A librarian explores how genre fiction is like blueberry pie

Years ago, my friend Julie described to me her personal classification system for teenaged boys. “Some guys,” she began, “are like chocolate cake: they’re a lot of fun, but you know they’re not very good for you.” Yes, I thought, some guys are like that. “And other guys,” she continued, “are like lima beans. You know they’re really great, but you just can’t make yourself like them.” Yes, I thought, other guys are like that.

“But my favorite guys,” she concluded, “are like blueberry pie. They’re good for you, and you really enjoy them too.”

Years later, it’s occurred to me that my favorite books tend to be the blueberry pie of children’s and young adult publishing: literary genre fiction. Substantial and well written (that’s librarianese for “good for you”), these books also fit into genres that readers really love. For your patrons’ summer reading enjoyment, here are some excellent new titles and their respective genres:

ADVENTURE: Rick Riordan’s The Lightning Thief (Hyperion/Miramax, 2005). Thirteen-year-old Percy Jackson just can’t seem to help himself; he causes trouble in class and mysterious accidents happen every time he goes on a field trip. Then, the summer before seventh grade, he learns he’s the half-blood son of an unidentified Greek god, and monsters start popping up ready to kill him. Worse yet, someone has framed him for the theft of Zeus’s lightning bolt. In the best heroic tradition, Percy and two companions set off on a quest to recover the bolt before Zeus unleashes warfare on the world. This clever story charges along as Percy encounters a host of immortals: centaurs, satyrs, the Fates, Medusa, even a god or two slumming in modern getup. Readers who already know Greek mythology will enjoy identifying these characters before Percy does, while those who aren’t yet familiar with the tales will be extremely motivated to study up before they read Riordan’s sequel, The Sea of Monsters (Hyperion/Miramax, 2006). (Gr 5-8)

CHICK LIT: Maureen Johnson’s 13 Little Blue Envelopes (HarperCollins, 2005). After Ginny’s artistic Aunt Peg dies, Ginny gets a package of blue envelopes numbered one through thirteen. Aunt Peg has used them to construct an open-ended treasure hunt that takes Ginny to Europe, where she travels from country to country meeting the people and seeing the sights that had been important to Peg in her final months. As in all good chick lit, along the way Ginny meets a boy and learns a lot about herself. The book is alternately moving and very funny, as when Ginny notes, after a male friend’s romantic breakup followed by an excessively spicy dinner, “If [guys] were going to have a tragedy meal, they had to make sure there was a painful, masculine component to it.” Superior characterization, well-drawn details of European travel, and a subtle thread about the power of art set this title far above typical series books for teen girls. (Gr 8-11)

HORROR: Scott Westerfeld’s Peeps (Penguin, 2005). College freshman Cal spends the night with a beautiful girl and gets infected with a low-grade version of a parasitic disease that, in its full-blown form, causes blood lust and an aversion to light. Abandoning his former life, he joins New York City’s underground vampire police to track down other parasite-positive “peeps” before the infection spreads further through the city. Cal’s fast-paced story alternates with chapters chock-full of biological information about real-life parasites, which Westerfeld describes in glowingly enthusiastic detail. Note for readers who enjoy nonfiction about mummies, diseases, etc.: Peeps is also a good fit for the GROSS BOOKS genre. (Gr 8 Up)

TEARJERKERS: Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere (Farrar, 2005). Liz died when she was only 15 and ended up in the afterworld of Elsewhere. Now she spends hours watching her family and beloved dog, who are still alive back on Earth. Parts of this novel are as sad as anything by Lurlene McDaniel, but Liz’s story has much more depth than conventional weepies. Time runs backward in Elsewhere and Liz is getting younger, which infuriates her; she was looking forward to getting her driver’s license and falling in love. When she gets a chance to do these things after all, albeit differently from the way she had imagined, she faces a choice not completely unlike those many Earthly teenagers will encounter. She must decide whether to resent her situation and to grieve for the past, or whether to live as happily as she can in the unexpected, but still beautiful, present. (Gr 7 Up)

