The Plague! The Plague! Someone Save Us!

The Comet's Curse by Dom Testa
3Q 3P; Audience: M/J

When the comet Bhaktul flits through Earth's atmosphere, it leaves universally fatal death-dealing particles behind. It won't be long until everyone is dead. Is there any chance that a cure will be found before that happens? Is there any chance the civilization can be saved? With the scientists and doctors dying, it looks unlikely. But Dr. Wallace Zimmer isn't willing to take no for an answer to either question. The virus doesn't affect people until they turn eighteen. If he can put together the right group of kids and get them away from Earth, perhaps they'll be able to find the way to defeat the virus and Earth's civilization. After an intensive search and training period, 251 of Earth's brightest teenagers are sent into space to colonize Eos, a new planet. It will take years for them to arrive and create a new life for themselves. But if they make it, they'll have beaten Bhaktul and Earth will, in some way, have survived.

The crew is carefully chosen for their intelligence, physical fitness, and emotional stability. They are carefully and rigorously trained for the formidable task ahead of them. The Galahad has everything they will need for a long space voyage, including farming facilities, living areas, and game and training rooms to keep them physically fit. And they have Roc, their walking (well, almost), talking, wisecracking supercomputer. Yes, they're young. But they're well prepared, brilliant, and ready for anything. Except, perhaps for the stowaway who is threatening to scuttle their mission before they've had a chance to truly begin it.

Musings:

I wanted to like this book, which is the first in the Galahad series. I was prepared to accept the improbability of a bunch of kids being the saviors of civilization. If it's done well, that premise can be exciting reading. But this is not done particularly well. The characters show some promise, but they are not yet fully developed. The story plays out predictably. The identity of the stowaway is not much of a surprise. But my major issue with the book is the lack of subtlety in the writing. For instance, Testa takes great pains to make sure his readers know that the crew is made up of teens of every ethnicity and culture. Here he introduces Gap, one of the five teens who make up the ship's governing council:

Gap thought of his early childhood in China, raised as an only child by his parents, both of whom were college professors. An early interest in gymnastics was fueled by his training with a former Olympic champion...[Then his parents relocated the family to America] And although his parents were concerned about the abrupt change in his life, Gap immediately accepted the challenge of meeting new people and forming new friendships. It seemed everyone warmed to him as soon as they met him...his school grades reflected his obvious intellect. He kept up his training with gymnastics, keeping an eye on that Olympic future.

Okay, we get it. Gap's Chinese, athletic, very intelligent, and very likeable. All of that could have been shown to us instead of told so bluntly. With Lita, the teen in charge of the infirmary, Testa first goes out of his way to tell us her ethnicity, but then he slips the same information in much more naturally. Which is more effective?

"Lita's black eyes and Latin American skin spoke of her upbringing in Mexico."
or, just a few pages later: "her eyes focused on a glass cube that sat atop a folder. The cube was filled with sand and small pebbles, one of the personal items from her home near the beach in Mexico."

Similarly, Testa works awfully hard to make us find Roc amusing:

I, on the other hand, will continue to be the same sophisticated, charming, and witty intellect that I've always been...I've got reserves of charm that I probably won't begin to tap for years. You're very lucky to know me. Don't you feel lucky?

and

...I obviously talk to the crew, I run the life-support systems on the ship, I answer questions, and I have a lovely singing voice. If you're a girl, and I'm a flesh-and-blood boy, you're all over me... You and I have the same information, so we'll both have to puzzle it out. The only difference is that I'm incredibly smart. Not that you aren't, but when you can recite the table of elements in twenty-six languages, get back to me.

I wish he'd just relax and let his characters be instead of having his author's voice be so intrusive.

I do think this series has the potential to be an intriguing read for younger teens who enjoy science fiction. I'm curious to see what Testa has in mind as the trip goes on and the kids first have to decide if they want to keep the same Council leaders and if not, what the fallout to that decision might be and then (and especially) when they land on Eos and have to create their own civilization. Will they try to maintain what they know from Earth, or will they try to build something completely different? What difficulties will they face? And what will they find in those rooms in the storage areas that are so mysteriously locked for the duration of the voyage? And of course, we already have a budding romance and a brooding leader who may spell trouble. What sort of fireworks will result from all that? Will they be the sort that inspire a satisfied "ahhh!" or the kind that makes one run for cover?

Another Reading Roundup

I've got five books on my pile to write up, and two of them have been waiting for two or three weeks. So I'm just going to put up a couple of quick impressions about a couple of them, just to clear the pile a bit.


Bonechiller by Graham McNamee
4Q 4P; Audience: M/J/S


I love booktalking Acceleration, and although it's a very different kind of book, Hate You is also a powerful read. So I've been waiting for a new McNamee book for years. Though this one didn't captivate me as much, it was still worth the wait. McNamee always tells a great story, and there's always more to it than just what's on the surface.

Ever since his mother died, Danny and his father have been moving from place to place, trying to escape their memories. In cold, desolate Harvest Cove, Danny winds up trying to escape from more than that. Deep in the most isolated reaches of Canada, this small Army outpost town holds a terror that most people don't even realize exists. Danny encounters it on a night that was already unsettling: he has just witnessed an arson/murder. His mind reeling and his nerves already taut as he walks home in the pitch dark, it takes him a little while to realize that he's being followed. At first it's just a feeling. Then he catches something (but what?) out of the corner of his eye. Maybe it's just a plastic bag blowing in the wind. Maybe it's just a dog. He tries to shrug it off. But then he hears the growl. It's a growl so deep it hurts his ears. And then he sees it. This is no plastic bag, no dog. But whatever it is, it's big. And it's fast. It is, in fact, a huge beast right out of legend, with teeth and claws eight inches long. Danny is sure he's a goner when he falls into a ditch and the beast catches up to him. But no - - the only mark he has to show for his meeting with the beast is a blue dot on the back of his hand. A fang mark? As the days go by, Danny realizes that no, the blue dot isn't the only mark the beast has left on him. His body temperature drops and he can always feel the beast watching and calling him. He can't sleep. The beast has invaded his dreams. He knows the beast will be the end of him. It's just a question of when.

