A Review of Desperate Measures by Laura Summers

In my June review of Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson, I compared Jacobson's book to Cynthia Voigt's Homecoming. Now Laura Summers' new book compares nicely to both of them. Only instead of children being abandoned by their troubled mothers and running away in search of some kind of home, here we have three siblings who run away just before they are going to be split up and sent from a foster setting they share to two or three different places.

This title is a candidate for the ALA's Schneider Family Book Award, since one of the three siblings is disabled. Vicky's twin sister Rhianna was oxygen deprived at birth and suffered brain damage. When their foster mother goes into the hospital due to complications with her pregnancy, the social worker threatens to put Rhianna in an institution for special needs children and find other placements for Vicky and her feisty younger brother Jamie. Responsible Vicky isn't the one who thinks up the idea of running away, but she soon gets into the spirit of things and the three head off in the direction of their great-aunt's lakeside home.

Three aspects of the plot stood out for me: first, the adventure that comes from being on the run; second, the interactions between these three kids, especially their frustrations and differences; and third, the question of where their absent father is—why he hasn't been caring for them and whether he might be able to do so again. These plot threads are nicely intertwined, but the interplay between the siblings is probably my favorite part of the book. I should note that Rhianna and Vicky take turns narrating, and Summers does a good job of differentiating between their voices and personalities. Here's a sample of Vicky's voice on the twins' birthday:

Rhi gave me her card, and I made a massive fuss over it. I knew she'd been making it for about two weeks, but I pretended it was a big surprise. It was like the sort of thing Jamie used to bring home from preschool, all smudged with paint and big, wonky letters. I gave her another big hug and told her it was my best card. She looked so proud, I knew she believed me. Then I gave her a present, a Furby—she's wanted one for ages—and, thinking maybe this was a good time, I broke the news that she'd have to walk to school with Jamie. I didn't want to look after her, today of all days. She'd spoil everything. She always did.

Whoa! Big mistake. You'd have thought I'd told her she had to stick her head in a bucket of worms, she made such a fuss. Talk about an instant thunderstorm.

The thing is, Vicky is going to walk to school with a boy, a boy named Matt who's the cutest guy in her class. And now let's hear from Rhianna:

All boys are vom. And boys called Matt are the vommiest of all. She could have let me come. I wouldn't have said anything. I would have walked behind them—they wouldn't have known I was there. I can walk really quietly, even when I've got my clodhoppers on.

I hate walking to school with Jamie. Something always happens. This time he said we had to go past one of the houses really quickly in case some boy saw us, and he did, so Jamie shouted, "Leg it!" and we had to run. He nearly made me fall over because we were going so fast. I got a stitch, but Jamie still wouldn't stop. We ran up to Sam's house (that's Jamie's friend) and banged on the door. Sam's mom answered, and the boy ran off shouting that he and his friends were going to beat Jamie up after school. Jamie yelled back that he didn't care, but his face went all chalky like it did when Mrs. Frankish told us that we weren't allowed to live with Dad anymore.

Desperate Measures takes our threesome across the countryside, where they are constantly on the verge of being turned in by well-meaning adults. At one point, they find a haven with an old woman living alone in a crumbling manor house ("just like the one from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe"). Later they hide near their aunt's home in a cave which turns out to "belong" to a sad boy named Daniel. Daniel tries to help them, though he is easily offended. Eventually real life catches up with the fugitives, and it is ultimately Rhianna who puts her foot down, determined to make things right. Then Vicky chimes in and, well, there's hope for these three kids.

Summers also throws in a little romance between Vicky and Daniel (since Matt turned out to be uncomfortable with Vicky when things got tough). Bullying is another theme in the book—both in Jamie's life before the kids go on the run and again at the lake. How can these siblings help each other in the face of bullying, and how can Daniel, like the Cowardly Lion, find his courage?

None of these young protagonists are perfect, any more than their lives are, but when push comes to shove, they are loving and loyal. I think you'll find yourself rooting for Vicky, Rhianna, Jamie, and Daniel to be happy and safe in an unpredictable world.

Note that Desperate Measures was first published in Great Britain, where it made a number of awards lists. (Hmm. Maybe it won't be up for a Schneider, after all.) In this Guardian article about the book making the shortlist for the Waterstone's Book Prize, we learn that Summers, a television writer, was inspired to write the book by her own disabled daughter. She says, "I've got a daughter with a learning disability [and] I felt there weren't any role models for children with disabilities and their siblings.... But I didn't want to write a story which was just about disability–I wanted an adventure story too, which was exciting, so it would appeal to as many children as possible."

I'm here to tell you: she succeeded!

Note for Worried Parents: At one point, there's an attempt by a scary guy to entice Rhianna away, but Vicky rescues her pretty quickly. The bullying and lack of parenting might bother some younger readers.

A Review of Sparrow Road by Sheila O'Connor

Raine O'Rourke has no idea why her mother has dragged her off to spend the summer at an artist's colony, and she's not happy about it. For one thing, she misses her grandpa. For another, it seems strange that her mother has volunteered to be the cook, and apparently Raine shouldn't be there at all—at least according to the most cranky of the artists. But the other artists take Raine under their wings and she begins to have fun, even if her mother is acting particularly nervous and doesn't want Raine to go into town at all, ever.

This book has a colorful cast of adult supporting characters, beginning with Viktor, who owns and runs the place. He is silent and seemingly cold. One rule of the colony is that no one is allowed to speak during the day so that the creative types can concentrate. Of course, this is not an easy rule for Raine to follow. Fortunately, Viktor makes an exception for Raine and poet Lillian, who is a little senile and clearly used to live at Sparrow Road when it was an orphanage, perhaps as a teacher.

