Review of Max in the House of Spies, by Adam Gidwitz

Children's Fiction Review, Historical, Starred Review 0

Max in the House of Spies

A Tale of World War II

by Adam Gidwitz

Dutton Children’s Books, 2024. 320 pages.
Review written April 26, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here’s a World War II book that’s a whole lot of fun – not sure if I’ve ever said that before.

Max Bretzfeld is a Jewish boy born in Berlin, and in 1939, he got sent to England for his own safety from the Nazis. He is taken in by a rich Jewish family headed by Lord Montagu. But Max wants to get back to Berlin to protect his parents. In England, Max encounters more antisemitism and bullying at the snobbish private school where Lord Montagu’s children attend.

But what keeps this from being a sad story about an oppressed kid is that Max is a genius. He is clever with radios, he knows how to plan a serious prank, and he knows how to get the attention of Lord Montagu’s brother, who works for British Intelligence. Max wants to go back to Berlin to protect his parents – why not go as a spy?

Oh, and did I mention? Max has two immortal creatures sitting on his shoulders. A dybbuk and a kobold joined Max when he left Germany. Only Max can see them and talk with them. They are less than thrilled about him going back to Germany.

The majority of this book is about Max’s training to be a spy. It’s unorthodox training for an unorthodox spy. And yes, all along the way, the adults question their choice about sending a Jewish child back to Nazi Germany.

So what we end up with is a cross between a spy novel and The Great Brain. Like I said, a whole lot of fun. And the Author’s Note at the back reveals that he took great pains to get historical details right, and inserted many actual historical people into the tale.

The first page of this book is a wonderful introduction to Max, so I’m going to copy out the whole thing here:

Once there was a boy who had two immortal creatures living on his shoulders.

This was the fourth most interesting thing about him.

The first most interesting thing about Max – that was his name – was that he was a genius. He could make a working radio from the junk at the bottom of a trash can, and he could usually predict what someone was going to say ten minutes before they said it.

The second most interesting thing about Max was that, when he was eleven years old, his parents sent him away from Germany, where he was born and grew up, to England. All by himself. Even though he’d never been there, didn’t know anyone there, and barely spoke any English.

The third most interesting thing about Max was that, when he got to England, he fell in with spies. Real, honest-to-goodness spies. A lot of them.

And the fourth most interesting thing about him was that he had two immortal creatures living on his shoulders.

The story does not end with this volume, even though it comes to a good stopping place. I’m definitely hooked and want to find out what will happen to this resourceful kid next.

adamgidwitz.com
Penguin.com/kids

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

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Review of When You Trap a Tiger, by Tae Keller

Award Winners, Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

When You Trap a Tiger

by Tae Keller

Random House, 2020. 297 pages.
Review written July 17, 2020, from a library book
2020 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor
2021 Newbery Medal Winner

As the book opens, Lily and her big sister Sam are being taken by their mother to move to the Pacific Northwest to live with their Halmoni, their Korean grandmother. Lily and Sam aren’t thrilled about this sudden move, which changes all their summer plans. As they get near Halmoni’s house, Lily sees a giant tiger in the road, a tiger that looks just like the one that appeared in the tales Halmoni used to tell. Her mother and Sam don’t even see the tiger, and nothing happens when they drive through that part.

It isn’t too long living there before Lily learns Halmoni is very sick. And it turns out the tiger is willing to make a deal with Lily, in exchange for some stories Halmoni stole long ago. But Halmoni has taught Lily never to trust a tiger.

At the same time, Lily is trying to make friends in the new community, and Sami is sometimes nice, sometimes harsh, and she’s so worried about Halmoni.

I wasn’t crazy about the way the fantasy in this book was handled, because I could find logical holes. However, it does nicely leave you wondering what’s real and what’s Lily’s imagination. The overtones from Korean mythology, along with thoughts about the importance of stories, add richness to this book.

taekeller.com
rhcbooks.com

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

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

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*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of The 1619 Project, created by Nikole Hannah-Jones

Current Issues, History, Nonfiction Review, Starred Review, True Stories 0

The 1619 Project

A New Origin Story

created by Nikole Hannah-Jones
edited by Caitlin Roper, Ilena Silverman, and Jake Silverstein
read by a full cast

One World/Ballantine, 2021. 18 hours, 57 minutes.
Review written 2/4/24 from a library eaudiobook.
Starred Review

I have intended to read this book since the day it came out. Putting it in my eaudiobook queue was the key to it finally happening.

