Weapons of Math Destruction, Kid versus Captain, and the Incarnation of War looks for Love

I got lost in some excellent science fiction and fantasy novels the last couple of week.  I have got some excellent graphic novels on deck, but first, some good old fashioned SF/F stuff.

Sanderson, Brandon (2013) The Rithmatist  New York: Tom Doherty.



Opening lines:  Lilly's lamp blew out as she bolted down the hallway.  She threw the lamp aside, smashing oil across the painted wall and fine rug.  The liquid glistened in the moonlight.
      The house was empty.  Silent, save for her panicked breathing.  She had given up on screaming.  Nobody seemed to hear.

This book is by far the best book I have read so far this year.  The story takes place on a world very similar to ours, only the United States is a grouping of islands and the main focus of society is fighting the wild chalklings who are ravenously destructive neasts that are confined to the isle of Nebrask.  The human army keeping them at bay are Rithmatists, who can use a kind of geometry-based magic (yes, you read that right) to keep the chalklings under control.  Joel is a remarkably smart boy who does poorly at school and is really interested in the Rithmatists, even though he is not one.  When he gets a position working as the assistant to a kindly Rithmatist professor for the summer, Joel meets Melody, herself a failing Rithmatist and soon all three of them become involved in a murder mystery with serious implications for the continued survival of humans.

This book keeps you guessing about who the bad guy is (and the ending is satisfying in that you might be able to guess part of it, but by and large, you won't see it coming)  Joel is an excellent protagonist as is Melody, once you get to know her.  And it turns out that geometry is actually pretty fascinating when it is a matter of life and death.  This is a book where there are clear divisions (and some fuzzy ones too) between the forces of good and evil and you will find yourself rooting hard for the good guys.  It has a hint that something romantic might develop between Joel and Melody -- just enough to be intriguing but not to distract from the story.

I know some smart fourth and fifth grade readers who would enjoy this, but it is really ideal for sixth grade and up.  And for math teachers looking to build up their classroom library -- run to your local independent bookstore and buy it today.  Your students will love it (but you will love it even more).  In fact, you might consider using it as a read aloud.  There is nothing particularly offensive int he book, though it is scar in some portions and occasionally the violence is pretty graphic.  Nothing compared to prime time television, though.

Get it.  Read it. Have your students read it.  Good stuff.




Card, Orson Scott (2008) Ender in Exile.  New York: Tor.




Opening Lines:
Dear John Paul and Theresa Wiggin,
You understand that during the most recent attempt by the Warsaw Pact to take over the International Fleet, our sole concern at EducAdmin was the safety of the children.  Now we are finally able to begin working out the logistics of sending the children home.
      We assure you that Andrew will be provided with continuous surveillance and an active bodyguard throughout his transfer from the IF to American governmental control.

I am assuming you have read Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.  You haven't?  Seriously?  Look, there is no sense even talking about Ender in Exile until you have read Ender's Game.  Go read it now.  I'll wait.

Okay.  You read it?  Good.  It is an amazing book isn't it.  I remember reading it when it first came out.  There were a lot of people ravenously waiting for the next book in the series to come out.  Before long, Card released Xenocide and Speaker for the Dead and they were good -- but they didn't have the same kind of gripping story that Ender' Game did.  Then, in 2008 (apparently -- I just discovered it last month in an awesome independent bookstore in Moab, Utah) Card came out with Ender in Exile.  I'll tell you what -- Ender in Exile is a much better sequel than the Speaker for the Dead or Xenocide.  Ender in Exile takes place just after the triumphant end of the Formic War.  The nations of earth are starting to fight over who will control the genius children who helped win the war.  Ender and his sister Valentine make the decision to leave in a ship that is carrying colonists to inhabit one of the dead Formic worlds.  The journey will take two years on board the ship, but while they are travelling, forty years will pass on Earth.  When they arrive, Ender is to serve as governor.  Unfortunately, the captain of the starship they are on has his own designs on that position.  How can Ender, a twelve year old boy, possibly outwit the man who has all the control (and also avoid an assassin who awaits him at the colony and negotiate his first romantic relationship.)

This book isn't' as good as the Rithmatist, and  it isn;t as good as Ender's Game -- but that still leaves plenty of room for it to be honking good.  This book is perhaps best for anyone who has already read and loved Ender's Game.  Nothing particularly objectionable here besides a couple of very occasional  vulgar words.  Too long for a read aloud, but excellent for a sixth grade and up classroom library.




