The Apache Superhero Kickin' Butt, and Taking Names

Even before this summer's box office flop of The Lone Ranger, the issue of Native appropriation has haunted writers. Stereotype, thy name is Laura Ingalls Wilder's "savages," Twilight's fantastical sidekick, Jacob, and every other racially problematic representation of broken English speaking, nature-communing, peace-pipe smoking, peyote-tripping, Native character with a braid full of feathers.

So, it was with a little bit of trepidation that I received a copy of KILLER OF ENEMIES, by Joseph Bruchac. I mean, it sounded so typical: a story about an Apache girl being her tribe's designated killer of enemies... whose favorite weapon is .357 Magnum... and who survives in this post-apocalyptic landscape to serve her scarred and insane genetically modified leaders...

Um, wait. On second thought... not THAT typical...

Get Out of your own Backyard

There's a whole world out there. You probably already knew that already, but in case you are like I was in high school, I thought I might make the point directly.

I grew up and went to high school in a small, highly homogenous town and while my teachers didn't exactly hide the fact that we were part of a larger, more diverse world, they certainly didn't emphasize the point, particularly not in my literature classes which featured, Shakespeare, Hardy and a slew of American writers mostly from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Not that these are bad people to read. I've grown to love Whitman and Dickinson and Hawthorne and someday I may even convince my brain to enjoy Melville. But the thought of reading something in translation or from a foreign country other than the one with the Hobbits seemed completely anathema to those creating curriculum.

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE by Neil Gaiman

Perhaps you have heard of Neil Gaiman before - he's written some rather popular books for kids, such as Coraline and The Graveyard Book, which, if you've read them, probably strike you as "for all ages", really, since there is so much smartness and cleverness (not quite the same thing) and humor and horror inside the pages that surely they make as much sense to teens and adults as to children. Or perhaps you've heard about his rather popular books for adults, including Stardust, the Sandman graphic novels, or American Gods and its successor, Anansi Boys. There are other books in both categories, of course, as well as picture books and such, but the salient point is that it's likely you've heard of him before now.

If you've heard of him, then you know that Neil Gaiman is a Captain of Fantasy (a title I have just now created for him): one of those writers who can write fearlessly about the sorts of things that make us afraid. The sorts of things you never even considered fearing before, but that are pretty terrifying to consider. And they exist in magical worlds that exist just on the margins of the everyday world we inhabit. In Stardust, there was a wall that separated Wall, England, from a magical kingdom beyond, in which witches and even stars were real, living beings. In The Graveyard Book, the being to fear was not a ghost or a vampire (those were actually quite friendly sorts), but a hit-man sent to kill a small child. And in Coraline, the thing to fear was a being known as the Other Mother, a shapeless, formless, powerful sort of being that was able to assume a form and create an entire parallel world in an effort to capture Coraline's soul.

His current book opens with an epigraph from Maurice Sendak: "I remember my own childhood vividly. I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them."

It's a worthy warning for what is to come.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane shares some of the devices I mentioned in his earlier works: the narrator, a grown man, returns home to Sussex, England, where he recollects a story that happened in his youth. It starts out in our usual, everyday world, but quickly moves into some other sort of realm - involving some women, the Hempstock women, who are not quite the farmers they seem, and a preternatural being.

Let me be clear: This is decidedly a book for adults (and teens, in my opinion), despite the fact that much of the story being related transpired when the narrator was a child. Besides nudity (remember, it's a print book, not a graphic novel, so it is whatever you imagine it to be), there are decidedly grown-up concepts in the book. Including a rather interesting discussion of whether grown-ups exist, plus a look at what father/son relationships are like, and how they can leave a mark. There are questions, such as whether we are our bodies, or whether we are something else that exists within our bodies. And there is, in case you hadn't already worked it out, magic.

To sum up: The Ocean at the End of the Lane is about eternity and knowledge, about good and bad, existence and being. It is about all of those things, and none of those things, and about magic. And you should read it.

Boy Nobody by Allen Zadoff

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us — don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

                   Emily Dickinson

Boy Nobody insinuates himself into the lives of his targets. Gains the trust of someone close. Comes complete with a plausible backstory. Leaves quietly after the mission is accomplished. No family. No friends. No attachments. No questions asked.

The ultimate assassin. And only a teenager.

