Review of The Birthday Ball, by Lois Lowry

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

The Birthday Ball

by Lois Lowry
illustrations by Jules Feiffer

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010. 186 pages.

Princess Patricia Priscilla is bored. When she gets to talking with the seventeenth chambermaid and hears how much the girl loved school, she gets an idea. She’ll wear the chambermaid’s clothes and go to the village school.

The village school has a new schoolmaster, who is trying to learn to look stern, as a schoolmaster should. He is kind to his new pupil and tells her she would make a good teacher, after she takes in hand a little orphan girl.

But Patricia Priscilla can only enjoy this illicit pleasure for one week. For at the end of the week is her sixteenth birthday and the Birthday Ball, at which time she will have to choose a noble suitor.

The suitors who plan to attend are all over-the-top awful. Duke Desmond of Dyspepsia has the face of a warthog and huge, crooked, brown-spotted teeth. He is so ugly that looking glasses, mirrors, and any shiny object that might cast a reflection have been abolished from his domain. He travels with a band of splashers, so that no lake or body of water will be still enough when he passes by to reflect his face.

Prince Percival of Pustula, on the other hand, travels with a team of mirror-carriers, so that he can look at himself instead of at the scenery. He dresses entirely in black and keeps his hair and mustache dyed jet black and well oiled. A servant walks behind him with a brush, ready to brush off his abundant dandruff.

But Lois Lowry’s inventive genius truly stands out in the third and fourth suitors — Counts Colin and Cuthbert the Conjoint. I have to admit this is the first fairy-tale type story I’ve ever read with conjoined twins. They are joined at the middle, but unfortunately, they don’t get along at all. They constantly fight, at least when they aren’t exchanging belches or rude bathroom jokes.

Jules Feiffer’s illustrations perfectly match the book. The people in the book are caricatures, so his caricatures make just the right illustrations. The plot is quite simple, but the fun is in the silly ways all the elements come together to bring us to the outcome we’re looking for of the princess getting to choose the most worthy man at the ball.

The story is light and fluffy and fun. This would be a good choice for girls who like princess stories (or maybe the Rainbow Magic Fairies) and are ready to read a longer book with many chapters, but also large print and plenty of illustrations. It also would make a nice read-aloud with plenty of places for laughter. There are nice silly touches, like the princess speaking to her cat Delicious with words that rhyme with his name, and the queen being quite deaf and always misunderstanding what people say to her.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/birthday_ball.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Red Pyramid, by Rick Riordan

Adventure, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

The Red Pyramid

The Kane Chronicles

by Rick Riordan

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2010. 516 pages.

Here is Rick Riordan’s eagerly awaited start to a new series, this one based on the gods of ancient Egypt rather than the gods of ancient Greece. I’m going to happily encourage the fans of the Percy Jackson series to snap this one up, as it’s very like that first series — kids with superhuman powers, finding out the ancient myths are true, the world in danger of destruction, and action-packed adventure and narrow escapes.

The chapters in the book switch between the narration of a brother and sister, Carter and Sadie Kane. They hardly know one another, because since their mother’s death, Sadie has lived with their grandparents in London, and Carter has roamed around the world, homeschooled by their archaeologist father. Sadie gets visitation with her father two days a year, and the book opens as one of those days begins.

Carter starts out the book. He says, “I guess it started in London, the night our dad blew up the British Museum.”

The beginning of the book reminded me annoyingly of the first book, written by Rick Riordan, of The 39 Clues. We’ve got a brother and sister who learn they are part of a family with ancient power. They go all over the world, chased by enemies, looking for things to help them. Come on, I heard it before.

However, The Red Pyramid does grow more compelling and more fully fleshed out as it goes on. The power of the Kanes comes from their uniting two ancient bloodlines tracing back to the Pharaohs. Their father’s attempt at the start of the book to “make things right” ends up unleashing five Egyptian gods and encasing their father in a golden tomb with the spirit of Osiris.

