Review of Fairest, by Marissa Meyer

Science Fiction, Teen Fiction Review 0

fairest_largeFairest

Levana’s Story

by Marissa Meyer

Feiwel and Friends, New York, 2015. 222 pages.

Fairest is a short prequel to the other books in The Lunar Chronicles, filling in the back story of Levana, the Queen of Luna.

All the books in The Lunar Chronicles parallel fairy tales, and as the title indicates, Levana takes the place of the wicked queen in Snow White. In Fairest we learn how Levana acquires a stepdaughter, named Winter.

This is not a nice story, and Levana is not a nice person. But readers understand her better after reading this book. She wants to be a good queen for her people. She was cruelly disfigured as a child, which is why her glamour is so important to her. And she made an attempt at love, but the power she had to manipulate minds short-circuited that quest. People think she’s controlling? Well, she takes ruling more seriously than her sister did. It’s all for the good of Luna. She will do whatever is needed for her people.

At the end of the book there is a preview for Winter, the final book in the series, coming out in Fall 2015. We don’t have long to wait!

marissameyer.com
thelunarchronicles.com
macteenbooks.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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, by Alice Dalgleish

Award Winners, Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Old Favorites, Starred Review 0

bears_on_hemlock_mountain_largeThe Bears on Hemlock Mountain

by Alice Dalgleish
illustrated by Helen Sewell

Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1952.
Starred Review
Newbery Honor Book, 1953
ALA Notable Book

Today I was shifting Juvenile Fiction books in the D’s and I saw this book, and couldn’t resist checking it out. I took it home and read it, having to say the refrain aloud:

THERE are NO BEARS
ON HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN,
NO BEARS AT ALL.
OF COURSE THERE ARE NO BEARS
ON HEMLOCK MOUNTAIN,
NO BEARS, NO BEARS, NO BEARS,
NO BEARS AT ALL.

Of course, the main reason I love this book so much is that I remember my mother reading it to me. I remember all the suspense building as Jonathan’s mother and Jonathan say this refrain to themselves, and everyone is thinking about bears. I remember how the crunch, crunch, crunch of the snow changes to drip, drip, drip, which means Spring is coming, and how Jonathan hopes the bears don’t know it. And then how incredibly scary it is when Jonathan hides under the big iron pot and the bears start scraping in the snow around it.

I also love what I hadn’t remembered – that this is a story of a great big extended family – a little bit like the one I have. When my mother read it to me, we still lived near my grandma, who was good at making cookies, as Jonathan’s mother is in the book.

It’s rather astonishing to me, reading it now, at how well this story holds up 63 years later. About the only thing that couldn’t happen today is that nobody needs to cut wood to keep a fire going for cooking to get done. Oh, and probably Jonathan’s father and uncles wouldn’t come with guns to shoot the bear.

This is a chapter book – but a chapter book short enough to read aloud, as I well remember. The suspense is incredible, if child-sized. Bottom line, it’s the story of an eight-year-old who is now big enough to go over a big hill in the snow all by himself to his aunt’s house – because of course there are no bears on Hemlock Mountain.

And that story will never grow old.

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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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

leontyne_price_largeLeontyne Price

Voice of a Century

by Carole Boston Weatherford
illustrated by Raul Colón

Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2014. 36 pages.
Starred Review

Several years ago, I read When Marian Sang, by Pam Munoz Ryan, and The Voice that Challenged a Nation, by Russell Freedman, and so felt I knew about how Marian Anderson showed that the beauty of a voice does not depend on skin color.

Leontyne Price: Voice of a Century tells a later chapter in the story, about a girl inspired by Marian Anderson. This picture book biography imaginatively conveys the beauty of her voice with swirling colors of art.

The text tells a simple story of a girl who dared to dream.

1927. Laurel, Mississippi.
The line between black and white
was as wide as the Mississippi River was long.
All a black girl from the Cotton Belt could expect
was a heap of hard work – as a maid, mill worker, or sharecropper.
Her song, most surely the blues….

Wasn’t long before Leontyne was finding her voice.
Singing along to her daddy James’s records and listening
to the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday-afternoon radio broadcasts.
She soaked up the sopranos, if not the foreign words.
Art songs and arias, shaping a brown girl’s dreams.

