Middle-Grade/Teen Review – The Carpet People

I wasn’t sure how to classify Terry Pratchett’s charming fantasy The Carpet People. It was originally written for a general audience, published as a serial in the newspaper, by the now-famous writer when he was only 17 years old. I think it will appeal to all ages, from middle-grade readers all the way up to adults, especially those who like whimsy and clever, fanciful adventure.

As the name suggests, The Carpet People is about a whole population of tiny beings who live unseen among the carpet fibers. In fact, there are different races and tribes of people and even animals living in the wilds of the carpet. This story focuses on a tribe called the Munrungs, which is part of the Dumii Empire. Specifically, the story is about two brothers. Glurk, a physical and slow-thinking man, took over as Chieftan when his father, old Grimm Orkson, died. Glurk’s younger brother, Snibril, is more of a cerebral young man who was taught to read and write by Pismire, the tribe’s shaman.

When danger threatens their village, the nomadic Munrungs set off on a journey across the carpet. It’s a dangerous journey, and along the way, they meet other people whose customs and habits are much different than the Munrungs. Eventually, they must overcome their fears of each other and band together to defeat their common enemy.

To be honest, I’m not normally a fan of classic fantasy stories with made-up people and beasts and worlds, but Pratchett’s unique story is very clever, filled with humorous word play and lots of action. It easily kept me entertained while I listened to it on audio, read by a talented narrator who conveyed Pratchett’s sense of whimsy. The audio also included a note from the author at the beginning, explaining how he first wrote The Carpet People and then recently revised it for this reprinting, and the unedited version of the original serial story included at the end.

Later, I found out that the paper version is actually filled with Pratchett’s own illustrations, amusing line drawings that bring the Munrungs to life on the page, so this might be a case where the book has an advantage over the audio. I also suspect that I may have missed some of the clever word play in listening rather than reading, though the audio was very entertaining. You can take a peek at some of the illustrations or listen to a sample of the audio at the Amazon link included at the bottom of this post.

Overall, I enjoyed this clever and thoughtful story about tribes of tiny people living in the carpet.  Believe it or not, this was my very first Terry Pratchett novel (his books have sold over 80 million copies!), so I think I will be reading more of his work.

Listening Library

 

Teen/YA review: Monsters of Men

I finished book 3 of the Chaos Walking series, Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness, back in December. I considered just skipping the review, since I had already reviewed book 1, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and book 2, The Ask and the Answer. Even though it took me a few months to find the time, I still want to review this third and final book of the trilogy because I found it so compelling and thought-provoking. So, I promise a short review with no spoilers…and if you’ve already read this novel, please leave your thoughts in the comments section because I am dying to discuss it!

The Chaos Walking trilogy begins in an unknown time and place where everyone can hear everyone else’s thoughts (the never-ending internal cacophony is known as Noise). In books 1 and 2, some details are slowly revealed about how and why this society developed. In this third book, Todd and Viola are back (two very endearing and strong – though young - main characters).  This final book is all about war, as you may have guessed from the title. The evil Mayor Prentiss is still seeking as much power as he can take, a group of rebels is using more and more violent methods to stop him, and a third party, the Spackle, are joining in the battle (you’ll have to read books 1 and 2 to learn more about them). Against this backdrop, the ever-present Noise continues, as Todd and Viola move toward adulthood and have to make decisions that could affect the future of all of their fellow citizens.

Like the first two books, book 3 is action-packed, filled with violence, battles, and increasing horrors. But this trilogy is so much more than action/adventure in a mysterious dystopian/science fiction environment. Ness fills the series – and especially this final book – with thoughtful and thought-provoking complications. In this case, both Todd and Viola are constantly facing serious, life-changing decisions with deep moral implications. They wrestle with issues that have plagued mankind for centuries: Does the end justify the means? Is violence for the right reasons any better than violence for the wrong reasons? If you choose the lesser of two evils, is it still evil?

The backdrop of war makes all of these issues very real and imperative for the two young heroes. Through it all is the constant stress and chaos of the Noise echoing in everyone’s heads. Like in the best dystopian fiction and science fiction, the author makes us think about our own society. Ness certainly wants us to consider the moral implications of both war and terrorism, and I think the Noise is a symbol of what’s occurring in our own world right now – the ever-present, nonstop flow of information from multiple sources every moment of every day.