Diego is a painter who incorporates found objects into his work. He encourages Raine to dream and takes an interest in Raine's mother.

Writer Eleanor is a curmudgeon who complains a lot about Raine, providing a counterpoint to the other artists' kindliness.

Quilt-maker Josie is a huge, loud personality who quickly befriends Raine and brings the girl out of her shell with her sheer enthusiasm. She takes Raine into the forbidden town for treats and invites the town out to Sparrow Road for an art show. Here's Josie:

Suddenly Josie marched into the kitchen, her long, sure steps reminding me of the cowboys in the westerns Grandpa watched. Except in place of cowboy boots, she had on men's black work boots, big and clunky, with heavy silver buckles that jangled when she walked. Her dress looked like a patchwork sack of scraps. A nest of neon braids framed her freckled face.

"You've come home!" Lillian said.

"I'll always come home, Lilly." Josie smacked a kiss on Lillian's head. "Oh boy," she said. "I'm beat. Two days of watching clouds drift really wore me out." She gave a great big laugh.

"We have a brand-new orphan," Lillian said.

"Fabulous," Josie cheered. "We need more orphans at this place." A wide gap flashed between her two front teeth. She gave my hand a forceful shake. "So you must be the long-awaited Raine O'Rourke."

As for Raine's mother, Molly, she is keeping secrets. For one thing, Raine's mom used to sing and play guitar: why did she stop? And how did she meet Viktor in the first place?

Raine is determined to uncover her mother's secrets, and the secrets of Sparrow Road, too. The orphans have left a few signs of themselves behind. A picture drawn by a boy named Lyman inspires Raine to make him into a sort of imaginary friend. As she talks to him about his lack of parents, her own missing father becomes a more important figure in the plot.

Inspired by her new friends, Raine is infused with her own sense of artistry and ends up writing a piece about Lyman which she reluctantly reads at Sparrow Road's First Annual Arts Extravaganza. I found myself wondering whether Lyman was Raine's alter ego. Though I have to say, I would have liked to hear more about Lyman the orphan. He deserves his own book.

Despite the lack of overt magic, there's a bit of a magical realism feel to O'Connor's tale. That is, there's something a touch surreal about Sparrow Road. The setting reminds me of Mary Lennox' secret garden or that magical attic where Sara Crewe discovered that after all of the horrible things that had happened, someone still loved her.

Little by little, Raine flourishes in this odd setting, finding the answers to most, if not all, of her questions. Raine learns to dream herself into someone else's world and even to forgive the ones who need it most. Like Raine, I'll think you'll be happy to spend some time in the town aptly named Comfort, particularly in that cozy nest of an artist's colony, Sparrow Road.

Note for Worried Parents: There's some talk of alcoholism and an (implied) unwed mother in this book, but it's all handled with grace and wisdom.

Check out Sheila O'Connor's Sparrow Road page on her website for some rave reviews.

A Review of Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

Did you ever have a passionate interest as a child? My friend's son knows everything there is to know about the Civil War. I have a niece who is horse crazy and a couple of my students know all about cars—one of them specializing in muscle cars and the other in street racing.

For Jack, it's elephants. And maybe it's the very steadiness of these large beasts that appeals to him, for heaven knows his life is anything but stable and predictable. Jack himself doesn't know the term, but readers will quickly guess that his mother is bipolar. Jack also doesn't seem to realize that he shouldn't be dragged here, there, and everywhere; being a kid, he's just along for the ride.

But his usual shrug-oriented attitude doesn't do him a bit of good when his beyond-flighty mother abandons him at a campground on an island in Maine. From here on out, it's a hide-and-survive story as Jack searches for his mother and then heads for his home in Boston while trying to avoid the police.

Of course, Jack can't stay in one place for very long because people start asking questions. Like the guy at the ice cream parlor, where he wishes he could ask for samples all day, but only gets two before he bolts. Or the family at the next campsite, who look after him for a little while before they start asking to see his mother for themselves.

To make matters worse, Jack hurts his finger, and he can't afford to try to see a doctor about it. Good thing the man in the bar wraps it for him. But the man seems awfully curious.

The trouble is, Jack's mother has quarreled with her mother and painted her as a bad person, so Jack is fearful of trying to contact his grandmother. And he knows that social workers would take him away from everything he knows, so he doesn't want that, either. No one can know that his mother is gone.

Jack steals a little elephant from a shop to give himself courage, though he feels kind of bad about it. He also looks at his YouPage on a library computer, hoping his mother has left a message. She hasn't, and his cell phone isn't any help, either. So after a few days looking around near the campsite, Jack decides to go back to Boston.

One of the most interesting things about this book is how it shows in such detail what a person Jack's age might do in this situation, step by step. Jack's thought processes are painful, yet revealing. His problem solving is also impressive. After he hurts his finger, he goes to the grocery store:

First stop in the supermarket was the bottle-and-can machine, where he made one dollar and ninety cents. Next stop: freezer section. Jack had to get some relief for his hand. Behind a glass door, he found the frozen peas, his mother's ice pack of choice, and plunged his hand deep inside mounds of crunchy bags. Fortunately, it was still fairly early, and most of the shoppers were more interested in coffee than frozen vegetables. He left his hand in as long as he could stand the cold and then pulled it out.

It helped, but he'd hardly made it to the frozen pizza before his pinky started throbbing again, so he slid it into another freezer case. This was how Jack moved up and down the aisles: clinging to frozen orange juice, wrapping his fingers around pints of ice cream. Even yogurt cups, which were not frozen but cool to the touch, provided relief.

He considered spending his money on a bag of ice, or even on some Advil, but knew that the ocean was close by and that he'd be able to give his finger a long soak if the pain didn't go away soon. Instead, he chose trail mix and a bottle of water.

