They live in Far Rockaway, an isolated neighborhood plagued by gangs but graced by the ocean. AnnMarie’s favorite things are singing in choir and hanging out with her friends.Then she falls for Darius, an older boy with his own recording studio, and ends up pregnant at 14 with a boyfriend who hits her.

One day AnnMarie notices a flyer announcing open auditions for an indie film. She takes the leap and lands a leading role. Subtitled “A Novel, Based on a True Story”, On the Come Up is just that. Recently I interviewed filmmaker Hannah Weyer about writing her first novel.

Can you tell us about the young woman whose life inspired your novel? How did you come to know her?

Almost 15 years ago, my husband, Jim McKay, made his second feature film, Our Song. It is a wonderful story, filmed entirely on location—mostly in Crown Heights, Brooklyn—and mixed actors with non-actors, neighborhood onlookers, and a local marching band. I know for both of us it was one of the most gratifying experiences we’ve had in life because it was what produced our treasured and long-lasting friendship with Anna Simpson, who inspired me to write On the Come Up.

At the time, Anna was a 15-year-old girl living with her mother in Far Rockaway, Queens, a neighborhood often defined by its social isolation, Section 8 housing, and violent crime. Even though Anna had been untrained as an actress and was due to give birth a month before filming began, four call-backs and many discussions later, Jim cast her to play one of the lead roles in the movie.

I had recently completed a documentary and was hanging around the Our Song set with a video camera, documenting little moments with the cast, crew, and neighborhood kids. It was there that Anna and I first became friends, though our upbringing, age difference, and day-to-day preoccupations could have kept us apart.

I was in awe of Anna’s determination, and her ability to juggle the job of acting with caring for her newborn. When I thought back to my own teenage years, my life seemed to dim in comparison. Nonetheless, something clicked between us—maybe it was her charm, sense of humor, and honesty, but we found ourselves in a lasting friendship that has deepened over the last fifteen years.

At what point did you decide to write a novel based on her life? Did you ever consider writing a nonfiction account instead?

It was a few years ago at a family picnic that the first seed was planted. As Anna and I were catching up, I told her I was in between film projects and trying my hand at writing short fiction. She said, well you know I have a story to tell and we laughed because I knew it was true—in her relatively short life, she did have a story, lots of them, in fact. I thought about Anna, her neighborhood and the people she grew up with, how she fought to upend her social isolation, put money in her pocket and raise her child, to defy the downward drag of domestic violence that seemed to be her fate.

I wondered about all the small ways individuals find to level the playing field, turn a volatile home into a stable one, or simply find happiness when a sense of well-being isn’t the status quo.

Over the next several months, Anna and I sat and talked. We collected hours of recorded interviews and it soon became clear that her fearlessness would become the dominant trait of the main character of On the Come Up. I decided to draw from several key events—the birth of her daughter, her role in Our Song, and her eventual departure from Far Rockaway—to structure the novel.  Using these real events as signposts, I began to string together a fictional story about a girl’s rite of passage, an odyssey from one place to another. In a world where dreams of escape are fed by endless stories of overnight success, celebrity, and stardom, sometimes the struggle is as simple as finding your way off the block.

Fictionalizing opened up a personal space for me to bring my own musings to play. My creative interest in examining family structures, the function of boundaries, and the question of escape moved the story away from biography, and toward an imagining of a protagonist and a world in which these themes could be developed and explored.

How did you master the urban language of the novel?

Besides working on films and screenplays, each year for the past dozen years, I spend part of my time as a guest teaching artist or one-on-one mentor in high schools, after school programs, or for media arts youth organizations. Being around teenagers, I find it especially engaging to listen to how they joke and tease, to their particular phrasings or colloquialisms, how they disguise their feelings or fears, how they jostle to express themselves.

I was also very much influenced by the interviews Anna and I made together, and it became clear, early on in the writing process, that it would be Anna’s voice, and not my own, that would become my muse.

What is it about AnnMarie that made her aspire beyond expectations—to go beyond the norm for those growing up in her isolated neighborhood?

I really don’t know where strength of character comes from. Are people born with backbone, with higher aspirations, or yearnings and curiosity? Or is strength of character something that can be nurtured, brought to play in a young person’s life and made meaningful?

I do know that I gave this quality to AnnMarie because I saw it in Anna Simpson, just as I’ve seen it in other teenagers I’ve spent time with over the years, young people who apply themselves, defy expectation, and prove beyond a doubt the usefulness of simple, daily conversation and contact between grown-ups and children at the cusp of adulthood.

AnnMarie’s story has fairytale elements—some might say that if it wasn’t based on truth it would be too far-fetched. Yet, AnnMarie’s struggles are realistic, even mundane. And her successes do not make over her life. How did you balance engaging storytelling and reality?

Interesting thought. I might disagree though that AnnMarie’s story is far-fetched. If you think about it, every day thousands of kids go on auditions for movies, for singing or dance competitions, or for reality TV contests, like American Idol or The X Factor. But we only hear about the success stories that make the news. AnnMarie’s story is really about what happens before and after the audition, the movie premiere. She goes on with her life, enriched by the experience, but still faced with the challenges most people are up against: how do I find work, how do I make a stable home, how do I find happiness and love?

Despite the fact that this novel is published for adults, do you have hopes or expectations for its success with teenagers?

Yes! I think AnnMarie is a character that teenagers can relate to and will want to spend time with.  What becomes clear as you sink into the story is that AnnMarie is just a regular kid. She likes music, wants love and friendship. She dreams. She has beefs with other kids, sometimes physical, sometimes verbal, and won’t back down from a fight. She is at times naive, pig-headed, brash, single-minded, and yet she has this remarkable ability to be optimistic about life, a quality that helps her face down conflict and climb over spatial barriers, and keeps her asking questions about her place in the world.

It’s true she might have more drama than the average teenager but not by much—most kids have dealt with bullies at school or on the block, have encountered a domineering grownup who exacts control. Some have been pregnant or have friends who have become pregnant. Some have had boyfriends who have cheated and who have felt betrayed.

I think On the Come Up is the kind of story teachers can bring into the classroom to share with their students. AnnMarie’s story lends itself to discussions about class, identity, family histories, generational patterns, domestic abuse and/or the relationship between social isolation and violence in contemporary urban America.

It’s been my experience that young people can and will rise to the intellectual occasion when the material feels emotional and relevant, when characters appeal to them on some visceral or personal level.

See the SLJ review of On the Come Up, published on the Adult Books 4 Teens blog.

The Sea of Tranquility

Some of the story is told from Nastya’s point of view, some of it is told by Josh. The gradual building and deepening of their relationship is beautiful to read, especially their struggles to trust each other and to accept the intimacy of being loved.

I welcomed the opportunity to ask Katja Millay a few questions about her debut novel, The Sea of Tranquility.

What was the original inspiration for your novel? Did you begin with a particular character? With what happened to Nastya? Did you know it would become a love story?

The first thing I actually put on paper was Nastya’s attack scene.  Though it doesn’t come into the book until well past the halfway mark, it was the catalyst for the rest of the story. It was important for me to understand what had happened to her and to keep that in mind throughout the writing process because that incident affected so much of what she had become.

Everything began with Nastya. I lived with her in my head for a while before even trying to form a story. At that point, she fascinated me and I was just getting to know her. I was haunted by this very childlike, yet obsessively focused, teenage girl with an extraordinary talent and vivid expectations for her future. Then I imagined her after everything she had defined herself by had been taken away.

I was intrigued by the idea of talent and ability and how that forms our identities and sense of self.  It’s so common for us to define ourselves by what we do, not necessarily by who we are. Nastya’s entire identity and sense of worth was wrapped around her musical talent and then it’s lost—and really it isn’t even the talent that’s lost. Is she suddenly not talented because her hand can no longer play?  In her mind, she still had the ability.  She hadn’t lost that gift; she lost the means to express it. I equated that feeling to the way we feel in a dream when we know we should be able to scream but we open our mouths and our bodies betray us and no sound comes out; it’s a feeling of pure impotence. That’s how she feels with the musical ability trapped inside her with no way out. I imagined that level of frustration would be maddening for anyone, much less a fifteen-year old girl without the maturity or life skills to handle such a loss. The book began as a way to explore the effects of that.

I knew from the beginning that I would write it as a love story.  I’ve always been drawn to reading slow-burn romances where the relationship takes its time to build and develop naturally.  As I wrote TSoT, I wanted to see Josh and Nastya fall in love and I wanted to experience that with them. When I’m reading, I like to reach the end of a book and feel like I understand why two characters fell in love, because I was able to watch it happen. That’s how I hoped readers would feel at the end of TSoT.

The title has multiple meanings as the book progresses, and it means different things to Nastya at different points. Could you talk about The Sea of Tranquility?

