In which I share a few of my Best Kept Secrets

Kelly from YAnnabe emailed asking me to post my favorite YA books that aren't well known. I'm calling this the Best Kept Secrets list.

At the same time, I've been working on my best 2009 reads by people of color for the Diversity Roll Call. Astoundingly, but not surprisingly, all but one of my favorites for this list are also on my Best Kept Secrets list. (I've starred the books written by authors of color). The only one that didn't qualify as a Best Kept Secret was Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead*, which isn't a YA book and is more well-known.

I compiled my list, with Kelly's help, by looking at my Library Thing collection to see how many other members claimed my favorite YA reads in their collections. The list below links to my review and includes the number of members claiming the book, and the average rating out of 5 stars.


The Brothers Torres by Cooert Voorhees*. I called this The Outsiders with cajones, and it was one of my favorite 2009 books. 77 members, 4.11 stars.

When the Black Girl Sings, by Bil Wright*. I loved the backdrop of transracial adoption and music in this one. 48 members, 3.55 stars.

The Secret Keeper, by Mitali Perkins*. Two Indian sisters adjust to life with relatives in Bengali. 48 members, 4.27 stars.

Flygirl, by Sherrie Smith*. Amazing historical fiction about a black girl in the 1940s who's always yearned to be a pilot. She has her opportunity with the Women Airforce Service Pilots . . . as long as she's willing to pass for white. 132 members, 4.32 stars.

Incognegro, by Mat Johnson*. Speaking of historical fiction and blacks passing as white, this graphic novel is a gut-wrenching treatment of two black men who pose as whites in order to report on lynchings that took place in the deep south. This isn't YA but older teens would get a lot out of it. 91 members, 3.81 stars.

Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury. My boys and I enjoyed this virtual trip to Hawaii as we followed a troop of boy scouts who get caught in a natural disaster. 107 members, 3.99 stars.

Tallulah Falls, by Christine Fletcher. Tallulah is an unforgettable character who stumbles into a new life when she rescues a lost dog. 48 members, 3.46 stars.

The Speed of Light by Ron Carlson. I wrote that this beautiful coming-of-age book should have been marketed to adults as well as teens--I was sad that so many would overlook it. 29 members, 4.43 stars.

Ordinary Ghosts, byEireann Corrigan. I read this and the next two books pre-Worducopia, so my reviews are only on Library Thing. I said YA novels didn't get much better than this story of a boy grieving for his mom who recently died of cancer. 60 members, 4 stars.

10th Grade, by Joe Weisberg. I said, "This was my favorite book from the summer of 2006. I took it to a cabin in the San Juan Islands we were staying at with friends, and I laughed so much that every time I set the book down one of my friends had picked it up to read it." 101 members, 3.41 stars.

Trigger, by Susan Vaught. I wrote, "This book is intense. The author has worked with brain-injured teens and her character's story of recovery from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head is realistic and heartbreaking. Well, that doesn't make you really want to read it, does it?
Read it because the writing is brilliant. (Ever wondered what it would be like to think with a brain injury?) Read it because you'll connect with this character in a way that you might not have thought possible. Read it because you'll likely never forget this kid. One day you'll see someone acting a little odd, and you'll think of Jersey Hatch, and you'll see the person behind the odd behavior. Read it if you're a parent, and if there's a teenaged boy in your life, give it to him to read, too. 120 members, 4.35 stars.

Want to make your own list of Best Kept Secrets or check out some other bloggers' lists? Head over to YAnnabe for instructions and links.

*starred authors are those that I'm aware of being people of color.

Bookworms Carnival: Local Authors

Welcome to the end-of-June edition of the Bookworms Carnival! For this carnival, bloggers were invited to submit posts about their local authors, and they came through with flying colors. Let's work our way across the United States (since unfortunately I had no submissions from outside the U.S. this time) from east to west.

Boston, Massachussetts: On the Boston Bibliophile, Marie reports on her recent book club meeting with Boston-based author Scott Pomfret who wrote about his life as a gay Boston Catholic in the memoir she recently reviewed, Since My Last Confession.

Philadelphia, PA: The Betty and Boo Chronicles wrote a thank you note to Carolyn Haywood for her 111th birthday, reminiscing about the personal note she got from Ms. Haywood as a little girl, in response to a fan letter.

