December 23, 2004
YA9&10: Whale Talk & I am the Cheese
Two more books for the teen pile this week:
I Am the Cheese : a novel
by Cormier, Robert.
[New York] : Pantheon Books, c1977.
233 p.
My opinion of this book was probably not helped by reading it while feeling sick, but its not one of my favorites of the bunch -- and psychological thrillers are not really my cup of tea anyway. In this one, "A young boy desperately tries to unlock his past yet knows he must hide those memories if he is to remain alive." It has received a ton of awards, including being an ALA Notable Children's Book; An ALA Best Book for Young Adults; A Horn Book Fanfare Honor Book; A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year; and A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year. School Library Journal called it "A horrifying tale of government corruption, espionage, and counter espionage told by an innocent young victim...the buildup of suspense is terrific."
It reminded me of the really disturbing Buffy episode where she wakes up in a mental institution and can't tell if that's the hallucination or if her whole life being a vampire slayer is the fiction and life in the institution is the reality.
Whale Talk
by Crutcher, Chris.
New York : Greenwillow Books, c2001.
220 p.
This is one that I really liked. I liked the main character TJ and his quest to form a swim team of the most unlikely characters. I'm looking forward to reading Crutcher's autobiography, King of the Mild Frontier : an Ill-Advised Autobiography (which is also on my class reading list and which luckily was in at the library tonight... but then I left it at the reference desk, doh)
The description given of this book is that: "Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students." The more touchy-feely review includes that, "Together they'll fight for dignity in a world where tragedy and comedy dance side by side, where a moment's inattention can bring lifelong heartache, and where true acceptance is the only prescription for what ails us."