He has a badge...

...and he's not afraid to use it.

Griff Carver is a kid with a mission.  He wants to make the hallways of Rampart Junior High School the safest they can be, and he's not opposed to taking down anyone who gets in the way of justice.  Griff arrives at Rampart after being expelled from his previous school for reasons unknown.  He wastes no time securing a position on the Rampart Hallway Patrol, even though he's promised his mother he wouldn't be involved with any other patrol units after what happened at the last school.

Griff's determination to keeping the hallways safe is steady, despite having to be a partner to Tommy Rodriguez, the kind of clean-nosed Boy Scout that Griff despises.  When a conspiracy from above causes Griff to lose his badge (and very nearly his mind), it takes Tommy and a sharp-nosed school newspaper reporter named Verity to help take down the crime ring and return Griff to his rightful place as a patrolman.

This book was a lot of fun to read!  Jim Krieg did a great job giving Griff the stereotypical clipped voice that you hear in most cop shows and movies.  I loved Griff's dripping sarcasm and the hard edge that he used to deliver his thoughts.  The contrast between him and Tommy's sunshiny attitude made for excellent interactions and hilarious situations.

Recommended for any reader who is a fan of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books or books like Josh Lieb's "I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President".

(Photo from fantasticfiction.co.uk)

Young Love and Loss

"Nothing ever really goes away - it just changes into something else.  Something beautiful."

Beautiful is a great word to use to describe this novel, Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler.  Other good words to describe this novel are: devastating, heart-breaking, joyous, and free.

I heard about this novel last year because it was being challenged (people were trying to have it removed from libraries) in some parts of the country.  Adults weren't happy with the sexual activity portrayed in the story, or with the part of the storyline in which two teenage girls agree to try to find twenty boys to hook up with in one summer.

After reading this novel, it's clear to me that those who challenged based on those grounds didn't read it (as is often the case).  If they had read it, they would have seen it for what it actually is.  A beautiful story about two girls who lose one of the most important people in their lives, and try to cope with their loss however they can.

Anna and Frankie are the teenage girls at the center of the story.  They are next-door neighbors and two-thirds of a lifelong best friend trio.  The third member is Frankie's older brother, Matt.  Two years older than the girls, Matt has always been their protector and leader.  At the age of ten, Anna fell in love with him.  On the night of her fifteenth birthday, she finally finds out that Matt is in love with her too.  For the next month, Anna and Matt meet secretly at night, testing out their new relationship and figuring out the best way to tell Frankie.  Matt wants to be the one to tell her and makes Anna promise not to say anything.  He plans on telling Frankie when they take their annual family trip to California.

But then the unthinkable happens.  He dies the day before they are to leave for the trip.

After a grief-filled year, Anna is now the one making the trip with Frankie and her parents to Zanzibar Bay, California.  Frankie has spent the year trying to deal with her brother's death with makeup, boys, and secret cigarettes.  Anna has spent the year trying to fulfill her promise to Matt and take care of Frankie.  In preparation for California, Frankie decides that they should make it their goal to meet one boy per day, twenty in all, so that they can each have one summer fling during what is supposed to be the Absolute Best Summer Ever.  The trip unfolds in ways that neither girl could predict, as emotions are broken open and wounds are made and healed.

I really enjoyed this book and the emotional journey on which it took me.  My heart broke for both girls for different reasons, and I believe readers will be able to associate with either Frankie or Anna.  Even if you've never suffered a loss as they did, the characters are so personable and easily relatable that it's easy to put yourself in their shoes.  Readers will find themselves rooting for these girls, and pulling for them in their struggle to figure out how to live the new post-Matt lives in which they find themselves.

Recommended for readers in high school and above.

I'm a Barbie Girl...

Barbie.  It's amazing how that one name can conjure up feelings of love and hate.  Devotion and loathing.  Joy and misery.  All of these are addressed in Tonya Lee Stone's "The Good, The Bad, and The Barbie: A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us".

When I saw this book on several "Best of 2010" book lists, I knew I had to read it.  I was a Barbie fan as a child.  I have memories of spending hours locked in my room with Barbie and her Dream House.  I used to spend most of the time just setting up the house...furniture in the right places, all of the miniature food set up properly in the refrigerator.  Then Barbie would begin her day.  She would wake up, take her bath, pick out her clothes, eat her breakfast, and hop in her convertible.  But then she never really went anywhere.  I was usually so tired by the time I did all that to make Barbie really work or do any other activities.  But it didn't matter.  That was all that I needed Barbie to do to fulfill my playtime with her.

