Sonderbooks – Page 345 – Book Reviews by Sondra Eklund

Alvin Ho

Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things

by Lenore Look

pictures by LeUyen Pham

Schwartz & Wade Books, New York, 2008. 172 pages.

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things, reminded me of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, only for younger kids. It has similar cartoon drawings generously illustrating the story, and a similar attitude toward school.

Alvin Ho is starting the second grade. He does not like school. He says, “If there were no school, my troubles would blast away, just like that. I would dig holes all day. I would play catch with my gunggung. I would watch cooking shows. I would keep an eye on things. It would be fantastic!”

Alvin tells us that before he went to school, he was a superhero. “I was Firecracker Man! I ran around our house, full speed ahead, screaming at the top of my lungs while beating on a garbage can lid. I was as noisy as a firecracker on Chinese New Year! . . .

“But now I am Firecracker Man only on weekends and holidays. There is just no time for it.

“Being a superhero is hard work. You have to save the world. But going to school is even harder. You have to save yourself. Most days I can hardly even make it to the school bus. And when I arrive at school, I can’t think. I can’t read. I can’t smile. I can’t sing. I can’t scream.

“I can’t even talk.”

It turns out that Alvin has never said one word at school. He can talk anywhere else, even on the school bus. But at school, his voice simply doesn’t work.

Not talking at school makes it hard to make friends. It makes it hard to avoid annoying girls who want to be your desk buddy. It makes it hard to join in a game of Minutemen and Redcoats. It makes it hard to explain to a substitute teacher why you aren’t responding to her questions.

This book is a lot of fun, with a nice set of school-related scrapes, and Alvin learning to confront his fears.

I did think the chicken pox adventure, where the whole class gets chicken pox after paying to visit the first kid who caught it, was funny, but sadly out of date. My 14-year-old son was required to get a chicken pox vaccination before he went to school, and I think that’s pretty standard now. So today’s children, poor things, will never know the joys of two weeks off of school along with the fun of showing off ones spots.

There are some great quirky characters. Alvin’s Dad likes to use Shakespearean imprecations when he’s angry. The annoying girl Flea wears an eyepatch. Alvin’s sister loves to dig holes. And Alvin himself is a big collection of entertaining quirks.

Alvin Ho is longer than a beginning chapter book, but makes fun, non-threatening reading with lots of pictures for a kid ready to laugh at the trials and tribulations of facing scary things like school and bullies and girls.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/alvin_ho.html

Sep 22, 2008October 12, 2008

Review of The Host, by Stephenie Meyer

Fiction Review, Science Fiction, Starred Review 0

The Host

by Stephenie Meyer

Little, Brown, and Company, 2008. 619 pages.

Starred Review.

I thoroughly enjoyed The Host, liking it even better than Stephenie Meyer’s more famous Twilight series. This one was written for adults, so that may be some of why I liked it. But I also thought it was well-written. She didn’t have the whole traditional spectrum of vampire stories to contend with.

Of course, she did have the noble tradition of body-snatcher stories up against her! But I haven’t read or watched very many of those at all. Her description of what it would be like if mind-stealing aliens tried to take over earth seemed right. Of course! That is what would happen.

Wanderer is an alien who has lived on seven different planets. But when she is put into the body of a human on earth, it doesn’t go as smoothly as with any other host. The host begins by hiding things from Wanderer. Names of people she loves, and where they might be hiding. She doesn’t want Wanderer to tell a Seeker. However, this host, named Melanie, should not still be there at all.

Melanie’s voice gets stronger. Wanderer is ready to give up, to find a new host and let a Seeker be put into Melanie’s body. But somehow, she can’t bring herself to give up Jared and Jamie. Instead, she goes to find them.

Can Wanderer, nicknamed Wanda, keep from betraying the humans she now loves as much as Melanie does? Will those humans even give her a chance, since they think of her as the monstrous mind-thief alien who stole Melanie’s body?

I found myself believing that indeed humans would not just disappear if powerful aliens invaded our planet. Indeed, the aliens might find more than they bargained for.

The Host is a wonderful exploration of life and love and what it means to be human.

I knew the human exaggeration for sorrow — a broken heart. Melanie remembered speaking the phrase herself. But I’d always thought of it as hyperbole, a traditional description for something that had no real physiological link, like a green thumb. So I wasn’t expecting the pain in my chest. The nausea, yes, the swelling in my throat, yes, and, yes, the tears burning in my eyes. But what was the ripping sensation just under my rib cage? It made no logical sense.

