La Valley’s close third-person narrative focuses on 14-year-old Mehrigul, a Uyghur girl living in the region known to Uyghurs as East Turkestan, and to the Chinese government and growing number of Han Chinese settlers (“invaders” may be a better word) as Xinjiang Province. Ever since her older brother left for parts unknown, Mehrigul has worked on her family’s small plot of land and sold produce and crafts at the market to help her alcoholic father and depressed mother, and to pay her younger sister’s school fees. Because Mehrigul does not attend school, she risks being sent by local Communist Party officials to a factory in southern China. One afternoon, Mehrigul sells a useless but decorative woven basket to an American tourist who owns a fair-trade shop, and the woman promises to return in three weeks in order to buy whatever Mehrigul can make during that time. With the help of her frail grandfather, a master basket weaver, Mehrigul rushes to fill the visitor’s order, but a series of obstacles—including a violent sandstorm, her father’s betrayal, and blistered hands from farm work—threaten to crush her dreams of a better life. Along the way, she learns some harsh truths about her family’s history and the circumstances of her brother’s sudden disappearance.

The “ticking clock” of the order for baskets, and the multiple setbacks, keep the pages turning. Mehrigul’s persistence and devotion to her family, particularly to her younger sister, garner the reader’s sympathy. The author weaves political and cultural information into the story seamlessly, where it gives a rich background to Mehrigul’s individual struggles. At the same time, readers come to understand the larger forces—the Party officials seeking to fill their quotas for young female factory workers, the Uyghur farmers fighting to hold onto what little land that hasn’t already been taken away—that give power and urgency to Mehrigul’s work.

Josanne La Valley at a book launch party with Clarion editor Dinah Stevenson and Uyghur crafts.

Almost two years ago author E. Kristin Anderson asked me to write a guest post for her blog for Pride Week. I wrote about the need to reflect today’s world in our LGBTQ YA fiction, while at the same time continuing to write coming out stories relevant to today’s teen readers. Last August I did a post for my own blog in response to a request for recommendations of good YA novels featuring lesbian or bisexual characters, and, again, focused on those books I think still relevant to today’s teen readers.  I continue to believe there is a strong need for YA novels with LGBTQ characters at all stages of the questioning, exploring, self-accepting, coming out, and living out spectrum, that also reflect the world our teen readers are living in now.

Books like Adaptation by Malinda Lo, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz, and Ask the Passengers by A.S. King (reviewed here on January 17). Books that recognize how far we have come and how far we still have to go, through the lens of today’s teens.

Books like Openly Straight by Bill Konigsberg (Arthur A. Levine Books, June 2013).

Openly Straight feels like it might actually be the next evolutionary step in LGBTQ fiction for teens, with a protagonist who has been out since eighth grade but is now climbing back into the closet for a chance to be himself apart from being “the gay kid.” High-school-junior Rafe has seemingly had the easiest coming out ever. His parents embrace who he is and encourage a healthy exploration of his sexuality. His Boulder, Colorado, community is largely a comfortable place for him to live, with little backlash at school. In fact, what is chafing Rafe is the extent to which his relationship with the world feels filtered through being so wholly identified as gay, despite how often the attention he receives is positive and well meaning. So, he decides to go to an all-male, New England boarding school and start over as Rafe, the not-openly-gay kid.

He rationalizes that he can do so without actually lying if he merely deflects and avoids the direct questions. But despite his plans, he very quickly blows past all his intended ethical and moral lines when he gets a taste of being part of a group of guys —  just another (perceived straight) guy at the table or in the locker room — without the barriers he has always felt his sexual identity placed between him and his straight male peers.  He wants to “be himself,” to enjoy the moment of fitting in instead of being “special.” But as is clear to the reader, he is not “being himself” because hiding that “one thing” means being dishonest with his friends and himself, and acting the part to fit in begins to eat away at his ability to rationalize his choices and actions. Complications come in the form of challenging friendships and romantic feelings and the real feelings of classmates lurking under the expected surface of tolerance.

What follows is a story that explores identity and honesty and labels, and how we actually shape how the world sees us by what we let the world see. Except unlike so many YA novels, Rafe is very clear about who he loves, he just needs to figure out who he is and how to be his best self.

