Book Review - Buried truth

Buried Truth by Brenda Maxfield

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Hillary is a new girl in school, and Margaret, or Mags as her friends call her, quickly learns that Hillary is her enemy for some unknown reason. Mags is an outwardly cheerful girl who chases causes, like save the whales. She really likes Andrew, even though her best friend warns her away from him because everyone knows he’s a bad boy.
Mags thinks she sees something more in him, something that makes him more than just another cause. She wants to help him, even after he chooses Hillary over her. Hillary does more than just take Andrew. She repeatedly spoils Mags’ work, upstages her, and steals her best friend. In fact, Hillary so easily turns Mags’ friends against her that I was left wondering how close they had ever really been.
Mags doesn’t know how to fight back, because in spite of her cheerful exterior, she has her own inner demons. The story repeatedly goes over this problem of something in her past that is hurting her, without telling us what she had done.

“…my guilt had become an unrelenting monster, tearing at my mind and heart until sometimes I couldn’t breathe.”

By the time the reason for her guilt was revealed, I was expecting a mountain. Instead I found something that happened when she was eight, something that felt very typical of that age group. I didn’t get how it haunted her so badly for almost ten years. The long build-up over the horrible secret act that ended up feeling to minor made the ending fall flat for me.

I will say I found Hillary one of the more interesting characters in the book. She is intelligent, resourceful, a really good villain. I enjoyed waiting for her next move.

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Boy Book Review - Colin Fischer

Colin Fischer by Ashley Edward Miller

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

All I can say is I loved Colin, his style, the way he let me inside the life of a kid with Aspergers, and the way he handles crime solving and everyday stress. I sincerely hope this is the first of many books about him, his personal Watson, and the totally sinister Moriarty clone.
Colin can't interpret facial expressions without the aid of a cheat sheet. He's smart, gifted in many ways, but in some areas he understands less than a typical five-year-old.

When a gun goes off in the school cafeteria, he figures out that the shooter could not possibly be the prime suspect, Wayne, a boy who has bullied him since grammar school. Instead of taking the opportunity for revenge, Colin's only thought is to solve the crime and find the truth.

Most of all, I loved Colin's family, its nice to have loving parents who aren't trying to hinder the kid or villains in disguise. But that younger brother of his...he's as realistic as he is trouble.

I loved this enough to make it the star of my story on books featuring protagonists on the autism spectrum on the YALSA blog, http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub/2013/07/26/books-outside-the-box-different-operating-systems/

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Boy Book Review - Remember Dippy

Remember Dippy by Shirley Reva Vernick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Thirteen year old Johnny has an unwanted summer job, helping his aunt care for his autistic cousin, Remember Dippy (and that is his real name thanks to weird parent).

During the course of the summer, fifteen-year-old Remember or Mem as Johnny calls him, joins in with the other neighborhood kids for fun and adventure and the mystery that is girls. Johnny narrates the story, and through his eyes we see how life with his cousin Mem changes both boys.

Mem shows that being autistic is no barrier to being a real friend. He saves an old man’s romance, a girl from being sent away, his cousin from a bully, and the bully from drowning. There is even the possibility of romance, for both boys.

This is a good book for anyone with an autistic family member. It would also be useful in classrooms to spark discussions on autism and what it means to be “normal.” It’s a true feel good book, and I hated to see it end.

I read a copy supplied by the publisher as part of my investigation of books featuring protagonists on the autism spectrum done for YALSA. You can catch the entire post and booklist at http://www.yalsa.ala.org/thehub


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The Indie Intern

My name is Sean O’Donnell. I’m B. A. Binns’ summer intern, and I could not be more excited.

 

I’m the youngest of three, and I think that is why I’ve always felt a need to keep from stagnating. Raised in a Boston suburb, I couldn’t wait to move away to someplace new. That’s how I ended up half-way across the country in Chicago, where I attend DePaul University.

Reading helped quell my restlessness until I could make it out of Massachusetts. It offered an escape, but it was incomplete. I needed to explore the world outside of books so I could figure out my own brain-stuff. I knew my opportunity to do this was college. But, without reading everything I could get my hands on, I never would have made it out.

This is why I jumped at the opportunity to work with Barbara. Young Adult writing is incredibly under appreciated. It deals with difficult ideas surrounding identity and existentialism, but has to present it in a way that is relatable to people who are only beginning to think about those things. Sure, reading fostered an interest that made me see the value in trudging through works written by the dead white guys lauded by academia, but it also made me realize that I needed to get out so that I could see myself more clearly.

Learning the process behind creating these kinds of influential works is important to me. Being given the opportunity to help edit and promote B.A. Binns’ upcoming novel which deals with issues of identity and unfamiliar surroundings, with the goal to attract reluctant readers, is exactly what I have been waiting for.

I can’t wait to see where this summer takes me, personally and professionally.

ALA 2013 - Attracting Reluctant Readers

I am now the author of two YA novels, one of which was a YALSA 2012 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers list, and was on the School Library Journal list of best books for youth in detention in 2011. Being noted by on those two lists made my proud, because one of my goals in writing was to reach out and try to turn around the so-called reluctant reader and remind them of the joys of reading. I knew I had made it when a teacher told me a reluctant reader not only finished Pull in record time, but asked for another one just like it.

Since 2011, I have met with teachers and librarians and discussed ways to reach out to reluctant readers at a number of venues, including individual libraries, the Illinois Reading Council, Indiana Library Federation, and Ohio Educational Library Media Association. I was overjoyed last fall when my proposal for a presentation on the subject was accepted for ALA 2013. Last Saturday, June 29, was d-day (delivery day)

I recruited another author, Jim Klise, teacher, school librarian, and book club leader at a Chicago charter school, to join me for the presentation, Jim Klise. Jim is the author of Love Drugged, a story about a gay teen who thinks a drug can make him "straight" and therefore acceptable at school. Together, Jim and I represented public and school libraries, and populations (gay and teens of color) that are traditionally under served. Jim talked about the boys in his school, and how many of them enjoyed reading, including one who admitted to enjoying romances as long as the other boys didn't know. He confessed to being one of those boy eager readers as a child, and the family's trips to the library to bring home stacks of books are some of his fondest memories.

We had a room filled with both school and public librarians; a standing-room-only crowd that extended into the hallway, proving how much libraries and librarians care about pairing books and kids.


Being the science type, I began by handing out data on the problem. I entitled my piece of the presentation, Why Johnny, Jaime, Jose and sometime even Jane won't read (because there are girl reluctant readers too, just as there are boys who are eager readers.) Although both boys and girls are read to by their parents, during the early school years, the "learning to read" stage, boys begin falling behind in the amount of time spent reading for fun, and the very idea that reading might be "fun." Some of this is due to different children maturing and learning at different speeds. Another reason is that some of the reading material available may not interest some kids. The result can be two self-fulfilling prophecies. First that a number of kids learn to view themselves as non-readers - and all too frequently those as males. Second, that publishers think boys don't read books, and therefore concentrate all their efforts on "girl books."

The remainder of my presentation focused on strategies librarians can use to attract reluctant readers, including arranging shelves and displays that make books guys like (mystery, science fiction, non-fiction) easier to find, book trailer projects and other uses of technology, and recruiting male staff and community members to show that they read too to make reading seem like a masculine activity. Even the most reluctant reader might be pulled in by a "Don't Get Mad, Get Even" book display.


I handed out a list of suggested books for reluctant readers (the list and more information can be found at my website, and highlighted a few, including science fiction like The Rookie (football set hundreds of year in the future), Acceleration, a classic YA mystery, Lexapros and Cons, a humorous look inside the mind of a kid with OCD, and War Brothers, a graphic novel about children kidnapped and forced to become soldiers. I also talked about books with girls as protagonists including Pinned a story about the only female wrestler in her school, and Yaqui Delgado is Going To Kick Your Ass, (just the title alone would suck in any kid male or female) about a girl being bullied by another girl, but that will suck in both boys and girls who know how dangerous and friendless high school can be.

Jim provided some statistics from a survey of the boys and girls at his school about the kinds of books both genders like, and how they chose new books. His strategies for librarians include making sure they buy books for ALL patrons of all demographics. He noted that at his school he has kids from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, and sexual orientations. He makes sure to have books with protagonists from as many areas as possible. He reminded librarians to expose the kids to different options. And to give the kids books they can keep, books they feel are theirs. He found that a key to getting kids to both read and retain what they read.

Comments and questions from the attendees included a desire for more books with gay characters of color, and a wish that publishers would understand they need to feature other groups in their books.

Attracting Reluctant Male Readers @ ALA 2013

I'M PRESENTING!!

This Saturday at 1:00 pm, I will be making a presentation to the American Library Association in Chicago on Attracting Reluctant Male Readers. Normally I don't start gathering butterflies in my stomach until the day before a presentation. But then I made the mistake of looking and saw that almost five hundred people had indicated a desire to attend my program. Now I have three days of feeling like I want to vomit.

I have spoken on this subject many times in multiple venues over the last few years, including at the Illinois Reading Council, the Ohio Educational Library Media Association, and the Indiana Library Federation, and a number of libraries across the Midwest. This time I am part of the YALSA at the ALA group of session.  I will be discussing the problem of Reluctant Readers, giving program and activity recommendations to change them into eager readers, and recommending a number of YA books geared at attracting those guys who think they don't like reading.

I also recruited a male author and school librarian to work with me. he will be giving a number of first hand tactics that have worked with the boys in his school. maybe if I sink into a puddle of goo at the sight of hundreds of faces he will be able to hang on.  Seriously, my biggest audience so far has been about a hundred people.

Once I finish on Saturday I will be putting a copy of the recommended books and my presentation on my website.  If you are a librarian and attend ALA, stop by the convention center in room 106b Saturday at 1. There will be door prizes (copies of Pull, Being God and/or Die Trying)

I promise not to faint. Not even if you turn out to be the five hundred and first person in the room.

Decisions

Over the weekend I went to the movies to see Star Trek. I'm an old time Trekkie from the dark ages, yet I do love this new incarnation of the story. The friendship between Kirk and Spock has always been the major point of the original Star Trek series and movies. It's great to see it continue with this new line.  Come on Kirk, did you really think Mr. Logical-And-Proper would not file a report? I mean, really!!

But that's not the most memorable part of this movie, at least not for me.

Cheif Engineer Scotty shows his independence when Captain Kirk orders him to do something he knows is wrong. Scotty is ordered to sign off on allowing torpedoes with unknown to be placed on the enterprise.  Knowing their engines are basically explosives just waiting to go "boom" at the wrong move, or if contaminated by the wrong energy, Scotty says he'd resign first.

Captain Kirk accepts his resignation.

The same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

No torpedoes were involved, no unknown energy sources, nothing was going to explode. But I was told to do something that would inconvenience a number of people for no good reason other than the powers that be decided that's what should happen. I could not agree to do that.  I refused to follow the order, and I was out of a project I had worked on since last August. The new person steps in at the 11th hour and gets all the kudos for her hard work. But I wouldn't change my decision. I made the right choice. Nothing went boom, many of the people involved don't even know things could have been better for them. But I did not compromise, and I don't regret my decision.

For the record, Scotty was right too.