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books

Double-Take

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Here’s an interesting double-take: the same almost-kissing couple on the cover of two pretty different books.

The choice of background image is what differentiates one book from the other. The one at the left is (obviously) much darker, giving it a moody edge, whereas the one at the right screams “girly book.” I haven’t read either, but the synopsis for Simone Elkeles’ Return to Paradise indicates that it is indeed pretty moody. I wouldn’t necessarily say that putting a kissing couple on the cover of a book makes it appeal to boys, but the darker background of Elkeles’ book speaks to both genders better than the pastel swirls of the other.
When I came across Reaching Through Time in a catalog, I was a little flabbergasted to discover that Lurlene McDaniel is still writing – and even more flabbergasted that the book is a collection of three romances involving time travel and NOT ONE of them seems to include a tragically terminal teenager. It was just released on the 9th – has anyone read it?

Round Robin, Taste Tested Review: Bake Sale by Sara Varon

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Today, we’re bringing you something a little bit different — it’s a round robin review of a graphic novel, but it’s a little more than that. It’s also a taste tested review. See, today’s book, Bake Sale, by Sara Varon is about a cupcake who runs a bake shop and included in the book are actual recipes from his shop. So we thought it was only fair to review the book by also each trying out one of the sweet treats.
Kelly Says…

I have been looking forward to the next Sara Varon book for a long time. Robot Dreams is probably my favorite graphic novel (you can read Kim’s review here), as it tackles the theme of friendship in a unique way. Bake Sale, too, is a story of friendship between Cupcake and Eggplant, and it’s geared toward upper elementary and middle school students.

Cupcake owns a bakery, and he’s the only one manning it. He makes his living by doing what he loves, and he has regular outings with best friend Eggplant. We’re dropped in the story when Eggplant announces he’ll be going on a trip to Turkey to visit his family, including his aunt, who is a world-renowned baker. It’s not just any world-renowned baker though, it’s Turkish Delight, who is Cupcake’s ultimate idol.
Over the course of the story, Cupcake begins imagining what it would be like to meet his idol. In the course of thinking about this, he begins stumbling at his job and disappoints some of his customers. But when Cupcake finally says something to Eggplant about his envy that Turkish Delight is related to him, Eggplant insists than Cupcake come along with him to Turkey and meet her. Cupcake laments about not having the money to do that, but he decides that if he worked extra hard — selling his baked goods all over the city and on weekends when the shop’s not open and trying his hand at some new recipes — he’d be able to raise the money. And he does!
Unfortunately, something happens in the story and causes his plans to be derailed, and Cupcake no longer has the opportunity to go to Turkey. At least, that’s what he thinks.
I don’t want to explain much more because this is really quite a simple storyline. The book’s strength is in the concept and in the art. I’m a big fan of the soft color palette that doesn’t fall into a too cliche or too sweet pastel. It’s appealing and approachable, and it works with the story to strengthen it. Each of the characters in this story is unique, and the way that Varon has given each of these foods such a distinct look enhances them. Since we don’t get to “meet” many of the characters through the text of the book, we rely almost entirely on the images, and fortunately, it works quite well. The one weakness to the book, though, is that I found the font used for the story to be too curly and cutesy, to the point that it becomes unreadable at times. I found this especially true in differentiating “a” from “2” in more than one place. I wish a simpler font had been chosen, as it would have also made the illustrations do more of the work, which they could have easily done.
The story itself, as I mentioned, is quite simple, and it’s nothing entirely new or fresh. But for the age group it’s intended for, and with the strength in the illustration, it never comes off as boring or dull. It’s a friendship story with a nice lesson at the end, and any reader will appreciate this. I found the ending to this one to be pretty polar opposite that of Robot Dreams, which I enjoyed. Taken together, Varon’s two stories of friendship give readers insight into the idea that friendship comes in many forms. I think this book, especially when it comes to its illustrations, will appeal greatly to fans of Raina Telgemeier’s Smile.
One of the bonuses in this book is that Varon’s included recipes for some of the treats Cupcake makes in his shop. There are a couple peppered in the story itself, but the bulk are in an appendix at the end of the book. And what would a fair review of this book be without having tried out at least one of the recipes?
I give you Raspberry Bars, followed step-by-step via the instructions:
Preheat the oven to 350 and mix together 2 cups of flour with 2 sticks of melted butter until it turns into a nice dough.
Press into the bottom of a 9 x 13 glass pan. The recipe suggests using wax paper to do it, but I just did it with my clean hands. Easier. That goes into the oven for about 15-18 minutes. Pop it out and let it cool.
While it cools, cut up 2 sticks of room temperate butter into small squares. Mix together 2 1/4 cups flour and 1 1/2 cups unpacked brown sugar, then press the butter in using either a pastry press or a fork (or frankly, I used my hands) until you have a crumbly topping.
Drop a cup of raspberry preserves onto the now cool dough. Leave room along the edges for it to spread out. On top of that, put your crumbly mix of flour, butter, and brown sugar. It’ll look like this:
Put it in the oven for 20 minutes or so, until the top is nice and crisp. Then, you will get to enjoy something like this:
And yes, it was delicious. My husband took a bite and loved it, and even though I’m not a baked sweets person, I thought it was really good, too. We talked about how adaptable this recipe could be, too. I’m a big fan of fig, and that would have made a great filling, as would adding a bit of lemon zest to the top and filling.
Although this book is marketed toward younger readers who might not be all that kitchen savvy, I think these recipes are simple enough that it would be easy to get an adult to help and make them possible. What a cool little addition to the book — something that definitely could take this from being a book in a library collection to a book that inspires an entire library program.

