Review of In Our Mothers’ House, by Patricia Polacco

Contemporary, Picture Book Review 0

In Our Mothers’ House
By Patricia Polacco

Philomel Books, 2009. 48 pages.

This is a warm and wonderful book about a nontraditional family. The point isn’t that the family has two mothers. The point is that they have a lot of love.

Told from the perspective of the first adopted child, we hear about all the loving times in their big house, which hosts family gatherings and block parties and neighborhood festivals. The family has a black girl, an oriental boy and a red-haired Irish child, so they are diverse in more ways than one.

Patricia Polacco is a good storyteller, and she makes a story of this family. There’s lots of hugging in all the pictures, and people of all ages having fun.

There is one exception. The one person on the block who doesn’t like them (It doesn’t specify why, except that she says, “I don’t appreciate what you two are.”), Mrs. Lockner, is on the cartoonish side. But mostly it’s about family togetherness, complete with cooking, costumes, parties, special events. Patricia Polacco manages to tell these retrospective stories without stepping too far on the side of sentimentality.

Your kids will meet families like this. I appreciate that the book never makes a big deal about there being two mothers or mixed races in this family. It just tells about two marvelous people and the loving household they built.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/in_our_mothers_house.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.

Review of Boris on the Move, by Andrew Joyner

Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Easy Readers 0

Boris on the Move

By Andrew Joyner

Branches (Scholastic), 2013. Originally published in Australia in 2011. 74 pages.

I don’t like it, but parents always expect us to keep our books organized by grade level. They come to the desk and ask, “Where are your books for second graders?” We have to explain that second graders fit a wide range of interests and reading abilities, and we give them some tips on how to look for books for their child (like bring the child with them).

However, I find I do appreciate the reading level information clearly stated on the cover of these new “Branches” books published by Scholastic. This one says on the back, “Appeals to K-2nd Graders” and “Reading Level Grade 2.”

Now, it does mean that you won’t ever catch a 3rd grader reading these books, which is a shame. But for a good book, full of pictures, to get a beginning reader used to chapters, this fills the bill.

In this first story about Boris, we’re introduced to Boris, his Mom and Dad, and his friends at school. Boris lives with his parents in an old bus, but the bus never goes anywhere. Boris dreams of adventure and complains to his parents. Then, one day, the bus moves!

But they don’t go to the jungle or on an African safari. Instead, they stop at Greater Hogg Bay Conservation Park. Not what Boris had in mind! But Boris manages to have an adventure anyway.

This is kid-sized fun that children can read to themselves. The book is not a graphic novel, but there are lots of pictures, and all the dialogue is written with speech bubbles instead of “he said” “she said.” Boris is a warthog, though like a child in every way. But pictures of warthogs acting like people are far more entertaining than pictures of people would be.

A quality addition to beginning chapter books.

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

Review of Dangerous, by Shannon Hale

Adventure, Science Fiction, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Dangerous

by Shannon Hale

Bloomsbury, New York, April 2014. 390 pages.
Starred Review

Okay, I can’t wait any longer to post this. The book won’t come out until April 2014, so I hope I’m not being mean by tantalizing other fans. I know I’ll read it again when the published version comes out. But I did exclaim all over Twitter and Facebook about snagging this review copy on the opening night of ALA Annual Conference, so I think I should tell people that I indeed liked the book very much, and they will want to watch for it.

It’s no secret that I’m biased by the love I already have for Shannon Hale’s other books. I knew I’d enjoy Dangerous, and indeed I did.

This is not, however, a fairy tale retelling or a contemporary romance. Dangerous is a science fiction thriller, completely different from anything Shannon Hale has written before.

Shannon Hale fans like me will of course want to read it, so I’ll try to describe it for others who just want to figure out if they want to read this particular science fiction thriller.

I love the heroine, Maisie Danger Brown. She’s not your typical vanilla-flavored main character. Her mother is from Paraguay, so her family is bilingual. And she’s missing her right hand, using a prosthesis, which she calls Ms. Pinch. Maisie fills out an application found in a cereal box and wins a trip to Astronaut Camp. Once there, she meets Jonathan Ingalls Wilder, son of a billionaire, and explains to him her middle name:

“My parents were going to name me after my deceased grandmothers — Maisie Amalia — then in the hospital, it occurred to them that the middle name Danger would be funny.”

