I identified with Keri immediately because in the first chapter she explains that she likes to be prepared. She has plans for every possible disaster, keeps emergency supplies in her bedroom, that sort of thing. But of course, she does not have a plan for what to do when her beloved older brother kills himself. Unless it turns out to be murder, as her childhood friend Janna suspects. It turns out that Keri’s brother is part of a pattern of “suicides” that includes Janna’s brother, her friend Sione’s brother, and ten years’ worth of other oldest brothers, all from different parts of New Zealand, who have visited their idyllic resort town for the New Year’s festivities. The three only have a short time until New Year’s comes around again to identify this year’s victim and find the killers.

I loved Healey’s last book, Guardian of the Dead, and I loved this. For many of the same reasons: believable, flawed friendships between fully realized characters; sensitive handling of sex (and the lack thereof); a stunning sense of place. The magic felt a bit less organic here than in Guardian and required more suspension of disbelief for some reason; I kept waiting for a twist, that it wasn’t what the kids thought, but nope — it pretty much was, and was an idea we’ve all seen before, and therefore had something of a “Buffy monster-of-the-week” feel, like with established characters all of this could have happened in 50 minutes on TV.

So while this feels less original than Guardian (with the exception of the New Zealand setting, which is unusual enough to get a bunch of automatic originality points for an American audience), it was no less fun to read. I chewed through it in one day, home sick recovering from BEA. Healey is an outstanding writer with a gift for dialogue, characterization, and foreshadowing. She drops hints along the way that only seem sinister in retrospect, but doesn’t make us wait for the characters to catch up to what we’ve already figured out. And she weaves race, class, and sexuality (and, in this case, temporary disability) into the story in such a way that it feels like she’s creating real people rather than checking character traits off a PC list.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the role of fear in my own life, and how to avoid sacrificing long-term sanity for short-term peace of mind. I said at the beginning that I identified with Keri’s need to plan for every eventuality. At the end she says, “I still planned for possibilities, but it was easier to recognize the planning as part of the anxiety and not being about real things that might actually happen,” and it was eerily like reading words from my own head.
…

SPOILERS (which might be interesting if you’re not going to read the book, since (surprise!) I go off on a tangent)

One of my favorite things about Healey’s books is how the magic has lasting consequences — good and bad. At the end of Guardian the earthquakes had still happened and people needed to clean up afterwards. And at the end of this, people do start losing their jobs and leaving Summerton. That is the consequence of putting an end to the spell that demanded the boys as sacrifice. (It’s implied that the town is going to be okay anyway, which is maybe a cop-out considering how similar West Coast towns are described as “ghost towns.”) “Dystopia” is the big buzzword right now, but this is a dystopia in the truest sense — it aims for utopia and misses horribly, and we see that from the inside.

It made me think of Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” (If you’ve never read it, the text is behind that link. It’s very short and I think it’s pretty much required modern reading.) To what lengths are we willing to go to keep the places we love safe and prosperous? Is there any amount of sacrifice that’s worth it? We (and here I’m making some assumptions about my readership) are, of course, all citizens of Omelas or Summerton — enjoying our cheap and plentiful fuel and food and material goods at the expense of the impoverished people who create those things for us. There are ways to walk away from Omelas, to go off the grid, but almost no one does it because the pull of the comfort and safety and community is far too strong. (And because — and this is something not allowed for in the parameters of LeGuin’s story — maybe it’s better to stay and try to change things from the inside?)

I think that’s why it took people who had been damaged by the Summerton spell to finally see the rot at the core of the town. The pain of losing their brothers was enough to intrude on the cocoon. Everyone else chose to look away, and the coven members themselves — who, like the people of Omelas (and us), know and are making a fully conscious choice — find ways to justify it.

Also reviewed by: Pink Me, Wandering Librarians, and Bookshop

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.

In the French fairy tale on which this is based, one sister is kind to a fairy/witch/whathaveyou and is blessed to have jewels and flowers drop from her mouth when she speaks. The second sister goes to demand the same blessing, but because of her rudeness is cursed with toads and snakes. In this twist, the snakes and toads are a blessing of a different sort — toads are lucky and snakes are revered as rat-catching symbols of the goddess Naghali. The setting is a fictionalized polytheistic 17th century India, occupied by fictionalized pseudo-Muslims who call themselves Believers.

