David Klass

Although I didn't care much for Home of the Braves, I loved Dark Angel so much that I'm going to read it to my study hall. It's about a boy whose brother committed murder, got pardoned, and comes to live with the family again, to the great consternation of his brother.

This author also had a hit with You Don't Know Me, which is written is a bizarre but very fitting style. Liked it a lot, and the students who want to read about child abuse have been enjoying it.

Yes, No, Maybe

Bruce Coville's The Monsters of Morley Manor(2001) was great fun. How can I not love a book with a line like "I can have a midlife crisis or a midlife monkey,"[my mother] announced on her fortieth birthday. "I've decided to go for the monkey." This book made me snort through my nose with laughter at various times; okay, it's fun that the children reanimate monsters and travel through space with them, but the writing was what hooked me. The 8th graders might turn up their noses at it, but everyone else will love it. I think there may be a series.

Andy McNab's Traitor (2005) is a great spy thriller. There are a few objectionable words, but considering the dearth of spy thrillers and the avidity with which the boys read them, I have got to order it. Orphaned boy's gradfather accused of being a traitor when he was really a "deniable operative" for MI6-- good stuff, down to the jargon and operating procedures of a stake out. There is a sequel to this. Thank goodness!

David Klass' Home of the Brave (2002) just didn't suck me in, and when it is a book about soccer, it's got to start fast. I am liking his Dark Angel (2005).

Cynthia Grant's Uncle Vampire (1993) would no doubt check out, but I was uncomfortable with the premise of the girl thinking her uncle was abused, and that she had a twin, because it was easier to think about that than the fact that he abused her. A good effort, but not for this library.

Cynthia DeFelice's The Missing Manatee (2005) I will have to think about. I need mysteries, and manatees are big here in Columbus, but there was too much quirky, dysfunctional southern family stuff going on, and it distracted me from the mystery.

Also read Eloise Jarvis McGraw's Moccasin Trail (1952). A Newbery Honor book about a boy who was captured by Indians as a child, later returning to his family but refusing to give up his Indian ways, it is a dense read. At first, all I could think was "Wagh!" (quoted frequently by the main character), but the more I read, the more students I could think of who would like it. I have one 6th grader who has already read all of my survival fiction, and the mere mention of panther pemmican would hook him. Also, many students want Indian captive stories, and there are always a few wanting more challenging "classics" and this would be good, too. Not to mention that it is worth 13 Accelerated Read points, and so far this nine weeks I have 181. My goal was 200, so I'd better get to work!

Curses, assorted

Curses, The "F" Bomb-- Thank you, Jeanne Willis, for using the "f" bomb by page three of Walking Naked Without a Hat (2003). It wasn't justifiable, and I won't buy the book. There are some war books, or inner city drug abuse books, that use the word, but this wasn't justifiable.

Curses, Ancient Greek-- Thank you, Paul Shipton, for writing The Pig Scrolls (2004). My favorite joke when I was a Latin teacher was "Pig walks up to a travel agent, and the travel agent says 'So, how was the island of Circe?'" Gryllus has been turned into a pig during his travels with Odysseus, and decides he likes being a pig, albeit a talking one. However, when Chaos is in cahoots with Thanatos (death) in making a plutonium toaster to kill the gods and reduce the earth to, well, chaos, Gryllus has to stop eating pies long enough to help a Junior Assistant Pythia in Training save the world. The fans of Kate McMullan's Myth-oMania series and Riordan's The Lightning Thief (2005) will go wild for this. I hope there is a sequel in progress.

Curses, Bogey Man-- I had to stop reading E.E. Richardson's Devil's Footsteps (2005) when I realized that no one else was awake in my house. It was that creepy! There is something in Bryan's town, something not right, something that is snatching children, including Bryan's brother. Three boys go in search of the mystery behind the Dark Man, and finally have to decide if they can be brave enough to put him to rest once and for all. One nicely gory scene (but it's all an allusion), vicious dream-wolves, and an overwhelming, palpable feeling of dread make this book perfect for horror fans without being something I couldn't stomach. Bravo.

