Checkered Flag Cheater

Hailing from Indianapolis, I may have a greater interest in car racing than most, but I can't get enough of Will Weaver's Motor Series. I just finished Checkered Flag Cheater, the third in the series, which finds Trace Bonham racing on the super-stock circuit for Team Blu. His face graces billboards advertising his corporate sponsor’s sports energy drink, and he is the next boy wonder on the track. However, when Trace begins to suspect that his mechanic is illegally juicing his car, he struggles with what to do.

Saturday Night Dirt, the first book in the Motor Series, introduces ten characters of varying ages and ethnicities who all are involved in the world of car racing at Headwaters Speedway, a small dirt stock-car track in northern Minnesota. One Saturday night, when rainstorms at other tracks force cancellations at other tracks, big name racers join the local kids at Headwaters for a night they’ll all remember. Weaver fleshes out each character enough to leave a lasting impression on readers. The track owner is Johnny Walters, a former racer left paralyzed after a severe crash. His 17-year-old daughter Mel struggles to keep her father's track financially solvent. Promising stock-car racer, Trace Bonham, finds that his jealous mechanic has sabotaged his engine. Other racers who are introduced include Beau Kim and Sonny Down Wind. Additional track personnel round out the group. Racing terminology is accurate and the play by play of the races is exhilarating.

In Super Stock Rookie, the second book in the series, Trace Bonham is chosen as the face of Team Blu and now has a hot stock car and his own racing team. Overnight he makes the transition from amateur dirt-track racing to representing a large company as the face of their new sports energy drink. However, he has to go on the road, leaving behind Mel who haunts his dreams, as well as his parents whose marriage is on the rocks. As he questions the legality of his engine and the way his team operates and he is told to just worry about the driving and looking good, he begins to wonder if he made the right choice.

The third book, Checkered Flag Cheater, takes up where the second left off. Trace is now the leader in the competion for points on the Midwest super stock circuit. His romance with Mel is heating up, even as he is tempted by "fence bunnies" while on the road. As he racks up one win after another and the other racing teams begin to protest his car's engine, he begins to wonder what's behind its superior performance. His own racing team continues to tell him just to worry about the driving. When he finally discovers the truth, he must decide whether to look the other way or quit Team Blu and jeopardize his racing career.

According to his book bio, "Will Weaver lives in Bemidji, Minnesota, and is the owner of two Modified cars which he reaces in the WISSOTA circuit in the upper Midwest." He definitely knows his way around under the hood of a car and his insider information about racing strategy and technique seem very realistic. This series would be a great recommendation for reluctant readers. A few non-graphic romantic scenes lead me to caution against giving it to younger students.

Somebody Everybody Listens To

Influenced by my family, I seem to be listening to more and more country music lately, so I was intrigued by Suzanne Supplee's new book called Somebody Everybody Listens To. The main character, Retta Lee Jones, heads to Nashville after high school graduation to pursue her dreams of becoming a country music star. Borrowing her great aunt’s car, she ends up living in it as one catastrophe after another occurs.

First, she runs into a brick wall and has to have her car towed and repaired. However, Ricky,the tow truck driver takes pity on her, and after listening to her sing Tammy Wynette's "Stand by Your Man," offers her a job so she can work off what she owes. He becomes one of her biggest allies as she navigates the Nashville music scene.

After losing all her money in a mugging on Music Row, she ends up living in her car and taking spit baths in public restrooms. She takes a second job singing in the bar at a run down hotel in Franklin. There she meets the bartender, Chat Snyder, a former country singer who at first tries to intimidate her, but then advises her to stop singing covers and sing her own music.

Even more difficult than living in her car and dealing with rejection from people in the music business are the pulls from home where her parents’ marriage is dissolving. As an only child, she struggles not to side with either parent in their squabbles. When Ricky gives her two tickets to the Mockingbird (which is based on Nashville's legendary Bluebird Café) for open mike night, she sings an original song about her family problems. She touches the hearts of the people in the audience when she sings "I'm not ready to decide which one to choose in your it's over ride."

