The Graveyard Book

When Nobody Owens was a baby, a man came into his home and murdered his family.  It was only because of Nobody's tendency to wander that he survived.  Nobody wandered to the graveyard nearby and was adopted by its ghostly inhabitants and the mysterious Silas who volunteers to become his guardian.

The murderer still hunts Nobody, and it is only within the walls of the graveyard that he is hidden and protected.  Nobody is happy with his spirit companions and their knowledge spanning the centuries back to the time of the Romans.  He will encounter things that are even more ancient and find a ghoul gate.  He learns the tricks of the dead:  fading, haunting, and imperviousness to dark and cold.  But even with all he can learn from his friends and playmates, he eventually becomes curious about the world of the living, and an anger for the man who murdered his family grows in his heart.

The more Bod ventures out of the Graveyard, the more dangerous his life becomes.  Can a boy named Nobody raised by those who are long dead survive in the land of the living and overcome the evil that stalks him?

This is one of my favorite books by one of my favorite authors!  I just reread it in preparation for tomorrow's book club meeting, and it's just as good the second time around.

I met Neil Gaiman this summer and got my book signed in Dallas.  It was worth the drive and the hours of waiting!  If you haven't read this one yet, settle in for a wonderful and surprising experience!

The Westing Game

This month's book club selection is one of my favorite mysteries!  Ellen Raskin won the Newbery medal for it in 1979, and we are still reading it today.

When eccentric millionaire Sam Westing dies, he calls together his 16 heirs, a strange assortment of people who seem to have nothing in common except, of course, for the fact that they've all recently purchased apartments in the Sunset Towers luxury complex.

They are all summoned by Westing's lawyer to the will reading where they learn that Westing was murdered!  They are grouped into preassigned pairs, and each pair receives a set of clues and a check for $10,000.  The first pair to solve the mystery will inherit Mr. Westing's 200 million dollar estate!

The race is on, but with a murderer on the loose, no one is safe, and everyone is a suspect!

The Giver

After hearing Lois Lowry talk about Son last week, I decided I needed to reread The Giver before plunging into the new book.  I am so glad I did!  It had been so long since reading the first book that I really only remembered the high points (including the end) and that I loved it.  Reading The Giver after more than ten years felt like a new experience, and I was on the edge of my seat, completely enthralled, just like the first time.  If you haven't read this book, read it now!  If it's been a while, read it again!  You won't be disappointed.

It's almost time for Jonas's twelfth birthday, which will be celebrated with the rest of the children born in the same year.  This is the year they will be assigned their careers and begin training.  Jonas feels apprehensive because he has no idea what career the council of elders has chosen for him.

In this perfectly ordered society, there are very few choices to make.  Similarities are the focus, and differences aren't tolerated.  Everything seems perfect in the community; there is no pain, no discord, no crime.  Jonas has never questioned his life and his community, but when he is chosen as the new Receiver at the ceremony of twelve, he begins a journey that will reveal the truth about his community and himself.

The Giver is a masterpiece of YA dystopia.   Lowry presents her readers with a society free from many of the ills we lament in our own world.  As Jonas undertakes his Receiver training, the veneer quickly begins to fade, and we see, along with Jonas, the terrible price for this "perfect" society.

Heart of a Samurai

In 1841 Manjiro is a fourteen year old boy, the youngest member of a Japanese fishing crew.  When their small wooden boat is overtaken by a storm, the small crew survives but is stranded on a small island that is little more than a rock jutting out of the sea.  The others laugh when he tells them he wanted to be a samurai.  Even he thinks it is a foolish thought.  Samurai are sons of the wealthy, born to privilege and excess, but Manjiro is the poor son of a fisherman.

He knows that his life would've been nothing but fishing and bowing to his betters, but he can't help thinking about what his father told him about the brave and noble Samurai of the past.

This is the beginning of an adventure that will take Manjiro around the world and back again.  He will work on a massive whaling ship, attend school in America, and even learn to ride a horse.  Manjiro knows he would never have these opportunities in Japan where he was destined to be a humble fisherman.  He will experience the excitement of new cultures and find a new family, but his heart always longs for home.

Because of Japan's policy of isolation, Manjiro knows he might not be welcomed back by his countrymen.  He will need the heart of a Samurai to even attempt return and to try to convince Japan's rulers that a leap into the modern world is necessary for the island nation.

Be sure to read the epilogue to find out what happened to the real Manjiro on whom Margi Preus based her story!!

Inside Out and Back Again

Ha has always lived in Saigon with her mother and three older brothers.  Her father went off to war with the Navy so long ago that she can barely remember him, but the family hasn't given up hope yet.  Even though things are getting worse in Saigon and the communist army is getting closer, Ha doesn't want to leave her home.

When the time comes, Ha's family will flee Vietnam with more people than she can count headed for an uncertain future.  A series of spur of the moment decisions leads them Alabama.

Her new small American town is so different from Saigon, and it seems almost impossible to find a way to fit in especially when so many people don't even want to bother with their new Vietnamese neighbors.  And in the Alabama of 1975, the law may say segregation is other, but Ha feels lost somewhere in the middle.

This beautiful novel written in verse takes the reader through a child's journey, forced to immigrate by war and thrown into a new and confusing world.  Be sure to read the author's note at the end to learn how Thanhha Lai based many of the events on her own experiences.