The Living by Annie Dillard
The Living is about the pioneer generation from 1855 to 1893, the opening of the Pacific Northwest, the settlement of that enormous forest and the life and death of the brave people who went there. Dillard did enormous research living on an island without modern conveniences, using the language of the time, all to convey a 19th century novel “as if Thomas Hardy wrote it.” There are many characters including native Americans, Chinese and threads of racism. All the greed and glory of today lived in this era as well.
Rooney and Ada Fishburn are homesteaders who believe in the goodness of the Lord and are put to the rest with the death of children and then Rooney, himself. Their children carry on, prosper and fail, and grow with the country around them. John Ireland Sharp, a friend of their son, Clare, loses his parents in a drowning and goes to live with the Obenshain family.Their own son, Beal, is a sadistic bully who grows into a twisted intellectual hermit who lashes a faithful Chinese worker to a wharf to be drowned by the incoming tide. Clare marries a debutante from Baltimore, becomes a happy husband and father who survives economic ups and downs and weathers the ever-present threat of death at the hands of Beal. Clare survives but Beal is bested by the land.John Ireland earns a college education in the East, returns to Whatcom, teaches, becomes disillusioned and returns to the island of his childhood to live as a hermit, seeing his family for a few hours once a year. Three young men living in the same area, their growth and their lives.
Marie T. Horney, Cold Spring Harbor Library
Lord Baltimore by Stephen Doster
Ensworth Harding is an 18-year-old country-club slacker who gets a big surprise from his father on his birthday. He is dumped unceremoniously by the side of a Georgia road with a hundred dollars, a new pair of sneakers and a request not to return home until he has delivered a letter to Savannah. If he fails, he will lose his inheritance. Ensworth tells the tale of his exciting, harrowing, and often quite funny adventures through Georgia on the way to complete his quest. Along the way he meets the title character, Lord Baltimore, an eccentric and resourceful British aristocrat, outwits a crooked and murderous local sheriff, participates in several con games, learns about Gullah customs, evades a hurricane, and exposes a shady evangelist. In the end Ensworth finds that he has matured many years beyond his physical age during his journey to manhood. A novel in the picaresque tradition of Don Quixote, Tom Jones, and Huckleberry Finn. Lord Baltimore in fact pays homage to many of the classic picaresque novels of the past. Told from a first-person point of view.
Read-a-Likes: Anyone, including young adults, who enjoyed Don Quixote, Tom Jones, Kidnapped Huckleberry Finn, or Candide, would be sure to enjoy this novel. More recent picaresque novels that readers of Lord Baltimore might enjoy include James Howard Kunstler, An Embarrassment of Riches; Peter Carey, The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith; T. Coraghessan Boyle, Water Music; and Reidar Jonsson, My Life as a Dog.
Bruce Silverstein, Patchogue-Medford Library
Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
This is a story about the Naumann family. Definitely, not your average family, but then again, who knows what's behind closed doors. The father, a cantor and scholar on Jewish mysticism, the mother, an attorney, the son a bright but unpopular student and the apple of his father's eye.
Then there is Eliza an average, nondescript nine-year-old who turns her and her family's world around when she wins her first spelling bee. Goldberg smoothly moves the reader through the thoughts of each family member. She is at ease with both genders and all ages. Although Bee Season, Ms. Goldberg's first novel, is an adult book, the feelings and thoughts of Eliza as she becomes her father's prodigy, and 16 year-old displaced Aaron, her brother would make this a fine read for teens. The book's ending is rather ambiguous but Bee Season will keep your interest throughout.
Jeri Sapir,Huntington PublicLibrary
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
In the summer of 1964, Lily Owens flees her home to save the life of her housekeeper Rosaleen. Rosaleen has insulted the local racists and refused to apologize. Lily’s abusive father may very likely kill Lily for participating in the entire mess. Lily takes Rosaleen to Tiburon, North Carolina. Tiburon is the only connection to Lily’s dead mother and she hopes to make sense of the mother she never knew. Fortunately, Rosaleen and Lily are taken in by three beekeeping sisters who teach Lily more than she could ever have hoped to know.
Suggest it for…. teen girls, especially those interested in issues of race and religion, Oprah readers lovers of southern fiction. Not for those who… disdain “chick” books, like blood and guts, need a lot of action or suspense.
Karen Baudouin, Half Hollow Hills Community Library
Revolting Youth: The Further Journals of Nick Twisp by C. D. Payne
This “hilariously funny” 500 page novel tells the travails of 14-year-old Nick Twisp through his journals. Set in California during the present time, we follow Nick through six months of his exciting and improbable life. Told with candor, and in words big enough to require a thesaurus, the graphic nature of Nick’s private thoughts and deeds may not appeal to everyone. This book is recommended for mature teens and for those who really want to know what goes on in the mind of a bright, neglected, oversexed young man.
Suggested Read-Alikes:
Toole,John Kennedy.A Confederacy of Dunces
Townsend,Sue. The Secret Diaries of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 ½
Chbosky, Stephen. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Kathleen L. Scheibel, South Country Library
Object Lessons by Anna Quindlen
This coming of age story is set in 1960 suburban New York; the suburbs in this case are in lower Westchester County. We see life through the experiences of 12-year-old Maggie Scanlon, her mother Connie and her extended family. She is struggling to understand what is happening to many of the relationships surrounding her everyday world. Old friendships seem foreign, mother/daughter tensions are on the rise, her grandfather's views are up for scrutiny, and puberty is just around the corner. The most satisfying aspects of this novel are the identifiable situations of both mother and daughter. It is not everyday that the realization of who is important, not what, can be explored through humor, emotion, and honesty as it is in this work. The ability to see a Maggie come of age in her pre-teens and Connie rediscover herself in her thirties is a triumph for the reader.
Janet Rucker Babylon Public Library
Icy Spark by Gwyn Hyman Rubio
Life was hard in rural Kentucky in the 1950s; but then growing up would have been difficult just about anywhere for Icy Sparks, an orphan being raised by her grandparents in Appalachia who, at the age of 10, begins to have fits of violent tics and uncontrollable cursing. Try as she might to control them, her croaks, groans and spasms keep afflicting her, and for years her behavior is surrounded by mystery, confusion and humiliation. As an adult, in an epilogue which ties together rather too neatly all the loose ends of the story, she finds out that she has Tourette Syndrome. Narrated by the grown Icy, the book chronicles her difficult journey to self-acceptance. A bright, curious, and pretty child (these qualities do make Icy appeal to some of the local characters , while they seem to make others resent her even more), Icy is helped through ordeals that include a cruel teacher, a stay in a mental institution, a sexual initiation that ends badly, by the love of her grandparents (Matanni and Patanni, as she calls them), her friendship with Miss Emily, an obese woman who knows what it’s like to be an outcast in this insular society, as well as the supportive understanding of her school principal and some of the staff at the mental institution. Her talents and energy, coupled with her strong urge to experience life beyond the hills, enable Icy eventually to cut through all the barriers to find community and acceptance---or so we learn in the epilogue. Most readers who would like this book are those who go for the tough and depressing parts, anyway, especially the Oprah book club readers (this was one of her selections). Older teenagers who are into angst would love it.
Arlene Leventhal, Half Hollow Hills Library
The Land by Mildred Taylor
In this historical coming-of age novel, prequel to Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry.and its sequels, the protagonist, Paul Edward Logan, is the narrator. He tells of growing up during the Reconstruction period, right after the Civil War, as the son of a white father and a half-black, half-Indian mother. His father makes sure he learns to read, write and have the trade of carpentry. He faces the realities of, “different rules for white children and colored children.” At 14, he breaks with his family and leaves the home he shared with his mother and sister, Cassie. Mitchell, his black friend during childhood, leaves with him. Paul-Edward’s goal is to find work, save money and be a land owner. His strength of character enables him to endure unheard of hardships and struggles. Paul-Edward grows to manhood achieving his goal and falling in love.
Terry Gearty, Brentwood Public Library
Catspaw by Joan Vinge
Fast pace science fiction, spy thriller set in future New York. Told in the third person, this murky tale ventures into the dark underworld; the seamy city streets wrought with gangs and violence and the mysterious realm of the overseers where “big brother” watches all. Cat (the wise guy, streetwise yet strangely likeable main character) is forced into becoming the bodyguard, under the guise of a personal assistant, to a government official who is the target of an assassination plot. In this unlikely role, Cat goes through several transformations during the course of this rollercoaster novel.The first change is his appearance from a “punk rock” style to a toned down more acceptable look and his eyes are temporarily altered so helooks less foreign. The more profound changes are to his soul.As an orphan he learned to mistrust everyone and not to get too emotionally close to anyone but he gradually learns about friendship.During his tragic life as an outcast he suppressed his telepathic abilities,having to use his powers to accomplish his mission made him accept this skill and to feel more complete. At the end of the novel, he seems more at peace with himself and content to have someonecare about him. Reminiscent of a Brave New World and Handmaid’s Tale, this novel could also be enjoyed by espionage fans.
Rosemarie Jerome, Half Hollow Hills Community Library
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