vol7no2

Books of the Week

YA/Contemporary/Coming of Age YA/ Issues/ Anger
Koja, Kathe
Straydog
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 0374372780

As Rachel, friendless and strange, writes an essay from the viewpoint of Grrl, a feral Collie she is trying to rescue from an animal shelter, she finds herself and true friendship.

Koja, an acclaimed author of cutting edge horror for adults, presents a deceptively simple tale of anger, love, and acceptance. It is powerful and moving.

YA/ Issues/ Activism YA/ Alternate Formats/ Verse
Carvell, Marlene
Who Will Tell My Brother?
Hyperion 0786808276

Evan, whose Indian heritage does not show in his face, decides to carry on the battle, started by his older brother, to change his school's offensive mascot. Deserted by people he once thought friends, he comes up against a brick wall in the form of the school board. A visit to elder relatives reassures him that he is part of his family even though he doesn't look like his father or brother. When his brother's loyal and beloved dog is killed, those at school who had not actively supported him but were sympathetic to his cause rally aroung him.

YA/ Issues/ Outsiders YA/ Contemporary/ Activism
Goobie, Beth
Sticks and Stones
Orca 1551432137

Jujube Gelb is not a slut but when she refuses to put out for Brent Floyd in the backseat of his car at a school dance, the rumors start flying. Somehow word got out that she DID and now her name and phone number are on the bathroom walls throughout the school. She decides to fight back and bands together with the other girls who have been defamed with school graffiti. Goobie does a masterful job in a brief, quick and easy to read book that handles a subject similar to that in Howe's MISFITS in a mature manner.

YA/ Fantasy/ Magic
Leavitt, Martine
The Dollmage
Red Deer 0889952337

The Dollmage of Seekvalley decrees that her successor will be born on a certain day but on that day two boys and two girls are born whose lives will be linked. While there can only be one Dollmage at a time, both girls show that they have the magical skills necessary leading to death and loss.

YA/ Issues/ Outsiders YA/ Mystery and Suspense/ Psychological
Oates, Joyce Carol
Big Mouth & Ugly Girl
HarperCollins 0066237564

Matt Donaghy has a big mouth but he never thinks that his juvenile antics will wind up getting him arrested as a psycho-terrorist. Ursula Riggs is a big girl, a strong girl, a girl who secretly refers to herself as Ugly Girl. She goes through life with a steely gaze and a disregard for what others think of her. She knows the truth about Matt and comes forward to clear him but his ordeal has branded him an outcast. Oates creates characters that in less skilled hands would be merely obnoxious but here are smart and fascinating. As friendship and romance develops the reader is swept along but kept guessing all the way through as to how or if the two will survive.

YA/ Adventure / Survival
Hobbs, Will
Wild Man Island
HarperCollins 0688174736

Wild Man Island is Will Hobbs at his best. When Andy Galloway sneaks away from the Alaskan tour he is on to try to find the spot where his father died so he can place a momento there he starts on the adventure of his life. Swept away by a storm to Admiralty Island, he struggles to survive and in doing so meets a Newfie named Bear who is the companion to a hermit. In the hermit’s cave he makes some amazing discoveries. Not to be missed.

Humorous
Moore, Christopher
Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
William Morrow 0380978407

This wild crazily humorous take on the hidden years of Jesus Christ starts when Josh, as He is called, and Biff meet up at age six. Biff, who fancies himself a rather religious tyke shouts “unclean” when he sees Josh with a lizard dangling out of His mouth. To Biff it looked like Josh was eating the reptile* rather than restoring it to life so His little brother could play with it again. The two team up with Maggie, the new girl in town and have typical kid and adolescent adventures (everyone tries at least once to circumcise a statue, right?). Adulthood takes the two young men on a quest to find the three wise men before returning for the events previously depicted in the Gospels. While Lamb is outrageously funny it also plays fair with the established story. How would a six-year-old or a fourteen-year-old learn exactly how to be the Messiah?

Moore does have a web site (http://www.chrismoore.com) where readers will find a sample chapter. Readers who like comedy with heart like those by Carl Hiaasen, Neal Stephenson, Michael Malone, Tom Wolfe (A Man in Full) and Janet Evonovich will laugh out loud. The read of the year.

