Let's just say I read more than wrote today...


I picked up Catherine Stine's Refugees, which has as its vaguely interesting premise the phone and email connection of two teenagers, one a refugee from Afghanistan in a camp in Peshawar, one a foster kid who runs from her unhappy home in SF to NY just before September 11th. Okay, I thought that Catherine Stine looked like a serious hottie in her author photo (this is an indication of some of my taste, I guess...hrm...), but I think it's pretty easy to tell this was her first book. The characters are fairly cardboardy and the coincidences and plot frankly unbelievable. I liked the bits with the Afghani boy quite a lot more than the bit with the American girl, especially when she remembers the trauma of being abandoned by her mother (who has conveniently and totally disappeared from even Google, which, as we know, is pretty unlikely!). I appreciated the depictions of NY, as usual. Miss you, City. Be there when I can scrape up some bucks. You know, like, in a few years. (ARGH!)

Then I finally finished the Vickie Nam-compiled Yell-Oh Girls! Emerging Voices Explore Culture, Identity, and Growing Up Asian-American. Probably pretty important, yeah? I mean, I don't think this white girl is qualified to say, but it seems like a good idea. Funny thing is that the girls (mostly girls, some young women, ie 18-21) whose writings constitute the book seem mostly like any other older teens and young twenties. That is to say, it's time to come to terms with the abuses of family, the trauma of the historical oppression, and the general WRONGNESS of living in a racist, sexist, anti-immigrant world. I think...and I'm probably wrong here, but I think that again, more narrative direction (more exposition) would have made for a stronger book. This is not, repeat, not to say that the book doesn't have a unique position in the cultural landscape, or that it's not important, or that young people's voices shouldn't be heard. Anyway, it was interesting, and one wonders again what would a newer book be like? Would the young women who are five years younger tell different stories? This book DEFINITELY made me rethink what I thought of Lamb. I'd had this problem when I read it, but I didn't articulate it in my review--there's a bit where Biff gets trained in the sexual arts by some Asian women. They're hardly individuals, and plus, what's with the bizarre "Asian women are sexually exotic" thing? Racist, yes. Check. Yick.

On to some Jane Yolen (the woman has participated in the creation of over 270 books, so there are a lot to choose from). This time, the 2000 book Boots and the Seven Leaguers. Surely this book was misfiled in YA. There's nothing YA about it; it's purely a young readers' type of chapter book. Oh, okay, the protagonist (a troll) is theoretically a young adult, but the whole thing, plot to song lyrics to emotions, is 100% fourth or fifth grade (if that). Don't get me wrong, I adore Yolen and her work, but this one? Not my type o' book. And should not be in the YA section--what if some 11th grader comes on it and judges Yolen's work by it? YIKES!

Yeah, so even though I've been waiting for YAARC to cough up a copy of Chris Crutcher's Sledding Hill, I gave in when I saw in on the "New YA books" shelf (which is bizarrely emptied of almost all books. Perhaps this supports the contention of some in the PDX librarians' group that the EPL isn't ordering new YA books right now due to budgetary constraints? Hrm...). Well, everything one could say about Crutcher's work he pretty much says himself in the book. The self-reflexivity and...a word rarely applied to Crutcher...preciousness of the narrative prety much drove me insane (mildly). Like his other books, as he snarkily, or some might say cleverly, acknowledges, this one isn't great in plot, writing, or character development. In this case, the issues aren't even so important because they're such a set-up for the Great Censorship Issue (which, okay, I totally agree is a big deal). For me, this book recalls--weakly--My Hero Nancy Garden's The Year They Burned the Books, also based on her own books being banned (and burnt, sadly in the greater metropolitan area of my hometown). I know Crutcher is a hero to many, many kids; I'm more like the studious writer and art-lover lesbians of Garden's books, so I guess it's no surprise that I prefer her books. (Um, there's also the better writer thing.)



I see that Paolini has included a summary of what the hell happened in Eragon in the new book, which is good because I certainly don't remember--so long ago, so poorly written...unless it was an intentional pastiche...which we know it wasn't...yeah, so I think I'll lift that puppy into my hands tonight and get started. After all, if you're first on the reserves list at the library, you have, like, a responsibility. Yeah. (If only the library would get in Hitler Youth...and I'm not even first on that list...but Adbooks is reading it soonish, and frankly, I'd really really like to have it read for at least one of the groups I'm in. ANYWAY. Off to read. And no, Suzanne, I'm not bitter! Just, um, incisive.

Current Mood: full
Current Music: Richard Shindell, "Are You Happy Now?"