Also poignant are the chapter headers, which are quotes and facts about elephants. The elephants' family dedication and reliability are offered in clear contrast to Jack's own situation.

Jacobson's methodical, almost muted tone heightens the power of this book, which in its gentle way is just as much a survival story as something like Gary Paulsen's Hatchet. The tension ratchets up when Jack starts seeing his face on the news. And he meets all kinds of people, some of them more willing to help him than others. For example, there's a girl named Sylvie who says bluntly:

"Convince me that I'm wrong. And everybody who's out looking for you, everybody in the state of Maine and your grandma and the police—convince me that we're all wrong, and that you're better off on your own."

Jack replies that he'll be taken away from his mother, which is clearly the most terrible thing he can imagine.

But then, he was also hoping to see an actual elephant on this trip, and somehow, he winds up heading toward the elephant instead of his old home.

As the lovely, understated cover art suggests, Small as an Elephant is a quieter book than some. It is nevertheless an adventure. Then again, thoughtful readers will appreciate, not only Jack's physical survival and his success in not being caught, but his inner quest to make sense out of having been abandoned by his mother.

I'll end with the Chapter One elephant quote from Peter Corneille: "If anyone wants to know what elephants are like, they are like people, only more so." And people are like elephants, fortunately for Jack. Little by little, readers will discover that Jack is loved and helped by a herd he hadn't even imagined.

Note for Worried Parents: There's some mild peril here, but mostly just a mature theme of child abandonment.

Also: If you like this book, try Walter Macken's classic, Flight of the Doves. It's an old favorite of mine. The character interactions as Finn and Derval flee their stepfather and travel from England to Ireland remind me of Jack's journey. For that matter, try Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt, in which four children abandoned by their mentally ill mother in a parking lot travel cross-country in search of the grandmother they've never met.

A Review of Close to Famous by Joan Bauer

You know how some authors are so reliably good that you simply buy their next book on auto-pilot, sight unseen? Joan Bauer is on that list for me. I especially liked Squash and Rules of the Road, but I've been pretty darn happy with all of her books. Now I've just finished her latest, Close to Famous, and while I wasn't quite as fond of it as I have been of some of her other titles, it nevertheless boasts Bauer's trademark strengths, including an appealing main character, colorful-yet-real secondary characters, and a small-town feeling of people pulling together to help each other. In my experience, this author's books are always feel-good reads, without being overly sentimental.

I was pleased to see that Close to Famous also features a main character who is half African American and whose mother is African American. This is inserted subtly, and once again (sigh) the jacket barely seems to indicate it. (Foster's hair is curlier in the book, for instance.) But it is there, I am happy to report.

When the story begins, Foster McFee and her mother are on the run from Mom's abusive boyfriend, an Elvis impersonator. They find shelter in a small town where someone kind gives them a tow, someone else kind gives Mrs. McFee a job, and the tow truck people then give them a place to stay. I would like to think that this would really happen. I'm sure it has, somewhere out there.

But I haven't even gotten to the good stuff, which is that Foster is incredibly talented as a self-taught young cook, especially when it comes to baking. At the same time, she is incredibly un-talented at reading. In short, she can't read, though she covers it up like a champion.

Now, as Foster spends the summer making connections with people like a young would-be documentary filmmaker and the actress who's hiding out from the pain of her all-too-public dumping by a big-time Hollywood flame, she finds that her secrets are coming out.

Plus she's worried about the location of a certain pillowcase that contains the few items she has remaining after her soldier father's death in Iraq.

Will this young cupcake maker be able to get in touch with her hero, TV chef Sonny Kroll? Will Miss Charleena ever come out of her house again? Will Foster's mom be recognized as having a star's voice, not a backup singer's? Will Macon ever make a documentary about the new prison down the road? Will Foster learn to read?

Quite probably!

Now for some quibbles... I have to say that I found the events of this book a little rushed. I wished for a slightly longer book to let things unfold more organically. Even so, I loved these characters and was hooked into their story.

The learning-to-read subplot felt didactic at times, yet it resonated with me overall, particularly because I have a dear friend who didn't learn to read till she was 18, faking it in all 11 of the schools her drug addict mother dumped her in for 10 years running. I am happy to report that my friend went on to get her GED and graduate from high school at the age of 32. (Like Foster, my friend has a learning disability. I'm guessing Close to Famous will be a Schneider Family Book Award nominee next year!)

One odd note: The author uses present tense for the first two chapters (the escape), then switches to past tense for the rest of the book. Plus there's a flashback in one of those chapters, which is of course in past tense. This back-and-forth with the verbs is distracting, but only for a few minutes, when you might find yourself, as I did, turning back pages and trying to figure out what's going on. It's smooth sailing after that.

In a Bauer book, however, strong characters, humor, and great dialogue far outweigh any minor concerns. For example, pay attention to the way Foster learned to cook in the first place—by falling hard for the art (initially with a friend) and working her butt off till she got it right, relying on listening and memory because she couldn't read the recipes. In an age when too many kids grow up scarcely lifting a finger to pick up their gym socks, it's great to see a kid who embraces a vocation and really puts in the required effort to make it happen. Eventually, Foster applies this same kind of effort to the far more daunting task of learning to read. Her determination and hard work are just a couple of the many nice things about this character. To begin to understand how endearing this kid is, watch Foster doing an episode of her so-far-imaginary cooking show:

I put on my shooting star apron, got out my baking pan, opened the refrigerator, and took out tortillas, tomato sauce, salami, and cheese.
"Today on Cooking with Foster we're going to make smiling pizzas for sad days." I put two tortillas down on the pan, spread red sauce over them, and sprinkled on mozzarella, garlic powder, and onion.
"Be careful the cheese doesn't go over the edge or it'll spill over on the pan and start smoking. That can make your whole kitchen stink. I'm going to turn the oven dial to four-fifty." I did that, smiling. "And now I'm getting my best knife"—I held it up—"and I'm slicing a thin round of salami into a smiley shape just like this. Don't make it too thick...."

