Kids Lit
Books and More for Children and Teens

Peeled by Joan Bauer.

Bauer does it again with this engaging story of a young journalist who faces off against her own hometown paper.  Hildy Biddle knows how to stand up for the truth.  Her father was a newspaperman before he died and she has grown up to be very like him.  When a house in their community is declared one of the most haunted places in the state, all sorts of strange things start happening, all attributed to the ghosts.  Hildy and her friends on the high school paper refuse to accept the tales being told in the local newspaper and continue to ask questions.  But how will she reveal the truth once the high school paper is shut down?  Can the truth be heard?

Hildy is a grand female character, gutsy, funny, smart and determined.  Best of all, she is not the stereotypical smart-girl who lacks romance.  Instead Hildy has a string of ex-boyfriends and a boy she has her eye on.  This adds to her believability and strength as a character.  Additionally, the secondary characters are well-written and complete. 

Bauer also uses her ability as a writer to present readers with tough situations through clear language and a thoughtful approach.  As Hildy grabbles with the ethical dilemmas of revealing truth, so does the reader.  Bauer allows the reader to learn, question and think on their own.

Highly recommended for teens, this book contains no sexual content and could easily be used in classrooms with teens. 

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Saga by Conor Kostick.

This is the sequel to Epic, one of my favorite science fiction novels from last year.  While Erik and his character appear in the story, it is really much more about the cyberpunk world of Saga, a video game that has evolved from being a simple game to really being a world populated with living entities.   Ghost woke up six years ago with no memories of her previous life, now she lives outside of the world of colored cards and status that make up the society of Saga.  She is virtually invisible except that situations keep pushing her to the fore.  When people around her begin arriving and then disappearing, she and her friends begin to realize that they are living in a game.  The Dark Queen, ruler of Saga, begins to use the human visitors to her own ends, working against the changes that Ghost would like to see in the society and worsening the conditions of most of the population.  It may take working together with the unknown humans against her own kind to solve both the problems of Saga and the questions of her own identity.

Another thrilling ride of a book, taking on a genre of video games with the skill of a master.  Just as he captured the spirit of fantasy gaming in Epic, Kostick has created the feel of a vivid cyberpunk world here.  The writing is crisp and accessible, welcoming readers into the world.  The characterizations are multidimensional and fascinating.  The heroes have dark sides and the villains have softness.  Even in his Dark Queen, Kostick has created a true villain but someone with depth and logic. 

Readers who loved Epic will be jumping to read Saga.  It will not disappoint those video game players in your library.  In fact, if you circulate computer games or have gaming programs, I'd advise hand-selling these in those spots.  The kids will thank you.

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Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr.

The sequel to the amazing Wicked Lovely tells the story of one of Aislinn's human friends who doesn't know anything about the faeries living around them or that Aislinn is now Queen of the Summer Court.  Leslie is a girl whose life has turned upside down, her mother left, her father turned inward, her brother deals drugs, and she was sold as a sexual favor to cover his debts.  She is damaged but not broken as she turns to a tattoo to restart her life, declaring her body her own again.  But it is not that simple, because Rabbit, her tattoo artist has ties to the Dark Court and Leslie finds herself slowly drawn into their fight for survival through the very tattoo she thought would mark a new beginning of freedom.

The world building here is exquisitely done.  Marr takes the world she built in Wicked Lovely and makes it deeper, darker and more intense.  Her writing is skillful, drawing you into the same web Leslie is trapped in.  By the end there is such a sense of claustrophobia and control that it is almost hard to breathe, but equally hard to put down.  Masterfully done.

I enjoyed Leslie as a heroine throughout the novel.  She is tough but still somehow vulnerable, wise but naive, and these qualities make her all the more intriguing and human.  Equally well portrayed are the two faeries Niall and Irial who struggle to not fall for Leslie but fail.  The Dark Court could have been chillingly callous and cruel, but Marr has managed to make them multi-dimensional and even allows readers to have some understanding of their motives and emotions.  It is a delicate balance that Marr achieves and that lies at the heart of the success of this novel.

Highly recommended for readers of the first novel, this book will fly off the shelves and into the hands of teens everywhere.

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The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart.

Released March 25th, 2008.

