Benjamin and Tom are two entrepreneuring eighteenth-century grifters who need a sympathetic third body to help them tug at potential marks’ heart and purse strings. Enter Ren, a small dirty orphan with only one hand. Grateful to have found a new “family,†Ren agrees to play his part, though his sensitive conscience (well developed at the Catholic orphanage) often pains him. Using Ren’s wan face and prominent disability, the two crooks clean up until they turn their illegal attentions to grave robbing. Caught at the dirty deed, the trio are targeted by a shady local mill owner, who holds an entire small New England town in his tight fist. As they try to escape his murderous intentions, a surprising secret about Ren’s past comes to light, changing, well…everything. This quirky historical yarn, reminiscent of the writing of Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, is full of colorful characters and unexpected twists. Both absorbing and exciting, often absurd and sometimes deeply sad, The Good Thief is a darn good read.
Category: Boy Meets Book
Books from the male perspective for everyone.
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
This epic story of a lonely boy, his loyal dog, and his family’s betrayal at the hands of his bitter uncle has haunted me (in a good way) since I read it, and I hope it will resonate with some of you as well. Set in rural 1970’s Wisconsin and employing some of the same elements as Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the novel explores the inner life of mute boy Edgar Sawtelle and his family’s amazing fictional breed of near-mind-reading dog, simply called the Sawtelle dogs. (You can’t get one, because they don’t exist, but by the end of the book, you’ll want one!) Edgar’s life raising and training dogs on his family’s farm is idyllic until his father dies suddenly and Edgar suspects his uncle was involved. Determined to bring the man to justice, Edgar makes several crucial decisions that will change the course of his life and the fate of the Sawtelle dogs. Now, just because this buzz book is going to be all the rage in your mother’s book club next year is no reason to dismiss it out of hand. Trust me, underneath all the heaps of praise from frou-frou literary critics, a passionate, frustrated heart of adolescent angst beats at the center of this big book. (And don’t complain about the length, either. You ran right out and bought that monstrously huge Stephanie Meyer book, and didn’t even blink at the number of pages of the last Harry Potter. I just don’t buy that “I don’t read books this long†argument anymore.) So drop by your local library and grab it off the best-seller table or your dad’s desk and have at it. Then come back here and tell me about it…
The Big Splash by Jack D. Ferraiolo
Seventh grade P.I. Matt Stevens has just been handed his toughest assignment to date: discover who took out Nicole Finnegan, a.k.a. “Nikki Fingers,” the most dangerous middle school squirt gun assassin since Machine Gun Kelly was a lad. Just when Nikki had decided to quit wise-guy Vinnie Biggs’ crime ring of hall pass forgers and Pixy Stix dealers and go straight, she is nailed by a mystery shooter using her past favorite weapon of choice: a giant-sized Super Soaker. At Franklin Middle School, once you’ve been soaked in the crotch with a squirt gun in front of everyone, it’s nowhere but the Outs for you. And as Matt has observed far too many times, once you’re Out, it’s impossible to get back In. Lives are RUINED with a single pump of the Soaker. Now Vinnie Biggs has hired Matt to find out who had the guts to splatter his former favorite shooter. Could it be Kevin Carling, Vinnie’s second-in-command, whose heart was broken by Nikki when she was at the height of her sixth-grade fame? Or maybe it was Joey “the Hyena†Renoni, whose signature high-pitched “hehehe†was heard at the scene of the soaking. What Matt is rapidly discovering is that anyone who knew and loved someone splashed by Nikki Fingers isn’t sorry to see her get her just desserts, and they’re clamming up faster than a bunch of eighth-graders who are on their third warning from the middle school librarian. Will Matt be able to solve the crime and earn the twenty bucks Vinnie is waving under his nose like a Snickers to a starving man? (“Twenty bucks was a lot of money. I mean, there’s stuff I wouldn’t do for twenty bucks, but the list was pretty short.â€) Or will Nikki just fade away into the ranks of the Outs, a sad victim of her own squirt gun karma? Newbie author Ferraiolo brings the laughs with this hard-boiled middle school homage to classic detective tales like The Maltese Falcon and The Big Sleep. Ferraiolo cleverly mixes Mafioso with middle school in a way that is witty and fresh, while always making sure the bad guys get detention and the good guys get their homework in on time. Like Joey Renoni, I couldn’t stop giggling at the end of every Sam Spade-inspired exchange or turn the pages fast enough to find out whodunit.
