Getting back to young adult fiction, I picked up a Charles de Lint novel, Little (Grrl) LOST (Firebird 2007, and yes, the title is formatted like that) at Lunacon and read it in various airports today. I sometimes have trouble getting into a de Lint novel, but in this case I was very, very pleased from the first page all the way to the end.
The novel caught my eye because it seemed like a modern spin on the Borrowers books which I remember fondly from my childhood: miniature people who live within the walls of our houses, scavenging the necessities of life from us. But in this case, the book pairs a Big (regular-sized) teenage girl with a Little teenager who happens to be a punk, blue-haired runaway full of attitude.
After enough introductory material from the viewpoint of T.J. (the Big) to bring the reader comfortably into the story, the story begins to switch back and forth between T.J. and the Little, Elizabeth, as they struggle with their displacement from their previous lives (T.J.'s family has just moved from a farm to a suburb). I got a little twitchy when de Lint started bringing in other sorts of faerie creatures -- please, not more goblins -- but I loved the way he handled the various faerie races and the fact that he introduced enough conflicts between them and dangers in associating with them to make them distinctly NOT cute and fluffy.
The plot is typical Y.A. coming-of-age stuff, with the smart-mouthed Elizabeth learning the limits of self-sufficiency when faced by the dangers of the outside world and the relatively sheltered T.J. struggling for independence, but that doesn't detract from the storytelling. I was particularly struck with how well it portrayed T.J.'s interactions with her well-meaning parents and her older brother. This is not a dysfunctional family in any way, which is a pleasant change of pace. Her relationships with the two boys who take something of a romantic interest in her are also well written and convincing. And the eventual outcomes for both girls are entirely satisfying.
This is definitely recommended reading for everyone from the Y.A. audience on up.
*nod* Yeah, I enjoyed that one.
Posted by: mneme | May 12, 2009 at 07:34 PM
Speaking of the Borrowers... I never read the books, but I liked the 1992 miniseries, with Ian Holm as Pod.
Posted by: Serge | May 13, 2009 at 08:37 AM
My mother read the first Borrowers book to her fifth-graders every year and the year when she rested in the teacher's lounge during the afternoon and I taught, I read it. I always liked it. Pratchett has a trilogy -- Truckers, Diggers, Wings -- that has small people like that, but it's less rural and more tech.
Posted by: Marilee J. Layman | May 13, 2009 at 04:20 PM
I bought a boxed set of the Borrowers books a year or two ago out of sheer nostalgia but haven't gotten around to rereading them.
Posted by: Susan de Guardiola | May 14, 2009 at 10:19 AM