Kimberly Says

Bake Sale is a sweet little book (pun intended). It’s a gentle story of friendship with a very simple storyline. This simplicity is reflected in the names of the characters (all are named for what they are – Cupcake, Eggplant, Potato, Turkish Delight) as well as the illustrations. Varon uses a lot of pastels, but doesn’t let it get too precious. She relies a lot on basic shapes – circles, squares, etc. The result is a book clearly meant for children, but not done childishly (if that makes sense).
The recipes in the back are equally simple. I chose to make the peppermint brownies, which involves combining your basic brownie ingredients plus peppermint extract and letting it bake twenty-five minutes in the oven. There’s also an optional frosting you can whip up in a few minutes – again, it’s the basic ingredients (butter, milk, powdered sugar) plus peppermint extract (and some food coloring if you wish). Adult supervision will be required for children, since they’ll need to use the oven and the electric mixer, but it’s a good beginner recipe. There’s nothing fancy here, but the results are tasty and demonstrate that you don’t need to go to a whole lot of effort to create something delicious.

I wasn’t as enamored of Bake Sale as I was with Robot Dreams. I think Robot Dreams accomplished more with its art and imparted greater meaning. It also holds up to re-readings much better. This is not to say Bake Sale isn’t a worthy book. It’s meant for a younger audience and it’s successful in that regard. And like Kelly mentioned, it’s a program in itself – what librarian could resist?

Review copies received from the publisher. Bake Sale will be available to purchase August 30.

