book bits

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

2012-01-09T12:00:00.001-05:00

What if all the old fairytales you heard when you were little, the stories that were told at a library story time perhaps, were all real? What if there really are houses made of gingerbread, cursed shoes, magic woods right behind your own house, or even witches made of ice? Breadcrumbs is a story that asks that question --what if it’s all real and can happen to you. Once upon a time… it was cold, and a blanket of snow covered the entire world …or so it seemed. The world looked like a magical place filled with endless possibilities. There was a girl named Hazel and a boy named Jack. Hazel and Jack had been best friends for as long as they could remember. They both loved using their imagination to create magical worlds where they would slay dragons, sail the seas as pirates, or turn an abandoned shack into a magical palace. But then things started to change. Jack had always divided his time between Hazel and his guy friends at school. Hazel didn’t fit in unless she was with Jack. She looked different and acted different from her classmates. She would get so lost in her imagination, all the stories she had heard and read, stores of Hogwarts and Narnia, that she didn’t realize that the things she thought and did were what made her stand out. But Hazel didn’t mind, not really, because there was always Jack, waiting for her and being there for her when she needed him. But one day something happened to change everything. Jack got a shard of magic glass stuck in his eye, magic glass that makes you see the world in an ugly light. Suddenly Jack didn’t have time for Hazel and her "childish" games. Hazel was lost and felt completely alone. In only a couple of days the winter wonderland of yesterday became like an ice prison of loneliness. But then Jack disappeared, willingly going with the white witch into the woods where his heart froze over. Only Hazel had enough courage, heart, and imagination with which to find him…. if he even wanted to be found! Hazel encountered many strange things as she travelled through the woods, things that were not entirely as she had read about in her stories: cursed dancing shoes, unsavory woodsman, wolves as sentries, a strange couple that captures children (but not for eating), and the biting cold of the White Witch that beckons her forward. Despite all the confusion of the woods, Hazel never gave up on making it out of the woods with Jack by her side. This is a wonderful modern fairytale that captures your attention. Anne Ursu took the classic fairytale of The Snow Queen and set it in modern times in America. You start to see that the world around you holds all the possibilities of the stories you read --all possibilities, both good and bad. Review by Lizzy Healy

Ten Miles Past Normal by Francis O’Roark Dowell

2011-12-19T11:50:00.001-05:00

Janie Gorman is a girl who desperately wants to be normal. The only real problem with that is that she’s not. That is, she’s not particularly abnormal. but her family lifestyle is a bit on the abnormal side of the spectrum. When Janie was younger, she went on a school field trip to a farm, and decided she wanted to live on a farm. Her parents actually loved this idea and decided it was high time they sell their suburban house and cars, pack everything up, and move out to the country. At first it was cool; everyone in 6^th grade thought it was awesome that she had goats outside her bedroom window, but now, in 9^th grade, Janie is known as “farm girl.” Her farm duty of milking the goats every morning (which more often than not results in animal poop on her shoes) does not help matters. On top of that, her mom runs a blog about her life on the farm. This, to put it simply, is not helping Janie achieve the normalcy she so desperately wants. Janie has yet to find her place in the world at her new high school. She eats by herself in the library every day instead of the cafeteria. All of her friends from middle school are in a different lunch, and she’s too shy to make new friends. Even her friendship with her pushy best friend Sarah is feeling rocky. At first Janie feels that it would be nice to go back to that old suburban life, but comes to realize that being “normal” isn’t always the coolest thing. She must know this somewhere inside of her. She certainly takes part in plenty of not so “normal” hi-jinks: she learns bass and joins Jam Band, she idolizes her best friend Sarah’s older sister (the infamous wild-child, high-school-senior Emma), shegets arrested while doing a school project on a local freedom school, and she kind of falls in “like” with a boy named Monster (yes, that is his real name). Janie begins to realize that coolness comes in many forms, and that being a wallflower isn't her style after all. "I'm the cute chick with the bass," she thinks. "Now that's a reputation I can live with." Review by Lizzy Healy

Sparrow Road by Sheila O’Connor

2011-10-05T11:18:00.001-04:00

No music. No TV. No computer. No telephone. And every day, silence until supper. Those are the rules of Sparrow Road, an artists’ retreat set in an eerie mansion in the countryside of Michigan, where Raine O’Rourke is forced to spend her summer. Raine can’t figure out why her mother agreed to leave their Milwaukee home and her Grandpa Mac to work there as a cook. “Not everything’s a mystery,” her mother tells her when Raine pesters her with questions. But Sparrow Road is full of secrets. The mystery of why her mother took the job is solved when 12-year-old Raine meets Gray James, the father she has never heard about. The mysteries of the mansion take longer, but Raine and Josie, a quilt-maker, piece together the history of the former orphanage, and Raine uses clues she finds in the attic to write the story of a former orphan, Lyman Chase, which she shares at the end of summer festival, the Art Extravaganza. Review by Stacy Church

Angel in My Pocket by Ilene Cooper

2011-10-01T16:42:00.002-04:00

It is common knowledge and mathematically proven that there are many dimensions in this world. The first dimension is expressed through one value, which defines a point. The second dimension is expressed through two values, which define an area. The third dimension is expressed in three values, which define a space. The fourth dimension includes time in the measurement. If you measure a room in the winter or in the summer, you will get two slightly different measurements, due to the time factor (In the cold winter time, when most matter contracts, it would give a slightly smaller value to the room’s measurements). Through mathematics we can explore higher dimensions, like the fifth, sixth, seventh and so on. What do these dimensions look like? What exists in those dimensions? Many people think that angels, spirits or other higher energy forms of life dwell in those higher dimensions and that sometimes they can take on our physical form and visit us. Angel in My Pocket is about such visits. Shortly after seventh-grader Bette finds a golden angel coin, things begin to change for her. She meets a mysterious new neighbor called Gabi, which is short for Gabriel. Gabi helps Bette come to terms with the losses and changes in her life and to move on. As the golden angel coin passes on to three other classmates of Bette, their lives are changed too. In time, all four become friends and marvel at what has happened to them. Angel in My Pocket is a wonderful story about finding friends, when you desperately need them. Review by Trudy Walsh

Wild Life by Cynthia DeFelice

2011-10-01T15:57:00.001-04:00

12-year-old Eric rushes home to show off the certificate he just earned for passing the hunter safety course, only to find that his parents have both been called up to serve active duty in Iraq. After that, things happen very quickly. Eric is sent off to North Dakota to live with his grandparents. He finds life with his grandparents unbearable, so he runs away off onto the prairie, taking only his gun, and a dog that he rescued, along with him. Eric is determined to make it on his own, and live off of the land. Wild Life is a fast-paced story of adventure and survival. Review by Trudy Walsh

Small Acts of Amazing Courage by Gloria Whelan

2011-10-01T15:22:00.001-04:00

Small Acts of Amazing Courage takes us to India, where Rosalind lives in a beautiful home with many servants. Her parents are English, and they are expected to send their children back home to England to get proper educations. Independent-minded Rosalind doesn’t want to go to England, a country she feels no connection to. Rosalind loves India. She loves to explore the bazaars of the city with a native friend. Her father returns from the war in 1918, and finds out that Rosalind has become involved in the lives of beggars, and has gone to listen to the rebel Gandhi speak at a street demonstration against the British. He is livid and, over the protestations of Rosalind and her mother, books a passage for her to London. He plans for his daughter to live with her aunts while getting a good English education. Free-spirited Rosalind has other ideas. She sees the whole world as a place to discover. She wants to learn by getting involved rather than by just sitting on a school bench. This, or course, gets her into all kinds of trouble, as you can well imagine. In Small Acts of Amazing Courage we read about Rosalind growing up in luxury in an exotic country, exploring bazaars, buying a baby from a beggar to save his life, always letting her heart guide her rather than her head. It is a beautifully written book. Review by Trudy Walsh

Juniper Berry by M.P. Kozlowsky

2011-07-06T12:54:00.001-04:00

Just think: To receive all that you desire, fill one balloon with your breath. This haunting idea is the basis of the mysterious story Juniper Berry: A Tale of Terror and Temptation by M.P. Kozlowsky. You might think at first that 11-year-old Juniper Berry lives a perfect life: she lives in a gorgeous mansion, has rich, beautiful movie-star parents, and everything she could possibly want… everything, that is, except a real loving family. Before Juniper’s parents were famous, they doted on her –she was the best thing in their lives. She dreamed of being a writer and she wrote plays that her parents spent hours acting out for her. But lately her parents have been distant, cold, and even cruel. Though on the outside they look the same, something is changing under the surface. Juniper spends hours in her big mansion using telescopes, magnifying glasses, and all sorts of tools that help her bring the world that seems so far away, right up close to her. She values truth and what lies beneath the surface of things more than anything. When she finally makes a friend in the weak, but gentle, boy named Giles, who lives down the road, they find they share a common bond. Giles’s parents have also been acting strange and cruel. Juniper and Giles are determined to find out why. On a cold and rainy night, Juniper follows her parents as they sneak out of the house and into the woods. What she discovers is a terrifying underworld ruled over by a strange man/creature called Skeksyl. He offers you anything you desire in the world, all bound in a balloon. All you have to do is exchange a balloon filled with your breath and for a balloon filled with Skeksyl’s breath. Once you inhale Skeksyl’s balloon, all the secrets of the world are yours. Juniper and Giles want to save their parents, but they, too, get tempted by this strange man/creature. It seems like such a small price to pay—a balloon of air –for everything you want. In this case Giles wants to be strong and Juniper wants to be loved. What they don’t realize is that piece by piece they are selling their souls for their wildest desires.

Can Juniper see the truth through this temptation? Can she hold strong and save not only her parents and Giles, but the many others who have also wandered down to that dark underworld? This is a haunting tale much like a modern folktale. Right from the start the story of Juniper grabbed me and pulled me into her world, a world where nothing is as it seems. I found the story thoughtful, exciting and very creepy. For a small hint of the kind of creepiness I mean, read the description of Skeksyl: “The man, if he could be called such a thing, stepped closer, slinking his way toward the children, his face still hidden but for a smile that glowed like moonlight. It was all teeth, long, yellowed teeth that stretched his purplish lips wide across his face-a twisted triangle of sneering terror. “I am so glad you came”, he nearly squealed.” You may think you would give up anything to get your greatest desire, but remember, be careful what you wish for! Review by Lizzy Healty

Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy

2011-06-08T12:13:00.001-04:00

The newspapers are filled with headlines of places far away. Afghanistan, especially, has been in the news this year. We read mainly about the ongoing war there. Words in the Dust takes us right into the heart of a family living in the Afghan mountains. We meet thirteen-year-old Zulaikha, who has to help with the daily chores in the family compound. Her life is complicated by the fact that she was born with a cleft lip. When an American soldier notices her disfigured face, he is determined to get medical help for her, and Zulaikha’s life is forever changed. Words in the Dust is a very intimate story of a young girl growing up in a typical Afghan family. Zulaikha yearns to read. Since there is no opportunity for her to go to school, she secretly learns the alphabet by tracing the letters and words in the dust. Books are a wonderful way to travel to different parts of the world. Here is an exciting book about a very different land and culture. Words in the Dust will quickly draw you in, and you won’t be able to put it down until the last page is turned. Review by Trudy Walsh

Close to Famous by Joan Bauer

2011-05-28T13:46:00.002-04:00

Now here’s the way to write a book in a folksy way without being irritating! The beginning tells it all: “The last place I thought I’d be when this day began is where I am, which is in a car. Mama’s car to be exact, and she’s driving headstrong through downtown Memphis with an Elvis impersonator on our tail.” 12-year-old Foster tells my favorite kind of story – funny/sad, and there’s plenty to be sad about. After Foster’s dad was killed in Iraq, her mom got mixed up with the wrong kind of guy, the aforementioned Elvis impersonator, in fact, and now they have to run away in the middle of the night. Things get even worse when Foster realizes when they finally stop running that she doesn’t have the pillowcase she keeps her special things in, including her dad’s dogtags. Luckily, Foster has a lot going for her, too. To begin with, she’s an amazing baker who’s determined to become the youngest Food Network star to have their own cooking show. She and her mom are really close, and she seems to make friends wherever she goes. She even makes friends with the aging reclusive movie star Miss Charleena, who is the first person in their new town of Culpepper to realize that Foster can’t read. They strike a bargain: Foster will teach Miss Charleena to cook, and Miss Charleena will teach Foster to read. When her favorite Food Network star, Sonny, is out of commission from a motorcycle accident, Foster (with the help of her new friend Macon, a future filmmaker who just got his first camera phone) sends him a recording of herself doing a special cooking show just for him. By the time Sonny sends her a letter back, she can pretty much read it herself! Review by Stacy Church

The Danger Box by Blue Balliett

2011-05-24T19:49:00.001-04:00

This is the latest book by the author of the wonderful Chasing Vermeer, and it’s sequels. I didn’t love everything about it (in fact, I almost quit reading during the first chapter because I found it annoyingly vague) but once I got into the real story, it pulled me right in. First of all, I’m always interested in a book that’s told in the present tense, “I’m pulling the Danger Box out from the back of the toolshed. Now I’m crouching by the rakes and hoes. It’s a windy June night, and the shadows from the kitchen light are bumping and chasing.” And Zoomy is a great character. He lives with his grandparents, who love him despite his strange habits (incessant finger-tapping and list-making), and medical condition (pathological myopia). In fact, his grandmother always seems to know what he’s feeling, and how to make him feel better. It’s a pretty folksy tale, not always a favorite for me, but, for the most part, the author makes it work. Zoomy’s life is completely changed by two things: his psychopathic father reappears in his life, and he makes his first friend, Lorrol, a girl he keeps running into at the library. Zoomy’s dad, Buckeye, left behind a wooden box, and when they decide to open it, they find an old journal inside. Zoomy begs to be allowed to read it, and of course, trying to figure out what it is opens the door for all kinds of discoveries and adventure. There’s arson, theft, attempted murder…All in all, a good read. Review by Stacy Church

Zora and Me by Victoria Bond & T. R. Simon

2011-05-22T16:21:00.001-04:00

The jacket flap doesn’t do this book justice. I was expecting some far-fetched story about shape-shifting alligator men, but instead found a beautifully-written coming-of-age story about 2 young black girls growing up in the south around the turn of the century. It’s a little confusing unless you already know when Zora Neale Hurston lived, so I suggest you read the biography at the end of the book first. There’s also a timeline of her life. What a great beginning, too: “It’s funny how you can be in a story but not realize until the end that you were in one.” This story starts with the death of a young black man who thinks he can wrestle an alligator. Zora and Carrie witness the terrible event, and Zora comes out with a story a few days later of seeing a man turn into an alligator. Zora is a natural born storyteller, and whether her stories contain a grain of truth or not, she captivates her audiences. This particular story leads to some almost dire consequences when Zora insists that a local recluse is the half-man, half-gator. There’s another murder, and plenty of action (Carrie almost falls to her death over the side of Blue Sink, the same swimming hole where the first death took place), besides some really terrific writing. I enjoyed everything about this book. Review by Stacy Church

