I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

 

It's weird to read a book that feels so much like historical fiction and yet the events take place in 1989, one year after my Kiddo was born, and I clearly remember what happened to communism all over Eastern Europe that year. This novel takes place in Romania, which had been governed under the repressive communist dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife since 1965 and the Romanian people were controlled by the secret police called Securitate through the use of mass surveillance, which included turning ordinary citizens into informers, usually through blackmail. 

And that is just what happens to Cristian Florescu, a 17-year-old student who dreams of becoming a writer and who secretly enjoys poetry and philosophy and buys English language stuff on the sly. Then one October school day in 1989, Cristian is pulled out of class by a member of the Securitate, or Secu, who informs him that they know what he has done. Cristian is an avid stamp collector and his crime was having given a Romanian stamp to American teen, Dan Van Dorn, the son of American diplomat Nick Van Dorn stationed in Romania. But later, when he looked through his stamp book, Cristian had discovered an American dollar inside it, which was illegal to possess and the Secu tells him he is now guilty of illegal trafficking. Unless...he agrees to collect information on the Van Dorn family where his mother works cleaning their apartment. In exchange for information, Cristian's grandfather, his Bunu, a rebel in his own right, would receive needed medicine for his leukemia.

And because the Secu blackmailed people into becoming informers, Cristian had learned not to trust anyone, certainly not his best friend Luca, whom he is sure was the one who informed on him about the American dollar, or even Liliana, the girl he is attracted to. But Cristian decides that he will not be the kind of informer the Secu wants, thinking he can undermine the Secu. 

Meanwhile, Cristian learns about the fall of Communist regimes are happening all over Europe - Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Czechoslovakia - secretly listening to Radio Free Europe on his family's forbidden radio. Why, he wonders, can't that happen in Romania? Perhaps if the world knew what was happening in there, things would be different. And Cristian has just the plan to hopefully make that happen.  

Ruta Sepetys has always been an author whose work I looked forward to reading and yet, I was reluctant to read I Must Betray You. Perhaps it was because of current events happening in the world right now, but once I began reading, I couldn't put the book down. Right from the beginning, Cristian is a compelling character, caring, sensitive and intelligent, curious about the world outside of Romania and, like the grandfather he looks up to, as much of a rebel as you can be under a harsh communist regime. And for that reason, I, of course, wanted to find out what happens once he becomes a reluctant informer for the Securitate. 

Sepetys has also drawn a picture of Romania under Ceaușescu's dictatorship that is as chilling as it is scary. Neighbors and friends informing on neighbors and friends, getting up early to stand in long lines to buy meager amounts of food, acquiring and keeping constant count of Kent cigarettes to use for bartering and bribing, never knowing what is being documented that can be used to manipulate or arrest you. Even the bottle of Coke or the Twinkie that Cristian and Liliana secretly share is documented - but how? Who saw it? Who reported it? But the Secu knows, just like they know about the American dollar Cristian finds. 

As with all of her novels, Sepetys has really done her research. She has managed to convey the hardships, the fear, the constant hunger, and lack of trust in the lives of the Romanian people at that time so well that I had to keep reminding myself that this is a story based on reality and not a dystopian novel, because that is almost what Ceaușescu's Romania felt like. 

Be sure to check the back matter. There is a variety of interesting and informative photographs, an Author's Note that shouldn't be missed, information on Sepetys' Research and Sources, plus an extensive list of sources. And for those who are sharing this book with their class or book club, you can find a Discussion Guide HERE 

This book was borrowed from the NYPL

A Sitting in St. James by Rita Williams-Garcia

 

Rita William-Garcia begins her epic story by giving a brief history of the land and people in what would later become the boot of Louisiana as a way to usher readers into the main part of her story, and ultimately situate them in the summer of 1860 in St. James parish on the ironically named Le Petit Cottage, home of the Guibert family and the people they enslaved.

