Author: booknutgirls

booknutgirls http://thebooknutdotcom.wordpress.com I read. I blog. I sell books. I chauffeur my kids. What more do you need to know?

The Secret Keepers

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secretkeepersby Trenton Lee Stewart
First sentence: “That summer morning in the Lower Downs began as usual for Reuben Pedley.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher. Full disclosure: I had dinner with the author at Children’s Institute, and think he’s delightful.
Release date: September 27th
Content: There’s a few scary moments, and it is long (500+ pages), so it might be intimidating for young/reluctant readers. It will be in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Reuben has perfected the art of being invisible. He can sneak in and out of places, and knows just how to go unnoticed in a crowd. And then, one summer day, he climbs up to a ledge (just because he can) and discovers something Wonderful: an antique pocket watch shaped like a globe in a wooden box engraven “Property of P. Wm Light”. It’s cool enough as it is; but once Reuben (accidentally) discovers that it can actually turn him invisible, he’s thrilled. Except the watch is wanted by the big mob boss in town, a man known as The Smoke. And suddenly Reuben isn’t quite so invisible anymore.

So Reuben sets off to solve the mystery of the watch: where it came from and why does The Smoke want it so badly. And in doing so, he not only makes several friends for life, he discovers that he is much more than he originally believed.

Even though this is a big book, and starts slowly (I’m not sure we needed Reuben’s entire backstory, as well as the backstory of the watch, but I’m not the editor here…) I was hooked by the middle and sold by the end. (The end, especially.) Stewart knows how to write a puzzle that readers want to solve, and how to keep them guessing along the way. I honestly didn’t know what would happen, at times, and I thoroughly enjoyed finding out. And the best part? It’s not a series (yet). Definitely a fun read.

Replica

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replicaby Lauren Oliver
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: October 4, 2016
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s some violence, all off screen, and about a dozen f-bombs scattered throughout. It will be in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Gemma has spent her whole life feeling like a freak: she’s overweight and her parents are over-protective and yet distant, all of which leads others at school to make fun of her. So, when a rock tied around a Frankenstein mask gets thrown through the window of her house, she figures it’s the school bullies picking on her again. But, she overhears her parents arguing late at night and suddenly everything takes on a new meaning: it’s not HER the mask was meant for, but her father.

See, her father was co-owner of this super pharma business, which had some dealings with Haven, a super-secret island off the coast of Florida. No one knows what they do there, but her father had enough complaints that he got out. But that got Gemma curious: what is Haven, and why all the secrecy?

All that leads Gemma to sneaking off to Florida for spring break, to get answers to figure out what is going on with her parents and why this whole Haven thing is so secretive (and somehow, important).  What she finds out will change her life forever.

In some ways, this is a fascinating novel, playing with the ideas of humanity and just how far science will go to justify the ends it wants. I’m not entirely sure it justified the two-part story, however. I read Gemma’s version first, on a whim, and by the time I got to Lyra’s I wasn’t sure how much I cared. And yet, in retrospect, it’s possibly Lyra’s story that’s more important. Imagining that replicas have thoughts and feelings, that they are individuals, is fascinating thing to think about. And yet, I felt like something was lacking. Perhaps the ending was too abrupt? Maybe I hoped for more understanding or perhaps retribution. It all felt so… tidy.

Even so, I was thoroughly engrossed by the book. I wanted to know Gemma’s (and Lyra’s, as well) story, and the horrors of what the characters were going through was enough to keep me turning pages.

Your Birthday When You’re The Children’s Guru at an Independent Bookstore

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Means you write this a week before your actual birthday, because there will be no time ON your birthday, and you don’t want to mess up ten years of birthday posts by missing one.

Means these two things that you’re in charge of will happen:

  • A storytime, in which we will be reading  birthday books and have cupcakes
  • An event with Sarah J. Maas in which we will deal with a large bunch of fans and hope everything goes well

It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s going to take up most of the day. And it will be lots of fun. (Pictures later. Tomorrow, maybe.)

