Book Buzz

CHRIS RUTCHER

Concept: 18 year old boy is given less than a year to live. Does he spend it puking sick taking chemo and radiation? Not Ben Wolf. He threatened his doctor with legal action if he broke confidentiality. Ben is 18 and in the last year of high school.  He wants to go out in a blaze of glory. He joined the foot ball team that his younger but bigger brother quarterbacks. And does score some winning touchdowns. The first person he tells is the coach a family friend. The book reaches far beyond the main theme into the need for  education reform, sexual abuse of children from the point of view of an abuser as well as a young person who was abused, racism and more.

DEADLINES raises many questions. Well worth the read for youth and adults. Great start for discussions.

PATRICK NESS

The New World is a harsh and dangerous place. We don’t know why people left the old world but the first settlers were religious people seeking a simple life. They came to create a utopian society but what they formed if far from perfect. On the New World men’s thoughts are open and broadcast for all to see. They call it Noise. But women’s thoughts are quiet. It makes for interesting and bizarre sexual politics.

“The first thing you find out when your dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say ” is the first sentence. Highly engaging. The narrator comes from an isolated town where there is no women. They all perished in a plague. He  is the youngest in the community, soon to become an adult. But his “parents” tell him he has to flee days before his adulthood.  They can’t tell him why because then his noise would draw too much attention.

KNIFE is an excellent book; it’s a page turner. But is does have a couple of drawbacks. Length: it did not have to be 500 pages. Ending: books need a definitive ending rather than setting up for the next book in the series.

SUZANNE COLLINS

Arresting concept: the youth of the nation pitted against the youth of the nation for public entertainment. Each year a male and female youth are chosen from each district. A complex draft chooses the contestants. At age ten each name goes into the draw; each year after the name goes in draft an additional time. Eleven twice, twelve three times, thirteen three times.  All names are kept in the draw year after year. When the kids have been chosen, they get a bit of training and then are throwen into an arena for a fight until death, for the amusement and control of the masses.

A good book but at 350 pages it needed serious editing. Unfortunately  GAMES does not come to a complete finality. It sets the scene for a sequel. Even within a series a novel should be complete on its own.

NANCY WERLIN

SURVIVAL is the story of three siblings and their trials to survive their crazily abusive mother Nikki. The father of Matt and Callie, the two oldest, is unable to stand up against his ex-wife and protect his children. Matt dreams for a superhero who will take them out of their situation. The story is a letter written to Emmy the baby of the family. He wants her to know the true story so that if Nikki turns up again she will know to stay clear.

It is a well written and well thought out novel for young adults. A touching read that won’t be forgotten easily.

MICHAEL GRUBER

Someone left the witch a baby.  She knew that she shouldn’t but she keeps the child to raise as her own. The ugliest child ever born she calls him Lump. A she bear suckles him and is his nurse. Lump grows up believing himself to be beautiful and pities human children when he catches a glimse because they are so repugnant. When he realizes how the non-enchanted world operates, he covers his face with a mask. He developes intois a most angry young man. The most fun is when Lump meets characters from fairy tales. In these revised tales the stepmother is never evil. Hansel and Gretal run away from an abusive mother and are saved by the witch.

A good fairy tale. Superb cover illustration.

A NOVEL OF LOVE, MARY POPPINS & FENWAY PARK

STEVE KLUGER

A sweet, positive, feel good book about teens and for teens but worth reading by adults. But it is a world to good to be true. The two main characters TC and Augie decided that they were brothers at an early age and for years have had beds and dressers in each others bedrooms. TC is into baseball big time. Augie is into Broadway musicals big time. Throw into the mix a beautiful girl, a hot guy and a high school musical. It’s a fun uplifting read. Interestingly it is written as letters, texting, e-mails etc.

NEIL GAIMAN

“The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor.” Intriguing first line. That knife and the hand that holds it switfly kills all the people in the house except the baby who is nowhere to be found. The baby has miraculously vanished into the graveyard. Knowing that the child is being hunted the ghosts of the graveyard resolve to raise the child with one particular couple to be his parents. For many years Nobody Owens has little contact outside of the graveyard.

