The Wrap-Up List by Steven Arntson

Gabriela receives the red letter. The one sent by Death to tell you when you will be taken. You see, Gabriela's world in not exactly like ours. Most people just die, but a few are escorted by Death into the afterlife. Anyone who receives the letter, responds with a wrap-up list of all the things they hope to achieve in their remaining time. It's not always possible to accomplish everything, but Death can help make things happen.

Gabriela is only 16 when she receives her letter. She is devastated. She has three good friends, Sarena, Raahi and Iris. They are a close group with much to look forward to (even with the impending war). Now, Gabriela has a week left, and she hasn't even kissed a boy.

All hope is not lost because sometimes (rarely) Death will pardon you if you can guess his secret weakness. Gabriela's Death is named Hercule, and his clues about his weakness are not much help. Iris is fascinated by these departures and has studied all the different Deaths. Maybe she can help Gabriela find the weakness.

Gabriela's life is filled with school, football games, friends, church, her parents who seem to bicker a lot and stories of her hero grandfather Gonzalo who died in World War II. Even with the coming war that causes a reinstatement of the draft, her life is full of hope. Can she get everything on her wrap-up list and stop death from taking her?

One thing that struck me about this story is how Gabriela spends her final week just being normal. She does work with Iris trying to find Hercule's weakness. She does speak to her priest. But generally, she spends time with her family and friends. At first, I thought if I was in this position I would want to go places and cram as much of my wish list into those remaining days, but I've changed my mind. Normal would be a good way to leave things.

For more info, check out the Indianapolis Public Library catalog and the author's site.

The Extra by Kathryn Lasky

Stories about Holocaust victims never have happy endings. I'm not referring literally to the ending of this book - it may or may not have a happy outcome (read it to find out). Even if the characters survive and outlive their persecutors, their lives are filled with the death and disappearances of their family and friends. So many times, they never know what happened to these people. They were taken away on trains or just disappeared one night, never to return. It was a horrific time.

Lilo is a Gypsy, a largely misunderstood population. She does not belong to a roaming caravan. She lives in a house and goes to school. Her father repairs watches and her mother sews the finest lace. And she lives in Austria at the time of the Third Reich.

Gypsies were rounded up like so many others who did not meet Hitler's standards for human existence. They were imprisoned, starved,  tortured and killed. Lilo hopes her dad's work for prominent people will save her family, but one night they are taken from their home to a camp. Before long, Lilo and her mother are chosen to be extras in a movie made by Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite director. They do not experience the glamour of movie making; they are nothing more that film slaves who could be killed for doing something wrong as easily as anyone in a concentration camp.

Sometimes Lilo's life is so crushingly hopeless that she is afraid to feel anything for a clever boy named Django. He teaches her how to gather information that is helpful to their survival. How can she allow her heart to be open to anyone when she may never see her own family again?

Lilo's story is loosely based on a real girl who was a stand in for the real Leni Riefenstahl. It is a story of contrasts and juxtaposition as the actors dress in fine clothes and eat wonderful food while the extras dress in rags and are given little to eat. For Lilo, it is all fake and she can only hope that one day she can return to her real life.

For more info, check out the Indianapolis Public Library catalog and the author's site.

Invasion by Walter Dean Myers

War is hell. It's a cliche, but it is so true. Walter Dean Myers holds nothing back in his depiction of the horrors of combat: the terror, the exhaustion, the hunger, the death, the blood, the dirt, the explosions. Imagine living a life where you could be killed any minute of every day; a life where you are talking to a buddy one minute and seeing him laying on the ground bleeding from a hole in his chest the next; a life where your fate is in the hands of leaders who sometimes seem as confused as you.

During World War II, Josiah Wedgewood (aka Woody) of Richmand, Virginia, lands on the beach with his platoon at Normandy and moves across France fighting the Germans. We are with Woody as he thinks about a girl at home; as he talks with fellow soldiers; as he sees friends die. Like Myers' other war stories, this on has no real plot; it is just the daily existence of soldiers in the middle of a war. There are only brief appearances of African American soldiers underlining the segregation that existed at the time in the armed forces.

