A Feminist Reading List For The Holidays: Books By Strong, Spirited, Whip-smart, Flawed, Fantastic, Human,

Books as Gifts

Hi all, JoAnn here.

Since January is what we retail folks call The Season of Returns, and Valentine’s Day is closing in quick, I figured it might be time for a quick and dirty “Books as Gifts Guide.”

First things first, I will pretty much always advocate that there is a book for just about everyone. 

Narrowing down what is the appropriate book for a given person is the more difficult part.

Did the person you are buying your gift for request a specific title?

Yes: easy peasy.

Your local bookseller should be able to help you lay your hands on that which you seek.

No: less easy but no less peasy.

Did they not give you a title because they couldn’t remember it or because your plan was to go to your local bookstore and see what spoke to you?

If they couldn’t remember the title, booksellers will gladly attempt to Sherlock Holmes their way to what you are looking for. If you don’t have a title or author, being able to tell a bookseller a few basic things about the book you are looking for (what it’s about, name of a character if you are looking for a novel or a series, where the person heard about the book, etc) can make things so much easier. Many times the Google on the Internet Machine has helped me put a name to broken pieces of information and allowed me to put the proper title in the hands of a customer.

And now, for the person that didn’t ask for a book but is on your list to be given one.

The difficulty with this bit is that if someone does not consider themselves a reader and/or doesn’t like books (gasp), there really isn’t anything you can do to force the change upon them. The book you give them will, most likely, sit on a case and gather dust.

Story time: I have a friend named Jon. Jon is an electrician by trade and a mechanic by hobby. He does not like to read novels. He flat out says he is not a reader. He will buy huge, densely written technical manuals and read them for fun. I shit you not, these books are written in such a way that if I try to read them I feel like I’m having a stroke. He will devour these while loudly ranting about how he doesn’t like to read. He does not recognize the contradiction.

For Jon, the best thing to get him book-wise is, you guessed it, a technical manual for something in his wheelhouse. Or a highly inappropriate humor book with lots of pictures. But that is just because I know what makes Jon laugh.

The following questions are a few tools that booksellers will typically use to help you figure out what direction to point you in if you are looking for a book but aren’t sure what book is right for your situation:

1) What is the last book you/insert person here read and loved? 2) What type of books do you/insert person here like to read? 3) What movie was the last movie that you/insert person here really enjoyed?

Question number three I’ve started tossing in my bag of tricks since a bunch of books that have done well in book format have been getting turned into movies. While many of the more literary snobs may pooh-pooh such things, I love it because the books start to fly off the shelves around the time the movie gets closer to hitting theaters and then I can suggest other titles that might tickle someone’s fancy.

At the end of the day, trust your judgment. You know the person that you are buying for. You know their personality and what they like. You can do this, I believe in you.

Image credit: Penguin Random House, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/248239/lab-girl-by-hope-jahren/9781101874936/#

Marita here with a super-long review of a book I’m super passionate about. This book isn’t out until spring, but I am counting the minutes because I am going to tell everyone and their mother to read it.

I like my biology on the cellular level or smaller. I like thinking about viruses and bacteria and antibodies. Plants, geology, and ecology are not my cup of tea at all. I’ll admit that a part of that bias is that the more controlled, rigorous, replicable sciences are seen as more “pure” or “hard.” I’m into molecular biology, and molecular biology believes itself more scientific than botany and ecology. You can’t even do your experiments indoors in a controlled environment! You have to rely largely on unpredictable natural events to supply data! Freakin’ hippies. As such, I was a very skeptical when this botanist’s memoir came to my attention.

Oh boy, was I ever blown away.

Hope Jahren is a rare find. She is a scientist who has managed to write a memoir that is humble and grateful. In my experience, intellectual types tend to backhandedly brag about the burden of being a genius at least a little bit in their memoirs. Our author doesn’t fall into that rut. Oh, she describes in great detail the hours, weeks, and months that get swallowed up by lab work. But not once does she imply that it is her natural brilliance that fuels her--she runs on nothing but curiosity and perseverance. Any success she’s experienced is the result of hard work, not natural talent.

And even better--Jahren is an exquisite writer. She speaks of running the shell of a Hawthorne tree’s seed through a mass spectrometer (normally a very dry, incredibly boring procedure), and her description of the incident brought tears to my eyes. 

