I just loved this. It felt like a 100% believable slice of urban teen life. The dialogue is perfect: I could hear the characters’ voices in my head, without crossing the line into overdone slang. The online chats even manage to be realistic without being annoying, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a book pull off. There’s a lot of, “he was chatting with me and then he said he was logging off but then I found out he just blocked me and stayed on to chat with you,” which is absolutely the modern teen version of Jane Austen social negotiations, and yet it’s so hard for adult authors to do without seeming contrived. My hat is off to you, Mr. Grant, sir!

The girls deal with some topical stuff, but it never ever feels like an Afterschool Special. In large part this is because every single supporting character is fully realized and engaging. Teenie’s parents are especially awesome. Her Barbadian dad, Beresford, is one of the funniest parental characters I’ve read in a long time:

My dad has these sayings — I call them Beresisms — and “teefin’” is one that he uses most frequently. Teefin’, or stealing, is done by a teef (thief) or, when my dad’s really angry, a teefah. It’s no wonder that growing up I thought Queen Latifah was a criminal mastermind. Lord, this man is strange.

Well-written, funny, believable realistic fiction about girls of color: boy howdy, do we need more like this. (Note: the main characters are 9th graders, and I’d say this is best for 7th-10th grade. There is one explicit, scary sexual situation, but it’s written from the perspective of a girl who’s too young to handle what she’s gotten herself into — and fortunately, she gets out again before anything too awful happens. Younger girls getting pressured (and worse) by older boys happens all the time, in cities and suburbs, so I do think this is appropriate for a lot of middle school readers.)

Also reviewed by: Urban Reviews. The Brown Bookshelf has an interview with the author.

This is told in all five alternating voices, which was distracting. I kept having to check which was Brianna and which was Renee. With so many characters and only 120 pages, Koss relies on a certain amount of stereotyping shorthand, especially with the secondary characters.

(Brianna’s parents are scientists, and we get this description:

My parents’ idea of fun was to lug the telescope and microscope out to the godforsaken desert — poke in the dirt all day, peer at the stars at night. It was as if they were at work twenty-four hours a day. …But isn’t it possible to be a scientist by day, then play slide trombone in a Dixie band or drums in a rock band at night? Watch TV? Be in plays?

Why yes! In fact it is! So why not show characters who do that? They’d be far more interesting and believable, and even less stereotypical parents can set up plenty of “don’t have a loud party tonight, Bree” conflict.)

It’s rare to get the Mean Girls’ point of view portrayed sensitively. Which makes sense for the victimized target readership — I think most kids feel victimized at some point in middle school. But as a teacher, even as I hate what the bullies are doing, they’re still 12-year-old girls and my heart goes out to them. They’re behaving that way for a reason, and I wonder if it might help to recognize themselves in a book where they can also see their victims’ perspective?

That’s the type of question this book is designed for. Nothing much “happens”; it’s a psychological case study as much as anything. For all that this is not a richly built world (again, 120 pages), the friendship drama is entirely believable. My kids deal with this crap every day, poor things, and I can imagine this book meaning a lot to a girl who goes to school with cramps in her stomach thinking about how her “friends” will subtly torment her today.

The girls on the cover, incidentally, are all white, which disappoints me since that wasn’t specified at all in the book. (Maya is the daughter of Russian immigrants; the others are given a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds but no clear ethnicities.)

Also reviewed by: Books on the Brain, Reading Nook, and Bookshelves of Doom

I can’t talk about this book — nor can I in good conscience review it — without one spoiler: the nature of the crime. The book is told in alternating chapters, Gittel’s childhood voice leading up to the crime and her seventeen-year-old voice reflecting on it. The two voices don’t work back to specifics until the middle of the book, though it’s a safe guess earlier.

SPOILER
Gittel’s best friend Devory is raped by her older brother. The incident Gittel witnesses is part of a repeated pattern of abuse throughout Devory’s childhood. She’s ultimately unable to handle it and hangs herself in Gittel’s bathroom. It’s an incredibly painful sequence to read, obviously, and anyone who might have issues in this department should definitely be warned.

“Eishes Chayil” means “woman of valor,” and is a pseudonym. The author is a Chassidic woman who took a personal risk speaking out about this sort of abuse, though it’s also very clear that she loves her community. It’s so easy, when writing about someone harmed in a very different culture, to lean heavily on the judgment and imply that no one should live that way. Chayil never takes that road. It’s an important book, both for anyone from within an insular community who might get to read it (it’s a first of its kind, I think), and for its description of the Chassidic world to outsiders. The Amish are a much more familiar closed religious society in American popular culture (not that we have many novels written by Amish women, either). I’m Jewish and still knew almost nothing about this version of Judaism. So it’s important, and very well-written, but I wouldn’t call it enjoyable or an easy read.

