Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb (Review)

On July 16, 1945, a fireball 600 feet wide exploded in the sky above a top-secret site in New Mexico bearing the code-name Trinity. Years later, the chief architect behind the experiment recalled, "We knew the world would not be the same."

In "Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb" (Hill and Wang, 2012), Jonathan Fetter-Vorm has written and illustrated in vivid detail the race to build, test, and drop the first atomic bombs.

The effort began in 1939, with the discovery that subatomic particles called neutrons could be used to break uranium atoms into pieces, a process called nuclear fission. Scientists around the world soon realized that nuclear fission, which releases seventy million times more energy than a chemical reaction, could be used to create an enormously powerful bomb.

American scientists--many of whom came from Europe--were concerned that the Nazis might be developing an atomic bomb. They convinced Roosevelt that it was essential for the U.S. to build the weapon before Hitler did so. The U.S. resolve to build the bomb--one of the most expensive undertakings that humans had ever attempted--was solidified when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December, 1941. The man they recruited to lead the effort, which came to be known as the Manhattan Project, was a brilliant physicist named J. Robert Oppenheimer. For many, he would become the face of the atomic age, even as he came to have grave doubts about developing nuclear weapons.

Fetter-Vorm's explanations and illustrations of the fundamental science of nuclear reactions and the making of the bomb are among the clearest I have ever read. The historical details are equally compelling, and Fetter-Vorm does not flinch from the political and moral consequences of the atomic bomb that have shaped our lives even to this day.

Readers who want to dig a little deeper into the history of physics will enjoy another graphic book, "Feynman" (First Second Books, 2011), written by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by Leland Myrick. This biography captures the colorful life and scientific achievements of Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman, who also worked on the Manhattan Project.

The science in "Feynman" can be a challenge for some readers, but Ottaviani and Myrick manage to channel Feynman's gift for explaining difficult concepts to non-scientists. And it is no challenge at all to appreciate Feynman as the wise-cracking, safe-cracking, bongo playing genius who lived life to its fullest.

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, August 19, 2012 edition of The News-Gazette.

While he was away

 After years of drifting around the country, seventeen year-old Penelope and her single mother Linda ("'Flotsam and jetsam,' she always said."), have returned to her mother's hometown of Killdeer, Oklahoma. Having inherited a house and bar and grill from her broken, alcoholic father, Linda struggles to deal with the betrayal of a mother who left when she was just a child.

But for Penelope--Penna to her friends--the move to Killdeer brought her to her soul mate, a fellow artist named David. But now, in the summer between her junior and senior year, David is shipping off to Iraq--and Penna is about to become an Army girlfriend.

"While he was away," by Karen Schreck (Sourcebooks Fire, 2012) is Penna's story, but it is much more than a chronicle of young sweethearts separated by war.

Sure that their love will last, Penna is determined to do all the things that Army girlfriends are encouraged to do: write constantly, always have have your phone nearby, send care packages, keep busy, stay positive.

Penna does everything she's supposed to do, but it's not always easy. For one thing, her mother is making her work at the Red Earth, the family bar and grill--and she's a hopeless waitress. Fortunately, she makes friends with Caitlin, another waitress at Red Earth; Jules, another Army girlfriend; and Ravi, David's troubled boyhood friend. ("...when they were young, they were just about the only brown-skinned kids in school. On bad days, David got called 'Spic' and 'Beaner.' Ravi got called 'A-rab' and 'Towelhead. ... They were loyal to each other.")

Penna also vows to find out more about the mysterious grandmother, Justine, who left Linda when she was only a toddler. Justine's first husband--and true love--was a soldier she married at the age of eighteen before he left to fight in World War II. He never returned--a fact that deeply resonates with Penna. Justine remarried and had Linda, but, as Linda bitterly recalls, "she left us for a ghost."

Even as the war changes David in ways that Penna only gradually comes to understand, Penna, her friends and family are transformed by events at home. This story about cross-generational love, loyalty, and forgiveness is a reminder that the fingers of war reach past the battleground and into the hearts and lives of everyone involved. 

This review was originally published in the July 29, 2012 issue of the News-Gazette. To learn more about Karen Halvorsen Schreck and her writing, visit http://www.karenschreck.com/. 

Kill Bill Meets Buffy

 “Kill Bill meets Buffy in this supernatural samurai tale.” If the publisher’s blurb grabs your attention like it did mine, then you’ll love “Katana,” by Cole Gibsen (Flux, 2012).

            Rileigh Martin is a skater chick who just wants to go to her junior class’s end-of-the-school-year party, maybe hook up with this cute guy she’s had her eye on for the past year. But when Rileigh and her best friend Quentin witness a mugging in a shopping mall parking lot, something—someone—is awakened inside her.  Rileigh foils the thief and defends herself against the thug and his two buddies with impressive martial arts skills she never knew she possessed.

            Rileigh would like to believe that her fighting skills were powered by pure adrenaline, but that doesn’t explain her the voice inside her head giving her battle tips and warning her of danger, or her incredible fighting skills.  And if definitely doesn’t explain her strange, vivid dreams of fifteenth-century Japan. She thinks she might be going crazy—not the way she was planning on spending her summer.

            As it turns out, she’s not crazy—just the reincarnation of a female samurai warrior named Sensi who died 500 years ago. Or at least that’s what a handsome martial arts instructor named Kim tells her. And now that others know of her powers (her fight was caught on a security camera), she is very much in danger. An enemy from her past would like to see her dead.

            Rileigh wants none of this. She simply wants to be a normal teenage girl who—finally!—seems to have caught the eye of the guy she has a crush on. And, truth be told, it takes her longer than I’d like to embrace her samurai self. But when she finally does, Rileigh becomes the great, kick butt-character you want her to be.

            Rileigh learns to master the katana, a deadly Japanese sword that’s also the key to her past. As the spirit of Sensi grows stronger, she also finds herself falling for Kim.

            “Katana” isn’t perfect. Although Quentin is a terrific character, the stereotype of the gay best friend is getting kind of old. The dialogue is sometimes kind of awkward. Even so, “Katana” is a lot of fun. It’s jam-packed with action, and the fight scenes are incredibly well written. Romance? Check. We’re talking soul-mate love. Add to that a good dash of humor, and you’ve got a great summer read.

            Gibsen is a talented young author from southern Illinois. A second book in the series, “Senshi,” is due out in 2013.

This review was originally published in the News-Gazette on July 8, 2012. To learn more about Cole Gibsen, check her out: http://www.colegibsen.com/

Something Wicked This Way Comes

The following review appeared in the Sunday, June 17 edition of the News-Gazette.

The whole world, it seems, is mourning the loss of Ray Bradbury, who died on June 5 at the age of 91. One of the greatest American science fiction and fantasy writers of the past century, Bradbury has inspired countless readers and writers. Count me among them. For many people, the initial encounter with Bradbury’s genius is Fahrenheit 451 or perhaps The Martian Chronicles, both of which are staples in the high school classroom.

            I don’t want to diminish the impact of those two books—both are wonderfully accessible and thought-provoking—but the one that has stuck with me throughout the years is Something Wicked This Way Comes (Simon & Schuster, 1962).  This may be due to the fact that it was the first book of Bradbury’s that I read. It may have been because, at 13, I was the same age as the book’s two protagonists, Will Holloway and Jim Nightshade. All I know is that I found it both beautiful and terrifying.

            Will and Jim are best friends, born just two minutes apart: Will, at 11:59 p.m., All Saint’s Day, and Jim, at 12:01 a.m. on Halloween. Light and dark personified. A carnival rolls into Green Town (based on Bradbury’s home town, Waukegan, Illinois) in the middle of the night, on the heels of a storm predicted by a strange lightning rod salesman named Mr. Fury.

            Will and Jim are eager to experience the thrills of the carnival—until they discover its sinister secrets. Cooger and Dark’s Pandemonium Shadow Show is not just any carnival, although it contains the usual collection of sideshows, rides, and freaks. Mr. Dark, the mysterious ringmaster, lures unsuspecting townspeople with the promise of granting their heart’s desire. Is it, like Will’s father, to become young again? Ride the carousel in reverse, and the years melt away. Ride it forward, and Jim can be a grown man. But there is a price, of course—your soul. Can the boys resist joining Mr. Dark’s haunted band of freaks?

