The Door That Led to Where

This is a book which deals in history, time-travel, murder, intrigue and missing persons.  It is also a book about identity – the importance of knowing who you are and where you come from.  Most of all, it is a book about the importance of work – and being given the chance to do something with your life.

AJ Flynn and his friends Slim and Leon are only 16 years old, but they have already been more or less written off as worthless and irredeemable.  Raised by inadequate parents in broken families on a grim housing estate, they have inherited a modern London which has little use for them.  They are the boys in “hoodies”; obscured, undifferentiated and up to trouble, no doubt.  Their lives have barely begun, but their futures already seem hopeless.  The novel begins with a sharp dig at a society which rates a person by their exam results:  “You will never amount to anything, AJ Flynn.  Not with one GCSE.”

The motif of magical doors is central to the plot.  A door is the device by which AJ travels back into the past, back to London in the 1830s.  Unsolved mysteries are there; missing people are trapped there.  AJ alone has the power to keep the door opened or closed; and yes, you can read that as a metaphor.  Doors are literal and symbolic both – and simultaneously.  When AJ is given the opportunity of a job interview, his whole life – both past and future – hinges upon that door.  “He wondered if by going through the door that led to Baldwin Groat’s chambers he had altered everything.  He had gone in jobless, hopeless and nameless, and come out with a job, a glimmer of hope and a name he’d never heard before.” (p. 12-13)

A door is not the freshest symbolic device, but Sally Gardner makes good use of it.  She is a writer with a rich imagination and talent for mashing up genres.  London appears, as both vivid setting and varied character, in the majority of her novels – and this is doubly true of The Door That Led to Where.  I,Coriander takes place on London Bridge as England sways precariously between the rule of Royalists and Puritans.  In The Red Necklace, a young gypsy boy travels between London and Paris as a first-hand witness to the French Revolution.  In all of these novels, history is liberally laced with magic – a fresh surprise for readers who think of history as a dry and dusty thing.  From cataclysmic historical events come phoenix opportunities . . . perfect for a young character who has the imagination and courage to fashion his or her life into something new.

Gardner is a writer who consistently champions the underdog.  Perhaps her best-known novel is Maggot Moon, which won the Carnegie Medal in 2013.  This dystopian story is about a young boy, Standish Treadwell, who exposes a huge lie in the totalitarian state described as the “Motherland”.  Readers with an awareness of history will catch parallels to the Nazi regime and Cold War schemes, but the setting of the book is original – and wholly in the fantasy realm.  Standish has mismatched eyes and a dyslexic brain; the whole point is that he sees things differently from most other people, and this is both advantage and disadvantage in a society that demands compliance and conformity.  Like the author, who has spoken openly about her struggles with dyslexia and mainstream education, Standish has been written off and marginalized.  But people who are at the margins, unnoticed and ignored, also have a power – and this is a theme that Gardner returns to again and again.

Although AJ Flynn has largely "failed" in the exam system, he has self-educated himself through a love of reading.  At first, the library was just a safe and quiet haven from his chaotic home life; later, he discovers the power of books.  His knowledge of Dickens gets him noticed at his first job interview, when lack of confidence and the wrong clothes would have sunk him.  Not everyone has a "Jobey's Door" to time-travel through, it's true, but books provide a door of sorts . . . the author definitely makes that point.

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@Barrie Summy

Tribute to Terry Pratchett

Walk into nearly any bookstore or library at the moment and you will see a curated collection of Terry Pratchett's prodigious literary output.  If you've never read a Terry Pratchett novel, there is no better time to begin; and if you don't trust me, then check out the testimonials from all of these well-known writers who have been influenced and entertained by his work.

Pratchett has always been an ideal writer for teenage readers.  He's all for a judicious amount of anarchy, and few writers (if any) are more closely associated with a particularly irreverent style of humour.  Pratchett writes about big ideas, and the complexity of human nature, but always with his inimitably light touch.  He uses the limitless parameters of fantasy to ponder on serious things in a humorous, sometimes even silly, way.  He is realistic about human nature, but never cynical.  Pratchett understands that human beings will inevitably lower the tone, not to mention the occasion, but that they many unexpectedly rise to it as well.

Although he is best-known for his Discworld novels, Pratchett has also written several stand-alone novels for the Young Adult audience.  Two of them, Nation and Dodger, are "more or less" historical novels -- both set during the 19th century.  But this being being Pratchett, history gets tinkered with; especially in the case of Nation, where it is spliced with fantasy alternatives.  

