Tag: Fiction

Book Review: Wonder by R. J. Palacio

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February 6, 2012

7:00 am

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Here’s what I think: the only reason I’m not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way.

 

Wonder
Wonder by R.J. Palacio

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Synopsis:
August Pullman has had 27 surgeries in his 10 years of life. Because of the hospitalizations and other health problems, his mother has homeschooled him. But now his parents have enrolled him in the fifth grade at Beecher Prep. He knows he is just an ordinary kid, but he also knows that his face is different, and it is the first thing anyone will notice. Will he be able to get his new classmates to look beyond his appearance and get to know the ordinary kid inside? Or is he, just maybe, more extraordinary than he thinks?

 

Review:
Auggie’s first year of mainstream school is described in short chapters from several perspectives. Besides Auggie himself, his sister and four other characters get a chance to tell their sides of the story. Palacio does a fantastic job giving each character his (or her) own distinctive voice. The multiple perspectives also allow the reader to know more than any one character does, even (especially) Auggie. As Mr. Tushman points out, “there are almost always more than two sides to every story.” The characters are complicated. No one, not even Auggie, is all good or all bad. The situations are realistic, from the bullying in the halls of Beecher Prep to the small family dramas in the Pullman home. This is an amazing story told with empathy and humor. Kids and adults alike will love this stellar debut. Highly recommended.

On shelves February 14, 2012.

 

Final Word:
A beautifully written, heart-breaking but uplifting tale of one (extra-)ordinary kid.

 

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

 

 

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Book Review: Cold Cereal by Adam Rex

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January 31, 2012

7:00 am

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He steered toward the local park, down the storm drain shortcut he’d discovered yesterday, dodging broken glass and a man with a rabbit head, up the embankment toward the gap in the fence, and — was that a man with a rabbit head?

Cold Cereal
Cold Cereal by Adam Rex
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Synopsis:
Life for Scott Doe has always been a little odd, from his full name (Scottish Play Doe) to his mom’s new job with Goodco (what does a cereal company need with a physicist?) and the family’s recent move to the company town of Goodborough. So, maybe he just should have expected to start seeing weird things, like a man with a rabbit head in the park.

Erno and Emily Utz have always lived in Goodborough, in the same house but with a series of foster parents. Their current foster father regularly gives them tests in the form of brain-teasing puzzles. (Emily always solves them first.) Erno has never really thought about the reason behind the tests, but he is just about to find out.

In the town of Goodborough, very little is really as it seems, and there are goings-on that (literally) the people don’t see. Erno, Emily, and Scott are more important than they know, and there are forces at work that would love to keep them from discovering the truth about themselves, the town, and Goodco.

 

Review:
Rex brings his trademark satiric sensibility to this fantasy mystery for the middle grades. From Scott’s dad – John Doe – to the Goode and Harmliss Toasted Cereal Company to Merle Lynn (C.P.A.), the puns come fast and furious, along with delightfully twisted takes on cereal commercials, conspiracy theories, and Arthurian mythology.  The shifting third-person perspective includes Scott, Erno, and an unnamed narrator who provides some background information and sometimes cracks just a bit too wise. When focused on the kid’s-eye view, Rex excels; when he zooms out, the lighthearted wit gets bogged down. (In The True Meaning of Smekday, Tip’s first-person “essay” narration keeps the story a bit more grounded, if I can use the word “grounded” in relation to a story of aliens coming to Earth and relocating the human population of North America to Florida.)

I thoroughly enjoyed trying to solve the riddles alongside Erno and Scott, although I wasn’t quite clever enough. My e-ARC includes incomplete artwork (as did the paper ARC I thumbed through at ALA Midwinter), so I am looking forward to seeing the final product. The illustrations I could see were just the right complement to the text; I expect good things to come. There are even a few sneak peeks available at the author’s blog (KoKoLumps, anyone?)! By the book’s end, the immediate crisis has been solved, but there is a wide opening for the next volume in the planned trilogy.

On shelves February 7, 2012.

 

Final Word:
Fantasy, mystery, and satirical humor all swirled together in a tasty treat for middle grade readers (and maybe some grown-ups, too).

 

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

 

 

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Book Review: The Edumacation of Jay Baker by Jay Clark

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January 19, 2012

7:00 am

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Mom and Dad were in their room with the door shut. Again. Cautiously, I pressed my ear against the wooden frame. Hakuna Matata, no Discovery Channel-like sounds could be heard. Only two mammals speaking so quickly and intensely that their voices were nearly inaudible.

 

The Edumacation of Jay Baker

The Edumacation of Jay Baker by Jay Clark

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

 

Synopsis:
Jay Baker’s world is starting to crumble on all fronts. He has to face his mortal-enemy-since-the-seventh-grade in a Freshman Class Presidential debate. He only decided to run for class office to impress cheerleader Cameo Appearance Parnell, his best friend and unrequited crush, but she’s still dating the jocks who’ve been bullying Jay for years. His parents’ 19-year marriage is clearly not doing well; he just found out his mom has been sleeping with Some Dude Named Keith. It’s all enough to push a smart-mouthed, IBS-prone kid to the breaking point. Jay can try to cover up his worries with a fast-paced monologue of quips, puns, and pop-culture references, but, at some point, he’s going to have to figure out how to just be himself.

