More Than This by Patrick Ness

Patrick Ness first came to my attention with the Chaos Walking trilogy.  I loved even the titles: The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer,  Monsters of Men.  To me these titles seemed mysterious, unusual  and thought-provoking.  I soon decided that those qualities could be used to describe the books as well.  And they were challenging--reading them was a commitment, a journey that you had to expend some effort in making, but one that rewarded you with the depth and impact of the writing.  His next project, A Monster Calls,  reminded me of  Susan Cooper's famous The Dark is Rising series, not so much thematically but in the superb characterization of ancient supernatural creatures that are tied somehow to the natural world.  I loved the idea of a storytelling monster, but a serious one, not one you felt safe with.  I also loved Jim Kay's earthy illustrations, which were such a moody complement to the text.  It was an easier read for a younger audience, but I found it a tremendously powerful book and I was so chuffed when A Monster Calls became the first book in history to win both the Carnegie medal (for writing) and the Kate Greenaway medal (for illustration).

All of this is to say that I'm definitely a Patrick Ness fan.   I began reading More Than This feeling pretty confident that I was in the hands of a master storyteller who would take me to places I wasn't expecting to go.  With More Than This, Ness is back to writing for an older teen audience, and he's returning to the dystopia genre. Here, Ness's dystopia, unlike many others that we've seen for teens recently, is very solitary, and a lot of the hero's journey is internal.  In fact, we're well into the book before we realize we're reading a dystopian novel at all. The first half reminded me strongly of the existentialist novels I read in my late teens, especially by Camus and Sartre. It's hard not to think of No Exit, particularly as it's not at all clear through most of More Than This whether any of the characters are alive or dead.  At first it seems pretty unambiguous;  the first line of the prologue is "Here is the boy, drowning" and the last line in the prologue is "He dies."  As in No Exit, Seth, the main character, believes at first that he is in hell, and he certainly believes he deserves to be there.  But he still needs to eat and sleep, and he can still be injured and feel pain, so is he really dead? We the readers are constantly kept off-balance--where is Seth, really?  Why is he alone?  Why did he wake up wrapped in bandages?  Are Regine and Tomasz, the two other teens he eventually meets, real, or are they creations of his mind?  Who is hunting them, and why?  And while all this is going on, we're quietly having our hearts broken by the memories Seth gradually recovers of his life on earth, and by the stories of Regine and Tomasz's memories as well.  I think one of the things that makes Ness such a strong and moving writer is the depth of character he can build, and the unflinching way he has of laying bare the darkness that humans can create for each other,  whether they mean to or not.

After I read More Than This, I watched a talk by Ness where he expresses the belief that yearning is the primary emotional state of the teen experience.   It's an interesting idea, and you can certainly read the book as an expression of that thought.  As Seth says, "If there really is more to life, I want to live all of it.  And why shouldn't all of us?  Don't we deserve that?"

There's no trailer for More Than This, but here's the official book trailer for A Monster Calls:

And here's Patrick Ness talking about writing for teens:

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg

"He looked me in the eye.  His eyes were a translucent blue. He looked kind.  I didn't want to look away.  I realized that not being the gay kid here allowed me more access.  I wasn't supposed to hold eye contact with jocks back in Boulder.  It was understood:  They accepted me, and I didn't freak them out with eye contact.  Here, no such contract had been made." 
 
Rafe is out, and his family's fine with it.  So's his school.  His teachers.  His soccer team.   His mother threw an embarassing coming-out dinner for all his friends when he came out, and now she's the ultra-enthusiastic president of the local PFLAG chapter.  His teachers turn to him when they need a minority perspective.  He gives "I'm a gay kid" talks at other high schools.  He's sick of all this inclusion and acceptance, because it makes him feel two-dimensional.  He doesn't want gay to be the only thing about him people respond to, but this is how he's beginning to feel:

                                                          "GAY GAY GAY RAFE GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY 

                                                          GAY GAY GAY GAY RAFE GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

                                                         GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY 

                                                        GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY

                                                       GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY RAFE GAY..."

 Rafe decides he wants to start over as a whole person, and so, in spite of the bewilderment of his parents and best friend, he transfers to an all-boys boarding school, where he decides, not to go back in the closet exactly, but just to not mention his orientation.   He has a great time.  He plays sports.  He makes friends.  He goofs around.  He takes a writing class.  He pretends his best friend Claire Olivia is an ex-girlfriend.  He falls in love with Ben.  Oooooops!

"I didn't tell him I was gay because I didn't want anything to come between us."

It's the falling in love part that's awkward.  Ben's straight, but they develop an intimate friendship that seems to suggest other possibilities.  The thing is, the longer Rafe goes without telling Ben about his orientation, the more it seems to matter.  Rafe's dilemma is how to communicate his inner truth without being reduced to a label, and while this  book doesn't offer any ideal solutions, it does in the end suggest that honesty is the best policy. Rafe's a very likeable character and Konigsberg has a great ear for dialogue, but what I liked best about Openly Straight is how deftly Konigsberg balances the tone between light and serious.  This book feels like it would be very readable for teens of all genders and persuasions who are interested in issues around constructing an identity that's in keeping with your own deepest sense of self.  

 

Invisibility by David Levithan and Andrea Cremer

"I am like a ghost who's never died." 
 
