Posts on young adult

When I skimmed the jacket flap of Tempo Change, by Barbara Hall (Delacorte, 2009), about the teen whose “father is an indie rock icon,” two thoughts occurred to me. The first was Beige, by Cecil Castelluci (Candlewick, 2007). The second was Born to Rock, by Gordon Korman (Hyperion, 2006). Fortunately, I read past the flap and was rewarded with a story all its own—and one that really spoke to me.

This is exactly the sort of novel you would expect from Hall, who created the Emmy-nominated series Joan of Arcadia, about a modern teen who starts receiving messages from God. The dialogue is smart and snappy. The protagonist of Tempo Change is, like Joan, a snarky teen who doesn’t quite meld with her peers. But the core similarity is the shared theme of spiritual exploration—executed without a hint of preaching.

Blanche Kelly is, as I mentioned, the daughter of an indie rock icon. Duncan Kelly, however, left years ago to rekindle his muse in the South Pacific. Blanche’s only contact with him is through email, though at school she faithfully follows his advice: “Don’t be a joiner.” She’s succeeded in staying at the fringes, preferring to observe than to participate. She loves music but is hesitant to pursue it; after all, art hasn’t exactly done wonders for her family.

Then Blanche’s mother brings home a new boyfriend: Ed, not a musician but (yawn) a guitar salesman. At the same time, Blanche finds a stellar singer and drummer among her school mates. While she’s not, like her coworker and maybe-possibly crush Jeff, about to call it “a sign,” it’s enough to make Blanche do a 180. If her new band, the Fringers, makes it all the way to the big Coachella music festival, surely it will be enough to roust Duncan Kelly from his Pacific hideaway at last!

Of course, getting to Coachella isn’t quite that easy. And once the Fringers—and, yes, Duncan Kelly—actually make it there, it doesn’t go anything like Blanche planned.

Hall’s characterization stands out. All characters—both teens and adults—are three-dimensional, none wholly good or bad. Blanche’s mother has struggled with depression, alcoholism, and finances, but she’s a loving, invested parent active in her recovery program. Duncan is by turns the kindly, helpful father and the selfish, obsessed artist. Blanche is realistically naïve and critical of her mother, unable to understand how she could prefer owning a women’s clothing shop “for women who [are] tired of wearing clothes” and dating Guitar Guy Ed to the presumably glamorous life of a rocker’s wife.

What I really love about Tempo Change, though, and what keeps it from being the formulaic pop-culture-centric story you might expect, is Blanche’s relentless (though sometimes reluctant) questioning of the fuzzier aspects of existence. How do we find our path in life? Where does artistic drive come from? Is there such a thing as divine intervention, or is life just a series of very human choices?

Hall provides no concrete answers but plenty of entry points for discussion. Joan’s mother surrenders the things she can’t control to a higher power in her twelve-step program. The Fringers’ singer sees an apparently divine vision while stranded in a snow storm. The prayers Blanche and her band mates idly tossed into the box at the New Age shop seem to be coming true. Even Blanche, ever a skeptic, makes a key decision based only on a dream.

Ultimately, this thoughtful novel of spiritual exploration has more in common with Kimberly Brubaker Bradley’s Leap of Faith (Dial 2007) or Pat Schmatz’s Circle the Truth (Carolrhoda 2007) than with the books conjured by the jacket flap. It will appeal to many readers of contemporary realistic fiction, especially those with a philosophical and/or artistic bent. Highly recommended for grades 6 and up.

You may remember the Create Your Debut Album meme that made its way around Facebook a few months back, or the Create Your Debut Fantasy Cover meme that followed. Well, now Travis at 100 Scope Notes has created a new challenge: Create Your Debut YA Cover. Here's mine:

BLURB:
In a dystopian future in which "surplus" children are recruited as soldiers in an endless war (if they're lucky) or harvested for their organs (if they're not), third child Tal dreams of freedom. Following the gratuitously violent assassination of the Surplus Liberation Movement's leaders, Tal takes the movement underground—literally—only to discover an arsenal of ridiculously powerful nuclear weaponry in a conveniently abandoned subway tunnel. Aided by his comrades, beautiful yet preternaturally clever Wanda and ham-fisted yet sensitive Aloysius, Tal devises a plan to overthrow the government—though he just might blow Planet Earth to smithereens in the process. Can Tal save humanity without losing his own? On which side of the crumbling subway arch do the answers lie: on the surface or underground?
 

