Frank, Lucy. The Homeschool Liberation League. 2009. 279 pages. ISBN 13: 978-0-8037-3230-8. This book is appropriate for grades 5 to 8, or ages 10 to 13, depending on reading level. (3 1/2 stars out of 4)

At some point in almost every middler’s life, he or she wants to be free. That freedom may revolve around parents who restrict their actions too much, schools or teachers who do not allow enough free thought or expression, or friends who do not allow enough individuality into their peer groups. Freedom is a fleeting and oversimplified concept to the young teen, as we adults know from our lifelong but often brief relationship with it. However, freedom is a powerful concept and goal, and it lights the path to our dreams as we imagine how we can get to do the things we want to do and avoid the things we do not want to do; i.e. how can I have English and Social Studies all day and not have to bother with those stinky math and science classes, because when I am an adult, I will not need them anyway (so I mistakenly thought all throughout school). But teachers know that all subjects are important, not necessarily for content, but for what the process teaches our brains, and frankly, 13-year-olds do not normally appreciate that type of long-term intellectual investment. Therefore, when I first started reading The Homeschool Liberation League by Lucy Frank, I was concerned for the main character, Katya, because I could see her mistake in thinking that freedom, and not learning, is the goal of education. We know that learning enables freedom, but Katya must learn her own lessons; fortunately, she does so both humorously and with some style.

On her way to her first day in eighth grade at Martin Van Buren Middle School, Kaitlyn Antonucci decides she cannot stay and goes home. Evidently, Kaity, who wants to be called Katya after her Russian camp counselor named her that last summer, has decided that she wants to be homeschooled. As Katya begins a journal as a method to justify her decision (Look! I did more writing on my own that I ever did at school; can’t I just stay home?), she ponders seventh grade in which she hid a lot of trouble from her parents: “I wondered if I dared put in something about my ‘bad attitude’ at school, my ‘acting out behavior.’ Explain how it was kind of hard to stop when so many kids liked me so much better that way. Admit that I was worried I’d get so good at acting dumb and stupid, it would no longer be an act” (14). Neither of Katya’s parents are college graduates, but they are receptive to her pleas and decide to go see the principal, Mr. Westenburg. Surprisingly, Mr. and Mrs. Antonucci start to understand Katya’s points, and they arrange to start homeschooling, with Katya helping at her mom’s salon in-between “classes.” Everything becomes complicated, however, when Katya’s mom gets serious about home schooling and Katya starts to feel the same restrictions she felt at Martin Van Buren Middle School. Additionally, life gets very interesting after Katya meets Milo, a sulky but very cute 14-year-old. Milo is also homeschooling but wants to return to school because of the rigors being a young, accomplished violinist with endless practicing and plenty of pressure/encouragement from his father. To explain her tenuous and often uncomfortable situation to her friends, Katya concocts a group to which she, Milo, and other homeschoolers now belong, the fictional Homeschool Liberation League. Through all of the problems and untruths Katya has woven around her life, she and Milo must find a way to pursue their dreams and be happy with their lives before they are separated from the things they love and forced to play by the rules that seemed to chain them to an unhappy life and bleak future.

I am always leery of a book in which the main character sulks and sulks until she finally gets what she wants, so it is refreshing when Katya must actually work for a living like the rest of us. Katya could have been an annoying, whiny character who is clever enough to fool the world, but that would have made her boring and predictable. Instead, she is a funny, resourceful, and occasionally curmudgeonly but charming young woman who is looking for herself but not seeing an appropriate model in any of the other archetypes at school or home. Katya lies often, but they are the kind of lies that the liar always thinks are more damaging than they are, and because she has a conscience, Katya always reminds us that she knows when she is wrong. Also, part of Katya’s charm is the way she ironically learns life’s lessons; i.e. her work with the elderly reminds her of her youth; meeting a boy helps her to meet herself but not lose herself; being forced to do uncomfortable things like work at Mom’s beauty shop helps her to see that comfort is not necessarily the goal, etc. I enjoyed The Homeschool Liberation League by Lucy Frank and I believe it is a great selection for the 5^th and 6^th grade crowd who like books with a humorous narrator like No Talking by Andrew Clements, Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis and Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko.

Gold, Maya. Cinderella Cleaners: Change of a Dress. Scholastic, 2010. 209 pages.

Cinderella Cleaners: Prep Cool. Scholastic, 2010. 155 pages (3 1/2 stars out of 4). These books are appropriate for grades 4 to 7, or ages 9 to 13, depending on reading level.

I don’t know about you, but I am surprised that reality television has lasted this long. I must sound like my great-grandparents in 1955 claiming that “damn noise” called rock and roll wouldn’t last the decade. The reality genre has spawned its own cottage industry of B-grade stars and personalities, feeding other shows like Dancing with the Stars, so it feeds on itself like the paradoxical snake that eats its own tail. The most disturbing contradiction about reality shows is that the whole point we watch them is to experience the plight of Everyperson, but the subjects of the shows become famous because of their exploits, thereby nullifying their Everyperson status. What I like most about the two books that begin the Cinderella Cleaners series by Maya Gold is that main character Diana Donato does not become famous when she is brushed with fame; she does not taunt when she has the opportunity to flaunt. She remains an Everyperson whatever happens, and when she makes mistakes, she understands why and rectifies them for the right reasons. The bottom line is that I like Diana, and I think readers will too.

The first book in the Cinderella Cleaners series, Change of a Dress, sets up the series. Eighth-grader Diana Donato and her best friend Jess Munson attend New Jersey’s Weehawkin Middle School. Diana is furious because she has to miss the school play when her stepmother Fay insists she get a job, but fortunately, her father owns a dry cleaners and she can work for him. The store has a cast of colorful minor characters who occasionally pop in and out of the story; I can imagine future books featuring one or more of them in more prominent roles. Diana’s two favorite things are Broadway and acting, and when she is going through a jacket at the cleaners and finds amazing tickets and cast party passes to the hottest show on Broadway, Angel, featuring new hottie Adam Kessler (imagine a cross between Nick Jonas and Robert Pattinson), she desperately wants to go, even if it means “borrowing” a customer’s dress under repair. Diana must decide how to get to New York without her parents’ knowledge, get fitted for the dress, and hope against hope that the owners of the dress and tickets do not show up to ruin her dream night.

