Looking for JJ
By Anne Cassidy
Harcourt, $17
Ages 14 and older
Imagine the worst thing you ever did as a child. Everyone has something embarrassing to hide. But 17-year-old Alice has had to disappear for her transgression. At age 10 she murdered her best friend.
The brutal crime Jennifer Jones committed was great tabloid fodder at the time; now that she has been released from prison, the reporters are scrambling to learn what has become of the child killer. The newly renamed Alice is keeping quiet. She has a boyfriend and a job in a cafe, and is about to enter college in the fall, and only two other people know she is the highly sought after JJ.
As a private detective and a sneaky reporter threaten to blow apart the new life she has begun to build for herself, Alice must revisit the past, slowly revealing what she did and gaining a greater understanding of her motives.
This British novel, originally published abroad in 2004, is a tense psychological thriller. It is terrifying in its portrayal of a neglected young girl who lashes out at those around her, but it is even more astounding in its expression of the blank anguish the older Alice experiences as a not-quite-clean slate.
Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You
By Peter Cameron
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16
Ages 14 and older
James Sveck likes his grandmother and the late introverted British author Denton Welch. That’s about it.
He has no friends, his family doesn’t get him, and he can’t quite wrap his mind around his awkward attraction to John, an older gay colleague at his mother’s dull Manhattan art gallery.
Although James is expected to attend Brown University in the fall, all he wants to do is buy a house in the Midwest and read books. He is antisocial, cynical, prone to anxiety attacks and a little bit depressed — and his narration of life is quite droll and affecting.
James is frozen in his fear of letting anyone or anything have too much of an emotional impact on him:
“Mother Teresa wanted to be the best saint, the top saint, so she did the most disgusting things she could do, and I know she helped people and relieved suffering and I’m not saying that’s bad, I’m just saying I think she was as selfish and ambitious as everyone else. The problem with thinking this way is that if you want to avoid this kind of ambition and selfishness you should do absolutely nothing — do no harm, but do no good either. Do nothing: don’t presume to interfere with the world.”
When James finally does interfere with the world, in a misguided attempt to reach out to John, he comes under attack for sexual harassment and is forced to reconsider what he wants out of life. James Sveck is a brilliant wit of a character whose voice will echo long after his story ends.
A Ticket to Ride
By Paula McLain
Ecco, $24.95
For older teens
Paula McClain’s debut novel, “A Ticket to Ride,” which traces the perilous friendship between two girls over the course of a muggy summer in 1970s rural Illinois, was written with adults in mind, but teenage girls particularly will find its dark, edgy material attractive.
“It’s not technically a teen book, but it is concerned with adolescence,” McLain said in a telephone interview. The Cleveland-based author grew up in a series of foster homes in California. While writing a memoir, she became fascinated by the positive and negative influences young women have upon each other. “It’s a little like first love and a little like mortal combat,” she said.
In “A Ticket to Ride,” 15-year-old Jamie is blown away by her worldly older cousin, Fawn, who moves in with Jamie and Jamie’s uncle after committing an unmentionable act back home. Fawn quickly gives Jamie a makeover, then indoctrinates her into the boozy world of drugs, sex and older boys.
McClain nails the sense of vulnerability, desperation and undying willingness to comply that many insecure girls experience when they suddenly find themselves basking in the glow of another, more-popular girl. The more Jamie reveals and shares with her new friend, though, the better the grasp Fawn has on her — which leads ultimately to devastation.
“If you pour your secrets into a flawed container,” McLain said, “it can be really dangerous.”
Off-Color
By Janet McDonald
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16
Ages 12 and older
Cameron is a feisty 15-year-old who lives with her single mom in Brooklyn. They have second-hand furniture and shabby clothes, but she is happy. She knows her neighbors, she has her solid group of girlfriends, she gleefully skips out on school now and then, and she loves to jam to her music.
Good times are ending, though, now that her mom has lost her manicuring job and they have to move into a housing project. Cameron flips out: How is a white girl like her going to survive in an almost-all-black housing project? Her friends may play-speak ebonics, but that’s about all Cameron knows of African-American culture.
During the move, however, she makes a discovery that gives her a new perspective on identity: Cameron’s absentee father was black. After her initial shock and fear dissipate, Cameron begins to find that her small world has now expanded in new, thrilling ways. For one thing, those “scary” project girls are just teenagers, like her, who like to have fun too.
Readers will enjoy Cameron’s attitude, which, despite her roller-coaster moments of anger and sadness, is relentlessly upbeat as she explores what it means to be black — and white. Janet McDonald is the author of many books for teens, including “Harlem Hustle,” “Chill Wind” and “Spellbound.” Sadly, “Off-Color” was her last book. McDonald died of cancer in April 2007.
Another Kind of Cowboy
By Susan Juby
HarperTeen, $16.99
Ages 14 and older
Alex Ford has always loved horses, and when he’s 8, his father surprises him with his first horse, a docile old guy named Colonel Turnipseed. As pleased as Alex is to have a horse for a pet, his father — a hard-drinking man who won Turnip gambling — is just as delighted to have a rough-and-tumble cowboy for a son.
Alex becomes a dedicated horseman, working hard to groom Turnip, winning riding competitions in Western Canada and keeping the peace at home, where he is his now-single father’s sole source of pride. Yet the boy pines for another aspect of horsemanship: dressage. He desperately wants to wear fancy European clothes and take a gleaming stallion through the gymnastic paces known as horse ballet. Turnip, however, is not dressage material — and as Alex is painfully aware, neither should any son of Mr. Ford be.
While Alex tries to come to grips with this unrequited longing, another young person lurking around the stables is in the opposite predicament. Cleo O’Shea has been exiled to Alex’s small hometown, to an equestrian riding school for wayward girls. An heiress with a mysterious past, Cleo has all the money in the world for dressage but none of the will, discipline or desire. When she and Alex find themselves working at the same stable, it seems like their different work ethics will keep them at a distance. Soon, though, they forge a friendship that will prove strong enough to help them both over the toughest hurdles they’ll ever face.
Bonus read: Be sure to check out “The White Darkness,” by Geraldine McCaughrean, winner of the American Library Association’s 2008 Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature. It’s a chilly tale of one girl’s struggle to survive in the Antarctic.
What’s your favorite children’s TV show?
Do you rock with “Hannah Montana”? Or are the brothers from different mothers, Drake and Josh, more your thing? From “SpongeBob SquarePants” to “The Suite Life of Zach & Cody” to classics such as “Scooby-Doo,” you have your must-see TV shows. Now you can tell us why. The Tribune is asking kids 14 and younger, with their parents’ permission, to review their favorite children’s series, and the best ones will be printed Saturdays on the TV page in the Tempo section. The reviews must be 150 words or fewer. E-mail them to ctc-arts@tribune.com with your name, address and the daytime phone number where we can reach your parents. In the subject field, write “KIDS TV REVIEW.”
