STACKED

books

Odd Duck by Cecil Castellucci and Sara Varon

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What happens when two favorite authors team up and make a graphic novel? You get Odd Duck and it is everything you’d hope it could be — and maybe even a little more!

What I love about Sara Varon’s work is how she tells stories of friendship that aren’t sappy and that are real in their imperfections. Cecil Castellucci does the same thing in her stories — the friendships are flawed and yet, wholly real in those flaws. 

In Odd Duck, we meet Theodora, who is perfect. She loves her life, including the fact she’s the only duck who buys mango salsa and the only duck who checks out certain books in the library (the librarian has to even dust those titles since they’ve been shelf sitters for so long). She doesn’t want anything to change because she is happy with who she is. Things are calm, peaceful, and serene. 

But then Chad moves in next door. Chad colors his feathers, lives in a house that’s boarded up and messy, and he’s anything but coordinated nor quiet. He frustrates Theodora’s quiet and peaceful life. Why does he have to be there and ruin everything she has going for her? Theodora is not happy. 

When the two of them finally talk, bonding over their shared love and appreciation for the night sky, they discover they have a lot more in common than appears on the surface. But when they’re going for a walk one afternoon and overhear the other ducks whispering about the “Odd Duck,” each accuses the other of being the weird one. Neither of them wants to admit to being the “odd duck.” Because neither of them are, of course — Theodora is perfectly normal in her quiet ways and Chad is perfectly normal in his more colorful life. But when called out, it appears both Chad and Theodora think of each other as odd, even if they never wanted to admit it. 

Suddenly, the two of them find themselves fighting. Now everything Chad does irritates Theodora and vice versa. 

But of course, they find themselves lonely. They miss each other’s odd habits, and they miss spending time together. It’s not too long before they decide to make amends and choose to be friendly with one another again. 

Maybe it was each other’s embracing of their own oddness that made them so companionable after all.

This is charming read without being saccharine, and it’s wildly funny. It’s perfectly appropriate for very young readers. There’s nothing to blush at here — it’s the kind of book that will work for elementary readers through your older adult readers who appreciate a fun, lighthearted read about the power of friendship and embracing your eccentricities.  

The art, as one would expect from Varon, is fantastic, vibrant, and equally as funny as the writing itself. The design of this book is super appealing, too: it’s a hard cover, and the boards are done in the many portraits of Theodora and Chad. Odd Duck is the kind of book you read more than once. You first read it for the story, then you go back again and again to pick up on all of the subtleties in the illustrations. There’s a keen attention to detail that distinguishes Theodora from Chad. I love the panels on the right — Theodora is prim and proper, even wearing gloves as she’s checking out old books from the library. Max, the librarian, is a good duck — though I would argue he could use some help weeding his collection a little better. 

I give bonus points to Castellucci and Varon for how easy it is to see Theodora is an introvert and completely happy with her introverted lifestyle and yet, she’s still able to develop a worthwhile and valuable friendship with someone so opposite herself. It’s a smaller detail, but it’s one I really appreciated. 

Odd Duck is clever and fun and a book that earns a worthy spot right next to other graphic novels like Robot Dreams and Bake Sale as ones worth visiting again and again.

Review copy received from the publisher. Odd Duck is available now. 

The Chocolate War: First Impressions

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I’ve read The Chocolate War before.

It was one of the first YA books I read in the YA Lit class I took in graduate school. Which means it’s a book Kimberly’s read, too — for those of you just tuning in, she and I met when we took that class.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself, circa September 2008: I had yet to actually work in a library with teenagers. I’d worked with teenagers before, but it was in a classroom setting for one summer. These were a very narrow group of teens. And this is nothing against them because they were wonderful to work with, but they all came from privilege, were all gifted, and they were all selected to participate in this series of advanced-level summer classes.

In other words, I’d yet to see the extremes of teens. I saw a pretty homogenous group with similar backgrounds.

My reading and reflection upon books and their audience very much was telling in my own experiences. (Isn’t it neat to see that in yourself, though? That’s one huge benefit of keeping track of your thoughts on books — you see your own growth and development as a reader and thinker and professional.)

To be fair, I don’t think I liked any of the books I read in the class I took. We read only a handful of classics, and the book that was most updated in our reading was The Geography Club. I did record all of my reactions to the books in Goodreads, so naturally, I have a nice review of The Chocolate War to share:

Not as controversial as I hoped, though I was disgusted by the characters discussing how they raped attractive girls with their eyes.

That’s all I had to say about Cormier’s book on my first read. I suspect my second read might merit a few more words, and I’m dying to know whether either of these statements still hold true. What did I want in terms of controversy in 2008? Will I see gender issues still? I’m actually pretty surprised to see that pop up in my review because when I thought about my reading of the book back then, gender wasn’t something I remembered at all. But it was apparently noteworthy!

Now, I should note that I did a couple of significant projects on banned and challenged books before I went to library school. My threshold for what I controversial, well. Let me say The Chocolate War may have been the most gritty (if that’s even the word I want) book I read to date at that point. So my perspective was not necessarily what it is today now that I’ve discovered dark contemporary books are totally my thing.

I’ve read so much more since 2008. I’ve also learned about reading and about the history of YA. I bring a lot more to the book and to the history of it now. Will this context and experience change my reading experience?

I guess we’ll find out at the end of the week.

So You Want to Read YA?: Guest Post from Author Cecil Castellucci

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This week’s contribution to “So You Want to Read YA?” comes from author Cecil Castellucci. She’s straight to the point, too! 


