Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours by Jim Butcher

Any time a novel is written about a comic book character there is the potential for much cheesy-ness. 

In the hands of an author of Jim Butcher’s caliber, that potential is never reached. Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours is thoughtful and insightful while still containing plenty of action and mayhem. 

To start, this version of Spider-Man has Peter and MJ married, Aunt May in on the alter-ego, and Peter teaching high school science part time. I start there because there are so many iterations of the characters and their timelines that knowing that helps place it. If you have never read Spider-Man before, this caveat isn’t necessary. You will be able to jump right in.

As there always is with any good Spider-Man story there is a subplot that has Peter having trouble in his civilian identity. He is substitute coaching the basketball team for a week and the star player knows that he is really, really good. So good that he doesn’t see the need to play as part of a team. The coach asks Peter to work on this as the kid is good at heart. Oh, and then Peter finds out after school on Friday that if that kid’s immunizations aren’t up to date by Monday morning, he will be suspended and off the team. 

At home, MJ has gotten a part in The Scottish Play. The hitch is that the theatre is in New Jersey. To make the commute, she buys a car and tries to get her license. With no luck. So Peter tells her he will help her study for the test. 

Then the super-hero crisis hits: Rhino is on a rampage in Times Square. As he is about to swing into action former girlfriend and sort-of good guy The Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) tells him he is headed into a trap. He goes anyway, of course. After defeating the Rhino, he is attacked by a trio of “Ancients” who are siblings of Morlun, a villain Peter barely beat. They feed on the life energy of people with power derived from totemic sources. Animals. Like Spider-Man, Black Cat, and yes, Rhino.

The stories intertwine and seeing Peter work his way through these problems is what I read about Spider-Man for. There is a lot of soul searching, deducing, and cattiness in the finding a solution. And the not-help of Doctor Strange drives Peter to distraction. 

I heartily recommend this book. It is by turns, funny and serious, fun and thoughtful. Butcher’s take on these iconic characters was a joy to read. In fact, I read most of it in one day—it was hard to put down. 

The Me I Meant to Be by Sophie Jordan

Flor and Willa are best friends. Willa and Zach are best friends. Zach and Flor had been couple but were now broken up. Willa has been in love with Zach, her next door neighbor, since they were kids, but now that he and Flor were broken up, the Girl Code kicked in: you don’t date your friend’s ex.

The narration switches between Flor and Willa chapter by chapter, starting with Willa. The two points of view create an interesting dynamic. The readers get to see the story in a more rounded way with the two narrators yet keep that personal first person point of view. I found myself relating to both characters which upped the ante in the story’s main conflict. And each character had other conflicts that spurred in the story and made them seem more real. 

The main characters were well rounded and dynamic. They came across as real, complicated individuals, not just a cookie-cutter cop out to teen stereotypes. Although the tone occasionally got a little whiny for my taste, over all it was handled well. It definitely has a few big surprises that kept me reading to see where the story would go next until it reached it’s ultimate conclusion.

Bottom line: strong characters, interesting plot. I recommend this book.

I received a free ARC of this book through Netgalley.com in return for an honest review. 

Adequate Yearly Progress by Roxanna Elden

 

There were times when I taught when I was certain no one else knew what I was going through. It is strange that in a profession where you are surrounded by other humans all day long, that I could feel so lonely and isolated. Roxanna Elden gets it. Maybe because she taught for eleven years. That perspective I only get when talking to other teachers, I got here in this book as well.

The essential loneliness of the job came through to me. So many characters going through individual crises all by themselves, even when surrounded by colleagues. Lena Wright, the African American, spoken word artist, English teacher who wants so desperately for her students to see the power of language, touched me. Kaytee Mahoney, the young, overly-idealistic TeachCorps teacher, caught between the perfection of her goals and the reality of her students, embodies many young teachers I knew. Hernan D. Hernandez, the laid back science teacher, who was always tongue tied in Lena’s presence, was the teacher who pretty much ignored the testing insanity and really taught his students. Even characters that in other hands could be seen merely as antagonistic were given depth. The assistant principals were pretty much cut outs, but I have worked with so many who fit the two in this book to a T to feel disgruntled there.

