On a Wing and a Prayer

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

There's No Story Like Back Story

Once you are a part of the Morning Glory Academy, you really have no choice but to stay. Not only do they cut you off from your family, but in isn't difficult to make the students realize they have no choice but to stay put. In Volume 2 of Nick Spencer's Morning Glories, the six new students all have a story to tell. 

Everyone has a story, but how important are those stories in relation to the person you have become? For the newest Morning Glories, those back stories directly tie to how they got there, and who they are going to become. If you are a little rich kid who committed an unspeakable act, is there a chance you can find your way out of it, or are you going to have to face your actions in the harshest way possible. When twin brothers are separated, can they ever come together and be the same? When a little girl is taken from her people, will her extraordinary talent lead who she is to become? 

The second volume of The Morning Glories wasn't much different from the first. The story was filled with mystery and intrigue, but I'll be darned if I am not still totally in the dark about what they heck is happening! I expected a few more answers than I got, so the story was a little frustrating when all it did was give me more questions. Still, the mystery continues to be interesting, so I will continue to keep reading, but I want answers people! I have NO idea what is happening! The back story was very interesting, and I was glad to have it, but now I need more about this Academy and what on earth is happening inside it!

Mystery at the Morning Glory

An invitation to join an elite private school is one you can't pass up. It brings six teenagers from very different walks of life together in one place. Morning Glories by Nick Spencer is a story with more than one secret to reveal... but you won't get all the answers you want!

With a population that rivals "The Breakfast Club," six teens with checkered pasts are brought to the mysterious and prestigious Morning Glory Academy. While its clear they won't all immediately become life long friends, they are expected to work together. The school is unconventional, but when one of the girls tries to call home and her father has no idea who she is, they start to get suspicious. The school passes it off as a strategy to keep kids from getting homesick, but it was too real. He didn't even know she existed!

More and more, the kids think there is something deeply wrong with Morning Glory. The school's tactics for sussing out their special "talents" is disturbing at best. At worst, it is downright deadly. When you put six kids together who are known to be the best and the brightest, you can't also expect them to be the most obedient. But Morning Glory is ready for some disobedience. In ways the kids never expected. 

This was another one of those stories where you can enjoy the whole thing, be ready for the next in the series, but you have absolutely no idea what is going on. I know there is something fishy about the school and its administration, and let's just say the teachers make the Trunchbull look like a little kitten, but I never actually got any real answers. Instead, I found myself flying through in order to find any speck of an answer because, by the time I finished Volume 1, I have absolutely NO clue what is going on. 

The mystery is fun, though, and the wildly different personalities of the 6 kids makes it exciting. From the preppy rich kid to the chick with two dads, they are quite a diverse group, and their varied ways of dealing with the circumstances are interesting. I wasn't overly fond of the art in this graphic series, though, and I felt the illustrations were a little flat or generic. I would have liked to see something more unique. All in all, it is an interesting story, and I am intrigued to see where it goes!

Tragedy in Paper

What constitutes a real tragedy? For a young adult, the answer to that question could be any number of things. For the students of this East Coast boarding school, the tragedy paper is their final goodbye and their biggest revelation. In Elizabeth Laban's The Tragedy Paper, traditions, a social hierarchy, and a literature assignment can change someone's life forever.

Duncan moves into his new dorm room for his senior year, and he finds his "treasure" left from the senior before him to be a bundle of CDs. Despite the crapshoot of a tradition, he had hoped for a better treasure and certainly a better room. But once he starts listening to the legacy Tim, last year's senior who happened to be albino, he has a hard time looking at everything the same way. After what happened last year during the tradition of the Senior Games, he has been different this year anyway. Now, hearing Tim's story about how it all happened, Duncan has a choice: either the tragedy changes who he is or he changes how the tragedy controls their lives.

Tim has always been an outcast. It is hard to hide your differences when you are albino- everyone notices. But starting a new school his senior year, across the country, and in a private school, is more than Tim really thought about when he agreed to give it a try. But on his journey out there, he was stranded in an airport hotel with a beautiful girl named Vanessa. And as luck would have it, Vanessa is headed to the very same school Tim is now a part of, traditions and all. After their whirlwind night building igloos and ordering room service, Tim feels a connection to Vanessa like he has never felt before. However, her boyfriend might not feel the same way about their connection. And now, in a school full of traditions he is completely oblivious to, Tim must find a way to finally find out who he is and how far he is willing to go.

