Nomad, by William Alexander--excellent middle grade sci fi

Nomad, by William Alexander (Margaret K. McElderry Books, Sept. 2015), is the continuation of the story begun in Ambassador (here's my review of that one).  I hesitate to call it a sequel, because that implies there's a clear cut book one and book two, and Ambassador ended so abruptly, so cliff-hangery, with so much more to come, that it didn't quite seem a complete book on its own.  On the other hand, Alexander did an utterly amazing job making Nomad able to stand alone (I know two readers who were surprised there was a first book), while simultaneously picking up what was started in Ambassador and running with it, that I am almost able to forgive him for the trauma of how the first came to a close.  But now they are both out, and if you haven't read them yet, get them both at the same time and treat them as one story split into two books, and you will be in for a treat!  These books are absolutely top notch sci fi for middle grade readers, and older ones too!

Gabe Fuentes, once an ordinary kid, is Earth's ambassador to a  universe full of alien cultures.  Every species has an ambassador, and they are all kids, because only kids can use the mind warping mechanism that makes communication possible.   Earth doesn't know about Gabe, though, nor do they know that the planet is in danger from an alien race, the Outlast, bent on taking over everything.  The Kaen, a nomadic clan of space wanderers, has come to our solar system to escape the Outlast, and Gabe hopes they can help defeat them....but he has not a clue how.

Meanwhile, Gabe's ambassadorial predecessor, a Russian girl named Nadia, has also met up with Kaen.  She left her post years back to try a daredevil mission into the travel lanes of another group of aliens...the same travel lanes that the Outlast are using for their intergalactic blitzkrieg.  That journey left her blind, with a fried visual cortex (for those who dislike magical/sci fi healing--it doesn't happen for Nadia), and the Kaen have taken her in.  Gabe and Nadia, and the young Kaen ambassador, continue to try to find out how they can close the travel lanes....but the Outlast are drawing ever closer, and time is running out.

And Gabe is also worried for his family--his Mexican parents came to the US illegally, and his dad has been deported (and his home blown up, as told in book 1).  So the struggle against the Outlast is combined with Gabe's own journey back to Earth to find his father, and sort things out for his family, while being pursued by hostile aliens (as if boarder patrol worries weren't enough). 

It is an utterly compelling set up, with utterly compelling characters.  That being said, these aren't books I'd give to kids who have to have things Happening all the time; there's rather a lot of fretting in place, as opposed to running around like crazy, acting adventurously.  So much fretting, indeed, that I got a bit twitchy from it (possibly I was fretting more than the characters...).  But gee, the scope and wonder of the story are mind-candy for readers who are science fictionally inclined.  And the themes of communication and seeking safety are timely and well-written without belaboring the point.  I also very much enjoyed how much the Kaen appreciated Mayan culture--they met the Mayans when their nomadic path took them past Earth millennia ago, and borrowed many elements of their art and architecture (copying the Mayan pyramids for themselves, in a  nice twist on the regular aliens building them stories).

And this time around, Alexander ends with an ending.  A good one.  (Except I really really want to know what happens to the Outlast ambassador...his story is still a very open ended one and I care about him, even though he was ostensibly the Enemy).

My short answer--it's a bit like David Brin for the young-complicated, very inventive, the believability of its reality stretched almost to breaking point, and memorable as all get out.   If you have a young sci fi minded reader who needs a present, do consider these two books.

disclaimer: review copy provided by the publisher for Cybils Award consideration.

The War That Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

Theoretically I am only supposed to be reading books from my TBR pile until I have read 100 of them....but in practice I just had to read The War That Saved My Life, by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley (Dial, January 2015) just as soon as ever I could because how could I not want to read the story of a hideously neglected and abused girl with a clubfoot whose life is saved when WW II happens and she is evacuated to the countryside of Kent and learns to ride a pony and gets new clothes for the first time and finds out what it is like to be loved?????

