Tag Archives: YA

You – Charles Benoit

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youKyle Chase, the 15-year-old protagonist of Charles Benoit’s novel You, isn’t much different from a lot of boys his age. He doesn’t get along with his parents, he’s crazy about a girl who just thinks of him as a buddy and he has a habit of getting into trouble.

Every day you get up, go to school, fake your way through your classes, come home, get hounded about your homework, go online, fake your way through your homework, go to bed – and the next day you get to do it all over again.

This is Kyle’s life. He’s not a bad kid, really. He’s not particularly motivated, but he’s also not as dumb as he pretends to be. Still, his life isn’t really going anywhere…and then Zack arrives.

Zack is clever and charismatic and suddenly Kyle finds himself doing things he never imagined he’d be doing. In some ways, on the surface at least, it would seem that Zack is looking out for Kyle. It turns out, though, that there is nothing magnanimous about Zack at all. Kyle (you) moves through his days in a sort of  anesthetized daze, a sort of listless funk that will perhaps be familiar to teens. When Zack starts to shake things up, at first seemingly benignly, the reader might get the impression that Kyle will make something of himself. Zack is nobody’s friend, however.

Charles Benoit has chosen to write You in the second person, a point of view that will likely be unfamiliar to many young readers unless they are exceptionally well-read. Let’s face it, not many novels are written in the second person. It’s a distancing point of view, somehow, but it serves this story very well because it drops the reader into Kyle’s skin.

When Kyle’s association with Zack starts to spin out of control, the reader knows it will end badly because of the book’s opening line: “You’re surprised at all of the blood.”

You is an ALA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers and I suspect many readers would find the book enjoyable..

What I Saw and How I Lied – Judy Blundell

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liedJudy Blundell’s YA novel What I Saw and How I Lied won the National Book Award and was named a best book by both the School Library Journal and the ALA (American Library Association). The accolades are well-deserved. This novel offers a glimpse into another time and another world and makes a nice change from reading all the dystopian and fantasy novels crowding the shelves these days.

Fifteen-year-old Evie lives with her beautiful mother, Bev, and her step-father Joe, a  veteran of World War 2,  and Joe’s mother Grandma Glad in Queens, New York. It is 1947. Things have been different since Joe returned from the war. Evie remembers a man who “made walking look like dancing…had a special greeting for everyone on the block.”  The post war Joe was different.

It was the war. You couldn’t ask him about it. You didn’t want to remind him. What every wife and daughter could give was a happy home. That was our job.

One night, out of the blue, Joe announces that he is taking Bev and Evie on vacation to Palm Beach, Florida. he makes the holiday sound so glamorous, but when they arrive it is to discover that Palm Beach is practically a ghost town, “the rest of the hotels didn’t even open until December. All of the stores on Worth Avenue, Palm Beach’s main drag, were closed. The Paramount Theatre was closed.”

Into this strangely other-worldly cotton-candy coloured world walks Peter Coleridge.

…I saw him under the moon. My breath stopped. He was not just handsome, he was movie-star handsome. Dark blond hair, a straight nose. A hunk of heaven…

Peter turns Evie`s world upside down and creates a strange friction between her parents that she does not  quite understand. Not that she cares too much. Peter is older and more sophisticated and despite his mixed signals, Evie begins to take those first tentative steps towards adulthood.

As a coming-of-age story, What I Saw and How I Lied works quite well. It is definitely evocative of  another time and place. Once she realizes what is waiting for her on the other side of childhood, Evie is desperate to grow up. But there is a price to pay. This would be a great book for careful readers. It`s not action-packed, but it is well-written and thoughtful. When Evie and her parents finally return from their holiday, Evie`s life has been  altered. The line between innocence and experience has been crossed and for Evie at least, a terrible price has been paid.

The Dark Endeavour – Kenneth Oppel

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oppelKenneth Oppel’s novel This Dark Endeavour was a finalist for Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards and it’s no wonder. It’s a terrific book. We’ve been talking about it at school recently as several of my colleagues have read it and think it would make a great addition to the classroom. I agree. The language of the novel is almost old-fashioned, but the action will appeal to boys and the elements of romance will appeal to girls (or vice-versa) making This Dark Endeavour the perfect gateway drug to introduce students to classic novels like, well, Frankenstein.