I highly recommend this series to teens, young adults, and adults of all ages. It is a fast-paced, interesting, compelling story that is also thoughtful. This is my favorite kind of dystopian fiction – the kind that gives you insight into our own society and makes you think – in a similar vein as The Hunger Games trilogy (especially book 3, Mockingjay, which also focuses on war) and the Unwind series. I can’t wait to read more from Patrick Ness.

603 pages, Candlewick Press

 

Teen/YA Review: Insurgent and Allegiant

Over the past two months, I listened to both Insurgent (book 2) and Allegiant (book 3), the sequels to Veronica Roth’s hot post-apocalyptic/dystopian trilogy that began with Divergent.  If you have somehow missed this popular trilogy (been living in a cave maybe?), then you should go back and read the review of Divergent (no spoilers there or in this review) and start there.

As Insurgent opens, Tris and her friends are still reeling from the violence and loss that ended book one.  The city of Chicago erupted into chaos as conflict arose between the five different factions. Now it seems that war is the only possible outcome. Tris and each of her friends must decide where their loyalty stands and which ideology and leader they each agree with.

This follow-up novel is all about conflicts and choices. Many secrets emerge that were not obvious in the seemingly peaceful world at the beginning of Divergent. As more and more secrets are revealed, Tris must make more choices – about who to believe, who to follow, and what is right. Making matters worse, she is haunted by both grief and guilt throughout this second novel, from events that occurred in book one. Through it all, with Tobias by her side, she must also consider what it means to be divergent.

In the final book of the trilogy, Allegiant, the action moves beyond the city’s boundaries, as Tris and her companions venture outside the fence to learn more about their society.  In this book, the chapters alternate between Tris and Tobias, so for the first time, we get a glimpse into Tobias’ perspective. Conflict continues in Chicago between those who believe in the faction-approach they know and those who believe in a factionless society, as an all-out war seems inevitable. Outside of the fence, Tris and the others learn a lot of surprising truths about their own family histories, the rest of the world, and how the faction-divided society began. The question is, what is its future?

Although I enjoyed Divergent and Insurgent, Allegiant was by far my favorite book of the series. The first two books were a bit too violent for my taste, without any real explanation of how this unusual society came to be. That explanation is finally revealed in book three, which made it far more interesting for me. My favorite aspect of dystopian novels is seeing how the author takes elements of our own society and shows how those were taken to an extreme to end up with the dystopian society. I like the thoughtfulness and thought-provoking nature of that kind of story, which I finally got in Allegiant. For me, that brought the series up closer to the level of The Hunger Games trilogy or the Unwind series.

All in all, I am glad I stuck with it and read/listened to the entire trilogy. The audio books were all very well done, with talented voice actors (including two different narrators for Tris and Tobias in the final book). I tried listening to Insurgent on audio with my family last summer, but my son and husband both lost interest because it had been too long since we’d all read Divergent. And that’s an important point with this series: because of the number of characters and the complicated plot, it is best to read each book immediately after the previous one. It’s far more enjoyable that way, and you’ll save yourself a lot of time going back and asking, “Wait a minute, who was that?” I am glad I finally had a chance to listen to the entire series…and now my husband has been inspired to go back and listen to it all, too. The movie adaptation of Divergent opens today – I can’t wait to see it on the big screen!

HarperAudio

Teen/YA Review: Thin Space

In the midst of reading several very large adult novels for my book groups, I was looking for a quick and engaging read (a palate cleanser!), and I found it in Thin Space by Jody Casella. This compelling teen/YA novel mixes realistic teen portrayals with a touch of the supernatural, in a short thriller that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Marshall is grieving the loss of his twin in a horrible car accident that happened several months ago. His family and old friends give him a wide berth, figuring he just needs space to mourn and recover, but there is more going on with Marshall than meets the eye. For starters, he goes everywhere barefoot, even as winter begins in western NY.  His parents and teachers think it has something to do with his grieving process, but Marsh has a secret: he is searching for a thin space, a barrier between this world and the next where people can move between the two worlds…and from what he’s read, you can only enter cross over a thin space in bare feet.

The entire novel is told from Marsh’s perspective, so the story of exactly what happened on the day of the accident emerges only gradually. Marsh thinks there could be a thin space in a house on his street, where an elderly neighbor recently died, and he sees his chance to get into the house again and explore when a new girl, Maddie, moves into the house with her mother and brother. Maddie joins Marsh in his supernatural search. Although she has her own reasons for wanting to find a thin space, it is clear that the two of them actually like each other as well. The question is, can any kind of relationship grow here, in the midst of so much pain and with Marsh’s all-encompassing obsession with the dead?