Told with wit and understanding, rotating to a different teacher in each chapter, this is the story of a school in Texas that has a new superintendent, a man who has never taught but has written a best seller about how to fix education, who turns their school on its ear. Insane initiative after initiative being forced down the teachers’ throats—I thought that the continually increasing number of things they were required to write out on their boards throughout the book was a terrific metaphor for all the foolishness teachers are saddled with. 

It was a story about people. Each in their own way a dedicated teacher. Each in their own way trying to survive another year in the classroom. Each in their own way reminding me of so many I have taught with.

I highly recommend this book for anyone who teaches, especially middle and high school. It was funny and sad at the same time. I think you’ll like it.

I received a free electronic ARC of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Harley and Ivy Meet Betty and Veronica by Paul Dini and Marc Andreyko

I didn't know what to expect when I opened this comic. I mean, how much further apart could two settings be than Gotham and Riverdale? How could they ever be brought together? Well, Dini and Andreyko figured it out. When Ivy sees Hiram Lodge advertising that he is building a megamall, destroying a rare ecosystem in the process, she decides to take action. As the heat is on in Gotham, Harley agrees to go with her BFF to see what havoc they can cause. Add in Zatanna and Sabrina, mixed up spells, mixed up bodies, and the story is on. 

This was a lot of fun. The two totally different worlds are brought together in a believable way (once I could wrap my mind around Riverdale and Gotham in the same fictional universe). The more modern, realistic-looking Archie gang is used here to help sell that. The characters are who they are. The Archie gang has all the same quirks and obsessions they always have. Adding a slightly sweeter version of Ivy and Harley worked out pretty well.  There was some minimal character development and the plot moved along nicely. There were laughs and suspense. I enjoyed this book. 

I received a free electronic ARC of this book through Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review. 

The Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams

Set in a galaxy with thousands of worlds colonized by the 17 sentient species, this sci-fi adventure novel has one heck of a tale to tell. Told from the first person point of view, the narrator is looking for a girl with a very special gift. She finds on one of the worlds heavily affected by the Pulse, a mysterious weapon that destroyed technology to varying degrees on every world it touched. And the residual radiation lasts there, locking each world into a certain level of technological advancement. 

This world has guns, but no electricity or combustion engines. Stuck in an agrarian 18th century level of technology, it's tricky to land there, find the girl, and get her off planet. But that is what the narrator does. She's been doing it for most of 100 years. It's not an easy job, but it is one she is very good at.

The adventure is complicated by the Pax, an interstellar empire lightly affected by the Pulse. A fascist police state they are intent on finding the girl for their own nefarious purposes. Attacking her world with advanced technology (that quickly gets burned out by the rads in the atmosphere) scarfing untold numbers to capture her and to take over that world. The Pax believe in peace through conquest. When the strong rule over the weak galaxy-wide, there will be peace.

The story is told with a certain amount of sardonic humor that lightens the tone and kept me reading. I found the beginning of the book to be a little slow, but Williams picks up the pace and continues to accelerate all the way to the end. The characters are fun, mostly likable, and their interactions are believable. As the plot picks up, the narrator brings in more people from her past to help her, finding more than a little trouble on the way. Epic battles are fought. There was some profanity in the book, so take care if that offends. A last stand is made. It was, overall, a good read for me. 

I received a free electronic ARC of this book through Netgalley.com in return for an honest review.

Jess Chunk, and the Road Trip to Infinity by Kristin Elizabeth Clark

I got quite caught up in this book; I almost read the whole thing in one sitting. 

I have not read a book from the pov of someone transitioning from one gender to the other. I liked that, while that was a very important part of the book, it wasn't the entire focus of it. 

Jess, the narrator, is transitioning from male to female. She has been taking hormones for the past 7 months, ever since she turned 18. Her estranged father had refused to give consent for her to do it before that. Now her father is getting married and she has decided, even after RSVPing no, that she was going to go. As herself. She had some vague plans to make him look at her and see her for who she really is. 

The road trip was the idea of her best friend, Chunk. Not surprisingly, given the nickname, Chunk (real name Chuck) is overweight. There is never an explicit mention of how overweight he is, but it was enough to get him picked on all through school. He is also brilliant, like over genius level. When he proposes the trip, Jess decides that it might be a good idea. And it would allow her to really start living as a female. Up to this point she had only come out to her mother and Chunk. 

There is a lot to this book. Some of the other reviews I read mentioned that they felt the author did a really poor job of representing fat people. I think that it could have been gone into more deeply, but that would have made this a different book. Jess has to confront her issues with physicality be it hers to other's. I believe that was what the author was aiming for. At least that's the way I saw it. 

