Contagion by Joanne Dahme

Set against the backdrop of Philadelphia in the 1880's, Joanne Dahme's Contagion is a mix of historical and mystery fiction with a touch of romance - all of which works reasonably well.

To cement the business relationship of two wealthy Irish families, Rose is married at the tender age of sixteen to twenty-three-year-old Patrick Dugan. Patrick is a well-known and influential construction contractor who is determined to win the contract to build a filtration plant on the Schuylkill River. This river supplies the city with its drinking water but it is also the dumping point for the city's sewage too. This has resulted in numerous deadly typhoid outbreaks which have killed among others, Rose's mother and father.

One would think that in the 1880's filtration would be the obvious course of action in providing safe potable water but opposing Patrick Dugan is Sean Parker, manager of the Water Works. Sean lost his fiance, Eileen, in the last typhoid outbreak. He wants the city to enforce its sewer laws which require businesses and the city to dump their raw sewage into the diversion sewers which would then empty the sewage into the Schuylkill River, below the water intake for the city reservoirs.

It is this conflict that forms the backdrop for the novel. The conflict between the two escalates when Rose receives a series of threatening notes telling her husband to back off pushing for water filtration. But when her dear friend Nellie Murphy is murdered in what to Rose appears to have been a botched attempt on her own life, the conflict turns deadly. As Rose and Sean work together to solve the mystery of Nellie's murder, Rose begins to suspect that her life and the people she loves are not quite what they seem to be. Added to this is the deliberate contamination of the reservoirs.

Discussion

Joanne Dahme has authored a novel that revolves around a subject she knows well as the Watersheds Program Manager for the ciity of Philadelphia's Water Department. 

Dahme tells the story in the alternating voices of Sean Parker and Rose Dugan. As Dahme develops the main characters in her narrative, it becomes obvious who the lead suspect in the murder of Nellie is, although Dahme does her best to try to distract the reader from this conclusion.

Overall, this novel is filled with many facts about water management and is interesting from that perspective.  Even though the book was almost 400 pages long, the story moves along is mostly and engaging. However,  the contamination of the water supply was an extreme action that didn't seem realistic for the time period. Typhoid was considered a terrible disease in the late 1800's and poisoning the water supply would have led to thousands of deaths. Could some person really have been that nefarious?

Book Details:

Contagion by Joanne Dahme
Philadelphia: Running Press Teens 2010
399 pp.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane adapted by Christian DeMetter

This is a graphic novel adaptation of Lehane's Shutter Island. I haven't read the original but the graphic novel was fantastic and has peaked my interest in reading Lehane's novel.
Shutter Island is a mixture of part gothic mystery and suspense. Briefly, the plot is as follows:

"In 1954 US Marshal Teddy Daniels and his partner, Chuck Aule are sent to Shutter Island to find a mass murderer who has escaped from Ashecliffe Hospital, a fortress-like fedreal institutions for the criminally insane. As an intense hurricane bears relentlessly down on the island, the marshals are forced to piece together clues to a shocking puzzle hidden within Shutter Island...."

In reality, Teddy Daniels instead of searching for a missing prisoner becomes increasingly consumed with finding the prisoner Andrew Laeddis who is responsible for murdering his wife. But what is reality? And just who really is Andrew Laeddis. This graphic novel plunges headlong to its shocking, twisted ending.

I loved the artwork which I believe is exceptional in this book. And I got enough of the plot to want to read the full novel. What could be better to draw teens into reading the novel than a good graphic novel adaptation!

Highly recommended.

Book Details:

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane  & Christian De Metter
Harper Collins    2010

Wicked Girls by Stephanie Hemphill

Wicked Girls: A novel of the Salem Witch Trials is a unique book. It is a fictionalized account of the Salem Witch trials of 1692 told in free verse. Author Sephanie Hemphill undertook considereable research in preparation for writing Wicked Girls. Her story of the Salem witch trials is told from the perspective of 3 real girls who were involved in what happened in Salem; Ann Putnam Jr (aged 12 years), Mercy Lewis (aged 17 years) and Margaret Walcott (aged 17 years).

Research into the Salem witch trials has suggested many theories as to how a situation developed in which hundreds of persons, many unknown to the "afflicted" girls, were accused of witchcraft and 19 people were hanged. Hemphill reviews some of these theories in an Author's Note at the back of her book. We likely will never know for certain what precipitated the witch "affliction". But among the theories is the following: that a group of girls began experimenting with minor forms of witchcraft (telling fortunes). Eventually, what started innocently enough developed into an opportunity for attention, social empowerment and manipulation that involved not just individuals but entire families. It is this aspect that Wicked Girls explores in its fictional retelling of the Salem witch trials.

For example, Mercy Lewis, whose own parent's murders she witnessed and who lived as a servant in the household of Thomas and Ann Putnam (Sr), sees her status altered to a member of the family no longer required to do chores.

Overall the book was well-written, if a little lengthy at 389 pages. And this length might be problematic for teens. I also found that although the verse conveys the horror of the trials and hangings, the drama and suspense was largely lacking due to the sparce descriptions sometimes inherent in writing in verse. Nevertheless, the story is reasonably well told and I was amazed at how these girls could continue to name people whom they did not know as witches and yet were believed. I was amazed that someone as young as 12 could hold the power to convince a court to hang someone, even when there were people in the community who expressed doubts about the girls behaviour and sanity.

Wicked Girls is an interesting addition to the canon of free-verse YA literature. Its unusual topic is well presented and invites readers to question the effects of peer pressure, social status and empowerment and group dynamics within a specific community.

I highly recommend Wicked Girls especially for those looking to write about power and identity.
For those looking to study the Salem Witch trials further consider the Documentary Archives presented by the University of Virginia.

Book Details:

Wicked Girls by Stephanie Hemphill
Balzer + Bray   2010
389pp

Two Generals by Scott Chantler

Synopsis:

In March of 1943, Scott Chantler's grandfather, Law Chantler, shipped out across the Atlantic for active service with the Highland Light Infantry of Canada, along with his best friend, Jack, a fellow officer. Not long afterward, they would find themselves making a rocky crossing of the English Channel, about to take part in one of the most pivotal and treacherous military operations of World War II: the Allied invasion of Normandy. Told through the eyes of everyday heroes, Two Generals is a story about friendship, and the tragedies and absurdities of war.

This is  one of the few graphic novels I've read this year and it was quite good. Very readable with excellent art done in sepia and black and white. Dramatic scenes were done in red. The story was interesting and I learned a lot about the Canadian troops struggles to help in the liberation of Caen, France. In fact, I felt the book captured the tremendous difficulties Canadian troops encountered during this part of the campaign to liberate France.

The entire book from the cover design to the quality of the paper used and the excellent art demonstrate that this book meant a great deal to Scott - it is the telling of his grandfather's story. In fact, the book is styled to look somewhat like a personal diary.

While there is some profanity throughout, overall Chantler does a very good job of making what is obviously  a very personal subject engaging and informative.

Book Details:

Two Generals by Scott Chantler
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart 2010

137 pp.

Hothouse: A novel by Chris Lynch

Hothouse by Chris Lynch is a novel that explores the culture of heroes within the firefighting profession - the accepted notion that whenever a firefighter dies, he is a hero regardless of the circumstances of his/her death.

DJ and Russell have known each other since babyhood. They are named after each other's dad, both of whom were firefighters at the "Hothouse" - the name given to the local fire station. When both of their fathers are killed in the line of duty the community and their firefighting comrades immediately assign them hero status. DJ and Russ must not only deal with their loss but also with the larger-than life image of their fathers as heroes. Suddenly they no longer have to pay bus fare and they are treated with great respect. There's a community barbecue in honor of their dads and an outrageous memorial. It's a image the fire department seems eager to promote until an inquiry calls into question that hero status. Overnight, their hero status unravels.

