Life: An Exploded Diagram

Life: An Exploded Diagram, Mal Peet (Walker Books)

A historical love story - John van de Ruit's Spud meets the most concise and enjoyable history book you've ever read - this is a book not to be missed.

Clem is a council flat boy. Frankie is the wild(ish) daughter of a wealthy local landowner. They shouldn't be together but can't keep apart. But meanwhile the shadow of nuclear warfare and the Cold War looms and threatens. Indeed, we spend chapters with JFK as he botches the Bay of Pigs and tries to decide what the heck to do about Russian nukes in Cuba.

It might take you time to get into it, you may at times think come on come on, get back to Clem and Frankie, but by the explosive end you'll be left reeling and want to start again immediately. The aftershocks will continue for days.

back to the roaring twenties!

Beautiful Days, Anna Godbersen (Razorbill)

We've been waiting for this sequel to Bright Young Things for a while now.

It's summer in Long Island and Cordelia, Letty and Astrid have been spending their days lazing about the pool and attending lovely parties.

Cordelia is still feeling guilty and sad about the death of her new-found father and starting to get used to living the life of a high-profile bootlegger's daughter and sister. When her brother Charlie asks her to open a family speakeasy she jumps at the chance. But what about the mysterious pilot Max...who doesn't approve of her lifestyle? And why does what he think matter so much to her?

Astrid might be engaged to Charlie but without a ring can she really trust that her arrangements will go ahead as planned? Especially when her fiance is always away... Is she just chasing a pipe dream?

Letty is still trying to make her name on the stage. Cordelia is helping, but Letty still feels like she could make it on her own. There's a bit of a romance blossoming with scruffy writer Grady, but there's a chance Letty might mess it all up. Can this songbird create a glittering future for herself?

Dances, dresses, fancy drinks and dashing gentlemen - this is a really enjoyable and fun book that gives you a great taste for the flavour of 1920s New York.

New Jackie French! Nanberry: Black Brother White

Nanberry: Black Brother White by Jackie French (Harper Collins)

For really, really good Australian young adult (and middle-grade) historical fiction, Jackie French has always been a winner - just look at titles such as Somewhere Around the Corner, The Night they Stormed Eureka, and her recent A Waltz for Matilda. With Nanberry: Black Brother White she delivers an excellent fictionalised account of the First Fleet’s settlement at Sydney Cove, spanning the years 1788 to 1823, and using real historical figures to do so. Nanberry is the young indigenous boy who grew up half-English, half-Aboriginal, adopted by the Chief Surgeon John White when Nanberry’s entire people were killed by an outbreak of smallpox. French gives us such a rich view of the colony and its everyday workings, weaving them into the story effortlessly and without the dreaded information “dump”. She also doesn't gloss over the nasty parts of first fleet colonial life, such as the treatment and plight of Aboriginals, the terrible treatment of women in the colony, the drunkenness and violence of both soldiers and convicts (they are the real ‘savages’ in this story), malnutrition and the ‘tyranny of distance’. All of the characters are well drawn, with distinct voices, and French offers two strong female characters in Rachel and Maria. Nanberry: Black Brother White is a powerful novel; it would fit excellently into the Australian schools curriculum but it will also satisfy any reader from 11 up, including grown-ups.

--Kate--

This review originally appeared in Bookseller+Publisher magazine.

Nobody Owns the Moon

Nobody Owns the Moon, Tohby Riddle (Puffin)

Clive the fox lives in the big city and has managed to make a nice little life for himself in a place where animals generally find it hard to fit in.

Humphrey the donkey is finding it harder, just living day to day, but he has a friend in Clive and one night they happen upon tickets to a play, to the glittering premiere.

For children and adults to peel back the layers, discovering all its meanings, Nobody Owns the Moon is a beautiful, bittersweet story with remarkable and detailed illustrations.

This wonderful book is NOW IN PAPERBACK!

Ever wake up in someone else's body?

Flip, Martyn Bedford (Walker Books)

Fourteen year old Alex wakes up one morning. Alex wakes up six months after he went to bed. In Manchester, when he went to bed in London. Alex wakes up in Philip’s body – in Philip’s house, with Philip’s family.

This is a very intriguing body-swap story, detailed and psychological. While he does explore the more silly and light hearted side of waking up in someone else’s body – there’s the issue of Philip (aka Flip)’s multiple girlfriends, his reputation with his teachers, his relationship with his big sister and the idea of going to the toilet in someone else’s body – Bedford really focuses on the more serious side to create a truly gripping story. Alex researches his condition on the internet to find that it’s not unheard of. He joins a community of psychic evacuees and starts to piece together the puzzle of just what has happened to him. If he is in Flip’s body, then what has happened to his old body?

