#WeNeedDiverseBooks--Hunt for the Bamboo Rat

Salisbury, Graham. Hunt for the Bamboo Rat.
September 9th 2014 by Wendy Lamb Books

Kenji is supporting his widowed mother and siblings by working in a warehouse in Hawaii, but when Japan starts to assert power before WWII, Kenji is approached by the US Army to serve as an interpreter, since he is perfectly fluent in both Japanese and English. He is sent to the Philippines to live in a hotel frequented by Japanese nationals, and spies under the code name "Bamboo Rat" and tries to get information. When Japan invades the Philippines, Kenji is evacuated to Corregidor with others, and when the Japanese demand surrender or they will bomb the tunnels where people are holed up, Kenji goes with the commander to translate. He is later imprisoned and used as a servant and translator for a Japanese commander. He is brutally tortured but holds fast to his "civilian" status, manages to keep spying, and is eventually released and finds his way to the US armed forces-- where is is suspected of being Japanese and receives more abuse!

A perfect nonfiction title to go with this is Marie Cronk Farrell's Pure Grit:How WWII Nurses in the Pacific Survived Combat and Prison Camp.

Strengths: Salisbury does the very best novels about the Japanese experience during WWII. Under the Blood-Red Sun and Eyes of the Emperor are two favorites at my school. This book was full of excellent details about the war experience in the Philippines (a little covered topic), but also had suspense, intrigue, and enough fighting to keep war mongering boys interested. I thought that Kenji's fight for his own identity as a Japanese AMERICAN was very interesting, and the way that he was able to understand both the Japanese and American views of honor and duty was fascinating.
Weaknesses: On the gruesome side, certainly, with Kenji being hit in the face, burned with cigarettes, etc. The Japanese certainly don't come off very well in this book, but certainly were the perpetrators of lots of violence during this time period. 

The Stormglass Protocol

Pratt, Tim and Deemer, Andy. The Stormglass Protocol
September 4th 2013 by Stormglass Ventures LLC
Nominated for the Cybils by Publisher/Author; copy received from publisher

Jake is quite happy with his parents when Filby and Lizzie break into his house and tell him that he is the newest recruit for Stormglass. Before he can even be properly trained, he is supplied with spy gadgets and whisked off to England to find out where killer bees are originating. The group meets with The Beekeeper about genetically engineered bees that have been found with the Vindiqo logo. Since bees are increasingly endangered, these new ones seem to be put in place to help resurrect colonies, but they are not quite right; their venom sacks are too large and are made to hold too strong a poison. Sure enough, there is evil lurking in the form of The Doctor, who is trying to sell the bees and create global chaos. Jake, Filby and Lizzie gets caught up in trying to figure out what is going on, but there is a traitor in the organization that is putting them in peril.
Strengths: I appreciated that the problem of bee populations was put to good use in this. There are lots of gadgets (a Stormpad!), plenty of action, and a decent group dynamic. While I saw the twist coming at the end, I'm not sure students would. There is a lot of online supporting material for the book at Stormglass.com.
Weaknesses: This strained my credulity somewhat. Jake has no real reason to run off and be a spy, he doesn't get properly trained, and Filby and Lizzie didn't strike me as being too knowledgeable. Jake is specifically warned against adult help. Perhaps the title made me compare this with Stormbreaker, which had a more believable premise.

Secrets

 MacDonald, Maryann. Odette's Secrets.
26 February 2013, Bloomsbury USA
Copy provided by Raab Associates

Odette and her parents live in Paris, and don't really think much about their Polish/Jewish heritage until Paris is invaded. Odette's father goes off to fight in the war but is soon captured, and the kindly land lady, Madame Marie, and her husband, Henri, make sure that Odette and her mother have enough food. The mother works for the Resistance for a while, and sends Odette to the country to live with the Raffins for a while. Odette enjoys the country, and doesn't mind learning to be "Christian". Eventually, her mother joins her, and the two wait out the war in a small village. Going back to Paris after the war is difficult, but Madame Marie has kept their apartment for them, and they are slowly able to rebuild their lives. Based on the true story of Odette Meyers.
Strengths: This is a gentler Holocaust book for more sensitive students-- there are some scary moments, but not as much of the sheer brutality found in other books. If you have entire classes who are assigned to read books set during this period, this is an excellent choice to have on hand for students who do not want to read more harrowing tales set in concentration camps. I love the cover. The concerns of a child in this situation are realistically portrayed, and the book is well researched.
Weaknesses: I started reading this in E ARC format, and didn't realize until I got the actual book that it was in verse. Students won't mind, because it makes the book shorter, but the format did not add anything to the narrative.

