Written by Daniel Handler
Illustrated by Maira Kolman
Published by Little, Brown, 2011
ISBN 9780316127257

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler (pen name Lemony Snicket) is getting lots of buzz this awards season, and rightly so.

The protagonist, Min Green, writes a stream-of-consciousness “letter” to Ed Slaterton, her ex, telling him all of the reasons she thinks they broke up. As the book opens, she is on her way to his house to drop a box on his doorstep containing all of the flotsam and jetsam she associates with important moments in their relationship. The letter, addressed directly to Ed, discusses each item in the box, in the order she got it, and how the item and the moment contributed to the end of their relationship.

Why We Broke Up is constructed of beautiful, high-gloss, heavy paper. Maira Kolman’s drawings add depth and a visual element to each aspect of the story.

Min is “different” from Ed. He is handsome, popular, and the co-captain of the basketball team. He is attracted to Min because she is “different” from all of the other girls he has had relationships with. She is smart, loves old films, and is good at witty verbal repartee. Their friends are surprised at the quickness and intensity of their relationship, and predict that it won’t last because of their differences. Both characters are complex and interesting. They have strengths and weaknesses, and qualities that the reader both admires and dislikes about them. We see their attraction, believe in it, and root for them to make it work as Min retells their story, even though we know what the outcome will be. Handler does a nice job of not choosing sides until the end. The way in which Handler brings the final hatchet down on the relationship is unexpected and terrific! This is definitely a character-driven piece that will probably appeal most to teenage girls.

In terms of writing, Min’s first person voice is strong.  There are stream-of-consciousness passages here that are brilliant, such as the sequence at the end of the book when she tells Ed all of the ways in which she is not different. The need to be “normal,” yet feel special and unique, is a part of all of us—an irony that many of us deal with throughout our lives. This is just one of the many ways in which teens will be able to relate to Why We Broke Up.  There is much here that will inspire deep thought and conversation: what friendship is, how (even when we desire to break free) those around us will often push us back into what is “normal,” what discovering our sexuality is about, and how relationships are filled with give and take.

A really unique and interesting read. Highly recommended.

—Terri Evans, high school media specialist

So that’s it!  The end of two reading challenges for 2011, though there are lots of books still in my to-read stack that will spill into 2012.  It’s been really informative to focus my reading in this way.  I still deeply love historical fiction and have great respect for the good work of debut authors—many who wrote historical—twice as good for me.  A number of books are on both lists.  Here is how the two challenges shake out:

Historical Fiction—Needed 15, Recommended 15
Crossing the Tracks, by Barbara Stuber
Forge, by Laurie Halse Anderson
Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys
The Trouble with May Amelia, by Jennifer Holm
The Year We Were Famous, by Carole Estby Dagg
Okay for Now, by Gary D. Schmidt
Sylvia & Aki, by Winifred Conkling
The Lost Crown, by Sarah Miller
Queen of Hearts, by Martha Brooks
In Trouble, by Ellen Levine
My Name is Not Easy, by Debby Dahl Edwardson
Inside Out & Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
With a Name Like Love, by Tess Hilmo
Anya’s War, by Andrea Alban
City of Orphans, by Avi

Debut—Needed 12, Recommended 13
Crossing the Tracks, by Barbara Stuber
Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys
Warped, by Maurissa Guibord
Words in the Dust, by Trent Reedy
Sylvia & Aki, by Winifred Conkling
The Mostly True Story of Jack, by Kelly Barnhill
Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book 1, by Colin Meloy with illustrations by Carson Ellis
Frost, by Marianna Baer
Inside Out & Back Again, by Thanhha Lai
The Faerie Ring, by Kiki Hamilton
With a Name Like Love, by Tess Hilmo
The Pull of Gravity, by Gae Polisner
Anya’s War, by Andrea Alban

Editor’s note: These titles can all be found in the alphabetical list on the right.