Invisibility is only a superpower if you can turn it on and off at will.  Otherwise, it's not such a blessing.  Stephen has been invisible from birth, although he doesn't know why.  His parents know, but they won't tell him.  He lives alone since his mother has recently died and his father has left to live a more normal life and start a new family (luckily for Stephen, his father still pays for his apartment and living expenses).  He's used to living on the fringes of life, not going to school, not having friends, having to dodge people on the street if he goes for a walk.  Then one day, while he is in his apartment hallway, the grocery bag of his new neighbor breaks, and groceries spill out all over the floor.  As she's scrambling to pick things up, she looks up and snaps "Are you really going to just stand there?  Is this fun for you?".  And so an utterly stunned Stephen meets Elizabeth, the only person on earth who can see him.

Invisibility is a story of magic and romance set in New York by one of my favorite teen authors (Levithan) and Andrea Cremer,  bestselling author of the Nightshade series.  Levithan must be great to work with, since this is the fourth novel he's co-written (two novels with Rachel Cohn and one with John Green).  There's a very cute picture of David and Andrea cozying up to each other on the back flap.  

This was such a fun read, but it tugged at my heart a little as well.  Levithan can do that.  I was sucked in by Stephen's description of the ephemeral nature of his one childhood friendship:

"And then there was Ben, who moved away.  Ben, the only friend I've almost had.  When he was five and I was ten, he decided to have an imaginary friend.  Stuart, he named him, and that was close enough to my name, Stephen, for me to play along.  He'd invite me to dinner, and I'd come along.  He'd move to hold my hand in the park, and I'd take it.  He'd bring me to kindergarten for show-and-tell, and I would stand there as the teacher indulged his whim, nodding along to whatever Ben said about me.  The one thing I couldn't do was speak to him, because I knew that hearing my voice would spoil the illusion.  Once, when I knew he wasn't listening, I whispered his name.  Just to hear it.  But he didn't notice.  And by the time he turned six, he'd outgrown me.  I couldn't blame him.  Still, I was sad when he moved away."

It turns out that Stephen is invisible because his grandfather is a curse-caster, and he cursed his daughter when she left him to go to college.   Nice, right?  Elizabeth can see him because she was born with the rare ability to see curses.  You'd think the fact that Elizabeth and her brother Laurie are the only people in Stephen's life --except for the escaped father--would make the Stephen and Elizabeth romance a bit claustrophobic, but somehow it doesn't.  Perhaps it's because Elizabeth isn't yet entangled with school and other friends (she's new in town, and it's summer).   It's sweet how Stephen and Elizabeth fall for each other and what that means to them both.  We feel that Stephen isn't the only one who's being seen for the first time.     I  also like Elizabeth's close relationship with her ally and kid brother, Laurie. It's refreshing to see such a positive, I've-got-your-back sibling relationship.  

One thing I did notice is that Stephen's voice is pretty much exactly the same as the voice of A, the protagonist of Levithan's previous book Every Day.  That's not really a complaint, just an observation.

Here's a trailer from Penguin Books:

The Lucy Variation by Sara Zarr

"In Lucy's house, childhood, like grief, was an episode merely tolerated.  An inconvenience and an obstacle to the real work of life;  proving to the world and to yourself that you weren't just taking up space."

The Lucy Variations explores some interesting ideas around art and competition.  Lucy Beck-Moreau is a gifted young pianist whose rich and cultured family place tremendous pressure on her not to waste her talent.  In the Beck-Moreau household, this means not just driving yourself towards ever-increasing artistic accomplishment, but also winning at performance competitions.  To Lucy's grandfather, the Beck-Moreau patriarch,  absolute discipline and commitment mean that Lucy is expected to perform at an international competition in Prague even though she has just learned that her beloved grandmother has died in her absence.  When Lucy walks off the stage, her grandfather is furious.  She is barred from playing ever again, and her young  brother Gus becomes the focus of the family legacy.

As the plot plays itself out,  Lucy defies her grandfather and begins to play again, privately, trying to re-connect to the joy of music. She also tries to protect Gus from carrying the weight of too much expectation.  This is a quiet book without a lot of incident, but the situation Lucy is placed in really drew me in.   Zarr's writing is elegant and nuanced, and her gift for complex characterization makes everyone in this book feel authentic and dimensional.  Lucy is a striking protagonist, very mature in some ways yet still clearly not an adult.  Lucy has to figure out what she has missed by dedicating herself to piano to the exclusion of all else, and she has to decide for herself what the responsibilities of being an artist might involve. For Lucy, the most compelling question is, does she still want to do it?   Does she still love it that much?

" The  metronome on top of the piano ticked steadily;  Lucy fought off the urge to throw a pillow at it...That sound.  Tick tick tick tick.  A slow adagio.  A death march.

She didn't know how Gus could stand it.  Spending day after day after day after lonely day in this room, with this old woman. 

Everything good (tick) is passing you by (tick) as you sit here (tick) and practice your life away (tick)."

Many of the adults around Lucy aren't very good at boundaries (neither is Lucy for that matter), and it takes Lucy a while to figure out whose support is disinterested, whose is not, and how much it matters.   I like what the Horn Book reviewer says about The Lucy Variations:  "the novel's strength is Zarr's unflinching attention to the gray areas of Lucy's life, where adults are fallible, decisions are reversible, and passions can guide you forward or lead you astray."  Like most of Zarr's work, The Lucy Variations is an absorbing book for thoughtful readers. 

