2012 Printz winner

Imagine finally completing your first novel, having it published, then winning the Printz award! That's what happened to John Corey Whaley. Where Things Come Back takes place on Lily, Arkansas. Seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter is desperate to escape this dull small town but afraid that he will fail like so many others he knows. The believed to be extinct "Lazarus" woodpecker is rumored to be spotted nearby and things get a bit livelier in Lily. Then his family is plunged into grief when his gifted younger brother Gabriel disappears without a trace.  There is also a seemingly unrelated story of a disillusioned young missionary. That story, told in the third person, is strange and almost creepy. Everything comes together in a shocking, yet hopeful conclusion in the last pages.

This multi-layered book requires a patient, sophisticated reader. The use of symbolism and religious themes add depth to the story. Grief and pain are balanced with humor derived from Cullen's romantic interests and sarcastic comments. I would book talk it to older teenagers paired with the nonfiction book Race to Save the Lord God Bird (see my earlier blog). To "hook" readers I would focus on the disappearance of the brother. "Imagine if your much loved brother left the house one day - and didn't come back".

Choice: another 60s book

Doug Swieteck's drunk, abusive father has lost his job and moved his family to "dullsville", small town Marysville, NY. It's 1968 and one of his brothers is in Vietnam and the other seems to be working on becoming a juvenile delinquent. His mother is kind, but ineffectual. Slowly Doug begins emerging from these unhealthy family dynamics to find a friend (a pretty one!), a job (delivering groceries), and a mentor (a librarian who recognizes Doug's artistic promise and helps him learn to draw using Audubon bird paintings). There is humor and tears in Gary Schmidt's bittersweet coming of age story Okay for Now. It is loosely connected to the Newbery Award Honor book Wednesday Wars.

I really liked this book even though there were some fair fetched plot elements (especially the apparent reformation of the bully father at the end). It has that great combination of humor and sweetness that seems to characterize Schmidt's writing. I would recommend Okay for Now for grades 6-9. To introduce it I would read aloud a section so students can hear Doug’s distinctive, rhythmic voice, that includes inventive euphemisms such as his description of his father's violence as "He has quick hands."

An aside: This is the third book that I have blogged about this quarter that includes a "bird" theme.  A special woodpecker played an important role in this year's Printz winner Where Things Come Back. And then of course, my nonfiction blog was the story of the extinction of the Ivory-bill Woodpecker (Race to Save the Lord God Bird). I didn't plan it but it is true that one of my goals in retirement is to "read more poetry and watch more birds"!

Graphic novel: Ender's Game - Ultimate Collection

Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game is one of my favorite YA books. It won the Hugo and Nebula Awards and is the reason Card won YALSA's Margaret Edwards Award. And it is about to get hot with a new movie due out in the Fall starring Asa Butterfield and Harrison Ford. In a nutshell the story is "Six-year-old Andrew "Ender" Wiggin may be humanity's only chance of defeating the Formics, a deadly alien race determined to destroy Earth, but before Ender can face his ultimate challenge, he must survive Battle School and Command School" (from the Follett Notes).

As an adult reader, I enjoyed this graphic adaptation  to begin with but got bored with it - something that never happened with the original book. However I think it would be very appealing to many teen readers.The color artwork on slick pages is full of action and the script is fast-paced and replete with smart ass kid talk. I would booktalk it with the related Ender books (Ender's Shadow, Ender in Exile, Shadow of the Giant, and Shadows in Flight) and use a movie trailer (right now there are only fan-produced YouTube ones).

Most of the graphic novels that I have read and enjoyed have been originally created as graphic novels rather than adaptations. In this case the storyline is true to the original but missing the details of what is happening in Ender's heart and mind. I think the graphic version will lead some teens to read the original, while other may just enjoy this one.

Ender's Game: Ultimate Collection was published by Marvel in 2011, the script is by Christopher Yost, art by Pasqual Ferry, and color art by Frank D'Armata. Marvel has a "Parent Advisory" label on the back of the book that means, according to Wikipedia, "15 years and older. Similar to Teen+ rating but featuring more mature themes and/or more graphic imagery." By the way, this is a $25 paperback.

Multicultural: Re-Gifters (Carey)

Jen Dik Seong - or "Dixie"  has lost her KI (universal energy or spirit) because of a "life threatening" crush on fellow hapkido practitioner/California surfer boy Adam. There's a big hapkido tournament coming up in their South Central Los Angeles neighborhood and Dixie impulsively uses the entry fee that her hard working, economically struggling parents have provided for her on an extravagant gift for the unworthy Adam. Now she must compete for one of the four scholarship entries.