—Kari Baumbach, children’s literature enthusiast

Written by Avi
Illustrated by Greg Ruth
Published by Atheneum/Richard Jackson, 2011
ISBN 9781416971023

City of Orphans takes place in the Lower East Side of New York City, in the midst of The Great Panic of 1893.  Times were hard as factories closed and jobs were lost.  Among the people struggling to survive were immigrants trying to navigate life in a new country.  This story focuses on one family of Dutch immigrants—one thirteen-year-old boy named Maks Geless in particular, and the people they encounter. The story begins:

“Amazing things happen.
Look at someone on the street and you might never see that person again—ever. Then you bump into a stranger and your whole life changes—forever. See what I’m saying? It’s all ‘bout them words: ‘luck,’ ‘chance,’ ‘coincidence,’ ‘accident,’ ‘quirk,’ ‘miracle,’ plus a lot of words I’m guessing I don’t even know.”

The narrator of this story addresses the reader from time to time while telling the story through three points of view: 

Thirteen-year-old Maks Geless, the oldest child in a family of Dutch immigrants—a newsie, calling out headlines to sell his copies of The World newspaper and earn his eight cents which he contributes to help pay the family’s fifteen dollar per month rent.  One of Maks’s sisters is ill with tuberculosis and another sister, Emma, has been accused of stealing from the Waldorf hotel where she works as a maid.

Willa, whose mother recently died of tuberculosis, saves Maks when he’s cornered by the Plug Uglies street gang in the alley where she sleeps.  She picks rag for ten cents per week and believes her father, who was not a nice man, is dead. 

Seventeen-year-old Bruno, an orphan, is head of the Plug Uglies gang:  “Bruno and his gang have been slamming world newsies, beating ‘em up, stealing their money, burning their papers.”

Despite their own hardships, Maks’s family takes Willa in to their home.  Maks and Willa team up to prove Emma’s innocence with the help of an experienced but very ill detective, while avoiding the wrath of the Plug Uglies.

Ruth’s lovely pencil drawings are scattered throughout the book.  The story is full of specific detail to set you in a time and place.  The writing reflects the sparseness and grittiness of life for kids surviving on the streets during a difficult and complex time in history.  Central to the story is the vulnerability of the poor and how when a community is formed among people, hardships can be overcome.

—Kari Baumbach, children’s literature enthusiast

Written by Andrea Alban Gosline
Published by Feiwel & Friends, 2011
ISBN 9780312370930

As Hitler rages through Europe fourteen-year-old Anya’s family flees Odessa, suspected of being anti-Communists, to the French Quarter of Shanghai—A safe haven for Jewish people. 

The French Quarter of Shanghai holds a fascinating mixture of cultures: French, Chinese, and Russian, along with Jewish superstition and Chinese magic which add rich detail, interest, and humor to the story.  The family’s young Chinese cook warns: “It’s too dangerous to swim during the month of the Hungry Ghost Moon. A ghost is waiting at the bottom of every pool to drown children.” 

Though the danger of Japanese invasion occupies their thoughts, Anya’s family is wealthy enough to be protected from much of the misery in Shanghai, allowing Anya the luxury of normal girl things—riding her new bicycle and a crush on a boy.  The Shanghai poor are everywhere and the family has learned to walk past them, as others do—even past the undesirable baby girls left on the streets to die.  Anya is a feisty protagonist with opinions who doesn’t always do what she’s supposed to do, which oftentimes gets her into trouble, but occasionally is the exact right thing to do. 

When she uncovers a basket in the gutter outside her home that she thinks contains a kitten and finds a discarded baby girl, everything changes.  Anya listens to her inner voice while acknowledging the responsibility she’s uncovered and prays for guidance: “God, I know I should pray to the Jade Emperor since this little girl is Chinese.  Even though you are my Jewish God, could you please talk to the ruler of the Chinese heavens?  Between the two of you, I’m sure you can agree to help this poor baby?  Good Jews don’t throw out baby girls.  Mama and Papa kept me.  The Torah says all children are precious.”  All girls are precious.  We’re all the same.

