Battle of the Books First Round Report

Events 0

School Library Journal’s Battle of the (Kids’) Books finished its first round today. Back before the battle started, I predicted who would win. Of the eight first round matches, I only got one right! Though there is some consolation. Eric Carpenter of the blog What We Read and What We Think conducted a poll as to the winners of each match. And according to the stats he has reported, in every case I chose the same book as the majority who entered the poll. So I’m in line with the other people following the battle, just not with the celebrity authors who are making the choices.

And there’s some great writing going on by the judges. Getting talented wordsmith’s to say what they like about two books and why they chose won book over another was an inspired idea. Reading their comments will make you want to read the books you missed, even the ones that don’t win. That’s what happened to me last year with The Hunger Games. After hearing four rounds of judges extol it, I had to see for myself.

Now here’s a recap of the second half of Round One and my predictions for Round Two:

My biggest disappointment of the second half was that the wonderful Marcelo in the Real World was beaten by Marching for Freedom. There was some consolation in how eloquently Gary Schmidt talked about the brilliance of Marcelo.

The sixth match, Peace, Locomotion vs. A Season of Gifts was the only match in the whole Battle where I hadn’t read either book. So I wasn’t emotionally invested in that prediction.

In the second round:
Marching for Freedom
vs.
A Season of Gifts
Judge: Christopher Paul Curtis

I’d like to see Marching for Freedom win.

The seventh match was the only one I predicted correctly, with The Storm in the Barn beating Sweethearts of Rhythm. I read Sweethearts of Rhythm the night before the contest, and I thought Judge Anita Silvey summed up its strengths and weaknesses just about perfectly.

For the last match, I had come close to predicting the winner, because I do admire both books tremendously, and I wasn’t sure which way the judge would go. Julius Lester went with the incredible and bizarre Tales from Outer Suburbia over the Newbery winner, When You Reach Me.

In Round Two, that will give Shannon Hale this choice:
The Storm in the Barn
vs.
Tales from Outer Suburbia

This one is tough. Both are wonderful books in the graphic format. Will Shannon Hale go with the fairy-tale type element in The Storm in the Barn? Or will she be captivated by the quirks of Tales from Outer Suburbia? I think both books are brilliant, so I won’t be disappointed either way, but for the sake of prediction I will choose Tales from Outer Suburbia.

Tomorrow morning, M. T. Anderson will start the first half of the second round, which I predicted last week. Will I do any better in Round Two?

Review of Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder

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

Strength in What Remains

A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness

by Tracy Kidder
Read by the author

Random House, 2009. 8 hours, 30 minutes on 7 compact discs.
Starred Review

Many years ago, I read Among Schoolchildren, a nonfiction book by Tracy Kidder, and was impressed by the thorough way he explored every aspect of his subject. Having been deeply moved by Immaculee Ilibagiza’s books Left to Tell and Led by Faith about surviving the Rwandan genocide, when I found out Tracy Kidder had written a book about it, I was eager to read it.

This is actually the story of a Burundian medical student, Deogratias, who barely escaped the genocide in Burundi and spent six months on the run. The first place his escape took him was to refugee camps in Rwanda — just in time for the genocide to start there.

There were several miracles in his escape story that could have so easily gone the other way. For example, on the day the genocide started, he hid under his bed in the medical school’s dorm, but forgot to close the door to his room. He was too afraid to get out from under the bed and close it, so he huddled under the bed in terror, hearing the killers coming and breaking down other doors and killing people. When they got to his room and saw the door was open, they said, “The cockroach has left!” and moved on. He escaped that night, walking through a building full of dead bodies. And that was only the beginning of a six-month ordeal.

Deo’s troubles weren’t over when he arrived in New York City with two hundred dollars in his pocket. He found a job delivering groceries for fifteen dollars a day and spent his nights in Central Park. He tried to sleep as little as possible, since he had terrible nightmares from what he had experienced back home.

But Deo survived. He made friends. He went to Columbia and later to medical school and did well. Now, he has built a clinic in his parent’s village in Burundi, bringing hope and health to people, easing the conditions that spawned the genocide in the first place.

