Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg perfectly capture what it’s like to travel the world while simultaneously navigating your first grown-up relationship in this lavishly illustrated travel memoir. Casey, a writer, and Steven, an artist, are in love and can’t wait to start experiencing life post-college. “So here we are, adults. We are no longer required to do anything. It’s liberating! It’s…full of pressure. Because now that we can do whatever we want, we’re constantly asking ourselves: Is this what we want to be doing?†So together they cobble together a year long, grant-funded plan to travel from China, through Southeast Asia and end up in Timbuktu, Mali. On their way, they will work on their art and try to decide what direction their adult lives will take. Of course, it isn’t easy. Casey is plagued by intestinal troubles while Steven is plagued by doubts about his chosen career as an artist. In addition, their travel fortitude is sorely tested by China’s interminable winter, Mali’s exhausting heat, and by trying to stay patient with each other in all temperatures. Still, it’s exhilarating when their Chinese students begin to understand and speak English, or when their neighbors in Bamako, Mali accept them as their own even though they can barely understand each other’s language. But they never stop questioning themselves about their motivations even as they immerse themselves in the culture of the country they’re in. “Oh, the constant paradox of trying to “go native.†How much do you want to live locally? How much do you want to be the foreigner who—look!—does such a good job of living locally?†When they finally get to Timbuktu, you will feel like you traveled right along with them and know them as well as any of your friends. I just loved this book–it’s heart, it’s humor, and especially all the funny little nuggets of information that Casey shares along the way—like how to speak Bamanankan, what to keep in your fanny pack, and where to find the best hand-pulled noodles. A just right summer read even if the furthest place you’ll be going this July is camp.
Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
It’s very appropriate that this debut novel was inspired in part by a Sufjan Stevens song, as this story has the same melancholy and bittersweet tone of that indie bard’s music. Cullen Witter is a suspicious, sarcastic seventeen-year-old who works at a gas station, fills his journal with the titles of books he might write (“Book Title #73: You May Feel a Slight Sting”) and hopes to someday leave his hometown of Lily, which “was like Arkansas’ version of a black hole; nothing could escape it.” He’s also suffering from unrequited love for a girl who’s already taken, and a deep-seated annoyance with the fact that all his neighbors have become bird crazy over a woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, that was sighted near the town river. One of the only people Cullen really likes is his younger brother Gabriel, who disappears without a trace one summer day. Once Cullen loses the compass of his brother, the only things that keep him from a quick downward spiral into anger and depression are his best friend Lucas’s bad jokes and a brief affair with a married woman. He tries to have hope that Gabriel will be returned safely while resenting the fact that everyone seems to be more interested in finding the woodpecker than in finding his beloved brother. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, an eighteen-year-old missionary named Benton Sage decides that spreading the Good Word is no longer for him, and returns home to his father’s great disappointment and rage. Benton trades his Bible for a textbook and enrolls in college, but his father still can’t forgive him. Unable to deal with his father’s disappointment, Benton commits a shocking act, setting into motion a series of events that eventually lead to Gabriel’s disappearance and Cullen’s unexpected redemption. This strange, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink story shouldn’t necessarily work, but it does, bringing to mind aspects from one of my favorite books and one of my favorite movies. The connections between Cullen and Benton, which seem tenuous at first, end up coalescing in a way that illustrates just how much of our lives are dependent on chance and the kindness of strangers. Weird, wonderful and rare, this unusual book is just as unique as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker mentioned in its pages.
Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
By day, Karou is a striking seventeen-year-old art student in Prague, sporting blue hair, tattooed palms, and a killer sketchbook that even Picasso would be jealous of. By night, she is an errand girl for a lonely, gentle monster named Brimstone who lives behind a hidden alley door and collects teeth for reasons known only to himself. All Karou can remember is growing up at Brimstone’s hairy knee and helping him collect the human and animal molars and incisors that he strings together into endless ropes of morbid charms. Where does she come from? Who was her mother? Is Brimstone her father? And what in the world does he do with all those teeth? No matter how much she asks, the taciturn monster refuses to reveal anything about her origins. Resigned, Karou keeps her shadow life secret from her school friends as she continues to go around the world, using Brimstone’s disguised portals to collect his grisly ornaments. Until the day she notices the scorched hand prints appearing on all of Brimstone’s supposedly secret doors. Until the day she is attacked by a furious seraph who nearly kills her. Until the day she discovers she is part of a centuries-old otherworldly war. Until the day…she falls in love. This lush, brilliantly constructed fantasy by master storyteller Laini Taylor is gradually and skillfully told backward, until readers would practically give their own teeth to discover Karou’s true identity. And yet, Taylor’s luxurious use of language makes you want to linger over every sentence. Like this description of Karou: “Creamy and leggy, with long azure hair and the eyes of a silent-movie star, she moved like a poem and smiled like a sphinx.†Or this account of the city of Prague: “Baroque cupolas were the soft green of antique copper, and Gothic steeples stood ready to impale fallen angels. The wind carried the memory of magic, revolution, violins, and the cobbled lanes meandered like creeks.†There is great satisfaction in finding out Karou’s past the same moment she does, and equally great frustration when Taylor leaves K’s future in question, obviously to be addressed in a sequel. Short, action-packed chapters that raise questions about the tenacity of hope, the futileness of war, and the enduring power of love make this book both a pleasure to read and a heart-pounding page turner at the same time.
Excalibur: The Legend of King Arthur by Tony Lee & Sam Hart
In this lush, graphic novel retelling of the legend of King Arthur, all the familiar characters show up in glowing color on each paneled page: the boy king of myth, his advisor and mentor, Merlin, the loyal Lancelot and beautiful Guinevere, and of course, Arthur’s evil half sister Morgana and her son Mordred, the warrior fated to bring about the fall of Camelot. Who hasn’t seen or read some version of this classic tale, whether it was Disney’s innocent Sword in the Stone or Marion Zimmerman Bradley’s much sexier and way more feminist Mists of Avalon? What makes this adaptation stand out to me is the epic storytelling that feels almost Biblical in nature. As a big fan of the Arthurian legend, I feel like I’ve seen and heard it all when it comes to Excalibur, but Lee and Hart (the team that also created this classic graphic read) have rendered the myth to nearly Christ-like proportions. Arthur, who has pre-knowledge of his own death from the very first page (hmmmm), gathers a group of loyal men around him in a literal circle (knights of the round table or disciples?) and is eventually betrayed by those closest to him seems very Jesus Christ Superstar in these pages. He even rises again to rule in the fairy land of Avalon (i.e. heaven) and is finally reunited with his true love, Vivianne, aka The Lady of the Lake (or maybe Mary Magdalene?) Gorgeous from start to finish, this is one GN that you may want to own so you can page through it again and again. For a truly Holy Grail experience, pair it with Philip Reeve’s gritty Here Lies Arthur.
The Sixth Gun by Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt
In a violent, post-Civil War Old West, natty but naughty gunslinger Drake Sinclair is on the hunt for a mythical weapon that shows the future to it’s owner. It’s part of a scary set of six revolvers that some say were forged by the Devil himself, and belonged to a bloodthirsty Confederate general named Hume, now long in his grave. Each gun never has to be reloaded and each one has a sinister power: to strike with the force of a cannon, throw flames, spread disease, raise the dead and provide eternal youth. Sinclair knows that in order to stop Hume’s still living cronies, he will need to overpower them with Hume’s personal weapon, the sixth gun. But when he finally discovers the whereabouts of the prophecy gun, complications arise in the form of a beautiful young farm girl and the frightening fact that Hume is not exactly dead (not quite alive, either) and he will recover his property even if it means releasing hell on Earth to do it. Hume also knows a nasty little secret about Sinclair that could be the gunslinger’s undoing if it comes to light, so it’s even more important that Sinclair gets to the gun before Hume does. It’s a race to the bloody finish, and I was absolutely riveted to each and every full color page of this inventive GN. I’m particularly fond of westerns, and I’m really liking this trend of tucking a little fantasy and horror in between the saloons and gunfights (see also: Cowboys and Aliens and American Vampire). The Sixth Gun has all that and more, including a masterful sequence of panels that pits a zombie army against an army of golems. Brilliant! Brian Hurtt’s full color art is ripe and rich, with blood, bile and steel bursting off every page. A little gory and a lot exciting, The Sixth Gun serves up some hardcore graphic novel gun play.