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/host.html

Sep 21, 2008October 11, 2008

Review of Chalice, by Robin McKinley

Fantasy, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Chalice

by Robin McKinley

G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2008. 263 pages.

Starred Review.

http://www.robinmckinley.com/

www.penguin.com/youngreaders/

Chalice is a new Robin McKinley book in the tradition of Hero and the Crown and Beauty.

As always, Robin McKinley is a consummate world-weaver. The magic in the world of Chalice isn’t quite like any fantasy world I’ve read about before, but is presented smoothly and beautifully, through story rather than explanation. In this land, demesnes are held by a Circle, composed of the Master, the Chalice, the Grand Seneschal, and nine others.

Willowlands lost both Master and Chalice in one disaster, and Mirasol, chosen as the new Chalice is woefully ill-prepared, but perhaps more prepared than the new Master.

Their new Master was coming home: the Master thought lost or irrecoverable. The Master who, as younger brother of the previous Master, had been sent off to the priests of Fire, to get rid of him….

The priests of Fire said they would see what they could do, but they promised nothing. The younger brother of the old Master had just crossed into the third level, and by the third level Elemental priests can no longer live among ordinary humans.

But six weeks ago the Grand Seneschal had received another message from the priests of Fire: that the Master of Willowlands was coming home. It would not be an easy Mastership, and the priests were not sure it was even posible, but the Master himself felt the responsibility to his demesne, and he was determined to try.

Mirasol was a beekeeper long before she was Chalice. She holds her Chalice in honey, the first Chalice to do so, rather than the usual water or wine. Her bees become unusually responsive to her as she learns her role. She hears the earthlines and mends the rifts in the land of the demesne, trying to recover after seven years that the new Master’s older brother abused it.

Can Mirasol, inexperienced and unapprenticed, learn what she needs through books? Enough to help the land adjust to a Master who was so far along in the Fire Priesthood that he burns her hand when he brushes against it to take the Welcome Cup?

As in some of her other books, the main weakness is that the action is mostly internal. Several important incidents are told through flashbacks, losing some immediacy. Even as the action was reaching a climax, we read, Many years later her memory of the week before the faenorn was that — till the very last night — she had no sleep at all, except in those moments between blink and blink when you are so tired that you fall asleep standing up with your eyes open and wake again by finding yourself staring at the thing in your hands that you had been staring at just a moment ago. That sentence gives away that Mirasol will live through the events at the end of this week and makes the reader feel like she is looking back on the events, rather than currently experiencing them.

What’s more, like Aerin of The Hero and the Crown, like Jake of Dragonhaven, most of Mirasol’s work is done alone, and there are many things she must figure out on her own. So instead of scenes with dialogue, these moments end up being long passages telling about Mirasol’s thoughts or solitary actions.

Mind you, no one tells someone’s thoughts more lyrically than Robin McKinley! Chalice is truly a wonderful book that catches you up into another world. I would love for her to write a sequel. And I will never look at bees or honey quite the same way again.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/chalice.html

Sep 4, 2008October 13, 2008

Review of Timothy and the Strong Pajamas, by Viviane Schwarz

Contemporary, Picture Book Review 0

Timothy and the Strong Pajamas

A Superhero adventure by Viviane Schwarz

Arthur A. Levine Books (Scholastic), New York, 2007. 32 pages.

Starred Review.

This is the story of Timothy Smallbeast. He wasn’t big. And he wasn’t strong. (But he really, really wished he was.)

Oh, how I wish this book was around when my own son Timothy was the same size as Timothy Smallbeast!

Timothy tries to make himself strong, but to no avail — until his favorite pajamas fall apart, and his mother fixes them. She fixed them so well, they were now Super Strong Pajamas, with Patches of Power and Buttons of Braveness.

Fortunately, it’s the weekend, and Timothy is allowed to wear his pajamas all day, ready and equipped to come to the aid of all who need him.

When Timothy himself needs aid, there’s a wonderfully satisfying solution, springing from the seeds of the good deeds Timothy has sown.

