"Everyone's afraid of something."

I caught Gitty Daneshvari at the Little, Brown booth between sessions at ALA 2009 and she signed a copy of School of Fear for me. She was very friendly!

Imagine your worst fear. Madeleine, Theodore, Lulu, and Garrison's fears go deeper: they each have a phobia. Maddie is afraid of bugs. She lives covered in nets and bug spray. She insists that rooms be fumigated before she will enter. Theo is afraid of dying. So afraid, in fact, that he has created an elaborate system for his family to check in and prove that they're not dead. Lulu is claustrophobic. She won't even use an elevator. Garrison is afraid of deep water. He is an athlete, but will not swim. Their fears are so deep that they have affected the way the children live their lives. In order to help relieve them of their phobias, the children are sent to the School of Fear for the summer. This uber-secretive institution is run by the eccentric Mrs. Wellington from an exceptionally secluded location. What exactly happens at the school is anyone's guess. However, it is understood that the children will be sequestered for the summer and will be helped to overcome their fears.

Upon arrival, it becomes clear to the children that School of Fear is not an ordinary institution. It is held in Mrs. Wellington's home which is decorated in a 50's motif (original, not retro) and includes the "Fearnasium," a place for the children to work out their fears. Mrs. Wellington, a former beauty queen, imagines the children as contestants and puts them through a hilarious and ridiculous form of pageant training. The children wonder, however, just how this will help cure them of their phobias. Mrs. Wellington has an elaborate plan to help the children. Can she carry it out? As they story unfolds, along with the groundskeeper and cook Schmidty, the lawyer Munchauser, and Mrs. Wellington's bulldog Macaroni, the children realize that they will never forget their summer at the School of Fear.

When I first received this book from Little, Brown as a "Galley of the Week," I was taken by the cover. I'll be the first to admit that I am attracted to book covers. There has been a lot of buzz about this lately (Justine Larbalestier's post, John Green's post, a challenge found via A Chair, a Fire Place, and a Tea Cozy at Color Online) and I admit that I have a habit of snapping pictures of book covers (wherever I see them) so I can go to my trusty computer and find out what the book is "really about." The cover, as well as the art throughout the book, really does depict the feel of the book itself, which I like.

I also loved the language. There are several places throughout the book where I wanted to write notes because I wanted to remember how things were described or stated. My friend Kristin felt the same way, writing about it in an e-mail to me, " . . . there would be a line that was so pitch-perfect! There was one about how Mrs W. was never so alert and so insane as when she talked about pageantry that was priceless."

Finally, I learned about Casu Frazigu (a.k.a. maggot cheese) which I had never heard of before. Thank you, enlightening children's books, you may help me win a trivia game one day!


School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari will be published September 1, 2009.

"I have a parking fairy. I'm fourteen years old. I can't drive. I don't like cars and I have a parking fairy."

A parking fairy? How undoos can you get? Charlie loves to play sports, especially basketball. She attends a sports-focused high school, and, oh yeah, she has a fairy. Most of the people in New Avalon have fairies. Some, like her friend Rochelle's personal shopping fairy are doos, while others, such as her own parking fairy are decidedly doxy. In Justine Larbalestier's How to Ditch Your Fairy, Charlie is doing everything she possibly can to lose her fairy and gain a new one. She has denied it the joy of parking for months in the hope that it would leave and she could move on with a fairy more suited to her needs and interests.

It sounds simple--don't get into a car, deny the fairy it's usefulness, and it will soon go away. However, everyone wants to use Charlie's fairy to find parking, so it's tricky to avoid being in a vehicle. Plus, she has to contend with earning demerits for all the missteps which she believes trying to rid herself of the parking fairy are causing. In order to erase the demerits, she must do hours of public service at the New Avalon Cemetery. During her service, she begins to spend time with Fiorenze, who happens to have an all boys like her fairy. While Charlie thinks she would like to have Fio's fairy, Fio is trying as hard as she can to avoid all boys and get her poxy fairy to leave her alone as well. Her plan seems to be working until Steffi enters the picture. The boy fairy works especially well on Steffi and Fio can't avoid him.

Since Fio's parents are fairy experts, the girls come up with a plan to rid themselves of their fairies once and for all. However, does it pay to ditch your fairy? Is one really better than another? Some crazy things happen throughout this book as Charile and Fio try to lose their fairies and Charlie tries to land Steffi, the pulchy boy of her dreams. I loved the fun vocabulary used in New Avalon--a glossary is included. As for me, I'm afraid I'm hoping for a pretty boring, but useful fairy who will pair and fold all the socks when I do the laundry!

How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier was published in 2008.

"This time I truly mean it."

I just finished Justine Larbalestier's new book, Liar.

Meet Micah. She's a liar. And she makes no bones about telling you that, right from the start. But she also promises that she is going to tell YOU the truth. But even that truth keeps shifting. The reader never really gets a sense of what is the truth and what is a lie and what is made up. Even after Micah telling us that she really IS telling the truth this time, we wonder. I mean, really. She IS a liar. What is to stop her from lying about lying?

The reader questions her family life, her friends, her relationship with her after hours boyfriend Zach. I can't say much more, because to talk about her lies too much will give away part of her truths too!

This book is due to be a available in October 2009.