Review of The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett

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The Uncommon Reader

by Alan Bennett

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2007.  120 pages.

It was the dogs’ fault.  The Queen of England’s dogs lost control of themselves and ran into the City of Westminster travelling library.  Once there, the Queen felt obligated to borrow a book.  Once she had the book, the Queen started reading it.  Once she started reading, she finished it.

“That was the way one was brought up.  Books, bread and butter, mashed potato — one finishes what’s on one’s plate.  That’s always been my philosophy.”

One book leads to another, and another. . . .  The Queen learns all kinds of places and times she can fit reading into her life.

“She’d got quite good at reading and waving, the trick being to keep the book below the level of the window and to keep focused on it and not on the crowds.  The duke didn’t like it one bit, of course, but goodness it helped.”

Unfortunately, the Queen’s new habit causes great consternation among her staff.  Then drastic changes in her habits, her conversations, and even her outlook on life.

This book was chosen as the All Fairfax Reads selection for 2008.  It celebrates the joys of reading and the way reading can change a life.  The book is short and humorous and good fun.  Some food for thought as well!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/uncommon_reader.html

Review of Ask Me No Questions, by Marina Budhos

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Ask Me No Questions,

by Marina Budhos

Simon Pulse, 2007.  First published in 2006.  162 pages.

Fourteen-year-old Nadira is from Bangladesh, but she has grown up in America.  Her father’s visa has expired, and they tried to get legal residency, but their money was taken by a lawyer running scams.  It didn’t seem to matter — everyone else seemed to be in the same situation.

Then September 11th happened.  The INS was cracking down.  Rumors were flying. 

Nadira’s older sister, Aisha, is a senior in high school and the star of the debate team and every teacher’s favorite student.  She has applications in to prestigious schools, but she can’t apply for financial aid unless their legal status changes. 

They hear a reliable (they think) rumor that they should go to Canada and apply for asylum.  The result is disaster.  The Canadians do not let them cross the border, and they are promptly detained.  Nadira’s father, Abba, is arrested and held in a detention center.  They have no idea how long he will be held or if the whole family will be deported.

Nadira and Aisha have no choice but to go back home to New York and go back to school.  They will stay with their cousin.  Aisha doesn’t have a license, but she drives them back.  Ma must stay at the border to try to get Abba’s case heard.

So begins Ask Me No Questions.  Can Nadira and Aisha help in any way to get their father’s case heard?  How can they go on with ordinary high school life?  How can Aisha focus on tests and college interviews?

Nadira says:

Tuesday morning Aisha and I are back at Flushing High as if nothing happened.

We’re not the only illegals at our school.  We’re everywhere.  You just have to look.  A lot of the kids here were born elsewhere — Korea, China, India, the Dominican Republic.  You can’t tell which ones aren’t legal.  We try to get lost in the landscape of backpacks and book reports.  To find us you have to pick up the signals.  It might be in class when a teacher asks a personal question, and a kid gets this funny, pinched look in his eyes.  Or some girl doesn’t want to give her address to the counselor.  We all agree not to notice.

I remember when I was little, crouching in a corner of the playground and hearing a group of girls chant:  Ask me no questions.  Tell me no lies.  That’s the policy of at school.  Ask me no questions, we say silently.  And the teachers don’t.  “We’re not the INS,” I once heard one of them say.  “We’re here to teach.”  But sometimes I feel like shaking their sleeves and blurting out, Ask me.  Please.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/ask_me_no_questions.html

Review of Peeled, by Joan Bauer

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Peeled,

by Joan Bauer

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008.  248 pages.

Hildy Biddle is a girl with an obsession.  Hildy’s obsession is to report the news, to let people know the truth, to make their high school newspaper shine.

But when a scare starts at the old Ludlow house, with a death and rumors of haunting, the town newspaper only seems to want to fan people’s fears.

Can Hildy and her high school friends stand up for what’s right against the interests of powerful adults?

In many ways, this feels like the same story Joan Bauer has told in her other wonderful books, like Hope Was Here and Rules of the Road.  A teenaged girl with an obsession stands up for what’s right against powerful interests.  However, I can’t complain — This story Joan Bauer is telling is a good one, makes fun reading, and does stick with you.

I do think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t had the vague feeling I’d read this before.  However, I will still highly recommend it to young teen readers.  Joan Bauer tells a good story, and Hildy Biddle joins her cast of strong young women who stand up for what’s right and entertain the reader while doing it.

http://www.joanbauer.com/

www.penguin.com/youngreaders

Buy from Amazon.com

This review is posted on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/peeled.html

Review of Forever Rose, by Hilary McKay

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Forever Rose

by Hilary McKay

Margaret K. McElderry Books, New York, 2008.  291 pages.

Starred Review.

Although I admit to often staying up later than I should in order to finish wonderful books, it’s been awhile since a book lured me into finishing it in the morning before going to work.  Fortunately, I was close to the end, because I don’t think I would have been able to stop once I picked up Forever Rose and thought I’d just read a little more….

