Among the books I read this summer were three interesting Young Adult novels. Here are some very quick reviews of each. The connecting thread is that all three feature female protagonists.

I just finished Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson. It’s a murder mystery with two different levels. One from the past. One from the present. The main character — Stevie — is obsessed with the murder from the past, but then gets drawn into the mystery of the present, and her sharp mind and keen observational skills help her unlock part of the mystery. This had a “to be continued” at the end, a cliffhanger for some of the threads, but I found Stevie to be a highly engaging character and the two mysteries here get entangled at times in interesting ways.

In Truly Devious, the setting is an old school with lots of tunnels and hidden doors and such. An interesting building as setting is also a main concept in Winterhouse by Ben Gutterson. Here, the building is a hotel, with mysteries of its own, centered around the family that owns the hotel. Elizabeth is the main character, an orphan with a quirky personality and a curiosity that leads to odd situations, and entanglements with magic and ghosts of the past. It’s fast-paced story, with some echoes of Harry Potter and other YA novels, but Guterson does a nice job of using the house to make his tale its own story.

Finally, early in the summer, I read The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin. There’s a palpable sadness to this story and yet, it is beautifully written, and we are in the head and heart of Suzy Swanson, whose grappling with the sudden death of a former friend. The novel explores the world of jellyfish through Suzy’s hyperfocus on the creatures, and her theory of the role they may have played in the death of her friend. Not everything is tidy in this story, and that’s OK. Suzy is worth caring about, as she navigates a confusing world.

Peace (and story),
Kevin

“What gives me hope is that everywhere I go, young people filled with energy want to show me what they’ve done and what they’re doing to make the world a better place. Once they understand the problems and when we empower them to take action, they almost always want to help. And their energy and enthusiasm and creativity are endless.” — Jane Goodall, in The Book Of Hope (p. 115)

Douglas Adams sits down with Jane Goodall for a series of conversations over a span of time that make up the heart of The Book Of Hope (A Survival Guide For Trying Times) and Adams digs deep in his queries to Goodall into the quandary of being hopeful in a world where so much seems to be going off the rails — particularly around climate change.

Given Goodall’s long-standing work around nature and preservation, and how often she has had to confront the worst of humanity in the larger world to protect animals, her optimistic view that people can come together to make change, that there is still time to make a difference on climate change if we act now and with urgency, that we can learn and take comfort from the resilience of the natural world — that she continues to be hopeful in the face of all of the difficulties in the things she loves so passionately — well, that might be a path forward for many of us.

Right?

This book-length conversation is full of her stories (and Adams, too) that illustrate her thinking, but it also contains her observations of the ways hope can transform the world. She’s also bluntly realistic, understanding the challenges and the headwinds that always rage against change. Yet she seems willing to engage and to talk with and to argue against and to support anyone with a focused passion and conviction.

There are four main strands of inquiry of what hope is as Adams interviews Goodall here over the course of more than a year — and then with the interruption of the Pandemic that forced them to pause for a bit of time:

• Amazing Human Intellect
• Resilience of Nature
• Power of Young People
• Indomitable Human Spirit

The most powerful message contained in this conversation, I think, is this: every single person can make a difference, even if its a small step forward, but only if you find the agency to act on your hope, and your impact on the world gets magnified when you work with others. Hope without action is just wishful thinking, she suggests, and not very productive.

Or, as Adams puts it in his end notes:

“Hope is a social gift, one that is nurtured and sustained by those around us. Each of us has a web of hope that supports, nurtures, and uplifts us throughout our lives.” — Douglas Adams, The Book Of Hope (p.238)

Peace (and Hope),
Kevin