Book Review: Railsea by China Mieville

Railsea by China Mieville

I picked this up upon the advice of one of my favorite local children's librarians, and boy, was she right!  This is another fabulous book!  I can't believe I've had two home run books in a row (the other being The Lions of Little Rock).

So while I had to write this review, I need to start off with a warning that this is not really a middle schoolers book.  It is classified as a YA novel, but I don't think adults picking it up would think it was "youth" literature rather than adult literature.  Apparently it is more accessible than some of the other books that he is written, but I've never read any of his works before, so I can't comment on that.

It is very hard to describe Railsea, but if I had to sum it up, to me it was kind of a steampunk fairy tale, with some religious and political overtones.  Mieville himself likes to call his work "weird fiction," and is part of a group of contemporary writers known as the New Weird who explain their literature as "a type of urban, secondary-world fiction that subverts the romanticized ideas about place found in traditional fantasy, largely by choosing realistic, complex real-world models as the jumping off point for creation of settings that may combine elements of both science fiction and fantasy."

So, basically, his stuff is fantasy, but much more Blade Runner than Lord of the Rings (in fact, Mieville has said that his goal is to move fantasy away from the influence of Tolkien).  And yet....this book was largely inspired by the great 19th century novel of American Romanticism, Moby Dick, with secondary influences contributed by adventure tales such as Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe.

In short, this is not your typical YA teenage angst/dystopian future/love triangle/vampire-werewolf-alien-monster fest.

In this book, Mieville has transported the obsessive quest for a beastly foe from the seas to the rails.  Instead of large ships sailing across vast oceans in which unknown dangers lurk, in Mieville's world the denuded plains are traversed with dozens or hundreds of looping, intersecting, and extensive tracks of unknown origin upon which the inhabitants make a living on a variety of different trains--electric, diesel, clockwork, or even wind-powered.  No one steps foot outside the trains, however, because the land is filled with massive subterranean killers--burrowing monsters such as the carniverous antlion, the vicious blood rabbit, or the largest predator of them all, the moldywarpe.  The landscape is cluttered with the wrecks and detritus of those who came to ruin on the ever-aging rails.

Thus, in Railsea, Mieville has created an incredibly interesting and unique world (complete with drawing that he did himself of the various underground hunters of the people above).  Then he borrows plot devices from some of the greatest novels of the past, weaving a tale filled with action and unexpected twists and turns.  However, as in Melville's original, the action is interspersed with literary reflections, both on the characters and stories themselves, but also on the moral or political questions that the story is raising.

It is this, in particular, that makes this a story for older teens.  Mieville uses various literary devices, such as asides and reflections by an unknown narrator, invented words and uses of language, and extensive usage of the ampersand, which is also a symbol for the rails themselves, which makes the book not a straight-forward read.  It takes a bit to get into his style, his words, his world.  It is well worth it, but I think the reader needs to be at a minimum of a high school reading level not to get frustrated or lost among Mieville's literary inclusions.

So it may be a few years before your middle schooler will be ready for this book.  But it is a book I can highly recommend for you!  I could see this book being a great book to read in class after the traditional Moby Dick version; the two taken together would probably enhance understanding of each work.

Book Review: The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine

The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine

As most of our organized academic activities wind down for the school year, other things start up for the summer.  One of our favorite and most important projects for the summer is the beginning of my son's Mock Newbery Book Club for the current year.

The point of the Mock Newbery Book Club is to read as many of this year's eligible young adolescent books (geared for ages 9-14) as possible in order for the group to pick the book they believe should be awarded the Newbery medal for outstanding writing in January 2013.  It is a great activity for voracious readers like my son, because it encourages them not only to read more widely than their own interests might lead them, but also to practice assessing, analyzing, and discussing this year's books with their friends.

While parents are not involved in club, other than chauffeuring the students to the library, which hosts the book club, I try to read as many of the more promising books as I can, although I probably only get to about 20% of all the books my son reads for the club.  Still, I've really enjoyed reading the current books for this age group.

The group had its first organizing meeting a week ago, and my son brought home his first batch of books to read, including The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine.  I picked it up and started to read it, and found I couldn't put it down.  I just finished it last night, and I couldn't believe what a good book it was!  The experience reminded me of last year, where the first books I read for the 2012 Newbery award was Okay for Now by Gary Schmidt, which ended up being my favorite book of the year  (read my review here).

So I loved this book, which is set in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1958, the year after the famous Little Rock Nine integrated the schools under the protection of the National Guard.  The protagonist is a girl named Marlee, whose shyness and social anxieties have rendered her virtually speechless outside of her family.  But things for Marlee when a new girl, Liz, comes to school.  Liz befriends Marlee and works with her to overcome her fears about speaking in front of others.  But just as Marlee is prepared to take a breakthrough step, Liz drops out of school amidst rumors that she was actually a "colored" girl passing as white.  Marlee is confused, angry, and perplexed.  But she refuses to take this sudden disappearance of her first true friend lying down.  And Marlee's investigation of this situation leads her to a whole new level of understanding of herself, her family, her peers in school, her community, and the entire political situation in which she is living.

I found this to be a wonderful and nuanced presentation of the conflicts and concerns of that era that can be understood by the intended age range, but also appreciated by an adult like me.  One reason I think it really works is because Marlee's journey is personal, not political, so the story never gets polemic or strident, and the characters aren't all-good versus all-bad.  It is a well done, highly layered story, so as Marlee digs deeper and deeper not only into understanding the racial issues, but also becoming more aware of the complexities that drive the people in her life, she leads us to a better feel for how good people could allow something as wrong as racial prejudice to rule their lives for so long.  And yet, Marlee and the other young people in the book feel real, not merely mouthpieces for the author's opinions.

In the afterword, author Kristin Levine said she traveled to Little Rock for research on her intended project to write a historical fiction book about the Little Rock Nine.  Once there, however, she found that people wanted to talk about the year after that--the year that the first the government shut down the public high school system, rather than allow integration to continue, and that the community started, for the first time, to fight back.

As Albert Einstein said, "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."  Levine chose not to retread the important, but oft-told story of the nine courageous students who integrated the school, but instead to focus on what made the community stop looking on and doing nothing.  Which makes this book a valuable lesson to our children not just about how these moral dilemmas were worked out in the past, but about what they will undoubtedly be called upon to deal with at some point in their future.

So, all in all, what a doozy of a first book to read for this year's Newbery list!  Obviously, I highly recommend it, and it is at the number one spot for my personal list of Newbery 2013 contenders.

Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

I've been promising this for a long time, but I finally found a few minutes to write a review of the book Divergent by Veronica Roth.   This is the first in a trilogy of books that some people are calling the new Hunger Games series.  My quick take?  I enjoyed the book fairly well, but to me, it's no Hunger Games. (You can read my review of the Hunger Game series here.)

