Stacy Carlson’s debut novel is set in P.T. Barnum’s American Museum.
I can’t introduce this book without mentioning another: The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P.T. Barnum by Candace Fleming (Schwartz & Wade, 2009). Before I read it I knew next to nothing about the American Museum, and I cannot imagine a better introduction. This is one of those books that appeals to any age. Yes, it is written for a young teen, but it is so engaging and informative, and its subject matter so naturally appealing, that I hand it to older teens and adults too.
I was especially struck by the fact that Barnum kept his own office in the Museum. He was a sort of exhibit or oddity himself. His fame was such that museum goers would stop and watch him work or hope to engage him in conversation as he mingled in the exhibits.
Now, here is a novel that brings this world, its people, setting and time period, to life.
CARLSON, Stacy. Among the Wonderful. 464p. Steerforth. 2011. Tr $24.99. ISBN 978-1-58642-184-7. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Many teens have heard of P.T. Barnum and his circus (and his “there’s a sucker born every minute” motto) but how many know about his American Museum? In this book, which is based on the real American Museum and told from the viewpoints of several characters, readers can step into the world of early 19th-century New York and experience it for themselves. The two main characters are Emile Galliadeu, a taxidermist “inherited” by Barnum when he purchased the existing museum from John Scudder, who established it to highlight the best in American wildlife and fauna; and Ana Swift, a professional giantess. The tensions between the old-fashioned scientific method (as espoused by Galliadeu) and the weird and wonderful (Swift) are highlighted as Barnum continues to collect items–and people–from around the world. Imagine opening a crate and seeing a stuffed animal, one foot long, with “a dense coat… round head… tail like a beavers… but rounded… [feet] fully webbed”; living on a museum floor that contains a tank for a beluga whale and houses Indians, a bearded lady, another giant; and battling and drunken Siamese twins. That’s the world of the American Museum. This book will appeal to those interested in Barnum, taxidermy, “freak” shows, and life in 1840s New York City. Readers should also go to CUNY’s American Museum webpage to visit the exhibits, at http://chnm.gmu.edu/lostmuseum/lm/163/.— Laura Pearle, Venn Consultants, Carmel, NY
For her latest mystery, the consistently excellent Lisa Unger returns to The Hollows, the small town setting of Fragile, which we reviewed here last year.
UNGER, Lisa. Darkness, My Old Friend. 368p. Crown. 2011. Tr $24. ISBN 978-0-307-46499-6. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Unger’s follow up to Fragile (Crown, 2010) takes place in the same fictional small town, and again focuses on psychiatrist Maggie and now-retired police chief Jones, while teen characters are integral to the plot. Maggie’s patient Willow has moved to The Hollows after a troubled time in New York. Her adjustment to rural life is fraught with self-doubt and depression, and her only friends are “bad girl” Jolie and potential boyfriend, Cole. Cole has his own troubles with a missing mother (who Jones has been hired to find), and a father who may actually be a sociopath. Willow runs from problems, literally, and during one such episode she discovers a man in the woods who may or may not be digging up a body. It turns out that his mother went missing years ago, and Jones was never able to solve the case. Jones and Maggie are the hub connecting several story lines. Unger allows readers to get to know the players first, and the mystery unravels as characters start to show their true selves. The shifting point of view is particularly compelling when focused on Willow, who made a devastating mistake at her previous school and is now struggling to regain her confidence. The characterization is genuine and the themes of recovering from the past and developing individual identity not only make this a more thoughtful mystery than most, but also focus on issues and emotions that teens experience in their daily lives.–Priscille Dando, Robert E. Lee High School, Fairfax County, VA
The appeal to many teen readers of horror as a genre is sometimes ascribed to many finding it relevant to the physical changes they undergo: increasing size and morphing body shapes taken to the extreme, new powers run amok. This week’s reviewed graphic novels go far in pointing up a very different—and at least as appealing—aspect of horror teens might be locating: the real horror that happens in the maturing brain and sense of individual identity, and with these, the dawning of ethics and the realization that a sense of guilt, rather than one of shame, can become a familiar.
Horror at the movies, in this age of sophisticated special effects, may be flattened to the visually disturbing or shocking, and comes announced by music we all recognize as the harbinger of bad events. Bradbury through Wimberley’s images and scripting, and Sala’s descendent of Frankenstein have some visually scary scenes, but none that shocks. The horror in these tales instead is that the reader recognizes him- or herself as being just as capable of making wrong decisions that lead to bad ends for others as do the characters. Both books lead the reader to that precipice in which the wrong decision will be made and the decider will regret, not because he loses money or status, but because his decision will lead to another—perhaps many others—physical and emotional pain.
And that realization, grim as it may be, is as part and parcel of maturing as are newly sized body parts and hormonal blasts.
SALA, Richard. The Hidden. illus. by author. 134p. Fantagraphics. 2011. Tr $19.99. ISBN 978-1-60699-386-6. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Sala creates stories in which brightly colored, cartoony art and characters who speak in casual idiom tell of events that aren’t so much humorous or casual as provocative and scary. In this outing, he combines motifs of a postapocalyptic landscape, wanderers, some vampiric businessmen, and, ultimately, Dr. Frankenstein. The stew works perfectly: readers have no chance to engage in incredulity as Tom and Colleen, returning to a destroyed and barren place after a camping trip, stumble across an amnesiac man and slowly tell his story. Characters are introduced at a steady but manageable pace, and it is only at story’s end that the opening pages become horrifyingly clear. Sala works with a full palette of beautiful, gemlike hues held in generous panels. Even the monsters have individuated faces, which only ramps up the horror. Blood, violent clashes, and moments of nicely ironic bad behavior are depicted, but everyone’s clothes remain on and, in the final horror, even Colleen can’t keep up her tough-girl banter.–Francisca Goldsmith, Infopeople Project, CA
WIMBERLY, Ron, adapt. Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. illus. by adapt. 130p. Hill & Wang. 2011. pap. $15.95. ISBN 978-0-8090-8044-1. LC 2011005177.
Adult/High School–Science-fiction novelist, short-story writer, and film-script author, Bradbury has assisted in the rebirth of several of his most famous tales into graphic-novel form. In expressive black and white, Wimberly’s interpretation of the death of innocence by means of a nightmarish encounter with a traveling circus is among the most successful. Bradbury’s pacing and subtle but accessible emotional portraits of two boys discovering their limits of honor and goodness are maintained while the images offer horror-inducing perspectives as well as the necessary counter of mundane small-town life. Fine use of panel arrangements expands upon the properties of story telling by showing simultaneous events to be exactly such, while the facelessness of crowds points up the poignant individuality of Will, Jim, Will’s father, and the villainous Illustrated Man. Whether teens have read the original or not, this version stands them in good stead as the platform from which to gaze into their own selves with the questions Will sadly learns to answer: Can one truly do the right things always, or are we bound to fail others by nature of our humanity and ability to see our faults critically?–Francisca Goldsmith, Infopeople Project, CA
In Thomas Mullen’s new thought-provoking novel of speculative fiction the government is trying to preserve a Perfect Present by going back in time to make sure the disasters of the past are not altered. But is the present really so perfect?
The publisher description calls it “A fast-paced literary thriller that recalls dystopian classics such as 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.” The author himself says it involves “post-9/11 paranoia about government surveillance and ubiquitous threats.” There’s a great Q&A on the author’s website.
Mullen’s debut was an equally genre-mixing novel, a sort of dystopian historical fiction. I read The Last Town on Earth (Random House, 2006) when it came out, and although I don’t see a lot of teen appeal there, I highly recommend it to adult readers of the genre.
MULLEN, Thomas. The Revisionists. 448p. Mulholland. Sept. 2011. Tr $25.99. ISBN 978-0-316-17672-9. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–This thrilling novel examines trust and truth through the lens of time travel. In the not-too-distant future, the government controls time-travel technology. Instead of using it to correct past wrongs, they use it to make sure that all of history’s worst events–genocide, war, terrorist attacks–happen without disruption. These events lead to the Great Conflagration, after which society reaches the Perfect Present, a time when hate, violence, and suffering have seemingly been eradicated. As a Protector with the Department of Historical Integrity, Zed is responsible for making sure history goes unchanged, ensuring realization of this Perfect Present. He works to counter the efforts of a revolutionary group within the government who sees things differently. The hags–historical agitators–discover things that make them question who the Perfect Present truly benefits. They refuse to stand by and let millions of people suffer and die to protect these questionable interests, and instead try to reroute history’s path. Instead of a simple hags vs. protectors plot, Mullen creates a complex, compelling story where right and wrong are for readers to decide. Issues are explored through Zed’s journey, as well as those of two “contemps” he gets involved with during his mission. Teens are often concerned with trying to bring clarity to gray areas in their own lives; The Revisionists gives them a complex and engaging way to observe others wrestling with finding the truth.–Carla Riemer, Berkeley High School, CA
Philip Schultz was 58 when he learned he was dyslexic. It explained a lot about his life, and he now attributes his success at teaching poetry and writing to struggling with his disability. Schultz won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Failure (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007).
I must credit Ray Olson for pointing out a great read-alike recommendation in his Booklist review: autistic savant Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day (Free Press, 2007).
SCHULTZ, Philip. My Dyslexia. 120p. Norton. 2011. Tr $21.95. ISBN 978-0-393-07964-7. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–This beautifully written and compact memoir chronicles the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet’s journey through life as a dyslexic. Attending school at a time when learning disabilities were not as well understood as they are today caused Schultz to experience some extremely negative feelings about himself. Although he knew that he was different from other students, he did not really understand his difficulties learning to read and write until he received a report from a neuropsychologist diagnosing his son’s dyslexia. He then began to unravel the reasons for a lifetime of his own difficulties. High school can be lonely for many reasons, but trying to overcome a learning disability adds an additional dimension in a world that revolves around reading, writing, and language. “My ignorance of my dyslexia only intensified my sense of isolation and hopelessness. Ignorance is perhaps the most painful aspect of a learning disability.” Agreeing to be a commencement speaker at a school for students with learning disabilities spurred the author to write about his life and his eventual success as a writer and a teacher. His poem “Disintegration” was written to convey what it is like to experience the “failure/panic/disconnection” leading to the shame and embarrassment of being helpless to make sense of what is going on and the inability to “answer back” to bullies. His story will resonate with any young adult who may be dealing with a learning disability, and it will promote understanding and perhaps compassion in others. His poems and narrative provide insight into the minds of those who think differently.–Vicki Emery, Lake Braddock Secondary School, Fairfax County, VA
Jaycee Dugard’s memoir was an instant bestseller, and its teen appeal is obvious — Dugard was a teen for half of the time she was in captivity, and teens enjoy reading sensational, true stories. It is especially haunting that writing a bestselling book was on a list of goals she made while in captivity. Also interesting that A Stolen Life bears similarities to Emma Donoghue’s Room.
Most readers, including critics, seem to come away from the book genuinely impressed by Dugard’s ability to survive and rebound from her experiences. Dugard established the JAYC Foundation to help the families impacted by abduction, and just yesterday she was in the news again for filing a law suit against the federal government. Phillip Garrido, her abductor, was on federal parole for 8 years of her captivity. Any funds she might win in the suit would go to the foundation.
DUGARD, Jaycee. A Stolen Life: A Memoir. 273p. illus. photos. S & S. 2011. Tr $24.99. ISBN 978-1-4516-2918-7. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Teens who have read about the girl who was kidnapped at age 11 and held captive for 18 years will be anxious to read this book. Written, as Dugard says, “in my own words, in my own way, exactly how I remember it,” the book provides details of her experiences. While it might not be as explicit as teens hoped, they won’t be disappointed: what is and isn’t revealed is thought-provoking. She discusses her past of being forced to hide in public to protect her abusers and her current need to hide to protect her children from media attention. Photocopied journal entries and lists are included along with grainy photographs. Many of the lists are like any teen’s and would be boring except for the context. For example, #1 on “Dreams for the Future” is “See Mom.” A list entitled “Affirmations” begins “1. Only I can make it happen. 2. I control what I eat. 3. Every day I become the person I want to be.” It’s disturbing to see how many encounters her kidnappers had with authorities and how long it took them to find her even with the entire “family” walking into a parole office. Some of the most interesting chapters of the book are at the end: Dugard’s rescue, reunification, and “free” life, and the huge burst of freedom and fear that brings. While other books explore the abuse and captivity, Dave Peltzer’s A Child Called It (HCI, 1995), Emma Donoghue’s Room (Little Brown, 2010), and Elizabeth Scott’s Living Dead Girl (Simon Pulse, 2008) to name a few, Dugard’s memoir is refreshingly innocent, kind, unsensational.–Amy Cheney, Alameda County Library, Juvenile Hall, CA
Writing books from a wolf’s point of view isn’t easy, but that is Dorothy Hearst’s goal in her trilogy, The Wolf Chronicles. Hearst writes, “The biggest challenge was getting the level of anthropomorphism right. If I were to be completely accurate in depicting how a wolf perceives the world, the book would have been impenetrable for my (human) readers. But I didn’t want to make the wolves seem like furry people. Striking that balance was the biggest challenge, though it was more fun than frustrating.”
This is one of the rare books reviewed here on AB4T that is suitable for readers as young as middle school. There is no reason that The Wolf Chronicles should not be recommended to younger readers.
As for authenticity, Hearst conducted extensive research in, from her biography, “the areas of wolf biology, behavior, coevolution, cognitive science and other related areas…and…also interviewed many of the top wolf and dog experts in the world.” She includes FAQs and a reading list on her website. Animal-obsessed teens will appreciate both, and their teachers & librarians will appreciate the Reading Group Guide.
HEARST, Dorothy. Secrets of the Wolves. Bk. 2. 384p. (The Wolf Chronicles). S & S. 2011. Tr $24. ISBN 978-1-4165-7000-4. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–It has been three months since young wolf Kaala prevented a war between her pack and the humans. While gracefully reminding readers of the events in Promise of the Wolves (S & S, 2008), the action barrels forward. There is division within the Greatwolves Council. One faction, led by upstart Milsindra, believes that wolves and humans must remain separate. Zorindru, the ancient wolf leader of the Wide Valley, believes that they must work together to survive. The Council grants Kaala one year to demonstrate that humans and wolves can live together. If she fails, all Wide Valley wolves and humans will be killed and the experiment taken up elsewhere. Kaala is controversial. Some wolves believe she is the prophesied “one pup to save them all,” while others believe she is drelshik, cursed. She depends on her allies–packmates Azzuen and Mara; her raven friend Tlitoo; and TaLi, the human with whom she has bonded–for help. Kaala also consults the spirit wolf in a realm poised between life and death. Kaala and TaLi believe that an alliance is crucial for maintaining the Balance, for reminding humans that they are but one part of the natural world. The story is recommended for readers who enjoy stories told from an animal point of view, such as David Clement-Davies’s Fire Bringer (2000) and The Sight (2002, both Dutton), though some may tire of the politics of human tribe and wolf-pack hierarchies. Still, most will be fascinated by the mythology of the valley, the insights into wolf behavior (carefully researched by the author), and a peek at life 14,000 years in the past. –Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City
While a true graphic novel presents a unified work, in sequential art format that runs through a sustained arc with a beginning, middle and end, related sequential art media can attract and maintain reader interest as well. The comic strip, whether on the web or in paper form, has a tiny arc. Traditionally, strips had three to five panels which presented a set up, a visual joke and a response to it.
Kate Beaton is hardly the first to employ the comic strip as a way of placing moments in history and literature—and the wonderful parodies we can make of these—into comic strip form. She’s a true master of delivering faithfully across quite an expansive collection, however. Who doesn’t want to poke a bit of fun at the predictable impossibilities of Nancy Drew novels? Isn’t it revelatory to consider whether Lewis and Clark were actually successful, given their stated goal? If you’re Canadian, did you honestly wonder how a female patriot got herself entangled with the premier national chocolatier?
And Beaton’s gracefully simple strokes of pen make it easy to digest any of these morsels quickly enough to share around in a group, or provide impetus for some private research (Hmm, who really is the hero in Les misérables?). Beaton must do a fun chalk talk, and imagine how she could skewer any troublemaker in the audience!
BEATON, Kate. Hark! A Vagrant. 168p. notes. Drawn & Quarterly. 2011. Tr $19.95. ISBN 978-1-77046-060-7. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–Not a graphic novel but a collection of comic strips, this volume offers truly funny and pithy parodies on events in literary history, the lives of famous–and infamous–politicians, explorers, writers, and everyday behaviors of flawed humans. Matthew Henson gets revenge on Admiral Peary; Victorian ladies swear like sailors; Odysseus confronts the lure of Facebook; Nancy Drew and LBJ both get their due. Most pages contain 6-10 panels, and each black-and-white cartoon vignette includes a note explaining the context. A fair number of the political jokes are Canadian (Keaton is from Nova Scotia) but they work well as a way to show that stereotypes and insights can be held by all parties, not just self-involved Americans. The artwork is expressive and loose, with the occasional cheeky prose (What if Ben Franklin had been more interested in loose women than lightning?) and blue language (Imagine a substitute teacher dissing the child who really is named Tits). Not only fun, but also a good lead-in for teens who may want to explore authors and events they first discover in the riffs here.–Francisca Goldsmith, Infopeople Project, CA
In a way, Lagnado offers two coming-of-age memoirs in one, both her mother’s story and her own. This description of Edith’s (her mother’s) young adulthood caught my imagination. From the boston.com review: “The first chapters begin with the story of Edith’s youth. At just 19, the beautiful and intelligent Edith reaches the pinnacle of her teaching career at L’Ecole Cattaui where she impresses the school’s benefactor Alice Cattaui. The Cattauis – a wealthy Cairene Jewish family who have the ear of Egypt’s monarchy – are the benefactors of that nation’s Jewish community. Their L’Ecole becomes one of Cairo’s finest private schools and Edith one of its best teachers. She so impresses Alice and her husband, Yussef, a pasha, that she is given a key to the Cattaui’s vast personal library….Later in life, Edith recaptures some of the joy she felt in the pasha’s library as a cataloger at the Brooklyn Public Library.” It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? Being given the key to a pasha’s vast personal library?
More background is available in last week’s NPR interview with the author.
LAGNADO, Lucette. The Arrogant Years: One Girl’s Search for Her Lost Youth, from Cairo to Brooklyn. 352p. photos. Ecco. 2011. Tr $0. ISBN 978-0061803673. LC number unavailable.
Adult/High School–The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit (Ecco, 2007), the Cairo-born author’s stirring account of her Orthodox Jewish family’s decline following their forced exodus from Egypt, focused on her beloved bon vivant father. This time she tells her own story, interwoven with that of her strong, self-sacrificing mother, Edith. Lagnado, known as Loulou, focuses on their “arrogant years,” a time when young women felt confident and unstoppable. Unfortunately, forces of culture and nature kept both of them from experiencing these years to the fullest. Teens will be startled to learn that at the age of 20, Edith gave up a dream career as a teacher and librarian in order to marry her first suitor, a womanizer more than 20 years her senior. As expected, she devoted herself to raising children and keeping house. Meanwhile, Egyptian Jews, not recognized as true citizens, were forced to flee the country. The Lagnados arrived in a less-than-welcoming New York in 1963. Budding feminist Loulou crusaded to be heard beyond the dividing wall that separated the sexes at her family’s synagogue. She idolized fashionable TV avenger/spy Emma Peel. Recognizing the value of quality education, Edith guided her daughter through an assortment of rigorous schools and admission to Vassar College. But before Loulou could continue into her arrogant years, she was diagnosed with cancer. The book reads like the best kind of historical novel, rich in detail and character. Lagnado successfully recaptures the emotional struggles and angst of her teenage self, trying to find a place in the outside world while maintaining her Jewish identity and an inseparable bond with her mother.–Paula J. Gallagher, Baltimore County Public Library, MD
Maphead is the perfect choice for teen map nerds, and it might just be charming enough for those with a more general interest in geography. As Ken Jennings points out, the National Geographic Bee has 5 million participants annually. 13,000 schools hold mini-bees every fall.
Where some might questions the future of maps now that GPS is widely available, Jennings sees “a digital map revolution” that is making them cool again. (From his interview with Publishers Weekly titled “The Poetry of Maps.”)
For a little fun, @KenJennings sends out a Maphead Quiz of the Day on Twitter.
Tangentially related, I’m taking this chance to recommend another book. Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything by Stephen Baker (HMH, 2011) relates the story of the men at IBM who created Watson, the computer created to beat Jennings and the other top Jeopardy champions. Baker makes this scientific challenge into a suspenseful story; even the minutiae of computer programming is interesting.
JENNINGS, Ken. Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks. 288p. maps. reprods. index. Scribner. 2011. Tr $25. ISBN 978-1-4391-6717-5. LC 2010052219.
Adult/High School–Jennings, renowned for his record-setting run on “Jeopardy,” takes readers on a tour of various geographical obsessions. Though easily readable as a narrative, the book is structured as a series of essays on a range of topics: efforts to improve American geographic illiteracy; antique map collecting; geography bees; geocaching; and more. It was clear when watching “Jeopardy” that Jennings comes by his own trivial knowledge honestly—not by endless rote memorization, but through genuine curiosity in a seemingly endless number of topics–and it is this infectiously insatiable curiosity that drives the book. For the author, trivia of all kinds is a means to an end, never an end to itself: for geography, that end is a better understanding of the world, and (perhaps) a chance to improve the state of the world. Indeed, Jennings is more disturbed by those he encounters who have lost track of why geography is important than by those with no geographic knowledge at all. Even so, he clearly understands the workings of the obsessive mind, and he never condescends to those who are driven, for example, to find every geocache in a 10-mile radius. And as he repeatedly emphasizes, there are many more of these geographical obsessives than one might think, and most of them caught the bug as children looking at maps and globes. So even though, as Jennings states, teen geography buffs may be a bit embarrassed by their hobby, if they can get their hands on this book, they’ll find a whole world of like-minded geographers.– Mark Flowers, John Kennedy Library, Solano County, 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.
