The Book Review Club - Parched

Parched
Melanie Crowder
Middle Grade

Summer has come and gone so quickly, fortunately packed with a lot of amazing reads. Which made choosing this first Fall review hard! I decided to go with my fellow Vermont College friend and amazing writer, Melanie Crowder's first book, Parched. You might argue that I'll be slightly biased in my review of this work, but this story, from its inklings to final version, won a few prestigious VCFA awards, landed Melanie her agent and first book contract. It doesn't need my bias. It stands... shines... all on its own.

Very succinctly, the story chronicles the struggles of a girl surviving on the parched African savanna and a boy escaping a d(r)ying city in search of water.

In only 160 pages, Crowder develops characters and situations so powerful they have followed me throughout all of my other reads. It's a little bit magical how she does this. It's as if she discovered Hemingway's secret for parsimony. The writing is sparse but fully packed. In some ways, it's as if poetic style has been applied to prose. For that reason alone, if you're looking for tricks of the trade, Crowder's work will keep you up nights deconstructing to figure out just how she does it.

POV is used extremely deftly. Whenever the story follows either child, POV is omniscient/close 3rd. However, this is interspersed with an unusual 1st person perspective from the POV of the main hunting dog. These short chapters are like a raw, direct, honest emotional punch that jolts the reader and pulls them deeper into story.

Finally, this story itself works like a dip into the pool of all the story that is going on around the characters. Crowder shows only what needs showing, while nevertheless belying a sense of extreme depth to her characters.

Spoiler Alert: Dogs do get hurt in this book. Yes, it is another dead dog book. My kids may never forgive me for buying it for them and urging them to read it. Protest signs against parental evilness line the walls of our house. I can think of no greater compliment for Crowder. She pulled them in. She made them care. She made them mourn and KEEP READING.

Move over Where the Red Fern Grows. There is a new contender for greatness. 

For more great reads, stroll over to Barrie Summy's site. She's serving them up cool and refreshing!

The Book Review Club - The One and Only Ivan

The One and Only Ivan
Katherine Applegate
middle grade

Let me say right off the bat that I really enjoyed this book. Really enjoyed it. There were some craft aspects I had my issues with, but the the emotional connection was so complete, it was impossible to walk away from the story unchanged. 

Basic plot - a silverback gorilla, Ivan, struggles to find a way to transfer a new, baby elephant, Ruby, that's been added to the circus mall where Ivan lives to a zoo.

The story is very loosely based on a real silverback gorilla named Ivan who lived in capitivity in a mall for almost 30 years. During that time, our understanding of primate needs grew exponentially until public unrest pressured Ivan's owners to put him on permanent loan to the Atlanta Zoo. Consequently, there's real behind the fiction.

Applegate does an amazing job of creating Ivan's world, bringing unspoken depths to his and the other characters' emotions, and bringing the audience into the world of captive animals. Ivan seems so very real. He has friends - a dog and an older elephant. He has animals he doesn't care for - a poodle. He's well-rounded emotionally. He also has an artistic side that ultimately helps save Ruby. I won't say how. No spoilers! Here is a very character driven story.

Yet, from a craft perspective, I had a little trouble getting through the very beginning of the story. It is intensely introspective and, at times, well, a bit of an expository dump. In Applegate's defense, she somehow had to build the story around this gorilla, but there was a lot of terminology and backstory in the beginning that got a little long. I did listen to this on tape, so length may shorten if one is reading. Still, as a writer, I wondered how the section got left as is. There had to have been a way to change it up some, to add some action to the telling, telling, telling.

On the upside, there is hope fellow writers. One does not have to create a perfectly crafted piece to create a perfectly amazing one.

For other great reads, saunter over to Barrie Summy's website. It's loaded with temptations!

The Book Review Club - Aliens on Vacation

Aliens on Vacation
by Clete Barrett Smith
middle grade

Perhaps it's the alien state of my house under demolition/renovation that made me identify so completely with the shock David experiences when his grandma's B&B turns out to be a hotel for aliens. Others might argue it's that I have a teenager in the house, a veritable alien in our midst. Could be both.

Not to mention the excellent writing.

Basic premise: Twelve year old David, a.k.a. Scrub, spends the summer with his fraternal grandmother in the Pacific Northwest, far from his home in Florida. His grandmother lives in a sleepy little town well of the beaten track and David is sure summer is going to be majorly boring...until he discovers his grandma runs a hotel for aliens vacationing on planet Earth.

Let the fun begin!

Every dressed up an alien to "go native" on planet Earth?
How about bought groceries for them?
Or played a game of b-ball?

Scrub's life isn't all fun and games. Sheriff Tate suspects more goes on in the Intergalactic B & B than meets the eye. Seven foot guests and Scrub's ginormous squid "pet" he takes for walks have gotten his attention. They've gotten Amy, his daughter's, attention, too. She hides in the bushes to catch the truth on film. Scrub does his best to keep Amy from the B&B to protect his grandma's secret, but Amy isn't so easily put off. She's a space buff. Plus, she's friendly. And, well, Scrub kinda likes her.

