“Impossible” by Nancy Werlin

I’ve been waiting to read this National Book Award Finalist title for years. I heard the author speak about it just before it was published, and I was intrigued. A modern fairy-tale taken from Scarborough Fair. Long before Simon and Garfunkel got hold of it, Scarborough Fair was a medieval poem. One with darker implications. One that told of a love unfulfilled and the spurned lover who took a terrible revenge. Enter Lucy, a contemporary teen who knows nothing of magic and evil, but is inexorably walking a path not of her own making. Grounded in solid reality, the mystical elements of the story are easily acceptable to those who enjoy a good fantasy. A strong romance element would also be hard to swallow if not for the excellent writing and compelling voices of the characters. To be honest, I raced through this novel, frustrated when I had to put it down, because I simply had to know what happened next. Unreal as it may be, I’m a big old softie who really wants everything to work out in the end. In an attempt to avoid spoilers, I will simply say I was very impressed with this book and purchased a gift copy for a relative right after finishing it. A great story to curl up with on a gray winter day. Feel free to be transported … and, to learn the secrets that may help you break an ancient curse.

“Refresh Refresh” by Danica Novgorodoff, Benjamin Percy and James Ponsoldt

“Refresh Refresh” is another distinctly mature graphic novel by the edgy First Second Press. It tells the story of three young men awaiting their fathers’ return from the Iraq & Afghanistan wars. The teen boys live in a town where everyone knows someone in the military, and while that should be comforting, the reality in this book is just the opposite. The bullying between the teens is brutal. Even friends engage in daily slugfests – presumably to blow off steam. Like many graphic novels, I felt like the characters weren’t as fully developed as they should have been and the lack of a moral compass for the young men is typical in these kinds of stories, which have a flat, negative impact on me. That being said, the “elements” of living with a parent serving overseas are clear and well-done. The conflicting emotions, the sense of loss, the feeling of being unmoored ... all ring true. The violence, language and adult scenarios are realistic, I think, for kids who feel abandoned by parents. The “Refresh Refresh” title emphasizes their conflict – no matter what they say and how they act, the truth is that their world lives and dies during those few moments each night when they check their email, hoping more than anything for a brief word or two. The events at the end of the book are hugely unrealistic and left me with a sense of cop-out. The great redeemer in the climax is the artwork, which takes a dramatic turn and feels more compelling than the actual story. High School readers will find empathy here for the realities of military families during war-time, and fans of “Fight Club” will be suitably entertained.

“Redwoods” by Jason Chin

This was a book I kept coming across on recommended lists but dismissed several times because it was obviously a picture book. But I kept seeing it listed, over and over, as a “must buy.” So I bought it. Beautiful and breathtaking, it provides voluminous information on redwood trees – more than I knew, and I know a lot. In the story, a young boy riding the NYC subway discovers a book on redwoods. As he reads it, he is transported. The slow growth of the redwood forest around him is clever, and the awe the child finds in this new world seemed to translate off the page to me, as a reader. Having felt swept up in the otherworldly nature of an actual redwood forest, I sensed the same overwhelming wonder in reading the book as I did standing in Muir Woods. My only two complaints are minor and nit-picky. The boy’s face is not drawn consistently from frame to frame, his expressions tend to give him drastically different features at times; and the fauna described are not listed with nametags, so guessing which is which becomes an issue. As I said, small concerns with an otherwise lovely book. A good pick for the whole family.