Kidliterate

PLEASE IGNORE VERA DIETZ by A.S. King

When we live through a thing, no matter how hard it is, we still have what matters most -- our life.

A few weeks ago, I heard A.S. King deliver a speech at the Printz Award ceremony in New Orleans. This is something she said in her speech. For fifteen minutes I laughed, wiped away tears, decided I loved her, and asked myself repeatedly why I had not yet read Please Ignore Vera Dietz, a 2010 Printz Honor Book. In her speech, King spoke of life and death, of mothers and fathers, of lies and truth, of daughters and of soulmates. All of these were relative to her own life, but it occurs to me now that these are really what this book is all about, too.

This is the story of Vera Dietz, a motherless girl who dutifully learns her vocabulary words and delivers her pizzas and drinks her vodka and tries to blend in. "Please ignore Vera Dietz" is the message she silently tries to transmit to the world.

Vera's best friend Charlie is dead. Her mother left when Vera was young, and her father stuck around. As we move through the book with Vera, her dad, and Charlie, we slowly learn the truth of what happened with Charlie and how Vera and her dad survive all of this life and loss.

I don't want to tell you too much about this book because it unfolds so slowly and carefully and perfectly, and I want you to uncover its secrets for yourself.

One of the things I will take away from this book is a reminder of the lesson I first learned from The Sound of Music as a tiny girl, what the Mother Superior told Maria: "These walls were not meant to shut out problems. You have to face them. You have to live the life you were born to live." No matter how horrible or uncomfortable or wretched, we have to face the truth of our lives. No matter how crazy and crooked things become, for as long as we're alive, we all have the power to right our own courses. This is one of the many lessons of Vera Dietz.

There were moments in this book where I had to stop reading, close it, and hold the book for my chest and just breathe for a minute. Here is one:

Here's me using the word tandem in a sentence.

We will learn to forgive ourselves in tandem.

--Vera Dietz

I'm doing a lousy job of capturing how funny this book is and how heartbreaking and how really, truly real. Every little detail of what it feels like and is like to be a teenage girl was so vivid and painfully and wonderfully authentic -- I could taste and smell and touch those memories, both Vera's and my own. I'm not even beginning to capture how very much I loved it.

The thing you don't see while you're still there on Earth is how easy it is to change your mind. When you're in it and you're mixed up with feelings, assumptions, influences, and misconceptions, things seem completely impossible to change. From here you see that change is as easy as flicking a light switch in your brain.

--Charlie Kahn

It's so good! It's so good. A.S. King said this in her speech, too:

Our time on earth is far too short to distract ourselves from reality no matter how ugly it is ... something important stayed with me from those few moments I had no mother ... part of me stayed in that immature zone where dreams can come true if you work hard enough, and where reality is exactly as it seems, and where cynicism has little power, and where soulmates can really happen. I am very proud to say I still live in that zone, and I'd like to invite you all over ... you don't have to RSVP ... just drop in when you feel like talking about the truth ... be prepared to laugh. And bring your library card.

She is awesome, and so is her book. Please Ignore Vera Dietz is the best young adult book I've read this year. I will remember it for a long time. And I probably will bug you to read it until you do.

(Special thanks to Sophie Brookover, author of Pop Goes the Library and Printz committee member, for inviting me to the ceremony and for extolling the virtues of this book. I am grateful.)

(Here is King's Printz speech. The video isn't great, but the audio is fine, and that's what matters. I think you will like it. If you hear someone sniffling uncontrollably in the background, it is possibly me.)

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD by Diane Duane

Note from Melissa: Kymm recently moved from NYC back to her hometown of LA, and when she did, she regained her ability to use the library. (We can neither confirm or deny that she may have some outstanding fines in NYC.) She is now busily checking out the first book in every series she's ever been interested in and revisiting old favorites. She'll be sharing her journey with us!) So...here's Kymm!