This is a fun science fiction romp bursting with creativity and imagination. My daughter would NOT let me stop reading at night. And when we finished, the first words out of her mouth were, "When's the next book coming out?" She is in love with this series. She wants to email the author every other day as if he were her buddy.

What's really great for the adult in me is that there is meat to the grammar and word choice of this story. It's a great transitional book for kids who do chapter books but are ready for more demanding novels. The story keeps them entertained while challenging their linguistic and comprehension skills.

From an author's perspective, I really enjoyed the close third POV. At times, I forgot the book was in third person. It felt that much like first person. Which is really another reason it works so well as a transitional, tweenish book for kids graduating on to harder reads.

The one thing I wasn't completely sold on was the ending. I like them short and sweet. The last chapter ends that way, but then there's an epilogue. I think the story stands well without it, but I'm hashing literary hairs. It certainly doesn't make the piece any less fun to read. And given the fact that my daughter never wanted me to stop, it was helpful for her to fade away, rather than cut.

For more Spring flings, hop over to Barrie Summy's site!

The Book Review Club - Goblin Secrets

Goblin Secrets
William Alexander
middle grade

It's been a while since I've really sunk by teeth into the craft of a book, partly because I listen to so many audio books and it really is a different experience. However, I read Goblin Secrets out loud to my eleven year-old. It was our evening reading book. I will readily admit that my craft feelers were more fine-tuned than when I read a book that hasn't won The National Book Award. Spoiler alert - my expectations are higher for award winners.

Very briefly, the story is about an orphaned boy, Rownie, living in a magical world that includes goblins, who were once humans who have changed, machines that use the hearts of anything from fish to humans as fuel, and mechanical creatures that are also part organic.

Rownie wants to find his brother, we discover somewhat into the story. He starts out the "grandchild" of a witch but runs away and joins a troupe of goblins, who, it turns out, are also looking for Rownie's brother. They eventually find him. He's been turned into a puppet, i.e. his heart has been removed and with it, his will. Rownie, however, saves his brother and keeps the river from flooding the city of Zombay.

This story is packed with creative imagination in a wholly invented world like nothing I've ever experienced before. For exactly that reason, I would have loved a little more world-building. I was left wondering about the shape and breadth of this particular world. Tolkien set the bar so high when it comes to world-building. In this book, world-building was more of a sketch. We are left with many incomplete ideas. How does a person become a goblin? Why is acting outlawed? How do the hearts fuel stuff? Who is the mayor? How did this world come to be? Why are the goblins looking for Rownie's brother? What are dust fish? How do they exist? Can you eat them? Are there other magical creatures, or just goblins? Why goblins?

Does it really matter?  My eleven year-old didn't worry about all this. She was perfectly content with the world as it stands.

Desire lines were there, but also a little under-developed. For instance, Graba craves power so she dislikes the goblins, who have their own kind of power. This could be developed more. As it stands, it's very archetypal. It works, but there isn't much meat there. This is typical of many desire lines, including Rownie's. He wants to find his brother, but that doesn't come out until a few chapters into the story, and as such doesn't feel like THE heart's desire of the book exactly.

Of course, as with any good story, weaknesses are easily forgiven if we're swept into the fictional dream and stay their voluntarily. I was and I did. This book deserves to be read not just because it sweeps the reader into that dream but because there is enough, both good and bad, crafting to make the writer think and learn.

For other great winter treats, slide over to Barrie Summy's website!

The Book Review Club - The Mighty Miss Malone

The Mighty Miss Malone
Christopher Paul Curtis
Middle grade

After all the fiscal cliff diving the United States media has practiced in the last forty-eight or so hours, this book seems incredibly fitting to review. Christopher Paul Curtis revisits the height of the Great Depression in Indiana/Michigan - site of his Newbery-winning Bud, Not Buddy - in The Mighty Miss Malone.

The story follows the lives of twelve year-old Deza Malone, her brother Jimmie and parents Peg and Roscoe as their lives spiral downwards into shanty town destitution after Deza's father leaves town to find work, her mother loses her job, and the family, their house.

What happens to a family torn apart by poverty? The Mighty Miss Malone draws a very stark picture. It's not so stark that a young audience will feel overwhelmed, but it is very eye-opening. I watched the effects on my daughters every morning on the way to school (we listened to this book on tape). The enlightenment that life can be very very different, was and, today, is for over fifteen million children nationwide reflected on their faces many mornings.

Curtis provides both a forward and an afterward, first grounding the story in the roots of unshakable family bonds and then providing hard-hitting facts such as the number of children living below the poverty line in the U.S. today. He does a good job of weaving a story that entertains, awakens curiosity and provides information.