Also read Mary Pope Osborne's Pompeii: Lost and Found (2006), which has beautiful illustations and would be great to read to a class before starting the study of Pompeii, but since it is a picture book, I will probably not buy it.

Westerville Public Library ROCKS!

The Westerville Public Library is the greatest library in the world, because several years ago they instituted the Library Link, which delivers their books right to my school. This allows me to read the books before I buy them for my library, which is an enormous help since my budget has been greatly reduced. Students can request books that I don't have in my library, which is also hugely helpful. I'm sure the library have their reasons for doing this (increasing circulation), but this makes my life so much easier that I don't care what they are. They bring me all the books I want, right to school. Wow.

Never mind that I'm in a library all day surrounded by 14,000 books. There are never enough. So many, many thanks to Michael, who delivers all of my books. I really do read those piles of books that you slog through the rain and snow.

Assorted New Books

Hyperion Books for Children sent me a box of uncorrected proofs, and those have been fun. Ally Carter's I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You has a girl on the front cover, and the boys are still eager to read it. About a girl enrolled in an elite spy school who uses her skills to follow a local boy that she likes, it is humorous and imaginative. There are enough spy details for the boys, and enough boy details for the girls. Definitely will get one of these in hard cover.

Lisa Papdemetriou's Sixth-Grade, Glommers, Norks and Me is one I'm thinking about. Since comic school stories are my favorite, I have to be careful not to buy them all. The gimick in this one is the vocabulary words the main character introduces, but the main event in the story is the failing friendship between two girls, and the new friends that one of them makes. Valid concerns for this age level, so I will probably go ahead.

I'll pass on Beth Evangelista's Gifted (2005) however; it's got underwear on the cover, and as my daughter pointed out, the title looks like it is written in, um, excrement. The story started out okay, but my interest waned, and I couldn't get my son to pick it up, and he likes humorous books. I have to be very critical of everything I read because I don't have the funding or space to buy everything!

Will get Michael Simmons' Pool Boy (2003) because I think it will appeal to 8th grade boys, who are very difficult (again, need that football playing vampire book!) The idea of a rich kid losing all of his money and cleaning pools for a living because his father is incarcerated for white collar crime is intriguing, and all of the subplots, while predictable, ring true.

Thankfully, Michele Jaffe's Bad Kitty (2006) does not step over the line into inappropriateness. It is a mystery, and there are never enough of those to go around, especially for the 8th grade girls who do not want to be pried away from their pink books. The footnotes annoyed me a little bit, and it was awfully heavy on instant messages and cell phone use, which I am always afraid will date the book later (Twenty years from now when we are all, what? Communicating telepathically?) That the mystery closely involves a cute boy is a good hook, and I didn't see the ending coming, so I was happy.

Liked Lensey Namioka's Mismatch (2005), about a Chinese-American girl whose family doesn't like her Japanese-American boyfriend, but it would be a hard sell, even though it did an excellent job of explaining why there are racial tensions between the two cultures.

Gordon Korman

Forget being J.K.Rowling. I want to be Gordon Korman. He's been writing over 20 years, and gets better and better all the time. I adored Don't Care High (1985) and am keeping our worn copy together with glue and tape, threatening students who check it out not to lose it. I have three copies each of Son of the Mob (2002) and SOTM: Hollywood Hustle(2004), and those are always out.

My new favorite is the six books in the On the Run (2005) series. Chasing the Falconers, The Fugitive Factor, The Stowaway Solution and Now You See Them, Now You Don't were so good (and short, at about 150 pages) that I read them all in one evening, and polished off Public Enemies and Hunting the Hunter in another. I was sad to see them end, but encouraged that there is a trilogy to follow. Meg and Aiden's parents have been incarcerated for treason, and the only way to get them out is for the children to follow scant clues while being chased across the country by the FBI. And what a chase they give! They steal cars, motorcycles, horses and other forms of transport to make their way across the country and back. A new obstacle appears on nearly every page, and they always have a clever solution. They feel bad about their crimes, and talk about paying the library back when they steal fine money in order to eat, and I liked that, too. They also stop short of murdering the man who is trying to kill them.