In the shorter second Cinderella Cleaners novel, Prep Cool, friend Will (and maybe—just maybe—a secret crush for Diana) gets his first musical gig at an exclusive local prep school party. He invites Diana and Jess to the party even though everyone there thinks they own the place (and probably do), and our middle-class heroines are out of their league. Jess meets a guy and immediately falls for him, and she entrusts Diana with her bag and her prized cell phone. Trouble ensues when one of the local female fashionista bullies sees Jess with the boy she wants. Revenge knows no lows to the villainous Brooke, and although Jess risks some embarrassment, Diana may be dealing with the end of her relationship with her BFF because of her mistake.

I like the Cinderella Cleaners novels for a few reasons. The action is not outrageous, it is just outside of the realm of the ordinary, in that netherworld between the very possible and the utterly fantastic. I like the main characters, and although many of the minor characters are little more than stereotypes, they may be developed in future books. Ms. Gold uses simple but effective visual images like the Empire State Building at night or the hectic, fly-by culture of the cleaners to spruce up the action, and it is an effective method to increase the reader’s connection to the North Jersey and New York City characters and settings. Also, Diana realizes throughout the two novels that although her life has troubles; i.e. her stepmom isn’t perfect, she must navigate the beginning of interest in relationships, mean girls at school occasionally taunt, her boss at the cleaners can be a challenge, etc., she is better off in her middle-class life than in many other seemingly glamorous lives. Diana accepts and embraces who she is and does not dream of being someone else more pretty, or more wealthy, or more famous like this week’s morally deficient Jon & Kate. Diana is comfortable in her own skin, although she continually has to prove it like every middler. I believe Maya Gold has tapped into a winning formula with the Cinderella Cleaners series; after all, not everyone wants to be a vampire or a werewolf, right? Like the Candy Apple books, this series will be great for reading over a break or at the beach this summer.

Daneshvari, Gitty. School of Fear. Little, Brown & Co, 2009. 339 pages (2 stars out of 4)

There is something exciting about the release of a new Pixar film. I particularly like movies such as Toy Story, Ratatouille, and Finding Nemo because I know I am part of the target demographic, not just my kids. When Mr. Potato Head rearranges his face and shouts, “Look at me, I’m a Picasso,” the joke just flies right past my kids’ heads while I give a knowing chuckle. Beavis and Butthead may have been funny, but not to me. I was an outsider to the marketers’ intended audience; the characters were not versatile enough to appeal to teenagers and me. Unfortunately, School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari strikes me as more like our “heh-heh-heh” growling friends than like Ed Asner and that boy scout in Up: the novel’s predictable plot and spoiled, hackneyed characters do not resonate in my literary sensibilities. However, like many books reviewed here, that does not mean that your students will not like it.

Madeleine, Theo, Lulu, and Garrison are all super-wealthy kids with a problem: each possesses and clings to a paralyzing phobia. When each of the families are told, in great secrecy, about an exclusive, expensive, guaranteed school to cure their children, the parents are generally elated, but this school is unlike any other. When Madeleine Masterson’s parents are told about the fabled School of Fear, Maddie’s school counselor privately describes the most unusual school: “Mrs. Kleiner explained that School of Fear is an exceedingly exclusive program run by the elusive Mrs. Wellington; it is actually so select that few people are even aware of its existence . . . rigorous background checks are performed on both candidates and families. These background checks are so thorough that Mrs. Wellington often learns information that belies logic” (17). At first, Maddie’s fear of spiders and bugs, Lulu’s fear of closed spaces, Theo’s fear of mortality, and Garrison’s fear of water not only seemingly cripple the students, they also create conflict among them. However, to survive the school’s eccentric headmistress, her odd assistant Schmidty, and the mysterious Munchauser, the 12- and 13-year-olds must find a way to work together to conquer all of their fears and shared problems, not only their phobias.

I hesitate to criticize this book too harshly because I know that its target audience has not seen and read this story as often as I have. Students may appreciate the perceived peril of the characters, and they may feel the characters’ discomfort as they struggle through their problems. Also, the author cleverly lists the words for different phobias at the beginning of each chapter with a picture hinting at the new chapter’s action. However, I did not feel the desire to share the characters’ journey. The four young adults are spoiled brats until the end, and even then, three out of the four are not particularly likable. Of course, I do not have to like characters to appreciate them (I don’t like Steinbeck’s George, but I never question my appreciation for his sacrifice or Of Mice and Men’s greatness as a novel), but these characters are not developed enough to become important to me. Their pampered lives are never at stake (we know rich kids don’t die in today’s novels; think of the legal ramifications!) and their change is too formulaic. Maybe my students watch Karate Kid and are shocked by the ending, but I expected the crane kick all along. School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari is not poorly-written, just uninspiring. It may appeal to Lemony Snicket or Spiderwick fans, but I will not strongly recommend it to on-level sixth or seventh graders. This novel may be best used as a high-low selection for upper middle school or high school.

Johnson, Louanne. Muchacho. Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. 197 pages. ISBN 13: 978-0-375-86117-8. This book is appropriate for grades 8 and up, or ages 13 and up, depending on reading level. This novel contains potentially offensive language, but it is a good high-low selection for high school
(3 1/2 stars out of 4).

I am always looking for good books with Hispanic protagonists and voices, because they not only serve our Hispanic population in Pennsauken (over 35%), they also inform the rest of us about the challenges and issues of other folks. When I began Muchacho by Louanne Johnson, I could not help thinking about her previous book, My Posse Don’t Do Homework, adapted into the popular Michelle Pfeiffer film Dangerous Minds. I had some problems with stereotypes and portrayals in the movie, and I did not take it that seriously. I know that should not impact my reading of Ms. Johnson’s new novel, but I am not always as objective as I think I am. Therefore, I was greatly relieved that the students of Bright Horizons alternative school had the young, idealistic, wispy, white teacher fired by the end of October. This was not going to be another amazingly improbable saga of a smart and progressive white educator who enters the ghetto and changes the world. Instead, Muchacho is a sensitive and powerful portrait of one Hispanic-American teen and his efforts to discover his creative potential himself, not through a teacher’s lens.

