is a companion to SAVING FRANCESCA.]

Maureen Johnson posted something. I commented. I tweeted. I was pounced on by many people saying that we don't need to talk about boy books anymore. I posted something at Guys Lit Wire which is, ahem, all about books for teenage boys.

I wish this was a nonissue. Really. I swear.

I should warn that this post is going to have spoilers except the book (JANE by April Lindner) is a retelling of JANE EYRE so the spoilers are rather obvious. If you read one book, then you've essentially read the other but consider yourself forewarned nonetheless.

I've been thinking about JANE for awhile. It's a book that I finished but was not sure I wanted to devote column inches to because I continue to have some problems with it. (I really try to give the column space to books I feel very positive about.) I also think it's the kind of book that would benefit from discussion which I can't do at Bookslut. So, here's what I think and why I'm conflicted.

Just as the ARC advertises, JANE is a "modern retelling of JANE EYRE". This go-round you have Nico Rathburn, a famous rock star (according to an author's note he's based on Springsteen so that kind of famous) who had a storied drug-fueled past and is now returning to the stage a wiser man. Jane Moore is a college dropout (the money has dried up due to the death of her parents) who takes a job as nanny to Nico's daughter. Folks at Thornfield Park (Nico's estate) are professional but a wee bit odd. In particular there is a woman who works on the third floor that everyone is supposed to leave to her own devices. Jane wants to know more about this woman and what's upstairs (NEVER GO UP THERE) but no information is forthcoming. She loves the little kid (whose mother is an ex girlfriend, Paris Hiltonesque singer/model currently hanging out in Europe - she lost custody) and quickly falls for Nico. Romance blossoms and then a few things start getting revealed and, well, all sorts of stuff happens.

The problem with moving JANE EYRE to the 21st century is that some situations no longer exist. Nico's mad wife in the attic is suffering from schizophrenia and he keeps her locked in the house with only one weird caretaker because, he claims, mental institutions are such horrible places. That one really does not fly - especially when you are talking about a spectacularly wealthy man. There are many places in the world where she could be cared for and her privacy maintained but the reader has to cast those realities aside to accept the basic premise of the novel. Further, Nico is still married to her because he loves her. Even though she is crazy and doesn't know him. And then he falls in love with Jane but doesn't get a divorce before trying to marry Jane. And doesn't tell Jane he is still married. So when the secret gets exposed (on their wedding day!!!) it all looks very bad for Nico and Jane leaves him.

WELL OF COURSE SHE DOES! It's admirable to care for your mentally ill first wife (he feels guilty since he got her onto the drugs that messed her up) but keep her locked in the house with very limited medical care (one woman who has a drinking problem looks out for her?????) and stay married to her and then try to marry someone else? RUN, JANE, RUN!!!!! Again, in Bronte's work this made sense - you couldn't divorce then, asylums were horrific, medical care for the mentally ill nonexistent but none of those situations are true today. And honestly if Nico loves Bibi that much then why in the world does he fall for Jane?

Which brings up another question - why Nico falls for Jane. She's nearly twenty years younger than him and while age is not everything, what I couldn't find was a spark in here. Jane didn't bring anything to the table (other than not doing drugs) that made her exceptional. She's nice and sweet and smart but there's no witty banter, no passion, between the two protagonists. He apparen

Every now and again I wonder if there should be an expiration date for reviewers of MG & YA books. I know this is an over-the-top statement but it seems to me that they do tend to cover the same themes. I'm not talking about the obvious, like vamp books, but other trends both small (am I the only one to notice that photography has been showing up all over the place lately?) and large. Specifically, it seems like novels set during the Civil Rights era have been telling the same story for quite some time. This could be me (and forgive me if it is) but I can't help but think maybe there are just a limited number of stories to tell to kids about this period. And maybe authors need to be thinking about this before they start writing another book about a white kid who learns a very big lesson about racism while living in the south during the 1960s.

(I should pause here to note that what is particularly annoying about reading the same thing again is how some stories from the period are so ignored, such as the Black Panthers which Kekla Magoon wrote about in The Rock and the River.)

I just read Sources of Light and while it is finely written story - no complaints about character development, setting, plot, etc - I knew what was going to happen within the first thirty pages. It's 1962, Sam and her mother have moved to Mississippi after her father's death in Vietnam. They are going to live near his family even though Mom is very progressive and open-minded and artsy and thus could not possibly fit into Mississippi in 1962 but somehow is oblivious to what Mississippi in 1962 is all about so they think it will be fabulous. The in-laws are fine although certainly not progressive (except Grandma who loves everybody because that is what grandmas do). A photojournalist friend (who might be more than a friend) of the mother gives Sam a camera so she can start seeing her surroundings better and through the lens she captures racism! She sees racially motivated violence! She is in a lunch counter when Black people try to get served and are abused for it!