In Dodger, Pratchett recreates a recognisably Dickensian version of London and liberally borrows from (or pays tribute to, depending on how you look at it) one of Dickens' famous characters: the Artful Dodger, from Oliver Twist.  To further blur the lines between fact, fantasy and fandom, Charles Dickens is himself a character in the novel -- in the substantial role as a journalist/writer and mentor to the title character.  The entire novel is a wonderful Pratchett/Dickens amalgam:   It's there in the language, that rather more ornate sentence structure associated with the 19th century; it's there in the characterization; and it's also there in highs and lows of Victorian society. As Dickens did in so many of his novels, Pratchett gives us a bottom-up view of things. Dodger, an orphan, is a tosher -- in other words, he makes his "living" by skimming through the sewers -- panning for gold through mud and muck. His aim is invisibility; and if that doesn't work, he has learned how to twist and turn his way out of trouble. Dodger is the embodiment of Pratchett qualities:  practical, irreverent, resourceful, cheeky, but always very kind -- at least to those who deserve his kindness.  Evil is always "having a go", as Pratchett might say, but it doesn't get to win.

One of Pratchett's most unusual novels is the award-winning Nation, which is an alternative history of our world set during the mid-19th century.  It takes two natural disasters, a flu pandemic and a tsunami, and it sets up an intriguing series of "what if" scenarios in the shadow of Charles Darwin's game-changing discoveries.  One of the main characters is Mau, the 13 year-old boy whose entire island nation has been wiped out when he is away completing his adult-initation ceremony -- which, fortuitously, involves building his own canoe.  The other protagonist is Ermintrude, who manages to survive a shipwreck and takes that opportunity to change her name to Daphne.  Without common language or culture, Mau and Daphne must learn to both communicate and cooperate with each other.  Their mutual survival depends on it.  And like every generation before them, they must decide what to keep and what to discard when it comes to the belief systems they have inherited.  

Another reason why Pratchett is the ideal Young Adult author because he returns again and again to the theme of origins and rites-of-passage.  There is self-knowledge in the sense of knowing where you came from; but more important by far is determining where you are going.  In I Shall Wear Midnight, it is stated explicitly:  the main thing about life is figuring out who you are and what you are good at.  Sometimes, often, that means taking a firm stand.  Tiffany Aching must solve a really big problem (literally a "trial by fire") entirely on her own.  Older and more experienced witches watch from the sidelines, but it is always clear that Tiffany must act alone -- and with self-won wisdom.  At the end of the novel, when she completes her task, she dons the black robes symbolising adulthood.

Terry Pratchett's final tweet stated the very simple and most classical ending:  The End.  But as with all great writers, his stories will endure . . . and are still waiting to be discovered by a whole new generation of readers.

Book to Film

I don't know how many times, over the years, I've had a student reject a recommended book by saying:  "I've already seen the film".  With this in mind, TRAC's latest book list is focused on books which will be making their way to the big screen soon.  If you are the type of reader who won't read a story once the plot has been "spoiled" for you, then we would like to alert you so that you can get to the book first.

Some of the books on our list, for instance DUFF and The Seventh Son (based on Joseph Delaney's The Last Apprentice/Wardstone Chronicles series) will be released in the next few weeks.  (Both films have recently been released in the US).  Others, like John Green's Paper Towns will be part of the summer film schedule targeted at teenagers.  Then there are the complex fantasy worlds of popular YA novels like Mark Frost's The Paladin Prophecy and James Patterson's Maximum Ride series.  These books have been "in development" for a while, and may continue to languish in Hollywood purgatory throughout 2015.

I never have the "book vs film" problem for a variety of reasons.  If I see the film first, and like it, then I'm always keen to read the book and fill in all of the extra details.  No film, no matter how long, can ever be as comprehensive as a book.  Years after I began seeing the Harry Potter films with my (then) young children, I read the books.  Even though the films do a faithful, even magical, job of bringing the stories to life -- I still preferred the books -- which felt so much more "complete" in their detail.  There are a few films which manage to improve on their source material, but the majority of them don't in my opinion.

Unlike many readers (or film-goers, for that matter), I don't read primarily for plot and the story isn't ruined for me if I already know what happens.  I actually enjoy seeing how the book and film versions may differ, rather than being annoyed by changes.  Perhaps I'm in the minority in this opinion, though.  My daughter hates it when anyone "spoils" the plot for her, and a casting decision which strays from the written description of a character can send her into a frenzy of complaint.

