Yay for YA: Ordinary Beauty. Also, a memorial.

I feel like I shouldn't be titling this "Yay for YA."  Ordinary Beauty by Laura Wiess is a hard-hitting problem novel that really doesn't inspire a person to make a happy noise (except over the prose).  Furthermore, my reading of this novel was punctuated by a horribly sad tragedy within my family.  Just a few hours after my review of Hoot, my beloved companion of 16 years, Cleocatra (known to most as Cleo), passed away on my lap after a short battle with chronic renal failure.

She always loved Christmas.

Sometimes we read books at just the right times.  I had put down a biographical fiction about my cat's namesake's daughter (Cleopatra Selene, daughter of the famous Queen Cleopatra VII), Cleopatra's Moon by Vicky Alvear Shecter after the point in the book where the queen had died, and picked up Ordinary Beauty, a heart-rending tale about a neglected teenager facing the death of the drug-addicted mother who never wanted her.  In working my way through this novel in the final days before my cherished cat died and afterward during sleepless nights, it seems like life softened the blow of the story - while the story emphasized just how lucky we were.

I suppose I should get to the review.

Statistics
Checkouts: I'll probably donate it to the school library.
Typical reader: Mature teen girls

Synopsis: Sayre (pronounced "Say-er," much thanks to the author for answering my email to clarify that!) Bellavia was unplanned, unwanted, and unloved by her mother.  Now, on New Year's Eve, Sayre gets word that her mother is dying from the effects of all the years of drug abuse and alcoholism, and looks to see her one last time.  The journey is hard, both physically as she nearly gets hit by a car and then tries to rescue the driver when the car swerves off the road, and mentally as she looks back on all the memories of her 17 1/2 years of life.

My Goodreads rating: 4 stars

Like I said earlier, this is a hard-hitting problem novel.  It's hard to not get choked up over all the tragedy in Sayre's life.  Her mother never even tried to give her a good life, and preferred to just get high.  All the good in Sayre's childhood had to be colored by the drama and decadence her mother and her mother's friend Candy brought into it.  She lived with her grandma until she was eight and the grandmother passed away; her mother and Candy squandered everything that was left until the house foreclosed.  After Candy's family farm was raided for its meth lab and the women went into rehab, Sayre enjoyed life with a foster family - then, after she was reunited with a sober mother, the foster mother was murdered.  The happiest time of their lives was when the mother met someone wonderful, a man Sayre had met in foster care, and moved in with him.  Even that had to end in the most horrible way possible.

The prose is solid, and the delivery is never preachy.  This novel would make a good book club or class discussion topic, with all its social and familial problems.  Sayre's mother was a pregnant teenager and high school dropout, a meth addict, an alcoholic, and an abusive/neglectful parent.  Candy dated a sex offender who violated parole by living under the same roof as Sayre, came after Sayre with a hammer when she saw the girl with her boyfriend, was a constant bad influence on Sayre's mother, and left Sayre and the injured driver of the crashed vehicle out in the cold, dark night in the middle of nowhere.  After Sayre walked out on her mother shortly before the start of the story, she was living with a convicted murderer.

Is all that starting to sound a bit unreal?  In Ordinary Beauty, it never felt that way.  Everything came across as believable.  It's a story that some girl like Sayre could well be living out, somewhere in the real world.  Also, for all the thorns that we can easily dwell upon in this tale, there are quite a few roses.  As much as her life was overshadowed by her terrible mother, Sayre did have good people in her life, and good experiences that helped shape her into a decent young woman.

Reading what the students read: Hoot

It's been a while since I did a "Reading what the students read" column.  There have just been too many eye-catching new books available!  But here is my review of Hoot by Carl Hiaasen.

Statistics
Checkouts: 11 between two copies
Checkouts for Hoot/Flush/Scat: 42*
Typical reader: Upper elementary, both genders

Synopsis: Mother Paula's All-American Pancake House is coming to Coconut Cove, Florida.  But someone has been pulling up the stakes, putting alligators in the portable toilets, and committing other acts of vandalism.  Meanwhile, newcomer Roy Eberhardt, a middle school student, notices a barefoot boy running through town and takes interest.

