Review of Sidekicked, by John David Anderson

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

Sidekicked

by John David Anderson

Walden Pond Press (HarperCollins), 2013. 373 pages.
Starred Review
2013 Cybils Finalist

Reading this book makes me especially glad that I got to be a Cybils Middle Grade Speculative Fiction judge this year, because I probably wouldn’t have picked it up without that motivation. And I’m so glad I did.

This is a superhero book, which I’m not necessarily a fan of, but it has a lot of depth, an exciting plot, and realistic enough details, you can believe it would happen that way.

Andrew Bean is a sidekick, the Sensationalist. The book opens with him hanging over a pool of acid next to his best friend, Jenna, in her sidekick identity as the Silver Fox. Fortunately, Jenna’s Superhero comes and saves them both. Drew’s Super, the Titan, has never shown up when Drew needs him.

I suppose you’ll want to hear about where I come from, and where I got my powers, and what radioactive bug I was bitten by, and all of that junk. You’ll want to know that my father was a researcher for a top-secret government program studying the properties of dark matter or that my mother was really an Amazon princess blessed with godlike powers. But the truth is, my father is an accountant — not a fake accountant masquerading as a costumed vigilante, but a real honest-to-god, dull-as-a-dictionary accountant with a closet full of white shirts and a carefully managed pension. My mother is an aide at Brookview Elementary — an aide because she got pregnant with me while in college and never finished her teaching degree. Neither of them has any superpowers, unless you count my father’s ability to calculate tips instantly or my mother’s uncanny ability to forget I’m not four anymore, sometimes still wiping the corner of my mouth with a napkin damp with her own spit the way she did when I was a toddler.

The truth is, I was born the way I am, without gamma rays, without cosmic intervention, without a flashback episode explaining my secret origins. I was born with a condition — doctors were careful to call it a condition and not a disease — called hypersensatia, which basically just allows me to see and smell and hear things better than most people. And when I say most people, I mean better than six billion other people. In fact, there are apparently fewer than five hundred people who have this condition, and none of them to the same extent as me. That makes me special, I suppose, though I prefer to think of myself as one of a kind.

Drew is part of a program at Highview Middle School for training Sidekicks called H.E.R.O. – Highview Environmental Revitalization Organization. Their job is to keep trash off the streets. (“Sometimes it’s the thing that’s right in front of you that you keep looking over.”)

Now, Drew’s super power of extraordinary senses isn’t the greatest in a fight. He has a utility belt, but that’s only useful if he’s wearing it. A new kid named Gavin has joined the program. He sweats a substance that encases him in protective rock-like armor. Gavin is a member of the football team and seems to be impressing Jenna, while Drew is working on distinguishing the difference between certain smells.

Meanwhile, the Dealer, a supervillain everyone thought the Titan had killed years ago, comes back from the dead (apparently) and breaks his surviving henchmen out of prison — the Jack of Clubs, the Jack of Spades, and the Jack of Diamonds. Drew finds the Titan — in a bar — but he refuses to help. And one by one, the superheroes of the city of Justicia get removed. Only Jenna’s superhero, the Silver Fox, seems able to deal with them.

But then the Jacks go after the sidekicks of H.E.R.O., apparently trying to use them as bait to catch their heroes. Of course with Drew that doesn’t work, but he almost dies along the way. But how did the Jacks know their secret identities? Who leaked that information? Whom can they trust?

It all works out to a thrilling conclusion that will keep the reader turning pages. I liked the realistic touches. Like our protagonist would have a superpower that doesn’t help him much in a fight. And Drew has regular middle school concerns like what is being served in the cafeteria, getting out of gym class, and what to wear on his first date. This book makes fun reading with a whole lot of suspense thrown in.

johndavidanderson.org
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Star Wars Jedi Academy, by Jeffrey Brown

Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

Star Wars Jedi Academy

by Jeffrey Brown

Scholastic, Sept 2013. 160 pages.

