by Grace Lin
ages: 9+
First sentence: “Rendi was not sure how long the moon had been missing.”
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Review copy received from the publisher.
Others in the series: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

In many ways, this is very similar to Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. So, if you’ve read that one (and you should), you know what you’re in for. Alternating the main story with Chinese folk tales, with Lin’s luscious illustrations, she tells just as a compelling and charming a story as the first time around.

Thankfully, you don’t have to have read Mountain in order to enjoy this one: the story is in no way (at least from my recollection) connected to the other book. It’s the story of Rendi, a runaway boy who happens to find work at a local village inn. The moon is missing from the sky, and Rendi is the only one who seems to hear the screams at night, so he knows he has to find it and figure out how to put it back. However, he’s reluctant to do so: he’s grumpy and complaining all the time, and would just rather run away than do the work. The inn starts to work its magic: he makes friends with the innkeeper’s daughter, Peiyi, whose older brother has gone missing. And a mysterious lady, Madame Chang, appears teasing Rendi’s story out of him.

I had much the same reaction to this one as I did to the first: it’s nice. Really, really nice. Elegant nice. But, I think I enjoyed it more than I remember enjoying Mountain: I enjoyed Rendi’s story, I enjoyed how the folktales wove in and out of the main story, but also served to enrich the main story as well. And even though I guessed the ending before it was revealed, I was still surprised by the way that Lin wrapped everything up.

And maybe just for that surprise, I find myself mulling over this one, and am more than happy to own a copy. It’s definitely one I’ll be recommending to others.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

by R. A. Spratt/Illustrated by Dan Santat
ages: 9+
First sentence: “Mr. Green rolled up his sleeves and inspected his tools.”
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First off: this is a sequel. If you would like to read the first one first (unlike me, more than once this Cybils season, it seems), then start with The Adventures of Nanny Piggins. However, if you’d rather not, Spratt helpfully includes a two page summary of book one for you. I wish all sequels would do this. It would just save time!

The basic gist is this: Mr. Green’s wife died, and since he is A Horrible Person (read: lawyer), he needs a nanny. And Nanny Piggins, an ex-circus flying pig, is just the pig for the job. The kids love her (well, she does feed them cake at regular intervals), and Mr. Green is okay with it (well, she does only charge 10 cents an hour. And he hasn’t even noticed the 10-foot bear in the backyard). So, everything is hunky-dory, right?

Well, that is, until Mr. Green figures out that he could have a wife for nothing and save him a whole 10 cents an hour (not to mention the flour and honey bill… though on second thought, I’m not sure he does think of that). That, however, would be a Horrible Thing.  It’s up to his three kids — Derrick, Samantha, and Michael — with the help of Nanny Piggins, of course, to stop him.

Oh, what silly, ridiculous, silly, fun. It’s actually not a continuous book, but rather a series of loosely-connected short stories, each one just as silly as the last. There’s the duel with Eduardo the Armidillo (“It looks like a pig going to a costume party dressed as a tank”) over who is the best flying animal. There’s the take-down of the Buzzy Bee Scouts over a stolen cookie recipe. There’s the time that Nanny Piggins thought she could heal all aliments with cake. (Well, why not?) And yes, they do, on occasion, put down their father’s ideas to marry Someone Else. And, of course, it all Works Out in the end.

I snorted, chortled, guffawed, and laughed my way through this one.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

by: Kate Feiffer
ages: 8+
First sentence: “Grandma Zelda didn’t answer her doorbell the first time Nicky rang.”
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Lucy is moving to New York City from Savannah. And even though it means new writing samples — Lucy is an avid graphologist, as well as someone who is interested in the forensic study of handwriting — she does. not. want. to move. And it doesn’t help that her upstairs neighbor, Nicky, is always jumping off his bed, which makes a huge racket in her room.

Nicky has consigned himself to a life in Time Outs. In fact, he barely leaves his room, except to go to school. Which means his best friend right now is Pigeon. Who is not your ordinary pigeon, but rather one who holds conversations with the people around her. Nicky’s other best friend is his Grandma Zelda, who goes missing one day.

It’s up to Nicky — with Lucy’s help, of course! — to figure out what happened to Grandma, and save her from a Terrible Fate.

