Kidliterate

MAKE LEMONADE and TRUE BELIEVER by Virginia Euwer Wolff

Make Lemonade tells the story of 14-year-old LaVaughn, who takes a babysitting job to earn extra cash. LaVaughn has a single mom and is also babysitting for one -- her client, Jolly, is not much older than LaVaughn, and she has two small children, each with a different deadbeat dad. Jolly is like a living example of everything LaVaughn is striving not to be -- LaVaughn WILL go to college, even if it kills her, and even though she doesn't have much, she has an engaged and formidable mother who loves her more than life and demands excellence from her. Jolly is what LaVaughn might be in a parallel universe without that mother as her life's backbone, and this never escapes LaVaughn as she tends to those precious kids, Jilly and Jeremy, and cleans Jolly's squalid apartment over and over again.

Jolly's situation is so unimaginably difficult and seems so impossible, but there it is, staring LaVaughn in the face every day. LaVaughn becomes much more than Jilly and Jeremy's babysitter -- she becomes like another parent, even like Jolly's parent -- like the responsible adult in the family, even though she's still a child herself. There is so much passion between LaVaughn and Jolly -- so much anger and resentment and sometimes even hate.

In her excitement to say it all she's starting to yell

and her hair is shaking at me

and she says, "You come here just to make me feel like a

cockroach. LaVaaawwwnnnn. You come in here with your

homework, you got your Goals--" she says it sneering.

"You got your Cay-pa-bulls--" she says it to ridicule me.

"You're Miss Perfect and my kitchen floor is too DIR-tee

for you to walk on and you tell me how cuuuute Jeremy rides the bus,

 and you stole his toilet training,

you stole it from his own mother,

and you have your little Jeremy-songs

you can make up out of your head,

you're such a good little mama I could PUKE."

But sometimes, every now and then, there are laughs between LaVaughn and Jolly. And moments of understanding:

And I want to put my arms all the way around Jolly

in congratulation

and I'm happy she's so angry

and I'm proud of her ...

But I don't go hugging Jolly.

She's too angry to hug.

And that's the day Jilly chooses --

it's like she just lay on the floor and chose --

she ups and walks.

Jolly and me we're being mad together in the kitchen

and Jolly's picking up the mess of banana

that Mr. Jeremy left on a chair.

and up comes Jilly

on her two feet

looking like somebody on a boat deck,

with her surprised face

not knowing whether she's gonna fall down

or fly.

What LaVaughn is able to cope with under the circumstances while loving and teaching these kids is astounding, and you realize quickly that LaVaughn is one fiercely tough and smart cookie.

There are moments of real sadness and desperation and fear in this book that will leave you with your heart in your throat. It's written sort of in verse, which could be annoying but isn't. I underlined so many passages in this book that it almost looks like I underlined the entire thing. Because I keep everything, I went back and found my assigned reflection on the book in my graduate school papers. I wrote this in 1997: "I LOVE THIS BOOK, I really do. I feel I should cut myself off before I sit here about talk about every part I love, because I'd write myself armless." (My professor's comment: "When I chose this book, I wasn't sure how everyone would respond; I just knew I had to include it! I'm glad others had profound responses!" God bless Flo Durway, that magnificent professor who gave me this book and so many wonderful other ones!)

In short: this book cracked my heart wide open.

In book two, True Believer, which was a Printz Honor Book and won the National Freaking Book Award, LaVaughn is a little older (15) and a little wiser. (Jolly & co., so prominent in Make Lemonade, are not central figures in the sequel -- which made me really sad at first after becoming so attached to them -- but they're still present in LaVaughn's life to some degree and thankfully do make a few key appearances here.)

The sequel's story (told in the same verselike form) mainly centers on major changes in LaVaughn's life in terms of her friendships, her coursework, and her first love. There's a growing rift between LaVaughn and her two oldest and closest friends, Myrtle and Annie. While they fervently embrace church activities, LaVaughn isn't so sure how she feels about God, and it divides them in a way that deeply wounds and confuses LaVaughn.

