Review of Chomp, by Carl Hiaasen

Adventure, Audiobooks, Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Chomp

by Carl Hiaasen
read by James Van Der Beek

Listening Library, 2012. 6 hours on 5 CDs.

This audiobook is a wonderful choice for family listening. Wahoo Cray (He was named after a wrestler) has always lived with animals. His dad’s an animal wrangler, dealing with exotic animals for TV shows or movies. Unfortunately, his dad recently had a head injury when a frozen iguana fell out of a tree and landed on his head. He gets headaches and double vision and hasn’t gotten many jobs lately.

So when the biggest reality survival show on TV wants to hire Mickey Cray, Wahoo has to make sure it works. Even though the star of the show, Derek Badger, is all too likely to get himself killed — either by their alligator or by Mickey himself.

When Derek Badger decides to take the show into the “real” wild Everglades, he insists that Mickey and Wahoo go with him. But then Wahoo runs into Tuna, a girl from school who needs to hide from her drunk dad, so they bring her along. And things rapidly get out of control.

Even though this book does skirt some heavy issues with Tuna and her Dad, the mood stays very funny and has eye-opening facts about animals and the environment and supposed “reality” shows. As it goes on, Derek Badger’s ineptitude went beyond funny to me into the range of downright unrealistic, but it’s all in good fun.

Highly entertaining and family friendly listening, with plenty of laughs and plenty of excitement. The narrator does a great job of distinguishing between the characters, including Derek Badger’s fake Australian accent. He had me avidly listening all the way. In fact, the characters were in a pouring rainstorm right while I was driving in a torrential downpour, and I think the line between fantasy and reality began to blur for me! I listened to this while driving back from dropping my youngest son off his first time in the college dorm, and it was fantastic to have something to completely take my mind off his empty seat! But I do think if the seats in your car are full, this is one the whole family will enjoy.

listeninglibrary.com

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Source: This review is based on a library audiobook 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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee, by Tom Angleberger

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 1

The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee

by Tom Angleberger

Amulet Books, New York, 2012. 193 pages.

I love the Origami Yoda books, but I was a little disappointed in the latest installment. I think my main problem was that this is really only the beginning of a story. Many things are left unresolved, and there are fearsome administrative school changes looming. When I reflect that Tom Angleberger tied up his other two books incredibly well, and that I wasn’t as enamored of them when right in the middle, I suspect that I will have more enthusiasm for this book once the storyline is resolved.

During this book, there’s not as much of a unifying theme, though I think the announced changes coming up will give the next book some urgency. In this book, the main problem is that Dwight is acting normal instead of weird, and it’s a little hard to see that as a problem. Even the characters aren’t sure if they should see it as a problem.

Tom Angleberger again does a marvelous job of mocking wrong-headed authorities. There’s a return of Mr. Good Clean Fun. And the school Dwight is now attending is simply scary when they all treat Dwight as “special.”

In this book, while Dwight’s away, Sara claims to have a Fortune Wookiee from him — a folded fortuneteller decorated like Chewbacca. His grunts and groans are interpreted by Han Foldo. Though the advice mostly works out, it’s not as mysterious and magically appropriate as that given by Origami Yoda in the earlier books.

Mind you, my disappointment when the story didn’t finish was minor. I’m still a big fan of these books and am very glad the series isn’t over. I’m not quite as enamored as with the first book (That one was fantastic!), but was glad to read more about the characters.

This is still a very kid-friendly book, with lots of drawings (by Kellen) in the margins, and chapters written by the different characters, giving their perspectives. It still captures well the lives of middle school students. I think readers should definitely read this series in order, to truly appreciate what’s going on. And once they’ve read The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, they will definitely be pleased with anything more about the characters. I’m looking forward to seeing how Tom Angleberger wraps up this tale.

origamiyoda.com
abramsbooks.com

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Source: This review is based on a library book from the 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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of One Two That’s My Shoe! by Alison Murray

Contemporary, Good for the Very Young, Mathematical, Picture Book Review, Readalouds 0

One Two That’s My Shoe!

by Alison Murray

Disney Hyperion Books, New York, 2012. First published in Great Britain in 2011. 28 pages.

Simplicity. This book has it, in a beautiful form.

I recently had the joy of being promoted to Youth Services Manager at my library branch, so I get to do children’s programs again! Tomorrow, I’m doing a Mother Goose Time for babies from birth to eighteen months. In Mother Goose Time, we mainly do rhymes and songs in the parent’s lap. But I like to work in three books that are short and simple and that the parents can read along with me.

One Two That’s My Shoe! is perfect. The text is reminiscent of the old rhyme “One Two Buckle My Shoe,” going from one to ten with a rhyme after every second number. However, this book puts a story to the rhymes. With One Two, a dog has taken a little girl’s shoe, and is running away with it.

With each number, the pictures show that many objects that the dog is running past — toys, butterflies, flowers, trees, chicks and hens. The ten hens add a little inside joke. You’d expect Nine, Ten to rhyme with “Big Fat Hen” as in “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe,” but instead the girl shoos them away, recovers her shoe, and hugs the dog with the words “Friends again!”

This book is simple. The illustrations are done with printmaking, and look old-fashioned and classic. With at most three words on a page, you can read it quickly for the little one with a short attention span, but there’s plenty to talk about. Will the dog get away with the shoe? What will stop him?

As a counting book, it’s also excellent. All the objects passed are easily counted, with none tricky to find, but covering a wide scope of objects, and variety within the objects. The objects are not identical, but it’s easy to see that they belong together. Each number is both written out in the text and represented by a numeral in a corner. Next to the numeral, there are silhouettes of the object counted in the picture, so it’s nice and clear.

This is simply a lovely first counting book, and one that parents and children won’t get tired of any time soon. I’m happy to show it off at Mother Goose Time tomorrow.

disneyhyperionbooks.com
12thatsmyshoe.com

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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.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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.

Review of Charlotte’s Web, by E. B. White

Animal Characters, Audiobooks, Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Classics, Contemporary, Fantasy, Starred Review, Top 100 Writers and Illustrators 0

Charlotte’s Web

by E. B. White
read by the Author

Listening Library, 2002. Written in 1952. Recorded in 1970. 3 compact discs.
Starred Review
1953 Newbery Honor Book
1970 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award

Charlotte’s Web has twice been voted the #1 Children’s Chapter Book of all time by librarians and parents voting in Betsy Bird‘s School Library Journal Top 100 Chapter Books Poll. In fact, it was reading Betsy’s post that I learned that there is an audio with E. B. White reading the book. I immediately checked if our library had that version and happily took it home.

It’s been many years since I’ve read this practically perfect book. My third grade teacher read it to me the first time. Later, I read it to my sons. And my older son watched the Hanna-Barbara animated version over and over again. As I listened to the audiobook, I realized that the many lines I had memorized were the ones that were used in the film. And they did keep many, many of the great lines. (Like the starting and ending lines. Like Charlotte’s salutation.) But I’d forgotten a lot of the side scenes that didn’t make it to the film.

There are so many scenes simply of life in the barn. Swinging on the rope swing. Wilbur escaping his pen right at the beginning. How it felt to have slops poured on top of Wilbur or to roll in the warm manure. The book is truly a paean to life in the barn.

Now at the beginning, I didn’t feel E. B. White measured up to the actors and especially actresses I remembered reciting the lines in my head. But his voice grew on me, and it’s a good, down-to-earth voice for this story. You can hear in his voice his love for the quiet life of the barn. It’s truly a treasure to still be able to listen to him telling his masterpiece of a story.

Now, there’s no need to critique this classic. I was surprised to find little quibbles. What happens to Fern when the whole spider plot happens. Isn’t she in on it? But it’s Charlotte’s Web! The book is genius, and it works. And you can listen to it read by E. B. White himself.

listeninglibrary.com

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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 audiobook from the 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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of A Greyhound of a Girl, by Roddy Doyle

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Fantasy 0

A Greyhound of a Girl

by Roddy Doyle

Amulet Books, New York, 2012. First published in the United Kingdom in 2011.

A Greyhound of a Girl is a sweet story of four generations of Irish women. The book starts with twelve-year-old Mary, who feels guilty that she hates the hospital, where her dear granny is dying. Then one day, Mary meets a mysterious woman.