Anthony, Piers (1986) Wielding a Red Sword.  New York: Del Rey.



Opening lines:  It was a travelling show, the kid that drifted from village to village, performing for thrown rupees.  There was a chained dragon who would snort smoke and sometimes fire when its keeper signaled.

When I was in high school I think I read very book Piers Anthony had written.  I started with the gripping and hilarious Xanth series, then read several other books before I discovered his incarnations of immortality series.  I devoured those too.  But somehow the whole lot of them got lost in a move somewhere and it wasn't until I recently encountered this book in a bookstore that I remembered how much I liked it and re-read it thinking about its appropriateness for the classroom.

And that is where things get difficult.  It is an interesting book.  Mym, the main character is a prince who runs away.  He falls in love with a circus performer, but then ends up agreeing to take the mantle of the incarnation of War.  Soon he has a pale horse that can move astonishingly fast and a red sword that can stop time.  However, he finds it difficult to maintain relationships.  He also finds out that the incarnation of Evil is trying to manipulate him.

It is an interesting and fun premise and makes for a good fantasy novel, but i had forgotten the enthusiasm with which Piers Anthony descries the physical nature of War's interaction with several women who he becomes involved in.  I don't remember that affecting me much as a high school kid, and there are some interesting themes that work themselves out as War tries to figure out how physical attractiveness, intellectual interaction, and deep caring are parts of what makes love work.  The female characters in the book tend to be pretty passive and certainly couldn't stand up to Katniss, Triss, or Hermione Granger.  In fact is was somewhat startling to me to remember that just a few short decades ago there was a clearer divide between boy books and girl books.

I am not sure this one is suited for a high school classroom.  It is a good story, but perhaps best left for readers to discover on thier own.

Weird Words, Genius Clusters, and the Ghost Army of World War Two

My apologies.  It has been a couple of weeks since I have last posted.  I have been hiking five national parks out west with my family.  But that gave me a lot of time to get some reading done too -- so here we go.  Today I want to highlight three excellent non-fiction books that you might not normally think of for use with middle school and high school students.

Beyer, Rick; Sayles, Elizabeth (2015)  The Ghost Army of World War Two:  How One Top-Secret Unit Deceived the Enemy with Inflatable Tanks, Sound Effects, and Other Audacious Fakery.  New York:  Princeton Architectural Press.





During World War Two, the United States army gathered artists, sound engineers, architects, and others who could think outside the box to form a top secret unit whose job was to fool the enemy.  using rubber inflatable tanks, bogus uniforms, and recordings of tanks, trucks, and men, the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops traveled throughout Europe on a moment's notice to plug holes in the allied line by impersonating units that were not there, to convince the Nazi army that the Allies were planning an offensive where in a different place than they actually were, and to generally cause confusion.  The 23rd had to be able to alter their uniforms quickly, give the impression there that they were a force hundreds of times bigger than they actually were, imitate the styles of each radio operator in the units they were imitating, and also fool allied troops enough to maintain secrecy.  The unit included several men who sent on to e notable artists, sculptors, and included Private Bill Blass, who went on to be a famous fashion designer.

This book's intended audience is adults, but the language is fully accessable to high school students.  There are a couple of elements in it, however, that could cause the book to be challenged.  Because there are some excerpts from diaries and letters home, the book does contain some vulgar language.  There is one reference, during the description of a particularly hard winter in 1944-45, when the troops attempted to decorate a Christmas tree with radar-jamming tin foil and balloons made from condoms.  There is also mention on two different occasions to  the men of the 23rd going to brothels, though in both occasions it was primarily to do life drawings (some of which are included in the book -- women in their underwear -- which also could be problematic for many schools).

This book covers history, strategy, and the difficulty or war for those who fought in it.  In spite of the potentially objectionable parts, I would encourage high school history teachers and reading teachers to check it out.  It is an excited narrative of an aspect of World War Two that most people don't know about.




Bierma, Nathan (2009) The Eclectic Encyclopedia of English.  Sherwood:  William, James and Company.



Opening Lines:  "I used to be picky -- really picky -- about English grammar and usage.  By the time I was in high school, at the dinner table I was correcting sentences that ended in a preposition.  I was shaking my head scornfully when someone confused "lay" and "lie".  I was trying to right the coruse of the English language one error at a time."

Nathan Bierma goes on to explain how, after a course taught by legendary English professor James VandenBosch, he came to realize that English has morphed in so many directions over its long history, and has incorporated words form so many other languages, that it is more important to celebrate its flexibility and diversity than it is to try to freeze it in time and get everyone to standardize how they use it.

