Review of Renegade Magic, by Stephanie Burgis

Alternate History, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Starred Review 0

Renegade Magic

by Stephanie Burgis

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, 2012. 329 pages.
Starred Review

I loved Stephanie Burgis’s first book, Kat, Incorrigible, a marvellous blend of Jane Austen-type society with magic and an incorrigible, irrepressible heroine. So I was delighted when I found an Advance Reader Copy of the second book about Kat at ALA Midwinter Meeting. It went directly on the top of my pile to read after the conference, and I was not disappointed.

I do recommend reading the first book first. I think you can still enjoy the second book without it, but you’ll understand better what’s going on with the Order of the Guardians who protect England and the enemies Kat has already made.

At the start of this book, Kat’s older sister Elissa is going to be married. Her sister Angeline’s beloved, Frederick Carlyle, is the best man. But when Frederick’s mother interrupts the ceremony and accuses Angeline of ensnaring Frederick by witchcraft, with the word of a member of the Order of the Guardians as her evidence, the happiness of the younger sisters is seriously set awry.

Stepmama decides to take them away from the scene of their humiliation, fleeing to Bath, along with Kat’s brother Charles, who always seems to be getting into trouble with gambling.

At Bath, Kat can sense a strange, wild magic, a magic that goes back to the Romans who founded the baths. Someone is trying to stir up a magic that can disrupt all of society. Can Kat fix things, as well as her own family’s happiness? All while learning to use her own powers without proper training? The process is quite an adventure!

These books are outstanding middle grade fantasy with plenty of humor, lots of action, some actual history, lots of suspense, and people you enjoy knowing. I wouldn’t want to be Kat’s Stepmama, but I would definitely like being Kat’s friend.

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Source: This review is based on an Advance Reader Copy I got at ALA Midwinter Meeting and checked against a library book from the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of What Animals Really Like, by Fiona Robinson

Animal Characters, Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

What Animals Really Like

by Fiona Robinson

Abrams Books for Young Readers, New York, 2011.
Starred Review

If you like silly picture books; if you like reading books that make kids giggle, this is just the book.

When a child is big enough to know basic animal facts, know how books use rhyme to give you hints, he’s going to appreciate the surprises here.

Mr. Herbert Timberteeth, a beaver, is preparing for a big event. There’s an elaborate fold-out of many animals assembled on stage, dressed in their finest. Mr. Timberteeth is the conductor.

The song begins, with the groups of animals singing:

“We are lions, and we like to prowl.
We are wolves, and we like to howl.
We are pigeons, and we like to coo.
We are cows, and we like to . . . *turn page*

“. . . dig.”

Mr. Timberteeth tries to ignore it and move on. The next page:

“We are monkeys, and we like to play.
We are horses, and we like fresh hay.
We are worms, and we like to wiggle.
We are warthogs, and we like to . . .

“. . . blow enormous bubbles.”

Eventually, the animals decide they aren’t going to sing about what Mr. Timberteeth thinks they like, but about what they really like. Thus, a truly silly song begins. It doesn’t rhyme, but the pictured antics are hilarious. In fact the silly details in the pictures will reward reading this book again and again.

Only for silly readers.

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

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

Review of Wonder, by R. J. Palacio

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

Wonder

by R. J. Palacio

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2012. 315 pages.
Starred Review.

August Pullman has never been to school before. Not because he has a disability, but because he’s always been recovering from one surgery or another to attempt to fix his face. It was always easier to homeschool him. So now he’s starting fifth grade at Beecher Prep Middle School, and he doesn’t quite know what to expect.

Auggie doesn’t actually tell us how he looks. He says that however you imagine it, he looks worse. He knows the looks people give him. He’s used to the averted eyes and people trying not to stare, but going to school makes it all new.

“Being at school was awful in the beginning. Every new class I had was like a new chance for kids to ‘not stare’ at me. They would sneak peeks at me from behind their notebooks or when they thought I wasn’t looking. They would take the longest way around me to avoid bumping into me in any way, like I had some germ they could catch, like my face was contagious.

