“The Second Civil War, also known as “The Heartland War,” was a long and bloody conflict fought over a single issue.

“To end the war, a set of constitutional amendments, known as “The Bill of Life” was passed.

“It satisfied both the Pro-life and the Pro-Choice armies.

“The Bill of Life states that human life may not be touched from the moment of conception until a child reaches the age of thirteen.

“However, between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, a parent may choose to retroactively ‘abort’ a child . . .

“. . .on the condition that the child’s life doesn’t ‘technically’ end.

“The process by which a child is both terminated and yet kept alive is called ‘unwinding.’

“Unwinding is now a common and accepted practice in society.”

So opens the YA novel Unwind by Neal Shusterman. I read the first few pages aloud on Saturday at a banned and challenged book event because I figured no one else would have chosen this book to read as it’s fairly new. From the above opening prologue, you can guess that the book is controversial. But it’s a thoughtful piece on the value of the individual in a free society, and on what happens when people just can’t admit that they don’t have all the answers.

It’s also a great read.

Connor, who can’t control his anger, is sixteen and his parents have had it. He discovers that they secretly plan to unwind him, and he heads out on the run. Risa is a ward of the state, who, having failed at becoming a top-tier classical pianist, will be unwound because there just isn’t money for the state to keep useless teens. Lev is a ‘tithe’—because of his parents’ religious fervor, they will unwind him—their tenth child–as an offering to God.

All three are on the run. If they can make it to age eighteen, they might go to jail for awhile, but they are safe from being unwound.

The novel presents a sort of future ‘underground railroad,’ through which dedicated folks help unwinds escape to freedom. But generally speaking, teens who are about to be unwound have criminal records or anger issues—so hiding them in bunches can lead to an explosive situation. The actual unwinding process (at ‘harvest camp’) is bone chilling. (Note: If you are a sophomore on up, you can’t help but notice the nod to The Lord of the Flies—including a boy others call ‘the Mouth Breather’ because he has asthma. If you need to write a paper connecting LoTF with contemporary literature, this would be great fun.)

Action-packed, full of suspense, posing some deeper questions—this is another book for varied readers looking for very different things. I think just about everyone will like it. And that includes guys who usually don’t read. Check it out!

Horror: The Top Ten for Teens

With teachers bringing classes in for horror and mystery book talks near Halloween, I thought it was a good time to look at our collection of teen horror and update it. One of the problems I have anymore is in defining horror. So many books with vampires, werewolves and zombies are just romances with differently-abled characters. One of the book review magazines I read –Booklist—decided to rescue librarians by picking their favorite ten teen horror novels. None of the novels are heartwarming nor are they romances.

They’re horror.

I had most of the titles at Colony, but none at Chaffey, so I went shopping. (So Tigers, check before Halloween. I think they’ll be here.) I read my first on the list. And, yes, I thought it had the creepy factor. It’s also by the author whose books are most often challenged right now—and since it’s Banned Books Week and since our frosh classes are having a look at this author—I decided to start with Lauren Myracle.

Bliss by Lauren Myracle

Publisher’s blurb on the novel: Having grown up in a California commune, Bliss sees her aloof grandmother’s Atlanta world as a foreign country, but she is determined to be nice as a freshman at an elite high school, which makes her the perfect target for . . . a girl obsessed with the occult.

Reason Booklist picked it: Creepiest sleepover scene of all time.

What other pros say: Publishers’ Weekly “Charles Manson Family murders, racism, ghosts, blood sacrifices and prom queens–and, remarkably, supports this outré mix with clever timing and well-placed red herrings.”

VOYA: “kept me reading all through the night. It’s geared toward a mature audience of readers who are strong in what they believe.”

What I have to say: hippie-dippy craziness of the Summer of Love (1969) turns sinister, plus the main character has an ESP connection with spirits, so what’s better than that? Myracle does make it better with deeper probing of the period—the KKK; interracial dating; the Charles Mansion Family murders (The Tate-LaBianca murders) set against the ultra-sweet popular TV show of that time, The Andy Griffith Show, and the wonderful town of Mayberry.