Openly Straight has humor and heartache while exploring issues of identity from an organic and interesting teen perspective, one firmly rooted in this GSA-PFLAG-Out Athletes world. And Rafe is a fully developed teen male character with wants and needs and a worldview certainly linked to, but not entirely defined by, his sexuality. While a few characters might slide into cliché (ie, the popular jock, the trusty female pal), most of the secondary characters are well developed, interesting, and add dimension to the story. They also serve as foils for Rafe’s attempts to label everyone else, even as he resists being labeled.  Through writing assignments, conversations with friends and family, and even through conflict and introspection, Rafe considers relevant and weighty questions like can we exist in a label-free world, when is “being gay” relevant to your life, and just how wide is the chasm between tolerance and acceptance? And perhaps most centrally, can you really be yourself while hiding who you are?

Aside from issues of identity, Openly Straight explores how being different can be isolating, even in a seemingly progressive environment. It also offers a terrific exploration of that moment when a teen takes his first steps out of his self-absorbed bubble by recognizing his privileged place in the world, and begins to realize how that privilege effects his choices and how his actions impact others.

Children of the Tipi: Life in the Buffalo Days, edited by Michael Oren Fitzgerald  will make a good read-aloud for pre- and early readers, and will be a quick, illuminating read for children in third and fourth grades. There is no through-narrative;  the explanations of Native (mostly Plains Indians) cultures are told in the many voices of the people who lived it, often as childhood memories. All of the narration is, according to the editor, by Native Americans who were born before the reservation era. Some are lyrical while other quotes are more straightforward. The book dispels some of the myths about Native cultures, and children will find points of reference in their own culture.

Most of the photographs are sepia, with an occasional color image. The photos of the clothing are especially striking. Children of the Tipi: Life in the Buffalo Days is being released in hardcover (forty pages) in June by Wisdom Tales.

FAT ANGIE

Written by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo

Hungry for an intimate, intense third person drama?  FAT ANGIE will keep you reading, wondering – and laughing.

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo has created for Fat Angie a barely functional family. Some characters are caricatures with exaggerated all-good, all-bad, qualities, which adds to the humor but doesn’t subtract from the realism or emotional punch. But when Big Sister (family glue) signs up for the military (surprise!) and is deployed, Fat Angie’s family falls apart. Comic-strip BAD Mom becomes increasingly self-centered; Dad goes missing; Brother was Jeckle, but is soon Hyde.  And then there is Fat Angie who figures out how to survive,  and throughout, tells it like it is.

This book is brutally, brilliantly honest.  It is about people, parents, growing into one’s skin, one’s life, one’s reality, and even one’s friendships:

“I saw you as my friend,” said Angie.

“I am your friend,” said KC. “But friends screw up….”

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo takes on tough topics one by one – dysfunctional families, grief, bullying, obesity, cutting, lesbian coming-into-awareness, all with a recurrent steady focus on friendship and family.

Reading Fat Angie sometimes feels like watching a fast-moving movie. In fact, I look forward to sitting down in a theatre with a big box of buttered popcorn, and watching Fat Angie full-screen.

OK, here is my interview with the author (who plays a mean game of football) and not only writes award-winning books and dramas but also produces and directs live drama.

Nancy:

Is this book somewhat autobiographical, or not at all? 

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo:  Not really. I wasn’t bullied in school nor was I the bully. I think I was more like Jake Fetch in that I stuck up for those who couldn’t always stick up for themselves. I understand what it means to be ostracized for other challenges, so the notion of being separate or lost was incredibly relatable.

 What inspired you to take the risk and write in one book about cutting, bullying, over-weight/eating disorder, friendship, sexual identity, dysfunctional families, and grieving the loss of a sibling? 

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo:  Some people might say I was insane to take this kind of risk with my career. Any one of those topics is loaded in and of themselves. Then you have a book where they all intertwine which is dicey.

The thing is, I don’t choose the story. It chooses me. I’m kind of along for the ride by listening…really listening. There are those who get upset because they perceive the story as the only way you can be fat and find happiness is to lose weight. That’s not the point of the book for me at all, but every reader is entitled to their experience. There are others who will only be able to hone in on the issues around sexuality and disengage. Again, it’s the story that needed to be on the page. A story with everything in the kitchen sink but not as a window dressing. Everything is there because those issues exist in the forward and sometimes backward momentum world of Angie. Does that make sense?

