A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper (2009)

24th October 1936

I did have several thoughts last night after I put my books away, but they were pathetic rather than profound. They were, I must admit, mostly about Simon Chester, Rebecca’s son (p 15).

This is the first book in The Montmaray Journals series, chronicling the royal family of the small, fictitious island country of Montmaray, located just northeast of the Bay of Buscay.

Sophie begins her journal on her sixteenth birthday. She lives with her uncle, the mad King John, her cousin, the intellectual Veronica, and her sister (who would rather be a boy) Henry. Toby, her charming elder brother is in England at school. Rebecca, the housekeeper, does little house work, spending most of her time caring for the King. But Rebecca’s son, Simon, is the object of Sophie’s ardor.

Few villagers live on the island but when two German’s arrive, their small island life hangs in the balance between the Facists and the Communists.

This book begins slowly, building late toward a faster paced climax/denouemont. It is a book with a lot of atmostphere, gothic overtones, and foundation in history. For me, it slumped in sections and took too long to plod through. I expected something to happen and so little did, until everything came to a head in at the conclusion.

There is a possible incestuous/homosexual relationship alluded to in very loose terms but not explored. Otherwise, it’s a pretty gentle read for the 6th through 8th grade kids. It is on the 2012 Garden State Teen Book Award ballot.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner (2009)

The story begins with Thomas, a young adult, waking up in an elevator, throat sore and dry, mind blank. All he can remember about himself is his name. The elevator opens from above and Thomas hears boys talking… speaking words he doesn’t understand.

He is in the Glade with about 60 other boys who all arrived the same way, via elevator, 30 days apart over the past two years. The boys live together, work together, survive together.

Outside the Glade is the Maze, a labyrinth of sky-high walls wrapped in ivy and inhabited at night by Grievers,  monsterous bio-mechanical creatures that hunt and kill the Gladers.

The Gladers are certain solving the riddle of the Maze, whose walls shift every night while the boys are locked in the Glade, holds the key to their escape. Though food and supplies arrive via the elevator, they long for freedom. But is the world they were taken from worse than the one holding them now? And why were they put in the Glade, memories wiped, in the first place.

Then a girl is sent up via the elevator with a message. Everything is about to change and the boys must escape the Maze.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There are many elements to this story that will appeal to middle school teens: adventure, action, fights to the death. The plot is complex while remaining easy to read which will appeal to high-low readers.

But I grew impatient with the pacing. Very impatient. I actually began yelling at the reader, who was rather good. Insipid! Intolerable! I’ve never felt so impatient with a book!

After a few days reflection, I calmed and recognized my problem. I dislike when characters seem to be motivated without reason. With (apparently) no memory of his life before waking in the lift, Thomas was often compelled by a feeling to act. Even at the end, he/we don’t know anything really. It was infuriating.

Characters also withheld information unneccesarily, just to spite Thomas or drag the whole story out. Again and again, he was ignored or excluded yet somehow, he becomes the hero. I just didn’t buy it.

But will this have a lot of teen appeal? I imagine it already has a following. Read about a possible movie deal at the LA Times. While I really enjoyed Dashner’s 13th Reality series, this one just wasn’t for me.

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han (2009)

Isabelle, nicknamed Belly, lives for summer because she spends every one at Cousins Beach with her mother, her mom’s best friend, Susannah, and Susannah’s two boys, Conrad and Jeremiah.

For Belly, it’s always been Conrad, the older brother two years her senior. Handsome, brooding and a winner at all he attempts, Belly has always loved him. It isn’t until the summer of her 16th year that Conrad notices her though.

Constantly left out of the boy’s activities, this summer promises to be different. For the first time, everyone seems to be noticing Belly, including Jeremiah.

Through flashbacks, readers see key moments from previous summers. But what will it mean for Belly’s future?

This is a light, breezy read that will appeal to chick lit readers. In terms of quality, it ranks closer to the Twilight end rather than the Sarah Dessen end, unfortunately.

Belly, testing the kiddie end of the romance pool, fails to impress, defining herself in terms of Conrad and loving him while I could hardly tolerate him. Conrad’s the guy you get over if you have any sense, not the guy you stick with. You’ll just end up 35 with two kids and no relationship with your husband who is having an affair.

Cam, Belly’s boyfriend for most of the summer and the only upstanding man in the whole novel, gets the shaft. While I’m sure teen girl readers will be pulling for Conrad, I couldn’t help but think this was another vanilla girl desiring the most needy, least deserving character. Blah.

