Review of Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Stork

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

marceloMarcelo in the Real World

by Francisco X. Stork

read by Lincoln Hoppe

Random House, 2009. 10 hours, 8 minutes on 8 compact discs.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #1 Other Teen Fiction

Marcelo Sandoval is looking forward to the summer before his senior year of high school. He’s going to be in charge of the ponies at Patterson, the special education school he’s gone to all his life. Marcelo has something similar to Asperger’s Syndrome. He sees the world differently than most people, and hears music in his head that no one else can hear.

Marcelo’s father has other ideas for him. He wants Marcelo to get a taste of “the real world,” and to learn to cope. His father is a partner in a law firm, and he wants Marcelo to work there for the summer. If he can successfully complete the assigned tasks, Marcelo can go back to Patterson, but otherwise his father wants Marcelo to go to the public high school.

The law firm has many challenges for Marcelo. The girl in charge of the mailroom, where he is assigned, had hoped for a different assistant for the summer. The other partner’s son is home from law school, and he has plans for how Marcelo can be useful to him. Then Marcelo comes up against some ethical questions and a picture that haunts him. Why does he feel so compelled by the picture? And what should he do about it?

Marcelo in the Real World is a powerful and gripping story. Listening to the audiobook, I felt like Marcelo was talking to me, telling his story in a way that made perfect sense. He explains his way of looking at the world thoroughly, and the listener gets quickly caught up in his viewpoint, wondering, along with Marcelo, what he should do next and how the people around him will react, and what it all means.

Marcelo has a “special interest” in religion, and the book tackles some major spiritual questions, as well as ethical ones. All in the context of the lives of people you come to care about. A truly wonderful book.

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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.

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Review of The Hero and the Crown, by Robin McKinley

Fantasy, Old Favorites, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

hero_and_the_crownThe Hero and the Crown

by Robin McKinley

Greenwillow Books, New York, 1984. 246 pages.
1985 Newbery Medal Winner
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: Wonderful Rereads

Naturally, taking a class on the Newbery Medal was the perfect excuse to reread my all-time favorite Newbery Medal winner, The Hero and the Crown. I’ve already posted a review of my favorite Newbery Honor Book, The Blue Sword, which, no coincidence, is also by Robin McKinley.

I was a college student when The Hero and the Crown was written, and I’m not sure when I first discovered it, but now it’s one of those books I simply have to revisit every few years. Reading it again this time, I happened to have a persistent headache, but, my goodness, this book makes me feel ready to go out and slay my own dragons.

Technically, The Hero and the Crown is a prequel to The Blue Sword, since it was written second but the events in the story take place before those of The Blue Sword. Nowadays, they would call it a “Companion Novel,” because really the order doesn’t matter. I happened to read The Hero and the Crown first myself, and that worked fine. All I know is this: It doesn’t matter in which order you read them, just be sure that you read them!

If you like fantasy novels even the slightest bit, with these two books Robin McKinley established herself as the queen of the adventure heroine fantasy genre.

Aerin has always known she’s a misfit of a princess. Her mother was a witchwoman who enchanted the king, and Aerin has never shown any sign of manifesting the Gift for magic that all proper royals have.

Alas, the kingdom of Damar is having plenty of trouble, which is only to be expected since the loss of the Hero’s Crown.

Then her cousin Galanna goads Aerin into eating a Surka leaf — a plant that should manifest her Gift, if she had any. Aerin, instead, gets horribly ill. While recovering and trying to stay out of everyone’s way, she befriends her father’s old wounded warhorse, Talat. In her reading, she learns about an old potion that protects against dragonfire. Through persistent experiments, she perfects the formula for the ointment.

Now Aerin the witchwoman’s daughter is ready to make herself useful. With old broken-down Talat she begins fighting off the nasty vermin dragons that were out plaguing the villages.

But then, as her father is leaving to settle an uprising, a messenger comes bearing dread news.

“The Black Dragon has come…. Maur, who has not been seen for generations, the last of the great dragons, great as a mountain. Maur has awakened.”

This is the first tremendous challenge Aerin attempts and conquers, armed with her persistence and sheer determination.