 Whew – did I leave anything out? Dysfunctional therapists?

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo:  Ha! Well, I didn’t grow up in the easiest home. I think that I infused some of my father’s traits into Angie’s couldn’t-be-bothered mom, Connie. He was a hard guy with a lot of expectations which was a difficult childhood for me. I ended up in therapy when I was in my late teens, and I encountered a few not so insightful therapists, so I’m sure I subconsciously drew on that experience.

When did you begin working on this novel?  How did you decide where in the story arc to begin?

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo:  Let’s see. It was winter, and I was sitting in a mom and pop dive of a diner in Madison, Wisconsin. I’m listening to Lenny Kravitz’s “Are You Gonna Go My Way” on the iPod when it just clicked. I snapped up a napkin and sketched out the opening of the book. Funny thing, the opening and format of how it is laid out is incredibly close to the final novel. Something in the rhythm of the music — the opening sound in the electric guitar — the pulse and the whole world of this girl named Angie just opened up. It was a done deal.

Was the use of cinematic “style” intentional or did the story unfold that way?

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo:  I’m not a big over thinker or outline person. It often gets in my way on early drafts. The story is initially driven dialogue. The spine takes shape. The muscle and skin follow. The cinematic references were there early on but only in that it was the voice of the narrator guiding me. Coming from a film background, cinema language is my day-to-day life vernacular, and it simply worked for this story. When it didn’t, I yanked it, but it didn’t happen until the second draft.

What would you describe is the real “heart” of the story – the emotional understanding you hope the reader will have?

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo:  That we /they are not alone. Someone somewhere is listening — caring — and will show up. For those who do that for others, then hopefully they will know how invaluable they are as people.

We are all different. We all don’t fit and we all fit. It’s when the “not fitting” becomes exacerbated and we lose our life jacket insight. Hopefully, FAT ANGIE is a book that has humor, beauty, sadness, truth and hope. The hope is that through the most unbearable moments you can find a way to some place better.

My favorite line is – “It’s so hard when the person you look like on the outside doesn’t really match how you feel in the inside.”

Did that thought unfold as you wrote or was it something you had thought about before you wrote Fat Angie?

e.E. Charlton-Trujillo:  Again, I’m not an over thinker, which makes me sound either incredibly shallow or sloppy. I only mean that I am in complete character lockdown when I write. I go into the world for 12 to 13 hour days for three or four weeks and then I’m done. I see the characters in three-dimensional space. What does the gum they chew taste like? How does the carpet feel after it is vacuumed? What does the fabric softener smell like in KC’s room? Even if these details don’t appear on the page, I know them and let them be a part of the background noise that informs how their world unfolds.

It was clear to me just as the story unfolded that KC was a mirror of sorts to Fat Angie. When I wrote that line, I knew I’d hit it. It wasn’t planned. It just … happened.

Side Note: I’m an avid fan of BTVS, so infusing that into the feminist philosophy of KC Romance was definitely “ultra even.”

PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY  Star Review

Fat Angie

High school freshman Angie sees herself the way everyone else does, as “Fat Angie,” until KC Romance, “a model kind of beauty beneath the bad-girl garb,” breezes into her small, conservative Ohio town….Charlton-Trujillo (Feels Like Home) offers a hard-hitting third novel that swings between incredibly painful low moments and hard-won victories.

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL  Star Review

 A father who abandoned the family. A couldn’t-be-bothered mother. An adopted brother who is a criminal in the making. A high school full of peers who relentlessly tease her following a failed suicide attempt at a basketball game. And the only person who really understands her–her older sister–is being held hostage in Iraq and is believed to be dead by everyone except Angie. This is Angie’s life. Then a gorgeous, punk-rock chick with a mysterious past, KC Romance, begins taking an interest in her ….The voice of a dry and direct third-person narrator works in a story laden with heavy topics, including war, death, suicide, cutting, bullying, and homosexuality.–Nicole Knott, Watertown High School, CT

What do you think of the stars and other praise for FAT ANGIE?