Ada has spent her life confined to a one room 3rd floor apartment, spending her days looking after her younger brother Jamie...or, as he gets older and goes off without her outside, simply staring out the window, or disappearing into the void of her mind.  She has a clubfoot, and her mother has made it clear--horribly, abusively clear-- that she is so deformed and worthless that she can never go outside herself.   Any sign of spirit in Ada is answered with violence, or worse still, she is shut up in a cabinet.

Then WW II happens, and Jamie is going to be evacuated with the other school children.  And Ada seizes the chance to escape herself,  making her painful way with Jamie to the train station.  Fate smiles on Ada and Jamie--they are dumped on Susan, a woman who doesn't want them, a woman who is grieving over the death of her partner Becky*, a woman who doesn't think she has anything to give two rather wretched children, one of whom, Ada, who has never before even seen grass....

Happily it turns out that Susan is exactly what the two children need, and they are what she needs as well, and Ada slowly gains self-confidence and begins to cast off the years of being told she is hateful and worthless.  Susan reads to them (Swiss Family Robinson to start with), she feeds them and bathes them and braids Ada's hair, and eventually Ada thaws enough so that Susan can teach her to read and write, and to love and be loved.

But in the meantime the war is growing closer....and Kent, where Susan lives, no longer seems safe....

And also in the meantime Ada shows preternatural ability at horseback riding, which both delighted the part of me that still thinks like a ten year old girl and strained the credulity of the somewhat larger part of me that doesn't.  The spy bit also was a bit of stretch....And even more so, I constantly was questioning whether Ada, the bright first-person narrator, was at all believable as a person who had suffered as much abuse as she had, and I am not convinced she was.   I feel that Goodnight, Mr. Tom, by Michelle Magorian, which is a very similar story (abused evacuee finds loving home) is a stronger book, perhaps because it is not told in the first person, allowing greater suspension of disbelief.

Still, my doubts paled in comparison to the pleasure of the minutia of Ada's life with Susan, and The War That Saved My Life was a single-sitting book that I enjoyed very much. 

* It's not explicitly stated that Susan and Becky were in a relationship, but there are plenty of clues that the reader who's aware of the possibility will pick up on pretty easily.   I very much appreciated the bits of backstory to Susan's life as an Oxford educated woman disowned by her disapproving father because of her relationship with Becky, and I also appreciated how Susan's grief over Becky would resurface periodically in small but very poignant, very believable ways.  This book is not just the story of Ada healing but of Susan healing as well, and this was a very nice contrast to the relentless focus on  child protagonists in so much (though by no means all) middle grade fiction.  I think it's nice for kids to think about how grownups feel too!

The Chosen Prince, by Diane Stanley

The Chosen Prince, by Diane Stanley (HarperCollins, January 27, 2015, middle grade) -- a nice one for the young romantic.

Alexos is a prince of a people who have offended Zeus, and who are cursed with a never ending war against the other kingdom with whom they share an island.  But the people have pinned their hopes on Alexos--the auguries read when he was a baby showed he might be the chosen one of Athene, the tool she will use to bring peace and plenty back to the island.

Alexos does his best to be a good prince, though he can never please his stern and distant father. But though he may (or may not) be Athene's chosen one, fate is unkind--when he is twelve, he is stricken with a polio-like illness that leaves one leg all but useless and the other weak.   Just as he begins to recover his strength, learning to walk again with brace and cane, he hears his father deciding to make his younger brother Teo the heir.  And then Alexos finds himself betraying Teo, committing an act for which he can never forgive himself.  All the years that follow he tries to do good for his people....but always there is pain, both of the body and of the mind.

Yet to Athene, Alexos is not broken at all.  He is but one of the pieces she is moving in her game against Zeus, a game that will take him and his companions to a magical island, where ghosts must be confronted and enemies faced....

You may read in other descriptions of the book that there is a girl involved, but she is not exactly "the heroine." Though her role is important, she herself is a minor character who enters the main story toward the end.  She is brave/smart/beautiful for her small number of pages and then gets to have (rather sweet) romantic attachments of the insta-love sort to Alexos.