The woman was old. But, actually, she wasn’t. Mary knew what it was, why the woman seemed old. She was old-fashioned. She was wearing a dress that looked like it came from an old film, one of those films her mother always cried at. She looked like a woman who milked cows and threw hay with a pitchfork. She was even wearing big boots with fat laces.

After meeting the woman a few more times, Mary learns she’s her granny’s mother, Tansy, who died when Granny was three years old. Mary’s mother gets pulled into the story, and we end up with their interwoven tales culminating in a four-generation road trip, with one of the generations dead and another dying.

The story isn’t morbid, and it’s all told on the level of things children will find interesting. We look at the previous generations through the eyes of childhood and current times through Mary’s eyes. Through it all, there’s the flavor of Ireland. I like that they didn’t change the language drastically for American readers. They’ll quickly get the idea that when things are “grand,” they’re going well. And they’ll learn the meaning of “cheeky.”

This is a book that will remind you of the ways life is grand and family is grand.

roddydoyle.com
amuletbooks.com

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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.

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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Endangered, by Eliot Schrefer

Adventure, Contemporary, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

Endangered

by Eliot Schrefer

Scholastic Press, New York, 2012. 264 pages.
Starred Review
2012 National Book Award Finalist
2013 School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books Contender

Endangered is the only Battle of the Books contender this year that I hadn’t already read. I’m glad I finished it before it’s out of the Battle. And, dare I say it?, now I find myself hoping it pulls an upset over The Fault in Our Stars. Though I don’t want it to beat my favorite, Code Name Verity in the next round, and The Fault in Our Stars is bound to come back from the dead anyway, so this doesn’t feel like a very fateful prediction.

But Endangered is a gripping, powerful, and suspenseful story that feels like it’s teaching you at the same time. I knew nothing about bonobos and very little about Congo or life in Congo. Eliot Schrefer writes with authenticity that sure makes the reader think he knows what he’s talking about.

I already had an idea of the story. Sophie was visiting her Mom on a bonobo sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Without asking permission, she adopted Otto, a baby bonobo being sold on the side of the road. Later, her Mom heads out to release some adult bonobos at a safe location in the wild, but while she is gone, war erupts. UN peacekeepers try to take Sophie to safety, but Sophie won’t leave Otto to die.

What follows is an epic journey. Because war comes to the sanctuary. Sophie takes refuge in the electrified enclosure with the adult bonobos, so her first challenge is to be accepted by them. But when the electricity goes off, she knows she must escape before the soldiers come in to kill them all. Can she travel through the jungle and find her mother, miles away?

This book is a survival tale, a frightening story of war, and full of authentic details about bonobos and life in Congo.

At first, I was a little annoyed with Sophie for seeming more concerned about bonobo life than human life. But as the book went on, I came to feel that someone needed to care about “the least of these.” When another opportunity came up for her to go to safety if she abandoned Otto, but she had clear evidence he would die if she did, I was by then fully on Sophie’s side in continuing on with Otto.

Sophie’s journey takes her from one danger to another. But she never feels unduly lucky. There are many setbacks. Some she deals with better than others, and she does end up finding kind strangers who help along the way, after initial help from the bonobos. It’s hard to write a series of narrow escapes and still have the reader feel like it could happen, but Eliot Schrefer pulls it off. It all feels believable and terribly scary.

During a quiet moment it struck me that Congo was an easier country to survive in than most during a time of war. In peacetime the teacher couldn’t afford to buy food at the markets, which meant he had a field, and snares for wild game, and a well for water since the government had never run pipes out here. I tried to imagine getting by if the same thing happened in Miami and couldn’t. When a country was as primed for civil war as Congo was, when it came apart, the pieces weren’t as heavy.

eliotschrefer.com
scholastic.com

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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.

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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Kepler’s Dream, by Juliet Bell

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary 0

Kepler’s Dream

by Juliet Bell

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2012. 247 pages.

Here’s a sweet summer friendship story, with a mystery and family drama woven in.

