How I Live Now

By Meg Rosoff.

Published in 2004 by Wendy Lamb Books, New York.

There was a moment, towards the end of reading How I Live Now, that I had the thought that it was among the best books I had ever read. Only it wasn't so much a thought as it was a sort of floating feeling, because I couldn't bear to remove myself from the narrative enough to have something so separate as a thought. Reading this book is like reading a dream.

Daisy, a 15 year old New Yorker, is sent to live with her Aunt and cousins in the English countryside. With the country on the brink of war her Aunt leaves to help with peace talks in Oslo, and the children are left behind to a seemingly idyllic existence of no school and no rules. This can't last. I moved slowly with Daisy from love and light and summer and freedom into war and loss and grief and survival. Daisy's voice is so clear and true that I felt the weird sense of normalcy that is maintained in the heart of chaos - despite the horrors Daisy faces, she keeps living. In her words, "We couldn't go on. We went on" (155). The style of the novel is abstracted, grammatical conventions have been left behind, but the resulting sense of flow is hypnotic. "Magical and utterly faultless," proclaims Mark Haddon (author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - a book similar in its stylistic explorations) from the novel's cover. I concur.

10/10.

Ages 12-1000.

Ender's Game

By Orson Scott Card.

Published in 1985 by Tom Doherty Associates, New York.

Winner of the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award.

Ender is six years old when the novel opens, but it is immediately clear that he is not an average six year old. Neither are any of the children surrounding him. The Earth is at war with an alien species, and military forces are testing young children, trying to find the next great military leader. The children are trained and tested through a series of games. As one of the characters says to Ender, "I've got a pretty good idea what children are, and we're not children. Children aren't in armies, they aren't commanders, they don't rule over forty other kids, it's more than anybody can take and not get a little crazy" (118). This story is very well told, and moves at an incredible pace. I was swept up in a future reality that seems entirely plausible, and hated to put the book down. This book will appeal to readers of all ages, and while it comes across at first glance as being very boy-centric, the book deals with relationships and emotions in a way that will also resonate with girls. I loved it.

9/10.

Ages 12-100.