Review of The Boy Next Door, by Meg Cabot

Chick Lit, Fiction Review, Light Reading, Romance 0

The Boy Next Door

by Meg Cabot

Avon Books (HarperCollins), 2002. 379 pages.

I’m a little embarrassed that when I was shelving books in the Romance section, I actually picked one up, checked it out, read it in one sitting, and thoroughly enjoyed it. To be fair, at least it doesn’t have a picture of anyone’s bare chest on the cover. I was in the mood for something light and fluffy and fun after reading some heavier books, and light and fluffy and fun was exactly what I got.

The story is told through e-mails, and that’s actually carried off well. Fortunately, they don’t use the annoying text message shorthand and it comes out as a fun and believable way people would talk about the madcap adventures of a slightly ditzy but good-hearted co-worker like Mel.

We first meet Mel Fuller in a series of e-mails from her co-workers wondering why she is so late to work. Especially amusing is the one from Human Resources urging counseling if she has serious personal problems causing her excessive tardiness.

It turns out that Mel was late because she found her elderly neighbor had been attacked in her apartment. So she didn’t think to call her employer. In fact, she took care of feeding her neighbor’s cats and walking her Great Dane before she came to work. Isn’t that what anyone would do?

So begins some time where caring and thoughtful Mel takes care of the enormous dog Paco while Mrs. Friedlander is in a coma. Her work does not appreciate her continued tardiness. When Mel finally manages to track down Mrs. Friedlander’s nephew, a notorious womanizer, photographer Max Friedlander, and sends him an e-mail, he’s off at an island with a celebrity model, and doesn’t want to be bothered by a little thing like his aunt’s attack. But neither does he want his aunt to cut him out of her will.

So Max e-mails an old college friend, John Trent, calls in an old favor, and asks John to go to his aunt’s apartment, pretending to be Max Friedlander. John can take care of the dog until Mrs. Friedlander gets out of the coma, and Max’s aunt will never know that her nephew couldn’t be bothered to come to her bedside.

It all might have gone well, if Mel hadn’t found “Max Friedlander” so different from what his reputation suggested. And if John hadn’t had a thing for redheads, combined with never before having known a girl who wasn’t more interested in his money than in him. But you know there’s going to be trouble with a relationship that began with lies.

Reading the flirting, the gossipy e-mails, and the funny misunderstandings is a lot of fun if you’re in the mood for fluff, and this book hit me right when that’s exactly the mood I was in. There are a couple of sex scenes, but they are also kept pretty light, and at least it doesn’t have a steamy cover! There’s even a mystery along the way: Who attacked old Mrs. Friedlander? Is their apartment building safe?

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/boy_next_door.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 Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation, by Thomas Siddell

Fantasy, Graphic Novel, Teen Fiction Review 0

Gunnerkrigg Court

Volume One

Orientation

by Tom Siddell

Archaia Studios Press, 2007.

I heard about Gunnerkrigg Court at a Youth Services meeting for library staff. Another librarian was urging us to try out graphic novels. Kids love them and they are a fantastic way to pull kids into a love of books. She recommended Gunnerkrigg Court as a particularly interesting example.

Gunnerkrigg Court is based on a web comic, www.gunnerkrigg.com. The first volume, Orientation covers the first year heroine Antimony Carter spends at the strange school called Gunnerkrigg Court.

I found the whole volume strange, but strangely compelling at the same time. The illustrations are very well done, and add to the pull of the story.

I still haven’t figured out what kind of a world Gunnerkrigg Court is supposed to exist in. There are gods, sentient robots and shadows, robotic bird sentinels, a demon stuffed animal, and kids that turn into birds. All the teachers knew Antimony’s parents and seem to understand more of what is going on (What is going on?) than Antimony, but they aren’t sharing their knowledge with her.

Here’s the text on the first page:

“Gunnerkrigg Court does not look much like a school at all.
It closer resembles a large industrial complex than a place of learning.
Within the first week of attendance, I began noticing a number of strange occurrences.
The most prevalent of these oddities being the fact that I seemed to have obtained a second shadow.”

That first page is one of the more normal and straightforward pages!

However, besides being strange, the book is also strangely compelling. I think I am going to begin following the webcomic to find out what happens next and to see if they start making sense of the whole world and what kind of cause Antimony’s parents were involved in.

