When Piper gets to school one day, Dumb is playing their set out front, and quite a crowd has gathered. She’s a little disgusted and a little intrigued. But what can she tell, exactly, about a band that’s won a couple of studio sessions and generated a little buzz at the high school? She’s deaf.

But Piper doesn’t let her deafness get in the way of offering them a challenge. She claims she can get them a paying gig — not just something they’ve won. Dumb takes the challenge, not taking too much stock in it. Really, what does a deaf girl know about managing a band when she can’t even hear what they sound like anyway?

Antony John’s Five Flavors of Dumb is a refreshing work about the challenges most teenagers will both understand and never understanding: fitting in. Piper and her best friend Marissa used to attend a special program for deaf students, but when funding got cut for the program, Piper was mainstreamed and Marissa’s family chose to move from the Seattle area down to San Francisco. Piper’s got to fit in now and she’ll have to do so without the support of her best friend.

This book, without a doubt, has massive teen appeal. There is rock and roll and there is the dream of making it big in that scene. Dumb is the most well-known school band in the area, and they’ve even earned the nod from a local recording exec from a talent content. We’ll leave out the part that there was little competition of which to speak. And Piper wants to challenge them and herself more by stepping up to manage the band and while doing this, she’ll learn a lot about rock music and success and the band will learn a lot about what it means when someone is deaf.

Adding to the extremely appealing social aspects of the novel is the family aspect. Piper’s got a bit of a rough family situation, too. See, when Piper was born deaf, there were no real cures or aids to help deaf people her better. But her baby sister, born not too long ago, has had the chance to get cochlear implants, and her hearing will be as close to normal as possible. Because of the expense of the surgery, Piper’s folks have raided her college fund and are unable to pay for the surgery for her. Instead, she’ll wear hearing aids for life and depend on her abilities to sign and read lips. Her brother, a bit of a trouble maker, IS able to hear but he’s also able to sign, which has made Piper’s life of communicating a little easier, considering dad has never bothered trying to sign and her mom hates to do it.

Piper is a real teen, too. Throughout the book, I found myself loving her and hating her. She did good things and she did annoying things, but what made her most noteworthy was her strong sense of determination: she wanted to make money for the band (and subsequently herself). She also knew what her parents did to her money was wrong, and she wants to show them how responsible she is in earning some money back. In addition, we see Piper’s friendships change. Although we know Marissa has moved away, Piper still considers her a best friend, even if Marissa is less enthusiastic as the story goes on. She’s not too keen on Piper’s management and quite frankly, has little faith in her ability to do it. But as success seems to happen, even if it is microscopic, Marissa sees that this isn’t just a passing interest of Piper’s. She’s quite serious and determined.

While reading this book, I could not help but compare it to Tara Kelly’s Harmonic Feedback, reviewed here. In both stories, we have a main character who has a big physical challenge, as well as a theme of the importance of music, and a setting in the pacific northwest. I think these two books would be fantastic to pair together. Teachers or librarians looking for book units could work these two together perfectly.

What stood out to me most about this book, though, was the use of a deaf character. I work in an area with a large deaf population, and to read something like this for teens really spoke to me. This is the kind of stuff we need to see more of: teens who have physical obstacles in their life. Not only that, but teens who have them and yet are still teens. I commend Antony for doing this, and I am excited to highlight this book at work for our community. This is what it means to be contemporary ya fiction.

Oh, and the cover? Need I mention the appeal for teens here? You won’t even need to sell the story since the cover not only sells it, but it tells it. I think readers will love the other issues that come up, too. Check out these three posts at thatcovergirl and Melissa Walker’s fabulous cover story for even more insight into the design and appeal of the cover.

Charlie Daskin spends her summers away from the city, in a small town where she’s an outsider and in her many summers there, she’s never been able to fit in. She’s Charlie Dorkin to the neighbor kids Rose, Luke, and Dave, and now that Year 10 is over, she’s ready for the same old summer.

Rose, who lives in the small town, fears she’ll live the life of her mother: she’ll be stuck there forever. She wants nothing more than to live in the city, and when she passes an exam that would let her spend Years 11 and 12 at a big school in the city, she knows she’ll need to find a way to convince her mother that it’s the right path for her. Perhaps she should use Charlie as her way out of this town and into the big city.

A Little Wanting Song, in a word, is nice. Crowley’s writing style is pleasant, and the Australian slang and expressions are fun to read (and never distracting from the story line). This book is told in alternating voices, starting with Charlie and continuing on with Rose. Both girls are well drawn, with Charlie trying to find her way away from her home and through the grief over the loss of her mother and grandmother and Rose trying to find a way to get out of her town and into the big city.

Charlie is a musician, and throughout the book, her songs make appearances between chapters. There is a serious sense of wanting, both from Charlie and Rose, and the music draws together the girls who are otherwise quite opposite of one another. Beyond the obvious wanting here, there is a wanting on the part of the reader for the characters, too: while reading, I couldn’t help but feel horrible for Charlie, who was being blatantly used by Rose for her own purposes. But I couldn’t feel too bad because I also felt for Rose, who feared becoming her mother. I couldn’t quite blame her for wanting to do what she could to change her life’s situation.

Of course, there’s also a little romance in this book, and it is fun. Luke and Rose have always been an on again off again item, and now with Charlie being “accepted” into the group of friends, Dave and her have burgeoning feelings, as well. This truly is a life changing summer for each of the characters, who learn a lot about one another and themselves. This is the sort of book that teens anywhere will relate to, as everyone has been a Charlie or a Rose or a Dave or a Luke. Crowley’s ability to capture the teen experience was done quite well.

While the book picks up its pace as the story moves along, be prepared for a little bit of a slow start. Part of this comes from the fact that Charlie’s story meanders in its setting: it’s set in the present, but there are instances of flashbacks, so it’s essential to read this one carefully or it’d be easy to believe things are happening at the present when they’re really moments of the past being recalled. The pacing of this book reminded me of a Sarah Dessen novel; it’s a little slow as we learn about the characters but as we become more comfortable, the story picks up and ends before we know it. This is a book to hand to your Dessen fans, for sure.

I’m eager to track down more Crowley works in the future, as I’m also excited to tackle some of the other Australian titles on the Cybils list this year. The setting, while foreign, is quite familiar, and the expressions are enjoyable (even the characters seem to get a kick out of it: in Australia, underwear is referred to as “jocks” and Dave and Luke get a real kick out of talking about what a funny expression “jocks” is). The music in this book really sets the tone, and that will resonate loudly with readers who will easily find themselves understanding Charlie or Rose because they’re there or have been there before.