Thin Space has a unique premise and a convoluted plot that slowly becomes clearer as the story evolves. It was just as compelling as I’d hoped, and I finished the novel in a few short days. The characters all felt real, and although the novel has an underlying supernatural premise, most of the book takes place in the real world, reading like good realistic teen/YA fiction. This is one of those novels with so many twists and surprises that when I finished, I wanted to immediately go back and re-read it! Thin Space is Casella’s first novel, and I am definitely looking forward to reading more from her.

243 pages, Simon Pulse



Thin Space

 

Teen/YA Review: The Raven Boys

Much to my surprise, I loved Maggie Stiefvater’s Wolves of Mercy Falls series (Shiver, Linger, and Forever). For someone who normally doesn’t enjoy paranormal romance much, I devoured those three books one after the other, and loved every moment. So, I was excited when her next novels were published, but I had trouble finding time to read them. I finally read The Raven Boys recently and loved it!

Sixteen-year old Blue lives a fairly unusual life, living with her clairvoyant mother in a house with several other psychics. Blue herself doesn’t have any psychic powers, though she has an unusual ability to amplify others’ powers when they are near her. She attends the local high school in her town but is seen as something of an outcast there, a status she sort of enjoys.

This year, though, everything changes. Each year, on a particular night, Blue and her mother go to an abandoned church, and her mother sees the ghostly figures of those who will die in the coming year. Blue has never seen them herself, but this year, she sees a boy who speaks to her and says his name is Gansey. To make matters worse, Blue has been told – by every psychic she’s ever met – that she will cause her true love to die with a kiss.

When Blue meets Gansey in person in town, she gets pulled into his group of friends, against her better judgment. Gansey and his friends attend an exclusive private school, Aglionby, and everyone knows that Raven Boys from Aglionby are nothing but trouble. Besides, Blue knows that Gansey will die in the next year, and that secret weighs heavily on her. But Blue likes this group of misfit boys, especially Adam who attends Aglionby on a scholarship. In addition, they are involved in a quest related to the town’s unusual paranormal phenomena that intrigues Blue.

It’s a somewhat complex plot, revolving around the Raven Boys, Blue, her mother and the other psychics, and especially the boys’ quest. Eventually, all the disparate pieces come together, in a story that is creative and unusual. I was really pulled into this story by its characters. Blue, Gansey, and Adam are especially likable, so much so that, like in the Wolves of Mercy Falls books, I found myself absorbed in their story and rooting for them – and completely believing in the odd paranormal elements of the book. There are lots of plot twists here and plenty of surprises. As soon as I finished the book, I combed through the carton of new releases waiting for review here and was thrilled to find the second book in the series, The Dream Thieves. I can’t wait to see what happens next!

408 pages, Scholastic

 

Teen/YA Review: Code Name Verity

I have been reading rave reviews of Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein ever since its release in 2012, and I finally had a chance to read it myself. It’s a unique teen/YA historical novel that focuses on the role of women in World War II.

As this unusual novel opens, it becomes clear that the text is being written by one of the characters. She explains in the first pages that she is a captive of the Nazis in occupied France and that she has agreed to write down everything she knows in exchange for small bits of comfort (like getting her clothes back) and staying alive. It is clear that she is a young British woman, but other details of her background and life come out slowly, in the course of her telling her story.

The narrative that she writes is not what the Nazi officer in charge of her expected. Rather than write dull lists of types of airplanes, British airfields, and other wartime details, she writes a story. The officer allows her to do this because he can see that she is a good storyteller, and he is somewhat amused by her unusual methods.

She starts at the beginning, several years ago, with much of her story focused on a young female pilot named Maddie. In fact, it isn’t immediately apparent to the reader exactly who the writer is at first. She describes her friendship with Maddie and how they both became part of the war effort. Along the way, she includes the kinds of details that the Nazis are looking for, but it is certainly a long and convoluted story.

The details of women’s role in World War II as pilots and spies are fascinating; it is an aspect of this much-written-about period of history that is typically overlooked. The story itself is also engaging, about two young women who become friends during this very difficult time in history and how one of them came to be captured by the Nazis (though those details come much later).

The novel is suspenseful and compelling, and the details of this little-known aspect of the War are intriguing. There are plenty of unexpected twists and surprises along the way (though I guessed at the major plot surprise fairly early on). This is a difficult book to read in some ways because it includes details of the narrator’s capture and torture by the Nazis. As my son reminded me when I cried while listening to The Boy in the Striped Pajamas on audio: “Mom, it’s about the Holocaust. You have to expect it to be sad!” As a result, this novel is best for older, more mature teens and young adults.