Years ago, when I first learned what the Sea of Tranquility actually was, I felt a distinct sense of disappointment. I thought, Really? That’s what it is? I imagined Nastya feeling the same way, but to a greater extent because she had created a set of expectations that were rooted so much more deeply.

The Sea of Tranquility is a symbol of the disillusionment that Nastya is experiencing when we meet her—a sense of disappointment and the loss of possibility. Her life carried the promise of a bright future defined by music but reality has delivered something wholly different; just as the Sea of Tranquility promised a serene, beautiful body of water and instead delivered a “big, dark shadow on the moon.”

In some ways, I likened the Sea of Tranquility to the optical illusion that Nastya is described as in the text. Its implications shift depending on our perceptions over the course of the story. I referred to the book as The Sea of Tranquility as I was writing, but I always considered it a working title, not actually believing I would use it.  But by the time I finished, it had become clear that it reflected so many of the story’s themes in a way that nothing else would. Once I realized that, I knew that I couldn’t possibly call it anything else.

I am struck by how real—and lacking in cliché or stereotype—the teen characters are. How did you go about creating believable young people, from Josh and Nastya to their siblings to the kids at school?

Thank you!  One of my favorite parts of writing is developing characters and having the opportunity to get inside their heads and figure out how their minds work. I spent part of my career teaching high school and that experience provided me with vital insight into the world of teenagers—the way they speak, the maturity and naïveté that are at war within them during those years, the tough exteriors that often hide vulnerabilities and insecurities. That understanding ended up being invaluable to me and I tapped into it quite a bit.

I imagined all of my characters as real people. It sounds simple enough but it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking of characters as characters and when that happens they tend to become a type. Real people are complex and what you see is rarely what you get. I tried to keep in mind how often we meet someone in real life and construct a set of expectations based on what we encounter on the surface only to learn that, once we delve further, there’s much more to them. I never wanted to leave my characters on that surface level.

Developing backstories, for not only the main characters but the secondary ones as well, was also key. Even knowing that much of what happened in those backstories would never make it into the actual book, it was important for me, as a writer, to know their pasts so that I could understand their motivations and behavior. Characters aren’t born the moment they appear on the page. They’ve lived lives before the story begins and those lives have created the people they are. A person’s past experiences impact how they think and view the world, which in turn affects their decisions and determines how they act and react to the situations they’re placed in.

Josh is very mature and sounds older than his years at times. Could you talk about him and the voice you found for his chapters?

Finding Josh’s voice was a bit of a balancing act because in some ways he’s older than his years and in others he’s very much the teenager he is. At one point in the text, Mrs. Leighton refers to Josh, saying that he, “may seem like a very old man sometimes…” and I think that’s true.  I thought of him as weighed down by experience.  He’s had to endure rites of passage that many adults haven’t even gone through yet and with every one of those losses he gets a little older and a little more alone.  The magnitude of what he’s gone through makes things like high school seem trivial and yet he simply goes on, going through the motions of day-to-day life mostly because it’s easier than having to give it any thought.  While Nastya rails against her lot in life with bitterness and anger, he dissolves into his with a sense of resignation and acceptance that what is, simply is.

His self-preservation mechanisms are also firmly in place. People leave him alone so he’s convinced himself that he wants it that way and accordingly developed the abrasiveness that we encounter when we first meet him. But while he may have a deep level of understanding when it comes to death and loss, underneath that he’s still a 17-year-old boy and he really doesn’t have the rest of it figured out, especially when it comes to relationships. He makes mistakes. He’s far from perfect. He still has growing up to do and we see some of that maturation happen throughout the book. His relationship with Nastya allows both of them to be the teenagers they should be—to go on dates, to fall in love, to have a little bit of the normalcy that many of us take for granted.

What were the challenges of writing a novel around a character who chooses not to speak?

The fact that Nastya didn’t speak was actually a challenge and a blessing at once. Readers tend to crave dialogue and it’s an invaluable tool in character creation and story momentum. When you lose that tool, you have to compensate. For me, it became about developing Nastya’s inner voice so that it was rich enough to hold a reader. You spend a great deal of time in her head, so I had to stay constantly aware of her thoughts and ensuring that they were building her character, letting the reader get to know her and giving them clues along the way—advancing and enlightening. Nastya made things a little easier on me though because she always had something going on in her head. She was opinionated and observant and the wheels never stopped turning. So even though she wasn’t speaking, she always had something to say.

The blessing of spending so much time in Nastya’s head is that I was able to paint a detailed picture of who she is while giving readers the means by which to understand and connect with her. The tricky part was that all of Nastya’s secrets also live in her head, and I couldn’t let them out too early. So it was a very delicate line I was walking—trying to keep the reveals coming at a steady pace, without giving away too much too soon.

How did you go about maintaining suspense for 448 pages, especially when the entire book is about two people? The pacing of the development of the central relationships and Nastya’s healing are perfect. Could you talk about your process?

I’m not sure I could call what I had a process. Much of the book was written by hand, out of order, in pieces and moments. I’d scribble it down in half-scenes and random lines of dialogue and visual images, not even realizing at the beginning that I would end up with a book. At one point, I sat down to write an outline but it was a laughable attempt. I ended up scrapping it and just continuing to do what I was doing.

Once I had the majority of the pieces down, I finally embarked on putting it into the computer and I remember looking at the blank screen and then at my husband and saying, “I don’t know where it starts.” That moment was almost paralyzing for me. I began rearranging and ordering everything I had on paper.  I knew the thematic thread that was going to carry it from beginning to end and I knew the character arcs which, in my mind, were the most important elements.  That thread and those arcs provided the real framework for me.  Then it was a matter of filling in the holes and connecting the dots.

As far as the reveals are concerned, many of them were small and subtle. I wanted the information to come at a steady pace so that you felt you were always getting a piece of the puzzle even if it didn’t make sense yet. There was a blog that did a structural breakdown of TSoT several months ago and the author used the term “Greteling” to describe how the information was disseminated throughout the book and I loved that. I thought it was such a visually descriptive way to discuss how the clues are dropped like breadcrumbs that the reader has to follow to make it to the end.

In terms of the pacing, much of that was determined by the characters. As their trust in each other gradually increased, so did the amount of information they were willing to part with. Josh’s secrets aren’t quite as dark and certainly not nearly as buried as Nastya’s, so I knew they would come out into the open first. When it came to both of their stories, I simply allowed the details to emerge organically in a way that mirrored the pace at which the relationship between them developed.

Your novel appeals equally to teen and adult readers. Why do you think that is? To what do you credit its crossover appeal?

I’ve been so thrilled with how the book seems to have taken hold with both teen and adult audiences. I think the crossover appeal can somewhat be credited to the universal themes at work in the book. While the characters may be teenagers, they’re dealing with situations and life events that often come later. There’s also the exploration of the concept of identity and figuring out who we are. I think that’s something that many of us, even as adults, still struggle with.

In addition, in its simplest form, it’s a love story; it’s a story of acceptance and growing up. At its core, the story is one of friendship and family, faith and fate, choices and chance and I believe those things transcend age barriers.

Please see the SLJ starred review of The Sea of Tranquility, published on the Adult Books 4 Teens blog.

Lee Wade and Anne Schwartz were up first, beginning with a new Daisy book from Caldecott winner Chris Raschka, Daisy Gets Lost (October). The whole room seemed to sigh as slides of the book’s lively illustrations took center stage. Rocket’s Mighty Words (July) by Tad Hills is meant to teach early language, and Dream Dog (September), written by Lou Berger and illustrated by David J. Catrow, will add to what will turn out to be a season full of cute canine offerings.

Brush of the Gods (June) by Leonore Look and illustrated by Meilo So, is an introduction to artist Wu Daozi; it’s already garnered four starred reviews. A completely different style of dazzling art can be seen in The Beginner’s Guide to Running Away from Home by Jennifer LaRue Huget, illustrated using wire and cloth by Red Nose Studio. Kids will want to figure out just how the illustrations were created.

Random House editor Maria Modugno got a bit teary introducing what she called her most important book yet, Snowflakes Fall (October), written by Patricia McLachlan and illustrated by Steven Kellogg. The tag line? “No two the same, all beautiful.”

The Random House imprint has also “gone to the dogs.” Readers will enjoy a dog’s-eye view of a day at school through poetry and photographs in Dog-Gone School (July), written by Amy Schmidt with photographs by Ron Schmidt. And in Bad Astrid, written by Eileen Brennan and illustrated by Regan Dunnick, the protagonist confronts the school bully; both characters are playfully represented as pups.

The Alfred A. Knopf imprint’s pitch began with—yes, you guessed it, a dog book! Dog Loves Counting (September) by Louise Yates follows Dog Loves Books and Dog Loves Drawing. Legend Anita Lobel is also back with Lena’s Sleep Sheep (August); the title says it all. And picture book offerings were rounded out by bullying expert Trudy Ludwig with The Invisible Boy (October).