Medusa Jones by Ross Collins

 

"'Pleeeaase can I turn them to stone?' Medusa begged.  
"It's not the polite thing to do, dear.' said Medusa's Mom. 
 'They're not polite,' Medusa said.  'They were mean about my hair again today.'
'Sticks and stones, Medusa,'  said Medusa's mom.  'You can't go turning everyone who's mean about your hair to stone.'
'Gran did.'  Medusa scowled.
'Gran is insane and lives in a cave.  Your father and I didn't raise you like that...'"

Medusa Jones is "a gorgon, but apart from that, pretty normal.".  Not that it's easy having snakes for hair.  Medusa's snakes turn back the pages of the books she's reading if she turns them too quickly,  and fight for the warmest spot when she goes outside.  They writhe around under her hat, bite the local hairdresser until his hands puff up like balloons, and make Medusa a target for the local bullies (the nasty Perseus, the dumb-as-a-log Theseus and the worrywart Cassandra).  It's so annoying, having powers and not being allowed to use them!

This book's straightforward underdogs-prove-stronger/braver-than-heroes plot (Medusa and her friends end up rescuing the scared-stiff "champions" on a field-trip-gone-awry on Mount Olympus) is really just a foil for some mighty funny characterization.  Medusa, her friends Chiron and Mino (the minotaur), the mean teacher Miss Medea, and the mythical heroes-turned-schoolyard-bullies are all played off each other for lots of laughs.  This easy chapter book reads aloud well and plenty of pictures add to the atmosphere.   

Medusa and friends greeting sour-faced Miss Medea.

Medusa wants a haircut, but her snakes aren't so keen.

Medusa and her three-headed puppy, Cerebus.

What Happened to Ivy by Kathy Stinson

"I could ask him now.  I could ask him:  Did you drown her? Did you plan it, like I planned the worms?  Did you know when you helped her into her bathing suit...what you were going to do?  Or not till you carried her into the water and made her laugh one last time?"

What Happened to Ivy is a great example of the kind of book that's not getting published as much these days, but which I think is still welcomed by many young readers--what librarians refer to as "the problem novel".  Not in that the book itself is a problem--but in that the book presents a problem, often some kind of ethical issue, as its main underpinning, and explores it deeply enough to expand the reader's understanding of the issue's  emotional and  philosophical complexities.  Such as, in this case, euthanasia.  Although What Happened to Ivy is fiction, it bears a strong resemblance to the real-life Robert and Tracy Latimer case, in which a Canadian parent was convicted of killing his disabled daughter in 1993 because of her pain management and quality-of-life issues.  This case generated huge controversy for many reasons, but I think most of all around the issue of consent;  euthanasia generally involves adults who are able to make their wishes known, but in this case the victim was a minor who had never expressed any desire to die. 

Stinson's fictionalization gives us over to the point of view of David, a young teen with an even younger sister, Ivy, who has cerebral palsy, just as Tracy Latimer did.  The first half of the book takes us through what it's like to be part of a family which includes a person with neurological disabilities.  Ivy consumes a lot of family focus, leaving David feeling frustrated and invisible sometimes--this family operates in a near-constant state of crisis, and his needs will always come in second to his sister's.  On the other hand, sometimes he's too visible, being out in public with a sister who's frankly embarrassing.  Ivy drools, she wears a diaper, she's loud, repetitive and hard to understand.  She has violent seizures and has had multiple painful surgeries. She can scare away other kids, leaving David isolated.  But Ivy can also be joyful, communicative and very loving, and when she has a seizure in a lake and drowns, despite being with their father, David is devastated.  He's even more devastated when his father admits that, instead of rescuing her,  he deliberately let Ivy go.  

Despite being a pretty easy read, this is a thought-provoking book.  Was Ivy better off dead?  Was failing to save her an act of love or an act of emotional exhaustion, and does the motivation even matter?  Was Ivy capable of making her own decisions about life?  How do we, as a society, value people with complex disabilities and how successful are we in offering their families support?  What Happened to Ivy succeeds in presenting Ivy as a person of value, whose family, both before and after her death, has no easy choices.

A Bride's Story; A Manga Series by Kaoru Mori

"Acclaimed creator Kaoru  Mori (Emma, Shirley) brings the nineteenth-century Silk Road to lavish life, chronicling the story of Amir Halgal, a young woman from a nomadic tribe betrothed to a twelve-year-old boy eight years her junior. Coping with cultural differences, blossoming feelings for her new husband, and expectations from both her adoptive and birth families, Amir strives to find her role as she settles into a new life and a new home in a society quick to define that role for her. Crafted in painstaking detail, Ms. Mori’s pen breathes life into the scenery and architecture of the period in this heartwarming slice-of-life tale that is at once both wholly exotic, yet familiar and accessible through the everyday lives of the rich characters she has created."

From Yen Press, the English-language publisher's web site.

Kaoru Mori's exquisite depiction of culture is, for me, the most compelling part of the still ongoing series A Bride's Story.  Created in Japanese, volumes 1, 2, and 3 have recently been published in English, and volume 4 is forthcoming in 2013.  A French translation is available as well.  Mori apparently specializes in historical fiction, and is most famous in the West for her award-winning series Emma, about a young maid in Victorian England.  A Bride's Story is set in an unnamed area along the  Silk Road, and in volume 3 it becomes clear that we are close to Russia.  In case you, like me, only have a fuzzy idea of where the Silk Road lies, here's what YoYo Ma's Silk Road Project has to say about it:

"The historical Silk Road comprised a series of land and sea trade  routes that crisscrossed Eurasia  from the first millenium B.C.E. through the middle of the second millennium C.E. The intersections among people from diverse cultures along the way promoted an unprecedented sharing of commodities, ideas, arts, sciences and innovations."

