"Slam it shut or fling it open. The rest is amateur.”

In the mood for a musical last night after reading When You Get the Chance by Emma Lord, I watched Better Nate Than Ever on Disney+. Usually, I lean towards the page rather than the screen, but in this case, maybe because Tim Federle wrote both, the movie captured all the charm of the novel while getting to show us the choreography and music.

Here’s what I had to say about the novel and its sequel in 2017.

Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle was a book we enjoyed listening to in the car last summer, so I was excited for the next book in the series Five, Six, Seven, Nate!

In the first book, middle schooler Nate Foster travels to New York by himself to audition for a Broadway show. After several mishaps, Nate lands a spot in a new show called E.T. The Musical. 

The second book opens with Nate saying goodbye to his best friend Libby as he packs for rehearsals. Back in New York, his Aunt Heidi gives him both a place to stay and an appreciation of his dream – which is all but nonexistent at home.

Awkward and simultaneously self-conscious and confident, Nate stands out in the cast of polished, experienced child actors. Nate soon finds support from the dance coach and a seasoned actress playing the understudy to E.T. She recognizes Nate’s gift of a photographic mind that not only remembers lines, but whole scenes of blocking. While he tries to stay out of way of the show’s star Elliott, played by his hometown nemesis Jordan, he is comforted by the gifts left by a secret admirer.

Even though the director, who has only worked on video games, can’t remember his name, he will soon have to rely on Nate in ways he never expected.

Narrated by Nate, the novel is funny, snarky, and sweet. Nate never shies away from voicing his unique perspective of the theater, his fellow middle schoolers, and his own view of himself. As he commits the musical to heart, he becomes a star – both on stage and off. 

 

Firsts

On my son’s first birthday, he experienced his first ice cream sandwich. I’m sure we have a picture somewhere of his blissful grin in a face covered in melted ice cream and smeared chocolate. The summer my daughter turned seven she rode a bicycle for the first time without training wheels. Since we lived on a hill that descended into a busy street, she was mostly confined to big lazy circles in the street in front of our house. In a few weeks, they will both make their first plane trip, unaccompanied by any adults, to Austin to visit their grandparents.

I heard an excerpt from an interview with Jenny Han the other day where she mentioned something like “Firsts are best because they are beginnings.” That’s partly why she is drawn to writing about teenagers. And why we, as adult readers, are drawn to YA fiction. If you haven’t read Han's trilogy, The Summer I Turned Pretty, start there. Then you can watch the melodramatic, but nonetheless engrossing, series adapted from the books that was just released on Prime.

If you still haven’t gotten your fill of firsts, then I recommend Breathless by Jennifer Niven. Claude and her mother are “banished” to an island off the coast of Georgia the summer after her senior year after her parents separate. With little to no cell service, she can’t rely on the text support of her best friend (who she loves more than “libraries and sunshine and boys with guitars”), so she turns to the other young people in her midst. An encounter with Miah starts off as a welcome distraction, but soon forces her to face her issues with trust and acceptance.

What is your favorite "first" fiction?

Reframing

 Last week I heard a report on NPR about TCM Reframed, a new series that looks at old movies to discuss why they may be  problematic through a modern lens – or in many cases, why they may have always been problematic. For example, last summer, we watched Grease with our kids and found just as many cringe-worthy as sing-along moments. You may remember this article that Molly Ringwald wrote about watching her own movies with her daughter post #metoo.

As readers, we may find this same experience in looking back at “classics.” Luckily, many authors have done the difficult work for us of reframing many of these stories in ways that are more inclusive and representative.  

Remember the reading challenge? Recently I found two examples through challenge 17 and challenge 8 of classic tales retold.

Roman and Jewel by Dana L. Davis

Fans of Hamilton will revel in the behind-the-scenes drama of a modern spin on Romeo and Juliet. Jerzie Jhames receives her big break when she’s cast as an understudy in a new Broadway musical. Her talent soon catches the attention of the leading man and sparks simmer. When a video of the star’s less than stellar performance goes viral, Jerzie must decide if she’s going to stand by her man or in the spotlight.

