Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key by Jack Gantos (2006)

Joey Pigza is different. He doesn’t want to be different but he can’t help himself: he spins into lockers like the Tasmanian Devil, eats an entire shoo-fly pie, jumps from the roof of a barn and swallows his house key before he even realizes what he’s doing.

His decisions are made instantanously and sometimes result in injury to himself or others. It doesn’t help that his parents abandoned him and his elderly grandmother is unfit to care for him.

Then, his mother returns and, after an accident at school, Joey gets the medical attention he needs.

Jack Gantos is not only an excellent writer, he is a fabulous story teller. The audio version of this excellent book about an ADHD boy is one of few I have enjoyed. I as tough on readers as I am on authors, but Mr. Gantos excels at both!

Audio CD | Library copy | Listening Library | 2 hours and 58 minutes | ISBN 978-0807220030 | $22.60

Stick by Andrew Smith (10/11/2011)

Half my head is quiet.

 I was born this way.
Most people don’t notice right away, but once they do, I see their faces; I watch how they’ll move around toward that side–the one with the missing part–so they can see what’s wrong me with.
So, here. Look at me.

I’m ugly.

I’d like to preface my summary and review with a sentiment. I was enthralled by this book. Completely. I read it in one sitting.

Stick isn’t his real name. It’s Stark McClellan but everyone calls him stick. He’s thirteen-years-old, six feet tall and, well, a stick. His older brother, Bosten, who is in the eleventh grade, has always looked out for Stick, whether it is protecting Stick from school bullies or their abusive parents. The brothers have formed a loving bond so solid nothing can come between them.

There are many exceptional aspects to Smith’s storytelling. Stick is our first person narrator and the verity of his voice is immediately apparent and consistent.

Things get into my head and they bounce around and around until they                    find a way out.
My mother never talk about my ear. She hardly ever talks to me at all.
I believe she is sad, horrified. I think she blames herself.
Mostly, I think she wishes                   I was never born (p 7).

The prose echo Stick’s thoughts just as his thoughts echo and bounce around in his mind, trapped by his missing part. Stick believes himself ugly – a thought reiterated just often enough that we know it is never far from his thoughts. It is a thought that strips him of whatever fragile confidence he is able to build before the negative external forces in his life tear him down. It colors ever new interaction, magnifying his already meek nature. This is depicted as well as and perhaps even better than other excellent books dealing with physical abnormalities (like North of Beautiful and SLOB).

A Long, Long Sleep by Anna Sheenan (8/11/2011)

The ocean from my dream returned in the form of a roaring surf, which blocked all sound and stopped my breath. Sixty years. Mom and Daddy, dead. Asa, dead. Xavier… my Xavier.
I think I screamed. The last thing I felt as the shadows overcame my vision completely was Brendan’s strong arms catching me as I fell (p 5).

This is a review of an advance reader copy provided by the publisher, Candlewick Press, via NetGalley.

In this science fiction re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty, sixteen-year-old Rosalinda Fitzroy awakes from a sixty-two year sleep when Brendan finds her stass tube in the basement of his apartment complex. His attempt at mouth-to-mouth, fearing Rose is dead, is something of a kiss.

Rose’s status as heiress to the world’s largest company, UniCorp, causes some distress for the current President, Reggie Guillory. Upon her 18th birthday, Rose will own the company but until then, UniCorp owns her.

Readers are introduced to this new world along side Rose.  Her parents, Mark and Jacqueline, died in a helicopter crash while Rose was still in stasis. Her tube was misplaced or lost. She was assumed dead. After so long in stasis, Rose is suffering from fatigue and will be weak for some time.

The Earth has undergone a transformation since her sleep began. The Dark Times wiped out a large portion of the population. Other planets and moons have been colonized. Everything Rose once knew has changed. Everyone she knew and loved is dead. She cannot bear to learn what has happened to Xander.

At first, Rose appears weak, physically and as a character, until, as her past is revealed, a horrible truth becomes evident. She has been the victim of a most cruel form of abuse and neglect.

