Review of Romancing the Dark in the City of Light, by Ann Jacobus

Contemporary, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

romancing_the_dark_in_the_city_of_light_largeRomancing the Dark in the City of Light

by Ann Jacobus

Thomas Dunne Books (St. Martin’s Griffin), New York, 2015. 276 pages.
Starred Review

When I saw author Ann Jacobus at the YALSA Symposium, I knew I’d met her at a small conference, where she’d been an organizer. I assumed it was one of the many KidLitCons I’ve been to, but when I had her sign her book and mentioned KidLitCon, she said No.

As soon as I turned away, I remembered, and went right back to her table. I should have known – when, after all, the reason I decided to get a copy of the book was that the Eiffel Tower is on the cover and it’s set in Paris – I met Ann Jacobus at an SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) conference in Paris almost exactly ten years before I saw her in Portland, and she was indeed one of the organizers.

Ann Jacobus did set the book in Paris because of having lived there. (Paris tends to capture people’s hearts.)

Now, I’m not the best reader for a dark book – I don’t tend to enjoy them. This book is dark, and it took me awhile to get it read because of that.

But the book is well-written, and the concept is intriguing. Summer is in Paris staying with her Mom, trying to repeat and finish her senior year of high school, because she keeps getting kicked out of schools in America. She has to finish high school and graduate from college before she turns twenty-two in order to inherit her grandfather’s wealth.

There’s a lot of pressure on her, and Summer doesn’t like it. She thinks a lot about death. She researches burial customs of different cultures on the internet. Her father died years ago. Summer carries his flask with her, filled with vodka to help her get through.

Summer would like to have a romance in Paris, and she meets two people who might fulfill that desire. One is a student at her school, Moony (Munir), who walks with a limp because of a bad car accident when he was younger. Moony is uncommonly kind – and he doesn’t deserve to have Summer’s mess in his life.

Kurt is a handsome man Summer meets at a Paris metro station, just after a woman throws herself onto the tracks in front of a train. Kurt keeps showing up. He seems to know Summer’s thoughts. There’s a smell of decay about him.

I said this book is dark. That darkness, in Summer’s life, is personified in Kurt. Yes, there are some paranormal elements going on. They are done with excellent touches, making me want to reread it now I know all that’s going on – but I don’t want to give it away for other readers. Let’s just say that we watch more and more things in Summer’s life fall apart.

The novel doesn’t end badly, though – and that’s because of Moony. And Ann Jacobus shows us Moony’s character, persistence, and kindness in a way that we believe the ending.

But Moony isn’t perfect. We also see hints that he’s not helping Summer because he doesn’t know anything about despair or problems. And that works into the ending as well.

There’s more I’d like to say, but it gives too much away. (Feel free to talk about the ending in the comments if you’ve read the book!) This is a well-written book about a suicidal teen, set in Paris. (The title is perfect!) There are Suicide Prevention Resources at the back of the book, and it actually ends up a hopeful tale.

annjacobus.com
thomasdunnebooks.com
stmartins.com

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Source: This review is based on my own signed copy, which I got at the 2015 YALSA Symposium in Portland, Oregon.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of I’m New Here, by Anne Sibley O’Brien

Contemporary, Cross Cultural, Picture Book Review 0

im_new_here_largeI’m New Here

by Anne Sibley O’Brien

Charlesbridge, 2015. 32 pages.

I’m wary of books that try to approach a problem and show it solved in a simplistic way. But this book goes deeper than that.

It is a book designed to give us a window into what it feels like to be an immigrant. And yes, the stories are simplified somewhat for very young readers. But the artwork is lovely, and we’re shown how it feels to be in a new place, totally different from where you came from.

We meet three children, as they stand alone, to be introduced to their new class.

Maria is from Guatemala. “Back home I knew the language.” Pictures show Maria playing soccer happily with her friends.

Here there are new words.
I can’t understand them.
The sounds are strange to my ears.

The pictures show a cacophony of sounds on a playground.

Jin is from Korea. “Back home I could read and write.”

Here there are new letters.
They lie on the page like scribbles and scratches.
All the windows and doors are shut tight.

The picture shows Jin looking at letters and seeing them in a nonsensical pile jumbled together.

Fatimah is from Somalia. She wears a flowered headscarf. “Back home I was part of the class.”

Here there are new ways.
I cannot see the patterns.
I cannot find my place.

One by one, each finds a way to begin fitting in.

