Book of the Week: ADVENTURE AT SIMBA HILL by Susan Runholt

You’ll remember last year, Esteemed Reader, I reviewed the first two books in Susan Runholt’s Kari + Lucas mystery series, Mystery of the Third Lucretia and Rescuing Seneca Crane. If you don’t remember that, here is the link. You don’t have to have read those books to enjoy Adventure at Simba Hill as each Kari + Lucas mystery is a self-contained adventure (though the books do reference one another). But really, both of those books are excellent and why would you not want to read them? I recommend you buy all three.

Incidentally, I’d tell you that author Susan Runholt will be here on Thursday to face the 7 Questions, but she already faced them. You don’t have to wait until Thursday, Esteemed Reader. You can read Susan Runholt’s interview right now (or just after this review).

For those of you who don’t already know, Kari and Lucas are two fourteen-year-old girls who trot the globe solving mysteries, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that their next leap will be the leap—never mind. But extra nerd points if you know that reference:) Kari is Batman to Lucas’s Robin and they never actually seek out mysteries. They just sort of find themselves in the right exotic location at the right time to become entangled in a new international mystery.

This book marks the third time this has happened and it sort of amuses me that the girls haven’t really noticed their incredible fortune--or is it misfortune--beyond the fact that they get excited at the hint of a mystery. In the same vein, I always like to imagine someone casually asking Jack Bauer if he’s noticed this is the seventh time he’s saved the country from a terrorist attack in just 24 hours without ever once using the bathroom. “Huh,” Jack Bauer might say. “That’s interesting. Tell me where the godmeeped bomb is!”

Whew. I’ve just referenced two television programs that are no longer on the air. I’ve got to focus! Actually, one of my favorite things in reading the two Kari + Lucas sequels is finding out just how Kari and Lucas are going to get themselves entangled in a mystery. After all, Runholt has yet to disappoint and have the girls go after a mundane mystery. The mystery in each book has been a complicated ordeal full of danger and intrigue that any mystery novelist would be proud to call her own.

This falls right in line with my new campaign to recognize middle grade books as family literature and not just children’s literature. Adventure at Simba Hill is a mystery a child can read and enjoy, but it’s also one that will likely snag any adult reader. This isn’t a good mystery novel for children. This is a good mystery novel that happens to feature children (adolescents, really) and that children will likely enjoy. But Runholt’s mystery series can go toe to toe with our old friend William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series. As he’s mentioned in the acknowledgements of Adventure at Simba Hill (isn’t the fiction world a wonderfully small place?), I doubt he’ll mind.

But I digress (always). The thing I was watching for as I read this novel was how long would it take and how much set up would it take before the girls were back in harm’s way, which is exactly where we like them. As this is something I struggle with in my own mystery writing, I’m keen to see how a pro like Susan Runholt does it.

The meter starts running on page one. First, Runholt reintroduces us to our heroes and their mothers. As this is the third book in a series, hopefully most of the readers know these characters already and need only a little reminding as we may have been reading a book a week since the last one:) Still, Runholt dutifully drops in the most necessary exposition carried over from the first two novels so that newcomers follow along as well.

This is probably another reason why Kari and Lucas never say to each other “Can you believe we’ve solved two, count them, two international mysteries? Wouldn’t it be just an insane coincidence if we found ourselves in the middle of a third?” One thing a writer has no way to control is when a reader will join her mystery series. After the newcomer enjoys Adventure at Simba Hill, he or she may want to read the first two novels, so why spoil the endings to them in the third book and risk losing those sales?

When we first join Kari and Lucas they are trying on outfits for their trip to Africa. We learn that the girls have been invited to visit Kari’s Uncle at an archeological dig. That’s chapter one and Runholt has taken care of a lot of business. But there’s still no mystery and the meter is still running.

In the next chapter the girls are on a plane and more exposition is revealed. They land and meet Uncle Geoff and see some of Africa. This is exciting and fun, but the meter is still running! And then, finally, on page 21 the girls learn that someone is looting artifacts from the Simba Hill archeological site:

The professor shook his head. “It’s a mystery.”
Lucas looked at me, her eyes wide. Nothing got our attention more than those three little words.

And there you have it. Susan Runholt, ladies and gentlemen. In 21 pages we are completely caught up with Kari and Lucas, they are already in another country for a relatively plausible reason and entangled in an international mystery. In the manuscript I’m currently revising, the main mystery isn’t introduced until page 233 (I’m working on it!!!). So understand I am in awe of Runholt’s ability, but still… I can’t help but think that 21 pages is an awful long time to keep readers, especially young readers, waiting. It’s not my fault hours of television and video games have given young minds everywhere attention deficit disorder. I want them to be up for old school Victorian novels that go on forever setting up the novel until page 102 when a stranger comes to town. But this is the readership we modern middle grade novelists have to deal with.

Runholt knows this. So, although as I have already belabored, she introduces the main mystery on page 21, she promises serious adventure on page 7 at the end of the first chapter:

Anyway, a couple of days after Christmas, there Lucas and I were with Uncle Geoff, in Africa, on Safari, with dangerous wild animals running around loose, in the middle of a ring of smugglers that was almost more dangerous than the animals, and—well, that’s what this story is about.

Once again, Susan Runholt, ladies and gentlemen. She knows that casual readers are dying to put her book down and get back to Facebook, X-box, Quantum Leap reruns—and she snags them before they can. And here she makes a promise to the reader that in the pages that follow we are going to enjoy an exciting adventure in Africa that will involve all sorts of danger and intrigue. It’s a promise Runholt makes good on, which is one of the many reasons I’ll be looking forward to the girls’ fourth mystery adventure.

