Tag Archive | fathers

Happy Father’s Day!

Jun19

Since my dad is (a) driving with Mom somewhere in Canada with the cellphone off, (b) doesn’t get online at all (but does ask us kids to look up things when visiting), and (c) probably doesn’t know exactly what a blog is, I’ll still wish him Happy Father’s Day here as we look back at some fictional fathers in recent BooksYALove recommendations.

In YA books, dads can often be a cipher, just kind of a placeholder while Mom is the key figure – try Ten Miles Past Normal and Stolen for father-who’s-there-but-barely. Other times, Dad has to fill both parental roles (Zen & Xander Undone -not so well, and I Love Him to Pieces, much better).

Some are adoptive fathers as in Dogtag Summer and Heart of a Samurai, while others are fathers no longer in the child’s home, like This Thing Called the Future.

We have bumbling-yet-well-meaning fathers in Kat, Incorrigible and Visconti House, then trying-the-best-they-can dads in What Happened to Goodbye and Astronaut Academy.

Plenty of papas are long, long gone, as in Flawless and Fire, while others are rather too involved in their teenagers’ lives (Awaken, anyone?), as far as the teens are concerned.

Fathers might leave through divorce (Who Is Frances Rain?) or through death (Saraswati’s Way and Trickster’s Girl), and yet young adults must cope with their changed world, a world with one pair of guiding hands forever gone…

Of course, we’ll find these various sorts of fathers, father-figures, and conspicuous-by-their-absence fathers as we go along on BooksYALove = family is so often a key element in YA fiction.

So, wish a dad Happy Father’s Day today, even if he’s not your dad; there’s enough love to go around, right?
**kmm

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs (book review) – monsters are real

Jun7

book cover of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs published by Quirk BooksUntil it’s grown, you don’t known if that weedy stuff is crabgrass or horrible, clawing grassburrs.

Likewise, Jacob didn’t realize that the monsters that Grandpa warned him about were real until it was too late, as he looks up from the dying man to see the horrifying creature…and the monster sees Jacob.

Author Ransom Riggs started collecting old photos some years ago, drawn to the captions often written on them. For the most peculiar images, he began inventing their backstories and what the oddest captions might have been.

In this thriller, Riggs’ imagination has gone far beyond those idea seeds planted by the old photos, as he brings the “peculiar children” to life, as well as the monsters that pursue them…and Jacob.
**kmm

Book info: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children / by Ransom Riggs. Quirk Books, 2011. [author’s blog] [publisher site] [book trailer]

My Book Talk: Jacob stopped believing in Grandpa’s monster stories years ago, but what else could kill someone so thoroughly? Fatally attacked, Grandpa gasps that Jacob “must go to the island” where he will be safe, as he sees the blackened creature of his nightmares disappear into the Florida woods.

Now 16 year old Jacob has the nightmares, the monster alternating with the old photos of “peculiar children” who were his grandpa’s friends at the Welsh orphanage which rescued him from the Holocaust – an invisible boy, the floating girl…real or faked? Clues found at Grandpa’s house convince him that he must find that island and the orphanage, or go insane!

Thankfully, his psychiatrist agrees, so Jacob and his dad head for Wales, and the mystery grows deeper.
If the orphanage was bombed-out in 1940, how did Grandpa get there later?
Why can Jacob hear voices in the old building when no one else can?
Who is following them on the tiny island?

As the past and present tangle and unravel, Jacob finds the old photos to be new truths as the monsters pursue children for their peculiar talents. A chilling debut novel for very mature readers which ponders how the balance point between good and evil loops through human history… (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Dogtag Summer, by Elizabeth Partridge (fiction) – Vietnamese orphan, California challenges

May30

book cover of Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Partridge published by BloomsburyFor most Americans, Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer. We rarely remember its 1868 origins as a remembrance of those who have died protecting our nation and our freedoms.

As her summer begins, 12 year old Tracy thinks it’ll be like most summers, but what she and pal Stargazer uncover changes everything she thought she knew about herself and her adoptive family.

The Vietnam War era was chaotic and divisive for countless families on both sides of the Pacific, with many questions and no simple solutions. Perhaps a few answers will shine through for Tracy after all…
**kmm

Book info: Dogtag Summer / Elizabeth Partridge. Bloomsbury, 2011. [author’s website] [publisher site] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.

Recommendation: During the summer before 8th grade, Tracy starts having flashbacks to her childhood in Vietnam. Her adoptive parents have pictures of her arrival in the USA as a tiny 6 year old in 1975, but before that time, she has only an empty place inside her memories. As she and her friend Stargazer search in her garage, they find an ammo box and Army dogtags.

Now she dreams of her mother being away at DaNang as a laundry worker for the Americans, her uncle gone as a Viet Cong soldier, soldiers from both sides searching her grandmother’s hut in the jungle, families divided by war. How can she ask her adoptive father about the dogtags with another man’s name when he never talks about being in Vietnam?

As a Vietnamese-American, she was shunned by village neighbors and is taunted by California classmates. Sometimes, things are too quiet at her house now, but Stargazer’s easy-going parents accept her and welcome her to their place in the forest. When his peace-loving father sees the dogtags and calls the US soldiers in Vietnam “babykillers,” Tracy knows that she will have to be brave enough to ask her Dad about the past, about the dogtags, about why she came to this family in the US instead of another.

A story from the heart to go with the history book facts, readers will walk and dream with Tracy through that dogtag summer, through the questions and answers to better understanding of a difficult chapter in America’s history. (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com)

Awaken, by Katie Kacvinsky (book review) – online school, fake trees, real danger

May23

book cover of Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky published by Houghton Mifflin

Plastic trees, pre-fab food, every social and business interaction online only – sounds a little tempting when you’re caught in traffic on the way to school or trapped in yet another blah-blah-blah lecture course.

But if every minute of school occurs online, the only people you see day in and day out are family members, the only birdsong you ever heard was historic digital audio, the only way you know your thoughts are your own is… well, you couldn’t be sure of that, could you?

A prediction? A cautionary tale? Welcome to a future where DigitalSchool shapes young human minds while all other living things become obsolete…
*kmm

Book info: Awaken / Katie Kacvinsky. Houghton Mifflin, 2011. [author’s website] [fan-created book trailer] [publisher website]

Recommendation: School is completely online in 2060, so Maddie rarely sees anyone in person, except her mom and dad. Why does this Justin guy want to meet her at a face-to-face Tutor session? She could just see him online 24/7, like her other friends all over the world. Anyway, her dad grounded her till age 18 after she went into his DigitalSchool master computer two years ago.

Her parents say that Justin is dangerous, that his parents were terrorists, that he’s only trying to see 17-year-old Maddie because of her dad’s DigitalSchool business. But Justin actually speaks to her like a thinking human being, showing her the real Portland with pastries instead of nutri-bars and live musicians instead of soundfiles online.

It seems that not everyone is happy with DigitalSchool. Justin wants her to sneak more information from her dad’s computer so they can crash that system and give kids the chance to get outside, away from computer-simulated beach views and back to the real sand and sea, away from thousands of online friends they’ve never seen and back to interacting with real friends.

During a dangerous DS student “rescue” with Justin, Maddie has to decide whether she’ll abide by her dad’s authoritarian rules or risk losing her place in 2060’s society.

Can she trust Justin?
Could she really live where trees aren’t plastic and sunsets aren’t on a computer screen?
Is there something malicious in DigitalSchool, something bad enough for Maddie to risk life in prison?

A glimpse of a potential future where keeping the peace may be more dangerous to humanity than allowing conflicting ideas… (One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com) Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher through NetGalley.com.