Hanging On To Max by Margaret Bechard

Sam, a high school senior, is just barely able to keep his head above water. He's struggling at school, can't communicate with his father, and is a father himself - he's raising, alone, his son, Max. The story jumps between the past (Sam meeting and hooking up with a girl at school, Sam at his son's birth and realizing that Brittany, Max's mom, plans to give Max up for adoption, Sam blurting out that he wants to raise Max instead) and the present (Sam meeting an old crush who is now a single parent herself, Sam wondering if he can cut it as a parent, Sam wondering if there's a future for him out there somewhere).

I wish there had been more pages spent on Sam's 'past,' but that's only because the parts about Sam's 'present' are so strong. I wanted to hear more from Sam, what it was like when he and Brittany were having the discussions he alludes to. The book has heart-tugging realism that does not read as manipulative, but honest.

This is a book that's been out for awhile, but I just came across it, and I'm really happy that I did. Plus, I just love the look of the cover - it reminds me of Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland, but with a baby twist.


Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
Slam by Nick Hornby
Jumping Off Swings by Jo Knowles
Dear Nobody by Berlie Doherty
Annie's Baby: Diary of Anonymous, a Pregnant Teenager, edited by Beatrice Sparks
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford

Carter is just about to start high school. It's going to be awesome - if he can keep his ADD under control, if he can stop stuttering whenever he's around cute girls (especially when he sees boobs and belly buttons), and if he can figure out a way not to be so small and scrawny. Actually, yeah, nevermind - he's not ready for high school after all.

I feel like I should name this review "Caroline Finally Gets It," because I actually started reading this book months ago. I read the first few chapters, put it aside, and somehow never managed to get back to it. Then, when I saw that it was nominated for the Cybils, I told myself, "Okay, it's time to get back to it." So I did, and I'm really glad that there was that kick, because I really, really liked this book.

I loved Carter's voice, his insights into people, his self-discovery as he moves through his first year of high school. I loved the relationship that he has with his sister, and with his sister's boyfriend. I loved his rambling, his digressions, his desire to somehow make it with the ladies despite the stuttering and the brain-scrambling boobs and butts. I'm not the type who looks back at high school and how perfect and magical it all was, but I do remember how there was a big of excitement in that first year - you weren't quite sure how it was all going to go, you weren't quite sure who you were going to be. This book captures that feeling in a wonderfully knowledgeable way.

Find it on Amazon.

Read it with:
Swim the Fly by Don Calame
The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second by Drew Ferguson
An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos

Not Suitable For Family Viewing by Vicki Grant

Robin's life is kind of stuck; all she wants to do with her summer is to plop herself in her dark living room and watch reruns of her mother's TV show. Her mother, as practically everyone in the world knows, is Mimi Schwartz, a combination of Oprah and Kathie Lee Gifford. But then, by chance, Robin comes across some items that Mimi has hidden - items that Robin has never seen before. Before she can even really think about it, she finds herself leaving New York and landing in a tiny village in Nova Scotia, home of a helpful young man, a generous hostel owner, a rich matriarch, and many, many secrets.

I really loved reading about Robin's journey, not only through Mimi's past but also her own. I enjoyed her voice and her strength, but also the ways that Vicki Grant was able to convey Robin's privilege and naivete. I was happy with where the book ended up, and how it got there. There were a few moments where I thought, "Wait a minute, how does that work, timeline-wise?" but really, I was too busy enjoying the book to figure it all out. I really want to read more from Vicki Grant - the book world needs more great Canadian books!

Find it on Amazon.

Read it with:
Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott
A Sudden Change of Family by Mary Jane Auch
The Gravesavers by Sheree Fitch
Paper Towns by John Green
Tripping by Heather Waldorf

Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith

Little Mouse is getting ready! But clothes can be so hard to put on: snaps, buttons, velcro, tail holes... is it too much for a Little Mouse to handle? The images in this book are beautiful; Jeff Smith has created a lovely book that is both useful and funny. I laughed out loud when I got to the end, the kind of laugh that builds up and you're laughing harder and harder. I hope kids will also enjoy it; I think that many would. Little Mouse Gets Ready was a 2010 Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Winner at the recent ALA awards.