The text tells about Leontyne playing the piano, singing in the choir, and being inspired by the voice of Marian Anderson. The accompanying illustrations show the swirling beauty of song.

Leontyne went to college in Ohio to study to be a teacher, but after the college president heard her sing, she went on to study voice instead and went on to Juilliard.

The illustrations of Leontyne’s international career in opera, and as the first black opera singer to perform on television in America, are particularly lovely.

Leontyne was never more majestic than as Aida,
playing the part she was born to sing. As the Ethiopian princess,
with her skin as her costume, she expressed her whole self.
Standing on Marian’s shoulders, Leontyne gave the crowd goose bumps.
The song of her soul soared on the breath of her ancestors.

The book finishes up with the line:

Her song sure wasn’t the blues.

An Author’s Note at the end fills in details for adults.

This is a lovely and inspiring story for anyone to read – about a person with a beautiful voice who transcended the obstacles in her path.

CBWeatherford.com
randomhousekids.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/leontyne_price.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 Fairfax County Public Library.

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

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Review of Lost Animals, by Errol Fuller

Nonfiction Review, Science 0

lost_animals_largeLost Animals

Extinction and the Photographic Record

by Errol Fuller

Princeton University Press, 2013. 256 pages.

This is a fascinating book. The idea is simple: The author has compiled actual photographs of animals whose species are now extinct. There is information about each animal and details about when each one presumably died out.

In many ways, it’s a tragic book. Especially painful are pictures such as the one of a dead Yangtze River Dolphin taken with the hunter who shot it.

Mostly, the pictures are fascinating in themselves. As the author says in the Introduction:

It seems that a photograph of something lost or gone has a power all of its own, even though it may be tantalizingly inadequate.

nathist.press.princeton.edu

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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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Very Good, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous, Starred Review 0

very_good_jeeves_largeVery Good, Jeeves

by P. G. Wodehouse

*and*

Jeeves and the Old School Chum
and Other Stories

by P. G. Wodehouse
Performed by Alexander Spencer

The Overlook Press. First published in 1930. 297 pages.
Recorded Books, 1985. 3 compact discs.
Starred Review

The reason I’m still reviewing P. G. Wodehouse books is simply to keep track of which books I’ve read. I can’t possibly tell by reading the books! In fact, I listened to the audiobook first, Jeeves and the Old School Chum, which said it was “selected” stories from Very Good, Jeeves, but I can’t tell you for sure which stories I heard on CD first.

You might think this is a criticism? It is not at all! Yes, the stories are similar, so hard to keep straight. But I enjoy them every single time. I may have a general sense that I know how Jeeves is going to solve a particular imbroglio — but that only fills me with delighted anticipation.

This is a book of short stories, as opposed to one of the books where one big complicated entanglement fills the pages from start to finish. There are 11 chapters, 11 short situations where Bertie needs Jeeves’ help to get out of a situation or to help out a friend.

These stories are also represented in the BBC video series “Jeeves and Wooster,” which makes them all the more familiar.

As always, we’ve got Bertie’s amusing use of language and general cluelessness, along with Jeeves’ brilliant insight into the psychology of the individual. It is completely apparent that I will never get tired of hearing these stories.

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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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Blizzard, by John Rocco

Historical, Picture Book Review 0

blizzard_largeBlizzard

by John Rocco

Disney Hyperion, Los Angeles, 2014. 40 pages.

I’m reading this book just a few days too late for our snow season, but I do think that kids will enjoy this book at any time.

The best part about the story in Blizzard, by a Caldecott Honoree, is that the story it tells is true.

When John Rocco was ten years old, his town in Rhode Island had a record-breaking blizzard, where it snowed for two days and forty inches of snow fell. The snow plows didn’t make it to their street until the end of the week – so the family was running out of food and milk for hot cocoa.

On day five, I realized it was up to me to take action. I was the only one who had memorized the survival guide. [He’s reading a book called Arctic Survival.]

I was the only one who knew what equipment was required. [He’s tying tennis rackets to the bottoms of his boots.]

I was the only one light enough to walk on top of the snow.

After he sets out, a fold-out map shows his route. I love the natural 10-year-old detours: to help build a snowman, to climb a lookout tree, to make a snow angel, to explore an igloo, and to join a snowball fight.