My only complaint: Scholastic, why are these only in paperback? Shame, shame on you! It's great that more children can buy them, but what about libraries, who need something a little sturdier to circulate. Then there's the question of paper quality-- in 20 years, these gems will be yellowed and flaking to dust, and I will still want to recommend them.

Running and sports

I have one student who is on the cross country team, and would prefer to read about nothing but running. This is a hard bill to fill, especially since Cythia Voigt's The Runner (1985) is not exactly a quick pick for reluctant readers. I did get him to read Carl Deuker's Runner (2005) even though it is more of a mystery than a sports book, but then it was by Deuker, and those never fail to disappoint! The student loved it, and I'm hoping he will pick up one of Deuker's other titles. Rich Wallace's Fast Company(2004) was a little on the easy side, but The Winning Season series by that author has been very popular.

One of the purposes of reading through the collection here is that I uncover oldies but goodies. So it was with Leon McClinton's Cross-Country Runner (1974) . It had sat unread on the shelf since 1980, but a year or so ago I gave it to one of the runners, and he liked it. It was a tremendously fast-paced tale of a high-school football player who gave up great success with that sport to take up running. I felt every blister and sore muscle, and the social issues in the book (bullying by cross country star who felt threatened) really added to the competition and interest. I liked it so much that I wrote an Accelerated Reader test for it so my student could get credit in class for reading the book.

I don't get many calls for books about gymnastics, but I had a good one-- Nancy Meltzoff's A Sense of Balance (1978). I was disappointed that the girl did not end up sticking to her dream of being an Olympic gymnast, but the descriptions of the competition and training were good, and the story more interesting than Frank Bonham's The Rascals from Haskell's Gym (1977).

What we really need is a book about football playing vampires. THAT would never be on the shelves!

Dragonflight

As much as I had dreaded Anne McCaffrey, anything short of Dune (Worst. Book. Ever.) would have been a relief. But it was rather good, and I found myself curling up and wondering how they would fight the Threads. It made my brain hurt a little, with all the hurtling back and forth through time, but it seemed plausible. I need to check the order of the books; I wouldn't recommend starting with this one, since there were a few things unexplained. The one thing that did annoy me was the names. R'gul, T'Lar, F'Nor. After a while, I wanted to say E'Nuf!

I don't think I will read these straight through, but it will not be as hard to progress through the M's as I thought!

Ptolemy's Gate

It took me three days to read this book, which is a long time for me. This is the third book in a trilogy, and probably the best of the bunch. I love the tone of the djinn, and the footnotes are hysterical. Absolutely cracked me up, and I normally hate footnotes. The ending was spectacular and heart wrenching. I read the last two pages several times, just waiting for something different to present itself. It's wide open for a sequel, although I don't think there will be one. Always leave them wanting more is not a bad philosophy.

Started Anne McCaffrey's Dragonflight. While this was my best friend's favorite author in middle school, it appealed to me not at all, and I was dreading the long shelf of huge tomes. To my surprise, it was pretty good. I would say very good, but there are many times where I read something and would think "What did I just miss here?" This is a series that is listed in several different orders, so maybe I did miss something. At any rate, the next few weeks will not be as painful as I thought. Only dilemma-- my rebound paperback is falling apart. Is it even possible to get a replacement copy of this 1969 book?

Musty and dusty and old! Oh, my!

Read four books last night, all of which were horrible. The dust was thick on the top of the book, and the condition tattered. Out they go. Never easy, but necessary.

As a treat, I started Jonathan Stroud's third Bartimaeus book, Ptolemy's Gate (2006) and am enjoying it greatly. I normally dislike footnotes, but the ones in these books are just hysterical. Without them, the books would be good fantasy, but with them they are great stuff.