Flip is an intense and moving story with excellent characters and an intriguing premise. Highly recommended.

--Kate--

Die For Me

Die For Me, Amy Plum (Atom)

16-year-old Kate is from New York. After her parents die in a car accident, she and her big sister Charlotte move to Paris to live with their grandparents (luckily they are both fluent in French!). Kate spends her days reading in cafes, going to the cinema or browsing through museums and galleries, wallowing alone in her misery, until one day she meets a dashingly beautiful stranger. He falls for her, she falls for him – but he’s no ordinary boy ... Is she strong enough to be a part of his dark world? It might have a cheesy title, but Die For Me is a reliable and enjoyable addition to the teen supernatural romance genre, with the added benefit that it’s set in Paris, complete with trendy bars and hipsters. Though Plum is a self-confessed Twilight-addict, she’s deliberately created a protagonist with a bit more integrity than dearest Bella. Much of the novel involves handsome-boy explaining all the supernatural stuff to Kate as well as introducing the characters, so it feels like there should be a sequel, but there’s no talk about that yet. Here’s hoping!

--Hannah--

Teen Review : Where She Went

Where She Went, Gayle Forman (Doubleday)

Gayle Forman's first book If I Stay really was mind blowing. It made the reader really think about loneliness and what comes after death.

The sequel, Where She Went is set three years after Mia's accident.
’It’s been three years since Mia walked out of Adam’s life. And three years he’s spent wondering why.’

The story is written in Adam's perspective as he struggles with his fame and his memories. When Adam and Mia's paths cross in New York, they have a second chance. But can one magical night be enough to answer all their questions?

I love the way Gayle Forman makes you feel like you are part of the book, not reading words off a page or looking on to a scene. It's like you are there, Mia's and Adam's closest friend, their confidant.

While reading the book (and after!) I felt sad, frustrated and anxious – sometimes all at the same time! But eventually I was jumping up and down in excitement and joy!

After reading If I Stay I never would've thought a sequel was possible but I think the way Gayle Forman did it is brilliant!
'Where She Went' is a truly memorable book: when you're not reading it, you're thinking about it, and when you're sleeping, you're dreaming about it...

All up 'Where She Went' breaks your heart, fixes it, breaks it, and fixes it again.

So uplifting! I rate it 5/5

Fantine

~~Fantine is a member of the Younger Sun Teen Bookclub~~

Where She Went, Gayle Forman

Where She Went, Gayle Forman (Doubleday)

The sequel to Forman's 2009 fantabulous debut tear-jerker If I Stay.

We pick up the story three years after the car accident that killed Mia's family - and this one comes from Adam's point of view. His band has exploded onto the world stage, he lives in LA with a movie star girlfriend, smokes and pops pills to stay calm. He hasn't seen Mia in three years.

Then one night, alone in New York, he happens upon a concert by a young cello virtuoso. The very same Mia. The past is going to be explored, over one New York night (one of our favourite things to read about, here at the Younger Sun) as Adam has to confront his demons and try to understand why she left him.

A romantic, little bit heartbreaking story. Highly recommended 15+

--Kate--

Should I read Triple Ripple?

Yes, yes you should.

Triple Ripple, Brigid Lowry (Allen & Unwin)

A lovely, quirky story told in three parts: the writer, the reader, and the fairytale.

Glory has left her mother and family to work in the Royal Palace, where she finds out about a curse that threatens her very life.

The writer is trying to write Glory’s story properly, sometimes she has to rewrite the very chapter she just finished - maybe there was a factual error (cameras weren't invented yet!), or the story just wasn't strong enough, or maybe the characters just didn't say their lines properly.

In the “real world” the reader Nova is having trouble with a horrible girl, Dylan, at school and reading her way into Glory’s world is the perfect escape.

Lightly metafictional, this is the perfect book for girls (and boys) who love reading, writing and a little bit of not-quite-magic in their tales.

From the author who brought you such gems as Guitar Highway Rose, Follow the Blue and With Lots of Love From Georgia.

Recommended 12+

--Kate--

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters

From the author of How to say goodbye in robot, Natalie Standiford comes...

Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters (Scholastic)

It is Christmas and Lou Almighty is very upset with the Sullivans. One of them has offended her and if she does not receive a written confession and apology by New Year's Day they will all be removed from her will, and therefore cut off from her substantial inheritance.

