The Rise of the Illustrated Young Adult Novel

I had heard so much that was so good about A Monster Calls, the Patrick Ness novel inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd, that last night, when my arms were too achy to type a single letter more, I downloaded the book onto my iPad2.

Had I known that this book was so beautifully illustrated, I would have gone out to the store and bought myself a copy instead, so that I could, from time to time, look at these extraordinarily interesting, wildly textured Jim Kay drawings.  A Monster Calls would be a very different book without these images, just as Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, the Ransom Riggs books enlivened by surreal old photographs, would not be the book it is had not a publishing house decided that teens, too (and the adults who inevitably read teen books) need, every now and then, to stop and see the world not through words but through images.  Maile Meloy's new historical YA book, The Apothecary, is due out soon—a book that (if the preview pages on Amazon are accurate) features some very beautiful illustrations by Ian Schoenherr.  And let's not forget The Boneshaker by Kate Milford, with its beautiful Andrea Offermann images. (And, of course, there are so many, many more.)

A Monster Calls reminds me, in so many ways, of the great Roald Dahl story The BFG.  Dahl's books, illustrated by Quentin Blake, sit beside The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer) on my shelf—books that take me back to some of my favorite mother-son reading days.  We loved the stories.  We loved the illustrations, too.  We loved the entire package.

Maybe we have Brian Selznick to thank for this return to the visual—to ageless picture books.  Maybe it was just plain time.  I only (with absolute surety) know this:  I recently completed a young adult novel amplified by (in my eyes) gorgeous illustrations. I can't wait to see where that project goes, and on what kind of journey it takes me.

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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children/Ransom Riggs: Reflections

Yesterday, in a post ruminating about the strong hold historical fiction still has on readers, I mentioned that I had begun to read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, a book that has been on the New York Times bestseller list since it debuted in early June (and, indeed, was sold as a film property before it even hit the light of bookselling day).

I had been intrigued by the origins and making of this book—by the Deborah Netburn story I'd read in the LA Times that explained its genesis this way.  "The book came about when (author Ransom) Riggs started collecting found photography at flea markets and swap meets about three years ago.  He kept coming across strange creepy pictures of kids and felt like he wanted to some thing with them....  Riggs had just completed his first book, 'The Sherlock Holmes Handbook' for Quirk Books and asked his editor what he would do with the photos.  The editor suggested the pictures might inform a novel."

What we have here, in other words, is an author's reverence for odd photographic history, an editor's willingness to listen and to suggest, and a publishing house's embrace of the not-exactly-known.  The result?  A gothic, haunted, time-tripping tale that doesn't neatly fit any categories and so has been launched as an illustrated (by those very inspiration-laden vintage photographs) YA book that has people of all ages reading and talking.

We all love success stories, but I think this is a particularly special one—laden, as it is, with exceptional antecedents and peopled by risk takers.  More power, then, to Ransom Riggs and Quirk Books, to Miss Peregrine and all her peculiars, to our hero Jacob and his courageous grandfather, and to that island off the coast of Wales, where time either does or does not stand still.

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Faith/Jennifer Haigh: Reflections

It's been a long time since I've written about a book on this blog—many pressing corporate projects added to some responsibilities on my own two forthcoming books (compromised by a little too much time in the dance studio) have thwarted my best intentions.  Throughout all this time, in the smallest increments, I have been reading Jennifer Haigh's Faith, a book highly recommended by many of you.

Faith is a sister's story about a Catholic family.  It's about a year—2002—during which priests across Boston are being accused of molestations, tried by rumor and innuendo before they are tried by the facts.  Sheila McGann's brother, Art, is one of those being accused.  Little by little, Sheila pieces his story together, moving in and out of the facts of her broader, complicated Catholic family with nearly omniscient knowing.

What struck me with greatest force, as I slowly read the book, was this very omniscience.  Over and again, Sheila McGann finds a way to relate far more than she could have possibly witnessed herself—integrating the broader narrative via things overheard or told, through letters, through every possible means of imaginative empathy.  The book begins with a simple sentence:  "Here is a story my mother has never told me."  It sends a signal that what we are about to read is the forthright conviction of a sister who has worked hard to weave together a wholly defensible, but never utterly knowable truth out of stories mostly borrowed.

The search to know is often a jagged enterprise, self contradicting and unsure.  Faith is anything but that:  It is smooth, continuous, full.  Haigh has Sheila dwell not just with Art and those with whom he surrounds himself, but with their brother, Mike, their mother, their mother's second husband, Ted McGann. No stone, in Faith, is left unturned.  Everything is both delivered and explained, and at times I wished that Haigh had delivered less in the way of explanation—had left more for the reader to ponder and parse.

Still, I have enormous respect for the great research that is represented here, the Catholic knowing so embedded in each page.  I have respect for the time Haigh clearly spent coming to terms with her characters and seeing their stories through.  Clearly, Haigh sought to take us beyond the awful headlines of molestation into the workings and demons of the modern Catholic church, and this she does with deep care and telling compassion.

I have new books to turn to now, and after this evening's dance showcase, I'll be getting to them.  A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman (Margaret Drabble) will be my next iPad read.  After that, I'll be reading Dana Spiotta's Eat the Document and Ransom Riggs' Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, both of which arrived yesterday.  I need to get my life's balance back.  These books will, as most books do, help return me to me.

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