My husband Doug thinks the story is probably set in Mongolia or Kazakhstan, so I'll go with that.  It's a bit frustrating though--Mori seems to have done a huge amount of research, considering the intricate, almost photographic detail of the art.  Would it kill her to name the people she's depicting?

In volume 1 of A Bride's Story we meet Amir, an adult woman, and her husband Karluk, who has probably just hit puberty.  Some reviews have mentioned a discomfort with this, and I can see why, although it is clear that they have not consummated their relationship yet.  I think the difference in ages makes an interesting twist; this is obviously one of many cultures where marriages are arranged in terms of tribal alliances and not necessarily personal preference, but stories of older men and younger brides are more common.  Amir's a strong protagonist; she's an expert horsewoman, a crack shot with a bow and arrow, and is pretty resourceful with a stewpot.  The story shows a tremendous respect between her and her young groom;  although Amir and her adjustments to a new family are a focus in the series,  we also see Karluk struggling a bit to grow into his adult role as husband.

In some ways Karluk is still a child. 

Amir and Karluk relaxing together. 

Amir's amazing hunting skills. 

Looking good on a horse. 

The things we women will do to impress a man...

In volume 2 we see Amir's rather boorish male relatives arrive to take her back, hoping to ally themselves more strategically by marrying her off to another, more powerful family.  Amir refuses to go, now making a deliberate choice to remain with Karluk and his tribe, who unhesitatingly fight to keep her in one of the saga's more exciting turn of events.  (It's partly exciting because they don't look like they'd be such good fighters.) In volume 3 a western linguist and anthropologist, Mr. Smith, becomes a more major character and takes over the point of view for a time, taking us away from Amir and Karluk in his wanderings and adventures.  Some people have complained about the the meandering, picaresque storyline, but I think that's a little unfair;  we haven't read the whole story yet.  Besides, my favourite parts aren't necessarily the ones that further the action.  I think the best parts are the ones that highlight things like handing down traditional skills and crafts through the generations (woodcarving, cooking, embroidery).  We're really shown not just how intricate and meaningful the work is, but how long the skills take to master.

A young boy learns carving at the hands of a master artisan. 

A full-page close-up of a carving in progress.

The teaching process. 

A Bride's Story depicts material culture with loving attention to detail every step of the way, but it also depicts family culture with great sensitivity.  Amir's marriage literally takes her away from her birth family and into a new extended family community.  Unlike Amir's birth family, her marital family seems very warm and supportive. I enjoyed meeting all the characters, from the children to the elders.  I really loved the scene in book 3 where Tileke, a young girl who only likes embroidering hawks (embroidery is very important here, as you may have guessed by the clothing illustrations), is shown patterns associated with her maternal ancestors many generations back.  All the women gather to pass on their family heritage and inspire a member of the youngest  generation with their personal and collective memories.   There is certainly a power structure in this family, but it seems based on respect and it doesn't feel like anyone's being squashed.   This stands in contrast to some other families we see peripherally, where family power structures are used to benefit men at the expense of women.  Mori's not afraid to show us the range of experience possible in the culture she's depicting, but so far at any rate, her storyline emphasizes the positive.   I'm looking forward to following the rest of this series as it unfolds.

Amir's new family.  

The Adventures of Sir Gawain the True by Gerald Morris

Of all the Arthurian tales, the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of my favourites.  I read the original in high school, and I found it so dramatic and vigorous and full of personality.   (Mind you, I also read and loved Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. That's full of personality in a different way.) Since then I've read a few different adaptations of Gawain's adventures,  including a Tolkien edition which I read not too long afterwards, and a children's version by Selina Hastings (she also wrote a great version of Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady, another fine tale).  Now Gerald Morris has come out with a chapter book version of the Green Knight Incident aimed at younger children (grades 2-4 is probably the target audience) as part of his Knights' Tales series.  These books bring a very fresh feeling to Arthurian stories for kids.   Morris's tone is a little like a Boy's Own Adventure story, but more literate.  It's respectful of its source material, down to earth, and full of cheerful humour.  It's also very clear and readable,  just right for emergent readers.  

"But what many do not realize is that, at least in King Arthur's court, knights were also expected to be very courteous and respectful.  The king was very clear about this:  He wanted no bullies at his Round Table.  In fact, he said that courtesy was even more important than wearing metal suits and bashing people from horses.  Not surprisingly, this notion took a while to sink in.  Knights who had spent their whole lives learning swordsmanship and pointy-stick-bashing did not always see how something else could be more important.  Indeed, King Arthur had reigned for several years before he felt that his knights were starting to get the idea."

Morris's story follows the trajectory of the original:  the Green Knight's challenge at King Arthur's Christmas Feast, Gawain's commitment to the Knight's beheading game, his year of wandering, his stay at the Green Knight's castle and the exchange of prizes (the kissing game is toned down a lot here) and finally his visit to the Green Chapel, where he discovers that the whole thing has been an elaborate test of his (and by extension, King Arthur's) chivalry and knightly honour.

