“Doko: Trails, Teahouses, And Turmoil At The Top Of The World”

Toby is sixteen. Three months after his birthday celebration “in our Northern California town,” he and his father are enroute to Nepal for what turns out to be the adventure of a lifetime and a young boy’s life or death decision.

Chico novelist Kristi Davids, a world traveler herself, tells the story in Toby’s voice, one that wonders at first what his dad is up to with this surprise trip. “Doko: Trails, Teahouses, And Turmoil At The Top Of The World” ($16.99 in paperback from Palmetto Publishing) finds a somewhat self-centered and resentful Toby discovering the meaning of fatherly love and the crucial importance of looking out for others. It’s a young adult novel with a big heart and a heart-pounding conclusion.

A doko is a basket “to carry things from one town to the next on our backs….” It’s also a metaphor for what Toby must discover about himself. There are times he must be carried—and times he must carry others. Good leaders do that, Toby’s dad tells him.

The family lived in Nepal a decade earlier while Toby’s father “worked on a project with USAID” to help farmers “create more productive and sustainable methods for food production.” Then six-year-old Toby made friends with another boy the same age. He and Prem were buddies and are destined to meet again on Toby’s birthday trip.

The goal is to trek the “Annapurna Circuit” in the Himalayas, taking two weeks to ascend to Thorong La Pass at 17,800 feet and then descend back into an oxygen-rich atmosphere. The hike encompasses daunting cliff trails and many small villages along the way. Unexpected blizzards are constant threats.

Toby and his father, along with the guide Kumar, and, as porters, Prem and a boy Toby befriends named Pratik, work as a team for each leg of the journey. Yet, for Toby, something seems off. Indeed so, and the consequences will be disastrous.

Chiya tea is present at every stop. Ah, the smells: “Cinnamon, cardamon, nutmeg, and cloves….” But as the trek continues, young Toby must put comfort aside and find wisdom deep within his soul. Readers will be enthralled.

“A Catalog Of Burnt Objects”

Shana Youngdahl writes that “my hometown of Paradise, California, was obliterated in a matter of hours by the Camp Fire…. I wanted to honor my town. I also wanted to raise awareness about the realities of climate change.” Her new YA novel, told by Caprice (Cappi) Alexander, on the cusp of turning 18, does that, and more, in a story not just about a fire, but one of “family, community, and first love.”

“A Catalog Of Burnt Objects” ($19.99 in hardcover from Dial Books; also for Amazon Kindle) imagines Sierra, a kind of “twin town” to Paradise, “one whose disaster I witnessed from afar, and one whose disaster I lived through, navigating alongside my characters.” Youngdahl (shanayoungdahl.com) was in Maine at the time, and now lives with her family in Missouri where she teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at Lindenwood University.

Cappi and her family welcome back brother Beckett from a four-month stint in rehab. Beck is a kind of “agent of chaos” for Cappi. Yet she sees his loneliness: “Twenty-one, his own best friend unable to even blink a hello.” (Beck had escaped from a truck accident; Mason was on months-long life support at UC Davis Medical.)

Caprice knows loneliness, too; only her Gramps really understands her. He’s living alone, his wife in a care facility in town.

Caprice is working on coding an app to attract folks to Sierra. Her bestie, Alicia, is helping. Enter a young man named River, and Beck is not the only one to see the sparks. “Cappi’s full-on love-zombied, and she just met him,” says Alicia.

The chapters count down, 8 weeks before, 5 weeks before, four hours before. Smoke. Then the conflagration which comes midway in the story. In desperate efforts to escape, Cappi and Beck make a fateful life-and-death decision that haunts the novel. For Cappi, it’s all “if, then.” If, if, if something had been different.

Youngdahl’s description of the aftermath—with “cards” detailing burned remains from the various characters, like a Talking Heads LP, house plants or a piano—are searingly real. So much uncertainty in the days after. 

Can there be a better future? Can one imagine “maybe”?

"Sierra Blue"

Though a longtime Reno resident, prolific writer Suzanne Morgan Williams (suzannemorganwilliams.com) has fond California memories of visiting her great aunt in Oroville, and of Redding, where her husband proposed.

In her latest novel (for ages 10-15) a ninth-grader tells her own story--wanting a new start, like a new year, only to realize she brings her “old self” along for the ride. Wanting to escape cruel words, she is fully capable of using cruel words herself.

So it is with fourteen-year-old Magic Kendall. She just wants to hide. At her school in Tillamook, Oregon word is out that Magic is psychic. She sees colorful auras around humans and other animals—from rats to horses—and is plagued with dreams of future events which have a habit of coming to pass. When an opportunity comes to help her great-aunt Leah recover from an accident in the High Sierra town of “Ibis Springs,” she figures time away will let the cruel jokes die down.

