Prescription drugs for teenagers

UK Writer  William Sutcliffe  Concentr8 Bloomsbury 2016 $18.99pb 237pp ISBN 978 1 4088 6624 5 Themes: Futuristic London/ Gangs/ Hostages/ Prescription drugs

This is London in the not too distant future and all the ‘troubled’ kids are on a new drug – Concentr8. This is the story of what happens when five of these young people no longer have access to the drug- they didn’t mean to get into this sort of trouble but now the whole world is watching them. A fairly quick read of a tense and totally frightening look at what could happen in London – or anywhere.

Year 10 up/ Age 14 up - mature readers

A New Young Adult Writer in the Makaro Press Stables

NZ Writer  Kaeli Baker  Sylvie the Second  Submarine -  Makaro Press 2015 $25.00pb

ISBN 978 0 9941 1653 7

Themes: Dysfunctional families / Mental disorders/ Psychiatric hospitals/ Rape/ Self harm/ Sisters/ Suicide (attempted)

Sylvie, who tells the story, is the second daughter of parents whose relationship can only be described as brittle. The whole house vibrates with tension – not really surprising as the oldest daughter, Cate is in Psychiatric Care and doesn’t seem to be getting any better and Sylvie who is reacting to the whole situation as many teenagers would especially when they feel they are being given a definite second place in the family set up.  But. Don’t let this description make you feel this is a depressing story of gloom and doom. Far from it – it is written in the wholly believable voice of a teenager and interspersed with the underlying serious and almost deadly nature of the situation is full of parties, boys, and visits to the mall, music, and new clothes…

Kaeli Baker, for whom this is a first novel, is the pen name of a young Auckland writer who works in the area of youth psychiatric care. With a writing style that is so sympathetic to the outlook of older teenagers I really look forward to seeing what she comes up with next.

Year 11 up/ Age 15 up – and adults 

NOTE: I spent a happy evening at National Library on Tuesday last at the annual Christmas Party of the Society of the Friends of the Dorothy Neal White Collection. After a generous feast of Christmas food (and wine) we were entertained and enchanted by what has become a tradition at this particular party - members of the committee reading their favourite Christmas stories and pieces through the years. These ranged from the telling of Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus  - a letter from an eight-year-old reprinted from the September 21, 1897, number of The New York Sun to The Polar Express  by Chris van Allsburg. 

Many more interesting events are being planned by the Society for 2016 - watch these posts!
 

Young Adult Fiction - Mature Readers

A New Title from the Writer of The Convent

Australian Writer  

Maureen McCarthy

Stay with Me

Allen & Unwin 2015   $28.99pb 352pp

ISBN 978 1 7433 1688 7

Themes: Domestic violence/ Flashbacks/ Kew Mental Hospital/ Rural Australia

When we first meet Tess she has survived (but only just) some years of being in a violent relationship with her partner, Jay with whom she has had a child, now a much loved three-year-old named Nellie.  Tess and Nellie are stuck on an isolated, lonely farm above Byron Bay, mainland Australia’s most easterly point, with no means of communication with anyone who might help. The story begins when Tess has made the decision to run away and continues in a clutch of flashbacks to her younger days when she was brought up by her siblings and even further back to a time when women who were reacting to extreme mental and physical abuse were said to be ‘mad’ and put in mental hospitals (then called asylums) often to die of hopelessness and despair. There is a genuine air of anxiety and tension hanging over the book and the reader cannot help but become involved in Tess’s life but the ending, on a commercial flight, high above the Pacific, could not be more positive or empowering.  A long but totally worthwhile read in a satisfyingly ‘chunky’ book.

Readers who get involved in this story and to whom the writer is new will be pleased to know there are many other titles – just Google Maureen McCarthy writer for details.  

For mature readers (and adults)

(I am sorry I have neglected this Blog for the past week. It's not that I haven't been reading-  it may just be that I am a very poor time manager. I wonder if I should go to a time management course? 

So much is happening or about to happen in the children's book world at present - the run up to the Children's Book Awards/ the LIANZA Children's Book Awards on June 15th at National Library/ Tinderbox looming on the horizon.......  BM)

Young Adult Fiction - Mature Readers

NZ Writer  Denis Wright  Nanotech  Mākaro Press (Submarine) 2015   $25.00pb 212pp

ISBN 9 780 9941 695 7

Themes: Year 13 High School students/ Kidnapping/ Racism/ Science Field Trips/ Sexual abuse

Set in Auckland, New Zealand, the basis of the novel is the invention of an American biologist who creates a virus that works on the pigmentation in the skin that could be used for great good to cure diseases in certain ethnic groups. However, it also has the power to wipe out the groups completely without touching the white population.

At a high-powered conference the biologist is captured by a group of     

White supremacists and also, because they manage to get in the way, a group of highly intelligent science students from Wellington. The story is told in an ‘easy’ manner by one of the students who, because of traumatic events in his life when he was much younger, has not spoken aloud much since then.

There is blood, killings, sex, some swearing but I found this an addictive, read-at-a-sitting experience. However, because of its themes of ethnic cleansing and sexual abuse I would be very careful how it was issued in a secondary or public library situation.

My only quibble is with the group’s teacher, Bernie, who at times was so OTT she was hard to believe. But even Bernie had her moments – and her class would certainly never forget her

The writer, who also wrote Violence 101 Penguin Books which won the Best First Book in the NZ Post Children’s Book awards in 2009 is a teacher in a Wellington High school. He has captured the tone of the voices and actions of his group of high school students with perfect pitch.