Most films made from popular series (The Hunger Games, Divergent, etc) tend to be pretty faithful to their source material -- presumably to avoid reader revolt.  But it also depends on authorial clout, which tends to be proportional to the novel's success.

Lesser-known novels can get so bent out of shape by the movie-making process that their storyline and/or characters are nearly unrecognisable.  DUFF is a good example of this kind of book-to-film transformation.  Written by an 18 year-old author named Kody Keplinger, DUFF (the book) has an edginess and a darkness that the film definitely lacks.  Dysfunctional parents are an important element in the book's plot.  Main characters Bianca and Wesley both have absentee parents; his are removed from their children's lives, and Bianca's are major emotional liabilities.  The film makes the main characters next-door neighbours and almost entirely remove the parents from the plot; the entire dynamic of Wesley and Bianca's friendship/courtship is changed.  In the book, frankly casual sex is presented as an escape mechanism from emotional problems.  I can understand why the film-makers smoothed down the rough edges, and made the story more acceptable for a younger audience, but it is hardly the same story.  Sex is taken out of the equation in the film, with social media providing whatever conflict still exists in the plot . . . and it's not much. You might enjoy the film, which is rather sweet and silly; but it's no substitute for the book.  In my opinion, that is nearly always the case.

Buffalo Soldier

As I was reading my way through UKLA's longlist for 2015, I came across Tanya Landman's Buffalo Soldier.  I had two overriding thoughts about this particular book:  (1) that it was a beautifully written story of a fascinating historical subject, and (2) who will read it?  In commercial terms, it seems like a totally unfashionable book -- which will only get into adolescent hands, if at all, through the encouragement of a persuasive teacher or librarian.  I found it compelling and memorable, certainly, but can we trust in books to find their own readers?

Author Tanya Landman is British, but she has written two YA historical novels (Apache and Buffalo Soldier) that are peculiarly American in their setting and subject matter.  Set in the American West during the 19th century, they describe a time of huge turmoil.  The Civil War has (technically, at least) set African-American slaves free at the same time as the policy of Westward Expansion threatens to take away the freedom of Native Americans.  In an era where women have little autonomy and no legal rights, Landman puts a female protagonist at the center of all this cultural upheaval.  Like all best histories, the narrative simultaneously educates its readers about a specific historical moment whilst illuminating emotions and ethical conflicts which seem eternally relevant.     But here is the rub:  like Selma or 12 Years A Slave, this novel deals with some uncomfortably dark history all too vividly described.

The story begins on a Southern plantation at the tail-end of an era.  The narrator of the story is a young female slave, named Charlotte by her absent mother and called "girl" or "child" by everyone else.  In a few efficient chapters, the author gives a colorful sense of Charlotte's circumscribed life:   her place in Cookie's kitchen, her concerns and fears.  When General Sherman and his soldiers raze the plantation, those slaves who haven't run away are suddenly left homeless and quite helpless.  Rather than enjoying the glorious freedom they have been promised, they are struggling just to stay alive in the burnt-out South.  After Charlotte loses her protectors, the prospect of being alone and female is unbearable.  In a bold and desperate gambit, she disguises herself as a young man and joins the Army.  After a period of training, Charlotte (now Charley) is transported West to fight the "Indian Wars".  She has become a Buffalo Soldier.

As is so often the case with what seems improbable, there was real-life precendence for this fictional story.  Cathay Williams was a former female slave who managed to join the 38th Infantry Regiment and serve as a Buffalo Soldier for two years before her true identity was discovered.  Landman takes some dramatic liberties only in the sense that her heroine is transformed into a soldier (and sharpshooter) far superior to Cathay Williams.  Charley finds herself in the thick of it:  from dramatic skirmishes with fierce Apache tribes to the equally intense battle for respect within a mostly racist Army.  (There are a few significant exceptions.)

This book is also very much about the growth of a political consciousness.  At the beginning of her story, Charley's only motivation is her instinct for survival.  As a former slave, she has been used to taking orders and certainly accustomed to privations and abuse.  This "training" serves her well in the Army.  But gradually, as they witness a trail of broken promises, Charley and some of her fellow soldiers begin to question the treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government.  In one of the novel's most dramatic moments, and there are many, Charley will be forced to choose sides -- and the tough decision will be all her own.