The Casson family is back, as wonderful and chaotic as ever.  Rose is having some rough times.  Her teacher is so mean, he won’t even let the class celebrate Christmas.  In fact, school is no longer a peaceful place where you can catch up on your daydreaming.  Her family never seems to be at home.  And then her brother’s big friend who always seems to be in the way starts showing up at their house, looking for a place to keep his drum set.

What’s more, Rose learns that when your friend says, “Promise you will help, please promise you will help!”  You should NOT answer, “Of course we will!”  Instead, you should say, “Help you with what?”

Rose is also having trouble with reading.  She explains, “If you finish one book, they make you pick another.  And as soon as you finish that, they send you off to the book boxes again.  And each book is a little bit harder than the one before.  It’s called Reading Schemes and it’s just like a story Indigo once told me about a dragon with two heads.  And when the dragon’s two heads were cut off, it grew four.  And when they were cut off, it grew eight. . .”

If you haven’t yet become friends with the artistic and lovable Casson family, you will want to start with the first book, Saffy’s Angel.  If you already know and love them, I am happy to report that the latest installment in their story is as quirky and delightful as ever.

I did finish the book before going to work – the perfect way to ensure starting my day with a smile.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/forever_rose.html

Review of Eoin Colfer’s Legend of the Worst Boy in the World

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Eoin Colfer’s Legend of . . . The Worst Boy in the World, illustrated by Glenn McCoy

Miramax Books (Hyperion Books for Children), 2007.  101 pages.

http://www.eoincolfer.com/

http://www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com/

It’s not fair.  Whenever something bad happens to Will, no one will even listen to him tell about it.  He has four brothers.  If he wants to complain about something to his Mom or Dad, there are usually at least two brothers in line ahead of him.

Will says, “All this complaining means that by the time Marty and I get home from school with our troubles, there is usually a little brother perched on each of Mom’s knees, moaning about their baby problems.  And even if, miracle of miracles, there is a free knee, Mom is usually on auto-nod by then anyway.  Auto-nod is when grown-ups don’t really listen to what a child says, they just nod every five seconds or so until the child goes away.”

Finally Will finds the perfect person to listen to him:  Grandad.  He makes a deal.  Grandad will listen to one sob story from Will each week, if Will will listen to one from Grandad.

So it seems like a great thing.  Only whenever Will thinks he really has a terrible story, Grandad completely tops him.  For example, one week the barber slipped when he was trimming the back of Will’s head with electric clippers and shaved a bald strip right up to his crown.  When he told Grandad about it, Grandad took off his cap and showed him where a shark had bitten him on the head.

Will was completely frustrated, so he decided to do some research.  It turns out that when Will was only two years old, his brother Marty, at three years old, almost managed to get rid of him for good.

What’s the worst thing a three-year-old could do to a two-year-old?  What plot would get him out of the house, away from Mom and Dad, and almost do him in forever?  That, my friends, is the Legend of the Worst Boy in the World.

Buy from Amazon.com

This review is on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/worst_boy.html 

Review of The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith

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The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith

Pantheon Books, New York, 2007.  213 pages.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2008.  #5 Fiction: Romance

This book, the eighth in the series about The Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, is extra special, because my copy is signed by the author.  I got to hear Alexander McCall Smith speak at George Mason University.  His talk was every bit as funny and delightful as his books.  I was completely enchanted.  Of course, that didn’t surprise me at all, since his books never fail to delight me.

I continue to strongly recommend this series to library patrons.  I do urge you to begin at the beginning, with The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.  I think you will probably want to read the rest, and eagerly read each next installment.

In The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, will Mma Makutsi really leave the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency?  The pleasant ups and downs of day to day life, as usual, are peppered with interesting cases.  Another delightful book.

I will give a taste of the pleasant wisdom found in these books by listing some quotations I highlighted:

“If there’s bad behaviour, the quickest way of stopping it is to give more love.  That always works, you know.  People say that we must punish when there is wrongdoing, but if you punish you’re only punishing yourself.  And what’s the point of that?”

“And that stopped the stealing.  Trust did it.  We trusted him, and he knew it.  So he stopped stealing.”

” ‘What we are trying to do with these children,’ said Mma Potokwane suddenly, ‘is to give them good things to remember.  We want to make so many good memories for them that the bad ones are pushed into a corner and forgotten.'”

“There was no point in telling somebody not to cry, she had always thought; indeed there were times when you should do exactly the opposite, when you should urge people to cry, to start the healing that sometimes only tears can bring.”

” ‘That engine I’ve been working on will run so sweetly,’ he remarked as he poured his tea.

‘Like life,’ she said.”