He successfully gets groceries for his own family and for the neighbors – and has quite a tale to tell.

Now in the first place, this book makes our recent snowfall seem not so bad at all. In the second place, it can’t help but communicate the playful side of a big snow. And a kid gets to be the hero, and it ends with the snow plows making it through.

A cozy story for a winter day or a nice cooling story for a hot summer day, but especially a playful adventure story with a kid in the starring role.

DisneyBooks.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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Black Dove, White Raven, by Elizabeth Wein

Historical, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

black_dove_white_raven_largeBlack Dove, White Raven

by Elizabeth Wein

Hyperion, Los Angeles, 2015. 357 pages.
Starred Review

Wow. Once again Elizabeth Wein illuminates a historical situation I knew nothing about. In some ways, this combines themes from her two different series. We’re back in Aksum of Ethiopia – but this is not ancient Aksum. Instead, Aksum is combined with female pilots of World War II – okay, just before World War II, when Italy invaded Ethiopia. (Did you know about that? I sure didn’t.)

At the start of the book, Black Dove and White Raven are the airshow names for the mothers of Emilia Menotti and Teodros Dupré. Black Dove is Teo’s mother, Delia Dupré; and White Raven is Em’s Momma, Rhoda Menotti. They travel around doing airshows together in 1930s America, doing aerobatics and wing-walking. They met in France after World War I. They dream of moving to Ethiopia, where Teo’s father was from, where people won’t be shocked by a black woman and a white woman living and working together.

But then there’s an accident, and Delia is killed. However, the family still makes it to Ethiopia, and Teo and Em work on becoming the new Black Dove and White Raven.

Teo and Em grow up in Ethiopia, and Momma teaches them to fly – just in time to come of age when Italy invades Ethiopia in 1936.

This book is filled with historical details I knew nothing about, but mostly it’s the compelling story of two children with strong family ties, living in another culture, learning to find their place in the world and deal with all manner of people – and coming of age in wartime — wartime that involved mustard gas against spearmen, and the need to protect ancient treasures, including the Ark of the Covenant.

As always, Elizabeth Wein’s writing is powerful and evocative. I’ll admit that this is slower, atmospheric reading most of the way through, but these are distinctive characters you will remember long afterward.

elizabethwein.com
hyperionteens.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 I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

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Review of Five, Six, Seven, Nate! by Tim Federle

Children's Fiction Review, Contemporary, Starred Review 0

five_six_seven_nate_largeFive, Six, Seven, Nate!

by Tim Federle
read by the Author

Simon & Schuster Audio, 2014. 6 CDs.
Starred Review

First, I’ll say that this follow-up to Better Nate Than Ever is fabulous. In this case, the author and narrator has worked on Broadway himself – so he can tell this story as it should be told.

Five, Six, Seven, Nate! features Nate Foster, moving to New York, cast as second understudy for the role of E. T. in E. T.: The Musical. His adventures and the simple day-to-day things he deals with, are hugely entertaining. The reader (or listener) is definitely rooting for Nate, excited about his dream come true of actually performing on Broadway.

He leaves his best friend Libby behind, but she’s given him plenty of tips and moral support. He’s also leaving behind relentless bullies and parents who are far more impressed with his older brother’s sports prowess. At thirteen years old, his voice is changing – which leads to some awkward timing. He’s staying with his Aunt Heidi and learning how to navigate New York and show business.

This is a feel-good, heart-warming novel that will leave you wanting to belt out a musical number at the end. (Now that would have enhanced the audio!) Tremendously fun listening.

Okay, that’s my review – I loved the book, and kids will love it, and it gives insight into what it’s like to be part of a Broadway musical.

Now let me talk about something I was going to ignore – but I decided that in today’s climate, it deserves mention.

Yes, Nate – a thirteen-year-old boy who is obsessed with Broadway musicals – is gay. Back home, in Pennsylvania, he was relentlessly and cruelly bullied. In the book, Nate is involved in two kisses, one with a girl, one with a boy. The one with a boy feels dramatically different, dramatically more right.

The reason I bring this up at all is that I still have friends who believe that homosexuality is a choice, not the way people are born. This book, without making an argument at all, argues against that view. Some of those friends might not want their children reading this book, but I believe they would do well to read it themselves.

