FRIDAY BROWN

I've been trying to work my way through the youth fiction which was short listed (or successful) for The Children's Book Council Awards this year. Hence, this title! I'm two thirds in and I'm finding the story captivating.

From the opening pages tension is created by finding out that the protagonist, Friday Brown, comes from a long line of women who have died by drowning. From here we journey with this young misfit as she tries to find her place in the world once her mum is dead. She eventually falls in with a band of street-wise young people who take her under their wings...
The 'gang' have just taken a road trip and ended up in a derelict town. Lord knows what's going to become of them! There's not even drinking water! I'm seriously worried.
Somehow I don't think I'm doing justice to the excellent story line. All I can say is, this is a great read and it's really well written.

Miss ^__^

    A leaf floated up and landed in my hair. It was perfect, still green, fallen too soon.
    Darcy came through the trapdoor about ten minutes later. She sashayed off on high heels, swinging a strappy handbag as if she was on her way to a garden party and I wasn't even there. Suddenly she stopped side-on and looked back. There were several bald patches on her scalp the size of dollar coins.
    'You don't belong here with us,' she said.
    'Don't I know it.' Under my breath.
    'Just go, why don't you.'
    'Am I such a threat to you, Darcy?' I stood up and brushed dead leaves off my backside. I tried to keep my cool and not look like I was completely without gumption at the same time. What I really wanted to do was rip some more of her hair out.   (pp.121-2) 
 

Dying To Know You

I'm half way through, but decided a mid point post was in order.
Boys, this one's not for you. It is a romance and it highlights the fundamental difference between the sexes - girls 'emote'; boys 'act'.
I found the premise to be implausible. In spite of that I have 'willingly suspended my disbelief' to work with the author as he painstakingly unearths the layers involved in 'falling hopelessly in love'.
Girls, I think you will enjoy this one, and I'd be keen to find out if you think the author gets it right.

     We slept that night better than any before.
     I was woken by Karl at dawn. There was just enough light filtering into the tent for me to see him. I have to explain that he had woken me each day at that time to make love, because he liked it best then. Afterwards we'd go to sleep again. I won't say I didn't like it because I did, but for Karl it was a special time and he was always urgent then... (pp.114-5)

TMI???

Cheers,
Miss ^__^

The Shiny Guys

Reminiscent of Cormier's 'I Am The Cheese', author Doug MacLeod takes the reader inside a psychiatric ward for teens. The protagonist, Colin, was traumatised when three years earlier his younger sister Briony was abducted from a national park while in his care.
A lovable and often witty boy, Colin is deeply depressed, highly medicated, and undergoing therapy whilst trying to recover from his guilt and grief. One of his symptoms is that he sees life-size cockroaches (see cover) with whom he begins to converse. By colluding with two in particular - Maximew and Vendra - Colin believes he will be able to get his sister back. Compelling to the end, 'The Shiny Guys' is a thrilling novel.
 I try an experiment. 'What if I told you that the shiny guys are real and not hallucinations? There really are beings from a parallel world and they are abducting humans. If I told you that, would you think I'm a liar?'
(p.128)

Miss Tarn ^__^

Happy As Larry

Scot Gardner © 2010

‘My neighbours. I heard them shouting in the yard. They were always shouting. I ran to my hiding place where I could see through a hole in the metal fence. They were shouting and one man was crying and the other man pulled out a pistol. Shot my neighbour straight through his head. It was the middle of the day and I saw all his blood spray onto the back door of the house.’

… 

‘Every hell is different,’ he said. ‘It’s what we do with our hell that defines us. Do we take drugs and pretend hell doesn’t exist? Do we wear hell like a badge? Do we curl up and sulk in the corner somewhere? Do we swallow it and die slowly as it eats us from the inside? Do we build a fortress and make it a private hell? Do we paint smiles on our faces and pretend hell doesn’t exist? Do we drag everyone down with us?’                                       (pp.212-3)

I struggled to get into this novel. Now that I’ve finished reading it I think I have worked out why. The cover. I blame the cover, and the fact that it is classified as Youth Fiction. This is only acceptable to my mind if that ‘youth’ is turning 19 this year.

Happy As Larry  is a deeply philosophical book. I was confronted by it on several levels. The protagonist is a bit ASD, a pure soul who is often misunderstood. He is, sadly, the butt of several misdemeanours. A neighbourhood child is the embodiment of pure evil; his actions are heart-stopping, breath-holding chilling. And for me, the unravelling of Larry’s parents’ marriage is deeply moving (I won’t spoil the ending).

The thought provoking extract is one of many; I could have flipped to virtually any page and found meat for the mind. No wonder it took some getting into.

But I am glad I persisted. I feel richer for reading it, and surely that’s the highest accolade of any writer.