CREATE YOUR DEBUT YA COVER

1 – Go to “Fake Name Generator” or click http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/

The name that appears is your author name.

2 – Go to “Random Word Generator” or click http://www.websitestyle.com/parser/randomword.shtml

The word listed under “Random Verb” is your title.

3 – Go to “FlickrCC” or click http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net/index.php

Type your title into the search box. The first photo that contains a person is your cover.

4 – Use Photoshop, Picnik, or similar to put it all together. Be sure to crop and/or zoom in.

5 – Post it to your site along with this text.

Travis is collecting reader's contributions and has posted a gallery here. Oh man, they are wonderful. Some are hilariously awful, and some look like they could be on the shelves at the bookstore right now. Definitely work checking out!

Two Parties, One Tux, and a Very Short Film About The Grapes of Wrath, By Steven Goldman (Bloomsbury 2008)

Until now, the spring of his junior year, Mitchell has led an unassuming life. He’s quiet, a good student, and definitely not a girl magnet. But now life’s getting complicated. Mitchell turns in an irreverent Claymation film as his Grapes of Wrath project, parents complain, and his English teacher takes a sudden leave of absence—is Mitchell to blame? As prom approaches, the most popular girl in school starts pursuing Mitchell—is she for real? And Mitchell’s best friend, David, tells him he’s gay—what does that mean for their friendship?

While the Grapes of Wrath subplot is entertaining (anyone who’s ever faked their way through a school project will heartily identify) and the girlfriend storyline is quintessential coming-of-age stuff, the true story—the most interesting, genuine, and heart-felt part of the novel—lies in the suddenly uncertain friendship between Mitchell and David. After David comes out to him, Mitchell knows he’s still the same David, yet things feel different between them. They’re not “just friends,” but what’s the difference between being best friends and boyfriends?

I liked the way the novel addresses Mitchell’s questions about David and himself. Goldman maintains a very light touch and keeps the level of humor high. Mitchell doesn’t waste much time wondering if he’s gay himself, if being friends with David will make him gay, if he’ll be targeted by bullies for having a gay friend, or if being gay makes David a bad or sick person. Mitchell has plenty of questions (Is David sure he’s gay? Does he “like” anyone?), but behind all his questions is the urge to understand and accept his friend as he is.

In tone and matter-of-fact treatment of puberty issues, the book reminded me of Gordon Korman’s teen books (e.g., A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag) and early Jerry Spinelli (Space Station Seventh Grade). There’s a lot of toilet humor and discussion of masturbation and female anatomy. These things, plus some underage drinking and making out, firmly push Two Parties out of middle grade territory into YA, but in terms of its positive, humorous approach to gay teen issues, it’s reminiscent of David LaRochelle’s wonderful Absolutely, Positively Not. Recommended for grades 7 and up.

There's a wonderful interview with Judy Blundell by Daniel Handler in this month's School Library Journal—very interesting and humorous.

Blundell is the author of What I Saw and How I Lied, the 2008 National Book Award winner in the Young People's Literature category. I just read it this week and liked it very much—so dark and exciting and sophisticated and elegant! I'm too lazy to review it myself, but I basically concur with The Reading Zone's enthusiastic review.

It's only the second finalist I've read so far, the other being The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks, by E. Lockhart, which I also greatly enjoyed. I imagine I'll get around to the others eventually. Probably. After all, 2007 had a great list from top to bottom.

What I Saw and How I Lied reminded me of some other books I love: Stay With Me, by Garrett Freymann-Wehr, The White Darkness, by Geraldine McCaughrean, and The Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters (and many others), by Madeleine L'Engle. What binds them together in my mind—in addition to suspenseful plots and beautiful writing—is that they feel very adult without lapsing into adult pretension.