Find it on Amazon.

Read it with:
Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems
Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London
Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! by Geoffrey Hayes

Paper Towns by John Green

Margo Roth Spiegelman has always been a part of Quentin Jacobsen's life - including the time, years ago, when they found a dead body. Since then they've been in different social circles, but Q has never been able to get her out of his head. Then, one night, just before their senior year is over, Margo takes him on a nighttime adventure spree - and disappears the next morning. Everyone else is ready to believe that she's run away (again), but not Q, and he's desperate to figure out where she is.

One part mystery, one part romance, one part buddy comedy, one part road trip - this book is made up of so many parts that could go terribly wrong, but it ends up being pretty perfect. It took me a few goes to commit to the novel, but once I found a copy without a girl's face on the cover, I was hooked (I found the other one distracting; the girl on the front did not fit my idea of who Margo Roth Spiegelman was). I shouldn't have let myself get distracted by the cover; I should have known that this, like Green's other books Looking for Alaska and An Abundance of Katherines, would be a book that I would just eat up with a spoon.

Find it on Amazon.

Read it with:
Going Bovine by Libba Bray
Reality Check by Peter Abrahams
Wish You Were Dead by Todd Strasser
Gentlemen by Michael Northrop
13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

An Education by Nick Hornby

I picked this up for three reasons:
1. I love Nick Hornby, and strive to read anything that he publishes
2. I heard that the movie was really good, but I missed seeing it when it was playing last year
3. I was at the airport, and I wanted something to read.

So that was the framework for me reading this book.

Set in England in the 1960s, Jenny is a girl who is desperately ready to be a woman. She loves French culture and is doing well in school; she's had a few dates, but they're all just...boys. Then she meets David, who excites all of her fantasies. Before she fully realizes it, she is caught up in David's fancy lifestyle...and everything that comes with it.

I don't usually read plays, so it took a few pages for me to get used to that script format. I enjoyed reading Nick Hornby's introduction to the play, where he talked about the process of writing a script based on a magazine article (as this script was). Would I have picked this up if NICK HORNBY hadn't have been prominent on the cover and the spine? Probably not, but I'm glad I did.


Find it on Amazon.

Read it with:
Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar
Before I Die by Jenny Downham
What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Blundell
Atonement by Ian MacEwan
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Reality Check by Peter Abrahams

Things are going pretty well for Cody: he has a great relationship with his girlfriend, he's the QB on the football team, he's sliding by in school. Then, one by one, everything starts to fall apart. Clea, his girlfriend, is sent to a private boarding school across the country. He injures his knee in a game and is forced to give up on the idea of high school football. School loses its meaning and he eventually decides to sort of drop out. His new life consists of his job and the gym until one day he hears the news: Clea has gone missing. Cody immediately picks up and heads off to Vermont to find her. But before he can do that, he has to figure out what was going on in her life that he knew nothing about.

I tend to think of mystery/thrillers as either balls of yarn or puzzles - you either unwind everything to reach the end, or things just click into place. This was a puzzle book. Even after I finished the book, I was still realizing how so many of the details just locked into place. Those details are the book's strength; Clea and Cody never really became full characters to me, although they definitely held my interest. It's a plot-driven book, but a plot-driven book that works. The cover art made me think that it would be a violent thriller in the vein of the Hunger Games books, but it's not; it has more in common with action mysteries. This was my first Peter Abrahams book; I'd be curious to see how this stands up next to his other books.

Reality Check is nominated for a 2010 Edgar award.

Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
Looking for Alaska by John Green
Gentlemen by Michael Northrop
If the Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney

Dodger and Me by Jordan Sonnenblick

Willie Ryan needs some help. His best friend moved away, he's being tortured by Lizzie (a British girl in his class who just won't leave him alone), and he always strikes out when he's up to bat. But once he meets Dodger, an imaginary, giant, blue, eye-patch wearing, magical, invisible chimp, nothing will ever be the same again. Could it be that Dodger...is just what Willie needed?