But all her psychic powers little prepare her for what lies ahead, and especially the deep connection with a thoroughbred filly named Mountain Rose whom Leah is preparing for the racetrack, and who Magic renames “Sierra Blue” ($15.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle).

Leah is training therapy horses now, and Magic learns to help with riders, each with some form of “differentness.” Then, one stormy day, a terrible vision engulfs Magic as she bicycles out to the highway to get cell service. She is thus on the scene when the horse trailer with Mountain Rose, being transported by sixteen-year-old T.J. and his dad, hits ice and careens off the road, severely injuring the horse.

Magic is able to call 911 and, after the vet arrives, crawls into the overturned trailer to comfort the horse and, sensing her aura, guides even the vet in Blue’s rehabilitation. “I could see that she was a blue roan with a dark mane and tail. And those amazing, blue tinged eyes.” When Blue is well enough to race in Los Angeles, another horrendous premonition means Magic must confront Blue’s uncertain future. 

Williams’ novel is a wonderfully immersive story of self-discovery, friendship--and new directions.

"Into The Shadow Realms: Book 1"

For seven-year-old Aislinn nightmares are not just kid stuff; she and brother Alex, 11, are Travelers, able in their all-too-real dreams or daydreams to visit the strangest of worlds and their colorful (especially purple) inhabitants--and to see the terrifying end to one of those worlds.

Chico novelist Hope Hill introduces readers to Aislinn, Alex, their parents and their Traveler cousins in "Into The Shadow Realms: Book 1" ($10.99 in paperback from Ink Drop Press; also for Amazon Kindle). The dreamlike story intertwines excursions into the Shadow Realms with the quotidian dailyness of kidhood.

Will the adults at the family gathering understand Aislinn's night terrors are caused by something real? "How could she tell her family that she Traveled to other worlds in her dreams and the things she’d seen terrified her?"

Terrified her so much her parents at times can hardly rouse her, as if she were in a coma. Alex explains to one of his cousins: "'She found an interactive globe showing a planet called Theopolis. When she asked what the place looked like now it showed a desolate, hostile environment.'" 

There is more: "'She asked what happened and saw the death of the planet as its atmosphere became unbreathable. She saw the people there fleeing, but not all could escape, and some chose to stay in the hopes of fixing the planet’s atmosphere. Their best and brightest minds were killed and she saw it happen.'"

With the aid of a shapeshifter named Merrick the trio and cousins find supposedly wise Observers and certain sinister Travelers want to use Aislinn in some frighteningly mysterious plan as the long-promised Prophecy Child who will save Theopolis. Is Aislinn really the Chosen One? Even if not, she has a vital part to play in the struggle yet ahead as the book comes to a close.

Alex is desperately protective of his sister. He remembers that "when he was scared as a little child and worried things would continue to get worse his father told him something he never forgot. 'Happy endings take hard work. If you don’t like how your story’s turning out work to make a happy ending.'" We shall see.

"Midnight House"

In 1993, seventh-grader and Redding native Ian Dawson was abducted in what is now the community's Clover Creek Preserve. Held for a time by two older boys, he escaped major injuries but, as time passed and the assailants were never identified, he decided to write a fictionalized account. Twenty-five years after the event, Dawson, now living in Los Angeles, published "The Field."

The YA novel centered around Daniel and his best friend Kyle, both fourteen, and two adductors, James and Austin. In self defense Daniel causes Austin's death, James is imprisoned, and the threat is over. The end.

Not exactly. Now, in "Midnight House" ($19.15 in paperback from BookBaby; also for Amazon Kindle, see thefieldya.com) Dawson offers a crackling-good YA sequel that will have readers hooked. Daniel Robinson and Kyle Hanson are now sixteen, attending Redding's Enterprise High School, still besties, though Daniel's trauma-fueled nightmares have made him secretly dependent on sleeping pills and caffeine. Will there ever be closure?

Kyle is the captain of the JV basketball Hornets, too admiring of Luke Darden, the Varsity captain. When Luke invites him and a few other teammates to some "games" at the mysterious Midnight House near Whiskeytown Lake--ostensibly to determine who will be the next Varsity captain--Kyle is all in. Daniel is suspicious, but can't dissuade his friend. Turns out Luke's older brother, Tyler, was best friends with Austin, and now he schemes to see Kyle and Daniel dead. The plot ... sickens.

