Review of What-the-dickens, by Gregory Maguire

Children's Fiction Review, Fantasy 0

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What-the-dickens

The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy

by Gregory Maguire

Candlewick Press, 2007.  295 pages.

Dinah and Zeke and Rebecca Ruth are stuck in a disaster.  They are home alone in the middle of a storm of epic proportions with only their cousin Gage, who’s barely an adult himself, to look after them.

Gage decides to tell them a story, to take their mind off their hopeless plight.  He tells them about a skibberee, more commonly called a Tooth Fairy.

What-the-dickens was in a fix himself, from the moment he was born, not in a colony like most skibbereen.  He didn’t even know that the first words he heard weren’t intended to be his name.

After several adventures and narrow escapes that he doesn’t realize are narrow escapes, What-the-dickens meets a tooth fairy on a job.  Her name is Pepper, and she’s having trouble getting her license to become an Agent of Change.  She brings What-the-dickens back to the colony, but he doesn’t fit in very well.

With the dire situation of Dinah and her brother and sister, this book is a bit dark.  But the intriguing story gives you the feeling of a light in a dark place.

Definitely not your run-of-the-mill fantasy tale.  Ideal for upper elementary school readers who want to try something different.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Fiction/what_the_dickens.html

Review of Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems

Animal Characters, Easy Readers, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

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Are You Ready to Play Outside?

An Elephant & Piggie Book

by Mo Willems

Hyperion Books for Children, 2008.  57 pages.

Starred Review.

Sonderbooks Standout 2009:  #5 Picture Books

Geisel Award Winner 2009

http://www.pigeonpresents.com/

http://www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com/

Mo Willems is a genius.  I am currently reading several books that tell me it is not my circumstances that determine my happiness, but the story I tell myself about those circumstances.  I have heard sermons about contentment.  I have lectured at length to my children that complaining will only make them unhappy.

None of those things was remotely as effective as this book.  Not as funny, either!

Now, I was set up to enjoy this book.  The day before I read it, I was doing a quick run to the grocery store.  We had expected an ice storm, but instead we got nasty, cold, heavy, near-freezing rain.

I do not like rain in the winter.  I tend to think how much I would prefer snow.  Rain in winter is almost as cold as snow, but not as pretty, and not as fun.  It soaks into your clothes much more quickly, and doesn’t brighten a dark day like snow does.

As I came out of the grocery store, the fleeting thought crossed my mind that it was a shame I had to make a grocery run today.  Loading groceries into the car in the pouring, cold rain is not a fun thing to do. 

No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than I looked up and saw a mother and son walking toward the store.  The mother had an umbrella, but the little boy, about three years old, wasn’t paying any attention to staying under it.  He was positively dancing with joy at being out in the rain.  His shiny yellow boots splashed the pavement with zest, and you could instantly see how excited he was about this wondrous chance to go shopping in the rain!

Kind of put things in perspective for me!

The next day, this book, Are You Ready to Play Outside? came to the library.

Piggie is so excited about playing outside with Gerald!  They will run!  They will skip!  They will jump!  NOTHING will stop them!

Then it begins to rain.

It pours.  Piggie is NOT a happy pig.

Gerald, an elephant, first tries shielding Piggie with his ear, but it is still raining.  Piggie doesn’t see how anyone could possibly play outside with all this rain.

Then they see two worms come out, exuberantly happy, splishing and splashing in the rain.

They decide to try it.  They run!  They skip!  They jump! 

Piggie decides he loves rain!  He hopes it rains all day!

Then it stops. 

Piggie is not a happy pig.

Fortunately, Piggie has an elephant for a friend, who has a solution.

Of course, once again, what makes this book a masterpiece is Mo Willems’ amazing ability to convey emotion with his simple cartoon drawings.  For example, Piggie’s frustration over the rain is palpable.  And I never imagined that worms could look so joyful!  Elephant and Piggie turning somersaults and kicking up their heels in the rain proclaim complete exuberance.  Add to that the suspense of the early-reader language and timing, with each expression and emotion getting full page treatment, and you have an utterly magnificent book.