I liked a lot of the characters in this book - especially Willie, Dodger, Lizzie, and Willie's sister Amy (particularly the brother-sister dynamic). It's a familiar storyline ('be careful what you wish for...'), but Jordan Sonnenblick puts a nice spin on it, mixing humour with very serious situations. It's a buddy story, a sports story, a brother-sister story, a family drama story - a story that could appeal to many different kids, particularly reluctant readers.


Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
Skinneybones by Barbara Park
The Snagglegrollop by Daniel Postgate
Baseball Crazy edited by Nancy E. Mercado

Paulina P. (for Petersen) by Lisa Cinar

Paulina P. (for Petersen) loves the letter P - it's her favourite letter in the whole alphabet! There are so many wonderful things that begin with the letter p: pandas, polyester pantyhose, even her best friend, Penny Lee. The letter P is so great that Paulina wishes everyone loves is as much as she does. That would be positively perfect!

The greatest compliment I can give this book is that as soon as I saw it in our workroom, I had to read to it everyone working there. And after I had read a few pages, I stopped, and they begged me to keep going. It's a lovely little story that has fun, engaging illustrations (my favourite was of Paulina pretending to be a panda). I'm not sure how it would work in a storytime, but I'd like to try it out; regardless, it's a great book for parents and children to pour over together, tooking at all the pictures and thinking of other p words.



Find it on Amazon.

Read it with:

But, Excuse Me, That is My Book by Lauren Child
Alphabetter by Dan Bar-el
The Sleepy Little Alphabet by Judy Sierra
Alphabeasts by Wallace Edwards
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault

The Karma Club by Jessica Brody

Madison (Maddy) Kasparkova and her two best friends have each been hurt: by their boyfriends, the cruel actions of fellow high schoolers, by life. After realizing that the three of them have suffered but that nothing bad came to the 'bad guys,' she becomes outraged. Maddy wishes there was a way that the others would get what’s coming to them – so the three friends form The Karma Club... and start making sure that the others suffer like they have.

I really, really wanted to like this book.

I think I just had a big problem with the central idea; it’s not karma if you’re just out doing bad things to people. The book either had to be really, really dark and twisted or have a super original voice to pull this off. I couldn't believe that a teen girl wouldn't know about karma and understand how it works. At many parts when she was supposed to be in control, Maddy just came off as clueless.

Having said that, I think the book gains strength as it goes and that the strongest part of the book is the ending (or the denouement, I guess, everything past the climax). This part was well crafted and came together nicely. Finally, Maddy was capturing my attention, and I'm glad that I stuck with the book. I haven't read anything else by Jessica Brody (this is her debut YA novel), but I would like to in the future.

Find it on Amazon (available for pre-order, will be released April 2010).

Read it with:
Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott
Daughters of Eve by Lois Duncan
Hamlet by John Marsden

I got this book: as an advance reader's copy from Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Macmillan).

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Cameron's been experiencing some weird stuff lately - visions, hallucinations, pain in his body. His doctors eventually find the reason for all of this strange stuff: he has BSE, a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, better known as Mad Cow. His time is running out, but there might be a chance to save his life - at least, that's what the punkish angel tells him - that is, as long as he can track down a time travelling evil genius rogue doctor, whereabouts unknown. To aid him in this trip, he brings along a fellow high school student, Gonzo, a little person whose mother has made overcautious and a bit of a hypocondriac.

I fully admit that I didn't pick this book up until after it had won the Printz, because I'm a bit of a bandwagon jumper. I found the title a bit offputting for reasons I don't think I can fully articulate, and that's what kept me from picking it up. Once I did convince myself to give it a try, the first thing I noticed was that the book is long. It's a hefty book, and Libba Bray packs a lot into it. When reading it, I got the feeling that she knew exactly what she was doing when she wrote it; every word has been carefully chosen, every detail is there for a reason. It's a very well-crafted book, and it knows it, and it doesn't let you forget it. It took me awhile to get used to all of the...I don't know if 'quirkiness' is the right word, so I'll call it 'strangeness,' because this isn't the type of book that I usually read, and there is a lot of strangeness. I think my favourite part of the book was the beginning part, before Cameron is really sick, before all the strangeness, and Bray is setting up the family dynamic.

Here's a video with Libba Bray talking about Going Bovine:

Find it on Amazon.

Read it with:
Before I Die by Jenny Downham
Paper Towns by John Green
Mare's War by Tanita S. Davis
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Wide Awake by David Levithan
Q & A by Vikas Swarup

I Can't Keep My Own Secrets edited by Smith Magazine

My six-word review:
Teenagers' lives: funny, sad, hopeful, heartbreaking.

Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
PostSecret by Frank Warren
Tell the World: Teen Poems from WritersCorps
Not Quite What I Was Planning, edited by Smith Magazine
I Lick My Cheese by Oonagh O'Hagan

How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford

Beatrice is the new girl in a school where most people have known each other since kindergarten; Jonah is the loner who goes by the name of Ghost Boy. While Bea is initially befriended by a popular clique of girls (and attracts the attention of the school's playboy guy), she decides instead to get to know Jonah. They bond over their love of late-night talk radio call-in shows and shared family dysfunction. As the months pass, their friendship deepens into a true relationship that is threatened by family truths that they are both forced to deal with.

I absolutely loved this book. I started it off a bit slowly, not sure of how I'd respond to Bea's character, but it wasn't long before I was hooked. I loved the relationship between Ghost Boy and Robot Girl, and I'm so grateful for a book that treats friendship like a real relationship. I liked the window into the late-night call-in show that they both listen to - there are a lot of lonely people out there, lonely in different ways. This book made me smile and it made me sob, and I couldn't put it down. This book is nominated for a Cybil, which is how I found it, and I'm so glad I did. My final review: read it, read it, read it. I wish it had been around for me to read years earlier.


Find it on Amazon.

Read it with:
The Screwed-Up Life of Charlie the Second by Drew Ferguson
The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga
The Everafter by Amy Huntley
Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Jane in Bloom by Deborah Lytton

Jane's always lived in the shadow of her older sister, Lizzie. Lizzie is smarter than she is, more interesting that she is, and prettier than she is. On Jane's 12th birthday, though, everything starts to change. After a fight with their parents over the food she's not eating, Lizzie falls unconscious and is hospitalized. She returns home, but not for long - she soon dies from an overdose of laxatives and diuretics. After her death, the family finds separate ways to cope: her dad by throwing himself into his work, her mom by leaving town, and Jane by looking at the world through the lens of her new digital camera. Jane finds some new friends that help her make sense of everything that has happened.

I haven't read many books like this that are aimed at a middle grade audience, and focus on the sibling left behind. Jane's struggle is evident right from the beginning of the book: she loves her sister but resents being compared to her, she wants Lizzie to be okay but would really just rather get her ears pierced. I liked Jane's growing friendships with people who have also survived loss, and the idea that her art (photography) could be one of the things that helped her to cope. The ending was a little too quick and a little too neat, but I'm glad it ended on the note it did.

Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Even if it Kills Me by Dorothy Joan Harris
Slob by Ellen Potter
Love, Aubrey by Suzanne M. LaFleur

Blame by Michelle Huneven

Patsy MacLemoore is a high functioning alcoholic. She's a college professor with a handsome boyfriend and a promising future. Then, one day, she wakes up in jail. Realizing she was drinking and blacked out, she asks why she's there. She jokes, "Did I kill someone?"

Yes, they say. She did.

Patsy then faces a much different future: prison, shame, guilt. She has to figure out how to survive in this world - and she has to figure out how to process knowing she committed this crime without actually remembering it. Then, after adjusting to prison, she has to figure out how to fit back into the 'real world.'

Marketed as an adult book, I think it would be interesting to see a teen reaction to this book. So many people (including, but not limited to, teens) think that they are untouchable, that actions don't have consequences or that their actions won't need consequences. The book doesn't read like a scare tactic or even necessarily a cautionary tale; it just tells a very straightforward story of a person who's life veered wildly off the track she had thought she was on.

Find it at Amazon.

Read it with:
Love You, Hate You, Miss You by Elizabeth Scott
Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
Willow by Julia Hoban