Sixteen – year – old Victor Frankstein lives with his twin brother, Konrad, younger siblings and parents in a chateau in Bellerive on Lake Geneva. They also share their home with their cousin, Elizabeth. Their friend Henry also spends a great deal of time at the chateau. They four teenagers spend their time riding, boating, studying and exploring the centuries old chateau.

One day, the foursome discover a narrow passage behind a bookshelf and upon further investigation, a door with the greeting “enter only with a friend’s welcome.”  Upon gaining entry, they find “tables scattered with oddly shaped glassware and metal instruments – and row upon row of shelves groaning with thick tomes.”

When the young people are discovered by Konrad and Victor’s father he says, “You’ve discovered the Biblioteka Obscura I see.” Mr. Frankenstein is a local magistrate, a powerful and intelligent man who encourages his children’s intellectual pursuits but is none too happy about their discovery of this Dark Library.

You must understand that these books were written centuries ago. They are primitive attempts to explain the world. There are some shards of learning in them, but compared to our modern knowledge they are like childish dreams….This is not knowledge….It is a corruption of knowledge and these books are not to be read.

But when Konrad falls seriously ill, Victor returns to the Dark Library looking for a cure and This Dark Endeavour ramps up the fun.  Victor, Elizabeth and Henry try to  gather the ingredients for the Elixir of Life in the hopes that its mystical properties will restore Konrad’s good health and their quest is what propels the plot forward. It’s exciting and dangerous work, but Victor is a character readers will easily root for – even though he is hot-tempered and sometimes struggles to do the right thing – especially where it concerns Elizabeth.

Careful readers will spot some of the literary shout-outs embedded in the novel. For example, Victor seeks the help of Dr. Polidori who was, in fact, a real physician and writer ( 1795 – 1821), consort of Lord Byron and credited with writing the first vampire story, “The Vampyre.” Dr. Polidori lives on Wollstonekraft Alley. Fans of Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein might recognize Wollstonekraft as Shelley’s mother’s name. Wollstonekraft  (1759 – 1797) was a writer and feminist, well-known for her work A Vindication of the Rights of Women. It’s references like these which would make This Dark Endeavour such a great book for the classroom.

The Things a Brother Knows – Dana Reinhardt

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brotherWhen  17-year-old Levi Katznelson’s brother, Boaz, returns from his stint as a marine in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, he’s a changed man.  This relationship between the brothers is what propels The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt along.

When Levi was a kid, he adored Boaz.

I used to worship him too. All little brothers worship their big brothers, I guess. It sort of goes with the job description. Think about it. Your brother’s face is one of the first you ever see. His hands are among the first to ever touch you. You crawl only to catch him. You want nothing but to walk like he does, talk like he does, draw a picture throw a ball, tell a joke like he does, let loose one of those crazy whistles with four fingers jammed in your mouth or burp the ABCs just like he does. To your mind, he’s got the whole of the world all figured out.

Levi didn’t really understand why Boaz, a popular high school athlete went off to war anyway. So  his homecoming is a complicated thing. The Boaz who returns to Levi and his parents is withdrawn, rarely speaks and won’t get in a car. He spends hours and hours in his bedroom studying maps and doing stuff on the computer. It frustrates Levi because he doesn’t understand and Bo doesn’t seem willing to explain.

Then Boaz announces that he’s going to walk the Appalachian Trail. Levi is suspicious and does a little snooping and discovers a map that reveals a different route altogether. That’s when he makes the decision to abandon his summer job and go after Boaz.

Although Levi’s figurative  journey is quite a bit different from his brother’s, that summer is pivotal on his journey to adulthood. And while it’s true that The Things a Brother Knows is a “road-trip” book of sorts, the real story here is one of understanding. Understanding each other, sure, but also understanding ourselves. What do we believe in? What matters to us? I think Reinhardt manages this without coming off too preachy.

Levi is a great character and so is his best friend, Pearl. an out-spoken Chinese girl Levi met in Hebrew school. Levi’s grandfather, Dov, is also  memorable. Spending time with these characters is no hardship.