The Clockwork Three by Matthew J. Kirby

2011-05-22T16:19:00.001-04:00

I found book very confusing. I kept expecting it to be fantasy, but it really read like historical fiction set around the turn of the century. The historical detail is wonderful, but nothing about it seemed to be fantasy. Well, maybe the green violin that Guiseppe rescued from the harbor that, when he played it, seemed to bring magic to his music and dance to the feet of everyone listening. There are 3 main characters, and, of course, their lives intersect, and therein lies the charm of the story. They each live with terrible circumstances: Guiseppe is beaten by his padrone (owner), and lives in fear of being locked in the rat cellar if he doesn’t earn enough money; Frederick is haunted by his memories of bad treatment at the orphanage, and tormented by the question of what happened to his mother; and Hannah watches her once active stonemason father waste away from some unknown illness, too ill to work to support his family, and no money for medicine to save him. The whole story sort of hinges around a hidden treasure Hannah overhears her evil employers talking about. She’s determined to find out where it is, even if she has to lose her job to do it. Frederick is trying to build an automaton so he’ll be accepted into the guild with the title of journeyman, and he’s determined to find out what happened to his mother. Guiseppe wants to earn enough money to buy a ticket back to Italy so he can reunite with his brother and sister. They end up helping each other, and providing each other with something none of them have ever had –good friends. Back to the question of the book being fantasy. There is the matter of the piece of clay Hannah steals from the museum with the tag “golem” on it, which, when inserted into the automaton, not only makes it functional, but gives it heart. The only other thing is the green violin, which really does bring magic to Guiseppe’s playing. I’ve heard that some reviewers are referring to this book as being steampunk. I’m not sure about that, but here’s the Wikipedia definition of steampunk: “In general, the category includes any recent science fiction that takes place in a recognizable historical period (sometimes an alternate history version of an actual historical period) where the Industrial Revolution has already begun but electricity is not yet widespread, with an emphasis on steam- or spring-propelled gadgets.” You can decide for yourself if the book fits that classification or not. All in all, it’s a good read, although I found the ending very rushed and the wrap-up of the plot forced. Review by Stacy Church

A True Princess by Diane Zahler

2011-05-11T12:47:00.000-04:00

The author, Diane Zahler, spins a beautiful fairytale with golden threads of magic, adventure, and romance all intertwined. A True Princess is based on H.C. Andersen’s The Princess and the Pea, but contains traces of other folktales and ancient Norse myths also. Lilia arrives in a basket floating down a millstream, just like the hero in The Devil with the Three Golden Hairs by the Brothers Grimm. The babies in both stories are rescued and adopted by families. Lilia is very different from the children in her adopted family. She is not good at performing even the simplest tasks of cooking or cleaning. She has trouble staying awake to do her chores because she never gets enough sleep on her hard, lumpy farm bed. When she overhears her foster parents planning to get rid of her, Lilia decides to take charge of her own life. Something urges her to follow the river to the North Kingdom, where she might have come from. As Lilia journeys northward, she is joined by her brother and sister and the loyal family dog. Thus begins their adventure together through the magic Bitra Forest, the realm of the elf-king, who captures them. How Lilia outwits the elf-king and bravely rescues all the children from his evil spell is a marvelous story. A True Princess is a fairytale filled with adventure, betrayal, and heroic deeds, as a young girl with a brave and loving heart finds her way home. Review by Trudy Walsh

Saraswati’s Way by Monika Schroder

2011-05-04T12:55:00.001-04:00

Akash lives in India. When his father dies, the family gives him away to work off their debt at the landlord’s quarry. Life at the quarry is very hard, and the only way Akash survives it is by holding on to his dream: to one day go to a wonderful school in New Delhi. Since Akash had been a very good student with a gift for math, he plans his escape from the quarry very carefully. With twelve-year-old Akash we travel through India as he makes his way toward New Delhi. When he finally arrives, the crowded city overwhelms him. Will he survive life on the streets among thieves and drug dealers? With tenacity, Akash clings to his dream and prays to Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom and knowledge. In the end, Akash realizes that he has to take charge of his own life and not wait for a god or goddess to rescue and reward him. Saraswati’s Way is a powerful novel set in modern India. Monika Schroder describes beautifully what Akash experiences. The author also tells us, through the enthusiastic voice of young Akash, what reading a book can do for you: “It’s like going to different places without leaving where you are.” Review by Trudy Walsh

Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

2011-04-30T15:42:00.001-04:00

It took me a while to start to like this book, but then I really began to appreciate the story, which is a testimony to the resourcefulness and resilience of children who must cope with a parent with mental illness. 11-year-old Jack wakes up in his tent on what is supposed to be the first day of a camping vacation with his mom, only to find that his mom, her tent, and their rental car (with all their provisions in it) are gone. It’s not the first time that Jack has had to deal with his mother disappearing, so he’s really good at covering up. He uses the little bit of money he has to buy himself breakfast at the store nearby, and when his new friend Aiden invites him along on a family outing, he fends off Aiden’s mother’s attempts at meeting his mother, and still manages to go along. As time passes, he starts to freak out, but he’s so afraid of being taken away from his mother and made to live with his grandmother (who his mother has told him terrible stories about) that he can’t bring himself to reach out for help. Jack is obsessed with elephants –it’s one of the things he and his mother share –and he comforts himself with remembering stories and facts about them. When all else fails, he decides to try to get to the animal park in York that he was going to visit with his mom, to see the elephant Lydia that lives there. There’s plenty of suspense as Aiden tries to make his way home to Massachusetts, and then to York, Maine, without being intercepted by the police or any of the well-meaning adults he encounters along with way. Review by Stacy Church

The Star Maker by Laurence Yep

2011-04-30T15:08:00.001-04:00

This is the story of a young boy growing up in the 1950’s in San Francisco. In those days, Chinese-American families had no choice but to reside in Chinatown if they wanted to live in the city of San Francisco. One of the good things that Artie discovers about living in Chinatown is that he is surrounded by all of his family. His aunts, uncles and his grandmother all live close by. On the holidays they get together and celebrate as one big family. Since Artie is the youngest, he tries hard to keep up with his older brother and cousin. They tease him constantly, and, in response, Artie makes up his mind to show off for them. He boasts that he will get firecrackers for the Chinese New Year. Good-naturedly, Artie promises to share them. Cousin Petey promptly announces that Artie has promised firecrackers for everyone for the family’s Chinese New Year celebrations. Now Artie is in trouble. He wished he had kept his mouth shut. Firecrackers are expensive and his family is large. Is there possibly a way for Artie to get enough money together for firecrackers for himself and everyone else? How Artie tries different ways to make money and solicits help for his project so that he can keep his promise is a wonderful story. We meet Artie’s large Chinese family and learn about some of their customs and ways as they celebrate together. The Star Maker by Laurence Yep transports us back to the early 1950’s in Chinatown in San Francisco where a young boy struggles to grow up and find his place in his large family. This is a beautifully-written book that introduces us to the Chinese-American culture. Review by Trudy Walsh

The Mourning Wars by Karen Steinmetz

2011-04-23T12:47:00.001-04:00

I found this book pretty heavy going, but I did enjoy the story, I just had to make myself keep going. The cover is a bit melodramatic, also, with the subtitle: Born a Puritan Raised a Mohawk. It’s 1704, and in the middle of the night, Eunice and her family are awakened by a band of Mohawk Indians who kill some of them and take the others prisoner. After a grueling march to Canada, Eunice is adopted into a Mohawk family who love and cherish her. It’s fascinating to read about what Eunice’s life was like in her Puritan family compared to her new life in the Mohawk family. Over the next couple of years, the Puritans make some effort to get Eunice back, but the decision is up to her, and she decides to stay with the Mohawks. She is a remarkably strong and loyal person, so the decision is difficult for her. Part of my problem with following the story had to do with the names, which are long and sometimes similar, and part of my problem was trying to follow the history and politics of the time. There is a long author’s note at the end that does a lot to clarify things –I recommend that you read that first. Review by Stacy Church

I, Emma Freke by Elizabeth Atkinson

2011-04-23T12:34:00.003-04:00

Emma feels like a total misfit at her school, and not just because she’s almost 6 feet tall at the age of 12. Unfortunately, her home life isn’t much better: her mother expects her to spend every afternoon minding the bead shop they own, cook for her grandfather, and take care of most of the household chores while she goes out on dates with a string of unsavory men. Emma doesn’t know anything about her father, or whether she even has any other family. For her birthday, her mom (who she calls by her first name, Donatella) tells her that she doesn’t have to go to school anymore because now she’ll be homeschooled by her grandfather (who spends most of his time snoozing with his fat, old bulldog farting on his lap). What she didn’t tell Emma is that she didn’t make any arrangements with the school, so Emma gets busted for truancy. Out of the blue, a special delivery letter arrives inviting Emma to the Freke family reunion at a campground in Wisconsin, and Donatella wants her to go. Of course, once Emma gets to Wisconsin she finds herself surrounded by people a lot like her. Well, at first they seem a lot like her. With the help of an estranged cousin, Fred, Emma proceeds to shake things up in the Freke family, and, in the end, meets her father. There are some really funny parts to the book (especially the first scene with Ms. Fiddle, the school psychologist, asking Emma to use a clock to rate her own popularity in comparison to the most popular girl at school.

“Um. One minute past twelve?: I said in a tiny voice, because I wasn’t sure if there was a correct answer or if she really had no idea how invisible I was in middle school. “We were not including minutes,” said Ms. Fiddle, arching one eyebrow so high it made that side of her mouth droop. “Just hours.”

There’s a lot about the story that I found too cliched, but it’s still an entertaining read. Review by Stacy Church

Mission Unstoppable: The Genius Files Book #1 by Dan Gutman

2011-03-16T12:29:00.002-04:00

When Coke was born, his parents had already chosen his name (which had nothing to do with the soft drink). Professor McDonald, Coke’s father, had written a book about coal and its influence on the Industrial Revolution. Coke, according to Webster’s Dictionary, is the “residue of coal left after destructive distillation.” Author Dan Gutman encourages the reader to check that fact out on dictionary.com. The McDonalds thought that Coke would be a great name for a boy –short and strong sounding. However, when shortly after Coke’s birth, another baby, a girl, is born, the parents are stumped. What to name the twin sister? As a joke, one of the nurses suggests: “Pepsi!” Everyone laughs, but the name sticks, and Coke and Pepsi start their lives together. This is the first book in a new series by the popular author Dan Gutman detailing the exploits of these energetic twins. If you enjoy reading funny books that are full of adventure, then you’ll love this new book Mission Unstoppable. This is a quick read and a page turner. It will keep you at the edge of your seat! Enjoy it and look forward to more adventures with Coke and Pepsi. Review by Trudy Walsh

Sweet Treats & Secret Crushes by Lisa Greenwald

2011-02-24T19:50:00.001-05:00

I kept wanting to like this book as a nice, light read, but in the end I really couldn’t. First of all, the story is told in three voices by best friends Olivia, Kate and Georgia, and there was so little to distinguish the characters of the three girls that I really couldn’t tell which one was talking at any given time. The idea for the story is cute enough: 3 best friends confined to their big apartment building on a snow day, which happens to fall on Valentine’s Day, ruining each of their secret plans involving the boys they have crushes on. Georgia’s parents own a Chinese restaurant on the main floor of the building, so the girls spend the day learning how to make fortune cookies (with their own made-up fortunes inside) and going around the building giving them out to the people who live there. The girls fight, they make up, they fight, they make up. They meet their crushes, they like them, they don’t like them. If you’re just looking to pass a little time, this book will do the trick, otherwise there are plenty of other fun books to read instead. Review by Stacy Church

Season of Secrets by Sally Nicholls

2011-02-24T19:40:00.001-05:00

I couldn’t wait to read this new book by the author of one of my favorite books, Ways To Live Forever (see bookbits January 25, 2009). Things are tough for Molly and her older sister Hannah. Since their mother died, their father hasn’t been able to take care of them, so they’ve come to live with their grandparents in the tiny apartment over their poky little country store in a small town outside of London. Their dad comes to see them, but Hannah is so angry she usually drives him away. She does her best to drive everyone away, including Molly. There’s not much solace at their new school either, which is so tiny that all ages of kids are together in one room, and there’s only one other girl Molly’s age. I guess Molly has told tales at home before, because when she tries to tell everyone about the man she saw being hunted on the lane on the dark, rainy night Hannah tries to get her to run away from their grandparents’, no one believes her. Then she sees a statue at the church that looks just like her man, “…face made of stone. A man. He’s got big eyes and a long, thick nose. There are leaves sticking out of his face and his hair. He looks bright and wild, like an old god or a goblin in a fairy tale. He doesn’t look like he ought to be allowed in a church. It’s the hunted man.” It’s hard to know what’s real in this book, but Hannah does finally see him, too, and another kind of hunt ensues to try to save him. Later Molly realizes that things aren’t always so clear-cut, when she sees her hunted man become the hunter. This book is beautifully written, and I love the blurring of realistic fiction with fantasy. Review by Stacy Church

A Tale Dark & Grimm by Adam Gidwitz

2011-02-18T16:55:00.001-05:00

If you aren’t yet in fifth grade –DO NOT OPEN THIS BOOK! If you have never read any of the grim “Grimm’s Folk Tales,” maybe you should not read this book. The author of A Tale Dark & Grimm warns repeatedly that this book is bloody, scary, and not for the faint of heart. The main characters, Hansel and Gretel, weave in and out of the most gruesome of the Grimm’s folk tales. Mr. Gidwitz describes unbelievable places and scenes of horror in detail, and warns you continuously that worse is yet to come, while he dares you to read on. Some of the things that happen to Hansel and Gretel are so gross you know right away that they couldn’t possibly have happened. Sometimes the author lets you in on the secret that what is happening to Hansel and Gretel is all an illusion, but, is it? To find out, you have to read this book! Review by Trudy Walsh

Truth with a Capital T by Bethany Hegedus

2011-02-10T20:05:00.001-05:00

Two things I don’t like about this book:

The cover, which almost kept me from picking it up.