And so what Bierma has written is a celebration of the quirkiness of our language.  Here you will find an explanation of the history of the pronunciation of the word Arkansas, a list of Australian idioms (like "He's got a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock"), he truth about how many words Eskimos have for snow, the history of the word meh, and a definition of the word snollygoster.  Students who love words and where they came from (and i acknowledge that such students might be in the minority) wll get a kick out of this book.  Middle school and high school English teachers should especially consider this one.




Weiner, Eric (2016)  The Geography of Genius.  New York:  Simon and Shuster.



Eric Weiner set out to answer what seems at first like it might be a simple quesiton.  What makes a place a haven for geniuses?  Athens, Greece during the time of Plato, Socrates, Aescalus, Aristotle, and Alexander; Florence, Italy during the Renaissance; Edinburgh, Scotland during the scientific revolution; and Silicon Valley in contemporary California -- are all examples of such pockets of genius.

The further Weiner digs into the question, though, the more complicated the answer becomes.  Ancient Greece had a strong community ethic, consumed large amounts of diluted wine, and was a place where there was a lot of walking and talking.  Were these important variables?  Florence was a place of civil unrest and political uncertainty, vast wealth, ready cheap labor, and a lot of artistic competition within its walls and from other cities.  In each place Weiner visits, he seems to expand the number of variables and the complexity of his questions.  But it isn't frustrating, because with each new city and time period considered, the reader gets a more complete picture of what genius is.  This is a book that won't necessarily be a crowd-pleaser, but at the same time could grab student-readers who have an interest in history, science, math, art, or solving mysteries.

It might also be interesting summer reading for teachers who want to read something a little different.

Is friendship between a math nerd and an athlete even possible?

Hasak-Lowy, Todd (2013) 33 Minutes until Morgan Sturtz Kicks my Butt.  New York: Aladdin..



Opening lines:  11:41 AM "Think about this:  Had the British not won the French and Indian War," Mr Griegs says, "We'd all be speaking French right now."
Fact: I am in Social Studies.
My hand goes up.  I'm not sure I want my hand to be up, but too late.  It's up.

Sam Lewis is a seventh-grader.  A year ago, he and his best friend Morgan were an inseparable video-game playing team.  In spite of the fact that Sam was on the Math team and liked to do physics experiments for fun, and Morgan is more of an athlete, their friendship was strong.   Since then, things have gone downhill.  Chris, a new kid, showed up.  At first it was like the three musketeers, but gradually Chris and Morgan's friendship strengthened and Sam and Morgan's friendship waned.  But how is it that Sam now finds himself in a position where an accidental slip caused Morgan to think that Sam insulted him (which Sam kind of did, but he didn't mean it) and now everyone in school has heard that at the end of the day, Morgan is going to kick Sam's butt.  Sam's um,.. friend Amy thinks Sam should talk to Morgan and work things out, but Sam is reluctant.  On the other hand, the end of the school day is coming soon. What is going to happen.

This book is not the greatest middle school novel ever, but it isn't bad.  Sam is in a position that many middle school kids find themselves in.  He is struggling to figure out how this whole social life thing works, and finds that every time he thinks he understands social dynamics, he is wrong.  It is easy to root for Sam. His self-deprecating humor makes him a very sympathetic narrator, and the relationship between him and Amy is a developing middle school relationship that stays full of romantic tension without going anywhere.

The book jacket blurbs tell me that it is laugh-out-loud funny, and maybe it is, but the story his a little close to home for me, and I found it hard to laugh at Sam, even in the midst of a food fight.  My guess, though, is that most middle school kids will not have the problem I did and will find the story quite funny at times.  And I did enjoy the ending very much.

This book is ideal for middle school -- though it may not have enough action for some middle school boys and may not have enough romance for some middle school girls.  This book would be a nice one to round out a middle school classroom library nonetheless.  It could be a pretty good read-aloud book.  I don't see it working for a class to study.  It has some themes, but they don't run too deep.

I found nothing here that I thought would prompt parents to object (though I have been surprised before).

Three Fun Graphic Novels (that will not answer any existential questions).

Luke, Deb (2015)  The Lunch Witch  New York:  Papercutz.  