What the meep? I see we are nearly out of review (a little past, actually), yet I still have craft points I want to make and passages to share. By the way, you may have noticed me inserting meeps throughout this review. This is one of my favorite things about the Kari + Lucas mysteries. Whenever the girls, who are fourteen and by all rights should have potty mouths being that they live in America, want to swear they instead insert a meep, as in “the bird scared the living meep out of me.” I’m crazy about the meeps and wish I had thought of this gag before Runholt as I totally want to steal it. It allows the girls to communicate honestly without closing the book off to younger, more impressionable readers who read up.

I will settle for one last craft point and then I will leave you with some of my favorite passages. Another thing I admire about Runholt is her gift for exposition. By its very nature, a mystery novel is one that involves a lot of exposition. We have to learn the details about and the motives of a lot of suspects as well as their whereabouts on the night the crime took place. The reader accepts this and will usually look the other way while some unimportant character tells our detective a wealth of seemingly unimportant information about some guest at the party, sort of like Chris Farley’s security guard in Wayne’s World (anyone here old enough to remember that movie?). This is all good and well and the reader accepts most of this because we’re with the detective(s) and we’re collecting the info to try and solve the mystery before she does.

But in a novel like Adventure at Simba Hill in which our characters are in a different country, we also have a lot to learn about the locale and various social customs. This stuff isn’t as interesting as the clues to solve the mystery, but we need to know it in order to understand the story. And because it’s fun to learn about new places. By the way, you have to admire that Susan Runholt writes a series that requires her to travel the world and do research. Suppose I could get a tax right off if I wrote a novel that takes place on the set of The Dark Knight Rises? It’s a love story:)

At the beginning of the novel, we learn that Lucas has been studying Africa at her private school (Kari goes to public) and is brimming with information about Africa. She is spouting off interesting facts before the girls’ plane even lands. And does her knowledge come in handy later in the book? Of course it does! But by planting this seed so early, when Lucas’s knowledge of Africa is required, it seems perfectly natural and expected that she have it. More, because Kari is annoyed by Lucas chirping in every so often with Africa facts, what could have been just dry exposition becomes part of a character interaction and even a small fight, which makes it interesting to read.

So that’s it for this week. Check out Adventure at Simba Hill. It’s at least as good as the other books in the series and filled with excitement, exotic locations, and plenty of girl power. More, it’s a good mystery and as I’ve been very careful to avoid spoiling it, you should get sucked right in.

And now, as always, I shall leave you with some of my favorite passages from Adventures at Simba Hill:

“Bernard, we know that jambo means hello from watching The Lion King. But what does safari mean?”


“Um, Lucas.”
“Ye-e-e-s?”
“About the looting?”
“What about it?”
“Well, I was thinking kind of two different things. One is that it would be fun to see if we could solve the mystery.”
Lucas looked at me as if I was a little nuts. “I thought that was, like, obvious.”

The room was as big as a medium-sized house. It had dirt floors full of big square or rectangular holes, and rock walls. Floodlights lit up tables set near the walls. The smell was a combination of dirt and diesel. But what I mostly noticed was that Professor Wanjohi and Mariea were at the back of the room, and although they were quiet now, it was obvious they'd been arguing. You could practically feel the anger in the air.

As we watched, Prosper looked at the guys sitting around him, his eyes half closed, reached for a piece of bread, took a bite, and chewed. Someone said something that must have added to the joke, because there was another wave of laughter. Prosper took another bite of bread, not cracking a smile.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own. 

7 Questions For: Author Susan Runholt

Award-winning Susan Runholt, author of the Kari and Lucas mystery series (click for my review), shares her teenage heroines' love of art and travel and commitment to feminism. She has traveled extensively in Europe, Asia and Africa, and lived in Amsterdam and Paris, working as a bank clerk and an au pair. She's also been a waitress, a maid, a motel desk clerk, a laundress, a caterer, and director of programming for South Dakota Public Television.

For the past two decades she has lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota, where she serves as a fundraising consultant for social service and arts organizations. She was named runner-up for the Debut Dagger Award by the Crime Writers' Association of Great Britain for The Mystery of the Third Lucretia (Kari + Lucas Mystery).

And now Susan Runholt faces the 7 Questions:


Question One: What are your top three favorite books?

Okay, everybody cheats. We know this. But if I'm going to cheat, I need plenty of scope. So I'm going to make a list by age range, cheating as I go.

My favorites in, say, fourth and fifth grades: the Nancy Drews, Trixie Beldens and Betsy Tacy books. Oh, and The Secret Garden, Alice in Wonderland and The Wind in the Willows.

By sixth and seventh grades: Some of the earlier favorites plus Jane Austen and Agatha Christie. Oh, and that's when I discovered Mary Stewart and Sherlock Holmes.

What I keep re-reading now: Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, P.G. Wodehouse, Mary Stewart, the Rumpole stories and, when I need comforting, Miss Read. Oh, and mysteries by Marsh, Caudwell, Beaton, Leon, Allingham, Francis, Brett, and on and on and on.


Question Two: How much time do you spend each week writing? Reading?

I probably spend 15 to 20 hours per week actually writing, and about that same amount of time on the business of being an author: appearances, maintaining a web presence, doing research,corresponding with fans, attending my writers' group, etc. I also have a day job and -- and this is more relevant than one might think -- I'm single. So I have to go to the bank and the grocery store, take out the garbage, walk the dog, pay the bills...