The website for his organization is www.villagehealthworks.org. When I looked at the website after having listened to the audiobook, I couldn’t imagine a worthier organization to support.

Deo’s story is amazing. I was riveted and found myself lingering in the car to listen a little more when I got home from work.

Immaculee Ilibagiza’s book, Left to Tell, is more a story of faith and forgiveness, as she had visions and miracles while she hid in a bathroom. In Strength in What Remains, Tracy Kidder takes a secular, objective view. You can tell he is amazed at what Deo survived and how he managed to process and deal with his memories, and then rise above his experiences and bring healing to his people. Tracy Kidder presents the facts, but the listener can’t fail to be inspired.

I also did not realize how bad things had been in Burundi. I’d heard of the “Rwandan genocide,” and hadn’t realized that the same conflict between Tutsis and Hutus happened in Burundi as well, but lasted much longer in a civil war. I think of myself as relatively well-informed, but I knew nothing about Burundi until I listened to this book.

I highly recommend that you listen to or read this amazing story. Yes, some horrible things happen that you won’t want to think about, but ultimately you will be moved and inspired.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/strength_in_what_remains.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 Mission, by A. M. Cormier

Adventure, Fiction Review, General, Romance, Suspense 0

Mission

by A. M. Cormier

Xulon Press, 2009. 483 pages.

Physician’s assistant Parry St. Amand was surprised when the brilliant, if socially challenged, Dr. Rand Szabo asks to have lunch with her. Then he surprises her even more by asking her to go with his team on a medical mission trip to a poor former Soviet satellite country. A doctor backed out at the last minute, and if Parry can’t go, they will have to call off the trip.

The particular country involved has been having political unrest, and Parry’s friends and family think she’s crazy. But she doesn’t want to be the one to keep the team from helping where they are badly needed. She decides to go.

There are nine people on the team, including two other women, most of whom Parry knows from the hospital. However, three of the men are engineers, to help set up equipment and do repairs. One of those, Jake Spengler, is a former Ranger, who happens to be handsome and single. He has some tips about how to stay inconspicuous when traveling in a politically volatile area.

The team arrives at their destination and bunk in an orphanage run by wonderful, caring people. They have a busy surgery schedule, putting in long days. Then the unthinkable happens. The country has a military coup and the new dictator has put a price on the heads of Americans.

The team plans to smuggle out six people in vehicles, but the remaining three need to hike out, through rough terrain and the fresh snow of an early winter. Rand and Jake are natural choices, but Parry insists that she is the most fit of those who are left. So the three of them set out on the grueling trip overland, trying to stay unnoticed, but also to stay alive.

Once I got to that part, the story gripped me and wouldn’t let go. I read into the early hours of the morning on a night when I really needed to get some sleep. I expected narrow escapes, physical challenges and plenty of danger, but A. M. Cormier gave them to me with details I didn’t expect at all.

I need to admit up front that the author is a friend of mine, and I’m reviewing the book because I want it to do well, for her sake.

For the sake of my readers, I will admit that I wish my friend had not decided to self-publish. Mission seems to me to be just a professional edit away from being a truly magnificent book. There are some flaws — some scattered misspellings and some gratuitous political rants that have little to do with the plot. Most challenging is the slow start — you could completely skip the first chapter without missing it — but I’m here to tell you that if you persevere, the book will be worth it.

If anything, the author goes too far with the old adage, “show, don’t tell.” There are a few places where she gives us a scene or a flashback scene when all we needed was to be told what happened. We don’t need a flashback to understand that her family is pressuring her to get married. And more interesting than a flashback of her former romance would be to hear her explaining it to her new love. Those are nice scenes, but they do interrupt the flow of the book.

Yes, there is a new love in Parry’s life by the end of the book, and I love the way the romance is handled. This, too, had some nice surprises, and I found it beautiful and satisfying.

Another strength of the book is the author’s facility with medical terms and procedures. You can tell she’s worked in medicine, and her descriptions of medical situations the team faces all ring true.

I should also say that as a reviewer I have a strong prejudice against self-published books. This is based on how many I’ve seen that are truly awful.