Bottom line, I would recommend the book for older students.

I received a free electronic ARC of this book in return for an honest review. 

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

This book reminds me of The Velveteen Rabbit. It has the same kind of gentle sensibility to it.  Edward Tulane is a ceramic rabbit that thinks very, very highly of himself. He goes through a series of adventures that teach him humility and love.  A wonderful, quick read. DiCamillo is an excellent author. She made me get all emotional more than once during the reading of this novel.

The Altered History of Willow Sparks by Tara O'Connor

What would you do if you found a book that was a narrative of your entire life up to the very second? What if you found a pen that let you change things in that book? That is the situation Willow Sparks finds herself in in this thoughtful graphic novel. We see how the changes Willy makes affect not only her, but all those around her, especially her friend Georgia Pratt. Georgia knows what Willy has found and why her life is suddenly changing. Changing and leaving Georgia behind her. Tight plot, interesting and realistic characters, and okay artwork. I'd say give this book a chance. 

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

I enjoyed this. The demon Bartimaeus was a delightfully unreliable narrator.His high opinion of himself and occasional overestimation of his abilities lead to much merriment. I liked the way the narrative was traded between Bartimaeus's first person account and a third person account following his young human master, the apprentice magician Nathaniel. Not only is Nathaniel magically gifted, he is underestimated by Arthur Underwood, the mid-level bureaucrat/magician who was assigned to train the boy, whom he mainly ignores. This leaves Nathaniel with the tools and talent to get in a lot of trouble because if there is anything full grown about Nathaniel, it is his own arrogance and need to prove himself. In that respect he and Bartimeaus are perfectly matched.

The magic system devised by the author is similar in trappings to others I have read, but with a new twist to make it just different enough to work for me. Lots of twists and turns and just enough loose threads left to lead to the next book in the trilogy. It was a fun read. I am happy to recommend this book.

Posted by John David Anderson

Find your people. Make them your tribe and stick with them. I could have used a book like this when I was in middle school. It has realistic characters. The four boys in the group: Bench, Wolf, DeeDee, and Frost, are well written. They come across as real people not just cardboard cutouts. They are the oddballs who have found each other to form their own group. Then she walked into their lives. Rose is the new kid in school and decides to sit at their table at lunch. This forces the group out of their comfort zones and is the catalyst for much change. On top of this the school has just totally banned all cellphones. So the boys come up with a different way to communicate: they start leaving Postit notes on each other's lockers. This catches on and does not always go well.  It has a plot that the author keeps moving with hints of foreshadowing which pulled me along, making me think and predict where the story was going. The author was never completely predictable, though. He provided several twists and turns that I did not see coming. I like that in a book. Even better, this book has heart. I recommend it.

Dear Rachel Maddow by Adrienne Kisner

This book was written in the form of (mainly) unsent emails to Rachel Maddow. Brynn,the main character, writes to Rachel about the way her life has gone to hell. Once an honor student, now she is all remedial classes. She is no less intelligent, but after her brother's death and her breakup with her first serious girlfriend, what's the point? It's not like her mother or stepfather care whether she does well or not. Then there is the class election coming up. And there's a new girl she's interested in. And maybe there is a point to things after all?

The narrator's voice is strong and clear. I felt myself cheering for Brynn as she navigates all the pitfalls of her life. The characters mainly ring true The "villain" is a little too stereotypical, but no one likes him anyway. This was a fun book to read and I recommend it.

The House of Daniel by Harry Turtledove

When it comes to alternate history, Harry Turtledove is my favorite author. He has had many interesting takes on what might have been. So, as I always do, I looked forward to reading this new novel from him. I must confess, it was not what I had expected.

This alternate earth is a place of magic—vampires, zombies, werewolves, conjure men—all exist and are real dangers. The magic is understated through most of the book. There is some here and there, but it’s “normal.” It’s part of the background that the main character, Jack Spivey, takes for granted.

Jack is a center fielder for the Enid (Oklahoma) Eagles. He is also a part-time strongman for a local underworld boss, Big Stu. Hey, it’s the Depression (although the tern was never used), a guy has to eat. So he agrees to rough up the kid brother of someone Big Stu has some trouble with. The team is going to the city where the brother lives. He agrees and when he gets to the right address, he finds not a younger brother, but a younger sister. He can’t bear to beat her up, so instead advises her to run away.

