"No reading at the breakfast table"

Below are a few young adult books that I've enjoyed this year.  I apologise that the suggestions are a bit light on the fantasy and science fiction.  I will try to branch out in 2016. The Protected by Claire Zorn (2014)  If you haven't read Claire's earlier book 'The sky so heavy' I highly recommend that (you can read a review here ).  This book is really different to her first book. It tells the story of a girl whose older sister has died in a car accident 12 months earlier.  Hannah didn't really get on with her sister so is dealing with the guilt of this but also the impact on her family of her sister's death.  It's a powerful, well written story that deals with big ideas but gives hope in the midst of it all. Are you seeing me?  by Darren Groth (2014) Nineteen year old Justine is sole carer for her disabled twin brother Perry after her father has died a year earlier of cancer.  Her mother (who left them as young children) lives ...

Once upon a time in a universe far, far away, I used to write about books on a blog I had.  Oh - hold on. That would be this  blog!  I feel I have let some of my long term readers down in this area this year.  Time for a new list for 2014 to meet the needs of those on winter holidays in the Southern hemisphere (and of course for my northerners, you can make it a summer reading list for your purposes!). It's a bit of an eclectic mix. Flight behaviour  by Barbara Kingsolver (2012).  Barbara Kingsolver's book 'The Poisonwood Bible' (1998), was a pretty crazy ride with a missionary family in Africa in the '60's going terribly wrong.  'Flight behaviour' is totally different.  Set in the Appalachian mountains, the story opens with young mother, Dellarobia climbing the hill behind her small home, seeking to escape the monotony and poverty of her life, for an affair with another man.  But when she gets there she sees an incredible sight - the hi...

Time for a little break from the personal oversharing with my 'Less is More' saga! (You can catch up here ) 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card was written in 1985.  I didn't know this when I started reading it and assumed it was more recent because he uses technology like the internet and iPads (not called this in the books, but the same concepts) throughout the story.  Incredible really when you realise when it was written. It's a science fiction book.  Not my genre at all.  But it had been recommended by so many different people that I really thought I should give it a go.  It ended up being my one of my favourite books of 2013 and I even convinced my 15 year old son to read it (unheard of that we'd enjoy a sci fi book together!). The story is set in the future where, 50 years earlier, Earth has survived two invasions by an alien, insect-like race.  Now there appears an imminent threat of another invasion and children are selected to train fr...

Ahh yes.  But of course. When in doubt with young adult fiction, write another dystopian book, preferably the first of three. 'Divergent' by Veronica Roth is good fun. More of the controlled, perfect world where people are assessed and placed into one of five groups according to personality type at the age of 16. Except that Beatrice (surprise, surprise) doesn't fit her family group (boring old 'Abegnation' - the selfless) and has the opportunity to choose between her family group or 'Dauntless', the group that protects the whole community. They're on the edge of society, keeping the bad guys out. So, let's see. Can you guess which group our friend Beatrice chooses? Oh well, I don't want to spoil the fun for you, so you'll just have to read it to find out the answer. But all is not as it seems. Beatrice is actually a 'Divergent'. That is, her personality test shows that she doesn't quite  fit in any group (but of course, da...

'The sky so heavy' by Claire Zorn has been my favourite read of the past term. It's aimed at young adults although I think if you can cope with a bit of swearing it would be OK for 12+. 'The sky so heavy' is set in the lower Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. The story starts off with a normal school day for Fin against the backdrop of looming tensions in an Asian country north of Australia. There is a major nuclear attack that destroys all of Asia leaving Australia devastated by the aftermath of a nuclear winter. Of course, the parents are quickly dispensed with and the three teenagers, Fin, Lucy and Arnold, are left on their own to survive. It is powerful reading a book that is set in such familiar places. The kids have to negotiate their way down the mountains into the edges of Western Sydney that has been barricaded to protect any outsiders coming in. It's the realism that makes it so rivetting. So much that is normal and familiar but in this horrendou...

As usual these are not all new books, but they're books that I've enjoyed in 2012. 'Starters' by Lissa Price is a dystopian story that actually has quite an interesting premise.  During a world-wide viral epidemic, only the young and the over 60's are given a life saving vaccination.   The over 60's are now able to live into old age, while the young are left starving and orphaned, unable to work until they are 18 so they don't take the jobs of the elderly.  16 yo Callie is looking after her little brother, but cannot work out how to care for him alone.  The option comes for her to earn a large sum of money by renting her body out to a senior.  But while she is being rented something goes wrong and she wakes up, discovering that her body is going to be used to commit a murder. 'Matched' is a dystomance (we made this genre up).  Ie. a dystopian romance!  The Society determines through DNA and psychological testing who your perfect match will be. ...

Let me bore you for a short moment with a high point of my teaching year so far. I take this Year 7 class once a fortnight for a library lesson in one of their English periods.  Still, today, they arrive late for their last lesson of the year having 'forgotten' that it was library.  They are totally off with this fairies this group.  We've certainly had a few low moments along the way. Today their class teacher insisted that they choose a book to borrow for the holidays.  They don't love reading (um, understatement).  This pronouncement was greeted with their usual moans and groans about anything resembling schoolwork. But I managed to get them to all leave the library having borrowed at least one book and many of them had borrowed more than one. I was able to talk to them for ages, recommending new books that I had read over the year that I thought they would enjoy.  All the hours I've spent reading young adult fiction that starts to sound the s...

If you liked 'The Hunger Games' you might like this dystopian book.  'The Maze Runner' by James Dashner (2009), opens with Thomas waking up in an elevator knowing nothing except his first name.  He finds himself in an open area called 'The Glade' with about 60 teenage boys.  The Glade is surrounded by high walls that close each night at dusk to protect them from the deadly half animal/half machine Grievers that come out each night.  During the day the walls open and a special group of boys, Runners, leave the Glade to try and solve the maze that surrounds the glade.  None of the boys know why they are there and remember nothing of their past. This is a fast paced book but I have to say not the most well written book.  The premise of the book kept me reading to the end.  It is quite violent and the boys have their own language which is essentially modified swearing.  I do think this book will appeal much more to boys than girls - since there a...

I loved the book so I was a little nervous about how they were going to pack the whole book into a movie.  But the kids I work with assured me that the movie was good so I watched it this week. The premise of the book is that a boy and a girl from each district in a dystopian North America are chosen each year to fight to the death in a reality TV show called 'The Hunger Games'.  The winner gets much glory and secures wealth and safety for their families.  It is a horrible premise but made a good read. The movie was two and a quarter hours long but they still didn't manage to convey the same level of suspense that the book created.  I was chatting to some kids at school yesterday about whether or not the movie would make complete sense if you hadn't read the book (there might have been unexplained assumptions made). I wondered how they were going to deal with the gory themes in the book but the movie was actually really well done.  Having seen it now I w...

Being forced out of my comfort zone and into the world of young adult fiction has been better than I anticipated.  Here are a few books that I've enjoyed this year. 'Juno of Taris' by Fleur Beale (a NZ writer) tells the story of teenager Juno who is on the verge of moving into the adult world of Taris.  Taris is an island community, set up 200 years earlier by an idealistic group of scientists who set out to preserve a perfect group of humanity from the ravages of climate change that are destroying the earth.  Taris does not have contact with the outside world and is self-sufficient.  While it appears at first glance to be a loving, caring society where everyone contributes to the common good, Juno finds it increasingly oppressive and controlling.  Juno starts to ask questions - with big consequences.  (age 13 plus - lots of discussion about genetically engineered reproduction) 'Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac' by Gabrielle Zevin tells the story of 16 y...

Moving out of work in a public library to a school library, means that I don't get easy access to the latest adult fiction, but I'm fast picking up speed on the young adult front. Last week I read a book called 'Feed' by Mira Grant.  It was about zombies and bloggers.  I have to admit, I haven't spent much (like any) time reading about zombies (or bloggers for that matter).  But one of my colleagues convinced me to read it. I did think the writing was clunky and laboured.  And the author kind of over-explained every concept in the book.  But in the end I didn't mind it too much.  Basically the idea is that a cure for cancer and the common cold has been discovered in 2014 and released into the atmosphere.  Unfortunately a viral mutation occurs, so that while people don't die of colds and cancer, when they do die, they don't really die.  They then stagger around as zombies looking for people to feed on (thus the title). Of course the 'feed'...