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Sara Zarr, author of the National Book Award Finalist, Story of a Girl, is back with her new YA (young adult) novel Sweethearts.

As children, Jennifer Harris and Cameron Quick were both social outcasts. They were also each other’s only friend. So when Cameron disappears without warning, Jennifer thinks she’s lost the only person who will ever understand her. Now in high school, Jennifer has been transformed. Known as Jenna, she’s popular, happy, and dating, everything “Jennifer” couldn’t be—but she still can’t shake the memory of her long-lost friend.

When Cameron suddenly reappears, they are both confronted with memories of their shared past and the drastically different paths their lives have taken.

I enjoyed Sweethearts immensely. It’s a great novel for young women and while there’s some very adult topics, namely child abuse and parental neglect, the writing and story are age appropriate. For more on Sara and her books check out her website at www.sarazarr.com.

Five Questions for Sara Zarr

1. Sara, your book Sweethearts has a bittersweet ending. Were you trying to share with your readers “better to have loved than have not loved at all” when it comes to friendship?

No - there’s no agenda or lesson to the ending, it’s just what I felt was authentic for those characters in that situation. Without giving too much away, I didn’t see how it could turn out any other way given all of the circumstances. Maybe a few years after the ending of the book, there’s still a chance for a different outcome to their relationship.

2. Do you really believe kids who are ugly ducklings can turn into swans while still in high school? Or does personal reinvention only happen when people “grow up”?

I don’t see Sweethearts as an ugly-duckling-to-swan story. I see Jenna as a girl whose primary goal was emotional and social survival, and once she lost her only friend—and without the support of siblings or a parent who could take a break from work long enough to guide her—she only did what she felt she needed to do to get through. That said, adolescence is a time of constant change and growth and the trying on of new identities, so, yeah, I think anyone can do a surface reinvention in high school. Of course, it’s not necessarily a true transformation.

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As promised, some last minute book gift ideas for preteens and teenagers. Enjoy!

Fashion

The Tokyo Look Book: Stylish To Spectacular, Goth To Gyaru, Sidewalk To Catwalk - This is a great book for fans of fashion and style. Crammed with full-color photographs of Tokyo’s trendy teens and twenty-somethings captured as they work and play, author Philomena Keet shows us the richly varied fashion scenes that thrive in Tokyo from the “gal” mecca of Shibuya, to the goths and cosplayers who hang out on Jingubashi bridge on Sundays. My only disappointment with this book is that it didn’t feature the thriving Japanese rockabilly and swing scenes. Those cool cats and kittens have the best vintage ’40s and ’50s clothes in the world.

Emotions - Friendship, Grief, Growing Up, and Other (Pre)Teen Angst (Fiction)

Anything But Ordinary - Valerie Hobbs’s YA novel captures a young couple’s search for independence and identity. Winifred and Bernie are two individualists in a romantic relationship with each other. So, they send off for the same college catalogs, promising never to separate.  But Bernie’s mother dies. He drops out of school and goes to work in a tire shop. Winifred’s at the University of California at Santa Barbara growing up. Both have gone through drastic changes. Can they rediscover their true selves and true love?

Fab Girls Guide to Friendship Hardship - This is the first book in a new series from the creators of Discovery Girls magazine featuring Carmen and Dallas Fabrulezziano (the Fab Girls), twins who appear throughout the books to help guide girls through those difficult middle school years.

Fair Has Nothing to Do With It - By Cynthia Cotten for ages nine to 12, this book dramatically shows grief from the viewpoint of a child. Far from being sentimental, the story shows the character as he swings from denial to anger to sorrow, and finally to acceptance. The easy, casual dialogue between the boy and his relative reinforces the idea that his grandfather will always be in the child’s memories. An excellent book for discussion.

How Ya Like Me Now - By Brendan Halpin, this YA (young adult) novel is about finding your place and looking out for your friends. Warning: this book deals with drug addiction (the mom’s).

History

Betsy Ross’s Star - One of the Blast to the Past books by Stacia Deutsch and Rhody Cohon for ages nine to 12. Learn the truth about the creation of the American flag and Betsy Ross.

Holidays

Christine Kringle - This fun Christmas book by Lynn Brittney explores the lives and working practices of the World’s Christmas Gift Bringers and how the daughter of Kriss Kringle of the USA and her friends save Christmas from extinction in England. For more about the book check out the Christine Kringle website.

More Fiction

Into the Ravine - For ages nine to 12, this novel by Richard Scrimger is about two 13-year-olds who take a day trip by themselves. On their way, the boys meet with a series of adventures that are funny at first glance but resonate deeply. They rescue a diabolical dog, confront a hydrophobic gang, and survive a waterfall. They are bombarded by bicycles, hoodwinked by hobos, and bewitched by bikinis. By accident, they crash a funeral, and, by design, they crash a pool party — with tragic results.

Rex Zero and the End of the World - For ages nine to 12, this novel by Tim Wynne-Jones explores the impact of doomsday and the apocalypse  on the imagination of one smart and funny twelve-year-old boy.