At the end of the day, though, The Things a Brother Knows was just okay for me. The writing is fine. (There’s some swearing, for those concerned with that in a YA book.) The story moves a long, but I just felt it was sort of superficial and that, ultimately, the bow was tied a little too neatly. Still, it’s a book worth having in my classroom library.

 

Claws – Will Weaver

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Claws-9780060094751There’s something for everyone in Will Weaver’s YA novel, Claws, but that might have been part of the reason I didn’t love this book. Is Claws a family drama, a suspense thriller, an adventure novel?

Jed Berg is sixteen. He lives with his parents, Gary and Andrea, who are successful (a freelance house designer and lawyer respectively) and according to Jed, “the most successful couple [he] can think of.” Sometimes Gary even lets Jed drive his mint 1969 Camaro. Jed is a good student, a better- than – average tennis player and goes out with Cassie, a popular and pretty senior. Life is good. Until it’s not.

Weaver admits that he “set out to write an unremittingly sad novel.” Partial to a quote by Chekhov which states that “life will sooner or later show its claws,” Weaver endeavors to unravel Jed’s surprisingly uncomplicated teenage life. He says: “I essentially wrote the novel around that idea (of life tipping upside-down).”  (from the author’s website)

And Weaver isn’t lying. Crap starts heading towards Jed at a rapid rate starting with Gertrude, a surly pink-haired girl who has evidence that Jed’s father is having an affair with her mother. Unsure of how to handle this new information, Jed tries to figure out whether or not he has a clear picture of his parent’s marriage. But then, Weaver throws the reader another twist: Gertrude isn’t being exactly honest about her identity. And then when all the infidelity cards have been played, Jed finds his own life going off the rails in ways that are both realistic and, perhaps, slightly melodramatic.

I have to give Weaver props; I kept turning the pages. Jed was likeable and intelligent. His parents and older sisters were sketched in, though,  and so it wasn’t easy to see things from a perspective other than his, but I suppose that’s the point. When you’re a kid, you want to believe that your parents will always be together. I still remember sitting at the top of the stairs with my brother, Tom,  listening to my parents talk about divorce. I was twelve. That’s 40 years ago and I have the clearest memory of it.

I wish Weaver had found another way to show his claws at the end of the book, though. It felt slightly contrived to me, but I suspect that the climax will elicit the desired result from teenage readers. It’s certainly well-written and deserving of its place in my classroom library.

The Geography of Girlhood – Kirsten Smith

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girlhoodTurns out The Geography of Girlhood was written by someone who knows a lot about teenage girls – at least in the movies. Kirsten Smith is the co-writer of some classic teen flicks including 10 Things I Hate About You, Ella Enchanted and one of my all-time, never-get-sick-of-it faves She’s the Man. (I can not stress how much I love She’s the Man. I’ve seen it many times and it still makes me laugh I love that I can share it with my students when we study Twelfth Night.)

When The Geography of Girlhood starts, Penny is just fourteen.  Having rowed herself out into the middle of the bay to contemplate her life she thinks: “One day, I’ll find my way away from here/ and go somewhere real/ and do something great/ and be someone wonderful.”

Of course, the problem with being a teenage girl is that there’s a whole lot of crap to wade through before you get that “someone wonderful.” Fourteen, Penny intones, “is like rotten candy.”

The novel, told in free verse form, follows Penny from the end of grade nine until just after her sixteenth birthday.

Penny is jealous of her  perfect, older sister, Tara, her “long torso,/ the breasts lodged high/ like tea cakes/ on her powdery skin.” She longs to experience “love” as she imagines it exists between Tara and Bobby, her sister’s boyfriend. “I look at her/ and memorize everything./ So when the time comes,/ and the boy’s eye glitters like a crime,/ I will know what to do.”  We learn about Penny’s complicated feelings for the mother who left her, who, in fact “always wanted to leave wherever she was.”

Readers will recognize themselves in Penny. While it’s true that fourteen was a L-O-N-G time ago for me, I can totally remember that feeling that  “you look good only once a week/ and it’s never on the day of the dance.”

Penny navigates the treacherous geography of  her girlhood, in language that is both  poignant and pointed.  She falls in and out of love in the way of all teenaged girls. She makes stupid choices and does stupid things, but she is also smart and resilient and open to all the possibilities life has to offer.

