Meyer's Maria, Dancing (2006) was wonderful-- set in France in the late 1800;s with Dega painting a wretchedly poor ballerina with a drunken mother and a troubled older sister. Doesn't fit a curricular need, however, and will have to pass on buying.
Same with Bennett's AngelMonster(2006). The story of headstrong, young Mary Shelley is stranger than fiction- she buried four children before the age of 22 AND wrote Frankenstein at 20. The title refers to her idiot of a lover/husband, the poet Shelley. The 8th grade girls would love it, and it is delicately done, but I'm reluctant to buy it. Did read it all, however-- I love fictionalized biographies.
Kladstrup's The Book of Story Beginnings (2006) has an interesting premise-- a notebook that makes the stories one writes in it come to life-- but I found that I wasn't at all interested in the stories that the children wrote about, so when they started living them, the book looked VERY long at 360 pages, and I gave up.
Next on my agenda-- reading all of the Phyllis Reynolds Naylor Alice books in order. I'll spend most of the summer on Naylor and Joan Lowry Nixon, when not reading new things for purchase in the fall.
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