The Garden State Teen Book Award Ballot: Grades 6-8

Last week, I attended a YA section meeting of the New Jersey Library Association. After the meeting, GSTBA readers circled up to determine the ballet for grades six through eight. Here are the titles that made the cut (they will be finalized shortly and, I’m sure posted on the NJLA YA section site):

1. Anything by Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin
2. The Red Blazer Girls: The Ring of Rocamadour by Michael D. Bell
3. All the Broken Pieces by Ann Burg
4. Because I am Furniture by Talia Chaltas
5. A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper
6. The Maze Runner by James Dashner
7. Crossing Stones by Helen Frost
8. The Brooklyn Nine by Alan Gatz
9. My Life in Pink and Green by Lisa Greenwald
10. The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
11. The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had by Kristin Levine
12. The Rock and the River by Kekla Magoon
13. Heart of a Shepherd by Rosanne Parry
14. Lockdown: Escape from the Furnace by Alexander Gordon Smith
15. Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith
16. Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud
17. Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan
18. Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
19. The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams
20. Malice by Chris Wooding

Malice by Chris Wooding (2009)

I took one look at the cover of this book (it protrudes) and knew it would be an easy sell to middle-grade readers but I also immediately underestimated its content, writing it off as all show and no substance. I was delightfully proven wrong.

The opening grabs the reader immediately, with an urban legend scenario. First, a black feather. Second, a twig. Third, a knot of cat fur… The fourth ingredient was a tear (p 7).

When Luke performs the ritual, completed with the words “Tall Jake, take me away,” he is shortly taken away by the cover boy to the land of Malice. The terrors of Malice make it to our world in the form of a comic book. When Seth and Kady, Luke’s best friends, track down the elusive comic, they learn of Luke fate.

Seth longs for an unexplored world. According to Seth:

It was as if there were two worlds for adults, divided by an invisible barrier: the world of the Living and the world of the Dead, The Living dressed up and looked good, and they went out and did things like go to the theater and eat in restaurants. They laughed and sparkled. The Dead drifted back from their jobs every day and sat in front of the TV, and every day they got a bit pudgier and duller, and they only bought cheap, functional clothes because there was no point looking good when you never went out.

Seth looked at his parents, and he was afraid. He was afraid that he was a child of the Dead, and nothing he could do would stop him from turning into one of them (p 37).

Angered by Luke’s end and mesmerized by the possibilities of Malice, he soon summons Tall Jake. It is part prose, part comic book (though the art was the weakest part of the book), this would be an easy sell to Wimpy Kid readers.

This is more than just a good horror (if you liked The Devouring, you’ll love Malice). It is a layered story. Jake only comes for those who believe, those who think they are ready. Some make it out alive. Some die. Some don’t want to leave. I’m already clamoring for the sequel, Havoc.

Anything but Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin (2009)

Jason Blake is anything but typical. Mocked as retarded by his second grade classmates, diagnosed with ASD, Autistic Spectrum Disorder, by doctors in the third grade, and defined by his mother as NLD, nonverbal learning disordered, Jason is just Jason.

It surprised me that this book was just as much an exploration of the writing process (very post-modern) as it was a story about an autistic child who makes a friend online.

While reading, I found myself often wondering why Baskin didn’t apply the lessons her characters were learning to her own writing. More show, less tell (p 44). While School Library Journal called Jason “believable and empathetic,” I thought our narrator was rather dry and over explanatory, though his situation is pitiable and realistic. I couldn’t connect with Jason, while Stork’s Marcello is still milling about in my head.

School Library Journal also praised, “Baskin also does a superb job of developing his parents and younger brother as real people with real problems, bravely traversing their lives with a differently abled child without a road map, but with a great deal of love.” I can agree to this wholeheartedly.

It is clear that Jason’s mother has trouble understanding him as illustrated on page 68:

“Remember, Jason?” she is saying. “Remember those leggings?”
We were both remembering the same thing.
“Those leggings?” I repeat what she has said, so that she will know this.
“No?” my mother is saying. “You don’t? It’s okay. It was a long time ago.

And yet, his father gets him.

“It’s not meaningless to Jason,” my dad said. … “The words. And the letters. Just because you don’t understand their meaning doesn’t mean the don’t have one” (p 47).

This one has also been mentioned on mock Printz lists but it doesn’t top the likes of The Devil’s Paintbox or Along for the Ride in terms of writing excellence.

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing (March 24, 2009)