Itch: The Explosive Adventures of an Element Hunter by Simon Mayo

Some people collect baseball cards.

Others collect comic books.

Fourteen-year-old Itchingham Lofte collect elements. You know, as in lead, sulfur, phosphorous, and the other elements that make up the periodic table. It's an unusual hobby, and one that often gets Itch into unexpected trouble.

Itch's element collection is pretty small, comprised of things he's scavenged from home or managed to buy from a peddler. But some elements are expensive, and some are too dangerous to be sold. When Itch buys a sample of what he thinks is uranium, but turns out to be an extremely radioactive unknown element that could change the world, he must figure out how to keep the rocks out of the clutches of villains who are willing to do anything to get their hands on the mysterious new element.

Ant Comic by Michael DeForge is possibly the best comic to be found online. Ever.

Yes, that's my argument. If you need more than the image to the left to convince you, read on.

The Inner Game of Tennis

"To uncover and explore the potential within the human body is the quest of the Inner Game; in this book it will be explored through the medium of tennis." (From the author's introduction)

Here is a great article (more than a review)about this book's effect on readers' performance. The ideas are helpful for more than just tennis. I did not read it when it was published in the seventies, because I had William Tilden's How to Play Better Tennis, which really did help my game. I have not been on the court in years. But now I will read The Inner Game of Tennis. It may inspire me to play again, but even if it does not, I expect to learn to find the state of "relaxed concentration" necessary to peak performance. Sounds good to me!

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall by Nancy Kress

Summer, the time Hollywood likes to bombard movie theatres with action movies where lots of things blow up and the balance of life as we know it may hang in the balance. In a world where digital special effects can deliver the most mind-bendingly realistic visions of destruction we have become numbed to the possibilities of things more deadly happening, literally beneath our feet, quietly preparing to destroy mankind.

This is the premise of Nancy Kress's ecological science-fiction story After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall. Despite sounding like a trilogy, what Kress delivers is a tale told fragments of Earth before, during, and after the planet has gone about the process of putting itself back into balance. It's probably best not to say too much about what, exactly, happens except that if you're a fan of earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions -- or more importantly, what happens after all three of those things happen at once -- then that's all you need to know going in.

Well, almost.

BLUFFTON by Matt Phelan

BLUFFTON by Matt Phelan is an interesting sort of tale. It's fiction, but it's exceptionally real. Named after a place, it's about a fictional boy named Henry, who lives in Muskegon, Michigan, and visits the nearby community of Bluffton, located near the shores of Lake Michigan. Except in a lot of ways, it's about a different boy -- a real boy known as Buster Keaton, who grew to be one of the greatest directors (and actor/directors) in history. Only truly, in the end, it's about what life was like in Bluffton during three consecutive summers (1908-1910), when the vaudevillians came to stay.

You see, once upon a time, before there were movies, there was vaudeville, described by "Ed Gray, Noted Monologuist" in the book as follows:

Vaudeville is variety.

A veritable cavalcade of comedians, jugglers, dancers, magicians, acrobats, musicians, and dramatic actors . . . . all for short, precise acts of the highest entertainment value!

A day in the theater promises twelve to fifteen acts to amuse, inspire, electrify, edify, and enlighten (for one small price).

And along with Harry Houdini, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and others, Buster Keaton was one of the biggest stars of the vaudeville circuit as part of a family act called "The Three Keatons". Their style of act was known as a "knockabout act", in which Buster got kicked, thrown, and dragged around, all while keeping a deadpan expression on his face.

This book is and is not all about Buster Keaton, but it does give you a good impression of what his life and childhood were like, and how it differed from the lives of "normal" children, who grew up in one place, went to school, and had to help out at home or in their father's shops. The book also makes clear why it was that in later years he always said that the happiest days of his life were the summers he spent in Bluffton.

The early 20th century and the people of Muskegon and Bluffton are brought wonderfully back into life, allowing the reader to experience what it must have been like for local kids to mix with the vaudevillians (and a little bit of the vice versa experience). Real - and realistic - in a way that a straight-up biography would not have been, for some readers this book will be a gateway to further research into Buster Keaton and/or vaudeville or Keaton's movies. And that can only be a good thing.

