Submarine

by Joe Dunthorne, c. 2008, Hamish Hamilton, 290 pages.

Fifteen year old Oliver Tate is a boy obsessed. He is equally obsessed with his parent’s failing marriage (and lack of sexual activity) and learning new words from the dictionary. Another obsession is losing his virginity—and soon. Though he finds himself entwined in a relationship with the eczematous and occasionally pyromaniacal Jordana, his precocious awkwardness eventually isolates him from her.

Oliver is at times callous and detached as he takes a clinical view of those around him. This makes him a tough character to like in those moments. Luckily there are more moments throughout the novel Submarine in which Oliver reveals the awkwardness and anxiety of adolescence allowing him to become relatable to readers. This is a very darkly funny novel.

WIll Grayson, Will Grayson

by John Green & David Levithan. New York: Dutton, c2010, 310 pages. ISBN 9780525421580


Two teens with the same name meet on a fateful night out in Chicago. One Will is straight and one Will is gay but both are major characters in the life and the autobiographical musical by (the quite large) Tiny Cooper.

The story is told by both Will Graysons in alternating chapters. This is a very touching and accurate portrait of the complexities and anxieties of being a teen. It is also a great, hilarious depiction of male teen friendships and falling in love.

Going Bovine

by Libba Bray. New York: Delacorte Press, c. 2009. 480 pages. ISBN 9780385733977

A disappointment to his parents and an embarrassment to his twin sister, lackadaisical Cameron Smith is simply getting by in high school when he gets the news he has a disease that is going to kill him--Creutzfeldt-Jacob or "mad cow" disease. Clues from a punk angel (or a hallucination?) lead Cameron to break out of the hospital with a video game-obsessed dwarf and take them on a quixotic road trip in search of a Dr. X, the cure and possibly a chance to save the world.

2010 Michael L. Printz Award Winner

Punkzilla

Punkzilla by Adam Rapp. Westminster, MD: Candlewick Press, c. 2009. 244 pages. ISBN 0763630314

Jamie, known as Punkzilla, has been living in a low rent hotel in Portland since he went AWOL from military school. He went off his meds and survives on money he makes stealing iPods and doing cheap drugs. When he finds out his older brother Peter, a gay playwright, is dying of cancer, he begins a harrowing journey to Memphis. Told in a series of unsent letters to Peter and mixed with old correspondences from family and friends.

A Junior Library Guild Selection and 2010 Michael L. Printz Honor Award, 2010 YALSA Best Books for Young Adults, 2009 Booklist Editor’s Choice-Books for Youth-Older Reader’s Category.

If you liked it, try Steven Herrick’s The Simple Gift: a novel and Willo Davis Roberts’ Blood on His Hands

Salt

Salt by Maurice Gee. Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, 2009. 252 pages. ISBN 978-1-55469-209-5

Volume One of the Salt trilogy.

Hari and the others of Blood Burrow suffer starvation, enslavement and death under Company. Pearl lives a life of luxury and ease but she is under control of Company and has been promised in marriage to a powerful man. While these two come from different worlds, they are connected in their talent to use their minds to speak to people and animals. Both on the run for different reasons, they are soon united in their quest to save the world from a deadly terror found in Deep Salt.

2008 winner of the New Zealand Post Book Award for Young Adult Fiction

the burn journals

Runyon, Brent. The Burn Journals. Reprint. Originally published: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. With new afterword. New York: Vintage Books, 2005. 327 p. ISBN 1400096421 (pbk.) $12.95

(The following review was submitted as an assignment for the MLIS course Health Consumer Resources and Services for the Spring 2010 semester.)

At fourteen, Runyon put on his bathrobe, doused it with gasoline, stepped into the tub and lit himself on fire. He suffered third-degree burns over 85 percent of his body. He endured months of excruciating skin grafts and physical therapy. The Burn Journals spans Runyon's first year of recovery from this horrifying suicide attempt as he struggles with the pain, the guilt and the questions from himself and others as to why he did it.

This book does not contain any solutions or answers to suicide, depression or self-hatred. Runyon can never answer why he tried to kill himself. He doesn't really know. Runyon wrote his book ten years after he set himself on fire, but he writes it in the first person as his fourteen-year-old self. This makes the book so valuable for teens, especially males, who may run the spectrum of sadness to thoughts or plans of suicide. Here, in Runyon's words, they may find hope that they are not completely alone under the desolate weight of depression.

