This "Shelf Space" column is, as you see above, devoted to booksellers and librarians discussing "what's in their reading room and what's on the horizon." Both Eisha and I have brainstormed topics for this column which focus on said horizon and current trends in children's literature, but this week I find myself my usual hopeless Book-Nerd-self who can't help but talk books, books, books -- as Eisha did last week. So, on that note, here are four middle-grade/early Young Adult novels I've read recently, which -- for one reason or another -- are worthy of mention in my . . . . well, book!

I Am Not Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos; Farrar, Straus & Giroux; July 2007

I probably have the most to say about this one, my favorite middle-grade title of the year thus far.

Carter Pigza, Joey's "no-good squinty-eyed bad dad," is back. He's had a small stroke of luck with playing the lottery, and he's back to take up his post as father and all-around family man, going so far as to insist that each member of the family changes his or her name. Carter -- rather, Charles Heinz -- also moves the entire Pigza clan past the city and into the tiny apartment adjoined to a neglected, old roadside diner, which he plans to renovate into the brand-spankin'-new diner called The Beehive -- this after Charles and Maria's "rewedding." But this is the Pigza clan we're talking about here, so nothing goes as planned, of course.

There are hysterical moments balanced with heartrending moments in this particular chapter, so to speak, of the Joey saga; the chapter entitled "Granny's Comet" is a moment of Gantos-genius, as Joey visits his grandmother's grave, having collected cigarette butts for her tombstone and planning to spray paint it silver ("'I have to go now,' I said to her. I leaned forward and gave the stone a kiss. It was as cold as the last time I kissed her cheek. 'I miss you,' I said quietly. 'I'm sorry all that smoking did you in. But I guess we have that in common, too, because now I have to send Joey up in smoke and become that other kid.'"). Joey must come to his own understanding of -- and even a forgiveness for -- the wrongs done to him, even realizing at one point that Carter “always seemed to be two people at once and I wasn't sure why. But maybe it was like Mom had said, with forgiveness you can breathe easy inside your own skin. Without it, you are always trying to be someone else." And all along the way, we get those signature Gantos Joey-metaphors ("I felt tired just trying to imagine where that goodness might be in my dad. And I felt that trying to find it was going to be like crawling down one of those old dark coal mines around here that were gated shut because they were dangerous") that bring Joey to vivid life.

I heard the always-entertaining Gantos speak about Joey this past weekend at the Southern Festival of Books, sponsored by Humanities Tennessee, in Nashville, Tennessee. (Hearing him talk about the very first draft of his first Joey book be an issue book with the "disease du jour" -- in other words, a Book About ADHD and not a good story that happens to have a character with ADHD -- and how he figured he was "contributing to the worst part of children's literature" was a kick, indeed). "I thought I had unduly burdened Joey," he said about this unexpected fourth Joey title, having decided earlier he would stop at a trilogy. "I brought him out of retirement and had to put him back in jeopardy, but I guided him through that to get to the forgiveness theme." Could there be a more sympathetic, lovable character in middle-grade fiction today, I dare say? As the School Library Journal review of this title points out, Joey is really on his own now; that is now clearer than ever. And, though that does make it one of the darker Joey books, as they also pointed out, it still makes me root for him even more.

Someone give Gantos a Newbery already. I’m just sayin’ . . .

Camel Rider by Prue Mason; Charlesbridge; June 2007

A very short war, measured in merely days, breaks out in Abudai, a fictional town in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf. Adam is Australian and lives comfortably with his family and beloved dog in a compound there. Walid -- a young camel rider, who was sold into slavery and whose mother had once called him Emir Saheer, or little prince, but now is heartlessly called only "boy" -- is bound and dumped in the desert by his two abusive owners, or dalals. After the war begins, Adam escapes the compound with his neighbors, who are heading toward the border, but flees from them in order to retrieve his dog. Adam never makes it back to the compound but does stumble upon Walid, alone and left to die in the desert. The novel recounts their journey to safety, battling extreme heat, hunger, fatigue, language difficulties, prejudice toward one another's cultures, and the two cruel slave traders who once owned Walil. The chapters are initially told from the boys' alternating points-of-view, even distinguished typographically, and eventually we are privy to their alternating voices within single chapters. It took some time for me to swallow the notion that Adam would escape those trying to guide him to safety in the midst of bombs falling, no matter how reckless he normally is and no matter how much he loved his pet dog, and, to be sure, the novel sags in spots with its less-than-fully-realized characters. But young fans of action-adventure novels will likely enjoy the almost constant cliff-hanging, edge-of-your-seat moments, and to boot, readers will learn something about Muslims and the war-torn area in which they live during the process. The ending is not only tidy, but it's almost as if I heard a sitcom laugh track and could see one of those sitcom freeze-frames in my head at the novel's final paragraph. But it's still a promising debut from Mason, paced well and possessing well-placed, refreshing moments of comic relief in an otherwise mostly suspenseful and nail-biting tale.

Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst; Razorbill/Penguin Young Readers; June 2007

I've been slightly burnt out on novel adaptations of fairy tales and fairy tale retellings of late, but this one -- which goes way beyond and much deeper than merely the rewriting of a Grimm tale or two -- I found wildly original. Welcome to the dangerous world of fairy tales, "The Wild," which is normally contained under the bed of twelve-year-old Julie Marchen but which breaks free, much to the dismay of Julie's mom, Rapunzel. Yeah, that Rapunzel, who had previously (make that approximately 500 years ago) escaped The Wild and was doing her best to save the world from it. Now that The Wild is loose and taking over contemporary Northboro, Massachusetts, the fairy tale characters who were happy in their modern suburban worlds are stuck once again in the repeated retellings of their dreaded tales -- and The Wild is dragging in others as well. And beware: The very persistent Wild wants its characters back, and once you complete the dramatic retelling of a tale, you're stuck in it for all eternity. It's up to Julie to save . . . well, everyone. This is Durst's debut novel, a fantasy adventure both smart and, at times, irreverently funny. Best of all, Durst knows her fairy tales, even the minor ones, and she manages to embrace the darker elements of these tales while at the same time not scaring the pants off the junior high readers at which the novel is aimed. My one minor gripe would be that I sometimes had difficulty following the rules for and logic of The Wild's inner world. But Julie is such a well-developed character; Durst did such a fine job of making me care about her journey from moment one; and the "existential story," as Kirkus Reviews put it, that this novel is (discussions of free will, anyone?) was so well laid-out that I eagerly anticipate the return of this brave new heroine of children's lit in another once-upon-a-time in next year’s Out of the Wild.

Louisiana’s Song by Kerry Madden; Viking Juvenile; May 2007

I think the rest of the world of children’s-lit-blogging has covered this gem of a book already. I suppose I was a bit late in getting to it, but I'm glad I found it. And, to be honest, I haven't read the first book, Gentle's Holler, in this planned trilogy of Madden's, but no matter. I was never once lost, not having read the opening tale.

It's Appalachia in the historically monumental year of 1963. Livy Two and her nine brothers and sisters -- who live in Maggie Valley, a small mountain holler in North Carolina, with Mama and Grandma Horace -- have welcomed their Daddy home after he wakes from a coma as the result of an unfortunate car accident. And he is not who he used to be: He can't remember his children's names; he's generally befuddled and bothered; and he can't even bear to pick up his beloved banjo. Since he's unable to support the family, the children must help keep the family financially secure and help avoid a move to Grandma's house in town, away from their beautiful, wild mountain home. Livy's brother, Emmett, is working away from home at Ghost Town in the Sky; her mother knits sweaters; and Livy herself takes a job at the bookmobile, all the time penning country music lyrics she hopes to one day sell and perform in Nashville ("I sing like I'll never quit, because it's only when I'm singing that I can quit hurting for Daddy and start loving him again the way I used to"). It's her younger sister, the terribly shy, gentle Louisiana, who steps up to the plate, the child who can best take care of Daddy and whose talent for painting eventually aids the family as well. And it's up to Livy and Louisiana to save their father after a terrifying turn of events while they hike up Waterrock Knock -- a six-thousand-foot-tall mountain. This is a beautifully, tenderly crafted novel with moments of humor, warmth, and genuine poignancy. Not a single word of this novel rings untrue; Madden nails the Appalachian setting and way of talk, and you immediately feel comfortable in the midst of it all, as if you have known the Weems family all your life. You can bet I'll be backtracking to read Gentle's Holler, and lucky for me I have an advanced copy of Jessie's Mountain, the final novel in the Weems family saga: I'm not quite ready to leave the unforgettable Weems family behind.

Posted by: Julie Danielson and Eisha Prather

As a children’s librarian who gets to look at all the new books as they roll into my library, I like to keep an eye peeled for the trends of a given year. There are the usual trends, like 500+ page fantasy novels, dragons, dead moms, dead dogs, dead dog mothers, etc. There are also the unusual trends like sentient cheese (very big in 2006) and historical fiction titles where kids get their hands and arms mangled in a gruesome historically accurate fashion (ibid). In 2007, however, there has been a trend that will make for quite a lot of confusion and contention this upcoming award season: Books Beyond Categories.

What I mean by that is that there are certain books that refuse to be neatly arranged under a single category. They straddle the genres. When an author or an illustrator draws upon their own innate creativity to the fullest, their books become richer. That’s the good news. The bad news is that this will hurt them severely come the 2007 awards. Take a gander at some of the books I’m talking about and see if I’m not at all correct.

First of all there is The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick from the Arthur A. Levine imprint of Scholastic (the one that brought you Harry Potter, actually). It is undoubtedly the best known of these books of 2006. Selznick’s tale of a boy who lives in a Parisian train station while attempting to repair his father’s mechanical automaton rocketing up the New York Times Bestseller List and was featured on Al Roker’s Book Club for Kids. The title is remarkable since at a 500+ page count, more than half the book consists of illustrations. The result is more silent movie than graphic novel. When an exciting scene or bit of action comes up, the pages suddenly revert to black and white images. Hugo is sometimes seen running through a crowded station or disappearing behind a telltale gate. Much of the story is based on the real life of filmmaker George Melies, so photographs and stills from early or lost silent films also appear throughout the tale. It makes for an eclectic bit of storytelling but because it doesn’t slot neatly into fiction, non-fiction, or graphic novel categories, awards will be few and far between for Selznick’s masterpiece.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan is yet another Arthur A. Levine book (the man knows how to pick ‘em) and with its October release date this title is poised to be the most impressive children’s novel of the year. I am not kidding. Originally released in Australia, Tan’s tale takes the Hugo Cabret idea one step further. It’s entirely wordless. Telling through pictures the tale of a man as he immigrates to a foreign land, the book sounds like something you may have seen before. Cleverly, Tan ups the ante, as it were, by putting you directly into his hero’s shoes. Not only is everything foreign to the hero, but it’s also foreign to you. You can’t understand the language, the animals, the foods, or the customs. The simple act of looking through a small apartment’s appliances becomes frightening and strange. As our hero attempts to find lodging, food, and a place to work he meets other immigrants from different countries who convey their own stories of escape and survival. Without a single word this is the most moving, intelligent, thoughtful book I have seen in years and years. Designed like an old photo album and containing mostly sepia-toned images, you cannot read this thing cover to cover and not be struck by its superior storytelling. Of course, there is no award for wordless books out there. Worse still, because it was originally published in Australia, “The Arrival” is not eligible for many American prizes. A pity as it is a must read and a real shining gem.

Switching gears, here is a title that will have many a library cataloger scratching their heads. Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village by Laura Amy Schlitz is not quite non-fiction but certainly not entirely fictional. Yet Schlitz has created a book that turns out to be an answer to more than few prayers. As a children’s librarian, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve dealt with patrons who have begged me for plays for children. Of course, no play written has ever had equal parts for all characters since it normally cannot be done. Enter, Schlitz’s book. The title contains 18 different voices of kids, tweens, and teens living in an average everyday English village. A map at the beginning shows where they live, but it’s their monologues that really tell their tales. Schlitz is gifted in her characterizations, but she never neglects to add real world facts when she can. Footnotes and factual inserts inform her audience while her characters talk about their lives. Because the Newbery Award can be given to both fiction and non-fiction, Schlitz’s book is my number one pick for that award this year. Yet because most awards like to relegate titles like this to a single category, I think that many people will fail to notice Schlitz’s effort or, worse, squirrel it away rather than deal with a book this original and eclectic.

Moving beyond the usual categories can certainly be informative, but kids are sometimes even more willing to try out new formats than their adult counterparts. Here’s a classic example. Though it may not be the first book of its kind, it’s certainly one of the more interesting ideas out there. In Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf, two time Newbery Honor winner Jennifer L. Holm tells the tale of Ginny as she enters seventh grade. The catch? The novel is told entirely through her stuff. Notes passed in class, refrigerator reminders, receipts, detention slips, and other ephemera tell us the story of Ginny and her various travails. In a book such as this the illustrator is just as important as the author and artist Elicia Castaldi is more than up to the job. Her pages just overflow with junk and clues as to why Ginny grows so depressed as her year continues. This is the story of an everygirl told through the most minute of cast-offs. That makes for great storytelling, but no award for writing or illustration is going to claim it as its own. More’s the pity since this is one book kids will have a ball reading.

Kids also have a sweet spot for comics, and as a children’s librarian I say loud and proud that I do not mind one little bit. Now anyone with a passing familiarity with underground comics knows that they don’t naturally lend themselves to the picture book format. Plus the fact that artist Mark Newgarden’s last book was titled, “We All Die Alone”…. well, it doesn’t inspire much in the way of confidence. Yet when it comes to great picture books of the year place, Bow-Wow Bugs a Bug, on the top of the heap for me. Part picture book, part graphic novel, the book is entirely wordless and utterly sublime. The premise is remarkably simple too. Bow-Wow, the pup, follows a bug out of the house with a single-minded intensity. As he walks around the block his experiences become increasingly bizarre. Funnier than it has any right to be, “Bow-Wow” is one of those books created on the computer that work. Too nice to be a cartoon and too cartoony to be seriously considered for an award, this is a worthwhile purchase flying just below the radar.

Speaking of computer work, when I say, “web comic” to you, is your first instinct, “Great book concept!” No? Yeah, it’s not mine either. Yet somebody at Abrams had the wherewithal to look at Jeff Kinney’s online saga of an average kid and his adventures in the strip Diary of a Wimpy Kid and put it between two shiny red covers. The result? A New York Times Bestseller and one of the funniest books of the year. Part journal and part comic, Kinney hones in on a kid’s school year and the various troubles he runs across. The design of the book is extraordinary and the storyline far better than you’d expect from an online site. It may be one of the first successful leaps from the electronic to the physical page (rather than the other way around).

I appreciate that you can’t make an award for every kind of book out there, but should the current standards be relaxed? Should the Caldecott go to any book that uses illustration in some way? Should the Newbery consider pictures? It’s a brave new world, and I hope our awards change to embrace the delightful changes we’re seeing each and every day. Otherwise artists are going to be inclined to be less creative so as to get some awards and push some paper. I can only hope that these books make one heckuva impact in the meantime.

Posted by: Elizabeth Bird, New York Public Library