You may also read that The Chosen Prince is a take on the Tempest--and yes, there is the magical island with the above-referenced girl and her father, and yes, a shipwreck brings strange men...but that's about it, so don't be expecting a Tempest retelling as such.

[End of plot summary part]

So. I read this in one day, and enjoyed the reading, but alas, I kept comparing it to The Thief, by Megan Whalen Turner, which is totally unfair, but there it is, and as a result I am somewhat tepid in my feelings.    I can imagine this book being loved, though (especially by people who aren't already fans of The Thief), and so my thoughts aren't entirely positive, I don't want to be utterly off-putting.
Therefore I will quickly start by sharing the positive thoughts of others:

"Alexos is a strong character, capable of accepting and adapting to change, even as he struggles with heartbreak and almost insurmountable odds. The language is lyrical and accessible, and the end is satisfying in the extreme." (School Library Journal (starred review))

“Stanley’s storytelling infuses each character and hardship with distinct purposes that coalesce and become clear to readers by book’s end for a tidy finale that leaves no unanswered questions.” (Publishers Weekly)

Percy Jackson fans will not be put off: Stanley uses short sentences, an immediate present tense, and basic vocabulary, and the plot races along. Alexos is a touchingly relatable character, and his relationships make the plot meaningful. (Horn Book Magazine)

Why it didn't quite work for me--

The Chosen Prince is very much a character driven novel, and the reader has to care about Alexos for it to work.   He's a very sympathetic character, certainly, and his situation is interesting---but he didn't quite sink his claws into me, as it were-- I never cared that passionately about him.   Possibly this is because he is so very worthy--no snark at all, bravely accepting his disability, determined to be good.   Possibly it is because the book is written in the third person present, which gave it a rather cinematic effect; I felt I was watching a movie (in large part because Diane Stanley is a masterful describer) as opposed to being inside his story.  (The third person present is not my favorite tense, and I'm not sure it was the best choice for this story).

I was also somewhat disappointed by the generic-ness of Stanley's ancient Mediterranean, which seemed more a generic past of standard palaces, mud, and peasants than a truly realized classical era in which the Olympian gods were worshiped.  The gods are real, but the reader doesn't get much sense that the characters truly think about them much.

Who I think it might work really for--

In my mind, the perfect reader for the book is any 10-12 year old who might want to crush on a sweet, sensitive boy who is all but broken by fate but is still trying (and succeeding) to be a good person.   I would not suggest it as a Percy Jackson read-alike (Greek gods do not a P.J. read-alike make).  I would not suggest it to anyone who likes their fantasy brisk and magic-filled; the plot here is a slow-burning fuse.   But that young, romantic reader who dreams of strange places and beautiful boys and the magic of the gods making everything all right in the end may well love it lots.



(My copy of The Chosen Prince came to me when I was a weekly winner in the sci fi/fantasy round-up at On Starships and Dragonwings that goes up every Friday--thank you, Anya!)

Dreamer, Wisher, Liar, by Clarise Mericle Harper, for Timeslip Tuesday

Dreamer, Wisher, Liar, by Clarise Mericle Harper (Balzer + Bray, April 2014, middle grade) is a lovely home-based timeslip fantasy to offer the introspective young girl (which is to say, if you don't know me already, it was a lovely book for me!). By "home-based" I mean a story in which the time travelling doesn't lead to grand adventures in exciting elsewheres.   This is one that sticks close to home, and so it isn't one for those who want excitement--more for those who are fans of realistic fiction about ordinary girls, but with a magical twist.

Ashley is miserable.  Her best friend has gone off to camp, and her mother has invited the child of a friend to spend the month with them--a seven year old girl named Claire, who's lost her own mom, and who Ashley is expected to babysit.   But two things happen that make the month the opposite of terrible. 

