#1

A new year, a new book list.  #1 for 2012 is a young adult book fair find (we don't really need to go into how I feel about book fairs again!).  The Juvie Three by Gordon Korman.  I like Gordon Korman for many reasons.  The first and foremost ~ all his books end of happy.  There is never a question that it's not all going to work out in the end.   *side note: I was just having a conversation at lunch today with a colleague who hated stories where it all ends happily ever after.  His main beef is that it's not real life.  And that's my point exactly.  I don't want to spend my free time reliving the sad endings of real life.  I want my fantasy time to be just that ~ a fantasy.  If real life can't always be rainbows and puppies, why would I choose to spend time in another world that is just as morose and grim as day-to-day living?  (and deep down, I think real life will always turn out to be rainbows and puppies...but that's just me)

Gordon Korman won me over for life when he wrote No More Dead Dogs.  I picked that one up (at a book fair) just as I had killed off Old Yeller for the 78th time in 7th grade reading class.  It was about a middle school play where the lead actor decided that he was tired of the dog always dying at the end of the story and that the dog wasn't going to die on his watch.  So, much to the dismay of the director, he rewrote the play to let the dog live.  That's exactly how I feel about reading ~ the dog really doesn't have to die.
But, back to The Juvie Three.  This was a great story ~ with pretty real characters that prove most people just need a purpose in life and someone to believe in them.  Three kids are picked to get a second chance; moving from prison to a halfway house...and things go bad pretty quickly.  But the boys learn the real meaning of looking out for someone and what is important in life.  Yes, the happily-ever-after is a little hard to believe, but you want to believe it.
Good quote: page 115, "Sometimes being totally screwed can set you free."
fl: Gecko Fosse is behind the wheel of a powder blue Infiniti M45 sedan, enjoying the thrum of the idling engine and not thinking.  ll: But none of them can prevent a lightning strike.