Slider, by Pete Hautman

     Hautman is an author that has always been at the periphery of my reading radar, but until now I haven't read any of his previous books. Of course, being an OBOB book for next year gives me a reason to try one, finally, and Slider is the book!

    Slider is the story of David, who can eat an entire 16 inch pizza in under 5 minutes. Drawn to eating contests, he finds himself in an expensive situation, one that will take winning an eating contest to get out of...he hopes. But it isn't the overeating that drives this story. It's David, his two best friends, and his family, including brother Mal, who is severely autistic. The deft way that Hautman works his way through David's relationships is truly the highlight of this book. In fact, the eating part is a bit of a turn-off for me, if it were the central theme of the story, as I don't see overeating for "fun" to be a thing worth reading about. But Hautman makes David so likeable, and real, that days after I finished the book I found myself thinking about the characters. And as I've said before, that is a the sign of a good story!

    I didn't think I'd give this 5 full paws because the basis of the story is overeating for fun. But the book has stayed with me, and makes me want to read another book by this author in the future. For that, Slider gets 5 paws!

Otto: A Palindrama, by Jon Agee

     A newly released graphic novel with simple but eye-catching artwork, Otto is a story told completely in palindromes (words or phrases that are the same frontwards as they are backwards...such as the name Otto). A very clever idea, and in most cases the palindromes work very well throughout the book. There are a few that seem a little too manufactured for the story, but there were equally as many that made me LOL! 

    You know by time you get half way through the story that you are holding something very unique and creative in your hands. And I'll bet you find yourself, more than once, reading a phrase from back to front just to understand the palindrome you just finished! So expect a lot of smiles, some palindrome checking, and a genuine appreciation of what author and illustrator Agee has done with Otto: A Palindrama. It is fun, and it is clever, and although it may be a book many of you want to read again and again, I'll bet it will be a book you finish and quickly want to share with someone else! 4 paws!

Give Me Some Truth, by Eric Gansworth

     A follow-up book to an earlier OBOB title If I Ever Get Out of Here. Native American author Gansworth continues in his conversational writing style with Give Me Some Truth. This isn't a super new release, having come out in 2018, but I really enjoyed If I Ever Get Out of Here and wanted to circle back to this one at some point, and it just worked out that I needed a new book to read and didn't have anything else immediately available! 

    Like the first book, Gansworth's writing style is easy to read, like Catcher in the Rye without all of the language (although there is some). Most of his books are for adults, so he doesn't have a huge collection for teens, but like the first book this one is written in a way where you feel right away that you are dropping in on some friends, and picking life up right where it was before you arrived!

    Gansworth's characters are Native American, so this is an element that he brings that many other teen writers don't. I would compare him to Sherman Alexie, although I think Alexie is a better writer, as writing goes, but Gansworth is just as good writing voice into his characters. You really feel like you are in their heads, especially the main characters. That said, I really liked his OBOB title, but this one seemed tedious. It still flowed well, but the print was pretty small, so even at 400 pages, this probably was meant to be 500 pages or so. Probably too long for the publisher's liking, hence the small text. Older middlers may like this (maybe not as much 6th graders...), and it's pretty realistic, and getting into the lives of modern-day Native Americans is something that will help many of us better understand those perspectives. For those reasons, I give this 3 paws, but I recommend his OBOB book over this one, if you're trying to know where to start with this author.

Kaleidoscope, by Brian Selznick

     From the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, among other wonderfully written and illustrated books, comes Kaleidoscope, the new book by Brian Selznick. This book is a collection of short stories - very short, as in 2 or 3 pages each - connected by artwork that goes along with the book's title (a kaleidoscope is a tube that you look through at one end, rotate, and colored pieces tumble inside creating wonderful shapes and patterns and colors). The stories share common images, character names, and themes, but at the same time they are pretty loosely tied together. So much so that once I finished the last story I immediately re-read the first two stories, which made much more sense after finishing the book. The style is hard to explain, and hard to figure out until almost at the end of the book. But once you reach the end, I promise you, too, will re-start at the beginning. 

    I admit I didn't love the book at the start...giants and dragons and such aren't usually my thing (sometimes, but not usually). But after midpoint of this collection of stories I started to see them connected, and in very subtle ways (meaning the connections are not very obvious). And once they began to link together, Selznick's "voice" came through, and I truly hated to see the book end. This could have been 400 pages, instead of 200 pages, and it still may not have been enough.

    Give this book a try, and be patient with it! If it doesn't grab you right away, keep going anyway, because it will, and you'll be very glad you did. 4 paws and a wag for this gem!

Flight of the Puffin, by Ann Braden

     In Flight of the Puffin, the second book by author Braden, she tells the story of four different teens, living four very different lives, connected by a random idea that one of these young people has to create small index cards with hopeful messages on them and place them around town. One of the main characters, and narrators, Jack, is trying to save his small rural school from being closed down for the school board because the school does not offer gender-neutral bathrooms. Jack takes up the fight to save his school from having to change - out of love for his school and community - but his stand is seen as hatred and is quickly turned to something it isn't in the local press. Thanks to the random cards, and consequent conversations with others, Jack changes his mind. His empathy grows - his ability to put himself in someone else's shoes, so to speak.

    All four of the main characters are searching for their voices in this story, and the card idea is based on a real-life group called the Local Love Brigade. The ideas in this book would, alone, earn it 5 paws from me, but even though this is a truly important story, it wasn't written as strongly as the ideas it is sharing. So a good book, for sure, but the characters didn't stick with me after the final page (the message of empathy did, though, which I wagged at!). This book is getting a lot of good reviews, which it should, and I'm giving it one here, too! But 4 paws, not 5.