It's Cybil's Eve!

Taking a break from Banned Book Week for a day, I have to remind everyone that the Cybils nominations start tomorrow. Woot! And double woot! This is the 5th year for the kidlitosphere's beloved homegrown book awards.

October 1st - 15th, anyone can nominate a book in any category. Teachers, librarians, kids, parents, if you loved it, shout it out! Then the first-round judges swing into action, reading like crazy folks, and winnow the giant piles down to a few finalists for each category. Those lists are released January 1st, and that's when the second-round judges clock in, taking the next month to intensively read and debate every single book on their category's shortlist until one is declared the winner. All winners are announced on Valentine's Day.

I've judged for the past three years, and I can tell you it's a lot of work, but so worth it! If you want to check out the judges for this year (and, of course, their blogs!), stop in and have a gander at the panels. Congratulations to everyone who made the cut!

Also on the Cybils website, along the sidebar: finalists and winners from the last few years, a fine resource for anyone who wants to find marvelous books. If you want to show your support for the bestest little award on the internet, get shopping at the CafePress store.

But most importantly of all . . . what are you going to nominate?

Banned Books Links and Stuff

It's Banned Books Week again, which means links are cropping up like daisies in spring.

• HuffPo recently posted a slideshow of 15 (count 'em) movies that were made from books that have been banned or challenged. Some of them are not so much of a surprise (Harry Potter, Brokeback Mountain) and some were new to me (Gone with the Wind?)
• The Goddess of YA Literature gives us some tips about knowing thine enemy.
• 100 Scope Notes shares a Mental_Floss quiz about why certain books have been banned. It's a few years old (hence question 9), but it still might surprise you.
• The librarian response to book banning is to explain that it's each individual parent's responsibility for what their own child reads. We don't hear much from the parent end of it, but author Aprilynne Pike shares just that in a guest post over at Eve's Fan Garden. Awesometastic, Madame Pike.
• Stop on by the comic strip The New Adventures of Queen Victoria for their 2010 Banned Books tribute, which started last Saturday. My personal favorite is Monday's. Bwaha.
• Last but not least: a video! It's from last year (hence the hinky dates) but this much awesome does not expire. 

Right Book, Wrong Time

I have a confession to make. I didn't like "The Goonies."

The first time I ever saw it, I was twenty and went with a friend to a Free Campus Movie Nite. She was well-nigh swooning at the thought of seeing this marvelous movie from her childhood, assuring me that I would love it. I was surrounded by people who were all in a fever of joy at the thought of this apparently defining moment in their cinematic experience, and let me tell you, it's quite something to see a frat boy enraptured by non-Hobbitized Sean Astin. Me? I kept waiting for the marvelousness to start.

When it ended, she turned to me and said, "Well? Wasn't it great?"

"Um. It was okay." I watched her face fall and quickly added, "I would have loved it when I was ten! Seriously!"

I said that mostly to keep her from trying to explain to me how awesome it was. But the more I consume stories, especially stories written for a different demographic than my own, the more that thought has come back to me. "Oh man, I would have loved this when I was (insert age here)."

For instance--and if you need to pretend you never knew me after reading this, I understand--if Twilight had come out when I was fourteen, I would have eaten it up, sparkly vampire and all. Oh, I might have recognized the flaws. But I would have loved it so hard. I would have written fanfiction and worn "Edward" t-shirts and had passionate, hour-long discussions about whether he was right not to have vamped Bella the first time she asked for it. (And yes, if you noticed, I would have been Team Edward. What can I say?)

But I wasn't fourteen, I was twenty-five, and I read Twilight with an "Okay, well, I guess I see the appeal but I'm not really feelin' it." (My withering disdain for Bella Swan didn't really get off the ground until New Moon, with the empty pages after Edward dumped her. Good god, girl. The first month I understand, maybe. Somewhere before the fourth, you should go get a makeover and jump the hot werewolf.)