The book is quite a page turner. Definitely not for young readers but for teens. For a scary book set in a graveyard it actually quite life affirming. “I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands.” “There was life and Bod walked into it with his eyes and his heart wide open.”

Newbery Award Winner

MARIKO TAMAKI (words)

JILLIAN TAMAKI (drawings)

Skim is a graphic novel for young adults set in a girls’ academy in Toronto. “Skim,” aka Kimberly Keiko Cameron is would-be Wiccan goth. When her classmate Katie Matthews is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself, the entire school goes into mourning. Major teenage drama. Apart from the main stream Skim falls in love with her neo-hippie English teacher, Ms. Archer. This made me think of the female teachers in Saskatchewan this past decade who have been charged with abuse after affairs with young girls. Suicide, depression, love, being gay or not, crushes, cliques of popular, manipulative peers, divorce, alternate spirituality, this book has all the teenage angst. 

KENNETH OPPEL 

Third in Oppel’s great speculative fiction series for young adults following Airborn and Starbreaker. This whole series has been a great read aloud set. My sons have been thrilled to listen to them all. Oppel has developed into a superb action/thriller writer for young people. And I have not been a fan of all of his work.

The books are set in an alternate universe where airplanes never developed because blimps were successful. Blimps succeeded in this alternate universe because the gas they used was not explosive. There are many little differences from our universe. The main character Matt comes from Lionsgate City (Vancouver). England here is called Anglettre. The French are a major power trying to develop a space program. One of the characters is a famous Canadian artist photographer E Karr. The world is so much the same but with little differences. Matt’s male character is balanced by a female Kate de Vries. Where Matt came from a poor family and has had to work for a living, Kate is the child of the rich. She devotes her life to science and the struggle for equal rights for women. The books take place at the turn of the previous century.

The series is a great read for young people and those young at heart.

BRIAN FRANCIS

2009 Canada Reads Nominee on CBC

I am not sure who I would recommend this book to. It is narrated by a 13 year old boy who is in grade 8 whose “nipples popped out” last week. There are not many kids in grade 8 that I would suggest that should read this book. Saskatoon Public Library did have it in their young adult section. Here is how the author Jen Sookfong Lee (The End Of The East) explains why she choose Fruit as her choice for Canada reads:

Here’s my defence of Fruit in a nutshell: 

Fruit by Brian Francis should win Canada Reads because every single one of us has felt like a stranger in our own bodies, confounded by our growths and seemingly nonsensical urges. Peter, the novel’s 13-year-old narrator, is appalled when his nipples begin talking to him. Don’t kid yourself; we’ve all had moments like this, when hormones and parents and high school all come together in a conspiratorial way to make us feel like aliens who will never, ever fit into the human race. And that’s why Fruit should be read by every Canadian, because somewhere, deep inside, we are all awkward adolescents who will never understand what our lives have become.   - The Fruit Is Out Of The Bag

Interestingly it seems obvious that the boy is gay but he doesn’t seem to realize it yet. Some of his fantasies start with girls and them drift to boys.

Definately an unusual read. It will be interesting to hear the discussion on CBC.

NEIL GAIMAN

An excellent horror story for kids! The cover says for all ages but I wouldn’t read this to sensitive children age 9 or under. Coraline discovers an alternate world where her “other” parents have time to play with her, where the food would always be to her liking (not like at home where her real dad cooks weird food) and she could have any thing she wanted. When Coraline gets back to reality she discovers that her parent are missing. She finds them caught in the mirror writing “help us” in the mist. She must go back!

The book starts with an interesting quote: Fairy tales are necessary not to prove that there are dragons but to prove that dragons can be beaten.

A great book for youth. Already a movie.

MAUREEN JOHNSON

Scarlett lives in a family owned, run down hotel in New York. Her parents rely on the children to maintain the hotel but guest are rare. Fortunes change when a new guest, a very colorful character, Mrs. Amberson registers. She wants to hire Scarlett for a summer job that promises to be anything but boring. Also spicing up her life is her older brother Spencer’s new coworker. Spencer is an actor who has just gotten a part in a play that is being performed in an old parking garage, and Scarlett is falling head-over-heels for another performer, Eric. The fact that Scarlett is 15 is not realistic.

Scarlett is a fun romp, a light confection. It likely should be in the young adult section.

