A Monster Calls

“Stories are wild creatures,” the monster said. “When you let them loose, who knows what havoc they might wreak?”  Indeed. “A Monster Calls” (Candlewick Press, 2011), by Patrick Ness, wrought all sorts of havoc with this reader’s emotions.

            At seven minutes after midnight, Conor O’Malley awakes from his nightmare—the nightmare, the one that began haunting him after his mother began cancer treatments—to find a monster at his bedroom window. The monster—part giant, part yew tree, ancient and wild—appears every night at 12:07. It tells Conor three stories, parables really, that overturn expectations. The good prince does a terrible thing. Innocent girls die.  Stories don’t always have happy endings. And after the third tale is told, the monster demands the most difficult thing from Conor: the truth.

            “A Monster Calls” is an extraordinary book about coming to terms with the impending death of a loved one.  Conor knows, deep down, that his mother is dying, but he is in denial, believing each new treatment to be the one that will save her. The monster guides Conor as the boy deals with a father who lives far away with his new family, his increasing isolation at school, his terrible anger, and a difficult grandmother who loves her daughter with the same kind of ferocity that Conor feels for his mother. Each character, even the bully who makes Conor’s life even more hellish, is drawn with care and compassion. The monster may be the best character of them all.

            “A Monster Calls” is also a beautiful book to look at, with illustrations by Jim Kay. Kay’s interpretation of the monster is both haunting and menacing, and the images work perfectly with the text.  

Ness, author of the terrific Chaos Walking trilogy, based “A Monster Calls” on the final story of idea of Siobhan Dowd, whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself. (I reviewed two of Dowd’s books, “Bog Child” and “Solace of the Road.” If you have not yet read anything by this amazing author, I highly recommend them.) In an author’s note, Ness writes that he felt as if Dowd had handed him a baton. “And now it’s time to hand the baton on to you,” Ness writes. “Stories don’t end with the writers, however many started the race. Here’s what Siobhan and I came up with. So go. Run with it. Make trouble.”

Read this book with a box of tissues.

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, January 22, 2012 edition of The News-Gazette. 

High-flying adventures in Africa

In 1936, aviatrix Beryl Markham flew solo across the Atlantic—from England to North America, a much more difficult feat than Amelia Earhart’s west-to-east 1928 trek—and became one of the most celebrated women in the world.

            “Promise the Night,” (Chronicle Books, 2011) Michaela MacColl’s latest historical novel, weaves newspaper and journal accounts from Beryl’s transatlantic flight into the story of her remarkable childhood.

            Beryl Clutterbuck was born in 1902 in England, but she moved to British East Africa (now known as Kenya) with her parents and brother when she was two years old. Living conditions there were difficult and primitive by British standards, and Beryl’s mother soon abandoned her husband and daughter to return to England with a British officer she met in Nairobi.

If life in Africa was too demanding for Clara Clutterbuck, it was heaven for the adventuresome Beryl. She explores the forests, adopts the local Nandi tribe as her substitute family, and learns to speak Swahili. She fervently wishes to join her Nandi friend, a boy named Kibii, in becoming a Nandi warrior. Taught by Kibii’s father, Arap Maina, Beryl learns to jump “higher than her head” and even takes part in a hunt for the leopard. On her father’s ranch, she and Kibii learned to break horses. (Before becoming a pilot, Beryl was the first licensed female horse trainer in British East Africa.)

Beryl rebels at every attempt to turn her into a proper young lady, even as she comes to understand the daughter of a British colonialist can never really become African. 

I received an advance review copy of “Promise the Night” believing it to be a young adult novel, but it is ideal for younger readers—say, ages 9 to 12. Younger teens would like it as well.

Older teens and adults interested in learning more about Beryl Markham should check out her remarkable memoir, “West With the Night.” I recently listened to the unabridged audio version (Blackstone Audio, 2005), read by actress Julie Harris. It is little wonder that Ernest Hemingway, who was not often in the habit of praising other writers, wrote, “[she] can write rings around all of us who consider ourselves writers.” Her fine prose is especially remarkable given her early dislike of reading and writing, although some have suggested that “West With the Night” was ghostwritten by her husband, a Hollywood screen writer.

No matter. Both “Promise the Night” and “West with the Night” are high-flying adventures.