Mike Carey's Re-Gifters (art by Sonny Liew and Marc Hempel, DC Comics, 2007) according to Library Journal is a "delightful martial arts romantic comedy [that] shows fine plotting, simpatico characters, and fluid, manga-influenced art." It also is a excellent multicultural book as the reader learns about the Korean immigrant community. Dixie's father, when he gives her the $100 for the tournament fee, explains that hapkido is second only to school in importance. When the Japanese occupied Korea, their culture was repressed and now that they are free hapkido is part of that freedom - "The warrior tradition is one of the ways we tell the world who we are." I really enjoyed reading this book. It is a quick read and students in grades 7-up will like the story line and graphic presentation. To introduce it I would quickly describe the predicament that Dixie creates for herself and share a few pages using a document camera.

Poetry - Time You Let Me In

There are actual 26 not 25 poets represented in this collection edited by Naomi Shihab Nye (she says in school she was good with words not with numbers). Each poet shares 4 poems. The free verse selections range in theme from family, religion, immigration, illness, war, and love with strong emotion in everyday scenes.

Time You Let Me In (Greenwillow, 2010) got excellent reviews from School Library Journal, Booklist and VOYA generally suggesting it for grades 9-up. While I liked some of the poems, I was a bit disappointed in it. The book  somehow didn't seem to me to be really aimed at teens. Yes the authors were young but 25 is way different than 15. Nye is a well-known poet - her A Maze Me: Poems for Girls belongs in every high school library.
I would recommend it to students who are interested in writing or thinking about majoring in English in college by reading aloud a poem like Fourth or fifth Love by Mary Selph that starts out:

I want love to be simple, like
the creased notes that you slipped
through locker grates in high school
and as careful as efforts to decipher
what you'd written beneath clouds
of eraser marks. I want the brazenness of poems
stuffed in your backpack when you left
the room. I want us to exist
as we were when the world was still
the bed of your father's truck. ...

Historical Fiction - 2012 Scott O'Dell winner

It's 1962 in Norvelt, a small town declining in its fortunes. Jack Gantos is grounded for the summer after accidentally firing his father's WWII Japanese rifle souvenir. The 11 year old has a nose that sprays blood "like dragon flames", a best friend who grew up in a "house filled with dead people", and a new job typing up obituaries for his arthritic neighbor Miss Volker. And there are a lot of obituaries because the original residents of the town are dropping like flies. A bit of mystery and lots of humor make this coming of age story one that holds special appeal to boys and reluctant readers. There are lots of choices for funny scenes to use as hooks to introduce Norvelt. One that stands out to me involves Miss Volker and molten wax.

Author Jack Gantos won both the 2102 Newbery (best contribution to children's literature) and the Scott O'Dell Award (best youth historical fiction) for Dead End in Norvelt. The book has the sharp witted, somewhat frantic style that you would expect from the author of the Joey Pigza books. Clearly there are autobiographical elements to this story aimed at middle schoolers given that the main character has the same name as the author. Gantos has previously written an autobiography for older teens, Hole in My Life, the story of how he became a writer. After graduating from high school and in need of money, he recklessly agreed to sail a 60-foot boat filled with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to NYC - where he was picked up by federal agents and sentenced to 6 years in prison. It was while locked up that he went from wanting to be a writer to committing himself to his craft. I heard him when he was a guest on the "Not My Game" segment of NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me news quiz. The comedians on the show really got a kick out of this year's Newbery winning author having a criminal background for smuggling drugs.

Information text - Lord God Bird

This is a great example of an incredibly engaging information text with a powerful message. In The Race to Save the Lord God Bird (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004), Phillip Hoose tells the story of extinction: the loss forever of an incredible bird, the Ivory-bill Woodpecker.  The story stretches over 200 years of history mixing science, economics, and social and political history. A tremendous amount of research went into this book. Each page includes unique details that keep the reader's interest, humanizing the story. Many black and white photos and maps bring the story to life.

The first chapter opens in a dramatic fashion. The "Father of Ornithology", Alexander Wilson is described as a "walking powder keg". Early birders shot birds in order to learn about them because they didn't have the technology to observe from a distance (binoculars and scopes) or capture the image or sound of birds (cameras with long distance lens and audio recording devices). After shooting some several birds, he brought an injured Ivory-bill back to his hotel room to study. As he was stabling his horse he returned to his room a few minutes later to find the air filled with dust and chunks of plaster on his bed. The great bird was smashing away at a wall with its mighty bill and just seconds away of escaping. Wilson was frequently bloodied by the Ivory-bill as he sketched it over the next few days. The great bird refused to eat and three days later it was dead. To introduce this book to teens (gr. 6-12), I would tell about this chapter and use some "props". I would hold up a yardstick and explain that this was the wing span of the bird (know as Lord God bird because that was people's reaction to it when they saw it). I might also use a document camera to share some of the photos or the maps of the collapsing habitat on page 156-157.

The author, Philip Hoose, clearly cares passionately about the loss of biodiversity and challenges his young readers,  "Can we get smart enough fast enough to save what remains of our biological heritage?" He is the author of another favorite information text of mine, Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, 2010 National Book Award winner. I was lucky enough to hear him speak and meet him at the last annual OELMA conference. Definitely a "non-fiction author with authority".