Stars are fantastic and humbling. I am fortunate to have received the praise from my peers, Gregory Maguire (Wicked), Jo Knowles (Harry’s Place) and so many more. The thing is that at the end of the day all that matters to me is that I show up. 199.9 percent at the page. I didn’t cower, and I didn’t quit when the emotion of the stories ran deep. I hurt with these characters, and I laugh with them. They are so much smarter than me which sounds incredibly insane since I’m the one typing out their world. I guess what I mean is that in the moment they are who they are. No buffer. No second guessing. Their character is their truth. In my day to day life, a hesitation is inevitable just out of the requirements of social norms. Well, some of the time.  

The thing to also remember, for whatever it is worth, that my path to writing came from the single darkest moment in my life. I mean, I always wrote but not novels. The novels came after my best friend Amanda J. Cunningham was killed in a car accident. I guess it was the only way I could breathe. Soon after writing two novels in mere months and winning the Delacorte Dell Yearling Award, I realized that this was a gift worth channeling. Not for money or awards or even stars. It was because I had the opportunity to reach into to a person. To create a space where they could be entertained and also not feel alone. That’s the magic in all of this. The chance to show up, be authentic and create change. And when I’m fortunate, be changed by the stories I create.

Blog Tribute to Amanda J. Cunningham:

http://charltontrujillo.blogspot.com/2013/05/remember-what-glows.html

Want to know more about e.E. Charlton-Trujillo? Visit her website at www.bigdreamswrite.com

Reading Cowboy Up! Ride the Navajo Rodeo (Wordsong/Boyds Mills Press, 2013) by Nancy Bo Flood with photographs by Jan Sonnenmair, took me back to those days. The text and pictures feature both adults and children who take part in the Navajo rodeo. Cowboy Up! is a delightful collage of poems from a child’s perspective, humorous snippets from the announcer, the author’s brief explanations of the various elements of the Navajo rodeo, and expressive photos of children, adults, and animals at the event.

The book begins the night before, with an anxious young competitor who can’t eat or sleep, wondering what the next day will bring. There is the gathering of families at dawn, the introduction of the announcer who happens to be the youngster’s grandfather, the opening ceremony, the young sheep riders who kick off the competition, the various competitions, and the journey home after the event. Sadly, our young narrator does not come out a winner, but Dad explains, “Losing is part of rodeo. / Falling is how you learn… / Next rodeo is coming right up. / Another chance to ride your best.”

Cowboy Up! is an intimate portrayal of a Navajo tradition that is part of a broader North American tradition, with rodeos in Mexico and Canada as well as in the United States. The announcer’s humor and the photos convey the uniquely Navajo aspects of the rodeo, while the poems touch on the universal elements—the joy of a ritual that celebrates family, community, and a way of life. Also universal is the nervousness of the young competitor who hears the words “cowboy up,” and after hours of practice a few crucial seconds will make the difference between victory and defeat.

  Privateer’s Apprentice  by Susan Verrico (Peachtree Publishers) $15.95

(Reviewed by guest reviewer Donna Pierquet, Mount Mary College)

A swashbuckling coming of age story, Susan Verrico’s Privateer’s Apprentice will get adolescent readers engaged and interested in a young boy’s nautical adventures even as it depicts the loss of his family and his courage to survive. We meet Jameson Cooper in 1712 after a plague has hit his small town and he is left without parents, his family business, or a place to call home. Accused of a crime he didn’t commit his fate hangs in the balance as readers find Jameson tied to the stockade awaiting his sentence. A baker buys his freedom and Jameson believes he will live out his punishment slaving away for the man whom he was first accused of stealing from. While running an errand for his owner, Jameson is knocked out and kidnapped.  He awakes confused and afraid realizing he can never return to Charles Towne or his home.

Readers quickly empathize with the young boy and the situation he finds himself in at the age of thirteen.  Jameson always hoped to follow in the livelihood of his father, a printer. Instead he finds himself aboard a privateer ship in Queen Anne’s fleet, The Destiny, captained by a man known as Attack Jack.  Jameson is first treated as a prisoner, living with the livestock in the belly of the ship.  Yet, despite his glib remarks Jameson weaves his way into the hearts of the Captain and his most trusted first mate, the crusty Solitaire Pete.