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, January 1 edition of The News-Gazette. 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

In a year that brought about a number of stellar books for readers of young adult fantasy fiction, including Lauren Oliver’s “Delirium,” (reviewed here January 30, 2011), Laini Taylor’s “Daughter of Smoke and Bone” (Little, Brown, and Taylor, 2011) is a real standout. The New York Times selected it as one of the five notable young adult books of 2011, and with good reason—it’s a paranormal romantic fantasy with real emotional and mythic depth.

            Karou is a seventeen year –old art student in the Czech Republic city of Prague. Like many arty-types, she’s got her own quirky style—bright ultramarine hair, for starters. In Karou’s case, her hair really is blue, although she’s happy to let her fellow students believe she dyes it. And then there’s the matter of her family—or the closest she has to family. Karou was raised by chimeras: Brimstone, a horned monster with horns and the golden eyes of a crocodile; Issa, a serpent from the waist down, with the hood and fangs of a cobra; giraffe-necked Twiga; and Yasri, a woman with a parrot’s beak.

            When Karou isn’t attending art school, she is running errands for Brimstone, traveling through magic portals to Paris, Marrakesh, and some place in Idaho. She collects teeth for Brimstone—human, crocodile, bear, even elephant tusks—and lots of them. She’s not crazy about the work, but Brimstone pays her in scuppies, which can be used to grant minor wishes, like making her ex-boyfriend itch in unmentionable places, or causing a mean girl to grow a permanent unibrow. Why Brimstone needs them is one the great mysteries of Karou’s life. So are the indigo eyes inked into the palm of her hands, and the feeling that she was meant to be living another life.

            Soon, beautiful winged things begin burning black handprints into the doors of Brimstone’s portals around the world. One of those angelic beings is Akiva, a seraph. Although it is clear that the two are in opposing sides of a war that Karou does not quite understand, they are immediately drawn to each other. And, as with other star-crossed lovers, they soon find that the stakes are high indeed.

            Taylor’s world-building—whether describing the city of Prague, where “Gothic steeples stood ready to impale fallen angels,” or Elsewhere, with its two moons—is first rate, as is her character development. Even secondary characters, like Karou’s funny and smart friend Zuzana, are well drawn.

            The book ends on a real cliffhanger—or, more precisely, with Karou in the sky somewhere above the Atlas Mountains—that sets the stage for the second book of the trilogy.

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, December 11. 2011 edition of The News-Gazette.

             

            

Blood Lie a realistic tale of bigotry, forgiveness

The Blood Lie

It’s September 22, 1928, and sixteen-year-old Jack Pool is itching to leave his small town in upstate New York. A talented cellist, he has an audition at the Bentley School of Music in three days. Acceptance to the elite boarding school will be his ticket out of Massena. It will also mean leaving behind the girl that he knows he can never have: Jack is Jewish, and Emaline Durham is Christian.

            In the opening pages of “The Blood Lie: A Novel,” by Shirley Reva Vernick (Cinco Puntos Press, 2011), we learn the connection between the two: their mothers had become friends as newlywed brides recently moved to Massena. The mothers’ unlikely friendship—and a such a close relationship between Jewish and Christian women was unlikely in a small town at that time—spawned a friendship between their children as well. But when Emaline’s four-year-old sister Daisy goes missing after playing with Jack’s little sister, Jack finds himself the prime suspect in her disappearance.

It is two days before Yom Kippur, the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews, and someone in town with a definite interest in the case has revived the centuries-old lie that Jews sacrifice Christian children for their rituals—the blood libel.

“The Blood Lie” is based on a true story, which is described in an author’s note at the end. As a sophomore in college, Vernick was given the assignment of identifying a local controversy—past or present—in her hometown, and writing a paper about the outcome. This is her interpretation of the story that she uncovered.

            Vernick’s afterward also makes the point that the blood libel has not died. Stories of the Jewish sacrifice of Christian children persist, with a 2008 campaign in a Russian city claiming that Jews were “stealing small children and draining their blood to make their sacred bread.”

The book is not without its flaws. I found the ending a bit too abrupt. What’s more, after Daisy was found—safe, if a little unsound—there was speculation that the little girl had been molested, prompting some of the townsmen to vow that they would take their revenge on the Jews. I fully expected a dramatic confrontation, but oddly enough, there was none.

            Still, “The Blood Lie” is an engrossing story of forbidden love, terrifying bigotry, and, eventually, forgiveness. The rabbi in particular has some graphic remembrances that would be disturbing to younger readers, but this book is appropriate to middle grade and young adult readers. And honestly? Adults, too. 

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, November 20 edition of The News-Gazette. The review copy was supplied by the publisher. 

Sasquatch--really? Well, maybe...

I’ve never really thought that Bigfoot, or Sasquatch as it’s sometimes called, is anything more than a myth fueled by a series of clever (or not-so-clever) hoaxes. And so I was more than a little skeptical when I began reading Kelly Milner Halls’ latest book, In Search of Sasquatch (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011). I knew Halls to be a terrifically talented and prolific writer of nonfiction books for young people (Saving the Baghdad Zoo, Mysteries of the Mummy Kids, and Tales of the Cryptids are some of her better-known books)—but Sasquatch? Really?

Leave it to Halls to make you think just a little differently about your worldview. After reading In Search of Sasquatch, I can’t say that I’m packing to go on a Sasquatch search expedition, but I’m willing to entertain the notion that it may very well exist.

The many people Halls has interviewed for the book include an anthropologist, a linguistic expert, a biologist, and several people who claim to have sighted Sasquatch. While acknowledging that Sasquatch hoaxes abound, she bolsters her argument for the possible existence the mysterious creature by example: for centuries, paleontologists believed that the coelacanth was a long-extinct prehistoric fish—until a living coelacanth was discovered in 1938. Similarly, the giant squid was a thing of Greek legend—until it was discovered in 2004.  

Her text is accompanied by gorgeous illustrations, additional resources, a glossary, and an extensive bibliography and source notes. Kids who are drawn to the weird and wonderful will love this book. So will adults. 

Myracle’s New Book “Shines”

When the National Book Foundation called Lauren Myracle to tell her that her book "Shine" (Amulet Books, 2011) was a finalist for the National Book Award in the Young People's Literature category, she was surprised--and thrilled. A short time later, in an unprecedented move, the Foundation added a sixth finalist, Franny Billingsley's "Chime" (Dial Books, 2011). Two days later, Myracle got another call from the Foundation. It seems there had a been a mix-up: the judges had read their list of finalists over the phone, and apparently the Foundation heard "Shine" instead of "Chime." Myracle was asked to remove her book from the list "to preserve the integrity of the award and the judge's work," the author told the New York Times. Myracle was crushed, but agreed to do so. Soon, there was an outpouring of support for Myracle, and Amazon sales of "Shine" skyrocketed. 

            So is "Shine" worthy of being a National Book Award finalist? I haven't read the books on the list yet, so I couldn’t really say. But if they are better than this dark and beautiful novel, then it is a strong field indeed.

            Seventeen year-old Patrick is found near death, strung to the pump of the local gas station where he worked with the nozzle of a gas pump in his mouth and an anti-gay slur scrawled across his chest. The sheriff of his local small North Carolina town is quick to pin the blame on out-of-town gay bashers. But Cat, his childhood friend, suspects that perpetrator is home-grown. Driven by love for her friend and guilt over a past betrayal, she is determined to find Patrick’s would-be-killer, despite the urging of her friends and family to stay out of it. As Cat uncovers the ugly truth about the crime, she confronts her own demons—the demons that caused a rift in her friendship with Patrick and others. Filled with memorable characters, richly atmospheric, "Shine" throws an important light upon anti-gay bigotry and the meth epidemic in rural areas of this country.

Some good has come of the "Shine" debacle. Rather than giving Myracle the $1,000 she would have received as finalist, the National Book Foundation has agreed to donate $5,000 to the Matthew Shepard Foundation, an organization that promotes tolerance of gay teens. The foundation is named for a student killed in a notorious anti-gay hate crime in 1998.

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, October 30 edition of The News-Gazette.

    

Forensic science in the news: October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month

Do hackers have it in for Sony, or have they just found an easy--and very large--target? Back in April, hackers broke into Sony's PlayStation Network and walked away with personal, and possibly credit card, information of 100 million customers. The company had to shut down several online services and rework its security system. 


Intruders once again hacked into Sony's network this month, stealing tens of thousands of IDs and passwords. Sony quickly locked the accounts emails users on how they could reset their passwords; the company said that credit card numbers were not at risk. 


Still it's a reminder of just how important it is to protect yourself online. One quick tip: don't use the same password  for online gaming that you use for your bank account, for example. 


Visit www.staysafeonline.org for the latest cybersecurity tips. Or you can check out my book Cybercrime: Data Trails DO Tell Tales, especially Chapter 3, "Viruses, Bots, and Zombies--Oh My!" and Chapter 4, "You've Got Spam!"