Review: "Jake and Lily" by Jerry Spinelli

Title: Jake and Lily
Author: Jerry Spinelli
Publisher: Balzer + Bray, 2012

Jake and Lily are twins. But they're not what you would call normal. They have this special thing, something they call goombla—they just know things about each other without having to be told. They can't play hide and seek because they always know where the other is hiding, the don't have to look at each other's journal entries because they already know what they say, and every year on their birthday they sleepwalk to the local train station and have the same dream, most likely because they were born on a train in the  middle of a tunnel, and wake up hand in hand.

But all this starts to change one summer vacation when Jake starts to hang around with some neighborhood boys who ride around and call themselves the Death Rays. To make matters worse, the leader of the gang is Bump Stubbins, Lily's archenemy. Soon Jake and Lily start to lose their goombla, to Lily's great distress. The problem is, Jake doesn't seem to mind that much. Over the course of the summer, the two will learn what it means to be individuals while still realizing they will always be brother and sister, inextricably linked together.

While this is not my favorite Spinelli book, it is a nice summer read about growing apart and growing up. Jake and Lily have always done everything together, to the point where Lily can only define herself through her relationship with her brother. When that is taken away from her, she isn't sure who she is anymore, forcing her to figure it out after a lot of grieving. Jake also has to grow up, as he realizes that his treatment of others isn't always as kind as he has been in the past. Overall, this is a book about identity, love, loyalty, and friendship, with the added bonus of a kind of twin ESP.

Lily and Jake narrate in alternating chapters, and it is clear where their stories begin to diverge. Lily's voice is full of sarcasm, anger, and sass. She is a tomboy all the way, and is surprised and insulted when she realizes she is being left out because she's a girl. She calls it like she sees it, and I found that really admirable. Jake, on the other hand, is straitlaced and calm. You can see how he is drawn into the mob mentality, but it takes a fairly serious and cruel incident to make him realize what he's becoming.

This is a nice summer story for older elementary readers and those in the younger middle grades, and a quick read. It may look really long at 335 pages, but a lot of the chapters are less than a page, so if any kids are deterred by that let them take a look through it so they can see for themselves.

Disclosure: I got this book from the library.

Slipstreams: A Genre I Just Heard Of

Hi everyone! Yes, I'm back. If you were wondering what happened to me, I got married a month ago (actually, today is our one-month anniversary... huh, how 'bout that??) and went to Hawaii for two weeks for our honeymoon. It was absolutely incredible; the wedding went nearly perfectly, except for some gown mishaps, and Hawaii was probably the best vacation I have ever been on and will go on in a very long time.

But that is not what I wanted to talk about today. Today, I wanted to share something bookish with you all, something I was taught this past weekend at the Children's Literature Association's annual conference. This year the conference was held at Simmons College, my now alma mater (I graduated last month from the library science program). I was lucky enough to be chosen as a volunteer, and as a result I was able to attend the conference for free. The theme was "Literary Slipstreams," and as I attended the panels I got a more clear idea of just what a slipstream is.

Slipstream is apparently a genre that was named in the 1980s by author Bruce Sterling, referring to works that are somewhere between the genres science fiction and fantasy and mainstream fiction. Many of you will be familiar with the term magical realism, which will most likely bring Gabriel Garcia Marquez to mind. Slipstream and magical realism can be one and the same, from my understanding; basically, if you think something is realistic fiction and then all of a sudden find something fantastical happening, you are probably reading a slipstream novel.

I am really glad to know about this genre now; there are a lot of books that I've read that don't quite fit in one genre or the other. I will review a book later on this week that I think fits into this genre, though others might disagree—I'd be interested to hear what you all think.

I will post later on the awesomeness that was The Body Electric

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to be an attendee of the annual Simmons College Children's Literature Institute, this year the theme being The Body Electric. The weekend was chock-full of author goodness, with names including Jacqueline Woodson, Jack Gantos, Sharon Draper, Sara Pennypacker and M.T. Anderson.

It is late now, however, and I would like to curl up in bed with a book. I will do my best to put up a more full post later, but I might need some prodding on this. Don't let me slack now! I can't miss telling you about Jack Gantos's idea for the children's lit graveyard, now, can I?