I know I should put this in Science Fiction/Fantasy, because of the talking Pigeon, but honestly: it didn’t feel like a SFF book to me. It felt like a straight-up middle grade mystery. Grandma goes missing, Nicky  finds out, Lucy’s skill with handwriting helps, and Grandma is saved. Also: Bad Dad (Nicky’s; Lucy’s parents are quite lovely) is reformed. All this leads me to believe that the talking pigeon was probably an unnecessary, even if it was amusing, storytelling device.

Even with that complaint, it was an adorable little book.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

by Julie Bourbeau (Illustrated by Jason Beene)
ages: 8+
First sentence: “There was nothing in particular about the boy standing in teh open window to indicate that he was anything other than perfectly ordinary.”
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In a small village  halfway up Mount Tibidabo, more than a fair share of strange things happen. But only on Wednesdays.

It’s not anything big: cars won’t start, garbage cans tip over, paint spills, and the like. But it’s enough that pretty much everyone locks the doors, shutters the windows, and stays indoors from Tuesday at midnight to Thursday morning. Except for Max.

Max hates being stuck inside, so one day he badgers his mother enough to let him go out, and so he does. And he discovers the wednesdays.

No, I didn’t forget to capitalize: the wendesdays are goblin-like creatures (all boys, a point which becomes relevant near the end of the book) who create the mischief and havoc on Wednesday. There are ninety-nine of them, and they have chosen Max to be Next.

It’s an odd little book, but not a bad one, per se. Max doesn’t want to be turned into a wednesday, so his big challenge is figuring out not only how that change happens, but why, and how to stop it. To do this, he needs help from two trusty sidekicks, and a cantankerous old man (who happens to be immune to the wednesdays). The wednesdays are a clever enough creation, mischievous but not malevolent (well, except for number Two. He’s pretty mean). Even though how they came to be was never explained, and the disappearance of the girls never quite resolved, it was interesting to see how Max figured out to beat the system.

I’m not sure there’s a “moral” to this one (Don’t go outside when your parents tell you not to?), and it wasn’t anyone going on a Quest to Save Someone (a type of story that, at this point in the Cybils, is starting to grate on me), and so I can heartily recommend this strange little tale.

If you’re interested in that sort of thing.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

by Margaret Peterson Haddix
ages: 11+
First sentence: “Jonah Skidmore was in science class when time stopped.”
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To start, this is the fifth book in the Missing series. I haven’t read a single one of the others, but because I like Haddix, and because this was nominated for the Cybils, I picked this up. And to be honest: I probably missed some nuances for not having read the others, but it was a pretty good stand alone book.

Jonah and his sister Katherine are time travelers. They’ve been in and out of time before (in the previous books, of course), and managed to do so without disturbing time much. So, they are caught completely off guard when their present time freezes, and then they’re hurtled back to 1903, to the apartment of Albert and Mileva Einstein. Somehow, the botched job of returning their (illegitimate) daughter Lieserl to the past has damaged time.

Somehow, Mileva figures out what Jonah and Katherine are up to, and she ends up being intimately involved in not only returning Lieserl to her proper time, but in getting Jonah and Katherine back to theirs.

There’s much to recommend about this one: Haddix is a fine writer; Jonah and Katherine are interesting, resourceful characters who have a good brother-sister relationship; and Haddix uses history in fascinating ways. (I kind of felt it was the Magic Tree House books taken up a notch. And that’s not a derogatory statement.) I’m not sure if I’m going to run out and get the rest of the series to see for myself, but I won’t hesitate to recommend these to kids with an interest in history who are looking for something, well, different.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

by L. M. Montgomery
ages: 12+ (read aloud 8+)
First sentence: “Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in teh woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run pass Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum; it probably was conscious that Mrs. Rachel was sitting at her window, keeping a sharp eye on everything that passed, from brooks and children up, and that if she noticed anything odd or out of place she would never rest until she had ferreted out of the whys and wherefores thereof.”
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(Wow. That’s a long first sentence.)

You all know the story, right? Of Anne, the impetuous orphan girl who comes to stay on Prince Edward Island with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, winning her way into their hearts and getting into scrapes as she grows older. It’s one of those classics that everyone loves.

I picked it up for the first time in a very long time to read it aloud to A. And we had a wonderful time. Although some of the language was hard for her to grasp, and she kept wondering about all the late 19th-century references. But, for the most part, she fell as much in love with Anne as the rest of us have over time. And as a little bonus, every time M or C would wander by, they would stop and listen for a bit, and often say, “Oh, I love Anne.”