“In the hallways, which were always crowded, my face would always surprise some unsuspecting kid who maybe hadn’t heard about me. The kid would make the sound you make when you hold your breath before going underwater, a little ‘uh!’ sound. This happened maybe four or five times a day for the first few weeks: on the stairs, in front of the lockers, in the library, Five hundred kids in a school: eventually every one of them was going to see my face at some time. And I knew after the first couple of days that word had gotten around about me, because every once in a while I’d catch a kid elbowing his friend as they passed me, or talking behind their hands as I walked by them. I can only imagine what they were saying about me. Actually, I prefer not to even try to imagine it.”

The book gets yet more interesting about 80 pages in, when the author starts giving us sections from other people’s perspectives. Auggie’s sister. Various friends and acquaintances. We see some of the same events through new eyes, but we also see new events unfold around Auggie.

When the book starts, Auggie seems very realistically overprotected. He’s always been homeschooled, and with his birth defects, his parents, especially his Mom, have always been protective of him. He still displays his love of all things Star Wars, and he cries easily. The growing up process is not easy, but we see Auggie make some strides.

This book covers the whole school year, with lots of interactions and events that happen because of Auggie. There’s plenty of Middle School humor; these feel like genuine fifth-graders, and there’s lots to make kids laugh. But the book also strikes deep, making the reader think: How much do I judge by appearances?

I think this book is going to be a contender for next year’s Newbery Medal.

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

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

Review of The Ionia Sanction, by Gary Corby

Adventure, Fiction Review, Historical, Mystery, Starred Review 0

The Ionia Sanction

by Gary Corby

Minotaur Books, New York, 2011. 335 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a second mystery set during the dawn of democracy in Athens. In this one, our hero Nicolaos is sent to Ephesus in Ionia to retrieve a letter stolen from a murdered man.

This book also begins with a dead body. The first line is still pretty striking:

“I ran my finger along one foot of the corpse, then the other, making the body swing with a lazy, uncaring rhythm.”

The proxenos for Ephesus in Athens (kind of the opposite of an ambassador; an Athenian with an interest in Ephesus who handles Ephesian business) has been murdered. A letter he received from Ephesus has been stolen. Nico has to go to Ephesus with a mission to find out what was in the letter. The murdered man’s son would like his father cleared of treason while Nico’s at it. And the woman he loves, Diotima, is now a priestess at the Artemsion in Ephesus.

This is no cozy armchair mystery. There are some gritty details and some sexual misadventures, but they do seem to reflect life in that time period. I had known, for example, that impalement was used to kill people, but I’d never before understood what a truly horrible form of death it was. The author explains in his note at the end that crucifixion was introduced later as a more humane alternative to impalement.

Nicolaos travels to Ephesus and Magnesia, where he meets the famed hero of Athens, Themistocles, who was later exiled as a traitor and now enjoys the favor of the Great King of Persia. There’s another death, and Nico has to figure out how they all tie together, as well as fulfill his commission from Pericles in Athens.

The mystery is the sort where you don’t necessarily have the clues to solve the case yourself, but you do enjoy the adventure of watching Nicolaos come to the solution, with lots of help from Diotima.

All in all, despite some moments that made me wince, this book gives a fun story, an adventure with lots of historical details and a strong dose of humor. Nicolaos is something of a bumbler. The more pleased he is with himself, the more confident he is, the more you can be sure he’s going to fail.

Since Nico’s visiting Persia, he naturally looks at their lives with the eyes of an Athenian. This makes an entertaining way of telling the reader the things that were normal in Athens. For example, one character convinces Nico that wearing trousers is a more comfortable way to ride a horse.

Reading the extended author’s note at the end of the book made me all the more impressed with it. Based on the historical record, everything in this book could actually have happened. As in the first book, The Pericles Commission, the list of characters at the front highlights people who are actual historical figures, about half of the list. My favorite, of course, is still Nicolaos’ annoying little brother, Socrates, though he only shows up at the start of this book.