Eddie Corazon feels trapped in his small life. Eddie is a secret reader, because high schoolers in his New Mexico, especially those at Rosablanca’s Bright Horizons alternative school, get attacked for being too smart, too tough, too weak, too much of anything T. J. Ritchie or the bullies think is outside of normal. Eddie is tough enough to survive, and he has his family to protect him and not leave him alone so the drug dealers can enlist him. However, Eddie knows that he is not achieving his potential in the alt school, and total failure is not an option; one year when Eddie forgets Mamí’s birthday he makes her a certificate that guarantees he will graduate from high school. Eddie is an honorable teen who understands what a man’s word means: “I thought about hiding it or tearing it up, but it wouldn’t get me out of the deal . . . It’s probably a good thing I wrote it down, though, because otherwise I might have dropped out of school one of those days when I felt like breaking all the windows just to make something interesting happen instead of all those dumb assignments and tests” (43). With an occasionally abusive father, cousins and friends always tempting Eddie with “easy money,” and low expectations at alt school, Eddie feels he is going nowhere fast until he takes a ballroom dancing class and meets Lupe. Lupe is not only beautiful, smart, and strong-willed, she is able to awaken Eddie’s secret desire: to be Eduardo, an intellectual who is able to unlock and unfetter his neighborhood’s shackles. However, stumbling blocks are numerous on Eddie’s road to becoming Eduardo, and he may not even get the opportunity to make the changes he so desperately seeks.

Eddie Corazon is an Everyman who I like from page one. He speaks in slang and colloquialism at the beginning of the novel, but by the end, his grammar and usage improves, a nice subtle touch by the author. Eddie is acutely aware of his circumstances and he is impossible to stereotype. Lupe sees Eddie for who he actually is, not the front he shows to the rest of the world, and as Eddie’s heart opens, mine does as well. Eddie’s journey to self-improvement is not all that different from most people’s journey. He wants what is best and he is willing to work for it. The moment Eddie is understood on his level, and not on some Anglo’s assessment of what his level looks like, he responds like any intelligent, eloquent young person should, with respect and curiosity. The reader is left with the definite impression that when the Anglos in Eddie’s world finally view him as a peer and not as an outsider looking in, he will be every bit as successful as them, if not more so because of his experience. Muchacho by Louanne Johnson is excellent realistic fiction and a fine example of a modern character study. Readers will like and relate to Eddie (and Lupe), regardless of their station in life.

Zielin, Lara. Donut Days. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009. 243 pages. ISBN 13: 978-0-399-25066-8. This book is appropriate for grades 5 and up, or ages 11 and up, depending on reading level. This is also a good high-low selection for upper grades (3 1/2 stars out of 4).

Librarians and Language Arts teachers who keep current with Young Adult literature like to think they can always make a recommendation from their library or classroom library shelves, regardless of the request. If a student wants a mystery like Nancy Drew but scarier, no problem. If a student wants a book about people who explore alternative lifestyles, no problem. If a student wants urban fiction or manga, no problem. If a student wants an African-American theme, a Hispanic-American theme, or an Asian-American theme, no problem. But debut author Lara Zielin’s new novel Donut Days raises an important question that I was not, before I read this book, prepared to answer: What if a student wants Christian fiction? Frankly, most of my students are Christian, and some of them are evangelical like many of the characters in Ms. Zielin’s novel. Their needs should be met, and if that means bringing in more novels like Ms. Zielin’s delightful offering, I am ready to buy.
Emma Goiner is a sixteen-year-old embroiled in the middle of a turmoil or two. Her parents, the pastors of Living Word Redeemer, a 300-member evangelical Christian congregation, have just split the worshippers over a controversial sermon delivered by Emma’s mom in which she argues that Adam (yes, that Adam) was a hermaphrodite. However, larger problems loom, because the church is in crisis over fundamental differences between the pastors and the church’s wealthiest and most influential patron. Meanwhile, Emma is having her own set of crises. First of all, the problem patron also happens to be the father of Jake, Emma’s best friend (or maybe more . . .). Secondly, Jake’s sister is stealing Emma’s BFF Natalie and Emma feels powerless to stop it. Finally, Emma is experiencing a crisis of faith prompted by a hollow baptism that was supposed to be inspirational: “I couldn’t feel anything. I wanted to reach out to him [her father, Pastor Goiner], to have him dunk me under again, because not one thing had happened when I was baptized. Not [speaking in] tongues, a vision, or even a warm-fuzzy close-to-God feeling” (15). The more she tries to feel the spirit of God, the more she is disappointed, and worst of all, she feels her lack of attachment to the tenets of the church is on display to her entire world. But whether she is ready for it or not, Emma must confront the contentious factions in her life and achieve some sort of order that works for her, even if that peace has a stiff price, like the loss of a friendship or even the loss of a home.
I like Donut Days by debut author Lara Zielin for several reasons. The plot moves reasonably well, in spurts rather than leading up to one overpowering climax, which is appropriate when the climax is not expected to have the impact of a courtroom drama decision. The novel is visually effective, so I feel that I can see the action at all times. Little pieces of imagery like the dark prints on Jake’s khaki pants that mean he has been rubbing them due to nerves are welcome characterizations. Also, the minor characters, most specifically Bear and the biker gang, are fun and unusual enough to add even more color to an already vivid landscape. Finally, I enjoyed this novel because it managed to do something completely new for me: it normalized an entire demographic, evangelical Christians. Ironically, through their foibles, they are revealed as just like everybody else, with the same hopes, desires, dreams, and limitations. I will look for more Christian fiction for my shelves, and I will add the fiction of other religions as I find it or as students request it. Not carrying those types of literature is as absurd in theory as not carrying The Chosen by Chaim Potok or Keeping Corner by Kashmira Sheth, both excellent novels about important American cultures, values, and mores. Donut Days by Lara Zielin is not a perfect novel, especially in the convenient manner in which Emma achieves some very powerful wisdom very quickly and handily, but in the compressed world of fiction, a first-time author can be forgiven a little lapse. Overall, this is a fine novel and a fascinating, if simplified, portrait of the evangelical community.

