Tandem Insights

Book of the Week: Tasting the Sky

“The small girl
I once was
Sings out this story.”

To three-year-olds fear is darkness or strangers or thunderstorms.  For three-year-old Ibtisam Barakat, fear was felt in every inch of her small body as her family had to suddenly evacuate as war broke out.  She ran barefoot with her family, friends, and neighbors to safety, but in a time of such upheaval, she never really felt safe.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood tells of the fear of living in Palestine in the 1960’s from the perspective of a very young child who, at the time, had little knowledge of why her life was suddenly so different.  The politics stay in the background of this memoir.  Instead we focus on life—childhood, culture, language—in spare and moving prose that sheds new light on what it means to grow up surrounded by war.  What it means to remember when everyone keeps telling her to forget.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books online bookstore.

Book of the Week: Grayson

Imagine swimming in the ocean at the break of dawn. Marine life swirls around you as the salty water keeps you floating near the surface. Sounds are amplified while your vision is clouded by goggles and dark water. Now imagine that you realize you’re swimming side-by-side with a baby gray whale...

This is the true account of distance swimmer Lynne Cox’s encounter with the whale she named Grayson when she was seventeen years old. Cox was training at her hometown beach in southern California and was just getting ready to swim to shore when she saw the whale. Knowing it had been separated from its mother and needed to be reunited in order to survive, Cox decided to keep swimming with it until the mother could be found. Spoiler alert: the book does have a happy ending, and in addition to the amazing true story, it is also a fascinating look at ocean life and a testament to the power of human-animal connections.

Grayson is a quick, engaging read and will make a great read-aloud for classrooms and libraries. Readers of all ages will enjoy this remarkable story. Pair it with a unit of study on oceans or marine animals, and be sure to read the epilogue for ideas on how teachers and librarians have integrated it with curriculum.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books online bookstore.

Book of the Week: Deadline

Ben Wolf, star cross country runner, had plans for his senior year until the day he went to the doctor’s office for a routine physical.  That summer day Ben finds out that he has leukemia and, at most, only a year to live.  Not wanting to be sick and weak for the rest of his remaining days, Ben decides to forgo his treatments and keep his illness a secret from everyone--including his star quarterback, twin brother Cody.  To make the most of his time on Earth--without any long term consequences--Ben decides to ask out his long-legged crush, Dallas Suzuki; try out for the football team; learn as much as he can; and help out the town drunk.  Ben's year is going great until his illness catches up to him, and he realizes the effects of keeping secrets.

Chris Crutcher carefully weaves many themes such as death, racism, abuse, and sports into this wonderfully touching story.  You may think that a book about these heavy themes may be pretty depressing, but it is the exact opposite.  I found myself laughing more that I did crying.  Despite the one mild sex scene and one account of sexual abuse, this fast-paced humorous book is one that most high school students and adults will thoroughly enjoy.

Book of the Week: No Shame, No Fear

Can you imagine living at a time when it was dangerous to believe certain things?  Or to practice a particular religion?  That may seem strange to us in this country, where we have always had the right to worship as we chose.  But many people have had to struggle for their faith.

In England in 1662, it was dangerous to be a Quaker. Parliament has passed laws making it illegal not to take the oath of allegiance and to hold religious meetings. Quakers who broke these laws were beaten or imprisoned. This is the backdrop against which Will and Susanna fall in love.

The narrative in No Shame, No Fear goes back and forth between the two teens as they meet and become intrigued with one another—and as Will becomes intrigued by Susanna’s religion.  He attends a few Quaker meetings out of curiosity, and soon he feels compelled to make huge changes in his life in accord with the religion.  But his father does not approve of his newfound faith or of Will’s interest in Susanna.

This is a compelling story of love against the odds that fans of historical fiction will devour.  Be sure to have the sequel on hand for those who want to know more about what happens with Will and Susanna.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books Online Bookstore.

Book of the Week: Remembering Raquel

“It’s amazing how much dying can do for a girl’s popularity.”

Raquel Falcone was not the most popular girl in her high school.  She was quiet and overweight.  She had a few friends, but her death affects more than just the few who knew her well. 

Now there’s a collection going to get a memorial park bench in her name and a letter-writing campaign to lower the speed limit on the road where her fatal accident occurred.  Amidst the crusading of some of Raquel’s classmates though, there are questions.  No one is 100% sure what happened.  Did she fall in front of the car?  Was she pushed?  Or did she step in front of the car?

