“The Book Thief,” by Markus Zusak (Knopf, 560 pages, $16.95)
Zusak’s stunning, lucid chronicle of an adopted girl’s life in Nazi Germany is destined for this year’s Newbery Award short list.
It is told from the vantage point of the startlingly compassionate character of Death. “I carry him softly through the broken street, with one salty eye and a heavy, deathly heart,” the narrator says, scooping up one special boy’s soul.
Germans and Jews receive equally detached treatment here, with the Jews’ stark plight portrayed as plainly as Adolf Hitler’s vicious megalomania.
Not all Germans bought into the Fuhrer’s vision, as Zusak repeatedly illustrates in examples of subtle but survivable subversions. His protagonists’ acts of larceny, subterfuge, treason and blasphemy include altering a copy of “Mein Kampf” into a painted story of redemption, secretly harboring a Jewish refugee and openly feeding Jewish prisoners.
In turns spare and elegant, wry and heartbreaking, this unpredictable novel is absolutely riveting. It should be required reading in every history class. Ages 9 and up.
“Stop Pretending (What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy),” by Sonya Sones (HarperTempest, 150 pages, $6.99)
This extraordinary collection of colloquial free verse, reissued after its original 2001 publication, chronicles the author’s memories of the year that her elder sister suffered a mental breakdown.
Spare, lucid and heart-rending, the verses are telegrams from the soul of a young teen struggling to find reason where none exists, and order in a life turned chaotic. Sonya fiercely loves her sister, yet is an adolescent yearning for normalcy in a life that’s anything but. Her sister’s brief forays into clarity inspire joy and despair.
“Stop Pretending” speaks to readers who unexpectedly find themselves caretakers of loved ones with any illness, mental or physical. Ages 12 and up.
“Between Mom and Jo,” by Julie Anne Peters (Little, Brown, 231 pages, $16.99)
Nick has two mommies – his conscientious birth mother, Erin, and her impulsive foil and longtime partner, Jo.
After 14 years of weathering one set of disapproving grandparents, several teachers who avoid asking about his home life, and some bullies who call him names, Nick has come to terms with his unconventional parents. Like any adolescent, he yearns for the unattainable ideal he sees as normalcy, a goal evaporating as tensions grow between Erin and Jo.
As his mothers’ partnership dissolves, Nick founders. He despises his mother’s new girlfriend. He misses Jo after she moves out and hates her for failing to take him along. He tells Erin, “You’re not my real mom.”
The untidy but satisfyingly pragmatic resolution promises a cautious optimism for Nick, and the narrative that bounces between present and past serves as a reminder that forgiveness and love are the true foundations of any relationship. Ages 13 and up.
“Twice Told: Original Stories,” collected and illustrated by Scott Hunt (Dutton Juvenile, 260 pages, $19.99)
This elegant collection of diverse short stories illustrates both the scope of this particular form of writing and the disparate interpretations that a drawing inspires. Artist Hunt asked 18 authors to write stories, assigning one drawing to two writers.
“Pool,” which shows a naked boy crouched at the edge of a backyard swimming pool, suggested two extremely different takes on the hereafter to writers Gene Brewer and Bruce Coville. Both seem to be told from the viewpoint of someone who is dead, or nearly dead, and both tap daunting wells of antithetical emotion.
Literature teachers and aspiring writers will find this lively, unpredictable and inspiring. Ages 9 and up.
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
