Help for the Haunted by John Searles

This book was pretty compelling, right up to the end. 

Sylvie, a bright and motivated 14 year old, lives in a pretty discouraging home.  Her parents "heal" the haunted.  Her older sister is a rebel.  The book is a murder mystery.  Early in the story Sylvie's parents are murdered in a local church.  Sylvie may be the only one who has answers to the identity of the real murderer.

Over all I enjoyed the book.  The strands of the mystery are many and interwoven.  I would have personally chosen a different ending, but that is because I am always looking for cross-over books (adult books for young adults).  I will hesitate to recommend this book without forewarning (in my conservative state). 

One strength of the book is that there are many adults and a few young adults who actually support Sylvie and are actually somewhat helpful.  The main characters are relatively nuanced.  Generally I can recommend this as a summer read. 

The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

Penguin Group. 2012

This may become the John Green book but I recommend first.  The main character, Hazel Grace, has an ultimately fatal cancer (her diagnosis is "terminal"). At the insistence of her mother, she attends a teen cancer support group where she meets the other major characters of the book. Hazel's cancer has limited her ability to move through the world because of being tethered to oxygen as well as her limited energy levels. Her boy friend, Augustus Waters, has lost his leg.

Although I have not had to live closely with cancer, my general experiences with colleagues and friends tells me that Green has done his homework. Readers will develop an understanding of both the physical and emotional tolls that cancer takes upon the individual, the family, and friends around them.

Readers will find the prose in this book a bit more challenging than other works by Green. However in the era of CCSS it provides opportunities to draw developing readers into increasingly sophisticated text. Both Hazel and Augustus have become sophisticated users of language. Possibly their lengthy hospital stays and recuperations have given them opportunities to develop linguistic sophistication not typical of most young adults. However, I believe that both were excellent students even before their cancer diagnosis.

As a special treat me, Green also includes a trip to a Amsterdam. His portrayal of daily life there and a visit to the Anne Frank Memorial, are realistic and helped me a relive my recent trip.

I believe that ultimately this will be an award winning book. Some of the issues that have created problems for teachers wishing to bring Green into the classroom are not as prevalent in this book.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Leviathan

Those of you familiar with David Leviathan's writings will not be surprised that gay teens are some of the main characters in this book. That being said, this is a book that I would be most interested in trying out with a straight adolescent males. I also think that young women would enjoy it greatly.

Both Green and Leviathan have a wonderful ability to capture the angst of adolescent social relationships, both romantic and platonic.  They're also able to create extremely amusing scenes that turn on a point. Many readers will both laugh and cry on the same page. Something else that I appreciate about this book  is that contemporary parents and other adults are represented with empathy and sensitivity.

 Although the two Will Graysons are the main characters of the story, Tiny Cooper, a football player/playwright is equally important within the story. Although much of the plot focuses on romance, I believe that the primary theme has to do with friendship. Much of the plot centers around his dramatic aspiration but as both a playwright and producer of musicals.

Also important part of the book is Will Grayson's struggle with depression. I believe I detect John Green's influence here. Readers who have lived with a close friend or family member suffering from depression below find this a very helpful but look at the inside experience.

Some will undoubtedly suggest that the but story is too much like the popular television series " Glee." It does have similarities, but I do believe that the authors' have also created a more nuanced look at friendships and romance. Certainly any adolescent who enjoys the television show will thoroughly appreciate this novel.

Peak, by Roland Smith

Everest! What would lead a 14-year-old to Everest by surprise? Smith's story follows Peak Marcello, the son of two "rock rats" from his illegal skyscraper climbing in New York City to Everest. Most of the story is about the attempt at Everest, but there are also several other story lines with in the book including: political relations between China and Nepal, the relationships of climbers and sherpas, family dynamics, sensationalism in the news business and coming of age.

Smith always tells a good story and this one is particularly strong. It kept me up well past my bed-time to finish reading and I had trouble sleeping afterward. (Or it may have just been my biorhythms--who knows.) Although I am not a rock climber I have plenty of exposure to them (my daughter works at REI and there are many climbers in the area where I live). I've also read Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer another book about the various factors around the current craze of guided trips to Everest. I believe both have significant questions about the wisdom of continuing to allow this sort of activity.