“If anyone tells you that life is predictable,/ DO NOT BELIEVE THEM,” she remarks.

I really enjoyed this book.

 

 

All Unquiet Things – Anna Jarzab

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allunquietthingsAnna Jarzab’s first novel All Unquiet Things is  mature and thoughtful. Kirkus called it “a sophisticated teen mystery.” It’s actually hard to believe that this book is written for young adult readers; its prose, while not exactly sophisticated, is a cut above many other books published for young readers.

It was the end of summer, when the hills were bone dry and brown; the sun beating down and shimmering off the pavement was enough to give you heatstroke. One winter came, Empire Valley would be compensated for months of hot misery with three months of torrential rain, the kind of downpours that make the freeways slick and send cars sliding into one another on ribbons of oil.

All Unquiet Things is the story of Carly, Neily and Audrey, students at Brighton Day School, a prestigious private school outside of San Francisco. Through a series of flashbacks – told from Neily and Audrey’s perspective – we learn about how Carly and Neily’s middle school friendship blossomed into something more, and how the arrival of Carly’s cousin Audrey changed the dynamics of their relationship.

These teenagers are smart, but they also have a lot of other issues including deadbeat or overly demanding parents. Neily’s parents are divorced and according to Neily his father “hadn’t really parented me since I was very young and I tended to get away with most things….” The girls have problems of their own.

So what’s the mystery? Well, Carly’s dead. (Don’t worry – her ghost doesn’t speak.)  Someone shot her four times and the circumstantial evidence points to Audrey’s alcoholic/drug addicted father Enzo, so he’s serving time in jail. Audrey is convinced that her father is innocent and even though her relationship with Neily has been strained by events, she seeks him out to help her try to figure out who really ended her cousin’s life.

Their investigation exposes the slimy underbelly of Brighton’s facade, but also allows the reader a glimpse into the messed up lives of students with too much money and not enough parental involvement. As Neily and Audrey try to figure out what really happened to Carly, they become friends, at first united in their search for the truth but then because they grow to genuinely care for each other.

You can’t really see whodunnit early on, which makes this a perfect read for students who like a page-turner. All Unquiet Things works on another level, too. Neily has to consider how he has been shaped by his love for Carly and how that love, no longer sustainable or attainable, is holding him back from living a fulfilling life. Audrey has to own up to her own part in Carly’s story and come to terms with the fact that her father might not be capable of all she hopes for him.

All in all, a terrific book.

 

 

 

A Family Secret – Eric Heuvel

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family secretEric Heuvel is a Dutch comic book artist, so A Family Secret, a story which takes place in Amsterdam during the second world war, is perhaps a topic especially close to his heart.

Jeroen is looking for items to sell at a flea market held on Dutch Queen’s Day. He decides to head over to his grandmother’s house, hoping to score some good stuff without actually have to visit with his grandmother. Snooping through the attic, he comes across a scrapbook filled with items marking the German occupation of Holland.

“I”ll tell you why I started this scrapbook,” his grandmother tells him. Jeroen is thinking: I hope this doesn’t take long. It turns out, though, that her story is riveting.

When I was twelve or thirteen I read Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. It was one of those turning point books for me, as I am sure it was for many other young people. Here was a real teenager, coping with typical teenage problems but under extraordinary circumstances. Decades later, while visiting Amsterdam, I was priviledged to visit the house where she and her family were hidden away. I can’t begin to explain to you the feeling of stepping behind the hidden door and heading up the stairs to the annex where she spent just over two years of her short life.

A Family Secret tells another one of the, I suspect, hundreds of thousands of personal stories about that horrific time in history. Jeoren’s grandmother tells of her father, a Dutch police officer, forced to make choices she doesn’t understand until years later, about her brothers, one who joins the resistance and one who joins the Nazis and of her childhood friend, Esther, a  German Jew who fled with her parents to the safety of the Netherlands…only to discover there was no safe place for them.

The graphic novel format of this particular story makes it a perfect read for reluctant readers, but all readers should get something meaningful out of the personal choices the characters are forced to make in times of great distress.