I'm reading more these days because I've discovered that if I'm going to stay healthy, I have to take time to relax. I try to read for at least a half hour before going to bed, and I usually get in six or seven hours on Sundays. That's not counting the audio books I consume by the dozens as I drive, clean my house, walk the dog and deal with almost anything that has to do with finances.


Question Three: What was the path that led you to publication?

I had been writing for 18 years when I learned about the Debut Dagger Awards given by the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain. Our CWA bestows Edgars, their equivalent is the Dagger. And the Debut Dagger is a category the Crime Writers of America don't have: manuscripts by previously unpublished authors. It's open to anyone who meets their qualification for unpublished, writing in the crime genre in the English language anywhere in the world.

I submitted The Mystery of the Third Lucretia, which emerged as Highly Commended -- essentially second place, but it is only awarded when they believe the field of submissions is particularly strong. I'm not certain, but I think mine was the first manuscript for young readers ever honored by the Debut Dagger committee.

As it happens, one of the judges was an agent for ICM, which at that time had an office in London. She referred me to Tina Wexler (click for an interview) , her colleague in the New York office, who reviewed and accepted my manuscript. Tina managed to get a mini-bidding war going, and the book was finally placed with Viking.

An interesting side note. My manuscript was highly commended by the Debut Dagger committee in 2005. In 2008, a manuscript by the wonderfully talented Charlie Rethwich (pen name C.J. Harper), another member of my writers' group, earned the same honor. Same honor, same writers' group, Twin Cities, Minnesota, USA -- what are the odds?


Question Four: Do you believe writers are born, taught or both? Which was true for you?

I believe a writer is born with the ability to create a story, just as a composer is born with the ability to write music. One indication is the perennial fan question: "Where do you get your ideas?" This question tends to leave many writers speechless. The answer seems so obvious. Of course we get our ideas from our imagination.

(Interesting that I don't get this question from the young people I meet. Kids are still close enough to their imagination not to have to ask.)

I also believe that writers need to be taught, and, if they are to succeed, must learn to take criticism and become a better writer because of it.


Question Five: What is your favorite thing about writing? What is your least favorite thing?

I love getting lost in the story. I love it when my characters come alive and start behaving in ways I couldn't have predicted. I love fan mail. But the single best thing is traveling to do research in the places I write about. London, Paris, Amsterdam, Scotland, Kenya -- what's not to like?

My least favorite thing, hands down, is working with voice activated software, which I have to do because of repetitive stress issues. Imagine having to write an entire manuscript this way:

Open quote Lucas all caps that exclamation point close quote I screamed period open quote look out exclamation point close quote new paragraph the cap jaguar missed her by inches period

In print this would look like:

"LUCAS!" I screamed. "Look out!"

The Jaguar missed her by inches.

That's not even including the problem of the mistakes the program makes. And as wonderful as Dragon NaturallySpeaking is, it still makes lots of mistakes.


Question Six: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

To succeed as a writer you need to do five things.

1) Read everything you can, preferably including Shakespeare and the King James version of the Bible.

2) Write. Preferably every day, whether you think you have it in you or not.

3) Finish your projects. You'll never get anything published if you don't get anything finished.

4) Take criticism. (See above.)

5) Persevere. Even when it's a drag.


Question Seven: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

Jane Austen. I want to find out how on earth she managed to write such incredibly wonderful books with only the barest minimum of plot. Frankly, the thought of so much talent makes me tired.

www.susanrunholt.com

Book of the Week: RESCUING SENECA CRANE by Susan Runholt

Do you like a good mystery, Esteemed Reader? A hint of danger and some heart-pounding adventure? Unless you have some sort of special heart condition or a neurological disorder, I’ll assume that you do. And therefore you are going to love Susan Runholt’s Kari + Lucas Mysteries. The ninja loves them and is looking forward to future additions.

So we’re going to change things up a little bit this week. Instead of reviewing one book, I’m going to review two books in one post. Why? Well, I don’t review every book I read and I enjoyed the first book in the series, Mystery of the Third Lucretia, on audio book. I highly recommend that version, by the way, as the reader is fantastic. I wrote to Susan Runholt to ask her to appear here (she will, this Thursday!) and guess what? She sent me a signed copy of Rescuing Seneca Crane! God, I love being a ninja!

Here is perhaps the finest praise I can offer a series: when the third book comes out, I’ll be all over The Adventure of Simba Hill, just for me. I want to know what happens to Kari and Lucas and I want to see what Runholt’s going to do to top these first two wonderful books. If you haven’t read Runholt’s mysteries yet, get started now and we can wait for book three together.

That officially concludes the review portion of this review: buy these books. Now let’s talk craft. A good series is hard to pull off, yet so many writers have ambitions for one, including the ninja. As a writer, part of the appeal to the series is a multi-book contract. But more, I suspect the joy in writing a series is the same joy the reader has in getting to spend more time with the same characters and experiencing a story larger than one book can contain. Whether that series is a Harry Potter story that is interconnected and building parts to a larger whole, telling one story over seven books. Or whether, as is the case here (so far), the books in the series are each self contained adventures like Batman stories or a television show. I like both kinds of series, but my preference is for episodic tales so that if one book sucks (not the case here) it doesn’t drag down the rest:)

Regardless of the type of series, the pressure is on the writer to create fantastic characters. This is a pressure the writer always feels as we’ve got to create fictional people interesting and likeable enough that the reader wants to spend a whole book with them. In a series, the reader may be spending seven books or more with these characters. So take the pressure of creating one book’s character and multiply it by seven, I suppose. Kari and Lucas, two 14-year-old girls from Minnesota, are definitely likeable enough for the reader to want to spend four books with them. Heck, I’ll spend more books with Kari and Lucas if Runholt is up to it.

