School Library Journal's Battle of the Kids' Books

Round 1 Match 4: Lips Touch vs The Lost Conspiracy

March 18, 2010

Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor Arthur Levine Books	The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge HarperCollins
Judged by Helen Frost

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If I had come across these two books side-by-side on a table in a library or bookstore, I might have chosen the wrong one.

Page 1 of Lips Touch: Three Times is seductive, exquisite, perfectly polished. The book is 265 pages, broken into three “evening-sized” chunks. Perfect, I might have thought, I can fit this into a weekend’s reading time.

Page 1 of The Lost Conspiracy has a confusing little metaphor mashup—plural “senses” compared to a singular “hook on a fishing line;” conflicting verbs “tether” and “reel;” and then in an attempt to clarify the singular/plural problem, another comparison, the Lost moving their senses independently, “like snails’ eyes on stalks.” Huh? How many pages is this book? 566.

Anita? Trade you for Sweethearts of Rhythm?

Oh, that’s not allowed? Okay, then.

As I began reading The Lost Conspiracy, my grouchiness about that first page set me off on the wrong foot. It was a slow start for me, so much landscape to cover, so many people (not to mention volcanoes) to get to know, and then, bam—just when you start to know your way around, you have to get your bearings all over again. But I kept reading, and within a few hundred pages, I was completely captivated by the characters, the story, the culture, the deep and meaningful intrigue of it all. After I finished, when I returned to see how I felt about the beginning, the confusion on the first page seemed minor; beyond that one page, the writing is clear and careful, often poetic. (Have you ever wondered why it’s a compliment to call prose “poetic,” and an insult to call poetry “prosaic”? I digress.)

Hardinge seamlessly introduces the culture and history of Gullstruck Island by walking her characters, Hathin and Arilou, through the landscape, which they/we, navigate by remembering/learning traditional stories. The volcanoes are characters, with powerful personalities and relationships among themselves as well as between them and the people.

I was swept into my second reading, and happily kept going, reading the entire 566 pages all over again. Beautiful, deep, and strong, this is a book to reward a relaxed and attentive reader of any age.

I marked over 50 places I could quote as examples of my delight. I’ll offer two. “Nundestruth,” the name of the language parents don’t want their children to use, is a condensation of “Not under this roof.” Like so much in this book, uniquely imagined, while at the same time universal and recognizable. And watching Jimboly in action, creating a mob scene—jaw-dropping the first time I came to it, equally impressive on my second reading when I was watching for it.

I’ll mention one quibble—I thought the word “imbecile” as shorthand for a person’s intellectual limitations had been retired decades ago. I’m not saying it should read, “It’s possible to be Lost and still be intellectually limited.”  Just that Hardinge is skillful enough to develop this aspect of Arilou’s life with the same degree of nuance that she uses to bring us to understood what it means to be Lost.

But beyond that—way beyond that—the entire book is finely tuned, magnificently constructed, a beautifully told story, well worth the telling.

So then I got a little worried. What if Lips Touch: Three Times is equally compelling—

and I can only pick one. For awhile I thought that would be true, and it was actually a problem I was looking forward to solving.

In the first short story, Kizzy becomes so real, so quickly. Her two friends, Cactus and Evie, and the conversations among the three of them, are both funny and heartbreaking—completely believable. The beautiful dangerous boy, Jack Husk—the goblin in disguise—is believable, too—and you can’t help hoping Kizzy gets to kiss him, even when, like Kizzy, you know it’s not too smart of her to do so.

It’s the last sentence of this first story that threw me. The surface story is so carefully crafted, with the underlying grandmother-gypsy-goblin one, supported by the gorgeous drawings, submerged just enough—that in the last moment, it’s the contemporary “real-life” Kizzy, skipping school to do something dangerous, I found myself watching.

And my reaction was: What? You’re letting us fall in love with this beautiful, vulnerable girl and then abandoning her in a cemetery—kissing someone you have oh-so-skillfully led us to believe is (okay, “might be”) a serial killer?

Cactus? Evie? Christina Rossetti?

Chapter Four?

It made it hard for me to trust the other two stories. And the stories demand a lot of trust; they take us into some pretty rough territory. I more or less lost interest until a real human boy named Tom took Esme’s long red braid in his hand in the third story. He thought she wouldn’t feel it, but she did, and it pleased her. Such a sweet gesture. Like the kids in  Saint Pock Mark’s Finishing School For Cannibals in the first story, these two were real and I cared about them.

Unfortunately, there was a lot along the way in these two stories that I did not enjoy reading at all, and would not put in the hands of young readers, although I’m impressed with much in the book, and look forward to more books by Laini Taylor and Jim Di Bartolo.

My choice became clear.

The Lost Conspiracy sets out to do something truly ambitious and does it, a fully realized novel that I am happy to send on to Angela, maybe Megan and Katherine, and, I expect, to generations of young readers.

Having settled that, can you stay with me a moment longer? Remember when I called out for Cactus and Evie and Christina? It seems they heard me.

Christina Rossetti has not only rolled over in her grave, but climbed up out of it, and here she comes now, marching down the road with Cactus and Evie. They’re bringing her up to speed on the internet, blogs, comments.

Christina gets it: “These comments—you mean, I can talk to Laini Taylor myself?”

A little consultation.

“Fictional people, no problem,” says Cactus. “Dead people? Not so much.”

“Not yet,” suggests Evie.

“We could send her a message for you,” they reason. “What should we tell her?”

Christina thinks it over. “Laini (may I call you Laini?)—are you planning to close the lid on that coffin? Please think again. If you want to borrow my poem, that’s fine, I’m honored and delighted. But could you go back and finish what you’ve started?”

They keep walking, thinking. Where would Kizzy be? With the Beautiful Boy, Jack Husk, of course, but where?

They need help.

And look—someone is approaching to offer it. Who are these two?

Ah…it’s Hathin and Arilou. Arilou is scoping out the cemetery, leading the others right to the young lovers.

Kizzy gets her delicious first kiss, no one wants to interrupt that.

But when she comes up for air, she has quite a team of allies.

Jack Husk doesn’t stand a chance.

– Helen Frost

The Winner of Round 1 Match 4 is:

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Oh, wait!  I’m channeling another message from Christina Rosetti: What the heck were you thinking, Helen!  Of course any book based on my poem would naturally be superior! Don’t expect any favors next year when I’m the Big Kahuna! It’s not surprising that Helen wanted to unload one of these l-o-o-o-n-g fantasy books for a slender volume of poetry.  (We all know Marilyn Nelson’s poetry is less challenging, right?  Ha!).  The switch can be arranged, of course.  Lois tried to solicit bribes last year, but they rightfully should have gone to Battle Commander.  (Future judges take note!)  LIPS TOUCH has some of the best sentence-level writing of the year, and it’s one of the few short story collections I can actually get students to read.  But I also happen to be besotted with THE LOST CONSPIRACY and I agree that Hathin and Arilou are a very formidable team.  I’m betting they trounce Percy and company and go deep in this tournament.