The Hero and the Crown is one of the great girl-power novels of all time, along with magic and dragons and saving a kingdom and changing from a misfit to a true heroine. Fantasy lovers, like me, will come back to it again and again.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/hero_and_the_crown.html

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Review of Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor

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

roll_of_thunderRoll of Thunder, Hear My Cry

by Mildred D. Taylor

Puffin Books, 1997. First published in 1976. 276 pages.
Newbery Medal Winner 1977
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #3 Other Children’s Fiction

I’ve been taking a class offered by ALSC, the Association for Library Service to Children, called The Newbery Medal: Past, Present and Future. It’s a wonderful class, and one of the assignments was to read a Medal-winning book from each decade that the award was offered. For my 1970s selection, I chose Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, because that’s on the Fairfax County Public Schools list for 7th-8th graders, and is checked out frequently.

The book is truly warm and wonderful. I’m going to list it as children’s fiction, because the characters are children, the oldest of whom is twelve. But the book is on the long side and the subject matter is serious, so I do think the schools are right to recommend it to middle schoolers or upper elementary.

Cassie and her three brothers live in Mississippi in 1933. Their family owns its farm, and has since their Grandpa bought the land in 1887. But times are hard, and their Papa had to go work on the railroad in Louisiana in order to pay the taxes on the land.

The book opens as the Logan family makes the long walk to school, with Little Man especially proud of his new school clothes. When the bus for the white children passes, they have to run down the bank, getting all covered with red dust, just the beginning of a series of encounters with that bus, over which the Logans eventually get a delightful revenge.

The book is about prejudice, but the story is told with humor and dignity. There’s a scene at the beginning with old textbooks that reminds me strongly of a similar scene in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

Eventually, the stakes get much higher than a school bus getting them dirty or Cassie having to apologize to a white girl she bumped.

This is a wonderful story that teaches history along the way and gives you lots of food for thought.

As Mama says to Cassie:
“Baby, we have no choice of what color we’re born or who our parents are or whether we’re rich or poor. What we do have is some choice over what we make of our lives once we’re here.”

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Review of Fire, by Kristin Cashore

Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

fireFire

by Kristin Cashore

Dial Books, 2009. 461 pages.
Starred Review.
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #2 Fantasy Teen Fiction

Fire is a “companion novel” to the powerful book Graceling. I don’t think it matters which book you read first, but if you read one, you will definitely want to read the other. The books are set in the same world, but the kingdoms of one book are set apart by impassable mountains from the kingdoms of the other. The one thing they have in common is a villain, and he is sinister enough whether you know what his power is or not.

The Kingdom of the Dells does not have Gracelings. Instead, they have monsters — both animal and human.

In the Dells lived colorful, astonishing creatures that the Dellian people called monsters. It was their unusual coloration that identified them as monsters, because in every other physical particular they were like normal Dellian animals. They had the shape of Dellian horses, Dellian turtles, mountain lions, raptors, dragonflies, bears; but they were ranges of fuchsia, turquoise, bronze, iridescent green. A dappled gray horse in the Dells was a horse. A sunset orange horse was a monster.

Larch didn’t understand these monsters. The mouse monsters, the fly and squirrel and fish and sparrow monsters, were harmless; but the bigger monsters, the man-eating monsters, were terribly dangerous, more so than their animal counterparts. They craved human flesh, and for the flesh of other monsters they were positively frantic….

He heard there were one or two monsters of a human shape in the Dells, with brightly colored hair, but he never saw them. It was for the best, because Larch could never remember if the human monsters were friendly or not, and against monsters in general he had no defense. They were too beautiful. Their beauty was so extreme that whenever Larch came face-to-face with one of them, his mind emptied and his body froze, and Immiker and his friends had to defend him.

“It’s what they do, Father,” Immiker explained to him, over and over. “It’s part of their monster power. They stun you with their beauty, and then they overwhelm your mind and make you stupid. You must learn to guard your mind against them, as I have.”

Larch had no doubt Immiker was right, but still he didn’t understand. “What a horrifying notion,” he said. “A creature with the power to take over one’s mind.”

Fire is such a monster. But she’s determined not to use her mind powers on people against their will. She’s determined not to be as monstrous as her father was.

However, she can’t help her overwhelming beauty. She can cover her hair; she can try to hide from the raptor monsters that thirst for her blood; but she can’t change who she is. People are powerfully attracted to her, but they also hate her for it.