I don’t think of myself as a graphic novel fan, but by pointing me to a good one, my colleague may have begun changing that.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Libraries, Reviewing, and Other Musings

Events, General 4

I love my job as a Children’s Librarian. I feel completely blessed to have it.

I was a math major in college. I did and still do love math. I’m definitely good at it. So you major in what you’re good at, right? Honestly, I don’t regret that decision. I also don’t regret getting my Master’s degree as soon as I finished my Bachelor’s. I don’t (really) regret that I dropped out of the PhD program I was in and “settled” for my Master’s.

When I got married as soon as I finished classes and had a baby one year later, being able to teach college math was a good skill to have. My husband, a musician, ended up joining the Air Force to have a nice steady job, and I followed him around the country, quickly finding a part-time job teaching night classes at a local community college at each place. I could take care of my son during the day, and my husband could be with him in the evenings when I was teaching.

So I can’t complain. But teaching math is definitely not what I love about math! And community college students do not tend to be there because they want to. And I am an introvert, so getting in front of the classes the first day of each semester was always a bit of an ordeal. (Wow! I just realized that now, 14 years after teaching my last class, it has been quite awhile since I last had a nightmare about having to start teaching a new course and not being prepared!)

When we moved to Germany in 1996, my husband got better pay (Cost of Living Allowance and Overseas Housing Allowance), so I was able to quit teaching, and I was thrilled. My second son was two years old at the time, and I loved being home with him.

Then a friend who was working at the base library went back to the States, and they split her job into two half-time positions. I almost didn’t apply, because I so enjoyed being at home, but then our car broke down and I realized that if we ever had to buy another car I would have to find a job. Why not apply for one I knew I would love?

So began my love relationship with libraries!

The job at Sembach Library was absolutely perfect for me. A small library, we kept losing librarians, and the positive side of that was I got to do more and more interesting things. My favorite was choosing the books to order for the Book Rental Collection and the Children’s Book Plan. Nothing made me feel better than a big box of McNaughtons arriving for me to process! I joked that I got the shakes when I went two weeks without one.

And that was where I started writing Sonderbooks. I was reading so many more books than I ever did before, with so many interesting ones going past me that I couldn’t resist. But I was forgetting the details, and I really wanted to tell my friends about them. So first I started an e-mail newsletter, which eventually became a website, which eventually also grew this blog.

I felt a real sense of calling working at the library. I love all aspects: ordering and cataloging books, finding great books and matching them to people who love them, helping people research obscure questions, and even sorting and shelving the books. Yes, I feel I was born to be a librarian.

I worked at Sembach Library for eight years. Then my husband’s assignment in Germany was due to end. I had been wondering if I should stay with libraries. It seems a no-brainer now, but I also had a dream of becoming a writer, and I thought maybe I should take some time off work and finally get a book finished and published.

Then, in a long, arduous, heart-breaking, devastating process, my husband decided his heart wasn’t in our marriage any more. He told me he was getting a divorce.

The next morning I woke up and it dawned on me: I would become a librarian. I would get a Master’s in Library Science. So I could stay in libraries, find a full-time job, and, I hoped, make a decent living on my own. (I hadn’t worked full-time since 1989.)

My husband got himself sent to Japan, and I came to Herndon, Virginia, where two of my best friends since third grade (in California!) lived. While I was getting my degree through online classes with Drexel University, I got a job in the second-closest library to my home, Sterling Public Library in Loudoun County, as a half-time info assistant in the children’s department. I loved it.

Then my husband came back to America, — to Virginia, but three hours away– stopped getting the dual housing allowance, and drastically cut his support. I desperately needed a full-time job. In December 2007, I finished my Master’s in Library and Information Science, and in February 2008, I was the Youth Services Manager at Herndon Fortnightly Library, the very closest library to my home. What’s more, I had applied for a position at a library 45 minutes away — but when I got to the interview, they said they were actually interviewing for librarians at three different libraries — and one was Herndon.

So — I really was NOT meaning to tell that whole story when I started writing this blog entry. The point is this: I love my job. It was a total gift from God. I feel I was born to be a librarian. I love what I do, and think of it as a ministry, besides being lots of fun and exactly what I enjoy and am good at.