            Bradbury’s lyrical writing style owes much to Shakespeare, and indeed, the title of the book comes from Macbeth: “By the pricking of my thumbs/Something wicked this way comes.” This atmospheric book will have you turning the pages far too long into the night.

Near the end of the book, Will’s father muses, “Is Death important? No. Everything that happens before Death is what counts.”

            You made it count, Ray.  

Code Name Verity (review)

 I know that I promised in last month’s column that I’d write about the Edgar Award Winner in the YA category, but once I read it, I wasn’t all that crazy about the book. Since this is a recommendation column, I’ll tell you instead about a book that I am crazy in love with. 

“I am a coward. I wanted to be heroic and I pretended I was. I have always been good at pretending.” These are the opening words of “Code Name Verity” (Hyperion, 2012) a stunning new novel by Elizabeth Wein. Verity, a.k.a. Queenie (and a number of other names, it turns out), is a Scottish spy who was captured by the Gestapo after a crash landing in occupied France during World War II. 

            She is imprisoned in a once-elegant hotel that now serves as the Gestapo headquarters in a small town in central France. After being tortured by her captor, SS-Hauptsturmführer von Loewe, she agrees to write down everything she knows about the British war effort. Like Scheherazade, the storyteller in “One Thousand and One Nights,” Queenie will live only as long as it takes to write her confession.

            And so she tells the story of how she came to her predicament. “The story of how I came to be here starts with Maddie,” she writes—Maddie Brodatt, the pilot who flew her into France.

Through Queenie’s report, written on creamy hotel stationary, on prescription forms, in between the lines of flute music that once belonged to a Jewish flutist, and on recipe cards, we learn the story of the unlikely friendship between the two young women. Maddie Brodatt is English, a secular Jew and a commoner; a natural pilot and airplane mechanic, she is one of the few women to become an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot for the British (in an author’s note, Wein writes that there were in fact female ATA pilots during WWII).  Queenie is of Scottish nobility; her German is flawless, thanks to an education at a Swiss boarding school. She’s gorgeous and cool as a cucumber under pressure: ideal qualifications for a spy.

And now for the hard part of the review: I can’t really tell you much more about “Code Name Verity.” This book is so intricately plotted, with so many twists and turns, that a plot summary would ruin the surprises that await the reader. I can tell you that this book is chock-full of vivid historical details about WWII pilots, spies, the Gestapo, the French resistance, and more. I can tell you that it made me cry. Most importantly, I can tell you that this is a book about the friendship between two smart, strong and courageous women (yes, Queenie was lying about being a coward). “It’s like being in love, discovering your best friend,” Queenie writes. “We’re still alive and make a sensational team.” So they do.

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, May 27 print edition of The News-Gazette. I received an advance review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.   

The Girl is Murder (review)

If the TV show “Veronica Mars” and some 1940s-era Nancy Drew books got together and had a love child, it might be “The Girl is Murder” (Roaring Brook Press, 2011), by Kathryn Miller Haines.

            It’s the fall of 1942, and fifteen year-old Iris Anderson’s world has turned upside down. Her father (“Pop”), a private detective, lost his leg at Pearl Harbor. Her mother, a German Jew, killed herself a short time later. Her mother’s inheritance has run dry, forcing father and daughter to move from their comfortable Upper East Side apartment to a house shared with their Polish landlady in the Lower East Side. Pop’s disability makes it difficult for him to carry out the physically challenging side of his detective work, and they are perpetually behind on the rent. No more posh private all-girls school for Iris; she’s attending a public school for the first time.

            Iris longs to help her Pop, especially when she learns that he is investigating the disappearance of Tom, one of the few people at her new school to show her some kindness. Pop steadfastly refuses her help (“This isn’t a business for little girls.”), but Iris is determined. Soon, good-girl Iris is sneaking out behind her father’s back and cozying up to the tough crowd at school. Lies pile upon lies as Iris, determined to crack the case, double-crosses even her friends.