This is due in large part to their casts of characters. The protagonists are teens, but they interact mainly with adults in adult settings. Isolated from their peers, whether on ocean liners, at deserted resorts, or in arctic wastelands, the teens are forced to act more adult themselves, as they are trapped in adult social situations, faced with adult problems (and adults' problems), and perhaps even treated as peers by those adults.

It's very interesting, the differences between these books and those that take place with the familiar, if not comfortable, confines of high school. I do think there is a certain sophistication, a certain worldliness, that comes with this particular sort of book. Is that what makes for a "cross-over book"? Regardless, I certainly hope that What I Saw and How I Lied will be one of those to "cross over"; there are plenty of adult readers out there who would love it.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the Guardian's award for bad sex scenes in fiction.

This week, Marianna at Crowe's Nest provides much-needed relief with a discussion of good sex scenes in YA novels. She's identified passages and explains why they work so well in context.

If you've ever wondered how to get steamy without getting cheesy (hey wait, am I talking about sex scenes or broccoli, here?), take a look.

Back in September, Lee Wind posted a blurb for a new young adult book called Mousetraps (Carolrhoda, 2008), by Pat Schmatz. Intrigued, I added it to my to-read list. Fast-forward a month to the SCBWI Wisconsin conference. Who’s one of the very first people I meet? Pat Schmatz. Small world!

I bought Mousetraps, Pat signed it, I read it, I dug it. I asked Pat if she’d be interested in a blog interview (my first!), and here we are. But first, a little more about Mousetraps.

Maxie’s junior year of high school begins with a surprise: Rick is back. Rick, the boy she was best friends with, before he became a bully magnet. Rick, who moved away in seventh grade after he was brutally gay bashed.

Rick wants to rekindle his friendship with Maxie, but she’s not so sure. Rick’s as much of a target as ever. And there’s something different about him these days. There’s a look he gets in his eyes sometimes, cold and hard, that scares her.

Maxie is a sensitive, yet matter-of-fact, narrator who occasionally dips into the poetic but never dives into melodrama, even when things get dark—and they do get dark. She’s a cartoonist—way back when, Rick designed crazy, Rube Goldberg-esque mousetraps, and she drew them—and her lively drawings (penned in real life by Bill Hauser) are integrated perfectly with the text.

Mousetraps also touches on nontraditional families, interracial relationships, and a bit of romance. I especially appreciated that Rick experiences homophobic bullying irrespective of his sexual identity. He’s clear proof that homophobia hurts everyone, not just individuals who are GLBTQ.

The notoriously difficult-to-impress Kirkus Reviews says of Mousetraps, “Rick and Maxie’s thought-provoking story, juxtaposed against Hauser’s renderings of Maxie’s cartoons, is unexpectedly, richly dark, with no easy answers. Both chilling and sweet.”

Now, without further ado, here’s Pat!

LC: Coming dangerously close to the dreaded “where do you get your ideas” question, I was wondering if you could pinpoint the initial germ that evolved into Mousetraps.

PS: I kind of hate to admit it, but Mousetraps started in my mind the day of Columbine. I was home for lunch and Columbine was on the news, and even as I was watching the event transpire on TV, I had an impression of Rick. From that day on, I was completely obsessed with the topic and read everything I could get my hands on, and the whole time, I had Rick’s voice in my head.

LC: Rick could have been only a martyr or psychopath; instead, he’s a fully-realized, sympathetic character. What were the challenges in shaping him without veering into Jekyll/Hyde territory?

PS: First of all, thanks for saying that about Rick. I have huge affection for that character, and he’d hate to be seen as a martyr or a psychopath. When I read news stories about school shootings, I never see those kids as one-sided, no matter how the media portrays them. I suppose that’s because I’ve known enough people, personally, who have survived these kinds of challenges that I know they aren’t one-sided, or even two-sided, and the character of Rick is a conglomerate of several kids I have known well.

