Speak

Speak By Laurie Halse Anderson

Fiction

Melinda starts her school year as an outcast. Her infamous past has spread quickly throughout the school, giving her the reputation of “the girl who called the cops on the last party of the summer”. Melinda can’t escape what she did, and she can’t forget what caused her to do it. She pushes the memory to the back of her mind and tries to ignore it, but she finds that nearly impossible.  The longer Melinda tries to hide what happened to her at the party, the harder it becomes. Soon she retreats into her mind, withdrawing from everyone and refusing to speak, but she realizes that the charade she is playing can’t continue for much longer. She will have to confront the truth of what happened on the night of the party.

The only class that Melinda likes is art. Her teacher, Mr. Freeman begins the year by having everyone pick a piece of paper out of a hat. The paper that they will pick out has the name of a single object written on it. That object will then be expressed in as many types of media as possible, as a sculpture, a painting, a sketch, or a digital representation, anything that comes to mind. Melinda picks the “tree”, the symbol of growth. Trees are a recurring symbol throughout the book. Although Melinda originally believes that trees will be easy to draw, she finds it difficult to draw one with emotion because she keeps on making mistakes. Later she learns she can’t hide her mistakes by erasing them, but that she must keep them to give the tree emotion.  The last tree she makes is real. It is broken and sick in some places, but it is healing and growing in others. What happened to her cannot be hidden or avoided, instead Melinda must pick up the pieces of her broken self and use the pieces to continue to grow.

A Step from Heaven

A Step from Heaven By An Na

Fiction

The sea has always been a symbol of bravery to Young Ju. When Young and her family move from Korea to America when Young is four, the ride in a plane causes her to believe that they are moving to heaven. As Young and her family settle into life there, Young realizes that America is not the paradise she believed it to be. An alcoholic abusive father, an initial restricted knowledge of English, and her family’s limited income make life difficult for Young and require her to draw on the strength she learned from the sea.

On Young’s first day of school, she at first feels scared. Her nervous view of the world serves for some comedy for she takes her teacher’s fluffy hair as an indication that she is a witch who wants to eat her. Eventually Young’s fear of school and of her teacher gradually fades as she encounters small things that remind her of the sea and give her bravery to try new things. The color of Young’s classmate’s shirt (a girl that Young calls Sea Shirt) persuades Young to try crayons. The goldfish cracker her teacher gives her helps Young realize that school might not be such a new and dangerous experience. Throughout the book, the sea serves as a reminder to Young to be brave and strong in new situations.

As Young grows older, her life at home deteriorates. Frustrated by his restricted English, which limits his jobs opportunities, and by his family’s low social and economic status, her dad frequently comes home drunk and irritable. As his bad and violent side becomes more and more apparent, his kind and playful side disappears.

I appreciate how the author’s depiction of Young’s dad did not make him a villain. He feels discouraged and hopeless because after years of hard labor he still has nothing. The little money they have, he spends on alcohol, leaving even less money for a house. Young and her family came to America with hopes of riches and freedom of choice, but they slowly come to realize what most characters in immigrant books face-- life in America is not heaven. At most, it is a step away.  

Holes

Holes by Louis Sachar

Fiction

I appreciated Holes for the same reason I appreciated The Westing Game. Like The Westing Game, Holes had small details that were part of a bigger picture.

                When shoes fall out of the sky onto Stanley Yelnats, he is accused of stealing them and sent to Camp Green Lake. Camp Green Lake is an unusual juvenile detention center. For one thing, there is no lake; in fact, it hasn’t rained for one hundred years. It also employs an unusual method of building character. Everyday all the boys on Camp Green Lake dig one hole each. All the holes must be five feet wide and five feet deep.  All of this is overseen by the Warden, or the president of Camp Green Lake. As Stanley digs holes day after day, he blames his bad fortune on his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather. Old family knowledge says that when Stanley’s great-great grandfather was young he made a deal with a mysterious woman named Madame Zeroni and failed to hold up the bargain. As revenge, Madame Zeroni cursed all of his descendants including Stanley. At Camp Green Lake, Stanley meets an inmate who goes by the nickname Zero and has a reputation for loving to dig holes.  As days pass Stanley and Zero become close friends.  Eventually, Stanley begins to question all the digging at camp and soon realizes that it isn’t just a character building technique-- the Warden is looking for something.

                 Zero’s name plays an important role in Holes. A zero is a circle. A circle commonly stands for eternity or something that is endless, in this case it is the Yelnats family debt to Madame Zeroni. When Stanley performs an act that repays his great-great grandfather’s debt, Zero’s real name is revealed, therefore breaking the circle of debt.

