Alibi, Alibi, Who Needs an Alibi?

Alibi High by Greg Logsted

3Q 4P; Audience: M/J

Living life on the run, constantly looking over your shoulder for danger, surviving attempts on your life - it's all easier than being in high school. That's the conclusion that Cody comes to when his father sends him to live with his aunt after their narrow escape from a bomb.

All Cody has known from his very earliest memories is the life of a CIA spy. That's his dad's job, and it's his, too. He knows how to tail a suspect and how not to be tailed himself. He knows how to spot suspicious characters in a crowd, and he knows how to keep them from spotting him. He knows five languages and how to fire a gun. He's got black belts in two different martial arts. He knows how to take care of himself.

What he doesn't know is how to be a teenager. He doesn't know how to dress (Baggy pants with all those pockets? What's wrong with a suit and tie?). He doesn't know how not to tick off every teacher he's got (Don't they want to know when they have their facts wrong?). He doesn't know how to make friends with the guys, and he doesn't have a clue how to deal with girls (Cell Phone Girl thinks he's a psycho and he can't even talk to Renee). Why did he think high school would be easy?

As if that's not bad enough, Cody can't shake off the memories of being in that cafe when the bomb went off. Everywhere he looks, there's a Yankees cap. Every strange sound makes him twitch. He can't sleep. He's taken to patrolling the house at night. He can't shake the feeling that he's being watched. He's right. There's someone out there. Who is it, and why is he there?

Musings:

Readers expecting the constant adrenaline surge of the Alex Rider series may be a little disappointed, but they shouldn't count this book out. The pace and tension build throughout the book.


I appreciated the way Logsted made Cody's training so much a part of his every day life, particularly in the beginning. When he arrives at the airport, he instantly scans the area and people for signs of danger. He's aghast to learn that his aunt is naked - meaning she's not carrying a gun. When an enemy (such as the school security guard) comes too close, he instantly calculates how best to bring him down. A walk isn't a simple walk, it's a reconnaissance mission. Because of those touches, it made it easier to buy the premise that he is, essentially, a born spy.


I also liked the relationship between Cody and Andy, a former Army Ranger who lost his arm while in the service. They each quickly recognize the signs of someone who's been through the wars and bond over nightly surveillance surveys, martial arts, and post-traumatic stress syndrome (the latter unspoken). At the same time, Cody is never quite sure if he can trust Andy.


Okay, it's a cliche to have the gym teacher be a jerk. I liked this storyline anyhow, right down to the martial arts demo and the principal's (eventual) reaction. (I really enjoyed Cody's descriptions of his various meetings with Mrs. Owens. As Cody says, the humor grows on you.)


Logsted hits just the right notes as far as the romance angle is concerned. It's there, with just enough humor, but not enough to put off readers who aren't into it. The junior high dynamics are spot on.


I'm not as fond of the ending as I am of the rest of the book. I don't want to give anything away, so I'll just say that I had a "You have to be kidding me" reaction, mostly relating to the actions and motivations of a particular character. But the nicely-built tension and great action will make many readers overlook that.


I expect this one to be a hit with my sixth-eighth grade boys, and I'm glad to have another book to recommend to the Horowitz, Muchamore, Higson, Sniegoski, and Butcher fans.

Snarky and Sad

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
4Q 3P; Audience: S

A couple of months ago I was on the hold list for several books that hadn't come in yet (naturally, later about six of them came in at once!) and the books I wanted to read otherwise were all checked out. I was searching desperately for something captivating to read. I was working in the Teen Room when one of my teen regulars started talking about a book from my New Books display she'd been reading, saying it was really funny and very good. She couldn't take it out at the time, so I snagged it. Thanks for the recommendation, Adriana! It was exactly what I was looking for.

I laughed in the beginning, too. I enjoy a good bit of snark, and Parker Faraday is very, very good at snark. But as I read on, the more it became apparent that this is no light-hearted book, and Parker is not a happy girl. In fact, Parker has been on a downward spiral for months. She's gone from being the straight-A's captain of the cheerleading squad to flunking her classes and alienating all her friends. She's having panic attacks. She's come to school drunk and attempted suicide. What we don't know is why any of this happened. And that is only revealed little by little, mostly at times when Parker is desperately trying (and failing) not to remember.