There are parallels between the two series, of course.  Like the Hunger Games, Divergent describes a dystopic society of the future, but this time it is set in a specific place--Chicago, no longer the "toddling town" that Frank Sinatra was so enthusiastic about in his songs. "  The main protagonist is a strong, courageous young woman who is capable of battling, and even killing, for her beliefs and for those she loves.  And there is the possiblility of a romance with a mysterious boy who may or may not be her ally.  There is a lot of action, but there are political undertones throughout the whole thing.

What I liked best about Divergent was the concept around which this version of our dystopic future society was organized.  I believe (it has been months since I read it) that there was a nuclear war, and this society were the survivors trying to build a better system to avoid such distruction in the future.  However, in the debate about how best to prevent future wars, the population broke down into five different viewpoints.  Each felt the cultivation of a particular human quality was the best solution to avoiding war, but each group focused on a different quality.  Thus, the society broke itself up into five self-contained units, each of which dedicated itself to the pursuit of its preferred characteristic and approach to life.  Each  faction operated on its own, but they shared the ruined remains of the city and worked together in a somewhat uneasy coalition.

The issue facing Beatrice Prior, the 16 year old protagonist of the book, is the fact that the time is approaching where she must choose which of the factions she will pledge herself to for the rest of her life.   Not only will this choice determine her future, it may severe her relationship with her family; if she chooses a different faction than the one in which her parents live and raised her, she won't ever be allowed to return to visit them.

Wow!  It kind of puts our worries about what schools to send our children to, or even which college they should attend, into perspective, doesn't it?

So I thought that was a really interesting idea to explore.  However, the book doesn't really explain much about how this structure came about, or why children are forced to cut off any contact with their parents if they choose a different faction.  Perhaps there will be more about that in the subsequent books.

Therefore, the book was less political philosophy that I had hoped, and more action oriented.  Of course, it is a Young Adult novel, so that's probably more appropriate for the intended audience.  However, even for young adults, I prefer my violent dystopic novels to use their violence and dystopia to teach some underlying moral or political truths, and Divergent doesn't do nearly as good a job with that as does the Hunger Games.  BUT, to be fair, I'm only comparing the first book of the series with the entire Hunger Games triology, which also got more political as the books went on.  So I may get more of that in the next two books.

The other way in which Divergent falls short, however, is in character development.  Even in just the first book, Katness (and the other characters) were pretty fully-fledged, complex, and interesting characters.  You cared about the "good" characters, and at least wondered about the "bad"ones.  That's not so much the case in Divergent.  Perhaps it is a downside of a book that is all about people trying to maximize a single characteristic...perhaps that tends to make characters one dimensional.  Whatever, I found the characters to be less interesting, which then makes the story less gripping.  The romantic aspects were also less intriguing, while the family parts were more noble.  All in all, it is just a less nuanced, less skillfully written book than the Hunger Games, in my opinion.  However, I believe the author was only 22 when she wrote the first book.  So for the first published novel by a writer that young, characters who are a bit on the "black and white" side is pretty forgivable.  Actually, for having been written by someone who is just out of college, the book is pretty phenomenal.

All in all, I enjoyed the book and would recommend it.  However, as with the Hunger Games, it is violent enough and political enough that I would save it for the teen years, rather than at least the younger end of the middle school years.   I am looking forward to reading the next in the series, Insurgent, which is supposed to be coming out in May.  I'm number 74 on the waiting list at the library for the book, so it shouldn't be too long before I get to read it.  I'll try to get my review up in a more timely manner with that book.

Here is the book trailer for Divergent.  It doesn't add much information, but gives you a feel for the "vibe" of the book:

Book Review: Newbery 2012 Honors Winner A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd

I finally got to read this book, which I had requested from the library about a month ago, but the copies were all booked up until now.  And I can definitely get behind the Newbery Committee for honoring this book.  It was the book that my son's Mock Newbery Book Club chose as their nominee for the Newbery Winner, and I could see that as well.  It really is an extraordinary book.

It is a very unique take on an unfortunately all-too-common problem.  The protagonist is a young adolescent boy whose single mother is dealing with some kind of illness (I assumed it was cancer).  A monster appears to him at night to tell him stories, in exchange for which the boy is to tell him the truth.  However, as the book proceeds, the whole monster thing remains mysterious.  Is it a dream?  Is it the boy's imagination?  Is it his fears made manifest?  Is it real?  It captures that great quality of confusion that you have right when you wake from an intense dream and can't remember where you are and aren't sure what is real and what isn't.

In the meantime, the boy must deal with the challenges of his daytime life.  Those include a father who has remarried and moved abroad with his new family, school bullies, a perceived betrayal by a friend, and handling the overly-solicitious pity of his teachers.  Ness' portrayal of a young teen in these circumstances is very authentic.

The stories that the monster tells are very thought provoking.  You think they are taking you one place, but you end up in another.  The whole thing is quite unpredictable, which I love in a book.  So as you go along, you are wondering, Is this monster the boy's worst nightmare, or could it be his salvation?

You'll have to answer that question for yourself when you read it.

The excellent text is accompanied by some wonderful illustrations by Jim Kay.  They are more evocative and atmospheric than explaining what is going on, which is perfect for the tone of the book.

All in all, this is just a wonderful read.  It deals with some tough subjects, so it may not be appropriate for sensitive readers at the younger age range of the Newbery book audience.  It is an emotional book, so be prepared for that.  It may be a tough journey, but it's worth it.

Book Review: Newbery 2012 Honors Winner Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin

I had not read this prior to the announcement of the Newbery 2012 Awards, but I immediately requested it from the library (along with the winner, Dead End in Norvelt, which I also hadn't read).  So this review is looking at the book not only on its own, but as one of the Honor winners of this year's Newbery Awards.

Breaking Stalin's Nose by Eugene Yelchin

I'm much more torn about this book, having read it knowing it was a Newbery Honors winner, than I think I would have been had I just read it straight.  It is definitely a good book on a really important topic that I don't believe is covered much in American children's literature--namely, the Great Purge, Joseph Stalin's campaign of terror and repression of the Soviet people during the years of 1936-1938.

It is estimated that over 20 million people were killed, imprisoned, or exiled during Stalin's reign, and almost no one could rest confidently in the knowledge that he or she would not be next.   Even the low estimates of actual deaths during that period believe that Stalin's purges killed at least as many people as the Nazis did in the holocaust (not even including the six to seven million who starved to death in the Ukraine from a famine that Stalin basically created).  Yet few students are aware of the fact that Stalin was on par with Hitler in terms of genocide.

So it is definitely an important subject to be covered, and one that is difficult to cover in a way appropriate to early adolescents.  I sympathicize with the author on how difficult it must be to try to walk that narrow path.  Yelchin, who was born and raised in the Soviet Union and whose father survived Stalin's regime, tells the story from the point of view of a young boy who idolizes Stalin and is a true believer in communism.  It is a tale of a dramatic 24 hour period in which several people he knows get caught up in the betrayal, bigotry, denunciation, and disappearance that was so common at that time, and he must figure out what path is right for him.   It is a powerful and affective way for students who are learning about the Stalin purges to experience them through the eyes of someone their own age.

My issue about the book, though, is whether students reading it on their own can really "get"a lot of the messages that are packed into the story.   Since we are studying 20th century history this year, and have been reading about Lenin and Stalin and such, it is a perfect adjunct to the histories and biographies my son has been reading.  But without that context, I don't know that students would understand some of the things that are implied, but not stated.

The problem is enhanced, I think, by Yelchin's writing style.  It is a short book--only 160 pages--and they are little pages, many of which are actually illustrations (Yelchin is a children's book illustrator).  Plus it is pretty simple vocabulary, without a lot of exposition or interior dialogue and such.  This makes it a very quick read.  I read it in under an hour; my son said it took him 20 minutes.  So I think there is a tendency to read through it quickly and to not really consider what the book is suggesting about the Soviet system at that time.  The simple style makes it seem like it is geared to the younger end of the Newbery spectrum--nine or ten year olds--but I don't think many children study anything about Stalin until at least middle school, and sometimes not until high school.    But without some background, I just don't think students are going to pick up on what I think the book is really saying.

In short, I think it is a wonderful resource to have on hand when studying this awful period of history.  But I'm not sure it works as a stand-alone book for this age.  I think it suffers in comparison to a book like Words in the Dust, which did such a masterful job of conveying an alien world that most middle schoolers know nothing about, but feel they understand after completing the book.  I don't think middle schoolers feel that way about Stalin's USSR after reading this book.  So, personally, I don't think I would have given this book a Newbery Honor award.

But I do honor Yelchin for trying to write a book on such a difficult topic for this age, but one that definitely needs more visibility.  And I do think it is a marvelous novel to read in conjunction with studying this period.  With some historical knowledge, it can help students understand what that time must have felt like for kids their age, without it becoming too depressing or overwhelming for this stage of development.

My 2012 Newbery Award Winners

My son's Mock Newbery Book Club made their decisions on Friday, and the official awards come out tomorrow, so I guess it's time for me to announce my Newbery Award choices for 2012 (although it covers the books from 2011).  This isn't a prediction, because I don't know enough about the Newbery politics and such to know what goes into their decisions.  But after having read a BUNCH of great, good, and pretty good books written for the early adolescent crowd (10-14) over the past year, I've finally narrowed it down to my favorites.

So if it were up to me, the Newbery Award for 2012 would go to......

Okay For Now by Gary Schmidt

They say in interviews that you either want to be the first candidate or the last candidate.  Okay For Now was the first Newbery contender I read (based on the recommendation of our local children's librarian), and somehow, none of the other books I read after that quite measured up to that one.  I even read it again a couple of months ago to make sure I wasn't over-romaticizing my memories of it, and I still favored it as much as ever.

I loved The Wednesday Wars, which introduces the protagonist of this book and which won a Newbery Honor in 2008, but I think Okay For Now is even better.  So maybe Schmidt will go all the way this time.

However, I do have this reservation about Okay For Now; like 2010's National Book Award winner, Mockingbird, I think that this is a children's book that adults like more than children do.  Which is not to say that children's don't like it and don't recognize its quality; my favorite middle schooler book blogger, Laura's Life, chose it as her Newbery Gold winner as well.  But many of the major themes of the book, such as the possibility of redemption, the power of forgiveness, and the difference that one caring teacher or librarian can make in the life of a child, speaks more to adult values and life experiences than the typical 9-13 year old.  I'm not sure that early adolescents will be touched by this book the way that adults may be.

The Newbery Awards are, of course, given by adults.  But I don't know how they considered the perspectives of the actual age group compared to the additional insight that reading it as an adult brings.  However, with themes like that, particularly Schmidt's depiction of how schools and libraries can transform a person's life, I can't help but give Okay For Now my Gold medal for the year.
(Note:  If you are a teacher, check out this passage from the book featured in my post, What Education Is Supposed to Be About, for some inspiration about your work.)

Then I have four Newbery Honor Awards, because that is what my son's book club does.  It's hard, because there are so many really good books that are so close to this level.  But I finally decided that my four Honor books would be:

Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy
If Okay For Now was my first, Words in the Dust  was one of my last, particularly in actually writing a review, since I only finished writing about it yesterday.  But it is a phenomenal novel by a first-time author.  If there was one novel from 2011 that I wished every middle schooler would read, it is probably this book, both for the contents and the great job Reedy did in immersing us in a completely different world--one that we should know a lot more about than most of us do.

The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell
I loved the writing in this book.  Maybe it was just me, but it seemed more poetic than the norm.  It is such a great mixture of genres and tones.  It starts out reminding me of more old-fashioned books, like The Secret Garden, but then morphs to a much more modern sensibility by the end (I don't want to be more specific because I don't want to give it away).  It was familiar and yet unpredictable, and I really enjoyed reading it.

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
This is another wonderful book in bringing us inside a completely foreign experience, except that much of it takes place in the US.  So I think this is another important read for our middle schoolers.  It is also a story told in verse, so that gives it a different twist.

The last slot was really hard to fill.  And when I finally decided, I was ashamed to discover that I never wrote a review of it in my blog!  I was sure that I had.  But, like Okay For Now, it was one that I read early in my Newbery reading year but that stuck with me.  I guess I thought I would get around to writing a review until the point where I assumed I already had....

Anyway, my last choice would be The Absolute Value of Mike by Katherine Erskine.  I chose this one over many that I like pretty much the same because I like some variety to my Newbery choices.  I mean, they can't all be historical fictions and/or dealing with war, disabilities, or other weighty subjects!  This book had a lot of humor, with lots of whacky characters and situations.  But it had also had some great messages about family and being a leader and figuring out what really matters.  I also think that it might appeal a bit more to boys, which I wouldn't necessarily say about any of the others (only Okay For Now has a boy as the main protagonist, and even so, I'm not sure it doesn't appeal more to girls and/or women).

Two other special awards I would give outside the Newbery parameters:

Best Sequel:  Without a doubt, that honor goes to Darth Paper Strikes Back by Tom Angleberger.  I was so charmed by Angleberger's highly original The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (one of my Newbery honor choices for last year) that I was worried that he wouldn't be able to capture the same magic in the sequel.  Half way through the book, I was thinking that I liked it, but it wasn't on par with the first one.  But by the end of the book, I took it all back.  It was as new and unique as the original, but Angleberger found a way to keep things fresh and surprising.  So kudos to him for avoiding the sophomore slump!

Best Movie Potential:  Another book that I really enjoyed, but apparently never wrote a review for, was Aliens on Vacation by Clete Smith.  This was a cute, sweet, and really funny book.  It's not one of what I consider the most important books of the year among the ones I read, but it was one of the most entertaining.  But mostly, I kept visualizing the scenes in my head, which is something because I don't typically do that when I read since I'm not a real visual person.  I kept thinking as I read it, "I don't really see this as Newbery, but I think it would make a great movie."  I found out a month or so later that some producers associated with Disney had take an option about turning it into a movie.  So I don't know what that means, except that someone besides me could imagine it being a great film!


As long as we're in Newbery mode, let me share my son's Mock Newbery Award Book Club choices, along with those of a neighboring library, complete with my comments:

My son's book club:

2012 Winner:
A Monster Calls   (Alas, this book didn't get on my radar until too late, and although I requested it from our library several weeks ago, it is so popular that I haven't gotten a copy to read so far.   My son really liked it, though)

Honors:
The Apothecary (I liked it a lot; it was on my top 10, but not my top 5)
Words in the Dust (My #2 choice)
Small Acts of Amazing Courage (A really good book with an unsatisfactory ending; read my full review here)
Inside Out and Back Again (My #4 choice)

Second Honors:
Hidden (Unfortunately, I haven't read it)
Second Fiddle (Read my review here)
Dogtag Summer (Read my review here)
The Aviary (My #3 choice)


And here is the neighboring library club's choices:

2012 Eva Perry Mock Newbery Award:
Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys (I thought this was a really powerful book, but wasn't sure it isn't more appropriate for a teen audience than the Newbery 9-13 age range)

2012 Eva Perry Mock Newbery Honor Books:
A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness  (Obviously I need to read it....)
Bird in a Box, by Andrea Davis Pinkney  (Didn't read this one either)
Michael Vey: the Prisoner of Cell 25, by Richard Paul Evans  (Neither my son nor I had even heard of this one, which meant that nobody in his club read it....it is funny how clubs at two libraries only 15 miles from each other can have such different reading lists) 
Words in the Dust, by Trent Reedy (One of my faves)


So there you have it--the favorite choices for the Newbery Awards from our neck of the woods.  The official announcement comes tomorrow, so let's see what the experts have to say about the premier books for our early adolescent students!

Book Review: Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy

Words in the Dust by Trent Reedy

This book may receive my “most amazing accomplishment” award for the year. In this book, Trent Reedy, former English teacher and military reservist who was called into active duty during the Bush wars, manages to convincingly tell a wonderful story in the voice of a thirteen-year-old girl. A Muslim thirteen-year-old girl. A Muslim thirteen-year-old girl living in modern-day Afghanistan. A Muslim thirteen-year-old girl living in modern-day Afghanistan who was born with a cleft palate.

Personally, I think being able to capture the voice of someone so different from the author is an incredible achievement. But I think Reedy got Zulaika, the narrator of the book, just right. And this is only his first novel!

I will also admit that I had to be won over by this book. Having read the description of the book, I didn’t think I wanted to hear the tale of a disfigured girl leading a primitive existence while living through the struggles of war-torn Afghanistan. But within just the first chapter or so, I was so sucked into the story of this alien world that I couldn’t stop reading until I finished the book late in the night.

Reedy does a great job of conveying a lifestyle that is so foreign to most of us here in the US.  And I love how neutrally he is able to present this world, even though some of the values and traditions run so counter to ours (Reedy is also an American).  He does a particularly good job of not making either side--the US or the Afghan--be good guys or bad guys, but rather the mixed-up combination of both that we all truly are.

So, for example, the Americans in the book can be unintentionally terrifying, wildly inappropriate, culturally insensitive, or arrogantly intrusive. On the whole, though, they want to help. The Afghans, on the other hand, can be cruel, violent, chauvinistic, callous, and opportunistic. On the whole, though, they love their families and their country, and just want to make a better life for themselves and their community.

So this is a really good book to learn about life in contemporary Afghanistan.  But it also deals with the universal themes of dealing with family and finding one's own identity that adolescents all struggle with, not matter where they live.

Book Review: The Aviary by Kathleen O'Dell

The Aviary by Kathleen O’Dell

This is a great book if you can’t decide which genre you want, because it combines historical fiction with a mystery and a fantasy edging towards horror--but in a way that really works, rather than just seeming like a hodgepodge that couldn’t make up its mind.

The book is set in the late nineteenth century, and is told from the point-of-view of Clara, an eleven-year-old girl who is a shut-in because of her weak heart. Not only can she not venture into the world, but the home she is shut into is the decrepit mansion of a formerly famous but now deceased magician, The Great Glendoveer, whose widow Clara’s mother now serves as housekeeper. The only outdoor space that Clara is allowed to enter is the estate’s backyard rose garden, but she doesn’t like going there because it is also home to an aviary with five loud, squawking birds that frighten her, but to whom the aging Mrs. Glendoveer is completely devoted.

Shortly into the book there is a death, which eventually launches Clara into investigating a decades-old mystery. Along the way, Clara encounters a variety of intriguing matters, including a kidnapping, locked doors, a missing scrapbook, an unexpected ally, ghostly presences, secret messages, and various kinds of exotic magic. In the end, however, the book is not about ghosts or magic or codes--it’s about friendship and family and how to restore them if ever they go astray.

I really enjoyed how this book was written. The descriptions are vivid and sometimes poetic, and the characters are well developed and appropriate to the time and setting (whereas I sometimes find characters in these historical fictions to be more modern than I think they should be for their times). The plot builds up very nicely, with the necessary clues being laid carefully without the plot twists being obvious. It is a very imaginative story set in a time period that isn’t too common in children’s literature lately.

All in all, I think it is quite a good read, and a worthy contender for Newbery consideration.

Book Review: A Month of Sundays by Ruth White

A Month of Sundays by Ruth White

The book opens with a common ploy in middle school literature (including the top Newbery winner last year and another of the honor awards):  the protagonist, Garnet, is left by her single mother at the home of relatives she has never met before while her mother goes to Florida to find work.  While angry at her mother for abandoning her, Garnet finds she enjoys getting to know her aunt--the sister of the father who ran off with another woman before Garnet was born-and the grandfather she had never seen before.

Her aunt, June, welcomes Garnet's arrival, not only because it brings another female into the house (Aunt June has two sons), but because Garnet agrees to accompany her as June visits a different church every Sunday, searching for God.  Garnet, meanwhile, who had grown up with only her mother in her life, discovers it's not so bad to have family.  Add into the mix the handsome young son of an evangelical preacher at one of the churches they visit, and suddenly Garnet is no longer sure she wants to return to the solitary life she has known with her mother.

As with most of these books, family secrets are eventually revealed and the protagonist learns a lot about family and love and relationships and herself.  However, this book also deftly includes some questions about religion and faith into the plot.  And just when it seems like all the loose ends are going to be tied up in a rather saccharin way, an unexpected twist plunges the novel into deeper and darker territory.

In the end, many questions are answered, but other ones are raised.  Just as in life, the conclusion mixes the good with the bad, the mysteries that have been explained with other ones that will never be resolved.  So I think this is really an excellent book for adolescent readers, who are beginning to grapple with the questions, contractions, and abiguities in their own lives.  It wasn't what I expected when I picked it up, but I enjoyed it a lot and definitely recommend it.