No silly, make-believe endings here. This one’s serious enough for your teachers to love—a good choice for outside reading. In general, it’s not blood and guts violence, but it is for mature readers because it is creepy, creepy, creepy.

Uglies by Scott Westerfield

I was looking for a love story with some reality to it. I wanted to read a YA love story that didn’t end with the perfect couple, after a few fights, lasting forever in their fairy tale. So I checked some reviews and settled on After the Moment. Here are some of the reasons why:

“expertly-crafted story”

“The author’s feel for character and voice has never been better.”

“Leigh narrates with deep intelligence and heightened feeling.”

“The story focuses on the teens’ emotionally wrenching senior year, which begins in love before a possible date rape sets off escalating tragedy.”

Now I’ve been reading. And this got me to thinking. Because:

100 pages into the book, as the reader, I’ve met Maia, the girl half of this couple in love, long enough to see her eat a piece of cake and bring a suitcase full of sheets and books to a grieving girl. And here’s what I know:

It doesn’t matter that every professional reviewer raved about this book or that the first two pages of prologue are a real hook and that eventually I will get to the heart of the story (but God only knows when). I am never going to get a non-reader hooked on this book. The pace is way off. It has gone on so long about neighbors and their brothers, about what color the protagonist will paint his second bedroom and . . . If I recommend this book to any student who isn’t already a constant reader, I’m doomed. S/he won’t read the book past the first ten pages. And worse, that student will never trust my recommendation again.

That’s why I need to read all these books before I chat them up in the library.

Which got me to thinking some more.

What is one of the best books out there can make a non-reader read? One that has good writing, a great (even important) idea behind the story, but also has a rapid-fire plot line and lots of adventure? Yes, of course, The Hunger Games. But that trilogy is still wildly popular right now, so I don’t need to convince you to read it. Instead, let me move backward a few years because you might have been too young to read this trilogy when it came out: Uglies by Scott Westerfield.

Uglies is one of the best, fastest moving, constant action, suspense-filled YA books I’ve ever read. In the future world of Uglies, all people have an operation at age sixteen to make them ‘pretty’—that is, they all are changed to be perfect, or what is deemed perfect by society. Big-eyed and full-lipped, they appear childlike for the rest of their lives. And for some reason, their intellect remains rather childish, too. (Sinister plot elements ahead!)

While Tally is awaiting her operation so that she can leave Uglyville and join her best guy friend, Paris, over in Pretty Town, she meets a girl, Shay, who has the same birthday as Tally and therefore, should be made pretty on the same day. But Shay doesn’t want to be like everyone else, and her escape propels Tally in a direction she never would have thought possible. Tally has some exciting escapes even before she decides to fight the system, but once she does, danger is around every corner.

A bonus in this novel is that Tally’s method of transportation and escape is often bungee jumping—or even more often, hover boarding. Hover boarding is like skating, surfing or snowboarding. Tally has to be balanced as she quickly evades her pursuers. But she’s not on the water or the snow. She’s flying through the air, and a wrong move can mean death. If you skate, surf or snowboard, you’re going to be able to relate to Tally and Shay immediately.

So, I can recommend books like After the Moment to students I know well enough. We can talk about Leigh’s feeling about the Iraq War and how they relate to the more personal violence that becomes a part of his life; about how he is trying so hard to be a good guy, and how that doesn’t always work. But if you’re just trying to find that first book that will hook you into reading, I’m going for Uglies. And when you finish it, you can go on with Pretties, Specials, and Extras. And then you can move onto other series by the same author. And then books by other authors with similar themes. And then books about other things.

Get hooked.

Since I loved Will Grayson so much, I had to read Looking for Alaska, also by John Green. Like Will Grayson, it’s alternately very funny and very sad; it’s always very edgy. (Yes, it’s on the list of banned/challenged books. Yes, it’s for mature readers, not twelve-year-olds.) The subject matter is different from Will Grayson—and yet still very relevant.

