FUZZY MUD by Louis Sachar

Author Louis Sachar, famous for HOLES, is back with a new release called FUZZY MUD. 

Tamaya and Marshall attend Woodridge Academy.  Tamaya is in fifth grade and her mother insists that she not walk to and from school alone.  Since Marshall, a seventh grader, lives nearby, he is Tamaya's companion twice a day.  Years have gone by uneventfully, but that is about to change.

Marshall is the victim of school bully Chad Hilligas.  When Chad threatens to beat Marshall up on the way home, Marshall insists he and Tamaya take what he calls a "shortcut."  The supposed shortcut takes the two through the woods and makes Tamaya very uncomfortable.

The two soon become separated in the dense woods.  Sure that she has heard Chad following closely, Tamaya trips in her rush to escape.  She feels her hand sink into something she describes as "fuzzy mud."  When she hears footsteps coming closer, she clutches a handful and flings it at the noise.  The mud hits Chad full in the face allowing Tamaya to make her escape.

Overnight Tamaya's hand develops an unusual rash which develops into bleeding blisters.  The condition worsens throughout the next day, and she begins to wonder what happened to Chad.  That worry deepens when it is announced at school that Chad has been reported missing.  After that the plot (and the mud) thickens.

This frightening tale is perfect for middle grade readers.  Many of them may have not even heard of HOLES or Sachar's other books, but FUZZY MUD is sure to earn fans who can then be pointed in the direction of his earlier books.


Previously posted at readingjunky.blogspot.com

Reading Without Reading: Dramatic Audio from LATW

Some literature—novels, short stories, essays—you are meant to read, silently, to yourself. But some—spoken word poetry, play scripts, film scripts—have to be performed to be complete. You can read them, sure, but you're truly only getting a fraction of the picture.

LA Theatre Works is a loosely affiliated group of actors who perform audio-only productions of many of our finest theatrical works. The casts are often composed of well-known tv and movie actors like John Lithgow, Hilary Swank, Neal Patrick Harris and many many others. Most of their plays are from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. They run the gamut from recent Broadway dramas by the likes of John Guare and Wendy Wasserstein to classics like Arthur Miller’s a Death of Salesman. They do, however, have a number of productions by Shakespeare and Sophocles. Here’s a hint: If you’re struggling to read Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet or Julius Caesar for English class, try to listening to a professional production instead. It will do wonders to clear up the language. And it’s not cheating, I swear!

Celebrate Cyber Monday with a last 2015 gift for Ballou High School Library

We have opened up the wish list for Ballou High School one last day this year, just in case you have a few dollars to share with library while you are in the midst of your Cyber Monday shopping. You can find all the details about the Book Fair for Ballou in our post from November 9th and check out the remaining 198 books on the Amazon wish list here.

Books make wonderful gifts—we hope that you are planning to share all of your favorites and more with your loved ones this holiday season.

Dead Ringers by Christopher Golden

Not everyone is who they appear to be in Dead Ringers by Christopher Golden.

Frank isn't where he thought he'd be in life. Literally. He's recently been confined to his basement by a menacing assailant who looks like exactly like him. This strange man starts to live Frank's life, getting a better job, establishing a better reputation, even looking better, while his original becomes weaker and more miserable, handcuffed at the bottom of his house. The longer he's trapped there, the more Frank forgets who he was - and the less he wants to remember.

Tess, scarred physically and emotionally by the curves life has thrown her, tries not to harbor resentment for her ex-husband, Nick, who seems to have moved on quite easily after their divorce. He even has a new girlfriend. One day, when Tess encounters Nick in the street, he acts like he doesn't know her, even claims to have another name. Then Tess calls her ex and discovers he's nowhere near Boston, and that man she saw - that perfect twin - couldn't have been him. But who was it, then? Tess confides in her best friend, Lili. But soon, Lili has troubles of her own - and perhaps a double of her own, too...

Audrey's work debunking faux psychics and charlatans has also exposed her to people who do have a sixth sense and who can communicate with the dead. Well-educated and happily married with a baby on the way, Audrey knows that there is true evil in this world - and she must be careful not to let it touch her family, or herself. But she can no longer keep such things at arm's length when a group that she worked with years ago comes knocking at her door, needing her help and expertise in order to protect themselves and their loved ones from the strange dopplegangers that are populating their lives...

