The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl–by Barry Lyga

Lyga, Barry.  The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.

“Fanboy has never had it good, but lately his sophomore year is turning out to be its own special hell.  The bullies have made him their favorite target, his best (and only) friend seems headed for the dark side (sports and popularity), and his pregnant mother and the step-fascist are eagerly awaiting the birth of the alien life form known as Fanboy’s new little brother or sister.

Fanboy, though, has a secret: a graphic novel he’s been working on without telling anyone, a graphic novel that he is convinced will lead to publication, fame, and–most important of all–a way out of the crappy little town he lives in and away from all the people who make it hell for him.

When Fanboy meets Kyra, a.k.a. Goth girl, he finds an outrageous, cynical girl who shares his love of comics as well as his hatred for jocks and bullies.  Fanboy can’t resist someone who actually seems to understand him, and soon he finds himself willing to heed her advice–to ignore or crush anyone who stands in his way.

But Kyra has secrets, too.  And they could lead Fanboy to his dreams…or down a path into his own darkness.”

The Wednesday Wars–by Gary D. Schmidt

Schmidt, Gary D.  The Wednesday Wars.  New York: Clarion Books, 2007.

When Holling Hoodhood starts seventh grade, he quickly finds that a bizarre coincidence is going to leave him alone with his homeroom teacher every Wednesday afternoon, and his teacher is not happy about it.  So Holling looks for help.  But help’s not coming from anyone–least of all from his father, whose chief concern about what happens to his kids seems to be whether it will affect a business deal of his…

“‘Dad, Mrs. Baker hates my guts.’

“‘What did you do?’

“‘I didn’t do anything.  She just hates my guts.’

“‘People don’t just hate your guts unless you do something to them.  So what did you do?’

“‘Nothing.’

“‘This is Betty Baker, right?’

“‘I guess.’

“‘The Betty Baker who belongs to the Baker family.’

“…’I guess she belongs to the Baker family,’ I said.

“‘The Baker family that owns the Baker Sporting Emporium.’

“‘Dad, she hates my guts.’

“The Baker Sporting Emporium, which is about to choose an architect for its new building and which is considering Hoodhood and Associates among its top three choices.’

“‘Dad…’

“So, Holling, what did you do that might make Mrs. Baker hate your guts, which will make other Baker family members hate the name of Hoodhood, which will lead the Baker Sporting Emporium to choose another architect, which will kill the deal for Hoodhood and Associates, which will drive us into bankruptcy, which will encourage several lending institutions around the state to send representatives to our front stoop holding papers that have lots of legal words on them–none of them good–and which will mean that there will be no Hoodhood and Associates for you to take over when I’m ready to retire?’

“…’I guess things aren’t so bad,’ I said.

“‘Keep them that way,’ he said.

“This wasn’t exactly what I had hoped for in an ally.” (p. 7-8 )

Mister Pip–by Lloyd Jones

Jones, Lloyd.  Mister Pip.  New York: The Dial Press, 2007.

“Everyone called him Pop Eye.  Even in those days, when I was a skinny thirteen-year-old, I thought he probably knew about his nickname but didn’t care.  His eyes were too interested in what lay up ahead to notice us barefoot kids.  He looked like someone who had seen or known great suffering and hadn’t been able to forget it.  His large eyes in his large head stuck out further than anyone else’s–like they wanted to leave the surface of his face.  They made you think of someone who can’t get out of the house quickly enough.  Pop Eye wore the same white linen suit every day.  His trousers snagged on his bony knees in the sloppy heat.  Some days he wore a clown’s nose.  His nose was already big.  He didn’t need that red lightbulb.  But for reasons we couldn’t think of he wore the red nose on certain days–which may have meant something to him.  We never saw him smile.  And on those days he wore the clown’s nose you found yourself looking away because you never saw such sadness.” (p. 1)

When the village freak–the only white man left on the island–becomes the kids’ teacher, life turns upside down.  And when war and rebellion hit the island, it all goes downhill from there.  Who do you trust?

Hattie Big Sky–by Kirby Larson

Larson, Kirby.  Hattie Big Sky.  New York: Delacorte Press, 2006.

Orphaned at the age of five, Hattie has been shuffled from place to place between relatives for eleven years, with one consistent message at every place she lands: she does not belong there.  After three years under Aunt Ivy’s dubious care, she is beginning to think she will never find a place that feels like home.  But then, out of the blue, she receives a letter from a long-lost uncle with a jaw-dropping final paragraph:

Being of sound mind, I do hereby leave to Hattie Inez Brooks my claim and the house and its contents, as well as one steadfast horse named Plug and a contemptible cow known as Violet.

Signed, Chester Hubert Wright, Uncle to Hattie Inez Brooks

Postscript: H–Bring warm clothes and a cat.

The bequest of a homestead claim of 320 acres in Montana is too much for Hattie to resist, and she leaves to take up the claim almost immediately, eager to finally have a home of her own.  To inherit all that land, though, she first has to prove up the claim for its remaining ten months.  To do that, she must plant and harvest crops on 40 acres of land, as well as putting up a mile and a half of fence; needless to say, the project turns out to be more than she bargained for!   First she’ve likely to freeze to death, then there’s so much heat and drought that she wonders if she’ll die of the sun, and in between are so many lessons learned the hard way that she’s occasionally tempted to up and quit the whole darn thing.  Things are finally starting to look up for her when the worst happens–will Hattie be able to keep the only real home she’s ever known?

Monkey Town–by Ronald Kidd

Kidd, Ronald.  Monkey Town.  New York: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2006.

Let’s say you’re like Frances: you pretty much spend your days hanging out around town, going to school, helping out your folks sometimes, running around after your annoying little brother, and going to church.  You know, the usual.

Now let’s say what happens in Frances’s hometown happens in yours: your favorite teacher may lose his job and go to jail, you’re suddenly getting national attention from the news media, strangers are flooding the place, the fate of everyone seems to depend on one man, and everything you believe in is turned upside down.  And the amazing thing is, this mess–the infamous Scopes trial–was all planned as a publicity stunt by the pillars of the community, including your own father!  Who can you trust?

“If evolution isn’t true, why did they put it in the textbook?” I asked.
“Some people believe it,” said Mama.
“Who?”
“Nobody around here.  Well, maybe old Mr. Davis, the printer.  He likes to be different.”
“The point is,” said Daddy,” it’s against the law to teach it, at least in Tennessee.  We’re going to use that to put Dayton on the map.”
That got Mama going again.  “By arresting an innocent young man, then bringing in outsiders to run the trial?” she asked.  “What kind of crazy idea is that?”
“It’s not crazy; it’s a stroke of genius,” said Daddy.  “During the trial people all over the country are going to read about how nice Dayton is.  Mark my words, it’ll bring new business to town.”
Mama said, “If you ask me, it’s a bunch of foolishness.”
“This is going to be the biggest thing that ever hit Dayton,” said Daddy.  “Just you wait and see.”

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time–by Mark Haddon

Haddon, Mark.  The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.  New York: Doubleday, 2003.

Christopher loves animals, is better at understanding them than people.  So when he’s walking through his neighborhood and sees a neighborhood dog dead in its yard, stabbed through the middle with a garden fork, he wants to investigate.

What makes this different from the usual boy-and-dog mystery story, though, is that Christopher is autistic. He has a brilliantly logical brain, but he cannot understand human emotion, is overwhelmed by the amount of information streaming in from the world, and depends entirely on structure and order to get himself through the day. Just functioning in the everyday activities of his life can be challenging, let alone finding the culprit in a murder.  Here’s what happens when the police arrive at the scene and find Christopher with the murdered dog:

“He was asking too many questions and he was asking them too quickly.  They were stacking up in my head like loaves in the factory where Uncle Terry works.  The factory is a bakery and he operates the slicing machines.  And sometimes a slicer is not working fast enough but the bread keeps coming and there is a blockage.  I sometimes think of my mind as a machine, but not always as a bread-slicing machine.  It makes it easier to explain to other people what is going on inside it.
“The policeman said, ‘I am going to ask you once again…’
“I rolled back onto the lawn and pressed my forehead to the ground again and made the noise that father calls groaning.  I make this noise when there is too much information coming into my head from the outside world.  It is like when you are upset and you hold the radio against your ear and you tune it halfway between two stations so that all you get is white noise and then you turn the volume right up so that this is all you can hear and then you know you are safe because you cannot hear anything else.
“The policeman took hold of my arm and lifted me onto my feet.
“I didn’t like him touching me like this.
“And this is when I hit him.” (p. 7-8)

To find out more about what happens when Christopher meets the police, the conclusion of the murder mystery, and the even more compelling mystery of his parents’ marriage, which turns his life completely upside down and makes him wonder who if anyone he can trust, read on.

Story of a Girl–by Sara Zarr

Zarr, Sara.  Story of a Girl.  New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007.

“I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy’s Buick, parked next to the old Chart House down in Montara at eleven o’clock on a Tuesday night.  Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren.  I didn’t love him.  I’m not sure I even liked him…My dad dragged him out of the car, then me.  He threw Tommy to the ground and pushed me into our old Tercel.  Right before we pulled out of the lot, I stole a look at my dad.  There might have been tears slipping down his cheek, or it might have been a trick of the headlights bouncing off the night fog.  I started to say something.  I don’t remember what.  ‘Don’t,’ he said.  That was almost three years ago.  My dad hasn’t looked me in the eye or talked to me, really talked to me, since.” (p. 1-2)

So now Deanna’s sixteen and the school slut…except she’s not.  She’s a girl who made a mistake three years ago, but once Tommy has spread it around their small town, she’ll never hear the end of it no matter what she does.  To make matters worse, her family is completely screwed up; her dad still won’t talk to her, her brother went and got his girlfriend pregnant, and her mother is way out of touch with reality.  Her only two friends have started dating, leaving her as a serious third wheel; and to top it all off, when she walks into her summer job, there stands her co-worker—Tommy.  That Tommy.

And you thought you had problems.