The family is headed by its French-born matriarch Madame Sylvie Bernardin de Maret Dacier Guilbert, who never tires of telling people about her connection to Queen Marie Antoinette and the Bernardin de Maret vineyard owned by her family. Madame Sylvie taken from France by a middle age man who forced her to marry him at the age of 13. And before you go feeling sorry for her, know this - Madame Sylvie is so enamored of Marie Antoinette, she named her personal servant, the enslaved Thisbe, a girl taken from her family at age 6 to serve Madame only, after the Queen's dog, 

Le Petit Cottage has been run by Madame Sylvie's son, the poetry loving, syphilitic Lucien while her grandson, Bryon, 20, is attending West Point. The plantation is losing money and could soon be in the hands of creditors as Lucien waits for his mother to give him the stash of gold she had buried long ago and which she holds over his head. Bryon is engaged to be married, but he prefers the company of men, specifically his fellow cadet Robinson Pearce. Lucien is also hoping to make a good (and profitable) marriage for his daughter Rosalie, his beautiful, educated "quadroon" daughter. Her mother is an enslaved woman that Lucien raped during one of his visits to the slave quarters where he would often go for that purpose.   

After learning that Lucille Pierpont "had her portrait painted and hosted a much-talked-about showing at the Pierpont plantation," Madame Sylvie, now 80, has decided this is something she must also have done, even though the Guilberts can't afford it. And after finding out that a portrait of Bryon's finance's father had been commissioned as a gift to his daughter, Madame is even more determined, and almost beside herself when she learns that the painter was Claude le Brun, a descendant of Madame Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun who had painted a portrait of Sylvie and the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette when they were children. 

Into this cast of the major white characters comes Eugénie Duhon, Bryon's fiancee, and Jane Chatham, the 15-year-old abandoned daughter of plantation owners who only wants to ride her warhorse, Virginia Wilder, and of course, Bryon's lover Robinson, visiting for a few weeks before they return to West Point. 

I kept asking myself why would Rita Williams-Garcia write a story set in the antebellum south from the point of view of white characters. After all, that makes it sound almost like you are going to read an updated version of Gone with the Wind, doesn't it? But that couldn't be further from what Williams-Garcia has actually done here. Because it is through this very flawed, very cruel, entitled family that Williams;Garcia has captured the true horror of the institution of slavery. All the while that Williams-Garcia records the ups and downs of the Guilbert family, standing in the background, quiet, invisible, abused to their white owners are the enslaved Blacks, some of whom we do get to know well.

Had Williams-Garcia focused on only one enslaved character, for example Thisbe, readers wouldn't see how they are all treated and abused. By focusing on this family of enslavers, readers will "witness a brutal period in its benign and overt cruelty, to better understand its legacy of privilege and racism" and how it manifested itself on the people this family considered to be nothing more than property.

I won't kid you - this is not an easy book to read, and yet one that I found hard to put down. There are moments in it when you will pump your arm and say "yes," moments when you will reach for a tissue to wipe away your tears, and moments when you will want to turn away from what you are reading. All I can say is keep reading. This is too important a book to ignore. That said, you may be surprised to discover who the real hero of this story is. And then you will think about it, and you won't be surprised at all.

This book is recommended for readers age 16+

This book was very gratefully received from Keely Platt at Sparkpoint Studio

Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc by David Elliott

I've never really had much of an interest in Joan of Arc. I knew who she was, of course, and what she had done, thanks to a hand-me-down Classic Illustrated Comics collection. And I did go see Saint Joan with Condola Rashad on Broadway, which was excellent. But that was basically it...until I read Voices. WOW! Here was a book that blew me away from the first poem to the last.

In Voices: the Final Hours of Joan of Arc, David Elliott offers readers an amazing perspective on the life and final moments of this courageous young woman (she was, after all, still a teenager when she died). In well-crafted and carefully constructed, often visceral poems, Elliott begins Joan's story at the end of her life, as she is tied to a stake, about to be burned alive as a traitor. He then recreates Joan's life, beginning with her visions through to her military triumph of restoring Charles VIII to power, his ultimate betrayal of her, her subsequent trials, and finally, her execution. Throughout this fictionalized biography in verse, Elliott has carefully and consciously chosen the voices who gets to tell her story besides Joan herself.

 The poems are amazing. The language is affective without being sentimental. There is energy in Elliott's choice of line breaks, coming at just the right time to maintain the lyricism and musicality of each poem - in other words, the lines are neither too long nor too short.

The imagery that each of the poems creates is clear and fresh; there is a specificity of detail in each poem, and provides the reader with imaginative sensory details without being overwhelming.

And Elliott created these images that tell Joan's story using a variety of poetic forms, some dating back to the medieval period, along with a diversity of voices besides Joan. Some of these voices include that of Charles VIII, her father, even personification of objects close to Joan, including her sword, her armor, the crossbow that wounded her and the fire that is so lovingly consuming her.

