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?