Book Review: Brendan Buckley’s Sixth-Grade Experiment by Sundee T. Frazier

Some people never ask questions. Maybe they’re afraid they’ll look dumb, or maybe they don’t think of things to ask. But not me. It’s like my brain is one big bowl of Rice Krispies and all my questions are the milk. It’s a constant snap, crackle, and pop up there.


Brendan Buckley's Sixth-Grade Experiment
Brendan Buckley’s Sixth-Grade Experiment by Sundee T. Frazier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
 

Synopsis:
Brendan Buckley is back, and he’s headed for middle school! He has all-new questions to write down and ponder, from whether he can train his new pet anole to anticipate his morning feeding to whether he can pass his next Tae Kwon Do belt test. And why doesn’t his dad show as much interest in how his entry in the national science competition is going as in how he’ll do in the martial arts tournament? Why are things weird between him and his best friend? And how does he really feel about Morgan, the girl from the Rock Club who just started at his school?

 

Review:
There is a whole lot going on in this sequel to Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything in It. Brendan’s just discovering girls, who are way more complicated than anything he’s ever tried to study. His dad has gone back to school to finish his degree. His parents are hoping to adopt a baby. Brendan’s new relationship with his grandfather is still developing. Frazier uses a light touch with the material, skipping easily from topic to topic at a pace just right for our young hero. He’s a likeable kid, trying to do the right thing. His confusion as he applies his scientific mind to figuring out family, school, and girls is sensitively and sympathetically portrayed, yet lightened with a good dose of humor. This is fun, realistic, contemporary middle grade fiction. Suggest to fans of Lisa Yee‘s Rancho Rosetta books and Tom Angleberger‘s Origami Yoda.

On shelves January 10, 2012.

 

Final Word:
Brendan Buckley is growing up in this sweet, lighthearted, realistic tale.

 

Source:
e-ARC via NetGalley, provided by the publisher by request.

 

 

View all my reviews

Book Review: Second Fiddle by Roseanne Parry

If we had known it would eventually involve the KGB, the French National Police, and the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, we would have left that body in the river and called the Polizei like any normal German citizen; but we were Americans and addicted to solving other people’s problems, so naturally, we got involved.


Second Fiddle
Second Fiddle by Rosanne Parry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
 

Synopsis:
Berlin in 1990: a city in transition. The Wall has just come down, people have fled from East Berlin in search of better lives, and the Soviet Army is facing some serious problems of its own. For American Army-brat Jody and her best friends, Giselle and Vivian, Berlin is also home. For a while, at least. Jody’s three-year stay is about to come to an end with her family’s upcoming move to Texas, while Giselle’s family is headed to California. The girls are in the final days of preparing for one last competition as a string trio – in Paris! – when their teacher tells them he cannot take them after all. On their way home from receiving that disappointing news, the girls save a drowning Estonian soldier, beaten and thrown off a bridge by officers of his own Soviet Army. He needs to escape Berlin before the Russians find him. The girls need a chaperon to Paris before their parents find out their teacher canceled. What could possibly go wrong?

 

Review:
In Parry’s second book for young readers, she takes us back to a time that seems too recent to really be called historical fiction, but it is. She sketches the reality of teens of the time – no cell phones, no e-mail – with specific details without waxing overly nostalgic (an easy trap when writing historical fiction set in your own lifetime). For today’s tweens, the days of the Soviet Union are ancient history! The story is told through Jody’s eyes, but all three girls are strong characters. Their bond, and the way it sustains them through thick and thin, forms the core of the novel. Parry keeps their madcap antics in Paris just this side of unbelievable, giving both a thrilling adventure tale and a sweet story of friendship, loyalty, and discovering one’s own strength.

 

Final Word:
Set in the waning days of the Cold War, this is a fine adventure story with a warm heart.

 

Source:
Checked out from my public library.

 

View all my reviews

Book Review: May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

I watch a bird balance
on a blade of grass
bent low toward earth
to find a meal.
All creatures must work for their keep.