I think what Morris does best is to turn these mythic characters into concrete personalities, characters which are not necessarily so lofty but who still do King Arthur's court proud.  Kids are going to root for these knights, and the books will lay a great foundation for appreciating more mature versions of these stories later on.  Or for appreciating Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as the case may be.

Currently, other books in the Knights' Tales series include The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great;  The   Adventures of Sir Givret the Short, and The Adventures of Sir Balin the Ill-Fated.  I have to mention that Aaron Renier does a great job of illustrating--don't you love that Green Knight cover?

My original Sir Gawain, read when I was about 16. 

Tolkien's translation.  I don't remember anything at all about Pearl or Sir Orfeo.   Only the Green Knight stuck with me.

Selina Hasting's children's adaptation of the Loathly Lady story, another time Gawain gets into hot water. 

Another of the Knight's Tales series. 

Charley's First Night by Amy Hest, Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury

I haven't reviewed a picture book here for a while, but this one is so special I have to share it.  Charley's First Night is about a boy and his new puppy.  Look at the lovely eye contact between them on the cover.  And here's some of the writing:

"I carried him in my old baby blanket, which was soft and midnight blue, and we were new together and I was very, very careful not to slip in the snow and I thought about his name.  I was the one who thought up his name.  Charley.  Charley Korn.  My name is Henry.  Henry Korn."

Lovely, lovely, lovely.  This book is so pure and warm.  Henry is such a thoughtful and empathetic little lad, and we see him looking after Charley on his first night at the Korn household with the attentiveness of a new parent.  He's practically bursting with excitement, but it's expressed in a very nurturing way. There's a fresh, first-time innocence about how Henry cares for Charley that's very sweet.

Of course, Charley's first night is fraught--Henry's parents have a few rules, and one of them is that Charley sleeps in the kitchen, not in Henry's bed.  Henry carefully puts a pillow, a teddy bear and a ticking clock down in the kitchen to make Charley comfortable, and waits with Charley until he falls asleep.  But late at night--oh no!--Henry hears a noise.

"The crying started in the middle of the night and you knew right away it was Charley. 

'Don't cry, Charley!  Don't cry!' I ran to the kitchen and scooped him and held him close in my strong arms, and he shivered."

Henry gets Charley settled down again, only to be woken up for a second time.  I can relate--Charley's just like a new baby.  After a lot of soothing and walking around, Henry lays Charley on his bed just for a moment, thinking all the while about how his parents were pretty clear on where Charley should and should not sleep.  Of course, Henry and Charley both end up drifting off, and the last thing we see is Henry's mother's coming into his bedroom in the morning to find them fast asleep.

Helen Oxenbury is a revered name in picture books, a major talent who I'm sure will go down in illustrating history like Caldecott or Sendak or Quentin Blake.   Her specialty is drawing babies and young children, and here she just suffuses the pages with trust and quiet joy. Amy Hest's text is magical. This isn't a Christmas book per se, but it gave me the feeling of Christmas.  Love, and night-time, and excitement, and being together.

Playing with Charley in the snow.

Here's Helen Oxenbury in her studio:

(you) set me on fire by Mariko Tamaki

"Allison Lee is seventeen and off to college in the fall. So far, she's been in love once (total catastrophe) and on fire twice (also pretty bad). Both love and fire have left their scars."
Cover copy for (you) set me on fire. 

Q: Why do you write strong female characters?
A:  Because you're still asking me that question.
Joss Whedon, quoted on Mariko Tamaki's Website. 

Mariko Tamaki is a Toronto writer who is most well-known for her graphic novel Skim, illustrated by her equally talented cousin Jillian Tamaki.  Skim was on many best-of-the-year lists when it was published, including the shortlist for the 2008 Governor General's Literary Award.  Tamaki is also the author of the Minx graphic novel Emiko Superstar and several indie-type books for adults.  Her personal, character-driven writing is woman-centric (Skim takes place in a Catholic girls' school) and definitely takes an outsider stance.   Her characters are not always immediately sympathetic;  she's a writer who will take some risks.  

(you) set me on fire is about Allison, a young woman in first-year university who wants to reinvent herself after not particularly fitting in during high school, and having her heart broken by her only-quasi-lesbian best friend.  Allison's dorm is filled with perky, friendly, mainstream-type girls, but she is irresistibly drawn to the Dark Side, in this case represented by a flamboyant, angry goth named Shar.  Shar is a real Bad Girl, but unfortunately she's not hiding a heart of gold.  She's destructive and dangerous.  At one point I was really afraid for Allison's life.  It's actually kind of unusual for teen fiction to be set in a university, but I thought the setting made emotional sense--it's when your family is no longer around that the possibility of becoming unmoored is the greatest. 

The best things about this book are the voice and dialogue.  Mariko Tamaki studied linguistics for three years, and obviously pays careful attention to the way people speak.  The writing here is deceptively simple--sentences are short and conversational, but the more I read, the more I felt that Tamaki chose each and every word extremely carefully.  Another thing that Tamaki does really well  is give secondary characters dimension.  Allison's dorm-mates start out as silly stereotypes, but become surprisingly more. Tamaki's background in theater shows in her pacing and characterization. She's good at small, uncomfortably illuminating scenes.     

