DBRLTeen

What if you only had one year to live…and you knew it?  That’s what happens to 18-year-old Ben Wolf.  He finds out he has a blood disease that will almost certainly kill him in a year.  The recommended treatment may extend his life by a short time, but will be debilitating and ruin his last year.

So, realizing he’d “rather be a flash than a slowly cooling ember”, Ben decides to skip the treatment, and live his last year of high school the best way he can.  Knowing of his impending death, he tries things he wouldn’t have dared to do before,  trying to live a whole lifetime in one year.

Why do his parents let him do this?  They don’t know.  Ben doesn’t tell them; in fact, he doesn’t tell anyone.  Is that a good idea?  Read and find out.

Don’t worry, we haven’t spoiled the book for you.  Chris finds out about his disease in chapter one, but there are lots of surprises to come.  So DBRLTeen recommends Deadline, by Chris Crutcher, because we all need to think about what we’d change in our lives, if we knew we weren’t going to live forever.

This book is one of the 2009-2010 nominees for the Missouri Gateway Readers Award.

See author Chris Crutcher’s website here.

Not a new book (published in 1998), but this is a great mystery that shouldn’t be missed!  David, a high school senior and the narrator of this story, has been accused of murdering his girlfriend.  The jury found him not guilty, but did he do it?  Do his parents really believe he is innocent?  The reader can’t be sure, because David only slowly reveals the details of his past.  He moves to a new town to escape the community that still has suspicions about him, and moves in with his uncle to finish high school.  His aunt, however, is not happy that he is there, and neither is his eleven-year-old cousin Lily, who turns out to be much less innocent than she appears.  To make matters more complicated, Lily’s older sister (and David’s cousin) Kathy died tragically three years ago, and she seems to be haunting her old home.  Or is David just imagining things?  This book will keep you guessing right up to the surprising ending.  Which of the three cousins in the book is really the killer?

So DBRLTeen recommends The Killer’s Cousin, by Nancy Yerlin, because we all need to learn to live with our mistakes, no matter how big they are (and you’ll have to read the book to understand what that means ).

So many authors are writing seriously good books for teens/young adults these days, and many of these books are great reading for both teens and adults!  High school student Marcelo has Asperger’s Syndrome.  People notice that he has trouble communicating the way others do, and also has intense interests and knowledge in some particular areas.  His father wants him to be “normal”, and is pressuring Marcelo to leave the private school where he’s happy, to attend a large public high school where he can learn to act like others do.

Marcelo is constantly confronted by those who think he lacks intelligence because of his condition and the way in which he speaks, who think he can’t learn, or can’t understand what’s going on.  Marcelo proves them wrong!  Marcelo has to confront his father in the process, but he stays true to himself and his ethics and grows in the process.

So DBRLTeen recommends Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork, because by seeing what is ugly inside of ourselves, we can learn, like Marcelo, to “forgive, love kindness, walk humbly.”

Read an interview with the author about this book here, and check out the author’s website.

San is a new eighth-grader at school, and not particularly happy to be there.  He has a somewhat cynical yet humorous way of looking at things, as we see on page 2:

So.  Eighth grade. Second semester. New state. Math was math – algebra, of course.  They always stick the Asian kid in the algebra class.  Science was science.  Fortunately I know how to roll a stupid little metal car down a ramp and use a stopwatch, so no problemo there.  In English, all I could figure out the first day was that the teacher was nuts – so again, same stuff, different time zone.  Gym, lunch – I honed my skills at standing and sitting in the corner.  I also continued my long-standing tradition of eating nothing but pasta and fruit in the cafeteria – I’d never been to a public school that knew how to cook actual meat.  Oh, I almost forgot home economics.  Brownies.  Made with applesauce.  No wonder America’s kids have lost their way.

Great writing, even though your English teacher may object to all the incomplete sentences!  But the author creates a really interesting character that you feel you know right away.  Unfortunately San falls victim to the greatest enemy 8th-grade boys face:  their inability to successfully relate to 8th-grade girls.  We all try to make ourselves look a little better than we are when we’re trying to impress someone, but San carries it to extremes, creating a whole new persona for himself as a Zen master to impress a girl.  Unfortunately San is NOT a zen master, so many hours in the library (Yea!) researching the subject is required.  (Please do not follow San’s example by lying to a librarian in order to use the library computers!)  Lots of library humour, school humour, and zen humour, too.

So DBRLTeen recommends Zen and the Art of Faking It, by Jordan Sonnenblick. You’ll learn a lot about zen.  More important, you’ll have a chance to think about the consequences of lying about yourself to impress others.

