Running Loose - Chris Crutcher

Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

CATEGORY: REQUIRED

Running Loose is about a teenage boy who has everything, a girlfriend and a spot on the football team that will hopefully get him a scholarship for college. And while everything is going great, one other football team is challenging their undefeated status. In order to win, their coach encourages them to injure the other team's star player. Louis tries to argue with his coach but is thrown onto the field anyway. His other teammates go ahead and injure the star player and Louis leaves the game. After accusing the coach of setting that up and then being told that he was lying, he decided to quit the football team. Shortly after, his girlfriend dies in a car accident. Eventually as a way to deal with his loss, he joins the track team.

As a sports novel it delicately deals with racism and loss. The protagonist uses his sports as a way to learn and to grow, and most importantly to heal. There's a really interesting image at one point in this novel; the protagonist and an older man are playing a game of checkers and discussing religion at the same time. Louis is upset with God and when Louis gets bored with the game, the old man explains this sport analogy to him saying that if life was easy, we'd get bored and we wouldn't want to do it. Life needs to be messy, and hard, and complicated because that makes it worth it.

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We Were Here - Matt de la Peña

We Were Here by Matt de la Pena
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

CATEGORY: REQUIRED AUTHOR

We Were Here is the story of a half-Mexican, half-American kid who gets into trouble. The story follows this coming-of-age novel as the protagonist, Miguel, experiences juvi and then a group home. In both of these places he makes unexpected allies. The three of them break out of the group home and begin on their adventure south towards the Mexican border. The intention is to start anew in Mexico, away from their troubled pasts. The novel is written as the journal entries that the judge required of Miguel as part of his sentence and we don't find out what he did to get stuck in a group home until the very end of the novel. The novel follows these three boys as they travel down California. And as they go they learn new things about each other, making friends in the most unexpected places, and develop a crucial understanding of their lives and the reasons for what they did.

We Were Here was a beautiful coming-of-age novel that shows the healing process of grief. De le Peña does a good job of writing his characters realistically and giving them a sense of depth that is difficult to do in YA literature. The novel itself sometimes felt kind of slow going but that meant that as a reader you were able to sit and process what you read. It was different from other YA lit, in a good way.

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All the Truth That's in Me - Julie Berry

All the Truth That's in Me by Julie Berry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

CATEGORY: REQUIRED AUTHOR

Berry's All the Truth That's in Me is about a young girl who was kidnapped and then returned home with her tongue cut out. I'm assuming that the novel is set in recently colonised America, at least that's the vibe I got as a reader. However, that fact is never fully revealed. The novel is all about Judith's struggle in readjusting to life at home. The town outcasts her because of her inability to speak but Judith, through the help of Maria, finds the ability to talk again. The book is written from the point-of-view of Judith but directed at her childhood friend, now turned love interest. As this develops so does Judith's will to share the truth of what happened in regards to her kidnapping and her friend's murder.

I have to admit that for the longest time I avoided reading this book. My roommate had suggested it to me previously but I judged it by its cover! When we had to read a Julie Berry novel for my YA lit class I finally caved in and read it. And I really liked it. The novel is totally what you wouldn't expect and very unique in the YA world. And although it has the cliché romance element to it, the romance is nuanced and the novel focuses more on Judith's growth and development with the entire town in her endeavour to tell the truth.

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The Sea of Trolls

The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

CATEGORY: REQUIRED AUTHOR, FANTASY

The Sea of Trolls is much different from Nancy Farmer's more well known fantasy novel, House of the Scorpion. While both are fantasy, Farmer shows her ability to write from a wide range of sources. The Sea of Trolls follows the adventures of a young saxon boy, Jack, who is kidnapped by vikings, or the Beserkers, who have the ability to descend into a wolf-like madness. Jack saves the thrall lives of himself and sister by proving that he has the abilities of a bard, magic. Once he finally reaches his Viking captors home, he causes problems my accidentally magicking the half-troll queen's hair to fall off. Jack, and his frenemy, Thorgil, must travel to Jotunheim, the land of the trolls, battle dragons, and talk to crows, in order to reach a well that supposedly has the power to grant Jack the magic he needs to fix the half-troll viking queen's hair and save his little sister Lucy.

I was surprised at how easily Farmer was able to write believable fantasy from multiple cultures. House of the Scorpion is set in a futuristic Mexico while The Sea of Trolls cleverly employs old English and Viking lore to tell a story that seems much more like the typical fantasy adventure. And although it may appear to be typical fantasy literature, Farmer does a good job of reinventing the quest story. Her characters while battling dragons and giant spiders, also struggle with gender equality, insanity, serious viking anger issues and contrasting religions and cultures. Farmer does an excellent job of portraying good and evil as a grey area, her characters are people and not heroes and villains. I would say that the novel is epic fantasy for a younger audience.

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