Frankie is a sophomore at a private boarding school, Alabaster.  As a freshman she was invisible to the popular crowd, although her older sister had introduced her to everyone multiple times.  But now with a fuller figure, she gains the attention of Matthew, a very cute senior.  Frankie starts going out with Matthew but becomes more and more worried about what exactly he sees in her beyond her body.  When she discovers that Matthew and his friends are part of a secret all-male society on campus, she waits and waits for him to tell her about it.  But when he doesn't, Frankie takes matters into her own hands and makes the Loyal Order her own with a blend of modern technology and classic pranks.

Lockhart pays homage to Wodehouse with her writing style and delivery, offering a classic feel to the prose but also a broad sweep of caustic humor.  It is this humor and the sharp tongues and wit of the characters that bring the book to life.  The cleverness of the dialogue is marvelous to see as is Frankie's pride in her own intelligence.  Frankie is one of the brightest and unexpected of heroines.  Her inability to play by the rules is refreshing as is her refusal to be simply a girlfriend while the boys have all of the intrigue and fun.

Recommended for other smart teens who will enjoy the wordplay, humor and wit of the book.  You may see a run on Wodehouse after they read this!

Visit E. Lockhart's website and blog for information on her books, appearances and more.

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A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce.

Drawn in immediately by the cover image, I found myself captured by the intricate world I entered and the strength of the characterizations.

Charlotte Miller's father has just died and she finds herself as a young woman with a younger sister caring for the family's woolen mill.  Without a male running the business, she fights for respect among the other millers and within the textile industry.  Threatened with ruin when a mortgage on the mill is discovered, she turns to a strange man who simply appears and offers to spin straw into golden thread in return for her deceased mother's ring.  Charlotte fights to ignore the strangeness of the mill, the string of deaths of boys in her family, and her own growing knowledge that something dark and horrible happened in her family's past. 

I am often not a fan of retellings of tales like Rumplestiltskin as teen novels, but this one really works, primarily because the setting of a woolen mill is so vibrant and moves the story along a different line.  Bunce has created not only one strong heroine, but the younger sister serves as a foil for Charlotte, allowing readers a second strong female character to enjoy.  But neither girl is a saint.  They both have their own problems, personality quirks, and their own responses to desperate times.  It is their humanity that breathes such life into them.

This book engulfs the reader, spinning such a tale of curses, death, courage, cunning and strength.  Bunce has created one of the best fantasies of the year with her first book.  I look forward to seeing what her next one will bring us.

Highly recommended for lovers of fantasy and dark tales.  Don't sell this as a retelling of Rumplestiltskin, rather let the cover speak for the treats that await inside.

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Season of Ice by Diane Les Becquets.

Genesis' father is a logger and gets extra work repairing docks on the lake.  But one day he heads out to repair a dock and disappears.  His truck is left on the shore, his boat is found floating in the lake with the life preservers still inside, and all Genesis is left with is questions and no answers.  When the lake freezes over for the winter, the search is called off and answers are very hard to find.  There are rumors that her father faked his death to leave her stepmother behind so Genesis begins the process of tracking down the people in her father's life from the logging camp.   She will find answers on the way, but what answers will they be?

This gripping book of loss, grief, anger and confusion takes a very strong heroine and turns her world completely inside out.  She finds herself doubting everything her life before her father's disappearance had been based on.  Everything that she loves, enjoys and plans is now suspect.  There is such tension in this novel, such anguish and loss that is channeled into places beyond grief.

Les Becquets has a way with imagery that captures the setting within it:

My father was sitting on the sofa in front of the pellet stove, his body sunken into the cushions as if he was all banked in for the night.

And in this passage from later in the book, you can see her skill with powerful emotions:

Her hug wasn't tentative this time.  She grabbed me like she might have five years ago.  Grabbed me and held me to her like I was the best friend she'd always had, and in that embrace, I felt more than just the shoulders and back of my friend.  I felt everything -- past, present, future, all bundled up, concentrated into one small space.  I wasn't just holding on to Annie.  I was holding on to a desire for some sort of promise, for some piece of higher ground in my life, for a place I might imagine.

The lake itself, the cold, the winter, nature all become a large part of the story of the book.  Far beyond being a vivid setting, the Maine lake becomes the answer, the key.  It is a powerful contribution to the story's tension and depth.

Highly recommended for teen readers, this book will be popular for readers of general fiction as well as mystery readers.

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Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers.

