Wonder by R.J. Palacio

I would love to read this book with a group of kids and have a discussion. I imagine that anyone with a book club or reading group of 4th-7th graders added this to their list of titles. The author brings up so many adolescent topics and themes in the context of a boy who feels normal but physically is not. Most of the supporting characters mirrored this with deceiving appearances hiding something emotional or internal. I thought that was just terrific.

I also liked learning about the other characters through their own voices. I wasn't expecting to read Via, Justin, Will, and Summer's thoughts and I thought the author worked that in nicely. Sometimes their narrations would overlap what August just experienced, but often their sections advanced the story which takes place over his 5th grade year. (note: I kept thinking they were older than 5th grade, in part because in this book 5th grade is middle school.)

There are great pop culture references to Star Wars, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and Tolkien. I was not as impressed with the song quotes.

All of this praise aside, I would be surprised if this took the Newbery. Yes, it earned loads of starred reviews and made many Newbery prediction lists. Yes, it is a terrific book that kids will also likely enjoy very much, which is not always the case with a Newbery Award winner. But for me, outside of the character of August I didn't find the writing exceptionally distinguished.

Patti's End of the Year Favorites

My favorite books of the year in no particular order:

Teen:

Green, John - The Fault in our Stars

Lanagan, Margo - The Brides of Rollrock Island

Kendare, Blake - Girl of Nightmares

Roth, Veronica - Insurgent

Tiernan, Cate - Immortal Beloved (not published in 2012 the publisher said these books were like crack and they were! I loved them all!)

Wein, Elizabeth - Code Name Verity

Castellucci, Cecil - The Year of the Beasts

Hartman, Rachel - Seraphina

Anderson, Jodi Lynn - Tiger Lilly

Adult:

I read all the books in George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones Series. LOVED them. 

Walker, Karen Thomson - The Age of Miracles

Pavone, Chris - Expats

Caine, Chelsea - Kill You Twice

Stephenson, Neal - Snowcrash

Murakami, Haruki - The Windup Bird Chronicle

Semple, Maria - Where'd You Go Bernadette?

TV:

Game of Thrones

Downton Abbey

Sherlock

Once Upon a Time (guilty pleasure)

Luther

Firefly (finally watched it!)
Spaced (holy crap funny)

Mock Printz Winners

Well, friends, despite the fact I didn't blog about the rest of the Mock Printz books I did read them. And I got together with a big group of lovely ladies to discuss them. Here are the results:

Winner:
The Fault in our Stars - John Green

Honors:
The Brides of Rollrock Island -  Margo Lanagan
Code Name Verity -  Elizabeth E. Wein

The Fault in our Stars was the runaway favorite (no surprises there right?). I was in favor of Brides, but I was in a clear minority. And it is hard to begrudge The Fault in our Stars. It was an excellent book.

I can't wait to see what the real committee chooses. There is a lot of buzz/librarian investment for all three of these titles and if they pull something out of left field there will be riots. I kind of can't help but want a riot...but do I want a riot more than i want Brides to win? Oh man, it is hard to say!

End of the Year Reading

Goodness, it's already the new year! Make that 28 days until the Youth Media Awards. While I am looking forward to the new year of reading (ahem Sarah Dessen and Melina Marchetta) I still have a small mountain of reading to finish for 2012. Here's a terribly thrifty review list of what I managed to read recently. Happy New Year, Oops Readers!

Every Day by David Levithan
He pulled off what could have been a disaster. A little sci-fi, a little mystery, and chapters of great characters. This one made Patti's Mock Printz list and I would love to hear the discussion. It's still a distance from Stars and Verity for me, but dang, David Levithan is amazing. How does it do it all?

Liar & Spy by Rebecca Stead
I loved this book. I didn't burst into tears like I did for When You Reach Me, but I was with Georges the whole book. Reading as an adult, there aren't too many mysteries in middle grade stories, but they're not written for me so I overlook it.  Knowing that things are never what they seem in a Rebecca Stead book I still fell for this one hook, line, and sinker. The one about his mother I didn't even see coming. And I thought I had the title all figured out. Silly me.

One Year in Coal Harbor by Polly Horvath
A second Polly Horvath novel this year! A cause for celebration. A companion to Everything on a Waffle? Deliciously wonderful. Twelve year old Primrose continues to delight and we also have a return of chapter-ending recipes complete with our heroine's comments. I submit the final line of "Tater Tot Casserole", which, by the way, is in Primrose's charity cookbook entitled Just Throw Some Melted Butter on It and Call It a Day. :

On a cold rainy night when people are not participating in the better plan you have for them, this can be a comfort. (p. 116) 

Polly Horvath books are refreshingly strange. She makes you think with vocab like ersatz and adjudicator and references to Mary Oliver essays and French recipes. She's left of center with a big heart. And really, really funny.

A Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Rowling is a bad ass. Case closed. A total departure from HP while also being completely great in its own right amazes and thrills me. She didn't have to write anything else, ever!, but she did and it is really good. The best book of the year? Nah. The most surprising? Probably.

The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan

Check another great Mock Printz book off the list. Margo Lanagan's stories embrace folklore, mythology (whether based on traditional tales or something she crafts herself), and fantastical imagery. And they've also given me some of the creepiest chills while reading.

I loved the movie The Secret of Roan Inish when I saw it back in college, so this summer when I heard about a Margo Lanagan selkie story I anticipated all kids of love. What would Lanagan add to the folktales?

My initial thought after finishing: this was pretty darn tame for a ML book.

I definitely found the weak-minded men leching after their stolen selkie brides creepy. I kept thinking that there has to be more to the story than the men leaving human women behind for these brides. Albeit brides given to them by a scheming witch. Still, a rather tame witch as witches come.

So where's the catch? These men must have repercussions for keeping their wives. I want justice for all the girls and women! But then, are the men bad? Am I starting to feel sorry for them? Might that be a glimmer of devistation on the horizon? Because that would be Lanagan style. Gently slip those chills in there.

I knew the brides would find their way back to the sea, but how and would it be terrible? By this far into the book readers will piece together potential for what may come. Brides makes for another excellent example of a storyline revealing itself in bits and making the reader stretch her mind back to previous names and details. When the revelations unfold, whoa. Chills! Thank you, author!

The verdict? I still have Verity and Stars on top of my list. I'm in the midst of a detour (Alice Munro's Dear Life) and then I'll dive into Every Day. A great list of reading so far!

A Certain October by Angela Johnson

A Certain October made the Mock Printz list. Angela Johnson's 1993 novel Toning the Sweep remains one of my favorite YA novels. Also, if you haven't read the picture book Lily Brown's Paintings do so immediately.  My eyes would mist when I read it for storytime. Little brother stories always get me.

I looked forward to reading this novel in part because of Angela Johnson's talent for capturing complex and emotional stories within her short novels. This one takes 158 pages and that is generous considering the undersized physical book. Pick it up and go. Read it in a night.

Scotty and her friends hang out at a place called the Endangered Species Café. The metaphor for teenagers is apt and Scotty's life changes in both beautiful and terrible ways. Angela Johnson gives us this one month view of rather ordinary teenage life: homecoming dress shopping, caring for little brother, loving parents, BFFs, late night talk, boyfriends, girlfriends, all that in between mystery, school work. Then there's that tragedy that knocks Scotty hard. Take a look at that cover because it's going to be all right.

But if I'm ever asked if there was a time in my life that made me the person I am, I will point to a certain October that stays with me like a song played over the radio a hundred times at the start of the day. You can't get it out of your head so all you can do is go through it. (p. 1-2)

Short novels may get the short end of the award discussion much like early reader books for the Newbery buzz. It certainly isn't impossible as Angela Johnson won the award for The First Part Last at a whopping 132 pages. But they can be overlooked in favor of more complex plot-driven or world-building stories. The skillful language and nuances of the story are certainly exceptional and, in my opinion, a good reflection on teenage life.  That being said, as much as I admire what this novel accomplishes, I have a difficult time holding it up to Code Name Verity or The Fault in Our Stars. I need to read a few more Mock Printz titles so my comparison list remains incomplete. (next up: Brides of Rollrock Island) (...as soon as I finish Alex potential The Round House)

Three reading notes. 1) There's a character with a rollerskating Earth tattoo which made me smile thinking about. 2) Scotty's homework is on Anna Karenina which is perfect timing for the movie. 3) Mean librarian. Yeah, okay, they're out there.

November Reads, Adult

I saw Penelope on a list of the year's best novels posted at Huffington Post. (The author works for the publication but the article insisted that wasn't a factor.) It seemed like good Alex Award material so I checked it out.

I think it could find a place on the Alex list. I am just not a big fan of the novel. While there were plenty of moments where I laughed out loud or was pleasantly shocked, Penelope is a tough character to get close to and in the end that kept me from enjoying the novel wholly.

On the other hand, Where'd You Go, Bernadette? had me from the hilarious start. Told mostly in email and letters with additional help from Bernadette's (delightful) young teenage daughter, the story is a mystery about Bernadette's sudden disappearance. There's quite a bit of adult drama but I am a little curious to see if it also makes an Alex nomination.