May B.
May B. by Caroline Starr Rose
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
 

Synopsis:
Life on the Kansas prairie frontier is tough, and 12-year-old Mavis Betterly – May B. – knows it. A learning disability makes school especially challenging, but she is determined to do well, hoping to become a teacher herself one day. Instead of going to school this winter, though, May is headed to a stranger’s homestead 15 miles away. She will help his wife, newly arrived from the East, with the chores, earning a little money to help her own parents as well. “Just until Christmas,” they tell her. Just as May begins to settle in at the Oblingers’ sod house, both adults head into town, and they don’t come back. Trapped by a blizzard, May faces the brutal winter outside while confronting her own haunting memories inside. It will take all her toughness to make it home again

 

Review:
Novels in verse are a tricky thing. As a reader, I always ask what the verse form adds to the story that the author couldn’t have accomplished with prose. In May B., the short, spare poems work. They let the reader straight into May’s thoughts, creating vivid images of life on the frontier. May is a frontier girl, plain-spoken and hard-working, but she is also just twelve years old. One of my favorite passages captures her petulant voice as the gravity of her situation becomes apparent:

I am going to stay here,
wrapped in these quilts,
let the fire die,
and freeze to death
or maybe starve,
whichever comes first.
Then Pa will be sorry
for sending me here.
Was it worth
those few dollars
to find
you daughter dead?

She knows she has to get down to the business of saving herself, but what adolescent (or grown-up, for that matter) could resist having a good wallow in self-pity first?

May is a sharp observer, and the details she notices about the other characters bring them to life while keeping the focus squarely on her. Rose evokes May’s physical and emotional struggles with simple language and poetic rhythm that keep the reader in her world until the very end. A striking debut.

On shelves January 10, 2012.

 

Final Word
Sharp writing, engaging characters, and a thrilling survival story – what’s not to love?
Source:

e-ARC via NetGalley, provided by the publisher by request.

View all my reviews

 

Book Review: The Invisible Tower (Otherworld Chronicles #1) by Nils Johnson-Shelton

Arthur “Artie” Kingfisher — twelve, rail thin, and not nearly tan enough for a kid in July — had just finished slaying Caladirth, a female green dragon with sharpened rubies for teeth and curved golden spikes for horns.

 


The Invisible Tower (Otherworld Chronicles #1)
The Invisible Tower by Nils Johnson-Shelton
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
 

Synopsis:
Artie Kingfisher is a pretty average kid. He likes Mountain Dew and video games. He has a close relationship with his older sister, Kay, and their dad, Kynder. (Since he was eight years old, when he learned that he was adopted, Artie has called his father by his first name.) As Nitwit the Gray, he slays dragons and finds treasure in a game called Otherworld, but he knows wizards and magic only exist in fantasy. Or do they? Searching for a last-minute replacement game controller for Kay, Artie visits a store called the Invisible Tower, where he learns his own unbelievable true story: he is King Arthur, and he must journey to the real Otherworld to retrieve Excalibur and complete a quest that just might save the world.

 

Review:
This modern-day retelling of Arthurian legend features smart, sassy middle-schoolers tackling quests worthy of the Knights of the Round Table. The concept is good, which makes the execution all the more disappointing. Other than Artie and, to a lesser extent, Kay and Merlin, the characters are flat and lifeless. Because the situations are so bizarre – as even Artie notes – it should take more than a bit of hand-waving to get the characters to cooperate. The writing is clunky, with a heavy dependence on flat-out telling rather than showing. Things happen “suddenly”: while describing his first encounter at the Invisible Tower to Kay, Artie “couldn’t explain why it all made sense, but suddenly it did.” During their trip to the Lake to claim Excalibur, “[t]he sky suddenly got much darker”, a few short paragraphs later, “[t]he flock of birds suddenly dispersed”, a few pages after that, “suddenly [Artie] found two swords pointing straight up at the sky”, and once he holds the sword in his hand, Artie “suddenly knew some Welsh and a fair amount of Latin.” (Emphasis mine.)

There are many versions of the Arthurian saga available for young readers, from White’s classic The Once and Future King to Cammuso’s hilarious Knights of the Lunch Table. The standards are high. Otherworld never quite measures up.

On shelves January 3, 2012.

Final Word:
This modern-day middle-schooler King Arthur and his Knights are appealing in concept but fall disappointingly short of their potential.

Source:
e-ARC via NetGalley, provided by the publisher by request

View all my reviews

Book Review: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

They called the world beyond the walls of the Pod ‘the Death Shop.’ A million ways to die out there.