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes

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Jonathan Auxier opens his debut novel, Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, with a description of Peter’s early childhood: 
“He was nursed on the milk of a wounded mother-cat, whom he met after crawling beneath the local alehouse. The cat permitted baby Peter to live with her in exchange for his picking the lice and ticks from her fur – until one tragic day some months later when the alehouse manager discovered them huddled beneath his porch. Furious at finding vermin in his establishment, the man shoved the whole family in a bag and tossed them into the bay. Using his skillful fingers to untie the bag…he managed to make it back to shore without too much trouble.”
Silly and quite sad, no? But then Auxier sums it up for us thusly:
“Until this point, you have been witness to Peter’s rather typical infancy – probably not unlike your own.”
That was the first laugh out loud moment of the book, and there were many more to come. The irreverent tone of the omniscient narrator characterizes the book and is its greatest strength. It was refreshing to get away from the first-person narratives that pervade children’s books, and especially delightful to read a voice that so consistently caught me off guard (in a good way).
When Peter Nimble was a baby, his eyes were pecked out by ravens. Blind, he made his own way on the streets and was eventually taken in by an unscrupulous man named Mr. Seamus. Mr. Seamus forced Peter to steal for him, keeping him locked up in a basement when he wasn’t picking pockets and robbing residences. Peter became a terrific, and terrifically unhappy, thief.
His fortunes change when he runs into a man – a huckster, really – selling magical hats to an eager audience on the street. Peter is picking the crowd’s pockets when the man calls him up to the front for a demonstration of a hat that will cure bad odor. The man seems to know quite a bit about Peter, and after the demonstration, he leaves his cart alone with the master thief. Peter can’t help but take a look inside, and it is there that he finds the box of Fantastic Eyes. When he pops the first pair of eyes in, he is magically transported to another place. In this place, he meets Professor Cake, who sends him (and Sir Tode, a cat/horse/knight) on a quest to save a faraway kingdom. Numerous exciting and silly adventures ensue.
Auxier’s imagination is impressive and tends toward the silly, but he keeps the stakes high. Children are used as slaves, ravens peck out infants’ eyes, and monstrous sea creatures threaten to gobble up everyone we have grown to care about. Some plot points are easy to decipher, but others are completely out of left field (and intentionally so). Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is a bit of a throwback to classic children’s fantasies. It reminded me a little of the Oz books, which are also full of imaginative creatures and incredibly strange bits of magic. 
That said, I wasn’t ever able to really connect with the story as a whole. I approve wholeheartedly of silliness and a rollicking adventure, but I never felt much heart in the story. I don’t mean there has to be a lesson, but I wanted more depth out of the tale – deeper friendships, deeper meaning, something beyond silliness and clever phrases. Auxier almost gets there with the friendship between Peter and Sir Tode, but it never reaches what it could have been.
While I enjoyed Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, it seemed to lose a bit of steam toward the end. Even younger readers will realize where the story will inevitably end, and watching Peter and his friends get there isn’t as exciting when that happens. The narrator remains wonderfully witty, the creatures and people that populate the tale are imaginative as ever, and the idea behind the Fantastic Eyes is wonderfully grotesque and should have great appeal to its target audience. The book is certainly delightful, but I wanted more.
Review copy received from the publisher. Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes is on shelves now.

And Then Things Fall Apart by Arlaina Tibensky

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Karina — who goes by the nickname Keek — might be having the worst summer of her entire life. She and her best friend are having a fight because her best friend wronged her. She and her boyfriend are also on the outs because of her virginity (yes, her virginity). Her parents are in the midst of a divorce because her father cheated on her mother with one of his employees, who is hardly older than she is and as a way to “clear her mind,” her mother abandons her to spend time across the country with her new-born cousin who may be dying.

It sounds like a recipe for a standard teen drama, but add to this that Keek is also sick with the chicken pox and is living in her grandmother’s technology-free zone with her favorite book (Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar) and her father hiding out in the basement, and you have a book that really stands out — it’s funny, insightful, passionate, and one of the most relatable books I’ve read in a long time.

Although the premise makes the book sound like it’s going to be a serious novel, the book is actually quite funny. Keek’s got a strange but powerful sense of humor, which includes avoiding swearing, in favor of using the term “sofa king.” But more than that, it’s obvious that her being sick with chicken pox, which affects the immune system of teens and adults much differently than it does in younger kids, has given her some perspective on the issues in her life. That, in conjunction with being alone with no way to communicate with her friends, has given her so much space to think.

There is very little dialog in this book. It’s all told from Keek’s point of view, and it’s told through diary form. When Keek moved into her grandmother’s tech-free zone, her grandmother gifts her a type writer (hence the cover), and it’s what keeps Keek occupied during her two weeks of the pox. But as much as it’s a diary she’s keeping, Keek is also aware that it’s not private. She’s sharing this story much like an author writes a book — for an audience of outside readers to consider, appreciate, and take from it what they need. Her grandmother’s been paging through it (Keek figures this one out through a few conversations she does have with her grandmother) and as much as it bothers her to know her grandmother is reading about the fight between her and her boyfriend over her virginity, she’s also a bit flattered someone wants to read about her life.

See, the key part of this story is that it is a love story to writing and to literature. Keek is passionately in love with Sylvia Plath’s classic The Bell Jar. Like any teen book worm, she rereads it, over and over again, and she commits to memory many of the passages and moments in the story that she relates to. She often asks herself what Esther Greenwood would do in a situation and, at times, she considers what Plath herself would do, given that The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical. For me, this theme of the story was key to what made this book so relatable and such an enjoyable read; I got Keek completely. She wasn’t a loner by any means, but she really found passion in the written word and she wanted to grasp it and live it in any way she could. She didn’t hide behind books, but rather, she let them become a part of who she is and let them help guide her in figuring out how to solve the problems in her life.