Dead Ringers is a new twist on the evil twin story, one of otherworldly horror laced with intrinsic doubts, where personal histories and dark, supernatural elements mix with motives and instincts that are deeply human. Combine that with strong, layered characters and this makes for a frighteningly real foray into our darkest fears.

Christopher Golden employs a diverse cast, the kind I wish more movies, TV shows, and other stories would showcase: characters with different backgrounds, different skin colors, different pairings and homes and physical limitations and emotions and responsibilities - and these character traits are described and discussed responsibly. For example, how Nick deals with things, because he has Asperger's, which is never an excuse, never an apology or a punchline, simply the scope through which he views the world. I also appreciate the fact that although most of the main characters are roughly the same age and have some overlapping interests, they are at different stages in life and have vastly different jobs.

Let's not forget our youngest character, Maddie, Nick and Tess' daughter. She is delightful, youthful, and important to the story without ever being a textbook pawn nor a victim.

And that ending! Once again, Golden gives a solid conclusion to the overall story and wraps up the individual storylines, then delivers a haunting final page that tears right into the eyes and hearts of readers.

There's a certain element in this book that reminded me of a classic story I enjoy. I won't say which one, because I don't want to give too much away, but I will say the way Golden employed this item gave me shivers and slivers.

Dead Ringers was released November 3rd, 2015.

If you're new to the world of Golden books, check out my post Where to Start: Reading Christopher Golden.
My favorite standalone novel by Golden is The Boys Are Back in Town.
His latest releases include Tin Men and Inheritance.

The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

I don't usually like to read the little blurb on the dust jacket of a book if I know I am going to read the book simply because of the brilliant author who has written it. So, maybe in this case I should have.  I have to admit, I was thoroughly confused to start with in this book! I just kept reading, trusting that Ness would somehow pull all of the craziness together. I mean zombies, soul-sucking ghosts, indie kids, blue lights and Gods all have a part to play in this. That's a lot of territory to cover! As usual, we are left with an amazing finish to a beautifully written story. Despite my initial confusion, I really liked this book and have suggested it to many teens as something new and fresh to read. Many authors try to relate to the lives of teens and what they have to deal with each and every day, but in this story I think that Patrick Ness hits the nail on the head in a sometimes funny, sometimes tragic and sometomes touching way. The underlying threads of difference and acceptance make this a story with something for everyone.

And that's a wrap (almost) for the Book Fair for Ballou High School

As I write this (on Sunday night), we have 198 books left on the wish list for Ballou High School. As we started at just under 400, and several books are being sent direct to Ballou by authors, I can safely say that well over 200 books (more in the area of 250) have been bought for the school library this year.

HUZZAH!!!

I won't lie - constantly updating twitter and reaching out to folks on other social media, makes this book fair seem never ending sometimes. (I'm sure that some of the folks who follow me because I'm an aviation writer were endlessly confused over the past two weeks as I bombarded them with tweets about YA titles to send to a DC public school.) But it is so WORTH IT. The kids have already started receiving books and librarian Melissa Jackson is delighted with what they have received. We certainly accomplished some great stuff for Ballou over the past two weeks and I am so happy, as always, to have been a part of this.

We are going to pop back up on Cyber Monday, just in case some of you are in a gifting mood that extends beyond your own family and friends. If we can maybe get another 10 or 20 books that way, it will sure make the holiday brighter for Melissa. Personally, I wish I could send her 10,000 books and turn Ballou into one of the best teen libraries in the nation. It's something to aim for, don't you think? Every library in America should be that great.

Stay tuned until next Monday but in the meantime - THANK YOU so much for your support of the Book Fair!

UPDATED: Doing all we can for the Ballou High School library

We are getting ready to shut down this weekend the Book Fair for Ballou High School in Washington DC but wanted to thank everyone who has purchased books so far. We have about 150 books headed to DC from the amazon wish list and appreciate so much each and every book that has been bought. (As you can see, the kids are delighted with the books that have already arrived.)

In case you have not bought a book yet, there are some titles left on the wish list that we would especially like to see bought. These are all series books and as you know, it's awful when you are left hanging by a cliffhanger or receive the last books in a series and not the first ones! So please take a look at these books, or, of course, feel free to purchase anything from the list. We will likely open it up again, briefly, for Cyber Monday, so keep that date in mind as well.

