Reading Rants! Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists!

I included this title because I thought about this book for days after reading it and I think the plot is completely different from almost anything that I’ve ever read. Tora is a thirteen year old girl from a close-knit family in 19th century Norway who is struck down by leprosy and forced to move into a leper colony. While there, she meets Mistress Dybendal, a mysterious rich woman who makes life hell for everyone else but learns to love Tora and teaches her how to read. The irony here is that as Tora weakens and her body gets sicker, her mind travels by books to places far beyond the walls of the hospital and even the little life that she knew before. Just a beatiful book, and even though it’s sad (leprosy is terminal, you know) the overall feeling of the story is hopeful and forgiving. I hope I don’t sound melodramatic when I say it changed me a little. Maybe you’ll come away changed a little too.

Stanley Yelnats (yes, his last name is his first name spelled backwards) is incarcerated at a juvenile detention center called Camp Green Lake on false charges of robbery–he is accused of stealing the sneakers of a famous athlete. Never mind that the sneakers fell out of the sky and into his innocent arms–right or wrong, Stanley is in deep. Like five feet deep. At Camp Green Lake (where there is no lake) all the prisoners have to dig a big hole each day–the warden says it will make them better boys. But once Stanley finds out that the warden is really looking for something, and the something has something to do with the famous outlaw Kissing Kate Barlow and Stanley’s “no good dirty rotten pig stealing great great grandfather”, well, Stanley starts to question whether he the master or slave of his family’s bad-luck fate. The plot is WAY too complicated and twisted to go into in this short space, but let me assure you, this book is totally cool and quirky an every little thing falls neatly into place at the end, like a huge mental jigsaw puzzle. This book also won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, and well deserved! So, go out! Read this book! Report back to me!

Last, but not least, I must put in a plug for my old favorite, the girl who lives on the coast with the most, Weetzie Bat. If you’re at all familiar with my site, you’ll find that Block’s books pop up on at least three of my lists. I won’t go on and on here. Check out my reviews of Weetzie Bat on the Best Riot Grrls Reads list, and if you like what you see there, look for Baby Be-Bop on the Closet Club list and Cherokee Bat and the Goat Guys on the Deadheads and Mosh Pits list. I love Francesca Lia Block. I love Weetzie. And if you read Weetzie Bat, you’ll love her too.