1954 all over again

We all know what happened in 1954. It was the year that the Academy Awards became a complete joke. I won't even dignify them with a hyperlink. That year Judy was nominated for Best Actress for A Star is Born. For some unknown reason, one that still puzzles even the most brilliant minds of today, Grace Kelly won for The Country Girl. Have you ever seen The Country Girl? All I can say is what I always say, the blow-up doll in Lars and the Real Girl showed more emotion. I am not kidding.
After reading After Tupac and D Foster the whole 1954 disgrace came back to me. After Tupac was named a Newbery Honor Book in 2009. Yeah. An HONOR book which means it didn't with the Newbery. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman won. Yeah. That's right. Now don't get me wrong, I like the Graveyard but how could anyone, anyone, anyone in their right mind could pick Graveyard over After.
This book is simply beautiful.
I will admit upfront that I love Tupac Shakur. When I Get Free, Changes (which is part of the Vatican's official playlist), Picture Me Rollin....man I could go on and on...his music is pure poetry. To me, Pac and Judy are music. But before you haters start saying that I like After just because it's about Tupac, I dare you to read this book. I dare you to say it didn't deserve the Newbery.

Award time!

Yes it is award season!  No, I am not talking about the Golden Globes, or the SAG Awards or the Grammy's, I am talking about the ALA Book and Media Awards!  I've been to ALA Midwinter before, but not last year and not this year.  Maybe next year.  The Book and Media awards are always exciting.  But you know how I feel about awards in general.  We'll see what happens this year.  My predictions are always wrong, but that won't stop me.  I think that The Boy on the Porch will win and deserves the Newbery.  And I think that The Dark deserves, but won't win the Caldecott.  I think that Eleanor and Park should win and deserves the Printz.  I like this article from School Library journal and I have to say that The Year of Billy Miller and Doll Bones were awesome.  Read what she has to say about One Crazy Summer.  That was 1954 for sure.  As the author says, the fact that it didn't get the gold still makes me angry!  So when I reflect back on One Crazy Summer,  and After Tupac and D Foster, all of these predictions seem pointless!
Wait!  Wait!  Wait!  There is only one book that really deserves the Caldecott and that is Nelson Mandela by Kadir Nelson.  I forgot that it came out in 2013.  It came out right in January.  There is no way it will win though.  But it should.

Newbery Buzz

There's Newbery Buzz around What the Moon Said.   I just don't know. Granted, I am biased.  This has been an incredible year for books!  Man, I wouldn't want to be on the Newbery committee this year.
Oh who am I kidding, OF COURSE I would want to be on the Newbery committee- any year!
And honestly, the clear standout for me is The Madman of Piney Woods. Brown Girl Dreaming is a close, close, close second.  But the thing with Brown Girl Dreaming, is that it is INCREDIBLE, but not as INCREDIBLE as After Tupac and D Foster, the neo1954 situation.
There's also The Nightingale's Nest, Bird and Where I Belong, OH!  And West of the Moon.
But What the Moon Said?  I am not sure that this one should even get an honor.  Man, I just didn't see Newbery in it at all.  It was fine.  I mean, it was very American Girlish and I see that the author, Gayle Rosengren,  was a copy editor of AG, so maybe that is why. This is not a bad book.  It's just a fine book.  Maybe if it wasn't played up to Newbery material, I would be easier on it.  It certainly didn't put me to sleep, like Moon Over Manifest did in book form and in audio.   I am going to give Moon Over Manifest another try someday, I really am.  Everyone seems to have loved it but me and so that tells me something.
Anyway...What the Moon Said just didn't do it for me as far as Newbery goes, but it was a decent book.

Hatchet Cannot be Compared to Johnny Tremain

I really loved Absolutely Almost.  It reminded me a bit of Sahara Special.  There is a lot of Newbery Buzz around Absolutely Almost.  As much as I loved this book, I will be incredibly aggravated.  Yes to Absolutely Almost and no to Sahara Special? What is going on here?  I think, sadly, it would be easy to see exactly what is going on.  Just like After Tupac and D Foster, One Crazy Summer and Elijah of Buxton. But there is no reason to complain now.  I will save that for later.  And I I do not want to take anything away from Absolutely Almost.  This was a great, great book about Albie, who is not a great student, not really an "average" student either.  He is a kid who has trouble in school.  Like so many kids.  Tiny spoiler:  his mom gets upset when it is discovered that he doesn't have dyslexia.  She would rather he had this very challenging learning disability than just be a regular kid who has trouble at school.

Not quite 1954...but almost

A Single Shard isn't as in love with itself as Reach Me. So we aren't talking the Travesty of 54 status here.  It isn't as ridiculous as Wintergirls either. Ming the Potter is perhaps as unlikable as Margaret's gang, but at least he has a reason (he's grieving the loss of his only son) and he redeem himself. But SS is predictable in a major way. As soon as you find out that Ming the Potter is hoping to get a royal commisson to make pots you KNOW what's gonna happen. The title gives it away. No big deal though. That happens, right? Murder on the Orient Express, Killing Mr. Griffin, etc. SS is a nice little story. It's just that it probably could have been done better as a picture book for older readers. Some thing along the lines of My Rows and Piles of Coins or Demi's The Empty Pot and The Hungry Coat. I could see SS done like one of  these with no complaints. But to drag out such a predictable story, no matter how "cute" it is...I just don't think that's Newbery Neighborhood. Ok sure, I'm the one who can't wait for the next LA Candy to come out, but I am also the one who picked up on the shear ridiculousness of After Tupac only getting Honor status.  I won't do a summary of SS, it would end up being longer than the book should have been if I try. I'm just terrible at that, as you know. Then again, nobody's giving me a Newbery, are they?  Still if you have to pick one to read, go with Everything on a Waffle.  It is a much better book.  

Sure Plays a Mean Pinball

Over the part seven months I have read four books dealing with foster children. After Tupac and D Foster, The Guardian, They Never Came Back and now, The Pinballs. Which one had the most realistic portrayal of the foster care system? Probably all four. The Pinballs and They Never Came Back had very positive portrayals of the system. The other two novels had much less sympathetic tales to tell. In the past year or so I've learned more about the system in real life and am discovering that it has its good side and its bad side because like the rest of the world, it is made up of fallible human beings.
The Pinballs is the story of three kids, two teens, a girl and guy, and one little boy, who are in the same foster home. Their foster parents are kind and giving. Carlie is a troubled but caring kid who has had to leave her home because he isn't able to get along with her step dad, who is basically a creep, but Carlie's mom has chosen him over her daughter. Henry's mom left him and his dad to join a commune and "find herself" and his father has turned to alcohol. His father also happened to run Harry over with his car, breaking both of Harry's legs. Young Thomas J. never knew his mom or dad. When he was just a toddler someone dropped him of on the side of the road. Two elderly women found him- twins who never lived apart, and raised him as best they could until they ended up in the hospital due to broken hips. Yeah, they broke their hips at the same time, too. The twin sister details make for a few smiles in this otherwise serious, but not totally depressing book. Carlie, Thomas J and Henry all have a lot to deal with- basically all three have been rejected by their birth families, though in different ways. I listened to this one on cd but it wasn't the first time I tried to read or listen to it. Well, it was the first time I tried to listen to it, but I did try to read it before, when I was young, at least a couple of times. I just couldn't get into it. Listening to it was good though, and I did enjoy it.
It is pretty dated, with references to Tony Orlando and Dawn, Rhoda and Cher when she will still with Sonny. But the one thing that dated it the most was that today's young adult books are way more tragic than this one. This book was written in the 70s and you can tell, not just because of the cultural references but because of the ending. There were so many MORE tragic things that could have happened and would have, if it had been published today!
Check out the covers! The one on the left is the one I remember from being a child. The one on the right is the current one. I just thought that was interesting!

So True

I read this blog post yesterday about the fact that very few African American and black illustrators win the Caldecott Award. Read the post here. If you read this blog, you know how I feel about the Newbery from time to time. I couldn't agree with this blogger's opinion more. Okay. I can't write about this any more now...One Crazy and After Tupac STILL really make me sad! :(

Music is His Life!

For What It's Worth is a really good book.  I enjoyed it a ton and read it quickly, but I don't know a lot of teens I would recommend it too, because, well I don't know.  There are a ton of references to albums and bands in it, and they are actual albums and bands, not like in the bizarre Why We Broke Up, which references a million movies and movie stars that have never existed.  I knew most of the music that Tashjian mentions, but I don't know if teens do.  Maybe they do?  Maybe they don't, but just like I didn't know much about Rimbaud (okay ANYTHING) I was compelled to find out more after reading Radiant Days.  So yeah, I will recommend the book for sure to teens.  And I know I will recommend it to adults.  The book is set in 1971-1972, when Quinn heads back to school after the summer that Jim Morrison has died.
Judy, Jim and Tupac.  The three most important people in music, ever.
Anyway.
Quinn is fourteen and he is a music fanatic!  He has a sweet record collection, a mom and dad, a sister who is a freshman at Brandeis, and he lives is Laurel Canyon.  His mom is friends with Mama Cass, he actually would see people like Janis and Jim hanging out.   He gets a job helping Frank Zappa.  It's just his neighborhood, you know?  In the right place at the right time.  This year he gets his first girlfriend, so there is the young love part.  He also starts to realize more about the world around him.  Remember this is Vietnam time.  The protests, the draft, Watergate is in here.  This is would be a great book to recommend to a teen having to do historical fiction, actually.  I mean, they would enjoy it and it is also historical!
Anyway, great book!

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.