Opening lines:  Grunhilda the Black Heart:  "For generations and generations, the women in my family have stirred up trouble in a big, black pot.  / Needs more eye of newt./  Still bland.  /  My great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great / -great grandmother.../ invented the.../ recipe for;;;/ Haansel-and Gretel pie. "

This graphic novel is about the unlikely friends that develops between a witch who gets a job as a cafeteria lady and a girl named Madison who is in danger of flunking out of school.  When a spell goes awry and Madison gets turned into a toad, it is up the the witch to save her, over the protests of her dead ancestors who are angry that the witch is trying to help someone.  This book might contain a theme or two, but mostly it is just a fun story.

The illustrations are grey and angular and no one in the story is pleasant to look at.  It is a funny book at times, and the caricature nature of the illustrations might contribute a bit to that, but generally it seems to ma the at the words and images are not always supporting each other the way I might hope they would.

This book is probably best for third grade and up.  There is nothing particularly offensive in it.  The book does use the word "turd" once and the illustrations are creepy and grey.  The Witch character is neither admirable nor the sort of person readers would want to emulate.  She gets fired in the first five pages, then accepts the job as lunch lady only because she needs to be able to feed her pet bats.  Her spellcasting is often incompetent.  It is hard to imagine someone arguing that reading this book would lead any students in the direction of witchcraft -- it seems far more likely it would convince students of the value of getting a good job.  There is nothing truly problematic here.




Stevenson, Noelle; Ellis, Grace; Brooke; Allen (2015)  Lumberjanes:  Beware the Kitten Holy.  Los Angeles:  Boom Box.



Opening Lines:  Gasp/ Rustle, Rustle / Aaaahhhhh  Aaaaahhhhh.  Aaaa.  / Mal, Molly, What in the Joan Jett are you doing?


The Lumberjanes are kind of like girl scouts -- except that the Lumberjanes are friends that fight three-eyed saber-toothed foxes, river monsters, evil eagles, yetis, and possessed boy scouts.  There is usually a mystery to be solved, and each of the girls contributes toward solving it.

This graphic novels was originally released as a regular run comic book, but the issues are here recast as chapters (each of which begins with a parodic page from the Lumberjanes' Handbook.) and it works better than most rebound regular run collections.

This is not a story that is going to have deep themes, character development, or one that will contribute to a profound understanding of our purpose in the world.  Themes of friendship and cooperation are present, but not really developed in a serious way.  I loved that there was some cryptography in the book and a few references to things like the Fibonacci sequence -- but these are not exactly common.

As you can see from the cover, the illustrations are cartoony and fun.  The story can be a little hard to follow, though, and at first it is kind of difficult to identify each character's uniquenesses in the midst of the frenetic fight scenes.  Eventually though, readers will catch on.

 This one is perhaps best for fourth grade and up (I know some high school students who are fans) and probably more interesting to females than males.  They are unlikely to be challenged, partly because Stevenson and Ellis use the time honored comic book tradition of substituting made up oaths for more vulgar terms.  In this case, the girls tend to say things like "What the Mae Jamison is going on?' -- substituting famous females for oaths.

This is a fun series and may be just the thing for getting some reluctant readers who liked Babymouse and the like when they were younger to pick up a book again.



Stevenson, Noelle; Ellis, Grace; Brooke; Allen (2015)  Lumberjanes:  Friendship to the Max.  Los Angeles:  Boom Box.



Opening lines:  huff huff huff huff///  Jo!  Where are you? / I'm over here.  Where are you? // Jo, hurry! / I'm coming!  Hold on!

In the second book of the series, the Lumberjanes fight insane dinosaurs, befriend a were bear, and deal with the fact that one of their number may be magical, evil, and or a Greek goddess.

As with the previous book, this one contains a lot of adventure and action, and would be a good addition to a classroom library, but there isn't enough here to focus on as a reading circle book or a book to study in class.

Two Edgy High School Graphic Novels You Might Want to Check Out

Seagle, Steven T.; Kristiansen, Teddy (2013) Genius  New York:  First Second.



Opening lines:  It's always the little things / Small notions lost to the complex mind because of their innate simplicity/ Ideas beating on the subconscious like sand grains depositing themselves on shores until some kid scoops them up and notices/  That it is not just some gritty mortar muck.../ It's also something smaller...simpler.../  You have to see the big picture to build a sand castle/  But you have to appreciate the small picture to understand the sand./  I was always pretty smart.

Ted is a physicist near the midpoint of his career.  His job is in jeopardy unless he can come through with a breakthrough in his research soon.  When he finds out that his senile father-in-law worked as an MP and that Albert Einstein confided in him about some ideas he was working on, Ted sees a solution.  All he has to do is get the information out of his hostile and incoherent father-in-law.  Somewhere along the way, though, Ted begins to ask himself what it is he wants out of life.

