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When I was a kid, one of the best parts about summer was going to the Green Free Library to check out a bunch of books, and then curling up in bed with them. My parents still made me go to bed at a “reasonable” hour in the summer, but I was allowed to read for a while, as long as I stayed in my bed. (Now I understand this rule a lot better: it was not just for my health. This was for my parents’ health – their mental health, mostly.) Some nights I read while the “heat lightning” illuminated the horizon and thundered boomed way off in the distance; other nights, I listened to the peepers down in the marsh across the road, or listened to big “June bugs” ping off the screens in my bedroom windows. Although those sounds made an impression that lasts in my memory to this day, they were still background noise: all the rest of my attention was sucked into whatever story I was reading.
The trouble with growing up in the 1970s and 1980s was that there wasn’t enough “young adult” literature to satisfy a voracious reader. Certainly, there were many excellent books written for children, stories we think of as “classics”, as well as a long list of Newbery Award winners, but like many bookworms I know, it was still possible to devour everything in the library deemed “appropriate” for my age, and still want more.
Obviously, and thankfully, this is no longer the case. The market is now on fire with children’s books, for both younger “reluctant readers” and for older “young adult” readers. There are so many great stories being written for children and teens that more adults are boldly going into the “children’s section” of both bookstores and libraries. This makes it easier for us adults to be able to recommend books to the kiddos in our lives – now, more than ever, we’ve read the books, too.
I’ve been on a big “young adult” book kick this summer. Most recently, I read and reviewed Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein, a meticulously-researched historical fiction about young women in England and France during World War II, and the jobs they did. A month later, I’m still asserting that this is the best damn book I’ve read in at least the last six months. With the new teen book club at the bookstore, I’ve read the book-of-the-month for June and for July – Shatter Me, by Tehereh Mafi, and Love, Aubrey, by Suzanne LaFleur, respectively. Shatter Me is another dystopian novel for young adults, but has some plot devices which set it apart from what has become a crowded field. Love, Aubrey is appropriate for some “middle readers” with mature emotional sensitivities, and is definitely a great read for teens and adults. Eleven year old Aubrey is trying to cope on her own, having recently lost her father and younger sister in a car accident, living with her mother who has broken down in the wake of such a terrible loss. Aubrey goes to live with her grandmother for a while, facing not just her own grief, but a move to a new school, and her mother’s inability to care for her. This tender, intense novel seems like Jodi Picoult for a younger generation, dealing with painful issues with beautifully-drawn characters.
On a whim, I picked up Maureen Johnson’s young adult novel, The Name of the Star, and found myself surprisingly riveted. What I thought would be a lark ended up being a race through the first book, and its sequel, The Madness Beneath, whereupon I now join the group of fans shouting, “No!!!! I can’t believe I have to wait for the next one! How could you leave us here?” The series is named “the Shades of London” for the band of super-secret police agents assigned to deal with ghost-related crimes. Think “Ghostbusters” meets “The X-files”, without the corny ‘80s music, one-liners from Bill Murray, convoluted alien abduction themes, or the Smoking Man. Replace these things with hip teen characters who attend a private London boarding school, an American girl who begins to see ghosts, the legends of Jack the Ripper, and a series of copycat murders stumping the London police. Author Johnson’s friends and contemporaries are award-winning writers such as John Green (The Fault in Our Stars, Looking for Alaska), Cassandra Clare (the “Mortal Instruments” series), and Libba Bray (A Great and Terrible Beauty, The Diviners). Now that I’ve read her “Shades” books, I can see how Johnson is “write” at home with these movers and shakers in teen lit. I wish these folks were writing when I was younger, but many of them weren’t even born yet.
No matter that I’m no longer that kid, listening to peepers and reading my library books on long summer nights. The new young adult literature transports me back to good memories from those summers, and keeps me up late reading now, listening to the rain while I’m absorbed in images of rainy London streets.
Teen angst or hipster adventures? Inquiring bookstore cats want to know. June bugs or July showers? Hobo reports the c
urrent conditions, at his facebook page: www.facebook.com/HoboBookstoreCat. Looking for a great children’s book? You know which one Hobo recommends! (Cats have no problems with self-confidence or with self-promotion!)
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