2013 Contenders: What Came From the Stars, by Gary D. Schmidt

What Came From the Stars opens in the middle of an epic fantasy conflict, dropping the reader square into an alien, unfamiliar world with zero explanation. It's not particularly easy to follow, but it's clear that there is a group of people called the Valorim, that they're under siege, and that they're losing badly. Before their loss is complete, one of them forges a chain, and imbues it with the Art of the Valorim before sending it off on a journey through space. As it happens, the chain finally alights in the lunchbox of one Tommy Pepper, a sixth-grader in Plymouth, Massachussets.

Tommy is having a lot of problems. His mother has recently died in a car accident, a tragedy for which Tommy blames himself. A greedy real estate developer is angling for his family's home. And his younger sister, Patty, has stopped speaking entirely, communicating only in looks and gestures.

Once Tommy puts the chain on, strange things begin happening. Immediately, he has magical artistic talents. He says words in an unknown language, and begins to confuse his own life and world with that of the Valorim. Bizarre events begin taking place around him, starting relatively benign, but becoming increasingly malevolent. It becomes clear that someone from the other world is very interested in getting the Art back, and they're willing to do anything to obtain it.

As a plot summary, it sounds like it could be interesting indeed. But the execution is terribly muddled, and it simply doesn't cohere in a way that would make the book successful.

Two of the biggest problems were the same ones that bothered me so much about Okay for Now, Schmidt's much-discussed book from last year. One is that the central idea, that art is tremendously powerful, is compressed into a crashingly obvious metaphor -- the MacGuffin is called "the Art," and the discussions about it between the characters read more like philosophical conversations than actual dialogue. The second is that the book is jam-packed with subplot after subplot, only some of which are given adequate time, but all of which are resolved in an unsettlingly upbeat ending.

There are other issues, which I can't discuss without spoilers, so don't read on if you're averse to such things. The structure of the book is confusing to the point of completely frustrating the reader. Although the epilogue(s) help somewhat, it's terribly difficult to figure out what exactly is going on in the fantasy-world sections. It's a deliberate technique, one that does perhaps give the reader a feel for what Tommy may be experiencing, but it errs on the side of being too obtuse. This is especially true once the plot crosses over into the real world. There's a weapon, for instance, called an orlu. Tommy fights with it at one point, and several other people are around to see it. Yet it's never described, other than a statement that it's worn at the shoulder, and I still don't have any idea what it might be.

I also don't understand what's motivating Tommy at times. The plot requires the presence of a creature from the other world, an O'Mondim (which, as these things go, sounds to me less like a monster, and more like a particularly stout brand of Irish ale). Tommy makes one out of sand and more or less accidentally brings it to life, but there seems to be no reason, conscious or otherwise, for him to do it. It has to do with the Art, but how exactly the Art functions seems unclear as well. Why does Tommy forget nearly everything that's happened after the Art returns to the other world? And why, for that matter, does everyone else? And if everyone else has forgotten what's happened, how does Alice Winslow recall enough to write the glossary at the end?

Honestly, I kind of wanted the whole book to turn out to be a sort of poltergeist thing, in which the stress and trauma that Tommy has experienced start manifesting themselves in unusual and unpleasant ways. However, the book doesn't really give the reader the option of reading it that way, as there are physical artifacts from the other world that remain through the ending. You could read it as a metaphor, I guess, but I don't think it holds together enough to really make that practical.

As you may have guessed, I'm not among them, but Gary D. Schmidt has an intensely loyal and devoted following. I don't think even they are going to get behind What Came From the Stars enough to push it to any of the ALA awards, however. It's an interesting idea, but unfortunately, the novel itself is fatally flawed.


Published by Clarion / Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and out now.

2013 Contenders: Breathing Room, by Marsha Hayles

Until 1946, when trials with streptomycin began, there was no effective treatment for tuberculosis. None. If you came down with the disease, the best you could do was go to a sanatorium and hope that fresh air and bed rest would improve your symptoms. It wasn't much of a hope -- some records show that half of all patients who entered a sanatorium were dead in five years -- but it was the only hope available.

Adults came seeking a cure, but children came too -- children like thirteen-year-old Evvy Hoffmeister, the narrator of Breathing Room. Separated from her (uninfected) twin brother and the rest of her family, struggling for her health, and subject to the mind-numbing tedium of the Loon Lake Sanatorium's daily routine, Evvy has to try and be brave in deeply dispiriting circumstances.

