"Ready!" by Lydia Ondrusek

"Ready!" is the first e-book in King of the Marshmallows, a series of short stories for children and teens published by Echelon Press (publisher of Killer Cows). Mark has Asperger's Syndrome, and has a hard time at school. Mom's looking for solutions, and ends up signing him up for taekwondo classes, where ends up in a class with both adults and kids. And one of the other kids also has Asperger's Syndrome.

Mark also figures out how to deal with his book report at school -- and ends up reading one of my favorites, Mockingbird!

Author Lydia Ondrusek is a friend of mine, so I can't claim objectivity here. But I thoroughly enjoyed the story, and look forward to the next installment (the first one is only about 3000 words). I would suggest this story for kids ages 9-14 (or younger if they read well).

"Ready!" is available through SmashWords for only 99 cents! You can read it either online with a regular computer or on an e-reading device.

Edges by Léna Roy

"It's about addiction, and twelve-step programs, and mysticism. In Utah."

My husband just looked at me and shook his head. Yes, it sounds weird. But Léna Roy's Edges works!

Luke is seventeen, and has left his home in New York for a youth hostel in Moab, Utah. Why? Well, that's part of the story.

Meanwhile, in New York we meet Ava, nineteen, sober only a few weeks, and attending AA meetings. Her path and Luke's are about to cross.

As the book moves along, Roy unfolds for us how Luke came to be in Utah, how Ava came to be a recovering alcoholic, and how their lives are about to connect. I really liked the pacing of this.

There's also a strong dash of mysticism and spirituality. AA, of course, has a spiritual basis, with its reliance on a Higher Power, and Roy's characters do frequently refer to the Higher Power concept. And in Utah, we meet a Southwestern mysticism, with kachinas, spirit animals, and a shaman. But, subtly, Roy shows us that it's all one -- that there *is* something out there, surrounding us and caring for us. Is it God, the spirit of the bear, the power of love, or just our collective souls working together? Perhaps it depends on the eye of the beholder. Whatever it is, it's life-changing for the characters in Edges.

I really enjoyed reading Edges, and in fact, I read it TWICE before reviewing it, because after the first time I felt like it was still sinking in; I wasn't sure I got everything the first time. The story's well told, and the characters and descriptions are vivid. And love and community both run throughout the book.

Finally, yes, Léna Roy is Madeleine L'Engle's granddaughter. I had contacted Léna several months ago with a question about her grandmother's work, and found that she had a young adult novel coming out soon! Naturally, as a huge L'Engle fan, I was interested -- and I'm very glad now that I tracked her down and got to read this book!

Find out more about Edges at http://lenaroybooks.com, and visit Léna Roy's blog at http://lenaroy.com.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Macmillan for providing me with a review copy of Edges.

Books I Read in 2010 (Kathleen)

Apparently a lot of people make these lists, and like to see other people's lists. I'm not sure mine is totally accurate. This is based on a combination of my Goodreads list, my e-book history on my phone, and my reading history at the library (my library system will save your check-out history online if you allow it). It only includes books read for the first time in 2010. It may or may not be missing a few books. They are in no order at all, but I did put a star in front of those titles I rated five stars on Goodreads.

Blogger doesn't want to show you the line numbers, so I'll just tell you that there are 102 books on the list.

1. Creepers, Joanne Dahme
2. Tombstone Tea, Joanne Dahme
3. Lompoc: Padres to Pinot, John McReynolds
4. Rock What You've Got: Secrets to Loving Your Inner and Outer Beauty from Someone Who Has Been There and Back, Katherine Schwarzenegger
5. Ship Breaker (Ship Breaker, #1), Paolo Bacigalupi
6. *Lockdown, Walter Dean Myers
7. Dark Water, Laura McNeal
8. Breathless, Jessica Warman
9. A Blue So Dark, Holly Schindler
10. Red Glass, Laura Resau
11. Cookie, Jacqueline Wilson
12. On The Wings of Heroes, Richard Peck
13. The Canning Season, Polly Horvath
14. Bread and Roses, Too, Katherine Paterson
15. The White Darkness, Geraldine McCaughrean
16. The Slave Dancer, Paula Fox
17. Peak, Roland Smith
18. A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster, Rebecca Solnit
19. One Crazy Summer, Rita Williams-Garcia
20. As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth, Lynne Rae Perkins
21. Louisa May Alcott, Susan Cheever
22. Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream, William Powers
23. Looking Backward, Edward Bellamy
24. Colors of God, Dave Phillips
25. Makers, Cory Doctorow
26. Peter and the Starcatchers (Peter and the Starcatchers, #1), Dave Barry
27. On the Hill, Lisa Jahn-Clough
28. The Beatles: The Biography, Bob Spitz
29. Starter Vegetable Gardens, Barbara Pleasant
30. A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, Molly Wizenberg
31. Ash, Malinda Lo
32. *Frindle, Andrew Clements
33. Gimme Refuge: The Education of a Caretaker, Matt Love
34. Illyria, Elizabeth Hand
35. Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture, Shannon Hayes
36. The Clearing, Heather Davis
37. Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated, Alison Arngrim
38. The Watsons Go to Birmingham - 1963, Christopher Paul Curtis
39. Will Grayson, Will Grayson, John Green
40. Wintergirls, Laurie Halse Anderson
41. *Before I Fall, Lauren Oliver
42. Unwind (Unwind, #1), Neal Shusterman
43. Forget-Her-Nots, Amy Brecount White
44. The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Ranch Wife, Ree Drummond
45. The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1), Rick Riordan
46. *Cabin Fever: Notes from a Part-Time Pioneer, William L. Sullivan
47. Anastasia Krupnik, Lois Lowry
48. Quaking, Kathryn Erskine
49. The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott, Kelly O. McNees
50. The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, Philip Pullman
51. The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food, Ben Hewitt
52. *Mockingbird, Kathryn Erskine
53. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, Seth Grahame-Smith
54. Shadow Tag, Louise Erdrich
55. Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, Bill Buford
56. Love is the Higher Law, David Levithan
57. House of Rain: Tracking a Vanished Civilization Across the American Southwest, Craig Childs
58. Heat, Mike Lupica
59. For The Win, Cory Doctorow
60. Red Inferno: 1945: A Novel, Robert Conroy
61. Bamboo People, Mitali Perkins
62. Anything But Typical, Nora Raleigh Baskin
63. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women, Harriet Reisen
64. Cracked Up to Be, Courtney Summers
65. The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking, #2), Patrick Ness
66. The Knife of Never Letting Go (Chaos Walking, #1), Patrick Ness
67. The Drifters, James A. Michener
68. The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, Jacqueline Kelly
69. Thy Kingdom Connected: What the Church Can Learn from Facebook, the Internet, and Other Networks, Dwight J. Friesen
70. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, Katherine Howe
71. Alcott in Her Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of Her Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates, Daniel Shealy
72. Live Sent: you are a letter, Jason C Dukes
73. Genius of Common Sense, Glenna Lang
74. Jenny Kimura, Betty Cavanna
75. How to Hook a Hottie, Tina Ferraro
76. *Crush It!: Why Now Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion, Gary Vaynerchuk
77. The Dead-Tossed Waves (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #2), Carrie Ryan
78. Restoring Harmony, Joelle Anthony
79. Elske (Kingdom, #4), Cynthia Voigt
80. What I Saw And How I Lied, Judy Blundell
81. *When You Reach Me, Rebecca Stead
82. One True Thing, Anna Quindlen
83. The Glory Cloak: A Novel of Louisa May Alcott and Clara Barton, Patricia O'Brien
84. Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife, Francine Prose
85. Hungry City, Carolyn Steel
86. Lips Touch: Three Times, Laini Taylor
87. The Sixty-Eight Rooms, Marianne Malone
88. Bicycle Diaries, David Byrne
89. Crunch, Leslie Connor
90. Tin Lizzie, Allan Drummond
91. I Am the Ice Worm, Maryann Easley
92. Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes, Lisa Greenwald
93. Zombies vs. Unicorns, Holly Black & Justine Larbalestier
94. *The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times, Carol Deppe
95. White Sands, Red Menace, Ellen Klages
96. Edges, Léna Roy
97. The House of Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
98. Agnes Grey, Anna Brontë
99. The Abbot's Ghost, Louisa May Alcott
100. The Sleeper Awakes, H.G. Wells
101. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë
102. Origin, J.A. Konrath

Mock Newbery in Oregon

I just came across this in my local newspaper -- a group of kids at Boones Ferry Primary in Wilsonville, OR (near Portland), have chosen Out of My Mind as their Mock Newbery winner. There's also a nice picture in which they're all holding up books (presumably their individual favorites?).