 

Review:
With a quick-paced narrative filled with snarky, coarse humor, this should be a hit with middle-school boys. Jay’s problems are instantly recognizable: he wants to impress a girl or two, he wants football-player Mike Hibbard to quit bullying him, and he wants his parents to get their act together. Jay and his older sister, Abby, make quite the sarcastic comedy team, leavening the mood whenever it seems in danger of turning serious.

Overall, this is a decent contemporary realistic novel with plenty of boy-appeal, appropriate for the younger range of YA. Jay’s heavy reliance on pop culture references will probably endear him to some teen readers, although they may date the book as pop culture moves ever onward. The narrative veers perilously close to “too clever” from time to time; maybe Jay is trying to impress the reader just as he tries to impress Cameo and Caroline. Clark’s debut novel won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but readers looking for light realism (no big issues here, just the everyday problems just about every teenager faces) served up with a heavy dose of snark will find it hits the spot.

On shelves January 31, 2012.

 

Final Word:
Middle school boys seem to be the ideal audience for this light contemporary realism that’s heavy on the snark.

 

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

 

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Book Review: The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis

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January 14, 2012

7:00 am

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“Once upon a time…”

If I could get away with it, that’s how I’d begin every essay I write.

Those are the four best words to use when you start telling about yourself because anything that begins that way always, always finishes with another four words, “… they lived happily everafter.”

 

The Mighty Miss Malone

The Mighty Miss Malone by Christopher Paul Curtis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

 

Synopsis:
Deza’s family firmly believes that they “are a family on a journey to a place called wonderful”, but times are hard. The year is 1936, and in Gary, Indiana, there are few jobs to be had, and even fewer for black men. After her father sets out for his mother’s home in Michigan to look for work, things go from bad to worse. Deza, her brother, Jimmie, and their mother head toward Flint after him, but they end up in a Hooverville outside the city. Jimmie’s talent for singing offers him a way out, while Mother and Deza find a new home and keep hoping to bring the family back together.

 

Review:
I came to this book without having read Bud, Not Buddy (I know, I know. Bad Librarian!), where Deza Malone first appears. In a note to the reader at the beginning of the book, Curtis explains that one of his prompts to write the story was the question he was asked at a visit to a Detroit mother daughter book club: “… what we’d really like to know is what business that little girl in the Hooverville had kissing a stranger like Bud Caldwell the way she did.” In The Mighty Miss Malone, Deza tells her version of that night, along with events before and after. Despite the reservations about writing from a girl’s perspective that he mentions, Curtis does an admirable job bringing Deza to life. Deza is, of course, a born storyteller, and her personality shines through in her strong voice. Her story takes sharp twists and turns; just as I would settle in comfortably, a chapter would end with a sentence like, “I walked upstairs and got in bed to finish my last good night of sleep for a long, long time.” Still, her irrepressible spirit kept me going, believing, just as she does, that things will work out all right.

Deza refuses to give in to self-pity. Her life is what it is, and Curtis uses this to masterfully set the scene. Important details about the hardships faced by the Malones and the families around them are given freely and naturally, without the sort of extra explanation for modern readers that sometimes crops up to thoroughly destroy the mood in historical fiction. This title is getting some Newbery buzz already, and for good reason.

On shelves January 10, 2012.

 

Final Word:
Spirited storyteller Deza tells her own tale of hope and hardship in this companion to Newbery winner, Bud, Not Buddy.

 

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

 

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Book Review: Jefferson’s Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

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January 12, 2012

12:00 pm

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When Mama told Beverly that Master Jefferson was his father, she called it a secret everybody knew.

 

Jefferson's Sons

Jefferson’s Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Synopsis:
William Beverly Hemings is seven years old when his mother tells him an important secret. Though he is black and a slave now, when he turns 21, he will be free… and white. He, his two younger brothers, and their sister are treated differently from the other slaves at Monticello, but they must never speak of why. As Beverly, then his little brother Madison, and finally their friend Peter Fossett grow up, they each must find their own answers to one big question: Can a man be great and still participate in evil?

 

Review:
The idea that the men who wrote that “all men are created equal” and staked their lives on the formation of a land of freedom owned slaves is a tough one for grown-ups to reconcile, let alone kids. Bradley gives a nuanced look at the lives of two slave families (the Hemingses and the Fossetts) at Monticello as their children puzzle out what it means for one of the fathers of a free country to also be the father of slaves. Its length and its thought-provoking content make it a book for older kids; my library has it cataloged as YA, though I wouldn’t hesitate to give it to an interested fifth-grader. Bradley gets a tiny bit didactic sometimes, but never so strongly that it really distracts from the story. An afterword shares the known facts about the lives of the Hemings family and offers suggestions for further reading.

 

Final Word:
Solid historical fiction offering a clear window into a murky time.

 

Source:
Checked out from my public library.

 

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

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January 9, 2012

7:00 am

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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.

 

 

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Book Review: Second Fiddle by Roseanne Parry

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January 8, 2012

7:00 am

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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.

 

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Book Review: May B. by Caroline Starr Rose

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January 7, 2012

3:00 pm

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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.

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

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January 6, 2012

6:00 am

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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

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Book Review: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

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January 2, 2012

10:00 pm

2 Comments on Book Review: Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

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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

 

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