Quill prevails when the strong survive

V is away at camp :(


As a way to stay connected, we are both reading the same book while she is gone: The Unwanteds by Lisa McMann. 

If you liked The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Harry Potter... then this is the summer read for you!


In a place called Quill, children are sorted into three categories when they turn 13: the Wanteds, the Necessaries, and the Unwanteds. The Wanteds get to be educated. The Necessaries perform manual labor, and the Unwanteds (those who are creative and artistic) are ... sentenced to death!

This is an exciting book, full of magic and action. Luckily book 2 Island of Silence comes out in September.

my fingers on the switch

Today in 1951,The Catcher in the Rye was published.
Holden Caulfield is the ultimate alienated teenager.

So, it seems appropriate that I just finished the book, Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King. Vera Dietz, like Holden, is a sullen teen trying to figure out the adult world.

“I'd rather feel something for real than pretend it's not what it is. Which Zen guy said "If you want to drown, do not torture yourself with shallow water"?”  ~ Vera Deitz

The story of Vera and her dead best friend Charlie is revealed slowly. The primary narrator is Vera, but Charlie and Vera's dad and even the pagoda get a few chapters. Very clever, indeed. The alternating points of view help you to understand how the characters see themselves and how they are viewed by others.


Please Ignore Vera Deitz was a dark, humorous, and tragic young adult novel that older teens and adults will love.

“Today I am in control because I want to be. I have my fingers on the switch, but have lived a lifetime ignoring the control I have over my own world. Today is different.” ~ Vera Deitz 

All will be well.

I was away for a few days and read See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles. It's a wonderful story narrated by an amazing 12-year-old girl, Fern.  Mom got into bed with me and read Charlotte's Web. It took all day, and at the end, we both cried and shared a tissue. When we finished sniffling, my mom adjusted herself in the bed so she could look at me. "Fern," she said softly. "Do you know why I named you Fern?" I nodded, looking at the drawing of the girl on the cover of the book. "Why?" she asked. "Because Fern is one of your favorite characters?" "And why is that?" I shrugged. "Because Fern cares," she said. "From the moment you were born, I could tell you had a special soul. I knew you'd be a good friend. A hero." I looked at my chest and tried to feel my soul buried in there, deep in my heart.  This is a great book about family and siblings and relationships. It will open a dialog for discussions on bullying, sexuality, grief, faith, and forgiveness. Here are some of my favorite bits to start you thinking: ... I wonder what that must be like. To know you're different. To know some people are going to hate you because of it. ... my eyes fill with tears. I feel like a big baby for being so upset, but it really does hurt to be wronged. It hurts so much.  ... why is it that when people are nice to you, it makes you have to cry? If you've ever felt unsupported or invisible, you should get to know Fern. If you love books filled with endearing characters that stay with you long after the story is over, See You at Harry's is the book for you.  So, when all that's left of me Is love, Give me away. ~ Merritt Malloy

'May those frightened cease to be afraid, and may those bound, be free.'

Right from the cover... a young boy, a baby elephant in chains... I knew this book would require tears.

Yesterday I read Chained by Lynne Kelly. It is a book that asks you to be brave, and above all... kind.

I loved the references to Ganesh. He's my favorite Hindu god. He's a boy with an elephant's head... maybe you've seen him before? Ganesh is my favorite because he is known as the Remover of Obstacles, which is why he is always great to have around.

From Chained:

From my hammock I peek through the spaces between the stable logs. Even though I can't see anything but the night sky, I pretend to see all the way to my house. I picture my mother as I last saw her, when I looked out the back window of the truck to see her standing in the road. 

Just before I fall asleep, Ne Min comes into the stable. When I sit up I see that he's holding a palm leaf and a hammer.

He holds up the leaf. "I meant for you to keep this," he says.

"Why? What does it say?"

"It is from a prayer." Ne Min holds holds the leaf on the wall in front of me and places the end of a nail against it. "It says, 'May those frightened cease to be afraid, and may those bound, be free.'"

With one strike he pounds the nail into the wall. 

 

In a small town, murder is always more than a paragraph in the local paper.

"It is, after all, these small-town tragedies that truly bring a community closer together. That separate the outsiders from the ones who belong. That keep the gates closed, and the doors locked, and the evil of the wider world safely outside.

We don't trust you if we don't know you, and sometimes, we don't trust you if we do. We band together; we circle the wagons; we peer out of our shuttered windows with weapons in hand and loved ones at our side.

When the blinds are drawn and the stakes are high, only the lucky few are allowed to come in."

  ~~~~~  

I just finished a great YA book, Amelia Anne Is Dead And Gone by Kat Rosenfield. It's beautifully written and completely mesmerizing. The Kirkus review called the book "utterly compelling".


I couldn't put it down; it was an absolutely brutal page-turner!


It's unlike any murder mystery I've ever read. The chapters are intercut between Amelia Anne Richardson's life and Rebecca, the town of Bridgeton's high school salutatorian.


However, there is violence and sex and bad language... still, it was all perfectly placed and necessary... yet, maybe you should be 13 or 14 years old to read it... or have your parent read it first and see what they think.


Chapter 12 was so lyrical and atmospheric and evocative and positively lovely:

"The day that Brendan Brooks died was the hottest in anyone's memory, so hot that cats lay down in the shade and panted, elderly women fainted under the weight of their support hose, and the newly paved parking lot behind the grocery bubbled and churned and turned into a viscous black pudding. The sun, silvery-bright and hot, so hot, blazed arrogantly down from a blanched and cloudless sky. It baked small bits of gravel into the soft asphalt roads, it melted popsicles off their sticks and over the grubby hands of porch-sitting toddlers, and it pounded relentlessly against the supple skin of the local kids who gathered at the south shore bridge to cool off."

If you want to see what gorgeous writing looks like, sounds like, feels like... you need to read Amelia Anne Is Dead And Gone.


* with your parents permission, of course.

from beyond

Small Medium at Large by Joanne Levy 

is a book I know I would have loved when I was 11 or 12.

It's about 12 year-old Lilah Bloom, who right in chapter one gets struck by lightning. By chapter two, she realizes that because of this, she can hear dead people; she can talk to ghosts.


Lilah isn't so sure about this. She thought it was very weird. She asked her dead grandmother:

"What's it like to be dead?...

There was a long pause. So long, I began to think she was gone, when she suddenly said, "I'm sorry but I can't tell you."

This book made me think... What would I do if I could hear dead people? What would you do? What would you ask them? Who would come looking for you to give you a message from 'beyond'?

much better now