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The Art of Secrets James Klise Books

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The Art of Secrets James Klise Books

When fourteen-year-old Saba Kahn's Pakistani family loses everything in a fire, her classmates at a prestigious private school, spearheaded by the enthusiastic Spoon siblings, decide to have an auction to benefit the Kahns. While dumpster diving, the Spoons find previously unowned works of art by a great, reclusive painter, sure to bring hundreds of thousands or dollars auction. The kids who found the work want to give the proceeds to the family, sparking some jealously among the students, adult parents and school personnel. Then the paintings go missing and fingers begin pointing.

The chapters are written from different perspectives, students and adults, and they include newspaper articles, letters, messages and narratives. The voices include Saba, Kevin and Kendra Spoon, Saba's superficial boyfriend, a foreign exchange student, the Kahn parents, 3 teachers, the headmistress, several parents, and an art appraiser. I didn't think the ART OF SECRETS was as much a mystery, because I didn't really care who took the paintings. I cared about why and the motivations of the characters in helping and accepting help. Billed as a YA novel. THE ART OF SECRETS will probably appeal to adults more than teens. YA age readers might be bored or uninterested in the politics between teachers and adult jealousies. As an adult I was.

James Klise has penned a thought provoking novel about generosity and jealousy, helping others and benefitting, selflessness and selfishness, what we deserve and what we'll do to get that. I love how the Kahns' Muslim faith are just a small part of their characters, like the exchange student's Spanish heritage is a small part of who he is. Any of characters could have been from any country, faith or have any color skin. That's diversity done right.


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The Art of Secrets James Klise Books Reviews

This. Disc will not open in an apple computer, hp computer, nor play in my bose stereo, car stereo, or DVD player. So I am not able to tell you if the story is any good or not.
I bought this for my 14 year old niece after hearing a good review of it on NPR. She was a little dubious about reading it at first the story title didn't grab her. However, one quiet afternoon she finally dove in and she really loved it. We had a long discussion about it. I would suggest it for young teen.
(No young adult here)....I also heard the author's interview on NPR and decided to buy the book. Made for enjoyable reading with a very surprising ending. Good purchase!
THIS WAS A JOY. THE JOURNAL TYPE OF CHAPTERS AND CHARACTER WAS GREAT. THIS WOULD BE GREAT TO TEENAGERS. THE ENDING WAS SUPERB AND A SUPRISE. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I'VE READ THIS YEAR.
Granted, as a 60-year-old man, I'm not exactly the target audience for this book. But I enjoy a lot of books written for middle-schoolers; usually, when I've finished them, they go on the shelf to be re-read someday or get passed on to someone else to enjoy. "The Art of Secrets" is going straight into the recycling bin. I found the resolution of the plot to be both completely implausible and, more importantly, presenting a worldview that is way too dark and cynical for me to want to inflict it on a young person.

I will not use any of the characters' names, but even my vague explanation will be likely to give things away early to those who read the book. So herewith the SPOILER ALERT!

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

My problem with the book is that the resolution of the plot requires that multiple characters turn out to be incredibly devious---I'm talking criminal-mastermind level plotting---despite almost 250 previous pages presenting them as nothing of the sort. So in addition to being incredibly (I'm using that word literally not believably) devious, they also have to be pathological liars to have so convincingly presented themselves as innocent. Never mind that the people in question are of different ages and temperaments---they're all incredibly devious, pathological liars.

I'm sorry, but that's not a view of reality that I want to share with a middle-schooler.

Of course, there are other dark books for kids; "The Lord of the Flies" comes to mind, but in that case, a reader need only peruse the back cover to know what he or she is getting in for and can make an informed choice about whether or not to read the book. But in this case, the darkness comes out of the proverbial left field at the very end and changes the tenor of what had seemed to be a book about high school friendships and coming-of-age..

The book is well written, and the characters all seem like believable people---until they don't. Nevertheless, I'm sorry for the time I invested in reading it. And I would be wary of anything else by the author unless there was good evidence that no equally nasty and implausible surprise awaited me at the end.
I really enjoyed reading the Art of Secrets by James Klise, a librarian at a high school in the Chicago area. I am NOT a young adult, but after hearing him interviewed on NPR, I ordered it and read it. I loved the way he constructed it with a lot of different first person narratives. The story unfolded like a flower from a bud, and although he doesn't come out and give us answers, the answers are quite apparent if you think about it.
When fourteen-year-old Saba Kahn's Pakistani family loses everything in a fire, her classmates at a prestigious private school, spearheaded by the enthusiastic Spoon siblings, decide to have an auction to benefit the Kahns. While dumpster diving, the Spoons find previously unowned works of art by a great, reclusive painter, sure to bring hundreds of thousands or dollars auction. The kids who found the work want to give the proceeds to the family, sparking some jealously among the students, adult parents and school personnel. Then the paintings go missing and fingers begin pointing.

The chapters are written from different perspectives, students and adults, and they include newspaper articles, letters, messages and narratives. The voices include Saba, Kevin and Kendra Spoon, Saba's superficial boyfriend, a foreign exchange student, the Kahn parents, 3 teachers, the headmistress, several parents, and an art appraiser. I didn't think the ART OF SECRETS was as much a mystery, because I didn't really care who took the paintings. I cared about why and the motivations of the characters in helping and accepting help. Billed as a YA novel. THE ART OF SECRETS will probably appeal to adults more than teens. YA age readers might be bored or uninterested in the politics between teachers and adult jealousies. As an adult I was.

James Klise has penned a thought provoking novel about generosity and jealousy, helping others and benefitting, selflessness and selfishness, what we deserve and what we'll do to get that. I love how the Kahns' Muslim faith are just a small part of their characters, like the exchange student's Spanish heritage is a small part of who he is. Any of characters could have been from any country, faith or have any color skin. That's diversity done right.