The Compound by S.A. Bodeen

In my capacity as a member of the Nominating Committee for the Young Adult Cybils, I read with great enjoyment several books from the fairly new (2006) publisher Feiwel and Friends (The Poisen Apples, Carpe Diem, and Get Well Soon).* So when I was offered an advance reader copy of one of their new YA books, I jumped at it.

The book in question is The Compound, by S.A. Bodeen (coming this spring). The Compound could be described as Anne Frank meets The Shining, but I'll resist the temptation.

Here's how it starts:

"My world ended with a bang the minute we entered the Compound and that silver door closed behind us.

The sound was brutal.

Final.

An echoing, resounding boom that slashed my nine-year old heart in two. My fists beat on the door. I bawled. The screaming left me hoarse and my feet hurt."

Eli and his family are locked into the safty of the compound his billionare father had built to save them from nuclear war. His grandmother and his twin brother didn't make it, and were left outside to face Armeggedon. Now it is six years later, and life in the compound is disintegrating. The food is not going to last--parts of the father's plan appear to have been sabotaged, and other aspects of it are so twisted that they seem the work of a mad man. And indeed Eli's father is getting stranger and stranger, and Eli begins to wonder what exactly the Compound really is, and what might exist outside it.

We pick up the narrative after the family has been living in isolation for six years, so the Anne Frank aspect of it all--the interpersonal relationships tested by claustrophobic closeness--are not the focus of the plot, although clearly Eli's character has been shaped by these unnatural circumstances, and by his grief and guilt about his twin. We see events strictly through Eli's eyes, and he is not the most empathetic, aware narrator. He isn't particularly sympathetic, either--when a first person narrator has a low opinion of himself, it can be hard for the reader to think otherwise. Faced with the crisis developing in the compound, however, he gains maturity and becomes more likable.

The crisis, a spiraling insanity (the Shinning part, although there's no supernatural element), is grippingly portrayed. There are clues from the beginning that things are very twisted, to which Bodeen keeps adding. It's a real page-turning read, even though the answers to some big questions become obvious to the reader a bit before they become obvious to Eli.

I was slightly dissatisfied by how things were resolved--it's not quite clear how insane the father really is. But this is a book I'd be happy to recommend to the young teen who like thrillers. It struck me as a book I'd recommend this to readers who liked The Shadow Children, by Margaret Peterson Haddix--similar in its plot of children trapped in mysterious circumstances.

*I'm not alone in this--see this post from Trisha over at the Ya Ya Yas.

The Missing Piece, by Shel Silverstein

For the past few days I have been in the throes of setting up a library booksale. This is a job with both cons (it's a heck of a lot of work) and pros (I get to take home books). I was very happy yesterday to find that someone had donated a lovely copy of Shel Silverstein's book, The Missing Piece (1970, Scholastic 1995). I was even happier when my seven year old seized it and started reading out loud to us. For the first two thirds of the book, I was day dreaming about the glowing blog entry I would write about it. Then, betrayal. Total betrayal.

The story is as follows- a happy-face (in profile) shaped piece is looking for his missing triangle. He rolls through the world, slowly because of the missing piece, smelling flowers, meeting various insects, and then encountering various triangles, one of whom doesn't want his identity subsumed by a larger shape, and many who just don't fit. At last he finds a triangle who fits beautifully, and is willing to enter into a relationship, and both shapes are happy. But not for long.

With the new triangle in place, the shape now rolls quickly, too fast for nature appreciation. So what does the original shape do? Does he say, "Let's stop for a while, and rest, and I'll explore a bit but come back to you?" NO! He leaves the poor triangle, who looks sad and stunned, in the dust, and totally abandons it! What a jerk. The message of the story becomes this--if your partner in a relationship holds you back from doing the things you liked pre-relationship, dump your partner without apology. I'm just glad they hadn't had any kids.

New book coming this fall from Patricia McKillip

The Bell at Sealey Head, by Patricia McKillip, will be released this September from Ace. I had heard a while ago that she was coming out with a new book, to be called Knight Errant, which struck me as an awful title. So I am pleased!