There's a feeling that Art is great or not-great on its own merits--that the people who love it or hate it, depending on the opinion of the learned elite, are totally wrong-headed. But that leaves out the other half of the equation, the reader, and all they bring to the book. It's a particular consideration for those of us who love kid's and teen books. We're not the target audience, so when we review a book, we have to think about two things: 1) What did I think of it? 2) What would a kid think of it?

This is not saying that all children's or YA lit has a sell-by date, or even that the sell-by date is the same for everybody. I'm still nutty about Harry Potter, and I know there are people older than me who know every word, backward and forward, of Twilight. Clearly it's still saying something to somebody. But I'm not the same person I was at fourteen (thank God!), so it makes sense to me that a book could simply miss its target. The trick is in understanding when that target might have been in my life, and using that knowledge when I write about it.

Banned Book Week Ahoy

Banned Book Week is coming up again (huzzah?), which means that book banning is in the news. Banned Books Week happens one week a year, but that doesn't mean the banners and challengers and nay-sayers and finger-wavers go away for the other 51. Y'all, I puzzled over this deeply last year before realizing that when Banned Book Week is nigh, the reporters notice news of book banning more. Face, meet palm.

This week's book-banning news/reason for crawling under your bed and sobbing gently over the future of America comes to us from Missouri, where a university professor (I know. I know!) has decried the curriculum of his local school district. Under attack: sex ed (natch), and required reading, specifically the high school's, which asks students to read the Vonnegut anti-war classic Slaughterhouse-Five, Sarah Ockler's beautiful and sensitive Twenty-Boy Summer, and Laurie Halse Anderson's yes-yes-yes-it's-really-that-good Speak.

But you know what burns my butter? And that of a lot of other people? This quote:

In high school English classes, children are required to read and view material that should be classified as soft pornography.

One such book is called "Speak." . . . As the main character in the book is alone with a boy who is touching her female parts, she makes the statement that this is what high school is supposed to feel like. The boy then rapes her on the next page. Actually, the book and movie both contain two rape scenes.

Pornography.

Jeebus Christmas.

Some more facts about this prof: his children do not go to the school under attack. So apparently he's prompted by his deep sense of . . . community welfare? Or something? He was also a speaker at a recent seminar called "Reclaiming Missouri for Christ."

I am religious. Some of you know this, some of you don't. (Now you do.) It's very dismaying to see an entire group of people painted with the Crayyyy-zee Brush because some isolated members choose to use religion as a club. Y'know what? Most of us want to live our lives and love our neighbors, not batter them into a fine paste that can then be reshaped in our own image. There's only One who gets to do that, and trust me, Scroggins, you ain't Him.

Something fascinating and new this year is the amount of religious response to this book banning. Like this, from Paul, who writes his post as a dialogue between himself and Christ. This is the final line:

“Paul (I love it when Jesus calls me by my name), I got crucified by a mob. Mobs come from fear. And fear happens when you don’t trust people to think for themselves… For the love of God, give your kids the freaking books.”

Thanks to David Lubar for that link, which almost made me cry at work.

Laurie Halse Anderson's post on the challenge to Speak has some great links by which you can respond to Scroggins, the school board, and the news media in Republic, Missouri.

Author Shannon Hale, blogging from bedrest (the woman is expecting twins any day now and still blogs! Hard-core, Hale. Hard. Core.) had this to say:

"The purpose of literature is not to represent perfect characters, an ideal world, where everyone acts kindly and appropriately. There's no benefit to reading that story, there's no learning, no questioning, no growing for the reader. I want to share just one more thing about the power and importance of great books, and why we need them free and available in libraries."

She then quotes from another blogger, which I will make you click through and read because double-quoting is kinda weird. Shannon Hale, you are awesome.

The blogosphere's afire over this one, naturally, and bless her heart, Reclusive Bibliophile has compiled a list of all the posts. There's also a Twitter hashtag, #SpeakLoudly.

File This Under "Holy Cow"

Congratulations to Jane Yolen, whose 300th book will published later this year. Yes, 300th. That's 3 with two little zeroes after it.

As I say, holy cow.

In highly classy fashion, Yolen tells us that it's not about the numbers, but about the readers.

What I can really recount, though, are the stories I get back from readers. The little boy in a burn unit who read "How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?" until he did, too. The autistic boy who now goes to bed without elaborate coaching because of "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?."

And many more. I'm gettin' a little verklempt here, people. Go request Elsie's Bird, that special number 300. Let's hope she hits 400 too.

A List You Might Need

ALSC has pre-pulled these needles from the haystack for us: books about Islam for kids. I'm saddened but not shocked to see the dearth of fiction, especially in chapter-book and novel-length. Sigh.

Have you read anything you'd add to this list?

Lee Wind and the Great Debate

Hop on over to Hunger Mountain, kiddies, and watch our own Lee Wind weigh in on "GLBTQ Teen Coming Out Stories: Move Beyond Them, or Keep ‘Em Coming?"

For me, I love GLBTQ books that show kids who are homosexual and that's their life. The coming out to the major players in their life is accomplished, and now they're dealing with other Life Stuff, just like any other kid. They're a gay kid or a lesbian, but they're not The Gay Kid or The Lesbian, like that's the sum total of their existence. For gay or lesbian kids reading about themselves, it's good to know that they are not their sexuality. For straight friends and family, that's also good to know that their friend/brother/sister is still their friend/brother/sister even with this new aspect of their identity.

On the other hand, as Lee says, a lot of places and people aren't so accepting as we would like, and for a lot of kids, understanding their sexuality and coming out are a major source of angst and even fear. They need books that show these experiences honestly, with all the bumps and bruises but the reassurance that's it's better to be yourself than to live a lie.

So . . . what do you think? Do we still need coming out novels on our shelves or should we focus on books with kids who happen to be gay?

Yessssssssss! / Noooooooooooo!

Fuse #8 pointed me at these two little tidbits of kidlit movie news:

1. They're making a movie of Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life! I love Wendy Mass's every sterling word, and it's a mystery to me why she doesn't get more critical love. Whatevs, I'll get to see this movie and if they don't completely turd it up, hopefully it will drive more kids to the M sections of my library. Yessssssssssss!

2. Remember the Mr. Popper's Penguins movie? Jim Carrey is going to be Mr. Popper. You heard that. Jim Carrey = Mr. Popper. Say it with me, kiddies: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

One of these days, I will make a book display called, "The Book is Always Better, or Yes I Know the Movie Sucked, That Was Not the Book's Fault." Today, however, I will tenderly cradle poor Mr. Popper and his penguins in my arms.

Reading Roundup August 2010

By the Numbers
Teen: 21
Tween: 11
Children: 16

Sources
Swapped: 2
Purchased: 1
Library: 40

Standouts
Teen: Thaw by Monica Roe
I simply couldn't put this book down, even when I wanted to kick Dane right in the goolies.
Tween: When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
This book confused the bejesus out of me, and yet, I kept reading. There's time travel, and unlikely friendships, and growth and Madeleine L'Engle and . . . and  . . . okay, just read it already, willya?
Children: Wild Things by Clay Carmichael
A book about the unlikely families that we cobble together because the pieces don't fit anywhere else. Too bad the cover belonged on a different book.

Because I Want To Awards
Highest Ratio of Tears to Pages: Love is the Higher Law by David Levithan
Most Highly Anticipated: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Twistiest Book Unfortunately Spoiled by the OCLC Summary (AKA, What Were You Thinking, Guys?!): White Cat by Holly Black
So Happy This Character Got Her Own Book: Goth Girl Rising by Barry Lyga
McGowan, You Are One Sick Dude: The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children by Keith McGowan
So Far Over the Top It's Receding Beyond the Horizon: Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware by M.T. Anderson
Can't Wait to Recommend This to a 10-Year-Old: NERDS by Michael Buckley

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I just bought plane tickets. To where? Well might you ask! To Minneapolis!

Now while I'm sure the fair polis of Minnea has many charms, I'm going there for one of my favorite events of the year: the annual Kidlitosphere Conference, otherwise known as my best excuse to geek out over books and blogging and meet people I mostly know online.

It's October 23rd and I can't wait! Will I see you there?

Has It Really Been a Year?

No way, really? Okay, I guess so.

The Cybils, our beloved blogger-run literary awards, are ramping up again, and they're kicking things off with a call for judges. If you've never judged, now's your chance! If you've judged before, you know what it's like! So . . . yeah, follow the link and throw your name in the hat. You have until September 15.

Even if you don't want to judge, start gathering up your favorites of 2010 now, because the noms start October 1.

Book Review: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

Book: Mockingjay
Author: Suzanne Collins
Published: 2010
Source: Local Library

Spoilers for books 1 and 2 ahead. Duh.

With her home district burned to ash and the war started in earnest, Katniss Everdeen is once again in over her head. She should be pretty comfortable there, though--it’s where she’s been ever since volunteering for the Hunger Games.

Hidden among the secret rebel enclave of District 13 (long thought to have been destroyed in the last uprising), she can do very little except obsess over the course of the war that she’s partially responsible for igniting, and the fate of Peeta, who keeps turning up in broadcasts from the Capitol begging Katniss for a cease-fire.

When the rebels ask her to be the Mockingjay--the public face of the war, the rallying point--she agrees because it’s something she can finally do. But it turns out to be more of the scripted, image-conscious symbolism that has defined her since the beginning of the Hunger Games, leaving Katniss uncertain about her very identity.

Is she a tribute? A victor? The girl on fire? The Mockingjay? Is she Gale’s lover? Is she Peeta’s? Is she a soldier, a warrior, or a symbol? All of these? None of these?

Who is Katniss Everdeen?

As the third book in a rollercoaster trilogy, how does this hold up? I’d say pretty well until it falters a little at the end. It kinks a little sideways away from our expectation of a flash-boom-bang ending, and gently coasts to a stop instead. This isn't a flaw, exactly, just something that took me off-guard.

From the beginning, where Katniss must work through all the recent upheavals in her life by creating a mantra of the things she knows to be true, through to the end, where a character with a slippery grasp on reality attempts to sort out untrustworthy memories by asking “real or not real,” this book wrestles with truth vs. illusion. In this book, even more so than the first two, Collins is obsessed with public image, and the uses of it for propaganda. Both sides of the war use Katniss (and to a lesser extent, Peeta) to twist public opinion like a pretzel. But Katniss is not cut out to be a puppet for anybody. This is shown dramatically when the first scripted, studio-filmed attempts at propaganda spots are a dismal failure. She is most effective when she’s saying nobody’s words but her own.

Of course, this doesn't always fall in the lines of what the rebels want. Collins also broods on the cost of war to everyone involved. It becomes less good-guys-vs-bad-guys as all of humanity rapidly destroying itself. This switch in tone from the earlier two books, in which the Capitol and President Snow were very clearly the villain, contributes to the ending that you don't expect but is the only thing that could work.

Maybe it’s our reality show culture, but we want someone who’s going to wind up a star (imagine jazz hands here). We pictured her as a leader of the revolution, a creator of truth and justice in the wake of the corrupt Capitol’s downfall, and a civilization builder. In short, it wasn’t enough for her to survive, we want her to triumph.

But the truth is that Katniss has always been a reluctant star at best. By the end of the book, she is so profoundly damaged by what she went through in the past few years that even surviving is a triumph. This book, like the others, will force you to think hard about any number of subjects even as it drags you through to the end.

Okay, enough analysis. I have to have a fangirl moment over the Best. Line. Ever: “You love me. Real or not real?” “Real.”

OH MAN.

Reading Roundup July 2010

By the Numbers
Teen: 21
Tween: 7
Children: 9

Sources
Review Copies: 1
Swapped: 3
Library: 28

Standouts
Teen: Will Grayson, Will Grayson by David Levithin and John Green
Not so much a book about two strangers as it is about two boys who have Tiny Cooper in their lives. The very end scampers on the edge of schmaltz but doesn't fall in.
Tween: Faith, Hope, and Ivy June by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Two girls from opposite ends of the class spectrum discover that friendship can bridge any canyon.
Children: The Eyes of the Amaryllis by Natalie Babbitt
One of those "I Can't Believe I Never Read It" books. Also one of those "Yep, It's Really That Good" books.

Because I Want To Awards
Made Me Want to Re-Read the First One: The Demon's Covenant by Sarah Rees Brennan
Wow, This Was Totally Written in a Different Time: The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope
Marvelous Series Finish: The Case of the Gypsy Goodbye by Nancy Springer

Book Review: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Book: Before I Fall
Author: Lauren Oliver
Published: 2010
Source: Local Library

Samantha Kingston is beautiful, popular, with a gorgeous boyfriend and fabulous besties. Her life seems perfect, until the day it all ended in screaming tires and twisted metal. Then she woke up, into the last day of her life . . . again.

Now Sam is living through the same day over and over, but with the ability to change things. Somehow, she's got to change what led up to that fatal car crash. But to change it, she first must understand it.

What is so appealing about the Groundhog Day structure? It's something about second chances, I think. The ability to do something right this time, or to see what happens if you do something different. Oliver also uses it to explore the consequences of our actions, and how complex that is. Sam is not a particularly nice person. She and her group are the mean girls, the ones who make up the nasty names and decree who's in and who's out. But they're not all nasty all the time. Within their group of four, they are supportive and loving, and Sam has great affection for her parents and little sister. Still, being a nice person to some people doesn't cancel out what you do to others. At the root of the accident that takes Sam's life multiple times are the many-layered consequences of what she and others have done in the past.

Characters unfold gradually. Even though Sam is living through the same day, the same events, in the same pattern, she makes little changes that reveal information to us and cause other characters to reveal information to her. Sometimes this helps with Sam's quest, but more often it helps us to see the same people from different angles, just as Sam is learning to do. This was so effective that I actually worried about what would happen to her friends after Sam was gone. That's an indicator of good characters right there. Her family is less fleshed out, but given that they are less important to the story, I didn't feel the lack.

Okay, I'm gonna be spoilerific here and tell you all that . . .

Last chance to leave.

. . . that Sam does, in fact, die. That what she had to change was not her own death, but someone else's. She had confront the role she had in other people's lives and change it, just a little. Just enough. The final chapter is probably the hardest time I've ever had reading a final chapter. Normally I race through them, wanting to finish, but I kept setting the book down, knowing what was coming. Sam had come to terms with it, but I was struggling, because there were so many good places that her truncated life could go, and knowing that they wouldn't was what brought on the tears. (Overinvested in a book? ME?) Sam goes through a recognizable pattern of denial, grief, anger in dealing with the fact of her own death. Her acceptance of what has to happen at the party is what finally allows her to bring an end to the cycle, not only her own last day, but the cycle of thoughtless actions and cruel consequences that has been hurting others.

Book Review: The Big Splash by Jack Ferraiolo

Book: The Big Splash
Author: Jack D. Ferraiolo
Published: 2008
Source: Local Library

Matt Stevens has a reputation as a guy who can find things out. But he's an independent contracter, see? He's nobody's patsy. That's why he has reservations about taking a job from Vinny Biggs, the school's go-to guy for such contraband as forged hall passes and forbidden junk food. But twenty bucks can buy a lot of root beers.

Matt shoulda listened to his gut. While he's doing the job for Vinny, somebody takes out Nikki Fingers right next to him. Once she was Franklin Middle School's most feared squirt-gun assassin. One twitch of her trigger finger and her luckless victims were standing there with apparently peed pants, a subject of scorn and mockery forever. Now she's been served a taste of her own medicine, but who ordered the hit? To Matt's surprise, both Vinny and Nikki's cute sister Jenny put him on the case. As he starts to detangle the strange web of loyalties, grudges, and crushes that surround the event, Matt realizes that people who are his friends, his enemies, and a little of both may be involved. And if he's not careful, he might find himself staring down a Super Soaker with his name on it.

As a mystery, this worked really well for me. Loads of false leads and secret motives clutter Matt's path toward the truth. I got a little lost toward the end, but it all worked out reasonably enough. Mostly, though, I have to talk about the tone of this book. The softboiled, faux-noir thing has been done with Bruce Hale's Chet Gecko series, but for a different audience, and there it's played purely for laughs. The Big Splash can't really decide whether it wants to be funny or serious about its own tone. Initially, it's pretty tongue in cheek. Matt calls his school "the Frank," kids gather at a backyard shed called Sal's for cheap root beer and PBJs, and hall monitors keep a sharp eye out for rubber bands and chewing gum. Then as we get deeper into the story, the cynicism and meloncholy feel of noir begin to seep in.

This seepage occurs in large part because Ferraiolo's characters are more fleshed out than Hale's. Matt has history with all the people he's investigating, most notably Kevin Carling, who was Matt's best friend until he accepted Biggs' offer to be a "lieutenent" (read: head bullyboy) in his organization. In addition, Matt's home life is hardly the stuff of Nick at Nite. Since his father's mysterious disappearance, his mom has had to work two jobs, leaving Matt to largely care for himself. His tough-guy demeanor becomes less an assumed persona that he can lay aside and more like a defense mechanism against all the blows life has dealt him.

Also, Vinny Bigg's organization is pretty funny until you realize the implications. The various hits carried out, from Nikki's Super-Soaker antics to a revenge hit on the apparent perpetrator, are downright nasty. What else can you call stripping a kid naked except for a chocolate-smeared diaper? Funny? Yeah. The stuff of years of therapy? Oh, yeah. I wrestled with that, trying to reconcile my adult horror with my memories of middle school. Is it exaggerated? Sure, but not by much, and for kids going through it, maybe not at all. The meloncholy tone may resonate with kids who are starting to deal with changing friendships and difficult choices.

I really hope that Ferraiolo writes more Matt Stevens books. Meloncholia aside, I really enjoyed this one, and I'm deeply curious about the larger mysteries that were set up in this novel.

Book Review: Mudshark by Gary Paulsen

Book: Mudshark
Author: Gary Paulsen
Published: 2009
Source: Local Library

He's like Encyclopedia Brown, but with a cooler nickname. Twelve-year-old Lyle "Mudshark" Williams is a master of observation, noticing what nobody else bothers to see and putting all the pieces together. This has made him the go-to guy for missing items and various conundra in his very crazy school. Missing your homework? Check the bushes by the step where you were sitting this morning. Lost your brain? (Don't worry, it's plastic.) Try the pool where you were swimming yesterday, and where nobody will now go in the deep end. Yep, Mudshark knows all, sees all, and doesn't even charge.

But that's before the librarian gets a Psychic Parrot. All of a sudden, Mudshark is dethroned in favor of a bird that burps before each prediction. He wouldn't be human if he didn't admit he was kind of annoyed by this. But when the principal asks him to solve the mystery of the missing erasers, Mudshark discovers that if the parrot solves it before he does, he's not the only one who could suffer.

I always enjoy Gary Paulsen, but I'm used to him as an adventure writer. Mudshark reminds me that the guy can be very, very funny. This book captures and exaggerates the life of a school, from the terrifying science lab to the equally terrifying lunches, from the mysterious custodian to the "wonderfully unhinged" librarian (hee!). Besides all that, there's the general level of kookiness you get when you confine three hundred under-twelves in one building for nine months. My favorite sections were the principal's announcements that served as hilarious chapter headers, keeping us up-to-date on the missing gerbil from room 206, the rapidly deteriorating state of the faculty restroom, and various other seeming one-off jokes that play into the story at a later date. This slim, fast-moving story is a sure thing for fans of Encyclopedia Brown, Wayside School, and Paulsen's other work.

Book Review: The Secret Life of Prince Charming by Deb Caletti

Book: The Secret Life of Prince Charming
Author: Deb Caletti
Published: 2009
Source: Local Library

Raised in a houseful of women with thoroughly stomped-on hearts, Quinn has grown up with the warnings about men ringing in her ears. Watch out for the red flags. Bad boys are not wounded, misunderstood, or secretly sweet--they're usually just jerks. If a guy wants to kiss your corpse back to life, he has some issues of his own. There is no such thing as Prince Charming.

She's heeded the warnings when it comes to her own romantic life, but she can't quite apply them all to her charming father, who dotes on herself and her sister Sprout in their regular visits. Then, just after getting dumped by her safe and boring boyfriend, Quinn discovers that her father has stolen treasured items from every woman who's ever passed through his life. Smarting from this double betrayal, she becomes determined to return them all.

She and Sprout meet up with their older half-sister, Frances Lee, and together they set off on a journey through the Pacific Northwest and the wreckage of their father's romantic past. Also riding along is Jake, Frances Lee's boyfriend's brother. Quinn fights her attraction to him, but can't deny that there's an irresistible pull. But on a road trip that's all about romantic disasters, does she dare get involved?

It would have been pretty easy for this whole book to be nothing more than "men bad." Baaaaad men. Ought to castrate the lot of 'em. And sometimes it does cross over into that territory. But Caletti saves it from this in two ways. First she shows some very good men. These include Andy, the devoted husband of their father's first ex, and Jake, whose bad-boy exterior (tattoos and guitars and naked first meetings, oh my!) turns out to be a cover for a warm and level-headed person who's nuts about Quinn exactly as she is.

Second, Caletti intercuts the narrative with testimonials from a variety of female characters on their own romantic mistakes, and shows that while getting involved with a jerk might be the first mistake, the second is to ignore that little voice inside that says, "This isn't right. You don't deserve this kind of treatment." If men were all bad, then women would be merely victims, and that's not the case. As this novel shows, both people in a relationship bring a certain measure of responsibility to the table, and it's when one or both forget that little fact that trouble happens.

Book Review: Exposed by Susan Vaught

Book: Exposed
Author: Susan Vaught
Published: 2008
Source: Local Library

After her first relationship went down in flames last year, Chan Shealy is sooooo over real boys. That's why Paul is so perfect. He's online, hundreds of miles away. Just a long-distance thrill, a cute boy to talk to and flirt with, one she knows will never sleep with a cheerleader or lie about her all over the school. Plus, Paul is perfect in other ways too. He helps her get set up with a strength-training program that helps with her competitive twirling. He loves Emily Dickinson, Chan's favorite poet. He's hot and fun and thinks she's the sexiest thing ever. It doesn't take long before Chan's so wrapped up in Paul that her schoolwork, her relationship with her family and friends is suffering.

Paul is pushing her further than she wants to go, getting her to do things for him, and the camera, that she never would have considered. But Chan talks herself out of her doubts. Paul is perfect, right? Totally perfect. Plus her parents would go crazy if they knew what she was doing. She's not a baby, she knows what she's doing.

Then Paul crosses the line, and Chan has to face the fact that all his perfection might be a bigger lie than anything her ex ever did.

This book will make you incredibly uncomfortable. That's a given, considering the subject matter. But seriously, I was deeply uncomfortable as Paul coaxed, sweet-talked, and even lightly blackmailed Chan into creating sexy videos, and even managed to justify charging others for them so Chan always felt as if she were in control, even while it was obvious to me that she wasn't.

I grew up on the cusp of the Internet revolution. When I first got online, at about Chan's age, video chat was still confined to Star Trek. Recently, I was talking to older co-workers about Facebook and how even though I know, intellectually, that anybody can get on there and say anything, it still feels like a fun clubhouse where you can try things out in safety and privacy. If I have a hard time remembering this, how much easier is it for a sixteen-year-old to gloss over all the little things that are not quite right.

I had some nitpicks. Vaught has a trick of making up fake names for services we're all very familiar with. For instance, BlahFest is the MySpace/Facebook clone that Paul first uses to connect with Chan, and PortalPay is the secure payment website that funnels Chan's cut to her. We all know what they are, why not just call it that? There was a very slight subplot about her father's weight issues, which felt out of place in the midst of the rest of the novel. If it was a larger plot that was cut down, it probably should have been cut down completely. It didn't do much to support or feed into the main plot, except to provide an excuse for their mother to get uptight about Chan's changing diet.

But overall, this is a creepy and thought-provoking book, well worth the read.