Their uncle Amos takes them in, to a powerful and magical mansion in New York City. But all too soon, Egyptian monsters come after them and burn down the mansion. The two start having strange spirit journeys in the night and discover strange new powers.

They go to Egypt and meet magicians from the House of Life. They learn that their father broke ancient rules of the House of Life by releasing the gods. They learn that the god Set is building a giant pyramid under Camelback Mountain in Phoenix and wants to unleash chaos onto the world. But in their attempt to learn to use their new powers and find a way to stop him, the House of Life stands opposed to them.

It’s all well-written, with narrow escape after narrow escape. Sadie has an attitude that if you tell her to do something, she’ll do the opposite — which ends up serving her well. I like the chapter titles — Things like “I Face the Killer Turkey,” “Muffin Plays with Knives,” “Leroy Meets the Locker of Doom,” and “Our Family is Vaporized.” Rick Riordan manages to keep the tone of modern kids and a bickering brother and sister, who learn to work together and deal with their amazing new powers and responsibility for the fate of the world.

You get to feeling for the Kane kids, too. It turns out that their mother’s death had something to do with Egyptian magic, too. And now their father is captured by Set. People around them keep getting harmed. Will they be able to cope?

After reading this book, my reaction is only slightly different from my reaction after reading the first of The 39 Clues: not so much, “I love this book!” as, “I bet kids will love this book!”

I also understand why that little girl in the library yesterday asked for books about hieroglyphics! I have a feeling those books, and any others we have about ancient Egypt, are suddenly going to get checked out much more often!

I do like the way Rick Riordan calms the worries of parents who might not like their children reading about false gods. Toward the beginning, Carter and Sadie have a scene with their uncle:

“‘You’re telling me our parents secretly worshipped animal-headed gods?’ I asked.

“‘Not worshipped,’ Amos corrected. ‘By the end of the ancient times, Egyptians had learned that their gods were not to be worshipped. They are powerful beings, primeval forces, but they are not divine in the sense one might think of God. They are created entities, like mortals, only much more powerful. We can respect them, fear them, use their power, or even fight them to keep them under control –‘

“‘Fight gods?’ Sadie interrupted.

“‘Constantly,’ Amos assured her. ‘But we don’t worship them. Thoth taught us that.'”

The book was too long for me — made it that much harder to sustain my interest. But by the end, I was thoroughly engaged, and I did finish up the book completely satisfied at having spent the time with it. I’m sure its length will please the kids who are fans. More time to spend in the adventure!

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

One Crazy Summer

by Rita Williams-Garcia

Amistad (HarperCollins), 2010. 218 pages.
Starred Review

Delphine is looking after her sisters as they make their way on an airplane ride across the country to see their mother who abandoned them when Delphine was four years old.

“All the way to the airport, Pa had tried to act like he was dropping off three sacks of wash at the Laundromat. I’d seen through Pa. He’s no Vonetta, putting on performances. He has only one or two faces, nothing hidden, nothing exaggerated. Even though it had been his idea that we fly out to Oakland to see Cecile, Pa’d never once said how exciting our trip would be. He just said that seeing Cecile was something whose time had come. That it had to be done. Just because he decided it was time for us to see her didn’t mean he wanted us to go.

“My sisters and I had stayed up practically all night California dreaming about what seemed like the other side of the world. We saw ourselves riding wild waves on surfboards, picking oranges and apples off fruit trees, filling our autograph books with signatures from movie stars we’d see in soda shops. Even better, we saw ourselves going to Disneyland.”

Rita Williams-Garcia had me hooked right there, because I remembered when I was a bit younger than eleven-year-old Delphine when we moved to California in 1970 (two years later than this story is set), and the number one thing I was excited about was going to Disneyland.

I eventually had my dream come true, but not Delphine. Her mother lives in Oakland, far north of Disneyland, and she keeps saying that she didn’t send for them.

Delphine quickly figures out some things.

“I didn’t want to say Big Ma was right. Cecile was no kind of mother. Cecile didn’t want us. Cecile was crazy. I didn’t have to.”

