Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
Summary: Working on an airship to support his mother and sisters after the death of his father, Matt is more at home in the air than he is on the ground. His part in the recovery of a hot air balloon and its passenger puts him in line for a promotion, but he is passed up in favor of a young man who has gone to airship school. Matt’s dedication to his ship never wavers though, but when a spirited passenger named Kate starts shaking up his life he struggles with having to choose between his beloved ship and his growing attraction to her. Their journey across the Pacificus will be the most memorable of their lives as they encounter pirates, typhoons, and a creature no one but them believes is real: the cloud cat.
Number of Pages: 322
Age Range: 13-14
Review: Airborn by Kenneth Oppel is epic adventure story. What I loved about Oppel’s writing is the fact that I could see the entire tale clearly in my head. From luxury airships to the desperate battle against villainous pirates to getting caught in a raging typhoon, I felt like I was watching the story visually unfold and it was breath-taking. I hope Oppel’s latest movie deal works out, because Airborn is made for the big screen.
I liked Matt as a character because of his strong sense of duty and his struggle to deal with the unexpected death of his father. What I found most compelling about him though was his connection to the Aurora, the airship he worked on. It is clear that being a cabin boy is not just a job for him, it’s his whole life as he has big dreams of working his way up to become captain and he cares about the ship itself. I loved the descriptions of the Aurora, and the fact Matt is devastated by even the thought of losing the ship. I also loved how it is the place where he still feels the spirit of his father.
The one problem I had with Airborn was Kate. While I understood her driven nature and the reasons why she had to prove herself, I didn’t find her to be very likeable because I felt her poor choices led to a lot of the scrapes she and Matt found themselves in. I suppose her impulsive, head-strong nature makes her a good match for Matt because she balances him out, but at times I found her irritating.
Overall though, Airborn was an engaging read that I ended up wishing I had more than a day to savour. I would recommend this book to early teen readers, but I also think it is an excellent choice for a read-aloud book with its detailed descriptions and action-packed plot.
Memorable Quotes:
“The main kitchen was on A-Deck, and the bakery directly below it on B-Deck. The fresh rolls and croissants came up piping hot in the dumb waiter, almost faster than we could serve them. Baz and Kristof were on duty with me in the first-class dining room. We’d worked together long enough so that you might have thought we were auditioning for the ballet. We swirled about one another as the ship sailed on, and the passengers ate and clinked glasses and ordered more Morning Glories at table nine and laughed at the sheer delight of having a meal six hundred feet in the air.” – Matt from Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, page 26
“I folded my arms across my chest and smiled. She would stop. When she realised I wasn’t about to rush after her, she would have second thoughts about pushing on into that forest alone. By this point she was getting quite far away, and showed no sign of faltering. She pushed through some thick fronds, and I lost sight of her altogether.
I started counting. By ten she’d be peeping out from behind the foliage to see if I was coming.
By twenty she hadn’t reappeared.
‘Bloody hell,’ I muttered, running to catch up.” – Matt from Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, page 124
“She was filing. I’d nipped outside to check on her, and I swear I could see the difference. Her worst sections, once saggy and torn, looked decidedly firmer now. It was like watching an old woman stand unexpectedly from a wheelchair. More than that, it was like watching her shed years before your eyes, until her skin was smooth and beautiful again. I just stood there for a few more minutes, staring. Her belly no longer rested so heavily on the ground. Work crews were repairing her lower rudder. Everyone was busy, making the ship whole again.” – Matt talking about the Aurora from Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, page 198
“‘That’s not fair,’ she said hotly. ‘You think I’m being selfish, don’t you. That I’m rich and you have nothing but choices. I’m a girl, and girls don’t get choices. No one’s going to give me a chance unless I force them to. It’s not just to be smart and curious. It’s just like you, being poor. You and I have to try harder and be better to get ahead. I have to have something amazing like this before they’ll pay attention to me.'” – Kate from Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, page 216
“But then, unexpectedly one night, I’d dreamed of my father – even though I was landlocked. I was flying alongside the Aurora, and he’d come and joined me, and when I woke up that morning, everything was different. As long as I could still dream about him, I knew everything would be all right. I didn’t need to be aloft to find happiness. It could find me wherever I was: on the Aurora, or here in Paris, or back home with Mom and Isabel and Sylvia.” – Matt from Airborn by Kenneth Oppel, page 319
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel is published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, (2004).