There are several people mentioned in this book that have similar happy memories of Barbie, and others who hate her with a passion for various reasons.  The book details how Barbie began, starting with the story of Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, who founded Mattel with her husband, Elliot, and a friend.  From the start, Barbie was controversial.  The fact that she had breasts was seen as wrong to many adults, though most girls instantly loved her.  Barbie was marketed as a "teenaged fashion model" with all of the most fashionable clothes to show off her glamour.  But that was only the beginning.

Stone does a good job of detailing the changes in Barbie's life over the last 50 years, as well as presenting the variety of opinions about her.  There are those who hate Barbie and don't want children exposed to her perfectly proportioned, unachievable form for fear of creating complexes and eating disorders.  Interestingly, most of those people are adults.  While there are some children who have no interest in Barbie because of her perfection, most girls don't really pay attention to that.  I know that I never did.  I never felt like I had to look like Barbie.  I just loved her fabulous clothes.  Mattel changed her shape within the last 10 years to make her "more realistic", yet I feel like there is more of a problem now.  Before, her shape was unattainable...ridiculous in it's proportions.  Now, she still looks ridiculously thin, but in a way that people could actually look.  It almost seems more dangerous now than it used to be.

But all in all, I felt in reading this book that people need to relax.  While Barbie is undeniably an American icon, it's because we have put her there.  In reality, she's a toy!  Love her or hate her, that's all she is.  Adults who are concerned with Barbie's influence on their children need to talk to their children about her.  Once again, the problem is not the item, it's the lack of communication between parents and children.  And, really, as the book states:

"...girls figure out who they want to be by trying things on for size, acting things out.  By seeing how it feels to put on makeup, being a girly girl, being a tomboy, pretending to be a flight attendant, a race car driver, an astronaut, a housewife.  Playing with Barbie lets them experiment with all things feminine.  They impose their will upon Barbie - not the other way around.  Girls are strong, and no plastic, eleven-and-a-half-inch doll could ever change that." (p. 107)

Barbie opens up new worlds to the girls who are interested in playing with her.  This book does a fairly good job of showing all of that, though sometimes the information seems bunched together and somewhat rushed.  There are more than enough opinions on the doll to present a balanced argument, and many of them come from emails sent to the author by children and teens.  The pictures throughout the book are in black-and-white, except for the color photo section in the middle of the book.  All in all, a worthy read for anyone interested in the history and controversy of Barbie.

Recommended for grades 6 and up.

(Photo from juniorlibraryguild.com)

What Happens "After"?

I realize it's been a little while since I last posted, but I needed some time to process the book I recently finished, "After" by Amy Efaw.

This intense book tells the story of Devon Davenport, 16-year-old honors student and premier soccer player.  Though she seems to have everything going for her, Devon's home life is strained.  Her single mother's immaturity and focus on men forces Devon to mother herself.  Because of this relationship, Devon holds herself to ridiculously high standards and a set of rules that is nearly impossible for anyone to maintain.  When Devon breaks one of her rules and becomes pregnant, her disappointment in herself leads to a state of denial about her situation.  When the baby is born on the floor of her apartment bathroom, Devon does the unthinkable...wraps the baby in a garbage bag and throws her in a dumpster.

Devon is arrested the next morning, after almost dying from post-delivery complications, and is placed in the juvenile detention facility to await her trial.  For a girl like Devon, who has never done a wrong thing in her life, this is more than a shock and it takes a little while for reality to set in.  Her lawyer, Dom, works to prepare her for her declination hearing, which will decide whether she'll be tried as a juvenile or adult.  Through her sessions with Dom, Devon recalls the events that brought her to that place, and faces a lot of realities about her life, some harsher than others.

My first thought about this book was that I was disappointed that it was told in third person.  I expected a story like this to be told through Devon herself, rather than an outside narrator.  It took me a little while to get used to the "Devon did this...Devon did that" style of writing.  But as I read more, I realized that it was actually quite fitting to the story, as Devon's denial makes her see the situation as something that is happening TO her from the outside rather than something of which she is a part.

"After" is definitely not the easiest story to read, especially when the birth scenes are finally played out, but I think it's an important story to tell.  We often hear about these cases where babies are dumped shortly after birth.  I know that I've always felt that the mothers who do that are horrible people, but this book gave me a different perspective.  I realize now that some of them are probably sick and troubled in ways we don't consider.  That's not to say that their actions should be excused, which the author addresses well through Devon's decisions at the end of the story, but they are ill people who need help.  The power of denial as a coping mechanism is very strong and makes people do things they normally would never do.  Sadly, the victims in these instances are innocent and defenseless.

It's important to note that many states have laws that protect people from being prosecuted if they drop their babies at acceptable places, like hospitals.  Many people are like Devon, incapable or unwilling to raise a child or afraid of what will happen when others find out about the pregnancy.  Rather than harming the children, they can be taken to hospitals, police stations, and fire departments within the first 24-36 hours of birth.  I don't think that's a widely known fact in our country, and it needs to be shared.

