Kidliterate

LOOK THROUGH MY WINDOW by Jean Little

When I wake up I always know

What I'll do

And where I'll go

Whom I'll see

And what we'll say

And who I'll be

The whole long day.

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was Look Through My Window by Canadian author Jean Little. I still have an ancient copy, pictured here. The price stamp is 95¢, and the excerpted review line above the cover image is "a book full of people you will like." This is the truth. And it is still one of my favorite books.

Look Through My Window is about a little girl named Emily. Emily wants to write, and Emily wants a friend. Emily is an only child who lives in an apartment in the city. Her aunt gets sick and needs many months to recover, so she and her parents move to an eighteen-room house in the suburbs with her young cousins. And that, so says the first chapter's title, is The Day the World Changed.

There are many reasons I love this book. Here are just a few:

1. Emily moves into the attic room because she wants a poet's garret. In the room, she finds a locked box full of poems that belongs to Kate, who's been using the formerly abandoned house as a place to hide and write. Emily writes poems, too. They are simple but insightful. 

If ever I

Did something new

They all would say,

"That's not like you."

I'm always just

The me they see --

Not the real true

Inside me.

2. Of course, Emily and Kate, pictured above, looking ever so much like Kate, are destined to meet. This isn't an easy story of instant friendship, though. In many ways, they are different, and they navigate their uncertainty with caution and care, gradually working their way into discovering the ways in which they are the same.

3. Into Emily's life bursts not only Kate but this wild group of four young cousins, John, James, Ann, and Jean, who are all fully formed characters in their own rights. They make Emily's life infinitely more complicated and stressful, but it doesn't take long for her to realize that the chaos all of these children bring is also kind of awesome.  

4. This book has a few wonderful illustrations by Joan Sandin that get all sorts of little details right, from capturing the exact expression you'd imagine on certain characters' faces to depicting familiar and beloved covers of books on bookshelves.

 

5. A young homesick French woman named Sophie, who barely speaks English, is sent over to help the family by the cranky old lady next door, who of course might turn out to be not really all that cranky.

6. There is a cat in this story named Wilhelmina Shakespeare. 

7. Emily evaluates who she wouldn't want to see her new room -- this room with the skylight that takes her breath away, that makes "the room look like Heidi's loft and Sara Crewe's garret" -- with the following standard: "They would not have read the right books. They would not understand."

8. One of the differences between Emily and Kate is religion, and there are some thoughtful conversations about what it means to be Christian and what it means to be Jewish and what it means to be nothing. Possibly because this book was published in 1970 and there wasn't a lot of religious diversity where the book is set, or maybe because she doesn't think she's ever been around any Jews, Emily is surprised to learn that Kate is Jewish, and a mutual friend of theirs is SHOCKED to learn that the cousins are Catholic. (“‘They ARE?' she gasped. 'But they seem just like ordinary children.'") The thoughts and discussions that these characters have about these issues add a nice weight to the story, and I think it's all handled with a lot of sensitivity and honesty for a children's book. Emily and her mom have a long talk about prejudice, and her mom explains that all they can do is "go on being ourselves, I guess. We try to get to know all kinds of people. We fight prejudice when we meet it -- in others or in ourselves." If there is better advice on this issue, I don't think I've ever heard it. "Try to get to know all kinds of people." If everyone did that, the world would be so much damn better.

9. In this book, there is the staging of a play.

10. Emily's dad works a lot, and her mom is home running the show. Her parents' relationship feels natural and real, and her mother is one of my favorite characters. She's harried and crazed and exhausted but warm and understanding and funny and somehow handles the mayhem of the house with a combination of improvisation and good humor.

11. You know what this book is not about? Boys. As in, Emily & Kate never talk about boys. Or even think about boys. They're too busy talking and thinking about writing and friendship and families and religion and pets and kids and books. This book passes the Bechdel Test with glorious, flying colors. (No offense, boys.)

