Oldie but Goodie...Book Recommendation!

My neighborhood is several miles away from an air force base, and in the past, residents of closer neighborhoods have complained about the amount of jet noise. Driving home this morning, I saw a bumper sticker clearly responding to those complaints that read, "Jet Noise: the Sound of Freedom." While I understand the sentiment, my immediate response was, "Depends on whose jet it is!"


This reminded me of one of my favorite YA books of all time: John Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began. In it, a group of Australian teens are on a two-week camping trip when one of them hears jets flying overhead in the night. Dismissing it as a dream, she forgets about it until they return from to discover the town deserted, their families in internment camps and the country invaded. The teens must decide: do they turn themselves in and join their families, return to their campsite and hide out, or stay and fight back?  Tomorrow, When the War Began starts the awesomely intense seven-book Tomorrow series (plus a companion series, The Ellie Chronicles), and is a great read - especially if you've finished The Hunger Games and need something to tide you over while you wait for the movie!


(Tomorrow has been made into an Australian movie - trailer below - but I've not seen it...)

Book Review: Pemba's Song by Marilyn Nelson and Tonya C. Hegamin

What's It About?  ghosts; teen girls; slavery; history; 'new kid in town'


Summary?  As fifteen-year-old Pemba adjusts to leaving her Brooklyn, New York, home for small-town Connecticut, a Black history researcher helps her understand the paranormal experiences drawing her into the life of a mulatto girl who was once a slave in her house.


Why Did I Read It & Where Did I Get It?  While at work, the "ghost story" subtitle caught my eye. I checked it out from the library.


What I Thought...
This was a short yet interesting book about an African-American teen girl who moves with her mother from Brooklyn, NY to a small town in Connecticut.  Angry at having to move and desperately missing her friends, Pemba initially brushes off her strange experiences in their new home, but when she seems to form a connection with the ghost of a slave --  experiencing unsettling blackouts at the same time -- she begins to delve deeper into the history of her house and the small town.

Pemba is an easy character to sympathize with - her father died several years before in the Iraq war, and she and her mother both clearly feel his loss.  Her mother moves them for a good job opportunity, but understandably, Pemba's resentful about leaving her friends and boyfriend, a feeling acerbated by the fact that her cell phone gets very little reception in the small town.  While the ghost story is slight, it's still creepy, and the glimpses into the ghost's life - in the late 1700s - are unsettling.  Pemba writes about her feelings and impressions in a journal of poems, and I found those reflections the most interesting parts of the book.

This would be a great ghostly read for reluctant readers, or for those looking for high interest/low reading level books.

Recommended.

YA Reading Challenge Count: 6