Smith's webpage is a great resource, but I am having trouble accessing its content today. I had hoped to gather some information about his research for this book. I know Smith has been around the world and experienced many of the situations (or at least nuggets of them) that he writes about. I wanted to know more about how he researched this book. I'll try his site again later. www.rolandsmith.com

This will be a great read for any

Red Glove, by Holly Black

Holly Black is one of my go-to authors for urban fantasy.  She does not disappoint in this most recent book. This is a second book in the Curse Workers series.  These are set in contemporary times, on the Eastern seaboard of the United States but in a world with a minor difference. In this alternative world there are a small group of people called curse workers who have powers to change, among other things,  people's memories and emotions.  Curse workers can also kill people with the touch of a hand.

In Black's world these forces unfortunately are not used for good.  Set in the Eastern United States the curse workers primarily work for organized crime. The main character, Cassel Sharpe, is struggling with defining his role within his family, friends, and the world at large. His family in particular challenges him every step of the way to try and reconcile his and native born talents with his own personal morality. Added to Cassel's interior conflict are the pressures being exerted upon him by his family members, the FBI, and a crime lord.

The story in this book is driven by Cassel's attempts to discover the identity of a murder.  In doing so he has to involve his friends and explore the boundaries established by the law and social norms. The plot, characters, and writing will keep you reading.  The theme of reconciling your personal values with your family's and the world at large makes this book well worth recommending to young adult readers.

Freak the Mighty, by Rodman Philbrick

One of my interns was involved in teaching this novel in an 8th grade class.  I would not have selected this myself, but the response of the teens to the book has changed my mind.  It is a "safe" book for use in middle school or junior high and offers a strong story about friendship and acceptance of differences.  I watched our 8th graders respond enthusiastically and with thoughtfulness to this book.

Although it has a Lexile score of 1000 I think this is a relatively easy read.  It is quite short at 160 pages.  Max, son of "Killer Kane" struggles to create his own identity if a community to remembers his father, now in prison, too clearly.  His grandparents, in their own way, love him and try to care for him the best they can.  On July 1st Max's life changes when Kevin, a teen with a genetic disorder that severely stunts his growth, moves in next door.  Max and Kevin become fast friends, to the extent that they merge into one persona, "Freak the Mighty."  By the end of summer "Freak the Mighty" is more than ready to take on the detractors they meet upon entering 8th grade.

As the mother of a "giant" (my son is 6'5" and a "large" man), I can appreciate the self-consciousness that plagues Max.  My son, now an adult, moved through school taller than all of his teachers from 2nd grade on.  (I'll admit his 2nd and 3rd grade teachers were "shortish", but my son was also quite "tallish.")  I value this book for helping young adolescents develop greater appreciation for their peers that are not completely "average." 

The story is told in 1st person limited and as a result readers have to content with a somewhat unreliable narrator.  This is good practice since many of them will be taking on To Kill a Mockingbird in their 9th grade year.  This book also resonates well with The Scarlet Ibis. 

Philbrick is not an author I have been familiar with, but in researching him a bit it turns out that he and I are of the same generation and that he has been a pretty prolific writer.  He has a 2010 Newbery Honor book that I think will be on my short list of books to read.  The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg has also been turned into a stage production and will be presented at the Kennedy Center in 2012.  

What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blundell

Set in post-WWII America this book combines coming of age, a "detective" story, and information about Nazis and the treatment of Jews in the early part of the 20th century.  Evie is not your typical 1940's teen.  Raised in New York city during the depression and through WWII, she hasn't had the easy life that we'd like to think adolescents had.  Her mother is on her second marriage and trying to contend with the results of years of lies and deceptions.

Evie and her parents leave for a "vacation" in Florida at the beginning of the school year.  This leaving is quite sudden and keeps Evie slightly off-kilter. At fifteen, removing Evie from her school and friends is, in itself, emotionally damaging. Things only become more confusing as she and her parents travel south.  In Florida Evie finds herself on the edge of very odd adult behavior.  Through this she has to develop her own set of ethics and find a way to make a way through a series of events that would perplex most of us. 

