Perkins, Lynne Rae. Criss Cross

She wished something would happen. Thinking she should be more specific in case her wish came true, even though it wasn't an official wish, it was just a thought, Debbie thought, I wish something different would happen. Something good. To me.

I wish that too. I mean, I wish something different would happen to Debbie. Criss Cross is the story of some fourteen-year-old kids who hang out, talk, wish something would happen, wait for something to happen, and I guess eventually start to accept that nothing's ever really going to happen and whatever meaning is in your life is something that you have to construct, now, for yourself.

Like Waiting for Godot for the grade-school set, maybe.

Only it's not. It won a Newbery, so I guess someone thought it was a children's book, and maybe it could pass for YA, but really it's an adult book whose characters are teenagers. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm letting my own bias for stories with vampire ninja dinosaurs color my objectivity, but I can't imagine many actual children liking this book so much. If you spend your whole day hanging out, talking, wishing something would happen, waiting for something to happen, then I can't imagine your first choice would be to read about other people who do just that.

The thing is, this happens to be a very good book, especially if your tolerance for books where nothing ever happens is higher than mine is. Sometimes the writing shoots for lyrical and poetic and ends up silly:

It was colder this way, but he felt it made him look older. Colder but older. Older but colder. Colder and colder, older and older.

Most of the time, though, it actually is lovely and lyrical.

There wasn't quite enough room for Hector's chair. His chair was a peninsula, jutting out into the nonexistent space between tables, in the position where a dog might sit to wait patiently for scraps. ... A dark, trapezoidal chasm yawned between his knees and the table where, next to the red candle, there was a plastic bucket filled with peanuts

I did enjoy it, from the beginning to the end, and there were many parts that were very sad and very true. There were many parts that captured just what it was like to be fourteen in a small town with nothing to do. And yet--I wished that something more interesting would happen, all the way through.

Children don't tolerate boredom as well.