Moving on to early literacy, Step into Reading is starting a new line of comic readers, incorporating speech balloons. Step into Reading is also introducing a new level 3 reader about Anne Frank. And Ruth Chew’s “witch” titles are coming back into print as Stepping Stone books.

The list of middle grade titles kicked off with the dystopian novel that started it all. Jeanne DuPrau’s The City of Ember is celebrating its 10th anniversary with a handsome new edition featuring a poster and a new short story. And for readers who love Wonder, check out Twerp by Mark Goldblatt, in which the bullying of a special-needs sixth-grade boy is recounted in short chapters with an accessible voice.

For pure fun, Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library (June), Chris Grabenstein’s book-based puzzles and scavenger hunt, make this into an ode to libraries. Action lovers should try the new post-apocalyptic thriller by Peggy Eddleman, Sky Jumpers (September).

Delacorte has a new middle-grade novel that its editors call “an exciting find.” Set in the 1959 segregated south, it follows an 11-year-old boy who is a great pitcher, but who stutters. Paperboy by Vince Vawter is being compared to The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird.

New Knopf middle-grade will include a trilogy of historical mysteries by Cynthia Voigt, starting with Mister Max: The Book of Lost Things (September). Equally intriguing are two other historically inspired books debuting in October, Will in Scarlet (October) by Matthew Cody, a Robin Hood origins story, and The Great Trouble by Deborah Hopkinson, based on the London cholera epidemic of 1854.  Although fiction, Hopkinson has included extensive back matter and primary source excerpts.

Wendy Lamb Books began its preview pitch with the movie tie-in version of The Watsons go to Birmingham, showing off photos from the movie set, and then shared a few novels, including Odessa Again by Dana Reinhardt, a YA author making her middle-grade debut, and a new Kevin Spencer novel, Vote, by Gary Paulsen. Both titles were released in May.

Random has several YA sequels debuting soon, including Untold (September), Sarah Rees Brennan’s sequel to Unspoken; Brian Falkner’s second Recon Team Angel novel, Task Force (September), and Sarah Zettel’s Golden Girl (June), a follow-up to the BFYA listed novel, Dust Girl.

Delacorte also made a big impression with its teen line-up. In the new Mistborn Trilogy by fantasy master Brandon Sanderson, Steelheart (September), the Epics took over earth 10 years before; now humans are ready to fight back and get revenge for the family members they lost. Lauren Kate is also introducing a new series, beginning with Teardrop (October) in which a 17-year-old Louisiana native’s tears have the power to raise Atlantis. James Dashner also begins a new trilogy about gamers and cyberterrorists with The Eye of Minds (October). And those are only the tip of the iceberg!

Nonfiction readers will enjoy the YA edition of Sonia Nazario’s immigrant story, Enrique’s Journey (August), which includes an update on Enrique’s attempts to be reunited with his mother.

Highlights in YA from Knopf includes Chasing Shadows (August) by Cybil Award winner Swati Avasthi incorporates graphic novel chapters to represent one character’s thoughts while in a coma, and David Levithan celebrates the 10th anniversary of Boys Meets Boy with Two Boys Kissing (August), based on a true incident of two boys trying to break the record for the longest kiss. Adele Griffin and Margo Lanagan both have new books coming from Knopf as well.

Listening Library, the Random House audiobook division, boasts a stellar line-up of new productions, including H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine (June) read by Derek Jacobi, an upcoming Kate DiCamillo middle-grade novel Flora & Ulysses: the Illuminated Adventures (with the print edition coming from Candlewick in September), and the much-loved novels of Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl (September), joining the already released and acclaimed Eleanor & Park.

The morning finished with a talk from guest author Robin Wasserman about her upcoming horror novel, The Waking Dark (Knopf, September). Robin shared how difficult she finds it to talk about her own writing, and especially about where her ideas might originate.

She also said that, as a teen, she babysat a great deal and lived in terror that something bad would happen on her watch. (Hint, hint: this ties in significantly with one of her characters in Waking Dark.) She also talked about how much reading horror helped her get through bad times at school. She believes that enjoying horror fiction is not about being scared, but about being brave.

After snacks and socializing and a peek at original picture book art from upcoming titles, small groups were formed and sent off to various conference rooms. Editors from each imprint rotated through the rooms, presenting to each group, now only 12–15 large. As you might imagine, it is a treat to hear about new books from the editors who worked on them, and in such an intimate setting.

From picture books to chapter books, early readers, graphic novels, middle grade and teen novels and nonfiction, the afternoon held delights in all areas. There were too many books to mention here, so I will share some of the highlights.

Picture books from veterans include This is Our House (Farrar, July) by Keats winner Hyewon Yum, a lovely reflection on immigration and the passage of the seasons. The book that generated the most enthusiasm in my group was Hello, My Name is Ruby (Roaring Brook, September) by Philip C. Stead, which shows echoes of P.D. Eastman’s Are You My Mother?

In recognition of the upcoming season, there was Fall Ball by Peter McCarty, full of lovely drawings. Snow was a feature of more than one title, including Big Snow (Farrar, September) by Jonathan Bean, which offered some welcome racial diversity.  When It Snows (Feiwel & Friends, August) by Richard Collingridge boasts illustrations reminiscent of The Polar Express.

Given that the event took place in a New York City landmark, it seemed only fitting to preview Herman and Rosie (Roaring Brook, October) by Gus Gordon, which celebrates the city and its music lovers. And there was much oohing and aahing over Princess Tales (Feiwel & Friends, October) by Grace Maccarone, which is illustrated by Gail de Marcken.

Middle-grade readers can look forward to a new novel from Jack Gantos, From Norvelt to Nowhere (FSG, September), and a novel from Cathrynne M. Valente, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (Feiwel & Friends, October). The Desperate Adventures of Zeno and Alya (Feiwel & Friends, October) by Jane Kelley offers a tearjerker about friendship.

And, most unusually, Uncrashable Dakota (Holt, November), by Andy Marino, presents a sort of alternate reality—it follows the 1912 liftoff of the airship Titanic. This would make a fascinating read-along with Deborah Hopkinson’s Titanic: Voices from the Disaster, as many facts about the actual Titanic are presented with just a slight difference in this fantasy.

Common Core was mentioned in conjunction with several books, including two nonfiction picture books: Eat Like a Bear (Holt, October) by April Pulley Sayre, wonderfully illustrated by Steve Jenkins, and A Single Pebble: A Story of the Silk Road (Roaring Brook, October) by Bonnie Christensen. For middle-grade students, The Mad Potter: George E. Ohr, Eccentric Genius by the fabulous Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan intrigued all listeners. Bill O’Reilly’s Kennedy’s Last Days gets a YA version from Holt in June, in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the assassination. This was touted as an exemplary adaptation from an adult title, with excellent back matter and a plethora of photographs.

ReaLITy—“Real Books for Real Teens”—is a program designed to shine a light on Macmillan’s realistic literary fiction. Upcoming titles in that program include Freakboy (Farrar, October) by Kristin Elizabeth Clark, a protégé of Ellen Hopkins, whose debut is a verse novel about a boy who, from the outside, seems to have it all. But on the inside he sometimes wishes he was a girl. Editor Joy Peskin spoke passionately about Freakboy’s potential to save the lives of transgender teens.

Another MacMillan YA literature initiative is Fierce Reads. New books joining the program in the fall include This Song Will Save Your Life (Farrar, September) by Leila Sales, about a girl who finds friendship and self-acceptance when she discovers DJing. Two much-anticipated sequels in this line were also announced, Monument 14: Sky on Fire (just released by Feiwel & Friends) by Emmy Laybourne, and Siege and Storm (Holt, June) by Leigh Bardugo, the follow-up to Shadow and Bone.

Editor Liz Szabla believes that she has found Julie Halpern’s breakout novel, and it’s called The F-It List (Feiwel & Friends, November) about a girl whose best friend is dying of cancer. Consider it a variation on a bucket list. And Tumble & Fall  (Farrar, September) by Alexandra Coutts is about how three teens choose to spend their last days in the face of an approaching apocalypse.

Last but certainly not least, First Second presented its fall 2013 graphic novels, an embarrassment of riches that begins with Boxers & Saints, a two-volume novel of China’s Boxer Rebellion by Gene Luen Yang, which can be read independently or purchased as a box set.

Coming in October, Battling Boy by Paul Pope (called “the Mick Jagger of comics”), which is perfect for Rick Riordan fans. And in August, Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff debuts; it’s described as Indiana Jones with a woman as the protagonist.

The story backs up to the beginning of September and switches to Amelia’s point of view. Her narration is interspersed with text messages, Facebook posts, and excerpts from a gossip blog. Readers learn about Amelia and her best friend, Sylvia; Amelia’s invitation to join a Grace Hall secret society, the Magpies; and the shocking lengths to which she goes to prove herself to the leaders of the “Maggies.”

