Susan Beth Pfeffer’s the dead & the gone (Harcourt 2008) is a companion story to her previous YA novel Life as We Knew (Harcourt 2006).  The novel takes the same cataclysmic disaster, but this time tells the story from the perspective of Alex Morales, a seventeen-year-old boy living in New York City.

When a meteor hits the moon and pushes it closer to the Earth, the change in gravitational pull causes massive worldwide destruction.  Tides rise, magma surfaces, tectonic plates shift, and soon the earth is enveloped by natural is –tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes.  Volcanic ash darkens the sky, temperatures plummet, crops fail.  There are evacuations, power outages, food and fuel shortages, deadly epidemics.  Lines of communication shut down–no radio, internet, cell phones, tv. 

 Thousands of people are dead, and most of Alex’s family are among “the gone,” as Alex refers to them.  These include Alex’s older brother Carlos who is deployed with the Marines, Alex’s aunt and uncle who evacuate soon after the disaster, Alex’s mother who has never returned home from her shift at the hospital, and Alex’s dad who has never returned from a family funeral in Puerto Rico.  They are “the gone”–never confirmed dead but nonetheless absent.  Just like Alex’s aunt and uncle who evacuate NYC soon after the disaster. 

Thrust into the role of protector and provider for his two younger sisters, Alex second-guesses his decisions and struggles to come to terms with overwhelming responsibilities  (including a nightmarish visit to Yankee Stadium–now morgue–to look for the body of his mother).  Dreams of being elected senior class president and getting accepted to a good college are totally irrelevant   in a world where survival is the only goal.

 What is essential?  What is important?  If life all changed tomorrow,  what would really matter?  Author Susan Beth Pfeffer offers another great novel that makes you question your needs, your wants, and your priorities.

Seems like everyone likes a treasure hunt.  Add to that a web of historical artifacts, ancient symbols, and mythic beliefs, and you’ve got such stuff as The DaVinci Code and National Treasure are made of (to paraphrase Shakespeare).  You’ve also got the stuff of the YA Novel Ring of Fire: Century Quartet #1by Pierdomenico Baccalario and translated by Leah D. Janeczko (Random House, 2006) has mystery, action, and seemingly endless clues that make you think everything is an ingeniously interconnected web of cosmic importance.  

The novel takes place on Rome on December 29 as four teenagers from across the globe–all born on February 29–meet by chance at the hotel Domus Quintilia.  A mysterious blackout leads them outside, a stranger fleeing for his life thrusts a briefcase into their hands, and they find themselves searching a trail of ancient clues and stalked by a deadly international assassin.  

That’s all I’m giving away.  But be prepared:  the book ends on a cliff-hanger.  You won’t be satisified at the end of this book because you’ll be wishing for the next one.

A Brief History of Montmaray by Michelle Cooper (Alfred A. Knopf 2008), is a great young adult novel written as the diary of sixteen-year-old Sophie FitzOsborne.  Sophie and her cousins are the royal family of Montmaray (population approximately twelve), a tiny fictional island that lies between England and Spain.  All the parents are dead, except for one crazy uncle, so the FitzOsborne cousins pretty much fend for themselves as they care for a crumbling castle, a crazy relative, dwindling funds, and subjects who keep migrating to more prosperous locales.

Sophie is invited by her guardian, Aunt Charlotte, to come to London to be introduced at court and meet eligible aristocrats.  Sophie struggles between her desire for beautiful dresses and fancy parties and her love of the wild, untamed island that is her home.  Sophie is also afraid to venture out into the unknown without her trusted older cousin Veronica, an intellectual who insists on staying in Montmaray to chronicle its history and to stave off its inevitable decline.  But everyone’s plans are jeopardized when two German officers land on the island, and tiny Montmaray is suddenly thrown into the conflict of World War II.

Reminiscent of Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle, A Brief History of Montmaray has romantic conflict akin to a Jane Austen novel and the brooding mystery of Charlotte Bronte.  Its “scribbling heroine,” will keep you turning pages and wishing you could live in a decrepit castle high on the wild cliffs of an Atlantic island.

Written as a diary, Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Harcourt 2006) tells the survival story of sixteen year old Miranda and her family.  When a meteor collides with the moon, everything on Earth changes.  The moon is pushed closer to the Earth and the change in gravitational pull causes massive worldwide destruction– tides rise, magma surfaces, tectonic plates shift, and soon the earth is enveloped by natural disasters–tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes.  Volcanic ash darkens the sky, temperatures plummet, crops fail. 

Evacuations, power outages, food and fuel shortages close school.  Lines of communication shut down–no radio, internet, cell phones, tv.  Sixteen year old Miranda and her family aren’t sure who is alive, who is dead, who has evacuated.  Their Pennsylvania town becomes a lawless wasteland where looters and black market thugs abound.  Suddenly life is all about survival, and Miranda’s typical teen concerns–prom, guys, driving–don’t much matter. 