Now that he’s crossed Big Stu, going home isn’t an option. So he stays in town and, by chance, gets an opportunity to play for a barnstorming baseball team, the House of Daniel (based on our world's House of David). They have long hair and beards. The core of the team is from a religious commune. They do hire outsiders, though. It’s perfect. The team will take him far away from Enid and Big Stu. He can play ball and make a little money. Even if he does need to wear a wig and fake beard til his own grows in.

Most of the rest of the book details the travels of Jack and the team. Especially the games they played. All of them. Sometimes in exhausting detail. I am not a baseball fan myself, but I can see the loving care that Turtledove put into recreating the old time games.

I was a little disappointed in the lack of action and the downright mundaneness of the magic. I was hoping for more—Turtledove’s books are usually pretty tense. This one, not so much.

I liked it okay, but found some of the coincidences a little far out. It did do a good job depicting what life was like for a baseball bum in that era, but was a little slow-paced. If you’re not a big fan of baseball, this one may not be for you.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

I don’t want to say that this is just another YA dystopian novel with a female main character. In a way, of course, it is. And after reading the Divergent series and the Hunger Games series, I was a little hesitant to read another of this type of novel. But, in some important ways, it is more than just another YA dystopian novel with a female lead.

There were many things that Westerfeld, the author, did that I appreciated. For one, he clearly states what it was that led to the collapse of the previous civilization (ours). I thought it was pretty clever and maybe a little too likely to be thought up by someone in the real world.

The premise of the society that evolved from that collapse seemed thin at first. That at 16 everybody was given an operation to make them, “Pretty.” The Pretties were beautiful, but vapid. The sense that she lost her best friend, Peris, after he became Pretty was the first hint of trouble in Paradise. But as the novel continued, there proved to be more layers to this new order that were even hinted at originally. Slowly the layers were peeled away as the truth started to emerge.

The way that this society seemed so perfect to the main character, Tally, made me wonder what could cause some people to reject it and choose to live on their own and reject becoming Pretty. To Tally the thought of remaining an “Ugly” was a major motivation to many of her actions. And what exactly about people rejecting being Pretty made it such an existential threat to the people who ran the society, the Specials? All these people apparently wanted was to be left alone.

It is a pretty interesting read. The end setting up the next book in the trilogy. I now need to put Pretties on my to read list.

I’d recommend this book. It is different enough from the other dystopias to make it distinct. And the questions it raises are good ones. I’ll look for a copy to put in my classroom library.

Paper Towns by John Green

This book was a real roller coaster for me. I identified a great deal with Quentin, the narrator and main character of the novel. He is overly responsible and to an extent proud of it. He is careful. He is a smart ass. He has a few good friends, and many acquaintances in different cliques around his school. And he is in love. Desperately. For as long as he can remember.

Margo Roth Spiegelman is the girl of his dreams. She’s the girl of everyone’s dreams. At least that is what everyone thinks. She has become a legend in her school and community. A free spirit. A nonconformist. A trouble maker. A chronic runaway.

She enlists Quentin’s help in a night of pranks. Her swan song to life as she knew it. And, like a swimmer being towed out to sea by an unstoppable current, Quentin went a long with her and helped her throughout that one wild night.

Now, for many teen novels, that one night of pranks would have been the meat of the story. As it was drawing to an end I kept checking to see how much time was left in the recording. Turns out, that night was just the prelude.

When Quentin woke up the next morning, she was gone. But, she did leave behind some clues. And Quentin and his friends were convinced that she left them for him to find her. That, is the meat of this story. His search for clues. His discovering layers of both Margot and himself that he never knew existed. His growth into a more confident and determined person.

This book was terrific. The characters are what made this book for me. Green has a way of breathing life into his literary creations. They become real people to me. And, what's more, people I care about. This ability is what drew me in. Not to mention the sheer laugh-out-loud moments that came frequently in this novel. A lot of fun with a lot of meaning--what could be better?

I recommend it highly. It will definitely find a place in my classroom library.

Deadline by Chris Crutcher

I love the author, Chris Crutcher. He is honest and unflinching when he writes about teens. In Deadline, he continues this. I thought this would be a good book to read after reading John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, and after finishing it, I feel so even more strongly.

