"When I went to Ground Zero several weeks after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and saw the tributes sent to New York City from all over the world, I thought of how this terrible event brought the United States into a global community that had suffered similar devastation. Here in our large, prosperous country, set apart from much of the world by two oceans, we are accustomed to feeling safe, above the turmoil that is a fact of life for most of the world’s populations, past and present. We never experienced in our homeland the devastation of two world wars, the dropping of the atomic bomb on a civilian population, the state terror visited upon the people of Chile following the 'other September 11' of 1973, and the regular terrorist bombings of buses, fast food restaurants, theaters, and nightclubs in places as disparate as Israel, India, Russia, and the Philippines.
A
wesome book reviewer/book evangelist Sharon Levin is here as part of the rgz SALON, a feature where four of the top kidlit experts clue us in to the best YA novels they've read recently. Today, she reviews Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams (Simon & Schuster, 2010).
Here's Sharon:
"
In one moment
it is over:
In one moment
it is gone.
The morning grows
thin, gray
and our lives—
how they were—
have vanished.Our lives have
changed
when I walk
in on Lizzie
my sister
holding a shotgun.
She fingers the trigger.
Looks up.
My sister.
My sister just looks
up at me.
Touching
the trigger
of that gun."And so begins
Glimpse the impossible to put down novel by
Carol Lynch Williams.
"Ever since Karen Hesse’s
Out of the Dust we have seen an upsurge in ‘verse novels’ and I’ve known friends who will often dismiss a book unread as they say, 'Oh no, I’m not reading another of those.'
"If they do that with
Glimpse they will miss out on an amazing reading experience made more intense because of the spare text, the white space and the tight, tight verse.
"Hope and Lizzie are sisters who are amazingly close. Their father got killed in a motorcycle accident when they were very young and their mother is full of pain, blame and often, beer.
"Once, when Hope and Lizzie were almost six and seven, their mother returned after working all night and looked at her girls,
Then she said,
It is your job,
Liz,
to take care of your
little sister.
And you, Hope,
Momma said
her finger pointing like
she meant it,
you take care of Lizzie.
You hear me?"And with that, she places the responsibility for the sisters squarely on each other’s shoulders (and off of hers).
"It works for quite a while. Hope and Lizzie adore each other, they have a neighbor, Miss Freeman, who looks out for them and who says to their mother, 'Ms. Chapman, I love these girls like they was my own.'
"
Glimpse moves back and forth between present (with Lizzie in a mental hospital) and past, showing a happier time and the disintegration of that time, even while Hope doesn’t fully realize what is happening, because Lizzie is still doing her job and taking care of/protecting Hope (and wow, I didn’t realize the significance of her name until I wrote that sentence – Lizzie’s goal is han
Awesome librarian Sharon Levin is here as part of the rgz SALON, a feature where four of the top kidlit experts clue us in to reading and YA trends.
Here's Sharon:
"Who says kids aren’t reading? I find myself constantly defending kids and their reading habits to adults who seem to feel that kids aren’t reading at all, distracted by texting, computer games, and really bad movies (really, Jackass 3D?!?!?!?).
"Thirty five years after I was in junior high (go ahead, I’ll wait while you do the math) I am FINALLY cool to teens BECAUSE I read their books (believe me when I was an actual junior high student I was anything BUT cool). I find I can talk to almost any kid because I just ask them what they’re reading and then the conversation goes from there. I do not cut down their tastes (even if they’re reading Twilight, we are all allowed our ‘trash’ reading) and I love to hear how they view various characters and plot.
"We know the stereotype of 8th graders: too cool for words, into fashion, video games, boys or girls and perhaps sports. Excited about a book? Nope, that’s not what we think of. Well, let me tell you about my morning.
"Today, I paid a surprise visit to my daughter’s 8th grade Language Arts class (YES, I asked her permission first, so it wasn’t a surprise to her, just the teacher and her classmates). I had gone to Kepler’s (our local, independent bookstore) to pick up Mockingjay, the final book in Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy that was just released.