The novel infuses small scenes and brief moments with pathos and significance. Because so much of what Evvy and the other girls at Loon Lake have to endure is unbearably banal -- lying motionless in bed, not being allowed to talk, having no distractions at all from the white walls and the thoughts in one's head -- even the slightest change is exciting and meaningful. The way that the relationships between Evvy and her roommates grow and develop is beautifully handled with almost no excess words.

Breathing Room is not an easy book. It's unsparing in its depictions of the disease, indignity, and death that take place inside the sanatorium. It has precious little action, and a plot that doesn't lend itself neatly to a summary. When one of the characters dies, the others try to figure out why it happened, but their awkward, overdramatic explanations simply point out that the disease does whatever it wants, inscrutably and unstoppably. It's a quiet book, but a challenging one.

But it rewards those challenges. It's of high literary quality, particularly when it comes to its characters, its setting, and its themes. It's a masterful meditation on a time, a place, and a group of people that history has largely forgotten -- one that both captures their lives and universalizes their experiences, in the tradition of Willa Cather or Scott O'Dell.

With the possible exception of Wooden Bones, Breathing Room is my favorite book of the year. I've heard little buzz about it, and I wouldn't dare predict it as the Newbery winner. But I do predict that I will be talking it up to anyone who will listen.


Published by Henry Holt / Macmillan, and out now.

2013 Contenders: Freaky Fast Frankie Joe, by Lutricia Clifton

When Frankie Joe's mother is sent to jail, he has to leave behind his friends at the trailer park in Laredo, Texas, and move to northern Illinois with a father, stepmother, and four half-brothers that he's never met. This doesn't sit well with Frankie Joe, and he immediately begins making plans for his escape -- plans that come to include earning money through his own business, Freaky Fast Frankie Joe's Delivery Service.

I tend to expect "new kid comes to a small, quirky town" books to have a female protagonist, so Frankie Joe was something of a breath of fresh air to me. His voice, that of a twelve-year-old who's been entirely uprooted, was my favorite thing about the book. He's a living, three-dimensional character, one whose struggles and challenges became real as I turned the pages.

The ending is the book's weak point -- it's brief and somewhat rushed, and didn't seem to me to fully address the issues that had been present only three pages earlier. Indeed, the writing as a whole was broader and less nuanced than I tend to prefer, with the dialogue being a bit exaggerated and the plot turns being overly telegraphed, though some of that can be explained by the age and personality of the narrator. It still had a bit too much of a storyboard feel to me though.

Freaky Fast Frankie Joe is Lutricia Clifton's first novel, and I think her career bears watching. Between this book, Neversink, Glory Be, and Wonder, it's been a banner year for first-time authors, which is cause for celebration. Freaky Fast Frankie Joe isn't sufficiently distinguished in the Newbery categories to place in this year's awards, but it's certainly a good start.


Published by Holiday House, and out now.

Heavy Medal steps gently out.

It's that time of year again: our big sister Newbery blog, Heavy Medal, has opened for another season.

Looking forward to reading Jonathan and Nina's thoughts on this year's contenders!

For our part, Sam and I are wrapping up the "initial reviews" portion of this year. We plan to start duking it out over individual titles next month. Stay tuned!

2013 Contenders: Hope and Tears: Ellis Island Voices, by Gwenyth Swain

Even though I'm not sure it was the best Newbery contender of its year, Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! was an excellent book. Its use of fictional monologues and dialogues to bring to life a historical place and time was effective, and gave encouragement to anyone else who wanted to use drama to talk about history.

I don't know if Gwenyth Swain drew specific inspiration from GM!SL!, but her book, Hope and Tears: Ellis Island Voices, uses a nearly identical format to illuminate the story of America's most famous immigration station. The thirty-odd brief dramatic pieces are told by characters that span the whole recorded history of the island, from a 16th-century Lenni Lenape boy gathering oysters, to a National Park Service worker in the present day. There are also periodic sections of a page or two that provide background information about the island and its story.

I found Hope and Tears to be very good at what it does. In the voices of immigrants, station officials, aid workers, doctors, construction workers, students, and more, it provides a well-rounded picture of the complex history of Ellis Island. And, although it's not a criterion for the Newbery, it should be noted that the book is brilliantly illustrated with a wide variety of historical photographs, which add depth and life to the pages. It's a beautiful book to look at; the designers and the publisher should be proud.