I want to say, "Yes! I'll be in your club!"

But I don't do it,

it doesn't feel right.

I don't think that it is the job of Jesus, to keep me pure.

And I don't mean to be mean to Jesus in my thoughts

that little baby born in a manger...

I spend hours in my room

going over it all ...

going over it all again.

There was too much of it.

Besides everything else,

all those people in Hell

if Myrtle & Annie's church is right:

All those people I love.

I keep trying to think it through.

LaVaughn enrolls in more challenging classes at school and is a bit overwhelmed by the head-spinningly exciting new knowledge she's absorbing, especially in terms of grammar and the wonders and mysteries of science. Patrick is her lab partner.

If I do well in the new class like he says,

will that make me have a good life? ...

I'm thinking: Poor Myrtle & Annie.

Lucky Patrick, Lucky me.

But they have Jesus.

But I have my new class.

Insects evolved wings 350 million years ago.

Bird bones have a honeycomb structure.

We have 98% the same genes as chimps and gorillas.

The synapses of that little Jeremy,

my sweet little baby-sitting boy from last year,

his synapses are already formed. He is 3.

Science is amazing. Patrick even says it's beautiful.

One thing for sure: It's so quiet in this room.

You can hear the teacher whenever you want to.

I think they even have more watts in the bulbs.

Her childhood playmate, Jody, returns to her building and her school, and her world is rocked to the core by her powerful romantic feelings for this boy who is now a gorgeous young man who swims every day and smells like a swimming pool.

A mature person

would not pretend her pillow

was Jody and kiss it

all crying wet tears all over it

even with stuff coming out her nose.

Somebody logical would not wake

in the middle of the night

and get up and go over to the chair

where the beautiful dress was draped over

and put her face down in it

to try to smell the delicious chlorine

and cry so confused

about everything being so spoiled.

LaVaughn is so completely and utterly 15. The big things and the small things are all catastrophic in some way ... don't you remember what that felt like? When you really started understanding how tiny you were in the scope of the universe, when you felt so raw and so lost and so alive? This book is so painfully realistic in its portrayal of those crucial moments in mid-adolescence that it makes you feel everything LaVaughn feels with the same intensity -- when her heart soars, so does yours, and when she is mortified or hurt, you want to die a thousand deaths right along with her.

And when you come to the part which explains the book's title -- oh, Lordy. There will be tears. (At least there were for me.)

I am beside myself with anticipation about the arrival of book three, This Full House, which I immediately ordered, of course, from my friendly neighborhood independent bookseller. I'm trying to carefully avoid spoilers, but from what I gather, it brings Jolly back into focus, which definitely feels right, as it was LaVaughn's relationship with her and her children that started this journey. I cannot wait to see how the story turns out.

THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak

The first time I finished The Book Thief, I was on a plane riding home from a visit to see my sister for her law school graduation. I cried on page after page, my tears falling faster than I could wipe them away, sliding down my face then my chin then my neck to my shirt. I held it to my chest after closing it after the final page and cried some more, unable to stop. So you'd think I'd be all cried out over The Book Thief.

The second time I finished The Book Thief, it was two years later, just last week, and I was again on a plane, this time riding on the way to see my sister in a different city, in her new home. Again I cried. And cried and cried. And drenched my airplane cocktail napkin to the point where I held my hoodie to my face to absorb my tears and cover my face to hide my weeping. Again, I kept crying after turning the final page.

I mention the tears because I am a person who sometimes measures love for a book by the tears cried over it. And over this book I have cried many, many tears.

Here's what I know about The Book Thief: it's 550 pages long. It was a 2007 Printz Honor Book. It is one of the most beautiful books I've ever read.

It's the story of a girl who has a pretty rough start in life but who finds shelter with an unlikely pair of foster parents on Himmel Street. "Himmel" means "heaven," and this place is certainly not, but at the same time, it sort of is.