"I knocked on the classroom door and when I walked in, I didn’t say a word, I just held up the book and grinned. There was a moment of silence and the room just exploded. The kids who knew the book (about 85% of them) were going 'Woo Hoo! No way!! I want it!!' as I handed the book to their teacher (it was a gift for her) who hugged it and said, 'Mine, all mine.' (Yes, she’ll share, but she’ll definitely be reading it tonight.) The kids who didn’t know it were saying, 'What? What’s happening?' Guaranteed, all those kids will be getting Book 1 today, in order to be in the loop. This is the closest I will ever get to being treated like a rock star (if you ever heard me sing, you'd realize why, even my rabbi wouldn't let me lead a round at my daughter's Bat Mitzvah and I don't blame him a bit). :-)
"Of course, I also handed a copy to my daughter, so she can start reading it during SSR (Sustained Silent Readi
Our Rgz Salon member
Lyn Miller-Lachmann's latest novel,
Gringolandia, is a coming-of-age story about a son trying to reconnect with his father, who's been detained tortured at the hands of the Chilean government for five years. The father has come returned to the family's new home in Wisconsin, broken and beaten down. Yeah, big stuff.
The cover is dark for a YA novel, but I adore its sense of movement, and I asked her to share the story behind it. Here's Lyn:
"For the cover, I thought about having a newspaper or a Chilean flag in the background. In the foreground I wanted a photo of Daniel, the main character, or one with Daniel and his girlfriend, Courtney. I even searched through a database of stock photos and found one of a young man playing a guitar who looked a lot like the way I imagined Daniel to look.
"The marketing director asked me for ideas, and I showed her the stock photo I'd picked out as well as my idea for what should be in the background. I lost interest in the flag, though, when I saw another book with a photo in the foreground and the flag in the background. It seemed clichéd..."
Read the rest of Lyn's Cover Story, including a beautiful exposition about the symbolism in this cover, at
melissacwalker.com.
Rgz SALON member Lyn Miller-Lachmann is the Editor-in-Chief of MultiCultural Review; the author of the award-winning multicultural bibliography Our Family, Our Friends, Our World; the editor of Once Upon a Cuento, a collection of short stories by Latino authors; and most recently, the author of Gringolandia, a young adult novel about a refugee family living with the aftermath of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. (Read the fascinating Cover Story for Gringolandia.)
We're honored to have her here as part of the rgz SALON, a feature where four of the top kidlit experts clue us in to the best YA novels they've read recently. Today, Lyn reviews My Life with the Lincolns by Gayle Brandeis (Henry Holt, 2010).
"Author of three novels for adult readers, Brandeis makes her debut for young readers with a delightful story that left me putting her adult novels on my TBR list. My Life with the Lincolns is a funny, smart, and endearing story about a 12-year-old trying to make sense with the changes in her family, the world around her, and, ultimately, herself.
"Mina Edelman is the middle child of a raucous Jewish family living in the Chicago suburb of Downers Grover in 1966. Her father, Albert Baruch Edelman, runs a furniture store that has been in the family for generations. 
His initials are ABE, and Mina, a history buff, is obsessed with the thought that her family is the reincarnation of the Lincoln family, her father is about to be assassinated, and she and her younger sister Tabby will soon die of disease. Her Abe Lincoln obsession leads her to publish a newsletter, The Lincoln Log, which is a favorite of Honest Abe’s Furniture’s customers.
"Things start to get out of hand when Mina’s father offers to furnish Dr. Martin Luther King’s house when the civil rights leader moves to Chicago to challenge housing discrimination. Abe, who is as goofily obsessive as his daughter, faints from heat exhaustion at one of Dr. King’s speeches, and when he awakens, he has a new mission in life—to lead the charge for Dr. King’s cause. Mina, who has accompanied him to the
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Rgz SALON member Lyn Miller-Lachmann has been the Editor-in-Chief of MultiCultural Review; the author of the award-winning multicultural bibliography Our Family, Our Friends, Our World; the editor of Once Upon a Cuento, a collection of short stories by Latino authors; and the author of Gringolandia, a young adult novel about a refugee family living with the aftermath of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. Her most recent novel, Rogue--a spring/summer Junior Library Guild selection for middle school--is out this month!
"Although Jessy is only one of three point of view characters in A Good Long Way, Saldaña weaves her story in with that of the two brothers, Roelito and Beto, Jr. After a fight with his father, Beto, Jr. runs away to Jessy’s house, hoping she’ll take him in. Jessy refuses, fearing the rage of her alcoholic father if her friend is discovered. The next day, Jessy, an honor student, breaks down in class, remembering her own attempts to run away, while Roelito looks for his older brother at school and Beto Jr. goes to work with his father in order to reconcile with him. Saldaña explores a man’s responsibility—a father for his family, and an older brother for his younger brother—and a girl who has
"Big Six publisher Simon & Schuster brought out Neesha Meminger’s debut YA novel, 
