In January I had the opportunity to attend the ALA Midwinter Sunrise Speaker Series program featuring Andre Dubus III reading from and talking about writing his memoir, Townie.
I did take notes, but what has stuck with me is the fact that writing literally saved his life. Dubus realized while working on this book the extent to which discovering writing at age 21 saved him. He was on a bad road, addicted to brawling, going out to bars hoping to find a fight. He expressed himself with his fists. Once he started writing, that changed. My favorite quote from the morning: “I felt more like me after writing than I ever had.” And that is why he kept at it.
Dubus talked about the intimacy of personal violence. How inappropriate it is to reach out and touch a stranger’s face. Now imagine punching that face. As he put it, you have to “fracture your own humanity” to do it.
Dubus tried three times to write this book as a novel. He hates violence, and wanted to write about fighting without connecting it to his life. Finally he learned that he is not able to write fiction from his own life. As he put it, lots of people can; he is not one of them.
DUBUS, Andre. Townie: A Memoir. 400p. Norton. 2011. Tr $25.95. ISBN 978-0-393-06466-7. LC 2010937513.
Adult/High School–Andre Dubus III was eight when his father abandoned the family. As his mother struggled to provide for her three children, Dubus realized that he lacked the size, strength, and attitude to protect himself and his siblings from bullies in their Massachusetts mill town. After his brother was beaten up, Dubus was inspired by the vigilante justice of films like Billy Jack, Death Wish, and Dirty Harry and began a strengthening work-out regimen as a first step toward vengeance. Eventually he became an amateur boxer and perfected the transformation of his anger into controlled violence. When he observed slights to others, he responded violently as if the transgression were personal. Fighting became his life. When a friend was knifed in an altercation, the violence of Dubus’s revenge became so frighteningly out of control that he knew he had to change. Dubus reflects on his youth with a novelist’s attention to detail that perfectly conveys the visceral rage of an adolescent confused and angered by his father’s absence. When his father again became a presence in his life, the faltering reconciliation that followed was transformational. Teens who want more of Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (Norton, 1996) will find the cartilage-crushing depictions of fights, both in and out of the ring, to be breathtaking and unnerving. They will also discover a touching and hopeful story of an impoverished family fitfully finding their way through the challenges of drugs, alcohol, and violence.–John Sexton, formerly at Westchester Library System, NY
As most of you know, this is a unique blog. We only review books published for the adult market, and only those that have potential appeal to teen readers. On top of that, we only publish positive reviews.
This can be a challenge. I am writing this post in response to three things: First, a recent blog post about sources that only print positive reviews (mentioning this one). Second, a conversation with a friend who doubted that this blog would be able to sustain finding 4-5 good books every week with teen appeal. Third, a 7-day period (from last Saturday, when I finished reading Michael Oher’s I Beat the Odds, to last night) when I could not for the life of me find a book to read for review this coming week.
Fortunately, I already have a wonderful, wonderful book to post about next week (The Tiger’s Wife by Tea Obreht), which I read several weeks ago. And I have chosen a book to attempt for the week after that (Physics of the Future by Michio Kaku) that I am fairly certain will qualify.
But this week? I might be out of luck. I have started and dismissed several, SEVERAL books, mostly February 2011 pubs. Finally, I picked up When We Were Strangers by Pamela Schoenewaldt. I’m not promising anything, but so far so good.
Here’s my dilemma. I also read an absolutely brilliant book last week that I cannot review for lack of teen appeal. I was hoping to be able to justify it, but I can’t quite make it fit.
You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2011) is, again, brilliant and I loved reading it. I was looking forward to writing something terribly smart relating this book to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. About how they are perfect companion books, both connected short stories. One about the men at war, the other about the women at home. I’m not exactly the first person to make this connection, but The Things They Carried is read in schools all the time. Doesn’t that mean that You Know When the Men are Gone might have that same appeal, simply by way of its overall excellence? Well, maybe. But it is almost entirely about husbands and wives, about adult concerns. Yes, some of those husbands and wives are barely out of their teens. But saying that the book has teen appeal is stretching it.
Instead of writing a review, I’m cheating. Now you all know my opinion of the book. You know why it might or might not have teen appeal. Go read it for yourself. Come back and tell me I made a mistake – that I should have written the review. Or come back and tell me I was crazy to even consider it for teens.
Back to my original point. Imagine if we wrote positive AND negative reviews here. Considering the plethora of adult books published every year, it would be a shame to waste time and space writing about the books that didn’t work out, either for lack of appeal or due to quality issues. But using the space to talk about books on the cusp – I don’t believe that is wasted space at all.
Haunted Legends is a collection of short stories based on ghostly legends from around the world, compiled by another renowned editor, Ellen Datlow. Datlow has won Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor and for Best Short Form Editor. She has also won the World Fantasy Award, Locus Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Bram Stoker Award. More than a few of her anthologies were published for young adults, including The Faery Reel: Tales From the Twilight Realm, with Terri Windling (Viking 2004) and The Beastly Bride: Tales of the Animal People, also with Terri Windling (Viking, 2010).
Co-Editor Nick Mamatas also has a website, and a new novel coming out in May. He is a prolific writer of short stories himself, as well as novels, poetry, articles, essays, and even a graphic novel.
DATLOW, Ellen, ed & Nick Mamatas. Haunted Legends. 347p. Tor. 2010. Tr $27.99. ISBN 978-0-7653-2300-2. LC 2010032193.
Adult/High School– In concept, this collection mimics some of the best aspects of Datlow and Windling’s fabulous Fairy Tale anthologies for adults (Avon), featuring modern retellings of old legends. But instead of time-worn fairy tales, the often-obscure local legends upon which these stories are based, illuminated in afterwords by each story’s author, will be unfamiliar to most readers. Considering that the collection begins with a deeply disappointing take on the greatest and most famous of all American ghost stories, Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” the relative obscurity of the other legends is probably to the collection’s advantage. In any case, nearly every selection stands well on its own. The exception is “Fifteen Panels Depicting the Sadness of the Baku and the Jotai,” which might require readers to skip to the afterword after a few difficult pages, and then again after a few more. After the rocky start, this stunning collection features one near-perfect story after another. Though many of them are scary, creepy, or just plain weird, the overwhelming tone, embodied by such masterpieces as “That Girl,” “Down Atsion Road,” “Return to Mariabronn,” and “The Redfield Girls,” is one of sadness and guilt, as is only right for a genre about the precariousness of death, and things left undone in life. Perhaps a bit heavy for teens looking for a good scare, but ultimately deeply rewarding.– Mark Flowers, John Kennedy Library, Solano County, CA
Orson Scott Card’s new coming-of-age fantasy is the first in the Mither Mages series. Consensus seems to be that it successfully stands on its own as well.
CARD, Orson Scott. The Lost Gate. 384p. Tor. 2011. Tr $24.99. ISBN 978-0-8653-2657-7. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Danny North is not drekka or magicless, as his family believes; he is quite possibly the strongest gatemage ever born, but he can’t tell any of them. Creating inter-dimensional portals is an ability that caused war. Danny’s family was once so magically powerful that they were worshipped as gods. Now, after the mysterious Gate Thief closed all the gates from Westil and stranded the warring family clans as exiles on Earth over a thousand years ago, there is an uneasy truce. Any gatemage born is killed, so as not to shift the balance of power. Card sets a coming-of-age tale within an intricately built speculative fiction framework that includes trickster legends as well as Greek and Norse mythology, effortlessly weaving together Danny’s escape from a family determined to kill him with his discovery of life in contemporary American human society. In a parallel story set on Westil, an amnesiac named Wad discovers he is a powerful gatemage as well and begins to use his power to further a royal plot. Danny’s and Wad’s machinations have repercussions that reverberate through both worlds. As in Ender’s Game (Tor, 1985), Card excels here at three-dimensional world-building and strong characters with believable motivations. Danny, especially, is a mischievous, flawed, highly sympathetic character that teens will relate to. Excellent secondary characters put flesh on the bones of a story that explores the hearts of two people looking and longing for a place to belong.–Charli Osborne, Oxford Public Library, MI
I vividly remember complaining loudly about having to read a football book during Thanksgiving vacation, 2006. I was on the Alex Awards committee, and Michael Lewis’s The Blind Side (Norton, 2006) had just been nominated. I dragged it to my parent’s house, thinking I would leave it for my father or brother when when I was finished. They never got a chance. I gulped it down in one sitting, then forced everyone sitting around the Thanksgiving dinner table to listen to me rave about it (and talk about football strategy — definitely a first) to the detriment of polite conversation. (Perhaps slightly exaggerated, but all true.)
I am still amazed by the appeal of the book, to all ages, both male and female. Even in my all-girls school library, The Blind Side is rarely on the shelf. It is hard to believe that anyone who reads The Blind Side (or sees the movie) does not immediately want to know how Michael Oher is doing, what has happened since he made it to Ole Miss.
Finally, here is Oher’s story in his own words, filling in details from his childhood to his life since the events depicted in The Blind Side. He also gets a chance to set the record straight on the way he was portrayed, particularly in the movie adaptation.
Oher does have an agenda. He wants foster parents to understand what their kids are going through. He wants to help struggling young people make good choices. And he hopes that adult readers might consider adopting or helping young people in some fashion, to show them the difference they can make. So yes, the book is occasionally preachy, but Oher is so very sincere that it is hard to mind.
OHER, Michael & Don Yaeger. I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to The Blind Side and Beyond. 250p. Gotham. 2011. Tr $26. ISBN 978-1-592-40612-8. LC 2010045531.
Adult/High School–Michael Oher’s story was introduced by Michael Lewis in The Blind Side (Norton, 2006), and in the 2009 movie. Now it is Oher’s turn. He begins with his earliest memory and continues through life as a player in the NFL. Oher’s mother moved her large family around Memphis, constantly changing neighborhoods and schools, sometimes a caring parent, more often an absent, drug-addicted one. Oher was determined to change his life from the age of seven or eight, seriously pursuing and studying sports long before he made it to Briarcrest. Being adopted by the Tuohy family was the breakthrough he needed. Oher obviously hopes this book will reach teens going through similar difficulties, or the adults who might care for them. He gives credit to the people who helped him: the teachers, coaches, social workers, friends, and the parents of friends who fed him and let him sleep over before the Tuohys provided a more permanent solution. In the final chapters, Oher offers details of college life, being drafted into the NFL, his life during and between seasons, and how he chooses to spend and share his monetary success. He shares quibbles with the book and movie, and he writes a chapter advising struggling kids on finding role models, staying out of trouble, being true to their talents, and working toward success. He ends with a list of organizations for those who wish to get involved. This is an inspiring tale, sure to be popular with teens whether they are in need of help or in a position to provide it.–Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City
So, although we did not review Skippy Dies in 2010 itself, I was happy when one of our reviewers read it recently and offered to write a review for this blog. This is not a book for every teen, but for those who enjoy long, layered novels, and have a sense of humor, this book is a gold mine.
Adult/High School– A story that leads readers to unexpected revelations both fascinating and horrifying. The novel begins with the tragicomic description of 14-year-old Skippy’s death. While engaged in a donut-eating contest with his brilliant, obese roommate, Skippy falls from his chair, writing “Tell Lori” on the floor with a jelly donut before taking his final breath. This is a book for readers who find this incident both terrible and hilarious. It will be hundreds of pages before the author returns to the scene of Skippy’s death, and he fills them with the crazy schoolboy high jinks of a Dublin prestigious boarding school, Seabrook College , as well as ruminations on topics as varied as the role of Irish soldiers in World War I and the politics of intimate relationships. Skippy’s schoolmate Carl also loves Lori, but possesses a dark and twisted nature. Skippy’s roommate, Ruprecht, involves all of the boys in his quest to escape to another dimension. And Lori, lovely and mysterious to the boys, is hopelessly clueless in her interactions with them. Then there are the teachers, who have an entire scandalous back story that hovers in the background until it finally breaks through with dramatic consequences. Teens who are intrigued by the puzzle of Skippy’s death, and undaunted by thick, layered novels, will want to give this one a try.–Diane Colson, New Port Richey Library, FL
Jones & Meyer, in a concise, fascinating history, bring the reader up to speed on the history of the pledge of allegiance. Considering that most teenagers have said the pledge more times than they can count, it may well be fascinating to them, too. This volume will also be useful for research projects involving the legal challenges to the pledge, including mandatory state requirements and challenges to the words “under God.”
Fun facts:
The pledge of allegiance was written in 1892.
We are the only country with a national anthem that pays tribute to its flag.
Mandatory state pledge laws began with New York, in 1898.
The pledge was recited in the House of Representatives for the first time in 1988, and has been ever since.
The Senate picked it up in 1999.
JONES, Jeffrey Owen & Peter Meyer. The Pledge: A History of the Pledge of Allegiance. 214p. Thomas Dunne. 2010. Tr $23.99. ISBN 978-0-312-35002-4. LC 2010029258.
Adult/High School–Born of anti-immigrant sentiment, nurtured by the jingoism of war, beloved by vast majorities of Americans, the pledge of allegiance has had a strange and checkered history. And it is a history well worth telling, as Jones and Meyer show in this mostly outstanding book. Starting with an extremely sensitive examination of the Gilded-Age origins of the pledge, with deft comparisons between the era of the robber barons and today’s nearly equivalent epoch of class disparity, the authors take readers through what amounts to a cultural and political history of 20th-century America. Though at times they allow their prejudices to show (they seem genuinely outraged by a school board member who compared the pledge to the Taliban forcing children to memorize the Koran), by and large, they offer a well-written and fair-minded account of the origins, development, and various struggles over the pledge. Why is the United States one of the only countries in the world to have such a strange ritual of allegiance? What does it mean to force someone to pledge an oath of allegiance? And why do Americans love the pledge so much? These are just a few of the questions that Jones and Meyer take on in this fascinating history.– Mark Flowers, John Kennedy Library, Solano County, CA
John Joseph Adams is the editor of several excellent anthologies for Night Shade Books. For example, I have enjoyed The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (2009), and Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse (2008), and there is no reason why teens would not enjoy them too. He has also put together two popular collections of zombie stories, The Living Dead (2008) and The Living Dead 2 (2010).
I am impressed by Adams’s choice of authors, always a mix of the well-known and up-and-comers, and by his ability to place each piece in context. In Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories, each story is prefaced by a substantial introduction to the author that places the story within the context of the genre.
This collection has Ray Bradbury, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Robert Silverberg rubbing elbows with Harlan Ellison, Ursula Le Guin, and Shirley Jackson. And a couple authors we will meet again soon here on the Adult Books 4 Teens blog: Carrie Vaughn has a book coming out in April, After the Golden Age (Tor), with teen potential. And a review of Orson Scott Card’s The Lost Gate (Tor, January) is upcoming.
The book has its own website, with a full list of contents. And the book ends with a list of further reading in the genre, which teen enthusiasts will appreciate.
ADAMS, John Joseph, ed. Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories. 496p. Night Shade. 2011. pap. $15.99. ISBN 978-1-59780-221-5. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Adams has put together another impressive collection. By the topic’s very nature, this is a dark group of short stories that examine issues prevalent in our society: birth control, conception, gender, sexuality, working conditions, living conditions, privacy concerns, and the power of technology. Many of the stories are about control: control of space, population, reproduction, aging, crime, worker output. J. G. Ballard’s “Billennium” takes place in a city where each person is allotted four square meters in which to live, taking crowded to a whole new level. In “Pop Squad” by Paolo Bacigalupi, musicians practice for 15 years to perfect one bravura performance. They have all of the time in the world because they can live forever. Of course, in order to control population levels having children is against the law, punishable by death. Neil Gaiman and Bryan Talbot present a short, powerful graphic story, “From Homogenous to Honey.” Classics by Philip Dick, Shirley Jackson, and Kurt Vonnegut sit beside new works by popular YA authors like Orson Scott Card and Cory Doctorow. Citizens of these bleak worlds who try to buck the system seldom survive for long. Many of the stories have a twist or surprise ending, not only for readers but also for the protagonists. This is an excellent introduction to dystopian writing, a genre currently popular in young adult fiction. The selections vary in outright teen appeal, but they are all thought-provoking and likely to lead readers to the authors’ longer works.–Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City
The aftermath of suicide is difficult to imagine, let alone address. Yet YA literature has not shied away from the topic. Two very popular YA books that address it directly come immediately to mind: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and Looking for Alaska by John Green.
In her memoir, released today, Bialosky succeeds in writing beautifully about the suicide of her younger sister. This quote from an interview with the author in the 12/20/10 issue of Publishers Weekly, titled “The Last Taboo,” gives a sense of Bialosky’s purpose in writing the book, “I hope the book is ultimately uplifting—my son is a bright light in the book—and not a push to put suicide into its box of shame. It touches more lives than one might know.”
And another excellent interview about the book — in November, Barbara Hoffert interviewed Atria Editorial Director, Peter Borland on her Library Journal blog, Prepub Alert.
BIALOSKY, Jill. History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life. 252p. Atria. 2011. 978-1-4391-0193-3. LC 2010047134.
Adult/High School–In 1990, at the age of 21, Bialosky’s younger sister committed suicide. For the next two decades, the author was haunted by the unfathomable death and her inability to forgive herself for not having prevented it. As a way to understand, she studied suicide and wrote of her experience and her grief. Reading her sister’s journal and school writing assignments, she glimpsed aspects of an internal life that was not obvious to the family. Greek myths, and the works of Melville, Shakespeare, and Sylvia Plath provided insight. Research in the field of suicidology offered a perspective. Observations of her own child reminded her of life’s fragility and the limits of her ability to protect those she loves. Yet nothing could make sense of the incomprehensible decision her sister made to take her own life. Ultimately, the shame and disgrace that fill the void of the tragedy dissipate when experiences are shared in bereavement groups. The book is comprised of short passages that accumulate like shards from a shattered life that will never be made whole again. Bialosky, a gifted poet, crafts from them a mournful memoir that is reflective of both the vulnerability and the resilience of the human spirit. The book will have a profound impact on anyone affected by suicide. Older teens struggling for understanding in its aftermath will find solace in Bialosky’s experience. It will also serve as a useful research complement to teens studying classics such as Romeo and Juliet, Billy Budd, Moby Dick or The Bell Jar.–John Sexton, formerly at Westchester Library System, NY
Today’s book is an engaging memoir that includes not only a fascinating childhood and coming-of-age in the deep south and the Oakland projects, but also involvement in some of the most important happenings of the mid-20th century. Davis writes like she is talking to a friend; her voice is a highlight of the book.
But Davis does assume knowledge of the events she covers during her career, so this book will work best for teens interested in a first-person perspective on a time period they have already studied, or those willing to read about her life without always knowing the bigger picture. And of course, it may inspire young readers to learn more about the events involved, from anti-Vietnam War campus demonstrations, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, emergence of the Black Panthers, early days of the AIDS epidemic, assassination of Harvey Milk, and much more.
DAVIS, Belva & Vicki Haddock. Never in My Wildest Dreams: A Black Woman’s Life in Journalism. 272p. PoliPoint. 2011. Tr $24.95. ISBN 978-1-936227-06-8. LC 2010048995.
Adult/High School–Davis is one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most beloved public television reporters. Her insightful interviews have won her national acclaim, and she has been an anchor for CBS, NBC and PBS, where she currently hosts the news show, “This week in Northern California.” Even though Davis rose through the ranks to become the first black, female reporter west of the Mississippi, she relates the events of her life with a humility that exposes her unease with being in the spotlight. Growing up a neglected good girl in the early 1930s, she dreamed of a life outside her narrow world and abusive family. Even though she was forced to abandon her dreams of college, she found her niche within the world of news. As a young journalist, she positioned herself at the center of some of the 20th century’s most important events, including the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. This book is easily accessible to a teen audience, but unfortunately many of the historical events that impacted Davis’s life are not supported with back-story. Still, it is recommended for teens who enjoy reading about history, hardship, or success stories. The author faced down racism in both her career and personal life, and teens will be fascinated to learn how she moved from the poorest neighborhoods in Louisiana and California into the spotlight as the articulate, insightful reporter she is today. Her story will inspire readers to overcome obstacles, dream big, and work hard for those dreams. –Connie Williams, Petaluma High School, CA
Angela Carstensen is Head Librarian and an Upper School Librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City. Angela served on the Alex Awards committee for four years, chairing the 2008 committee, and chaired the first YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adult committee in 2009. Recently, she edited Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation (ALA Editions, 2011). Contact her via Twitter @AngeReads.