LC: Since 2000, we’ve seen a number of dark teen novels responding to the Jonesboro and Columbine school massacres of 1998 and 1999 (e.g., Todd Strasser’s Give a Boy a Gun, Walter Dean Myers’ Shooter, Nancy Garden’s End Game). Mousetraps, too, could have ended in tragedy. What made you steer toward a more hopeful conclusion?

PS: I wrote six sharply different conclusions to Mousetraps over the nine years I worked on it. One editor a few years ago rejected the book, but in her editorial letter she suggested yet another option for the ending, and I gave it a try. That took me in a totally different direction.

I still see all of the conclusions as continuing to be Real and True in some sort of parallel simultaneous universes. We have crossroads moments where we can step this way or that way, and like the mousetraps, whichever direction we choose sets off an entirely new chain of events. So experimenting with the different conclusions was like imagining…what if, in this moment, this character stepped this way instead of that way? Either choice is emotionally possible, and my job as the author is to be true to the chain of events that would follow.

Finally, the ending I chose—with a lot of help and guidance from my editor, Shannon Barefield—felt right. Also, it was the clearest choice for the story that I wanted to tell, which is Maxie’s story—although of course Rick has a huge part in it.

LC: How do you think homophobia and bullying in America's schools have changed since you were a teen, if at all?

PS: When I was a teen, this stuff wasn’t called “homophobic,” or even “bullying.” We all just knew that some kids were mean, and some kids got picked on. Now that we have words for it, and we use them, I’d like to think things are at least potentially different. Kids actually know to say things like, “the biggest homophobes are usually gay themselves,”—that was a comeback and a concept that didn’t exist when I was a teen. Also, people like Maxie’s uncles do exist, as out gay fully-functioning adults, and they not only can help kids maneuver their way through this stuff but are visible as role models. Bullying still happens, probably as bad as ever, but I do think the kids who are getting bullied have a better chance to get support and backing. Even if an individual kid isn’t getting adequate protection, s/he can find the concept of support on line, in books, and even on the news. That’s a big plus.

LC: Did you envision Mousetraps as an illustrated novel from the beginning?

PS: Not at first, but the better I got to know Maxie, the more I saw her drawings in my head. For a while I was hoping to have Mousetraps be a graphic novel but I didn’t have the skills to do the drawings myself. The design team at Lerner worked with me on the current form, sort of a hybrid.

LC: Please tell us about your path to publication and about your first two books, Circle the Truth (Carolrhoda, 2007) and Mrs. Estronsky and the UFO (Blue Works, 2001).

PS: Mrs. Estronsky is a middle-grade novel about a girl who sees a UFO with her piano teacher. I sent that one out, time after time, using Writer’s Market as a guide. Of course I was thrilled when Windstorm Creative picked it up for their youth division, Blue Works.

Meanwhile, I became involved in the Minneapolis writing community, which led me to Andrea Cascardi of Transatlantic Literary Agency. I sent her the manuscripts for both Mousetraps and Circle the Truth, a younger YA about a boy in a blended family who, as he questions truth and reality in his life and his home, finds that those lines keep shifting. Andrea agreed to represent me, gave me some terrific editorial advice on the manuscripts, and then started to send out the revised versions. Each manuscript went to a number of houses over a three-year period before Carolrhoda made an offer on Circle, and then contracted for Mousetraps as well.

LC: How did you stay positive through the long submission process?

PS: It wasn’t so much a matter of staying positive, as staying busy. I started Circle the Truth immediately after finishing the first draft of Mousetraps, so my focus was there. Also, I was getting enough positive feedback—nice rejection letters, a Minnesota State Arts Board Grant, and the huge boost of getting Andrea as my agent—to keep me rolling.

LC: You grew up in rural Wisconsin and live there today. In what ways does that setting and culture manifest in your books?

PS: Mrs. Estronsky and the UFO is completely grounded in rural Wisconsin. I wrote it when I was living in California and was incredibly homesick for the upper Midwest. As a child, I spent a lot of time alone outdoors and I still tend to see the world through that lens. Although the next two books both take place in urban settings, weather and season play a definite emotional role in each story. Also, all three books take place in the upper Midwest, which certainly has a particular cultural flavor.

