Canada

The Madman of Piney Woods

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by Christopher Paul Curtis
First sentence: “The old soldiers say you never hear the bullet that kills you.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s nothing, language wise. However, Curtis tackles some pretty heavy issues: slavery, of course; but also Irish immigration, abuse, racism. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5) section of the bookstore, but I would exercise caution about giving this to sensitive children. Good for discussion, though.

It’s 1901, and Benji is a pre-teen in the all-black town of Buxton, Canada. He has a couple of younger siblings that get on his nerves, a best friend who is a good orator, and is both an aspiring newsman and someone who loves the woods. Red is a pre-teen in the nearby town of Chatham. His grandmother was an Irish immigrant, and he’s positively scared of her wrath. He spends his days in school, with his friends — one of whom has an alcoholic, abusive father — and at home dealing with his grandmother.

They’re the most unlikely of friends, but when they do meet, they hit it off.

Which comes in handy the night that the Madman of Piney Woods — a local homeless black veteran of the Civil War — is shot. It’s up to Benji and Red to make everything turn out, if not okay, then at least better than it could have ended.

Perhaps I should have taken the time, once I figured out that this was set in the same place, to reread Elijah of Buxton. Maybe I would have connected to it better. But, I think the main problem I have with this one is that the plot took a long time to show up. It’s told in alternating chapters, one Benji (who was more interesting than Red), one Red. And it took FOREVER for them to meet. (More than halfway through the book!). Once they met, the plot picked up, and I was able to finish fairly quickly. I did appreciate that Curtis was exploring ideas and themes that are tough to manage: the way humans treat other people being the primary theme. It’s an important thing to expose kids to, and to do so with a bit of a mystery story (more or less) is a good thing.

But that wasn’t enough to make me love this book, even though I really wanted to.

Lord and Lady Bunny — Almost Royalty

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by Polly Horvath
First sentence: “It was summer on Hornby Island.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: Mr. and Mrs. Bunny — Detectives Extraordinaire
Content: The only thing I can think of is that some of the vocabulary (like synchronicity or textured soy protein or materialized) might make it challenging for younger readers. It’s in the middle grade (grades 3-5th) section of the bookstore.

Fresh off their last adventure, both Mr. and Mrs. Bunny and their human friend Madeline are finding life a little boring. Madeline’s still stressing about money (thanks to her parents’ — Flo and Mildred — lack of foresight), and most especially about a college fund. Mr. and Mrs. Bunny are back to squabbling and comparing themselves to their uppity neighbor Mrs. Treaclebunny. But never fear: adventure is in the cards. Flo and Mildred discover they’ve inherited a candy shop in a small English village and Mr. and Mrs. Bunny decide to head to England on vacation. Of course they meet up on the cruise ship ride to England from Victoria, Canada (implausible, I know  — but some of the funniest scenes are on the cruise ship), and of course madcap farce ensues.

I don’t know if it was my mood, but I didn’t find this one as funny as the first. Maybe it was because it was very much the same thing over again, and not being New and Fresh, it wasn’t as enjoyable. But I also think it was because there was a lack of a consolidated conflict. In the first book Madelline and the Bunnys had to save Madeline’s parents from the bad foxes. This time, they were just going across the ocean and puttering about England trying to raise money. Not as, well, interesting in my book.

Though there were some brilliant moments. My favorites was the often-repeated aside that went like this:
“American?”
“No. Canadian.” When would they learn to tell the difference?

I laughed every time.

I was also amused at the meta part where Mrs. Bunny ended up at a book signing that the “translator” of the first book was at. Because, well, the humans think the translator is making things up, and Mr. and Mrs. Bunny don’t exist. It was pretty amusing.

But, in the end, it didn’t tickle my funny bone the way the first one did.