It’s funny.  It’s emotional.  And it conveys a life-changing lesson in a way that sticks.

What more could you ask for in an easy reader?

Buy from Amazon.com

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

Review of The Scrambled States of America Talent Show, by Laurie Keller

Delightfully Silly, Picture Book Review 0

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The Scrambled States of America Talent Show

by Laurie Keller

Henry Holt, 2008.  36 pages.

http://www.lauriekeller.com/

http://www.henryholtkids.com/

A picture book about the States performing in a talent show?  In her earlier book, Laurie Keller showed what happened when the States got mixed up and tried to find their places again.  The States had so much fun interacting, they decide to hold a talent show.

The result is simply silly, and I can’t resist laughing over it.  Along the way, all kinds of facts about the states are presented, along with lots of inside jokes.

The acts are many and varied.  Delaware names all fifty states in order of statehood while jumping on a pogo stick.  Michigan does a ventriloquist act.  Minnesota saws South Dakota in half (though alert readers will detect that the left half is the color of North Dakota), and Mississippi and Nevada dance the tango.  I especially enjoyed the State Impersonators.  Wyoming and Tennessee impersonated Oklahoma, and Colorado and Florida did a great Idaho impression.

Extra fun was found on the end panels, where Vermont goes around asking states their abbreviations, for example:

“Hi, Hawaii.  What’s your abbreviation?”

“HI.”

“Yeah, hello.  What’s your abbreviation?”

“HI.”

What can I say?  This book struck me funny.  A nice silly approach to learning facts about the states.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/scrambled_states_talent_show.html

Review of Audiobook Right Ho, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse

Audiobooks, Fiction Review, Humorous 0

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Right Ho, Jeeves

by P. G. Wodehouse

performed by Alexander Spencer

Recorded Books, 1997.  Originally written in 1935.  7 compact discs.  7.5 hours.

I still believe that the very best books for a tremendously long drive are the Jeeves and Wooster books by P. G. Wodehouse.  They are always tremendously funny and tell about how the young gentleman Bertie Wooster gets himself and his friends into trouble by trying to help out.  Then his gentleman’s personal gentleman, Jeeves, puts his brilliant brain to the task, and all is resolved.

I love reading the books, but it’s even more fun to hear them read in a proper British voice.  And what could be better for keeping you awake on a long drive than laughing?

Buy from Amazon.com

Review of Miss Alcott’s E-mail, by Kit Bakke

Biography, History, Musings, Nonfiction Review, True Stories 0

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Miss Alcott’s E-mail

Yours for Reforms of All Kinds

by Kit Bakke

David R. Godine, 2006.  255 pages.

http://www.godine.com/

Kit Bakke begins, “I was home alone, that rare treat for the working mother, when it occurred to me to write to her.  To Louisa May Alcott.  Why not?” 

She goes on to explain why writing to Louisa resonated with her life.  And apparently she pulled it off!

“I wish I could explain more about the mechanics of our correspondence, but I can’t, because, other than frying six surge protectors, I don’t know how it worked.  I sent my letters and chapter drafts to Louisa by e-mail from my Seattle living room, and she received them as handwritten ink on paper in her roms in Dr. Lawrence’s house in Roxbury, Massachusetts.  She once told me my handwriting was neat and extremely legible, so there was definitely something odd going on.  She wrote to me, using well-worn ink pens and paper, and they showed up in Times New Roman in my Outlook inbox.  I was grateful for the technology transfer, as her own handwriting was also less than copperplate.

“It’s one of those Internet Effects, I guess.  Or a Heisenberg thing, or Brownian motion gone amok.  I didn’t want to inquire too closely for fear the magic might vanish.”

What follows is a series of essays about Louisa May Alcott’s life and the parallels with Kit Bakke’s life in modern America, framed by letters (no, e-mails) purporting to be from Louisa herself.

