Sometimes I Think I Hear My Name

I selected Sometimes I Think I Hear My Name after reading a bio of Avi on Wikipedia and his official website. I like to look up author bio's because it is helpful to have a little background on their writing career. I also try to pick their first or earliest published work available from my library. This story is among his earliest works.

Avi explained on his official website why he wrote Sometimes I Think I Hear My Name. The story is inspired by a friend of his son and it intrigued me. Avi didn't know all the details of this boy's personal experiences, but wrote this story assuming this was how and why it happened. His story and real life were similar.

Conrad Murray's parents divorced and neither parent wanted him. So Conrad was being raised by his aunt and uncle in St. Louis. Conrad visits his parents in New York, but such visits were becoming fewer and fewer. Instead of taking the trip to England that his aunt and uncle gifted to him, Conrad decided to visit his parents on his own. He ventures into New York City and meets up with a girl he barely knows from his home town. This girl, Nancy Sperling, also has a difficult homelife. Both children form a strong friendship while searching for Conrad's parents. Once Conrad does find his parents, he realizes his aunt and uncle were protecting him from the ugly truth.

At one time young adult novels liked to explore topics about divorce, abuse, and other tough problems. Most kids these days do not like to read these stories because they don't want to be reminded of their own problems. They like escapist fantasy fiction. The story is well written and I did want to finish it, but I don't see it being very popular.

Book Rating: 3 stars

Friday Night Knitting Club

Books that feature a certain craft have become popular for the last few years. Somehow Friday Night Knitting Club made it to the New York Times bestseller list. They all seem to follow a similar theme. A story about women who gather to share their love of a craft while helping each other or solving a mystery (some are murder mysteries, go figure). This one, of course, features knitting.

A few years ago I read The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber. It is a similar story about a single woman who opens a yarn store. I didn't love this particular story but the characters interested me enough to finish it. I never did read the sequel(s).

The Friday Night Knitting Club is about several characters but centers on a single mom who, you guessed it, opens a knitting shop. Several women gather on Friday nights to stitch and gab about their lives.

I only read the first few chapters. None of the characters interested me at all. It's the same boring feminist literature that is so common. A struggling single mom becomes pregnant by a jerk who becomes an absentee dad until one day when he decides to grow up. Each and every character has some bad relationship which contributes to their need to pick up knitting for therapy. Boring.

I have to be fair and say that I returned the book. I can't say if the book gets better. I have heard there is some kind of tear jerker ending, but I wasn't willing to wade through the muck to get to it. The story has mediocre reviews, despite being on the NYT bestseller list. Even so, it has spawned at least two sequels: Knit Two and Knit the Season I am not opposed to reading these kinds of books, but for goodness sake they need to be a bit more interesting. Maybe like The Persian Pickle Club.

Book rating: I'd rather purl.

Nothing but the truth - A documentary novel

It is ironic how timely my reading of this book has become. This last week a story came out about some high school students who were sent home for wearing t-shirts with the American flag. This was followed up with a media frenzy, radio talk show tirades, and school administrators passing around blame on lower level officials. The similarities between this book and news events are so striking it is almost eerie.

Nothing but the truth was originally published in 1991. It is about a young boy who wants to get on the high school track team, his one true interest in school. But he has a big problem. He is failing his English class and cannot try out for the team. He then decides he must transfer to a different teacher who will make things easier for him. Over the next week, the boy hums along with the national anthem as it is played over the speakers. This is in defiance (?) of the instructions to stand at respectful silence while it is played. Or is it?

It is unclear that the boy's humming was his intentional plan to get transferred to a different English class. But his actions result in a political furor when he is suspended for disruptive behavior. A media frenzy erupts and lives are changed. The author leaves it up to you to decide what the truth is, dropping hints about individuals' true motivations. The reader can also observe a break down of true communication in which each individual only hears what they want or expect to hear rather than the truth. The story ends rather sadly because no one tells the truth.

I am still digesting this book. It won a Newberry to critical acclaim. BUT, it is not a book that the average teenager would pick up. As a "documentary" novel, most of the text is written as a screen play interspersed with school memos, diary entries and letters. IOW, it's different enough that I would expect teenagers to completely ignore it unless compelled to read it. Also, it is sad. In this era of fantasy young adult literature, it's not very appealing. The book has relevance though, so maybe it should still be on the shelf.

Book Rating: 3 stars

Animorphs: The Invasion

Despite my previous review of Search for Senna, I picked up another K. A. Applegate book. My library has several of the Animorphs series, so I picked up volume 1 in the series to see what it was all about.

In Animorphs : The Invasion story, a group of 5 friends have an encounter with a dying alien. This alien, an Andalite, gives them the gift to morph into animals once they acquire the DNA of an animal. The alien wanted to give humans the ability to fight the Yeerks, an alien species with an "invasion of the body snatchers" mission against humanity. The leader of the Yeerks is an Andalite under the control a Yeerk, an apparently bad combination.

The story is fast paced and fun. The author does a good job describing the morphing process and how it feels to be an animal. The book is written for a junior or juvenile fiction level and it would appeal to some in that group. BUT my library has these books located in the Young Adult section, which is probably more appropriate. While there is nothing too naughty in the books, there is violence and an implied romance. Some younger kids may have difficulty with that, though to be honest it is not any worse than some cartoons (how sad is that?)

In any event, I am tempted to pick up book 2 in the series.

Book rating: 3 stars.