Mmmmming along

James Vance Marshall's Walkabout (1971) is about two children lost in the Australian wilderness and befriended by an Aboriginal boy. I'm going to have to give this to one of my survival fiction fans to see if this still flies. Didn't do much for me, and it's been languishing on the shelf.

Sharon Bell Mathis' The Hundred Penny Box(1986) didn't appeal to me,(the style irked me) but many of my students will pick it up because it is short. I liked The Sidewalk Story(1971) Better, and will recommend it for students who want a short problem novel. (Family evicted for failure to pay rent.)

Evelyn Wilde Mayerson's The Cat Who Escaped From Steerage (1990) will be good for some of my lower level readers who don't like historical books. There is a lot of action in the story, and I think they will find the characters appealing. It will also be good for the students who like immigration stories.

Ardath Mayhar's Soul-Singer of Tyrnos (1981) has gone out 4 times in 25 years, and didn't appeal to me, either.

Anne Mazer's Moose Street (1992)reminded me of the Newbery winner Criss Cross-- there's not much of a story, just vignettes. My daughter read it and enjoyed it, though.

Harry Mazer's Cave Under the City was about children left to fend for themselves during the depression. I liked it for the adventure and the Boxcar Children- like success that the boys have in finding food and shelter for themselves.

Books I Didn't Read

One book I did read and liked-- Malterre's The Last Wolf in Ireland (1990). A good story of a boy trying to save three wolf cubs. I'll have it in someone's hands by noon.

Occasionally, I have to go through the pile of books I have waiting for me, take a deep breath, and read things that don't appeal to me. I started with two that were 20 years old, but shiny and new because they had never been off the shelf. When I read them, I could see why. Bleah.

I have to weed. This library comfortably fits 14,000 books, which is what we have, but I add about 200 books a year. Books that are wasting space must go. This is so hard. The two odd, unused books were nothing that I could put in someone's hand and say "This is really good". If I am ever in doubt, I will give the books to a student who really likes to read, and if that student thinks the book is bad, then it goes. This is my general list of what I look for when I pull books:
1. Condition (Falling apart.)
2. Appeal ( Is it any good? Do students ask for this sort of book?)
3. Circulation (I've had books that have not gone out in 20 years!)
4. Age (Especially nonfiction-- any book that starts "Someday, when man walks on the moon...")

Usually, a book fits in at least two of these categories. What do I do with books I pull? Generally, I try to sell (for $1 or under, just so the student has some investment and doesn't just destroy the book) or give them to students, or send them to schools in Appalachia. Some nonfiction is so dated that it really has to be pitched. It's hard, but they are of no use to anyone because the information is incorrect.

This is why I am so careful in buying books. Books I looked at last night but won't be buying:
Ingold, Pictures, 1918-- WWI, but didn't grab me.
Davis, Jake, Irrepairably Damaged-- Too graphic and disturbing.
Page, Rewind-- Too many Britishisms.
Soto, Accidental Love-- Good, but can't pin down an audience.

Indian (India) Culture

Odd, assorted alphabetical reading last night-- Stephen Manes Make Four Million Dollars by Next Thursday (1991) which was fairly low leverl and silly, and Gloria Miklowitz's Close to the Edge (1983) which was about a girl struggling with her own depression and the suicide of a good friend.

Usually, I read books before I order them. I was not thinking, and ordered Maya Running (Anjali Banerjee, 2005) thinking it was the sequel to Naming Maya (Uma Krishnaswami, 2004) which I loved. The first book was about an Indian-Canadian girl whose cousin comes to India, and about halfway through the book, it turned into fantasy, with the statue of the God Ganesh speaking to her and granting her wishes. It worked, though, and I think that it will be good when fans of "pink" books need to read fantasy. The second book was realistic fiction, and about a girl whose father was American and whose mother was Indian. She had to spend the summer with her grandmother in India, and it offered a nice slice of daily life.

