Category: Contemporary

November Blues

by Sharon M. Draper

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York,  2007.  316 pages.

http://www.sharondraper.com/

Sharon Draper is the author of the amazing and moving book, Copper Sun, a story of escaping slavery.

November Blues begins as 16-year-old November Nelson discovers she is pregnant.  She knows when the baby started, since it was the night before her boyfriend died.

In some ways, this seems like just another story of teen pregnancy.  It’s good, and it’s absorbing — the writing pulled me in so that I checked it out rather than shelving it at the library, and then kept me reading until early morning — but in some places the dialog and situations felt stilted and stereotypical.

A teen pregnancy novel is a hard one to write.  Because the situation itself involves thousands of teens, but a novel must focus on one particular teen.  What happens to that one teen will feel symbolic of what happens to the other teens in that situation, and that’s a bigger burden than a young adult novel can necessarily carry.

Taken as a story, this is a fun high school tale, with some sobering things to think about.  The no-good backstabbing popular girl gets her comeuppance, and November learns who her true friends are.

November has to choose between keeping her baby and giving the baby up to her dead boyfriend’s rich parents.  I found myself wanting to shake them and say, “Isn’t there an alternative?  Can’t you let November keep the baby, but provide her support and be a huge part of your grandchild’s life?  Does it have to be all or nothing?”  Again, this was one particular story, but the situation felt so prototypical, I found myself wanting the author to present all possibilities, more than I would have cared in a novel about, say, choosing between a career in art or science.

An enjoyable story about a typical teen in a difficult situation.

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/november_blues.html

First Daughter

Extreme American Makeover

by Mitali Perkins

Dutton Children’s Books, 2007.  278 pages.

www.penguin.com/youngreaders

http://www.mitaliperkins.com/

http://www.sparrowblog.com/

Sameera Righton’s father is running for President of the United States.  She’s leaving her international high school in Brussels to join him for the last several months of his campaign.

Right from the start, his campaign staff are planning changes for Sameera, starting with her name.  Her family has always called her Sparrow, but the campaign manager thinks that “Sammy” sounds “more American.”  Sparrow was born in Pakistan and adopted when she was three years old, so she doesn’t look like her parents.  Are the American people ready for that?

What’s more, Sparrow, who’s long prided herself in her thoughtful blog posts for a small circle of friends, is now asked to let a supposedly media-savvy campaigner write her official blog.  “SammySez” ends up sounding like a mindless shopping-crazed TV addict.

Sparrow tries to keep a semblance of normal life during the crazy campaign months.  She does her usual summer trip to her grandparents’ farm, and tries to take some of the load off of her recuperating grandma.  At least until the press finds her.  I love her strategy for sneaking out of their Washington, DC, hotel in a salwar kameez.  I think it would work!

This book is fun reading, and perfect for this summer before the election.  Mitali Perkins has posted a real blog for Sparrow at http://www.sparrowblog.com/.  On it, she keeps track of news stories about the children of the real-life presidential hopefuls.  I wonder how much their experiences are similar to Sparrow’s.

I do like the way Mitali Perkins weaves in some tasteful discussions about faith into her work.  I met her nine years ago at a writer’s conference in Paris, and she mentioned that her faith was an important part of her writing.  Her characters express that faith is important, but don’t claim to have all the answers.

I also liked the international flavor to the book.  Sameera grew up overseas, as her parents were an ambassador to NATO and a human-rights activist.  Having met Mitali in Paris when she was living in Asia, I wasn’t surprised to read that she was born in India and lived in many different countries growing up.  The part of the book dealing with international relations definitely had an authentic ring.

This is a good book about a teenager thrust into the limelight, and it also gets the reader thinking.  What makes a person American?

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/first_daughter.html

Ask Me No Questions,

by Marina Budhos

Simon Pulse, 2007.  First published in 2006.  162 pages.

Fourteen-year-old Nadira is from Bangladesh, but she has grown up in America.  Her father’s visa has expired, and they tried to get legal residency, but their money was taken by a lawyer running scams.  It didn’t seem to matter — everyone else seemed to be in the same situation.

Then September 11th happened.  The INS was cracking down.  Rumors were flying. 

Nadira’s older sister, Aisha, is a senior in high school and the star of the debate team and every teacher’s favorite student.  She has applications in to prestigious schools, but she can’t apply for financial aid unless their legal status changes. 

They hear a reliable (they think) rumor that they should go to Canada and apply for asylum.  The result is disaster.  The Canadians do not let them cross the border, and they are promptly detained.  Nadira’s father, Abba, is arrested and held in a detention center.  They have no idea how long he will be held or if the whole family will be deported.

Nadira and Aisha have no choice but to go back home to New York and go back to school.  They will stay with their cousin.  Aisha doesn’t have a license, but she drives them back.  Ma must stay at the border to try to get Abba’s case heard.

So begins Ask Me No Questions.  Can Nadira and Aisha help in any way to get their father’s case heard?  How can they go on with ordinary high school life?  How can Aisha focus on tests and college interviews?

Nadira says:

Tuesday morning Aisha and I are back at Flushing High as if nothing happened.

We’re not the only illegals at our school.  We’re everywhere.  You just have to look.  A lot of the kids here were born elsewhere — Korea, China, India, the Dominican Republic.  You can’t tell which ones aren’t legal.  We try to get lost in the landscape of backpacks and book reports.  To find us you have to pick up the signals.  It might be in class when a teacher asks a personal question, and a kid gets this funny, pinched look in his eyes.  Or some girl doesn’t want to give her address to the counselor.  We all agree not to notice.

I remember when I was little, crouching in a corner of the playground and hearing a group of girls chant:  Ask me no questions.  Tell me no lies.  That’s the policy of at school.  Ask me no questions, we say silently.  And the teachers don’t.  “We’re not the INS,” I once heard one of them say.  “We’re here to teach.”  But sometimes I feel like shaking their sleeves and blurting out, Ask me.  Please.

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/ask_me_no_questions.html

Peeled,

by Joan Bauer

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008.  248 pages.

Hildy Biddle is a girl with an obsession.  Hildy’s obsession is to report the news, to let people know the truth, to make their high school newspaper shine.

But when a scare starts at the old Ludlow house, with a death and rumors of haunting, the town newspaper only seems to want to fan people’s fears.

Can Hildy and her high school friends stand up for what’s right against the interests of powerful adults?

In many ways, this feels like the same story Joan Bauer has told in her other wonderful books, like Hope Was Here and Rules of the Road.  A teenaged girl with an obsession stands up for what’s right against powerful interests.  However, I can’t complain — This story Joan Bauer is telling is a good one, makes fun reading, and does stick with you.

I do think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t had the vague feeling I’d read this before.  However, I will still highly recommend it to young teen readers.  Joan Bauer tells a good story, and Hildy Biddle joins her cast of strong young women who stand up for what’s right and entertain the reader while doing it.

http://www.joanbauer.com/

www.penguin.com/youngreaders

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This review is posted on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/peeled.html