Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok

Girl in Translation is a story about a young Chinese girl and her mother who come to the United States in the hope of making a better life for themselves. Eleven year old Kimberly Chang and her mother are brought to American by Kimberly's Aunt Paula and Uncle Bob. Although promised to be taken care of, they are taken advantage of and abused by Paula who is jealous and angry at her younger sister, Kimberly's mother. They are given an apartment in a vermin-filled, abandoned building without heat. Kimberly and her mother are forced to work in Aunt Paula's Chinatown garment factory in order to pay off their debt to her for the cost of their airfare and Ma's medical treatment.

Although Kimberly's Ma is resigned to her fate of grinding poverty and hardship, Kimberly recognizes that she has it within herself to better her life. She knows she was a top student in China and that this will be the key to a new life in America. But Kimberly soon finds herself leading a double life: one that hides the terrible hardship of their lives while trying to appear as normal as possible at school. She is a brilliant student during the school day but hides the fact that after school she works long hours in a sweatshop and lives in terrible poverty without proper clothing or food. Kimberly also has difficulty in adapting to a culture she doesn't understand. In order to hide her life from her peers, she allows no one to get close to her. The only exception is Annette who befriends her and throughout middle and high school respects Kimberly's need for distance. In the end, as the girls mature, Annette proves to be a true friend to Kimberly.

Like all young girls her age though, Kimberly must deal with the pressures of growing up. From the first time she works in the garment factory, Kimberly likes Matt Wu, a young sweatshop worker who is her age. But Matt is different from Kimberly. He is not as ambitious and he is content with what he has in life. Their friendship gradually develops into complicated love at a time when they are starting to drift apart. Matt becomes involved with another Chinese immigrant whose views on life are more similar to his. Kimberly struggles to cope with her feelings of a first love tainted by jealousy. When something very unplanned happens between Kimberly and Matt, something that threatens to destroy her chances to achieve her dreams, she must make a difficult choice. This choice will affect both her and Matt forever.

This novel is wonderful. Kimberly is a realistic character and her plight is so desperate that it is impossible not to develop a deep sympathy for her. As a reader, we see her grow from a frightened, disoriented 11 year old to a responsible, strong teen who is capable of making good decisions. Along the way she struggles with her developing love for Matt and his attraction to another girl, Vivian who is more suited to him. Kimberly must also navigate the social minefield of high school as well as her aunt's growing jealousy of Kimberly's academic achievements.

The jacket cover for Girl in Translation states "In time, Kim learns to tanslate not just her language but herself back and forth between the two worlds she straddles." And that she does in a most remarkable way.

I highly recommend this book and can't wait to read Jean Kwok's next offering. She is a fresh new YA author who holds great promise.

Book Details:
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Riverhead Books (Penguin) 2010
293 pp.

living on impulse by cara haycak

This was one book whose cover appealed to me instantly (maybe it was the rhinestone encrusted shoe on the front). The other attraction was the theme of a troubled teen who resorts to shoplifting to be the likable person she dreams of.
Mia Morrow is an impulsive person. She sees an item in a store and she takes it - on impulse. She's done it before. It's easy and thrilling. And in fact, that is exactly what Mia does in early April in the department store on the Commons. But this time things go down differently. When she is caught shoplifting, the head of store security and her mother agree that Mia must pay the cost of the shoes - a whopping $300. But getting caught shoplifting is just the tip of Mia's troubles. She has to resist the urge to join a local gang. She doesn't know her father and this causes her considerable distress. Mia spends time wondering if this person or another might be him. She loses her two friends at school, fails an exam and must deal with trouble at home between her beloved Grandpa Andy and her single mom, Constance.Mia wants to do better but she just doesn't know how.
When Mia discovers a job opening at the nearby college she sees this as her ticket to paying off her debt to the department store and perhaps to a new direction in her life. Will she continue acting on impulse or start thinking about what she might do?
Although Mia initially lies in the job interview she does come clean about herself and lands the job. Gradually we see Mia reform herself and develop into a more likable, responsible person. Instead, it is now her mother who crashes and burns, returning to drinking and losing her job. When her mother disappears for several days Mia must turn to someone unexpected for help. This person, a past boyfriend of her mother comes through for her and her mother and helps them both deal with the past.
Overall, the story was mostly believable but I felt that Haycak simply tried to do too much in this novel. I think simply focusing on Mia's problems would have been enough. Adding the mother's troubles to the story simply seemed to take it over the top for me. 
This would have also allowed the author to explore some of Mia's issues more in depth, especially those relating to her absent father.
When Mia calls the police to report her mother missing she is told to drop a picture off at the local police station. I would expect that a 15 year old minor who reports a parent missing and is living alone would very likely receive a visit from police and most definitely end up in foster care. I really don't see why this situation was even needed in the novel. It seemed like it was thrown in for dramatic purposes but was simply too unrealistic.