Acceleration by Graham McNamee
Summary: Doomed to work his summer away in the Lost and Found Department of the Toronto Transit Commission, Duncan is passing his time sorting the odds and ends that come in from buses, subway trains and streetcars. Just when he thinks things couldn’t possibly get more boring, Duncan comes across a journal written by a man detailing his acceleration from killing animals and starting fires to stalking women he is planning to kill. Haunted by the drowning death of a girl he feels responsible for, Duncan is determined to do something to protect the women in this would-be killer’s sights. When the police don’t take Duncan’s concerns seriously, it is up to him and his friend Vinny to figure out the journal writer’s identity and stop him from acting on his plans.
Number of Pages: 210
Age Range: 13-14
Review: In this thriller-type read, Graham McNamee eases serious themes of death, murder and abuse with wonderful moments of laugh out loud humour. I wish there had been a bit more development around the death Duncan witnessed, because by the end of the book I still didn’t quite understand why exactly he thought he was solely responsible for not getting to her in time.
My favourite character was Vinny because I loved his imaginative and varied responses to questions about his birth defect. He’s a smart character who helps Duncan as needed; finding a friend who accepts him the way he is. Duncan himself is a close second favourite. He seems to put people at ease and allow them to be who they are without judgement or pressure.
I enjoyed McNamee’s depth when it came to Duncan’s grief, as well as all of the information he provides about profiling serial killers as Duncan and Vinny are trying to figure out how to identify the author of the journal. I was wrapped up in the flow of the story but I learned a lot at the same time. McNamee introduces his reader to the darkness of the human mind without overwhelming them.
It is a bit remarkable that two teens could track down a potential murderer without police aid, not to mention dangerous, but Acceleration was a well-paced, spine-tingling read that I would recommend to young teen readers.
Memorable Quotes:
“The basketball falls from under my arm and rools away. I feel a tremendous urge to rip this leather-bound book of mental diarrhea into confetti – to destroy it and the warped mind it came from. Behind the words there’s this big nothing where a conscience should be, a black hole sucking you down into the dark.” – Duncan from Acceleration by Graham McNamee, page 33
“Mom worries too much – those ears permanently tuned in to me. Late last year she made me go see a psychiatrist a couple of times, back when I wasn’t sleeping at all. He gave me some pills. They put me out – no dreams, no thoughts, no brain, no pain. But they left me groggy and a little dizzy, so I stopped taking them. Sometimes pain is better than nothing.” – Duncan from Acceleration by Graham McNamee, page 57
“Using my pen, I hold up some extra-large thong underwear. We’re talking a King Kong thong. Wondering how you lose your underwear on public transit, a mystery for the ages, I have to break away from the Kong thong when Jacob dings for me. I drop the underwear in the garbage and make a mental note to burn the pen.” – Duncan from Acceleration by Graham McNamee, page 114
“When breakfast/dinner is ready, Dad drags in one of the big box fans from their bedroom and positions it so we all get our slice of the breeze. We sit and eat and watch baseball, which must be the most boring sport ever invented. But right here and now, I love it. I love this boring, ordinary meal. Freeze the frame here, and let it last. It’s like the eye of the storm. Everything’s calm and quiet, and I can almost forget what’s supposed to happen tonight. So long as I don’t look up and see the wall of the storm that’s spinning around me, waiting for my next move.” – Duncan from Acceleration by Graham McNamee, page 147
“Vinny’s wearing his usual – army surplus jacket, jeans, ratty sneakers. I’m all in black, T-shirt and jeans and baseball cap, waering my steel-toed army boots just in case. Vin brought his Swiss Army knife – the idiot thing weighs about two pounds and includes scissors and a corkscrew. So he can crack open some wine after he gives the nut a haircut.” – Duncan from Acceleration by Graham McNamee, page 149
Acceleration by Graham McNamee is published by Wendy Lamb Books, (2003).
