Many say that wisdom comes only with age, but there are also truths that only the young can perceive and that are forgotten with age; witness this stunning title. In his second book, Dilenschneider (A Boy Aware), a Connecticut high school student, collects a year's worth of writings on love, family, rejection, poetry, depression, God and girls in a volume striking for its generosity, profundity, emotional honesty and wordy rawness. Most of the entries are poems—either in free verse or with simple rhyme schemes—introduced with italicized passages that often are as captivating as the poems themselves. In "The Wandering," Dilenschneider muses, "The world's not meant to rise from darkness.../ The world's not meant to flow./ The world's not meant to stay together..../ The world's not meant to grow"; in an aside elsewhere, he writes, "Obviously, I'll never get over Katie. She inspired this poem in me, called The Smile, because I've found in life that the most representative action a person can do is show a piece of their happiness." From the "forest" of thoughts, which also includes essays and stories, emerges a voice that is at once amazed by life, showy and sharply insightful, possessed of a palpable passion for language and new experiences. It's the voice of an "[o]bstinately evolving," "sadhappy," fiercely intelligent young man, possessed of a huge heart and an uncommon gift for expressing it; this book gives extraordinary access into a questioning mind. As Dilenschneider notes, "I have given you a chance to look inside the soul of one individual that had the privilege to walk this world, and from his luck, walk this world in privilege." Necessarily, the entries vary in quality, and some suffer from a surfeit of sentiment, but overall this volume is an astonishment. Based on Dilenschneider's two books, one waits with excitement for what he will produce as his already impressive talent continues to mature. (May)