332 pages, Hyperion

A companion novel by Elizabeth Wein, Rose Under Fire, was just released in September. It also deals with women pilots in World War II, about a young woman pilot who is captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp.

 

Teen/YA Review: Rotters

Ever since I was about halfway through the audio book of Rotters by Daniel Kraus, I have been thinking about how I would review it because it is such a complex and contradictory novel. It is a wholly unique story – a coming-of-age tale wrapped up with grave robbing – that is dark and disturbing yet compelling.

Sixteen-year old Joey lives a fairly normal life in Chicago with his single mother: he plays the trumpet in the school band, works hard to be a good student, and has one good friend who helps him contend with the typical trials of high school. Joey’s life falls apart, however, when his mother is killed in an accident, and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with a father he didn’t even know he had. Ken, his father, isn’t any happier to see Joey than Joey is to be there.

Quickly, Joey’s ordinary life turns into something from a nightmare. He has lost his mother, and his only remaining family member clearly doesn’t want him there. He moved away from his only friend (who quickly moves on with his life) and has no friends at his new school, where he is bullied relentlessly, not only by fellow students but also by a sadistic teacher. To make matters worse, Joey discovers that his mysterious father makes his living robbing graves. Although the people in town don’t know the exact nature of his occupation, they all sense that it is something underhanded and illegal, and they ostracize Ken…and now Joey, too.

Things just keep getting worse for Joey, until it seems like you just can’t bear to hear (or read) about one more horrible thing. He is bullied, neglected, starved, and ridiculed. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does. Meanwhile, Joey very gradually learns more about his father’s life as a Digger, as they are known, and the history and details of grave robbing.

If all of this sounds depressing and macabre, well…it is. Rotters is a very dark and disturbing novel that only gets worse (and worse).  The ending does offer some hope, but it is a long road to get there. It took me 2 months to finish listening to Rotters on audio, in part because it is a long novel and in part because I couldn’t listen to it for long periods – I needed breaks from the sad, angry atmosphere of the book. As I said at the beginning of this review, it is compelling – I was certainly rooting for Joey and wanted to see how things turned out for him. I also felt, though, that it was a bit too long; that may have been partly due to my disjointed way of listening to it. Rotters won the 2012 ALA’s Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production, and I agree that it was very well done – perhaps that is part of why it is so disturbing, because the characters felt real. Just be forewarned that it is a long and sinister journey.

Listening Library/Random House Audio

Paperback:    Audio:

Teen/YA Review: Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am

I have a large number of middle-grade, teen, and YA books on my TBR shelves, and I tried to do a bit of end-of-the-year catching up. One of the teen/YA novels I recently read was Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am by Harry Mazer and Peter Lerangis. It is a unique story about a young man who comes back from Iraq with a brain injury that leaves him with no memory of who he is.

Ben Bright is the star of his senior class in high school – a good student, the lead role in his high school play, and a longtime girlfriend named Ariela whom he plans to marry. All of his friends are going away to college next year, but Ben has other plans. He enlists in the army, much to his family and friends’ dismay. His parents don’t understand, his best friend, Niko, is angry with him, and Ariela is afraid he won’t come back. Ben explains to them that he feels a deep need to give back and help support and protect his country, and he reassures them that he won’t be going overseas.

Those who care about him reluctantly support Ben, but things change and he is sent overseas, to Iraq. The phone call they have all been dreading finally comes: Ben has suffered a severe brain trauma in an explosion, and doctors are unsure what his prognosis might be.

The rest of the novel follows both Ben and his family and friends as they all try to support Ben with his new challenges, as he slowly recovers in the hospital. He doesn’t remember any of them nor his old life nor even who he is. Ben’s journey back to life is a slow and tedious one, and his friends and family members each react differently, as he struggles with his daily challenges.

This is a very brief novel – only 148 pages – about an important topic that is rarely covered in teen/YA fiction, young people in the military and the long road to recovery for those with brain injuries. I liked that this book showed all sides of a complicated issue: readers see Ben’s determination to do the right thing and support his country but also the crazy randomness of violence in war and the difficulties for soldiers returning home injured or incomplete.