 Peter Darling by Austin Chant

“Then his eyes traipsed back to the stranger’s face, to his callous, boyish grin, and Hook’s stomach dropped with sudden revelation.

“You.”

Peter Pan grinned at him.

“Me.”

After many years away, Peter has returned to Neverland. He reconnects with the Lost Boys and is eager to rekindle the war with his nemesis Hook. But as the violence escalates, he begins to remember his first trip out of the nursery window, when he was named Wendy. As the story unfolds, Hook and Peter develop an uneasy alliance which leads to revelation, and eventually release, from a fictional world into a real one.

Some Peril

 Recently, I came across my kids’ Christmas lists from 2011. My son was three at the time and my daughter was six. He was into books featuring Spiderman or Super Friends and loved Duplo Blocks. She couldn’t get enough of Disney fairy books and doll accessories for her knockoff American Girl doll. 

As they’ve grown up, holidays have become simpler and yet, more complicated. This year, my son wants to build his own computer. My daughter pines for some roller skates she saw on Instagram. They are sold out. Some peril is involved in deciding what to get her instead. 

One constant is that Santa will always bring them a book or two for their stocking. Even if they get cast aside on Christmas morning for shinier objects, they will eventually end up on their nightstands.

For the middle schooler:

Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence by Michael Marshall Smith

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet Book 1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates 

 

For the high schooler:

Watch Us Rise by Ellen Hagan and Renee Watson

American Street by Ibi Zoboi

He Said/She Said

It’s rare, but occasionally I’ll pick up a book on a whim that just happens to resonate with what’s happening in the news. In this case, the events of Frederik Backman’s Beartown eerily echo the allegations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Backman, the Swedish writer best known for A Man Called Ove, goes deep into the hockey culture of a small town. As the novel opens, the town’s junior ice hockey team is headed into the semifinal. Resting on the team’s victory is the chance to open a new hockey school which will rejuvenate the economy, and spirit, of struggling Beartown.

We meet the players (both the stars and the third stringers), the coaches, the general manager and his family, as well as the has-been players and multiple fans and parents who will do anything to see their team (and its start player Kevin) succeed. There are no “almosts” in hockey.

When Maya, the general manager’s daughter, accuses the star player of raping her at a party the morning of the final, the crowd, literally, goes wild.

Although Backman presents us with the he said he didn’t/she said he did of the rape’s aftermath, the most striking portrayal is the fear. The fear the girl feels not just in the moment of the act, but in every waking moment after. The fear her parents feel in not being able to protect her. The fear his mother feels that he’s not telling the truth. The fear he feels of being found out.

In the end, Maya makes her peace with what happened through an unconventional means of revenge. As is repeated several times in the book, “People round here don’t always know the difference between right and wrong. But we know the difference between good and evil.”

If you haven’t already, Caitlin Flanagan’s interview about her own personal experience with attempted assault is worth a listen. And Meg Wolitzer’s The Female Persuasion examines the awakening of one young woman after an incident on her college campus. Find more stories on this subject here.

Or just open any newspaper.

Back to School Edition

After a three day teachers’ strike, school is back in session for my fifth grader and eighth grader. And the Mom Taxi is back in service. Between music lessons, cross country practice, service projects, and everyday errands, I’ve hardly had time to read. So when I can catch a few minutes on the Kindle, I want something I can dive in and out of easily.

These three authors fit the bill perfectly:

Jami Attenberg

Sarah Dunn

Jo Piazza

And since it’s been (more than) a little while since I relied on this to get in the back-to-school-mood, I’ve found a couple of YA authors that evoke the spirit of September:

Jenny Han – Start with her series that begins with To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (now on Netflix)

Alice Pung – Look for her novel Lucy and Linh

“You ready, child? Let’s go.”

Narrated by “the Groove,” Rhythm Ride: A Road Trip through the Motown Sound by Andrea Davis Pinkney takes teen readers through the history, people, and songs of Motown.

