The Book of Boy

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by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
First sentence: “This story, like another, begins with an apple.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the author.
Content: There is some challenging language, because it’s set in medieval times, but with the large print, short(ish) length, and illustrations, a younger kid/reluctant reader could enjoy it. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Things that surprised me about The Book of Boy: How religious it was (though I don’t know why that did; it’s set in 1350 in Italy, and religion was a huge part of everyday life), how much I didn’t mind it’s religious nature, and how charmed I was by Boy and the pilgrim he went on a quest with.

Things I’m unsure about: the speculative(ish) element of it. See, Boy is a humpback child, and was told to keep his hump covered and hidden and never touch it. He’s shunned because of this — this felt “true”, even though I don’t know if people who didn’t look whole were shunned, but that’s what stories have always led me to believe — by everyone except a wayward pilgrim on a quest to collect the relics of St. Peter. But, once on the quest, Boy discovers that his hump is not an ordinary one, which is a blessing and a curse.

Things I really enjoyed: I loved the narrative style of the book. I think Murdock caught the inner voice of this naive character, who was doing what he was supposed to, and unsure about his own future and any changes. I loved that Boy could talk to animals, and that the animals helped him when he needed it. And I really enjoyed the whole quest: there were challenges along the way, and both Boy and the pilgrim needed each other. It was very sweet and charming.

Overall, a good book.

Audiobook: Granted

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by John David Anderson
Read by Cassandra Morris
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Listen at Libro.fm
Content: I listened to it (it makes a great read aloud), but I’m guessing that it’s formatted pretty well for the younger readers. There are short chapters, a lot of action, and any big words are explained really well. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

Opheila Delphinium Fidgits is one of the few fairies in the Haven who has been tasked with the most special of jobs: that of being a Granter. Wishes from humans come in all the time, but the great tree only allows for a few to be granted, and Ophelia is one of those who gets to go out and make the wish come true. Except that she hasn’t… yet. Then her day comes and she sets out to fulfill what should be a routine wish: find the coin, grant the girl a bicycle. Except everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) goes wrong. And what happens changes, well, everything.

I loved listening to this one, though it took a bit to get into it. That’s partially the story’s fault: Anderson is very thorough in his world-building, and felt a need to take us all through the Haven and Ophelia’s world before sending her out into ours. But once she got into our world, the story picked up. The best character, though, was Sam the Dog. Probably mostly because of the way the narrator voiced him, but also because… well, who doesn’t love a wonderful, sweet, loveable, sometimes stupid dog character?

It really was a charming book, and a unique look at the fairy world. Quite good.

 

Monthly Round-Up: March 2018

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Wow, I read a lot! A lot of it is old, but not all of it. And not a single adult book in the mix. (Which is probably why I read a lot!) Even so, my favorite out of all of them is this:

The Parker Inheritance

Even more so, after hearing him talk about it at school visits. There’s so much to think about and talk about in this book, and it’s a great puzzle mystery as well!

As for the rest:

Middle Grade:

  

Gregor the Overlander
No More Dead Dogs
The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister
Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key
Aru Shah and the End of Time
Capture the Flag
Ninth Ward
Hello, Universe
The War that Saved My Life

YA:

     

A Wizard of Earthsea
Ask the Passengers
Not if I Save You First
Does My Head Look Big in This?
The Drowned Cities
The Ship of the Dead

What was your favorite book you read this month?

Module 10: When Jessie Came Across the Sea

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Hest, L. (1997). When Jessie came across the sea. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Genre: Informational book, with fictional people in real situations.

Book Summary:  When the rabbi in Jessie’s town chooses 13-year-old Jessie to make the voyage to America, she is anxious, afraid, and unsure of what her future will be without the comfort of living with her grandmother and their village. But, she has some skill with a needle and making lace, and she has kind people to take her in once in New York. Jessie works hard for several years, sewing and making lace, developing a following for her bridal dresses, and is able to save up enough money to bring Grandmother to America to live with her.

Impressions: This was one of my favorites. I suppose I’m a sucker for 18th-century immigrant stories, but I ended up tearing up at the end when Jessie sends for her grandmother. I thought the art was gorgeous, and I appreciated that Lynch’s illustrations felt realistic and not clean it up. I also thought that the writing worked together to capture the European immigrant experience.

