Long Awaited

Well any book from Jewell Parker Rhodes is long awaited!  So it was no surprise that I bought Black Brother, Black Brother on the day it was released!   An excellent story.   Once again Rhodes takes a serious issue and isn't preachy.  She creates REAL characters and man...her characters are just so...I don't know...REAL.  Rhodes is one of my most favorite authors and is really creating classics here.  Classics that will be read years and years from now and hopefully, kids will read them and think, "Was it really that bad?" and not "Well, not much has changed."  

Influence

The Saga of Styx Malone was really, really good.  A great story about so many things.  Families for sure and brothers and fear and this world in which we live and the unfairness of it and foster care and just so much.  Kekla Magoon is an author I need to get to know better and I loved X so so so so so much, and she co-authored it and it was just so well done. 

Timely

Probably books like Marcus Vega Doesn't Speak Spanish are timely at any time.  It's just that "these days" (the years the locusts ate, it seems) MVDSS seems especially meaningful.  Pablo Cartaya is also the author of The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora which I absolutely loved. 

The More I Read

about the late sixties makes me glad I wasn't around then.  The Risen was another excellent book by Ron Rash.  It was very sad.  Definitely not a lifter.  I couldn't help but really dislike Ligeia.  REALLY.  I think I disliked her more than the grandfather!

Unusual!

Denis Ever After has a really different description of the afterlife!  It doesn't jibe with my view, but I wasn't offended or anything.  I found it to be really intriguing and different and it didn't take me long to get sucked in to this book.  Grief on both sides of the Jordan.  And a mystery.  And the book made me cry and laugh.  I loved the brother-brother relationship.  Tony Abbott has written a book that will keep the interest, I think, of reluctant readers and mystery lovers and at the same time create some really interesting discussion.  I really liked this. 

Being Brave

As Brave as You is an interesting title.  At first I didn't get why it was the title of the book (which is wonderful, by the way) but then I thought about it for a second and it is a great fit.  There are so many brave actions in this book.  From Genie to Ernie to Grandpop.  Great book about what scares us and what happens when we are brave or when someone is brave for us.  What other wonderful things can I saw about Jason Reynolds!

The Greatest

When I Was the Greatest is by Jason Reynolds, who is for sure, one of the greatest writers out there.  I loved this book and I loved the father who has faults but wow, what love.  I loved the main character and the love that he has for his friends and family.  I loved the reason why the boxing coach taught him how to fight.  Pay careful attention to the conversation that the coach has with Ali that causes him to decide to teach him how to box.  It is pretty beautiful, but so quick that you might miss it.  Great book. 

Before and After

The Ethan I was Before has a great cover and a great title and it really is a great book.  I just thought that the end dragged just a wee-wee bit with the fox cubs.  The fox cubs were the only thing that kept this from being a 5 star for me, but I get why they were important.  This was an incredibly powerful book.  If there could have been some other way to work in heroism/sacrifice by Coralee, for me, this would have been one of the best books I read all year.  Highly recommended, but the foxes just took a lot a way for me. 

Why? Why?

Didn't I read The Nest before?  I have seen it so many times, available on audio from my library.  It was so good!  It was creepy and fresh and amazing.  This was definitely not one of those "it reminded me of" books, even though those can be good, too.  It was just so good!

Excellent

Conviction was simply amazing.  VERY powerful.  And shows what bad religion can do to alienate people and promote completely anti-Jesus, anti-God thoughts and feelings.  Simply fantastic.

Super Good

Chris Crutcher is a fantastic writer.  Sports books, but more than sports books.  Real-life books.  Hard topic books.  In the case of Deadline, death.  But more than death.  How to live when you are dying.  Tell or not tell?  Grace. Forgiveness.  Racism.  Small towns.  Small minds.  First love.  Incest. Everything.  Wow.  Just a LOT in Deadline.  A LOT.  Highly recommended. Highly.

ABC

I am not a HUGE Michael Jackson fan.  I like his music, I do.  I just am not nuts over him the way I am say, Judy or Tupac.  I'll Be There, the book, gets its name from the Jackson Five song, I'll Be There.    It is by Holly Goldberg Sloan who wrote one of my most favorite books, Counting by 7s.  This is a story of a very mental ill father who has stolen his sons away and caused them to live a basically homeless life with no schooling, no clothing, no food.  They have had to fend for themselves and live in fear their whole lives.  Sam is an older teen who attends churches on Sunday for the music.  He hears a girl sing and instantly feels drawn to her.  She is a pretty bad singer and throws up, outside the church, right after her solo where he comforts her.  The two get to know each other and fall in love.  The sequel, Just Call My Name is also a very good book and totally different from Counting by 7s.  Very intense books.  I really did like it though.  A lot.  

Real

This is a very powerful middle-grade fiction story.  I liked it so much because the main character was likable and not likable, he was real.  Lost in the Sun is told from the POV of Trent, who has just entered middle school.  Entering middle school is bad enough, but Trent also is bringing with him a lot of baggage.  The winter before he shot a puck during a hockey game that hit a kid in the chest and the kid died.  It wasn't the fault of the puck, or Trent, the kid had a heart problem, but Trent blames himself.  He is full of so much rage against himself that he takes it out on the world.  This is also a story of friendship, as Trent becomes friends with a girl who has a scar on her face and is often the butt of jokes at school.  It is also the story of family, as Trent's dad has a new wife and she is having a baby.  Trent's dad comes across as a super-jerk, in my opinion.  He was super-easy to dislike has he is a seriously dualistic thinker and tells Trent that you only get one chance in life at most things, and of course, Trent, having had his part in the freak accident that resulted in the death of a friend, well, this man is just not a nice or smart man.  Also Trent can't read.  It is a book packed with things to discuss and it is also just a very compelling tween read.