I found the character of Allison really challenging.  There's a passivity about her that makes her a frustrating protagonist.  She gives so much of  her power over to Shar, who keeps her off balance emotionally, pulling Allison close (even sleeping with her) and then pushing her away.  Shar also sabotages Allison scholastically and isolates her from others who might want to be her friends.  Allison bumbles around a lot--missing classes, getting drunk, getting called in to the Dean's office to explain her academic floundering--and becomes increasingly unhappy without really naming the reason to herself.   Shar, on the other hand, is so decisive and controlling that it seems to everyone--Allison included--that she's the stronger of the two.  Allison's not a traditional unreliable narrator though--she's very observant and she does slowly see the machinations of her new friend.  That's what's frustrating--even when she's figuring it out and others are reaching out to her, she's slow to separate herself.  She won't let go until it's almost too late.   To me, the end of their relationship felt like a wound as well as a release.  There was a definite ripping-apart quality to it.  

 Here's an interview with Tamaki in Xtra! magazine, and another one on CBC Books.

Endangered by Eliot Schrefer

Quick science quiz:  who is the closest living relative to homo sapiens?

Did you guess chimpanzees?  Until recently scientists would have told you that chimps and humans share between 94% to 99% of their DNA, with lower estimates being more current.  It makes sense, then, that studying chimps will teach us about human behavior as well, and we've known for some time now that chimps are smart.  They can learn rudimentary sign language, use tools, and evolve unique behaviors within their communities to adapt to their particular circumstances.  But anyone studying chimps to find out more about human behavior will also find lots of bad news:  despite their intelligence they're a violent bunch, not just towards predators but also amongst themselves.  Rape, infanticide and murder are behaviors which have been observed in chimp communities, although there is debate over how common these behaviors are.  Nevertheless, observation of chimps has led to the argument  that violent behaviors are hard-wired into humanity, bred into our genes and waiting only for the right situations to bring them forth.

Well, surprise!  It turns out that chimps, while genetically close to us, aren't necessarily our only close relatives after all.  That distinction is now shared by the Bonobo, a cousin of the chimp who has  98.7 percent of its genetic material in common with ours, and has a vastly different behavioral repertoire from chimpanzees.   Bonobos, unlike chimps, are matriarchal and infants receive close and excellent care from their mothers and from the community.  Rape is virtually unknown; Bonobos are non-monogamous and use sex to cement social ties and group cohesion.  Although bonded, affectionate and cooperative within their group, they are shy of strangers.   Like the chimp, they are an endangered species and rapidly losing habitat.  And they live only in the Congo, one of the most violent and conflicted areas on earth.  It is this irony, of peaceful primates co-existing with warlike humans, which inspired Eliot Schrefer's new novel Endangered.  This is a book which I can picture appealing to a few different audiences--teens interested in science and animal behavior, teens interested in issues around development and social justice, and teens just wanting to read a great adventure novel.   

The plot is simple--Sophie, a teen of mixed race and nationality, flies from her home in America to spend the summer in the Congo with her mother, who runs a Bonobo sanctuary close to the capital city Kinshasa. On her way to the sanctuary, Sophie sees a young Bonobo who is close to death and being hawked by a poacher on the street.  She insists on stopping and buying the Bonobo, which puts her into immediate conflict with the rules of the sanctuary and her mother (who has been working hard to stop the trade in wild animals).  Unfazed, Sophie nurses the Bonobo back to health, becoming his surrogate mother, giving him 24 hour care and developing a strong mutual bond with the animal she has named Otto.    

The real trouble starts when Sophie's mother leaves for several weeks to facilitate the release of some of her rehabilitated Bonobos into the wild.  While she is gone, the government topples and an unruly band of militia attack the sanctuary, killing most of the women who work there.  Sophie and Otto manage to flee and hide inside the sanctuary forest, which is protected by an electric fence.  For a few weeks they live with a band of Bonobos there, but when the fence breaks down Sophie knows the soldiers will come into the forest looking for Bonobo meat.  She flees with Otto and together they make a long and very risky trek to find Sophie's mother, over the course of which they face both natural and human dangers.

There are a few things, I think, that make Endangered particularly good.  It's easy in adventure stories to let plot and suspense take over the book, but Endangered features wonderful characterization both of its humans and animals.  Each Bonobo is individually drawn, and their group dynamics are complex.   Sophie is a relentless spirit, refusing at several points to save herself when it means leaving Otto behind.  She won't prioritize her own human life over Otto's animal one, even under the most extreme circumstances. Her sense of responsibility is very personal, and is about honouring the relationship that she has developed with Otto;  whether, as a reader, you agree or disagree with her choices, you can really feel the emotion behind them.  Endangered could be a used to start deep conversations about important issues.  I think would be a great choice for teen book clubs.

Here are some videos of Eliot Schrefer a) promoting Endangered, b) giving an interview about Endangered, and c) playing with some friends in a Bonobo sanctuary:

And here's a picture of Eliot and his own Bonobo friend:

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: The Raven Cycle, Book 1

 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood
there, wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever 
dared to dream before...
(Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven)

 I finally got a chance to read the much-anticipated Raven Boys, the first book of a projected four-book series,  by the multi-talented Maggie Stiefvater.  Stiefvater's reputation as a fantasy writer is stellar, particularly after her breakout trilogy The Wolves of Mercy Falls and last year's stand-alone blockbuster The Scorpio Races.   I kept thinking of Susan Cooper's Dark Is Rising series as I was reading The Raven Boys, and also a book by Madeleine L'Engle called A Swiftly Tilting Planet--there are a lot of  thematic overlaps between these stories, as well as similarly mysterious characters and a compelling, slow-building atmosphere of suspense. 