Now both young men must work through the public persona of "the hero" and the reality of who their fathers were - that they were human beings who were capable of making mistakes. Chris Lynch does this by having Russell tell his relationship with his father in a series of flashbacks. He remembers the dad his father was..."He made me pancakes with faces on them, and a fire helmet on top traced out of licorice...." He remembers the time he save a 13 year old boy who set his house on fire. This is juxtaposed with the community's reaction and perception of his father after the results of the inquiry are leaked. How can Russ come to terms with the man he knew and loved and the man the public seems to think he now was?
For DJ, the situation is more troublesome mainly because from the very beginning he has trouble accepting the hero image of his father. His relationship with his father is less than what Russ had with his dad.

Hothouse also has a second interesting thread throughout it and that is the recovery of a friendship between DJ and Russell. Initially they were childhood friends but somehow drifted apart. Now in trying to come to terms with their fathers deaths and the whole hero situation they gradually reconnect. They are the only ones who understand what each other is going through and it is this bond that helps to re-establish their friendship.

Hothouse is an intense novel that is sure to capture the interest of teen boys. I highly recommend this novel.

Book Details:


Hothouse by Chris Lynch
HarperCollins 2010
198pp.

True Grit

True Grit (2010) is faithful to Charles Portis' book of the same name which originally appeared as a serial in The Saturday Evening Post in 1968 but was reprinted in book form later on. The 2010 remake which stars Jeff Bridges as Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn and Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross.

The story is told by spinster Mattie Ross who as a fourteen-year-old year old girl goes after the murderer of her father, Frank Ross. Mattie and her family lived on a farm near Dardanell in Yell County, Arkansas. Her father hired Tom Chaney, a drifter, to help on their farm. When Frank and Chaney travel to Fort Smith to purchase horses, Chaney turns on Ross and kills him, robbing him of $150 and two gold pieces. Chaney then flees into Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma).

When Mattie arrives in Fort Smith to claim her father's body she is determined to see justice done and to see Tom Chaney hang for the murder of her father. She learns that Chaney has joined the notorious Ned Pepper gang. Upon hearing that Rooster Cogburn is the toughest US Marshall in the area she manages to convince him to help her find Chaney. Mattie Ross is convinced Rooster Cogburn has "true grit" despite his appearance as a foul-mouthed, overweight, aging, drunkard who likes to shoot his quarry dead rather than bring them in alive. A Texas Marshall, La Beouf, joins Rooster and Mattie in the hunt for Tom Chaney as he is wanted in Texas for the murder of a Senator and his dog.

This remake of the 1969 film is very enjoyable and is directed by Joel and Ethan Coen. The pacing was better than the 1969 version and the film was more faithful to the book both in storyline and in setting. The quality of the acting was greatly improved and that comes as no surprise.The cast of True Grit (2010) was chock full of academy award winners and nominees that included Matt Damon as La Beouf,  Jeff Bridges as Cogburn and Josh Brolin as Chaney. Jeff Bridges was a believable Rooster Cogburn, gruff and wise but he did a much better job than John Wayne. Kim Darby was cast as Mattie Ross in the 1969 version of True Grit, and although she received much praise for her pertrayal at the time, she was too old (she was twenty-years-old when she was cast) to be realistic as a fourteen-year-old. In contrast, newcomer Hailee Steinfeld was believable as fourteen-year-old Mattie (partly because she was 14 when she filmed the movies) who had enough "grit" of her own!

True Grit (2010) like its literary counterpart was told from the point of view of Mattie and there's closure at the end that was lacking in the 1969 movie.
In Canada, this movie is rated 14A and rightly so. There is a great deal of violence and gore in parts of the movie and some swearing. Not for children under 14 to be sure.

Search and Destroy by Dean Hughes

Rick Ward has just graduated from Milliken High School in Long Beach, CA - Class of '69. He has no set plans. He hasn't applied to college like his girlfriend Judy who will be heading to Cal, Berkley in the fall. He thinks he's like to be a writer but he doesn't have much to write about at this point in his life.
He's on the cusp of adulthood; life is changing and his relationship with Judy is changing too. Judy looks more like a hippie now in bell bottom jeans and peace beads. Rick still wants to hang and have fun.

Rick is curious about experiencing war and with the ongoing Vietnam War this might be his chance. He hopes some life experience will give him something more substantial to write about and what could be better experience than that of war. He's filled with self-doubt though.

When he quits his job and gets thrown out of the house by his abusive dad, Rick impulsively decides to enlist. He decides he wants in to Special Forces - a goal he ends up achieving. But both Vietnam and war is not what he ever thought it would be. The stifling heat and sheer terror of each recon mission is almost more than Rick can handle.

Assigned to Charlie Rangers near Phan Thiet, Rick is befriended by Kent Richards, a young Mormon draftee whose gentle demeanor and maturity provide Rick with an anchor. Kent is the male role model Rick lacked in his father. Both men suffer devastating wounds but despite this it is Kent who helps Rick put his life back together.

Discussion

Author Dean Hughes read numerous books on war, the Vietnam conflict and also reconnaissance units and this is quite evident throughout. Search and Destroy accurately portrays the realities of war and the dehumanizing element for soldiers from both Vietnam and the US as well as the Vietnamese people. The book brought back memories of watching the nightly newscasts on American TV and the fear it brought into my life (since I was too young to understand fully what I was watching).

Hughes also effectively relates the disconnect that existed at the time (early '70's) between the peaceniks in the US and the Vietnam veterans who returned home after fighting in the conflict. The idea that the veterans of this war were heroes was a preposterous one to the average civilian like Ricks girlfriend Judy. Thankfully, it no longer remains so.

Short and to the point, well written and a great read for teen guys.

Book Details:

Search and Destroy by Dean Hughes
Simon Pulse 2005
216pp

OH NO She Didn't by Clinton Kelly

Straight-shooting Clinton Kelly, cohost of the American version of What Not To Wear (officially my favourite TV show of all time!), sets out to rid America (and the Western world) of the worst 100 fashion faux pas' imaginable. In his book, OH NO, She didn't, Clinton takes on (among other things)

• tattoos and evening wear - they don't mix
• gnarly feet (hide them)
• tracksuits (forget them unless you're in the mob)
• hairy legs under hose (ewwwww)

Clinton is irreverent, funny and desperate to eliminate these and much, much more! He's also quite insightful:

"Animal print wearers, based on my vast experience, have strong opinions, enjoy their feminity and usually like to have a good time." 


This certainly applies to the one person I know who wears alot of animal prints. She even went skinny dipping which is quite risque for my crowd.....

Although Clinton's attack is hiliarious he really does believe that all women can and should dress properly. Most of the mistakes here are simply from a lack of common sense.


A great book, with great fashion tips and lots of sage advice!


Book Details:
OH NO She Didn't, The Top 100 Style Mistakes Women Make and How To Avoid Them by Clinton Kelly
New York: Gallery Books  2010

202pp.

you are not here by Samantha Schutz

you are not here is a wonderfully written exploration of a young woman attempting to make sense of her life and her brief relationship with a young man who suddenly dies.

AnnaLeah and Brian's relationship was a clandestine one - neither of their families knew about it. AnnaLeah's friends were not supportive of her relationship with Brian, telling her to find someone else. But when Brian dies suddenly, AnnaLeah finds that she has no outlet for her grief and because the relationship was secret, she cannot grieve publicly. She has no one to share her grief and loss with. So AnnaLeah takes to visiting Brian's grave regularly.
As AnnaLeah withdraws more and more, her friends who are concerned, give her a book about grief and encourage her to reach out. This combined with a few choice words of wisdom from Brian's grandmother who tells her at Brian's gravesite that "Nothing grows here besides grass." help AnnaLeah to free up some of space in her heart for the rest of her life.
New information about Brian also helps AnnaLeah to revisit the nature of their relationship and to see it in a more realistic way. And a new blossoming relationship with Ethan at her new job help to convince AnnaLeah that she must move on.

Samantha Schutz's free verse is elegant, poignant and on the mark. Excellent and considering the subject matter, a great read. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and loved the poetry. Beautiful!

There are spaces in my heart
that are being filled
by what could have been with Brian,
and the stories
about my father and the Dearly Departed.
I think I need to free up some of the space
for the people in my life
that are actually here.
I need to not keep that space reserved
for people who are never coming.