Weeks after Sylvia’s death, Kate receives an anonymous text message, stating, simply, “Amelia didn’t jump.” From there the story accelerates, moving back and forth in time, between Kate’s investigation and Amelia’s last weeks. Many twists and turns follow, and readers won’t want to put this book down until they know just what happened on that roof, and why. Adult Books 4 Teens blogger Angela Carstensen talked with debut author Kimberly McCreight about Reconstructing Amelia (Harper, 2013).

The mixture of narrative voices and styles, including text messages and blog posts, is perhaps this novel’s greatest strength. Did you plan this from the beginning, or did your method of telling the story change as your worked progressed?

Every [unpublished] book I’ve ever written has been from multiple points of view and shifting time frames. There’s just something about that kind of storytelling that I find appealing. For me, this orchestral approach to narrative most accurately reflects how people experience situations and relationships. It’s never linear—not the events, not the memories, and certainly not the emotions.

The multimedia elements flowed from Amelia’s point of view. Once I was writing from the perspective of a teenage girl in 2013, it was only natural that she communicate in these various mediums and that they be as important sometimes as her face-to-face interactions. Moreover, to truly understand either a friendship built on texts or an electronic assault that can come at any hour, it helps to actually experience it that way as a reader. Plus, I just loved the idea of someone as bright and articulate as Amelia using her Facebook status updates to show her literary flourish. I like to imagine I might have done that if Facebook had been around when I was her age, but I’m not sure I’d have been that clever.

How did you work to differentiate Kate and Amelia’s voices?

Writing Kate in third person and Amelia in first helped to naturally distinguish them. I decided to put Amelia in first person to give her story greater immediacy. With Kate, I honestly wasn’t sure—as a mother—that I could handle writing about her grief in the first person. A little narrative distance seemed critical to doing justice to that kind of loss.

Beyond that, the voices simply came out very differently as I lived inside the two characters. I also edited the two threads separately. Once the first draft was finished, I worked on one voice at a time from beginning to end, starting with Kate then Amelia. And then, of course, I had to be on the lookout for the odd slip—like Kate saying “whatever.” It did happen occasionally in early drafts, but luckily it tended to jump off the page.

Why did you set the novel in a New York City private school? Did you attend a private school? If not, how did you go about researching that world?

Those decisions didn’t feel like choices so much as the way things already were. I often feel when I’m writing that I’m recording something that has already happened. That said, I did go to private school—a boarding school in Princeton, New Jersey—for high school. Even though it wasn’t an exact fit, I probably did feel a little more equipped to write about that kind of setting.

But so much of the novel is also informed by my experiences as a mother, and that has been shaped in large part by Park Slope, the Brooklyn neighborhood where I have raised both my daughters. I know what it feels like to be walking down a sidewalk and to hope that the ambulance that has just sped by isn’t racing to your child’s school. In the writing, it absolutely made everything feel more real to me, having it set here in Brooklyn.

I also did a fair amount of research into teens, their lives online as well as in person, including bullying and sexuality. I spoke with local private school students as well to find out how they spent their time away from school, where they hung out, how they communicated—texts, Facebook, IM-ing—and what they talked about.

Did you set out to write a book about bullying, or did you begin with the idea of writing a mystery about a teen suicide and the mother’s need to understand her daughter’s motivation?

The bullying aspect of the book developed from the characters. Once I was living inside Amelia’s skin and had developed the secondary characters, the rest of the story played out in its own, tragically inevitable way.

But you’re exactly right that I was first motivated by the notion of a mother trying to understand the profound loss of a child through a supposed suicide. As my children get older and are off on their own more in the world, I’m increasingly aware of how little I know about what goes on in their lives. And they’re still so young and they tell me a lot. Sometimes, I can’t get them to stop talking.

Yet, they leave things out. Not even on purpose, but occasionally, they’ll just say something innocently that hints at some larger narrative. I’ll find myself saying, “wait, back up, tell me more about that.” Next thing you know a whole story unfolds that I might not have otherwise known anything about if I’d been distracted for that split-second, which—believe me—happens all the time. They are young still, so these dramas are mostly innocuous, but already I can see how it would be so easy not to know things. Even when you’re trying so hard to know everything.

The reality is that as much as our children feel like they are part of us, they aren’t. Every day they chart their own little course in this world. They must, and it’s our job to help them do it. That’s awe-inspiring and beautiful—and utterly terrifying. 

Was there ever a point when you considered publishing this novel for the young adult market?

I do remember having coffee with a good writer friend after I was finished and telling her that I thought I might have written an adult-YA crossover. “Is there such a thing?” I remember asking. I wasn’t even sure. I never made a conscious decision to go for one market or another, I just wrote the book I had to write.

Would you consider secrets to be a central theme of the novel? I was struck by the number of secrets being kept by both adults and teens, from secrets of parentage to secrets of sexual orientation. And, of course, the secret society at the center of it all.

Secrets and their potentially toxic consequences are absolutely a central theme of Reconstructing Amelia. The best protection for children—whether it’s from bullying, or drugs, or depression—is a honest, trusting relationship with a parent or someone they’ll speak to when things go off the rails or reach out to before they go over that fateful ledge.

For me, that openness is a two-way street. For children to be willing to share the things they’re ashamed of—and often that includes being bullied or even being the bullier—they have to know that we won’t judge them, that our love is unconditional. That’s easier said than done, I know. Because words so often aren’t enough.

But I think it helps for them to know that we’re not perfect either. That we’ve made mistakes—loved the wrong person, been unkind to a friend, lied when we shouldn’t have, trusted when we knew better—but that we survived. And that they will too.

Please see the SLJ review of Reconstructing Amelia, published on the Adult Books 4 Teens blog at http://blogs.slj.com/adult4teen/2013/04/03/weekly-reviews-debut-novels/.

BEAUMAN , Ned. The Teleportation Accident. 357p. Bloomsbury. Feb. 2013. Tr $25. ISBN 978-1-62040-022-7. LC 2012038374.
Adult/High School–Beauman’s deliriously complex, tremendously funny second novel follows the travails of Egon Loeser (looks like “loser”; sounds like “lesser”) as he chases a girl named Adele Hitler from Berlin to Paris to Los Angeles. That he is leaving Berlin just as that other A. Hitler is coming to power means nothing to the staunchly (naively, frustratingly) apolitical Loeser, who is much more concerned with mounting a stage production about a 17th-century set designer. Lavicini’s most famous creation was the Teleportation Device, which rearranged sets with frightening speed before ultimately causing an explosion that may or may not have killed Lavicini and several dozen audience members. Loeser wants to re-create Lavicini’s machine for his play, only to find, when he moves to Los Angeles, a physicist there who thinks Lavicini may have actually invented teleportation and wants to re-create that. This fixation on doubling, re-creation, and representation drives the heart of the novel, as Beauman over and over again probes the boundary, and the direction of causation, between signifier and signified. At the same time, Beauman keeps his character’s and his novel’s self-importance in check by constantly confronting them with the specter of politics, in the form of the Nazis and the resolutely unmentioned Holocaust. This is a challenging, thought-provoking, sometimes mind-bending novel, but it is also a hilarious one, and it should be recommended to any teen who can make it through Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 (Harper Perennial, 2006).–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

BENJAMIN , Melanie. The Aviator’s Wife: A Novel. 402p. Delacorte. Feb. 2013. Tr $26.. ISBN 9780345528674.
Adult/High School–It is 1927, and Anne is home for the holidays in Mexico where her father is the U.S. Ambassador, expecting to relax. But dashing Charles Lindbergh is also visiting. Everyone worships him, Anne included. All of the Morrows expect Anne’s beautiful older sister to interest him, but it is Anne who catches his attention. The two bond during a late night flight and long car rides; it isn’t long before he asks her to marry him. They are revered as “the couple” to follow. They fly airplanes all over the world and have fabulous adventures. Everywhere they go they are courted and admired. The birth of their son, Charles, caps their popularity until one day, at 18 months of age, he is kidnapped, only to be found dead weeks later. Their blessed life is shattered. Searching for solitude, they head to Europe where they meet with world leaders. Examining the growing German air force, Charles becomes enamored with Hitler, until his aggression becomes clearly apparent. Anne and Charles return home determined to serve their country against this threat. But as Charles finds solace in activity, Anne searches inward and devotes herself to raising their children, and to writing. Time, separation, and Charles’s obsessive nature strain their marriage. Told as flashbacks in the style of a memoir, The Aviator’s Wife is a compelling read. Given its memoir format, it is also a challenge to know what is truth and what is fiction. This is the story of a marriage, and teens will gain insight not only into a slice of American history, but also inside the world of two incredibly fascinating people.–Connie Williams, Petaluma High School, CA