There are a few others I liked about Indian culture: Narinder Dhami's Bindi Babes(2004) and Bollywood Babes (2005), about three sisters in England who get into a series of funny scrapes; Blue Jasmine (2004) by Kashmira Sheth, about an Indian girl whose family moves to Iowa; and Shiva's Fire, by Suzanne Fisher Staples, about an Indian girl who is learning classical dance. Oh, don't suppose I should forget Kate Brian's Lucky T (2005), about a girl whose mother gives away the title garment, and the girl goes to do volunteer work in India to try to retrieve it.

Adele Geras

Didn't get much reading done this weekend, but did look at Ithaka. I liked it better than Troy, which I read one year on spring break, but the story of Penelope is done better for middle school students in Clement McLarens' Waiting for Odysseus (2000) or Patricia Galloway's Aleta and the Queen (1995). Ithaka was geared toward more of a high school, romance novel crowd. Better than Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, but still not quite appropriate for younger students.

There's a huge number of good books for the middle grades set in Ancient Greece; if anyone needs a list, I'd be glad to post one.

My Weird Hobby

I still use circulation cards, and when they are full, I send them to the authors with nice letters. A lot of authors have written back, and some have even sent books. Lee J. Ames called me and I had a nice conversation with him. He sent me a picture of a bulldog that he drew. It's one of my favorites!

Kidnapped!

There are a few students who enjoy the Stevenson book, but most of them want something a little more modern. After the 7th grade reads The Face on the Milk Carton, I always get requests for similar books. I will just list most of them, since we pretty much know the plots! Notable exception: Lee Weatherly's Missing Abby (2004), which I read last night. Although this is a tremendously sad book, it was compelling. Emma runs into her former best friend Abby on the bus. They have words, and after that Abby goes missing. While searching for Abby, Emma has to come to terms with how their friendship fell apart, and how she misses not only Abby, but the way she used to be with her. Good mystery, but also evocative of that great middle school Trauma Extraordinaire-- losing former best friend. You can guess the ending if you pay close enough attention, but it still is a gut-punch. Highly recommended.

Others to consider: Martin's Missing Since Monday(1986), Kehret's Abduction(2004) and Deadly Stranger(1986), Mazer's Solid Gold Kid(1977) and Taking Terri Muller (1981), Griffin's Vikki Vanishes (1995), and Duffy's Missing (1988), which is oddly enough a book that is lost with alarming frequency!

If they like Darren Shan

Well, I don't know that I like Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak series, but it has been extremely popular, and it's not half bad. The author also wrote me a lovely letter (see the My Weird Hobby post), and admitted that Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes was a little bit of an inspiration for him. That gets SWTWC (1962)off the shelves more frequently!

When the students finish all ten books and are crushed to know there aren't more, I steer them to Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' In the Forest of the Night(1999), Demon in My View (2000)and Shattered Mirror(2001) Midnight Predator (2002). They are short books, but fairly well-done, and not as gruesome as could be. This is what I look for in horror, although the children are often just as happy with the slash-'em-up R.L. Stine books.

Warning: Shan's Lord Loss (2005)is gory in the extreme, and parents could be upset about the demons murdering the boy's family. However, I bought a copy. It's no more gory than R.L. Stine, however, and much, much more clever. The ending persuaded me that I should get it-- the boy challenges the demon to a chess game. I'm almost looking forward to the next one.

Anthony Horowitz's Raven's Gate (2005) is a departure from his usual work, but keeps to his high standards in both writing and interest. Just more fantastical than I am used to seeing from him.

I've been handing out Neil Shusterman's Full Tilt (2003) with great success, and it encouraged me to look at his new Dark Fusion series. Red Rider's Hood combined werewolves with inner city gangs (to hook the boys who want yet another book just like The Outsiders) and was fun, but Dread Locks was superb. Goldilocks meets Medusa. A phenomenal ending that just put a shiver right down my spine. I'm also going to recommend this series to our 6th grade teachers, to use as a high interest read aloud to go along with their folk tale unit.

