What about mature teens who are asking for books that delve deeply into the difficult subjects they are grappling with? Do we sanitize reading too much for your age group? You are, after all, sprinting on the heels of adulthood.

The problem for those of us adults responsible for teaching you is that you have such a wide range of maturity. A freshman is usually very different from a senior. Some books that take on difficult subjects are welcome—a relief, really—to students who’ve had a tough go and need to have their experience validated. Those same books may upset certain parents who feel that reading about the seedier side of life encourages the reader to participate in it when s/he wouldn’t have otherwise. I’m not that sort of parent myself—my kids have always read widely, on every sort of subject—but I respect that most parents are trying to do the best they can for their kids in a world that’s hard to figure out.

Ultimately, I believe both you and your parents can make the right reading choices for you if you have a pretty good idea what books are about. So, I want to write periodically on books that cover difficult topics including violence and teenage sexuality. I want to show you books that deal explicitly with the subjects, but that have value—that help you do that mature grappling with the difficult world. And if you feel that the content of the book is too explicit, then the review will have helped you make your choice to find something more appropriate.

My first go at this is to reflect on books with violence. And I do intend to look at teen books that address violence, but while thinking about the subject, I couldn’t forget that—while rather a wimp myself—some of the absolutely best contemporary books I’ve read were breathtakingly violent.

All of those great, yet violent, books were by Cormac McCarthy, a man widely regarded as one of the country’s best living authors. I asked some English teachers whether they thought their students could read McCarthy and get something valuable from him or whether those students would just see the novels as endless rounds of murder and mayhem. Based on their answers—they believe teens can benefit from the books as the violence in them is not of the gratuitous sort found in current movies—I am going to start my series with them.

In discussing the use of violence in literature and teen reading, we need a common definition of “gratuitous.” If it the definition means that the violence is ‘unnecessary to tell the story’ rather than meaning ‘a very heavy dose,’ then McCarthy’s violence is not gratuitous. Nevertheless, it’s unrelenting. And his narrative often has a camera-eye quality in the sense that we learn what happens and are left to sort it out for ourselves. Sometimes the camera extends into people’s musing on life and fate (as it does with Sheriff Bell in No Country for Old Men), but even then, no moral judgment is made for you. You must figure it out on your own.

The question then, at your age, is: Can you read this kind of violence and be able to form your own judgments? If you haven’t had some good practice in critical thinking, then I really don’t think McCarthy’s books are for you. If you have had that practice, a second question to ask yourself is whether you enjoy the qualities of excellent storytelling, the mythic sweep of a great narrative, and some of the best imagery/pictures of landscapes that you will ever read? If so, give McCarty a try.

Blood Meridian: This book is an unflinchingly realistic portrayal of the some of the worst examples of lawlessness in the wild west of the nineteenth century. I grew up in a time when all westerns were of the John Wayne variety with strong, silent men forging a new America. For anyone who knows nothing other than that image, Blood Meridian is an excellent antidote.

The nineteenth century in America was a time of deep culture clash (but then, when isn’t that true?). Blood Meridian is historical fiction in that its subject is the Glanton Gang, scalp hunters who were paid by the Governor of Chihuahua, Mexico in 1849-50 to kill Comanche and Apache Indians. Those two tribes had raided Mexican towns, and Glanton received $200 per scalp, scalps being evidence that the Indians had been murdered. But, as the cliché goes, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to imagine the possibilities. Considering that lots of folks in Mexico had black hair, when the Glanton Gang ran low on Apaches and Comanche to kill, they just started killing anyone they could get their hands on.

Gruesome? Absolutely. The Glanton Boys kill indiscriminately—men, women, children, old people. They pillage. They rape. One of the main characters, Judge Holden, is well educated, always curious, something of a botanist and purveyor of human nature. He is also pure evil, and the banality of his wickedness—the way is it just an ordinary part of his life—will highlight for the thoughtful reader the fact that the west was ‘won’ by groups of men who included demonic characters.

Critics compare Blood Meridian to many works of classic literature, some of which you’ve read in high school or will read in college—Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness; Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. There’s Huck Finn lighting out for the territory, but not in a way that Mark Twain’s satire makes you smile at our cultural foibles. It’s so straightforward and void of emotion that you may feel physically sick over man’s inhumanity to man. You might think of your sophomore literature, Lord of the Flies, because the gang is outside of the reach of the law for so long. Their instincts for hurting others take over just as the marooned boys’ did after the plane crash.