Teens especially need to be aware of these laws.  Many of the dumpster baby stories that we hear involve teen mothers who have hidden their pregnancy or claim they did not know they were pregnant.  When the babies appear, they panic.  They need to know that there are people out there who will help them give their babies up responsibly.  Devon learns during the hearing that there are many people in her life who would have helped her if she had asked, and I think there are a lot of teens who are unaware of the possible support they could have as well.  Their shame leads them to hide away rather than reach out to anyone around them.

"After" is a thought-provoking story that will leave readers with sadness and satisfaction.  It could be a great read for book clubs and classes, as there will be a great deal of discussion over the issues presented within it.  I recommend this book to people aged 14 and up.

(Photo from readergirlz.blogspot.com)

Join the "Revolution"!

"It goes on, this world, stupid and brutal.

But I do not.

I do not."

I'm really excited to share this book for my first review on this blog.  It's the latest addition to my favorites list: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly.

This part-realistic, part-historical fiction novel centers around two teenage girls who spend their lives in completely different worlds, centuries apart.  Andi Alpers is a high school senior living in Brooklyn.  A talented musician, Andi lives with her artist mother and attends the prestigious St. Anselm school.  Music is Andi's outlet, her source of expression, and one of the few things that gets her through her pain-filled life.  She's still carrying around immense guilt and trauma from the death of her younger brother, Truman.  When Andi's Nobel Prize-winning geneticist father hears that she is failing out of St. Anselm, and finds that Andi's mother spends her days trying to paint the perfect portrait of Truman, he decides that Andi must go with him to Paris for her holiday break while her mother is hospitalized.  Andi doesn't share his opinion, but is forced to go.

In Paris, Andi and her father stay with friends G and Lili. G is a historian and an expert on the French Revolution.  He has enlisted Andi's father's help in conducting DNA tests on a heart believed to be the heart of Louis-Charles, the young son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  G explains that Louis-Charles was imprisoned by the Jacobins following the death of Louis XVI, and there were theories that the young prince may have survived the Revolution and grown up under an alias.  Andi's interest in the story of Louis-Charles deepens when she discovers a diary in a hidden compartment in an 18th century guitar case.  The writer of the diary, Alexandrine, was Louis-Charles' companion and entertainer, hired by Marie Antoinette to keep her young son happy.

Alex's story begins in the early days of the Revolution.  Her family works as puppetteers, putting on shows for money.  But she wants to be more.  She wants to be a star actress on the Paris stage.  When a chance encounter with the royal family gives her a position near to the Queen, she decides to use it to her advantage, believing that if she does her job well, Antoinette will help fulfill her dream.  What Alex doesn't understand is how her life will change over the course of the Revolution, how she will grow to truly love the young prince, and how she will sacrifice herself for him.

As Andi works to complete the outline of her senior thesis on French guitarist and composer Amade Malherbeau, she is simultaneously immersed in Alex's story.  The similarities between Alex's relationship with Louis-Charles and Andi's with Truman are striking.  Alex's diary brings the Revolution to life, and begins to help Andi do the one thing that she couldn't do before: heal.

I never realized how little I knew about the French Revolution until I read this book.  The only thing I really knew was that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were guillotined.  I didn't know about the thousands of others who met the same fate, or how the catacombs were filled with stacked bodies with no heads, or how the children of the king and queen were treated after their deaths.  Louis-Charles' story is especially gut-wrenching.  A small boy torn from his parents and put in a tower with no care, only to go insane and die there two years later.  This book has motivated me to learn more about the French Revolution and the people involved.  As a librarian, I really appreciate the research that went into writing it.  Donnelly lists the many resources she used at the end of the book, and I'll be reading a couple of them in the future.

Another thing I loved about this book was the music references.  Donnelly traveled all over the music spectrum: Beethoven and Radiohead, Wagner and The Ramones.  The musical ties are amazing, whether you know the music or not.  It's clear that Donnelly did her homework.  She also provided a complete song list on her website.  It's quite extensive and the choices fit the story perfectly.

But the most amazing thing about this book is watching Andi travel through her struggle with pain and depression.  She tries to medicate it, tries to end it all, but eventually finds her way...her own revolution.  I couldn't help but think about the young people that will be helped by Andi's journey.  Those that will realize that they are not the first and only to feel the way they do.  Being able to follow and relate to a character that is experiencing that kind of pain will be very helpful for many.  Seeing the people around Andi who try to love her, even when she doesn't want them to, is a powerful thing.

Overall, I can't say enough about this book.  I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a great historical fiction novel...and to everyone else as well.  There is a reason that it was named to the Best Books of 2010 lists for Amazon.com and School Library Journal.  Revolution is not to be missed!

(Photo from rhapsodyinbooks.wordpress.com)