Mind you, there are other aspects of librarianship that I like very much. I wouldn’t mind a job that had more regular hours and maybe less public service and more backroom tasks. But I do feel this job was a gift from God, and if it is taken away from me, I’m sure He can meet my needs and give me a new wonderful job.

It’s budget cuts that might cause me to lose my job. 16 Librarian I positions (and a whole lot of other positions) are being cut. Choosing who will go is based entirely on seniority, so I have no way of knowing if I will get to stay or not. There are 10 positions already vacant, but if they were mostly people hired after me, that won’t do me any good.

Even if I don’t lose my job, I’m upset about the budget cuts. Having reduced library service will greatly hurt the poor, job hunters, kids who need library computers or library books to do their homework, and young mothers learning to build early literacy skills in their little ones — especially the ones who wouldn’t have been doing it anyway. Every single day we serve people learning English, homeless people, people doing schoolwork, home schoolers, adults needing reference information, and so many more. Closing the libraries and reducing service will be a definite negative impact in the county. This budget cut was a very bad decision.

And please, as the cuts go into place, please let your Board of Supervisors representative know the negative impact! They claimed that people didn’t complain about the budget cuts last year, so they were sure no one would mind if they did more. Of course, people learning English and people too poor to afford their own computer aren’t usually the sort who do lots of talking to members of the Board of Supervisors.

And they told us the RIF notices were coming out on Wednesday. So my suspense would finally end. But today they said they’re running behind, and RIF notices won’t come out until next Monday or Tuesday.

So — I’ve been working hard for the last couple months searching for job openings and applying. I’ve applied to fourteen librarian or research jobs that I think I would do well, would enjoy, and that would pay better! So far ten are still viable, though no interviews yet.

But that’s what’s been slowing me down on writing reviews. Or weighing in on current Kidlitosphere topics, like writing about the Top 100 Children’s Novels (and which I’ve read and love) or writing about why I only review books I like — but still think I can call them “reviews” and not simply “recommendations.”

I’ve got a pile of books here that I need to review and turn in so I can check out more books! Tonight I’m going to try to write a few more reviews, but wait to post them to the main site another night. I want to get caught up. Though I may have blown my chances of doing that tonight by writing this long set of musings.

Enough! Let me write some more reviews!

Review of The Source of Miracles, by Kathleen McGowan

Christian, Nonfiction Review, Personal Growth, Starred Review 1

The Source of Miracles

7 Steps to Transforming Your Life Through the Lord’s Prayer

by Kathleen McGowan

A Fireside Book (Simon & Schuster), New York, 2009. 201 pages.
Starred Review

When I saw this book on our library’s “New Books” shelf, I was interested, but a bit skeptical. Promising miracles and life transformation sounded a bit New Age-y and trendy to me. But our pastor had recently challenged us to do some extra reading and thinking about the life of Jesus, and I thought reading about the Lord’s Prayer couldn’t help but give me insight into Jesus and who He was.

I ended up liking the book so much, I read a chapter each day during my devotional time. Kathleen McGowan suggests establishing a practice of praying the Lord’s Prayer every day. Using Christian tradition and the image of the six-petaled rose in the maze at Chartres Cathedral, she suggests seven ideas to think and pray about when going through the prayer.

These concepts are basic and fundamental ideas in Christianity, or indeed in most other religions. I certainly like the idea of making a practice of thinking and praying about them, and appreciate Kathleen McGowan’s imagery that will help me bring them to mind.

The concepts are Faith, Surrender, Service, Abundance, Forgiveness, Overcoming Obstacles, and — in the heart of it all — Love. She has excellent illustrations and quotations about each “petal” of the rose and ties each one to lines from the Lord’s Prayer.

One thing I like about this book is that even if you don’t agree with every single point of the author’s theology, the Lord’s Prayer will still have impact on your life. As the author says about some people who take issue with her theology:

“I am willing to bet that we have one thing in common: we all know the Lord’s Prayer. If you put the three of us in a room together, this is the common ground we could find. And so I hold on to the belief that this perfect, beautiful prayer can unite all of us in loving God and loving each other.”