Danny is not the only teen affected. One boy in their community has already succumbed to the call of the beast. Danny's friend Howie has also been bitten, and his symptoms are even worse than Danny's. Danny, Howie, Howie's psycho brother Pike (the aforementioned arsonist), and Danny's girlfriend Ash need to know what's going on. A little research reveals that dozens of local teens have disappeared over the years. Though common wisdom has it that they were runaways, the details point toward something else entirely, something that Danny and Howie know all too well. The beast has been luring teens to their death for thousands of years. What are the odds that Danny and Howie will break the cycle? 1000-1?

McNamee generally builds the tension well. Some readers may be irritated when the focus switches from Danny's present to Danny's memories of his mother and how her absence has affected his life. Others will recognize that these sections add to Danny's sense of isolation and that the emotional coldness he's been left with mirrors his physical coldness. Most readers will also appreciate the relationship between Danny and Ash, especially as it often adds a welcome note of humor that breaks the tension. In the beginning, much is made of Pike's mental stability or lack thereof, so I expected it to play a bigger role in the story and for things to play out a little differently as a result. Despite any quibbles I may have, I think Bonechiller will be popular, particularly with teenage boys. It's a book best read straight through, preferably with a warm blanket wrapped around you.

Nuclear War or Just Plain Madness?

The Compound by S. A. Bodeen
3Q 3P; Audience: J

Imagine that you've just been told that a nuclear airhead strike has just been launched at the United States. Where would you go? What would you do? Fortunately, Eli doesn't have to wonder. His father has been preparing for this moment for years. He's built an underground compound for the family and stocked it with enough food and clothing to last fifteen years, long enough for the nuclear fallout to dissipate enough for safety. When the warning comes, the family is able to get to the shelter in time. All of the family except for their grandmother and Eli's twin, Eddy, that is.

Eli has known for years that Eddy is the good twin. He was the one that everyone liked and wanted to be around. Eli was the one the other kids accepted because he was Eddy's brother. Eli is the selfish one. He knows it's really his fault that Eddy and his grandmother didn't make it into the shelter, and he'll never forgive himself for that. Eli's pretty much decided that he won't love anyone anymore. He hasn't let anyone touch him in ages. He barely talks to his sisters (one older, one younger) and avoids his parents. He's angry and he hates everything about where he is and how they live.

The compound is stocked with everything a family could need: clothing in various sizes, plenty of books and music to keep them occupied, even computers and lessons so that they can continue with their schooling. It has plenty of food, too. Until it goes bad, that is. The animals die, too, due to poisoned feed. What looked like a fifteen-year food supply isn't going to last even half that long. That's why Eli won't go through that yellow door. He doesn't see how his mother and sisters can bear it. Because what's on the other side of that door -- the Supplements -- no. It doesn't even bear thinking of. It's too gruesome and sick to even contemplate.

Living in the shelter is hard on all of them. His little sister goes around talking in an English accent all the time, and his older sister doesn't talk much at all. His parents obviously get physically close, since his mother has been pregnant pretty much continuously in the six years or so they've been in the compound. But they don't seem to like each other much. His mother's okay. If Eli can bear to be around anyone, it would probably be her. But his father is getting stranger all the time. Sometimes he rushes around in a frenzy of energy, and other times he'll stay in bed for days. He controls everything they do. They're all just a little afraid of him. As it turns out, they should be.

It's not until Eli accidentally stumbles on a computer meant for Eddy that the horror of his situation starts to become clear. Because unlike all the other computers in the compound, this one connects to the Internet. How can there be an Internet? Wasn't the world destroyed? Apparently not. And when Eli actually gets on the Internet himself and sees what he sees...well, then he begins to question everything that's happened in the past six years.

Could it possibly be that his father was lying to them all the time? And if that's true, what possible reason could he have for keeping them locked up in this compound? Is reason the wrong word to use in connection with his father? What do you do when you are locked in an underground compound with an insane man who is the only person who knows the key to getting out of it?

Though not a perfect story, this is still a book that will hold readers' interest and have them holding their breaths waiting to find out just how twisted a mind can get and whether it's possible to outwit a crazy man.

Run, Don't Walk, to Get Your Hands on These!

I read three books over the past week that are the kind you finish with a groan because you don't want them to end. On top of that, they each end with, if not a cliffhanger, at least a heart-in-your-throat, what-happens-next question. Even worse, they're all the first book in the series, which means waiting months (I'm avoiding the y- word!) to find out. I'm absolutely positive it will be worth the wait, but it's going to be hard.

All of these rate 5Q 5P, Audience: J/S

Graceling by Kristin Cashore

In the Seven Kingdoms, there are those who are Graced, and they are marked by their eyes, which do not match. Graces vary. Perhaps the grace is knowing what someone will say, or perhaps it is the ability to tie knots. Some Graces are valuable, some are not. Some save lives. Some take lives.

Katsa discovered what her Grace was at the age of eight, when a relative made an improper advance and her instinctive response resulted in his death. Since then, her uncle, the king, has used her to teach a lesson to those who displease him. Those who are Graced have always made the non-Graced uncomfortable, but when one is Graced with the ability to kill, the discomfort turns to fear. Katsa's only friends are her cousin, her maid, and her trainer Giddon. Amost everyone else avoids even looking at her.

Katsa loathes her role as killer/enforcer to the King. She desperately wants to find a way to help people instead of hurt them. And so she creates the Council, a secret group of people determined to help those who have in some way been wronged. When the father of the king of Leinid is kidnapped, the Council tracks him down and Katsa rescues him. But who is behind the kidnapping, and why did s/he do it? Those questions are not so easily answered.

One person nearly foils Katsa's rescue, and that person comes looking for her. Is Prince Po, son of the Leinid king, a friend or a foe? Unsure of the answer, Katsa still joins with him on a quest to discover the truth behind the kidnapping. In all her years of training, only Po, Graced with combat skills, has ever come close to challenging her. His challenges don't come only on the training field. He challenges what she knows of herself and what she believes of herself. Is she really the cold killing machine she imagines herself to be? There are many discoveries ahead for Katsa, not least that she isn't as friendless and coldhearted as she imagined herself to be.

Skin Hunger by Kathleen Duey

Told in two voices, this book is a book that will leave you gasping for air. The tension is that relentless. Sadima's story, told in third person, details a world in which magic has been forbidden and forgotten. Even so, those who can't afford real healers rely on fakes in times of need. Sadima's mother died giving birth to her with the aid of a "magician" who then stole the family's valuables and left newborn Sadima on the floor in her dead mother's arms. Understandably, Sadima's father and brother hate "magicians" and even the idea of magic. Sadima knows they will never believe her if she tells them the truth she's known since birth: she can communicate with animals. This bit of magic brings her to the attention of Somiss, a young nobleman who is determined to bring magic back to their world, and Franklin, his servant/friend. As soon as she is able, Sadima joins the young men. She dreams of being able to share her abilities freely, but she soon realizes that, as sympathetic and kind as Franklin is, he will always bow to his master, Somiss. And Somiss is not kind, and he is not sympathetic. His dedication to reviving magic is all-consuming and dangerous.

Hahp's first person description of a world in which magic now exists is chilling and unrelentingly grim. Though Franklin and Somiss dreamed of a time when magic would be used to help people, it is only the wealthy who seem to have access to it. Wizards have a fearsome reputation. Families who bring their sons to the wizard academy are told they will never see them again. Once the families leave, the boys learn why: in each class, only one student (if that) will become a wizard. The others will die. They are forbidden to help each other. Hahp learns to use the magic to get food, but will it be enough to keep him alive? His struggle isn't only physical. Can he bear watching the other boys slowly starve to death, knowing he could help them if only he dared?

The link between Sadima and Hahp slowly becomes clear, but both their stories are unresolved at the end. It was achingly hard to close the book and leave these two characters in their desperate straits behind.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Collins is well known for her Gregor the Overlander series for elementary and middle school students. The theme and level of violence in this book marks it for older readers (middle school and up).

Decades ago, the Districts rebelled against the Capitol. They've paid the price ever since, in the form of the Hunger Games. Every year, a boy and a girl between the ages of 12-18 from each of the twelve districts are brought to the Capitol to compete in the Hunger Games. This is Survivor for real. The players must outwit, outplay, and outlast the other twenty-three players, because this is a duel to the death. The entire country watches every move the players make. The Game creators manipulate every facet of the game to make it more exciting for the viewers. The uglier the kills, the better. The Game is brutal, and players do what they must in order to make sure they're the one to survive. Katniss and Peeta are District 12's contestants.

Katniss has years of experience hunting to feed her family. She's confident she can survive, at least for a while. Peeta is the baker's son. He's got the survival skills of a newborn kitten. Katniss doesn't know Peeta well, but she owes him: he once saved her family from starvation. And Peeta...well, Peeta had his reasons for giving Katniss the bread that day, even though it earned him a beating. He is willing to endure much more for Katniss. How can they kill each other? And yet, they must. First, though, the other twenty-two players have to die. What then?

Between a Rock and a Hard Place - booktalk

Between a Rock and a Hard Place
by Aron Ralston

When Aron Ralston went hiking in Blue John Canyon, Utah in late April 2003, he made some really big mistakes. He told nobody where he was going, and he traveled with just a couple of burritos, just over a gallon of water, some chocolate bars, a muffin, the necessary equipment to climb up and down sheer canyon walls, a CD player, headphones, a couple of CDs, batteries, a digital camera, and a mini camcorder. He also had a multipurpose knife that had two pocketknife blades and a pair of pliers. The water and the knife would save his life when he got caught between a rock and a hard place. When someone says they were caught between a rock and a hard place, they usually mean that they have to choose between two options, and that neither of those choices is good. In Aron’s case, he literally did get caught between a rock and a hard place when a 500 pound rock he had just climbed off shifted, fell, and pinned his lower right arm to the canyon wall. Despite all his efforts, he could not shift that rock or chip it away enough to free his hand. He realized that nobody knew where to look for him, and that help would probably take at least six, maybe seven days, to arrive. He also knew his chances of surviving for more than three days were minuscule. He did survive for those three days, and a fourth, and then a fifth. But on the morning of the sixth day, he realized his luck was running out. He was already drinking his own urine. He was suffering from hypothermia and dehydration. He realized he had just two choices left: the rock and the hard place. He could sit there pinned by the rock until he died a slow, agonizing death, or he could amputate his arm and maybe, just maybe, hike out of the canyon. He took out his pocketknife and he began to cut.

