One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

Delphine and her two sisters, Vonetta and Fern are leaving Brooklyn for California to visit, for the first time, the mother that abandoned them.  It's the summer of 1968, and the girl's mother, Cecile, wants nothing to do with them.  Delphine and her sisters spend their days at a summer camp being run by the Black Panthers.

Delphine has always taken care of her sisters.  She has her father, and her father's mother who lives with them, but she's always been the mother to her little sisters.  She feels more grown up then she really is, like she always has to make careful, thought out decisions.  She can't just be a kid.  Delphine sees things in black and white.  After attending the Black Panther camp, she starts to realize there's a lot of gray.  In the events that are happening around them, and in her mother as well.

Their mother went from being really nasty to sort of being fond of the girls awfully fast.  I mean, Cecile wasn't just like, "This wasn't my idea and I'm not pleased."  She was flat out mean and cruel to them.  Like, not feeding them cruel.  Like telling them she didn't want them then and didn't want them now.  How on Earth did Cecile ever agree they could even stay with her?  Why did the girl's father think this was a good idea?  It seems like a terrible choice!

Delphine and Cecile certainly have a moment when Cecile asks Delphine why she couldn't do the one thing she (Cecile) needed her to do and Delphine finally goes off on her.  She points out the she's 11, for heaven's sake, and she always has to do everything because Cecile wasn't there. That changes their relationship some.   I had been wanting Delphine to tell Cecile off for a while.  That woman was selfish!

We learn more about where Cecile came from, and it was a sad story.  I could certainly empathize why she wouldn't feel connected to her children.  But that's only going to help her kids understand a little.  All they know is that they don't have a mom around.  I'm not sure what a middle grade student's reaction would be to that story.  Would they be able to sympathize with her at all?  Or would they not be able to get it?

The girls all do some growing up over the course of the summer.  Delphine, in particular, learns to be more flexible and take more risks.  It was a good coming of age book set against a historical backdrop.  You certainly get a feel for what it was like in Oakland in 1968, and the discrimination people of color faced.  It also helped to show that while the Black Panthers were a militant group, they also focused on things like education and helping people get food who needed it.

News

Can you make kids love books?  From Salon.

ALA signs library declaration in Philadelphia.  From SLJ.

Lies my kid's books told me.  From Chicago Parent.

Georgia teacher librarians aim to strengthen role as state revamps public schools.  From SLJ.

Do Jewish children's books have a problem with gender?  From Tablet.

Rather than focusing on the Common Core, critics should look at Race to the Top.  From SLJ.

Adult stories told as Little Golden Books.  From io9.

PA students protest classroom probe.  From SLJ.

Reading books is fundamental.  From The New York Times.

Harvard study examine youth view of on technology use in schools.  From The Digital Shift

These Broken Stars heads to television.  I liked the book a lot, even though the cover is awful, as is the title.  I wonder how it will translate to TV.  From PW.

25 novels everyone should read.  Kind of a weird collection, in my opinion.  From Flavorwire.

Children's publishing is thriving in China.  From People's Daily Online.

Why patting the bunny is better than swiping the screen.  From The Washington Post.

Fault in Our Stars trailer!

Waiting on Wednesday: The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith.

Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they're rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father.

Lucy and Owen's relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and -- finally -- a reunion in the city where they first met.

A carefully charted map of a long-distance relationship, Jennifer E. Smith's new novel shows that the center of the world isn't necessarily a place. It can be a person, too.

The Geography of You and Me comes out April 15, 2014.

Bad Houses by Sara Ryan, illustrated by Carla Speed McNeil

Lewis' works with his mother, Cate, running estate sales; sorting through dead people's belongings and getting them ready to sell.  Anne lives with her mother, Danica, and a house stuffed full of all the things Danica is unable to part with.  Lewis and Anne get to know each other after meeting at an estate sale.  Anne is trying to understand why people keep things and leave things, and what makes something important.

Such an interesting story.  I liked the juxtaposition of Lewis and his mother running the estate sales, and Anne and her mother, who live in such disorder.  One family whose job it is to clean up and arrange and get rid of things, and another incapable of getting rid of things.

I found myself strongly empathizing with both Anne and Lewis, but Anne is particular.  Maybe because I like to keep thing pretty neat and clean.  I felt her shock, horror and betrayal when she found her mother and filled her room with junk in order to clear out the living room so she could invite her new boyfriend over.  Anne's room was her one safe space, where there was no clutter or mess.  Now her safe haven had been infiltrated and there wasn't any place left for her.

I was frustrated at both Lewis and Anne's parents for their selfishness, even though I knew that there was a lot more going on than selfishness.  I wanted to shake them and say, "Can't you see what this is doing to your kid?  Don't you care?!"  Of course they cared, but they had their own issues to deal with as well.

We have two stories going on.  We have the story of Lewis and Anne, who meet and start dating and fall in love, and struggle with their own personal problems, and we have the story of Cate and Danica, or in particular, their back story, and how what happened in the past is effecting what is happening to Lewis and Anne today.

Spoilers

ALA Youth Media Awards 2014

It's that time of year again.  The Oscars of the book industry.  The time when we find out which books we've never even heard of have won prestigious awards.  The ALA Youth Media Awards!  The really only interesting thing that happens at Midwinter!  Here we go!

Let's start off with the big one!  The Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American Literature for children went to Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by K.G. Campbell.

There were four Newbery Honor books:
Doll Bones by Holly Black
The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Hankes
One Came Home by Amy Timberlake
Paperboy by Vince Vawker

The Caldecott Medal for the most distinguished American picture book for children went to Locomotive, written and illustrated by Brian Floca.

There were three Caldecott Honor books:
Journey, written and illustrated by Aaron Becker
Flora and the Flamingo, written and illustrated by Molly Idle
Mr. Wuffles, written and illustrated by David Wiesner

The Printz Award for the best book written for young adults went to Midwinter Blood by Marcus Sedgwick.

There were four Printz Honor books:
The Kingdom of Little Wounds by Susann Coral
Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool
Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell
Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner

Oh Printz awards.  The only one I read was Eleanor & Park.  I've never even heard of Navigating Early.  I'm sure they're all lovely books.

Other winners:
The Belpre Award goes to Meg Medina for Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass
YALSA Nonfiction Award goes to The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb
The Morris Award goes to Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn
The Coretta Scott King Author Award goes to P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia

You can see the full list of all wniners at ala.org/yma.  When they get around to putting them up, that is.

Bandette: Presto! by Paul Tobin, art by Colleen Coover

Bandette is the greatest thief in France.  She's also a teenager.  Other criminals despise her, and Police Inspector Belgique can't stand her, but will still call on her for help.  When a rival thief warns Bandette about a dangerous criminal group determined to get rid of her, Bandette laughs it off.  But will she be able to survive the evil Finis?

Bandette is kind of a Robin Hood figure, but not quite as selfless.  Yes, she does rob bad guys and resteal stolen items, but she's also totally OK with snatching things she likes and keeping them for herself.  She helps the police when it suits her.  She has a band of "street urchins" she calls on for help.  It is unclear if any of them actually live on the street.  I don't think so.  I think it's just a pet name.

I didn't love.  It was cute and all.  Fast paced.  I thought the level the book was written at was a little odd.  I had thought this was a middle grade book.  It had that appearance, and the language was fairly simplistic, as was the story.  But then we had pictures of people in their underwear in sexual situations and some profanity which took it out of the middle grade range and put it into YA.  I just wasn't grabbed by the story in any way, or cared very much about any of the characters.

Bandette is very caviler about the danger to her, which is fine, I guess, but she also seems totally fine with putting all her friends in danger as well!  Less cool.  We really didn't learn anything about Bandette.  We just know she's a flirty thief.  I guess I didn't really care very much about her or worry that she might possible in danger because she clearly didn't care, and I didn't have anything to care about.

Not sure who I would recommend this too.  It really does seem too young for YA, but not quite middle grade either.

I liked the art, it was cute, but again, it just had a middle school look to it.  It reminded me a bit of Raina Telgemeier, if Raina Telgemeier drew an action comic.

News

Questioning the Common Core.  From PW.

Why we should stop teaching novels to high school students from Bookforum, and a rebuttal from the NY Daily News.

Chloe Grace Moretz will be playing Gayle in the movie adaptation of If I Stay.  From MTV.com.

The training bras of literature.  From The Believer.

13 YA books for talking to teens about tough stuff.  From The Huffington Post.

The super creepy Alice in Wonderland drawings of Ralph Steadman.  From Brain Pickings.

Looking at the Hundred Acre Wood from a therapists point of view.  From boingboing.

What we learned from YA books (about sex).  From CNN.

Laurie Halse Anderson on her new book The Impossible Knife of Memory.  From NPR.

Telling the middle school story differently.  From The Atlantic.

Best kid's bookstores.  From Daily Candy.

What an exuberant culture of reading can teach us.  From SLJ.

This warms my heart.  Young protesters march for a library in Chinatown.  From The Boston Globe.