Visit the author’s website at http://www.jordansonnenblick.com/

“All I can tell you is that you better live each day like it was your last, because you never know.  Take a lesson from me, one minute I’m picking figs, the next minute I’m dead.”

Teens always want to be famous.  Now don’t try to deny it!  Mrs. D. knows you all hope to be famous performers or sports stars or writers or scientists or celebrities of every sort and description – it’s in your blood and you can’t help it.  It’s human nature to want recognition from others, and the more the better!

But what if you never become famous?  Aren’t there enough silly celebrities running around making fools of themselves in public?  What if you just live an ordinary life?  Is such a life even worth bothering with? 

That’s why Mrs. D. recommends Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, by Fannie Flagg.  Elner Shimfissle, an elderly woman known only by her friends and family, is the center of this story (even though she is dead for much of it!), and if you thought it wouldn’t be fun to be old, think again!  Elner is the kind of person we all like to be around – friendly, funny, and still curious about life.   Although this book wasn’t written for teens, Mrs. D. thinks its a great way for teens to experience how wonderful life is, even when you’re old, and not famous at all. 

The problem is if you spend all your time dreaming about being famous in your future, you’re missing your present.  Are you living right today?

Suicide is the third leading cause of death in the United States for young people aged 15 to 24.  Of course the only thing many adults can think of to say about this issue is “DON’T!!!” – such a waste to end your life due to temporary circumstances or feelings.  So this book by Jay Asher is a good way to think and talk about this serious issue.  And the author had a great idea – after high school student Hannah commits suicide, her classmates start receiving a series of cassette tapes in the mail from the girl, who recorded her thoughts and feelings about how they mistreated her.  The book is a kind of dialogue between the girl’s voice on the tapes, and the thoughts of Clay, one of her classmates who receives the tapes.

It is difficult to decide whether to recommend this book or not.  Although it is thought-provoking, our concern is that some readers may feel Hannah was justified in killing herself because of mistreatment by her classmates.  Was she? Or was she just trying to hurt the people who hurt her – understandable maybe, but not really very nice. Teenagers treat each other poorly all the time – is that because they’re mean, thoughtless, and uncaring, or just young and still learning how much unhappiness their actions can cause others?  Should Hannah have tried different ways of dealing with her situation, and would they have worked?  Are there really high schools where so many students are so bad?

This is a well-written, thought-provoking, “can’t put it down” kind of book, a great basis for discussion of this important issue.  But don’t forget it’s only fiction, and no one should base critical life decisions on fiction!

Know someone who needs to talk about feelings of sadness, loneliness, depression or suicide? Suggest they call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Their website is:
www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

DBRLTeen knows guys and girls often prefer different kinds of books.  Here’s a great book for the guys, made up of almost 100 writers and illustrators, writing about their boyhood or teenhood or how they got interested in reading, writing, or drawing.  DON’T WORRY!  Each author only gets a couple pages, and most of them are pretty funny.  Its an easy book to browse, skipping the authors you’re not interested in.  Lots of well-known authors contributed, including Avi, Eoin Colfer, Matt Groening, Neil Gaiman, Jack Gantos, Anthony Horowitz, Brian Jacques, Stephen King, Darren Shan, and many more.

A personal favorite is the one by Jack Gantos, telling how in his childhood his friend’s older brother would launch them through the air with a home-made catapult.  Jack’s mother could not comprehend why the boys did this when the results were always painful.  Some things mothers never do understand…

Guys Read is actually a great website (www.guysread.com) started by Jon Scieszka, writer of the Time Warp Trio series.  It recommends books that boys of all ages enjoy reading.  No girl books allowed!

This book is a Young Adult nonfiction book, so its upstairs on the 2nd floor in the Columbia Public Library – YA 810.8092.  Click this sentence to see if we have any on the shelf.

Mrs. D. is always happy to hear from authors about her little reviews, and here is what M. H. Herlong had to say about Mrs. D.’s review of The Great Wide Sea in a private and personal email communication which Mrs. D. will now share with the planet: (Mrs. D. believes privacy is overrated, unless it involves her own…)

I DID enjoy the review.  In fact, I loved it.  I was especially pleased to read your discussion of Dad’s coping problems and your comment that we all need to learn to forgive.  I enjoyed your comment about your own sailing misadventure.  You might be interested to know that when the cover of the book was first prepared, Chrysalis was portrayed as a ketch.  I explained that this was like writing a book about a thoroughbred and putting an Clydesdale on the cover.  You might also be interested to know that I know that the moment depicted on the cover is one that no sailor would allow himself to get into and that no one could survive.  Sails up in that kind of weather?!?  No way!  Sailing INTO that kind of wave?!?  Impossible!  Still it makes for an extremely dramatic painting.

Having relinquished Ben, Dylan, and Gerry to the world, it is wonderful to hear when they are well received.

- M. H. Herlong, in a private and personal email to Mrs. D.

Mrs. D. is grateful that M. H. Herlong (may we call you “M.”?) graciously declined to point out the error in Mrs. D.’s review, where she referred to the sailboat Chrysalis as a “yacht” – it was, of course, a sloop, as Mrs. D. just learned from the author’s website.  Mrs. D., wise and knowledgeable as she is, is not too old to learn new things, and neither, dear readers, are you.

The difficult thing about making a family work is deciding who gets what they want – the parents or the children?  15-year-old Ben is settled into his own life and looking forward to getting a car when he turns 16, but as so often happens in young adult novels his mother has recently and unexpectedly died.  When catastrophes happen in life the young expect adults to know how to cope, but as Mrs. D. is sure you know adults are really just people like you and often can’t cope any better than you can.  Ben’s father is devastated by his wife’s death, and hatches the scheme of selling the house and taking Ben and his brothers (Dylan, 11, and Gerry, 5) on a year-long sailing trip through the Bahamas.  Perhaps this will help him forget and move on.  All three boys hate the idea, but as you probably also know parents sometimes just won’t listen.

To make matters worse (this is a young adult novel as Mrs. D. mentioned before so matters always get worse) their father suddenly disappears (yes, disappears, it’s quite surprising) from their yacht in the middle of the Carribean, leaving Ben and his brothers to face life-threatening situations on their own.  You’ll learn the things that can go wrong on a sailboat from this book, and goodness knows there are a lot of them!  Ask Mrs. D. to tell you sometime about when she was caught in a monsoon off the Seychelles in her 30-foot ketch - she hasn’t been quite as fond of mizzenmasts since!

Ben finds himself facing great danger because of the selfish decisions of his father.  How can Ben ever forgive him?  Mrs. D. recommends The Great Wide Sea, by M. H. Herlong, because we all need to learn how to forgive.

Check out the author’s website at www.thegreatwidesea.com!

“A rousing tale of techno-geek rebellion.”  That’s what it says on the cover, and goodness knows Mrs. D. is no techno-geek, but she did enjoy this book.  Teens who follow the news may be aware there are some who feel our country went too far in violating civil liberties after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and that’s the theme of this novel.  Terrorists have struck in San Francisco this time, and the response by the Department of Homeland Security is draconian (Mrs. D has helpfully supplied a link to the definition of draconian; perhaps she is a bit of a techno-geek after all).  A teen hacker named Marcus and his friends seem to be the only ones willing to challenge them.  Now some people think hackers are the bad guys, always breaking into computer systems, stealing identities and credit card numbers and military secrets, but actually hackers are just people who enjoy solving problems involving technology.  Click here to find a great description of hacking written by hackers.

An interesting sub-plot is how Marcus has to defy not only the authorities, who are trying to find and arrest him, but his own father, who believes the government’s response is appropriate.  Teens often find themselves opposing their parents’ views.  Mrs. D. remembers heated discussions with dear Papa about the League of Nations…

Cory Doctorow has written a well-researched novel – his descriptions of how to create xbox networks, encrypt communications, and disrupt security devices are accurate and Mrs. D. fears some of our teen readers may want to try some of his tricks – not at the library, please!  Find out more about Cory Doctorow on his website at craphound.com.

So Mrs. D. recommends Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow, because although technology can be used to oppress us, it can also be used to set us free.

Such a lovely little book! Mrs. D. is so grateful that every once in awhile a fine writer will attempt to make us think about important things and give us a chance to learn some wisdom rather than merely entertaining us! This book is written in a style called magical realism, like dear Gabriel García Márquez’ “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, which you’ve surely read, or will some day. Wikipedia defines magical realism as “an artistic genre in which magical elements or illogical scenarios appear in an otherwise realistic or even “normal” setting” (at least, this is how Wikipedia defines it today:  tomorrow, who knows?). Who is the boy who unexpectedly comes to visit Matilda in her old age, prompting her to tell him her life’s story? Is he even real, or imaginary? And who, after all, was Feather, the young man Matilda fell in love with after seeing him talking to, of all things, a pelican! These questions are essential to understanding the book, yet they are not answered, as essential questions often remain unanswered in life.