We see Mia develop as a character through the novel. By the end of the novel Mia is much more likable character. Although she still does things that are wrong, she is beginning to think her way through and see how her actions affect others. She also begins to set goals for herself.

The Gardener by S.A. Bodeen

Mason is a high school sophomore who hopes to study biology at Stanford someday. His biology teacher, Mr. Hogan, encourages Mason to apply to TroDyn's summer science program. TroDyn is a huge research company located in Mason's hometown of Melby Falls and they pay the bills for just about everything in the town. Mason knows his mother doesn't want him to become involved with TroDyn but he just can't figure out exactly why. That is until he learns about her connection to TroDyn. When Mason attempts to confront  his mother at the TroDyn funded nursing home where she works,  he makes a remarkable but disturbing discovery about the patients she cares for. And it is his developing love for one of those patients that leads Mason to risk everything to try to help this beautiful girl. Even if this means confronting a terrifying person known as The Gardener at TroDyn. The Gardener explores issues that deal with bioethics and human experimentation. Most of the science mentioned in The Gardener is flawed. The overpopulation vs food production scenario has essentially been disproven. Paul Erlich's The Population Bomb has been proven to be a monumental flop since most of the Western world is now facing a demographic implosion and many developing countries such as China face the prospect of gender imbalance and not enough workers to support a drastically aging population.The Gardener considers the degree to which scientists might go to save mankind should such a scenario play out.
 
Despite this, The Gardener is a suspenseful science fiction that blends a little of mystery and romance too. Mason is a heroic character who is willing to risk everything to save Laila. We are left struggling to understand just what is wrong with her and Mason's loyalty to her only deepens the reader's affection for him. The novel weaves it's way to a satisfying conclusion.


Book Details:
The Gardener by S. A. Bodeen
Feiwel and Friends  2010
240pp

Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards

Three Rivers Rising is a historical novel written in free verse about the Johnstown Flood. This novel is a great success mainly because the author was able to successfully weave a believable romantic storyline with a dramatic historical event. Jame Richards was also able to create full bodied, realistic characters despite the sparse nature of writing in verse.

Many Canadians may not know about the Johnstown Flood of 1889, unless you happen to be a fan of Catherine Marshall (author of Christy) and have read her book, Julie, which is about a teenage girl in 1937 who experiences similar if not identical circumstances to those of the Johnstown Flood. The book is largely based upon the research the author did on the Johnstown Flood but is set in an later time period.

Three Rivers Rising is set in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and area. Johnstown is situated at the junction of the Stony Creek and the Little Conemaugh Rivers. Above it lies Lake Conemaugh. Lake Conemaugh is not a natural lake. It was formed when an earthen dam was constructed by the state of Pennsylvania for its canal system in the early 1800's. Over the years the dam is gradually neglected and it becomes a standard joke that every year the dam will fail. If it does, the towns downstream from Lake Conemaugh would be subjected to a devastating flood.

Celestia Whitcomb is a rich young girl whose family comes to spend it's summers at the clubhouse on Lake Conemaugh. One day during the summer of 1888, Celestia meets Peter, the clubhouse's hired help who lives below the lake in Johnstown. They begin a friendship that gradually turns romantic - in essence, a forbidden love. Peter warned by his father not "to develop a taste for things" he can't have, continues to meet Celestia in the woods near the clubhouse. The relationship although innocent is beset by the effects of class prejudice. When the relationship is finally discovered Celestia's family decides to send her away to Paris with her Aunt Mimsy. However, fate intervenes and it is her sister Estrella who is suddenly sent off. Celestia and her family leave the Johnstown area for the winter and return in the following spring of 1889. It is at this time that Celestia decides to make a fateful decision that changes the course of her life and that of her family.

Richards tells her story mainly in the voices of Peter and Celestia. But she also fleshes out the narrative with the story of Maura whose husband, Joseph conducts the one of the many trains that run on the Pennsylvania Railway line through the Johnstown area. There is also Kate's story whose husband Early drowned shortly after they were married and Celestia's father, Whitcomb, whose narrative comes near the end of the novel.

This book had all the ingredients to make it exciting: the forbidden romantic element and the tension created in not knowing if Peter and Celestia would choose to stay together as well as the tension created by the event of the Johnstown flood.
The endnotes of the novel contain a chronology on the South Fork Dam and provide readers with selection of fiction and nonfiction books on the Johnstown Flood.
I almost wish that Richards had written this book as a full novel in prose. If anything, Jame Richards has shown me that I shouldn't overlook a novel in verse. I look forward to reading more of Jame Richards fiction. Definitely one of the best YA books of 2010.

Book Details:

Three Rivers Rising by Jame Richards
Alfred A. Knopf: New York 2010
293 pp.

