Eggs by Jerry Spinelli

I think the thing I like the most about Jerry Spinelli’s books is that his characters learn. His characters learn through the simple act of living, like so many of us do. In Eggs, Spinelli weaves together the lives of two children suffering from a sense of loss.

David’s mother died when she fell by walking on a wet floor and hitting her head. His father works 200 miles away and only comes to his mother’s house, where he and David now live, on the weekends. Primrose doesn’t know who or where her father is. She just has what she thinks is a picture of him and a mother who isn’t really a mother at all, except biologically.

Both David, nine, and Primrose, thirteen, live behind a shell of self-imposed seclusion, until they meet and form a friendship that teaches them both that it’s okay to let the rest of the world in. Spinelli’s characters show depth through actions instead of analysis, and I couldn’t help thinking of the similarities between Refrigerator John and Archie, the older, wiser man who is the common link between characters in his Stargirl.

Spinelli doesn’t need profanity or violence to get his point across, and the ending is hopeful without being over the top. This isn’t a novel packed with action and intrigue, but it’s well worth the time it takes to read, and is sure to be a hit with Spinelli fans everywhere.

4.5/5 STARS

Release date: June 2007

The Virtual Life of Lexie Diamond by Victoria Foyt

I just finished this book, and I have to say, it took me FOREVER to get into it. The back-story was agonizing to get through, but I'll admit that once I got past it, it was a pretty good book. Lexie spends way too much time building virtual relationships, in my opinion, and it bothered me that no one seemed to care that she didn't have any "real" friends. In fact, even online she only had one. The sci-fi element is definately present--she can talk to her dead mother through her computer--but it's nicely balanced with mystery and suspense. I was almost obsessed with Lexie solving the case and bringing her mother's murderer to justice. Even though it's made pretty clear who the killer was, I kept waiting for either someone to believe Lexie or kill her.

There were very believable parts--the reaction to her mother's death by both Lexie and her father, Lexie's need to both protect her father and uncover the truth about her mother's accident--but there were some things that seemed a little too over-the-top. While I liked that Lexie finally makes friends with people outside of the Internet, it seemed a bit much to have one of them perched at the top of the school's social ladder and the other the super-cute surfer boy next door. I think the quickly-formed friendship between Lexie and Zoe would have been more believable if Zoe had turned out to be the friend Lexie had all along and didn't know it.

The ending left me wanting more--a more complete resolution with regards to the arrest of her mother's murder as well as the hows and whys of it all, and more about what how Lexie adjusts to her new life after her father's "wedding."

3/5 Stars