BRADLEY , Alan. Speaking from Among the Bones: A Flavia de Luce Novel. 400p. Delacorte. Jan. 2013. Tr $24. ISBN 978-0-385-34403-6.
Adult/High School–Flavia de Luce, the brilliant and fearless 11-year-old detective first introduced in  Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Delacorte, 2009), stars in her fifth novel set in 1950s England. Each novel can stand alone, but Flavia fans will savor new details revealed about her family. The de Luce family lives in a rambling but shabby estate that soon may be lost due to Father’s continued financial woes. Flavia’s incredible sleuthing skills and her vast knowledge of chemistry are put to the test once again as she discovers the dead body of the missing church organist. So begins the mystery that involves a diamond, an impressive cast of eccentric characters, and the exhumation of the patron saint of the church. Flavia feels “torn apart from the inside” with the changes that happen to her family and is emotionally confused by the sporadic closeness she feels with her sisters. Bradley’s knack for period detail, his plot twists and turns, and his great humor will charm Flavia fans, mystery readers, and those who love an endearing and cunning heroine. The stunning ending leaves readers wanting more.–Jane Ritter, Mill Valley School District, CA

BRODY , Frances. A Medal for Murder: A Kate Shackleton Mystery. 432p. Minotaur. Feb. 2013. Tr $25.99. ISBN 9780312622404.
Adult/High School–Desperate for cases for her fledgling investigating firm, Kate Shackleton takes on an innocuous job involving a fairly petty theft. It takes her to the wealthy community of Harrogate where she stumbles across two more crimes, a murder and a missing person, which–in a neat change-up for the genre–may have less to do with each other than first appears. What all three eventually prove to have in common is a connection with three retired soldiers from the Second Boer War, one of whom has been dead for 20 years, another of whom is the murder victim. Though initially reluctant, Shackleton eventually gets involved in all three cases, with some time set aside for romance with a detective from Scotland Yard. Brody breaks from Shackleton’s first-person narrative to give readers just enough information so as not to fall into the common trap of overwhelming the novel’s ending with exposition. And these separate perspectives help highlight the sensitive portrayal of the devastation of the Boer Wars, and the class and ethnic conflicts it caused both in South Africa and back home in England. With its post-World War I setting and its heroine a former nurse with a lost love, the novel’s similarities to  Winspear’s “Maisie Dobbs” books may be a bit too close for comfort for some readers. But more forgiving readers should realize that the period and themes in question are rich enough to fill several series, and Brody’s elegant prose and attention to gently pushing back at genre conventions make this novel (and series) a more than welcome entry.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

BUCHANAN , Cathy Marie. The Painted Girls. 368p. Riverhead . Jan. 2013. Tr $26.95. ISBN 978-1-59448-624-1. LC 2012038433.
Adult/High School–Told in alternating chapters, beginning in 1878, this is the story of two sisters who are a part of the Paris Opera Ballet. Based on known facts of the van Goethem sisters’ early lives, the novel spans four years, beginning when Antoinette is 17 and Marie is 13. Living in abject poverty with a mother who is never without her bottle of absinthe, Antoinette acts the mother to her sisters (there’s also Charlotte, not yet 8); she longs to be the “shield that keeps them from the harshness of the world.” Things begin to unravel when Antoinette falls for Emile, a hustler and thief who ultimately goes on trial for two murders. Marie, working her way up the ballet ranks, catches not only the eye of Edgar Degas, who hires her as a model for many years, but also a wealthy ballet patron who uses her for his sexual pleasures. The gulf between the sisters grows, and it is after Antoinette’s arrest for theft and during her sentence that she transforms her life and knows she must save Marie, who has stepped through a door to a “ruined life.” The end skips ahead 14 years, and one is left with a lasting impression of sisterly love and redemption. This is a beautifully told and utterly captivating story replete with historical detail, primary-source material, and distinctly drawn characters that will transport readers to Paris in the late 1800s.–Jane Ritter, Mill Valley School District, CA

CELONA , Marjorie. Y. 272p. Free Pr. Jan. 2013. Tr $24.99. ISBN 9781451674385.

Adult/High School–This moving debut novel is narrated by Shannon, who was left at the front door of the YMCA in Victoria, B. C., when she was just a few days old. She spends the first five years of her life with various foster families, and then is adopted by a single woman with a daughter about Shannon’s age. As she moves into her teenage years, she finds herself wondering why? Why was she abandoned? Why can’t she quite fit in anywhere? Why does she have crazy blond curls and a lazy eye? Why did one of her foster fathers physically abuse her? Why does her adopted sister ignore her? Shannon’s story is interspersed with the story of another teenager, her mother, Yula, whose life was falling apart just at the moment that Shannon was born. Their stories converge, as Shannon learns the truth, finally meets both of her birth parents, and comes to realize that her own life is not as desperate as she might once have thought. Teens will be drawn into this story of two girls: one who is determined and resourceful, who makes mistakes but never abandons the sense of self that sits at her core; the other who means well but can’t manage to control her own life and allows events to overtake her, resulting in tragedy.–Sarah Flowers, formerly of Santa Clara County Library, CA

CLARK , Mary Jane. Footprints in the Sand: A Piper Donovan Mystery. 372p. Morrow. Jan. 2013. Tr $25.99. ISBN 9780062135445. LC 2012041240.
Adult/High School–Piper Donovan is back to solve another murder with a fabulously implausible connection to a wedding. This time she is the maid of honor at her cousin’s wedding in Florida when one of the bridesmaids turns up dead, followed shortly by an attempted murder on a potential witness, another possibly related murder, and a mysterious suicide. Piper’s attention is divided among her role in the wedding, supporting her cousin; the ever increasing body count; and the impending meeting between her parents and her new boyfriend (conveniently an FBI agent). As in the other Piper Donovan mysteries, Clark keeps the pace lightning fast and the suspense high through exceedingly brief chapters that change perspective among all the major players, including the murderer (though his identity is kept safely secret). Though Clark’s prose can be too utilitarian, with dialogue tending to the expositional, the clockwork precision of her plot can only be admired, and her characters, particularly Piper’s parents, shine through. Clark is not the equal of, say, Alan Bradley, but this novel and the previous one in the series are still excellent recommendations for teen fans of cozy mysteries.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

COADY , Lynn. The Antagonist. 304p. Knopf. Jan. 2013. Tr $25.95. ISBN 9780307961358.
Adult/High School–Finding himself portrayed as a character in a college friend’s novel and feeling deeply misrepresented, Gordon Rankin begins sending Adam a flurry of emails to set the record straight. In order to do so, he must tell the story of his teens, from when puberty turned him into a six-foot-four bruiser at 14 to the incident from college which Adam has written about. Rank’s story, bracketed as it is by two moments of heartbreakingly accidental violence, is one of a man-boy who cannot be comfortable in his oversized body. While this affecting story makes up the primary plot, Coady keeps a tight grip on the frame story, so that the 40-year-old Rank and Adam’s novel are as present as the teenaged Rank and Adam. Many thoughtful writers have pondered the relationship between their fictional characters and the real people upon whom they are based, but Coady stands out for the multiple layers of truth she is able to make evident: even as Rank’s understanding of the complexities of Adam’s position as novelist grows, readers begin to see the holes and omissions in Rank’s own account. Teens will be easily drawn into Rank’s story of drugs, violence, and hormones, but they may come away with much more to think about.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy, Vallejo, CA

CONKLIN , Tara. The House Girl. 336p. Morrow. Feb. 2013. Tr $25.99. ISBN 9780062207395; ebook ISBN 9780062207524.
Adult/High School–Lina Sparrow,  an ambitious young attorney assigned to a slavery reparations case, is tasked with finding the right lead plaintiff to bring action against corporations that benefitted from slave labor. Lina’s artist father points out a possibility rooted in a controversy currently brewing in the art world: many art historians believe a house slave named Josephine is really responsible for the beautiful, sensitive portraits of slaves that have been credited to Lu Anne Bell, Josephine’s “missus.” A descendant of Josephine’s could be the person the lawsuit needs to demonstrate the lasting negative effects of past wrongs. Told in sections alternating between Lina’s and Josephine’s stories, Conklin does a brilliant job of crafting the plot, artfully building links between Lina’s case and Josephine’s life. Her description of Lina’s work to build the case examines the long-term harm of slavery in a fresh and analytical way. She uses a critical eye in examining self service disguised as public service and handles complex issues of race deftly. Although there is no fair comparison between the lives of a well-paid attorney and a house slave, Lina’s growth in the face of uncovered deception in her own life in some ways parallels Josephine’s heroic decisions, limited as her options may have been. Teens will be drawn in by the exploration of familial relationships, questionable decisions made in the interest of self protection, and facing the difference between wanting the truth and accepting the truth.–Carla Riemer, Claremont Middle School, CA