Book Details:
you are not here by Samantha Schutz

New York: PUSH 2010
292 pp.

Girl, Stolen by April Henry

Lying in the back seat, Cheyenne is sick and waiting for her stepmother to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy. Her stepmom has left the car keys in case she gets cold. Covered up with a blanket, Cheyenne hears someone enter the car and start it up, racing out of the parking lot. From the way the person is driving she knows this is not her stepmom. Who is this person and what is happening? Cheyenne doesn't know because she's blind.
Griffin is a young man a few years older than Cheyenne. He lives with his dad Roy who runs a chop shop. Griffin's mom use to be around until he was seriously burned in an accident when she mysteriously left to go live with her family. When Griffin sees the Cadillac Escalade SUV with the keys in, he knows he just has to take it. He wasn't there to steal cars, only Christmas packages from the cars at the mall. How could he be so stupid not "to see past the keys dangling in the ignition." Now he has a bigger problem on his hands - a blind girl in the backseat. He can't just let her go. The cops will find him too quickly.
So Griffin takes her back to his dad's house and shop. Griffin wants to let Cheyenne go, but when his father learns that she is Cheyenne Wilder, the daughter of the president of Nike, he is determined to ransom millions from him.

But things turn ugly quickly and both Griffin and Cheyenne must make difficult choices. Will Griffin help Cheyenne escape? Can Cheyenne trust Griffin to protect her from Roy and his men?

April Henry's book is another twist on the kidnapped girl theme that is currently very popular in YA fiction. It follows books like Stolen (Lucy Christopher), Living Dead Girl (Elizabeth Scott) and The missing girl (Norma Fox Mazer).

In Henry's tale, there is the added tension of not knowing just where Griffin's loyalties lie. Griffin is portrayed as a basically good kid caught in bad circumstances. He is a thief but Henry shows us that he does have some redeeming qualities. He seems to want to do the right thing but is terrified of his father. He develops a growing attraction to Cheyenne whose helplessness and illness seems to bring out the protector instinct in Griffin. When Griffin gradually comes to the realization of what his father is planning to do, he realizes the situation has escalated far beyond auto theft.

The twist at the end seems highly implausible. But Henry leaves it open to the reader's interpretation. Told from both Cheyenne and Griffins perspective, Girl Stolen is an enjoyable, suspenseful read!

Book Details:
Girl, Stolen. A novel by April Henry
New York: Henry Holt & Company 2010
213 pp

Girl, Stolen

The year of finding memory by Judy Fong Bates

Synopsis:
Judy Fong Bates came to Canada with her mother in 1955, reuniting with her father who had lived in Canada on and off since 1914. Her father ran a hand laundry business in small-town Ontario.
In 2006, after both her parents were dead, Fong Bates returned to China with 12 other relatives and more than thirty pieces of luggage in what she thought would be a kind of tourist trip to see her parents ancestral villages and to learn more about her family history. She was also interested in learning more about her parents and why they were so unhappy in their marriage. What led these two very different people to marry in the first place. What WAS their story?
What Judy Fong Bates discovered offered a very different picture of her parents lives. She was able to fill in many blanks and to uncover some shocking truths about her mother.

I wanted to enjoy this memoir but I felt in some ways it didn't meet up with my expectations.

First off, I found the number of family characters simply overwhelming. It was hard to keep track of who belonged to whom despite the list of family at the beginning of the novel. Perhaps a family tree would have been beneficial. After finishing the book I felt that I didn't know any of the authors family, including herself and her husband, any better than when I started. The lone exception was the mother to some degree. None of Fong-Bates family are portrayed with any depth, including her husband whom she seems to adore. I also didn't know she had two daughters until well into the book.

Fong-Bates mother married at age 16 to a handsome but "very no-good man" who had a serious addiction to opium and was abusive. She left him and went to live with her brother. Eventually in 1930, her mother was hired by her father to teach in his village of Ning Kai Lee. After many years, and a very convoluted life in which circumstances worked against her, her mother married her father who was much older and was living most of the time in Canada working as a launderer. They soon had a daughter, Judy. When she and her mother joined her father in Canada in 1955, life was difficult and her parents fought a great deal of the time. Judy was often caught in the middle. This made her wonder why they had married in the first place and whether they had ever loved one another.Thus the trips to China.

Through meeting her many relatives in China Fong-Bates was able to piece together her mother's life and why she entered into this marriage. Unfortunately, we know little of her father's story, which also would have been interesting since he came to Canada in 1914 and was, at the end of his life, a broken man who eventually committed suicide.

The story that emerged was one of thwarted dreams and of two people who were victims of circumstances and events well beyond their control. There is great tragedy in both lives. The sense of tragedy comes out in The year of finding memory but at times gets lost in the telling. This is because the revelations are mixed in with a sort of touristy account of visits to various relevant areas of China, intermingled with conversations of relatives, Fong-Bates life in Canada, and her mother's life. It made the storyline of what is primarily her mother's life very difficult to follow. In fact, I found at times I had to go back a reread portions of the story to help me fit in the new information as it was revealed. Still, there are some parts of the book that are particularly heart-rending; the account of Fong-Bates father's suicide is one such portion.

Another difficulty is the author assuming that readers will know their early 20th century history of China. To this end, a prologue perhaps outlining this period would have been most helpful for setting the background. As an example, I am sure there will be some readers asking who are the Kuomintang?

The map at the front of the book was bland and too small to be useful. The book could have been significantly enhanced by larger photos of family members as well as pictures of her parents ancestral villages, the homes, rice fields and even some photos of family members they encountered on their two trips to China. After all, we got a verbal account of this part of the whole discovery process so why not enhance it visually?

All in all, this was an average book done in the form of storytelling that I felt could have been truly exceptional if done in a different manner. I still plan to read her "Midnight at the Dragon Cafe".

Book Details:

The year of finding memory by Judy Fong Bates
Random House Canada 2010
296pp

Amy By Any Other Name by Maureen Garvie

Amy By Any Other Name is a kind of redo of "Freaky Friday" that doesn't end quite so happily.
Two teen girls have accidents on the same day in May; 15 year old Goth girl Krystal Maria Marques steps in front of a car in downtown Toronto while 16 year old wealthy over-achiever Amy Wexford dives off a cliff in a quarry hitting a rock. Both girls begin to die and when they are brought back to life at the same hospital in Toronto, their out of body souls collide and they end up switching bodies. This soul switch leads to some serious identity crises for both girls, which in my opinion is somewhat glossed over in the novel. I would think anyone undergoing this experience would have some serious emotional and mental health issues. Instead, Amy seems to approach the entire situation with a maturity that seems almost super-human.

Despite this, I thought  Amy By Any Other Name was well written and fascinating. The story is told from the point of view of Amy inside Krystal's body. Amy and Krystal are complete opposites both in body type, looks and likes. Although both girls have been seriously injured, Krystal's body has suffered the more severe injuries. Amy not only has to cope with being in a different body that's injured but also with being in a body that is completely unsuited to the life she led as Amy. Amy essentially has to remake Krystal's body to fit the person she was in her own body. But she also now has Krystal's life, which was not going well and which was not a privileged as Amy's former life. Amy tells a few people whom she thinks she might be able to trust, what has happened to her. These people do not really believe her because the whole idea is preposterous.
We eventually learn how Krystal is coping with being in Amy's body and adapting to Amy's life when the two meet later on. Although Krystal gets the better deal, in some ways her life is just as much a struggle as Amy's is.
Amy is determined to recover her body and sets out with a plan and the same sort of determination she had when she was Amy the elite rower and top student. But will her plan succeed or will she be forever trapped in a body that is not hers? Either way, she and Krystal will face many challenges.

This story has us consider what defines us. Are we just our souls, thoughts, feelings and experiences? Do our bodies matter? Can we really exist in another body? What Garvie wants us to consider is both disturbing and unique.

A well crafted book suited to teens and adults.

Book Details:
Amy By Any Other Name by Maureen Garvie
Key Porter Books
256pp.