More Sheparding

True West is another play by Sam Shepard.  And I really enjoyed this one, too!
This is the story of two brothers, one an education, ivy-league writer and one a drifter, thief.
They haven't seen each other in a while and the two come together at their mother's home while mom is visiting Alaska.
One of the reviewers on goodreads.com said that the whole play was character development and that is totally true.
Great play, powerful, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1983.  And until right now I didn't know "nominated" meant actually won!  So now I have read two Pulitzer Prize Winning Dramas.  And I liked them!

Bits and Pieces

Chris Lynch writes about tough stuff.  Pieces is another tough one and very original.  Inexcusable was really good and was a National Book Award finalist.
Eric's older brother, Duane is killed in an accident and his organs are given to three very different people in need. 
Eric is still really grieving, as you can imagine.  A group affiliated with the organ donation process arranges opportunite for the donor's family to meet the folks who received "pieces" from their loved one.  Eric is willing to do this and meets the single mom who got Duane's kidney, a young, naive teen who received some part of Duane's ear and a fairly obnoxious guy with who now is giving Duane's liver a workout with a lot of partying. 
Duane's old girlfriend comes back into town, just hearing about Duane's death as she was doing humanitarian work out of the country. 
This book was good but it seemed to drag for me in some places. I just read that it is a sequel to the book Iceman.  Maybe I would have enjoyed it more had I read the first one.   But look at that cover!  Dude.  Wow.  Terrible. 
Still, a good book.  I ended up giving it four of five stars. 

The Great Brain!

One of my most favorite and oft read books of my childhood was The Great Brain at the Academy.  The Great Brain is the first book in the series.  These books take place between 1896 and 1898 in the made up town of Adenville, Utah.  Here is the wikipedia entry on the series.   I really liked this book, but after talking to my friend Rachel, I started to look at it in a new way, especially the book's depiction of Native Americans.  Rachel and i talked about the way in which books like the Little House on the Prairie series show Native Americans as wild and awful.  There is some of that in here.  There is also a scene where JD, the narrator, Tom (the Great Brain)'s little brother, tries to help a friend kill himself.  I would imagine that this would cause QUITE an uproar today.  But the thing is, I read this as a kid and I didn't even remember that part.  I don't know.  It is hard to look at kids books in the same way anymore.  Life is much more complicated when you start thinking!

Roderick

Rodrick Rules in the second in the DOAWK series.  Even though I watched some of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I missed Greg blowing down the streets of NYC.  I can see way, these books are pretty addictive.  Rodrick is featured in Rodrick Rules more prominently than the first, anyway.  He is Greg's older brother and man, what a grump!  I am on to the third!

Split

is a perfect title for this book in so many ways.  Split is the story of a family ripped apart and up and down by domestic abuse.  Jace Witherspoon's dad is Judge Witherspoon, a very well respected and well connected man of the law and a horrible, violent husband and father.  Jace's brother, Christian left the family long ago, while he was still in high school and so younger brother, Jace has been left to try and keep his mother and himself safe, and not turn into the abuser that his father is. 
This is the first time I have ever read a book that deals with abuse from the side of an abuser as well.  The book leaves you cheering for Jace and cursing him at the same time.   Fantastic book for discussion.  Great, great book. 

Rising Out of the Ashes

I guess I deserved a good streak of good books after suffering through those Ashes books and lately I've been pretty lucky.  Under the Bridge helps me out with Washington, too!  It's also the first Skateboarding-Fiction book I've ever read, so I learned a bit!
Under the Bridge takes place in Spokane, one the poor side of town.  It is told from the POV of high school student, Tate who is a pretty awesome skateboard dude, with a pretty tough life.  Life isn't totally bad.  You get the sense that his parents are good folks, even if his dad is pretty rough and tough on Tate's younger brother, Indy.  Indy is a skateboarder too, and rebel big-time.  He is always fighting with his dad and is finally kicked out of the house, ends up quitting school and dealing drugs.  The book revolves around Tate trying to save his brother.  It's fast-paced and good read, I read it in one day, which is rare for me.  Opps!  Guess I already had Washington!  Oh well, it was worth reading anyway!

Ain't No Peace for an Angry Young Man

Great song.
After reading Inexcusable I was excited to find Angry Young Man, the new Chris Lynch novel, on the shelves of the local library.  AYM is short (less than 200 pages) and has a good cover, as you can see.
While I read Inexcusable in one sitting, it took me a bit longer to get through AYM.  This really isn't a reflection upon AYM, it's probably because Inexcusable was just so SO good.  AYM is a pretty depressing book throughout.  Set in a dying town, I don't remember if the name was mentioned, but I don't think so.  Apparently there isn't much work and most kids don't go on to further their education after high school.
This is the story of two brothers, Robert and Alexander, or Xan as he likes to be called.  It is told through the POV is Robert, the older brother.  Robert is a likable guy.  Making the best of things in his dying town.  He tells us that he has a girl friend, works part time and is going to school at the community college.  He is a good son and a good brother.  Not a perfect brother, but it is easy to forgive him.  If he was portrayed as being too amazing in the brother department, the book wouldn't work as well as it does.
We learn right off that Xan is troubled.  He was the boy always picked on, always on the outside looking in, always just a bit....off.   He is easily influenced and very emotional and as the story progresses, he comes under the spell of a potentially dangerous extremist group.
The end keeps you on your seat....it's almost like seeing a train wreck about to happen.
Great book.  I am looking forward to reading more from Lynch!