My favorite is Maria, who practices saying the words and finally manages to ask if she can play soccer. The part I like is where right away one of the other kids says, “She’s on our team!”

Jin gets help spelling cloud from a friend, and then shows that friend how to write cloud in Korean.

And it turns out that Fatimah is a very good artist and finds she can express herself by drawing and painting.

Here there are new beginnings.

Here there is a place for me.

Here is a new home.

I’m afraid that explaining this book won’t communicate how well the pictures tell the story along with the words. And the children portrayed are lovely children, not seen as other. Anne Sibley O’Brien manages to make their eyes look wistful at the beginning, but in a way that makes us want to embrace and comfort them.

And we’re all happy about their change of expression and demeanor by the end.

I suspect this book would be good for immigrant children to read as well as for children who will have new immigrants as classmates. But it’s also a good story, a story that helps the reader imagine what it would be like to stand in someone else’s shoes.

annesibleyobrien.com

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

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Review of Roller Girl, by Victoria Jamieson

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel, Starred Review 0

roller_girl_largeRoller Girl

by Victoria Jamieson

Dial Books for Young Readers, 2015. 240 pages.
Starred Review
2016 Newbery Honor
2015 Cybils Award Winner, Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novels

I don’t get around to reading a lot of graphic novels, so I only got to this one after it got Newbery and Cybils attention, and I’m so glad I did.

This graphic novel reminds me of the wildly popular Smile by Raina Telgemeier — It’s got a similar artistic style and is also about a girl in middle school navigating friendships.

Roller Girl, unlike Smile, is fiction, but it’s got the feel of memoir, with a picture of the author on the back flap in her roller derby gear. It certainly could happen.

Besides being in so-accessible graphic novel form, Roller Girl tells how Astrid gets involved in roller derby, a sport I certainly didn’t know anything about.

Astrid’s best friend Nicole, though, isn’t interested. She wants to go to dance camp this summer, when Astrid signs up for roller camp. And Nicole has a new friend, who is as excited about ballet as she is, but who has no use for Astrid.

At roller camp, Astrid is a total beginner and feels like the only one who doesn’t know this stuff. She works hard, but keeps falling. And working hard at roller derby is painful!

Then Astrid feels like she blows it even with the new friend she’s made at roller camp. Is she just no good at being a friend?

This graphic novel is delightful. Astrid’s spirit — lots of falling, and yes, some grumbling, but she gets right back up — will win the reader over quickly. Mind you, she doesn’t make me want to be a roller girl, but she has me totally on her side, cheering for her.

Roller derby — and putting on a “warface” — is also an interesting way to work out anger with a friend. I’m not sure if it’s a healthy way, but it’s definitely entertaining! Though, mind you, Astrid does a good job in the book of facing interpersonal problems (with some stumbles along the way).

I have a feeling once a few kids find this book, word is going to spread like wildfire.

victoriajamieson.com
penguin.com/youngreaders

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Pax, by Sara Pennypacker

Animal Characters, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

pax_largePax

by Sara Pennypacker
illustrated by Jon Klassen

Balzer + Bray, 2016. 280 pages.
Starred Review

At ALA Midwinter Meeting, this Advance Reader’s Edition came in a special gift box, which opens up to a diorama.

When you open the first lid of the box, you see a blurb from librarian and blogger Betsy Bird, and next, one from librarian John Schumacher, and only after that from Newbery author Katherine Applegate. It made me happy to see bloggers featured so prominently (and there are more people I know blurbing the book on the back cover).

Then I read the book itself — and what they say is true. I was pulled in to this book, and finished it by the next day. Even though I have this ARC, I’ve already pre-ordered my own published copy — this edition didn’t have very much of the art by Jon Klassen, which I know will be wonderful, and whose stark artwork is exactly suited to this material.

The book alternates viewpoints between Pax, a fox, and Peter, his boy.

Peter has been raising Pax since he found the orphaned fox kit, not long after Peter’s mother had died. But now, five years later, Peter’s father has enlisted to fight in the war, and he says it’s time for Peter to return Pax to the wild. And Peter is going to have to live with his grandfather three hundred miles away.

The book opens as Peter leaves Pax in the woods. Pax doesn’t understand.

The boy’s anxiety surprised the fox. The few times they had traveled in the car before, the boy had been calm or even excited. The fox nudged his muzzle into the glove’s webbing, although he hated the leather smell. His boy always laughed when he did this. He would close the glove around his pet’s head, play-wrestling, and in this way the fox would distract him.