Despite a premise that seems heavy and full of tragedy, Remembering Raquel is actually a fairly light and fast read.  At only 160 pages, this slim book will appeal to readers who don’t want a huge time commitment.  And the alternating perspectives keep the book moving at a quick pace while keeping it interesting.

All the while, you’re left wondering how you might be remembered.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books Online Bookstore.

Book of the Week: The Golden Compass

Anything I can say about The Golden Compass will be overshadowed by both the awards it has won—ALA Notable, ALA Top Ten Best Book for Young Adults, Horn Book Fanfare Honor, BCCB Blue Ribbon, Publisher’s Weekly Best Book of the Year, Booklist Editor’s Choice, Carnegie Medal (England), Carnegie of Carnegies (best children’s book of all time in England), Guardian Prize for Fiction (England), not to mention four starred reviews—and the book itself.

The Golden Compass is the first book in an incredible trilogy, featuring 11-year-old orphan Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon. The daemon is the first of author Philip Pullman’s amazing creations. A daemon is a sort of soul/conscience made physical; it takes the form of an animal, but the form isn’t fixed until adolescence, so children like Lyra have daemons that are constantly changing from one animal to the next.  (Confession: I so want a daemon!)

Lyra lives at Jordan College in a world very close to ours, yet very different also. Her adventure begins when she hides in a wardrobe and sees her Uncle Asriel show the college scholars some mysterious photos and artifacts that show evidence of Dust from the far north. Then, in quick succession, her best friend is captured by the Gobblers, and Lyra is taken in by the gorgeous, very charming, and very very frightening Mrs. Coulter, who is also chasing Dust. From there, Lyra's quest to save her friend sweeps her into the far north where she befriends gyptians, witches, an aeronaut from Texas, and even one of the panserbjorne, the talking armored polar bears of the north. The bear, Iorek Byrnison, and Pan, her daemon, and the mysterious golden alethiometer that answers questions through symbols are Lyra’s truest companions in this vast fantasy.

So what is this Dust? That question takes the entire trilogy to answer.  Lyra, a stubborn, charming, willful, innocent girl, comes to believe that it must be good because all the grown-ups around her who keep telling her it’s evil do such bad things themselves, like separating kids from their daemons which is infinitely painful.

And yes, it is the Church that is behind this horrible separating.  Talk has been swirling around The Golden Compass, as the opening date of the movie approaches, that it is anti-Christian. Here is what Pullman had to say in response: “In the world of the story — Lyra’s world — there is a church that has acquired great political power, rather in the way that some religions in our world have done at various times, and still do (think of the Taliban in Afghanistan). My point is that religion is at its best — it does most good — when it is farthest away from political power, and that when it gets hold of the power to (for example) send armies to war or to condemn people to death, or to rule every aspect of our lives, it rapidly goes bad. Sometimes people think that if something is done in the name of faith or religion, it must be good. Unfortunately, that isn’t true; some things done in the name of religion are very bad. That was what I was trying to describe in my story.”

While the main character of this story is an 11-year-old girl, so 11-year-olds might enjoy it, this book, the entire trilogy, is so rich and complex that I believe older readers, YAs and OAs (old adults) will get the most from it.

A movie based on The Golden Compass is coming out on December 7, 2007, so check back for a review of the movie and how well (or poorly) it compares to the book.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books online Bookstore

Book of the Week: Tyrell

Tyrell grew up with eight buildings as his whole world.  He lived with his family in the Bronxwood Houses.  Maybe not the nicest apartments in the city, but certainly nicer than the homeless shelter where he lives now with his mom and brother since his dad has been in prison (again). 

Now his world is bigger than eight buildings, but sometimes it feels a lot smaller.  His choices seem so limited. 

“I really wanna put my fist through a wall.  I can’t calm myself down.  I can feel the blood pounding in my brain.  I gotta do something.  I wanna go somewhere, But I don’t got nowhere to go.”

He needs to make money to get his family into a real apartment again, but he doesn’t want to make the same mistakes his dad made, which landed him in jail.  Trying to stay clean in Tyrell’s world isn’t easy. 

But he has a plan.  He isn’t going to live in a shelter forever.  And he isn’t going to end up like his father.  He’s going to save his family himself since his mother obviously can’t do it and all the “at risk” programs and social workers who’ve been in and out of his life can’t do it.  He’s going to figure out a way to make money and take care of them on his own without getting into trouble.  That’s a lot of pressure for a fifteen-year-old. 

