This is it.

Plain and simple.  Auma's Long Run deserves the Newbery this year.  It also deserves the Printz.  If it does not win it will be 1954 all over again.  

Incredible.  Simply incredible.

Eucabeth A. Odhiambo, a professor at Shippensburg University has written and inspirational, heart-breaking, heart-melting, hard and important book telling the story of a 13-year old girl living in Kenya in the 1980s when the AIDS crisis was just beginning to take hold.  

Dr. Odhiambo also an includes this link from the UN which can show you the progress that has been made and the important work that still needs to be done.  

The winner.  No matter what the committee says.  

Stranger than Fiction

My thoughts about Strange the Dreamer are very strange.   I tried to get into this book four times before I made it.  And there were times when I thought I would never finish it.  And I hated it, a lot.  But now that I have finished it, I find that I can't say I hated it.  I just think it was too long for me.  But it was very original.  And it was VERY quotable.  Especially for someone very much in love.  I don't think that I will read the second book.  But then again, maybe I will.  It has been a couple of days since I finished it now,  and I do find myself going back in my head to the world Laini Taylor created.  There is no doubt that she is a very talented writer.  This just isn't my usual book.  But yes, I can see why this would be wildly popular.   I don't know if it is Printz-worthy, but then again, it is hard for me to judge being that I am so very much not a fantay person.  Yet...because I did enjoy the book so much, while it being so counter what I usually like-- maybe that does make it more Printz-worthy?  That it pulled in readers with preferences so counter?
Again, super well written.

Wow

Bang is an incredibly excellent book.
It is just a wow book.
I think Barry Lyga is one of my most favorite authors.
I think this is Printz worthy.
I just really, really thought the whole thing was realistic and hopeful and sad and horrible and really, really real.  This and The Hate U Give are my picks so far for Printz, but I think this one edges out HUG.  Of course, that could be because I just finished this one, so I will have to see how I feel about both a little further on down the road.  But this one?  Wow.

This will be a hard one...

to beat for the Printz this year.  The Hate U Give is Timely and real.  It asks hard questions and makes one think.  And doesn't demonize anyone.  And not a cheesy exploitation of a hot topic.  Really, really, really excellent.

My Favorite Star

has to be sun, right?  I mean, without the sun, what would we do?  We wouldn't do anything, we'd all be dead.
That has nothing to do with The Sun is Also a Star.  I can't remember why this title fits.  I mean, I can't figure out the reason for the title.  The fact is mentioned in the book.  Natasha is fond of "provable facts" and really doesn't want to have faith or trust in anything that is not a "provable fact."  Whereas Daniel believes dreams are important, that passion is important, that feelings are important.
And girl meets boy and they fall in love.
But the book is more than just boy meets girl and they fall in love.  It is really beautiful.  It is really moving.  It is really well written.  This is my favorite for the Printz this year.  Will it win?  Probably not, but I would like it to win!

Always More

A.S. King always offers more-- so much more, in her books.  When I started Still Life with Tornado, I think I had forgotten that.
I was listening and thinking, "Blah, this is like that horrible Wintergirls, but with a different problem."
And then I remembered that this is A.S. King.
Really, really well told story.  In just her way.  Excellent.  I think this might be my Printz pick.  This or We Are the Ants.  Just excellent.

WW2 Weekend

This weekend I went to see The Innocents, which was a very, very good film.  I also finished the book Girl in the Blue Dress which was an even better book.  A really, really great book.  Will it win the Printz?  It's on the Printz Watch-List of that little group I follow on goodreads.  That's why I read it.  Again, I am thankful that I am following that group because I tend to be a slacker when it comes to books.  There is one part in GINBD where the main character talks how some people like to read the end of a book to make sure that "everyone turns out okay" and her boyfriend mocks this.  I know what that is like!  As I have shared that I have done that sometimes.  In a book based on a real-life horror like WW2, however, there is no need to read to the end.  I mean, how does anything really "turn out okay" in the face of such hell.
This book is set in Amsterdam in 1943 and tells the story of a young girl who stumbles into the resistance movement when she is ask to help find the whereabouts of a young woman who was previously being hidden from the Nazis.  The book does a little back and forth in time, and it is done very well and the past sheds light on to the present story being told.  The whole book is just...masterful.  Yes, that is the right word.  At the end of the audio there is an interview with the author, Monica Hesse, who is a very accomplished journalist and has proven that she is also an incredible writer of historical fiction.  Many, many thumbs up.