Reading Roundup June 2010

By the Numbers
Teen: 25
Tween: 18
Children: 17

Sources
Review Copies: 10
Swapped: 1
Purchased: 2
Library: 37

Standouts
Teen: Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
Just like its heroine, this book is so much more than it seems. Review someday soon.
Tween: Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast by Jane Yolen
Brave kids, creepy scary stuff, and oh yeah, talking bridges. There's a reason the woman's worshipped.
Children: My Rotten Life by David Lubar
I don't think there's many writers who could acknowledge that boys have fairly tender feelings, and then have a scene where a thumb gets glued back on. You might be able to drive a truck through the plot holes, but it's so much fun to read, who cares?

Because I Want To Awards
Longest Awaited: A Wizard of Mars by Diane Duane (We are talking YEARS here, people.)
Shoo-in For Standout Until the End: Hate List by Jennifer Brown (Not sure what it was. Something about the very, very end felt a little skewed, like it went a couple of degrees the wrong direction. Anybody else?)
The Closest You'll Ever Get to Virgin Noir: The Big Splash by Jack Ferraiolo (Virgin as in without the alcohol. Sickos. Review soon)
For Your Favorite Monty Python Fan: The Brain Finds a Leg by Martin Chatterton
Encyclopedia Brown, Eat Your Heart Out: Mudshark by Gary Paulsen
Don't Just Save This for Halloween-Time: Are You Afraid Yet? The science behind scary stuff by Stephen James O'Meara
For Your Readers in Snicket-Withdrawal: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood

Book Review: A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner

Book: A Conspiracy of Kings
Author: Megan Whalen Turner
Published: 2010
Source: Review Copy from Publisher

Sophos never really wanted to be king. But due to an agreement his father made with his uncle, he doesn't have any choice in the matter. He also never wanted to be a slave. But after being kidnapped and pressed into service on the estate of the king's worst enemy, he doesn't see any way out. When he finally escapes slavery, it's a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. He's got enemies on all sides in a country exploding into war, and nobody's making the decisions for him anymore. All his life, things have just sort of happened to Sophos. It's time for him to take control and for once to be the one who makes things happen, for himself and for his country.

Honestly? I squeed and danced my fangirl dance when I heard this book was coming out, because, hey, Megan Whalen Turner. But underneath that, I went, "Really? Sophos?" Because he didn't impress me all that much in The Thief. He was sort of a naive little boy, looking on goggle-eyed at Eugenides's antics. He wasn't even present in The Queen of Attolia or The King of Attolia. Suffice it to say, I could think of a few other characters I'd rather read about. A lot of other characters I'd rather read about.

Oh, MWT. I will never doubt you again.

She started from the very thing that made me doubt--Sophos' passivity and naivete--and threw this untested boy into all manner of trouble. This had a character arc like you wouldn't believe. I literally felt as if I were reading about a different person at the end than at the beginning. From a boy who flailed and scrambled and, all right, whined, to a young king doing what he had to do

I loved the clear line of demarcation she drew between being a king and being a man, and how hard Sophos had to learn that lesson. At one point, he goes to Eugenides for help, knowing that their countries are at war. He is a young man turning to a friend, but what he must learn is that both he and Eugenides are kings first--must be kings first. They have to be men, with friendships and loyalties and acts of mercy and aid, second.

In this book, it is not good to be king. Being royalty means doing a lot of things you don't want to do. Like, really don't want to do. But there's a difference in the way you approach them. You can be like beginning-of-the-book Sophos, dragged along unwilling but passive, or you can examine all your options and then do what you gotta do. It's more subtle, but even Gen is struggling with the balance between friendship and kingly duty. For a short time, he reacts by pulling away, hard, trying to snap the bond so it's not so difficult to be the total bastard he has to be. Sophos eventually gets annoyed with Gen's aloofness and literally dumps him on his ass to catch his attention. Hysterically funny, but also a mark of how much Sophos has learned to take an active role in his life and relationships.

Honestly, this wasn't my favorite of the series, but it's amazing in its own specific way. And it's Megan Whalen Turner, who joins a fairly select club of authors whose books I intend to own, no question.