Rhode Island: Jess at Barney's Book Blog reviews November 22, 1963, historical nonfiction about the assassination of JFK by Rhode Island author Adam Braver.

Washington DC: S. Krishna submitted a review of Meredith Cole's mystery novel, Posed For Murder.

Chicago: Rebecca Reid blogs about Carl Sandberg's first poetry collection, Chicago Poems and its relevance to the Chicago of today.

Salt Lake City, Utah: Natasha of Maw Books Blog has challenged herself to read every local author in existence, and she's well on her way! She has tagged all her Utah author posts, to make them easier to find. Here are some of the highlights:

--She just posted a review of Shannon Hale's new book, The Actor and the Housewife.

--Here's the story of the day Natasha's husband met author James Dashner on the train . . . and how they eventually became friends.

--A review of Carolyn Jessop's Escape . . . and the day Natasha's neighborhood book club (many of whom knew Carolyn when she used to live there) dressed up as characters from the book.

--A review of Emily Wing Smith's The Way He Lived, which was recommended to Natasha in an interview with another local author, Sara Zarr.

Washington state: Michele at A Reader's Respite has a post spotlighting Debbie Macomber, including a picture taken in the town one of Debbie's novels was set.

Portland, OR: Rodney Koeneke reviews poetry readings. Most recently, he writes about a reading by locals David Abel and Beverly Dahlen.

Here's my Beverly Cleary Tour of Portland.

I interviewed YA author Christine Fletcher, who is a local veterinarian as well as the author of Tallulah Falls and Ten Cents a Dance.

One day last fall, my kids and I happened upon Bart King and Eric Kimmel giving out free milk and reading Halloween stories at A Children's Place, one of our local bookstores. (By the way I just bought yet another copy of King's book, The Big Book of Boy Stuff, for a young friend's birthday gift).

And, I just interviewed author Miriam Gershow, who used to live in Portland but now is a couple of hours away in Eugene. Her debut novel is The Local News.

California: Fizzy Thoughts takes us on a literary tour of San Luis Obispo county (home of Jay Asher of Thirteen Reasons Why fame, among other authors--and my parents!--and the setting for several Christopher Moore books).

Laura, of I'm Booking It, lives in the Silicon Valley, California, and has contributed her review of The Wednesday Sisters. She says, "I picked up the book at a local bookstore event, largely because it was set nearby."

Laura also has a review of The Writing on my Forehead, by Nafisa Haji. She says, "The author is here in Northern California, and the themes are very relevant in immigrant-heavy Silicon Valley.

Hawaii: Dreamybee had a heartwarming chance encounter with author John Orr at the beach.

Have you had an encounter with a local author? Are you more likely to give an unknown author a try if they're from your hometown? Do you notice where authors call home?

To submit a post for an upcoming Bookworms Carnival:

Edition 33 Theme: Whatcha Reading? – Your latest review or your favorite
Deadline for submission: July 10 2009
To submit a post, email: bookwormscarnival at gmail dot com

Edition 34 Theme: YA Fantasy
Hosted by: Bella at A Bibliophile
Deadline for submission: July 24, 2009
To submit a post, email: bellalee.mc at gmail dot com

Interview: Christine Fletcher, Part 2

(Read Part 1)
Christine Fletcher's "Ten Cents a Dance" takes place in Chicago, and begins with the U.S. on the verge of entering World War II. Ruby, 16, has left school to work in a meat-packing plant in the Chicago Yards. When she learns she can make much more money by dancing in the Starlight dance hall than by stuffing pickled pigs' feet into jars, it almost seems too good to be true. Chapter One is available online here.

Worducopia: You're far too young to have experienced 1940s conversations first hand, and yet the dialogue and voice seemed so natural--how'd you do that? By watching dozens of movies from the '40s, or what?

Christine: I adore movies from the 1930s and 1940s, and you’re right, I have watched dozens of them! I love the dialogue in those films; it’s snappy, witty and to the point, which is very much how I imagined Ruby thinking and speaking. Also, during much of the writing I played Ruby’s favorite kind of music, the real “hot” swing: “Sing Sing Sing,” “King Porter Stomp,” “In the Mood.” I wanted those hard, fast jazz rhythms to permeate the book, and they really helped bring her voice alive.

W: Not just her voice, but the setting, also. To me it almost felt like a soundtrack was running through the novel.

