Okay, I’ll say right up front that I’m biased about this book. Kristin Wolden Nitz is my friend. She’s a fellow member of the Sisters of Royaumont. We met at a children’s writers’ retreat at an abbey outside Paris back in 1999, started an e-mail critique group, and were reunited at another retreat at the same abbey, Abbaye de Royaumont in 2005, with time together in Paris before and after. Kristin is an inspiration to me as a writer. She’s persistent and versatile.
I’ve given Kristin some critiques on some of her books before they were published, but not this one. Getting to pick up a copy of the Uncorrected Proof at ALA Annual Conference was the first I got to read it. I was very impressed and enjoyed it thoroughly.
When her Grandma Kay needs some help for the summer at the family bed-and-breakfast, 17-year-old Jen agrees to help out. Her dad warns her, though, that Grandma Kay has gotten a crazy idea into her head that Jen’s mother is dead.
Jen’s mother left fourteen years ago. She’s written to Jen over the years and sent her presents, but she’s never been back. Now it’s been a few years since Jen heard from her. Still, why would Grandma Kay now think she’s dead? Has she been watching too many murder mysteries?
Grandma Kay does have a thing for mysteries. Every year she hosts a mystery weekend at the bed-and-breakfast for a competitive group of would-be sleuths. This year, Jen has an uncomfortable feeling that Grandma Kay is modeling the mystery after Jen’s mother’s disappearance. And Jen gets to play the role of the victim.
What’s more, if Jen’s mother was killed, who killed her? Was it one of the people Jen has known and loved all her life, one of the people assembled for the murder mystery weekend?
On top of everything else, Jen’s boyfriend just broke up with her, and she’s finding herself feeling strange things when she’s around Mark, her “uncousin” — like family, a friend since childhood, but not actually related to her.
It all adds up to an excellent “cozy” mystery. You’ve got believable romance, an intriguing and well-plotted mystery, and characters you like and enjoy.
There aren’t so many mysteries out there with teenage characters. This one takes a capable teenage girl and casts her in the middle of an intensely personal mystery she’d rather not be part of. Will she be the detective, or the victim?
This book will keep you turning the pages and leave you with a satisfied smile at the end.
Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 2006. 136 pages.
Starred Review
How did I miss this book so long? I suppose it has something to do with the fact that I don’t have daughters. However, as a children’s librarian, I feel remiss at not having read this book sooner.
This book came to my attention by way of Betsy Bird’s Fuse #8 blog. After her poll of the Top 100 Children’s Novels, she did a post about the other titles that got votes, but were not in the top 100. Clementine was mentioned as a 21st Century Ramona the Pest.
When I read Clementine I was completely enchanted. When I checked it out, I was looking for something to read at the “Mother’s Day Mugs” library program. The program was for ages 6 and up to paint their own mugs, so none of the Mother’s Day picture books at the library seemed entirely appropriate — They are mostly geared for younger kids. I found a happy solution in Chapter Three of Clementine. It’s funny, kept their interest, and has a nice section with her mother when she realizes that it’s okay that her mother isn’t the sort who would ever appear in a magazine picture of a mother.
The book is narrated by Clementine. She’s in third grade and definitely means well. So why does she keep on getting in trouble?
The first page gives you a nice taste of what’s to come:
“I have had not so good of a week.
“Well, Monday was a pretty good day, if you don’t count Hamburger Surprise at lunch and Margaret’s mother coming to get her. Or the stuff that happened in the principal’s office when I got sent there to explain that Margaret’s hair was not my fault and besides she looks okay without it, but I couldn’t because Principal Rice was gone, trying to calm down Margaret’s mother.
“Someone should tell you not to answer the phone in the principal’s office, if that’s a rule.
Okay, fine, Monday was not so good of a day.”
The illustrations by Marla Frazee are absolutely brilliant, showing another perspective on things. One of my favorites is where Clementine says this:
“I knew Friday was going to be a bad day right from the beginning, because there were clear parts in my eggs.
“‘I can’t eat eggs if they have clear parts,’ I reminded my mother.
“‘Eat around them,’ she said. ‘Just eat the yellow parts and the white parts.’
