Dead End in Norvelt, Jack Gantos

School was finally out and I was standing on a picnic table in our backyard getting ready for a great summer vacation when my mother walked up to me and ruined it. 


Well, apparently a lot of people liked this book, because it won the Newbery Medal. Personally, I didn't think it was THAT great and it certainly didn't deserve a prestigious award like the Newbery. Not at all. There are way better books that could have won it. But anyway, here's what the jacket said about the story: Melding the entirely true and the wildly fictional, Dead End in Norvelt is a novel about an incredible two months for a kid named Jack Gantos, whose plans for vacation excitement are shot down when he is "grounded for life" by his feuding parents, and whose nose spews bad blood at every little shock he gets. But plenty of excitement (and shocks) are coming Jack's way once his mom loans him out to help a feisty old neighbor with a most unusual chore—typewriting obituaries filled with stories about the people who founded his utopian town. As one obituary leads to another, Jack is launched on a strange adventure involving molten wax, Eleanor Roosevelt, twisted promises, a homemade airplane, Girl Scout cookies, a man on a trike, a dancing plague, voices from the past, Hells Angels . . . and possibly murder. Endlessly surprising, this sly, sharp-edged narrative is the author at his very best, making readers laugh out loud at the most unexpected things in a dead-funny depiction of growing up in a slightly off-kilter place where the past is present, the present is confusing, and the future is completely up in the air. I didn't find it all that funny; nosebleeds and dead bodies aren't exactly my idea of hilarious. 

I think this was mostly fiction, though some of it may be based on Jack Ganto's real childhood. I find it highly unrealistic, however, that Jack's parents could be so mean to him throughout the book. Especially his mom. And then the next day, they would turn around and be really kind and totally spoil him. It seems like books about a kid in a small town in the 1960s with a strange mystery/adventure involving weird clues always win the Newbery Award. Moon Over Manifest, a Newbery winner, which I loved by the way, is very similar to this book, except the protagonist is a girl. And the book is much better. I just didn't like the characters all that much in the book. And the history lessons thrown in were weird. Interesting, but weird. They didn't quite fit in.

Read Dead End in Norvelt:

• if you like Jack Gantos
• if you like historical fiction set in the 1960s
• if you're reading Newbery winners

341 pages.

Okay book, but it left me wanting more!

Paper Towns, John Green

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle. Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust. But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us. I could have seen it rain frogs. I could have stepped foot on Mars. I could have been eaten by a whale. I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea. But my miracle was different. My miracle was this: out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman. 


Because I enjoyed The Fault in Our Stars, I was really looking forward to this book, also by John Green. It was just as good, if not a little better, than The Fault in Our Stars. Quentin Jacobson has spent his middle and high school years loving the adventurous, magnificent, Margo Roth Spiegelman from a distance. But then one night she climbs into his room and summons him to help her conduct a campaign of revenge, which takes the whole night. The next day, Q arrives at school and discovers that Margo has disappeared. But he discovers special clues-for him. They lead him to Margo, but he discovers that he hardly knows who she really is.

What can I say? This book had a great plot, quite interesting. Also, Q's narration was very funny at times; he definitely sounded like a teenager. And of course, Margo, a very appealing character: spunky, clever, funny, and adventurous. And the book had a nice feel in hand. Some of the ideas expressed in the book were very intriguing, too, and now I think I might tackle Leaves of Grass, which played an important part in Q's finding Margo. Paper Towns has some really hilarious moments, and the concept of the paper town was new to me. I won't give it away, but it was very cool.

Read Paper Towns:

• if you like books set (mostly) in Florida
• if you like John Green
• if you like very teenage narrators

305 pages.

Very Good! I would recommend this book!

Inside Out & Back Again, Thanhha Lai

1975: Year of the Cat
Today is Tet,
the first day
of the lunar calendar.


Every Tet
we eat sugary lotus seeds
and glutinous rice cakes.
We wear all new clothes,
even underneath.


Mother warns 
how we act today
foretells the whole year.


Everyone must smile
no matter how we feel.


No one can sweep,
for why sweep away hope?
No one can splash water,
for why splash away joy?

Ten year old Ha has only known Saigon for her whole life, but when the Vietnam War reaches her home, Ha and her family must flee to America. In Alabam, Ha discovers cold strangers, dull food, strange landscape, but also the strength of her own family as they stay together. This novel is written in verse, and I think that was the right choice. Some of the poems are really observant, and sad. Ha was a smart student back in Vietnam, but in the US she's made to feel stupid because of her limited English, and bullied by the other kids. Also, as a foreigner, she notices the strangeness of English and its many rules. Also, her father disappeared back in Vietnam, and they wait for news of him throughout the book. Inside Out & Back Again is compelling novel with a great narrator. 

Read Inside Out & Back Again:

• if you are interested in Vietnam
• if you are interested in verse novels
• if you are interested in historical novels
• if you like heroines with heart
• if you are looking for family books
• if you are looking for books about bullying in a school setting

260 pages. 

Very Good! I would recommend this book!

The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King

I was fifteen when I first met Sherlock Holmes, fifteen years old with my nose in a book as I walked the Sussex Downs, and nearly stepped on him. 


