A hitch in my plan

I am unable to review the SCBAN books with any regularity from this point forward, as they are in high demand from the students who are actually required to read them. I will continue to post reviews of other books in the Lexington County Public Library System. But not today.

Spinelli Forever! (or not, 'cause even protons die)

Smiles to Go, by Jerry Spinelli--Will Tuppence has every thing planned. He will accomplish his goals, then die, and live on forever as the protons that make up his body spread around the universe. Then he learns that protons, the one constant in the universe, do in fact die. They flash out of existence. Suddenly, life is full of uncertainty.

His faith shaken, Will begins to see every thing and everyone around him in a different light. Even his life-long friendship with BT and Mi-Su is changing.

Jerry Spinelli has drawn his characters to be memorable, not entirely predictable. This means there are times you don't like them, even Will. There are times you find their actions and motivations questionable and the results and consequences either lacking or unrealistic. If you think about real life, though, you don't always like everything your friends do, and there are not always appropriate results and consequences. Good decisions do not always produce happy outcomes. Bad decisions do not always produce negative outcomes.

I really enjoyed this book, and it is prompting me to want to read Mr. Spinelli's other works, such as Stargirl.

Snowboarding Suspense

The White Gates, by Bonnie Ramthun--Torin Sinclair moves from California to the snow-covered mountains of Colorado as his doctor mom starts a new job. The very first night, his mom is called to her clinic to treat a member of the high school snowboarding team. Other members of the team are there, and they make reference to a "curse" as they stare hatefully at Tor and his mom. They walk out without telling him what they mean. As Tor goes through his first days in town, he is met with unexplained hostility and pity in equal measure. When he goes to pick out snowboarding equipment, he finally makes some friends who reveal to him the tale of a long-gone Ute Indian determined to keep her land safe. With the help of Drake and Raine, Tor navigates the uncertainties of a new school, a new sport, and an old curse.

A fast-moving mystery story, The White Gates is interspersed with lessons on snowboarding technique and Ute history. These bits are handled deftly and with a light touch so that the reader is not distracted or made to feel as if he or she is sitting in a classroom. I was really impressed with Ms. Ramthun's ability to draw her characters to make them more than stereotypes. Drake and Raine are in some ways more fully fleshed-out than Tor, which is unusual in secondary characters. Which is not to say we don't come to know Tor. The author is exceedingly good at showing us the heart of her characters without using an excess of words to do it. I really enjoyed my trip through The White Gates, and I highly recommend it.

Non-Fiction: Colonial

Colonial Voices: Hear Them Speak, by Kay Winters, illustrated by Larry Day--The near universal opinion in my household (or at any rate, the independent readers therein) was that this is a beautiful book about the Boston Tea Party. Beautiful and boring. The illustrations by Larry Day are very nice, but the text assumes too much knowledge on the part of the reader, and is too spare. Generally speaking, I appreciate authors who use as few words as possible to get their points across, especially in children's books. In this case, however, Kay Winters was downright miserly in her use of language. The text is set in irregular columns, as though it is trying to look like poetry. But it doesn't read like poetry. Ms. Winters uses a different character point of view on each two-page spread and focuses mostly on how the characters are feeling as opposed to why. The whole book--text and illustration alike--fails to convey the urgent energy which must have accompanied the build up to this cathartic event in Colonial America. For a historical non-fiction book, remarkably little history is imparted.

Paralyzed by fear

The Leanin' Dog, by K. A. Nuzum--Dessa Dean is eleven years old. She and her father live in the woods, trapping, hunting, and fishing for their food. As the book opens, Dessa Dean is trying to work up the courage to step off the porch, into the snow. Fear holds her back. We learn that a while back her mother, a diabetic, fell into a coma and froze in the snowy woods while Dessa Dean looked on helplessly. Her own ear-tips were deadened by frost-bite by the time her father discovered her sitting by Josie's body. Since he brought her home, Dessa Dean has been unable to leave the house, not even to go to the outhouse. She stays inside, cooking, cleaning, and doing all the things her mother used to do, in addition to her schoolwork. One day, while her father is out hunting and checking his traps, there comes a scratching at the cabin door.

Dessa Dean opens the door to discover a dog, a beautiful fudge-colored dog, favoring one leg as she runs off the porch and back to the woods. The book chronicles Dessa Dean's efforts to befriend the dog and the dog's efforts to protect Dessa Dean. It is beautifully written, although I think younger readers will be a bit put off by the lengthy descriptions of Dessa Dean's meal preparations. These things are important, though, as they show us how little Dessa Dean and her father have and how hard they have to work for everything they do have. When disaster strikes, we have a deeper understanding of the devastation. This book is on the Children's list, but older children and teens will have a better appreciation for the details and themes.

Suspense cycle

Shift, by Jennifer Bradbury--Have you ever had a friendship that seemed so close and so important, you knew it would last forever? And then you slowly realized it had faded away? Or, maybe you could pinpoint the exact moment of falling-out: a major argument, a long-distance move. What if your friend simply disappeared?

Chris Collins and Win Coggans have been best friends since grade school. After graduating high school, they bicycle across the country from West Virginia to the state of Washington. They plan to spend a day or two with Win's uncle in Seattle before catching a bus back home to get ready for college. Only, a day before they reach Seattle, Win keeps going while Chris stops to change a flat tire. He vanishes, leaving Chris to finish the journey to an unfamiliar city and without the name of Win's uncle. Circumstances during the trip have been such that Chris does not tell either family that Win left him. When he gets back home, he tells the families what happened and answers a bunch of questions. He believes Win abandoned him deliberately and is by turns hurt, angry, and worried.

Shortly after Chris begins college classes, an off-duty FBI agent comes to see him. Win's father has hired him to investigate Win's disappearance. Mr. Ward tells Chris there is no uncle in Seattle, and the mystery really takes off.

The story moves along at a good clip, although the alternating past/present of the chapters was a tad frustrating sometimes. I developed a lot of sympathy for Chris and, against my better judgment, Win. He seems to be all jerk, but there are moments when he really comes through for Chris and for them as a team. Solving his disappearance becomes critical, and in the end, conscience-searing.

A Taste of the Middle East

Beneath My Mother's Feet, by Amjed Qamar--Set in Pakistan and told through the eyes of fourteen-year-old Nazia, this story explores the relationships between parents and children, especially mothers and daughters. Nazia attends school and awaits the day when she will be married to her cousin, Salman. When her father is injured and unable to work, her mother, Naseem, must go outside the home to find employment. She takes Nazia out of school to care for her two younger siblings. They all go along with Naseem on her housekeeping jobs, and Nazia helps her mother in addition to watching her brother and sister.

As time goes on, Nazia realizes she has dreams beyond marriage, beyond what is expected of her. Her struggle to come to terms with her dreams and her reality bring her into conflict with her mother, her father, her siblings, even her mother's employers. I was hard pressed not to yell out loud at Nazia's family (especially her father) as they continuously crushed her emotionally and mentally. Their own hopelessness made them blind to her possibilities. She is so smart and so determined, that you can't help cheering for her as she strives to make her place in the world fit her instead of the other way around.