Liesel has lost her mother and brother and basically all hope in a world at war, but in her new home she finds shelter, true friends -- the kind of friends you'd live and die for -- and words. Words that blow her world wide open.

Liesel's childhood is like many childhoods -- soccer games in the street and school -- but also not. Not every child has a papa who plays the accordion and teaches her how to read in the middle of the night. Not every child has a best friend who wants to run like Jesse Owens but wants to kiss her most of all. Not every child has a Jew hiding in her freezing basement. Not every child has a mama who curses but feeds her and feeds the hidden Jew. Not every child steals books from the mayor's library, gravediggers, and fires.

This is a story narrated by death, which might annoy some readers, but it works for me. It doesn't make or break the book for me at all.

This is the story of World War II boiled down to its most basic essence: innocent people suffering and dying because of a man and people filled with hate. In a way, this book changed the entire way I think about that war. In this story, my country is the enemy because these people are on the other side because they are German.

But these people are not filled with hate. They are good. They are cold and hungry but find ways to be kind in tiny ways -- a tiny snowman carried downstairs to a basement, handmade books and drawings, sips of champagne. They love each other. And I love them, and I carry them with me always in my heart.

THE WEDNESDAY WARS by Gary D. Schmidt

I was vaguely aware of The Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt for a while. As in, I'd heard of it and seen its cover in stores and knew it was a 2008 Newbery Honor Book and was always mildly curious about it, but not curious enough to ever pick it up until recently, when I was browsing casually in a bookstore and decided to buy the paperback.

I read it very leisurely, in the evenings for a few minutes at bedtime, and it was a really happy experience. This is one of those books that unfolded really quietly and sweetly for me -- spreading it out over many nights helped me to really savor and appreciate the way it sort of snuck its way into being wonderful.

The set up of this book is simple: a boy named Holling Hoodhood is left behind when his classmates go off to their various religious educations one afternoon a week with a teacher he think hates him. Mrs. Baker is not an easy teacher. She pushes Holling. Relentlessly. What starts with rat cage cleaning and eraser banging leads to reading Shakespeare. To Holling's surprise, but probably not to Mrs. Baker's, he really takes to it.

One thing I love about this book is how seemingly chance encounters or moments end up changing life forever. Holling's trip to the bakery in an attempt to salvage a cream puff disaster leads him to wearing feathers on his butt while playing a fairy in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Escaped classroom rats lead him into an unexpected star track career. Being assigned to read Shakespeare alters his viewpoint on pretty much everything and helps him to understand comedy and tragedy in both fiction and real life.

The thing about Holling is that people see greatness in him. He doesn't see it in himself. He doesn't hate himself or anything like that, he just sees himself as a normal kid living a normal life who has ridiculous and unfortunate things happen to him a lot of time; such is the fate of a seventh grader. But he is inspirational to me because he is open to exploring whatever it is that other people think he can do. Mr. Goldman, the baker, knows he can act. His sister knows he can stand up to his dad, even though he doesn't know it, and even though she'd never come out and say that. And Mrs. Baker -- Mrs. Baker knows that Holling can do anything. Mrs. Baker is the kind of teacher I wish I had been.

Somehow Schmidt sets this all against the backdrop of Vietnam and reveals to a modern generation of young readers all of the ways the conflict there affected and changed America. Through the death of the cafeteria lady's husband. Through the presence and alienation of Mai Thi, a Vietnamese student at school. Through the ever-present but rarely spoken about knowledge that Mrs. Baker's husband is lost somewhere in a jungle. Through the huge divide between Holling's dad, who cares mostly about prestige in the business community and making money and is totally oblivious to what it means to find yourself, and Holling's sister, who resists the war and craves peace and loves the Beatles and Bobby Kennedy and is constantly searching.

This book doesn't try to be anything but what it is. It isn't flashy, and there are no vampires or wizards or dragons, but I think it is magical. In the way that ordinary things sometimes are. It is the story of real life in 1967-68, of simple people in a simple place.