More, Kari and Lucas have the sort of qualities that will make them compelling protagonists regardless of the mystery facing them. They are curious about the world and the motivations of people. This is an essential quality for any detective to have, but Runholt doesn’t just tell us this (perish the thought!). She establishes the girls' curiosity in Mystery of the Third Lucretia. At an art museum in Minneapolis, the girls are treated rudely by a man copying a Rembrandt. When they see him later wearing a disguise, they decide to follow him and from this action flows the entire adventure that follows. What a masterful stroke this is! Though the girls remain very curious in Rescuing Seneca Crane as well, the subject of that book is a kidnapping of their friend, which one hardly need be curious to notice and be concerned with. But in the very first book of the series, this essential character quality of Kari and Lucas is forever established throughout the series because it is essential to the plot (and the plot comes from character, so bonus). The girls are insufferably curious, which might just get them killed were there not a third book on the way:)

In fact, most of Runholt’s world building in Mystery of the Third Lucretia is clearly being built to last. Various parts of the plot, though they tie in to the first adventure, go out of their way to establish the set up for future novels. Minor spoiler… Kari’s mom gets a job writing about international fashion for a magazine, which means she’ll need to do a lot of traveling, dragging the girls around Europe with her. As these are international mysteries, you can bet that will come in handy. Also, we’re introduced to Lucas’s father, a workaholic who never makes time for her, and her mother, who would much rather be free of her child so she can spend more time shopping with friends. While this sucks for Lucas, it’s great for Runholt because it means Lucas will always be free to go globetrotting with Kari and her mother.

The Kari + Lucas Mysteries are considered upper middle grade, or tween, which presents an interesting challenge to writers. On the one hand, the characters are old enough to have been exposed to many of the less savory aspects of the adult world. On the other hand, kids read up, and it’s likely a given that kids as young as ten or even eight will be reading in addition to fourteen-year-olds and adult ninjas. And the covers of these books, not that a writer always has a say in that, are bright and colorful and likely to attract readers of all ages.

What then is a writer to do? How does she acknowledge the age of the protagonists, who would probably swear and talk about naughty things at fourteen (or maybe I was just warped) without risking a younger readership? One of my favorite of Runholt’s inventions to get around this is her giving the girls their own way of swearing. When the girls want to swear, they insert a “meep” for the swear, as in “Oh meep,” “I feel like meep,” and my favorite, “Alan The Meep.” It’s important to remember that it is the age of the reader, not of the protagonist that determines content. After all, the protagonist in Amy Reed’s Beautiful was only thirteen.

A common complaint of mine is that too often in middle grade books the horror is not really scary, the danger isn’t really all that dangerous, and the mystery isn’t much of a challenge. As a ninja, I keep reading, but when I was kid I put a book down as soon as I felt its writer was being condescending(i.e. trying to convince me a rabbit sucking carrot juice was scary, though I loved that book). I wouldn’t have put Runholt’s book down. There is a reason Kari and Lucas are fourteen instead of ten. They’re dealing with some pretty serious stuff, and though Runholt keeps the story light and fun, she deals rather realistically with the world around it.

If Lucas and Kari were younger, they might be dealing with the mystery of the stolen cookie jar. But Runholt has loftier plans. In the first book, the girls are hot on the tail of an international art forgery that would be at home in a Dan Brown thriller (assuming there were a pseudo-religious twist), and in the second book, they’re chasing after kidnappers that might make William Kent Krueger proud. The girls censor themselves, but the villains don’t behave as though they know they’re in a story written for younger readers. There are murders and discussions of rape (all tactfully handled, I promise). In one scene, the girls tour Amsterdam’s Red Light district and are mistaken for, ahem, madams of the evening. Some parents may object to this, and if that’s you, go ahead and object. I, for one, was thrilled to have found a mystery that was truly exciting involving dangers that were actually dangerous.

I see we are past our maximum word count and I haven’t really told you the plot of either book, but that’s a good thing. The less you know going in, the more pleasantly surprised you’ll be. But I will say how much I appreciated the pacing at the beginning of Rescuing Seneca Crane. We know who the characters are and how it is they come to be able to travel overseas, so Runholt is able to start the adventure and keep it going to the last page.

And that wraps us up. Two big thumbs up for the Kari + Lucas mysteries. And don’t forget to drop back by on Thursday when we’ll have author Susan Runholt here to face the 7 Questions!

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.  

7 Questions For: Author Donna Gephart

Donna Gephart's new novel, How to Survive Middle School, garnered starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal. Click here to read my review. Her first book, As If Being 12 3/4 Isn't Bad Enough, My Mother Is Running for President! won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award. Donna has fun speaking at schools, book festivals and conferences.

Visit her at www.donnagephart.com.

And now Donna Gephart must face the 7 Questions:


Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

Let me cheat and tell you my top three favorite authors: Jerry Spinelli, Christopher Paul Curtis and Louis Sachar. Add to that list two more favorites I recently discovered: Gary D. Schmidt and Rodman Philbrick. And I love that Gary Paulsen is writing short, funny books for kids now. Hey, where are the women on this list?


Question Six: How much time do you spend each week writing? Reading?