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/good_husband.html

Review of The Plain Janes, by Cecil Castelluci and Jim Rugg

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The Plain Janes, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg

Minx Books, New York, 2007.

http://www.minxbooks.net/

We’ve all read books where the main character has to start at a new school.  Even books where she has to start a new high school six weeks after the start of the year.  But Jane’s reason for moving is a little unusual.  At her old neighborhood in Metro City, she was in the middle of a terrorist attack.

Now her parents have moved their family out to the suburbs, where they feel safer.  Jane hates having to leave the city.  When she sits in the cafeteria at the table for rejects, she learns that the other three girls sitting there are all named Jane.

After the terrorist attack, Jane found a sketchbook with words on the cover, “Art Saves.”  Can this be true in the suburbs as well as in the city?  She convinces the other Janes to carry out some “Art Attacks.”  They sign their work P.L.A.I.N.—People Loving Art in Neighborhoods.

But the authorities don’t take kindly to any kind of attack – artistic or not.

Here’s an engaging and artistic graphic novel about surviving, pressing on, and making a difference.

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/plain_janes.html

Review of Italian Lessons, by Peter Pezzelli

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Italian Lessons, by Peter Pezzelli

Kensington Books, New York, 2007.  346 pages.

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/

This is the second book by Peter Pezzelli that I’ve read.  I found both books warm and wonderful.  With both, I felt transported back to Italy.

In Italian Lessons, Carter Quinn, newly graduated from college, has fallen in love with a girl who lives in a village in Italy.  He can’t stop thinking about her.  So he decides to spend his summer learning Italian and then go to find her.

Carter learns that a music professor often gives private Italian lessons.  This professor, Giancarlo Rosa, has not been back to his childhood home in Italy for decades.

Italian Lessons covers the summer’s lessons together, what Carter learns about Italy and about life, and then what he finds in Italy — and how his discoveries touch Professor Rosa permanently, and allow him to finally make peace with his past.

This is a feel-good novel that is also thought-provoking, covering issues of life like forgiveness and destiny and opportunities.

I definitely need to look for more of Peter Pezzelli’s novels.  So far, they always leave me with a smile.

This review is posted on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/italian_lessons.html

Review of Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

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Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Harcourt, Orlando, 2006.  337 pages.

“But the moon wasn’t a half moon anymore.  It was tilted and wrong and a three-quarter moon and it got larger, way larger, large like a moon rising on the horizon, only it wasn’t rising.  It was smack in the middle of the sky, way too big, way too visible.  You could see details on the craters even without the binoculars that before I’d seen with Matt’s telescope.”

Life As We Knew It is gripping, dramatic, and well-written.  I’m afraid it’s also horribly depressing.

Years ago, I saw an episode of James Burke’s Connections show where he talked about what would happen if we lost electricity and other modern conveniences.  Would we even know how to grow food?  How to milk cows or slaughter chickens?  Would we be able to survive?

I found it interesting that Miranda’s family, aside from an attempt at growing vegetables, were still pretty much at the mercy of what they could purchase to eat.  They had to live in hope that the electricity would come back some day.  And I got depressed realizing I wouldn’t do much better!

This book would make for lively discussion in a book group.  How would you respond to such a situation?  I liked it that it was narrated by a high school student—because we can all understand how much that student would prefer a normal life and normal high school concerns.

I’m afraid I related a little too much to her single mother—that probably kept me from really enjoying the book right there.  It was too easy for me to imagine myself in that desperate situation, and wonder how I would respond.

I do think that in such a situation, I’d be force to turn to my faith in God—so I disliked it that in this book, Miranda had a friend with a church that presented a caricature of faith in God—a twisted, destructive trust, with a controlling and selfish leader at the head of the group.  How sad if, in such a desperate situation, you had only yourselves to rely upon—and hope that some day the government would get it together enough to help you survive.

So, this was a well-written story, with lots of food for thought.  But now I’m going to look for something light and cheerful to read!

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/life_as_we_knew_it.html

Review of Our Librarian Won’t Tell Us Anything! by Toni Buzzeo

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Our Librarian Won’t Tell Us Anything!

by Toni Buzzeo
illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa


Reviewed February 7, 2008.
Upstart Books, Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, 2006.

Here’s a book any librarian will love.

On Robert’s first day at Liberty Elementary, he goes to the library to find animal books. He decides to ask the librarian, but his classmate tells him, “Don’t even bother. Our librarian won’t tell us ANYTHING!”

Carmen is right – sort of. Mrs. Skorupski doesn’t tell him where the animal books are. However, she does show him how to look up the books he wants on the computer and use the shelf labels to find them.

Later, Mrs. Skorupski doesn’t find him a good online article for his report. But she does show him how to find one.

You get the idea! This is a fun story, and along the way it shows some of the many wonderful ways a librarian can empower you—even without telling you anything!

I was not surprised to learn that the author is a School Library Media Specialist herself. As a brand-new children’s librarian, this book has a special place in my heart.

This review is on the main website at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/our_librarian.html