Then a stranger comes to their land and shoots Fire by accident, and he in turn is executed by an archer with prodigious skill. The kingdom is at war, so Fire and her boyfriend Lord Archer head toward the queen mother’s stronghold to find out if the strangers are coming from the rebellious lords.

One thing leads to another, and the royal family asks Fire to come to the King’s City to interrogate another stranger. Fire doesn’t want to use her powers against people, but what if the kingdom is at stake? Meanwhile, the king can’t resist her beauty and asks her every night to marry him. His brother is far more restrained, so why is Fire dismayed to see how kind he is?

Fire is a powerful tale of adventure and romance about a young woman who is too beautiful for her own good.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Kristin Cashore has built a world that completely draws you in, just as she did with Graceling. She quickly establishes the “rules” of life in this other world, and gets you mulling along with Fire as to what that means about who she is and what she can be and do.

I was a little dismayed by all the casual sex in a young adult novel. It’s no different than our society today, I suppose, but I found it kind of sad that it’s just taken for granted. There are plenty of illegitimate births, but not too many other repercussions; it’s just treated as the natural way of things, and I found that a little sad. Fire’s boyfriend at the beginning sleeps with plenty of other women, and I suppose that makes you less sorry for him when Fire finds true love elsewhere. Call me a romantic, but I would have been happier for Fire if she had waited a bit for that true love. And the other women are surprisingly calm to find out about each other, too, I might add.

The book isn’t graphic about the sex, but the fact that it’s going on is no secret. As I say, it’s no different from our own culture any more, but ten years ago, I think you would have only seen this sort of thing in a book for adults, not one for teens.

Anyway, the book gives you a wonderful tale of adventure and magic and romance. But I don’t think of it as a children’s book.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/fire.html

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Review of Jeremy Draws a Monster, by Peter McCarty

Fantasy, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

jeremy_draws_a_monsterJeremy Draws a Monster

by Peter McCarty

Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2009. 36 pages.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #1 Picture Books

Here’s another picture book I’ve tested out at Storytime with great success. The monster definitely gets the kids’ attention, and the plot is short and sweet enough to keep it.

Jeremy lives on the third story of an apartment building. He never goes out.

One day, he draws a monster. The monster is not very nice. He demands that Jeremy draw more things for him, and doesn’t even say thank you.

The monster goes out, and Jeremy thinks he is free of him, but the monster comes back in the night and takes over Jeremy’s bed.

Jeremy’s solution for dealing with the monster is ingenious and just right. After he sees the monster off, the neighborhood children ask Jeremy to play with them, and he does.

I’ve been following School Library Journal’s Heavy Medal blog, discussing Newbery Medal possibilities, and the moderators suggested some picture books. Technically, a picture book can win the Newbery Medal on the basis of its text. However, I wasn’t impressed by the text of the two books suggested.

Rereading Jeremy Draws a Monster to write this review, I realize that I’ve found a candidate! The pictures are delightful and do add to the story, but you can read the text alone as well. In simple and spare language, it presents a plot — a troublesome monster that must be dealt with. There is character growth: Jeremy goes from isolation to playing with the neighborhood children. Even the setting of the third-story apartment plays a part. The style is spare and the theme of a lonely child finding human companionship is inspiring.

I confess, I still prefer that Newbery winners have stories that are more fleshed out, and I’d rather see this book win a Caldecott Honor. (The artwork is excellent, too, and I still think of the Caldecott for picture books.) But I want to point out that this book tells a poignant story in only 225 words.

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Review of French by Heart, by Rebecca S. Ramsey

Biography, Cross Cultural, Musings, Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review, True Stories 0

french_by_heartFrench by Heart

An American Family’s Adventures in La Belle France

by Rebecca S. Ramsey

Broadway Books, New York, 2007. 308 pages.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #4 Nonfiction: True Stories

Having lived in Germany for ten years, French by Heart is exactly the sort of book I love — someone else’s tale of making a home in another country. There’s much that I relate to from my own experiences, much that I enjoy vicariously, and a wistful feeling of “Wouldn’t I love to move to France for four years!”

Rebecca Ramsey’s husband works for Michelin, and for four years they moved their family to Clermont-Ferrand, four hours south of Paris. Her three children attended the local French school, and her family’s way of doing things quickly came under the scrutiny of their neighbor, a grandmotherly type with definite opinions.