And it was so much more than I expected. Instead of one continuous book of history, this is a collection that includes eighteen essays about the significance of slavery to every part of American life combined with thirty-six poems and works of fiction highlighting key moments in our history.

This audiobook is the work of multiple authors and multiple narrators, all coming together in one epic tale.

Because of the multiple authors, the book turned out to be a little repetitive, but I learned a lot as I listened, and repetition probably helped me to retain what I heard. 1619 is the date that the first slave ship came to Virginia. This book talks about how slavery shaped our nation from the beginning, and continues to affect us from Reconstruction to the present. The essays, stories and poems help the reader understand that’s not at all a far-fetched claim.

I can see why white supremacists would want to erase this work of history with its conclusions. My own eyes were opened to historical events I was never taught about in school.

You don’t have to agree with everything you’ll find here, but surely this powerful voice should be heard. Surely this side of our joint history, too, should be illuminated. This book isn’t about silencing white voices. But it is about acknowledging the impact of Black people who were brought to our shores against their will and became uniquely American.

1619 Project Website

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

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Sonderling Sunday – Jinx und der magische Urwald!

Sonderling Sunday 0

It’s time for Sonderling Sunday! That time of the week when I play with language by looking at the German translations of children’s books.

I let Sonderling Sunday lapse for a long time, but now I’m reviving it in eager anticipation of my 60th birthday trip in a month and a half, when after 18 years away, I’m going to go back and visit the place where I lived for ten years.

So, yes, Sonderling Sunday! Today I pulled out a kids’ fantasy book that I loved when I read it, Jinx, by Sage Blackwood, called Jinx und der magische Urwald in German. I’m appalled to discover that while I have used Jinx before for Sonderling Sunday, the last time was in 2015. Far, far too long!

So we will begin where we left off, the third chapter “Strange Feet,” on page 25 in English, Drittes Kapitel “Fremdes Füße,” Seite 31 auf Deutsch.

The first sentence is:
“Winter settled in to stay.”
= Der Winter richtete sich zum Bleiben ein.

“Simon was away a lot.”
= Simon war viel unterwegs.

“he often came back in a foul mood”
= Oft kehrte er übellaunig zurück

“terrifying” = Furchterregendes

“gradually” = allmählich

“cooking mood” = Kochlaune

“cranky” = mürrisch

“fed them” = bewirtete sie

“south wing” = Südflügel

“clearing” = Lichtung

“Try as he might” = Sosehr Jinx es auch versuchte

“inside and out” = drinnen wie draußen

“slid off” = hinuntergerutscht

“on purpose” = mit Absicht

“gnarly feet” = schwielige Füße (Google translate: “calloused feet”)

“had nothing in common with tree roots” = nichts mit Baumwurzeln gemein hatten

“time ran together in a blur”
= Zeit verschwamm zu einem großen Ganzen
(“Time blurred to one big whole”)

“icky” = klebriges (“sticky”)

“Alarmed, he gave a loud snore”
= Erschrocken schnarchte er laut auf

“bristles” = Borstiges

I like this word:
cat-repellant spell = Katzenabwehrzauber

“my business” = meine Angelegenheit

“testily” = gereizt

“shooting star” = Sternschnuppe

“She had a formidable nose.”
= Ihre Nase war beeindruckend.
(“Her nose was impressive.”)

“something more polite” = etwas Höflicheres

“And wives were kind of hard to miss.”
= Ehefrauen waren kaum zu übersehen.

“was already becoming fuzzy in his memory”
= in seiner Erinnerung immer verschwommener wurde

“Everyone was afraid all the time on general principle”
= Alle hatten grundsätzlich immer Angst
(“Everyone was basically always afraid.”)

“to hide his confusion” = seine Verwirrung zu verbergen

“poker” = Schürhaken

“smooshed” = zerquetschte

“midnight meeting” = Mitternachtstreffen

“sizzle” = knisterte

“Were they all dead before you met my husband?”
= Waren sie alle schon tot, bevor du meinen Mann kennengelernt hast?

And that’s it for Chapter Three! I hope by the next time I come back to Jinx I won’t be saying Zeit verschwamm zu einem großen Ganzen!

Review of Where Lily Isn’t, by Julie Paschkis, illustrations by Margaret Chodos-Irvine

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Where Lily Isn’t

by Julie Paschkis
illustrations by Margaret Chodos-Irvine

Godwin Books (Henry Holt and Company), 2020. 32 pages.
Review written March 5, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s a simple but beautiful book about loss. I wouldn’t use it for storytime. But I think it would be appreciated if you read it with a child who’d lost a pet. It leaves room for sadness, but has a message of hope that transcends being trite because the weight of this beautiful book is behind it.