I thought it would be a story about a boy learning Shakespeare on Wednesday afternoons. Which it is. But it is so much more. I didn't expect it to be a story of the sounds people make when they hear the worst news or best news of their lives, of love and loss, war and peace, sisters and brothers, students and teachers, and friends and first loves.  I didn't know it would make me cry. I didn't know I would love it it so much. I think you will love it, too.

COURTNEY CRUMRIN AND THE NIGHT THINGS by Ted Naifeh

Readers of Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things, the Eisner Award-nominated first installment in Ted Naifeh's Courtney Crumrin series, should definitely not skip the bitingly witty and insightful introduction penned by Kelly Crumrin (Naifeh's real-life girlfriend). It speaks of childhood fears and the outgrowing thereof and sets the stage for the book's dark and sardonic tone. 

This graphic novel largely sets Courtney, the protagonist, against almost everyone else in her life: her clueless parents, her shallow classmates, and of course, "the night things" themselves; her only true ally is her Uncle Aloysius, feared and reviled by all except Courtney, his kindred spirit.

Courtney is a girl without a country. Isolated and different from everyone who surrounds her, she is drawn into a dark and magical world of goblins and monsters and uses her quick wits and strength of character to save herself and others.

The language captures the essence of pre-teen angst, and the black and white ink artwork evokes the darkness, doom, and gloom of both Courtney's mood and the scary situations in which she finds herself … the drawings of the goblin market are especially memorable.

The intended audience, according to the "Youth / Age 7+" stamp placed by the publisher, seems to be elementary school students, but it's perhaps more suitable for a middle school or even early high school audience due to some of the language used, a situation when Courtney is kissed by a boy against her will, and some of the more frightening scenes.

Without being preachy at all, this book shows young readers that even the scariest things in life – be they monsters or loneliness – can be overcome when a person is clever and brave.

That the smartest, toughest, most sensible character on the scene is a bad-assed young girl makes me really excited that this series exists and pumped to read book two.  

AMELIA RULES! THE WHOLE WORLD ' S GONE CRAZY by Jimmy Gownley

The first book in the Amelia Rules! series hilariously and heartbreakingly depicts the coming of age theme. The characterizations of Amelia, her parents, her aunts, her teachers, and her friends bring to life the chaotic existence of life's players through the eyes of a precocious and unforgettable 9-year-old girl.

The story is an episodic look at Amelia's life through a series of experiences and adventures, including surviving the hell of gym class as well as family holidays. 

The writing is sharp and funny, and the illustrations are wild, colorful, and in the vein of a traditional comic strip. The book is quite entertaining and amusing and somehow also manages to impart the grief and isolation experienced by a child of divorce.

The intended audience is elementary school children, but the book can certainly be enjoyed by tweens, teens, and even adults, at whom the author winks throughout the book with references to Stan Lee, Elvis Costello, the Replacements, and Billy Joel.

This is an appropriate selection for any child who is suffering from the effects of divorce, and it beautifully demonstrates the "true spirit of Christmas" in a section of the book that made this reviewer cry into her cappuccino while reading at the coffee shop. 

It's also a wonderful example of the age-old childhood theme of how one's friends can become one's family when young people feel alienated from most of the adults in their lives … these kids are almost like the elementary school version of the Brat Pack.

This book is hereby deemed by me to be an essential selection for all elementary school, middle school, and public libraries because of its ability to bring forth laughter and tears and to make lonely kids feel less alone. 

At first glance, this book might seem silly and superficial, but its comic nature is tinged with sadness and realism, Amelia is ultimately introspective and wise, and the book conveys some great life lessons. One of the best lessons is from Aunt Tanner, who tells Amelia, "Any time you find magic in this world, you have to fight hard to keep it."  

THE WALKING DEAD, VOL. I: DAYS GONE BY by Robert Kirkman & Tony Moore

The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living.

So says the back cover of The Walking Dead, Volume One: Days Gone By, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Tony Moore. 

