Word after Word after Word by Patricia MacLachlan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “’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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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