Kimberly and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when Kim is only eleven.  Her mother takes a position at a sweatshop, working for relatives who helped with her immigration papers.  In order to make payments on the debt they owe for the immigration assistance and still have enough money for food, even Kimberly must work in the factory after school.

For years, they live in squalor, squatting illegally in an unheated, roach-infested building.   Because of the nature of their work (they are paid-illegally-for each skirt they finish, rather than an hourly wage), Kimberly and her mother calculate the prices of all their purchases in skirts.  A dress for graduation is 1,500 skirts. A gift for a friend is 133.  Determined to improve their living conditions, Kimberly works hard at school, gradually learning English and soaring to the top of her class.  Her scholastic abilities earns her an unprecedented full scholarship to a prestigious private school, where she struggles to keep up with the classwork while concealing her poverty from her classmates.

This story is an Alex award winner! Alex awards are given to books that aren’t necessarily written for young adults, but may be especially appealing to them.  I’ve always been partial to Alex winners, and I was hoping this one had been nominated, too.  I’m glad to see it won!  The story is compelling; expect chilling descriptions of a workplace injury and page after page of a poverty so extreme that it is hard to imagine. I was genuinely sickened when I read about Kimberly’s apartment, and how she would sleep on the side of the bed nearest the wall, because she was less afraid of mice than her mother was, and wanted to give her the small gift of a more restful sleep by taking the spot nearer the mice .    There were many tender moments between Kimberly and her mother; I loved the portrayal of their relationship.  They were genuinely protective of each other and clung together in a threatening and confusing world.

Not only does this book explore issues that are often misunderstood or not discussed, like sweatshop labor, illegal immigration, and extreme poverty, but it is also very well-written.  The characters are realistically portrayed, and Kimberly’s storytelling changes and matures as she ages.  I picked it up and was reading it even while I followed my sister around at the grocery store; I just didn’t want to stop.  Even better: the author, Jean Kwok, was born in Hong Kong, immigrated to Brooklyn, and worked with her family in a sweatshop as a child.  While this book is fiction, it was inspired by her real-life experiences.  If you’d like to know which parts of the story really happened, you can check out the FAQs on her website.

Happy Reading!

Author’s website: http://jeankwok.net/index.shtml

Kwok, Jean. Girl in Translation. Riverhead Books: New York, 2010. 303 pp. Ages 14 and up.

If you liked the description of Kimberly’s experiences living in a new country, and you are an older reader, you might like Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.  Younger readers who are interested in the experiences of Chinese-Americans could try the amazing graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese.  For another portrayal of the grueling work immigrants often do, younger readers might like Esperanza Rising.  This is one of my favorite genres to read, and if you’d like more recommendations (or if you have some yourself), please let me know!

Ben’s parents were assassinated and she ends up as a charge of Queen Sophia, who is determined to shape Ben into the image of proper royalty.  This means diets, dancing, needlework, and genteel conversation, and Ben wants none of it.  As a result of her truculence, Ben is relegated to a locked tower.  Rather than give in to despair or decide to comply meekly,  she begins teaching herself magic.  At night, she practices her craft, trying to gain enough skill to escape.  Her secret lessons are put into use when the kingdom is threatened by a neighboring country, and the fate of the nation rests on her knowledge and skills.

I am constantly searching for fairy tale retellings that do not favor beauty over character, and uphold marriage as the ultimate goal for young women, and I’ve finally found one!  Ben is overweight, though the descriptions of her body are neutral, rather than shaming, and her body never approaches the stereotypical ideal throughout the course of the novel.  (I am always heartbroken when authors begin with a character who is not traditionally beautiful, but she transforms during the story, leaving us with the ultimate message that being conventionally pretty is still necessary for a happy life.)  Even though Ben is taken captive and spends two months as a prisoner of war on a starvation diet, she never becomes slender; I like this nod to the idea of a set weight point for each body, and the acknowledgment that diets do not work.  (Did you know that only five percent of all dieters are able to keep the weight off permanently?  But if businesses can use advertisements to make women feel ashamed of their bodies, they will still spend lots of money on diet products, even if 95 percent of them will not be able to lose weight long-term.)

Furthermore, Ben discusses her marriage with the most straightforward feminist speech that I’ve ever read in a young adult book, and I am so grateful to the author for it!  This book is a treasure: it strikes the right balance of magical fairy tale elements, well-rounded characters, and creative plotting, and the message it sends about beauty and self-reliance is refreshing.  Look for dragons, political intrigue, a hilarious commentary on the odiferous nature of adventures, and a reversal of the kiss-the-unconscious-princess-and-love-will-wake-her-up trope. Though Ben does seem overwhelmingly, unilaterally grumpy and spoiled in the first sections of the book, she develops into a multifaceted, realistic character in the second half of the book, and it’s worth pushing through the crankiness.  Final awesome thing?  The full title of the book: Princess Ben: Being a Wholly Truthful Account of her Various Discoveries and Misadventures, Recounted to the Best of her Recollection, in Four Parts.

Happy Reading!

Author’s website: http://www.catherinemurdock.com/cm/home.html

Murdock, Catherine Gilbert. Princess Ben. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 2008. 344 pp. Ages 14-18.

If you liked this book, I think you’d love the graphic novel Castle Waiting, for the strong feminist message.  If graphic novels aren’t your thing, though, you would probably like Beauty, Fairest, Ever, or Ella Enchanted. There are so many good books out there for readers who love fairy tales, but are disheartened by the beauty myth present in so often in them!

]]> http://fortitudeandpatience.com/2012/05/15/princess-ben-by-catherine-gilbert-murdock/feed/ 0 sshadoan 2153427 http://fortitudeandpatience.com/2012/05/12/the-grimm-legacy-by-polly-shulman/ http://fortitudeandpatience.com/2012/05/12/the-grimm-legacy-by-polly-shulman/#comments Sat, 12 May 2012 06:51:43 +0000 Shanna http://fortitudeandpatience.com/?p=1076 Continue reading →]]> “‘What do you have, then?’ I asked.

‘Oh, spindles and straw and beans and tears.  A glass coffin. A golden egg.  A number of things.  The Grimms were serious and thorough collectors, and of course we’ve added to the collection a great deal over the years, objects associated with other fairy tale and folklore traditions.  I’m especially proud of our French holdings-we have the best collection outside the Archives Extraordinaires in Paris.’”

Elizabeth has a new job as a page at the New York Circulating Materials Repository.  It may sounds stuffy, but it is far from it! The Repository is a very special lending library for objects of all kinds, including magical ones collected by the Brothers Grimm.  Patrons can visit and borrow anything from chess sets and egg cups to magical table settings that offer never-ending food and the slippers of the Twelve Dancing Princesses (though, I don’t know why they’d be useful, as the soles are all worn through).   For the most part, Elizabeth’s  job is straightforward-she puts items in their proper places and helps patrons find what they need.  However, when a coworker begins acting suspiciously, and magical objects are being replaced with clever fakes, Elizabeth decides to act, in order to protect the collection.  She’s not sure whom she can trust, but she knows she has to do something to solve the mystery and prevent the Grimm treasures from being lost forever.

I’ll admit it-I’m terribly jealous of Elizabeth’s job! Not only does she get to do things like speaking to the magic mirror of Snow White, she even earns borrowing privileges for the Grimm Collection.  Wouldn’t you love to take home a mermaid comb or try out some seven-league boots?  The descriptions of the magical objects were the best part of this book; I even learned about fairy tales I’d never heard of before (the Spirit in the Bottle, anyone?).  The library sounds like my idea of paradise; there’s even a special science fiction object collection, and a magical indoor forest.  The plot is original, and the details won’t disappoint you.

I waited a long time to review it, though; there were just a few things that concerned me about this otherwise lovely book.  First, a positive: there is a very diverse cast of characters in this text.  Elizabeth’s friend Marc is black, and her other friend, Anjali, is Indian.  While I dearly, passionately love to see racial diversity in young adult literature, there was something about the way the characters were presented that made me feel uncomfortable.  On the one hand, it was refreshing to see a cast of characters that wasn’t all white.  On the other hand, the repeated mentions to characters’ races made the text seem as though it was too conscious of its own diversity-at times, I felt like I was unable to focus on the story, or see the characters as having other qualities outside of their ethnicity.  Sometimes, the text seemed to be exoticizing Marc and Anjali; Marc turns out to be an African prince, while Anjali is an Indian princess, and there is a lot of focus on the maxims of Marc’s tribe, for example, and Anjali’s exotic beauty.  When a story presents “outsiders”, or characters from another culture, but does so in a way that draws a lot of attention to the differentness of those characters, it can be patronizing.   Furthermore, I felt that Marc’s characterization was stereotypical; he was a basketball star, which isn’t negative in itself, but I would like to see authors presenting us with images of young black men involved in other activities besides sports.

With that said, I do not think this is an intentionally prejudiced book.  I only wanted to draw attention to the way race was treated in the story.  When you’re reading, you can start thinking about how minority characters are described: are the characters well-rounded, rather than being flat or reduced only to their race?  Do descriptions of the character seem to align with common stereotypes, or is he or she treated as an individual?  The way race, gender, and any other identity categories are presented in the media can contribute to stereotypes, and that’s why I felt I had to bring it up.  If every African American character we read about is a basketball player, it limits our perceptions of them -what about African American chemists?    Is it awesome that Shulman had such diverse characters?  Absolutely!  However, if we are moving to an ultimate goal of eradicating prejudice, it would have been more effective to have a diverse cast without dwelling on their respective differences and how exotic and interesting they are because of their ethnicity.

Happy Reading!

Author’s website:pollyshulman.com

Shulman, Polly. The Grimm Legacy. Puffin: New York, 2010. 325 pp.  Ages 11-15

This is a creative story with skillful fairy tale references and creative details.  If you’d like more on fairy tales, try A Tale Dark and Grimm.  You could also try any of the books by these authors: Eva Ibbotson, Shannon Hale, and Gail Carson Levine! Here’s a nice list of good books in the genre from Goodreads, too.  This is one of my favorite genres and I’m always hunting for more like this, so I’ll keep you posted!

Panem is a chaotic and dangerous world.  After the Quell, District 12 has been razed; nothing but ash and rubble remains.  The few survivors (Gale and Prim included) have taken refuge in the bunkers of District 13.  Peeta, who had been captured by the Capitol and brainwashed into believing Katniss is a deadly enemy of his, is still shaky in his beliefs.  The tracker jacker poison used to implant false memories of Katniss in his mind is hard to reverse; there are times when he cannot discern reality from fiction, and he is overwhelmed with the urge to kill her.

After the Quarter Quell, Katniss discovers that she was part of an elaborate revolutionary plot, without her permission or knowledge.  Though uncertain who to trust, and infuriated by the deception, she agrees to aid the rebels in their attempts to overthrow the government and bring an end to all future Hunger Games.  As the Mockingjay, the figurehead of the rebels, Katniss undergoes combat training and prepares to undertake a mission to assassinate President Snow.  The mission itself is dangerous; if Katniss or her companions are spotted, they will be lucky to be killed instantly.  If they are not so lucky, they will be tortured to death.

In the final volume of the trilogy, Collins explores war, violence, and loyalty.  I think she does an excellent job portraying the overall devastating nature of war: starvation, bombs, and bullets are brutal and ugly ways to die.  Furthermore, it is not always possible to tell which side characters are on, and which is the “right” side, anyway.  I feel like that is an accurate depiction, and something that is not always taught.  The rhetoric of war and the lawmakers pushing for it often paints one side as clearly in the wrong, justifying the gross waste of human life, but Collins gives us a more complicated, realistic picture.  Katniss must wrestle with her desire for vengeance, versus the need to end the cycle of brutality.  It’s a challenging read, full of pain and difficult decisions, but a sensitive and engrossing end to a solid trilogy.  Oh, and something I loved?  The epilogue.  I won’t spoil it, but I’m glad she wrote it.

Happy Reading!

Author’s website: http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com

Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic Press, 2010. 390 pp.

]]> http://fortitudeandpatience.com/2012/05/06/mockingjay-by-suzanne-collins/feed/ 0 sshadoan 200px-Mockingjay http://fortitudeandpatience.com/2012/05/01/catching-fire-by-suzanne-collins/ http://fortitudeandpatience.com/2012/05/01/catching-fire-by-suzanne-collins/#comments Tue, 01 May 2012 18:24:00 +0000 Shanna http://fortitudeandpatience.com/?p=1064 Continue reading →]]> “In that one slight motion, I see the end of hope, the beginning of the destruction of everything I hold dear in the world.  I can’t guess what form my punishment will take, how wide the net will be cast, but when it is finished, there will most likely be nothing left.  So you would think that at this moment, I would be in utter despair.  Here’s what’s strange.  The main thing I feel is a sense of relief.  That I can give up this game.  That the question of whether I can succeed in this venture has been answered, even if that answer is a resounding no.  That if desperate times call for desperate measures, then I am free to act as desperately as I wish.”

Katniss thought she and her Hunger Games partner, Peeta, would be safe from the arena forever, never having to return to the battlefield where they were forced to fight to the death for the chance of extra food rations for their district.  However, some of her actions during the last Hunger Games inspired uprisings in other districts.  In response, the Capitol announces a Quell.  The Quell is a special Hunger Games, designed to quash the nascent rebellions.  In this Quell, the new Reaping will only include former participants in the games.  That means that Peeta, Katniss, and Haymitch are the only potential candidates from District 12 for this year’s Hunger Games.  This could mean back to the arena for Katniss.

Friends, you have either read this book already, in which case I don’t need to tell you how riveting it is; or, you haven’t yet, and there isn’t much I can say without spoiling it for you.  I will say that Catching Fire, while it doesn’t necessarily function as a stand-alone story (you’ll want to read The Hunger Games first), it avoids the middle-child syndrome of trilogies.  By that, I mean that the book doesn’t feel like something you have to rush through to get to the ending; it’s compelling and complete in its own right.  However, if you don’t have a copy of Mockingjay at hand for when you finish this one, you will probably feel anxious, so I recommend blocking off some time, staying in your pajamas and not doing anything until you finish the whole trilogy.

Reasons this installment of the story is awesome:  an even more creative and awful arena than last Hunger Games, new developments in the mysterious purported settlement of rebels in District 13, and more reasons to love Peeta. I’ve actually had to hide the entire trilogy from my younger sister, who has to finish her master’s thesis before she can read them (her idea, not mine!).

Happy Reading!

Author’s website: http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com

If you liked this book, you might like The Maze Runner by James Dashner or Uglies by Scott Westerfield.

‘Which is?’

‘Taking pictures, yaar! You are very lucky to have a passion like this and be so good at it.  Now use it.  You know what you want to do.  Now do it. Acts of love will lead you to more love.  Turn your pain and confusion into beauty and power, like I am trying to do with this breakup. ‘”

Dimple is a seventeen-year-old Indian American, and her parents have found the perfect husband for her.  Unfortunately, she wasn’t looking for a husband, nor is she intrigued by the idea.  However, when her supertwin best friend decides that she is interested in Dimple’s future husband, things get sticky.  In the meantime, Dimple sorts out what it means to be South Asian, but raised in the United States. She learns her parents are actually people, with pasts and dreams and hopes for her.  She uses her camera (she calls it “Chica Tikka”-Third Eye. Isn’t that beautiful?) and, in the process of developing her photographs, she tells the story of what it is like to be living in the space between two cultures.

All right.  I’ll admit it. I picked this book up once before and abandoned it because it felt like it was a billion pages long.  However, once you’re into the story, the very lush language and descriptions don’t weigh it down.   It’s a story that meanders, rather than slams you upside the head with a bunch of plot devices, one after the other.  If you approach it with that in mind, I think you’ll love the descriptions of clothing and food and music; they’re very poetic and as I was reading, I felt like the author was also an artist, because of her celebration of detail and composition.  This is a lovely book for summer reading; it begs to be read on the porch or a picnic blanket.

I especially loved Dimple’s relationship with her parents.  Through the course of the story, she begins to learn more about them as human beings-her mother was a beautiful dancer as a young person; her father prays daily for Dimple to find a loving life partner-regardless of gender.  (Dimple isn’t a lesbian, but there are multiple queer characters in the story, so you won’t be disappointed.) It’s a really beautiful thing you realize as you become an adult: the process of growing from dependent child to an equal and a friend of you parents is very special, and it’s often overlooked in young adult literature.  In this book, it is sensitive and nuanced and was one of my favorite threads in the story.

Happy Reading!

Author’s website: http://www.thisistanuja.com (She’s in the process of making a new website, so this isn’t so interesting at the moment-check back later, all right?)

Hidier, Tanuja Desai.  Born Confused. Scholastic: New York, 2002. 514 pp. (Yes, that’s really how long it is!)

All right, this book was hard for me to match with others, so bear with me, please!  It fills a place in literature that just doesn’t have a lot of content yet.  But, if you liked this book for the queer content-you know, the issues of being a minority of a minority, you might try Down to the Bone by Mayra Lazara Dole: the tone is a little lighter, and the protagonist a bit younger,  but it’s about a Cuban-American lesbian and it’s really funny.  If you like the specifically Indian queer content, you might try Blue Boy by Rakesh Satyal.  I haven’t read it yet, but it is recommended on the ALA’s Rainbow List.  Do you know of any others?  I’d love to hear!

Bud (not Buddy, never Buddy) is an orphan, or so he thinks.  His mom died, and she never talked about his dad.  In the middle of the Great Depression, life isn’t easy for anyone, much less for orphans.  When Bud’s prank gets him in trouble at the group home, and he get sent back to the orphanage, he decides it’s best for him to set out on his own.  He tries his hand at train-hopping, eats out of a can in a hobo camp, and is tricked by a mustard sandwich into accepting a car ride that will change his life forever.  See, he’s trying to find the legendary bandleader, H. E. Calloway, the man he believes to be his father, and all he knows is that he has to get to Grand Rapids.  After that, he figures, things will work themselves out.

This book has been on my to-read list since a classmate gave a book talk on it last year, and I’m so pleased to finally have read it.  It’s hilarious! You wouldn’t think that the plight of an orphan runaway during the Great Depression would allow for much levity, but Bud’s constant inner narrative is insightful and droll.  My favorite was his long list of  “Rules and Things”, which are all quite true, and you’ll be happy to read things that you’ve thought, but never been brave enough to say.  Honestly, in setting and resolution, it reminded me of Wonderstruck, which was a really pleasant surprise for me; it would be nice to read these two books right after one another.

This book is written for upper elementary and middle schoolers; it is a quick, funny read with substance.  I enjoyed it a lot!  I think it would be a great read-aloud classroom book: interesting to both male and female students, and set in a historical time period that would be fun to study.

Happy Reading!

Website: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/christopherpaulcurtis

Curtis, Christopher Paul. Bud, Not Buddy. Random House: New York, 1999. 243 pp.

If you like this, please, please try Wonderstruck!

It’s not the United States anymore; it’s Panem, a collection of districts under strict governmental control.  As punishment for a long-past rebellion, two young people from each district must fight for survival in the arena-style arcade battle: The Hunger Games.  The survivor’s district wins food, far more food than normal.

