Kaleidoscope Eyes

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by Jen Bryant
ages: 10+
First sentence: “I wake up every morning to Janis Joplin.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

It’s the summer of 1968, and 13-year-old Lyza Bradley has had enough of death and abandonment. It’s been two years since her mother disappeared, and with the Vietnam War raging, boys in her small South Jersey are coming home in coffins more than she’d like. So, when her Grandpa dies, it’s almost more than she can bear.

Except… Grandpa left something just for Lyza: three maps and a mystery to solve. With her two best friends — Malcom and Carolann — Lyza unravels the mystery of the maps to discover that famed “reluctant pirate” Captain William Kidd possibly buried treasure right in their town. The question is: can they find it?

I have no idea what I expected when I pulled this off the shelf. I was intrigued by the title: what would a book that quotes a phrase from a Beatles song be about? Turns out that it’s much like a kaleidoscope: a lot of little bits and pieces of a lot of things working together to make a patchwork story. There isn’t an issue of the late-1960s that doesn’t make a passing reference: racism — Lyza’s best friend Malcom is African American, and has to deal with racism; the Vietnam War and all that entails from the fighting to the protests to the draft and all that entails; hippies — Lyza’s older sister Denise and her boyfriend Harry certainly qualify; and drugs — at one point, Lyza’s father thinks she’s doing drugs, even though what she’s really doing is digging up buried treasure.

It’s not heavy-handed, though, which, at the beginning I was afraid of. Once the maps come into play, however, the issues fade to the background. They were a part of life in 1968; it would have felt odd not to have mentions of Dr. King’s or Robert Kennedy’s death. But the primary focus of the story was the adventure and discovery of the kids. And because of that, it became also a homage to freer times, when three 13-year-olds could go all over a town (and to other towns) without adults knowing more than just the bare minimum.

The format also helped: it’s a novel in verse, and the way some of the poems reflected the mood of the characters, or the events was clever, but not distracting. And, again, they had a kaliedoscopic effect: a lot of little pieces that came together to make a nice story. Which is really rather neat.

Library Loot 2010-12

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Y’know, one of the things the library is good for is when you own a book, and you have a daughter who wants to read it, but then you realize that you’ve loaned it to your dad… oops. I’m just glad our library is awesome that way.

This week’s loot:

Picture Books:
The Jellybeans and the Big Book Bonanza, by Laura Numeroff and Nate Evans/Illus. by Lynn Munsinger
Sir Charlie Stinky Socks and the Really Big Adventure, by Kristina Stephenson
Little Cloud and Lady Wind, by Toni Morrison and Slade Morrison/Illus by Sean Qualls
Louise the Big Cheese and the La-di-da Shoes, by Elise Primavera/Illus by Diane Goode
Paulie Pastrami Achieves World Peace, by James Proimos
Smile!, by Leigh Hodgkinson

Middle Grade Fiction:
Peter and the Sword of Mercy (Starcatchers), by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
The Farwalker’s Quest, by Joni Sensel
Hachiko Waits, by Leslea Newman
The Storm in the Barn, by Matt Phelan

YA Fiction:
As You Wish, Jackson Pearce
I am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to be Your Class President, Josh Lieb
The Stonekeeper’s Curse (Amulet, Book 2), by Kazu Kibuishi

The roundup is either at Reading Adventures or A Striped Armchair. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I’ll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it’s SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I’m going to keep doing it.

March 2010 Jacket Flap-a-thon

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Shall we forgo the usual blather, since I’ll have a Library Loot post going up later, and just jump into this month’s books? I think so.

The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook (Bloomsbury): “What do a secret squirt watch, a pair of spring-loaded super-boots, and the incredible Kablovsky copter have in common? They’re all inventions of the Secret Science Alliance. This trio of gadgeteers is hard at work in a secret lab, tinkering with technology that’s definitely too cool for school! But when an evil scientist steals their blueprints and hatches a deadly plan, the Secret Science Alliance springs into action. Can three young inventors, armed with their crazy creations, defeat this criminal mastermind? Strap on your welding goggles and get ready for a high-tech adventure from comic supergenius Eleanor Davis!”

Doesn’t this book sound like great fun? I didn’t really love it, but I have to admit that this flap copy made me want to read it!

