Honey Blonde Chica by Michele Serros

Michele Serros, Honey Blonde Chica, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4169-1591-1

Plot Summary
Eveline Morales is a Mexican-American surfer girl growing up in southern California. She lives in a wealthy gated community, attends a fancy private school and is part of a group of friends who call themselves the Flojos or the lazies. They wear flip-flops as a sign of their commitment to laid back beach living. Life is going just fine with her and the rest of the Flojos (including her sharp-tongued best friend Raquel Diaz) until her former best friend moves back from Mexico City. When Evie first see her former best friend, Dee-Dee, she doesn’t even recognize her--Dee-Dee  has been transformed from a quiet, bookish girl who recently lost her mother, to a heavily-made up, spoiled boy-crazy teenager. Dee-Dee and Raquel get off on the wrong note, and tension simmers among the three girls.  Evie soon realizes that she needs to figure out who she is, who her true friends are, and where she wants to give her heart.

Critical Evaluation
Part of the fun of this book is that Spanish and Spanglish are threaded throughout--the competing clique to Evie's group is called Las Sangronas (the stuck-up girls), insults begin with pinche, and the music thumping through her headphones is reggaetone. The blending of languages gives the readers a good sense of Evie’s Mexican-American identity and her existence in both worlds. The other language that Serros' weaves into the novel is text-speak. Evie’s blossoming romance happens through a series of heart stopping set of text messages--it feels real and reflective of romance in the digital age.  Anyone who has ever felt that texters cannot possibly speak the language of love should take a look at these passages. They might lack flowery language or the personal touch of handwriting, but the sentiments, albeit briefly stated, are all there.

Reader’s Annotation
If you like a series like the Gossip Girls but want a little Latin flavor, check this one out. It's an escapist page turner and a fun romp through a high school existence that involves surfboards, bikinis, backyard pools, romance and not much schoolwork.

Information about the Author
We learn the following about Michele Serros on the the author’s website, “Named by Newsweek as “One of the Top Young Women to Watch for in the New Century,” Michele Serros is the author of Chicana Falsa and other stories of Death, Identity and Oxnard, How to be a Chicana Role Model, Honey Blonde Chica, and her newest young adult novel, ¡Scandalosa!

A former staff writer for The George Lopez Show, Serros has written for the Los Angeles Times, Ms. Magazine, CosmoGirl, and The Washington Post and contributes satirical commentaries regularly for National Public Radio (Latino USA, Morning Edition, Weekend All Things Considered, Anthem, Along for the Ride, and The California Report) An award-winning spoken word artist, she has read her poems to stadium crowds for Lollapalooza, recorded Selected Stories from Chicana Falsa for Mercury Records, and was selected by the Poetry Society of America to have her poetry placed on MTA buses throughout Los Angeles County.  

While still a student at Santa Monica City College, Michele’s first book of poetry and short stories, Chicana Falsa and other stories of Death, Identity and Oxnard, was published. After LaloPress, the original publisher, ceased business, Michele continued to sell copies from her garage  while maintaining a devoted following of fans as well as a place in academia where Chicana Falsa became required reading in many U.S. high schools and universities. In 1998, Riverhead Books (Penguin/Putnam) reissued Chicana Falsa in addition to publishing Serros’ Los Angeles Times Best Seller, How to be a Chicana Role Model.

Serros' work garners a diverse fan base ranging from Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (“Michele is the great Californian writer who makes me proud of my state. When I read her books I cry and laugh and cry.”) to author Sandra Cisneros (“ Serros is a young, sassy writer whose brilliant weapon is her humor.”) Originally from Oxnard, CA, Michele is currently working on a new novel, A (sorta) Unmarried Mexican.”

Genre
Realistic Fiction/ Chick Lit

Booktalking Ideas
Read aloud the description of Evie and Los Flojos or set the stage for the central problem of the novel when Evie first encounters Dee-Dee after not having seen her for years.

Reading Level/ Interest Age
Ages 14+

Challenge Issues
This novel could be challenged because of its strong language and/or representations of under-age drinking. If the book were challenged, I would turn to ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

Why Included?
I wanted to include in my collection a book that was something like popular Gossip Girls series and learned about the author Michele Serros from some classmates. I liked that this novel fit the Chick Lit category but had a cultural twist. 

Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

 Deborah Heiligman, Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith, Henry Holt, New York, 2009, ISBN 13:978-0-8050-8721-5

Plot Summary
For lovers of science and history, here is a work of non-fiction that chronicles the interior lives of Charles Darwin, author of The Origin of Species, and his wife Emma. The two married each other in spite of a fundamental difference: Emma's devout faith and Charles' theory which would prove to be highly controversial in religious communities. In spite of this difference, she was one of his most trusted readers whose feedback informed his famous works. In addition to the excellent history lessons, the book also reads as an inspiring love story set in a tumultuous time. The books opens with a pro and con list as the ever-methodical Mr. Darwin weighs the decision of whether or not to marry. Will marriage detract from his life as a scientist?  Ultimately, he lands on the ‘pro’ side and marries his first cousin Emma who proves to be a perfect companion, editor, and mother of their ten children. Their dedication to each other and to ongoing dialogue in spite of fundamental difference could be a ‘how-to’ manual for those embarking on long-term relationships.

Critical Evaluation
One of the most compelling aspects of this novel is considering Charles and Emma’s relationship to each other, family, and the world of ideas within the context of the Victorian era. Considering this work within its historical context helps readers better understand why first cousins married each other or why Emma, a bright and competent woman, had no career to speak of outside of the home.  Heiligman helps the reader to enter into this time period and mindset through various primary sources, including family letters and papers. After reading Charles and Emma, this reader was left thinking about mortality rates during the Victorian era. It is the loss of her beloved sister at a young age that leads to Emma’s devout faith, and the death of their favorite daughter proves a lifelong heartache to both Charles and Emma. These two were of the upper echelons of British society, and yet they were not spared the ravages of disease during this time. This reader entered into this reading experience expecting to think lots about religion and science: the increased curiosity (and knowledge) about the Victorian era was a bonus. 

Reader’s Annotation
In its day, Charles Darwin’s Origins of Species was a ground-breaking and widely read book. Some argue that the reason it was so popular and widely read was that is was edited by his wife Emma, a devout Christian. Charles and Emma tells the story of their marriage.

Information about the Author
On the author’s website, Heiligman writes about her background. “I was born in Allentown, PA. I lived in the same house my whole childhood, mostly alone with my mother and father and my dog, Missy. My sister and brother were so much older than I was I don't remember much about them when I was little. Here's what I do remember: my sister got married in our living room when I was four.”

…

I went on to BROWN UNIVERSITY, which I fell in love with at first sight. As is befitting a children's book author, I majored in Religious Studies. For about one week I thought about becoming a rabbi. I didn't. My best friend did. I had no idea what I would do after college. I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't think real people were writers. I thought writers were like movie stars and that regular people like me couldn't be writers. At Brown all the people who said they were going to be writers wore all black, smoked lots of cigarettes (something I never did: my father was a lung doctor!), drank endless cups of coffee, and used such big words I couldn't understand what they were saying (I don't think they knew what they were saying either). My bet is that most of those people are lawyers or stockbrokers or maybe ski bums. Anyway, I bet they're happy. And so am I.
   
My first job out of college was at a magazine called MOMENT. Then in 1981, I started interviewing for jobs in New York City, and found, quite by accident, a job at Scholastic News Explorer, the 4th grade classroom magazine. I got a trial assignment and discovered that I loved writing for children. I have never looked back!”
   
Writing for Scholastic News was the best job I could have had. I had to write every day, all day, and on all kinds of subjects. Soon after I got there the magazines were reorganized, so I wrote for children in grades 1 through 6. I loved it. In the morning I would write about panda bears or Pac-man for second graders, and in the afternoon I'd write about war or pesticides for sixth graders. I also had the opportunity to interview famous people, to write fiction in the form of plays, and to do a lot of research. I stayed there until 1985 and by the time I left I was in charge of all the magazines and teachers guides! So why did I leave? I had a baby and I wanted to be home with him. That's when my life as a freelance writer began.”

Genre
Non-Fiction/ Biography

Curriculum Ties
This would be perfect companion read for a study of evolution, the Victorian era, or a specific read about Darwin including The Origin of Species or Inherit the Wind.

Booktalking Ideas
Read aloud excepts from Charles Darwin’s pro/ con list about whether or not to marry.