Finding the Good by Tanya Patterson
Summary: Struggling to live a quiet, independent life, Jackie Winger takes a job at a local horse farm to support herself as she finishes high school and seeks to pursue her dream of becoming a veterinarian through a scholarship. Working with horses is something she loves to do, but it connects her with her mysterious past and reveals secrets Jackie has been trying to hide. Like some of the horses she tends to, Jackie is withdrawn and shy, scared of getting hurt again and avoiding relationships as a result. When Dusty, a fellow teen co-worker, takes the time to draw her out and become her friend, he finds knowing her will change him in ways he never expected.
Number of Pages: 349
Age Range: 14-15
Review: My favourite part of Finding the Good by Tanya Patterson was Texas, Jackie’s horse. I wanted to know more about him because I honestly felt for him. Sold by Jackie (JJ)’s brother out of drunken spite, Texas goes from a stable, loving home where he is cared for and adored by a girl he has known from birth to an abusive situation that Patterson never fully tells her reader about. In the blink of an eye, Texas’ world becomes a nightmare, and by the time he reaches Starcross Farms, he’s a changed horse.
It’s no surprise that it takes Jackie so long to connect with him again or that he attacks others – Texas has lost his sense of trust and needs time to regain it. Thinking about how he must have felt when he relocated to his new home without Jackie, mostly likely wondering what had happened and where she had gone made me want to cry. With Patterson’s writing I felt his sorrow and confusion, as well as his pain.
Which is why I wish Finding the Good had been written from Texas’ perspective. I found him to be the most interesting character in the book and from my reading I know that writing believable animal characters isn’t easy. Patterson obviously has a talent for it and I think if she had written more about Texas it would have played to her strengths better. I sincerely hope she explores writing more horse stories in the future, because her writing shows that she truly understands them.
Memorable Quotes:
“Jackie stared. ‘Why do you suppose he did it?’
‘Who?’
‘The horse. Why do you think he did it? He must have had a reason.’
‘He’s a horse, Jackie.’
‘Yeah, one that was beaten. If you were beaten, wouldn’t you want to get back at the person that beat you?’ she asked.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Well sure, but that still doesn’t mean I would.’
‘Why not?’
‘For one thing, it’s not in my nature – and besides, it’s illegal.’
‘Those are man-made rules, and he’s just a horse.’
‘Exactly.’
‘So in order to solve his problem, we have to think on his level.’ – Conversation between Jackie and Dusty from Finding the Good by Tanya Patterson. pages 83-84
“‘Besides, it’s always easier to analyze someone else’s problem; there aren’t any emotions in the way.'” – Jackie from Finding the Good by Tanya Patterson, page 105
Finding the Good by Tanya Patterson is published by iUniverse, (2011).
Rush by Eve Silver
Summary: Miki’s story begins with her own death. When her rescue of a classmate’s little sister turns fatal, Miki is pulled into a battle against aliens. As long as she follows the rules, Miki is free to go on with her life during her downtime, but death in what is considered “The Game” equals death in real life. Thrown onto a team with a mysterious leader, Jackson, who has secrets of his own, Miki is full of questions about the war and confronted with the precariousness of her situation. Unable to talk to her friends and family about what’s going on, a relationship develops between Miki and Jackson who have more in common than just being on the same team.
Number of Pages: 361
Age Range: 15-17
Review: Rush‘s sequel Push is sitting on my shelf and it is all I can do not to pick it up. I just want to know what happens next, because the cliff-hanger Eve Silver leaves her reader with is excruciating.
As a science fiction book this isn’t going to be an enjoyable read for everyone, but I loved it. It reminded me of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card. Silver’s exploration of treating war like a video game with points for kills and deducted points for injuries sustained expands on Card’s ideas. Rush is a story that is complicated, and completely unbelievable, yet somehow Silver just makes it work.