DJANIKIAN , Ariel. The Office of Mercy. 320p. Viking. Feb. 2013. Hardcover $26.95. ISBN 9780670025862.
Adult/High School–In this coming-of-age-after-the apocalypse story, it has been 305 years since the Alphas took control of a deteriorating world by eliminating most of its 59 billion citizens and starting over in high-tech domed underground cities. Natasha lives in America-Five, where she works in the Office of Mercy. Her job is to watch the monitors that scan the Outside and put into practice the values of her society: World Peace, Eternal Life, and All Suffering Ended. To these ends, when the Office of Mercy discovers tribes living outside–remnants of the extra-settlement survivors of what the Alphas call “the Storm”–they grant them mercy by “sweeping” them in order to end their inevitable suffering. The problem is that Natasha has a hard time maintaining the necessary “Wall” in her mind that prevents her from having “Misplaced Empathy” with the tribespeople who are swept. Then one day she is assigned to a team to go Outside to mop up the stragglers from the last sweep. While there, she has an encounter with tribespeople that changes her life and her perceptions about what is true and what is right. Teens will be drawn to this compelling story that goes beyond the typical dystopia by creating a world in which there are no clear distinctions between good and evil. It is a tightly written piece of speculative fiction that poses–but doesn’t answer–questions about the ethics of survival and the far-reaching consequences that one person’s actions can have.–Sarah Flowers, formerly at Santa Clara County Library, CA

DOBYNS , Stephen. The Burn Palace. 480p. Blue Rider Press. Feb. 2013. Tr $$26.95. ISBN 9780399160875.
Adult/High School–Brewster, RI, is a small, sleepy town until a baby is stolen from the neonatal unit and replaced with a corn snake. Then a visiting insurance investigator is stabbed and scalped. Soon there are competing police jurisdictions and several widely divergent lines of inquiry, at the heart of which are state troopers Woody and Bobby. How these mysteries are related to “The Burn Palace”–the nickname one of the workers gives to the local crematorium–is only revealed at the end of this wonderfully written book. The characters are well drawn, from Hercel and his “magic tricks” to Baldo and his penchant for practical jokes; from Carl Krause, suffering from lycanthropic schizophrenia, to Nurse Spandex and the many others that Dobyns introduces  as the various, seemingly disparate problems plaguing Brewster start to intertwine. As the two strongest characters, Woody and Bobby, are drawn deeper into the lives of the townspeople, their investigation encompasses the differences between coyotes and coywolves, Wicca and Satanism, and how body parts are harvested. It’s the last that leads to the thread that unravels the entire mystery. Especially interesting is the writing style, which ranges from suspenseful “you are there” passages to chapters reminiscent of the narrator from Our Town’s remote tone. The Burn Palace is a horror/mystery, blending the best of both genres and a perfect read for a dark winter evening.–Laura Pearle, Center for Fiction, New York City

MOYES , Jojo. Me Before You. 369p. Pamela Dorman: Viking. Dec. 2012. Tr $27.95. ISBN 9780670026609.
Adult/High School–Louisa Clark, 26,  lives a sheltered life in a small English village. She still lives with her working-class family in a cramped house. She’s had the same mundane job for six years, and mediocre boyfriend for seven. But when the tea shop she works at abruptly shutters, Lou’s comfortable routine is gone, along with the earnings her family depends on. Applying for a position as a caregiver for a disabled man, she expects an elderly patient. What she finds instead is handsome, 30-something Will Traynor, former firm partner, world traveler, and bon vivant, left a wheelchair-bound quadriplegic following a devastating accident. Sarcastic and indifferent, Will has little interest in spending time with talkative, earnest Lou. He’s trapped inside a body that requires constant, intrusive medical care just to keep him alive. And at this point, he’s convinced that it’s not a life worth living. Lou’s broken in a different way, psychologically scarred by an event she’s never discussed. Moyes does a masterful job at slowly building a relationship between Will and Lou that transcends that of caretaker and patient,as the two get to know and appreciate one another, each expanding the other’s world. As they begin to fall in love, Lou becomes ever more determined to give Will reason to embrace life as it is. Me Before You is a spectacular, unconventional love story to savor, with well-developed, relatable characters. Give this dialogue-driven tearjerker to teens who enjoyed John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012) or Matthew Quick’s The Silver Linings Playbook (Farrar, 2008).–Paula J. Gallagher, Baltimore County Public Library, MD

SHORT , Sharon. My One Square Inch of Alaska. 336p. Plume: Penguin Group (USA). Feb. 2013. pap. $16. ISBN 9780452298767.
Adult/High School–In September 1953, Donna Lane has little idea of the twists and turns her senior year will hold. She’s been doing her best to take care of her 10-year-old brother Will, working to help support her family, and put a little away so she can move to New York after graduation. Their mother died of cancer several years before, and their father is largely absent or drinking. Will is a good kid whose goal in life is to finish 10 boxes of Marvel Puffs cereal so he can enter and win the contest for a deed to “One Square Inch of Alaska.” But, as elderly MayJune says, “the biggest turns in life come when you’re paying the least attention, making small choices you don’t yet know will change everything.” Donna allows her brother to take breakfast leftovers to Trusty, an abused dog chained up across town. She agrees to skip school with her best friend, Babs, thereby meeting Jimmy–the wealthy son of the town’s mill owner. And she applies to sit as a model for her art teacher to earn extra money. What begins as a rather lighthearted, straightforward coming-of-age novel gains a deeper edge when Donna realizes that she has the talent to pursue fashion design, hears the surprising truth about her mother, and learns that Will’s fainting spells are due to more than poor nutrition. Will kidnaps Trusty following a particularly brutal beating, which sets off a cross-country journey that turns increasingly perilous. One can only wonder why this novel was not published as young adult. An affecting read, appropriate for even the youngest high school audiences.–Angela Carstensen, Convent of the Sacred Heart, New York City

PERRY , Thomas. The Boyfriend. 288p. Mysterious Pr.: Grove/Atlantic. Mar. 2013. Tr $25. ISBN 9780802126061.
Adult/High School–Perry’s latest novel begins as a fairly typical PI-procedural, with ex-police officer Jack Till searching for the killer of a high-end escort.  But as Till quickly realizes that the murder is just one in a series, and just as quickly deduces the reasoning behind the killings, the narrative abruptly switches to the killer himself, where Perry relates not only his identity but much more about his background and psychology than readers ever learn about Till.  From this point, the narrative becomes a cat-and-mouse game between the two as Till chases the killer throughout the country, getting ever closer to him.  Perry’s take on the killer’s perspective is hardly unique, but it is still impressive how much sympathy he is able to generate for a man who is essentially a sociopath.  And though Perry never explicitly endorses a moral equivalence between the two antagonists, readers cannot help but notice certain similarities in their thinking, and especially in their detailed knowledge and love of firearms.  With its casual murder and sex, and hard-boiled take on police work and death, this is a book that evokes some of the grittier Coen Brothers films–a nearly existentialist style that many teens will love.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

ST. JAMES , Simone. An Inquiry into Love and Death. 336p. NAL. Mar. 2013. pap. $14.00. ISBN 978-0-451-23925-9. LC 2012027265.
Adult/High School–St. James, author of  The Haunting of Maddy Clare (NAL, 2012), returns to that novel’s 1920s ghost-hunting world with a new cast of characters. Jillian Leigh is summoned to a tiny village in Devonshire to identify the body and collect the belongings of her ghost-hunting Uncle Toby, who has died in a seeming accident. She quickly makes the acquaintance of a dashing Scotland Yard detective and together they decide that Toby was murdered and that the ghost he was hunting, the spirit of a centuries-old bootlegger, is real. As Jillian digs deeper, she realizes that she may be at the heart of at least one of these mysteries herself. St. James’s prose can be maddeningly uneven, veering from gorgeous to awkward far too frequently, and her mystery falters a bit near the end, failing to cohere the way readers might hope. Nevertheless, with its historical mystery, romance, cursed ghost, and crumbling vicarage, the novel brings to mind some of the best elements of Elizabeth Fama’s Monstrous Beauty (Farrar, 2012), without the mermaids. And while St. James cannot match Fama’s prose or deftly constructed mystery, her fans should find more than enough to love in this novel.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

