Bloor, Edward, (1997). Tangerine. New York: Scholastic. ISBN: 0439286034. 294 pages.

Summary and Evaluation: Paul Fisher and his family may have just moved to the strangest town in the United States: Tangerine, Florida. Weird things are always happening: muck fires burn behind the homes sending out smelly gasses, lightening strikes the same area every afternoon, and portable school buildings get sucked into sinkholes. Some of these events are linked to the history of the town. What was formerly filled with grove after grove of tangerine trees has turned into subdivisions and school buildings, and nature seems to rebel against all these new developments.

Paul can see this connection, but as he sees it, everyone else in his family is too absorbed in the "Erik Fisher Football Dream" to notice. For that matter, they're too focused on that dream to to really notice Paul. Their dad thinks Erik is a football star bound to get great scholarships at top colleges, but Paul sees Erik as a bully.

Paul's own soccer success is overshadowed his brother. Add to this the fact that Paul has a serious eye problem due to a mysterious accident that happened when he was a child. With the help of a new group of friends and a project on a new kind of tangerine, Paul begins to slowly come into his own. At the same time, he begins to remember events from his own past that shed much needed clarity for his whole family, whether they like it or not.

At times, this book is simultaneously mesmerizing and horrifying. It's amazing what people will overlook when singularly focused on one goal. Bloor's novel raises a lot of issues about the environment, social strata, and even family relations. There are times you want to shake his mother for her knee-jerk reactions or his father for his overzealous praise of Erik, but perhaps it's because these parents seem real and entirely fallible. Paul is a kid you can root for. While everyone else in town seems to have trouble seeing how astute he is, by letting him tell his own story, the reader is immediately convinced and follows him willingly.

Booktalk: I think this would be a good booktalk to do as a mood piece. To help it along, I think I could bring in a prop of goggles (like the ones he wears for sports) and/or a tangerine. Perhaps the tangerine could be especially useful as the outer skin is protecting a sweet fruit.

Garden, Nancy (1982). Annie on My Mind. Toronto: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. ISBN: 374404135?. 234 pages.

Summary and Evaluation: Liza's final year of high school doesn't quite go the way she planned. She gets in trouble with the headmistress of her school (on more than one occasion), the school itself is financially unstable, but mostly, she's falling in love with Annie. The two are a perfect match. Annie doesn't go to Liza's school, but the two become inseparable, creating a strong bond of friendship before delving into something more. When their relationship does become physical, the two are able to live in a temporary utopia, until their love is exposed to others. How these others (including Liza's parents) respond effects more than just Liza and Annie.

The story is slightly dated in pacing, environment, and politics, but the primary content and subject matter are still current and valid. Farmer writes a love story that is honest and heartwarming. While some of the characters play out more like caricatures at times (the headmistress is named Mrs. Poindexter?), there is a lot within this book that feels genuine and true. It is easy to become emotionally tied to these characters as they come out to themselves and to their worlds. A young person struggling with issues of sexuality can find a lot within the story that is supportive and encouraging. I think many who come out to their parents would hope their parents respond like Liza's father.

Before reading this book, the only YA book I had read with a same sex love relationship was M.E. Kerr's Deliver Us From Evie, which I found, like some other gay romance stories, moved too quickly from attraction to action. Perhaps one of the best things about Annie On My Mind is the careful way Farmer takes the reader through this budding first love. The story is believable, and I can see it as a touchstone for other authors who want to write similar love stories.

Booktalk: If I could find reproductions, I might talk about this book by introducing the two "symbolic" art pieces of each of them--the choir screen and the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan. I could bring images of these two works and describe the two main characters as they relate to this art.

Meyers, Walter Dean, (1999). Monster. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN:0060280778. 281 pages.

Summary and Evaluation: This novel is primarily written as a screenplay, with some shorter journal entries interspersed. Steve Harmon is a black 16 year old on trial for felony murder. He's also in the film club at his school, Stuyvesant. He's the one writing the screenplay. Through flashback scenes and scenes of others' testimony, the reader gets a glimpse into Steve's world and his situation. Is he guilty? Is he innocent? What has he learned during this trial?

Meyers does a lovely job creating a character who wants to be liked and loves to observe. At times this created distance makes you wonder how much of the whole experience Steve is internalizing. The journal entries help maintain a personal sympathy for the character. Because of these, I think this story might not translate well into a screenplay. While it is couched in this screenplay it is most immediately a novel. Meyers also sets up a community, and makes Steve's environment almost characters themselves. There is the character of his neighborhood and the character of the detention center where he is being housed.

As a reader, I was quick to sympathize with Steve, but it was also easy to see that his "screenplay" still omitted facts and elements that fully completed the story. Meyers alludes to this reliability question on p. 214 when Steve inserts a quick scene of his film teacher Sawicki giving advice. Sawicki says "When you see a filmmaker getting to fancy, you can bet he's worried either about his story or about his ability to tell it."

The novel raises large questions about fitting in, morality and the current justice system. I can easily see how a class could work as the jury in this case after the closing arguments. The book also raises some difficult questions about risk taking and rights. In the end, the jury does come to a verdict and another discussion could follow the jury's actual decision. Was it the right one?

Booktalk: Because this book is written as a screenplay, a possible book talk could use class students to read certain characters during a certain scene of the book--perhaps during Bobo's testimony. Or you could read the opening (or possibly the closing) arguments of one of the lawyers.