“But I couldn’t because the clear parts had touched the yellow parts and the white parts. So all I had was toast.”
The picture on the page facing this picture has Clementine at the table, dramatically holding her throat and making a choking face. Her mother is holding a frying pan and does not look amused. On the floor is an untidy backpack with books and papers coming out.
I love this passage that shows how Clementine’s perspective is quite different from the adults around her. It’s from when the principal gets back to her office:
“Principal Rice rolled her eyes to the ceiling then, like she was looking for something up there. Ceiling snakes maybe, just waiting to drip on you. That’s what I used to be afraid of when I was little, anyway. Now I am not afraid of anything.
“Okay, fine, I am afraid of pointy things. But that is all. And boomerangs.
“‘Clementine, you need to pay attention,’ said Principal Rice. ‘We need to discuss Margaret’s hair. What are you doing on the floor?’
“‘Helping you look for ceiling snakes,’ I reminded her.
“‘Ceiling snakes? What ceiling snakes?’ she asked.
“See what I mean? Me — paying attention; everyone else — not. I am amazed they let someone with this problem be the boss of a school.”
I enjoyed Clementine so much, I ended up accosting a patron at the library on my last day working there. You see, for the two years I worked at Herndon Fortnightly Library, I had this thoughtful grandmother of two girls asking me for book recommendations. She likes to give her granddaughters well-chosen books. I think two years ago, the girls were two and four, so now they must be four and six. A recent big hit with the youngest was Olivia, by Ian Falconer, and the whole time I was reading Clementine, I thought that this book is the perfect follow-up, for just a little bit older girl. I definitely wanted to mention it to this grandma, so when I saw her on my very last day at the library, I had to bring her over to the Clementine books, whether she was looking for books for her granddaughters that day or not.
I got this book read after reading Half-Minute Horrors showed me that reading a children’s chapter book with short chapters was the perfect activity for waiting at northern Virginia traffic lights. I’ve already seen, from the Mother’s Day Mugs program, that it’s great fun for reading aloud to a wide age range.
Any child who’s been in school will appreciate Clementine’s perspective. With plenty of pictures, and not too many words on a page, it’s also a perfect selection for a child ready for chapter books. Definitely a winner in every way! And I agree that she carries on the legacy of Ramona the Pest. I’m going to snap up the other books about Clementine.
I confess I probably wouldn’t have read Will Grayson, Will Grayson if I weren’t such a huge John Green fan. I was won over by hearing him speak about his Printz Honor Winning book Abundance of Katherines three years ago at ALA Annual Conference, and then completely hooked when I started watching his and his brother’s daily video blog through 2007. What can I say? He’s my kind of nerd. Nerd Fighters are made of Awesome.
Of course, I also read An Abundance of Katherines, Let It Snow, and my favorite, Paper Towns. So I thoroughly admire John Green as an author. Though the funny thing about reading his books is that I always hear the main character in my head speaking with John Green’s voice, since I’ve heard him so much on the internet.
Anyway, I was four chapters into his latest book (written in alternating chapters with David Levithan), when I went to the 2010 American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington DC. The exhibits had just opened, and I was frantically grabbing free advance copies of books. I looked up, and there was John Green!
I said, “You’re John Green!” and he graciously conceded that he was. I tried to think of clever things to say. Did I tell him I think he’s a brilliant writer? No, I said I follow his blog. Couldn’t think of much to say after that. Anyway, as he was about to go off to the exhibits, I got my wits about me and asked if I could get a picture with him. He said “David can take it!” as his companions were coming to see what was keeping him — and I realized that familiar face I’d seen with John was David Levithan. So, I insisted on a picture with both of them. This was at the very start of ALA, and it made my night!
Here I am with David Levithan and John Green at ALA 2010.
On the last night of ALA, I got another picture with John Green, at the reception after the Printz Awards Ceremony. Kind of fitting, since I’d first seen him in person at the 2007 Printz Awards.
So, as you can imagine, I like the author, and of course I want to like his books. As it began, it seemed a little depressing, so I might have stopped. One of the Will Graysons is clinically depressed. The other one isn’t terribly happy.
