If You Could Be Mine

If You Could Be Mine  by Sara Farizan

Seventeen-year-old Sahar has shared kisses and romantic dreams of the future with her best friend Nasrin since they were little girls.  But modern Iran is a dangerous place for two girls in love.  The punishment for homosexuality might be a beating, or it might be death by hanging.  So far, their love has stayed secret...but when Nasrin's family arranges a marriage for her, Sahar feels she must act.

Although homosexuality is a crime in Iran, transsexuality is not.  In fact, the government will pay for sexual reassignment.  Sahar knows she isn't really a man in a woman's body.  But, what if this is the only way she can ever be with Nasrin?

This absorbing peek into another culture features a wide cast of well-written characters:  Sahar, who loves Nasrin.  Nasrin, who loves candy, and Bollywood movies, and pretty clothes, and being the center of attention...and probably also loves Sahar.  Sahar's father, who still mourns for his wife and refuses to move forward with his life.  Sahar's cousin Ali, a gay man trying to find his place. Ali's friend Parveen, who tries to help Sahar sort things out.  And Reza, the doctor engaged to marry Nasrin, who is not as simple and two-dimensional as Sahar might wish.

Kissing, mild cussing, sexual decisionmaking and sexual situations.  Recommended for ages 14 to adult.

The Last Leaves Falling

The Last Leaves Falling  by Sarah Benwell

18-year-old Abe Sora lives in modern-day Kyoto with his mom...and with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease).  He is dying, and he's scared.

Sora derives some comfort from a book of haiku poems written by ancient samurai warriors, but is helped even more by the love of his mom, his grandparents, and new friends Mai and Kaito, whom he met online.  As Sora's body fails him, he must face the knowledge that, as much as he longs to face his future with dignity, soon he will have no control over his life or death.  He makes a plan, and he asks Mai and Kaito to help.

The sparse language of the story is perfectly suited to the character of Sora and his love of both haiku poetry and Hayao Miyazaki's animated movies.  Neither of these forms wastes time or syllables to explain a situation, but rather depends on the intuition of the reader/viewer.  So it is with Last Leaves, in which characters meet online and form a strong friendship (and possibly a romance between Mai and Kaito!) without a bunch of exposition from the author.  

Sora's end-of-life choices may be distressing to some readers and objectionable to others.  However, the grace of the telling is undeniable.  This is an excellent book for discussion.

Falling From Horses

Falling From Horses  by Molly Gloss

In 1938, 19-year-old Bud Frazer leaves behind his parents and the Oregon ranch life he has always known, climbs on a southbound Greyhound bus headed for Hollywood, and meets Lily Shaw, who will be his friend for life.

Bud is determined to be movie stunt rider, and quickly learns that horses and stunt riders are considered cheap and disposable by movie folks.  There are always more horses that can be chased off a cliff or tripped up by wires, or ridden to exhaustion, and there are always more movie-cowboy-wannabees dumb enough to carry out the deeds for a few bucks and a chance to be seen on the silver screen.

Meanwhile, Lily experiences another side of the Hollywood scene:  the seedy side of screen writing.  Lily is determined to write, and write well...and for many reasons, she doesn't fit in with the mostly-male writers of the time.

Bud's narrative voice is strong, calm, and believable.  His account of his year in Hollywood--and the time before that, back in Oregon--reads like a memoir.  Although the story is fiction, the characters and situations are carefully researched.  The accounts of horrific abuse of horses for the amusement of moviegoers are based on true events, and these abuses continued until 1940.

Bud, however, leaves the action much sooner.

The story is quietly told, despite the hair-raising stunts performed by human and animal actors.  Bud's grief (which precedes the first page, and is revealed in flashback chapters) carries the narrative without dragging it down.  Bud's naive encounters with women add flashes of humor, but it is his fondness for Lily that keeps the sometimes-grim story from becoming overwhelmingly dismal.

Falling From Horses is the 2015 "Everyone READS" choice for Shoreline, Richmond Beach, and Lake Forest Park WA.  The book lends itself to discussion, and is recommended for teen and adult readers.