Ironically, I chose to read this novel now because I was looking for something brief, but it felt a bit too brief to me. I wished there was a little more. I think that tells you something about the story. It was well told and compelling, with very realistic characters that I came to care about. I’m glad I read it, and I still think about it.

148 pages, Simon & Schuster

 

Middle-Grade/Teen Review: The Dumbest Idea Ever!

I don’t read a lot of graphic novels, but I have enjoyed a few of them in the past, so I looked forward to reading a new release from Jimmy Gownley, The Dumbest Idea Ever! I quickly realized that this book defies categorization. Yes, it is in the form of a graphic “novel,” but it isn’t a novel at all; it’s a memoir about Gownley’s own adolescence and how he got his start as an author.

The memoir begins when Jimmy was thirteen, attending eighth grade in Catholic school in a small Pennsylvania coal town. He’s an excellent student and one of the school’s best basketball players. The only piece of his life that doesn’t seem to fit is his love of comic books and graphic novels. Everyone else sees them as a waste of time, and the nuns at school won’t even let him read them during quiet reading time.

Things are good for Jimmy until he gets the chicken pox, followed by pneumonia, and misses almost a month of school. His grades drop, he misses the championship basketball game, and things seem to keep getting worse. After a summer spent hanging out with the kids in his neighborhood, Jimmy starts high school and his problems seem to just get worse. Jimmy feels like he can’t get out of the slump that began with his long illness, plus he struggles with the kind of problems all young teens face: transitioning to high school, making new friends, talking to girls, and doing well in school.

Eventually, Jimmy writes and draws his own comic book and even manages to get it published (no spoilers here – that is revealed in the first pages of the book), but his friends don’t always understand his passion for comics. You'll have to read it for yourself to discover what the dumbest idea ever is!

I enjoyed this unique graphic novel memoir (a new category of book?). It’s a coming of age story that middle-graders will relate to, but it is also about setting goals and making your dreams come true, even when your friends don’t get it. I’m no expert on graphic novels, but I thought that both the writing and the illustrations were very good, and the story held my attention. Kids who love to write or draw will especially enjoy this inspiring real-life story.

236 pages, Graphix (a Scholastic imprint)

NOTE: This book is scheduled to be released February 25, 2014

Teen/YA Review: Between Shades of Gray

Like most avid readers, I have been hearing rave reviews of Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, a teen/YA historical novel, since it was first published in 2011. When it came time to choose a birthday gift for my 14-year old cousin who loves history, I decided to give her two of the best YA historical novels I could find. She is especially fascinated by the World War II period of history and loved The Diary of Anne Frank, so I chose The Book Thief and Between Shades of Gray for her. In her thank you note to me, she said she was in the middle of reading Between Shades of Gray and never wanted it to end. I decided I needed to finally read this acclaimed novel for myself, so we can talk about it when I see her at Thanksgiving next week. This compelling novel about a little-known historical tragedy deserves all of the praise it’s gotten.

In 1941, fifteen year-old Lina is living a typical teen life with her family in Lithuania, which has recently been occupied by the Soviet Union. Her family is close and loving, she loves to draw and paint, she and her cousin enjoy sharing their dreams and wishes with each other, and she is even beginning to notice boys. Then her world is shattered when the Soviet secret police burst into her home one day and force her and her mother and younger brother into a train car headed for an unknown destination. Lina’s father was taken the day before, and the family has no idea where he is.

The Soviets separate the women and children from the men, and they are forced into crowded freight train cars, where they struggle to stay alive with little food or water. Eventually, Lina, her mother, and her brother arrive at a Soviet work camp. Conditions are inhumane, and they are made to work at hard labor for 12 hours or more a day, with a food ration of just a piece of bread for each person each day. Lina struggles to remain hopeful and to find a way to find her father and get word to him of where they are being kept. Although she knows it is dangerous, she draws pictures of their experiences and hides them, in the hope that someday their story will be told. She surreptitiously draws coded pictures that she passes along from one person to the next, hoping they will eventually arrive at the prison camp where her father is being held.

This is a beautifully written and emotionally powerful story. Lina and her fellow captives come alive on these pages, and it is impossible to set this book aside – or forget its characters – once you start it. Behind this moving story are real-life facts that are astonishing and that most people, myself included, have never heard before. While most of the world was watching Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, the Soviet Union was quietly deporting hundreds of thousands of people from the Baltic countries of Latvia, Estonia,  and Lithuania (as well as Finland) to Soviet labor camps and prisons in Siberia, some further north than the Arctic Circle. These people were deemed anti-Soviet for one reason or another and included doctors, engineers, teachers and university professors, librarians, and more. Many of them, including children, were held prisoner for 10-15 years in Siberia, under horrifying conditions.