This is Diary of a Wimpy Kid crossed with Star Wars. It is going to be a huge hit with our library patrons. From the author of Darth Vader and Son and Vader’s Little Princess comes this graphic novel look at what middle school would be like – if you were training to be a Jedi.

Roan Novachez lives on Tattooine and he’s waiting eagerly for his acceptance to Pilot Academy, when, much to his disappointment, he gets selected by Master Yoda for Jedi Academy instead. Kids used to Star Wars will especially enjoy Roan’s impressions of the characters for the first time.

About Yoda, he says, “Everything up mixed says he, backwards he talks.” He includes translations of the beeps and boops from their droid, and what their Wookiee gym teacher has said this week. It’s all very funny in the context of Star Wars, but it all rings true as to things middle school kids have to deal with – tests, a science project, an election, competition, learning new skills, and navigating friendships. Oh, and making light sabers.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/jedi_academy.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Review Copy I got at ALA Annual Conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Across a Star-Swept Sea, by Diana Peterfreund

Romance, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Across a Star-Swept Sea

by Diana Peterfreund

Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins), 2013. 449 pages.
Starred Review

Okay, before I begin the serious review, I’m going to gush a little. I LOVED this book! SO good! I stayed up all night reading it, and I’m not the least bit repentant. It helps that I have a 3-day weekend starting, but still, I haven’t read a book good enough to make me do that in awhile, and I’m so happy to find one.

Across a Star-Swept Sea is a sequel to the delightful For Darkness Shows the Stars, which was a science fiction retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. You honestly don’t have to have read the first book. Some characters from the first book do make an appearance in the second book, but this one takes place in a totally different part of a future devastated earth, so their societies developed differently, and you don’t need to know about the society from the first book.

This book is a science fiction retelling of The Scarlet Pimpernel. As you can tell from one of the first Sonderbooks reviews I wrote, back in 2001, The Scarlet Pimpernel is one of my all-time favorites, and I’ve read it many times. That made me appreciate all the more what a brilliant job Diana Peterfreund did with this retelling. There was almost a scene-for-scene correspondence.

The big, fun thing she did was flip everyone’s gender. So “The Wild Poppy” is a 16-year-old girl, Persis Blake. It puts quite a different twist on the story.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is about a daring Englishman who saves nobles from the French Revolution. In Across a Star-Swept Sea, they’re in the same future earth as For Darkness Shows the Stars, where humankind was devastated by an accident with genetic engineering. People who used the genetic engineering gave birth to children who were “Reduced” — never having more intellectual capability than a small child.

The people living on the two islands of New Pacifica believe they are the only humans to have survived the wars. But one of the islands, Galatea, is having a revolution. Over the years, the people who were not Reduced, naturally, became the ruling class. The Reduced were capable of nothing but being servants.

However, a generation ago, a cure was developed, so that the Reduced were able to have “Regular” children. The new class of people, “regs” were still not treated well on Galatea, so they began a revolution. And the worst part is that they have developed a pill that destroys the brains of the former aristos, so they are now the Reduced ones, fit for nothing but service.

Persis Blake, in her many disguises as the Wild Poppy, is rescuing aristos from the revolutionaries. No one knows her identity, and she poses as an empty-headed socialite in the princess regent’s court of the other island, Albion. Their society has perfected genetic engineering, so she uses “genetemps” to disguise herself in any way she wants. But when one of those genetemps goes wrong and makes her sick, she’s saved by a Galatean medic who was looking for passage to Albion anyway. He’s handsome and seems to want to help the refugees, but can Persis trust the nephew of the revolutionary leader?

All the wonderful plot twists of the original are here, except that she tells you sooner (right away) the identity of the Wild Poppy. But those who know The Scarlet Pimpernel would know immediately anyway, and this works well.

If they didn’t take you seriously, they would never see you coming. Persis was the most stylish, the most glittering, the most frivolous girl in Albion. There was no way she was secretly orchestrating a spy ring.