Delphine still needs to look after her sisters, because Cecile is not doing it. As the third of thirteen siblings, my heart went out to her. It wrenches my heart to hear of kids being forced to take on the responsibilities of a parent when they should just be a kid.

But this book goes farther than that, goes much deeper than three kids with a neglectful mother. Cecile is a poet, and the Black Panthers are using her printing press. She doesn’t want to be disturbed by Delphine, Vonetta and Fern during the day, so she sends them to People’s Center to get breakfast and then stay for the program. The People’s Center is run by the Black Panthers.

So begins Delphine’s crazy summer. She’s in California, finding out what her crazy mother is really like, and looking after her little sisters. I like the way Rita Williams-Garcia shows each girl’s personality by their actions and words. Delphine is steady and reliable. Vonetta always wants to be the center of attention. And little Fern always holds onto her beloved Miss Patty Cake and observes the world. But what will happen to them if they stay involved with the Black Panthers and the rally they’re planning?

This novel is richly woven, warm and deep. We get a rich perspective on California in the late sixties, from the perspective of three colored girls. Delphine’s worried about the militancy of the Black Panthers. But on the other hand, she and her sisters count the number of colored people on television and don’t come up with much. They see people staring at them, expecting trouble. They are fascinated by Hirohito, a boy at the center whose father was arrested when the police burst into his family’s home. They begin to adopt the slogans they are taught, “Power to the People.”

I hope this book gets some Newbery attention this year. It’s got all the hallmarks of a winner: A powerful story; round, believable characters we come to love; insight into a period of history from a perspective we probably haven’t heard before; expert and beautiful use of language; consistent and distinct ways of talking that help us understand each character as an individual; and (my favorite) a story that leaves you warmed and smiling, with deepened understanding and with things to think about. This is a book that will stick with you.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/one_crazy_summer.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Source: This review is based on a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of The Dream Stealer, by Sid Fleischman

Bedtime stories, Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Readalouds 0

The Dream Stealer

by Sid Fleischman

Pictures by Peter Sis

Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins), 2009. 89 pages.

Here’s a gentle but exciting story about a little girl from Mexico who took on the Dream Stealer.

The Dream Stealer is supposed to only steal bad or frightening dreams, but he started feeling afraid of them himself, so he stole some good dreams, including a dream Susana was dreaming about her best friend who moved away.

Susana wants her dream back, so she figures out a way to trick the Dream Stealer and force him to take her to his castle to find her lost dream and get it back. But there are some frightening dreams stored at the castle.

This book would be nice for a first chapter book to read aloud to children or for a child ready to read chapter books on his own. There are thirteen short chapters with plenty of illustrations. The story is interesting and imaginative, and you’re never too frightened for plucky Susana.

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And the Rest…

Adventure, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Christian, Classics, Fantasy, Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Teen Fiction Review, Writing 0

At the start of 2010, I had 43 books I’d read in 2009 that I wanted to review. I’ve been madly writing reviews, without posting them to my main site, waiting until I’ve caught up. I have eight books left from 2009. They were all very good, and worth mentioning, but in the interests of time, I’m only going to mention them with a short blurb in this post, and not give them a full page on my main site.

Once I finish them, I have another stack of seven books that I finished reading already in 2010. After I have caught up on writing those reviews, I hope to post all of the new reviews to www.sonderbooks.com. So here goes!

Children’s Fiction

These first three books I read as part of my class on the Newbery Medal. They are all historical novels, set in medieval times, and all well-written though just a tad old-fashioned. As Newbery Medal winners, you will be able to find more information about them than these reviews.

The Trumpeter of Krakow
by Eric P. Kelly

Scholastic, 1990. First published in 1928. 242 pages.
1929 Newbery Medal Winner.