This book was awarded the 2008 National Book Award for Young Adult Literature.  I think it is deserving of the award and well worth adding to book sets created around the commonly read Diary of Anne Frank.  There are some references to adult sexual behavior that are quite mild and one teen-aged "lust" scene that may offend some readers.  However, the scenes are all important to the plot (not gratuitous) and worth the risk a teacher might incur in recommending the book.  I probably wouldn't choose it as a whole-class read because of some of this content, but I would read sections aloud to encourage students to read it independently.

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I began this because one of my interns will be working with it this spring. It was a great read--a book that captured an afternoon and kept me from other work I should be doing. It's an apocalypse book (distopia--end of days). The basic plot line is that an asteroid hits the moon and changes earth's climate. Miranda, our protagonist, is a junior in high school with an older (college aged) and younger brother. Her parents are divorced. She is having a fairly typical adolescence until the asteroid hits.

What follows is a story of a mother's love and courage. Also a story of an adolescent (and her brothers) having to meet, accept, and overcome disaster. It is well crafted, believable, and explores a quite believable series of disastrous events. I some ways it reminded me of Laura Ingles Wilder's The Long Winter.

At first I was a little uneasy that this was going to be a "Rapture" book. It's not. However it does have a fundamentalist preacher/church as one of the secondary characters. Teachers will need to be prepared to deal with some religious questions. I wonder if it will become a challenged book.

Lexile 770. Recommended 6-12 grades. Multiple awards:

• Black-Eyed Susan Book Awards (Maryland): High School
• Booklist Editors' Choice - Books for Youth - Older Readers Category: 2006
• Garden State Teen Book Awards (New Jersey): Fiction (Grades 6-8)
• Nutmeg Children's Book Award (Connecticut): Teen category
• Texas Tayshas Reading Lists: 2007
• Truman Readers Award (Missouri)
• YALSA Best Books for Young Adults: 2007

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, by David Wroblewski

I bought this on the advice of several friends. I'm a fan of "The Dog Whisperer," have a "pack" of 3 dogs, and am fascinated with issues of training animals. I don't really have enough time to do a good job with my pets (2 of them actually belong to my children). This book is pretty realistic about the amount of time and attention that it takes to properly train animals and to run a kennel. [BTW--my youngest brother has a kennel--primarily Basset Hounds--they show and breed them.]

I've also had direct experience with what can go wrong with a family farm. I've said before, Jane Smiley only scratches the surface of what can go wrong. Here's another book that focuses on the complexities of rural life and the supposedly "idyllic" farm family.

Two days after having finished I'm still pondering a number of themes. Was the Sawtelle farm cursed from the beginning? Is this a tragic story, a coming-of-age story, or a morality tale? Why make Edgard mute?

This is a book that could be placed in a high school curriculum. It's a bit long to read, but passionate readers wouldn't be bothered by that. I'd love for our local 9th graders to be allowed to read this along with "To Kill a Mockingbird." I think it makes a great companion read.

Now for the bad part--I'm not in love with the ending. No spoiler here--but I wish somehow that the ending was different. When you finish reading then email and we can discuss the ending.

Avalon High, Meg Cabot (2006)

Cabot is the popular author of several series of books for female adolescents including the somewhat famous Princess Diaries series. This book, perhaps the first in a new series, takes the Arthurian legend to modern high school. It's actually a pretty good read and would make a great companion book to other Arthurian books. The main character mirrors Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott. In our area many students read The Green Knight as a required reading. I am personally a greater fan of Nancy Springer's series that looks at the main characters in the Arthurian group from fresh perspectives. These including I am Morgan le Fay: A Tale from Camelot and I am Mordred: A Tale from Calemot. Both a great books to help students explore voice and point of view. Avalon High would make another nice companion to this set of books but would contribute more to explorations of setting and mood although voice and point of view certainly could be included. FYI--Springer is also taking this series to "manga" (a cartoon style).

Swantown: The Secret Journal of Susanna Shakespeare, by Micahel J. Ortiz

This gives a rich sense of everyday life in Elizabethean England. The plot is really quite gripping. Susanna want to be a "player" and "writer" like her father, the famous William Shakespeare. But, on the way her uncle gets in trouble with the "censor" and Suzanna needs to help save him.I'm not so certain that the historical facts about William's relationship with his family are accurate. But, it is motivating me to go back and confirm what I thought I knew about Shakespeare's relationship with his wife and children.Good read!