I loved the idea of this book, because when I was a girl in 6th or 7th grade, I actually spent quite a bit of time daydreaming about bringing Louisa May Alcott into the present to show her all the advances women have made.  I don’t think any other author ever prompted such a reaction, but I distinctly remember thinking out what I would say to Louisa May Alcott if I could pull this off and meet her.  So imagine my delight, more than thirty years later, to learn that Kit Bakke in some sense managed to do what I daydreamed about as a child.

I think it was Louisa’s zeal for “reforms of all kinds” that prompts this sort of reaction from her readers.  We want her to know about the progress that was made, and about the good that came from her own efforts.  Kit Bakke did some work at reforms of her own in the sixties, so she tied those stories in with her thoughts about Louisa’s life.

This book is a fascinating blend of musings on life in modern America combined with historical information about Louisa May Alcott and her times, as well as the personal touch from imagining Louisa’s reactions.

This book will be most enjoyed by people who have read and loved Louisa May Alcott’s books, but there are millions such people out there.  For myself, I want to find a copy of some of her less-known books for adults mentioned, such as Work.  I will be able to read it with new appreciation into the background and what it meant in Louisa’s life and times.  Reading Miss Alcott’s E-mail reminded me of an author I loved in my childhood, and told me more about her work for adults, which I have yet to discover.

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Find this review on the main site at: www.sonderbooks.com/Nonfiction/miss_alcotts_email.html

Review of Christmas Letters, by Debbie Macomber

Christmas, Fiction Review, Romance 0

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Christmas Letters

by Debbie Macomber

Mira, 2006.  269 pages.

I read one last Christmas book to finish up the season.  I actually read most of this book waiting at the dentist office, which was a very good time to have something to laugh about!  Christmas Letters is a true romantic comedy.

The book opens with a Christmas Letter from Zelda O’Connor Davidson.  She says, “Let me warn you — this Christmas letter won’t be as clever as last year’s.  My sister, Katherine (whom you may know better as K.O.), wrote that one for me but, ironically, she hasn’t got time to do this year’s.  Ironic because it’s due to the popularity of that particular letter that she’s managed to start a little business on the side — writing Christmas letters for other people!…

“This year’s big news, which I want to share with all of you, has to do with a wonderful book I read.  It changed my life.  It’s called The Free Child and it’s by Dr. Wynn Jeffries.  My sister scoffs at this, but Dr. Jeffries believes that children can be trusted to set their own boundaries.  He also believes that, as parents, we shouldn’t impose fantasies on them — fantasies like Santa Claus.  Kids are capable of accepting reality, he says, and I agree!  (See page 146 of The Free Child.)

“So, this Christmas will be a different kind of experience for us, one that focuses on family, not fantasy.

“Zach and the girls join me in wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas.  And remember, a free child is a happy child (see page 16).”

After reading this letter, when we meet K.O., we easily understand her aversion to Dr. Wynn Jeffries and his philosophies, which she feels have turned her twin nieces into holy terrors.  Maybe she’s a little over the top in her reaction.  Perhaps she shouldn’t have ranted at a customer buying Dr. Jeffries bestseller and gotten herself banned from a local bookstore.  But we do understand her hesitation when she learns Dr. Jeffries lives in her building, and her sister wants her to get his autograph.  She decides to do it, but then give him a piece of her mind.

Then her best friend, who has been taking a class to develop her psychic powers, sees Katherine’s future in the kitty litter.  LaVonne believes that K.O. and Wynn Jeffries are made for each other.  She finds a way to set them up that they can’t refuse.

It all adds up to silly, heartwarming fun.  Perfect for holiday or after-the-holiday being cheered up at the dentist’s, for example.

This book is set on Blossom Street in Seattle, but we only see in passing the characters from Debbie Macomber’s other Blossom Street books (at least the ones I’ve read).  Still, it’s fun to be in the same setting, feeling like you’re among friends.  A cozy, feel-good, lighthearted Christmas romance.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/christmas_letters.html

Review of Silver Bells, by Luanne Rice

Christmas, Fiction Review, Romance 0

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Silver Bells

A Holiday Tale

by Luanne Rice

Bantam Books, 2005.  274 pages.

http://www.luannerice.com/

http://www.bantamdell.com/

Here’s another Christmas story.  Oddly enough, I tried to read this book last year, and simply couldn’t get interested.  It felt predictable and sentimental.  This year, I picked it up, read past the beginning, and found it sweet, poignant and even unexpected.