This book should be included in the teen departments of school and public libraries and will be useful for anyone working with teens; however, this may not be a book for readers who have suffered accidental traumatic experiences and burn victims may struggle to identify with someone who purposely caused such pain.

my picks for YA books you may have missed

I am participating in one-day blog post blitz titled "The Best YA Books You Haven't Read" started by a blogger & wannabe YA writer: http://yannabe.com/2010/01/21/best-books-not-read/

Here are my choices

--Mal Peet's Exposure (2009 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize)
--F.E. Higgins series: Black Book of Secrets, The Bone Magician and The Eyeball Collector
--Blake Nelson's Destroy All Cars
--Blake Nelson's Girl

I think a lot of people missed out on this when it first came out 1994 and the latest editions seem to not be so successful either. I gave this to my 16 year old cousin last year and she loved it. So although some of the music scene references are a little dated, this book can still be relevant to teens today. For me, this book meant so much to me and while I grew up on the other side of the country, I related so much to this story and the whole scene.

Check out my Author Sheet for Blake Nelson on my online portfolio.

Can you tell I'm a fan?

--and finally....C.D. Payne's Youth in Revolt

This book is getting some attention now because of the film starring Michael Cera but I have a feeling more people will just see the movie than read the book at this point. I have not seen the movie yet but I almost guarantee that you will enjoy the book so much more. Sorry no summary here on my blog but will post in the coming months, I promise. I read it so long ago and want to re-read/flip through before I post.

So, go forth and read!

end of summer semester...

In the past couple of weeks I have completed the summer semester and moved. I have not been able to get as much reading done as I would like but I have read a couple of books. Below I give some brief intros to two young adult books.

Destroy All Cars by Blake Nelson (2009, 224 pages, hardcover)

Diatribe by a teen boy on the wastefulness of American consumer culture mixed with the angst of first love and its loss. This book is a fun and quick read for male readers especially reluctant readers and any teens into environmentalism or with leanings to activism. It is in diary/manifesto-style and interspersed with the protagonist’s AP English essays.

Tags: environmentalism, Pacific Northwest, Portland, Oregon, books for boys, consumerism, suburbia, first love, first person.

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson (2006, 368 pages, hardcover)

Historical fiction of Revolutionary America mainly told from the diary of Octavian, a black youth raised in Boston and given a classical education. Octavian is a research subject studied by the radical philosophers of the The Novanglian College of Lucidity. As he matures and uses the observational skills he has been taught, he begins to decipher his purpose within the College and in America as a man’s property. This book is not for the causal teen reader. The historical nature of the language may take some readers more than a few chapters to acclimate to however, the reader is greatly rewarded with a moving and exciting tale. Winner of the National Book Award and Michael L. Printz Honor Book.

Tags: historical fiction, slavery, American Revolution, diary, African American, survival

So Yesterday

Title: So Yesterday
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Publication date: 2004
Number of pages: 240
Genre: young adult fiction
Geographical setting: New York City
Time period: present, early 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Seventeen-year-old Hunter stalks and tracks “cool.” Or to put it better, he is a “cool hunter.” When he notices the originality of how a girl in the park ties her shoelaces, he knows he has met an Innovator. This encounter with Jen James leads to a fast-paced adventure as amateur detectives where they try to rescue a possibly kidnapped friend and attempt to unravel a plot to sabotage the consumer culture in which Hunter is an important player.

Subject headings: mystery and detective stories, fashion, coolness, fads, consumerism, advertising, literature for boys, kidnapping, focus groups

Appeal: first person narrative, references to popular fashion and culture, detective story for modern teens, science fiction elements of the re-wiring of people’s brains and ways of thinking through gadgets and subliminal advertising

If you liked So Yesterday, you may enjoy: M.T Anderson’s Feed; Connie Willis’s Bellwether

Twisted

Title: Twisted
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Publication date: 2008
Number of pages: 250
Genre: young adult fiction
Geographical setting: suburban Ohio
Time period: 2000s, 21st Century
Series: N/A

Plot: Tyler Miller commits "The Foul Deed” and soon he is transformed from a nobody to a tough guy. Advances from his crush, one of the most popular girls in the school, do not come without their consequences. Tyler’s home life doesn’t get any easier either as fights with his distant father increases. As the pressure builds around him, Tyler begins to wonder if ending his own life is his only choice.

Subject headings: identity, fathers and sons, suicide, bullying, sexual assault, popularity, cyberbullying, peer pressure, coming of age

Appeal: told in first person; literature for boys, identifiable protagonist especially for boys questioning the idea of what it takes to “be a man”; family troubles are realistic without seeming too stereotypical as the “dysfunctional family” type.

If you liked Twisted, you might enjoy: Chris Crutcher’s Whale Talk, Blake Nelson’s Rock Star Superstar, Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War, Michael Laser’s Cheater: A Novel

Little Brother

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (2008), 384 pages
a book review also available on my LibraryThing profile

From technology activist, Creative Commons proponent and self-proclaimed geeky guy Cory Doctorow is Little Brother. This is a realistic sci-fi novel for young adults that is packed with action, techno-speak and a scary but optimistic look at a possible near future for American citizens.

Marcus Yallow, our narrator, and his friends are able to sneak out of school by tricking the gait-recognition system and other surveillance tools the schools and city officials have implemented-- including a frighteningly invasive public that uses their phones and the Internet to snitch on possible truant students.

Skipping school to participate in an ARG (alternate reality game), they are caught at the site of a terrorist attack in San Francisco. Marcus and his friends are held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at a secret prison. They are interrogated, terrified and treated like they are guilty. After this attack, paranoia, surveillance and distrust are amplified. California has become a police state. Marcus finds himself making choices that may endanger him, his friends and other citizens in his pursuit to take back the civil liberties and freedoms promised by the U.S. Constitution that the DHS has taken away.

This is a dystopian future, but not a future too far from now. It is easy to believe that all of these surveillance technologies are available today to those in power--and maybe they already are. Many of us- as Marcus points out- are guilty of not understanding the technologies all around us. We do not have them working for us.

At first I questioned how realistic this narrator is. Would a 17 year old boy be this advanced in computers, computer code writing and programming? And then I realized how old I am and more importantly, how dated my own experience with technology must be. Marcus is not so far-fetched. There are so many teens and young adults with these capabilities, experience and drive to tweak and hack and crack so many of the tools used on us and by us every day.

This book will be great for high school age and young adult readers and technology-literate and illiterate adults will enjoy it also. The book is jammed full of interesting ideas, questions and history. It could be very useful for discussions about privacy, terrorism and technology and surveillance and the role of a citizen in our democratic society.

The Radioactive Boy Scout

Title: The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor
Author: Ken Silverstein
Publication date: 2005
Number of pages: 209
Genre: Young Adult Nonfiction/Biography
Geographical setting: suburban Detroit
Time period: early to mid 1990s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: As David Hahn was earning his Atomic Energy badge for the Boy Scouts, he was also fueling his obsession of nuclear energy. Posing as a Physics professor, 16 year-old Hahn persuaded the U.S. government and industry experts to provide him with information on reactors. He also consulted an out-dated textbook to aid him in his pursuit of constructing a nuclear reactor in his backyard tool shed.

Subject Headings: biography, breeder reactors, gifted boys, Boy Scouts of America, nuclear energy

Appeal: Hahn is child of divorced parents—very distant father, mother suffered from depression and alcoholism, author presents history of nuclear power including some of the reported danger and benefits, past accidents and the culture surrounding the use and fears of nuclear energy, some history of the Boy Scouts, reveals some of the danger of gifted children who are neglected or not encouraged (or guided by professionals or experts) to explore their strengths and interests in a safe environment.

If you like The Radioactive Boy Scout, you might enjoy these fiction books: Michael Simmons’ Finding Lubchenko, Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother, Mark Walden’s H.I.V.E.: Higher Institute of Villainous Education, Catherine Jinks’ Evil Genius.

the first part last

Title: the first part last
Author: Angela Johnson
Publication Date: 2003
Number of Pages: 131
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: New York City, Brooklyn
Time Period: early 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Bobby is enjoying his teenage life of friends, parties and his girlfriend, Nia. On his sixteenth birthday, Nia tells him that she is pregnant. Now everything is changing and Bobby has to grow up fast. Both their parents and the social worker try to convince the two teens that the only way they will have a normal life again is to give the baby up for adoption.

Subject Headings: teen parents, teen father, teen pregnancy, African-American

Appeal: ALA Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature, Coretta Scott King Award Winner, the story unfolds by going back and forth between “then” and “now,” empowering story of young African-American male taking responsibility for his baby daughter, grandparents experience of helping to raise grandchild, teens making decisions about their reproductive options including adoption

If you liked the first part last, you might enjoy: Sharon G. Flake’s Who Am I Without Him? Sharon M. Draper’s November Blues.

Tyrell

Title: Tyrell
Author: Coe Booth
Publication Date: 2006
Number of Pages: 310
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: Bronx, New York
Time Period: mid 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Tyrell has a lot to worry about even though he is only fifteen. He stopped going to school and has to live in a homeless shelter with his irresponsible mother and younger brother. All he wants is to be able to take care of his girl but how can he with no job or money? He has a plan but he doesn’t want to end up in jail, like his dad.

Subject Headings: inner city teens, poverty, homelessness, homeless shelter, jail, DJ, African-American

Appeal: parent in jail, temptations of quick money by selling drugs, the realities of living in roach-infested homeless shelters/hotels, use of street lingo but not so much as to alienate readers, some descriptions of sexual acts, writer once worked with teenagers and families in crisis in the Bronx

If you liked Tyrell, you might enjoy: E.R Frank’s Life is Funny. Walter Dean Myer’s Street Verse. Allison Van Diepen’s Street Pharm. Kate Morgenroth's Jude.

Whale Talk

Title: Whale Talk
Author: Chris Crutcher
Publication Date: 2001
Number of Pages: 220
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: Pacific Northwest (small town outside of Spokane, Washington)
Time Period: early 2000s
Series: N/A

Plot: Multi-racial teen, T.J. Jones, has quite a bit of athletic ability but he chooses not to participate in high school team sports. You see, he has little problem with being told what to do and has had some problems since his biological mom had to give him up. He has two supportive parents now but the Cutter Athletic Department and the Wolverines Too (a booster club of high school grads who can’t let go of their glory days) don’t make life too easy for him or some of the other “misfits” of the school. So T.J. has a plan to take them all on and it starts with the assembling of the first Cutter swim team—the All-Night Mermen—and the goal of attaining the symbol of what is so screwed up with Cutter High—the varsity letterman’s jacket.

Subject Headings: high school, sports, bullying, abuse, swim team, adoption, multi-racial

Appeal: Protagonist is multi-racial: African American, Japanese and White. Protagonist sticks to his ideals and beliefs in the face of harassment and bullying and is even cocky. Incidents of bullying. Child of adoption, mother abused drugs. Protagonist participates in therapy and also helps with younger children who are in therapy. Literature for boys. Athleticism is important to many of the boys and the sense of being a part of a team is emphasized.

If you liked Whale Talk, you might enjoy: Chris Lynch’s Slot Machine. Rich Wallace’s Wrestling Sturbridge. Terry Davis’s Vision Quest

The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

Title: The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

Author: Barry Lyga

Publication date: 2007

Number of pages: 311

Genre: Young Adult fiction

Geographical Setting: small town/suburban America

Time Period: mid 2000s

Series: planned sequel for fall 2009 titled Goth Girl Rising

Plot Summary: Fanboy is a really smart high school sophomore who is considered a geek by many or a punching bag or just invisible. His parents are divorced and he lives with his pregnant mom and her new husband, the “step-fascist.” Keeping him going is the most important thing in his life—his own (secret) graphic novel that he has been creating with his ancient and constantly crashing computer. He soon meets Kyra, a.k.a. Goth Girl, whose shares his love of comics and disdain for pretty much everybody at school. Finally he has met someone who just might understand him but women can be complicated.

Subject Headings: friendship, comic books, graphic novels, high school, geeks, bullying, suicide, jocks

Appeal: Mentions of comic books/graphic novels and their authors will appeal to fans of this genre however, there is not so much insider information that would exclude other readers, death of a parent by cancer, teens coping with bullies, teens coping with their own rage/anger, teens coping with stepfamilies, there is some toying with ideas of school shootings and the outcast student creating a “hit list”, but there is never a real threat for this level of violence, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

If you liked The Astonishing Adventures…., you might enjoy: John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines. Gail Giles’ Playing in Traffic. K.L. Going’s Fat Kid Rules the World.

Eagle Blue

Title: Eagle Blue. A Team, A Tribe, And a High School Basketball Season in Arctic Alaska
Author: Michael D’Orso
Publication date: 2006
Number of pages: 323
Genre: Nonfiction, biography
Geographical Setting: village of Fort Yukon, Arctic Alaska
Time Period: 2004-05
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Writer D’Orso spent a winter with the high school boys’ basketball team, the Fort Yukon Eagles. The remote village of Fort Yukon is eight miles above the Arctic Circle and is home to around 600 people—mainly Athabascan Gwich’in Natives. D’Orso invites the reader into the lives of the boys and their coach as he follows along with him as they play their home games and fly to many of the away games. D’Orso also reveals the history and lives of many of the people of Fort Yukon including the high incidents of alcoholism, domestic violence and school dropouts but also their native pride and pride for their basketball team.

Subject Headings: basketball, high school sports, Native Alaskans, family, community, isolation, alcoholism, survival, tradition, ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), ANCSA (Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act), Athabascan Gwich’in

Appeal: Native Alaskan history and modern struggles including clashes with tradition, dealing with suicide, teen pregnancy, domestic violence and alcoholism in families, boys’ experiences in team sports, life above the Arctic Circle including -50 degree winters and near-continual darkness, small close-knit community, the school attempting to survive on very little money and resources, non-Native peoples’ experiences living in the Athabascan Gwich’in community, Arctic Alaskan experience of natives as opposed to the life of an inexperienced backpacker like Christopher McCandless (see Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild)

If you liked Eagle Blue, you might enjoy: Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights. Peter Jenkin’s Looking for Alaska. Velma Wallis’ Raising Ourselves: A Gwich'in: Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River.

Monster

Title: Monster
Author: Walter Dean Myers
Publication date: 1999
Number of pages: 281
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Geographical Setting: Harlem, Manhattan Detention Center
Time Period: late 1990s
Series: N/A

Plot Summary: Steve Harmon is an amateur filmmaker on trial for murder. He is accused of being a lookout for a drugstore robbery where the owner of the store was killed. Steve tells his story of his incarceration and trial and some of his life before being arrested through the medium of a screenplay he is writing. Was he the lookout or just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Throughout his screenplay and diary entries, Steve reveals the frightening conditions of a prison and the nightmare of spending most of his life behind bars.

Subject Headings: racism, prejudice, African American experience, jail, prison, violence, American legal system, teens in jail, screenplay

Appeal: use of illustrations, diary-like entries in handwriting typeface combined with protagonist’s screenplay, literature for young men, teens surviving in an adult world, challenging and thought-provoking subject and dilemmas to open up discussion and dialogue by readers, African American inner city lives and realities, Coretta Scott King Honor, ALA Best Book for Young Adults and Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers

If you liked Monster, you might enjoy: Walter Dean Myer’s Shooter. Virginia Walter's Making Up Megaboy.

The Chocolate War

Title: The Chocolate War
Author: Robert Cormier
Publication date: 1974
Number of pages: 272
Genre: Young Adult fiction
Geographical Setting: New England (fictional Monument, Massachusetts)
Time Period: early 197os
Series: sequel Beyond the Chocolate War

Plot Summary: Jerry Renault is a high school freshman at the all-boys Trinity Catholic and has recently lost his mother to cancer. The secret society of The Vigils, made up of students, rule the school. The Vigils assign tasks of cruel pranks to students with no option to disobey. The acting headmaster, Brother Leon, has decided to secretly recruit them to help with the annual school chocolate sale. Brother Leon expects the students to sell much more than they had in the past in order to protect his overspending of the school budget for the sale. The Vigils assign Jerry to boycott the chocolate sale for ten days. After the ten days, Jerry decides to defy The Vigils, Brother Leon and the school by continuing his refusal to sell the chocolates. His defiance is not accepted lightly.

Subject Headings: bullying, hazing, Catholic school, defiance of authority, pessimism, individuality, peer pressure

Appeal: all-boys Catholic school setting, struggle to be an individual in the face of power structure of an institution, lack of parental involvement, often on banned books list, winner of several awards including ALA Best Books for Young Adults and a New York Times Outstanding Books of the Year, 1988 movie adaptation, book for boys, standing up to bullies, death of a parent to cancer

If you liked The Chocolate War, you might enjoy: William Golding’s The Lord of the Flies. Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. Walter Dean Myer’s Shooter.

Hatchet

Title: Hatchet
Author: Gary Paulsen
Publication date: 1987
Number of pages: 195
Genre: Children’s /Young Adult Fiction (ages 9-13)
Geographical Setting: Canadian wilderness
Time Period: 1980s/present
Series: yes, first in the “Brian” books

Plot Summary: Brian Robeson is a fairly ordinary thirteen year old boy from the city. His parents have recently divorced and he is on his way to visit his father in the Canadian wilderness, taking with him a secret about his mother’s reasons for the split. For this trip he must travel in a single engine plane with only the pilot as his company. The plane goes down after the pilot suffers a massive heart attack and lands well off the flight’s original course in the isolated Canadian wilderness. With only his mother’s gift of a hatchet and a desire to live, he must survive alone on the resources he discovers and tools he devises.

Subject Headings: survival, divorce, wilderness, plane crash, Canadian wilderness, hatchet, nature, adventure, boyhood

Appeal: Newberry Honor Book, exciting first novel in a series, literature for boys, one main character, close third person point of view, triumph of individual, realistic fiction

Similar Authors and Works (Fiction): Scott O’Dell- Island of the Blue Dolphins, a young Indian girl is the sole survivor of an isolated island of the coast of California for eighteen years. Jean Craighead George- My Side of the Mountain, a young boy survives alone in the Catskill Mountains.

Similar Authors and Works (Nonfiction): Gary Paulsen- Guts: The True Stories behind “Hatchet” and the Brian Books.