Benway, Robin. Also Known As.
13 February 2013, Bloomsbury

Maggie has traveled the globe with her parents, spies who work for the Collective, an shadowy organization that works hard at making sure that things... go right. Not much more is said. Maggie is a fantastic safe cracker, so has helped out wherever they are, most recently Iceland, but the family gets a new assignment which involves Maggie in a much bigger role than safe cracking. The family moves to Manhattan, and Maggie is enrolled in high school for the first time. Her job? To get to know Jesse Oliver, the son of publishers Armand Oliver, who may be working on an article that will blow the lid off the collective... and also Maggie's life. High school is harder than safe cracking, but with the help of her new friend, Roux, as well as long time family friend and forger Angelo, Maggie manages to survive high school, get Jesse interested in her, and keep her family's cover from being completely blown.

Strengths: Just the thing for readers who are anxiously awaiting the next Gallagher Girls book. Like Annabel Monaghan's A Girl Named Digit, there's a great mix of New York City setting, romance, and spy action and adventure. Such, such fun! Glad to see there will be a sequel to this one, as well as a sequel to Monaghan's book, Double Digit, in the fall of 2013. Spies!!!
Weaknesses: I was a little disappointed in her spying abilities, but I guess she is just a teenager. Of course, the fact that she is a teenager is the real weakness-- I want a book from her mother's perspective. I could be a spy. No one would suspect me!

Guy Friday-- Blood Sun

Gilman, David. Blood Sun.
27 December 2011
When Max finds out that Danny Maguire from his school is found run dead in an underground station, and two "secret service" men show up at his school, he knows that something is wrong. With the help of his friend Sayid, he steals a passport, makes appointments with scholars of Mayan civilization to uncover the mystery of an artifact that Danny mailed to him, and makes his way to Central America. The British secret service is trying to find him, but so is the trained assassin Riga, who is working for Cazamind, who has a secret in the rain forest he doesn't want Max to uncover. Max manages to pick up a friend, Xavier, in a drug deal gone bad, and the two go from Miami to the rain forest to try to find out what happened to Max's mum, an environmental activist (his father is in a care facility, recuperating from his last adventure). While there, he encounters all sorts of danger, from poisonous plants to voracious crocodiles to people who want him dead. With the help of Flint, a "plant thief" whose business was ruined by Max's mother, he is able to find out what did happen to his mother and bring this series to a close.
Strengths: Wow. Don't think I want to go camping with Mr. Gilman! Every page is a breathless adventure where death is seconds away... but Max manages to avoid it. Max is a great loyal character with a very strong sense of what is right. The adventure and action in this series cannot be beat, and the sense of place in every scene is fabulous. I want to go back to the British Museum right now. And maybe have lunch with Mr. Gilman, far away from poison frogs! Don't tell Anthony Horowitz, but this may be stronger than Alex Rider. VERY curious to see what is next from this author.
Weaknesses: Had a hard time figuring out what Riga was doing, and the ending was a bit anticlimactic.

Conspiracy EVERYWHERE!

Carter, Ally. Out of Sight, Out of Time.

When a bruised and underweight Cammie wakes up in a convent in the Alps, she has not idea how she got there, but quickly finds out that her entire summer is gone-- and she can't remember it. She knows she ran away after Joe Solomon almost died, but doesn't know where she went or what she did. This is a problem, since the Circle of Cavan may or may not have taken her at some point and extracted information from her. Her mother and friends are glad to have her back, and Zach is now living at Gallagher Academy to keep him safe from his evil mother, but Cammie is having a hard time readjusting. She frequently blacks out due to her multiple head injuries, and occasionally shows some mad assassin skills that she didn't have previously! She and her friends try to figure out what happened, and whether or not the circle is still trying to kill her. Their research takes them to Italy, where it turns out Cammie made some startling discoveries. Can she follow all of the threads and get the answers that she needs... and still stay alive?

Strengths: Hard to write a review of this AWESOME book without giving too much away, but it was even better than the first four! The details of spying make me think that either the author is really good at research or has a background that she isn't telling us about. I love how supportive her friends are, how her mother and aunt are worried but not overly in her face, and how Zach doesn't doubt Cammie's abilities but checks up on her none the less. Also, the girl on the cover is not a stick. Hooray.

Weaknesses: Ms. Carter needs to take a tiny break from writing teen books and write one about a middle aged ,um, LIBRARIAN spy!

Gibbs, Stuart. Spy School.

Ben is surprised when he is recruited by the CIA to go to their Academy of Espionage, which is cleverly disguised as a geeky science academy because aside from some cryptography skills, he's not that smart. Turns out that he has been brought in as bait-- the word is put out that he invented a special code, and people start coming after him. The daughter of the man who recruited him, Erica, tells him that all is not as it seems at the school, and there is a mole that must be found. Of course, if Ben can find the mole, he might be able to stay in the school. There is a lot of personal peril-- bombs under the building, people kidnapping and drugging him... but Erica is always saving him. Is the mole a fellow student who just appears to be stupid? Is the principal as stupid as he looks? And what's up with Erica's father? Once Erica tries her own plan to flush out the mole (emailing from the principal's account that Ben has developed Jackhammer, a super code hacker program), will everything work out?

Strengths: Great cover, fun twist on standard spy stories, LOTS of action and adventure with bonus romance. Definitely will buy a copy of this.

Weaknesses: This is not quite as believable as Alex Rider or the Gallagher Girl books, since it walked right along the edge of Goofy. This will make it more popular with the under twelve crowd; I don't think it would do well in high school, whereas the other aforementioned works would.

Austin, Sean. Echo's Revenge.

Publication May 2012. ARC received from publisher.

Brothers Reggie and Jeremy escape from absent mother and her abusive boyfriend by playing online games, and Reggie is so good at "Echo's Revenge" that he gets a letter from the game maker inviting him to a focus group. He runs off, knowing the boyfriend doesn't want him to go, and meets a lot of the people he knows from the game. After the meeting, the company contact, Luca, gives Reggie a secret passwords and tells Reggie to contact him if he needs anything. Sure enough, when he gets home, Reggie is in trouble. He and Jeremy take off and try to head to their long-absent father's house. Not only are they picked up quickly for rides, but when they stop at convenience stores for food, they find that all of the gamers they know are on milk cartons as being missing kids! Something sinister is occurring, and sure enough, just as they reach their father's house, they are drugged, kidnapped, and taken to a secret mine where they end up working for Echo. How will they escape? What evil purpose does AAA Reality Games have? And will anyone ever believe their story?

Strengths: A lot of my students are interested in video games, and very few books include them. This not only has descriptions of the games (which must be interesting to someone, but I don't get it at all!), but the boys get trapped in a situation that is essentially one big video game. Good action and adventure; STB read this one very quickly.

Weaknesses: A bit confusing for me, since I don't understand video games. Also, have a sneaking suspicion that this is self published; the publisher is supposedly AAA Reality Games, but going to that web site causes one to be redirected to echohunt.com. Not a bad book, but might be hard to find in a library copy.

Guy Friday- Spy Guys

Cooper, Mark A. Jason Steed: Revenge

ARC provided by Sourcebooks.

Eleven-year-old Jason Steed inflitrates a young offenders' facility in order to befriend Andrew Cho, son of the Triad gang leader. At first he is harassed, but the he beats up the evil Watson and earns Cho's respect. When Andrew is released, Jason is sent into foster care near his house, and the two hang out. Jason starts to realize that the cereal being produced by Boudica, one of the Triad members, is highly addictive. Triad eventually finds out that Jason is a spy and blows up his foster home, killing everyone. Jason is sent to Spain with agent George Young's family and the daughter of a comissioner sympathetic to Chairman Mao, Joanna. The Triad is thorough and deadly, and attack the villa. Jason and Joanna manage to escape into the country, leaving such a path of devastation that the Spanish police accuse them of being mass murderers. They escape again, and Jason flies a plane to France, where they are picked up by MI6 agents-- who intend to kill them to end the wrath of Boudica and the Triad. Again, after a violent encounter, they escape, and go looking for Boudica to stop her. When will the madness end? Will Jason and Joanna ever return to their families? I expect there to be a sequel. The first book in this series is Jason Steed: Fledgling.

