Lucy Frank

Two girls, at first glance, totally unalike. One hospital room, sharing one disease. Shannon is a blue collar profane veteran of Crohn's disease, a loud and scared fighter. Chess is just entering the bewildering world of dealing with a chronic illness and is much quieter and outwardly compliant. Inside, she's a roil of conflicting thoughts and she can't stop obsessing about her feelings of shame about how her first real date with a boy she likes ended on a rock in a lake after their canoe show more floated away.
The story is told in free verse with each girl's thoughts and dialogue on alternating sides of the page with a line between them to symbolize the curtain separating their beds. As you read, you are very likely to get pulled into the microcosm created in this hospital room and realize that these completely different girls aren't so different after all.
Chess has known something was terribly wrong for some time, but kept pretending she could exercise/deny/be the good girl and it would go away. Her shame makes her keep friends and family at arms length, but Shannon, with her hard earned wisdom about the disease, won't let her stay in self-delusion. It's wonderful to watch them develop a very off, and sometimes prickly friendship over the eight days they share a hospital room.
Beautiful, a bit profane and able to pull readers in quickly are apt words to describe this book. It is one that teens who have health issues or have friends with one will really like and is a worthy addition to both school and public libraries. Love the afterward. show less

Finally. Finally!! A story involving homeschoolers who are not members of a cult. Ex-members of a cult. Raised by ex-hippies. Raised by nouveau hippies. Complete social outcasts with no social skills whatsoever. And....it's a GOOD story on top of that!

Kaity (or Katya, as she now prefers to be called) has had a wonderful summer. Summer camp was wonderful. Summer camp was all about science. Summer camp was everything she dreamed it would be and more. But now she has a problem. It's time to go show more back to school - and she doesn't want to. School has suddenly become unbearably petty, boring, and generally miserable and she's not proud of her behavior towards her teachers. Why can't school be like summer camp? Why can't learning be exciting and, well, interesting?

But Katya has a plan. She's met this really cool boy who turns out to be homeschooled. Homeschooling? That would be perfect! It would be just like summer camp. But when Katya finally convinces her parents she's truly miserable at school and homeschooling is a good idea, their version of homeschooling doesn't match up with what she had in mind. Sometimes, she's not even sure what she wants, but she knows it's not school.

Ah, where to begin. First, the characters. No flat stereotypes here! Katya's friends, both schooled and non-schooled, are layered, realistic middle-schoolers. Katya herself is no plaster saint; she acts out and regrets it, but can't seem to stop doing stupid things. She's not always as studious as she plans to be, and she's not a genius, just an average girl with a passionate interest in the world around her.

And, as mentioned before, no homeschooling stereotypes. {Seriously, if you can name me one other book that has managed this, I will....well, I'll stop telling people how much I hate Stargirl. And mouthing off about why Cammie Morgan (of the Gallagher Girls) would pass for no homeschooler I've ever met, including myself}. There's no perfect ending here; Katya's parents will always be "school people" and what she gets isn't exactly what she wants. But she (and her friends) all get workable compromises at the end and come to a point where they're happy with what they're getting.

Then there's reality; does homeschooling work for everyone? No. Would some kids prefer to be in school? Of course. Do kids ask to be homeschooled because they want a better education? I knew at least two - and that's not counting those who visited a "real" school classroom and decided what they had at home was infinitely better. Are there lots of options? As Katya discovers, yes! Lucy Frank obviously did her homework.

On top of all this, it's definitely a page-turner. Katya's increasingly convoluted lies, issues with her friends, and struggle to get the education she needs and wants never descend into didacticism or predictability. It's definitely popular at my library - we've only had it a month and it's circulating briskly.

Verdict: Add this - and Grace Llewellyn's Teenage Liberation Handbook - to your library collections for those teens who'd like to think a bit more deeply about their education and what they want to do with their life. Or just want a good story to enjoy.

ISBN: 0803732309; Published July 2009 by Dial; Borrowed from the library; Purchased for the library show less

I've long been a fan of novels in verse, and this new verse novel by Lucy Frank comes with a twist. TWO GIRLS STARING AT THE CEILING is the story of Chess, who is hospitalized the night after what should have been a high-school-movie-esque-party-turned-romance. But everything went impossibly wrong, and now she's sharing a room with a sad old lady and one of the angriest girls she's ever met. Chess' room mate Shannon has a story to tell, too. And her no bullshit way of thinking -- and talking show more -- is crossing the curtain that divides their living space in the hospital. Here's the twist: In this novel, the aforementioned curtain is represented by a line down the page. Each girl has her own space, her thoughts and her dialogue on whichever side of the curtain she happens to be standing. It could be considered nothing more than a clever gimmick, but the story is strong enough to power past this label.

Chess is so embarrassed by her evening gone awry. And when she finally comes out of her meds-induced delirium, finding herself parked in a hospital room, she pretty much wishes she could just disappear. Chess never wants to see her crush again, and doesn't even want her friends to visit. (A bestie's brand new dress was ruined in the mortifying incident that landed her in the ER.) And she definitely doesn't want anyone to know her diagnosis: Chron's disease. Known also by it's way less appealing (and much more humiliating) name, inflammatory bowel disease.

The thing is, Shannon isn't going to let her wallow. Shannon has been through what Chess is dealing with, and she's not going to pull any punches when it comes to giving unsolicited advice, going hard on the hospital staff, or asking for exactly what she wants. Chess is a please-and-thank-you sort of girl. But maybe there's something she can learn from her bristly room mate. Her diagnosis -- something she's been trying to avoid, ignoring the pain, telling herself that every incident has been a coincidence -- is terrifying. But maybe, with Shannon at her side, she can find the strength (despite the "evil juice" that is her medication) to face the rest of her life.

For fans of Sonya Sones and Wendy Mass, this is the type of book that sticks with you, opening up the world of an underrepresented illness and creating characters that are not only in the story but in your heart. Reluctant readers will love the unusual style and format, and verse novel lovers will gobble this one up as well. Get it on your shelves for fall! show less

The Homeschool Liberation League is about educational choices. The story follows 13 year old Katya, formerly Kaitlyn. On the first day of eighth grade, Katya decides to turn around and head home. She spends the rest of the day researching and writing up a proposal of why her parents should allow her to homeschool. Eventually they decide to give it a try, but their idea of homeschooling turns out to be a far cry from what Katya expected of the experience.

I enjoyed the book for many reasons. show more First, it does not belittle any form of educational experience, but acknowledges that everyone needs to find the model that works best for them and their family. The setting was close to home, so I recognized it on a local level. I did find myself wondering if Katya's parents would have been so easy to convince to homeschool if they had been from New York, where rules are rather complicated, rather than Connecticut, where all you need to do is file an intent to homeschool. There was quite a bit of angst between the teenagers and their parents which grated and at times slowed the story for me. As a parent who has always homeschooled, I was able to relate to the anxieties of Katya's parents, but did not always understand the logic of choices, other than to create more conflict for the story.

Although it was not exactly what I would have preferred for Katya and her friends, I was satisfied with the ending. I felt that the story presented a fair and balanced view of all of the options available for education today, if parents would be open to these opportunities. show less