Berry Gordy, Jr., rooted in Motor City, starts the label in part as a reaction to “white washing” - the practice of putting photos of white singers on albums of black singers. He also innovates the label sponsored tour, helping his acts to break out of the “chitlin circuit” and onto the stages of prominent halls and theaters.

Starting with singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson, Gordy slowly accrues a talented cast of writers, musicians, and singers. Recognizing the need for showmanship, he also brings on board Maxine Powell, the instructor who teaches the singers poise, and Cholly Atkins, the dance instructor who brings the smooth moves.

With hits by The Supremes, The Temptations, and the Jackson 5, the sound expands, and Gordy heads to Hollywood.  However, in the tumultuous years following the Vietnam War, Motown loses the Jacksons and Diana Ross to other labels.

The book ends with a selected discography. “Now it’s your turn to drive,” the Groove says. “You don’t need a license to listen, kid. Just sit back and let the music take you.”

Ugh! What was her name?!

You know how that actress that plays Lindsay in Freaks and Geeks looks familiar? So you google, “who does linda cardellini look like.” The first hit? Ellen Page of Juno.  Bingo.

Published by First Second (thus meeting the challenge), Same Difference by Derek Kirk Kim takes us back to a time before iphones and instant gratification.

It’s the spring of 2000. Simon and Nancy are hanging out in Oakland, eating pho, and reminiscing about high school. Nancy reveals she’s been corresponding with a stranger named Ben who’s been sending obsessive love letters to the former occupant of her apartment. After receiving a more elaborate care package from Ben, Nancy convinces Simon they should go find this guy who happens to live in Simon’s home town. 

Simon’s reluctance proves prescient when he’s hailed as a long-lost buddy by former classmates who made fun of him in high school and runs into a girl who he treated badly. Despite these setbacks, they actually end up finding Ben. The consequences of coming clean to him, however, remain a little cloudy.

Although a few of the visual gags are a little over the top (i.e. “I felt like such a dick”), most of them cleverly reveal the self-absorption of our young adult selves.  References to Bill Nye, M.U.S.C.L.E , and Dead Poet’s Society evoke the early 90s. Simon also reveals what it was like to grow up in a Korean-American household: “What’re you talking about? Every Korean kid grows up eating raw ramen! It’s our Ritz!”

And in that time before iphones, Simon’s exuberance is palpable when he triumphantly remembers the name of the girl from Weird Science he was trying to think of 42 pages earlier.

Longstockings, Please

Picking a book for this week’s challenge of reading the first book in a new-to-you YA series was almost too easy. When it comes to YA literature, you can’t go wrong picking up something written by The Longstockings. Although they no longer maintain their blog, you can find references to them in the acknowledgment pages of each other’s books or interviews.

Jenny Han’s series The Summer I Turned Pretty begins (as all summer books worth their salt) with a family pulling up in front of a beach house. Belly and her brother have been spending summers with her mother’s best friend and her two sons for as long as she can remember.  However, this summer their relationship shifts as they begin looking to her as a peer rather than a little sister. As the teens relish their new independence, the moms take it easy, spending entire days indoors watching movies.  Distracted by a new boyfriend and an ongoing crush, Belly doesn’t realize until summer is almost over that not everything is as it seems.

Although the plot may seem predictable with its unrequited crushes and dying mothers, Han doesn’t dismiss the turmoil of teen emotions or neglect to portray the tensions of family dynamics. With flashbacks, she also gives the characters not only a shared history but depth as they mature. However, they all still have some growing up to do. As I’m sure we’ll see in the second book of the series. 

"I don't need your help, OKAY"

Any mother of teenager might recognize this quote. And anyone who's survived the teen years themselves may recognize the poetic beauty of having "shape shifting" be a teen villain's super power. 

This week’s challenge was to read a comic written and drawn by the same person. One look at the book flap of Nimona by Noelle Stevenson - “Nemesis! Dragons! Science! Symbolism!”- and I was sold.

The comic begins when shape shifter Nimona shows up on Ballister Blackheart’s doorstep, announcing her intent to be his new sidekick. Together they will plot evil plans and defeat his nemesis/romantic interest Goldenloin.  