WINSPEAR , Jacqueline. Leaving Everything Most Loved. 352p. (Maisie Dobbs Series). Harper . Mar. 2013. Tr $26.99. ISBN 9780062049605; ebook ISBN 9780062049629. LC 2013000915.
Adult/High School–Still reeling from the horrible attack on her assistant Billy and her inability to bring a murderer to justice in Elegy for Eddie (HarperCollins, 2012), and unsure of her relationship with too-wealthy James Compton, private investigator Maisie Dobbs wants nothing more than to travel the world and take stock of her life. But when Scotland Yard brings her the case of a murdered Indian governess, whose race and class seem to have caused her case to be mishandled, Maisie must see that justice is done. Meanwhile, as Billy’s head-injury leaves him more and more confused, Maisie also takes on his work, tracking down a missing teen. Against all odds, the cases seem to be connected, and Maisie soon finds herself entangled in loose ends and too many suspects. Winspear handles the intertwined mysteries with all of the grace her fans have come to expect, but the real attraction here is the sensitive portrayal of immigrant life in London in the 1930s. Maisie becomes entranced by the victim and her community and neither she nor  readers can help but contrast them with Maisie’s boyfriend and his powerful business partner, who Maisie knows has gotten away with murder. Though this is the 10th in the “Maisie Dobbs” series, it requires no knowledge of the prior volumes, and indeed Winspear’s fantastically light touch with exposition is one of the novel’s many strengths.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

Nonfiction

FU , Ping & Mei Mei Fox. Bend, Not Break: A Life in Two Worlds. 288p. Portfolio Press. Dec. 2012. Tr $27.95. ISBN 978-1-591-84552-2. LC 2012035389.
Adult/High School–Exiled from her homeland, China, Fu was 25 years old when she landed at a New Mexico airport with no money or connections and nowhere to go. Kidnapped and held hostage in a home with two children whom she is supposed to take care of, she only knew three English words. She yelled one of them–Help!–which brought police to her rescue. At 8, Fu lived a beautiful life in Shanghai until Mao’s Cultural Revolution labeled her family an enemy of the state and she was forcibly taken to live in a trash filled dorm room with a little sister she barely knew. After years of abuse, including a gang rape at age 10 and factory work at age 15, the Revolution wound down and she was able to pursue more independent interests. Her research and writing about China’s One Child policy landed her 4 black marks, which effectively sealed her fate as an enemy of the state. Fu ultimately became highly successful in America; she was part of the team that created Netscape and CEO of her own company. The book alternates chapters about her childhood in China with those about her time in America, using clean, clear, action filled prose, which will keep teens interested. She later focuses more on her startup business. Teens interested in entrepreneurship, international business and technology, and already hooked into the narrative of her life and resilience, will keep reading to the end, where more is revealed, including the fact that a bureaucrat risked her own life to assist Fu in escaping to America.–Amy Cheney, Alameda County Library, Juvenile Hall, CA

LAPSLEY , Phil. Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell. 416p. index. Grove. Feb. 2013. Tr $25.00. ISBN 978-0-8021-2061-8. LC 2012041240.
Adult/High School–In 1955, when AT&T was essentially the only phone company in America, a teenager in Knoxville, TN discovered that if he played a certain tone into his telephone at the right moment he could have virtually unlimited access to AT&T’s phone network, including the ability to place free long-distance calls. It was a bug that was rediscovered again and again by techie teens over the next 20 years, teens who eventually became known as “phone phreaks.” In almost every case their motivation was essentially curiosity–they very rarely had real calls to make; rather, they were interested in how the phone system worked and what they could do with it, much like the majority of computer hackers of today. Nevertheless, as AT&T became aware of the increasing numbers of phone phreaks, phreaking slowly shifted from a fun, harmless hobby into a torturous cat-and-mouse game with AT&T, often ending in prosecutions and jail time. Lapsley more than ably conveys the nuances of this fascinating slice of technological history, even if he sometimes lapses into a too-cute phrase or two. And his enlightening new interviews with most of the major phreaks as well as AT&T security officers form one of the most significant levels of his tremendous research. Fans of Brian Falkner’s Brain Jack (Random, 2009), Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (Crown 2011), and other hacker tales, along with anyone who’s ever tried to liberate their iPhone, should be fascinated even before Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak show up to bridge the transition from phone phreaks to computer geeks.–Mark Flowers, John F. Kennedy Library, Vallejo, CA

Rod Belcher has written a completely entertaining (and teen-friendly) genre-blending combination of Western, horror, fantasy, and good old coming-of-age (not to mention a nice dose of humor).

And it seems we haven’t heard the last of Golgotha.

Why did you use 15-year-old Jim as the entry-point for your novel?

The original idea was to use the sheriff as my main character and have him cross the 40-Mile on his way to Golgotha—it was kind of his origin story and his introduction to Golgotha. The chapters I tried like that really didn’t work out well and didn’t flow. So I scrapped that idea. When I began working on the novel again, I came up with the idea of Jim Negrey and his father’s eye and how that related to the bigger story. Jim started off as much less of a developed character and ended up becoming the kind of glue that helps make all these disparate characters and plots come together. I have a 16-year-old son and an 11-year-old daughter, and I see a lot of them both in Jim Negrey—they are amazing people and I see so many great life-affirming qualities in them, and I tried to give those youthful eyes to Jim. Jim sees the world with fresh eyes, and he is basically the kind of person I think most of us would like to be like—trusting, kind, loyal, and brave. When I see those qualities in my children, I am so very proud of them.

In this novel, you combine many different creation myths, as well as religious and folklore traditions—Chinese, Native American, Mormon, Lilith, and Biblical among them.  Why creation mythology?

The Big Bad in Golgotha has an origin that is intrinsically connected with creation mythology. I think it’s strange that I’ve had a few folks seemingly hung up on me using Christian imagery. Each mythology that is explored in Six-Gun has its own take on what the Wurm is, where it comes from, and what it represents.Death and cessation of being are universal concepts—all things tend to entropy. I think it’s fascinating to see how similar the fundamental principles of human existence are, regardless of the trappings or the cultural bias. It is the unique variations on the same universal stories (creation, end of the world, the great flood myths, etc.) that make them so vibrant and fascinating.

One of the things about this novel that will appeal to teens is the clever combination of genres. What inspired this mash-up? What do you count as some of your most important influences, or favorite titles or authors?

I love Grant Morrison, a Scottish author who does a lot with comics. He has a massive imagination full of amazing ideas. He is a huge influence on me. I enjoy Roger Zelazny very much—I’d LOVE to play in his Amber universe. By the way, The Chronicles of Amber would make an amazing film series, and I have had an idea for years of how to do a YA version of Amber. I’d say a few other influences on Six-Gun include Robert Parker, Ambrose Bierce (who may make an appearance in a future Golgotha novel), Larry McMurtry, Tony Hillerman, Mary Shelley, Stephen King, and Alan Moore.

The mash-up is really just kind of how I think and write. I write what I think of as fun or cool. If I get an idea and it comes from two very different places, I see no problem with putting those things side by side, regardless of their genre. I guess I’m just lucky that style seems to work for me! I think humor is a natural offshoot of horror, a natural defense against it. What happens in any scary movie after the moment of shock or terror? Laughter rolls through the theater. Humor is mankind’s greatest defense against the terrors the universe shows us.

Why did you set the story in the Wild West?

I loved cowboys as a kid. I used to play at being them all the time. I wanted to be Jim West on The Wild, Wild West, and I wanted to be the Rifleman. I think the Western embodies the human desire for freedom and self-determination, to shake off the yoke of oppressive society and rules and regulations.  We secretly yearn for a little barbarism—just a little, not anarchy and the terror it embraces, but just a way of life where you control your own destiny and you don’t always have someone looking over your shoulder. I chose the Wild West because I loved the idea of the incongruity of all this insane stuff happening in this kind of cliché-filled traditional Western setting. It makes for humor, and it also makes for seeing something old in a new way, and that is at the heart of good writing, in my opinion.

I found the way you managed the large battle scenes in the last quarter of the book particularly interesting, with the action shifting abruptly from character to character or confrontation to confrontation.

I tend to “see” things very visually as I write. I try to convey what I see to my readers. I have heard that I produce very vivid pictures for the reader, and I’m very glad I can do that for some folks. I see the action like a movie or a play. The real challenge is to not get too bogged down in the details of the description, because I am not working in a visual medium—I’m working with telepathy, of a sort, and I need to balance my view of what I see with the pacing and rhythm of the words to make it accurate, vivid, and exciting to the reader. It helps to try to see the story as music and be mindful of the beat, the pacing, and the emotional impact the ‘song’ you are writing has on the listener (reader).

You once ran a comics bookstore. Have you considered featuring Golgotha and its inhabitants in a graphic novel format? Or are you considering a sequel to The Six-Gun Tarot?

(c) David Hungate of Dominion Images

I have had a few people tell me they could see the novel as a graphic novel. That gets back to the level of description I try to provide, I think. I’d love to see that happen—I‘d love to write comics. If I had my choice of artists for The Six-Gun Tarot, it would be Ben Templesmith. I love his work.

I am at work on a sequel to The Six-Gun Tarot. I have a lot of tales I could still write in the Golgotha universe, and I hope I get chance to tell them. The working title of the new Golgotha book I’m working on is The 32 Killers of Golgotha. It is full of the weird and the cool.

See the SLJ review at Adult Books 4 Teens.

