Richie's Picks: Great Books for Children and Young Adults

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"I want somebody who sees the pointlessness
And still keeps their purpose in mind
I want somebody who has a tortured soul
Some of the time
I want somebody who will either put out for me
Or put me out of misery
Or maybe just put it all to words
And make me say, you know
I never heard it put that way
Make me say, what did you just say?"
--Ani Difranco "Asking Too Much"

"She kept her hand there, covering my mouth, for a long moment. And then she took it away. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I shouldn't have -- it's just that --' " 'No,' I said. 'It's true.'
" 'What's true?' my mother asked.
" 'I am disturbed,' I said. I thought about what the word meant, what it really means to be disturbed, like how a pond is disturbed when you throw a rock into it or how you disturb the peace. Or how you can be disturbed by a book or movie or the burning rain forest or the melting ice caps. Or the war in Iraq. It was one of those moments when you feel you have never heard the word before, and you cannot believe it means what it means, and you think how did this word come to mean that? It seemed like a bell or something, shining and pure, disturbed, disturbed, disturbed, I could hear it pealing with its true meaning, and I said, as if I had just realized it, 'I am disturbed.' "

We regularly encounter a multitude of great YA characters about whom we might easily find consensus in proclaiming each as being disturbed. What makes for an interesting YA character if not the fact that he or she is disturbed? But it is a far rarer occasion when I fall in love with a particular disturbed YA character for his or her unique observations and insights.

When a character is especially successful at revealing a totally new way of looking at things, we are often so surprised and delighted that we find humor in that character's insights. YOU DON'T KNOW ME by David Klass remains one of my absolute all-time favorites because of John's abilities in this regard. Last year's Tom Henderson (aka KING DORK) captured my fancy for the same reason. And, of course, the universal appeal of SPEAK stems in large measure from Melinda's wry observations about her peers and teachers. That these characters are seriously disturbed only adds to the humor we find in their surprising insights.

"I knew my mother was right, but that didn't change the way I felt about things. People always think that if they can prove they're right, you'll change your mind."

The newest character to thoroughly captivate me with his insight is eighteen-year-old Manhattanite James Dufour Sveck:

"When we were young, Gillian and I used to play a game called Mental Asylum. Gillian was the doctor and I was the patient and she would administer shock treatment to me. She'd anoint my temples with a cotton ball dabbed with Listerine, shove her field hockey mouth guard into my mouth, and then clamp the stereo headphones on me. When she plugged the cord into the stereo I would go stiff and cross my eyes and tremble epileptically and Gillian would hold me down and say 'ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.' It's odd what facets of life children incorporate into their play. I started to think about this, about how we wanted to assume the dreariest aspects of adult life: playing office, playing store, playing mental asylum, when I once again became aware that Dr. Adler was saying something."

James has been persuaded to begin sessions with Dr. Adler due to his being disturbed and, especially, in light of what happened back in April. It was then that James was one of the two New York State delegates to the week-long "seminar thing in Washington, D.C.," called The American Classroom. It is now the summer between high school and college, and James is at the point that he wants to forego college and find a little old house in the Midwest where he can be away from people and play little house on the prairie with a stack of great books for accompaniment.

What did happen in D.C. and how did James get to the point he is now at?

Kudos to the art director for a cover that motivated me to pluck this book from the huge pile and caused me to know James Dufour Sveck. In SOMEDAY THIS PAIN WILL BE USEFUL TO YOU, author Peter Cameron has written a compelling and hopeful tale for high school-age kids about a teen you've really got to meet.

Richie Partington
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