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Don't miss these even if they are catalogued in middle grade. A good story is a good story, right? When I picked up both of these works, from the first pages there was that feeling of instantly knowing these are brilliant books. These are the ones to savor and then share. Go. Find. Them.



"At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn't the monster Conor's been expecting-- he's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It's ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth. From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd-- whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself-- Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined."

A Monster Calls
by Patrick Ness
Candlewick Press, 2013



"Kevin has a bad attitude. He's the one who laughs when you trip and fall. In fact, he may have been the one who tripped you in the first place. He has a real knack for rubbing people the wrong way—and he's even figured out a secret way to do it with poems. But what happens when the tables are turned and he is the one getting picked on? Rhyme Schemer is a touching and hilarious middle-grade novel in verse about one seventh grader's journey from bully-er to bully-ee, as he learns about friendship, family, and the influence that words can have on people's lives."

Rhyme Schemer
by K. A. Holt
Chronicle Books, 2014

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By Candy Gourlay Hilary Mantel (Photo: Harper Collins) Go, Hilary! After winning the Booker Prize a second time (with the second book of her trilogy), Hilary Mantel also grabbed the Costa Prize. £30,000 prize money. Blimey. Sally Gardner of course won the Children's Costa for Maggot Moon. Go, Sally ! Mantel's historic win brought back fond memories of the children's book industry's own

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50 Book Pledge | Book #51: Sutton by J.R. Moehringer

I’m ecstatic to report that as of Monday, October 8, 2012, I turned the final page on my 50 Book Pledge. For those doing the math, that’s nine months, seven days, eleven hours and twenty-eight minutes.

I still can’t believe I did it because when I first set out I wasn’t entirely convinced I could. I considered fifty books in fifty-two weeks a tall order, especially since I’ve never read that many books in a single year before. My greatest fear could be summed up in a single word: Time.

What a fool I was. Time wasn’t a factor at all. In fact, my biggest dilemma ended up being what to read next. But, obviously, that didn’t last very long.

By the Numbers

3     # of non-fiction books I read

4     # of classics I read

2     # of series I started

3     # of poetry books I read

1     # of books I stopped reading

15   # of books I read by HarperCollins Canada

43   # of authors I read for the first time

The amazing part about participating in the pledge was how it turned me into a literary monster. With every book I finished, I found that my hunger for reading grew exponentially. I couldn’t get enough! In the words of George R.R. Martin the reader in me wanted to live “a thousand lives.” (Now I’ve only got 950 to go.) And that’s precisely why I’m going to continue reading and why I’ll be taking the pledge again next year.

Looking back it’s hard to pick a favourite because I read some truly phenomenal books. Instead, here’s just a small sampling of books that knocked my socks off:

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Now that I had finished, the beauty of my dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my heart …

The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary by Andrew Westoll

Dignity begins when an animal feels that she is the chief instrument of change in her life.

100 Selected Poems by e.e. cummings

i like my body when it is with your body.

It is so quite new a thing.

Muscles better and nerves more.

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

This monster is something different, though. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor.

It wants the truth.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Once, in my father’s bookshop, I heard a regular customer say that few things leave a deeper mark on a reader than the first book that finds its way into his heart. Those first images, the echo of words we think we have left behind, accompany us throughout our lives and sculpt a palace in our memory to which, sooner or later—no matter how many books we read, how many worlds we discover, or how much we learn or forget—we will return.

A huge thank you to The Savvy Reader for making 2012 the best reading year of my life!

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50 Book Pledge | Book #23: The Selected Poems of Emily Dickinson by Emily Dickinson

I present a passage from Candlewick Press‘s A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness. Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd.

Nevertheless, the monster said, standing, the roof beams of his grandma’s office seeming to sigh with relief, that is what will happen after the third tale.

“Great,” Conor said. “Another story when there are more important things going on.”

Stories are important, the monster said. They can be more important than anything. If they carry the truth.

“Life writing,” Conor said, sourly, under his breath.

The monster looked surprised. Indeed, it said.

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On my nightstand is an ARC of Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews.  I am having a very hard time getting into it because ...it's about a dying girl.  DUH!  I mean, I already read John Green's The Fault in My Stars.  That's sort of about a dying girl.  And last night, I had the ambiguous pleasure? - honor? - um experience? of reading  A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.  The person dying in that book is a grown-up girl. 