Book Review: Pie by Sarah Weeks

Pie by Sarah Weeks









As befitting the name, this is a sweet, sweet book. I had to love this book, because the opening of the novel revolves around one of my favorite affirmations: Do what you love and the money will follow. It’s something that I’ve always tried to follow, although sometimes it is a hard path. So I’m always excited when even a fictional character demonstrates the efficacy of this approach to life.

So the main protagonist, Alice, has an aunt who also apparently ascribes to this philosophy (which is never stated in the book--I’m bringing this to the story). Aunt Polly loves to make pies...and not just any pies, but pies with the sweetest, juiciest fruit, the dreamiest cream fillings, and the flakiest crusts. When she is left with a modest inheritance, Aunt Polly uses it to open up a pie shop. However, there is a catch to Aunt Polly’s pies--she refuses to accept payment for any of them. If she exchanged them for money, why, that would take all the joy out of them!

The small town in which she lives wants to make sure that the supply of pies, each tailored to specific people’s preferences, keep coming, so they find other ways to support the pie shop. And that makes everyone happy, but no one as much as Alice, who not only loves the pies, but the pie maker as well. She sits and talks and helps in the kitchen as much as possible, always knowing that she will never have the same magic touch with the pies that her aunt does.

Then, suddenly, Aunt Polly dies. She leaves the pie shop to the church, and the secret pie crust recipe, that companies have offered lots of money for, to...her cat? And it is Alice’s responsibility to care for the fat, ill-tempered white feline, named after Aunt Polly’s favorite brand of lard. Her mother (Polly’s sister) feels cheated out of a proper inheritance, her father is allergic to cats, and the cat itself hisses and scratches whenever Alice approaches. All this does not bode well for a happily-ever-after ending.

The story leads into a mystery involving break-ins, missing cats, stolen pies, and more. But I don’t think the mystery is really the heart of this book. Rather, it is a book with a lot of heart--love of what you do, love of friends and family, love of community. I enjoyed it, but I don’t see it as a strong Newbery contender. But as a fairly light read to help remind us all about what really matters in life, it is a great book.

Plus, it’s got RECIPES--and they all look tempting!

Book Review: Second Fiddle by Rosanne Parry

Second Fiddle by Rosanne Parry

This book combines a lot of themes. One is the life of displacement that it is to be a child of a military family--something I was familiar with, although my father was in government service in international finance, rather than the military. But I could relate to the three girls who are the protagonists of the book, all used to a life of moving every few years and losing the friends and connections built up in previous locations. Then there is the call of music--the joy, the striving, the competitions, and the way it can bring people together.

Another familiar strand of the book is the typical adolescent belief that “I’m not as ______ as....” Not as pretty, not as popular, not as rich, not as smart, not as whatever quality we are sure that we lack in middle and high school (and beyond, if we don’t mature). In this case, the narrator, Jody Field, is sure that she isn’t as smart, beautiful, fashionable, confident, or talented as her two best friends, Giselle and Vivian, who are other American daughters of military or diplomatic families stationed in Berlin. But that is OK--she is used to playing second fiddle behind Vivian’s lead and Giselle’s cello.

However, the girls aren’t just living in Berlin--they are living there during the turbulent times of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of East Germany with West Germany. They get caught up trying to save a Soviet soldier who is trying to return to his native Estonia and to pass important information to the West about a toxic weapon the Russians want him to transport.

All these leads to a clandestine trip to Paris, an international music competition, foreign spies, playing music with Spanish gypsies, finding a refuge in a socialist bookstore, and other such adventures. But at the heart, the story is about playing music, being with your friends, and trying to do the right thing. So even though the circumstances are far removed from what most middle schoolers who read this book are familiar with, the underlying messages are ones that almost everyone has experienced in their lives, no matter where that might be.

Book Review: The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan

This book is the second in the Riordan series, Heroes of Olympus, the follow-up to his wildly-popular Percy Jackson and the Olympian series. This series makes sense (on more than a just-cashing-in-on-a-popular-character basis) because it explores the way the Romans took the Greek gods and altered them, as well as contrasting the Greek and Roman cultures in general.

This is good, not only because it is educational, and not only because that is an interesting topic to explore. I like this series better than the last because it gives the gods and goddesses more nuanced characters, particularly as they appear in either their Greek or Roman forms; I felt they were rather simplified into larger-than-life caricatures, and too often presented for comic effect.

I would extend the same praise to the new characters introduced in this series. While the story still incorporates Percy Jackson and some of the most important demigods (the offspring of the gods/goddesses with their human partners) from the former series, the new ones tend to be more well-developed personalities with more interesting abilities, quirks, and/or backstories. In this book, we meet Hazel, who harbors a secret skill and a ton of guilt about how that skill was used to bad ends in her history, and Frank, who has an unknown family legacy and a life-and-death secret that may be the key to saving the world.

Perhaps my favorite part of the book was towards the beginning, which is largely set in Camp Jupiter, the Roman alternative to the Greek demigod training facility, Camp Half-Blood, that was home base in the original series. I really enjoyed how Riordan demonstrated some of the big differences in the Roman culture by the ways Camp Jupiter contrasted with Camp Half-Blood (although you had to have read and remembered the other books, because there is no description of Camp Half-Blood in this book).

I haven’t mentioned much about the plot because it is typical Rick Riordan fare. That is, it largely consists of the underdog heroes having to get somewhere (usually far away and in very little time without any obvious means of transportation) in order to follow a quest/rescue someone/get a vital clue or piece of information/retrieve some necessary item from some mythical creature. Of course, either on the way or once there (sometimes both), the heroes have to defeat some monstrous force from Greek or Roman mythology against which it would seem they would have no chance, but somehow miraculously prevail. Repeat multiple times through the course of, in the case of this book, 513 pages.

So the nonstop battles to save the world aren’t my cup of tea, but, then, Riordan isn’t really writing for me. His stuff is very popular among the upper elementary and middle school crowd, and it appropriate for them to be reading such heroic tales. But I will say that I like the heroes, particularly Frank, better than the ones in past books, which makes all the violent (but not gross or nightmare-provoking) encounters more palatable for me.

And, as I’ve said in previous reviews, given that kids of this age like reading this kind of action book, it’s great that Riordan packs in a lot of great mythological and historical content in among the mayhem.

Book Review: Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Patridge

Dogtag Summer by Elizabeth Partridge

What is worse? To be an alien, with completely different language, food, religion, mores, etc., stuck in a different world? Or to be someone who came from a divergent culture, but has been so forcefully acclimatized into the prevailing tradition that you have been forced to deny all your history to fit in with the prevailing society?

I’ll wait for a minute while you consider that question, which is not an easy choice to make.