“So you can literally say, Danger is my middle –”

“No! I mean, I avoid it. It’s too ridiculous. It’s not like anyone actually calls me Danger. Well, my mom sometimes calls me la Peligrosa, which is Spanish for Danger Girl. But it’s just a joke, or it’s meant to be. My parents have to work really hard to be funny. They’re scientists.”

This description fit with Maisie’s constantly punning father. (Just like mine!)

Space Camp ends up far more than a typical summer camp. The first sentence of the book is “Every superhero has an origin story.” Sure enough, at camp, Maisie gets a chance to go up in the Space Elevator to an orbiting asteroid, and there a piece of alien technology takes over her body, turning her into a super-inventor. Four other teens get embedded with technology, each having varying superpowers, all revolving around Jonathan, the Thinker. Maisie doesn’t know how much her thinking about Jonathan is because she fell for him before the incident, or if it’s because of the embedded alien technology.

And it’s a wild ride from there. I don’t want to say too much, but there are some deaths, and it becomes apparent that the remaining team members can take on the alien token from someone who dies. Maisie doesn’t know who to trust, and she’s afraid her family will be used to get to her. Things come to a showdown. Will Maisie be killed for her token, or will she have to kill her friend?

And that’s not even the end. There’s also the question of why aliens sent these tokens to earth. Yes, it turns out the fate of all humanity is at stake, and it’s not at all certain that the alien superpowers will be enough.

When the Space Camp story began, I thought this was going to be a kid-finds-out-alien-plot story, similar to The Fellowship for Alien Detection. But it quickly got to be a much bigger story. When it became apparent that alien technology was taking over some kids, I expected to roll my eyes at the science descriptions. That didn’t happen either. I’m not saying it was water-tight, but it never seemed blatantly impossible. And, wow, with the team members fighting each other, there were shades of The Hunger Games. We also had plots among different adult groups, trying to control the alien technology, and more of Maisie having to figure out who to trust. All that besides the aliens set to take over earth.

There’s also a delicately-done romance. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have preferred Maisie to end up with the other guy, but I can’t complain that it didn’t seem realistic. I loved Maisie’s thinking when they’re alone, and he’d like her to go farther.

He started to kiss me again, and I relented, kissing back. But his words haunted me — I can’t help myself, as if he were constrained to want me. I wanted him to choose me, not kiss me mindlessly. Even so, a part of me would give up any choice to just let things happen. And that shocked me. I’d decided long ago what I would do and would not do, and here at the first opportunity, I was tossing out reason for instinct. If I couldn’t make a decision using my brain, then was I even Maisie anymore? Better to ache with want than to become an illogical girl I didn’t know, I thought.

Now, I must admit that I’m probably never going to enjoy a science fiction thriller as much as a fairy tale retelling. If anything, I think maybe she’s packed a little too much into this book. I feel like I’ll have to read it again to grasp all that happened. I’m not sure if I quite believe all the alien stuff.

But I can safely say that I enjoyed this book more than any science fiction thriller I’ve ever read. The personal touch of knowing Maisie Danger Brown, la Peligrosa, girl who’s grown up with a missing hand – that made me want to travel with her through life-and-death fights, threats by aliens and humans, wild superhero stunts, and the need to save the world.

squeetus.com
Bloomsbury.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/dangerous.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 an Advance Reader Copy I got at ALA Annual Conference.

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.

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!

Review of Construction Kitties, by Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges and Shari Halpern

Animal Characters, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

Construction Kitties

by Judy Sue Goodwin Sturges
illustrated by Shari Halpern

Christy Ottaviano Books (Henry Holt), New York, 2013. 32 pages.
Starred Review

I’m sorry, but this book is way too cute! Though it’s not saccharine. It’s an honest, worthy book about construction machines – with adorable kitties driving them.

We’ve got standard Construction Book pages:

Into the loader.
Onto the excavator.
Dig that dirt!