This is an inspiring and uplifting book.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/source_of_miracles.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 Body Finder, by Kimberly Derting

Contemporary, Romance, Starred Review, Suspense, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Body Finder

by Kimberly Derting

Harper, 2010. 329 pages.
Starred Review

Starting to read this book late at night, thinking I could read only a chapter or two because I was so tired, was a major mistake. No, this was one of those books that got me enjoying it far too much to look at the clock until I’d read the last page.

I hope that fans of Twilight will find this book. There’s the same feeling of love destined to happen (with a lot more reasons for it), a paranormal element, the heroine lives in Washington State, her uncle (okay not her father) is a police chief, she falls down a lot (though not quite as often as Bella), and her life is saved by her true love. In fact, with those rescues, I was reminded of good old-fashioned romantic suspense, especially the Mary Stewart novels I devoured in seventh and eighth grade. Best of all, the writing is excellent and the romance is exquisitely done. I think teens will love this book. I know I did!

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The story opens with a prologue when 8-year-old Violet hears a strange sound her father can’t hear, follows it through the woods, and finds a dead body.

Then we skip to the beginning of Violet’s junior year of high school. Like all teens, she doesn’t feel like she fits in, but she does have some legitimate reasons:

“After all, how many girls had inherited the ability to locate the dead, or at least those who had been murdered? How many little girls had spent hours of their childhood scouring the woods in search of dead animals left behind by feral predators? How many had created their own personal cemeteries in their backyards to bury the carnage they’d found, so the little souls could rest in peace?”

Something weird happened to Violet over the summer. Her best friend, Jay, whom she’s known since they were six years old, changed over the summer. They have done everything together since first grade, and he even knows her secret and keeps it safe. He even helped her make the little graves, by her side, not as if it were something strange. But now…

“She hated these new, unknown feelings that seemed to assault her whenever he was around, and sometimes even when he was only in her thoughts. She felt like she was no longer in control of her own body, and her traitorous reactions were only slightly more embarrassing than her treacherous thoughts.

“She was starting to feel like he was toxic to her.

“That, or she was seriously losing her mind, because that was the only way she could possibly explain the ridiculous butterflies she got whenever Jay was close to her. And what really irritated Violet was that he seemed to be completely oblivious of these new, and completely insane, reactions she was having to him. Obviously, whatever she had wasn’t contagious.”

As if that weren’t enough to deal with, on the first weekend after school has started, she goes to an end-of-summer party at a lake. She’s riding a Wind Runner with Jay when she feels drawn to a certain part of the lake, has to see what’s there, and finds the body of a teenage girl.

When the next girl disappears, people start to get worried.

Now, on top of Violet’s ability to find the bodies of murdered creatures, it turns out that the same echo of the creature sticks to its murderer. She learned this over the years from her cat, a natural predator. If she found a certain dead mouse by an odd taste in her mouth, she’ll have the exact same sensation when her cat, its killer, comes around.

So shouldn’t she use this ability to find whoever murdered the girl? Shouldn’t she finally use her bizarre “gift” for a valuable purpose?

This book reminded me of Num8ers, by Rachel Ward. Both books tell a story in contemporary times with one little addition — a girl who has a paranormal, rather morbid gift. However, The Body Finder tells a story that is much less dark. Instead of being an orphan, Violet has a warm and loving family. She is protected by her parents, her police chief uncle, and Jay, all of whom know about her gift.

But when you go looking for a murderer, you’re bound to run into trouble. Her family and Jay are protective, but they underestimate the strength of Violet’s gift and her obsession as more girls are killed.

Of course, Violet’s putting herself in danger only gets Jay angry and adds to the misunderstanding between the two of them.

This book has more making out than the Mary Stewart novels I used to read in junior high. But other than that, you can think of this as good old-fashioned romantic suspense. Pick this up when you’re in the mood for a dose of danger plus true love. You’d think a book called The Body Finder would be gruesome, but I found it to be sweet.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/body_finder.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 Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, by Helen Simonson

Fiction Review, General, Literary, Romance, Starred Review 0

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand

by Helen Simonson

Random House, New York, 2010. 358 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a gentle love story, which reminded me of Alexander McCall Smith’s books like La’s Orchestra Saves the World, or maybe The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Though the story is completely different, the tone is similar, with nice, calm people going about their everyday lives while confronted with problems, and quietly falling in love along the way.

