Middle Grade That Makes You Think: WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead

When I told  my critique partner, Kate Karyus Quinn, that I was rewriting my YA urban fantasy as middle grade, she recommended When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead.  She asked me if I'd read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle because it would help to understand When You Reach Me.

Had I read A Wrinkle in Time?  Only about five or six times. It's one of my all time favorite books.  It's the book that made me want to be a writer.  So with that caveat, my expectations were set pretty high for When You Reach Me and it did not disappoint.

A Wrinkle in Time is Miranda's favorite book too and she carries it with her everywhere she goes through New York City in 1979.  Miranda is a latch-key kid of a single mom who works hard and is competing to strike it rich on the $20,000 Pyramid, a popular 1970's game show.

The book starts off slowly, but Miranda's authentic voice drew me in immediately.  When You Reach Me reads like a quiet mystery, but when Miranda receives a note that could have only come from the future, the science fiction elements to the story unfold.

I love time travel, I love intelligent twelve-year-old girl protagonists, and I love smart books that give you all the little pieces to a large puzzle that fit so neatly yet surprisingly together in the end.  Stead has created a masterpeice of a smart but simple story.  Miranda's voice and her experience feel so real and honest that the speculative aspects of the story feel real as well.  This book made me think hard about paradoxes and the theories behind time travel without it ever feeling like a science fiction book.

If you liked A Wrinkle in Time or any time travel story, or are thinking of writing middle grade, I couldn't reccomend this book more.

Violet and Sunny Baudelaire kick ass and take names in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events

I'm not gonna lie.  I was totally inspired to write this post by this recent interview with Daniel Handler by Le R. I've been a long time fan of these horrible books by a mysterious man in good looking hats.  It was only a matter of time before I subjected you to the horrors that are the lives of Violet and Sunny, the heroines who comprise two-thirds of the Baudelaire orphans.

I'm not going to even attempt to summarize all thirteen books in this dreadul series, and really, what would be the point?  Half of what makes these books so amazing is the idiosyncratic voice of Lemony Snicket.  Narrator, Author, character, detective, and heart-broken lover, Mr. Snicket tells a story the way no one else can.  Sure, you'll find A Series of Unfortunate Events in the children's section of the bookstore, but Mr. Snicket's humor is meant for a mature mind.  At times, I was apalled with myself for how much I laughed while reading such a tragic story.

Violet, Klaus, and Sunny are at the beach one day when an incompetent Mr. Poe arrives to tell them that their home has burned down, killing their parents inside.  The Baudelaire orphans then move in with Count Olaf who does horrible things to them, like make them cook dinner, lock them in cages, and attempt to marry Violet.  For thirteen books these siblings are plagued by incompetent caregivers, evil kidnappers, grammar enthusiasts, circus performers, and several unfortunate events.

The Baudelaire's escape danger and survive tragedy only by their own cunning.  Violet ties her hair up in a ribbon and invents things. Sunny has incredibly strong teeth for biting and eventually learns to cook.

With each villain thwarted, and each unpleasant circumstance escaped, the Baudelaire's grow.  Violet goes from a timid girl to a strong young woman who experiences her first kiss along the side of a treacherous mountain on her way to the hidden headquarters for a secret organization.  Sunny grows from a non-verbal baby with the tendency to bite, into a little girl with culinary aspirations.

I love the secrecy and clues in these books.  I also love how--true to life--the kids are smarter than the adults.  No one is there to save these kids but themselves.  Despite all the horrible things that happen to them and all the opportunities they have to go to the dark side, these kids see the potential for wrong-doing within themselves and decide to keep doing what is right, no matter how difficult it is.

If you have yet to experience A Series of Unfortunate Events, I highly reccomend you put The Bad Beginning on the top of your to-read list.

I'll be waiting for Daniel Handler's pirate book.     

Mibs shows us you don't have to kick ass to be a heroine, in SAVVY by Ingrid Law

I love middle grade novels.  I love 'em so much I wrote one.  I especially love them when I don't feel like I have to turn off a part of my brain to enjoy them.