This book is utterly delightful, and will definitely feature soon in a Storytime. I can’t wait to read it to a child. (It doesn’t count that I brought it home to make my own son Timothy read it. He’s fourteen, and did a fine job reading it aloud, but we need a small child around to fully appreciate it.)

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/timothy_and_the_strong_pajamas.html

Aug 27, 2008October 11, 2008

Review of Breaking Dawn, by Stephenie Meyer

Fantasy, Romance, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

Breaking Dawn

by Stephenie Meyer

Megan Tingley Books (Little, Brown), 2008. 756 pages.

Starred Review

I admit it: There is no need for a review of Breaking Dawn. You should NOT read it unless you have read the three books that come before it: Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse. Once you’ve read Twilight, you will know if you want to keep reading. If you do, then nothing I can say will stop you!

However, I can’t resist the opportunity to offer my opinion.

I liked Breaking Dawn. I loved the way she pulled off a happy ending, almost too happy, but still leaving me smiling.

Okay, she threw in a completely bizarre plot twist. But I did like the way so many vampires came together, and I like the way this time Bella provided an important contribution to the final conflict.

There were a couple of places where I laughed aloud. The first was her description of Edward’s eyes on his wedding day. It was even more over the top than a spoof I had read before the book came out: “His eyes were a buttery, burning gold.”

Come on, buttery?!!

When I read the resolution of the love triangle, though, I laughed so loudly, I woke up my son, who was asleep on the other bed in the hotel room. Still, it did resolve things….

I’d better not say any more!

These books may not be great literature, but they are absorbing reading, escapist romance, and a whole lot of fun.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/breaking_dawn.html

Aug 27, 2008October 12, 2008

Review of Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

Fantasy, Fiction Review, Starred Review 0

Stardust

by Neil Gaiman

Harper Perennial, New York, 2006. First published in 1999. 250 pages.

Starred review. (Stardusted review?)

My son was right. I should have read the book before I saw the movie.

The fact is, I loved the movie. One of my favorite movies ever. A delightful experience to watch.

Yes, the book is wonderful. A fairy tale story that’s truly diverting. But can it be? I liked the movie better.

Tristan Thorn grew up in the village of Wall, on the border of Faerie. There’s a story about his birth that some of the older folks in Wall know about.

Tristan is trying to win the heart of his true love, when they see a star fall over in Faerie. Tristan promises to get it for her, not realizing that in Faerie, stars are beautiful women, daughters of the Moon. When Tristan finds the Star, she’s not happy about Tristan dragging her off to show his girl.

Other, more sinister forces, are also after the Star, whose name is Yvaine. Tristan and Yvaine end up traveling a journey together with many perils.

I’m afraid I found the original story less satisfying than the story in the movie. For the movie, there was a big climactic scene with a big showdown with everyone who is after Yvaine, and Tristan must defeat them. In the book, they seem to escape from most perils by virtue of simple luck.

But the movie does show the same story — cleaned up a little. (The book is for adults, and contains a few “mature” details, which are cleaned up in the movie along with the more unified plot.) That story is truly delightful, in both its forms.

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/stardust.html

Aug 24, 2008October 12, 2008

Review of Staying Connected to Your Teenager, by Michael Riera

Nonfiction Review, Parenting, Relationships, Starred Review 0

Staying Connected to Your Teenager

How to Keep Them Talking to You and How to Hear What They’re Really Saying,

by Michael Riera, PhD

Starred review.

Perseus Publishing, 2003. 275 pages.

This book resonated with me. My sons are 20 years old and 14 years old, and this book gave me good tips for dealing with both of them. My older son just graduated from college, and my younger son is starting high school. They’re growing past disciplinarian concerns. Michael Riera puts into words what I really want in my relationship with my sons — connection.

His introduction says it well:

I respect teenagers a great deal, and I respect the parents of teenagers even more. Nothing in a parent’s life is more trying, confusing, and frustrating than raising a teenager. They are moody, self-centered, and full of mixed messages; at least that’s the way normal, healthy teenagers behave. That will not change. As the parent of a teenager, you know all too well that your job entails setting limits, having big talks, enforcing consequences, helping them to learn from their mistakes, and putting them on course for a happy and successful adulthood. Talk about an exhausting task.

What I find curious, however, is that hardly anyone ever mentions the importance of staying connected to our teenagers throughout their adolescence. Given the enormous To Do List from the previous paragraph, why isn’t anybody addressing practical ways of staying connected to our teenagers throughout this trying time? From a practical perspective, all the items on your To Do List are handled more efficiently, more effectively, and more pleasantly when you are connected to your teenager. For instance, research has shown that the emotional connection between adolescent girls and their parents (especially their mothers) significantly delays the onset of sexual activity. When you are connected, everything else comes more easily and naturally. And when they do misbehave — as they will — nothing worthwhile can happen until your connection is reestablished. The number one complaint of the parents of teenagers is a lack of communication with their teenagers, but even in the face of this, if you are paying attention, thinking creatively, and maintaining your curiosity, your connection will hold steadfast despite the lack of regular heart-to heart talks.

Beyond effectiveness, there is another reason to maintain your connection with your teenager: It’s fun. Teenagers, for better and worse, are some of the most creative and fun people on the planet, and when you stay connected you, too, enjoy these aspects of your teenager; and in doing so, you regularly replenish your parenting batteries. Besides, sharing humor itself promotes connection. Or, as the humorist Victor Borge once said, “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people”….

This book looks directly at the connection between parent and teenager, and aims to give you solid, practical advice, ensconced in psychological and developmental research, on how to understand and how to improve the quality of your relationship with your teenager.

Indeed, Michael Riera succeeds brilliantly at making this a practical, encouraging book. I was reading the chapter “Extend the Comfort Zone,” right when I was ready to take my son to get his driver’s license. It so happens that a teen learning to drive is a prime example of a teen expanding his comfort zone in order to learn new skills.

By the end of a story like this, parents have a much better sense of what a comfort zone is and how and why their teenagers would choose to expand it. It’s important that, as a parent, you are successful in supporting your teenager in expanding her comfort zone, because whenever you do so you deepen the connection you already have with her. If, however, you push too hard or are too cautious, you miss golden opportunities. Striking the right balance in this arena is an art form.

Reading Michael Riera’s advice was just in time to help turn the trip to the Department of Motor Vehicles into a positive experience between my son and me.

This book is positive and encouraging. It shows you how you can use your own common sense to help your teen learn to use his own common sense. I like the way Michael Riera encourages you to get your teens focusing on their own integrity. They know how they should act — if you tell them how they should act, they probably won’t want to do it, though.

I think I’m going to buy myself a copy of this book, so I can refer back to it often in the next several years. It is wise, encouraging, and practical. And it helps you see what you truly want your teen to grow into — a responsible adult with opinions of his own, who still loves and cares about you, and enjoys discussing those opinions with you.

Here are some excellent quotations from the book:

http://sonderbooks.com/sonderquotes/?s=Riera

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/staying_connected.html

Aug 22, 2008October 10, 2008

Review of The Cat in Numberland, by Ivar Ekeland

Children's Nonfiction Review, Mathematical 0

The Cat in Numberland

by Ivar Ekeland

illustrated by John O’Brien

Cricket Books, Chicago, 2006. 60 pages.

I love this book! It takes the concept of “countability” which I learned about in upper division math classes and graduate school, and makes those concepts accessible and understandable for elementary school children!

It starts with a hotel in Numberland, run by Mr. and Mrs. Hilbert. The Numbers all live in this hotel, the Hotel Infinity. Number One lives in Room 1. Number Two lives in Room 2, and so on. “For instance, Number One Million Two Hundred Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Six lives in Room 1,234,566.”

The numbers have certain games they like to play together, and there are certain quirks to the owners.

Some more fun begins when Zero comes to visit and wants to stay, but the hotel is full. How could they possibly fit him in?

They come up with an ingenious solution:

“Everyone moves up one room:

Number One moves to Room 2,

Number Two moves to Room 3,

Number One Million Two Hundred Thirty-Four Thousand Five Hundred Sixty-Six moves to Room 1,234,567, where he finds a bigger bed and is more comfortable.

Room 1 is now empty, and Zero moves in and goes to sleep.

All the other Numbers go back to sleep in their new rooms, and Mr. and Mrs. Hilbert go back to sleep in their old room.

Only the cat by the fireplace does not go back to sleep, because she is trying to figure it out.

The hotel was full, she thinks. There was one guest in each room. Now it is full again, and there is still one guest in each room, but there is one more guest in the hotel! Zero was outside. Now he has moved in, and yet nothing has changed! How is that possible?”