However, I honestly believe that Mission is an exception. I admit that fondness for my friend kept me going through the slow start, but it was not friendship that kept me reading until early morning! It was the suspense of wondering how these characters I’d come to care about were going to survive.

I feel risky calling the book “wholesome.” I don’t want to make it sound boring, because it’s far from being that. But it’s refreshing to have a main character with morals, who thinks about how she can honor God and serve others. Unlike the political views mentioned, the talk about God doesn’t come off as preachy at all — just a matter-of-fact part of Parry’s life.

So if you’d like to read a story about people trying to do something good and then getting caught in a dangerous situation, with good, old-fashioned suspense and a dash of romance, give Mission a try.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/mission.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.

Review of Suite Scarlett, by Maureen Johnson

Contemporary, Humorous, Light Reading, Teen Fiction Review 0

Suite Scarlett

by Maureen Johnson

Point (Scholastic), 2008. 353 pages.

In Scarlett’s family, when you hit your fifteenth birthday, you get keys. But these are not keys to a shiny new car. These are keys to a hotel room in an old Art Deco hotel in New York City.

Scarlett’s family owns the Hopewell Hotel, and a fifteenth birthday tradition has developed:

“At age fifteen, each Martin was ‘given’ a room in the hotel to care for. This was not an ancient tradition — it had started with Spencer four years earlier. He had gotten the rough-and-ready Sterling Suite. Lola had the attractive but small Metro Suite. The Empire Suite was something else entirely — the showpiece, and the most expensive of the hotel’s twenty-one guest rooms. It was rarely occupied, except for the occasional honeymoon couple or the lost businessman who couldn’t get a room at the W.

“So this was either an honor or a ‘we don’t actually want you to have to deal with any guests’ gesture.”

But soon after Scarlett receives the key, a guest arrives, planning to stay the whole summer. Her name is Amy Amberson, and she’s a former actress. She’s extremely interested in manipulating other people’s lives, and soon is messing with Scarlett’s, and manipulating Scarlett into messing with other people.

Meanwhile, the Hopewell is not doing well. They’ve had to let their cook go, and Scarlett will not be able to get a summer job, so that she can help at the hotel. Meanwhile, her brother Spencer is running out of time on the deal he made with their parents. If he doesn’t get a role on Broadway before his scholarship offer to culinary school expires — next week — then he needs to give up acting long enough to go to culinary school.

So when Spencer gets a part in a version of Hamlet that’s not on Broadway in the usual sense (it’s in a parking garage on the street called Broadway), he wants to make it work. And he wants Scarlett to help him. And Spencer’s new friend on the cast happens to be tremendously handsome. But things don’t go smoothly, so of course Mrs. Amberson wants to get involved.

Suite Scarlett is a whole lot of fun. I’ve been meaning to read it for awhile. I actually started listening to it in audiobook form, but the narrator was too perky for me. However, I was already interested, so I finished the book in print form.

This book is a big elaborate comedy with plots and counterplots all fitting together in the end. The characters are varied and believable, from meddling Mrs. Amberson to Scarlett’s spoiled little sister Marlene, who recovered from cancer and now thinks the world revolves around herself. I like the interaction in the Martin family — They definitely love each other, but have some realistic bumps in the relationships between siblings.

This light-hearted book is a lot of fun to read.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/suite_scarlett.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 Just the Right Size, by Nicola Davies

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Just the Right Size

Why Big Animals Are Big and Little Animals Are Little

by Nicola Davies
Illustrated by Neal Layton

Candlewick Press, 2009. 61 pages.
Starred Review

I think this book is so cool! It explains the math and geometry behind the sizes of living creatures in a way that is clear, easy to understand, and completely memorable.

Here’s the text on the opening page of the book:

“In comics and movies, superheroes zoom across the sky, run up wall, lift things as big as buses, and use their powers to fight giant monsters!

“It’s all very exciting, but it’s a complete load of nonsense. Real humans can’t fly, hang from the ceiling, or even lift things much bigger than themselves . . . and real giant animals couldn’t exist, since they wouldn’t be able to walk or breathe.

