Searching for that magical world.

The premise of Justine Larbalestier’s first book in her Magic or Madness trilogy is basic enough: Reason, a fifteen-year-old whose existence has taken place largely in the Australian bush, is sent to live with her grandmother, a woman whom Reason’s mother has always regarded as the worst type of evil on the face of the planet. When her mother, Sarafina, lands in a mental institution, Reason uncovers enough signs that her mother wasn’t entirely lying: the remnants of a cat skeleton buried in the cellar, talismans hidden in picture frames of family members, and most intriguingly of all, a large antique key that seems to fit the lock of door that Grandma Esmeralda doesn’t want used.

Well, we can see where this is heading. And sure enough, as soon as Reason steps through that door, odd things begin to happen. Or at least that’s the promise. In spite of a solid, if somewhat uninventive setup, Magic or Madness is seriously lacking in either magical moments or scary instances of madness. On the other side of the door, Reason lands in a deep snowdrift—at the very heart of New York City’s East Village. This is enough to convince her of the existence of magic, and the sudden arrival of a ‘friend’—the magically savvy Jay Tee—suggests that her appearance was somehow expected. But by whom? Why does the door open onto this particular street? And what is the purpose of Reason’s own magic—a particularly astute sense of numbers and mathematics—in this world where magic is so close at hand?

The fact that Larbalestier’s book is the first in a trilogy following Reason points to revelations to come. But there are some serious holes in the first book that aren’t explained and were enough to drive me to distraction. Sarafina is left in the mental hospital, her story largely dropped. The relationship between Reason and Esmeralda changes, but without much justification why this is the case. With the exception of Tom, the neighbor boy who befriends Reason and displays some surprising magical qualities of his own, none of the characters feels fully developed. Finally, Larbalestier tends to hand the narrative off to various characters. One chapter we’re in Jay-Tee’s mind, the next we see things from Reason’s point of view, and after that from Tom’s. The effect is hard enough to do in a solid plot; here, it only serves to annoy. Perhaps in the remainder of the trilogy, Reason and her predicament are whipped into a fabulous tale of secrets and exhilarating danger. But with such a lackluster beginning, it’s hard to imagine any teens willing to extend their attention for another few hundred pages.

Pithy Verdict: A little magic, less madness. Mostly mundane.

Don't be a cow.

In general, I don't read (or 'read' depending on your definition of reading) books on CD, mostly because I have an attention span that can be measured in nanoseconds, but also because audiobooks are most effective on long-distance hauls, and I tend to use those occasions to sing/shriek along to Joni Mitchell and Neko Case. But I stuck with Catherine Gilbert Murdock's young adult novel Dairy Queen, and I don't regret a moment of lost belting time. As read by actress Natalie Moore, Murdock's fresh coming of age novel sparkles with earthy humor and a genuinely believable protagonist in D. J. Schwenk.

At first glance, D. J.'s story may seem a bit of a stretch: she's a high school sophomore who practically runs her family's Wisconsin dairy farm on her own after her father is laid up with a hip injury. The only daughter in a football mad family, she also struggles in a family with serious communication issues: her younger brother hardly speaks, her father is a demanding figure short on sympathy for his overextended daughter, and her mother fiercely maintains a facade of normalcy over all the damage underneath. D. J.'s also struggling through school, and constantly has to tend to her one (and only) friend Amber. And that's only the status quo at the start of the book. The action actually begins when D. J. is recruited to help get a rival football team's quarterback into shape over the summer. Incredulous, D. J. puts Brian to work hauling hay bays and running sprints, all the while seething over his privileged background and wimpy attitude. But as she starts to work out with him, she finds out that she's slowly falling in love--with football.

Well, there's other stuff going on with Brian, but D. J. is such a well realized character that some formulaic touches are forgivable. Even though she has so much going wrong in her life (and there's more major issues than the ones I've discussed here), D. J. comes across as a thoroughly normal sort of teenager--she handles her responsibility as best as she can, she doesn't get hung up on herself and she doesn't react to the changes in her life with over-the-top actions. She's the right mix of child on the cusp of adulthood, a character that you can imagine meeting at the local high school. And after a year schlepping manure and rising at dawn to milk, D. J. has decided she doesn't want to go through life blindly obedient like a cow.