Death Cloud by Andrew Lane
There have been so many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes lately, you knew it was just a matter of time before we met up with Sherlock Holmes, age fourteen. The year is 1868, and Young Master Holmes has just been informed that due to his army officer father’s deployment to India, his mother’s illness and his big brother Mylock’s busy lawyer schedule, he won’t be going home for the summer holidays from school. Instead, he’ll be staying with a little known aunt and uncle in the English countryside, far from civilization and anything remotely interesting. Fortunately, his boredom is quickly eased by his new acquaintances: brash and brilliant American Amyus Crowe, who will be his summer tutor, Amyus’s beautiful red-headed daughter Virginia, and scrappy river rat Matty Arnett, an orphan boy the same age as Sherlock who lives off his wits and what he can steal. The four of them form an unlikely detective team when a body is discovered on Sherlock’s uncles’s property. The corpse is lumpy and swollen, and rumors of plague soon blanket the countryside, throwing everyone into a state of panic. But by using the powers of deduction that Amyus Crowe is teaching him, Sherlock soon realizes that while the stranger’s death was caused by something carried on the air, it wasn’t germs or disease. Another body was discovered in the nearby village in the same condition, and Matty claimed to have seen a mysterious black cloud hovering over the house where it was found. Could the two deaths be linked? If so, what was the black cloud and how did it cause two different people to drop dead miles from each other? As he digs deeper into the mystery, Sherlock discovers from a series of mostly innocuous clues a diabolical plan created by an evil genius mastermind to strike at the very foundations of the British Empire. Sherlock’s first foray into investigation becomes a terrifying adventure that threatens to end his life on more than one occasion. But he must prevail, or his entire country could be lost. Great period detail, loads of interesting scientific facts from the time, and the methodical, logical plotting that we expect from a traditional Sherlock Holmes novel are all here, plus some pretty heart-pounding fight scenes. My only issue is the odd cover–since when does Sherlock Holmes have Justin Bieber hair? A fun read nevertheless, and who knows? Maybe they’ll tap the Biebs to play Sherlock in the teen movie version. Stay tuned for the sequel, Rebel Fire, coming out November 2011.
Where She Went by Gayle Forman
It’s been three years since the car accident that changed Mia and Adam’s lives forever. Mia lost her entire family and nearly died herself. Adam stayed devotedly by her side during her recovery. As soon as she was well enough, Mia went to Julliard in New York while Adam stayed in Oregon to finish school and play with his band, Shooting Star. They were committed to making their long distance relationship work. Then, without warning, Mia cut off all communication with Adam. Stunned, Adam sank into a deep depression that resulted in the creation of his band’s breakout record. Now Adam is a reluctant rock star and Mia is an accomplished professional cellist. But Adam still thinks about Mia everyday, and by chance, attends one of her concerts in New York on his way to a tour in London. What happens next brings to mind one of my favorite movies, Before Sunrise, as Adam and Mia finally meet again and spend a memorable night walking around New York, catching up and reminiscing. But does Adam have the courage to confront Mia about why she left him? And is he strong enough to handle her answer? “I’ve blamed her for all of this, for leaving, for ruining me. And maybe that was the seed of it, but from that one little seed grew this tumor of a flowering plant. And I’m the one who nurtures it. I water it. I care for it. I nibble from its poison berries. I let it wrap around my neck, choking the air right out of me. I’ve done that. All by myself. All to myself.” This incredibly satisfying sequel to If I Stay is written from Adam’s POV, and is just as full of longing, heartbreak and gorgeous writing as its predecessor. I flew through it in a single day, dying to see what Mia’s mysterious reasons were and hoping against hope that the two star crossed lovers would get back together. Do they? Well, you better race to your nearest library or bookstore, or grab your Kindle, iPad, or Nook to find out! (And dudes, please don’t mind the gorgeous girl on the cover, this book IS written from a guy’s POV, even if it doesn’t look like it.)