Ella Mackenzie is at “Broken Family Camp” at her grandmother’s in Arizona while her mother undergoes chemotherapy in Seattle that they hope will save her life. Her parents are divorced, and her father can’t take her because he leads fishing trips in Spokane. He doesn’t get along with his mother, but persuaded her to take Ella.

Ella finds that her grandmother, Violet Von Stern, is a formidable woman who insists on good grammar and seems to like books more than people. In fact, she has a private library to house her collection, and while Ella is there a book dealer and two teenage boys are helping Mrs. Von Stern catalog her collection.

Fortunately, there’s a girl around who’s eleven like Ella. Rosie is the daughter of Miguel, who works on Mrs. Von Stern’s property. Rosie and Miguel take Ella to Rosie’s uncle’s place to learn horseback riding. But while she is there, Ella has family mysteries to solve. What happened to her grandfather and Rosie’s grandfather so long ago? And is that related to why her grandmother and her father always fight?

All that’s background to a more blatant mystery. One night there’s a break-in that looks like an inside job. And a rare edition of Johannes Kepler’s work of fiction, The Dream, the most valuable book in the library, has disappeared.

The characters in this novel and quirky and feel alive. The friendship between the girls must get past a bit of prickliness to get off the ground, which feels realistic. And you’ve got the weight of Ella worrying about her mother to give the book some depth. (Spoiler alert: Her mother lives. This book stays uplifting and positive. That would have changed its character to a real downer.) Her relationship with her father does get better, and she gains a relationship with her grandmother.

Again, this is a nice story of friendship and family with a mystery thrown in.

julietbell.com
penguin.com/youngreaders

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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.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Why We Broke Up, by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman

Award Challenge, Award Winners, Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Why We Broke Up

Novel by Daniel Handler
Art by Maira Kalman

Little Brown and Company, New York, 2011. 354 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Printz Honor

I read this book as part of my crazy plan to read award winners, even though I know it’s impossible, so I began by focusing on award winners where I’ve actually met the author. I started this book the evening after I got home from ALA Annual Conference, and stayed in bed late on Independence Day morning to finish it. The book is absorbing, quick reading, but very insightful.

Now I have to say to start off with: Call me old-fashioned, call me a prude, but I’m really glad that back when I was dating, we didn’t get naked with a guy on the 2nd date or so. We didn’t expect a kiss to mean we’re going to be felt up right away. And on top of that, I’m really happy that I didn’t have to plan when and where to lose my virginity. Or, wait a minute, I did plan a big party with all my family and friends (a wedding) and I lost my virginity in a truly extraordinary place (a honeymoon). Makes me feel sorry for kids today missing out on that.

But the story — the story is outstanding. Min explains what she’s doing right at the start:

Dear Ed,

In a sec you’ll hear a thunk. At your front door, the one nobody uses. It’ll rattle the hinges a bit when it lands, because it’s so weighty and important, a little jangle along with the thunk, and Joan will look up from whatever she’s cooking. She will look down in her saucepan, worried that if she goes to see what it is it’ll boil over. I can see her frown in the reflection of the bubbly sauce or whatnot. But she’ll go, she’ll go and see. You won’t, Ed. You wouldn’t. You’re upstairs probably, sweaty and alone. You should be taking a shower, but you’re heartbroken on the bed, I hope, so it’s your sister, Joan, who will open the door even though the thunk’s for you. You won’t even know or hear what’s being dumped at your door. You won’t even know why it happened.

It’s a beautiful day, sunny and whatnot. The sort of day when you think everything will be all right, etc. Not the right day for this, not for us, who went out when it rains, from October 5 until November 12. But it’s December now, and the sky is bright, and it’s clear to me. I’m telling you why we broke up, Ed. I’m writing it in this letter, the whole truth of why it happened. And the truth is that I goddamn loved you so much.

The thunk is the box, Ed. This is what I am leaving you. . . . Every last souvenir of the love we had, the prizes and the debris of this relationship, like the glitter in the gutter when the parade has passed, all the everything and whatnot kicked to the curb. I’m dumping the whole box back into your life, Ed, every item of you and me. I’m dumping this box on your porch, Ed, but it is you, Ed, who is getting dumped.