“In fact, there are very strict rules that control what bodies can and can’t do. These rules keep creatures from getting too big, and because of them the real superheroes are usually small — a lot smaller than humans.”

The basic rules she talks about come from the math of three-dimensional objects. If you double an object’s length, its cross-section will have an area four times bigger (since it’s squared), and its volume will be eight times bigger (since it’s cubed). The authors show this beautifully with plenty of illustrations.

Now I knew about this math, but I hadn’t thought about the repercussions in regard to living creatures.

They start by looking at flight. It’s easy for a fly to take off. But if you were to double the dimensions of a fly, suddenly its wings would be four times bigger. That’s a problem, because its volume is 8 times more, so it weighs eight times more than before, so the wings aren’t going to be big enough to get it airborne.

“This is why heavier insects, like dragonflies, need very big wings to get them off the ground, and birds need huge chest muscles and large, feather-covered wings.

“But wings and muscles can’t keep up with heavier and heavier bodies. That’s why really big birds like ostriches and emus can’t fly and walk instead, and why the only way humans can fly is with the help of engines.”

Next they look at insects that can walk on water and animals that can walk on the ceiling. This has to do with surface area related to volume. Again, if the surface area gets bigger, the volume gets bigger much faster.

This is also why we can’t lift buses. Our muscle strength depends on the cross-section size of our muscles, but weight depends on volume. A rhinoceros beetle can carry 850 times its own weight on its back, but humans sure can’t do that.

I love the author’s little story that illustrates why we can’t have mega-giants and giant spiders:

“Once upon a time there was a giant who was just like a normal human, only ten times bigger all over: ten times taller, wider, and deeper, making him one thousand times heavier. The giant took his first giant step, and with a giant crashing sound, both his legs snapped. The end. (And exactly the same thing happened to the giant’s best friend, the monster spider!)”

The illustrations accompanying this story are especially fun!

And so it goes. The book goes on to look at how you need room for enough internal organs to take care of the business of life, especially surface area in the lungs.

And there are more implications of size: Being able to stay warm, being able to digest things, being able to hide from predators, and so many more things.

The only down side to reading this? This book may dampen my ability to write fantasy stories about flying unicorns or dragons. But those are fantasy anyway, right?

With its clear explanations and fun cartoon illustrations, this book will make you look at the world with new eyes. A wonderful book for budding scientists, but also for anyone interested in the world around them — like me!

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Striking Out with the Battle of the (Kids’) Books

Events, General 0

Last week, I posted my predictions for School Library Journal’s Battle of the Books. Well, the first half of the first round is over, and if you want to know who won — it was every book I did NOT predict!

My strategy was to guess that the celebrity author judges would pick the book most like the ones that they themselves write. However, I’m beginning to suspect that it’s easier for them to see flaws in books similar to their own.

Do check the Battle website. The rationales the judges gave for their choices are interesting and entertaining and will make you want to read both books. All the judges — with the notable exception of the one who shot down my favorite — spoke in high praise of the book they did not pick, as well as the book they did pick.

Now that we know which books have advanced to the first half of the second round, I’ll make predictions about those matches. Honestly, I’m tempted to predict the ones I do NOT want to win — that way they won’t win! Actually, I don’t really care about these two matches, now that my favorites are knocked out. Now I hope that Marcelo wins it all — unless Fire comes back from the dead to challenge him.

So, second round first half predictions:

Round Two, Match One:
Charles and Emma
vs.
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate
Judge: M. T. Anderson

M. T. Anderson doesn’t seem like someone who would fall so much for a girls’ book. (But I’ve definitely been wrong before!) I’m going to predict that Charles and Emma will win.

Round Two, Match Two:
The Last Olympian
vs.
The Lost Conspiracy
Judge: Angela Johnson

I’m going to predict The Lost Conspiracy, since I’ve read it and it is an exceptional work of imagination. With this one, I’m not emotionally invested in my choice, though — since I thought The Lost Conspiracy was an awfully dark book, and it won my imagination, but not my heart.

Perhaps I should be hoping that the weakest books win, to give the winner of the second half (I like almost all those books better than these!) a better chance!

But we shall see….