This 2006 book is the first in a continuing series and features Rick, a police officer, as its protagonist. He's an honorable, handsome, very resourceful man who loves his wife and son. The story follows Rick as he awakens from a coma to find the world around him irrevocably changed … it's human vs. zombie now, and he must find a way to survive against all odds. He meets a range of other characters, representing all walks of life, who form a camp in the woods to hide from the zombies.

Kirkman's realistic writing style aptly captures the excitement, the fear, the suspense, and the heartache, and Moore's excellent black and white pen and ink illustrations convey the terror, grotesqueness, and emotion of the story with intimate, intricate detail.

This book is essentially the story of one man's journey toward survival and shows the prevailing goodness of humanity in the darkest of times. It reminds me of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning The Road in the way it portrays the desperation and loneliness of man when faced with the apocalyptic unthinkable. 

Adults might consider reading this as an accompaniment to The Road because they both focus on surviving with loved ones in a desolate, ever-changed, terrifying world. (I'm not recommending The Road for young audiences, as I am still somewhat traumatized by reading it at 33.)

There's some rough language in The Walking Dead, and the zombie scenes are certainly disgusting and graphic, but a mature teen can definitely handle it, and teens will also probably enjoy the romantic tensions in the story.

The Walking Dead, a unique and devastatingly moving twist on the traditional zombie genre with its focus on love, family, emotions, and the ties that bind – particularly touching is the scene when the characters sit around the campfire in the snow sharing what they used to do in their "past lives" – is an essential selection, in my opinion, for public libraries and possibly even high school libraries. It will definitely leave readers wanting to read the next volume and find out what happens next.

Three contemporary, realistic graphic novels for teens

One! Hundred! Demons! is a wonderful book by Lynda Barry, a cartoonist, novelist, and playwright whose work appears all over tarnation. The deserving recipient of both an Alex Award and the 2003 Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Album, this is the sort of book that makes a person want to sing from the mountaintops about the glories of autobiography and the lessons learned from one's own childhood and life.

The coming of age theme is brought to life by Lynda Barry's look back at her own -- she is the main character and unflinchingly casts herself in an often unflattering light. The plot is an episodic series of anecdotes about Barry from early childhood to adulthood. 

Barry's writing style is an appealing combination of humorous, self-deprecating, and lyrical, and the art is bright, colorful, and engaging – in addition to the cartoon watercolors of people and places, Barry employs the use of collages made of photographs, glitter, and other real-life, tangible items to portray her nostalgia. 

She takes herself and the reader on a walk down memory lane by recreating her experiences in a way that everyone can relate to on some level – we have had pain in our childhoods, we have felt out of place, we have loved and lost people and pets and beloved childhood blankets and stuffed animals, we have kissed people we shouldn't have, we have tried to create art that means something to us, we have been insanely glued to the TV during the 2000 chad-related presidential election drama. A

ll of us have done these things in whole or in part, and Barry has the amazing gift of tapping into the experiences that make us all human both collectively and individually. 

While perhaps only adults have enough perspective and life experience to be able to relate to the whole range of stories told here, older teens can certainly appreciate some of them, will definitely relate to the mortification factor, and will enjoy the book on a different level. This book has a wonderful, whimsical ability to make the heart break and soar.

In Michel Rabagliati's Paul has a Summer Job, the title character, like Thoreau and countless others before him, chooses to lose the trappings of real life and go to the woods in order to find himself.

The plot follows him as he drops out of school and starts and quits a mindless job he hates before deciding on a whim to spend the summer in the woods as a camp counselor, where he evolves, to his initial surprise, into the Paul he really is deep down and the Paul he wants to be.

The writing style is largely introspective and lets the reader see deeply into Paul's soul and psyche. The black and white pen and ink illustrations wonderfully capture the natural setting of the woods – the trees, the hills, the lake, the wildlife – and the personalities of Paul, his fellow counselors, and the young campers.

The purpose of this book is to take a look back at a defining moment in the history of Paul's life and how his summer as a camp counselor indelibly changed him, and it is achieved very effectively with heartfelt nostalgia and affection towards his old friends and experiences at camp. 