The thunk, I admit it, will make me smile. A rare thing lately. . . . The world is right again, is the smile. I loved you and now here’s back your stuff, out of my life like you belong, is the smile. I know you can’t see it, not you, Ed, but maybe if I tell you the whole plot you’ll understand it this once, because even now I want you to see it. I don’t love you anymore, of course I don’t, but still there’s something I can show you. You know I want to be a director, but you could never truly see the movies in my head and that, Ed, is why we broke up.

And so Min gives Ed a box full of stuff. The box and each item in it is pictured one by one, as Min tells the story of their relationship. It wasn’t a long relationship, lasting from October 5 to November 12. But Min has quite a number of souvenirs and you can see from the excerpt above how good she is at spinning words, showing you pictures.

And, I have to say this also, the book has a universal feel to it. On the back, it says, “Min and Ed’s story of Heartbreak may remind you of your own.” There are quotes from other writers about high school heartbreak.

I realized that though I had my heart broken not long ago, though I did get a divorce, I never did really break up. Instead, I got secretly betrayed and abandoned, while I was trying to cling by my fingernails to the marriage. Funny how reading someone else’s story, it’s easy to see what a good thing it was for Min to break up with Ed. Easy to imagine the satisfaction that Thunk must have brought. I got to thinking, what would I put in a box if I were to really act out a break up with a Thunk? What would I write in a letter? Now, mind you, there’s no box big enough for 24 years of marriage, and no book long enough. But Why We Broke Up did spark some deep thinking. I decided to celebrate Independence Day by putting away my wedding pictures. (Yes, I admit, I still had them up.) So not only was it a tremendously engaging story, it was therapeutic, too.

And that’s a win all the way around.

whywebrokeupproject.com
lb-teens.com

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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.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Building Our House, by Jonathan Bean

Contemporary, Picture Book Review 0

Building Our House

by Jonathan Bean

Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2013. 44 pages.

This book isn’t funny. It doesn’t reach out and punch you with its brilliance. It’s on the long side for preschool storytime. But it quietly won me over. I found myself reading it more than once, poring over the detailed illustrations, enjoying the oversize format and the story – the whole process of building a house.

The author based the book on what his parents actually did. They bought a farmer’s field, moved into a trailer on the property, and then built their own house. This book shows that process, starting with tools and a plan, then purchasing the materials, and setting the corners by the north star.

The format works well. It’s a larger picture book than usual. Most spreads have four pictures, two on each page, showing the day-to-day process. Special moments, like the frame-raising party and the moving-in party, get a whole double-page spread to themselves.

The pictures have lots of detail, and you can look at them over and over and still find new things. This would be a great choice for kids interested in construction machines, but also children interested in a family story, or even children who simply like to find details in complex pictures.

This is probably on the long side for preschool storytime, but it would be a lovely book for sharing individually with a child.

Mackids.com

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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.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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.

Review of Drama, by Raina Telgemeier

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Graphic Novel 0

Drama

by Raina Telgemeier

Graphix (Scholastic), 2012. 233 pages.
2013 Stonewall Award Honor Book

I think this light-hearted graphic novel about middle school drama is going to be hugely popular. Raina Telgemeier has already won legions of fans with her graphic memoir about her own middle school experience, Smile.

Callie is in charge of sets for their middle school drama production. This graphic novel conveys all the fun and camaraderie of a group of kids who are into drama. And there are crushes on the wrong people and plenty of drama in the romance department as well.

Toward the start of the book, Callie meets twin boys new to the school and convinces them to get involved in the production. I did have a little trouble keeping them straight, but that’s probably appropriate. Justin, who is gay, is outgoing and auditions for the lead role. Jesse, who is more reserved, signs up for stage crew and ends up being Callie’s good friend. She’d like a bit more, but there are some surprises — and drama — ahead.

This is a quick read, and I don’t think it’s going to sit on the library shelves very much at all. Kids will be snapping this up. I think despite the crushes in the story, boys won’t disdain to read it since it is, after all, a graphic novel. (Am I assigning stereotypes there? I just think this book will have wide appeal.)

goRaina.com
scholastic.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I write the posts for my website and blogs entirely 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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!