It was stunning to me that all of this went on, and I’d never heard about it before. It seems that few people did. Even after the prisoners were returned to their hometowns (more than a decade later!), their beloved countries were still a part of the Soviet Union, and they were warned that if they ever spoke of their experiences, the secret police would immediately deport them and their families back to Siberia. This forced silence continued until the Soviet Union was disbanded in 1991 and the Baltic countries once again regained their names. Thankfully, some people – like Lina in the novel – wrote or drew about their experiences and buried or hid their journals and drawings to be found decades later.

This novel just blew me away. Between the fascinating historical backdrop and the engaging characters, the story as a whole was absolutely compelling. A week after finishing it, I still can not get it out of my mind. Everyone should read this amazing book and learn about this mostly unknown tragedy. I can’t wait to talk to my cousin about it next week!

338 pages, Philomel Books

Listening Library

NOTE: Like many Holocaust novels, this book describes some horrible events and includes a fair amount of tragedy and death; however, it also sends a message of hope and love, showing how people can survive and maintain their spirits under the most atrocious conditions. It is best for teens and young adults (and adults); parts of the book may be too disturbing for younger children.

If you want to hear more about the book and the history that it is based on, check out the author’s video on the book's website.

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Listen to a sample of the audio book here and/or download it from Audible.

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
  
  

Or you can order Between Shades of Gray from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.

Middle-Grade/Teen Review: Tell Us We’re Home

 Tell Us We’re Home by Marina Budhos is a unique novel aimed at older middle-grade or teen readers about three girls who are daughters of maids and nannies in a wealthy town where most of their classmates are from the families for whom their mothers work. It’s an interesting perspective on immigrants that I’d never considered before, and I enjoyed the novel.

Jaya, Maria, and Lola were all born in different countries but now live in the same small town in New Jersey. Each of them felt alone and isolated until she met the other two, and the three of them became instant friends because they had so much in common in spite of their vastly different cultural backgrounds. Their mothers all work for local families as maids and nannies, which leaves the girls each feeling very different from most of her classmates. The three become fast friends, saving coins to buy a milkshake to share, walking back from school together, and confiding in each other about the difficulties of being poor in a wealthy town.

Finding each other was a turning point for each of the girls, but life proves to be even more challenging than they expected. Jaya’s mother is accused of theft and loses two of her jobs. Maria is worried about her cousin, who is embroiled in a battle over the local playing fields where he and his friends want to play soccer – a battle that threatens to involve the entire town. Lola worries about her father’s unending depression and his inability to find work as an engineer, as he had back in Slovakia, while the bills pile up and her mother’s health worsens. Although the three friends share a lot with each other, each of their own problems threatens to pull them apart and get in the way of their friendship.

I enjoyed this novel for several reasons. It deals with a topic that I’d never really thought about before – what life is like for recent immigrants in the U.S. today, especially kids who are dumped into an unfamiliar environment at a time in their lives when they are struggling with ordinary adolescent issues, like self-image, confidence, and identity. I also liked that it didn’t over-simplify the issues. There are no easy answers to the complex problems that plague these three friends and no tidy happily-ever-after at the end. Certainly, they do resolve some of their worst problems and come to realize they can rely on each other, but deeper cultural and community issues remain, just like in real life.

My only complaint about Tell Us We’re Home was some uneven editing throughout, and especially toward the end. There were minor inconsistencies, places where the action suddenly jumped somewhere else, and other petty annoyances. For instance, in one chapter, the girls are drinking hot chocolate and then a sentence later it says that one girl held her hot mug of tea. Like I said, these were minor problems, indicative of sloppy editing, that were easy for me to overlook since the story itself was so engaging.

All in all, this is a warm, tender, thought-provoking story about immigrants, cultural differences, community, and mostly, friendship.

247 pages, Atheneum Books for Young Readers (Simon & Schuster)

 

Catching Fire Trailer

The movie adaptation of Catching Fire, sequel to The Hunger Games, comes to theaters on November 22!!

Check out the trailer:



We can't wait to see this one - my husband, son, and I all loved this trilogy.

Did you read Catching Fire? Are you looking forward to the movie?

P.S. Remember that Great Books for Kids and Teens is now on Facebook! Like the page and you can keep up with posts and reviews and enjoy chatting with other book lovers!