The first is that Ashley finds herself warming to determined, spunky Claire, whose drive and energy forces Ashley to do things she'd never have done on her own, like hanging out at the local senior center, doing crafts, hunting for thrift store treasures, and talking to people she doesn't already know.  The last is especially hard for Ashley, because she has face-blindness--she cannot recognize people when she sees them out of context, and without her best friend at hand to tell her if she knows people, she's tremendously reluctant to reach out to strangers.  But thanks to Claire, she makes new friends, one of whom a boy she would never have talked to otherwise...

The second thing that happens to Ashley is the discovery of a jar of wishes down in the basement--wishes written on scraps of paper by a girl named Shue years ago.  When Ashley uncrumples each wish paper, she sees Shue living the experience that inspired it....and so, making a chronology of the wishes, she sees the story of all the ups and downs of Shue's friendship with another Ashley (Shue is a year younger than Ashley, and so parts of her story, when Ashley is off with older girls, are rather poignant....)

I've never read a book whose main character has face blindness, aka prosopagnosia.  Ashley's experiences dealing with it seemed convincing, and the effects of it on  her life, and her self-esteem, are made clear without being over-dramatized.  This make it a good one to offer the young reader who's interested in physical/neurological differences and how they affect life experiences.  (It also helps keep one of the sub-plots plausible!)

Both the Claire story and the timeslip story are interesting in their own right for those who like character-driven story full of small happenings and several nice surprises (one of which involves Ashley's favorite author, so especially pleasing for us bibliophiles!).  The whole ensemble comes together very nicely indeed to make the story of this month in Ashley's live a lovely, warm reading experience that I enjoyed lots.

The Orphan and the Mouse, by Martha Freeman

The Orphan and the Mouse, by Martha Freeman (Holiday House, August 2014, 224 pages) is a lovely, magical story that should entrance any introspective eight to ten year old(ish) child who likes orphan fiction and small furry creatures (which would be me when I was that age).

And I would just like to start off by saying that the cover of this book makes me cross, because I liked the book lots, and think lots of others would like it to, but it looks like it is a book for six year olds or something, and really this is somewhat off-putting for both the nine or ten year olds mentioned above and the parents/gatekeepers who find books for them to read (especially in these days of hypercompetitive parenting, with so many people (seemingly) wanting their kids to read "up.").   On top of that, I think this cover would be almost impossible to sell to a boy, but the story is not in and of itself somehow boy unfriendly.  So please just ignore the cover art.

And now, the story:

In an rather upscale orphanage (the upscale-ness is important to the plot) in the late 1940s, a girl and a mouse met.  Caro, the girl, is ten, and has a badly burned hand from the fire that killed her mother.  Mary, the mouse, is no longer young (she has lots of mouse children).   But between these two unlikely friends a bond of empathy and good will is forged during an unhappy misadventure with the orphanage cat....and this bond ends up bringing them both to a much happier end than they would have otherwise (especially Caro.)

Because.....there are Dark Things happening within the walls and behind the doors of the model orphanage (not least of which is emotional manipulation of a really unkind sort--one's heart aches for Caro).  Those in power (both mouse and human) have let power and material comfort corrupt them,  and it is a good thing for Caro that Mary Mouse and her mouse ally Andrew are there to heroically (risking death by cat) help her put things to rights.  Mice and child expose secrets (the reader gets to see the schemes in action, so it's not really a mystery from the reader's point of view), and things are tense, and the happy ending is happy enough to be gratifying without being insultingly too good to be true.

Mice in this world are not mindless squeakers--they have listened to, and appreciated on an almost spiritual level, the story of Stuart Little.  They collect art (in the form of postage stamps).   Andrew Mouse can even read.  And Caro is not a mindless squeaker either--she is an utterly relatable (to me, at any event!) good child who deserves good things (who certainly doesn't deserve it when the movie starlet is disgusted by her scarred hand).  The combination is a winning one.

I think one of the things that made it work for me was all the stories--stories told, stories imagined, backstories--that swirl around in the book.   Not the sort of "now there will be a story" interruptions, but the much more subtle sense of richly textured and layered interior lives created by telling and thinking.   Characters have stories about themselves that are changeable, and they think about what stories there are to be told, stories that will make life more than the immediate now.   Each postage stamp picture is a window for the imagination...each character has a self they are shaping.   And it is this open-ness to story that makes the friendship between girl and mouse both possible and emotionally convincing, even though they can never speak each other's language.

Note:  as well as the cover issue, a possible problem with this book is this--although the sensitive, small-mammal-loving child is clearly the target audience, it starts with a pretty grim mouse death.  This may well put off the truly tender hearted, and you might have to promise such a child that no other mice die (except one who dies offstage who isn't the nicest mouse anyway and by the time you get to that mouse death the sensitive reader will be so engrossed in the story that it won't matter, but if deceit really bothers you, you can say (truthfully) "the cat doesn't kill any more mice").

Second note:  I decide this is one for my list of disabilities in kids' fantasy books, because it is mentioned that Caro's scarred right hand does pose difficulties for her with things like writing, although this is a very minor point in the grand scheme of the story.

Handbook for Dragon Slayers, by Merrie Haskell

If you are looking for a book to tempt a thoughtful, introspective 10 to 12-year-old girl who likes books and horses, with a bit of dragon on the side, offer her Handbook for Dragon Slayers, by Merrie Haskell (Harper Collins, 2013, middle grade).

Tilda, the young princess of a small Germanic kingdom in the Middle Ages(ish), chaffs against her place in life.  She is filled by an insatiable desire to spend more time reading and writing, and less time thinking about domestic animals and their needs (tedious and worrying--it's a poor kingdom)  and the prejudiced attitude her people take toward her twisted and painful club-foot (hurtful and dispiriting as heck).   Fate, in the form of a greedy cousin intent on taking the kingdom for himself, offers Tilda an escape from the uncomfortable role of princess when her two best friends, Judith, who has grown up alongside her as her handmaiden, and Parz, failed squire of a neighboring knight, rescue her, and decide that the time has come to be dragon slayers (!).   Tilda, they all agree, will watch and learn and research, and write a Handbook for Dragon Slayers that will make her famous.  She likes the idea lots; she's less convinced (with good reason) that Parz and Judith have any immediate hope of achieving their dragon slaying goal....

Judith and Parz, though both have been diligent with their weapons practice (despite Judith having to do it secretly), have as yet little theoretical, not to mention practical, knowledge of how to slay dragons.   Their first try doesn't go well; they are no match for even a baby, and retreat in disarray.  But then the companions meet the Wild Hunt, and Tilda, facing down the Hunter, rescues two of its magical horses (beautiful, magical horses), who give a whole new plausibility to the idea of dragon slaying, and from then on the pace Picks Up something fierce, and there are encounters with other dragons, and an evil magic user...and enchantments and imprisonments and dangers...And it all becomes a very exciting fantasy adventure.

And by the end of the book, slaying dragons is off the table, and Tilda returns to take up her duties with a new, hard won, maturity (and beautiful horses and a dragon friend and a new respect for Judith and sundry other characters).

It must be said that the beginning of the book is somewhat slow, and Tilda is not immediately a charismatic heroine.  Her character has been shaped by her disability--by both the physical limitations that it has imposed on her and by the pain of the prejudice against her because of it--and she has pulled herself inward in self-defense, which makes her somewhat self-centered and inclined to run from reality.   But once the threesome set out after dragons, she perforce expands and matures, and as she does, she becomes increasingly likable.  There is no magical healing here, nor do Tilda's people become magically unprejudiced against those with disabilities, but the ending promises acceptance and the opportunity for Tilda to define herself by finding balance between what she wants, what she needs, and what she is responsible for.

Judith is a great supporting character in her own right.  She has thoughtful considered the limitations of her life (like handmaidens not being allowed to be dragon slayers), and challenged them head on.  The friendship between Tilda and Judith, with the complications of their unequal relationship, makes for satisfying reading, and plays a major role in shaping Tilda's character arc.  (Parz doesn't get to be nuanced--he's a nice, loyal boy who likes swords and heroics at the beginning of the book, and at its end.  Which is fine.  Not everyone needs to be extraordinary).

So, after a bit of hesitation on my part (there isn't much zing to the beginning--Tilda is depressed, with good reason, and it colors the story)  I enjoyed this one very much indeed, and read it faster and faster, with increasing snappishness toward interrupting children. 

This isn't one to give to the reader who's already gotten hooked on books with Romance--they might find it flat in that regard, because there isn't any; sure, Parz might well end up with Tilda or Judith, and Tilda crushes on him a bit, but they are still kids.   But if the need for romance isn't an issue, older readers may well appreciate this one for the complexities of character, the rather amusing bravado of the would-be dragon slayers, and the interesting twists of the fantasy elements.  I don't think it has universal kid appeal (I don't think my own ten-year-old boy, for instance, would stick with it to page 53 when the true adventure begins), but I am sure it will be a just right book for just the right reader--the girl I describe in the first sentence!

Here are some other reviews:  Slatebreakers, The Book Smugglers, and Random Musings of a Bibliophile.

The Drowned Cities, by Paolo Bacigalupi

In my review of Ship Breakers, by Paolo Bacigalupi, I said that "...the main reason I kept reading was Tool--an utterly fascinating character who is the most science-fictiony part of the book, what with being a product of genetic manipulation. There is clearly more of his story to tell--I hope it plays a large part in the sequel, coming out sometime next year."

And lo, the sequel (or rather, the prequel) is out, and Tool is a central character! And it was good.

The Drowned Cities (Little Brown, YA, 2012) takes place before the events of Ship Breaker. Tool, a human/animal hybrid, bred for war, has broken free of his captors. Half-men like himself are supposed to lose their will to live when their master dies, and they are the last of their pack, but Tool is different. Through the jungles and swamps of a future world of flooded cities and chaos a ragtag army pursues him...but he is a survivor, and even weakened by wounds that would have killed a lesser creature, he escapes...

And is found by two children, Mahlia and Mouse. Both are unwanted flotsam in this war-torn world. Mahlia, the daughter of a Chinese peacekeeper and a Drowned Cities woman, became a despised outcast when the Chinese withdrew and her father left. She escaped into the jungle, putting her own survival ahead of any altruistic thoughts for others, but lost her hand to one bloodthirsty faction in the process. Marked by her Chinese features, she's a lightning rod for fantastical hatred. Mouse's family was killed in more random slaughter--in this world, random slaughter is pretty much the order of the day-- and neither Mahlia or Mouse can envision a happy ending.

But when Mahlia and Mouse meet Tool, and the soldiers hunting him, things change.

It is a fearsomely dark place, this story. The children suffer. There is death--senseless, brutal, and bloody. There isn't a whole lot of hope. But still, Mahlia, and Mouse, and Tool are characters to care fiercely for. And Tool, impossible, unpredictable, unimaginable, makes it seem almost as though there can be a happy ending after all....keeping me reading as the characters wade through a swamp of near-death experiences and the horrors of insane, chaotic war.

I'd actually suggest reading this one before Ship Breakers, as this allows the reader to meet Tool for the first time here. In this book, a lot of the internal tension comes from not knowing if Tool can be trusted, not knowing if he can care for anything outside his own survival. Will he turn on the children, or will he help them? Is he a person to care about, or a monster?

The second reason (Tool being the first one) that the book is not entirely grim is that, even though every page makes it seem more likely that Mahlia and Mouse will be broken by violence, there is always just enough hope that they can survive with their fundamental selves intact, and make it through. In describing what happens to them, there's just the right balance of distance vs. immediacy. The reader is right there, caring fiercely, but is also able, like Mahlia herself does, to think about abstractions-- morality, altruism, and the effects of war on ordinary people.

In short: riveting, dark, powerful, and not one I'm giving to my eleven year old to read. However, I'd give this one to a YA reader who loved the Hunger Games, in a somewhat testy way: "ok, kid, you want senseless violence and struggle to survive in a dystopian world (one that seems much more horribly probable), and kids hurt and twisted through no fault of their own, take this!"

Psychiatric Tales, by Darryl Cunningham, for Non-Fiction Monday

After reading a review at Comics Worth Reading, I added Psychiatric Tales, by Darryl Cunningham, to my (too long) list of library books. I am fascinated by explorations of the workings (and not working) of the mind, and very much wanted to see for myself Cunningham's exploration of mental illness, presented in graphic novel form.

Front and center, Cunningham makes it clear that he has a purpose in creating his book--it "is intended to be a stigma-busting book. This is needed because fear and ignorance of mental illness remain widespread in society" (page ix). In his compassionate portrayals of those suffering from various forms of mental illness, he succeeds in making the point that victims of these illnesses remain People, that they can (sometimes) be helped through medical care, and that they are not to blame for the symptoms of their illness.

All but one of the eleven stories that comprise this book stem from Cunnigham's experiences training to be a mental health nurse; the exception is the author's look at his own struggle with mental illness. Dementia, self-harm, depression, anti-social personality disorder, suicide, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are covered in accounts of the author's experience working with people affected by these. His stories aren't at an Oliver Sachs-ian level of intricate detail, but enough is there to makes it possible to feel the fundamental humanity of each of the people one encounters here. A chapter on people with mental illness who have enriched our lives underscores this point.

Most powerful, though, is the final chapter of the book, in which the author shares his story of crippling anxiety and depression, in which suicide seemed like a very tempting alternative to a life of hopeless darkness. Thankfully Cunningham (with the help of Prozac and the Internet) was able to find hope again, in large part through the creation of this book. Fusing his talent for art with his hard-earned knowledge of mental illness, he has created something of value.

Although Psychiatric Tales wasn't written with a Young Adult audience in mind, I think this is one that deserves to be widely read by that demographic. What people understand they are less likely to fear, and mental illness, with all its various stigmas, is still poorly understood by too many of us. Teens, in particular, are (I think) at a point in their lives when they are trying to Make Sense of things, and a book like this, that presents a difficult topic in a very accessible way, can serve as a useful introduction to the different forms mental illness can take. It is a message-heavy book, but that works in its favor when it's considered as such an introduction.

Also of particular interest to teenagers, wondering what path they might following in their own lives, is that this is a book about finding one's career. It is a look at what the life of a mental health nurse is like--the gritty, down-right revolting things one must deal with, and the stigma that's associated with this branch of the health care profession--psychiatric nurses are, in Cunningham's experience, looked down on by others in the nursing profession. It's also a career book about becoming a professional artist and graphic novel author--in particular, how the Internet helped Cunningham launch his own career.

There isn't any "adult content" viz sex and language here, but some things are very terrible. I read parts of the book with my ten-year-old, who is keenly interested in the topic. With me to explain, and soothe, and elaborate (and skip some things that I thought were too much for him to take), it worked for him.

Though there are sad and deeply disturbing things in this book, the ultimate message is one of hope.

(I feel totally unqualified to talk about the graphics...suffice it to say that I, who have trouble reading graphic novels, found that the images enhanced the words, as opposed to distracting me from them).

Other reviews, besides the one linked to at the beginning, can be found at PsychCentral, Ich Liebe Comics, Sound Therapy Radio, The Sleepless Bookworm, and Of Books and Reading.

Coincidentally (I'm incapable of actual Planning) May is National Mental Health Month! (it is a wide variety of other health related things too--you can find the whole list here. It's fascinating. I think I will celebrate Mediterranean Diet Month, and make my usual half-hearted effort viz Employee Fitness Month).

And finally, the non-fiction Monday round-up is at Jean Little Library today.