12. Kate's parents figure into the story, too, and they own a bookstore, and they, too, feel like fully rounded characters even though they are in the background for most of the book. One of the most frank and thought-provoking conversations in the book takes place between Kate and her dad. He explains why he's no longer a practicing Jew, and she is full of questions, and he says:

We can't tell you the answers to the big questions, Katharine. "Who are we? Why are we here? Is there a God? Is He concerned about us?" But that is the exciting thing about being a human being. Or one of the exciting things. The questions are always there ... The answers -- ah! ... Those are what life is all about. You find part of an answer -- and it leads to another question. Never does the wonder, the asking, end.

When Kate replies, "I still don't know if I'm Jewish or not," he tells her it's something she'll spend her whole life figuring out. Sing it, Kate's dad.

13. Kate's poems don't rhyme and are depicted in a different font and perfectly encapsulate who she is as a character.

14. People say things in this book like "Great Caesar's ghost!" and "Land of liberty, a child with sense!" I've decided to start using these expressions as much as possible.

15. Many moments in this book, as many times as I've read it (and by "many" I mean "MANY"), leave my eyes bright with tears. For their simplicity, for their sweetness, for the way that they get right to the heart of life.  

16. Finishing it again today, at age 35, leaves me feeling like I always have, since I was a little girl, and like Emily does here ... In that moment, deep inside herself, she felt the steadfastness of important things. Feeling the steadfastness of important things might be the most important feeling of all. Jean Little, I love you. 

It's possible this book is still on the shelf in a library or a used bookstore near you, and there are used copies available online. If I were you, I'd try to find it.  To steal a phrase from the book itself, it is “so terribly ordinary -- and so terribly special."

FIVE FLAVORS OF DUMB by Antony John

Full disclosure: Antony John is both a local St. Louis author and a friend.

Last October, at the MBA regional trade show, I went up to say hi to Catherine Gilbert Murdock. She lives near Children's Book World, so I'd sold her kids books on occasion and chatted with her at events. She told me that she had an author friend in St. Louis whose new book was really good and that I should get a copy as soon as I could and get to know him. This was excellent advance info to have, because I have to tell you that hearing that someone local or someone you know has written a book is a scary thing for exactly one reason: what if the book isn't any good? I have been very lucky in this aspect, as the authors local to CBW are awesome, and St. Louis sports a whole bunch of amazing authors as well. But every time you hear about a new one, you cross your heart and hope with all your might that the book will be a good one. So hearing from Catherine that I needed to get my hands on FIVE FLAVORS OF DUMB was something that had me emailing my Penguin sales rep right away. And then I actually met Antony before I got my hands on his book, and he turned out to be super nice, so I was crossing my heart and hoping again. So what happened when I finally got my hands on the book and read it? It turned into my favorite contemporary YA novel of the year, and tomorrow night at 7, we'll be celebrating its release with a live high school band and a cake that's probably too big and a whole bunch of wine. (A far better outcome than even I had hoped for.) When Piper was six, she began to lose her hearing. Now she's a senior in high school and she gets by with a combination of hearing aids, lip reading, and signing with whoever's willing to learn – which leaves out her dad, who for some reason has never learned how. Piper's got a baby sister named Grace, and their parents just bought Grace a cochlear implant. With Piper's college money. Without asking her first. Now the deafness that Piper and Grace had in common is gone, and Piper feels more than ever like her parents see deafness as a tragic disability to be cured whenever possible – and that her college education is not as important as making Grace as perfect as she can possibly be made. Frustration, a need for money, and a strange set of circumstances lead Piper down an unexpected road: she becomes the manager of Dumb, a high school band who just won Seattle's annual Teen Battle of the Bands. She quickly learns that her lack of hearing is hardly going to be the hardest thing she has to overcome in her new position; Dumb have problems of their own that are about to become Piper's problems. As her experiences with the band grow, she begins to stretch in ways that are entirely foreign to her parents, adding to the already great tension that hangs around their house. Ultimately Piper will need to learn an entirely new way of navigating her various worlds, and she isn't entirely sure that her parents are ready for her to break out of her box. Add in a possibly fragile relationship with her younger brother, Finn, and a possibly changing friendship with Chess Club-acquaintance-turned-band-member Ed, and Piper's got more on her plate than most people can handle. Piper? Awesome character. Completely awesome. Voice: totally female and believable, which a lot of male writers are really bad at. Exploration of the Seattle music scene: completely cool. Family relationship: multilayered; realistic; heart-wrenching at times. Emotional without being overwrought. Antony's writing: effortless. (At least in feel. I am sure he shed more than a little blood, sweat and tears over this one, but it reads like it just poured out of his head.) FIVE FLAVORS OF DUMB: so very highly recommended.