Participants are chosen by lottery; youth between the ages of 12 and 18 are automatically entered, but can trade against their fortunes by entering their name more than once, in exchange for more food rations.  Katniss’ name is in the drawing multiple times, but this is her baby sister’s first year to participate.

Prim is unlucky, and her name is drawn.  Instead of allowing her sister to go and fight, Katniss volunteers in her place.  With Peeta, the young man chosen from District 12, Katniss begins training for the games.  Only one teenager can win; the others will die.  When the games begin, Katniss must fight for her life.

All right, friends, please forgive me for being so slow to review this book.  I know the entire universe is already in love with it, so I’ll be quick with the plot summary.  I just wanted to include this on the blog because I noticed some very interesting things about the story’s message, and I wanted to share them with you.

In the recent past, the literary world was grappling with some very cynical ideas: the collapse of meaning, and a collective anxiety about the future of the world.  Power-the struggle for it and the attempts to retain it-is the primary focus.  These concepts are associated with a literature movement called postmodernism.  I don’t like to get all preachy, but I never loved postmodernism, and here is why I’m telling you about it:

I think The Hunger Games is showing us what lies beyond the other side of postmodernism.  When Katniss steps up and volunteers her life in place of her sisters, she is mirrored by another district’s character, who refuses to take his sibling’s place.  The book shows us both sides, and empowers us to chose one.  Through the course of the novel, we watch Katniss as she negotiates the horrific choices laid before her, and tries to behave ethically in a system designed to reward bloodlust.  This book shows us the possibility of hope’s triumph, and teaches us that sincerity allows us to be both strong and vulnerable.  The story rewards loyalty over force, ethics over calculations, and love over destruction.  These are not necessarily new ideas, but they are concepts that postmodernism hasn’t accounted for.

My biggest pet peeve is when people tell me that young adult books aren’t true literature, and I’m grateful to authors like Suzanne Collins for demonstrating otherwise.  She presents the rift between two literary schools of thought, and allows space for us to contemplate the separate worlds created by each; that’s heavy stuff, and I applaud her for trusting that her audience is capable (and willing) to engage with it.

Besides, it’s a fantastic story.  You are going to go crazy about it, if you haven’t already.

Happy Reading!

Author’s website: http://www.suzannecollinsbooks.com/

Collins, Suzanne. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. 374 pp. Ages 12 and up.

If you liked the philosophical feel to the book, you will love Nothing by Janne Teller (it’s on the Awesome-est List).  And if you liked the post-apocalyptic feel, I think you should try How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff or Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi.

I just saw this: one more reason why The Hunger Games is a great book!

Hazel Grace is sixteen years old and terminally ill.  Not in the for-literary-convenience-and-there-will-be-a-miraculous-cure-before-the-book-ends sort of way, either.  She is in love with Gus, another teenager whose body has been ravaged by cancer.  They met at the Cancer Kid Support Group-the one they both attend in order to placate their parents. But that’s really not the important part of this story.

The important part is this:  Hazel’s favorite book is An Imperial Affliction, written by an author who has secluded himself  since the novel’s publication.  However, it has a hanging ending, and Hazel needs to know what happens.  She and Gus plan a trip to Amsterdam, where the author lives, in order to find out the rest of the story.

Honestly, though: that’s not the important part, either.  The reason this book is so special is because it talks to you as though you are a human being, mature enough to handle the (terrifying) prospect of contemplating the big questions: death, injustice, the purpose of being a human.  There is a lot of philosophy in this novel, but it’s not pretentious, and definitely not boring.  John Green, the author, respects you enough to believe that you are capable of thinking about big and scary things.  There are diagrams, too! I love when authors do that.

This book is like a Guide for Being a Person.  It will break your heart, but you’ll be glad you read it.  (Also, please don’t assume it is one of those sappy dying-romantics story.  It’s all right if that’s your  thing, but this book is definitely not like that.)

Happy Reading!

