“The One and Only Ivan” by Katherine Applegate

This year’s Newbery was one I predicted, for a change, as chatter had it on the short list as early as last summer.  It gained a bit of notoriety, however, as many felt “Wonder” by Palacio deserved a nod and was overlooked.  I haven’t read “Wonder” but did like this book, which was delightful, sweet and endearing with strong overtones of “Charlotte’s Web.”  The sad tale of a gorilla living in a small cage in a run-down roadside tourist spot; it is the kind of story that makes all of us animal lovers reach for the Kleenex (and yes, there is the pre-requisite loss of life, because there always is in these kinds of stories).  A faster read than the 305 pages would indicate, I got through it in an afternoon.  Told in sparse phrasing and short chapters, it borders on poetry without all the flowery stuff and actually makes for a fabulous read-aloud.  Applegate gets props for creating characters, animal and human, who are layered and three-dimensional.  Based on real events (how I want to go visit Ivan now!!) it could become one of those Lassie/Old Yeller/Black Beauty books that is kept and read over and over again through the years.  The twist here is that Ivan needs to rescue someone, but it isn’t necessarily the someone you would think it is.  Highly accessible (not so for many Newbery picks) this is one of those “warm your heart” stories – or, as Applegate states, in the voice of Ivan, “I like colorful tales with black beginnings and stormy middles and cloudless blue-sky endings.”  Me too!  A great little book that should make for a family favorite.  Enjoy.

“In Darkness” by Nick Lake

The Printz winner for this year, “In Darkness” is a brilliant, disturbing and very dark tale (yes, pun intended).  It is, in fact, one of the darkest books I have ever read.  Unlike “My Friend Dahmer,” which hinted at horror, this book spells it out – all of it – in painful detail.  “Shorty” is a child of the Haitian ghetto who is deep into gang life.  At 14, he has killed many and has recently been shot.  Recovering from his injuries he finds himself in the rubble of a collapsed hospital during the earthquake of 2010.  Lost in the blackness, surrounded by crushed bodies and death, he recounts his brief life even as he struggles for sanity and survival, drinking in bodily fluids to sate his growing dehydration.  In the midst of this he travels back in time and bonds with Toussaint, a former slave facing his own nightmares as he tries to end slavery and unite a nation.  Nick Lake, a British national, clearly did his homework and the novel abounds with specifics on actual events but the telling is neither prosaic nor pedantic.  He does an outstanding job of getting into the heads of these two characters and making them real.  Lake also didn’t let history dictate the story, tweaking Toussaint’s life just enough to make the novel work.  At no point does this feel like a textbook accounting but rather the very real struggles of individuals against impossible circumstances.  These are characters you feel for and I felt ripped apart inside as these two men fought to move through their ugly, sad worlds.  It is a brutal beauty here.  Mr. Lake is a subtle writer and uses the two storylines in a parallel fashion to softly emphasize major points.  Chapter to chapter, each tale reflects something discovered by the “other half” of this duo.  Even the dialog is subtle, set off by dashes instead of quotes, blending back and forth between what is said and what is thought.  Lake has a lyric touch, even when using the foulest of language, as he describes scenes that many of us can hardly bring ourselves to imagine.  There are dead infants throughout, and shocking incidences (true) of UN forces treating the poorest of Haiti not unlike the Nazis did to the Jews.  First, they walled them off in a miserable section of Port-au-Prince, starving the people there from food (the residents sometimes resort to eating pies of baked mud),  job opportunities and medical services.  Then they went in with guns … ostensibly to kill the inevitable drug-lords that surfaced … and killed civilians in violent, late-night attacks that were indiscriminate in their targets.  That this did not make the news here in America is appalling.  That it was tolerated by the government of France, who was a major force in these actions, is even more so.  While very difficult to read, kudos should be given to this author for this powerful novel and for raising awareness of a people too often forgotten.  Shocking and painful, this isn’t so much a book you might want to read, but it is one you should.