Parker makes no effort to be a nice person. She gets a charge out of her ability to manipulate people. Crying and alluding to her suicide attempt are good ways to get her parents and guidance counselor to back off. She uses sarcasm, brutal honesty, and downright unkindness to push everyone close to her away. She sets her former boyfriend Chris up with Becky, the new captain of the cheerleading squad who sets her teeth on edge, then proceeds to rub Chris's obvious preference for her in Becky's face. When a new boy asks stops her to ask where the art room is, she tells him she can't stop to talk since she's late for class. Ten minutes later, he walks into the art room, only to find her sitting there waiting for him.

That new boy is Alex, and much to her chagrin, he isn't easy to push away. First of all, he's her partner on an art project. Secondly, he's intrigued by her. As hard as she tries to alienate him, he keeps coming back. Chris and Becky, too, refuse to go away. And the more they hang around, the harder it is for Parker to lie to herself, to forget what she's trying to forget. She's trying to hold it together long enough to graduate and get out of this town forever, but the memories and the guilt keep coming back.

Musings:

I was very surprised at the turn this book took. The first few pages didn't prepare me for the guilt, aching sadness, and desperate fear that lie underneath Parker's facade. I think that's way Parker would want it, and it's a really effective way of mirroring what's going on with her.

The push-pull of Parker's relationship with Alex is very well done. When Parker decides that at some level she wants Alex in her life, she's very upfront with him: she kiss him and maybe even sleep with him, but she'll never be his girlfriend, and she'll never say she loves him. He's free to use her, too. But underneath it all, what she won't admit to herself is that she's relieved he won't go away. Alex's reactions to all of this are honest and believable. I hurt for him, but I had to admire his own inner strength as he seems to understand at some level Parker's need to use him as a punching bag.

While the actual events that lead up to Parker's crash and burn are fairly easy to guess at after the first few flashbacks, what I found truly fascinating was what got her into the situation in the first place. What we often look at as a positive personality trait can in fact be very destructive, a truth that's often not apparent until the situation reaches a crisis point. I think a lot of people (not just teens) will relate to the pressure Parker feels and the panic and anger that follow when she realizes that trying to live up to her own and everyone else's expectations just isn't possible. What follows may be extreme, but by the time I learned the whole truth, I was willing to follow wherever Summer led me.

This is not a light read. Alcohol plays a big role in Parker's downward spiral, and she's matter-of-fact about her sexual experiences. The emotions and sometimes the language are rough. Parker may not be forthcoming about what happened in the past, but she's not pulling her punches about how she sees things in the present. Older teens who like books with an edge will appreciate all of this. Younger readers and those who prefer a softer picture of adolescent life would probably prefer to look elsewhere. As for me, I'm looking forward to reading Summers's upcoming book, Some Girls Are.

Choose This

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

5Q 4P; J/S

At thirteen, Kyra is just beginning to realize that there are two things she loves almost as much as she loves her family: books and Joshua. But she needs to keep both of those loves secret, since both are strictly forbidden in her religious community. Books bring the outside in and expose readers to Satan's teachings. Boys...well, boys and girls aren't to look at each other or talk to each other unless the Prophet allows it. If a boy and a girl are found together, even if they are doing nothing but talking, the punishment will be swift and severe. Kyra and Joshua are doing more than talking. They are sneaking out at night to be together. They are sharing books and music. They are kissing and dreaming of being together forever.

The Prophet and his Apostles run everything in the Compound. They make the rules, and the God Squad makes sure they are enforced. The Prophet also decides who will marry whom, and there is no arguing with his decision. So when the Prophet decrees that Kyra is to marry Apostle Hyrum, her uncle, the family is in despair. Try as Father may, there is no way to avoid the inevitable. Kyra is devastated. Her family can only understand part of her anguish. There is no way to tell them that as much as she's revolted by the idea of marrying her sixty-year-old uncle and becoming his seventh wife, she's also shattered at the thought that she and Joshua can never be together. She wants to refuse, to say she just won't do it. But defying the Prophet means bringing his wrath down upon her family, and that thought is just as painful. She loves her father, her three mothers, and her twenty-one (soon to be twenty-three) brothers and sisters fiercely. What will the Prophet do to them if she runs away with Joshua, as she so badly wants to do? And what will he do to her?