Miles Halter is pretty much a nerd. When he decides to go away to a private boarding school, leaving Florida for Alabama, his mother insists on throwing him a party to which only two people, mere acquaintances, come. And Miles’ goal becomes immediately obvious—he wants to get away and live life more deeply. He wants to explore ‘the great perhaps’ an idea he got from reading the last words of Francois Rabelais. (In fact, Miles loves reading biographies to discover famous last words. And he knows a lot of good quotes of dying men and women. That in itself is really fun to read about.)

As soon as he arrives at Culver Creek Boarding School, Miles begins to understand and live ‘the great perhaps’ because he has met the right people/pranksters: his roommate Chip (‘the Colonel’) and Alaska Young, the beautiful girl with whom he is immediately infatuated. The Colonel nicknames Miles ‘Pudge,’ ironically because he is so skinny.

Alaska is sometimes cheery and manic and at other times moody and brooding. She is a feminist who tutors her friends in pre-calc and who can’t resist a good prank. Away from home, the ‘Pudge-Colonel-Alaska’ trio experiments with many off-limits adult habits. Alaska tells Miles that while other teens smoke because they enjoy it, she does it because it will kill her. Clearly, she is troubled, but for much of the novel, no one knows why. What causes Alaska to be self-destructive?

The novel has two sections—chapters titled ‘before’ and ‘after.’ Miles finds that Alaska is also a seeker but she has used Simon Bolivar’s last words to frame her quest: “How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?” And this, too, is what Miles truly wants to know and must learn.

The publication of The Satanic Verses brought on a fatwa (Islamic judicial decree) from the Iranian religious ruler Ayatollah Khomeini that Rushdie as well as anyone involved in the publication of the book be killed. This death threat was based on the perception that The Satanic Verses mocked the prophet Mohammed.

Rushdie had to go into hiding for many years. Though his book was published worldwide, a few of its publishers and translators were killed for it. As the consequences of its publication and its banning were so great, I decided this had to be my banned book for the fall. But as it is long, I decided to start early. I was so enthralled with the book that I then read another by the same author—Midnight’s Children. So—this brought me past the ‘banned books week’ deadline and into a new month.

I’m not sure that Rushdie’s books will appeal to many students. This isn’t because they aren’t good—they’re great—wonderful, imaginative, vast works that cover important history, human frailty, that combine a sense of real events with magic. In short, these are two of the best books I’ve ever read. So before I comment on them individually, let me say this: if you try them while in high school and they don’t appeal to you—too long or too confusing or you don’t care about the British in India—try them later in life. There are books that I hated in high school which became favorites of mine once I had lived a bit and was able to grasp their meaning. (Moby-Dick by Herman Melville comes to mind.) Rushdie’s books are too good to miss entirely. And there will come a point when all this magical storytelling, all the reality cast in absurdity, will mean a great deal to you.

All right—for the fearless among you, the college-bound, serious readers:

Midnight’s Children is the story of Saleem Sinai, a pickle-factory worker, born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, at the very moment India became independent of Great Britain. His life is a mirror to the life of India—he is himself, but he represents the country as well. He is telling his story to an uneducated woman named Padma (Saleem refers to her as his ‘dung goddess,’ because of her name) at the same time that he writes it each evening. Padma comments on the parts she likes and on when she thinks the story is getting off track.

In order to tell his story, Saleem starts with his grandfather and how he met his grandmother (a funny, sweet story, although their marriage turns out to be a trial). He also discusses his parents’ marriage, but the real center of the story is Saleem himself and of his incredible destiny, as he is a mirror to the newly born India.

When Saleem is born, the attendant switches him with the real baby—also born on the stroke of midnight—of the parents who raise him. Saleem is actually the child of a poor woman and Wee Willie Winkie, an itinerate singer, who becomes an alcoholic when his wife dies in childbirth (Saleem’s actual mother, but he doesn’t know this for many years). Meanwhile, the nurse who switched the babies, Mary Pereira, becomes Saleem’s nanny. Saleem is an odd-looking kid, with a huge nose, and people are always making fun of him.

The other child born at midnight is Shiva. He becomes the nemesis of Saleem and the two will do combat—both physical and mental—for the rest of their lives. In fact, Saleem discovers that he has great powers—he can get into the minds of others and he starts to communicate telepathically with all the other children in the country who were born in the hour between midnight and one AM on August 15, 1947. (Thus, the title of the book Midnight’s Children.) In this way, he finds out that all of them have some sort of great power. The most important of these children will be Parvati-the-witch, who has the power to make things disappear, and Shiva, the natural son of Ahmed and Amina Sinai who has knees powerful enough to kill a man. (Yes, this is one of the wacky, funny-but-not things in the book.)

Shiva and Saleem work their destinies, often against each other. Throughout the book, parents raise fortunes and lose them; they fall in love with the wrong people; Saleem himself is tormented by his love for his sister (who, he argues, is not really his sister because he was switched at birth). Wars spring up intermittently; significant characters suffer and are killed. And through it all, there’s magic and coincidence. It’s a wild ride to get to the 1960s when Saleem is raising Shiva’s child (love that irony) with the boy’s mother, Parvati-the-witch, and finally descends to pickle-factory worker with a great nose for sniffing out flavor.

NOTE: Since this book does deal with a number of factual, historically significant events, it would be great for the Chaffey High senior project if you’d like to give it a try.

The Satanic Verses is a brilliant book about the relationship between Great Britain and India; racial prejudice and politics; cultural misunderstanding; an exploration of reality and a questioning of truth. Thematically, it seems to be about most everything important in the world. It takes places in the 1980s and moves between London and Bombay.

I was hooked from the moment that Gibreel Farishta and Saladin Chamcha, both Indians with British ties, fall miles through the air from an exploded plane, land in the English Channel, and live. Immediately, we know we’re in a world of magic, so when we find out that Gibreel has tried not to sleep for 110 days while terrorists have control of the plane, we believe it.

Gibreel’s problem is that when he sleeps, he dreams about the prophet Mohammed and of his many wives. In these dreams, people close to Mohammed question the veracity of his visions. Pretty much everything that Gibreel dreams or imagines is heretical to Islam.

Yet once the pair is rescued by an old English woman, Saladin starts to take on the features of a devil or satyr—he grows horns and hoofs and coarse hair everywhere. His appearance causes him to be brutalized by the police and hated in general. He can’t understand why this is happening to him. He is very British in thought and manner and can’t conceive of himself as an animal. He appears to be much worse off than Gibreel—at least for awhile.

Gibreel comes to believe that he is an archangel (Azraeel) and is destined to destroy cities. Later, when Gibreel, who is an Indian movie star, tries to come back to reality, he will try to make movies about his dreams and visions. He is treated for insanity.

Again, the two main characters’ lives are interconnected and they are often at odds with one another, even in epic battle. One of the great things about the book is that with all the bizarre incidences in the lives of these men, we often fall into that ‘suspension of disbelief’ necessary to enjoy fairy tales and tales of magic. Is Gibreel an angel after all, and is Saladin a devil because he is betraying his Indian roots and culture? What are their responsibilities in the race riots and how will they treat one another in crisis after they have each sought revenge on one another?

What of the four Ayeshas in the book—the empress that Gibreel destroys in a dream? The prophet who eat butterflies? Mahound’s (Mohammed’s) beautiful wife? The prostitute?

And what of the pilgrims who walk hundreds of miles to the Arabian Sea? Are they really drowned or are they taken up to paradise? Why does Saladin’s lover, a married woman who took her children and leaped to her death when Saladin rejected her, keep coming back in visions to taunt Saladin and give him advice? Is the battle between Gibreel and Saladin really a battle between good and evil? (It doesn’t seem that easy. . . )

If you’re a fan of the fantastical story, give The Satanic Verses a try. And if you need to interpret a novel as well as find out what the professional critics say—as you do for Colony High’s senior project—you couldn’t pick a better piece of fiction.

