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

The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z. by Kate Messner

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

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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