The Raven Boys circles around a quest for the remains of Owain Glendower, legendary Welsh ruler who, like King Arthur, is said to be waiting to rise again when the time is right.  Gansey, one of the four Raven Boys in the novel (they're private school boys whose uniform has a raven on the jacket) is convinced that Glendower's remains lie somewhere in the area of Henrietta, Virginia  (that's in the USA, not Wales, but Gansey has an explanation for the geographic discrepancy) and has involved his three friends Adam, Noah and Connor in his search.   Meanwhile, Blue Sargent, a young woman born into a family of clairvoyant females, has a vivid and peculiar vision regarding Gansey and his death.  When Blue and the Raven Boys meet and begin to investigate the ley lines and other manifestations of mysterious energy in the Virginia landscape,  boundaries between the real world and the otherworldly begin to shift.

It's interesting that there are really two worlds at work here--Blue and her family, all women, all highly intuitive, private,  and  naturally attuned to the world of myth and spirit, and the Raven Boys,  living in a very masculine world of private school, grades, money, cars, and ambition.  Stiefvater is too sophisticated a writer to make this division simple, but moving back and forth between the two groups adds to the reading experience.  I really like how diverse the characters are, and how challenging some of them are to understand--I'm certain there's a lot more to find out about them.  The last line, uttered by Connor, utterly mystified me.  Stiefvater's always been great at creating atmosphere, and I would describe the atmosphere of The Raven Boys as "heightened".  By the end, I was getting chills up my spine.  Of course, I was reading in bed in the dead of night, when I should really have been sleeping...

As well as being a writer, Maggie Stiefvater is a musician and a visual artist.  Here is some art she drew for the trailer of The Raven Boys...I think it's exquisite.  Remember those 19th century illustrated novels for grown-ups, with their colour plates?  I so think Raven Boys could have been done like that. 

And here's the trailer:

A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle

"'Are you really a ghost?'
'Oh, I am.'
 'And you're really my mother?'
'Yes,' said Tansey.  'I am.'
'I'll tell you what's really weird, then,' said Emer.  'I'm not all that surprised."

Anyone out there have a family ghost story?  I do.  When my grandfather was a teenager in Poland many years ago, he apprenticed as a metalworker with his uncle, who was horrible to him.  After two years of apprenticeship, my grandfather ran away and returned to his family farm.  Later, after my grandfather had moved to Canada and married, he saw his uncle in a dream and his uncle apologized for having been so mean to him.  A few weeks later,  he got a letter from his family in Poland telling him that his uncle had died the night of that dream. 

Sounds like an urban legend, doesn't it?  There are a lot of family ghost stories like that kicking around, tales of familiar family members coming back to say goodbye, reconcile, or bring comfort rather than spook or scare.  Roddy Doyle's latest book is a family ghost story, but it's not noir or gothic.  It's really just a lovely inter-generational family story, where one of the family members happens to be a ghost.  Doyle described it in a recent interview as "the afterlife from the perspective of an atheist".   It revolves around four generations of women;  Mary O'Hara (a twelve-year-old girl), her mother Scarlett, her grandmother Emer, who is dying, and her ghostly great-grandmother Tansey.

Tansey isn't the kind of ghost who is particularly mysterious or threatening.  She first appears to Mary outside Mary's  home,  and opens up by chatting about the weather.  She's a little strange--her clothes look old-fashioned and she doesn't get wet in the rain--and she wants Mary to "tell your granny it'll all be grand."  Mary's a bit taken aback, but not really scared:

"Mary should have been worried, maybe even frightened.  She was worried, and a bit frightened.  But not nearly as much as she thought she should have been.  This woman had come out of nowhere.  She knew Mary's name and all about her granny--Mary should have been terrified.  But she wasn't.  Something about the woman, the way she spoke, her face, her smile--she seemed familiar.  Mary didn't know her--but she did."

We learn that Tansey, who died when her daughter Emer (Mary's granny) was only three, has hung around in spirit, keeping an eye on Emer, because leaving her didn't feel right.  And now Emer is an old woman, dying and kind of scared about it,  and Tansey wants to ease her mind. How that happens involves all four generations and is the essence of the story. 

One of the reasons I liked A Greyhound of a Girl so much is that Doyle really conveys the emotional intimacy of  family life, but he's not at all melodramatic or obvious about it.  He's very subtle.  The theme of loss is  handled so delicately, and the warmth and comfort of family love is always there.  If ever a ghost story could be life-affirming, this one would be it.  

Roddy Doyle, of course, is a well-established writer of both adult and children's fiction.  His novel Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha won the 1993 Booker Prize. 

Book to Film: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower came out in 1999, a thin little book that was released straight to paperback, and one with a very unassuming cover at that.  It didn't have a lot of fancy publicity, and it wasn't a smash hit like Harry Potter or Twilight.  It was a quiet book, but there was something about it that made people want to pass it on.   Librarians handed it around to each other.  Friends recommended it to friends.   It built a following, then people started talking about it as an underground classic. It's now quite easy to find quotes from the book all over the internet (frankly, they sound kind of trite  out of context).  And finally, it's become a movie.  I read the book about seven years ago, and saw the movie with my daughter last weekend.  We both loved it.  It's a great adaptation, but then again, it should be--it had Stephen Chbosky himself as screenwriter and director.

Perks was a book that really spoke to me.  First of all, it's set in the early 90s, and refers to things like making mixed tapes for your friends.  That made me all nostalgic--I had a friend who used to make the best mixed tapes for me around that time.  But it also resonated because of  how closely I could identify with Charlie, the book's main character.  He felt like me when I was a young adult.  Charlie is damaged by things he can't talk about.  He's introverted, socially awkward, clueless about setting boundaries or expressing himself (except in writing).  He reads a lot and thinks a lot, and watches people, but he's not easily noticed. He's a loner who wants to be more connected but can't seem to do it naturally.  But here's the thing--when I was growing up and going through all of that, I didn't really like myself a lot.  But Chbosky makes us just love Charlie.  I mean, just adore him.  That made the book for me right there.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about Charlie's first year in high school.  This awkward kid manages to make a few friends, Sam and Patrick, who are seniors, much older than Charlie and seemingly much freer as well.  They have a group of buddies, dramatize The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the movies every week,  go to parties where the brownies taste a little strange, and listen to lots of music.  The story is about the ins and outs of their friendship.  Charlie's friends have their own issues, and the friendships aren't straightforward, but they are very believable.  I think Chbosky has captured both how warm and enlivening it feels to belong to a community of friends, and also how left behind you can feel when a friendship falters.

I was a bit worried about the casting before I saw the film--the characters felt real to me in my head, and I didn't want to sit there thinking "Oh look, there's Hermione Granger pretending to be Sam, and Percy Jackson's taking a break from being a demigod to be Charlie."  I kind of wanted people I had never seen before playing the roles.  But Logan Lerman absolutely disappeared into Charlie, and Ezra Miller, who was a new face for me, blew me away as Patrick.  Emma Watson was obviously the big name in this film, and although she is much more of a refined, classic beauty than I imagine Sam being, she brought a lot of warmth to the role.

Even though it's a relatively short book, Chbosky streamlines the story quite a bit for the movie.  I didn't feel it lost anything, though.  The big shock at the end of the book is much more foreshadowed in the film, but I already knew the plot, so I can't really judge what that would do for someone coming to the story fresh.  One difference I did notice;  although in the book I definitely felt that I was reading about a certain time period, the movie seemed to blur that a bit.

Here's the movie trailer:

And here's an interview with Stephen Chbosky and Emma Watson:

 

Every Day by David Levithan

It's hard to think of a teen writer today more romantic than David Levithan. From his breakthrough novel Boy Meets Boy to the recent Lover's Dictionary, he writes about love beautifully and optimistically. Every Day is about love, of course, but being David Levithan it's a little more philosophical than many teen love stories, and it uses elements of fantasy and magic realism to explore some questions that most of us aren't forced to ask.  What is it that really makes us love someone, and how important is the physical aspect of love?  I personally trust  David Levithan and I'll read whatever he cares to write, but while I found Every Day quite thought-provoking, I thought it had a few flaws in its premise that kept me from totally buying into it.

Every Day is about a person named A.  Because A is without a body, he doesn't have the normal attributes we cluster around identity--gender, race, culture, religion, family, even language change for A every day. (I'm going to refer to A as a he, just so I don't go crazy writing he/she).   A wakes up in a new body each day, lives the life of that person with the aid of memories that he can access, and then moves on to another body in a totally unconscious process that takes place each night while he sleeps.  It's been that way for A since infancy, and while A doesn't really understand why he's different, he's never told anyone.  There are a few parameters:  A ages normally (A is now 16, and so only wakes up in bodies that are also 16) and doesn't range too much geographically.  A can't choose whose body he will occupy, and  is never in the same body twice. 

As you can imagine, A is the ultimate loner.  With no relationships to anchor him emotionally, A goes through  life mostly as an observer--the main goal being not to disrupt or interfere in the lives of his hosts, whatever they are like.  But one day A wakes up in the body of a not-very-emotionally-sophisticated 16 year old  named Justin and meets Justin's girlfriend Rhiannon. Just like that, A falls in love.

From there, the story launches into a unique courtship.  After an idyllic day at the beach, A begins to anonymously seek Rhiannon out, to meet her anew and befriend her each day. He can't bear to be without her.   A finally tells her what his life is like, and despite some initial skepticism (of course) she finally believes him.  They slowly grow more attached. They sometimes communicate by e-mail, and sometimes in person, but A's changing bodies become an issue.  You can see Rhiannon respond differently to him when A occupies the body of a handsome jock, or a really fat kid, or a severely depressed goth girl, or a transsexual.  Whether Rhiannon will hold his hand or not depends a lot on what body that hand is attached to.  It also bothers Rhiannon that there is a sense that she can't rely on A.  He doesn't know what his circumstances will be from day to day.  As she points out to him at one point, he's always going to leave her, even if he always comes back. 

There are so many interesting and unexpected things about this story and how the relationship plays out, and I thought the premise was really clever.  But something bothered me all the way through.  The way A experienced infancy and childhood, with a different family each day, should have left him not as emotionally functional and mature as Levithan makes him.  Young children do not thrive emotionally with no attachments.  Yes, there is an undertone of melancholy and poignancy around A when he thinks of  his childhood, but A is not presented as a sociopath (unlike the one other transient soul he meets toward the end).  A is a kind, moral, caring person who would probably have no trouble finding love in normal circumstances.  I can understand why Levithan set things up the way he did in terms of the storyline, but psychologically it didn't feel right to me.  Still, if you can overlook this, Every Day is an absorbing, original read. 

Here's a video of Levithan talking about Every Day: