A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

When Conor awakens at 12:07, seven minutes past midnight, he should be thankful. Sort of. Waking up from a recurring nightmare brings a merciful end to the nightmare itself, but it also leaves the dreamer with new, fresh memories. Alone, and in the middle of the night, no less. Then Conor realizes why he woke up, and it’s not simply to escape the nightmare. No. Someone called his name. Conor.

At 12:07.

Conor looks out the window and sees the normal sights: the church on a small hill, the nearby train tracks, and the ancient yew tree rising from the center of the graveyard. Clouds temporarily obscure the moon, but when its light returns, Conor can once again see the yew tree. Which is now in his backyard.

It is the monster.

The monster tells Conor it is “everything untamed and untameable. I am this wild earth, come for you, Conor O’Malley.” Conor asks what the monster wants from him, but the monster responds, “It is not what I want from you, Conor O’Malley. It is what you want from me.”

Conor’s mother is terminally ill, and Conor is no better at navigating the emotions that come with the prospect of losing a parent than any other 13-year-old. But facing that daunting future helps explain why a monster in his backyard isn’t too scary. It helps readers understand why, when a monster says he’s come for him, Conor can nonchalantly respond, “So come and get me then.” It’s why Conor can shrug off a monster’s roar with “Shout all you want. I’ve seen worse.”

Yet despite the title A Monster Calls, the monster insists he’s only responding, that Conor called him. The monster informs Conor he will return on further nights to tell him three stories. “And when I finish my three stories, you will tell me a fourth. You will tell me a fourth, and it will be the truth. Not just any truth. Your truth.”

This is the truth from the nightmare, the truth that Conor has vowed to never tell anyone.

A Monster Calls is a powerful novel and memorable for many reasons, but two things come first to my mind. The interaction between Conor and the monster is one of the book’s strengths. A monster who could destroy Conor in a heartbeat patiently responds to Conor’s questions and demands and lack of respect. Second, I love the fact that the monster’s stories are not cut and dried parables with obvious morals, that these stories cause Conor to explode, “That’s a load of crap!” and the monster to demand, “You think I tell you stories to teach you lessons? You think I have come walking out of time and earth itself to teach you a lesson in niceness?”

But as the monster says, “Stories are wild creatures. When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?”

A Monster Calls is a wild creature. Let it loose. Watch the havoc.

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Readers were introduced to Doug Swieteck in the 2008 Newbery Honor winning book The Wednesday Wars. He’s mentioned by name seven times in the first two pages as Holling Hoodhood explains all the reasons why their teacher, Mrs. Baker, should hate him. This includes Doug’s list of 410 ways to get a teacher to hate you, a list containing strategies that became illegal around #167 and where #6 earns a two week suspension.

Yeah, that Doug Swieteck. Remember him? He’s back in Okay for Now, Gary D. Schmidt’s latest book, which features eighth-grade Doug as the main character. And instead of Doug’s 410 ways to get a teacher to hate you, Okay for Now is 360 pages to get a reader to love you.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s the same Doug Swieteck. But as readers learn about Doug’s abusive father, his oldest brother in Vietnam, his next brother a bully, and his kind and gentle mother smothered by her family situation, readers begin to understand Doug Swieteck as a person rather than just an antagonist.

Okay for Now opens with Doug’s father announcing that the family is moving to Marysville in upstate New York. The Swietecks move into The Dump in Stupid Marysville. “I hate this town,” Doug declares not long after arriving.

And now is where the reviewer generally gives an overview of plot. But I don’t want to. Instead, I want you to read Okay for Now based on my highest recommendation alone, to savor this book, to tear up and laugh and cheer at Doug’s actions and circumstances. I want you to share the same emotions as me as you discover more about Doug and appreciate how Gary D. Schmidt has constructed this masterful novel.