Brooks, Kevin. Dawn. Chicken House, 2009. 256 pages. ISBN 13: 978-0-545-06090-5. This book is intended for grades 8 and up, or ages 14 and up, depending on reading level. This book contains several examples of graphic language and situations. (3 1/2 stars out of 4).

I will admit that up until now, I had not read any Kevin Brooks. He leans toward the older side of what I teach (5-8), and his content is known to be mature. But his latest novel, Dawn, looked intriguing because when I searched it on the internet, I learned that in the UK (Brooks’ home), the novel is titled Killing God. I got hooked by the alternate title, and in fact, the protagonist does contemplate killing God. Fortunately for the reader, Dawn Bundy contemplates much more than that, and the richly woven narrative strikes to the heart of every teenager who has ever thought too much about stuff. Unfortunately, Dawn cannot focus on healing thoughts, only on darkness, symbolized in her tortured mind by a cave. This lyrical, moving, fresh novel is at times a psychological thriller, but it mostly serves as a portrait of the products of drug, alcohol, and sexual abuse, and the strength necessary to rise above those debilitating realities. Kevin Brooks lives up to his reputation both as a YA author who tackles tough issues and as a gifted writer and storyteller.

Dawn Bundy has just turned fifteen, and she has nothing to celebrate. She has no friends to speak of and claims she wants none. She has no hobbies except to listen to the alternative band The Jesus and Mary Chain, and since her Dad left two years ago, she has no company at home; Mom is a pill-popping alcoholic who lives in a haze: “Whisky and coffee is what she drinks. Whisky in black coffee. The whisky keeps her drunk, the coffee keeps her awake . . . And on top of that there’s the prescribed antidepressants, and the occasional joint, and the unprescribed sleeping pills . . . So it’s not really surprising that her eyes are kind of glazed most of the time” (37). Dawn wants to kill God because she feels He ruined her father. Dad has always been an addict and an alcoholic who lives on the edge, but when he is born again, he transforms into a stranger whom Dawn does not recognize: “It was almost as if he’d become some kind of born-again alcoholic. Like he’d found whatever he was looking for—he’d found his salvation—through drinking again, only now it was all mixed up with God, like some kind of abominable cocktail . . . it just seemed to suck all the Dadness out of him” (54-55). Although two girls have approached Dawn about doing more girlfriend activities and hanging out, Dawn resists. She lives mostly in her head, where she hides a terrible secret from her past that threatens to blow her apart.

This novel is not for the faint of heart middler, and graphic language and content abound. However, there are no graphic scenes of violence or sex; any episode of Law & Order SVU is far more disturbing than the concrete images in this novel. Dawn is a first-rate book by a talented writer. Mr. Brooks effectively weaves rock lyrics into Dawn’s already quirky narrative to produce an effective portrait of a troubled soul. He trots out the old English 101 trick of making lists to paint a picture, and Dawn’s lists are at once funny and tragic. Through keen characterization, due to her low self-image, Dawn only truly sees herself physically through others; this is particularly effective when she is with “friends” Taylor and Mel. Also, Mr. Brooks cleverly captures the existential mood of the characters by frequently having characters repeatedly ask each other, “Are you OK?” Although the song lyrics tend to be a bit pretentious (to me, probably not to a young teen) and the ending is not overly satisfying, neither issue detracts from what is an excellent effort. Dawn by Kevin Brooks is well-executed novel for older middlers who like to be disturbed while they are entertained.

Couloumbis, Audrey & Akila. War Games. Random House Children’s Books, 2009. 229 pages with Author’s Note. ISBN 13: 978-0-375-98302-5. This book is intended for grades 4 and up, or ages 9 and up, depending on reading level. (3 stars out of 4)

The older I get, the more I am convinced that all history is tainted. We all know that history is written by its winners, and I remember many instances in which I was taught clearly questionable history, such as the relationship between the Pilgrims and the Native Americans; the unfair treatment of all women, African-Americans, Jewish-Americans, and other oppressed groups; and the deity of Oprah Winfrey. However, Truth is not at stake here, and Audrey & Akila Couloumbis’s new novel War Games is not a good or bad novel because its truthiness is in question. As a memoir, this work is one historical perspective almost in isolation: the Nazi occupation of Greece and its effects on one Greek village. In the end, history becomes perspective, and its integrity rests with the people recording it. War Games is a poignant presentation of one village’s struggles with impending occupation. It is an effective portrait of the unfair forces that sometimes cause children to become adults before their time.

Petros may only be 12, but he is a responsible young man who speaks both English and Greek because his family once lived in America. Changing everyone’s lives, news comes that the German occupation is near, so to decrease their chances of being singled out by the Nazis, all traces of America must be purged from the family’s lives. When Petros complains to his mother that he wants to keep some unread books, she responds with a steely disposition: “‘I feel the same way about my Life magazines, but I burn them all the more quickly’” (48). When cousin Lambros goes off to fight and legends begin to sprout about his exploits, Petros and his older brother Zola want to join the resistance. It all seems like an intricate and adventurous game to the boys; the danger seems far away as long as the Nazis are not in their town. However, war zones change, and plans change with them; what once seemed like juvenile games can transform almost instantly into harsh and brutal reality with dangerous consequences for patriotic risk-takers.