I’ve read books before where the character becomes so enamored with another fictional character that they allow that literary figure become their role model and their moral compass. But in Tibensky’s story, Keek is completely her own person. She’s extremely different from Esther Greenwood, and yet she’s able to relate to that character and consider the actions that character would take in her situation and adjust accordingly. Whereas Esther traps herself in a bell jar, Keek wants to break free from hers, and she takes the steps possible to make that happen. I thought this device was employed well, and I thought that the use of The Bell Jar as an obsession for a 15-year-old girl couldn’t be more spot on. At 15, it was one of those books for me, so I understood Keek’s passion and devotion. Those feels still resonate for me when I read the right book, and I think any reader will get this completely.

Voice is easily the strongest element in this story, and it has to be, since the story is focused entirely on Keek’s internal thoughts and observations of life around her. Besides being funny, she’s a real, honest 15-year-old. She fixates on things that aren’t important, and as readers, we know she needs to do that to solve the broader issues and gain perspective on them. For instance, one night near the end of her sickness when she’s finally able to get out of her room and wander her grandmother’s house, she heads to the basement where her father’s living, and she fixates on the couch from her old house. It brings up a million memories and it triggers a host of emotions within her. But it’s that couch that causes her to delve a little deeper into her father’s room and discover that everything she thought about him and his actions that caused the decline of his marriage may have had a deeper reasoning behind them. Perhaps her mother wasn’t as innocent as she thought. I loved this way of giving us insight into the issues of Keek’s life because it felt authentic.

As much as I enjoyed this book, I did have a little bit of a challenge with how smart the book was. I don’t mean how smart Keek was, nor how smart the way she unraveled the underlying issues around her were. The book itself was a little too smart in its use of literature and writing, and at times, it bordered on too meta. Sometimes I wanted to be able to get it for myself, but instead, it was handed to me on a philosophical level that didn’t quite ring true to the voice and understanding of a 15-year-old, no matter how much a book worm she was. I don’t think this will be a turn off for readers, though, as I suspect many teens who will relate to Keek will think they’re just as deep as she is, despite a lack of life experience and perspective to prove otherwise to them.

I think this would be a good book to hand to fans of Leila Sales’s Mostly Good Girls because of the voice, but it’s one that I think most teen girls who like to read will appreciate. If this one had been around when I was 15, I could see it becoming a bit of my own Bell Jar. It was the little things — the setting in suburban Chicago, the passion for reading, the family issues — that resonated with me on a real personal level, and I can’t wait to start talking this book up with my big readers. Teen readers of classics will enjoy this one, too, as will your fans of Sylvia Plath (and you know who those kids are!). This is the kind of book where your passionate readers will underline passages and soak them in, mimicking Keek’s actions with Plath’s novel. Even I admit to underlining and noting a few really good lines in her, including my favorite, “This is the thing about great literature. It reads like truth and sticks to you forever and lets you know you’re not alone.” What a knockout debut.

Copy received from the publisher. And Then Things Fall Apart is available now.

Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman

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I didn’t get the internet at home until I was 13. Back then, chatting was what we know as social networking now, and most of my gaming/chatting was limited to a few writing forums on AOL and Neopets (anyone honest would admit to that sort of thing!). But today, most kids have had internet as part of their entire lives, and that’s the topic that Littman chooses to explore in her powerful and important new novel, Want to Go Private?

Abby Johnston is 14, and she’s been best friends with Faith since second grade. They do everything together. The thing is, Abby feels like she’s been growing away from Faith lately, as well as growing apart from her family and the support structures that have always been in her life. They’re beginning high school, and while Faith has taken this opportunity to explore who she is and what she looks like, Abby remains comfortable being the quiet, shy, unflashy girl. Unfortunately, though, this means that their friendship’s been a bit strained lately, and now Abby feels that the extent of her friendship with Faith now exists in their online chats through the new social networking site ChezTeen.

But unlike a lot of people who use these sites to meet new people, the two of them mostly keep to themselves and talk with one another. Abby knows she’s not supposed to talk to strangers, but all of those rules start to change when one guy — BlueSkyBoi (real name: Luke) — begins to take a shine to Abby on this website. He gets to know her through their private ChezTeen chats, and he offers her the sympathetic and understanding ear that no one else in Abby’s life seems to want to lend. Before she realizes it, she’s fallen into the belief that Luke really cares for her and that she knows him well enough to trust that meeting him in person might be a good idea.