The family - Ginger, Daddy-o, St John, Sully, Norrie, Jane, Sassy and little Takey - get together and decide who it could have been to offend their fearsome grandmother so much. Unanimously, they decide it must be one of the girls.

"And so it was agreed that the three girls - Norrie, Jane, and Sassy - would spend their Christmas break writing out a full confession of their crimes, to be handed to Almighty by midnight on New Year's Eve.

After that, they would have to hope for the best."

Was it Norrie's falling in love on the boy from her Speed Reading class that did it?

Was it Jane's tell-all blog?

Or was it that Sassy had murdered someone?

A wonderful, very funny and must-read book!!

14+

Fairytale detectives? YES!

The Sisters Grimm by Michael Buckley

If you want to read a book that’s funny, really really cool and full of action-packed adventures I would recommend this.

The Sisters Grimm is an amazing book about two girls who catch up on their local ancestry and find out that they’re related to the famous brothers Grimm. When their parents disappear, and a red handprint is found on the car that they were driving in, they get moved to a place called Fairy Port landing to live with there grandmother and her mysterious butler Mr. Canis.

Soon they realise that all the stories that the brothers Grimm wrote are based on actual fact. Then they discover that this little town is home to every fairytale creature that was ever written like Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and pretty much everything else. But some of the fairytales aren’t actually true, some of them are mixed and twisted and EVIL!

So it is up to the sisters to whip them back into shape and stop them from destroying the town and getting out of the secret barrier that seals them off from the rest of the world. So if you want to embark on this amazing adventure that involves cracking open this book and laughing and maybe a little bit of crying as well as being on the edge of your seat or bed or anything this is the book for you.

The Sisters Grimm books in the series:

1. The Fairytale Detectives
2. The Unusual Suspects
3. The Problem Child
4. Once upon a crime
5. Magic and Other Misdemeanours
6. Tales Of the Hood
7. The Ever after war
8. The inside story
9. Coming soon...

Review written by: Harrison John Clark
Age: 11

Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss, Stephanie Perkins (Penguin)

Left unceremoniously by her parents in a Paris boarding school, Anna is alone and scared in a country she doesn't know and with people around her speaking a language she doesn't understand. America seems very far away, and these Frenchies seem very different. Luckily Anna is quickly swept up by a friendly group of fellow students - a group that includes the gorgeous, charming and very friendly Etienne St Clair.

Anna and the French Kiss is a romantic and funny story about being independent, foreign cultures, cinema, friendship and love.

For readers 14+

If you're still unconvinced, here's John Green (yes, the Nerdfighter and author of Looking For Alaska John Green) having a little rant about it.

Hey Teenager! Do you love Christmas?

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (Allen & Unwin)

From the authors of the excellent Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist and Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List comes this gorgeous and funny Christmas-themed story about geek-chic - or maybe just geek - Lily (who loved Christmas) and snarly hipster Dash (who does not love Christmas).

Dash finds a red notebook at his favourite bookshop (no, not the Sun Bookshop) in between his favourite author's books. On the front it says DO YOU DARE? and inside is written:

I've left some clues for you.
If you want them, turn the page.
If you don't, put the book back in the shelf, please.

...and so begins a mad-cap game of dares and adventure. christmas carols, department stores, Madame Tussauds and insane relatives. It's clever, very very funny, heartwarming and full of Christmas cheer. This is one of my favourite books of the year.

--kate--

Six Impossible Things, Fiona Wood

Six Impossible Things, Fiona Wood (Pan Macmillan, $16.99)
A funny, emotionally honest story of first love, with a fairytale backbeat.

Fourteen year old nerd-boy Dan Cereill is not quite coping with a reversal of family fortune, moving house, new school hell, a mother with a failing wedding cake business, a just-out gay dad, and an impossible crush on Estelle, the girl next door. His life is a mess, but for now he's narrowed it down to just six impossible things...

"I loved this book so much I wanted to be in it." (Kaz Cooke)

"Dan Cereill is an odd sock and an absolute sweetheart. His journey through the joys and stings of first love, suburbia, humiliation and reinvention will make you smile and cheer for the underdog. It's impossible not to love this book!"(Simmone Howell, Everything Beautiful)

We LOVE this book. It is funny and clever and sweet. All the characters are people you would want to be friends with. You will love this book. Come and check it out.
Kate and Clare were lucky enough to go to the launch of Six Impossible Things last night and we got to meet Fiona, who was so nice and friendly. Kaz Cooke launched the book, and she was HILARIOUS.