C: In an odd way, too, I actually did experience conversations from that era. My mom was a teenager during World War II, and I found myself using certain phrases, certain ways of putting things that I remembered from her and my grandmother. “Pocketbooks” instead of “purses,” that sort of thing. My mom always fell back into those rhythms when she talked with my grandmother. I didn’t consciously try to remember these things; they simply arose during the writing. It was like finding something from your childhood that you’ve completely forgotten; the memories were there, just waiting.

W: The social climate in the '40s was obviously very different from what we strive for today. Was it tough coming at certain issues through Ruby--that is, from a 1940s, totally non-PC, perspective? I'm thinking specifically of her attitudes toward Filipinos and African Americans, which sometimes made me cringe, especially at the beginning of the book.

C: One of the most difficult aspects of writing this novel was trying to accurately depict the social attitudes of the time. Since the book is told from a 1st person point of view, the reader sees the world through Ruby’s eyes, hears her story through her voice. So every word had to be true to her character and experience: that of a sixteen-year-old girl, poorly educated and not terribly introspective, raised in a society segregated by race, ethnicity and even, to a degree, religion. At the beginning of the book, Ruby has never had reason to question society’s attitudes or her own. To her, that’s just life as it is. Feminism and the civil rights movement are still twenty-odd years in the future, not even a gleam on her horizon.

It was tempting to smooth the rough, un-PC edges off the era and off my characters to make them more palatable to today’s readers. But then I’d have to pretend that prejudice, discrimination and sexual harassment didn’t exist…and I was writing a historical novel, not a fantasy. Plus, if I’d left out the ugliness, I would’ve had to leave out a lot of beauty, too. The black-and-tan clubs where, in an age of segregation, any race was welcome. The policy kings, who ruled a gambling empire. The rich, vital immigrant energy of Chicago’s Back of the Yards. These things existed, but they’re largely ignored by the history books. To leave them out of the novel would be disrespectful both to the era and to readers. That’s the challenge of historical fiction, after all--to portray the world as it was, warts and all, rather than how we’d like it to be.

W: Wow, you just gave me chills. Seriously.

C: I admit I was nervous that readers might think these were my attitudes, and not just my characters’. In fact, one reviewer was dismayed at the depiction of racism in a young adult book, saying I should have included an explanatory note that these attitudes are no longer acceptable. Maybe she’s right…but I’m pretty sure I can trust my younger readers to realize the difference between 1941 and 2008.

W: In fact, if you'd tried to cushion Ruby's attitudes to make them more palatable, you might have run a greater risk of the contrast being lost on some readers who are accustomed to the more subtle racism of our era.

C: So I kept both Ruby and the era true to their time, as well as I could. As far as conflict and character arc, it was fantastic--but it also created a lot of un-PC moments!

W: In my review of "Ten Cents a Dance," I said that I would have liked to get to know some of the male characters better, specifically Manny and Ozzie. They're both such intriguing characters, and yet in a sense you chose to downplay them--Manny's experiences, for example, are told in summary in Ruby's voice, rather than using dialogue to allow him to tell his own story. Were you tempted to give them a stronger presence? Did these guys have scenes (written, or in your head) that you had to omit in order to keep the focus on Ruby's story?

C: I really struggled with this, as well (you nailed all the toughest spots in the book!). In Manny’s case, telling his story in summary essentially came down to pacing and page count. Scenes have to move the story forward, and Manny’s experiences--as compelling as I found them--don’t advance Ruby’s story. Also, during the revision process I had to cut about forty pages to keep the book within acceptable length. So some things did get condensed, and this was one of them.

W: Ozzie gets more air time, and yet the emotional distance between him and Ruby keeps him distant from the reader as well.

C: Ozzie and Ruby's friendship had to be both true to their characters and plausible for the time. Since we can see Ozzie only through Ruby’s eyes, that emotional distance you feel is real. Their lives intersect only in the taxi-dance hall and black-and-tan clubs. Given the era, they can’t hang out on their days off, go to the movies or out for pizza or whatever. Their time together is limited. Plus, Ozzie is very ambitious and fairly guarded, so there’s a lot about him and his life that Ruby doesn’t know about or understand. But they’re both passionate people, and they’re attracted to that in each other.