Then Foster tells us about sad days and matter-of-factly relates that to losing her father in the war before she takes the mini-pizzas out of the oven.

Thank you, Joan Bauer, for giving us a girl to care about, as well as people to care about her.

Note for Worried Parents: This is listed on Amazon as a book for teens, though it reads as upper middle grade to me. Foster's mother is not extensively abused, but she does get hit by her boyfriend, who later stalks her and her daughter. That isn't the dominant story line, however; it's just one of many plot threads. I would be happy to share this book with middle school students and most fourth and fifth graders, as well.

Update: Peter D. Sieruta wrote about Close to Famous this week on his blog, Collecting Children's Books. He makes an interesting connection between an epic theatrical performance from his boyhood in Detroit and Foster's actress friend, Miss Charleena.

A Review of Saraswati's Way by Monika Schröder

If you liked the film Slumdog Millionaire, take a look at Saraswati's Way, a YA novel about a young math whiz living in a small village in the Indian countryside.

Akash's life is not good, and it's about to get worse. His teacher has been kind enough to tutor him on the side, but has already taught Akash everything he knows. Akash won't be able to get more schooling without a scholarship because his family has no money. His mother is dead, and his father works very hard to support the entire household, including Akash's ruthless grandmother, who will hear no wrong spoken of her eldest son, Akash's uncle, even as he drains the family's limited financial resources with his opium addiction and gambling.

The loan shark who owns their farm insists on being paid the back rent he's owed despite the drought, and then the unthinkable happens: Akash's father dies. (Sorry for the spoiler, but it happens pretty early in the book, your basic inciting incident.) Akash has barely stumbled through the mourning rites when the creditor comes calling and the boy's grandmother sends him to work in Kumar-ji's quarry, ostensibly to pay off the family's debts. Except—Akash sneaks a peek at the quarry ledgers and swiftly calculates that none of the workers ever actually get out of debt; their debt even increases. Determined to escape what is clearly a life of slavery, Akash hops a train and runs away to New Delhi, hoping to continue his math studies somehow.

Once there, he joins a little gaggle of boys living in the train station and becomes a street kid before he can find his way, or rather, Saraswati's way. Saraswati is the Hindu goddess of knowledge and the arts. Akash prays to her, worrying about his future. He also frets over the past, especially an odd incident with his father and a tortoise shortly before the man's death. Akash tries to figure out how his father's last words might be fulfilled, which seemed to indicate that he will be able to achieve his dreams. He eventually learns that the quick road to his goals is dishonorable and is not meant to be.

This is a fairly quiet book, or at least a serious one, but Akash's adventures keep it moving forward as readers wonder what he will do next and how he will fulfill his dreams. We also get an excellent introduction to what India is like. While the author's descriptions of New Delhi and various aspects of Indian culture occasionally feel pedantic, they provide an intriguing glimpse of a way of life that many young readers may never have encountered before.

In addition, we learn a little about Akash's math prowess and strategies, some of which are even derived from the ancient Hindu scriptures, the Vedas. (Saraswati is the Vedas's patron deity.) Math ability isn't always honored in children's literature, so this was a nice aspect of the book. I especially like how Akash uses his talent to overcome some of the problems he encounters. And, perhaps even more important, Akash learns to value his integrity. After a disastrous encounter with a drug dealer, he seems unlikely to compromise it again.

I'm afraid we really don't have enough reader-friendly books set in countries like India. Add Saraswati's Way to your list of multicultural titles about genuine kids living their lives in other lands.

And by the way, what a pretty cover! Did you notice the numbers literally written in the stars?

I will mention that Saraswati's Way feels a little rushed in spots. Lately, I'm beginning to suspect a conspiracy on the part of publishers pushing plots to move faster, ever faster! In any case, the book ends a bit abruptly, with solutions to Akash's woes which seem to come too easily. Then again, whether his fairy godmother is Saraswati or a kindly street vendor, I think you'll agree that this boy deserves his happy ending.

Note for Worried Parents: At first I thought this was a middle grade novel. Akash is 12 and seems very much a tween. But the mature situations push it over into YA—homeless children, glue sniffing, scary drug dealers, and, at one point, a vague threat from a man who's obviously a pedophile.

A Review of The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman

I've seen this one recommended by a couple of bloggers and was intrigued by the idea of an "ordinary" high school romance. As the jacket flap puts it, "Jen and Wes do not 'meet cute.' They do not fall in love at first sight. They do not swoon with scorching desire. They do not believe that they are instant soul mates destined to be together forever. THIS IS NOT THAT KIND OF LOVE STORY."

Except—it is. But first I'll just mention that at least in this printing, someone screwed up: Throughout the actual book, the girl's name is not Jen, it's June, whereas she's called Jen for the entire flap copy. Thankfully, the boy is in fact named Wes on both the flap and in the book itself. Now...

1. The "meet cute" doesn't happen when Wes and June first meet; it takes place later, when they crash into each other during a late-night run to a convenience store and June's glasses are broken, giving her a black eye (hence the heavy makeup in the excerpt below).