This is the question that the protagonist of this book, Tracy, might ask herself, especially if she had read Inside Out and Back Again. Like the narrator of that book, Tracy was a young woman who was plucked out of South Vietnam when the war was lost and the Americans were leaving with whichever fortunate Southern empathizers (apparently, at least) could flee with them. But unlike Ha, she is alone and is adopted by American parents, and so is raised in a completely American situation. Tracy speaks perfect English and has been accepted, for the most part, in her southern California community, although as an ethnically-Vietnamese/culturally-American in the 1970’s, she never feels like she fits in anywhere.
Tracy’s adopted father is an ex-Vietnam War veteran who refuses to discuss his war experience, which contributes to Tracy’s alienation from her past. But when she and her friend find a dog tag with an unknown name, things come to a head. The discovery not only stirs up Tracy’s repressed memories, it drives her to press her father for questions he doesn’t want to answer. The resulting tale is part mystery, part psychology, part cultural history, and so is quite captivating and valuable, especially for a middle school audience.

I have to say, however, that there are a few problems with the book. It is well based in Vietnamese culture, but I think it could have been enhanced if some of the foundations of those people, especially in regards to their spiritual beliefs and the afterworld, had been explained. Also, there is a whole part of the psychology strand that I missed entirely, and only realized from reading other reviews. I may be over-estimating my own brilliance, but it seems to me that if I didn’t get it, readers who are 10-14 are not going to stumble onto that explanation themselves either.

Nonetheless, it is an interesting and worthwhile read, especially for those with no memories of the Vietnam War. It also has a great Appendix that provides a lot of information about the Vietnam War, military protocol, and the divisive opinions in the US at that time, which can provide the basis for some wonderful class or group discussions.

I have found this year that there are many books that seem to come in two--that is, books that cover sort of the same theme, time period, or such, or that remind me of each other, for whatever reason.  When that is the case, I can't help comparing them to each other, even though they are usually quite different.  And usually one suffers in the comparison.  Such is the case with Dogtag Summer.  I probably would have been more impressed with it had it not come out the same year as Inside Out and Back Again, which I liked better.

However, such is life.  But I'm glad my son has read both of them, because I will refer to them both once we get to the whole Vietnam War era in American history later this spring.  They both provide valuable perspectives to a difficult time in US history.

Book Review: Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

Yesterday I promised you I was beginning a timely series, and this is it.  With the announcement of the 2012 Newbery Award for the outstanding achievement in children's literature over the past year coming on January 23, there are only a few more weeks to read and assess the best middle school books from 2011--at least if you want to make your own selections beforehand, as my son's Mock Newbery book club does.

My son and I have both been spending the extra leisure time we've had over the holidays consuming as many of the favored books as possible (seeing as our reading dropped off dramatically during our month of writing for NaNoWriMo).  So over the next few weeks, I will try to add book reviews for as many of the eligible books as I can.

Our first review in the series is an entry that is high on the Newbery prediction list:

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

This book is a lovely description of an ugly time. It tells the story of Ha, a young Vietnamese girl who must flee her country with her mother and three brothers as the American forces pull out and the Northern Vietnamese overrun her homeland. Ha and her family are relocated to Alabama, where, as you might imagine, they have a hard time fitting in.

One of the things that makes this book really special, I think is the fact that the story is told as a series of dated verse poems. This means that the text is very sparse, with each word carrying a lot of impact. I believe this works really well in this book for several reasons. First, it is a device that moves the plot along in a specific time, which is important when you are dealing with a real historical timeline. But it also makes it seem like a diary, which makes it intimate, even when dealing with a pivotal time in our nation’s history. Second, it conveys the difficulty in trying to communicate in an unfamiliar language. It helps young readers understand unconsciously how hard it is to try to get your point across in a new language by using incorrect English--but in a way that is still comprehensible and poetic. Third, I, at least, thought it added a nice Asian sensibility to things. The verse makes it exotic, compared to traditional books, and also has that simple, stripped down essence that I associate with Asian culture. Finally, I think this really works for the audience for which it is written, which I would say is the Newbery Award age range of nine-fourteen. This bare-bones description of a difficult time is not overwhelming for the younger end of the age range, but is still complex and interesting enough for fourteen year olds and much older--such as me, who is several decades older.

This book won the 2011 Young People’s Literature National Book Award, which is quite a commendation. And in some ways, it reminds me of Mockingbird, which won the same award last year (see my complete book review here).

Because I think both of these books take you inside the head of someone living in a typical American community, but who have totally untypical American lives. I think that is a wonderful type of book to have for our children. It’s a period where fantasy is really popular, and that’s OK; my son definitely enjoys that, and I see the value in it. But I think books like this serve a different purpose. They can help our children develop empathy for others who are different by understanding where they have come from, and in many cases, how hard the journey has been. Fantasy helps us develop our “what if?” thinking, but these kinds of books help us deal with the reality of the differentiations in our lives, yet showing what we have in common (like commitment to family) that makes us similar despite our outward differences.

So I definitely recommend this book. We are doing 20th century history this year, including the Vietnam War, so it fits in with that. And I do think it is a great introduction for kids to think about that war from the perspective of the American-oriented Vietnamese. But Ha’s story about being uprooted and having to deal with an alien culture while trying to deal with the trials that come with families is a tale that transcends that particular era and situation.

Christmas 2011 Blog: Have A Very Bryson Christmas

One of our favorite activities around the Christmas break is reading, either new books that we got as presents or the multitude of books we've been meaning to get around to but haven't had time.  So we often spend time this week between Christmas and New Years lounging about, reading good books as we much on our Christmas leftovers or goodies from stockings or other presents.

This year, we are doing that as we all read the same author, if not the same book.  This Christmas, we all received different books by Bill Bryson, the delightful essayist whose most famous book is A Walk in the Woods, but who has produced about fifteen other books as well on subjects ranging from travel to explaining the universe.

My husband received Bryson's latest book, which is called At Home:  A Short History of Private Life, in which Bryson investigates a variety of items commonly found in a home to discover where they came from and why they developed as they did.  You can get a sense of the book from this video:




My son got a older book, but another of the most famous ones of Bryson's collection: The Mother Tongue:  English and How It Got That Way.  As the title implies, this is Bryson's attempt to explain the many peculiarities of the English language by tracing its development over time.  I read it and really enjoyed it, although it is hardly a definite exposition of all the quirks of our native language.  But my son is always asking me about why things are spelled in strange ways, and why we say this instead of that, so I think this is a great book for him.  He has been laughing aloud as he reads it, so I think he is finding it amusing as well as educational.

My gift was a follow-on to my son's book.  It is Made in America:  An Informal History of the English Language in the United States.  It extends Bryson's Mother Tongue analysis to the ways the language grew in the United States over time.  I've only begun it, but have found it interesting so far, although the first few chapters seem to be as devoted to dismissing myths about early American History as it is about the language of our Founding Fathers and Mothers.  However, The Independent, an English newspaper, had what I thought was an excellent review of the book from the British perspective, which you can read here.

It is a cold, grey, and rainy day here in North Carolina--a perfect day for staying home and curling up with a good book.  And we've got three good ones from Bryson.  The exciting thing is that we can switch amongst each other when we get tired or done with the one we're reading now.