If you read these books, you’ll never think of ancient history the same way again. The Athenian proxenos for Ephesus is murdered. Nicolaos goes to Ephesus to investigate. Highjinks ensue. Now I know what really happened.

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

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

Review of Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Wonderstruck

A Novel in Words and Pictures

by Brian Selznick

Scholastic Press, New York, 2011. 637 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Battle of the Kids’ Books Contender

Brian Selznick did something amazing with The Invention of Hugo Cabret, telling half the story with pictures. The pictures were so excellent, he won the Caldecott Medal for his work.

Now, with Wonderstruck, Brian Selznick has created another work that will fill readers with wonder. The form is very similar to Hugo Cabret, but the book has a logic and beauty of its own. In both books, the writing didn’t draw me in, didn’t make me feel for the characters as much as I wanted to. However, Wonderstruck pulled me in anyway with the characters. Where, to me personally, Hugo Cabret felt like a clever puzzle, Wonderstruck is a brilliant puzzle wrapped up in a heart-warming story and fascinating historical details.

In Hugo Cabret, the detailed pictures evoked the silent films the story was about. In Wonderstruck, we’ve got two separate stories going on. The written narrative is set in 1977, beginning in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota, and the story told through the pictures is set in 1927, beginning in Hoboken, New Jersey. The story in 1927 is about a deaf girl, so silent pictures, like the silent movies she loves, are appropriate for her story. The two stories converge in New York City at the end of the book.

The author’s Acknowledgements at the end reveal the vast amount of research he did and his incredible attention to historical detail. This book is an amazing work of art in the way he wove together words and pictures, but also two separate stories into one. He even makes the pacing the same as he tells the stories. When one child is running away, so does the other. When one child is discovering things, so does the other.

I do love having Brian Selznick’s books there to offer to children. They look like a big, daunting book — but with all the pictures, can be read quite quickly. So even reluctant readers can read an “Award Winner” and thoroughly enjoy it.

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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 an Advance Reader Copy I got at ALA Annual Conference.

Review of A Monster Calls, by Patrick Ness

Fantasy, Paranormal, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

A Monster Calls

by Patrick Ness
Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd

Candlewick Press, 2011. 105 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Battle of the Kids’ Books Contender

This is a novel about a thirteen-year-old boy named Conor whose mother is dealing with cancer. His father recently left them, so they live alone. At least for as long as his grandma stays away. At school, Conor has to deal with bullying. He acts out at times, and everyone, teachers and kids, tiptoes around him because of what is happening with his mother.

“The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do.”

The monster comes over and over again. No one else can see the monster. But it leaves yew leaves in Conor’s room. It damages Conor’s house.

The monster tells him three tales. Three tales that Conor doesn’t like. Three tales that pack a punch. When those are done, what is the truth that Conor needs to tell, and will he have the strength to tell it?

The illustrations in this book are atmospheric and creepy, pulling the reader into the dark, sinister setting. Everything about this book works.

However, let me just say that if you’re a recently divorced mother living with your teenage son and you’re experiencing strange medical symptoms, this book is not a good choice. This fact makes me think the book might not be a great choice for someone whose mother actually has cancer. It’s great for building empathy in kids who are not going through something similar right now, but it might be too discouraging if the situation feels at all like it’s matching life. Let’s just say the outcome for the mother is not good.

For me, I had a stroke last July, and thought I’d come off very lucky, with no permanent disability and the stroke never touching my higher thinking. Then in October, I had a weird setback, feeling like I did right after the stroke again. After another setback, I saw the neurologist. He wasn’t very impressed by my low-grade dizziness and feeling “funny,” but then he did a neurological exam. When he saw I was seeing double if I looked up and to the right (my left eye not tracking with my right eye), he told me I’d probably had another stroke! This was December 23rd. He told me to get an MRI done the next week and see him the week after that. I tried to make an appointment to see him, and they gave me January 25th.