But today the boy lifted his pet and buried his face in the fox’s white ruff, pressing hard.

It was then that the fox realized his boy was crying. He twisted around to study his face to be sure. Yes, crying — although without a sound, something the fox had never known him to do. The boy hadn’t shed tears for a very long time, but the fox remembered: always before he had cried out, as if to demand that attention be paid to the curious occurrence of salty water streaming from his eyes.

The fox licked at the tears and then grew more confused. There was no scent of blood. He squirmed out of the boy’s arms to inspect his human more carefully, alarmed that he could have failed to notice an injury, although his sense of smell was never wrong. No, no blood; not even the under-skin pooling of a bruise or the marrow leak of a cracked bone, which had happened once.

It doesn’t take Peter long at his grandfather’s house for him to know that he is in the wrong place. He needs to go back and find Pax and take him home. He knows that Pax will wait for him.

But it’s not simple for a boy to travel three hundred miles. The book follows Peter and Pax in alternating chapters as they try to find one another.

The war is coming to the place where Pax was left. The house where they lived is in an evacuation zone. The soldiers are wiring traps at the river, without regard for animals. So besides Pax having to learn to live in the wild, he is affected by what the humans are doing. The other foxes don’t trust him because he smells like humans.

Peter also meets someone on his journey who’s been deeply affected by war. Circumstances force him to slow down and learn some lessons while he’s waiting to travel on, even though he so urgently wants to get to Pax.

This story is an intricate, well-orchestrated look inside the characters, both human and animal. The title is appropriate, because it’s also a look at war and peace.

After I finished the book and was mulling it over (This is a book that you will mull over.), I wondered where it was set. Certain clues — Peter’s love for baseball and the woman he meets having Creole heritage — would indicate this is the United States. But the animals knew about war and had seen war in their lifetimes.

An old fox (who has seen war) explains:

There is a disease that strikes foxes sometimes. It causes them to abandon their ways, to attack strangers. War is a human sickness like this.

Anyway, I was wondering how this could be America, since this doesn’t happen here. Then I noticed the sentence on a page at the very front of the book:

Just because it isn’t happening here
doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

I’m looking forward to reading this again with Jon Klassen’s illustrations. Publication date is today! Yes, this, the first new book I read in 2016 is already what I hope wins the Newbery in 2017. We’ll see….

sarapennypacker.com
burstofbeaden.com

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader’s Copy I got at ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Mango, Abuela, and Me, by Meg Medina and Angela Dominguez

Award Challenge, Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

mango_abuela_and_me_largeMango, Abuela, and Me

by Meg Medina
illustrated by Angela Dominguez

Candlewick Press, 2015. 32 pages.
Starred Review
2015 Cybils Fiction Picture Books Finalist
2016 Pura Belpré Author Honor Book
2016 Pura Belpre Illustrator Honor Book

Mia’s grandmother, her Abuela, has come to live with her family. But Abuela doesn’t speak English and Mia doesn’t speak Spanish. But little by little, they learn to communicate, and some of the help comes from a parrot named Mango, who learns both languages as well.

This is simply a lovely cross-cultural story. It does address that it’s difficult to learn a new language, and takes lots of practice, but all the motivation in this story is love.

The first night, before Abuela goes to sleep, she shows Mia a red feather from a parrot that nested in her mango trees back in her old home. This is the episode that gives Mia the idea to purchase the parrot in the pet store for Abuela and name him Mango.

Spanish words are peppered throughout the story. It’s just a nice twist on the stranger-in-a-new-country story. This time it’s not the girl herself, but her Abuela who clearly loves her and learns to tell her stories about her Abuelo, and also learns to hear all the stories Mia has to tell.

megmedina.com
angeladominguezstudio.com
candlewick.com

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

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Review of Emma, by Alexander McCall Smith

Austenalia, Contemporary, Fiction Review, Romance 0

emma_largeEmma

A Modern Retelling

by Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon Books, New York, 2015. 361 pages.

Oh Emma, Emma – I was reminded by reading this book that she’s really an annoying character.

But I’m a huge Jane Austen fan, and I’ve been eagerly following the new modernized Jane Austen retellings as they’ve come out, and on top of that I love Alexander McCall Smith’s writings, so of course I wanted to read this one.

But I almost stopped reading in the middle. Emma’s snobbishness and superiority was a little more tolerable in the original, somehow embedded in the English class system. For a modern young woman to assume she has the right to manipulate people because she can? Not so endearing.

It was somewhat endearing to occasionally notice Emma sounding like the ladies from the No. 1 Detective Agency or philosophizing like Isabella Dalhousie, but the characters put into the modern day weren’t as likable to me.

Also interesting was that the modern author took more time with the backstory than Jane Austen did, and spent about half the book before the classic novel even got started. Then some of the crucial scenes in the classic were skimmed over rather lightly.

I have to say, though, that I did enjoy a small twist at the end, as the tables get turned a bit on Emma. It’s also a much nicer ending for her father than the original.

I don’t think of my problems with the novel as Alexander McCall Smith’s fault. Emma really is an annoying character, an interfering, manipulative busybody who thinks herself better than everybody else. Somehow I bought her view when it was dressed up in a historic period in England’s history. Weren’t the gentry actually better than everyone else? But modern day Emma I wanted to slap.

Still, I did like the way this Emma thought over her shortcomings at the end. I felt like she gave them more weight and took things more to heart than classic Emma did.

But most of the retellings have made me want to revisit Jane Austen’s classics. This one made me realize that next time I see a reworking of Emma, I’ll be much happier giving it a miss.

alexandermccallsmith.com
theaustenproject.com
pantheonbooks.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Crenshaw, by Katherine Applegate

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

crenshaw_largeCrenshaw

by Katherine Applegate

Feiwel and Friends, New York, 2015. 245 pages.
Starred Review
2015 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #6 Children’s Fiction

A kid starting fifth grade is not supposed to have an imaginary friend. When Jackson’s years-ago imaginary friend Crenshaw the giant cat shows up riding a surfboard and carrying an umbrella, Jackson’s afraid he’s going crazy.

Crenshaw first appeared in his life right after first grade when his family was homeless and lived in their minivan for fourteen weeks.

When they finally put together enough money, my parents moved us to Swanlake Village. It was about forty miles from our old house, which meant I had to start at a new school. I didn’t care at all. At least I was going back to school. A place where facts mattered and things made sense.

Instead of a house, we moved into a small, tired-looking apartment. It seemed like a palace to us. A place where you could be warm and dry and safe.

I started school late, but eventually I made new friends. I never told them about the time we were homeless. Not even Marisol. I just couldn’t.

If I never talked about it, I felt like it couldn’t ever happen again.

But now Jackson’s parents are selling almost everything they own in a garage sale. They’re talking quietly together about paying the rent. They try to joke about it and say everything will be okay. His little sister is scared, too. Then Crenshaw shows up, just like he did before, only bigger. He says he won’t leave until Jackson doesn’t need him.

But what kind of fifth grader needs an imaginary friend?
And does this mean they’re going to be homeless again?

This book by Newbery-winning author Katherine Applegate packs a punch. It shows the human side of homelessness. The family were told about shelters, but none of the homeless shelters in their town would allow husbands and wives to stay together.

Sometimes I just wanted to be treated like a grown-up. I wanted to hear the truth, even if it wasn’t a happy truth. I understood things. I knew way more than they thought I did.

But my parents were optimists. They looked at half a glass of water and figured it was half full, not half empty.

Not me. Scientists can’t afford to be optimists or pessimists. They just observe the world and see what it is. They look at a glass of water and measure 3.75 ounces or whatever, and that’s the end of the discussion.

This is a children’s book. It does have a relatively happy ending, without being too simplistic. Jackson does learn something from Crenshaw about being a friend, imaginary or not. I would have liked a little more, a little longer book – but I think this is all the better for child readers. Here’s a relatable character in a recognizable situation – but one we don’t usually talk about.

And on top of his family’s poverty, Jackson is dealing with a giant, flamboyant, imaginary cat.

mackids.com

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Review of Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer, by Kelly Jones

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

unusual_chickens_largeUnusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer

by Kelly Jones

illustrations by Katie Kath

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2015. 216 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a wonderful light middle grade fantasy novel that’s quirky and inventive. It’s almost not a fantasy novel at all, dealing with a mixed-race kid in a new neighborhood who’s missing her dead grandma and trying to learn how to fit in — while learning to raise chickens with superpowers.

That’s right. Chickens with superpowers, and quirky superpowers at that.

Sophie and her parents have moved to her great-uncle Jim’s farm, which her dad inherited. Her Mom’s a writer, and her dad’s trying to find work, but they’re hoping to make something of the farm as well. Uncle Jim had some unusual chickens, but they have scattered after he died. She finds them one at a time and discovers their surprising abilities — along with someone who wants to have them for her own.