Johnny lives an edgy life filled with Goth outfits, lots of drinking, and plenty of music.  When he discovers Debbie Harry, he finds someone who inspires him with her toughness and beauty.  Someone he would love to be like.  Johnny isn't gay, but he's not sure what he is exactly.  As Johnny copes with other issues in his life, including an overdose, he finds himself grappling with labels, love and sobriety.

Brothers has created a book that embodies the quest of teens who are different than those around them.  Johnny's search for himself is told not only in his sexuality but through his struggles with addiction and his troubles with his mother.  The book has a deft coolness and an addictive readability.  It will be devoured by teens who are outsiders in any way.

The characterizations are wonderfully done as well.  Johnny is a believable teen grappling with many issues as is his girlfriend Maria.  The adults in the story are also multidimensional and honestly portrayed.  It is refreshing to find an adult character who can handle sexuality issues with such grace as Johnny's Uncle Sam. 

Highly recommended for any outsider.  This book takes on issues that I haven't seen handled in teen fiction before.  It is groundbreaking yes, but written so naturally and easily that it doesn't read that way.  Just as it should be.

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In the last few days, the Adbooks list has been discussing online resources where teens review books.  Because it can often be frustrating to try to figure out what teens in general enjoy without becoming stereotypical, I love these sites!  Here are my three favorites that were mentioned on the email list:

LYRE: Center for Literature for Young Readers from Youngstown State University offers the LYRE review which is filled with book reviews by high school students.  The Review is posted quarterly and features a mix of brand new titles and older ones.

NotRequiredReading.com also does reviews by high schoolers.  Their interface is more graphical and will probably appeal more to teens themselves.  They have different sections such as What's Hot and Pageturners to draw you in.  The What's Hot section does feature hot books in YA lit.

Teen Book Review is my final pick.  It is a book review blog written by 16-year-old Jocelyn.  She also has an active MySpace, a great blogroll, and does incredible interviews with authors.  Amazing!

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The Surrender Tree by Margarita Engle.
Released in April 2008.

The author of The Poet Slave of Cuba returns with another historical verse novel about Cuba.  The book focuses on Rosa and her efforts to heal the sick and wounded throughout the many wars Cuba fought during the mid-to-late 19th century.  Rosa, once a slave but then illegally freed, learned to be a healer and then taught herself how to use the local fruits and fauna as remedies.  She hid in caves, huts and the jungle from many different people throughout the years.  Some people began as her enemies and then were healed by her and joined her side.  Others like Lieutenant Death continued to hunt her despite her kindness.  Most of the characters in the book are based on real people, but Engle had to extrapolate about their daily lives and their personal concerns.

Engle's poetry is just as powerful and intriguing as that in her first book.  Once again tackling one of the darkest and most awful parts of any country's history, her poetry offers a guiding light of beauty in the jungle-filled darkness.  Written in any other form, the bleakness of the subject could have been overwhelming, but Engle again succeeds in overcoming it into hope.

Another vital piece of Engle's powerful art is her ability to create single complete poems that work alone and yet together create a complete history and story.   Here is one of my favorite poems in the book:

Rosa

Gathering the green, heart-shaped leaves
of sheltering herbs in a gial forest,

I forget that I am grown now,
with daydreams of my own,

in this place where time
does not seem to exist
in the ordinary way,

and every leaf is a heart-shaped
moment of peace.

If you enjoyed Poet Slave, then you must try this one.  Highly recommended for ages 12-14.

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The Missing Girl by Norma Fox Mazer.

The five Herbert sisters live in a world where they are poor but safe in their small town.  Unknown to them, a man has started watching them, waiting to catch glimpses as they hurry off to school, trying to remain unnoticed.  The tension in the book builds as each girl takes risks that would be considered safe in any other book.  Until one girl takes one risk too many and goes missing.

Each of the girls has their own unique personality and problems, from wanting to escape to failing spelling.  Their strength (and the novel's strength) comes from the fact that the girls are fascinating both as individuals and as a group.   The family dynamics are complicated not only among the sisters but also between their parents.  The pacing in the novel is deliberate and tense, slowly escalating to the point of no return.  

In the end, the book is immensely satisfying.  Girl power is definitely rocking in this book, even though none of the sisters would see themselves as powerful.  Mazer has created a novel where children are victims but not powerless, a novel that needs to be read and that teens will love to read.

Recommended for ages 12-15.

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