Favorite quote:

(Kyra has just been informed that she and her mothers are going into town to buy fabric for her wedding dress. It's the final confirmation that there is no way out of this wedding.)

Outside, it is a lie of a morning. Everything is beautiful: The air fresh. The sky so blue it hurts my eyes.

Musings:

I've had the pleasure of reading a few beautifully written books lately, and this is another to add to that list.

Polygamist communities have been in the news lately. The idea of plural marriages is certainly foreign to most of us in this country. Among the things that struck me as I read this book was that although she fights against this kind of marriage for herself, Kyra doesn't actually seem to mind being part of a polygamous family. She views her family as loving and supportive and derives a lot of her strength from all of her parents and siblings, making  little or no distinction between them.

Family relationships in plural marriages must be very complicated things. Imagine having three (or more!) mothers to listen to and have to please! Mother Sarah, Kyra's birth mother, is caring and understanding, but her difficult pregnancy leaves Kyra as her caretaker rather than the other way around. And though Kyra views Mother Clare as "the mean mother" and sometimes resents her, it's Mother Clare who most clearly understands Kyra's feelings and tries to help her accept her fate. The moments she shares her own story with Kyra make her surprisingly sympathetic. (Mother Victoria rather fades into the background between Mother Sarah and Mother Clare.) I particularly liked the contrast between Kyra's relationships with her sisters Laura and Margaret. The love Kyra has for both sisters is undeniable, but they are very different people. Laura is the voice of the status quo and Margaret ...well, I suspect that Kyra is not the only  sister in the family who will give the Prophet fits. She's going to be a formidable woman.

I wonder how Kyra's story might have played out under a different Prophet. Would she still have hated her life and wanted to run? It's this Prophet that Kyra says she'd like to kill and leave for the termites to eat. He has very narrow and rigid ideas of what is godly, and he disallows many things (such as freedom to leave the Compound) that the previous Prophet allowed. He is running off the younger men and marrying the young girls to much older men. But the previous Prophet was not that sort of man, and the compound was not always run that way. I wonder if Kyra would have been content to stay under a Prophet who allowed his followers more freedom and allowed her to be with Joshua, even given that she would still have had to share him with other women.

Being a librarian, naturally I love that books give Kyra comfort and support and a means of escape in more ways than one, and I honor Patrick as a true hero.

While I wouldn't classify this as a violent book, there are violent incidents that were shocking and troubling to read. Those images stuck with me for a long time. I am frankly in denial about at least one probable death. Message received: It's hard to think this way about religious groups, but there's no denying that it can be dangerous to take a stand against them.

There are several important issues left unresolved at the end of this book. I found myself wondering what the fallout of Kyra's decision would be. I have no idea if Carol Lynch Williams intends to write a sequel, but I think it would be fascinating to explore the "what happens next?" in a situation like this.

To be honest, this wasn't a book I was dying to read. But I was curious to see if I agreed with all the positive, even glowing, reviews I'd seen and heard, so I decided to read it anyhow. I was caught at the very first page, and my interest never waned. I absolutely believed the people and the situation. I cared, and I think many of my teens will too. I highly recommend this book for both pleasure reading and as an excellent choice for a book group.

She Feels Pretty, Oh So Pretty...Sometimes, Anyhow.

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
4Q 4P; J/S

I finished this book two+ months ago, and details have faded, so I'm sure I'll forget to mention things I thought about at the time, and some of them will probably be important aspects of the book. It doesn't mean I didn't recognize those things. It just means I have to stop being lazy and procrastinating about writing until I get to the point where I've forgotten what I wanted to say!

For as long as Belly can remember, her summers have been spent at the beach with her mother, brother Stephen, and Susannah and her boys, Conrad and Jeremiah. Belly has always been the tag-along, wishing she could be a part of the boys' fun but always being just a little bit outside of it. She and Jeremiah are best buddies, but Belly knows that if the older boys invite him to come along, Jeremiah will go running. Stephen doesn't want his pain-in-the-neck kid sister hanging around, and Conrad doesn't even to seem to notice her most of the time. This is the way it's always been, and while she doesn't like it, she's used to it. But Belly lives for those rare moments when Conrad doesn't look right past her - those moments when he sees right into her and they connect in that special way that only she and he can. This is the summer she's turned pretty. Or so everyone says. So is this the summer that Conrad will finally notice her?