STRICTLY OLDER READERS please :)

NEVER FALL DOWN

By Patricia McCormick c2012

I spotted this shiny red and black hard back in the new book section of Taminmin Community Library (which is also the school library), flicked to the back cover and was immediately aghast by the comment, 'This book contains graphic scenes of a distressing nature, and is not suitable for younger readers.' It was, however, labelled as Youth Fiction. I had to find out what it was about.

A few pages in and I desperately wanted to return the novel to its tidy shelf. 'Graphic scenes' is an understatement. But what is more graphic than graphic? Graphic times two?

The story is told by Arn, a young Cambodian boy whose life is torn apart when the Khmer Rouge take over his village. Pardon my ignorance but I knew very little about this brutal chapter in history. It is utterly horrendous, too vile to be believed. I am almost physically sick as I read but I'm on a mission now to reach the end:

   This soldier he grab me and Siv, he take us to the temple. The temple, the place where the torture happen. In there other soldier, they have the prisoner tied up. Hand behind, head down. Quick I look for Sombo. But these prisoners all old people.
   "These people, they no good," says one Khmer Rouge. "They old; they don't work so hard. They gonna die soon anyway." Then, very quick, he take the ax and hit them in the back of the head. Blood fly everywhere. The wall of the temple, beautiful tile, beautiful painting, now all dripping with blood.
   Then the Khmer Rouge says to us, "It's time for your job. You pee on them. You pee on their head."
   I think: I will not do this terrible thing, I will not do this.
   But then I look down, and I see urine coming out of me. (p.101)

I don't want to write any more. At some point we stop protecting 'youth' and start immersing them in the reality of history - we reveal the darkness of the human heart. Strictly for older readers, this story must be read.

The Wrong Boy by Suzy Zail

Can there ever be too many books about the holocaust? This reader says 'no', not when they are so simply delivered and poignantly written.  Through this bleak chapter in history, Zail shares the stark, heart-stopping story about a 15 year old girl, a survivor who endures the horrors of Birkenau concentration camp in Poland. As we are all aware, there is no happy ending even for the survivors but there is a rich vein of hope which sustains the narrative and reminds us that all people have a responsibility to ensure that this mass slaughter and dehumanisation of people will never again happen in our lifetime or beyond.

Hanna's stubborn nature and natural prowess with playing classical piano form part of her survival testimony. A simple lie about her age in the opening pages ensures that she narrowly misses being sent to the gas chamber. From that point her luck continues as she manages to impress a German commander with her musical ability to 'secure' a place as his 'entertainer', a mere commodity to amuse his guests:

I'd always performed best in front of an audience. It was easier to play warmed by the smiles, buoyed by the audience's expectations, jolted by the extra electricity an audience provides. But not this time, not here. I wasn't on stage. There were no draped curtains, no chandeliers. I was wearing a dead girl's dress and no matter how well I played there'd be no applause. (p.97)

There is nothing pleasant in talking about the holocaust, but talk about it we must. Zail bases her story on what she learnt about it from her father who was 13 when he was captured and taken to Auschwitz. The Wrong Boy  should rightly take its place with the other classics in literature on this historical event including The Hiding Place,   The Diary of Anne Frank and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.

'The Debt - Catch the Zolt' - Phillip Gwynne

Quality fiction for teenage boys is no longer a thing of the past. Three cheers for Mr Gwynne who, being a lad himself at one stage of his life, knows exactly what boys want to read. It's all here - seriously.

There's competition, sexy cars, money, power, punch-ups, shootings, intrigue and excitement. This might seem an unfair thing to say, but I don't think the girls will get this book. I persisted so I could rally the lads.

Oh, forgot to mention plane crashes:
     As if to emphasise his point we hit a patch of turbulence and the plane shuddered violently, the chairs we were sitting in moving all over the place. My guts, too, now seemed to have no fixed position.
   As the ground came up to meet us, Otto talked to himself.
   ...'Keep the nose level,'  he kept saying. 'Keep the nose level.'
   I remembered the photo on the net of one of the planes he'd crashed, its nose buried in the earth.
   How he had walked away from that mess unharmed I wasn't sure. (p.265)

The first in a series, The Debt will not disappoint. Cheers Phil :)

Miss ^__^

Deadly Unna

Another year rolls by and yet again I had the privilege of teaching this novel to a class of year niners - all boys this time round. I never tire of returning to The Port and engaging with the array of colourful and realistic characters.
I'm not going to give away the plot. Suffice to say, the book is set in a small beachy community where nothing ever happens - until now. The Port's footy team has stumbled into the grand final and their star player Blacky is not really a star at all, being there by default. If it wasn't for the efforts of the lads from the mission the story would be over before it began. They do have a star player called Dumby Red. It's not over til it's over...
Thank You Phillip Gwynne! My class was captivated - and the essays are trickling in.