Here’s a tale of intrigue and danger set in old Krakow. There are some strange sections about alchemy, and you can tell if someone is bad or good based on how they look, but despite its old-fashioned feel, this book still is very interesting. It’s almost more for teens, because the language is at a high reading level, and the main character is almost grown up, but he is still treated like a child, so the book has the feel of a children’s book.

Fifteen-year-old Joseph Charnetski and his family are fleeing to Krakow. As they almost reach the city gates, someone shows interest in an especially large pumpkin, which his father is not willing to sell.

They use an assumed name and find a hiding place in the city, near an old scholar and his daughter. Joseph’s father takes a job as the city trumpeter. The trumpeter is also the watchman, tasked to raise the alarm if there is a fire in the city. They never play the last three notes of the trumpet call in honor of an old trumpeter who gave his life keeping the call going during an invasion.

Joseph learns the call as well as his father, and as danger approaches, he finds a clever way to raise the alarm.

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Adam of the Road
by Elizabeth Janet Gray

Scholastic. First published in 1942. 320 pages.
1943 Newbery Medal Winner.

Adam of the Road is the story of a minstrel’s son in medieval England. The book starts out at school, with Adam waiting for his father to pick him up after some time apart, to go to London and back on the road. Adam has gained a beloved dog, Nick, who can do tricks and help with their act.

Along the way, a sinister rival minstrel steals Nick. As Adam’s chasing after him, he loses track of his father. He ends up wandering across England on his own, trying to find his father and his dog, and having various adventures along the way.

This is a good story that has stood the test of time. Adam is awfully young to be on his own, but people are kind to him, and he cleverly makes his way, never in real danger. A light-hearted and enjoyable adventure tale for kids interested in medieval times.

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The Door in the Wall
by Marguerite de Angeli

Yearling Newbery (Bantam Doubleday Dell), 1990. First published in 1949. 121 pages.
1950 Newbery Medal Winner.

The Door in the Wall is another story of a boy on his own in medieval times. Robin’s father went off to the wars, expecting his son to go train to be a knight. His mother went to be the Queen’s lady-in-waiting, expecting John-the-Fletcher to come soon to take him to Sir Peter de Lindsay, to train as a knight.

But Robin gets sick, and when John-the-Fletcher comes, he is not able to go along. For a month he is bedridden, unable to move his legs. He is lame and will never be a knight now.

Some monks take Robin under their wing. They help him learn to swim, to strengthen his arms, and eventually to walk with a crutch. They take him on a journey to meet his father, and they have adventures along the way. By the end of the book, only Robin is able to get a message out and save an entire castle.

This book is shorter than the others. It’s a fairly simple story, but interesting with the medieval setting and inspiring as Robin overcomes his handicap, and learns that his life still has significance.

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Teens

Growing Wings
by Laurel Winter

Firebird (Penguin Putnam), 2000. 195 pages.

All her life, Linnet’s mother has touched Linnet’s shoulder blades before she tucks Linnet into bed. One day, when she’s eleven, Linnet learns why. She’s itching horribly, and she has strange bumps on her shoulders.

Linnet’s mother assures her she doesn’t have cancer. She is growing wings. Linnet’s mother also grew wings when she was Linnet’s age, but her mother cut them off. Linnet’s mother is determined not to do that to Linnet, but she doesn’t know what to do to hide them.

Linnet finds a community of others with wings, living in a house in the wilderness. Some adults who are “cutwings” are in charge. So far, none of the teens with wings have been able to fly. They are trying to learn, but also to stay hidden.

This is an intriguing story, with plenty of conflict in the community of winged children. Linnet explores her heritage and wonders what she can make of her life. Will she have to spend her whole life in hiding?

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Fiction

Miss Zukas and the Island Murders
by Jo Dereske

Avon Books (HarperCollins), 1995. 258 pages.

This is the second mystery about Miss Zukas, librarian extraordinaire. In this book, Miss Zukas and her exotic friend Ruth arrange a twenty-year reunion on an island in Puget Sound for their high school class from Michigan.