Harris and Me, by Gary Paulsen

I can't help myself! I keep reviewing books by Gary Paulsen. But he's just so good! How good? Harris and Me reminds me of Tom Sawyer (The book, not movie.), that's how good. It also reminds me of another of Paulsen's books, How Angel Peterson Got His Name. If you liked that one, you owe it to yourself to read Harris and Me.

A young city boy is sent to spend the summer on his aunt and uncle's farm. Though he has lived many places over the years, he has never experienced anything like farm life . . . and he has never met anyone like Harris, his daredevil of a cousin (Publishers blurb).

I didn't know I was in love until it was all over and it was too late to do anything about it...

She had wide blue eyes and blond hair in braids that hung down her back, and she smiled and didn't look away when I looked at her, and I thought I would die.

"Hi. I'm Elaine...

"I've been staying with my grandmother in North Dakota..."

She said it like it was another country and I thought I might tell her that I had lived in the Philippines... and in Texas and had seen California and pretty much everything in between but nothing, absolutely nothing came out.

I don't know how long we could have gone on like that, her talking, me with my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, wishing I could disappear, but time kicked in and took over. It was late... and the rest of the kids came out of the back room.

Harris spied me instantly and took in the situation in a glance. He came up to the table -- the ubiquitous bottle of orange pop in his hand -- and plunked down in a chair.

I made eye motions at him to leave but he ignored them and spoke to Elaine.

"How do you like my cousin?"

She smiled. "He seems nice."

Harris shook his head. "That's what I thought but he ain't right."

I pushed at his shoulder.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"In the head. He ain't right. It was something to do with when he was borned. They cut the cord too fast or something and his brain didn't get into the light. Brains got to get into the light or they don't work right. You remember that Severson kid? How he kept leaning left and ate his snot all the time?" Harris pointed at me with his chin. "It's the same with him."

Texts From Bennett by Mac Lethal

Mac Lethal is a rapper.  Since he’s also a white guy, people like to ask him if he wants to be “the next Eminem.”  He’d rather be the first himself—a dedicated, verbose, and conscious rapper.  He has a pretty good life—a nice house, a loving (if high-maintenance) fiancée from the right side of the tracks, and a career that’s well on its way up.  Then Bennett shows up.

Bennett is Mac’s cousin.  He’s seventeen years old, spends most of his time stoned, talks like the ultimate gangsta, and claims to be “thirteen percent black.”  He too is a rapper (albeit one with no skill), fixated on the worst “hos and bling” aspects of the genre.  In short, he is everything Mac is not.  He is also, however, family, and when family gets kicks out of its house and arrives at yours, its hazed-out mother and conspiracy-nut not-quite-stepfather in tow, you don’t leave it on the streets.  Even if that would probably be a better idea than letting it stay.

Surpassing the Creepy Standard

As a kid, I always hungered for good ghost stories. Not horror, mind you. I wasn't all that interested in blood and gore and zombies (though I developed an appreciation for that sort of thing later), but I was all about spooky, creepy interactions with the supernatural.

Good ghost stories for kids, though, were surprisingly hard to find. I'd scour the library shelves or I'd order something from Scholastic with a promising name like The Haunting of Sand Hill. The author would then go about setting up passably spooky things like shimmerings in the distance and creaking floorboards. But the final chapters were invariably disappointing, outlining Scooby-doo like explanations that revealed there was nothing supernatural going on at all. The shimmering was always an illusion caused by a heat wave or something. Lame.

The state of supernatural literature for children has markedly broadened in the years since I was a kid and that instinct to provide rational explanations for spooky events has waned. But it's still sometimes hard to find a good ghost story, one with the right amount of creepy that doesn't descend into either a lot of cheap scares or long-winded nonsense about "crossing to the other side."

Holly Black's Doll Bones, though, is the kind of ghost story I was, and still have been, looking for.

Prowlers by Christopher Golden

In recent years, the number of books about shapeshifters, werewolves, ghosts, and other extraordinary characters has multiplied. If you're digging through all of these series in search of your next read, look no further: Prowlers by Christopher Golden has been republished! Get all four books now!

I highly recommend Prowlers. It contains all of the elements which are vital to a good horror story: intriguing protagonists who are both fallible and brave, villains who are devious and memorable, high stakes, interesting plot twists and reveals, and lots of action and tension. Here's my capsulized summary and review:

At age nineteen, Jack Dwyer's best friend Artie is murdered. Not by humans, but by Prowlers, a group of ancient creatures whose handiwork is typically thought to be that of wolves.