This is a mass spec readout. Hope Jahren makes this seem like a thing of transcendent beauty. Image credit: IB Chemistry, http://www.ibchem.com/IB/ibnotes/full/ato_htm/12.1.2.htm

Jahren speaks of science the way I think about it, but have never found the right words for. I look at DNA and I see magic and beauty, but when I try to explain my experience to non-science people, their eyes glaze over. Jahren, on the other hand, speaks of the natural world with affection and wonder and joy. She captures that awe in the face of life’s mysteries. In her hands, science becomes a lens through which we can properly appreciate the glory of existence.

This is a book by a female scientist, so I imagine a lot of people will be expecting lots of commentary on how academia is a sexist boys’ club. Well, there isn’t. She’s been underestimated because of her gender; that’s an unavoidable fact for any woman in STEM fields. What I love about this memoir is that she acknowledges this fact and then moves on with her life. She doesn’t give those chauvinists any more of her attention than they deserve, which is none. She’s not a female scientist, she’s a scientist who happens to be female. She’s there to do a job, and that job is not to be offended. It’s to do science.

She does something special in this book, and I’ll love her forever for it: She gives us a peek behind the curtain. Her subject is the nitty-gritty of the scientific process--the undignified, inglorious, ridiculous mishaps and struggles that will never be published in a neat six-page Nature article. We live in a society where scientists present themselves as infallible and enlightened and progressive. If “science” says something, it takes precedent over any other form of knowledge. Jahren shines a light on just how dogmatic and backwards and resistant to change the world of science can be--a lesson we’d all do well to remember the next time a headline screams “Study Reveals Chocolate Helps Fight Cancer.”

Alternating chapters offer a peek into the inner lives of plants (and they are far more alive than we think). It’s a wonderful examination of these organisms we depend on, but often take for granted. Here’s how much these chapters got under my skin: Recently, while watching the Mythbusters episode where they strip a tree of its branches of its branches to make a catapult, I felt outraged at their mutilation of a living thing for entertainment.

And, of course, it would be unforgivable if I didn’t mention Bill. Oh, Bill. Partner-in-crime, best friend, collaborator, Bill is Jahren’s platonic soul mate. He’s the longtime lab partner that has been carted along with her since grad school, through three separate laboratories. He’s also quite possibly the most fun part of this book--or at least his interactions with Jahren are. What otherwise would have been a gorgeous examination of life in research is infused with humor and adventure and the best kind of weirdness thanks to him.

I love this book. It’s one of those books that feels tailor-made for me. But I want the rest of the world to read it, too. I want them to know the sacrifice and toil that went in to every line of those textbooks they fell asleep reading in high school. I want them to know that science isn’t perfect--it’s a conversation between a scientist and her data, and like all conversations, it can have awkward silences and may go in a direction you’re not comfortable with. I want them to know that life, the biological concept of life, is astounding and intrepid and precious. I want them to know that curiosity is a vital resource that should be cherished and nurtured. And I want them to know that fantastic people like Hope Jahren and Bill exist in the world. 

Image credit: The Science Mom, http://the-science-mom.com/1020/growing-plants-seed-germination/

TL;DR Science! Please, please, please read this book.

Image Credit: Kristin Kemper

My name is Marita. I won’t tell you my last name. It would be too dangerous.

That’s right, children. Gather round for Anifesto, part one of three. GET EXCITED, Y’ALL. So, a little background: When I started writing my review for Front Lines, I ended up just talking about Animorphs for about ten paragraphs. I eventually realized how ridiculous that was getting, so I cut most of it and saved it on my computer, where it somehow ballooned into a thirteen-page diatribe. That’s how that happened.

Anyways, on with the show.

Anifesto, Part 1

Alloran: The stupidity of kindness. Charity to potential enemies. You're a fool, Seerow. A soft, sentimental, well-meaning fool. And now my men are dead and the Yeerks are loose in the galaxy. How many will die before we can bring this contagion under control? How many will die for Seerow's kindness?

For people whose lives are empty and meaningless, Animorphs is a middle-grade series consisting of sixty-four books. It’s about five kids who take a shortcut home from the mall and end up stumbling upon a crashed alien spacecraft. Out crawls a wounded alien (an Andalite, to be specific; War Prince Elfangor to be more specific). Before dying, Elfangor explains to them that a silent infiltration has been happening right under their noses: the body-snatching brain slugs known as Yeerks are slowly trying to take over the planet and enslave humanity and their hometown is ground zero.

