Review of Spontaneous, by Aaron Starmer

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

spontaneous_largeSpontaneous

by Aaron Starmer

Dutton Books, 2016. 355 pages.
Starred Review

The premise of this book got my attention: Dozens of Seniors at Covington High School are suddenly, without warning, spontaneously combusting. They’re going about their days, minding their own business, when they suddenly explode, splattering blood and guts all around them.

The story is told by Mara, a member of the Senior class. Here’s how the book begins:

When Kate Ogden blew up in third period pre-calc, the janitor probably figured he’d only have to scrub guts off one whiteboard this year. Makes sense. In the past, kids didn’t randomly explode. Not in pre-calc, not at prom, not even in chem lab, where explosions aren’t exactly unheard of. Not one kid. Not one explosion. Ah, the good old days.

How would you respond if your classmates started randomly exploding? How would the world respond? That’s what this novel is about.

I did think it was a nice touch that the second explosion happened in Group Therapy, in a group that had been formed to deal with the first spontaneous combustion. That group didn’t continue.

Mara was present during the first several explosions. Eventually, sports and classes get cancelled. Only the Senior class is combusting, so they are isolated from the rest of the world.

Various theories are put forward as to the cause, and some seem more likely than others. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that ultimately which theory to believe is left to the reader.

The story here is compelling. I liked Mara, if I did feel sorry for her. She doesn’t cope real well — drugs, booze, and sex — but who would cope well?

There’s a little bit of a message: Essentially, I was able to pull out of it “Live for today and do the best you can, because that might be all you’ve got.” But I’m straining to get that much message out, and the whole thing felt pretty bleak.

What caused the spontaneous combustions wasn’t the only issue left unresolved at the end. A little more resolution might have made it easier to find a point to the book.

For a book about explosions, it didn’t end with a bang, but seemed to trail off.

So I didn’t feel satisfied at the end of this book, but I enjoyed the ride tremendously. Spontaneous is actually a funny book about a lot of teenagers dying. Pulling that off is rather amazing.

Besides, what would you do if you were part of a Senior class that started spontaneously combusting?

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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.

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Review of My Lady Jane, by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

Alternate History, Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

my_lady_jane_largeMy Lady Jane

by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows

HarperTeen, 2016. 491 pages.
Starred Review

This is the first book I’m reading as a 2016 Cybils first-round panelist for Young Adult Speculative Fiction — and it bodes well that this whole reading experience is going to be tremendously fun.

But let me say right up front that while these are Blogger awards so I am allowed to talk about what books I like — please be aware that I am only one member of the judging panel, and I will write reviews before I’ve talked with any of the other judges. So only my opinion is expressed. On top of that, this is the first book I’ve read for the Cybils this year, so I can’t even compare it with the competition yet. I hope the competition will be tough! So I will simply express that I loved this book — but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a Finalist.

That said, I did love this book! The premise is exceptionally fun. It’s alternate history, during a very turbulent time in England’s history — with shapeshifting thrown in.

Here’s how the authors begin the prologue:

You may think you know the story. It goes like this: once upon a time, there was a sixteen-year-old girl named Jane Grey, who was forced to marry a complete stranger (Lord Guildford or Gilford or Gifford-something-or-other), and shortly thereafter found herself ruler of a country. She was queen for nine days. Then she quite literally lost her head.

Yes, it’s a tragedy, if you consider the disengagement of one’s head from one’s body tragic. (We are merely narrators, and would hate to make assumptions as to what the reader would find tragic.)

We have a different tale to tell.

Pay attention. We’ve tweaked minor details. We’ve completely rearranged major details. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent (or not-so-innocent, or simply because we thought a name was terrible and we liked another name better). And we’ve added a touch of magic to keep things interesting. So really anything could happen.

This is how we think Jane’s story should have gone.

Instead of Edward dying of Consumption (or The Affliction), he’s dying because he’s being poisoned by his closest advisor. The part I like best though is that instead of conflict between Protestants and Catholics, there’s conflict between Verities and E?ians (“eth-ee-uhns”).

“The E?ians were blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with the ability to switch between a human form and an animal one.” That form is fixed for any individual E?ian. King Henry VIII took a lion form and had a bad habit of eating people who brought him bad news.