BECAUSE OF MR. TERUPT by Rob Buyea

Review by Sarah Oh, first time novelists, I love you.  Every season, I’m inundated with massive amounts of sequels and follow-ups and companion novels to books I read last year, and while I know I’m going to utterly love and adore many of these forays back into worlds I’m familiar with, there’s nothing quite like a voice you haven’t heard before.  Rob Buyea’s first novel, Because of Mr. Terupt, is a classic school story, something in the tradition of James Howe and Gordon Korman and Andrew Clements, and yet it has this unshakable kind of optimism about it that seems to channel the joy Mr. Buyea must have felt when he found out his novel was going to be published.  It’s a sort of cheerfulness that lingers, and it’s so sincere that the reader can’t help but feel it too. Because of Mr. Terupt, is, not surprisingly, about Mr. Terupt, who is a brand new teacher, fresh out of school himself.  Seven of Mr. Terupt’s students are our narrators, and each chapter displays the point of view character’s name.  It takes a few cycles of switching between the kids’ povs to really get their voices down, but this method of storytelling is really vital to the novel’s plot.  The kids, Jessica, Alexia, Peter, Luke, Danielle, Anna, and Jeffrey, each come with their own set of fears and desires coming into fifth grade.  Some of them love Mr. Terupt from day one, and others take longer to warm to his exuberant, slightly offbeat methods.  As the year progresses, each of our seven narrators faces serious issues of their own; one is bullied about her weight, one is collapsing under the weight of grief, one is the new girl who can’t fit in, one is the girl who makes it her mission to control her peers through cruelty.  Mr. Terupt seeks to bring out the best in his students, and they work toward a ‘free day,’ during which the kids will do whatever they choose.  When the goal is met and the free day arrives, the class decides to go outside and play in the snow, and during their outdoor adventure, disaster strikes, and Mr. Terupt ends up in the hospital, clinging to life. I’m not going to talk about the ending of the book for obvious spoiler reasons.  What I will say is that there is a reason books like this get written, why films like Dead Poets Society and Stand and Deliver get made, and why Will Schuester will show up every week on Glee for at least the next two years:  nearly everyone has a teacher in his or her past that changed them forever.  We spend so many of our formative years in school, and we spend that time with dozens of educators.  For many of us, the lucky ones, there is a teacher that really rocked our world, who elevated the act of learning to something more.  This book is a love song to those teachers, and even more, it’s a love song to the kids who are in school right now, whether or not they’ve met their own personal Mr. Terupts yet.