“Level Up” by Gene Luen Yang, Art by Thien Pham

“Level Up” is a significantly different graphic novel than Gene Yang’s “American Born Chinese.”  That book, using three interwoven metaphorical tales to address immigrant experiences, is drawn in bold colors with sharp lines.  This work still has symbolism and mythos but is more serious and subtler overall.  Drawn with soft lines and highlighted in watercolors that wash over and beyond the images, this is a pseudo-autobiographical story of a boy named Dennis.  Attracted to computer gaming (which nearly sinks his college career), Dennis struggles to meet the high ideals of his parents.  Dennis is haunted, literally, by spirits who follow his every action in day-to-day living.  Fighting the stereotypical Asian ideal of becoming a doctor he seeks a meaningful and purposeful life, eventually coming to a surprising conclusion after many “re-boots.”  The book is very thoughtfully laid out.  Childhood sections are a wash of blue, remembrances are sepia-toned.  Each “level up” (mimicking any number of computer games) represents a new world and maturation point for Dennis to try and conquer.  Even when Dennis finally gets what he wants he is not happy, as evidenced in a striking two-page spread that makes the point beautifully (side-note – check out the shape of the tears when Dennis gets to his breaking point).  I stated that this is pseudo-autobiographical in that I can see a lot of parallels from Gene Yang’s life, but his opening dedication “… to our brothers Jon and Thinh, both of whom work in the medical field, for being the good Asian sons” is downright poignant when you read the book.  Makes you think.  It was a good, one-sitting, read, although not nearly as fun as “American Born Chinese.”  And the angels are creepy.  But it is a well-done novel, and worth dipping into.

“My Friend Dahmer” by Derf Backderf

What a strange thing to go from a medieval fantasy to this dark and disturbing tale.  First and foremost, this is an excellent book.  That being said, it is not an easy graphic novel to read.  Longer and more in-depth than many graphic novels, the author explains that this is a second attempt to capture his unusual connection to Jeffrey Dahmer and that this time, he did extensive research before diving in.  The efforts show and make this an obvious choice for the many awards now being placed on it, including the “Alex” Award from ALA.  Many things about the novel struck me, in no particular order:

• The title is a tad misleading, but “My Acquaintance Dahmer” would not have had the same ring to it.  Using the term friend implies that this is someone one cares about.  There is no indication that Backderf (real name John) was a friend to Dahmer, or that Dahmer was really able to make the connection you would call friendship.  Rather, Dahmer was an oddball who was taken in by a group of teen boys kind of like a pet.  The boys alternately tolerated and were amused by Dahmer’s antics but they didn’t invite him to parties or social activities, just sort of used Jeffrey as a running gag.  Nonetheless, Dahmer said this period in his life was the closest he ever got to being happy.
• Backderf is torn, emotionally, about this relationship.  In an extended intro and in the detailed notes afterwards (worth the read) he tries to articulate this complexity of feelings.  He doesn’t succeed, in my humble opinion, but then how can you?  There is pity, anger, grief, horror, unspoken-yet-clear guilt … but then this is an attempt to understand that which most of us will never be able to fully comprehend.  John feels badly for Jeffrey, who was obviously struggling, anger at the many adults who clearly turned a blind eye, and tries to draw a hard line as to when the sympathy and blame to others ends.  The reality is that Jeffrey Dahmer, at 15, was most likely already battling inherited mental health issues, including depression, alcoholism and sociopathic tendencies.  Trying to determine, at this point, what could have made a difference is an exercise with no happy solutions.  Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, but we don’t live our life in re-wind.  Backderf does not pull his punches when showing the callousness of his youth, and that of his comrades-in-arms, and I felt like I went with him on this journey; experiencing the tale more on a visceral than intellectual level.  While very linear, this isn’t so much a story as a kind of purging of conflicting feelings.  It reads like a tremendously sad elegy.
• Backderf and his friends ridiculed many, and he apologizes to one man who had cerebral palsy in the notes section of the book.  He doesn’t apologize, however, to a character he repeatedly refers to as a “loser” and the “class psycho,” even going as far as initially thinking that it is this person, not Dahmer, who committed the horrific crimes once they are discovered.  For an adult looking back, it is interesting to feel that he still bears a good bit of animosity to the “Figg” character.  I don’t know what to make of that.  Backderf and friends were not at the top of the high school social ladder, however, and perhaps he is exhibiting that basic human need to find someone below himself to raise himself up.
• Since I know the history of this true story, and most of my students do not, I wonder how much creepiness I brought to the reading.  It was literally hard to turn the page at points.  I wonder how my students would react to the book knowing little or nothing about Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes.
• Reading this book so shortly after yet another shocking mass shooting is strange.  How do Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes, which were beyond awful yet private, stack up to the killings we see today, which are so incredibly public?  Both kinds of acts shake me to the core, but does one outweigh the other?  (I don’t suspect this is a question I can answer).