But my favorite thing about this book is the character of Jane Grey. More than anything, she loves to read. Because of this, she has an encyclopedic knowledge of many different subjects. And she’s not conventional.

At the start of the book, as part of a plot to take over the throne of England, King Edward’s advisor, Lord Dudley, tells Edward he’s dying. They need to marry off Edward’s cousin Jane quickly so that she can produce an heir before he does.

So, in a few days, Jane is to be married to Lord Dudley’s son Gifford — and nobody bothers to tell Jane ahead of time that during the day, every day, Gifford is a horse.

We’ve got plots and counterplots and people changing into animals at inopportune moments. But there’s also romance and a whole lot of humor. If the sensibilities of the people involved seem a bit modern — well, the narrators make that fun.

I’ll go ahead and tell you that Jane does become Queen of England for nine days. But that’s about all that matches the history we know. What does happen is an entertaining adventure and tremendous fun.

The story is told from three perspectives — Jane, Gifford, and Edward. So I’m not sure if the three authors each took one perspective — they do sound pretty much alike. Though that’s fair because the voice is always that of the narrators. The narrators give things a modern twist throughout, with plenty of humor and perspective dashed across it all.

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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.

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Review of Love, Lies and Spies, by Cindy Anstey

Historical, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

love_lies_and_spies_largeLove, Lies and Spies

by Cindy Anstey

Swoon Reads (Feiwel and Friends), New York, 2016. 344 pages.
Starred Review

This book had me from the first paragraph, which is:

“Oh my, this is embarrassing,” Miss Juliana Telford said aloud. There was no reason to keep her thoughts to herself, as she was alone, completely alone. In fact, that was half of the problem. The other half was, of course, that she was hanging off the side of a cliff with the inability to climb either up or down and in dire need of rescue.

A page later, Juliana does hear someone approaching.

Please, she prayed, let it be a farmer or a tradesman, someone not of the gentry. No one who would feel obligated to report back to Grays Hill Park. No gentlemen, please.

“Hello?” she called out. Juliana craned her neck upward, trying to see beyond the roots and accumulated thatch at the cliff’s edge.

A head appeared. A rather handsome head. He had dark, almost black, hair and clear blue eyes and, if one were to notice such things at a time like this, a friendly, lopsided smile.

“Need some assistance?” the head asked with a hint of sarcasm and the tone of a . . .

“Are you a gentleman?” Juliana inquired politely.

The head looked startled, frowned slightly, and then raised an eyebrow before answering. “Yes, indeed I am –”

“Please, I do not wish to be rescued by a gentleman. Could you find a farmer or a shopkeep – anyone not of the gentry – and then do me the great favor of forgetting you saw me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I do not want to be rude, but this is a most embarrassing predicament –”

“I would probably use the word dangerous instead.”

“Yes, well, you would, being a man. But I, on the other hand, being a young woman doing her best not to call attention to herself and bring shame upon her family, would call it otherwise.”

Well, it soon becomes apparent (as the roots give way) that Juliana must settle for the help of this gentleman and his friend. However, it so happens that the gentlemen also don’t want their presence on the cliff generally known, so all parties agree to pretend to be unacquainted, should they encounter one another again.

You will not be surprised that they do encounter one another again.

Juliana is an 18-year-old young lady getting ready for her first Season in London with her cousin. But Juliana is determined that she is not looking for a husband. No, her time in London is a cover for an opportunity to find a publisher for the research she and her father have done on lady beetles. Juliana has no intention of getting married and forsaking her father to do his research without her.

Meanwhile, someone is passing messages to Napoleon, and the handsome gentleman of the cliffside is on their trail. That trail increasingly brings him in proximity with Juliana, since the noble family she’s staying with has some not very noble members.

This book is tremendous fun from start to finish. Juliana is capable, independent, and intelligent – yet somehow manages to get into multiple situations where she needs to be rescued. Those situations ended up being so delightful, I couldn’t hold them against her.

This is a Regency romance with a little spying thrown in. The clause on the cover puts it well: “In which plans for a season without romance are unapologetically foiled.”

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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.

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Review of Bone Gap, by Laura Ruby

Award Winners, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

bone_gap_largeBone Gap

by Laura Ruby

Balzer + Bray, 2015. 345 pages.
Starred Review
2016 Printz Award Winner

I read this book because it won the Printz, and probably would have given up otherwise. This book contains magical realism, which isn’t really my thing. I like fantasy that makes logical sense. I know that sounds silly, but I like there to be logical rules to the magic and a reason for the magic to exist. This is much more free-form, with gaps.

However, the writing is beautiful. I came to care deeply about Finn and the people around him.

Here’s how the book begins:

The people of Bone Gap called Finn a lot of things, but none of them was his name. When he was little, they called him Spaceman. Sidetrack. Moonface. You. As he got older, they called him Pretty Boy. Loner. Brother. Dude.

But whatever they called him, they called him fondly. Despite his odd expressions, his strange distraction, and that annoying way he had of creeping up on a person, they knew him as well as they knew anyone. As well as they knew themselves. They knew him like they knew that Old Charlie Valentine preferred his chickens to his great-grandchildren, and sometimes let them roost in the house. (The chickens, not the children.) The way they knew that the Cordero family had a ghost that liked to rifle through the fridge at night. The way they knew that Priscilla Willis, the beekeeper’s homely daughter, had a sting worse than any bee. The way they knew that Bone Gap had gaps just wide enough for people to slip through, or slip away, leaving only their stories behind.

Weeks before the story starts, Roza slipped away. Finn is the only one who was there. He knows a man took her away, and Finn didn’t stop him.

Finn was confused. He thought she wanted to go with the man — until it was too late. Until he saw her hands slapping at fogged glass and the gleaming black SUV was swallowed up by the gathering dark.

And then he wasn’t able to describe the man. Finn told how he moved, what he was like. But that isn’t enough. Everyone is angry with him, and no one really believes Roza didn’t just decide to leave as mysteriously as she arrived.

Finn’s brother Sean, especially, thinks that he’s been left again. He doesn’t believe Sean that Roza wouldn’t do that, that Roza is in trouble. If there was a man, why can’t Finn describe him?

The chapters about Finn and Sean are interspersed with chapters about Roza in her strange surreal captivity. The man keeping her can speak flawless Polish and can effortlessly change where he’s keeping her.

Finn has a lot to learn about himself, about Bone Gap, before he can find Roza. And Roza has an important part in her own rescue. There are shades of the story of Persephone here and plenty of atmospheric paranormal elements.

I should mention that I like the way very realistic elements were woven into this mythic story. Finn has a good reason for his troubles describing the man who took Rosa, and Sean has good reasons for not trusting people. I like the way magic and reality are beautifully woven together in this lovely book.

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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.

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Review of Salt to the Sea, by Ruta Sepetys

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

salt_to_the_sea_largeSalt to the Sea

by Ruta Sepetys

Philomel Books, 2016. 391 pages.
Starred Review

This is not a cheery book. I knew that, going in. I got the Advance Reader Copy signed by the author and learned that it is about the greatest naval disaster in history, happening in 1945, when nine thousand people lost their lives. The picture on the cover is of empty life preservers floating in a dark sea.

To make things a little worse, the characters in the book don’t even board the ship until the last section of the book. It’s also a book about war.

Knowing all those things, I had a hard time picking up this book! But when I did (on an airplane trip), I was so glad I had. You do come away with a feeling of hope and transcendence, despite huge difficulties the characters face along the way.

I think it’s fair to tell my readers that some people you care about die – but not everyone. It is possible to read this book and feel uplifted at the end, rather than depressed!

And Ruta Sepetys’ writing is outstanding. She does get you caring about these people, seeing from their eyes. The book is all based on fact. The greatest naval disaster in history, yet who in America today has heard of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff?

The author did voluminous research (reflected in the back matter), talking with many survivors as well as people who lost family in the disaster. And then she used all this information to bring the stories to life.

We get the perspectives of four different young adults. Every chapter is very short, and the backgrounds unfold in bits and pieces. We begin with Joana, a nurse of Lithuanian and German descent traveling with a group of refugees, fleeing toward the port city. Then we have Florian, who is Prussian and wounded but also fleeing and hiding an enormous secret. Florian stumbles across Emilia, and rescues her from being raped by a wandering Russian soldier. Emilia has her own secrets, and she’s Polish, who are despised by the Germans. Florian and Emilia join the group of refugees whom Joana is tending.

We also see the perspective of Alfred, who writes letters in his mind to Hannelore, a girl he left behind, about his exploits serving the Reich. We can see by the things that he’s called upon to do that his actual job is not so lofty as he describes it. He is going to be part of the reason our refugees are even able to board the Wilhelm Gustloff.

The background is that Germans are fleeing East Prussia ahead of the Russian army. An enormous evacuation happened in 1945, and this book helps the reader understand those desperate times.

Gradually, we learn the stories of each of the characters. I’m not going to say much more because the unfolding of the stories is part of the brilliance of the book. But we learn how each one was shaped by past choices leading to the road they’re taking now.

This is a wonderful book. I was kind of amazed by the time I finished how much I loved it, despite some of the horrendous things these people went through.

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy signed by the author.

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.

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Review of The Girl from Everywhere, by Heidi Heilig

Fantasy, Historical, Teen Fiction Review 0

girl_from_everywhere_largeThe Girl From Everywhere

by Heidi Heilig

Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins), 2016. 454 pages.

I love the premise of this book. 16-year-old Nix has grown up on a time-traveling ship, the Temptation. Her father, Captain Slate, can Navigate anywhere – as long as he has a hand-drawn map. The map doesn’t have to even be of an actual place. With enough detail, Slate can even bring their ship to fantasy worlds.

They make their living gathering things from one time or place and selling them in another.

But Slate has an obsession. He wants to go back to 1868 Hawaii and stop Nix’s mother’s death.

Now, I didn’t quite believe Nix’s worries about that. She was afraid that if Slate stopped her mother’s death – she died in childbirth – Nix would cease to exist. Whereas her father believed Nix would be able to get to know her mother. I didn’t quite understand why Nix didn’t take that approach.

I also wasn’t crazy about Nix’s potential love interest, probably because I don’t go for the noble thief trope. Kashmir is a crew member who came on board from Vaadi Al-Maas, a location from the story of Sinbad the Sailor. He is a thief, and steals things for Nix from various places.

As the story opens, they are working to get a mythical bird that will heal illness, along with enough valuables to win an auction taking place in 2016 for an 1868 map of Hawaii.

But things go wrong, they end up in Hawaii in 1884, and there get embroiled in a plot against the king of the Hawaiian Islands.

This brings up an interesting ethical question: Is it okay to work with people planning to annex Hawaii to the United States when they know that’s going to eventually happen anyway?

Meanwhile, the novel takes on something of a heist plot, with their part involving a trip to a mythical place to pick up some terra cotta warriors. There’s another potential love interest introduced, a handsome youth who lives in Hawaii. And Nix learns about the place where she would have grown up if her mother had lived.

So you may be able to tell, I didn’t fall too hard for the characters in this book, but I still found it an intriguing premise. It was fun to see Nix comfortable with New York City in the present day as well as other places hundreds of years in the past. The rules of Navigating which were unveiled during the book were quite plausible, and I find myself hoping this is only the beginning of adventures for Nix and the Temptation.

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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.

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Review of Across the Universe, by Beth Revis

Mystery, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

across_the_universe_largeAcross the Universe

by Beth Revis

Penguin, 2011. 398 pages.
Starred Review

This is a science fiction dystopian story crossed with locked room mystery.

Across the Universe is told from two perspectives. First, we have Amy. As the book opens, she watches both her parents get cryogenically frozen to travel on a space ship for 300 years to terraform a new planet. Amy’s father tells her she doesn’t have to go through with it, but she decides to stay with them.

The other narrator is Elder, a sixteen-year-old who lives on the spaceship Godspeed, being trained to be the next leader. He’s frustrated because Eldest hasn’t been training him as he should be. He is destined to lead all the people on the ship – Shouldn’t he know more about it?

Elder finds out about the frozen people in the belly of the ship. Not long after, the beautiful girl with the amazing red hair wakes up. They are fifty years away from landing – who woke her early? How will she cope with life on Godspeed, which is not what she signed up for?

The story continues, seen from both Amy’s and Elder’s perspectives. Things that Elder thinks are normal, Amy sees as seriously flawed. Eldest tells them this is how things must be. Amy tries to explain what life was like on earth, but most of the people of Godspeed believe she’s crazy.

Then more of the frozen passengers thaw – and some die. Who is responsible? Are Amy’s parents’ lives in danger? What secrets are behind the strange life on the ship? And will Amy ever see the stars again? Does Elder have what it takes to lead his people? When should he speak up, and when is it best to simply obey Eldest? What does Eldest know about their mission that he is keeping hidden?