Writing about dying people is not new in books written for younger people - or in any books for that matter.  But it just feels weird that so many books on the subject of cancer have crossed in front of my eyes this Fall/Winter.  Because of the Dad with cancer thing.  That's why it feels weird. Except, God willing, Dad is not dying of cancer - just of living a long life - and not yet.

I am nostalgic for the days when no one from my immediate family had cancer.  It seems like a very long time ago.

Back to the books.  The Monster Calls set me off on a crying jag!  Conor's anger, guilt and pain as he deals - or avoids dealing with - his mother's cancer and imminent death are absolutely wrenching.  The book served as biblio-therapy for me.  But there is nothing clinical about this book.  Ness creates a monster that forces Conor to face what is going on in his life with some very dramatic results.  The narrative is spellbinding.  This book is a worthy opponent in the Battle of the Books.  Read it, but as with The Fault in Our Stars, keep a box of tissues handy.

The book is based on an outline developed by author Siobhan Dowd who died of breast cancer herself.  I think she would like what Ness did with her story.

As for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl?  I haven't finished it yet but the premise of the book is one I bet a lot of teens can identify with.  Rachel - Greg dated her in sixth grade - has been diagnosed with leukemia and Greg's mom has decided that Greg should spend more time with poor, poor Rachel.  Awkward!  Greg is a good kid.  And he's got a manic motormouth that is very funny.  So his renewed friendship with Rachel seems to actually help her. There's something about film making here, too.  I'll give you my final verdict when I get through the whole book.

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This smartly crafted book trailer for Patrick Ness’s YA novel A Monster Calls actually makes me want to read the book. The After Effects animation was done by Eric Guémise based on artwork by Jim Kay.

(via Super Punch)

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Cartoon Brew: Leading the Animation Conversation | Permalink | No comment | Post tags: A Monster Calls, After Effects, Eric Guémise, Jim Kay

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I had heard so much that was so good about A Monster Calls, the Patrick Ness novel inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, that last night, when my arms were too achy to type a single letter more, I downloaded the book onto my iPad2.

Had I known that this book was so beautifully illustrated, I would have gone out to the store and bought myself a copy instead, so that I could, from time to time, look at these extraordinarily interesting, wildly textured Jim Kay drawings.  A Monster Calls would be a very different book without these images, just as Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the Ransom Riggs books enlivened by surreal old photographs, would not be the book it is had not a publishing house decided that teens, too (and the adults who inevitably read teen books) need, every now and then, to stop and see the world not through words but through images.  Maile Meloy's new historical YA book, The Apothecary, is due out soon—a book that (if the preview pages on Amazon are accurate) features some very beautiful illustrations by Ian Schoenherr.  And let's not forget The Boneshaker by Kate Milford, with its beautiful Andrea Offermann images. (And, of course, there are so many, many more.)

A Monster Calls reminds me, in so many ways, of the great Roald Dahl story The BFG.  Dahl's books, illustrated by Quentin Blake, sit beside The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer) on my shelf—books that take me back to some of my favorite mother-son reading days.  We loved the stories.  We loved the illustrations, too.  We loved the entire package.

Maybe we have Brian Selznick to thank for this return to the visual—to ageless picture books.  Maybe it was just plain time.  I only (with absolute surety) know this:  I recently completed a young adult novel amplified by (in my eyes) gorgeous illustrations. I can't wait to see where that project goes, and on what kind of journey it takes me.

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As you all know, I absolutely love A Monster Calls, which was just published a few days ago. So when Candlewick offered me a chance to send some interview questions to Patrick Ness as part of a blog tour*, I jumped at the chance. (Even though I also felt more than a bit intimidated, because, hello, Patrick Ness. He’s brilliant!)

Anyway, for more background information about A Monster Calls, read this interview with Ness at The Mountains of Instead. Here’s my interview:

The Chaos Walking series and A Monster Calls were written for young adults but have earned you a passionate adult fan base as well. Do you have any thoughts about why your books have attracted such ardent adult readers?
I always say that I never write for a particular audience, that I just write for myself. It’s the principle that if I don’t like it, then no one else ever will (you’d be surprised at how many writers don’t do this). And so I have to be the one who’s entertained and who laughs and who cries. If I don’t, then I feel like I’m lying to my reader. The result being, possibly, that since I’m responding to them, maybe other adults do as well? I really do write them for me, though. And then it’s up to the book to find its natural audience. I’m good with that.