My Goodreads rating: 4 stars

I'll be honest.  Carl Hiaasen is known for being a very funny mystery writer, and his children's books are supposed to be just as humorous.  This book just didn't hit my funny bone, though.  The kids love these books however, so it's probably just my sense of humor that didn't connect.

That said, this is a very engaging read.  It reminded me of my all-time favorite book from my childhood, Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli, in both the adventures the characters have and in the social commentary.  There are two excellent reasons to read this book: the outstanding characters and the plot.

Roy is one of the best characters I've read this summer.  He's got a lot of spunk, and stands up for himself and his beliefs.  He takes on a bully, stands up to an intimidating soccer star and then befriends her, and questions the legality of a corporation's actions.  Supporting characters such as Officer David Delinko, Beatrice Leep, and Beatrice's stepbrother "Mullet Fingers" (so nicknamed for his fishing abilities) are sympathetic and well-written.  "Mullet Fingers" contributes to the Maniac Magee air, running everywhere and living as a vagabond, doing what he feels is right.

What he feels is right is protecting the burrowing owls that live in the lot where the pancake house is scheduled to be built.  He is willing to do that through any means necessary.  Can he and the others somehow save the owls' habitat?  Or will the cute little birds be buried by the bulldozers?  These are awesome plot hooks for budding environmentalists and animal-lovers, as well as readers who like kids that take initiative to change their world.


*: The author's book Scat has the most checkouts of the three books, but I'd picked up this one since I thought the books were part of a series.  They are not.  You can read any of them without any knowledge of the others.  Whoops.

It's Elementary: Zombie Winter review

Yesterday was the first library day of the new school year.  Wow, was it busy!  There were scheduling mishaps, library etiquette to teach, shelves to straighten throughout the day, and a Scholastic order to catalog and shelve.  What happens on the shelf with R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series is usually a good indicator of my day, and at one point, it was a complete mess, with the series going every which way and partially in a heap.  Yup, the new 2nd graders were excited to be able to check those previously taboo (by teacher ruling) spooky books that have remained popular since my youth.

A new book is also on that shelf as of yesterday.  I read it before the big day, and now that I have some breathing room, here's my review!  This is Zombie Winter, by Jason Strange.

Statistics
Checkouts: New to the library, courtesy of the Superiorland Preview Center
Typical reader: Elementary students who also like Goosebumps

Synopsis: Kane goes to school one winter's day, and ends up being the sole human in a zombie-infested town.

My Goodreads rating: 4 stars

I was never a reader of scary stories as a child.  I can recognize their lasting popularity, though, and not just by how messy the shelf with all the Goosebumps novels is by the end of a library day.  Kids like things that spook them.  This is such a book.  It's a quick read, aimed at children aged 8-11.  The sentences are simple, and the plot is pretty easy to follow.  It's a chapter book with illustrations scattered throughout; the artist behind these did a good, realistic job.

I enjoyed it for its different zombie background.  These zombies were chocolate zombies, of all things!  Kane is allergic to chocolate and doesn't partake of the lunch lady's hot cocoa, unlike the rest of his friends and classmates.  This saves him from becoming a mind-controlled zombie, and the burden of curing the town falls on his shoulders.  The zombies were not undead, but more along the classic Haitian voodoo zombies - alive but under a spell that saps their free will.  I liked that.

No-nonsense Nonfiction: "Unexplained Phenomena" reviews

Selecting nonfiction for a school library takes a critical eye.  However, I want to gush about the two books I read from the Unexplained Phenomena series by Capstone Press!  These books are pretty much the epitome of what I like to see in a nonfiction children's book.


