| ALA Best Books for Young Adults |  | | Into the Volcano
by Wood, Don
Publishers Weekly
: Wood's ( The Napping House) first foray into graphic novels is a visual stunner. Sumo and Duffy Pugg are called out of class by their father, who insists they immediately go off with their long-lost, oddly named cousin, Mr. Come-and-Go, to visit their (also unknown to them) Aunt Lulu on Kocalaha, the island where their absent mother was born. Blunt, bald and broad as a refrigerator, Come-and-Go does not inspire confidence in Sumo, the less adventurous of the brothers, and his reluctance looks reasonable when Lulu hustles them off on a mysterious expedition, which involves entering Kocalaha's volcano as it is erupting. Wood's full-color digital illustrations vividly depict fabulous scenery—lava flows, ocean swells, lush foliage—and the muscularity of the action will impress thrill-seeking readers. The boys repeatedly face peril, including a terrifying and surreal episode in which deathly specters surround Sumo while he tries to rescue Duffy. The plot does not answer all the questions it raises: the boys' trip is eventually explained, but not why their father has sanctioned it. The audience will likely be too busy living vicariously through Sumo and Duffy's ultimately excellent adventure to mind. Ages 7–up. (Oct.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms
School Library Journal
: Starred Review. Gr 5-8–This intense mystery-adventure coming-of-age chapter book is done in comic-book style–something of a departure for Wood. Two brothers, Duffy and Sumo, are sent to Hawaii to visit their mysterious aunt, who hustles them off on a perilous expedition into the bowels of an erupting volcano, accompanied by strangers whose skills are obvious, but whose trustworthiness is not. The dangers the boys face are terrifying, especially an interlude during which Sumo, wracked by guilt and indecision after he thinks his brother has fallen to his death, is trapped in the dark on an underground cliff and is visited by the specter of Death. That the children, who appear to be 10 or 12, have been exposed to such peril knowingly by an adult who has been entrusted with their care is a dark vein running through the story. Wood's vividly colored artwork brings the perils the siblings face into startling focus. Keenly observed depictions of the Hawaiian landscape and geological processes lend an impressive veracity to this exciting and unusual offering. It is a rare example of a graphic novel for young people that is neither manga nor mainstream.–Paula Willey, Baltimore County Public Library, Towson, MD Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms
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| Oprah's Book Club |  | | We Were the Mulvaneys
by Joyce Carol Oates
Library Journal
: Everyone knows the Mulvaneys: Dad the successful businessman, Mike the football star, Marianne the cheerleader, Patrick the brain, Judd the runt, and Mom dedicated to running the family. But after what sometime narrator Judd calls the events of Valentine's Day 1976, this ideal family falls apart and is not reunited until 1993. Oates's (Will You Always Love Me, LJ 2/1/96) 26th novel explores this disintegration with an eye to the nature of changing relationships and recovering from the fractures that occur. Through vivid imagery of a calm upstate New York landscape that any moment can be transformed by a blinding blizzard into a near-death experience, Oates demonstrates how faith and hope can help us endure. At another level, the process of becoming the Mulvaneys again investigates the philosophical and spiritual aspects of a family's survival and restoration. Highly recommended. Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. System, Poughkeepsie, NY Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms
Publisher's Weekly
: Elegiac and urgent in tone, Oates's wrenching 26th novel (after Zombie) is a profound and darkly realistic chronicle of one family's hubristic heyday and its fall from grace. The wealthy, socially elite Mulvaneys live on historic High Point Farm, near the small upstate town of Mt. Ephraim, N.Y. Before the act of violence that forever destroys it, an idyllic incandescence bathes life on the farm. Hard-working and proud, Michael Mulvaney owns a successful roofing company. His wife, Corinne, who makes a halfhearted attempt at running an antique business, adores her husband and four children, feeling "privileged by God." Narrator Judd looks up to his older brothers, athletic Mike Jr. ("Mule") and intellectual Patrick ("Pinch"), and his sister, radiant Marianne, a popular cheerleader who is 17 in 1976 when she is raped by a classmate after a prom. Though the incident is hushed up, everyone in the family becomes a casualty. Guilty and shamed by his reaction to his daughter's defilement, Mike Sr. can't bear to look at Marianne, and she is banished from her home, sent to live with a distant relative. The family begins to disintegrate. Mike loses his business and, later, the homestead. The boys and Corinne register their frustration and sadness in different, destructive ways. Valiant, tainted Marianne runs from love and commitment. More than a decade later, there is a surprising denouement, in which Oates accommodates a guardedly optimistic vision of the future. Each family member is complexly rendered and seen against the background of social and cultural conditioning. As with much of Oates's work, the prose is sometimes prolix, but the very rush of narrative, in which flashbacks capture the same urgency of tone as the present, gives this moving tale its emotional power. 75,000 first printing; author tour. Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms
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| Books That Bite |  | | Blue Bloods
by Melissa de la Cruz
Publishers Weekly: De la Cruz combines American history, vampires and a crew of rich New York City kids, delivering a page-turning debut to her new series, sure to appeal to fans of her Au Pairs titles. When 15-year-olds Schuyler and Bliss find out that they are vampires, as are many of the city's elite, they learn what's behind some of their weird symptoms (such as Schuyler's blue veins, which form "an intricate pattern, visible under the skin's surface," or Bliss's cravings for raw meat), and that "nothing could kill vampires." But something is hunting them, even killing some, and Schuyler grows more determined to stop it, even as the Conclave, the vampire leaders, attempts to cover it up. Readers will recognize the character types here: Schuyler the outcast, Bliss the pretty new girl and Mimi the popular queen bee (who nurses a somewhat incestuous relationship with her equally gorgeous brother). Not many question are answered along the way, even for the start of a series. Still, it's hard to resist a book that combines expensive clothes, modeling jobs, blood-sucking and even diary entries from a Mayflower vampire. De la Cruz plants enough seeds (e.g., What does it mean that Schuyler's father is human? Will her mother come out of her coma? Who are the Silver Bloods, and is one of them hiding amongst the vampires?) to give readers a stake in what happens next. Ages 12-up. (May) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms
School Library Journal: Gr 9 Up–De la Cruz has revamped traditional vampire lore in this story featuring a group of attractive, privileged Manhattan teens who attend a prestigious private school. Schuyler Van Alen, 15, the last of the line in a distinguished family, is being raised by her distant and forbidding grandmother. Schuyler, her friend Oliver, and their new friend Dylan are treated like outsiders by the clique of popular, athletic, and beautiful teens made up of Mimi Force, her twin brother, and her best friend. What they have in common is the fact that they are all Blue Bloods, or vampires. They don't realize that they aren't normal until they reach age 15. Then the symptoms manifest themselves and they begin to crave raw meat, have nightmares about events in history, and get prominent blue veins in their arms. Their immortality and way of life are threatened after Blue Blood teens start getting murdered by a splinter group called the Silver Bloods. This novel constantly name-drops and is full of product placements, drinking, drugs, nonexplicit sex, and superficial characterizations, but the intriguing plot will keep teens reading. De la Cruz's explanation for the disappearance of the Colony of Roanoke is unique and the idea that models don't gain weight because they are Blue Bloods rather than anorexic is unusual.–Sharon Rawlins, NJ Library for the Blind and Handicapped, Trenton Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions Inc. Terms
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