            “The Girl is Murder” crackles with 1940s-era slang (“Our Benny thinks you’re murder. . . . “You know—marvelous.”), the tough boys wear oversized Zoot Suits, and they all do the jitterbug at the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem. I did have some problems with the plot, particularly with an improbable coincidence that I hoped would be somehow explained in the end (it’s not). Nevertheless, Haines successfully captures the race, religion, and class issues of wartime New York City while delivering a fast-paced page-turner. Recommended for readers 12 and up—there is drinking, some drugs, and an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. If you like this book, you might want to check out the sequel, “The Girl is Trouble,” coming in July 2012.

               “The Girl is Murder” was a nominee in the YA category for the prestigious Edgar Award, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. I’ll review the YA winner of the Edgar Award, “The Silence of Murder,” in my next column, but for now, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got to take a powder.

This review originally appeared in the Sunday, May 6 print edition of The News-Gazette.     

Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy

In “Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy” (Simon & Schuster, 2011), author Bil Wright has conjured, in Carlos Duarte, one of the most authentic teen narrators since Holden Caulfield. Sixteen year-old Carlos has a fabulous sense of style, loves makeup, and dreams of becoming “Carrlos, Duarte, makeup artist to the stars!” He imagines “doing Mary J. Blige’s makeup before a concert, or maybe Rihanna’s, or taking a month off from school to go on tour with Janet Jackson because she insisted if she didn’t have me she couldn’t do the tour.”
When he lands a job as a salesman and makeup artist at the FeatureFace counter in Macy’s he’s sure that he’s on his way to achieving his dream. But Carlos’s life is far from perfect. His sister is dating an abusive loser, his single mother struggles to make ends meet, and his boss feels threatened by his up-and-coming employee’s talent and charm. But he’s determined to do right by his mother and sister, even as he struggles to overcome the hurdles his boss places in his path.
Carlos is flamboyantly and unabashedly gay. He turns heads. “All right, I’m not stupid,” Carlos says. “It was raining hard and I had on my black vinyl slicker and the hat that goes with it. And my mascara may even have been smudged a little from so much rain. So, I didn’t look like any of the yuppies in the stupid place. Or those boys in their dirty uniforms. But I never look like anyone else, and that’s the point. I don’t want to look like anyone else.”
Authors and publishers of LGBT literature have worked hard—and with good reason—to overturn the pervasive stereotypes of queer teens. Not every gay teen loves fashion, makeup, and calls his platonic girl friends “darling.” But some do, and the thing I like about this book is that Carlos’s in-your-face style is just one aspect of his complex and layered character. Despite the fact that Carlos is harassed and attacked by his sister’s homophobic boyfriend and his buddies, this is not a Gay Problem Novel. While “Fat Boy” does address some serious issues, it is mostly an entertaining read about a teen—who just happens to be gay—with a burning desire to be a famous makeup artist.
“Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy” won the 2012 Stonewall Book Award, which is given annually to works of exceptional merit for children or teens relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience.

This review originally appeared in The News-Gazette, Sunday, February 12, 2012.

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. 

A Love Story for Dog Lovers

“A hundred and two days.” So begins Paul Griffin’s young adult novel, “Stay With Me” (Dial Books, 2011). That’s probably about the length of the average teenage romance, Griffin writes, but the relationship between Mack Morse and Céce Vaccuccia is anything but average.

            Mack is a shy fifteen year-old high school dropout with a learning disability and a criminal record. His mother has been AWOL since he was eight, driven away by his brutal, alcoholic father. But he has gift: he has a way with dogs. He rescues, rehabilitates, and trains abused and abandoned fighting dogs.

            Fifteen year-old Céce is no child of privilege, either; she lives with her loopy mother and brother, just barely making ends meet. But their goodbyes always end with, “Love you like a crazy person,” and Céce is a straight-A student hoping to be able to transfer to a school for the gifted and talented.

            Written in chapters that alternate between Mack’s and Céce’s points of view, “Stay With Me” is the story of the star-crossed teens’ 102-day romance. Mack is strong-armed into looking out for Céce by her brother (who also happens to be Mack’s friend) when he enlists in the Army. Despite a rocky start, the two are soon a couple, and they begin to dream of a future together. Mack is training a rescued pit bull that he calls Boo. He hopes to gives it to Céce, who has grown to love the dog. And then Mack makes a terrible mistake, and suddenly their future together is impossible.