Then at lunch time:

Out with their pails.
Tasty sardines.
Cool milk.
Tummies are full.
Construction Kitties purr and rest.

And what are those Construction Kitties building? What could be better? A playground! The endpapers show the workers now playing with many smaller kittens on the newly constructed playground.

Here’s another one that’s going straight into my next Baby Storytime. Construction machines. Kitties. What’s not to like?

mackids.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/construction_kitties.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.

Review of Dodsworth in Tokyo, by Tim Egan

Animal Characters, Beginning Chapter Books, Children's Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Dodsworth in Tokyo

by Tim Egan

HMH Books for Young Readers, 2013. 48 pages.
Starred Review

Dodsworth and the Duck have been in New York, Paris, London, and Rome. Now they take on Tokyo.

This fabulous series of chapter books for beginning readers introduces a few customs and places from the host cities, while leaving the readers wondering, What will the Duck mess up in this place?

In Tokyo, the duck gets along amazingly well. He finds a kendama, and he is remarkably good at playing with it. But can he really stay out of trouble?

Pictures go along with the story. The characters are animals rather than people, and it’s all done in Tim Egan’s understated cartoon style, but with a Japanese setting.

The duck ran across a row of taiko drums.
The patter of his feet fit the music perfectly.
The crowd cheered.
“Don’t encourage him!” yelled Dodsworth.
The duck grabbed a rope and swung over the festival.
The crowd cheered again.
“This won’t end well,” said Dodsworth.

Hmhbooks.com

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

Review of Pop! The Invention of Bubble Gum, by Meghan McCarthy

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Picture Book Review 0

Pop!
The Invention of Bubble Gum

By Meghan McCarthy

A Paula Wiseman Book (Simon & Schuster), 2010. 40 pages.

This nonfiction picture book tells the story of the invention of bubble gum. Walter Diemer, the man who came up with the breakthrough, was actually an accountant in the Fleer candy factory. He started watching a pot for a chemist, and ended up testing out new combinations. He finally found the formula for bubble gum. Pink was the only color he happened to have on hand, so that was the color of the new invention.

This simple story is told with big bright illustrations. It’s true, and it’s about something near and dear to children’s hearts, so this is an excellent choice to get kids interested in nonfiction. Notes at the back tell more about Walter Diemer and facts about gum.

I’m posting this review today in honor of Nonfiction Monday, hosted today at A Mom’s Spare Time.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/pop.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 my own copy, which I got at an ALA conference.

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.

Sonderling Sunday – Momo, Listening

Sonderling Sunday 0

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, or, in this case, the English translation of a German children’s book.

This week, I’m going back to one of my all-time favorite books, Momo, written in German by Michael Ende. Last time I covered Momo, I got through the entire first chapter, and also got to explain a little of why I love it so much.

This time, I’m going to dive in, beginning on Zweites Kapitel (“Second Chapter”), Eine ungewöhnliche Eigenschaft und ein ganz gewöhnlicher Streit. The chapter is, however, simply titled “Listening” in English. A literal translation of the German title is “An unusual character and a completely usual dispute.” A little more descriptive, don’t you think?

I like the first sentence, so I’ll quote the entire thing:
Von nun an ging es der kleinen Momo gut, jedenfalls nach ihrer eigenen Meinung.
= “Momo was comfortably off from now on, at least in her own estimation.”

mal mehr, mal weniger
= “sometimes more and sometimes less”

wie die Leute es entbehren konnten
= “what people could spare”

unentbehrlich = “indispensable”

nach und nach = “in time” (“by and by”)

feststehenden Redensart = “stock phrase” (“fast-standing phrase-type”)

unglaublich klug = “incredibly smart”

geheimnisvollen Spruch = “magic spell” (“mystery-full speech”)

And the key word of the book:
Zuhören = “listening”

I like the way the author addresses the reader:
Das ist doch nichts Besonderes, wird nun vielleicht mancher Leser sagen, zuhören kann doch jeder.
= “Anyone can listen, you may say — what’s so special about that?”
(Literally: “That is in fact not special, will now perhaps some reader say, listening can anyone do, actually.”)