I am enjoying, despite my disappointment in the choices so far, that there is no criteria given to the judges. It points out that different people like different types of books, and how rather random this whole thing is anyway. It’s a fun way to highlight sixteen exceptional books, with everyone realizing that this is by no means an objective contest.

Caught Up!

General 0

Woo-hoo! I’ve finally got all of the reviews on this blog posted on the main site, www.sonderbooks.com!

Back in December, I had a huge stack of books I’d read and wanted to review in time to make the choices for my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. I decided that in order to get the reviews written, I’d just write them on the blog, and wait to post them after I’d gotten them all written.

Maybe I should just give in and make my site only a blog — but I really enjoy having a website as a resource for book reviews, with the reviews organized by category and linked together.

Anyway, since that decision, I wrote at least 50 reviews, and I’ve slowly been catching up with posting them. Yesterday, I posted eight fiction reviews, and with that I finished up! Now everything that I’ve reviewed is posted. Since I’d been trying to get that done since December, it feels very good to get it done.

Of course now again I have a few books waiting to be reviewed. But now I can write the review and post it all in the same day, since I’m not trying to get 50 done.

If you’ve only looked at the blog, take a look at Sonderbooks.com. I’m trying to make it a resource where you can find good books to read, depending on the type of book you’re in the mood for.

Enjoy!

Review of Num8ers, by Rachel Ward

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Num8ers

by Rachel Ward

Chicken House (Scholastic), New York, 2010. 325 pages.
Starred Review

For as long as she can remember, when Jem looks into another person’s eyes, she sees a number. A person’s number never changes.

Jem learned what the numbers meant on the day her mother died of a drug overdose. They are the date of that person’s death.

Naturally, Jem doesn’t like to look people in the eye. She’s been in and out of foster homes and she doesn’t have any friends.

Jem introduces herself like this:

“There are places where kids like me go. Sad kids, bad kids, bored kids, and lonely kids, kids that are different. Any day of the week, if you know where to look, you’ll find us: behind the shops, in back lanes, under bridges by canals and rivers, ’round garages, in sheds, on vacant lots. There are thousands of us. If you choose to find us, that is — most people don’t. If they do see us, they look away, pretend we’re not there. It’s easier that way. Don’t believe all that crap about giving everyone a chance — when they see us, they’re glad we’re not in school with their kids, disrupting their lessons, making their lives a misery. The teachers, too. Do you think they’re disappointed when we don’t turn up for registration? Give me a break. They’re laughing — they don’t want kids like us in their classrooms, and we don’t want to be there.

“Most hang about in small groups, twos or threes, whiling away the hours. Me, I like to be on my own. I like to find the places where nobody is — where I don’t have to look at anyone, where I don’t have to see their numbers.”

Then Jem meets another troublemaking outcast called Spider. She doesn’t mean to make friends with him. He smells rank and he never stops moving. Worst, his number is only a few months away.

But somehow they start hanging out together and become friends. Though they seem to get into yet more trouble together, and Jem’s foster mother isn’t happy about it.

Then they go into London and Jem sees several people at the London Eye whose number is that very day. Spider’s been making a scene, but Jem pulls him away and tells him they have to get away immediately.

So when the disaster strikes and people die, naturally the police start looking for the two teenagers who were seen running away from the scene. Jem and Spider don’t show a lot of judgment, and they steal a car and set out on the run. Meanwhile, Spider’s time is running out.

This is a dark book, because Jem and Spider don’t live nice easy lives, and they don’t show good judgment. (And don’t worry, parents, I think any teen reading this book would realize that they are not showing good judgment.) But their characters seem very real, and we completely believe and understand why they would do the things they do.

Ultimately, I came away from the book uplifted, feeling better for having known Jem and Spider.

I like the way this book shows love between two very flawed but lovable human beings. Spider stinks, and Jem won’t let anyone get near her. No sparkles here! But the love that grows between them seems all the deeper for the flaws.