According to the Jenkins Group:

• 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book.
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57% of new books are not read to completion.

So what are they doing? Watching TV! (Among other things.) So no matter if you’re for or against the writer’s strike, your television viewing habits could be affected. So why not pick up a good book instead?

Family Activities for the TV-less

There are lots of book suggestions here at A Readable Feast including YA (young adult) titles. You can look on the right sidebar for books I haven’t reviewed yet like Bobbie Dazzler or Little Skink’s Tail. Or check out November 2006’s posts for Thanksgiving and holiday book ideas.

Did you see the Target toy catalog in last Sunday’s paper? The kids and I were excited about all the new board games out, especially Monopoly Disney Pixar Edition. Why wait for Christmas?

How about cooking as a family? FamilyFun.com has a whole bunch of kid-friendly Thanksgiving cooking ideas like Tiny Turkey Dinner Cupcakes and Tom Turkey Nuggets.

Lots of good new movies out there to rent or buy like Meet the Robinsons, too.

But if you must watch TV (and I understand - we all want to relax and “jell” for awhile) how about introducing kids to classics like the Andy Griffith Show or the original Star Trek? Both are in reruns on various local and cable stations. There’s always educational TV like the Discovery Channel, PBS, and the History Channel.

How is your family going to handle the writer’s strike?

1. Watch reruns of our favorite TV shows.
2. Watch shows we don’t normally watch on TV.
3. Watch sports on TV.
4. Do family activities like play games, cook, go to the community pool, or make a craft.
5. Rent lots of movies.
6. Turn of the TV and READ.

The Invisible, a young adult novel by Mats Wahl and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, was first published  in Sweden and made into a movie there. A U.S. film version will open in April 2007.

It’s about Hilmer, a 15-year-old boy in a small Swedish town, who slowly realizes that he has become invisible and is believed missing. A police detective named Harald Fors arrives at school that very morning to investigate Hilmer’s disappearance. Hilmer grows frightened and realizes that he’s starting to forgett things including what happened to him two nights earlier.

Detective Fors suspects foul play by a group of skinheads. As Fors scours the village and interviews area residents for clues, he begins to piece together the puzzle of Hilmer’s disappearance. Meanwhile Hilmer waits to discover what has happened to him.

Teens and adults will appreciate how Wahl slowly gives us - and main character Hilmer - clues about what happened. While you and Dective Fors have your suspicions, it isn’t until the end that the author lets us know what really happened. The Invisible reminds me a little of the narration in Alice Seabold’s The Lovely Bones - slightly creepy but very unique. Teenagers will enjoy this murder mystery and find The Invisible a hard book to put down.

Click here for more YA book reviews.

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When MotherTalk asked me to review Maximum Ride 3: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports a young adult (YA) novel by best-selling author James Patterson, I was thrilled. I love science fiction/fantasy especially when it involves “mutants” like in X-Men or the Hereos televsion show on NBC. And I wanted to bring more YA book reviews to my readers.

At first Patterson did a great job bringing me into the world of Maximum Ride at the beginning of the book. I was especially intrigued that one of the characters, Fang, has a blog. (Always thought the Hermione could have used a wizard’s Internet - WizNet? - and a laptop so she wouldn’t have to carry around all those books.)

Lost, Confused and Angry
Then Patterson lost me, probably because I hadn’t read the first two books, Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment and Maximum Ride: School’s Out Forever. What the heck was Itex, The Voice, and Erasers? Then I couldn’t figure out why Max and the Flock (a group of elementary, middle and high school aged flying kids) were flying all over the place while trying to save the world. Patterson wasn’t helping with his one dimensional characters, lack of a sensible plot, and brief teenage romantic interlude either. What a mess!

I began to get angry as I waded through three-page chapters (the 405 page book has 133 chapters - why?), snarky teen dialogue, cliched evil scientists, and cartoon violence where only the bad guys get hurt and die (the good guys get a few boo-boos and quickly recover). Then it occurred to me that Patterson was dumbing down his prose because he was writing for kids. For shame!

Other Great YA Sci-Fi/Fantasy Books
With so many great YA science fiction/fantasy authors out there like J.K. Rowling, Phillip Pullman, Madeline l’Engle, and Roald Dahl there is no need to waste time with authors who write down to children. It’s a shame that Patterson and his publishers feel that he should in order to get kids to read. Still, the Maximum Ride books are well loved and very popular with the YA market - enough that the series is being made into a movie. I think it’s the “kids save the world” theme that hooks most youngsters.

So, if you find your child reading any of the Maximum Ride books, don’t be alarmed. Just think of them of beginner’s books. Once your child has a taste of YA science fiction/fantasy, introduce them to gems like Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea Quartet, C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia or Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Once they have a taste of the good stuff, they’ll never go back to “baby books” like Maximum Ride 3.

(Click here for more YA novel reviews.)