The Deadly Sister by Eliot Schrefer

I had great expectations for The Deadly Sister and I have to say that overall, Eliot Schrefer has crafted an ingenious murder mystery for young teens.
Abby Goodwin was always the one to protect younger sister, Maya. She'd protected her bullies, from their parents when Maya broke curfew, stole money or did drugs. But this time, things are so much more complicated. When Abby discovers Maya's boyfriend/tutor, Jefferson Andrews dead during her Saturday morning run, she knows she has her work cut out for her.
Told in 18 year old Abby's voice, the reader follows along as Abby attempts to piece together what happened that fatal night. From the beginning Abby makes the assumption that Maya is the killer and therefore in need of her protection. But this murder mystery is full of twists and turns and Schrefer had me considering everyone as a possible suspect until well into the book. For reasons I won't divulge (so as not to reveal the plot), the ending therefore, wasn't a complete surprise but did offer a creepy twist.
I did feel that the storyline was somewhat unrealistic, given the current state of practice of forensic science. I felt that ending was unbelievable simply because Jefferson Andrews murder was a violent crime. It would have been expected that some form of evidence would have been left at the murder scene and in other areas such as Jefferson's car, that would have directed police ultimately to the true killer. Nevertheless, this was an entertaining book, one that most will find difficult to put down.
Book Details:
The Deadly Sister by Eliot Schrefer
Scholastic Press: New York 2010
310 pp.

The Never Came Back by Caroline B. Cooney

Cathy Ferris was in her second week of summer school when things began to unravel. All because Tommy Petrak believes Cathy is really Murielle Lyman, the long lost daughter of Cade and Rory Lyman. The Lyman's fled overseas 5 years previously to avoid charges of embezzling millions of dollars of their clients money. So certain is Tommy, that he confronts Cathy in the cafeteria during lunch and in front of all the summer students. Within minutes, most of the 60 students at Greenwich Summer School are googling the Lyman name on their Blackberrys and cell phones and comparing pictures of past Murielle and present day Cathy. They never came back is in two voices, that of 15 year old Cathy Ferris and also of 10 year old Murielle Lyman. Murielle's story is one of a confused, innocent 10 year old who loses everything because of her parents greed. Questioned tirelessly by FBI agents, she begins to vomit due to the stress and is eventually placed in a foster home. Cathy's story eventually reveals to the readers, quite early on, that she is in fact, Murielle. She began to use her second name of Catherine when she was moved to a second foster home. Although the reader knows that Murielle and Cathy are the same, the characters in the story do not. It turns out that Cathy deliberately enrolled in the high school in her childhood hometown of Norwalk to see her cousin Tommy Petrak. But she never anticipated the situation she now finds herself in. The FBI reappear, this time hoping to use Cathy's resemblance to Murielle to entrop her parents. Cathy must deal with issues of guilt, loyalty, justice and greed. The choice Cathy/Murielle must make at the end of the book is sure to spark discussion both for and against.
I did enjoy the book but found the means the author used to bring Cathy back in touch with her parents simplistic and unrealistic. I also felt the book would have been much more exciting if the reader had been kept in suspense about whether or not Cathy was Murielle. Nevertheless, the idea for the book was a good one. I just didn't like the way the author developed it. I highly recommend this novel. It's a quick good read for teens.

Book Details:

They never came back by Caroline B. Cooney
Delacorte Press 2010
200 pp.

Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham

I decided it was time to try a novel in verse. I love poetry but reading an entire novel in verse seemed well,....tiresome. Shark Girl is in free verse and from the opening lines, I was completely hooked. The attack is recounted in both newspaper articles which are written in prose and flashbacks by the victim and this is the hook that draws readers into the novel.
When 15 year old Jane Arrowood is attacked by a shark while swimming, her life undergoes a radical change. Jane was a gifted, emerging artist who had won many awards for her talent. Now she struggles to cope and understand what the loss of her right arm above the elbow will mean for her life.

Shark Girl focuses on the inner journey Jane undertakes. She wants to be "normal" again. But life is anything but normal. There's the difficulty dealing with a video that was posted online of her attack.There's trying to relearn old tasks that were previously done without thinking....folding the laundry, taking out the garbage and cooking. There's trying to deal with how others now view her, minus an arm. And what about ever drawing again? Can she relearn to draw with her left hand.....
Sharing Jane's journey is Justin a ten year old boy who lost his leg and was in the hospital during the same time period. Justin's innocence and forthright way of dealing with loss help Jane cope.

Despite the heavy topic, there's a lot of wit in Shark Girl. Interspersed throughout the book are "letters" Jane receives from people whose intention is to offer support. One such letter from a little girl who has lost an arm to cancer suggests to Jane that she names her prosthetic. Eventually, when Jane does get a prosthetic arm she names it Chuck. Bingham uses Chuck to show that Jane still has the ability to approach difficult times with a sense of humour. Chuck drives Jane crazy with his clumsiness and he's so hot.
Gradually Jane learns to cope and even begins to find joy in her new life.
I truly enjoyed this book and will be reading another novel in verse very soon.

Book Details:
Shark Girl by Kelly Bingham
Candlewick Press 2007
276pp