If you are seeking a book to read for a literary analysis paper, there’s much to go with here—conflicts include man v. man and man v. nature (the deserts of Mexico and the borderland between the US and Mexico are arid, brutal in their lack of food and water). Ultimately, for the mature reader with an iron stomach, Blood Meridian has value in helping him to be able to recognize the ‘heart of darkness’ within us.

No Country for Old Men is another story that takes place along the border between Mexico and Texas, but this one has a contemporary setting—and the lawlessness is also contemporary.

A man named Llewelyn Moss is out hunting and accidentally stumbles upon the carnage that has resulted from a drug deal gone bad. When he realizes that most of the dealers are dead in the cars and all the drugs are still there, he also knows that the drug money couldn’t be far off. Finding the (now dead) man who tried to get away with the suitcase with the millions, Llewelyn takes the case. Once he does so, the novel primarily follows three characters: Llewelyn Moss; Anton Chigurh, a true psychopath without any conscience or remorse, a hit man in pursuit of Moss; and Sheriff Bell, the lawman attempting to sort out the details and catch Chigurh. Bell’s sections of the novel are more monologues about both life in the past and the present and about the crime. He thinks of Chigurh as a sort of ghost because he is impossible to catch—but he’s real, and he’s out there.

In No Country for Old Men the universe is not a benevolent one, and if you think it’s just the bad guys who are killing off one another, or at least bad guys killing off folks whose greed gets them mixed up in the seedy side of life (like Moss), McCarthy wants to show you otherwise. The evil can be purely arbitrary—especially for Moss’s wife (Carla Jean), whose only connection to the madness, for which she pays dearly, is to have fallen in love with and married Moss.

Again, if you are looking for a novel to read for a literary analysis paper, there’s a lot here. You have the same man v. man and man v. nature as in Blood Meridian. You’ve also got the chance to discuss nihilism and morality.

More recently, McCarthy published The Road, and while it’s about a post-apocalyptic United States, surprisingly, I found more hope in it than in the two books above. I reviewed it earlier and you can read the review here.

OK, if you are saying, “Ms. Waddle, I am a mature person, and I know I need a dose of reality in my reading, but this is just way more than I can take at once,” then I recommend you start with McCarthy’s Border Trilogy, the first book of which is All the Pretty Horses. The title, while appropriate, is unfortunate in that teen guys will turn away from it, thinking it’s a sweet little book meant for girls. Ah—no.

I reviewed All the Pretty Horses here. If you are working on literary analysis or asking yourself the bigger questions, the novel makes you think: What’s in a national identity? What does it mean to be Mexican-America? Can someone be multicultural if he stems from European (Anglo) stock but has a Mexican nanny who teachers him Spanish, and later crosses the border to live in Mexico for a period of time?

If you want to read critical analysis of McCarthy’s books, there are some good articles on the library’s database. You can click on these links, but you may need to type in your Ontario City Library card number to view the articles. (They are in the Literature Resource Center database.)

Eaton, Mark A. “Dis(re)membered Bodies: Cormac McCarthy’s Border Fiction.” Modern Fiction Studies 49.1 (Spring 2003): 155-180. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 260.Detroit: Gale, 2009.Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Dec. 2011.

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1100085017&v=2.1&u=onta59809&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

“Blood Meridian.” Contemporary Literary Criticism Select.Detroit: Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Dec. 2011.

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1114060000&v=2.1&u=onta59809&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

Cooper, Lydia R. “‘He’s a psychopathic killer, but so what?’: Folklore and morality in Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men.” Papers on Language & Literature 45.1 (2009): 37+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Dec. 2011.

http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA194974981&v=2.1&u=onta59809&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w

More interesting books for high school students who are learning to read or improving their reading skills. Today we’re looking at Night Fall, a horror series.

At Colony High, we’ve created a section in the book stacks just for these new books. Look under the call number 372.41. (Don’t be shy about asking for help if you need it. That’s what we’re here for!)

Night Fall titles:

Unthinkable by Shirley Duke

Omar Phillips is Bridgewater High’s favorite local teen author. His Facebook fans can’t wait for his next horror story. Lately, though, Omar’s imagination has turned against him, presenting him with horrifying visions of death and destruction. The only way to stop the visions is to write them down, until they start coming true. Sophie Minax, the mysterious Goth girl who’s been following Omar at school, tells him how to end the visions, but the only thing worse than Sophie’s cure may be what happens if he ignores it.

