Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gavrielle Zevin

With all the rain, this was a good week to sit inside and read. However, after five inches of rain on Friday, the weekend turned out being fairly nice out! So I didn't get as much read as I had thought I would since I had to go out and enjoy the nice weather--finally. But I did enjoy Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. It was a nice light-hearted book and a good read.

In this novel, Naomi falls down the steps of her high school and finds herself in an ambulance with a stranger who claims he is her boyfriend. At the emergency room, she discovers that James is not her boyfriend, but someone she had just met, but she also discovers that she cannot remember the last four years of her life. Everything from the time she is twelve to the present has been erased from her memory. These events include her parents' divorce, her new sister, and her best friend Will. Throughout the course of the book, Naomi spends the school year discovering who she is and why she likes the things she likes. It is a fun book of self-discovery.

The Snows by Sharelle Byars Moranville

The Snows by Sharelle Byars Moranville in a different sort of book. This novel follows 4 generations of the Snow family when each is 16 years old. It also parallels some of the very important historical events of the US. But more than anything it shows the universal struggles that teens go through to reach adulthood whether they are living in the 1930s or the 2000s.

The story begins with Jim Snow as he tries to deal with his family and the difficulties of life during the 1930s. Jim's father has a successful barbershop in a small Iowa town, but he is not happy with his choices in life and decides to uproot his family and move during the Great Depression to an uncertain future in Colorado. While struggling with this move, Jim falls in love and tries to protect his little sister Cathy from all that is going on around them.

The second story is about Cathy who struggles with love during World War II. Cathy falls in love and has a secret romance with a young soldier heading off to war. However, Cathy has to cope with love lost and fear and shame when she is sent to a home for unwed mothers.

The third section is about Jim's daughter Jill who comes of age during the 1960s. Jill experiments with drugs and rebellion until her father sends her to live with her adopted older sister Mary Suzanne who teaches at Kent State University. While there, Jill gets a little too close to the dangers of the riots at Kent State in 1969.

The final section is about Jill's daughter Mona in 2006. Mona travels back to Iowa for her Great Aunt Cathy's funeral and becomes reacquainted with her extended family and discovers their secret past. The neat thing about this book is that Mona brings it all together and all the characters come together at the end of the story. It is interesting to see how the characters face some of the same problems at 16 years of age even though they face them years apart.

Taken by Edward Bloor

It is back to school time! Things are starting to settle down, so I thought that I had better get back to putting books on my blog. I didn't have as much time to read this summer as I thought I would, but I did read some fun books and some interesting books. One of them was Taken by Edward Bloor.

Taken is set in the year 2036 where the world has changed in many ways. One major change is that one of the main struggles for prominent families is to protect their children from being kidnapped and held for ransom. This is an everyday occurrence and the main character Charity has been trained in what to do if she is every taken. So she is prepared when she is held for ransom at the beginning of this book. She knows how crucial the first hours are and how important contact with her family is.

While Charity is held, she has time to reflect on her life so far and her family which consists of her father, a famous dermatologist, her step-mother, a famous TV personality, and Victoria, her cook/maid, and Albert, her butler. Victoria and Albert are the people who are responsible for Charity’s day to day raising since her parents are always busy and gone and Charity feels closer to them than she does to her parents.

This book has some interesting commentary about race and social issues in the future. However, the best part of the book is the surprise at the ending. You will not expect what happens.

Deadline

Okay, enough girl books! Its seems I have been reading a lot of a “girl” books lately, and I needed to branch out and read something different. So I decided that Chris Crutcher’s new book Deadline would be just the right change! I love Chris Crutcher! He visited our school three years ago and gave fantastic presentations! He knows how to relate to teenagers in both his speaking and his writing.

Deadline is about Ben Wolf who is told at the beginning of the book that he has about a year to live. Ben is a senior in high school and 18 years old and with the help of his doctor he decides not to pursue treatment that probably wouldn’t work anyway and he decides not to tell anyone about his condition. Ben wants to live his senior year to the fullest without everyone feeling sorry for him. So he sets out to make changes in his life. The first change is that he decides to go out for football. Ben weighs 123 pounds soaking wet, but he has always wanted to try football and this is the time in his life to do everything he always wanted to do. He also finally gets the courage to talk to Dallas Suzuki, the girl of his dreams. Ben discovers that hiding the truth from people he cares about is harder than he thought. This book hits hard Crutcher’s message of Life is short, live it to its fullest. Ben learns to tell people the truth and show them you care. Crutcher does a great job describing the action of the football games and he keeps the humor going in the book so it doesn’t feel too dark despite the subject.

Running Loose by Chris Crutcher is one of my all time favorite books. The main character Louie Banks goes through a series of struggles in this book when he refuses to purposely injure another player and is kicked off the football team. Louie finds comfort in running. Louie is one of the greatest characters in young adult literature. I was thrilled to learn that Louie returns in the book Deadline. He has returned to his hometown and is now the football coach at Trout High school in Trout, Idaho. He is also a father figure to Ben and his brother Cody. This is just another great part of this book.

Before I Die

In Before I Die by Jenny Downham, Tessa is 16 years old and was diagnosed with leukemia 4 years ago. The doctors have done what they can and now they have given Tessa only months to live. Tessa decides that “I want to live before I die.” She makes a list of things that she wants to do before she dies. This list includes having sex, falling in love, getting her parents back together, breaking the law, experimenting with drugs and finding fame. After all her best friend Zoey says it best when she states “that there are no consequences for someone like you.” This book is full of great characters from Zoey, who has her own problems while helping Tessa complete her list, to Adam, the shy awkward young man next door who is dealing with his father’s death and his mother’s grief, to Cal, Tessa’s younger brother, who wonders if he will still be a brother after Tess dies, to Tessa’s father, who gives up everything to care for his dying daughter, to her mother, who left the family right before Tessa was diagnosed. This is a sad book that also gives hope for life and the lessons learned while living.

Story of a Girl

Have you ever made a mistake that you regretted and wished that you could take back? Deanna Lambert in Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr definitely knows that feeling. When she was 13, her father caught her having sex in the back seat of a car with Tommy Webber who was 17 and a friend of her brother. Deanna certainly didn’t love Tommy and she wasn’t even sure that she liked him, but he was 17 and he knew the right things to say and do to convince an 8th grade girl to do things she knows she shouldn’t.

The book starts 3 years later. Now Deanna is a sophomore in high school and she has to live everyday with her big mistake. Of course, Tommy told everyone in school about what happened so for 3 years, Deanna has been the skanky 8th grader who had sex with a high school senior. She faces the rumors at school and she faces how much she has disappointed her father at home. No matter that she has never been on a date or kissed another boy since, Tommy’s story has turned her into the “school slut.” This is a heartbreaking story of how one event can define a person’s life, but more than that, this is a wonderful story about finding self-respect and forgiveness.

Story of a Girl is another short book with only 192 pages and fairly large print. It is an easy read that gives you lots to think about whether you have been the object of hurtful rumors or whether you have been part of the group that spreads hurtful rumors.. I can see why this book was a National Book Award finalist.

Safe

It's spring time and I have been looking for short books that can be read quickly so that I can enjoy the great spring weather--if the wind would just stop blowing! I guess I am in Kansas, so I should be used to the wind!

Safe by Susan Shaw only has 168 pages, so it is a short book, but has a really good story. I had trouble putting it down once I started it. With the death of her mother when she was three, Tracey has experienced loss. However, life with her father is happy and her best friend Caroline lives right down the street. But on the last day of school, Tracey is walking home and she is attacked and raped by a classmate’s older brother. Now her safe world has been crushed. The only place that she truly feels safe is in her own home playing the piano. She isolates herself from her friends so that she doesn’t have to ever leave her home. Her father is wonderful and her friends are very understanding as she works through this very difficult event in her life. This is a great book as Tracey struggles to find a way to feel safe within herself and her world. She must find a way to heal.