Eldest tells Elder that discord comes from differences. Amy is different. Will the discord she brings destroy the ship?

This is the first book of a trilogy. By waiting so long to read it (I meant to read it ever since it was first published), I will not have to wait to read the sequels! I’ll let you know what I think….

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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.

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Review of The Passion of Dolssa, by Julie Berry

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

passion_of_dolssa_largeThe Passion of Dolssa

by Julie Berry

Viking, 2016. 478 pages.
Starred Review

Julie Berry writes striking and memorable novels that pull you right into a time and culture quite different from our own. The Passion of Dolssa is about a young mystic in medieval Provensa who has visions of Jhesus, her beloved. But unfortunately for her, she has them during the Inquisition.

The book is presented as a series of documents from the time of the Inquisition discovered in later years. Dolssa’s testimony says things like this:

I was a young girl when my beloved first appeared to me. Just a girl of no consequence, the child of pious parents who were much older than most. . . .

My beloved was my great romance, and — impossible miracle! — I was his. He caught me up on wings of light, and showed me the realms of his creation, the glittering gemstones paving his heaven. He left my body weak and spent, my spirit gorged with honey.

There are no words for this. Like the flesh, like a prison cell, so, too, are words confining, narrow, chafing, stupid things, incapable of expressing one particle of what I felt, what I feel, when I see my beloved’s face, when he takes me in his arms.

There is only music. Only light.

Dolssa begins preaching to some friends of her Mama, and more and more people come.

In our Father’s house, I told the believers, there is never alarm, but only gladness, love, and peace.

Not long after that, the interrogations began.

Dolssa is sentenced to burn at the stake, along with her mother. But after her mother’s death, Dolssa’s beloved rescues her from the flames. She is able to flee.

While she’s hiding by the roadside, in fear and hunger and sickness, she is discovered by Botille, a tavernkeeper and matchmaker with two sisters who all have particular gifts. They take Dolssa in and hide her.

But the Inquisitors are relentless. When Dolssa starts healing the people of the village, how can they keep her presence secret?

Part of what’s interesting about this book is all the research the author did about the time and place. There are 32 pages of back matter after the story finishes. (You might want to check the Glossaries and Dramatis Personae before you finish. I didn’t realize they were there in back, because I try hard not to give myself spoilers. The back matter does not include spoilers and could be helpful. I did fine without it, but it might have made it a little easier to get the people with medieval names and the Occitan words straight.)

This is a wonderful book, with well-drawn characters. Botille and her sisters are not traditionally good folk, but they shine so much brighter than the official church represented by the Inquisitors. (The local priest is colorful, with many children in the village.) I learned about this time period in a way I will never forget.

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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.

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Review of The Raven King, by Maggie Stiefvater

Paranormal, Teen Fiction Review 0

raven_king_largeThe Raven King

Book IV of The Raven Cycle

by Maggie Stiefvater

Scholastic Press, New York, 2016. 439 pages.

This is a grand and ambitious cycle of books. Maggie Stiefvater’s writing is lyrical and evocative. The story is unlike anything I’ve ever read — ley lines running under Virginia, a family of psychics, a girl who magnifies the magical gifts of others, a man who’s part tree, a rich private high school student searching for a long dead Welsh king who will grant wishes, another boy who can dream things up – and make them real. And then there’s the curse that if Blue kisses her true love, he will die. And the blooming romance between Blue and Gansey, that rich kid searching for the long-dead king.

I liked the voice in which the book is written. I like the way the author focuses on different characters by turns, starting new chapters with the words, “Depending on where you began the story, it was about…” about many, many different characters.

All that said – and I certainly was going to read every word of this book after reading the earlier three volumes – this is not my favorite kind of fantasy. I like fantasy books where the magic makes logical sense to me, operates by rules. The magic in this book seems much more nebulous and hard to follow.

There’s also a whole lot of darkness here, along with gory death.

And yet the author pulled off a satisfying conclusion. Well, maybe it was a slight let-down. Since I didn’t fully understand how the magic worked, I was a little befuddled by how all the plot threads wrapped up – but mostly satisfied.

And did I mention the wonderful writing? Yes, the story’s dark. Yes, it’s confusing in spots, but you will be pulled along into this world and into the lives of these characters, flawed but lovable, muddling through, trying to make sense themselves of some powerful magic.

