Please Ignore Vera Dietz (2010)

please ignore vera dietz
a.s. king
read: january 2012

recommendation: four out of five. definitely worth your time, and not just because it won a printz.

"Which zen guy said, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" That's how I feel without Charlie. Like one hand clapping."

I am late the party on this one, but better late than never! (I was possibly a little overdosing on "teens dealing with deaths of loved ones" and needed a break until now.)

I liked Vera. I really did. I liked how Vera never relented that she knew Charlie, the Charlie from before, the Charlie that was her best friend. And I liked Vera's dad. I might possibly love Vera's dad the most.

Most of all I think I loved the almost B plot of the parents - what is okay to talk about and what isn't, and how those messages get relayed to kids. How hard it is to know when a line has been crossed and when you need to say something, how difficult it is to find those words, especially when you don't want to lose your friend.

Maybe this book will encourage more kids to use their voices. To not ignore the Veras and Charlies. To listen to the Pagoda's of the world, and the Georgia's, and maybe adults will learn that kids have an innate ability to tell when something is seriously wrong, and they have not been conditioned by society to ignore or act differently. They simply know, and they want to make it better.

This book was clever, inventive, and oh-so-teenage. These kids talk like kids, and Vera is achingly real - in her grief, her struggles, and her self. She feels like someone you could know.

Circumstances aren't always the best. Ignoring things doesn't mean they go away.

But change is always possible. If even one person walks away from this book truly believing that statement, this book has given us all a fabulous gift by sharing this incredibly hard but real truth.

(Just look at a flow chart. You might go back to the beginning, but you get to start again.)

(And who doesn't love a book with flow charts?! People who despite John Green not included!)