How to use this Page

“A powerful, gorgeous novel that, like the storm itself, sneaks up on you, breaks hearts and bones, turns the world upside down, and leaves light and hope among its ruins.” 

–Dana Reinhardt, award winning author of The Things A Brother Knows and We Are the Goldens


(with gratitude toward a writer whose work and whole spirit I adore)

Add a Comment

We returned from a rain-soaked Shenandoah Valley to a northeaster being chased by a possible Category 4. But I had places to be. Third and Spruce, for a conversation. Up near the Art Museum, to visit with a friend.

I had places to be, and I was saturated. I was a walking puddle, a character from a Peanuts cartoon.

I had two things in my bag, in my long walk from damp to embarrassing. One of them was Dana Reinhardt's oh-so-perfect forthcoming novel (I apologize in advance that you will have to wait for it until next spring), Tell Us Something True (Wendy Lamb Books, Random House Children's Books).

May I preface this by saying that I have enormous respect for Dana Reinhardt—as a writer, as a person. Despite her impressive breadth as an author, her astonishing talent with character, story, and sentences, and her cache of awards, you will not find her out there on the circuit showboating. You will not hear her raising toasts to herself.

So 1)  I'm predisposed to love Dana Reinhardt, and 2) I felt hugely blessed to receive an early copy of her book. But 3) Even I could not imagine how utterly un-put-downable this new novel is. About a teenage boy who is dumped by a girl and finds himself (on his long walk home) standing before a fading sign—black words on white: A SECOND CHANCE.

This dumped kid, River: He feels he needs a second chance.

And so he enters into this community of teens who are struggling to break free of one kind of addiction or another. He feels at peace. It's his turn to talk and he fables up something. He confesses that he is addicted to weed. It's not true. It's not even close to true. But if River holds onto (then embellishes) this ready myth, he'll always have a chair in this circle.

He wants a chair in that circle.

This is the premise of Dana's book. But Dana never barters with mere premise. She is a storyteller with a heart, a writer (and a mom) who understands that characters make for story, not theses. That the honorable thing to do with a novelistic set-up is to find out who lives inside the chosen frame. Who really lives there. What they think. How they hope. How they screw up. How they take first steps toward forgiveness. How they continually readjust the way they see the world and themselves.

There's not a single throw-away character in Tell Us Something True. No cardboard constructions representing An Idea. There are best friends, an adorable half sister, good parents, white neighborhoods, Mexican ones, missed buses, the romance of imagination. There's humor and infinite humanity. There's line after line of prose so good I kept pumping my fist, and let me tell you something: I didn't want this book to end.

I despair, sometimes, at the YA category. At trends that suffocate original impulses. At books that sell on the basis of a hook and authorial ambition (and little else). At copy cat voices. At plot-point checklists. At self-serving declarations. At marketing machines.

But then along comes Dana Reinhardt, who writes character and considered plots, who quietly, then boldly escalates her ideas, who gets you all caught up inside the family of action, who leaves you running from place to place in a storm, desperate to return to her story.

Tell Us Something True is hope; it is humanity; it offers a master class in ultimately accepting our own impossible imperfections. Original, funny, wrenching, real, and intelligently surprising, it's bound to endure. It might even heal the many cracks between us.

Add a Comment

Dana Reinhardt's new novel, We are the Goldens, arrives, and I'm already predisposed to love. I'd shared a panel with Dana in Texas not long ago. I'd sensed, at once, that she was a serious writer—which is not to say unfunny. Just the sort of writer who cares about the quality of her work first, and about all the hubbub (if indeed she cares about the hubbub) later. Writing to be read, not writing to be famous. This was my sense of Dana.

Having closed one overly hyped book earlier in the week with a deep sense of disappointment, even despair, I opened Dana's this morning with a few nerves. I needed this book to be good. I needed to be restored. I needed to shut down all the voices in my head that were saying, Quality no longer counts.

I wanted to be able to write right here that I'd encountered a book lovely and right.

I'm writing that here. Lovely. Right.

We are the Goldens is the story of two sisters living intertwined lives. Two teens trusted by their divorced parents to make smart decisions. Two girls who always turn to each other first. But now one has a terrible secret and the other is being locked out. Nell presses. Layla retreats. Nell gets into some trouble of her own. Maybe parental supervision is necessary after all. Maybe teens don't in fact know everything, could use a little help when life gets messy.

We are in San Francisco, and the city is beautifully drawn. We are inside a family where love lives, but some messages get bungled. Nell has a best friend named Felix. Layla has a lover she can't name. There is a private school that is full of privileges and projects—art, a play—that are typical teen fare, and teen danger.

We see all this because Dana takes the time to show us. To build the family. To establish a reliable voice (Nell's, who speaks over all 199 pages, directly to Layla). To fully establish scenes. To not assume that brand names tell the reader everything, or that characters are adjectives, or that clever is the only form of conversation. Teens live complex lives. Their communities are entangled. There's more at stake than high school gossip. Adults (I repeat myself) can make a difference.

It's all here, in this slender novel. And so is Dana's immaculate voice. Clear. Consistent. Ever intensifying as the story unfolds.

And real.

I leave you with this example:

I feel bad that Mom hasn't remarried. She wants to, and I know that the reason she hasn't has something to do with us. It's not like we've tried to sabotage any of her relationships; it's just that even though we spend three out of every seven days with Dad, we take up a lot of space. Mom is tirelessly devoted to us. We are her north, her south, her east, her west, to quote that W.H. Auden poem. I know it's about a death, but to Mom we're her compass, even if somethings that's not how it feels.

Add a Comment

We Are the Goldens by Dana Reinhardt. Wendy Lamb Books, an imprint of Random House. 2014. Review copy from publisher.

The Plot: Nell and Layla. Two sisters so close, in age and friendship, that as a toddler Nell thought she and her older sister shared a name: Nellayla.

Time passes, and things change, but Nell, fifteen, is convinced one thing does not: the sisters Golden. Their parents divorce? The sisters survive and thrive. High school? Even though Layla is two grades ahead, her younger sister is always welcome and invited.

At first, high school is exactly what Nell expected and hoped. She is Layla's younger sister. Nell gets on her sister's soccer team. Nell gets invited to junior parties.

But something is wrong. Something isn't quite right. Is it just Layla growing up, growing away from her sister? Or is it something more?

The Good: I've been on such a roll with loving the books I'm reading!

Nell, the younger sister, is telling the story. Nell, who seems their story as one: we are the Goldens. This is not Layla's story, not a story of growing up, growing older, growing away. This is the story of the one left behind: Nell.

Barely two years separate the girls; they only reason they are two grades apart is when they were enrolled in school.

Layla is older, and living her own life, but she's also keeping secrets from her sister.

And, as usual, I adore Reinhardt's writing and complicated families. Layla and Nell are the children of older parents; their mother was over 40 when they were born, Layla the result of IVF and Nell the surprise baby, the old-fashioned way. Their parents later divorced. They are well off enough for private school, but not for Layla to have the car she wants.

Early in the book, Layla has convinced her mother to allow her to stay home during a family vacation, a yearly spa weekend with the girls, their mother, and their grandmother. Nell is suspicious of Layla, and Layla's reasons (so much homework!) and surprised that her mother allows it. Her mother later says, "It was only a matter of time before her private life became more important than what she does with her family. It's part of growing up. It'll happen to you too, it probably already is happening to you. And that's okay. It really is, even though I'd much prefer for you to always be my baby."

And while I like that the mother understands her elder daughter's growing independence, and wants to support it, what I love is what the mother says next: "It's okay. Because someday you and your sister will do exactly this. You'll come to an airport somewhere to pick me up and all you'll want to do is be with me, with someone who knows and understands you, and we'll spend the whole weekend talking." Maybe it's because their mother came to parenthood at an older age, when she herself was more mature. Whatever the reason, she gets the long game of parent/child relationships, and realizes and accepts that a child moves away but will come back.

If only it was that simple, for Nell and Layla, that their relationship is changing and that Nell has to adjust and not cling to the past.

Spoiler, here. Necessary. Not entirely a surprise, as it's in the story summary and publication data. It's not just that Layla is getting her own interests or wants distance from her sister, it's not that she is becoming an individual rather than a sister or daughter. It's the why it's happening. Layla is involved with her teacher. He is why there are secrets.

Poor Nell: at first it seems as if she's just the clinging younger sister, who won't give her sister breathing room, who can only identify herself as sister. Except she realizes there is something more, and this puts Nell in a difficult, impossible situation. How does she support Layla? How does she show her love? Is it by keeping Layla's secrets, remaining the one person Layla can trust?

Losing Layla -- because even at best, Layla's new focus is her new boyfriend -- leaves Nell a bit adrift. She has her best friend, Felix, and there is a boy she has a crush on, Sam. Layla putting up distance pushes Nell into exploring her own interests, doing things that Layla wouldn't do.

Here's the thing about Nell and Layla: maybe, because Nell has always had Layla, she hasn't had a girl friend. She has Felix De La Cruz, who is a best friend and, maybe, something more. But Nell has a crush on Sam -- and wow, I just loved how wonderfully We Are the Goldens depicts that crush, that hoping for something, then hoping for something more. And Nell is left to navigate her feelings and emotions almost alone, because Layla is all about her own love life and Felix wants to be a good friend but he has his own things to deal with.

This is not Layla's story. There are parts of it Nell will never know, so the reader will never know. It is Layla's story through Nell's eyes and experiences, but more importantly it is Nell's story. And her story is about growing up, and growing apart, and choices.

And lucky me! Another Favorite Book Read in 2014.

Other reviews: BiblioSmiles; The Lit Girl; Books & Cleverness.







Amazon Affiliate. If you click from here to Amazon and buy something, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.

© Elizabeth Burns of A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

Add a Comment

In San Antonio, on the TAYSHAS panel, Susan Schilling asked what we do when we are not writing.

We are, in our own ways, living.

Nina LaCour remakes whole rooms, top to bottom. Dana Reinhardt pursues the immediate results—the appreciable outcomes—of cooking. Andrew Smith has not, in fifteen years, missed a day of running—wherever he is, wherever he goes, he heads out into the weather. Blake Nelson learns as much as he can (in sometimes funny ways) about people.

When I am not writing (and most of the time, I am not writing), I do many things that I am not particularly good at. Building objects out of clay. Raising seedlings into buds. Dancing the tango with my husband. And, also, sometimes all-consumingly, turning my nearly 100-year-old house into a home.

This past November, I began a quest to refinish my kitchen. To replace the broken things. To up the ante on the colors. To generate new light and life. It was a fraught proposition from the get-go—famously horrific weather, disappointing contractors, a leaking roof, delays, unforeseen expenses.

This morning she stands. Whole at last, complete.

I am, when I am not writing, living.

Add a Comment

Andrew Smith.

They talk about him. They say, He's one of the smartest guys in the room. They say, He's one of the most charming. They say, Have you read? You've got to read. Here, they say. Is Grasshopper Jungle.

My friends, I've now had the privilege of reading this bright lime green marvel of a book, too. Plot synopsis, as provided by the flap copy:

In the small town of Ealing, Iowa, Austin and his best friend, Robby, have accidentally unleashed an unstoppable army. An army of horny, hungry, six-foot-tall praying mantises that only want to do two things.

This is the truth. This is history.

It's the end of the world. And nobody knows anything about it.

You know what I mean.

There, in those lines, is the confident craziness of the scheme, the rhythm of the tale, the sounds-convincingly-like-a-teen-but-is-written-by-a-guy-who-studied-Political-Science,-Journalism,-and-Literature-at-college-ness. This book is big, jammed with the promised promiscuity, the necessary confusions, and the wild what if's of a world that has turned terrible toxins on itself. One reads to see what will happen next, what can happen next, what these likable, mixed-up, also truly human characters are going to fumble upon next. It's sci fi. It's something else. It's Drew Smith.

Usually I quote from the pages of the stories themselves. But I just read the final final words, which happen to sit in the acknowledgments. There's a paragraph I really like, I really get, I really jive with. There's a paragraph that reminds all writers everywhere of how so much of our lives is predicated on finding just the right reader at the right time. Drew Smith now has a world full of readers. But this book all began with an agent who cared.

About two years ago, I decided to stop writing. Well, to be honest, not the verb writing, but I decided to get out of the business aspect of it, for which I have absolutely no backbone. I never felt so free as when I wrote things that I believed nobody would ever see. Grasshopper Jungle was one of those things. It was more-or-less fortune, then, that I happened to show the first portion of the novel to my friend Michael Bourret. He talked me into not quitting.

I'll be joining Drew Smith as well as Nina LaCour, Black Nelson, and Dana Reinhardt on the Tayshas Reading List and Authors next Thursday in San Antonio, TX. I can't wait to meet all the panelists and our moderator. Maybe we'll see you there.

Add a Comment

I love when this sort of thing pops up on Facebook. Me and the Real Writers. Headed to Texas. Here's the caption, in case you are going to be near:

Join Nina LaCour, Andrew Smith, Blake Nelson, Dana Reinhardt, and Beth Kephart for Tayshas Reading List & Authors on Thurs, April 10th, 10am in 103 AB, Street Level at #txla14

I'll be at other events as well, in dear San Antonio with dear Chronicle. My schedule:

April 9:
3:00pm  
Going Over Book Signing

April 10:
PANEL: “Tayshas Reading List and Authors”
Good Glory. I'm going to also make some time for some barbeque, even if that occurs at 4 AM in the morning. All thanks to Tayshas, Texas Teens 4 Libraries, Texas Tea, and Chronicle Books!

Add a Comment

Add a Comment

By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: July 26, 2011

Whether you’re heading to the beach, park, lake, or hanging-out at home, we have some great summer-themed books picked out for kids of all ages—including a couple of Young Adult titles.

Picture Books

When a Dragon Moves In

By Jodi Moore (Author), Howard McWilliam (Illustrator)

Reading level: Ages 4-8

Hardcover: 32 pages

Publisher: Flashlight Press (May 1, 2011)

Source: Publisher

Publisher’s synopsis: On a beautiful day at the beach, a young boy brings his bucket, shovel, and imagination, and builds a perfect sand castle. Right away, a dragon moves in. The boy decides to befriend his dragon and they spend time roaming the shore, flying a kite, braving the waves, defying bullies, and roasting marshmallows all while Dad is busy sunbathing and Mom is engrossed in her book. Unfortunately, no one believes the boy when he tries to share the news of this magnificent creature. That’s when the mischief begins, and the dragon becomes a force to be reckoned with. While adults will recognize the naughty antics as a ploy for attention, children will dissolve into giggles as the dragon devours every last sandwich, blows bubbles in the lemonade, and leaves claw prints in the brownies. Maybe the dragon really is running amok on the beach, or maybe it’s a little boy’s imagination that is running wild.

Add this book to your collection: When a Dragon Moves In

____________________________________________________________

Seaside Dream

By Janet Costa Bates (Author), Lambert Davis (Illustrator)

Reading level: Ages 6-10

Hardcover: 32 pages

Publisher: Lee & Low Books (September 30, 2010)

Source: Publisher

Publisher’s synopsis: As family and friends arrive from near and far for Grandma’s seventieth birthday, Cora is surrounded by excited shouts and laughter and the smells of favorite Cape Verdean dishes cooking. Everyone’s getting ready for the big beach party tomorrow, but Cora still doesn’t know what to give Grandma as a present. It has to be something special.

Grandma is overjoyed to see so many of the people she loves, but Cora knows she still misses family in Cape Verde whom she hasn’t seen in decades. Could Cora convince her to make the trip overseas for a visit? After a nighttime walk on the beach with Grandma, Cora has a dream that gives her an idea for the perfect birthday gift.

In her picture book debut, Janet Costa Bates invites readers into to a celebration of the s

Add a Comment

I spent my weekend curled up with Dana Reinhardt's The Summer I Learned to Fly (finished last night) and it's just an enchanting summer story. Here's Publisher's Weekly's starred review. Read, read, read!

And isn't that cover just all twilight and fireflies and wildflowers and good things? Here's Dana to talk about it:

"I never have any idea of what my covers should look like.  I fully recognize that it’s not what I do—I’m not a designer, I’m a writer. I do have strong opinions, though. I know what I like and I know what I don’t and I’m usually pretty good at articulating why.

"They typically ask me if I have any ideas and I typically say no. Then I hold my breath and wait to see what they come up with and hope that I think it’s on the right track. If it’s not, they’ve been great about listening to my reaction.

"With this cover, I fell in love.  Immediately.  This hasn’t always been the case, but it was absolutely the case with this particular cover. It’s just perfect. And it obviously doesn’t hurt to have Markus Zusak’s name on the cover.  In fact, it might even be better if they just took mine off…"

Read the rest of Dana's Cover Story, and see all of her original covers (which have been redesigned!) at melissacwalker.com.

Add a Comment

This is amazing good news. Great news, in fact. I’m happy and proud to say that my book, Bystander, is included on the ballot for the 2012 New York State Reading Association Charlotte Award.

To learn more about the award, and to download a ballot or bookmark, please click here.

The voting is broken down into four categories and includes forty books. Bystander is in the “Grades 6-8/Middle School” category. Really, it’s staggering. There are ten books in this category out of literally an infinity of titles published each year. You do the math, people.

For more background stories on Bystander — that cool inside info you can only find on the interwebs! — please click here (bully memory) and here (my brother John) and here (Nixon’s dog, Checkers) and here (the tyranny of silence).

Below please find all the books on the ballot — congratulations, authors & illustrators! I’m honored to be in your company.

-

GRADES pre K-2/PRIMARY

Bubble Trouble . . . Margaret Mahy/Polly Dunbar

City Dog, Country Frog . . . Mo Willems/Jon J Muth

Clever Jack Takes the Cake . . . Candace Fleming/G. Brian Karas

Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes . . . Margie Palatini/Barry Moser

Memoirs of a Goldfish . . . Devin Scillian/Tim Bower

Otis . . . Loren LongStars Above Us . . . Geoffrey Norman/E.B. Lewis

That Cat Can’t Stay . . . Thad Krasnesky/David Parkins

Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! . . . April Pulley Sayre/Annie Patterson

We Planted a Tree . . . Diane Muldrow/Bob Staake

-

GRADES 3-5/INTERMEDIATE

The Can Man . . . Laura E. Williams/Craig Orback L

Emily’s Fortune . . . Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Family Reminders . . .

Add a Comment

One thing I've learned about Dana Reinhardt is that she can write with the best of them! From page one, her newest book, How to Build a House, grabbed me and pulled me in for a great ride. Though not a thriller or a mystery, this is most definitely a page-turner filled with characters that you will not soon forget.

Harper is feeling incredibly lost after a rough divorce has rifted her family. She is so lost that she decides to literally "get lost" and heads to rural Tennessee with a group setting out to rebuild a family's home after a tornado destroyed it. She finds herself living in a rundown motel with an incredibly eclectic group of peers, all of them there with their own personal missions. Harper begins to form friendships, though never meaning to, and also how to love again...and she definitely doesn't mean to do that!

How to Build a House is one big metaphor, though of course you'll have to figure out what the metaphor is by reading it. I really enjoyed the story, loved the characters, though Teddy was my favorite, and I looooved Harper's name. Great choice Ms. Reinhardt! Like her infamous A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life, this title is an excellent YA novel and one that will easily be read by teens and all their friends.

Display Comments Add a Comment

So, last week, I didn't really post. Mostly, because I was on vacation!

The Florida Keys were warm and sunny and very relaxing. All in all, lovely.

We went snorkeling.

But, I am waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind in book reviewing. So, here we go.

But, before we go there, my 9 Picks for January are up at the Biblio File store. Check it out.

This weekend, I read (a lot) and got totally hooked on The Tudors. Hotcha, hotcha, I'm addicted. I also listened to the Juno Soundtrack NON-STOP. I highly recommend. (I'm still singing all the songs in my head. We won't stop until somebody calls the cops and even then, we'll start again and just pretend that nothing ever happened...)

But, yeah, the books.

Harmless Dana Reinhardt

Everyone's told lies. Most lies aren't even that bad. They don't hurt anyone...they're just harmless.

Emma and Anna and Mariah are inseperable. Through short chapters alternating points of view, we see three girls starting to change. This is a story of changing friendships and growing up and the one big thing that gets in the way.

It was simple enough-- they would tell their parents they were going to a movie and instead go to this party thrown by some people at the public school. When they're caught, they tell a lie. Just a little lie. Emma was attacked by the river--that's why they were late, why they never made it to the movie. Their story would be vague enough that they wouldn't get caught.

Just a harmless lie.

Of course, it turns into something much bigger.

I liked the premise, and I liked the plot. I wasn't so sure on many of the sub-plots-- I couldn't place their reasoning in their overall narrative. Also, all three girls are very different characters, but their voices are not as different as they should be.

I thought Mariah was kinda flat as the bad girl. Yes, her backstory was interesting, but she was not.

But, the unraveling of the lie was amazing.

Losing Forever Gayle Friesen

Jes isn't coping well. Her mother's getting remarried, which she isn't totally happy about and then, BAM! Carl's perfect daughter, Angela shows up. Angela is everything that Jes isn't. Plus, a secret shoplifter.

Told over the summer, mainly in lake visits, Jes risks losing her family and friends as she tries to keep things from changing.

There's also a dead sister and an icky best-friend's boyfriend situation.

I liked it. I liked the characters and how real they seemed. I didn't really dig Jes that much, just as a personal thing-- many people will strongly identify with her, but not me.

The Adventures of Pink Elephant Vol. 1 Christine Amamiya

Mandy and Christie are just hanging out in the yard one day when something falls from outer space straight into their swimming pool. It seems to be some sort of egg that hatches... a pink elephant who is super smart, can fly, and extremely compassionate.

Pink Elephant goes on to deal with icky school projects and bullies.

We could all use a pink elephant in our lives.

Amamiya is 17 (or was when she wrote this). I'm going to state straight out that I'm harsh on child-writers (blame Paolini) and I might not have read her prose so critically had I not known her age before I cracked the book. She does have talent though. She doesn't over stretch and tells her tale simply and in a straight-forward manner.

While the book probably won't stay with me for long, she does tell a sweet story that kids are going to like. This is projected to be a ten volume series, and I will be very interested to see how Amamiya grows as a writer in the later volumes...

(Full disclosure: This book was provided by the author.)

Add a Comment

Dana Reinhardt created a splash last year with her charming and brilliant first novel, a brief chapter in my impossible life. (review) I'm happy to report that her second YA novel, Harmless, is equally accomplished.

Harmless is much darker than a brief chapter in my impossible life. In the grand tradition of I Know What You Did Last Summer, it's the story of a lie and its consequences.

Three ninth-grade girls narrate the story and tell the lie--that they were attacked and one of them nearly raped. Each of the girls is insecure and unsure of herself. Anna is a coddled and much-loved only child who has never been popular. Her best friend Emma was transported to their small town--a town anchored by a college and CompuCorp--and misses New York City desperately. Like Anna, she has two loving parents. Unlike Anna, her parents argue, and they moved away from the city a few years earlier because of a sexual harassment charge against her father. New girl Mariah shows up at Orsonville Day School because her mother marries a wealthy man Mariah does not like much.

Mariah rebels by hooking up with a public school kid named D.J. When she invites Anna and Emma to a party, the lies begin. At first, Anna and Emma tell their parents that they are at one another's house. When they're finally caught, the lie is told.

Reinhardt is particularly skilled at first-person narration. Each girl's voice is so distinct, that I no longer had to read the chapter title by the time I was halfway through the novel. Emma is confused and hurt. Anna is intelligent and self-absorbed. Mariah is angry and desires attention, but is good at heart. What I especially appreciated about Harmless is that these girls are recognizable. Yes, they've each had a problem or two, but nothing drastic or unusual enough to explain away their lie. As Mariah says:

• "I know it sounds crazy now, but that night, making up the lie seemed like the easy way out. A harmless little lie. You've told lies before, haven't you? I ask them. Everyone's told lies. It was just that I was unable to see, right then, that the lie would gather speed and its current would carry it further and further away from me."

Harmless is highly recommended for teen readers ages thirteen and up. There is some sexual content.

=============================================

Review copy supplied by the publisher.

Display Comments Add a Comment