Tweaked by Katherine Holubitsky

I suppose I should be thankful that BC Ferries takes so much of my hard-earned money. After all, it frequently allows me a few hours of assured reading, especially while I wait for hours in ferry line-ups. So, yesterday on my way back to Victoria after a long weekend in Vanouver, I finished another of the young adult books my publisher sales rep. daughter has recommended. She had warned me that Tweaked, by Katherine Holubitsky, was not an easy read and she was right. It wasn't easy, but it was incredibly insightful.

Holubitsky wisely gives us a glimpse of normality before thrusting us headlong into hell. Gordie and his older brother Chase are every kid, building forts in the ravine. Holubrintsky hints that all will not be well when the oldest pushes the limit and clears a whole section of the forest. Still, it's hard to imagine the nightmare that lurks in the Jessup family's future.

Told from Gordie's point of view, the story vibrates with the rawness of the recently burned. Gordie's home is fast becoming a living hell that is known to any family living with an addict who will lie, cheat, or steal to get their next fix. Neither an assault charge (which later becomes a murder charge when the man dies) nor the self-inflicted death of one of his friends is enough to turn Chase away from the drugs he craves. Nothing is safe, including the $2000 Gordie loans his brother to pay off his brother's drug dealer, nor Gordie's prize base guitar which he discovers his brother has stolen, nor even the family home which has been mortgaged to get Chase out of jail and pay for his legal bills.

It's hard to watch a brother or a son disintegrate before your eyes, and just as hard to watch a family self-destruct trying to help them. Reading Tweaked was not easy. But then, it isn't meant to be. The author is no preacher. She paints a picture that is as stark as it is real. She tell a story that is harsh but gripping. However, I suspect, as she must surely hope, that if you follow Chase and Gordie's literary path, you won't be inclined to follow the real one. I guarantee that it's well worth the read, and it may just change the way you look at the world, or the choices your students or your kids make. Read Tweaked today.

You can count on these...

CLA Announces 2008 Young Adult Book Award Shortlist (13-18)
The Space Between Written by Don Aker (HarperCollins)

Mistik Lake Written by Martha Brooks (Groundwood Books)
For Now Written by Gayle Friesen (Kids Can Press)
The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane Written by Polly Horvath (Groundwood Books)
How It Happened in Peach Hill Written by Marthe Jocelyn(Tundra Books)
Another Kind of Cowboy Written by Susan Juby(HarperCollins)
Retribution Written by Carrie Mac (Penguin)
Eye of the Crow Written by Shane Peacock(Tundra Books)
Into the Ravine Written by Richard Scrimger Tundra Books)
Better than Blonde Written by Teresa Toten (Penguin)

Lockdown by Diane Tullson

I finished Diane Tulson's Lockdown on the ferry while on route to speak at the Kamloops Young Author's Conference. What a dynamo writer that woman is, and prolific too! (See reviews of some of her earlier books on this blog) Books about high school shooters are mushrooming, almost as fast as the real life incidents that inspire them. Tulson's is specifically aimed at reluctant readers as part of the Orca Book Publishers Soundings series. I suspect it will find a wider audience given recent events, particularly in the U.S.

The thing that amazed me is how adept Tullson is at the telling of a complex story with few words. She wastes no time, drawing readers into the world of high school hurt where you can be sure that if one kid bears the brunt of a joke, another kid is just relieved it isn't directed at them. This is the breeding ground for one of the scariest phenomenon you can imagine in high schools today; school shooters. Even more impressive is the fact that Tullson works her magic with characters who ring true; whether it's Josh who tips over the edge after one more bullying incident, Adam who is a quasi friend who ends up on the wrong side of a locked door running for cover, Natalie who plays a part in pushing Josh over the edge, Zoe, the girl who lights up rooms but is caught in the crossfire, or Mr. Connor, the principal who'll literally go the extra mile to help kids get through torturous time.

Lockdown is a quick read, but I suspect it's chilling message will linger long after you've put it down, and so it should. Read it today.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

I like books that get into the heads of characters; I like understanding what makes people tick, what makes them think the way they think, or act one way while someone with similar experience acts in the opposite. So when I saw Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult at the airport recently, I picked it up. I'd heard from more than a few kids my daughters' age group that Picoult has a real flair for understanding their generation. And after closing the cover on a gripping but terrifying read, I have to agree.

Ten students are gunned down in nineteen minutes in small-town U.S.A. Picoult's fictional account makes it clear that she gets exactly how such a tragedy might happen and why. She gets teenagers. Frankly, she gets adults too. She uses a multi-narrative approach to personalize what leads up to those terrible high school shootings that we read about in the papers. She exposes the terror that a little boy getting on a school bus feels every morning wondering what the kids who sit at the back are going to do to him today. We see that same little boy shrink further and further into himself, trying to make himself small enough that his tormentors won't notice him. With what he's experienced, it's easy to see how taking refuge in an artificial computer gaming world where he is the one in charge can warp him. Meanwhile, it's just as easy to sympathize with his parents initial protection and then blind hope that things are better even while it is clear that they are not. We even understand why his childhood friend take sides with his tormentors rather than risk remaining on the outside. Still, Picoult's characters are complex; even a boy like this can still hope for love. Even a girl who betrays her best friend might rethink her actions. By the time that small flame of hope is crushed though, we are afraid of what this last blow will unleash. Of course, the inevitable occurs; a trail of violence that few will be able to forget or forgive is the result. Wisely, Picoult doesn't stop with forgetting or forgiving though. She pushes us to understand despite the bewilderment and anguish that follow such an event. Nineteen Minutes is a work of fiction but Pictoult's fiction is wrapped in the fabric of a truth so real that it will make your heart ache. The question is, will it also open your eyes?

Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter

Good news; the second teen spy school novel by Ally Carter has hit book stores, although still in hardcover. I couldn't resist, and made the mistake of cracking the cover when I should have been working which can be translated as no work got done the rest of that day! It was unputdownable. I know...I know. Stop making up words Sheryl!

But seriously, Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy was just as much fun as the first. The opening finds Cammie Morgan, girl-spy-in-training, back at school after the summer break along with her genius, code-cracking friends. Cammie is still recovering from the loss of her first boyfriend who had to be brainwashed into forgetting about the mission he interrupted in a heroic attempt to save her. While she settles into school and ponders if her ex will even remember her name, she notices that her mother, who happens to be the head of the spy school, is acting awfully strange. But, Cammie barely has time to figure out why before she is blamed for a security breach that puts her top secret school at risk. While trying to clear her name, she overhears her mother and one of the other teachers discussing "Blackthorne," which Cammie figures must be a code name for some mysterious covert op. Soon she and her friends are crawling through walls and surveilling the school to uncover the truth. What they discover will turn their world upside down and send them on a wild ride that you won't want to miss. Once you've finished Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy, you, like me, will only be hoping that Ms. Carter has the third in the series is well under way.

Yikes

Yikes. I can't believe that I haven't posted since the week before Easter. I meant to get one more post in but ran out of time. Since I've returned, I've been getting a project ready for a screen writers workshop I'm taking this weekend. Wish me luck. I'm heading out there shortly.

Something new coming next week. I promise. I have two books I want to talk about. Later. Sheryl

Arthur C. Clarke

I was checking out the NY Times this morning and read that Arthur C. Clarke has died. A visionary who penned close to 100 books, I have been reading Clarke for as long as I can remember. Not surprisingly, he was in the middle of another novel. If you haven't read him, or seen the film classic "2001: A Space Odyssey" (based on his novel of the same name) by the equally great Stanley Kubrick, you are missing something special.