This is only the beginning of the perplexities facing the cat at this amazing hotel, based on the work of great mathematicians Georg Cantor and David Hilbert.

I find this book absolutely delightful! I wish it had been around when I was taking Real Analysis. Or, better yet, when my little boy was obsessed with infinity, and kept inventing “numbers” that were “bigger than infinity.” I think he would have enjoyed this story.

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/cat_in_numberland.html

Aug 16, 2008October 11, 2008

Review of Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer

Fantasy, Romance, Teen Fiction Review 0

Eclipse

by Stephenie Meyer

Megan Tingley Books (Little, Brown), 2007. 629 pages.

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/

http://www.lb-teens.com/

This was my favorite book of the Twilight quartet, which is phenomenally popular now with teenage girls. I read it at the same time as a co-worker, just in time to read the fourth book of the series, and we had a lot of fun discussing it.

If you haven’t read any books of the series, you definitely need to start with Twilight. Once you’ve read that one, you will know if you want to keep reading or not.

Yes, they are vampire novels. But these are not typical vampire books at all. These books are for lovers of romance who don’t mind a little over-the-top plot situations.

Edward is not the typical vampire, dark and evil. He and his “family” do not drink human blood, instead hunting large game animals. (Having read Barbara Kingsolver, I think that they would run out of wildlife on the top of the food chain in a very short time. But let’s not bring quibbles about reality into the story….) These vampires stay out of sunshine not because it would harm them but because they are too dazzlingly beautiful for sunlight. They are also super strong and super fast. With this group not drinking human blood, where’s the drawback?

Eclipse explores more of the backstory of the vampires. We learn more about their history and motivations. Bella and Edward actually share some thoughts instead of just restrained passion. We learn why Bella doesn’t want to be a teen bride and why Edward is reluctant to let Bella become a vampire.

They also explore more of Bella’s relationship with Jacob, her friend the werewolf. I like the way the way the werewolves and the vampires end up needing to work together.

Here’s another fast-moving plot with plenty of tension, romantic and otherwise. This story was more unified than the other books. Instead of a crisis tacked on at the end, this one has a unified theme. Some young vampires are terrorizing Seattle, and it appears that, as usual, Bella is in danger. The entire book builds up to dealing with that danger, in a satisfying way.

I still believe that a lot of the intense romance of these books is built into the restraint. Bella and Edward’s relationship is chaste, since to consummate it might kill her, but loaded with tension. I hope teen girls don’t read this and think there are boys out there who’d be able to sleep with them every night and have Edward’s self-control. But what a romantic dream — a strong, incredibly handsome, self-controlled, powerful protector whose love is for Bella alone. Throw in vampires and werewolves, and you’ve got a tremendous hit!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/eclipse.html

Aug 16, 2008October 11, 2008

Review of November Blues, by Sharon M. Draper

Contemporary, Teen Fiction Review 0

November Blues

by Sharon M. Draper

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, New York, 2007. 316 pages.

http://www.sharondraper.com/

Sharon Draper is the author of the amazing and moving book, Copper Sun, a story of escaping slavery.

November Blues begins as 16-year-old November Nelson discovers she is pregnant. She knows when the baby started, since it was the night before her boyfriend died.

In some ways, this seems like just another story of teen pregnancy. It’s good, and it’s absorbing — the writing pulled me in so that I checked it out rather than shelving it at the library, and then kept me reading until early morning — but in some places the dialog and situations felt stilted and stereotypical.

A teen pregnancy novel is a hard one to write. Because the situation itself involves thousands of teens, but a novel must focus on one particular teen. What happens to that one teen will feel symbolic of what happens to the other teens in that situation, and that’s a bigger burden than a young adult novel can necessarily carry.

Taken as a story, this is a fun high school tale, with some sobering things to think about. The no-good backstabbing popular girl gets her comeuppance, and November learns who her true friends are.

November has to choose between keeping her baby and giving the baby up to her dead boyfriend’s rich parents. I found myself wanting to shake them and say, “Isn’t there an alternative? Can’t you let November keep the baby, but provide her support and be a huge part of your grandchild’s life? Does it have to be all or nothing?” Again, this was one particular story, but the situation felt so prototypical, I found myself wanting the author to present all possibilities, more than I would have cared in a novel about, say, choosing between a career in art or science.

An enjoyable story about a typical teen in a difficult situation.

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