Leg of Wood, Heart of Steel

Every surgery, every pain and every hurdle involving Emily Rapp's degenerating bone disease is chronicled in a heartfelt and inspiring memoir. The Poster Child lost her foot when she was four and the rest of her leg when she was nine. By the time she was ten, Emily was the Midwestern spokeskid for the March of Dimes project and spoke enthusiastically at church suppers, rodeos and county fairs about how "normal" she was. Emily has always been aware of how she didn't quite meet the standards of normal, but her indefatigable memoir shows readers a person who had no other choice but to be extraordinary since normal wasn't an option. Readers who enjoyed Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet will be pleased with the lack of sentimentality and the brutal honesty of this life story. They will also appreciate Emily's very human emotions of frustration and anger with herself and her prosthesis.

From the Dough Boys

From a little known piece of American history, Michael Lowenthal has crafted a heartbreaking, yet inspiring story of love betrayed and courage discovered. Frieda is just another working Jewish girl in New York City during World War I. She is a bundle wrapper at Jordan march in ladies' undergarments and very happy with her job and her life. She and her Friend, Lou visit the weekly dances with soldiers and are popular dance partners. One evening Frieda meets a handsome young dough boy and impulsively spends the evening with him. Weeks later she is visited by a stern woman who accuses Frieda of giving the soldier a venereal disease. Frieda is sent to a medical institution where she is quarantined with other "fallen women" who has passed diseases onto soldiers. She is a Charity Girl, accused of unpatriotic behavior and must be rehabilitated before being let out into society again. The fellow inmates and one sympathetic social worker are the only support system Frieda has as she faces numerous indignities in the detention center. Fans of One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus will appreciate the same strong central female character and the straightforward tone. This little known historical period and the brutally unfair treatment of teenage girls will pique interest among readers of American historical fiction. Readers will also rally around Frieda and her feisty, but not anachronistic, attitude toward the medical sciences and her own future. Very readable and entertaining. Characters are like able and believable; plot is swift; enough historic detail to create a strong sense of time, place and social tone, but not too much to slow down the story. A satisfactory ending should please all readers.

College Follies

I never did get the concept of the college visit. Why spend a weekend in the spring at a campus that won't bare any resemble to the place you matriculate three months later in the fall? To my thinking, it was enough I wasted a perfectly good Saturday morning taking the SATs and the ACT. Susan Coll might be of the same mind. In Acceptance, three overachieving high school students are applying for college--AP Harry (taker of more Advanced Placement courses than anyone in the senior class) is only interested in Ivy League school and only Harvard at that; Taylor wants her social climbing and overly competitive mother to leave her alone while Taylor pilfers mail from her surrounding neighbors; Maya wishes she could live up to the mile-high standards her family has created and wonders why no one has yet realized she isn't as smart as the rest of her siblings. During the school year, each student will face frustration, disappointment and new insights into themselves as they plot a future they think they want and all inadvertently choose the future they truly need. Teens will appreciate the subject matter of this novel as they go through their own college application processes. They will also identify (some of them) with the stress of selecting a college and the fierce competition that goes into getting into the "best" colleges. They may also find the portion of the story told from the viewpoint of the college admissions counselor eye-opening as she reveals what colleges truly look for in an essay. A fun, breezy read with intriguing insights into the college admissions gauntlet.
This book was discussed on The Walt Bodine Show 's Book Doctors program May 17, 2007. KCUR 89.3

Welcome to the Condemned Monkey House

Books about animals make me wary. I won't watch/read/listen to anything in which an animal suffers unnecessarily. I'm not fond of those stories where it's necessary, either. Although I recall not minding much when Cujo bit the dust.
I approached Babylon's Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo with much trepidation. I knew I'd be reading about horrific wartime conditions of the exotic animals trapped in the zoo in the midst of shelling, bombs and looting. I also knew there would be plenty of moments of redemption and salvation. There are equal parts of both in Lawrence Anthony's memoir of his harrowing journey to war-torn Baghdad in order to save and protect the world renowned zoo. Anthony discovers his own survival is in jeopardy as well as that of the animals he attempts to save. With help from steadfast American soldiers and loyal, ingenious Iraqi zookeepers, Anthony begins to create a livable habitat for the animals left behind when the city was evacuated. Each day is fraught with new and life-threatening challenges that Anthony meets with righteous indignation and canny problem-solving skills. Heartfelt, but never treacly, readers who are animal lovers will shed tears; readers who are not will find their souls stirred with the injustice doled out to defenseless creatures. Readers who enjoyed other unusual humanitarian missions such as those recounted in Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson or Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughn, will be intrigued by the animals' stories.

Amituofo

Matthew Polly had always kept a running list in his head of Things That Are Wrong with Matthew: “Cowardly,” “Spiritually Confused,” “Still a boy/not a man,” “Ignorant.” In 1992, he decided to tackle the list by going to China to train in ancient martial arts and meditation with the monks of the hidden Shaolin Temple. Ten years later, Polly weaves the story of his journey to enlightenment with iron forearms in American Shaolin. With a better than average command of the Chinese language and customs for a laowai, Polly makes his way to the Temple and starts to catalog his unusual adventures and encounters with the Chinese people—chatty cab drivers; giggly hotel key girls; avaricious Temple officials; and coaches who scream for perfection and then . It all culminates in an international kungfu competition and a challenge match with a kungfu master. Polly’s pace is as fast as a whip kick to the head and his descriptions of the amazing skills of his teachers and class mates are jaw dropping. In a friendly, deferential and sometimes smart ass tone, Polly invites the reader along on his astounding journey to check off the items on his list, only to check off the most important entry upon his return to Kansas. Fans of the pacing and story line of Friday Night Lights will enjoy American Shaolin.