It is 1915. The famous detective Sherlock Holmes has "retired" to the countryside to be a beekeeper. He is literally bumped into by Mary Russell, the protagonist and narrator of the story. She becomes his apprentice, and later, his partner as he trains her in the skills of being a detective. They solve a few minor cases together, but then a senator's daughter is kidnapped, and they must search for her, as well as the wily mastermind behind the plot who seeks to end their partnership.  I really enjoyed reading Conan Doyle's original short stories about Sherlock Holmes, so I was very excited when I read about this book. I know that there are other series about Sherlock Holmes (like Young Sherlock Holmes), but this one stood out because of the female protagonist. And bees. I liked the character of Mary Russell a lot; she was quite witty. Also, there are some familiar faces if you have read the original stories: Dr. Watson, Mrs. Hudson the housekeeper, and Mycroft, Sherlock's brother. Not only was Mary Russell an interesting character, but a good narrator too. I enjoyed her narration, as well as the wordplay she engages in with Holmes. And all the more minor characters are very interesting as well. I think there are about ten other books in the series, and I don't know if I'll read all of them, but definitely a few more.

Read The Beekeeper's Apprentice:

• if you are a fan of mystery
• if you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes
• if you like new twists off of old stories
• if you are interested in bees
• if you like strong, female protagonists 

346 pages.

Very Good! I would recommend this book!

Decorations In a Ruined Cemetery, John Gregory Brown

The day we left my stepmother, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway collapsed, and the new life my father had imagined, spiriting his children back to his childhood home, fell away from us as quickly as that bridge, the whole world thrown off-balance like a gyroscope hammered into the wrong shape, the lkae coughing up our family's secrets in the form of an old bent-backed black servant.


This story tells of the Eagens, a New Orleans family of "mixed blood." There are three narrators in the story: Meredith, whose father takes her and her brother away from her stepmother, Catherine, the stepmother, who writes letters to Meredith, and Murphy Warrington, an old black man who worked for the family. The narrators recall "a story that unlocks its secrets like a Chinese box, each hidden compartment opening to reveal yet another, until, at the end, we stand aghast at the complexity of what lies before us" (Richmond Times-Dispatch.)

The book started out really slowly, and I thought it was going to be so boring, but it did managed to pick itself up after about 30 pages or so. I enjoyed the different narrations too, and the story that unfolded. However, the book just had an okay ending. So it started out slowly, picked up, and then fizzled at the very end (about the last 10 pages or so.)

Read Decorations In a Ruined Cemetery:

• if you are interested in books set in New Orleans or the South in general
• if you like books focusing one family and their secrets

244 pages.

Okay book, but it left me wanting more!

The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie

"To be born again," sang Gibreel Farishta tumbling from the heavens, "first you have to die. Ho ji! Ho ji! To land upon the bosomy earth, first one needs to fly. Tat-taa! Taka-thun!How to ever smile again, if first you won't cry? How to win the darling's love, mister, without a sigh? Baba, if you want to get born again..." Just before dawn one winter's morning, New Year's Day or thereabouts, two real, full-grown, living men fell from a great height, twenty-nine thousand and two feet, towards the English Channel, without the benefit of parachutes or wings, out of a clear sky.


Ah, Rushdie. Such long sentences. Two men- the biggest movie star in India, and an expatriate returning from his visit to India in 15 years- fall from the sky and wash up on the sands of an English beach. As they fall, Gibreel Farishta, the movie star, is transformed into an angel of sorts, and Saladin Chamcha, the expatriate turns into a demonic, horned goat creature. They proceed through a series of dreams, revelations, and metamorphoses. This book has an almost dreamlike quality; you did know what was real (sort of), but the flowing sentences make it seem dreamlike. In this case, long, flowing sentences quite effective and enhanced the novel, rather than inhibiting the story, like in Wild Life.

The Satanic Verses caused much controversy, angering many Muslims, because of what they consider blashphemy towards Islam. A fatwa was issued ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie, and was not rescinded until 1998 by the Iranian government. You can read the Wikipedia entry about it here. Anyway, I enjoyed this novel. Though it was at first hard to get into, I quickly became interested in the characters and plot. It was a great story.

Read The Satanic Verses:

• if you like Salman Rushdie
• if you are interested in India
• if you are interested in Islam

561 pages.

Very Good! I would recommend this book!

Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal, Mal Peet

In the end, it was her grandfather, William Hyde, who gave the unborn child her name. He was serious about names; he'd had several himself. 


Fifteen year old Tamar was named this by her grandfather. When he dies, leaving her a box with coded messages, she discovers her namesake- a man in World War II involved in being a resistance fighter in the Netherlands. His story is complex, with love, jealousy, tragedy, all set during the fear of the war. Tamar unravels the story and changes her life. This was a great book. It had so many good elements, as the title suggests. It has romance, which is always nice, and espionage/intrigue, as well as being set partly in an important time period in history. I liked the characters of both Tamars, as well as Marijike, the woman that the first Tamar loves. And I love codes. The "betrayal" that the title refers to was a very obvious one, over love, as you might expect. It was nothing too complicated, though it was still quite effective.

Read Tamar:

• if you are interested in World War II
• if you like codes
• if you like historical mysteries
• if you are interested in espionage

424 pages.

Very Good! I would recommend this book!