Shine, Coconut Moon (Margaret K. McElderry): “Seventeen-year-old Samar — a.k.a. Sam — has never known much about her Indian heritage. Her mom has deliberately kept Sam away from her old-fashioned family. It’s never bothered Sam, who is busy with school, friends, and a really cute but demanding boyfriend. But things change after 9/11. A guy in a turban shows up at Sam’s house, and he turns out to be her uncle. He wants to reconcile the family and teach Sam about her Sikh heritage. Sam isn’t sure what to do, until a girl at school calls her a coconut — brown on the outside, white on the inside. That decides it: Why shouldn’t Sam get to know her family? What is her mom so afraid of? Then some boys attack her uncle, shouting, “Go back home, Osama!” and Sam realizes she could be in danger — and also discovers how dangerous ignorance can be. Sam will need all her smarts and savvy to try to bridge two worlds and make them both her own.”

This sums up the book nicely, but doesn’t give away too much of the conflict. Can I mention, though, that I didn’t notice the guy on the cover of the book? And that I really am very tired of headless teen girls on covers??

Heist Society (Hyperion): “When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre…to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria…to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own–scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving “the life” for a normal life proves harder than she’d expected. Soon, Kat’s friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat’s father isn’t just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat’s dad needs her help. For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it’s a spectacularly impossible job? She’s got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in history-or at least her family’s (very crooked) history. “

Okay, so I guess I was in a “fun” mood this month: this one, too, makes the book sound like a huge amount of fun. Which it was.

Other books read this month:
Frankie Pickle
Scarlett Fever
Angus, Thongs, and Full-frontal Snogging
Howards End
Sugar
Over Sea, Under Stone
The Truth About Forever
Candor
Sea Glass
Open: An Autobiography
Swiftly Tilting Planet (DNF)
Timekeeper’s Moon
Marching for Freedom
The English American

Running Total: 42
Adult fiction: 8
YA: 15
MG: 9
Non-fiction: 5
Graphic Novel: 5
Didn’t Finish: 2

Marching for Freedom

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Walk Together, Children, and Don’t You Grow Weary
by Elizabeth Partridge
ages: 10+
First sentence: “The first time Joanne Blackmon was arrested, she was just ten years old.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

I’m sure this was on my radar before SLJ’s Battle of the (Kids) Books began, but the decision of Gary Schmidt prompted me to delve into it.

And he’s right: it’s a remarkable book.

It’s the story of the Selma, Alabama marches in 1965 as told through the eyes of the children and teenagers that were involved. Partridge’s words and photographs from the time paint a vivid picture of the stories of these children, their parents, and the general plight of African Americans in the south before the mid-60s. The sacrifice that these people made to get what many people now take for granted is awe-inspiring. Sure, the civil rights leaders show up — Dr. King, Rosa Parks, among others — but the real heart and soul of the book are the children that faced the billy clubs, cattle prods, tear gas, and were consistently arrested and rearrested. It’s enough to bring one to tears.

Honestly, two thoughts kept going through my mind while I was reading. First was that I think that this book couldn’t come at a better time. Sure, it was 40 years ago, but I think we need to constantly be reminded of, and remember to teach our children about, the sacrifices that were made. I think — and this just may be me talking — that we tend to become apathetic about what we have, and forget all the people that worked to make it all possible.

Second was that if I wasn’t a voter, I’d be very ashamed. In fact, the next time someone tells me they don’t vote, I’m going to hand them this book. It’s a right, it’s a privilege, and — dang it — we should take advantage of that.

Enough soapbox. The book really is worth your time.

Timekeeper’s Moon

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by Joni Sensel
ages: 11+
First sentence: “The moon refused to hush or come down, so Ariel Farwalker was forced to climb up.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy provided by the publisher.

A little while ago, Charlotte reminded me how much I loved The Farwalker’s Quest, and reminded me that I really wanted to read the sequel. So, off the shelves it came, and (as I expected) I was not disappointed.

Ariel has been plagued by the moon speaking to her. She, initially thought she was going crazy, but as the voices in her head become more insistent, she’s realized that she needs to heed what the moon — and her feet — are saying. That she needs to go, somehow, and find the sender of the telling darts that were the starting point of her first journey. So, she and Scarl — her father figure, friend and protector — head south, with only Ariel’s instincts and a vague map/calendar to guide them, not knowing what they’ll find.

