Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice

From Publisher's Weekly...
2009 National Book Award Finalist
2010 Newbery Honor
2010 Siebert Honor

In March 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks triggered the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., by refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger, a 15-year-old Montgomery girl, Claudette Colvin, let herself be arrested and dragged off the bus for the same reason; in 1956, Colvin was one of four plaintiffs in Browder v. Gayle , a landmark case in which Montgomery's segregated bus system was declared unconstitutional. Investigating Colvin's actions, asking why Rosa Parks's role has overshadowed Colvin's, Hoose (We Were There, Too! Young People in U.S. History ) introduces readers to a resolute and courageous teenager and explores the politics of the NAACP and bus-boycott leadership. Because Colvin had been tearful in the period following her 1955 conviction, when her classmates shunned her, she was deemed too “emotional” to place at the center of the bus boycott; by the time Parks assumed that position, Colvin was disgraced: pregnant but not married. Hoose's evenhanded account investigates Colvin's motives and influences, and carefully establishes the historical context so that readers can appreciate both Colvin's maturity and bravery and the boycott leadership's pragmatism. Illus. with b&w photos. Ages 10–up

Really enjoyed this book!  It's easy to forget how deplorable conditions were for African Americans...

The Ask and the Answer

From Publisher's Weekly....


This grim and beautifully written sequel to Ness's The Knife of Never Letting Go picks up where its predecessor left off and will have readers racing to its painful conclusion. Having escaped from the dystopian, all-male Prentisstown, teenagers Todd and Viola have fled to the city of Haven, only to discover that Prentisstown's mayor, a powerful and charismatic sociopath, has gotten there first, intent on controlling the entire planet. Separated, the friends are caught up on opposite sides of a horrific, morally ambiguous civil war, with Todd coming close to madness. (Viola later reminds Todd, who has undertaken some shocking and cruel responsibilities while working with the mayor, “We all fall but that's not what matters. What matters is picking yourself up again.”) This superb novel, which ends with a gripping cliffhanger that sets up the third Chaos Walking book, uses a brilliant cast of well-developed characters and its singular setting and premise to present a provocative examination of the nature of evil and humanity. This is among the best YA science fiction novels of the year. Ages 14–up.(Sept.)

I enjoyed this even more than the first book...it was suspenseful and intriguing.  The plot twists were unexpected.  The review suggests for 14 and up, but I think it would be appropriate for middle school, especially for students who enjoyed Hunger Games.  

Goblin Secrets

From Publisher's Weekly
2012 National Book Award

In Alexander’s debut novel, set in the magical, steampunk-inflected land of Zombay, a young orphan named Rownie lives in the household of Graba the witch, running errands and scavenging food where he can. His older brother, Rowan, used to live with Rownie and Graba’s band of “Grubs,” but Rowan was arrested for putting on a mask and acting—in Zombay, citizens are forbidden to pretend to be other than they are—and has disappeared. When a troupe of goblins arrives to put on a play, Rownie sneaks away to see them and angers Graba enough that he’s forced to flee. He accepts sanctuary from the goblins, joining their troupe and mounting a search for Rowan, but Graba is hunting Rownie, and there are dire warnings that long-prophesied floods are coming to wipe out Zombay. Alexander has an intriguing central theme, in which masks and theater create actual magic, but the story is slow to develop. The result is a (sometimes gruesome) fantasy stuffed with interesting ideas that don’t quite have room to breathe. Ages 8–12. 

I find it interesting that this review is a little critical although the book won the 2012 National Book Award for children's literature.  I didn't find the story slow at all, but I thought it just a little confusing, as certain ideas (eg coal made from hearts) were not explained very well.  Overall I enjoyed it though.  

Peter and the Starcatchers

From Publisher's Weekly...

Bestselling adult authors Barry and Pearson imagine a rollicking adventure as a prequel to J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan . Those curious about how Captain Hook lost his hand, why Peter never ages and can fly, and how a band of boys came to live in Never Land, will be sated by the magic-dusted plot points and the lively pirate confabulation here. As the novel opens, Peter and several others from St. Norbert's Home for Wayward Boys are shipped off on the ship Never Land to be servants to the cruel King of Rundoon. On board, Peter meets Molly Aster (sharp readers will surmise she is an ancestor of Wendy), who reveals herself to Peter as a Starcatcher and imparts secrets of certain falling stars and the precious "starstuff" cache below deck. But all is not smooth sailing, as pirate Black Stache and his mates (including Smee) get wind of the treasure. Several sea chases and battles and a couple of shipwrecks later, all the key players end up on the island of Mollusk. As all sides try to obtain the gold-glowing contents of the trunk, talking dolphins and a giant crocodile also make the scene. The tale contains a few too many skirmishes over said treasure, but the authors keep the pace brisk and the chapters brief, employing humorous exchanges (e.g., Black Stache "had a real soft spot for his ma, and was truly sorry for the time he'd marooned her"), slapstick action—and flying, of course. Peter Pan fans will find much to like in a what-if scenario that pays respectful tribute to the original. Ages 10-up. (Sept.)

I saw this book on a poster of books to read if you like Hunger Games, and so I decided to read it.  I really enjoyed it, but it reminds me more of Harry Potter than Hunger Games.  Definitely for a younger audience.  