I think it’s because of her main character, Miki. No stranger to hardship, Miki watched her mother die from cancer and knows her father is becoming an alcoholic. She deals with anxiety issues and grief, but seems to be getting back on her feet when she rescues a classmate’s sister from being hit by a car only to die herself.
In Miki’s world, aliens are secretly about to take over the planet and a mysterious entity called the Committee is the only one trying to stop it from happening. The Committee enlists the help of teens who have died prematurely, offering them continued life for as long as they participate in “The Game,” the battle against the aliens that pulls them into an alternate reality of sorts to fight. If you die in “The Game” though, the death you experienced in real life becomes permanent.
Set against the backdrop of Silver providing the background of the aliens and the war itself, I found Miki’s struggle to deal with the unpredictable and the unbelievable captured relatable and raw emotions, as well as insights about being an outsider. I loved how her past gave her confidence to be forthright and ask all of the questions that she wanted answered, especially when her questions were ones I was asking myself. Silver uses Miki’s curiousity to explain everything her reader needs to know, which makes Rush a tremendously satisfying read. It’s the first book in a series, and as I wrote before I can’t wait to pick up the next one.
My favourite part? Miki’s bookshelf. She’s a dystopian fan too.
Memorable Quotes:
“I wish I could. I wish I thought it mattered. My friends all get so excited about things like movies and dances and shopping; they feel things so intensely. I go through the motions and bluff extremely well, but I’m not like them. I haven’t been for almost two years. And that kills me. I just want to be . . . normal again.” – Miki from Rush by Eve Silver, page 7
“My first thought is for my dad. If I’m dead, he’s alone. If I’m dead, it’ll kill him. And Carly and Kelley and Dee and Sarah and all my other friends . . . I know what it feels like to mourn, to have a film of gray settle over every moment of every day, a fog that coats everything, leaching out color and joy. I don’t want that for them. My heart gives a hard thump in my chest. And that stops me cold.” – Miki from Rush by Eve Silver, page 22
“‘This isn’t a game,’ he repeats. ‘It’s real. What you do here determines your survival.’ He pauses. ‘And the survival of every other person on the planet.’
I laugh.
He doesn’t.
And that tells me he’s either serious or seriously crazy. Please let him be crazy.” – Conversation between Jackson and Miki from Rush by Eve Silver, pages 28-29
“His explanation is so far beyond believable that I want to discount it out of hand. But I don’t. For the first time, his cryptic assertions actually make perfect sense to me. But you have to master it. Beat it down. It’s a conundrum I know well: the need to stay when every instinct is screaming for you to go. I faced it every time I went to the hospital with Mom. I wanted to run as fast and as far as I could. From the tubes. From the machines. From t the smiling nurses who hooked up bags of poison that drip, drip, dripped into my mother’s veins in an effort to kill the thing growing out of control inside her. But for her, for Mom, I stayed.” – Miki from Rush by Eve Silver, page 48
“The pain, my fear – they piss me off. This is not the way I plan to make my exit from this life, kneeling on the floor, shaking and gasping. If I’m checking out, it’ll be on my terms – just like my mom. Near the end, every doctor agreed that there was no hope and every test confirmed it, so signed herself out of the hospital, declined heroic measures. For the longest time, I’ve been angry with her about that, too. But maybe, in this second, I understand her motivation just a little. She couldn’t change the destination. All she could do was pick the route.” – Miki from Rush by Eve Silver, pages 59-60
“It really doesn’t matter, but I need to know. I need explanations. Control. Information means I rely less on others and more on myself. Because in the end, that’s all anyone has.” – Miki from Rush by Eve Silver, page 144
“I catch Carly’s eye and lower my voice. ‘Oh, and Carly? Don’t do the bitch thing. Either we’re okay or we’re not.'” – Miki from Rush by Eve Silver, page 257
“I take a deep breath. I’m angry with her. She’s angry with me. And it’s all just stupid. What are we fighting over? Aliens could decimate our world today, or tomorrow, or the next day. I could die in the game like Richelle.
I could die outside the game, like Mom.
The only thing that’s really certain is this moment. The only thing I can control a hundred percent are the choices I make right now.” – Miki from Rush by Eve Silver, page 297
“I swallow and go back to my original question. ‘Why teenagers?’
‘Children are too young, too small, too weak. Adults have brains that exhibit fully formed neural connections. What you call getting pulled is far more difficult for them. Teenagers have valuable adult characteristics, but their brains are not yet fully wired in a set pattern. Adolescence is a time of profound growth and change for the human brain. The prefrontal cortex does not reach maturity until the middle of the third decade of human life.’
‘You’re saying that a teenager’s brain is better than an adult’s. Don’t hear that often.’
‘For the task at hand, yes. The adult response to a specific stimulus is generally more intellectual, more of a learned response. The teenager’s is more instinctual, and that is your strength.'” – Conversation between Miki and the Committee from Rush by Eve Silver, page 314
Rush by Eve Silver is published by Katherine Tegan Books, (2013).
Under the Moon by Deborah Kerbel
Summary: The death of Lily’s Aunt Su, her closest friend, worsens her insomnia to the point where she is not sleeping at all anymore. Internet research shows Lily that she can’t live without sleep forever, but without her nightly conversations with her aunt, she doesn’t know how to get to sleep. A three am walk in search of company and connection leads her to the village’s 24 hour drive thru where she meets Ben, a fellow teen pulling all-nighters by choice. Their subsequent friendship fills the loneliness of the long nights, and ends up changing both of their lives.
Number of Pages: 194
Age Range: 13-15
Review: I loved Deborah Kerbel’s character driven story about how Lily handles the death of her favourite person in the world, her Aunt Su. Even though Aunt Su is dead for a large portion of the novel, Kerbel really develops her as a loveable and complex character through the use of memories and letters.
There are several aspects of Under the Moon that I enjoyed. The first was the exploration of smalltown life. I know this is supposition on my part but I grew up in a smalltown along Highway 8 and Big Bend sounds a lot like a place called Grand Bend to me. With Ben being from Toronto, the big city, I appreciated the comparison between the two places, and I loved the ‘you know your town has arrived when you get a brand name restaurant’ part. In my town, it was a Tim Hortons.
Lily is a strong, engrossing character who swears in French. I have to admit I only understood about half of what she said because they don’t teach you the swear words in the French class you take at school, but I could sense the tone behind her words. Her journey through grief into a life where she opens up a little bit more to new friends and new experiences was well-developed and touching. Through Lily, Kerbel creates a narrative voice that will hook readers with her spirit and attitude.
Throughout the book Lily insists that she has not slept for a number of days and the number keeps growing, but no one seems to believe her. I liked that Kerbel had me believing that Lily did stay up for as long as she did without dying, but I was especially intrigued because Ben introduces a tiny bit of doubt when he asks how Lily knows she isn’t micro sleeping. Since not sleeping didn’t cause Lily to die after 18 days, I wondered if Ben was right, but I preferred to keep believing there was something about Lily enabling her to survive without sleep.
And lastly, with the romance aspect and the happier ending, it reminded me of the books I loved when I was a young teen myself. There was hope at the end of the story, and I appreciated that in a powerful book dealing with loss, death and the fear of dying.
