13 More YA Book Reviews
Reading A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck is like listening to my grandmother talk about growing up on a farm in the 30's. My Grandma Ila didn't speak like that, but Peck's Vermont vernacular takes me somewhere else long ago, where people were just as stubborn but less full of themselves. These people were proud Americans but they wouldn't wish their lives "on a dead cat." Despite the author's feelings of grammatical ineptitude, I wouldn't trade his homespun descriptions-- particularly the one of the diagrammed sentence-- for all the Strunk & Wagnall's in Harvard.
Just look at the way this book starts and you can see why you fall in: the kid is taking out his anger at other kids on a tree, and a cow staggers by, so the kid uses some ingenuity to save it, et voila: the adage 'show, don't tell' is beautifully realized. We know the community, the kid, the nature of the challenges ahead, all from a neat little scene in the woods. The book progresses chronologically to a dramatic point, as perhaps a memoir might ought do. Very nice. I hear there is a sequel but that it meanders.
The Tapestry Series 1-3
The Hound Of Rowan
The Second Siege
The Fiend And The Forge by Henry Neff
Teen discovers he's psychic/ magical, possibly a reincarnation of an Irish hero, and gets to go to a Professor Xavier X-Men type academy where he meets magical kids, and battles a Voldemort-type evil being for the rest of the series. Full of very disparate mythologies and belief systems, which is kind of fun-- you never know what's coming next--Cuchulain goes ninja, yeah! And Beatrice "Mum" Shrope and her sister hag, Belagrog, are hilarious creations. But! And this is a huge ass but: it's kinda soulless. Rather than delving into any one emotion, Neff's main character runs or fights harder, or Neff just tosses out the next shocking creature or revelation. That would work if this were first person, but it's not. So we get scenarios and characters that all miss their chance to evoke deep feelings, e.g. mom dies! Then what?! Her kid runs off and plays in the next scene! Whuuuuuut? For shallow action, though, it's amusing enough.
(Though it is distracting that Neff, a teacher, doesn't know a pupil from an iris or what the hell a musical note is. Fine arts teacher, not a science or a music teacher. Check.)
Un Lun Dun by China Mieville
I got about 158 pages in. Mieville gets so carried away by his unLondon that the protagonist is phoned in. I hate that.
The Shifter and Blue Fire by Janice Hardy
Badly written, illogical story about a healer who can shift pain from one person to another.
Why I read the first: I think I'd be as enthusiastically schizoid as she is if I tried to write a book. I'd hop from one snatch of an idea to the next. I'd try to explain racism, colonialism, healing school, and cultural traditions, all in five pages, too....boing boing... Yeah... Why I read the second? Hope that she'd calm down. And insomnia. She should keep writing but jesus, SHOW! Don't tell.
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Wolf Brother
Spirit Walker
Soul Eater
Outcast
Oath Breaker
Ghost Hunter by Michelle Paver
I am a sucker for books where a kid bonds with a wolf. Plus, long ago, I liked Clan of Cave Bear. So, happily for me, this saga has a cool wolf and is set in the New Stone Age. Plotting is a little simplistic-- the 12 year old defeats an evil magic user in each book, by the end saving all the clans of Europe. The detail of day to day life is well-researched and interesting and the story is nicely paced, and the characters are compelling. No wonder this won prizes and is getting translated into all kinds of languages.