Even within their safe haven there are prejudices—Anya’s grandmother looks down at Oriental Jews who she says made their fortunes trading Opium.  The family of the boy Anya has a crush on look down on Russian Jews, like Anya, because they are thought to be thieves.  The dialogue is engaging and is laced with cultural details and attitudes. 

Anya’s War is the story of a Russian Jewish girl’s struggle to protect a Chinese baby girl while a larger war rages around them.  It’s the story of how she grows and changes through her efforts and hardships.  It’s a weighty, important story about the value of human life and about prejudice, all balanced by the humor and interest that come from a this fascinating mix of cultures and people.  AND it’s based on the author’s family history.

—Kari Baumbach, children’s literature enthusiast

Written by Gae Polisner
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011
ISBN 9780374371937

This moving and witty coming-of-age story begins as Nick Gardner, who suffers from Febrile seizures that cause hallucinations, exits his house in his Christmas boxer shorts to climb a water tower, thinking it’s a large can of cherry cola.  Nick’s father, who spends his days sleeping on the couch since depression set in after a heart attack and a job loss, sleeps through the entire episode.  Before Nick can reach a height on the water tower that would certainly result in his death if he fell, his friend, the Scooter, convinces him to stop climbing.  Nick does fall but breaks his leg, not his neck.   

The Scooter, one year older than Nick, has “Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome, which speeds up the aging process and is totally incurable and rare.”  The two boys have been friends and neighbors all their lives, though they’ve drifted lately. Scoot is Star Wars obsessed and quotes Yoda, often joking about his disease and teasing his friend: “When nine hundred years you reach, Nick Gardner, look as good, you will not.” 

During the time the boy’s drifted Scooter made friends with Jaycee Amato, a girl in his class with purple streaks in her hair who wears troll doll necklaces.  She’s made a promise to the Scooter she has every intention of keeping.

When Nick meets Jaycee, whose stepfather is a reporter covering Nick’s father’s journey—walking to New York to lose weight—and learns of her friendship with and loyalty to Scoot, the three start spending time together.  Scoot’s condition takes a bad turn, and Jaycee and Nick set out on a journey of their own to fulfill the promise Jaycee made to their dying friend.  It involves the boy’s father and a first edition signed copy of John Steinbeck’s, Of Mice and Men.  The inscription in the rare book reads: “True valor comes in all shapes and sizes—and often from those you’d least expect.” 

The three main characters in this story are quirky, genuine, and completely lovable.  The first person narrative is a voice you want to spend time with and the story moves, surprises, and is difficult to put down.  This is a story about individuality, courage, friendship, first love, and about what happens when you make plans—a theme from Steinbeck’s book.  Stories such as this one are why I love realistic fiction.

—Kari Baumbach, children’s literature enthusiast

Written by Tess Hilmo
Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011
ISBN 9780374384654

In 1957, Ollie Love, daughter of the Reverend Everlasting Love, is the oldest of five girls.  The Reverend Love is a traveling preacher to “humble people,” so the family lives in a 1941 travel trailer, moving every three days.   Ollie yearns to stay in one place:

“Maybe a preacher could make a decent living and buy a fixed-to-the-ground house with a mailbox, telephone, and refrigerator.  Ollie thought it might even be a place where a girl could go to a real school and have an honest-to-goodness teacher, instead of being taught by her mother and a couple of hand-me-down books.”

When the family lands in Binder Arkansas, Ollie meets Jimmy Koppel, who lives alone in a run down shack in Mason’s Holler with a frog ranch of one hundred beloved frogs.  Jimmy’s mother is in jail for murdering her husband, Jimmy’s father.  In two weeks she’ll be transferred to the state prison in Little Rock and Jimmy will be sent to live with an aunt he’s never met in Tennessee. 

The whole town seems to be against Jimmy.  His mother has signed a confession, but he insists she’s innocent.  When Ollie champions his cause, talking her father into staying in Binder long enough to solve the murder of Jimmy’s father and prove his mother’s innocence, terrible things happen—really terrible.

The story takes lots of twists and turns as readers guess who the murderer is and who’s causing trouble for the kids as they search for the truth.