LC: Can you expand on that, for readers who have never had the pleasure of living in the upper Midwest?

PS: I find the upper Midwest—both rural and urban—to have a particular kindness, something almost like innocence. That’s not quite the right word, but it’s a related concept…and so characters with a gentle sort of progressive political sensibility, like Maxie’s parents and the Unks, and Toby’s family in Circle the Truth, can be found everywhere. Also, the region tends to be very weather-focused, even in the cities, and many people are involved in outdoor sports like ice fishing or skiing. And of course, there is always the snow that must be moved one way or another, and people have different ideas about how that should be done. I don’t know if that particular discussion is peculiar to the upper Midwest, but it seems like snow blowers are more universal, for instance, on the east coast.

LC: Mousetraps and Circle the Truth have a very different feel. Maxie narrates Mousetraps in matter-of-fact first person, while Circle the Truth is told in a more lyrical third person voice. What do you find to be the challenges of writing in first versus third person? How do you decide which to use?

PS: I tried both books in both first and third person, and in each case tried to find the voice that best suited the story. I find first person much more difficult in general. Crazy-making, actually, because the narrator is so strictly limited in what s/he can perceive and how those perceptions can be expressed. But it does allow for a more natural voice, and I like that.

LC: Who are your favorite/most influential authors?

PS: S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders is my most influential book, and my most loved. Other influential books include A Wrinkle in Time by L’Engle, Henry 3 by Krumgold, The Forgotten Door by Key, and To Kill a Mockingbird by Lee.

As a kid, I loved everything by Beverly Clearly, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Jim Kjelgaard, and Mark Twain. As an adult, my favorite authors include Markus Zusak, Anne Patchett, Stephen King, Kate DiCamillo, and E.L. Konigsburg.

LC: What can we hope to see from you next?

PS: I’ve been working for several years on a YA novel called Bluefish. I haven’t hit it quite right yet, but I think I’m getting there. I also have an as-yet untitled adult novel and a picture book in the works.

My last beach read of the summer (not as long ago as it seems in this October drizzle) was Stranded in Harmony, by Barbara Shoup. I've had it since meeting Barbara at the first Kidlitosphere Conference, and the right time to read it finally came around.

Barbara (who also blogs) has been getting a fair amount of attention in the kidlitosphere lately. This year has seen the release of her YA novel Everything You Want (my thoughts here) and the reissue of her 1994 award-winner Wish You Were Here. It's much-deserved attention, I should say. Barbara writes interesting characters with authentic voices. She draws compelling stories out of everyday circumstances. Stranded in Harmony is no different.

High school senior Lucas has no reason to be unhappy. He's captain of the football team, has a family business to step into after college, and has a loving family, best friend, and girlfriend. Yet Lucas feels trapped in his small Indiana town. Is he being lulled into complacency? He idealizes and longs for the turmoil of the 1960s, when people stepped out of their comfort zones to stand up for their beliefs and fight for change.

When Allie Bowen—a woman who was herself a protester in the 1960s—moves to town, Lucas feels as if he's finally met a kindred spirit. A hero, even. But Allie's got some dark secrets to go with her glamorous past.

I found Lucas a highly sympathetic character. He might have come off as spoiled—lucky to have such middle class problems. But his problems are universal. Who hasn't, at times, wanted to branch off and reinvent themselves completely—yet been too comfortable with the status quo to do so? Who hasn't had moments when life ought to feel perfect—yet it doesn't? Like Emma, the lotto winner in Everything You Want, Lucas finds that having "everything" isn't always enough.

Stranded in Harmony also got me to watch Meatballs, Bill Murray's first feature film, for the first time. A really fun movie, especially if you went to summer camp as a kid.

As anyone who's been following YA lit blogs this week knows, last week YA author Maureen Johnson launched a social networking site, YA for Obama. And I've been trying all week to decide how I feel about it.

Political attitudes and beliefs are not born in a vacuum. We're influenced by our families and friends, by the media, by our education (worldly and academic), by our personal experiences. Ultimately, a person's vote may legally be personal and private, but there's no reason for us to keep our mouths shut about our personal political stances and let other people do all the talking for us. Not if we don't want to.