Japanese Americans in WWII

This is about a book I'm not going to buy. My Friend The Enemy (2005) by J.B. Cheaney was good, and I enjoyed it, but it's been done, and there was nothing about this book that made it any better than the others. The treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII is a fascinating subject, and I love introducing the students to it, but I would rather use other books. Barry Deneberg's The Journal of Ben Uchida is one of the few Scholastic diary books that I've enjoyed. In this case, the pictures at the back are very informative. Julie Otsuka's When the Emperor Was Divine (2002) is a harder sell, but an absoultely heartbreaking account of one family's experience from the point of view of different family members. Very moving. A more prosaic treatment is Sheila Garrigue's The Eternal Spring of Mr. Ito (1985).

Boys like the Denenberg, as well as the two excellent Graham Salisbury books-- Under the Blood-Red Sun(2001) and Eyes of the Emperor(2005). The last is especially good-- tells the story of Japanese Americans who were in a special unit in the army. There job was to train dogs to attack people who were Japanese! There are certainly other books on this topic, but those were my favorites.

Two Fun Boy Books

Admittedly, it's an odd paring. Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie (2004), by Jordan Sonnenblick has a great cover, a cool and odd title, lots of funny, quotable lines (But you know how, when you watch The Brady Bunch, you think, "Oh, come on! Nobody is this happy. What's wrong with you people? And who picks out your CLOTHES?" p. 49)-- and it's about a boy struggling with his younger brothers' leukemia. Do I recommend it as a problem novel? Because Steve's struggles with school and the girl on whom he has a crush can be hilarious. His struggles with his brother's illness aren't, but they ring very true. It would be a great book to hand to someone for bibliotherapy, but I liked the story enough to hand it to everyone. Even though it is a bit on the long side (273 p.), I'm definitely getting a copy.

Not so sure about Boy2Girl (2004) by Terence Blacker. I loved it-- Matt's cousin Sam from America comes to live with his family in London after the death of Sam's mother. Sam is rude and thoroughly unpleasant, so Matt's friends insist that Sam perform a task before they will let him into their group-- he has to go to school dressed as a girl for a week. Sam is oddly sucessful as a girl, and it was great fun to read about him both assuming feminine characteristics and teach the girls to carry themselves more like boys. Still, what's the audience here? There is a side story about Sam's estranged father trying to get Sam's inheritance, but it pales beside Sam in a dress. Will boys want to read about gender bending? I think I will keep the copy at the circ desk today and ask.

Not a good sign

It's just not a good sign if I start reading a book and then check to see when it was last checked out, in hopes that it was more than 6 years ago (when we got a year stamp again-- the 1990s were a muddle of only months and days) so I can get rid of the book.

I did this with nearly every Margaret Mahy book I had.

Two, Changeover: A Supernatural Romance (1984) and Aliens in the Family (1985) circulate fairly frequently, when students are assigned genres. Those were okay. The Catalog of the Universe (1986) was SO bad that I pulled it, even though it has a really high Accelerated Reader level. The Haunting (1982) and Memory (1988) hadn't been checked out in a long time, so I'll put them aside. While I was working my way through one of them, my daughter grabbed it out of my hands to look at it, asked who the author was, and handed it back to me with a look of disgust on her face. She'd read one last year and hated it.

I don't know why some books don't appeal to me, but I know that if they don't, it's hard to hand them to children with enthusiasm. Since my library is small (14,000 volumes) and we are comfortably at capacity, it is necessary to weed books when I get new ones. It's hard for me to weed, since the popular books are usually falling apart, and the books I want to get rid of sometimes are in such good shape. But I have to remind myself-- books look great if no one is reading them!

Topic for another time: Why are illustrations by Richard Cuffari often the kiss of death for books? Of all the books I have pulled off the shelves, an inordinate number have cover illustrations by this artist. I like his work, really I do.