This book is marvelously written and will make delightful reading whether you’ve read the original or not. Those who already know and love the original, like me, will appreciate this book all the more. Magnificent!

dianapeterfreund.com
epicreads.com
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Source: This review is based on my own copy, ordered via Amazon.com.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Guys Read: Other Worlds, edited by Jon Scieszka

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Stories, Starred Review 0

Guys Read

Other Worlds

Edited and with an Introduction by Jon Scieszka
Stories by Tom Angleberger, Ray Bradbury, Shannon Hale, D. J. MacHale, Eric Nylund, Kenneth Oppel, Rick Riordan, Neal Shusterman, Rebecca Stead, and Shaun Tan

with illustrations by Greg Ruth

Walden Pond Press, September 2013. 331 pages.
Starred Review

It’s no surprise that I particularly like this entry in the Guys Read series of stories written for guys. After all, Speculative Fiction is my favorite genre. You can tell from the title page that they got some distinguished talent to write for this book.

I was surprised to find one of my favorite authors, Shannon Hale, represented in the Guys Read series, with a story featuring a girl, no less. Maybe they’re making a point that an adventure story that happens to have a girl protagonist is good reading for guys, too? I like the way they slipped it in there, with no apology whatsoever. It’s about how she becomes a bouncer in a disreputable inn in a fantasy kingdom.

Most of the stories tend more toward science fiction than fantasy, though the lead-off story is a Percy Jackson story from Rick Riordan. Here’s hoping it might entice some kids into reading the whole book. The science fiction includes some silly (“Rise of the Roboshoes,” by Tom Angleberger) and some with that nice kicker ending with implications about earth (“The Scout,” by D. J. MacHale).

To be honest, the story I liked the least was the classic Ray Bradbury story included, “Frost and Fire.” But I wouldn’t argue for a moment with its inclusion. Including Ray Bradbury in a Science Fiction and Fantasy collection is absolutely right. And the story did remind me of ones my brothers liked when I was a kid. This book is intended for guys, after all. And I will happily try to find guys to hand it to.

I like what Jon Scieszka says in the Introduction:

All fiction and storytelling is answering that “What if . . .” question. But science fiction and fantasy go a step further: They bend the rules of reality. They get to imagine the “What if” in completely other worlds.

And that is why good science fiction and fantasy stories can be mind-expandingly fun.

There you have it. Pick up this book if you want some mind-expanding fun.

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harpercollinschildrens.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an advance review copy sent to me by the publisher.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Dangerous, by Shannon Hale

Adventure, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dangerous

by Shannon Hale

Bloomsbury, New York, April 2014. 390 pages.
Starred Review

Okay, I can’t wait any longer to post this. The book won’t come out until April 2014, so I hope I’m not being mean by tantalizing other fans. I know I’ll read it again when the published version comes out. But I did exclaim all over Twitter and Facebook about snagging this review copy on the opening night of ALA Annual Conference, so I think I should tell people that I indeed liked the book very much, and they will want to watch for it.

It’s no secret that I’m biased by the love I already have for Shannon Hale’s other books. I knew I’d enjoy Dangerous, and indeed I did.

This is not, however, a fairy tale retelling or a contemporary romance. Dangerous is a science fiction thriller, completely different from anything Shannon Hale has written before.

Shannon Hale fans like me will of course want to read it, so I’ll try to describe it for others who just want to figure out if they want to read this particular science fiction thriller.

I love the heroine, Maisie Danger Brown. She’s not your typical vanilla-flavored main character. Her mother is from Paraguay, so her family is bilingual. And she’s missing her right hand, using a prosthesis, which she calls Ms. Pinch. Maisie fills out an application found in a cereal box and wins a trip to Astronaut Camp. Once there, she meets Jonathan Ingalls Wilder, son of a billionaire, and explains to him her middle name:

“My parents were going to name me after my deceased grandmothers — Maisie Amalia — then in the hospital, it occurred to them that the middle name Danger would be funny.”