When You Reach Me

Publisher's Weekly Review....
Newbery Award 2010

Twelve-year-old Miranda, a latchkey kid whose single mother is a law school dropout, narrates this complex novel, a work of science fiction grounded in the nitty-gritty of Manhattan life in the late 1970s. Miranda’s story is set in motion by the appearance of cryptic notes that suggest that someone is watching her and that they know things about her life that have not yet happened. She’s especially freaked out by one that reads: “I’m coming to save your friend’s life, and my own.” Over the course of her sixth-grade year, Miranda details three distinct plot threads: her mother’s upcoming appearance on The $20,000 Pyramid ; the sudden rupture of Miranda’s lifelong friendship with neighbor Sal; and the unsettling appearance of a deranged homeless person dubbed “the laughing man.” Eventually and improbably, these strands converge to form a thought-provoking whole. Stead (First Light ) accomplishes this by making every detail count, including Miranda’s name, her hobby of knot tying and her favorite book, Madeleine L’Engle’sA Wrinkle in Time . It’s easy to imagine readers studying Miranda’s story as many times as she’s read L’Engle’s, and spending hours pondering the provocative questions it raises. Ages 9–14. (July)

I think I read this, but couldn't really remember (which Is why I do this blog!), so I read it again, and I'm glad I did as it's a wonderful book.  And what a strange coincidence that I just finished A Wrinkle in Time, the main character's favorite book!

A Wrinkle in Time

1963 Newbery Award

From Barnes and Noble....

Children's Literature

Winner of the Newbery Medal in 1963, L'Engle's work of fantasy and science fiction combined with some Christian theology has now been read by several generations of young enthusiasts. The author went on to write three others, forming a quartet based on the Murry family, and including themes like the power of love and the need to make responsible moral choices. In this story, Meg Murry, her extraordinary little brother Charles Wallace, and schoolmate Calvin O'Keefe make the acquaintance of eccentric Mrs. Whatsit and friends (who turn out to be extraterrestrial beings). Together they journey through a wrinkle in time, a tesseract, to rescue the Murrys' missing father from an evil presence (likened by some interpreters to a black hole), and a sinister brain called IT. Although this is fantasy, the characters are portrayed realistically and sympathetically; it is Meg's ability to love that enables them to return safely to Earth and make secure the right to individuality. L'Engle herself claims that she does not know how she came to write the story; "I had no choice," she says, "It was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant." A plus with this new edition is an essay by Lisa Sonne that explores scientific concepts related to the story—multiple dimensions, dark energy, and string theory. Each of these concepts were conceived since the book's 1962 publication but are amazingly applicable to A Wrinkle in Time, and help to ensure that this imaginative book will be read for a long time into the future. 2005 (orig. 1962), Laurel Leaf/Random House, Ages 9 up.
—Barbara L. Talcroft

I'm fairly certain that I read this as a child, but really didn't remember it.   I saw it in a book store, so I thought I would read it as part of my endeavor to read as many Newbery books as possible, and I'm glad I did.  I love the idea of space travel!

The Knife of Never Letting Go

From Booklist....

Booklist

Chased by a madman preacher and possibly the rest of his townsfolk as well, young Todd Hewitt flees his settlement on a planet where war with the natives has killed all the women and infected the men with a germ that broadcasts their thoughts aloud for all to hear. This cacophonous thought-cloud is known as Noise and is rendered with startling effectiveness on the page. The first of many secrets is revealed when Todd discovers an unsettling hole in the Noise, and quickly realizes that he lives in a much different world than the one he thought he did. Some of the central conceits of the drama can be hard to swallow, but the pure inventiveness and excitement of the telling more than make up for it. Narrated in a sort of pidgin English with crack dramatic and comic timing by Todd and featuring one of the finest talking-dog characters anywhere, this troubling, unforgettable opener to the Chaos Walking trilogy is a penetrating look at the ways in which we reveal ourselves to one another, and what it takes to be a man in a society gone horribly wrong. The cliffhanger ending is as effective as a shot to the gut.

I really enjoyed this book, especially the dog...interesting concept being able to always hear other's thoughts....
This would be good for the LBJ library.  Can't wait to read the 2nd book in the series.

Feed

2oo2 National Book Award Finalist

KIRKUS REVIEW

“I don’t know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before than, they had to use their hands and their eyes. Computers were all outside the body. They carried them around outside of them, in their hands, like if you carried your lungs in a briefcase and opened it to breathe.”

Titus and his friends have grown up on the feed—connected on a 24-hour basis through brain implants to a vast computer network, they have become their medium. “The braggest thing about the feed . . . is that it knows everything you want and hope for, sometimes before you even know what those things are.” Titus is a master at navigating this world where to consume is to live, but when he meets Violet, a distinctly unusual girl whose philology-professor father has chosen to homeschool her instead of sending her to School™, he begins, very tentatively and imperfectly, to question this equation. Thrown together when their feeds are hacked at a party and they are temporarily disconnected, their very hesitant romance is played out against the backdrop of an utterly hedonistic world of trend and acquisition, a world only momentarily disturbed by the news reports of environmental waste and a global alliance of have-not nations against the obliviously consuming US. Anderson (Handel, Who Knew What He Liked, 2001, etc.) has crafted a wickedly clever narrative in which Titus’s voice takes on perfectly the speech patterns of today’s more vapid teens (“ ‘Oh, unit,’ I was like, ‘is this malfunction?’ ”). When Violet’s feed begins to fail, and with it all her life functions, she decides to rebel against all that the feed stands for—the degradation of language, the self-absorption, the leaching of all culture and independent thought from the world—and Titus must make his choice.

The crystalline realization of this wildly dystopic future carries in it obvious and enormous implications for today’s readers—satire at its finest. (Fiction. YA)

This book was a good read, although a little hard to understand with the slang and "degradation of language."