Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen

In the beginning there was Elizabeti’s Doll (1998), then, Mama Elizabeti (2000). Now, Stuve-Bodeen and Hale team up for the third installment in the series set in Tanzania. In this addition, Elizabeti is excited to start school. Hale’s mixed-media illustrations picture the preparation: in the opening spread, Mama braids Elizabeti’s hair; a trio of vignettes shows the girl as she tests out her new uniform, twirling her skirt and touching her shoes (“No more bare feet! Elizabeti show more smiled. School must be a very special place”). But excitement soon leads to anxiety—and back again—as Elizabeti enters the schoolyard. At first Elizabeti pulls away from the action, relying on big sister Pendo for safe keeping; an invitation to a join a game of machaura—American children will recognize the game as a variation of jacks—increases her comfort level. When Elizabeti goes home, however, her enthusiasm wanes. After all, her own shoes are much more comfortable than school shoes, her dress is softer and Obedi the cat has given birth to kittens right under Elizabeti’s bed. It is this event that signals Elizabeti’s change of heart, for she has learned in school how to count to five and uses her newfound skill to count the kittens. Soon, she shows off her knowledge of the alphabet and challenges her mother to a game of machaura. It’s enough to make her realize school might not be so bad after all. Throughout, Stuve-Bodeen distills the essence of the school experience, perfectly capturing a child’s emotional state and confirming the universality of first-day jitters. Accented with lively African-inspired paper Hale’s illustrations contain the texture of Tanzania. Together, the talented team offers up another winning peek at a life that’s different but the same. show less

This is one of the few books that manages the status of a thriller without constant action. A book that moves consistently from action scene to action scene inevitably becomes dull, strange as it may sound. This book keeps up an aura of suspense because there is also an aura of claustrophobia as Eli moves throughout the Compound. Despite the small physical space in which he moves her characters, Bodeen does an excellent job of portraying the characters going throughout a routine they have no show more choice but to embrace. The theme of choice quickly evolves into our era's greatest moral questions (emphasizing birth control and cloning) as the pace of the book quickens, and as Eli is presented with more and more choices, he discovers more about the people around him. Everyone in the Compound, with the exception of Eli's father, is distinctly out of their element despite the length of time they have had to adjust to the small space. The concept of teenage rebellion is incorporated into that of moral choice in an excellent confrontation of moral and familial responsibility. An aggressive and mature commentary, but still more than worthwhile. Highly recommended. show less

4.5 stars. I wasn't sure what I was getting into when I picked this up. It had been recommended to me as dystopian fiction, but once I got sucked in, it felt more like horror or an especially disturbing episode of The Twilight Zone.

The main character Eli isn't very likeable, and that's usually the first thing that starts me squirming when I'm in the deciding-if-I'm-going-finish stage of reading a book. He is the narrator, and he's cold and resentful. But it's not very long before we realize show more that Eli doesn't like himself very much and that he's carrying around a lot of guilt and regret (regret for the past and for the future he's anticipating) with no hope of relief or redemption. I listened to the audio book, and the reader did a nice job with Eli.

The description of the Compound where Eli and his family have lived for 6 years, believing they have escaped a nuclear attack, is intricate and thorough. Too much description can be a turn-off for me too, but this was so well done that I was fascinated. I especially liked how she imagined different types of psychosis would manifest in that situation.

There was a moment when I thought I'd hit the point of no return, and that was when Eli started talking about the "supplements". I had a very hard time believing that his mother would go along with it, that his father would demand it, and that Eli and Lexi expected to go along with it too. But the further I read (listened) the author pulled me back, and I saw that things weren't exactly as they seemed at first. It's still a little bit of a sticking point for me, rating-wise, but the quality of her writing and storytelling overrode any impulse to write off the entire book because of it.

Once something happens that gives Eli a glimmer of hope and horror at how his father has deceived them all , his character starts a rapid transformation into a person we can admire. Some might say too rapid, but I think all he needed was to see that redeeming himself was possible. It made sense to me.

The suspenseful race against time and his father at the end had me so worked up I had to bring the audio book inside and finish it over the weekend (this was my audio book for my work commute) since I didn't have the book on hand. For me, that's the true indicator that a book has made it-when I can't wait to hear more. The riddle to figure out the code was the only other thing that bothered me enough to downgrade my rating-it just seemed too far-fetched that his father would have set that up.

This book won me over despite some longstanding prejudices of mine about what types of plot and character I like. That's a testament to the author's excellent writing. I'm glad to see there's a sequel due out this year. show less

The Raft by S. A. Bodeen is the story of a plane crash and a desperate attempt at survival by a fifteen year old teenager. Robie Mitchell had been visiting her aunt in Hawaii, but now she was cutting the visit short and taking the cargo flight back to Midway Island where she lives with her biologist parents. Through a series of miscalculations, her presence on the plane is undocumented and when the plane crashes into the sea, Robie doesn’t know if anyone is even looking for her. She and show more the practically comatose co-pilot embark on a messy yet urgent survival journey in the life raft and things get very serious indeed when she discovers they have no water or food.

I am a huge sucker for survival stories so The Raft was a compelling read for me. I found Robie both endearing and aggravating in turns as she struggles to do what is needed to survive and make it home to her parents. Like any fifteen year old she is sometimes selfish, sometimes whiny, but I thought that part of the story was quite realistic. The fast paced story has plenty of suspense but I did find some aspects a little too simplistic, but then, I am not the target audience for this YA story. Overall, I think this is a story that would appeal to the younger range of YA readers and, to survivor junkies like me. show less