Savvy is a great middle grade novel.  Those writers out there trying to figure out what the heck agents and editors mean when they say they want "voice" definitely need to pick up a copy of Savvy, by Ingrid Law.  Mibs narrates her story in her charming midwestern-small-town-magical-thirteen-year-old voice.  Her quirky turns-of-phrase and unique sayings are easy to fall in love with.

Mibs explains her and her family's special abilities using a bizarre vernacular that somehow sounds natural.  I didn't skip a beat when she explained that Rocket hadn't learned to "scumble his savvy."

You see, Junkies, everyone in Mibs's family has a savvy, or a special gift.  Her oldest brother, Rocket, has a way with electricity, her brother Fish manipulates the weather, and her grandpa causes land to shift and grow.  Their savvies are revealed to them on their thirteenth birthday.  Fish caused a hurricane the day he turned 13, so the family had to move to Nebransas-Kansaka, to get away from the water.

Tragedy strikes Mibs's family two days before her thirteenth birthday.  She's convinced her savvy will be able to save her family and she sets off on an adventure where she discovers not only her savvy, but even more important things about herself.

Savvy is really a kind of coming of age story. It tackles the tough moments of transitioning from a child to a teenager in a way that adults can relate to.  There's a little romance, a little comedy, a little tragedy, and a whole lot of adventure.

Even though there were no real bad guys to fight, no monsters to kill, and no evil to thwart, this was still an exciting story that kept me turning pages.  Mibs never had to risk her life to show us she's incredibly brave.  She never had to hurt someone to show us she's strong.

After finishing the book, it took me a while to realize what was so different about it.  I'm so used to associating magic powers and fantasy with good v.s. evil battles.  This book showed me that there doesn't need to be a bad guy, that life itself is a big enough obstacle to require a heroine with super powers.

I'm looking forward to Law's sequel, Scumble.

Don't worry Junkies, I'm not going soft on you.  My next post will hopefully be about Melissa Marr's Radiant Shadows which is sure to have plenty of ass-kicking heroines and bloody battles.

Gutsy CORALINE by Neil Gaiman

I was fortunate enough to grow up with a great mom who was also an amateur actress. This resulted in great bed-time stories and dramatic readings of picture books. My mom's talent, however, also led to some terrifying moments.

There were a few times (I don't know if I was annoying the crap out of her or what) when I was hanging out with Mom, maybe even curled up in her lap, and she'd snap.

She'd look down her nose at me with disgust and in a weird British accent say, "Mother? I am not your Mother! I have no idea what your talking about! I don't know who you are, little girl."

She'd keep it up for a few minutes, sometimes even pushing me away as I clawed at her, whimpering, "Mom! Stop!" Of course my pleading only egged her on more. This terrified me.

She'd then laugh and say she was just kidding, but I never thought it was funny.

Coraline, by Neil Gaiman, brought the horror of these moments all back to me.

Do not be fooled, Junkies. Sure the book is thin, there are illustrations, the font is huge. Looks like a quaint little children's book. Looks can be deceiving.

This book may be the most frightening thing I've ever read (granted, I do not enjoy being scared and stay away from horror, or anything with a spooky cover).

I finished Coraline in one night because I never found a safe place to put it down.

Coraline is an only child who moves with her parents into a new house and is feeling a little neglected. She finds a door in the house with a wall of bricks behind it.

One day she opens the door and instead of bricks, she finds a passage way to another house that is almost identical to her house, and a mom and dad that are almost identical to her mom and dad.

SPOILER ALERT!

The other mother has buttons for eyes and promises Coraline to love her, pay attention to her, and give her whatever she wants. The only thing is, the other mother needs to sew buttons onto Coraline's eyes.

Corlaine navigates her way through the eerie and grotesque alternate universe to save her parents and battle the other mother.

OK, forget the talking dogs, the killer rats, the sticky membrane filled with the neighbors. Just the whole idea of the other mother makes me think that Neil Gaiman is either a warped creative genius, hates children, or both.

It's been ten years since I lived with my mom, but the idea of the other mother trying to make me her daughter in her goth-version-of-Alice-in-Wonderland-only-way-more-f-ed-up world sent shivers down my spine.

But this is what makes Coraline such a great heroine. She's terrified, the reader is terrified, but Coraline faces her fear and fights to save her parents. Coraline learns that true bravery isn't lack of fear, but being scared and doing what's right despite that fear.