There is a dedicated Buffalo Soldier Museum in Houston, Texas, and I wanted to visit it before writing my review of this book.  But despite the interest of seeing actual artifacts (mostly farming, household and weaponry), in terms of a narrative, I really learned nothing that I had not already learned from my reading.  Whether it was the inferiority of the weapons and animals given to the Buffalo Soldiers, or the derivation of their name, author Tanya Landman had already covered it.  Rather than being a criticism of the museum, I would prefer to emphasize this as a tribute to the book.

I had intended to write about Buffalo Soldier in February, in honor of Black History Month, but really the story of the fight for equality is relevant during any month.  As John Legend and Common referenced in their acceptance speech for "Glory" at the recent Academy Awards, there continues to be great inequalities in the United States in terms of poverty, educational opportunities, incarceration and victimization by the police force.  Interestingly, the founder of the Buffalo Soldier Museum mentioned that when he had taken a group of African -American teenage boys to visit Fort Davis, where many Buffalo Soldiers were stationed, it was the first time that many of them had been out of their own "zip code" in Houston.  In other words, not only had these boys never been outside of Houston, they had never seen anything of the world beyond their own limited neighborhood.  It's difficult to imagine, really, but it certainly stuck in my mind.  It also made me think of Charley, who  had never been off the plantation until the Civil War ended in 1865.

We don't all have the same opportunities for travel, which is exactly why books -- with all of their world-expanding potential -- are such a vital resource.  I do hope that this excellent book will find readers for its journey.

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@Barrie Summy

Romantic clichés

It's not easy to write a good romance novel.

If there is any genre which tends to drift into cliche, not to mention emotionally unhealthy fantasy territory, it's the romance.  Blame it on fairy tales and Walt Disney films . . . which inspire most of our earliest ideas about romantic love, and then give us such limited plot points and potential outcomes to imagine.  Either you are a heroine that needs to be saved (Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel), or more rarely, a heroine who wants to do the saving (Ariel, Beauty).  Either way, the story ends with a "happily ever after" and is squarely aimed at a female reader.

Hats off, then, to Daniel Handler -- who did his level best to subvert romantic clichés

in his YA novel Why We Broke Up.  Never mind the happy ending; Handler dispenses with that notion from the very title of the book.  He starts with the aftermath of a break-up of a couple of unlikely love birds, and then works his way back to the less than auspicious beginning of their relationship. 

Min is the cinema-obsessed girl with the simpatico best boy friend who seems like he might be gay, but isn't.  (Instead, he is secretly in love with her.  Yes, a cliché . . . but a knowing one.)  They are the "arty" not-quite-cool kids in school, several rungs below the athlete-and cheerleader apotheosis in the social hierarchy.  When Al (best friend) has a Bitter Sixteen birthday party, basketball god Ed Slaterton and his sidekicks crash it with all the noblesse oblige of the truly popular.  Ed flirts with Min, Min succumbs to the flattery of his attention, and next thing we know she is dragging him to an art-house film.  This is the opposites-attract kind of romance; no one really expects it to work out, and no one is really surprised when it doesn't.  Ed seems to have potential to be more than he appears to be, and Min starts falling for this possibility.  But then he disappoints; he turns out to be exactly the "player" Min suspected him to be all along; and we are all unaccountably disappointed.

Typically, in a romance, there are a variety of conflicts and misunderstandings which keep the happy couple unhappy . . . sometimes until the very tip-end of the denouement.  But the reader knows, because this is a convention, that everything will work out in the end.  So Daniel Handler writes an un-romance, an anti-romance, but with plenty of fair warning to the reader.   Read it for Daniel's clever writing and Kalman's appealing illustrations . . . but don't read it for the emotional satisfaction of a happy ending.  

Another terrific YA writer who plays around with romantic cliches is Stephanie Perkins.  In her novel Lola and the Boy Next Door, the second in a loosely connected trilogy, Perkins gives a big wink to a trite romantic convention:  that your true love might just be the boy you've known all your life.