What did people discuss during all this socializing? One topic: How reading, by nature a solitary occupation, can also be a social one. Educational technology consultant Linda W. Braun’s Saturday morning session, “Social Reading: Inside the Ebook Book Discussions,” examined the ways that talking about books creates connection among readers. And while sharing one’s enthusiasm on social reading site Goodreads is terrific, those exchanges happen outside the book.

Enter social reading within Ereaders. Typically, reading an Ebook allows for highlights, note-taking, and sharing on Twitter and Facebook from within the book. Braun showed her audience iPad apps that take social reading a few steps further. First, she introduced two book apps—Wonders of the Universe by Brian Cox (a 3-D tour of the universe, which Braun sees as the future of nonfiction) and Cupcakes! (an app for creating virtual cupcakes; the future of cookbooks).

Braun then introduced two free reading apps—Inkling (allows for purchasing a chapter of a book at a time, the creation of reading groups, and private or public notes) and Kno (a textbook app that provides detailed sharing options perfect for study groups).

David Levithan speaks at the YALSA Lit Symposium in St. Louis. Photo by Emily Goodknight.

But the bulk of the discussion focused on the Subtext app. Subtext allows for the creation of groups, the easy purchase of one title for a group of readers, the side-loading of EPUB titles onto the app (including original student work, for example) and extensive sharing features. It is not only possible to highlight and add notes to the original text, the reader can also tag those notes, mark notes as spoilers, keep notes private, or turn off the notes feature altogether. Every attendee of the session left with a code granting access to a free copy of Steve Hamilton’s (Alex Award-winning) novel The Lock Artist (Minotaur Books, 2010) and the ability to join a reading group to begin November 10th.

This opens up myriad possibilities for both classroom and literature circles. Using Subtext, teachers and librarians can be right in the story with teen readers. Teachers are able to insert questions within the text and implement a setting that cloaks other student replies until the reader has posted themselves. An in-the-book discussion could level the playing field for students who are slow processors. They could read at their own pace at home, taking their time answering questions within the text, yet still feel part of the discussion.

There’s great potential for book club discussions as well. Book club members unable to attend their meetings could still participate in the discussion within the book. Other uses? Prepping for author visits, sharing creative writing projects, peer editing, sharing alternative endings–the list goes on. In sum, Subtext allows librarians to be part of the reading experience. It’s all about building relationships with teen patrons.

On Saturday afternoon, Rollie Welch, collections manager at the Cleveland Public Library, led the session “Classic Literature vs.21st Century Novels: Survival of the Fittest.” The purpose was to share ideas for persuading adults who work with teens to move beyond assigning or recommending classics that rarely appeal to teen readers.

Earlier this year, at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, Welch led a pre-conference session in which the attendees chose the one book that every teen should be assigned to read in 2057. In other words, what contemporary YA books will survive as a classic? (At that session, it came down to a tie between Laurie Anderson’s Speak (Farrar Straus Giroux, 1999) and Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief (Picador, 2005)).

The YA Lit Symposium session really got rolling when Welch shared 15 theme areas. For each area, he began with a classic novel typically assigned in school, then offered a contemporary novel and a nonfiction title on the same theme. Audience members had a wonderful time recommending alternatives and applauding their favorites. For example, for the theme of “Young Soldiers at War,” rather than assigning The Red Badge of Courage, why not try Craig Crist-Evans’s Amaryllis (Candlewick, 2003) or Evan Wright’s Generation Kill (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2004)? In the Mystery category, rather than The Hound of the Baskervilles, consider Rick Yancey’s The Monstrumologist (S&S, 2010), or Richard Jones’s Jack the Ripper: The Casebook (Andre Deutsch, 2009). Rather than Robert Lipsyte’s The Contender (Harper & Row, 1967), try Paul Volponi’s Black and White (Viking, 2005) or Brian Shields’s The WWE Encyclopedia: The Definitive Guide to World Wrestling Entertainment (DK, 2009).

Welch believes that at least three on his list of classics will still be read and enjoyed by today’s teens–The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Even so, he offered Printz Award winner, Ship Breaker (Little, Brown 2010) by Paolo Bacigalupi as an alternative to the latter in the category of “Hero’s Journey of Self Discovery.”

The YA Lit Symposium is held every other year. The 2014 conference will be held in Austin, TX, over the Halloween weekend.

Angela Carstensen is Head Librarian and an Upper School Librarian at Convent of the Sacred Heart in New York City. She also blogs at Adult Books 4 Teens. Angela served on the Alex Awards committee for four years, chairing the 2008 committee, and chaired the first YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adult committee in 2009. Recently, she edited Outstanding Books for the College Bound: Titles and Programs for a New Generation (ALA Editions, 2011). Contact her via Twitter @AngeReads.

June Elbus is 14 when she finds out that her uncle Finn, the one person in the world who seems to understand her, is dying of AIDS. June is devastated when he dies, and wary when she’s approached by Finn’s longtime partner, Toby. She’d never met Toby before—in fact, her mother had insisted that Finn keep him a secret. June and Toby’s new friendship is fragile, but one that leads to healing and understanding for each of them.

Why did you set the story in 1987, a time when there was such a stigma surrounding AIDS? 

I’m not sure the ’80s setting was really a choice. I started out with the idea of a dying uncle painting a final portrait of his niece. I didn’t know that the disease he had was AIDS until later on in the writing process. Once I understood that, it seemed natural that the story would take place in the ’80s. Setting it at a time when so little was known about the disease and when fear was rampant seemed the most interesting way to approach it. Narrator June’s uncle Finn dies just before AZT—the first real treatment for AIDS— came along. The idea that you or your loved ones could just miss out lifesaving treatment seemed like a particularly cruel twist of fate and something I thought worth exploring.

June is a perfectly realized teen character, vivid in her self-doubt, her uncertainty about her own nature and how the people in her life feel about her. How did you create such a touching, vulnerable teen character?

Thank you! I’m so glad you connected with June. I think I might have an unusually strong memory of my feelings at June’s age. Her sense of not really belonging anywhere, not connecting with her peers, being an outsider, watching the action from a distance—all of that is how I remember feeling at her age.

I also wanted to get away from anything that felt stereotypically “teen.” As a writer, I’m always trying to understand a character as an individual rather than as part of a group. So, although June happens to be a teen, I hope she is also very much a unique person with a singular way of seeing the world.

Did you anticipate that teens would read your book? Why did you choose to write a coming-of-age novel?

I would love to think that teens could find something to connect with in Tell the Wolves I’m Home. When I first started writing it, I thought it could end up as either YA or adult. By the end, I felt pretty sure it was an adult novel. I wouldn’t say I set out to write a coming-of-age story exactly. I felt like I was writing a friendship story, but because of June’s age there’s an inevitable coming-of-age element to it. The events of the story will surely be life changing for June and make a huge mark on how she views the world.

In this novel, love causes embarrassment, jealousy, and terrible vulnerability. Learning that, as Toby says, “Nobody can help what they feel,” is an important part of June’s coming-of-age experience. Do you think June moves on from the events of this story to trust herself and her feelings?

You’re right, love is the source of most of the pain in this novel. I think Toby is trying so hard through the course of the story to give this gift to June—to make her understand that her feelings aren’t good or bad, that what you feel is not something you can control—and I think by the end she does understand that. I think she is so much stronger by the end of the story.

Photo by Rose Cook

Like your protagonist, I understand you grew up in Westchester County, New York. Are there autobiographical aspects to the story? What was your inspiration for the novel?

The setting isn’t Pleasantville, exactly, but a sort of amalgam of elements from a few towns I remember. Same with the woods. There weren’t woods behind my school, but I do remember parties in woods around the town.

I did give June a lot of my way of thinking at her age. I also lumbered her with some of my own geeky teenage interests—an overly romantic view of medieval times, the escapism of movies set in the past, Choose Your Own Adventure books, and a love of the Cloisters, to name a few.  That’s where the autobiography ends, really. I don’t have a charismatic Finn-like uncle. My relationship with my own sister isn’t like June and Greta’s. My parents are very different from the Elbus’s.

When I was in eighth grade, my English teacher was an exchange teacher from London. We all liked him. He’d often share English music with us and generally had a good sense of humor. At the end of the year, he left. A few months later, we were told that he’d died. This alone was quite shocking. He was only in his 30s. Not long after that we found out that he’d had AIDS. Living in the suburbs, I think we all felt very distant from AIDS. It was a scary thought, but that’s what it remained for most of us—a thing we heard about but never saw, something unrelated to our lives. Here it had come right into our midst. Without being aware of it, that experience had stayed with me all these years. Writing often works this way for me. Rather than taking something from life and working with it, I write and write until finally I see where the material has come from. It’s those wonderful little moments of revelation that make the whole thing worthwhile.

Check out the starred School Library Journal review on the Adult Books 4 Teens blog.