At first glance Nimona is just like any other teen, sipping soda while hoisting herself onto the kitchen counter. She sounds like a teen, her word balloons filled  with reluctant “fiiiine”s  and teasing “you liiiike me”s.

However, in monochromatic flashbacks, Stevenson unveils a dark past of tragedy and abuse. Nimona’s rebellion is trying to convince society that she’s not the tortured creature they make her out to be. And in this, she’s also like any other teen.

Boxers and Saints

With less than a month to go, and five topics remaining on my reading challenge, it’s time to get creative. Companion graphic novels Boxers and Saints by Gene Luen Yang meet both challenge 19 and challenge 24. Two down, three to go.

I vaguely remember mention of the Boxer Rebellion from World History class in 9^th grade. I’m not sure we we’re presented with any facts apart from the number of foreigners killed in the conflict. Yang tells the story from two perspectives, that of a young boy whose village suffers in the name of justice wielded by foreigners and from a young girl who converts to Christianity.

Boxers follows Little Bao who joins the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. Inspired by the heroes of Chinese opera and protected by his household Gods, he discovers how to tap into an inner strength. As the battles become bloodier and deciding who should die becomes more complicated, the righteous voice of his ancestor threatens to drown him. He falls in love with a fellow a solider, Mei-wen, a young girl who has been leading a small army of village girls. He betrays her trust when he sets fire to the library to gain access to the foreigners’ enclave. Mei-wen reveals the true depths of her compassion when those whose wounds she treats are revealed to wear the cross around their neck. Little Bao doesn’t survive a retaliatory attack by the foreigners.

Four-Girl, unwanted at home, seeks solace (and snacks) from a Christian healer in the second volume Saints. She decides to fully embrace her reputation as a “devil” and become a “foreign devil” or Christian. In baptism, she takes on the name Vibiana and draws on the advice of Joan of Arc, who appears to her throughout the novel. The expression on the priest’s face when Vibiana announces her intention to be a priest is priceless. Eventually she decides she should train as a “maiden warrior” to fight against the Society. Faced with death at the hands of Little Bao, she asks for a few minutes to pray. In the end, she refuses to renounce her faith.

Bloody and bawdy, mystical and spiritual, these novels capture the tension between loyalty to country and faith in one’s beliefs. 

Cotton and Cyanoacrylate

This week’s challenge was to read a fantasy novel. Enter Anna-Marie McLemore. Reminiscent of those written by Alice Hoffman and Laura Esquivel, her novel The Weight of Feathers is a magical romance between the children of two feuding families. 

The Corbeau and Paloma families have been rivals for as long as Lace can remember. Lace Paloma is a performer in her family’s traveling mermaid show. Cluck Corbeau makes the wings for the high climbing dance performances of his family.

One night an accident at the chemical plant causes a searing rain. Lace is saved from severe damage only because Cluck carries her to safety.Her beauty damaged, Lace becomes an outcast.  She finds refuge in Cluck’s family only by leading everyone to believe she is a local instead of a Paloma. 

As her relationship with Cluck deepens, she discovers the extent of his scars and the truth behind the generation-old family feud.

McLemore blends the magical realism of feathered humans and bloody curses with the all too real problem of abusive families and deep-seated prejudices. Readers will be swept up in the spectacle and brought back down to hard realities.  

"An argument that predates my time here"

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. When I taught English in Japan, I would often answer a knock on my door to a random coworker who wanted to take me (somewhere) to (do something). Neither of which I completely understood until we arrived at the intended destination. Despite the intrigue caused by my poor grasp of Japanese, due to the lack of activities in my rural town, I always said yes. 

Once, early on, my acquiescence led me to the car of a woman and her husband who took me to a small amusement park where they treated me to kakigori. Afterwards, we stopped at a grocery store where the woman (through a well-worn dictionary) managed to explain she wanted to cook lunch for me. Halfway through lunch, the couple got up and began emptying out the refrigerator. Then abruptly the husband gestured he needed to drive me home. I never saw them again.