Elliott has also made effective use of direct prose quotes from the transcripts of Joan's trials. He has creatively recounted the life of Joan of Arc in a somewhat three dimensional sense, not an easy accomplishment in a book, allowing the reader to look at all sides of Joan's story and to draw their own conclusions as to her guilt or innocence.

And Elliot does all this while interrogating ideas about Joan's gender identity, her class, her decision to be a knight instead of a peasant girl remaining on the family farm until she marries, as well as her innocence in view of the politics of the time and the reason for the guilty verdict at her trial.

Elliott has taken a medieval heroine, caught up in the politics of her day, and brought her into the 21st century where her story will definitely resonate with today's readers.

Small wonder that Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc won the Claudia Lewis Award for poetry awarded by the Bank Street Children's Book Committee. Sadly, the Coronavirus meant canceling our awards ceremony this year. However, David Elliott was kind enough to send us a video recording, which you can also enjoy:

This book is recommended for readers age 13+

This book was an ARC gratefully received from publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

April is 

Yvain: the Knight of the Lion by M. T. Anderson, illustrated by Andrea Offermann

I am a medievalist at heart, and I especially love the stories about King Arthur and the knights of the round table. So, I was pretty excited to see this retelling based on Chrétien de Troyes Yvain story by M. T. Anderson and in graphic form to boot. Essentially, it is a story about vengeance, love, and redemption, with a lot of action in between.

The tale begins when a young knight, Sir Calogrenant, returns to King Arthur's court beaten and defeated. He tells the court how he can upon a fountain with a magical stone which, when water is poured on it, promises plenty of adventure. He is immediately confronted by another knight claiming Calogrenant has attacked his domain by drenching the stone. The two men joust and Calogrenant loses, limping home weak and wounded.

It is his cousin Yvain who vows to avenge him, traveling to the fountain, pouring water on the stone, and jousting with the same knight, Sir Esclados, who attacked Calogrenant. When Sir Esclados dies from his wounds, his widow, Laudine, wants Yvain found and killed. But Yvain is already in her castle, and seeks the help of Lunette, handmaid to Laudine. However, as soon as he sees Laudine, he falls in love with her, and now wants Lunette to help him with her over. Which she does, and Yvain and Laudine are soon married.

But it doesn't take long for Yvain to want to go off with King Arthur and Gawain to prove his valor to Laudine through jousting and feats of arms. Laudine agrees, but tells Yvain he must be back in one year or her love will turn to hate. True to her word, when the allotted year ends and Yvain isn't back yet, Laudine's love becomes bitter hate and she refuses to forgive Yvain. 

Dejected, out of his mind with rage and self-hate, Yvain leaves, becoming a hermit. When he saves a lion from a violent attack, the lion becomes his faithful companion. When Yvain discovers that Lunette is about to he put to death for advising Laudine to marry him, and who now feels betrayed by Lunette. Yvain promises to be her champion and defeat three of Laudine's courtiers to save Lunette from death. But can Yvain redeem himself and become the knight he once was, even winning back Laudine's love?

More sophisticated than most graphic novels, both Anderson and Offermann have captured the real essence of the medieval courtly romance. Originally, these were adventure stories told for entertainment in aristocratic court circles about knights going out on quests in search of adventure, often for the love of a lady. And that is just what happens in this interpretation of the Yvain story. But it is so much more than that. The original knight errant story focuses on the knight - everyone else is there only as extensions to his questing. Anderson has highlighted both Laudine and Lunette as strong women in their own right, they are more than just there to put a spotlight on Yvain. Even Yvain's lion has a personality and part of his own.

This is such a beautiful interpretation of the Yvain story. Anderson does stick to the basic Chrétien story - avenging his cousin's defeat, falling in love with and marrying Laudine, even unknowingly jousting Gawain, then being persuaded to go off on a year of adventuring after much goading on Gawain's part, going mad when she rejects Yvain, rescuing a lion and deciding to win back Laudine. It's all there but with a new sensibility.

Originally, knights didn't much care about anyone but themselves. Even the ladies they adventured and fought for were only there as beautiful objects, not because of any real love or loyalty. Anderson's Yvain begins the same way - a knight seeking glory for himself. Yvain gets a real wakeup call when he is rejected by Laudine, never really expecting that ignoring her request to return at the end of a year would have such serious consequences. Laudine is a woman with political power, feelings and emotions, and apparently capable of real anger, all on display here.