Now, I’d been laboring under the belief that the fact I was on Coumadin would keep me from having a second stroke. After this appointment, I had some days off because of Christmas. After Christmas, at work I noticed that now I was seeing double if I looked up and to the left. I called the neurologist’s office and they told me to go to the ER, but the ER didn’t find anything new wrong. I had more days off for New Year’s and felt awful but just wasn’t sure what the symptoms meant.

Then I read A Monster Calls for Heavy Medal blog’s shortlist. Can I just say this was really bad timing? When I originally had the stroke, I wasn’t very scared because I had no idea what was going on and I hadn’t read about all the bad things that can happen as the result of a stroke. It was a holiday weekend, I felt awful, and my neurologist’s office was closed. And I’m reading a book about the recently divorced mother of a teenage son dying. Is it so surprising that I freaked out? (Actually, after I thought about that connection, I decided to blame my freaking out directly on A Monster Calls, and then I felt much better.)

So, all this is to say: This book is outstanding. It’s atmospheric, powerful, well-written and hard-hitting. But be careful when you read it.

www.candlewick.com

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

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

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

Review of Heart and Soul, by Kadir Nelson

Award Winners, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Heart and Soul

The Story of America and African Americans

by Kadir Nelson

Balzer & Bray, 2011. 108 pages.
2012 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner
2012 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book
2012 Battle of the Kids’ Books Contender
Starred Review

Kadir Nelson’s paintings, as usual, are stunningly beautiful in this book. His use of light makes the people seem warm and alive.

In this book, he takes the voice of an old woman whose family has been in America from the start. She talks about the slaves who fought in the Revolutionary War. Then she talks about her grandfather, Pap, who was born in Africa, captured in 1850 when he was only six years old, and brought to America. She traces all the changes Pap saw — The Civil War, Reconstruction, moving West, the Great Migration, and through the Depression and the Second World War. She talks about the Civil Rights Movement as she saw it herself, and finishes up with an Epilogue that includes these paragraphs:

“Forty-five years after Dr. King spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I marched my old legs to the polls along with millions of other Americans to vote in an historic election. It was the first time that an African American — Barack Obama — had won the Democratic nomination and appeared on the national ballot for president of the United States. As I cast my vote, I thought about my grandfather Pap, who didn’t live to see this moment, and my three children and two brothers, who did; I thought about my mother and father, and my aunts and uncles; I thought about Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman; I thought about presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Dr. King, Thurgood Marshall, the Freedom Riders, the marchers, and all the people who lived and died so that I might walk into this booth and cast my vote. I thought about them all and smiled; and as I walked away, I closed my eyes and said, ‘Thank you.’

“Our centuries-long struggle for freedom and equal rights had helped make the American promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness a reality for all Americans. We have come a mighty long way, honey, and we still have a good ways to go, but that promise and the right to fight for it is worth every ounce of its weight in gold. It is our nation’s heart and soul.”

The words alone of this book make a grand, sweeping story of African-American contributions to American life, but combined with the paintings, this book has majesty.

Kadir Nelson’s art continues to be breathtaking. He shows you the dignity and beauty of his subjects.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/heart_and_soul.html

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

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

Review of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, by Uma Krishnaswami

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

The Grand Plan to Fix Everything

by Uma Krishnaswami
illustrated by Abigail Halpin

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, 2011. 266 pages.
Starred Review

This is a completely fun book about a girl whose parents pick up and move to India for two years, leaving their home in Maryland behind — and Dini’s best friend, Maddie.

Dini hopes maybe, just maybe, it can work out for the best if she can meet the Bollywood film star, Dolly Singh.

“Dini is a Dolly fan. She has been forever, from the time she discovered that Dolly’s first movie, in which she was just a kid, came out the day — the very day! — that Dini was born. You can’t be more closely connected than that.”