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

Like Phoebe North, I was at first anticipating a limp, pandering science fiction novel starring a vanilla female character and an irresistible male hero. Sheenan almost looses me here, but she will lure in weaker critics. Then she succeeds in surprising both.

Prior to her long stasis, Rose was in love with Xander. A complicated love, as Rose began seven years his senior but, because of intermittent and prolonged stasis sleeps throughout her childhood the two eventually pass their teen years as peers, best friends, and finally lovers. We learn about this past in tender, heartbreaking flashbacks.

Once out of stasis, Rose’s new life begins. As she sorts out this new world, and her place in it – including a new school – she quickly forms an attachment to the handsome Brendon. From awakening her to befriending her at school, Brendan has been the only caring person since she emerged from her cocoon. When she declares her feelings, the novel really takes a turn. Bren’s reaction is so far from expected:

“Coit!” Bren swore. “Look. Rose. Oh, burn it.” He glanced up at the sky as if looking for strength. “I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression, okay? I wasn’t trying to lead you on. I — I think this is probably my own fault, and there’s probably some kind of… cultural… thing… going on. It’s just that my granddad told me to look after you. I mean, he and Guillory are worried about the company, okay? They just told me to make sure you weren’t… I don’t know. ‘Led astray’ was, I think, the phrase Guillory used (p 136).

In the meanwhile, intermittent passages relate that someone or something is tracking the newly awakened Rose. This proves to be a rather ineffective assassin and Rose’s escapes are a little laughable.

My complaints also run parallel to Phoebe’s. The word substituting (mostly for contemporary curse words) Sheenan uses doesn’t really add too much to the story. I would have rather seen a change in culture reflected in turn of phrases rather than ‘I Comm’ substituting for ‘I know.’

Also, like Phoebe, I found Otto, a blue-toned alien/human hybrid who can transmit thoughts via touch and who befriends Rose, to be one of the most interesting characters (though I kept picturing a Na’vi from James Cameron’s Avatar!).

The relationship between Rose and her parents is the most interesting though, trumping even her romantic relationship with Xander. Here, Sheenan succeeds in creating two of most terrifying and abusive parents in YA literature. Rose is not a vanilla character, she is absolutely damaged. She survives more than one awakening in this novel. To see her, independent and beginning to gain confidence, completes her metamorphoses.

Ultimately, I was surprised to find this a layered story that left me in tears by its oh-so-satisfying end (neither too much nor too little ‘Hollywood’). A sequel may be planned but I find this a satisfying read on its own.

Read other reviews: GalleySmith, I’ll Read Anything Once, Presenting Lenore

I would recommend this to those who enjoyed:

The Queen of Water by Laura Resau and Maria Virginia Farinango (3/8/2011)

“Don’t even think about running away. You’re parents will just sell you to another family. A family who doesn’t treat you as well as we do. Your parents don’t want you anymore. You hear me?” (p 33).

This is a review based on an advance reader copy received by the publisher, Delacorte, an imprint of Random House, Inc. It is slated for publication on March 8, 2011.

Born in an impoverished Andean village in Ecuador, Virginia is sold/given by her parents at the tender age of seven to a mestizo couple, light-skinned and rich and of Spanish origin. Being a longa tonta - a stupid Indian, indigenous - Virginia is their servant, taking care of their two children, the housekeeping and cooking.

The Doctorina - a dentist, teacher and the family’s breadwinner - is controlling and abusive to Virginia, treating her like an animal that needs breaking. Her husband, Niño Carlitos, acts as a father figure to Virginia, even teaching her to read, until she reaches adolescence and he becomes possessive and lustful.

Virginia is a brilliant character. She has such a strength to her. Her situation is not black and white but nuanced. As we travel with her - from a poor small mud hut where her father’s beatings leave her legs scarred and her mother’s cutting words leave her emotionally scarred to the Doctorina’s more elegant apartment in Kuna Yaku, where luxury comes at the price of her heritage -we also travel from childhood through adolescence and into adulthood.

I feel like the water that transforms from a flowing river to a tranquil lake to a powerful waterfall to a freshwater spring to a meandering creek to a salty sea to raindrops gentle on your face, stinging hail to frost on a mountaintop, and back to a river again (p 340).

Readers will identify with her as a defiant child, a servant bent on subterfuge, a wily student who learns in secret, a star-crossed lover, a frightened beauty and finally, an independent thinker and ambitious youth.

The Queen of Water has received a starred review from Kirkus. Read LizB’s review at A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy.

If you enjoyed this, I also recommend:

Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt (4/18/2011)

Lucas laughed. So good. “It sounds like you know what you’re talking about.”
Mr. Powell raised an eyebrow. “I’m a librarian,” he said. “I always know what I’m talking about” (p 349).

When I learned Gary Schmidt wrote a companion to the Newbery Honor book The Wednesday Wars, I was eager to get my hands on it. Fortunately, it was available via NetGalley!

Holling Hoodhood, the protagonist of The Wednesday Wars, appears only briefly in the first chapter as friend to our new narrator and protagonist, Douglas Swieteck.

Doug is the youngest of three boys. A Yankees enthusiast. An artist, though he denies it. Curious and smart but neglected. A skinny delivery boy. Angry but not mean.

Lucas, the eldest, is fighting the Veitcong while Chris spends his time picking on Doug and acting like a jerk, earning him the reputation of town hoodlum. Doug’s father is unstable and blames everyone else for his troubles. All three boys adore their mother though they can’t show it.

The story begins with the Swietecks making a move north to Marysville, NY. Doug is teetering on the brink of change. Will he become violent and cruel like his father or will he find hope in the unlikeliest of places: in the library, in the so-called gym coach, in a spunkie girl named Lil?

Open only on Saturdays, Doug’s transformation begins with an Audubon painting on display in the library. Through Audubon’s paintings, Doug finds the outlet for his emotions. Through Mr. Powell, an elderly librarian, Doug learns how to be an artist.

Doug also takes a job as a delivery boy for the town grocer, allowing him to meet many of Marysville’s inhabitants. As his world broadens, so does his knowledge and influence.

Schmidt’s storytelling is like Audubon’s Snowy Heron painting. It is perfectly composed, with diagonals and intersections unnoticed until one looks closer. It has different planes of action where intersection is inevitable but the outcome unsure. Doug effects all those he meets in unexpected ways. And even in it’s conclusion, Okay for Now, like all Audubon’s paintings, suggests movement/action yet to happen.

“Look at the diagonals the Audubon sets up first,” Mr. Powell said. “Go from the tip of the heron’s feet to the tip of his beak, and you have the first diagonal. But look at the second diagonal. It’s a lot more subtle. He starts at the end of this broad leaf in the upper left, right here, and then brings it down across the top edge of this broad leaf, and the bottom edge of this rise in the shore. And the two diagonals for…” He waited.
“An x,” I said.
“Exactly right. And in the center of that x is…”
“The lake” (p 205).

Now, is it too soon to start talking Newbery 2012? No! This is hands-down a contender. I connected emotionally to it. It’s layered and subtle. The writing is excellent and Doug is so real. So true. So fresh! There are several themes here that are balanced and proportional. All these distinguish it from anything else I’ve read in the last year, making it a Dogear Favorite of 2011.

Read more glowing reviews from: Kate Messner, Kidliterate and Fuse #8. On the flip side, there is a great discussion of Okay for Now‘s Newbery chances on Heavy Medal’s “The Gloves Come Off!” post.

The Water Seeker by Kimberly Willis Holt (2010)

Jake Kincaid was known as the dowser. With a forked branch, he’d made his way from the Arkansas Territory to Missouri, stopping at farms to find water for new wells. His plan was to raise enough money so he could do what he wanted and never pick up a branch again. But the dowsing was a gift. ANd a gift might be abandoned, but it will always be there, waiting to be claimed (p 1).

Magical Realism as a literary genre is characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastical elements in otherwise realistic novels.

The Water Seeker has several elements of magical realism. The most obvious is dowsing. In occultism, dowsing is the use of a forked piece of wood to detect such hidden resources as water, minerals and other treasures.

Jake inherited the ability to dowse for water from his father but turned to trapping to make a living instead. Seemingly resentful of his gift, he dowses for wells only when need be, as folks they settle west into North America during the early 1800s. Unbeknownst to him, Jake passes on this gift to Amos, his only son.

There are also magical elements surrounding Amos’s mother, Delilah, who dies in childbirth. Birds are ever-present around Amos, as they were for Delilah, appear in many pivotal scenes:

• Delilah has just given birth to Amos, with her mother as nursemaid.

“Tell Jake I done my best. Don’t let the baby forget me.”
With that, she took her last breath. The cabin and the world outside the window grew silent. And every bird at Bittersweet Creek flew away (p 9).

• Amos tries to swim and almost drowns.

Amos flapped his arms and kicked his feet. Somehow he managed to reach above again. He looked into the sun. Black dots circled in the sky. Just as he realized th dots were crows, he sank again (p 82).

• When Eliza dies on the Oregon trail, a group of sparrows land nearby.

“Amos felt the need to strike something, and he sat up and swung at them. ‘Get out of here!’ (p 191)”

• There are many more. The wise owl hoots when Amos learns the truth of Rebecca’s death (p 231). His Indian friends are Sparrow Hawk and Blue Owl.

The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan (2010)

“Maybe it belonged to a stonemason, and by owning it, I will receive his strength. Or maybe it belonged to a b-b-baker, and once I run my hands over the leather, I will know how to make b-bread (p 20).

In his first signed publication, The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry, Walter Pater expressed his belief in the intensity of the experience by concluding, “To burn always with this hard, gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life.”

Neftali, a scrawny young boy living in Chile, burns inwardly with such intensity, though he is painfully shy, picked on by his classmates and ridiculed by his father. With his poetic mind and abundant imagination, he transforms the mundane into the extraordinary, allowing him to delight in those things others find insignificant, routine, or even repulsive. He finds a story in every object and peace at placing them in his treasure trove.

Though his mind, always thirsty for more books, is robust, his body is considered, by his father, to be weak and his manner lacking masculinity. The remedies administered by his father are militant, sometimes cruel and always with the expectation of being followed. And so Neftali grows, but not the way expected by his father.

He becomes a master of words, a firm believer of justice and a bullhorn for those without a voice. He stages little rebellions under his father’s iron first until he realizes his dreams. He writes for the common man on common issues, and his books travel “over fences… and bridges… and across borders… soaring from continent to continent” (p 347-50). It is a fictionalized biography of Nobel Prize-winning author Pablo Neruda’s childhood and a definite inclusion on my system’s Mock Newbery 2011 list for its perfect pacing, flawless rhythm, and beautiful language.

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

I picked up the recently reissued paperback version of Sarah Dessen’s fourth YA book, Dreamland. Having read only Just Listen, Lock and Key, and the yet to be released Along for the Ride, I was interested in reading an earlier work and this one seemed like a quick read. I was wrong. Where Along for the Ride had me so hooked I couldn’t put it down, I often set Dreamland down and was almost loathe to continue. But it provoked my anger and I had to finish it.

When Caitlin’s older sister runs away (though she is 18) the summer after high school graduation, Caitlin O’Koren’s life is disrupted. When she meets Rogerson, everything seems to be set right again. Until he hits her. (Read a full summary at Teenreads.com)

My first issue with this book was character inconsistency, something I haven’t seen in the other Dessen books I’ve read. The O’Koren’s spend a lot of time with their neighbors Boo and Stewart. These two are painted as easy-going, vegetarian, hippy-ish, zen-like people. Now examine this comment by Boo, “It’s bad luck to mess with tradition” (p. 38). This immediately jolted me and I thought, “Boo would never say this. It’s so conformist and patriarchal. She is not so unthinking.”

I’m also sceptical about the use of dreamworlds in this book. When Caitlin chooses Rogerson over Mike, it is a crucial moment. She later reflects, “I wasn’t even sure why I’d hung out with them. It had just sort of happened, like everything else in my life. Now, with him, I finally felt like I was making my own choices, living wide awake after being in a dreamworld so long” (p. 94). But was she awake? Briefly. For this is the only conscious choice she makes. Prior to it, she lived in her sister’s shadow. After this choice, her alertness is soon dulled by drugs and her decision making ability totally corrupted and actions manipulated by Rogerson. How long would the abuse have continued if her neighbor hadn’t intervened? If a dreamworld is supposed to represent repose (she wants to meet her sister in the dreamworld), how does that fit with the real life nightmare she sleep walks through?

On the flip side, Dessen knows high school boys. I found her metaphor for Mike spot-on. “Mike was a nice guy but very, very bland. Like a big saltine cracker” (p 53). And Rogerson was the most detailed character. I almost couldn’t help falling in love with him myself. But Dessen’s foreshadowing always kept him at arms length.  Examine the instance when he and Caitlin first meet:

“[Rogerson] raised his chin, backing up, keeping his eyes on me. I stood there, my breath clouding out around my face, as a police car raced by on the road facing us, the siren screaming” (p 51).

Or as Caitlin stands at the door to her house, waiting for Rogerson:

“My mother, on the couch, turned and looked out the window, but she couldn’t see the stoplight, turning from yellow to red again” (p 73).

I also found the sports metaphors (Caitlin uses basketball chants when dealing with Rogerson’s abuse) out of place and oddly jolting (not the cheerleading comments, which I thought were ironically funny).

An excellent discussion guide can be found at the Penguin Reading Group.

The Underneath by Kathi Appelt

Do not be deceived by this cute cover. You see Ranger, the old hunting hound, a calico cat, and one of her two kittens. The are in hiding. In the Underneath, where it is safe. Ranger is tied to the porch by a rusty old chain. No food in his bowl. The calico cat has been abandoned. A man with a rifle walks along the wooden planks above them. They stay in the Underneath.

Stories of the past are told. The old trees tell them. An ancient and magical snake, Grandmother Moccasin, tells them. Stories of the present are told. Ranger sings them. The calico cat warns. Until the past and the present collide.

This is a unique book, beautifully written. It is a difficult book, simply because there is such cruelty. Man and Nature can be such violent things. But two little kittens struggle to survive because there is always hope, and love.

My only detraction is that sometimes, the author misused repetition. Her words went from a gentle lapping to a pounding of tidal waves.

The Underneath is a 2009 Newbery Honor Award winner. It was a 2008 National Book Award finalist.

Almost Home by Jessica Blank (2007)

As a Garden State Teen Book Award reviewer, expect to see a lot of YA book reviews in the coming three months. The first is Almost Home, a book that, like its title and characters, gets very close but never quite reaches its destination.

It is the story of Eeyore, Rusty, Squid, Scabious, Critter, Laura, and Tracy (who ties the characters together). They are homeless teens living on the streets of Los Angeles. Each has a reason for leaving home (abuse, boredom, abuse) and each has a chapter to tell his/her story. The plot is solid. The stories are loosely connected by Tracy.

What doesn’t work is the language. The chapters are told from a first-person perspective but the voices are not unique. Each character thought like the former; their language similar. Their word choice and phrasing when speaking about sex and drugs was too circuitous when I expected these gritty teens to be direct. There was a lot of introspection, which didn’t work for me. I would have liked to see more of their behavior instead of being force fed monologues about how each character feels. For example, the tidbits we see about Squid and Rusty through the narratives of Tracy and Critter are more than revealing enough about how each feels about the group. Their own rantings were too much.

Not as well written as, say, Story of a Girl by Zarr, which I think nailed the lower-middle class perspective and had a great story to boot (not that I am comparing the two plots), but it was an engaging read all the same.

Grade: B.