I don't see another GM!SL!-style upset sweeping Hope and Tears to the Newbery this year; I know I've said it before, but there are just too many other amazing books that are competing, and that are equally, or even more distinguished. I do wonder if the Sibert committee will find it of interest. Given the fictionalized voices that make up the bulk of the book, it's not textbook nonfiction, but seeing as how the Sibert has already been awarded to, for instance, We Are the Ship, that may not be an issue. Whatever happens, I hope Hope and Tears finds readers, because it certainly deserves them.


Published by Calkins Creek / Boyds Mills Press, and out now.

2013 Contenders: Starry River of the Sky, by Grace Lin

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is an excellent book. Grace Lin basically used it to invent a new genre, or at least bring an existing genre to a new audience. Seriously - I've been thinking about this a lot, and I can't think of any other Juvenile Folktale Fantasy novels. There's Adam Gidwitz's work and there's Breadcrumbs, but in both of those cases all of the action takes place within the tales themselves. There are Cat Valente's Orphan's Tales, but those are (very much) for adults. There's American Born Chinese, but that's a graphic novel for teens. I can't name any other children's novelists who are using Lin's intricate structure of tales within tales, all of which eventually converge both thematically and narratively.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon also happened to be published in 2010, the same year that When You Reach Me was the biggest Newbery shoo-in of the millennium so far. Hence, Mountain (or "Dragon and Minli," as my daughter calls it) earned a well-deserved Honor, but no gold medal.

With Starry River of the Sky, Lin continues to refine her fledgling genre. It takes place in the same universe as Mountain, with some of the same characters, but it's very much a companion book and not a sequel. As the novel opens, we are plunged into the midst of a mystery. A boy named Rendi has run away from home, and he finds himself stranded in the remote Village of Clear Sky. The reader initially knows nothing about Rendi or about the village's odd inhabitants, partly because both the boy and the village are trying their best to forget about the past. As in Mountain, though, the only way forward is to go back - to piece together the truth from scattered fragments of Story.

As a storyteller myself, I'm pretty receptive to the idea that we are healed by stories. Preacher, meet choir.

There is a quality of timeless elegance about Grace Lin's prose. It reminds me of a very different series of books - The Penderwicks - in that it is suffused with that ineffable "classic" feel. That's a difficult style to pull off without sounding precious or forced, but Grace Lin accomplishes it quite... gracefully (sorry). In terms of setting and character, it's difficult to compare Starry River of the Sky to other juvenile fiction books, because both of those elements are marked by the stylistic remoteness of of the traditional tale. That's not a critique, but it does make it harder to compare Starry River to something like Liar and Spy. They're just not trying to accomplish the same things. Plot, theme, and the intersection thereof, however, are indubitably distinguished.

I have only two complaints:

1. Not enough dragons.

2. My ARC doesn't have the full-color art that will grace (sorry! again!) the pages of the published book.

Publication in October through Little, Brown.

2013 Contenders: A Black Hole Is Not a Hole, by Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano

It's not the only -- or even the primary -- criterion that I use when evaluating children's books, but I get a special thrill when I see a book and think "You know, I would really have enjoyed this book as a child." A Black Hole Is Not a Hole gave me that feeling, reminding me of the first time I picked up Our Universe or The Cartoon Guide to Physics, a pair of books that loom large in my memories of growing up.

Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano's book does an excellent job of taking a difficult concept and making it accessible for younger readers. Her prose is full of funny turns of phrase ("The plasma rolls and churns like a hyper hurricane of heat, light, sound, and motion."), and she has a way of making even difficult thought experiments easily comprehensible.

The only real issue that I had involves the order in which some of the information is presented. The book starts out using Newtonian physics, and only towards the end introduces relativistic principles. The part where relativity is introduced talks about the relationship between Newtonian and relativistic frameworks, but the initial explanation of Newtonian mechanics doesn't mention that relativity will be coming. The result is that a child reader learns one explanation for what happens in a black hole, only to learn later on in the book that there's another, better explanation. As someone with a lifelong interest, if no post-high school education, in physics, I'm all for teaching both Newtonian mechanics and relativity, but I think talking about one without telling the reader that the other is coming might confuse a child.

That's not a huge point, and the rest of the book is excellent. I don't think it's a serious Newbery contender in the same way that something like Moonbird is -- it's educational and beautiful, but it doesn't transcend its subject like Moonbird does. It is, however, very good, and I'd recommend it to any child with an interest in science or space.


Published by Charlesbridge, and out now.