Book Review: Franklin and Winston: A Christmas That Changed The World

Our Pearl Harbor Day book review is of Franklin and Winston:  A Christmas That Changed the World by Douglas Wood.  This book is not specifically about Pearl Harbor, but it is about what happened just afterwards, when English Prime Minister Winston Churchill took the somewhat perilous boat trip overseas to spend Christmas 1941 in the nearly-declared entrant into World War II, the United States.  Despite the time it took to sail across the ocean, the book implies it was time well spent because it solidified the relationship between the two countries that would head up the eventually defeat of both Hitler and the Japanese.

This is a picture book, which I've said in previous posts that I think can be very effective for middle schoolers, even thought usually aimed for a younger audience.   The story in this book is definitely a bit young for middle schoolers.  However, I think it can be appropriate for this age group as "color" about World War II.  That is, it gives a good sense of the two men--US President Franklin Roosevelt and English Prime Minister Winston Churchill--and the relationship they forged.  It has a number of personal stories, which I think is great because I always believe it is important for students to see this figures as real people, not just heroes in a book or on a test.  And it makes students think about how it used to be...when leaders took days or weeks to get together and talk, when we are so used to instant communications.

Book Review: Okay For Now by Gary Schmidt

The leading contender so far for my top pick for the next Newbery Award for the best book for 10-14 year olds this year is Gary Schmidt's Okay For Now.  This is just a lovely, lovely book that, to me, is all about making a difference in other people's lives.  This is not the big, action-oriented "making a difference" of leading the charge against a repressive and brutal regime, or a gang of murderous vampires/werewolves/zombies/aliens/other monstrous creatures, or the dark wizard or whatever else wants to take over the universe, which is so popular among YA literature these days.  No, this book deals with the difference we can make in small, quiet ways, with our friends, our neighbors, our colleagues, and especially for us teachers, our students.

The protagonist of Okay For Now was one of the characters in Schmidt's previous Newbery Honors-winning The Wednesday Wars, and is written in much the same style as that book, which was also wonderful.  But I think Okay For Now is even better written, with even more interesting characters and a more compelling story.  It is also darker, as it deals with domestic abuse and returning veterans having to deal with the aftermath of having been in combat (although there is little violence described in the text itself).  However, it makes the story even more uplifting, as people find a way to work their way through such challenging circumstances.

The main character, 14 year old Doug Swieteck, begins the book as an unlikely hero.  Although new to town, he is quickly judged by many of his teachers and customers of his once-a-week delivery services on the basis of his abusive father and thuggish brother, who is suspected of theft.  But a kindly librarian notices his interest in a display in the library of a book of original Audubon plates of birds, and teaches the teenager how to draw each one.  His analysis of each separate illustration, which he now views with an artist's eye, gives Doug an insight into the people and situations occurring around him.  Eventually, they lead him on a noble but seemingly quixotic quest that has the potential to transform not only his life, but a number of the other people in his town as well.

Schmidt writes Doug in a way that sounds like an actual teenager, and sets things up so things never become preachy or sanctimonious.  Rather, it is a series of small episodes where ordinary people can choose to do the right thing or to do the wrong thing, and most of the time, they do the write thing.  In some ways, it is sort of like reading a modern teen novel equivalent of Norman Rockwell pictures, which glorified the average man/woman and captured common, everyday American life as something to be celebrated.  And, of course, I was sure to be hooked because two of the institutions that contribute the most to this redemptive tale are libraries and schools--not today's quantitative data-driven schools, of course, but our ideal of old fashioned schools where teachers had the ability to know their students well enough to realize what each one needed, and the flexibility to adapt their curriculum to provide such individual attention.  As I have written in a previous post, there is one passage that I think beautifully encapsulates what education SHOULD be, even if it seldom seems to be what it is these days.

Plus, the whole Audubon angle is just such an unique and beautiful device.  You wouldn't think it would  pull today's middle schoolers in, but Schmidt handles it just perfectly.

So I can definitely recommend this for a middle school audience, for an older YA audience, and for adults.  I think it is a particularly great book for educators, because it demonstrates the potential we have to crush a student's spirit, or to help a student to grown wings and fly, which is a worthy choice to get to make every day we teach.

Review of the Hunger Games series, with a little Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and Twilight Thrown In

The popular media item I was most wrong about was The Pirates of the Caribbean movie. When I heard that Disney was going to make a movie based on a ride at one of its theme parks, I thought it was the stupidest idea I had ever heard. Even when I found out that Johnny Depp, whom I love love LOVE, was going to star, still, I was not a believer. But when I actually watched the movie, I thought it was GREAT for the kind of film it was. Fun, fantastic, swashbuckling action, and interesting, larger-than-life characters, most especially the one-of-a-kind Captain Jack Sparrow that Depp created. But it has some interesting meat as well--some valuable lessons amongst all the ghosts and pirates and young lovers and such. It was a perfect summer blockbuster film, and I admit I was completely wrong in my pre-judgements.

But my second most egregious error may be my previous dismissal of The Hunger Game series.

The premise of the book--that is, a bunch of teenagers who have to fight to the death for the amusement of the TV audience--sounded like yet another grim, post-apocalyptic YA novel filled with senseless violence (which to me, a perennially upbeat person my entire life, seems inexplicably popular to today’s teenagers). But I was wrong. Well, it is a grim, post-apocalyptic novel...now that I’ve read the whole series, I’m not convinced it should be classified for Young Adults, unless by that they mean college students. Most of all, however, it is violent--more violent as the books proceed--but the violence is not senseless at all. The violence teaches us a lot. It teaches us about war, and about power, and about coercion. It teaches us about human nature, and how really horrible people can be to one another...but also how wonderful and loving and heroic they can be as well.

Because as it turns out, the fighting between the teenagers is really just the appetizer. The entire series is more of a meditation on totalitarianism, a la Fahrenheit 451 or Nineteen Eighty-Four. However, it incorporates more modern aspects to it, such as the rise of reality television and the latest devices for warfare.

The series also kind of made me think of Harry Potter for grown-ups. Only instead of magical Hogwarts castles where the four houses competed in Quidditch and the House Cup, here we have the dystopic nation of Panen, where the citizens of the 12 Districts that remain of the United States compete simply to survive. And Voldemort, mean dude that he is for children’s literature, really can’t compare with the political leaders in the Hunger Games, who wipe out entire villages, schools, hospitals, or even a whole District, seemingly without a qualm. Because in the Hunger Games, they aren’t just messing around, trying to get rid of an elderly wizard and “the boy who lived.” In the Hunger Games, they are in all-out war.

So the Hunger Games books get high marks for realistically depicting what happens in war. And I think it is a valuable thing for young people to read. Again, I wouldn’t advise it for middle schoolers; that is, I think they could read it, but I don’t think they would GET it. But teenagers, college students, young graduates whose lives have basically been untouched by the multiple “wars” we are in and have been over the past 10-20 years, but where all the pain and suffering and destruction occurs only in foreign countries and among our paid military--this is a great wake-up call to how awful war really is. And one of the greatest questions raised, which runs through all the books, is who your enemy really is. That is not always an easy question to answer in a war.

HOWEVER....there is another side to the books.

War, and political coercion, and when and how to fight back, are definitely major themes of the series. But there is another backbone to the stories, and that (just like Harry Potter) is love. Yes, there is the love triangle, a la Twilight, except about ONE THOUSAND times better, since the characters are interesting and multi-dimensional, and they demonstrate their love through their actions, not sitting around moony-eyed whining about how they can’t live (or not live....well, you know what I mean) without the other, like the dippy lovers in the current soap opera that is Mary Worth..

OK, sorry about that. I just had to get that out of my system.

So there is a love triangle, but the choice is much more realistic (vampire versus werewolf...come on). Do I choose the one who loves me irrationally and unconditionally, even though I don’t think s/he really knows me? Or do I choose the one who knows all about me, particularly my dark side, to which s/he seems to draw me? Actually choosing a partner not just by how s/he makes you feel (ESPECIALLY when you are awash in adolescent hormones), but by the way s/he acts and by the kind of person you are when you are with that person--now THAT is a lesson about love. Again, I’m not sure even teenagers are ready to think that way, but I’m pretty sure middle schoolers aren’t.

And the wonderful thing of the book is that is not the only type of love explored. There is love for family and love for friends and love for team mates and love for colleagues that maybe even should be thought of as enemies. There is love for the earth and love for the animals. There is all kinds of love. And that, again, lifts this series above the many dystopic YA series there are out there.

So in this series, there is war, and there is love. And because it is war, and because it is NOT Harry Potter (as much as I loved that series), if you make it through the end of the series, characters that you love will die. Because that is the reality of war. And you will be shocked, and you will miss them, and you may even cry, but you will go on to finish the book, and continue to appreciate them even after they have disappeared from the text. Because that is the reality of love.

So if you are up to experience all that--I don’t know a better current YA series to read.

PS--If you want to see my responses to the first two books in the series, visit:
Book Review:  The Hunger Games
A Concrete Poem on Catching Fire

A Concrete Poem on Catching Fire

About a week ago, I wrote about finally reading The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  I liked it way more than I thought, although I questioned whether it is really appropriate for anyone under 13 or 14.   Now I've finished the second book of the trilogy, Catching Fire.  It was very good as well.  I particularly liked some twists in the plot that I hadn't anticipated at all.  However, it is probably even darker than the first one--another reason to wait until your tweens get a little older before before exposing them to the book.  It leaves you on much more of a shocking cliff hanger than does the first book, however, so now I can't wait to finish the third book, Mockingjay.

We've been playing with poetry lately, and the muse hit.  So rather than give you a more traditional review for this book, I've summed it up in the form of a concrete poem (although, technically, it may be more of a space poem, since the words themselves don't really form the pattern).

SPOILER ALERT:  If you haven't read the book, you probably don't want to scroll down to the poem, although you probably can't make any sense of it.  I hope that it does make sense to those of you who have read the book, though.....


Note:  If you are having trouble reading it, you can click on the picture of the poem once to bring it up, and then click again to magnify it.

Book Review: Darth Paper Strikes Back by Tom Angleberger

Regular readers of this blog may remember that one of the books that made both my son's and my list for the top Newbery books of last year was Tom Angleberger's delightful The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (here is my complete review).  So we had our names down on the library's waiting list as soon as the publication date was announced for the sequel, Darth Paper Strikes Back.  But it was only this week that the library's order came in and we got our hot little hands on a copy--the first ones for that particular copy, as it turned out.

However, I have to say that I began reading the book with some trepidation.  After all, Origami Yoda was such an original and quirky book, which covers a serious topic in a funny way and really captures the social trials and tribulations of being in middle school.  And I'm sure we've all had the experience of loving the first book in a series, but finding the subsequent offerings don't measure up to our first love.

Well, I'm happy to report that Tom has done it again in Darth Paper Strikes Back.  It does depart somewhat from the original; I, at least, found it less laughing-out-loud funny and dealing with issues with  higher stakes.  This time around, Dwight, the student who voices the inexplicably wise and prescient pronouncements of the paper finger puppet known as Origami Yoda, isn't just trying to overcome his reputation as the weirdest kid in school; this time, after an encounter with a new rival, another finger puppet called Darth Paper operated by the obnoxious Harvey, Dwight has been labeled "violent," "disruptive," and "dangerous," and is threatened with expulsion from his school and a transfer to a correctional educational facility.  Can Dwight's friends put together enough evidence to convince the school board to keep him in school?  It's particularly hard since, without Origami Yoda's advice, their lives seem to be falling apart around them.

I will say, it took a little while for this book to grow on me.  At first, it seemed a little like a retread of the first book, but not as funny or original.  But what this book made have lost in humor, it more than made up for with Star Wars lore.  I mean, this one has must have a lot of Jedi mind tricks in it, because things developed in a way that I never imagined, and finally wrapped things up in an incredibly satisfying ending.   The enduring mystery of Origami Yoda still remains, and even takes the series to a new level of Star Wars woo-woo.  Great job, Tom Angleberger!  I loved it!

One last confession....another thing that I loved about this book is that Angleberger gets in a few digs about the test-score-obsessed mentality of today's middle schools.  Here is my favorite encounter between Tommy, the main narrator of the book, and the principal of his school, who is the main person trying to have Dwight kicked out of her school:

    I was almost to my locker when I saw Principal Rabbski up ahead....I put my hand up and pointed Origami Yoda right at her.
   "If you strike down Dwight, he will grow more powerful than you can possibly imagine!" said Origami Yoda.
   Rabbski sighed.  "Tommy, I think it's time you and I had a little talk."...
   She had a lot to say.  A lot of it was about the Standards of Learning tests that we have to take and how important they are to the students and to the school.  She said some students were a constant distraction from the Standards of Learning.  Not only were they hurting themselves, they were also hurting other students and the whole school, since school funding was based on test scores. ...
   "You're a good kid, but another kid has got you confused and distracted.  I need you to put Yoda away.  Put your petition away.  And concentrate on the real reason you're here:  To learn, To ace the Standards test."
    Well, I was confused and distracted, but there was no way I was buying all that.  It had an Emperor Palpatine sound to it.  You know--all that "I'm bringing peace to the galaxy" stuff he says.

Like I said, I loved it.

The book also comes with directions on making your own Origami Yoda and Darth Paper.  We actually got PERSONAL instructions when we heard Tom Angleberger speak at Quail Ridge Books, so we already had our versions ready prior to the book's arrival:

So I definitely recommend this book.  Again, it is a fun read, but it deals with some topics worth discussing.  And who can resist origami Star Wars finger puppets?

If you are new to Tom Angleberger, I can also recommend his other 2011 book, Horton Halfpott: Or, The Fiendish Mystery of Smugwick Manor; or, The Loosening of M'Lady Luggertuck's Corset.