Of course, the whole premise is a lot of fun. What would you do if you knew the date when each person you met was going to die? Before I read the book, I thought I’d classify it as science fiction. But Jem’s ability is the only thing that makes their world different from ours — and it’s seen as just a fluke psychic ability, not based on science or magic. So I’m going to categorize this book as “Contemporary.” It’s got some ordinary disadvantaged kids in an unusual, but tough situation.

And there’s a great kicker of an ending!

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Battle of the Books Is About to Begin!

Award Winners, Events, General 0

It’s that time of year! School Library Journal is hosting the second annual Battle of the Kids’ Books!

Here’s how it works. The moderators have chosen sixteen highly acclaimed children’s books published in 2009. They match them up in tournament-style brackets (in alphabetical order). At each “match,” a distinguished children’s author will judge between the two books.

Last year, I followed this, but hadn’t read many of the books. It was the Battle of the Kids’ Books that got me to finally read The Hunger Games. But enjoying the Battle of the Books got me interested in other School Library Journal blogs, so I followed the Heavy Medal blog, a Mock Newbery blog, and have read a good proportion of these top 2009 titles.

I’ll list the first round and give my favorites. Here’s where I’d like comments. Which books would you choose in these match-ups?

Oh, I forgot a fun twist they’re adding to this year’s tournament: The Undead Poll. Before the battle begins, they are taking a poll of your favorite contender. In the final round, the book with the most votes that has been previously knocked out of the running will be brought back from the dead. So the final round, judged by our new Ambassador for Children’s Literature, Katharine Paterson, will be between three books instead of just two. The vote closes on Sunday, March 14, so choose your favorite and vote now!

Okay, here are the first round matches, with my own comments:

Match One:
Charles and Emma, by Deborah Heiligman
vs.
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, by Philip Hoose
Judge: Jim Murphy, a distinguished author of nonfiction

This one, I am neutral about the winner. I have read Claudette Colvin and not Charles and Emma, but I did check out Charles and Emma and look it over, but simply didn’t get around to reading it. I liked the look of it, though — biography told as the story of a relationship. As for Claudette Colvin, you can read my review of that book, and it ended up, like many of these on my 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs. I will be interested to see which book Jim Murphy chooses. For the sake of making a prediction, I’ll guess Claudette Colvin.

Match Two:
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly
vs.
Fire, by Kristin Cashore
Judge: Nancy Farmer

There’s no question in my mind which book I want to win this round. I read about half of Calpurnia Tate before I got tired of it and decided to read some of the other books clamoring for my attention. There are those who adore that book, but it’s not really my style. On the other hand, I was crazy about Fire, and named it my Teen Fantasy #2 on the 2010 Sonderbooks Stand-outs, which actually puts it higher in my favor than the #1 pick in most other categories.

Since Nancy Farmer writes fantasy, I’m hoping she will also favor Fire. But just in case she or a future judge doesn’t, that book was my pick for the Undead Poll, my favorite of all the contenders.

Match Three:
The Frog Scientist, by Pamela S. Turner
vs.
The Last Olympian, by Rick Riordan
Judge: Candace Fleming

This one’s a tough call, because the books are so different. I just tonight read and reviewed The Frog Scientist, because I’d had it sitting in my house ready to read for some time. The Battle of the Books motivated me to finally do it! I haven’t read The Last Olympian, but I read and enjoyed the first Percy Jackson book, so I think I have the idea.

The Frog Scientist is nicely presented nonfiction, with beautiful photographs and clear explanations of the science involved. The Last Olympian is wildly popular fiction. If I were judging between The Frog Scientist and the first Percy Jackson book, The Lightning Thief, I would probably pick The Frog Scientist, though that might be because it’s fresh in my mind. The Frog Scientist is an outstanding example of what it’s trying to do — present information. The Lightning Thief, while very good, didn’t stand out in my mind among other fantasy fiction titles.

But who knows what Candace Fleming will pick? For my prediction, I’m going to say The Frog Scientist, swayed by the fact that Candace Fleming writes excellent nonfiction herself, and this is similar with excellent accompanying photographs and excellent details.

Match Four:
Lips Touch: Three Times, by Laini Taylor
vs.
The Lost Conspiracy, by Frances Hardinge
Judge: Helen Frost

I’ve read both of these two, and though both were good, I definitely liked Lips Touch much better, so I’m rooting for it in this round.