Lily was a loving, happy dog. Here’s how the book begins:

Lily ran

and jumped and barked and whimpered and growled and wiggled and wagged

and licked and snuggled.

But not now.

And then the book catalogs all the places where Lily isn’t now, places like “beside my chair, waiting for some food to fall” or “waiting just inside the door.” At the park now, the bushes are unsniffed. And when the letter carrier puts letters through the slot, they just fall to the floor, with no barks.

The book ends with the sentiment that Lily will always be in the girl’s heart, and shows her drawing many pictures of Lily in places we’ve already discussed.

This book wouldn’t have to be as nice as it is. But the pictures go beautifully with the words, and thinking about all the ways Lily interacted with her owner as she went through her day makes the reader feel the loss, too.

juliepaschkis.com
chodos-irvine.com
mackids.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of The Reappearance of Rachel Price, by Holly Jackson

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Reappearance of Rachel Price

by Holly Jackson
read by Sophie Amoss

Listening Library, 2024. 16 hours, 34 minutes.
Review written April 22, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

The Reappearance of Rachel Price is by the author of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, so I knew to expect a thriller where you couldn’t count on police to do the right thing and there’s going to be scary danger by the end.

The book begins with Bel Price being interviewed for a documentary about her 16-years-missing mother, Rachel Price. In the context of the documentary, we learn that Rachel Price disappeared twice, first in a mall when she vanished from the cameras with Bel (who was then two years old), and second from a car off the side of a road, where baby Bel was found in the back seat, with the door closed and the heater running, but Rachel completely gone.

Bel’s father Charlie went on trial for Rachel’s murder, but he had an alibi and was acquitted. Now Bel relies on him as the only person who will never leave her.

But then, as they’re filming a reenactment of the event, Rachel Price returns. She says she’s been held in a basement all that time and the guy finally let her go.

But things aren’t as Bel dreamed they would be when her mother came back. And her mother doesn’t tell her story the same way each time. What if Rachel Price is lying? But why would she lie? And what actually happened to her? And why won’t she leave Bel alone so she can get back to her normal life?

To me, this book dragged a bit in the middle. I wasn’t completely tracking with Bel’s suspicions. I was also taken out of the story by the time they played a video of two-year-old Bel, because she was babbling like a not-quite-one-year-old, only able to say “Mama,” which isn’t consistent with a two-year-old at all.

However, as usual with a Holly Jackson book, by the time we started finding out what actually happened, it didn’t drag a bit. In fact, I turned on the audiobook as I was working on a jigsaw puzzle and when the audiobook finished, it was fully two hours later than I’d thought it was.

Holly Jackson doesn’t go for realism, but she does go for pulled from outrageous headlines, and she did surprise but satisfy me with the outcome of this twisty thriller.

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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.

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

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Review of Cast Away, by Naomi Shihab Nye

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Starred Review 0

Cast Away

Poems for Our Time

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Greenwillow Books (HarperCollins), 2020. 159 pages.
Starred Review
Review written March 6, 2020, from a library book

This is a book of poems about trash. And I was surprised, but it made me want to write poems about trash, too. In fact, I will never look at things thrown by the side of the road the same way.

In the Introduction, Naomi Shihab Nye writes about her compulsion to pick up trash. She makes a habit of going out and cleaning up her spaces. And other spaces in her neighborhood. And even spaces where she visits.

And then she writes poems about it. Here are a few short ones.

Two

Two white buttons
not matching
in hot white gravel
dreaming of
shirts

Junk Mail

The great poet
William Stanley Merwin
known as W. S.
wrote first drafts of his poems
on junk mail envelopes
plucked from the garbage
so he never had to worry
about wasting paper
or being perfect

Most of the poems are longer than these. And most either make you smile or make you think.

I enjoyed this book, reading several poems per day. I will not look at things thrown out the same way again. I’m even thinking maybe it’s time to pick up some of the detritus on the edges of my local lake.

My favorite part of the book, though, is at the back, called “Ideas for Writing, Recycling, Reclaiming.” After reading all the poems about things thrown away, I was ready for ideas about getting out and cleaning up – and then writing about it. Here’s the second idea listed, after the first idea of ways to equip yourself to get out and pick up trash:

Write about what you find. You learn a lot about human nature while doing this. Why do people throw certain things away? What do these leavings tell you about your neighbors? Imagine the litterer. Create a character study from everything you find on one day, as if it all came from one person. Or write a story including 5-10 of the items you find.