Reading Level
Grades 8-12

Challenge Issues
N/A

Why Included?
I wanted to include a range of fiction and non-fiction works in my collection and thought that this book would provide fascinating insights into both faith and science. I thought it might be a good read for students with interests in science, history and human relationships, and I’m happy to report that this is true.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson, Wintergirls, Penguin Group, New York, 2009, ISBN 978-0-14-241557-3

Plot Summary
After her best friend's death from an eating disorder, eighteen year old Lia is haunted with memories and other demons. She thinks back to the pact that she and Cassie made in the eighth grade about who would be skinniest and to the night that Cassie died and Lia didn't pick up her calls. Cassie continues to battle with her weight hoping to suck all of the marrow from herself until she achieves zero. Like she did with Speak, Halse Anderson triumphs again in getting inside the mind of an angry and sad young woman and unveils what she is really thinking (as opposed to what she says to please her doctors, parents, therapist, and teachers). Reading this novel is a harrowing but worthwhile journey into the world of eating disorders where young women live as "wintergirls" caught somewhere between life and death.


Critical Evaluation
Anderson uses poetic devices as she portrays Lia’s internal life. She relies on repetition to allow readers a window into the self-loathing refrain that constantly circles through Lia’s brain, constantly taunting her and negating her self-worth. To demonstrate the disconnect between what Lia says to those who monitor her (doctors, therapists, parents and stepmother) and what she actually thinks, Anderson makes effective use of the strikethrough to illuminate the filtering process that goes through Lia’s brain--she says what she knows they want to hear, silencing the loathing, biting thoughts that are actually going through her head. The strikethroughs help the reader dive more deeply into Lia’s psyche, helping us to understand that Lia is a. an unreliable narrator who lies to get her way and b. Lia has not yet begun to heal because she still wants her body to disappear. In spite of her best friend’s death from an eating disorder and the sorrow she has caused her own family, Lia lacks perspective and, through most of the novel, remains committed to vanishing. In one section of the novel, Anderson demonstrates Lia’s silence by leaving two entire pages blank, a powerful move at this moment in the text.

Reader’s Annotation
Lia’s best friend recently died from an eating disorder. Does this mean that her friend “won” their competition over who would be skinniest?

Information about the Author
According to the author’s website, “Laurie Halse Anderson was born on October 23, 1961 in Potsdam, a very cold, cold place in Northern New York State. It was (and still is) close to the border of Canada. She was born Laurie Beth Halse. This would be a good place to clear up the matter of the pronunciation of her name, because it is, after all, her name, and she is weary of hearing it mangled by well-meaning people. Halse rhymes with waltz. Not hal-see. No, no, no, no. Halt-z. If she could have anything she wanted, it would be world peace. But if she could have a second thing, it would be having people say her name correctly.

…

Laurie is probably best known for her Young Adult novels. Her debut novel, Speak, was a National Book Award Finalist, a New York Times bestseller, and a Printz Honor book. Even more thrilling, Speak was quickly placed into curriculum at hundreds of middle schools, high schools, and colleges around the country. (The film version of Speak features Twilight star, Kristen Stewart, as Melinda!)

…

Laurie lives in Northern New York, with her childhood sweetheart, now husband, Scot. She has four wonderful children and a neurotic dog, all of whom she dearly loves. When not enjoying her family and her large garden, she spends countless hours writing in a woodland cottage designed and built just for that purpose by her Beloved Husband. She also likes to train for marathons, hike in the mountains, and try to coax tomatoes out of the rocky soil in her backyard.
She is quite sure that she leads a charmed life and is deeply grateful for it.”

Genre
Realistic Fiction/ Problem Novel

Curriculum Unit
Health curriculum--unit on body image and eating disorders

Booktalking Ideas
Explain Lia’s condition from three different perspectives--her mother, Lia, and her step-sister.

Reading Level
Ages 14+

Challenge Issues



This novel may be a tough read for sensitive readers due to the narrator’s self-destructive behaviors. If the book were challenged, I would turn to ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

Why Included?
I had read Speak years ago and loved it and wanted to read another Laurie Halse-Anderson novel. I watched a short video clip of Halse-Anderson discussing Wintergirls, felt intrigued and checked it out of the library. I think this will be a powerful read for a wide range of readers, but especially those whose lives have been affected by eating disorders or other forms of self-harm.