180 pp.

Jonas lives in a future utopia in which everyone seems to behave well and apologizes when they hurt someone’s feelings or do something wrong. In the evenings, families share their days, expressing their happiness and frustrations. In the morning, they dutifully report their dreams to one another.

There are many indicators that children are growing up. All children are presented with jobs or tools at the yearly Ceremony. Jonas’ sister, at 8, will start her volunteer hours and at the age of 12, Jonas receives his assignment for life. Rather then become the usual such as an engineer or nurturer, Jonas is to be the receiver, the most important job in the community. He will go to the current Receiver to be given communal memories which individuals don’t know about. Memory is considered too powerful and painful for the general population. The communities, encased in an artificial and perfect environment, know nothing of the heat of the sun or the cold of the winter snow. Jonas is disturbed by many of the memories he receives–of war especially. But he also receives a memory of love that that is more deep and binding than possible in the rational world of his community.

Jonas’ father is a nurturer. He accepts babies from the birth-givers, and works in a nurturing center where babies are kept until they turn one year old. One baby, Gabriel, is not very healthy, and Jonas’ father gets special permission to bring him home to sleep at night, hoping the extra care will help him gain a little weight. If Gabriel does not do better, he will be “Released”. Jonas helps Gabriel sleep by giving him memories, which is strictly forbidden.

Gabriel does not do as well as Jonas’ father had hoped and is scheduled for Release. Jonas and the Giver hatch a plan to bring memory back to the community, but to do so, Jonas must flee “elsewhere.”

I know that many people read this novel before they get to high school, but if you haven’t read it, do so. It is often censored and would make a good read for “Banned Books Week.”

Although I’d only heard great things about this book, I hesitated to read it because I have been let down by the author before. It was as though he wanted the reader to understand that he was an American Indian and then said, “And you can’t possibly get what that means, so shove off.” Pretty depressing.

Fortunately, Alexie’s first ‘young adult’ novel is a different experience all together.

“The Absolutely True Diary” is a fictional account of the life of a fourteen-year-old Spokane Indian, Arnold Spirit (Junior). He has a lot working against him—he was born with water on his brain (hydrocephalic) and is bullied by his peers. His father’s an alcoholic (but only when he’s drunk!) and Junior is getting a lousy education on the reservation (rez). In order to change his luck, Arnold decides to go to the ‘white’ school in Reardon, Washington, 22 miles from the rez. Happily, he makes friends and becomes one of the school’s basketball stars. But his friends on the rez call him an ‘apple’ for being red on the outside, but white on the inside. So the one constant question of teen life—Who am I?—has multiple meaning in Junior’s life.

The Indians in this novel are neither the stereotype of savage nor noble nature guide/shaman. Junior knows a lot of people with a lot of problems—especially alcoholism. Yet the book is wildly funny, and we laugh out loud as we root for Junior to make it in life. One of the reasons we do so is the cartoons by Ellen Forney that are interspersed throughout the book. Ostensibly, they are Arnold’s cartoons and drawing, as he is a budding artist. These comics can be read as a stand-alone story. One of my favorites was “Junior Gets to School,” with five panels, showing what happens to him Monday-Friday as he tries to make his 22 mile trip. Another non sequitur that is hilarious is “THE UNOFFICIAL and UNWRITTEN (but you better follow them or you’re going to get beaten twice as hard) SPOKANE INDIAN RULES OF FISTICUFFS.” It’s easy to see why life is so hard for Arnold.

“The Absolutely True Diary” won the National Book Award and was a Junior Library Guild pick. Reading it gives you a chance to think about the difficulties encountered in getting out of tough situations–and yet it’s still uplifting. And funny, funny, funny at the same time. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND this one!