The Merit Birds

April 27, 2015
First-time author Powell traces a Canadian teenager's reluctant trip to Laos, alternating among his perspective and those of two Laotian teenagers. With a bad temper and worse attitude, Cam sulks amid the unfamiliar customs of the village he and his mother will be calling home for his senior year. His attitude softens as he gets to know a smart, kind girl named Nok, a practitioner of traditional fa ngum massage. Nok and her older brother, Seng, have been scraping by ever since their parents were taken away for political re-education and their older sister left for North America. The novel's initially low stakes spike after a series of events lands Cam in prison, facing manslaughter charges. There are some pacing and plotting oddities (within 30 pages, all three POV characters are knocked unconscious in separate incidents), and the more sensitive moments in Cam's narration can sound out-of-character ("In a culture as fluid and open-hearted as this, anything was possible"). Even so, the story offers an insightful window in Laotian life, history, and traditions while reminding readers that redemption can carry a heavy cost. Ages 12â15.

April 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-Eighteen-year-old Cam has resentfully accompanied his single mother to Laos. As a child, his father was largely absent and unreliable, and Cam feels his mother often puts her job and dating life ahead of him. As such, he is a young man with a noticeable chip on his shoulder. He struggles in Laos at the beginning, missing his native Canada and having to adjust to life in a developing country. Things look up when he befriends his neighbour Somchai and falls in love with traditional Laotian masseuse Nok. However Cam's anger problems and sheer bad luck lead to a series of tragedies that plainly show the differences between his new home and North America. The story is told by Cam in the first person, but also includes chapters written in the third person featuring Nok and her brother, Seng. Cam is not particularly likable-his Western, individualistic outlook, combined with his anger and self-pity, contrast sharply with the hard scrabble existence of his Laotian peers. The story features a large number of dramatic incidents, adding the narrative's fast pace. The ending, however, feels rushed and almost too abrupt. Powell is clearly familiar with Laos, and she writes descriptively about the heat, humidity, and landscape. Teens reading this story will be introduced to a society with strong family and community values, coupled with an undemocratic government and justice system. There's some violence and sexual themes. The end pages demonstrate a yoga breathing technique that Cam is introduced to within the story. VERDICT While the book may not have wide appeal, it is a thought-provoking story that will appeal to older teens willing to expand their worldview.-Michelle Anderson, Tauranga City Libraries, New Zealand

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 1, 2015
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* It seems 18-year-old Cameron has always been angry. Now his mother plucks him from his privileged Canadian high school and takes him with her to Vientiane, Laos, with predictable results. Interestingly, knowledge of his anger has preceded his arrival at the international high school, and he exhibits it in his first basketball game. Slowly, through friendship with his neighbor, Somchai, a budding romance with Nok, and the slower pace of Southeast Asian life, Cam gets a grip. However, life makes an abrupt turn when Nok dies falling off a motorbike. Readers know who was driving; Cam doesn't and lands in a Laotian prison. Told in alternating chaptersCam, in first person; Nok and her brother, Seng, in third personthis is fast paced, full of action and deep emotions, and steeped in the richness of Laotian life and its tenets (the importance of the other, even in a stark prison, and the responsibility to build good karma, or merits ). A fresh, gripping page-turner that takes readers on a journey through one young man's escape from anger into a place of peace.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)