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

 Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz, Philomel, a division of Penguin Books, 2000, ISBN 0-399-23620-1

Plot Summary
Stormbreaker is the first novel of Anthony Horowitz's Stormbreaker series featuring Alex Rider, teen spy. The novel begins with Alex learning of his guardian uncle's death in a car accident. Knowing his uncle's habits, Alex suspects that this death was no accident and seeks to find what really happened. Shortly into his investigation, Alex learns that his uncle was actually a famous spy who had been training him since childhood to follow in his footsteps. Though he is just a teenage boy, Alex is asked by the British government to take up his late uncle’s most recent mission, investigating the nefarious head of Sayles Enterprises who plans to give a fancy new computer, the Stormbreaker, to every child in England. Masquerading as a teen computer whiz who has gained access to Sayles Enterprises by winning a content, Alex is able to infiltrate Sayles enterprises and figure out what’s really going on. Within a few pages, the reader is swept along into the plot of this fast-moving spy thriller that features dozens of near death escapes, a tongue-less butler, and an enormous killer Portugese man-of-war.

Critical Evaluation
Readers who loathe endless pages of dialogue and description with close to no action should turn to the Alex Rider series. On just about every page, something drastic happens which makes it hard to put this book down. The drama of the novel demands a certain leap of the imagination--have you ever heard of a teenage spy? Or a fake “zit cream” that eats through metal? A high speed bicycle chase? Once the reader has let go of all attachments to the possible, action lovers will love Alex Rider, orphan boy genius who is called upon by the British government to essentially save the nation.

Reader’s Annotation
In the wake of his uncle’s death, fourteen year old Alex Rider learns that his uncle and guardian was not a bank official as he had thought but was actually a famous spy--and he also learns that he has been trained to be a spy since boyhood! Young James Bond fans--here is your man, Alex Rider.

Information about the Author
We learn about Anthony Horowitz’s remarkable childhood on the author’s website,
“Anthony Horowitz's life might have been copied from the pages of Charles Dickens or the Brothers Grimm. Born in 1956 in Stanmore, Middlesex, to a family of wealth and status, Anthony was raised by nannies, surrounded by servants and chauffeurs. His father, a wealthy businessman, was, says Mr. Horowitz, "a fixer for Harold Wilson." What that means exactly is unclear — "My father was a very secretive man," he says— so an aura of suspicion and mystery surrounds both the word and the man. As unlikely as it might seem, Anthony's father, threatened with bankruptcy, withdrew all of his money from Swiss bank accounts in Zurich and deposited it in another account under a false name and then promptly died. His mother searched unsuccessfully for years in attempt to find the money, but it was never found. That too shaped Anthony's view of things. Today he says, "I think the only thing to do with money is spend it." His mother, whom he adored, eccentrically gave him a human skull for his 13th birthday. His grandmother, another Dickensian character, was mean-spirited and malevolent, a destructive force in his life. She was, he says, "a truly evil person", his first and worst arch villain. "My sister and I danced on her grave when she died," he now recalls.
                   
A miserably unhappy and overweight child, Anthony had nowhere to turn for solace. "Family meals," he recalls, "had calories running into the thousands…. I was an astoundingly large, round child…." At the age of eight he was sent off to boarding school, a standard practice of the times and class in which he was raised. While being away from home came as an enormous relief, the school itself, Orley Farm, was a grand guignol horror with a headmaster who flogged the boys till they bled. "Once the headmaster told me to stand up in assembly and in front of the whole school said, 'This boy is so stupid he will not be coming to Christmas games tomorrow.' I have never totally recovered." To relieve his misery and that of the other boys, he not unsurprisingly made up tales of astounding revenge and retribution.
                   
So how did an unhappy boy, from a privileged background, metamorphose into the creator of Alex Rider, fourteen-year-old spy for Britain's MI6? Although his childhood permanently damaged him, it also gave him a gift — it provided him with rich source material for his writing career. He found solace in boyhood in the escapism of the James Bond films, he says. He claims that his two sons now watch the James Bond films with the same tremendous enjoyment he did at their age. Bond's glamour translates perfectly to the 14-year-old psyche, the author says. "Bond had his cocktails, the car and the clothes. Kids are just as picky. It's got to be the right Nike trainers (sneakers), the right skateboard. And I genuinely think that 14-year-olds are the coolest people on the planet. It's this wonderful, golden age, just on the cusp of manhood when everything seems possible."
                   