Doug likes statistics and often lists them for certain situations, so as Doug would say, here are the stats for what all readers should experience one their own, without a reviewer’s perspective. All readers should:

• learn how to drink a really cold Coke from Lil, the first person and classmate Doug meets, outside the Marysville Public Library. 
• hear Mr. Powell’s art lessons in the Marysville Public Library. 
• feel the tension between the members of the Swieteck family. 
• understand what makes Mr. Ferris set Clarence, the toy rocking horse, rocking. 
• follow Doug on his grocery deliveries for Mr. Spicer, Lil’s father. 
• see how Doug becomes the test subject for Miss Cowper’s County Literacy Unit. 
• meet Mrs. Windermere and the god of creativity that sits on her desk. 
• slowly recognize how John Audubon’s paintings in the library parallel Doug’s life as Doug learns more about the birds, the paintings, and art. 

You see? There’s so much … too much … okay. Try this:

Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt is about the year Doug Swieteck moves to Stupid Marysville, New York, how he slowly discovers the difference between the external persona he has created and the internal person he truly is, and which one he decides to be. It is at the same time heart-breaking and heart-warming. It demonstrates both the fragility and strength of human character. It will build within you an appreciation for birds, art, horseshoes, and the New York Yankees.

It is the best book I’ve read in some time and, quite simply, a book you must read.

Tadpole by Ruth White

Carolina Collins is the youngest of the four Collins children, or “them loud-mouthed Collins gals” as the locals sometimes say. Fourteen year old Kentucky is the popular one. Twelve year old Virginia is the pretty one. Eleven year old Georgia is the smart one. But ten year old Carolina? She says she’s nobody at all. Sometimes with all the praising and bragging on her sisters, it can be hard to have many compliments left over.

Whatever they do, they do it loud, and readers understand right from the start. The girls and their mother, Serilda, are off to get permanent waves in their hair – one $ each Sat morn come early – and despite the five dollars already spent on their perms, the girls persuade Mom to go see Rebel Without a Cause. When they return home, favorite cousin Tadpole is on the porch with his guitar singing with some neighbors, waiting.

“Well here we are!” he exclaims. Tadpole (now simply Tad since he’s getting older), who has bounced around between family members after his parents died, has come for a visit. At thirteen he’s been adopted by his Uncle Matthew and Aunt Lucy Birch. Serilda believes it’s simply because he’s now old enough to work. Turns out she’s right, and soon more truth is revealed. Uncle Matthew beats Tad when the boy doesn’t meet his standards. Which is often.

Tad’s not just there for a visit. He’s there to escape.

But while he’s visiting, everyone is going to enjoy it. Tad acts in ways foreign to those Collins gals. He weeds the garden and picks vegetables without being asked. Then he cans them! Without Mama! He organizes a Fourth of July picnic for everyone. He gets small jobs in Polly’s Fork to help with the bills. He also sings and gets Carolina to sing with him. She can hear the layers in music – harmony, he explains – and tries her best to join him.

But the good times don’t last forever. After writing letters to family members asking them to help (none come forward) and a couple close calls when Uncle Matthew showed up at the house, Tad can’t hide anymore. Uncle Matthew Birch takes him back.

But will Tad stay? Will he return for his guitar which he left in Carolina’s care? Will Uncle Matthew change? After all, Tad’s influence on the Collins family lasts long after he leaves. Can he affect Uncle Matthew?

Normally, I don’t recommend books featuring abused children, but for some reason, this one is different. Maybe it’s all the colorful characters. Maybe it’s just Tad, a boy mature for his age, full of hope and spirit and determination. Maybe it’s the opportunity to introduce bluegrass music and Bill Monroe to 21st Century kids or Ruth White's ability to write in a distinctly Appalachian dialect. Whatever it is, it works. Tadpole has never failed as read aloud in my class, and it was voted a mock-Newbery Honor book at our school in 2004.

My One Hundred Adventures by Polly Horvath

When Jane realizes, finally, at age twelve, that she can pray, she decides to get busy. She prays for a hundred adventures, and wonders if unceasing prayer will bring about the desired response. That’s what Nellie Phipps, fat old lady preacher, says every Sunday from the pulpit, anyway.

Almost immediately, adventure number one commences, when Jane meets a gentleman who looks like a clothes hanger, too skinny for his suit, a man who his mother calmly calls her father.

I’m trying and trying to remember what to write, and I finished the book only a week ago. Let’s see, there was a younger brother who always yelled, “Whale!” when looking at the ocean. I remember Nellie Phipps thinking it was a good idea to deliver Bibles to unsuspecting recipients from a hot air balloon and getting Jane to help. There was a trip across the country that ended abruptly with all the travelers returning home. Someone had a thrombosis. Jane prayed for one lady but not another one, then the non-prayed for one got sick, and then one of them died from candy purchased by one of Jane’s potential fathers or something like that.

