Robert Muchamore (and much more)

Posted about Muchamore's Divine Madness on October 08, 2007, and just now got the first in the series, The Recruit, and only now because I ordered it through Perma-Bound. Was not disappointed. So much happened in this book that it is rather like three separate novels-- James escapes an unfortunate home life because of the even more unfortunate death of his mother, ends up in foster care where he gets in trouble, gets recruited by the elite, child-oriented CHERUB division of MI5, goes through the horrific boot camp, and gets sent on a mission to a commune to help defeat ecoterrorists. Wow. Never a dull moment. Depending on how this goes over, I see purchasing another copy of the entire series, because I think the interest, especially from the very difficult to please 8th grade boys, will be huge. The nice thing is that the series does not need to be read in order. A must have for fans of Anthony Horowitz who are panting for the sequel to Snakehead.

Also in the shipment was Lisa Barnham's A Girl Like Moi, which is on oddly shiny, heavy quality paper, with adorable illustrations scattered throughout the pages. A rather airy, vapid tale of a fashion obsessed girl trying to keep up with the richer girls in her school, it had really no substance but a high amusement factor. It will circulate well, but may also date very quickly.

Jospeh Bruchac can be counted on to do well-researched, fairly interesting books on Native American topics, and he does not disappoint with his 2004 The Winter People. Set during the French and Indian war, it follows a teenage boy who must rescue his family after they have been captured by the British. Had to order this one for my student who has decided to read only Native American literature this year, since it will also be a good title to go along with the curriculum. Enough action and adventure to tempt students who do not want to read history!

Could not get into Cornwell's Carpe Diem because I found the main character so obnoxious. Yeah, yeah, you're brilliant and your family is supportive but dysfunctional. Probably a very nice book, but just hit me wrong. Same must be said of Provost's The Book of Time, which floundered somewhere in chapter two for all four readers in my house, even though we are obsessed with time travel right now because of Voyagers! I think it might be because it was translated from the French. This can make books harder to connect with, I think. Exception to the rule: Cornelia Funke.

Avi's Iron Thunder

This is probably the Avi title that I have liked the most. Some of th author's older titles have not aged well (A Place Called Ugly and Emily Upham's Revenge have been gathering dust), but for sheer volume, perserverance and general good quality, this author cannot be beat. Iron Thunder: The Battle Between the Monitor and the Merrimac is a must have for students who have a great interest in the Civil War.

Told from the point of view of Tom, a young boy whose family is struggling after the death of his father, this book weaves in particulars about the manufacture of the Northern armored ship, the Monitor, with details about life at the time. Tom's mother takes in washing, his sister is coughing up blood, and while earning 75 cents a week helping to build the Monitor, earning gold dollar coins for giving information to a Southern Copperhead spy is even more tempting. Still, Tom knows this isn't right, informs on the spies, and ends up sailing on the Monitor and being involved with the battles. There is a lot of good historical information, and the period pictures are wonderful. The book is also well-styled, with illustrations reminiscent of Civil War era news drawings and a pleasing typeface.

To find out more about this author and see his other titles, go to:
http://www.avi-writer.com/

Too old, too young, too ???

This is the second time I have looked at Dominque Paul's The Possibility of Fireflies. I had forgotten the sprinkling of obscenities, the pot smoking, and the datedness of the 1987 setting, which are all reasons that I won't buy it. Might be good at a high school, although it does read more like a memoir that would appeal to people my age. Those aspersions cast, I finished reading it and was impressed by the lyrical quality of the prose. It was one of those sad books, with a dysfunctional mother and sister, an absent father, friends drifting away, and a young girl trying to not only keep herself adrift but move forward with her own life. I will look for other titles by this author, even though this wasn't a good fit for my library.

Ross Collins' Medusa Jones looks like fun but is much too young for my library. I am irrationally irritated by younger books, so can't say much. The pictures in this are fun, and the premise is good (young Ancient Greek Gorgon bullied at school because of her hair eventually makes good and saves the day), but I was disappointed that I won't be able to have another Classics books for my students because this is best suited to the under ten crowd.

Another Classics book that had some promise was Katherine Marsh's The Night Tourist, but it somehow did not hit the right note. Jack Perdu, still mourning his mother, finds a mysterious map to a New York that most mortals don't see-- the underground where the dead still roam until they can make their peace and move on. Mortals are forbidden, but with the help of a young (but dead) girl, he tracks down his mother and finds out the secrets of her life and death. The portrayal of New York City was interesting, and the Latin was flawless, but the depiction of the mythology was a bit strained. If I had read this as a straight fantasy instead of wanting more Greek and Roman mythology books, I might have been okay, so I am going to have my son read this. I must say that I started off on the wrong foot when Jack, a "ninth grade Classics prodigy" is helping a professor translate Ovid's Metamorphoses. Talk about fantasy. I was a Latin teacher in my previous life, and even if Jack's father taught him Latin, this seems a REAL stretch to me. Then I started to worry that Jack would major in Latin and never get a job. I'm still thinking about this title.

Alex Flinn's Diva

It took a long time to locate a copy of this sequel to Breathing Underwater, which chronicles Nick's abusive relationship with Caitlin. Diva was completely different. While Nick is mentioned, the book is much more concerned about Caitlin's singing career and her acceptance into a school for the performing arts, where she fits in for the first time. She is still dealing with the aftermath of the relationship with Nick, as well as weight related issues (she was at one time very heavy but is keeping the weight off), but this book is more like Rallison's Fame, Glory and Other Things on My To Do List or Romano's Grace;s Turn than it is like a problem novel.

I like Flinn's writing. I think I'll buy it.

The Crusades

If you have a copy of Thea Beckman's 1975 Crusade in Jeans, dust it off and give it to one of your Surcliff-loving history buffs. My daughter is reading it right now and loves it. Basic story: A young boy who volunteers to travel through time to the Middle Ages arrives during the Children's Crusade and is caught in its momentum. I learned a lot, and the time travel is only at the beginning.

Catherine Jinks' Pagan's Crusade, the first of a four book series, is also rich in period details and has a spin on it-- the main character is a Muslim boy raised in a Christian orphanage and who becomes the squire to a crusader. The series covers his whole life.

Michael Cadnum's The Book of the Lion (three book series)follows Edmund as he serves as squire to a knight on his way to join Richard the Lionheart.

Jane Elizabeth Goodman's Winter Hare and Peregrine are very dense but also informative. Best read in this order, the first follows Will, who is training to be a knight, and the second follows Lady Edith, who travels to the Holy Land.

Science Fiction for Girls

I know, I know-- good books should be good books for all, but the reality is that most girls want different books than boys, and vice versa. Science fiction is something that many girls wrinkle their noses at. The best picks for them are:

Schanback, Mindy. Princess from Another Planet. Gracie's mother has always maintained that she is a princess from another planet. The family treats her as if she has a mental illness until Gracie starts to suspect that her mother is telling the truth.

Logue, Mary. Dancing with an Alien. What if you fell in love, only to find out that the boy is from another planet? It might seem like a good idea to go back with him... until you find out the reason he came to earth is to find females to repopulate his planet. Does he love you enough to save you from being a breeding machine?

Gilmore, Kate. The Exchange Student. Having an exchange student living with your family is hard enough, but imagine if the student were a tall, color-shifting alien who takes an inordinate interest in the animals that your family raises. What is his purpose for being on earth?

Butts, Nancy.The Door in the Lake. Okay, this is more for boys, but it is short, and it has my very favorite 30 second recommendation-- Joey is kidnapped by space aliens and returns several years later smaller than his younger brother, and his brains are leaking out of his nose! What happened, and will life ever return to normal?

Every book needs some small hook like the leaking brains!

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

I read this years ago when I spent the summer reading authors named Smith. This is a problem novel extraordinaire, so it should be appealing to students in middle school, but it is a challenging read, best suited to strong readers with an interest in history.It was published in 1943. The prose is dense and lyrical, and the premise very sad.