Sophie does find a flyer from Redwood Farm Supply among Uncle Jim’s junk advertising “Unusual Chickens for the Exceptional Poultry Farmer.” She writes to the farm for advice and gets very sporadic poorly typed answers back, but accompanied by lessons for being a poultry farmer.

This is a fun and imaginative story. The story is told in the letters Sophie writes to her dead Abuelita, Uncle Jim, and Redwood Farm Supply, as well as frequent illustrations. Sophie has quite a job ahead of her establishing herself as a farmer of Unusual Chickens and thwarting those who would try to stop her. On top of that, she’s got a whole summer to figure out how she’s going to manage to fit in with the other kids in the neighborhood.

curiosityjones.net
ktkath.com
randomhousekids.com

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

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Review of Madame Martine Breaks the Rules, by Sarah S. Brannen

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

madame_martine_breaks_the_rules_largeMadame Martine Breaks the Rules

by Sarah S. Brannen

Albert Whitman & Company, Chicago, Illinois, 2015. 32 pages.
Starred Review

Madame Martine Breaks the Rules features the same lady who lives in Paris with her dog, Max, whom we met in Madame Martine. As at the end of Madame Martine, she wears a bright red coat and every Saturday tries new things.

Her friend, Louis, often meets her at the café where she always has breakfast. He is a guard at the Louvre Museum and invites her to visit.

“Oh no,” said Madame Martine. “It’s so crowded, and they don’t allow dogs.”

“For you and Max, we might break the rules,” said Louis.

Madame Martine was shocked. “We would never ask you to do that!” she said.

But no one told Max. Later, when Madame Martine is talking with Louis near the Louvre, Max dashes in through the employee entrance. They end up getting a tour after all. It turns out that rules can be bent for friends of Louis.

This book isn’t as inspirational as Madame Martine, since the message of trying something new is much more uplifting than a message that rules can be bent. However, like Madame Martine, lovers of Paris will love this book. The art takes us on our own small tour of the Louvre.

This is a quiet book about our friend Madame Martine, and her little dog Max who again knows how to find wonderful things in the beautiful city of Paris.

sarahbrannen.com
albertwhitman.com

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

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Review of The Mathematician’s Shiva, by Stuart Rojstaczer

Contemporary, Fiction Review 0

mathematicians_shiva_largeThe Mathematician’s Shiva

by Stuart Rojstaczer

Penguin Books, 2014. 366 pages.

Sasha Karnokovitch, a lowly professor of atmospheric sciences, is the son of one of the greatest female mathematicians of all time. The book opens when his mother is dying. His family shows up at her bedside, but he knows that many more people will arrive when she dies.

When my father warned of the horde of mathematicians that would descend upon our house after my mother’s death, I knew what to expect. They would be grieving, but not like my family. They would be mourning not my mother but the loss of ideas, the loss of intellect. They would no longer be able to sit in a room with her and feel the magical presence of someone with the talent to find the hidden gem in what is thought to be all dross.

The Hasidic Jews have a word, dveykus, for men who always possess the spirit of God inside them. My mother, unlike my grandfather, did not believe in such things literally, but when it came to understanding mathematics, she knew that she possessed the equivalent of dveykus. Like a rebbe with acolytes who feel blessed just to be around someone whose goodness and spirituality are always present, my mother had her followers. I had been with them all of my childhood. They sought me out for my secondhand dveykus even as an adult. Now they would come and I would have to be their gracious host for seven days, the days of shiva that are a traditional part of Jewish mourning. My uncle called them the szale?cy, the crazy people. Yet he would supply the vodka, and soothe them in his own way.

This book is about that shiva. Indeed, the mathematicians descend, especially those, like Sasha’s mother Rachela, from Poland and Russia. They are convinced she proved the Navier-Stokes Theorem before she died. But where would she have hidden her work? They will search the house; they will interrogate her parrot; they will even work together to try to prove it themselves.

This is a rambling novel, with quirky characters, mostly academicians. There are stories of Rachela’s childhood during World War II and stories of how it was for Sasha growing up as the child of a genius. There are family stories and mathematician stories.

Having been in a math graduate program myself, even though this novel wasn’t a page-turner, I kept coming back to it and couldn’t resist reading about the world created here – about genius and math and family and fate and love and faith and recognition and whether cold weather helps you think clearly.

stuartr.com
penguin.com

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