YA Mystery/ School Crime/ Psychological-Suspense: What Happened to Lani Garver by Carol Plum-Ucci (Booktalk Selection)

Summary

In junior high, Clare was diagnosed with leukemia.  Now in high school, things are finally looking up for her; her life seems to be getting back on track. Still, she feels different from everyone else because of her illness. Then Lani Garver shows up.  Lani is different, too different for Hackett Island.  And Lani is an enigma: no one knows if Lani is a boy or a girl. When Clare and Lani become friends, Clare is able to look past the differences and see the real Lani, who Lani is beyond gender or appearance or any other characterization. She also sees a lot about herself.   Unfortunately, others on Hackett Island can't see Lani's inner beauty.  To them, Lani is a threat, a threat to their safe, defined world.  And threats, of course, must be eliminated.  What did happen to Lani Garver?  And who (or what) was Lani?  These are questions the reader must answer, so check out What Happened to Lani Garver and solve the mystery for yourself.


Review


I am a big fan of Carol Plum-Ucci, and I think that this is a powerful, timely novel.  The issues with bullying that abound today, as well as the discrimination against the GLBT community, are issues that young adults deal with everyday.  This is a novel that would open the floor for a discussion of some of these problems in our society and really force students to think about their own beliefs and actions and how those actions might affect others.  As an English teacher, I also love the ambiguity of the ending--Did Lani die?  Was he a floating angel?  Again, this would be excellent fodder for class discussion as students make their own inferences about what happened at the end of the novel and share and support those inferences for their classmates. I think, too, that this is a interesting book in that it forces the reader to really think about and come to terms with their own ideas and beliefs about gender.  While imagine that there will be more and more books about similar topics as time goes on, I think that this is one of the better ones out right now.

Reference


Plum-Ucci, C. (2002). What happened to Lani Garver. New York: Harcourt

     Children's Books.

[Cover art for what happened to Lani Garver]. (2011). Retrieved from
    
     http://theliteraryomnivore.wordpress.com/2011/03/01/the-literary-

     horizon-what-happened-to-lani-garver-boy-meets-boy/