I was out for a run the morning of the 4th when a squadron of Blue Angels came zooming across the sky in formation. The contrast between the Olmsted-ordered beauty of my surroundings (see above, near Ward’s Pond in Jamaica Plain) and the high-tech menace above made me feel like I was in The Giver. So then my thoughts wandered to Lois Lowry’s latest novel, Son, fourth and presumably last in what the publisher is now calling the Giver Quartet.

I like the book (it will be reviewed in the September issue of the Horn Book Magazine) but I do wonder about the wisdom (aesthetic if not commercial) of going to the same well too often. Any time I speak to an audience that includes library students, I plead with one of them to make a master’s thesis (do library school students still write master’s theses? Masters’ theses?) of the intersection of Newbery attention and sequel publication. There are tons of variables, including the fact that no fewer than five Newbery Medals have gone to books that were sequels to books that had previously won Newbery Honors. At least fifteen Newbery winners have spawned sequels, sometimes where you would expect (as with Susan Cooper’s ongoing Dark Is Rising series, or Cynthia’s Voigt’s further adventures of the Tillerman kids) but often where you would not, as with Julie of the Wolves or The Giver or Shiloh. None of these stories needed to keep going, and one thing I like about all those books is the way they end. Here’s hoping Dead End in Norvelt is true to its title.

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I just got to the part where Carmen, Lena, and Bridget arrive in Greece. I was not prepared for what happens next. And then the book was recalled to the library.

Has anyone else read it? Is it worth trying to check out again? Even if I’m not in the mood for a tear-jerker? No spoilers, if possible. (I know, the book’s not new, but still…)

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In A Million Suns, the sequel to Beth Revis’s Across the Universe, Sol-Earth–born Amy is struggling with the claustrophobic life aboard the Godspeed after being prematurely awakened from her frozen sleep. The workers are getting rebellious, and the threat of violence onboard ship increases. The moral quandaries presented in shipboard life seem a natural extension of the concerns raised in the first book, and Revis adds a cliffhanger ending to heighten interest in the forthcoming conclusion to the trilogy. (12 years and up)

Kristin Cashore’s Bitterblue serves as a Graceling sequel and Fire companion. The story picks up eight years after Bitterblue, now eighteen, became queen of Monsea. She feels disconnected from her country and people, but friendship with two city thieves allows her to uncover a dangerous web of secrets. Cashore’s sophisticated prose propels the plot, and the believable struggles and maturation of Bitterblue’s character make the complex journey worthwhile. (14 years and up)

Froi of the Exiles is the second book in Melina Marchetta’s Lumatere Chronicles. Former street thug Froi, a secondary character in Finnikin of the Rock, is now, three years later, a devoted follower of Queen Isaboe of Lumatere and her consort Finnikin. But as the story progresses, his role shifts from loyal subject to unwilling spy, assassin, and major figure in the fortunes of his crumbling world. The tortured romances, continually surprising plot, and flashes of humor will keep readers fully engaged in this gripping story. (14 years and up)

Imagine an America in which love is a deadly disease to be eradicated. This is the setting for Lauren Oliver’s Delirium and its new sequel, Pandemonium. Lena’s former self is dead, buried in the fire and ashes that took her beloved Alex during their botched escape attempt from Deliria-Free America. Now chaos reigns as Lena begins a new life in the Wilds, becoming swept up in the war between DFA and the growing resistance. This is an action-packed, suspenseful page-turner with a rewarding and dramatic cliffhanger ending. (14 years and up)

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In Incredibly Alice, the twenty-sixth book in Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice series, Naylor works toward a major milestone in her beloved character’s life — high school graduation. There are plenty of hurdles to jump before that event, not the least of which is a familiar rite of passage for high school seniors — the wait for college acceptance letters. Alice fans will see her through this installment’s tumult of emotions as Alice attempts to sort out who she is and what she wants. (12 years and up) 

Ron Koertge revisits the appealing odd couple from Stoner and Spaz in Now Playing: Stoner & Spaz II. High-school filmmaker Ben is freshly wounded by another flake-out by on-again/off-again girlfriend Colleen, who ditched his debut documentary’s gala opening to be with her dealer ex-boyfriend. Ben is powerfully attracted to heavily tattooed and super hot Colleen, the first girl to look past his cerebral palsy, despite the promises he knows she can’t keep. These two dramatically different but equally hurting teens give one another something each desperately needs. Readers will be pulling for them despite the odds. (12 years and up) 

Mary E. Pearson’s The Fox Inheritance is set 260 years after the accident that allegedly killed Locke and Kara in The Adoration of Jenna Fox. But Locke and Kara aren’t actually dead: their minds were copied by the scientist father of their best friend, Jenna Fox, whose illegal resurrection was the focus of the previous book. When their minds fall into the hands of an unethical scientist, the two are restored to new, improved bodies and they escape into an alien future world. Through Locke, we experience the confusing futuristic world, a suspenseful chase, the emotional reunion with Jenna, and the complex playing out of the issues of trust, ethics, and betrayal. (12 years and up) 

—Kitty Flynn

From Notes from the Horn Book, August 2011

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What I think I like most about Dan Brown is the opportunity he gives me to go around correcting everyone’s use of the term factoid to mean a small, arcane, interesting fact. But Brown uses factoids in precisely the way coiner Norman Mailer intended: small, interesting, but completely made-up bullshit designed to look as if it were true.

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I wonder what if anything this might mean for the children’s review media. While I don’t think anyone will be urging SLJ or the Horn Book to write reviews for children themselves, there is a larger and larger audience of adults who read children’s books not as gatekeepers but for their own pleasure. Should we be worrying more about “spoilers”? As it is, half the Horn Book office is closing its ears around the other half, all because of Catching Fire.

(And I won’t spill anything here. Catching Fire is great fun to read and will be especially appreciated by people who enjoyed The Hunger Games, he said ambiguously.)

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If any M.L. S. student is in need of a thesis topic, I think it would be very interesting to examine sequel-publishing over time. We’ve always had ‘em, I know, but do publishers these days routinely encourage writers to follow a successful book with a related one? Or have they always?

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Phew. If only they could do this with the old Magic Attic books, which apparently invite readers to join a fan club by calling an 800 number which time and fate have transformed into a phone sex line. And I wonder what’s happened to 537-3331, Amy’s phone number in I Am the Cheese. If you figured out the area code you could find yourself talking to “Amy’s father,” aka Robert Cormier. Or so I was told.

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