Thaw by Rick Jasper

“A July storm caused a major power outage inBridgewater. Now a research project at the Institute for Cryogenic Experimentation has been ruined and the thawed-out bodies of twenty-seven federal inmates are missing. At first, Dani Kraft didn’t think much of the breaking news. But after her best friend Jake disappears, a mysterious visitor connects the dots for Dani. Jake has been taken in by an infamous cult leader. To get him back, Dani must enter a dangerous, alternate reality where a defrosted cult leader is beginning to act like some kind of god.”–Amazon.com.

The Protectors by Val Karlsson

“Luke’s life has never been ‘normal.’ How could it be, with his mother holding seances and his half-crazy stepfather working asBridgewater’s mortician?”–P. [4] of cover.

The Club by Stephanie Watson

Bored after school, Josh and his friends try out an old game called “Black Magic” that promises the players good fortune at the expense of those who have wronged them. As the club members’ luck starts skyrocketing and horror befalls their enemies, the game stops being a joke. How can they end the power they’ve unleashed? Answers lie in an old diary, but ending the game may be deadlier than any curse.

Skin by Rick Jasper

Nick’s face is breaking out. The symptoms, besides his complexion, include an abiding coldness and nightmares. As his face worsens, a neighbor sends over a priest. The priest remembers a teenager who had a similar attack. He has the teen’s journal. Another teen comes into the clinic with a similar case. Does the resolution lie in the old journal?

Messages from Beyond by Stephanie Watson

Some guy named Ethan Davis has been texting Cassie. He seems to know all about her– but she can’t place him. He’s not in Bridgewater High’s yearbook either. Cassie thinks one of her friends is punking her. But she can’t ignore the strange coincidences– like how Ethan looks just like the guy in her nightmares. Cassie’s search for Ethan leads her to a shocking discovery, and a struggle for her life. Will Cassie be able to break free from her mysterious stalker?”–P. [4] of cover.

Finally!

Some good, interesting books for high school students who are learning to read or improving their reading skills. I’ve mentioned that we’ve been buying these books. Well, now most of them are here. I plan to post about different series. See which series sounds good to you and then come check out a book.

At Colony High, we’ve created a section in the book stacks just for these new books. Look under the call number 372.41. (Don’t be shy about asking for help if you need it. That’s what we’re here for!) You’ll find a few hundred choices.

The first series up is Surviving Southside. Here are five titles:

Shattered Star by Charnan Simon

Cassie is the best singer in Southside High’s Glee Club and dreams of being famous. She skips school to try out for a national talent competition, but her hopes sink when she sees the line. Then a talent agent shows up out of nowhere, flattering her and saying she has “the look” he wants. Soon, she is lying and missing rehearsals to meet with him, and he’s asking her for more each time. How far will Cassie go for her shot at fame?

Recruited by Suzanne Weyn

Kadeem Jones is a star quarterback for Southside High. He is thrilled when college scouts seek him out. His visit toTellerCollegeis amazing, but then NCAA officials accuse Teller’s staff of illegally recruiting top talent. Will Kadeem decide to help their investigation, even though it means the end of the good times? What will it do to his chances of playing college football?

Bad Deal by Susan J. Korman

Fish hates having to take ADHD medication. It helps him concentrate, but it also makes him feel weird. When his crush, Ella, needs a boost to study for tests, Fish offers her one of his pills. Soon, more kids want pills, and Fish is enjoying the profits. To keep from running out, Fish finds a doctor who sells phony prescriptions, but suddenly the doctor is arrested. Fish realizes he needs to tell the truth, but will that cost him his friends?

Benito Runs by Justine Fontes

Benito’s father, Xavier, returns fromIraqafter more than a year suffering from PTSD–post-traumatic stress disorder–and yells constantly. He causes such a scene at a school function that Benny is embarrassed to go back to Southside High. Benny can’t handle seeing his dad so crazy, so he decides to run away. Will Benny find a new life, or will he learn how to deal with his dad–through good times and bad?

Plan B by Charnan Simon

Lucy has her life planned out: she’ll graduate and then join her boyfriend, Luke, at college inAustin. She’ll become a Spanish teacher, and they’ll get married. Deciding there’s no reason to wait, and despite trying to be careful, Lucy gets pregnant. Now, none of Lucy’s options are part of her picture-perfect plan. Together, she and Luke will have to make the most difficult decision of their lives.