*Not, oddly, what to eat (aside from the regular kosher laws). I found it completely fascinating that a community so focused on separating its members from the outside world, whose clothing choices and entertainment and everything ignore the modern world as much as possible, thinks nothing of eating Rice Krispie treats.

The characters also mention psychotherapy, which is apparently acceptable — though since the culture is so firmly “ignore it and it will go away,” I’m not sure how the therapist is supposed to help. The cultural lines were the most interesting part of the book for me, for sure.

Also reviewed by: the wonderfully named Velveteen Rabbi, Frenetic Reader, and Helen’s Book Blog. If you’re interested in some Orthodox Jews’ takes on the book, Hashkafah has a forum on the subject.

I could probably read Jacqueline Woodson’s shopping list and it would make me sniffly. The touching pathos of the pasta and toilet paper! Seriously, every one of her slim little books is a gem. Nothing much happens here, and yet everything happens. The language is lyrical and entirely authentic to the characters.

I do wonder, though, what kids think? This book uses non-linear storytelling, an ambiguous not-entirely-happy ending… things I love, but which my students always complain about. If you know kids who love this book or any of her others, I’d love to hear about it!

Also reviewed by: The Happy Nappy Bookseller (who also has an interview with Jacqueline Woodson) Regular Rumination, and Becky’s Book Reviews.

Reggie has big dreams for his school, but Clarke Junior School isn’t stepping up. His classmates are more interested in helping themselves than helping each other, and besides, nobody listens to Reggie anyway after an unfortunate incident on the first day of school left him with the nickname “Pukey.” With help from his best friends, Ruthie and Joe C., and the residents of a local homeless shelter where his youth group volunteers, Reggie sets out to change Clarke and change himself. Ideally without any more puking.

I fell in love with this book on page 4, when Ruthie prefaces her current events report in class thusly:

“Because of the American media’s obvious bias, I used seventeen different global news sources — including the Madagascar Weekly — to put my report together.”

Ruthie is my hero. As is Reggie, as is Olugbemisola R-P for writing this fantastic book. These are hilarious, brave, real kids who I miss since I finished their story. This book manages to be an honest, well-rounded friendship story, family story, political story, and coming-of-age. It even discusses religion without being preachy or about disillusionment. Reggie is never in danger of losing his faith, but he’s always considering what it means. None of the spheres of Reggie’s life are neglected or one-dimensional — a pretty stunning feat for such a zippy book.

Not only that, it stars recognizably urban kids with urban kid problems (including money) who will be relatable for well-off suburban kids. (At least, so I suspect — I’ll let you know after I start pushing this on my own well-off suburban kids.) Finding a book whose appeal straddles those worlds is so rare.

Also reviewed by: The Book Smugglers, Reading in Color, and Steph Su Reads (who disagreed with me about the book being “zippy”). And here’s an interview with the author at Mitali’s Fire Escape.

I loved it! She gets middle school girl relationships perfectly, the way a group of friends chooses one to pick on. They don’t even know they’re doing it, necessarily, but enough “just kidding!”s really hurt. Not to mention, of course, that this is the ideal book to put braces angst in perspective. It spans a number of years, promising that by the time you’re settled in high school, the teeth and the friends do get better.

The whole package — art and writing and dramedic tone — reminded me of Hope Larson’s Chiggers, which is high praise indeed.

(And if you also grew up in the late 80s, you will love the “period” touches. I had completely forgotten about Caboodles. I was shocked — shocked! — to learn that Raina Telgemeier graduated high school a year ahead of me.)

Also reviewed at: Lavender Lines (who also has fond memories of the Caboodle), Abby (the) Librarian, and Stacked

HarperCollins sent me a review copy back in April (thanks, Laura!), and I read it then, but I put off the review until now because it was just published.

I thought it was fantastic! Russ is a believable guy in a believable blue-collar Boston suburb, from the DJ Schwenk school of plain writing about complex issues. This is gripping, painful stuff, and the end isn’t neat by any means; it’s an excellent choice for older reluctant-reader boys.

Also reviewed at: Girls in the Stacks

Apocalypse how? Vague environmental apocalypse, a long time ago. The best we get is “back when you couldn’t breathe the air outside and the sun made people sick.” No one remembers how anything came to be — the city, the domes above the city where the rich people live, the farming town of Axel’s people — and in fact no one Outside or in the domes knows about the city, and the city dwellers don’t know about anything else. The Authorities, of course, keep everyone in ignorance, in the way that Authorities do.

