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For his incisive history of the search for the Northwest Passage, author Martin Sandler latched onto a little known hook concerning the lost explorer John Franklin. Although Franklin's tragic expedition and the many mysteries surrounding it are relatively well known to polar history fans, the fate of the H.M.S. Resolute, one of the ships sent to rescue him, will likely come as a surprise. Sandler uses the discovery of the ghost ship as a jumping off point to discuss not only Franklin's possible motivations but a whole host of missions sent both before and after his death. Quite remarkably, the author manages to give a thorough and highly readable report on Arctic history in 270 pages (with detailed chapter notes!). It's a very impressive accomplishment and makes Resolute one of the best books you can find for armchair explorers.

Sandler begins with the 1855 discovery by an American whaling ship of the Resolute, which had broken free of the ice and set adrift a year after its crew was ordered to leave it behind. The ship ends up serving as a symbol of American and British loyalty, extending up to the present day after it was eventually broken apart and wood from its decks was used to construct a desk that was presented to President Rutherford B. Hayes and later most famously used by President John Kennedy. President Clinton had it returned to the Oval Office and it remains there today. The Resolute is only one small part of the story here though, as Sandler jumps back more than thirty years to show when the hunt for the Northwest Passage began in earnest. He narrows his focus to the men engaged in that exploration, both those who raised funds and organized expeditions and more significantly, those who embarked on them. He writes:

"They were a special breed, these men who sought the passage. They wanted to be heroes and for the most part, they were. Driven by a noble obsession, they were willing to leave homes, wives and families behind for the credit of finding something new. Most had no choice. 'They cannot help it,' England's former Lord Chancellor, Lord Henry Brougham explained. 'It is in the blood.'"

Whatever their reasons, there was a long line of men willing to brave the elements in search of the fastest way to Asia. Whether it is more impressive that they did this while largely disdaining the methods of survival practiced for centuries by the people who actually lived in the Arctic is questionable, (at some point one wonders almost if being British means by definition being absurdly stubborn), but reading about their trials and tribulations is thrilling stuff. Sandler keeps the narrative moving but spends enough time with each major player to give the reader a solid picture of who they were and they differed from each other. Franklin, of course, becomes the most memorable as so many others became obsessed with him. His wife Lady Jane Franklin is also a gripping character in her own right and one wonders in the end just how much blood (American and British) she was willing to risk to find the bodies of her husband and her crew. She had plenty of volunteers to go looking for those graves though and in truth, as Sandler shows, there are still historians and scientists who wouldn't mind finding that last bit of evidence that would explain just what went wrong the doomed expedition.

As a picture of 19th century exploration, polar or otherwise, Resolute is hard to beat. The author is never bogged down in details or minutia and readers will be hard pressed not to be caught up in the ideals and conflicts of each of the expeditions. Sandler also provides a quick final chapter explaining what happened to all of the memorable personalities he covers in the book, something readers will appreciate. (I've often wondered why more historians don't do this--readers get caught up in the lives of all of the men and what to know how they lived after their moments of fame and fortune.) In the long list of polar titles I own, Resolute would easily be one of the first I would loan out to the curious reader. It's interesting, involving and smartly written. This is an author at the top of his game and one who knows how to make history come alive.

Simon Nasht brings scientist and explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins to life in is his biography, The Last Explorer. Wilkins has been woefully overlooked by most polar studies, largely because he did his great work in the twentieth century and was Australian, thus leaving him out of the fervent period of Northwest Passage voyages celebrated by authors like Sandler. The other thing about Wilkins is that he wasn't interested in breaking records or being first--this was no Robert Peary looking for a place to drop a flag. Wilkins wanted to find ways to better understand and research meteorology, a subject dear to his heart after growing up in drought-stricken and devastating conditions. His exploration was always and only for the purposes of science, which makes him a very unusual man in polar exploration history.

Even for readers completely unfamiliar with Wilkins's polar exploits, which included the first flights over the Arctic and Antarctic with Alaskan pilot Ben Eielson, Nasht's book will quickly become irresistible. Wilkins is a very compelling subject as he lived the kind of life that makes nonfiction read like the best of novels. As a young man he worked as a cameraman touring distant parts of the world to make newsreels for an exotic starved public (this was in 1911 and 1912, as the movie age was in its infancy). He traveled from Africa to Russia and ended up on Vihjalmur Stefansson's tragic polar expedition where he moved up from photographer to one of the lead positions in the group. This was his first taste of the north and it captivated him from the very beginning.

The timing was off for any sort of expedition of his own however, as Wilkins soon found himself at war along with most of the rest of the world, photographing the horrors of the Western Front. He was highly decorated for his actions in France and gained an enormous amount of respect from his fellow soldiers. Nasht's attention to these parts of his early life--all of which occurred before he found worldwide fame--is refreshing in an exploration biography. The temptation is often too great for biographers to resist focusing only on the discoveries and thus give only literary lip service to the periods before that. Wilkins was a complex man though, not just an explorer (exploration was part of his life--not his whole life), and Nasht is clearly interested in every part of who he was, which frankly makes this book that much more fascinating to read.

From the first flights over the Arctic to the first submarine voyage beneath it, Wilkins was fearless in all the ways his fellow explorers would deem necessary, but also determinedly focused on the scientific goals which were all too often discarded by his contemporaries. (Even Robert Scott's party who are to be lauded for carrying their precious rocks to the final moments still sacrificed all in a rush to be first to the South Pole. If they had focused on the scientific achievements to be found rather than the record, then tragedy might not have been forever linked to their names.) Make no mistake, Wilkins did some very dangerous things (even crazy when you consider that submarine trip) but the reward he sought was always tangible and significant; he wanted to better understand the weather and use that knowledge to change the world. That's a level of permanence no record can equal and Wilkins and the men who traveled with him knew that, and it was part of why all of them were so dedicated to their goals.

In a lot of ways I would consider Hubert Wilkins the classic twentieth century Renaissance man. He was clearly smart and brave and determined but also possessed the admirable ability to embrace chance and modernization as necessary to achieve his goals. (Airplanes instead of sled dogs!) It is tempting to say that he is such a fascinating subject that anyone could make a good book out of his life, but that would not be fair to the talents of Mr. Nasht. The amount of research he has done to pull this book together (with its photos, endnotes and thorough index) is impressive. Nasht must have lived and breathed the life of Hubert Wilkins for years to pull this off but even that is not what makes it such a page turner. This is a classic case of an extremely interesting subject meeting an interested and talented biographer who does his job well. Wilkins is a largely forgotten man but Nasht makes the best sort of case for why he should be studied on the same level as Scott, Shackleton, Peary and most certainly, Franklin. Armchair explorers take note; this is a gem of a book that should not be missed.

In The Coldest Crucible, author Michael Robinson has a very specific goal: to uncover just why and how Americans became so obsessed with Arctic exploration. By focusing on the period from Elisha Kent Kane's first voyage in 1850 until the controversy surrounding Peary's journey to the North Pole in 1909, Robinson reveals the shift in American thinking from scientific achievement to conquering the wilderness. It's a fascinating look at an aspect of exploration history that has largely been overlooked by others. Few northern historians have asked what larger issues of American culture might have been at work to change popular interest in northern exploration from an avid scientific curiosity about the people and landscape into a desire simply to go further faster than anyone else.

When did all this become about latitude over everything else?

In his introduction, Robinson explains that in the beginning science was important for explorers as scientists provided valuable connections with politicians and wealthy benefactors to the explorers. One could not happen without the other and together they achieved some great things for science. What the explorers might not have realized however was that by wrapping themselves in the mantle of great science they also achieved a level of credibility they would not obtained otherwise. It gave them, Robinson writes, "...credibility as men of character." This is most obvious in the heroic rise of Elisha Kent Kane, a man who did not achieve much in his two voyages to the Arctic yet was lauded with one of the biggest funerals in American history when he died a young man after a long illness. (In the 19th century only Abraham Lincoln's funeral was bigger.) Conversely, when Peary and his opponent Frederick Cook came to odds over who reached the Pole first, Cook won many earlier supporters with his courtly manner while Peary seemed like a crass opportunist. Neither one of them was able to call on the scientific community for support and in the end Cook was soundly discredited while Peary failed to ever receive the laudatory acknowledgement he craved. (And yet somehow both men are better known than Wilkins--go figure.)

The problem, of course, was that neither had taken appropriate scientific readings that would prove they actually reached the Pole. Although Peary has been credited with it, questions have lingered for nearly 100 years and his story is always told with Cook's; they are the two men who said they reached the Pole but had only their word to offer as proof.

Robinson looks into many other expeditions than Kane, Peary and Cook however. He delves into the voyages of Isaac Hayes, Charles Francis Hall (who is well covered in Resolute as well), Walter Wellman and Adolphus Greely. Hayes struggled to bridge the gap between science and the macho aesthetic by publishing a melodramatic book about his journey which did not win over fans or critics; it seemed he couldn't win no matter what he tried although that was probably due to the timing of his trip (during the Civil War) rather than anything else. Hall was killed by members of his crew which then went on to split up in horrible weather and later get separately rescued in the sort of sensational story that seems more likely to be fiction than truth. (Read Steve Heighton's Afterlands for an excellent novel about Hall's Polaris expedition.) Both men did have some modicum of success however--Hayes found supporters in the scientific community although the wider public was less than impressed while Hall appealed to the common man from the beginning and won many of them over. That didn't help when he died however and the disaster of his expedition overshadowed the fact that he had gotten further north to date than anyone else.

