The Book Review Club - Evil Librarian

Evil Librarian

Michelle Knudsen

YA

The jacket to Evil Librarian by Michelle Knudsen is just too cool. I had to share an image of front and back up, which, incidentally, will be educational for young audiences. Hey Kids, this is what a library book used to look like. It came with a card, and the card got stamped with a date. That's how libraries worked before computers took over.

Or demons. 

In Evil Librarian, Cynthia Rotschild must save her high school, but most importantly, her best friend from the evil scheming of a demon who has come to our world to wreak havoc, but run a very efficient library, complete with informative lecture on the Dewey Decimal system. When said demon takes Annie back to the demon world to be his bride, Cyn sacrifices the love of her live, Ryan, to follow and fight for Annie, all while also heading up the crew for the school's musical, Sweeney Todd. 

This is an action-packed story that nevertheless delves so adeptly into the emotional ups and downs of its main protagonist with a healthy and delightful dose of humor and self-awareness. And it's not so scary I couldn't sleep at night. I am horrible with horror. This is horror done in a way that doesn't scar me. Whew. 

At times, Cyn gets a little carried away with emotional description and waxing on. I found myself spacing now and again, but these moments are short-lived and do not throw the otherwise exceptionally well-balanced piece off kilter. And perhaps, ultimately, are truer to teenage angst and drama than anything else. 

From a craft perspective, I enjoyed how Knudsen both builds suspense and keeps the reader on the edge of her seat. I don't think I ever realized before how much heavy lifting the present continuous can do in that respect. A great example of just how the verb can work for you is on page 321 (if you are still reading those archaic printed books :-): "He's coming, coming closer, and I'm waiting, and everything else just falls away. I'm listening for the call in my headset, waiting for the conductor's baton to drop and I'm ready. And the moment comes." And here is where the text changes to present simple, as well as short, jabbing sentences, that accent the fight scene. It's really a paragraph worth studying for style and craft. Verbs are it!

For more great reads, mosey on over to Barrie Summy's website. She's serving them up hot and tasty!

The Book Review Club - Don't Call Me Ishmael

Don't Call Me Ishmael
Michael Gerard Bauer
MG/YA

If the cold, dreary, dark days of January have blanketed you, this is just the right read. Don't Call Me Ishmael is Bud, not Buddy hilarious and set in Australia, where, currently, it is summer! So pull up a chair and toast your toes on the warmth and humor of this story.

Basic plot: Ishmael Leseur, a Year Nine student (that's down under for ninth grader), suffers from ILS, Ishmael Leseur Syndrome, which is Ishmael's name for his particular brand of adolescent/early teeanage agony. It's made up of a "crawl in a hole" embarrassing story why he parents named him after one of literature's most renowned protagonists, a bully who teases him about said name, a girl whom he is crazy for but who doesn't know he exists, and a group of misfit friends who are constantly getting themselves into embarrassment squared messes.

I discovered this book in, of all things, German (although the author is from and story set in Australia, so no worries, you can easily get it in English). My husband comes from ye olde country and we've raised our daughters bi-lingually, which has meant a lot of audiobooks "auf Deutsch". I chose this title for its length. Shameful, I know, but it was six hours long instead of the meager two so many middle grade German audible books come in at. So there you have it, random parameters (barrage young ears with as much second language as possible) unearthed a humor goldmine.

I wish I could say I know how Bauer does it, but I don't, which is why I've gotten the other two books in this series to get behind his humor trick. He is spot on with adolescent funny. My daughters and I laugh out loud in the car on the way to school every morning. Me, maybe more. The agony of teenagerdom maybe hits a little too close to home for barrel laughs for them. Theirs is more the "somebody else is going through this?!?" ha-ha-whew.

So there you have it. Pick up a copy of Don't Call Me Ishmael and start 2015 off with a good laugh and an uproarious story. For more cheer in these bleak months, check out the reviews on Barrie Summy's website (and pray that groundhog doesn't see his shadow!)

Can You Ever Go Back?

Common wisdom has it that you can never go home again, but what about going back to high school? Last week, I was invited to return to my alma mater, Bishop Kelley High School, and speak at Career Day. I had to chuckle. Were they sure they wanted me, a poor but passionate children's writer? Was I there to scare some sense into all of the artist wannabes?? It is a Catholic school after all.

Curiosity got the better of me, and off I went to high school...again.

It was a liberating experience. First of all, I didn't have to wear the insanely unfashionable uniform anymore. It is a horrid plaid skirt - which doesn't burn if you try to set it on fire as some of us did after senior year. They just melt - white shirt, penny loafers or some such boring, flat shoes, white socks, and, if you're lucky, a thick, itchy red wool sweater-vest. Instead, I got to wear a purple silk shirt, stylish black corduroy pants and insanely high heels. Things were going well already.

I then got to talk to two different, impressionable classes, one of freshman and one of sophomores. I told them all about the joys of writing, as well as the all too important slightly less widely publicized fact that you should not exactly lose that day job once you leap into writing. Huge sigh of relief. They were informed...if they were listening.

I did my best to make sure they were. I assigned homework. Yes, the power of standing in front of the class at my old high school with some modicum of authority had clearly gone to my head. I've done umpteen school visits across the U.S. and spoken to thousands of children. Not once have I ever assigned homework, but last Wednesday, I was on a role. They had to write a single page about what inspired them. It was supposed to get their creative juices flowing. Now, whether they ever did it, I have no idea. But it sure was fun - guilty fun - to assign it. I know. I'm evil.

I also - ah, this really was great - got to call my teachers by their first names. I'm 39 mind you, but I still have to jump over my own shadow to do that. It's all that Catholic upbringing, I guess, but I rose to the occasion. The scary part was, though, that I've been gone long enough, most of the people who taught me have retired or moved on. Okay, not so cool.

My talks went well, I think. Nobody hated me. They even, the dispassionate, too cool for the world high schoolers, laughed and participated in my talks. For me, that made the day a success.

All in all, it wasn't such a bad experience, although I have to admit, the highlight for me was walking out of those hallowed halls where I sweated math, English, social studies, and German for four painful years knowing that high school is forever behind me. I know. I know. Some people loved high school. For me, it was torture - old enough to know about all of the other things out there that I wanted to do, but not old enough to actually do them. I was utterly relieved by the knowledge that I don't have to manuever the halls, worry about which boy likes me, whether my make up looks decent, if I'll pass that calculus test on Friday, whether I'll ever finish Anna Karenina, PSAT, SATs, ACTs, AP English, academic decathlon, cross country quarter sprints, interviews for journalism, applications, and if I'll actually go to a decent college. I did. It all worked out. Thank God.

Nevertheless I did learn that you can go back to high school...for a day. You can try and tell those stuck in the craziness of adolescence, it will all get better. Will it make a difference? Who knows. But you can let them in on the greatest secret...there's an amazing world just waiting on the other side of those glass doors. All you have to do is make it through them.