Marisa’s dad is a Mexican immigrant. He’s had a hard life in the shadow of his stepmother and as an adult always reminds his kids that: family is everything; hard work is what matters; and you’d better never embarrass him. He’s tough and the best thing we can say about his relationship to Marisa is that he’s disapproving.

Of course, lots of parents disapprove of their teens. After all, if teens didn’t try to find their own way, away from their parents, what would the point of adolescence be? The problem with Marisa’s father’s disapproval is that it isn’t the kind that will help her improve her life. Just the opposite. If she’s a really good girl, it’s going to hold her back.

Marisa is very bright, is taking AP Calculus and getting good grades. But what matters most to her dad is that she work her shifts at Kroger’s (a grocery store—I don’t think there are any in California, but it’s a major chain), turn over half of her paycheck to her parents, watch her niece (the child of a sister who got pregnant in high school), cook meals and help keep up the house. With such a schedule, Marisa is having a hard time concentrating on her schoolwork. When she starts dating the boy she’s always liked, she starts to wonder if she can make it out of her Houston, Texas barrio. Though her mother is nice, she has a way of laying the guilt on pretty thick. If Marisa goes away to college, what will her mother do? How will she get by?

Marisa’ AP Calc teacher reminds her of her considerable gifts as a student. She encourages her to push on. But there’s a cultural divide, and the teacher doesn’t quite get what is holding Marisa back.

On this Thanksgiving weekend, I’m grateful that I picked up this book. I know I often tell you that great books will help you understand people whose lives are very different from your own. But it’s also good to read a book in which the protagonist is just like you. And Marisa is a girl a lot of students will recognize in themselves. Have fun reading this quick book, full of hope and realism.

Tres Camarones, Sinaloa, Mexico just isn’t what it used to be. Looking for work, nearly all of the men have disappeared “into the beautiful north”—the United States. Nayeli, the young woman who has this revelation, decides to do something about it. After seeing her Aunt Irma’s favorite movie The Magnificent Seven (a classic Western, super popular in the 1960s), Nayeli decides to take her three best friends and cross the border. She is going to bring back seven Mexican men to help protect her little town from bandidos and drug smugglers. And she has secret motives as well. She wants to find her crush, a cute Southern California surfer who was also a Christian missionary in Sinaloa years before. Even more importantly, she wants to find her father, who disappeared into Illinois three years earlier.

Into the Beautiful North is by turns sad, frightening and comic. Nayeli (karate queen and soccer star), Yolo, Vampie (the only goth girl in town), and Tacho (openly gay, but feeling like a misfit) have a harrying journey through Mexico even before they try to cross the border. Their experiences on their journey—including their dealings with ‘coyotes,’ skin heads, drug smugglers, police, and Homeland Security, are realistic and frightening. Their experiences with kind strangers, some who live in a dump and yet still have the heart to help others, is also realistic.

All the characters are well drawn and quirky: Aunt Irma, the former bowling champion, women’s rights advocate and now Mayor of Tres Camarones; Atomiko, the dump ‘rat,’ who is also hero and protector to the group of friends; Tacho, gay in a closeted society but nevertheless enjoying life and becoming Nayeli’s hero.

The way that Urrea includes all points of view is unusual for a contemporary book, but it works very well. As the group takes a road trip—and later, when Nayeli and Tacho are crossing the United States on their own—the descriptions of the landscape and the atmosphere peculiar to each town are poetic. As the characters see the country for the first time, we readers see it anew through each individual’s eyes (and recognize the scents through their noses and the sensations through their fingertips). Though Nayeli’s ‘hero’s quest’ ends exactly as I knew it would (and from the writing, it seems the author thinks I’ll be surprised), I was wondering throughout the book how Nayeli herself would react to her disillusionment. Urrea did a great job with that.

This is a wonderful book for looking into the hope and desperation of people seeking a better life—and how a home town, with a little help from the good guys (and gals) can work to help all its residents. If your teacher asks you to take a modern novel and describe the hero’s journey, this would be a fun one to use because you’ll enjoy it so much for so many reasons.

Teachers who are thinking outside the box will let you read this for your biography/memoir assignment, and what a great opportunity!

The story of Henrietta Lacks is more than a biography of an individual woman, It’s the story of the first person’s cells that scientists could cause to grow in a lab—that could live outside the body and be shipped around the world, thus making new research possible. It’s the story of a family that knew nothing of the cells or the fact that they had been removed from the cancer-stricken and dying Henrietta. It’s about the effect that this medical miracle had on Henrietta’s children. It’s about medical treatment for African-Americans in the 1950s South.

Henrietta Lacks grew up in poverty in Clover,Virginiain the segregated, pre-civil-rights-era South. Her family were tobacco farmers, and the house she was raised in was once slave quarters. (The author discovers a white branch of the Lacks family, but they refuse to acknowledge their biological connection to Henrietta.) Amazingly, before Henrietta died on October 4, 1951, cells taken atJohnsHopkinsHospitalduring a gynecological exam for her cervical cancer had become the first cells to be cultured in a lab and survive. The cells, known as HeLa, were so strong, that they could be shipped to medical labs everywhere. These cells become the necessary component for medical advances such as the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, understanding the effects of nuclear bombs, and part of the search for a cure for AIDS.

Knowing this, you’d think that Henrietta’s children would have become wealthy. Ironically, they spent years without medical insurance, and for twenty years, didn’t even know that their mother’s cells existed. They couldn’t afford the benefits of the research done with their mother’s cells. In fact, they suffered from secrets as well as con men. Especially hard hit was Henrietta’s daughter Deborah, who, without the educational background necessary to understand how the cells survived, became prey to every report that her mother had been cloned or that her cells had been fused with those of other life forms.

Part of this biography of Henrietta and her cells is about the sad way that African-Americans were treated in medical experiments. (In this sense, Henrietta’s daughter Elise, who was sent to a state hospital and diagnosed with “Idiocy”—and then experimented on in a horrific manner—is just as interesting as Henrietta’s story.) But part of this book details the fascinating fact that no one has any rights over their cells, their discarded tissues. Even if this tissue becomes valuable, as Henrietta’s did, and makes millions of dollars for the companies and individuals that market it, it is considered a waste product, trash that the individual has discarded. (And most of the time tissue/cells aren’t worth anything—people have moles, appendixes, and gallbladders removed all the time.) So the horrible way that the Lacks family was treated also figured into the rise of bioethics—of getting informed consent from patients before using their tissue for medical experiments.

This great book embraces so many themes. Deborah’s life with its grounding in both superstition and spirituality is just as important to the reader as is Henrietta’s. The author has the ability to show us so many things about life, science, treatment of Africa-Americans, medical research—and we can understand it all because she is so good at making it clear. The only part of the story that she doesn’t dig into is the life of Henrietta’s husband, David Lacks. I wondered a lot about him as Henrietta’s cancer was caused by repeated STDs that he gave her. After she died at age 31, he allowed a new woman in his life whose cruel abuse of the children permanently scarred them—destroying the life of at least one of the five kids. Yet David is given a pass on everything. Perhaps the author didn’t feel that his story was crucial to the arc of the overall family story, but it was the one missing piece that bothered me. Still, this is one of the best books of its kind. Any student interested in medicine, the history of the treatment of African-Americans by researchers, the rise of bioethics—or just a good story of a suffering family—will want to read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Trash takes place in an unnamed third-world country in South America. (The main characters want to go to Sao Paulo, Brazil, so they must be somewhere close enough to have heard of the city.) Raphael, Gardo, and Rat—three “dumpsite” boys—keep off starvation by digging through trash, recycling items and hoping to find money or items of value. Since there is no sanitation in the poorer districts of the city, what they often find is human excrement. It’s hard to imagine a more miserable life than theirs, surrounded by filth, hunger and disease.

One day the impossible happens. Raphael finds a leather bag with several items including a map, a wallet with some money, a driver’s license, some pictures, and a key. Since he always works with Gardo, he splits the money with him. But when the police come looking for the leather bag, Raphael senses it is very important and doesn’t reveal his secret. He gets Rat, the most destitute of all the children, to hide it.

Rat is able to identify the type of key Raphael has found; it belongs to a locker in the train station where Rat used to beg. Once the boys find and open the locker, they know they are in serious trouble. They’re onto a scandal, and the corruption goes way past the local police, all the way to figures in the national government. People are dying in this cover-up, and the boys need to decide whether to collect a reward or seek justice for the poor.

This is a good mystery for everyone. Most of the story is told, in alternating chapters, by the three boys, although adults, such as the priest who runs the local school for the dumpsite children, give the reader some important background information. Join them on their adventure in fighting governmental corruption in a country where political dishonesty is the norm.