Later my coworker explained that theirs was an arranged marriage and that soon after my visit the woman left to go back to her hometown. I tried not to take it personally. Even though I, too, was lonely that year, it was a self-inflicted situation, not one forced on me by parents or relatives.

Like my would-be friend in Japan, the protagonist of Written in the Stars finds herself at the mercy of her parents’ decisions. Listed as a book “that is set in the Middle East,” this YA novel by Aisha Saeed felt a little too easy for my book challenge as I quickly flipped through the pages to find out what happened in the soap opera worthy turn of events.

Naila is a high school senior in Florida. When her parents, who are from Pakistan, find out she has been secretly dating Saif, they whisk her away to the family’s compound in Pakistan for the summer. After a series of teas and lunches with various family friends, along with a return date to the U.S. that keeps getting postponed, Naila begins to grow suspicious. After she wonders why she is being asked questions about her cooking and sewing skills, her cousin finally breaks the news that her parents have been trying to find her a husband. 

When she tries to flee the country, she is thwarted by her uncle. When she tries to seek help from her boyfriend Saif, her father destroys her cell phone. In the end, she is drugged into submitting to the marriage ceremony. All is not happily ever after. Until it is. The plot twists in-between will keep you reading, though a thinly veiled rape scene means this book is probably not appropriate for younger YA readers. Or at least the one who lives in my house.

Reading this book did make me more curious to read more by Saeed. I’m adding Love, InshAllah to the list. 

"like holding a butterfly"

I hesitate to call Rainbow Rowell’s novels delightful…but delight is what I feel when I’m about to read, am reading, or have just finished reading one of her books. Go. Read.

Attachments

“Every woman wants a man who'll fall in love with her soul as well as her body.”

Eleanor and Park

“You can be Han Solo," he said, kissing her throat. "And I'll be Boba Fett. I'll cross the sky for you.”

Fangirl

“Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and mildly socially retarded, I'm a complete disaster.”

Landline

“Neal didn't take Georgie's breath away. Maybe the opposite. But that was okay--that was really good, actually, to be near someone who filled your lungs with air.”

Carry On

Coming October 6^th...

See?

Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer

When the students in Mrs. Quenell’s Special Topics in English receive their journals, they have mixed emotions. However, when they start to write, they discover the journals take them to the moment in time in their lives just before tragedy struck. For the narrator, Jam, this moment is on a field with her boyfriend Reeve just before his death. Jam and the other students decide to name the world of their transported experiences. Pronounced like the zhuh in Jacques, Belzhar is a French take on Bell Jar to honor the writer they are studying, Sylvia Plath.  At first, trips to Belzhar become an obsession for the students. But as the semester progresses, they find solace not in traveling to the past, but in each other.

Meg Wolitzer, best known for her adult fiction, has written a fast-paced novel for teens.  The reader, like the students, is easily transported through the writing. Even if the cynical reader rolls her eyes at Jam’s young love, she is guiltily rewarded when she finds out the narrator has not been recounting events exactly as they occurred. That, along with a happy resolution for one of the other tragic stories, helps the book end on a sweet, rather than bittersweet, note.

Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff

Preteen Mila travels with her father Gil from London to New York. A scheduled trip to see Gil's old friend Matthew becomes complicated when the friend goes missing right before their arrival. 

Mila grows more puzzled as she narrates her thoughts through the search.  Slowly, her eyes are opened to the sadness and betrayal of the adults around her.  "A week ago America felt like the friendliest place in the world but I am starting to see the darkness everywhere I look. The worst thing is, I don't think it is America. I think it is me."

Even while meeting various people Matthew has left behind, Mila is also trying to comfort her friend back home whose parents are splitting up. Near the end of her trip, she says, "I want to go back to being a child." The irony being she has been sent with her absent minded father to keep track of their passports and make sure they eat meals on time.

All is not doom and gloom, however. There are lighter moments when Mila's every encounter with an American elicits a comment on her "accent." She also finds an ally in a boy around her age who bolsters her spirits with well-timed texts. And finally Matthew's dog serves as a loyal traveling companion whose care often draws the humans out of themselves for a little while.