Year 11 up – suggested mature readers only

Young Adult - Mature Readers

NZ Writer
Diana Menefy

1915 Wounds of War

Scholastic 2015   $19.95pb  293pp

ISBN 978 1 7754 3274 6

Themes: ANZACs/ Egypt 1914-1918/ Hospital ships/ Nurses in wartime/ NZ Army Nursing Service/ World War 1914-1918

Two young cousins (aged I guess in their early 20s) leave New Zealand and go off to serve as nursing sisters in the First World War. Life in rural New Zealand, hard as it was at times, was not really sufficient preparation for the shocking sights and incidents they were to encounter - the wounds in the title play a big part in the story. I did find the cursive script which is used for the letters between the cousins a bit hard to read sometimes but it does give a feeling of authenticity and younger eyes may enjoy it.

This is the second of the planned series of books from Scholastic covering the First World War. We have already had 1914  Riding into War by Susan Brocker – the stories of horses in the war. Search on this Blog. There are three more books to come by David Hair, Brian Falkner and Des Hunt – ending in 1918.

Wounds of War will be launched at the Whangarei Museum State Highway 14, Maunu on Friday 17 April 2015 from 5.30-7.30pm.   RSVP is essential, so if you are going please let Diana know by 10 April 2015. She can be contacted through northlandauthors@gmail.com.

Year 10 up/ Age 14 up

Young Adult - Mature Readers

USA Writer

Arwen Elys Dayton

Seeker

Corgi 2015  $21.99pb 435pp

ISBN 978 0 5525 7055 8

Themes: Fantasy/ Sci-fi/ Time travel

Quin (14), from whose POV the story begins (there are several others) is one of a group of teenagers who are being trained to be ‘Seekers’, an organisation they believe to be worthy, noble and good. But, not so! They are actually being trained to be assassins although they are kept in the dark about this almost as much, if not more, than the reader. This is a story that moves in time and space from Scotland to Hong Kong to London and in the past and future. Some effort is needed on the part of the reader to work out the intricacies of the plot but, believe me, it is worth it for this is an original, fast paced book that, once you are hooked as I was,  (reading ‘into the night’) will leave you longing for the next title in the series - Traveller due early 2016  

Year 9 up/ Age 13 up

Arwen Elys Dayton - Image Lytherus

Young Adult Fiction (Mature Readers)

NZ Writer  Anna Smaill The Chimes Sceptre 2015  $34.99pb 289pp

ISBN 978 1 4447 9453 3

Themes: Memory/ Music/ Post-apocalyptic, Dystopian stories/ Word building

Simon is standing in the rain on a road somewhere on the way to London.  He cannot remember the past; he has no way of planning for the future. He and everyone else are living in a world where the written word is forbidden.  Everything is controlled by The Chimes and music is everywhere.  But Simon is different and when he finally arrives in an unimaginable London he begins to experience some vague memories. This is certainly not an easy book to read (I nearly gave up several times) but if you are able to persuade older students to persevere with it for the first hundred or so pages (!) they will find themselves in a truly beautifully written book that can only (and I'm sorry about this clichéd word) enrich them. Perhaps you should read it yourself first…

      

Anna Smaill

Photo acknowledgments to Booksellers NZ

Adult (but will be appreciated by readers from around 14 up)

Young Adult Fiction

USA Writer

Jennifer Niven

All the Bright Places

Penguin Books 2015   $18.00pb 388pp

ISBN 978 0 1413 5703 4

Themes: Death (of a sister)/ Depression/ igh school life

 High School Life/  Love stories/ Suicide

A love story set in an American High School about two young people obsessed with the ideas of death and life. Theodore who wants to die and seeks desperately to find ways of doing this only to be thwarted each time by small things that make him see the positive side of living. Then there is Violet who counts the days until she can leave her small town, go somewhere where she can forget her sister’s recent death and really ‘start to live’. But Theodore and Violet are thrown together on a class project and their lives change. Told from the POV of the two main characters this is an absorbing read, sometimes very funny and thought provoking but librarians buying for collections should be aware of the component of suicide and the ways Theodore investigates how he can kill himself.  

It is worth Googling the writer as this is her first book for young adults and she has an interesting ‘history’.   

Year 9 up/ Age13 up (and adults)

Young Adult Fiction (Mature Readers)

NZ Writer R.L Stedman Inner Fire Nationwide Book Distributors  2014   $21.99pb  261pp

ISBN 978 0 4732 9442 7  Themes: Christchurch earthquakes/ Dartmoor, Devon/ Genetic conditions/ London UK/ Personal privacy/ Stress

Christchurch and its continuing earthquakes seems a place to be out of for Corrine and her family and when an on-going genetic condition causes her to set fire to and destroy their home, they opt to move back to the UK from where they originally came.  However problems have a habit of following those affected and further fires happen plus the entrance of a group of sinister men in black and a large network of security cameras that seem to be linked. Corrine is sent to stay with her great-grandmother down in Devon and there she meets the gorgeous Rowan, aged eighteen and who provides the love interest to the story (plus some answers!).  This is a feisty thriller which is already pleasing a large group of teenage girls (see  www.goodreads.com/book/show/23247272-inner-fire for some of their comments).

Year 10 up / Age 14 up

Note: coarse language and sexual descriptions.

If they are not carrying stock of this title bookshops, can order the title directly through Nationwide Book Distributors  http://www.nationwidebooks.co.nz It can also be purchased as both print and eBook through Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Inner-Fire-R-L-Stedman-ebook/dp/B00OXPXG04/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416623982&sr=8-1&keywords=Inner+Fire Or – order it direct through the writer’s web page: www.RLStedman.com

Rachel Stedman won the Best First Book Award in the 2014 NZ Post Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and was a Notable Book in the Storylines 2014 list.