Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Life List of YA Books
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, my sister Heather has an addiction to lists--especially booklists! She recently reminded me that we have a "Life List of YA Books" we are supposed to be reading. Yes, she has it titled, numbered, alpabetized, the whole nine yards. It stands at 195 right now; I think over the course of my life I've read 72 of them, so I've still got a few to go. And with the recent award-winning books being announced (Newbery & Printz), she thinks it's time to add a few. I think she came up with this original list a year or two ago; it's basically a consolidation of scraps of paper we both had lying around with books we wanted to read. It has both classics--think Anne of Green Gables--and recent favorites--A Northern Light (see previous post for more info on this one).
I'm kind of a "streak" reader....for a few months I'll hardly read anything, and then all of a sudden I'll start reading a book or two a week. I guess it must be cabin fever/sick of winter, but I've recently been reading quite a bit again. The last few weeks I've read Olive's Ocean (didn't care for it--sorry Kevin Henkes, Madisonite), Maniac Magee (different--good message, but parts that kind of disturbed me), A Northern Light (awesome!), and Number the Stars (it's set during the Holocaust, so of course very effecting). So, as I'm back into the swing of things, I'll keep you posted with books that really strike me!
Do you have a lifetime reading list? Please share!


A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly

16-yr-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown asks her to burn a bundle of secret letters. But when Grace's drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers the letters reveal the grim truth behind a murder.

Scott Turow had this to say about A Northern Light: "A book that sweeps across the genre boundaries of murder mystery, romance, and historical fiction--resulting in an original novel that is both gripping and touching."

I recently read this tale of poverty, racism, and feminism at the turn of the twentieth century, and I loved it! The characters were all very believable; each of the characters has both frustrating and redeeming qualities. Even Mattie is realistically flawed. A pet peeve I often have is that authors TELL us that the heroine is brave, smart, resourceful, etc., instead of just showing us, or having their actions speak for themselves. I thought Donnelly did a great job of telling the story and letting us come to our own conclusions.

I don't often take notes when reading, but there were several passages I marked in this one, for one reason or another:

  • ...madness isn't like they tell it in books...when your mind goes, it's not castles & cobwebs & silver candelabra. It's dirty sheets & sour milk & dog shit on the floor.
  • Switchel is easier to drink than plain water when you are hot and thirsty. Mixing a little vinegar, ginger, and maple syrup into the water helps it to digest.
  • I did not wish to become a sneak, but sometimes one had no choice. Especially when one was a girl and craved something sweet but couldn't say why, and had to wait till no one was looking to wash a bucket of bloody rags, and had to say she was "under the weather" when she had cramps that could knock a moose over...she was fed up with sore bosoms and stained drawers and the fact that she couldn't just live life in the open...
  • Cripes, it wasn't my fault. What did he go and have 4 girls for?
  • Why do writers make things sugary when life isn't that way...Why don't they tell how a pigpen looks after the sow's eaten her children? Or how it is for a girl when her baby won't come out? Or that cancer has a smell to it?
  • I didn't think how saying yes to him would mean no to all the other things I wanted.