The Cardturner

The Cardturner by Louis Sachar
Fiction

Alton Richards didn’t think his summer would amount to much. His checklist involves going to the pool and maybe getting a job. That all goes out the window when he finds out that his materialistic mother promised that he would drive his blind, diabetic, and very rich uncle, Lester Trapp, to his bridge club. Due to financial problems at home, Alton’s mom wants to get on the good side of Trapp in hopes that he will leave them money in his will. In addition to being his driver, Alton finds out that he also is signed up to be his cardturner. Trapp’s blindness doesn’t let him see the cards, but that is what Alton is for. As a cardturner, Alton is supposed to tell Trapp the cards he has and play the cards for him. Eventually Trapp tells Alton of his philosophical musings and Alton learns more about Trapp’s past relationships. Including one with his former partner for bridge, a woman named Annabel, someone whom Trapp avoids talking about.

Frequently I got very annoyed at Alton for being such a push-over. He sits idly by when his best friend, Cliff takes his potential girlfriend, Toni to a party and doesn’t seem to have any control over his life. He doesn’t even try to get a job during the summer. The fact that Alton is a cardturner illustrates this very well. Alton carries out actions, but he doesn’t really decide anything for himself, Trapp makes all the decisions. It isn’t until after Alton exerts some control over his life does he starts dating Toni, the granddaughter of Anabelle, applies to college, and gets his act together.

This theme reappears throughout the story, giving it—as Trapp puts it—a philosophical bent.

The Westing Game

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Fiction

I know I’ve already reviewed this before, but I think my previous review did not do it justice. I’ve read it again recently, and this time I read it carefully, unlike last time. The Westing Game transports the reader to Sunset Towers where there are bombers, murders, a 200 million dollar inheritance, and one great big mystery.

                On Halloween night, Sam Westing, millionaire and owner of Westing Paper Products, is murdered. Later when Sam Westing’s heirs are all gathered to hear the reading of his will, they are surprised and shocked to discover that the murderer is one of them. In his will, Sam Westing pairs the heirs up, and then gives them clues to discover the killer. Everyone desperately tries to win so they will receive the 200 million dollar inheritance. As the game progresses, the players soon realize that this is not an ordinary game.

                The reason why I liked this book so much was the same reason why I didn’t like it last time. In my last review I thought it was confusing and too complicated. When I read it this time, I appreciated the small details and unsuspected plot twists. The plot was laid out perfectly so it formed a well-constructed mystery with puzzles in every chapter and the characters were so well developed I felt that I knew them personally. As the story progresses, small pieces of the puzzle form a picture that brings sixteen unlikely people together  in the most unusual way.

Sold

Sold by Patricia McCormick
Fiction

           Lakshmi lives in a small poor town in Nepal. She witnesses her step-father gamble away what little money they have and disrespect her mother. One day, she asks her mother “Why must women suffer so?” Her mother replies, “This has always been our fate. Simply to endure is to triumph.” When she is offered a job from a stranger to work in India to earn money and, being the obedient, innocent, and naïve girl she is, she immediately says yes, and then realizes the terrible truth. She has been sold to a cruel woman named Mumtaz and into sex slavery. Time after time Lakshmi is beaten down, but she gets up again and again. When Lakshmi is in India she is still obedient, but she doesn’t openly act out and endures until she triumphs. At the end of the book, she is no longer the scared naïve girl from the beginning. She is strong and resilient.

Calling the Gods

Calling the Gods  by Jack Lasenby

Fiction

            The story begins with the main character, Selene’s, banishment, which gives the impression that this book will be similar to other recent novels  set in the dystopian future, but this turns out not to be the case. Lasenby’s style differs from the writing styles of other authors of teen fiction because his sophisticated choice of words gives the impression that he is writing for a more mature audience. Despite the good writing, some parts dragged and felt unnecessary.

               When Selene sneaks back into her village after her banishment, she finds it destroyed, with only a few survivors. From there, she and the lucky survivors travel great lengths to start over. There, they are joined by survivors from different communities. Together, they seek to create a village free of the hardships they previously experienced, until their new community is jeopardized by one of their own residents. The point of view of the story also switches, the beginning is told from Selene’s point of view, but in the middle and the end, it switches from her to the point of view of an old man, who could be from before Selene’s time, or after. The old man hears and sees the villagers, but can’t be heard or seen by them. He watches the village and is able to sense when something bad is going to happen, but is not able to intervene.

The plot alone gives the novel the potential to be intriguing, but parts of the storyline were overemphasized. The events leading to the climax of the novel weren’t as suspenseful or dramatic as they should have been, although they were described well. 

What I thought was the most interesting part of the story was that the old man didn’t dismiss the thought that he could be from a time before Selene’s--and not just the future-- even though he comes from a much more advanced society. Another thing that I thought was interesting was how the destruction in the villages was always the fault of the villagers, not any outside forces. The same mistakes were made over and over by the villagers, resulting in their ruin again and again.  I think that Calling the Gods did an excellent job of illustrating the reason why mistakes need to be learned from, but not as great of a job showing the story of a girl struggling to survive.