The Little-Known Facts at the beginning of each chapter, which then lead to corny statements from Maebelle about her life as it relates to the little-known fact.

Things I do like about the book:

Great characters, great story, great historical background

The writing is a little clunky, and a little too folksy for my taste, but it’s definitely worth reading. Maebelle gets to travel to Tweedle, GA (if the cutsey name puts you off, this book is not for you) to spend the summer with her beloved grandparents, newly retired from the country music circuit, while her parents go on a tour to promote their new book. What she didn’t know is that she has to share them with her newly adopted cousin Isaac. She takes things out on him a bit (including throwing a dirty, stinky diarrhea diaper into his clothes hamper in the middle of the night), but of course teams up with him to solve the mystery of the locked wing of the family home, which may hide secrets from the slave era. Review by Stacy Church

The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan, Drawings by Peter Sis

2011-01-27T20:05:00.001-05:00

I don’t know how I missed this book when it first came out, but when I saw it on Horn Book’s list of Best of 2010, I grabbed it. Pablo Neruda is one of my favorite poets, so it was fascinating to read this fictionalized account of his childhood. It’s amazing that so dreamy and introspective a child could withstand the relentless bullying of his father and grow up to be one of the most sensitive poets the world has ever known.

Shyness

I scarcely knew, by myself, that I existed,

that I’d be able to be, and go on being.

I was afraid of that, of life itself.

I didn’t want to be seen,

I didn’t want my existence to be known.

I became pallid, thin, and absentminded.

I didn’t want to speak so that nobody

would recognize my voice. I didn’t want

to see so that nobody would see me.

Walking, I pressed myself against the wall

like a shadow slipping away.

Neftali Reyes grew up in the small town of Temuco, Chile. His father was an important man who completely dominated his family. Neftali was weak and sickly, and always collecting things –oddly shaped stones, twigs, and even words he liked the sound of, which he wrote on scraps of paper and kept in a drawer. Neftali’s older brother Rodolfo wanted to be a singer, but their father considered any occupation other than businessman or doctor to be a waste of time. He forbid Rodolfo to sing, and even though Rodolfo wasn’t able to stand up for himself, he did try to help Neftali pursue his interests and avoid their father’s wrath. His stepmother and younger sister Laurita provided some much-needed love and affection in Neftali’s life. When his father discovered something Neftali had written and published in the university newspaper, he threw all of the notebooks containing Neftali’s life writings out his bedroom window and then set them on fire. Neftali knew that if he were going to keep writing, he would have to write under another name so his father wouldn’t find out. So he became Pablo Neruda. Ryan’s The Dreamer shows how Neftali’s wonder at the natural world, and his reverence for the beauty of the land and creatures of Chile sustain him through a bleak childhood, and save him from despair. Review by Stacy Church

Winner of the 2011 Pura Belpré Author Award

The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman by Ben H. Winters

2011-01-15T16:20:00.001-05:00

It all started with the special project in Mr. Melville’s class. Everyone liked his special projects –they were always so totally random. The latest special assignment is to find a mystery (any mystery) and solve it. Bethesda Fielding knows right away that the mystery she wants to solve is Ms. Finkleman, the music teacher. Well, not Ms. Finkleman exactly –the mystery of who Ms. Finkleman is outside of Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School. When Bethesda starts asking questions, she finds out that mousy, non-descript Ms. Finkleman is more mysterious than ever. No one knows anything about her. That’s why Bethesda decides she has to snoop in Ms. Finkleman’s desk. She doesn’t find anything helpful, but there is a scrap of paper with some sort of code on it, so Bethesda takes it home. As she ponders the possible meaning, something about it seems familiar. She figures out that the initials stand for titles of songs on an old record of her dad’s, a record of a punk band called Little Miss Mystery and the Red Herrings. Ms. Finkleman must be Miss Mystery! Poor Ms. Finkleman, who has always thought of herself as an agouti (a small shy nervous creature, living in habitats with larger creatures who are always trying to eat them), is about to be outed. This is a hilarious book, with a lot of funny side stories, including the principal’s bets with a rival school’s principal, which always end up with her having to wear something ridiculous like a giant foam sombrero that reads, “Go Grover Cleveland.” When the principal gets wind that her music teacher is really a rock star, she decides this is her one chance to win a competition against Grover Cleveland –the upcoming Choral Corral. She blackmails Ms. Finkleman into putting on a rock concert instead of her planned program of traditional English folk ballads, and mayhem ensues. This book is so well written that I couldn’t stop reading until I finished it! Review by Stacy Church

Sugar and Ice by Kate Messner

2011-01-15T15:38:00.001-05:00

I really enjoyed this new book by the author of another book I liked, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. Snow and Ice tells the story of 7th grader Claire Boucher, who spends her time skating on the frozen pond, teaching skating to younger children and helping her family on their maple farm. Claire loves skating more than anything, and when a talent scout sees her stellar performance in the annual Maple Show, she’s offered a full scholarship to the summer program at Lake Placid, under the tutelage of an intense Russian skating coach. She hates competing –the only time she tried, she missed her performance because she was in the bathroom being sick –and she doesn’t think there’s any way her family can manage getting her there, but when her parents find out about the offer, they’re determined to make it happen for her. What an intense world she finds herself dropped into! Her own coach has always been encouraging, even when Claire makes mistakes, and she’s never been subjected to mean girls who are willing to sabotage their “friends” so they can shine brighter. Claire also didn’t realize how much she would have to give up in order to participate in the program, including her beloved coaching job, and (almost) her friendship with her best friend, Natalie, who she never has time for anymore. This book is a great glimpse into the choices talented kids have to make, whether they’re skaters, soccer players, or musicians. Review by Stacy Church

The Grimm Legacy by Polly Shulman

2011-01-15T14:50:00.001-05:00

What a fantastic idea for a book! Wouldn’t it be great if you could go to a library and check out Snow White’s stepmother’s magic mirror or the Pied Piper’s pipes? Elizabeth has no idea what she’s getting herself into when she accepts a job at the New-York Circulating Material Repository, but she can really use something good in her life. In the opening scene of the book, Elizabeth gives her gym shoes to a homeless woman outside of her school. Now, I don’t know about you, but this is sort of a fairy tale, and it seems to me that good things happen to people in fairy tales who give away their belongings to help someone less fortunate. So when the homeless woman gives her what looks like an ordinary number 2 pencil, I was kind of wondering if there would be more to it than that. Soon after starting work at her new job, Elizabeth starts to hear about a special collection called the Grimm Collection, but no one seems to want to talk about it. And no wonder. It turns out that everything isn’t on the up and up in the Grimm Collection (which you’ve probably guessed contains magical objects from the Grimm brothers’ fairy tales), and some of Elizabeth’s new friends are part of the problem. Eventually Elizabeth finds herself in the middle of a complicated situation involving objects that aren’t as magical as they’re supposed to be, and some that have just plain disappeared. When her coworker Anjali is kidnapped, it’s up to Elizabeth and the other pages to find her and set her free from a magic spell. There are trips on a magic carpet, tea parties with magically refilling dishes, attacks by a giant menacing bird, and rescues by an equally giant dog. Review by Stacy Church

Dear Anjali by Melissa Glenn Haber

2011-01-06T19:37:00.001-05:00

This is the story of 12-year-old Meredith, whose best friend Anjali died suddenly from encephalitis. At Anjali’s funeral, Meredith is really irritated that people keep talking about what Anjali could have done with her life if she hadn’t died so young, when what they really should be doing is appreciating Anjali for who she was, but of course when she tries to put this into words, it just comes out sounding lame. The story is told in the form of letters that Meredith writes to Anjali, one every day, mostly written on her dad’s old typewriter, because “I really have to bludgeon my fingers to pound out the letters and that seems right because it DOES hurt and it SHOULD hurt to have to write the words…” Meredith has a funny way of writing, even when she’s sad, and it really seems like she’s talking to her best friend. I like the way Meredith makes phrases she uses into trademarked sayings by typing ^TM after them: Normal Human Being ^TM, Expert-Ease^TM, Katie “I am a Princess of Perfection^TM” Beals (speaking of her sister). When invited to go to the movies with her crush, Noah Spivak, and her worst enemy, Wendy Mathinson, Meredith writes, “that’s when I told him I had more intriguing plans like being ripped to shreds by dobermans while having rusty spikes nailed into my head.” I was so happy that Meredith hated Wendy as much at the end of the book as she did at the beginning; she was still just as mean as ever. The story takes an interesting turn when Meredith finds out that Anjali wasn’t honest with her about her feelings for Noah Spivak, who Meredith has had a crush on since 5th grade. Anjali always told her Noah was out of her league, and then confessed that she liked him, too, but she never told Meredith that she and Noah actually went to a party together (and at Wendy Mathinson’s house, no less!) and even kissed. Meredith has to somehow reconcile this info with her own growing relationship with Noah. Review by Stacy Church

Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

2010-12-23T18:48:00.001-05:00

“…Devon says you can’t moan or scream or shake your hands up and down or rock or get under a table or spin around over and over in public. Actually you can’t do most things over and over in public because that’s not normal unless it’s something like clapping or laughing but you have to do it only at the right times and places and Devon always tells me. Now I don’t know anymore.” Caitlyn is in fifth grade and she has Asperger’s syndrome. That makes it hard for her to read other people’s emotions (she uses a chart to memorize how a person’s face looks when they’re feeling a certain emotion) or to understand idioms (like “putting herself in someone else’s shoes”). What she’s really good at is drawing, reading, doing things exactly the same way every time (Thursday is pizza night), and remembering rules (“You shouldn’t get in someone’s personal space”). Caitlyn and her dad are trying to find a way to go on after losing her older brother, Devon, in a tragic event. Caitlyn’s mother died years earlier, so it’s just the two of them. The school counselor, Mrs. Brook, becomes Caitlyn’s main source of information about human behavior, advice on how to make friends, and most importantly, how to get closure about Devon’s death. There are many light moments in the book when Caitlyn’s inability to see past the literal meaning of something causes misunderstandings, even with Mrs. Brook. Her many eccentricities are also charming, like her habit of naming gummy worms before eating them. Her descriptions of others’ behavior can be quite funny –“We are at recess and I think Mrs. Brook might have Asperger’s too because she is very persistent which is one of my skills. She is stuck on her Let’s Make Friends idea even though I am making it very clear with my eyes that I am no longer interested in this conversation.” Mockingbird has joined the fairly short list of books I love featuring characters on the autism spectrum: Rules by Cynthia Lord, The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd, and Blue like Friday by Siobhan Parkinson. Review by Stacy Church

Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus

2010-12-23T18:46:00.001-05:00

In 1841, while on a fishing trip to earn food for his family, 14-year-old Manjiro and his crew become stranded on an island off the coast of their home, Japan. With very little to eat and the remaining crew hurt or sick, Manjiro, who has always dreamed of becoming a Samurai, decides to be brave and search the island for help. While on the other side of the island, he spots a giant ship sailing close by, and summoning all his courage, Manjiro swims out to the ship. He is shocked to find that the captain and crew are “blue-eyed barbarians,” the “devils” his countrymen have feared and banned from their shores for the past 250 years. Although the captain is kind, the ship is a whaling ship and the voyage is dangerous and long. Manjiro learns much from the captain and the crew, but he is always torn between the excitement of adventure and the dream of going home. This book is based on the true story of a boy named Manjiro, who had the heart of a Samurai, and who is said to be the first Japanese person to visit the new world. Review by Loretta Eysie

The Lost Children by Carolyn Cohagan

2010-12-23T18:43:00.001-05:00

Josephine’s life with her rich father is very lonely and quiet since her mother died. Her father doesn’t pay any attention to her at all –he doesn’t even speak to her! And to make matters worse, he is responsible for a new town law that says everyone must wear gloves all the time. At school the kids hate Josephine because they hate wearing gloves, so she doesn’t have any friends either. One day while searching the old shed in the back of her huge house, Josephine meets a boy from a different time, but before she can ask him anything, he disappears. Josephine decides to investigate the old shed to see if she can find any clues, and while she is searching, she falls through the shed wall into a dark, scary basement. When she lands on the basement floor, the first thing she hears is someone barking, “No, no that’s all wrong!.....I’m going to throw you down those cellar stairs,” and “you ant brained speck of fly dung! Into the cellar!” Josephine doesn’t know yet that she has landed in a different time zone and a different world –a dangerous world filled with horrible creatures and a more horrible master. Review by Loretta Eysie

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

2010-12-23T18:41:00.001-05:00

Raina was not looking forward to getting braces, but before she could even get started, she fell and badly damaged her front teeth. Middle school isn’t a very supportive place to live through the experience of having her teeth fixed. It’s embarrassing, humiliating, and maddening, not to mention painful. Her “friends” aren’t helpful; in fact they probably hurt her feelings more than help her. This graphic novel, based on the author’s real life experience, is about teeth and friendship –both sometimes painful! Review by Loretta Eysie

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

2010-12-23T18:25:00.001-05:00

This is a story in two voices. First we hear Nya’s voice as she is trudging in the broiling hot African sun to fetch water for her family. The water jug is light going the three hours to the water supply, but very heavy on the way back. Nya does this everyday, twice a day. Water in the Sudan is very hard to find and carry, but without it, no one could live. This isn’t taking place 100 years ago; this is happening in 2008. Next, we hear Salva’s voice. It is 1985 and he’s in school, and like most students, he is waiting for the end of the day so he can go home. Shots ring out, and the teacher tells everyone to run, run into the bush and don’t look back. Soldiers have come to kill the villagers, so Salva runs. He doesn’t know where he is going or if his family is alive, but he runs. Salva’s run takes him far, far from home for many years. In alternating chapters we hear Nya and Salva tell their stories, neither of them knowing that one day they will actually speak to each other, brought together by something we take for granted every day: water. Review by Loretta Eysie

Boom! By Mark Haddon

2010-11-04T18:16:00.001-04:00

This is a story about Jim and Charlie, two curious friends who decide to spy on their teachers by bugging the teachers’ lounge. They unknowingly stumble upon a much bigger mystery than just which student is the biggest troublemaker –they hear Mrs. Pearce and Mr. Kidd speak in a strange secret language! But what does “spudvetch” mean, and why do Mr. Kidd's eyes flicker with fluorescent blue light when Charlie says it to him? Are they bank robbers speaking in code? Perhaps they are aliens, or maybe spies? Whatever they are, Jim and Charlie are determined to find out. So from the moment Jim and Charlie hear their teachers speaking in this strange language and see strange violet lights flash from their eyes and finger tips, things start to go downhill. When Charlie goes missing and an attack is made on Jim and his sister, Jim must use all his wits to save not only his best friend, but the whole world. This is a fun and funny adventure that, as it gathers speed and begins to spin out of control, can only end in one way…. with a boom! Review by Lizzy Healy

The Reinvention of Moxie Roosevelt by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

2010-11-04T18:10:00.001-04:00

SIDE NOTE: “Moxie” used to be a soda beverage that was known for having a powerful kick along with its sweet and bitter taste. The word moxie today derives from the soda name, and refers to someone with energy, pep, courage, determination, or know-how.

