On Friday I bought a book called FIRST LIGHT by Rebecca Stead. I opened it that evening and finished it Sunday morning. The story is told from two points of view: a 12-year-old New Yorker named Peter, and a 14-year-old girl named Thea, who lives in Greenland (actually, under Greenland) in a place called Gracehope where there are some differences of opinion about whether the people are best served through honesty, or whether secrecy is required to protect them from themselves. Those of us who are growing a little weary of being led through fear will particularly identify with Thea as she discovers that sometimes the people doing the pointing are the ones we should be watching most closely. If your MESSAGE BOOK! alarm was just tripped, relax. This is not a book with an agenda, or, thank heavens, an author’s note. (Although I did notice the words “inconvenient” and “truth” in bed together at least once.)

FIRST LIGHT is an adventure, and a mystery. There is plenty that we are not told in this book, which means there is more for us to bring to the story. Thea’s people have quite a bit of history, and to tell it might have taken 1000 pages. I prefer to fill in the holes for myself. All of this means that FIRST LIGHT is built for speed. Yes, it chugs out of the gate, but that’s the genre, baby. When Peter and Thea do meet, I think you’ll be glad we got to know them first. Nicely done Rebecca!

I also read CAN I KEEP MY JERSEY, by Paul Shirley. I was drawn to the book because Paul is a living, breather benchwarmer. He’s played good minutes overseas and in development leagues in the U.S., and ridden some serious pine in the NBA. He earned his stripes as a writer by blogging while he was a reserve player with the Phoenix Suns, dishing about the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of his NBA teammates. As if we didn’t know. Still, in JERSEY, I was hoping for a behind-the-scenes, end-of-the-bench look at life in the NBA. That peep show didn’t come until the end, and was over very quickly. What preceded could have been the travel log of a field rep for John Deere who was working on commission. Crappy hotels, uncertain future, longing for home. It was like Tommy Boy without the bee scene. Really, if the point was that life as a professional basketball player for anyone not playing at the elite level is so unsexy that entire passages need to be devoted to our narrator doing laundry, then mission accomplished. Also, Paul Shirley has adult colic. Sure, he doesn’t not deny that he is a chronic malcontent. But being upfront about it does not excuse it. It does, however, weigh the book down like Barbara Hershey in Hoosiers. To borrow a phrase from Paul’s ESPN buddy, Bill, he was his own wet blanket. But I’m looking the past the author here. Paul Shirley has written some great stuff in his blog and I have to wonder if some of his better material was left out of the book. Why else would a very funny, honest guy with a backstage pass to the NBA be asked to write about washing his pants in a sink in Sioux Falls? We need to see the author’s cut of this book because I think there is more to this story.

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