THRESHOLDS by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

When Maya's best friend Stephanie died from cancer, her world fell apart. When her father's job became uncertain, he and her mother took the opportunity to give the family a fresh start and moved from Iowa to Oregon. There are a lot of different things about their new town, including the people who live in the apartment building next door (who dress strangely and stick close to home) and, oh yeah, there's the fairy that flies into Maya's room one night. When Maya wakes up the next morning, she thinks it was a dream - until she finds gold sparkly dust on the sheets. And the strange just keeps on coming: she meets her next door neighbors, and they use words she's never heard of; a strange boy keeps asking her where the portal is; her neighbors are able to smell the fairy dust on her. Finally, at the end of her first day in her new school, Portal Boy shows up again and gets her to agree to take care of something he's stolen. Now she has a magical egg in her wrist, which is going to hatch into...something. Her next door neighbors are the only people with the power necessary to help her: they are the guardians of portals to other worlds, including the one where her egg came from. They've opened a door to another world for Maya, and it is one that will change her forever. This is my first Nina Kiriki Hoffman novel (and her first for kids), but it won't be my last. I LOVED this. I think the best thing about this (besides the fantastic writing) is that it's not really fantasy, and it's not really science fiction. It is an incredibly cool mix of the two, very unlike anything else I've read and yet comfortably set in our modern world with a main character anyone can relate to. Maya's grief over Stephanie gently powers a lot of her actions, which gives the whole book an undercurrent that really showcases Hoffman's writing. It's an incredibly realistic portrayal of adolescent emotion, which is unusual in a book in this genre. I also loved watching Maya deal with her troubles partially through art, taking everything down in her omnipresent sketchpad. So not only do we have fantasy, scifi, wonderful writing, and compelling characters, but we also have messages of the importance of art in our lives and of the power of grief. It's a lot to fit into one middle-grade book, but Hoffman makes it look effortless. Sequel, please.

THE GRIMM LEGACY by Polly Shulman

In a season where dystopia is the new utopia and boyfriends (or girlfriends) either have demonic (or angelic) tendencies, THE GRIMM LEGACY is a welcome oasis of clever plotting and wonderful reimagining of old tales. Elizabeth, our heroine, spends her days trying to please her stepmother and two stepsisters, and even must leave her beloved dance classes in order to help pay for her sisters’ college fees. When on the way to school in downtown New York, she encounters a homeless woman wearing only sandals in the brutal cold. Elizabeth gives the woman her gym sneakers, and this kind deed has unexpected repercussions: she is invited by her enigmatic history teacher to interview for a job at the New York Circulating Material Repository. Curious and in need of extra cash, Elizabeth goes to the interview, and is subsequently hired at the Repository, which she comes to learn is a library of sorts for magical objects. Some, as the title alludes, are from the Grimm fairy tales, but others have more sci-fi applications, including collections from Wells and Lovecraft. There are objects going missing from the Repository, however, and Elizabeth must choose which of her new co-workers are worthy of trust as they search out the thief. There is something wonderful about reading a book that takes you away to a place you’d really like to go, and The Grimm Collection does just that. I can’t tell you how much I want to go to the Repository now (you know, provided it actually existed). Everything about it is so whimsical (and a little dangerous), and Polly Shulman did such a wonderful job choosing the objects to feature. Elizabeth is a brilliant heroine, and I rooted for her from page one, but I also really liked the supporting cast: Marc, the hot African-American basketball star who’s keeping secrets; Aaron, the geeky-cool nerd who pretends to be cynical; and Anjali, the girl-who’s-so-pretty-you-want-to-hate-her-but-she’s-really-nice-so-you-can’t-and-also-may-have-a-secret-too. The amazing thing about this novel is that it’s a perfect fit for so many ages. It would make a charming read for a savvy eleven or twelve year old, but older teens will enjoy the romantic possibilities between the characters as well as the magical rules of the world; you can borrow a magical artifact if you get clearance from the Repository, but you have to leave something of yours behind, which could be your sense of humor, your singing voice, or even your firstborn child. This is a must-buy for any middle school librarian looking for something original and—dare I say it—perhaps even a little sweet. Note from Melissa: this is one of my favorite books of the season, and I am so glad Sarah reviewed it. It is absolutely delightful. Shulman's a favorite of mine, and it will not disappoint you. I too am dying for the Repository to actually exist, and you will be too. Thank goodness we can visit whenever we want by reopening this book.