Man behind the Vision

This one goes out to Bruce who let me wax pathetic over a Renoir and a Degas at the Nelson-Atkins Gallery tonight.
Susan Vreeland has made a splash with her historical fiction novels revolving around masterpieces of the art world. She and Tracy Chevalier have almost created a cottage industry. The latest entry in the "story behind the painting" subgenre of literary historical fiction is Luncheon of the Boating Party. In prose as thoughtful as every one of Renoir's brush strokes, Vreeland imagines the lives behind each figure in the artist's most famous work. From conception to completion, readers learn who all the models are, how they came together, their significance to Renoir and how they form a tight bond that cannot last outside the painting's frame. Full of exquisite detail and descriptions, readers will be flipping back to carefully study the small replica of the painting that accompanies the book. Up until the last third, readers will wonder who is the beguiling woman holding the dog in the lower left corner of the painting? All of the painting's figures are real people the author brings to life on the canvas, even the mysterious quatorzieme is identified. Very suitable for a book group or readers who enjoyed Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Lies We Tell to Make Ourselves Feel Better

In James Scudamore's novel, Anti and Fabian are unlikely friends in Quito, Ecuador who share a love for outlandish yarn-spinning and yearn to "discover" something remarkable. While they will talk about everything, one subject goes unmentioned, the deaths of Fabian's parents. One night, after too much tequila, Fabian tells the story of his parents' demise. Anti, sympathetic, yet disbelieving, crafts a false newspaper story to demonstrate his support for Fabian and the fictions that help him get through this tragedy. However, Fabian reads the clipping and also notes the bogus story next to it, one for an Amnesia Clinic serving victims of accidents or kidnappings with no memories of who they are. Fabian is certain his mother, whose body was never recovered, is staying in the Amnesia Clinic. The boys set off on a journey that will reveal more about their friendship and future than either can imagine. The compelling story, natural and likeable characters and realistic portrayals of adults are the highlights of this novel. Scudamore has captured well the sense of wonder and familiarity the boys experience with their shared world and each other. Readers have compared this book to Life of Pi by Yann Martel.

Capturing Light or Capturing Sin?

One of the most lyrical debuts of 2005 was Miranda Beverly-Whittemore's The Effects of Light. The realistic and sympathetic characters and the compelling, suspenseful story line will draw readers in while they ponder the author's thoughtful exploration of the classic social question, "What is Art and who gets to decide?"
Thirteen years after she fled the West Coast, Kate Scott is returning to hesitantly pry open painful memories of her sister and her father. A mysterious package from an unknown benefactor shows Kate that someone else knows her turbulent secret history as a child-model for a controversial photographer. Her lover, Samuel, follows Kate and pledges to help her unearth the clues her father has left behind, but when Kate discovers Scott's notebook with surreptitious jottings about herself and her family's notorious past, she rejects him. Readers will be drawn into the mystery surrounding Kate's sister, her father, and Ruth, the photographer, even wondering who Kate truly is. This first novel drew parallels with The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold for the narrative voices of its teen characters, Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier for its art-world frame and Possession by A.S. Byatt for its plot of academics searching ancient documents for contemporary truths.

High School Heartbeat

Jodi Picoult is another of my favorite authors. Her stories intrigue me. She explores the very real emotions behind the hot button issues that confound our society and there are rarely any winners, losers, heros or villains. There are only real people, with a steadfast sense of self, values and what is right. By the end of most of her novels, the reader cannot choose a side and Picoult doesn't want the reader to take sides. She wants her readers to think and discuss and consider the other person's position.
Nineteen Minutes, Picoult's most recent novel, has an obvious villain who commits an unforgiveable crime, however, it will be a hard-hearted reader who doesn't sympathize a little with this character by the end of the story.
Pete Houghton has just walked into his high school and killed ten clasmates with a handgun and injured nineteen others. One survivor, Josie, was the only person to face down Peter and walk away. But why? Why did Peter shoot the students? Why did Josie live? This is a harrowing tale about the secret lives of high school students and how they can't trust the adults in their lives--even the those adults who love them the most and have sworn to protect them.
Readers who enjoyed Chris Bohjalian's Before You Know Kindness or Cafe of Stars by Jacquelyn Mitchard may also enjoy this novel.

Valedorktorian

I couldn't wait to share I Love You, Beth Cooper. I laughed everywhere I read this book. On the bus, at home, in the coffee shop, at my desk when I should have been working. Larry Doyle has captured perfectly what it is like to be a brilliant 98 lb weakling among boneheaded 175 lb defensive ends.
The alternate title to this book could be "One Life-Changing Night in the Life of Denis Cooverman." It all starts at graduation. Debate geek/brainiac valedictorian Denis finally says everything he's pent up for four years--he accuses classmates of anorexia, snobbishness, meaningless violence due to low self-esteem and outs his best friend, Rich. Denis saves the best for first and professes his love for Beth Cooper from his academic pulpit. This admission sets in motion the most memorable night in Denis' short life. The girl of his dreams drops in at his house for an impromptu graduation party and then, along with her two best friends, takes Denis and Rich on a wild ride through every teenage degradation, delight and debauchery ever depicted on the silver screen. The humor is spot on and quotes from characters in classic teen movies open every chapter. Fans of Frank Portman's King Dork, last year's hot adult book for teens will enjoy this latest comic effort. Less flip than King Dork and a little less believable, I Love You, Beth Cooper is laugh out loud funny and realistic in its growth of Denis from fearful wimp to fed up hero. Of a sort.