As much as I always loved Medieval literature, my favorite was always Parsifal because you can see his growth from a flawed boy who doesn't understand what it means to be a knight to an man who does. In a way, that is the Yvain that Anderson gives us. Already a knight of the Round Table, he too is a flawed character, still having much to learn about love and loyalty. And unlike the original Arthurian tales, in this version, Yvain doesn't always win his jousting adventures.

Anderson does, indeed, give us a wonderful, energetic retelling of Yvain, and Andrea Offermann's graphic art is quite simply spectacular. She apparently spent a lot of time studying medieval tapestries and each panel felt to me like an illuminated manuscript from that time. Many of the spreads are wordless, and though they are sometimes a bit violent and grisly, they easily move the story forward. You might want to listen to her talk about her process:

Yvain: the Knight of the Lion is an excellent book for anyone interested in Medieval literature, Arthurian tales, adventure stories, or graphic novels. 

This book is recommended for readers age 12+

This book was an EARC received from NetGalley, but it was so wonderful, I bought my own copy of it for my personal library.

Mary's Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein written and illustrated by Lita Judge

Here is a brilliant new fictionalized biography about Mary Shelley by Lita Judge, just in time for the  200th anniversary of the publication of her best known work, Frankenstein. I have to admit that when I read Frankenstein in junior high school, I never really thought much about the author. I was reading it on my own then, and even when I reread it in college, Mary Shelley was basically ignored (perhaps my professor was a fan of Roland Barthes' The Death of the Author). Of course, we all learned that Frankenstein was the result of a challenge by Lord Byron to his companions to write a better horror story than the ones he had been reading,

and that Mary took up the challenge, and created her masterpiece. Oh, how I wish I had had Mary's Monster when I was first reading Frankenstein.

Written in free verse from Mary Shelley's point of view, Judge has created this fictionalized biography of Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley that will change the reader's perceptions of her and give them real insight and a new appreciation for both the author and her novel. Judge has divided Mary's story into nine parts, mirroring the nine months it took Mary to write Frankenstein. There is also an Introduction by Judge, and a Prologue by Mary's Creature.

The story then begins in 1812 with Mary on a boat, traveling alone from England to Scotland at her step-mother's insistence, to live with friends because the debts of the family business have increased considerably. On the trip, Mary recalls her childhood - the death of her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, in 1797 when she is only 11 days old, her caring, unconventional father, her loving step-sister Fanny, and favorite visits from poets like Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But this all quickly morphs into unhappiness when Mary's father remarries a cold, ambitious woman, who doesn't get alone with Mary and demands that she be sent away.

After two years, Mary returns home to London in 1814, and it is then that she meets and falls in love with aspiring poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mary runs off with him at age 16, leaving England to live together, first in Paris, then Switzerland. Shelley is already married to another woman named Harriet, but has convinced Mary that his marriage to her is over. Mary soon finds herself pregnant with Shelley's baby.

Disowned by her father, Mary's life continues to be one of unhappiness, disappointment, betrayal, broken promises, and loss. Nevertheless, she manages to write Frankenstein while still in her teens and pregnant.

Mary's Monster is an extraordinary book, a perfect melding of both romantic and gothic fiction, two genres that were popular in Mary Shelley's day. And as if her nuanced poetry weren't enough to pull the reader into Mary's life, Judge has included over 300 pages of black and white watercolor illustrations that add to the ominous atmosphere permeating this work. Nor does Judge pull any punches or skirt around the hard issues and events in Mary's life. Because she includes the fact that Mary and Shelley made love beside her mother's grave (and most likely conceived their first child there), the deaths of Mary's children, the use of opium by her husband and his friends, the suicides of her half-sister and Shelley's first wife, I would recommend this book for mature teen readers - and I do highly recommend it.  

Although this is a fictionalized biography, Judge has included back matter giving more information about Mary Shelley and Frankenstein, as well as an Author's Note, a list of the people in Mary's life and what became of them, a list of books that they were reading, notes for each part of the book, and a Bibliography.

Frankenstein was the creation of one man and composed of the parts of many. Perhaps Mary felt like she was too -

Something to think about as you read the hauntingly poignant fictionalized biography.