            Griffin has such a way with characters. Mack is deeply conflicted and struggles with his anger, yet he has a huge heart. His tenderness and love for Céce and his dogs is touching. Céce is funny, insecure about her weight (one of the things I love about Mack is that he doesn’t seem to notice that she’s a little overweight), and cares deeply about her family.

Even the supporting characters are complex and memorable. Anthony, Céce’s older brother, and Vic, the kind-hearted owner of the café where they work, are steady moral compasses throughout the story. Céce’s mother dyes her hair crazy colors, drinks too much, and bakes inedible holiday-themed cornbread to cope with the anxiety of her son’s impending deployment.

            “Stay With Me” contains sexual themes and some violent scenes that make it appropriate for older teens. The book does not have a “happily-ever-after” ending, but it is full of heart, redemption, and hope for a better future. It may just make you want to take in a rescue dog. 

Advance review copy provided by the publisher. This review originally published in The News-Gazette, Sunday, October 9, 2011. 

The Poisoned House: A Ghost Story

Take a plucky but downtrodden scullery maid, a tyrannical housekeeper, the Lord of the House teetering on the brink of madness, a very insistent ghost, and what do you get? “The Poisoned House: A Ghost Story” (Albert Whitman & Co., 2011), a deliciously creepy new gothic horror story by Michael Ford.

That plucky scullery maid is fifteen year-old Abigail Tamper—Abi, to her friends. As the book opens in 1850s London, Abi is attempting to escape her miserable life in Greave Hall, an elegant but increasingly troubled household. The chief architect of her misery is the tyrannical housekeeper, Mrs. Cotton, who punishes Abi for the slightest infraction. The return of Lord Greave’s son Samuel, injured in the Crimean War, seems to have only worsened his Lordship’s mental condition. And the ghost is none other than Abi’s mother, who had been Samuel’s childhood nurse before her death a year earlier.

After Abi’s foiled escape from Greave Hall, strange things start to occur. There is a mysteriously closed bolt that should be been left open. A handprint appears on both the inside and outside of the library window. Lord Greave’s drinking glass is shattered—but by whom? At first, Abi feels comforted by her mother’s ethereal presence, until she realizes that the ghost is trying to warn her of something. She is no longer safe at Greave Hall—if she ever was.

Although the plot of “The Poisoned House” is somewhat predictable (it does, after all, follow the conventions of the gothic novel), its many twists and turns provide plenty of suspense. And Ford has a real knack for creating terrific characters. Abi makes for a wonderful companion; she is resourceful and sympathetic, a young woman still trying to find her way in a world that seems not to love her. Mrs. Cotton is a villain in the finest Gothic tradition: cruel, petty, and domineering. I suspect Ford had the most fun creating her character, because aren’t villains always the most interesting?

Teens who enjoyed Neil Gaiman’s “Coraline” as younger readers will like “The Poisoned House.” And if gothic novels are your cup of tea, you really must read Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” one of the greatest gothic novels of all time. Preferably (with apologies to Miss Brontë) when the cold autumn wind brings with it “clouds so somber, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise is now out of the question.” 

Advance review copy provided by the publisher. This review originally published in The News-Gazette, Sunday, September 18, 2011. 

First Descent

Pam Withers sets the pace for her latest novel, “First Descent” (Tundra Books, 2011), with the opening sentence: “When the shot rang out, I leapt from my bed, lifted a corner of the bedroom curtain, and looked down on the river bend.”  (It’s not what you think.)

            At the age of seventeen, Rex Scruggs is already a world champion kayaker. Now, he is determined to descend the Furioso, a Columbian river that lives up to its name. Only one man has ever attempted to kayak the Furioso: his legendary (and thoroughly unpleasant) grandfather, Malcolm Scruggs. This is Rex’s chance to carry on the family legacy—and   prove his worth to the gruff old man. His grandfather’s one request was that Rex find the Calambás family: a starving daughter, so the story went, had given him a necklace in return for an avocado sandwich. The necklace has become Rex’s good luck charm.

            Once in Columbia, Rex meets the young woman who will be his guide along the river, Myriam Calambás, an indigenous Columbian who has lived along El Furioso her entire life. At this point, you may have deduced that Myriam has some connection to the necklace, but it’s not as far-fetched as you might imagine. In Myriam’s chapters, which more or less alternate with Rex’s, we learn that her community is beset both by the guerillas, who supposedly fight for the poor, and the paramilitary soldiers, hired by the rich landowners to fight the guerillas. Myriam dreams of attending college and becoming a journalist so that she can make others aware of the plight of her people.

            Rex, who in many ways is like his grandfather—narcissistic, dismissive of others, and over-confident—soon learns that the real danger in this new world is not the river, but the guerillas and paramilitaries. Can he achieve first descent, and do right by the people he has come to care for?

            Pam Withers is a former whitewater kayak instructor and raft guide, and her expertise shows. I’m not a kayaker, but the book’s whitewater passages are so full of strategy, muscle, and energy that you can almost feel the water’s spray as you hurtle down the page.

           In her effort to familiarize readers with Columbian life and culture, Withers sometimes explains the obvious. Most American readers, after all, will not need to be told that empanadas are “meat and cheese pastries.” But the occasional authorial intrusions are a minor quibble with what is otherwise a compellingly readable tale of courage, sacrifice, and adventure.

I received an advance review copy of this book through the Library Thing Early Reviewer program. This review was originally published in the News-Gazette on Sunday, August 28, 2011.

Review: Dreamland Social Club

I recently visited Coney Island, famed for its Cyclone rollercoaster, the Wonder Wheel, Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, and freak shows. So of course I was primed to read Tara Altebrando’s young adult novel “Dreamland Social Club” (Dutton Books, 2011). 

Set in Coney Island, this book perfectly captures the nostalgia and gritty wonder of Brooklyn’s legendary playground, full of quirky, colorful characters.

Sixteen year-old Jane Dryden and her older brother have spent much of their lives moving from one place to another, following their father’s work as a rollercoaster designer and engineer. 

Still grieving ten years after the death of Jane’s and Marcus’s mother, the family inherits their mother’s childhood house in Coney Island from a grandfather the children never knew, Preemie. “There was an amusement part here in the early nineteen hundreds,” Jane’s father explained. “Dreamland. Incubators had just been invented…Your grandfather was part of a premature baby display when he was born,” who later made a living “harassing people on the boardwalk into playing a carnival game where you shoot clown mouths with water guns.” 

Her grandmother, Jane learned, was a sideshow act, supposedly part bird. Jane is determined to explore the secrets of her mother’s past, a life she both loved and longed to escape.

Jane is a wonderfully complex character who just wants to find a place where she can fit in, call home. But at Coney Island High, her new friends are Leo, the Tattooed Boy; Babette, a goth dwarf; Debbie, who sports a peach-fuzz beard; H.T., who has no legs; and a giant named Legs. Normal never seemed so…weird. Jane discovers that her mother founded the mysterious Dreamland Social Club, something that everyone seems to know about but her.

Over the course of the year, Jane finds herself in the middle of a decades-old family feud involving a carousel horse chained to the radiator the living room as well as an ongoing battle between a development company that might have a job for her father and preservationists who fear that their beloved Coney Island will be turned into another slick theme park and shopping mall.

This book is steeped in Coney Island history and the carnival-like atmosphere of Jane’s new world. If you’ve ever been to Coney Island, or know anything of its history, you’ll be nodding your head in delighted recognition throughout the book. If you’ve never been there, you may well find yourself making travel plans—or wishing you could. Fortunately, Altebrando lists some excellent resources for readers wanting to learn more about The People’s Playground.

This review was first published in The News-Gazette, Sunday, August 7, 2011. 

  

Book Review: The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack

Okay, so it’s July, and you and I both know that at some point this summer you’ll have to crack open whatever book the schools have decided you need to read this summer. Fine, you gotta  do what you gotta do. (Can you tell I’m no great fan of assigned summer reading?) Here, then, is my antidote to the summer reading assignment: “The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack,” by Mark Hodder (Pyr, 2010). It’s a rollicking, head-spinning steampunk adventure that is unlikely to find its way onto any summer reading list.

The book’s hero is Sir Richard Francis Burton, the great British explorer, linguist, and scholar, and his diminutive sidekick, Algernon Charles Swinburne, the thrill-seeking young poet. (In an appendix titled “Meanwhile, in the Victorian Age,” Hodder gives brief biographies of these and the many other real-life characters who appear in the book.)

Although it opens in London, 1861, this is not the familiar Victorian London. For one thing, the young Queen Victoria was assassinated in 1840; her husband, Albert, is King. The country is in the midst of a technological and social upheaval. Engineers, part of the new Technologist caste, have created steam-driven velocipedes, flying rotorchairs, and giant crab-like robotic street cleaners. Eugenicists, the other half of the Technologists, have created messenger parakeets with the unfortunately tendency to pepper their messages with insults, giant swans pulling passenger-carrying box kites, and most frighteningly, werewolves that carry off young chimney sweeps. The new Libertines oppose repressive laws, while the Rakes dabble in magic, drugs, and anarchy.

Enter Spring Heeled Jack, a bogeyman legendary for groping young women, leaving them shocked or permanently damaged. After an encounter with the strange creature, Burton is commissioned to investigate. I don’t want to give too much away, but the Rube Goldberg-style plot reveals just how Victorian London was transformed into Steampunk London, and it’s satisfying indeed. Throw in a talking orangutan, a sinister albino panther-man, appearances by Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and Florence Nightingale, and you’ve got one heck of a fun summer read.

I found this book on the adult science fiction shelf in the library, but it’s suitable for older teens. There is some rough language, the most colorful of which is spoken by the messenger parakeets (“Message for the Marquess of buttock-wobbling Waterford!”), talk of attempted rape, and the sort of violence you’d see in superhero movies, including exploding werewolves. If you liked this book, Burton and Swinburne return in “The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man” (Pyr, 2011).

This review originally published in The News-Gazette, July 17, 2011. 

"Revolver" Loaded With Suspense

"Even the dead tell stories."

So begins Marcus Sedgwick's terrific novel “Revolver” (Roaring Book Press, 2010), a Prinz Honor Book for 2011. Fourteen year-old Sig Andersson had heard his father say these words many times before. Now, with his father's frozen corpse lying on the table in his family's cabin somewhere north of the Arctic Circle, Sig waits for the dead man's story to unfold.

The main action of Revolver takes place in just three days in 1910 outside of Giron, a lonely outpost in northern Scandinavia. The Giron chapters are interspersed with passages set in Nome, Alaska in 1899-1900 that fill in the back-story. Sig has found his father, fallen halfway through the ice where he’d tried to cross the nearby lake on his dogsled. Sig realizes that his father must have been in a terrible rush to get home, violating his own advice, "Never cross the lake by the river mouth; the ice is always thinner there. Even in wintertime." But what—or who—could have caused his father to abandon all caution in his haste to get home?

After his sister and stepmother (their mother was murdered in Nome) leave to get help, Sig’s first clue to the mystery of his father’s death arrives in the form of a terrifying visitor, a giant of a man named Günter Wolff. Wolff claims that Sig’s father owes him a share of gold, stolen while both were working in Nome. Sig knows nothing of the gold; neither does his sister Anna, who returns alone. Now both Sig and Anna are Wolff’s captives. He makes it clear that he will kill one of them to get the other to reveal the location of the stolen gold.

Sig realizes that their only hope lies in his father’s beloved Colt revolver, hidden in the storeroom near the cabin. Although Sig’s mother and stepmother were both devout, nonviolent women who hated the revolver, Sig’s father called it, “the most beautiful thing in the world…after your sister, and your dear mother, that is…. things can be “beautiful from the inside, because of what they can do.” In the remarkable passage that follows, Sig’s father describes exactly how a gun works and shows his children how to shoot. In his words, it is indeed a beautiful thing, although, as Anna says, “what happen when the bullet hits something? Someone, I mean. That’s not beautiful. That’s terrible.”

Gradually, Sig comes up with a plan for using his father’s revolver to defeat Wolff, while at the same time honoring his mother’s pacifism. Teens who like the books of Gary Paulsen and Jack London will love “Revolver.” It’s a quick read, but the questions it raises—truth-telling versus deceit, faith versus action, violence versus pacifism—will stick with you for a long time.

Originally published in The News-Gazette, Sunday, June 5, 2011.