Elfangor then breaks the Law of Seerow’s Kindness (basically the Andalite’s Prime Directive) and gives these kids advanced alien technology that allows them to morph into any animal they touch. They then proceed to use this power to wage a guerrilla war, desperately trying to hold off the Yeerks until the Andalite fleet can arrive and save the planet. Along the way they pick up Ax, a young Andalite cadet with dreams of glory (and Elfangor’s baby brother). Adventures ensue.

But that’s like describing Les Misérables as the story of a guy who steals some bread. In terms of intricacy, this is a Lord of the Rings-level series. These books span dimensions and galaxies and billions of years. And in retrospect, it is far, far too sophisticated to be considered just a children’s book series.

There are flaws, so let’s just get them out of the way right now. The middle part of the series was ghostwritten and as a result, the books are a bit uneven. The less said about the choose-your-own-adventure Alternamorphs, the better—at least they’re not canon. There’s minor continuity issues, but that is almost to be expected over the course of sixty-two books as the series finds its legs. The Helmacrons were hilarious and fantastic, but completely and utterly pointless. What was that entity in #41? All we’re left with is it stating that humans will require more study (wtf?). And what the ever-loving hell was up with the Nartec?! Just…why?

But even for its faults, this series is epic. Absolutely awesome. Practically unparalleled.

It’s about a fictional war between two alien species that humans got caught in the middle of, but the fact that it is a war is never forgotten. There are casualties and sacrifices, and it hurts.

Rachel: You worry about me? What do you think you’re going to do? Jake, you're a leader now. You make life-and-death decisions. All the time. You've learned to do that. And you've learned to use people. You use them for their strengths and their weaknesses. Worry about me? Like when all this is over you'll go back to being a mediocre basketball player and a decent student?

The Animorphs constantly struggle with the ethical implications of their actions—whether saving the planet is worth losing their humanity, whether the lofty ideals they’re fighting for are actually worth dying a gruesome, bloody death, and whether it’s okay to write off the lives of a few people to save the lives of many. They routinely lose sleep over the deaths they fail to prevent and even more so the deaths they cause. They struggle with switching between normal high schoolers and elite paramilitary warriors. They deal with serious PTSD and constant nightmares. This is, at heart, the story of six children who are thrown into a war they simply aren’t prepared for. Their only choices are to become soldiers or die.

Over the course of the series, each character is slowly broken in their own unique way:

Cassie: No. It's wrong. I won't. I don't want to judge you guys, but you're talking about strategy and risk like this is some computer game. Like there aren't others involved. Have you forgotten that we're supposed to be in this to save lives?

Gentle, kind Cassie would rather heal but must learn to hurt. Because she is uncomfortable with physical violence, she ends up deeply hurting people in more subtle ways. She parleys her natural empathy into unparalleled manipulation.

Rachel: I'm ruthless at times. But even I have enough sense to know the words “we have to win” are the first four steps on the road to hell.

Perky blonde gymnast and fashionista Rachel discovers that she likes killing far too much, and must fight to control the darkness lurking within her.

Tobias: I’m a predator who kills for food. And I’m also a human being who...who grieves, over death.

Tobias is the neglected kid from the wrong side of the tracks who’s never felt like he belonged anywhere. When he becomes trapped in the body of a red-tailed hawk due to a morphing mishap, he becomes progressively more isolated and lonely, in the end severing any ties with humanity.

Marco: Sorry, fighting a guerrilla war against parasitic aliens has amped up my already rampant paranoia.

Marco, who’s already lost his mother to the invasion, becomes suspicious and cynical and all too willing to accept collateral damage.

Ax: I was an Andalite, all alone, far, far from home. Far from my own people. Except that sometimes your own people are not just the ones who look like you. Sometimes the people who are your own can be very different from you.

Ax, the stranded young Andalite, begins to see the army he once idealized for what it is—less noble heroes safeguarding freedom for the universe, more arrogant military superpower power trying to undo its biggest mistake at any cost. Over the course of the series, he becomes more and more torn between his own people and his adopted planet.

Jake: The power made us responsible, see. Without the power, the knowledge would have just been a worm of fear eating up our insides. Bad enough. But it was the power that turned fear into obligation, that laid the weight on our unready shoulders...Power enough to win? No. Power enough to fight? Ah, yes. Just enough, little Jake, here is just enough power to imprison you in a cage of duty, to make you fight...

And Jake, the fearless leader, is haunted by the people he couldn’t save, including his brother Tom. He struggles with the knowledge that it’s not the good guys that win, it’s the ruthless ones. He has the literal weight of the world on his shoulders. His ragtag team of misfits is not humanity’s last line of defense. They’re humanity’s only line of defense.