At the beginning of the book, the idea of a relationship with an African-American man would never have entered Ruby’s head. By the end, she’s starting to glimpse the possibility…but not in time to act on it. Eventually, Ruby’s going to realize that Ozzie was the one she was talking about when she said that her true love could be standing right next to her, and she might not even know it.

Thanks so much for a great interview, Christine!

I highly recommend "Ten Cents a Dance" to anyone who remembers that era, as well as us youngsters and of course YA readers. You can order it from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or better yet, shop your local independent bookstore!

Interview: Christine Fletcher, Part 1

Christine Fletcher is the author of two young adult novels, Ten Cents a Dance and Tallulah Falls, which was named a 2007 Book for the Teen Age by the New York Public Library. In her other life, Christine is a veterinarian. She lives in Portland, Oregon, with her boyfriend and an assortment of rescued animals. On the web, she can be found at Christine Fletcher Books, where she has a delightful blog, Piccalilli.

Worducopia: In your talk, you mentioned your characters surprising you. I can definitely relate--the characters in the book I'm working on refused to cooperate with a major turning point I'd planned, so the ending is completely different from what I originally had in mind. When you start writing, do you know your ending? Did you know where Ruby would end up, for example, or did that happen organically as you wrote?

Christine: I did know the ending of the book before I started writing it. I wasn’t sure that was exactly where Ruby would end up, but it gave me a destination to aim for. Not just in terms of physical setting and situation, but also where the character might be emotionally, what changes might have taken place in her over the course of the book. Like you, I never know for sure where the action of the novel will take my characters, so I was open to a different ending. But it happened that the one I’d originally envisioned fell into place perfectly.

W: Some of my favorite scenes to read and to write are those that expose a characters' vulnerability and then their strength, in how they respond to it. For example, when Ruby first enters the dance floor at the Starlight, wearing the Wrong Dress. Is there one scene (or type of scene) that was especially fun for you to write?

C: Those are my favorite scenes to write, too, although I always have to make myself go there. My impulse is to go into the scene and pad the sharp corners, so to speak, so that my characters don’t have such a hard time and they come out winners. I always want to protect my poor characters! Which sounds nice, but of course it kills the conflict and tension I’m trying to build on the page, and it doesn’t allow the characters to grow.

W: This is so funny because I just posted about this exact thing on my other blog! I feel like I put my character through so much pain, but I realized at a workshop this weekend that I had set all sorts of difficult situations in front of him throughout the book which could make it a real page-turner, if only I didn't proceed to either solve them on the next page, or write around them so that he's all, "But it's okay, I didn't care about that much anyway."

C: That was a big hurdle I had to get over. Now that I'm aware of it, it makes writing the next book a little easier--I'm not wasting time trying to minimize damage to my character!

So when problems came up for Ruby, I as the author had to step back, keep my meddling hands out of it and imagine how she would respond. She surprised me every single time. That is the most fun, when the character surprises you. During the writing of one particular scene, for example, the action was running in my head almost as if it was a movie, and I was scribbling down everything the characters did and said. Out of nowhere, Ruby pulled this completely unexpected stunt that not only turbo-charged the scene, it raised the stakes to a whole new level I hadn’t anticipated. When I watched her do it, I actually said aloud, “Oh, no, you did not!”

W: I did too! I think I actually wrote that, almost verbatim, in my review.

C: The action was so authentically, outrageously Ruby, and yet I hadn’t planned it at all. I love that.

W: How long does it take you to move from one book to the next? Do you start getting ideas when you're still in the revision process, or do you need to completely finish with one set of characters before you can let the next ones move in to your head?

C: Once a cast of characters is in my head, they take over completely. All their stuff is lying around, they’ve flung dirty socks and pizza boxes everywhere, there’s not a square inch of brainspace left. It’s a mess.

W: I can relate to that--especially with adolescent characters, it can get pretty ripe in there!

C: Seriously, it’s not until revisions are done that I can clear out some space and dive in hot and heavy with a brand-new batch of characters. Before that, I’ll jot down ideas, and during any downtime--while the manuscript is off being edited, for example--I’ll start sketching out background material, doing research, etc. I know people who can work on two novels at once, but when it comes to my writing I’m a monogamous gal. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t…but sadly, we can only work with the number of neurons we’re allotted!