Tyrell is immediate and real.  Highly recommended for libraries wanting to increase their urban fiction for teens.

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Book of the Week: Long May She Reign

Meg Powers is back!  The smart, snarky, courageous daughter of the first female president of the United States, last seen back in 1989 in the ALA Best Book for Young Adults Long Live the Queen (currently, and very sadly, out of print) finally gets her chance to go to college. Long May She Reign is actually the fourth book in what used to be a trilogy, but it can easily stand alone.

Meg is trying, not very successfully, to recover from being kidnapping by terrorists. She was starved, beaten, had her knee viciously kicked to ruins, and was then left chained to the ground in an abandoned mine to die.  She escaped by smashing her hand with a rock, so it would fit through the handcuff, and crawling through the woods until she found help. Enough to traumatize anyone, but to top it all off, in Long May She Reign we learn that the terrorists are still out there. Somewhere. Anywhere.

So Meg, in addition to the normal pressures of starting college, has to deal with the nightmares and after-effects of the kidnapping, which include physical therapy and food issues. Then there's the press always following her, because she is a celebrity now. And to top it all off, there's the fact that her mother is the president, and her mother, as president, refused to negotiate with the terrorists. Meg is attempting to come to terms with the fact that her mother basically wrote her own daughter off.  Talk about having a lot on your plate freshman year...

But the book is not all dark. Humor seeps into it at every turn--and compassion and grace.  Meg tries to navigate college classes, new friendships, and a potential boyfriend, whose reputation is not stellar. This is a book about a college-age girl, so there is swearing, drinking, and a spot or two of making out, but it all is seamlessly part of the enthralling glimpse into a very complicated, very real life readers will get from Long May She Reign.

Book of the Week: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian imparts a universally valuable lesson for high school students on how to deal with pressure and what it means to be brave.  This semi-autobiographical tale written by Sherman Alexie for YA readers focuses on one year in the life of Arnold Spirit, a 14 year-old living on the Spokane Indian Reservation in Washington State.  The beginning of the school year gets off to a rough start for Arnold, a.k.a. Junior.  Readers and Junior are forced to take stock of all the hardships he has to maneuver daily because he is a stereotypical target for bullying and feels true hopelessness at this point in his life.  The clear conclusion, that Junior is at a breaking point, is one most teenagers can relate to in one way or another.

After the desperate and heartfelt suggestion of one of his teachers, Junior sets his sights on the promise of hope outside of the reservation.  Breaking through boundaries set by his friends, family, school and community, Junior transfers to Reardan, an all-white school twenty miles away from home.  Through a balanced storyline that is both frank and humorous with tremendous black-and-white pencil sketches by artist Ellen Forney, readers are pulled deep into Junior’s daily courage and determination.  Junior proves able to lay claim to the hope that first lead him on a path away from the reservation to where he now finds himself.  By the end of the book, now more than a “part-time” Indian, Junior allows readers to share in how he may reconcile the harsh reality of contemporary life on the reservation and his future ahead.

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Book of the Week: The Arrival

There’s been a lot of talk lately about authors and illustrators from Australia. Shaun Tan, an established artist from Western Australia, offers his newest book this month to an American audience. The Arrival is a stunning wordless graphic novel. (The Arthur Levine version is a reprint of an earlier Australian edition.) The story follows the journey of a man from his unnamed home country to a confusing new world which, despite presenting immense obstacles, offers the hope of a better life for his family. Because there are no words, the sepia-toned drawings carry the narrative, relying on the reader’s interpretations to complete the experience. I think this is what I appreciated most about the book: There are a lot of images and concepts that don’t make sense on first inspection, so as a reader you have to apply your own powers of perception, and you get to take part in the creation of the narrative.

In an essay for Viewpoint magazine, Shaun Tan had this to say:
“I am rarely interested in symbolic meanings, where one thing ‘stands for’ something else, because this dissolves the power of fiction to be reinterpreted. I’m more attracted to a kind of intuitive resonance or poetry we can enjoy when looking at pictures, and ‘understanding’ what we see without necessarily being able to articulate it.”

As a librarian and an avid reader, I’m surrounded by powerful words and their meanings. Reading The Arrival, I felt liberated from the obligation to make meaning, and enjoyed being able to let the pictures speak to me without making up a linear storyline. Questions came up, and my ideas about what was going on were constantly changing. For me, reading this book was a very emotional experience. In a manifestation of the old adage, a picture truly tells a thousand stories.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books Online Bookstore