The first part of the novel is filled with lighthearted banter about sports and girls. Kyle's girlfriend is in London on a study abroad program; Daniel meets Amber, who "was behind the counter at The Beadman, a popular arts and crafts store on Park Marina Drive in Redding...." New in town, she and Daniel hit it off. Both are the same age, both attend EHS. Sparks, anyone?

Then the story becomes darker after Luke and Tyler discover who is responsible for Austin's death. Kyle's obsession with pleasing Luke puts Daniel and Amber in mortal danger. 

The extreme hazing at Midnight House gives way to a nightmarish life-and-death showdown at the Sundial Bridge which will test the very meaning of true friendship.

"The Movie Adventures Of Eva Jordan"

Third-generation Chicoan Jan Hill has written a quietly endearing novel, an account through the eyes of a seventh-grader of six weeks in 1937 when Bidwell Park turned into a sound stage for Robin Hood and his merry men. 

Drawing on newspaper reports from the era, the filming schedule and screenplay, and behind-the-scenes footage from the special-edition DVD, Hill beckons young adult readers to the premiere of "The Movie Adventures Of Eva Jordan" ($8.99 in paperback from Stansbury Publishing; also for Amazon Kindle). 

According to Ned Walsh, who sits a few desks away in Mr. Owens' seventh-grade classroom, "Robin Hood and the crew" were soon to disembark in Chico and head to "the film location at One Mile."

Eva lives with her parents, Ernest and Susanna Jordan, and three younger sisters (and a fourth home from college). She loves the "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood" stories but is not allowed to see movies. 

Deeply involved in the Salvation Army church Eva's parents and other congregants are part of the "annual Christmas bell-ringing effort to collect money for the town's poor. Members took turns standing in front of Oser's Department Store at Third and Main streets to shake a loud bell...."

Eva is thirteen (going on fourteen) and intensely curious. And she wonders why Mr. Owens is talking about Spain, and those "'fighting their leader, General Franco, and his fascist ideology.'" He adds, "'big-time Hollywood actors, like Errol Flynn, the same fellow who will be here soon to play Robin Hood, have already gone to Spain to see what they could do to help the Loyalists.'"

Then, abruptly, the school board removes Mr. Owens amid charges that he is a communist. In response, Ned and Eva hatch an audacious plot to ask Errol Flynn to intervene and to help raise support for the anti-Franco movement. 

Once the Warner Brothers film crew and stars arrive, and Bidwell Park is transformed into medieval Sherwood Forest, Ned and Eva are daily visitors. They end up becoming extras, meeting Flynn himself, and getting the surprise of their lives.

And Chico "officially changed the name of the whole northern section of Ivy Street, renaming it 'Warner Street.'"

"The Daughters Daring And The Crystal Sea"

Biggs resident Steven J. Thompson has created a fantasy world of sword and sorcery, where the kingdom of Highcynder is threatened not only from without, but now from treachery within. It is a world of gnomes and dwarves, faerie folk and harpies, orcs and witches, a world in which magic exerts its power and tempts even the purest heart.

The kingdom had been saved for a time from the cruel witch and her minions by the heroic Duke Daring and his two young daughters, Emily and her younger sister Elizabeth. That tale is told in "The Daughters Daring." Now, two years later, the witch has become Queen of Newcynder and is preparing to claim Highcynder as her own.

There are adventures aplenty in book two, "The Daughters Daring And The Crystal Sea" ($15.99 in paperback from KECELJ Publishing; also for Amazon Kindle; see facebook.com/SJThompsonBooks). Suitable for kids and young adults, the story features a magic energy ball, a fight with living skeletons, and sea battles that will shiver one's timbers.

Emily is now 14 and practices swordplay with Tobias Ocwen, a year older and also of the Highcynder nobility. Tobias finds Emily "annoyingly beautiful." His father, Baron Ocwen, a foul influence on the Knight's Council, becomes the "first noble to own slaves," creatures called Gharidians, amphibians who talk and walk upright.

Elizabeth takes after her mother, the Duchess Daring, cousin to the King of Highcynder and nemesis of the spider queen Evelyn. The younger sister, Elizabeth practices spells from her mother's book of magic and yearns to find a special flower that grows only in a perilous land, a flower to magnify Elizabeth's magical powers.

One must not forget young Joseph Daring, the sisters' kid brother who in his irrepressible curiosity accidentally sets fire to the King's ballroom. Joseph, perhaps in spite of himself, helps bring to light some things that are just not quite right in Highcynder.

The exciting story keeps several plots in motion at once and Thompson's writing is sure and polished as the reader is drawn into the action. Much remains unresolved, and we eagerly await the magic of the third book in the planned trilogy.

“Supremacy

Chicoan and Butte College student Christin Lee writes me that her new young adult romance/urban fantasy novel blends her love of karate and passion for animals. The story begins in Texas but what is revealed later on is enough to shake the ground beneath one’s feet.