Come on, a boy who loves musical theater? Do you really have trouble believing he’s gay? Do you really have trouble believing he would be bullied horribly? Do you really believe he would choose bullying, choose his parents’ disapproval, if he actually had a choice about it?

You may argue that this is only fiction, but the book is based on the author’s adventures in Broadway. The whole scenario rings true.

In the first place, this is a fantastic, feel-good story. But for kids who see themselves in Nate, this is a wonderful opportunity to read a book about someone like them, someone different from his peers. For kids who don’t see themselves in Nate, what better way than reading to put yourself in someone else’s shoes? If this book promotes understanding and compassion – more power to it!

timfederle.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/five_six_seven_nate.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 audiobook from Fairfax County Public Library.

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

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Sonderling Sunday – Ecknische und Knirps

Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, Sonderling Sunday 2

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

Sonderlinge3

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a post, with no good reason but your basic busyness. So I’m happy to get back to it tonight. And it’s the turn of my stand-by, the truest Sonderbook of them all, Der Orden der Seltsamen Sonderlinge, by James Kennedy, the translation of The Order of Odd-fish.

Last time I visited this book, I finished with “the picture of happiness,” die Verkörperung von Glückseligkeit, which is on page 228, Seite 287.

As always, I love learning how to translate James Kennedy’s disgust-inducing prose. 🙂

“a dingy, nameless place” = ein schmuddeliger namenloser Ort

“its walls yellowed with decades of smoke and stains”
= Die Wände waren von jahrzehntealtem Rauch und Schmutz vergilbt.

“an ornery dog” = ein übellauniger Hund

“godawful” = einfach schrecklich (“simply horrible”)

“worry” = Kopfzerbrechen (“head-breaking”)

“corner booth” = Ecknische
(Yes! This is now exactly what I’m going to name my corner cubicle!)

Here’s a handy phrase to know:
“scrawled-upon napkins” = vollgekritzelten Servietten

We can say this much more concisely:
“snaky” = schlangenartiges

“brushed off” = freiklopfen

“thinking about it too much” = zu viel darüber nachgegrübelt

I mean, who puts words like these together but James Kennedy? This is why this book got me going with these handy-dandy phrases you didn’t know you wanted to know.
“squeaky whisper” = quietschendes Flüstern

Again, we’re a bit more concise:
“Right now!”
= In ebendiesem Augenblick!

“or worse”
= möglicherweise geschieht sogar Schlimmeres

“Nora had gone too far.”
= Jetzt war Nora eindeutig übergeschnappt.
(“Now was Nora undoubtedly over-snapped.”)

“vindicated” = gerächt

“headline” = Schlagzeile (“Strike-line”)

They kept all the headlines alliterative. Here’s the shortest:
“CHATTERBOX CHASTENED” = PLAUDERTASCHE PLATTGEMACHT
(“Chatterbox flattened”)

“superlative distinction” = unübertrefflicher Ehre

“swaying tassels” = wippenden Quasten

I like this one:
“a wee tot” = ein Knirps

And let’s finish off “with delirious joy” = freudetrunken (“joy-drunk”)

I’m truly jazzed about finding an appropriate name for my cubicle at work (The Ecknische), though perhaps not quite freudetrunken. And I’m going to look for an excuse to call my little nieces the Knirps.

Bis bald!

Crazy 8s Math Club and Living Venn Diagrams

Events, Mathematical 0

This week I brought my camera to Crazy 8s Math Club! We were learning about Sets and Venn Diagrams – and look at those faces!

Crazy 8s is a Math Club sponsored by BedtimeMath.org. They provide the ideas and materials, and the library provides the place.

Here is a set of kids with brown eyes. We had a Flat Visitor from California who also had brown eyes!

Crazy8s1

When we started the 3-set Venn diagram, I thought they could start with cars and trucks. They caught on quickly!

Crazy8s2

And finally, a living Venn diagram. The kids figured out where they belonged depending on whether they had brown eyes or not, whether they could curl their tongue or not, and whether they fold their hands with their left or right thumb on top. I’m happy to say that the kids who didn’t fit in any of those sets were excited to be “in the universe.”

Crazy8s3

And afterward — some silliness with the glowsticks (which they got to take home).

Crazy8s4

Crazy8s5

Crazy8s6

More proof that Math is Fun — and kids know it!