K: Stephen King & CARRIE

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.”- Stephen King

CARRIE (Pocket, YA/Adult) is one of the first Stephen King books I read. The story is about a young girl who uses her telekinetic powers to start a fire at her prom. The fire kills the high school classmates who have humiliated her and the teachers who have stood by while she suffered.

While there are many things about CARRIE that are troubling- a uber-religious lunatic mother, school bullies, and being drenched in pig blood at prom- what drew my heaviest sigh is Carrie's obliviousness to Sue's intent to be her friend until the damage Carrie caused is irreversible. If Carrie knew Sue wanted her to go to the prom with her boyfriend Tommy because Sue genuinely wanted to do something nice for Carrie, I believe the ending of the story could've been different. It is important for those who are drowning in loneliness and despair to know someone cares. 

Have you read CARRIE? If you had telekinetic powers, what would you do with them?

J: Joan Lowery Nixon & THE OTHER SIDE OF DARK

For the Blogging from A to Z Challenge this month, I am blogging about authors whose work, mostly YA, I read when I was younger. 

"I wish that when I was young I had asked my parents and grandparents to tell more and more stories about their lives before I became part of them. I wish I had listened intently so that I could remember each and every word. I wish I had written their stories to keep forever." -Joan Lowery Nixon, THE MAKING OF A WRITER

The first Joan Lowery Nixon book I read is THE OTHER SIDE OF DARK (Delacorte, YA)  When the story begins, Stacy, 17, wakes up from a coma. She learns she has been in a coma for four years after being shot in her backyard by an intruder when she was 13. Stacy is devastated to learn that the intruder also shot and killed her mother. Only Stacy can identify her mother's killer, if only she could remember who he was. The killer knows Stacy has woken from her coma and is one of the many people now reaching out to her...

While grieving the loss of her mother, Stacy also mourns the loss of four years. People around her are not the same as she remembered them. Her older sister got married and is now pregnant. Her best friend has another best friend. Even her own body seems foreign to her, as she has physically transformed from a girl into a woman while in the coma.

Have you read THE OTHER SIDE OF DARK? If you had to fall into a coma for four years, what and who do you hope to wake up to?

I:Isaac Asimov & EVIDENCE

"Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments." -Isaac Asimov

Today I'm sharing about a short story found in Issac Asimov's I, ROBOT (Spectra, Adult). Disclaimer: I've read only that one story in the book. The short story I'm referring to is EVIDENCE, a tale about political mudslinging before a mayoral election. (Here I am, discussing political mudslinging during a presidential election year...)  In the story, a lawyer named Stephen Byerley is running for mayor. A political rival accuses Stephen, who has never been seen eating or drinking, of being a robot. And robots, by law, cannot run for political office. When Stephen demonstrates that he can eat an apple, a robopsychologist wonders if he is simply a robot with a built-in stomach. 

To further prove that Stephen is human, there must be evidence of him harming another human because robots, by their own law, cannot harm humans. When Stephen is giving a campaign speech out in public, a man challenges him to hit him. So Stephen strikes him and proves he is human. After Stephen is elected mayor, the robopsychologist visits him. She tells him that his political rival believed Robot Stephen took his intelligence from The Real Stephen, once severely injured in car accident. Stephen reminds her that he harmed a human, something robots cannot do. The robopsychologist reminds him about the law's loophole, which is that a robot can hit another robot masquerading as a human. Maybe the heckler Stephen hit was his plant. Then she leaves. 

The short story doesn't reveal whether Stephen is indeed a robot or a human. If he is indeed a human, his promise to protect the rights of humans accused of being a robot makes him seem noble. But if he is a robot serving in a public office meant for a human, that very claim could mean that he is using deceit to serve the interests of robots. So I don't know what to make of this protagonist.

Have you read EVIDENCE? How would you react if you found out that an elected public official you either like or don't like is actually a robot?

H: S.E. Hinton & THE OUTSIDERS

"Every teenager feels that adults have no idea what's going on. That's exactly the way I felt when I wrote THE OUTSIDERS." -S.E. Hinton

Reading S.E. Hinton's THE OUTSIDERS (Speak, YA) around the beginning of junior high, I felt I was shadowing "older bad boys." In the book, there are two rival gangs- the Greasers and the Socs. Ponyboy is a Greaser. The catalyst occurs when big brother Darry hits Ponyboy, prompting Ponyboy to run away from home. Ponyboy joins fellow Greaser Johnny. Johnny ends up killing a Soc to save Ponyboy. Now the boys have to go on the run...