Now, I should say that I am horribly prejudiced against books written in present tense. I’m not sure why, but it really bugs me. However, I read this one anyway, since it’s a contestant in School Library Journal’s Battle of the Kids’ Books. And I have to admit that it grew on me so much that most of the time I didn’t even notice the tense. Also going for it were Abigail Halpin’s illustrations. She illustrated Penny Dreadful, by Laurel Snyder, and I love the feel her illustrations give a book — telling you correctly that this is a nice, light-hearted, solid story with lots of fun.

This book did have lots of coincidences, but it felt right. The whole book is a tribute to Bollywood films, and I have a feeling (I don’t actually know) that the coincidences may have made the book more like a Bollywood film, where everything works out happily in the end. There’s even a dance number!

This is a great solid and entertaining middle grade story. I enjoyed reading it, and hope I can find some library members to recommend it to, because I think there are lots of kids who would enjoy it.

KIDS.SimonandSchuster.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 book I got for free on the last day of ALA Midwinter Meeting.

Review of Dead End in Norvelt, by Jack Gantos

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Dead End in Norvelt

by Jack Gantos

Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2011. 341 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Newbery Medal

It’s refreshing to read a book set in the Sixties that is not about the Cuban Missile Crisis or Vietnam! This book is about a kid’s strange and interesting summer. It’s surprising how much fun our hero Jack Gantos has, considering that he’s grounded the whole summer. Or at least, we readers have fun reading about it.

The most interesting things happen because Jack is asked to help his neighbor, the ancient Miss Volker. Miss Volker has terrible arthritis, so she needs Jack’s help to type up obituaries for the original residents of Norvelt, who seem to all be dying quickly this summer. Miss Volker tacks on a surprisingly interesting history to each obituary, and she knows relevant details about each resident.

On top of that, we’ve got Jack driving Miss Volker’s car around town. His Dad building an airplane and a runway. His Mom monitoring his behavior. His best friend, the daughter of the funeral parlor owner, teasing him about his fear of dead bodies. And then there’s Jack’s nose:

“How could I forget? I was a nosebleeder. The moment something startled me or whenever I got overexcited or spooked about any little thing blood would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames.”

There’s a lot of death in Dead End in Norvelt, including a Hell’s Angel who gets hit by a truck in town. But Jack Gantos the author manages to keep things funny. He gives us a great yarn about a kid just trying to stay out of trouble, and managing to learn lots along the way.

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

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

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

Review of Between Shades of Gray, by Ruta Sepetys

Award Winners, Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Between Shades of Gray

by Ruta Sepetys

Philomel Books, 2011. 344 pages.
Starred Review
2012 Morris Award Finalist

Here’s a work of fiction that constantly made me forget it wasn’t nonfiction.

The book opens dramatically:

“They took me in my nightgown.

“Thinking back, the signs were there — family photos burned in the fireplace, Mother sewing her best silver and jewelry into the lining of her coat late at night, and Papa not returning from work. My younger brother, Jonas, was asking questions. I asked questions, too, but perhaps I refused to acknowledge the signs. Only later did I realize that Mother and Father intended we escape. We did not escape.

“We were taken.”

It’s 1941 in Lithuania. Stalin has annexed their country, and now he rounds up Lithuanian teachers, librarians, and university professors like Lina’s Papa, and their families. They are shipped in cattle cars to labor camps in Siberia.

The author, Ruta Sepetys, was from the family of a Lithuanian refugee who did escape and made it to America. But she researched this book well (even arranging to be locked away in a former Soviet prison!), and her words ring with terrible truth.

This is by no means a pleasant story, and though I was hoping it would end with Lina’s freedom, I’m afraid it doesn’t. An epilogue tells us that surviving deportees spent ten to fifteen years in Siberia. She does, however, manage to work in a message of hope, of the resilience of the human spirit, and of good even in apparent enemies.

This is a powerful and moving story about an episode of history I knew nothing about. The book is not only beautifully crafted, but does the good work of telling the world a story we should never forget.

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