Aa is a type of lava....

A Artificial

When a book is written alphabetically, rather than any other convertional narrative technique.

B but

However.....

C Compelling

When something, like The Encyclopedia of Me by Karen Rivers, holds your attention.

This is the story of Isabel "Tink" Aaron-Martin as told by her in encyclopedia format.  However, it works.  This story manages to encorporate first love, the family dynamics of an autistic older brother, and the pain of junior high friendship loyalty shifts, all in alphabetical order. Told in the voice of a tiny almost thirteen-year-old, she faces the trauma of junior high with her quick sense of humor.

She talks frankly about feeling forgotten, insignificant, and treated like a baby.  All issues with which most junior high students can identify.  And, I like who she is when she comes through it.

For the reluctant reader....

I've heard of reluctant readers, but never one so adamantly opposed as Charlie Joe in Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to Not Reading by Tommy Greenwald.  In this humorous telling, Charlie Joe admits that he has never read ANYTHING entirely.  He reads the beginning and the end, and then "pays" a friend to summarize the rest.  His perfect plan is thrown out the window when his friend suddenly decides he's tired of doing it for him.  We not only follow the extraordinary ends to which he will go to NOT read, but learn his 25 tips on not reading.    

I enjoyed that it was not only funny, but had a bit of a deeper message.  Don't worry, though, it does't end with a syrupy sweet conversion to a love of reading.  In fact, without giving away too much, this is this last tip:  WHEN FINISHING A BOOK, NEVER LOOK AT IT AGAIN.  So, there.

Disappointed

BeforeI started Ninth Ward, by Jewell Parker Rhodes, I had high hopes.  It is a Coretta Scott King Award honor book, it is about hurricane Katrina, and I was told the main character could see dead people.  Sounds compelling and exciting.....unfortunately, it was neither.

It is about twelve-year-old Lanesha, who has been raised by Mama Ya-Ya in New Orlean's Ninth Ward.    Mama Ya-Ya is a local healer, but not her birth mother .  Lanesha's mother died giving birth to her.  In fact, that is one of the dead people she sees....her mother, on the birthing bed.  What should be creepy, soon became a bit dreary.  Because Lanesha was born with a cowl covering her, she has always been held as different.  The part of the story that deals with her isolation and response to it is the one uplifting part of this book.  Unfortunately, even riding out Katrina in one of the worst-hit parts of New Orleans is sort of anti-climatic.  

I can't say I hated this book.  It was well-written, and I liked Mama Ya-Ya and Lanesha, it just was a bit dull.....disappointing.