“So you can literally say, Danger is my middle –”

“No! I mean, I avoid it. It’s too ridiculous. It’s not like anyone actually calls me Danger. Well, my mom sometimes calls me la Peligrosa, which is Spanish for Danger Girl. But it’s just a joke, or it’s meant to be. My parents have to work really hard to be funny. They’re scientists.”

This description fit with Maisie’s constantly punning father. (Just like mine!)

Space Camp ends up far more than a typical summer camp. The first sentence of the book is “Every superhero has an origin story.” Sure enough, at camp, Maisie gets a chance to go up in the Space Elevator to an orbiting asteroid, and there a piece of alien technology takes over her body, turning her into a super-inventor. Four other teens get embedded with technology, each having varying superpowers, all revolving around Jonathan, the Thinker. Maisie doesn’t know how much her thinking about Jonathan is because she fell for him before the incident, or if it’s because of the embedded alien technology.

And it’s a wild ride from there. I don’t want to say too much, but there are some deaths, and it becomes apparent that the remaining team members can take on the alien token from someone who dies. Maisie doesn’t know who to trust, and she’s afraid her family will be used to get to her. Things come to a showdown. Will Maisie be killed for her token, or will she have to kill her friend?

And that’s not even the end. There’s also the question of why aliens sent these tokens to earth. Yes, it turns out the fate of all humanity is at stake, and it’s not at all certain that the alien superpowers will be enough.

When the Space Camp story began, I thought this was going to be a kid-finds-out-alien-plot story, similar to The Fellowship for Alien Detection. But it quickly got to be a much bigger story. When it became apparent that alien technology was taking over some kids, I expected to roll my eyes at the science descriptions. That didn’t happen either. I’m not saying it was water-tight, but it never seemed blatantly impossible. And, wow, with the team members fighting each other, there were shades of The Hunger Games. We also had plots among different adult groups, trying to control the alien technology, and more of Maisie having to figure out who to trust. All that besides the aliens set to take over earth.

There’s also a delicately-done romance. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have preferred Maisie to end up with the other guy, but I can’t complain that it didn’t seem realistic. I loved Maisie’s thinking when they’re alone, and he’d like her to go farther.

He started to kiss me again, and I relented, kissing back. But his words haunted me — I can’t help myself, as if he were constrained to want me. I wanted him to choose me, not kiss me mindlessly. Even so, a part of me would give up any choice to just let things happen. And that shocked me. I’d decided long ago what I would do and would not do, and here at the first opportunity, I was tossing out reason for instinct. If I couldn’t make a decision using my brain, then was I even Maisie anymore? Better to ache with want than to become an illogical girl I didn’t know, I thought.

Now, I must admit that I’m probably never going to enjoy a science fiction thriller as much as a fairy tale retelling. If anything, I think maybe she’s packed a little too much into this book. I feel like I’ll have to read it again to grasp all that happened. I’m not sure if I quite believe all the alien stuff.

But I can safely say that I enjoyed this book more than any science fiction thriller I’ve ever read. The personal touch of knowing Maisie Danger Brown, la Peligrosa, girl who’s grown up with a missing hand – that made me want to travel with her through life-and-death fights, threats by aliens and humans, wild superhero stunts, and the need to save the world.

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Bloomsbury.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at ALA Annual Conference.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Son, by Lois Lowry

Fantasy, Science Fiction, Teen Fiction Review 0

Son

by Lois Lowry
read by Bernadette Dunne

Listening Library, 2012. 8 hours on 7 compact discs.

Son is “the conclusion to the Giver quartet.” I read The Giver and Gathering Blue many years ago, and read and reviewed Messenger in 2004. It’s possible I would have enjoyed this book more if I remembered what was in the predecessors.