After which, you take the girls to see the ICT Rollergirls. Because ROLLER DERBY.

And that is how you should spend your 44th birthday, I think.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

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tenantofwildfellby Anne Bronte
Fist sentence: “Dear Halford, When we were together last, you gave me a very particular and interesting account of the most remarkable occurrences of your early life, previous to our acquaintance; and then you requested a return of confidence from me.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: It’s a lot to digest: a lot of characters, etc. and there’s some reference to… unsavory… things but nothing actual. If you can handle any Bronte or Austen book, then this is for you. It’s in the Adult Fiction section of the bookstore.

I picked this one up on M’s recommendation (I’m not a Bronte fan); she said it was her favorite of the Bronte books she had to read in class, and that I might like it.

The basic plot is this:  a woman — Mrs. Helen Graham — moves into an empty house with her son. She soon becomes the subject of gossip in the neighborhood, and garners the interest of a young man, Gilbert Markham, who soon professes his love for her. Unfortunately, Mrs. Graham isn’t free to love, and she — through letting Gilbert read her diary — confesses all to him. And the all is sordid. She thought she was marrying a good man (or at the very least, an okay one that she could reform) and it turned out that she, well, didn’t. He was a liar, a cheat, a philanderer, and not very kind her her. She put up with it for a while, for the sake of their child, but eventually had enough and left.  Which was unheard of in 1847.

So, on the one hand: good for her! Good for her for getting her and her child out of the marriage. Good for her for sticking up to her beliefs. Good for her for staying strong.

But.

Ugh, why do the Brontes have to be SO moralistic? Was it just a Victorian thing? Even though she was the victim, and I think her husband was all sorts of Awful, she was SO very moralistic. She had absolutely no faults about her, and was always right. Which makes for a very boring main character. It was all: oh! look at the virtuous woman and how she suffers. And I don’t mean to demean women’s suffering or the fact that they were (are!) treated badly at the hands of men. It’s just that, as a character in a book, reading about someone who is So Good is kind of, well, dull.

And then there’s the end. (Spoilers ahead.) She goes back to her husband when he gets ill (really?) because she’s So Good. And then he dies, so she’s free to remarry Markham and live happily ever after. Nice and all, but I dislike the Victorian (again!) notion that a woman is only happy with the (right) man. I’ll give Anne props for including the (right); I’m sure societal conventions were more along the lines of marry the girl off, as long as he’s rich who cares. (See: Jane Austen.) It makes me glad for how far we’ve come.

Or maybe just reading the Brontes makes me irritable. They’re all melodrama and no humor or societal observation. Give me Austen any day.

Thieving Weasels

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thievingweaselsby Billy Taylor
First sentence: “I would have killed to go to Princeton.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s a handful of swear words (no f-bombs that I remember) and some off-screen, implied sex. Plus drug use and teen drinking. It’s in the Teen Section (grades 9+) of the bookstore.

Cam Smith has a goal: finish up at his boarding school, Wheaton, get into Princeton with his girlfriend, and leave his dirty, awful past behind. Then: his dirty, awful past comes for him. In the form of his Uncle (Wonderful, meant very sarcastically), his cousin Roy, and his mother. Who supposedly attempted suicide and is in a mental institution. It turns out that Cam — who is really Skip O’Rourke — is needed for a Big Job, one that will pay everyone lots of money and so they can all be Very Happy. What it turns out to be is a royal mess.

I was torn about this one. On the one hand: long con books. I love heist and long con books. It’s fun to follow the clues, to figure out who is conning who (in this case, everyone is conning everyone) and to see who comes out on top. This one, as far as cons go, was probably overly complicated (it kept twisting and turning), but in the end, very satisfying.