The book opens on the morning when the retired Major Pettigrew has learned that his younger brother is dead:

“Major Pettigrew was still upset about the phone call from his brother’s wife and so he answered the doorbell without thinking. On the damp bricks of the path stood Mrs. Ali from the village shop. She gave only the faintest of starts, the merest arch of an eyebrow. A quick rush of embarrassment flooded to the Major’s cheeks and he smoothed helplessly at the lap of his crimson, clematis-covered housecoat with hands that felt like spades.”

Major Pettigrew’s wife died only six years before, and Mrs. Ali’s husband died the previous year, so they understand each other’s grief and little rituals, like occasionally wearing his wife’s favorite housecoat. They gradually discover they have some other interests in common, including a shared love of books.

Mrs. Ali’s Pakistani family does not approve that her husband left the shop to her and that she is continuing to run it. They are pressuring her to live with her husband’s family now that he is gone.

Meanwhile, Major Pettigrew goes to his brother’s funeral. He is appalled when he learns that his brother did not leave him the second of his father’s fine guns, a gift from an Indian maharajah. Their father had given them each one gun to remember him by, asking that the pair be reunited eventually to pass on further in the family. Major Pettigrew left explicit directions in his will to leave his gun to his brother, if he died first, but it appears that his brother did not return the favor. And his brother’s wife, their daughter, and even the Major’s own son all want him to sell the pair, more valuable together, and they each have plans for what to do with the money.

There was a point toward the beginning of this book when I got annoyed by how no one in Major Pettigrew’s life was very nice at all, except Mrs. Ali. His son is a social climber with a new American fiance, and he seems to think his father is there to fulfill his whims. The local village ladies have their own ideas on who the major should marry. They are planning an elaborate party at his club and rope him in to getting involved, while coming across as interfering busybodies.

But the people did grow on me. Major Pettigrew moves through the uproar of circumstances with dignity and humor. I began to see even glimmers of humanity in his ungrateful son.

Of course, the ladies of the village really get upset when they begin to realize how Major Pettigrew’s feelings for Mrs. Ali are blossoming. And her own family keeps pressuring her to leave the village. Can Major Pettigrew go against generations of tradition and find love with a Pakistani woman who is actually (shudder) in trade?

Here is an exchange I enjoyed between the Major and Mrs. Ali’s nephew about the nephew’s love life:

“I’m only joking,” said Abdul Wahid. “You are a wise man, Major, and I will consider your advice with great care — and humility.” He finished his tea and rose from the table to go to his room. “But I must ask you, do you really understand what it means to be in love with an unsuitable woman?”

“My dear boy,” said the Major. “Is there really any other kind?”

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/major_pettigrews_last_stand.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 Katie Loves the Kittens, by John Himmelman

Animal Characters, Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Readalouds, Starred Review 2

Katie Loves the Kittens

by John Himmelman

Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2008. 32 pages.
Starred Review

I discovered this book when browsing through our New Books at the library for books to read at my Drop-in Storytime. I read it to the group, and believe I have found one of my new favorite picture books. This book, in both words and illustrations, is absolutely brilliant!

Katie is a dog, an exuberant, friendly, and loving dog, with a tail that is usually wagging vigorously. Here is how the story begins:

“Today was the most exciting day in Katie’s whole life! Sara Ann had brought home three little kittens.

“Katie loved those kittens so much. As soon as she saw them, she howled, ‘AROOOOOO! AROOOOOO!’ She always howled like that when she was very happy.”

Unfortunately, Katie’s enthusiasm frightens the kittens, drawn as tiny little fluffy things climbing to get away from Katie. Sara Ann has to scold Katie and tell her to stay away from the kittens until they get used to her. Poor Katie is sad.

Later, Sara Ann is playing with the kittens, and Katie wants to play with them, too. “She just loved them so much.” One of my favorite pages is the page of Katie trying to control herself. Her tail is wagging so fast it’s almost invisible, and her whole body is shaking as she tries to quell her enthusiasm.

“But Katie couldn’t stop herself any longer.

“She burst into the room. The kittens scattered.

“‘AROOOOO! AROOOOO!’ she howled as she chased them around the room.”

Poor Katie. More misadventures follow, springing out of Katie’s enthusiastic overflowing love. Another favorite part is when Katie walks into the kitchen the next morning.

“Three bowls of food waited for her.