Gaiman's writing is clean, simple, and elegant. He doesn't beat around the bush, he just focuses on the story and the wacked-out world created by the other mother. Each sentence packs a punch in this story told by a smart, brave, no nonsense narrator, Coraline.

I wish I was as courageous as Coraline. If I opened a door in my living room and was faced with the other mother, I'd probably curl up in a ball and cry.

Conflicted Nya in The Shifter by Janice Hardy

OK Junkies, last week we looked at some oldies-but-goodies, but this week I'm going to rant about a new drug on the street. In my pathetic attempt to keep my finger on the pulse of the YA book market, I heard about this book a while ago and have been anticipating it for a couple months.

The Healing Wars: Book One, The Shifter by Janice Hardy came out few weeks ago. I gobbled it up and will now regurgitate for you, my beloved Junkies.

Nya is an orphan in a war-torn land. She steals and works odd jobs to feed herself, while her younger sister, Tali is an apprentice in The League, learning to be a healer. Now, I love YA urban-fantasy, but I'm usually wary of any book that begins with a map of a non-existent place and has fantastical names for races of fantastical creatures.

Hardy, however, introduces her imagined world with a finesse that never makes me turn back to look at the damn map. In the beginning, Nya is chased by a cute soldier for stealing eggs. The first chapter grabbed my attention and left me hankering for more. Without an info-dump, the reader figures out that Nya is Geveg in a land conquered and now ruled by Baseeri.

Nya's parents were wealthy and powerful, but were killed in the war that left Gevegs as second-class citizens and Nya all-but homeless. Nya's grandmother and mother were healers. They drew pain out of the sick and injured and transferred it into this magical metal known as pynvium. Tali, Nya's younger sister, also has the ability to heal and is learning the subtleties of her ability in an institution known as The League.

Nya also has strong powers. Nya can draw pain out of those suffering, but cannot transfer it into pynvium. Instead, she can do something no other healer can, she shifts the pain into others.

Before she died, Nya's mother made Nya promise to never use her ability, and Nya kept her promise, until now. Nya's frightened of her own power and terrified of hurting people, but when her sister's life is in danger, she must make terrible choices.

Now, my dear junkies, I do not intend, nor will I attempt, for this blog to serve as an analytic review of any book. It's more of a place to rant about the novels that make me bliss out. With that said, there are a few things about The Shifter that I have to get off my chest.






I think, but I'm not sure, that this book is marketed as middle-grade, instead of young adult. If not, I advise you think of it as such, anyway. To me, there's a fundamental problem with middle-grade novels written in first-person that have an adolescent protagonist.




(Well ok, let's back up a second. Actually, the problem is that I'm an intelligent adult reading a book meant for ten-year-olds, but just hear me out.)

The problem is this: If the book is written in a sophisticated way that makes my brain happy, then part of me is always kind of thinking "Wait! Thirteen-year-olds don't think like this. This narrator is too insightful, empathetic, and logical to be thirteen!"

Or, if the author does a great job of capturing the mindset of an adolescent, then I'm stuck inside the head of a damn thirteen-year-old for 200 pages!

Hardy suffers a little bit from the latter problem. Nya is a very realistic adolescent. But sometimes her thought process and the way she draws conclusions is pretty illogical and hard to follow (again, realistic).

The premise/theme of The Shifter is that Nya is essentially a weapon. She must choose who to hurt and who to save, and she battles herself to decide whether or not to hurt one innocent person in order to save a group. I get that, hard choices, heavy stuff. But I think Nya struggles with this a little too much, and there's a whole lot of justification going on from other characters. There was a little too much, yes she made this tough decision and she hurt someone who didn't deserve it, but she's still a really good person, let's take a minute and explain why.

I like my heroines to be imperfect. And come on Janice, didn't you get a three book deal? Let Nya be racked with guilt for the next two books. Everything got tied up into too neat of a package for me at the end.

But then again, I'm 20 years older than the target audience. Maybe fifth-graders need the explanation of why it's OK that their heroine hurts strangers.