Retta is inspired, as was I, by the hard knock lives of successful country singers, whose biographies are included at the beginning of each chapter. It is amazing how many country western singers dealt with poverty and tragedy before they made it big. For instance, Shania Twain lost both parents when she was twenty-two and became the guardian of her three siblings. Retta perseveres in looking for that first break to ignite her career and is ultimately rewarded. This book will appeal to fans of country music, as well as any reader who enjoys a good story about a plucky heroine following her dreams.

Paper Daughter

The Nehls and the Lantzys rented a house in Nathrop, Colorado this weekend at the base of the Chalk Cliffs. While the boys headed off to conquer another section of the Colorado Trail on their mountain bikes, Terre and I visited the galleries in Salida. A gallery filled with colorful sculptures of alien beings was probably the most unique artwork we viewed. My favorite piece was an alien mother reading Where the Wild Things Are to her alien baby. As I marveled at the artist's creativity, I began to think about the many connotations of the word alien and a book I read recently. Paper Daughter by Jeanette Ingold is the story of a young girl who discovers her deceased news reporter father was actually the son of an illegal alien.

Maggie Chen, an aspiring journalist who is still mourning her father's death in a hit and run accident, takes an internship at a Seattle newspaper, where she uncovers a story that links her father's death to political corruption. At the same time she is investigating her father's lies about his family's origins. After finding and reading his journals, Maggie discovers his family does not have East Coast blue blood ties, but rather he is the son of Fai Yi, a man who entered the US as a "paper son." Fai Yi and his twin sister's history is interwoven with Maggie's present day story. In a flashback to 1932, Fai-yi narrates the tale of their illegal entry into the United States using a "paper father," a ruse used to avoid the Chinese Exclusion Act.

At the Herald, Maggie and her mentor are investigating a local government scandal that ends in murder. When they find a connection to her father's death, she is taken off the story. Maggie realizes that finding the truth about her father's past will help to clear his name. As the suspense builds, Maggie wonders, "Why would my father, who'd always said a person was only as good as his or her word, have lied about his parents and about how he'd been brought up?"

The historical information about Chinese poverty during this period, which prompted mass immigration to the US and the resulting laws prohibiting Chinese immigration, as well as Maggie's struggle to understand the truth about her cultural heritage will keep the reader engaged. Coupled with the mystery of the government scandal and murder, the story of her search for the truth makes for a real page turner.

The Drake Chronicles

After seeing Eclipse, the third movie in the Twilight Saga, I have to agree with critics that it is the best one yet. The screenwriter has taken great liberties with the book in order to accomodate the Team Edward/Team Jacob hype, but it works fairly well. Having my appetite for vampire stories whetted, I picked up Hearts at Stake, the first book in the Drake Chronicles, and was pleasantly surprised by how engaging it is. I'm fascinated by authors taking the basic vampire idea and making it their own.

In Hearts at Stake the author, Alyxandra Harvey, has imagined a very complex vampire world complete with a variety of vampire clans whose lineage is explained in great detail on the Drake Chronicles website at www.thedrakechronicles.com. Hearts at Stake introduces two best friends: Solange, who is waiting for her sixteenth birthday when she will change into a vampire, and Lucy, the feisty human, who is in love with Nicholas, one of Solange’s seven vampire brothers. In the Drake clan the vampires are human until their sixteenth birthday when they undergo the dangerous "bloodchange." They are genetically predisposed to be vampires, and when they begin the change, they must drink blood to stay alive. Solange's brothers managed to survive the passage, but she is the first female-born vampire in 800 years and a prophecy foretells that she will become queen and unite all the vampire clans. Lady Natasha, who is currently the queen, is determined that Solange won’t live to celebrate her birthday.