D. J. decides to try out for the high school (male) football team as a running back, which brings the expected tension of solitary girl in a male dominated sphere--not to mention playing against Brian. My complaint here is that Murdock does tend to fall into the expected scenario of the two facing off against each other on the field. But she doesn't tie up some of the other loose ends as well, for D. J.'s experiences will continue in The Off Season. D. J. is a character worth rooting for, both on and off the football field.

One day, Death met a thief...

Of the books that I've read lately, Markus Zusak's unconventional 2005 novel The Book Thief has stood out for a couple of reasons. It's the only book that I've read twice in the same year, both being for book groups. I liked it the first time around, and the second go through didn't diminish my regard for it (a rare occurance, believe me). Secondly, I noticed that between the two groups, opinion was decidely divided. In the first group, all pretty much agreed that it was excellent. The second was considerably cooler, most choosing to skim parts that annoyed, and most weren't willing to pass it on to another reader.

Why the divide? On the surface, The Book Thief is something of a hard sell. It's a 500+ page teen novel about Germans during WWII, narrated by Death, relies on images to tells stories within the story, and oh, yes, you'll know from page one how everything is going to turn out. It seems a perfect recipe for a dark and depressing slog in the hands of a lesser writer, but Zusak, on the whole, makes it work. The story centers on Liesel, a gangly, neglected girl on the cusp of adolescence. She is on the way to her foster parents in a Munich suburb when our narrator first meets her, catching her stealing an abandoned book at the freshly dug gravesite of her brother. Her thievery continues as she grows up in the home of Rosa and Hans Hubermann, loving, if unconventional, parents who foster her love of reading. Liesel and her best friend, the Jesse Owens obsessed Rudy, seem to have as usual a childhood as most other kids, but the casual mention of Hitler youth meetings gives way to the images of Jews forced to march through town, pushing Liesel and those close to her to make a potentially life threatening choice between right and wrong.

With Death continually interrupting the story, there's little doubt as to the ending for at least some of the characters. Zusak, rightly, gives Death a wearily ironic tone (could he have any other?) and the narrator's constant interruption of the story can be grating for some. More jarring is Zusak's occassionally ungrammatical writing ('the horizon was beginning to charcoal') and his tendency towards forced descriptions ('cluttered breath', 'shrouded in his uniform as the graying light armwrestled the sky'). This strikes me as contrived, and it's hard to imagine any middle or high schooler keeping themselves from snickering at that florid stuff. But I kept thinking as I read that the effect of such language gives The Book Thief a cinematic sheen; like film, it requires a certain suspension of disbelief to make it work. Then it's not too hard to conjure not just the images Zusak is portraying, but to feel what it would be like to live on Himmel Street with Liesel. It's an ambitious novel, and even if it sometimes it doesn't quite live up to its own expectations, I'd fall into the group that would pass it along. What other novel mixes the mundane and the magical, the worst of human nature with humorous moments, and appeals to both teens and adults?

I really should be less cynical about book reviews.

Everyone is in love with Frank Portman. Every review that I've come across for Portman's first novel, King Dork, has been in raptures about Portman's take on high school life since it first appeared earlier this year. So of course, I'm immediately skeptical, as usually happens when something appears to be too good to be true, especially in the case of young adult lit, which more often than not can have adults swooning and teens passing.

King Dork meets this challenge head on, poking fun at that Holy Grail of teen lit, The Catcher in the Rye, turning its subject of teen angst on its head. The anti-Holden Caulfield here is Tom Henderson, a mostly rational and thoughtful human being who has the misfortune of attending high school with a bunch of psychotic normal people. As such, Tom (or Chi-Mo or King Dork), spends most of his time trying to avoid abject humiliation from students and staff alike, while attempting to set up a rock band with his friend-in-the-alphabet, Sam Hellerman. When Tom stumbles upon some of his dead father's books, it opens up a mystery surrounded by codes, fake people, questionable pronounciation and what really happened to his father during his high school years. There's no way that I can really do justice to the whole arc of the plot, only to say that I laughed out loud at many of Portman's perceptions of high school. His depiction of Tom's equally clueless ex-Hippie parents is hilarious, a sly commentary on how adults want to perceive their teen children, and just how much teens can see through such b.s. The only complaint I have is that such a twisted storyline takes its time building up, but Tom's such a good observer that those sticking with him will be well rewarded by the conclusion.

