by Stephanie Burgis
ages: 10+
First sentence: “I was twelve years of age when I chopped off my hair, dressed as a boy, and set off to save my family from impending ruin.”
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Before I get started, I ask you: how can a first sentence be more perfect than that? It doesn’t.

What it does, however, is give you high expectations that this book will be 1) charming and 2) have some adventure in it. Throw in a little bit (or a lot at times) of magic, and you’ve got a pretty good winner.

It’s Regency-ish time (never really got a date, but it felt Jane Austen-y to me), and Kat’s family is in a pickle: her older brother, Charles, has been sent home from Oxford in disgrace due to gambling debts that their father, a mere country clergyman, can’t pay off. So, one of Kat’s older sisters, Elissa or Angeline, is going to have to do the noble thing and marry for money (to save the family). Unfortunately: that means one of them will have to marry (the dastardly) Sir Neville, who is rich, yes, but around whom rumors of his first wife’s death swirl.

I promised a bit of magic, didn’t I? Well, it seems that Kat’s mother was a witch, something which Angeline has taken up (to find her True Love, of course), and something which Kat is becoming increasingly curious about. See, Kat’s mother died when she was a baby, and it’s always been her sisters’ policy to Protect Kat from Things. Except that Kat’s 12 now, and she’s no longer a baby.

Which means that she can take Things into her very capable hands.

That, in fact, what my favorite part of this book. Although it seemed to have a lot of set-up for not very much pay-off, the pay-off was brilliant. If you ever want a book where there’s a kid who takes control (and believable, capable control) of a situation to bring it to its Right and Proper end, this is it. Kat is a great character: fun, smart, and stubborn in all the right ways. This one made me eager (now that the background work is done) to have more adventures with Kat.

I can only hope there is more.

by G. Neri/Illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson
ages: 9+
First sentence: “We drivin’ into the sunset, the car burning up from the heat.”
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Living in Detroit, twelve-year-old Cole and his mom are scraping by. Sure, he doesn’t go to school that often, but he’s okay. Until the day he gets caught, his mom flips, and drives him to Philadelphia to live with a father Cole has never met.

Once he gets to Philly, angry about being abandoned (as he sees it), by his mom, he decides he will have nothing to do with his father, or the stables he runs in North Philly.

This is where you do a double take: horse stables, in the middle of the ghetto? Based on a true fact — there really are horses in inner-city Philadelphia — Ghetto Cowboy looks at how providing something for kids to do, something as simple as caring for an animal, can give that life a meaning. At the same time, it explores a blossoming relationship bewteen a boy and his father.

There are many good things about this book: that it’s a non-girly horse book; that it’s written in dialect, but not hard to read; that there are gorgeous illustrations. In many ways, it’s trite, yes: just how many stories of bad kid making good can we read? But, I love that there is something different — Cole’s connection not only with his father, but with his father’s livelihood as well — to make this one better than all the other inner-city bad kids books.

In other words: it’s worth picking up.

by Lisa Yee
ages: 11+
First sentence: “Marley was dead, to begin with.”
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Marley Sandelski is invisible. No, not really: it’s a straight-up middle grade fiction book, not science fiction. But, that’s the way he feels. He plugs through middle school, getting beat up by the kids he calls the “Gorn” (Marley’s a huge Star Trek Original Series fan), getting mostly good grades (except for P.E.), and hanging out with his fellow geeky friends in AV Club (now a class called Technical Services). After school, he hangs out in the basement of the Rialto Theater, a historical landmark that specializes in old movies that his parents run. It’s not a great existence, but it is one.

Then things start to change. It’s a bumpy ride, but maybe… just maybe… things will change for the better?

The best thing about this book, I think, is that there is honest-to-goodness conflict in it. Marley is dealing with bullies — both physical and emotional. On top of that, he’s dealing with all the regular middle school boy stuff: trying to fit in, liking girls out of your league, not giving up on friends, being “cool”. It’s a good story, and you really root for Marley to make it all work out, and still not give up on who he really is.

My only complaint is that Lisa Yee, whose blog I adore, is not nearly as funny in book form as she is in blog form. But that’s a minor complaint in an otherwise good book.

by Wendy Wan-Long Shang
ages: 10+
First sentence: “There is a Chinese story that goes like this:”
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Lucy is:

• the youngest of three children in a Chinese-American family. 
• almost twelve years old.
• more American than Chinese, preferring lasagna to Chinese food.
• fanatic about basketball, and pretty good too.
• about to share her room with Yi Po, the long-lost sister of her recently deceased grandmother.

All Lucy wants is to have the best year ever, but that seems doomed not to happen, especially since Yi Po and her strange Chinese ways have moved in everything seems to be going wrong. Somehow, though, between Chinese school, a bully at school, and having to share a room, Lucy finds that maybe the year isn’t as bad as she thought it might be.

This was a good, solid, fun read. Nothing spectacular or earth-shattering, but I really enjoyed the time spent with Lucy and her struggles to find a balance between her wants and interests and her heritage. She’s an enjoyable character, and the time which we spend with her is fun and interesting. I liked the way Shang handled the Chinese language and culture, mixing a bit of history and folklore along with the food and traditions seamlessly into the novel. It gave the book some heart, and I felt like I was learning without being preached to.

A good book.

by Kirby Larson
ages: 9+
First sentence: “The old doll-maker Tatsuhiko poured boiling water into the teapot with trembling hands and inhaled deeply.”
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It’s the 1920s, and Miss Kanagawa is a beautiful Japanese doll, sent to America with the mission of spreading friendship and unity between the two countries. In a series of four short stories that progress through time from 1927 to 1941, we follow Miss Kanagawa as she meets, and helps, four special girls in some of the most trying times that the U.S. has seen.

I’m not usually one for short stories, but I enjoyed these. Miss Kanagawa was a good linking device, making it seem more like a novel than separate short stories. Even though I wondered about the fantasy element at first — we hear the doll’s thoughts, and she seems to connect and influence the girls in the stories — I realized that it really wasn’t a fantasy book (the doll and the girls never actually talk to each other), but just a narrative device. One that worked for me, because not only did the girls grow and change and overcome, but the doll did as well.

Out of the four stories, my personal favorite was the third one, about Willie Mae. It took place in the heart of the Great Depression, in a small Kentucky town. Willie Mae was a “holler girl”, someone who grew up in the mountains, who loves to read and write. She doesn’t feel like her life will give her anything until she’s given the opportunity to go into town for a job reading to the town crank, Mrs. Wheldon. This simple thing changes everyone’s lives for the better. It’s sweet and sad and touching all at once.

Perhaps that’s the best thing about Kirby Larson’s book: she knows how to embody the past, and bring it forward so that we can understand and relate to these kids. And the part about the doll — the exchange is an actual historical event as well — is also fascinating.

It’s wonderful when an author can make history come alive.