Christopher Byrne is a Christmas tree farmer from Nova Scotia.  Every year, he sells his stock, commanding high prices, in New York City.  Last year, however, his 16-year-old son, Danny, decided to stay in New York City instead of coming back home.  This year, Christy and his young daughter Bridget want nothing more than to find Danny.

Meanwhile, librarian Catherine Tierney lives near the Christmas tree lot, but has a hard time with Christmas.  Three years ago, she lost her beloved husband to melanoma right at Christmastime.  However, Catherine tries to help people in memory of Brian, and all year a certain homeless boy has been wanting access to the private library she tends.

Yes, Christy and Catherine’s lives intertwine.  Yes, this story is about waking up to romance and about Christmas miracles.  The story is very nicely done.  I found that once I was in the right mood for it, I was treated to a heartwarming holiday tale.

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/silver_bells.html

Review of Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, by Mem Fox

Contemporary, Picture Book Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

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Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes

by Mem Fox

illustrated by Helen Oxenbury

Harcourt, 2008.  40 pages.

Starred review.

Sonderbooks Stand-out 2009: #4 Picture Books

http://www.memfox.net/

http://www.harcourtbooks.com/

I saw this book listed on more than one end-of-the-year Best of 2008 list.  I’ve loved Helen Oxenbury ever since my 20-year-old son was a toddler who memorized the text in her Tom and Pippo books and “read” the books along with me.  Mem Fox I discovered later, but have an extra-special fondness for her books, particularly Harriet, You’ll Drive Me Wild!  http://www.sonderbooks.com/PictureBooks/harriet.html

So I simply had to check this book out.  I was completely enchanted.  I will definitely be using this book at my very next Mother Goose Time for babies and parents.  The book is only a few months old, and already I find myself thinking of it as a classic no parent of a baby should be without.

There was one little baby who was born far away

And another who was born on the very next day.

And both of these babies, as everyone knows,

had ten little fingers

and ten little toes.

Mind you, the picture on the page with “had ten little fingers and ten little toes” shows baby hands and feet so precious you just want to eat them up!  (No one draws babies so utterly adorably yet lifelike as Helen Oxenbury.)

The book goes on, in the sweet rhyming cadence, to tell of babies from all over the world.

As each set of two new babies is introduced, the earlier babies look on as a kind of adorable chorus.

The final stanza is what clinches this book as such a delightful exploration between parent and baby:

But the next baby born was truly divine,

a sweet little child who was mine, all mine.

And this little baby, as everyone knows,

has ten little fingers,

ten little toes,

and three little kisses   [Here are the earlier babies are laughing in anticipation!]

on the tip of its nose.

What can I say?  I think this is going to get tucked in with the next baby shower gift I give.  Absolutely delightful!  Go to your library and look at the illustrations, if you don’t believe me!

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Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Picture_Books/ten_little_fingers.html

Review of Paper Towns, by John Green

Contemporary, Starred Review, Teen Fiction Review 0

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Paper Towns

by John Green

Dutton Books, 2008.  305 pages.

Starred review.

http://www.sparksflyup.com/

http://www.nerdfighters.com/

www.penguin.com/youngreaders

Wow.  Paper Towns isn’t quite like any other teen novel I’ve read.  At first glance, it’s a typical teen novel about parties and girlfriends and pranks and prom and graduation.  But it goes so much deeper, dealing with profound questions like whether we can ever truly know another person.