There’s other stuff in there too, but try as I might, I don’t remember what happened. There’s offbeat humor, for sure. Delivering Bibles by hot air balloon? A preacher searching for a portal to the future? But other than odd bits of humor and absurdity, which I enjoy thoroughly, nothing sticks out to make me think it would be passed between students. I’m reminded of an eighth grader who once commented to me about another book, “It was fine, I guess. It’s just that nothing happens.”

My One Hundred Adventures ends after fourteen adventures in fourteen chapters with Jane, her family, and a new (new? old? original?) father headed to Saskatchewan to start a new life and find, apparently, the missing eighty-six adventures.

It did have a great quote about reading, though: "The library in summer is the most wonderful thing because there you get books on any subject and read them each for only as long as they hold your interest, abandoning any that don't, halfway or a quarter of the way through if you like, and store up all that knowledge in the happy corners of your mind for your own self and not to show off how much you know or spit it back at your teacher on a test paper."

After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson

The more I read, the more I liked the characters in After Tupac & D Foster by Jacqueline Woodson. Responsible parents, loving and accepting families, kids with dreams, a neighborhood with people who watch out for one another, and friends to the end. Great stuff.

Whether it’s a big family or an only child and a single mother, the parents in the story recognize the importance of parenting. The narrator is an only child living with her single mother. Her best friend Neeka lives across the street with her parents, two older brothers, two younger brothers, and toddling twin sisters. Neither girl is allowed off the block, even though they’re twelve, and they complain that their moms are always watching. (Isn’t that a sure sign a parent is parenting?) Their friend D, whose mom has left, lives with a foster mother. The narrator and Neeka envy D’s freedom, but D envies their families.

Neeka’s oldest brother Tash was arrested and imprisoned for “doing something stupid.” The family recognizes what he did, knows the truth, and loves him anyway. Tash is openly gay, a fact accepted by the family even if his flamboyance isn’t always appreciated by his mom. When the family visits Tash in jail, Jayjones, second son and aspiring NBA player, “just kept looking at Tash and grinning, like he couldn’t believe he was getting to be right across from his big brother.” Two brothers couldn’t be more different, yet their relationship as brothers supersedes all differences. Rock solid relationships despite differences and difficulty. That’s family.

The narrator and Neeka dream of “roaming” like their friend D, while D dreams of her real mother, not a foster mother, and of finding her Big Purpose. Jayjones works toward his dream of playing in the NBA and taking care of his family. Tash hopes his experiences will help steer his siblings in the right direction – away from the law and the stupidity that attracts trouble.

Their neighborhood has front steps, men playing dominoes, moms watching out the window and seeing when their kids come and go, little girls who watch the older girls jump double-dutch and soon become the older girls themselves, and neighbors who know you by name. I’ll admit it: I like my neighborhood. I like my yard and being set back from the road and the air that, when the wind is right, brings the fresh smell of cut hay or the dairy farms just outside town. But there’s an attractive quality to the community built through a neighborhood’s physical closeness.

The narrator, Neeka, and new friend D spend two years together. D just shows up one day, watching them from across the street. They talk briefly, and the next time D arrives she brings her double-dutch rope. Woodson ties the timeline of their friendship to that of Tupac Shakur’s life – D arrived just before Tupac was shot the first time and left the summer before he died – and marvelously shows how people can see life through art, in this case Tupac’s lyrics and videos. Only real friends, knowing it’s not true, can still feel “like we’d grown up and grown old and lived a hundred lives in those few years that we knew [D].” Three girls. Three the Hard Way.

Can you tell I liked it? Are you sure? I want you to be sure since…here it comes…I’m not recommending it. Not because it’s not a good book. It is. But I’m recommending a specific type of book here, and this one doesn’t fit. After Tupac & D Foster deserves a place on library shelves and in classroom discussions and in the hands of the right readers, and I certainly hope it reaches those destinations.

