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Last night, I read Lisa's new YA novel, I Heart You, You Haunt Me.

Because it is a verse novel, it goes extremely quickly, which is bound to make this book a success with today's busy teens. (S, who grabbed it from me as soon as I was done, is taking honors classes in history and English, which means a whole crapload of reading all the time, so her recreational reading is way down. As in, she hasn't started Libba Bray's new book, even though she love-love-loves the first two, owing to time constraints. But a verse novel with all of its welcoming white space is something she feels "up to" right now.)

Before I say anything review-wise, I should point out that I've met Lisa in real life, not just on the interweb, and that I really, truly like her and consider her a friend. So, really, I was predisposed to want to like this book. But I can honestly say that I'd have liked it anyhow, even if I'd never heard of Lisa Schroeder, because the voice was great and the story was good. My knowing and liking Lisa already probably makes me like this book even more, but I'd have liked it anyway, if you see what I mean.

The main character, Ava, begins the book at the funeral of her boyfriend, Jackson. It takes a while until we figure out how Jackson died, but it's clear from the beginning that Ava blames herself for his death. Anything to do with what Jackson was like or how their relationship was is well-handled through flashbacks. And just as we sort out a bit about who he was and who they were together, we meet Jackson's spirit, who is keeping Ava company. Whether his company remains welcome is a separate issue, as is Jackson's reason for being there.

This book will make you think about first love and first loss and interconnectedness and grief and redemption without ever telling you what to think about any of it. And Ava's parents are the lovely, helpful sort of parents that all of us hope our children will see, although sometimes our kids don't see it the same way. As an adult reader, I really enjoyed that about it. As a teen reader, I can imagine being swoonily in love with this book and it's romantic story. For serious.

My favorite part? I'm not saying what it is, 'cause that would be all spoiler-ish and I'm not going there. And if you have the book but haven't yet read it, do not skip ahead. Seriously. But if you've read the book already, or after you read the book, tell me whether page 203 gave you goosebumps and made you cry, all at the same time. Because I sure did. Which isn't to say that the rest of the chapter-poems aren't good; just that page 203 is killer.

Brava, Lisa! I heart you and your book. Folks who don't yet own it may want to order a signed copy from Powell's. It's only $7.99 (plus shipping). And if you've got a teen girl around, this book will make a spectacular Valentine's Day present.

Today, I want to talk about a book that came out last fall. It’s a novel by Susan Taylor Brown called Hugging the Rock. This book is on the ALA and ALSC Notable Books of 2007 list, but it really didn't make the "splash" that it should have in the kidlit world.

But Kelly, you ask, weren’t all your other Under the Radar picks books of poetry? Yes. And so is this one. For those of you unfamiliar with the book, it is a novel in verse. Free verse, that is. Each poem is a scene. Sometimes it describes the actions of the characters, but always it conveys the emotional truth of the MC/narrator, Rachel, even when what Rachel says isn't true.

The first scene/poem in the book sets up the major issue for our character – and for the novel as a whole -- when Rachel's mother leaves. We learn a lot more about Rachel's mother and her particular issues as the book goes on. We learn more about Rachel's father, too, and of course we learn about Rachel. There are magnificent mega-issues here, too, like what is family? and how can we forgive those who hurt us? and we can live through awful grief and not only survive, but thrive. Small wonder that Lee Bennett Hopkins gave the book such a lovely blurb for the back cover.

And Susan does it all with magnificent poems. Here is the first stanza in the book, which I share with you. Not the first poem, the first stanza:

When my mom decides to run away from home
she packs up her car
with all the things that matter most
to her.

The genius of this line is the surprising force and punch of those last two words. And as a reader, you already know that the MC is not getting invited into that car. You know what the problem facing the main character is, as your mind races ahead. How old is this child? Will she recover? How will she recover? And you automatically wonder, "what kind of mother can willingly leave her child?" Also, in just four lines, without knowing anything more, you’ve already chosen to side with the MC, because there is no way you can’t feel sorry for a child whose mother leaves. And you certainly can’t feel sympathy for this sort of mother. Not yet. Not until later, and even then, anger usually outweighs the modicum of sympathy there.