Rebecca has a wonderful way of pulling you into the confusions and delights of living in a foreign country, of beginning to feel like you belong, while always knowing you are different. She expresses the joys and frustrations of building a friendship with her nosy and opinionated neighbor. We cringe with her as she describes the daunting adventure of getting stitches for her bleeding son, and feel pride with her at her success.

One of the things I love about living in a foreign country is how it adds a certain sense of wonder even to the events of daily life — shopping, going out to eat, going to school, talking with friends. Everything is new and different, memorable and exciting.

Rebecca Ramsey catches some of that as she describes their arrival in France:

“What was it about this place that was so enchanting? Even with my queasiness, I couldn’t help feeling charmed by it, from the old brass door knockers shaped like a lady’s hand to the women, young and old, with their sultry eyes and obvious confidence. As we walked by the cafes I tried not to stare at the people sitting there, their beautiful French words twirling out of their mouths, mingling with the swirls of coffee perfuming the crisp morning air. I wanted to understand it all, the Frenchiness of this place. I wanted to be part of it and for it to be a part of me — a part of us, our family. We hoped to have four years or so in France. Could that happen in four years? We were nervous, yes, but our American hearts were open. Could we be French too, just for a little while? French, not by citizenship, but by heart?”

Reading this book, France will win a place in your own heart, too.

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Review of Rampant, by Diana Peterfreund

Fantasy, Stand-outs, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

rampantRampant

by Diana Peterfreund

HarperTeen (HarperCollins), 2009. 402 pages.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #1 Fantasy Teen Fiction

In Rampant we learn that, contrary to popular current sentimental beliefs, unicorns are not cuddly, cute, sparkly and sweet. No, Astrid’s mother, whom everyone including Astrid believes is crazy, has taught her since she was small that unicorns are truly vicious, man-eating brutes that are almost impossible to kill. Fortunately, their own relation killed the last unicorn centuries ago.

Astrid is making out with her boyfriend behind the house where she’s babysitting when she learns that everything her mother told her is true, except for the important part about unicorns being extinct. A unicorn comes out of the woods and viciously attacks her boyfriend. Astrid sees that he is clearly dying, but fortunately her mother comes with their ancestral gift, a last bit of the Remedy, and he is cured. But he’s convinced Astrid and her mother drugged him and doesn’t buy her rabid goat story for a moment. Her social life is over.

Fortunately, her mother gives her a chance to get far away. Unfortunately, it’s to take her place as an heir to the powerful tradition of unicorn hunting. It seems vicious unicorns are reemerging all over the world, and a group has opened an ancient cloister in Rome to train the hunters.

I want to say that this book stands the traditional view of unicorns on its head, but it actually fits quite well with many of the older unicorn stories. One tradition she definitely keeps is that unicorns are attracted to virgins, well, at least virgins who are descended from Alexander the Great, in the traditional unicorn-hunting families, like Astrid. Such virgins are immune to the poison of alicorns and have a mystical power to fight unicorns. But what can a handful of untrained girls do against such powerful beasts?

With the importance of virginity to unicorn fighters, sex and whether or not to have it is definitely an issue in this book. I think it’s handled tastefully and realistically, but keep in mind that it deals with these issues head on, and so is not a book for very young unicorn lovers.

My only quibble is the same one I have with some of Stephenie Meyer’s scenes: Where do they find these young men who are able to go so very far and yet not go all the way? Do they really want young women to think that’s realistic? All the same, I think Diana Peterfreund does point out that you can’t take that for granted.

Anyway, sexual issues are by no means the main point of the book. This is an incredibly absorbing story (It ate a chunk out of my day off!) about a girl learning who she is and how to be a warrior. Astrid is definitely a heroine to cheer for.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/rampant.html

Review of Any Which Wall, by Laurel Snyder

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

any_which_wallAny Which Wall

by Laurel Snyder
drawings by LeUyen Pham

Random House, New York, 2009. 242 pages.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #3 Children’s Fantasy and Science Fiction

The caption at the front of this book is a quotation from Seven Day Magic, by Edward Eager. As it happens, Seven Day Magic is one of my favorite books from childhood, and one of my favorite quotations is the first line of that book:

“The best kind of book,” said Barnaby, “is a magic book.”

A little further along comes the part Laurel Snyder quoted:

“The best kind of magic book,” Barnaby was saying, “is the kind where the magic has rules. And you have to deal with it and thwart it before it thwarts you. Only sometimes you forget and get thwarted.”

