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

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"And they don't need no friends.
As long as they gaze on Waterloo Sunset,
They are in paradise."
--The Kinks, "Waterloo Sunset," the best song Ray Davies ever composed and performed.

"As Soon as School Gets Out

Sophie runs up to me at the goalpost.
And when we kiss,
her lips on mine are like CPR ---
breathing the life right back into me...

When we finally pull apart,
Sophie says, 'We can't let them beat us, Robin.
They'll get tired of it, tired of us.
And then they'll stop.'

'What makes you so sure?' I ask.
But before she even has a chance to answer,
I say, 'Wait. Let me guess --
sometimes you just know things, right?'

Sophie grins at me and punches my arm.
'Exactly,' she says..."

There are relatively few books published as far back as 2001 that I continue to booktalk on a regular basis. As the years and the presentations go by, I am constantly adding exciting new books to the hundred-pound rolling suitcase library that follows me around from school to school. It is generally the kid-tested, proven winners that remain in the mix for more than a year or two.

The 2001 verse novel, WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW by Sonya Sones, has steadfastly remained part of my middle school booktalking repertoire for good reason. Middle school students love Sophie's lyrical tale of her crushes, her friends, her relationship with her parents, and her innermost thoughts. WHAT MY MOTHER DOESN'T KNOW has won readers choice awards in a whole pile of states. In fact, it recently won the Iowa Teen Award for grades 6-9, receiving the kind of adoration that the top tier presidential candidates can only dream of attracting in next year's caucuses.

But -- from my guy point of view -- the long-awaited sequel is even better. Sonya Sones does an amazing job here of capturing the formative adolescent male mind in all its...err...splendor.

"Before We Leave

I call back my parents
to tell them where I'm going.

Because if they called the house
and I didn't pick up the phone,
and then they tried my cell
but they couldn't get through
because Verizon sucks so bad,
they'd probably call Mrs. Jeffries again,
not to mention the local police and the F.B.I

And my picture would be on
every milk carton in the country
before Sophie and I even got back to the house.

So I tell them I'm going to the museum,
but I don't tell them
that Sophie's going with me,
and that afterwards,
we're gonna be here alone together
for hours and hours
before her mother comes to pick her up.

Because not telling someone something,
when someone's not even asking,
is not the same thing as lying. Is it?

Besides,
I don't have to tell my parents
about every single thing
that's going on in my personal life.

In fact, I don't have to tell them
about anything that's going on
in my personal life.

That's why they call it
personal."

WHAT MY GIRLFRIEND DOESN'T KNOW is told from the point of view of Robin Murphy who, in the first book, we know simply as "Murphy." Robin, like Sophie, is now a high school freshman.

"Though nothing will drive them away,
We can beat them just for one day.
We can be heroes just for one day." --David Bowie

Robin Murphy is a kid who has long been the butt of cruel jokes. In fact, his name "Murphy" has become a synonym among kids for being a fool, a dork, a klutz, a whatever, as in "Don't be such a Murphy!" But then Sophie, having seen something in Murphy that everyone else has missed, decides to go with her instincts and her heart and lets nature take its course. As a result of her daring to be seen publicly with him, Sophie is ostracized by her friends and subjected to the same sort of abuse by her peers that Robin has been dealing with for a long time. And, now that he's upset the social order, everyone's participation in dumping on Robin is ratcheted up a few more notches.

But WHAT MY GIRLFRIEND DOESN'T KNOW goes far beyond the bullying theme and far beyond the "us versus them" theme. At its core this is a joyful and a hopeful book, not an angry one. Sonya Sones treats us to the sweet, often humorous, and --to a guy's mind -- oftentimes perplexing emotional evolution of a relationship.

"When you reach the part where the heartaches come,
The hero would be me.
But heroes often fail."
--Gordon Lightfoot, "If You Could Read My Mind"

And, most importantly, it is Robin Murphy this time whose innermost thoughts are revealed.

Robin's being such a sensitive, artistic kid, one with a great heart, provides the perfect counterweight to the author's candor in revealing this young adolescent's upwelling of male sexuality.

This is going to make for a heck of a discussion book and, as with Sophie's story, a book that will undoubtedly be spoken of enthusiastically between kids. Woe is the middle school or high school librarian who doesn't figure on having a couple of copies of this one in the collection.

Richie Partington
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