Gone to the Woods

The boy understands what it is like to be alone.  With his father a vague memory gone to war and his mother only using him to get attention from men at bars, he's learned how to look out for himself.  His world changes in an instant when he is sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the Canadian wilderness.  For the first time, he feels like he's found a place where he fits.  

He learns how to fish, hunt, and appreciate the beauty of nature.  Sig and Edy also welcome him in a way that feels like he has always belonged with them.  But eventually, his mother returns and takes him to a war-ravaged Manila to live with a father he barely recognizes.  The drinking and fighting begin immediately, and the boy learns to survive and explore the streets where he learns about the kindness of strangers and the dehumanizing effects of war.

Back in the United States as an adolescent, he works odd jobs to buy food for himself as he hides from his angry and drunken parents in the cellar of the building.  The streets are even worse with bullies ready to inflict violence to get anything they can.  He dreams of running away and living in the woods using the lessons he learned from Sig in his childhood.  

His only respite is the library.  He's hesitant, but it's so cold outside, and the library is warm.  It doesn't take long before he has an unlikely friend in the librarian who shows him the world of reading and books.  He devours the pages and comes back for more, and it isn't long before she explains he can write down his own stories.

After a brief stint in the army, he discovers violence isn't for him.  He's learned how to fight to defend himself, but he doesn't want to live a life of violence.  Instead, he picks up a pencil and begins to write once again.

This powerful new memoir by Gary Paulsen delves deeper into his difficult past showcasing some of the best moments of his childhood contrasted with some of the worst.  This is marketed as middle grade, but it has references to prostitution, STDs, extreme violence, and war atrocities.  Paulsen doesn't go into a lot of detail most of the time, but this may not be the book for more sensitive readers.  There are parts of this book I really loved and parts where things slowed down too much.  There are sections of truly lyrical prose describing both the beauty and the horrors of the world that will live with me for years to come.  Recommended.

My Life in the Fish Tank

Zinny's world is turned upside down when the phone rings in the middle of the night to inform the family that her older brother Gabriel has been in an accident.  He isn't seriously injured, but his college roommate and friends report he's been acting odd and not going to classes.   In the aftermath of the accident, Gabriel is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Now their parents are going back and forth to the hospital all the time, and even when they are home, they aren't really there.  Her dad spends all his time at work, and her mom quits her teaching job to fight with insurance companies to get appropriate care for Gabriel.  Her older sister Scarlet is angry and frustrated none of the siblings have been able to see him, and her younger brother Aiden is left to his own devices when it comes to homework and everything else.  

Her parents say they should keep this a private matter.  They want to respect Gabriel's privacy and not talk about the problem to people outside the family.  In Zinny's mind, this means it's a secret, and she refuses to discuss anything with her two best friends.  This causes friction in the group, and Zinny finds refuge in her science teacher's classroom and an upcoming animal studies project.  Even when the guidance counselor invites her to join Lunch Club, she doesn't open up about her feelings of frustration and fear.  

With all these secrets, it seems like her family will never get back to normal.  And she may have lost her best friends forever.

Barbara Dee's new novel tackles how mental illness affects everyone in the family and the stigma that still surrounds many disorders.  Zinny follows her mother's lead in this, but it becomes clear through the story that many other people don't see the need for secrecy.  Gabriel is largely absent from the story, but when he eventually gets to have his say, he is not ashamed and approaches bipolar disorder like any other illness.  He is confident he can manage the disorder with medication and move forward with his life.  The book also has flashbacks to times when looking back, Zinny realizes she and other family members may have missed the signs that something was wrong and the guilt they all feel for this.  This is an engaging story and an important book to help remove the stigma of mental illness.  Highly recommended. 

The Memory Thief

Rosie has been taking care of herself for as long as she can remember.  Her mother just doesn't have whatever it is that makes mothers love their children.  She does data entry from home in the small attic room overlooking the ocean, but Rosie is the one who takes care of the house and orders groceries.  She's used to it, but she also longs to have a mother who loves her.

After a fight with her best, and only, friend Germ, Rosie burns all her stories.  She doesn't want to be a child who relies on fairytales.  She could never know that one act would change her life forever.  Now Rosie can see the ghosts who live in her home, and the mystery of her mother's past is slowly coming into focus.  

A ghost boy named Ebb, shows her a hidden book about her mother's years as a witch hunter, and she begins to realize the truth about her mother.  One of the witches, the Memory Thief, stole her mother's memories and her very essence of self.  Now that Rosie has the sight, she is on the Memory Thief's radar, too. 

But the sight also reveals wondrous things she could never imagine:  sentient clouds, a moon goddess who is an aloof opposing power to witches, and a ladder to the heavens where the brave can seek her help.

Using the Witch Hunter's guide and the help of Germ and Ebb, Rosie prepares herself for the quest of a lifetime.  She wants to battle the Memory Thief to save her mother and protect herself from becoming the next victim.  

I absolutely loved this new book by Jodi Lynn Anderson!  It's lush and atmospheric with lyrical prose and a heartbreaking premise.  Anyone with a loved one who has memory loss would go on a quest to restore those memories.  The notes of encouragement Rosie posts in her room and pretends are from her mother are bittersweet and her friendship with Germ is beautiful and realistic.  Highly recommended!

Scritch Scratch

Claire is a scientist.  She likes things that can be tested and proven.  She is completely embarrassed by her dad's obsession with the paranormal.  He's written a successful book and does a haunted tour of Chicago every night.  She hates all this!  But the truth is she's also scared.  She believes in science and numbers, but sometimes that doesn't really matter when you are alone in a dark alley.

When her dad's normal assistant has a family emergency one night, Claire is roped into being his assistant.  She doesn't have to do much besides hand out flyers and make sure the bus doesn't get towed when her dad is taking tourists on a walk of haunted locations, but Claire absolutely does not want to go.  What if someone from school sees her and uses this information to torment her?  It's humiliating.

When she notices a small sad looking boy in old-fashioned clothes at the back of the bus, Claire gets a strange feeling.  Then he disappears and no one else has any memory of his.  Claire tries to brush it off as just her imagination, but it soon becomes clear that something from the haunted tour has followed her home.  There are strange sounds in the night, flooded dresser drawers, and cryptic messages on the bathroom wall.  Who is this ghost, and what does he want?  Claire and her older brother Sam race to uncover the truth before the ghost's frustrations lead to violence against her!

Middle school readers will love this creepy ghost story rooted in a real historical tragedy from Lindsay Currie.  All the events and places on Claire's dad's ghost tour are real and could lead to further inquiry from readers, and the ghost from this story is based on the Eastland disaster of 1915 where a real ship sank killing hundreds of people, many of whom were children.  Claire also works through a misunderstanding she has with her best friend and a new girl at school.  Plus, it's refreshing to see a supportive sibling relationship.  I will definitely recommend this ghostly chiller to my students!  Highly recommended.

Love and Olives

Liv Varankis is going to Greece to spend ten days with her father.  Her mom isn't really giving her a choice despite Liv's own plans to go on a senior trip with her boyfriend and his friends and the fact that she hasn't seen her father in nine years.  So...yeah, she has no desire to spend time with a man whose only contact has been the occasional postcard.

She never even talks about her dad.  It's too embarrassing to tell people her father abandoned her to search for the lost city of Atlantis.  She's spent the last nine years transforming herself from Olive, the sad little girl who misses her father, into Liv who is stylish and has a cute boyfriend.

Things go wrong right from the beginning.  Her dad is not even there to meet her at the airport.  Instead, it's some guy she's never heard of named Theo with a motorbike.  When she finally does see her dad it's super awkward.  Plus, his big surprise is a documentary about Atlantis.  Atlantis!  She never wants to hear that word again.  Finally, Theo and her dad convince Liv to join the crew and they begin filming.  

But her dad keeps disappearing without real explanation leaving Liv and Theo to work alone.  Why did he even want her to come if he wasn't going to spend time with her?  Plus, her boyfriend back home won't text or call because he's still mad about her last-minute change of plans.  

Theo is very attractive.  Liv has to keep reminding herself she has a boyfriend!  But he's also kind of annoying.  He acts like he knows her father and her relationship better than she does and he keeps pushing her to get over her anger with her father.  But he also pushes her out of her comfort zone and into taking some risks and having a little fun, and every day she questions her relationship with her controlling boyfriend even more.  

Will Liv find love in Santorini? And will she be able to mend her damaged relationship with her father?

This is the third book in Jenna Evans Welch's series about love and adventure.  Each book is really a stand-alone, this one even more so than the others.  However, this is my least favorite of the three as it really stretches credulity.  First of all, Liv has terrible taste in boys.  Her boyfriend Dax is controlling and withholding, but Theo has his own problems.  He acts like he understands the situation with her father completely even though he knows nothing about her life.  He may have more details about her father's current situation, but it's not his life.  Then there is her father.  No matter the reason, a father can't drop out of a child's life for nine years and expect everything to be perfectly fine when he decides to reappear, but all the characters seem to expect Liv to just roll with it.  Every time she does stand up for herself, she is proven "wrong" and ends up shamed for her feelings even though her father did abandon her for nine years, and he is lying to her when they finally see each other again.  I really enjoyed the first and second books in this series, but I could have passed on this one.