The beach house is the place where all her happiest memories were born. This summer, though, things have a different feel. Something isn't right. Susannah, who is always there to greet them with a big hug, doesn't come down to meet them when they arrive. Jeremiah seems a little distracted. And Conrad seems to be doing everything he can to pull away from them all. There are unspoken things hanging in the air. Belly can feel things coming to an end, and she can't bear the thought of losing her perfect summers.

The only thing Belly would like to change is her relationship with Conrad. But that doesn't seem likely to happen, what with the distance he's keeping and the new girl he's hanging around with. Maybe she should look elsewhere. Jeremiah? She and Jeremiah have always shared a special friendship, and she can tell he wants more.There's also Cameron, the boy she meets at her first real teenage party. Her mind boggles when he tells her he's liked her ever since he first saw her (eighth grade!) at a Latin convention. Back then she had a retainer and glasses, and she was hardly pretty. From the way he's looking at her, Cameron definitely thinks she's pretty now. Things are changing so fast for her. She doesn't know how to deal with this flirting business. She doesn't know how to deal with boys now that they are looking at her in that new way. She doesn't know how to deal with Cam and Jeremiah getting all over-protective and proprietary when they see her with another guy.  Things were so much easier before!

Unsaid things and love, unrequited and otherwise, all add up to make another summer Belly will always remember.

Musings:

I loved this book. I loved Belly. Even when you've been looking forward (or impatiently pushing ahead) to the moment when people start seeing you as a woman instead of a little girl, when it actually starts happening and you're forced to create and react to that new mindset, it's disorienting and a little scary. Han does a beautiful job of painting all those confusing, conflicting, exhilarating emotions and thoughts. I also loved the family feeling. It was easy to understand how much Belly looked forward to her summers, because I felt at home and comfortable the moment she got to the beach house. It made me wish I could hang out with the boys and Susannah and be a part of it. (Or maybe it just reminds me of my own childhood, since I can really relate to being the only girl in a bunch of boys!)

Every now and then we're treated to a brief vignette from an earlier summers. This really worked for me. It's like adding an underlay of color to make the tones of the present-day scenes that much richer and deeper.

This is not a major deal for me, but still, it's something I thought about throughout the book. I speak from experience here - there's no way a teenage girl is going to introduce herself to a cute teenage boy as "Belly". As a nickname, "Belly" is embarrassing enough, especially at that age. But when you factor in all the rhymes for it, the cringe factor goes sky high. Who would willingly risk being called "Smelly Belly"? No, Belly is the family nickname she reveals when she knows that this is a guy she trusts and wants to let into her world, not the name she gives when she first meets him.

Choosing between the nice guy and the edgier guy who needs you is a classic dilemma. There are those who love the Heathcliff-Cathy dynamic and those who prefer an Anne-Gilbert love story. Warning: What follows is a spoiler, so highlight the space below only if you're curious and don't mind knowing a piece of the ending. I'm still not convinced Belly wound up with the right guy. We're conditioned to root for the match up between the angsty guy and the oh-so-caring girl, but what makes us think the guy is going to become less angsty as time goes on? Are we supposed to think her love will turn his world from clouds and skunks to sunshine and roses? Do we really want her to spend months or years tiptoeing around the guy, always concentrating on what will make *him* happy at the probable expense of her own growth and desires? Don't get me wrong...Conrad's not a bad guy. But he's so wrapped up in his own issues that I wonder how much he can spare for Belly right now. Personally, I think a relationship with Jeremiah has more potential for happiness than a relationship with his handsome-but-tortured brother. Count me in the Anne-Gilbert camp.