Strengths: Mr. Cooper has certainly listened to actual boys-- they are constantly asking for books with shooting and killing people. I actually had a boy search for the key word "violence" in the library catalog. The nonstop action and constant intrique and gore will make this popular.

Weaknesses: I was never able to locate a copy of the first book in this series, and they don't seem to be available in hardcover or even prebind, which makes them less than attractive for a school library. I found the fact that Jason was so young rather disturbing given the level of violence involved. Violent fifteen year olds seem more believable, especially when you add in the element of romance.

Happy Read Across America Day! I didn't make many plans, but next week I'll be reading aloud to the SSR classes.

Middle Grade Monday-- The Traitor and the Tunnel

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday was started and is hosted by the (now wildly famous!) Shannon Whitney Messnger at her blog. Hop over there THIS WEEK to see a list of links to other bloggers posting on middle grade books.

Lee, Y.S. The Agency: The Traitor and the Tunnel
Publication date: 28 February 2012
Mary Quinn is still working with the Agency, and her newest assignment is to work as a parlor maid in Buckingham Palace, where Queen Victoria has been plagued with petty thefts of expensive ornaments. There are bigger problems, though-- Price Bertie and a friend are attacked in an opium den and the friend is killed. The opium fiend responsible for the death is a Lascar named Lang, whom Mary determines is her long lost father. Also in the works are sewage changes to the palace, and who is working on those but James Easton! Also around is reporter Octavius Jones, who is wooing one of Mary's coworkers to get information. Mary suspects the queen's lady in waiting of either the thievery or a bigger plot, but is caught up in trying to save her father. She is also a bit overwhelmed by the confidence of Bertie and the attentions of James. When all of the problems swirling around her finally make sense and come to a head, she is able to avert a national disaster with the help of James and a spunky Queen Victoria. What will the future hold for Mary? Maybe this series will go beyond the trilogy, or Ms. Lee will write some other appealing books!
Strengths: ***SWOON*** The more of these books I read, the more I lurve them! I'm becoming more fond of Victorian England, and like A Spy in the House and The Body in the Tower these are very well researched. The spying believable, the back stairs scenes illuminating to middle grade readers, and the romance brilliant.
Weaknesses: The sexual content of this one is approaching borderline-- Mary is attacked and her skirts fumbled with, Octavius Jones "beds" the maids, and the kisses between Mary and James are hot and heavy. While younger readers might not quite get what is going on, this one makes me a tiny bit nervous.

Scattergood, Augusta. Glory Be.

Glory is looking forward to enjoying the hot Mississippi summer at the pool and is not happy when the pool is closed down for "repairs", especially since the pool seems to be in good shape. When she meets Laura at the public library, Glory finds out that the pool is closed because civil rights workers from the north are trying to get the town to integrate the pool. Laura's mother is working in a clinic for black citizens who don't have better access to health care. Glory's father is a prominent minister in town, her sister Jessalyn is sympathetic to the civil rights workers, and the family's black cook, Emma, is trying not to comment too much on what is going on. While a good deal of the town is against integration, there are also a lot of citizens who are trying to do things like insure equal access to the library for everyone. Glory is caught in the middle and trying to do what she thinks is right.
Strengths: This short novel drew me in right away with Glory's concerns about her OWN summer. Once she figured out what was impacting her, she tried to make a larger change to society. This is how the middle grade mind often works, so I found this to be a more engaging book than I thought it would be.
Weaknesses: Again, the civil rights story is told from the point of view of a middle class, white girl. While engaging, this had even fewer characters of color than many such stories.


And remember, this voting is not really for any sort of prestigious award, it's just directing traffic to this web site so they can get more hits and do better on search engines. Still, the prize is a $250 restaurant gift card, and there are four teenagers in my house who have this nasty habit of eating. Just want people to be aware of what happens when they click through. Up to you. I already KNOW that I am fascinating.

http://www.accelerated-degree.com/2012-fascination-awards-librarian-blogs/