Portman, himself a member of the rock group the Mr. T Experience, laces King Dork with references to various rock groups, completes the book with a glossary of terms and misprounciations from the book, and a list of the devil's head incarnations that Tom's band goes through. There's some sex, which might put King Dork at risk for challenge, but if it is it would work to the book's favor in getting it more attention. Not that getting teens to read it should be difficult. I liked VOYA's little blurbette: "King Dork...will appeal only to...teens with an interest in...oral sex..."

Well, who am I to argue with that?

It's just a phase.

Ah, those glorious teenage years, full of self-discovery, intellectual stimulation, and the quest to become a well rounded individual. Or at least that’s the plan. The reality is usually more embarrassing and awkward, especially if your best friend turns out to be an ‘enthusiast,’ as Julie Lefkowitz knows all too well. When Ashleigh’s obsession with King Arthur leads to a pots-and-pans coat of armor, or her craze for a local band has them camped out under wet blankets, Julie stoically goes along. But when Ashleigh’s attentions shift to Jane Austen, Julie fears what her friend’s whole hearted enthusiasm will do to her favorite author.

Plenty, as Polly Shulman’s first novel Enthusiasm shows. Drawing on her love for Pride and Prejudice, Ashleigh convinces Julie to crash a local boys prep school to search for her own version of Mr. Darcy. The man is found, in the form of Grandison Parr, and the girls conspire to join the school’s musical in order to be near him and his best friend. But trouble arises when Julie learns that Ashleigh has mistakenly assumed Julie likes Parr’s friend—and has a crush on Parr herself.

Shulman’s effort doesn’t stray too far from formula (a school musical, readings in Romeo and Juliet, the obligatory bad boy, divorced parents), and the Austen twist peters out as quickly as the girls’ interest in the minuet. Still, for typical teen formula, Shulman does okay, creating sympathetic teen characters that have a fair amount of depth to them. Enthusiasm might be stronger had it ventured further into the Austen theme, picked up on some the themes of Austen's novel or had a stronger conflict, but on the whole it remains a pleasant if not especially memorable read.

Growing up, wallflower-style.

...Then, Patrick pointed at me, and said something to Bob.
"He's something, isn't he?"
Bob nodded his head. Patrick then said something I don't think I'll ever forget.
"He's a wallflower...You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand."

Charlie has already seen a lot in his life, and he's only about to begin his freshman year of high school. In a series of letters to an unnamed friend, Charlie records an angst-filled year of love, betrayal and becoming infinite. Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower could succumb under the weight of all that it tackles: teen suicide, molestation, forbidden love and nasty acid trips--and that's all within the first third of the book. But somehow it all seems to work.

This is due to most Chbosky's believable characters: unlike many high school dramas which try to pigeonhole the players into preconceived types. They may make wrong decisions, but that doesn't immediately set them on an inevitable course that other authors might resort to. In a nutshell, that is really what the story is about: even though wrong decisions might be made, there's always an undercurrent of hope running through the narrative. Observing all this is Charlie, in whom all the characters tend to confide their fears, hopes and frustrations with their own lives. Ironically, Charlie's desire to do right by his friends and remain on the sidelines nearly costs him his own chance at living.

I found this book after noticing that it often came up as a title that has been challenged. True, it deals with some sensitive topics and does contain some objectionable language. But after reading Wallflower, I'm rather at a loss to say why it comes under attack. While one would hope that all teens wouldn't have to face some of the situations present in the book, the reality is that many can relate to similar problems. At the close of the book, the story isn't so much about the ordeals the characters have gone through, but about how they've lived and grown up in the process. It's a conclusion full of hope, and you can't help but feel that in the end, the kids will turn out just fine.