"We followed our government's drill procedures precisely and stayed under our desks for eighteen minutes, until the wind would have whisked away the first waves of airborne radioactive particles, and the blast of burning air would have passed overhead, and the mushroom cloud would no longer be expanding, and every living thing would have been incinerated except for us because we were scrunched under our gummy desks with our hands over our heads, breathing quietly and evenly." (Schmidt, Gary D., The Wednesday Wars, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007)

The zeitgeist of 1968 is on every page, in every paragraph of this Newbery Honor book about 7th-grader Holling Hoodhood; it is replete with passages as funny as this one, but can also be searingly frank. Its scope is Forest Gump-esque, and it is every bit as hopeful and significant as that movie. The two-time Newbery Award-winning author Gary D. Schmidt has crafted a novel that promises to be in Middle School libraries and reading lists for years to come.

Holling Hoodhood thinks his problem is a teacher who hates his guts and the Shakespeare plays she makes him read on Wednesday afternoons while half of his class goes to Synagogue, and the other half goes to Mass. (Set in Long Island, Holling is the only kid in his class that isn't Jewish or Catholic). His real problem is that he doesn't know himself. While his older sister runs around with face-painted flowers in her boyfriend's yellow VW, volunteering for the Bobby Kennedy campaign, Holling is the unquestioning "good son"; the heir apparent to Hoodhood & Associates Architecture. Through reading Shakespeare's best plays with his teacher -- plays which uncannily resemble his own life at almost every turn -- Holling begins to learn what it means to be human in a crazy, unpredictable world filled with war, rats, ambivalent parents, and nasty 8th graders. His coming-of-age corresponds with the assassinations of '68, a surprise return home from Vietnam, and his best friend's bar mitzvah. While most of Holling's year is tortured and uncertain, the end is celebratory. L'chayim!

Any young adult book that can successfully meld the writings of Shakespeare, family life in the 1960s, and preteen anxiety with humor, wit, and heart is sure to take off. This one soars. If you read any young adult book this year, make it this one.

Girl Fight: A different kind of Rocky

In 1976, Rocky created and defined the genre of boxing movies. It holds up today as a great underdog story of guts, heart, and determination, as well as a classic love story ("Yo, Adrienne!").

Since Rocky, most boxing movies seem to follow the same predictable plot curves, with the same predictable outcome. The 2000 independent film Girl Fight, however, turns the genre on its ear.

Girl Fight's Rocky is an 18-year-old Latina from a broken family in the Bronx. Diana lives with her emotionally abusive father and kind younger brother, and has just been caught in her fourth fight at school; one more will mean expulsion.

Diana is hardened and aimless. Without any goals and aspirations beyond high school, she eventually finds a place where she can channel her frustration and hone her strength: a local boxing club. Diana's father refuses to support her, instead giving money to her brother Sandro (Paul Calderon) to take boxing lessons, when all he really wants to do is attend art school.

The Adrienne of Girl Fight is even named Adrian, a boy Diana meets at the boxing club and inevitably must fight in a championship bout.

Despite the obvious similarities, the film isn't simply a gender-bending version of Rocky. It also isn't some high school drama with a miracle-working teacher who changes the life of a damaged teen, such as Dangerous Minds or Freedom Writers. The one and only hero in this movie is Diana, and the story is how she comes to accept and understand herself, even if nobody else does.

There are good guys in Diana's life. Her boxing coach pushes her to new levels of strength and discipline such that Diana is the only girl in her P.E. class who can run a mile without stopping or successfully complete more than two chin-ups. And Adrian is decent and respectful, if insecure. Sandro also draws closer to his sister throughout the film. But, while Diana loves and thrives off the acceptance of these men, she doesn't need it. She accepts herself, and that's enough.

Girl Fight has something Rocky doesn't: restraint. The fight scenes have no fanfare, no build-up, no "Eye of the Tiger", no blood. There is no sex, implied or otherwise. But the fight scene between Diana and Adrian has more intimacy and passion than a sex scene ever could. In Rocky, the title character beats Apollo Creed and calls out for Adrienne. In Girl Fight, the fighter battles Adrian. And loves herself and him more as a result. The word "love" is only spoken once in the movie, though, and most of the best acting takes place without the characters uttering a single word.

A lesser actor couldn't perform it, but Michelle Rodriguez lights up the screen even at her most moody, and I want to root for her constantly, but not in the same way I wanted to root for Rocky. It is simply a different kind of boxing movie.

Girl Fight is quiet, but resonant. Sweet, but powerful. Full of girl power, but not a chick flick or feminist polemic. Full of contradictions. And absolutely wonderful.