Robinson moves from one of these journeys to the next in his narrative, considering the men who led them, their motives and the motives of their sponsors. It's an interesting thesis he explores, a new way of looking at exploration history that will surprise longtime readers of northern studies most of all. What's really nice about The Coldest Crucible though is that readers do not have to know a lot about the explorers profiled within to understand the larger theme Robinson is considering. We all know about the frontier myth, about American ideals of strength and virility versus goals of scientific achievement. In many ways Arctic expeditions were simply the Space race of their day and just as we have struggled to classify men like Neil Armstrong and Alan Shepherd as men of science over men of adventure, so too did the Arctic explorers struggle to be who Americans wanted them to be. In the end it is their personal motivations that are the most clouded in Robinson's book; even he does not seem to know for sure why each of them went north (other than Peary, who was pretty obvious about it). Did they just want to be the first, the farthest, and thus the very best, or did they hope to enlighten us? Robinson doesn't know, and he doesn't know what Americans wanted more either. He just gives us all the facts of these journeys and leaves the rest for the reader to decide; which really is the way I like my history to be told.

The Coldest Crucible
By Michael Robinson
University of Chicago 2006
ISBN 0226721841
160 pages

Resolute
By Martin W. Sandler
Sterling 2007
ISBN 1-4027-4085-9
280 pages

The Last Explorer
By Simon Nasht
Arcade 2006
ISBN 1559708255
316 pages

In Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, author Mirjam Pressler looks at the Second World War from the perspective of a teenager in late twentieth century Germany. Johanna's family owns a prosperous clothing store in her town, and it has been theirs since before the war when her grandfather purchased it from its Jewish owners. She has spent her whole life immersed in life at the store; her parents both work there, they live near it and she has spent countless hours putting in time there. But the store has never been anything other than her family's work; it never stood for anything else. As the story opens though she is suffering an enormous personal crisis and it is all about the store. More importantly, it is about the people who owned it before and just how her family came to own it.

It turns out her grandfather was a member of the Nazi party, something no one has ever talked about. That's the brutal family truth that Johanna has been confronted with and can not ignore. Through a school trip she has met the woman whose parents owned the store and she blames Johanna's grandfather for everything that happened to her family; Johanna can't forget her or what she lost. It's enough to drive any teenager to wonder just who her grandfather truly is and more significantly, what her family's responsibility is to the people he hurt.

The mystery unfolds in flashbacks, after Johanna and the fellow members of senior class involved in the school's history project visit Israel and meet several Jewish women who grew up in their town and were forced to leave. The group is surprised when one of them explains that her family once owned a prosperous store and then names Johanna's family business. The woman's fury at the man who stole her livelihood is palpable and even though later, during a private conversation, she expresses remorse over sharing her anger with the teen, she can't take back the revelations that her family was destitute after they lost the store, or that her grandparents killed themselves after they were unable to leave the country. Johanna can only see that her grandfather was a critical part in the chain of events that saw the near destruction of one small family and now that she knows the other side of the story she is nearly sick to her stomach over the tension of trying to figure out what she should do.

It doesn't help when her elderly grandfather kills himself, probably because of his lingering illness. It also doesn't help that her grandmother had committed suicide decades before and no one talks about that either. Johanna is part of a family that is all about not saying anything and finds herself compelled to say something--to say everything - in order to force the truth out in the open. But nobody else seems to want her do it, especially her father who needs that fiction more than anyone as it is his parents who are gone and his store that is at the center of everything.

Clearly there are some tense father/daughter moments in the cards for the two of them.

Pressler lives near Munich and is a well regarded German author of children's and young adult literature. As translated by Erik Macki, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie addresses a largely overlooked area in World War II and Holocaust literature. In some ways it is easier to write about the people who were there then those who must live with the ramifications of their actions in the present. Johanna's present day confusion follows her own father's lifelong struggle to accept his father's actions. And he was not an evil man--Pressler makes of point showing how very nearly pedestrian and acceptable the grandfather's decision to buy the store was at the time. The villains are hard to find here, as is the solution that Johanna so desperately needs. She blunders along in search of it though, helped along the way by her caustic and often funny boyfriend Daniel. Their relationship is a joy to follow although readers should be aware that there are a few sexual moments in the novel making it suitable for older teens. They will likely be quite intrigued by Johanna's dilemma though and eager to see just what she will do.

Shane Peacock tackles the legendary Sherlock Holmes in his new mystery for middle grade readers, The Eye of the Crow. Written as young Sherlock's first run-in with crime, Crow is a fast-paced story that begins with a murder and arrest and soon sucks both Sherlock and the reader in with its many twists and turns. Sherlock is as bright here as fans of the adult detective would expect, but he is also curious, addicted to the glossy over drawn tabloid newspapers of the day and desperately sad for himself and his family. Peacock goes a long way towards showing what it was like to be the product of a mixed marriage (Jewish and Gentile) in the mid-19th century. Sherlock's parents are lovingly written and his father in particular has the sort of nimble mind that a future detective need in a parent. Unfortunately the events in Crow only serve to pull Sherlock away from his dear family and force him to seek help in unexpected corners as he must solve the murder in order to save not only an innocent man, but also himself.

There is a ton of atmosphere in the novel--the descriptions come fast and furious and serve to elevate the story easily into gothic noir. (There is also a fabulous color map of London inside the dust jacket that is really impressive and quite valuable when reading.) The adult Sherlock was noted for his attention to detail and all of that is evident here as the teen walks the city streets looking for clues and evading the police. I particularly enjoyed how he showed the vast difference in the neighborhoods--between the rich and the poor--giving readers a very good idea of the rigid separation between the social classes.

The surprise here was how much of the story relied on the behavior of crows. Sherlock's father is explained as an ornithologist, someone who would have been an impressive naturalist if racism had not barred him from studies and jobs. He still reads on the subject for pleasure however and Sherlock naturally goes to him with questions about the birds at the murder scene. The exchanges between father and son on this subject are both fascinating and touching--just as his moments with his mother outside the opera reveal much about both the music and their relationship. Nothing is wasted in this book; every passage furthers the narrative or develops the characters. It's a very well plotted mystery with a protagonist who easily meets the demands set forth by his famous adult literary self. Middle grade readers will love this one, as well they should. And I'm sure that it will lead to a very well regarded series.

As the daughter of a proud French Canadian I have long been fascinated by Canadian history. I've learned more than a bit on my own (with much gratitude to the wonderful Canadian author Pierre Berton) but there is an immense amount about the country and its people that is a complete mystery. I was quite thrilled then when Julie Johnston's historical novel Susanna's Quill arrived at my doorstep. Based on the life of nineteenth century writer Susanna Moodie, it imagines everything from her childhood in England to her meeting and marriage with John Dunbar Moodie which resulted in a permanent move to Canada. To refer to her as the northern Laura Ingalls would not be too far out of line although Susanna was an adult when she began her prairie adventure and life was much much tougher than Ingalls typically wrote about. (Moodie's life seemed to have been one long chapter from Farmer Boy.) What raises the book above a typical settler story, though, is that even before she left England, Susanna was an author of note, as were nearly all of her sisters, who had to support themselves after their father died and left the family in financial straits. On top of struggling to work a farm in a very difficult climate, caring for her children (and having many of them), and learning how to be housewife--as opposed to pampered daughter surrounded by servants--Susanna still carved out time to write. The woman was a marvel in more ways than one, and Johnson brings her and her times richly alive in this wonderful novel.

Nearly half the book takes place before the trip to Canada which might seem to make it a doubtful choice for Canadian history, but Johnston uses the Moodies (and Traills, Susanna's sister and her husband who emigrated at the same time) to show what life was like for British emigrants both before and after they left Britain. The difference in how they lived is startling, as are the reasons they had to leave in the first place. Quite simply, when Britain was at peace there was nothing for many of its upper class youth to do. The men could not earn money fighting and as younger siblings, they couldn't own the family estates. In the case of the John Moodie, his name was "good" but his family no longer had holdings--he was thus too genteel to work, but couldn't support himself. It's an interesting social puzzle but certainly true. Susanna's family was stuck as well, having little money to survive on which lowered their prospects for marriage and left the girls with practically no way to support themselves. Writing was a gift for them and brought several of the sisters great acclaim. But they became writers largely because they had to become something; society would have let them starve to death rather than work for a living and years later as Susanna's books about life in Canada gained in popularity her own family was terribly embarrassed by what she wrote. It was about a life that was too hard, too dirty--too real for lack of a better word. England wasn't ready for real yet, and even though Susanna was stuck in the middle of it, her social class wasn't too sure what to make of her, or why on earth she would be so honest. Johnston makes it clear that she really didn't have a choice--Susanna chose to write what she knew, and dirt was a big part of her life.