The Fault in Our Memories

Memory is a tricky thing for "healthy" people.

My favorite movie is about memories.  And this quote has always stuck with me:

Memory is the selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain. Each image is like a thread, each thread woven together to make a tapestry of intricate texture. And the tapestry tells a story, and the story is our past.

It is the "selection" part of the brain on which the movie focuses.

In the case of some, however, there is no ability to select which memories will stay and which will go.  Memory loss is a frightening thing.  I have known people who have struggled with and suffered from memory loss.  And I am saddned to know three siblings who battle Early-onset Alzheimer's, each in their 30s, having already lost their father to the disease when they were children and young teens.

The Memory Book is the story of Sammie who battles Niemann-Pick disease, a disease I had not heard of prior to reading this book.  She writes this book with the hopes that her future self will remember when she cannot.

This book is so well done.  It is so very, very good.  I read this as part of group of readers considering books for the Printz award and I have to say that so far, this is my pick, for sure.

While I think that some will compare it to The Fault in Our Stars, I think that will only happen before they read it.  Because this does not seem to me like a "jump-on-the-teens-in-love-dying" bandwagon.

It is simply an excellent book.  Lara Avery has written a super book.

Whaley World!

Highly Illogical Behavior by Printz winner John Corey Whaley is getting Printz buzz.  And I really enjoyed this book.  The problem is, in my opinion, his first two books, Where Things Come Back and Noggin were SO incredible that this one didn't wow me when compared to them.  It did wow me, but those other books were just so WOW that I wanted this one to wow me more!  That might be totally unfair!  Because this is a really good book.  The characters are so well crafted and the story moves quickly and it is very different.  This is more certainly worth reading and worth recommending.  I just think that Whaley is such an outstanding author, I expect everything he does to be WOW WOW WOW.  So I gave this one 4 of 5 stars, but if I could have it would have been 4.5!  Or maybe the other two books would have been 6 and this one would have been 5!

Midwinter Mystery

Midwinterblood won the Printz Award this year and it seemed to take FOREVER for it to come out on audio!  I was wanting to read this so badly.  It just looked so interesting, even though I had no clue what it was about and I still don't have a big picture of it.  But man...it was worth the wait.  It was so, so good.  I read some place that "if you like your horror more moody than gory" you will like this book. Yes, I would say, yes indeed this is moody.  And horrific, and a smart, smart kind of horror.  I think that you will enjoy it best if you don't know anything about it beforehand.  Just read it and savor the words and get lost in it.  Awesome.

Underwhelming

Well I can't say I am suprised.  The Youth Media Award winners are here. 
I was happy with some. 
Year of Billy Miller and Doll Bones getting Newbery Honors.  Good deal.  I haven't read Flora and Ulysses, but I am looking forward to it after my magical experience with Edward Tulane.   No mention at all of The Boy on the Porch and what really should have won, if we are all honest, P.S. Be Eleven, if not on its own merit, just because of the horrible 1954-like tragedy that was Moon Over Manifest.   P.S. did win the Coretta Scott King, which is wonderful, but man...man...man...it really should have gotten the Newbery.  Or maybe time has shown us that the Coretta Scott King award is a more prestigious, educated award.  Why hope for a Newbery if it is just going to keep overlooking books that are clearly outstanding.  Look at who won the Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award, the VERY VERY VERY deserving Patricia and Fredrick McKissack.  LOVE LOVE LOVE Patricia McKissack.  Especially The Honest to Goodness Truth.  Mr. McKissack died last year, but we know he is celebrating now! 
As for the Caldecott Award.  Nothing I had hoped for even got an honor.  But I can't deny that Locomotive isn't very, very deserving. 
Very excited to see Watermelon Seed get the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award and to see Tim Federle get a Stonewall honor for Better Nate Than Ever!  And how cool that Help for the Haunted got an Alex! 
I am super excited to read Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass!  And I was happy to see Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote:  a migrant's tale get both author and illustrator Belpré honors. 
The Printz Award was the biggest shock for me.  I really thought that Eleanor and Park would win.  Ah I just can't even go on anymore.  Underwhelmed, indeed. 