TadMack prompted a fascinating discussion over at Finding Wonderland regarding the YA for Obama site. She worries that it might constitute "undue influence" for YA authors to team up and urge their young readers into supporting a candidate simply because it's the "cool" thing to do. Colleen adds her thoughts on the matter over at Chasing Ray. The comments on both posts, and on both sides of the issue, are well worth reading.

My feeling is that YA authors taking a political stand does not constitute undue influence; I don’t see an imbalance of power in the author-reader relationship that constitutes anything resembling coercion. Authors, as any person or institution, should feel permitted to act as role models in the political or personal realm. Teens are of an age that they can sift through the opinions flying at them from every direction and come to their own conclusions. They do all the time.

And I’m glad that more authors, especially Democratically-aligned authors, are becoming vocal about this election. In the past ten years, the Dems have invited the characterization of being quiet and wussy, letting themselves be out-shouted by the Republicans. We need voices on both sides. I’m biased, of course, but I feel like sites like YA for Obama are lending balance to, rather than skewing, the discussion this election year. Impassioned and articulate articles by such YA authors as Judy Blume and John Green are worth the consideration of any person struggling with this presidential election.

I do have two main reservations. First is that YA for Obama was started by YA authors, and while people of all ages and political stances are invited to participate, YAs are not the driving force behind the site (as the name suggests). Maybe I’d feel more comfortable if the site were called YA Authors for Obama.

Second—and this was mentioned in the comments of the above-linked posts—there’s too much misinformation and vitriol flying around in the forum for my taste. I feel sick to my stomach when I read misinformation coming from either campaign. Maybe it's the librarian in me, but I believe that information not only wants to be free but accurate. When either side spreads lies about the other side, the integrity of the election suffers; everyone suffers.

Anyone who's taken Intro to Psychology knows a fact can take a moment to learn but a lifetime to “unlearn.” Once you’ve heard, “X is true!”—even if it’s followed by a thousand well-reasoned contradictions—even if the speaker turns around and says, “Actually, I was wrong, X is not true after all”—people will have, stuck in the backs of their minds, the impression that X is true. No matter how smart you are, it’s true what they say about first impressions. Damage has been done.

So, while I hate hearing Republican lies about—for example—Obama’s (nonexistent) ties to the Chicago Machine, I also hate hearing the misrepresentation of Sarah Palin’s so-called book-banning crusade repeated again and again by Democrats. She didn’t ban books, she “tested” whether a librarian’s loyalty lay with her mayor or with the First Amendment of the Constitution (a/k/a our nation's fundamental freedom). Isn’t that at least as loathsome as the lie—and all the more powerful because it's the truth?

I’d like to say I’m done discussing politics for the rest of the fall (I get way too upset about it, and I prefer to keep my blog’s focus on libraries, books, and writing), but I make no promises. I’d like to close this post on a lighter note, with a quote about the presidential election from fantasy author Justine Larbalestier:

Seriously if I had made up a tenth of what’s been going on and put it in a novel no one would credit it. They’d be all, “The characters keep changing! They don’t make any sense. And one of them seems to be a malfunctioning robot! Also there’s a zombie! I thought this was meant to be realism. What the hell?”

I think that sums it up pretty well!

ETA 9/27/08:
There's been a lot of discussion and soul-searching in the Kitlitosphere, actually, about whether to address personal politics in blogs dealing primarily with children's literature. Different bloggers have decided on different approaches. Two posts I particularly enjoyed:

• Laurel Snyder decided she couldn't keep politics out of her blog while staying true to herself.
• Liz B. of A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy decided to keep politics out so as not to alienate or prompt division among her readers.

Girl, Hero, by Carrie Jones (Flux, 2008)
When it comes to men, 14-year-old Liliana's surrounded by losers: her seemingly clueless biological father, her sister's abusive husband, an uncle who can't keep his hands to himself, and her mother's sleazy, live-in lover. With Liliana's beloved stepfather dead, the closest thing in her life to a hero is John Wayne. Liliana's seen his movies so many times that she's memorized every tough line he's got—but will it be enough to save herself and the people she loves?

While I enjoyed Jones' debut Tips on Having a Gay (Ex) Boyfriend, I felt Girl, Hero was stronger in every respect: characters, plotting, style. The prose is tight, the characters realistic and well-rounded, the situations painfully serious yet never devoid of hope. I loved Liliana, with her tough exterior, compassion for others, and refusal to dissolve in self-pity. The John Wayne motif unifies the story without becoming overbearing or distracting. Highly recommended for junior high on up.

Also (and more extensively) reviewed by Charlotte's Library.

A la Carte, by Tanita S. Davis (Knopf, 2008)
Lainey dreams of being a TV chef like her hero, (Saint) Julia Child. Unfortunately, while her cooking's great, the rest of her life is sort of the pits. Her on/off friend/crush Simeon is threatening to leave town and wants Laine to cover for him. Can Lainey help the boy she loves without losing her mother's trust and her self-respect?

It's a good story for (again) junior high and up, but any foodie will agree that the best part of A la Carte is the descriptions of Lainey's favorite recipes. Davis (whom Kidlitosphere readers know better as TadMack) writes mouth-watering play-by-plays as Laine finds comfort in creative cooking. As a bonus, each chapter break contains a recipe for one of Laine's easy vegetarian favorites.

I was having a gingerbread craving the other week, so of course I latched onto the recipe for Ma Dea's Gingerbread. Two thumbs up. I used the low-fat variation, the cayenne pepper substitution, sugar reduction, and crystallized ginger. No pan size was listed, so I used a 9x9", which worked nicely. The outcome was a rich, moist, red-brown cake, spicy and just the right level of sweetness. Yum! I'll have to try it again when I have fresh ginger.

Check out Jama Rattigan's interview with Tanita Davis!
Also (and more extensively) reviewed by Cheryl Rainfield.

What if you've met the guy of your dreams, but he died 50 years ago? The teen boy who narrates Vintage: A Ghost Story, by Steve Berman (Lethe, 2008), has recently moved into his aunt's New Jersey home, having been thrown out by his parents for being gay. Walking home along Route 47 one night, he encounters a handsome boy wearing a vintage 1950s letter jacket—a ghost of local fame. What's truly remarkable is the ghost notices him back—and follows him home! Our hero, painfully unused to romantic attention, is so flattered and infatuated he doesn't realize how much danger he's in...

When I started reading, I was worried this would be one of those ghost stories in which it takes the characters half the book to realize the ghost is a ghost (e.g., Deep and Dark and Dangerous, by Mary Downing Hahn). Not so here. The narrator's friend Trace recognizes the ghost's description at once, and the friends begin researching the ghost's history. Meanwhile, our hero becomes gradually aware that he's attracted the attention/affection of an actual flesh-and-blood boy, too. There are occasional horror-y bits, more creepy than gory, but the romantic and mysterious elements win the day. I also found the sensitive narrator likable and highly relatable in his fear that none of his peers could ever love him.

Warning for people who care to be warned, whether for themselves or "for the sake of the children": there's some sexual encounters and recreational drug use. Nothing a high schooler couldn't handle.

Any disappointment in Vintage can be attributed to its having been published by Lethe, a small house founded by the author. It's an enjoyable, well-told story that deserves wider distribution and readership. I could easily see it having come from a more established publisher, where it would have benefitted from stronger style editing and copy-editing, not to mention (and here the book snob in me comes out) a greater air of legitimacy. Actually, one more gripe: do you know how hard it is for me to write a book blurb when the main character has no name?

All in all, though, Vintage was a page-turner that left a smile on my face. And I won't get tired of seeing more good, teen books with "incidentally" gay protagonists any time soon.

ETA, 9/10/08:
As Steve Berman reminded me in the comments, Vintage was actually short-listed for the 2007 Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, presented by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (which also presents the prestigious Nebula Awards). So, big congratulations to Steve Berman and Vintage for the honorable mention!