Further ideas involve ways of including other people as well as further writing prompts. I also like this one: “Write a letter to a particular piece of trash.”

The final paragraph of this section is something she’s shown to be true with the entire book:

It’s never too late to make things better. Understanding them more might help.

harpercollinschildrens.com

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

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Animal Albums from A to Z, by Cece Bell

Children's Nonfiction Review, Poetry, Starred Review 0

Animal Albums

from A to Z

by Cece Bell

Walker Books, 2024. 72 pages.
Review written April 23, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review

This is seriously the silliest serious silly children’s book I have seen in a long long time.

And oh my goodness — that’s what I thought before I found the QR code leading to the YouTube channel featuring performances of all the songs. (Oh wait. It looks like only four of the songs are up when I’m writing this. But I hope more will come.)

The book is played completely straight. We’ve got an intro at the front that the author is sharing her obsession with us. That page is just too good – so let me share how it begins:

I love finding and acquiring old albums, especially those created by animal musicians. The “animal albums” in my treasured collection reflect the visionary work of several small human-run recording studios whose mission was to elevate and promote musical talents of all kinds. From the 1940s to the 1980s, these albums proved somewhat popular and profitable, with the animal musicians themselves experiencing varying degrees of success.

However, my research reveals that these albums were never easy for the studios to produce. The communication difficulties between humans and animals during the recording sessions were a constant challenge; the volatile disagreements regarding proper toileting procedures could not have helped, either. By the early 1980s these difficulties, coupled with a waning interest from audiences, both human and animal, signaled the beginning of the end of an extraordinary time in the history of music.

In this book, Cece Bell shares 26 gems from her supposed collection, including beautiful album cover art, with the lyrics to one of the songs printed out on the facing page. I couldn’t resist sharing this book with my coworkers, and more knowledgeable than me about album cover art, they’re pretty sure most of them reference classic albums.

Some of the albums are “Blame It on the Baloney” from the Barbershop Beagles, “A Little Lounge Music” from Leo Lionel, and Tubby Tapir’s “Let’s Twist Tomorrow and Tuesday Too.” The lyrics are completely silly in their seriousness. Here’s a bit from The One and Only Olga the Ostrich of Opera singing “The Oysters Are a Little Off”:

The oysters are a little off my love
There’s mold upon the bread
Let’s postpone the party
Let’s watch TV instead

The oysters are a little off my love
The house, a total mess
Our party days are numbered
Don’t cry, I must confess

It is I who left the oysters out
It is I who let them rot
A party wasn’t in the cards
My dear, it just was not

Or from Ivanna the Iguana, “I Am an Inspiration to Me”:

You might think
You’re as lovely as me
But we both know that’s simply a lie —
My skin is the best
My hair’s even better
The pink of my lips makes me sigh!

REFRAIN
I’m an inspiration to me, to me
I’m an inspiration to me!
I do everything perfectly —
I’m an inspiration to me.

As if all this weren’t enough, at the back there are bios of all 26 performing groups. My favorites are N and Y:

Nose flautist Natalia Numbat is beloved worldwide for mystical soundscapes that evoke the tinkling of mountain streams and the flushing of porcelain toilets. Numbat got her start touring with her siblings, the Numbat Nine. She left the group in 1982, stating, “My siblings couldn’t appreciate the subtle nuances that my nose fluting brought to the music.” Her song “Next November (I’ll Be Normal)” addresses that familial fissure.

Despite having no musical talent, siblings Yvette and Yohan Yak were pressured by their mother, Yolanda, to perform a yodeling act throughout the Carolinas in the early 1970s. Neither sibling was able to play the alphorn that Yolanda had ordered from a Sears catalog; what you hear on Yodelay-Yoo-Hoo was lifted (illegally) from Heilwig Schweizer’s instructional recording “The Alphorn and You.”

My first reaction was not being sure who this is for. Will kids get any of the references? But then I reflected that I have a stunted musical education and don’t get any of the references (just know enough to be pretty sure there are lots of references) — and I’m completely delighted with the cleverness and ingenuity and just plain silliness. And all that before I found the YouTube channel. I’m sure there are kids out there who will be delighted, too.

The fact that this book exists makes the world a better, and sillier, place.

YouTube channel
walkerbooksus.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.

