What has been occupying my reading time since I got home:

A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott. I rarely have contact with authors asking me to review their books. I think Bookslut protects me a bit from this onslaught (Jessa probably gets a million emails of this nature a day) and my blog is so not obviously a kidlit or YA blog that most authors probably aren't sure if I would blog about a book here. Usually I only hear from an author if they already know me through comments/emails or if they are referred here by someone else. That is why Zetta Elliott contacted me about her self-published time travel book and and based on who sent her my way, I agreed to give the book a look. I had several motives for reading it: 1) It's a time travel book for teens with a female protagonist; 2) It has an African American teen girl protagonist; and 3) It's set in Brooklyn (both present and past) and includes a good look at how the borough has changed and what the 1863 race riots in NY were like there.

My expectations were no different for this self-published title then for one from a major pub but I was curious to see what kind of book so many of them would have passed on (it's not as if Zetta is an unpublished author after all). In the end, I thought the book was great. Genna is a great protagonist - thoroughly modern and full of a lot of angst as she navigates her family and burgeoning romance with Judah, the very cool guy her mom is not so thrilled about. Genna's anger over how her family is falling apart and how her mother is missing the point (that Genna is a good kid) is excellent and contemporary teen readers will easily identify with her. After she jumps back to 1863 the plot gets that much more intense as this modern kid learns to cope with being black during the time of slavery. The best part of the book though is that it is mostly and entirely about Brooklyn and Elliott never forgets that. Yes, there is the shock and awe of adjusting to the Civil War era but as good as that is (and the drama with Genna and Judah is awesome) but what I really loved was how many layers of Brooklyn's story are revealed here. The narrative isn't perfect but I could say that about pretty much 80% of the books that come my way. It is a mystery to me why A Wish After Midnight hasn't been picked up by a publisher. I read enough YA titles to know that this one has an audience. Full review in my May column.

Mare's War by Tanita Davis. Okay, I know Tanita. We know each other in that internet kind of way where we email each other a lot, work on joint online projects a lot, consider each other friends but have never met. Go figure. That did not keep me in any way from wanting to read her latest book however. If it didn't work for me I just would have let her know (I have done this before with other online friends) so that's the scoop on all that. As for the book, which is set in both the present and WWII era and involves two teenage girls traveling cross country with their grandmother as she regales them with the story of her WAC experience. I was excited about the WWII angle, the African American characters and also the fact that this was a cross generational tale. That was probably what appealed to me the most as it is so very rare in YA fiction but so common in teen lives.

Tanita does a great job here of making Mare a believable character both as teen and elderly woman and how the granddaughters respond to her story is a great entry point for readers. I like historical fiction and Sherri Smith has a WWII novel out now, Flygirl, that I am looking forward to reading. But for my June column I wanted coming-of-age stories and I think that most of the appeal for Flygirl will be the history and maybe the adventure. (I don't think that is what they will leave the story with, but I think it is how they will get there.) Tanita has a lot of growing up in Mare's War. There is the obvious plot with Mare and her friends who rise to the occasion during the war and learn all kinds of stuff about themselves but there is also what happens with Octavia and Tali who start to see their grandmother very differently and also go through some subtle but dramatic changes on their own. (Basically there's some serious growing up going on in that car.) I enjoyed reading about all of the girls but most especially enjoyed Mare's story and meeting all of her friends back in the 40s. Tanita manages to fold a good deal of social and military history into this story without ever letting that bog down the contemporary tale of grandma and the girls. It's very informative but more importantly, very compelling. Look for my full review in the June column.

The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire by CM Mayo. This adult novel is set in Mexico during the US Civil War when that country was occupied by France and governed by a Hapsburg Emperor. It's a crazy story - I had no clue that France was in Mexico as recently as the 1860s - and Mayo does a great job of telling it from multiple povs so she covers all the thoughts and feelings (from the Austrians to Mexicans) of those involved. The even bigger story is of the Mexican toddler, son of an American mother and Mexican father whose own father had once led Mexico (and was later executed by firing squad), who is "adopted" by the Hapsburg Emperor and destined to be the "Last prince" of the title. Except his parents aren't so thrilled with how things turn out and want him back and the Emperor doesn't know beans about running a country and the Empress is losing her mind from stress (literally) and the Mexicans are having a big ass revolution against all this European crap. All in all, it has great characters, an amazing story and some very fluid and elegant writing. A beauty from start to finish. (Just keep in mind - there are a lot of names to remember!)

Journey of the Pink Dolphins and Spell of the Tiger both by Sy Montgomery. These are reissues of some class nature titles by Montgomery who is a staggering writer. First you are blown away by what she is willing to do for her story (those tigers are the only acknowledged man-eaters in the world and to see them you travel to some serious boonies), but even more than that it is what she includes in these books that truly impresses. She doesn't just write about the animal, or the environment in which it lives but also explores the mythology surrounding it, the folklore, the lives of the people who live near it in the wild and the many people who are attracted to it - either as scientists to study and save it or as tour guides or those folks who don't know why they are there, but can't seem to stay away. This is nature writing that goes above and beyond what we have been led to expect. It folds so many genres into one that the mind reels at trying to classify just what these books are. They are my cool reads for May and I can't recommend them enough. Sy Montgomery is the real deal - she truly is a combination of Emily Dickinson and Indiana Jones, just like the Boston Globe said.

[Post pic - yep, it's a real pink dolphin.]