War Games by Audrey & Akila Couloumbis is a fine memoir, and it will appeal to many fans of novels like The Boy Who Dared and The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg who like a little adventure and a little humor in their historical fiction. A little slow in the beginning, it builds into small but satisfying climaxes, like serialized installments of an action hero story or chapters of a Hardy Boys classic. However, I am not sure it is an effective novel. The portraits of home life and the boys’ small adventures are important to the overall theme, that outside forces sometimes end innocence prematurely. But the authors do not always provide enough visual detail of the characters, their village, or their enemies for me to become attached to them. I have trouble distinguishing the characters because I cannot see them; I have trouble following action around the setting because I do not adequately see it in my mind. I do not know what effect more imagery would have on War Games, but I would have liked to know. I will still recommend this book to students interested in war fiction, because they may not miss the sensory language as much as I do.

Wooding, Chris. Malice. Scholastic, 2009 (3 stars out of 4)

Horror has a safe haven in the imaginations of many of our middle-level students, and growing up on Fear Street and Cirque du Freak has poured the tinny but delicious taste of blood into many a young person’s mouth. Chris Wooding (Storm Thief, Poison) has earned a place as one of the new standard-bearers of horror/fantasy/sci-fi, and Malice is his latest effort to craft a dark, perilous, and exciting fantasy world. Using a hybrid novel/graphic novel format, Mr. Wooding creates an underworld complete with scary characters, life-threatening danger, larger-than-life enemies, and many mysteries to solve.

Malice is no ordinary comic book. The characters in the comic are disturbingly similar to real people who have disappeared, and English middlers Luke, Heather, Seth, and Kady get involved over their heads. There is a rumor that if a certain ritual is performed, the villain Tall Jake will appear and take the subject to Malice, a dreadful alternate world filled with killer machines and topsy-turvy reality. When Luke disappears after performing the ritual, leaving his cell phone in his room, Seth has trouble believing that the stories are actually true, but he knows something is amiss: “He snorted to himself in disgust. He was letting himself get spooked by the stories. He wouldn’t be surprised if Luke was winding him up on purpose, just for a laugh . . . But he would never have left his phone behind” (27). Something is indeed very wrong about Malice, Black Dice Comics where it is secretly sold, and the shady characters involved with the store. Answers must be provided to save lives, and there is only one way to find them: in Malice itself.

Mr. Wooding succeeds on many levels, but not all of them. Malice is a well-developed plot idea that is sometimes portrayed as scary, but it feels unintentionally campy as well. The characters seem a bit too successful and smug, joking through attacking machines and one violent encounter after another. The world itself is intriguing, with cleverly-designed sections and elements that all tie into each other using the skewed rules of dark fantasy; i.e. killer machines called Chitters eat time to live, and they steal it from the kids in Malice and store it in crystals. I also feel that the graphic portions of the novel are diminished by their small size and disjointed nature, but I believe that middlers growing up on manga and anime will not have a problem with the illustrations at all; in fact, they will think they are very cool. Mr. Wooding has created a series (the next book, Havoc, should appear next year) that will resonate well with its target demographic, but readers may be limited to specific fans of dark fantasy novels or comics like Sandman.

Collins, Suzanne. Catching Fire: The Second Book of The Hunger Games. Scholastic, 2009. 391 pages. ISBN 13: 978-0-439-02349-8. This book is intended for grades 6 and up, or ages 12 and up, depending on reading level.

So many of my students have asked when Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins would be released that I feel compelled to make this new novel, the second installment in The Hunger Games series, the first review of the new school year. As a sci-fi fan, I have been waiting as impatiently for Catching Fire to be released as my students have, and I am not disappointed. Ms. Collins delivers, as I had hoped she would, another rip-roaring dystopian novel about a future world that uncomfortably feels too much like ours. It may start just a bit slowly, but once it gets going, the ride is dizzying.

Katniss Everdeen, now 17 and finally able to relax after winning the 74^th Hunger Games, goes on a victory tour through Panem’s 12 districts with her faux fiancé, Peeta. However, Katniss soon realizes that all is not as it appears, and relaxation becomes the last thing on her mind. She stayed alive in the last Hunger Games by threatening suicide with poison berries, and that was viewed as an act of defiance by both the government (that hated it) and its citizens (who loved it). In a private meeting, President Snow reveals that there have been problems and potential uprisings in the districts, and he threatens Katniss with her best friend (and potential boyfriend) Gale’s death if she does not sell the government’s lies about her loving marriage to Peeta and her love of country to the people of Panem: “‘Only you’ll have to do even better if the uprisings are to be averted,’ he says. ‘This tour will be your only chance to turn things around’” (29). Katniss promises to do what she can, but she knows her future is in jeopardy. As things grow gradually worse in District 12 and news spreads of growing unrest throughout Panem, dread builds over this year’s 75^th Hunger Games, called a Quarter Quell because it falls on a 25-year multiple from the first Games. Quarter Quells are known for their difficulty and ruthlessness, and anything is possible.

It is clear that Ms. Collins has borrowed from many sources to create The Hunger Games series, and at times, I felt like if I tweaked a few things, I would be reading Haddix’s Shadow Children series instead. However, Ms. Collins successfully recreates the tension, suspense, intrigue, and adrenaline-pumping action of the first novel in Catching Fire, so the point becomes moot. Her series is original enough, and I cannot wait for the last installment. Her characters may not be brilliantly painted, but they are both memorable and likable; I especially enjoy the banter of Kat’s stylists, Cinna, Flavius, Venia, and Octavia; listening to their conversation makes me feel giddy like an eavesdropper under a salon hair dryer or in a gym locker room. Catching Fire arrives where most other YA novels have merely attempted to go, to that nebulous land where morality, humanity, and authority get melted in a crucible and truth emerges. It’s a scary and crowded place, but don’t worry: there’s always room for one more.

Gratz, Alan. The Brooklyn Nine: A Novel in Nine Innings. Dial Books, 2009 (4 stars out of 4!).