Moxie Roosevelt Kipper has one unique name –a name that conjures up a person full of spunk, energy, and zip. But to Moxie, her name is burden and a constant taunt. Moxie doesn’t think she’s spunky, or full of energy and zip; rather, she feels like an ordinary boring thirteen-year-old. But Moxie realizes she may still have time to transform or reinvent herself into an un-ordinary lively girl when she transfers to the all-girls’ boarding school Eaton Academy. Before starting at the new school, she has narrowed down her personality choices to the following:

DUCKI= a Detached, Unique, Coolly Knowing Individual
MEG= Mysterious Earth Goddess
HHSE= Hale and Hearty Sports Enthusiast
ARA= Assertive Revolutionary Activist

Instead of picking one new personality, Moxie opts to mold herself to her audience, adopting a different personality with each of the many different groups of girls at the new academy. She has to keep a logbook just to remember which personality she's been using with whom! But as the story progresses, she finds it increasingly difficult to remember what she has said to whom and which role she needs to fill. It becomes exhausting, and she’s just barely holding it together until she realizes that her journal is missing. She's terrified it might land in the wrong hands. You can probably relate to Moxie –at one time or another we all tend to believe that other people's lives are more exciting than our own, and we want to make ourselves special, too. This book is filled with hilarious misadventures as Moxie embarks on her quest for identity. In the end, she realizes that true friends like you for who you are, and enjoy differences as well as similarities. Review by Lizzy Healy

The Tilting House by Tom Llewellyn

2010-11-04T17:27:00.001-04:00

Josh isn’t happy about his family’s move into a new house, where life becomes strangely unbalanced. First of all, the floors all tilt at precisely 3 degrees, and scribbled notes of mad science cover the walls, ceiling, and floors. But those aren’t the only mysteries: rats talk, pocket knives grow to the size of swords, and walls disappear with the flick of the light switch. Brothers Josh and Aaron and their neighbor Lola try to unlock the secrets of this uneven house, starting with the diary of its original owner, a brilliant but deranged inventor F.T. Tilton. Join the kids as they struggle to solve riddles of mad science, love lost, and bodies buried in this tale full of strange occurrences and crazy hi-jinks, all ultimately connected with the titling house. This story is similar to Neil Gaimen‘s The Graveyard Book –it’s filled with episodic stories that converge in the end. At first Josh and Aaron are none too pleased with their tilting house, but over time, begin to love its strange quirks and its mystery. The episodes involving the talking rats, oversized pocket knives and dogs, and a buried secret treasure make for amusing anecdotes. Who wouldn’t want to have an adventure while solving the mysteries of your strange, but pretty cool, house? Review by Lizzy Healy

Seaglass Summer by Anjali Banarjee

2010-10-31T15:55:00.001-04:00

For as long as Poppy can remember, her parents have taken her to India each summer to visit her grandparents, but this year, Poppy has convinced them to let her spend the summer with her uncle on an island off the Washington coast instead. This vacation will be different. Poppy wants to become a veterinarian, so she has saved up enough money to buy her own professional veterinarian’s kit, which includes a stethoscope and a bendable thermometer. Poppy’s Uncle Sanjay owns “Furry Friends Animal Clinic, and as she rides the ferry to visit him on Nisqually Island, she can imagine herself assisting him in savings animals’ lives. With Poppy, we gain insight into the challenges and joys of working with animals. Yes, there are the tender moments of attending newborn puppies at the clinic, but there also are the tough moments when medical emergencies arise. Sometimes it’s hard to deal with irrational pet owners who don’t want to cooperate. This is a delightful, fast-moving summer story. Anjali Banerjee has us laughing and crying with Poppy as she struggles to follow her dream of becoming a veterinarian to save the animals of the world. Review by Trudy Walsh

We the Children by Andrew Clements

2010-10-10T16:18:00.001-04:00

This is the first book in Andrew Clements’s funny, engaging new series, Benjamin Pratt and the Keepers of the School. When the school custodian has a heart attack, he begs Ben to take his special golden coin and use it to make sure nothing happens to their school, The Seaside Oaks Middle School. The school, which was donated in 1793 by an old sea captain, is in danger of being torn down to make way for an amusement park. How can Ben, who is just a kid, save a school that has just been sold in a 30 million dollar real estate deal? You can always count on Andrew Clements to deliver a terrific story, and We the Children doesn’t disappoint. Review by Joyce Levine

Bulu: African Wonder Dog by Dick Houston

2010-10-07T20:21:00.001-04:00

Have you ever longed for an exciting adventure in your life? Steve and Anna Tolan are police officers in England who dream of a life filled with adventure in the African bush. Since they are both intelligent and practical people, they fear this dream will never be fulfilled, so every year they save their money to vacation in Africa. When Steve has an accident and can’t work for the police force any more, the couple sells all their belongings and moves to Zambia. Anna has to leave her 15-year-old dog, Marly, behind with her parents. She is determined to get a dog again, even though everybody tells her that pets don’t survive in the African bush because of all the wild animals running free. A friend brings news that there are puppies for sale at the old Crocodile farm. The only one left is the runt of the litter. Anna makes up her mind to give the very small, quiet puppy a home, and names him Bulu, meaning “Wild Dog.” Much to the surprise of everyone, Bulu develops into an amazing dog. He not only finds his voice and bravely protects his family, but he is also very gentle. He becomes a loving foster parent to the orphaned baby animals rescued by the Tolans. This is a beautifully-written exciting adventure story set in the African bush –a true story about Bulu, a special dog with unique spirit and gifts of love, compassion and bravery. Review by Trudy Walsh

Shug by Jenny Han

2010-10-02T15:36:00.001-04:00

Annemarie Wilcox is twelve years old. Her family has called her “Shug” ever since she was a baby. Her Mama used to say to her, “You’re my sweet Shug, my little bowl of sugar.” Annemarie doesn’t feel “sweet” anymore. Now that she has started junior high school, everything is changing around her, and she doesn’t like it one bit. It upsets her that Mark, her best friend since they were five years old, would rather spend his time with the boys in her class. Shug is noticing that all of a sudden she has feelings for Mark that she didn’t have before. How can she get Mark to look at her, really “look” at her and notice her? This is a wonderful book about a young girl growing up and dealing with the changes in her body and in her emotions. As the story unfolds, we experience with Shug the passions and the pain of first love. Annemarie Wilcox is a delightful twelve year old to get to know, in Shug by Jenny Han. Review by Trudy Walsh

Word after Word after Word by Patricia MacLachlan

2010-09-30T19:53:00.001-04:00

In this slim book Word after Word after Word, Newbery award winner Patricia MacLachlan introduces us to an inspiring author who is visiting a fourth grade class. The children become aware of the power of words through the author’s unique approach to teaching about creative writing, They are invited to experiment and even play with words. As the children start the writing process, they discover that words can describe a place, transport us back or forward in time, and introduce us to interesting characters. Patricia MacLachlan tells us that her book Word after Word after Word is somewhat biographical. We certainly gain in insight into this author’s gift of choosing just the right words to express emotions, thoughts, truth and wisdom. Word after Word after Word is a fast read, yet this small book opens up whole new worlds through the amazing power of words. We gain an insight into how this author chooses her words so effectively. Review by Trudy Walsh

The Song of the Whales by Uri Orlev

2010-09-27T10:12:00.001-04:00

Can dreams come true? Can they predict the future? Can dreams transport us back to past lives? Michael never thought much about dreams while he was growing up in Port Washington, a small town on Long Island Sound in New York. When his family moves to Jerusalem to be near his elderly grandfather, Michael is surprised to find out how much they have in common. There is a special bond between grandson and grandfather. Michael is looking forward to getting to know his grandfather more and more. Michael’s parents, however, worry that he spends too much time with the elderly man and not enough time with friends his own age. Michael doesn’t care about meeting kids. He is fascinated by the antiques in his grandfather’s house. As Michael shares his love of old things with his grandpa, his grandpa shares his special interest in dreams with Michael. Together they discover that they have the power to be in each other’s dreams. Grandpa realizes that Michael has “the gift,” and that’s when Grandpa begins to teach Michael how to make other people’s dreams more pleasant. Michael gladly becomes Grandpa’s apprentice. Together they have some amazing experiences through their synchronized dreams, where time and space become warped. The Song of Whales takes you on a fantastic trip, where the lines of reality and dreams are blurred. This story will continue to stay in your mind long after you’ve closed the book. Review by Trudy Walsh

Come Fall by A.C.E. Bauer

2010-09-23T18:40:00.001-04:00

I have to confess, I was pretty disappointed with this book. The main story is well-written enough, but the interspersing of the faeries’ story is very confusing even if you know the story of Puck, King Oberon and Queen Titania, which I doubt most kids do. Salman Page is a new kid yet again, trying to stay under the radar so that no one will find out his situation: that he lives in a foster home with abusive foster parents. Lu Zimmer is assigned to be his d.b., or designated buddy, and she just won’t leave him alone. She’s determined to prove what a good d.b. she is, and Salman finds himself drawn to her, despite his intentions to remain a loner. So far so good, but Salman has a crow for a friend, the crow is really Puck, who has been ordered by both the queen and king of the faeries to keep tabs on Salman for very different reasons. The language of the book seems younger to me than the subject matter, and that combined with the confusing nature of the faery part of the story make this a hard book to recommend. Review by Stacy Church

Best Friends Forever: A World War II Scrapbook by Beverly Patt

2010-09-23T18:26:00.001-04:00

I love everything about this book. The layout, illustrations and handwritten text really make you feel like you’re reading someone’s scrapbook, and the characters and story are so engaging that once I started reading I couldn’t put it down. Louise Margaret Krueger, age 14, vows to keep a scrapbook to share with her best friend, Dottie Masuoka, also 14, when Dottie and her family are allowed to return home after being interned with all the other Japanese-Americans during WW II. The scrapbook begins on April 24, 1942, and continues until January 10, 1943. Included are letters to Dottie from Louise, Louise’s letters to Dottie, and memorabilia that Louise has taped into the scrapbook, things like a newspaper clipping about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the incident that led to the “evacuation” of Japanese-Americans to camps, the handbill instructing all persons of Japanese ancestry to report for evacuation, and the note that someone threw through the Kruegers front window “Go back to Germany Nazis.” The book really gives a good picture of the history of the time period, and Louise’s affection for her friend and contempt for the cowardly way her family is treated make the book a wonderful read. Review by Stacy Church

Crossing the Wire by Will Hobbs

2010-08-21T11:11:00.001-04:00

In the summer of 2010, the state of Arizona passed a law that requires police to check the identification papers of anybody they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. In Crossing the Wire, we read about such an illegal immigrant. Victor is a fifteen-year-old boy who tries hard to make a living for his family on a mountain farm in Central Mexico. His father has died, and Victor takes care of his mother and younger siblings. Everything had been working out well until the time came when he couldn’t sell his corn. In a desperate attempt to save his family from starvation, Victor heads north to cross into the United States, in Arizona, to find a job and send money back home. On his journey north, Victor faces many challenges, including traveling through freezing cold and scorching hot landscapes. The people who offer Victor a helping hand are not always trustworthy. How will Victor find a way to cross the border safely and not be caught or attacked, or worse, be sent back to Mexico? Will Hobbs has written an action-packed adventure story of one brave young man’s struggle to “cross the wire” into the land of freedom and opportunity. Review by Trudy Walsh

Star in the Forest by Laura Resau

2010-08-21T11:07:00.001-04:00

Zitlally is eleven years old and lives with her family in a trailer park. After her father gets deported to Mexico because he does not have the proper papers, life changes drastically for Zitlally. To get away from all the family worries, Zitlally escapes into the forest surrounding the trailer park. Near an old-abandoned car she finds a dog in need. Zitlally befriends the dog, which she names Star, and starts to feed him and take care of him. Deep down, Zitlally believes that Star is a magic dog sent to her to be taken care of. She believes that Star’s life, somehow, is tied to her father’s life. If she can nurse Star back to health, she is sure her father will return. Star in the Forest is a beautifully-written story about a young Mexican girl growing up in Colorado, whose family is caught up in the newly-enforced immigration laws. Review by Trudy Walsh

Emma Dilemma, the Nanny, and the Secret Ferret by Patricia Hermes

2010-08-21T11:06:00.001-04:00

Emma and her family are ready to head north to Maine for their summer vacation. The cars are loaded, but before the family can leave, everybody has to line up for the traditional “before vacation photo.” There will be an “after vacation photo” taken also at the end of the summer, when everyone will look tanned, relaxed, and happy. As the family cars are ready to drive off, Emma has one more emergency stop to make in the house. She quickly stuffs something into her backpack and is finally ready to leave for Maine. Without telling her parents, Emma has secretly stuffed her pet ferret into her backpack. This is a wonderful summer vacation story with many humorous incidents, as Emma tries to hide her pet ferret as long as possible. Review by Trudy Walsh

This Means War! by Ellen Wittlinger

2010-07-29T19:44:00.001-04:00

This is a great little book. By little, I mean it’s a quick read, not that it’s little in terms of ideas, story or characters. There comes a time in some kids’ lives when their relationships with kids of the opposite sex become not quite so easy. Or downright hostile, in Julie’s case. She and Lowell have been best friends forever, but now that he is friends with the new kids, twins Mike and Tommy, he treats Julie like she has cooties. And it couldn’t happen at a worse time. It’s 1962 and Julie is afraid that America is going to go to war with Russia over Cuba, and that Russia will fire missiles at us, which, since she lives near a big air base, puts her and her family in danger. Some kids’ families have even built fallout shelters. Then a new girl, Patsy, moves to the neighborhood. At first, she helps take Julie’s mind off of things, but then Patsy gets into a battle with an older boy in the neighborhood, and suddenly Julie is dragged into a series of challenges to prove who is better –boys or girls, and it isn’t long before things get dangerous. I’ll just warn you: there are some serious consequences to the things the kids get involved in, but don’t let it stop you from reading the book. You can’t help rooting for Julie to overcome her fear of how out of control the world seems to her. Review by Stacy Church

