Another chapter in my footnotes study! I read Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe, and once again, there were footnotes! In this book, the footnotes were used to show commentary by the main character and her friends on the action of the book. For the same reason that I love commentary tracks for DVDs, I really liked this approach. It's like the characters are breaking that metaphorical fourth wall, and talking among themselves, independent of the events of the book. It's the same feeling I get when I read Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books.

I'm at the point now where I want to make the definitive article on footnotes in YA literature. I already know about E. Lockhart's The Boyfriend List (thanks, E.! I'm definitely going to read that soon), but do y'all know of any other books that use footnotes?

It's funny. One guy starts using footnotes in his YA novels, and suddenly, they seem to be everywhere. I've already talked about how John Green uses footnotes in An Abundance of Katherines. For my birthday, I got a copy of Drawing a Blank: Or How I Tried to Solve a Mystery, End a Feud, and Land the Girl of My Dreams by Daniel Ehrenhaft. And lo and behold, footnotes!

Now, this is the first thing I've read by Ehrenhaft, so for all I know, he's been using footnotes for years. And perhaps I'm feeling burned out by the footnotes. But gosh, it seemed kinda forced. I mean, almost any footnote that dealt with a famous person mentioned in the text included when he/she was born and, if needed, when he/she died. It was a bit jarring to me, since the character didn't seem like a trivia hound or someone who cared about when someone was born and/or died. The footnotes were more like the ones you'd find in an academic work; they didn't add much to the story itself, unlike in the Bartimaeus trilogy, or even An Abundance of Katherines.

Footnotes aside, Drawing a Blank is a not-bad book. I spotted the big character twist a ways off, but I certainly liked Carleton, the main character, and I liked the fact that the language was fairly clean. The addition of the comics that Carleton drew during the course of the story could help you booktalk this to reluctant boys.

I also finished Defining Dulcie earlier today, after tearing through it in a matter of days. It's a quick read, obviously, but it's a nice choice for most teens. It explores family, grief, and everyday life in a way that's not over the top. The review at Amazon likens this book to Joan Bauer's offerings, and I certainly get that same sense from this book.

My only issue was, I kept thinking of Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, where the required mean little girl is named Dulcie. Irony, irony, as the Dulcie from Defining Dulcie says that her name means "sweet". But after all, I know that I'm weird to think of that. :-)