It really is a wonderful  novel.

by N. D. Wilson
ages: 10+
First sentence: “The man in the pink shirt stopped outside his house.”
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Others in the series: The Dragon’s Tooth

I’ve been looking for quite some time for that book to give kids who love the Percy Jackson series. Something fantasy, of course. But with a bit of mythology, a gripping story, a bit of humor, fast-paced, and likeable characters as well.

I’ve found my series.

I read this one out of order: The Drowned Vault is the second in The Ashtown Burials series. But, honestly? It didn’t matter. Yeah, there was some stuff that I didn’t fully  understand because I haven’t read the first one (yet), but it was such a fun, interesting, cool world that Wilson developed it didn’t really matter.

From what I can gather: there are immortals abroad, and there’s a team of mortals — called the Order of Brendan — that basically keep the immortals in check. Brother-sister team Cyrus and Antigone Smith are recent inductees into this Order (I’m assuming all this comes down in Book 1), and they have let something called the Dragon’s Tooth (Ah! The name of the first book) — which can kill immortals — fall into the hands of the Bad Guy, Phoenix. This puts them a bit on the outs with both the immortals and the O of B (as it’s often referred to), so the main goal of this book is to get the Dragon’s Tooth back from Phoenix. This is not as easy as it sounds (it sounded easy?). Especially since the immortals are banding with another Big Baddie, the brother of one of the Vlads (you know, as in Vlad the Impaler), Radu Bey, who is head of the Dracul order, which (obviously) wants to Take Over. So, not only do they need to stop Phoenix from raising an army of dead people, they need to stop Radu as well. And this means they need to raise the Buried. (Don’t ask. It’s much too complicated for here.)

I know that didn’t make much sense (moral: read the first one first!), but it really is a lot of fun. There’s humor, action-packed battle scenes, the girls are as awesome as the guys (Antigone reminds me a lot of Annabeth and Hermione, and there’s this really kick-butt older girl, Diana Boone), and Wilson mixes world mythology with American history, for a really unique world feel.

So, yeah: I’ve found a new series to be a fan of. I’ve already bought the first one and I can’t wait for the next. Bring it on!

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)

by Kate Saunders
ages: 9+
First sentence: “At least look at the picture!” Flora’s dad begged.”
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Flora Fox is a spoiled brat.

That’s putting it mildly.

As an only child of older parents, she always gets her way. In everything. So, it’s beyond her capability to understand why her parents would want to send her to boarding school (of all places!) while they go to Italy to fetch Flora’s grandmother (the old bat) and build a flat for her in the garage of Flora’s Wimbledon home. It’s just. not. fair.

I’m going to stop here a minute and say that I found Flora to be Insufferable. So much so, that I thought quite seriously about putting the book down (or at the very least throwing it across the room. Or slapping Flora on the behind). I’m glad I didn’t.

On the train to her boarding school, Something Happens, and when Flora wakes up, she’s no longer in the 21st century, she’s in 1935.

(Yay for time travel!)

She has to adjust to the whole all-girl boarding school thing, the 1935 thing, the sharing a room with other people thing, the making friends thing, and the fact that Flora may be stuck in 1935, unless the three girls who summoned her there — Pete (short for Daphne Peterson), Pogo (Cecelia Lawrence), and Dulcie  — can figure out a way to send her back.

As I mentioned, the beginning was rough because Flora was so unlikeable. Once it hit 1935, Flora was still unlikeable, but it was more understandable: I am giving Saunders full points (or ponys as they’re called in the book) for making Flora have a difficult time adjusting. I would have hated it if Flora had hit the ground running, finding transitioning to 1935 a breeze. Rather, it was difficult and jarring for Flora to adjust, which made the whole experience that much more interesting for me.

And, to be fair, Flora made a remarkable improvement over the course of the book. (I was quite grateful for that!) In the end, I thought that Saunders wrote a great fish-out-of-water story, with some lovely lessons (and  yet wasn’t too heavy-handed!), and I found the book to be wonderfully enjoyable.

(Just for the record: because this is a Cybils nominee, I’ve been asked to make sure y’all know this is my opinion only, and not that of the panel.)