How I, Nicky Flynn, Finally Get a Life (and a Dog) by Art Corriveau

2010-07-29T19:04:00.001-04:00

Life has been treating Nicky pretty unfairly lately. He had to move with his mom from their really nice house in a suburb outside of Boston to a tiny, run-down apartment in Charlestown. His mom works all the time now, and never seems to have the energy to make dinner. She also drinks too much wine and watches too much TV. Then instead of bringing home groceries, she brings home an 80-pound German shepherd named Reggie. Nicky doesn’t even want a dog. He tries to make her take him back, but his mom is determined to keep him. As Nicky gets attached to Reggie, he becomes obsessed with finding out who his former owner was and why he was given up for adoption. Nicky’s obsession leads him to explore his new neighborhood and make some new friends. Unfortunately, he lies to the new people he meets, pretending to be Reggie’s previous owner’s grandson in order to get information from them, and of course, in the end, he tells too many lies to get away with. Nicky’s mom makes him go to a therapist to deal with his feelings about the divorce, and Nicky refuses to talk to him. I’ve never heard of a therapist treating a parent for 1/2 an hour and a kid for the other 1/2 hour, and it doesn’t seem realistic that Nicky’s mom expects the dog to eat human food because she refuses to buy more than one can of food at a time. I hate how Nicky endangers Reggie’s life by dragging him into his own drama, but I guess it could happen. All in all, I enjoyed reading about Nicky and Reggie, but the book was far from perfect. Review by Stacy Church

Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell

2010-07-29T18:32:00.001-04:00

This book is a hilarious account of what happens when a nice, normal 13-year-old girl is forced to spend her summer at Camp Frontier having an authentic 1890’s pioneer experience instead of doing the kinds of things most 13-year-old girls in America do in the summer. You know, there’s a reason why society has progressed, and the reason is that life in the 1890’s wasn’t all that great: no indoor plumbing, no screens on your windows, no heat for cooking or bathing unless you cut and haul wood…I could go on and on. At first I was too afraid that the snarky heroine of the book, Genevieve, was going to end up getting all mushy about how changed she was from the experience to really enjoy how funny the writing is. Of course that is kind of what happens in the end, but not before Gen gets in a lot of digs at the owners of the camp, their nasty daughter Nora, and frontier life in general. Even though campers are supposed to surrender all their personal belongings when they arrive at the camp, Gen makes enough of a fuss that her mom insists they let her keep her tube of Clearasil, in which she has hidden the new cell phone her mom promised her in exchange for her giving in gracefully (relatively gracefully, anyway) about the vacation. When Gen starts feeling the pain of frontier life, she takes the phone out to the fields and texts some very funny messages to her friends back home. What she doesn’t know is that her friends turn them into a blog, and before they know it, there are lots of people reading about Gen’s adventures on the frontier: “Week 1 – Monday 11:16 am I am standing in the middle of a cornfield. I am holding a hoe. As my mom said when we were setting off to work in the field, we are farmers now.” “Week 1 – Monday 11:17 am Here’s the thing: being a farmer is BORING. I am halfway down one row, there are ten rows to go, and it’s already taken TWO HOURS.” “Week 1 – Monday 1:24 pm You know what’s worse than being caught by your little brother singing “Beat It” at the top of your lungs while you do a little corn-weeding dance? Having him follow you down the row singing, “Showin’ how funky and strong is your fight. It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right,” doing a little dance of his own, and stopping only to say, ‘Come on, Gen, you know you’re feeling it.’ All morning long.” There’s some romance and intrigue along the way, too. Review by Stacy Church

Palace Beautiful by Sarah DeFord Williams

2010-06-03T20:42:00.001-04:00

“’My name is Sadie Evelyn Brooks. I’m thirteen years old and practically a woman. I love painting, Frosty Cocoa Flakes cereal and my family. I hate stomachaches, spiders and saying good-bye. July 5, 1985.’ That’s what I wrote on the inside of my bathroom cabinet just before we hopped in the car to leave Texas for good. That way, even if it was just in the bathroom, I’d always be a part of the story of the house where I used to live.” What a great beginning! Soon after Sadie moves into her new house, she finds what a previous resident left behind: the words “Palace Beautiful” handpainted over the doorway of a tiny room in the attic, and inside the room, an diary from 1918 written by Helen White. Sadie, her sister Zuzu, and their new friend Bella limit their reading of the diary to 3 entries at a time to make it last longer, and they become determined to find out what happened to Helen White after the terrible flu epidemic killed most of her family. Although some of the story elements seemed a little over the top (the names Sadie gives to colors, like Judgment-Day White and Sugar-Punch Pink), I really enjoyed the characters, and the way the two stories paralleled each other. Review by Stacy Church

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

2010-04-28T11:16:00.001-04:00

Deep in rural China, a young girl named Minli lives with her parents in a gray, mud-covered village at the foot of Fruitless Mountain. The mountain is barren now, and the people in the village are poor. Minli’s father tells her stories of ancient China and of a time when the people were rich and prosperous. Minli believes the magic stories and sets out on a journey to bring back wealth and happiness to her family and her village. On her quest she meets a dragon who cannot fly. They become good friends, and together they make their way through dangerous forests and cities to find the Old Man of the Moon, who is the Guardian of the Book of Fortune. Minli believes that the Old Man of the Moon has the power to help the dragon fly, as a proper dragon should, and to grant her own wish for wealth and good luck for her family. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is a fast-paced, magical story that will take you on a fantastic journey of adventure through ancient China. Review by Trudy Walsh

The Dog in the Wood by Monika Schröder

2010-04-22T19:09:00.002-04:00

This book takes place in April, 1945, right at the end of World War II, in eastern Germany. 10-year-old Fritz lives with his mother, older sister, grandmother, and grandfather (who is a Nazi sympathizer). There is a lot of uncertainty as the Soviet army gets closer to their town. Some people look forward to their coming, but Fritz’s family situation is a little different, and after the announcement comes of Hitler’s death, his grandparents kill themselves. Things get even worse: after the Russians take over, their farm is taken away, and they have to leave to go live with his other grandmother, someone Fritz has never warmed up to. At least Lech, the Polish farmhand who has been like a second father to Fritz, comes along with them. Fritz learns the difference between a friend who cares more about himself (his childhood best friend Paul pulls Fritz in front of him when a drunken Russian soldier points a gun at them) and a true friend like his new friend Konrad, who borrows a bicycle for Fritz to use to try to track down his mother and Lech after they are taken prisoner by the Russians. This is a sad book, and there is no happy ending, but Fritz learns to rely on the people who really care about him, and how to stand up for what he believes in. Review by Stacy Church

The Homeschool Liberation League by Lucy Frank

2010-04-22T18:54:00.001-04:00

I didn’t expect too much from this book when I started it, but after reading for a while, I realized there was a lot more to it than I thought there would be. Katya can’t stand the prospect of starting school again. Mostly she just can’t face another mind-numbing year. She spent the summer going to a wilderness camp where she learned all kinds of interesting things about nature –how to forage for edible plants, how to identify alien invasive plant species. She also doesn’t like the person she becomes when she’s at school –she still cringes when she remembers the essay she wrote about their principal, Mr. Westenburg, and his supposed affair with his secretary, Ms. Pinchbeck, which her friend Danny read over the PA. “At camp there was no need for me to start trouble. At camp I didn’t worry if I was good enough or too good, not perfect enough or too perfect for anyone to like me.” Katya is so freaked out on the first day of school that she runs away –from school, that is. She puts together a presentation to convince her parents to homeschool her. They are completely against the idea, until they go with her to the principal’s office and realize that they don’t like his attitude very much. Against their better judgment, they decide to give it a try. There are some interesting side stories and characters, like old Mr. Horton who comes in to Katya’s mother’s salon for pedicures because he’s diabetic and needs her to check his feet for sores. It turns out that he is an amateur naturalist and he helps Katya rescue a beaver she finds trapped under a log. There’s even a romantic interest –Milo, a violin prodigy she hears playing in a field near her house one day, who turns out to be homeschooled, too. Review by Stacy Church

The Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne

2010-04-22T18:20:00.001-04:00

I really enjoyed reading this book! It’s hard to imagine a situation more embarrassing than the one Hamlet Kennedy has to face as she’s starting 8th grade. First of all there’s her name. Then there’s the fact that not only are her parents Shakespearean scholars at the local college, they also dress in Shakespearean clothing (complete with capes with bells in her mother’s case, and tights in her father’s) and speak only Shakespearean English (no contractions allowed). These are things that Hamlet has dealt with her whole life, although heading into 8th grade they seem a little worse than when she was younger. The thing that really pushes the envelope is that Hamlet’s younger sister, Desdemona, who is a certifiable genius at the age of 7 (IQ over 200), will only be allowed to enter college if she takes arts classes for credit at the local middle school. That’s right, the same middle school where Hamlet goes. Luckily Hamlet has a really great circle of friends who already know all about her strange home life. Unluckily there are a couple of mean girls who quickly decide to make Desdemona their pet so they can cheat from her. One of the things I like about the book is that the author avoids turning Hamlet into an angry character who refuses to acknowledge her family in public. Even when she is pretty angry at the way Desdemona is acting, she feels too much sympathy for her as a really out-of-place under-aged kid at school to really take it out on her. By the end, Hamlet and Desdemona team up to get revenge on the mean girls. Review by Stacy Church

Watching Jimmy by Nancy Hartry

2010-04-14T12:17:00.001-04:00

I love Carolyn, the main character of Watching Jimmy. She feels a lot of regret about what happened to her best friend Jimmy. She thinks she should have yelled at her Aunt Jean not to leave them alone with her brother, Uncle Ted, or that she could have run faster when Uncle Ted went zooming off down the street with Jimmy sprawled out across the trunk of his fancy car, or maybe if she had screamed, someone would have come and stopped the awful thing that happened next. The worst thing is that Uncle Ted told everyone Jimmy fell off a swing at the park and that he tried to wake him up and then carried him to his car to get help. Carolyn knows it won’t do any good to tell, so she tries to protect Jimmy as best she can after he comes home from the hospital. She never leaves him alone with Uncle Ted, and she coerces Uncle Ted into helping Aunt Jean by threatening him in a way that only he will understand. Carolyn has her own troubles, but she knows they’re nothing compared to Aunt Jean’s: Ted claims ownership of her house and says she’ll have to move out; Jimmy could have surgery to help with his brain injury but there’s no money to pay for it; and she has the great sadness of having lost her older son in the war. Carolyn has a couple of talents. She has a beautiful singing voice (but she’s careful not to let anyone hear her), and she’s a moving public speaker (which she’s not shy about showing off at all). This is a story where good triumphs in the end, even though things can never go back to the way they used to be. Warning: there is some language that might be considered offensive. Review by Stacy Church

Listen! by Stephanie S. Tolan

2010-04-10T14:33:00.001-04:00

Do you think that it is possible to telepathically communicate with a dog? Do you think that you can mentally become aware of what your dog is experiencing at a particular moment in time? This amazing book will show you how it can be done! In Listen! we meet Charley, who is home for the summer recuperating from a car accident. Her house is on Eagle Lake, where she walks daily to get her strength back and fight her pain. One day she spots a wild dog in the woods. Instantly she connects with him, but when she blinks and looks again, the dog has disappeared. Yet the vision of the day stays with Charley. Over the summer, as she realizes that the dog, who she has named “Coyote,” needs help, Charley works out a plan to rescue him and pursues it fervently. If you think that Charley’s plans to rescue “Coyote” are too fantastic and impossible to achieve, then read the author’s “EXTRAS” at the end of the book. Stephanie S. Tolan’s photos of the real “Coyote” and her testimony on how she rescued him verify everything in the beautifully written book Listen! Review by Trudy Walsh

Sylvie and the Songman by Tim Binding

2010-04-07T15:55:00.001-04:00

What a fabulous book! Chapter One starts with poor Sylvie trying to memorize the famous Willliam Blake poem “Tyger”

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,/In the forest of the night:/What immortal hand or eye,/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

“The first lines of the poem seemed straightforward enough, the tiger with his bright shining eyes prowling through the jungle, but she couldn’t get her head round the second half too well. Immortal hand –what did that mean? And symmetry? She’d never even heard of the word. But despite it all, it did make a sort of sense, this fabulous beast with its great rippling body and huge padded paws.” And speaking of symmetry, the book begins and ends with the tyger/tiger. Sylvie’s life is on a trajectory to bring her into direct opposition to the Songman, who plans to take over the world and gain dominance over all animals –and eventually humans too –by taking away their voices. There’s only one animal that’s been able to resist his control, and guess what it is? The tiger. Sylvie’s father is a composer who also invents bizarre instruments for his compositions: the Furroughla, the Shinglechord, the Featherblow, and one night when Sylvie is helping him practice, something bizarre happens. The instruments sort of take on a life of their own, creating a huge, booming vibration, which causes sort of a seismic shift in the world. The Songman is instantly aware of what has happened, and the next day he kidnaps Sylvie’s dad to make him tell the secret. The book is about music –the power of music to transform our lives (just look how the Songman entrances Sylvie by singing her own song to her, the song of her life, that is so sweet that she will give up almost anything to hear it again). It’s also about animals and how important they are to our lives. Sylvie loves her old dog, Mr. Jackson, and after a fox (who is actually supposed to help her save the world from the Songman) bites her, she can hear his voice (“seeyoulaterMrJackson seeyoulater Who‘salovelyboythen who’salovelyboy”). This is a classic good vs evil story, and though you can count on good to triumph in the end, there’s plenty of excitement along the way. Review by Stacy Church

The Crimson Cap by Ellen Howard

2010-04-01T19:38:00.001-04:00

I’m not usually a fan of this type of historical fiction, but I found The Crimson Cap really interesting. I didn’t know anything about the time period (1687) or the setting (LaSalle’s expedition to find the Mississippi River and the route to New France), but I got hooked into the story pretty quickly because Pierre Talon is such a great character. He is only a boy when he is chosen (because of his ability to learn Native American languages quickly) to accompany LaSalle’s expedition, and he must leave his mother and siblings behind. He is afraid, but feels a heavy responsibility because his father has run off and left the family to fend for itself. The settlers are starving, and LaSalle is going to try to find help. Pierre makes friends with a slightly older boy along the way, and has to contend with some pretty horrible behavior from some of the men on the expedition. When LaSalle is killed by his own men, and Pierre falls ill, he is taken in by the Hosinai and nursed back to health. He has to choose several times between the Native Americans who have adopted him and Europeans who haven’t all treated him very well. The story is realistic, and makes the point that your enemies are those who don’t treat your own people well. They’re not necessarily good or evil. Review by Stacy Church

