This May, our guest will be Wendy Mass, author of many books for young adults. But today, we’ll be focusing on two: A Mango-Shaped Space and Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life.
A Mango-Shaped Space is about a girl named Mia, who has a rare, but extremely interesting, condition that she is finding increasingly difficult to hide from her family, friends, and schoolmates. Written from Mia’s perspective, the book gives an intimate and completely fascinating first-hand look into what it’s like to have this condition.
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life is about a soon-to-be teenager who is thrown into a modern-day quest when he receives a mysterious package from his father, who died 4 years earlier. The package contains a locked wooden box with four keyholes but no keys. Carved on the top of the box are the words: THE MEANING OF LIFE: FOR JEREMY FINK TO OPEN ON HIS 13th BIRTHDAY. Jeremy and his best friend Lizzy have four weeks to scour New York City to find the keys in time for Jeremy’s birthday. It’s a fantastic and intriguing read – full of humor, wit, insight, and emotion as Jeremy comes to grips with the death of his father and yes, the meaning of life.
A Mango-Shaped Space won the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award in 2004; Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life was named as a Junior Library Guild Premier Selection and was included in the New York Public Library's Best Books for the Teen Age in 2007.