Ben Wolf is an 18 year old young man who is about to start his senior year of high school. He lives in a small Idaho town and has some big dreams: getting a track scholarship and getting out of that small town are chief among them. His plans change drastically when he is told by his doctor that he has a terminal illness and about one year left to live. 

His first decision is to keep this a secret. He does not want everyone in town to treat him differently. He wants to live as normal a life as possible. His second decision, based on the whole life remaining normal idea, is to refuse treatment. The chance of him surviving with treatment is minuscule. Rather than end his life that way, he decides that if this year is all he has left, he is going to live it to the fullest. 

This success of this book is due to the excellent, in-depth characters that Crutcher has created. They are richly detailed and multilayered. There are no caricatures in his writing. These people came alive for me. There was character-based surprise after surprise. The exploration of the power and problems involved in all levels of secrecy made me stop and think more than a few times. Hard to look at secrets the same way after reading this.

I might not put this on my middle school bookshelf, but in a high school classroom, definitely. I urge you to read it.  

Justice League: Gods And Monsters by Bruce Timm and J.M. DeMatteis

Back in the day, Marvel had a comic titled "What if...?" and DC answered with its own version: "Elseworlds." Each title would explore alternate possibilities for characters and story lines.  Like what if Aunt May had been bitten by the radioactive spider? What if Batman had become our sector's Green Lantern? This graphic novel, a collection of three different origin tales and a combined adventure, has that sort of feel to it.

In this graphic novel DC explores a different version of "The Trinity": Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. It starts with Superman. In this version he is the son of Zod, not Jor-El, and is brought up by a family of migrant workers.  He experiences a very different upbringing than Clark Kent did. He is not so much a hero for a great deal of the story. It is disconcerting to see Superman as arrogant and uncaring as he is portrayed. Although in the context of the story, it makes sense.

Batman is also very different. Kirk Langstrom is a brilliant doctor. When it is discovered that he has terminal cancer, he creates a cure for himself. The unanticipated side effect was that he became a vampirelike creature who needed blood to survive. In order to try and assuage his guilt, he vowed only to prey on evil men. And he found this was not as easy as it seemed.

Bekka of New Genesis is this reality’s Wonder Woman. Having come to Earth through a random boom tube fleeing Darkseid, she is rescued by a kind couple. She learns that while there is real goodness here, there is also evil and she is driven to protect her new home. Often her adventures end rather badly.

The three come together to to investigate a man who is offering “upgrades” to those who can afford them. These new “Forever People” are endowed with godlike powers. But, if they do not continue to pay for upgrades, they soon die. It doesn’t take them long to decide that the Earth is theirs to rule.

There are some epic battle scenes. Many the moral conundrum is considered and puzzled over. Does might make right? Who are these “heroes” who so casually take the lives of those they see as wrong-doers? Are they any better than the Forever People? What is to stop them from declaring themselves rulers of the world?

These fears are stoked by a Lois Lane who adamantly hates these three. She is suspicious and belligerent. So different from the many iterations of this character that have come before. Only Lex Luthor seems to be himself. And doesn’t that just sound like grand news?

I liked the feel of this graphic novel. The limited nature of the series gave the authors the freedom to really push a few boundaries that they may not have been able to if this was to be an ongoing series. I especially enjoyed the character development. I deeply enjoyed seeing variations of these iconic heroes. It was a fun read and worth my time.

I recommend this. All my comic book geeks out there, give it a shot.

Staked by Kevin Hearne

I really love this series. For the past several books the original main character, Atticus O'Sullivan, has been fighting a war with the world's vampires. A war that the vampires thought they won almost 2,000 years before. A war he aims to finish. But, as with the last book, O'Sullivan is no longer the only narrator. There are now two other druids besides him. Granuaile, his former apprentice, and Owen Kennedy, trapped on an island of slow time for the past two thousand years (and the druid who trained Atticus), are also rotating narrators in this volume. And each of his fellow druids also has agendas of their own.

It is a fast-moving, funny, and often violent book. The rotating narrations worked well for me. The weaving together of these stories made for an interesting ride. Hearne has an impressive knowledge of world mythologies and makes them understandable even to those who are not well-versed. I know a lot about a couple of ancient pantheons and little about a few others, but Hearne blows me away. The writing is confident and a lot of fun.

I listened to the audiobook; Luke Daniels does an excellent job of bringing each character, even the two hounds, to life. He vocally becomes each character and that enhances my enjoyment of this series.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has read the previous volumes. This is part of a continuing story and could be a bit confusing to those who start the series here. If you haven't read this series, you should. It has entertained me for many, many hours.

Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

“Everybody is smart in different ways. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life believing it is stupid.”

Ally doesn't fit in. She feels stupid. Whenever she tries to read the letters jump around and it isn't long until the black letters on the white page give her a killer headache. She would rather draw. She's really good at drawing. But if it means not reading, or not writing, she'd rather go to the principal's office.

Then her teacher goes on maternity leave and a new teacher, Mr. Daniels, comes to teach her class. He's different. He doesn't make her feel stupid. While he is there she makes friends with Keisha and Alfred, two students who are also different. I found myself especially identifying with Alfred.

I have to admit, I nearly teared up several times while reading this book. It reminds me a bit of Patricia Polacco's Thank you, Mr. Faulker, and that is a high compliment. The emotions that Hunt is able to bring out--Ally's fears and insecurities, her despair, and her eventual confidence and happiness--are vivid and real. As a teacher I have taught students like Ally, and I wish I could have done it half as gracefully as Mr. Daniels does.

This all strikes me as very realistic. It is more than just a book I want to put in my classroom library, it is a book I want to read aloud to my students. I highly recommend this book. It is wonderful.

Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos

The title is the first thing that caught my attention. It reminded me of some of the off-the-wall titles of Paul Zindel's young adult novels. As I read the blurb, I knew I had to check this book out. It looked just too interesting to pass up.

I'm glad that I did read it. It was not always an easy read. James, the main character and narrator, has self-confessed mental issues. He is in an abusive home where recently his sister, Jorie, had been kicked out after being expelled from school for fighting. His best friend, Derek, is not always nice to him (and is having an affair with an engaged woman). He desperately wants to get the attention of Beth, the pretty blonde girl of his dreams.

But who is he kidding? He hugs trees (literally), yawps his barbaric yawp, and has extreme social anxiety. Plus, when he tried to impress her by saving an injured bird from getting run over, he literally gets hit by a bus. He is stunned when she starts talking to him. It appears his sister was the major contributor to the school's literary magazine. With her gone, there is a problem. Beth, the co-editor of the magazine, asks for his help.

Throughout the story we see through James's eyes the many misadventures he has as he tries to understand what led his sister to be expelled and banished from the family home. He also struggles to understand his burgeoning relationship with Beth. The ending was satisfying because it was believable in context.

I identified a lot with James. While I never hugged trees or had a giant pigeon as my imaginary therapist, I had my own bouts with social anxiety when in high school. I don't think I would recommend this for younger teens, but for older teens (and adults, too, for that matter) I would say give it a try. I liked it.

Godless by Pete Hautman

I chose to read this book because I have, more than once in my life, gone through a spiritual crisis of faith. I was a teenage Catholic boy ( a long time ago) and remember grappling with questions about my particular religion and religion in general. I was interested to see where this book would take me.

Fifteen-year-old Jason Bock finds himself stifled by traditional religion. His father is a traditional Catholic and wants Jason to be like him.  Jason doesn’t. In fact, Jason isn’t sure about the whole religion thing at all. His father forces him to attend a young person’s group at the church.

As a joke, he creates a religion, the “Chutegodians.” They worship the water tower at the center of town. He enlists his friend Shin to join. Then Magda Price, a girl he is really interested in but can never figure out how to approach, and even Henry Stagg, a violent, dangerous young man. The characters were not cardboard cutouts. They had some depth. And things never worked out quite as expected.

The joke soon takes on a life of its own. The religion that started out as a joke begins to be taken seriously, too seriously at times. This doesn’t happen to Jason, he is desperately trying to keep the lid on the situation. He discovers that although it is still just a lark to him, he has started something that he cannot control.

This was a more thoughtful book that I thought it would be at first. The ridiculousness of water towers as gods is not played for laughs. It is used as a way to explore what faith is and how ideas take on their own life. I keep circling back to that tired metaphor about not being able to put the genie back in the bottle. It was uncomfortable at times. But it made me think.

I am not totally in love with the book. Maybe because it made me so uneasy at times. I am not sure that this is for a seventh grade classroom library. Maybe high school. It is going to stay part of my personal library; even when uncomfortable the book made me ask some interesting questions.