Image credit: Claire Hummel

The real strength of Animorphs, as with all good sci-fi and fantasy, is that it uses fantastic settings and characters and circumstances to explore very real and important issues. Through the various interactions between alien species and the motivations driving various groups, the series dissects a lot of what happens in the real world (and why it happens) when different races, creeds, and political forces clash. By exploring elaborate worlds that parallel real life, the reader can examine the nature of things like inequality and stereotypes and dehumanization, but free of the historical and emotional baggage that keeps a lot of people from confronting those issues—which is of course the true value of fantastically unreal stories like this.

Marco: You Andalites. You people have a tendency to destroy what you want to preserve.

There’s a lot of great commentary on colonialism. In the end, the Andalites and the Yeerks are both colonial empires wearing very different masks. The Andalites have no need to expand, and yet their arrogance and superiority led them to benevolently enlighten the Yeerks and inadvertently unleash the parasitic slugs on the universe in the process. Stopping the Yeerks is their penance. The Animorphs eventually learn that the Andalites aren’t with the humans, they’re just against the Yeerks. If need be, the Andalites will destroy Earth to keep the Yeerks from winning. Not to mention their scociety encourages rampant sexism and ostracism of any deformed or disabled citizens, which casts them in a distinctly Nazi-ish light. Just because the Andalites present themselves as the ultimate good guys doesn’t make it so.

Aftran: We aren't all the same. See? You believe the Andalite propaganda about us. According to the Andalites, we're nothing but evil slugs. We don't deserve to be free, flying around the galaxy. We're just parasites.

The Yeerks, on the other hand, are severely overpopulated and completely helpless without a host. They didn’t choose to be parasites. They’re not truly evil, they’re just fulfilling the role evolution gave them. Is it really so wrong that they’re desperate to see and hear and touch? They just want a place in the universe, and if no one will make room for them they’ll carve out a home by force. As the Yeerk Aftran points out, “What choice do we have? Back to the Yeerk pools? Back to our home planet, with Andalite Dome ships in orbit above us, waiting for one of us to rise from the sludge, then blow us apart? Leave the universe to the almighty Andalites and the species they happen to like?”

Prejudice and racism (species-ism?) come into play in a big way, and are very much a driving force behind much of the plot. In the Animorphs universe, there’s a ton of stereotypes floating around regarding various alien species. The Yeerks and Andalites call each other “Andalite scum” and “Yeerk filth” at every given opportunity. But of course, the Andalites are honorable and good, a force for truth, justice, and the…uh…Andalite way. The Yeerks are nothing more than a plague on the galaxy, just evil slugs. The Hork-Bajir are seen as sweet, dumb beasts who clearly need a superior species to step in and take care of them. The Taxxons, the only species to welcome the Yeerk empire, are an abomination that should be wiped from the universe. And everyone agrees that the Skrit Na are just plain weird.

Dak Hamee: You almighty Andalites. There is no limit to your arrogance, is there? Well, let me tell you something: We may be simple people. But we don't use biology to invent monsters. And we don't enslave other species. And we don't unleash a plague of parasites on the galaxy, endangering every other free species, and then go swaggering around like the lords of the universe. No, we're too simple for all that. We're too stupid to lie and manipulate. We're too stupid to be ruthless. We're too stupid to know how to build powerful weapons designed to annihilate our enemies. Until you came, Andalite, we were too stupid to know how to kill.

In the beginning, our heroes only incapacitate infested humans while slaughtering infested aliens. It’s a sickening and horrifying realization for the Animorphs that the bladed reptilian Hork-Bajir they’ve been killing are actually gentle herbivores who’ve been completely enslaved by the Yeerks. And the Taxxons, giant carnivorous centipedes, are to be pitied more than feared. The highly intelligent species suffers from a powerful instinctual hunger that drives them to cannibalism. They begged the Yeerks to take control of their bodies in the hopes of finally being free from their hunger (spoiler: it didn’t work).

The harsh lesson the Animorphs learn is that just because an alien species looks, well, alien, they still deserve to be treated humanely. That knowledge has a steep price, though: They can’t give back the lives they’ve already taken, and they can’t stop killing the infested just because they feel sorry for the host bodies.

Controller: Help me. So... I'm cold. Help. Jake: Leave him, Yeerk. Get out of his head. Let him do this last thing as a free human being. Controller: I can't get out. The ears are blocked. Can't get out. Ax: We have to get out of here. They will send reinforcements. Controller: So cold. Just... Can you just get me a blanket or... Ax: Prince Jake. Controller: I'm scared. Does that... Does that make you happy, Andalite? Jake: No. No, it doesn't make me happy.

And to top it all off, there’s the existential quandary presented by the Ellimist and Crayak. As the series progresses, it is revealed that this epic battle for the salvation of the human race is nothing more than a small skirmish between these two nearly omnipotent pan-dimensional beings. The Ellimist is ostensibly good and does not “interfere in the affairs of other species,” but he has no qualms about rearranging someone’s entire existence (usually for the worse, just ask Elfangor) to suit his own needs. Crayak is undeniably evil, and considers genocide a hobby of his. And the Animorphs are trapped in the middle. In the end, none of them stumbled into the war on accident. None of their hardships were brought on by chance. They were pawns in a much larger game the whole time.

Ellimist: Then let us play a game, Crayak. Crayak: There will have to be rules. Ellimist: Yes, there will have to be rules. Crayak: And a winner? Ellimist: That, too, though it will take millions of years. Crayak: I'm not going anywhere. Ellimist: Then come, let us play the final game.

There’s an incredible number of moving parts at work here. It’s as much about political intrigue and betrayal and power as it is about fighting aliens with tigers. There’s a dozen factions at play, all with their own agendas.

The more you learn about this war, the more terrible and complicated it gets. The evil guys aren’t nearly as evil as they first seem, and the good guys aren’t nearly as good. There is no winning this war, or any war, without killing the innocent and collaborating with the guilty.

Ax: War is irrational. Though it is sometimes necessary.

Image Credit: http://veteranfangirl.tumblr.com/

Waiting on Wednesday

A weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that people are eagerly anticipating.

My choice for Waiting on Wednesday this week is:

The Land of 10,000 Madonnas by Kate Hattemer

Publication: April 19th 2016 by Knopf, 352 pages

Five teens backpack through Europe to fulfill the mysterious dying wish of their friend in this heartwarming novel from the author of The Vigilante Poets of Selwyn Academy. Jesse lives with his history professor dad in a house covered with postcards of images of the Madonna from all over the world. They’re gotten used to this life: two motherless dudes living among thousands of Madonnas. But Jesse has a heart condition that will ultimately cut his life tragically short. Before he dies, he arranges a mysterious trip to Europe for his three cousins, his best friend, and his girlfriend to take after he passes away. It’s a trip that will forever change the lives of these young teens and one that will help them come to terms with Jesse’s death. With vivid writing, poignant themes, and abundant doses of humor throughout, Kate Hattemer’s second novel is a satisfying journey about looking for someone else’s answers only to find yourself.

Wink Poppy Midnight by April Genevieve Tucholke

Publication: March 22nd 2016 by Dial Books, 352 pages

The intrigue of The Virgin Suicides and the “supernatural or not” question of The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer coalesce in this young adult mystery, where nothing is quite as it seems, no one is quite who you think, and everything can change on a dime. Every story needs a hero. Every story needs a villain. Every story needs a secret. Wink is the odd, mysterious neighbor girl, wild red hair and freckles. Poppy is the blond bully and the beautiful, manipulative high school queen bee. Midnight is the sweet, uncertain boy caught between them. Wink. Poppy. Midnight. Two girls. One boy. Three voices that burst onto the page in short, sharp, bewitching chapters, and spiral swiftly and inexorably toward something terrible or tricky or tremendous. What really happened? Someone knows. Someone is lying. For fans of Holly Black, We Were Liars, and The Raven Boys, this mysterious tale full of intrigue, dread, beauty, and a whiff of something strange will leave you utterly entranced.

Exciting news yesterday from Andrea Beaty, David Roberts and Abrams Kids! The newest book in the fabulous Rosie Revere, Engineer and Iggy Peck, Architect series has been revealed. :)  She’s ADA TWIST, SCIENTIST!

Woo Hoo! for science and Woo Hoo! for two African American kids! 

Hello!

So--me in a nutshell. I’m Marita. I’m 24 years old, I have a degree in biology that I’m going to do something with eventually, I’m fluent in French, I’m a vegetarian, and I ride a scooter. I love theater, traveling, music, and boating.

In terms of fiction, I gravitate towards science fiction and fantasy, especially in a modern-day setting. I love the books that make me feel like there’s still magic in the world, that the near future is full of limitless possibilities, and that I could walk out my front door on any given day and get swept up in an adventure.

