“I Love I Hate I Miss My Sister” by Amélie Sarn, translated by Y. Maudet October 4, 2014

Images courtesy of GoodReads.com

The Facts

152 pages; published August 2014

The Basics

Devout Muslim Sohane struggles to deal with her grief and conflicting emotions about her more worldly sister, Djelila, who has been killed by religious extremists.

The Booktalk

Heart-shredding sadness abounds in this gorgeously written story of two French sisters of Algerian descent. Sohane is older. A devout Muslin, she has made the choice to wear a hijab (headscarf). Her family is baffled, the women in her community are indignant, and her school expels her. Her younger sister, Djelila, is on another path, rejecting their Algerian and Muslim heritage, wearing jeans and revealing clothing, and playing basketball at their French school. When her path crosses a gang of punky Muslim teens who want their women more traditional, the situation becomes deadly, leaving Sohane to struggle wit an almost unbearable burden of anger and grief.

Random Thoughts

• The elegance and poetry of the writing is simply stunning.
• This book is a deeply painful reflection on freedom and the many ways in which people interfere with each other.
• There are insights into both expat Algerian and French culture that are both puzzling and worth thinking about.
• The story has its roots in an actual crime in France, which makes it all the more tragic.

I’ll Recommend This To …

• Sophisticated readers of realistic fiction
• Teens with a keen interest in writing
• Anyone who wants a story that expands their understanding of the world
• People looking for stories guaranteed to make them cry

“Erebos” by Ursula Poznanski April 22, 2012

Images courtesy of GoodReads.com

The Facts

440 pages; January 2012

The Basics

Erebos is a video game.  Players must make a vow of silence about the game to earn the secret disc. Once they enter Erebos, they find a game so amazing, so realistic, and so responsive, it is instantly addictive. But as they go deeper, they find they are not only watching the game on their screen, it is also watching them.

Book Talk

Imagine the very best video game you’ve ever played – great graphics, big adventure, totally cool. Erebos is better. Sure, you have to promise to always play it alone. And you’re never allowed to talk about it outside the game. But it’s worth it. No game has ever seemed so real – or seemed to know so much about you. Yet you can only play once. Ever. If you die in the game, you’re out.

Nick and his classmates are desperate to stay in the game, desperate to survive – so desperate that they accept the help of the yellow-eyed Messenger who controls the game and controls their fate. He has tasks for the players to perform to earn new life when their characters are almost out. When the tasks move from the game to the real world, Nick starts to suspect there is something more to Erebos – something that may be dark and dangerous.

Random Thought

Skillfully translated from German, this book is beyond exciting. I read the final 150 pages in a single sitting because I was so desperate to know what was really going on. I would never have imagined what it was.

“Hikaru No Go” (Volume 1) by Yumi Hotta November 23, 2011

Hotta, Yumi (author). Obata, Takeshi (artist). Hikaru No Go, Volume 1. San Francisco: Shonen Jump, 2006. 187 pages. ISBN: 159116222x.

Images courtesy of GoodReads.com

Annotation:

Hikaru is an average kind of 12-year-old boy, more interested in sports than in school and not interested at all in ancient Chinese history. His life changes when he finds a blood-stained Go board and becomes inhabited by the spirit of a long-ago Go master who is still seeking a way to play his beloved game and – someday perhaps – the “Divine Move.”

Booktalk:

Does anyone here care about Go? Do you even know what Go is?

Well, it’s an ancient Chinese game that is like chess – played with black and white pieces on a square grid. If you don’t know anything about it, you’re a lot like Hikaru. He’s a 12-year-old Chinese boy who just found an old, old Go board with blood on it. He doesn’t even know what the board is for. But he’s the only one who can see the blood, so he has some kind of connection with what’s inside.

Can you image what is inside this old block of wood? Only the spirit of Sai, a Go master from the Heian Period (that’s 794-1185 in China). When Hikaru sees the blood, that’s the signal for Sai to come out of the Go board and take over part of Hikaru’s consciousness. Soon, Hikaru find himself spending time in Go parlors and playing against master Go players, with Sai telling him how. He friends start to think he’s crazy. The Go players can’t figure him out.

Hikaru hates Go, but there is something about the intensity of these players that makes him think. Maybe he can understand why Sai would wait even beyond death, hoping for a chance to experience the ultimate moment in Go – the play of the “Divine Move.”

Wait! There’s More:

If you get hooked on this fast and funny story, good news! There are a total of 23 volumes to enjoy.

Teen View:

“I love this series. Even though I didn’t understand it at first because I don’t know anything about Go, I totally realized, ‘This is amazing.’ It really explains what’s important in the game and I love the characters, especially Sai because he gets really involved and yells at Hikaru and he’s so into it. It’s amazing.” – Catrina, age 15, major Manga enthusiast

Awards/Honors (source: http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=1083):

• Shogakukan Manga Award in 2000
• Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2003 (series)