Quotes

For me, it was almost like winter didn't count. Summer was what mattered. My whole life was measured in summers. Like I don't really begin living until June, until I'm at that beach, in that house. (p. 5)

[Conrad] had a smirky kind of mouth, and I always found myself staring at it. Smirky mouths make you want to kiss them, to smooth them out and kiss the smirkiness away. Or maybe not away...but you want to control it somehow. Make it yours. It was exactly what I wanted to do with Conrad. Make him mine. (p. 5)

The moment when she starts believing she really has turned pretty:

They didn't even notice me walk up at first. But then they did. They really did. Conrad gave me a quick glance-over the way boys do at the mall. He had never looked at me like that before in my whole life. Not once. ...Jeremiah, on the other hand, did a double take. All of this happened in the span of about three seconds, but it felt much, much longer. (p.8)

He jerked away from her, almost by accident. Susannah didn't seem to notice, but I did. I always noticed Conrad. (p.23)

What I Read and How It Felt So True

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell
5Q 4P; J/S/A

It's 1946, the war is over, and life is beginning to get back to normal. For Evie, that means her stepfather Joe is home, Bev, her mother, can stop working, and Evie can just relax and enjoy being a young teenaged girl. While her best friend is boy crazy and ready to jump into romance, Evie's not interested yet. She lives in the knowledge that her mother is gorgeous and that she will never be able to attract a man's attention the way her mother can. All that changes when Joe impulsively decides the family should take a vacation in Florida.

They soon discover that summer is the off-season in Florida. They're practically the only people in their hotel, other than the Graysons...and Peter. While Joe quickly gets involved in business dealings with Mr. Grayson, it's Peter who captures Evie's attention. He's a young, handsome, utterly charming war veteran. They first connect when Peter finds Evie hiding in the shadows of the pool after being bitterly disappointed by an "is that all there is?" experience at her first real dance. Peter invites her to dance, and Evie is smitten. This is a man. This is a dance. She can't stop thinking about him, and for the first time, she understands what all this talk of boys and love really means. In the days that follow, she finds (makes!) every opportunity to spend time with Peter. And it's not her imagination - he seems to be seeking her out, too. He takes her for drives and to the movies. And sure, they often take her mother along, but that's just for cover. It's Evie that Peter is interested in.

Evie begins to blossom. She's been so sure for so long that she will never be as pretty or enticing as her mother is. But Peter doesn't seem to feel that way. And Mrs. Grayson takes her shopping to buy her clothes that are a far cry from the little girl dresses her mother always buys her, and Evie can't help realizing that she can do these grown-up dresses justice. Peter notices, too. The kisses he gives her are not the kisses you give a little girl.

But things take a darker turn when Evie realizes that Joe doesn't like Peter and doesn't trust him. Peter says they spent time together during the war, but Joe doesn't want to talk about it. There are hints, whispers, suggestions that there is more going on here than meets the eye, that Peter's presence at the hotel isn't mere coincidence. Peter seems to know something that Joe wants kept a secret. Joe and Evie's mother begin to fight, and Evie realizes that one of the things that they're fighting over is Peter and his relationship with her mother. Well, that's ridiculous. All those times that she and Bev and Peter went to the movies and out for a drive or to restaurants, they brought Bev along so nobody would give Peter a hard time for spending time with a girl her age. It's Evie that Peter is interested in. Isn't it?

Joe, Evie's mother, and Peter charter a boat and take it out on the open sea just as a hurricane starts up along the coast. Only Joe and Bev come home alive.

What really happened out on that boat, and why did it happen? It's not just Evie who wants to know. So do the police, the judge, the jury, and the tabloid reporters. And Evie has to decide what to tell them. What did she see, and how does she lie?

Musings:

It's easy to see why this book won the 2008 National Book Award for Young People's Literature. I'm awfully glad I wasn't on the award committe, because it was up against some wonderful books : Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, The Spectacular Now by Tim Tharpe (just realized I have an unfinished post on this spectacular book), The Underneath by Kathy Appel (which I haven't read and don't have in our Teen collection), and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart (I never uploaded my post on this one, either). I would never have been able to choose a winner, though I know my vote would have gone to either Anderson, Tharp, or Blundell. All three books feature exceptional writing about characters dealing with heartbreaking situations, and they all really moved me.

Blundell does a beautiful job capturing the joys and miseries of leaving girlhood and innocence behind. I'm writing this up over a month after finishing the book, and as I try to write and capture what I felt so many weeks ago, the feeling of being pulled and stretched is what keeps coming back to me. Evie is reaching for something that seems at first to be just out of her grasp. Then it's in her hands, but yanked away so that she has to chase after it again. I picture her being pulled and stretched in all directions, at first welcoming the feeling, but then being stretched so far it's painful, wanting to pull back to her comfort zone but unable to do it. I wanted to shield her from the pain I knew was coming, and I wanted to give her support when she faced the hard decisions with her new-found and hard-won maturity. Evie's growth is a masterpiece of writing.