Paper Towns by John Green
“To find Margo Roth Spiegelman, you must become Margo Roth Spiegelman.†High school senior Quentin Jacobsen has suffered unrequited love for alterna-hipster-grrl Margo Roth Spiegelman since the two of them discovered a dead body in the park of their Orlando subdivision when they were nine years old. Q never forgot how Margo seemed more fascinated by than terrified of the dead man, a fact that began to form the basis of his admiration from afar. Though Q trods the Nerd trail during high school while Margo glides down Popular path, when Margo is wronged by an ex-boyfriend, its’ Q she turns to for help in exacting her revenge. After a fun-filled night of creative pranks from the driver’s seat of his mom’s mini-van, Q is looking forward to exploring his new and improved relationship with the one and only Margo Roth Spiegelman. Except, the next day, Margo disappears. And if Q wants to know what it feels like to kiss those lips he’s worshiped from a distance, he’s going to have to follow the series of cryptic clues Margo left behind. But graduation is looming and time is running out. As the trail grows cold, Q wonders if Margo even wants to be found. And then his thoughts wander to an even darker place: was the best night of his life the last time he would ever see Margo Roth Spiegelman alive? John Green scores again with his own particular brand of smarty-McSmart adolescent-angst awesomeness. His intricate, intimate portraits of intellectual band geeks, gamers and fringe kids are so refreshing in a teen lit. world drowning in the superficial sea of Gossip Girl and her ilk. Plus, he just makes me laugh out loud with descriptions like this: “Those of us who frequent the band room have long suspected that Becca maintains her lovely figure by eating nothing but the souls of kittens and the dreams of impoverished children.†Margo comments that the planning is often more fun than the actual doing, and while I would agree that the end of Q’s crazy quest left me wanting more, I wouldn’t have traded the journey for anything!
Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt
Fourteen-year-old Henry lives in a classic, been-in-the-family-for-generations Massachusetts house with his perfect mom, dad, sister, and uber-perfect older brother, Franklin. Henry’s life is, in a word, perfect. But while PERFECT is all very well and good, the one thing it doesn’t prepare you for is TROUBLE. One cold spring day, on Henry’s birthday no less, Franklin is struck by a car while out running and falls into a coma. The driver is a Cambodian classmate named Chay Chouan, and the accident serves as fuel to an already smoldering racist fire between the old New England families in Henry’s town and the immigrant Cambodian families who have begun to settle there. Bricks are thrown, harsh words are said, and Henry’s perfect world is turned upside down. His father never leaves the house, his mother barely speaks, and his sister refuses to set foot outside her bedroom. The only thing Henry knows will make him feel better is to make a pilgrimage to Mount Katahdin in Maine, a hiking trip he had planned with his brother. Henry does eventually make that climb. But how he ends up doing it with Chay and a wonderful canine character simply named “Black Dog,†by his side is a powerful, subtle story of ultimate sacrifices, surprising secrets, and hard-won forgiveness. By book’s end, Henry has painfully learned that perfection comes at a price, and trouble can lead to truth. Penned by the author of one of my top ten favorite books of 2007, this smart, literary character study/mystery is a book worth lingering over and quoting from. Whatever you do, don’t let the humdrum earth-tone cover dissuade you from digging into the crackin’ good story underneath.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, with illustrations by Dave McKean
Meet Nobody Owens. He hasn’t had a haircut in well, ever, his usual uniform is a gray winding sheet, and his best friends are a vampire named Silas and a long-dead girl named Liza. That’s because Nobody (or Bod for short) has been raised in graveyard with ghosts (Mr. and Mrs. Owens, to be specific) for parents and tombstones for playthings. When Bod was a toddler, an assassin known only as Jack crept into his house and murdered his entire family. While the monster was at his diabolical work, Bod quietly wandered out of his room and into the nearby graveyard. He was discovered by the Owenses, who decided to raise him themselves with the help of Silas, who could move about in human society and and secure food for the child. As Bod grows, he learns many useful things from his adopted family, like how to Fade, Dreamwalk, and make Fear, all the while knowing that the man who killed his family is still out there—and eventually he will have to face him. While the creepy quotient is not quite as high as Gaiman’s insta-classic Coraline, The Graveyard Book has a certain Burton-esque Nightmare Before Christmas quality that gives it an all-ages appeal. Both frightening and funny (and sometimes frighteningly funny) this latest supernatural goody from Master of Magic Gaiman is hopefully haunting a library or bookstore near you.
Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
In a San Francisco of the near future, seventeen-year-old Marcus Yallow is a master hacker with a monster grudge. When the San Fran Bay Bridge is blown to smithereens by terrorists, Marcus and three of his best friends are hauled away as suspects by the Department of Homeland Security. They are interrogated, beaten, and denied food—FOR DAYS–just for being in the vicinity of the blast. After finally convincing his captors he knows nothing about the bombs, Marcus is released after signing documents swearing he’ll tell no one about his terrifying experience. He goes home to parents who are so happy that he’s alive that they buy his story of being quarantined due to possible exposure to biological toxins. But the world is not the way he left it. His beloved hometown has turned into a place where 24/7 surveillance is the name of the game. Law-abiding citizens are routinely shaken down if they deviate from their usual patterns by one iota. The DHS treats everyone like a potential terrorist threat. But Marcus refuses to accept the new police state and instead hatches a radical plan to jam the government’s circuits and return power to the people once and for all! How he manages to pull that off is the basis for this amazing sci-fi novel by tech-blogger Cory Doctorow. Clearly influenced by the events of September 11, 2001, stories from Guantanamo Bay, the PATRIOT Act and George Orwell’s classic 1984, Doctorow gives us a frighteningly contemporary glimpse at how easily the government can take away our civil liberties under the guise of keeping us “safe.” Totally timely and full of fascinating techno-talk that even the Google-challenged can understand, Little Brother is a fast-paced, thought-provoking read that will leave you searching for your own way to “jam” the Man! Want to know how Marcus does some of his techno-tricks? Check out Doctorow’s LB blog or connect with him on MySpace or Facebook.
Airman by Eoin Colfer
In a fictional island kingdom off the Irish coast in the 1880’s, young Conor Broekhart leads a charmed life. As the beloved son of the head of King Nicholas’s sharpshooters, Conor is treated like royalty himself. He plays and plots with Princess Isabella, and learns self-defense and aeronautical design at the knee of the king’s best friend and Parisian scientist Victor Vigny. Together, they dream of creating the first heavier-than-air flying machine that will catapult man into the heavens. But all those dreams come to an abrupt end the day teenage Conor accidentally witnesses the double murder of his king and his adored tutor. Framed for the murders by the traitorous commander of the king’s army, Hugo Bonvilain, Conor is condemned to rot in an inescapable prison while his parents and Isabella are led to believe he is dead. At first, Conor wishes that were the case. But slowly, his resolve to escape grows until he fashions an outrageous plan that will either win his freedom or take his life. It is impossible to dig or swim your way off the prison island of Little Saltee. But if Conor’s plan works, he’ll just take to the air and fly…this historically flavored fantasy is pure white-knuckled pleasure from start to finish. Full swash-buckling swordplay, dizzying rescues from great heights and breathtaking escapes, Airman takes off quickly and lands with a satisfying thump. If you enjoy the adventures of Alex Rider, Matt Cruse, or even the clever machinations of Andy Dufresne, the brilliant hero of Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption, then you’re going to want to book a flight with Conor Broekhart.
Anthem of a Reluctant Prophet by Joanne Proulx
Seventeen-year-old Luke is a self-described loser skate punk who begins to ponder the meaning of life after he correctly predicts the day, time, and method of his best friend’s untimely demise. Hailed as “the prophet of death” by the media and hounded by the local minister to come to Jesus, Luke nearly self-destructs under the intense public scrutiny. Until he finally figures out what it is he wants to live for–his dead friend’s girl. Can Luke handle both the guilt of loving dead Stan’s gorgeous girl Faith and the feeling (if not the seeing) of dead people who keep passing through his nerve endings on their way out? This outrageous, day-in-the-life chronicle of a basement-dwelling, pot-smoking burn-out turned modern day mystic manages to be philosophical, sad, and uplifting all at once. It powerfully reminded me of one of my all time fav teenage male manifestos, Rule of the Bone. Take a walk on the Other Side with Joanne Proulx’s semi-supernatural debut.
Ten Mile River by Paul Griffin
Jose is small, fast, and knows how to use his impressive six-pack to charm the neighborhood shorties into giving him more than the time of day. Ray is big, slow-moving (but not slow-thinking) and can usually ONLY get the shorties to give him the time, nothing more. These two best friends, complete opposites but brothers in every way but blood, found each other after they were lost in the NYC foster care system. Now, far from the dubious care of over-scheduled social workers and grim foster parents, Jose and Ray have formed their own family off of Ten Mile Park, past 145th Street in Harlem. There, they share a vacant station house with a pack of abandoned pit bulls and enjoy all the comforts of a real home, courtesy of a streetlight feed that powers their stolen appliances. But when Ray meets Trini, she of the dreamy black eyes and warm laugh, Ray and Jose’s relationship shifts from a comfortable twosome to an uneasy threesome. Trini makes Ray want to do something more with his life than commit petty crimes for pocket change. But how do you tell your best friend that you’ve outgrown him? And were do you find the tools to survive in the straight world when all you know is the street? This gritty debut novel by newbie author Paul Griffin reminded me of my favorite book by E.R. Frank. If you like her work, or that of Coe Booth, you’re definitely going to want to take a sail down Ten Mile.
Jack: Secret Histories by F. Paul Wilson
In the early 1980’s, long before cell phones and iPods arrived on the scene, Jack, his friend Eddie, and Eddie’s sister Weezy spend most of their time either playing Pole Position on Atari, or biking through the spooky Pine Barrens that border their suburban New Jersey neighborhood. One hot summer day as they are exploring the Barrens, the trio come upon what looks like an ancient burial mound. Poking around in search of treasure, they are rewarded instead with the discovery of a far more recent (although still pretty decomposed and gross) body and a mysterious black box, covered with cryptic symbols that will only open for Jack, much to Weezy’s vast disappointment. Turns out the body is a ex-member of the town’s oldest and most exclusive society: The Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order. And he wasn’t just murdered, he was carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey! Soon after Jack and Co. report what they have found, other members of the Order begin to bite it, one after another. What’s going on here? Is there a serial killer on the loose? If so, why is he only targeting Order members? The answer may lie in the secrets of the black box, but until they can figure out what the symbols mean, they’re stumped. So Jack, using only his Hardy Boy-like powers of deduction and trusty bike, starts poking around in all the wrong places. Will Jack discover who the murderer is before he becomes the killer’s next victim? This highly entertaining mystery is the little brother of the adult published Repairman Jack series. But you don’t have to have read the original books to enjoy the heck out of this one. Even though F. Paul Wilson spends a little too much time explaining to readers that they are in 1983, it’s great fun watching amateur sleuths solve mysteries without the help of Google or past episodes of C.S.I. Why, it’s almost like Nancy Drew! Or Scooby Doo and the gang riding around in the Mystery Machine! (If you have no idea what I’m talking about, click here.)
I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle
Uber-nerd Denis Cooverman (aka “The Coove,†as dubbed by his equally dweeby and possibly closeted best friend, Rich) decides to go for broke in his valedictorian speech and declare his love for head cheerleader Beth Cooper for all to hear. Unfortunately, “all†includes her huge military boyfriend, Kevin, who drives a Hummer and wouldn’t mind driving it over Denis after learning of his latent love for Beth. Even though perpetually sweaty Denis does manage to entice the intrigued Beth over to his house for a little “fat-free sourdough Gorgonzola pretzel dip†and then on to Queen Mean Girl Valli Woolly’s parent-free graduation party, they are dogged by Kevin and his squad of muscle-bound goons every step of the way. Will Denis ever get Beth alone long enough to figure out of they are meant-to-be, or just meant-to-be-friends? This Say Anything send-up is so freakin’ funny that I pretty much giggled my way through each page. Each chapter starts with a quote from some teen movie, (which is a party game in and of itself to try and figure out which movie is being referenced) along with a cartoon image of Denis, showing his increasing anxiety and worsening facial contusions as he continues to collect punches from Kevin and Co. each time they make a pit stop in Beth’s Cabriolet convertible. There were so many priceless moments of almost peeing my pants in this naughty teen sex dramedy that if I started listing them, I’d never stop. I’ll leave it at this: If you heart Superbad, then you are going to be McLovin’ I Love You, Beth Cooper.
Tyrell by Coe Booth
Tyrell’s life is in the trash—literally. Everything he owns fits in two black garbage bags. His dad’s doing time, his moms makes endless excuses about why she can’t get a job, and he and his little brother are living in one of the rattiest, roachiest family shelters around. But even though he’s down, don’t count Tyrell out. He’s still got his girlfriend Novisha on his side, and if he can only get ahold of his dad’s DJ equipment, he just might be able to throw down the party of the century, and make enough dough to get outta the shelter and back into the projects. Will Tyrell make it? Only God knows, but He sure ain’t been doing Tyrell any favors lately, so the only person Tyrell can count on is himself. Coe Booth’s debut novel for older teens reminds me of the work of my fav author E.R. Frank. (Both Booth and Frank are social workers who have worked with at risk teens) Tyrell is so real you won’t be able to believe he’s fiction. And his desire to do good in the face of overwhelming odds cuts through the tired stereotype of the fast-talking street thug who’s just trying to get over. Walk a few blocks of the Bronx in Tyrell’s kicks, and see what it’s really like living on the streets.
Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You by Peter Cameron
Eighteen-year-old New Yorker James Sveck is happiest by himself. “People, at least in my experience, rarely say anything interesting to each other. They always talk about their lives and they don’t have very interesting lives. So I get impatient.” Now it’s his last summer before college, and James isn’t even sure he WANTS to go to college. He may just chuck it all and use his tuition money to buy a house in Kansas where he can be completely and utterly ALONE. But his divorced parents, worried about his strange love for the Mid-West and the fact that he may be gay (even though it supposedly “wouldn’t bother them one bit!”) send him to a shrink to in order to clear up his issues and go off to Brown like a good boy. Though James is skeptical about therapy at first, Dr. Adler manages to get him talking about all the things he never thought he’d share: his disastrous school trip to Washington D.C., his unacknowledged attraction to his mother’s sophisticated male gallery employee, and what he might have seen from the windows of his downtown Manhattan high school on 9/11. Suddenly, James realizes he is completely and utterly SAD, and has been for a long time. What he decides to do in order to change his depressed status forms the basis of this neurotic, funny, Woody-Allen-film of a YA novel. Its’ twin sister in the world of YA lit. is Garret Freymann-Weyr’s brilliant My Heartbeat
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
“Love and hate in seventh grade are not far apart, let me tell you.†In 1967 on Long Island, NY, Holling Hoodhood’s English teacher, Mrs. Baker, hates him about as much as she loves William Shakespeare. How does he know? Because every Wednesday afternoon, when half his class leaves for catechism lessons and half leave for Hebrew school, Holling, the only Presbyterian, is left alone with Mrs. Baker…and Shakespeare. When Mrs. Baker first proposes that they read and study the Bard’s plays together, Holling is less than thrilled. But that’s before he discovers Caliban’s curses in The Tempest, or how to use lines from Romeo and Juliet to woo the fair Meryl Lee. Suddenly, Shakespeare doesn’t seem so stupid anymore. In fact, the long dead playwright’s words help Holling in all sorts of situations: facing a bullying neighbor, speaking up to his overbearing father, and winning a coveted place as the only seventh grader on the school’s new cross country team. And even though it’s harder to find comfort in plays while the Vietnam War rages on and Martin Luther King is assassinated, Mrs. Baker shows Holling that what Shakespeare wrote about wars and kings is just as relevant in 1967 as it was in 1587. Schmidt’s warm, solid autobiographical read is getting mad love from teachers and librarians because even though she’s prickly, Mrs. Baker is smart and cool (like we like to think we are) and well, it’s about the power of SHAKESPEARE! But don’t worry, Schmidt filled his story with lots of funny, subversive stuff for teens too–think Ralphie Parker in A Christmas Story. Take a look at this one yourself and see if you agree that its a book that both a teacher AND a student could love.