I reviewed an ARC of the book, which was (woefully) in black and white, but came with a fold-out card showing what some of the full-cover spreads are going to look like - and they are spectacular. Below is a photo I took of one of the spreads on the card, although I'm sorry to say that it doesn't do the work full justice. Still, it gives you a feeling for the aesthetic of the book, which is due out on July 23, 2013:

William Shakespeare's Star Wars by Ian Doescher

I hate Ian Doescher. William Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher, like Cardboard Gods, Josh Wilker’s memoir told through baseball cards, and The Lover’s Dictionary, David Levithan’s story of a relationship told through dictionary entries, is a book whose structure frustrates me. Frustrates me because the latent writer in me hears about it and believes that, had I come up with the idea, I could have written this book. (And by “could have” I of course mean “should have.”) But I didn’t. He did. And for that I hate him. But don’t let my hate stop you from reading Doescher’s excellent five-act iambic pentameter retelling of the original Star Wars. If droid-inspired Daft Punk can top the charts, and science fiction icon Joss Whedon can release a Shakespeare comedy, then surely the time is right for a Shakespearean version of Star Wars.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

After meeting with a class of 7th and 8th graders who had been energetically debating Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, I decided I needed to try and find a way to read it sooner rather than later.

This novel seems like a standard recommendation for anyone who wishes to read YA or write it. I believe it's an important book not only for women (teens and adults alike), but also for boys and men as it shows the difficulty of being the object of sexual abuse and the damage that occurs over the long term. Considering the high-profile events of the past year involving rape and the battle for women's legal rights, a book like this can broaden a male reader's understanding of how male behavior and aggression, as well as female silence, need to be discussed rather than dismissed.

If Books were Rock Stars

Sometimes, when I go out at night to hear a new band playing somewhere I'll be listening to the opening act and I'll think "These guys are pretty good. I wonder why they're not headlining." Then the headliner will come out and deliver something so much more powerful or subtle or technically perfect or otherwise imbued with such awesomeness that I'll be left thinking, simply, "Oh, that's why."

The Raven Boys, by Maggie Stiefvater was like that for me. It's a book so rich and strange and funny and, above all, spooky, that as soon as I started it, it left my previous summer reading--good books, all--feeling like inferior warm-up acts, humbly packing up their gear while the real show got underway.

Blue lives with her mother and some aunts, all of them psychics. A problem with living with psychics is that they may tell you things about your future that you don't necessarily want to know. In Blue Sargeant's case, it's that if she kisses her true love , he will die.

Colin Fischer by Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz

Colin Fischer never goes anywhere without his notebook. Within the spiral-bound pages is his guide to understanding the world around him.

Colin has Asperger's Syndrome, a degree of autism which presents with some ability to function and socially interact with others. Still, he has trouble understanding figures of speech, rhetorical questions, and metaphorical statements. He also can't detect others' emotions by looking at their facial expressions.

Needless to say, Colin's first year in high school is going to be a bit more challenging than it is for most students. The classes will be no sweat, but the cliques and social structure of teenagers is a mystery to Colin.

The Visual Miscellaneum by David McCandless

The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide to the World's Most Consequential Trivia by David McCandless

We are tasked with absorbing tremendous amounts of information, statistics, facts, and it's a challenge to just sort this data, let alone use the data in any meaningful way. With this in mind, David McCandless set out to create functional and beautiful graphics to help us sort through the deluge and to show us that information is not only useful, but it can be beautiful as well.

I've been meaning to pick this book up for ages, ever since I had one of those NPR driveway moments when I caught an interview with McCandless. I tend towards the list and chart of the Excel variety myself, so I was eager to get a look at what something with actual design sensibilities could do.

I have to admit that my teacher senses were working overtime when I saw this book -- it would be such a cool way to introduce evaluating data to a composition class -- McCandless presents most of the information without comment, but really, it's just a darn cool book.

You can sample some of the graphics from the book's website Information is Beautiful. My favorite graphics in the book are health related. You should definitely check out the graphic about the odds on what will kill you -- trot out to a nervous seat mate on your next flight that the odds they will die in a plane crash is practically nothing, while the odds that they will die from heart disease is 1 in 3 -- and hope that the pilot isn't up for that 1 in 3. Well, maybe you are not a jerk and won't mention that bit about the pilot.

To give you a sample, here is a chart of Twentieth Century Death (my new band name, btw). It shows you how many people have died from selected major causes.

20th Century Death!

Lest you think it's all doom and gloom, there are also graphics about the lamest Wikipedia edit wars or the peak break-up times on Facebook.