Aber das ist ein Irrtum.
= “But you’d be wrong.”

ganz und gar einmalig
= “quite unique”

Momo konnte so zuhören, da? dummen Leuten plötzlich sehr gescheite Gedanken kamen.
= “She listened in a way that made slow-witted people have flashes of inspiration.”
(“Momo could so listen, that dumb people suddenly very clever thoughts came.” — Good thing they didn’t translate it like that!)

Aufmerksamkeit = “attention” (“out-marking-ness”)

Anteilnahme = “sympathy” (“interest-taking”)

ratlose oder unentschlossene Leute = “worried or indecisive people”
(“advice-less or un-closed people”)

Schüchterne = “shy people”

I like the conclusion of this section:
Und wenn jemand meinte, sein Leben sei ganz verfehlt und bedeutungslos und er selbst nur irgendeiner unter Millionen, einer, auf den es überhaupt nicht ankommt und der ebenso schnell ersetzt werden kann wie ein kaputter Topf – und er ging hin und erzählte alles das der kleinen Momo, dann wurde ihm, noch während er redete, auf geheimnisvolle Weise klar, da? er sich gründlich irrte, da? es ihn, genauso wie er war, unter allen Menschen nur ein einziges Mal gab und da? er deshalb auf seine besondere Weise für die Welt wichtig war.
So konnte Momo zuhören!

= “And if someone felt that his life had been an utter failure, and that he himself was only one among millions of wholly unimportant people who could be replaced as easily as broken windowpanes, he would go and pour out his heart to Momo. And, even as he spoke, he would come to realize by some mysterious means that he was absolutely wrong: that there was only one person like himself in the whole world, and that, consequently, he mattered to the world in his own particular way.
Such was Momo’s talent for listening.”

Let’s face it, with this book, it’s not so much about the cool words as that I so love what they say!

Anyway, that was only the “Unusual character” part of chapter two, but I’m trying not to go on so long, so that will do it for tonight!

In honor of Momo, try a little zuhören this week!

Review of Surviving Survival, by Laurence Gonzales

Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, True Stories 0

Surviving Survival

The Art and Science of Resilience

by Laurence Gonzales

W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2012. 257 pages.

Surviving Survival looks at people who have survived traumatic experiences — and looks at how they live the rest of their lives afterward.

Your experience of life in the aftermath may be even more dramatic, sometimes more painful, than the experience of survival itself. But it can be beautiful and fulfilling, too, and a more lasting achievement than the survival that began it all. What comes after survival is, after all, the rest of your life.

Many of the people whose stories he tells survived horrific experiences. They range from shark attacks and bear attacks to loss of a child or maiming in war. He tells many, many stories, and they don’t all end happily. I found myself getting depressed when he said he needed to balance it out by showing people who did not overcome!

The author doesn’t sugarcoat what these people lived through and now face every day. He explains why the aftermath is so difficult, and looks at many different strategies that work for these people as they live out the rest of their lives.

This book is mostly fascinating. And though I sincerely hope I will never face trauma at the level of the author’s examples, everybody faces smaller traumas throughout their lives. And the author shows techniques that can help you recover from those traumas and live a fruitful life.

One insight that struck me early on involved my vestibular migraines. I had a stroke a year and a half ago. It was in my cerebellum, the center of balance, and was manifested by the room suddenly spinning. After the stroke, I started getting, for the first time in my life, vestibular migraines. They aren’t headaches, but the mechanism is similar to migraine headaches. But instead of head pain, I get a vague dizziness. And it reminds me of nothing so much as my stroke. And that scares me.

This book explained to me why that’s so, why it’s going to take a long time before that’s not a perfectly normal reaction. Here he’s talking about someone who was shipwrecked and witnessed the deaths of her friends.

Much of what the brain does is unconscious. It works behind the scenes to forge memories of what is dangerous and what is beneficial so that in the future we can respond correctly and automatically. During her crisis, Debbie’s brain was working overtime to map out those memories in preparation for the next assault. In the brain, the cardinal rule is: future equals past; what has happened before will happen again. In response to trauma, the brain encodes protective memories that force you to behave in the future the way you behaved in the past. Any sight, sound, or smell, any fragment of the scene in which you were threatened, can set off that automatic behavior. The trouble was that in all likelihood, Debbie would never again face a similar hazard. It is rare to be shipwrecked…. In other words, Debbie’s natural and normally useful systems for forming important memories were working on a job that had no practical value. Indeed, those systems were working to make her miserable.

And that’s not the only effect of trauma. Laurence Gonzales examines many, many cases, and looks at people with varying degrees of coping. At the end of the book, he summarizes what he’s learned about rising above survival and living well after trauma.

This book is fascinating like a train wreck, but it throws in good insights for living along the way.

wwnorton.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/surviving_survival.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.

Review of The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf, by Mark Teague

Animal Characters, Fairy Tale Variant, Humorous, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

The Three Little Pigs and the Somewhat Bad Wolf

by Mark Teague

Orchard Books, New York, 2013. 40 pages.
Starred Review

What is it about Three Little Pigs adjustments? Like The Three Pigs, The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot, and The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, this book simply makes me laugh.

The story isn’t much different from the traditional one. Instead of being sent off by their mother, the three pigs are let go because the farmer and his wife move to Florida.

From there, things progress as expected. The commentary along the way is the hilarious part. The first and second pig love potato chips and sody-pop, respectively. The Somewhat Bad Wolf succeeds in blowing down their houses, saying, “I can’t believe that worked!” The wolf is so surprised, the pigs have time to escape to their sister’s fine brick house.

The pictures are fabulous. I especially love the one where the wolf is collapsed on the lawn after trying to blow down the brick house. It’s no wonder the pigs take pity on him!

scholastic.com

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/somewhat_bad_wolf.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.

Review of Silver on the Tree, by Susan Cooper

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy, Old Favorites 0

Silver on the Tree

by Susan Cooper
read by Alex Jennings

Random House, 2002. Originally published in 1977. 9 hours, 26 minutes on 8 compact discs.
2012 Margaret Edwards Award Winner

Silver on the Tree is a classic. It’s the fifth and final book of The Dark Is Rising sequence, which collectively won the Margaret Edwards Award for lasting contribution to Young Adult Literature. I love the way this book brings together characters from all the previous books — the three Drew children, Will and Merriman, and Bran Davis.

Like with the other books, this one is strong on atmosphere and not so strong on plot. It feels like everything they do has been prophesied, and Will and the other characters trust their “feelings,” and just “know” what they should do next at each step. Okay, there’s a few places where other characters give them the word they need that they’re supposed to remember, and then we know they’d better pay attention to that word.

But we never doubt for a moment that they will succeed in their quest and do just the right thing at just the right time. The only question is what, exactly, the prophecy will look like when it happens. We’re told that each step of the quest — found in each previous book — is crucial for the Light to have when the Dark finally rises. But we don’t really believe the Light won’t have each piece.

Now, I did like the way some Arthurian legend is woven into the sequence. And Susan Cooper is still strong on atmosphere and mood.

There was one thing, though, that I simply hated in this book. All of the mortals involved in the quest are forced to forget the whole thing, to remember only “as in a dream.” WHAT!?! They’re strong enough to save the world, but not strong enough to remember the part they played?!? No.

Related to that, I hated the choice forced on Bran Davis. So much for destiny! And now he doesn’t even get to remember? (I’m meaning that to be vague enough to not really be a spoiler.)

Listening to this book was a good choice, as Alex Jennings does a magnificent job with the different voices and accents. However, I should admit that I listened to part of the book when I was driving to an unfamiliar place, so I missed some of the nuances and was perhaps less captured by the narrative than I might have been otherwise. I also have a feeling this book would have a stronger place in my heart if I’d first read it as a kid. I don’t think then I cared quite as much if the characters have a plan or just follow their gut (and the “High Magic”) again and again.

Anyway, I’m glad I read the series again. It is a classic fantasy good-against-evil series, one of the pillars of the genre. The Dark finally rises, and the Light must prevent it, using all the tools they’ve amassed to this point.

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

Please use the comments if you’ve read the book and want to discuss spoilers!