Eleanor and Park

Eleanor and Park  by Rainbow Rowell

Eleanor is "that kid" -- the girl with the weird clothes, the weird hair, the weird family.  She will never, ever fit it to the crowd at her 1986 Nebraska high school.

The first day on the bus, the only seat available is next to Park--the only "Asian kid" she's ever known.  And he won't talk to her.

Inevitably, perhaps, the two fall in love.  Deeply, beautifully, and star-crossedly in love.

John Green, author of Fault in Our Stars​ gave the book a dazzling review.  A few parents in the Anoka-Hennepin district (Minnesota) called it dangerously obscene.  

Read it for yourself.  It's not a fast-moving, explosive, car chasing love story.  

It's the other kind.

I hope you like it as much as I did.

Anything but Typical

Anything But Typical  by Nora Raleigh Baskin

12-year-old Jason Black isn't dumb.  Since his diagnosis with autism when he was four years old, Jason has been coached by counselors, teachers, doctors, assistants, and members of his family, all in an effort to help Jason seem more normal to neurotypical people.  

But most days, it's just a matter of time before something goes wrong.  

Maybe somebody is already logged into the computer he prefers at the school library.  Maybe a teacher touches his shoulder when she talks to him.  Maybe he gets so lost in his own thoughts that he tears the first page of his math book into many tiny pieces.  No matter what, Jason does not fit in. His hands flap, he makes strange noises, he makes even stranger choices.  He does not understand why neurotypical people behave the way they do, and nobody understands why he acts as he does.

The only place Jason is really comfortable is on the Storyboard writing website.  He posts his original fiction there, and interacts with other writers, especially PhoenixBird, whom he considers kind of a girlfriend although they've never met in person.

Jason explains to readers that trying to explain his actions is like trying to speak in a non-native language:  the story often conveys the sense that Jason's thoughts have lost something in translation.

​

Thought-provoking and intriguing, this book would be a good discussion-starter in classrooms and reading circles. A reading group guide is included at the end. 

Recommended for readers ages 10-15.  

Lies, Knives, and Girls in Red Dresses

Lies, Knives and Girls in Red Dresses  by Ron Koertge
illustrated by Andrea Dezso

...For a while, the queen is content.  There's the baby

with skin like snow and the golden goblets

and the pomegranate juice and the rocking

and the cooing.  But there's always that small fire

just under her collarbone.

She summons the hunters, hard men with callused hands.

She asks, "Isn't there a wolf in the forest with teeth

the better to eat me with?"

"Indeed there is, your majesty, but--"

"No buts.  Have someone fetch my red cape.

And tell the king not to wait up."

The little match girl sells CDs on the corner, fifty cents to any stoner/any homeboy with a boner.   The Beast muses that he and Beauty are very happy now, but that sometimes he brushes his perfect teeth and remembers when they were fangs. And Bluebeard's wife agrees that her husband is weird...but omigod that castle!

Twenty three familiar stories.  Folktales originally collected and retold by the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Anderson are collected and retold again by Ron Koertge...and this time, the stories are tilted a little differently.  

Strong, sexy, sassy, violent, warped, and more than slightly kinky, these tales-in-verse are not the Disney version.  There isn't always "happy", but without doubt, these versions will stick with the reader "forever after." 

With the new attention being given to old tales on television programs like Grimm and Once Upon a Time, this slender volume of fractured tales and striking illustrations will easily find an audience.  Recommended for readers 14 to adult.

Minor cussing, sexual imagery and sexual situations, references to violence...just like the original folktales from which they were derived.

Little Brother

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
17-year-old Marcus loves technology and computers, and he delights in finding new ways to hack software, hardware, and most especially security systems. But Marcus is in the wrong place at the wrong time when the San Francisco Bay Bridge is bombed by terrorists. He and three friends are taken into secret custody by Department of Homeland Security and interrogated mercilessly. While Marcus and two friends are eventually released, one boy isn't freed. Is Darryl dead? A prisoner? They have no way to know...and they discover that while they were imprisoned, their beloved city has turned into a police state, with more citizen rights and freedoms disappearing each day.