—Kari Baumbach, children’s literature enthusiast

Written by Kiki Hamliton
Published by Tor Teen, 2011
ISBN 9780765327222

This debut novel combines a historic setting—London in 1871, with fantasy, and romance, along with traces of the Cinderella story and Oliver Twist.  Sixteen-year-old Tiki, who was sent to live with her leering uncle after being orphaned, flees the lecherous man and is taken in by a family of unwanted children living together near Charing Cross.  The children pick pockets to survive, and the youngest—Clara, is ill with a menacing cough.

Tiki hitches a ride on the back of a carriage to escape a man she has stolen from, then falls asleep and wakes outside a mansion.  Intent on stealing some food to take home she enters the mansion and stumbles upon a ring: . . .a burnished band of rich gold, capped by an intensely red stone the color of blood. . . Deep within the heart of the stone, flames burned.  The ring belongs to Queen Victoria, which means it could be worth enough money to pay for medical care for Clara and maybe even a better place to live.  When Kiki steals the ring it sets off a chain of events that quickly become more than she can handle. 

The ring. . .holds a truce between British and faerie courts, and keeps war at bay.  But outside the protection of the royals the ring can be taken by the faeries and none of the rules that maintain peace apply.  A ruthless rebel group of faeries sets out after the ring and whoever possesses it. 

Also on Kiki’s heels is mysterious Reiker, another thief who know she’s up to something.  He says he’s protecting her.  But is he?  Or is he out to get the ring, too?

—Kari Baumbach, children’s literature enthusiast

Written by Patrick Ness
Inspired by and idea from Siobhan Dowd
Illustrated by Jim Kay
Published by Candlewick, 2011
ISBN 9780763655594

This very special story is a kind of collaboration between two very fine authors: Siobhan Dowd of Bog Child, The London Eye Mystery, and Solace of the Road; and Patrick Ness of The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men.  In his author’s note Ness writes of Siobhan Dowd: “This would have been her fifth book.  She had the characters, a premise, and a beginning.  What she didn’t have, unfortunately, was time.” Siobhan Dowd died of breast cancer before she could write her story.  Ness also writes that he feels he has been “handed a baton, like a particularly fine writer has given me her story and said, ‘Go.  Run with it.  Make trouble.’  So that’s what I tried to do.”  And Ness did it beautifully, honestly, insightfully, skillfully, and with a whole lot of heart.  All through the book, Jim Kay’s evocative black and white illustrations were made with everything from beetles to breadboards to create interesting marks and textures.

A Monster Calls is Conor’s story, living in the house he’s spent all his life, along with his mother who is dying of cancer.  The story begins: “The monster showed up just after midnight.  As they do.”  Both Conor and the monster are intriguing in their banter: “Already taller than Conor’s window, the monster grew wider as it brought itself together, filling out to a powerful shape, one that looked somehow strong, somehow mighty.  It stared at Conor the whole time, and he could hear the loud, windy breathing from its mouth.  It set its giant hands on either side of his window, lowering its head until its huge eyes filled the frame, holding Conor with its glare. . .’I have come to get you, Conor O’Malley.’”  Conor responds,  “Come and get me then. . .I’ve seen worse.”

The relationship—the back and forth between monster and boy—changes and develops in a rich and believable way as Conor comes closer to facing the thing he fears most, the thing the monster wants—the truth.  The monster tells him three stories which Conor doesn’t understand the significance of, initially.  And the monster tells him that the fourth story will be his to tell.      

What Ness reveals and what he doesn’t reveal make this book hard to put down.  He explores the creative ways a child copes and the frightening moments when he just can’t cope.  He allows Conor his rage and pays homage to a child’s conflicted feelings and the alienation he feels from others and from themselves under the shroud of a dying parent.  And yet Conor is enough of a survivor to summon what he needs, even during this most horrific time in his life.  Conor has summoned the monster.  Richly woven, deeply moving story that I will read again and again, even knowing the tears will come.

—Kari Baumbach, children’s literature enthusiast