Hannah’s Winter by Kierin Meehan

2010-04-01T19:15:00.001-04:00

Hannah’s mother has an irritating habit of speaking in capital letters, which is pretty funny (“Living in Japan will be a WONDERFUL experience for you.”) Hannah can speak and understand some Japanese from when she lived in Japan as a toddler, but she doesn’t read or write it well, so her mother sees her upcoming trip to Japan to research her next book –Surprising Japanese Gardeners (which Hannah says should be called Surprised Japanese Gardeners because they’d be very surprised after they’d met her and seen her bright purple hair) –as the perfect opportunity for Hannah to learn at least 1,000 kanji. Hannah is to stay with the Maekawas, who have a daughter, Miki, about her age. Miki and Hannah turn out to be well matched, especially when it comes to solving the mystery of an ancient riddle that turns up in an antique box that was a gift to Mr. Maekawa. The riddle leads to some pretty alarming meetings with a ghost/spirit who turns out to be a mischievous boy, and some more alarming meetings with various spirits trying to prevent them from helping the boy, who they nickname “Ocean Boy.” Hannah’s Winter will give you a real sense of Japanese culture, both modern and ancient, and the mystery is fun, too. Review by Stacy Church

The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. by Kate Messner

2010-04-01T18:48:00.001-04:00

Gianna Z. is good at a lot of things: helping her grandmother find where she left her false teeth (in the vegetable crisper), posting the fastest times at cross-country meets, figuring out what dogs people would be if they were dogs (the mean girls at school –pit bull/bloodhound mix), dreaming up really cool art projects. Unfortunately, she isn’t good at deadlines or schoolwork. She especially has trouble with big projects with lots of little deadlines. It doesn’t usually get her down, but now her science grade might stand in the way of her running in the cross-country sectionals, and it doesn’t help that the mean girls break into her gym locker and trash the part of her project she has finished. As if that’s not bad enough, Gianna’s beloved Nonna seems to be slipping away from her, and her mom is too caught up in her busy schedule to even show up at Nonna’s doctor appointment. Luckily she has a great best friend, Zig, who seems to always understand what she needs help with. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Gianna’s dad is a mortician and sometimes has to drop her off at school in the hearse. Great fodder for the mean girls. I absolutely love this book. It’s my favorite combination of funny and sad. Review by Stacy Church

Mirrorscape by Mike Wilks

2010-03-25T20:09:00.001-04:00

Here are the things I like about this book:

1. Great beginning: “It should have been darker than the darkest night, as black as Indian ink. But it was not.”

2. Lots of (sometimes gory) action, including kidnapping, torture, maiming and murder

3. Wonderful imaginative premise: The world is ruled by five “Mysteries,” each of which has dominion over one of the senses. For instance, the First Mystery controls the sense of touch and controls the production of cloth and tailoring, among other things. If someone wants to develop a new type of cloth, they have to pay the First Mystery for something called a “Pleasure.” The Mysteries, which originally were a way of regulating trade and guaranteeing quality, have become corrupt, only interested in profit, not value. Everyone lives in fear of being imprisoned and sent to the mines for running afoul of one of the Mysteries. The book is all about the Fifth Mystery, which is the most powerful. It controls the use of color.

4. It’s all about the world of art. Mel loves to draw more than anything, and apparently he’s very talented at it. So talented that the most famous artist in the land sends his most trusted minion to get Mel to come be one of his apprentices. Unfortunately, he lands right in the middle of a lot of intrigue and the aforementioned kidnapping, torture and murder.

Here are the things I didn’t like so much about the book:

1. Too many battles in the world-within-the-paintings. At first it was really cool, and the imaginary creatures were fun, but after a while it got tiresome. It seemed that one struggle would just barely be over and a new one would start.

Review by Stacy Church

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

2010-03-23T12:20:00.002-04:00

I love the beginning of this book, where Melody talks about words and how she loves them. It’s not until the end of the first chapter that you find out what words really mean to her: “I have no idea how I untangled the complicated process of words and thought, but it happened quickly and naturally. By the time I was two, all my memories had words, and all my words had meanings. But only in my head. I have never spoken one single word. I am almost eleven years old.” Melody has cerebral palsy. She’s unable to move voluntarily (except for her thumbs), although she sometimes moves in a jerky, spastic way, especially if she’s upset or excited. She can’t really communicate, but there’s plenty going on inside her head. Luckily her parents always believed in her intelligence, and her neighbor Mrs. Valencia, who has been babysitting her since she was born, has pushed her to try and do what she can for herself. School, though, has been terrible up until fifth grade, which is when the story takes place. Now there are some inclusion classes, there’s a special ed teacher who believes her students are capable of learning, and Melody gets her own aide, Christine, a college student. Things really start to look up for her when she gets a computer that can talk for her. Melody is alternately ignored and made fun of at school, and it’s not until the tryouts for the Whiz Kids quiz team that the other kids (and the teacher) are forced to recognize that maybe she isn’t an idiot after all. Melody, with her computer to help her communicate, gets all the questions right. The ending is good, because it’s not too pat. Review by Stacy Church

The Giant-Slayer by Iain Lawrence

2010-03-17T19:43:00.001-04:00

The Giant-Slayer is really two stories in one. The main story tells about a girl growing up in 1955, before the polio vaccine was discovered and many kids were being stricken with the illness. Because polio affects the muscles of the body, it also affects one’s ability to breathe normally. The solution in 1955 was to put the afflicted in an “iron lung,” a machine that completely encased the body and worked like a bellows to force air in and out of the patient’s lungs. Laurie is a lonely little girl whose mother is dead and whose father works for the foundation that is raising money to fund polio research. She spends her days with a housekeeper, Mrs. Strawberry, who has old-fashioned ideas about how to keep Laurie from catching polio, which means she isn’t allowed to go anywhere during the summer where other children congregate, especially if there’s water involved. Laurie has never really had a friend, but then Dickie moves into her neighborhood. Everything is going great, until Dickie comes down with polio. Laurie goes to visit him in the polio ward, even though her father and Mrs. Strawberry have forbidden her to. There are 2 other kids in iron lungs, too, and Dickie convinces her to tell them a story, just like they used to tell each other before he was in the hospital. So she starts what is the second story in the book. To be honest, at first I had trouble getting into the giant-slayer story that Laurie tells, but once I could keep the characters straight I enjoyed it. The style of the writing seems a little young compared to the content, which is pretty sad and upsetting, but I got used to it and ended up really liking the book. Review by Stacy Church

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

2010-03-11T18:54:00.001-05:00

I’m embarrassed to say that I just got around to reading this year’s Newbery winner. What an unusual book! I will just tell you that I am not happy with the ending though. Calpurnia Tate is unlucky enough to be growing up during a time (1899) when young ladies are expected to be interested in all the things that will make them good wives and mothers: cooking, sewing, knitting, darning; and not the things that will make them good scientists: evolution, the natural world, the scientific method and how to distill whiskey from pecans. Calpurnia is the only girl in a family of 6 boys, and during the summer just before she turns 12, just as she discovers that the grandfather she’s always been so afraid of is a home-grown scientist who welcomes her company and help in his scientific endeavors, her mother decides that it’s time for her to really buckle down and learn the arts of housewifery. Most of the book moves along happily enough, with entertaining tales of her exploits with her grandfather and funny stories about her brothers, but as I got closer to the end I kept waiting for the moment when Calpurnia would be saved from the life that was expected of her. She bravely asks her oldest brother if he will help her if she wants to go to university, and asks her grandfather if women can’t be scientists too, but it’s pretty clear that although you, the reader, can hope for a different outcome, it isn’t very likely. And for a character that I grew so fond of, that’s not a satisfactory ending for me. Review by Stacy Church

Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur

2010-03-04T19:04:00.002-05:00

“It’d been a good three days: crackers and cheese for breakfast, TV; crackers and cheese for lunch, TV; crackers and cheese for dinner, TV, bed. Nothing to think about but TV and cheese. A perfect world. Then I ran out of cheese.”

Like most children in her situation(if books are to be believed), Aubrey covers for her mother after she disappears. She doesn’t tell anyone that she’s all alone, she doesn’t answer the phone, and she doesn’t answer the door. When she runs out of cheese, she takes the money she got for her birthday and goes to the store, buying only the important things, like SpaghettiOs with meatballs, Cheerios, bread, some vegetables, and a pet fish. The aloneness doesn’t last long. Aubrey’s grandmother is worried and comes down to Virginia from Vermont on the train (and she hates to travel!), and when she understands that her daughter Lissie has gone off and left Aubrey alone, she takes her back to Vermont with her while she tries to find her. The story just gets better from here. Aubrey doesn’t want to give in and be happy, but Gram is too good at getting her to cooperate for her to fight it for long. Also, she becomes instant friends with the girl next-door, Bridget. Aubrey bottle up her feelings inside (this may be why she feels sick to her stomach so often) and really only lets them out in letters she writes to her younger sister’ imaginary friend. The author only gradually lets the reader in on the back story –what happened to the rest of Aubrey’s family. In the end, Aubrey has to make a difficult choice: whether to go back to Virginia with her mother, or to stay on in Vermont for a little bit longer. Review by Stacy Church

Back Home by Julia Keller

2010-03-03T17:19:00.001-05:00

Back Home is the story of what happens to one girl’s life when her dad returns from the war in Iraq with sever injuries: he’s lost an arm and a leg and suffered a traumatic brain injury. Rachel is 13, her sister Marcy is 8 and their little brother Rob is 4. Their mom is the kind of parent who doesn’t keep secrets from her kids, even though she tends to give speeches, “My mother…is one of those people who believes she can get out ahead of things –bad things, I mean –by preparing everybody in advance, by speaking slowly and carefully about the sadness or confusion or frustration you’re about to feel.” Rachel feels that she can’t ask silly questions like her little sister, but she wonders how much of a person needs to be intact to make you still the same person as before. At first, her dad doesn’t seem to really be there at all. Not only does he not communicate, but he doesn’t respond to things going on around him. The hospital said he should be able to do things for himself (like take care of his “personal needs”), but he doesn’t seem to want to. Then Rachel realizes: “It’s not that Dad didn’t want to do things. It’s that the part of his brain that told him to do things was one of the parts that was injured. So what looked like laziness wasn’t laziness at all. When it looked like he just didn’t care, it wasn’t that he didn’t care. Caring, it turns out, comes from your brain. I know that’s a strange way to think about it, but it’s true: caring comes from your brain. The part of my father that wanted to do things wasn’t there anymore.” This is a beautifully told story, and even though the ending might not be what you hope it will be, it is certainly realistic. Review by Stacy Church

The Case of The Case of Mistaken Identity by Mac Barnett

2010-03-03T10:46:00.001-05:00

In this first book of the new “Brixton Brothers” series, Steve Brixton dreams of becoming a famous detective…until he discovers that he already is one! When he is given a boring homework assignment requiring him to research the history of quilting, he heads to the library to find some books. It is there that his adventures begin, as he is surrounded by librarians who are actually CIA agents, and becomes immersed in a search to find a long-hidden quilt. Along the way, he tries to use the “detective work” tips he’s picked up from reading his favorite mystery novels, but the tips just don’t seem to work in his favor. When I picked up this book, I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. This book is a laugh-out-loud kind of story, and the references to the old-fashioned mystery novels that Steve loves to read are hysterical. The illustrations add so much to the humor of the story, and I am looking forward to the next book in this series! Detecting is hard work, but Steve Brixton has finally solved his first real case. Review by Ellen Parkinson

First Light by Rebecca Stead

2010-02-24T17:23:00.001-05:00

So I finally got around to reading First Light, and I really enjoyed it! It’s funny because I recently read a young adult book called Ice by Sarah Beth Durst that is also set in the Arctic, and the descriptions in Durst’s book were so beautiful that at first I kind of missed that in First Light, but the excitement of the two stories doesn’t compare. First Light is told in the alternating voices of Peter, a 12-year-old boy growing up in New York who’s about to go with his parents on an expedition to Greenland (his father is a glaciologist); and Thea who lives in a hidden world under the ice in Greenland, her people driven there generations ago by the English, who accused them of being witches. Of course you know these two are destined to meet. Peter’s mother has been hiding something from him for years, with her mysterious red notebook that she writes fanatically in whenever she has one of her “headaches,” and the whispered conversations with Peter’s father about searching for something in Greenland. Both stories are engaging and suspenseful, and the world that Stead creates under the ice is fascinating. Review by Stacy Church

The Cats of Roxville Station by Jean Craighead George

2010-02-04T17:55:00.001-05:00

If you go for a walk at dusk in our neighboring town of Holliston, and you pass an old depot, you might not notice any animals there. But if you stop, and become very still, and search carefully, all of a sudden you will see what looks like a pair of ears sticking up. Then, you will discover a head and a very sleek body attached to them. As soon as you have spotted one cat, your eyes will reveal to you the shapes of many cats just sitting quietly in the area of the old depot. When I spotted the large group of feral cats for the first time, I wondered how they all lived together and survived on their own. Then I read The Cats of Roxville Station, which is the story of a hungry kitten named Rachet who arrives at Roxville and joins the group of wild cats living at the train station. It is beautifully written and gives us insight into the world of feral cats, which live together in small areas and have to fight for their survival every day. We are introduced to 14-year-old Mike who lives in a foster home not far from the train station. He watches the arrival of Rachet, and he sets his heart on befriending her to help her survive the severe winter. The Cats of Roxville Station is a well-written book about the complex society of cats and a wonderful story of the special bond between a young boy and a young cat. Review by Trudy Walsh

Water Steps by A. LaFaye

2010-01-28T18:17:00.002-05:00

If I had paid more attention to the dedication --“To every kid who faces a fear and finds a little magic” – I might not have been so surprised by the ending of this book. Kyna is terrified of water. Not only swimming in water, but just having a drop of water touch her skin. She can’t even stand to take a bath, so when her adoptive parents tell her they’re all going to stay in a cabin on Lake Champlain for the summer, she is not happy. Luckily, the cabin is in the woods, and woods are something that Kyna does like. It’s a great place to look for subjects to photograph, and she wants to win the blue ribbon in photography at next year’s Cortland County Fair. Kyna makes a new friend right away, too. His name is Tylo, and he wants Kyna to help him take a picture of the silkies he’s convinced he saw on the lake shore one night. Kyna manages to avoid telling him about her fear of water, but in the end it catches up with her. I really like the way the author combines story-telling, folk lore and plot. The reader gets to learn all about silkies, fairies and other Celtic traditions through the stories Kyna’s dad, Pep, tells, and of course, they come into play in the story as well. There’s maybe a little too much dwelling on how Kyna feels about water, but it doesn’t spoil the book. Review by Stacy Church

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

2010-01-13T11:47:00.001-05:00

The first note that Miranda received stated, among other things:

I am coming to save your friends life, and my own.