It depends on what's happening in my life. If I'm on deadline and deep into a novel, I write up to 35 hours a week or more. If it's summer break and the kids are home, it could be as few as five hours, if I'm lucky. I average about 18 hours a week writing, but when I'm not writing I'm doing the real work -- thinking! So that when I'm at the keyboard, my fingers fly fast and furiously.

I'm not much of a TV watcher, so I read a lot. I complete about 60 books a year, give or take.


Question Five: What was the path that led you to publication?

The path that led me to publication was the public library. It was my lifeline as a child (and still is). And boredom. At ten, I was bored out of my skull and wrote a short story for want of anything else to do. My mom loved the story, and I decided right then I would become a writer. I figured it would be easy and make me famous. Half a dozen unpublished novels later, I realized it wasn't easy. When I was fortunate enough to sell my first novel, I learned it wouldn't make me famous either. But I still loved it. After enough rejections to wallpaper a small kingdom, Tina Wexler took me on as a client. So far, we've sold three novels to Random House . . . with many more to come, I hope.


Question Four: Do you believe writers are born, taught or both? Which was true for you?

I couldn't be anything but a writer. I know. I've tried. I've sold shoes, cleaned dorm rooms, worked at a bakery, as a secretary, waitress, etc. Something about being a lonely child, a book nerd and a good listener and talker makes this the perfect career for me. I believe writing is journey, and we learn things and become better over time, if we continue to have a passion for it, practice regularly and read voraciously. I've found that attending (and later running) critique groups to be enormously helpful in my growth as a writer/reviser. And attending (now speaking at) conferences always provides that needed shot of information and inspiration.


Question Three: What is your favorite thing about writing? What is your least favorite thing?

Even after twenty years, I still get excited to get up in the morning and work. I love being lost in the story world. But I get frustrated during non-writing periods. Sometimes, the mind needs to gather, not produce. And even though I know this, I sometimes get a bit neurotic about the process. Despite the inherent frustrations, challenges and rejections, there is nothing I'd rather wake up and do each day.


Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

Write.


Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

Stephen King. Period. He's a regular, smart, creative guy and he tells a darned good story.

www.donnagephart.com

Book of the Week: HOW TO SURVIVE MIDDLE SCHOOL by Donna Gephart

How to Survive Middle School by Donna Gephart is very enjoyable and very funny. But I should warn you, it’s also a little sad in places, so you’ll be alternately laughing and sniffling. That’s the best sort of story and you’re going to have a good time. Here’s the lowdown:

Eleven-year-old David Greenberg idolizes Jon Stewart (me too) and wants to host his own talk show when he grows up. In the meantime, he hosts his own YouTube show from his bedroom. Each week he gives the very funny acne forecast, which is just a close-up of his sister Lindsay. He also gives his top six and a half lists, which allow all sorts of comedy moments for Gephart. Oh, and there are lots of clips of David’s hamster, Hammy. More on him in a moment.

Alas, when we meet David, it is the summer before he starts middle school. I didn't care for middle school myself and David has my sympathies. His crazy, chain-smoking cousin Jack warns David that he needs to work out. Middle school is a whole new world of pain and David has to be ready. And worst of all, he has to stay away from bathrooms as on his birthday, the eighth graders will gang up on David and give him a swirly. Here is David’s very funny reaction to the news:

I can’t have my head flushed. I may never recover from the psychological trauma. What if some weird bacteria from the water travels up my nose and infects my brain and I die a slow, horrible death?

During the summer, David’s best friend Elliott insists on spending all of their time at the mall searching for some girl he likes. Therefore, David doesn't have time to make videos and this escalates into an argument that escalates into a full fight between them the first day of school. Police officers bust up the fight and for me this moment was evocative of prison movies. And this is appropriate. I often thought of middle school as a prison, and as in prison, it is important to pick a fight your first day lest you lose respect of your fellow cell—er, classmates.

Meanwhile, David makes a new friend in Sophie, a girl he maybe likes as more than a friend. Could it be she likes him back? Sophie really digs David’s YouTube videos and she sends them around and the next thing you know a video he made of his hamster Hammy goes viral and David becomes internet famous. The video might even be shown on The Daily Show. The song Hammy dances to is MC Hammer’s U Can’t Touch This, which Gephart refers to as “old.” That really bummed me out. When I was David’s age, I owned Hammer pants.

All of this is the ‘A’ story and it works perfectly. When I was a kid (apparently a long, long time ago) I did our school’s video announcements and I filmed my own television shows. We didn’t have YouTube. Back then, if you wanted to share a video, you had to load your film canisters on the back of a brontosaurus and ride it to your friend’s house on the other side of Pangaea. This got a little easier once we invented the wheel:) All this to say that I identified completely with David. I got his struggle to survive middle school and to deal with suddenly becoming locally famous due to a love of video.

But that’s the ‘A’ story. This is book is really about its ‘B’ story, which Gephart reveals rather brilliantly by dropping the following hints for the first thirty pages:

That’s why my best friend, Elliott Berger, is coming over to watch the Daily Show episodes I’ve recorded. Mom and I used to watch them together. She always said the host, Jon Stewart, stood up for the little guy, which is funny, because Jon Stewart is a little guy—five feet seven inches.

I imagine my picture on the cover of Entertainment Weekly… someday. If Mom ever saw me on a magazine cover in a store, she’d probably borrow a stranger’s cell phone right then and there and call me, screaming with excitement.

…because my mom plays the tuba. Played the tuba. Now her tuba sits in our living room, even though nobody’s touched it for two years.