But these are no wolves. They are animals, but their ability to think, their emotions and their need for revenge makes them as cunning as humans. Jack, as well as most of America, knows nothing of the Prowlers... That is, until Artie travels from the Ghostlands to tell his friend what truly happened.

Prowlers is positively riveting and inventive. Before the book was through, I was captivated by the villains, connected to the protagonists, and yearning to go on the prowl again.

Luckily, Prowlers is the first of a quartet of novels, so I could continue the journey with Jack and company through the other books. Of course, when the fourth and final book came out, I pretended it wasn't the last book. It couldn't be. As soon as I turned the last page, I felt the need to read all four books again. And again.

Here's the official book flap summary for the first book:

Long have the packs lacked a great leader. Scattered far and wide, they have hunted as best they could in the hard lands, in places where their predations could be passed off as the work of true wolves. Instead of...Prowlers

When nineteen-year-old Jack Dwyer's best friend Artie is murdered, he is devastated. But his world is truly turned upside down when Artie emerges from the Ghostlands to bring him a warning.

With his dead friend's guidance and the help of the one person who doesn't think he's insane, Jack learns of the existence of the Prowlers. Under bold new leader Owen Tanzer, the Prowlers, already eight packs strong, have united. They move from city to city, preying on humans until they are close to be being exposed, then they move on. And unlike werewolves of legend, they aren't human beings whom the moon transforms into wolves...they are savage beasts masquerading as humans.
Jack wants revenge. But even as he hunts the Prowlers, he marks himself -- and all of his loved ones -- as prey. 

There are four books in the series, and they should be read in order:
Prowlers
Laws of Nature
Predator and Prey
Wild Things

Click here to learn more about the series.

Axe Cop by Malachai and Ethan Nicolle

Axe Cop: the name says it all. One day a cop found a magical axe and used it to fight crime. Around the same time, five-year-old Malachai Nicolle teamed up with his professional artist brother Ethan to write a comic book. Ethan took Malachai's words—which usually involve explosions, aliens, and secret attacks—and gave them a visual flourish. And thus Axe Cop was born.

Contained in these pages is a frenzy of unchecked childhood imagination that has been given infinite space to roam free. Malachai invents adventures involving machine gun-toting dinosaurs on the Moon and magic babies with unicorn horns. Axe Cop's adventures are narrated in a plain-spoken manner which adds to their appeal. Axe Cop always says exactly what he is thinking.

"We should put these heads on a stick and hide bombs in them."

This sense of hyper-earnestness and lack of sarcasm on display makes book's tone ridiculously refreshing.

The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer

The Reluctant Assassin (W.A.R.P. #1) by Eoin Colfer
London, 1898 --  Riley stands over his mark, an old man sleeping in his bed. His master, Albert Garrick, has brought Riley here to make his first kill. He edges closer to the mark. He doesn't want to be a killer, but he's more afraid of Garrick than the man in the bed. The man wakes up, and it's clear he's no ordinary man. Before Riley can figure out what the strange man means when he says that others will figure out what happened, Garrick forces his hand. But as the man is dying, something very strange happens, and Riley finds himself transported.

London, present day -- After embarrassing the Bureau when her first assignment goes south, teenage Special Agent Chevron Savano finds herself babysitting a strange pod in a house in London, working with the strange Agent Orange, who will tell her nothing but that she must watch the pod. Chevie expects nothing but boredom from her assignment. Until the pod lights up and releases Riley (and the corpse of the man Garrick killed) in modern day London. Unfortunately, Albert Garrick soon follows, and Chevie and Riley must team up if they are to survive the murderous wrath of Albert Garrick.

I really enjoyed this book. I polished the whole thing off in one long, late night reading session. The opening sequence, with a knife in the dark, reminded me of Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book, and Albert Garrick is a villain of the same stripe as the Man Jack in that book, with a bit of Gaiman's Croup and Vandemar thrown in as he stalks Chevie and Riley across time and space. I also really liked Riley and Chevie. Sometimes I find it difficult to suspend my disbelief when kids are also kick-ass spies and such, but Colfer built a believable world for his kick-ass characters in a story that's a fun blend of The Bourne Identity and Oliver Twist.

As you can see, this book is the beginning of a series, but the book works very well on its own, so if you want a great action story without committing to a series, you should definitely check this out. And, if you really like the characters, you can look forward to their future adventures without waiting at the edge of a cliffhanger.


This is cross posted at (Library Lass) Adventures in Reading