Six Rules of Maybe... or Definitely

There are some books that just simply surprise you, usually by being more than they seem. The Six Rules of Maybe, by Deb Caletti, had just that effect. There were times when it was a typical girl meets boy (who she isn't supposed to like) YA, but then there were times where this book was putting my innermost thoughts out there on paper!

Scarlet grew up in her older sister Juliet's shadow. Juliet was beautiful, always had boyfriends (bad boys, of course), and never worried about how her actions affected other people. Their mom worked hard to raise them, and their father left them long ago, leaving plenty of abandonment issues behind him. When Juliet comes home married and pregnant, Scarlet and her mother aren't surprised by the whirlwind situation, but are surprised Juliet chose to stick with the commitment of a baby and a husband.

Hayden and his dog Zeus may be unexpected additions to the house, but to Scarlet, they are incredible and surprising. Scarlet begins to have feelings for Hayden she knows are wrong, but she can't help. When she realizes Juliet is sneaking around with her ex-boyfriend, she is conflicted- she is furious that her sister would hurt Hayden, but elated because she is falling in love with him herself. But nothing is more forbidden than your sister's husband, no matter how perfect he is.

There are parts of this story that are like windows into a high schooler's soul. In particular, it is a glimpse into the soul of a pleaser. If you aren't a pleaser yourself, you definitely know one. She is that girl who can't reject even the most annoying guy for fear of hurting him. She is a weirdo magnet because she will never do anything that might make someone feel bad. She also never thinks about how this all affects her, because she is too worried about everyone else. She seems so strong, so impervious, but really? She is a mess. She questions everything she does, feels trapped, and can't stand up for herself. Scarlet is a piece of all of us we wish we could squash but know will always be there.

This book is interesting, but is more in Scarlet's head than anywhere else. There is little dialogue or action, but when there is some, it is well done. The insights are incredible, but I am afraid it might be lost on a punchy teenaged reader who just wants gratuitous entertainment. This is a brilliant story with beautiful writing, but might not capture the attention of many of my students. I wish it would teach them a little about themselves or the people they know, but the lessons might be too subtle. I think this book is more valuable for the teacher or mother who deals with adolescent girls than for the girls themselves. While Ophelia Speaks gave us a glimpse into the minds of real girls, The Six Rules of Maybe can do so with a fictional girl who seems so real, you will swear you know her.

Would it Be the Same without Men?

In my quest for more and more dystopias, I found two books about a future where there are few men, if any. One was written by a man, one by a woman. I couldn't wait to see the difference between the two! Nomansland by Lesley Hauge is the woman's perspective of what life would be like without men.

Keller is a Tracker "in training". Trackers protect the Foundland from interlopers... men in particular. Foundland has survived for generations as a woman-only civilization and would like to keep it that way. After sickness and mutations decimated the population, a group of women moved north to a college campus where they have learned to survive. Everyone has a job, but everyone may be subject to impregnation if the Committee suspects a wave of fertility is spreading. Impregnation is not optional, and is done from sperm saved from a sperm bank, but Trackers are rarely impregnated.

When the rebellious Laing finds a house from before, the girls sneak off every chance they get to revel in the found objects. They still don't know why the Committee members are at the campus, but they can't resist the house and its forbidden objects like high heels, makeup, magazines, and most forbidden in Foundland, mirrors. But there is more to Foundland than they are told. While found objects and fashion are forbidden, the Committee uses them regularly. They have to come from somewhere. Keller begins to suspect there is more to Foundland and the world than they have been led to believe. But can she stand up against what she has always known?

This book had a really great premise, but I am afraid it fell a little short for me. It was really good, but I wouldn't say it was excellent or my favorite dystopian world. The characters were interesting, but you don't learn about anyone other than Keller in much depth until the very end. Amos, the experienced Tracker, is a wonderful mix of obedience and rebel that will keep you wanted more. But the book starts a little slow. Just when things really picked up and got interesting, it ended! And search as I might for the possibility of a sequel, I think I might not got any closure. If Hauge knew what was good for her book, she would continue the story.

The writing is fairly simple, but the terms used and descriptions are sometimes difficult to understand. You know the objects they are describing are things we are familiar with, but sometimes it takes a bit to figure out what they are talking about. I think my students would have a difficult time understanding the blind obedience, but maybe it would be a great lesson for them! In Nomansland, rebellion for rebellion's sake is pointless, but rebellion for freedom is impossible to ignore...

Where do You Draw the Line?

With a huge amount of dystopian and post-apocalyptic YA fiction out there, it is no wonder I found this little gem! After reading Birthmarked, I wasn't sure how another dystopia would sit, but The Line, by Teri Hall, was such a page-turner I finished it in one sitting!

Rachel and her mother live on The Property and work for Ms. Moore. The Property boarders The Line- the protected and sealed boundary line of the Unified States (US). When the US sealed the boarder without any warning to protect their country from war, they left a fair amount of citizens outside the border who could never return and were doomed to live in Away if they could survive the bombings and radiation. Rumors are rampant about what has happened to the Others in Away, but Rachel isn't prepared when an other makes contact and begs for help for his father.

When Rachel's mom and Ms. Moore learn of the cry for help, a story unravels that reveals more about Rachel's parents and Ms. Moore than Rachel could ever have imagined. Now they must somehow find a way to take down The Line in order to get the medicine and supplies across to Pathik in Away so he can save his father. Can they do so before the Enforcement Officers arrive at the Property?

The Line is a fast-paced read and is relatively short compared to most YA these days (just over 200 pages). The characters are interesting and multidimensional, which draws the reader in quickly: you know everyone in this book is hiding something! The history of the Unified States is delivered in a very interesting way- Rachel is quizzed on the history of her country by her mother who home schools her. This saves from endless back story that could get boring, yet still gives enough history to understand how things have gotten this oppressive.

The writing is fairly simple and I would suggest this book for any middle school to high school student. It would be particularly good for a low-skilled 9-12 grader because the story is very interesting while the reading level is rather accessible. As a dystopia, it isn't overwhelming with background, but is still easily understood with the information given. While any dystopia is kind of grim, it still has the hope of the Others in Away. My only complaint about this book is it just ended. With a sequel coming out next year, I understand keeping the reader wanting more, but this was so abrupt! Just as one action sequence ended, 50 more questions were developed and then.... The End. Now we have to wait for the next book! I don't know if I can do it!

What's in a Name?

Will Grayson, Will Grayson is a collaborative novel by two of my favorite authors, John Green (author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns) and David Levithan (Boy Meets Boy, Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist).  I ordered it the second I was made aware of its existence, and I loved every minute I spent with Will Grayson and Will Grayson.

High school junior Will Grayson hasn't cried since he was seven and watched the movie All Dogs Go to Heaven.  He believes that crying is "totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules:  1.  Don't care too much. 2.  Shut up." He asserts that everything bad that has ever happened to him resulted from his failure to follow those rules. The truth is that his rules also keep him from making meaningful connections with people, which, if you ask Will Grayson is just fine with him.

Will Grayson did have a social group once; for a short time he was legitimately popular, but he is now a social pariah because of Tiny Cooper.  Will and Tiny have a friendship that dates back to fifth grade, and although Tiny is a loving and caring kind of guy, being his friend is social suicide.  Tiny is the catalyst behind Will breaking Rule One AND Rule Two and his "honest-to-God Group of Friends" ending up "Never Talking to Me Again."

As Will describes, "Tiny Cooper is not the world's gayest person, and he is not the world's largest person, but I believe he may be the world's largest person who is really, really gay, and also the world's gayest person who is really, really large." The actions that demoted Will Grayson to Outcast?  After a school-board member complained about gays in the locker room, Will "defended Tiny Cooper's right to be both gigantic...and gay in a letter to the school newspaper that I, stupidly, signed." When Will's friends attack him for his defense of Tiny, he walks away from the Group of Friends and is left with Tiny, openly gay, openly mammoth, openly emotional, and in love with someone new every ten minutes. Tiny his friend "Possibly Gay Jane" (Will and Jane meet when Tiny forces Will to join the Gay Straight Alliance) comprise Will's social life. And he's okay with that. He gets up in the morning, goes to school, interacts with his parents, doesn't care too much, and keeps his mouth shut. It's sort of easy, he thinks, until the GSA receives funding from the Student Council to stage Tiny Cooper's musical Tiny Dancer, a memoir about Tiny that features prominently a character named Gil Wrayson, who is more than loosely based on Will.  For Will, this is the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.

