For readers, joy is discovering a book you can’t put down. Last summer every book in my to-read pile gripped me from the first page and held me to the last. Here are some recent titles to make your summer reading sunny.
Jacqueline Woodson’s Peace, Locomotion (Putnam, ages 9-11) is a sequel that lives up to her award-winning Locomotion (Puffin, ages 9-11). The book is written in letters and for many young readers, the epistolary form itself is a strong hook. The brevity, white space, and the fascination of reading someone else’s mail become more captivating when you discover Lonnie, the 12 year-old hero is writing letters to his 9 year-old sister Lili and they both live in foster homes the same town.
In the prequel, Lonnie’s poems remember his parent’s death in a fire. Now he uses letters to make peace with his Lili’s acceptance her new home and mother and his failure to keep her memories of the past alive. His own colorful memories begin to fade and get quiet in the good home of Miss Edna, his foster mother. Her grown son Rodney calls him Little Brother, laughs easily and makes Lonnie feel at home. As Miss Edna’s worries about her son Jenkins who’s fighting in a war far away, Lonnie wishes there would be peace in the world - and in his classroom, and mostly that he could come to peace with his memories. His lyrical letters create an intimacy that allows readers to riding his emotional roller coaster.
Margaret McMullan’s Cashay (Houghton, ages mature 11 and up) has a startling beginning. Quickly the author brings us up to speed on Cashay’s life. The 13-year-old lives in the harsh world of Chicago’s Cabrini Green where she shields her younger sister Sashay from drugs and guns, purposely flunking 7th grade to guide her through middle school. But at the end of the first chapter, Sashay is hit by a stray gang bullet. Sashay worries about swallowing her gum as Cashay sees “a line of blood the color of nail polish move from somewhere under Sashay”, puddling into a pool as Sashay’s eyes close.
For the rest of the book, readers witness Cashay’s struggles and resilience as her mother begins a disastrous love affair that leads her back to drugs and the birth an addicted preemie. Cashay deals with her anger and grief and learns to accept and trust the supporting adults who mean her well. What keeps this book from being an utter reality horror story? The poetic voice balances the bleakness and the reader senses throughout that Cashay is a survivor, she only has to locate that power within herself.
Judy Blundell’s National Book Award winner, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic, ages 14 and up) also deserves a mesmerizing read award. The heroine, 15 year-old Evie Spooner has been sheltered most of her life, first by the single-mother who raised her and then by the stepfather who would do anything to protect her. When the family travels to Palm Beach in 1947, Evie falls for a handsome ex-GI. She is awkward at flirting and her discomfort grows when her mother’s beauty and obvious sexuality threatens to steal Evie’s first love.
In Palm Beach Evie learns that the world around her is filled with prejudice and her parents are linked to a terrible lie. As secrets surround her, Evie must shed her innocence and grow up fast. Mystery, coming of age, racism, sexuality, plot twists, and the author’s terse style heightens a suspense that continues to book’s end.
Fantasy is not my favorite genre, but right from the beginning I was gripped by Kristin Cashore’s Graceling (Harcourt, ages 14- adult). The story takes place in a world where some are “graced” with special abilities. If the premise isn’t absorbing enough, meet the captivating heroine, Lady Katsa, a superb female fighter who acts as assassin for her uncle, King Randa. Katsa believes she’s been graced with a gift for killing until she meets Po, a foreign prince, with mismatched gold and silver eyes, who himself is graced. Po, also an excellent fighter, enters their relationship with playful wrestling match, but ends by becoming the lover who understands Katsa better than she does herself. The author builds the romantic-sexual pull along side plot tension so intense that the novel almost turns to fire in your hands. Conflicts continue as the two exquisitely matched characters take on a graced King whose motives are as bent on hiding his true self as the lovers are drawn to finding their truths.
David Macinnis Gill, the president of ALAN (the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents knows what drives teenage readers and proves it in Soul Enchilada: The Devil is in the Details (Greenwillow, ages 14 to adult). Eunice “Bug” Smoot, fired from her pizza-delivery job, pinches pennies so hard that “boogers come out of Lincoln’s nose.” She’s sick of being hassled about her mixed race, her loving mother and grandfather are dead, and her landlord’s breathing down her neck.
But Bug discovers she doesn’t have a clue about troubles when her only possession, her grandfather’s 1958 Cadillac Biarritz, fills up “with the stink of sulfur, like somebody had let a sour egg fart”. Bug has a demon in her car and he wants to repossess the Cadillac and her soul.
Luckily Bug’s crush, Pesto, moonlights for the ISS (International Supernatural Immigration Service) and knows a few tricks like how to affix a djinn with hairspray. But it’s Bug who has to fight for her free will by racing her former boss (a possessed soul) in a pizza delivery battle, and playing basketball with high school nemesis (another possessed soul).
Bug is a captivating heroine, the set up is intriguing, adventures and reversals leave you breathless. The razor-sharp dialogue slices through the book as abundant similes make for smiles, descriptions, whether of the Cadillac’s interior or maggoty vomit, involve readers in the story and there’s laugh-aloud humor peppered throughout.
Humor, suspense, or gripping emotions, here’s hoping these books provide you with pleasure from beginning to end.