This has nothing to do with Lamb, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal but rather with lizards and other reptiles. The other day on the radio I heard the funniest commercial parody that suggested that if your lizard was lagging, your snake growing sluggish, or your turtle was tired you may be suffering from reptile dysfunction. It sounded just like a Viagra ad.

Historical
Stained Glass Rose
Brockett, D.A
Western Reflections 1890437611

The summer of 1937 is an eventful one for Rose, a seventeen year old good Italian girl in a western Colorado town. She meets a nice young man even though her abusive widowed father doesn't allow her much freedom, and she finds a best friend in Mari, a young woman who works as a housekeeper and chauffeur for a notorious madame from the Shantytown area. Discovering a murder makes Rose look at everyone around her differently. Brockett really captures the setting and the time period feels authentic. The end note that details the actual “Apron-string Murder” adds to the fascination. For more about this new author see her web page at http://www.dabrockett.com.

Historical /Science Fiction
Captain Nemo: The Fantastic History of a Dark Genius
Anderson, K. J.
Pocket Books 074344406X

Jules Verne is the son of a small town lawyer whose two best friends are Andre Nemo, the inventive son of a poor ship builder, and Caroline Aronnax, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. The three, all interested in science and inventions, are all talented in different ways. When Nemo's father is killed in a ship explosion, Caroline, through her father secures him a berth as a cabin boy on ship setting out on a voyage of exploration. Jules runs away to accompany him on the adventure but is brought back by his father before the expedition leaves France and is forced to go to Paris to study law. As Nemo faces pirates, being a castaway on a deserted island, and a journey through the center of the Earth, Jules tries to establish a writing career on the side, and Caroline weds a much older arctic explorer. Anderson's take on Verne's adventure stories is a delightful combination of adventure and romance. http://www.wordfire.com/index.html

YA/ Mystery and Suspense
The Boy in the Burning House
Wynne-Jones, Tim
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 0374309302

Fourteen-year-old Jim teams up with Ruth Rose, the pastor's step-daughter, when she tells him that she thinks Father Fisher was involved in his father's disappearance two years previously. As they delve into the mystery they find a photo that shows a link between the missing Hub, Father Fisher, and a boy who was killed decades ago. Nominatedfor an Edgar Award.

YA/ Issues/ Homelessness and Foster Living Arrangements YA/ Issues/ Abuse
Stetson
Rottman, S. L.
Viking 0670035424

Abandoned by his mother at age 3, Stet has lived alone with his alcoholic father in a crummy trailer. He earns food money by taking bets that lead to pranks and trouble at school and also by working for his one-eyed mentor Jason, a Viet Nam vet who owns a junk yard. He also creates works of art on T-shirts that he sells around school. His passion is restoring a 1980 Honda Civic that he has pretty much built piece by piece. On the day he gets the perfect wheels for it and gets home his father surprisingly enough is there along with 14 year old Kayla the sister Stet never knew he had. Kayla has come to live with them because of their mother's death. Stet and Kayla are both prickly characters who come to love each other as they discover a shared talent for art and turn the Civic into a true masterpiece. This is a heart wrenching tale of two kids who fight their alcoholic heritage as best they can. Jason is a wonderful character and a perfect mentor.

YA/ Contemporary/ Coming of Age / Fantasy/ Magical Realism
Gingerbread
Cohn, Rachel
Simon & Schuster 0689843372

Cyd Charisse has gotten into some trouble in her sixteen years but she now she is pretty happy with Shrimp her surfer boy friend, her job as a barista in Java's coffeehouse, a dear friend named Sugar Pie who lives in a nursing home, and her telepathic doll, Gingerbread. The only things that are not going well is her relationship with her mom, Nancy, and step- dad, Sid. When she spends the night at Shrimp's place, Sid and Nancy ship her off to her biodad Frank in New York who she only remembers meeting once, when he gave her Gingerbread. Arriving in New York she discovers that she looks very much like Frank and her older gay brother Danny but even though Frank is aloof and distant she builds a close relationship with Danny and his partner. Her older half-sister lisBETH calls her Daddy's little indiscretion. The three weeks in New York are a real learning experience for her. Gingerbread has a decidedly Francesca Lia Block for the twenty-first century feeling to it.