If there should be, by any chance, any people who like books and libraries reading this who like fantasy but haven't tried much McKillip, I heartily recommend The Alphabet of Thorn (2004)--here's a review that does it justice. And it has the most gorgeous cover, by Kinuko Y. Craft, shown here without all those pesky words:



All of Craft's covers are lovely, but this is one of my favorites (although, looking at it critically as art isolated from the text and the bookness of the book, it somehow doesn't seem quite as appealing as I thought it would).

The February issue of the Edge of the Forest is up!

Highlights include:

An interview with Eric Rohmann, by Julie M. Prince
A hearty defense of YA Literature, by Little Willow
Graphic Novels: A Gateway to a New World, by Kelly Fineman
A profile of illustrator Sylvia Long, by Kris Bordessa
A fantastic new column called A Backward Glance, by writer Candice Ransom
P.J. Hoover is this month's Blogging Writer, interviewed by Christine Marciniak
Reviews in all categories—from Picture book to Young Adult.

Thanks Kelly, of Big A little a, for making this happen!

Books I read in February

Here are the books I read last month, not counting re-reads, non-fiction, or picture books. Although since I lost most of the scraps of paper I wrote them down on, I'm sure I've missed more than a few.

London Calling, Edward Bloor (2006)
Letters From Rapunzel, Sarah Lewis Holmes (2007)
Monsoon Summer, Mitali Perkins (2004)
First Boy, Gary Schmidt (2005)
Edward's Eyes, Patricia MacLachlan (2007)
Looking for JJ, Anne Cassidy (2007)
The Scarlet Stockings, Charlotte Kandel (2007)
Forever Rose, Hilary Mckay (2007)
Strangers to the Marsh, Monica Edwards (Republished in 2007 by Girls Gone By)
Memories of Summer, Ruth White (2000)
Just Like Everybody Else, Lillian Rosen (1981)
Jump the Cracks, Stacy DeKeyser (2008) (thanks Stacy! I hope to review it soon)

If my scraps of paper surface, I will add to this...

Father Fox's Pennyrhymes

For those who like a bit of dark humor, but gently done, and in small doses, leavened by much old-fashined fun, there is Father Fox's Pennyrhymes, by Clayde Watson, illustrated by Wendy Watson (1971). It's kind of a twisted mother goose enacted by dressed-up rural Vermont foxes, who give voice to many snarky, humoerous, and even sweet asides in the pictures (so I can't really do it justice).

Here's an example of one of the "darker" rhymes:

Little Martha piggy-wig
Run away and dance a jig!
If you weren't so fat and sweet
You wouldn't be so good to eat.

The picture shows little Martha, the only pig on the fox-covered playground, jumproping for dear life (literally).

Poking around on line, I see that I am not make a new and earthshaking discovery here. Oh well. It just got a huge blast of publicity back in January,here at Read Roger, and Sam Riddleburger looked at it in some detail last September here, and doubtless there are many others. But I am the first, as far as I know, to feature little Martha.

I shall eagerly look for Father Fox's Christmas Rhymes when it becomes seasonally appropriate to do so.

The Poetry Friday round up is at Kelly Fineman's place (Writing and Ruminating) today!

Things that stuck in my head

A few days ago, a. fortis at Finding Wonderland wrote a post called "Things I learned from kids' books," which lists specific bits of information she has acquired. I agree heartily that kid's books are an excellent source of general knowledge, and I would know much less about history in particular if I hadn't read so many books.

But then I started to muse about what more abstract, but still very specific, things have stuck in my head from reading children's books. Things that are more guidelines for living than facts, and not big guidelines, like respecting others, but little things.

For example, in Elizabeth Goudge's The Valley of Song (a lovely book, but be sure to read it when you are young, because it's better that way), various children meet their signs of the Zodiac. The Capricorn child must plunge into a dark abyss, and is afraid. But "No child of mine, born to the hardness of the cold nights and the lashings of the winter winds, was ever a coward." says Capricorn (page 140) And in goes the boy. I'm a Capricorn, so whenever I have to go to the dentist, or get up on a cold morning, or deal with even worse crises, this pops into my head, and quite often stiffens my spine...