I AM NUMBER FOUR by Pittacus Lore

I could boil this review down to five words:  THIS BOOK RULES THE WORLD. or how about THIS BOOK ROCKED MY SOCKS. or GIVE ME THE SEQUEL NOW. or OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG. Any of those, really. I tore through this book today and am now completely obsessed. COMPLETELY. When a publisher puts the kind of push behind a book like HarperCollins has done with this book, it often ends up feeling like smoke and mirrors. This book, however, deserves the massive amount of hype that it has gotten. Have I mentioned that it's awesome? Lorien is a planet three hundred million miles away from Earth. Its entire population was killed by another race (the Mogadorians) - except for nine gifted children and their guardians. The 18 survivors fled to Earth where they have been hiding among us, waiting to grow into their Legacies (special powers that many of the Lorien people possess), fight the Mogadorians, and return to revive their home planet. A two-part charm was put on the children before they left: they can only be killed in a certain order, and because of their link, each instantly knows if one of their kind has been killed. Our protagonist is Number Four, fifteen years old, and at the beginning of the book, he has just learned that Number Three has died.  John (his new alias) and his guardian, Henri, flee their current home for a small town in Ohio. They move constantly, changing identities, locations, schools in their ongoing attempt to elude the Mogadorians who followed them to Earth. Their life is one of constant vigilance, and it is a life that "John" has tired of as he has gotten older. At his new school, he clashes immediately with the football star and crushes on the star's ex-girlfriend, which leads to a series of events that threaten to expose him for who he truly is. As his Legacies finally begin to develop, as does his new relationship, he becomes less and less certain that the way he is leading his life is sustainable. And every day, Henri becomes more convinced that the evil they are fleeing is growing closer. This is one of those novels that you can't describe in too much depth because one tiny spoiler could ruin everything. So I can tell you this: it's a long book (440 pages) yet there's not one wasted word. The characters are flawed and believable and familiar in the best of ways. The twists surprised me and the bad guys are both original and scary. And the writing is SO GOOD. Imagine my surprise when I Googled Pittacus Lore and learned that he is two people: a writer named Jobie Hughes..and JAMES FREY. Yes, that James Frey. People are surprising me every day in the world of young adult fiction; today is no different. Like the best of collaborative works, I have no idea where one author begins and the other ends. I am, it must be said, a little desperate for the sequel to I AM NUMBER FOUR. I recommend joining me in my obsession as soon as possible. After all, there are still eleven days left until the release of MOCKINGJAY.

What Molly Read On Her Summer Vacation

(or, rather, what we read to her) Molly is used to having many, many books a day read to her. We knew that we'd need to take quite a few with us when we recently went away for five weeks. We knew that they'd need to be paperbacks. We knew we'd need a mix of old favorites and new things to keep it interesting. I'm going to do a few posts about some of the books that she requested over and over again. MR. PUTTER AND TABBY FEED THE FISH by Cynthia Rylant with illustrations by Arthur Howard. I often forget, while selling picture books, that many early readers make excellent read-alouds for the toddler set. I've been selling Mr. Putter and Tabby books forever, but it had honestly been quite awhile since I read one and I had forgotten just how darn charming they are. In this adventure, Mr. Putter and Tabby decide to bring home some fish. However, Tabby becomes obsessed with the fish, going BAT. BAT. BAT. on the bowl and staying up all night to do so. Eventually Mr. Putter gives the fish to a neighbor, and he and Tabby are able to relax once more. Tabby has such personality, and her quirks are so well offset by Mr. Putter's steadfastness. Howard's art is the perfect lively compliment to Rylant's usual lovely, fun writing.  I'll be bringing many more books in this series home soon and will be selling them with renewed joy. BEAR FEELS SCARED by Karma Wilson with illustrations by Jane Chapman. We are BIG fans of Bear; I think at this point we have the whole series. We've been reading these for well over a year and Molly still loves them. In this installment, Bear gets lost on a walk and becomes frightened. His worried friends form a search party and track him down, take him back to his cave, and snuggle up close..."and the bear feels safe." These books have a lovely rhythm to them which makes them a delight to read aloud; the friendship between the animals is one of my favorite in picture books, ever; and Chapman's art is always note-perfect. This is one series where I find it almost impossible to pick a favorite - you can't go wrong with any of the Bear books. I AM TOO ABSOLUTELY SMALL FOR SCHOOL by Lauren Child. I am not exaggerating when I say that Molly is completely obsessed with Charlie and Lola. The whole phenomenon began with this book and two others and ballooned into a TV show with accompanying merchandise. I was careful to hook her on the 3 originals (this one plus I WILL NEVER NOT EVER EAT A TOMATO and I AM NOT SLEEPY AND I WILL NOT GO TO BED) before ever letting her learn about the show. We now own the whole series on DVD (and it is actually wonderful), but the other books (all based on TV episodes) are for library checkout only in our house. Anyway. In this book, Lola is about to begin school and she is quite nervous about it. She comes up with all sorts of charming reasons why she doesn't need to learn to count above ten ("I never eat more than ten cookies at one time") or write letters to her friends ("I like to talk on the telephone. It's more friendly and straightaway"). Eventually her long-suffering older brother Charlie convinces her to go so she can keep her imaginary friend, Soren Lorenson, company on HIS first day of school. Of course everything is fine - amusingly, charmingly, Britishly fine. (Thanks to the TV show, Molly frequently talks in a British accent now. It is hilarious.) If you have missed Charlie and Lola in your household, try one of the fabulous original three books. I'd skip the others in favor of actually watching the show, because it is absolutely delightful. I'll do another installment soon!