Top Ten Sequels I Can't Wait to Read

It's Tuesday and that means it's Top Ten Tuesday over at The Broke and the Bookish. Head over there and check out all the top ten lists! Today's topic is Top Ten Sequels I Can't Wait to Read. At first, I was going to skip this topic because I don't read a lot of series, but in looking through my reading journal, I realized there are some series and trilogies that I do want to finish. I still couldn't come up with ten, but I got close.

So, without further ado, here are Top Ten (er, Nine) Sequels I Can't Wait to Read:
 
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1. UnSouled by Neal Schusterman, follow-up to Unwind and UnWholly (just finished last week!)
2. In the End, sequel to In the After by Demitria Lunetta, an audio I just finished last month.
3. Infinity Ring Book 3 - The Trap Door by Lisa McMann - I probably won't read the entire series, but McMann is one of my favorite authors, and I enjoyed Books 1 & 2.
4. Book 3, end of the trilogy starting with The Pathfinder and Ruins by Orson Scott Card
5. Dustlands, Book 2 - Rebel Heart by Moira Young, sequel to Blood Red Road
6. Insurgent and Allegiant, sequels to Divergent by Veronica Roth (I have some catching up to do!)
7. The rest of the series that follows Dicey’s Song by Cynthia Voight
8. The Blood, Book 3 of Morpheus Road, sequel to The Light and The Black by D.J. MacHale 
9. Monsters of Men, Book 3 of the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness - I loved The Knifeof Never Letting Go and The Ask and the Answer.

Some of these are already sitting on my shelf, waiting patiently! There is just never enough time to read all the books I want to read. If you are also interested in the grown-up sequels I am looking forward to, check out my list at Book By Book.

What middle-grade or teen/YA sequels are you looking forward to?

Teen/YA Review: UnWholly

One of my favorite books read for Dangerous Reads Month was UnWholly by Neal Schusterman, the sequel to his popular and highly acclaimed Unwind, which my husband, son, and I all loved. This super creepy dystopian thriller kept me up way too late reading every night!

The setting of this trilogy is a United States just slightly into the future, where a second civil war, The Heartland War, has been fought over reproductive rights. The pro-lifers and the pro-choicers finally ended the war with the Unwind Accord that says that life is inviolable starting at conception;  however, unruly or disagreeable teens (is there any other kind?) can be “unwound,” whereby all of their organs and body parts are transplanted into others so that life does not officially end. So, a kid who gets bad grades or rebels against his or her parents may wake up one morning to find officers from the National Juvenile Authority ready to take them to a harvest camp because their parents signed an Unwind Order. I know – super creepy, right??

In Unwind, Schusterman created a chilling but compelling story about a group of teens who, in various ways, escaped their unwinding. Connor escaped from the Juvies on the way to harvest camp and was officially declared an AWOL. During a car accident, he took Lev, a tithe (yes, a kid born to be unwound), as an unwilling hostage to help him escape.  Risa, an orphan and ward of the state also escaped when she was sent to a harvest camp to relieve overcrowding in her state home.

Don’t worry – no spoilers here for those who haven’t read Unwind yet! In the second book, these teens’ stories continue as they try to stay alive, evade the Juvenile Authorities, and help other Unwinds to escape. The story alternates between each of the main characters’ perspectives (plus a few new ones), providing a wide range of points of view of this frightening world. A new teen character is also introduced: Cam, a new kind of person who must come to grips with his own strange history and who learns a startling truth about unwinding.

Although the novel is action-packed from start to finish and filled with suspense, Schusterman also delves more deeply here into the ethical issues that arise from this strange new world (as all good dystopian stories do). The characters grapple with all kinds of moral issues, as the events from the first novel reverberated through society. Does the good done by providing much-needed transplant organs and tissues make up for the evil of unwinding? Should the needs of the many outweigh the rights of the few? What makes someone human and defines life? Although horrifying, this world is also compelling; Schusterman himself said that he intended Unwind to be a stand-alone book, but he just couldn’t stop thinking about the world he’d created there.

While the gripping story and intricate plot kept me turning the pages, I also enjoyed the thought-provoking nature of the novel. Schusterman has created a world that is unfathomable and yet eerily similar to our own. The unthinkable act of unwinding is rationalized in frighteningly calm and logical ways. The teen characters in this trilogy are realistically portrayed and feel like old friends by the second book. The third and final book of the trilogy, UnSouled, will be released next week – my husband, son and I can’t wait to see how it all ends!