Francie's family struggles to get by in Brooklyn in the early 20th century, mainly because the father is an attractive but frequently drunk ne'er do well who finds it hard to hold a job. Francie's mother cleans for people, and Francie and her brother collect rags and bottles, because the pennies they earn might buy dinner that night. The family tries to do better and is rebuffed at every turn. I remember being so relieved at the end of the book that things turned out okay.

My 8th grader was given a copy for Christmas by her godmother, and she's been reading it a bit at a time because both of us loved it. That is a huge selling point for any book.

If there are any librarians out there who have not picked up a copy of this, you must immediately go and read Chapter 2. If the following passage doesn't break your heart and make you more aware of how you treat every child, you are dead inside. Dead!

"Each week Francie made the same request and eack week the librarian asked the same question. A name on a card meant nothing to her and since she never looked up into a child's face, she never did get to know the little girl who took a book out every day and two on Saturday. A smile would have meant a lot to Francie and a friendly comment would have made her so happy. She loved the library and was anxious to worship the lady in charge. But the librarian had other things on her mind. She hated children anyhow."

A rare video review

During 1981-82, there was a television show on Sunday evenings that dealt with time travel-- Voyagers! After a steady diet of Tom's Midnight Garden, Charlotte Sometimes and other time travel books, I was very excited. It starred the late Jon-Eric Hexum and a young Meeno Peluce as Voyagers who traveled to different points in history to "fix" things that went wrong. Never mind that the premise was a little weak. It was great fun, and we got to see everything from Washington crossing the Delaware (he was faced into the wind to avoid seasickness) to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle guessing that the two must have been at the botanical gardens, because they had soil from all over the world on their shoes.

Hadn't thought of this in years, but saw the DVD in the library and immediately brought it home. My children all loved it. My 9 year old has a huge crush on Meeno Peluce, who is, according to imdb.com, now a history teacher. How cool is that? Highly recommend this whole four disk set to take the chill off these cold winter days!

Richard's The Chaos Code

"He was sitting in his study when the monster came. It tapped on the glass of the French windows to be let in. Like he had a choice. It would smash its way through, or blow under the door if it needed to.

Well, okay! Tell me more! This is what students mean when they say they want a book that sucks them right in.

This book quickly becomes more complicated. Matt is sent to live with his father while his mother is on a job, and his father is not at home. Not only that, but Matt gets attacked! After retrieving a coded message his father left him, he heads off to stay with an aunt, where things get really involved. Matt not only has to rescue his father, he has to stop evil geniuses who are harnessing the power of the earth to create unstoppable golems that will be used to take over the world!

Definitely will buy this one, since this author's The Death Collector has been popular. There is lots of action and suspense, plus a really cool cover. My only disappointment is that it is not a book for reluctant readers, as I was hoping. It is a complicated mystery with lots of clues, history, and surprising things involved. Stormbreaker fans who were able to handle Silverfin will like this one, but struggling readers may have problems with the length.

Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything In It

Sundee Frazier has done a wonderful job of creating a dynamic ten-year-old character who loves rocks, scientific studies and Tae Kwon Do, misses his grandfather who recently passed away, has a supportive mother and father and a best friend to hang out with, and just happens to be biracial. This is not secondary to the story, since a chance encounter with his estranged grandfather drives most of the plot, but Brendan has many other facets to who he is, and being biracial is just one of them.

Brendan's mother, a nurse practioner, and his father, a police officer, encourage his interests and allow his a bit more freedom to roam abuot town unescorted than I give my own soon-to-be ten year old. At the mall with his grandmother, he meets the president of the local rock club, who turns out to be his mother's father. The whole family is reluctant to talk about what happened, but Brendan establishes contact and gets to know his grandfather. This is done realistically, and Brendan's struggle to justify the actions of the man who teaches him to drive a truck and plays chess weekly with an African American friend, but who also cut off contact with Brendan's mother, is delicately portrayed.

This is an important book, and I will definitely be purchasing it. I have an increasing amount of students who are biracial, and students need books who show students like themselves. (See the May 11, 2007 posting for more on this topic.) While the Janet McDonald books have been popular, they are still primarily about inner city children, and many black and biracial children live in the suburbs. I hope to see a lot more from Ms. Frazier. She has a nice web site at:

http://www.sundeefrazier.com/

Reading for a snow day

Blame it on the fact that I have spent all my money for the year, and have a book order for August that would take my entire budget. I've been working my way slowly through this and will not be purchasing:
Hemphill, Helen. Runaround. Aside from the disturbing, cranky Lolita-esque cover, it's a quirky Southern story set in the 60's, which is something students don't ask for. Also disturbing was Sassy's quest to get neighbor boy to like her. It seemed precocious for an 11 year old.

Kraft's Miracle Wimp is probably one I will look at again, because I love the title and the fact that the main character has that nickname because his last name is Mayo, but it was told in short anecdotes and was sadder than I had hoped.

Bauer's No Castles Here is quite an interesting blend of fantasy and inner city problem novel, but again, I don't have the readership for it.

Finished the death march through Lemony Snicket, and had I been enjoying it, I would now be disappointed. None of the mysteries are really cleared up. Who are all these characters and why were they making the Baudelaire's lives miserable. And being stuck on an island? There is just something I am not getting. If I still want to know what the V.F.D. is, the books must be compelling in some way, and we will give them points for using big vocabulary words.

Got through a few...

Managed to read The Carnivorous Carnival, The Slippery Slope, and The Grim Grotto. I find that I get very distracted by them now, since I am trying to figure out why they annoy me so much (aside from the villians picking up the new annoying habit of laughing "ha ha hair trigger"-- what?) and why the children like them. Maybe it is as simple as the children liking them because adults don't?

Also looked at Judith Casely's The Kissing Diary, which was okay if I had needed a book about a girl struggling through her parents' divorce, combined with the general trauma of being 13, but I think the title will confuse girls and make them think it is pink and fluffy instead of depressing. Will hold off on purchase.

Avoiding Lemony Snicket

I'm thinking that this weekend I will do a marathon and just finish them all up. That way, I'll be all set for my death march through R.L. Stine this summer.

Rachel Vail's Wonder is an Ellen Conford-esque school story, told with gentle humor, but showing many of the terrible social interactions that usually occur at this age. Everyone feels inept and unloved, allegiances change daily, and actual schoolwork is the least of one's problems. The best part of the portrayal of Jessica losing her long-time best friend. She not only loses her; the friend starts picking on her and ostracizing her. There is enough humor in this book to make it a fun read, and enough serious stuff for it to be used as bibliotherapy!

For wrestlers-- There's a Girl in My Hammerlock is a little heavy on the whole issue of girls wrestling, but has a ton of details about wrestling, training, and the whole culture to make it a worthwhile read. My daughter, who was a team statisticians, thought it was very funny. I wish that Mr. Spinelli would write a straight wrestling book-- it would be very popular, and he has the details down that the wrestlers want to read.

Hernderson's Bunker 10 looked very promising but dragged a bit. There was also some street dialect that was hard to take. I think I will pass, despite the intriguing description (Something is wrong at the top secret Pinewood Militar installation, and the teenage geniuses who study and work there are about to discover the horrible truth as they lead a small military force trying to retrieve data and escape before t he compound self-destructs.)and the shiny cover.

Zindel's The Pigman

The Pigman was published in 1968, and I think it is important for students to know this, along with the fact that it was considered groundbreaking and almost shocking for its realistic portrayal of troubled teens. "Fresh" language, situations, and themes of slightly dysfunctional families, and "bad" teens who smoke, drink and use questionable language(quaintly portrayed with %$@&#) were all a change from the young adult literature of the time, which tended to be more idealistic. The whole story-- after placing a prank call and getting a false donation from a man whose wife has died, two students befriend him and hang around with him until he becomes ill and they betray his trust-- was something different. (It was a trend; The Outsiders was published in 1967.)

Today, teens read shocking literature all the time. It's not just cigarettes and wine, it's heroin. (Beauty Queen) Different voices emerge, sometimes in difficult to follow styles like Klass' You Don't Know Me or Going'sSt. Iggy. After 40 years, The Pigman has some very dated references that should be explained going in-- what is this lock on the phone? Phones have dials that turn around? And why didn't the children just show up on caller i.d.? They got real people when placing prank calls? Not answering machines?

My daughter, who had to read this for class, made the observation that Mr. Pignati inviting the teens into his house and letting them hang out while drinking wine was creepy in the way that the lyrics in a Rankin-Bass Christmas special are now creepy: "If you sit on my lap today/ A kiss a toy is the price you'll pay." Where were the parents? How lucky were the teens that they weren't abused in some way? And what was Mr. Pignati thinking? It almost seemed fitting that they held a party at his house. They were sorry, they made amends; the ending was unfortunate, but it was so contrived that it lost a lot of power for me. Could see it coming a mile away.

Schools everywhere have huge class sets of these. We just purchased a number at my school. It's an interesting piece of period literature, but unless it is explained very carefully, I think its effectiveness is lost on today's children. The copy I read had notes from Zindel in the back that helped a little. I'll have to read the sequels tonight.

Bottom line: This is something that students have to read, not something that they would choose to read.

What actual students read

This information comes via a commenter who liked Unwind; in fact, it was chosen by students to be their Mock Printz award winner.

http://www.wakegov.com/libraries/readersservices/clubs/mockprintzwinners.htm

The books on this list tend to be a little older, so there are many I haven't bought for my library because of content and language. Still, I did reserve a couple of these that I hadn't read yet, since students gave them an award, not adults.

But really, The Book Thief? My problem, I guess, is that I never got much past the age of 13 in my reading likes. Luckily, this serves me fairly well. (In answer to the comment from Ms. F-B, I think I was disappointed because it wasn't a WWII story for which my students ask. What they invariably want is more fighting than anything else. I know many people loved this, but it just didn't do it for me!)

Smith's Bobby Baseball

This title (1989 was sitting on the shelves for years and checked out just once, which is really too bad. It has a low reading level and a cartoony front cover, but I have several students who will like it for the technical baseball details. There are even rosters and scores! The story of Bobby, who lives for baseball and wants to play on a team someday, but who is having problems moving up to the next league because his father is the coach. A lot of sports books like to go light on the play-by-plays and heavy on the problems, but this is lots of descriptions of playing and thinking about baseball. Will get this one checked out today.

Josepha Sherman's Gleaming Bright (1994) will be a harder sell. A rather traditional, medieval fantasy about a girl whose father and kingdom are in peril. Only she can save the day, by retrieving a magic box that was stolen by a wizard. I'm not a fantasy fan, but do love fantasies that are innovative and have a twist to them. This was fine, but lacked that spark.

Rachel Vail and Rachel Hawthorne

My wonderful student also loaned my Hawthorne's The Boyfriend League, which was also fun. Girl's family hosts college baseball player who is in a summer league (Does this happen? Do I care if it does or not?), she hopes he will introduce her to other players, she likes him. Lots of fun details, such as her beauty pageant winning sister, her best friend who also plays baseball, and lots of innocent kissing and snuggling. An idealistic view of high school, which is why I loved it, in the same way that I love Beverly Cleary and Rosamund du Jardin.

Vail's Ever After (1995) was not nearly as fun or as interesting as You, Maybe or If We Kiss, and the cover art is not that attractive (I'm not getting the image posting buttons on blogspot this week. Hmmm.)More of the journal entry, I want to remember how horrible middle school was sort of writing. Hard to tell how I feel about this, but think my dislike is triggered by the fact that I am old. Did I want to read about people's ordinary problems? Can't remember. i do need to push this one more to her fans.

Yoo's Girls for Breakfast is another story. I think I am sending it to the high school. I didn't read it before I bought it, and it is rather coarse, and not really good enough (like Son of the Mob or Slot Machine) to make up for this.

Finally, Tony Johnstone's Bone by Bone by Bone was intriguing and disturbing. She apologizes at the very beginning for the language and the tone, saying that it reflects the time about which she is writing, and the prejudices that her father had. Students should read this, certainly, but I don't think that my students have the background to fully understand what is going on. This would be an excellent accompaniment to To Kill a Mockingbird (which is good, but really, nothing else has been written about civil rights in the last 40 years?). David's father is so nasty, and his relationship with his black best friend would take some explaining for even our 8th graders to fully grasp.

Hawthorne's Thrill Ride

A student brought me this one, since she and I share similar tastes. I always love when students hand me books-- thanks, Sarah! This is definitely a pink book, and since there are never enough to keep my avid readers in books, I am adding several other titles by this author to my list to purchase as well.

Megan wants to escape for the summer because her sister is planning a wedding. She will miss her boyfriend, Nick, but the idea of living and working at an amusement park sounds even more appealing than staying with him. Of course, there are cute boys at the amusement park, and lots of fun to be had. A really nice story, perfectly appropriate (a little kissing, but that's it), but full of independence and fun. Looking forward to reading The Boyfriend League and Island Girls (and Boys).

Read more about this author at
http://www.rachelhawthorne.net/

Stroud's The Last Siege

I really thought this hard-to-find novel by the author of The Bartimaeus Trilogy would be fantasy. I thought, reasonably enough, that it was fantasy. There's the fuzzy castle on the cover, and the cataloging information states "A chance encounter on the snowy slopes of a castle moat throws together three lonely teenagers, Emily, Simon, and the highly imaginative but enigmatic Marcus, who is the catalyst for all that follows."

What follows is that the children get kicked out of the castle ruins by the caretaker and decide to spend the night there. This involves fibbing to parents about where they are, and lots of chases about the place, some involving suspected ghosts. This is more of a survival tale, so I will try it out on those fans. That, and any child who might like to spend some time hanging out in castle ruins, pretending to be ancient kings defending their stronghold. I would have loved it.

Unhappy reading

Last week was full of books that don't even merit mention, since they were either wildly inappropriate for middle school or just plain bad. If there is a book that does not appear on this web site and anyone out there has any questions about it, I'll be glad to answer if I've read the title. I've also been involved in a death march through Lemony Snicket.

N.D. Wilson's 100 Cupboards sounded really promising. Henry moves in with aunt and uncle (pseudo-orphan, always good) and finds a room with the titular cupboards, through which he hears and sees various different places. Sounds cool, but I just couldn't get interested. It did seem like something my son would like (He liked The Mysterious Benedict Society and Pond Scum, whereas I did not), but even he couldn't get into it.

Short, scary stories

I finally broke down and read In the Land of the Lawn Weenies, which certainly does Louise Rennison proud in an attempt to force librarians to say embarassing things. I have added it, as well as Invasion of the Road Weenies, to my list to purchase, because the stories all embrace the warped, icky, 12-year-old boy sense of "Ewwww". I will recommend it to students who don't like to read anything that isn't gross, as well as to teachers who would like something to read aloud. Very clever, and for readers who won't read anything, these are good starters. From here, maybe I can move them into R.L. Stine, and Paul Zindel's monster books.

Other sucessful creepy stories that circulate well in my library are:
Horowitz, Anthony. Horowitz Horror, More Horowitz Horror.

Schwartz, Alvin. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, and Scary Stories 3

San Souci, Robert. Dare to Be Scared, Double Dare to Be Scared (and some Short and Shivery that I intend to look into!)

Rich Wallace

After reading One Good Punch and recommending the Winning Season series countless times, I thought I had better read one of these short, sports oriented books. I was not disappointed. I read Takedown, which is late in the series but about wrestling, which has become a popular request.

Donald is not a pleasant character. He works hard, but is a poor sport. His family life is somewhat difficult, but he still has supportive, if struggling parents. This book mainly detailed his wrestling training and meets, which is exactly what the boys want. It didn't mess around with too many emotions or problems-- just went right for the action, which is great. I thought that the book was much too short. I wanted to know more about Donald and his wrestling career. However, this length was perfect for the audience, who are often struggling readers who like the feeling of accomplishment they get when they finish a book. I am looking forward to reading the rest, and highly recommend the entire series for elementary and middle school libraries.

I could not find a web site for Mr. Wallace, but here is the Winning Season series as I know it:

The Roar of the Crowd (Winning Season #1) (2004)
Technical Foul (Winning Season #2) (2004)
Fast Company (Winning Season # 3) (2005)
Double Fake (Winning Season # 4) (2005)
Emergency Quarterback (#5)(2005)
Southpaw (Wining Season # 6) (2006)
Dunk Under Pressure (Winning Season # 7) (2006)
Takedown (Winning Season # 8) (2006)
Curveball (#9) (2007)
Second-String Center (Winning Season # 10) (2007)

Giles' Right Behind You

This is not a book for middle school collections, but I could not put it down. It would be extremely thought provoking for high school collections.

Kip burns a child to death when he is 9. While not exactly an accident, Kip is not a hardened, habitual killer. Years of juvenile detention and therapy take his childhood away from him and leave him ill-prepared for life after that. He manages to succeed quite well in high school in a different state, but manages to sabotage his own efforts when he becomes happy. Moving yet again, he meets a girl who also has made mistakes, and learns to deal with what he has done.

I had to finish this even though it was clear early on that the content and language of this book was too strong for my age group. Still, it was masterfully done and riveting. Ms. Giles has made some very wise remarks concerning reading level of books versus interest level, and clearly writes for older children, so I hope her feelings will not be hurt when I don't buy this one.

On the other hand, a book I should have loved, Barrows' The Magic Half, about a girl who is transported back in time to 1935, did not appeal to me at all. I think perhaps it is too young.

A nonfiction title!

Believe it or not, I really enjoy nonfiction, but it's a very hard sell to my students. I really enjoyed Jim Murphy's The Great Fire(1995) about the Chicago fire in 1871. I kept quoting odd bits of information to my family. This is an especially successful book because it combines facts about the fire with first person descriptions from several different people. The illustrations and photographs are well-placed, and the maps showing the spread of the fire are very helpful. I have several students in mind for this title-- there is a great interest in disasters, and when I tell them that 100,000 people were homeless, maybe they will be intrigued.

Mary Stolz' Coco Grimes will be read because it is short, but for a sports book has very few descriptions of baseball, which is what students seem to want. I did like the story of a boy interviewing a man who played on the Negro Leagues.

It's a Woman's World, a collection of poetry, was very interesting. Covered poems from many different places and times. It seemed sad to me, but I don't think it would seem so to students. Poetry is another hard sell, although when classes do units on it, my shelves get cleaned off.

Would like to say that I read The Carnivorous Carnival, but I only got about a chapter in!

A Reading Challenge

If you want a serious challenge, take a look at this web site:
http://theshadyglade.blogspot.com/2008/01/young-adult-literature-challenge.html

I had to print out the rules so that I could consult them at home. I won't be doing the extra challenge, because of the nine titles listed, I have read five in the last five years and can't get two from the public library. I did check out The Only Alien on the Planet by Kristen Randle, because I loved her Breaking Rank!

I'm thinking that the 25 books won't be a problem, but I'm stumped on what "Classic" (published before 1920) book to read.

Poetry, Drama or Humor-- It's a Woman's World: A Century of Women's Voices in Poety (1/27)
Sports, Mystery Supernatural--Stolz. Coco Grimes. (1/27)
Fantasy or Science Fiction--Stroud. The Last Siege. (2/4)-- Not fantasy!!
Historical--Sutcliffe. Flame-Colored Taffetta. (1/28)
Nonfiction--Murphy. The Great Fire. (1/27)
Classic-- Stevenson. Kidnapped. (1887!)
Graphic Novel-- Vampire Kisses: Blood Relations, Schreiber.
Audiobook--Snicket. The Ersatz Elevator. (Audiobooks are so slow. I will no doubt cheat.)

Can you tell I'm working on "s" authors on my way through the stacks?

Thanks to Alyssa at Shady Glade for a jump start I needed to my weekend!

Haddix's Uprising

I always love stories of turn-of-the-(last)century immigrants, and this coverage of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory strike and fire was ably done. We follow the lives of three girls: Bella, whose family sends her to America to earn money; Yetta, who with her sister has come from Russian to escape the persecution and poverty; and Jane, whose wealthy father does not want her to become involved in Suffrage or the rights of workers.

This book was rich in details of every day life at the time, and did have some twists. It is interesting that Jane leaves home, is taken in by Bella and Yetta, and becomes a governess to the factory boss's children, but it seems unlikely. The rest of the story goes along nicely, although the beginning and ending, which center around one of Jane's charges 15 years or so after the fire, are more confusing than they needed to be.

It surprises me that people still don't know about this historical era, so it is good to have another book about it. Mary Jane Auch also has Ashes of Roses, which I liked.

Read D'Lacey's Icefire, which is not about squirrels. The dragons come into play much more, but there are polar bears. Also, we are given a setting in Massachusetts, which I still don't believe, and which distracted me. I will wait a while to read the third book, and maybe by then I will be over my confusion, and then I might like the book better.

D'Lacey's The Fire Within

The Fire Within, Icefire, and Fire Star have all been very popular in my library. Given the covers, and the length, I assumed they were hard-core dragon fantasies, so I was slightly confused to find a realistically based fantasy about a college student who boards with a family that makes clay dragons that are really alive. For most of the book, the dragons are hinted at, and most of the narrative involves squirrels, and the student's attempts to write a story for the young girl of the household. I am curious now to read the other two and see if more dragons are involved. LOTS of squirrels are, and usually books about squirrels don't circulate well.

I was also confused by the interpolation of clearly American references into a clearly British book. If any change had been made, it should have been to explain what conkers are. It's hard to explain, but I would just like to say "They're BUCKEYES!"

http://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/html/body_about_conkers.html

Any book that uses "erm" instead of "um", that has people eating beans on toast, and involves more than one cup of tea being served, is a British book.

Also read William Sleator's Into the Dream, which is a quickly moving story about two students who have the same repeating dream and try to find out why this is. Would appeal to students who like Twilight Zone type stories. From 1979.

Shannon Hale's Book of a Thousand Days was an okay retelling of a Grimm story moved to Mongolia, and I appreciated that she would give part of her profits from the book to Heifer International, but I can't move her Princess Academy. I don't have a strong group of female fantasy/medieval fans, I guess, so will pass.

Also won't buy the pink and fluffy "Choose your own adventure" book. The only readers I have for those are 6th grade boys. I always feel compelled to read every possible combination, so they drive me slightly mad.

Hurray for Michael Cadnum!!!

My students especially enjoy this author's Book of the Lion series, as well as his two mythologically oriented books, Starfall:Phaeton and the Chariot of the Sun and Nightsong: The Legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. I am going to have some VERY happy students today when they found out that we won a copy of The King's Arrow from the author himself!We've had a lot of discussions in the library about the historical person we would most like to meet, so thanks to Mr. Cadnum not only for the book, but for getting my students thinking about intriguing figures from history.

Mr. Cadnum also has a very nice web site that you should check out. This link, of course, features me, as well as one of my students (Kaitlin), who is enjoying her fame!

http://www.michaelcadnum.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10&Itemid=31

Wilson's The Lottie Project

Given this cover, and not the Nick Sharrat one, I thought the book would be about time travel. It wasn't, but since it was still Jacqueline Wilson, I wasn't too disappointed.

Wilson's books that make it to the U.S. (she's a top selling British YA author) tend to be light problem novels, and this one was. The twist: While Lottie is dealing with her single mother's lack of a job, she is also working on a school project about servant girls during the Victorian era. Her mother gets several jobs cleaning houses and looking after a little boy, and these experiments are reflected in the story she writes about the Victorian girl.

Wilson's Candyfloss and The Illustrated Mum have gone over well here, as has her "Girls" series. When looking for Wilson titles to buy, be aware that a lot of her books are aimed at the 8-12 age range, but are given older looking covers in the U.S.

Also of note: Jessica Blank's book, Almost Home, is NOT for middle schools. Although it starts out with delicate wording of sensitive issues, it uses the f-word more times than I could count, and quickly descends in hair-curling descriptions of life on the street.

Paley's Huge

When I say that this book is sort of a novelization of "The Biggest Loser" for teenagers, that sounds like a criticism, but it really isn't. I enjoyed the book very much, and any books about eating disorders/weight issues are gobbled up (sorry!) by my students, especially as we are nearing February, which is tradionally Problem Novel Month in my library. This by demand, not by my request!

Wil is forced to go to "fat camp" by her parents, who run a fitness center empire and are embarassed by her weight. April saves up all year to go, to try to escape the eating habits that she and her mother have fallen into. As roommated, they don't work well together because they are at cross purposes-- Wil has decided to gain weight to irritate her parents. While good exercise and eating habits are hinted at, this is far more about the relationship that the girls have with each other, the students at the camp, and their pasts. There are some nasty characters, especially a boy who kisses both girls and then makes fun of them. They exact a rather nasty revenge, but all of the situations are portrayed as complicated and real.

Is this Great Literature? No. It was however, valuable, interesting, and fun. And, along with The Black Sheep, it will be fun to have in the library in 15 years, when reality television is (hopefully!) not around anymore.

Lurlene McDaniel

This author has the sad romance down to a fine science. There are so many devoted fans at my school that I picked up a bunch of paperbacks to replace lost copies this weekend, and I should be processing them right now so they can be checked out today.

I read Angel of Mercy over the weekend. Again, not the thing to read when it's cold and January out, since it is the story of a girl who goes on a mission to Africa to help the impoverished. There is a little romance, an abundance of Christian sentiment, and much sadness. Again, the fans will be glad, but this is just not the sort of book that appeals to me personally.

Sheth's Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet

How do I not already have a copy of this? After reading this author's The Keeping Corner, I checked this one out... again, apparently. This is one I have to have because it shows such a different MODERN lifestyle. Since Sheth's Blue Jasmine (about an Indian girl who moves to the States) is so popular, I think the students will enjoy this story of Jeeta, a high school age girl with two older sisters. The family's main concern is getting all of the daughters married, and the parents work hard at arranging suitable matches. I predict that a lot of the readers will come to me and ask if this is actually still true!

Jeeta's family is solidly middle class-- the father works for a jewelry store, the weddings they give are fairly elaborate, and the children are getting an education, but all seven of them live in a one bedroom apartment in Mumbai. The father sleeps in the living room, and there are five mattresses for the other six. This is the sort of thing that students often don't understand, and I think it is valuable for them to see how others live .

Drat. Those are all the books by this author. I hope she is writing more!
http://kashmirasheth.typepad.com/

Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It

In middle school, I loved post apocalyptic tales like Z for Zachariah, so this one would have pleased me inordinately, as did my 8th grade daughter. I'm not usually one for books in journal form (e.g. Angus, Thongs), but as my daughter put it, it makes more sense this way. We get to hear all of her emotions. We both especially liked "Life sucks. Wish I had fudge." There were a few more quotable lines, but my younger daughter stole the book from me, so I don't have it.

Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice-- and here we get a little of both because an asteroid has pushed the moon out of orbit. Communications and utilities go down, food is in short supply, and people, in general, go nuts. Still, life has to go on, and I appreciated that we were shown a realistic family who does the best they can. Stock up on canned goods and kitty litter (I appreciated that they kept their pet-- wouldn't many of us try?), move everyone into the room with the wood-burning stove, and hunker down. I can see why this has been popular. Well-written, intriguing twists, fresh and fun voice in the face of obstacles.

However, on a personal level, it was not a good thing to read over a long weekend while I had the heat set at 58 degrees. I felt like I should stock up on peanut butter, as if the ten jars I got on sale wouldn't be enough. As a mother, reading post-apocalyptic novels, especially one this detailed, does not make me happy. 8th grader did admit that she now understands why I make her bike everywhere, as well as why I keep a well-stocked pantry.

Wonder if having this book will increase readership in The Beauty Queen from 1974? If you want more information on Ms. Pfeffer, check out her blog at:

http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/

More Sleator, and Stevenson

If your library doesn't already have an older (1988) copy of The Duplicate, you may be forced to read a paperback with this really, really bad cover. Still a thought provoking story-- we all think it would be nice to have another one of ourselves to get all of our work done, but who's to say that WE would get to do the fun stuff and the duplicate would be folding socks in the basement?

This is the situation that David finds himself in when he finds a Spee-Dee-Dupe on the beach and makes a copy of himself so that he can go spend time with his girlfriend rather than with his grandmother. Not only does that plan not work out, but the duplicate starts becoming rather sinister, and there's some nice action/adventure/suspence to round out an interesting story.

James Stevenson's The Bones in the Cliff (1995) is out of print, but if there is one around, dust it off. It is a short and simple mystery about a young boy living on an island who is fearful for his father's life. Who is the man with the cigar who might get off the ferry, and what are his plans? While both Pete and his friend Rootie have some problems, they manage to spend a fun summer exploring the island, and when the man with the cigar finally does arrive, there is some action and suspense. This hasn't gone out much, but I know of a lot of students who should enjoy this!

Giants of Science, Marie Curie

I love biographies. In the 4th grade, I would bring home two Childhood of Famous Americans books every night and read them. Elizabeth Blackwell: Girl Doctor was one of my favorites.

Krull's Marie Curie was much, much better, and written in an amusing, engaging style that is sure to entice readers. The first sentence is "She risked her life for science." Okay! Tell me more! This is no sanitized version for children. Curie is given credit for her vast scientific acchievements, but her personality also comes through strongly. Given the odds she faced as a woman working around the turn of the last century, some depression is to be expected. The science is well-explained and understandable. The Curies both probably knew that radiation was bad for them, but they were too involved in their work to consider it a problem. This is not a long book, but quite fascinating. I will definitely look for the others in the series, including Sigmund Freud, Isaac Newton, and Leonardo da Vinci.

The only this I would add would be some actual pictures. The drawings are okay, but students are very visual, and like to see what the person really looked like.

Encyclopedia Brown Cracks the Case

Donald J. Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown books were my second great love (after Carolyn Haywood), so I was tickled to see that at the age of about 83, he had another one out! I have fond memories of sitting with my mother and reading a case, then talking about what we thought the solution was.

These are most appropriate for elementary age students, but one of my very reluctant 8th grade readers devoured all the titles I had. If students are having trouble with mysteries and have to read one for class, these books are a good way to ease them in.

As always, I solved some of the chapter long mysteries, but not others. (Didn't know that ducks needed gravity to swallow, not to spoil it for you!) I miss the original drawings, but am glad to add this title to my collection.

The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World

E.L. Konigsburg can be very, very good. One need look no further than From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. This title had an art mystery in it as well, but I just couldn't get into it. At least I didn't hate it, as one of teachers, a big Konigsburg fan, did.

Amedeo moves to Florida with his mother, who is a big time phone executive. He befriends a boy whose mother is an estate liquidator, who happend to be liquidating Amedeo's neighbor's possessions. I did sort of enjoy that part-- the neighbor was an opera singer who has all sorts of interesting autographed books and whatnot. There was also a sketch, found in the library, that looked intriguing, so Amedeo, along with his godfather(the director of an arts center) works on solving the mystery, which ends a little too neatly for my taste. The depiction of the art world at the time of Nazi Germany is intriguing, and heartrending, as many of these stories are, but everything came together too coincidentally.

Students who liked the Blue Balliet mysteries may find this interesting, but I don't think I will buy it. Moves too slowly and does get confusing, due to shifts in point of view.

Sheth's Keeping Corner

For fans of Whelan's Homeless Bird, this book about a young Indian widow circa 1918 is even better. Sheth, who did the wonderful Blue Jasmine about her own experience coming from India to the United States to live, tells us the tale of an aunt who was widowed at a young age and refused to stick to the very strigent code of conduct prescribed for widows. Since she is so young, she needs to listen to her parents a bit: she "keeps corner", staying in the house for a year, but continues her studies and looks for ways to escape from the restrictive life style. Luckily, an older brother argues her case, and the social upheaval at the time also works in her favor. Ghandi is effecting social change, and this is explained in the context of the story.

The descriptions of every day life are very interesting, and the story moves along at a good pace. Students who don't like historical fiction are drawn into Homeless Bird by the struggles of the heroine, and they will be even more intrigued by this story.

I read Koyal Dark, Mango Sweet and didn't buy it. I can't remember why. I like this author so much that I will have to revisit the book!

Ranger's Apprentice, The Ruins of Gorlan

Admittedly, I was reluctant to read yet another medieval quest fantasy, especially one in which the first few pages talked about Wargals, but it ended up being a good read. Fans of Tolkien certainly eat this one up, as will any fans of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain.

Will is not large enough to go into battle school, but because of his stealth and intelligence, he is apprenticed to a Ranger, who works as intelligence for the kingdom. Complications ensue, adventures are had, and Will proves that being strong isn't always the best way to win fights.

There are seven of these books available in Australia, although the fourth has yet to be published in the U.S. A must have for fantasy fans in the middle grades.

Assorted "s" authors

William Sleator's Dangerous Wishes was a worthy sequel to his Spirit House. Dom, the younger brother from the first book, is now 15, and the family travels to Thailand to stay while the mother does research. Dom wants to find the amulet that his sister lost so that the spirits stop causing grief for his family. He is aided by Lek, a street merchant. While the ending is improbably, the views of Thailand, especially Lek's village, are interesting, and there is nonstop action. Really enjoyed this.

I had trouble getting into Sleator's Strange Attractors. Time travel is usually something I enjoy, but this book was somewhat confusing, with the bifurcation of time. Sort of like Molly Moon's Incredible Time Travel Adventure. You bifurcate time, you need to think very hard about when and where you are in the book!

In an effort to pay attention to graphic novels, I picked up Sfar and Guibert's The Professor's Daughter. Daughter of professor in love with the mummy Imhotep IV-- should be good. Instead, it was a bit confusing and just odd. My daughter didn't like it either.

Over the past month or so I've been working on Skurzynski and Ferguson's National Park Mysteries. We only have six of them here, but they are well-done, straightforward mysteries that I enjoyed. There are a lot of survival elements in them, and the few pictures in the middle of the books showing the parks are quite fun. Only problem-- book one is falling apart!

Find out more about the authors and books at:
http://gloriabooks.com/national.html

Sonia Levitin's Strange Relations

This story of a young girl who goes to Hawaii for the summer to stay with very religious relatives just won the Sydney Taylor Book Award, and it certainly deserves it. Marne is Jewish, but her family is not observant. Her aunt, however, is. There is a lot of interesting discussion of Jewish traditions and rituals, and how Marne learns to accept some of these into her life.

While I love this author, I don't think I will buy the book. Some of the concerns and situations are more suitable to a high school audience. Certainly, any school with a sizeable Jewish population will find this interesting.

My favorite Levitin book is still The Mark of Conte. Even after 30 years, it still resonates with students. If you are lucky enough to have a copy about, dust it off and give it a try.

Also read Snicket's The Hostile Hospital, which was not as bad as some of the others.

The Truth About Stone Hollow

I thought I might have read this in middle school, and when I was picking a book to read last night, it was on my shelf. First checked out in 1979(published in '74) , this title from Zilpha Keatley Snyder has a languorous quality that I remember from my childhood. Set during the Depression, this slow moving mystery follows a young girl whose father was injured in an accident and a boy whose exotic family moves to a small town so the father can write a book. The two discover an abandoned house that is rumored to be haunted, and try to figure out what is going on.

Not that they do. They do spend a lot of time ruminating on it, and in the end they decide there is an ancient stone that blurs the boundaries of time. It stops short of being a fantasy, because the closest the children come to traveling themselves is seeing images of people from the past. I was confused at the end-- did the grandmother die, or was she somehow involved with the Italian man who was found dead down by the still after his daughter passed away from lockjaw? That's pure conjecture on my part.

I enjoyed the book, but am not sure that it is still viable. Styles change, students change, and sometimes old things need to go to make way for new. Not right away, but eventually.

Library History

Can't get a good scan of this, but it is the circulation card from The Odyssey of Homer from the Boardman Center Middle School Library. The book was accessioned on 9-7-66, and my best friend Lori checked it out in 1978. The book is still there, and my friend's daughter brought it home. I had to laugh at the random date due stamps on the pocket, knowing that we were probably responsible for the ones from '78! The stamping was hugely fascinating.

I'm trying to remember what books I might have checked out that would still be in the library, but I'm having a hard time. Snyder's The Velvet Room, perhaps; Moskin's I am Rosemarie. Farmer's Charlotte Sometimes. I know I read a lot, but the titles are lost to the mists of time.

I still use circ cards, because middle school students frequently suffer from bouts of amnesia, and the cards jog their memories. My student helpers sometimes make mistakes on the computer, and it's nice to have a backup system. Then there was the order from Follett that came with the same bar code numbers on two sets of books. (Raptor and Rats both were 50927, for example.) If I hadn't had the cards, I would never have tracked down about 40 books. Also, should the computer go down, I am still in business.

Students are fascinated by the cards, and asked how one did overdue lists before computers. The answer-- looked through the cards and typed a list of overdues, then very carefully crossed out names when the books came back. I don't know how we would ever have been limited to a certain number of books, or how they could have prevented us from checking out if we had something overdue-- unless they looked at the typed list.

The public library took pictures of the books we checked out with our library card sitting on the pocket. I never understood how they used those records, but someone once said that there was someone sitting at a microfiche reader in the basement, going through records constantly. I can't imagine.

Sorry to digress, but this was such fun! Thank goodness for computers!

The Camel Rider by Prue Mason

This was recommended to me by my public librarian, and I enjoyed it. Books set in the Middle East are obviously timely, and this is a good action/adventure/survival book as well.

Adam puts his passport in with his traveling father's luggage so that he does not have to return to Australia with his mother, but can spend a few more days in the airline compound in Abudai where his family has been living. Unfortunately, shortly after his mother leaves, the city is attacked, a war is started, and he must evacuate with another family. He makes the additional unwise choice of leaving them so he can return for his dog.

Walid, a boy connected with a group of camel racers, unhobbles a valuable camel when the bombing starts. The camel ends up breaking its leg and having to be shot, so Walid is going to be sold to other slavers.

Both boys meet up in the desert and try to make their way back to the city. It is hard for them to communicate, which is portrayed realistically in the book. Using different typefaces, we know what each boy is thinking.

Not only do the boys have to survive in the desert, the men who are after Walid follow them, and there are good case scenes and a lot of details about cultural differences that the boys find. The ending is happy, if a little pat.

This is a good addition to a multicultural collection. Several of my reluctant readers are enjoying Deborah Ellis' The Breadwinner, and this is my next choice for them.

Lemony Snicket

My mother taught me that if you can't say anything nice, you shouldn't say it, which here means that I should poke myself in the eyes with sharp objects, hindering me from saying anything about The Series of Unfortunate Events and also preventing me from having to read the 7th and 8th books tonight.

Children love these books.

I fail to see why. Nothing really happens, or rather, the same thing happens over and over. The children get placed with a somewhat decent guardian. Things go bad. Count Olaf shows up. Things get worse. They improve slightly. The children move on. It is not the plot to which I object so much as the style of writing. It is overly precious, and assumes that we are idiots and want three words defined for us on every page. Even my 4th grader admitted that the first chapters were especially hard to get through.

These are also horribly bound and fall apart constantly. Thanks, Scholastic.

Children do love these. They are different. They are a nice, long series. There is a movie.

I am not looking forward to reading any more of these!

Spooks, spirits and Spinelli-- oh, my!

Delaney's The Last Apprentice series is set in a Medieval time, involes traversing the countryside in search of evil creatures to take care of, and is oddly involving. The Revenge of the Witch was a great start, with Tom Ward starting his apprenticeship with the local Spook, who binds boggarts and witches. We see the further implications of this dealing with evil in The Curse of the Bane-- the townspeople count on the Spook but still fear him. In Night of the Soul Stealer, the two travel to the Spook's winter home at the edge of evil, so they can keep a closer eye on the Golgoth and the forces trying to invade their world. It was interesting to see the Spook in weak moments-- he loves a lamia witch, whom he has kept drugged and docile so that he doesn't have to imprison her in the basement. After an encounter with a stone throwing boggart, the Spook is injured and Tom assumes more responsibility. I zipped through all 486 and was horrified at the end when it was clear that there was another book and it wasn't published yet! Oh, the anguish. This is the sort of reaction I want from books, not "Great, have to slog through yet another sequel!"

William Sleator's The Spirit House was a shorter book, but also a good page turner. Julie is not happy that her family is getting an exchange student from Thailand, and when he arrives, things start going poorly in her world. Is it the fault of the spirit house that her brother builds in the backyard? And is the student really who he says he is? There is enough mystery to make up for the lack of action-- the feeling of impending evil is enough to keep me with the story. I will definitely be recommending this to students. I believe there is a sequel, and I am looking forward to that.

Think I still need to pick up Spinelli's Maniac Magee, but read Fourth Grade Rats (again?) and Crash last night. Crash struck me as a boy related protoversion of Stargirl in some respects. Boys who like humorous books could be enticed to read this one, and it does involve football. It veers away from the earlier books in that it is more introspective, but stops short of navel gazing by the way the "odd" friend is treated in a humorous but not mean fashion. Fourth Grade Rats is a short and amusing book for middle schoolers who need something quick; I imagine that actual fourth graders would find it more meaningful.

Neal Shusterman's Unwind

Sometimes, books are well-written, gripping, AND thought-provoking. This dystopian novel from Shusterman is all of that and more. Set in a future America that has been torn apart by a war between ProChoice and ProLife factions, the compromise that has been made is that abortion is illegal, but mothers may abandon their children on people's doorsteps or at massive state orphanages, and children between the ages of 13 and 18 may be "unwound". Three children-- Connor, whose parents make this decision because of his behavior problems; Risa, who is a ward of the state and unwound due to budgetary constraints; and Lev, whose religious parents decided to unwind him at birth because they believe in tithing everything-- meet up on the run from their supposed doom, which is to become organ donors for people who need livers, arms, even brain cells, since technology has advanced to the point where these transplants are easy and effective.

Eventually making their way into an underground system that saves such children, the three get caught up in intrique at a camp whose leader was an author of the Bill of Life, which set up the unwinding process. Feeling guilt over having his own son unwound, he has set up a camp in the dessert for children to bide their time until their 18th birthdays while working for him.

When they try to save this man when he has a heart attack, the three get discovered and sent to a Harvest Camp. Another boy from the camp is "unwound" and we get to hear how this is done. The society has decided that this is not death, since 99 and 44/100th of the children live on. This is a chilling premise that is handled in such a brilliantly delicate manner that I found myself thinking "Is Shusterman ProChoice or ProLife?" For being such a central part of this book, abortion is not really discussed; the reader has to draw his own conclusions on what this society thinks of the sanctity of life, and also what are own society does

A long book, this is not easy to describe, but the most effective part of this book is that the philosophical musing is broken up by car chases, explosions and fights. Things HAPPEN.

If I had my way, this would win the Newbery. Riveting. Chilling. Absolutely excellent.

Several very large fantasy books

Fantasy fans are another group of voracious readers. I don't care much for fantasy, so it's hard to find books that will fill the bill for these students. I can tell when books will be popular even though I don't care for them personally.

Angie Sage's Septimus Heap trilogy (Magyk, Flyte, Physik) is one such series. Nice quests, lots of magical details, easy to follow plots-- all good. Incredibly painful for me to get through. Can't tell you the plots. They wandered through the swamps a lot. People got kidnapped regularly. Still, a very good series to have on hand for avid fantasy fans.

Also read Georgia Byng's Molly Moon, Mickey Minus and the Mind Machine. I really liked the first two books, found the third confusing, and didn't like this one. It was easy to follow-- Molly travels into the future to find her missing twin brother but gets caught in the web of an evil ruler-- but the characters were all rather unpleasant, and I thought the section with all of the evil mutant animals, which was lengthy, dragged a bit. Still, I realize that these are personal objections and not ones that will keep students from enjoying the books. In fact, 8th grade daughter ran off with this one and thought it was great.

Pink books,a law unto themselves

While I would like to have only "pink" books that are really high quality with engrossing discussions of relevant topics, there is such a huge demand for this type of literature that things that are competently written and amusing will have to suffice. I do have lots of girls who will read at least four books a week.

Perfectly competent but a little weak (name dropping, slightly weak plots) are Victoria Ashton's Confessions of a Teen Nanny series. (That title, Rich Girls, and Juicy Secrets.) Two teens work as nannies for the families of students in their school/social circle. Complications ensue. Interesting depiction of students with lots of money, some celebrity, etc.

Also cashing in on celebrity in the Dyan Sheldon sequel to Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet. Sheldon does more comedy, and the main characters missteps (and oblivious qualities) make this amusing, although I like her other titles a bit more.

Certainly, these books get checked out frequently, even though I didn't enjoy them as much as Rallison's Revenge of the Cheerleaders.

Why I Read Books

I read so that I can tell my students what books they might like. I read so that I know what to order. I also talk to my students a lot about the sorts of books that appeal to them. There are many books that are perfectly fine, but which the majority of students will not find interesting. My job is to find books that walk that fine line-- thought provoking AND interesting.

One of these was Katherine Brubaker Bradley's Leap of Faith. Kicked out of her public school because she attacked the principal's son with a knife, Abigail is forced to attend a Catholic school. While there, she finds out that she has a flair for theatre, and also thinks a lot about what she believes. Certainly, this is something that a few students would find very compelling, but it suffers from what students calls "nothing happened". That's slightly more polite than my "introspective navel-gazing" description. In short, it's a fine book, but one that would gather dust most of the time. I can only afford books that will get used frequently.

Another book where not much happens is Sharon Creech's Replay. Leo finds his father's teenage journal and is surprised to learn that he liked to tap dance. Child's Language Arts teacher read this and thought it would be good for discussion in class, because it is largely concerned with issues of personal identity and how people change. Leo is involved with a play at school, and there is a lot of discussion about the roles that are cast, and this would also lead to good discussion. Child, however, read about three chapters before returning the book to me and telling me it had no plot. (I.E. Nothing happens.) My 4th grade daughter didn't get that far, because she was sooooo bored. (She's a reluctant reader.) My 8th grader started it but put it down in favor of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. General verdict: fine book, but it's not going to thrill children who HAVE to read it for class.

My New Favorite Author-- Janette Rallison

This doesn't mean I no longer love Maureen Johnson, but Rallison has burst on the scene with a huge number of really good "pink" books. This is, of course, my shameful and secret love. So many of these books are not quite what I want them to be, but the one I read last night, Revenge of the Cheerleaders was almost perfect.

Chelsea is a cheerleader, but a nice one. Her sister, Adrian, is dating a grunge rock punk (Rick) who pens an album of mean songs about cheerleaders. To get back at Rick, Chelsea plans to tryout for the television program High School Idol, hoping to beat Rick's band. In order to get coaching, she needs to help two unpopular girls gain enough confidence to sing in public. During her supervising of her mercurial sister, she meets a nice, attractive college boy (she's a high school senior) whom she really likes. Complications ensue. Everything works out well in the end.

I appreciated the fact that this was a high school story but not inappropriate. The cheerleaders were all nice and sympathetic characters. The plot twists were surprising but plausible. Lessons were learned. It made me very, very happy.