The opening of the book is awesome:

The way I figure it, everyone gets a miracle.  Like, I will probably never be struck by lightning, or win a Nobel Prize, or become the dictator of a small nation in the Pacific Islands, or contract terminal ear cancer, or spontaneously combust.  But if you consider all the unlikely things together, at least one of them will probably happen to each of us.  I could have seen it rain frogs.  I could have stepped foot on Mars.  I could have been eaten by a whale.  I could have married the queen of England or survived months at sea.  But my miracle was different.  My miracle was this:  out of all the houses in all the subdivisions in all of Florida, I ended up living next door to Margo Roth Spiegelman.

Quentin and Margo were friends as kids, but he hasn’t seen much of her since they started high school.  She moves in a much more brilliant circle.  Then, one night late in their senior year, Margo knocked again on Q’s window.  She convinced him to drive her on a wild night of sweet revenge.  The next day, she disappears.

Paper Towns deals with Quentin’s quest to find Margo.  As he looks for clues, he comes to terms with the fact that no one knew the real Margo.  Each of her friends saw her as someone slightly different.  Can we ever truly know another person?

Quentin must also face some of his own fears and figure out who he is himself.  Why did Margo choose him on her night of revenge, and why did she leave clues for him to find?  Did she expect him to find her?

I admit that, as a fan of John and Hank Green’s Brotherhood 2.0 video blog (see http://www.nerdfighters.com/ ), I had a tendency to “hear” Quentin’s voice as John Green talking.  However, that worked fine and made the character that much more believable and likeable.  It’s refreshing to read a teen novel from a guy’s perspective.

The author pulls off all this profundity with a light touch.  Quentin has friends who are nerdy and quirky, and he doesn’t go on his quest alone.  Some of the teen antics will make parents cringe, but other than that it makes for fun, light-hearted reading.

I read the latest posts on John Green’s blog at http://www.sparksflyup.com/, where he talks about some of the amazingly profound questions teens have asked him.  I think that’s his secret — He has nothing but respect for the thinking of teens.  He doesn’t water down the philosophical questions behind the story here.  So although it is indeed a teen novel, the issues raised are issues about being human, and will give people of all ages something to ponder.

I did enjoy An Abundance of Katherines, but I do think that John Green has grown as an author and I find Paper Towns an outstandingly well-crafted novel.  (What I’m trying to say is that I liked this new one even better!)

As a librarian, it will be interesting to see who I can get to read this book.  (I’ve already talked my teenage son into reading it, but he is already a fan of http://www.nerdfighters.com/, so he didn’t take any convincing.)  I find myself wishing it didn’t have a picture of Margo on the cover, since I think there are many teenage boys who would thoroughly enjoy this book, and I will have to talk them into trying a book with a picture of a girl on the cover.  (There are two covers for this book, one with a bright, happy Margo, and one more dingy, sad and dark.)  At any rate, for now the book is on hold, so it’s getting some buzz, and I will not have copies on the shelf to recommend to anyone. 

Definitely worth reading, for readers of any age who are willing to have some fun and explore questions about how they see the world.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at:

www.sonderbooks.com/Teens/paper_towns.html

Review of The Handmaid and the Carpenter, by Elizabeth Berg

Christian, Christmas, Fiction Review, Historical 0

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The Handmaid and the Carpenter

by Elizabeth Berg

Random House, New York, 2006.  153 pages.

I’ve been reading Christmas novels, so here’s a novel about the original Christmas.

There was a time when I couldn’t really enjoy novelizations of Bible stories — I would get upset over quibbles where they didn’t quite line it up with the Bible text, or the characters would not act as I had imagined them to act.  But perhaps I’ve outgrown that.  I’m quite sure this is not how I would imagine Mary and Joseph, but I did enjoy these characters.

What would it have been like to give birth to the Son of God?  And how would your betrothed react?  Elizabeth Berg does pull us into the story, in all its wonder, yet with a nod to the reality of dirty straw and a long journey and a village reacting to the story of an angel announcement.

This isn’t a dramatically in-depth novelization, but it gives you a taste of what that first Christmas might have been like.  Definitely good holiday reading.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on the main site at: www.sonderbooks.com/Fiction/handmaid_and_the_carpenter.html