Countdown, by Deborah Wiles

Adolescence is full of tragedies, nuances and excitement. Hormones may be to blame for the more dramatic instances, but embarking on the teenage years in the midst of a time of real fear can add an entirely different element. In Countdown, Wiles tells of Franny Chapman, a 12 year old girl growing up in Washington D.C. during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Franny has a loving father who is gone a good deal since he is a pilot in the Air force, a mother who is all business, a younger brother who is obsessed with being an astronaut (and perfect), an older sister who is in college and has her own ideas about how the future should be (that she keeps hidden through letters in code), and a great uncle that is wrought with flashbacks and totally consumed by the missile threat.

Franny is simply stuck in the middle. She isn't grown, but she isn't a kid. She is consumed with fear of the unknown as the duck and cover drills at school increase. Her nerves are given another hit when Chris, the boy next door moves back, and is something to look at, but it turns out that her former best friend, current enemy, Margie, has her sights set on him as well.

Franny must walk the fine line between breaking the rules to find out what her sister is up to and make it to the boys and girls Halloween dance party, while finishing her chores, making sure her Uncle doesn't faint again from trying to dig a bomb shelter and let her little brother know that he has nothing to be afraid of with the bomb threats, even though she is scared enough herself.

I thoroughly enjoyed the mixture of the story of a young girl during this historic time with actual quotes, news-clippings, background information, TV screen shots, etc. depicting what was actually seen at the time. This is the sort of book that truly makes history come alive. 

When You are Engulfed in Flames, by David Sedaris

Sedaris is a wizard at stirring up the haunts of his past in a witty nihilistic manner that leaves the reader rolling and wondering how the next short story could possibly compete with the one just completed. I read this story on a trip recently and ended up reading a number of the stories out loud to pass the time. It seemed that even more of the humor came forth when the inflection one's tone was heard from reading out loud, but there were a few parts that I could barely get through for laughing so hard.

A few of my favorite stories/characters: a middle aged landlord that shares Sedaris love of all things old, a cuss-happy neighbor in a NY apartment that Sedaris has a soft spot for, his childhood house and neighborhood, and his account of his love of cigarettes, what led him to quit smoking and how he went about it.

This anthology is undoubtedly for the adult reader due to language and mature content, but this should not dissuade the prude. The crude does now outshine the hilarity of what Sedaris calls life. 

One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Delphine is one grown up eleven year old. Between helping out her grandmother, Big Ma, and father, Pa, around the house and looking after her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, she has little time to pause to think about just how grown up she is. So, her mother, Cecile, who left New York for California not long after Fern was born, hardly ever crosses her mind. That is, until Pa decides that the girls need to pay their mother  a visit. 

Each girl has a different idea of the mother they will find, but Delphine, having the most memory of Cecile: writing poetry on the walls, ignoring her, mumbling to herself; has the lowest expectations. All Delphine cares about is getting her sisters back in one piece without making an embarrassment of themselves. 

California seems to be the land of opportunity with Disney Land, sunny weather and movie stars, but Cecile hardly gives the girls a glance upon their arrival and retreats to her printing press located in the kitchen they aren't allowed in. The girls spend the first two weeks going to the Black Panther's hub for breakfast and "school," which consists of filling the children's minds with black power and rising up against the man. 

Delphine isn't so sure about these ideas, but knows they have to find food somewhere, so she makes the most of it. Determined to make the most of the situation, she takes the girls to see the Golden Gate Bridge and Chinatown three weeks in. After a day of fortune cookies and fun the girls make their way back to the house to find Cecile and two black panthers with their hands cuffed behind their backs and being hauled away by the police. 

After a night alone the girls are looked after by people from the club. After her release, Cecile finally gives Delphine some idea of why she left and makes it much easier for her to leave California and return to New York. 

This sobering children's novel reminds us that racism, poverty, ignorance were and still are an issue that not only affects adults, but children.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, art by Ellen Forney

Alexie has hit the nail on the head when it comes to writing a bildungsroman, coming of age novel, that touches on a number of tough topics: physical abuse, alcoholism, death, racism, sexuality, poverty, and culture.

Junior has spent his entire life on the reservation in Wellpinit. Junior is already a miracle, having survived multiple operations to remove liquid from his brain as an infant and a number of subsequent seizures. He has an extremely intelligent sister who has done nothing more than hang out in the basement after graduating high school, a mother and father who are heads above some of his friends parents, by not beating him, showing their love for him and attending school events, but they also battle with alcoholism and struggle to keep food on the table. His saving grace is Rowdy, his best friend who happens to be the biggest bully at school. The two share a passion for basketball.