As I started to read this, I immediately thought of Jay Asher's 13 Reasons Why. With the CD's and the story left as a legacy, it all sounded very familiar, but it was still really well written and the story was interesting, so I was excited to find out what happened. Add to that this layer of intrigue surrounding the traditions at the private school. This is one of those true East Coast boarding schools layered with generations of students, traditions, and mystery. But the traditions are actually kind of sweet. The idea of the senior before you leaving a treasure for your moving-in day or the seniors hosting an event each year to tap in the new junior committee. All of it is kind of quaint, actually. It wasn't the Skull and Bones stuff you might be thinking of. 

And the Tragedy Paper, a kind of thesis culminating in a Literature class's study of true tragedy, is brilliant! In fact, it gave me a lot of insight into my own senior class, and Laban's ideas surrounding this class and this teacher are brilliant. Then comes the adults in the book. Supportive, loving parents, and even a wonderful step-father Tim adores! The teachers? Let's put it this way, the headmaster picks Tim up at the airport after his flight is delayed! This really was a jackpot of stellar adult role models. And I really liked this! So many YA books have absentee parents and cruel, useless teachers. The adults in this book were truly great, and I appreciated that.

*SPOILER* My biggest struggle with this book was the "tragedy" at the end. I hate to even say this, but I wanted a bigger tragedy. Yes, I am sure the tragedy would have been life-altering for those involved, but as they all survived relatively unscathed, I am unsure how believable Duncan's traumatization would have been- it felt forced. Like Laban didn't want to kill anyone she liked, so she just banged them around a little bit. I think the build-up of Duncan's reactions and the tragedy paper needed a tragedy so devastating it would have shaken my world up. But I didn't get that. And sadly, it ruined the ending of a really good book for me. *END SPOILER*

So, I would definitely pass this onto my students, especially being part of a boarding school. It was a great, clean book and perfect for a younger student even though it is about seniors. I wish the ending was a little bit more powerful, but that doesn't detract from the really beautiful writing. And I can't wait to meet Laban at Oblong next month! I hope she has a lot to talk about!

Raven Boys Flutter

Esteemed prep school boys can be full of mystery and intrigue, but the Raven Boys are searching for something dangerous. In Maggie Stiefvater's The Raven Boys we find out just how much an obsession steeped in the mystical can cost someone.

Blue's life in a house full of psychics isn't easy, but she makes do. Her mother and aunts run their business out of their house, and Blue's special ability of increasing the powers of others certainly comes in handy. While she isn't exactly part of the "in-crowd", Blue lives her life and knows to steer clear of the raven boys, the students at the renowned private school, Aglionby. But Blue has always been part of a prediction that haunts her as it has been spoken by every psychic she has ever known: she will kiss her first love and that will be his end.

When Blue is on the Corpse road on St. Mark's Eve, she hears a name that she can't get her mind off: Gansey. As a Raven Boy, Gansey and his three friends, Noah, Ronan, and Adam, are already mysterious, but their hunt for the ley line, a mystical, magical focus of energy that connects mystical places and holds the promise of a hidden king, is what brings them all together. When they come to Blue's house for psychic help, the connection between Blue and Gansey has her mother forbidding Blue to see them ever again. But Blue's interest in Adam, the one local boy of the group, and Gansey, whose haunting past keeps him on the trail of the ley line, are too intriguing to abandon. The consequences, however, are more than anyone has considered.

So, Steifvater is notorious for her nebulous, ethereal writing that has the reader floating along, usually totally confused, for 3/4 of every book until it all comes together in the last hour. Having read the Shiver series and Scorpio Races, I fully knew what to expect. But this book was so confusing and nebulous, I really couldn't get a grasp on it. And when it finally picked up the pace and came together, I was frustrated enough to have lost interest already. In Shiver, at least there was a secret to be revealed that kept me going with the next two books in the trilogy, but in this book, I am not sure the "big reveal" was enough to keep me going. It was certainly interesting, but, honestly, it was predictable. And quite frankly, I am the kind of reader these twists are made for- I never see them coming! 

So if i figured it out, everyone will. That means this story, without the writing style, would be best for a young, less mature reader, but the writing style is so confusing and unfocused, it would lose such a reader. I think this is the struggle behind most of Stiefvater's novels, unfortunately. Sometimes the story is interesting enough to keep an older reader going, but this story was too weak for that, in my opinion. Truthfully, in writing the recap above, I found myself struggling to even explain what the story was about because there isn't much to it despite 400+ pages! If you are a die hard Stiefvater fan, you should pick up this series, but if you struggled with her other books, I imagine this will be your least favorite. I know it was mine. 

Philosophical Graphic Diary

I teach Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi in my senior literature class, so I was excited to find this book being compared to that book. While I think the comparison is too loose to be of any use to readers (like everything even remotely dystopian being called "the next Hunger Games"), I don't think this is a story to be discounted. Tina's Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap may not be the next Persepolis, but that doesn't mean it isn't an interesting story!


