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.

Buy from Amazon.com

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?

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/first_daughter.html