As I was trolling through the library I found out some really exciting news! There are, since I last checked, two new Young Wizards books by Diane Duane! And you know what that means, don't you? It means that I get to re-read all of the previous books! SO YOU WANT TO BE A WIZARD was published in 1983 and I have probably been reading it since it was new, and every time new books are written I read it again, so I almost know it by heart by now. I always love how many kids books are about loner kids who love books, it's charming to me how many loner kids who love books grow up to write books.

This book is about Nita, a loner kid who loves books, who, while being chased by the bullying rich girls from her school who beat her up on a regular basis, hides in the library and finds the title book, which turns out to be every loner kid who loves books' dream come true, really exactly what it says that it is! She finds Kit, another kid in her neighbourhood who also is learning to be a wizard and they team up to ostensibly find Nita's stolen favourite space pen, but in reality, to save the world. What is wonderful about this series of books is that wizardry doesn't actually solve everyone's problems easily, it makes things harder sometimes, and not everyone always lives through whatever ordeal the book centers around. Nita and Kit, and, in later books, Nita's little sister Dairine, have very honest, distinctive kid voices, written by someone who didn't forget what it was like to be as helpless as a child sometimes is; you may be a wizard and saving the world, but you still have to be ontime for dinner or you get in trouble with your parents.

The Young Wizard books are not only about magic and wizardry and the wonder of talking to animals and plants and cars, but about what it is like to grow up and take responsibility to help, in whatever small or large way we can, to save the world. By the way, the edition that I read this time was the twentieth anniversary edition, which includes a really great afterword by Diane Duane, and a hard-to-find short story from 1986 about a miniature adventure of Nita and Kit. The story isn't a classic, but it's fun to read if you are a completist like me. On to DEEP WIZARDRY! And beyond!

THE WIDE-AWAKE PRINCESS by E.D. Baker

I am so in love with this book. I ordered it on the strength of E.D. Baker's other books, but because I hadn't read it by the time it came out, it sat (as hardcovers I haven't read tend to do). And sat. And sat. For months. Finally in late November I plucked it off the shelf on my way out the door one night and took it home to read. Which I did in two hours. Then I promptly kicked myself - hard, while wearing steel-toed boots - for waiting so long. Oh, the lost income. Oh, the girls who could have read it already. Oh, the time I spent reading things that weren't as good.

Our heroine: Annie, younger sister of Gwendolyn; Gwendolyn's the princess cursed at birth to prick her finger on a spindle and you know the rest. So when Annie's born, her parents are so paranoid that they ask a fairy to protect her. The fairy casts this charm: From this day on, no magic shall touch you or bring you to harm. You'll have to survive on your natural charm. Annie is now impervious to all magic, which is not exactly considered a blessing in a country where everything relies on spells and charms. Everyone uses magic to make themselves "beautiful and graceful and sweet," and most members of Annie's family had been given magical gifts at their births. However, being in Annie's presence makes those gifts fade, so Annie has spent much of her life being held at arm's length by her entire family.

Annie's gift comes in handy when a miniature spinning wheel is smuggled into the palace and Gwendolyn pricks her finger, causing herself and everyone else within the walls to fall asleep - everyone, that is, except for Annie. Because she is the only one untouched by the magic, it's up to her to save her family and her kingdom. With the help of Liam (a Royal Guard who'd gone on a mission to the town and thus missed the spell) and a series of haphazard princes, Annie will outsmart some well-known fairy tale characters, wake up her family and possibly even fall in love.

THE WIDE-AWAKE PRINCESS is FUNNY. What a great read-aloud this would make. I sold a bunch of copies as Christmas gifts and I am going to sell the absolute crap out of it in paperback; there won't be a girl who shops at our store who won't have this book. Annie is a fantastic character - I always need a great book with a self-rescuing princess. Baker weaves a bunch of bits of well-known fairy tales into the story and it's so much fun picking them out. This book is a total romp and I love it to pieces and I can't wait to read it to my daughter someday. Sometimes when I like a book I just keep the galley, but this one? I'm buying it in hardcover.