Often graphic novels resist categorization.  I cannot tell you whether this one counts as a YA book or whether it is only intended for adult audiences.  There are some frank discussions of sexuality, puberty, impotence, and it is probably not suited for study in a high school classroom.  Nor is it necessarily the sort of book that you wold find yourself recommending to a wide swath of students.  But here is the thing:  in spite of all of Ted's flailing attempts to make the life of a college physics researcher work for him -- in site of the ways he is neglecting his wife and children in pursuit of the fame of making a really big discovery -- in the end he finally figures out what is really important.  And the final six pages or so are worth the price of the book.  I think it might be a very good book for high school seniors trying to figure out what they want to do with their lives.  Read it first, though.  This is the sort of book that might easily be challenged -- for all the wrong reasons.







Mechner, Jordan; Pham, LeUyen; Alex Puvilland (2013) Templar  New York:  First Second



Opening lines:  May 1291.  I never saw Jerusalem, that holiest of holy places.  The closest I got was Acre./  For twelve days our fortress held fast while the Saracens laid waste to the city. /  Thousands took refuge with us.  Women.  Children.  We shared with them what little we had./  Until our walls too came down.  /  So many brave men fell at acre.

Martin is one of the Knights Templar.  He fought at Acre.  He knows he is not the most perfect or praiseworthy knight, but he sees himself as someone who can bring help to those who need it.  When political maneuvering by both the church and the state results in mass arrests and a massacre of the Knights Templar, and soon their order is openly defames and brought to trial, and their treasure captured, Martin, along with a rag-tag band of former Templars hatches a plan to steal the treasure back.  What follows is an adventure of disguises, secret tunnels, bravery in the face of desperate odds, and more than a little bit of history.  Martin's beloved, who has, during his time in the east, been forced to wed a nobleman helps fight for the cause.  This graphic novel blends action and history in a way that is emotionally engaging.  It is a really fun book to read.

The way in which the Templars are discredited and the bogus trials for those that turned themselves in might make this a good companion piece for any class studying The Crucible.  It might work best for high school kids, though.  One of the Knights Templar is a bit of a womanizer and there are some accusations that the Church makes against the knights that are unsavory, and so it would be best if teachers pre-read the book before using it in class, but it is the sort of class that could enliven either a history or an English class.

Three Picture Books you should know but probably don't.

O'Connor, George (2004) Kapow.  New York:  Simon and Shuster.



Opening lines:  "Hmmm... This looks like a job for American Eagle!"

This picture book does a masterful job of flipping back and forth between the world of the imagination and objective reality the child is moving through.  But it is way more exciting than that last sentence makes it sound.  This is the story of a boy and a girl who are pretending to be superheros.  As the American Eagle and Bug Lady they capture a panther that it escaped from the zoo (they put a plastic clothes hamper over the pet cat) and then try to stop the Rubber Bandit (a little brother with an over-sized sweatshirt) from robbing the First National Bank (located in the living room).  However, when their roughhousing knocks over a bookcase and destroys a potted plant, American Eagle displays true bravery (and admits to his  mom that it was his fault).  It is a delightful story of imagination and the images are exciting and clear with comic book colors.

 It would also be a useful resource for teaching kids how to read graphic novels, since the story is told with speech balloons and narration boxes.  It might also serve as a model for young children who haven't learned how to do imaginative play.   Could be used as a read aloud for kindergarten and for independent reading for first grade and up.




Van, Muon; Chu, April  (2015) In a Village by the Sea.  Creston Books



Opening lines:  In a fishing village by the sea there is a small house.  In that house, high above the waves, is a kitchen.

Sometimes it is hard to figure out why picture books are wonderful.  Sometimes, a picture book will not have much of a plot to speak of.  In a Village by the Sea, for example, the story is simple.  A woman, a baby, a dog, and a cricket wait in a house in a village by the sea for a man to return from fishing.  That is really all there is to the story.  But what makes this story wonderful is that Muon Van's simple story is wonderfully depicted by April Chu.  Chu's illustrations show the world of a Vietnamese village (and especially one particular house) as a world that the reader can explore. We climb the cliff from the beach, look in through the windows, the curtains blowing in the summer breeze, and see the layout of the house.  Young readers can imagine walking with the dog into the kitchen, smelling the boiling noodle soup, checking on the slumbering baby, and looking through the hole in the floor to see what the cricket who lives under the house is painting. This is not about the story, it is about taking a beautiful trip to a village halfway around the world and being soothed by that which is familiar there.