While they’re preparing, she gets threatening letters that refer to the long-ago death of one of their classmates. Once they’re on the island, naturally a storm strikes, isolating them, and a murder occurs. Can they solve the murder and keep from getting killed themselves?

This is a fun mystery. Miss Zukas’s librarian nature didn’t come up as much in this book as in the first one, and I felt that she leapt to conclusions without a lot of reasons. But she’s an entertaining character to read about. Gotta love a librarian detective!

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Nonfiction

Gratitude
A Way of Life
by Louise L. Hay and Friends
compiled and edited by Jill Kramer

Hay House, 1996. 312 pages.

This book is full of essays about gratitude, written by many notable people. How can you possibly go wrong? I went for quite awhile, reading one essay per day. It’s a nice way to put your day on track.

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The Bait of Satan
Living Free from the Deadly Trap of Offense
by John Bevere

Charisma House, 2004. First published in 1994. 255 pages.

In this book, John Bevere teaches that Satan’s biggest trap is taking offense. What’s more, you feel justified and in the right!

“Pride causes you to view yourself as a victim. Your attitude becomes, ‘I was mistreated and misjudged; therefore, I am justified in my behavior.’ Because you believe you are innocent and falsely accused, you hold back forgiveness. Though your true heart condition is hidden from you, it is not hidden from God. Just because you were mistreated, you do not have permission to hold on to an offense. Two wrongs do not make a right!”

This book looks at many different ways the devil deceives us into taking offense, and encourages you in many different ways to overcome and find forgiveness. A valuable, helpful book.

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Write Is a Verb
Sit Down. Start Writing. No Excuses.
by Bill O’Hanlon

Writer’s Digest Books, 2007. 212 pages. DVD included.

This is a book about getting it together and actually writing. I read it after I had already made and was keeping a resolution to write at least fifteen minutes per day, every day, so this book only reinforced what I had already determined to do.

If you want to write, and are having trouble motivating yourself, this book has some great ways to think through your motivation and ideas for marketing yourself. Think of this as a great pep talk, complete with a DVD so you can see and hear an additional pep talk.

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Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Review of Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Walk Two Moons

by Sharon Creech

Scholastic, 1994. 280 pages.
1995 Newbery Medal Winner.
Starred Review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #2 Other Children’s Fiction

I read this book as part of a class on the Newbery Medal, and I got to participate in a discussion with the author.

The book begins:

“Gramps says that I am a country girl at heart, and that is true. I have lived most of my thirteen years in Bybanks, Kentucky, which is not much more than a caboodle of houses roosting in a green spot alongside the Ohio River. Just over a year ago, my father plucked me up like a weed and took me and all our belongings (no, that is not true — he did not bring the chestnut tree, the willow, the maple, the hayloft, or the swimming hole, which all belonged to me) and we drove three hundred miles straight north and stopped in front of a house in Euclid, Ohio.”

Now Sal is driving across the country with her grandparents, from Ohio to the last place where they heard from Sal’s mother, in Idaho. While they are driving, Sal tells the story of a girl she met in Ohio, Phoebe Winterbottom.

Phoebe has a vivid imagination, and is convinced the boy hanging around their house is a lunatic. Then they discover mysterious messages, and then Phoebe’s mother goes away.

The power of this book is that there’s a story within a story. When Sal tells about Phoebe’s story, she gets insights into her own story and her own mother’s disappearance. And with the story within the story, if you have your own story of loss, you will hear echoes of it in this book.

The book is funny and entertaining, but also poignant and powerful. I found myself taken by surprise by how hard I was sobbing at the end. A beautiful book.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/walk_two_moons.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Review of Senrid, by Sherwood Smith

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

Senrid

by Sherwood Smith

YA Angst (Norilana Books), 2007. 446 pages.

I read this book a few months ago when I was on a Sherwood Smith kick, after rereading the masterpiece Crown Duel, and reading its prequel, A Stranger to Command.

Senrid, the title character of this book, is the boy-king of Marloven Hess in the book A Stranger to Command. Senrid takes place when Senrid is king in name only, with the country led by his uncle, acting as regent, so this book fills in more details.