I wish I could e-mail Mom and tell her about this new one. But I can’t. And even if I could, she wouldn’t be able to watch it anyway. I’m sure she’ll catch up to the twenty-first century. Someday.

And at last, Gephart stops hinting and tells us what's up:

I wonder why Mom had to move to a farm in Maine to “find herself.” Couldn’t she have found herself right here in Bensalem with us, instead of running off with the Farmer? His real name’s Marcus, and he’s too cheap to have a computer or a phone or even electricity in their house. Mom would have to go into town to call us, which she never does.


Lindsay says Mom’s not finding herself; she says Mom’s just selfish and has some sort of disorder.

I agree with Lindsay. I think David’s mom sucks and I hope she gets diarrhea from eating all her stupid organic beats (she grows them with Marcus). But love her or hate her, David’s mom isn’t really the issue, although her absence is a big part of what this book is really about. I’m not going to tell you how her story intersects with the book’s main plot because that would be a big fat spoiler, but just trust that it does and when it does, you might just cry a little. Ninjas don’t cry, but you might, Esteemed Reader. So be warned.

Gephart adds in very short flashbacks along the way to explain the actions of David’s mother, and the flashbacks do make her more empathetic. Even so, I personally can understand someone abandoning a marriage that isn’t working, but I can’t wrap my head fully around a parent leaving their children. And it doesn’t really matter. I suspect some will like David’s mother more than I do, but the real story is David and his reaction to his mother’s actions. And I liked David quite a bit. 

There’s a lot of other wonderful stuff in this book just waiting to surprise the lucky reader and I won’t give all the secrets away in an online review. But this book has everything. It’s very funny and emotionally involving and I highly recommend it. I want to close by sharing some of Gephart’s prose with you and then we have a video trailer featuring a singing hamster to enjoy.

But first, here is a scene between David and his new friend Sophie whom he likes quite a lot. For me, this scene captures a lot of what it’s like to be a boy noticing and caring about girls for the first time, and it’s very funny:

“Your family’s quiet when they eat,” Sophie says as we stand by the door, waiting for her mom to arrive.

“I can’t tell her the truth—that remembering Mom has a way of doing that to us. It’s been two years now, and sometimes I wonder if it’ll ever get easier.
“Yeah.” I shrug. “They’re kind of weird about that.” Shut up, David. “Afraid of choking or something.” Really, shut up! “I choked on a nickel when I was little.” Oh my gosh! Shut up!
“Really?”
“Yeah, I saved it in a jar in my closet.”
“Oh.”
“It’s sort of green now.” Please strike me dead. SHUT UP!

Here's a great description that made me laugh:

Her skin is so tanned and wrinkled that her face looks like the hindquarters of an elephant. “Welcome to math class,” the woman says in a raspy voice. She sounds like she spent her life working at the Smokin’ and Chokin Cigarette Factory. “I’m your teacher, Ms. Lovely.”

And finally, as promised a singing hamster:




STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.  

7 Questions For: Literary Agent Tina Wexler

We've had a wonderful week of celebrating Kurtis Scaletta and his new book Mamba Point. Today, we have the extreme good fortune to be joined by his agent, Mrs. Tina Wexler of International Creative Management. Thanks so much to Mrs. Wexler for taking time out of her busy schedual.

Tina Wexler is an agent at ICM, representing writers in both the children’s and adult marketplace. Prior to joining ICM, she was with the Ellen Levine Literary Agency/Trident Media and the Karpfinger Agency. She is from southern Maine, holds an MFA in poetry, and lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband.

What She's Looking For:

Fiction genres of interest: Children's, middle grade, young adult.

Non-fiction genres of interest: Select children's, religion; lifestyle, multi-cultural, memoirs, travel, art, current affairs, women's issues, pop culture, narrative, film and entertainment, cultural/social issues, humor, journalism, juvenile.

Some of Mrs. Wexler's clients include: Jonathan Bernstein, Lesley Dahl, Sara Lewis Holmes, Jeannine Garsee, Donna Gephart, James Kennedy, Ruthie Knapp, Timothy Mason, Joel Naftali, Peter Nelson, Sanjay Patel, Mara Purnhagen, Susan Runholt, Kurtis Scaletta, Angie Smibert, Laurel Snyder, Anne Ursu

As always, I do my agent research at Casey McCormick's blog, Literary Rambles. 

And now Tina Wexler faces the 7 Questions:

Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

Crud. I’m somehow failing this interview when that shouldn’t even be possible. The truth is, I don’t really have three favorite books. It’s not that I don’t fall in love with books—I fall in love all the time. It’s just that the books I’m most excited about these days tend to be the last books I’ve read. (From my July 4th vacation: BAD APPLE by Laura Ruby; HATE THAT CAT by Sharon Creech; and HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER by Sloane Crosley.) I can say that when I was a kid, I loved pretty much everything written by Blume, Paterson, Voigt, and Konigsburg, but since I’m rarely a re-reader, I haven’t dipped into those childhood favorites since, well, childhood. 

How about we go with WHO PUT THAT HAIR IN MY TOOTHBRUSH, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and A WRINKLE IN TIME, if only because they are the first three titles that popped into my mind when I read the question, and I’m assuming you mean within MG/YA. (I promise not to be so difficult in all my other answers…maybe.)

Question Six: What are your top three favorite movies and television shows?