“She ate the first bowl. Mmmm, this is good, she thought.

“She ate the second bowl.

“Yummyummyummyum, she thought.” [And you should see her tail wag!]

Of course, the reader has no trouble guessing who the three bowls of food were for! Poor Katie feels worse than ever.

So I’ve almost gotten you through the whole book, but I’ll just summarize the end by saying that eventually the kittens do get used to Katie, and Katie manages to control herself and let them get close. The final picture has Katie playing with the three kittens, with one of them caught up in her wagging tail.

This book is an absolutely delightful twist on the new-baby-or-new-pet in the house story. In this story, the “big sister” doesn’t resent the new pets, but she does have to learn to express her enthusiasm in appropriate ways. It’s a story that attributes emotions to a dog, and the emotions seem completely doglike and realistic.

I’d recommend this book to people with a new baby or a new pet, or to dog lovers. Of course, I’m not any of those things, and I love this book, so I will also recommend it to anyone who enjoys a picture book that tells a fun story with the perfect combination of pictures and words. This one will make you smile. And for reading aloud, you can easily get kids involved, joining in with Katie’s AROOOOOOs.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/katie_loves_the_kittens.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 Last Summer of the Death Warriors, by Francisco X. Stork

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

The Last Summer of the Death Warriors

by Francisco X. Stork

Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), 2010. 344 pages.
Starred Review.

Here’s another book by the brilliant author of Marcelo in the Real World. Like Marcelo, this book deals with many-layered issues in a realistic way that is ultimately inspiring. There are no easy answers here, but we see flawed and lovable people grappling with the basic questions of life.

The book opens as Pancho is being brought to an orphanage.

“It was not a place for kids with problems. Mrs. Olivares had worked very hard and called in a lot of favors to get him admitted. She pointed out the high school he would attend in the fall. It was within walking distance of St. Anthony’s. He had been given a choice between going to summer school and entering as a senior or redoing his junior year. He chose to redo his junior year. He had other plans for the summer.”

Father Concha is the one in charge at St. Anthony’s.

“Father Concha picked up a manila folder and flipped through the pages, deep in thought. What did those pages say? Pancho had never read his file, but he could imagine. The mother dies when the boy is five years old. The father raises the boy and the older sister. The father dies in a freak work-related accident. Then the sister dies from undetermined natural causes three months later. The list of losses that made up his life was so unbelievable, it was embarrassing. It was like he made the whole thing up just so people would feel sorry for him.

“Pancho glared at Father Concha. he did not want pity. Pity turned his stomach. The priest put the folder down and met Pancho’s eyes. There was no pity there.”

At the orphanage, Pancho meets D.Q., a kid his own age who is dying of cancer. D.Q. takes an interest in Pancho. D.Q.’s mother, who left him at the orphanage years before, is now trying to get him to try some experimental treatments in Albuquerque. D.Q. agrees to go, but wants Pancho to come with him.

Pancho agrees because of his own summer plans: To find the man who was with his sister when she died, and kill him.

D.Q. also has his own agenda. A girl named Marisol works at Casa Esperanza, the house where they’ll be staying near the hospital.

D.Q. is always writing in his journal. He’s writing the Death Warrior Manifesto. A Death Warrior affirms life. He sucks the marrow from life with every day he has been given. D.Q. intends to train Pancho to be a Death Warrior, too. Pancho just thinks he’s crazy.

Things happen. Marisol isn’t what Pancho expected. He gets drafted to give rides to young kids with cancer at Casa Esperanza and makes friends with them. He watches D.Q. getting sick from chemotherapy. He makes plans to go to the house of the man who was with his sister and kill him.

There’s nothing simplistic about this book. It’s much more than a story of a teen with cancer or the story of a teen seeking revenge. In a lot of ways, it’s a book exploring what life is all about.

This book leaves you satisfied in a quiet way, glad to have spent time with Pancho and D.Q. and Marisol.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/death_warriors.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 NurtureShock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Audiobooks, Current Issues, Nonfiction Review, Parenting, Starred Review 0

NurtureShock

New Thinking About Children

by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
read by Po Bronson

Hachette Audio, 2009. 7 CDs.
Starred Review

This audiobook was a fascinating one to listen to. I put a copy of the print version on hold, so I’d have some surprising statistics to quote for this review, but too many people want to read it and my copy still hasn’t come in, so I will have to go by memory of what I heard and be more general.

