protect the diamonds
survive the clubs
dig deep through the spades
feel the hearts
Ed Kennedy is an underage cabdriver without much of a future. He's pathetic at playing cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend, Audrey, and utterly devoted to his coffee-drinking dog, the Doorman. His life is one of peaceful routine and incompetence until he inadvertently stops a bank robbery.
That's when the first ace arrives in the mail.
That's when Ed becomes the messenger.
Chosen to care, he makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary) until only one question remains: Who's behind Ed's mission?
A 2005 Michael L. Printz Honor Book and recipient of five starred reviews, "I Am the Messenger" is a cryptic journey filled with laughter, fists, and love.

Reviews

Gr 9 Up-Nineteen-year-old cabbie Ed Kennedy has little in life to be proud of: his dad died of alcoholism, and he and his mom have few prospects for success. He has little to do except share a run-down apartment with his faithful yet smelly dog, drive his taxi, and play cards and drink with his amiable yet similarly washed-up friends. Then, after he stops a bank robbery, Ed begins receiving anonymous messages marked in code on playing cards in the mail, and almost immediately his life begins to swerve off its beaten-down path. Usually the messages instruct him to be at a certain address at a certain time. So with nothing to lose, Ed embarks on a series of missions as random as a toss of dice: sometimes daredevil, sometimes heartwarmingly safe. He rescues a woman from nightly rape by her husband. He brings a congregation to an abandoned parish. The ease with which he achieves results vacillates between facile and dangerous, and Ed's search for meaning drives him to complete every task. But the true driving force behind the novel itself is readers' knowledge that behind every turn looms the unknown presence-either good or evil-of the person or persons sending the messages. Zusak's characters, styling, and conversations are believably unpretentious, well conceived, and appropriately raw. Together, these key elements fuse into an enigmatically dark, almost film-noir atmosphere where unknowingly lost Ed Kennedy stumbles onto a mystery-or series of mysteries-that could very well make or break his life.-Hillias J. Martin, New York Public Library Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

""The Book Thief "is unsettling and unsentimental, yet ultimately poetic. Its grimness and tragedy run through the reader's mind like a black-and-white movie, bereft of the colors of life. Zusak may not have lived under Nazi domination, but "The Book Thief "deserves a place on the same shelf with "The Diary of a Young Girl "by Anne Frank and Elie Wiesel's "Night. "It seems poised to become a classic." -"USA Today"
"Zusak doesn't sugarcoat anything, but he makes his ostensibly gloomy subject bearable the same way Kurt Vonnegut did in "Slaughterhouse-Five" with grim, darkly consoling humor."
- "Time Magazine"
"Elegant, philosophical and moving...Beautiful and important."
- "Kirkus Reviews", Starred
"An extraordinary narrative."
- "School Library Journal", Starred
"Exquisitely written and memorably populated, Zusak's poignant tribute to words, survival, and their curiously inevitable entwinement is a tour
de force to be not just read but inhabited."
- "The Horn Book Magazine", Starred
"One of the most highly anticipated young-adult books in years."
- "The Wall Street Journal"


"From the Hardcover edition."

Two Aussie slackers stumble into a bank robbery, and inadvertently prevent it, bickering about their jalopy all the while. One of them, Ed Kennedy, a 19-year-old taxi driver, soon receives mysterious playing cards in the mail, and winds up taking on other, similarly baffling reclamation and assistance projects, prodded by an unknown guardian angel. Gray's reading accentuates Zusak's amusing tale with a series of comically elongated Aussie vowels for Ed's first-person narrative. Gray doesn't quite sound like a teenager-his diction is too precise, too well-studied for that-but he captures something of the broad humor and lackadaisical good cheer of late adolescence. Zusak's book mingles drama and comedy admirably, and Gray nimbly shifts gears-far more fluidly than that jalopy ever could. Ages 12-up. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Zusak's When Dogs Cry was an honour book in the `older readers' category of this year's CBCA children's book of the year awards. Whilst this new novel-a parable for the Two Hands generation-may also please the CBC judges, its main appeal may well be to a readership who would probably die rather than be seen in the children's section of a bookshop or library: young adult males. Zusak knows his readership well, and this is one book you could safely recommend to anyone looking for a book for 15-25 year-olds who aren't regular readers. Ed Kennedy, an amiable yet aimless young taxi driver, finds his drab life taking a unusual turn after he is innocently caught up in a bank hold-up. A habitual card player, Ed starts receiving anonymously-sent playing cards which urge him to act as a reluctant latter-day `ministering angel' in his community. His good deeds are sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant, as he undergoes a transformation from nobody to somebody. In the wrong hands this kind of material could be unbearable, but Zusak portrays the expectations, lifestyle and concerns of his young characters with utter authenticity. Ed and his friends become real for us, and we follow their progress, and the unravelling of the mystery (who is sending the messages, and why?) with an interest that builds and builds. The last laugh is on us: Zusak conjours a delightful post-modern ending which few will see coming. The Messenger merits support for its attempt to reach a largely untapped readership. It also happens to be a great read. Andrew Wilkins is the editor of AB&P. C. 2002 Thorpe-Bowker and contributors