This story is loosely connected to Myer's other books Fallen Angels and Sunrise Over Fallujah. Family members from three generations end up fighting in three different wars: in Europe, in Vietnam and in Iraq. How many generations must go to war? The futility of it all is part of Myer's point.

For more info, check out the Indianapolis Public Library catalog and the author's site.

Message to Adolf Parts 1 and 2 by Osamu Tezuka

This is an amazing complex story set in Japan and Germany in the 1930s and 40s during the time of the Nazi regime and World War II. There are three Adolfs in the story. One is Adolf Hitler. The other two start out as young boys in Japan. One is a Jewish boy whose family owns a German bakery. Having always lived in Japan, he feels like he is Japanese even though he was born in Germany. The other Adolf's father is a German official living in Japan and his mother is Japanese.

Each boy struggles with the rise of the Third Reich as Jews become persecuted
throughout Europe and life in Japan becomes affected. Friendships are tested and loyalties questioned as the Nazis become more powerful and Hitler's views spread. After the United States enters the war, the Japanese people must deal with rationing and bombing raids. This portrayal of every day struggles I found fascinating. It is not a view we often see when learning about the 'enemy.'




A thread throughout the story involves secret documents that some believe could bring down Hitler. The documents pass through many hands and are hidden and secretly moved about throughout the country. People will torture and kill to obtain the documents before they become public.

You have no idea how much more I want to share from one of the best graphic novels I have ever read, but it would spoil key elements of the intricate plot. There is action mixed with deeper questions of identity and loyalty to country and race. There are moments of humor, too; mostly in the forms of character overreactions to situation (as depicted in the way the characters are drawn). These reactions are very much in the manga tradition. No surprise since the author is a pioneer of manga and anime.

Make no mistake, this is the Holocaust and the Nazi persecution of the Jewish people is graphically portrayed. It is not just the actual violence, but the thought of how human beings were treated that is sickening.

For more info about these books, check out the Indianapolis Public Library catalog for part part 1 and part 2.

Somebody Please Tell Me Who I Am by Harry Mazer and Peter Lerangis

Too many wars. Too many dead. Too many wounded. I have great respect for the sacrifices made by our military personnel and their families, but I would like them to serve in peace time. Some soldiers never return and some are wounded with scars that will never heal. It is with this story that we follow one such soldier.

Ben didn't have to enlist in the military. He could have gone to college to study acting or any other vocation. But as he says, there are plenty of others out there who can be actors. Ben feels an obligation to do something for his country.

Ben's parents are concerned but supportive. His brother, Chris, has autism and does not understand what is happening. Ariela, Ben's girlfriend, is furious and confused that he did not discuss it with her. His best friend Niko is not too happy either. I'm just going to boot camp he tells them, but they fear he will be deployed. And so he is. Ben is off to Iraq with a quick e-mail to them like its no big deal.

Ben and his fellow soldiers are on patrol, doing their job, guns are fired, tension is high and then the explosion. Ben suffers a serious brain injury. He is shipped back to the states. His family and friend feel helpless. He has no memory, can no longer speak or walk. Ariela and Niko wonder if he will ever be the same. Will Ben ever remember them?

The story is gut wrenching and heartbreaking. You know there are people who have lived this story and are living it now and will live it tomorrow. We are there with Ben, and we are there with everyone else as the tragedy plays out for all involved.

I only wish this book were longer. It would have been excruciating, but more depth would have been appreciated.

May we have fewer soldiers and families who can relate to Ben's story.

For more info about this book, check out the Indianapolis Public Library catalog and Peter Lerangis' site.

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

With Banned Books Week coming at the end of September, I have been discussing challenged books with teens. I was thinking about one of my favorite books, Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers that happens to be on the list. I will not go into the reasons some people have requested that this book removed from libraries or schools. Suffice it to say that it is about young soldiers in war and that war is not pretty.