Review: The Publisher’s Weekly reviewers pointed out not only the simplicity of the tale as told by Hest, but also the gorgeous illustrations from Lynch. They wrote: ” The subtle, emotional exposition is enriched by Lynch’s dramatically charged watercolor and gouache illustrations. The candlelit and sunlit compositions express the yearnings of the immigrants; their faces form a study in hope, loss and dignity.”

Brown, J. M. &  Roback, D. (1997). When Jessie came across the sea. Publisher’s Weekly. 244 (44). Retrieved from: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-7636-0094-5.

Library Uses: This one would be good on a library display or a storytime for older children about immigration and the different stories of immigrants.

Readalikes: I tried to pick more contemporary, diverse books, since that is the current state of immigration today.

  • Islandborn by Junot Díaz,  illustrated by Leo Espinosa  – The story of a second generation American, and her realization that her Cuban heritage and family heritage are as much a part of who she is as her American-ness is.
  • Mango, Abuela, and Me by Meg Medina, illustrated by Angela Dominguez – Mia’s grandmother comes to live with her family in America, and they discover they have a language barrier. The book explores communicating though language is different, and the common bonds — not just family — that we all share
  • Mama’s Nightingale by Edwidge Danticat, illustrated by Leslie Staub – The main character, Saya’s, mother is sent to an immigration detention center. Her mother takes to sending Saya Hatian tales through cassette tape from the detention center, and Saya is inspired to write her own story of hope.

A Wizard of Earthsea

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by Urusla K. LeGuin
First sentence: “The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s nothing objectionable, but it has an “older” feel to it. It’s in the YA sections (grades 6-8) of the bookstore. (I think. It might be in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section…)

I read this a long time ago — not as a kid, but before I started keeping a blog — and was underwhelmed. Since LeGuin recently passed away, I thought I’d give it another try.

And… I was still underwhelmed. The basic plot is the journey of a boy, Ged, becoming a wizard. He goes to school, unleashes a demon, fights a dragon, runs from said unleashed demon for years, until he finally faces his inner darkness and becomes a powerful wizard. Voila!

And that’s the problem with this book. Maybe it was the style of fantasy writing in the 1960s, but now? It just feels all surface and no depth. This happens and then that happens and we never really get to know Ged. We just follow him on his adventures. So when there’s this huge climax at the end where Ged fights the demon and names him and it’s all supposed to be so powerful, it’s just… not. I can see the influence she had on other writers: definitely Gaiman and it felt a little like Dianna Wynne Jones as well.

But, the afterword? The afterword that was written in 2012 was fantastic. LeGuin’s personal voice is smart and sassy and gave insights that I know I missed when I was reading it. So, maybe what I need to do is pick up some of LeGuin’s essays.

Gregor the Overlander

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by Suzanne Collins
First sentence: “Gregor had pressed his forehead against the screen for so long, he could feel a pattern of tiny checks above his eyebrows.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There are a couple of battles and some tense moments. It is in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

First a story: M read this when she was about 10 or 11 years old, and told me that it was SO good and that I needed to read it. I balked: Gregor goes underground and goes on a quest with talking cockroaches?! Ew. (I loathe cockroaches. Ugh.) She finally, after years of bugging me, gave up and moved on. However, when I saw it on the list for the science fiction/fantasy module in my children’s lit class, I remembered M’s urging and I picked it up (finally!).

And you know what? She was right. (Not the first time.) The basic premise is that Gregor, whose father has been missing for 2 years, falls into the Underland, a world where there are some humans who live in an uneasy peace with giant spiders, cockroaches, and bats, and whose mortal enemies are the giant rats. (And yes, all the animals talk.) Once there, Gregor finds out that he may be/is the Warrior who would fulfill the prophecy, perhaps bringing peace between the humans and the rats. And, oh by the way, the rats have his dad, so maybe they can rescue him, too.