Match Five (Second Half of the Brackets):
Marcelo in the Real World, by Francisco X. Storck
vs.
Marching for Freedom, by Elizabeth Partridge
Judge: Gary Schmidt

It’s probably not fair for me to have an opinion on this one, since I haven’t read Marching for Freedom (though I did look through it), but I loved Marcelo too much to want any book to beat it — except for Fire in the very final round! And even then, I won’t feel too bad if it is Marcelo that beats Fire.

Have I mentioned that half the fun of the Battle of the Books is hearing what the judges have to say about the contenders? Gary Schmidt has written the wonderful Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and The Wednesday Wars, and I’m very interested in what he has to say about Marcelo in the Real World.

Match Six:
Peace, Locomotion, by Jacqueline Woodson
vs.
A Season of Gifts, by Richard Peck
Judge: Cynthia Kadohata

I haven’t read either of these books, though I have heard about them. I have read some other Jacqueline Woodson books and enjoyed them, so I’m going to go with a prediction of Peace, Locomotion, winning this round.

Match Seven:
The Storm in the Barn, by Matt Phelan
vs.
Sweethearts of Rhythm, by Marilyn Nelson
Judge: Anita Silvey

I’m afraid this is another case where I liked The Storm in the Barn too much to want a book I haven’t read to beat it. The Storm in the Barn presents history, but with a touch of fantasy and a lot of emotion — all in graphic novel format. No matter how good nonfiction Sweethearts of Rhythm may be, Storm in the Barn will be hard to beat.

Match Eight:
Tales from Outer Suburbia, by Shaun Tan
vs.
When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead
Judge: Julius Lester

This one’s a tough choice. I’ve read both books and thought both were outstanding. Both deserve to go to the final round, and both have a bit of the bizarre in the plot. In the end, though, I would have to pick When You Reach Me, because it did win my heart more than Tales from Outer Suburbia, which definitely won my mind.

The commentary from the judge on this match will be extremely interesting. I’ll go ahead and predict that Julius Lester will pick When You Reach Me, but I may not be as surprised as some if he picks Tales from Outer Suburbia instead.

So — there you have it! On March 15, the Battle of the Kids’ Books will begin. Now I’d like to hear from you. Which of these books is your favorite? (Hurry and vote for it in the Undead Poll before the 14th!)

Do you disagree with me on some of these match-ups? Have you read some of the books I haven’t read and have more insight? Have I slighted one of your favorites?

If you haven’t read any or many (like me last year), I can assure you you’ll add some books to your to-be-read list if you follow the battle.

Let me know what you think! And enjoy the arena seats!

Review of The Frog Scientist, by Pamela S. Turner

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Current Issues, Science, Starred Review, True Stories 1

The Frog Scientist

by Pamela S. Turner
Photographs by Andy Comins

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, Boston, 2009. 58 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a wonderful book that presents a real-life science experiment and a successful scientist to upper elementary through middle school kids. The stunning, colorful photographs, including many different species of frogs, all nicely labelled, would draw anyone into this book.

The book begins with Tyrone Hayes, the frog scientist, and a group of his graduate students, catching frogs from a pond in Wyoming. The pictures of this show a playful side of science!

As the book goes on, it explains in detail the scientific method and the specific experiment Tyrone is carrying out in order to see if the pesticide atrazine causes male frogs to produce eggs instead of sperm. Along the way, it tells about Tyrone and how he became a research scientist.

I love that Tyrone and his students come from many different ethnic backgrounds. It’s not commented on in the text, but you can see from the pictures that science is definitely not just for white males. I love that this is just assumed and not commented on. I love that kids from minority groups can see someone who looks like them successfully doing science.

But that’s by no means all there is to love about this book. As I said, the pictures will draw the reader in, and this is a nice accessible way to introduce the scientific method in an interesting, real-life experiment that could have repercussions regarding our own health.

The story is beautifully and clearly presented, and will give kids a good look at the job of a research scientist — one they might not have ever thought of before.

Buy from Amazon.com

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

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