I haven't read Out of My Mind. What say you?

Reflections on the 2010 National Book Awards (YPL)

I've finally finished reviewing all five of the 2010 National Book Award finalists in Young People's Literature. Yes, I did read them all before the award ceremony! But I didn't get my review of Ship Breaker posted until yesterday.

Naturally, I'm thrilled that Mockingbird won. Of the five books, the two I rated most highly were Mockingbird and Lockdown (both got five of five stars on Goodreads). I gave four stars to both One Crazy Summer and Ship Breaker, and three stars to Dark Water.

Mockingbird is still my favorite, mainly because I think Kathy Erskine nailed the voice of Caitlin, an eleven-year-old with Asperger's Syndrome, as well as the reactions of the people around her.

One Crazy Summer and Mockingbird are both being discussed as Newbery contenders on Heavy Medal. However, the guidelines and criteria for the National Book Award are very different from those for the Newbery Medal. The NBA is awarded by a panel of authors, who are allowed to make up their own criteria, while the Newbery Medal is decided by a committee of librarians, who are given very strict criteria. So winning the NBA doesn't make Mockingbird a favorite for the Newbery; in fact, One Crazy Summer seems to be holding that position.

So what's next? I may read a few other Newbery contenders, but as we're heading into the holiday season, I have no formal plans.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

This is the fifth and final installment of Kathleen's reviews of the 2010 National Book Award finalists in Young People's Literature.

Ship Breaker is a dystopian novel, set in a post-oil future. Oil is scarce, and the earth is showing the effects of climate change (New Orleans is all or mostly underwater). The rich have developed alternative travel technology in the form of fast-moving clipper ships, but naturally these are only available to the rich.

The poor, like Nailer, live in squats, camps and shacks, and earn a bare living doing salvage work or working in shipyards. And the workers aren't much better off than slaves. Nailer's job is to scavenge copper wire from wrecked and abandoned oil tankers in the Gulf of Mexico. But a "city-killer" hurricane leads him to a clipper ship, a girl, and adventure.

The book is fast-moving and cinematic. Bacigalupi's descriptions of Nailer's adventures would fit right into an action movie. It's also suspenseful and kept me reading.

Bacigalupi has a sequel on the way, titled The Drowned Cities. It's due out in 2011.

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

This is the fourth of Kathleen's reviews of the 2010 National Book Award finalists in Young People's Literature.

As you may have heard, One Crazy Summer is the story of three sisters who are sent to spend a month with their mother, in Oakland, California, in 1968. Their mother doesn't seem to particularly want them there, so she has them spend their days at a Black Panther day camp. In day camp, the children learn "Power to the people"-style slogans, make "Free Huey" posters, and post flyers for a big Black Panther rally, which is the climax of the book.

The story is told through the older sister, Delphine, who is the only one old enough to remember their mother at all (she was four or five when her mother left them). She's eleven in the book.

It was a quick read for me; I think it's well-paced for middle grade children. The period details are good, but not overwhelming -- the focus is really on the story, and the mother and children finally coming to terms with each other. Delphine's voice is well done; she's an eleven-year-old who's had to grow up too quickly and help take care of her sisters, but she still has the emotional maturity of an eleven-year-old.

I also thought the development of Cecile/Nzila was well done. She's totally off-putting at first. I wondered what in the world their father was thinking, sending them out there. And she doesn't change that much during the book. But there are little things along the way. She starts accommodating the children in small ways: giving them a radio, letting Fern into the kitchen to cook, and getting a stool for Fern to sit on in the kitchen. And more. It's subtle, and gradual, and she's not a completely different person at the end of the book. But she has made a little bit of room for the children in her heart, and (one hopes) in her life.

I've noticed elsewhere that people have nitpicked on the geographical details. I've lived in Oakland, and felt like the atmosphere described in the book fit. The geographical details are fairly vague (or renamed, or made up; I'm not sure), and this was well before I lived there, so I never placed the story in any particular location in my head.

Overall: excellent story and writing. I can see why it's in the award-watch category.