By Laura Gutierrez

Cover Image

(Read on the Kindle app on my iPhone)

A modern-day Catcher in the Rye? Probably not. By Wizner’s Shakespeare Shapiro is certainly a direct descendant of Salinger’s self-absorbed protagonist. Shakespeare is whiny, petulant, pessimistic, and laugh-out-loud funny. He is a senior in high school and nothing in his life is going right:
-He is burdened with an awful name.
-He worries endlessly, about everything.
-He counts among his closest friends only two people—Katie, an angry alcoholic in combat boots and Neil who is obsessed with bowel movements.
-His younger brother has a far richer social life than he does.
-His dad drinks like a fish.
The list goes on and on. But mostly he worries about his senior memoir, a year-long writing assignment about his favorite subject—himself.

Wizner unflinchingly takes on all of the most embarrassing moments in a boy’s life and makes them fodder for his protagonist’s twisted, self-deprecating sense of humor. Nothing is off-limits (and I do mean nothing). There are moments when the over-privileged Shakespeare’s woe-is-me attitude is grating but the humor in this book is more than worth it. A dose of reality, provided by a struggling classmate, helps wake him from his self-pitying stupor and redeem him for the reader.

Recommended for grades 10-12.

By Mr. Doyle

Blackbringer cover image

Fairies, and Imps, and Devils– oh my! Not my usual choice for reading material, but wow! This is a great fantasy read. It was an unsolicited donation from the publisher along with an advanced reader’s copy of the sequel, Silksinger (which I can’t wait to read). Both are part of the “Dreamdark” series.

This one is tough to put down. It’s got Magpie Windwitch, a spunky, half-wild, adolescent fairy (she is only 100 years old) as the protagonist. Thousands of years have passed since the Djinn and the fairies won the devil wars, locking the “snags” in magically sealed bottles and tossing them into the ocean. Since then, the Djinn have withdrawn from the world they created and faeries have grown complacent and have been letting magic slip away bit by bit. Now new creatures, humans or “mannies”, have arisen and are accidentally releasing the captured devils. Magpie and her band of crows travel the world hunting down the newly freed demons. But the latest devil to escape represents a different type of evil and it may mean the end of the world. Can she stop the Blackbringer before it destroys everyone and everything?

Magpie is a great protagonist. She is coarse, tough, brave, and determined. She is surrounded by an engaging—and sometimes terrifying—mix of characters. The crows, the imps, the devils, and the other faeries all help bring the story to life. There is plenty of action to keep kids reading and just enough of the dark side to lure the vampire-addicts into a different genre. This is excellent fantasy—even for non-fantasy readers.

Highly recommended for grades 7-12.

by Mr. Doyle

The small screen and the back-lighting did not bother me nearly as much as I thought. The only time my eyes were tired was when I actually read in the dark. It probably helped that the book (Infected by Sigler– review coming soon!) was very engaging. I have already downloaded The Omnivore’s Dilemma so I’ll see if non-fiction reading is any different. The only problem I had was a few thumb cramps from advancing the text when I sat down to read for long periods of time. It would be nice to be able to program different buttons for navigation functions (in Mobipocket Reader on the Blackberry the space key, at the very bottom of the device, is used to advance the text).

I received a response from tech support about Mobipocket Reader not finding the memory card in the phone. Their instructions did not help. It may be that I have the original Pearl model and there are some technical differences between it and the newer ones. A work-around that solves the problem is to manually drag and drop the e-book files from the computer to the correct folder on the memory card. I had to change the settings in the software so it did not automatically transfer new items to the phone because my news feed filled the phone’s main memory. All things considered it is a minor inconvenience but it is still a little frustrating.

One surprise was that the tech support reply came from Amazon. Turns out they own Mobipocket. Between Kindle and Mobipocket, Amazon has a pretty sizable chunk of the e-book market already cornered…hmmm.

And today, in the Monday morning rush, I left my cell phone at home. I NEVER leave my cell phone at home. I am lost without my organizer but the first thing I thought was, “oh no! My book is on there!” Of course I was standing in the middle of a room with 15,000 books when that thought occurred to me

Mr. Doyle

I bought the Collins English Dictionary from the Mobipocket bookstore and installed it on the phone. It is massive, with 500,000 entries. Mobipocket automatically recognized the dictionary and now I can use the word look-up option while reading other books and it will find the word in Collins and display the definition. Pretty slick.

Mr. Doyle

Now I have been using smart phones for about 4 years. Given that I have the memory of a fruitfly the personal organizer part is essential. But aside from the calendar, address book, and phone functions I don’t use my Blackberry Pearl for much. It has a mediocre camera and I have a few games on it but I just don’t get into electronic games. I also do not have a data plan or text messages on my AT&T account so I don’t do any web browsing or e-mail on it. So I am not used to spending more than a few seconds at a time looking at the 1 ½” x 1 ½” screen.

For my first e-reading experience I copied and pasted the 2nd half of the WSJ article onto the primitive text editor in the phone. Surprisingly it was not too uncomfortable reading from the phone. But what about an entire novel? There are plenty of free books available on the Web but copying and pasting chapters into a text editor would be ridiculous. So I looked for an e-book reader for the Blackberry. And just like for the iPhone, there’s an app for that. I found Mobipocket (see review below), a free program, and installed it. For my first book I chose Infected by Scott Sigler. First it is science fiction—totally appropriate for entering a new age of literature, and second I heard about it while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Escapepod, a science fiction story site—doubly appropriate.

The Verdict: I was prepared to hate reading on my phone but I actually enjoy it. Reading a good paperback is great but the convenience of always having a book with me is pretty hard to beat. I find I am reading more often (though some of that is in small increments). If I have a few minutes to spare I always have a book handy, whether it is waiting for a class to arrive in the library, warming up on the stationary bike at the gym, or if I have a few minutes before I need to pick up my son, the book is always there. In that respect it has the Kindle beat. Mobipocket also allows you to subscribe to tons of newsfeeds in many different languages so also have news articles in English and Spanish on my device. And I have not really been that bothered by the small screen. Once you master the navigation the text flows pretty easily. A bigger screen would be better but I really like being able to put my phone in my pocket. I won’t stop reading ink-on-paper books anytime soon but I will be downloading more e-books and continuing to read on my phone.

Next steps:
• Figuring out how to download e-books from the public library to my phone
• Figuring out how I can use e-books to get kids to read more

The app is free, which is another good thing. The books however are not. Current titles are priced like audiobooks, which is to say expensive. A recent release science fiction novel cost me $24.00. There are free downloads of books out of copyright available through one of the Mobipocket stores but modern books are going to cost you.

Navigation is fairly simple and the program responds pretty quickly. That makes reading easier. You can set colors and font size and there are several pre-sets for quickly changing the screen if ambient conditions change.

The Bad:
Navigating the stores could be easier. There is a keyword search but the categories are overly broad and there is no breakdown into sub categories so you may end up having to go through dozens of screens to find what you want.

Menu navigation is not entirely intuitive. Making a book mark is easy but it took a little fiddling to figure out how to get back to it (bookmarks are kept in an “annotations” list).

The Ugly:
The program can’t find the SD card in my phone so it is using main memory which cannot hold much. I have e-mailed support but have not heard anything. If this problem isn’t resolved quickly I will have to find another reader.

By Mr. Doyle

At the age of 10 Andrés is suddenly orphaned. A well-meaning but terribly misguided older brother snatches Andrés and his sisters from the comfort of a loving foster family in El Paso and brings them across the Rio Grande to Juarez, Mexico. There the older brother, Mando, tries to keep the family together but life in a poor neighborhood in Juarez is brutal and soon the family is destroyed along with Andrés’s innocence and hope. Years later he comes to Grace Delgado with no real expectation of getting better.

Grace, a widow, meanwhile struggles with a strained relationship with her only son, Mister, and newly diagnosed cancer. In Andrés she sees the beautiful boy he once was and the fiercely intelligent man he is now. Even though she knows “people can be totaled, just like cars,” she refuses to give up on him. But even as she pushes Andrés to keep going she herself has given up and refuses treatment for her disease. Will their near-suicidal fatalism bring them both to bitter ends or will they find a way to push through the pain and fear that constrains them and find a way to survive?

Saenz, a National Book Award winner for poetry, writes in gorgeous, lyrical prose. He conveys pain and sadness, light and love as only a poet can. Like his young adult book, Sammy and Juliana in Hollywood, In Perfect Light is peopled with beautiful but damaged characters. He makes the reader love them which makes their experiences that much more painful. Though time shifts and changes in narrative voice make the story complex, and maybe confusing for weaker readers, this is a compelling, heart rending read.

Highly recommended for mature readers grades 10 and up.

By Mr. Doyle

Arnold is a Spokane Indian living on a reservation (The Rez) in Washington State. He was born with hydrocephaly (”water on the brain”) which left him with a large head, hands, and feet, a skinny body, and poor eyesight. To say he and his tribe are poor is to vastly understate their situation. Poverty, violence, alcoholism, and worst of all, hopelessness surround Arnold. Even his loving father regularly disappears into an alcoholic haze. Death, as Arnold points out, is a large part of his world. He estimates that he has attended over 40 funerals in his short life. But though Arnold cries and grieves for his family and his tribe he refuses to give in to despair. He is determined to make a future for himself. At a teacher’s urging he transfers to an all-white school more than 20 miles from his home. He becomes a part-time Indian and, in the eyes of many of the members of his tribe, he becomes a traitor. He faces hatred and violence when he is home on the rez and racism and hostility when he is at school. But this is a hopeful and funny story. Arnold’s indomitable spirit helps him create a unique space for himself. He finds beauty and kindness in both of his worlds and helps create large amounts of both for others.

In his protagonist, Alexie has created a unique voice in YA literature. With poignancy, humor, and insight he guides the reader through the mostly undiscovered world of the reservation. Ellen Forney’s drawings perfectly complement the story and help bring Arnold to life for the reader. We can only hope that a sequel is in the works because one Arnold book is not enough.

Highly recommended for grades 7-12

By Mr. Doyle

The book opens with Iggy being suspended from school pending an expulsion hearing. When he returns home there is no one to tell—his father is stoned and unconscious, his mother has disappeared, and the phone is dead so he can’t even call his social worker. In 5 days he will be expelled unless he can show he is worthy of another chance. So he vows to do something to change people’s opinions of him. He vows to make a contribution.

Iggy’s quest brings him to Mo’s door. Mo is the college drop-out who had been tutoring Iggy. Mo is from an affluent family but is rudderless, trying drugs and religions to find his way. Iggy acompanies Mo in his search for some pot, silently wondering if he will find his mom. Mo leads Iggy to a tenement drug den, resulting in a fateful meeting between Mo and Freddie, the vicious drug dealer.

Iggy is a truly good soul in a terrible situation. He is not perfect; he makes some bad decisions but he accepts the consequences. He will haunt readers long after the book has been closed. Reluctant readers should eat this up.

Highly recommended for grades 9-12

By Mr. Doyle