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