 What is essential?  What is important?  If life all changed tomorrow,  what would really matter?  Life as We Knew It is a gripping read that makes you think about what your priorities are–and what they should be.

For those of you who loved The Hunger Games, author Suzanne Collins has written a sequel, Catching Fire (Scholastic, 2009).  The story picks up where Hunger Games left off, with Katniss awkwardly trying to choose between Peeta and Gale and living a life of ease as a Hunger Games champion.

But things start to fall apart when Katniss discovers that her and Peeta’s dual survival was seen as an act of rebellion and has encouraged uprisings in several districts.  The Capitol cracks down and life becomes even more oppressive, something Katniss thought impossible.  Not surprisingly, Katniss’ first instinct is to survive, to stay out of trouble and keep her family alive.

But the President  of the Capitol is determined to make Katniss pay, and once again she finds herself in the Arena.  She is selected to compete in the Quarterly Quell, a fight-to-the-death battle that occurs every twenty-five years, only this time competitors are chosen from prior Hunger Games champions.

Katniss must battle against the best of the best.  And the Capitol government fully intends to use the Quell to display their absolute power and to kill Katniss as a public and painful example of what happens to those who defy the Capitol.  

Again Katniss must use her skill and wits in an attempt to survive the Arena.  Is there anyone she can trust?  Does she dare form alliances?  Does it even matter, since the Capitol seems bent on destroying her and everyone she loves?

Catching Fire is Book Two of what will be a trilogy.  Most of the reviews I have read feel that Catching Fire is not quite as gripping as The Hunger Games, and I agree.  However, the cliff-hanger ending will leave you dying (figuratively speaking, of course) for the sequel.

The Amazing Race, American Idol, Project Runway, The Biggest Loser, Man vs. Wild, Dancing with the Stars–reality shows are all over television. 

But what if winning Survivor meant being the last one left alive?  What if the bloody battles of the Roman gladiators had been broadcast as reality TV?  Reality TV meets Lord of the Flies in the gripping new YA thriller The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) by Suzanne Collins.

The Hunger Games takes place in a brutal and harsh future.  North America has been decimated by war.   One central Capitol rules in tyranny over twelve districts.  Broken by their failed rebellion, starving and deprived, the districts are forced to send their resources to the Capitol:  coal, jewels, grain, weapons.  The Capitol controls the food supply, the economy, the government, the media.

As punishment for rebellion, the twelve districts must also send an annual tribute to the Capitol:  one girl and one boy, twenty-four in all, each of whom will fight to the death in the annual televised “Hunger Games.”  The voyeurism of reality TV takes a grotesque twist as citizens tune in–some by choice, some by forced decree–to watch the 74th Annual Hunger Games.

Sixteen year old Katmiss and her family live in District 12.  Poverty and hunger ravage most of its citizens, and Katniss and her family very nearly starved the year her father was killed in a mine accident.  But Katniss learned to hunt wild game and barter (even though the Capitol forbids both), and has managed to keep her mother and younger sister Prim alive.  

Then Prim’s name is drawn in the lottery for the female tribute for District 12.  Katniss insists that she go in Prim’s place and travels to the glittering, decadent Capital with Peeta, the male tribute from District 12.  Katniss barely knows Peeta but recognizes him as the baker’s son who, years earlier, saved her life and gave her hope by giving her a loaf of bread. 

Soon Katniss and Peeta are being groomed for the pageanty and brutality of the Hunger Games.  Besides the obvious prize of sheer survival, the victor of the annual Hunger Games also wins a house and an annual stipend for life.  A roof over your head and a full belly for life–what could be better?

Katniss is torn between her instinctive liking and gratitude toward Peeta and the knowledge that in the end they will have to be enemies:

To this day, I can never shake the connection between this boy, Peeta Mellark, and the bread that gave me hope, and the dandelion that reminded me that I was not doomed.  And more than once, I have turned in the school hallway and caught his eyes trained on me, only to quickly flit away.  I feel like I owe him something, and I hate owing people.   Maybe if I had thanked him at some point, I’d be feeling less conflicted now.  . . .  Because we’re going to be thrown into an arena to fight to the death. 

Trust is foolishness, a terrible weakness that only gives enemies an advantage.  Only one person can survive the Hunger Games.  It is kill or be killed.  Only one tribute will return home victorious.  But should Katniss and Peeta trust each other and work as a team?

The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary Pearson (Henry Holt, 2008) is a fantastic young adult book–a sci-fi novel that has the creepy thrill of a scary movie.  Teenager Jenna Fox wakes from a coma to discover that she remembers nothing of her past.  She has to relearn how to talk, walk, eat, live.  Her adoring parents have taken video after video of her childhood, and Jenna watches old family movies of herself in an attempt to discover who she is, or at least who she was. 

But bit by bit, Jenna realizes things don’t add up.  Her parents are lying to her.  She senses that her once loving grandmother is hostile.  Jenna tries to search online about herself and her accident only to find that her parents have locked it so she can’t access the information. 

The novel is set in a futuristic California where super-bacteria have become completely resistant to antibiotics.  Bio-engineering has developed dramatic medical solutions to try to save lives.  But at what cost?  Just how far should you go to save someone you love?

As Jenna searches for answers, she finds herself coming up with more and more questions:  ”Who am I?”  “What is a soul?”  “Do I even have one?”  “What does it mean to be human?”  “What makes me, me?”

I don’t want to spoil the surprises so I will say no more.   But in The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Mary Pearson has written an amazing story where age-old questions about identity and love weave seamlessly into a futuristic dystopia where the definition of humanity itself is on the line.

Like historical fiction?  Then try Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson (Simon & Schuster, 2008).  It looks at slavery from a different vantage point, that of the American Revolutionary War.

With their mother dead and their father sold long ago, thirteen year old Isabel and her younger sister Ruth are slaves at the mercy of their mistress in Rhode Island.  Although she promised to free the children after her death, their mistress’ greedy relative sells them to a cold, cruel family.  They arrive with their new masters, the Locktons of New York, just prior to the city’s siege and occupation by the British.  Since Isabel’s new master is a powerful and wealthy Loyalist, Isabel is asked to spy for the Patriots.  She does this thinking that she will then be freed as a reward for her information. 

But Isabel soon discovers that the principles of freedom, liberty, and justice that the Patriots speak of so fervently don’t apply to her.  Isabel has to decide–should she support the Revolution? 

The perspective in this book is fascinating.  I often think of slavery as a “Southern thing,” forgetting how widespread it was in the North.  In the appendix, Anderson points out that in 1771 New York was the second largest city in the American colonies (Philadelphia was the largest), and roughly 22% of the city’s population were black slaves. Slavery didn’t end in New York until 1827. 

Anderson also does a great job, both in the novel and the appendix, showing the contrast between what the colonists said and what they did.  At one point in the story Isabel (who has been taught to read) encounters Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.  She learns “Americans had good cause to overthrow their British masters, a person born to wealth was not born to rule over others, and ’twas good and proper to fight injustice” (p. 262).  She, of course, views these words in the context of her own enslavement.  She is right to fight; she is right to try to escape.

Anderson also brings up many of the complexities of the slavery issue.  Thomas Jefferson wrote that he abhorred slavery, yet he owned them.  The British freed slaves of Patriots, but returned runaway slaves to their Loyalist masters.  The young United States developed a patchwork of contradictory laws regarding slavery that came to a bitter head in the Civil War.  Some might say that only now, in 2008 with the election of Barak Obama as president, have we really begun to embrace racial equality. 

Chains has been nominated as a National Book Award Finalist (among other awards).  Anderson’s other books have won numerous awards as well.  In my local library, Chains is shelved under the “Teen Fiction” section, but I think the book is appropriate for younger children too.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson (Tor 2006).  I just finished this fantasy novel at the recommendation of a reader comment (see comments for the November post ”Luke Skywalker vs. Edward Cullen”).  Mistborn is Book 2 of Brandon Sanderson’s epic fantasy series, and it’s a great read.  The main character Kelsier combines the brash devil-may-care adventurism of Indiana Jones with the roguery of Robin Hood and the fighting talents of a ninja as he battles against the evil Lord Ruler. 

The capital city of Luthadel, reminiscent of Dicken’s industrial England, is a filthy city full of crowded slums where the people known as skaa live enslaved to a corrupt noble class.  These nobles in turn are controlled by the Lord Ruler and his reign of terror.  The dashing Kelsier and his band of thieves combine forces with the skaa rebellion to overthrow the government.  They plot the ultimate heist-the overthrow of the government and a raid on the treasury which they believe is full of the priceless metal atium.

Why does Kelsier think he can win against impossible odds that have defeated so many?  Because Kelsier is a Mistborn-an elite magician who has the abilities to “burn” ingested metals to activate his powers.  Burning iron or steel enables Kelsier to “pull” and “push” on metals so he can climb up buildings or push off a coin and leap superhuman distances into the air.  Other metals heighten Kelsier’s senses or enable him to influence the feelings of others. 

Mistborns apparently are a rare lot, so when Kelsier discovers Vin, a beaten slum-rat thief of a girl, he takes her under his wing and mentors her.  She becomes his sidekick and a critical member of the team.

I don’t read a lot of fantasy, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  Great characters, great setting, great plot.  And while I found myself skimming the fight scenes, I’ve read blogs that said the fight scenes were their favorite part.  Anyone who likes the fast paced moves of an action flick will love the fight scenes. 

We all root for the underdog.  We all want Frodo, Harry Potter (and Wilbur the pig for that matter) to win.  But what is the price of success?  Read Mistborn and find out. 

Comment on Mistborn or other fantasy books you love!

One of my favorite memoirs is Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle.  Eleanor Ramrath Garner’s memoir, Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl in Hitler’s Germany (Peachtree, 1999), is just as incredible. 

This memoir tells the story of nine-year-old Eleanor, an American girl of German immigrant parents.  Unable to find work during the Depression, Eleanor’s electrical engineer father is finally offered a good position working for a German company.  Decent pay, a chance to return and visit family.  Eleanor’s parents decide to take the job–just for two years, they tell her.

On August 29, 1939 Eleanor’s family–her mother, father, and older brother Frank–board the SS Hamburg, a German luxury liner, and head to Berlin.  On September 1, the captain announces that Germany has declared war on Poland.  Two days later he reports that France and Britain have declared war on Germany.  The nightmare known as World War II has officially begun and Eleanor’s family is heading straight into its center.

During the Atlantic crossing, the ship stops so the crew can paint over the ship’s German flag, first to French then Norwegian colors.  Eleanor’s family makes it across the Atlantic without being torpedoed but is trapped in Germany.  Return passage is available only for those with US dollars-Eleanor’s father has already traded their dollars for marks.  Another chance to return fails because Eleanor’s mother lacks US citizenship.  The rest of the family could leave but that would mean abandoning their mother.  Eleanor’s family is trapped in Germany for the entire war.

Eleanor’s Story offers a different perspective on World War II, a sort of flip side to Anne Frank.  The dichotomy of being both German and American conflicts Eleanor.  As the US enters the war, she thinks, “The soldiers of the country where I was born, the country I love, will be told to kill me, my family, and my new friends.  And the soldiers of the country of my ancestry, of my beloved Omis [grandparents], the country where I live, will be told to hate and kill Americans.  Where do I stand in all of this?  Who should I be loyal to? (p. 68).        

Ironically this dual status also protects her family.  Her father and brother are not drafted into the German Army.  As Berlin falls to the Russians, American passports save Eleanor’s family from execution and save her and her mother from rape.  When US soldiers enter Berlin, Eleanor’s father gets a job as a translator for a colonel in the American Command Post and these connections ultimately help the family return to the States.        

Be aware, this is a pretty adult children’s book.  Although Eleanor’s Story has won several children’s book awards, you should read it yourself before handing it to your precocious second grader that just finished Twilight.  The book is explicit.  Face it, you really can’t write about the horrors of war and leave out all the horror.  

Death and violence surround Eleanor–a soldier who beheads himself on the train tracks rather than get sent to the front, bodies stacked in piles in cellars because there is no time to bury them during bombings, a girlfriend shot randomly by Russian occupation soldiers. 

Eleanor waits in terror during bombings:

            Lights in the cellar suddenly flickered, followed by a piercing whistle and a deafening blast.  I placed my forehead on my knees and wrapped my arms around my legs.  Screaming bombs and explosions erupted all around us.  The whole foundation of the building shook.  Plaster rained from the ceiling, enveloping us in ghostly white.  The pole in the center of the room shook.  It had just been pushed under the ceiling and wasn’t attached to anything.  Please, please, I begged the Invisibles, [the angels to whom she prays], let it hold up the ceiling  (p.106).

Through it all, Eleanor’s mother remains the stable force that holds the family together.  Mother insists they sweep and clean after each bombing.  She makes them bathe and use a tablecloth, and it is precisely these small, mundane routines that anchor the family through the terror, chaos, and uncertainty of war.  Little things comfort Eleanor tremendously:  a small Boticelli Madonna that hangs above her bed, images of her peaceful home in Philadelphia that she replays one by one in her mind during bombings so she doesn’t go crazy.         

As a teenager, I vividly remember aching over my inability to have the fancy house, designer clothes, and cool vacations that it seemed like everyone else got.  Eleanor’s Story is important for its history, but it will also give your teen (and you) some perspective.  There are a lot worse things in life than being the only one at school who doesn’t have a real Coach purse, Ugg boots, and a car.  Many people long simply for a safe home and enough to eat.  

Eleanor’s Story also offers compelling proof of the strength of the human spirit.  People are able to endure unbelievable pain and survive.  It made me reconsider my own challenges, trivial by comparison.  Eleanor’s Story’s offers readers both the worst and best of what it means to be human.

Read Eleanor’s Story and post your opinion.