YA/ Historical/ North America/ 20th Century
Sheppard, Mary C.
Seven for a Secret
Groundwood 0888994370

Three fifteen year old cousins spend the summer of 1960 together where two of them live in an isolated Newfoundland village. It is a pivotal summer for them as each girl come to decisions about her future as they uncover secrets from the past. They discover that prissy Aunt Grace's daughter Rebecca, a talented artist, is really a year older than Kate and Melinda and that Uncle Wilf's name is not on her birth certificate. Meanwhile Melinda debates marrying her Matt or going to nursing school and bookish Kate dates the catch of the community.

YA/ Issues/ Homelessness and Foster Living Arrangements
Bardi, Abby
Book of Fred
Pocket Books 0743411935

Fifteen year old Mary Fred is put in foster care when her second brother dies through lack of medical care because of their parent's religious beliefs. She east fish and wears brown. Told from the viewpoints of Mary Fred (nicknamed M.F.), Alice, her librarian foster mom, Heather, her foster sister, and the secretly heroin addicted Uncle Roy.

YA/ Humorous
Cabot, Meg
Princess in Love
HarperCollins 0060294671

The conclusion of the Princess Diaries sees Mia finally, after a few embarassing events, become comfortable with her self and her situation. This delightful series while light and humorous is also thoughtful. Mia is a well-drawn typical girl in an atypical situation.

In a bizarre twist both Mia's neighbor and the neighbor in Book of Fred are trans-sexual.

Mainstream Literary fiction
Lawson, Mary
Crow Lake
Dial (USA) 038533611X Knopf Canada 0676974791

The Morrison family's future changed when eldest son, Luke, was accepted to a teacher's college. When his parents set out to a larger town to buy luggage for the first Morrison to go to college they didn't know that they were about to die and leave Luke age 19, Matt age 18, Kate age 7, and Bo age 2 forever. Relatives devise a plan for Luke to continue on to college and for the girls to move away from Crow Lake to be raised but Bo is inconsolable and Kate, placid and practical, goes to pieces at the thought of leaving her brothers. Luke decides to forgo college and raise the girls even though finances will be next to impossible. Matt, the brilliant one, will finish school and win a scholarship. Told from Kate's viewpoint as a twenty-six year old science professor the reader is exposed to all the raw emotions that hit this family of siblings and their community. This luminous debut is a brilliant example of literary fiction as it should be. There is actually a story here and it is a compelling one. The characters, all of them, are vividly depicted through their emotions, drives, and mannerisms. An exceptional read.

Sharron Smith, the extraordinary readers' advisory librarian from the Kitchener Public Library in Ontario sent this to me knowing I would like it. There is nothing better than a terrific readers' advisor! Thanks Sharron.

Crime/ Police Detective
Kerr, J. W.
Graves, Worms and Epitaphs
Holmes & Watson 1891668161

In the second novel featuring homicide detective, Lieutenant Anson Hilderbrand of the Houston police department, our hero takes the slaying of his best friend and fellow officer Herman Rathke very personally. His investigation leads him to one the department's own as well as to a wealthy businessman with a penchant for live sex shows performed by underage teens. This very straight forward police procedural avoids graphic exploitation of the sex and violence involved. It is rather much like the "Law" portion of an episode of television's "Law & Order."

YA/ Issues/ Homelessness and Foster Living Arrangements / Life is Hard
Heneghan, James
Flood
Farrar, Straus and Giroux 0374350574

When eleven-year-old Andy Flynn loses his mother and stepfather in a Vancouver flood, his aunt takes him back to Toronto and on the way he learns that the father his mother had told him was “killed in the war” is actually still alive and in Toronto. Upon arrival Andy gives his aunt the slip and sets out to the seedier parts of the city to find his father who it turns out sells individual packs of stolen cigarettes in bars and lives in a vermin infested hotel room. Andy settles into a life of hunger and boredom as he tries to convince his father to find a job and a decent place to live not to mention a change of clothes.