(Oh! And the cover! Thecoverthecoverthecover! I LOVE the cover. The galley had a photo cover and I am SO. OVER. photo covers and when the book came I was so happy to see they'd changed it! Yay!)

LOOKING AHEAD: The Emerald Atlas by John Stephens

Hold on to your hats, middle-grade fantasy fans: 2011 is here. Brandon Mull's back with a new series; Catherine Fisher's got a summer series coming over from England; and you're about to meet a guy named John Stephens.

I don't use the word (okay, fake word) unputdownable very often, but I suspect you might hear it a lot over the next few reviews because I was really, really lucky with the last three or four books I read. THE EMERALD ATLAS was - you guessed it - unputdownable.

Ten years prior to the book's start, for reasons they have never understood, Kate, Michael and Emma were separated from their parents and sent to one orphanage after another. After a brief but awful time at the Edgar Allen Poe Home for Hopeless and Incorrigible Orphans, they are sent far away to the desolate town of Cambridge Falls to a new orphanage run by a man named Dr. Stanislaus Pym. Strange things happen - Kate has a disturbing dream of Dr. Pym's house before they even see it; there are no other children at the orphanage; and Abraham, an odd, elderly employee of Dr. Pym's, for some reason gives Kate a black and white picture taken in Cambridge Falls fifteen years prior. They are left to their own devices, and while exploring, find a door that appears out of nowhere. Behind the door is a strange study, filled with books and instruments and an old, green leather-bound book.

Michael takes a Polaroid picture of the study, and then opens the green book. He believes it to be a photo album, takes out the picture Abraham gave Kate, and places it in the book - and as soon as he does that, the children are transported back in time to the place pictured in the old photo. Now they're on the run (in the past) from the Countess, who's kidnapped all the children of Cambridge Falls to force their parents to work for her. She's looking for the Emerald Atlas, and when she learns about Kate, Michael and Emma, she's looking for them too. With the help of Dr. Pym, Abraham, the mysterious Gabriel and a whoooooole bunch of dwarves, the children fight to keep the Countess and the Atlas apart, save the children, get back to their time and figure out what all of this has to do with their parents.

It is hard to summarize the beginning to a fantasy series like this, because there is SO MUCH GOING ON. Stephens cleverly weaves together past and present and several different storylines and magic and mischief and humans and dwarves and it could be head-spinningly confusing, but it's NOT. The world-building is skillfully done. This is a book I can give to a lot of different people - boys and girls; elementary and middle-grade. It's clean and the scary parts aren't too scary (but they're enough scary) and the violence isn't too violent. It's going to be a terrific read-aloud, too. Kate, Michael and Emma each have their own very distinct personality, but they have an incredibly tight sibling bond. Each gets their own separate adventure in THE EMERALD ATLAS, and the separate adventures are as well done as the main story. This is just SUCH a good book, such a classic fantasy story of the kind that there are never too many of. I predict a big fan following springing up around this one, and can't wait to read the rest of them myself.

LOOKING AHEAD: The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson

About six years ago, I fell in love with a book--hard.

Sarah and I sped through it like madwomen; I got my first blurb on the Indie Next List for it; and then it came out and we sold it. And sold it. And sold it. We handsold that sucker to every teen girl and teen girl's mom that walked through the door, and over the years, we've continued to handsell it (first together, and now apart...sniff). That book was THIRTEEN LITTLE BLUE ENVELOPES by Maureen Johnson, and it remains one of my favorite YA novels ever. 

So when the ARC of THE LAST LITTLE BLUE ENVELOPE showed up in the box from my Harper rep, my heart sank more than a little. TLBE was fine on its own. I didn't need to know what had happened to Ginny. I was fine with her story being finished (or unfinished, whatever). Couldn't anyone leave well enough alone? Why did everything have to have a sequel? One would be better off asking, "Why didn't you just trust Maureen?" Turns out finishing Ginny's story is a good thing. Turns out I'm pretty darn happy to have the sequel in the world.