You can find an extensive, useful Teacher's Guide for Mary's Monster HERE

You can find a very enlightening interview with Lita Judge about the creation of Mary's Monster HERE

Lita Judge has shared a very interesting timeline of her writing and research process that you can read HERE

This book is recommended for readers age 15+
This book was borrowed from the NYPL

The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe, translated by Lilit Thwaites

Last week, the winners of the 2018 Sydney Taylor Book Awards were announced, and I would like to congratulate all the winners for their excellent work.

The award for teen readers was given to Antonio Iturbe for his novel The Librarian of Auschwitz, based on the true story of Dita Kraus reviewed this novel last October on The Children's War and would like to share it here. 

In December 1943, Dita Adlerova, 14, along with her parents and 5,000 other Jewish prisoners arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau from the Theresienstadt ghetto (also referred to as Terezín) in Czechoslovakia. Unlike most of the Jews who were transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, this transport arrived with the notation SB -Sonderbehandlung. No one really knew what was meant by special treatment, but they were put into one of nine separate camps in Birkenau, called BIIb, and referred to as the Theresienstadt Family Camp. These prisoners were allowed to keep their clothing and their hair wasn’t shaved, although living conditions were just a deplorable as elsewhere in Auschwitz.

Thanks to Fredy Hirsch, the prisoner in charge of the children, Dita becomes an assistant in Block 31, a brracks that has been converted into a space for children during the day so that their parents can work. It is also a place that houses a secret school which includes a library of eight books that have been smuggled in by other prisoners and are in various states of disrepair. Dita's job is to care for the books everyday - removing them from their hiding place, delivering them to the teachers, and carefully putting them back in their hiding place at the end of the day. Dita takes her job so seriously that when a surprise inspection that includes Dr. Josef Mengele happens, she risks everything to hide the books under her smock.

But later that day, Dita runs into Mengele again,and she believes that he seems to know that she was hiding something that morning. He tells her he will be watching her from now on. His threat informs Dita’s life in Auschwitz with additional fear from then on, yet it doesn’t stop her from continuing her job as the librarian. 

The Librarian of Auschwitz is a powerful novel with a brilliant blending of fact and fiction. It is told mostly in the present tense, and I think the writing style may remind you of The Book Thief, especially the voice of the omniscient narrator who knows what has happened as well as what will happen. And I have to be honest and say it is a difficult book to read at times, but then, so are all books about the Holocaust.

Several of the characters are based on real people. Most of the Nazis in charge of Auschwitz, like Josef Mengele, the Doctor of Death, and Rudolf Höss, the camp commandant. The main character, Dita Adlerova, reflects the experiences of the real librarian of Auschwitz, Dita Polach Kraus, whom Iturbe interviewed in Israel when he was researching this novel. Iturbe also includes the stories of Fredy Hirsch, Rudi Rosenberg, and SS First Officer Viktor Pestek. Hirsch and Rosenberg were prisoners in Auschwitz, while Pestek was a guard who fell in love with a young Jewish girl. Other characters in the novel are strictly fictional, but whether real or fictional, each one contributes to the overall picture that Iturbe draws of this section of Auschwitz, an anomaly in what was a place where most people were sent to be killed upon arrival. 

And Dita's story is certainly an exemplary one. In the midst of so much heartbreak and horror, Dita derives a real sense of strength and purpose as the librarian, coming up with ways to improve the delivery of the fragile books to teachers, and carefully repairing them each day when they are returned. And, with the help of Fredy Hirsch, her sense of purpose develops into a way that Dita is able to cope with her own overwhelming fear, learning to accept it as part of who she is, and by recognizing it, she is able to overcome it and go on despite everything.

Thus, Iturbe’s draws Dita as a study of courage in the face of fear, and it becomes all the more poignant and admirable as she faces the horrors of Auschwitz, and later Bergen-Belsen. And while the actual atrocities that were endemic in the Nazi’s concentration camps and their treatment of Jews are difficult to fully capture in words alone, readers should know that Iturbe doesn’t hold back, that some of what he writes is quite graphic. 

Though fear, hunger, cold, death, cruelty, and loss of loved ones are the daily experiences of Dita and the other prisoners in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, ultimately The Librarian of Auschwitz is a life-affirming novel that manages to end on a note of hope for the future.

