Songs for a Teenage Nomad

August 1, 2010

Calle is attending her 12th school in eight years due to her mother's history of picking bad boyfriends. Though she tries to keep herself separated from her peers, she ends up friendly with her new school's drama kids. She also attracts the attention of a hot-yet-moody jock named Sam. Things are looking up in Calle's social department, but at home she finds a three-year-old letter from her father, hidden by her mother, that leads to her mother's revelation of why they really move around so much. At the same time, Sam is running hot and cold because he has secrets of his own. Amateur, mawkish writing does nothing to help the book's central problems of too many plots and one-dimensional characters. Too often, the voice comes across as melodramatic rather than emotionally mature, especially when Calle opens every chapter with a snippet of her memories. Though Calle credits herself as a songwriter, she appears to have no musical talent, nor do any of her songs ever come to light. Dull, even for die-hard music junkies. (Fiction. YA)

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 1, 2010

Gr 8-10-All her life, 15-year-old Calle and her mother have moved from town to town as her mother has moved from relationship to relationship. The only constant in the teen's life is music and the song journal she keeps to write down her thoughts and the memories inspired by tunes she was listening to at different points in her life. Calle has always kept to herself, never forming attachments, but in the northern California town of Andreas Bay, she finds herself making friends and feeling the first stirrings of love for Sam, a boy with secrets of his own. When she accidentally finds an old letter addressed to her from her father, a man who abandoned Calle and her mom when she was a baby, she begins to question everything her mother has told her about the past. Wrestling with these thoughts, the normal highs and lows of high school, and her developing feelings for Sam are enough to send the surprisingly stable teen into an emotional tailspin. She struggles to understand and balance her past and present, and find just where she fits in. This is an appealing, well-written book, and Culbertson captures the rhythms of teen life with realistically developed characters. Calle is smart, likable and genuine, and readers will root for her.-Terrie Dorio, Santa Monica Public Library, CA

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.