Meet Will Grayson. We'll call him the "Other Will Grayson," or OWG, for simplicity's sake since that's what the Will Graysons do.  OWG lives in another state and has no relation at all to Will Grayson.  OWG has a single Mom, a vaguely labeled "friend" named Maura who wants him to admit he's gay, and not too many other alliances in his own public school. OWG is in love with Isaac, who he met in an online chat room. He spends every waking minute thinking about Isaac or IM'ing him. Finally, OWG and Isaac agree to meet. When OWG shows up at the meeting place, Isaac is nowhere to be found.  What follows is an almost Shakespearean meeting on a curb in Chicago:  Will Grayson is abandoned by Tiny and Jane at a concert when his fake ID only proves him to be 20, and they go in without him; he meets the lovelorn and abandoned OWG who is stood up by the nonexistent Isaac.  What ensues is comical and heartbreaking in turns as we tease apart whether or not "Possibly Gay Jane" is gay (not), whether or not she and Will Grayson love each other, whether a relationship between OWG and Tiny Cooper can survive Tiny's mammoth personality, whether Will Grayson can survive Tiny's putting him in the spotlight, whether Will Grayson will break his rules, and whether Tiny Dancer will be a masterpiece that catapults Tiny Cooper to Broadway fame.

I loved this book from the first page and would have read it from cover to cover if I had had the time. I found the characters completely likable. I was a little in love with both Will Graysons, for different reasons. Although it could seem confusing to have two characters with identical names, the authors' different styles distinguish the characters enough from each other that it never really becomes confusing.  Will Grayson writes in complete sentences, in narrative form; OWG writes only in lower case and primarily in dialogue. At times it is confusing to the characters. When Tiny starts dating OWG, there is a bit of confusion about who is Will Grayson and who is Other, but it adds to the comedy. The authors capture a lot of the trials and tribulations that face adolescents today as they struggle to do what is right when doing the right thing could turn you into the school's biggest loser. Social groups change in an instant; someone always gets hurt. Much like what I have seen of "real life," the characters in Will Grayson, Will Grayson struggle to identify who they really care about and how to keep those people in their lives. We hope they will make the right decisions and come out of it better people in the end.

This is a great book for 9 - 12th graders who will be comfortable enough dealing with Tiny Cooper's gigantic gayness. The language is accessible; reading this novel is not going to catapult anyone's lexicon of SAT vocabulary words to the next level, but it may help them develop their own notions of friendship and love and what can happen when you are willing to take the chance to care and speak up. There are some slightly illicit scenes where underage adolescents use fake ID's to gain entrance to bars for concerts and one scene where a totally heartbroken Tiny Cooper gets drunk and passes out, but the characters are such reasonable people that I felt, even as I parent, I could take their actions in stride. These are good kids, testing their wings, figuring out what love is all about, making mistakes, and learning from them. Will Grayson, Will Grayson gets two thumbs up from me.

Marked with the Stamp of Greatness!

Occasionally I read a book that is so good I have to read every review of the book, find the author's website, and hunt to find if there are signings, sequels or any other news about the book. This is rare for me, but when it happens, I feel as though I have been steamrolled! Birthmarked by Caragh O'Brien sent me on just such a hunt!

Gaia and her mother are midwives in a dystopian community just north of Unlake Superior (no longer a lake since the climate change). The community consists of a walled in city called the Enclave and the small communities outside the wall. The Enclave requires every midwife to "advance" the first three babies born every month to the Enclave to be adopted to Enclave families. Gaia and her family serve the Enclave well until her parents are arrested and Gaia enters the wall illegally to find them.

Inside the wall, the truth and reality about the advancements comes out. The small city has had so much inbreeding due to the ambiguity of the adoptions that the population will soon be extinct due to infertility and hemophilia if something isn't done quickly. Now the Enclave wants to get their hands on the secret, illegal records the midwives have been keeping. When Gaia is caught inside the wall after she delivers a baby from a woman who was just executed, she is put in prison with the other doctors and midwives. While her time inside the wall is haunted with worries of her imprisoned parents, she learns more about healing and about the genetic nightmare inside the wall than she ever would have on the outside. Now, with the help of the kind guard, she must betray her parents records of the birth in order to prevent her mother's execution. More importantly, though, she must save her mother and escape the Enclave.

I love a good dystopia, especially with a strong heroine who can see through the corruption of the government. Gaia is just such a heroine, and she is determined to do what is right regardless of the consequences. The bizarre but haunting troubles with the Enclave are an interesting and disturbing take on a society's downfall. This is particularly interesting when the forced adoptions are factored in and the Enclave's only hope are the people outside the wall they have used essentially as slaves for generations.