Books are the best gifts in the world and the kids at Ballou High School, along with librarian Melissa Jackson, are so very happy that you have sent so many of them to fill their library's shelves.

Wish list link again: http://tinyurl.com/BookFairforBallou

BOOKS TO THINK ABOUT BUYING:  

Crown of Midnight by Sarah Maas 
Throne of Glass by Sarah Maas (Books 1 & 3 in the series were bought)

Of Metal and Wishes by Sarah Fine (The sequel, Of Dreams & Rust, was bought)

Solitary by Andrew Gordon Smith (The first in the series was bought)  

The Clockwork Scarab by Colleen Gleason (The 2nd & 3rd books in the series were bought)

Just Another Hero by Sharon Draper  
The Battle of Jericho by Sharon Draper (The 2nd book in the trilogy was bought but not books 1 & 3)  

The Story of Owen by EK Johnson (the sequel, Prairie Fire, was bought)  

The Runaway King by Jennifer Nielsen (The first book in the series was bought)

(Titles that have been struck through have been bought since this post went live!)

Mosquitoland by David Arnold

Mary Iris Malone is not okay.

Her family has imploded and she's lost her home, forced to move in with her dad and his new girlfriend in Mississippi, which Mary, or Mim, as she prefers to be called, dubs "Mosquitoland".

Unsettled, heavily medicated and fragile, sixteen year old Mim learns a life-altering secret: her mom is sick in Cleveland. Mim decides to take matters into her own hands, she steals money from her dad's girlfriend and hops on a Greyhound bus.

On her thousand-plus mile journey Mim meets a slew of unforgettable characters, some helpful, some treacherous. Even more, she has to cope with her own mind, which she doesn't fully trust after being picked apart by psychologists and pharmaceuticals.

Mosquitoland is told in a diary-style format, for me, very reminiscent of Perks of Being a Wallflower, one of my favourite novels. I'm not sure if this made the novel more appealing to me, but I really enjoyed Mim's voice. It's deep without being preachy, dry, witty and best of all, fearless.

Galgorithm by Aaron Karo

Imagine that there was a formula that you could use whenever you had a crush on someone that was almost guaranteed to work. Imagine if there was a list of techniques that, if followed faithfully would eventually make the cutie you were eyeing start to like you back.

 Now imagine if a high school senior was the one who had devised such a strategy. What do you think he would do with it? Galgorithm by Aaron Karo explores what could happen if such a scenario were to occur.

 Shane is a high school senior in a cushy middle class  suburb in California. He makes good grades, stays out of trouble and is generally well-liked. He hangs out with his best friend Jak (Jennifer Annabelle Kalkland) mostly but he has a secret that even she doesn't know- he is a dating consultant sought out by lovelorn students throughout the school.

   Shane's methods seem to be very effective however- he has hooked up the most unlikely couples. Balloon and Hedgehog, Reed and Marisol to name a few. But soon things start getting weird. A staff member at school seeks Shane out desperate for help with a colleague and Shane must decide if he wants to help a grown up.Then one of the most attractive girls at school falls for Shane but he can't shake the nagging feeling that he likes someone else. He will have to make some hard decisions.

If you are looking for a book that analyzes teen problems and tries to find a cause for their angst then this book isn't for you. This was a breezy read filled with beautiful, high-achieving kids. Although I don't usually read books like this I admit that I enjoyed it very much. I highly recommend this book for readers aged 13+.

Update on the Book Fair for Ballou!!!!

First, thank you so much to everyone who has bought books off the wish list for the Ballou High School library in Washington DC! Already, more than 100 books are on their way to wonderful librarian Melissa Jackson and her students and we could not be more thrilled.... .

...unless we could get them even more books this week! The book fair remains open, the list is still up at amazon. (Here's the link if you want to share it: http://tinyurl.com/BookFairforBallou.)

If you have any question about the book fair, be sure to check out our earlier post or drop a comment and we will get back to you as soon as we can. (You can also email me direct at colleen@chasingray.com.)

These books are making a huge difference in a lot of lives and the Ballou students are thrilled to pieces to be receiving them. Check out the happy faces below - all that joy for books. Now you can see why we love supporting this library and keep coming back year after year.