Though I'm focusing here on the girl-becomes-woman aspect, there's a lot going on in this book beyond that. Guilt and innocence come up again and again in various situations. There's food for thought on every page.

What I Saw and How I Lied is begging to be made into a movie. (Please, would-be producers, don't cast Dakota Fanning in it! This one needs a Jena Malone/Evan Rachel Wood/Clare Danes type.)

Quotes:

I loved these for the vividness of the descriptions, the traces of humor from a serious person in a very serious book, and the perfectly captured moments of stepping out of childhood and into adulthood.

...every time I saw a palm tree it was a little shock, like life was yelling in my ear that this was me, and it was really happening. (p. 113)

Mom took golf lessons, which proved tome how much a place can change you, because Mom's old idea of exercise was crossing her legs. (p. 119)

I don't know when it happened, but things started to turn, just a little bit, like when you smell the bottle of milk, and you know it's going to be sour tomorrow, but you pour it on your cereal anyway. (p. 119)

Squandered virtue was a sin, Margie told me. But she had eight kids in her family. It seemed to me that her mother squandered her virtue all over the place. (p. 121)

I wanted to of music, of dances, of falling in love and getting married before he shipped overseas. And the songs - (italics) I'll be seeing you in all the old familiar places(/italics) - all that longing, all that waiting. It made sense to me now. Every lyric. It wasn't about just hearing it on the radio. The strings were stretched and quivering and going crazy inside me. If Peter and I had met during the war, would we have gotten engaged? Would things have moved faster? I knew girls who were pre-engaged at school. I used to laugh at their smugness. Now I wanted it. Time rushed at me like a subway, all air and heat. (p. 129)

I could have fought her. I could have taken what I knew about what he felt and thrown it at her, proved I was an adult now, just like her. But feeling grown up? I discovered something right then: It comes and it goes. I was still afraid of my mom. (p. 153)

I saw wanting in Wally's eyes. Now I could recognize it as easy as Margie waving at me across Hillside Avenue. What would happen if I got hold of that want and rode it like a raft to see where it could take me? Joe had left me behind like a kid. I didn't want to be a kid. (p. 171)

I didn't know where [Mom] had put her pizzazz. Maybe she had squashed it in that little lace-trimmed pocket of her dress. (p. 232)

Quick Hits - Three Very Different Books

My apologies: this post was begun (and mostly finished) in late July and never posted.

Angry Management by Chris Crutcher

Three novellas revisit a few familiar characters, giving a couple of them a chance to move on and a couple the chance to stand in their own light and shine. As Sarah Byrnes tries one more time to connect with/confront the person who betrayed her the most, she and Angus Bethune also discover that there are people who will look past their physical selves and see what's really important. Madison West stands up to her narrow-minded, controlling father. And when the school administration try to brush a pink noose on the school's only black student's locker, Marcus James and Matt Miller refuse to let them, a stand that has tragic results.

Musings:

I like a lot of Chris Crutcher's books, and I admire him for the strong stance he takes regarding the rights of teens (well, kids in general). But in some of his later books, this one included, I think his need to make a statement sometimes overwhelms the story. I kept hearing his voice instead of his characters' voices. But it's good to see him bring back characters I liked and wanted to know more about, particularly Sarah and Mr. Nak, and introduce others, like Matt and Marcus, who could carry their own books. I just wish Mr. Nak had more to do than just be a framing device. He was a wise and charismatic character in Ironman, and I would like to have heard what he had to say to some of these characters about these situations.

Sebastian Darke: Prince of Fools by Philip Caveney

Sebastian Darke would love to be the jester his father was. Trouble is, he's just not funny. But he is, to his surprise, brave (not to mention loyal and true) and a rather good fighter. Those qualities come in quite handy when he accidentally foils a plot to kill Princess Kerin, thereby (unknowingly) making himself a marked man as well.

