PAPER TOWNS

BY JOHN GREEN

John Green's third novel for young adults is intellegent, witty, fun, and so right on target with his characterizations of senior guys about to escape high school and move on. The entire book is an extended metaphor, comparing the shallowness of high school life to paper towns, fake towns made up and put on maps simply for the purpose of copyright issues. Paper towns only have the illusion of reality, but have no substance. This is how Margo Roth Spiegelman feels about her life, though she gives the appearance of being the sun about whom the whole school revolves. One of those orbiting around Margo, is Quentin Jacobsen, her next-door-neighbor and friend since they were babies. Although they have not been close for a long time, Quentin still loves Margo as he did when they were children. When Margo shows up at Quentin's bedroom window at midnight, insisting he drive her around town for a night of revenge and frolic, he can't say no. After an amazing heart-pounding night of pranks, Margo doesn't show up for school the next day, or for several days afterward. She has done this before, leaving clues as to her whereabouts, but this has a whole different feel to Quentin, who looks for clues everywhere in hopes of tracking her down. In the next few days, Q goes from the agonizing belief that Margo is dead, to the wild assurance that he knows where she is, and must follow and find her. On his high school graduation day, Quentin takes off on a hilarious but deadly serious 21-hour road trip with three friends in hopes of finding Margo Roth Spiegelman in the paper town of Agloe, New York. I couldn't possibly tell you the end of this story, but I can say that this book about striving for the real in life, won't disappoint. Find it in the library. ~reviewed by Dail Sams

The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman


In spite of the fact that this year's Newbery Award winner starts with a brutal murder, involves a sinister international brotherhood, has ghouls and ghosts and a poor orphan being raised in a graveyard by the dead, Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is a touching coming of age story. I can imagine that the uniqueness of this work can be compared to the uniqueness of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, when it won the Newbery in the 1960's. When a small child escapes the murderer of his family , a man named Jack, in the first chapter of this extraordinary book, he toddles up the hill to an old cemetery, where the inhabitant dead agree to parent and protect him until he can do it for himself. The orphaned child is named Nobody Owens--Nobody, because he is like nobody but himself, and Owens, because a childless couple named Owens who died in the 1700's agrees to be his mom and dad. In addition, a mysterious being known as Silas, agrees to be his guardian. Silas makes sure "Bod" gets fed, educated, and clothed. He also serves as Bod's counselor and protector, a role which is more important than Bod has any idea of. During his childhood, Bod is friends for a short time with a young girl whose parents believe Bod is their daughter's imaginary friend. He also is allowed the run of the graveyard, which gives him the ability to see all the dead, and fade himself when necessary. In early adolescence, he begins to long for the outside world, and wants to avenge his family's murders. While Bod fights the man Jack, Silas and his friends wage an even more intense battle against an evil society on Bod's behalf. A tense and suspense-filled story, The Graveyard Book, surprises with lyrical language and an appealing hero who grows up under the oddest of circumstances. Definitely worth the time. ~Reviewed by Dail Sams