So many celebrities, politicians, and advertisers make a mountain of money and a boatload of fame by telling us what we want to hear, instead of the truth, which we usually don’t want to hear. (You can be the next American Idol! Your dreadful little voice and lack of training and practice will be no obstacle if you only believe in yourself!) The truth is we’re only mortal after all, not gods, we can’t create the perfect world for ourselves. We can’t have everything (or everyone) we want. That’s the wisdom this book is trying to make us think about.

So Mrs. D. recommends “The Ghost’s Child”, by Sonya Hartnett, because we all need to build our lives on a foundation of truth, not delusions.

“But life is not a story, and things don’t always turn out as you’d prefer. That doesn’t mean you have failed, though.”

- page 170

“She saw men struggling to surface from drowning despair; men who, suffering dreadfully, nevertheless managed to laugh. These men had lost much, but had somehow kept their humor, their goodness, their trust. They had not let anyone take from them these things that were most worth keeping.”

- page 158

“You don’t want peace or sameness. You know that life is for going, not stopping. But when life goes, it goes fast, Maddy: so be careful. Don’t waste your time wanting what you can’t have.”

- page 153

“How can you know love, and lose it, and go on living without it, and not feel the loss forever?”

- page 148

“Besides: whether you’re a child or an adult, there are things your parents never need to know. And throughout your whole life, there are things you must do without help or advice, things you can only do by yourself.”

- page 115

“Love isn’t always a good thing, or even a happy thing. Sometimes it’s the very worst thing that can happen. But love is like moonlight or thunder, or rain on a tin roof in the middle of the night: it is one of the things in life that is truly worth knowing.”

- page 56

“Is that what life is – settling for what you can get, if you can’t have what you really want?  A pile of junk, instead of the one perfect thing?”

- page 41

“How does one craft sturdy happiness out of something as important, as complicated, as unrepeatable and as easily damaged as a life?”

- page 25

“Joie de vivre” – a French expression translated as “joy of life”, defined on Wikipedia as “a joy of everything, a comprehensive joy, a philosophy of life, a Weltanschauung. Robert’s Dictionnaire says joie…involves one’s whole being.” (Mrs. D. kindly requests that you not tell the other librarians that she uses Wikipedia…some of them are a little, well, 20th century, you know…)

Mrs. D. is going to break with tradition and tell you NOT to read this book. DON’T read this book if you’re happy with your life, everything is coming up roses, and you are secure and confident in the direction your life is taking and your place in the world. SAVE this book for when life turns gray, and you need a good cheer-up. It will make you feel good about being human again.

Lily is in high school, the only sensible person in her muddled up family. She manages the meals and the household chores but resents it. Her father left and went to America when she was a baby, her mother keeps bringing old people home from work to stay over, her older brother Lonnie and grandfather are feuding over Lonnie’s inability to stick with any life plans he makes, her grandmother has an imaginary friend named Sef, etc. etc. etc. Everyone in this book is mad at a parent or child or grandparent or misunderstood by them or mad about being misunderstood by them. Misunderstandings abound in this book, but isn’t that part of being human? (Mrs. D. suspects that it is.)

How will this muddled up bunch of characters (and Mrs. D. has only mentioned half of them) untangle their knotted relationships? Dear Ms. Clarke (you’ve forgotten she is the author, haven’t you, but Mrs. D. is happy to remind you as many times as you need…), Ms. Clarke, who as Mrs. D. was just saying, is a gifted author who can make you feel that something good is coming, that there will be a happy ending after all, that chapter after chapter is building to an inevitable resolution of everyone’s difficulties, and yet even though this turns out to be true the ending is still simply glorious! You won’t want to miss it! Wait until you find out who Mrs. Nightingale really is – Mrs. D. almost forgot she works in a library and gave a joyous shout when she found out…(thankfully she remembered just in time – one doesn’t shout in the libary, does one?)

Is life really like this? Is there a happy ending for all of us? While reading this book, its hard not to believe that life should be, could be, will be this way if we just keep muddling along as best we can…hope keeps us going, doesn’t it?

So Mrs. D. recommends “One Whole and Perfect Day”, by Judith Clarke, because we all need to feel good about life and the possibilities it holds every once in a while.

By the way, Ms. Clarke (must Mrs. D. remind you again who she is?) is Australian (no, not that country in Europe, that’s Austria – she’s Australian, you know, kangaroos and koalas), and the book is chock full of Australianisms, if that’s a proper word. Mrs. D. is up-to-date enough to know that a “bestie” in Australia is what you youngsters these days call a “bff”. Such a lovely country, Australia is, remind Mrs. D. to tell you sometime about when she was stationed there during the war…