Fever 1793

Young Adult Fiction by Laurie Halse Anderson

I love the YA genre. I get to pretend that I read these books on behalf of my middle school students, but the truth is that they are so refreshing. They're easy and quick reads, for one, but they are also exactly what they promise, with only the expected surprises. After reading two suspense novels, the last of which tried oh-so hard to be cool, it was nice to open a book that looked like historical fiction about yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793 and find that's exactly what it was. It reminded me of an American Girls novel, with a sweet young narrator who is focused on boys, chores, and fun in her post-colonial world. The fact that something is wrong with that world is hinted at on the second page, and the fever strikes on page 13. It's not just young readers who like a story that gets right to the point. And, of course, this has the setting in another time and place that I love, and the satisfying ending I absolutely need. I hate to be left wondering.

I am left curious about this author, however, and feel I need to read more of her work. She has another YA book called Speak that was something of a controversy at my school's library a few years ago. Speak is about the rape of a teenager. That's all I know about it so I can't say where I land on the controversy but now I want to read the book and see.

By the way, I found this book in the young adult summer-award section at the public library. It is a GREAT source for books for teens--it's divided into two age categories and winners are picked by kids, not adults. I've liked every single one of the books I read from this list, and really loved a few.

Side note: After Fever 1791 I started a book called The Tortilla Curtain (also a find from the library, but the adult book club section).  About 20 pages into this book about a relationship between a posh California couple and Mexican immigrants, I realized something sounded off. I checked the publication date and it's 1995. No thanks. This may be a current issue still but I don't want to read someone's take on it from 16 years ago. Guess I'll just miss out on this one.

The Yiddish Policeman's Detective Club

Novel by Michael Chabon

Two things:
1) Dang, I am a sucker for the book club selections at the library.
2) This is my first rant about a book on the blog.

So I picked up this book because the title was intriguing (see previous entries about my love for books set in other places). However, I had to Google the book and author to even figure out what was going on in the first few pages. Because for one thing, I know no Yiddish, which is sprayed all over the pages. And for another, the book is set in a fictional world that sounds real but makes you question your sanity. A Jewish state in Sitka, Alaska, that was settled after the new country of Israel was disbanded? Those things are not real. So I figured out. It's actually kind of a genius way of writing, getting to make up your own history but in a real world setting. And Michael Chabon is apparently kind of a genius author, but way too high brow for me. And, final straw, I hated the ending. It basically doesn't have one. So I threw the book across the room (you're welcome, Stefanie Johnson).

A few good things about the book are the characters and family relationships: everyone has known everyone forever or is related to or was married to everyone, so the back story is rich. Also the metaphors and imagery are amazing. I sometimes get tired of too much description and Chabon uses metaphor in about every line, but some of it is so real and just right. There's the pretty stuff, like "A badge of grass, a green broach pinned at the collarbone of the mountain." But there's also some dry humor, like the way it feels to ride in a very small airplane in turbulence: "All the pins and bolts came loose from Landsman's skeleton, and his head got turned around backward, and his arms fell off, and his eyeball rolled under the cabin heater." So great. I wish I could write that. But if I could, I'm pretty sure I'd put it in a book with a real ending.