A Teacher's Guide for The Librarian of Auschwitz is available from the publisher, Henry Holt and Co. (BYR) HERE

This book is recommended for readers age 13+
This book was an ARC received from the publisher

Map of Auschwitz II (Birkenau) showing Theresienstadt Family Camp BIIb and Block 31 where the secret school was held

The Emperor of Any Place by Tim Wynne-Jones

This review was originally posted on my other blog, The Children's War, but since I have just reread the new paperback edition, I thought I would share it here as well.

After his father suddenly dies, Evan Griffin, 16, discovers that he had been reading a book written by a Japanese soldier named Isamu Ōshiro, who found himself stranded on a small island in the Pacific during World War II. The book is a memoir of his life on the island, which he called Kokoro-Jima, and is addressed to his new bride, Hisako back in Saipan. But Evan also discovers a letter to his dad from a man named Leonardo Kraft that seems to connect his estranged grandfather, Griff, a career Marine, to the events that are in the book.

Curious, Evan begins to read Ōshiro's memoir one night when he gets a phone call from his grandfather that he will be at the house for a little while - arriving a week earlier than Evan had expected him. But why? Clearly, it has something to do with Ōshiro's story. But what?

Isamu's story, framed by Evan's story, is riveting. He describes his arrival on Kokorro Jima, what he does to survive despite being severely injured, but he also writes about something else. There are ghostly children on the island who hover close by him, and who Isamu calls his ghostly family. Soon, however, he begins to notice that there are also zombie-like ghoulish creatures, which he calls jikininki and who feed off the dead.

It is the jikininki who lead Isamu to a crashed cargo plane and the two dean pilots. Isamu realizes there is a missing person, the navigator, and eventually he find Derwood Kraft on the beach, seriously injured and who seems to have his own ghost family of children. But along with this gaijin (foreigner), Isamu also discovers Tengu, a monstrous black creature about to attack the American.

That pretty much sets the stage for this incredibly well-written, well-developed, wonderfully crafted novel. At the heart of the story is the mystery of what happened to Isamu and why this is connected to Evan's grandfather. But Tim Wynne-Jones keeps the mystery going without even a hint of what happens until the very end, and getting there is never dull or boring.

As far as I'm concerned, The Emperor of Any Place is definitely top-drawer fantasy, and yes, it is also very graphically detailed. The novel switches between the present and past seamlessly, and Wynne-Jones throws in some seemingly unimportant scenes that only serve to deliciously increase the mood and tension. I'm not much of a zombie fan, but I was totally drawn to this novel and hated to put it down when I had to do something else.

But there is something else that Wynne-Jones wants us to take away beside a great story and that is how tenuously connected the lines between war and peace, friends and enemies, love and hate are and how they impact past to present, generation to generation. As Griff explains to Evan, "[war] ends and then it starts again, and the end of one war inevitably grows out of the war that came before it."

The Emperor of Any Place is one of those novels that took me totally by surprise when I read it and, I have to confess, that reading this novel again was just as pleasurable as the first time.

This book is recommended for readers age 13+
This book was sent to me by the publisher, Candlewick Press

This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp

This Is Where It Ends is, quite simply, about a mass school shooting that happens on the first day of the new semester, a day that begins just like every new semester begins. There is an assembly with most of the school present, where Principal Trenton is giving her usual speech to students who basically aren't listening. It is only when the students try to leave the auditorium and discover they can't open the doors that this ordinary school day takes a tragic turn.

Opportunity High School is located in a remote part of the town by the same name, reached by one two-lane road, and surrounded by a forest and some fields. The grounds are patrolled by one security guard name Jonah. Near the school building is a track where students Claire Morgan and her friend Chris are practicing on this particular morning. Two other students, Tomás Morales and his friend Fareed have just broken into Principal Trenton's office to look at another student's file when they hear footsteps approaching the office door, then leaving. Tomás' twin sister Sylv Morales and her girlfriend Autumn Browne are about to leave the auditorium when they see Autumn's brother Tyler standing in the shadow by one of the exits. As the word 'gun' floats towards them, the first shot is fired directly at Principal Trenton.  Opportunity High School is under siege by a well-armed Tyler.

The story, which covers only 54 minutes, is told from four different points of view - Claire, Autumn, Sylv, and Tomás. Each one has had a relationship with Tyler and each has a reason to fear him now, including his sister. Their past relationships with Tyler are recounted in flashbacks that reveal a young man on a downward spiral after the sudden death of his mother, resulting in anger, verbal cruelty, betrayal and physical abuse. These four narrators also provide an intimate narrative of what was going on both inside and outside the auditorium and why the police didn't respond sooner, including why no cell phones were used to call them as is usual in school shootings these days.

