Girl Stolen
By April Henry
Young adult
Christy Ottaviano Books: Henry Holt BYR, 2010,
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9005-5
Awards/Recognitions: * American Library Association Best Books for Young Adults * American Library Association Quick Picks for Young Adults
Sometimes, I’m reminded that we tend to read the way we eat. For some meals, we fill our plate with nutritious food that takes a while to digest. Other times, we just want to enjoy a big fat slice of cake, no guilt attached. There’s no reason we can’t enjoy both within reason.
For me, Girl, Stolen is a delicious piece of cake. No, it doesn’t make deep commentary on a girl’s journey. But it is an exciting crime story that will keep you happy poolside as you read to find out if 16-year-old Cheyenne Wilder will manage to escape her captors.
It’s a nightmare pulled from headlines: A kid is stolen in the half-second it takes a parent to run in for an errand. In this case, Cheyenne is burning with fever, and her stepmother takes her along to pick up her antibiotics. Unfortunately, a car thief named Griffin happens along. He’s out trolling the mall parking lot to help his chop-shop dad by stealing a nice SUV. What he doesn’t realize until it’s too late is that Cheyenne is asleep in the back seat of the car he steals.
Being hijacked when you’re deathly ill is bad enough, but let’s throw in the clincher: Cheyenne is legally blind, thanks to the car accident that killed her biological mother. And that, my friends, is what we mean by a character’s dilemma.
The novel is written in alternating chapters, between Griffin and Cheyenne’s point of view. It has the effect of humanizing the villain – or at least, pointing out that he’s not the uber bad guy in this tale. I was a little worried that the author would recreate one of those silly scenarios where the female victim falls in love with her assailant. (Ask your mother about soap operas in the 1980s. Sweet Lord.). But no, experienced mystery writer April Henry doesn’t go there. Instead, she fleshes out her characters’ relationship just enough and keeps us on the edge of our seats with everything from snarling dogs to leering garage assistants.
What I particularly like is what many reviewers have pointed out: Cheyenne’s blindness is simply a part of her, not the focus of her character. And like all strong girls, blind or otherwise, she’s up to solving her trouble – no matter how hopeless it seems – through her wits and gifts. MM
Learn more about author April Henry.
Revolution Is Not a Dinner Party
By Ying Chang Compestine
Young adult
Henry Holt BYR, 2007
ISBN: 0805082077 / 978-0805082074
Awards/Recognition: California Book Award for Young Adult Literature
* 2008 ALA Best Books For Young Adults
* 2008 ALA Notable Children’s Books
* 2007 Publishers Weekly Best Children’s Fiction Book List
Revolution is Not a Dinner Party offers a look at a family’s frightening experiences during one of the most chilling chapters in modern Chinese history. It’s a page-turner, a tragedy, and a tribute to the resilience of a young girl in the midst of a world gone crazy.
“The summer of 1972, before I turned nine, danger began knocking on doors all over China.”
So begins the story of Ling Chang, the daughter of two doctors living in Wuhan during Mao Tse Tung’s Cultural Revolution, when thousands of Chinese intellectuals were killed or sent to re-education camps. Over the course of three years, Ling and her family descend from well-respected citizens to “bourgeois pigs,” whose home is ransacked and lives made miserable at every turn. The novel doesn’t spare the thousands of tragedies, large and small, through the eyes of a little girl awakening to the darker side of human nature. Whether it’s a broken doll, school humiliations, betrayal at the hands of friends, or witnessing a suicide, Compestine lays the facts bare. Ling journeys from being a wide-eyed innocent to a streetwise twelve-year-old, who wields belt buckles to ward off bullies and who steals food from the Red Guard’s secret stash.
Beyond the nail-biting tension as the noose tightens around this family, the relationship between Ling and her parents made this novel a keeper. Ling is blessed with a healthy relationship with her doting father. His life lessons – whether dancing the tango, studying English, or memorizing the physician’s code of ethics — see her through even her loneliest days. But, I was even more intrigued by the complicated love/hate dance between Ling and her mother. Seemingly tense and unfairly critical at the start of the novel, Ling’s mother is anything but sympathetic. In time, however, Ling learns to judge those behaviors against the backdrop of what it really takes to survive in a world where even the most trusted friend can betray you, when the simplest dream or desire can cost a girl her life. MM
Learn more about Ying Chang Compestine.
This is not your school's summer reading list 