I prefer to find weird, unrecognized books no one’s ever heard of as opposed to reading whatever’s getting a ton of attention at the moment. And yes, I know this makes me a huge hypocrite because I love telling other people what to read.

When it comes to nonfiction, I read my fair share of science writing--especially in the hard sciences--but I also like to read a lot of philosophy and theology because while science is an extremely powerful tool, there are a lot of big questions that it will never be able to answer.

My all-time favorite fiction books include John Dies at the End, Breakfast of Champions, Uprooted, Strangers and Sojourners, The Blue Castle, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Sandman, The Raw Shark Texts, Society of S, Good Omens, and Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal.

Favorite non-fiction books include Guns, Germs, & Steel, A Beautiful Question, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Something Other Than God, The Violinist’s Thumb, Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension, Christianity for the Modern Pagan, and Lab Girl.

It would take a long time to list my all-time favorite YA books, but I’ll inhale anything by Scott Westerfeld, Neal Shusterman, Garth Nix, Holly Black, Marissa Meyer, Rosamund Hodge, and William Sleator.

The other book wenches already know this because I mention it at any given opportunity, but my favorite series of all time is Animorphs. If you need me to explain why it is a masterpiece of the English language, give me a few hours and I’ll set you straight.

Hello from your friendly neighborhood Book Wench!

Since I’m the first of us slackers to actually post something on here, I figured I’d go ahead and introduce myself and our blog and what we’re about!

So, About Us:

The Book Wenches are a collective of fantastic booksellers, former coworkers, and eternal friends Alia, Claire, Jo Ann, Marita, Melissa, and Tori. Life has drawn several of us away from our beloved bookstore to distant and varied lands of the book industry. Thus out of a desire to keep in touch and to keep each other updated on the books we love, this blog was created!

While you will certainly encounter a wide range of genres, age levels, and interests here, we are all deeply invested in reading and promoting diversity in literature and are huge fans and supporters our faves @weneeddiversebooks.

We’ll be here to talk with you about what we’re reading–what’s new, what’s classic, what’s yet to be…and what’s good.

About Me:

Oh hey, I’m Tori! I’m 25, biracial, and coming to you live from the coffee shop I work in when I’m not out peddling books.

I primarily read Young/New Adult, but you can also expect a good deal of Middle Grade, some picture books, and occasionally an adult book or two (my attention span isn’t really capable of handling anything over 300 pages). The vast majority of what I read is Fantasy and Science Fiction (I am a sucker for a good fairy tale retelling), with a little Romance thrown in. I’m also a big fan of comics and graphic novels.

My favorite book of all time is The Two Princesses of Bamarre. The best book I read this year was Welcome to Night Vale (@welcometonightvalebook). The book I’m most excited about in 2016 is Catherine Egan’s Julia Vanishes (seriously guys, it is so good–I plan to read it at least twice more before it comes out in June)

Let's be friends

Image credit: Harper Collins Publishers, Matt Murphy, Joel Tippie

Marita here. I’m apparently incapable of writing brief reviews, so buckle in.

World War II seems to be having a moment in YA, between Code Name Verity and Salt to the Sea and Wolf by Wolf (Hi, Melissa!), and it seems like I have been sucked in, too.

I picked up this book because I thought the cover was amazing, and something about the author’s name tugged on my memory.

So then I opened it up and read the first line of the prologue: “I’m not going to tell you my name, not right away.”

And WHA-BAM! It hit me. Michael Grant, the author, is married to K.A. Applegate, the author of Animorphs. For those not in the know, every Animorphs book begins something like, “My name is ____. I can’t tell you my real name. It’s too dangerous.” It’s a bit of an open secret that although his name’s not on the books, he collaborated with her on the series that pretty much defined my childhood. Some people know Harry Potter forwards and backwards, and some people know Lord of the Rings and some people know Star Wars, but I am a scholar of Animorphs.

So, yes, this made me very happy. 

The real strength of Animorphs is that it used fantastic settings and characters and circumstances to explore very real and important issues. It’s about a war between two alien species that humans got caught in the middle of, but the fact that it is a war is never forgotten. There are casualties and sacrifices, and it hurts.

Over the course of the series, each character is slowly broken in their own unique way. It is, at heart, the story of six children (OK, four children, a hawk, and an alien) who are thrown into a war they simply aren’t prepared for. Their only choices are to become soldiers or die.

It is a science fiction series through and through, but the brutality and the horror and the cost of war feels very, very real.

After reading Front Lines, I have to believe that that gritty, realistic tone was in large part Michael Grant’s contribution.