This book gave me my earliest exposure to Robert Frost's poetry. Ponyboy recites "Nothing Gold Can Stay" as he and Johnny are watching a sunrise. I remember being enamored by the poem and saddened by Johnny's final words to Ponyboy, "Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold..." 

In the back of one of the newer editions of THE OUTSIDERS, S.E. Hinton shares she started writing the book when she was 15 and finished when she was 16. That was also the year she got a D (yes, a D!) in creative writing at school. Nonetheless, according to S.E. Hinton's Wikipedia page, THE OUTSIDERS has gone on to sell more than 14 million super plus copies since its publication in 1967. 

Have you read THE OUTSIDERS? What's a subject you've thrived and excelled in despite a bad grade you received for it back in school?

G: Neil Gaiman & CORALINE

“You don't get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.” -Neil Gaiman

CORALINE (William Morrow, MG) is the first Neil Gaiman book I read. The book is about a girl named Coraline who moves into a new apartment. One day she discovers a world in the neighboring apartment that strangely parallels what is in her own home-including the other mother and other father, who resemble her own parents, even though these other parents have buttons as eyes and paper white skin. The other parents ask Coraline to join their home permanently where she can always enjoy their good food (better than what she gets at home) and other luxuries. It's implied they might have to physically mutilate her if she were to become one of them. Coraline wisely rejects the invitation. 

In the story, Coraline remembers how her father once allowed himself to be stung by a swarm of wasps in order to save her from the predicament. She knows her parents love her. The book is about a child's faith in the love her real parents have for her, and this faith empowers her to reject the more glamorous but dark world the fake parents offer her.

Have you read CORALINE? Have you ever rejected acceptance?

F: Norma Fox Mazer & TAKING TERRI MUELLER

"Ideas come in every possible way you could imagine. I've had ideas come to me from dreams, from memories, conversations, news articles, letters, and certainly from plain old garden variety daydreams or fantasies." -Norma Fox Mazer

Norma Fox Mazer's TAKING TERRI MUELLER (William Morrow, YA) is about a girl named Terri, who has moved around quite a bit with her father. Now 13 years-old and living in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she is finding herself more curious about her mother who, says her father, died in a car accident when Terri was four. Otherwise, her father doesn't like discussing her mother. One day Terri goes through her father's things and finds out that her parents divorced a year after her mother had supposedly died. The truth comes out: Years ago, Terri's father kidnapped her and her mother is still alive and has been waiting on her return for the past eight years. Terri locates her mother, now living in Oakland, California and the two reunite, but after Terri makes her mother promise that her father won't get in trouble. At the end of the story, Terri must decide whether she should stay with her mother and get to know her family or return to her father, now waiting on her to return.

This book was published in 1981. If Terri's story actually occurred today, Terri and her mother could've found each other online, since neither Terri or her father have changed their names. Nonetheless, it's gratifying to read a good book, such as this one, showing how characters could problem solve before the Internet existed. But that said, now that we have the Internet, I do hope it can be a valuable resource for children to locate and connect with a parent and loved ones if they are in Terri's situation.

Have you read TAKING TERRI MUELLER? Can you name any pre-Internet books you've read where the problem solving would have been simplified if the Internet existed then?

E: Ellen Conford & A ROYAL PAIN

It's Insecure Writers Support Group day, which occurs on the first Wednesday of every month. This month, I'm excited to be part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme: authors whose work I read when I was younger. This is not really an "insecurity," but as I'm writing this, I still have a few more posts to complete to fulfill this month's blogging challenge. So I hope to get to that when I have a spare moment!

“I am disturbed by the number of children and adults who have never experienced the joys of reading a book just for pleasure. Therefore, I write the kinds of books for children and teenagers that I liked to read at their age, books meant purely to entertain, to amuse, to divert." -Ellen Conford

A book I read more than once when I was a 'tween was Ellen Conford's A ROYAL PAIN (Scholastic, YA). Abby, 16, finds out she is really a European princess, that she was switched at birth with a commoner. After leaving the only family she has known behind in Kansas, she moves to a small European country, assumes the identity of a princess, and tries to get to know her new parents, the king and queen. She also has to live with the girl who had mistakenly taken her place, who is cold and unfriendly. While Abby crushes on a young journalist, she is stuck in some prearranged engagement to an unappealing prince. At the end, Abby learns there was a mix up and she was never a princess after all. 

This book feeds into the fantasy that young girls may have (whether they admit it or not) about being a princess. Here, the protagonist gets that proverbial wish fulfilled, and finds out that while being a princess has its perks, it also has drawbacks too. 

Have you read A ROYAL PAIN? Have you ever gotten something you wished hard for, and if so, was it everything you'd hoped for?