Tina is Indian American. She isn't religious and her family has not arranged a marriage for her. She is a pretty normal American teenager living in California, in fact. When her teacher gives them year long project on existentialism and encourages them to find out who they really are, she decides to keep a diary devoted to the project (which the teacher will mail back to them after 3 years). Along her journey, and dialogue with John Paul Sartre, Tina uncovers some universal truths about herself and about adolescence. 


The story follows Tina as she takes the opportunity an decides to get more involved by joining the school play. She makes friends, loses friends, is heartbroken by friends. She sees her family for who they really are, including one very lonely and confused brother. She has a crush, has her first (and miserable) first kiss, her first love, and her first heartbreak. Tina lives the same life we all have lived, but she does so with the added challenge of examining her choices and the world around her for this project. The result is a realization that some of us still haven't made!


I struggled to like this book at first because I kept comparing it to Persepolis (thank you marketing department). Once I stopped thinking of this as a comparison to the other graphic novel, I was able to really enjoy the story. It is a bizarre mix of truly deep philosophical theories with "trivial" (although they never are when you are living through them) trials and tribulations of typical adolescence. But it works. Teens, after all, are in the midst of trying to find who they are, so why not dig into the philosophical theories that do just that?! I liked the main character, Tina. She was a little quirky, a little snarky, and, like most of us, just wanted something to make her happy. Funny enough, what made her happy wasn't what she expected it to be.


This graphic novel is probably best for an older student. I would give it to a kid in 10-12th grade. In fact, at first I thought this would be best for those uber-deep students who always seem more mature than their peers (and let's face it, more mature than some of us), but the philosophy is accessible enough and the trials and tribulations are ubiquitous enough to make this good for a number of types of readers. When you really dig down deep into the meaning of life, you find out we all just want to be happy. How we get there, however, is a bigger question than anyone can answer! Even John Paul Sartre!

No, My Name is....

What kind of meaning is in a name? Does your name define you or do you make the name? In Also Known as Rowan Pohi by Ralph Fletcher, Bobby Steele would do anything for a new name. And to be honest, he would do anything for a new life while he was at it.

Bobby Steele shares his name with his father, the same man who went to jail for two months for burning his wife's arm with an iron during an argument. Now Bobby's mother has abandoned them, his father barely speaks to him, and his little brother thinks he is an Indian. Life sucks for Bobby Steele... until he and his friends decide to apply to the local upscale private school, Whitestone Academy, with a fake name. The fill out the application as a joke, and even make up a fake recommendation to send off for the recently fabricated student, Rowan Pohi (IHOP spelled backwards), but none of them thought Rowan would be accepted. When he is, Bobby's friends are ready to abandon the joke, but Bobby can't stop thinking about Rowan.

On a whim, Bobby attends Whitestone's new student orientation. There he meets a few people and manages to fend off the admissions office who wants his transcript from Rowan's old school. He even applies for a scholarship, since the financial aid office wants to know where Rowan's tuition check is. As Bobby/Rowan starts school, he struggles a bit with the new caliber of students he attends with- kids with trust funds and summer homes. But quickly he makes a few friends... and a few enemies. Unfortunately, his enemies know his secret, that his name is really Bobby Steele. Can he pull off living as Rowan, or will they rat him out and ruin the first real chance he has ever had for something good in his life?

I often have a hard time finding good middle reader books that aren't too childish. I want them to be well written, a lower reading level, but not condescending to the readers, who may be much older than their reading level would let on. This isn't an easy request to come by. This book fits the bill quite well, though. It has an interesting premise and isn't overly complicated, but it is something kids of a wide variety of ages could relate to. The scenes where Bobby recalls what happened between his parents are pretty intense, but delicately handled.

I really liked Bobby's character. He was likable, but still troubled by his mother's abandonment and blamed his father for her leaving. His father is clearly wracked with guilt, and almost doesn't know how to relate to the son he traumatized. The little brother, though, is the one who seems the most lost. He latched on to the idea that he was Native American as something to obsess about and compensate for his loss. My heart broke for this little boy. Bobby's experiences in the school are interesting, especially because he doesn't pretend to be rich or hide his scholarship- he just hides that he is Bobby Steele, Jr. Son of the man whose face was on the front page of the paper for burning his wife with an iron. This story is short (200 pgs) and simple at first glance, but there is a lot of meat to it. Don't let its size and reading level fool you- this is a book with some depth that will grab readers of any age. I would suggest it for grades 5-12 depending on the strength of your reader.