An altercation between Junior and a teacher gets him suspended, but Junior's life takes a pivotal turn when the teacher comes and tells him how smart he is and if he doesn't leave the reservation he is going to go just where his sister, parents and everyone else on the reservation are going: nowhere. So, Junior makes the decision to transfer to Reardan, the school twenty miles away with wealthier white kids and absolutely no indians. 

Though, he has to hitch a ride or walk to and from school most days, racism runs rampant, and he is the new kid, Junior manages to not only make it, but excels. He makes friends, has a "sort of" girlfriend, makes the basketball team and does well in school. However, Junior must overcome much more with the backlash of his town turning against him when Reardon plays Wellpinit, the death of his sister and grandmother, and the shunning of his best friend.

Throughout, Alexi incorporates teenage humor, heartbreak, and triumph together seamlessly in a novel that is one for the ages. 

Crush: the Theory, Practice and Destructive Properties of Love, by Gary Paulsen

Love is often compared to riding a bike, you just have to get on, fall a few times and learn. However, the scratches heal from falling off a bike, but the wounds left by love may never turn to scars. This is a deep intro to a light-hearted book about a boy, Kevin, who wants to make sure he gets love right the first time. This leads him to gathering data and following a scientific approach to approaching the apple of his eye, Tina.

However, after looking at a number of relationships he finds that he still can't make heads or tails of relationships. As Kevin is surrounded by blooming and renewed love at the 50th anniversary of his grandparents, he is certain that everyone knows the secret to romance but him. That is, until Tina strikes up a conversation and he finds that she has been trying to talk to him for days...so love goes.

Crush: the Theory, Practice and Destructive Properties of Love is Paulsen's follow-up to Liar, Liar and Flat Broke.

The Paris Wife, by Paula McClain

Ernest Hemingway has become a man of lore. His work gives us a glimpse into the lives of very normal people and the intricacies that make them infinitely interesting. McClain has mixed the myth of his Hemingway's own stories that mirrored his own life to an extent along with personal correspondance and his own memoir to paint a picture of this man, but more importantly of his first wife, Hadley.

Though, the end (divorce) is know from the beginning, with each sentence the reader feels the love between the two grow thick as molasses and hope that the end could be changed, even though the story wouldn't ring as true to what life is. Hadley is a simple woman who finds a new start in Hemingway as she nears thirty and he is just getting started on his career. The two make it through thin years in Paris, as Hemingway works to making it the writing world with helpful eye and friendship of people like Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and Scott Fitzgerald. Through trips to Spain, the loss of years of Hemingway's work and the birth of their son, Bumby, Hadley is always supportive.

However, as the two close in on five years of marriage, and over a year of trying to overcome an affair between a wealthy woman that writes for Vogue, Pauline, and Hemingway, the two are merely a shadow of the people they once were. Hadley finally concedes to a divorce.


While the five years make up a small portion of the two's lives, there is no denying the lasting influence that one had on the other. Hemingway says repeatedly that Hadley is the best of people, much better than himself, possibly too good. Though, he remarried several more times, Hadley was by his side during the most formative years of his writing developing view of the world and McClain displays their relationship beautifully in all of it's grittiness, leaving the reader with as much admiration for the woman behind the Hemingway as the man himself. 

The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

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Life is full of ups and downs, life and death, love found and lost, but when cancer is brought into the mix all of these elements are compacted into a much shorter time when the ill person is still a teen. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, supplies an in depth view on what this situation might be like, as seen through the eyes of  Hazel, who's lungs are failing her, and Augustus, who lost a leg to cancer.

The two star crossed lovers' paths intersect for the first time at the cancer group meeting at a church in what they have deemed the heart of Jesus. From there a relationship develops around a love of literature, family, and the life that they want to hold onto so desperately in spite of the odds that are against them.

Hazel shares her favorite book, The Imperial Affliction, with Gus, along with the backstory of how much the book means to her and her ongoing attempt to connect with the author, Van Houten, in order to find out what happens to the characters whose stories are left unfinished. Hazel used her "Make a Wish" for Disneyland, Gus has held onto his and uses this opportunity to take a trip with Hazel and her mother to Amsterdam to meet Van Houten.

Though, the author doesn't live up to their expectations, there is so much more that surmounts the two starry eyed kids' expectations that the unfairness of their not surprising, yet horrible, fate will bring tears to the eyes of anyone with a heart.

Green more than delivers what has come to be expected of him as an author in this telling of lives that are too short. Lives that could have been remembered by many, but now will be immortalized in the hearts of a few. The reader will be left wondering if, in such a case as this, a greater memory in fewer means more. I think so.