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

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Review of Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom, by Louis Sachar

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

Wayside School Beneath the Cloud of Doom

by Louis Sachar
illustrated by Tim Heitz

Harper, 2020. 182 pages.
Review written March 21, 2020, from a library book

This book is high class silliness. It’s been 40 years since Louis Sachar wrote a book about Wayside School. Side note: It’s interesting to me that they list three Wayside School books in the front and Louis Sachar acknowledges three in the Intro, but my absolute favorite, and, okay, probably the only one I was really interested in enough to read, is not mentioned — Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School. That one’s essentially a puzzle book, but still, it’s my favorite! Must it be completely forgotten?

My kids loved the Wayside School books back in the day. Now they are 32 and 25 years old. To be honest, I enjoyed hearing my kids tell me about them, and bought them copies, but aside from Sideways Arithmetic, I was never interested enough to read an entire book. Until now. (And to be fair, then I wasn’t yet a children’s librarian.)

This is not a book for people who look for logical consistencies or think about actual consequences of proposed magical happenings. It isn’t a book for people who will point out that you couldn’t possibly collect a million toenail and fingernail clippings in a few months. That describes me, so I’m simply not the true audience for these books. However, I managed to suspend disbelief long enough to enjoy this and have fun. The stuff that happens is silly, but it’s silly in a light-hearted and clever way.

We’re back in Mrs. Jewls’ class on the thirtieth floor. Wayside School is still built sideways, with one room on each floor. I don’t know if any of the students have reappeared from earlier books or if we’ve got a new crop. I’m pretty sure that order doesn’t matter in this series. In this book, a Cloud of Doom settles over the school and disrupts things.

But along the way, you have things like a cure for Oppositosis, hoarding paper clips, a face that gets “stuck like that,” and a kid trying to read the longest book ever. I do like the way sillinesses from one chapter come back in others.

My favorite part, though, is the description of the librarian:

Mrs. Surlaw smiled when she heard that. The only thing she loved more than books were children who loved books. She may have seemed severe on the outside, but inside, her heart was soft as a pillow.

I’m excited that a new generation of kids is going to discover Wayside School. These books explore what might happen if your school were a very silly and strange place. And what kid can resist thinking about that?

harpercollinschildrens.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 Fairfax County Public Library.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

What did you think of this book?

*Note* To try to catch up on posting reviews, I’m posting the oldest reviews I’ve written on my blog without making a page on my main website. They’re still good books.

Review of Dial A for Aunties, by Jesse Q. Sutanto

Audiobooks, Contemporary, Fiction Review 0

Version 1.0.0
Dial A for Aunties

by Jesse Q. Sutanto
read by Risa Mei

Penguin Audio, 2021. 10 hours, 22 minutes.
Review written April 16, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.

I checked out this audiobook because of how much I enjoyed the author’s book Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. This one, too, had a lot of madcap fun.

Dial A for Aunties answers the question, at least for one Chinese Indonesian American twenty-something young woman, “Who would you call if you have to dispose of a dead body?”

Since graduating from college and breaking up with the love of her life so that she wouldn’t hold him back, photographer Meddelin Chan has been working in her family’s wedding business. Her mother and her mother’s three sisters provide flowers, make-up, cake, and entertainment, especially at big Chinese or Indonesian weddings.

The night before one of their biggest events ever, Meddelin goes on a blind date that her mother set up for her by posing as Meddy on an online dating site — and completely missing the sexual innuendoes of what the guy was going to expect. When the date goes south, Meddy pulls out her taser — but causes an accident.

She comes to in a deserted area of Los Angeles with a dead cellphone and nobody coming by. The guy appears to be dead. What’s a girl to do? She ends up putting the body in her trunk. (Not necessarily thinking clearly, but hey, extenuating circumstances.) She calls her mother, who calls in the Aunties. They all rally together to figure out what to do.

But the next day they’ll be leaving early for the wedding at a resort on an island off the coast. They don’t want the body to stink, so it needs to go in Big Aunt’s cooler, because she’s the one who has enough room.

But in the morning, the very helpful assistant brings all the coolers to the island. So now there’s a body in one of their coolers at the island wedding, and they need to get rid of it with no one noticing and hundreds of people coming and going.

Oh and then? Turns out the love of Meddy’s life (Remember him?) is the new owner of the resort. This is his first big wedding and it needs to go well.

Madcap hilarity ensues. This author was definitely not going for realism. However, since every coincidence serves to make things worse, the reader buys it, because what can go wrong will go wrong, right? It’s pretty much over-the-top silliness, but it adds up to a whole lot of fun. The bickering Aunties are wonderful in what they will do for Meddy — even if their ideas don’t always work out in the best ways.

jesseqsutantoauthor.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.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but 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.

What did you think of this book?