This Is Where It Ends must surely have been a difficult kind of book to write, and on the whole, I thought it was done well. You can't pigeon-hole the type of person who commits this kind of terrible act, nor how the victims of a school shooting will react. And I think Marieke Nijkamp did a great job capturing the fear the students felt, the carnage that these shooting result in and the shooter's motivation.

I know a lot of people were disappointed by the book, especially because Nijkamp is a founding member of the We Need Diverse Book movement. Schools all over the country are more diverse than they were years ago, and the characters in this novel do reflect that diversity. Autimn and Sylv are a leabian couple, Tomás and Sylv are Hispanic, and Fareed is an Afghan Muslim. Some readers seem to think that Fareed was a surface character, merely there as a token for the sake of diversity. I felt that after the shooting began, he was the one who kept the most level head, and I thought that perhaps his rationality came from his experience living in war-torn Afghanistan before moving to the US. But that is just speculation on my part.

This was a difficult book for me to read, which is why it took me a year to read after getting the book from NetGalley. We suffered a great loss in the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting when my cousin's 7 year old son was killed there. I really believe that as school and other mass shootings become more frequent, the need to understand and talk about them becomes greater. Book like This Is Where It Ends will hopefully go far in helping to start those difficult conversations.

This book is recommended for readers age 13+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley

If you would like to find out more about about some of the things that can be done to prevent school shootings, be sure to visit Sandy Hook Promise.

Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS

Colt Jenson, 12, and his younger brother Bas, 10, had everything they could want until one night when a knock on the door changed their lives completely.  Forced to suddenly move, they now find themselves living in a working class neighborhood even though their dentist father Rex makes a good living.  As he has always done, and to make sure his sons meet the new neighborhood kids, he buys them all kinds of new toys, games, skateboards and his latest purchase - a very expensive BMX bike. 

Sure enough , the bike attracts some neighborhood boys, including brothers Declan Kiley, 11, and younger brother Syd, as well as the neglected street wise Avery Price, 11, and thug-like bully Garrick Green, 12,  Freya Kiley, 12, finds herself attracted to Rex Jenson, thinking he is the father substitute who will rescue her from a overworked mother with little time for her and a violently abusive alcoholic father.  

When Rex has an above ground pool installed in his backyard, the attraction to hang out at the Jenson's play with all though those otherwise unobtainable toys is just too irresistible, particularly for Garrick.  But, Colt has already begun to suspect his father's real motivations for buying all those things: the gifts Rex gives his children are not gifts from the heart, but really nothing more than bait, a way to attract kids to the house, but not so much to be friends with his sons as much as for himself.  In fact, it doesn't take long before a creepy feeling begins to take hold of some of the boys who flock to the Jenson's to play. 

Even the Kiley's father Joe senses something odd at a backyard barbecue that Rex has one evening, but can't quite put his finger on.  But the boys have noticed things, though only Garrick seems really bothered by it and wants to exact some kind of angry revenge, especially after he realizes that Avery is on to the secret he is hiding. 

Meanwhile, Freya Kiley has begun to suspect her mother might be pregnant again, the family just doesn't need a 7th child.  Wondering why her parents got married in the first place, she soon discovers it was because of her.  Now, feeling guilty that she is the cause of so much unhappiness for her parents, and subsequently for her siblings, she has become more aware of her parent's troubled marriage and has come up with a plan to make her father pay for it all.  But, it requires the help of Rex Jenson.

Golden Boys is told mainly from the perspective of Colt and Freya.  It is a character driven story, with each character playing her or his part to perfection to move the story along.  As with all of Sonya Hartnett's novels, it is well written, well plotted and there is not a superfluous word on any of its 256 pages.

The novel is set in a time before cell phones and computers, so that the sense of isolation increased the tension that builds up over the course of novel.  It is also set in Australia, beginning a few weeks before Christmas when it is summertime there.  The setting makes no difference as far as the story is concerned, however.  Golden Boys was marketed as an adult novel there, but as a YA novel in the US.  I have to wonder why.  The title, Golden Boys, has nothing to do with the bike on the American cover.  The title refers to the athletic trophies Colt won at this old school and is a wonderful metaphor for how kids may sometimes feel when caught in the same situation as the boys in this novel.

Golden Boys is an emotionally-packed psychological novel for mature teens who have a better understanding of the themes Hartnett explores - how children inadvertently become complicit with their parent's behavior, accepting their shortcomings even as they realize them; how other adults can look the other way when another adult is behaving badly, i.e., Joe's physically violent behavior towards his family in a drunken rage and never calling the authorities, or Mrs. Jenson's obvious acceptance of her husband's pedophiliac behavior and looking the other way.

This is an excellently done novel and I would highly recommend it to mature readers, but it is definitely not for everyone.

This book is recommended for age 14+

This book was an EARC received from NetGalley

The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge

Reverend Erasmus Sunderly and his family, wife Myrtle, daughter Faith,14, six-year-old son Howard, and their Uncle Miles have just moved from Kent, England to the small, remote island of Vane.  The move is supposedly because of an archaeological dig going on on Vane, but in truth, the Reverend, a respected amateur scientist, is leaving because news is about to break that he falsified some of his own fossil finds.  It is hoped that news of the scandal won't follow the family to Vane.

During the trip and upon arrival, Sunderly is particularly protective of a box of his "miscellaneous cuttings," more concerned with these plants than his own family.  Faith, who is a very clever, intelligent girl, and would like to follow in her beloved father's footsteps and become a scientist, too, can't help but wonder what it is about these specimens that make them so special.

Not surprisingly, it doesn't take long for the word of Sunderly's scandal to follow the family to Vane. Soon, no one will speak to them, help them in the village stores or even acknowledge them at church. The Sunderly's have become pariahs on Vane and are effectively shunned.

Faith's curiosity about her father's "miscellaneous cuttings" begins to be satisfied one night when her father takes her out in a rowboat to cave, along with a clothe-covered plant.  Leaving her in the boat, Sunderly takes the plant and disappears into the cave, only to return plantless, and rows them back to shore.

The next morning Faith's father is found dead.  It looks for all the world like a suicide but Myrtle Sunderly manages to flirt enough with him to convince Dr. Jacklers to rule her husband's death an accident.  Faith absolutely doesn't believe her father would take his own life, nor does she believe it was an accident.  Faith is convinced her father was murdered and she is determined to prove it.  To do that, Faith must uncover her father's secrets, and that would include his papers on the mysterious plant he had taken to the cave the night he was murdered, a tree that, she discovers, flourishes in darkness, feeds on lies and reveals truths to those who ate its fruit: "If the Tree could deliver secrets, then perhaps it would unravel for her the mystery of her father's death."

The Lie Tree has been called "a superb Victorian murder melodrama" and it is.  And here's the funny thing - I thought it hadn't grabbed me from the start the way Cuckoo Song did, but imagine my surprise when I realized I has become totally ensnared by The Lie Tree and could hardly bare to put it down when I had to.

It is not a book for everyone, though, but if it is a book for you, you will be treated to a long, winding journey through Victorian thinking.  The action begins around 1868, nine years after publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of the Species, a book that talked about evolution and the survival of the fittest and set the religious world on its ear, including Rev. Sunderly and his fellow amateur paleontologists on Vane.

Victorian society also dictated that girls like Faith not entertain ideas about becoming anything other than a good wife who can run her household efficiently.  As her father tells Faith: "A girl cannot be brave, or clever, or skilled as a boy can.  If she is not good, she is nothing."  Faith may love her father very much, but she also have some strong feminist leanings about what a girl can do.

Set on an isolated island, Hardinge is able to provide us with a cast of characters large enough to give the reader a nice cross-section of Victorian life, small enough that she can focus on everyone's unique personality and give them all depth.  And some of her characters will surely surprise you.

But it is Hardinge's writing that really makes her novels so outstanding.  She slowly, slowly unravels her stories using the most eloquently lyrical language.  Among other things, The Lie Tree is a coning of age story, described as only Hardinge: "For the last year, [Faith] had felt like a seesaw, clumsily rocking between childhood and adulthood."  And I remember that feeling so well.

The Lie Tree is perfect for anyone wanting a "Victorian gothic murder mystery, but with extra palaeontology, post mortem photography, feminism and blasting powder" according to the author, Francis Hardinge, but I would also add that it is a thriller about Victorian mores and behaviors. There's even a delicious twist at the end.  And that idea about survival of the fittest - yup, it's there, too.

This book is recommended for readers age 12+
This book was an EARC received from NetGalley