Young adult authors are often accused of writing “after school special” or “ripped from the headlines” stories.  While it is true that they tackle some really difficult topics like rape, bully violence and drug abuse, they do so not because of their sensational qualities but because teens deal with these issues on a regular basis.  Teens need to be able to find safe ways to deal with the hardships of growing up in this modern and often scary time.  I know that we grown-ups often say that “When I was a kid, I had to deal with…” but I’m telling you, when I was a teenager, I did NOT have to deal with such depravity, horror or difficulty as teens today do.  If they can pick up a book about someone who was raped and find a way through it then, perhaps, that character will give him or her the strength to survive and move past the tragedy.  I’m all for “teen issue” books because I’m all for doing anything that might help a teenager.  Below is a short list of books that I think are must reads.

 Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and Inexcusable by Chris Lynch should be required reading for all teenagers before graduating from high school.  Speak is a stirring story about a young girl who is raped by an acquaintance at a party just before her 9th grade year.  Inexcusable is about a boy who desperately tries to convince the reader and himself that he’s a good guy and could not have possibly raped his good friend.  Both books present completely believable protagonists and situations.  If you are a high school teacher, I’m certain that you have probably seen these two teen characters walking the halls of your school…I have.

Exposed by Kimberly Marcus is an intense story written is verse about two forever-best friends, Kate and Liz, who are torn apart when Kate accuses Liz’s brother Mike of doing the unspeakable. Who is telling the truth?  Kate or Mike?

Hate List by Jennifer Brown tells the story of how a fairly common thing, a list of people you don’t like or who are mean to you, becomes a kill list and what happens to the survivors.

After the Death of Anna Gonzalez by Terri Fields presents the suicide of a girl from the view point of her class mates.  Some know her personally, other peripherally but all are affected by the loss.

Shattering Glass by Gail Giles reveals the terrifying power of pack mentality and how dangerous and manipulative popular kids can be.  There are tragic consequences and a single, terrifying act of violence but the perpetrator will surprise you.

Black-eyed Suzie by Susan Shaw…Suzie is the face of abuse but not the bruised or broken face you’d expect.  Rather, the reader will watch as she mentally and physically builds a box around herself, as protection from her abuser.

Once upon a time there was a girl who had a little brother.  One ordinary day they were playing at the park and a murder of crows swooped down and snatched the little boy, carrying him far away into the Impassible Woods.  The girl gave chase and found herself in a strange forest accompanied by an uninvited school mate.  The two searched and searched but they found no sign of the baby boy.   All of a sudden, they were attacked by a band of coyotes and separated.  The boy was taken to the Dowager Duchess, an evil but sweet-talking woman bent on total domination of the wood.  The girl was taken to the Governor Regent, a man also trying to control things well beyond his abilities.  Together but separately, the boy and girl work tirelessly to find the baby brother and, in the process, become embroiled in an epic battle between good, less good and down-right evil.

What a fantastic and imaginative story!  At first, Meloy seemed to be telling yet another story of girl-meets tyrant-vanquishes tyrant and lives happily ever after.  Okay, that does happen but it’s the in-between parts that are so fascinating.  The characters are consist of both humans and animals with good and not so good in both species.  Prue (the girl) and Curtis (the boy) are likeable, if a little naive at times.  Some of the situations seem to be just a bit too glossed over; like Curtis’ decision to stay in the wood and what happens to his family on the Outside.  Female fans of adventure will love Prue’s strength and determination.  Boys will like how Curtis starts the story as a bit of a nerd but evolves into a rather brave young man.  The drawings by Carson Ellis (think The Mysterious Benedict Society) add spark to the imagination!

My trip to Chicago was AMAZING!!!  Unfortunately, I was unable to post while I was there.  I find it interesting that inexpensive hotels have FREE WIFI but expensive ones charge an arm and a leg for access!  I had to go to The Corner Bakery for breakfast because THEY had free wifi!  But, I only had a limited amount of time, unless I wanted to get up way early, which I didn’t so, here I am updating my posts!

