Martin, Ann M. Ten Rules for Living With My Sister.

Martin, Ann M.  Ten Rules for Living With My Sister.  Feiwel&Friends/Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, 2011.  228p.  $16.99      ISBN 978-0-312-36766-4

elm/ms      VG-BN Realistic Fiction

     Ten Rules for Living With My Sister presents a year in the life of a nine-year-old New York girl who lives with her parents and teenage sister.  It has just enough humor, warmth, and plot to keep an 8- to 12-year-old girl reading.  Martin has a way with storytelling, and even though the main character still believes in Santa Claus, she also deals with preteen issues of friendlessness, embarrassment, and dealing with a beloved grandfather who is losing his faculties.  This will be sure to resonate with youngsters who like a realistic story told with attention to emotions and human relationships.   

Carol Kennedy

 

Slipping. by Cathleen Davitt Bell

Bell, Cathleen Davitt. Slipping.
Bloomsbury see St. Martins, 2008, 215p, $16.99, 978-1-59990-2586

A first novel by Cathleen Davitt Bell, Slipping is an unbelievable masterpiece. It is about relationships and how we allow them to go away. The relationships are between friends, between brother and sister, and between father and son. There is humor, adventure and emotion from cover to cover. Contemporary teen language combines with a protagonist who is real to make a controversial topic like life after death believable. Redemption is possible as we explore a topic that has been studied since the beginning of man.
Slipping blasts the lid off the can of worms that contains the notion of life after death. As Michael slips into and out of the cold river between life and death, pulled there by his recently deceased grandfather, he could die or survive. His love for his grandfather has to be strong enough to help his grandfather come to terms with his own shallow, lonely life and death. Along the way, underachiever Michael pulls others aboard his journey as he navigates the river of the dead. First, he meets Ewan, the pathetic outcast and loner at a small private school in New York City. Ewan’s area of expertise is anything related to ghosts, and he helps Michael understand what is happening to him. Gus is Michael’s soon to be ex-friend. Michael has been feeling Gus pull away for a while, yet is helpless to save the friendship until they are thrown together in a basketball game with the school jock, Tripp. Grandpa steps into Michael to show Michael that he has all of the talent and drive to play ball, and Michael is the hero of the game. After helping his grandfather share his regrets about his loveless last years, Michael almost perishes with his grandfather into a world of permanent death. In a dramatic, perilous ending, Michael is able to save himself with the help of his sister and a few of his friends, and most importantly, his own father.
The subject matter is for a mature teenager or adult who is willing to consider that life is not as we see it. The writing style is fast-paced and engaging. All teenagers, male or female will feel empathy with Michael, a character who is so pathetically compelling that as he weaves his tale, weaves the reader into his web. All teenagers have had an art teacher like Ms. Rosoff, an overachieving sister like Julia, a best friend who has pulled away at times, and a school jock who is characteristically like Tripp. Bell leaves the reader questioning his or her relationships with family and friends as well as acceptance of people for who they are. Just like Michael has his grandfather in his head at unexpected moments, the reader will recall parts of this book for a long time after closing the cover.
This book is best for a mature student in upper middle school or high school. The fantasy/dramatic component of the book makes it too difficult for an immature reader. MS

Test. by William Sleator

Sleator, William. Test.
Abrams, Harry, 2008, 298p, $16.95, 978-0-8109-9356-3.
Conflict

This story takes place in the not too far future of the 21st Century. American society is dystopian and divided into the rich and the poor. The rich live in luxury, traveling by helicopter from place to place with their children in private schools. The have nots of the country have to deal with unending traffic jams, polluted air and public schools that don’t educate. The schools just prepare the students to take the XCAS test that determine their future; even the teacher’s jobs are at stake (sound familiar?). When Ann befriends Lep, a very poor immigrant from Thailand, who had been given the answers to the test in return for doing dastardly things at the project he lives in to keep his job and housing for his family, she becomes aware of the secret connections between the government and the rich real estate/oil barons/businessmen. Her life becomes dangerous as she is chased by a strange man on a motorcycle while traveling to school and home, and she is even shot at. Her friendship with Lep blossoms into a relationship as they plan to show how the government is betraying its citizens, especially the young. This fast moving plot will engage high school readers as they identify the stresses of, and emphasis on testing and its affects on society. As the mystery unravels, readers will be on the edge of their seat. TW