2. I acknowledge that they don't fall in love at first sight. However, when they do make out, I would argue that they "swoon with scorching desire." Here Wes simply touches her face:

June nodded. She was having trouble breathing. His hand reached out and touched her cheek, a touch as soft as a breeze. She became acutely aware of her body, of every square centimeter of her skin, of the sound of air molecules striking her eardrums...
[This is Wes a few sentences later.] What was it about this girl, this fish girl with her fake aqua eyes too far apart and that thick layer of makeup? Wes could feel the pressure building in his throat, his chest, in his
groin, as if he was about to explode. Spontaneous Human Combustion. He had never felt this way around Izzy. His fingers still tingled where he had touched her cheek.

3. And if they don't feel like they're soul mates, why do they both pine so when this Romeo and Juliet are separated, to the point where Wes borrows a car (illegally, as it turns out) and drives all night to see her, feeling, well—driven?

Still, all evidence to the contrary, very late in the book June points out that they might break up at any time, and then their relationship will just become a nice memory. (Thanks for that, June! We were trying not to think about it!)

All this may sound like I didn't like this book, but you know what? I did like it. Very much! Because one thing the jacket flap gets right is that June and Wes seem like real people, which is the true strength of Hautman's book.

As a bonus, I love the cover; don't you? You will also find the artwork showing Wes and June in each of the four seasons used as section breaks inside the book (in black and white).

The Big Crunch is a leisurely examination of how two people slowly get to know each other, become attracted, and deal with creating a role for the new relationship in their less-than-cooperative lives. The random thoughts they have along the way are one of the things that make this book feel so real. That's where the "ordinary" factor comes in, giving the book a nice sauntering pace, a satisfying unfolding feeling. (Oh, and in case you were wondering what the title refers to, the "Big Crunch" is apparently the opposite of the universe's Big Bang. I know you can see the symbolism there!)

The villain of the piece, if there is one, would be June's dad, who moves his family randomly and frequently because of his work. It's especially funny seeing June's father, a motivational speaker, through Wes's eyes. June becomes a tiny bit more sympathetic toward her mother during the course of the book, or rather, more aware of her mother as a person with problems of her own. Her dad does show a touch of compassion at one point, which is nice.

A side plot about Wes's friend Jerry, who wants to be class president and whom June ends up dating more out of guilt than anything else, is fun because the guy is such a weirdly fresh character. Hautman's humor is one of the best things about this book. For example, when June and her friend Phoebe are watching Phoebe's crush in track practice, Phoebe yells "Go, Josh!" right as he jumps a hurdle, causing him to wipe out. Josh is angry, but as Phoebe later explains to June, "We made up. I just had to promise not to yell his name at any track meets." Subtle, perhaps, but funny. Plus it reflects the author's theme that young love is a bumpy road, every time.

Bottom line: I really enjoyed getting to know Wes and June and watching them flail around trying to figure out their relationship. I think you will, too!

Note for Worried Parents: This is a book for teens. There's some teen drinking with the requisite vomiting afterwards and the use of words like "bitch." No actual sex, but characters ponder the possibility.

A Review of Facing Fire by kc dyer

I'm rather fond of this author's previous book about skateboarder and time traveler Darby Christopher, especially because of its glimpse into the lives of the ancient First Peoples who crossed the Bering Strait to North America. This new book offers us three more slices of history, and middle schooler Darby is just as feisty and appealing here as she was in A Walk Through a Window.

Just don't expect an appearance from Darby's guide, Gabe. Or rather, expect him to show up in a relatively non-helpful way. This time Darby is accompanied by a new guy, a fellow skateboarder named Zander who has even more of an attitude than Darby does.

In her latest adventure, Darby travels from Toronto to Kingston, where she has offered to help Fiona, a friend of her mother's, largely in an attempt to avoid spending all summer watching her baby sister. She is also avoiding dealing with some trouble she got into with her friend Sarah. And once again, a mysterious window at a historical site allows Darby to travel into the past.

Darby winds up at Fort Frontenac in 1758, in the middle of a group of Acadians fleeing a British attack during the Seven Years' War. Though the people she observes can't see her, Darby is still subject to danger, and she barely escapes a fire to return to her own time.

In between texting her friend Sarah, Darby goes skateboarding and meets local boy Zander, who is cutting class. When she and Zander get together at a skate park, she learns that he is Mohawk and has his own interest in Canadian history. Later she and Zander fall into the past together, winding up on board a ship that is transporting two prisoners, an American doctor and a Shawnee boy who is Tecumseh's nephew. Once they get back home, Darby and Zander have some interesting debates about what it means to be Canadian and why Darby, whose ancestors are relative newcomers, should be more capable of time traveling than Zander, who feels he has more right to it. Eventually Darby and Zander go back into the past again, where they witness the near-capture of a runaway slave.

When writing time travel, an author has two basic choices. Should his characters interact with the people in the past or just observe them? Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses, of course. When a character from the present interacts with people in the past, it can make the storytelling more lively; however, it can also distort the history, especially if the focus remains on the time traveler and she affects the events in which she participates.

In the Window books, dyer has gone the other direction, creating characters from the present who mostly observe the past they visit. This keeps the history pure and in some sense mysterious, as Darby must put together what's happening from the bits and pieces she sees and hears. She sometimes does research after she gets home so she can figure out the history she has observed. And really, isn't that what we always end up doing when we study history that goes back more than one or two hundred years? This reminds me of reading Bill Bryson's book about Shakespeare, in which he points out how little we really know, since very few records remain from the 1600s.

Now, dyer balances out her contemporary characters' somewhat passive role as observers of history by giving them other, present-day concerns: Darby is afraid of being blamed for an arson incident with her friend Sarah back in Toronto, while Zander has issues with his heritage and is thinking of dropping out of school. Another minor but intriguing subplot is Fiona's work with water needs on the First People lands.

I find that most time travel books read more like historical fiction and sometimes contemporary realism than fantasy, with the time traveling simply acting as a doorway—or window, in this case—to another era. It's nice to see these historical events taking place in Canada, since my students and I generally only get the American viewpoint. I always tell them that if they were to read about the American Revolution in a British schoolbook, they would get quite a different perspective. Facing Fire made me want to get my hands on more books written locally about the histories of different countries around the world.

Like A Walk Through a Window and the author's Eagle Glen time travel trilogy, Facing Fire brings the past to life, and it slips in a few lessons about life in the present, too. While I missed Gabe, I enjoyed meeting Zander, who is a strong character in his own right. Maybe in Book 3 we can see all three of these kids in one place, or rather, one time!

Note: kc dyer is a member of my small online writing group.

A Review of Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

I feel like a romance cliché: I fell in love with this book at first sight and never fell out. Which is ironic, since Dash & Lily's Book of Dares is pretty much dedicated to being anti-cliché when it comes to romance.

At first glance, it seems that this inspired pairing of authors, Cohn and Levithan of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist fame, are simply telling another lively tale of two young Manhattanites meeting cute and falling for each other. But it shouldn't take long for you to realize that the authors' true intentions involve shredding our culture's ubiquitous romantic comedy conventions and leaving us, not with answers, but with questions—or rather, with the endless question of the individual human: "Can I ever truly be understood?" Their answer seems to be, "No, but you can nevertheless be loved."

I recently had a conversation with one of my students, a teenage boy who just broke up with his girlfriend and was feeling bad about it. He said, "Everybody's a stranger, and always will be." This seemed to frighten him. I told him I was going to loan him Dash & Lily's Book of Dares. "It's all about that," I said. "But it still manages to have a happy ending."

As our story begins, it's Christmas time in the Big Apple, and Dash has fooled each of his divorced parents into thinking he's with the other one so he can spend Christmas in surly Grinch-like solitude. Well, perhaps not solitude, though he's definitely a young Grinch in the making: Dash discovers a red notebook incongruously shelved in a grand used bookstore called the Strand. (It's real! With an alleged eighteen miles of books.) The notebook challenges Dash to a little scavenger hunt in the bookstore, managing to embarrass him almost immediately. Dash picks up the gauntlet and returns the favor by issuing a dare of his own. Cynical Dash is pleased to realize that the notebook is obviously from an equally sardonic teenage girl trying to see if she can meet her male counterpart.

Only it's not. Dash doesn't know this for pages on end, but the girl, Lily, didn't start the notebook, though she does quickly enter into the spirit of things and keep it going. The notebook is actually the brainchild of her older brother, who is hoping to keep her entertained and out of his hair so he can enjoy spending the holidays with his new guy. (Their parents have disappointed Lily by going on a second honeymoon.)

Lily is about as far from a Grinch as you can get, a starry-eyed idealist who love-love-loves Christmas. She even drops her atheism annually so she can sing the religious Christmas carols with proper enthusiasm. While she's a little off the wall, Lily is not a major risk-taker, partly because she has a huge, overly protective extended family.

Yet this is not exactly a book about opposites attracting, either. It's more the story of assumptions and yearnings, the way no one can ever be the fulfillment of another person's romantic daydreams. You'll find that Dash is quite the philosopher-prince. His musings get a little over-the-top in spots, evoking the spirits of thirty-something authors past and present—but it all pays off, I assure you.

I'm afraid I'm making the book sound serious, whereas it's just as much a cheerily frenetic sleigh ride through New York City. The dares in the red notebook are creative and often funny, many involving field trips to urban landmarks. There's a spirit of friendly one-upsmanship, just as you would expect from a series of dares. For example, after Lily sends mall-hating Dash to Macy's at the height of the holiday shopping season to look for reindeer gloves, he retaliates by making her go to a matinee showing of a film called Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer with a horde of moms and toddlers.

Speaking of movies, the absolute funniest thing in the book, hands down, is the spoof of a Pixar movie and how Dash and Lily respond separately to having seen it. I laughed my head off.

A running joke is that Lily has colorful relatives working all over town whom she enlists to facilitate her dares. More than one of these relatives describes Dash as "snarly," which leads to the creation of a muppet-like creature that Lily names Snarly. (Lily's own historic nickname makes an appropriate pairing.) When Dash sees the critter, he says, "It looks like Animal and Miss Piggy had sex.... And this was the spawn." His best friend Boomer responds, "My eyes! ...My eyes! I can't stop seeing it now that you've said it!" Boomer is a great character in his own right. He tends to talk in exclamation marks.

"Cinderella was such a dork," Lily writes in the red notebook. This from the girl who dons a contemporary version of the glass slippers and loses one shoe at a ball (okay, nightclub). We also get dog walking, soccer goal-keeping, wax celebrities, ex-girlfriends, snowball fights, militant mommies, police cars, and Internet video scandals of the baby-catching variety. Not to mention marvelous secondary characters, including an extremely cool Bohemian great-aunt. (Best quote I've read recently: The late Eva Ibbotson said that whenever she was having trouble writing a book, she just added an aunt. Not that I'm biased in favor of aunts or anything.)

Keep an eye out for a couple of extra romances (or divorces) that play out around the edges of the tale, further embellishing the authors' book-length riff on the unpredictable nature of real-life relationships. As Dash's ex puts it, "I was never the girl in your head. And you were never the boy in my head. I think we both knew that. It's only when we try to make the girl or boy in our head real that the true trouble comes."

Dash and Lily begin to matter more to each other than they're supposed to as the dares continue, and in a way, that's because they haven't met. When they do finally run into each other, it's a disaster, but not for the reasons you would think. Turns out Dash, in his own way, is just as idealistic as Lily, and perhaps less resilient. After that encounter, they take turns being fearful and fearless, until eventually they come to a sort of truce that bodes well for the future. Because there's more to Dash than being snarly, just as there's more to Lily than her affinity for Christmas carols.