the dead & the gone - booktalk

the dead & the gone
by Susan Beth Pfeffer

The day that life as he knew it ended, Alex Morales didn’t have a clue. As far as he could tell, life went on just as it always did. He worked at the pizza shop, he worried about getting in to college, and his sisters were a pain. Yeah, he heard the sirens and saw the police cars and ambulances flash by, but in New York City, those were nothing new, even if it did seem as though there were more of them than usual. It wasn’t until he got home and the power went out that Alex vaguely remembered hearing something about an asteroid that was going to hit the moon. But nobody had been very excited about it. It wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. But it was. It changed things forever. That day, it was just Alex and Bri and Julie at home. His dad was in Puerto Rico for a funeral. His brother Carlos was with the Marines out in California. His mother had been called in to work at the hospital. He had no idea it would be weeks or months, if ever, before he’d ever see any of them again.

At first, things didn’t seem so bad. Mami had food in the house, and his uncle let him take more from his bodega. The blackouts weren’t a big deal. New Yorkers knew how to manage when the electricity went out for a few hours. But day after day went by with no word from Papi. Mami never came home, and the hospital couldn’t tell them where she was working or why she hadn’t called. As much as he hated the idea, Alex was in charge. Then the food began to run out. They couldn’t even get the news on the radio. The electricity went out for days at a time, and when it did come on, it was just for a couple of hours at best. There was no heat, not even outside, since ash from volcanoes blotted out the sun, pushing the temperature below freezing.

Things are getting desperate. When times get desperate, desperate people do desperate things. Things they never in their wildest dreams imagined they could do or would do. When everyone he loves and needs is dead or gone, when the world is falling apart, how is a seventeen-year-old supposed to take care of himself, let alone his sisters, one a religion-obsessed fifteen-year-old and the other a twelve-year-old spoiled brat? The answer is simple, but terribly, soul-destroyingly hard: he does what he has to do.

Do You Dare Take a Step Out of Line?

Unwind by Neil Shusterman
4Q 4P M/J


This didn't turn out to be quite what I thought it was going to be, but I still liked it and thought it gave lots of food for thought.

Imagine a world in which there is not a Bill of Rights, but a Bill of Life:

The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen.

However, between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, a parent may choose to retroactively "abort" a child...

...on the condition that the child's life doesn't "technically" end.

The process by which a child is both terminated and yet kept alive is called "unwinding".

Unwinding is now a common and accepted practice in society.

Creepy, no?

Connor's parents decide he's too uncontrollable. Risa is a ward of the state. She hasn't gotten any talents that make her particularly valuable, so she's expendable. Lev was conceived specifically as a tithe, his family's donation to God. All three are scheduled for unwinding. Lev goes willingly, even gladly, but Connor and Risa are desperate to save themselves. They can't imagine that someone would be happy to be unwound, so when they get the opportunity to save themselves, they save Lev, too. At first, they find reason to hope. But Lev doesn't want to be saved, and his actions bring them close to disaster before they find people who will help them. But the question they should always keep in mind is "Why?" In this book, much is not what it seems to be. It will certainly leave you questioning.

Shusterman is scrupulous about playing fair to both sides of the abortion question (though that term is rarely, if ever, actually used). Unwinding is presented as a good thing, in that it enables others to live (every scrap of an unwind is used to prolong or enhance the life of another human being). Unwinding is also presented as an evil, robbing a person of his/her life without recognizing the value of that life except as it exists to help someone else. There's one truly freaky scene when we actually read from the point of view of someone being unwound. For that reason (especially), this one isn't one for the faint of heart. And you like to read for pure pleasure, without thinking about what you read, you'll probably want to give this book a pass, too. But if you like putting yourself into many character's point of view and thinking about moral issues, give this one a try. I promise lots of action, too. These are not kids who go willingly into that dark night.

Life as you really, really don't want to know it

the dead & the gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer
5Q 3P J/S

You've got to love Bolivian hats. When they belong to Susan Beth Pfeffer, they hold the key to treasures. See, I'm one of the lucky few who have gotten their hands on an ARC (Advanced Reading Copy) of Susan Beth Pfeffer's next book, the dead & the gone, which will be available in June 2008, all because my email address (and a bunch of other people's) were tucked into that Bolivian hat. It wasn't pulled on the first round. It wasn't pulled on the second round (I pouted!). But it was pulled in the third round. Yay! Once it arrived, I had to wait until the moon was no longer full to start reading it. (If you've already read the companion novel, Life As We Knew It, you'll understand why.) Then I started to read the book. I have two prime reading times in my day: at lunch and just before bed. I soon realized this was not a book to read at either of those times. So I carved out some reading time this past Sunday morning and read the rest of the book straight through. When I finished, I could only say, "Whew!"

I'll say straight out that this is not an easy read. As tough as LAWKI was to read, at least Miranda has her mother with her. She's not in charge of keeping her family together, and she's got someone older to turn to for comfort (or to blame, as she sometimes does). In d&g, Alex has none of that, and because of that, this is an even more chilling read. (Yes, I use that word advisedly.)

Both LAWKI and d&g take place after an asteroid hits the moon, knocking it out of orbit and much closer to the Earth. The result: high tides, tsunamis, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes. Huge chunks of continents are washed away. Communications are disrupted, electricity is spotty at best, and food is scarce and getting scarcer. The sky is so full of ash that the sun's rays can't get through, so the temperatures keep falling and falling.

How do you stay alive in such a situation? Alex is only seventeen years old. His sisters, Brianna and Julie, are only fifteen and twelve. Their father is in Puerto Rico for a funeral, their mother was called in to work at the hospital, and their brother Carlos is with the Marines. At first he thinks he only has to hold things together for a couple of days. But that's before they learn that Puerto Rico was hit hard by the high tides. That's before days go by without hearing from Mami. That's before Carlos calls to tell them that the Marines are being deployed to help with the recovery effort. Soon Alex has to admit to himself that he's in charge, and likely to be so for a long time.

Alex is a scholarship student at St. Vincent dePaul Academy. He's the vice president of his class, president of the debate squad, and he has his eye on the editorship of the school newspaper. In other words, he doesn't shy away from responsibility. But being in charge of his two sisters and running the household is more than he bargained for. Bri isn't so bad. As long as she has her rosary beads and a Bible, she's happy. But Julie is a different story entirely. She's a whiny baby who drives Alex nuts. She fights with him about everything. Most of the time he wants to throttle her. But somehow, these three are going to have to work things out, because they're going to need each other. They don't have anyone else to count on.

At first, their situation doesn't seem so dire. New York City has powerful people who make sure that as many services as possible stay intact. Even the schools stay open. That's a mercy, since they also provide lunch for their students. That's one meal that Alex doesn't have to worry about. But how long can that relative safety last? Not nearly long enough. Brianna gets sick. The food shortages get worse. How do you stay warm when the temperature never gets above ten or twenty degrees? How do you keep your sisters safe when even people become commodities for trade?

What really got to me about this book was how callous Alex, his friends, and Julie have to become. One person's death is another's salvation. As the sense of impending doom got stronger and stronger, it was sometimes hard to keep reading. But what gave me hope was seeing how Alex shoulders his responsibilities and becomes a man. (It speaks volumes about Alex that people he thinks hardly know him reach out to him to offer the kind of help and support that truly means the difference between life and death.) And like Miranda in LAWKI, Julie also grows when the occasion demands it of her. As hard as they may be to deal with, her stubbornness and feistiness prove to be invaluable qualities. This is not a girl who is going to give up.

Faith plays such an important role in this book that it's practically another character. The Catholic church (in particular) is a source of strength, sustenance, and support. It's very fitting that Susan Beth Pfeffer is autographing these books with the words "Never lose faith." When all else fails, having faith in something or Someone may be the one thing that makes the difference between living and becoming one of the dead and the gone.

This is not a comfortable book to read. It's not for those who like cozy reads where everything turns out okay in the end. It's a book for those who want to see people rise up to meet challenges. It's a book for those who know that hard times can bring out the worst in people, but have faith that it can also bring out the best in them. When you finish this book and come up for air (and it will feel just like that), you will not leave this book thoughtlessly behind you. You will live with it, and it will live with you, for days and weeks and months. Like Life as We Knew It before it, the dead & the gone is a life-changing, perspective-altering book.

If you have not already found it, check out Susan Beth Pfeffer's blog. She may write about grim topics (see also The Year Without Michael, but she has a wonderful sense of humor. She has posted both a preview of a truly harrowing chapter of this book and a peek into the mind of an author as she plans her next (this) book.

Here's what I had to say about Life as We Knew It and my booktalk on it.

Edited on 5/2/08 to add a link to my dead & the gone booktalk.

Silence is Not Golden

The Silenced by James Devita
4Q 3P/ J S


Wow. I just finished this book and even though I have two other books I should be writing about first, I need to write something about this one now, while the feelings are still fresh.

Wow. Talk about an atmospheric book. There are some books you don't want to stop reading because they're so good. There are some books you have to stop reading, even if you don't want to, just to give yourself a chance to breathe and your heart to stop pounding. I put this book down at least six times because I needed a break. I couldn't stand the tension or the fear of what I thought/knew was coming. I needed to do something mindless for a while, so that I could give myself a chance to process what I'd read and what was coming.

No long summary here. In a nutshell, this book takes place in an unspecified future time in an unspecified country (but I still read it as the U.S., though that may be U.S.-centric of me). A war was fought within recent memory, and the Zero Tolerance party is now in power. We're not talking about zero tolerance for teasing, or zero tolerance for drugs, or zero tolerance for weapons in the schools. We're talking about zero tolerance for tolerance. Zero tolerance for individual thought. Zero tolerance for different religious beliefs. Zero tolerance for deviation from the official government line. Zero tolerance for different. In the initial phases of the new government, many of those who fought or protested were "neutralized" - government-speak for killed. But it wasn't enough to hold those people responsible for their actions. Their families are held responsible as well. The families have been sent to readaptation communities all around the country. Suspect spouses are put on house arrest, while the children are re-educated in schools that are nothing more than indoctrination facilities.

Marena is one of those children. She only has brief flashes of memory of what happened the night her mother was taken, but she can remember what her mother believed. And one of the things her mother believed was that you do not have the right to stay silent when evil is happening around you. Marena is already resisting in as many ways as she can: she mouths the words of the anthem and the loyalty oaths they are forced to repeat, she refuses to give up her precious paper, pens, and papers when writing implements are outlawed, and she refuses to believe what she is told to believe. But when a favorite teacher is taken away and a new and stricter administration is brought it, Marena knows that it's time to take a harder stand. She convinces her would-be boyfriend Dex and the new boy, Eric, that it's time to actively rebel. They slash tires. They vandalize the school with slogans. They spread leaflets. They spread the word: The White Rose will not be silent. But their rebellion comes at a very high cost.

Any similarities to the Nazi regime are completely intentional. This book is a tribute to Sophie Scholl, her brother, and the other members of the White Rose resistance group, who fought the Nazis with pamphlets, leaflets, and graffiti, spreading the idea of resistance throughout their university and beyond. It's also, I think, a protest against the people in our own country right now who insist that voicing objections to actions of our political leaders is nothing short of traitorous. But if the people don't remind their government to have a conscience, then we open ourselves to nightmare scenarios. Sophie Scholl, Nelson Mandela, and Marena could testify to that.

Lest I have made this sound like a book that only those of a political bent could enjoy, let me assure you, it is not. Despite its length, I think many teens who don't really like to read could get caught up in this one. Rebellious teens fighting against the authorities. Questions about who you can trust (can you even trust your own father?). Midnight trysts and post-midnight illegal actions. Short, cliff-hanger ending chapters. This is a compulsively readable book that will have many readers riveted to the last page.

Boot Camps Mess With Your Head

Boot Camp by Todd Strasser
3Q 3P, J S


Chilling. Disturbing. Horrific. Tense. Disheartening. Gripping.

Garrett admits that he is skipping school, stealing money, and having an affair with his (former) teacher. He doesn't see why is parents are so angry, though. Does it matter that he's not in class every day? Even attending school two or three days a week, he is still easily maintaining an average that will allow him into almost any school. Yes, he has taken money from his parents. But that's because they've refused to give him any sort of allowance because they disapprove of his girlfriend. What else is he supposed to do? And it's not like they can't afford the $20 he takes here and there, since his mother runs her own crisis management company (protecting an image is everything to her) and his father is a corporate lawyer. And yes, he is dating his teacher. He and Sabrina connected almost from the first day he walked into her class. Despite every obstacle thrown in their paths, he is not willing to give her up. For these crimes, Garrett is sent to a boot camp to straighten him up.

He is taken to the camp in handcuffs. When he arrives, he's strip searched and manhandled at every opportunity. And he's told,

"Your parents have signed and notarized a consent form allowing Lake Harmony to use restraint whenever necessary. The type and degree of restraint administered shall be at the discretion of the staff. Lake Harmony and its employees will not be held liable for any injury sustained by you during the administration of restraint as it is understood that such injury is the result of willful disobedience on your part."

The introduction to the camp's Bible (information for inmates) reads:

You are now a member of the Lake Harmony community. You will be released when you are judged to be respectful, polite, and obedient enough to return to your family. During your stay here you will have no communication with the outside world, except for letters to your parents. After six months your parents may visit you for a day if they choose.

The treatment that Garrett receives at the camp is brutal. His "father" (each group of campers is assigned a "father" or "mother" leader) is determined to break him down and make him admit that his actions were wrong and that he is sincerely sorry for causing his parents so much trouble. Higher level campers are used to keep lower level students in line, and there are no lines drawn at how they can do this, with the exception that any bruises can't be in a place that shows. (The same holds true for the staff.) Another common punishment is TI, Temporary Isolation, where the inmate is forced to lie facedown on a cold concrete floor for twenty-four hours a day.

Garrett is a very strong-minded boy. He knows that some of his actions were technically wrong, but he refuses to admit that loving Sabrina is wrong in any way. He also knows that it is wrong to stand idly by while kids are beaten by thugs and bullies, and he can't help coming to their defense (in particular, he stands up for a boy named Paulie). He also refuses to suck up to the staff. For these infractions and insubordinations, he is often sent to TI, and he is often beaten. Still, Garrett refuses to give up. He listens during group meetings as kids on higher levels say things like, "I'd be dead if it weren't for Harmony Lake" and "I deserved every punishment I got" and can't imagine those words ever coming out of his mouth.

There are two other inmates who have also refused to get with the program. Sarah has been at the camp for two years. Paulie has been there for well over a year. Both are still at Level One, meaning they've made no progress in accepting their guilt or misbehavior. When Garrett first arrives, Sarah is still defiant, but as the weeks go by, both she and Paulie begin to lose their will to fight. They know if they don't get out of the camp, they'll die. But neither will give in to get ahead, so their only chance is to escape the camp. And their only chance to escape successfully is if Garrett comes with them.

I thought that Garrett's situation couldn't get worse, but I was wrong.

===================

As I said above, I found this book chilling to read. I also have to admit, though, that I kept asking myself if Strasser wasn't exaggerating the conditions of camps like this. But he provides a list of resources he used to research this book, and he certainly has evidence on his side.

I did find, though, that the villains of the piece were too one-dimensional. Almost every staff member is rotten any way you look at him (we meet only one female staff member), never having even a moment of doubt about what he's doing and never having even a moment of looking at these kids as though they're fellow human beings. I can easily believe that there are a few people on staff who glory in sanctioned bullying and sadism, but I find it harder to believe that every staff member is like that. And of the teens, only Garrett, Sarah, and Paulie are developed in any way. Only three or four other teens are even named, and they exist only to perpetuate and perpetrate the bullying. I think the book would have benefited by having more shades of gray in these characters.

=====================

To learn more about Todd Strasser, check out his web site.

Here There Be Pirates (Red Sea booktalk)

Red Sea by Diane Tullson
4Q 3P J/S (Grades 7-10-ish)

It thrills me to stand on the deck of the ship, look out at the ocean, and see no land in any direction. But there’s a big difference between being on the deck of a huge cruise ship captained by an experienced crew and being out in the middle of the ocean in a small sailboat with nobody but yourself to pilot the ship.

The last thing in the world Libby wanted to do was leave her boyfriend and her best friend behind to sail around the world with her mother and stepfather. Unfortunately, she wasn’t give a choice. Now she's stuck for months on a sailboat with the two people in the world she most wants to get away from. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it were just Libby and her mom. But no way is she okay with sailing around the world with Duncan. And so she does what teenagers are really good at. She makes her parents pay. She’s as uncooperative as she can possibly be. She insinuates that Duncan can’t keep his hands to himself. She goes ashore alone, knowing it makes her mother crazy. She does whatever she can to make them sorry that they ever brought her along. But it’s not just being on this trip that’s making her miserable. At every port, she emails her boyfriend, Ty. At every port, she eagerly waits for word from him. It never comes.

After three weeks in Djibouti waiting for the right weather to begin their Red Sea passage, Emma, the leader of their traveling group, decides to leave early the next morning. For safety’s sake, the flotilla must stay together. There are pirates in the Red Sea, men who will take anything and everything a ship has, men who won’t hesitate to shoot anyone who gets in their way. Everyone must be ready to leave on Emma’s signal. But Libby isn’t ready to leave. Not when there’s one more chance to check her email, one more chance to make her parents pay. She sneaks ashore early in the morning. By the time she gets back, the rest of the group has gone. There’s no choice now but to sail alone and hope for the best. Her parents are grim, but Libby doesn’t care. That’ll teach them.

It’s dangerous for a sailboat to be in the middle of the ocean completely out of sight of land. Pirates aside, your tiny boat can’t get out of a freighter’s way fast enough to avoid being crushed. Someone always has to be on watch, especially when, like tonight, a bad storm adds to the danger. Duncan wants Libby on watch with her mother. Libby can take being with her mother just so long, though, so she abandons watch and her mother and goes to bed. She’s woken by a loud noise and a change in the boat’s motion. Something is wrong. She tears up the stairs, Duncan just behind her. They reach the deck just in time to see her mother fire a flare directly at what is unmistakably a pirate’s boat. A gunman in the boat aims a gun their way. Tiny bursts of flame erupt from the barrel. The mainsail rips, a cockpit cushion explodes, a thermos disintegrates. Libby can barely think with the panic and the noise, but one thought does go through her mind: “Oh, good. They’re going to miss her.” They don’t. Her mother spins, her arms splayed. A gob of red goo shoots from her leg and she crashes to the ground. Duncan runs towards her. A bullet catches him in the shoulder, and then the top of his head flies off. When Libby opens her eyes again, he’s gone, thrown overboard by the force of the impact.

The pirates take everything they can: almost every bit of food, every scrap of electronics, including their GPS equipment, their batteries, and the go-bag that contains their emergency supplies. What they can’t take, they break. When they finally go, they leave behind a ship with a fouled propeller that can’t use its engines, no way to contact anyone for help, no medical supplies, a badly wounded woman, and one fourteen-year-old girl. For Libby, being alone in the middle of the ocean isn’t at all thrilling. It’s terrifying.

Words Are Teeth: What Happened to Cass McBride (booktalk)

What Happened to Cass McBride by Gail Giles
5Q 5P S (But I'm sure junior high school students will read and like it, too.)


"Sticks and stones may break your bones, but words can never hurt you." Well, that’s bull. Words are powerful things. As a character in the book says, "Words are teeth." Sometimes they hurt even more than a physical blow. Most of us have said something unkind about someone and thought they'd never find out. Sometimes we've said whatever it was just to be funny. Sometimes we've said it just to be nasty. Sometimes we know we're being unkind and we don't care. Sometimes we say something thoughtlessly, not really thinking about what we're saying at all. Does it matter what we say, if they're never going to know we said it? But what if they do find out? And what if we say these things directly to the person, knowing, even hoping, it will hurt them? What happens then?

When David Kirby asks Cass McBride out on a date, she can't imagine what in the world he was thinking. David is a loser with a capital L. No, David is a LOSER - full caps required. David isn't a wanna-be. He's a never-gonna-be. Why would this total nonentity think he was on her radar, let alone in her dating sphere? Cass is running for Homecoming Queen and needs every vote she can get, so she doesn't give him the withering turndown he deserves. She smiles winningly and tells him that she's kind of tied up right now. But then she sits down at her desk and writes a scathing note about it to her best friend, Emily, who will be sitting in the same desk in the next period. She doesn't realize that David must have been watching her all through class. She doesn't realize he must have seen her write the note and put it under her chair. When she does realize it, it's too late: at the end of class, instead of leaving, David heads for her desk and reads the note before she can stop him.

That night, David takes a rope and hangs himself from a tree in front of his house.

The day after his funeral, when Cass wakes up, she's not in her warm, comfortable bed. She's buried who knows how far underground in a narrow wooden crate with a walkie-talkie strapped to her hand. Kyle Kirby, David's brother, intends to make Cass pay for her thoughtless, nasty words.


(Teens who like Torey Hayden, A Child Called It, Chris Crutcher, Nancy Werlin's Rules of Survival, Elaine Alphin's Counterfeit Son and similar titles will probably like this one. Gail Giles's fans will also want to check out her web site.)

Life As We Knew It (booktalk)

Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
4Q 4P J/S

What made this book even creepier for me is that scientists right now are trying to figure out how to deal with an asteroid that may hit the Earth in 2038. I suspect that after you read this book, you’ll never be able to look at a full moon again without shivering just a little bit.

Miranda’s journal begins like any typical teenage girl’s. She writes about her grades, friends, fights with her mother, her new step-sibling-to-be, and her crush on a local Olympic-caliber skater. And she writes about the fuss all her teachers are making about the asteroid that’s supposed to hit the moon. They’re all excited because it’s supposed to be big enough to see with the naked eye, but not so big that anyone is particularly worried. They should have been. The asteroid is not only bigger than expected, it hits with much more force with expected. It knocks the moon out of orbit, much closer to Earth.

Is that really significant? You bet it is. It’s catastrophic. The first noticeable effect of the collision is the tsunamis that hit both coasts, causing massive flooding. Tidal waves twenty feet and higher hit as far inland as New York City. The Statue of Liberty is washed out to sea. Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, the barrier islands off the Carolinas, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Alaska…all gone. Similar devastation is happening all over the world. Nobody knows how bad it’s going to get, but Miranda's mother suspects it's going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better, if it gets better. The family and an elderly neighbor head to the stores and fill cart after cart with canned and boxed foods, cat food, kitty litter, toilet paper, and anything and everything they think they could possibly use. They have no way of knowing how long the situation will last or how bad it will get, so everything has to be rationed, including their water and heating oil.

How bad does it get? Communication networks break down. It's next to impossible to make or receive phone calls. Mail is disrupted. Electricity is available only an hour or two a day. Soon, it's on for only minutes a day, and then not at all. With no electricity, no mail, no phone, no television, and no internet, there's no way to get any news at all. They are completely isolated. And the environmental devastation continues. After the tidal waves come the earthquakes. Then volcanoes begin to erupt, even ones that were dormant or far underground. So much ash is thrown into the air that the sun is completely blocked. The first hard frost comes in August. By September, it's not unusual for the temperature during the day to reach a high of 23 degrees. By October, it's below zero. There’s no heat and very little food. To make a bad situation worse, people are getting sick, and there are few doctors and even less medicine.

In her journal, Miranda wonders how they can possibly survive. The situation is desperate. If only one person in her family can survive, who should it be? It’s time to choose. She longs for life as she knew it, but she has to deal with life as it is, for as long as she possibly can. How long will that be?

Here There Be Pirates: Red Sea by Diane Tullson (booktalk)

RED SEA by Diane Tullson
4Q 3P M/J

It thrills me to stand on the deck of the ship, look out at the ocean, and see no land in any direction. But there’s a big difference between being on the deck of a huge cruise ship captained by an experienced crew and being out in the middle of the ocean in a small sailboat with nobody but yourself to pilot the ship.

The last thing in the world Libby wanted to do was leave her boyfriend and her best friend behind to sail around the world with her mother and stepfather. Unfortunately, she wasn’t give a choice, so here she is, stuck for months on a sailboat with the two people in the world she most wants to get away from. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it were just Libby and her mom. But no way is she okay with sailing around the world with Duncan. And so she does what teenagers are really good at. She makes her parents pay. She’s as uncooperative as she can possibly be. She insinuates that Duncan can’t keep his hands to himself. She goes ashore alone, knowing it makes her mother crazy. She does whatever she can to make them sorry that they ever brought her along. But it’s not just being on this trip that’s making her miserable. At every port, she emails her boyfriend, Ty. At every port, she eagerly waits for word from him. It never comes.

After three weeks in Djibouti waiting for the right weather to begin their Red Sea passage, Emma, the leader of their traveling group, decides to leave early the next morning. For safety’s sake, the flotilla must stay together. There are pirates in the Red Sea, men who will take anything and everything a ship has, men who won’t hesitate to shoot anyone who gets in their way. Everyone must be ready to leave on Emma’s signal. But Libby isn’t ready to leave. Not when there’s one more chance to check her email, one more chance to make her parents pay. She sneaks ashore early in the morning. By the time she gets back, the rest of the group has gone. There’s no choice now but to sail alone and hope for the best. Her parents are grim, but Libby doesn’t care. That’ll teach them.

It’s dangerous for a sailboat to be in the middle of the ocean completely out of sight of land. Pirates aside, your tiny boat can’t get out of a freighter’s way fast enough to avoid being crushed. Someone always has to be on watch. Tonight, Duncan wants Libby on watch with her mother. Libby can take being with her mother just so long. She abandons watch and her mother and goes to bed. She’s woken by a loud noise and a change in the boat’s motion. Something is wrong. She tears up the stairs, Duncan just behind her. They reach the deck just in time to see her mother fire a flare directly at what is unmistakably a pirate’s boat. A gunman in the boat aims a gun their way. Tiny bursts of flame erupt from the barrel. The mainsail rips, a cockpit cushion explodes, a thermos disintegrates. Libby can barely think with the panic and the noise, but one thought does go through her mind: “Oh, good. They’re going to miss her.” They don’t. Her mother spins, her arms splayed. A gob of red goo shoots from her leg and she crashes to the ground. Duncan runs towards her. A bullet catches him in the shoulder, and then the top of his head flies off. When Libby opens her eyes again, he’s gone, thrown overboard by the force of the impact.

The pirates take everything they can: almost every bit of food, every scrap of electronics, including their GPS equipment, their batteries, and the go-bag that contains their emergency supplies. What they can’t take, they break. When they finally go, they leave behind a ship with a fouled propellor that can’t use its engines, no way to contact anyone for help, no medical supplies, a badly wounded woman, and one fourteen-year-old girl. For Libby, being alone in the middle of the ocean isn’t at all thrilling. It’s terrifying.