On the other hand: Cam/Skip’s mom was AWFUL. Beyond awful. Neglectful and borderline abusive (“I’m doing this for your own good”), in the end I just couldn’t handle her. (Maybe my opinions on bad mothers have changed since having E in the house…) I not only wanted to smack his family, I actively despised them. The uncle was awful, the cousin was a brat. But his mother didn’t deserve anything but scorn. And perhaps Taylor meant it to be that way, to have someone so awful that the illegal things Cam/Skip did weren’t “too bad”, but it grated on me. In the end, I think it was supposed to be humorous, but I found myself often annoyed. Which is never a good sign.

So: not bad, but not the best con book I’ve ever read, either.

The Best Man

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bestmanby Richard Peck
First sentence: “Boys aren’t too interested in weddings.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: September 20, 2016
Content: There’s some bullying and it’s not really action-heavy. But I’d give it to a 4th grader and up. It’ll be in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Archer Magill is just trying to figure things out. As a 5th (and then 6th) grader, he’s kind of clueless. About girls, about friends, about life. And so, he’s looking for role models and he’s found three: his dad (who’s a really great dad), his grandpa (who’s pretty awesome), his Uncle Paul (who’s incredibly cool). And then, a student teacher, Mr. McLeod comes into his life.

Actually, this isn’t a book about an awesome male teacher, thank heavens. Event though there’s an awesome male teacher. No, it’s more about Life, and Figuring Things Out, and Friendship. And how other people’s lives intersect with ours. And the Chicago Cubs.  It’s a Slice of Life novel, one that is full of charming characters and a great family. And one that, refreshingly, treats a LGBT relationship as something that’s to be celebrated. No, our main character isn’t gay, it’s not a coming out book for kids. There’s no angst in this book. It’s a story where the LGBT relationship is a part of who the people are, and that’s okay.

It’s a funny, sweet, refreshingly charming novel, and I adored it.

State of the TBR Pile: September 2016

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I feel like today is much too serious a day for frivolities like the TBR pile, but as it is the second Sunday, and it’s a very busy month…

Speaking of which, Mac Barnett was absolutely delightful and charmed the socks off of everyone he met (both kids and adults).  I hope he had as good of time here as we had having him!

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And he’s just the first for me this month. I’ve got a handful (well, six) more authors to meet and hang out with this month. It’s gonna be fun!

Which means the TBR pile’s gonna look like this for a bit (I’m gonna try to whittle it down some):

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Insert Coin to Continue, by John David Anderson
Diabolic by S. J. Kincaid
Life in a Fishbowl by Len Vlahos
The Kidnap Plot by Dave Butler
Short, by Holly Goldberg Sloan
Missy Piggle Wiggle and the Whatever Cure by Ann M. Martin
My Sister Rosa by Justine Larbalestier
The Sun is Also a Star, by Nicola Yoon
Falling Over Sideways, by Jordan Sonnenblick
Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner
Newsprints by Ru Xu
Saving Hamlet by Molly Booth
Searching for John Hughes, by Jason Diamond
Torch Against the Night, by Sabaa Tahir
Top Prospect, by Paul Volopini
The Scourge, by Jennifer Nielsen

What are you looking forward to reading?

Nine, Ten

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ninetenby Nora Raleigh Baskin
First sentence: “Everyone will mention the same thing, and if they don’t, when you ask them, they will remember.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: It handles the tragedy of 9/11 on a level that is appropriate for the 3rd-5th grade crowd. It’d also make an excellent read-aloud. It’s in the middle grade section (grades 3-5) of the bookstore.

Everyone (well, everyone of a certain age and older) knows the story of what happened on 9/11. But fifteen years on, there isn’t as many of the kids who know about that day. And so, Baskin helps introduce the tragedy through the stories of four eleven-year-old kids for the forty-eight hours before the planes hit. There’s Sergio, an African American kid from Brooklyn who is trying to make a better life for  himself but whose deadbeat dad is getting in the way. There’s Aimee, who has recently relocated from Chicago to L. A. and whose mother has a meeting in New York City that week. And there’s Will from Pennsylvania, whose father died in a freak accident and who is trying to get over that. And there’s Nadira, a Muslim girl from Ohio, who is trying to figure out the whole middle school thing. 9/11 changes each of their lives — though I’ll spoil it: no one has anyone they love die — in ways they could not have expected.

