Book Review: "Counting Backwards" by Laura Lascarson

Taylor lives a troubled life with her mother.  She runs away and steals a car.  Her father convinces authorities to put her in a "therapeutic boarding school", Sunny Meadows.

Already stressed Taylor sees the fence and guards as they arrive.  She suddenly realizes Sunny Meadows is a maximum-security facility.  Angry with her father for sending her to this place she immediately feels trapped.  His last words to her are"Your anger is bigger than you ".  He leaves and at once she can barely breathe.

Her only thought is to run, to escape Sunny Meadows.  Run is a common theme for this story.    Running is how Taylor deals with her feelings and problems.  She makes plans.  In the meantime, she deals with bullies and quirky friends.

Eventually, she realizes the only way out is to pretend and go along with the game.  Then she will run. 

"Counting Backwards" portrays one girl's journey through a psychiatric correctional facility revealing her emotions and reactions to her fellow inmates and those who are there to help her. 

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan isn't a teen book. It's not a typical whodunit mystery either. But because VOYA magazine included this book in the article "Clueless: Adult Mysteries with Young Adult Appeal 2013,"  I thought I'd blog about it. The book IS a fascinating, thought provoking read that gets a brain cranking! And it's scary, very scary, if you believe that real life and real people can be scarier than monsters.

When the Empress Alexandra sinks, survivors are left floating on the the Atlantic in a lifeboat. Battling the elements is grueling but more horrifying is...

Keep on running!

For numerous reasons (most involving weird and unfortunate injuries), I am not a jock. I am, however, in awe of people who are because it seems like an awful lot of work, usually taking place too early in the morning or in the afternoon when I'm already exhausted from the rest of the day. Then there's competition and all the work that entails. But what happens when that hard work looks like it was a waste? Or if it has to come to an end completely? In Wendelin van Draanen's book "The Running Dream," 16-year-old Jessica is a dedicated track and field star for her high school; running is her life. At least, it was until the accident. Now she is missing her right leg below the knee and has to learn how to walk again, this time with a prosthetic. If she can barely walk, how can she run? If she can't run, what's the point? Then she meets Rosa, a math genius in her algebra class who has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. Rosa offers to tutor Jessica and slowly they become friends. With her help, maybe Jessica can learn to be more than a runner and more than an amputee.

~The Stacked Librarian

Tucson Festival of Books Author Spotlight: Jacqueline Woodson

If you like realistic fiction about teenagers with problems, like Crank by Ellen Hopkins or Monster by Walter Dean Myers, you should pick up something by Jacqueline Woodson. You're in for a treat. She'll be a guest speaker at the Tucson Festival of Books this year, which is a huge gathering on the U of A campus to celebrate books, authors, and reading. Here's their page for teens.              

The first book I read by her was If You Come Softly. It's a sad, kind of Romeo and Juliet-esque story. Jeremiah's black, and Ellie's white. They meet at a private school and fall in love without being prepared for how society views their relationship. On her website, she writes that it was inspired by a poem by Audre Lord, which begins:

If you come softly  

as the wind within the trees

you may hear what I hear 

         see what sorrow sees.

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Seventeen-year-old Ruby has always been just fine on her own, thanks. She and her mom don't need help from anybody. Then Ruby's mom disappears, and Ruby is sent to live with her much older sister and brother-in-law. In the course of her senior year of high school, Ruby learns that asking for help doesn't mean admitting weakness. Instead, it's the beginning of strength.

Ruby, of course, is the center of Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen. With her shields firmly in place and her clear vulnerability underneath, she's immediately recognizable. Dessen also populates the novel with rich secondary characters. From Cora, the sister who once abandoned her, to Nate, the boy next door who seems to have the perfect life, nobody's what they seem on the surface, maybe not even Ruby.

- Maureen K.

Middle School Mayhem

I read so many books that sometimes it's really hard to think about what to write about for this blog; other times, the universe just seems to pull out a topic and advertise it in neon lights. With arrows. And a fog horn. I was talking with a middle school teacher the other day and she was saying how there are so few good books for middle school students. My library is also currently working on a program called Middle School Mayhem. So obviously my post needs to be some of my TOP middle school reads. Without further ado, my fave middle school reads:

Love in Writing

Can you fall in love without ever seeing a person? Dash and Lily are starting to think so, with the help of Dash and Lily's Book of Dares, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithin.

Dash and Lily are two New York City teenagers, who've never met and aren't likely to. Both are on their own and at loose ends for Christmas. Then Dash finds Lily's notebook in the Strand bookshop, and what follows is a whirlwind romance on paper, as they dare each other to take on new and frightening experiences. Sheltered Lily goes to a wild concert. Cynical Dash has to visit Santa. Along the way, they realize that the perfect person may not exist, but sometimes you can get the person who is perfect for you.

Sweet, witty, and with unexpected emotional resonance, the third book from the two authors of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist is another winner.

- Maureen K

Anagrams, Footnotes, and the Mathematical Theorem of Love

Colin Singleton has had nineteen (by his reckoning) relationships.  Of those 19 relationships, they all had one thing in common.  They all involved a girl named Katherine.

Having just been dumped by Katherine the Ninteenth, Colin finds himself on a road trip with his best friend, Hassan.  Ending in Gutshot, TN, the two explore the gravesite of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, meet a girl named Lindsey, and Colin spends the summer trying to find a mathematical theorem of love and relationships.

What my description isn't capturing is both the realness of the characters and the humor of the storytelling.  An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is full of weird facts and trivia, odd anagrams, and an entire appendix devoted to the mathematical functions described in the book.  It is unspeakably nerdy, in the best kind of way.  But what can I say?  I have a soft spot for footnotes in novels. 

Let's Go Ride a Bike!

Having grown up in a city where this time of year I would be battling blizzards and layering on coats and mittens and scarves, I always rejoice when February rolls around and I can walk around in a t-shirt. This is so fantastic to me.

Now, for the confession: I did not learn how to ride a bike until I was 21 years old. I was, gulp, scared. And that's what I have in common with Auden, the main character of Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen. Okay, Auden was 18 when she learned how to ride a bike, and she wasn't scared, she had just been raised by very academic parents. So I guess the resemblance ends there.

Best name ever? Possibly

Despite the fact that I talk The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: The Pox Party up all the time, I hadn't even thought about writing a review until I noticed Octavian Nothing winning an informal poll of teen services librarians for coolest male name. M.T. Anderson has created a book that is next to impossible to forget, even though sometimes you kinda wish you could.

Octavian has written his autobiography which takes place mostly in the Boston Area, before and during the Revolutionary War. He was raised with his mother (an African princess) in a big estate owned by a "scientific" group called the Novangalian College of Lucidity. Both were educated in literature, science, languages, you name it. At some point though Octavian realizes the other Africans in the household aren't treated as well as he is and it's probably not right that the College weighs his poop. (Seriously, they do that.) To the College's displeasure, he soon discovers the horrible truth behind the poop weighing and some gruesome(though historically accurate) horrors occur. Octavian then sets out to escape with the help of a sympathetic scholar and the start of the Revolutionary War may just help him find a new life.

The second volume, The Kingdom on the Waves, continues his story.

--The Stacked Librarian

Edgy Reads

I was going to do a best-of-the-year post, but when I looked back at the teen books I read in 2011, I realized that most had something in common: they were pretty dark and disturbing. Dark content in YA literature got a lot of press this year, but in the end, it's a personal decision. If you're searching for books that push the envelope and give you that unsettled, is-this-really-okay-to-read feeling, give these a shot!

• After by Amy Efaw is the raw, unflinching story of the person behind the headlines:  Devon did something terrible, something so bad she can't even quite remember or believe it, even in her cell in juvie, where she has all the time in the world to reflect.

When One Book Isn't Enough

Believe it or not, every single one of the favorite teen books in this year's Summer Reading Program was part of a series. This is a great time to be a fan of YA series -- there are so many excellent ones coming out, and the library has a great selection! So if you're going to be bored over winter break, or forced to head off on a holiday trip, why not grab a series or three to keep you entertained?

If you loved Harry Potter, give Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain a try! Think Harry Potter's life started out rough? Imagine if he'd been a lowly Assistant Pig-Keeper, who got all muddled up in magic, battles, royalty, and epic quests! Start with The Book of Three.

Project Costume Designer

Now that zombie season has officially ended I can actually start reading books that don't give me dreams involving being trapped in libraries & eating brains. Interestingly enough, I suddenly discovered I had started reading the girliest books possible: ones where fashion is practically it's own seperate character. I'm chalking this up to some sort of mild post-zombie apocalypse shock. The cool thing about these three books -- "Freak Show," "Lola and the Boy Next Door," and "Hollywood Nobody" -- is that the fashion isn't some magazine's idea of what'll be cool next year. Instead, it's all about declaring yourself awesome and wearing whatever makes you happiest, even if it's a mermaid outfit complete with Cheerio suction cups on your face.

Life on the Refrigerator Door

Imagine this. You're Claire, an only child who's not a child, almost an adult, almost able to take care of yourself. Not that you have a choice about taking care of yourself, anyway. Your dad's not in the picture, and your mom's a big-shot doctor.

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder

I have a confession to make: I was a high school nerd. So when Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern was recommended to me by several other library staff, I picked it up and thought I'd check out a couple of chapters. I started reading at the dinner table just before bedtime and wound up staying up into the wee hours of the morning to finish the book. It was so engrossing, I never even moved despite losing circulation in my legs at one point.

Some thoughts on censorship

In honor of Banned Books Week, I would like to offer some thoughts on censorship.

Censorship is, of course, the act of censoring. And to censor means "to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable" (Merriam-Webster). (In the Roman republic, the censors kept a count of those who met birth and property requirements to enter the Senate; the basic idea is still roughly the same - taking a measure of, for example, a book to see if it meets certain qualifications, whether these be moral or literary).

The Brothers Torres, by Coert Voorhees

In The Brothers Torres, by Coert Voorhees, fourteen-year-old Francisco Towers has always idolized his big brother. But lately, Steve is going farther and farther trying to fit into the dangerous gang culture in their small New Mexico town. Now, it's time for Frankie to make his own decision about where he stands.

This is a powerful story about a boy caught between not just one rock and a hard place, but several. Frankie is caught between white and Latino, between idealism and hard economic realities, between his brother's example and his own definition of himself.

- Maureen K.