MMS Library and Essential Booklist!

Life has always been easy for 15-year old Camilla Dickinson. She receives good grades at her private Manhattan high school, visits the MOMA and Central Park on weekends with her best friend Luisa, and is adored by her handsome father and beautiful mother. But nothing perfect can last, including Camilla’s dreamy childhood. Suddenly, things around her start crumbling; her parents begin bickering, her mother falls into a depression, and her father threatens to send Camilla to boarding school. In the midst of this turbulence, Camilla falls in love with Luisa’s older brother Frank. The young couple walks hand-in-hand through the streets of New York, talking about life, family, God, and war. These are the most grown-up days of Camilla’s life, and she wonders if the world around her has really changed, or if she’s only looking at it with new eyes. Once again, Madeleine L’Engle delivers a realistic portrait of what it’s like to be young and waking up to the promises and realities of life. My favorite thing about the novel, though, is its description of 1950’s New York City. How lucky Camilla is to spend her days in nights in such a romantic, exciting place! It made me quite wistful, actually, and sorry that I’ll never get a chance to visit.

Tiffany Aching, the plucky heroine from The Wee Free Men, leaves the chalk to begin her apprenticeship with Miss Level, a witch with two bodies, one mind, and an invisible housekeeper named Oswald. At first, witchcraft seems a bit dull to Tiffany; Miss Level spends more time visiting elderly neighbors and delivering babies than casting spells or gazing into crystal balls. Perhaps Tiffany should have just stayed at home making cheese! But there’s something she doesn’t know: she’s being stalked by a “hiver,” an ancient body-snatching creature that enters the mind of its victims and slowly drives them mad before killing them. This is one battle Tiffany definitely doesn’t want to fight alone, especially not so far from home. But will the Nac Mac Feegle, her tiny blue friends, make it in time to help out? And will Tiffany ever get a proper pointed hat? Harry Potter fans, rejoice! Here’s another young witch who will truly enchant you.

Sarah and Douglas live very humdrum lives in Brenton, Ohio, “a nothing town, as lacking in character as Cream of Wheat.” There’s no opportunity in the suburbs to shine –  at least not in the razzle-dazzle way these kids have in mind. They don’t want to be typical preppy teenagers – they want to be fabulous.

So when they head off for Wildewood, a performing arts camp in New York state, both characters feel as if they’ve finally found their place in the world. Goodbye shopping malls and cheerleaders — hello jazz hands and sequins! Goodbye algebra and chemistry — hello stage combat and pantomime! Goodbye Brenton — hello Heaven!

What Sarah and Douglas don’t know is that this summer will test their friendship in a big way. There are so many other theatre-crazed kids here, so many friends to make, so many romances to pursue. In Brenton, Sarah and Douglas clung to each other for dear life. But at Wildewood, it suddenly feels safe to let go…or at least it does to Demi, who becomes an instant star the minute he steps foot on campus.

As for Sayde, well, things for her aren’t going quite as planned. The boy she likes is suddenly weird and silent, her roommates are annoyingly talented, and she gets cast a tree in the sessions’s biggest show! How will she survive the best summer of her life?

Tiffany Aching is a farmgirl on the Chalklands. She makes cheese. She babysits her pesky little brother. She feeds the sheepdogs. And when she grows up, she wants to be a witch.

That’s right, somewhere in her bones Tiffany just knows she’s destined for magical, important things. So when a monster appears in the lake near her house, Tiffany jumps to action — she baits the monster with her little brother and then hits hits it over the head with a frying pan. That takes care of that, but the oddities don’t end there: Tiffany also begins to see tiny little blue men all over the place who call themselves the “Nac Mac Feegle,” a band of bite-sized warriors who drink whiskey, wreak havoc, fight, and steal everything they can lay their hands on.

Together, Tiffany and the Nac Mac Feegle must stand up against the evil Queen of Fairyland, who is kidnapping children and sending nightmarish ghouls into the world. The Wee Free Men is the first in Terry Pratchett’s mega-famous Tiffany Aching series. I listened to it on CD and laughed out loud as I was driving along in my car. Other drivers shot me strange looks on the highway. I didn’t care, I just kept laughing. I’m heading to the library today to get the second book, A Hatful of Sky, and will let you know if measures up to the first. Has anyone else read this series? It’s on the summer reading list. Did you love it?

Leela is a thirteen-year old girl living in India in the 1940’s. Her family is wealthy and of the highest social cast, so Leela lives a life of luxury compared to the many thousands of poor people in her country. When she was nine years old, she was married to a boy in her village and will one day go and live with him and his parents. But for now, she remains at home with her own mother and father, dreaming of the joys ahead.