A second stanza much, much later in the book (p. 132, to be exact, but please don't skip to this poem/chapter if you haven't read the book yet) does the same thing. It begins:

The hurt
settles in my heart
like one of those giant rocks you tie to something
when you want it to sink

The use of the rock imagery here not as a source of stability but as a tool of destruction brings new levels of meaning to the book, in part based on its title, and in part based on other connotations to the word "rock" used within the story. For example, Rachel’s mother calls her dad a rock, presumably meaning a steady, stable, stand-up sort of guy. But this poem makes everything warp. Maybe the Rock in the title isn’t Dad. Maybe it’s something else: maybe its an embracing of the truth; maybe it’s acceptance.

Much later, in the midst of a chapter/poem entitled The Worst Thing, Rachel and her dad are in a car, discussing some very serious matters, like the whys and wherefores of her mother's behavior. Rachel is nonverbal here, and shrugs. Dad presses on, and Rachel writes "I shrug louder." Talk about your imagery. It's genius.

Finally, the shortest poem in the book is the chapter/poem entitled Mother's Day, and I can tell you this for true: it very nearly killed me, in a readerly sort of way. Because of its brevity, the page spoke volumes. In saying little, it says so much, and it says it loudly. And what it relates is eloquent and poignant and true. But you may not skip to that page to see what I’m talking about. You must begin at the start and read all the way to there, or you will not understand what it is that I am telling you.

Because it is a novel in verse, it can be read quickly; in fact, that’s one of the touted benefits of books in free verse. But I must warn you that in its speed, it will hit you like a fist you didn’t see coming. And even though you may reach the end of the book more quickly than you might reach the end of a book in prose with the same number of pages, you will still feel the blow long after you put it down.

Hugging the Rock will not take you long to read, but it may take you forever to forget.

If you’re interested in learning more about how this book came to be, check out Susan’s interviews with Cynthia Leitich Smith and Little Willow.

And in related news, Hugging the Rock will be available in paperback in the Spring of 2008. No release date available yet.

Here's a list of the other book selections today:

Colleen Mondor over at Chasing Ray had a great idea. On Mondays in May, she's posting about Wicked Cool Overlooked Books. Books that you've read that are fabulous and that you can't get out of your head, but that don't seem to be garnering the sort of attention they truly deserve.



Not that I have the sales figures to back this up or anything, but Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill seems to be in this category based on its conspicuous absence from most blogs I read. Those of you who read my blog regularly may recall that I was somewhat disappointed to find that a verse biography of a famous female author was already on the market, what with me working on just such a beastie (albeit a different author). If so, you will also remember that this book knocked my socks off.

Part of what makes this book memorable is, of course, the astonishing life of Sylvia Plath. But it's more than that -- it's the impact that Hemphill's poems have. Good poems have a way of conveying emotion through imagery, and Hemphill's poems do just that. The mental image I have of college-aged Sylvia, presumed missing, found wedged behind the woodpile where she'd attempted suicide, stays with me because of Hemphill's poem, which describes not only the scene, but also how Sylvia's body betrayed her -- she'd taken the pills, but vomited.

My 14-year old daughter, S, caved in to my pressure to look at it. She read the first poem and was okay with it. She read the second and third, then considered putting the book down, because it's all in poetry, and she's not usually that into reading a lot of poetry (I know, I know -- the irony of it all). But she couldn't let the book go. Those three poems had been enough to hook her into reading a little more. And then she couldn't put the book down. And when she was done with it, S, like her mother, was blown away by the writing as well as the story.

So, on this sunny, breezy Monday morning in May, my pick for Wicked Cool Overlooked Book is Your Own, Sylvia: A Verse Portrait of Sylvia Plath by Stephanie Hemphill.