One of the fantastic things about this book is how ignorant we are. As a kid there seemed great unresolved mysteries (and I read this book a lot). As an adult I was able to pick up on more clues, but even so, understanding requires inhabiting the space between the lines. The spare prose is powerfully subtle, and heartbreaking.

I find the ending fascinating, because (spoiler alert!) Amy and Axel don’t change the world. They don’t even try. They aren’t Katniss and Peeta fomenting revolution; they’re happy enough just to have “come up from level nine.” My instinct says that this has changed over time — in the ’70s and ’80s, the young characters survived their adventure and made it to a better place, and that was enough. Modern post-apocalyptic heroes need to overthrow the government and usher in a new era of freedom or the story doesn’t feel satisfying. (I haven’t done a comprehensive survey, of course, so I might be wrong about the shift, but it definitely struck me during this re-read. Anyone want to discuss some counter-examples?)

13 vs. 31: Oh, man. I can’t be remotely objective about this one; it was the start of my love affair with post-apocalyptic fiction. It consistently gave me chills as I re-read it, but who knows how much was nostalgia?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: H. M. Hoover is the best children’s author you’ve never read. I think this is one of her best books, but I’d be curious to discuss it with someone who has perspective.

I’m going to be vague about plot, because it’s nearly impossible to explain without giving things away. It’s a school story, a friendship story, and a family story, and that’s all I’ll say about that. (It also manages to hit several of my story kinks at once: Everything She Thought She Knew Was a Lie and epic connections between family members across time and chosen family. Plus, of course, Australia. Ooooh.)

I will say it took me a long time to get into it, longer than I would normally give a book, but I stuck with it because it came so highly recommended. There’s a long stretch where you will have not the foggiest clue what the hell is going on. “The Brigadier”? “The Hermit”? Doesn’t anyone have a bloody name in this book?

Power through that, though; it’s worth it. Even the stupid school territory battle, a convention I normally hate (I can never understand why kids in books take that sort of thing so seriously), comes clear in the end. It’s a beautifully put together gem of a book that would, I think, work packaged for adults as well. (If you are an adult who doesn’t normally read YA, let me know what you think.)

Question: Did you play some sort of Very Serious Game when you were in school, or did you know people who did? Something to do with territory wars, or hazing, or anything like that, where there were leaders and complicated rules that everyone took as gospel? And if so, can you explain to me why on earth you cared? Is it a British (and, I guess, Australian) thing?

Also reviewed at: Chicklish, The LibrariYAn, and YAnnabe.

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I love almost everything about this wonderfully original book: the mom’s boyfriend who’s actually a nice guy and a good dad, the chapter titles structured as $20,000 Pyramid categories (it took me awhile to get that), the way the tone evokes A Wrinkle in Time. It’s one of those cozy books where everyone is good and forgiving and human without being saccharine, and it probably makes me a giant wuss, but I love that. The end is creepy and tragic and uplifting, and I bawled my eyes out.

As a side note, I have to quote this delicious (snerk) swipe at food-related racial shorthand:

My first memory of Julia is from second grade, when we made self-portraits in art. She complained there was no “cafe au lait”-colored construction paper for her skin, or “sixty-percent-cacao-chocolate” color for her eyes. I remember staring at her while these words came out of her mouth, and thinking, Your skin is light brown. Your eyes are dark brown. Why don’t you just use brown, you idiot? Jay Stringer didn’t complain about the paper, and neither did any of the other ten kids using brown.

What really makes this work is that while Julia is set up to be the snotty love-to-hate-her girl, she ends up being a friend. So we see how even though she’s privileged financially, she encounters so much racism that she needed to ennoble her brown skin as “cafe au lait” — and somehow Stead manages to make all of these points subtly, while staying within sixth-grade perspective.

Sadly what I don’t love about this book is the cover. I would have loved the hell out of this book when I was twelve, but no one could’ve convinced me to read it. I would have looked at the cover, gone “Meh, depressed kid with no friends and too much interior life,” and tossed it. (I didn’t like books that hit too close to home, apparently.)

We just got it, so I haven’t started foisting it on my kids yet, but I think they’ll love it. Highly recommended!

Also reviewed by: Abby (the) Librarian, Educating Alice (which has an annoying snowfall animation, but makes up for it with posts by her students about the book), and A Fuse #8 Production (who writes much longer reviews than I do, so she says all the things I wanted to say but didn’t).

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