This is teen romance writ large, irresistibly so. It's romance over-scripted, over-analyzed, and yet, somehow, played out like a nice long game of Monopoly between two basically nice people. Seems pretty apt in today's world. I give you: Dash & Lily. Read their Book of Dares. And then watch for Book Two—apparently the authors fell hard for these characters, too, and are planning to make it a series. They've got a great cast to work with!

You might also like Let It Snow: Three Holiday Romances by John Green, Lauren Myracle, and Maureen Johnson.

Note for Worried Parents: You'll probably be concerned about the occasional use of the F word and a few crude remarks from the teenage boys. Also, there's some teen drinking, though the results are not appealing. It's mentioned here and there that Lily's brother and his new boyfriend are sleeping together, but Dash and Lily don't have sex with anyone in this book.

A Review of Dirt Road Home by Watt Key

I am a big fan of Watt Key's book, Alabama Moon, so I was happy to discover this sequel. But I will add a cautionary note, one that reflects my experience reading both books: Alabama Moon is middle grade fiction (ages 9-12), while Dirt Road Home is YA (Young Adult, ages 12 and up). Basically, we're talking PG vs. PG-13, mostly because of violence. To put it bluntly, Dirt Road Home has a kind of Lord of the Flies vibe.

That said, it's a good book because Watt Key is a terrific storyteller, and I do love finding out what happens to Moon's friend Hal. If you've read Alabama Moon, you may recall that Moon, a boy raised in the wilderness by a Vietnam vet father who distrusted everybody but especially the government, was placed in a boys' home after his father's death and managed to tame a bully named Hal. At the end of that book, Hal was sent to juvie to finish paying his so-called debt to society. Which is where Dirt Road Home picks up.

Hmm. Perhaps I should say this book is Heart of Darkness for fourteen-year-olds, or even One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest... Here Hal compares the state residence where he met Moon to Hellenweiler Boys' Home (emphasis on the "hell"):

You would never hear an adult call Hellenweiler a prison. It was always referred to as a "boys' home." But to look at the one-story cinder-block compound from the outside, there was no question what the place was modeled after. I had an idea what I'd find on the inside as well, and it wouldn't be pretty. I already had the feeling that Pinson had been a preschool compared to this place. This was a high-security jailhouse to lock down eighty bad boys.

Hal's first worry isn't how awful his new home will be; it's whether he'll be able to keep his temper and stay out of trouble so he won't be stuck in this place forever.

But soon he has other worries, because Superintendent Fraley has a dark, contemptuous approach to running Hellenweiler. He actually references Golding's classic in his orientation speech to Hal, then goes on to say:

You see, they tell me to educate the boys. To reform them. But this is just political talk to our fine citizens. Feel-good talk, if you will. In reality this place is a sort of human landfill that you hide on the outskirts of town. It's nothing more than a kennel for dogs that have no hope of being chained. This may sound harsh, but it is simply a reality that you must learn to face. The sooner, the better.

Hal finds out that Fraley has looked the other way, letting the boys form two gangs that brutalize newcomers into joining one or the other. The gangs battle for the Hellenweiler turf, having vicious fights on a regular basis. Hal is determined not to join either of the two gangs because he wants to keep his nose clean and get out fast, but avoiding trouble doesn't mean Fraley will support Hal's goals. In fact, Fraley doesn't want anyone contradicting his cynical convictions about the boys.

Hal is on his own, dealing with pressures and abuse from both gangs, though one more than the other. He sort of befriends one gang leader on the sly. And he wonders about the only other boy who's not in a gang, a huge, shell-shocked kid named Caboose. As the pressure ratchets up, Hal tries to lean on the knowledge that he has friends outside this prison, even an almost-girlfriend, Carla.

But he ends up getting sucked in more than he planned, and violence erupts again and again. Until Hal comes up with his own way of fighting back.

This is not a pretty story, it's a gritty story. It's also a psychological (and sociological) drama focusing on what happens when people live down to our expectations—or struggle to surpass them.

While you don't have to read Alabama Moon to appreciate Dirt Road Home, it does help, although, as mentioned above, the latter is a darker, bloodier tale. Even so, Dirt Road Home ends on a note of hope. As the title implies, Hal's determination not to give up is more powerful than anything someone like Mr. Fraley can throw at him. And, just as Moon rescued Hal from his worst self in the first book, here Hal rescues a couple of other boys from their downward trajectories.

Note for Worried Parents: This book might not be as dark as some of the YA out there, but it's dark enough—it's essentially a prison story for kids. There is gang warfare, including real and threatened violence. Plus just a lot of guy stuff. (I can't see many girls getting into this one!) Oddly, however, there's a sort of parable quality to Dirt Road Home, which may be why it's not quite as rough as it sounds.

A Review of When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

When You Reach Me is the kind of book that wins the Newbery Award. Remember that next year, because I will be very surprised if this doesn't get at least a Newbery Honor, or even win.

It's the kind of book where various bits and pieces manage to seem symbolic even as they do a perfectly good job of carrying the story along. How can a story full of such ordinary details seem so intense and cosmic? Perhaps the greatest trick the author pulls off is to put in vats of significance without adding even one viscous drop of that goop, pomposity.

When You Reach Me is a book that weaves in another book, A Wrinkle in Time, for more than one reason.

It's a book that talks about friendship in a way few books have. Among them is Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy, another book which is alluded to once here, albeit obliquely.

And even though When You Reach Me is a book about kids and friendship, I spent the whole thing in a near-breathless state of suspense. Because something bad is obviously going to happen—probably. So this book is also a mystery. Maybe it will win an Edgar award, too.