Lucy, Solange’s snarky, weapon-obsessed best friend, is aware of the situation and is determined to help Solange's family protect her. Lucy and Nicholas have been feuding their whole lives, but lately they find their animosity evolving into attraction. When Solange is kidnapped by Lady Natasha's minions, Lucy and Nicholas, as well as the rest of the Drake family, are determined to rescue her. They are aided by Kieran, a Helios Ra vampire hunter who initially attacks the Drake clan, looking to avenge his father’s death. When he discovers that his hatred of vampires is based on lies, he gives in to his attraction to Solange to help save her so that she may fulfill her destiny.

In Blood Feud, the second in the series, the story focuses on Solange's brother Logan and his attraction to Isabeau St Croix, a vampire from the Hounds Clan, who arrived at the eleventh hour to help rescue Solange. Isabeau survived the French Revolution, only to be attacked by the vampire Greyhaven and then buried for two hundred years until the Hounds rescued her. Logan is immediately attracted to her, but although she reciprocates his feelings, she is focused on finding Greyhaven and getting revenge. As Logan follows Isabeau on her quest, the clans are coming together for the coronation of Logan's mother Helena, who will preceed Solange as queen. However, the tenuous peace between the clans is threatened by Leander Montmarte, the 400-year-old vampire, who is the maker of the Host clan. He wants to marry Solange and usurp the throne for himself. Although Solange, Kieran, Lucy and Nicholas make guest appearances in the second novel, it primarily focuses on Logan and Isabeau working together to find Greyhaven.

For readers looking for action packed escapism, these books are great fun and offer a unique twist to the usual vampire fare. The conflict between the clans makes for an ongoing saga with a wide variety of characters to highlight. So far the romances in the Drake Chronicles follow a Romeo and Juliet formula. I'm wondering if the next book in the series will focus on another brother and his unorthodox love interest in the midst of the feuding vampire clans.

The Sky is Everywhere

It has been a music filled week! We saw Widespread Panic at Red Rocks, Jesse Cook at the Boulder Theater, and last night we watched The Planets shoot a music video for You Tube at Immersive Studios in Boulder. As we were watching the technicians work out the video logistics, I began to think about people expressing their emotions through music and in particular a book I just read. In the Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, the main character works through the grief she is feeling over her sister's death through music, poetry and her own sexual awakening.


Lennie, who has always been the "companion pony" to her sister Bailey’s racehorse, is devastated when Bailey suddenly drops dead from a heart arrhythmia. A normally reserved band geek, who has read Wuthering Heights twenty-three times, Lennie is overwhelmed by her grief, which permeates every waking hour. In bits of poetry which Lennie hides under rocks and throws into the wind, she says, "My sister dies over and over again, all day long." Her profound loss awakens unexpected emotions and sexual desire in Lennie. She is utterly confused by a fierce mutual attraction to Bailey's boyfriend, Toby. Their attempts find comfort in each other's arms leave Lennie feeling guilty and ashamed.


Then Joe Fontaine, a brilliant musician who has recently returned from living in France, arrives at school and joins the band. She is amazed at how easily she falls into a relaxed banter with him, but is afraid to feel any happiness. When summer vacation begins, Joe shows up at her house daily with his guitar and breakfast for Lennie and her grandmother and uncle. He helps Lennie regain her love for playing the clarinet, and gently coaxes her to leave her cocoon of grief. When she finally lets go and they fall deeply in love, she again feels guilty because it "doesn't seem right that anything good should come out of Bailey's death." Looming in the background is Toby, whose attentions threaten her relationship with Joe.

The element of this novel that separates it from the chick lit genre is Lennie's poetry. Her missives help the reader connect with the intense pain that Lennie is feeling. She has lived in her sister's shadow her whole life and can't navigate coming out into the sun. She says, "In photographs of us together, she is always looking at the camera and I am always looking at her." Bailey's death forces Lennie to think about her own life and give herself permission to pursue her dreams. Due to the brief scenes of underage drinking and sexual exploration, I would recommend it for the more mature reader.

Ashes

Last Tuesday I enjoyed my first encounter with Broadway in Boulder's musical Grand Hotel at the Dairy Center for the Arts. Based on the 1929 Vicki Baum novel and play, Menschen im Hotel (People in a Hotel), the musical focuses on events taking place over the course of a weekend in an elegant hotel in 1928 Berlin and the intersecting stories of the eccentric guests of the hotel. The cast is made up of talented 15-24 year olds from Boulder County, Arvada and Denver, several of whom are headed to prestigious musical arts programs in the fall.

Imagine my surprise when I started Kathryn Lasky's latest historical novel, Ashes, on Wednesday and found references to People in a Hotel throughout the book! In Ashes, the rise of the Nazis in 1932 Germany is seen through the eyes of 13-year-old Gabriella Schram, who is a privileged German child. Gaby is a passionate reader, whose favorite book is Vicki Baum's People in the Hotel. Blond Gaby looks like the Aryan ideal, but her anti-Fascist family members are called white Jews, because of their political sympathies. Her father, an astrophysicist at the University of Berlin, is a good friend of their neighbor, Albert Einstein, whose theory of relativity is termed Jewish physics by the Nazis. Her mother's best friend is the celebrated Jewish newspaper columnist Baba Blumenthal, whom Gaby adores.

While the intellectuals in her parents' social circle anxiously debate what to do about the looming Nazi rise to power, Gaby observes those around her with Aryan sympathies, such as their pro-Hitler maid who is looking to rise above her poverty; Gaby's elegant literature teacher, who wants her to become a leader in the Hitler Youth group; and her sister, whose boyfriend is an ardent Nazi. Gaby begins a Diary of Shame, listing private moments, where she gives in to peer pressure, such as when a gang of boys forces Gaby and her best friend to return its "Heil Hitler" salute, rather than stand up for what she believes is right.

Each chapter of Ashes begins with a quote from a book that she is reading, by authors such as Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Jack London, that foreshadow elements of the chapter. The prophetic opening quote, by Heinrich Heine -"Where they burn books, they will end by burning human beings."- sets the stage for this compelling story. When book-burning threatens Gaby's beloved books, as well as free thought in Germany, she and her family must determine how to proceed in the future.

In answering the question, "How did you come to write Ashes?", Kathryn Lasky replied, "What fascinated me most was what led up to the all-time catastrophe, the tragedy of modern times. I did not want the perspective of a Jewish person, but a gentile—in other words not a girl whose life was threatened, but whose sense of humanity was threatened; where she begins on some level—most likely a subconscious level—to question what it means to be human." This well researched portrait of pre-WWII Germany eloquently chronicles this volatile time in human history. When I attend the final performance of Grand Hotel at the Dairy tonight, I will do so with a much deeper understanding of Germany during this era.

Epitaph Road

Band on the Bricks this week featured Paper Bird, an indie folk band with three amazing female vocalists, including Esme and Genny Patterson who were in my class at Southern Hills in sixth grade. Their angelic vocal harmonies are supported by instumentalists playing guitar, banjo, upright bass, trumpet and trombone. Playing to their hometown crowd on the Boulder mall, the girls charmed the audience with their powerful voices and upbeat blue grass sounds.

Speaking of strong females, I just finished Epitaph Road by David Patneaude. This post-apocalyptic thriller takes place in 2097 after an airborne virus has wiped out 97% of the male population. Woman now rule the world and have eradicated poverty, crime, and war, but the remaining men, whose numbers are being limited to 5% of the population, are not happy campers. Fourteen-year-old Kellen Dent is one of the rare males, whose neglectful mother is involved with the ruling Population Apportionment Council. The council is busy trying to thwart an uprising of men, including Kellen's father, who live independent of female rule. When Kellen overhears his mother talking about an intentional resurgence of the virus, he begins to worry about his father's safety, and he and his friends Sunday and Tia decide to take it upon themselves to warn him. In the process they discover a secret about the virus which rocks their world.

Each chapter opens with an epitaph for a variety of males who were killed by the plague, poignantly depicting how some women who are left behind mourn their lover's death, others, whose men were abusive, rejoice in it. This is an intriguing exploration of gender relations, which depicts the dangers of extremism. The ending is satisfying, but does leave an opening for a sequel if the author is so inclined.