See Part 2, where Christine and I talk more about Ten Cents a Dance and the challenges--and benefits--of tackling sensitive issues from a historical perspective.

Ten Cents a Dance--Christine Fletcher

With her mother ill, it’s up to fifteen-year-old Ruby Jacinski to support her family. But in the 1940s, the only opportunities open to a Polish-American girl from Chicago’s poor Yards is a job in one of the meat packing plants. Through a chance meeting with a local tough, Ruby lands a job as a taxi dancer and soon becomes an expert in the art of “fishing”: working her patrons for meals, cash, clothes, even jewelry. Drawn ever deeper into the world of dance halls, jazz, and the mob, Ruby gradually realizes that the only one who can save her is herself.

I never lived during the 1940's and neither did Christine Fletcher, but after reading "Ten Cents a Dance" I'm almost convinced that we've been kicking around in Chicago together with Ruby Jacinski, 60 years ago. The music, the language, the smell of the meat-packing plants--it's all very real, in these pages.

Also real is the sense of hopelessness that comes with poverty, with the beginning of a war, and with being a young woman in a time of double standards, when marrying well was considered by many to be the best chance of success. Like the proverbial bull crashing through life's china shops (Well, smarter and far more feminine, of course, than the average bull), Ruby's next move is never predictable except in that it's likely to lead to disaster. But she'll never choose to give in--for Ruby, giving in means giving up on herself, on her family, and on ever leaving the Yards.

This makes the book sound very serious, and it is. But Ruby's plucky stubborness sets her firmly in the middle of near-impossible situations, and watching how she navigates her way out of them will bring frequent smiles and the occasional right-out-loud laugh or gasp of horror (she did what?!).

The only thing lacking is for the male characters to be fleshed out a bit more. Handsome bad-boy Paulie is a pretty straighforward character, carefully drawn so that the reader sees him for who he is despite Ruby's innocence. The more interesting men--Manny, a Filipino architect-turned-railroad-porter; Ozzie, an African-American trumpet player and composer--are both characters worthy of a book in their own right, but neither asserts his presence enough for the reader to get to know them fully here.

I wondered, as I read, how on earth this story could lead to an ending that wouldn't leave the reader disappointed: in Ruby, and in the book. But Fletcher comes through beautifully. Like a dish of sorbet after a heavy meal, the final chapter is just enough to give closure on Ruby's taxi-dancing misadventure, without overdoing it.

Coming in a week or so: An interview with "Ten Cents a Dance" author Christine Fletcher!

Christine Fletcher

After I had the pleasure of hearing Christine Fletcher speak about writing for young adults last week, I picked up a copy of her first book, Tallulah Falls, as soon as I could. She was positively inspiring, partly because she's a fun, dynamic speaker, partly because she really knows her stuff, and partly because she's a local success story and we can always use more of those.

Christine wrote Tallulah Falls with no intention of writing a Young Adult book. She wrote the story that came into her head, and the protagonist happened to be 17. After several publishers expressed interest and then ultimately decided to pass, her agent convinced her to try submitting it as YA. Within two weeks of submitting to children's publishers, she had herself a book deal.

Her rule of thumb to distinguish books with young protagonists that are marketed to adults (The Secret Life of Bees, for example) from those marketed as YA: it's all about voice and immediacy. If it feels like a teen is talking in the narration, it's probably YA; an adult reminiscing about their younger days is more marketable as adult fiction. This was so helpful to me, as I've been waffling about how to label the book I'm writing. It's not what I consider a "typical" YA book, and yet my protagonist is in-your-face eighteen, writing about events in his life as they happen--according to Christine Fletcher's wisdom, my first intuition (that I was writing a YA book) prevails.

But enough about me, let's talk about Tallulah. Impulsive and naive, Tallulah's the kind of character that makes you glad you're not her mom. Or her boss. Or the dog she rescues. This is not to say she's not likeable, it's just that she blunders her way into dead ends. Her current dead end has her stuck in Tennessee working for a veterinarian after traipsing across the country attempting to deliver some notebooks to her bipolar best friend. What follows is a story with unique characters who welcome Tallulah into their lives and help her along her way to finding her place in the world. In the meantime, there's no telling what Tallulah will do next, which makes this an enjoyable and unpredictable read.

Read further:
Interview with Christine Fletcher
Review of Ten Cents a Dance