Summer Reading

The Girl is Murder by Kathryn Miller Haines

I love a good mystery. I enjoy historical fiction. And I really dig hep-cat lingo. So it's no wonder that I got so caught up with this title.
Summary:
It's the fall of 1942 in New York City and Iris is dying to help out at her father's detective agency, especially when she discovers that one of Pop's cases involves a boy at her new public school. But when Pop adamantly refuses her help, Iris quickly realizes that it's much easier to lie than to ask permission. Suddenly, this once-obedient former private-school girl is sneaking out of the house, double-crossing her friends, and dancing at the Savoy till the early-morning hours. There's certainly never a dull moment in the private-eye business.

Here's a sample - Iris (our main character has joined a group of friends headed to Harlem's Savoy Hotel) - "But it wasn't just the dancing that grabbed my gut and held me solid. The music was different. This wasn't Benny Goodman rocking the airwaves from the parlor radio. These musicians worked their instruments like they were part of themselves - trumpets grown in places of  arms, pianos where there should've been legs. Instruments didn't sound like instruments here: they were animals that growled, hooted, and barked in four beats to a measure. I don't know how the musicians got them to sound that way, but it was more alive than any music I'd ever heard before."

Summer reading

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Whoa, I finished this a couple of hours ago and I'm still reeling. There's a part of me that wants to go back and read it again to find all the clues that were given along the way, and there's another part of me that can't bear to go through the hard parts of the book over again. This is a WW II story, filled with unlikely heroes, code names, operatives, double agents, Nazi SS men and women, the resistance movement, and a very strong friendship. This story keeps you guessing almost the entire time, with an unreliable narrator who is protecting not only her secrets but an entire country's. This is an atypical  story because it is about women during WWII - not the stay at home weepy kind, not jews marched off to deathcamps, but a very unlikely sort of women- the strong, courageous, mysterious sort, the sort that deciphers codes, creates codes, pilots planes and  trades in secrets and cigarettes.
Powerful and thrilling to the end.

From the book jacket:
When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.
They'll get the truth out of her. But it won't be what they expect.
As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuelage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure, and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from a merciless and ruthless enemy?
Harrowing and beautifully written, Code Name Verity is the story of an unforgettable friendship forged in the face of the ultimate evil.

Best Friends Forever

Best Friends Forever: a World War II Scrapbook by Beverly Patt

Best Friends Forever tells the story of 14 year old Japanese American Dottie Masuoka and Louise Krueger  as their lives and friendship must change with the internment of all Japanese American during World War II. Louise starts a scrapbook, documenting events that have happened with the intent of sharing it with Dottie when she returns.
I think those of you who enjoy historical fiction or enjoy a mixed media sort of book will breeze through this one.
Things I liked: the scrapbook format, the newspaper clippings and advertising promos of the time, the different fonts used to indentify the girls.
Things I didn't like: I wish it were a Canadian book, I didn't like how open ended it was - is this the first installment of a series?, and of course at the end of the book there is the statement "Three days after Pearl Harbour, Germany and Italy declared war on the US as well. World War II had begun."

Graphic novel blitz

Defiance by Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis

This is book 2 in this series about young French resistance fighters during World War II. Once again I got caught up in both the illustrations and the story of Tessier family and how they are coping during the war but also how each is assisting in the defiance of Nazi rule that has invaded their homeland.

Here is the summary.
When Nazi's invade what can children do to fight them?
World War II has taken its toll on the French countryside. German soldiers patrol the towns, searching for any challenge to their rule. The Tessier siblings Paul, Marie and Sophie, keep their noses clean and their faces blank as the French Military Police tighten their grip on the small country town. But all three are secretly doing their part for the Resistance : the men and women working hard to undermine the Germans and win back France's freedom... even if it costs them their lives.

I also appreciated the historical notes at the end of the book, that gave more information on the efforts of the French resistance during the occupation, as well as information on Charles De Gaul. You can tell this book has been well researched, a bonus to the capitvating story.

Fly Boy

Fly Boy by Eric Walters

This is the perfect weekend to be tucked away reading a few good books. This morning I finished Fly Boy, and I know this one is going to be a big hit. (in fact I'll probably need more copies than just one.)

It's 1943, and World War Two is raging across Europe and around the globe. Seventeen-year-old Robbie McWilliams can't wait to follow in his father's footsteps and enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force - he wants to become a spitfire pilot and fight for his country. The only problem is that he's still too young to join. So with a little help from his best friend, Chip, Robbie devises a plan that will allow him to enlist early and keep it a secret from his mother, from his schoolmaster, and most important, from the authorities at the RCAF.

Loads of action, and well researched giving an accurate description of training, flying a Lancaster Bomber, and the personal struggles of War.

City of Spies

City of Spies / by Susan Kim & Laurence Klavan, artwork by Pascal Dizin

In the comics Evelyn draws in secret, the heroic Zirconium Man and his loyal sidekick, Scooter alway beat the bad guys and save the day. But quiet, lonely Evelyn never imagined she could be a hero, too.

So Evelyn can hardly believe it when she and her new friend Tony uncover a deadly plot being carried out by Nazi spies, right in their neighborhood. Together, the two pals set out to save the day - and help win the war!

The artwork looks a lot like that of Herge the creator of Tintin through out most of the story but when Evelyn is drawing her comics it is more like early North American comics of Little Lulu, Archie and even Superman. Fabulous job!

This might be great for any of you that have read - The Search by Eric Heuvel.

What I saw and how I lied

What I Saw and How I Lied by Judy Bundell

Secrets this story has them. Evie our main character at fifteen she wants more than anything to be a grown-up, and not just any kind of boring grownup but the glamourous, sexy, Hollywood kind that her mother is. Evie's mother (who is a knockout) has her share of secrets too, and as a way of protecting Evie she likes to keep her looking and feeling like a helpless little girl.

Evie's stepfather Joe has just returned from the War in Europe and has many things he won't talk about, as well as a scheme that takes the family to Florida. Enter into the picture Peter, an ex-G.I. who served with Joe in the War. Evie has fallen completely for Peter. And Peter is the keeper of secrets and is threatening to expose them.

This tangled web of lies is bound to catch someone, and Evie find herself in the middle of them. She'll have to decide who to protect- her family or the one she loves.

Dark, smokey, 40's styling language, steamy Florida, and a miriade of unforgettable characters in this couldn't put it down book. Leaves you wanting to watch old black and white movies like Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock.

Winner of the 2008 National Book Award in the Young Peoples Literature category. An unforgettable and page-turner read. Readers will relate with Evie's struggle to find her own place in the world.