Sweethearts

Author: Sara Zarr

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Publication Year: 2008

Most of the readers will be: Middle school and high school girls.

Reader's Advisory: For another book on a girl struggling with weight issues try Erin Dionne's Models Don't Eat Chocolate Cookies.

Summary:
Jennifer Harris had a difficult childhood. She was mocked for being overweight, her mother was rarely home since she was working and going to nursing school, and she had only one friend. But Cameron Quick was such a good friend that the bad stuff almost didn't matter. Cameron made her life bearable. Then one day Cameron disappeared and the kids at school told Jennifer that he was dead. Her mother didn't deny it, so that is what she has believed all these years.
A lot has changed since then. Jennifer Harris is now Jenna Vaughn. Her mother is remarried and working as a nurse. They live in a nice house and Jenna goes to a new school. She has friends and a boyfriend. And she's not overweight anymore.
What will happen to Jenna when a very much alive Cameron Quick steps back into her life?

My favorite passage:

Right before the summer between second and third grade I was in the back of my mom's brown Geo Prism, which was parked in front of the ugly building where we rented a one-bedroom apartment. Mom had gone inside to trade her Village Inn uniform for her nursing school scrubs before taking me to the babysitter. I remember that I had a library book about possums and I liked the way they walked on mossy logs and peered out from holes in trees and how their paws looked like little human hands. I tried saying it without a lisp. Possum, I whispered, putting my tongue behind my teeth the way I'd learned in speech therapy. Mossy possum paws. I'd be ready next time Jordana pointed to Sam Simpson and said, "Who's that, Fattifer? I can't remember his name." She made me nervouse, and it came out Tham Thimthon no matter how much I'd practice at home.
I didn't want to think about Jordana, so I opened my lunch box where I knew there was a plastic bag half full of crackers that I'd taken from a first-grader's lunch when she wasn't looking. Stealing food was a bad habit, more of a compusion really, and not only did I want a snack but also I needed to destroy the evidence, a process I enjoyed: holding the crackers in my mouth and feeling the hard, salty crunchiness dissolve into a slightly sweet mush. When I reached in my lunch box to get them, I found a small white cardboard box that I knew for a fact had not been there at lunch.
I slipped the lid off the box and lifted up a small square of cotton to see a ring with a silvery band and sparkly blue stone. Underneath the ring was a piece of paper that had been folded, folded, folded, and folded again to fit the box. I opened it. It was a drawing of a house with a fence around it, and a tree. Pencil-line rays from a round sun beamed down on two stick figures holding hands. Beneath the picture in a messy second-grade scrawl, it read:
To Jennifer,
I love you.
From Cameron Quick.
My mom got back in the car then, tossing her books onto the passenger seat and slamming the door. I watched her eyes in the rearview mirror as she asked, "Whatcha got there, kiddo?"
I closed my hand around the ring. "Nothing." (pg 6-7)

What I really think:
It took me a few chapters to get into this book, but then I was really hooked. I think that most of us have vivid memories of people and events from our childhood that in some way have shaped our lives. And as a teenager, when you are trying to decide what kind of adult you are going to be, you can wonder what to do with the feelings you have about your childhood self.
I like the way Zarr deals with Jenna's eating problems. The descriptions of how much she likes food are so convincing I started thinking more about how food tastes and feels myself. I began to really understand the comfort Jenna gets from eating. But when Jenna isn't eating for comfort she does try to stay thin in a reasonably healthy way: eating small portions of good food and exercising. I'm glad she has found a way to be happier with herself without going to the other extreme and not eating.

The Amethyst Child

Author: Sarah Singleton

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Year: 2008

Most of the readers will be: Late middle school and early high school girls.

Reader's Advisory: In Leaving Fishers by Margaret Peterson Haddix a young woman seeks to belong by joining a cult.

Summary:
Amber is a loner until she meets Dowdie. Dowdie as an energetic member of the Community who has a very different view of the world. Amber thinks the Community is a beautiful and simple place and she begins to spend more and more time there.
Not long after meeting Dowdie, Amber makes another new friend, Johnny. Johnny is much more skeptical of some of the Community's beliefs and of their leader, James, than Amber is. Always eager to please, Amber wonders what she should believe. Are she, Dowdie, and Johnny Amethyst children; the ones who will guide the world through uncertain times? Or is James a very talented con artist?

My favorite passage:

'Have you heard of Amethyst children?'
'No.'
'James - James Renault - he's the elder at the Community.'
'The leader? He's in charge?'
'Not leader exactly - but kind of. Years ago, a spirit spoke through him and predicted that all over the world special children would be born - children with gifts and abilities not seen before, who would lead humankind into the future. They would be the next evolutionary step.' Her freckled face was perfectly serious, her voice grave.
'These are the Amethyst children?' I said.
Dowdie nodded.
'They have certain features in common. They find it hard to fit in. They can't conform and struggle in ordinary schools, often because they are very intelligent and the lessons are too - obvious. So they get into trouble. They have an unusual perspective on things - take a contrary view. Some are healers, other are seers.'
'And you think you are one of them?' I tried to keep my voice level, wanting to express neither scepticism nor credulity.
'I don't think I am - I know so,' she said, staring at me, daring me to contradict or laugh. I did neither.
'How do you know?'
She laughed then - at stupid Amber. 'How do I know? How do we know anything? I know it because it's the truth.'
'So what does it mean? What are your special gifts?'
She put down the CD and stared at her hands. 'It's not something I can explain, just like that,' she said.
For a moment, I couldn't make out who she was - what she was doing. She was two things at once - older than her age, an adult in disguise. Or else a kid playing pretend, trying to lure me into her imaginary game. The two images diverged and drew together again.
She took another quick breath, as though she had made a decision.
'I think you're an Amethyst child too,' she said. (pg 10-12)

What I really think:
Sigh.

The story itself is interesting. It's like something ripped from the headlines. A cult leader with (spoiler) a secret stash of guns. And the interspersed chapters of Amber's conversations with the police keep the tension level up. You know something bad is going to happen. But what? And when? And how?

The problem is that I don't like Amber very much. I hardly even feel like I know her. The big things in the book that happen, mostly happen to her. Friends come and find her. They suggest things to do. Amber tells the reader that she likes to say what people want to hear. She sure does. She doesn't seem to have oppinions or motivations of her own. Maybe this is the point, but if it is I don't care. I still wish there were a little more to Amber.

The other thing I don't like about this book is the decoration around the page numbers. The number is centered at the bottom of each page. There is one circular doo-bob to the left of the number and two circular doo-bobs to the right of the number. The lack of symmetry bothers me.