Getting back to the review – Backderf’s choices in “framing” the story graphically are top-notch.  In black and white pen drawings, he took time to have wordless panels.  Pages with Jeffrey Dahmer walking down a road, focusing on his own feet, or staring out a bus window set a strong tone.  Even the arch of a hill or the busy-ness (or lack there-of) of the background helps set the stage.  As Jeffrey’s descent into oblivion is chronicled, the backgrounds of the panels become pitch black.  Backderf manages to create a kind of glassy, disconnected stare so reminiscent of men who commit these crimes, but also limits the number of times we see Dahmer’s eyes … the artist increasingly places glare on Dahmer’s glasses to block out the eyes entirely.  This is eerily reminiscent of a photo included in the book – one of a joke yearbook shot where Jeffrey Dahmer stands in the back, head slightly tilted, a white bulb flash on the lens of his glasses.  Backderf saves the worst of  Dahmer’s crimes from the reader, using intimation to touch on the nastier parts.  There is little blood, just a sense of omniscient threat as the images zoom in, a single drop of “something” coming out of a car trunk, and then a quick fade-out.  The artwork (which Backderf says is the best he has ever done) creates blocky, pudgy profiles that work well for re-creating 1970s era teens, but falls a tad short on female characters, who all seem a bit masculine.  It is a minor complaint in an otherwise excellently executed tale.  I particularly liked the use of bold text in word bubbles to articulate subtleties, like sarcasm, and the tremendous accuracy Backderf took in recreating the 1970s and a highway sign for Washington, DC.  I always get cranky when they get details about “my city” wrong.

On my own, I would not seek out a book on a serial killer but I did feel compelled to read this before putting it on the shelf.  For me, it was best to take “breaks” while reading it.  In the end, I appreciate its brilliance, but am very glad to move on.  Let this review be your warning label. 

“Seraphina” by Rachel Hartman

Much like the Philip Pullman “His Dark Materials” series, this book grew on me – but the winner of this year’s Morris Award is not an easy novel to slide into, or one where you are likely to careen from one chapter to the next.  Easily one of the most complex, dense stories I have read in a good deal of time, I found it was important to slow down and allow myself to be enriched by this world.  Take 14^th Century Verona Italy, heavy-duty religious overtones, the racism of America’s 1950s, a dash of Zen Buddhism and a twist on dragonlore I’ve never seen before and you have the ~beginnings~ of this tale.  Throw in a *lot* of SAT words (perspicacity, calefactive, ventrum) and you have a medieval story that could almost be historically accurate … if not for the dragons.  Seraphina is a girl of questionable background.  Born into a world where the church is as much of a presence as the ruling nobility (who have intrigues of their own), Seraphina is a girl of musical gifts and tremendous secrets.  The pacing is not quick.  For several weeks, I covered a few chapters at a time, each day, until the middle of the book, when suddenly I began to crave “what happens next.”  The ending is rich and satisfactory (and could be the build-up to a sequel, although the novel stands on its own just fine).  There is a love interest, but like all elements of this story, it is subtle and tricky (have you ever heard lovers declaring their feelings using the term “prevaricated”?)  Like the Pullman books, Ms. Hartman has succeeded in creating a world with many levels and many surprises.  Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out (a bad habit of readers like me) there is an element you didn’t see coming.  This is a “book” book – literary and engaging, something you could re-read several times and see new sides of.  It is a story that lingers – days later I’m still thinking about it.  I can understand the Morris Award, given to a “fresh voice” in YA publishing.  Unlike many first-time authors, Ms. Hartman most certainly has the chops.  It will be interesting to see what comes next for her.  In the meantime, take some time to enjoy.