Memorable Quotes:
“I can admit it: I’m not always the easiest kid in the world to like. But Aunt Su was different. She loved me and liked me and knew me and heard me and got me. If you’re every lucky enough to have someone like that in your life, never let them go. Trust me on this one. Chances are you won’t ever find a person like that again.” – Lily from Under the Moon by Deborah Kerbel, page 13
“If you’ve ever been awake at this time, you would know that it’s the ugliest, loneliest time on the clock. It always comes just after the moment when you feel like your brain is going to crack open from boredom. This is the times when all the most heinous parts of your life get replayed through your head in high def. The time when each and every moment of self-doubt is magnified through a super power optical zoom lens. The time when loneliness starts to tip towards insanity and you begin to believe what you want most in the world is to fall asleep and never wake up again. This time of night is the absolute bottomless black hole of the clock.” – Lily from Under the Moon by Deborah Kerbel, page 25
“Man, this guy has some serious charm issues! Suddenly on the defensive, I sit up as tall as I can on that stupid little stool and summon up my most disdained expression – which isn’t as it sounds. Trust me, if you haven’t been cursed with shortness, then you have no idea how hard it is to look badass when you’re five foot nothing.” – Lily from Under the Moon by Deborah Kerbel, page 41
“You’ve probably noticed by now that I love swearing in French. A few years ago, my second cousin from Rouyn-Noranda came to stay with Aunt Su for a summer. Robert taught me all the really choice French curses, which turned out to be really useful. If you know someone who speaks French, I highly recommend it. Learning those words was the only nice thing about having to share Aunt Su’s company with Robert for an entire six weeks. French curses give such a satisfying air of mystery to the simplest and dirtiest of English words … kind of like turning puke into pearls. N’est-ce pas?” – Lily from Under the Moon by Deborah Kerbel, page 63
“Yeah, I must be the only person in history to make friends with the moon. Sounds crazy, right? Well, I don’t care. Think what you want. The fact it, the moon is actually an angsty teenager in disguise. S’truth. Just think about it: it’s forever hanging back by itself in the sky – as aloof as a floating iceberg. And it’s constantly changing and passing in and out of phases. But it always finds a way back to its true self in the end.” – Lily from Under the Moon by Deborah Kerbel, pages 125-126
Under the Moon by Deborah Kerbel is published by Dancing Cat Books, (2012).
Brondings’ Honour by Ann Ewan
Summary: When Dayraven finds the Torc around her neck, a special symbol of leadership among her people, the Brondings, she doesn’t want it. With plans to be a healer, Dayraven resents the new role she must assume, seeking vengeance for Sigurd, the previous Honour of the Brondings. But it turns out Sigurd isn’t dead after all, and if Dayraven can track down the person who tried to kill him, she just might be able to go back to pursuing her dreams when she’s done. And by doing so, Dayraven will prove to her people that women can be warriors too.
Number of Pages: 246
Age Range: 14-16
Review: Ann Ewan thrusts her readers into a world where each of the seven clans are represented by someone called a Honour. I thought I would be confused but I wasn’t, because Ewan does an excellent job of setting up the politics and characters required to support her story. Instead I found I was rooting for Dayraven because although she finds herself in a situation she absolutely doesn’t want to be in, she still accepts the responsibility placed upon her and follows it through. Knowing it’s the right thing to do based on how she was raised helps her, but when she does get the chance to follow her dreams, she takes it.
I loved that for a fantasy book, it was relevant to everyday life. Dayraven lives in a paternalistic society and when she finds herself the Honour/leader of her clan, everyone is surprised not just because she is young, but because she’s a girl. No one including herself thinks she should be Honour, but she changes people’s perspectives when she completes her task so efficiently.
Caught between her career/dreams/family, she takes time away from her family at first only to realise if she is going to follow her dreams, she needs her family by her side. I liked it.
My favourite part though was the precision with which Ewan creates different dialects for the clans. It was believable and intriguing and I loved how it helped me really get into Ewan’s characters.
Memorable Quotes:
“‘Women know nothing about honour!’
‘Oh, and what about Ginnings?’ That was Dietric responding; ‘What do ye know about honour? Ye don’t even have one!’
‘She’s the best fighter you’ve got, right?’ someone shouted.
‘Wrong!’ Ethelred half turned. ‘It just shows that among the Brondings, even women can fight!’
‘The smallest Bronding child is a better fighter than most of ye!’ Thorstan yelled. Dayraven suppressed a smile.
‘My grandmother’s a better fighter than thee!'” – Conversation about women fighters from Bronding’s Honour by Ann Ewan, page 245
Brondings’ Honour by Ann Ewan is published by Thistledown Press, (2006).
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Amy Mathers has been passionate about reading from a very young age, and hopes others will share her enthusiasm for funding a teen book award. Read more Follow Amy
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