DEBORAH ELLIS and ERIC WALTERS

Noticing that this novel for young people was written by two of the genra’s most well respected Canadian authors I had to give it a try. It is not a perfect book by any means but it is a book that makes you think and provides lots of opportunities for discussion. Bifocal takes place in a big city multi-ethnic high school post 9/11. The high school lunchroom is a showcases for segregation. There’s a section for the kids from India, Pakistan, and the Middle East called Brown Town. There’s a place over by the doors, nearly outside, for the Goths and “emos,” who are “sort of diet-Goth.” The black kids sit in Cafrica near the Asian kids who dress like blacks and are called Jackie Chans. The jocks sit nearest the food and the pretty, popular girls sit where the jocks can see them.
The point of view alternates between Jay a rising football star getting ready for the position of quarterback and captain next year, in his senior year; and Haroon,who was in the classroom that the trouble began when police burst into his “Reach for the Top” rehearsal and cuffed him and the only other “brown” kid in the class, Azeem, for charges unknown.
Recommended.

Cynthia L Winfield   This book is written for teens by a grade 8 teacher. The author suggests that teens stand up for themselves. Speak against negative language and look for support from others like themselves.
 This book reminds me of Stone Butch Blues written by intersex author Leslie Feinberg.  One line that I remember went like this: Imagine filling out a form that had two boxes to check; one for male, one for female. But neither of them was right.
Then for a while I had thought that with modern genetic testing when a child was born with indistinct genetillia that a fairly simple test would be conclusive. Right? Wrong! There are many thing that can go wrong within the genes. What activists are advising is to let an individual decide on gender after puberty. But what do you do til then? Gender is still the first question asked when a baby is born.Gender Identity gives you lots to think about. And lets you know we still have a long way to go to understanding what it means to be human.
BRIAN 

NIKKI TATE  Dear Nikki  Loved Trouble on Tarragon Island. I had no idea that it was an issue book. For some reason I had thought it would be a mystery and for youth of a bit younger age than what it was. I loved the writer’s group and the various forms of writing that were accepted. Using the letters to the editor as a way to voice different opinions was great. I’m looking forward to reading more of your books. Now that I’m not a  teacher-librarian I have not been reading as many books for young adults as I read before. But I have read some interesting books. (see http://bevd.edublogs.org/ ) While reading your great book I frequently thought of my sister Linda who is a vibrant, spirited sixty and has been a Nana for 4 years now. From Saskatchewan, Linda found home and community in the woods, issues and people of the Vancouver and Islands area.  For a long time Linda thought she would never become a grandparent. Her youngest son who loves kids (Zane Micah Wilcox a rising star on the Saskatoon pottery scene) decided not to have children with his spouse. Her eldest son, a curmudgeon at 18, was never interested in kids but with his spouse decided to have one child. Linda has been an ecstatic granny ever since.  Linda has been an active environmentalist for decades, participating in many civil disobedience protests. With a peace group in Helena, Montana (she lived there with a husband for a few years) she did a protest that had all the women lying nude in the snow spelling PEACE with their bodies. The photo was made into posters and t-shirts. She wasn’t a granny at the time but I don’t doubt that there would have grannies in the group. There was one summer that Linda was mad at Zane for having sat around the whole summer. She complained to us, “He could have done something useful like go up to Clayoquot Sound and get arrested.” We laughed thinking that there are not many mothers who would be wishing that there twenty something sons were going out getting arrested! Micah says that he misses you and hopes that you will once again come and visit. Certainly if you are ever out this way again you are most welcome! BRIAN 

Garth Nix

first book KEYS TO THE KINGDOM SERIES

Mister Monday is an exciting existential fantasy for youth. Micah read it first and was so excited by it that I read it as well. The protagonist is a lad of twelve who’s fate was to die. But he recieved as key shaped clock hand from another reality which while he holds it allows him to breath fully. But when the cosmos was rent to give Arthur the key more than just the key got through. Fletchers, bizarre, dog fashioned beasts have brought a killing plague. Mister Monday with powers almost as great as the key will stop at nothing to get the key back. Author has a mysterious quest through an existenial world that is represented by a house.

It is well worth the read. Micah has already read the second book Grim Tuesday and is waiting for Drownd Wednesday.