I found Susanna's story to be very compelling and highly readable. Johnston has brought a ton of atmosphere into her look at the author's life and will likely make modern readers wonder how on earth Canada was ever settled when life was so incredibly difficult. I was delighted with this novel and I'm happy to recommend it. Susanna Moodie is a very compelling historic figure and while Susanna's Quill might be written for young adult audiences, anyone interested in the story of a stalwart young woman who risked all for love and succeeded brilliantly in the end will love this book. Susanna Moodie was the real deal, and Johnston has brought her and her world beautifully to life.

From the opening pages of her dynamic and intensely written book, author Tony Johnston makes it clear that the story imparted in Bone by Bone by Bone is a deeply personal and heartfelt one. "In A River Runs Through It," she writes in a one-page introduction, "Norman Maclean worte that he was ‘haunted by waters.' I am haunted by my father." Coupled with the book's dedication: "For Daddy; Some Wounds Never Heal," it is obvious that Johnston sees this story as a serious and significant one and she treats it with that level of respect. In fact by the end of Bone as the shattered Church family is left to live with the ramifications of all they have said and not said, the reader might be fairly devastated a bit by the experience of reading Johnston's work. This is significant writing about an important subject, and to find it written for teenage readers is a rare and wonderful treat.

Covering four years in the life of David Church, Bone uses an episodic style that shows the development of David and his best friend Malcolm's friendship and their struggle to be simply boys who like to play together in the racially divided south. David's father is virulently racist and likely a member of the Ku Klux Klan, but he is also the town's doctor and a significant member of its society. Rather than make him an easily dismissible monster, Johnston shows Frank Church's close affection for the African American woman who raised him as a child (his former nanny) and also his admiration of sports hero Jackie Robinson. But Frank is a harshly unpredictable creature and his edict that Malcolm (and no other black person) will ever enter his home haunts David. He is determined to make Malcolm worthy of breaking that rule and sets out on several ill-fated schemes to change his father's mind. As seasons and years go by, David learns just how deep the tenets of racism reach in his family (an exchange with his great grandmother is particularly disturbing) and also how frightening it is for Malcolm to continue as his friend. In the end, the rule must be broken to save Malcolm's life but David pays an awesome price as he opens that door and in a second the Church family is destroyed, just as perhaps, it needed to be all along.

As a record of the pre-Civil Rights south, Bone by Bone by Bone is a critical title and anyone seeking to get a glimpse of the daily struggles that world imparted on children will find the book a very worthy read. I appreciated it as a well rounded look at racism--at how someone could be both cruel and kind and also just how complicated life with a family that walks that line could be. This is a peek into the homes of those people in the lynching photographs; the ones who cheered the death of black men for the slightest provocation while alternately exhibiting fondness for their own families. It's a very well written look at a complicated portion of humanity. The use of harsh language (including the infamous "n-word") makes this more suitable for older teens but most certainly a must read for anyone studying mid-twentieth century American history. I look forward to Johnston's next book.

Ann Rinaldi has a few interesting ideas in her pre-Civil War drama The Ever-After Bird which combine to make a unique coming-of-age drama that I really wanted to like. But there are underlying problems with this middle grade drama that have left me bothered long after my reading.

First and foremost the story is about CeCe McGill, all of thirteen years old when her father is shot and killed in a confrontation over runaway slaves. As her mother died when she was born, CeCe soon finds herself taken in by her father's fellow abolitionist and much younger brother, a man she barely knows. Uncle Alex is a doctor but also an ornithologist who is working on a book on the birds of Georgia. He decides to take CeCe down south with him in search of the Ever-After bird (the Scarlet Ibis). His hope is that upon witnessing slavery firsthand, CeCe will come to appreciate the work of abolitionists and contribute to her family's dedication to the cause. There are several complications involved in the trip however and as it turns out, CeCe ends up learning a lot more about her family and herself than either she or Alex could have imagined.

One wrinkle up front is the inclusion of college student Earline who serves as the uncle's assistant and is also a former slave. Earline has to pretend to be owned by Alex during the trip which makes sense, but she struggles a great deal in her interactions with CeCe as her former owner was also a young girl. Earline and CeCe spend a lot of time sniping at each other, even after they find out each other's personal history and see some common experiences. But what really sends the trip into a freefall is Earline's sudden love for a white man who is hired by Alex. Their budding relationship jeopardizes everyone's safety and almost leaves CeCe dead. It makes for some dramatic confrontations but for several reasons it didn't ring true for me. Falling in love in a matter of days is possible (although not probable) but for a black woman who was raped and impregnated by her former master to fall for a white man she barely knows and then decide to flaunt their relationship in the slave-owning south really seemed uncharacteristically stupid, if not outright bizarre. The relationship looked suspiciously like a contrived plot point--a situation Rinaldi had to force to ratchet up the tension. She does succeed on that score but I was very frustrated and angry with Earline, her boyfriend and CeCe. I'm sure middle grade readers will enjoy all the drama, but I don't think it fits in with the rest of the story. (And more importantly I'm struggling with the believability here--I just can not imagine anyone being as foolish and foolhardy as Earline and her lover are.)

One thing I did enjoy was the way CeCe struggles to handle her uncle's kindness and also accept the fact that he must kill the birds he finds along their journey. Ornithologists continued this practice well into the twentieth century which will shock budding environmentalists. Alex explains himself quite well, but CeCe doesn't really buy it, which I liked. She is honestly bothered by creating beauty from violence, a trait that I found quite admirable. It was these passages in the story that impressed me, and showed the book's potential for being something quite good.

But in the end the character of Earline makes The Ever-After Bird a book that I think sends an overall poor message to readers. It is impossible to ignore that Earline is a young black woman saved by a white man (Alex, via the Underground Railroad), who later falls in love with a white man and then is saved by a white girl while not one single black man merits even supporting character status in the story. The author seems to be presenting a book that will make young Caucasian readers feel proud and happy while African American readers are left only with a witless fool to identify with. If Earline was smart enough to get into college and be going south for the purposes of working on an academic project (along with assisting Alex) then she should be smart enough to know the kind of actions that will get her dead. The fact that she is so stubbornly stupid in the choices she makes though forced me to set aside with distaste a book I dearly wanted to enjoy. (I do have to give kudos to the cover designer though, Jennifer Jackman. She has done a wonderful job of combining photographs and Audubon paintings to create something very evocative of the story's message. It's gorgeous and pops right off the shelf. She is one to watch.)

Finally, Sook Nyul Choi's second installment of her autobiographical series on life during and after the Korean War is now out in paper. Echoes of the White Giraffe can easily be read as a standalone story and follows the life of fifteen-year old Sookan, her mother and younger brother as they struggle to keep afloat as war refugees in Pusan. Forced to run for their lives from Seoul, they have lost contact with Sookan's father and three older brothers. In Pusan the children go to school and participate in choir performances at their local church while waiting for the war to end so they can return home. Sookan finds solace in two different places, from the morning greetings called out by "the shouting poet," another refugee who lives on a nearby hillside, and from a boy in the choir, Junho. The two teens enter into a forbidden relationship of sorts--it is tremendously chaste by today's standards but for 1950s Korea raised all sorts of problems for the kids. They are each driven by fear to reach out in ways society would not have permitted prior to the fighting and take chances with notes and meetings that before the war they would never have considered. Other than an uncomfortable confrontation with parents everything ends well for the two, but it pushes Sookan to think of what she wants from life, and how much more she will demand out of it now that she knows it could all fall away.

Echoes of the White Giraffe is one of the few books for young adults I've read about the Korean War and for that alone I'm delighted with it. The war is in the background here though, and by focusing on the status of refugees, something Choi is intimately familiar with, it truly presents an original story. After the armistice is signed and Sookan and her family return to Seoul the story continues with a whole new set of concerns and worries; the search for missing family, a house that needs to be rebuilt, a future that needs to be planned. Sookan finds herself becoming lost in the choices of those she loves and ends up pining for a world she has never seen. In the end it is America that attracts her attention and in that country where the third book, Gathering of Pearls takes place. I'm sure it will be just as honestly and directly written as Giraffes and on the whole the entire trilogy seems to be a first rate way to learn about a place and time that is all too often lost in western literature.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie by Mirjam Pressler
Translated by Erik Macki
Front Street 2007
ISBN 1-932425-84-5
208 pages

Eye of the Crow by Shane Peacock
Tundra 2007
ISBN 978-0-88776-850-7
252 pages

Susanna's Quill by Julie Johnston
Tundra 2007
ISBN 0-88776-806-4
330 pages

Bone by Bone by Bone by Tony Johnston
Roaring Brook 2007
ISBN 1-59643-113-X
184 pages

The Ever-After Bird by Ann Rinaldi
Harcourt 2007
ISBN 015-202620-2
232 pages

Echoes of the White Giraffe by Sook Nyul Choi
Houghton Mifflin 2007
ISBN 0618809171
144 pages

Saskia Noort has crafted a delicious melodrama that is part murder mystery but more interestingly a meditation on modern suburban friendships. Focused tightly on the intermingled lives of five thirty-something couples in a village outside Amsterdam, The Dinner Club exposes all the secret longings, complicated coincidences and dangerous temptations that can develop when a group of people end up together more because they think they have a lot in common and not because they actually do. As children we become friends so easily; is that something we can still do as adults or should we all be a little more careful about who we choose to spend our time with? This is the question at the heart of Noort's tightly crafted novel and one that the main character, Karen, discovers is at the source of her family's sudden and complete despair.