I don't want to say much, because if you haven't read TLBE, you should read that first. You absolutely have to read it first. If you've read it, you can sleep soundly knowing that our Ginny is back and better than ever. There's a new, strange boy in her life (not by her choice), and he's the one who pushes her out on her new adventure. There's an old boy, too, causing problems. There's a possible new friend and a whole new series of trips to take. Turns out you open up THE LAST LITTLE BLUE ENVELOPE and it's like opening the door to an old friend. Thanks, Maureen, for the sequel I didn't know I wanted until I had it.

MOCKINGBIRD by Kathryn Erskine

Now that I have finished wiping away my tears, I can write about Mockingbird. Kathryn Erskine's Mockingbird is this year's National Book Award winner for Young People's Literature, and even though I've only read one other finalist book so far, I can't imagine a more deserving winner than this.

Mockingbird is about a girl named Caitlin whose brother Devon calls her Scout because he loves the film version of To Kill a Mockingbird. (As one does.) Atticus tells his children, of course, what his father told him, that it's a sin to kill a mockingbird, and his daughter Scout comes to understand that mockingbirds “don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." 

Readers see early on that Caitlin isn't quite like other children, and it's not just because something has happened to her brother. Her brain doesn't work quite the same way that other people's do, and this book is the story of how Caitlin tries to learn how to live in the world and of how the world learns to let her.

Caitlin's brother Devon is gone. Before he dies, he explains this to her about To Kill a Mockingbird: "It's about people. You shouldn't hurt innocent people, Scout. That's what it means." He explains a lot of things to her, and now that he's not around, she is a bit more lost than usual.

There are many lessons that Caitlin's dad and her teachers try to impart to her. How to Look At The Person. How not to have a Tantrum Rage Meltdown. How to understand the emotions on the Facial Expressions Chart, to respect Personal Space, to Get It, to Deal With It, to Talk About It, to Work At It. To understand The Day Our Life Fell Apart.

Caitlin is an artist who prefers black and white to color. She gets along better with books than with people. "Books are not like people. Books are safe." She counts her dictionary, her TV, and her computer among her friends, but no one else. Her counselor, in the effort to help her make friends, sends her on an extra recess, the one with the younger kids, and she meets Michael, with whom it turns out she has something in common.

As part of Let's Make Friends, her counselor also teaches her about making eye contact with people, and how it's all about "finesse," explaining that it means "doing something tactfully and skillfully while dealing with a difficult situation." Caitlin thinks, "I'm surprised I'm only learning this word now. This word is all about me! It's what I'm trying to do every day to Deal With this difficult situation called life." 

This is the little dedication line at the beginning of this book:

In hopes that we may all

understand each other better

There are many things that Caitlin doesn't innately understand. Empathy. Emotions. Figures of speech. Metaphor. But there are things she sees that maybe other people can't sometimes. Like when she looks at someone's face and can tell that his eyes and his mouth don't match. And when she knows to tell her dad what Devon would have told him: "You have to Work At It Dad. You have to try even if it's hard and you think you can never do it and you just want to scream and hide and shake your hands over and over and over."

One of the main things Caitlin tries to understand is Closure, which she looks up in her dictionary, of course: "the state of experiencing an emotional conclusion to a difficult life event." And she sets about looking for her own way to Closure. She and Michael talk about it on the playground.

"What's Closure anyway?"

"It helps you feel better after someone dies."

"Oh. Can I have some?"

"No because I don't have any and I don't know how to get it."

His head droops down. I think this means sad.

"But I'm going to find it."

"Will you share it with me?"

"Okay."

It might be a sin to kill a mockingbird and to kill a brother, but that doesn't mean that mockingbirds and brothers aren't killed. And of the many things Caitlin struggles to understand, that might be the hardest of all.  But somehow people learn to stand what they'll never understand. Caitlin learns this, and she does it with humor and tears, wonderfully, heartbreakingly, and magnificently.

It doesn't come as a surprise to the reader when Caitlin figures out a way to try and get Closure, but it's still totally moving and cool when she does, and it's handled in a way that is totally real. You can work towards Closure. You will still be sad. That is just death, and that is just life. 