The book starts out in the same community as The Giver. Claire is a birth mother, a Vessel. But something goes wrong when she is delivering the “Product.” The “discomfort” gets extreme (That detail made me laugh — doctors in our society also have the gall to call labor pains “discomfort”.), and Claire ends up with a scar and is given a new role to play at the Fish Hatchery.

But Claire found out her child’s number. A subsequent trip to the Nursery means she can innocently find out her son’s identity. She can get to know him, in the guise of helping the Caregivers. But when Jonas flees from the community and takes her son with him, that means Claire must leave, too.

I didn’t really remember details from The Giver or Gathering Blue. What I’ve described so far was Part One, and it had tiny little details I could quibble with, but mostly I was enjoying the story. Then, suddenly, at the end of Part Three, the book turns from a plausible Science Fiction title into pure Fantasy. I didn’t buy the story from there on out — the big obstacle felt completely artificial. It’s possible I wouldn’t have been so taken aback if I had read Gossamer, because it sounds like some of the roots of Claire’s encounter were laid in that book.

However, despite having many arguments with the story, the fact is, I was mesmerized. There was nothing flashy about the reader’s voice (no cute accents, just plain reading), but I couldn’t stop listening and eagerly looked forward to my morning and evening commute as long as I was listening to this book.

I may not buy the story, and it may not be the hard-hitting dystopian commentary on our society I expected from a sequel to The Giver — but Lois Lowry’s command of language had me mesmerized, all the same.

If you’ve never read The Giver, you should. It’s a modern classic. And then if you want more, I think the best approach would probably be to read all three of Lois Lowry’s books that follow. Some day, I plan to read all four, in order. I’m sure I will enjoy them. Lois Lowry knows how to spin a tale.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Earthling! by Mark Fearing

Children's Fiction Review, Graphic Novel, Science Fiction 0

Earthling!

by Mark Fearing

Chronicle Books, San Francisco. 245 pages.

Earthling! is a children’s graphic novel that’s a lot of fun. Bud and his father move to a new home next to his father’s new job at the Von Lunar Telescope Lab. The next morning, Bud gets on the wrong bus — and ends up on a bus to Cosmos Academy, the best in the galaxy. Fortunately, a friendly alien helps him out right at the start, and warns him not to tell anyone he’s an earthling. Earthlings are feared and hated.

So Bud has all the challenges of fitting in at a new school where he is truly an alien from another planet. But at the same time, he must figure out how to get home. He has to learn how to play ZeroBall, make friends and be a team player — in a very different environment. He must avoid suspension and expulsion — because it would be suspension for eternity in molecular binding gel or being expelled into deep space to die.

The art in this book is excellent, and naturally the aliens are easy to tell apart. (Though come to think of it, the bullies look a lot alike. Is that species prejudice?) The story is fun, with Earthlings clearly seen through a distorted lens. The plot is engaging — Bud just wants to get home, but there are many paths he must take to try to get there. The pages are bright, colorful, and action-packed. This is one book that will be easy to put into kids’ hands.

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chroniclekids.com

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of A Hero for WondLa, by Tony DiTerlizzi

Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

A Hero for WondLa

by Tony DiTerlizzi

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2012. 445 pages.

I had the privilege of having dinner with Tony DiTerlizzi and a group from Simon & Schuster at 2012 ALA Midwinter Meeting. He talked about how, with the WondLa books, he wanted to write an imaginative adventure story like The Wizard of Oz, a story that would appeal to boys and girls alike. When he was a boy reading The Wizard of Oz, he never minded that Dorothy was a girl. The adventures in a fantastical world completely captured his imagination. He wanted to add illustrations, like those books had when he was young. For the second book, he reread Brave New World in preparation for writing it.

I think Tony DiTerlizzi achieved those goals. I’ve been a fan since childhood of The Wizard of Oz myself, and the WondLa books have the same feel. They’ve got adventure, a quest, and exuberantly imaginative details. They are on the long side, but I don’t think a young audience will mind, and the wonderful illustrations help to move the story along and keep the reader entranced.