Like Farwalker, much of the joy in this book is in the world that Sensel has created. Going south gives her a reason to introduce us to more of this world, including a swamp village, Skunk, where Ariel finds friends, traveling companions, and even a first love. They discover more remnants of the world before the Blind War, and find that perhaps not everyone has completely forgotten the old ways. And, in a very interesting use of fantasy conventions, they do find the answers to the questions that led them on this journey.

Sensel is not only a gifted world-builder, she has a knack for involving the reader in her world, for making us care about the characters and the situations. She is also a master at keeping us — or at least me — as readers engaged. It’s a lyrical book, but it’s never slow, and full of enough twists and turns to keep me guessing as to how it will all turn out. My only quibble is with the ending — it seemed a little too… convenient. Pat. And yet, confusing. I knew what was going on, but I had to read it through twice to fully “get” it.

Still, that’s a small quibble, and it doesn’t ruin the book at all. If you haven’t experienced the world that Sensel has built, do. It’s thoroughly captivating.

Sunday Salon: Interacting With Books

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Good morning, all! I meant to get this up earlier, but stayed up really late last night watching Back to the Future with M and C. You know what? It’s still a good movie 25 years later.

So, a few days ago, Hubby and M got into a discussion. Here’s the gist of it, if I remember right: Hubby started by asking why there weren’t, if JK Rowling was “right”, more magical people in the world? Then he branched out: how does one come by magical powers? Is it genetic? If so, how does one get the gene? M really got into the discussion; it ranged all over from genetics to the idea of cultural pressure to general world-building techniques — Riordan and Tolkien were both brought up at one point — as well as trying, very hard, to justify the small numbers of magical people in Rowling’s world.

I participated a bit, but mostly I sat mystified, thinking, “Guys…. it’s just a book.”

Hubby and I talked about it afterward: he asked if, say, I had ever stopped to wonder how rich Elizabeth Bennett was after she married Darcy. And I honestly had to admit that no, I haven’t. I read books, I enjoy books, I write about books, I talk about books, but I don’t actually think about the world in the books. The most I can admit to is getting crushes on men in books, or wanting to live next door to a particular family, but even those don’t last long after I shut the pages. I just don’t interact with books that way.

Which leads me to today’s question: do you? Do you wonder about the small intricacies in the world that a particular author has created, whether it be fantasy or contemporary fiction? Do you see yourself in that world? Do you want to interact with the people in it?

Heist Society

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by Ally Carter
ages: 12+
First sentence: “No on knew for certain when the trouble started at Colgan school.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

Why is it that we, as normal people, love stories about thieves? About good people who live just outside the law? Or, even better yet, about good-looking, rich people traveling the world doing things, buying things, that normal people can’t even dream about doing.

You make those people teenagers, and you’ve basically got the idea of what this book is about. Though don’t get me wrong: this book is a LOT of fun. Impossible, improbable, sure. But unputdownable fun.

Kat has walked away from the family “business” of stealing things. Robbing museums, banks, mansions, you name it; she was the grease man, the inside man, the go-to girl. Then, in her biggest con, she got into an exclusive boarding school. She wanted, needed a normal life. However, it turns out that she can’t get away from family. Three months into her self-imposed exile, she gets kicked out because of a prank she didn’t pull (she was framed!). Turns out that her father is in trouble; he was framed for a job he didn’t do, and now a powerful mobster is out to get him. And it’s Kat who has the know-how, and her friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, who has the resources, to get him out of trouble. Even if it means traveling the world, trying to find the trail of the real thief. Even if it means robbing a famous high-security museum in England.

It takes an incredible suspension of disbelief to make this book work — really? 16-year-olds popping all over the world? Right… — but, suspend it, and you will have fun. There’s action, adventure, suspense, thrills, laughs, hot guys (both British and American, take your pick), and romance. It’s about family; sure they’re mostly dysfunctional, but hey: they care.

The ending was a bit abrupt for my taste; there’s one string left hanging that I wish would have been wrapped up. I suppose it was for the best though, to leave a little mystery. While I don’t think there’s a need for a sequel, I sure wouldn’t mind hanging out with Kat and her gang some more.

The English American

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by Alison Larkin
ages: adult
First sentence: “I think everyone should be adopted.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!

If you’ve hung around here for any time at all, you know I love many things British. So, how could I resist a book with this title (or the pretty cover)? I couldn’t, though it’s been on my TBR list for a very long time.

Pippa Dunn is adopted. She’s had a good life, growing up in England and traveling the world with her parents and sister. Yet, even though she’s mostly happy — she has abandonment issues with her relationships — she wonders: who is she, really? Who are the people who gave her life? What are they really like? So, she sets out on a quest to meet her birth parents, and to hopefully figure out herself.

She sets up a meeting with her birth mother, who, by all accounts (except for Pippa’s, at first), is crazy. Needy, clingy, paranoid… you name it, this woman is mentally unstable. Pippa tries for a connection, but finds that — after a while — it’s best to just get out. She finds her father — she’s a product of an affair — and while, initially connecting with him, discovers that he, too, is not what she wanted, needed or expected.

The whole book is her journey to this conclusion: that, while it’s nice to know the people who gave you your genes, that does not a family make. It’s an interesting journey, though. I liked the tension between British customs and manners and American ones, which created much of the tension in the book. There was a bit of a romance (hooray, she ended up with the guy I wanted her to!), as well, but mostly it was about self-discovery.

And in that journey, I felt that there was something missing. Perhaps the pacing was off: I felt too much time was devoted to her discovering her parents and not enough to developing anything else; everything happened overly fast at the end, wrapped up in a neat little bow. Perhaps it wasn’t British enough, or funny enough: I didn’t laugh as much or as often as I hoped I would. It also lacked a wit that I think would have helped the book overall in the end. Perhaps it was that I’m not all that interested, right now, in self-discovery: there was a lot of Pippa flailing around, trying to figure out who “Pippa Dunn” really is. I can respect that, but it’s a journey for much younger, much less settled people, which I am not. I’m sure it would mean more, as well, to someone who was adopted, or had adopted a child.

All that said, it was a quick, fun, mostly enjoyable read.

Library Loot 2010-11

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I missed last week because we were gone for spring break, and let me tell you: going to the library mid-week has got to be one of the things that gets me through the rest of the week. Last week was so LONG without a library trip.

It’s the little things. 😀

Picture Books:
Dora Celebrates Earth Day!
No T. Rex in the Library, by Toni Buzzeo/Illus. by Sashiko Yoshikawa
The Banshee, by Even Bunting/Illus. by Emily Arnold McCully
Shades of People, by Shelley Rotner and Sheila M. Kelly
Bats at the Beach, by Brian Lies
I Will Be Especially Very Careful, by Lauren Child
Bobby Bramble Loses His Brain, by Dave Keane/Illus. by David Clark

Non-Fiction books:
Marching For Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary, by Elizabeth Partridge

Middle Grade Fiction:
Dragonbreath, by Ursula Vernon
Green, by Laura Peyton Roberts
, by Julia Alvarez

YA Fiction:
Never Cry Werewolf, by Heather Davis
Hamlet, by John Marsden
A Brief History of Montmaray, by Michelle Cooper
, by Lisa Mantchev

Adult Fiction:
Neverwhere: A Novel, by Neil Gaiman
Except the Queen, by Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder

The roundup is either at Reading Adventures or A Striped Armchair. Obligatory FTC note: the links are provided through my Amazon Associates account. If you click through and actually purchase one of these books, I’ll get a teeny, tiny payment. But, since no one ever does, and it’s SO much easier using the associates account to put up these links, I’m going to keep doing it.

A Swiftly Tilting Planet

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by Madeline L’Engle
ages: 8-11
First sentence: “The big kitchen of the Murrys’ house was bright and warm, curtains drawn against the dark outside, against the rain driving past the house from the northeast.”

I never much liked this one, even as a kid. And the only reason I can think of, now, is that it’s because Meg isn’t really a part of the story. Oh, she’s there: she’s older now, married to Calvin, and pregnant with her first child. But she’s not really an active part in the story. She spends the book lying on a bed kything with Charles Wallace, who, at age 15, is off on an adventure of his own.

And honestly his adventure — saving the world from certain destruction by Madog Branzillo — isn’t really that interesting. He rides through time with a unicorn/Pegasus creature named Gaudior, popping in and out of within other people. I’m sure it has a very nice and neat conclusion, where Madog is stopped (not that it was memorable enough to stay with me), but honestly, I gave up halfway through. Charles Wallace was never my favorite character; he was always a bit too precocious for my taste. It was Meg I liked, Meg that resonated with me. And a Meg that just lies around being worried for Charles Wallace is kind of boring. Even now — perhaps especially now — after I’m all grown up, living the life that Meg was starting out on.

I feel bad about it, though. Like I’m giving up on some part of my childhood. Perhaps some books just shouldn’t be reread?