At the beginning of the story, our heroine Lola is in love with her first proper boyfriend, who just happens to be quite a bit more experienced than Lola (in every sense of the word).  Her two Dads, (the story is set in bohemian San Francisco), don't like Max very much, but they do invite him to Sunday brunch every week -- if only to grill him.  Everything is pretty groovy . . . until, enter stage left . . . Lola's childhood crush moves back into the house next door.  Although there is some historical heartbreak and misunderstanding to clear up, it is pretty clear that Lola is going to have to make a tough choice.  Both Max (dangerous and exciting) and Cricket (nerdy but adorable) are recognizable types, but they are too well-drawn to be described as cliches.  Yes, Perkins sets up a classic love triangle, but the originality and charm is definitely in the detail.  Cricket Bell may not be the most obvious Prince Charming, but he is one of the most appealing romantic heroes I've ever encountered in a YA romance, and my 17 year-old daughter definitely concurred in this opinion.

If you are looking for the emotional satisfaction of a happy ending, do give this wonderful novel -- and indeed, the entire series -- a read.  Neither the heroes nor the heroines are passive love objects, and they all experience realistic learning curves before getting to experience "true love". 

For other romances, anti-romances -- and a few books about complicated relationships -- see TRAC's February Book List. 

I Was Here

Any passionate reader will agree that stories can provide a specific kind of comfort and solace.  Most readers will also admit to identifying with a protagonist's struggle -- maybe not always, and not all struggles -- but certainly a majority of us have inserted ourselves into a book on occasion.  The idea of "bibliotherapy" is slightly more complicated, though.  It is one thing to just stumble upon the right book at the right time, but it is quite another for an educator or parent to "prescribe" a specific problem novel to an adolescent struggling with that selfsame problem.  It can feel too intrusive, almost an invasion of privacy.  There is also the very human tendency to think that our own problems are unique, and cannot or should not be reduced to the universality of fiction.

I have found some success in approaching the dilemma of book recommendations in a more sidelong manner.  A young friend of mine, age 20, suffers from depression and borderline personality disorder.  Her multiple suicide attempts have required extended periods of hospitalization.  When she is well enough, reading is a great comfort to her -- and the perfect antidote to empty hours and the lack of intellectual stimulation, not to mention the problem of being "in one's own head" too much.  Last summer she fell in love with a book that I had enthusiastically recommended:  Just One Day, by Gayle Forman.  Although my friend's struggles were not identical to those of Allyson, the protagonist of the book, there was definitely an emotional resonance.  When Allyson experiences an emotionally cataclysmic event, her carefully ordered life falls apart for some time; and then she begins to put it back together again.  The story is about a specific transitional moment -- in this case, the first year of university -- but it deals with a number of transitions common to all adolescents:  separating out from parents, making independent decisions, taking risks, suffering rejection and exploring new territory.

I Was Here is Gayle Forman's fifth novel for the Young Adult audience, and so far all of her work has been aimed at the upper end of this age group.  She writes about adolescents transitioning into adulthood:  going off to college, losing their parents, having sexual experiences and learning how to support themselves, both emotionally and financially.  Forman consistently deals with emotionally tough themes, but never more so than in I Was Here, which deals with adolescent suicide.

The book begins with a suicide letter, sent by email on a time delay from Meg to Cody, her best friend.  Like many survivors of a loved one's suicide, Cody is stricken by guilt.  Why hadn't she seen how unhappy Meg was?  Why hadn't she done something to help?  Cody's search for answers leads her to another troubling possibility:  Did someone actually encourage Meg to kill herself?

Forman withholds critical information to the plot for a long time, and perhaps longer than necessary.  On one hand, this gives the story a mystery/thriller element that some teens may find exciting.  There is also a highly conflicted romance between Cody, and an off/on boyfriend of Meg's who is also suffering guilt in the wake of her death.  On the other hand, as an adult reader I felt some anxiety about how she was treating this highly sensitive material.  In the end, Forman brings the story to a close which feels appropriate for both the characters and the reader.  Even more importantly, her Afterword makes clear how strong the link between depression and suicide is -- and how getting the appropriate help can make the difference, but does not do so in all cases.

Understandably, this is a painful book to read.  Forman sets the novel in an economically depressed area of the Northwest, described by Cody as Shitburg.  Cody has been raised by a single mother, whose parenting style has been largely negligent.  Cody cleans houses for a living because she hasn't got her act together, or saved enough money, to go to college.  As the story progresses, and at times Cody begins to identify uncomfortably with Meg, several voices begin to make the point that being "depressed" and sad/angry/frustrated is not the same as being clinically depressed.  This is an important distinction, and the novel gradually but definitely leads the reader to make it for him or herself.  Having said that, I would feel somewhat uncomfortable "prescribing" this book to anyone who is suffering from clinical depression.  It might well educate those young adult readers who are fortunate enough to not suffer from it, though.

