Wise Young Fool by Sean Beaudoin YP FIC BEAUDOIN

Ritchie Sudden has 90 days.  90 days to think and write about why he's got 90 days.  Well, maybe not think.  Ritchie doesn't want to think the way he thinks you want him to think, but he's worried that that's a cliche so he doesn't care about that...I think.  He does care about his one true friend El Hella, his new very old guitar, a girl that may be just screwed up enough to like him, and his terrible band Wise Young Fool.  Maybe just one or two of those days he'll figure out why everything happened and if it means anything.  Maybe he won't. He may even end up a wise young fool. If not, two out of three ain't bad.

Ritchie has a hilarious and very genuine voice.  Beaudoin totally nails the trying-way-too-hard-to-not-try-too-hard that comes all too often with being a teenager.  Ritchie's crushingly stupid mistakes and unnecessary (but totally awesome) punk rock defiance end up making sense and seeming almost rational as he slowly lets us know more about who he is and what his last few weeks of freedom were like. Especially excellent is the very authentic understanding of music and being in a band.  Beaudoin nails this to the wall and slam dunks it and sundry other expressions for exactitude. It is a welcome change from the often idealized and false look at teen music that comes from writers that have clearly watched too many of those super-awesome movies form the 80s about teen bands Makin It! (this is NOT really the title of a movie starring Lea Thompson and a young Demi Moore, but it could be. It could be.) The music , the grime, the feeling of crushing conformity all make this a book with unique texture, attitude, and spark.  My one gripe is that it definitely suffers from Main Character Making references that are From Author's Teen Decade and Not His Own Too Often, but hey I'm old too so I actually get them! It may be one of many wayward young man write from a correctional facility in a snarky voice and eventually (maybe) learning something from the writing (symbolic of how writing and reading of novels can form a catharsis, perhaps?), but it is definitely one not to miss. 

You can find Wise Young Fool in out catalog here.

Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci

Once a year during the month of July thousands of comic book nerds pounce on San Diego, CA to attend Comic-Con, or as Cecil Castellucci so lovingly calls it: “nerd prom.” A couple of years ago Castellucci and fellow young adult author, Holly Black, met at Comic-Con and got to talking about what would happen if a Jedi were to fall in love with a Klingon. For those of you not in the nerd-know, the intermingling of Star Wars and Star Trek fans in a “big no-no” in the geeky world of comic books and science fiction. Black and Castellucci likened it to a spacey version of Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. The prospect of collaborating together to produce this story seemed like a geek’s dream, except the reality was no publishing company in their right mind would want to produce it. The authors felt this idea was too good to pass up, so they decided to ask a group of their favorite young adult authors, also known for their geekiness or geek characters, to contribute short stories about geekdom. The end result was Geektastic: stories from the nerd herd.

The anthology features Black and Castellucci’s story, “Once You’re a Jedi, You’re a Jedi all the Way” and others by writers such as, M.T. Anderson, David Levithan, Lisa Yee, Libba Bray, and John Green. Illustrations and mini-comics by Bryan Lee O’Malley, of Scott Pilgrim fame, and his wife, Hope Larson (Chiggers) provides transition between each short story. If you have a love of Star Trek, Star Wars, cosplay, and high school drama club there is something for you in this collection. Current geeks or those learning to embrace their inner geek will enjoy the humor of these stories and most likely see a little bit of themselves in this book.

This is the first collaboration between Black and Castellucci. For those who enjoy Geektastic, check out individual works by these authors. The following titles are available at the library:

Holly Black: The Good Neighbors, Ironside: a modern faery’s tale, Valiant: a modern tale of faerie, Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You, and Tithe: a modern faerie tale

Cecil Castellucci: Jane’s in Love (graphic novel), Beige, The Plain Janes (graphic novel), The Queen of Cool, and Boy Proof