Marcus decides to fight back against the DHS, but will his efforts make the city safer? Or will Marcus become a different kind of terrorist? Plenty of San Franciscan youth join in with Marcus' plans to jam security systems and derail the DHS, including his new girlfriend, Ange. But what will happen when the DHS finally tracks down Marcus and Ange?

Set in the "near future", Doctorow's technology digressions and discussions are fascinating...especially when I did a little research and discovered that most of story's "futuristic technology" already exists.
This is dystopic science fiction, political commentary, teen fiction, and spy thriller writing at its best. The narrative contains violence (including a description of torture practices, specifically waterboarding), mild cussing, and some hot-but-tactful sexual situations between Marcus and Ange.

Highly, highly, highly recommended for ages 14 to adult. Adult book groups and high school enlish teachers, I'm talking to you: get this book, read it, and talk about it!

The author makes the text of Little Brother available for download at no charge on his website. If you read the book, you will understand why.

The Garden

The Garden by Elsie V. Aidinoff

In the beginning, God created everything: the earth and sea, the sky, the animals...and Adam and Eve. Eve narrates this story of her childhood in Eden, where Adam is raised by God, and she is tutored by the Serpent, who is possibly the only thing that God did not create.

Eve learns to think, to reason, and to question. She explores the entire Garden, and then, assisted by the Serpent, she explores the world outside the Garden in preparation for the days ahead when she and Adam will go out into the world and away from the direct influence of God.

The bones of the story are familiar: Eve and Adam eat the forbidden fruit and are expelled from Eden. But the author explores the motivations, the questions, and the possibilities that the old story does not address: if they know the fruit is forbidden by God, why would Eve offer it to Adam, and why would he accept it?

This book invites the readers to ask questions and challenge their own long-held assumptions. There is a disturbing scene mid-way with some sexual and violent content which may upset sensitive readers.

The Garden will certainly be controversial, and is an excellent choice for book groups who like to argue about what they read. For readers ages 14 and up.

Dangerously Alice

Dangerously Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Alice is now a junior in high school, squabbling with her step-mom, working on the school newspaper, hanging out with her friends, stressing out about the PSATs, and pretty sure that she's ready to unload her "Miss Goody-Two-Shoes" reputation. She knows what bad-boy Tony has in mind when he invites her home, and she's ready...right?

The twenty-second (!) book in the Alice series will not disappoint long-time fans, yet it stands alone nicely for new readers. Alice has come a long way since she appeared as a 6th grader in Agony of Alice (1985) but she is still clearly the honest, endearing and sometimes agonizing teenager that readers have loved for all these these years.

Recommended for readers--especially girls--ages 14 and up. No cussing or violence, but more than a few "body parts" are exposed in the course of the story. As always, Alice's adventures include laugh-out-loud embarrassing and awkward details; sensitive readers may be uncomfortable with the "heavy petting" scene with Tony.

The publisher has launched an "all-alice" website worth exploring: http://www.alicemckinley.com/ especially the Guide for Reading Groups, which proposes some excellent questions for discussion.

Unwind

Unwind by Neal Shusterman

In the future, things are different. Abortion is forbidden by law; instead, the constitutional amendment called "The Bill of Life" allows parents to choose retroactive abortion for children between the ages of 13 and 18. It's not really murder, insists the law: "unwound" children continue to live...in a divided state.

When Connor accidentally discovers his unwind order, he runs away. While trying to escape, he joins forces with Risa, an orphan ordered for unwinding due to governmental budget cuts in her institution, and Lev, a boy marked from birth as a religious "tithe unwind" given to society.

What will happen when the harvesters catch up to them?

Only Neal Shusterman could successfully interweave issues like abortion, terrorism, suicide bombers, religious obligations with a suspenseful survival story. The story works...powerfully.

Recommended for readers ages 12 and up. No cussing or kissing. The premise of the story may disturb sensitive readers. An excellent choice for book group discussions.

This book has been nominated for the 2009 Evergreen Award, which is decided by readers in grades 7-12. Participants must read 2 or more nominated books and vote for the best. The list of 2010 nominated books is found online: https://webmail.kcls.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://webmail.kcls.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=https://webmail.kcls.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.kcls.org/evergreen/nominees/index.cfm