In fact, the book starts in another kingdom altogether, Vasande Leror, with a boy ruler Leander and his step-sister Kitty. He gets a visit from Faline, who comes from a group of girls who have adventures. She warns him of an upcoming attack from Marloven Hess, which they manage to cleverly thwart.

But then a strange boy named Senrid comes to visit, asking lots of questions and knowing quite a bit about magic. Not until he disappears — and kidnaps Faline — do they realize he’s the king of Marloven Hess. Faline’s due to be executed for her part in Marloven Hess’s earlier humiliation, unless someone can save her.

The amazing thing about this book is that Sherwood Smith wrote it when she was fifteen, in 1966. The writing is definitely not as smooth as her later books, and there are an awful lot of characters — mostly children — to keep track of. And the children seem more childish than adults usually write them.

It turns out that from the age of eight, Sherwood Smith was inventing adventures for a group of girls in the magical world of Sartoria-deles. Senrid does have the feel of a book that a kid would like to be able to step into. Faline and her friends were imaginary friends of the author, and that’s why so many make an appearance here.

It also explains the characters’ attitude about children and adults. Leander thinks, “Adults, in his recent experience, rarely told the truth, and were mostly motivated by selfish or incomprehensible desires. He knew he couldn’t judge their trustworthiness by word or expression, but someone his own age he found far easier to trust.”

The more I read Sherwood Smith’s work, the more amazed I am at the elaborate and detailed world she has created, and how it all fits together. It turns out that almost all her books are set in this world, but usually in different countries. So it’s intriguing when the stories slightly touch one another. I can appreciate better now that she’s been working on creating that world for more than forty years.

So I don’t recommend Senrid as an introduction to Sherwood Smith’s work, since she did grow as a writer and her later books are better crafted. However, once you’re thoroughly hooked into her world, you’ll enjoy this chance to find out more about the mysterious boy-king Senrid.

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Review of Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review 2

Odd and the Frost Giants

by Neil Gaiman

with illustrations by Brett Helquist

Harper, 2009. 117 pages.
Starred Review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #4 Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction

Odd and the Frost Giants would be a delightful choice to read aloud to children who are just ready to listen to chapter books. The book is a short original fairy tale, upbeat and filled with drama and humor, telling how a boy who is outcast and lame rescues Odin, Thor, and Loki, and saves his village from endless winter.

Odd had a lucky name, meaning the tip of a blade, but he wasn’t a very lucky boy. His father died when he was ten, and soon after Odd had an accident that lamed him. Then his mother married a man who didn’t like Odd, and that year winter lingered and lingered.

When Odd finally gets upset, he steals a side of salmon and flees with a limp through the snow back to his father’s old cabin. There his adventures begin when a fox scratches on the door and beckons Odd to follow. The fox brings him to a huge bear trapped in a pine tree, with an eagle circling overhead.

Odd rescues the bear and takes the three to his cabin, thinking himself crazy. But that night he wakes when he hears the three arguing. I like the scene when he confronts them:

“We weren’t arguing,” said the bear. “Because we can’t talk.” Then it said, “Oops.”

The fox and the eagle glared at the bear, who put a paw over its eyes and looked ashamed of itself.

Odd sighed. “Which one of you wants to explain what’s going on?” he said.

“Nothing’s going on,” said the fox brightly. “Just a few talking animals. Nothing to worry about. Happens every day. We’ll be out of your hair first thing in the morning.”

The eagle fixed Odd with its one good eye. Then it turned to the fox. “Tell!”

The fox shifted uncomfortably. “Why me?”

“Oh,” said the bear, “I don’t know. Possibly because it’s all your fault?”

It turns out that the three are Thor, Odin, and Loki, cast out of their city of Asgard and turned into beasts by the brother of the Frost Giant who built an impregnable wall around the city. Only Odd, with his cleverness and irritating cheerfulness, is able to save the day.