Read! Now!

The Golden Day is a very odd book.  I saw it on a couple Mock Printz sites and then saw it was pretty short and a mystery and historical fiction set during the time of the Vietnam War and I thought, why not?  So I bought the audio download and what a journey it was.  After I bought it, I discovered that it is set in Australia.  I am glad that I found this out AFTER I bought it, because of my own goofballishness, I don't think I would have read it, had I known and then I would have been the loser.
The story takes place in an all girls school, in a class of tweens, on the day that Ronald Ryan, that last man to be executed in Australia, was hung.  This event has really troubled the girls' teacher, and so she says to them, "Let us go out into the garden and contemplate death."
The young teacher wants to go into the garden to see one of the gardeners, a poet named Morgan.  She has a thing for him.  He's a poet and hippie and she is in love.  She also believes that the class can learn from him.
Well they do learn.  Something.
What a book.  What a wild, weird, floaty, psychological mind-trip book.  Very, very different.  A Printz winner?  Maybe.  Maybe.

Printz Buzz

With the end of the year fast approaching, the Mock Printz Awards are all the buzz.  One book that has gotten so much is Holly Black's The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.  I had recently read Black's Doll Bones, which is getting Newbery buzz, but IMO, it is too good to actually win.  I like vampire books.  But I am not a fanatic about them.  I loved listening to Dracula.  And I loved the Twilight books, even though I was Team Jacob.  The Coldest Girl was pretty good.  It was long man, really long.  I listened to it on 3 speed and it was still long, but yet, the world that Black has created is amazing.  I really feel like I want to know more about it.  I wonder if I should have read it, but I don't know, it was super long.  I like Tana, the main character, who lives in a world where vampires are known evil things in this world.  Folks have to be pretty careful not to get caught out after dark.  Infected folks and vampires live in places called Coldtowns.  There is a lot of vampire myth and lore packed into this book.  Even though vampires are deadly, they are pretty sexy too.  Still, if I had to pick a vampire to be my man, it would be Lucius Vladescu.  When will Ms. Fantasky bring him back!  If you like a good vampire story, though, you won't be disappointed in Coldest.  It is creepy. 

 

Steps Away

Great book even though it won the Printz! I need to look at who it was up against but man, it was quite good. A Step from Heaven is written by An Na who wrote Wait for Me, which I really enjoyed a big bunch.  I guess the fact that it was a medal winner kept me from reading this one.  But man, it was really good.  It's the story of a young girl who comes with her family from Korea to the US.  Her father is a rotten SOB and very abusive and man...this is just such a powerful, powerful book.  Highly recommended. 

Could win the Printz!

If you ask me, anyway.  Not that I know much.  Or have faith in awards.  As we remember 1954.  But man, Ask the Passengers has what it takes to win.  It is truly wonderfully written.  It is such a real story with real characters.  It is perfect for LGTB or non-LGTB or BTLs or AFS, or NTSB folk.  Seriously, this book is beautiful.  I mean it has nasty parts, for sure.  There are dirtbag Holocaust-deniers and gossip-mongers, and all you would expect in a small town, or big town for that matter, but the book is set in a small town.  And I would imagine, it would be a lot harder to be a gay teen in a small town rather than a big one. 
This is the story of Astrid Jones, high school teen, who has fallen in love with a girl.  She doesn't feel that she can tell anyone, even though she has a best friend who is gay.  Her family isn't horrific.  She has a sister who is a year younger, a pretty cool dad and a mom who is pretty self-obsessed, but she loves them and all. 
She also feels though, that she has no one to truly love her, because they a. don't know the real her because of her secret  and b.  well she can't love her girlfriend because that just wouldn't cut it in a small town, especially when her mom is so concerned with what others think.
The thing is, this is about more than Astrid's sexuality though.  It is about coming of age and being your own person and being okay with the unknown.  It is also about sexuality as being fluid, too.  Like "loving hearts, not parts."
Great book.  So much to talk about.  Great for anyone and everyone! 

Baby Come Back

Once again my dear friend Kara recommended a book to me and I am glad she did. I probably wouldn't have read Where Things Come Back right away. There are a lot of books I want to read now and a lot of books I have to read and so it would have been a while probably. Kara said that I needed to read it because she had to talk about it with someone and I can't wait to see her tonight to do just that. Where Things Come Back is an award-winning YA book by first time author John Corey Whaley. WTCB reminded me a great deal of The Love Curse of the Rumbaughs with its very original storyline, dark humor and depiction of small-town life. When you compare any book to a Gantos book, the "any book" is going to fall short, but that's not really taking much, or anything, away from the "any book." Gantos is like Judy. One of a kind.

WTCB is full of surprises, but I was mad at myself because I figured out the surprise by the second chapter, I think it was. This is the woman who can't solve a Nancy Drew or a Three Investigators or Stuart Woods book. Trust me, the surprise is NOT easy to figure out, I just have no idea how I stumbled on it, it was totally dumb luck but once I saw the ending coming, I think I lost part of the experience of the book. Still it was an incredible, thoughtful book, even if you do figure it out after the second chapter.

Half of the book is told from the POV of Cullen a neat, cynical kid, in his summer before his senior year of high school. He has a fifteen year old brother, Gabriel, who looks a lot like him, but is a lot different. He's kind of a magical kid. The kind of kid who sees the best in everything and everyone. Cullen and Gabe have a great relationship, as do all of the members of the Witter family, which is a neat change for a YA book.

Part of the story is set in the town of Lily, Arkansas, which is fake, I think. But it could be any small town that people are dying to get out of. It had that same Norvelt-kinda feel. That's where Cullen and Gabe live. And that's the town from which Gabe disappears one day. Vanishes into thin air.

The other part of the story, which is told in the alternating chapters takes place in Savannah and Ethiopia. Ben believes he is called to be a preacher, spread the word of God, but when he is sent on his first mission trip to Ethiopia, with a veteran missionary named Rameel. Ben discovers that what Rameel does is bring food, water, crop-planting help and medical care to the poor. Ben thinks that this isn't the way to serve God. He wants to go some place where he can preach God's word and save sinners. He quits the ministry and becomes obsessed with the Book of Enoch, an ancient Jewish text that is only included in the canon of a couple of churches.

I'm not going to say anymore about the plot and if after you read that, you are thinking...what the heck??? I'll also add that the book is about a thought-to-be extinct woodpecker, the Lazarus Woodpecker, possibly being spotting in Lily. The only other thing I'll add is that you have to read the book to appreciate how it all comes together and you won't be disappointed.

WTCB impressed me for a lot of reasons. I loved, loved, loved Rameel's definition of and way of serving God. I don't know if Whaley is a Christian, but he certainly has got it right, either way, because Rameel is just amazing and Whaley's description of his work, and Rameel's words to Ben are so beautiful and so spot-on, I would encourage pastors to read this book as well.

I also loved the characters. This is a short book but man....Whaley knows how to put a lot into a little bit of space.

Excellent. Excellent book.

Excellent song, too.