From a craft perspective, The Mighty Miss Malone, while solidly built upon characters so real I feel  as if I've met them before in my life, follows a plot that is less satisfactory and somewhat random. This could be meant to reflect the very real randomness which wreaks havoc on the lives of so many living at the edge of or in poverty. However, this randomness makes the ultimate resolution to the family's financial woes almost like a deux ex machina. Again, in many ways, finding work during the Great Depression may very well have felt like a deus ex machina. I remember my dad telling me stories about his grandmother, mother of ten children during the Depression, walking down the street and finding a dime and breaking down into tears because she didn't have any money to buy food until she found that dime. So take my comments with that grain of reality salt.

Add to that, however, that Deza does very little to change her plight, unlike Bud, in Bud, Not Buddy, who himself strikes out to find his lone surviving relative. Nor does she solve the internal, emotional struggle, i.e. reuniting the family. Does it matter? Because both the external and internal problems are solved by someone other than the main character, those resolutions are not as intense, nor do they feel as earned. Deza, like the main reader, is along for the ride. We feel with her. We feel acutely. Curtis does an excellent job with that, but we don't ultimately feel satisfied with the story's resolution because Deza hasn't done much to make to it happen. She's suffered, but her suffering doesn't buy her the golden elixir. It's suffering that could continue on indefinitely if someone else (both her mom and her brother) hadn't bought the golden elixir with their actions. Ultimately, it's a bifurcated hero's journey with many hero's solving problems, but none of them is the main protagonist.

Don't let that stop you from reading The Mighty Miss Malone. It's a story worth reading, a time in our history worth revisiting. Maybe if a few members of Congress were to do so, fiscal cliff diving might take on an entirely different meaning.

Oops. Mixing politics with book reviews. Bad, bad reviewer!

For other warm winter reads, plow on over to Barrie Summy's website. Happy 2013!

The Book Review Club - Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity
Elizabeth Wein
YA

I have the very distinct impression I may be coming a little late to the Code Name Verity fan club, it's that good. Nonetheless, I can't not write about this story either. It's that riveting. It's historical fiction solidly based in history. It's storyline is so genuine, the reader is left wondering, "did it really happen"? Yet its characters are so relatable to today's young adults, there is no disconnect due to time period. Plus, the author put together an amazing author's note that explains what's real and what's not.

Basic plot line - two young British women, one a pilot, the other nobility, become friends while working in the British war effort. Queenie, the Scottish noble, becomes a spy whom Maddie, the pilot, flies her - as well as broken and repaired planes, other spies, soldiers, etc - around England and ultimately, over the Channel to France, where Queenie is caught and interrogated - first half of the book. The second half is about how Maddie, who had to crash land in France, tries to escape back to England.

The book is brimming over with fast-paced plotting and harrowing, edge of your seat, reading. 

The format is interesting in that it is essentially a journal novel written from Queenie's and Maddie's POV. By alternating POV, the reader gets a more well-rounded, yet intimate viewpoint of what is going on both behind enemy lines and allied ones.

One of the aspects of the writing that most appealed to me is that Wein made each character human. That is, each has wants and desires, both abominable and universal. It's an interesting aspect to this particular novel. It wasn't easy to hate anyone flat out, except one secondary, but high-ranking Nazi official. Wein did a great job of character development, and in so doing, in bringing to life the intricacies of war and how enemy and ally aren't as one-dimensional as the history books of my young adult years painted them. The effect is something akin to that of The Reader, remaining long after the story itself is finished and begging for further discussion.

For other great Fall diversions, stop by Barrie Summy's website!

The Book Review Club - The Buddha in the Attice

The Buddha in the Attic
by Julie Otsuka
Adult

There is a dark truth about writers. When we read good stuff, we get itchy fingers. Yep, we are word thieves, looting others work for nuggets of amazingness. My fingers weren't just itching by the time I got done with The Buddha in the Attic, they were all aflame.

Why, pray tell? Otsuka pulls off what few have pulled off well - the perfect first person plural POV story. Can you believe it? An entire story told in first person plural, as in - "On the boat, we were mostly virgins." Or - "That night our husbands took us quickly. They took us calmly."

At this point, I should probably sum up the plot - this book is about mail order brides from Japan in early 20th century U.S. - lest you get the impression this is the eastern version of Fifty Shades of Grey. It's not. It's that rare literary creature - high concept that is literary. Otsuka proves they are not mutually exclusive terms.

Otsuka also seems to know instinctively exactly where the plural first person POV can begin to wear and breaks it up with short, individualized experiences - "He's healthy, he doesn't drink, he doesn't gamble, that's all I needed to know." They give the story traction since much of it works like a Greek chorus chanting en masse. The effect is to make the experiences of the thousands of mail order brides represented in this story a conglomeration of infinite, unique facets that blend into one voice retelling history.

So, if you are looking for a meaty read, or your fingers are itching for a good steal, get The Buddha in the Attic. It won't disappoint.

For other great Fall harvests, skip over to Barrie Summy's website. The gourd of good reading is overflowing this season!