I was reading this at my son's baseball practice and one of the mothers immediately asked if that was "The Real Molly Ringwald" and then engaged me in conversation about our favorite Molly Ringwald movie scenes. So while not a contender for the Alex, it fits well with the YA theme of my usual reading. (Sam is my favorite, btw.)

Plus, I thought it was very good! A happy bonus. The story is about the successes and failures of a married couple told through individual short stories. I enjoy discovering characters pop up in different narratives so this worked well for me.

A friend recommended balancing out my 80's teen revival with Andrew McCarthy's The Longest Way Home memoir and I just couldn't finish it. Meh. Not my thing.

November Reads, children's and YA

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage showed up on early Newbery prediction lists. I was drawn to it immediately because I love a good Southern novel and it sports a fantastic wrap-around cover by Gilbert Ford.

While I adored the characters of Mo, Dale, and the Colonel, I could not embrace the whole story. My particular thorn was when the relationship between Miss Lana and the Colonel was revealed. That whole resolution was anything but for me. Poor Mo, desperate to hear about her real parents, and yet knows nothing. This is supposed to be a contemporary novel and I just could not suspend my disbelief that no one knew who her mother is or where she came from. (Also, the book is too long and the story dragged.)

Oh Code Name Verity, you make reading such a rewarding experience. That nice artistic empty space on your cover will have a lovely medal on it for sure. Likely more than one so get used to it. It was worth the nearly 6 month wait for my local library to stock you.

To nit pick, (which is not a metaphor in the book. ugh.) I am not a fan of using a narrator's journal writing for an entire novel. You wrote that by hand, in the dark, injured, freezing, with a broken pencil, on music pages, in 15 minutes? Sure you did. But here, it works because it is so masterfully done. And with our unreliable narrator and twisted story, maybe it did and maybe it didn't.

The Bomb: The Race to Build and Steal The World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

Everybody and their mother have been talking about this one. Even before it was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award it was getting a bunch of buzz.

What did I think? Wow, compelling non-fiction for sure. It read like a spy-story and it would make a thrilling movie. In fact, the chapters cut back and forth between the main characters just like a movie so it was almost like reading a screenplay. I was kind of in awe.

Like Nina at the Heavy Medal blog – (or probably more accurate because of her)I wondered about some of the quotes and the very specific descriptions of looks, actions, etc. Much of this I’m sure came from memoirs, etc., but some of it seemed as though the author was perhaps reaching a bit.  

Now, keep in mind I was reading and deliberately looking for flaws in an excellently written book. If I had to pick one thing that made me uneasy about this book it was the complete lack of mention about the Native Americans whose lands the bombs were tested on and around. I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I read this, but I have a vivid memory of a firsthand account of the bomb testing where kids were playing in the atomic fallout like it was snow. Did I make that up? The memory I have of this is so real. I didn't really do any research to see if this was true or a false memory, but it made me uncomfortable all the same. 

I also think it understated the impact of dropping the atomic bombs in Japan. Why were there no pictures of the devastation? Not one. I found that a little shocking. Yes, he says this was serious stuff and he certainly doesn't make light of it – but images would have really driven home just how serious it really was. I would have also liked a little more on the long-term effects of the bombs. I don’t think there was one mention of long-term cancer rates? 

This was an excellent book – but I am certain it will not be getting my vote for most distinguished.

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Mock Printz Titles: 

1. The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
2. A Certain October - Angela Johnson
3. Raven Boys - Maggie Stiefvator
4. Brides of Rollrock Island - Margo Lanogan
5. Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
6. Every Day - David Levithan
7. Bomb - Steven Sheinkin
8. Never Fall Down - Patricia McCormick
9. Ask the Passengers - AS King
10. The Drowned Cities - Paolo Bacigalupi

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

I am deep in the throes of Mock Printz reading. So of course I spend my precious reading time reading things that aren't on there. Oy. This is a super duper fun book though - and was exactly the no-pressure type of reading I was craving.

Fiesty girl assassin? Check. Love triangle? Check. Big Bad...something? Check. It pretty much hit all the standard points and had some good writing to boot. And it was entirely entertaining. It did hit some of my biggest irritations though. Names I have no idea how to pronounce and that seem strange for no apparent reason? Um. Yeah, kind of. A protagonist that is pretty much amazingly smart, fierce, and deadly not picking up on things that are kinda sorta pretty obvious? Well, yes... But, was this fun, fun, fun? So much fun you'll forgive it any flaws? I'm venturing the answer is yes.

I will also say that it starts out super strong, but perhaps loses a little momentum by the end. I think this is purely because it has been set up to be a series and they didn't want to wrap too much up in the first book. That was probably my biggest complaint. It started with a bang and it would have been great to end it that way too.

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Book Source = borrowed copy