Chu's book evokes a different kind of imagination than O'Connor's book did, but it is no less rich. This would be a fine book for kindergartners on up.






Burke, Rachelle (2014) Don't Turn the Page.  Berkeley: Creston Books.



Opening lines;  "How about a bedtime story," Mama asked.
                          Sami shook her head.  "I don't want to go to bed.  I'm not tired yet."

 All right.  I admit it.  Not exactly a ground-breaking set of opening lines. And, when it comes right down to it, this book isn't exactly cutting edge.  It is a story about a little hedgehog that doesn't want to go to bed, so her Mama reads to her and she gets sleepy and eventually goes to bed.  The twist in this book is that the storybook they are reading is about a bear that doesn't want to go to bed.  And so the Mama bear reads him a book, which is about a hedgehog that doesn't wantt to go to bed.  In fact, both animals are reading the very book that the child is reading.

And honestly, it is a nice twist.  But I think what makes the book is more the familiar parts than the metaphysical twisty parts.  The story is exactly the sort of comforting, happy story that is best dead with the child on your lap, ready to go to bed.  It might not be a perfect classroom read-aloud, and it might not be a book that first graders are going to grab off the shelf.  But if you can get a child (or a parent) to bring this book home, you may have the chance to permanently associate reading in that child's mind with comfort, security, and love.  And there is nothing wrong with that.

Really Amazing Book about Fencing, Evil Corporate Bosses, Autism, Patterns and Dreams of Space Travel that would be Great for High School Students

Moon, Elizabeth (2003) The Speed of Dark.  New York:  Ballantine.

Opening Lines:  Questions.  Always questions.  They didn't wait for the answers either.  They rushed on, piling questions on questions, covering every moment with questions, blocking off every sensation but the thorn stab of questions.

It is the near future.  Lou Arrendale is autistic, but thanks to new therapies, he holds down a well-paying job working for a pharmaceutical company.  Lou and the co-workers on his unit are very productive, analyzing patterns in data effectively as a result of the difference the autism gives them.  The company gets a tax break for employing them and uses that money to build accommodations into their office unit -- including a mini-trampoline room with a stereo system and the freedom to make changes in their offices that are outside of normal company policy (for Lou that means fans and pinwheels -- the spinning soothes him when he gets agitated.)

But there are changes coming.  Newly hired Senior Manager Gene Crenshaw thinks the accommodations are a waste of money and he wants to get rid of them.  When Lou's immediate boss, Mr. Aldrin, protests that the unit makes a lot of money for the company and the accommodations have already been made -- they don't cost anything to maintain, Crenshaw hits on another idea.  The company has been working on a therapy that might be able to use nanotechnology to rewire the brains of autistic people to make them not autistic any more.  With subtle suggestions, Mr. Crenshaw makes it clear that Lou and his fellow workers should agree to be text subjects for the new therapy, and implies that if they do not, they might lose their jobs.  The workers meet and are divided about what they should do.

There is more to Lou than we see at first.  Lou goes one night a week to a sort of fencing club, held at the home of two married university professors, Tom and Lucia.  He has friends there too, including Marjory, who he likes talking to, and she seems to like talking to him too.  A fellow fencer, Don, seems jealous of Marjory's attention to Lou, and Lou's growing fencing skill.

When someone slashes Lou's tires and later smashes the window of his car while he is at fencing practice, Lou needs to figure out the pattern before he gets hurt.

This is a n interesting enough plot, but what makes the book spectacular is that we get all this through Lou's point of view.  This means that, through his eyes, we see patterns in things that most people would miss.  It also mean that we have trouble understanding the nuances of what people are saying to him.  Lou's voice is as captivating as he is a character.

Yeah, you might be asking, but how is this a YA book?  Well, I am not sure it is, actually.  I think it might just be a regular book.  Lou is not a teenager, notr is anyone else in the book.  And the themes the book wrestles with apply to pretty much anybody, regardless of age.  But I can tell you that it is a book that high school students would enjoy.  And it is a book that high school students should be reading.  The language is not particularly vulgar.  There is some violence in it, including a brief hostage scene, but all in all, the book manages to be gripping, thoughtful, and hopeful, all at the same time.  I think you should read it.

By the way, Audible.Com has a really wonderful audio veriosn of the book that I also highly recommend.