See what I mean about no surprises?

Sam and her mother resolve to change the world (or at least their corner of Mississippi). Sam is protected by her black maid (who is Regina Taylor circa I'll Fly Away) and yet no one can save her from the tragic loss of someone who matters thus teaching her that racism is a very bad thing. She uses her new found knowledge to enlighten another classmate who is white and southern and thus oblivious to the evils of racism until Sam shows him how wrong it is and then he is changed! And the bad guys are found out! And the innocent are set free! And Sam and her mother whisk out of town having learned a lot and taught folks a thing or two and determined to never ever forget it all, never ever ever.

I knew who would die the minute the character walked into the pages. (Okay - wasn't sure if it was going to be death or beating, but violence for sure.) I knew who the bad guys were. I knew Sam would be just fine, thank you very much, and I knew she and her mother would leave. But having said all that - the book is perfectly fine. It's an easy read, it's interesting, it sticks to history, it's an after school special from the way back machine. So is the fact that I found it so repetitive my fault from reading so much MG & YA fiction? Have I reached a tolerance level on this subject or have authors (and publishers) just gotten too stuck in a rut when it comes to the Civil Rights era?

At what point (hello, Holocaust fiction) have we told the same story one too many times - and is that a different point for reviewers then it is for readers?

A Summer of Silk Moths by Margaret Willey first came to my attention a while back due to its less then impressive cover. The author contacted me and said since I was going to bash her cover publicly I should at least be willing to read the book. Fair enough, I thought. So here are my thoughts on the novel itself (written for a YA audience).

As explained in an author's note in the beginning, Silk Moths is a bit of a homage to The Girl of Limberlost. It is set in modern times however and told from the perspective of nature loving Pete, a 17 year old who has always lived in the country and is now happily working to create a nature preserve with his pseudo older brother. The family politics here are a bit complicated: Pete was given up for adoption to the Sheltons, an older couple who knew his mother; he refers to them as his grandparents (his mother apparently ran off and joined a cult). The land for the nature preserve was originally owned by the Sheltons but they sold it to a close friend and moved into a smaller home nearby (because they wanted to retire? I'm not sure why they sold the land.) The friend then died and left the land to her older son, who had to forgo his college plans to raise his younger brother. Older brother Phil then got married and while his wife was barely pregnant, got killed in a car accident. His younger brother Abe, only thirteen, was then taken in by the Sheltons and received the property as set in a trust. Phil's angry young wife left after a court battle to get the land for her infant daughter and no one has seen the little girl since. Many years pass and now teenage Nora shows up at her uncle's pissed off at everyone for everything. That's when the book opens.

What you have here are a lot of secrets and one very angry young woman. Pete is an artist as well as nature lover and has been spending his time drawing Phil's moth collection. Nora discovers the moths, is furious that Pete has something that belonged to her father and insists on getting them back. Abe feels bad and Pete has to give up the moths. This sets up a lot of anger from Pete but well, boys being boys and girls being girls you kinda know how things are going to eventually end up with these two in spite of that. It's just not an easy road to get there (or stay there for that matter).

Silk Moths is very heavy on the drama and honestly because of that it became more than bit wearisome for me. Nora is a very difficult character to empathize with. She is angry at everyone and always - ALWAYS - takes things the wrong way. Pretty much every conversation she takes part in involves some freaking out. Pete spends most of his time reacting to Nora and/or everyone else's reactions to Nora. And at every turn there is something new for Nora to freak out over as there is constantly something new to be revealed about Phil or what Abe knows about Phil or what Pete's grandparents know about Phil and, well, you get the idea.

We also have someone Abe is crushing on but he can't seem to admit it (thus being the shyest 20 something male ever), a cute little kid who has a crush on Pete and thus hates Nora - and Nora of course has to pile on about it because that is what Nora does and we have Nora's mother who knows where her daughter ran to but doesn't seem to care in the slightest (and when she shows up it is not good) and Nora's stepfather who is a very bad man.

We're talking so much dramarama here that the moths become pretty much window dressing in comparison.

Willey inserts occasional field guide type entries from Phil's high school years to keep the moths in the narrative but to me they just slowed the everything down and didn't really add to the novel. All the action is Nora, Nora, Nora and when she's not in the room (or not the subject of those