Audience Pick!

Title: Scat
Author: Carl Hiaasen
Category: Fiction, Middle Grade
Rating: 2/5
Summary: Nick and Marta—not to mention everyone else at school—hate their biology teacher, Mrs. Starch. But when Mrs. Starch disappears during a school field trip and nobody seems all that concerned, Nick and Marta realize it’s up to them to find her.

Review: I liked Hoot and Flush, but I never really got into Hiaasen’s latest middle-grade novel. It could be that I’m getting pickier as I refine my YA-nnabe reading skills.

Things I didn’t like:

• Flat characters—Nick never came to life for me, and Marta mostly just got on my nerves.
• Melodramatic at times—A character gets hurt at one point and Marta’s response just made me roll my eyes. I’d quote it, but I don’t want to give away too much. It’s on page 337, if you want to look it up.
• Weird not-a-romance—Something was going on between Nick and Marta that seemed like it was supposed to be about them realizing they liked each other. But it was so infrequently referenced and never resolved in any way that it was just…weird.

Am I being too picky? I’m sure lots of kids will read this book and enjoy it. But if I’m going to become a better writer, maybe this is the path I have to go down.

Here’s a small example of what bothered me, so you can decide for yourself. Nick is being questioned by a cop after Mrs. Starch disappears:

“Let’s go back to the day before the field trip,” said the deputy. “I want to ask you about something that happened in class between Mrs. Starch and a boy named Duane Scrod.”

Nick felt the muscles in his neck stiffen. “She pointed a pencil at him, and he bit it in half.”

“Didn’t he also threaten her?”

“What do you mean?”

The deputy said, “Some of your classmates remember Duane saying something like, ‘You’re gonna be sorry.’ And then Mrs. Starch saying, ‘Is that a threat?’ Do you recall such a conversation?”

Nick recalled it quite clearly. He also recalled worrying that [Duane] might be serious. Nick felt uneasy telling this to the deputy, because he couldn’t be sure what Duane Scrod had meant.

But Nick’s father had taught him to always be truthful, no matter now hard it might be.

Those last two paragraphs are what got to me. First of all, this extremely memorable kid-biting-a-teacher’s-pencil scene just happened a couple days and less than 50 pages before this point, so don’t tell me that Nick remembers it. And don’t tell me that Nick feels uneasy. Make me figure that out by what he says or does.

But the clincher is the last paragraph. If I’m being truthful, it makes me want to gag. On what planet do kids think like that?

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Audience Pick!

Title: The Graveyard Book
Author: Neil Gaiman
Category: Fiction, Middle Grade
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: An 18-month-old baby survives a brutal attack on his family by escaping to a nearby graveyard. There, he finds a new family and a new name, and the graveyard becomes his home.

Review: I don’t usually like dark books like this, but this one is so well done I couldn’t help but enjoy it.

How could an opening possibly hook you more than this?

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife. The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately.

The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.

Yowza. The book lightens up after that opening scene, but it’s all relative—the boy is living in a graveyard.

If you like dark stories, you’ll love this book.

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Title: Headlong
Author: Kathe Koja
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: Lily Noble has always gone to private school. In her sophomore year, a misfit named Hazel shows up and makes Lily rethink the way she’s been doing things her whole life.

Review: The back-and-forth nature of this book took a little time for me to get used to. The chapters alternate between snippets from the beginning of the school year and the end of the year. A few times, I got confused about whether it was a “later” chapter or a “before” chapter, but I chalk that up to my own work-induced lack of sleep during the week I was reading this one.

I liked that this book doesn’t hit you over the head with what Lily’s feeling. You have to work out on your own what’s going on with her.

I also liked how Lily—who’s always just gone with the flow—finally changes course and questions the ways of her affluent world.

Not a standout for me, but still an enjoyable read.

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Audience Pick!

Title: A Curse Dark as Gold
Author: Elizabeth C. Bunce
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 4/5
Summary: Charlotte Miller’s father has passed away, and it’s up to her to protect the woolen mill that’s been in her family for hundreds of years. But everyone says the mill is cursed. How far will Charlotte go to protect it?

Review: This retelling of Rumpelstiltskin immediately reeled me in. The details of the mill operation brought the story to life, even though I didn’t know all the milling terms used. Looking back on it now, I think a diagram or two of the milling machines could have helped me keep the terms straight as I read. Hopefully in future editions, they will devote a page or two at the front to something like that.

A lot of fairy tale retellings can be unimaginative, but this retelling is fresh and original. That’s saying a lot for a story whose bones have been around for ages.

I also loved the strong female character who doesn’t go running to the men in her life to solve all her problems. And she’s a small businesswoman, to boot!

This is an excellent first novel from Bunce, and more than deserving of this year’s Morris YA Debut Award.

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Title: Nation
Author: Terry Pratchett
Category: Fiction, Young Adult
Rating: 3.5/5
Summary: A tsunami wave washes away an entire island nation, except one boy named Mau. But when much is taken, something is returned. Mau soon discovers he’s not alone on the island.

Review: Confession: This is the first book by Terry Pratchett that I’ve ever read. I know, I know. How can I call myself a YA-nnabe? (By the way, if you have a Pratchett fave, please let me know so I can add it to my to-read list!)

I love me some post-apocalyptic fiction. So I liked this book. It is extremely well-written. Actually, maybe it’s a little too well-written because I felt Mau’s desperation so vividly that every time I got a few minutes to read, I hesitated picking the book up. I didn’t always feel like being completely and utterly transported to that world.

But I think what always kept me coming back is the humor. Not laugh-out-loud funny, but a-quiet-chuckle-and-sometimes-a-groan funny.

Here, some survivors from another island are trying to explain horses to Mau, who’s never seen them before:

“…And the horses! Oh, everyone should see the horses!”

“What are horses?” [said Mau.]

“Well, they’re…well, you know hogs?” said Pilu.

“Better than you can imagine.”

“…Well, they are not like hogs. But if you took a hog and made it bigger and longer, with a longer nose and a tail, that’s a horse. Oh, and much more handsome. And much longer legs.”

“So a horse is not really like a pig at all?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so. But it’s got the same number of legs.”

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