Where have all the parents gone?

Over the past month, I've been reading my way through UKLA's Longlist of fiction for 12-16+ readers.  The selection of books I chose to read was fairly random, but mostly based on their availability from either my local library or bookshop.  The order in which I read the books was also random, but after the fifth title I couldn't help but notice a single persistent theme:  missing parents.

In some of the stories, the parents were merely absent from the scene:  rehab and extramarital affairs (Why We Took the Car) or business travel/personal projects (After Iris) or general unfitness as a parent (Close Your Pretty Eyes).  In other books, the death of a parent was central to the plot, most notably in Counting by 7s and The Year of the Rat.  Both of the historical novels (Ghost Hawk and Buffalo Riders) featured adolescent protagonists who were orphans.

Certainly some children and adolescents will have the bad fortune to lose a parent (or in rarer cases, both parents) as they are growing up, but it seems unlikely that all of these missing parents are representative of real-life statistics.  So why the persistence of the theme?  It certainly isn't a new phenomenon.  In a Publisher's Weekly essay titled "The Ol' Dead Dad Syndrome", from Sept 20, 2010, author Leila Sales discusses the noticeable lack of parents in dystopian fiction.

Dead parents are so much a part of middle-grade and teen fiction at this point, it's not even the "in" thing. It's not "au courant" or "en vogue." It's just an accepted fact: kids in books are parentless.

But interestingly, none of the titles I've referred to are dystopias.  And it's not as if the teenagers are de facto orphans, either.  Orphans have, of course, always been a staple of children's and YA fiction for the most obvious of reasons:  if you get the parents out of the way, the young protagonist can really get on with the business of having adventures.  After all, grown-ups can be boring and they have a tendency to say NO.  Having fun, getting into danger, being independent, resolving one's own problems:  think of it as the safest form of wish-fulfilment, think of it as convenient for both author and subject.  Either way, orphans can exist in a fictional realm of possibility -- with actual grief and loss taking place (or more likely, not taking place) off the pages of the story.

Leila Sales also cites the "sympathy" factor as a reason for authors to orphan their main characters. She refers to one of the most famous orphans of children's literature:  Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden.  The plot of The Secret Garden could be described as the following:  Orphan creates a garden, and in the process transforms herself and several dysfunctional others into a happy, healthy family.  Interestingly, the plot of Counting by 7s could be described in exactly the same way.  Mary Lennox is unsympathetic because she is unhappy and unfriendly, sickly and sour;  Willow Chance, from Counting by 7s, is unsympathetic because she is a highly gifted child (and a bit of a know-it-all) who doesn't have a clue about how to fit into her peer group.  At the very beginning of the book, Willow's sweet, loving parents must be dispatched so that she can finally emerge from a state of self-containment and isolation.  

The emphasis in Counting by 7s is not so much on losing a family, but rather, on how new families are formed.  In many ways, this is a really contemporary view on families.  For instance, every single important character is either an immigrant or of mixed-race (or both).  None of the characters particularly belong, either to their community or to any specific family.  Willow describes herself as not fitting into "an easily identifiable ethnic category" (p. 11).  This is a world in which people are connected, not by blood, but choice -- or need.    There are lots of lonely, alienated people and they all function much better as an interdependent organism.  When Willow and her new family transform the sterile, ugly environment of "Gardens of Glenwood" into a thriving, beautiful garden for real, it is also a metaphor for their emotional lives.

For all of the missing parents, there is something unique about The Year of the Rat -- a debut novel by Clare Furniss -- merely for the reason that the story is entirely about the real experience of losing a parent.  This book is not about a teenager having adventures-without-parents, and it's also not about the 'romance' or emotional intensity of dying.  Rather, it's about 16 year-old Pearl trying to cope with life after the death of her mother in childbirth.  It's about making one's way out of a deep grief, and learning how to cope with a loss of something huge and irreplaceable.  The book manages to capture the stages of grieving -- what that is actually like/how that feels -- more believably than any other YA book that comes to my mind.  Although this heavy theme is somewhat lightened by secondary characters and the sympathetic, wise-cracking spirit of the dead mother, it is still an emotionally intense story.  Interestingly, for all of the dead and missing parents, this is the only book in which the death of a parent actually drives the plot.

For more information about these books, please visit
TRAC Top Ten UKLA Longlist