Rachel @ Auburn Archive.

Karl Shoemaker, the protagonist at the center of Tales of the Madman Underground: An Historical Romance 1973, has one goal for his senior year of high school: be normal.  Karl is attempting to break away from the affectionately-dubbed Madman Underground - the school therapy group he's been stuck in since fourth grade - make new friends, and survive high school so that he can enlist in the military.  But how can Karl be normal when his life is completely chaotic?  His father, the town's beloved former mayor, passed away four years ago, and his mother is a hippie alcoholic who steals Karl's money and spends it on benders, justifying her excesses by saying things like, "I really needed some freedom last night."  The books' cast of characters also includes the other "Madmen" in the therapy group, some not-so-smart high school bullies and the umpteen cats - with names like Prettyangel and SkyMusic - that share the house with Karl.

Karl's acerbic, profanity-spewing voice is painfully truthful and recalls Holden Caulfield, and I loved his descriptions of small-town life.  There's plenty of pathos in this novel - most of the parents of the Madmen are either drunk, emotionally distant, or entirely absent, and the teens certainly suffer for it - but Karl's sarcastic wit keeps the story moving without wallowing in woe-is-me self-pity.  Readers of a certain age will appreciate Karl's journey to adulthood in the freewheeling 1970s.

Daniel "Sprout" Bradford has a secret, but it isn't what you think.  Sprout's secret has nothing to do with his green hair, his romantic relationship, his mother's death, or his father's drinking.  After his mother died four years ago, Sprout's father packed him in the car and drove from Long Island to the middle of nowhere - in this case, Buhler, Kansas - where he and Sprout live in a trailer covered in vines and surrounded by a collection of upside-down tree stumps. 

Tapped by his hard-drinking but no-nonsense English teacher to compete in the statewide Kansas essay contest, Sprout spends the summer before his junior year under her tutelage.  Mrs. Miller urges Sprout to divulge his secrets, both public and private. 

Sprout is an intelligent and wisecracking narrator, and the novel is full of wordplay.  But until Sprout begins talking about his first relationships, we really don't know much about him.  From his purely physical relationship with jock Ian to his feelings for the new kid Ty, Sprout's romantic entanglements force him explore his own motivations and desires.  But will this self-examination come too late?  Sprout: Or My Salad Days, When I was Green in Judgment is a poignant, entertaining look at growing up gay in small-town America.

The Vast Fields of Ordinary follows high school senior Dade Hamilton as he suffers through once last summer in the suburban midwest before he leaves for college.  His parents' marriage is falling apart, his sorta-boyfriend Pablo only seems interested in Dade when they're alone, and his job at Food World just plain sucks.  Unable to tell his parents he's gay, he practices on inanimate household objects like the ceiling fan in his bedroom and the soap dish in the bathroom.  Then Dade meets mysterious Alex Kincaid, stoner extraordinaire, and Lucy Savage, whose own parents have shipped her off to spend the summer with her aunt and uncle after she reveals she's a lesbian, and suddenly the summer looks much brighter.  Alex and Dade's relationship sparks Pablo's jealousy, and readers can see the collision coming before Dade does.  In the space of one short summer, Dade will fall in love, visit his first gay bar, have an encounter with a missing girl, come out to his parents, and deal with the unforeseen consequences of his relationship with Dade.  Dade is a sensitive soul and his friends are likeable misfits, not unlike the characters in Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  Readers will be reminded of their own pivotal summers before heading off to college and transitioning into adulthood. 

It's been two months since his mother died in a car accident, and Ben's family is struggling to cope.  His father sells their home and buys a sailboat, then takes his three sons out of school and embarks on a year-long sailing trip around the Bahamas.  From the start, Ben's anger at his father, who has disrupted the boys' lives even further, is palpable. And now that the family is living aboard a 30-foot-long boat, he's impossible to avoid.  Then one morning, Ben wakes up and his father is gone.  Did he fall overboard?  Commit suicide?  Though Ben and his younger brothers can't agree on what happened to him, their arguments reveal volumes about the type of man they believe their father is.

But The Great Wide Sea is much more than a book on father-son relationships; it's also an excellent tale of emotional and physical survival. Struggling to navigate the sea after losing their father, the boys encounter a storm and end up stranded on a tiny island with little food and no radio to call for help.  The sailing and island scenes will keep you turning the pages, but the rich language, including the incorporation of poems by Emily Dickinson and Dylan Thomas into the text, will have you thinking about this book long after you finish reading.  This is M. H. Herlong's first novel, and I'm excited to see what she comes up with next. 

14-year-old Newton Starker refuses to believe he's cursed.  Like many family members before him, Newton attracts lightning.  His family's long list of rules to avoid getting struck by lightning ("Beware of cumulonimbus clouds." "When thunder roars, run indoors.") didn't manage to save his mother, who died two years ago.  Now Newton has decided to leave his home in Snohomish and enroll in Jerry Potts Academy of Higher Learning and Survival in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.  There he'll make new friends, including a truffle-sniffing pig, cook with ground squirrel, and learn why his great-grandmother has survived so long.  But will Newton discover the secret to survival before it's too late?  Filled with funny moments and a few gross recipes, Jolted is an excellent read for fans of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.  Click here to listen to the author read the first page of the book.

 

It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since Laurie Halse Anderson's groundbreaking book about date rape, Speak, was published.  I remember reading it the first time, staying up way too late.  I couldn't put the book down until I turned the last page because I was so concerned about Melinda, I had to know how things turned out or I wouldn't be able to sleep.

So you can guess how excited I was to read Anderson's latest book, Wintergirls.  The novel begins with Lia learning that her former best friend, Cassie, has just been found dead - alone - in a hotel room outside of town.  Cassie called Lia 33 times the night she died, but Lia didn't pick up.  Now Cassie's ghost is haunting Lia, and her visits are becoming more and more frequent.  But there's more than just Cassie's ghost haunting Lia.  She's been hospitalized before to treat her anorexia, and her guilt over Cassie's death causes her self-destructive behaviors to accelerate.  As Lia's weight plummets, her parents, step-mother, and therapist all seem powerless to help.  Wintergirls is a gripping tale of one girl's struggle with body image. 

Laurie Halse Anderson will be visiting the Ballard Public Library in Seattle on March 24th to discuss Wintergirls.  To learn more about the inspiration for the book, check out this interview with the author on YouTube. 

Are you stressed about the SAT?  Worried about the WASL?  Here's some news that may calm your fears: KCLS has partnered with the online tutoring company Brainfuse to offer a service that will help you prepare for either test.  Students can take online practice tests and receive their results instantly.  In addition, they can receive help on a particular subject or skill by chatting with a qualified tutor.  Students can view their past tutoring sessions and test results any time they visit the site.  Tutors are available from 1:00 pm to 10:00 pm every day of the week, and tests can be taken anytime.  Just remember to have your library card number handy when you login.

And if you're looking for face-to-face help, don't forget that KCLS has Study Zone and SAT programs available at many branches.  Here's a list of libraries offering SAT classes this spring: