Mockingbird

It isn't very often that I read a book that actually makes me cry. Mockingbird had me crying on several different occasions. The story's narrator is a young girl named Caitlin, who as Asperger's syndrome. When her brother is killed in a school shooting she is trying to make sense of her world, and to find closure. The book begins after the shooting, but the characters pain is still very fresh. This is beautifully written, and it is not at all surprising that it won this year's National Book Award. Check it out!

From School Library Journal
From inside Caitlin's head, readers see the very personal aftermath of a middle school shooting that took the life of the older brother she adored. Caitlin is a bright fifth grader and a gifted artist. She also has Asperger's syndrome, and her brother, Devon, was the one who helped her interpret the world. Now she has only her father, a widower who is grieving anew and whose ability to relate to his daughter is limited. A compassionate school counselor works with her, trying to teach her the social skills that are so difficult for her. Through her own efforts and her therapy sessions, she begins to come to terms with her loss and makes her first, tentative steps toward friendship.

One Crazy Summer

With summer coming we all are starting to make plans for how we will spend our time. In the summer of 1968 Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern travel from Brooklyn to Oakland, CA to spend time with the mother that abandoned them and their father 7 years earlier. This book vividly portrays the racial tension that was rampant in the county during the 1960's. The language used it true to the time, and the girls distress over not really knowing their mother is palpable. This is book is so well written and, even though it is set in the 60's, the over arching themes are still relevant today. Come check out this great book!

From School Library Journal:
It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is living in Oakland. It's the summer after Black Panther founder Huey Newton was jailed and member Bobby Hutton was gunned down trying to surrender to the Oakland police, and there are men in berets shouting "Black Power" on the news. Delphine, 11, remembers her mother, but after years of separation she's more apt to believe what her grandmother has said about her, that Cecile is a selfish, crazy woman who sleeps on the street. At least Cecile lives in a real house, but she reacts to her daughters' arrival without warmth or even curiosity. Instead, she sends the girls to eat breakfast at a center run by the Black Panther Party and tells them to stay out as long as they can so that she can work on her poetry. Over the course of the next four weeks, Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a lot of time learning about revolution and staying out of their mother's way. Emotionally challenging and beautifully written, this book immerses readers in a time and place and raises difficult questions of cultural and ethnic identity and personal responsibility. With memorable characters (all three girls have engaging, strong voices) and a powerful story, this is a book well worth reading and rereading.

Heart of a Samurai

It has been such a long time since my last post. I have been doing lots of reading, and I have many new reviews to publish, but today I would like to start with the best book I have read in a long time. Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus is a 2011 Newbery Honor book. I was inspired to read it by recent events in Japan. This novel is based on the true story of Manjiro, a Japanese fisherman that was rescued following a shipwreck in 1841 by American whalers. The events that follow are truly amazing, and knowing that they all really did happen just makes them more incredible. Manjiro, later known to the American whaling crew as John Mung, is portrayed beautifully, and the descriptions of whaling in the 1800 are historically accurate, and horrifying to our 21 century minds. See below for a full summary, and come to the library to check it out!

From School Library Journal:A Japanese teenager living in the mid-19th century bridges two worlds in this stunning debut novel based on true events. Manjiro and his fellow fishermen find refuge on a remote island after a storm destroys their ship. When they are rescued by an American whaleboat captain and given the chance to return home with him, Manjiro accepts the offer. His encounters with a land that he has been taught is barbaric and his subsequent efforts to return to Japan shape him into an admirable character. Preus places readers in the young man's shoes, whether he is on a ship or in a Japanese prison. Her deftness in writing is evident in two poignant scenes, one in which Manjiro realizes the similarities between the Japanese and the Americans and the other when he reunites with his Japanese family. A sailor named Jolly and an American teen express the racism he experiences in America. Both of these characters gain sympathy from readers as their backgrounds are revealed, and as one of them comes to respect Manjiro. The truths he learns about himself and his fellow men and women are beautifully articulated. Manjiro's own drawings are well placed throughout the narrative and appropriately captioned. Preus includes extensive historical notes and a bibliography for those who want to know more about the man and the world in which he lived.

Lockdown

It has been a busy time around here, so it has been a while since my last entry. Walter Dean Myers loves to write about the experiences of inner city youth, and the challenges they face. In the book Lockdown he looks closely at the life of Reese during the time he is in a juvenile detention facility. Reese's comes from a bad neighborhood and a bad family situation, and during his time at the Progress facility he is forced to look at his life and make some serious decisions about its direction. With the guidance of prison officials and a friend he makes while working at a nursing home, his work release position, Reese's life is forever changed. I wasn't sure if I was going to like this story, but I was totally drawn in by the authentic voices of all the characters in the book. Take the time to check this one out!

From Booklist

Myers takes readers inside the walls of a juvenile corrections facility in this gritty novel. Fourteen-year-old Reese is in the second year of his sentence for stealing prescription pads and selling them to a neighborhood dealer. He fears that his life is headed in a direction that will inevitably lead him “upstate,” to the kind of prison you don’t leave. His determination to claw his way out of the downward spiral is tested when he stands up to defend a weaker boy, and the resulting recriminations only seem to reinforce the impossibility of escaping a hopeless future. Reese’s first-person narration rings with authenticity as he confronts the limits of his ability to describe his feelings, struggling to maintain faith in himself; Myers’ storytelling skills ensure that the messages he offers are never heavy-handed. The question of how to escape the cycle of violence and crime plaguing inner-city youth is treated with a resolution that suggests hope, but doesn’t guarantee it. A thoughtful book that could resonate with teens on a dangerous path. Grades 7-10. --Ian Chipman

Turtle in Paradise

Set in Key West in 1935, Turtle in Paradise is an interesting look at life during the Depression. Turtle, the main character in the story, lives in New Jersey with her single mother, and is sent to live with relatives in Key West when her mother finds work as a housekeeper for a woman that "can't abide by children." Filled with colorful characters and interesting adventures, I highly recommend this book for those interested in historical fiction. Even Earnest Hemingway makes a short appearance in the story!

From Booklist:

Eleven-year-old Turtle is not one to suffer fools gladly. And she runs into a lot of fools, especially the no-goods her starry-eyed mother meets. So it's a tough little Turtle who arrives in Key West in June of 1935. She's been sent to Florida to stay with relatives because her mother's latest housekeeping job doesn't allow children. Unfortunately, Mama has neglected to tell Aunt Minnie she's coming, and Turtle gets the stink eye from cousins with monikers like Buddy and Beans. As Turtle soon learns, everything is different in Key West, from the fruit hanging on trees to the scorpions in nightgowns to the ways kids earn money. She can't be part of her cousins' Diaper Gang (no girls allowed), which takes care of fussy babies, but when she finds a treasure map, she hopes she'll be on Easy Street like Little Orphan Annie. Holm uses family stories as the basis for this tale, part romp, part steely-eyed look at the Depression era.

And the winner is...

It has been such a long time since my last entry, and I apologize for the delay! The American Library Association just announced this year's list of award winning books. Most of you are familiar with the Caldecott and Newbery Medals, but they also give out the Printz Award for great young adult fiction, Coretta Scott King Award to excellent African American authors. Here are my suggestions of great books that have received awards this year:

Moon Over Manifest
Winner of the Newbery Medal
After a life of riding the rails with her father, 12-year-old Abilene can’t understand why he has sent her away to stay with Pastor Shady Howard in Manifest, Missouri, a town he left years earlier; but over the summer she pieces together his story. In 1936, Manifest is a town worn down by sadness, drought, and the Depression, but it is more welcoming to newcomers than it was in 1918, when it was a conglomeration of coal-mining immigrants who were kept apart by habit, company practice, and prejudice. Abilene quickly finds friends and uncovers a local mystery. Their summerlong “spy hunt” reveals deep-seated secrets and helps restore residents’ faith in the bright future once promised on the town’s sign. Abilene’s first-person narrative is intertwined with newspaper columns from 1917 to 1918 and stories told by a diviner, Miss Sadie, while letters home from a soldier fighting in WWI add yet another narrative layer. Vanderpool weaves humor and sorrow into a complex tale involving murders, orphans, bootlegging, and a mother in hiding. With believable dialogue, vocabulary and imagery appropriate to time and place, and well-developed characters, this rich and rewarding first novel is “like sucking on a butterscotch. Smooth and sweet.” --From Booklist

Ship Breaker
Winner of the Printz Award
A fast-paced postapocalyptic adventure set on the American Gulf Coast. Nailer works light crew; his dirty, dangerous job is to crawl deep into the wrecks of the ancient oil tankers that line the beach, scavenging copper wire and turning it over to his crew boss. After a brutal hurricane passes over, Nailer and his friend Pima stumble upon the wreck of a luxurious clipper ship. It's filled with valuable goods-a "Lucky Strike" that could make them rich, if only they can find a safe way to cash it in. Amid the wreckage, a girl barely clings to life. If they help her, she tells them, she can show them a world of privilege that they have never known. But can they trust her? --From School Library Journal

One Crazy Summer
Winner of the Coretta Scott King Book Award
It is 1968, and three black sisters from Brooklyn have been put on a California-bound plane by their father to spend a month with their mother, a poet who ran off years before and is living in Oakland. It's the summer after Black Panther founder Huey Newton was jailed and member Bobby Hutton was gunned down trying to surrender to the Oakland police, and there are men in berets shouting "Black Power" on the news. Delphine, 11, remembers her mother, but after years of separation she's more apt to believe what her grandmother has said about her, that Cecile is a selfish, crazy woman who sleeps on the street. At least Cecile lives in a real house, but she reacts to her daughters' arrival without warmth or even curiosity. Instead, she sends the girls to eat breakfast at a center run by the Black Panther Party and tells them to stay out as long as they can so that she can work on her poetry. Over the course of the next four weeks, Delphine and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, spend a lot of time learning about revolution and staying out of their mother's way. --From School Library Journal

Forge

This book was a total surprise for me. I didn't even know there was going to be a sequel to Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains, so when I saw this in a book store over the Thanksgiving holiday, I bought it right away. Some of you read Chains after reading my blog entry about it in May. Forge doesn't disappoint. You can read this book as a stand alone, but I would recommend reading Chains first. Isabel, our heroine is one of the most memorable book characters of all time, and Forge continues her story. I would highly recommend this book for all those who love historical fiction, and early American history.

From School Library Journal
Gr 6-10–This sequel to Chains (S & S, 2008) opens with Curzon, an enslaved teen who was freed from prison by Isabel, recalling his escape and anticipating the future. After an argument with Isabel about where they should go next, the 15-year-old battles the British at Saratoga and winters in Valley Forge with the Patriots. He reveals many details of the conditions endured by the soldiers during the winter of 1777-1778, including the limited food supply, lack of adequate shelter, and tattered clothing. When Curzon and Isabel meet again, they have both been captured and must devise a plan of escape once again. While the Patriots are fighting for the freedom of a country, these young people must fight for their personal freedom. This sequel can be read alone but readers will benefit from reading the first book, which develops the characters and reveals events leading up to the winter at Valley Forge.