Front Lines, the first book in the new Soldier Girl series, is not science fiction or fantasy. It is a meticulously researched historical epic. There is exactly one fact that is not historically accurate, one court case detailed in the opening pages:

FLASH: “In a surprise ruling with major ramifications, the United States Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Becker v. Minneapolis Draft Board for Josiah Becker, who had sued claiming the recently passed Selective Service and Training Act unfairly singles out males. The decision extends the draft to all US citizens age 18 or older regardless of gender.”

--United Press International--Washington, D.C., January 13, 1940

Women became draft-eligible just in time for World War II. This is the single cog that Grant fits in to the machinery of history, and the whole thing spins out naturally from there. And my God, is it incredible.

Told in a roving third-person point of view, this is the story of three teenage girls heading to war. Rio Richlin is a sweet, innocent California farm girl who is thrown off balance by the death of her older sister in the Pacific theater. Almost on a whim, she lies about her age and enlists with her friend Jenou. Frangie Marr is small and unassuming, but dreams of being a doctor. However, because she happens to be black and female in Tulsa, Oklahoma in the 1940′s, this is little more than a pipe dream. She enlists because her family desperately needs the money, and because being an army medic might pave her way to the MD she’s hungry for. And Jewish New Yorker Rainy Schulterman just wants to give Hitler a taste of his own medicine. She’s icy and intelligent, and even though the men around her are quick to write her off, she’s determined to put her skill with languages and numbers to good use.

Our heroines make it through boot camp just in time to join the fray in North Africa and become embroiled in the Battle of Kasserine Pass.

Why is this book important? For a couple of reasons.

The one at the top of my list is that it makes war immediate and real. I’m a girl. I’ve never had to think seriously about going to war, and I don’t have any immediate family in the armed forces, either. War is a distant concept to me. I can have sympathy for the experiences of soldiers, but empathy simply isn’t possible because there’s nothing I’ve experienced that can compare. Sure, I can appreciate Saving Private Ryan, but once again, I can’t really empathize. I’m watching men I don’t strongly identify with going through things I can’t comprehend.

This book of teenage girls on the front lines made the battlefields of World War II feel personal. These are girls I could have been in another life, reacting like I would have reacted. They’re as confused and determined and angry as I could see myself being in the same situation. I may not know what it’s like to fire an M1 Garand and take a life, but I do know what it’s like to walk into a room full of boys and have them size you up and dismiss you in the same glance. And I do know what it’s like to want to show the boys you’re competing with that they’ve dismissed you at their own peril. I can definitely put myself in the shoes of these soldier girls.

(Side note: I’m almost resentful that this book was written by a grown man, but captures the feeling of being a teenage girl so incredibly well. He writes with such sensitivity about things like schoolgirl crushes and nail polish and hairstyles without being belittling or dismissive. It’s just not fair.)

There’s so many perfect scenes, so perfectly experienced by our heroines. This book is filled with countless moments that bring the war to life. Not a word is wasted. Every little instance of disenchantment and demoralization and rage and fear hits hard. You’re there on the transport ship on your way to the front for the first time, realizing that you’re still just a civilian in an army uniform. You’re there in the foxhole, aiming an M1 at another human being and hoping you miss. You’re there in the medic tent, making the impossible triage decisions. That experience alone makes this read so worthwhile.

Also important is the fact that Grant doesn’t pull any punches--not when it comes to the reality of war, and not when it comes to the prevailing attitudes at the time. This book is not for the faint of heart. There are scenes of extreme gruesomeness, and there is explicit and offensive language. It’s a hard book to read, but it has so many important things to say that you’re not doing yourself a favor by avoiding that pain.

A lot of war movies focus on the glory of battle and the unbreakable brotherhood between soldiers, how noble and brave they all are. But that’s whitewashing history. The soldiers who defeated Hitler were a bunch of scared kids. They were also, by and large, sexist, racist, and anti-Semitic. Many WWII works avoid acknowledging that the US army was still segregated at that point (probably because it would detract from our hero worship of those soldiers), but this fact is never sidestepped or excused or swept under the rug in Front Lines. In one scene, a soldier comments on the irony of sending a segregated army to fight a white supremacist and is immediately booed by the rest of his barracks, and that’s probably one of the least upsetting things that happens in the book. The fact that our three heroines are the continual targets of this bigotry drives that point home perfectly, if painfully. They don’t have to be as good as the white male soldiers they’re constantly measured against, they have to be better to earn any grudging respect.

World War II was that rare war that truly needed to be fought. Unfortunately, we’re a generation that has pretty much forgotten the lessons learned there. We’ve forgotten that Hitler was democratically elected. We’ve forgotten that the disenfranchisement of the Jews happened by inches and feet, not all at once. We’ve forgotten that the Holocaust happened because too many people saw evil happening but refused to speak up out of apathy and convenience. We’ve forgotten what it’s like for our country to go all-in on a war with rations and drafts. We’ve forgotten how it feels to live under a constant umbrella of fear. We’ve forgotten that lofty ideals don’t win wars, ruthlessness and violence do. And we’ve forgotten that the soldiers of that war weren’t glorious heroes. They were fallible, imperfect humans like the rest of us. He (or she) who forgets history is doomed to repeat it, though. By revising history, Grant manages to undo a lot of historical revisionism.

This is, all in all, an incredible tale that sucks you in, gets under your skin, breaks your heart, and shows you a whole new side to the story you thought you knew.

Claire again. 

I finally got around to reading Bird & Diz written by Gary Golio and illustrated by Ed Young! 

And I have to say that I am amazed that this book didn’t win anything in the awards season this year! First of all, the illustrations are amazing. Ed Young’s use of color and motion with his mix of pastels, ink and water absolutely thrills me. You can feel the music of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie through Young’s illustrations. I felt like I was transported in among the lights and crowds of a stage watching Bird and Diz perform together. I have spent my morning listening to Bird and Diz at Carnegie Hall while I looked through the book again and again. 

Golio and Young were obviously well paired for this book. Golio’s text and use of words are so delightfully in-sync with Young’s illustrations. Golio epitomizes the rhythm and sound of the music while also showing the playful nature of the back and forth between Charlie “Bird” Parker and John “Dizzy” Gillespie. His text trips nimbly between poetry, beboppin’ onomatopoeia and prose. And the whole book illustrates so beautifully and joyously that “Bird and Diz are friends... who play together just like kids.” 

I absolutely love Bid & Diz. And I highly recommend that you go check it out at the library or get it from a bookstore. It will be worth your while!

Claire here! I am back in the Kids store again at the bookstore. And the first thing I read yesterday morning was Vikki Vansickle’s new picture book. And I am so glad that JoAnn brought it over to me! (JoAnn, you have me hooked. If I Had A Gryphon is going to be my big story time book next week.) 

If I Had A Gryphon is written by Vikki Vansickle and illustrated by Cale Atkinson. It is about Sam, a young girl who has just gotten her first pet: a hamster. Sam thinks hamsters are not nearly as exciting as some of the mythological creatures she reads about in her books. So she starts thinking of some other pets that might be a bit more fun, but also perhaps a lot more work. Maybe hamsters aren’t so bad?

Ohmygoodness this book! I adore this for a multitude of reasons: the illustrations are adorable, there are mythological creatures everywhere, Vansickle’s rhymes are bouncing and delightful, and Sam is both whimsical and practical in an entirely enchanting way. Also that too cute kraken happily playing with a dismal blue whale and a sunken steam ship. That page cracked me up!

The mythological creatures in this picture book make me so so pleased. I loved mythology as a kid. I had all the giant collections of Greek and Egyptian myths I could get my hands on. And later I added Celtic, Norse, and Japanese myths to my collection as I found them. If there were beautiful illustrations, that made them all the better. Myths and the heroes, monsters and enchanted creatures depicted in them fed my imagination. And I have never entirely grown out of that phase. Vansickle makes me slightly nostalgic for those times when little 8 year old Claire was curled up on the couch with giant mythology books, much like Sam. And I really love that Vansickle and Atkinson are introducing these mythological characters to younger readers in such an accessible and fun way.

Vansickle’s rhymes are rhythmic and skip along as Sam considers what she could do with her more exciting pets and what their potential downfalls might be. The kraken one is honestly, pure gold. “If I had a kraken/ We’d swim and deep-sea dive/ But I would need a scuba suit/ In order to survive.”

Also Cale Atkinson’s illustrations just fill me with pink bubbly happiness. He manages to make manticores, kraken, jackalopes, and gryphons look equally joyful and cuddly. I just realized today that he also wrote and illustrated To the Sea, about a lonely boy named Tim who has to take a lost whale named Sam back to the ocean. (If you have not read it, you should, it is just as cute as If I Had A Gryphon.)

PLEASE go check out If I Had A Gryphon. You will love it. At the very least, it should make you giggle.