The story begins with a tragic fire that throws the group into a tailspin of doubts and recriminations. Noort then flashes back to Karen's arrival in the village with her husband Michel and their daughters. Like many people fleeing urban crime, the Brouwers are hopeful that their new scenic home will be the answer to all the big city's problems. Soon enough they find their Amsterdam friends visiting less and less frequently and Karen in particular feels the absence of the city's sights and sounds quite deeply. She finds herself overjoyed when the mother of one of her daughter's classmates shares a laugh with her one morning and quickly embarks on a new friendship. Hanneke, an interior designer, introduces her to some of her clients and soon Karen is having dinner with her and Angela, Babette and Patricia. The women bond over food and complaints about village life and although the comments are barbed a few times, Karen is delighted to find someone--anyone--who seems like her friends back in the city. The group decides to form a dinner club with their husbands and frequent social occasions follow. It seems perfect but as the story flashes back and forth in time, between the apparent suicide of one of the husbands and guilty departure of one of the wives, it becomes clear that what was going on behind closed doors and in parked cars was as much a part of the club as their boisterous dinners. Everyone lied it seems, and suddenly Karen finds herself on the defensive among the women she once thought were her friends.

On a dime her whole world turns upside down and even Michel does not know her anymore; no one knows who Karen has become or why she changed so much in the first place.

Noort keeps the tension razor sharp, and like the best written mysteries, readers will be guessing until the end just who did what to whom. There is more than one victim here, more than one villain, and more than one reason to question every member of the club. As Karen slowly unravels the threads of the relationships that surround her, she learns that she and her husband have drifted into a sea of suspicion and carelessness; a place where trust and even love seem to be in short supply. It is uncertain that anything will be salvaged from the club's toxic environment by the book's end and solving the mysterious death in the opening pages is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what has really been going on. What's so fascinating though is not who was doing what to whom but why they were doing it; how easily they all found themselves entangled in the kind of subterfuge that none of them really wanted, but all found so much better than the reality of their own lives. Here, for example, is Karen thinking about Michel who commutes to work in Amsterdam while she stays behind to work from home and take care of the children:

He just laughed at my suggestion that he try swapping with me for a day and then seeing if he preferred being at home at the table instead of in the snarl-up. It was no wonder that we women at home abandoned ourselves to fantasies about other men, seeing that our husbands abandoned us daily. And of course these things get out of hand, hungry for attention as we were.

The two of them drift apart at first because of the long hours spent separated but later, as their friendships and interests become more individual, they can not even remember what drew them together. They are no longer Karen and Michel but just Karen; and also Michel. The children and dinner club become what they have in common and that is not enough, and even worse, it is dangerous.

We went on outdoing each other with wisecracks, our laughter becoming even louder and shriller, in an attempt to drown out the strange kind of uneasiness that had taken hold since Evert became ill. It was desperate laughter, full of longing for the intimacy and trust we had once had, and I wondered where it had gone, that intense feeling of closeness. The shine had come off, and I found myself wondering more and more often what our friendship was really based on, whether it really existed and whether it had the same value for all of us. Perhaps in my head I had made more of it than was really there, because I had yearned for it so much.

By the final chapters as Karen finds herself in a race to save her marriage and her life, The Dinner Club becomes far more than just a mystery and instead a very real picture of how friendships can dissolve so mightily, and the tragic mess that can rise up in their wake. This novel has everything: sexual tension, violent crime and social satire at it most biting. Noort has written a daring play not only on how men get along with women, but also on how the two sexes can circle and bite at each other in games of one-upmanship that always leave someone bloodied and broken. This is the writing that Desperate Housewives longs for and a startling look at just how much we will sacrifice in the search for friendship.

On the surface, Stéphane Audeguy's elegantly written novel, The Theory of Clouds is about a woman, Virginie Latour, who is hired by wealthy designer Akira Kumo to catalog his literary collection on clouds and meteorology. Kumo is a typical collector however and clearly obsessed with his passion, so large sweeping passages of the book are given up to his lectures on his favorite subject. Audeguy weaves these historical passages, on figures and events both real and fictional, into the text with the lightest of hands. Each plot digression carries Virginie further into the mysteries of predicting the weather, a seemingly mundane profession which nonetheless achieves heights of artistic beauty in Kumo's stories. What she does not know, as she surveys and records her employer's books, is the great secret he is hiding and the tremendous pressure it has placed on him to live his life with this lie.

At first, Virginie is patient with Kumo's idiosyncrasies out of gratitude for her job. Soon enough however she finds herself enthralled with his stories and avidly follows along as he details the unique personalities who occupied the earliest years of meteorology. Audeguy casts a spell over his readers with these "history lessons," luring them into the lives of men like Luke Howard who in the early 19th century did actually invent the form of cloud classification that we still use today. But the author goes beyond Howard, including his own inventions of colorfully infatuated men who were gripped by the vagaries of weather and sensitivities found in cloud formations. He does return more than once to real men of science however, providing numerous historic revelations to readers who will find themselves increasingly mesmerized by the likes of Howard (who influenced Goethe), Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who coined the term "weather forecasting," and Lewis Fry Richardson, a man whose invention to measure wind speed and hygrometry was credited with helping the British spread poison gasses more effectively in World War I. After he learned about the consequences of his design, Richardson never invented anything again and spent his life trying to understand and prevent war.

After listening to his tales and spending time with his collection, Virginie finds herself increasingly consumed by Kumo's passion and willingly embarks on a journey to obtain the most unique meteorological text of all: the "Abercrombie Protocol." The text proves to be far different from what she expects however and immersing herself in the author's life proves transformative in ways Virginie never could have expected. Audeguy includes numerous flashbacks to Richard Abercrombie's life and his attempt to predict the movement of clouds while also finding peace far from science, in other places, and other women. This provides yet another example of how hard it can be to shake an obsession, and further, how enlightening it can be to seek answers beyond the ordinary.

Ultimately though, The Theory of Clouds is about Akira Kumo who slowly reveals just how his life was changed because of the action of clouds over his town of Hiroshima in August 1945. That long suppressed tragedy is in many ways the heart of the book and the source from which so many other lives and scientific discussions stem from.

The Theory of Clouds is a quiet book that contains a powerful emotional presence. The people--both real and fictional--that Audeguy writes about will linger long after the final page is turned. There is far more here than one expects and Kumo's heartbreaking struggle to survive his sorrow is masterfully told.

WSJ on Kindle and Reading...

If you've visited Amazon.com at all lately, I'm sure you've noticed that they're really pushing Kindle, "Amazon's revolutionary wireless reading devise." (It's $399 with free 2-day shipping by the way.)

Yesterday The Wall Street Journal's columnist Daniel Henninger wrote an op ed piece on Kindle and reading. Scary/sort of surprising fact from the article: "The average 15- to 24-year-old spends seven minutes daily on 'voluntary' reading. " Wow. Seven? Are they voluntarily reading the backs of cereal boxes during breakfast? (It's ten minutes on weekends. A chapter of something?)

I wonder how much time I actually spend on "voluntary" reading. Maybe I should do a journal for a week or two and see. And I guess it depends on how one defines reading (which Henninger's piece discusses). What counts? Books of course. But what about newspapers, magazines and blogs? Is it odd that we need to have a discussion about what constitutes reading?

How much do you read on a daily basis? And would you read from a hand-held electronic devise over a printed book or a magazine? (I didn't think so. Neither would I.)

There is a certain exuberant delight associated with summer that is not present in any other season. We all feel it to some degree, but for kids it is truly a reward; a chance for all those idyllic moments spent in fields of flowers, wide open beaches and grandpa's farm. At least that's how many picture books portray the season and while such stories are certainly fun they aren't the reality for a lot of kids. What if you live in a city for example? Where are stories about playing games in the street or waiting for the ice cream man or walking around the neighborhood? Those were the summers poet Ruth Forman enjoyed at the Philadelphia homes of her aunts and uncles and she is determined to bring those asphalt celebrations to readers everywhere. Her new book, Young Cornrows Callin' out the Moon is full of delight and cheer, as she writes in one two-page spread:

we don have no backyard
no sof grass rainbow kites mushrooms butterflies
we got South Philly summer
when the sun go down

Cbabi Bayoc's illustrations of laughing African American children make the words leap off the page. These kids are clearly happy, whether walking to the corner store or laughing on the front steps. They are too busy having a good time playing to worry about not having a backyard (or "frontyard neither"). Bayoc matches Forman's poem with big expressions and excitement that dances off the page. Together the two of them show a summer that a lot of kids are enjoying right this moment, and now finally have a book that gives their joy some faces to reflect in.

In Jacqueline Briggs Martin's Chicken Joy on Red Bean Road there are some big problems for one certain chicken. It seems that Mrs. Miser Vidrine has decided that since her blue-headed "roo" lost his voice due to the "chicken measles", he isn't so useful in the chicken yard anymore. "A roo who won't wake the barnyard/is headed for stew--quiet rooster stew." The plain brown hen Cleoma is devastated at the thought of losing the roo and decides that if he could hear the music of Joe Beebee, who lives up Redbean Road, then his voice will return. She's a hen on a mission as she goes from house to house, acting out her tale of woe and looking for Joe Beebee. Meanwhile the roo is hiding and Mrs. Vidrine is busy putting together all the vegetable fixings for one amazing stew. Everyone the hen finds gets caught up in the story, and after Joe Beebee agrees to help they all arrive at Mrs. Vidrine's for a "bal de maison". The roo gets his voice back and a good time is had by all (especially one apparently lovesick hen).

Oh--and the happily ever after part is where the chicken and rooster go live with Joe Beebee where they hear good music and never have to fear the ax again.

Chicken Joy is a uniquely told story about Cajun country that will keep young readers laughing as they see just what the hen will do next to save her pal. Illustrator Melissa Sweet uses pale colors in pictures that seem to be torn from old books and placed on the page to show Cleome's complicated journey through St. Cecilia Parish. She has included a nice map of Red Bean Road opposite the title page so readers can follow the hen's progress from neighbor to neighbor. This is quirky little tale with a nice music twist and one of the few I've seen that's set in Bayou Country. Perfect for reading on a front porch swing.

For bug lovers, Kurt Cyrus has written a story in verse that is hard to resist reading out loud. Oddhopper Opera: A Bug's Garden in Verses shows a garden growing wild with all manner of bugs present to enjoy its bounty. Big boisterous illustrations cover the pages from corner to corner and are lovely to look at, but it's the words that really get this book going. Here's a taste:

Through the tangle, softly gliding,
Comes a long, long tummy, sliding--
Just a belly, nothing more,
Except the eyes that come before,
And a mouth so wide and hollow,
No one knows what it might swallow.
Crickets? Weevils? Worms or slugs?
Juicy, slurping spittlebugs?
Bouncing frogs, all slick and fat?
Garden fresh. You can't beat that!
How about some fuzzy mice?
Crunch snails are always nice...
Sliding softly, here and gone,
A belly with a head stuck on.

Pitch perfect poems like that one fill the pages and will draw the reader along to verses about snakes, stinkbugs, ants and snails. This is the best sort of reading as it invites further exploration of the real outdoors while also prompting lots of giggles. The cadence makes it truly compulsive from page to page; Oddhopper Opera is a title I've returned to several times just to enjoy the rhythm of the words and all the sly jokes in the illustrations.

Margriet Ruurs has a different take on nature with her beautiful In My Backyard. The short poems gracing each two-page spread are elegant and thoughtful, as in: "The glistening trail of a slow-moving/snail shows me where it searched/for leaves and berries." These are words to think about, to consider and dwell on a bit as readers consider their own backyard wonders. Complementing Ruur's poems in the best possible way are pictures of Ron Broda's truly exquisite paper sculptures of birds and bugs, sleeping mice and soaring bats. If you've never seen Broda's work before then you are really in for a treat with this book as his sculptures make Backyard unlike any other picture book I've seen. The best part though is how well Ruur and Broda's styles work together; they are a perfect match here and will lull young readers along with their work.

If these stories of wildlife have prompted a few nature-related questions then reach for Ask Dr. K. Fisher about Animals. Set up as an advice column for troubled animals everywhere, this book is all about providing honest scientific answers to some difficult animal questions. A Nile crocodile is worried about reptiles who abandon their young but is quickly assured by Dr. Fisher that turtles, lizards and snakes do just fine on their own. A tadpole is freaking out over his changing body, which prompts a quick overview of life cycles, while a giraffe is embarrassed about being too tall. "You are truly a lucky animal!" replies then doctor and then explains how animals are designed to make feeding easier.

Page after page has basic questions from all sorts of animals with "Dear Abby" style replies that make sense, and will provide answers to curious young Animal Planet devotees. Illustrator Kate Sheppard's comic-book-style pictures keep the title on just the right side of serious--there is nothing intimidating here and the facial expressions alone on these insects and animals will certainly please young readers. Kudos to author Claire Llewellyn in particular, though for getting solid facts about wildlife out to readers in a way that is informative and kids can relate too. This is a nonfiction book in an excellent package and fans should also seek other its accompanying volume, Ask Dr. K. Fisher About Dinosaurs.

Switching to a story with human characters, Linda Oatman High's Cool Bopper's Choppers is all about a night out at the Snazzy Catz Jazz Club where "Cool Bopper, like Charlie Parker, bopped hard below silver stars and blue moons of night." Early on things get interesting when the Bopper "popped his choppers" and his teeth go flying through the air and land in a beehive wig. The lady under the wig dances into the restroom where the choppers disappear into "the hopper" and down into the city's copper pipes they go.

How, oh how, will Cool Bopper ever be able to perform again?

After the loss of his choppers, illustrator John O'Brien changes Bopper's skin tone from the warm coffee color at the beginning to a deep and dramatic blue. Everything about him is sad and blue; the color even tinges everything and everyplace around him. He leaves the club, looking for a way to get his bop back and then luckily finds his choppers washed up on a local beach. (All drains lead to the sea, right?!) After placing them back where they belong, Bopper shakes the blues and returns to his original color and soon enough is "beboppin' forever, together, wowin; the crowds in the Snazzy Catz Jazz Club."

This is a fun story with a comical twist and High's words do a great job mimicking the scat tones of 1940s jazz. O'Brien fairly overwhelms the pages with colors, both uplifting and glum, and the interplay between the musical words and the art they inspire is very well done. I always hope when I read a book like this that kids will wonder about the music presented; that they will ask just who Charlie Parker was or what all the bopping noise is about. But even if they don't ask, at least Cool Bopper's Choppers will expose them to some new sounds while giving them a nice happily ever tale as a bonus.

Finally, Hugo & Miles in I've Painted Everything is a story about a little blue elephant (that would be Hugo) who lives in the animal city of Cornville where he is "a very creative artist." Hugo's problem is that he has painted everything his town has to offer, and finds himself completely out of ideas. He goes to his friend Miles with the problem, and he suggests they go on a trip. A couple of pages later the friends are in Paris (the all-animal version) and Hugo is soaking up all sorts of artistic inspiration.

There's lots of word play while visiting museums with famous painters; if he painted all one color then he would be "Hue-Go," or if he painted an impression of how he felt, he would be "Van Hugo." The big revelation for the elephant doesn't come though until he and Miles climb up to the top of the Eiffel Tower and Hugo is given a whole new perspective on the city. This is where he learns to look at the same things differently, which opens all sorts of possibilities back in Cornville.

I'm almost afraid to call Hugo & Miles "sweet" because I'm worried that such an adjective might scare off parents looking for books for boys. But there is an inherent sweetness to this story; in the gentle drawings of the animals and their world and in the idea that you can change your point of view, which will change the way you see things around you. My son enjoyed it a lot, especially the silly play with Hugo's name ("I can change the size of my canvas to be Hugo-mongous"). But overall it is the use of art to send a subtle message about how we see the world that really puts this title over the top. Without any flash at all, author/illustrator Scott Magoon makes it clear that it is how we look at what is around us that makes all the difference, and we can change our perspective at any time.

How free thinking and cool is that?!

Now go read good books for summer and check back here (or at my site, chasingray.com) for more reviews this fall.

Chicken Joy on Redbean Road by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Pictures by Melissa Sweet
Houghton Mifflin 2007
ISBN 0-618-50759-0

Oddhopper Opera by Kurt Cyrus
Harcourt 2007
ISBN 0-15-205855-5

In My Backyard
By Margaret Ruurs
Paper Sculptures by Ron Broda
Tundra Books 2007
ISBN 0-88776-775-3

Ask Dr. K. Fisher About Animals by Claire Llewellyn
Illustrations by Kate Sheppard
Kingfisher 2007
ISBN 0-7354-6043-6

Cool Bopper's Choppers by Linda Oatman High
Illustrated by John O'Brien
Boyds Mill Press 2007
1-59078-379-4

Hugo & Miles in I've Painted Everything
By Scott Magoon
Houghton Mifflin 2007
0-618-64638-8

I became aware a few months ago that books I was requesting for a future piece on fantasy or adventure titles seem to have another thing in common: mysterious old houses. The haunted house is a stalwart in horror fiction, everybody knows that, but these houses were not necessarily ghost-haunted and these books were not at all horror. They were just big and full of secrets and it was going to take many young protagonists to unlock all the mysteries they presented. So five books left the stacks I had them in and formed a new category for review. Here are the mysterious house books, perfect reading for long lazy summer days but not at all recommended for dark and stormy nights. That horror thing isn't so far removed from the stories after all, not when you're standing on one side of a door and you have no idea what's waiting for you on the other.

Bright summer day reading is really best for this sort of thing, when you think about it.

Flora Segunda is a girl living in a world that is sort of like ours, but not really. Her world is at war and her mother is a very important general. There are some creepy bird things and all sorts of bad guys--actually it's almost a bit too complicated figuring out just who is doing what when you start reading Ysabeau Wilce's new fantasy Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog. Yeah, you know the author was getting some kind of message across with a title like that.

The story is mostly about a girl and her house and her butler. In Flora's world the butlers are human-like manifestations of the house's spirits--as long as vthe house exists, then so do they, and they have an enormous amount of power when it comes to their living space. In the case of Crackpot Hall, Flora's life is more than a bit hard because her mother has banished their butler for unknown reasons. With Mom off running the military and Dad upstairs in his inner sanctum fighting personal demons left over from his time as a POW, Flora finds herself primarily responsible for keeping the house running. That means dealing with the many loveable but messy dogs, her occasionally raving and destructively drunken father (This is so not her job!) and somehow trying to fit in a ton of necessary washing, wiping and dusting. (You remember the part about 11,000 rooms, right?) What sets the narrative running out of the ordinary day-to-day struggle is Flora's decision to take the elevator up to her room one day to fetch a forgotten library book before being late for school. The elevator rebels, as her mother has warned her it might, and Flora winds up in the Bibliotheca, which is a pretty amazing library (reminiscent of the cartoon version in Beauty and the Beast), and home to Valefor, the banished butler.

I just knew from that moment that this new friendship was going to go way different from how Flora thought it would.

A lot of stuff happens really fast after Flora discovers Val. First, she resolves to set him free and he starts helping as much as he can around the house. Then Flora and her best friend decide to save a pirate who has been sentenced to death, and things don't go well there, and they have to get saved and Val isn't so helpful and Flora ends up transparent and she must seek help from an enemy and travels through time (Oops--I think that happens first.) and meets a younger, sober version of her father and must get ready while all this is happening for a very significant birthday while keeping all the extracurricular activities from her mom.

Because her mother will just kill her if she finds out about any of this.

All the while that this stuff is going on, Flora runs from one end of the house to another, finds rooms moving, stairways shifting and the elevator rarely reliable. There is so much going on in that house and this book that readers might feel like their heads are going to spin clear off a few times. What you have to do though is just give yourself up to it, just accept that maybe you won't keep track of every name (trust me) or who did what when in which battle and why Flora is doing what Flora is doing and what the hell Val is doing and why �. But if you hold on tight and just keep reading, then you will find yourself in a very engaging fantastical mystery. And you will love the house--LOVE IT--I promise.

Just remember to breathe and eat and take a break every now and again while reading, okay? Otherwise you just might lose yourself in this story and that would not be good. As Flora makes abundantly clear, you really do not want to get lost in Crackpot Hall!

Zilpha Keatley Snyder's The Treasures of Weatherby is really the book that started me on this particular article. As she mentioned in her introduction, "Of my forty-some books I can think of quite a few in which a big, old house plays an important role." Treasures is her last "big, old house" book and as such it more than lives up to Snyder's long-established standards for a great story written in a quirky, cool setting. What drew me into this book was not only the house but its funky occupants, all of whom combine to give us good guys, bad guys and a dandy little mystery. More for middle grade readers than older teens, The Treasures of Weatherby is an excellent book for lazy summer afternoons that any eleven-year-old will love.

It starts with Harleigh Weatherby IV whose mother is dead and father is always traveling. He is being raised in the family mansion, which is dominated by his very difficult great aunt Adelaide who makes life hard for everyone else, mostly because she can. Anyone who belongs to the Weatherby family line is legally able to live in the house. Harleigh ignores most of them and spends his days following Adelaide's schedule and being homeschooled by his "uncle" Edgar. He thinks he has life all figured out (Well, not totally but he's working on it.) and then he meets Allegra as she comes flying out of a tree in the estate's overgrown yard. Allegra wants to know everything about Weatherby, and Harleigh reluctantly agrees to talk to her about it. Thus begins exploration of long overlooked hallways, the uncovering of a garden maze and a battle extraordinaire with a very bad man over a very big treasure.

This is not a boring book, that's for sure.

The only thing that surprised me about the ending (and no spoilers here--promise) is who Allegra turned out to be. I had this book pegged (or so I thought) but Snyder threw a bit of a curve in the end. It's not overly dramatic but it was a surprise. I'd love to know why she chose to go the way she did, but mostly I'd just like to thank her for crafting such a wonderful cast of characters, all of whom, in the end, had a lot to contribute to this delightful little story. (And yes--the house is major fun!)

The Mysterious Benedict Society is probably the only book I have to stretch a bit to fit into this theme. It does begin with a very mysterious house--a house full of multiple mazes designed to bewilder unwary visitors. But from there the four heroes are sent to a creepy school on a mission to save the world--that's when the book becomes an adventure story. After that the kids discover that there is a brain control plot to take over the world--that's when the book becomes a science fiction story. And then they end up back at the mysterious house--this would be the happy ending - mostly.

I am purposely not going to give too much away plot-wise for this title, because even sharing a little bit might be too much. Suffice to say that some orphans answer an ad in the newspaper looking for "gifted children". They take some bizarre tests and our four favorites keep advancing on to the next level until they find themselves almost in a junior James Bond situation. It's one of those "the fate of the world rests in your hands and what you do here will never be truly known by anyone other than yourselves and you might die but really we hope you don't" kind of stories, but author Trenton Lee Stewart has done an excellent job of keeping it solidly in the land of not outrageous and maybe/possibly/sort of realistic. It's not silly--not Spy Kids silly--and instead gives readers a lot of chances to think about what they would do in a similar set of circumstances, if everyone depended on them to get the really bad guy.

Honestly, you cannot classify Benedict Society as anything other than a good old fashioned story. It's big (almost 500 pages), it has a major villain, lots of scary edge-of-your-seat moments, some deep thoughts about freedom and government/corporate control of the masses and somehow more than a few laughs. It also has Reynie, "Sticky," Kate and Constance, a very original group of kids who are smart, resourceful and determined. They find ways around, over and through the rules like nobody's business and it is great fun to see them crack codes, sneak into buildings and outfox their opponents. The kids really make this story sing and I would love to see them work together again in another future adventure.

Philip Reeves has done a great Sci Fi twist on the weird old house story with his interplanetary adventure, Larklight. Myrtle and Art Mumby actually live in Larklight with their obscurely famous scientist father. They are joined by some rather antique mechanical wonders and the occasional visiting supply ship as they linger on the back side of the Moon. Life is good, although a bit dull, especially for Myrtle who would much prefer a bit of society like any British young lady of the Victorian era. David Wyatt's illustrations bring the house to life with all its fascinating turrets, towers and telescopes and it's easy for readers to see just why Art would find the whole place an endlessly fun playground (while Myrtle might be a bit annoyed by the problem of keeping it clean). Before you have much of a chance to enjoy it, however, really creepy spider creatures show up at the door and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

With this title, Reeve has created an amazing combination of the best parts of the British Empire and everything NASA wished it could accomplish. On top of the Martian landing and Oliver Twist flashback, he also gives his readers pirates--space pirates! How awesome is that?! There's a bit of Isaac Newton, the Crystal Palace and some flying pig creatures. It's almost like he made a list of everything a middle grade boy or girl could want in a space/pirate/historical adventure and put it together to see what happens. The spiders are a bit unexpected, but evil spiders are good--they're always good. So first we read about the house, then we meet the spiders and then Myrtle and Art are winging their way through space in a handy dandy lifeboat (every Victorian space house should have one).

And then there's a whole bunch of getting captured/avoiding capture/rescuing captives until we learn just what sort of secrets Larklight has been hiding all along.

Larklight succeeds on multiple levels and is a great book to pass along to the reluctant reader. Wyatt's illustrations bring an added element to the story and help keep the plot rolling along at a merry pace. This is just flat out fun reading more than anything else though and while I was a wee bit annoyed at Myrtle more than once (she does tend to whine), and I wish Reeve had given her a spine, it doesn't get in the way of enjoying the story. After all, Larklight is about the best when it comes to mysterious old houses--it is in space after all, and that combination of elements is pure genius as far as I'm concerned.

Finally, I have to tell you, Daemon Hall pretty much scared the crap out of me. This is definitely a "mysterious house = haunted house" kind of book and I honestly have never seen the attraction for this sort of thing. There were houses that were supposedly haunted in my hometown and I never--not for a freaking minute--had any interest in checking them out. So when I started Daemon House and found out that it involved five kids who won a horror story writing contest and then had to spend the night in a haunted house to win the grand prize--well that's when I started shaking my head. It might make for good reading but no way, no how as far as I'm concerned.

This is one contest I would not have entered.

But for the brave at heart (and the determined horror fans out there), Andrew Nance's story promises to get your blood racing in a most definite way. Our five intrepid souls (well--four intrepid and one there because her twisted mother made her go) write their scary stories and show up at Daemon Hall at the appointed hour for a fun-filled night with their favorite teen horror writer, Ian Tremblin. The Hall is supposedly haunted by a family (murdered by the patriarch of course) and then has a habit of apparently freaking out people who dare to attempt to spend the night there. The kids figure this is all just talk (except the one smart terrified one) and so they happily go along with the game.

And then a lot of bad things start to happen.

Author Andrew Nance has done something new with Daemon Hall; he gives us the big nasty secret-filled house and the little group hoping to survive its nastiness for one night but he also adds to the story with multiple short short stories as well. Each of the kids (and Tremblin) tries to out scare the others by telling their prize-winning stories. This gives the reader way more bang for their buck then just the single novel; you get all the stories along the way as well. After each one is told the tension in the house ratchets up another notch but the kids are pretty determined (again--except that one smart one who keeps saying she wants to leave; she was my favorite). I was thinking they were going to make it, maybe unmask the tricks behind the haunting or just defeat the ghosts and then, well--then all of a sudden the doors blew off of this one.