A thoroughly fun and entertaining story that the whole family will enjoy.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/odd_and_the_frost_giants.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Review of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, by Grace Lin

Children's Fiction Review, Fairy Tale Variant, Fantasy, Readalouds, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

where_the_mountain_meets_the_moonWhere the Mountain Meets the Moon

by Grace Lin

Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers, New York, 2009. 282 pages.
Starred Review
2010 Newbery Honor Book
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #5 Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction

“Far away from here, following the Jade River, there was once a black mountain that cut into the sky like a jagged piece of rough metal. The villagers called it Fruitless Mountain because nothing grew on it and birds and animals did not rest there.”

Minli lives in this village with her Ma and Ba. They are poor, like the others in the village, but Minli is different.

“What kept Minli from becoming dull and brown like the rest of the village were the stories her father told her every night at dinner. She glowed with such wonder and excitement that even Ma would smile, though she would shake her head at the same time. Ba seemed to drop his gray and work weariness — his black eyes sparkled like raindrops in the sun when he began a story.”

However, spurred by stories, and a magical goldfish, Minli sets off on a quest to ask the Old Man of the Moon how to change their fortune.

This book is a wonderful quest tale, with stories woven throughout, all having the feel of Chinese classic tales. The book design is wonderful, with a small picture for each chapter, full color illustrations periodically, and a change in font whenever a separate story is told.

The stories Minli hears all tie together, helping her on her quest. She meets friends along the way, including a dragon who can’t fly, and must outwit some monkeys and get past an evil tiger. The story itself is simple and satisfying, but also intriguing.

The book reminded me very much of The Wizard of Oz, and I would love to read it to children who are just old enough to listen to a book with chapters. Like The Wizard of Oz, the quest leads our heroine back to those who love her, and everybody ends up happy, having learned their lessons well. Minli does face dangers, but none too horribly frightening.

As much as this book would be suitable for young children, I found it delightful reading myself. I liked the way Minli’s adventures tied in with the tales that were inserted. I’ve always loved fairy tales, and this book offered many original tales, all tied together in the quest of a delightful little girl with plenty of pluck.

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Review of A Wrinkle in Time Audiobook, Performed by Madeleine L’Engle

Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Old Favorites, Science Fiction, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

wrinkle_in_time_audioA Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L’Engle

Performance by the Author

Listening Library (Random House), An Unabridged Production on 5 compact discs, 5 hours, 17 minutes.
Text copyright 1962, performance copyright 1993 Tesser Tracks, Inc.
Newbery Medal Winner 1963.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: Wonderful Rereads

In the online Newbery Medal class I took, we were all asked what was our favorite Newbery Medal winner, and no book was mentioned more than Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. (For me, it’s second only to The Hero and the Crown.) Imagine my delight as I was taking the class when I discovered that our library had a version of the book on CD read by the author herself!

Madeleine L’Engle spent some time in the theater, and she’s not a bad reader at all, besides knowing how she meant certain things to be pronounced. I wrote a review of A Wrinkle in Time way back when I first started writing Sonderbooks, in August 2001, in only my third “issue.” I find it amusing that I complained that it was hard to read it aloud because I couldn’t figure out how to read Mrs Which. Because when I listened to this production, and Mrs Which’s voice was done with a reverberating echo, I immediately thought, “Oh! That’s how she meant it to be read!” (I also thought it was a little unfair, because you can’t add that when you read it aloud to your own kids without special equipment!)

Listening to Madeleine L’Engle read the book herself was like hearing a friend coming back from the grave to tell a story, and a warm and loving story. Madeleine expresses all Meg’s peevishness in her voice. She’s an imperfect, flawed kid — but she saves the day.

Listening to A Wrinkle in Time inspired me afresh. I may have to purchase my own copy and make a new tradition of not only reading A Wrinkle in Time every few years, as I used to do, but now listening to it every few years, read to me by Madeleine L’Engle herself.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/wrinkle_in_time_audio.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.