With all that said, I'm still totally excited for the next installment of The Healing Wars. Justified, or not, Nya is a total bad-ass. By the end of The Shifter, Nya and the reader discover what she's capable of, and she's a force to be reckoned with.

OK Junkies, what do you think? Should I be less picky as an adult reading kids' books? Should I just grow up and read books for people my own age?

But I'm addicted! I need my heroines!

The Brave Brat: Lyra in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy

Ok, junkies, here's the deal, some people got their panties in a wad a few years back when a mediocre movie was made out of The Golden Compass and some churchy people were protesting/boycotting the film because of Pullman's anti-christian message.

I really don't want to spend a lot of time on this, and I know plenty of eighth graders who love the books and are oblivious to Pullman's critiques of organized religion, but I just want say two things.

1) I think that it's important to engage with, not boycott, media that presents a viewpoint different from our own. That's how we learn and grow. (Except for Fox News, there's no way I'm watching that crap.)

Also, I think it's pretty ridiculous when parents let their children watch R rated movies full of violent murders, but then don't let their kids read Harry Potter because it has witchcraft, or read The Golden Compass because it makes churches look bad.

2) John Milton wrote a great epic poem, Paradise Lost. Philip Pullman wrote His Dark Materials as a reaction/critique/inversion to that poem. It would be great if we could read and talk about these things as literature without the hoopla.

Kay, one more disclosure, then junkies, I'm hankerin' for my heroine, so we gotta get down to business.

FTC: (In case anyone besides my mom ever reads this) I get almost all the books that I discuss here for free. From my dad. Hope I don't get a fine.

Let's talk Lyra. His Dark Materials trilogy is comprised of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman.

Pullman cleverly never divulges Lyra's age, but in the beginning of The Golden Compass she is a child and by the end of The Amber Spyglass she is closer to a young woman.

Lyra lives in a world parallel to our own, where people's souls are kept in their animal companions, daemons. Daemons change their shape at will when their humans are children, but a sign of sexual maturity is a daemon settling into one animal form. Pullman uses Daemons as the ultimate characterization tool. The type of animal of each daemon reveals the personality of its associated human and daemons exhibit fierce emotions, which are hidden by the faces of their human counterparts.

Lyra is no girly girl. She fights with the neighborhood boys and skips along the roof of the college she lives in. Like any good YA protagonist, she has no parents. Lyra is raised by a handful academicians.

The thing is, I don't really like Lyra. She's bossy, pretentious, and just, I don't know, unfriendly. Now don't get me wrong. Just because I don't want her to be my BFF, and I'm not secretly wishing I was her while I'm reading, like with some heroines, that doesn't mean she doesn't kick ass. She's smart, and brave, and makes some very hard choices without being a ninny about it. And I'm rooting for her throughout the series.

SPOILER ALERT! Keep reading at your own peril.

But really, you can't blame the girl for being a bit of a brat. You see, actually, she does have parents. They've just abandoned her. They're each leading a side of a brewing war over parallel universes, souls and, you know, the future of existence and stuff. And when it comes down to it, both her mother and father worry more about winning the war than the well-being of their daughter.

So what if she's a brat? She saves the multiverse and all of existence. She's pretty damn heroic.

You see, in The Subtle Knife, Lyra teams up with Will, a guy from our world. Together, they travel through parallel worlds, saving people, and falling in love. All sorts of creatures are trying to kill Lyra for various reasons and Will and Lyra discover that she's the key to this whole war.

SPOILER ALERT! I'm serious! I'm not pulling any punches.

The church is trying to kill Lyra because essentially, she is Eve. They figure if they can kill her before she eats that apple, then they can prevent the second fall.

The choice Lyra is presented with is that she can stay with the boy she fell in love with, Will, and watch the multiverse disintegrate. Or she can go back to her world, and Will to his, and preserve all of existence. She makes the right choice.

As always, I haven't come close to doing these books justice. So read them! There are some awesome battle scenes with polar bears, zeppelins, and witches. Mrs. Coulter is a female antagonist that will chill you to the bone. The Amber Spyglass also has some wickedly good stuff with Angels and the World of the Dead. Pullman also does a great job with non-humanoid creatures from parallel worlds. Again, beating my head against the wall because I'll never be creative enough to think up something like the Mulefa. And, I gotta say, Pullman's concept of Dust is pretty cool. So get reading!

All You Need is Love: Madeleine L'Engle's Meg Murry

OK Junkies, I'm fighting off the flu--crossing fingers it's not swine--and my belief that my favorite drug does indeed serve medicinal purposes has been reaffirmed. I've spent the last seven hours finishing Suzanne Collins's Catching Fire and I believe it has done more to suppress my cough, relieve my aches, and reduce my fever than the acetaminophen, vitamin c, tea, and lozenges I've been swallowing--well, maybe.

Although I'm tempted to gush about the courage of Katniss, I'll stick to my plan for this post and leave the gushing to my nose--I'm disgusting, I know. Oh don't worry, we'll return to the woes of Panem and District 12 on another day, but for now, let's talk about Meg Murry.

SPOILER ALERT: I am usually a huge stickler about spoilers--just ask my dad--but seeing how this book was published almost 50 years ago, I'm showing no mercy. So if you have not read A Wrinkle in Time, do so now.

Even though she has no special powers, she's not physically strong, she's not the smartest in her family, she's not sexy, and not popular, Meg Murry is the ultimate heroine. Actually, I think make those things her the kick-ass heroine she is.

In a Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle, Meg is awakened in the attic of her family's farm house by a storm. Her parents are scientists and her dad has been missing for weeks. Meg's an awkward and unattractive adolescent, with no friends except the lanky Calvin O'Keefe. She feels inferior to her beautiful scientist mother and can't connect with her two brainiac brothers, Sandy and Dennys.

She shares a special bond with her little brother, Charles Wallace, who has super-human intelligence and the ability to communicate with creatures across the space-time continuum. (Side note: I used to believe my little brother also had super-human intelligence and the ability to communicate with creatures across the space-time continuum, but ten years later, I'm still reeling from the disappointment when he reached puberty, fell in love with automatic weapons and Family Guy, thereby disproving my theory).

Meg, Charles Wallace, and Calvin end up travelling by tesseract, an actual wrinkle in the space-time continuum. Now, for me, this is where L'Engle goes from good to brilliant. I'm no scientist, and have never set foot into a physics or higher mathematics classroom. But I'm pretty sure L'Engle was on to something. I don't know if her explanation of the 5th dimension and space-time travel was based on any actual theories, and I'm feeling too woozy to look it up, but I'm buying it.

I took tesseracts as fact when I was eight and twenty years later I think L'Engle's description of time travel at least puts the writer's of Lost to shame. In addition, L'Engle's brilliance gives us creatures from other planets that defy our conventional notion of an alien. A creature who looks repulsive and ugly but is kind and loving, and aliens who feel instead of talk or think guide Meg, Charles, and Calvin on their journey.

Calvin is athletic, and Charles Wallace is too smart for his own good, but of course it is Meg who must save them and her imprisoned father. She doesn't karate chop her way to victory, or seduce the enemy, or even outsmart anyone. She saves the day with love. She overpowers the darkness of depression and self-doubt and loves her father, and Charles Wallace, to freedom. Now this might sound incredibly cheesy, but I've read the book 5 times and I feel the power of the message and the emotional truth of it each time.

Thus, my addiction began. I was hooked the second I finished it. At age eight, for the first time I felt the satisfaction and the longing at completing an amazing book. I was so fulfilled that it was so good, yet so sad that it was over. And I knew then, what I didn't remember until a few years ago, that this is what I want to do with my life. I want to write stories like this and make people feel that satisfaction and longing.

I devoured L'Engles other works. A Wind in the Door is arguably better than Wrinkle. It's darker, the stakes are higher, and the writing is more refined. But as my first taste of this delicious drug, I have a special fondness for A Wrinkle in Time. L'Engle's A House Like Lotus created in me the desire to explore Athens and its Ancient Greek ruins, a dream finally realized a few years ago.

I can only hope that the first dream Madeleine L'Engle inspired in me, to make a living as a young adult fantasy writer, will one day be fulfilled.

Ok, Junkies, sorry if I got a little sappy there, my fever is my excuse. Now I'm off in search of my next fix and the hope to escape with a heroine, and leave my headache behind.