The writing can be a bit more mature than most YA (the word avuncular is used in the first 20 pages!), but the story is so gripping, it might challenge a struggling reader. While the story isn't stiflingly complex, the higher reading level and intricate story might be best for older students. I would give this to students grades 10 and up. There is no content a parent might find objectionable, such as drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. Instead, the disturbing parts are upsetting for a whole new reason- what could happen after a very real threat: climate change. This was an excellent YA dystopia and I am very excited O'Brien's publishing company decided to make this a trilogy instead of one book! Now I just have to wait (im)patiently for the second book!

Hex Hall Put a Spell on Me!

"Of course the only words I actually managed to yell at at the werewolf as he ran at me were, 'BAD DOG!'" You need a book that will actually make you laugh out loud? Look no further! Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins had me laughing all night! I couldn't put it down!

Sophie Mercer is a sarcastic young witch who has gotten herself into trouble, again. Unfortunately, this time caught the attention of the Council, a group of witches and warlocks who keep magical folks from exposing their world to humans. Now she must stay at Hecate Hall, nicknamed Hex Hall, until she is 18 and considered trustworthy with her magic. Unfortunately, with a human mother and a warlock father who left before she was born, Sophie doesn't know anything about the Prodigium, or magical world.

Even though Hex Hall is supposed to be protected, a girl was killed before Sophie arrived, and another girl is attacked just after school starts. Everyone is blaming Sophie's roommate Jenna, the only vamp on campus as part of the Council's attempt to integrate them with the rest of the Prodigium, but Sophie knows she is innocent. Even Sophie's crush, Archer, is convinced Jenna's guilty. But it quickly comes out that there is more to Sophie's family than just magic. Between her possibly murderous roommate, a father who is the reason most kids were sentenced to Hex Hall, an evil group of mean witches who has it in for Sophie, and all the dark witches dropping like flies (Sophie being a dark witch herself), Sophie has found Hex Hall to be worse than her past 19 schools. Now she has to find a way to exonerate Jenna!

This is a great story with fun, spunky characters who anything but the whiny females you can sometimes find in YA lit. They are sassy and don't take crap from anyone. Even the teachers have different dimensions; Lord Byron, the real Lord Byron, is a vampire who teaches poetry at Hex hall because when he was turned, he was too conspicuous, and when the Council released him, all he wanted to do was turn all of Europe into vampires!

This is fun, fast-paced read that is enticing to anyone. The reading level and content are appropriate for middle school to high school. As this is the first in a series, it is a perfect opportunity to suck a student into an exciting story and keep them reading. Give the story a shot, but don't be surprised when you find yourself giggling out loud as you read!

The Key to Happiness is Family and Fun!

When you teach dyslexic students, it is very hard to find books that match both their maturity and interest levels as well as their reading level. It is especially hard to find Middle Reader books that are interesting, funny and engaging for an older reader. So when you find one that is an appropriate story for younger readers as well as an engaging story for older readers, it is time to do a little dance of happiness! I did just such a dance after reading Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm!

It is 1935, and Turtle's mom got a job as a housekeeper for a woman who wouldn't let Turtle and her cat live with them, so she and Smokey were sent to Key West to live with her mother's sister. While there, Turtle has to quickly adapt to island life, from checking your shoes for scorpions to the odd nicknames everyone seems to have. Her mischievous cousins, Kermit, Beans, and Buddy, spice up the story with their antics. Beans and a few other local kids have started the Diaper Gang, who are basically roving babysitters for the Bad Babies. And their secret diaper rash formula is legendary on the island!

When Turtle finds out her grandmother is really alive (even though her mother told her she was dead), she realizes there is more of her own history on this island than she could have imagined. When she finds a treasure map to a hidden pirate's treasure, she takes the gang along with her on an adventure that changes them and the island in more ways that one.

This is the kind of story that has you giggling out loud and loving every page. It is a short enough story so as not to be too overwhelming for beginning readers. The writing is perfect for higher skilled elementary students to low-skilled middle school students, but even high school students would get a kick out of these kids and their goofiness. I know I did!

The fact that it is based on the author's grandmother and her life in Key West makes the story even more interesting. At the end of the book, there are a few pages where the author explains which parts of the story are based on real situations. She even includes pictures of places and people mentioned in the story! This is a cute little book that spans a great spectrum of interest. Give it a shot! It is a great beach read that you can finish in a sitting!