This book is primarily suited for older teens – there is brief nudity and a sex scene, but it's depicted sweetly, not gratuitously. Readers who have spent a summer at camp, whether as a camper or counselor, will recognize themselves in these characters – the sacred, special, hilarious times at camp and the bonds formed between those who were there become frozen in one's memory and heart, and this book captures that sentiment beautifully.

Paul, sitting around a campfire, singing under the stars: "There you are, in the middle of nowhere, with a group of people you like, and suddenly, you lift off. Without noticing it, you're in a bubble. You become one with the world around you, and everything else just fades away."

(Be sure to check out the other books in this series: the prequel, Paul in the Country, which won Rabagliati the 2001 Harvey Award for Best New Talent, and the sequels, Paul Moves Out and Paul Goes Fishing.)

The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot is the story of a young English girl's quest to survive the wounds of being abused by her father as a child. Helen is both terrified and brave, both scarred and healing, and both enslaved by her past and striving to break free.

The story follows her from her days as a homeless young girl in a cold London winter after running away from home to her odyssey through England's Lake District, the home of her hero, Beatrix Potter, as she finds a new family and strives to confront and disentangle herself from her abusive father.

The writing style is lyrical and powerful, drawing the reader into Helen's journey, and the watercolor illustrations are simply beautiful – they capture Helen's transformation wonderfully and depict the outside world with highly detailed attention, from the streets, buildings, and bridges of London to the spectacular countryside of the Lake District.

The book portrays, through the life of one girl, the idea that abuse is survivable, that a person can overcome his or her darkest and deepest pain, and that we are all stronger than we think they are. 

Several scenes will become indelibly imprinted in the reader's mind, particularly a scene in which Helen stands alone atop a hill overlooking Lake Derwentwater, crying and shaking her fists at the sky, proclaiming that her abuse was not her fault, and also a scene in which she fearlessly stands up to her father. 

Suitable for older teens due to its mature content, only a reader with a heart of stone would not be moved to tears by this book. Both its story and art are incredible, it masterfully connects Helen's experience with the life and works of the legendary Beatrix Potter, and its message is powerful and enduring. 

(It won the 1996 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: Reprint, was nominated for a 1996 Harvey Award, and in 2006, YALSA named it on the list of Great Graphic Novels. You can find more information on the book here.)

CHAINS by Laurie Halse Anderson

(This post is from Eliza. The posts are all tagged at the bottom with the author, but because I made this theme on the Wordpress Theme Generator, I have no idea how to make them always show easily the author besides adding a tag. Man, that was a bad sentence. In any event, if you're ever in doubt about who wrote something, you can look in the tags. It'll usually be me, but sometimes it'll be surprise! someone else. Like now, when Eliza's plowing through all the NBA nominees.)

Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson is absolutely fantastic. It is both historically fascinating and extremely suspenseful, and it has a kick-ass heroine to boot. The book is truly a fine literary achievement, and I am as pleased as punch that there is reportedly going to be a sequel.

You care about the protagonist, a young slave girl named Isabel, from the get-go; the book begins with the death of her owner, and you are horrified to learn that the owner's dying wish that Isabel and her sister be freed is blatantly ignored.

From then on, you are in Isabel's corner as she is transported against her will from Rhode Island to New York City and have her back if she is someone you know personally. 

You are both terrified for her and awed by her on every page as you follow her story, set against the backdrop of the American Revolution, while the city and the course of Isabel's own life begin to burn and crumble around her.

Other than Isabel's overall awesomeness -- in her defiance of her captors, her fierce protective love for her sister, her courage in sneaking around the dark city streets as a spy, and her undying loyalty to her closest friend -- the book's greatest strength is its attention to detail, which plunges you deeply into the world of the book. You feel like you can smell and taste and hear the homes and streets and jail cells and docks of New York in 1776.