Tana and her mother Hiral are the only family Diribani has left after her father, Hiral’s second wife, dies. Miracle of miracles, they actually love each other; no wicked stepmother and sister here. Newly impoverished, both sisters want to keep the family together, but the goddess’s blessings make that impossible. Diribani wants to share her gift, but nearly starts a riot during a parade for the visiting prince and is taken to his palace far away for her protection. Tana’s gift is feared by the Believers. The prince orders her and Hiral to live in the temple grove outside the village, where her beasties can quietly slither off to the forest. They are sad to be separated, but it seems for the best.

But of course it’s not that simple. Diribani has a hard time fitting in with her new companions, who are Believers and royalty to boot. The wicked, greedy local governor drives Tana out and wants Diribani and her jewels for himself. And of course both girls fall for men they think they can’t have.

I liked the delicate interplay between the two religions. The Believers are an occupying power, yes, but they are only portrayed as evil at the beginning, while they’re still “the other” — as Diribani gets to know them she comes to appreciate their customs. I also liked Diribani’s and Tana’s separate quests to determine what Naghali intends for them to do with her gifts. Both girls have quite believable crises of faith, but the goddess never really forsakes them. This is an unabashedly religious book in a way that modern readers will relate to, I think, even though the religion is made up. There was also a surprising amount of complex political intrigue; I can see this appealing to fans of Megan Whalen Turner’s The Thief.

None of the characters ever particularly grabbed me, unfortunately. There’s too much “oh woe, I am a plain/useless/lazy girl; my sister is so much better than me” from both sisters, though that improves some once they start traveling and having adventures. The book struck me as a bit overwritten, with a lot of unnecessary explanation of thoughts and feelings that were obvious. But the descriptions were certainly gorgeous, and Allegra and I both loved the fairy tale “twist.” Most importantly, a lot more happens than in Tall Story, and on that basis we thought it would be more appealing to young readers. I had a blast chatting with Allegra about these books, as she is a young teenager herself and therefore very differently qualified than I am to judge kid appeal!

Also reviewed by: My Library Card Wore Out (my co-judge), Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog (who sent it on to our round of Nerds Heart YA), The Book Smugglers, and Forever Young Adult.

Andi adores basketball, and is devastated to learn that her new London school has no girls’ basketball team. Meanwhile, in a small village in the Philippines, her older half-brother Bernardo’s neighbors believe he is the reincarnation of mythological town savior Bernardo Carpio. Like the legendary giant, Bernardo is tall — like, all his clothes made special, can’t buy shoes, dunks the basketball without jumping tall. And the town believes that, like the giant, Bernardo protects them from the earthquakes that regularly wreak havoc in the country.

Bernardo and Andi’s mother has been waiting 16 years for the British government to allow her to bring Bernardo to live with them. Now that day has finally come. Everyone is thrilled that the family will reunite, but how will Andi get along with the brother she doesn’t know? How will Nardo fit in with a new country, a new language, and a new family? And without their giant protector, will the earthquakes return to San Andres?

This was a bit of a slow start, but it grew on me. Told in alternating chapters by the two teens, Andi’s story is a fairly “typical teen” growth arc — proving herself as a basketball player, getting over her resentment of her new “dorky” brother. I found Nardo’s story more engaging from the beginning. Nardo’s conflict between his responsibility as village “savior” and his desire to be with his mom was compelling. I also liked the window into San Andres with its small-community quirkiness. The San Andres cast are much more memorable characters than Andi’s new basketball buddies. (They were fine, but they can’t compete with a witch named Mad Nena and a short Filipino kid who goes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.)

I loved hearing the siblings’ stories their own ways for the first third of the book, and then seeing them through each other’s eyes. Bernardo thinks Andi is a boy at first, and Andi is unimpressed by Bernardo’s beloved suit (handmade by the local tailor, who puts Velcro on everything). Their cross-cultural relationship is complex and believable.

Phoebe North wrote a timely (as far as I was concerned) post recently about the appeal of magical realism to teens. As you might have gathered from the whole “giant” bit, there’s more than a little magical realism in this story. Did Bernardo grow into a giant because of a wish made on a wishing stone, or because he has a medical condition? Is he protecting San Andres from earthquakes, or has their absence during his life just been a coincidence? It’s never clear, which places this in the “magical realism” camp for me.

The middle grade readers at whom this book seems most targeted can be quite literal, so I’m not sure how they’ll take the ambiguity. And, as I said, the book is a bit slow. It doesn’t scream “instant kid appeal” to me, but it’s original and intriguing and I’m sure it will appeal very much to certain kids. Allegra of My Library Card Wore Out, my co-judge, is a young teen herself, and agreed with me about the pace:

This book was nominated for the CARNEGIE MEDAL. The Sunday Times voted it one of the 100 Best Summer Titles. The Times voted it the Most Recommended Children’s Book for Christmas. It is a YA book but the reviews are by adults. They read differently. I think that might be why they enjoyed it. Since I am YA, I like books that have something happening, like many teen readers. It was a little too slow for my taste and not enough happened to keep my interest. I have never read a book like it. I like reading faster paced books and if there is nothing interesting in a book I am instantly turned off. I guess this is something I have to work on.

I loved getting her perspective; she’s right that most reviewers and award-givers are adults, and one of my favorite things about the internet is how people of all ages can participate at equal levels.

Also reviewed by: My Library Card Wore Out, Pineapples and Pyjamas (who moved this on to our round in Nerds Heart YA), Charlotte’s Library, and Wondrous Reads.

Okay, let’s get the totally unavoidable Harry Potter comparisons out of the way. The first third of the book is made up of the requisite “Sunny sees the magical world and starts magic school” sequences, and I couldn’t stop drawing parallels. There’s Diagon Alley Leopard Knocks, full of wonder for Sunny, where the kids buy the books they’ll need for their magical education. There’s Dumbledore Anatov, the wise teacher who tosses them into danger without ever giving them quite enough information. There’s the mysterious, dead magical relative whom Sunny’s family won’t discuss. There’s the scene where Sunny breaks a magical rule to terrify a bully and is taken to the Ministry of Magic Obi Library to be punished. And of course, there’s the team of untrained kids who must save the world.

Here’s the thing, though: it doesn’t matter. “There are only x stories in the world” and all that, and the details of this one are fabulous and original enough to distinguish itself. Okorafor’s imagination is just as boundless as Rowling’s (and in fact her magic holds together better), and she has created just as immersive a world.

And I’m kind of burying the lede here, but: it’s not a white world. Kids who love fantasy — white kids, black kids, everybody — devoured Harry Potter, but Hogwarts grew from a very particular British fantasy tradition and boarding school tradition, and with a few secondary character exceptions, everyone’s British and white.

I don’t think there’s a single white character in Akata Witch. And not only that, but the American characters — the only Westerners — are singled out for their Americanness; being American is Other, even explicitly in the title. Nigeria, an African country, is portrayed as a place where normal people live out their lives — not crushingly impoverished people, not people in a war zone, but kids and adults who go to school and have jobs and cell phones. Sunny’s parents had jobs in the U.S. and chose to move back to Africa. I don’t even know how to say how rare that is in an American children’s novel.

Stacy Whitman of Tu Publishing talks about “mirrors” and “windows”:

mirrors to see your own experience reflected back, windows to see into another world. Author Zetta Elliott recently added a dimension to that which I like, the idea of “sliding glass doors” to walk in and experience someone else’s world.

Akata Witch is a much-needed mirror for African-American kids and West African kids who like fantasy, and a heck of a rich, entertaining sliding door for everyone else. Highly recommended.

(Also highly recommended is the rest of Stacy’s 3-part piece on diversity in children’s literature, which begins here.)

Also reviewed by: The Happy Nappy Bookseller, Brooklyn Rail, and Waking Brain Cells. Odnani gives some fascinating background about the Igbo magical tradition from which the book draws.

That’s right — three, not the two I blogged about in Sept. I wasn’t especially excited about the first two, just for my own personal reading taste, but the third one is right up my alley and then some:

Tankborn, by Karen Sandler

Best friends Kayla and Mishalla know they will be separated when the time comes for their Assignments. They are GENs, Genetically Engineered Non-humans, and in their strict caste system, GENs are at the bottom rung of society. High-status trueborns and working-class lowborns, born naturally of a mother, are free to choose their own lives. But GENs are gestated in a tank, sequestered in slums, and sent to work as slaves as soon as they reach age fifteen.

When Kayla is Assigned to care for Zul Manel, the patriarch of a trueborn family, she finds a host of secrets and surprises—not least of which is her unexpected friendship with Zul’s great-grandson. Meanwhile, the children that Mishalla is Assigned to care for are being stolen in the middle of the night. With the help of an intriguing lowborn boy, Mishalla begins to suspect that something horrible is happening to them.

After weeks of toiling in their Assignments, mystifying circumstances enable Kayla and Mishalla to reunite. Together they hatch a plan with their new friends to save the children who are disappearing. Yet can GENs really trust humans? Both girls must put their lives and hearts at risk to crack open a sinister conspiracy, one that may reveal secrets no one is ready to face.

Reminds me of House of the Scorpion, a bit. I am thoroughly intrigued! Definitely added to my list for Fall 2011. (And, you know, if anyone happens across an ARC… hint, hint.)

I read this after posting “Save the Muslim girl!”, because it’s written by a Pakistani-American woman who has spent time living in Pakistan. And indeed, it does avoid most of the traps that article talked about. There are no Westerners involved here; Nazia and her family and everyone else succeed and fail on their own. I got the sense that I was getting a fairly honest view of the Pakistani underclass.

If there is an enemy in this book beyond endemic poverty, it’s men. Men are consistently portrayed as lazy and inconsiderate, taking wives and having daughters so the women can do all the work and they can reap all the benefit. I have no idea how accurate this is, but at least it’s coming from a woman who is at least partly inside the culture.

As a novel, I enjoyed it well enough. It’s a pretty standard “view into another culture” book, and the hope of the ending seemed somewhat contrived (not that the author could leave us without hope, of course). But I liked the characterization of Nazia’s mother and their relationship, and the descriptions of the city and landscape and food were lovely. It’s a solid addition to a “lives of Muslim girls” list.

Also reviewed by: Booking Mama, Regular Rumination, and The Zen Leaf (which addresses some of the “Save the Muslim girl!” issues)

• a “YA paranormal thriller” by Joseph Bruchac, author of Code Talker, whose description involves a “black-ops father” and an “abandoned, monster-guarded mansion.”
• “Galaxy Games by Greg Fishbone, a MG science fiction trilogy about an incoming asteroid that turns out to be an alien spaceship, visiting Earth to recruit a team of kid athletes to compete in the upcoming Galaxy Games Tournament.”

If I taught boys or liked these sorts of things myself, I would be excited. As it is, I’m underwhelmed. At least neither book appears to involve making out with a werewolf.

Fortunately, the book doesn’t stop there. Skyla and her creepy boyfriend want Naomi to come live with them, for reasons that may have to do with baby-sitting the boyfriend’s daughter and may have to do with child-support welfare checks. They don’t want Owen, because he has a physical disability which Skyla finds embarrassing. Gram is legitimately terrified that Skyla is going to get custody of Naomi, so what does she do?

She freakin’ picks up the trailer, hitches it to the truck that belongs to Fabiola and her husband Bernardo, and all six of them take off for Mexico in the middle of the night to try to find the children’s Mexican father. Obviously. And that’s when the story really gets going. Ryan’s descriptions of southern Mexico are gorgeous, and she follows my #1 rule of writing realism for children: Pick a Quirk, Any Quirk.

Without the soap carving, Naomi’s story would just be yet another children’s novel about overcoming an alcoholic, absent parent. Her art lends the story specificity. It turns out that Naomi comes from a long line of carvers who compete every year in a Oaxacan festival called Noche de Rabanos (Night of the Radishes). Of course this is where she ultimately finds her father, and herself.

I normally find problem novels eye-roll-inducing, but I loved this one thanks to carving, Mexico, and radishes. (Check out some pictures of carved radishes. They’re stunning!)

Also reviewed at: Inkweaver Review, A Fondness for Reading, and Books and Other Thoughts.

Good news! Tu (now Tu Books) has been acquired as an imprint of Lee and Low! (Yes, I’m a little late to the party on this one; sorry.) They’ll publish 3 books per season, starting in fall 2011. I can’t wait to see what they come up with!