I have been a baseball fan for my entire life, and as a Phillies fan, I have suffered the pit of despair and the pinnacle of ecstasy, so I have developed an appreciation for the mythology of the game. After this year’s sudden passing of Harry Kalas, long-time Phillies broadcaster and the only voice of the Phillies I have ever known, I found myself remembering seeing games at old Connie Mack Stadium and Veterans Stadium with my father, working at Veterans Stadium in 1990 and seeing Terry Mulholland’s no-hitter, and the other baseball facts and memories that comprise each fan’s individual mythos. Alan Gratz has tapped into this rich vein of nostalgia with The Brooklyn Nine: A Novel in Nine Innings. Mr. Gratz has crafted a well-coordinated group of short stories revolving around two related families, and although each of the nine “innings” stands on its own (some stand better than others), together they present the history of baseball in all of its childlike, and occasionally soiled, splendor.

The nine stories begin and end with fire, and the starting year is 1845, when Felix Schneider, child of German immigrants, unwittingly becomes part of the New York Knickerbockers’ “three-out, all-out” game. Alexander Cartwright, acknowledged by many to be baseball’s founder, asks him to call a close play, but before he can marvel at his situation, he suddenly realizes that the Knickerbockers, also known as the New York Knickerbocker Volunteer Fire Fighting Brigade, have a bigger problem: “Felix didn’t answer. He was transfixed by something over Cartwright’s shoulder, a towering plume of smoke billowing up from the rooftops . . . Manhattan was on fire” (14).

About 50 years later, in 1894, Arnold Schneider learns a valuable lesson about stardom, fame, and the ugly side of sports. After being incessantly picked on by his peers because of his size and lack of athletic prowess, he accidentally wanders over to the vaudeville district, where he sneaks in to see his hero, baseball slugger King Kelly. Unfortunately, Kelly is at the end of his career and has deteriorated into a hopeless alcoholic. When Arnold arranges for Kelly to come to the playground and trade stories with the boys, Arnold’s star rises dramatically. However, Arnold knows it will not last, and that his success will have to be paid for: “Arnold knew he should have felt triumphant. He was a legend. He had brought King Kelly, the Ten-Thousand Dollar Beauty, to Pigtown. But how long would it last? How long before he was little “Arnie” again, picked last every game . . . When the excitement of King Kelly went away, what would be left?” (93). Kelly proves to be a disappointment, but Arnold has his moment, though it costs him more than he expects.

About 50 years after King Kelly, Kat Flint wants nothing more than to play baseball, and being a member of the Grand Rapids Chicks is a dream come true. Ironically, the only thing that can destroy her dream is the fulfillment of everybody else’s dream, that the war will end. She ashamedly confesses that once the men come home, she will not be satisfied when things return to “normal” for women: “‘I don’t—I don’t want the war to end. I want my dad back safe of course, but I wouldn’t be here, now, without the war. There wouldn’t even be a girls’ league. And my mom, she’s so smart, so good with numbers, but she only got a job as an engineer because all the men are off fighting’” (181).

Other distinctive “innings” feature a family who experiences anti-Semitism without even being Jewish, a girl who runs numbers under the watchful eye of her police officer father, and a boy who is trying to pitch a perfect game for his little league team. All of the stories feature Brooklyn prominently as setting or background, and the stories are presented in chronological order one generation at a time.

I will not beat around the Flatbush: I loved this book. I felt the history of America’s game coursing through my veins as I read each successive story and I laughed and cried with the colorful characters and situations as they illuminated our collective history from 1845 to the present. Cleverly, the book is written in nine sections (innings) with three chapter (outs) per section. Additionally, Mr. Gratz’s endnotes, in which he briefly discusses his research for the book, demonstrates an appropriate reverence for and devotion to baseball’s history that will appeal to fans of any age. This would be a great father and son or mother and daughter book. The Brooklyn Nine: A Novel in Nine Innings by Alan Gratz is a superior young adult sports novel that, like Gary Soto’s short baseball stories, not only presents real characters but also poignantly shows readers the best and worst that our country and its people can offer.

Boie, Kirsten. The Princess Plot. Chicken House/Scholastic, 2009 (3 1/2 out of 4 stars).

Stephenie Meyer reminded all of us about the value of archetypes in YA literature. Her portrayal of a vulnerable teenager rescued and empowered by a dark, mysterious stranger has rekindled a voracious and seemingly limitless (until the next fad comes along) fire of vampire and monster books so that even Darren Shan’s series (Cirque du Freak, Demonata) have gained renewed popularity after petering out in my libraries. German author Kirsten Boie, in her first English novel, The Princess Plot, combines three other common but related archetypes, the princess yarn, the damsel in distress fairy tale, and the surprise identity ironic tale, creating a very readable novel. Using familiar themes and structures, Ms. Boie weaves a fast-paced, easy-to-follow-but-not-insulting novel.

Jenna Greenwood is 14 and she feels like she is missing out on life because of her overbearing single parent mother, an etiquette teacher. Mom is mysterious about the family’s past, and when Jenna asks about her family tree, Mom gives her nothing and Jenna must make up her tree for a class assignment: “Jenna looked at the almost-empty sheet . . . Maybe it would be fun to invent a few names” (19). When Jenna and her BFF Bea go to a movie audition at a local bowling alley, it is the plain Jane Jenna, not her more attractive friends, who is courted, almost desperately, by the movie people. It is hard for her not to feel special: “She suddenly felt quite light-headed. She had been chosen—of all the girls, she was the one they wanted, and that was the only thing that mattered. When she accepts the offer for a screen test, she is told that she must travel far away to take it, and she knows her mother will object. When Mom shockingly agrees by text message (she had never even sent a text message before!), Jenna is overjoyed and agrees, despite a feeling in the back of her mind that everything is not exactly as it appears.

Meanwhile, in the northern country of Scandia, Princess Malena has run away and disguised herself as a boy, interfering with the plans of the shady regent, Malena’s Uncle Norlin, and his advisor Bolström. Now, to complete their repressive and unfair plot, Bolström, masquerading as the “director” of the “film,” reveals the actual role the unwitting Jenna will play: “His megawatt smile made Jenna feel uncomfortable all over again. ‘You have the chance, Jenna, the unique chance, to stand in for the princess tomorrow at a party. You will act as if you were the Princess of Scandia’” (87). There is a reason that Jenna looks almost identical to the princess, and the nefarious plot, to attack North Scandia, hinges upon Jenna’s performance. However, Malena has friends as well, and she is doing everything she can to prevent the culmination of the plan. Risking great personal danger, they must ultimately seek each other’s help to do the right thing and save Scandia and the lives of all of the people embroiled in this conflict.

I confess that when I first started reading this novel, I thought it was just another mistaken identity story, but before I knew it, I got sucked into the plot like a sponge in water. The story moves very fast, with the short sections and quick cuts that many young people like. The vocabulary level is very reasonable, but I did not feel demeaned, making this an excellent high-low selection. Although the plot was fairly predictable, its audience will not bring a metacognitive understanding and familiarity with these types of stories to the table, so readers will probably enjoy the satisfying, happy ending, even if they know it’s coming. The Princess Plot by Kirsten Boie is an exciting novel that has the potential to rivet readers in their seats, asking if they can read just one more section before bed. The heroes are brave and loyal, the villains are believable and nasty but not over-the-top, and Jenna discovers and learns to utilize her previously-hidden inner strength and positive self-image throughout the course of the tale, an aspiration we hold for all of our students.

I am going to change the structure of the column a bit for this review because I want to discuss three series by a new and exciting company: Orca Book Publishers. My students love Townsend Press’s excellent high-low (high interest, low reading level) Bluford High series, and while searching for high-low series similar to Bluford, I found Orca. According to Orca’s website, http://us.orcabook.com/, its books are targeted to reluctant readers in the childrens, middle school, and teen markets. The three series I purchased for my libraries, and that I cannot keep on the shelf, are: Orca Currents, books with contemporary themes, written expressly for middle-school students, ages 10-14, reading below grade level; Orca Soundings, contemporary fiction books targeted to teens ages 12 and up; and Orca Sports books, with exciting and fast-paced sports themes, targeted to ages 10 and up. The reading levels of all three series are 2.0 to 4.5, manageable for almost all readers 5th grade and up. All levels of readers are enjoying them at my two libraries, and the more I booktalk them, the more popular they become. Following are reviews from one of each of the three series mentioned above. All three books are recommended.
Brouwer, Sigmund. Scarlet Thunder.
Trenton Hiser wants nothing more than to be a film director, and at 17, he is getting a chance over the summer with his Uncle Mike, owner of a small film production studio. However, as he begins to work with Uncle Mike, he starts realizing that there is more to making a film than acting, shooting film, and editing. In fact, trouble erupts unexpectedly seemingly at every turn, beginning with some mice and an elephant that ruin a temperamental actor’s commercial: “That little episode had delayed the commercial three days . . . [The cost] had come out of Uncle Mike’s budget. He’d told me that his production company had actually lost money on the deal” (23). Trent is frustrated by the problems that keep popping up, but he is excited about their next project: filming the life of female race car driver Sandy Peterson. But that project is endangered by increasingly frequent production problems, and time is money for Uncle Mike; he stands to make a million if the film is on time, but he risks losing everything if he is late: “‘I agreed to the terms, because I need the bonus to get the next project I have in mind going. It’s one that could make my career as a director. I just never dreamed we would be late, so I figured it would be worth the risk’” (25). Trenton has big dreams, and they are riding on Uncle Mike’s success; Mike’s failure is Trenton’s missed opportunity. Together, they must figure out what or who is causing all of their problems and salvage the project before they are both ruined.
I enjoyed Scarlet Thunder by Sigmund Brouwer for several reasons: it was quick and easy to read, like a summer novel; it was exciting in the right way, because the action crept up on me until, before I knew it, I was totally engaged in the story; and it provided a lot of the background readers never see on television, enhancing the drama. Although I predicted the ending, I feel that the answers will be appropriately just out of reach of the target audience; if readers do figure it out, it can only increase their confidence and reduce their frustration levels, so they win either way. I am not a fan of stock car racing, but this Orca Sports selection drew me in like a popular movie novelization; it may not be the best writing in the world, but its audience will probably love it.

Denman, K. L. The Shade.
Safira Nelson used to love the water, but she spends part of her summer at swim camp and will not enter the pool. A frightening event eight months ago during a swim meet has made Safira scared of the water: “A lot can change in a moment. Especially if that moment was devastating. The sort of thing that yanks your identity” (4-5). However, Safira has bigger problems: on the eve of her sister’s wedding to a jerk that everyone (except sister Mya) dislikes, Safira sees a ghost that looks incredibly sad. Her best friend Trinity tries to help her discover, with a Ouija board, who the ghost is, but with no immediate answers, Safira grows more uncomfortable. Meanwhile, her sister Mya is making everyone miserable with her pre-wedding rants. When her fiancé Lino is rude to Safira and her friend again, Safira thinks she detects sadness in Mya’s demeanor: “Mya glances back at us, eyes narrowed, one side of her mouth pulled up into something that isn’t a smile. I can’t read her expression. It’s like she’s embarrassed, yet she’s daring us to notice” (28). As the wedding approaches, information about the ghost starts to appear, and there seems to be a connection between Mya and the ghost, who Trinity identifies as a shade, an image of the living, not the dead. Safira must put the pieces together, figure out how to prevent Mya from making a terrible mistake, understand why she has decided to never swim again, and have all of the answers before her sister says, “I do.”
Safira is a lot like many of the girls at my schools: she does not always understand how she feels or why she does what she does; she is uncertain about her past and her future; she has a kind, Gilda Joyce-like friend who pushes her to be more than she is, and she feels a bit jaded by the reality that she feels is stifling her growth. I like Safira, and I like her friend Trinity even more. Their personalities and relationship do not make The Shade by Canadian author K. L. Denman a perfect book, but they do make it an intriguing one. I think my students will appreciate the suspense of the story, and Safira’s voyage of self-discovery is the coming-of-age passion play that every middler experiences at some point in her young life. Also, Ms. Denman introduces some harmless occult and psychological elements, such as contacting the dead and realizing that water is the primary symbol of the unconscious, that appeal to our vampire-crazed readers. This is a fine short read for any middler.

