This middle grade coming of age
story is actually historical fiction—my favorite! That being said, it wasn’t my
favorite book ever because it’s a boy book. The main character, also named Jack
Gantos, is interested in war memorabilia, baseball, and suffers from a bloody
nose condition. The plot is amusing—since Jack is grounded for the summer he
helps his elderly neighbor write obituaries for the unusual number of old women
who are dying—and the adult townie characters are fantastic. It’s a
well-written book, but not my type. (Historical Book Challenge #6)
One of my new at work goals is
to read one Harper backlist book a month, starting with the award winners. Monster was selected for me and I so
glad it was! It is the story of Steve Harmon, a 16 year-old black kid from
Harlem who is on trial for murder during a convenience store robbery. It’s
written in multiple formats: diary entries, the trial transcript, some
illustrations. The best part about this novel is that although the jury comes
to a verdict, the reader isn’t ever quite sure if Steve is innocent or guilty.
I’m not quite sure how I feel
about this novel. It’s so different than the Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy
which I adored. This novel is older, darker. It takes the mythology of deadly
water horses and turns it upside down; in a small island community brave (or
foolish) men capture these horses each November to race them. This year, for
various reasons, Kate ‘Puck’ Connelley joins the men and begins a relationship
with the race’s past champion, Sean. Their relationship isn’t the
sigh-and-swoon type of Sam and Grace. I never actually felt really connected to
them. I cared more about Sean’s water horse. But the language in this novel,
especially the sparse dialog, proves once again that Maggie Stiefvater is a
talented writer. (A very small side note: the UK cover is way prettier and more exciting that the US art…)
The
Shreek of Wagons: 1848 Diary of Richard M. May, edited
by Helfrich & Ackerman
This is a little different than
my typical reading this past year. It’s my boyfriend’s
great-great-great-grandfather’s Oregon Trail journal. And since I love history
and I was traveling in Oregon this month I thought it was a great time to read
it! And it was really interesting; he was one of the only diarists of the area
to record meeting settlers coming back East with the gold they had found in
1849 and to mention traveling through a lunar eclipse. Now, of course, I want
to play the Oregon Trail computer game!
In this middle grade
fantasy/dystopian children at the age of 13 are divided in three categories—
intelligent and athletic “Wanteds,” helpful “Necessaries,” and creative
“Unwanteds.” Society believes that the Unwanteds are sent to death, but in
actuality they live in a secret world full of magic and prepare to fight the rest
of the population. I first heard of this book at BEA—and saw the Kirkus Review
calling it “Harry Potter meets the Hunger Games.” I naturally had to see if it
lived up to that hype. Not only did it disappoint, I struggled to even finish
it, only doing so so that I could write a review here. There are many problems
with this novel; first, it is written in such a distant third person that I
never felt like I knew the characters. I never was rooting for them and I
didn’t care if they succeeded. Second, the world-building was far too cutesy
for my taste. This is definitely a personal preference, although I love Savvy and the upcoming Bliss which use puns and clever world
play. This took it too far; characters had names like Mr. Today and his
daughter Claire Morning, the half-octopus was named Octavia. When the students
battled they used neon yellow highlighters to blind opponents, or a dance from The Nutcracker to dance the Wanteds into
submission. Last, (“spoiler”) the Unwanteds beat the Wanteds at the end of the
book—but they win through creative fighting. Never once do the intelligent
and/or athletic Wanteds even acknowledge that creativity is a useful skill.
There needed to be a revelation at the end, because without it, I don’t know
what the message is supposed to be…Overall, I can see the comparison to Harry Potter since the story takes place
in school-like setting a magic world but that’s where the similarities ends: I
didn’t care about the characters, world, outcome, or anything else.
Manuscripts: 4
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