This series isn’t one I’ll necessarily ever read again – but I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with it.

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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.

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Review of Anna and the Swallow Man, by Gavriel Savit

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

anna_and_the_swallow_man_largeAnna and the Swallow Man

by Gavriel Savit

Random House Children’s Books, 2016. 232 pages.
Starred Review

Wow. I read this book on the first half of a flight to Portland, and sat stunned when I’d finished at just how rich and beautiful this novel is.

It’s a World War II story, so some awful things happen. It’s listed as a children’s book, but here’s a heads’ up for parents that it’s a book about war, and most of the bad things happen off stage, but there are some bad things that happen. Personally, I’d rather give the book to teens than children. (And by the end of the story, Anna is a young teen.)

There’s not really a moral to the story, but it’s beautiful. Memorable, luminescent, and beautiful.

How does Gavriel Savit do it? One of the things he does is taking a unique character and then drawing wise conclusions about life.

We meet Anna on November 6, 1939 — the day her father, a university professor, was required to attend a meeting that ultimately ended in his being taken to a concentration camp. She is seven years old.

Anna’s father was a professor of linguistics at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and living with him meant that every day of the week was in a different language. By the time Anna had reached the age of seven, her German, Russian, French, and English were all good, and she had a fair amount of Yiddish and Ukrainian and a little Armenian and Carpathian Romany as well.

Her father never spoke to her in Polish. The Polish, he said, would take care of itself.

One does not learn as many languages as Anna’s father had without a fair bit of love for talking. Most of her memories of her father were of him speaking — laughing and joking, arguing and sighing, with one of the many friends and conversation partners he cultivated around the city. In fact, for much of her life with him, Anna had thought that each of the languages her father spoke had been tailored, like a bespoke suit of clothes, to the individual person with whom he conversed. French was not French; it was Monsieur Bouchard. Yiddish was not Yiddish; it was Reb Shmulik. Every word and phrase of Armenian that Anna had ever heard reminded her of the face of the little old tatik who always greeted her and her father with small cups of strong, bitter coffee.

Every word of Armenian smelled like coffee.

When Anna’s father doesn’t return, she begins following the Swallow Man, but is instructed not to draw attention to herself. When I read this passage, I realized that this is one of those books that is wonderful because of the universal wisdom. It’s got particular, unique characters, but universal wisdom:

Anna very much wanted to avoid attention, and it was not long before she discovered the trick of doing so. A well-fed little girl in a pretty red-and-white dress immediately raises alarm if her face is covered with concern and effort, if she strains to see what is far ahead of her, if she moves only in fits and starts — and this was precisely what her present labor required her to do. At one intersection, though, she felt certain she had seen Monsieur Bouchard, her father’s old French friend, in the street ahead, and suddenly, impulsively, abandoning all effort of following the tall stranger, she smiled and ran gleefully toward the familiar man.

In the end he was not Monsieur Bouchard, but the effect of this burst of glee was immediately apparent to her. When she passed through the street hesitantly and with concern, the grown-ups who saw her seemed to latch on to her distress, trying to carry it off with them despite themselves, and the strain of the effort would cause a kind of unwilling connection between the adult and the child until they were out of one another’s sight. For the most part Anna felt certain that their intentions were good, but it seemed only a matter of time before someone stopped her, and then she did not know what might happen.

On the other hand, when she ran through the street with a smile of anticipation, passing adults still took notice, but they did not try to carry off her joy with them — instead it engendered a kindred kind of joy inside of them, and well satisfied with this feeling, particularly in the eternally threatening environment of a military occupation, they continued on their way without giving her a moment’s thought.

It was with joy, then, and not concern, that she followed the thin man past the guards at the outskirts of the city — they didn’t give her a second glance — and by the time Anna was alone in the twilit hills, this effort of counterfeiting happiness had brought to bear a true sort of excitement within her.

You read that and realize that this is true. This would work.

So universality and particularity combine with lovely language — and the result is this amazing book.

It’s a war story, and doesn’t really have an obvious moral, though there are certainly morals you can pull out of it. I’m not crazy about the ending, and some terrible things happen along the way, things that will wrench your heart.

But this book is truly beautiful. Everyone should read this book. When you’ve done so, please tell me what you think!

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

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