Of all time? Back to the Future; Heathers; Anne of Green Gables (I know, I know. I don’t even mention the books above and here I’m listing the movies. I’m a traitor to the cause.) TV: Family Ties (clearly, I’ve always had a thing for Michael J. Fox); The Simpsons (still); Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Question Five: What are the qualities of your ideal client?

Creative, hard-working, kind, funny

Question Four: What sort of project(s) would you most like to receive a query for?

Within middle grade and YA, anything that’ll make me laugh, cry or get angry. More specifically, I’d love to see more magical realism and contemporary sci-fi, gothic romance and “puzzle-solving” mysteries.

Question Three: What is your favorite thing about being an agent? What is your least favorite thing?

Aside from helping my clients realize their dreams of being published? There’s nothing like seeing a book come together piece by piece and then holding a finished copy for the first time. My least favorite thing is delivering bad news that can’t be viewed as a blessing in disguise. Some bad news is just bad news, and that’s the worst.

Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

Get out of your head and out of the house. GO! DO! And then read read read and write write write. Get your characters out of the house. Make them GO. Make them DO.

Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. I’ve got questions.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to ask Mrs. Wexler a question on Casey's blog, so I feel it's fair to include it here as a bonus (I hope Casey doesn't mind): Were Peter Nelson and Rohitash Rao of HERBERT’S WORMHOLE an established team of writer/illustrator when you agreed to represent them? If so, did this make the submission process more difficult? Would you consider an established team of writer/illustrator for future clients?

Yes, Peter and Ro were an established team right from the start, but that didn’t complicate the submission process. I’m certainly open to considering established writer/illustrator teams.

For the full text of that inteview, click here.

 icmtalent.com

7 Questions For: Author Kurtis Scaletta

Kurtis Scaletta is the author of Mudville, Mamba Point (click here to read my review), and the upcoming Wake Me, all published by Knopf Books. Mr. Scaletta has lived in Louisiana, New Mexico, England, North Dakota, Liberia, Virginia, Brazil, North Dakota (again), Kansas, Maine, and Minnesota. From the bio section of his website: "When I came back to writing, I decided to focus on stories for children and young adults. I especially wanted to write “middle grade” books, the novels that for me (and for many people) represent a golden age of reading: middle grade is where you’ll find Charlotte and Wilber, Beezus and Ramona, and the earlier adventures of Harry, Hermione and Ron."

Mr. Scaletta has launched a new book this week and is expecting a new baby, but somehow he has still found time to come visit us and face the 7 Questions:

Question Seven: What are your top three favorite books?

Sticking to kids books, I'll say Charlotte's Web; The Midnight Fox; and Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars. I might give a different three books if you ask again tomorrow.

Question Six: How much time do you spend each week writing? Reading?

I spend probably an average of forty hours a week writing and revising, less time some weeks and more other weeks. I have a day job so that's a second full time job for me. I don't get to read as much as I'd like to, but I read about 20 books a year, often in spurts when I'm on a hiaitus from writing.

Question Five: What was the path that led you to publication?

My story is pretty typical -- I wrote a manuscript, got critiques, revised it a lot, wrote a bang-up query letter with the help of a very kindhearted friend who was already published, sent it to eight or nine agents, and got an offer of representation from Tina Wexler after two or three rounds of revisions and a couple of long telephone conversations. She sold the book pretty quickly after she thought it was ready. From conception to publication was a five-year process.

BTW, publication is a departure point, not a destination.

Question Four: Do you believe writers are born, taught or both? Which was true for you?

It's mostly learned but only partly taught. I mean that writers set out to learn and they can learn from everything, not just teachers --reading other books, listening to the way people talk, asking questions, writing and revising, meeting other writers. Almost everything is instructive.

Question Three: What is your favorite thing about writing? What is your least favorite thing?

I think my favorite part and my least favorite part are the same thing -- all of the revisions and hard work that goes into turning a manuscript in a book. Ideas are fun and finished books are fun; everything in between is drudgery, but the drudgery is the part that makes all the difference and gives me the most satisfaction and pride.

Question Two: What one bit of wisdom would you impart to an aspiring writer? (feel free to include as many other bits of wisdom as you like)

Stop aspiring and start perspiring.

Question One: If you could have lunch with any writer, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

I usually say P.G. Wodehouse, James Thurber, Kurt Vonnegut, or Daniel Pinkwater. I'm not just looking for brilliant writers, but ones I know will be fun to talk to. Now I might say bright, funny writers I know online and through their books but have never met in person --Michael Northrop, Josh Berk, James Preller, and Laurel Snyder are the first names that come to mind. There are dozens more.

www.kurtisscaletta.com

Book of the Week: MAMBA POINT by Kurtis Scaletta

This week is going to be tremendous! We are going to be joined by middle grade author Kurtis Scaletta himself on Thursday and today we are going to discuss his newest book, Mamba Point, which comes out today! That’s right, the ninja got himself an exclusive advanced reader copy and I have been enjoying Mamba Point ahead of everyone else (and what a lot of gloating I’ve done in this post!). So is the book any good?
Good, Esteemed Reader? Good doesn’t quite cover it. How about fantastic? How about wonderful? How about it’s the greatest middle grade book about mambas and American children living in Africa in the 1980s I have ever read! Mamba Point is a new favorite of mine (although I love all of the books on this blog) and I cannot recommend it strongly enough.

In fact, it’s too good! I’m going to have to write a shorter review than usual because I don’t want to ruin the experience of reading it for you. Mamba Point is a tightly wound tale that will make you laugh, hold you in suspense, and have you checking underneath your bed to make sure there aren’t any mambas slithering about. I had not one, but two dreams about mambas while reading it.