Statistics
Checkouts: new to the library, courtesy of the Superiorland Preview Center
Typical reader: Middle- to upper-elementary students are going to really enjoy these.
Do the Dewey: 001.942 for Aliens, 398.24 for Legendary Beasts

My Goodreads ratings: 5 for both

As I said, I am very impressed with this series.  The layout for both books is outstanding.  The presentation of information and depth of coverage are fantastic.  There are glossaries as well as in-text definitions of world kids may not understand.  These are age-appropriate books, and can also be "high interest/low level" that will intrigue older students who do best with books that are written for a lower grade level than their own.

Searching for Aliens, UFOs, and Men in Black covers its topics through history, starting with things ancient people saw in the sky and continuing through the United States government's investigations of aliens and UFOs.  It provides rational explanations for sightings when possible, while still allowing readers to believe in the possibility of lifeforms from other planets.

From Wikipedia: an okapi

Tracking Sea Monsters, Bigfoot, and Other Legendary Beasts is more broad in scope, highlighting many well-known and some less familiar cryptids.  The creatures are grouped by where they are found - on land, in the sea, and in the air.  Height or length and features are provided, as well as what is known and speculated about each beast.  It also talks about the kraken, which was proven to be more or less real in the 1870s with the discovery of giant squid, and the okapi, which was initially believed by European explorers to be a myth like the classic unicorn but was proven to be an actual animal.

This series is well-rounded, informative, and highly interesting.  I'm sure that these books will be very popular.  If you're looking for a good paranormal/unsolved phenomena set for a library or a child in your life that loves this stuff, this set (four volumes total - I want the other two!) is an excellent choice.

Yay for YA: Want to Go Private?

I had heard about Want to Go Private? from another blog, YA Librarian Tales, which also hosted an interview with the author, Sarah Darer Littman.  The topic struck me as horrible, and the book as a must-read.  Statistics and data might not dissuade teens from chatting with strangers online and potentially becoming victims of internet predators, but maybe a novel written for them will.  When I found a copy of this at the preview center, I pounced.

Statistics
Checkouts: New to the library, but already on hold before the school year starts!
Typical reader: Hopefully teens, but nearly every teacher I've mentioned this book to wants to read it

Synopsis: Abby Johnston dreads starting high school.  Then she meets a nice older guy online named Luke, who shares her interests and understands her problems.  As time passes, he wins her trust and they start doing things via webcam she wouldn't dream of doing with a boy she could really meet.  Her grades start to fall, her parents get mad, and Luke suggests that she run away with him for a few days.  She ditches school the next day and gets into his car.

My Goodreads rating: 4 stars

This has to be one of the toughest books I've read in a long time.  There are parts where I just had to put the book down because of how horrible the topic is, and how despicable the actions of Luke are.  Nothing is too graphically spelled out, but that doesn't make it any easier.  Ms. Littman has done a very good job with this, though.  She's obviously done her research into what exactly internet predators do to "groom" their victims into a false sense of security and love, and the legal systems in place to deal with these perpetrators when things go bad.

Abby is an amazing character, who might be incredibly book-smart but is only 14 and lacks the emotional maturity to know that she's being manipulated by this predator pretending to be her perfect friend.  In parts 2 and 3 of the novel, where the narration is picked up by Abby's friends and little sister while she's missing, we get some well-rounded characters in Faith, the best-friend, and Billy, the boy Abby dated once.  They are so torn between their concern and compassion for Abby and dealing with not knowing why she got in the car, what their classmates are saying, and in the case of Billy, coping with the fact that his parents and the police seem to think that he did something to her.  Billy is easily the most sympathetic character in the novel.  He's such a sweet boy, who likes/likes Abby in spite of her actions, and stands up for her against her classmates.  On the flip side, the little sister, Lily, is too immature to be a believable seventh-grader.  She's just so bratty and childish.

I think there's a lot of hope surrounding this book.  While definitely a cautionary tale, there's certainly hope within the story and within the characters.  In the aforementioned interview, the author said that she hopes teenagers gain an understanding - that they're not alone or isolated, and how something like this could happen.  Teachers, librarians, and parents are likely going to hope that this book opens teens' eyes to the issue and how it could easily happen to them.