Musings:

I don't think this book will linger long in my memory, but it was fun while I reading it. My favorite character was Cornelius, whose extremely small size belies his fantastic fighting abilities. Trust me, you don't want to take on this guy unless you've got a dozen or so friends with you (unless you don't like your friends much, in which case, this is the perfect scenario to get rid of a few of them). Max the (talking) buffalope is also a fine foil. Kerin and Sebastian work as well apart as they do together, which is fortunate for them and for their readers. This is a good choice for readers who like their fantasies light, humorous, and action-packed.

Broken Thread by Linda Smith

All Alina has wanted for as long as she can remember is to be picked to go to the Weaver's Island, where they create the cloth that controls Fate. When the searchers finally come for her, it is a dream come true. But when she finally sees the Tapestry, she makes a fatal mistake. She nearly destroys everything when she attempts to fix a broken thread by tying it with a piece of her own hair. As a result, the elder Weavers tell her, a king lives who should have died, and her impulsive act will lead to the death of thousands if she does not correct it. To save all those lives, she must travel to his land and kill him. It is a terrible weight to carry with her, made even heavier when she meets her target and realizes he is not what she expected him to be. He is one life balanced against thousands, but how can she look into the face of someone who trusts her and kill him anyway?

Musings:

I loved the dynamic between Alina and Ranjan and watching their relationship develop. Ranjan reminded me a bit of Mary in The Secret Garden, but Alina is much starchier than Martha and Dickon! She is either a born manipulator or a born mother (both?), because she's a master at handling a frightened, sulky little would-be tyrant. I also enjoyed the hint of romance. I would like to revist these characters again, and it's a shame that Linda Smith will never have the chance to write more about them (though I don't know if that was eve-n/r her intention).

Let Me Fly!

FLYGIRL by Sherri L. Smith
4Q 3P; Audience: M/J

All Ida Mae wants to do is fly. She already knows how; her Daddy taught her years ago. But nobody will give her an aviator's license. After all, not only is she a woman, she's a black woman living in Louisiana. Men in the South don't think women should fly, and it seems that nobody thinks blacks should do anything but work in the fields or as housemaids. She dreams of going to Chicago, where neither her sex nor her race will keep her from reaching her goal. But it's not in the cards, now that her father's dead and her brother has joined the Army. She's promised to stay home and help her family. And for a year or so, she does. Then her younger brother shows her a newspaper article. The government is willing to train women to be Army pilots! It's too good an opportunity to pass up. But when she looks at the pictures of the first training class, she realizes there's not a single girl there who looks like her. The Army doesn't want colored women. Are her hopes going to be dashed again? Ida Mae is very light-skinned. Her hair is light brown and loosely curled. She's been mistaken for a white woman on more than one occasion. Does she dare try to pass for white and apply to this program? It is not a decision she comes to quickly or without guilt. But yes...she dares. If she's ever going to have a chance to have her dream fulfilled, it's what she has to do.

The training is hard for all the girls, and many of them wash out quickly. But the training is even harder when you have a secret that absolutely can not be discovered. Not only does she have the fear of wondering what the consequences of discovery would be, she's also cut off from her family. She doesn't dare stay in touch with them for fear of her secret being discovered. It's a hard life, made even harder by the guilt she feels over lying about who she is. She can only hope it will all be worth it in the end.

Musings:

I enjoyed reading this book. Though I've read lots of books set in the 1940's and/or about World War II, I'd never read one on this topic before. I know very little about the role women played in the war and very little about the early days of the Air Force. I know a little bit more about race relations at that time, but I don't think I've read another novel about someone trying to pass as white, so that was a fresh perspective, too.

I found the details of Ida Mae's training quite interesting. I wanted more, though. I know it would have made the book longer, but I felt we got just a taste when I wanted a mouthful. But it was certainly clear by the end of the book that, no matter how stringent their training, the Army didn't consider the women to be "real" pilots, at times using them as guinea pigs and as a "see, even a woman can do it" taunt to the male pilots. At the same time, it was also clear that these pioneering women played a valuable role during World War II, whether or not they were given credit for all they did. It's hard to believe it took over forty years for their service to be properly recognized.

At one point in her training, Ida Mae's mother comes to see her. Ida Mae can't hug her or kiss her, or even call her Mama. Instead, they have to play the role of servant and mistress. It's humiliating and terribly painful for both of them. I finished this book several weeks ago, and that scene has stuck in my memory. It was a shattering example of the pain the racial attitudes of the day could inflict.