Alex Rider is unwillingly recruited at the age of fourteen to spy for the British secret service, MI6. Forced into situations that most average adults would find terrifying and probably fatal, young Alex rarely loses his cool although at times he doubts his own courage. Using his intelligence and creativity, and aided by non-lethal gadgets dreamed up by MI6's delightfully eccentric, overweight and disheveled Smithers, Alex is able to extricate himself from situations when all seems completely lost. What is perhaps more terrifying than the deeply dangerous missions he finds himself engaged in, is the attitude of his handlers at MI6, who view the boy as nothing more than an expendable asset.
                                        
The highly successful Alex Rider novels include Stormbreaker, Point Blank, Skeleton Key, Eagle Strike, Scorpia, Ark Angel, Snakehead and most recently Crocodile Tears. And 2010 sees the Alex Rider series celebrate its 10 year anniversary!!!
                                        
Anthony Horowitz is perhaps the busiest writer in England. He has been writing since the age of eight, and professionally since the age of twenty. In addition to the highly successful Alex Rider books, he is also the writer and creator of award winning detective series Foyle’s War, and more recently event drama Collision, among his other television works he has written episodes for Poirot, Murder in Mind, Midsomer Murders and Murder Most Horrid. Anthony became patron to East Anglia Children’s Hospices in 2009.”

Genre
Action/ Adventure

Curriculum Ties
N/A

Booktalking Ideas
Give some background on the author’s life and explain how that motivated him to create a character such as Alex Rider.

Reading Level
Ages 10+.
*This is a high/low book, one that I might recommend to older readers who are reading below grade level.

Challenge Issues
N/A

Why Included?
I wanted to include within my collection an action/ adventure novel and had heard that the Alex Rider Stormbreaker series was quite popular. While this is geared toward younger readers, I think that plenty of older readers (including myself!) can still enjoy them.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 2006, ISBN 978-0-618-47794-4    

Plot Summary

In this graphic novel/ memoir Alison Bechdel, creator of the syndicated comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, narrates the story of her relationship with her father, a funeral home director and English teacher. Shortly after she comes out as a lesbian to her family, she begins putting the pieces of her family history together: her father’s fussiness in redecorating their Victorian home, the male “helpers” that he oftentimes had around, and the trial that centered around his buying a beer for a teenage boy. Shortly after Bechdel realizes that her father is a closeted gay man, her father dies in an accident that may have masked a suicide. With honesty and humor, Bechdel dives into her family stories of growing up in a funeral home with a distant father whose unrealized dreams and passions lead to an untimely end. Along the way, the reader learns more about Bechdel's path to realize her full identity as an artist and lesbian as she makes peace with her father's past.  

Critical Evaluation
This is no lightweight graphic novel. Some of Bechdel’s closest connections with her father came from their shared love of literature, and she references Joyce’s Ulysses and the myth of Icarus to make sense of her own family story, her relationship with her father, and his death.  She ponders the loss of her father as she considers his internal struggles. Did his personal sacrifices allow her the freedom to explore her full identity? What might his life have been had he been born in another time and place, not tied to the family funeral home or the small town where he was born and its stifling norms? These questions and more are the gems that await readers of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.

Reader’s Annotation
This is a captivating memoir that explores comic artist Alison Bechdel’s childhood growing up in a funeral home in a small town in Pennsylvania and her relationship with her father, a closeted gay man.

Information about the Author
On her website Dykes to Watch Out For, we learn about the author of Fun Home, “Alison Bechdel began keeping a journal at the age of ten, and has been assiduously archiving her own life and times with words and pictures ever since. For twenty-five years she wrote and drew the comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, a generational chronicle considered “one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period.” (Ms.)

She is also the author of the best-selling Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which won an Eisner Award and was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist. Time Magazine named Fun Home the number one Best Book of 2006, calling the memoir about her father, “A masterpiece about two people who live in the same house but different worlds, and their mysterious debts to each other.” Fun Home and Dykes to Watch Out For have been translated into many languages. Bechdel has drawn comics for Slate, McSweeney’s, Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times Book Review, and Granta, among other places. Bechdel lives near Burlington, Vermont.”

Curriculum Ties
N/A

Booktalking Ideas
On an overhead projector, show some panels of Bechdel’s work including renovations of the Victorian home, a childhood encounter with a corpse, Bechdel’s own coming out experience, and revelation of her father’s secret identity.

Reading Level/ Interest Age
Age 16+

Challenge Issues
This book has been challenged due to some sexual references and its gay subject matter. If the book were challenged, I would turn to ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

Why Included?
Many young people enjoy reading graphic novels, and this is one of the best graphic novel/ memoir combinations I’ve ever read. Also, I wanted to include within my  collections some books that would resonate with LGBTQ readers and allies.