One neat touch in the marketing of this book is that the site Abby meets Luke on, http://www.chezteen.com, is a real site - one promoting the book as well as providing information on internet predators and how to prevent teens from becoming victims.

Yay for YA: Z by Michael Thomas Ford

Ever read a book, get to the end, and instantly want to know if there's a sequel?  That's how I felt about Z by Michael Thomas Ford.

Statistics
Checkouts: Not owned by the library
Typical reader: Zombie-apocalypse fans and gamers

Synopsis: Before Josh was born, humanity faced a zombie epidemic.  Now, zombies are the stuff of history lessons, and virtual-reality hunting games.  Josh is an excellent player as a "Torcher," fighting against the "z" with a flamethrower in the holographic world.  One day, he gets a message inviting him to meet Charlie, an even higher-ranked player, and become part of an underground live-action zombie-hunting game.

My Goodreads rating: 5 stars

"OMG!  Is there a sequel?!" were my thoughts as I finished the last sentence of the last page of this novel.  As with the previous zombie novel I reviewed, Rot & Ruin, I read this as fast as life allowed.  This post-apocalyptic tale really held my interest.

The plot is good, with plenty of complexity and a healthy dose of "not all is as it seems."  The action will capture the interest of teen boys, gamers, zombie-apocalypse fans.  And there's plenty of it throughout this book!  The gory descriptions will also tantalize those that like zombies for their grotesqueness.

The main characters, Josh and Charlie, are interesting and believable.  Josh has plenty of drama in his family and social lives, and much of it is stuff teens can relate to.  The pacing of his realizations about the "meatbags" he's fighting in both the VR and live-action games is excellent and realistic.  Maybe you can figure out what all is going on before he does, but the narrative offers an intriguing ride as he gets a clue.

The explanation of the zombie outbreak was something I found to be different and worth pondering.  A flu virus mutation altered the composition of the brains of its victims, rendering them into something akin to primitive beasts running on pure instinct.  It's a diversion from the pop-culture undead zombie motif.  There is a slight plot hole between the eradication via vaccine explanation, and the fact that (minor spoiler alert!) zombies show up later in the book.  On the other hand, A) the virus could have mutated again, and B) in our own real world smallpox still exists in laboratories and could feasibly be spread again.  (Or maybe there was an explanation and my brain is omitting it while I write this review.  Ha.)

The title of this book stands for two elements of the story: lowercase "z" is the slang for the zombies themselves, while uppercase "Z" is a recreational drug some of the gamers use to feel like they're one of the monsters.  The use of Z gave me some pause, especially as it is not shown to have lasting negative effects or consequences, but there are plenty of other YA books that have drugs in them.  Just take that into account if you're thinking about this for the teenager or school library in your life.

Guilty Pleasure: A Review of The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle

Patrick Rothfuss was in the area this weekend, doing an interview, reading and book signing hosted by the wonderful indie bookstore Snowbound Books.  My boyfriend has a copy of his first book and got it signed; I tagged along for the heck of it.  I'm glad I did!  The reading was of The Adventure of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle, a picture book that is -not- for children.  This book deserves to be highlighted as a "guilty pleasure," because I sure can't justify getting it for a school library collection!

Statistics
Checkouts: This isn't appropriate for a school library!
Typical reader: Unsupervised children

Synopsis: The Princess lives in a marzipan castle with her stuffed bear companion, Mr. Whiffle.  They have adventures, and the story has three endings.

My Goodreads rating: 4 stars

Oh my, what a book!  The story to the first ending would be appropriate for children.  The second is kind of creepy.  And the third ... well, it's quite the shock!  I heard Mr. Rothfuss read it, I saw it on the pages with the pictures to accompany the words, and I looked between the man and the book several times in disbelief.  It could not sink in for a while.  But if you read through the book again and look more carefully at the pictures, you'll find that the outcome was foreshadowed.

To have seen this in the presence of the genius behind this, and to have heard him read this book, was a real treat.  But woe onto the parent who doesn't notice the warning on the book.  Your child will probably have nightmares from this one.