And Caitlin starts to realize that “after the hurt I think maybe something good and strong and beautiful will come out of it." And maybe most importantly, she takes steps toward accepting that sometimes it's okay to draw and live in color.

This little book that I love knows that for Caitlin and her dad and their community -- and for each of us, no matter what that day is — nothing can change The Day Our Life Fell Apart. It also knows that, beautifully and mercifully and little by little, they -- and we all -- can work on Putting Our Life Back Together.

I love this book for reminding us of that.

OKAY FOR NOW by Gary D. Schmidt

I have read The Wednesday Wars at least four times, and I have not tired of it yet. I doubt I ever will. It is wonderful. I recommend it to everyone I know. It is about a boy named Holling Hoodhood, and it is the best book about real things, real people, and real life that I have read in years. I wrote about it for Kidliterate last summer. When Melissa sent me an advance copy of Okay for Now, also by Gary D. Schmidt, I was excited because of how much I loved The Wednesday Wars, but I had no idea what it was about. I always read whatever Melissa sends me and have for about ten years now because I inevitably love it. She sends me books with sticky notes on the covers: "You will love this." She is never wrong.

I had to take a few months to process it before I could actually sit down and write this today. This book affected me deeply, and I loved it very much, and it is my favorite book of the year, even though, since it's set for publication in the spring of 2011, it is technically my favorite book of next year.

So. Doug Swieteck is only a minor character in The Wednesday Wars, but Okay for Now is his story and the story of the rest of the Swieteck family, including Doug Swieteck's brother, who's always referred to in The Wednesday Wars as "Doug Swieteck's brother" and who's infamous for his colossal jerkery.

It doesn't take a very long glimpse into life in the Swieteck household to understand what makes Doug Swieteck, Doug Swieteck's brother, and the rest of the Swietecks tick. It's not a happy or an easy place to grow up. The eldest brother, Lucas, is serving in the Army in Vietnam. Not helping matters much is the announcement early in the book by Mr. Swieteck that the family is moving from Long Island to an upstate paper mill town, a town Doug instantly hates.  He names their house "The Dump." Doug hates a lot of things, or at least acts like he does.

There are a few places Doug could have ended up when starting to explore the town. One of the beat-up stores, or the front stoop of one of the beat-up houses. Lucky for Doug, he ends up at the library. Doug, who's never set foot in a library before, finds this one, and it's marble and lovely. In this library is a glass case with a large book displayed inside, and not just any book. It is a book of Audubon plates, and when Doug sees the print of the arctic tern, it is so beautiful to this "hoodlum in training" that he can't breathe.

And Doug could have met anyone on the library steps. But very lucky for Doug, he meets Lil, whose dad owns the deli and gives him a job. And inside the library, he meets Mr. Powell, who is one of those adults in the world of Gary Schmidt who quietly goes about the business of changing a kid's life. In this case, Mr. Powell does it with the boy with the black hair simply by handing him a pencil.

And so Doug goes along adjusting to life in this new town, visiting the library and dragging ice cream orders in his wagon to the homes of all sorts of strange and interesting people. Doug Swieteck's brother is still a jerk, but of course, there is more to him than we think.

I am not kidding when I tell you that I read this book with tears streaming down my face. It broke my heart, and not because it tells a tragic tale, but because of the way Schmidt captures those moments in life that make your heart shatter into tiny little pieces, not necessarily because you're sad but because you are overcome by the beauty of the moment. Moments that reveal what paintings of birds can teach you about life, and the magic of teachers who believe in lost children and dreams, and the stuff that brothers can be made of, and what it means to call one by his name.

I have always loved this Story People print:

She said she usually cried at least once each day

not because she was sad,

but because the world was so beautiful

and life was so short.

That is why this book makes me cry; that is how this book makes me feel. Like the world is so beautiful and life is so short and it's not just okay for now, it's amazing forever.

To me, there is no better kind of book than that.

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.