Stolarz, Laurie Faria, (2003). Blue is for Nightmares. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn. ISBN:0738703915. 283 pages.

Summary and Evaluation: What's worse that dreaming that your best friend is going to be murdered? Waking up, at 16, to find you've wet the bed. So begins Stacey's junior year at boarding school. She keeps having nightmares that her best friend and roommate, Drea, will die and then waking up to soiled sheets. Of course the two events are slightly linked and both get addressed through the course of the novel, but in the meantime, Drea keeps getting death lilies and people close to her keep getting cryptic notes in red block letters. It gets kinda creepy.

As Stolarz puts it at the end of the novel, Stacey is the "psychic friend"--a Wicca to be exact--and it takes all her skills in witchcraft to try to save her friend. Yes, that's right, the witch is the good kind. She uses the powers of magic and nature to help her answer questions about the mystery.

This book is fast paced and well plotted out. Stolarz has listened well to Chekov's advice (if you put a gun in the first act it has to go off in the third), making sure that many possible loose ends get tied. It's possible you can discover who the murderer is before Stacey does, but I didn't lose the thrill of watching her nab him nonetheless. I am not usually a fan of mystery novels but Stolarz has created such a fine group of characters that part of the fun of the read is just watching them interact inside the walls of their boarding school. I am curious to read the rest series White is for Magic, Silver is for Secrets, and Red is for Rememberance.

Booktalk: Because of the television show Medium, who also has visions that save lives and solve mysteries, I might talk about how Stacey is a bit like that character. Even if I didn't bring that television show into the picture, I think delving into a description of the main character might interest some readers.

Nelson, Marilyn. Philippe Lardy, ill., (2005). A Wreath for Emmett Till. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN:0618397523. 34 pages.

Summary and Evaluation: This is the first book I've read for this journal that I desperately feel the need to own. Nelson's written a heroic crown of sonnets to commemorate Emmett Till, a boy lynched while visiting family in Mississippi in the 1950's. That's right, a heroic crown. A crown of sonnets links poems by using the last line of one sonnet to be the first line of the next. A heroic crown makes a final 15th sonnet out of the first lines of each of the preceding 14 sonnets. Frankly, it's a pretty amazing form, and difficult to do well. Nelson does it well. Nelson's poems show how Emmett Till's life and death is still relevant. She relates this act to other acts of violence, meditating on the impact of violence, and rising to a crescendo of hope near the end of the book.

Philippe Lardy's illustrations add lovely touches to the book. None are overdone and work as a nice complement to the poems. In addition, both author and illustrator have included notes about creative decisions they made in writing this book.

There is also a clearer biography of Emmett Till's life at the end. Nelson also includes brief annotations of her sonnets so that readers can see other poems she referenced, other events in the world, or reasons why she depicted certain things as she did. With all this extra information included, it seems to me that this book could be a useful resource in many different arenas--poetry, history, social justice, interpretation, meditation...

Booktalk: I think there are two ways to talk about this book. One would be to introduce the form of the book, the sonnet and the heroic crown of sonnets. The other would be to introduce Emmett Till and discuss his life a little bit.

Hautman, Pete, (2004). Godless. Waterville, ME: Thorndike Press. 0786270705: 239 pages, large print edition.

Summary and Evaluation: Written in the first person, Jason Bock tells the story of how he and his best friend start their own religion, worshipping the town water tower. The two quickly gain new members, and the most exciting point in the book is when the group is swimming inside the water tower and can't find the way to get out of the tank. They do get out and Jason Bock describes how his new religion quickly spirals out of his own control and understanding.

With a title like Godless, it's pretty easy to see that this book is going to discuss religion and faith. I could find this interesting, especially when geared toward young adults. This book, however, was not interesting to me. The prose is choppy and often oversimplified. Perhaps some young adults would appreciate the simple prose style. Perhaps they would be interested enough in a book that deals with faith issues to dwell on that aspect. Perhaps it is the approach to faith that bothers me the most. Hautman's created a character that knows too much (Bock talks about Buddhists, and Hindus and Jews...for someone who's grown up Catholic he already has some well rounded religious knowledge) and believes too little. It doesn't so much seem that his character is taking a faith journey as Hautman is trying to prove his point. The book felt didactic and rather predictable. In the end, I don't think it took its characters, its subject or its readers seriously enough to actually approach an interesting or complex story. It was a disappointed as it seems to me that the topic of faith and questioning one's faith could actually make an interesting story. For me, though, this one did not do it.

I am still trying to discern if my dislike of this book comes from my adult perspective or from the book itself. Perhaps all of my claims against the book are ones young adults wouldn't like. Perhaps young adults would relish the simplicity or the fact that knowledge of faith doesn't make one faithful. I just think this book could be better than it is.

Honestly, I began to wonder if this book would have been more successful as a graphic novel. Hautman's main character is a fan of comic books and a major scene with Bock's best friend Shin includes several descriptions of pictures of water towers. I wonder if this other format would have made the premise less overly apparent and allowed the characters and situations to be more organic.

Booktalk: I wouldn't book talk this book. I do think there is a place for books on questioning faith in the realm of YA lit, but this book felt trite and easy. Isn't there something else out there that does a better job of this?