HUMOR: David LaRochelle’s Absolutely, Positively Not (Scholastic, 2005). Steven is absolutely, positively sure he’s not different from any other regular guy. Except he takes a dog to his high school prom. Okay, so maybe he’s not exactly a regular guy, but he’s sure he can overcome his attraction to boys and men if he just keeps pictures of scantily clad women in his room (unsuccessful), sits with the hockey players at lunch (nauseating), and uses aversion therapy (painful, though socially popular). Much of the book’s humor comes from Steven’s energetically definite ideas, which are often exactly wrong. He thinks his sexual orientation is a huge secret, but his best friend and her entire family figured it out years ago and couldn’t care less. He thinks his mother will be accepting, but initially she goes into over-the-top denial mode. And, in the book’s most touching moment, Steven is absolutely, positively sure that his taciturn, ice-fisherman father will condemn him for his sexuality. Instead, his dad tells him about two gay men in his army unit: “Those two men were some of the bravest, most decent guys I have ever known. Don’t you ever forget that, okay?” LaRochelle tells Steven’s coming-out story with a deft, light touch that will appeal to gay and straight teens alike. (Gr 7-10)

SCIENCE FICTION: Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies (S & S, 2005). Like everyone else in her futuristic world, Tally will get a government-sanctioned operation when she turns 16. She’s thrilled to be getting this operation, which changes people from “uglies,” actually just normal looking human beings, into “pretties” whose childlike features conform to a societally conditioned standard of beauty. In the final weeks before her birthday, however, Tally meets a girl who challenges her views and leads her to a hidden encampment of unrepentant uglies living outside the pretties’ pleasure towns. The story is action-packed from the first pages, as Tally sneaks into a Pretty Town, travels to the ugly camp, then tries to elude capture by the evil, superstrong “specials” who enforce the government’s rules. Along with all the action comes implied social commentary that will prompt young readers to ask questions about our current culture: why do we accept such narrow standards of beauty, and at what cost? (Gr 6-10)

FANTASY: John Flanagan’s The Ruins of Gorlan (Philomel, 2005). A low-status, orphaned ward of the Baron Arald and small for his age besides, Will wants nothing more than to enter Battleschool and become a knight in the Baron’s service. Instead he’s apprenticed to the dour, gray-cloaked Ranger Halt and begins training as a government spy, learning to value his small size and unique skills and to use them to serve others. A well-integrated parallel story about Will’s agemate Horace, who goes to Battleschool and gets abused by older trainees, shows in detail the way victims can themselves become bullies. The book’s cinematic writing style and dark, menacing cover art will enhance its appeal for fans of the Lord of the Rings movies and role-playing games. Book two, The Burning Bridge (Philomel), has just been published. (Gr 5-8)

WAR BOOKS: Joseph Bruchac’s Code Talker (Dial, 2005) and Graham Salisbury’s Eyes of the Emperor (Random, 2005). The excitement and fear inherent in the topic of war provide all the appeal necessary to entice many readers, and Bruchac’s and Salisbury’s books include plenty of both. But both titles provide much more as well, exploring issues of cultural identity, respect, and loyalty to a country that has often shown soldiers from minority ethnic groups little respect or loyalty in return. The protagonist of Code Talker, 16-year-old Marine Ned Begay, serves in World War II encoding and decoding messages in a top-secret code based on his native Navajo language. As Bruchac says in his afterword about the real-life Navajo Code Talkers, “In some ways, this novel can be read as a parable about the importance of respecting other languages and cultures.” (Gr 8-11)

In Eyes of the Emperor, 16-year-old Eddy Okubo travels with a group of other Japanese-American soldiers to a small island apart from the rest of the army. There, in a harrowing series of chapters based on actual events of World War II, the soldiers are used as bait in an attempt to train attack dogs to find Japanese soldiers by their smell. (Gr 7-10)

The young men in both of these distinguished books show incredible bravery in battle as well as incredible dignity in the face of the institutional racism of the World War II-era armed forces. Both books include accurate information about the protagonists’ native cultures, and both deal honestly with the painful costs of warfare. Perhaps better than anything else on this list, these two titles demonstrate the strength of literary genre fiction: a combination of popular appeal that can draw readers in, and thoughtful, well-written stories that can give them new views of the world.