Misspelling in a new book

I'll talk about Martha Grimes' Dust later but want to put it on the record that I've noted a copy editing mistake in the 1st edition, first printing of the HarperCollins 2007 edition. On p. 175, on the last line, the word given is, incorrectly "provenence." On the next page and several times thereafter it is correctly printed as "provenance." I'm sure Ms. Grimes' copy editor was at fault, and not she herself.

Two Tales of Suspense

It's time to catch up on recent reading. Now that school is out I have no excuse (except that I have to use the less-comfortable desktop computer for now and can't sit on my back porch, which is like a tree house hideaway). These will be brief notices, better than none. Maybe they will point one or two people to books they might not otherwise notice.
Geraldine Mccaughrean, the wonderful British author of Peter Pan in Scarlet, The Kite Rider, and lots more, has an Antarctic tale that will cool you off during hot summer days. The White Darkness is a fast paced tale of a teenage girl on a trip to Antarctica. Sym is fascinated by the story of a 19th century explorer Titus Oates and makes a trip to the Antarctic with her Uncle Victor. Her fascination with Oates, the growing psychological tension between the characters as Victor's obsession takes over the trip, and the stunning descriptions of the landscape make for a mesmerizing tale.

The late, great Jan Mark, another British writer somewhat neglected in the U.S., gave us an unusual story that falls into the science fiction slot but also has fine characterization and her always fine writing. The story is Useful Idiots and deals with an anthropological quest in a somewhat future England. Part of the mystery is the reader's, whose task is to figure out exactly what is going on.
Note: sometime this month the 2006 Carnegie Medal winners will be announced. I've been reading some of the books on the short list and can't wait to see which title wins. Visit the official site for back lists of nominations and winners.

Great Book Recs for Children and Teens

I discovered a truly fine resource for book recommendations for children's and teens' books. It's at the Guardian, http://books.guardian.co.uk. On the left are links to various departments, and you will find treasures there. There are old and new favorites, from P.L. Travers to Pullman, and several I didn't know about. And they're not stodgy lists, either, not the sort that assume twelve year olds will necessarily be enthralled and enriched by Silas Marner and Emerson's Essays. Some of the books are light hearted; all are sure to be well-written and unique.And the lists give a variety of types, too, for differing tastes, which young people have as pronouncedly as adult readers. there's suspense, domestic tales, science fiction, and lots of good realistic fiction )(NOT problem novels, just excellent stories, well told), from both sides of the Pond. there is a British slant, which is good to see from our side. Most of the current reviewing I see in the US slights UK books, unless they're major prize winners. Add to that the fact that the Carnegie awards include books by Americans, since it covers books written in English as long as they're published in the UK, where the Newbery winners are all American.

East and West of the Atlantic, Teens Have Restless Parents

This week I read two young adult novels, Jan Mark's Turbulence and Will Weaver's Claws. Both were completely enthralling, and both were about really nice teenagers with basically good parents who were going through mid-life madness. It's a real topic: my own children went through it as did those of my friends. It's a valid idea for a novel. And in the hands of such fine writers as Mark* and Weaver**, the results are fully realized portraits of young people in their families, with friends -- mostly educated and middle class people, all. Even the pink-haired punk girl isn't what you think at first.
In both books the teenage protagonist cooks a lot for the family and generally plays the part of a responsible adult, though one with teenage yearnings. Both have troublesome younger siblings. Parents are going crazy or withdrawing from their problems.
Both books end on a hopeful note. I wonder if Will Weaver has read Jan Mark, or vice versa, because the books are so similar in some elements. But both authors' voices are unique. And both stories are engrossing and believable, with admirable adolescents and hope for most of the rest of the characters.

* Will Weaver has written a trio of novels about a teenage farm boy in Minnesota who is a great baseball player. Striking Out, the first, gripped me from the start, with its evocation of an intense and committed teenager with a stubborn father. While I've not yet gotten into his adult novel Red Earth, White Earth, I have summer hopes for it.

** Jan Mark is a goddess, our late captain. Oh Captain, my Captain! She is gone but leaves a shelf of very fine fiction about young people. The first for me was Handles, about a girl who loves motorcycles and prefers hanging out with the guys at the shop to anything else besides riding. Jan Mark was my age when she died and was someone I would have liked knowing. That's why we write about books -- to keep them and their creators alive.

Tamar

Mal Peet's Tamar won the Carnegie Medal last year, for 2005.

When I put up a cover image earlier, the color was wrong. I didn't realize until now that the lettering too was wrong. This is the American edition , published by Candlewick Press is Cambridge, Massachusetts (2007). Mal Peet's named is not blazoned across the cover, I guess because he's not widely known here.

While promoted as a Young Adult novel (or, as they still consider it in England, children's fiction) the book centers around an older adult, Tamar, a grandfather and former World War II resistance fighter in Holland during the war, working undercover in dangerous territory. Another Tamar, his granddaughter, undertakes a present day journey of discovery into the past, providing the frame for the novel.

Throughout, the story is completely absorbing, combining suspense and intrigue, romance, memory and discovery, friendship and betrayal, anticipation and surprise. Peet's writing is deft and enchanting. The novel transcends age designations -- it's for teenage and above and demonstrates why people should pay more attention to "children's fiction."

Carnegie Medal Books

I'm reading Mal Peet's Tamar, and while not ready to write about it I'm engrossed in the world of British children's and young adult books. It seems to me, without having researched the topic, that the Carnegie Medal winners are, on the whole, much longer and meatier books than those chosen in the US for the Newbery Medal. What's behind this? One immediate answer is that maybe British young people are smarter, or more inclined to read, because, after all, the US is way ahead in wealth and therefore gizmos, so our kids are more likely to be playing the World of Warcraft than to be reading a hefty novel. But this seems too easy an explanation to be true. Maybe here we consciously choose books for the 8-12 year old range for the Newbery (they're all pretty "safe") and relegate the YA novels to another sphere, one formerly unvisited by award-givers but now recognized by the Michael Printz award. (The Coretta Scott King winners span a wide range and are, of course, self-limited.) If this is the case, then why have the teenagers been neglected for so long here, but not in Britain? I don't know but will look it up.

In the meantime, I've found a treasure trove of stuff at the Carnegie site at http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk and have just spent an hour or more on a Sunday evening scanning the site and viewing interviews and other great stuff.

More to come. And as for tonight's bedtime reading, choosing between Aciman and Peet, I think I'll go with Peet and leave Aciman for tomorrow's sunny afternoon. Very different books they are, and both very fine.

I'm getting messages in my brain

In M. T. Anderson's Feed, people's brains are fitted with an implant that feeds pop and consumer culture to them all day long, and people shop just to be shopping. Sound familiar? It could almost be now but instead is an imagined future, where teens party on the moon for spring break, and all anyone cares about is what's new. For Titus, a thoughtful boy, meeting a girl, Violet, who has never had the feed causes him to question the conditions of his life. Violet cares about things that others don't even think about. Titus's efforts to be her friend and include her in his social group are encouraging but in the end frustrating. A quick read, with refreshing new slang, this novel should make people think hard about what influences us today, in our own consumer culture. Recommended for teens and up.