401 pages, Simon & Schuster

 

Teen/YA Review: In the After

Continuing the creepy fun in Dangerous Reads Month, I listened to the teen/YA audio book In the After by Demitria Lunetta. This suspenseful story combines both post-apocalyptic and dystopian elements into a fast-paced novel full of surprises.

Amy is fourteen when They come and change the world. Gruesome green-skinned monsters, They have a taste for human flesh and quickly take over the world. TV news coverage shows Them arriving in a ship, before all forms of media disappear. Amy is fortunate to live in a high –security house that helps keep Them away and her safe, but her parents – who were out when the attack began – are missing. The creatures seem to have a poor sense of sight and smell but excellent hearing, and Amy quickly learns to live a very silent existence, especially on those dangerous occasions when she must leave the house for supplies. On one of those excursions, Amy discovers a scared and battered toddler, all alone in a deserted grocery store, so she takes her home and calls her Baby.

Amy and Baby live together for several years in the safe house, using their own form of sign language to communicate and rarely seeing other human beings. They become very close, and their life together falls into a routine, though danger is still lurking just outside the fence.

Then one day, they are saved! A community called New Hope finds them and takes them into the safety of their compound where many others are living safely and peaceably together.  Finally, Amy can relax, and they can both get used to not being alone anymore. It takes a period of adjustment, but they both make new friends, start school, and settle into life in New Hope. But certain things just don’t seem right to Amy, and the more she learns about New Hope, the more concerned she becomes.  Besides Them outside the compound, she now worries about new dangers possibly lurking right inside their new home and how to keep herself and Baby safe.

Throughout the story – through both the post-apocalyptic beginning and the dystopian second half – the suspense and tension are maintained.  I listened to the book in record time. Like another post-apocalyptic novel I recently finished, AMatter of Days, this one also contains some unlikely coincidences – Amy’s father was an environmentalist who installed solar panels so they could live “off the grid” and her mother had a super-secret government job that required an electric security fence around their house – that ensured the main character’s survival in the frightening post-apocalyptic world. As with that book, I just accepted those contrivances as necessary to the story and went along for the ride – and it was a wild ride! It sounds like there might be a sequel coming…ah, yes, I see on the author’s blog that In the End will be released June 24, 2014. I can’t wait!

Listening Library/Harper Children’s Audio

If you want to listen to a sample of the audio, click on the amazon link below - there is a "Listen" button just below the photo of the cover. 

Teen/YA Review: A Matter of Days

I like post-apocalyptic novels. Whatever the cause of the apocalypse, it is intriguing to see how the characters survive in a world that is our world but dramatically changed. In the case of A Matter of Days by Amber Kizer, the cause is a weaponized virus.

The story opens on Day 56 of the Blustar Pandemic, a virus that killed 95% of the world’s population. Sixteen year-old Nadia and her younger brother, Rabbit, have watched their mother finally succumb to the virus and are now left on their own. They need to make their way across the U.S., from their home in Seattle all the way to West Virginia, to meet up with their uncle and grandfather, who are their only remaining family.

So, this falls into the category of a journey/road trip sort of post-apocalyptic adventure, which is one of my favorite kinds. The two kids head out from their home, past all the empty houses in their neighborhood, as Nadia very quickly learns to drive. As they make their way across the U.S., they face survival situations – needing to find food, shelter, and stay healthy – but they also face other remaining survivors, many of whom are desperate and/or violent. Along the way, they do meet up with some others, including a neglected dog, a small child, and a guy who grew up on the streets of Los Angeles, whom they aren’t sure they can trust.

I was pulled right into this suspenseful plot with likeable characters. I listened to the audio book, which was well done and engaging. The book is written in first-person in Nadia’s voice, and the narrator did a good job with it. My only criticism is that there were some convenient coincidences to help the story along: their uncle is a disease specialist in the military so he was able to send them vaccines for the virus, their father was also in the military and a survivalist, so he taught them all kinds of tips on how to survive (“be the cockroach”), and their grandfather is a paranoid anti-government person who happens to have a well-stocked survivalist compound. Then again, maybe the story wouldn’t have worked otherwise.

Despite these little contrivances, I fully enjoyed the story, and its fast pace kept me interested and entertained. I came to care about Nadia and Rabbit and cheered them on as they made their way across the deserted country, amid plenty of suspense and danger. I would like to read some of Kizer’s other novels – this is the first one I’ve read.

Listening Library

Listen to an excerpt: