YA-loving denizens of the kidlitosphere will no doubt be familiar with The YA YA YAs–Trisha, Gayle, and Jolene have been blogging since March of 2007 over at WordPress, where they post about everything that YA literature fans and YA librarians could want. News, reviews, fiction, non-fiction–these three Young Adult librarians have it covered. Today's review comes from Trisha, who cites books by Sarah Dessen, E. Lockhart, and Tamora Pierce as some of her favorites.
With those authors (and their strong young female characters) in mind, it's no surprise that Trisha enjoyed Christine Fletcher's historical fiction novel Ten Cents a Dance. Ruby Jacinski, Fletcher's main character, is definitely one of those determined and memorable young women. Ruby, a fifteen-year-old girl in 1941 Chicago, is working in a meat-packing plant to support her family after dropping out of school. Then she finds a new, better-paying job: working at a dance hall. Unfortunately, there's one big problem–it's not considered a respectable job. Says Trisha in her review:
Ruby must lie to her mother and most of her acquaintances about her job, claiming to be a telephone switchboard operator, and hide all traces of what she’s really doing to continue to work at Starlight.
To read more about this 2008 Cybils YA nominee, click here.