When You Reach Me reminds me a little of Markus Zusak's book for teens, I Am the Messenger, except that the ending of this one works better.

Is When You Reach Me science fiction? Fantasy? Magical realism? A coming of age story? Not so coincidentally, the same questions have been asked about A Wrinkle in Time. I was reshelving my own library by genre the other day and stood there for five minutes with L'Engle's book in my hand, trying to decide where it should go. I never really came up with a satisfactory answer. (Louis Sachar's Holes is a little like that, as well.)

There's something poetic about this book. Listen to sixth grader Miranda's voice, clear as the air on a mountaintop:

When we were too little for school, Sal and I went to day care together at a lady's apartment down the block. She had picked up some carpet samples at a store on Amsterdam Avenue and written the kids' names on the backs. After lunch, she'd pass out these carpet squares and we'd pick our spots on the living room floor for nap time. Sal and I always lined ours up to make a rectangle.

One time, when Sal had a fever and Louisa had called in sick to her job and kept him home, the day-care lady handed me my carpet square at nap time, and then, a second later, she gave me Sal's, too.

"I know how it is, baby," she said.

And then I lay on her floor not sleeping because Sal wasn't there to press his foot against mine.

So please, follow Miranda around and try to figure out why her best friend, Sal, is avoiding her. Check out the two-dollar bills, the V-cut, Alice's bathroom dance, and Julia's silver bracelet. Wonder for yourself why the homeless guy on the corner sleeps with his face under the mailbox, also whether Miranda's mom will win when she goes on Dick Clark's game show, The $20,000 Pyramid. It's 1978, sort of. And everything matters more than you think.

Note: Although When You Reach Me is listed on Amazon in one spot as being a YA book, it's listed elsewhere as being for ages 9-12. The publisher, Wendy Lamb (Random House), lists the book as suitable for readers ages 9-14. So I'll stick with my Newbery prediction rather than the Printz!

A Review of Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor

Like Frances O’Roark Dowell’s Jamie in Shooting the Moon, Leslie Connor’s Addie is an innocent. It may seem unnecessary to emphasize that a child character is an innocent, but there are two reasons for my emphasis: first, a lot of young book characters these days seems remarkably adult, even jaded, like those sitcom kids on TV; and second, sometimes an author uses the fresh light of a child’s outlook to add meaning to a book. In Shooting the Moon, Jamie’s illusions about war heighten the impact of what is really happening in Vietnam. In Waiting for Normal, Addie’s good cheer is a contrast to the realities of her life.

Dwight, Addie’s ex-stepfather, drops her and Mommers off at their new home, a yellow trailer parked all by its lonesome in the city, beneath an elevated train track. After an incident of neglect, Dwight has been able to get custody of Addie’s two little half sisters, but he is unable to get custody of Addie. It’s pretty clear that this worries Dwight.

Addie settles in, making friends with Soula, who runs the gas station and minimart across the street with the help of a man named Elliot. She eventually joins the school band and gets a hamster. Life seems normal—until she goes to visit Dwight and her sisters and sees the contrast between her life and theirs, or until the next time Mommers screws up. It should be pretty obvious to adult readers, at least, that Mommers is bipolar. While not unkind, Mommers is often negligent, and she expects her daughter to follow her moods around like contrail after a jet.

For her part, Addie is a tough little cookie--not in the street tough sense of the term, but in the sense that she makes the best of things. Little by little, however, she finds herself dragged down by the difficulties of her situation. Addie’s attempts to read and resolve the problems life imposes on her are particularly poignant because her logic is impeccable; it’s just that she’s lacking adult insight. The one that really gets to me is when she gives up playing the flute. It simply doesn’t occur to her that there might be a better solution.

Fortunately, Addie’s grandfather and Dwight are waiting to pick up the pieces. In the meantime, however, Addie goes through things which, while not wildly damaging in and of themselves, are definitely sieves for the soul. Addie shows us how much small hurts can add up for a child, even if she is fundamentally optimistic. Connor gives us a fresh take on the dilemma of being the child of a troubled parent. That is, Addie is a reliable person, but Mommers’s choices render her unreliable. “...I had run away when they were all counting on me. That was the thing that bothered me most: the counting-on part.” Unspoken here is the obvious pain of not being able to count on Mommers. As I read this book, I saw in a way I never had before the power of a parent simply providing a stable foundation, a predictable setting in which a child can work out the plot of her own life.

Ironically, Addie is dyslexic, but she is so sensible and upbeat about her disability that I almost forgot about it until I noticed that Waiting for Normal won a Schneider Family Book Award for 2009. The award is given for great books about children living with disability, whether in themselves or in a friend or family member. In fact, my first impulse was to think the award was given because Addie has to live with her mother’s mental disability--but I suppose it's both. The book was also an ALA Children’s Notable Book and made the ALA’s list of Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults in 2009.

A subplot about Soula, who has cancer, and Elliot, who is gay, simply rounds out the richness of the story telling. Like Dwight, these two offer Addie some much-needed surrogate parenting. When Addie's troubles come to a head, it is Soula who is there for her, not Mommers.

Waiting for Normal is partly a coming-of-age story. At one point Addie, who has seemed so child-like through much of the book, tells Dwight, "I just can't...pretend stuff anymore.... I'm too old to pretend stuff."

Ultimately, things get better for Addie, but this kid works pretty darn hard for her happy ending. It’s not that she’s never discouraged, and she isn't a larger-than-life heroine in the least. Yet somehow, Addie’s earnest tenacity is an inspiration to readers as she keeps on going, just doing the very best she can, waiting and hoping for normal.

Note for Worried Parents (WPs): There’s some talk about Addie getting her period, but it’s handled sensibly and adds to the plot.