In the second book, A Hero for WondLa, Eva Nine has found a human city. She’s excited to find a place where she belongs. Her alien friend warns her, though, “A village of your kind does not necessarily make a home.” Knowing that the author had read Brave New World before writing it, I was not surprised when something seemed off. In fact, Eva felt a little slow to figure it out. What she finds there leads to further adventures.

I didn’t quite track with the plot all along the way in this book. It felt simplistic, which perhaps is appropriate for the young audience it’s meant for. But there were times when a simple explanation won people to Eva’s side, and there were other times when people irrationally opposed her. I didn’t really believe, for example, that she would have gone into the city without Rovender by her side, or then that she’d be able to find him as easily as she did. Yes, the author is wonderfully imaginative, but some of the events at the end seemed over-the-top. What do you think? I’d love to discuss details in the comments. (So please avoid the comments until you’ve read the book — then feel free to include spoilers.)

And despite those quibbles, like The Wizard of Oz, The Search for WondLa and A Hero for WondLa present an adventure saga that’s firmly kid-based and kid-friendly. I am looking forward to the series continuing. May it find many readers.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Review of Every Day, by David Levithan

Romance, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Every Day

by David Levithan

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2013. 324 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s an innovative and creative idea, executed well, the perfect vehicle for commenting on the human condition as it is expressed in teenagers.

David Levithan sets up the situation beautifully in the first few paragraphs:

I wake up.

Immediately I have to figure out who I am. It’s not just the body — opening my eyes and discovering whether the skin on my arm is light or dark, whether my hair is long or short, whether I’m fat or thin, boy or girl, scarred or smooth. The body is the easiest thing to adjust to, if you’re used to waking up in a new one each morning. It’s the life, the context of the body, that can be hard to grasp.

Every day I am someone else. I am myself — I know I am myself — but I am also someone else.

It has always been like this.

“A” borrows other people’s lives for one day at a time. He’s never been the same person twice. He can access certain memories from the person whose body he’s in, though he doesn’t like to overdo that, but needs to do enough to get by. He stays in pretty much the same area as where he went to sleep, and always someone the same age as him, which is sixteen during this book.

I’m using “he” for convenience. That’s the way I think of him since he wakes up as a boy at the start of this book. But he wakes up as a girl as often as a boy.

From living lots of people’s lives, A has all kinds of insights into what it means to be a teenager. That’s the brilliant part of this book that truly shines.

On only page four, A meets Rhiannon:

As I take Justin’s books out of his locker, I can feel someone hovering on the periphery. I turn, and the girl standing there is transparent in her emotions — tentative and expectant, nervous and adoring. I don’t have to access Justin to know that this is his girlfriend. No one else would have this reaction to him, so unsteady in his presence. She’s pretty, but she doesn’t see it. She’s hiding behind her hair, happy to see me and unhappy to see me at the same time.

Her name is Rhiannon. And for a moment — just the slightest beat — I think that, yes, this is the right name for her. I don’t know why. I don’t know her. But it feels right.

This is not Justin’s thought. It’s mine. I try to ignore it. I’m not the person she wants to talk to.

It throws off A’s carefully planned strategies when he keeps thinking about Rhiannon. He can at least e-mail her in every body. And then does he dare to hope that she is someone who might understand?

This book is full of great insights thrown in along the way. He talks about having siblings or not, being in a family that goes to church or not, relationships with family members, being able to tell his body is a mean girl by her friends’ surprise when he doesn’t make the cutting comment.

Here’s where he wakes up in the body of a drug addict:

There comes a time when the body takes over the life. There comes a time when the body’s urges, the body’s needs, dictate the life. You have no idea you are giving the body the key. But you hand it over. And then it’s in control. You mess with the wiring and the wiring takes charge.

That day it is all he can do to keep the body he’s in from going to get the drugs it so desperately wants.

Another day he wakes up in the body of a girl who’s written a suicide plan in her notebook, with a target date later that week. Here are his insights about that:

Some people think mental illness is a matter of mood, a matter of personality. They think depression is simply a form of being sad, that OCD is a form of being uptight. They think the soul is sick, not the body. It is, they believe, something that you have some choice over.

I know how wrong this is.

When I was a child, I didn’t understand. I would wake up in a new body and wouldn’t comprehend why things felt muted, dimmer. Or the opposite — I’d be supercharged, unfocused, like a radio at top volume flipping quickly from station to station. Since I didn’t have access to the body’s emotions, I assumed the ones I was feeling were my own. Eventually, though, I realized these inclinations, these compulsions, were as much a part of the body as its eye color or its voice. Yes, the feelings themselves were intangible, amorphous, but the cause of the feelings was a matter of chemistry, biology.

It is a hard cycle to conquer. The body is working against you. And because of this, you feel even more despair. Which only amplifies the imbalance. It takes uncommon strength to live with these things. But I have seen that strength over and over again. When I fall into the life of someone grappling, I have to mirror their strength, and sometimes surpass it, because I am less prepared.

I know the signs now. I know when to look for the pill bottles, when to let the body take its course. I have to keep reminding myself — this is not me. It is chemistry. It is biology. It is not who I am. It is not who any of them are.

But all those insights and observations are the frosting on the cake. A’s love story with Rhiannon is the heart of this story. And the question: Can he have a love story when he never knows which body he will be in the next day? How can he even make plans? Is this someone who can get to know him for who he truly is? But then, who is he, really?

I must admit that though the book is absolutely brilliant and beautifully executed, I thought the ending was a bit anticlimactic. In a way, I think David Levithan painted his character into too tight a corner. I would have liked a happy solution, but I can’t think of one myself. Now, I imagine a lot of teen readers will like this ending, and, actually, it’s a better ending than I probably could have come up with. So I’m not saying the ending is flawed — just warning readers it won’t necessarily leave you feeling happy.

Every Day does what great science fiction does best — lets you look at everyday life from a completely new perspective. Highly recommended.

davidlevithan.com
randomhouse.com/teens

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Fellowship for Alien Detection

Children's Fiction Review, Science Fiction 0

The Fellowship for Alien Detection

by Kevin Emerson

Walden Pond Press (HarperCollins), March 2013. 428 pages.

Science Fiction stories with aliens aren’t really my thing, but they were very much my son’s thing, so I have a soft spot for them still. When my now-25-year-old son was much younger, Bruce Coville was his favorite author, particularly the My Teacher Is an Alien books. The Fellowship for Alien Detection has similar themes, with kids the only ones able to figure out an alien plot to take over the world.

The book was on the long side for me, but I think kids who like the alien theme will find that a bonus. Two middle-school kids from opposite sides of the country, Haley and Dodger, have been given a fellowship to spend the summer investigating their own theories about alien activity on earth. Haley has been investigating missing time events, associated with missing people. Dodger has been hearing strange broadcasts from a town called Juliette. The broadcasts are always from the same day.

As they travel to suspicious sites, soon they seem to be under suspicion by sinister forces. Neither Haley’s nor Dodger’s parents realize the danger their children are in for. If they investigate further, will they be kidnapped by aliens as well? What will happen to the missing people of Juliette? What will happen to planet Earth?

The plot of this book is fairly complex, with each kid piecing together clues before they come together, as well as the reader getting glimpses of what’s going on in Juliette.

I recently read lots and lots of Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy books for the 2012 Cybils Awards, and, believe it or not, I didn’t read anything like this book — a good, basic, kids-watching-out-for-aliens story that my son would have loved. If any kids at my library come looking for a book about aliens, I know exactly what to put in their hands.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/fellowship_for_alien_detection.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on an Advance Review Copy sent to me by the publisher.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!