YA Book Review: Godless

Godless by Pete Hautman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Only introduced to Pete Hautman's writing this past week after diving into two reading books by Nanci Atwell and Donalyn Miller. The prevailing opinion is that Hautman rates high with adolescent male readers--well, after flying through Godless, I have to admit that he rates pretty high with me too.

Godless completely entertained me.

On the surface the idea seems silly enough--a small group of adolescents decide to worship the town's water tower as its god...its almighty deity. The ensuing mess they find themselves in with their parents and the law reads true and believable.

What starts out as something tongue-in-cheek and in good humor quickly unravels into a brush with death for one boy, and a potentially psychological nightmare for another. Questions of faith, self-image, and friendship buoy the fast-paced plot through any sense of heaviness or ideological debate.

As the protagonist states, after his father attempts to force feed him theological texts during his grounding:

"I read as much as I could. They're all pretty much the same."


"Oh? You're telling me that Teen Jesus is indistinguishable from Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain?"


"They all require a belief in a supreme being. If you don't believe in God, then the books don't mean much."

And this is where Hautman handles the polarizing topic of religion magically. He allows the teenage protagonist to envy those with faith even though he has no idea what he believes in himself:


"I'm not sure what I am."

This is about as deep as it gets. Hautman offers the opportunity for some interesting discussion, but in terms of bang for your buck, you're getting this book for your classroom library for the sheer fact that it is an entertaining book for adolescents--who wouldn't love to read about their climb up onto, and then in, the monolithic water tower for a midnight swim? Outlandish, daring, and stupid pretty much sums up some of the chances I took as a teenager...and Hautman doesn't ever forget that that magic is part of the privilege of being young.

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YA Book Review: Where Things Come Back

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

John Corey Whaley's (Where Things Come Back) antagonist Cabot Searcy steals the show. He reminds me of Hazel Motes from Flannery O'Conner's Wise Blood. Searcy learns about a secret writing called "The Book of Enoch" and can only be found in the Ethiopian Orthodox Bible--upon reading its story of the archangel Gabriel being sent to Earth by God to destroy the children of the fallen angels, Cabot Searcy becomes consumed with it.

Searcy's plot line plays second fiddle to the protagonist Cullen Witter for much of the novel--and for much of the novel I felt in limbo. Nothing seemed to happen...even though I was intrigued and had bought in to the lives of the small town people of Lily, Arkansas.

Consumed by the possible return of a thought-to-be-extinct woodpecker, the townspeople of Lily embrace the hope that elusive Lazarus woodpecker has resurrected itself in their humble town. Led by college professor John Barling, the townspeople believe because they want to believe--they need to believe--that something special could happen for them. Upon this backdrop that we join in the ten-week wait, the patient and painful ten-week wait, for any word or sign of their youngest son, fifteen-year-old Gabriel Witter. Gabriel vanished one day without a trace just a week or so after attending the funeral of their cousin Oslo Foukes--a local junkie who succumbed to demons he could never defeat.

And as a reader, you wait, and wait, and wait for any sign of hope...for any tangible proof that this woodpecker has returned, and for any shred of evidence for a lead into what happened to Gabriel Witter. You hold it together with Cullen, yet like Cullen, you have no idea what to believe...or how Gabriel's story will end. Whaley's narrator processes this for the reader, and for me, serves as the heart of the story:

"We can be comforted in the fact that life will always be a struggle. There will always be false hopes. Lazarus woodpeckers. There will be John Barlings to lead us astray and Oslo Foukes to remind us that maybe we are doing things right after all."

I can imagine my stronger and mature student readers caught up in this book and definitely recommend it for a classroom library anywhere from 8th grade and up.



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YA Book Review: A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Monster is metaphor. Monster is metaphor for cancer.

Monster is metaphor for the fear and sadness haunting those who watch loved ones slip away--for coming to terms with loss.

Monster is metaphor for the truth.

In A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness, a yew tree visits an adolescent boy at midnight. In the spirit of A Christmas Carol, this monster comes to tell the boy three stories so that afterwards the boy can tell the monster his own story--a true story. A very hard to admit story. A story built on words so awfully difficult to say--what he can't bring himself to say to his dying mother: "I don't want you to go."

I need to take a step back and put the book into context--Ness wrote the book for author Siobhan Down, who lost her bought with cancer in 2007. A Monster Calls was inspired from notes she compiled for a fifth book. As Ness shares in the Author's Note, "This would have been her fifth book. She had the characters, a premise, and a beginning. What she didn't have unfortunately, was time."

Additionally, the illustrations by Jim Kay enhance the jagged darkness of the tale. A combined effect of etchings, wood cuttings, and collages, they strike me as cross between Jackson Pollack meets Andrew Wyeth meets Lynd Ward.

A wave of YA literature had been tackling heavy issues--issues that consume the curiosity of some adolescents. A Monster Calls deals with the stomach-wrenching reality of losing a loved one to cancer so respectfully and plainly, that this should be thought of as healthy read.

Literature is often the way into difficult topics--the great leveler when we do not have the words ourselves. I think of music as the place where so many people, particularly teens, turn for moments of shared heartache, joy, loss, etc. How often did we, as teens, sit alone in our rooms singing lyrics, following the lyrics on an album jacket or CD cover? YA has been bravely taking on that mantle as well in the unique way that only literature can provide--this novel continues that impressive and welcome trend.

A superb piece of art, and a sensitive approach to encouraging conversation with adolescents about one aspect of our humanity, I strongly recommend A Monster Calls for your classroom library.







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