So here’s my review: two thumbs way up, five out of four stars, on a scale of 10, it’s an eleven, insert your own hyperbole. The thing to do now is to order Mamba Point and read it without letting me tell you anything further. Have I ever steered you wrong before, Esteemed Reader? Don’t bother reading the rest of this post, just buy your copy: Mamba Point.

The thing is, the less you know about Mamba Point going into it, the better. I’m going to try not to spoil the book for you , but inevitably I probably will give some of it away and I’m sure a few of you Esteemed Readers are still reading without having first bought and read it (shame on you). I had the good fortune to read this book without knowing anything going in other than Kurtis Scaletta is a very nice man who gave me a signed copy of his book, and that is the way to experience Mamba Point, because it knocked for a loop (mostly because some jerk blogger didn’t tell me all about it beforehand).

All right, I gave you a whole paragraph to stop reading and now I’m starting the summary. This is the first line of Mamba Point: My brother changed his name on the plane ride to Africa. What a great opening line, yeah? It’s exciting, it’s provocative, and it sets up the story at once. It’s 1982 and Larry, now Law, Tuttle and his brother Linus (there are plenty of blanket and Snoopy jokes) are on a plane to Africa where they will be living near the US embassy in a place called Mamba Point. But not to worry. There aren’t really any mambas there, or so Linus’s parents tell him, and the local inhabitants tell him. But as soon as the boys step off the plane, they are attacked by a mamba, which makes for an exciting opening. Not anymore though. I just ruined it. Told you not to read.

Linus is hoping to make a new start for himself in Africa. He doesn’t want to be the same Linus he was back home in Dayton, Ohio. He tells us constantly (the book is written in the first person) that he is becoming a new Linus. This is a wonderfully universal experience shared by most children who have moved and it resonates. But the problem is everywhere Linus goes, he sees another Mamba. He’s not supposed to be seeing them because there aren't supposed to be any mambas around, but he does. Early in the book, Scaletta drops this information:

"Mom wanted Darryl to shut up because she didn’t want to exacerbate your condition,” he said… When my parents took me to see that shrink after my panic attack at school, he talked to me for a while by myself.

Is interesting, no? Here we have a boy who might just have a mental issue who keeps seeing black mambas everywhere, usually while no one else is around. And the black mambas’ behavior gets stranger and stranger. Linus is able to pet them and they slither around his leg and never hurt them, and he is so not a parselltoungue. A black mamba follows him around, becomes his friend, and even lives in his laundry hamper. At this point, I began to suspect the mamba’s real name was Tyler Durden and Linus and he would start their own Fight Club. How fun is it to suspect something like that in a middle grade novel? It’s a lot of fun and now you won’t have it because I told you about it beforehand.

Is Linus crazy? Maybe. But his new friend Gambeh has a different theory. The rural religions believe some people have a special connection to animals called Kaseng. So those are your options: Linus is crazy and has delusional fantasies, which would make for an awesome story. Or, Linus has a special connection to actual, physically real black mambas and he can hang out with them and convince them to do things without ever being hurt, which would also make for an awesome story. I’m not going to tell you which it is because I’ve already spoiled enough. But either way, what follows is an awesome story and you're going to love it.

I said this was going to be a short review, but I’ve lied about that before (every week). Don’t worry. I’m not going to ruin anything else. But I’ve honestly never read a book quite like Mamba Point and I really, really liked it. It’s a boy book through and through, though girls will like it too, and the thing that makes it really special is the characters. I cared about Linus and Law and even Matt, the nerdy kid who lives across the hall. I knew a couple of Matt’s growing up.

I identified with these characters. Reading the banter of the brothers reminded me of being their age and horsing around with my own brother. And the boys are very funny. Even if a single black mamba had never shown up, I still would have enjoyed reading about them and that’s the hallmark of great characterization. These boys don’t need a strong plot to make them interesting, they make the plot they’re in interesting. And because the boys are so believable in all other situations, from playing video games to meeting girls, we believe them in some of the more fantastic situations.

Mamba Point is a love letter to youth, I think. Today’s kids will love the book, but if you grew up in the last thirty years, this book will be extra special to you. I was a boy in the 1980s and I remember Indiana Jones when he was fresh and new and decades away from the Crystal Skull. I remember how amazing Atari was at the time and how it was to dream of owning Pac-Man or Space Invaders. Back then, I could never have conceived of a Red Dead Redemption and Scaletta’s description of Pac-Man is like poetry. I haven’t played that game in forever, but I broke out my copy of Pac-Man after reading this book. Scaletta also presents us with the age old argument of Marvel vs DC and who has the better superheroes. He picks Marvel, which is just ridiculous and nearly ruined the book:) But later, he makes positive mention of Stephen King, so we'll call it even. Nice save, Scaletta.

Mamba Point is a time machine for adults of a certain age and even though I’ve never been to Africa or seen a black mamba, I felt transported to a time when I had. It was a wonderful experience and worth having. So go buy the book already and don’t forget to come back on Thursday to see Kurtis Scaletta face the 7 Questions or on Saturday to find out the identity of our mystery literary agent.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Book of the Week is simply the best book I happened to read in a given week. There are likely other books as good or better that I just didn’t happen to read that week. Also, all reviews here will be written to highlight a book’s positive qualities. It is my policy that if I don’t have something nice to say online, I won’t say anything at all (usually). I’ll leave you to discover the negative qualities of each week’s book on your own.