Tag Archive | relationships

What Happened to Goodbye (fiction)

Jun18

Shhhh… it’s my first Sneak-in Saturday, when I bring you a book that I read, loved, and reviewed BEFORE it rose to the bestseller lists. But it’s not fair to tell y’all about books months and months before you can buy them in your local indie bookstore or find at your library, so I have to wait till release date is near. And sometimes the darn pre-orders take a book to superstar status before it’s even published. Sigh.

So as a moving-all-the-time-kid myself, I really could identify with Mclean’s wish to just stop packing up and going away. Moving during high school stinks, let me tell ya.

It’s nice to find that Dessen is not a “formula” writer, that her situations and characters aren’t just carbon-copies from one book to the next. Her funny tweet today: “Most surreal experience: half asleep in terminal bookshop, hearing commercial for my own book on store TV. Whoa.” on her way to Houston.

Identity, family, friendship, and the future – one of the books y’all will love (even if it did wind up a bestseller, darn it). And some great insights into the restaurant industry and college basketball fandom, too.

**kmm

Book info: What Happened to Goodbye / Sarah Dessen. Viking Children’s, 2011. [author’s website] [author’s blog] [publisher website] [book trailer one and two]

Recommendation: Eliza, Beth, Lizbet –at each new school, Mclean uses part of her middle name to reinvent herself after the horrible divorce, as she and her dad travel from town to town so he can help failing restaurants. After Mom left Dad for the basketball coach at the university, their favorite team and shared passion, how could she stay in her hometown?

So she’s the drama rebel in one town, the joining-every-club girl in another, but never makes close friends because they’ll move again soon. She keeps Dad organized while he saves or closes down each restaurant – that and her schoolwork are enough.

Until this time, when she introduces herself as Mclean to the guy next door and winds up with a circle of unlikely friends at school. Getting involved with a community project being built in the restaurant’s upstairs room was a fluke, but what about getting involved with David next door?

How can she avoid her mom’s requests that she visit her new baby brother and sister at the coach’s big new house more often? How long will it take Dad to fix or shut down Luna Blu? When they leave this time, will she be able to just vanish from school again, without any goodbyes?

Another great story with heart from Sarah Dessen – 402 pages. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

This Thing Called the Future, by J.L. Powers (book review) – tradition, love, AIDS, hope in South Africa

Jun15

Tomorrow is South Africa Youth Day, celebrating the 1976 youth protest in Soweto. Khosi’s mother and father were among the many who fought for freedom from apartheid, the South African government’s brutal racial discrimination policy.

Although apartheid has crumbled, Khosi and Zi are growing up in an era of changes, as traditional beliefs clash with Christianity, and new menaces stalk the villages and cities of Africa. “The disease of these times” Khosi calls it – HIV and AIDS leaves many children orphaned.

I visited with author J.L. Powers at TLA, and she told me of life in today’s South African townships, the funeral bells, the push for education. Reading this strong book, we can believe that Khosi will stay in school and find a way to balance her beliefs, avoid threats to her health, and see a bright future.
**kmm

Book info: This Thing Called the Future / J.L. Powers. Cinco Puntos Press, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] [book trailer]

Recommendation: Khosi wants to do well in school, keep her family safe, escape AIDS, “the disease of these times” in South Africa. Life can be so confusing at 14, as she prays to the great God-in-the-sky at the church and also honors her ancestors with traditional ceremonies, uses herbal cures from the sangoma as well as modern medicines from the clinic. Born on the day that her grandfather died, Khosi often has vivid dreams – are they merely warnings from her ancestor or dire predictions of the future?

She and her little sister live with their grandmother in Imbali township, while her mother teaches in another city, coming home on the weekends; their father lives so far away that they see him only on holidays. Khosi wishes that Mama and Baba were married, but during the struggle for Liberation who could afford the lobolo, the bride price?

A widowed neighbor accuses Mama of stealing her late husband’s money, a drunken man near Gogo’s house follows Khosi and Zi home from school every day, and the witch woman calls out that she will take Khosi’s spirit! How Khosi wishes she could just ignore these things and plan her future as someone who heals or dream about her crush on Little Man at her school …

When Mama comes home, sick and skinny and weary, Khosi fears that the neighbor and the witch have cursed her family. What can she do?

Author J.L. Powers’ time in South Africa has given her great insight into the lives of its girls and women, ever-shadowed by HIV, neighborhood violence, and the struggle to rise above poverty, as she brings us a powerful story that still holds hope for This Thing Called the Future. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity, by Dave Roman (book review) – middle school in outer space!

Jun10

book cover of Astronaut Academy Zero Gravity by Dave Roman published by First Second BooksIt’s Fun Friday – Time for school in space! Yes, Dave Roman’s new graphic novel takes us straight to Astronaut Academy, with a curriculum you just won’t believe. Oh, some things in middle school are the same even in outer space (the principal, snarky former best friends), but Astronaut Academy’s variations on ball games and emergency drills are amazing.

Of course, Hakata Soy’s crime-fighting superhero past may catch up with him…

The former comics editor of Nickelodeon Magazine took advantage of its closing to concentrate on his own cartooning, so watch for more of his self-published minicomics to grow into full-fledged books.

Dave is married to Raina Telgemeier who wrote and drew Smile (5/13/11 featured book) – yes, he proposed to her via webcomic! Just imagine two cartoonists in the same apartment… I heard them at a Texas Library Association presentation in April, then met Dave again in May at International Reading Association. Just waiting for their next books!
**kmm

Book info: Astronaut Academy: Zero Gravity / written and illustrated by Dave Roman. First Second, 2011 [author interview] [publisher site] [book trailer] [selected pages]

My Book Talk: Everyone else is already at Astronaut Academy, but Hakata is late for school! A few weeks late, since he and his mecha-friends were busy saving the world of Hoppiton from the terrible Gotcha Birds.

Senor Panda teaches Spanish (and spying), Doug just wants to wear his spacesuit and stay out on spacewalk all day, and Marcos wonders why at least one of Hakata’s hearts is broken. If the Gotcha Birds decide to attack Astronaut Academy to get the bunny students from Hoppiton, it could disrupt the Fireball Tournament!!

Students, teachers, and non-students take turns telling/showing their stories in this wacky graphic novel – does your Astronaut Academy have classes in Advanced Heart Studies, Fire Throwing, Run-on Sentences, and Wearing Cute Hats? (you can’t win Dinosaur Driving Races if you don’t wear a Cute Hat… just ask Maribelle Mellonbelly)

Action! Adventure! Oxygen gum and flashbacks! The first semester at Astronaut Academy has it all…with an extra helping of funny! (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)