The Wall by Peter Sis

One wouldn’t think a book about growing up behind the Iron Curtain under the thumb of the Soviet Army and an oppressive Czechoslovakian government that squashes any form of free thought or expression would make this website.

And you’d be right. Usually.

The Wall by Peter Sis is an exception.

It’s part picture book. The majority of the book is black and white. At first the only other color used is red, and only to illustrate the communist influence – stars, flags, banners, bandanas, missiles. Eventually, as news and ideas from the West creep into Czechoslovakia, so do colors into the book. American and British flags. Musicians. Sports figures. Artists. Yellow submarines. And as more ideas are expressed, the more the government attempts to squash them, returning the book to black and white and red, with only the occasional color, like subversive Western thought, sneaking in. The pictures, at first seemingly simplistic, offer more detail, often amazing and tiny details, with each reread.

It’s part history lesson. As Peter’s story is told across the bottom of the page, italicized writing in the margins tells the history of Czechoslovakia as Peter grows. Readers learn how the Soviets took control of the country and closed the borders, how communist ideals were demanded and enforced, and how children were brainwashed into believing this was the only acceptable way of life. Readers learn how people behind the Iron Curtain learned more about Western styles (long hair, blue jeans) and music (the Beatles, Beach Boys, and Rolling Stones) and culture (theater, poetry, and even the Harlem Globetrotters) and how the government tried to stop it all.

And it’s part memoir. A one-page introduction explains the formation of the Eastern Bloc countries after World War II. At the end is an explanation of what happened to Peter’s family during these years. Interspersed between are three two-page spreads of excerpts from his journals which include school lessons, sports memories, arrests, rock bands, censorship, and the beginnings of his art career. The earliest journal entry is dated 1954 and the last is dated June 1977. Also included are photographs, posters, historical documents, and additional drawings showing even more of the time period.

I just noticed another amazing detail. At the top left of each journal page is a picture of a brain. The first brain is all red – the young boy who knows only what he’s taught. The second brain has many colors – the young adult now exposed to new ideas and beginning to think for himself. The last brain is fully developed – the adult who now knows the freedom he desires, long forbidden.

No, a book about growing up behind the Iron Curtain would normally not be a one I’d recommend. But The Wall, through its many layers and incredible pictures, is a remarkable book and deserves recognition.

The Giver Trilogy by Lois Lowry

The Giver – Certainly the most well known of the three titles, this Newbery Medal winner tells the story of Jonas and his community. Jonas has been selected, not assigned like his classmates, for his new occupation. He is the new Receiver of Memory. Jonas’ futuristic community has eliminated all problems. There is no hunger, sickness, conflict, or inequality. Families stay together. Elders are respected. But Jonas, working with the old Receiver of Memory, now called the Giver as Jonas is the Receiver, learns about the past as he receives memories. He learns the price that has been paid for the community’s perfection. Jonas and the Giver devise a plan that, if successful, will save lives and possibly give back to the community some of what it has missed for many years. Truly a classic upon its release, The Giver is an unforgettable novel not to be missed.

Gathering Blue – The second novel of the trilogy takes place at roughly the same time as The Giver but in another community. Kira is orphaned at the beginning of the story. She has a bad leg, one that prevents her from walking comfortably or quickly, and that brings scorn on her from a community that values strength. Fortunately she has incredible talent with thread – dying, stitching, embroidering – which saves her, and even exalts her to a position of great honor in the community. Two others children, a carver named Thomas and a young singer named Jo, have received the same honor. As Kira learns about the secrets behind her community and her past, and as young Matt helps her search for the elusive color blue, she and her friends devise a plan, similar to Jonas, that will help their community.

Messenger – Six years after the events of The Giver and Gathering Blue, Kira’s young friend Matt, has grown nearly to adulthood. He lives in Village, a third community that welcomes all strangers, regardless of perceived strength or weakness, and lives a peaceful existence. But changes are coming to Village. Worthy, positive characteristics now receive lesser value and differences never before seen as weaknesses are now dividing the community. Matty, longing to learn his true name and his blind guardian, whose true name is Seer, try to understand what is happening and find a way to save Village. Characters from both previous novels play prominent roles in Messenger, and the story started in The Giver comes to a gratifying conclusion.