There were several occasions in A Monster Calls when the monster said something that I thought could have come straight out of the Chaos Walking books. I’m still not quite sure how to phrase my question here, but mostly I’m curious about whether this was coincidental or a conscious decision, a reflection of some of the same thematic concerns explored in Chaos Walking?
Not necessarily conscious, but I suppose I didn’t change the person I was between each book. The same things still concern me, my beliefs about ambiguity, complexity and redemption remain the same (but also evolving), so any writer’s personal concerns are going to shine through, I think, because those are the types of stories we’re going to keep responding to and want to write. For me, human complexity is our blessing and our curse, and I find it absolutely fascinating, so it’s no wonder it keeps popping up in my stuff.

You touched briefly on emotion vs. sentiment in the interview that’s available on the Candlewick website. Can you expand on this? And, when you are writing, how do you hone the emotion and eliminate the sentiment in your work?
I think sentimentality is mostly a nice lie we tell ourselves, and I’ve always had a real allergy to it. Sometimes it can be nice, sometimes sprinklings of it can improve a story, but I think the real emotions underneath are always far more dangerous (but also more thrilling and deeply felt) than the safety sentimentality lets us feel. And the very last thing I want to do for a character like Conor is to chicken out and not go with him all the way to the hardest places.

I don’t think it’s all that hard to get away from in writing, in that I think writers instinctively know when they’re spinning bullshit. But I also think it’s the writer’s sacred duty to look at something and write about what’s ACTUALLY there, not what we think should be there, not what we expect to be there, not what others have written is there before us, but what we actually se

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A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, illustrated by Jim Kay) is, quite simply, the best book I’ve read this year and also my favorite book of the year. If I only convince you to read one book this year, make it this one. It is brilliant and unforgettable and I don’t think I’m capable of doing it justice, but I’m going to try anyway.

So…

The nightmares are nothing new to Conor—he’s had them for months now, ever since his mother got sick. But the monster who comes for him and calls his name one night, well, the monster is new to Conor. Not that the monster itself is new. The monster is ancient and timeless. And it has come for a reason.

Here is what will happen, Conor O’Malley, the monster continued, I will come to you again on further nights.

Conor felt his stomach clench, like he was preparing for a blow.

And I will tell you three stories. Three tales from when I walked before.

.

Conor blinked. Then blinked again. “You’re going to tell me stories?”

Indeed, the monster said.

“Well-” Conor looked around in disbelief. “How is that a nightmare?”

Stories are the wildest things of all, the monster rumbled. Stories chase and bite and hunt.

“That’s what teachers always say,” Conor said. “No one believes them, either.”

And when I have finished my three stories, the monster said, as if Conor hadn’t spoken, you will tell me a fourth.

Conor squirmed in the monster’s hand. “I’m no good at stories.”

You will tell me a fourth, the monster repeated, and it will be the truth. (p. 35-36 of ARC)

What follows is a magnificent story that is both straightforward and layered, direct and subtle. The layers to this story are so rewarding, though it’s actually told pretty simply in terms of structure and narration (no dialect or misspellings a la Ness’s awesome Chaos Walking trilogy), and, boy, does it pack an emotional punch. There are some truly devastating moments, heightened by the unflinching narration and the largely chronological structure—a directness that I think makes the story even more powerful. And yet despite this simplicity, there is so much depth, so much heart to this story.

Of course, A Monster Calls also has the remarkable backstory of being based on an idea by the late Siobhan Dowd. And knowing—knowing she died of breast cancer—makes some scenes later in the book even more gutwrenching. The book is further enhanced by Jim Kay’s numerous black and white illustrations, which add to the sense of wonder and magic, and are seamlessly intertwined with Ness’s words.

A Monster Calls is quite different from the Chaos Walking books, plotwise, as well as being quieter and more accessible. But they share a willingness to address big themes with intelligence and honest emotion, instead of sentimentality or a calculated detachment.* And, actually, emotion is what comes to mind first when thinking of A Monster Calls. Not plot, not action, not the lack of those breathtaking Chaos Walking cliffhangers. Instead, I think of how much I

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