Okay, here's a mini spoiler: one of the good guys dies.

I'm really conflicted on that plot point; I just hate it when authors kill off a character for dubious reasons and I'm not sold on the fact that this death was all that necessary. I don't understand why this particular character was chosen, why one had to die and the others got to live. It made no sense to me as I read the book and still, thinking about it, doesn't make any sense now. I keep coming back to it's just a classic horror movie moment--of course one of the good guys had to die because there always has to be a sacrifice that really makes it clear to the readers/watchers just how nasty the big bad is. But I was already there before the dying and honestly--I'm just tired of somebody always having to be the one that doesn't see the sun come up.

But then again, that's kind of what happens when you go spend the night in a big mysterious house (which of course has no electricity--why do they never have electricity?).

So, Daemon Hall is by far the scariest of the books but if you like that sort of deal then you will love--LOVE--this one. It's edge of the seat all the way and the ending; well I was quite happy to see what was going down for this particular house of spirits. (Now if someone could just do the same to that Amityville place...)

Treasures of Weatherby by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Atheneum 2007
ISBN 1-4169-2189-9
224 pages

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
Little Brown 2007
ISBN 0-316-05777-0
485 pages

Larklight by Philip Reeve
Bloomsbury 2006
ISBN 1-59990-020-3
400 pages

Daemon Hall by Andrew Nance
Henry Holt 2007
ISBN 0-8050-8171-2
259 pages

Far too many reviewers (and others) malign the romance novel, but really, when you get down to it, love is one of the few things that is shared by pretty much every member of the human race. First love, lost love, mad love and bad love, we have all been there at one time or another. When you think of all those songs written about love that we recall with perfect clarity on one hand and dismiss as silly on the other you begin to understand just how universally confusing the topic can be. Call me a fool but I bet if we got all the leaders of the world together in a room and told them to talk about their first brush with teenage love, you would find a lot more heads nodding in agreement than you might expect.

Peace eludes us, but love--one way or another--love really is everywhere.

I set out to chart the highs and lows of teenage romance this month, looking at several titles that celebrate all that is sweet and shattering about those moments of young love. As I read each book I found myself more than once in the actions of the characters; in the desperate falling and wistful longing that they each experience. In my book, summer reading doesn't get much better than this and I hope teens everywhere can find at least one of these novels that will appeal purely and completely to them.

Brad Barkley and Heather Hepler's Dream Factory is an absolute perfection of a romance/coming-of-age novel. It is set in the best place ever: Disney World during a character actor strike. With all the actors walking the picket line (my favorite sign is Cinderella's: "Mickey Can Kiss My Glass [Slipper]"), a smart and funny group of replacements are struggling to take their places and earn some quick cash. There are personalities aplenty here (I could not resist "Robin Hood") but the main focus is on friends Ella (who has replaced Cinderella) and Luke (who dresses up as Dale). Each of them is dating someone else (in Ella's case the most perfect Disney Prince Charming ever), but they can't resist the pull of friendship--or maybe something more--that prompts repeated late night conversations. In Luke's case it's a no-brainer; he's up front about an attraction to Ella from the beginning. But there is a lot more back story for Ella from the very beginning and although her dates with Charming make sense (in a Magic Kingdom kind of way) she is clearly pining for more. The question is whether or not she will take a chance on Luke and herself, or protect her heart until it's too late.

The romance is good, the conversation and friendship are all good and I've got to tell you--the many one-liners and descriptions about Disney are way, way good. There is the wryly poignant:

This is where it happens. This where the dream factory chugs away day and night, making you want only the things you can buy off a shelf and take home with you.

And then there's the insanely funny as when Luke gets in trouble with a supervisor:

"Okay then, Luke. That's fine. Little Reggie is walking along happy as can be, and then happens upon what scene? Do you see where I'm going with this? He sees Dale--with Chip nowhere around--sprawled on the ground, presumably dead, and as if that weren't enough, our little cartoon friend is decapitated his head beside him." He picks up a paper clip and tosses it into the plastic coffee cup on his desk. "Luke, we could be talking about a lifelong trauma."

Forget about the 100 degree temperatures--that head must stay on!

There are a ton of barbs directed towards the entire idea of Disney but rather than wimp out and wrap it up in some fake name, the authors have done an excellent job of researching the Magic Kingdom's history (which plays into a fun subplot) and bringing up all the good and bad parts of the theme park juggernaut. As someone who grew up just down the road from Disney and spent very nearly her whole life there (I remember the reality, not the novelty, of an E Ticket ride, folks), I saw dozens of straight-on shots in the story. Nothing nasty or cruel, but please--that whole description of the freaked out little kids and creepy, determined mothers at the Princess Breakfast was dead-on. Basically, it pretty much always comes down to just how much Mommy and Daddy have spent to get the little darlings there, to happiest place on earth, and dammit--they better enjoy the hell out of that place and get their money's worth!

Yeah, just a little bit of pressure there.

But through all the Disney moments, Dream Factory never deviates from the alternate chapter story of Ella and Luke. Their story is a great combination of coming-of-age and romance and takes on all sorts of issues that teens face as they grow up and start to make life decisions for themselves. There's parent conflict and couple conflict and more than a few glowing friend moments. This book is just delight from beginning to end and gets my highest recommendation.

Anything But Ordinary is the story of Winifred and Bernie, two oddball loners who become friends in middle school and eventually fall in love. The early part of their friendship is told quickly--just a few pages about Bernie as a new and largely invisible student and Winifred as the "front-row girl, one of those with a pop-up arm." She's a confirmed geek with no friends but a lot of spunk. When their English teacher announces one day that any student can start a club, Winifred jumps on board immediately, announcing a new club a day ("�the Journaling Club, the Renaissance Comedy Club or the Live Poet's Society") but there are never any takers among her classmates. When she shows up one day in a knit cap and announces the "Green Hat Club" her teacher demands to know the social significance. At that point little Winifred completely loses her cool and makes one of those broad statements that everyone knows is true but nobody ever says:

"Social significance, Mrs. Nelson? Social significance?" By that time, Winifred was on the verge of tears and her voice shook dangerously. "Popularity, Mrs. Nelson. That's what clubs are all about. Don't you know that?"

That's the moment when author Valerie Hobbs had me, heart and soul, no matter where Bernie and Winifred's love might go.

From the moment Bernie shows up wearing his own green hat and requests to join her club, everything seems perfect. They are quirky teens but smart as hell, and when did fitting in matter anyplace other than places where the smart and quirky don't want to be anyway? So Bernie and Winifred have fun, learn a lot (top two slots in their class) and make plans for college. Winifred's family has money, so any school is open to her; Bernie has brains and they are determined to get him a scholarship. Life is good, until Bernie's mother gets suddenly sick and dies. And that's when Bernie starts to doubt that anything will ever be good again and Winifred doesn't know how to save him. And then she leaves. And then it all gets very very surprising.

Have no fear though, the relationship is not over! Anything But Ordinary is just not the kind of book that follows any sort of predictable path. Winifred goes to college on the west coast (leaving New Jersey behind) and finds herself surrounded by three roommates of the occasionally eating but always partying variety. They give her a makeover, dub her Wini and convince her to major in fun. And that's okay--that's kind of part of the whole college experience. But when Bernie comes out of his grief-induced stupor and sets off in search of the person he loves most in the world, the girl he finds is not Winifred but Wini and that sets up a lot of pages about figuring out who you are, who you want to be, and how you plan to get there.

Anything But Ordinary has to be one of the more unorthodox and yet still very romantic love stories that I have read in ages. What really impressed me was that Bernie and Winifred held onto the smart and quirky parts of their natures, even while doing any number of foolish or outright silly things. They made more than one colossal mistake but they kept spinning around those singular truths about themselves: that they were best at being who they are and that they really needed to find the best way to be those people and then everything else would fall into place.

It's not an easy thing that Hobbs has done with this novel, but the story is so seamlessly told that she makes it all look easy. I found both of her main characters to be utterly charming and very endearing and the only thing I was left wanting was more.

Fans of Rachel Cohn's titles Gingerbread and Shrimp will be delighted with her new novel, Cupcake. It picks up right where things left off with Cyd in New York with her brother and Shrimp gone to New Zealand in an attempt at parent/son bonding. It might seem odd that a romance should begin with the couple separated by thousands of miles, but Cohn loves these two and she is not going to disappoint the readers who love them as well. Of course nothing is as easy as you expect--is a teenage romance every easy?--but Cyd is so much fun to spend time with that you don't really care how the romance plays out as long as you get to be inside her head while it happens.

The girl is a kick in the pants and all of her fans know it.

So yes, Cyd is in New York but she does not have a clue what to do with herself now that she's there. The family wants her to go to culinary school but even though that seemed like a good idea once, now she just isn't sure that anything is a good idea anymore. (Why can't American kids get that "Gap Year" thing to figure stuff out that the Brits are always talking about?) A lot of Cupcake is about Cyd finding her way--getting a job that works, making friends who matter and seeing her family as people rather than just siblings and parents. There is also some non-Shrimp romance that, while heavy on the extracurricular activity and not necessarily of the "happily ever after" sort, is still very true to how life really is. And then Shrimp makes his [semi] triumphant return to Cyd's life. And that's when the serious nuts-and-bolts relationship really starts to happen.