While these titles certainly aren't light-hearted, readers can't help but escape inside. New communities and villages and cultures and belief systems are created so carefully that readers understand everything that the main characters struggle against. There's death and injustice. Characters - society's leaders - make incomprehensible decisions, but yet readers understand why they were made in the context of the story. That doesn't mean readers agree with the decisions, however, and they will fight along with the Jonas, Kira, and Matty in their efforts to bring change where change is so desperately needed. Most importantly, readers will think.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

Usually when thinking of homesteaders we connect prairie states, the 1800s, Ma and Pa and a house full of children, starting from scratch, and, if more conflict is needed other than the demands of day to day life, throw in a character off to the Mexican-American War or Civil War.

Hattie Big Sky is a homesteading novel featuring none of these. Hattie is a sixteen-year-old girl who inherits a homestead from her uncle - 320 acres in Montana in 1917. The added conflict does involve war, but it is anti-German sentiment and childhood friend Charlie off to fight in the Great War.

One thing remains the same however. Regardless of location, century, or family, life as a homesteader in the United States was never easy.

Hattie arrives in January with ten months to prove up her claim. A house and shed have already been built. Forty acres must be cultivated, and while fence supplies have been purchased, the 480 rods (that's 7920 feet or a mile and a half) of fence must still be built.

Most of the expected ingredients are present. Friendly and unfriendly neighbors. Blessings (like the fence supplies) and set-backs (like learning the fence supplies were purchased on credit.) Gossips and those with no patience for them. Prayers answered both positively and negatively. Bad weather and worse weather. And a new baby.

What keeps a person reading isn't really the story itself. Most readers will understand the story of farming, working, worrying, praying, and working some more. Instead, what keeps readers going is the newness of a homesteading novel in a different era (there's tractors, bicycles, automobiles, and a motorcycle!), the tension of war, both with Charlie away fighting and with Karl, a local German immigrant homesteader, and Hattie.

Hattie, whose most important possession is her mother's backbone. Hattie Here-and-There who wants desperately for a place to call home. There's absolutely no reason that Hattie, this young girl, should be considered the head of household and be trying to prove up a homesteader's claim. But try she does, and readers can't wait to see if this young heroine will succeed.

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

I didn't want to like this book. I really didn't. After reading the reviews I avoided it. Jesus Boy? How hokey is that? I figured it had Newbery written all over it, but hoped it would not win so I would not feel obligated to read it.

But then it did, and then I did, and so read I did. And I was pleasantly surprised.

In 1971 Frannie's town is divided by the highway - black and white. Frannie lives on the black side of town and attends the Price School with all the other kids from her side of the highway. On January 6 a new boy arrives, white as the falling snow, with long brown hair and gray eyes. Jesus Boy. Who else looks like that on the black side of town? Must be Jesus.

As the story unfolds the reader learns about Frannie's family. Her older brother is deaf. Frannie knows how wonderful he is, but too many other people simply dismiss him. Frannie's baby sister Lila died, her mother lost another pregnancy after that, and is now pregnant again. Then there's Samantha, her best friend whose father is a preacher, adding another layer to the Jesus Boy storyline. One classmate is full of anger, while one seems to be the willing victim. Another classmate is the rich stuck-up kid. But all of them, as Frannie realizes, have much more in common than thought at first.

There's a lot of Jesus in this book. Frannie has chicken pox scars on her hands. Samantha wants to believe Jesus Boy really is Jesus, returned to attend their school. Frannie's parents go to church, her grandmother goes to two churches (frequently bonking Frannie's head with her Bible), and Frannie rarely goes at all. ("Don't you want to be saved, Frannie?" asks Samantha.) But Frannie, the least church-y, does the most Christian thing, helping Trevor in a time of need when most others are quietly pleased that he got what's coming to him. The thread of faith runs throughout the story, leaving readers to wonder what makes a person faith-full. What drives a person to God? Sadness and need? Obligation? Tradition? Or the desire to do what's right, even when it's not popular?

I've stated why I'll recommend books here, and following those guidelines, I can't recommend Feathers. But that doesn't stop me from saying that it's a good book, one that certainly made an impression on me, one that I'll tell others about. I just won't be putting it into students hands saying, "Here's one you just have to read!"