Once the Captain realizes Jameson’s talents for printing he begins to slowly let him in on the secrets of their voyages.  England’s hope to expand its’ territories and control lead The Destiny to new shores, where even more of the excitement begins.  Secret maps and creating a clever ruse to sail into enemy waters are just a few of the lessons Jameson learns while under the protective watch of the Captain.  However on-board mutiny and hatred for the rookie kid cause Jameson to look over his shoulder to avoid danger at all times.

Amidst cannon fire, the Captain being held prisoner by his own country, and starvation during long voyages at sea, Jameson slowly turns from being an apprentice to a treasured member of the crew. Readers get to see a naïve boy use his unique printing and map sketching skills to save The Destiny from peril.   Verrico sets a captivating tale for young readers to escape and enjoy.  All of this done, of course, for Queen and Country.

What do  ROGUE, MUTANT, BMX and ASPERGER’S  plus MR. INTERNET have in common?

 This book.   ROGUE   Written by Lyn Miller-Lachmann.  She does not hold back any punches but with each chapter pushes the reader further along the sharp edge of suspense, wondering, what happens next?

Kiara, main character, is an eighth-grade student soon to have an official diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome, so relating to other people, especially peers, is not exactly her specialty.  Most of the time the world doesn’t make sense to Kiara, but Mr. Internet does. 

And then the new boy, a new neighbor, moves in across the street.  The politics of friendship become complicated.  Sometimes Chad is a friend.  Sometimes he uses Kiara to protect his drug-distilling family.  Sometimes….Kiara is not sure what Chad’s real intentions are.

After reading ROGUE in one tense but wonderful, wham-bam sitting, I interviewed Lyn for The Pirate Tree:

Nancy: This book is somewhat autobiographical, right?  What inspired you to take the risk and write it?  When did you begin and how did you decide where to begin?

Lyn:

My difficulties growing up were something I had avoided in my writing, preferring to write about other people’s struggles rather than my own. Perhaps I had internalized the dislike that others felt for my younger self, because every time I tried to create a character like myself, she turned out to be a complete loser.

In my first semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts, I worked with An Na and was inspired by her honesty and courage in presenting Young Ju, the semi-autobiographical immigrant protagonist of A Step from Heaven. Young Ju isn’t always likable, and she doesn’t always make good decisions, but her powerful and unique voice drew me in and made me care about her. I wanted to create a similar character in Kiara, with a voice that was completely honest and completely hers as a girl on the autism spectrum trying to figure out how the world works and the secrets of friendship that everyone except her seems to know.

I begin the novel with an incident that actually happened to me in seventh grade. I wanted to be one of the popular girls and thought all you had to do to be popular was to sit at their table in the cafeteria. So one day, I bought my lunch and set it on the table where the popular girls always sat. But before I could sit down, one of the girls, without saying a word, pushed my tray onto the floor. I started to cry, and since I already had a reputation as a crybaby, the other kids delighted in my tears and humiliation.

All my life, I wished I could have fought back, but I had very strict parents who would have severely punished me. Kiara’s parents are more disengaged, so she does fight back. She slams the tray in the face of the girl who pushed it onto the floor, thereby earning herself a suspension from school for the rest of the year. Her exclusion makes it even more difficult for her to find a friend, so that when Chad and his family move in a block away, it really is her only chance.

Nancy:  What would you describe is the real “heart” of the story – the emotional understanding you hope the reader will have?

 Lyn:

Although I wasn’t officially diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome until adulthood, I always knew I was different from the other kids. I wanted to have friends and be part of school and social activities but grew accustomed to isolation and exclusion because of my poor social skills. I always felt I had something to contribute, if only people would pay attention to me, and at times I sought that attention in negative ways.

Like me, Kiara wants nothing more than to have a friend, but beyond that, she wants to find the “special power” that will make her a valued part of her community. For inspiration and courage, she looks to the X-Men, mutant superheroes who band together to save each other and the world from prejudice and evil. People who think and act differently because their brains are wired differently or because they have faced more challenging circumstances tend to get written off as troublemakers. But different ways of thinking may be just what’s needed to solve a difficult problem, and we as a society need to embrace those who are different and make the effort to help each person find his or her own special power.