These atrocities continue to be written about, as they should. We should never be allowed to forget.

Borderline – Allan Stratton

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borderlineAllan Stratton’s YA novel Borderline wouldn’t necessarily be something I’d pick up on my own, but I am trying to read more ‘boy’ books, especially those that might appeal to reluctant readers. I’ve inherited a class this semester and the majority of them are boys and many of them wouldn’t exactly put reading at the top of their to-do lists. I always think the key to reading success is to find just one book that they like. Borderline could be that book for someone.

Sami Sabiri is almost sixteen. He’s a pretty average teenager; he lives in an American suburb, crosses swords with his strict father,  and tries to stay out of the way of bullies at the expensive private school he attends. He’s also Muslim.

At first, Borderline doesn’t seem like anything more than the pretty standard YA fare. Sami is likeable and relatable and his life is just ‘other’ enough to be intriguing. The fact that he is Iranian offers plenty of opportunities to discuss today’s headlines, too, because suddenly Sami finds himself in the middle of an FBI investigation.

The agents grill me to a crisp. Questions about Dad, his work, who he knows, what he does. I hardly hear a word….”We’re Americans,” I blurt out. “Mom and Dad – you can’t put them on a plane. You can’t send them off to be tortured.”

Sami’s journey to discover the truth about his father’s supposed terrorist activities is also a journey of self-discovery. Suddenly he has a reason to stand up and be counted. As his loyalty to his father wavers, he finds hidden reserves of strength and courage. If the resolution is, perhaps, a little too convenient, it won’t really matter to the majority of young readers. Sami is a character worth rooting for.

As to whether my reluctant readers would like this book – I think they would. The writing is accessible with a minimum of flowery prose. It’s pretty much straight-up plot and I think most of the boys in my current class would enjoy it.

Why We Broke Up – Daniel Handler

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Daniel Handler has written a book that will resonate with just about anyone – young or old – who has ever had their heart stomped on. Which means YOU will love this book. Yes you.

Why We Broke Up is Min Green’s farewell letter to Ed Slaterton, a boy she met at her best friend Al’s Bitter Sweet Sixteenth birthday. As she recounts her brief but meaningful relationship with Ed, hunky co-captain of the basketball team, she also returns to him all the detritus of that relationship.

I’m telling you why we broke up, Ed. I’m writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened. And the truth is that I goddamn loved you so much.

You don’t have to be sixteen to appreciate what’s in Min’s box: the bottle caps and ticket stubs and note on a napkin. Every relationship has its stuff. Min’s relationship with Ed lasted only a few weeks, but as is often the case with the very young, they pronounced their feelings (Ed first) very early on.  They might have seemed, at first glance, totally mismatched. Min, the Jewish girl and movie aficionado and Ed the cool jock with a string of past-girlfriends. But, as Min says: “…the thing with your heart’s desire is that your heart doesn’t even know what it desires until it turns up.”

When I was in grade nine I was madly in love with a boy called Dana. I loved him as only an awkward fourteen-year-old girl can possibly love a much cooler fourteen-year-old boy: from afar. I still have a picture of us taken on our grade nine trip to Prince Edward Island. Me in my Indian cotton shirt and really unfortunate flared jeans, a Bay City Rollers haircut; him in the uniform of the day (and also, perhaps, a Bay City Rollers haircut. Come on, it was the 70s). Anyway. He drank from my coke bottle and I saved that bottle and the inch of pop left at the bottom for years! And I never even got a kiss.

Why We Broke Up is a good bye letter, but it’s also love letter. It’s quirky for sure. (Daniel Handler is perhaps better known as Lemony Snicket, author of the very popular Series of Unfortunate Events books. My 13 year old son is almost through the series and he is constantly reading me bits because he finds them so funny.) The book is illustrated by Maira Kalman and it’s a lovely book – glossy papered and heavy.  brokeupIt’s a clever way to tell an often told story – boy meets girl. Etc.

It’s hard not to feel for Min, though, as she sifts through the mementos, calling up the events associated with them. There’s a story for every artifact and even though she’s giving them all back, the reader understands that her heart will not easily be mended. That’s love for you.

Visit The Why We Broke Up Project