LOOKING AHEAD: Reckless by Cornelia Funke

(review by Sarah) When it comes to Cornelia Funke, I have no critical faculties.  I can't lie; I love what she does.  I love her picture books, I love her middle-grade novels, and I love her young adult novels.  I marvel at how she writes in German and then really smart, clever people come along and translate her words, and then she reads the translations, which just boggles my mind.  I adore how she allows her novels to unfold, sometimes even somewhat slowly, which is the antithesis of so much of what I read in contemporary children's fiction.  Cornelia will make you wait, but she will make the wait worthwhile. Our dear Melissa very bravely stormed the crowds at BEA and snagged me a gorgeous hardcover ARC of RECKLESS, which is Cornelia's first novel published by Little, Brown.  Although I was dying to read it, I chose to wait until a week arrived where I had ample time to not just read it, but to savor it.  Remember Charlie Bucket and the Wonka Bar he got for his birthday, and how he made it last for weeks?  Well, I'm not as patient as Charlie, but I swear I made myself dole out the last hundred pages of RECKLESS over several days, which took great self-control on my part.  Why did I love it so much?  What is RECKLESS all about?  Read on, but I may drop a spoiler or four along the way, so consider yourself warned. The setting:  modern-day-ish Europe.  Doesn't really matter where.  We meet Jacob, a young boy exploring his father's study.  Everything is covered with dust; his father is long gone.  ('Gone' is the operative word here, as his father is missing, not dead.)  Jacob examines a curious mirror in the study, and through the mirror, he discovers another world on the opposite side.  Funke fans may feel echoes here of the INKHEART books, where the world beyond ours seems all the more real, but just as the Inkworld was a dangerous place, the Mirrorworld holds its own temptations as well as nightmares.  We flash forward to years later; Jacob is now a very experienced treasure-hunter in the Mirrorworld (and has the scars to prove it), and his younger brother, Will, seeks to leave the real world to follow Jacob in the fairy-tale-esque land beyond the mirror.  Their time together takes a disastrous turn, however, when Will is attacked by a Goyl, a humanoid race made of stone.  The vicious blow starts a chain reaction in Will's body; he is slowly turning to stone.  Jacob, who has always felt responsible for his younger brother, seeks to find a cure, but in the Mirrorworld, nothing comes easily, and everything has a price. Jacob is immediately likable; he, like his last name suggests, is reckless, and has a bit of an Indiana Jones/Han Solo thing going on.  He's smart, charming, worldly-wise, and yet he's tormented by a childhood without a father, and runs away from conflict.  Will, on the other hand, stayed in the real world with their mother until her death, and he blames Jacob for leaving them for months at a time with barely a word.  Will also is in love with a young woman named Clara, who is swept along by the Reckless brothers into the Mirrorworld, and she displays a remarkable amount of courage on the journey.  What's interesting is that Jacob and Will aren't really even teenagers anymore; they're actually young men, and I was really impressed with Cornelia's choice to make her characters a little older than one usually finds in a young adult novel.  Their ages suited the dark, strange Mirrorworld, and gave me confidence as the novel went along that Jacob especially had the chops to handle the hurdles he faces. I will say I'm not quite sure what age RECKLESS is for.  I believe it's YA at its heart, but that said, I know well-read twelve-year-olds who would read it and love it, and I think I could easily give it to twenty-or-thirty-something friends too.  It's grim at times, and did feature a minor villain with knives for hands that scared the crap out of me.  RECKLESS takes its fairy tale inspirations very seriously; there are indeed witches who eat children, there are spells that will turn you into a tree for hundreds of years, and the unicorns will gore you if you get too close.  Beyond that, there's an entire political struggle (i.e. war) going on between the humans of the Mirrorworld and the Goyl, which culminates in a climactic battle scene for the throne, and even Jacob's connection to a powerful Fairy may not be enough to save his brother.  Will's situation, that of slowly turning into a Goyl, is painful to watch, as he slowly loses his memories of those he loves, as his heart is gradually turning to stone (jade, in his case).  I was entirely invested in Jacob's journey, and Funke's gift for writing supporting cast (particularly Fox, who really intrigued me with her motivations) really shone in RECKLESS. Here's my bottom line:  nobody writes like Cornelia Funke, as far as I'm concerned.  I love her voice because it doesn't sound like anyone else.  She has a remarkable gift for description, and I love how she uses iconic imagery to give insight into her characters (the black moths for the Dark Fairy, the Bluejay for Meggie's father, etc).  I love how she makes me fall head over heels with her stories every time, and even though I never know what she's going to do, I trust her implicitly.  I have been assured by our Little, Brown rep that a sequel is indeed in the works, and for that I'm very grateful, because I'm not ready to let go of the Reckless brothers anytime soon. Note from Melissa: I was hoping Sarah would review this, because I consider her a Cornelia Funke expert in addition to being a super fangirl. I didn't love the INKHEART series, but I love her picture books and THE THIEF LORD and I really, really loved RECKLESS a lot. As an indie bookseller I am very concerned about the price point - it's $19.99, and I can't afford to discount it 33% like the online retailer who would like to put everyone out of business can. $19.99 is a lot to ask a parent to shell out for a novel their kid will likely read in one day (the kind of kid who will read this is the kind of kid who plows through books like a freight train, no matter their length or complexity). Kids' books seem to be increasingly creeping toward this price, and I think it's a big mistake. I also didn't understand Little, Brown's decision to make this ARC a limited edition bound hardcover. Every single shop was going to carry this book anyway, and it was already going to be a bestseller. It's Cornelia Funke. I wish if they were going to spend this kind of money they'd spend it on debut authors who get overlooked.

GIMME A CALL by Sarah Mlynowski

Imagine dropping your cell phone into a fountain, and when you get it back, it's broken - except it's not. Now instead of calling everyone you know, it only calls one person: you, at age fourteen. What would you tell yourself? Once Devi gets her younger self to believe that it's actually her on the phone, she sees the connection as her chance to fix everything that's gone wrong in her life. She convinces YoungerDevi to do everything from study harder (so they get into a better college) to convince OlderDevi's former best friend to not get plastic surgery. And, most importantly, she convinces YoungerDevi not to go out with Brian, the boy Devi spent her entire high school life with; the boy she lost all of her friendships over; the boy who just broke her heart. But there's no perfect way to mess with time, as both Devis quickly discover. Even as the college acceptance letter tacked to the wall morphs into one from a better school several times, the tiniest actions on the part of YoungerDevi affect OlderDevi's life in unexpected (and often horrifying) ways. Now she needs YoungerDevi to fix her present as well as her past - but how far is too far? Will she ever be content with things as they are? I thought this was a great read. Like OlderDevi, I have a list of things I'd like YoungerMelissa to go back and change - in theory. What would I give up from my present life in order to have some things I missed out on because of what YoungerMelissa chose to do? (What a great book club book this is.) The most interesting part of the whole thing, to me, is that I infinitely preferred YoungerDevi to OlderDevi, and definitely saw the merit in YoungerDevi getting to make changes in time to fix her future. There's a lot of humor here - sometimes YoungerDevi's decision whips OlderDevi out of one life and into another with absolutely no notice, to hilarious effect. I wish that OlderDevi had had a more indepth realization that she really screwed up her life - that she did it to herself - rather than just insisting that YoungerDevi fix everything. There are moments of reflection, but I wanted them to go farther than they did. Overall, though, this is a really good read (especially for summer) that will make anyone think about the choices they've made and are making in their life. And with the exception of a little underage drinking, it's clean. I definitely recommend it.

LOOKING AHEAD: JANE by April Lindner

I do not like it when people screw around with worlds and people that I love. WICKED? Literally threw it across the room about a third of the way through (although, inexplicably, I love the musical). Don't write a sequel to THE SECRET GARDEN. Don't make a horrible miniseries about Anne Shirley running off to war and kissing someone who isn't Gilbert. Despite all of this, when I opened the box of ARCs from my Little, Brown sales rep, I was compelled to crack open JANE first. JANE - a modern retelling of JANE EYRE, one of my favorite books of all time. I have no idea where this compulsion came from. Perhaps I wanted to get what I thought might be a book that would tick me off out of the way? Perhaps I wanted to read through it, nodding to myself about how right I was that no one should ever mess around with anything I love? Whatever my motivation, I picked it up earlier today and read through it in a couple of hours. And, surprisingly, I really, really liked it. A whole lot. Lindner repackages Jane as Jane Moore, a 19 year old college student forced to drop out of Sarah Lawrence after the death of her emotionally distant parents. Jane's only real job experience has been babysitting, so she applies for jobs through a nanny agency. She accepts a job as a nanny at Thornfield Park, the palatial home of rock star Nico Rathburn. Recasting Rochester as a rock star works surprisingly well, as it gives built-in charisma to the hero and provides a credible basis for Jane's attraction to him. The story tracks the plot of JANE EYRE pretty closely from there, with Lindner managing to give her characters enough of their own stories and personalities to keep the book from feeling anything even close to a tired retread of a classic. There are times during the book where minor plot points seem a little contrived in order to stick to the basic original story, but nothing large enough to overshadow my overall enjoyment of the book. I have read JANE EYRE upwards of fifty times in my life, and I hope that two things will happen with JANE: other fans like me will enjoy it, and people who have never read the original will after they finish this. This is Lindner's debut novel, and rumor has it that her next will be a retelling of WUTHERING HEIGHTS. I'm fond of that story as well, but Lindner's writing is good enough that I'm looking forward to the day when she's fully telling her own tale. Until that time, I can wholeheartedly recommend JANE - with a warning for those who have kids or students who are reading up: Jane and Nico are adults and their relationship does take a sexual turn. It's not particularly graphic, but it's impossible to mistake it for anything else. There's also a little profanity, but it's not overused. A not so side note: the cover picture in the Little, Brown catalog says "not final," which I think is really, really good news. I hope the cover is changed completely. Right now it shows a girl in a short jacket and a long skirt standing in a misty field and the title is in tall pink letters. It's boring, boring, boring. This is a retelling of JANE EYRE set at least partially in a rock and roll world, and the cover looks like...JANE EYRE. There is nothing about this cover that's going to make someone want to pick it up. There's nothing about this cover that says "Jane Eyre in love with a rock star." This cover says "generic girl-centric fiction, possibly set on the prairie." Little, Brown: please, please change this cover; this book deserves better.