Liked all the titles by this author, especially How to Take the Ex out of Ex-boyfriend. Check out either Ms. Rallison's blog or web site:

http://janette-rallison.blogspot.com/

http://www.janetterallison.com/

More Jerry Spinelli

I definitely admire the breadth of Spinelli's writing. It's fun to find an author whose next book is not something that you would expect.

For my lower readers, I have his Tooter Pepperday, which is good for fans of Junie B. Jones, and apparently a series. (Girl does not want to move to farm with aunt so father can write full time, but is won over eventually.) The Bathwater Gang is rather Cleary-esque (neighborhood full of kids gotten together by spunky grandma). I don't feel qualified to comment on either, since they were emergent reader "chapter books". I never like these. In first grade, I checked out Carolyn Haywood and Donald Sobel and have never looked back.

Loser was much better than I anticipated. Introspective navel-gazing, to be sure, but very well done, and a very understanding view of a student who struggles and doesn't fit in. This would be very effective for a classroom discussion.

Check out Mr. Spinelli's web site, which is very flashy and fun, to see more about his books. Again, he has such a wide range. Aside from Stargirl, I particularly liked Milkweed (about a boy surviving during the holocaust) and The Library Card. I found Wringer disturbing, but some of my reluctant readers adore it. I would like to read Jason and Marceline (sequel to Space Station 7th Grade) but it's out of print!

http://www.jerryspinelli.com/newbery_003.htm

Caroline Lawrence, The Charioteer of Delphi

This is the 12th book in the series of mysteries set about 79 a.d., mainly in the port city of Ostia, but also in various other spots. In this, the children go to Rome to solve the mystery of a missing race horse and get caught up in intrigue surrounding the races in the Circus Maximus. Rich in details, these are all fun ways to give students information about ancient Rome in a way that is entertaining and yet very, very informative. There are apparently going to be 18 in the series, which is wildly popular in England. There is even a television program that I wish could be obtained in the states.

http://www.romanmysteries.com/indexflash.htm

I read this on the last day of break, which would account for my slight annoyance at a couple of things. Nubia, the African slave girl, speaks in stilted English. I hate reading anything in dialect. (This is why I haven't abscounded with the new Brian Jacques' book. It can wait until summer. )Nubia could also "talk" to the horses and understand what they were feeling, which seemed odd. I don't think students will mind, and these things were certainly minor issues in a well-crafted series. I am looking forward to the next!

McDonald and Draper

Janet McDonald's last book (the author died last year), Off-color, was very interesting. Cameron has a bad attitude about life (many of McDonald's characters do), which I found irritating as a teacher, since she doesn't seem to suffer very much from it. What does bother her is finding out that her father was black. Coming as it does after her mother moves them to a neighborhood where she is around a lot of black girls, it gives her a lot to think about in terms of identity. Since there are a lot of multiracial students, and not much literature that shows them, this is a good book to add to many collections.

Probably the best book I read all break was Draper's November Blues, a sequel to The Battle of Jericho. November's boyfriend died at the end of the first book, in an awful hazing accident. She is starting to comes to terms with that when she realizes that she is pregnant. While Josh's death certainly figures largely in this book (his parents want to adopt the child until they fear that she might be brain damaged after a premature birth), it is really a book about teen pregnancy told in a very delicate way. Like One Good Punch, it shows choices and consequences in a realistic way.

For whatever reason, this sort of book is starting to hold more appeal to me. Held up against something like Jan Slepian's Back to Before, it seems much more relevant. No one has picked up the book about time traveling cousins the whole time it has been at my library, and I can't say that anything about it compels me to make sure that anyone does.

Back to school tomorrow, to see how the students liked the new shipment of books that came in the day before break!

More Spinelli

Who Put that Hair in my Toothbrush (1984) is really two stories-- that of Megin, tomboyish 7th grader who is into hockey, doughnuts, and visiting a friend at a local nursing home, and of Greg, a vain 9th grade boy who loves a girl who has moved away, and is annoyed by his younger sister. Told in alternating chapters, both stories are interesting, but I think the book would be better if they were separated, because then the boys who like romance books would read this. As it is, I don't think it likely that they will wade through Megin's tale.

Spinelli has a very fine comic sense, which is not as evident in his quirky, dysfunctional Newbury attempts like Stargirl and Eggs. He should next write a romance book for 8th grade boys. Nice, clean, funny. Perfect.

The Rise of Lubchenko

Simmons Finding Lubchenko was half fantastic. This was okay. Again, Evan is put into a lot of danger, but spends most of his time goofing off, flying to Europe and hanging out on topless beaches. I hope that this is just building suspense, waiting for his run in with the dangerous spies that want to kill him, but when he finally gets to that point, it is anticlimatic and I'm disappointed. I will have to read a third book before buying it-- these are ultimately unsatisfying despite their really, really promising premise. And I liked Pool Boy, too, for examining the teen angst. Even the angst is treated lightly in Lubchenko. Sigh.

The Last Holiday Concert, Clements

Certainly, Clements is safe for everyone to read. A teacher on the verge of being laid off due to budget cuts gets fed up with his rowdy 6th grade chorus and leaves it to the biggest trouble maker to arrange the whole concert. Despite mishaps, the students learn to work together, and the teacher sees that sometimes he had to let the children work out their own problems. Touching, clever, and sort of boring. Every elementary school library should have all of Clements' work. Except for the Things Not Seen series. Some should have that one.

Like One Good Punch, the ending is unclear. What happens to the teacher who loses his job? And how many teachers let their programs be cut without putting up any fight? Oh, well.

Masquerade, de la Cruz

The second in the Blue Bloods series, this is another one of the vampire books that are fairly mature. While delicately done, there is still the whole issue of "bonding" with her human companion that Schuyler faces that makes me uneasy. The first book was very, very clever ( I still love the tie in with the First Families in New York and vampires); this one was less so. The girls who like Twilight will love this one as well. WHile I won't be handing this to 6th graders, it was awfully fun to read, and I think that some of this would go over the 6th graders' heads.

Assorted Older Sports Books

Will have to keep Slote's Love and Tennis because it is very technical and has a lot of information about tennis and pursuing a professional career. I don't get many students who are seriously into tennis, but if I did, this would be the book for them. Basically, Buddy's mother and father want him to train more seriously than he wants to train-- he'd rather hang out with a potential girlfriend, but he does go to a very intensive tennis camp to see if he has "what it takes".

John K. Tunis' World Series was a decent enough baseball book, with lots of play-by-plays and talk about what the players will do. Unfortunately, since this author died in 1975, the book is also filled with characters with nicknames like Fat Stuff and Babe. These still check out well, and they certainly aren't offensive at all, but they do seem slightly dated. I need to read a few more, but these are for strong readers who are really, really into their baseball!

One Good Punch-- Wallace

This is a bit of a departure from the younger sports series that Wallace has (and I can't think of the titles, of course), but it is very, very good.

Michael Kerrigan, 18, makes some good choices. He is committed to running track, he very competently and responsibly writes obituaries for the local paper, and he is thinking about college. He also makes some very bad choices, including buying four marijuana joints from a friend, who stashes them in his locker. Just before a police dog sweep.

The title comes from a story a friend's father tells him. One good punch was all it took for this man's boxing career to be over. Will one good punch (being expelled for the marijuana) take down Michael?

We don't know. Not to ruin the ending, but Wallace leaves us hanging. I see why ( we are supposed to get, I think, that Michael will not let the punch get him down), but it wasn't very satisfying.

The slim size of this does concern me. This is not necessarily for 6th graders. There is some discussion of making out with a girl friend and also the rather unnecessary supposition that she may be a lesbian. Still, there are a lot of bad choices that students can make, and books that show these choices, as well as the consequences, are good for them to read. Would I let my 6th grade son read this? Yes. Do I have any books I really don't want him to read? No. Am I leaning more toward problem novels with challenging concepts than I have in the past? Yes. The world we live in is a more difficult place than it was when I was in middle school, and some students need to see how decisions lead to consequences without actually having to live through them.