   Heat

Michael was born to play baseball. At twelve, he can pitch a fastball at 80 mph. His Bronx Little League All-Star team, the Clippers, is a contender for league champions and hopes to make it all the way to the Little League World Series. But fate is intervening for Michael, in all the wrong ways.

His father had died of a heart attack a few months earlier. As an immigrant from Cuba without a mom, he has only his older brother, Carlos, to depend on. The two are afraid that they will be separated, and so are trying to make it on their own, with a bit of help from a kindly neighbor woman who lives in their apartment building.

While he is still grieving over his father in secret—only Michael’s good friend Manny knows the truth—a rival team, also with hopes of a district championship—accuses Michael of being older than twelve, thus violating Little League rules. Michael has used his baptismal certificate as proof of his age. Locating his birth certificate, back in Cuba, is almost impossible, and Michael can’t play until it’s produced. Through this experience, Michael gets a hard lesson about human nature. The only reason he is accused of being older than twelve is so that inferior teams will have a better chance at the district championship. When he asks himself why a rival team player, Justin, hates him, the reader knows the sad answer: simply because Michael is better at something that Justin does.

I worry that students might dismiss Heat because Michael is only twelve. But his problems are certainly serious; and his brother, Carlos, is sixteen. Several chapters are about Carlos’s heroic efforts and serious mistakes made to keep his brother with him; to provide food and shelter; to make sure that Michael can continue to play baseball, furthering his opportunity to make it to the Little League World Series. Plus, if you like baseball, there’s a lot of exciting description of the action. And one of the big lessons of the book will follow you into adulthood: certain people will try to hurt you when they figure out that you can do something they can’t. You won’t be able to stop them from trying. You’ll just have to take the higher ground.

My Brother’s Voice

by Stephen Nasser, Holocaust survivor

In 1944, the Nazis took 13-year-old Nasser and 21 members of his family to the Auschwitz and Muhldorf Concentration Camps. Pista, as he was known, was the only member of his family to survive. (He witnessed the horrific murder of his aunt and baby cousin.) His remembrance of his brother, Andris, telling him to live helps him through his ordeal. His memoir My Brother’s Voice is a moving account of his experience. From page one, we read of horrific treatment, first by average Germans, including schoolmates, and later by Nazi soldiers. Something that I’ve never read in a book by Holocaust survivor is about the difference between common German soldiers—who are trying to give the victims a chance to survive—and the sadistic SS soldiers who are working hard to insure their deaths. Chapters about the struggle for survival are intertwined with chapters about Nasser’s life and family before the death camps.

Pista had a small Boy Scout knife, and he used it to carve little figures which he then traded for food and pencils with the German Wermacht. He used cement bags as paper and bound pieces together with wire. Thus he had a diary. Though this diary was lost when Pista, unconscious and seemingly dead, was pulled from a pile of bodies in a boxcar, he rewrote his memories, and from these, he tells his story in this book.

Nasser will be speaking to history classes here at COHS on Tuesday, Feb. 22. If you would like to buy his book and have him sign it, you may. He will have copies (hard cover $21, soft cover $15) to sell. (If you pay by check, make it out to Stephen Nasser.) The book is also available on Amazon. Ms. Waddle has also purchased several copies for our library which can be checked out by anyone with an Ontario City Library card, including students.

For more information on the Holocaust, check The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Micah is the ‘after-school’ girlfriend of Zach Rubin—who has a ‘real’ girlfriend at school. No one else knows about their relationship. Both are excellent runners, although, again, no one knows this about Micah. She hides the truth about herself and lies all the time.

When new at school, Micah pretended to be a boy, then a hermaphrodite. She seems to have family members that don’t exist. She says her dad is an arms dealer. And wait until you hear about the purposes of her bedroom furnishings. As she is caught in one too many lies, no one believes anything she says anymore. So when Zach is found dead—apparently brutally murdered and mutilated—the police start to question her. Micah says she’s going to tell us the truth—the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ the murder.

But Micah can’t stop lying. And you never know what to believe. Just as you think you have the story straight, there’s a new twist and it all falls apart. You’ll end not knowing if you’ve unraveled the lies, not knowing if there is a supernatural element at work in the murder—just not knowing anything. But you’ll race through the suspense, desperate to get inside Micah’s head.

Fast, fun, full of surprises. One of my best summer YA reads.