And there's this bit, from Taran Wander, by Lloyd Alexander:

Taran has learned how to weave, after much laborious effort. But then:

"The pattern," he murmured, frowning. "It-I don't know, somehow it doesn't please me."

"Now then, Wanderer," replied Dwyvach, "no man put a sword to your throat; the choice of pattern was your own."

"That it was," Taran admitted. "but now I see it closely, I would rather have chosen another."

"Ah, ah," said Dwyvach, with her dry chuckle, "in that case you have but one of two things to do. Either finish a cloak you'll be ill-content to wear, or unravel it and start anew. For the loom weaves only the pattern set upon it."

Taran stared a long while at his handiwork. At last he took a deep breath, sighed, and shook his head. "So be it. I'll start anew."

This one comes into my head a lot. And often it has spurred me on to make changes, to start again, even though it is hard.

And finally, here's one that mercifully has faded somewhat. Thanks to Meg Murray in The Wind in the Door, and the test involving Mr. Jenkins, I used to lie awake at night trying to think loving thoughts about my middle school principle. It is possible that this made me a better person, more apt to see the good in everyone I meet....it is equally possible it simply inflated my high opinion of myself.

I am, however, very grateful that, pious child though I was, I never felt compelled to play Pollyanna's Glad Game.

Gateway Monthly, also TH White

For those of us interested in book news from across the pond (that is, the UK), there's an online monthly magazine--the Gateway Monthly-- that is chock full of information, reviews, contests, etc. The March issue has just been put up. I was especially pleased to see that The Sword in the Stone , by TH White, is being re-published with a jazzy new cover; I love that book and hope it finds new fans.

The Sword in the Stone tells of the boyhood of King Arthur, and the story continues in The Once and Future King. However, a version of The S. in the S. can be found at the beginning of The O. and F. K., but the two are very different, and the S in the S is much, much better and more child friendly.

The S. in the S. version was T.H. White's final choice. The Book of Merlin, published after these two and continuing Arthur's story, uses material that appears verbatim in the The O. and F. K. version (Arthur's journeys to the ants and the geese, which are so much more effective when they happen in his old age. They also make much more sense to adult readers than to children).

So, to summarize: read The Sword in the Stone when you are about 9 or 10, then The Once and Future King when you are about 14 or 15, skipping the part about Arthur's childhood, then read, when you are even older, The Book of Merlin.

The Scarlet Stockings by Charlotte Kandel

The Scarlet Stockings--the Enchanted Riddle by Charlotte Kandel (Dutton Children's Books, 2007, ages 9-12)

Daphne has grown up in the Orphanage of St. Jude, in 1920s London. It's a fairly friendly orphanage, as far as these things go, but still a difficult place to keep alive a dream of one day being a ballet dancer. In her thirteenth year, she receives a mysterious parcel that gives her fresh hope--a book called How to Teach Yourself Ballet, a pair of magical scarlet stockings, and a mysterious riddle. Following the riddle takes her to a new family, who welcomes her with love, the chance to help out at their greengrocers stall and the fun of performing on the streets with other children. But this isn't enough for the ambitious Daphne, and, spurning her London friends and family, she pursues her ambitions to the Ballet Splendide, in Paris, where she will be tested by the magic of the scarlet stockings (shades of Anderson's fairy tale about the Red Shoes).

It's a good story, briskly told. There's a very Noel Streatfeild-ish** feel to the first part of the book--ambitious London child, struggling to find a way to dance--that I found very appealing, being an enthusiastic N.S. fan. As the plot takes Daphne away from the London family, it focuses more on her ambition, in which she is aided by the magic of the stockings. Caught up in her desire to reach the top, she gradually becomes a much less sympathetic, and more isolated, character (and my interest in her waned).

Finally she pays a steep price for reaching great heights in the ballet world,* and learns that fame is not all that is worthwhile. The action takes Daphne quickly from one setting to another; I would have appreciated a slower journey, with more time to get to know the supporting cast (or, to put it another way, I liked the sub-plots of orphan being adopted by loving family and children putting on shows so much that I wanted more of them!).

This book should be enjoyed greatly by girls who love stories about ballet and orphans, with a twist of magic. And the pink cover should add to its appeal to this audience....

*in case anyone is worried, Daphne does not, like Anderson's heroine, have to ask a woodcutter to chop her feet off. She is able to dance again.

** Noel Streatfeild is the author of Ballet Shoes, Theater Shoes, etc. The book of hers I was most reminded of, however, is Thursday's Child, about a Victorian orphan who ends up an actress.

(I received my copy of this book from the publisher)

Two snow poems by Robert Graves

It has been snowing today here in Rhode Island. The part of me that has to bring in firewood and drive places is dubious about the whole thing, but the gardener part is happy to see the bare soil covered, so as to better grow things next spring. (As, I think, Laura said to Almanzo, or vice versa, in The First Four Years, "Snow is poor man's fertilizer").

Here are two beautiful snow poems, by Robert Graves (early to mid 20th century, English, author of I, Claudius but primarily a poet in his own mind).

Like Snow

She, then, like snow in a dark night,
Fell secretly. And the world waked
With dazzling of the drowsy eye,
So that some muttered 'Too much light',
And drew the curtains close.
Like snow, warmer than fingers feared,
And to soil friendly;
Holding the histories of the night
In yet unmelted tracks.


She Tells Her Love

She tells her love while half asleep,
In the dark hours,
With half-words whispered low:
As Earth stirs in her winter sleep
And put out grass and flowers
Despite the snow,
Despite the falling snow.

Poetry Friday is at Big A little a today!

Top 50 UK children's books

"Narnia Triumphs Over Potter" is the headline in an article in today's Telegraph (UK), that offers yet another list of the top 50 children's books (at least, I feel that I have read many such UK lists in the past year...maybe it's just me). In this case, the books were chosen by parents, so many of the top books are older--Enid Blyton's Famous Five series is in third place, for instance. I devoured these when I was young, and was very angry indeed at my mother for leaving our complete set behind in the Bahamas when we moved back to the states when I was 11--like many parents, she never liked Blyton, which perhaps added spice to my reading experience. The fairytales of Hans Christian Anderson are in 22nd place, much higher than where I would have put them. Any collection that includes a story about insects crawling over the frozen-open eyeballs of a little girl (The Girl Who Stepped on a Loaf) is not one that I crack open regularly to share with my children.

It was very interesting, however, to learn that since its publication in 1960, The Very Hungry Caterpillarar has sold about 1 copy a minute.

Book shelves like you've never seen them...

At the moment, I have enough room for my books. But someday my boys are (selfishly) going to want to keep their own things in their closets, so perhaps it will come to this:

Yes, this is a functional staircase. There are more pictures here. I wouldn't want to keep my better books in it, but I do have a lot of science fiction and paperback children's books that would be suitable...

What fictional boarding school would you like to go to?

There's an interesting little article in the Guardian today, that asks the question--"What fictional school would you like to go to?" I'm an inveterate reader of English girls' boarding school books, despite the fact that I would utterly loathe the vast majority of the schools-- so much organization of one's time, so little chance to creep off alone with a book, so many long organized walks, cold baths, and compulsory games. There's one book, in fact, (Lucy Brown's School Days, by Dorothy Vicary, 1951), whose plot revolves on the rehabilitation of Lucy from a book reading, chocolate-eating introvert to a star athlete and all round team player. Horrors. Even the fact that many of these fictional boarding schools have great settings, such as Mallory Towers (Enid Blyton), a castle-like structure on the coast of Cornwall, I'm not convinced it would be worth it.

One school that breaks from the pattern is Josephine Elder's Farm School, which she wrote about in three books: Exile for Annis (1938), The Cherry Tree Perch (1939), and Strangers at the Farm School (1940). This is a rather utopian school, where you get to pick the direction of your own studies, all the while learning practical skills and helping to look after the farm. And the students are so busy actually doing their own projects at their own pace, and doing communal work, that they are never organized for Walks. So this is my pick for fictional school.*

Copies of the Farm School books are fairly common and inexpensive, but sadly most of these are the Children's Press Editions. Children's Press books are often, but not always, horribly abridged. I've never read the non-Children's Press editions of these myself, but it's my understanding that Exile for Annis survived pretty much intact, but the later two got damaged.

Sort of straying off the topic of fictional schools, I'd just like to say that The Best Girls School Story Ever is Evelyn Finds Herself, also by Josephine Elder. Which really deserves a post to itself one of these days.

*Hogwarts, fun though it is to read about, would be very frustrating to attend. Not just because of titanic struggles against evil and that sort of thing, but because of the inconveniences of the stairways and passwords and all, and the lack of a decent education. (And thinking about reading at school, does any student ever read any fiction for fun?)

Jellaby

Jellaby by Kean Soo (Hyperion, 2008) --a graphic novel about a girl, a boy, and a purple monster

Portia is an only child, whose father has vanished. She’s bored and lonely, unhappy at school, with no friends, troubled by nightmares and the mystery of her lost father. Then, out in the dark woods one night, she meets Jellaby, a lost and hungry alien/monster (?), sitting scarred and alone, clutching his tail (Jellaby is just the sweetest little old thing, in a voiceless, paw-twisting way). Soon a classmate, Jason, finds himself involved in Portia’s plan to try to find Jellaby’s home, and Jason, Portia, and Jellaby are off on a train ride to the Halloween Fair in the big city (Toronto).

And here, in the midst of disaster, with the mysteries of Jellaby’s origins and the fate of Portia’s father totally unresolved, the reader is told to wait for the next volume. Wah! We were riveted to the page! Totally engrossed! The three heroes had just jumped off a moving train! How will they get to Toronto now? Who is that scary bird beak man? Who, for that matter, is Jellaby? The cover doesn’t say a word about this being book one. Humph.

Jellaby is no Barney, and this book is more than a fun story about friendship. There are dark aspects to the plot, most notably the nightmarish bird beak man who might have information about Portia’s father (seriously scary—Portia first meets him shackled to a bench at the police station where her mother is filing the missing person report). Even though she has a mother who clearly loves her, Portia is an unhappy loner. Jason is home in an empty house with no parental care, and the victim of bullies at school. A lot of the poignancy is conveyed in the drawings—a page of Portia pictures in the back of the dark car, getting smaller and smaller as she asks, “Mommy, where’s my Daddy?”, and a whole series of pictures showing Jason eating his cup of ramen noodles, alone. These darker aspects seem aimed at an older audience than the 7-8 year old audience who would be drawn to the making friends with the monster plot.

But in short, this is a great book to give to a second or third grader, girl or boy, who is learning to read, and it is a great book for older kids to read too. And while we wait for the next book, there are some Jellaby shorts up Fuse #8, and at The Secret of the Wednesday Haul

Winner of the Waterstones Book Prize

The Waterstones Book Prize is a very prestigious award given by the British book seller Waterstones to a debut writer for children. This year's winner was just announced: Ways to Live Forever, by Sally Nicholls. You can read more here. I'm almost in tears reading the publisher's synopsis:

Ways to Live Forever is a scrapbook of lists, stories, pictures, questions and facts put together by 11-year-old Sam. He's a boy who collects facts and loves looking things up on the Internet. He's curious about ghosts and UFOs - and also death. Sam has terminal leukaemia. He is going to die. And dying is a fact of life.-it's about an 11 year old boy who is dying of leukemia.

Oh well. Death books are popular with the young, so this one will go on my shopping list for the library when it comes out over here.

Poetry Friday--Valentine's Day ish: Jenny Kissed Me

An old chestnut, but very sweet:

"Jenny Kissed Me"

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!

Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.

--Leight Hunt, 1784-1859

I've always been fond of this poem (except for the "into" in the fourth line- just "in" sounds so much better to me). Apparently the Jenny in question was Carlyle's wife, but I have always imagined her a little girl...


The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Hip Writer Mama's place today!

We have Cybilian Winners!

The winners of the 2007 Cybils Awards have been announced! Yeah Winners! And many thanks to the brains and beauty behind it all -- Anne Levy and Kelly Harold, our organizers.

In as much as I was a member of the YA nominating committee (oh happy days of having piles of books around the house waiting to be read; the cupboards are bare at present) I was of course very keen to see who they were going to chose. My money was on Sherman Alexie, but no. It was Boy Toy, by Barry Lyga.

I almost wasn't able to read this book. I thought about quitting several times. The plot--a 12 year old boy seduced by his teacher, and his road to recovery--was almost too much for me. In large part this was because the boy himself did not realize for a considerable part of the book the extent to which he had been abused. He refuses to testify against the teacher in court, for instance, because he doesn't see her as the horrible abuser that she is. I kept imagining my own boys, in a few years, reading this, and not realizing how awful it was that this boy was in love (which is how he thought about it at first) with this beautiful teacher, the stuff of adolescent dreams, and that she was taking him places no 12 year old should be going. As one reads on, it becomes clear that this is a Bad Bad thing, and so I, as a reader, started feeling a bit better, but still. This is not a book for 12 year olds. Or their parents.

But for older teens, yes, it is a very good book indeed.

Fairy Tales meet Science

Here's great article in a recent edition of Live Science on the science behind the fantistic. It seem like the perfect way to get the non-fiction loving type kid to read fairy tales. And I could also imagine this line of thought inspiring science fair projects for those who prefere fairy tales...

Here's an excerpt:

In the story, Ariel loses her voice because of a curse. However, a less
skilled sorceress could use a different method to silence a singing
mermaid. Scientists have figured out a way to bend sound waves around an
object and, can even prevent the escape of all sounds created inside a given
area (important for keeping a transformed, singing mermaid from being heard). In
the story, Ariel loses her voice because of a curse. However, a less skilled
sorceress could use a different method to silence a singing
mermaid. Scientists have figured out a way to bend sound waves around an
object and, can even prevent the escape of all sounds created inside a given
area (important for keeping a transformed, singing mermaid from being heard).

Chris Gorski, Live Science Feburary 11, 2008

Great stuff for those who love Mythbusters! I want more!

reluctant readers, again....

Everyday my seven year old must read for 10 minutes. The school says so. Some days it is not easy, and lord knows I don't want to force him to read at knifepoint. So here, for what it's worth, is a tip, which I think is rather a nice one, and which I've never heard anyone else mention it: on nights when I think it might be a struggle, I communicate only in written notes. One can still be sarcastic through facial expressions. And it gets him to read. (Here is the math I use, although I personally was always much better at reading: 3 short notes = 1 minute of reading, so after 30 notes we can stop).

This can also be made into a game--anyone remember the wonderful treasure hunt in Spiderweb for Two, by Elizabeth Enright, where written clue led to written clue over the course of the year? Notes about treasure always get read, and there can be as many clues as you want, ranging from the simple "look under your beg" to the dangerous "look in your closet" (he keeps his rock collection on the floor of it).

Over at Reading Rockets there's a request for suggestions on books to read aloud to two girls who have achieved Reading-ness, and don't particularly have any interest in being read to. I can't think of any books in particular, but I do have a thought. Reading out loud doesn’t have to happen on a sofa--we used to be read to while we colored, painted, sewed...although none of use ever did complicated models meant for much older children, like Petrova did in Ballet Shoes when they were all being read to. So maybe if the new book to be read aloud was begun with a new quite activity, it would give it impetus... (and if the girls in question haven't read Ballet Shoes, maybe that would be a good one....)

Which One Did You Like Best?

Tomorrow, bearing unforseen catastrophe, the results of the Cybils will be announced! But in the meantime, you can head over to the site to vote for your favoirtes (here). Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree, by Lauren Tarshis, is currently leading the Middle Grade catagory, which pleases me greatly.