From Francisco X. Stork, author of Marcelo in the Real World:

“Kiara is an important contribution to the literary portrayal of Asperger’s syndrome.  With an insider’s knowledge and a gift for creating suspense [indeed!], Lyn Miller-Lachmann gives us the realistic and hopeful story of a young person seeking to find her unique place in the world.”

Probably Sentenced to Life at Seventeen—The Story of David Milgaard by Cynthia J. Faryon will appeal to middle school readers, though it certainly can be used as high-interest/easy reading in high school classes. I myself enjoyed the parallel scenes at the start of the book where the author presents the diabolical actions of the real murderer with the silly youthful behavior of the accused.

The narrative is almost routine now if you’ve ever listened to exoneration stories on This American Life or Snap Judgment, or followed the long, bewildering story of the West Memphis Three. A sixteen-year-old boy is accused of a murder he didn’t commit, gets convicted at the hand of circumstantial evidence and drug-addled witnesses trying to save their own hides, and spends decades doing hard time. His exoneration is never guaranteed; he is freed at age 39 only because of the intractable efforts of his parents, especially his mother, and even then it’s more of a technicality because the province of Saskatchewan doesn’t want to retry him following a ruling by the Canadian Supreme Court. It takes him even longer to clear his name and force a review of the system that wrongly incarcerated him.

Considering the Common Core’s emphasis on non-fiction as a vehicle for student success, books such as this one could prove to be very valuable for social studies instruction, since it addresses ethical issues in the criminal justice system. The crime took place in 1969, which may seem like ancient history, but even then didn’t police have a sense that this boy didn’t fit the profile of a cold-blooded killer? Why was the testimony of Milgaard’s clearly unreliable friends even admissible in court? And why would any government toss a boy just turning seventeen into prison with hardcore inmates? This is not a cautionary tale—don’t get framed for murder! The book avoids facile warnings about the indiscretions of youth—petty theft, drug use, indiscriminate sex. David even manages to escape from prison at one point, which only reinforces his reputation as a career criminal. But none of these makes him a rapist and murderer. Only evidence could prove that, and the evidence was ignored for years while the real killer remained at liberty.

Sentenced to Life at Seventeen—The Story of David Milgaard, published by Lorimer includes a timeline, glossary and a list of further readings in its 120 pages. It is part of a series called Real Justice, which, judging by the titles, addresses judicial injustices that have upended the lives of young people in Canada. I’m going to try to read them all, hoping that the good guy wins at the end of each tragic story.

“Decisions, they shape our destiny.” Out of the Easy, by Ruta Sepetys

“Some choices, once you make them, they stay made. And I had my reasons.” Orleans, by Sherri L. Smith

It’s always interesting to find books that seem destined to be read together, as if they were always meant to be part of the same conversation. I find it fascinating when those books are published in the same year, and approach their common themes and subjects in ways that beg comparison, not for which is better or worse, but for the different perspectives each offers to the analysis.

Two books out this year definitely beg to be read together. One is set in 1950 New Orleans, examining the implications of gender, class and race through the compelling narrative of historical New Orleans. The other is set in what is left of New Orleans in the year 2056, after the storm and illness ravaged delta region has been walled off, its remaining inhabitants written off.  Roughly 60 years in our past and almost 60 years in what could be our future, and in both the unique geography and history of New Orleans creates a lens through which to examine the intersection of gender, socioeconomic class and race, and how our greater society often exploits to its own advantage the uniquely vulnerable at the center of that intersection.

Set in the simmering French Quarter, Ruta Sepetys’ Out of the Easy (Philomel Books, February 2013) provides readers with a heroine to cheer for. Seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is known to locals as the daughter of a prostitute. Despite her mother’s neglect and the dangers of being a poor but independent young woman navigating 1950 New Orleans, Josie is a fighter determined to escape the cycle she feels is pulling her toward her mother’s life, or a life spent on the brink of poverty. Her plan is a good one — college, though setting her sights on Smith might be a bit more than the daughter of a French Quarter prostitute can pull off. But when Josie becomes entangled in a murder mystery, and the eventual criminal investigation, all her dreams and plans start to slip away. Sepetys draws readers in to Josie’s world with vivid details of 1950 New Orleans and interesting secondary characters that add dimension to the story. But it’s her ability to make us root for Josie, to want her to defy all the odds, even as the danger mounts, that makes the story a page turner.  And yet, intertwined with Josie’s story and the mystery are the very real implications of being a poor young woman of questionable parentage in New Orleans, and beyond, at that time.

In Orleans, by Sherri L. Smith (Putnam Juvenile, March 2013), sixteen-year-old Fen de la Guerre is also a survivor. Delta Fever is rampant in the walled off ruins of Orleans (the New having been dropped long ago), and the best way to slow its spread and lessen the severity of its course is to keep to your own kind – blood kind. As an o-positive, Fen’s blood is attractive to the blood hunters and members of other tribes who want her blood to help them survive. That is, if she hadn’t burned her own arms to make herself a less attractive target. When circumstances result in Fen being entrusted with an infant, she must navigate the dangerous swamps and streets to get the baby to safety, knowing that almost everyone she meets would benefit from the infant’s as-yet-untainted blood, and many would kill for it. Fen is fierce. She is also fallible. And if she sometimes escapes danger a little too easily, readers might be so relieved that she and baby girl escaped that they might not care. And when Fen’s story intersects with Daniel, a young scientist from beyond the wall searching for answers to fight the fever, they both gain a powerful ally and measure of hope. Smith paints a realistic and compelling look at one possible, if devastating, future for New Orleans, and for us all. And she offers within the story plenty to consider and discuss about how race and gender and poverty have affected Fen, and how the historical roots of poverty and race in New Orleans combined to contribute to the fate of Orleans and its people.

Both books give readers a main character to cheer for, to fear for, to empathize with and to wonder about. Both Fen and Josie are survivors, defined by their times if not their circumstances. Both young women fight for more, in worlds that are far from fair. And both Sepetys and Smith give their readers plenty to consider about gender and poverty and exploitation, never sugar coating reality, but also never destroying the essential hope that makes us dream and fight for better over and over again.

In the hope that reading a book will be one of the real world activities chosen, Random House Children’s Publishing has made a video and sponsored a blog tour to feature some of the publisher’s latest titles. Although I too spend a shameful amount of my day in front of a screen (I’m now writing the first draft of my WIP in a notebook for reasons that I explain on my personal blog), I’ve signed on to be part of the tour. I’ve had the pleasure of reading Carolita Blythe’s debut YA novel Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl, which was a special treat for me because I actually lived in the same Brooklyn neighborhood at the time the novel takes place.

Set in the gritty streets just south of Prospect Park in 1984, Revenge of a Not-So-Pretty Girl portrays high school freshman Faye Andrews, who takes out her anger at her poverty, plain appearance, and abusive home situation on the popular girls at school. Outside school hours, she and two equally homely and troubled friends mug people for money and for fun. One winter afternoon she knocks down an elderly woman—reputed to be a famous and wealthy actress—while she and the friends are ransacking the woman’s apartment. When the woman does not get up, Faye begins to worry about “karma,” how her actions will affect the course of her life even though she and her friends escape unpunished. In fact, nothing goes right for her after the incident—she has a big fight with her friends, her estranged father moves away for good, and the boy she likes humiliates her. Faye decides to make good by returning to the apartment to see if the old woman is still alive.

If Faye’s life doesn’t magically improve as a result of her first act of decency, she does gain a new perspective on herself and those around her. This is an important and powerful story, and above all, it is real. Yes, real—like the real world we’re going to experience once we step away from all those screens. The author, who was born in Jamaica and immigrated to the United States, captures the language and the popular culture of her African-American and West Indian characters. Those interested in film history will appreciate the snippets of information from the elderly actress’s life because it’s not something that one would find in a textbook or see on TV today—but imagine a tabloid from a century ago, and it would have been there.

Here’s a link to the Unplug & Read video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsbhj6_ha94&list=UU9LvODN4v9P3dxwOIYlBULA&index=1

And here’s the Screen Free Week poster: