Wow!  Writers talk a lot about the importance of voice.  Voice is not only how a character or narrator speaks, but everything about him that makes him unique.  What he says and how he says it.  What he would never say in a million years.  Where he goes and wouldn’t go, what he does and would rather die than be caught doing.

Doug Sweiteck, the main character telling his story in Okay For Now, is a junior high school kid with Voice!  He’s tough, but life is tough on him.  He lives in poverty with an abusive dad, a jerk for a big brother, and another brother off fighting in Vietnam.  His mom is kind and caring but beaten down by her situation.

In spite of everything that’s going against him, there’s something about Doug.  Even when he acts like a jerk you know deep down he’s really okay.  At least for now.

When Doug’s father loses his job it’s no surprise.  Doug’s dad is lazy and mean, with an undisguised hatred for most everybody.  The family moves to a small town in upstate New York where an old friend of Doug’s father has found him a job.  But the old friend is trouble.

As a new kid in town that summer before eighth grade, Doug tries to find his way.  He meets Lilly, who calls him a skinny thug, yet invites him to her father’s store where he gets a job as a delivery boy.

Doug gets to know the town librarian, who encourages him to copy drawings of birds from an original Audubon book that’s being sold off page by page to pay the city’s bills.  Doug takes great comfort and insight from these birds and from his careful drawing of them, and vows to get all the pages back where they belong.

 His grocery delivery job brings him in contact with several interesting town’s folk who vacillate between liking and trusting him, and later fearing him when stores around town are broken into and his brother is the prime suspect.

School starts and teachers come into the picture.  Some want to help him while others seem to want nothing more than to break him.  Doug forges on.

Okay For Now has tremendous depth, with the characters around Doug burdened by their own baggage and motivations.  Besides being a gripping story, Okay For Now offers insight into history (the Vietnam War and the moon landing), artistic technique (the Audubon drawings), and what it was like growing up in the 1960s.

Okay For Now is the companion book to the Newbery Honor award winner, The Wednesday Wars.  It’s classified as a Young Adult novel for approximately ages 13 and up.  The book tackles some tough topics, and tackles them well.

 Happy Reading!

Nick and Allie are riding in separate cars when they are both killed in a two-car accident.  Instantly they find themselves speeding down a tunnel toward the light, but they collide and knock each other off course. Rather than reach their destination, whatever that may have been, they land in Everlost, a sort of parallel universe to the world of the living.

In the forest near their crash site they find a boy who tells them they are Afterlights, which Allie interprets as ghosts.  The boy has been here so long he has forgotten his name.  Taking a cue from his forest home, Allie calls him Lief.

Leif warns them that it’s not safe outside the forest, what with the gangs of thugs and the horrible McGill monster waiting to do them harm.  On top of that is the fact that if they step off the dead spots (places where someone has died) the ground turns to quicksand and they begin to sink to the center of the earth where they will remain for all eternity.

Leif wants his new friends to stay with him in the forest.  It’s been a lonely several decades for him out there by himself.  Allie, however, wants to go home and see if her father also died in the accident.  If he did, he must have gotten where he was going, as he’s not lingering here in Everlost.

So Nick and Allie set off on handmade snowshoe-like contraptions to keep them from sinking into the ground, and a wild adventure begins.

They meet Mary Hightower, who harbors Afterlight children in the ghost of the Twin Towers.  (You see, buildings and items much loved in the living world also linger in Everlost after they are destroyed, and Afterlights can use them.)

Nick and Allie pay an unpleasant visit to the Haunter, who, among other talents, can move objects from the living world poltergeist-style.  They have a run in with the horrible McGill and his associates, encounter a high-diving horse, and meet hoards of oddly entertaining children and items.  (No adults, interestingly.)

Along the way they learn of their own talents and purposes in Everlost, and learn to help themselves and the other lost children.

Everlost is the first in the Skinjacker trilogy, and I doubt it would be much of a spoiler to explain that skinjacking is the talent of being able to walk into and possess a living person.  Reading the Amazon description of other books in the series I see that if I keep reading there will be furjacking.  Ohhh!  Walking in animal skins.

  This YA novel is recommended for about 12 and up.  To me it felt very young at the beginning, with poor Nick walking eternity with chocolate smeared on his face.  But it picked up speed and I am anxious to read the rest of the series.  I hope you are too. 

Happy Reading!

Never have I seen backstory so beautifully woven into a novel.  The main story in Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is that of young Minli, who sets out to improve her family’s fortune.  Entwined around that main story are dozens of tales derived from Chinese folklore, which turn out to be actually related to Minli’s quest.

The young girl lives with her mother and father in a poor village at the foot of Fruitless Mountain.  As the mountain’s name implies, it is a barren land.  They work hard every day to grow barely enough to feed themselves. 

While Minli’s mother frets and pines, resenting their poverty and envying the rich, Minli’s father finds pleasure in telling the ancient tales.  His stories of Jade dragon, the Old Man of the Moon, and greedy Magistrate Tiger capture Minli’s imagination.

One day, with the help of a talking goldfish, she sets out to find the Old Man of the Moon who lives at the top of Never-Ending Mountain, for it is said that he can tell her how to change her family’s fortune.

So begins a journey where she meets a real dragon (though he cannot fly), a poor but happy orphan, and the helpful folk of a hidden village, among others.  Along the way she hears more tales from the past, and her adventures and heroic feats are sure to become new tales for the telling.

This Newberry Honor book by Grace Lin is beautiful both in the language and the illustrations.  Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is suggested for grades 3-6, and anyone who enjoys folklore or an uplifting tale.

Happy Reading!