“Supremacy (Supremacy Series Book 1)” ($2.99 from Amazon Kindle; the author’s Facebook page is at https://bit.ly/29SwasU) introduces almost-eighteen Kate Parker, a high school student “blessed to live on five acres and have parents who supported her love of animals. She smiled to herself. Support maybe wasn’t the right word—tolerate would be a better description.” As a vegetarian, “she couldn’t bring herself to eat her friends.”

Kate is whip smart, a green-eyed beauty who can remember everything all the way back to her earliest childhood. Kate’s father, Larry, is a renowned psychotherapist very possessive of his daughter. If Kate starts dating she must first bring the guy to meet with her parents. Kate can only imagine how fun that interview would be.

Then Kate is smitten almost from the first encounter with a mysterious young man from Spain, Lucas, whom she meets in the woods, fussing over a broken motorcycle as she goes looking for a stray dog.

Lucas is nineteen, an exchange student attending the local university. “He looked like a striking model out of a fashion magazine. His ragged jeans fit perfectly, hugging every curve on his long legs.” Throw in “beautiful brown eyes” and a kind of electricity between them and Kate is a goner.

But this is no conventional romance. Lucas has anger issues, especially when it comes to protecting Kate from every hurt, real or imagined. If he can’t find her he almost spirals out of control. It's as if he were trained to do harm, to protect at any cost.

He sports a strange tattoo behind one of his ears, showing a “tightly clenched fist.” Lucas won’t explain, but Kate finds something on the internet halfway through the novel that turns her world inside out. Kate is part of a cavernous plot with millions of lives at stake.

The book is great fun, a well-written page-turner drawing readers into a new world of danger.

“Jump”

Though Chicoan Cathy Chase is retired from teaching English, she remains active by teaching a jobs readiness class at the Esplanade House and by writing a series of Young Adult novels about a world very like our own—with one big difference.

In the world of “Jump” ($8.99 in paperback from CreateSpace; also for Amazon Kindle), the first in a planned series, people have a habit of disappearing. That doesn’t mean they poof out of existence, but that they are electronically transported to another place, an authoritarian society designed to reshape the oddballs and ne’er-do-wells into compliant citizens.

Nona, the heroine, is fifteen. Her father died in a car accident; his passenger, Frank, was unable to save him, and now Frank is her step-father. Nona’s mother seems oblivious to the abuse Frank heaps on Nona; it’s clear that he wants Nona out of his life so he can have Nona’s mother all to himself.

Nona’s two friends, Spence and Jana, are inseparable, and when Jana’s Uncle John becomes one of the “disappeared,” the trio set out to find him. They have heard references to “jumping,” but no adult will talk to them about what it means.

Then Nona comes across an old notebook from her newspaper reporter father, and she learns that somehow jumping is connected with the mysterious Behavioral Science building in town, where Spence’s mom works. The trio manage to get into the building and there are the transporters.

Nona volunteers to go (“I’m the only one that no one wants” at home). Spence pushes the button. “I hear a loud windy sound near my head and lights swirl in my brain.”

What follows is a fast-paced adventure in a strange society, with plenty of cliff-hangers, as Nona tries to outsmart her minders, search for Uncle John (she finds more than she bargains for), escape those with terminator weapons (where you really do poof out of existence) and somehow get home. Often Nona is on the verge of giving up, but she learns courage with a little help from her friends. The message is clear: It’s not over until it’s really over.

There’s a satisfying conclusion, but loose ends remain for the next tale.

“The Daughters Daring”

When his daughters were young, Biggs resident Steve Thompson made up bedtime stories for them, tales of two courageous girls in a world with “an enchanted forest, gnomes, witches, and all kinds of fun.” After serving as a drill sergeant in the Army Reserve and now as a foster care worker, Thompson has begun putting those stories into print.

“The Daughters Daring” ($10.99 in paperback from KECELJ Publishing; also for Amazon Kindle, with more information at daughtersdaring.com) introduces readers to Elizabeth and Emily Daring, daughters of Duke Daring, “the hero of Highcynder,” a kingdom that would soon face grave peril. (Thompson’s own daughters are the cover models; the book also contains chapter illustrations by Paradise’s Steve Ferchaud and, at the end, a descriptive list of characters.)

While Elizabeth practices archery, watched by her older sister Emily, 12, things go awry, just slightly. It was usually Emily, the athletic one with “the explorer’s heart,” who got into trouble. Fortunately, Elizabeth, “sharp-minded and a skilled negotiator,” was “able to melt even her father’s stern heart with her sapphire blue eyes.”

The Sweetberry Festival is coming (how the duke loves sweetberry pie!), but the sweetberries have disappeared. Some blame the gnomes of the Enchanted Forest, so Emily and Elizabeth sneak off to recover the goods.

That’s when the adventure begins, one that will test the determination and courage of the sisters as they encounter goblins, ogres, and a witch with a cunning plan to take over Highcynder. The gnomes are the good guys, as are the Faery Folk, but seemingly no match against the ogre king, “taller even than their father and some of the tallest knights in the kingdom. He was also thick like a burled tree trunk, with skin that looked almost like bark.”

The witch tempts Elizabeth with talk of the evils of freedom in Highcynder. “I would harness their selfish energies to be utilized for the greater good.” The words, perhaps, of every tyrant.

It’s a well-told tale, with plenty of action, suitable for reading aloud to children and for pondering how “the love of one family can make the difference against the greatest of odds.” Readers will eagerly await the next adventure.    

Sword and sorcery from a Paradise author

Though his day job enables Ken Young of Paradise to build custom homes, in his first novel he has built an entire realm, populating it with strange creatures and a central mystery that drives the adventure forward to its satisfying conclusion.

With a background in literature, Young has written screenplays, short stories and poetry, and his talents are on full display in “The King’s Frog Hunter” ($15.95 in paperback from North Point Publishing; also for Amazon Kindle). It’s a gripping quest story suitable for early teens and adults as well.

Something is wrong with old King Ahmbin. His mind, twisted by the evil magician Metro, refuses to accept the magnificent statue of himself, carved by the sculptor Veracitas, because what is carved in stone looks too much like the King himself in his aging humanity. Ahmbin rejects the truth. Veracitas is thrown into prison but he escapes under mysterious circumstances.

His daughter, Boschina (“bah-sheen-uh”), reaches out to Thalmus, the mysterious frog hunter to the King, for help in finding her father. In the land of Ameram, frogs are the size of humans, crafty and deadly (though their legs are a delicacy), and Thalmus is legendary in his skill. But he is also the keeper of an ancient prophecy: “When the king’s only child is a woman and the daughter of the stone cutter searches the land….” Boschina had set in motion forces that would change the land forever.

Thalmus is aided by his extraordinary friends: “a great horned owl, a giant shell creature, and a paint stallion.” Hunted by the King’s troops seeking a reward, the companions encounter evil in Rainland, on Table Top—and in a dark tunnel. Thalmus’ words are frightening: “There are powerful, wicked forces in there that can grab hold of you and keep you in darkness if you let them. You must strengthen your thoughts.”

Young excels in describing the landscape (even an odd place called Jarbo Gap). The battles are thrilling, the writing superb.

A life of John Bidwell for teens

Kudos to Nancy Leek for bringing Chico's founder to life. "John Bidwell: The Adventurous Life of a California Pioneer" ($20 in paperback from ANCHR) is aimed specifically at the young adult audience, but it also found your friendly columnist standing and cheering.

The book is available at Lyon Books in Chico, at Bidwell Mansion, Made in Chico, and Teachers Book Connection, or from ANCHR (The Association for Northern California Historical Research), www.csuchico.edu/anchr. You can also write the author at bidwellbook@gmail.com or visit her blog at nancyleek.wordpress.com.

Leek is children's librarian at the Orland Free Library and she and her husband Jim reside in Chico. Her words are beautifully crafted. She wears her research lightly and develops a strong narrative line with John, and later John and his wife Annie, at the center. Her choice quotations from Bidwell's journals and other writings reveal a man of his time but also a man who could little abide the harsh treatment of the native Mechoopda and the emigrant Chinese.

Replete with period photographs, the story opens with John, at seven, walking fourteen miles to see a new steamboat launched on Lake Erie. Throughout the rest of his life he pushed into new territories. Bidwell, writes Leek, "came to California in 1841, an event that he considered a 'mere accident.' . . . He never thought he would find himself taking apart a Russian fort or supervising Indians at a Spanish mission. He never expected to discover gold or bring a new state into the Union or rise to the rank of general."

Though too honest to be good at electioneering, in 1880 he and Annie were visited by President Rutherford B. Hayes and his wife. And "the Bidwells became great friends with John Muir. ... In 1877 Bidwell took Muir" and several scientists "on expeditions to explore Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen. Muir stayed with the Bidwells for two months" and "found it hard to leave his friends in Chico and their 'cool fruity home.'"

"John Bidwell not only saw history," Leek writes, "he lived it and created it. By the end of the century he could say, 'The history of California lies like a map before me. Somewhat confused it may be, but I have seen it all.'"