When I read that, I instantly hoped that here I would find a magic book in the style of the Edward Eager books I loved so much. I was not disappointed.

Further warming me up to be delighted, I was captivated by the note at the front of the book — “A Brief Note on the Existence and True Nature of Magic.” Here’s an excerpt:

Some magic (the kind you hear about most often) is loud and full of dragons. But that magic is rare, generally reserved for scrappy orphans and misplaced princes. Some magic is mysterious, beginning with the somber tolling of a clock at midnight in the darkest corner of a graveyard. However, that magic is unlikely to include you if you don’t visit cemeteries late at night (which I don’t think you’re supposed to do). There is also magic especially for very tiny children, full of kindly rabbits and friendly old ladies with comfortable laps. It smells like sugar cookies and takes place mostly in gardens or bedrooms the pale colors of spring. But you outgrow it about the time you learn to read.

So perhaps the very best magic is the kind of magic that happens to kids just like you (and maybe even the occasional grown-up) when they’re paying careful attention. It’s the most common magic there is, which is why (sensibly) it’s called Common Magic. Common Magic exists in the very unmagical world you yourself inhabit. It’s full of regular-looking people, stop signs, and seemingly boring buildings. Common Magic happens to kids who have curious friends, busy parents, and vivid imaginations, and it frequently takes place during summer vacations or on rainy weekends when you aren’t allowed to leave the house. Most important, it always starts with something that seems ordinary.

The story that follows concerns four children (like Edward Eager’s books!) who encounter Common Magic, must learn its rules, enjoy it, thwart it, but also get a bit thwarted themselves. When the children in the story had read Edward Eager’s books, just like the children in Edward Eager’s books had read the books of E. Nesbit, I knew that indeed Laurel Snyder must be setting out to write a book in the style of Edward Eager. Hooray! Much to my delight, she pulls it off.

The magic these children encounter is a wall. And a magical key. When they turn the key, the wall transports them to any other wall where they wish to be — from Merlin’s castle to a pirate’s home to the wild West.

The complete package is a delightful, fun, wholesome, and magical adventure for kids. The kids interact with each other and do some growing and thinking as they interact with the magic.

Reading this book will put you on the alert, hoping to run across Common Magic in your own life. And you will feel you’ve already had a taste of it.

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Review of Pigs Make Me Sneeze, by Mo Willems

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Humorous, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

pigs_make_me_sneezePigs Make Me Sneeze!

An Elephant & Piggie Book

by Mo Willems

Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 2009. 57 pages.
Starred Review
Sonderbooks Stand-out 2010: #3 Picture Books

I love Mo Willems’ books, and I try to refrain from reviewing every single one. However, this is the Elephant and Piggie book I got to hear Mo Willems himself read at the National Book Festival. Naturally, I bought a copy, and I certainly have to review it.

The more I read Mo Willems’ books to kids, the more impressed I get. I can be completely losing the kids at a storytime, but if I open an Elephant and Piggie book, I soon have them hanging on my every word. They’re funny; they’re easy to read; they convey all kinds of exuberant emotion with simple lines; and they often teach a lesson, too!

In Pigs Make Me Sneeze! Gerald (the elephant) finds himself sneezing as soon as Piggie comes around. He is heartbroken to realize that pigs make him sneeze, so he should never be around his best friend any more. Then Doctor Cat comes along with an alternate explanation.

My teenage son pointed out that this beautifully illustrates a basic truth: Correlation does not imply causation. It actually makes me wish I still taught college courses in Intro Statistics, so I could bring in this book to teach that concept in a memorable way. (I still say Mo Willems’ books are more effective than lectures.)

The summary of the book naturally doesn’t do justice to the humor of the illustrations, and the comic timing of the characters’ interactions. My son was also quite taken with Doctor Cat — He would like to see a new book about Doctor Cat; he said he’s as cool as Dr. McNinja, only he’s a cat. Can you tell that even a fifteen-year-old could not resist the charms of reading this book when I brought it home? This book is in a class far above your ordinary run-of-the-mill easy readers that make up a plot to use simple words. Truly a book for all ages, and great for beginning readers, too.

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Mo Willems reading Pigs Make Me Sneeze!
Mo Willems reading Pigs Make Me Sneeze!