The workshop began with Keynote speaker and phenomenal author M.T. Anderson.  He is not only an amazing author but a fantastic speaker!  He waxed poetic about “The end of the story: is there a future in the narrative?” As with most things, there’s good news and bad news.  Lets go with the bad first…get it over with.  With the advent of ebooks, the book industry will never be the same.  A major shift in the publishing industry will occur in the next 5-7  years with fewer printed books being published.  Authors revenue will certainly be affected because most of their money has traditionally come from the sale of hardcover books.  Even the way we think and process information is affected.  With the decline of the printed book, the skill to decode a sustained narrative will decline.  The reader’s connection to the characters usually forms slowly, over the course of the book.  With ebooks, the reader can jump around in the story and, often, leave the story completely to click on an interactive link, chasing a rabbit down its hole. Maybe he or she will find her way back to the character left hanging or maybe not.  Ebooks also help to advance short attention spans, similar to the way that video games have done.  An actual neurological shift is taking place in our brains as a result to all of the technology we use on a daily basis.

Okay, there is good news…and just to confuse the issue, some of the good things are categorized already as bad news! Here we go:  Because of technology, books are more readily available and many are free, due to organizations like  Project Gutenberg (www.gutenberg.org, http://www.archive.org).  Thanks to Harry Potter, kids will read and enjoy astronomically long books like never before.  The Fry Chronicles is both an ebook and an app, providing an interesting and nonlinear way of reading.  Projects like Operation Ajax enhance the joy of reading with interactive historical graphic novels.  E-Readers can carry hundreds of books but only weighs a few ounces…making is a necessity for traveling!  Interactive texts are far easier to use and more interesting than the “Choose your own adventure” novels so many of us remember.  Certainly glossaries have benefited…all you have to do to look up a word is to double click on it and the definition, pronunciation and derivative uses appears before your eyes.

Basically, the end of books, as we know them is still a long way off but not as long as we librarians and authors hope!  However, fantastic authors like M.T. Anderson, Laurie Halse Anderson (no relation), Walter Dean Myers, and others will still write books.  They still have stories that need to be told and so, we will continue to fill our Kindles, Nooks and iPads with their wisdom and their words will live on…in the pages of books and on the screens of millions of adoring fans the world over!

Maggie Stiefvater is a relatively new name in YA fiction but she’s certainly put her stamp on the genre! The Shiver trilogy was outstanding, especially if you were Team Jacob and like your men rather hairy! She put a different and very interesting spin on the traditional werewolf myth. With The Scorpio Races, she takes on the water horse myth and does it was such passion and insight that this book is destined to soar to the top of the charts, as well.

Water horses are the stuff of myth and legend and crashing waves, as beautiful as they are deadly.  The stormy seas of November toss horses of all colors up on the beach, where only the bravest of islanders are waiting to catch them.  For Puck and Sean, however,  these horses and the races are part of the very fabric of their island home.

Puck a 16-year-old island girl lost her parents when water horses attacked their fishing boat a few years earlier and now her family is in trouble.  They are about to be evicted from the only home they know; Puck is in serious jeopardy of losing Dove, the horse that is almost part of the family; and Gabe, the eldest, has decided to leave the island for good.   The only way out is to win the Scorpio Races.  The problem?  No woman or girl has ever ridden in the Scorpio Races.  It’s a deadly game and every year, people die.

Sean is the reigning champion, four years running.  He is unbeatable on the back of his fiery red water horse, Corr.  He works for Benjamin Malvern, who owns Corr.  This year, however, the race will change his life in more ways than one.  Sean is racing for the right to buy Corr and get out from under Malvern’s control.  He also has Puck in his sights and she is quickly making her way into his heart.  In a game of life and death, the lines blur between winning and losing.

No, I’m not going to meet a man named Alan in Chicago.  It’s the Alan  Workshop (Assembly on Literature for Adolescents); two blissful days filled with nothing but young adult authors speaking about their books and the teens (and not a few librarians!) who love them .  It’s such a fabulous experience for librarians and teachers to be able to connect with the authors and learn about what’s new, the future of the book, and much more.  The theme this year is Flash Back. Forge Ahead.  and I will be updating this blog with information I’ve gotten, materials from the vendor exhibition, and (best of all) the books I receive.  I will come home to many boxes of new books, galley copies of upcoming titles and, hopefully, a few autographs (though I do really hate waiting in line!).

One of my favorite YA authors, M.T. Anderson, will be the opening speaker!  It’s been a long while since I’ve heard him speak.  He will be expounding upon the future of books and written stories.  He is the author of The Game of Sunken Places, Feed and the Octavian Nothing series.