NurtureShock reviews studies on child development and breakthroughs in our understanding of nurturing children that have come in the last ten years, particularly studies that had results contradictory to prevailing belief.

The authors cover many different aspects of raising children and cover child development at all age levels. They begin with studies that show that too much praise is actually counterproductive for building a child’s self-esteem. They go on to studies about many other things, and cover each topic in great depth, explaining the implications of the studies and how the researchers approached their surprising results.

We learn about the importance of sleep for children — it’s much more important for children and teens than it is for adults. They look at the lies children tell, which happens much more often than their parents realize. It turns out that children know they are lying much younger than their parents realize, but it also serves a developmental purpose.

We learn that baby videos — with disembodied voices — actually slow down a baby’s vocabulary development, that responsiveness to the baby’s initiation is key. We learn that children’s programming like Arthur actually increases aggressive behavior. (The neat summing up at the end doesn’t seem to make up for all the unkindnesses portrayed earlier in the story.)

All ten chapters tell you fascinating things about children and teens and their developing brains. Not only do the authors present the surprising results, they also come up with plausible reasons for why those results are happening.

I highly recommend this book for all parents, and anyone who works with children or teens. People will also be fascinated who are interested in how the human mind works. Every chapter has interesting and surprising things to think about, and it may change the way you parent your kids. It would be nice if this book could even be used to change some school district policies.

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Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/nurtureshock.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 the Fairfax County Public Library.

Review of Crossing Stones, by Helen Frost

Historical, Poetry, Teen Fiction Review 0

Crossing Stones

by Helen Frost

Frances Foster Books (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), New York, 2009. 184 pages.

Crossing Stones is a novel in verse about two families who live across a creek from each other during World War I. The book is masterfully and beautifully written. Unfortunately, I’m not a big fan of verse novels. Just hearing the thoughts of the characters from the start, it’s harder for me to picture the characters and the setting. Still, once I got going, I found this to be a powerful and moving story.

Both the families that live across the creek have a brother and a sister. Frank and Emma live on one side, and Ollie and Muriel live on the other. Frank loves Muriel, and Ollie loves Emma, but when World War I starts, Frank goes off to war, and Ollie soon follows, even though he’s only sixteen.

Muriel’s not a fan of the war, like her Aunt Vera, a suffragette. But not being happy about the war is considered unpatriotic, and women are told their place is in the home.

This book includes war, the flu epidemic, the battle for women’s rights, and the day-to-day struggles of farm chores that must go on even when the men and boys have gone to war.

I should have heeded the advice of our local Kidlit Book Club leader and read the “Notes on the Form” at the back of the book first. Helen Frost did something innovative and symbolic. She writes the poems in the voices of Muriel, Emma, and Ollie. Muriel’s poems are written in free style, in the shape of a rushing creek “flowing over the stones as it pushes against its banks” just as Muriel is pushing against the constraints of her society and time.

Emma’s and Ollie’s poems are written to make the shapes of stones. The author explains:

“I ‘painted’ them to look round and smooth, each with a slightly different shape, like real stones. They are ‘cupped-hand sonnets,’ fourteen-line poems in which the first line rhymes with the last line, the second line rhymes with the second-to-last, and so on, so that the seventh and eight lines rhyme with each other at the poem’s center. In Ollie’s poems the rhymes are the beginning words of each line, and in Emma’s poems they are the end words.”

The rhymes are so unforced, I didn’t notice them at all until I read the note at the back. I was impressed when I looked back and found the rhymes, but wish I had noticed from the beginning. Helen Frost also tells us:

“To give the sense of stepping from one stone to the next, I have used the middle rhyme of one sonnet as the outside rhyme of the next. You will see that the seventh and eight lines of each of Emma’s poems rhyme with the first and last lines of Ollie’s next poem, and the seventh and eighth lines of Ollie’s poems rhyme with the first and last lines of Emma’s next poem. If you have trouble finding these rhymes, remember to look on the left side of Ollie’s poems, and on the right side of Emma’s.”

So besides writing a moving story of World War I, Helen Frost has also pulled off an impressive technical achievement.

Buy from Amazon.com

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