When I was in library school, I wrote about this book because it touched me emotionally. I am reprinting what I wrote here because I know that it is better than anything I could write now about this powerful book. Here is what I wrote then and still believe now:

My Uncle Bobby died in Vietnam. He was killed in action on August 19, 1969. For his actions he was awarded the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. Bobby Joe Likens served in Vietnam for 16 days.

“The real question was what I was doing, what any of us were doing, in Nam.”

Fallen Angels is the story of young army soldiers in Vietnam in 1967-1968 as seen through the eyes of Richard Perry from Harlem. There is no real plot and no climatic battle. This is a story of young Americans thrown into a hellish situation in a foreign land. Who will live and who will die? The soldiers are not perfect. They question their leaders. They fight with each other. They use fowl language and racial slurs. They make mistakes. They just want to get back to ‘the World.’ They want to see their homes again. Perry wants to go back to Harlem and see his mother and brother Kenny even though he knows he will not be the same when he returns.

“I didn’t want to say that I had a feeling that I wouldn’t get back home.”

I felt Bobby on every page. Did he live the lives of these soldiers? Did he have days of boredom while waiting for orders? Did he tease and curse and embrace the men who served with him? Did Bobby pray to himself? Was he scared? Did he see one of his buddies die? Was he afraid to write home to tell his family what was really happening around him and to him? Did he question those who lead him into battle? Did he kill anyone? Did he feel the shrapnel? Did he know it was coming? Did he wonder why he was there?

“The neat pile of body bags was waiting for the rest of us.”

I was born in 1970, so I never knew Bobby. His brief time in Vietnam is a mystery to me. As a child, Vietnam was just the place where my uncle died. After reading this book my question has gone from “What did he do there?” to “Did he do this or that?” Ultimately, I am left with more questions than answers, but I feel this book has given me some insight into Bobby’s life.

At the end, Perry finds out that a nurse he had met has been killed. He says nobody back home “would know about her, how this part of her life had been, what she had seen, or how she had felt at the end. They would get a telegram, and a body, but they wouldn’t know.” So true.

Click here for more info about this book from the Indianapolis Public Library.

Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick

War is ugly. Things happen so fast you cannot even be sure of anything including what happened yesterday. Matt Duffy wakes up in a military hospital in Iraq. His head injury makes it difficult for him to remember how he even got there. He knows he was on patrol and that he and his buddy Justin chased a car into an alley. The rest is just flashes of memory.

Matt tries to make sense of everything he is learning knowing that he will be questioned about the death of a civilian during the incident. Who can he trust when his own brain seems to be working against him? There are no easy answers.

Patricial McCormick tackles serious topics (see Cut) and makes them accessible through the eyes of her characters. Matt is still a teenager when he is wounded in Iraq. Through Matt's story we get a glimpse of what life might be like for the many troops currently serving in war zones. I recommend this book to anyone curious about the lives that soldiers are living.

Click here for more info about this book from the Indianapolis Public Library.

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

First, there is Deryn, a girl who disguises herself as a boy so she can be part of the British air corp. Second is Alek, who must escape his country after his parents are murdered. Deryn finds herself assigned to the large airship called Leviathan. Alek and his keepers are being hunted and must follow the instructions left by his father, the Duke and head of an empire. Deryn is a Darwinist and travels in a ship that is made up of many living creatures formed by men. Alek is a Clanker and travels in a mechanical war machine that walks on two legs. Although trained, neither is prepared for what faces them as they are swept into this re-imagined version of World War I.

I wanted to read this because I was hoping it was similar to Jules Verne. Verne often imagined futuristic machines that were used in contemporary times (like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). The difference between this book and Verne's stories is that Westerfeld takes futuristic ideas (even for now) and puts them in the past. This blending of past and future is referred to as steampunk.

The book started slow, but had lots of action and interesting ideas. The second book is already out, so there is no waiting to find out what happens next.

Click here to find more info about this book from the Indianapolis Public Library.