young adult – Page 8

the girl who played go

I was rummaging in the bargain bin at Book Sale when a jacketless hardcover book caught my eye — creamy ochre with a red spine. The title, the girl who played go by Shan Sa (book # 111 of 2009, #18 for the FFP Diversity Challenge) sounded interesting, and as the summary was lost to the missing dust jacket, I decided to get it anyway, because it was only P50 (around $1).

I knew that Go is the Chinese strategy game comparable to chess (or checkers), and because I’ve read some novels that revolve around chess, such as The Eight by Katherine Neville and The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte, I was quite intrigued by this book.

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Time for some chick lit

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I’ve been stressed out for some weeks now, and was in desperate need of a fluffy pick-me-up this weekend, so I bumped up Meg Cabot’s Princess On the Brink (Princess Diaries 8) from my TBR heap (book #97 for 2009) — more than two years after I read the 7th book.

The Princess Diaries is Meg Cabot’s bestselling chick lit series about HRH Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo (a.k.a Mia Thermopolis), Princess of Genovia (fondly referred to by her best friend Lilly Moscovitz as POG). As the series title implies, the books read like journal entries chronicling the ups and downs of the life of a teenage girl who also happens to be a princess.

I actually saw the Disney film adaptation years before I read any of the books, and I actually started with Meg Cabot’s All American Girl before I read The Princess Diaries.

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The Three Investigators

Three Investigators endpapers, photo from www.empireonline.com

I just finished reading a 3-in-1 Three Investigators book containing The Mystery of the Flaming Footprints, The Mystery of the Coughing Dragon and The Mystery of the Singing Serpent (books 86-88 of 2009)

Before I even started reading Nancy Drew, I was hooked on the The Three Investigators series, because it was my older sister’s (Tattie’s) favorite series when she was in grade school and she always talked about it.

As soon as I had access to the bigger library (4th grade), I found a whole shelf of the books and I didn’t even have any competition – nobody was checking them out! Nobody my age had even heard about them – the last borrowers were a good five years or so back – and so I was able to read them in order.

I was hooked, and I ended up checking out two or three of them at a time (three was the maximum number we could check out at one time at the library, and I was one of the few girls who were pushing the limit and filling up back to back blue borrower’s cards).

In fact, I ended up reading so many them that my mom had to curtail my reading time to half an hour a night (depending on her mood) and only after I did my homework (and then eventually I was limited to reading ONLY during the weekends; I had a reading ban on weeknights while the rest of my siblings got TV ban and I couldn’t have cared less about the TV). This is, I think, the reason I learned to read fast (and read on a moving vehicle on the way to and from school), to maximize reading time.

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Family Ties

Have you ever wished you were born to a different family?

The thought is something most of us have probably entertained while growing up, especially during the not so few times our family drives us up the wall. But no matter what we do, family will always be family, and there’s not very much we can do about it.

This is the theme behind Get Real by Betty Hicks (book #71 of 2009), a young adult novel that explores the concept of family.

The neat freak Dez feels ill at ease with her eccentric, messy and geeky family, while her best friend Jil feels constricted by her affluent, cultured and picture-perfect parents, and both would have loved nothing more than to switch places. Jil, an adopted child, and grabs at the opportunity to meet her birth mom and sister, and Dez cannot understand why Jil is so eager to trade in her perfect life.

I actually just mooched this book from a local moocher and it was one of those filler mooches that I made to help the owner economize on shipping (2-mooch minimum).

While there was nothing really outstanding about the book, it wasn’t half bad, I was actually amused at Dez’s bewilderment towards her Rennaissance poetry-quoting dad, muumuu-loving scientist mom, and disaster-prone younger brother. I think this is something everyone goes through, that moment of incredulity when you actually wonder if you come from the same set of genes as the rest of your family.

I like how it tackles family issues realistically, and how it is a fresh and healthy voice in contemporary young adult literature, which I’m afraid right now is oversaturated with skanky novels and empty special effects.

Plus points go to the cover design also, its seventeen-style treatment is very appealing to the age group for which the book is intended.

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my copy: hardcover with dustjacket, local mooch

my rating: 3/5 stars

All the world’s a stage

I’ve read most of Sharon Creech’s books, and each one has always revealed her excellent insight into the young mind, especially as it grapples with growing up, family, friends, and even heavier issues such as grief and abandonment.

Replay is another feather in Creech’s cap, a touching family story seen through the eyes of Leo, the middle child in a loud Italian family.

Leo often feels like a sardine, squashed in between his moody sister, two gregarious younger brothers, a pair of frazzled parents, and a wild assortment of Italian relatives. There is so much going on in their household that he fantasizes about doing extraordinary deeds to get his family’s attention.

As he prepares for a small role (old crone) in a school production, Leo can’t help but compare the play to his life, and in the process discovers more about himself and the good old family that he loves and loves him back.

While relatively lighter in subject matter than Creech’s other books (my favorites are Walk Two Moons, Absolutely Normal Chaos, and Ruby Holler) Replay is a fresh addition to the collection as the structure of the book plays with the metaphor of the play: it presents the story in scenes and introduces the characters via a cast listing.

Leo makes a great lead: candid and engaging, observant and expressive — a real Sharon Creech trademark. Leo writes in a dramatic exercise in preparation for a play:

“It was like everyone else was in a play and I was the audience. I couldn’t see myself, but maybe everyone feels this way. You never see yourself (unless you look in the mirror). You only see everyone else. I still feel that way.”

The last section of the book also includes a special surprise, a script of the play they did in the book: “Rumpopo’s Porch,” for kids who might want to act it out. I was amused to find the script because I remember how I loved play scripts when I was younger — I would act them out, playing all the characters and giving them different voices while forcing my little brother to sit through all of my performances, haha.

I still have a couple of Sharon Creech books in my TBR — Granny Torelli Makes Soup, and Chasing Redbird; I look forward to reading them this year.

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My copy: hardcover in dustjacket, from the NBS bargain bin, P50

My rating: 4/5 stars