« Books to Begin the Year With - #1 | Main | Cirque du Freak -- the Movie »
January 8, 2008
Books to Begin the Year With - #2
Here's the second installment of books to begin the year with. This time the author is Jordan Sonnenblick. Look for my Top 10 books of 2007, coming soon.
Zen and the Art of Faking It
Fourteen-year-old San, an ethnic Chinese adopted by an Anglo-American couple as an infant, is as culturally American as apple pie, but he reinvents himself as a mysterious Zen Buddhist when "the thing" with his dad gets "ugly," and he and his mom leave Houston for a new life in Pennsylvania. San elects the exotic identity partly to spite his father, who extolled blending in, but also to impress his new classmates, especially a pretty girl clearly attracted to his aesthetic persona. And just when he thinks everyone (including the cute girl he can't stop thinking about) is on to him, everyone believes him . . . in a major Zen way.
Notes From a Midnight Driver
Having seriously messed himself up by getting drunk and decapitating a garden gnome with his mom's car, sixteen-year-old Alex is assigned to a nursing home for his community service sentence: one hundred hours with Sol Lewis, the crankiest, most unapproachable member of the old folks' community. At first, Alex balks about being assigned to such a cranky and seemingly obnoxious person, but soon he discovers the man's secret past, the true meaning of friendship, and what is really important in life.
Sonnenblick has a knack for injecting humor in discussions about life. Readers enjoy a great story that will start them thinking. Let me know what you think of these books.
Ed Goldberg
Teen Services Librarian
Posted by egoldberg at January 8, 2008 10:25 AM