You must write me a letter.

The trip is a difficult one. I will not be myself when I reach you.

The third note provided proof to Miranda that the person writing these mysterious notes came from the future. The letter that Miranda writes becomes the story told in When You Reach Me. It details the things that happened to Miranda that fall and winter, things both mundane and extraordinary. The time traveling aspects lend a unique touch to an otherwise realistic story. The story flows so smoothly that I had a hard time putting the book down. Readers who want to figure out who’s writing the notes will probably be able to do so, but that in no way detracts from an otherwise near-perfect book. Review by Katie Corrigan

The Last Newspaper Boy in America by Sue Corbett

2010-01-02T15:43:00.001-05:00

I enjoyed this book so much! Sue Corbett manages to tell a story about a quirky family that’s funny, but not so over the top as a lot of recent books. In Wil’s family, your 12th birthday is momentous because that’s when you get to take over the paper route that’s been in the family for generations. “…every paper ever flung onto a porch in Steele had flown from the hand of somebody named David.” Wil has been training for years, and is probably the best newspaper tosser the family has ever seen. And for Wil the route is doubly important because he wants to use the money he earns to buy his own computer, so it’s quite a set-back when he finds out the night before his birthday that the publisher of The Cooper County Caller is going to stop home delivery of the paper in his hometown. At the same time, the fair has come to town. Over the past few years, Wil has figured out the gimmick to each of the games at the fair, and why the competitors never win big, but this year there’s a new game called Cover the Spot. The prize is $1000 and the game involves throwing. If Wil can win the game he’ll have enough money to buy his computer. He spends the first couple of days observing, because you can only play once. When he finally has an idea of how the fair is rigging the game, it takes the help of lots of people to expose the cheating in a public enough way to make sure that he wins the $1000. Along the way he gets an idea to help the town attract a new business to take the place of the factory that’s closing caused such financial hardship for just about everyone in town. There are plenty of entertaining side bits and characters. Review by Stacy Church

The Doom Machine by Mark Teague

2009-12-30T15:35:00.001-05:00

Things are getting very strange in the sleepy town of Vern Hollow. It’s 1956 when Jack Creedle sees the flying saucer overhead. Not everyone believes that aliens have landed, so Jack and his new friend Isadora set out to prove it. Sure enough, the huge spider-like aliens known as Skreeps are there, and they’ve come looking for the secret invention that Jack’s Uncle Bud has created. When Jack and Isadora almost thwart the aliens’ plans, they find themselves kidnapped and taken aboard the spacecraft, along with Uncle Bud and Isadora’s scientist mom. This is quite the adventurous tale, with Jack and Isadora escaping from the Skreeps and traveling to different planets, all in an attempt to keep Uncle Bud’s dangerous creation out of the Skreeps’ hands. The characters are interesting, especially the ruthless Skreep commander Xaafuun. I thought that the book was a little too long because it started to lose me at the end, but all-in-all I thought this was an exciting sci-fi adventure! Review by Katie Corrigan

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

2009-12-16T15:48:00.001-05:00

I know a book is good if I don’t want it to end, and that is definitely how I felt about this one. With one chapter left, I found myself putting the book down to finish the next day. I wanted to put off saying goodbye to Calpurnia, her family, and her interesting life. Eleven-year-old Calpurnia Virginia Tate lives in Texas, and is smack-dab in the middle of three older brothers and three younger brothers. During the hot summer of 1899, she starts to explore the animals and plants near her home. Her grandfather, impressed with this, shares his own nature observations with her, and shows her the correct way to make scientific observations in her notebook. But not everyone is pleased with Callie’s new hobby. Her mother thinks she should spend more time learning needlework and cooking, in preparation for when she’ll one day be a wife. This is a charming and humorous story of a girl on the verge of growing up, and not sure if she’s ready to. Callie’s brothers are also growing up, learning that it’s best not to make pets out of farm animals, and developing crushes on Callie’s best friend. The rest of Callie’s family is as interesting as she is, making for a book that is hard to put down, and hard to finish. Review by Katie Corrigan

Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko

2009-12-01T13:50:00.001-05:00

One of the things I like the best about this sequel to Al Capone Does My Shirts is that things and people are rarely black and white, except in the end, of course. Moose encounters lots of people in his life on Alcatraz Island in 1935: a mean guard, Officer Darby, who seems to have it in for him; Al Capone himself, who is calling in the favor Moose owes him from the previous book; Willy One Arm and Buddy Boy, two convicts that work at the warden’s house; Piper, the warden’s daughter, who Moose has a love/hate relationship with. It’s hard for Moose to tell who he should trust. HIs instincts are pretty good, but the thing that continues to get him in trouble is that he wants to make everyone happy. His sister, Natalie is away at a special school on the mainland, and though everyone says it’s good for her, Moose isn’t too sure. The conclusion of the book is very exciting, and involves guns, kidnapping, and an attempted prison escape. Review by Stacy Church

Wild Girl by Patricia Reilly Giff

2009-12-01T13:28:00.002-05:00

This is a book that really drew me in. Although I wasn’t crazy about the chapters told from the young horse’s perspective, the chapters told from Lidie’s viewpoint just got better and better as the book went on. At the beginning, Lidie is getting ready to leave Jales, Brazil, where she has been living with her aunt and uncle for the past 5 years. Her father and brother moved to the US after her mother died, but they couldn’t take her with them. Even though she is angry at having been left behind, she loves her home, the countryside, her aunt Titia Luisa and even her Uncle Tio, who she has a stormy relationship with, and especially riding the neighbor’s horse wildly through the fields. When she arrives in New York, she is angry to discover that her father and brother expect her to be the same 7-year-old girl they left behind in Brazil (not realizing that she expects them to be the same also). She doesn’t speak much English, and school turns out to be humiliating when she can’t make the teacher understand that she needs to go to the bathroom. She wets her pants and then runs away from school, swearing to herself never to return. It takes a while for things to improve for Lidie, but the world of horses that surrounds her (her father runs a stable and her brother is a budding jockey) draws the family together and when the filly whose voice narrates the alternating chapters comes to the stable, Lidie recognizes a kindred spirit. There are exciting scenes from the racetrack, and it’s nice to see that Lidie loves the old horse her father bought for her to learn to ride on, even as she resents that he thinks she could only ride such a broken-down old horse. Review by Stacy Church

Funny Business: Conversations with Writers of Comedy edited by Leonard S. Marcus

2009-11-27T14:42:00.001-05:00

This book is a great opportunity to learn more about your favorite writers: Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Sharon Creech, Daniel Handler…Included along with each interview is a manuscript page with mark-ups, a bibliography of the author’s works, and, of course, pictures. I found some of the interviews more interesting than others, and they weren’t necessarily the authors I was the most curious about. I learned some really interesting things, like the fact that Christopher Paul Curtis (The Watsons Go to Birmingham, Bucking the Sarge) worked on the assembly line at General Motors for 13 years before he ever started writing. Daniel Handler talked quite a bit about the Holocaust –his father left Germany to avoid the Holocaust, and many other family members didn’t make it out. A number of the authors had no support or encouragement for their talents growing up, and some others remember an important teacher or other adult during their childhood who nurtured their talent. One of my favorite stories is from Judy Blume, about how her character Fudge is based on her son Larry. “Fudge is thirty-five now. Larry is forty-four. So it’s a long time ago that he was Fudge-like. But we met a little boy the other evening whose father reads him Fudge every night. We were at this boy’s grandma’s house having dinner. His father said to him, ‘Do you know who this is? This is Judy Blume, who writes the Fudge books.’ The little boy’s mouth just dropped, and then he came over to me and kind of petted my arm. Then I said, ‘And guess who this is?’ pointing across the table to Larry. Larry said, ‘I was Fudge.’ The little boy just couldn’t believe it. He said, ‘Oh!’ and now he calls Larry ‘Fudge.’ Review by Stacy Church

The Unfinished Angel by Sharon Creech

2009-11-18T16:23:00.001-05:00

Do you believe in angels? With this story you can travel to Switzerland to a remote village nestled high in the Alps, and meet one! The angel lives in the ancient stone tower of Casa Rosa. When Zola arrives from America, she is amazed to discover the angel in her new home. Promptly she asks the angel all kinds of questions, like: Who are you? Are you a boy or a girl angel? Are you all-knowing and powerful? Zola is not impressed when she hears that the angel has been living in the tower for hundreds of years and likes everything in the village just the way it is. Zola quickly gets to know the villagers. Then she surprises a group of orphans hiding in an old barn. Now Zola is on a mission! She sets out to help the children, and she pesters the angel to come out of the tower and get involved. This is a delightful story of a very energetic young girl who has an encounter with an angel. Review by Trudy Walsh

The Dog Days of Charlotte Hayes by Mariane Kennedy

2009-11-04T15:43:00.001-05:00

Charlotte is not a dog person. Dogs drool. Dogs shed. Dogs have to be fed, watered and walked. Charlotte knows all about dogs. Her family owns a Saint Bernard puppy, and nobody seems to pay any attention to him anymore. He is forever chained in the backyard, and is not allowed in the house, no matter what the weather is. Then Charlotte’s father decides to sell the dog for $350, and he doesn’t care who gets the dog as long as he gets his money. All of a sudden, Charlotte realizes that she is worried about what will happen to the big, sad-eyed Saint Bernard puppy. Charlotte would like the puppy to go to a loving family who will take good care of him. That’s when she has a brilliant idea: she tells her father that she knows of someone who is willing to pay $400. The father accepts the offer, but when he finds out it is Charlotte who wants to buy the puppy, he is furious! She asks for a grace period of three months to raise the money. This is a wonderful story about the growing relationship between a 12-year-old girl and her gentle giant Saint Bernard puppy. Review by Trudy Walsh

Extra Credit by Andrew Clements

2009-11-04T15:34:00.001-05:00

When Sadeed Bayat is invited to meet his teacher at the house of the headmaster of his village in Afghanistan, he is sure it is for a special honor. He is the best student in his class, and he hopes they will offer him a scholarship to a fine school in Kabul, the capital. As Sadeed moves closer to the door to hear what his teacher and the councilors are discussing, he looks through a crack in the door and sees his teacher holding up a bright green envelope with stamps of the flag of the US and some pink butterfly stickers on it. His teacher has picked him to be the pen pal for a girl in America. The council men are appalled! It is not right in their culture for a boy to correspond with a girl. The men finally come to an agreement: Sadeed’s younger sister, Amira, will write to Abby in America, with Sadeed helping her with her English. Then we meet Abby, an American sixth grader who has been careless with her homework this year. To keep from having to repeat sixth grade, Abby has agreed to do her homework, pass all of her tests, and do a special project for extra credit. For the project she has to find a pen pal in a different part of the world, send letters to the pen pal and create a bulletin board about the pen pal’s culture. Through their correspondence, Abby and Sadeed learn about their different life styles and traditions. The pen-pal friendship also causes problems for both of them: Abby gets into trouble for displaying the Afghan flag on her bulletin board, and Sadeed is almost killed by a Taliban for carrying a letter with the American flag stamp on it. This is a fast-paced, often humorous story about two sixth graders living worlds apart. Review by Trudy Walsh

Wonderland by Tommy Kovac and Sonny Liew

2009-11-04T15:17:00.001-05:00

Ever wonder what happened in Wonderland after Alice left? It was not a peaceful place. Find out why as Mary Ann, the White Rabbit’s housekeeper, continues the tale. She’s a humble servant girl with an obsession for cleanliness –normally sweet-natured, but when the Queen of Hearts accidentally stains Mary Ann’s apron with a tart, she goes a bit insane and whacks the Queen. Then she and the White Rabbit have to run for it. They run into all of the well-known characters: the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, Jabberwock, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and get into trouble with most of them. The artwork in this graphic novel is beautiful and the story is whacky and exciting. Review by Stacy Church

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

2009-10-20T10:28:00.001-04:00

This long, involved, original and exciting fantasy is the first book of The Bartimaeus Trilogy, and is set in an alternate London, during a time when England is in the power of magicians who hold all government offices. The one dirty little secret that magicians don’t want the commoners to know is that on their own they have no power at all. What little power they do have is gained through the various demons (efrits, djinnis and other spirits) they summon and control with elaborate rituals and protections that force the demons into servitude. Nathaniel is a boy who was sold by his parents at the age of six into apprenticeship to a pompous and stuffy mediocre bureaucrat, Arthur Underwood, who doesn’t see the boy’s exceptional talents. Underwood tutors Nathaniel in magic, but as the pace is so slow and boring, Nathaniel takes the initiative to advance his education behind his master’s back. When he is ten Nathaniel suffers a very public humiliation by an up-and-coming politician Simon Lovelace. He takes revenge by using some of secretly gained knowledge to summon a powerful 5,000-year-old djinn named Bartimaeus. He instructs Bartimaeus to steal an artifact called the Amulet of Samarkand from Lovelace. Little does Nathaniel know that Lovelace himself stole the Amulet (and killed its original owner) and will stop at nothing to get it back. Lovelace has big plans for all of England that involve the Amulet (think overthrow of the government). As if Nathaniel doesn’t have enough problems, he finds out that Bartimaeus has learned his real name, which makes it possible Bartimaeus to gain his freedom from Nathaniel, and to take his revenge on him.

The story is told in alternating chapters: a third-person narrative about Nathaniel (not a sympathetic character by any means, being whiny and self-absorbed), and first-person by Bartimaeus, who is cynical, wise-cracking, and has an extraordinarily high opinion of himself. Bartimaeus’s chapters are filled with very funny footnotes explaining the finer points of magic, details about different planes of existence, types of demons, and the history of magic and the world. Don’t be tempted to skip the footnotes; they’re my favorite part of the book. Review by Stacy Church

Stolen by Vivian Vande Velde

2009-10-14T17:51:00.001-04:00

This book is not as scary as the cover makes it out to be; in fact, it’s more a spooky mystery than a horror story. Isabelle’s first, and only, memory is of running in the forest and being chased by dogs. She’s not sure that her name is Isabelle, but one of the villagers is convinced that Isabelle is her daughter that was stolen by the witch of the woods six years earlier. Isabelle’s first memory does coincide with when the witch was hunted down and disappeared. Did she escape from the witch? If so, how come she doesn’t remember her family? Readers will be surprised by the unexpected ending. Review by Katie Corrigan

Notes from the Dog by Gary Paulsen

2009-09-17T18:35:00.001-04:00

The things I didn’t like about this book mostly have to do with implausibilities. I don’t really buy that a graduate student in her early 20’s would spend her money (if she had it) to pay a 14-year-old to spend the summer making a garden in his own backyard (I have a 23 year old, so I do have some experience in this area). I also don’t buy that someone who says about himself, “It’s not that I don’t like people, but they make me feel uncomfortable. I feel like an alien dropped onto a strange planet and that I always have to be on the lookout for clues and cues on how to act and what to say…” would have as many different types of friends as Finn describes himself as having: Carl, who’s his best friend; Jamie, who’s his oldest friend; Christopher, his fun friend; and finally, Matthew, his only true friend. Ok, now that we’ve got that out of the way, here are the things that I did like about the book. It’s pretty funny, especially when Finn uses all of the fertilizer on his back yard because, if a little bit is good, a lot is better, and when he transplants poison ivy into the yard from the woods. I like the parts about Dylan, the dog. “Dylan sat up as she got closer and looked at her with that teeth-baring border collie grin that scares people who don’t know that dogs can smile.” And, when Finn starts getting anonymous notes, delivered by Dylan, “He pushed at my hand with his nose to get me to take the piece of paper from him and wiggled his whole body in excitement, as if he know what the words said. Dylan’s a border collie, so the whole note thing is not as out-of-the-realm-of-possibility as it first sounds.” The book is a good read about a teen dealing with death and mortality for the first time. Review by Stacy Church

Solving Zoe by Barbara Dee

2009-09-10T18:05:00.003-04:00

There are two really interesting things about this book, and the first one is touched on so briefly that if you didn’t already know about synesthesia, you still wouldn’t know about it because the author never puts a name to it. Synesthesia is when a person’s sensory wires get sort of crossed, so they might, for instance, see a certain color when they hear a particular sound, or in the case of Zoe, see certain colors associated with particular numbers. I was so disappointed that the condition was never named, even though Zoe’s color/number association plays a part in solving an ancient cipher. And that’s the other interesting thing about the book: the plot revolves around codes and ciphers and the main character’s previously undiscovered natural talent for them. Other than that it’s a pretty good story, entertaining and kind of funny. For a great book about synesthesia, read A Mango-Shaped Space by Wendy Mass) Review by Stacy Church

Slob by Ellen Potter

2009-09-02T14:28:00.001-04:00

Owen Birnbaum is above-average in two things: his IQ and his weight. He’s smart enough to know that he’s 57% fatter than the average 12 year old boy - not that his classmates, or gym teacher, would ever let him forget. He’s also really good at inventing things. One is a trap to catch a cookie thief, and the other involves outfitting his TV with a receiver to receive signals from the past. He’s trying to see a day two years ago that changed his life forever. As the story progresses, we learn what it is that Owen wants to see, why a certain store in the city makes him upset, and why he cherishes a piece of paper with the word “slob” on it. Owen is a very likeable and real character. There are other likeable and interesting characters, like his sister who goes by the name Jeremy and joins the group GWAB (Girls Who Are Boys), and his Tibetan neighbor Nima, who gives him advice on his inventions and life. It’s been awhile since I read a book that was so funny and sad at the same time. This book will have wide appeal for boys and girls. Review by Katie Corrigan

Confetti Girl by Diana Lopez

2009-08-28T14:06:00.001-04:00

What a colorful cover! The book begins with instructions for making cascarones, which are “festive, hollow eggshells, filled with confetti, that are cracked on people’s heads, scattering confetti all over the place and bringing everyone good luck!” Each chapter begins with a dicho, or Spanish proverb, and the book is full of small bits of Spanish culture, which I really enjoyed. Apolonia, or Lina, is a middle schooler in Texas, trying to get on with her life after the unexpected death of her mother the year before. Her father, a high school English teacher, has retreated behind his love of books and words, and Lina feels as if that’s all he cares about. The writing is sometimes stilted, and the reader is a little too outside the main character to be able to believe it when Lina stops doing her homework for English class, and blatantly makes up the answers on all of her quizzes, even though she knows that failing English will keep her from being able to play the sports that she loves. She has constant squabbles with her best friend Vanessa, who has started to use Lina to cover up her relationship with her boyfriend (Vanessa’s mother doesn’t allow her to hang out with boys), and again, it’s kind of hard to “feel her pain.” That said, it’s a fun book to read –the story is pretty good, and the characters are interesting. Review by Stacy Church

The Roar by Emma Clayton

2009-08-19T15:18:00.001-04:00

After the Animal Plague, the inhabitants of London built a wall around their city to keep the animals out and the people safe. Mika’s twin sister, Ellie, disappeared and is assumed dead, but Mika refuses to believe it. Things start getting strange when a new arcade opens up in town with an amazingly realistic flying game called Pod Fighter that all the kids become obsessed with. Soon there are Pod Fighter contests, with the winners being promised extravagant vacations and brand new houses. Mika advances in the tournaments, and finds himself in the final rounds, but it soon becomes clear that these contests are testing much more than the children’s abilities in pod fighting… There have been quite a few futuristic children’s books published in the last couple of years, and this one stands slightly above the others. The action is steady throughout the book, and the dangers facing the children are original. There is some violence and the storyline is dark, so I don’t recommend this book for younger or sensitive children, but for fans of futuristic adventure stories, The Roar is a good bet. Review by Katie Corrigan

Fashion Kitty and the Unlikely Hero by Charise Mericle Harper

2009-08-13T18:52:00.001-04:00

This is the third book in the Fashion Kitty grahic novel series, and I enjoyed it just as much as the first two. The illustrations are adorable, and the whole thing just makes me laugh. Fashion Kitty is the secret identity of Kiki Kittie. Kiki’s patience is tested when the principal of her school, Mrs. Rumple, decides that the students are spending too much time thinking about fashion (as if that’s possible), and too little time thinking about learning. She decrees that they must wear uniforms to school (gasp!). It’s a shock to Fashion Kitty when she appears at the home of fellow student Becky, and Becky politely declines her help. That arouses Fashion Kitty’s suspicions, so she begins following Becky at lunchtime to find out what’s up. Of course the solving of the mystery also results in the restoring of fashion at Kiki’s school. The book is also full of little truisms such as: It’s hard to be sad about your life and keep 2 big secrets all at once. Review by Stacy Church

Wild Things by Clay Carmichael

2009-08-06T18:59:00.001-04:00

I really enjoyed this book, but retelling the plot won’t really explain why. It’s another one of those books about a child who doesn’t know how to trust people because of the way people have let her down in the past, and yet on the surface Zoe seems to be a balanced character –she doesn’t treat her uncle (her new guardian) badly, or sulk endlessly in her room, or lash out at the kids or teachers at her new school. It’s also a story about a man who’s never had children of his own, and yet he seems to know how to let a new child into his life –he’s not too strict or too private or too pushy. The rest of the characters are interesting and not too stereotypical –there’s a bully, but he turns out to have a soft spot for animals, and there are some rich artsy snobs from New York, but there are also some rich artsy types from New York who turn out to be good friends. I wasn’t too taken with the chapters written by the cat (who used to be feral until Zoe spent months winning him over). There’s some suspense as the sheriff tries to figure out who vandalized the cabin in the woods that Zoe has made her own; there’s a white deer; there’s a wild boy; and some tense moments when someone or other is having a gun pointed at them. Sounds like a good story to me. Review by Stacy Church

The Girl Who Saw Lions by Berlie Doherty

2009-07-29T15:38:00.001-04:00

This novel tells the story of two girls with very different lives. Abela lives in Tanzania on the continent of Africa, and is dealing with the death of her mother and baby sister from AIDS. Abela’s uncle has recently been kicked out of London for being there illegally, and he comes up with a plan to return that involves Abela possibly being sold as a domestic servant. Rosa lives in a suburb of London with her mother, who is considering adopting another child. The thought of sharing her mother, her home, and her life with another child who is a stranger makes Rosa very uncomfortable. This book sensitively and honestly deals with some tough subject matters, but the intertwining of Abela’s and Rosa’s lives makes for a positive and uplifting story. Review by Katie Corrigan

Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle & Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me by Nan Marino

2009-07-23T19:29:00.001-04:00

Tamara Ann Simson is mad. She’s mad because her mother watches soap operas all day and doesn’t fit in with the other mothers in their suburb. She’s mad because her beloved brother is away at college, and when he comes home, their dad yells at him about his long hair, and he yells at their dad for “working for the man.” She’s mad because the new kid in the neighborhood, Douglas McGinty, lies about everything (“Did I happen to mention that I’m training for the Olympics…” “Did I ever tell you about the time I sang on Broadway?” “My uncle is Neil Armstrong, the astronaut.”), and all the other kids and adults seem to believe him. But most of all she’s mad because her best friend Kebsie moved away one day without even saying good-bye. And worst of all, the new kid is living in the house where Kebsie lived with her foster mother. Tamara calls him “Muscle Man” because he’s so scrawny, but he seems to like his nickname. In fact, he’s cheerful about everything, no matter how mean Tamara is to him. By the end of the book, when everyone in the neighborhood is watching the astronauts land on the moon, Tamara learns that even though someone is cheerful on the outside, they might be just as lonely on the inside as she is. Author Nan Marino says that she chose 1969 as the year to set her first novel in because, “ The day that the first man walked on the moon is one of those moments in history that elevated the human race by filling our hearts with hope.” Review by Stacy Church

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm by Nancy Farmer

2009-07-18T11:22:00.001-04:00

This science fiction/fantasy book is set in the future, Zimbabwe in 2194, and involves two trios of characters: the three children of General Matsika, the country’s Chief of Security, and the three detectives the General’s wife hires to find them when they disappear on their first outing outside of the family residence. Harare is a dangerous place full of gangs (especially The Masks) and criminals who are all too eager to get their hands on the General’s children. The General would never have agreed to let the children' venture out on their own, if he hadn’t been tricked during his morning session with the Mellower (somehow no one can ever quite remember what the Mellower says to them during the combination praise and storytelling sessions designed to make every feel relaxed and happy). Of course, the children disappear, the General and his wife suddenly remember the Mellower asking for passes, and, in desperation, they turn to a detective agency operated by three mutants with special talents (caused by a nuclear accident that killed and maimed many people). The book is full of legends and history based on Shona history. There is a glossary at the back of the book with a combination of the made-up terminology in the book, and actual Shona, Zulu, and Afrikaans words. There is also an appendix with info on some topics covered in the book. Review by Stacy Church

Anything but Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin

2009-07-08T17:31:00.002-04:00

I was so excited to read this new book by the author of a few books I love--In the Company of Crazies, and especially, What Every Girl (Except Me) Knows –but I was completely let down. I had read the reviews, so I know my expectations were high, but still, that doesn’t account for all of my disappointment. Baskin tries hard to put the reader inside the head of an autistic boy, 12-year-old Jason, and she does a good job of describing his behavior, but it feels like someone on the outside describing him. I know that people will say she’s trying to show the detached way of thinking a person with autism has, but that doesn’t make the book any more engaging. For me, Baskin’s style of writing in the book prohibits any connection with the character. Maybe part of the problem is that there isn’t much of a storyline. If you want to read something about people whose minds work differently, I would suggest you try The London Eye Mystery, or Blue Like Friday, and, of course, for older readers, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Review by Stacy Church

The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick

2009-06-24T15:57:00.001-04:00

The time period: 1863, the Civil War. The story begins when 7-year-old Homer and his 17-year-old brother, Harold, are forced to live with their nasty uncle after their parents pass away. The uncle has a terrible temper, he doesn’t feed them, works them hard on the farm, and makes them sleep in the barn. One day, in a fit of temper, the uncle sells Harold to the Union Army, despite his young age. And here Homer’s adventures begin: he grabs his horse (which his uncle had stolen from him) and heads south to find Harold and save him from getting killed in the war. His journey is anything but smooth! He’s often at the wrong place at the wrong time, and he meets up with some not-so-nice people. The thing that repeatedly gets him out of trouble is his ability to lie himself out of any situation. Review by Joyce Levine

Forensic Science by Alex Frith

2009-06-18T17:25:00.001-04:00

I love this book about crime scene investigation! It’s gory, but not too gory, because it’s in comic book style. It’s full of information about what evidence scientists use to solve crimes, interspersed with actual cases. There’s a list of who’s who in a criminal investigation, from the victim to the coroner and jury. There’s an illustration of a crime scene, showing what evidence was collected where: fingerprints, bloodstains, files on a computer hard disk. There’s even a chapter called Criminal Identity that includes forensic psychology, or profiling. In the back is a timeline of forensic science and some internet links for those of you who want to learn more. Review by Stacy Church

Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

2009-06-18T17:23:00.001-04:00

This is a really fascinating book by the author of my favorite graphic novel, The Arrival. It’s a collection of 17 stories with a wide variety of illustrations, including a very dark-looking landscape in grandpa’s story, and an essay told in collage called Distant Rain (about what happens to all the poems people write) . The author has a very unusual viewpoint, which in this book he gets across not only with bizarre illustrations, but also with his seemingly unconnected short stories and essays. “Shaun Tan was born in 1974 and grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth, Western Australia. In school he became known as the 'good drawer' which partly compensated for always being the shortest kid in every class.” (www.shauntan.net) Check out the author’s website for some really cool line drawings and his thoughts on art, picture books and creativity. Review by Stacy Church

Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls

2009-06-03T16:11:00.004-04:00

If you had only a short time to live on this earth, what would you still like to experience, to learn, and to accomplish? The best way to get started would be to make a "bucket list" by recording all the things you still want to do before "kicking the bucket" --before dying. Eleven-year-old Sam starts writing a book when he finds out he has leukemia. He wants to find answers to questions nobody ever seems to want to talk about. He especially wants to break a world record and get his name published in The Guinness Book of World Records. He also wants to become a scientist and do important research. Then, Sam meets Felix, who uses a wheelchair to get around. They work on Sam's book together and have a lot of fun plotting against the adult world that surrounds them. Here is a book about two young boys who want to enjoy themselves while asking some serious questions about the meaning of life and death, and the many "Ways to Live Forever." Review by Trudy Walsh

For another review of Ways to Live Forever, see Jan. 25, 2009

The Amaranth Enchantment by Julie Berry

2009-05-20T14:27:00.004-04:00

I was drawn to this book because of its beautiful cover. In this fairy-tale-like book, a well-to-do girl is forced to live with her evil aunt after her parents pass away. There is a magic stone, a witch, and a prince which all come together at the royal ball. So if you're a fan of fairy tales with happy endings, this book won't disappoint you! Review by Joyce Levine