I finished reading a dandy of a YA mystery last night: The Case of the Missing Marquess. This one got me with the hook that it is about Sherlock Holmes's much younger sister, Enola. I'm always up for some fun 19th century London intrigue (I mean really, who isn't?) but I'm very impressed by how author Nancy Springer crafted this story. Yes, Enola is the little sister but she is a very unorthodox little sister as she was single handedly raised by a feminist mother. The mystery that she falls into is very well done and makes perfect sense that a young teen would figure it out first (you'll have to read it to see why) but the larger story of where Enola fits in the world and why she takes a certain path, is excellent. I was thinking about the Maisie Dobbs mysteries when I read this book. Although they take place after WWI and are written for adults the two female characters could be mother and - much later - daughter. It will be easy to recommend Marquess and I'm looking forward to more entries in the series.

It was an interesting coincidence that I was also finishing up Grace Llewellyn's call to arms against mandatory schooling, The Teenage Liberation Handbook, when I started on Marquess. In many ways, Enola Holmes is the perfect example of what Llewellyn is writing about, a teen who is better at educating herself then she ever would be in a classroom. I have to tell you, I wish that this book was around when I was in school because I really wasted a lot of my time. I have a very poor background in math and science and everything I learned in English and history was largely done through my own reading (and some very confusing classroom discussion. "But what was Shakespeare thinking when he wrote this????" How the hell did I know? For that matter - how the hell does anybody know?!) Anyway, Llewellyn's book is compulsive reading and much food for thought about why the school system (both public and private) is so crappy in this country and what alternatives exist to how we teach our children. I have to say though it was pretty wild to be thinking about all that and then read Enola arguing about personal freedom with her older brothers. Serendipity is such a cool thing.

Still much discussion going on over at Gwenda's about the Wolf essay and I still think the whole thing was lame and wish Ms. Wolf had spent her time writing something far better on a far better topic. At Scott's blog you can actually see what real live teenagers think of the Gossip Girls books and Jennifer Weiner has a typically fun response to the essay as well. As for me, I just finished Amaryllis, an outstanding book on Vietnam told from the perspective of two brothers. More on that later, but my review will be in next month's column at Bookslut which includes several great historical fiction titles (and even two outstanding picture books). I'm also reading a very cool book from Serpent's Tail on gypsy music which ended up in the mail here one day and is proving to be a fascinating look at post-war life in the Balkans. More on that later as well.

My point is that Naomi Wolf had some great exposure writing what is bad in YA lit today. Bully for her. Check back here later if you want to keep reading about good books, for the young and old alike. That's what I do and I think it's a way better writing gig.