Under the Never Sky (Under the Never Sky, #1)

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

 

Synopsis:
Aria has lived her whole life within the walls of Reverie. She spends most of her time physically seated in the lounge while visiting a variety of virtual Realms via her Smarteye patch. The Realms are, the advertising slogan goes, “Better than Real”. Outside, the world is a largely barren wasteland under a sky of swirling Aether populated by tribes battling for survival.

One of those tribes is the Tides, led by their Blood Lord, Vale. Vale’s younger brother, Peregrine, is gifted with extranormal senses of sight and smell, making him an excellent hunter. His devotion to his nephew, Talon, keeps him from challenging Vale for Blood Lord.

When Talon is kidnapped, Peregrine sets out to get him back. Along the way, he finds Aria, who has been thrown out of Reverie for a crime she didn’t commit. The two form an uneasy partnership that slowly blooms into something more.

 

Review:
From the opening scene, in which Aria hesitantly goes along with a group breaking into a Service Dome, Rossi throws the reader right into her created world. The world-building is beautifully done, revealing necessary information at just the right pace to keep the reader from feeling lost without doing an info-dump. The sheltered (in both senses) society of Reverie and the brutal Outside are drawn with rich detail, while details of what happened to create this world are shared sparingly. The third-person narration alternates perspective between Aria and Peregrine in a natural rhythm, allowing the reader access to important information about each one without requiring Awkward Expository Dialogue.

The romance between Peregrine and Aria develops at a slow burn; there is no Love At First Sight for these two. Instead, these two complex characters bond in the course of a dangerous quest that keeps offering thrilling twists and turns. Rossi balances a strong plot with engaging (if not always likeable) characters with a deft touch.

On shelves January 3, 2012.

 

Final Word:
Clever sci-fi dystopian romance from a promising new author. Looking forward to the sequel!

 

Source:
e-ARC via NetGalley, provided by the publisher by request

 

View all my reviews

2011 Cybils Finalists

The Cybils Finalists have been announced!

There are great books on these lists, and I’m not just saying that because I helped make the one for Middle Grade Fiction. (Speaking of which, if you followed the link from there to Points West to here, Hi! Thanks for coming by!) I was happy to see that one of my very favorite apps – The Monster at the End of this Book – is a finalist in Book Apps.

Winners to be announced on February 14th. I can hardly wait!

One More 5-Star Read

Welcome to Bordertown

Here’s the trouble with putting out that 5-Star List before the year actually ends. I should have known I’d end up adding one more!

Just as well, since I think Welcome to Bordertown deserves special attention, anyway.

The first three Bordertown anthologies – Borderland, Bordertown, and Life on the Border – came out in the mid-80s and very early 90s, just early enough to have passed out of print right at the time I would have loved them as a teen. (The Essential Bordertown came out later and is still in print, so I don’t really have any excuse for having missed it.) So, I’m a latecomer to the party. The one good thing about that is that I have some great books to track down and read now, and it looks like the editors are working on getting e-book editions out.

This is an absolutely fantastic collection. There’s a bit of everything: short stories, poems, a comic, even a faerie jump rope chant. My expectations were high going in, since the list of contributors includes some really big names, and I was not disappointed. My personal favorite was Tim Pratt‘s “Our Stars, Our Selves”. I love when an anthology introduces me to a great author I somehow missed. I love the whole world of Bordertown.

Apocalypsies Love Give-Away!

Presenting Lenore is giving away some fabulous 2012 Debut Author packages, and you could win! Check out the details over there. I’ve already entered.

Hey, wait a second. If more people enter, that lowers the odds for me everyone, doesn’t it?

You know what, forget I said anything.

Oh, all right. Go on. The more, the merrier!

Reading Challenge Wrap-Up: Off the Shelf Challenge 2011

Oh, Bookish Ardour‘s Off the Shelf Challenge. It was such a good idea. I was so excited. I had already picked out 12 books from my shelves to read in 2011, so adding 3 more to make the “Trying” level seemed like no big deal. No problem, right?

So. How’d I do, you ask?

Possessing Genius: The Bizarre Odyssey of Einstein's Brain

Yeah. One book. And I never even managed to post a review. Sad, really.

I still think the challenge itself is a great idea, so I’m going to try again in 2012. I’m going for the “Tempted” level this time. Just five books. No problem.