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys
“They took me in my nightgown.†So begins teenage Lina’s horrific journey from her beloved home in Lithuania to the icy land of Siberia, when she and her family are deported by the Soviets who have annexed her country and are systematically ridding it of anyone they consider “anti-Soviet.†Lina, her mother and brother are separated from her father and packed into cattle cars that travel ever farther North to hardscrabble beet and potato farms where deportees are literally worked to death. There are many times along the way that Lina wants to give up. Like when a fellow traveler is shot in the head and dumped from the train for mourning her lost child. Or when her younger brother gets scurvy from months of starvation rations. But through it all, Lina’s beautiful mother Elena keeps the family’s spirits up by constantly telling them that not only will their imprisonment soon end, but they will find their father and all live together again in their own house. Lina just tries to make it through each long hungry day, only made bearable by her mother’s hope, her ability to lose herself by drawing, and her crush on Andrius, a fellow prisoner. Then, another blow. Lina and her family are being sent North again, this time to Siberia where the sun doesn’t rise for six months and the cold can kill. Lina’s despair is complete. How can she keep believing in her mother’s words when she is surrounded on all sides by darkness and death? In Between Shades of Gray, author Ruta Sepetys, herself the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee, brings to light a little known period of history that many Americans are unfamiliar with: the systematic deportation of doctors, lawyers, teachers, artists, business owners, or anyone considered “counter-revolutionary†from the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia during dictator Josef Stalin’s reign (1922-1953). In her author’s note at the back of the novel, Sepetys states, “It is estimated that Josef Stalin killed more than twenty million people during his reign of terror. The Baltic States…lost more than a third of their population during the Soviet genocide…to this day, many Russians deny they ever deported a single person.†Sepetys’ unflinching portrayal of the work camps and the bravery of the people who survived them will tug at your heart and hurt your head. And I’m not the only one both devastated and uplifted by Lina’s story. Check out these other reviews of Between Shades of Gray, then head to your nearest library, bookstore or ereader to experience the heartbreak for yourself. 4 weepies.
Chime by Franny Billingsley
Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
Lord of the Flies meets 90210 (the Donna/Kelly classic version) in this hilarious send-up of a beauty pageant gone very wrong. The state contestants of Miss Teen Dream have just crash landed on a deserted island. Their chaperons and camera crew are dead, and most of their lip-gloss and flat irons have floated out to sea. At first they keep practicing their routines under the eagle eyes of Miss Texas, a take-no-prisoners blond glamazon, confident that they will be rescued before their suntan lotion runs out. But as the days go by and no plane or ship appears, the girls begin to form a strong matriarchal tribe, capable of defending itself with stiletto catapults, makeup splat guns and melted jewelry arrowheads. They start to ask each other questions like, why do girls always seem to say “sorry†whenever they happen to express a strong emotion or feeling? And what does “act like a lady†mean anyway? They begin to think, “Maybe girls need an island to find themselves. Maybe they need a place where no one’s watching them so they can be who they really are.†But even as they start to understand themselves better emotionally, the beauty queens are in real physical danger. What they don’t know is that they have actually settled on a top-secret government stronghold that is about to become the target of an illegal weapons trade. If the girls aren’t careful, they will become nothing more than pretty collateral damage. But then the reality television pirates show up, and what happens next could only be cooked up by the mad-cap brain of fiendishly clever award-winning author Libba Bray. While the booby/bullets (those are actually cheekily placed lipstick tubes) cover may lead you to believe that this is a fluffy beach read, think again, my teenage friends. This book may look like a cheesy reality-show rom-com on the surface, but under all the hairspray and beaded gowns is a deep read about what it means to be a girl AND a dude in today’s label-crazy society. A fun romp with food for thought–don’t you dare miss it!
Chew, Vol. 1: Taster’s Choice by John Layman & Rob Guillory
Special Agent Tony Chu is a cibopath: every time he eats something, he has a psychic vision of where that food came from, whether an orchard or slaughterhouse. As a result, he doesn’t tend to eat very much (except for beets, which as a vegetable seem to have zero background personality). His unfortunate mission? To chase down illegal chicken-traffickers for the Special Crimes Division of the US Food and Drug Administration (poultry have been outlawed since the bird flu that killed 23 million Americans three years ago) and, when necessary, chomp on the living or dead parts of criminals in order to find out their dirty little secrets. Along the way, he manages to lose his partner to a flying meat cleaver, nearly gets his brother killed, and draws the attention of some very nasty crime bosses who put a price on his head. All while being very, very hungry and never able to eat anything that doesn’t give him nightmares. You think your job is hard? Just try being Tony Chu for one day. This wholly original GN earned a rightful place on ALA’s 2011 Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, and a permanent place in my heart for its black humor, snappy dialogue and utterly awesome grossness. This one has everything from projectile vomiting to hamburgers with human finger condiments. It’s not an overstatement to say you’ll laugh ’til you puke–or at least throw up a little in the back of your mouth.
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
When world champion alligator wrestler Hilola Bigtree dies of ovarian cancer, it is the beginning of the end for the renowned family-run Swamplandia! Florida Everglades theme park. Her husband, the jocular Chief Bigtree, heads to the mainland in search of investors to help pay the park’s staggering debt, her eldest son Kiwi goes to work for the competition, the ominously titled “World of Darkness,” while middle daughter Osceolo decides to elope with her boyfriend Louis Thanksgiving (who just happens to be a dredgeman that died sometime in the 1930’s). This leaves thirteen-year-old Ava on her own in the swamp, waiting for her family to come back and save the only home she’s ever known. Worried that her sister has followed a ghost to her doom, Ava takes the dubious advice of an itinerant bird wrangler who claims to be able to guide Ava to the underworld, where not only could she find and save her sister, but maybe, just maybe, she could see her beloved mother one more time. Ava is so desperate to see her kin that she agrees to go on the journey, even though a still, small voice keeps insisting that what she seeks does not exist. And when the journey turns dark, Ava is forced to discard the magical thinking of girlhood and accept the harsh reality and deep unfairness of the adult world. This is not a book to be rushed through. It may not even be a book for many of you, this slow boiling, twilight character study of a beleaguered family of forlorn alligator wrestlers. But for some of you, those of you not afraid to walk in Ava or Kiwi’s dirty bare feet for awhile, this story is a shining metaphor for the treacherous swamp of adolescence, which is often studded with pits of quicksand and camouflaged alligators, just waiting to swallow you up or drag you down. And only those with the spirit of a wrestler and a heart as big a tree will make it through to the other side. If you’re in the mood for something other than the usual teen angst fare that happens to be gorgeously written to boot, take trip down south to visit Swamplandia! . I hear it’s pretty pleasant there this time of year…
Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel
When world-weary ghost wrangler Frank Gallows accidentally zaps terminally ill Garth Hale into the in-between dimension of Ghostopolis, the boy finds himself with a new lease on life—or death, as the case may be. As a human being in this spirit world, Garth discovers he has incredible powers that are capable of overthrowing Master Vaugner, the evil Goth dictator of Ghostopolis. But Garth just wants to get back home. Aided by Skinny, his skeletal Nightmare and the friendly ghost of his dead grandfather, Garth almost gets his wish when Frank Gallows and the beautiful ghost mechanic Claire Voyant show up with a machine that can zoom him back into the land of the living. But Vaugner isn’t letting Garth leave until he finds out the secret of his strength and takes it for himself. Soon Garth, Frank and Claire find themselves caught up in the midst of an epic battle for the heart and soul of Ghostopolis. Folks, this is one of those “kitchen sink†books (as in, author and illustrator Doug TenNapel threw in everything but the kitchen sink) that shouldn’t work but it does. There’s action, giant lightning bugs, adventure, a mysterious Tuskegee Airman named Joe, romance, the ghost of Benedict Arnold, side-splitting humor, and a farting werewolf. Somehow, it all comes together and makes perfect sense. I enjoyed every manic moment of it. Don’t believe me? Check it out for yourself—it should be widely available at your local library as it was one of ALA’s 2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens. You’ll also want to be in the know before the planned feature film hits theaters!
The Sweet Life of Stella Madison by Lara M. Zeises
Let’s be very clear–almost eighteen-year-old Stella Madison is NOT a foodie. She prefers Cheez Whiz to aged cheddar and her pastry fried, not puffed, thank you very much. But it’s hard to maintain her junk food standards when she is the offspring of two hardcore gourmands. Her mother is a restaurant owner and her father is a famous French chef, but despite all their best efforts, Stella’s palate stubbornly remains stuck on chicken fingers. “I don’t know why my parents can’t accept the fact that I’m not and never will be a foodie. It doesn’t make me any less their daughter just because I prefer chicken nuggets to squab (which is really just a fancy name for pigeon, by the way).†All that changes when Stella is offered a restaurant review column at the local paper. It pays too well to turn down, but Stella doesn’t know a fig from a fish stick. Good thing her mom’s hunky new cooking intern Jeremy has offered to help her figure it all out. There’s just one little problem, and his name is Max. He’s Stella’s boyfriend, which Stella keeps forgetting every time she gets an eyeful of Jeremy. Soon she’s not sure who she wants more: the dependable boyfriend who already goes so nicely with her beige palate, or the spicy new intern who threatens to turn her taste buds upside down. One thing’s for sure—if this Stella doesn’t get her groove back fast, someone’s going to get hurt. And it just might be her. This fast, flirty romance is full of fun facts about food and restaurant culture for all you Top Chef and Next Food Network Star fans (of which I am one!) while also honestly depicting the difficulty of making the right choices when it comes to relationships. I downed the whole thing in one delicious read, and you will too. For more romantic foodie fun, try Flavor Of The Week
Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King
Vera Dietz would just like everyone to leave her alone. She’s spent most of her life keeping to herself so that no one will ever find out her most terrible secret, the one only her best friend Charlie knows: that her mom left when she was twelve and never came back—and that she supported herself as a stripper when Vera was a baby. She’s learned that playing it safe and turning off your feelings like her formerly alcoholic dad means you never get hurt. But now that Charlie has died, Vera discovers that she can’t hide anymore. Where ever she goes, Charlie’s there. He keeps showing up—at her pizza delivery job, in her car’s glove box, in the woods behind her house. Charlie has secrets too. Charlie needs to tell Vera something important about the night he died, and apologize for how he left things. But Vera doesn’t want to hear. So she stays out all night drinking vodka coolers. She begins making out with a cute college drop-out who’s way too old for her. But nothing drives Charlie’s ghost away. Soon she has no choice but to hear Charlie’s story and finally acknowledge his part in her life–and her part in his death. Author A.S. King uses dark humor to explore themes of alienation, intervention and socio-economic class in a whip-smart story that doesn’t tread over the same old “problem novel” ground. Although the ending wrapped up a bit too neatly for me and I wasn’t a huge fan of the talking pagoda (hard to explain, you’ll just have to read it) Vera (who I picture looking like April from Parks and Recreation) and Charlie’s characters were perfectly executed, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know them. And if that’s not enough for you, I think this book trailer gets the mocking, deadpan tone of the book just right. (John Green fans, this is a good in-betweener while you wait for next Alaska.)