The best thing about Cyd and Shrimp for me is that they don't play along with any preconceived notions of how a teenage romance should be; they screw up, reconcile, love and leave in the messiest most complicated ways possible. It doesn't help that Shrimp seems destined to be something between a Zen master and surf god while Cyd refuses to accept any category assignment on the large life survey she keeps getting handed by those who want her to get her act together. They aren't slackers and they aren't overachievers. Shrimp and Cyd are just purely and totally individuals like no others. And Cohn nails them in all their determinedly wild and cranky glory. With Cupcake; she makes readers want to root for them, hang out with them and plot and plan the many ways they must work things out. She makes you love them (if you didn't already) as much as they love each other. What more could you want from a romance?

And as for the ending--well, I'm not giving that away, but it works; it is classic for these two and it totally, perfectly works.

Houghton Mifflin recently reissued Hillary Frank's novel Better Than Running at Night and it's a wonderful cautionary read about college and young love. Ellie has just arrived mid-year at the New England College of Art and Design and is on a mission to become an accomplished artist. She favors the tradition of life drawing and is completely absorbed in her goal to learn as much as she possibly can. She is a complicated teen who has recently emerged from a period spent dressed all in black and largely angry at the world. Her favorite painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is "Christ's Descent Into Hell." She sits at the museum copying aspects of it into her sketchbook and thinks that one day, "I'll paint an image of hell so horrifying, people will feel tortured just looking at it."

Lighthearted gal, isn't she?

Okay, Ellie is a little dark. But she is certainly no tortured artist. Mostly she spends her time studying Human Anatomy for Artists and trying to emulate the anatomical drawings of Leonardo da Vinci. She has a lot she wants to learn and is eager to get down to it. As she attends the necessary "bridge" class for students who arrive mid year, she studies her two fellow classmates and pushes herself to rise above her instructor's enthusiasm and get to the meat of his lessons. Ellie has time only for art, and art is what she wants to do.

And yet. When the book opens she is attending a college masquerade party and dirty dances with a devil. She wanders home with him, learns his name is Nate and quickly, far more quickly than she could imagine, she falls into an intense relationship with the fellow artist. Ellie loses herself to Nate--all of herself, and becomes more and more attracted to his problems and passions. She maintains her interest in her studies (she's not a 1950s school girl looking for a husband), but what Nate does and who he might be doing it with becomes very important in Ellie's world. He tells her he has never been faithful, he introduces her to his longtime girlfriend from back home (they are in an "open relationship"), he shows her the pictures he paints of their classmates in half naked and alluring poses. He makes the poses up, he tells Ellie, he does it partly to humiliate them, but she sees that he studies those girls very closely--too closely. She sees that for all his tender words to her and promises that she is different and new, and unlike any other, his loyalty is first and foremost to himself.

Ellie walks past his window at night and Nate is not alone, but when he wants a shoulder to cry on, he seeks her out. She finds herself wondering just what that pathway to humanness that she draws so carefully could be like with this boy who seems to feel no empathy for her pain. He is a devil, and she begins to appear more and more as his sacrifice. And so Ellie embarks on a great project to draw herself, every inch of herself, and discover in the process perhaps, just who she truly wishes to be.

Better Than Running is a passionate novel about all those things young adults discover in those first months away from home; those first opportunities to answer only to themselves. Frank has an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and makes the setting come alive as only one who has been immersed in the study of art can do. Partly a coming-of-age story, partly a peek inside the mind of an artist and wholly the pain of a wrong love at the wrong time, Better Than Running at Night is an absorbing novel from start to finish. Ellie's dreams will compel readers to reflect upon their own secret desires and how hard they are willing to work to make them come true.

David Levithan's Wide Awake might not seem like a romance at first, but embedded within this complex novel of first-time political awakening is a touching relationship between teenagers Duncan and Jimmy. While the overarching plot is about the near-future election of the first gay Jewish president (sadly enough, I think that is why this novel still qualifies as science fiction), what is really going on here is the evolution of a teen love affair from something good to the real thing. From the start it is clear that the boys want to stay together, but whether or not they can survive the complicated storm of a contested election they both care passionately about is anyone's guess. Throw in the fact that two of their closest friends are having a relationship crisis of their own and you can see that the guys are on a rocky road.

When the book opens the election has taken place and overnight everything has changed for America. Levithan alludes to difficult periods in the previous decades, a depression, a catastrophic war, and national unrest. Everything seems to change because of the election--in a positive manner--but then the governor of Kansas calls for a recount and everyone has to make a decision just where they stand, and what they are willing to do for what they believe in.

Pretty heady stuff for a high school student.

Jimmy is completely and determinedly committed to the cause, but Duncan is not so sure. He hangs in there though, trying to be the guy that Jimmy seems to want him to be--or that he thinks he needs to be in order to keep his boyfriend. There are all kinds of confusing feelings here--thoughts about what you should do to make your parents happy as opposed to making your boyfriend happy--and then there's the whole pressure of standing up for what you believe in. That wondering about if you have what it takes to be the kind of person you always wanted to be is what makes this romance much more complex than most. It brings Wide Awake to a higher level and gives Duncan and Jimmy's struggles a deeper resonance than readers will expect.

Sometimes the defining moment of a romance arrives when you aren't even thinking about it. As Levithan shows so well, loving someone else makes that person part and parcel of every decision you make. That's hard enough to deal with when you are thirty (or forty or fifty), but in high school it is usually impossible. I was pulling for Jimmy and Duncan though; two teenagers who care this much about the presidency deserve to be together; they deserve all the happy endings in the world.

Anything But Ordinary by Valerie Hobbs
Farrar Straus & Giroux
ISBN 0374303747
176 pages

Cupcake by Rachel Cohn
Simon & Schuster 2007
ISBN 1-4169-1217-7
248 pages

Better Than Running at Night by Hillary Frank
Houghton Mifflin 2002
ISBN 0-618-25073-5
263 pages

Wide Awake by David Levithan
Knopf 2006
ISBN 0-375-83466-4
221 pages

I have enjoyed James Prosek's nonfiction on fishing for years and particularly find The Compleat Angler and Fly-Fishing the 41st: Around the World on the 41st Parallel to be some of the more impressive titles written on the hobby. I was surprised though when I read that he had written a young adult novel, The Day My Mother Left. This story about a boy, nine-year-old Jeremy, whose mother abandons the family one day for another man, is quite poignant and gripping but I'm not sold on it truly being a book for young adults (let alone middle grade readers). The content is entirely appropriate (no sex/violence/language concerns at all here), but the tip-off that maybe it was better suited for adults comes in the prominent blurbs from Harold Bloom and Tom Brokaw. "A deeply moving novel by one of our country's most gifted writers," contributes Bloom on the front cover and yet when I read that my first thought was to wonder if Bloom had ever before recommended a young adult book. Would it matter to the average eleven-year-old what he thinks of Prosek's ability? I honestly don't think so and with that thought in mind I read Day and decided that as thoughtful and well-written as this book is, it's in very real danger of missing it's audience.

To be blunt, I don't think The Day My Mother Left is really meant to be read by kids. I think this book is for adults and if it can find its way to those mature readers then they will relish it for the nice little gem that it is. The protagonist is definitely a child, but the more I read from Jeremy's perspective the more it seemed like the adult Jeremy was remembering a difficult period in his childhood through this narrative. I'm not sure if that was Prosek's intent but it is what I was left with as a reader. Because of that, the book seems a bit awkward for, say, a ten-year old. But conversely, it is perfect for the average thirty-something.

As the story begins, Jeremy is your standard kid with a fairly decent older sister and two parents in the dying days of a marriage. His mother is not happy, his father is frustrated and when mom decides to leave it is only Jeremy who seems truly surprised. (Children do still believe in "happily ever after," of course.) To make matters much worse it soon becomes apparent that his mother has left for the father of Jeremy's arch enemy, a boy who delights in bullying him at every turn. She also seems to be quite content to no longer have contact with her son. In fact, it is three years before Jeremy speaks to his mother again. That period makes up the bulk of the book's narrative and shows Jeremy moving from anger and frustration to a resolute sort of acceptance. But he never stops missing his mom, and he never understands why when she left, she had to take his book of bird drawings along with her.

The bird book is a sort of foundation for the new life Jeremy forms with his father and sister. He resolves to make another book to replace the first and it is while working on those pictures that he finds a small degree of peace. The book is only part of this new world however; his father starts dating a woman who soon enough has moved into their house, his sister spends a lot of time with friends, and Jeremy often visits his aunt and uncle, who live in a more rural environment, through which he further connects with nature. All of these things combine to move Jeremy past missing his mother so very much, but still he needs her--he needs to know why she left, and it is only when he is able to have that necessary conversation with her that he truly begins to understand who she is, and who he must become.

The Day My Mother Left is a very touching story, a sweet story, that will make readers recall their own childhoods and those first moments when they recognized their parents as people who had their own demons and crosses to bear. Young adults could certainly take something meaningful away from reading it, and Prosek's lovely bird drawings will doubtless be much appreciated by nature-loving teens, but really and truly I think it is adults who will get the most out of it. I hope they find their way to this story, because it's one that many will not want to miss.