BookPikks

A high school student, bullied for years by his classmates, opens fire at school and kills 10 people.  It’s a tragedy that doesn’t just happen in stories.  In her newest book, Picoult looks at the events that precede and follow a school shooting.  As she always does, Picoult examines the shooting from multiple perspectives, including that of the shooter, the shooter’s parents, the shooting victims, their parents, the lawyers and the police.  This book wasn’t quite as predictable as some of her recent books have been.  I was really drawn in to her examination of the effects of bullying, what schools are and are not doing to protect kids, and what the desire to be popular will do to a child.  Nineteen Minutes illustrates the many dangers that our children face each day, and reading it made me so thankful that God is watching over my family, and is leading us through the dangers and hard times that we face.

Sandpiper has earned a bad reputation by moving from one boy to the next in her search for love and acceptance.  She wants to stop her self-destructive behavior, but doesn’t know how.  When one of her ex-boyfriends starts acting violent, Sandy turns to a mysterious stranger (Walker) for help.  Unlike the other boys she’s known, Walker treats Sandy with respect.

This book was hard to read, because I can’t imagine a 15 year old girl acting out the way that Sandy did, although I know it happens all the time.  The author focuses on Sandy and the ways that she changes.  This is good, as Sandy is ultimately responsible for how she acts.  However, Wittlinger fails to address the role that Sandy’s parents played–divorced, father not around, father sleeping with one woman after another, mother gone all the time. . .  The pain that this caused Sandy is obvious.  Although the book is written for teenage girls, I believe it would be more worthwhile for their parents to read it instead.

I’ve read more than my fair share of “pioneers traveling west” books.  Charlotte’s Rose, while not an obvious stand-out, does put a slightly different twist on the genre.  Charlotte and her father are Mormons, traveling with a handcart company from Iowa City to Utah.  Instead of riding in a comfy covered wagon, they’re pushing their belongings across the country!  Charlotte makes the journey even harder on herself, when she volunteers to carry and care for a motherless newborn baby until the baby’s father can come to terms with his wife’s death.  The book is based on a true account of a pioneer girl carrying a baby across the prairie, and I am in awe of that girl’s courage.  I struggled to care for a newborn in the comfort of my own home!

I first listened to this book on CD several years ago. It’s the beginning of a new series by Marsden called “The Ellie Chronicles” and it picks up where his “Tomorrow” series ends. I enjoyed listening to the book, and I enjoyed reading it as well. Once I finished it this time, I figured that surely the next book in the series would be out by now, but I didn’t see it at my local library. So I went to Marden’s website and discovered that the next TWO books were out. Yeah! Now for my big disappointment. When I e-mailed my library to request them, they replied and said that the sequels haven’t been published in the United States yet. They are only available in Australia. From what I can tell, it took several years for While I Live to be published in the US, (although the audio version has been available here for awhile). I searched Amazon, and they don’t have the sequels either. So to sum up, my options are: Fly to Australia and buy the books, try and locate copies on CD, or wait anxiously for several years for the US publication. Vacation anyone?