Yeah, it sounds trite: there are talking animals and a prophecy (they’re all the rage!) but Collins is quite masterful in telling a story. She keeps the action moving, she makes us care about Gregor and all the other Underlanders and she even gives us a nice twist at the end that careful readers will see coming (I didn’t guess, but I wasn’t surprised). And she included Gregor’s 2-year-old sister, Boots, who is literally the best character ever. She’s funny and charming, and provides a humanity to the other characters that otherwise wouldn’t be there.

Oh, and this is a bit of a spoiler: I cried when one of the cockroaches died.

It’s just that good.

No More Dead Dogs

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by Gordon Korman
First sentence: “When my dad was a helicopter pilot in Vietnam, he once rescued eight Navy SEALs who were stranded behind enemy lines.”
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Content: There is some romance (just crushes and a bit of cheek kissing) and some mild cussing. The text is pretty simple. It would be in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, though I bet 6th graders would like it too.

Wallace Wallace (the poor guy getting stuck with parents who named him that!) ALWAYS tells the truth. Mostly it’s because his father was a horrible liar (well, exaggerator/storyteller) who eventually left his mom, and so Wallace decided to never do that. Unfortunately, his truth-telling doesn’t always come off well. In fact, in seventh grade English class everyone was required to read a “classic” — the made up Old Shep, My Pal — book and do a report on it. Wallace’s report, because he won’t lie: the book was awful. And please, no more dead dogs.

That report lands him in detention with the English teacher, who is also directing a play — an adaptation of, you guessed it, Old Shep — and so Wallace can’t go to football practice and instead ends up at play rehearsal. And, of course, advocates for changing the play. It’s more complex than that; it also involves pranks and Wallace being set up, and everyone not liking him, and a small middle school romance, but that’s the general picture of it.

I hadn’t ever read Gordon Korman’s books before, but I’d heard that he was funny and he gets kids. Well, maybe this was just dated — it was written in 2000 — which is often a problem with contemporary realistic fiction. But whatever the reason it really fell flat. The plot was silly (supposedly funny?). I guessed who the prankster was (was I supposed to? Or was it supposed to be a big reveal?) before the characters. I thought the kids were brats (maybe all middle schoolers are). And I just didn’t find it funny. But, humor is subjective: not everyone finds the same things amusing. So, I can forgive that. I can see how kids would eat this up: what I found annoying as an adult, they could relate to. And so I can see how it has value, even if I didn’t like it much at all.

Module 9: Capture the Flag

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Messner, K. (2012). Capture the Flag. New York, NY: Scholastic.

Genre: Middle grade private eye-style mystery.

Book Summary:  Anna is the daughter of a Vermont senator, José the son of an art historian, and Henry the nephew of a huge art collector. What brought them all together was a gala for the restoration of the flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner (I’ve seen it at the National Museum of American History… it’s… an old flag). A flag which was stolen. And since the three plucky kids are holed up in a DC airport (National? Dulles?) snowed in (I suppose that’s plausible for DC, but improbably) and stuck there, they take it upon themselves to find the missing flag.

Impressions: This one, for me, suffered from too many coincidences. BOTH the people running for president were from Vermont? All the kids were headed back to Vermont? (WHY Vermont?!) And their moms/aunts were all part of this secret art protection society (which I could never figure out what that had to do with the plot). There was a “bad” guy that turned out to be a maguffin, but I called the real culprit fairly early on, so there wasn’t any real mystery to this mystery. I’m guessing kids would like it (who doesn’t like kids outsmarting adults?) and I did like that Anna was the character that pushed the plot forward, but overall,  it just fell flat for me. There are much better art mysteries, or middle grade mysteries, out there.

Review: The Kirkus staff really liked the book, calling it “gripping” and “a sparkling start for a promising new series”. They did admit that the ways in which the kids accessed the inner workings of an airport was “improbable” but noted that this probably wouldn’t bother the target audience.

Staff. (2012). Capture the flag. Kirkus Reviews. 80 (11). Retrieved from: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kate-messner/capture-flag/.

Library Uses: This one would be good on a library display of mystery books or books about U. S. artifacts or art.

Readalikes:

  • Framed by James Ponti – This is the most similar: set in Washinton, D.C. and involving an art theft. Except this one was a lot less predictable — even though there were clues throughout — and a lot more enjoyable — it was definitely action-packed! — to read.
  • The Greenglass House by Kate Milford — This one has a slight paranormal element, but mostly it’s just a mystery of figuring out who the different travelers are, and their connection to the Greenglass House and why each traveler suddenly appeared at the house on Christmas Eve.
  • Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage —  A delightful, quirky Southern mystery as Mo, the main character, tries to clear her best friend’s name when he discovers a dead body. It’s got fantastic characters, a lot of charm and drama, and a great mystery to solve (and the kids do solve it!) in addition.

Ask the Passengers

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by A. S. King
First sentence: “Every airplane, no matter how far it is up there, I send love to it.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s almost sex, references to pot smoking (by an adult), and a number of f-bombs. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) at the bookstore.

Astrid Jones’ parents moved her from New York City to Union Valley, a wealthy small town somewhere in Pennsylvania (or Ohio; I never quite figured it out) when she was 10. In the seven years since, Astrid has felt like an outsider, and so, as her family slowly dissolves — her father off smoking his pot, her mother to her job, her sister to being popular — Astrid spends her time surviving, trying to figure out if she’s gay, and sending her love to the airplanes that fly above.

Of course there’s more to the story than that: Astrid has a girlfriend she’s keeping secret from everyone, she and her friends get busted for being underage at a gay bar, she explores the philosophy of Socrates, and she and her family try to (maybe) figure out how to be a family.

The thing that struck me most — and this is just because of who I am and my personal experiences — is that King nailed the feeling of being on the outside. Especially when you’re on the outside in a small, conservative, wealthy town. Where everyone knew each other from the time they were little and then you move in and they never really — even if you do have a couple of friends — accept you for who you are because you don’t fit their idea of “acceptable”. There was  LOT in here about appearances and labels and fitting in and caring what other people think of you, and that’s what resonated. I think, especially since this was published seven years ago, that our ideas of LGBT and labels about sexuality have changed (mine have,  at least) and so the fact that Astrid felt that she needed to come out as definitely gay was a bit off-putting: everyone around her pushed her to label herself, whereas I think now we might be more open to her saying “I’m in love with a girl” and not making her label herself as “gay” because of that. But maybe I’m wrong.

At any rate, this gave me a lot to think about. I loved it.

Aru Shah and the End of time

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by Roshani Chokshi
First sentence: “The problem with growing up around highly dangerous things is that after a while you just get used to them.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: March 27, 2018
Review copy provided by the publisher.
Content: There are some complex names, a little violence, and hints of crushes, but I’d give it to anyone reading the Percy Jackson series. It will be in the Middle Grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore.

When we saw Rick Riordan, and he was talking about his imprint, Rick Riordan Presents, one of my husband’s concerns is that the writers of these books on this imprint will just basically be telling Percy Jackson stories, superimposed on people of color and their mythologies.

And, after finishing Aru Shah and the End of Time — with its Hindu mythology — I can say that’s partly true. Aru Shah felt like a Percy Jackson book: a girl finds out she’s the daughter of a god (in this case, Indra, the god of Thunder), goes on a quest with a new-found friend and a sidekick to save the world (from the demon The Sleeper, which has awoken) , in a book full of humor, pop culture references, and non-stop action. So, yeah, in a sense that’s true. But Aru Shah is also wholly its own thing. Aru is more conflicted than Percy ever was: she, inadvertently sets off the crisis she has to save the world from, which fills her, not unexpectedly, with guilt. And while the quest part feels the same, there are notable differences: primarily being the mythology; there are a ton of stories in Hindu lore, and while I’m not familiar with all of them, I do know some, and I liked the spin that Chokshi put on them. I liked that Aru and her friend Mini’s relationship was complicated: they were reincarnated souls of former brothers, which makes them sisters, though they have different god fathers and different families in the human world. It gave a deeper, richer layer to their relationship, which I really enjoyed. Everyone in the book seemed more complex and mulit-faceted than I was expecting, which was nice.

In short, while this does feel familiar, and will to anyone who has read the Percy Jackson books, Choski has also put her stamp on the stories, which is a refreshing, welcome thing.