The thing I liked best was not so much the stories, or wondering how it would all play out (and wondering if Baskin would kill anyone). It was that Baskin caught the emotion of the day so very well. I was in Mississippi, having recently moved from DC, and I remember being caught up in the worry and horror and concern during it all. I wasn’t in the middle of it; I couldn’t imagine being in the middle of it. But, I, like many Americans, was affected by it. And Baskin caught that feeling perfectly.

I’m hoping this, along with Towers Falling, will spark a discussion about unity and how, no matter what we look like or believe, we can work to get past anger and mistrust and hate and be better citizens together. I hope, at the very least, that this one gets read and discussed.

Ghosts

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ghostsby Raina Telgemeier
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: September 13, 2016
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There’s frank talk about death, so maybe it’s not for the younger kids (that depends on your kid). Otherwise, it will be in the middle grade graphic novel section of the bookstore.

Cat is resentful (and feels guilty about it). Her younger sister has cystic fibrosis and the climate in northern California is going to be better for her. Plus she’ll be closer to better doctors. But that means Cat has to upend her life and move. And she doesn’t want to have to start over. Especially since their new town seems to be a bit… obsessed… with ghosts.

But, as she settles in and makes friends, she discovers that maybe things aren’t always as they seem (and maybe sometimes they are), and that maybe she and her family can find a home here.

I love Telgemeier’s work. I love that she took something as series as a sibling with an incurable illness and made it not only accessible to kids but entertaining. She uses the Dia de los Muertos celebrations to talk about those we love who have died, and how we can honor and celebrate their lives. There’s also the usual pre-teen adjustments: making friends, handling school, boys… And it all balances out to an absolutely delightful graphic novel.

Highly, highly recommended.

Kids of Appetite

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kidsofappetiteby David Arnold
First sentence: “Consider this: billions of people in the world, each with billions of I ams.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Release date: September 20, 2016
Content: There are a bunch of f-bombs, some teenage smoking, and some depictions of domestic abuse. It will be in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

Vic is many things: a teenage boy, a son whose father has died of cancer, a lover of music and math. He also has Moebius syndrome, but he doesn’t let that define him. No, these days, he lets his dad’s absence and his mom’s new relationship define him. And one night, when things become unbearable, Vic grabs his dad’s ashes and takes off. Out there, he runs into an interesting group of kids, under the protection of a Congolese immigrant named Baz. They fly under the radar, taking people in who need help, give them the help they need, and send them on their way. And Vic most definitely needs help. Especially after he opens his father’s urn and discovers instructions as to where his ashes should be spread. So Vic, with his new-found friends, takes it upon himself to scatter his dad according to his wishes.

Things aren’t that simple, though. Vic gets caught up in the lives of what comes to be called Kids of Appetite, and when the uncle of one kid ends up dead (and Baz is a suspect), Vic finds himself in the police station.

There’s a lot going on in this novel: there’s a main character with a disability, and some discussion on etiquette when dealing with someone who doesn’t look like you. There’s diversity and refugee and immigration issues with Baz and his younger brother as they try to make a new life for themselves. There’s a semi-traditional love story. There’s a murder. But, even with all these weird eclectic elements, it works. It’s such a character-driven novel and each and every character (well at least with the Kids of Appetite) is a gem. The novel alternates between Vic and Mad, an 18-year-old girl who is kind-of a runaway as well, and each of their voices was delightful. I liked that there was a dark edge to this, that there are things to think about, and yet it’s ultimately a story of hope and redemption.

Highly, highly recommended.