But that’s not going to end up being a good idea.

Want to Go Private? is powerful and cautionary tale, perfect for middle and high school students. Although so much of what’s explored here feels like it’s fairly obvious, it’s not. Though today’s teens have grown up with the internet as an extension of themselves, the fact of the matter is so few have real experience with how to detach that digital world from the real, physical world. Moreover, many are unaware how dangerous taking things from the digital world to the physical world can be. Abby, who is going into high school, falls into what so many teens can easily fall into: trusting someone who says and does all the right things online and pursing an opportunity to meet him.

But this isn’t just about what happens when the online goes into the real world, this is about what happens when someone invests too much in their online world, too. Abby gets caught up in feeling very comfortable with Luke — so comfortable, she takes photos of herself without clothing and in vulnerable manners for his pleasure. She does it to please him and to feel like she belongs to someone. Like so many teens today who do things like this and who engage in sexting, Abby dives in with trust and with the belief that she is invincible. The problem is, of course, that she isn’t, and no one really is. And it’s here that Littman’s story becomes cautionary and scary.

Littman sets up her novel quite smartly. It’s told through Abby’s voice initially, and her voice is so likable and relatable, she is easy to immediately buy. I trusted her when she began talking with Luke, and like her, I thought Luke was a nice guy. My adult instincts kicked in, of course, when he began soliciting her for photos and then suggested meeting somewhere, but I could really understand why Abby wanted to do these things. She felt alone and vulnerable, and in talking with Luke, she felt understood and she felt valued, even if it wasn’t necessarily for the right reasons.

Then Littman shakes up the narrative. It’s not just Abby we hear from. We get the chance to hear the story through Faith’s voice, through the voice of Abby’s sister Lily, and through the voice of Billy, a boy from Abby’s school who has a true and genuine crush on her. This structure works well because it gives a great view into how something that seems innocent can have a huge impact on an entire network of people. I found all of the voices here well written and compelling, and they added a lot to Abby’s story. Whereas I believe the entire book could have been told from Abby’s point of view, getting the story from the other characters tightened up the story and provided an opportunity to may not feel entirely sympathetic for Abby. That’s not to say we don’t, but the trick in a story told through one perspective is that we only get that single story; getting it from a couple perspectives here works, since we can see something from a different, less biased eye.

Want to Go Private? is not an easy book to read, as it left me feeling creeped out more than once. Moreover, Abby is taken advantage of in a manner that is extremely difficult to read, and it happens more than once. The thing is, these scenes are absolutely vital to the story line; while they could have been done off page, they wouldn’t have the impact that they have on page. The beauty of this method is that those who are uncomfortable with reading the graphic scenes can skip over them and grasp the impact as much as someone who wants/needs to read them.

My one criticism of the book comes at the end of the story. Once Abby has been through hell and back, she’s been given the opportunity to become a spokesperson of sorts at her school (much in the way she becomes a bit of a spokesperson through the novel itself). In these moments, she feels almost a little too preachy, too experienced. Although her life changed in unimaginable ways and certainly she became an “adult” far before she was ready, I didn’t believe she’d talk to her peers in the manner she did. That said, I think younger readers won’t necessarily believe this is too preachy — it’s sort of the tone they’d expect to hear in a novel like this. Older teen readers, though, will likely not buy into some of the lessons. They picked them up throughout the story and don’t need them laid out so bluntly at the end.

Littman’s book would make a great addition to book discussions or classroom discussions, as there is so much to work with. When I presented this book as a potential title for my teen book group, they were extremely interested in reading it. There is a layer of appeal to this story because this story is one that is such a part of this age group’s lives.

Although there are some hard-to-read scenes, I wouldn’t have a problem selling this one to middle schoolers — I almost think the shock factors would be the lesson many sort of need to see played out to understand how important internet safety truly is. This is the kind of book anyone who wondered “what if” will appreciate. It’s a well paced book, and one that tackles a topic that’s been important for quite a while but not necessarily approached. It’s a title with quite a bit of staying power, as I think the storyline is something that will be relatable to teens for a long time to come. Bonus: Littman’s created an entire website, chezteen.com, to talk about the issues her book presents, and it’s approachable for teens, teachers, and other educators.

ARC picked up at Book Expo America.