Seeing Red, by Kathryn Erskine

I thoroughly enjoyed Erskine's new book, Seeing Red, but I'm not sure how my students will respond to it. After reading  another one of her books, Mockingbird, I recommended it to several of my students whom I thought would enjoy it. Several of them abandoned it without finishing, and the few that did finish said it was just 'okay'. Hopefully there will be a better reaction to Seeing Red!

Red Porter, the novel's namesake, is a boy growing up in the South during the time following desegregation. Lots of things have recently changed in Red's life when the novel opens - his father had passed away and his best friend, Thomas (an African American), for some reason no longer wants to be friends. On top of that, his mother is trying to sell the home/store that's been in their family for years; she can't support it without her husband's help. Desperate to maintain his home and salvage its sale, Red gets caught up with a no-good group of boys who call themselves the Brotherhood. They're essentially mini-white supremacists and intend to wreak havoc on the town. It doesn't take Red long to realize he doesn't want to be a part of their shenanigans, but can he get out in time?

During his journey, Red encounters lots of other problems as well: an aging family friend, Miss Georgia, a new teacher whose methods are questioned by the principal, and a friend, Rosie, whose life is ravaged by abuse.

I think that one of Erskine's biggest strengths is the way she's able to develop her characters. In Mockingbird, she wrote about a character with Asperger's and made me feel like I was reading something written by someone with the condition. Similarly in this novel, the narration sounded exactly as it would coming from a pre-teen boy in the South during that time period.

How to Save a Life, Sara Zarr

A student of mine told me I had to read this book, so I did - and I was not disappointed!

The story is about three women - Robin, Jill, and Mandy. Robin and Jill are mother and daughter and the main man in their lives, Robin's husband and Jill's father, has passed away recently in a tragic car accident. Jill, closer to her father than her mother, has had a difficult time dealing with the death, and this only becomes worse when her mother announces that she's going to adopt a baby. Jill thinks this is a terrible idea, but her mother won't listen. On top of that, the situation surrounding the adoption is anything but ordinary: the birth mother, Mandy, is not yet finished with high school, refuses to sign any legal papers and wants everything on her terms, and is going to stay with Robin and Jill for the weeks leading up the pregnancy. Jill could not be more upset - she even enlists the help of a sleuth-y friend to figure out what Mandy's hiding and try to protect her mom from being hurt.

Predictably, Mandy has second thoughts about giving up her unborn baby girl towards the end of the novel, but it all works out in the end in a surprising twist. I really liked the ending, and watching Jill and Mandy's relationship unfold.

This book, as well as a few I've read recently (If You Find Me and Small as an Elephant) really made me think about what family means, how we cover for our family members, and the possibilities for choosing your own family. I've always been told things like "you get to pick your friends, but you're stuck with your family," but these books kind of negate that claim, which made them really interesting for me to think about.

There was some mild language in the book and, again, some discussion of sexual abuse, so I'd recommend this only to my more mature readers, and definitely girls. Now I want to try Zarr's book Story of A Girl (2007) and her new one The Lucy Variations, which just came out in May.

If You Find Me, by Emily Murdoch

I read this book because it was one of the "Spotlight Books" on www.figment.com a few weeks ago. I really enjoyed the novel, but would take caution when recommending it to my students - there was some cursing (mostly towards the end of the novel), and the main character and her sister were victims of sexual abuse.

Carey Blackburn has always been the primary caretaker of her younger sister Jenessa (Nessa). Their mother is a psychologically ill meth addict, and they live in a camper tucked away in the middle of a huge forest. No one knows they're there, and Carey and Nessa haven't been into civilization in years. Their mother goes to town on occasion for "supplies" and the random trinkets and books she brings back for them are the only connections they have to the real world.

All of that changes one day when a man and woman converge upon their campsite. The man claims to be Carey's father, and the woman is a social worker assigned to their case. Carey's world is turned upside down as she's taken into the "real" world, forced to enter high school, and face the truth about her mother.

I really loved Carey's narration and the way she talked. It just seemed so REAL and made me consider what it would be like to live in isolation for years and then be thrown into high school...scary! Also, just like I mentioned when I read Waiting to Forget a while back, this book made me ponder the blind faith children have in their parents, and how they'll do anything to defend/protect them.

Waiting to Forget, by Sheila Kelly Welch

Last year, I read all of the books on South Carolina's Junior Book Award Finalist and found that I thoroughly enjoyed most of them; Waiting to Forget is one of this year's books, and after reading it, I'm encouraged to attempt the whole list again this year.

Waiting to Forget is about two young children, T.J. and Angela, who have been in and out of foster care for their whole lives and have recently landed a permanent adoptive home. Soon after being adopted, Angela (the younger sibling) is in a accident - the details of the accident aren't revealed until the very end of the novel - so the book takes place in the waiting room of a hospital, as T.J. ponders where they've been, what they've seen, and how they've gotten to this point in their lives. The entire narrative is told in alternating chapters "Then" (when he and Angela lived with their mother and various foster families) and "Now" (while sitting in the hospital waiting room, and is revealed through T.J.'s "Life Book", which he was forced to make as a therapy project by one of his social workers.

I loved the simplistic, to-the-point style of the novel - the narrator described everything that T.J. and his sister went through with a very matter-of-fact tone, which for some reason worked to make things all the more emotional. T.J.'s mother had a string of no-good boyfriends who inevitably put the kids in trouble, and the way these evil characters were described, through their actions, was great.

Throughout the whole novel, T.J. founds himself pondering the difference between lies and reality, especially as he finds himself lying for his mother to keep her out of trouble. This novel really made me think about how we lie to protect people, even when we know it's not necessarily in our best interest.

Through the course of this short novel, T.J. undergoes a complete transformation in terms of his views of his past life and current situation, and I loved the way it was brought about through the contrast between the "Then" and "Now" chapters.

Although this novel is nowhere near as graphic as A Child Called It, which I think is part of what attracted my students to that book, I think that it will be popular in my classroom - my students love to read sort of real-life survival stories, and that's exactly what this was.

Finally, I really loved the cover of the book! I loved the simple black and white with the one pop of color. Those little origami cranes are important in the novel...but I'll let you figure out how!