Check back for updates!!!  I tend to get very excited during these kinds of events!

Any Zombie fans out there?  I wasn’t, until the series Walking Dead came on and only then because one of my favorite actors was starring in it (Norman Reedus as Daryl…sigh).  The problem with zombies is that the gross factor is pretty high.  They are dead and their bodies are rotting.  Thinking skills are almost non-existent – except for the thought of the next (gulp) meal of flesh.  I mean really, there’s not much to like about them.  Still, I just read The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, which is about the Unconsecrated or zombie infestation that has spread world-wide, wiping out most of the population.  The real story, though, is one of hope and  faith and dreams…with a really gross backdrop of moaning, thrashing, limb-dropping, decaying, smelly zombies.

Cover picture from VWL Catalog

All of her life, Mary’s mother had told her stories of “outside” and the ocean that waits for them.  The ocean is endless water as far as the eye could see with shining sands of the purest gold.  Mary sleeps dreaming of tasting salt and feeling the water wash over her feet.  When she wakes, however, it’s to a nightmare world where the Sisters and the Guardians fight to keep their small village alive and safe from the Unconsecrated.  Years ago, something horrible happened and a virus was let loose on the world.  In very short order, people who used to be living, breathing human beings were turned into walking corpses with a savage hunger for flesh and blood.  Small pockets of people dot the earth, completely cut off from one another.  Mary’s village is ruled with the iron hand of the Sisters.  Their stone cathedral is where all teaching and praying goes on.  One horrible day, Mary’s mother wanders too close to the fence meant to protect them and is bitten.  In a matter of hours, she dies then…returns.  Mary makes the desperate decision to release the creature who once loved and nurtured her to the forest.  After her brother rejects her for the decision she made, Mary is taken in by the Sisters, destined for a life of servitude.  The only problem was that Mary didn’t believe in God.  She couldn’t bring herself to pray or to forget the stories her mother told her.  She’s too curious and that unquenchable desire to KNOW changes the path of her life forever.

Reading about Mary’s unshakable faith that the ocean is out there waiting for her is what impressed me the most.  No matter what people told her or what secrets she found out about the Sisters, her conviction that, not only was the ocean out there but that one day, she would reach it.  Her belief transcends Religion’s view of faith.  Or maybe it embodies it?  I don’t know but I do wish with all my heart that I had an ounce of her faith and her strength to follow her beliefs no matter what!  Especially, in the face of such truly gruesome creatures as zombies!!!

My boss says that if you’re a zombie fan, you should definitely read Pride & Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith.  I’m going to give it a try, after I’ve finished the Forest of Hands and Teeth books (The Dead-Tossed Waves and The Dark and Hollow Places)

Night of the Living Dead. 1990. Columbia Pictures. Britannica Image Qust. Web.
14 Nov. 2011. <http://quest.eb.com/media/
image.htm?mediaId=144_1525642>.

…they leave me feeling relieved, angered, joyful but, when it comes to the ending of an excellent series, it is bitter-sweet.  I know the story can’t go on forever but, when you’ve gotten to know the characters and fallen in love with their stories, it’s really difficult to say good-bye to favorites like Katniss and Gayle (The Hunger Games), Katsa and Po (Graceling), Gregor and Luxa (Gregor the Overlander), or, most recently, Deryn and Alek from Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan Trilogy.  However well (or, occasionally, frustrating) the author wraps up the story, I still hate to put them away.  Westerfeld’s steampunk (have I mentioned before how very much I love steampunk!!!) story starts out with a young girl and her dream to fly in the British Air Service.  Deryn Sharp was raised by her pilot father who died in a fiery crash while saving her life.  When her brother enlists in the service, they decide that she should disguise herself as a boy cousin of theirs and join up, as well.  Almost immediately, she makes a lasting impression on the crew and captain of Leviathan, a living breathing airship that looks much like a whale.  She is a Darwinist.  At the same time, Alek, a Clanker, is fighting his own battles.  His parents are murdered, bringing war to his home country, Austria-Hungary, and sending him into exile.  He is unprepared for his new life on the run but knows that he must survive if he is to return triumphant to his people.  Deryn and Alek are brought together when an accident threatens to destroy Leviathan and all who sail her.  The next book, Behemoth, takes the pair into battle in the Ottoman Empire, more Clanker technology and secrets that might just destroy their friendship.  Goliath brings revelation and strain to Deryn and Alek as they continue to fight to end the Great War.  In all three books, the histories are altered but many of the secondary characters and situations in which they find themselves are based in reality.  In Goliath, we meet Randolph Hearst, a conniving yellow journalist,  Poncho Villa, and Nicola Tesla, inventor and mad man.    As I read, I found myself going to the internet and looking up different people and events to see what the real story was! I do love how Westerfeld includes Author Notes where he explains the realities of his stories.  It’s almost as much fun to read as the rest of the book. So, while I’m sad that their stories are over, I bit a fond farewell to all of my favorite couples and hope “happily ever after” finds them all!!!

Have you ever wondered how mad scientists got to be mad? There’s Perecelcus, Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Faustus but the most famous mad scientist of all is Dr. Victor Frankenstein. Victor began life as a normal boy growing up in Victorian England with his twin, Konrad, two younger brothers and Elizabeth, a distant cousin taken in when her parents died. Konrad, Victor and Elizabeth are inseparable. One afternoon, completely by accident, they discover a secret passageway that lead to a mysterious and unused library. The books that are housed there none of the children have ever seen or heard of before and they wonder why the library was hidden away. Dr. Frankenstein, Sr. finds out about the discovery and forbids them from ever using the books again. The are all about the occult and alchemy, philosophies that have gotten people killed. The books are forgotten until the day that Konrad becomes desperately ill and none of the doctors seem to know what is wrong or how to treat him. Victor becomes obsessed with a tantalizing item he saw in one of the books. Something called “the elixir of life”. He makes several forays into the library to learn more but his search is cut short when the instructions for the elixir are in a language he does not recognize. It isn’t long before the cold trail heats up again and he stumbles upon Polidori, who seems to want to help. Elizabeth, Victor and friend Henry embark on a dangerous quest to gather all of the ingredients but is Polidori telling the everything? What are his true motives? What must Victor sacrifice to save his brother?

What an exciting and unique story! I’ve never felt much sympathy or empathy for Dr. Frankenstein. He was always just creepy. Oppel, however, casts him is a completely different light. He boy with feelings, passions, and foibles. The characters are interesting and the development of the conflict, while predictable, is scintillating. It’s also interesting the differences between the identical twins. One tends to assume that they are as similar in personality as they are in looks but Konrad and Victor definitely prove that assumption wrong. It’s a great historical novel but Oppel keeps the pages turning with taut suspense and thrilling action. It is obviously the start of a series and the ending leaves you knowing that there is much more to come.

The Secret Journeys of Jack London

Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have taken the adventurer Jack London’s life to a whole different plane!  We know much about his life and times but this book explores his youth.  Jack is 17-years-old as he boards a vessel with his elderly and ailing brother-in-law.  The two are heading for Alaska in search of all mighty GOLD!!!  Upon arrival, the two men stand at the foot of the Chilkoot Trail.  Shephard blanches, realizing that this trail, alone, will kill him.  Jack looks at it filled with awe and excitement.  Shephard turns back, leaving Jack to his adventure.  At once, Jack is a boy embarking on his first big adventure and a wizened man looking at the world with the knowledge that life isn’t always easy and is often filled with misfortune.  The  danger he finds is like nothing he could have imagined.  He is kidnapped by murderous, greedy men and forced to mine for gold.  He is attacked and nearly killed by a mysterious creature that feeds on humans. His savior ends up being another kind of captor from whom he must escape to survive.  Amidst all these pitfalls and snares, Jack holds onto his spirit and strength and they are the only things that will get him through the worse days in The Wild!

Christopher Golden is a prolific writer of adult and young adult fiction.  He writes in just about every genre…fantasy, historical fiction, murder mysteries.  His imagination is astounding and his research thorough, interesting and often frightening.  Tim Lebbon describes himself on his web site as a horror and dark fantasy author.  Put these two together to write a book and you have some wacked out stuff!  Just imagine all of the legends that swirl around the snows of Alaska, brought there by the many and varied peoples seeking adventure and gold.  Now, imagine them all coming to life in the pages of this book about one of the greatest adventurers of all time!  If you’re a fan of historical fiction, horror, adventure or Jack London, this is a must read!!!  And stay tuned…there’s more about Jack to come!