Every character is finely drawn, from Isabel and her sister, Ruth, to their wretched owners, a kind elderly woman who takes a shine to Isabel, a young imprisoned Patriot, and the men running the show on either side of the war. (As much as you love Isabel, you might hate her owners even more, and that kind of loathing for a villain always draws me into a story.)

The stakes are so high in this book that it's basically impossible to put down; I felt like I was holding my breath the entire time.

A nice touch is the inclusion of brief excerpts of historical letters written by people like Abigail Adams and newspaper articles of that day to set the tone at the beginning of each chapter.

The novel is highly cinematic -- it cries out to be adapted for the big screen, and I will be shocked if this is not already in the works. It absolutely swept me away.

THE UNDERNEATH by Kathi Appelt

In light of how much I adored past National Book Award winners True Believer and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian -- they rank among the top YA novels I've ever read in my life -- I decided to take immediate note of this year's finalists and read all of them. First up was The Underneath by Kathi Appelt, simply because it was the first one that arrived via interlibrary loan.

 

I started reading it in bed last night and had to force myself to close the book and set it aside, because forty pages in (it's an extremely fast read), I knew that if I went much farther I wouldn't be able to stop until reaching the end, and I am a woman who needs her sleep! On this lovely Sunday morning, I woke up, made coffee, crawled under a blanket, and lay on the couch in my pajamas for several hours finishing this book. And let me just say that it was wonderful. I was moved throughout and cried actual tears on several occasions.

It's hard to explain what a treasure this book is without giving too much away. I could say that it's about a dog, some cats, a snake, an alligator, trees, and birds, because it is about all of those things, but it is so much more.

I guess if I had to pick one thing this book is about, I would have to say that it is about family. It is how the unlikeliest of creatures can form a family, it is about how families are torn apart, it is about how families betray each other, die for each other, leave each other, lose each other, and find each other.

Even though these ideas are brought to life primarily by animals and other life forms in a swampy forest, they are ultimately ideas about all of us -- human beings, certainly, but also the earth we live on and the living things with which we share it.

I am having a really hard time explaining how beautiful this book is. I feel like even the slightest bit about the plot will spoil it too much. I guess I can say that I think you will love this book if you have ever loved a dog or a cat, ever walked through a forest, ever swum in a creek, ever been scared of the meanness of life and the certainty of death, ever lost someone you loved, or ever believed in magic.

When Melissa told me this book is being aimed at children in the 8-12 age range, I was very surprised for multiple reasons. This book is very scary. There are villains, both human and not, that positively exude evil in a very realistic and un-cartoonish way that would have given me nightmares as a child. This book is also very sad. Extremely traumatic events occur that I found almost unbearable to read. For these reasons, I'd like to see this book marketed toward an age group that's a little older. It can obviously be enjoyed by adults, to which Melissa and I can attest, and I think high schoolers would be more emotionally and mentally equipped to grapple with not only the frightening and heartbreaking aspects but the overall ideas of the book, which are quite profound. Let me make clear that I usually veer in the completely opposite direction of wanting to take books out of children's hands because they are scary or sad or hard to understand. But I do think that certain books are more appropriate for older readers than younger readers, and this is definitely one of them.

As noted above, in addition to being sometimes terrifying and often quite sad, this book is also very deep. The title refers to the area underneath a house's porch, but certainly it can be taken a step beyond that -- it also signifies a jar hidden underneath a tree and an alligator hidden underneath the currents of a bayou. Perhaps most of all, though, it signifies the depth of life that glimmers beyond our knowing consciousness, the ancient mysteries of the earth that still resonate beneath the surface, and stories hidden underneath the passage of time.

How the author pulled all of this off with a tale about a hound dog and some cats is a testament to her obviously great (and previously unknown to me) talent. After suffering severe reading burnout this fall, which has never really happened to me before but which I attribute to having read 60 graphic novels over the summer, which almost made my brain fall out, this is the first book I have picked up and gotten all the way through in several months. I am so glad this is the book that has brought me back to books and to reading. It utterly captured both my imagination and my heart. I hope you will also find a place for it in yours.