One day, Leela’s young husband is bitten by a poisonous snake and dies. Now Leela, who has never spent even a single minute alone with her husband, is a widow. According to Brahman tradition, she must shave her head, wear only the simplest clothing, and stay in the house for a full year after her husband’s death. She can no longer attend school. For the rest of her life, she must remain in mourning. She’s forbidden from ever marrying again.

Keeping Corner is the story of Leela’s first year of widowhood. Is her life really ruined? Or can she possibly find purpose and happiness in the face of such tragedy?

Jason Huff didn’t plan to spend the summer in Florida with a bunch of old people. But what can he do? His grandmother died, and somebody has to help Jason’s father sort through her things and sell the house.

The whole situation is weird from the start: the heat is punishing, there’s not a single normal person in St. Petersburg, and Mr. Huff is – well – in a huff ever since his mom died. As for Jason, he isn’t exactly racked with despair. He’s never even met his grandmother, so how can he miss her? No, he’s not sad. He’s just bored, miserable, and hot.

And then…

And then things become NOT boring at all. Jason begins finding evidence all over the place of his grandmother’s mysterious and checkered existence. A shady crew of people show up at her funeral, a crime story in a magazine seems to be based on her life, a yellowing decades-old postcard turns up with a baffling message, and an anonymous caller challenges Jason to put all the pieces together.

Soon, Jason and Dia, the girl who mows his grandmother’s lawn (and the only other teenager in Florida, so it seems) begin a dangerous investigation into the truly bizarre secrets of the Huff family’s past.

Lucas Swain is almost sixteen years old. On October 16, 2002, his father disappeared without a trace. Has he been kidnapped? Died? Lost his memory? Abandoned his wife and children for a better life? Nobody knows. As for his family, they can’t decide whether to worry about him, hate him, or plan his funeral.

One morning at 5:00 a.m., Lucas stumbles into a London taxi-cab office and notices an urn on the storage shelf — the sort of urn that holds the remains of a dead person. This particular urn contains the ashes of one “Violet Park” a 75-year old lady who passed away several years ago. Right away, Lucas becomes weirdly obsessed with the urn and with finding out its story – who was Violet Park? – why were her ashes left behind in a taxi? – and, most importantly, why is she suddenly communicating with Lucas from beyond the grave?!?

Suddenly, innocently, Lucas finds himself entangled in a bizarre supernatural intrigue. What is Violet trying to tell him? Could it have anything to do with his father’s disappearance?

This novel, about a small summer theatre in Maine, is absolutely delicious. Elizabeth Jerrold is a 20-year old college graduate trying to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming an actress. Both her parents are dead, and her guardian — the stern, Southern Aunt Harriet — “doesn’t approve of the theatre.” However, because Elizabeth has completed her Bachelor’s degree at Smith College, as promised, Aunt Harriet agrees to fund her niece’s apprenticeship with a professional company on the New England coast. There, Elizabeth works at the box office, ushers evening performances, takes acting classes, rehearses Chekhov monologues, and feels happier than she ever has in her whole life.

Even though I’m not an actress, I would love to have a summer like Elizabeth’s – living in a cottage with a bunch of zany apprentices, staying out all night on the beach, meeting famous performers, and making lifelong friends. Oh yeah, and there’s a page-turning romantic element to the story that makes you want to shout at Elizabeth – “What are you doing with this guy, when this one is so much nicer and clearly head-over-heels in love with you?”

Madeleine L’Engle wrote this novel when she was a young woman in the 1940’s. She died last year before the book was published. I’m so happy her granddaughters decided to bring this novel forward, finally. It’s a terrific treat. If you haven’t yet experienced the dreamy atmosphere and meandering pace of a Madeleine L’Engle romance, what are you waiting for? You have so much to look forward to!

How much can you expect from another person? Is there a limit? How big a favor can you ask of, say, your closest friend?

Olivia and Hal, two Irish kids, are “best mates.” They’re both “over the top” and “a little bit monstrous.” But when Hal tells Olivia that he wants to figure out a way to drive his mother’s boyfriend, Alec, out of the house — forever — Olivia isn’t sure she should follow her friend down this particularly monstrous path, especially when it’s Hal’s mother who disappears instead. Suddenly, Olivia is forced to look at Hal in a new way, and to consider the sorrow and pain that has made him the funny, fascinating — eccentric — boy that he is.

Have you ever felt confused about why a certain book is so popular? That you’re the only person who isn’t going wild over some novel that you think is just OK at best? The last time I felt that way was with A Great and Terrible Beauty, which was a big letdown for me after all the hype. (Kathleen, thanks for agreeing with me on this one!) Sadly, I am right now experiencing a similar disappointment with Keturah and Lord Death. So many people have told me to read this one, and I’ve just finally gotten around to it. Only one more chapter to go, and unless it totally amazes me, I think I’m going to just have to scratch my head and wonder. What popular books have you not liked as much as you thought you would?