Cecil Castellucci is the author of books and graphic novels for young adults including Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, First Day on Earth, The Year of the Beasts and Odd Duck. Her picture book, Grandma’s Gloves, won the California Book Award Gold Medal. Her short stories have been published in Strange Horizons, YARN, Tor.com, and various anthologies including, Teeth, After and Interfictions 2. She is the YA editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, Children’s Correspondence Coordinator for The Rumpus and a two time Macdowell Fellow. She lives in Los Angeles. She can be found on Twitter @misscecil and at http://www.misscecil.com. 



We all know why we’re here. 
As a lady who moves fluidly between the young adult world, comic book world and the adult literary scene everyone always tells me how much they love YA.  But they haven’t actually read that much of it.  They’ve mostly read the few standards that everyone reads and says they’ve read to keep up with the Jones’s and sound cool at cocktail parties:  Twilight, Harry Potter, The Golden Compass, The Hunger Games and The Fault in our Stars.  And while we all agree those books are good to have a toe dipped into our fabulous pool, I really feel that we need to get some other YA books into adult land heavy rotation.
So what to suggest to people as a place to go to after they’ve whet your appetite with the regular books that everyone’s already heard of?  In my list I’m sticking to older classics that have stood the test of time by being out already for a few years.

1)    Feed by MT Anderson
2)    Ash by Malinda Lo

3)    The Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness
4)    Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell (*he also drew my book The Year of the Beasts which is adult friendly)

5)    Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
6)    Flygirl by Sherri L Smith

7)    The Ruby in Smoke by Phillip Pullman
8)    Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

9)    When you Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
10)  I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

The Chocolate War Read & Blog Along: Starting Line

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This is the week! Liz Burns, Leila Roy, and myself will be reading and blogging about our experiences and thoughts about Robert Cormier’s The Chocolate War. Anyone is welcome to join in during the week, by either blogging about the book or contributing a piece to STACKED. Just leave a note and I can hook you up. I’ve got a few posts planned throughout the week tackling everything from first impressions to a formal review and more things I don’t want to lay out quite yet.

If you’re joining in and posting on your own blog, please drop a link for each post you write in the comments. We’ll try share it across our social networks, and we’ll do a roundup of selected posts at the end of the week to highlight everyone else’s thoughts and posts. And please feel free to steal our image above and use it for your posts!

Let’s get real with one of the most well-known YA, not to mention one of the foundational, realistic titles.

Secret Historical Societies of Teenage Girls: A Brief List

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I don’t know if I can fairly call this a mini-trend, since it seems like something that’s been ongoing since I was a teen, but it’s one I love: historical girls who join all-female secret groups or societies to carry out dangerous but important activities. Usually the secret group has an innocent, innocuous, and thoroughly gender-appropriate cover – it’s a finishing school or a nunnery; the girls learn to be lady’s maids or governesses. In reality, though, the girls learn how to spy, how to kill, how to be physically and intellectually powerful in a world where otherwise they would have had almost no agency of their own.

Women and girls in the time periods highlighted in these books generally would have had very little power in any of the traditional roles, and I think this is a fun way to subvert that. Y. S. Lee, who writes the excellent Agency series, states as much in her author’s note, which I return to again and again:

Women’s
choices were grim in those days, even for the clever. If a top secret
women’s detective agency existed in Victorian England, it left no
evidence – just as well, since that would cast serious doubt on its
competence. The Agency is a totally unrealistic, completely fictitious
antidote to the fate that would otherwise swallow a girl like Mary
Quinn.

The title of her series is a nod to this as well, I think.

Complicating these stories is the fact that in many of them, the girls are forced against their will into these secret societies. What does that say about the power they have – or don’t have – within the group compared to the world at large?

I have always been drawn to these sorts of stories. As a girl, it was a
way for me to have my cake and eat it too: I could escape to another
time while also not encounter all the strictures of that historical
period most girls would have endured. A lot of what I read as a teenager
was a way for me to read about girls with power (magical and
otherwise), since I felt I had so very little of it myself. I think this
is a major reason these stories continue to be popular today.

I’ve collected just a smattering of recent titles that explore this concept below. Each book is the start of a series, and all descriptions come from Worldcat. I’ve linked each title to either Goodreads or my review.

Maid of Secrets by Jennifer McGowan

In 1559 England, Meg, an orphaned thief, is pressed into service and
trained as a member of the Maids of Honor, Queen Elizabeth I’s secret
all-female guard, but her loyalty is tested when she falls in love with a
Spanish courtier who may be a threat.

Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers

In the fifteenth-century kingdom of Brittany, seventeen-year-old
Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the
sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where she learns that the god
of Death has blessed her with dangerous gifts–and a violent destiny.

Etiquette and Espionage by Gail Carriger
Sophronia, a fourteen-year-old tomboy, has been enrolled in a finishing
school to improve her manners. But the school is not quite what her
mother was expecting — here young girls learn to finish…everything.
As well as the finer arts of dress, dance and etiquette, they also learn
how to deal out death, diversion and espionage.

The Agency by Y. S. Lee
Rescued from the gallows in 1850s London, young orphan and thief Mary
Quinn is offered a place at Miss Scrimshaw’s Academy for Girls where she
is trained to be part of an all-female investigative unit called The
Agency and, at age seventeen, she infiltrates a rich merchant’s home in
hopes of tracing his missing cargo ships.

Have I missed any biggies published for teens within the past few years? I’m looking specifically for historical titles, so stories about girls training at a secret school to be spies in modern times aren’t the target (though I do love those sorts of books, they are not quite the same). Do you read and love these books as much as I do?