It also turns out to be mainly about Tiny Cooper:
“Tiny Cooper is not the world’s gayest person, and he is not the world’s largest person, but I believe he may be the world’s largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world’s gayest person who is really, really large.”
If I weren’t a huge fan of the author, I would probably simply avoid a book where one of the main topics is a high school student’s gayness. But I’m glad I didn’t avoid this one.
The book is about two high school students named Will Grayson. They don’t know each other. They live in different Chicago suburbs. One Will Grayson has been Tiny Cooper’s best friend all his life. But that Will recently lost what other friends he had because:
“After some school-board member got all upset about gays in the locker room, I defended Tiny Cooper’s right to be both gigantic (and, therefore, the best member of our shitty football team’s offensive line) and gay in a letter to the school newspaper that I, stupidly, signed.”
Tiny is writing, directing, and performing a musical about his life. So naturally, there is a character named Gil Wrayson, which Tiny assures Will is a fictional character.
Meanwhile, the other Will Grayson (written by David Levithan), is in love with his internet chat friend named Isaac. He’s gay but won’t admit it to anyone else, he’s depressed, and his only friend at school is a girl who’s even more depressing.
A strange twist of circumstances brings the two Will Graysons to the same porn shop in Chicago late on a Friday night. Both Will Graysons suffer a big disappointment that night, but the other Will Grayson discovers Tiny Cooper, and Tiny Cooper discovers him.
I wouldn’t want my teenage son to take the characters in this book as role models, but I don’t think older teens read books to find role models. The characters’ language and humor are crude (which almost got me to shut the book early), but it’s also very clever. The characters do seem completely real. Tiny Cooper is larger than life, but he’s no cardboard cut-out. And the two Will Graysons have conflicting emotions and confusions that seem completely true to life. Though I wouldn’t want my son to take them for role models, I’d be happy to have him find friends like these. Flawed friends, but ultimately the kind of people you can count on, you can tell the truth to.
And though this book is about some characters being gay and coming to terms with that, more than that, it’s a book about friendship. It’s a book about real love, and a book about truth. It’s a book that shows that people are the same underneath, whether they are gay or not, and that the love of friendship can transcend all that.
As Will Grayson says in a moment of confrontation and revelation:
“You know what’s important? Who would you die for? Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don’t even know why he needs you?”
This book is awesome. Like so many great books do, it helped me put myself in the shoes of someone very different from me, thus looking at my own life and my own world a little differently. I’m glad I read it.
by Barbara Bottner
illustrated by Michael Emberley
Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2010. 28 pages.
Starred Review
I’ve been a Barbara Bottner fan ever since our family got the book Bootsie Barker Bites and had the privilege of reading it over and over to our sons. When I saw this brand-new book she’d written, I knew it would be the perfect choice for the five second-grade class library tours we did in May.
Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I don’t) features an exuberant school librarian. In fact the only thing that gives me pause about this book is how Miss Brooks is an uber-librarian who puts me to shame. But she’s a great character, so I can enjoy her without feeling too guilty.
Miss Brooks goes overboard to get her classes to love books like she does. But the cynical little girl telling the story is not amused. The art for this book is absolutely perfect, with Miss Brooks dressing up as picture book characters and bursting with energy. The little girl, on the other hand, conveys all the body language — eye rolling, turning away, slumping — of someone who is just plain bored. Clearly she finds Miss Brooks tiresome. “Vexing” is the word she uses.
Then comes Book Week. Truly terrifying. All the kids are supposed to dress up for their favorite story and tell the class why they love it.
The girl is still unimpressed by the presentations about trains and fairies and cowboys and dogs. But then her mother finds her a book with warts in it. She reads Shrek! by William Steig.
“Shrek has hairs on his nose. And he snorts. I love that!”
My favorite part is when the girl dons an ogre costume and makes stick-on warts for the whole class.
It goes to show —
“Even ogres (like me) can find something funny and fantastic and appalling in the library.
The beginning of The Sky Is Everywhere gives you all the major issues the book will hold and pulls you right in:
“Gram is worried about me. It’s not just because my sister Bailey died four weeks ago, or because my mother hasn’t contacted me in sixteen years, or even because suddenly all I think about is sex. She is worried about me because one of her houseplants has spots.
“Gram has believed for most of my seventeen years that this particular houseplant, which is of the nondescript variety, reflects my emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being. I’ve grown to believe it too.”
Lennie’s sister Bailey died suddenly, without warning, from a fatal arrhythmia while in rehearsal for a local production of Romeo & Juliet. Lennie says, “It’s as if someone vacuumed up the horizon while we were looking the other way.”
The Sky Is Everywhere is a love story. But the story plays out with the background of Lennie’s grief at the loss of her sister.
Bailey was Lennie’s best friend, and Lennie felt like the stable pony to Bailey’s thoroughbred. Now she’s coming out from her sister’s shadow, but she certainly didn’t want it to be like this.
And the only one who seems to truly understand how much she misses Bailey is Toby, Bailey’s boyfriend. But then with all that understanding, a physical attraction springs up between them that Lennie can’t seem to resist, but that makes her feel terrible.
A new trumpet player named Joe has come to town while Lennie was home, grieving. His playing is amazing. Or, as Lennie’s friend says, unfreakingbelievable. He seems interested in Lennie, and she can’t figure out why. And how can she stand to be happy, when Bailey isn’t here?
Meanwhile, Lennie is writing poetry, poetry on found objects (like a take-out cup) and burying them or casting them to the wind. They’re mostly about memories with Bailey.
For teens who like romance, this one’s a tear-jerker. I’m afraid it kept reminding me of New Moon, simply because Lennie’s favorite book is Wuthering Heights, and she’s read it 23 times. Again we have true-love-as-destiny.
There’s a bit more talk about sex than I find romantic, but otherwise the love story is beautiful, almost too beautiful. However, Lennie’s grief over Bailey is handled so delicately and feels so true, it keeps the book from going over the edge into sentimentality.
Lennie’s Gram and Uncle Big are so quirky and interesting, they come to life for the reader. Lennie’s dealing with grief, identity, passion, true love, and so many other things. This book is a well-crafted story that deals with such strong emotions it almost crosses the line into manipulative. But not quite.
I was reading this at night during Mother Reader‘s 48-Hour Book Challenge. I decided there was no better time to let a book keep me reading until the early hours of the morning, so I actually kept going until 5:00 AM. Crying when I’m that tired is all the more draining, but I did enjoy the book. And I like the way that, even though the book deals with grief, the overwhelming emotion you’re left with at the end is joy.
Starting to read this book late at night, thinking I could read only a chapter or two because I was so tired, was a major mistake. No, this was one of those books that got me enjoying it far too much to look at the clock until I’d read the last page.
I hope that fans of Twilight will find this book. There’s the same feeling of love destined to happen (with a lot more reasons for it), a paranormal element, the heroine lives in Washington State, her uncle (okay not her father) is a police chief, she falls down a lot (though not quite as often as Bella), and her life is saved by her true love. In fact, with those rescues, I was reminded of good old-fashioned romantic suspense, especially the Mary Stewart novels I devoured in seventh and eighth grade. Best of all, the writing is excellent and the romance is exquisitely done. I think teens will love this book. I know I did!
But I’m getting ahead of myself. The story opens with a prologue when 8-year-old Violet hears a strange sound her father can’t hear, follows it through the woods, and finds a dead body.
Then we skip to the beginning of Violet’s junior year of high school. Like all teens, she doesn’t feel like she fits in, but she does have some legitimate reasons:
“After all, how many girls had inherited the ability to locate the dead, or at least those who had been murdered? How many little girls had spent hours of their childhood scouring the woods in search of dead animals left behind by feral predators? How many had created their own personal cemeteries in their backyards to bury the carnage they’d found, so the little souls could rest in peace?”
Something weird happened to Violet over the summer. Her best friend, Jay, whom she’s known since they were six years old, changed over the summer. They have done everything together since first grade, and he even knows her secret and keeps it safe. He even helped her make the little graves, by her side, not as if it were something strange. But now…
“She hated these new, unknown feelings that seemed to assault her whenever he was around, and sometimes even when he was only in her thoughts. She felt like she was no longer in control of her own body, and her traitorous reactions were only slightly more embarrassing than her treacherous thoughts.
“She was starting to feel like he was toxic to her.
“That, or she was seriously losing her mind, because that was the only way she could possibly explain the ridiculous butterflies she got whenever Jay was close to her. And what really irritated Violet was that he seemed to be completely oblivious of these new, and completely insane, reactions she was having to him. Obviously, whatever she had wasn’t contagious.”
As if that weren’t enough to deal with, on the first weekend after school has started, she goes to an end-of-summer party at a lake. She’s riding a Wind Runner with Jay when she feels drawn to a certain part of the lake, has to see what’s there, and finds the body of a teenage girl.
When the next girl disappears, people start to get worried.
Now, on top of Violet’s ability to find the bodies of murdered creatures, it turns out that the same echo of the creature sticks to its murderer. She learned this over the years from her cat, a natural predator. If she found a certain dead mouse by an odd taste in her mouth, she’ll have the exact same sensation when her cat, its killer, comes around.
So shouldn’t she use this ability to find whoever murdered the girl? Shouldn’t she finally use her bizarre “gift” for a valuable purpose?
This book reminded me of Num8ers, by Rachel Ward. Both books tell a story in contemporary times with one little addition — a girl who has a paranormal, rather morbid gift. However, The Body Finder tells a story that is much less dark. Instead of being an orphan, Violet has a warm and loving family. She is protected by her parents, her police chief uncle, and Jay, all of whom know about her gift.
But when you go looking for a murderer, you’re bound to run into trouble. Her family and Jay are protective, but they underestimate the strength of Violet’s gift and her obsession as more girls are killed.
Of course, Violet’s putting herself in danger only gets Jay angry and adds to the misunderstanding between the two of them.
This book has more making out than the Mary Stewart novels I used to read in junior high. But other than that, you can think of this as good old-fashioned romantic suspense. Pick this up when you’re in the mood for a dose of danger plus true love. You’d think a book called The Body Finder would be gruesome, but I found it to be sweet.
Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2008. 32 pages.
Starred Review
I discovered this book when browsing through our New Books at the library for books to read at my Drop-in Storytime. I read it to the group, and believe I have found one of my new favorite picture books. This book, in both words and illustrations, is absolutely brilliant!
Katie is a dog, an exuberant, friendly, and loving dog, with a tail that is usually wagging vigorously. Here is how the story begins:
“Today was the most exciting day in Katie’s whole life! Sara Ann had brought home three little kittens.
“Katie loved those kittens so much. As soon as she saw them, she howled, ‘AROOOOOO! AROOOOOO!’ She always howled like that when she was very happy.”
Unfortunately, Katie’s enthusiasm frightens the kittens, drawn as tiny little fluffy things climbing to get away from Katie. Sara Ann has to scold Katie and tell her to stay away from the kittens until they get used to her. Poor Katie is sad.
Later, Sara Ann is playing with the kittens, and Katie wants to play with them, too. “She just loved them so much.” One of my favorite pages is the page of Katie trying to control herself. Her tail is wagging so fast it’s almost invisible, and her whole body is shaking as she tries to quell her enthusiasm.
“But Katie couldn’t stop herself any longer.
“She burst into the room. The kittens scattered.
“‘AROOOOO! AROOOOO!’ she howled as she chased them around the room.”
Poor Katie. More misadventures follow, springing out of Katie’s enthusiastic overflowing love. Another favorite part is when Katie walks into the kitchen the next morning.
“Three bowls of food waited for her.
“She ate the first bowl. Mmmm, this is good, she thought.
“She ate the second bowl.
“Yummyummyummyum, she thought.” [And you should see her tail wag!]
Of course, the reader has no trouble guessing who the three bowls of food were for! Poor Katie feels worse than ever.
So I’ve almost gotten you through the whole book, but I’ll just summarize the end by saying that eventually the kittens do get used to Katie, and Katie manages to control herself and let them get close. The final picture has Katie playing with the three kittens, with one of them caught up in her wagging tail.
This book is an absolutely delightful twist on the new-baby-or-new-pet in the house story. In this story, the “big sister” doesn’t resent the new pets, but she does have to learn to express her enthusiasm in appropriate ways. It’s a story that attributes emotions to a dog, and the emotions seem completely doglike and realistic.
I’d recommend this book to people with a new baby or a new pet, or to dog lovers. Of course, I’m not any of those things, and I love this book, so I will also recommend it to anyone who enjoys a picture book that tells a fun story with the perfect combination of pictures and words. This one will make you smile. And for reading aloud, you can easily get kids involved, joining in with Katie’s AROOOOOOs.
Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2010. 344 pages.
Starred Review.
Here’s another book by the brilliant author of Marcelo in the Real World. Like Marcelo, this book deals with many-layered issues in a realistic way that is ultimately inspiring. There are no easy answers here, but we see flawed and lovable people grappling with the basic questions of life.
The book opens as Pancho is being brought to an orphanage.
“It was not a place for kids with problems. Mrs. Olivares had worked very hard and called in a lot of favors to get him admitted. She pointed out the high school he would attend in the fall. It was within walking distance of St. Anthony’s. He had been given a choice between going to summer school and entering as a senior or redoing his junior year. He chose to redo his junior year. He had other plans for the summer.”
Father Concha is the one in charge at St. Anthony’s.
“Father Concha picked up a manila folder and flipped through the pages, deep in thought. What did those pages say? Pancho had never read his file, but he could imagine. The mother dies when the boy is five years old. The father raises the boy and the older sister. The father dies in a freak work-related accident. Then the sister dies from undetermined natural causes three months later. The list of losses that made up his life was so unbelievable, it was embarrassing. It was like he made the whole thing up just so people would feel sorry for him.
“Pancho glared at Father Concha. he did not want pity. Pity turned his stomach. The priest put the folder down and met Pancho’s eyes. There was no pity there.”
At the orphanage, Pancho meets D.Q., a kid his own age who is dying of cancer. D.Q. takes an interest in Pancho. D.Q.’s mother, who left him at the orphanage years before, is now trying to get him to try some experimental treatments in Albuquerque. D.Q. agrees to go, but wants Pancho to come with him.
Pancho agrees because of his own summer plans: To find the man who was with his sister when she died, and kill him.
D.Q. also has his own agenda. A girl named Marisol works at Casa Esperanza, the house where they’ll be staying near the hospital.
D.Q. is always writing in his journal. He’s writing the Death Warrior Manifesto. A Death Warrior affirms life. He sucks the marrow from life with every day he has been given. D.Q. intends to train Pancho to be a Death Warrior, too. Pancho just thinks he’s crazy.
Things happen. Marisol isn’t what Pancho expected. He gets drafted to give rides to young kids with cancer at Casa Esperanza and makes friends with them. He watches D.Q. getting sick from chemotherapy. He makes plans to go to the house of the man who was with his sister and kill him.
There’s nothing simplistic about this book. It’s much more than a story of a teen with cancer or the story of a teen seeking revenge. In a lot of ways, it’s a book exploring what life is all about.
This book leaves you satisfied in a quiet way, glad to have spent time with Pancho and D.Q. and Marisol.
In Scarlett’s family, when you hit your fifteenth birthday, you get keys. But these are not keys to a shiny new car. These are keys to a hotel room in an old Art Deco hotel in New York City.
Scarlett’s family owns the Hopewell Hotel, and a fifteenth birthday tradition has developed:
“At age fifteen, each Martin was ‘given’ a room in the hotel to care for. This was not an ancient tradition — it had started with Spencer four years earlier. He had gotten the rough-and-ready Sterling Suite. Lola had the attractive but small Metro Suite. The Empire Suite was something else entirely — the showpiece, and the most expensive of the hotel’s twenty-one guest rooms. It was rarely occupied, except for the occasional honeymoon couple or the lost businessman who couldn’t get a room at the W.
“So this was either an honor or a ‘we don’t actually want you to have to deal with any guests’ gesture.”
But soon after Scarlett receives the key, a guest arrives, planning to stay the whole summer. Her name is Amy Amberson, and she’s a former actress. She’s extremely interested in manipulating other people’s lives, and soon is messing with Scarlett’s, and manipulating Scarlett into messing with other people.
Meanwhile, the Hopewell is not doing well. They’ve had to let their cook go, and Scarlett will not be able to get a summer job, so that she can help at the hotel. Meanwhile, her brother Spencer is running out of time on the deal he made with their parents. If he doesn’t get a role on Broadway before his scholarship offer to culinary school expires — next week — then he needs to give up acting long enough to go to culinary school.
So when Spencer gets a part in a version of Hamlet that’s not on Broadway in the usual sense (it’s in a parking garage on the street called Broadway), he wants to make it work. And he wants Scarlett to help him. And Spencer’s new friend on the cast happens to be tremendously handsome. But things don’t go smoothly, so of course Mrs. Amberson wants to get involved.
Suite Scarlett is a whole lot of fun. I’ve been meaning to read it for awhile. I actually started listening to it in audiobook form, but the narrator was too perky for me. However, I was already interested, so I finished the book in print form.
This book is a big elaborate comedy with plots and counterplots all fitting together in the end. The characters are varied and believable, from meddling Mrs. Amberson to Scarlett’s spoiled little sister Marlene, who recovered from cancer and now thinks the world revolves around herself. I like the interaction in the Martin family — They definitely love each other, but have some realistic bumps in the relationships between siblings.
Chicken House (Scholastic), New York, 2010. 325 pages.
Starred Review
For as long as she can remember, when Jem looks into another person’s eyes, she sees a number. A person’s number never changes.
Jem learned what the numbers meant on the day her mother died of a drug overdose. They are the date of that person’s death.
Naturally, Jem doesn’t like to look people in the eye. She’s been in and out of foster homes and she doesn’t have any friends.
Jem introduces herself like this:
“There are places where kids like me go. Sad kids, bad kids, bored kids, and lonely kids, kids that are different. Any day of the week, if you know where to look, you’ll find us: behind the shops, in back lanes, under bridges by canals and rivers, ’round garages, in sheds, on vacant lots. There are thousands of us. If you choose to find us, that is — most people don’t. If they do see us, they look away, pretend we’re not there. It’s easier that way. Don’t believe all that crap about giving everyone a chance — when they see us, they’re glad we’re not in school with their kids, disrupting their lessons, making their lives a misery. The teachers, too. Do you think they’re disappointed when we don’t turn up for registration? Give me a break. They’re laughing — they don’t want kids like us in their classrooms, and we don’t want to be there.
“Most hang about in small groups, twos or threes, whiling away the hours. Me, I like to be on my own. I like to find the places where nobody is — where I don’t have to look at anyone, where I don’t have to see their numbers.”
Then Jem meets another troublemaking outcast called Spider. She doesn’t mean to make friends with him. He smells rank and he never stops moving. Worst, his number is only a few months away.
But somehow they start hanging out together and become friends. Though they seem to get into yet more trouble together, and Jem’s foster mother isn’t happy about it.
Then they go into London and Jem sees several people at the London Eye whose number is that very day. Spider’s been making a scene, but Jem pulls him away and tells him they have to get away immediately.
So when the disaster strikes and people die, naturally the police start looking for the two teenagers who were seen running away from the scene. Jem and Spider don’t show a lot of judgment, and they steal a car and set out on the run. Meanwhile, Spider’s time is running out.
This is a dark book, because Jem and Spider don’t live nice easy lives, and they don’t show good judgment. (And don’t worry, parents, I think any teen reading this book would realize that they are not showing good judgment.) But their characters seem very real, and we completely believe and understand why they would do the things they do.
Ultimately, I came away from the book uplifted, feeling better for having known Jem and Spider.
I like the way this book shows love between two very flawed but lovable human beings. Spider stinks, and Jem won’t let anyone get near her. No sparkles here! But the love that grows between them seems all the deeper for the flaws.
Of course, the whole premise is a lot of fun. What would you do if you knew the date when each person you met was going to die? Before I read the book, I thought I’d classify it as science fiction. But Jem’s ability is the only thing that makes their world different from ours — and it’s seen as just a fluke psychic ability, not based on science or magic. So I’m going to categorize this book as “Contemporary.” It’s got some ordinary disadvantaged kids in an unusual, but tough situation.
Suspect