Author’s website: http://johngreenbooks.com

Green, John. The Fault in Our Stars. New York: Dutton, 2012. 318 pp.  Ages 16 and up.

Here’s what I told a friend about the awesomeness that is this book:

“In the book I’m reading: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Shakespeare, Kirkegaard [don't panic, friends-I can never remember his theories and had to look them up yet again],  Heidegger, ‘I don’t think defeatism is honest…I refuse to accept that’, the concept of pure forms, the battle between positivists and humanists, and this amazing narrative parallel between a book with a hanging ending (in the story) and what I am wondering will be an actual hanging ending.
And it’s for teenagers.
I never, ever want to hear that YA lit isn’t real reading.”

So, if this book crawls into your brain and won’t leave you alone, I think you’ll like A. S. King’s Please Ignore Vera Dietz.  There are charts! And ghosts! And this is another book that doesn’t talk down to you.  Also, you could try Looking for Alaska, an earlier book by John Green that is just as deep and wonderful.

I can’t wait to see what awards this book wins.  It’s already on a billion bestseller lists.

Sprout’s mom died of cancer when he was twelve, and then he and his father moved from New York to the absolute middle of nowhere.  Now he’s a Kansas resident, a freak with defiantly green hair, living in a vine-covered trailer with his semi-alcoholic father-who just so happens to be dating his English teacher.  To make it even more awkward, Ms. Miller has also been coaching Sprout in the fine art of essay-writing.  She sees Sprout’s talent with words, and wants him to enter the statewide essay contest, where he might have a chance to win a scholarship.  However, there’s a catch. (There’s always a catch!) She recommends that he keep his sexual orientation secret, and not to write about it for the contest, saying that it could hurt his chances for winning.  Sprout’s not sure what he wants to do.

Then, there’s Ty, with his terrifying father who believes the end of the world is coming.  Ty’s family moved to Kansas to hide from the apocalypse and the taxmen.  Ty’s father is not someone you want to anger, so when Sprout and Ty develop feelings for each other, it is a dangerous situation indeed.  They spend the school year sneaking around, kissing in the woods and in the janitor’s closet, all the while afraid of being caught.  It’s a complicated life: full of out-in-the-open secrets, a pregnant best friend, ostriches, electric fences, and a bloodthirsty St. Bernard.

Sprout’s voice is funny and sarcastic; I think you will love the interesting words he uses.  (I learned what a nidus is!) While this book is a little less realistic than other realistic fiction novels, it is fun, creative, and engaging.  I did find the characters to be a little crowded-it was a little difficult for me to keep track of Sprout’s best friend, his former make-out partner, and the back stories of both main characters.  However, it doesn’t bog down the story, and the many eccentricities of the characters will make you smile, I think.  You know what else will make you smile?  Quotes like these: “I stared at him. We’d started out with the cave canem and ended up with the horsemen of the Apocalypse, except they were ostriches, not horsemen, and then something about plums and Methodists.”  Hilarious.

I am usually very liberal in my appraisal of young adult literature; I think it is normal and healthy to discuss issues like sex, drugs, drinking, and suicide.  However, I did take issue with the presentation of drinking and driving in the novel; it just seemed unnecessary to the plot.  It would still have been an excellent book without the inclusion of that particular scene. I would cautiously advise against using this as classroom reading; it would be well-placed in a high school or classroom library, but I imagine that it would be a fairly controversial choice for assigned reading.  That said, this is a fresh and amusing read, and it does focus on one of my favorite trends in literature: GLBTQ stories about characters who have already dealt with and accepted their own sexuality.  It also won several awards; it was a Stonewall Book Award finalist, as well as a Lambda Literary Award winner.

Happy Reading!

Author’s website: http://dalepeck.com/

Peck, Dale. Sprout. New York: Bloomsbury, 2009. 277 pp.  Ages 16 and up.

If you liked this book, I think you would also like Getting It by Alex Sanchez, and also Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan.