When Lee, a Vietnamese sixth grade student, falls in the cafeteria and drops his lunch, a beautiful green-eyed girl named Autumn helps him up when everyone else is laughing.  Neither know that they will eventually change each others’ lives forever. Lee is a geek, a smart skinny boy who gets bullied a lot by a meat head named Jay.

Jay lives on the “troubled side” of town and failed the 3rd grade three times.  Lee soon finds out that Autumn isn’t the only person that is about to make sixth grade seem just a tad bit better. Ryan, the sixth grade star athlete, comes to Lee’s aid, saving him from Jay’s fist and ultimately directing Lee’s life down a new path.

Ryan and Lee become good friends.  Ryan encourages Lee to try out for track, and Lee’s father thinks he should go out for wrestling.  With Ryan’s encouragement and friendship, Lee begins working out and building confidence.  And then there’s Autumn.  She and Lee swear to be best friends forever, no matter what happens, but their young hearts yearn for more by the time they get to high school.

While in sixth grade himself, Tommy Tran made it a goal to write his first novel by the time he was a senior in high school. Tommy now attends high school in Virginia, and Forever and a Day is his first book.  And what a first book it is!  I was very impressed by the various subject matter that Tran tackles in such a short book. Not only does the book focus on teen love, high school, sports, self confidence, and bullying, but Tran also touches on parental separation, sex before marriage, cancer, religion, and racism.

While there are a myriad of topics here, making this book very appealing to its intended audience, don’t assume it’s too much for a book whose body of text is only around 110 pages.  Tran’s story is organized nicely and does not stray too far from his central theme.  While Lee deals with the everyday battle of acceptance amongst his peers, we see that strong male bonds and positive role models, like Ryan and his wrestling coach, can ultimately change a teen’s life forever.  Tran reiterates this when we see Lee come in last in all of his track meets, but he ultimately excels at wrestling and becomes head of the team, learning “life lessons on and off the mat.”

Then, there’s the subject matter of teen love, which is also handled in a very positive and healthy light. Lee and Autumn are good friends and enjoy hanging out together, but a kiss soon changes that.  I assumed their relationship, and eventually break up, would be the central overall theme of this book, but Tran pushes the limits of his characters far beyond that – and I think other readers will be shocked to see just where Lee and Autumn’s relationship takes them.

One small part of the story that resounded with me was a flash back scene of the first time Lee went to church with his mother and father. “We don’t like your kind in here,” is what they are greeted with at the door, but Lee’s father teaches him to be above that.

As I got older my dad told me, you have to “out love” people like that. People are so ignorant, so blind, that they can not see the contradiction of their actions. Still I never forgot those people and that church. Those cold glares. The disrespectful gestures. The way their body language spoke. They loathed us. They judged us. But they didn’t know us. How sad that those people call themselves Christians.

Love is the theme here, and not just between a teenage boy and girl. Tran shows his reader the boundaries that exist around our hearts because we refuse to step outside them, and what happens when we learn to love unconditionally – with a broken heart or not.  After the episode at church, Lee says this early on in the book:

Love. If it’s out there, I don’t think it’s for me. If it does exist, I think it’s self sacrifice. Life the way my dad works. He works every night he can, trying to make as much money as he can, to support us. To summer me and him. I think that’s the closest thing to love there is. The ability to sacrifice ones time and life, to help another. The ability to look past ones self, in order to help another. Basically, you have to be selfless to love. And honestly, there’s no one in the world that’s selfless. Right?

Lee, and the reader, soon learn that he’s right.

With a little bit of attention to editing and grammar, there’s a lot of potential here, but looking past even that, I was very impressed with Mr. Tran’s first book.  It is definitely something to be proud of, and there are life lessons here that make this an appealing read for teens of all ages.  Tommy, you rock!

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Have you ever been in a situation in which you have been uncomfortable? Where you don’t know what to say? Or, when faced with a new task tend to panic? If you understand any of those feelings, think how Leah Nells feels, because every minute of every day is a struggle for her to get through. Not even comfortable spending time with her own mother and father, after all, they are probably going to ask her questions that she won’t be able to answer, Leah lives a very isolated existence. And things are about to get worse. She is 14 years old and will be starting high school. She’ll have to contend with a new campus, new classes, new teachers, and perhaps worst of all, more students. The thing that Leah clings to are her books. Even the books Leah reads are different from the norm. She won’t read novels, and tends to like lengthy, non-fiction books with very few pictures. For example, some of the titles Leah picked out were The Little Book of Earthquakes and Volcanoes, The Biomechanics of Insect Flight, Attracting Birds to Your Backyard, and The Social Construction of the Ocean. Now, don’t get any ideas about Leah being a top student, because she isn’t. When she has read all of the books she has on hand, her mother will take her to garage sales and Leah can pick out any books she wants, and her mother will buy them for her. Or at least that’s how things used to be.

As she approaches high school, Leah’s mother becomes more and more frustrated with her socially awkward daughter. It is her greatest wish that Leah fit in and make a friend or two. Her wish is so great, that she pushes Leah in ways that are in some respects cruel. For example, at the start of Leah, Leah and her mother are cruising garage sales, and at the last one they visited, Leah found a book she wanted and her mother handed her the money and told Leah she would wait for her in the car. Now Leah, thrown into an unexpected situation, was unable to cope with the expectation that she pay for the book instead of her mother, and was unable to face it, so she put the book down and returned to the car in shame. Her mother was upset that Leah couldn’t make a simple purchase at a garage sale.

Mrs. Nells clearly comes through as one of the biggest antagonists in Leah, and I’ll admit that Mrs. Nells was the character I disliked the most in the book. I understand wanting her daughter to achieve more, and I understand Leah is a difficult child in many respects, but having a mother who has been my champion my whole life, I found Mrs. Nells animosity toward her daughter disturbing.

  At the mention of her name, Leah stood up and started to go downstairs, but she stopped when her mother said, “No, I’m OK. Cooking helps me take my mind off things, and that’s what I need right now. And leave Leah in her room. I don’t want to see her right now.”
  “Why not?”
  “I’m still upset with her.”
  Leah sat back down on the stairs.
  “Because of what happened on Saturday?” Mr. Nells asked.
  “Partly. I know it’s not the first time she’s behaved like that, and it sure won’t be the last time, but I just hate it when she’s so difficult in public. I can’t help but wonder what other people must think. Like I told her, she’s fourteen already, but she still doesn’t even have the courage to buy a book unless I’m standing right there holding her hand.”
  “She’ll learn. It’ll take time, but she’ll learn. She just needs some help.”
  “Well,” Mrs. Nells said with conviction, “I don’t know who’s gonna help her, but it’s not gonna be me! I’ve had it with her. If she wants to hide in her bedroom forever, then that’s fine with me. We’ve done all we can for her—it’s up to her now.”

I know several parents who are unable to sever the cord with their children and continue to enable them well into their adulthood. But at 14, I believe a mother should still be there to support her child. If the statement was made right after the incident, I could even discount it as letting off steam, but to still be angry with your child for the inability to make a purchase on their own two days after the fact is carrying the animosity to a degree of disproportion. Most parents would be delighted that their 14 year old had difficulty in taking money from them and spending it. Antagonists in literature are necessary, and Mrs. Nells is certainly not the worst mother in the world, just not very likable. The primary antagonist in this piece is Leah’s silence itself. Her inability to communicate verbally except for on a minimal basis is Leah’s deepest shame, and her greatest desire is to overcome her silence.

So many questions filled her mind. Why did she have to be the only girl at school who was shy? No one else had any trouble talking to people or making friends. It didn’t seem fair. Why me? she asked herself. Was this what her life would always be like? Was this moment, alone in her bedroom, unhappy, not only her present and her past but her future as well? She had so many questions, but here in the isolation of her room, there were no answers. Only silence surrounded her and offered itself—the same silence that had been her lone companion throughout her life. Only silence; always silence.

J. M. Reep gives us a calm and thoughtful novel bringing us into the mind of Leah and her struggle against herself. The quality of Reep’s writing is excellent, and the characters are clearly drawn and realistic. Leah is a detailed character study of shyness and introversion. One of the concepts I found to be most unique was the use of Leah’s books, many of which she didn’t even like, as a way to pass time. Leah liked to read them slowly, because if she read too quickly, then she would have to suffer through another trip with her mother through garage sales to pick out some more. She didn’t really enjoy reading the books though, and this concept seemed especially foreign to me. Of course, like Leah, I read avidly as a youngster, and still do to this day, but unlike Leah, I enjoy the books I read, and if a book bores me, I move on to the next. Life is too short to read boring books. I thought it a strange twist to have a character clinging to books like a toddler clings to a security blanket, and have the character not really enjoy the books she clings to. Leah brings to those of us who are not crippled by shyness an understanding of those who are, and for those who identify with Leah Nells a sense of relief from the knowledge that there are others who struggle against debilitating introversion.

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When I saw Minnie posted for review request, I knew I wanted to review it even before I read the preview. There was just something about it that appealed to me and drew me in. In fact, I put dibs on the book before I read the preview, and then realized I had better do my homework first and find out exactly what I was getting myself into. My instincts were spot on, because as I read the preview, I knew the protagonist for Minnie was my kind of character.

Sadey Leach has reached her senior year of high school, is barely scraping by in her classes, and her ability to graduate is in question because she has not completed the compulsory number of volunteer hours required during her high school career. Sadey is very Goth girl in her appearance, black hair, black clothes, heavy dark makeup, and has an irreverent and uncaring attitude she projects to the world. With an attitude as black as her appearance, and bouts of underage drinking and experimentation with pills, Sadey Leach appears to be on a self-destructive path with no redeeming features.

Minnie is a fluffy grandmotherly type of seventy-nine who resides at Forest Hills Convalescent Hospital and is confined to a wheelchair. Minnie is very lonely, as she does not frequently have visitors and has been praying that God will send her a friend to give her some company. On Sadey’s first volunteer day, she wheels Minnie, who says she feels like Queen Wilhelmina when someone pushes her chair, to the table for dinner.

     “This is Hell! This is Hell!” Sadey said behind clenched teeth as a resident’s fart entered her vicinity.
     “Please don’t say that.” Sadey glanced down at Queen Wilhelmina as she fought with a bib.
     “What?”
     Wilhelmina sat as straight as she could. “Young lady, God frowns upon swearing.”
     Sadey bent down close to the woman’s ear. “I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to work for twenty-four hours because I want to get out of this Hell-hole called Woodridge.” Sadey fastened her bib and moved on, rolling her eyes so hard she thought she damaged the nerves.
     Wilhelmina felt the intended sting by the girl’s words. Lord, when will You bless me with that friend? She knew that getting something as grand as a friend wouldn’t come easy and without complications like the girl with thick makeup masking her face like an oil change gone wrong.

As the character of Sadey develops, we find her public persona is simply a defense mechanism against the situations in her life. Saddled with an alcoholic mother who has an endless parade of men coming through the house, and the responsibility of caring for her three year old sister because her mother didn’t want the baby and refuses to care for her, Sadey is barely hanging on. All of her mother’s income goes to alcohol and cheap cigarettes, so Sadey finds odd jobs where she can to help provide food for herself and Cora. The closest thing to a mother-daughter relationship Sadey has experienced in her life, is when her mother left discarded magazines for Sadey to read. Relying on her neighbors, Mira and Darius Finn, to watch Cora while she volunteered at the nursing home alleviated one of the issues in Sadey’s complicated life.

After a few more visits at the Convalescent Center, Minnie invites Sadey to unburden herself to a willing listener when she’s ready, and shortly after Sadey takes her up on the offer. Through their growing relationship, Sadey learns that while Minnie looks the part of the archetypal grandmother, Minnie has had a hard past, yet has a sweet soul and a positive attitude toward life. Sadey becomes the friend Minnie had been praying for, and through Minnie’s influence, Sadey is changing not only her appearance, but her attitude and outlook on life.

Ashley Lane spins a tale which has all of the elements of a good story; love, loss, growth, relationships, hardship, drawing the reader in from page one. As I read Minnie I was reminded of the following quote:

A reader is not supposed to be aware that someone’s written the story. He’s supposed to be completely immersed, submerged in the environment. ~ Jack Vance

In a few broad strokes, Lane paints the picture of two souls who were meant to meet, and the impact they have on one another ripples out to their surroundings. Minnie espouses good Christian values without being preachy, and shows how overcoming bad circumstances is possible. It contains a message of hope and love which is uplifting. Even the cover, though simple, conveys a message to the reader. A sunny background, a wheelchair, and a butterfly, all add up to a message of hope and the circle of life. Ashley Lane delicately and deftly depicts characters at both ends of the spectrum, one entering adulthood, and one nearing the end. She captures the feelings of loneliness and invisibility which plague our aging population, and equally well portrays teenage angst at its height. The peripheral characters are also excellently portrayed and I feel like I know them; they could all live in my neighborhood. I laughed and cried, and the characters have stayed with me days after finishing the book, which is what we look for from a good read.

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DeGrassi Junior High, DeGrassi High, Saved by the Bell, 90210, Dawson’s Creek…the list goes on and on of irresistible melodramas which have sought to capture the essence of teen life through the years, often with a high school setting since those four years of a teenager’s life can certainly be ever changing.  I know mine were.  These days, our brains can’t fathom these made up tales and we wanted to hear from real people, people like us, so we handed kids a camera and told them to go film their “real” stories.  But we’ve discovered reality isn’t any better.  But that’s television!  What books were your reading in high school?  Were there any that stick out in your mind, that possibly changed your life at that time?

I was stuck in a Stephen King phase in high school, determined to read every word he’d written even if it took me four years to do it.  So, to research what kids are reading these days, like any computer literate American, I Googled it.  When googling “teen novel,” I was quickly redirected to several best selling lists composed by various people at Amazon.com….Princess Diaries, some girl named Alice, Harry Potter, the Twilight series…what ever happened to Blubber, Freckle Juice, and It’s Me Margaret?

Back then, it was “just say no,” pimples, and popularity.  These days it’s teen pregnancy, guns in school, and more drugs.  And even though more stories these days are based on fantasy and vampires, there is one theme that hasn’t changed through the years. Acceptance. Kids till vy for popularity and attention.  They all want to be #1.  That’s why I found Robert Toonkel’s book, Chappaqua, to be a classic take on those old themes from what teens were reading yesterday but still a timeless fresh, and eye-opening, look at teens in today’s high school setting.

Based on the cover alone – a pale robin eggshell blue with a picture of a statue, obviously some important dignity somewhere, and dark blue letters with a subtitle that reads “Slight imperfections in America’s perfect town” – you’d probably think this was going to be a history lesson on some corrupt political figure or East coast war that textbooks forgot.  Even the simple title, Chappaqua, sets you up for either an unknown community piece no one but locals would care about or some piece of Kennedy-like Peyton Place gossip.  But all of these assumptions are completely wrong.

Instead, it is the story of Katie Fitzpatrick.  She’s about to be a senior, and she’s the girl everyone else desires to be.  She has perfect grades, great looks, lots of friends, she’s an all-star athlete and writer for the school paper.  She’s the center of attention among the girls and the guys. It’s the all-American dream for any teen on the verge of their final year of high school.  But sometimes people like that probably wish they were dreaming.

Now, Katie may sound like a predictable character sketch we all know (or personally knew while in high school), but Toonkel paints his characters with such realism and belief that it makes this story new all over again. The author pushes his narrative forward with excellent use of dialogue, interesting description, and a touch of humor.  Imagine over hearing bits of a hundred conversations in the hallway between classes or at prom, but being able to understand everything with great accuracy.

The mod system, which always included “J mod” for homeroom, had given rise to a new language on the Greeley campus, one whose mastery required both time and skill. Visitors from other schools might think they were on another planet when they heard students asking one another, “Can we do this during QRS?” or “Do we have five-mod biology today?” Plenty of Greeley students had graduated with an advanced knowledge of calculus or chemistry, but no idea whether a TUV class began at 12:50 or 12:55.

Toonkel uses his setting, the town of Chappaqua, as an ideal place where such a perfect student can grow up in the perfect town.  But, he throws a wrench into its well oiled wheels which sends Katie’s real life dream spinning out of control.  Conflict builds as Katie falls deeper into trouble after one single “life-altering” event, and seeks understanding and guidance from the very community that denies anything could be wrong.  After all, they’ve put Katie on a pedestal and made her the center of attention (imagery conveyed quite beautifully on the book cover).  How could anything be wrong?

There are valuable lessons here for both parents and teens, as we experience one young girl’s drastic fall from the top.  Sure, most of us didn’t like the cool and the popular if we weren’t part of them, but they may still need people to turn to when they aren’t crying wolf.  Regretting reaching out to them after it’s too late is not something any teen should suffer from. After all, no matter how much we excell at, we still all breathe the same air and need a friend to count on from time to time.

Although quite long and still in need of a bit of editing, Toonkel’s story is original and well thought out. The last chapter alone will have you thinking about Katie for a long time after you’ve closed the cover. Thanks to Robert Toonkel for creating an excellent and inspiring read for teens of today, and yesterday.  This book is a lesson in life every teen shouldn’t learn the hard way.