"The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly

Funny how things happen.  Just read the nonfiction title about the Darwin family, didn't like it, then picked up this one, a fictional take using similar themes, and really enjoyed it.  Must have Evolution on the brain.  Nonetheless, this was the book that "Charles and Emma" should have been.  For a fictional story, it was very real, very personal, and very engaging.  Calpurnia Tate (known as Callie Vee by most of her family) is a young girl on the brink.  She is on the brink of turning 12, the brink of living in a new century, and spends the first part of the book complaining of the Texas heat at her family's pecan orchid in 1899.  Slogging through the expectations of what it meant to be a "young lady" of the time, Calpurnia feels a pull towards the untraditional, but can't put a name to it until she crosses paths with her cantankerous, odd-ball grandfather, who opens up a larger world for her in the form of science, literature, and history.  The book is well-written and compelling -- interesting given the slow pacing and high-end vocabulary that includes more than a few references to the work and theories of "Mr. Darwin."  I think the draw is Calpurnia's voice, which speaks to us, in the modern age, in a way that is extremely relatable.  She is a fully-drawn, complex girl, who questions, yearns, and seeks to understand.  The family dynamics are not black and white and could be translated to any time period, with irritating brothers, a mom who struggles and a dad whose work makes him conspicously absent.  It is a rich tale, one that has few major actions, but lots of meaningful conversations and subtle allusions.  There is laughter, too, particularly the chapter about the turkeys, which made me guffaw, even with my vegetarian sensibilities.  My only worry with the book has to do with who will read it.  The 11 year-old protagonist is too young for most older students to pick it up, but this isn't a book for 11 year-olds (unless they are very good readers).  It is long, deep and uses a lot of those 50 cent words I had to slow down for.  Younger students would like Calpurnia and her crazy brothers, but I think more mature readers bring something to the novel that would help them appreciate it more.  In any case, the copy I borrowed had been checked out frequently, so I shouldn't fear.  A good book almost always finds its way into the right hands.  Forget the stuffy and erudite tone with some Newbery Honors, this one has real soul.

"Charles and Emma: The Darwin's Leap of Faith" by Deborah Heiligman

Once again, I was stymied by expectations.  I was prepared to like this book.  It won a ton of awards when it came out and anything about Charles Darwin has to be interesting, yes?  Well, maybe.  And maybe not.  The premise is good.  Charles Darwin's voyage revolutionized his entire belief system ... about nature, about God, about life.  But he waited 20 years to publish his theories.  In the meantime, he married a woman of deeply held Christian beliefs, had children, and wrestled with the discoveries he had made.  Because he wrote vociferously in his notebooks, and because it was a time of letters (oh, what will happen to the ephemeral records of the modern age?), the author is able to piece together a very complete picture of these 20 years -- of Darwin's fear of marriage and ultimate happiness with it, of the complexities that parenthood brought to Darwin's life in an age of high infant mortality.  The problem is -- it just doesn't go anywhere.  Each chapter, told in stiff prose mimicking the formality of the era, is simply a re-hash of journals and letters with supposition filling in any gaps.  It's not a story as much as a very detailed timeline.  There was absolutely no page-turning quotient for me and it dragged so much I had a difficult time finishing it.  The overly pedantic tone was also a turn-off in the initial chapters.  Yes, from a research perspective, it is strong -- hence the awards, I would guess.  But in the end, it wasn't engaging unless you are the kind of person fascinated by the kind of leather covering that was used on Darwin's journals (a bit of minutiae mentioned repeatedly).  And isn't that what we look for in a book, nonfiction or otherwise?  Something that moves us? For me, this just came off as a glorified set of encyclopedia entries. 

"Two Boys Kissing" by David Levithan

Magnificent.  David Levithan is an exceptionally good writer who comes up with unique stories told in interesting ways.  (I would say he's a god, but I've seen him ... he's a quiet, almost shy Jewish man from NYC who looks far younger than his age ... not exactly "god-like").  "Every Day," his tale of an entity called "A" who wakes up in a different 16 year-old body each day, was intriguing.  Conceptionally, the book had me thinking about identity and how we define who we are.  "Two Boys Kissing" is even better.  Some of the most lyric prose I have ever encountered, it literally grabbed me from the opening sentences and didn't let go.  Without chapters, it flowed on so smoothly and beautifully, I finished it in two sittings because I simply could not put it down.  The story is personal -- the tale of eight young gay men working to find their way in the world -- but it is also told with amazing gravitas.  The novel is narrated by a chorus of gay men who died of AIDS at the height of the epidemic.  The chorus speaks directly to the reader, making the novel incredibly powerful.  I can't even give it a hanky count, as I'm pretty sure I went through half a box.  Easily my #1 book this year.  Bravo, Mr. Levithan, you not only did it again, you did it even better.