Dekker, James C. Scum.
Megan Carter has been worried about her brother Daniel for some time, but she never imagined in her worst nightmares that the police would visit at 7:30 on a Friday morning with the most awful news imaginable: Daniel is dead. Detective Rossetti explains: “‘Danny was in a bar early this morning.’ It turns out he means three o’clock in the morning. ‘A couple of men came in and had words with him. One of them pulled out a gun and shot Danny. He died on the way to the hospital. I’m sorry’” (10). Dad and Megan seem to know of Danny’s indiscretions, but Mom seems to be shocked and shameful over the shooting, and those feelings leave her paralyzed: “My mother doesn’t go back to work. She doesn’t even get out of bed. My dad . . . makes her toast. He makes her sandwiches. He takes these things up to her on a tray and eventually carries them back down untouched” (25). No one at the bar will cooperate or say what they saw. There is a boy about Megan’s age named Titch who may be able to help, but whether or not the crime is solved, and regardless of the trouble Danny was in, the family must find a way to endure, even without total closure.
My students like these types of stories. Scum by James C. Dekker reminds me of an episode of CSI or Law & Order in which people try to solve a crime but also deal with the personal aspects of the situation; this story was heavy on the family survival aspect and light on the forensics, but both can be compelling. The plot moves reasonably quickly, and although the text is large and easy to read, the subject matter is not insulting to its audience; in fact, reluctant readers appreciate reading books about teenagers in trouble instead of reading 4th grade books simply because they match the students’ reading levels. The goal of this book, and other Orca books like it, is to encourage frustrated middlers and teens to read, and from my perspective, it is working. Teachers love the books as well, but the students will prove their value through a rapidly growing number of circulations. When I mentioned Scum to one of my students who has gotten hooked on Orca books, she said, “Oh, I just read that. I liked it. I think I read it in one day!” Any librarian who sees the light in a student’s eyes when she says she read her Orca book in one day cannot resist immediately calling his or her favorite vendor and making sure that, in September, there are plenty of Orca books on the shelf.

Burg, Ann E. All the Broken Pieces (3 stars out of 4)
I admit it: I am a poetry snob. I buy all of the new, level-appropriate poetry books for my libraries; I support and recommend poetry to the students who like it (and some who do not); and I teach poetry forms, concepts, sounds, and devices; however, I must confess that my real love is the DWGs (dead white guys) many of us learned about in school. Give me Milton, Pope, Wordsworth, Tennyson, and a forest to walk in, and I am a happy camper. However, young people do not have the same relationship and history with poetry that I do, and they will never have the opportunity to develop their tastes without exposure to more than Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky. Having enjoyed verse books like Virginia Euwer Wolff’s moving urban drama Make Lemonade and Marilyn Nelson’s insightful biography Carver: A Life in Poems, I decided to read All the Broken Pieces by new author Ann E. Burg. Employing straightforward free verse, Ms. Burg does a capable job in telling the story of a Vietnamese immigrant’s challenges in growing up in post-war, divided America.
It is the 1970s and the Vietnam War has ended. Matt Pin is one of the lucky children airlifted, by his biological mother’s request, out of the horror of war-torn Vietnam: “In choking mist / and wailing dust, / through sounds / of whirring helicopters / and open prayers, / I hear her. / You cannot stay here, / she says. / Here you will be like dust. / Bui Doi. / Dust of Life” (2). Matt is adopted by a loving American family, and although he is safe from the ravages of war, he harbors a tangle of feelings. He experiences guilt over leaving his mother and crippled brother, shame in having an American soldier (who abandoned his mother) he never met as a biological father, and fear that his American parents do not actually want him: “My parents say they love me . . . / But what about / my mother in Vietnam? / Didn’t she say / she loved me too? (67). When Matt tries out for the school baseball team, he encounters another roadblock, peer prejudice created by the bitterness and loss of an unpopular and deadly war: “When tryouts are over, / Rob Brennan bumps into me. / I fall into the bleachers. / When I stand up again, / he hisses into my ear, / My brother died / because of you” (48). Matt’s burden is overwhelming for an adolescent: he must come to terms with survivor’s guilt, find a way to accept two sets of parents separated by a gulf of fire and shame, and find a way to be an Asian-American boy and man at a time of high resentment against everything even remotely Vietnamese.
I will not pretend that All the Broken Pieces contains great poetry; Ann E. Burg is no Stephen Dunn or Billy Collins. She takes no risks; her poetry feels more like bulleted lists than innovative or distinctive lines, and those lines would be prose in another author’s hands who did not feel the need to break them into chunks and pretend they are poetic. I might even suggest that I would have enjoyed it more as a prose morality play like Sid Fleischman’s simply brilliant The Entertainer and the Dybbuk. However, she does not need to be brilliant to be effective, and her simple but poignant free verse, more potentially appealing to middlers than to English majors/teachers, is capable of moving and inspiring students to read and possibly write more poetry, and for that, she is to be commended. Although the characters lack concreteness and place (we never find out how old Matt is, where he lives, or background about everyone’s lives), they successfully make the author’s points about the tenuous relationship between prejudice and pain, guilt and remorse, and love and hate. The emotionally-charged images that Ms. Burg occasionally conjures evoke the alienation, fear, and insecurity every middler lives every day. In All the Broken Pieces, author Ann E. Burg invites readers to explore the issues surrounding a painful part of our collective history, and students who did not grow up with the Vietnam War as a backdrop to their lives will benefit from an initial exploration of the myriad ways the war affected America and Americans. I think my students will enjoy it, and like Mari Mancusi’s Gamer Girl, another book I did not like that much but that I heartily recommend to my students (even adding, because they are suckers for reverse psychology, that I did not like it), I will promote it. I just wish there was more for me in Ms. Burg’s spare poetry.