Bradbury's Shift and Backlog

Jennifer Bradbury's Shift was a good mystery that will appeal to older boys. Chris and Win decide to go on a cross country bike ride after graduation. Things go well at first, but then the two quarrel and split up. Chris comes homes and heads off to college, but Win never shows up, and his parents put high level detectives on the case. Chris tries to find out what has happened to Win, and uncovers a lot of information about's Win's life that he didn't know. Great cover. My only complaint-- don't stick a full page of acknowledgements at the beginning of a book. I feel oddly compelled to read them!

Sometimes, things just don't appeal or don't fit my needs. Recently had a stack like that. I feel bad, because most of these had very positive reviews.

Salamandra Drake. Dragonsdale. Decent enough drgon fantasy, but the cover is way too young, not to mention prone to damage.

Victoria Foyt. The Virtual Life of Lexie Diamond. A girl and her computer. Didn't grab me.

Mary Jane Beaufrand. Primavera. My 9th grader enjoyed it, but it sat next to my chair for a long time. If I don't want to pick up a historical novel, it's not a good bet with my patrons.

Simon Holt. The Devouring. Looks like a vampire novel, but is about two children who read a book about evil creatures who suck out your soul. Apparently, when they do this, you feel a need to savage hamsters. Aside from that, it was uneven, with too much ordinary stuff about a busy father and children whose mother has left. Makes the horror all the clearer but I can see students bringing this back disappointed.

Clare Dunkle. The Sky Inside. Maybe I'm reading too much future dystopia, but I couldn't get into this tale of a suburb under a dome, and the Wonder Babies who are repossessed because they are causing trouble. If I need science fiction, I may buy it, but it didn't click.

Catherine Ryan Hyde. The Day I Killed James. Really drove me nuts. It goes back and forth in time, and all I wanted to know was what happened to James. After so much bouncing around, I no longer cared.

Personal Identity

Doesn't everyone assume that everyone is watching all the time, and cares deeply what our hair looks like? In fact, everyone is so busy worrying about what their own hair looks like that they pay little attention to others. But I know that only because I'm old. The Market, by J.M. Steele, feeds this insecurity by creating a web site that rates every girl in Kate's high school and comments about her social worth. When Kate finds out that she is 71 out of 140, she tries to improve her social standing. There are pitfalls along the way, but everything works out in the end. Some might consider this trite, but I liked it, and my 9th grader is enjoying it. The message that Kate was able to become more popular by changing her appearance and actions, but that it wasn't worth it in the end resonated with me somehow.

Kate Brian's Fake Boyfriend was a little fluffier, but I like anything by this author (who also writes as Kieran Scott). LOVE the cover. When Isabelle is finally dumped by the boyfriend who has been bad news all along, her friends try desperately to keep her from going back to him-- the create a "fake" myspace account and get Isabelle interested in "Brandon". They have to find a real boy to play the part, and then things become complicated. I liked that the friends knew the boyfriend was not healthy for their friend, and it was pure fun to see how all of the romances worked out. Pleasant way to spend the afternoon.

Meacham's A Fairy's Guide to Understanding Humans seemed a bit young, and much sillier than the other book-- A Midsemester's Night's Dream, which I keep on hand with Banks' The Fairy Rebel for girls who don't like fantasy but have to read it. Even the cover on the Guide looks younger. Probably will pass.

Catherine Creedon's Blue Wolf (2003) was okay, but probably not enough werewolves for the werewolf fans. The first half of the book deals mainly with a boy and his "aunt" living in the wilderness. It seems out of print, and I can't find the sequels mentioned on the jacket, so I imagine this just did not do as well as hoped.

Sleator's Test

Ann lives in a futuristic societry where the traffic and pollution are incredibly awful, and everyone's future is completely dependent on how they score on the XCAS test. Her father, who apparently did not do well, works with poor people who cannot afford health care. The man who owns the building in which he works also produces the XCAS test. Lep, a Thai classmate of Ann's lives and works in the same building and is being given answers to the test, since his English skills are limited. When another employee of the building starts following Ann around and threatening her, she investigates and discovers some evil motives behind the test.

This was disappointing, mainly because I wanted something more. The cover was reminiscent of Guy Montag's firemen's emblem, with the salamanders, and I wanted a brilliantly written and insightful book on what adhering to strict testing and losing focus on actual learning and critical thinking can do to a society. I usually love Sleator's work, but he is not Ray Bradbury. His prose tends to be dryer, less descriptive, and in this book, his depictions of characters are very flat. The daughter of the test monger is slick and superficial; Lep is long suffering and noble; Ann is rather confused and ineffectual. The plot has holes in it, too many coincidences, and the society is not fully developed. I like the idea of students everywhere rising up and refusing to take the test, and alerting everyone to do this by text message was a good idea, but revolution like that can not be done the day before, and would need to be on a national, not local, scale to be effective. I will probably buy this, but won't recommend it for discussion groups.

Mary Hogan's Pretty Face was quite fun, until page 192. Hayley, who is overweight and nagged by her mother constantly, gets an opportunity to spend the summer in Italy. While there, she comes to terms with her weight and loses her virginity in a graphic but completely boring scene. What? If that had been left out, I would have gotten this book, as its blend of food issues and travel to Italy would have been welcomed by my readers. Now I know why my public library passed on this one.

Cast and Cast's Chosen turned out to be the third in a series. Since it is about vampyres (yick on the spelling), I may have to hunt down the first, but since it is by St. Martin's press (noted romance novel publisher) I may just forget. What I scanned of the third one didn't have anything unusally appealing.

Dessen's Lock and Key

This is a wonderfully complex novel, and it will never be on the shelf once I get a copy. Ruby has lived with her ineffectual and angry mother for years, and when her mother finally leaves, Ruby is relieved to be alone, and tries to take care of herself. She's behind on the rent, and the dryer quits, and while she is fine with that, it summons the landlords, who turn her over to juvenile services. Enter her sister Cora, who is ten years older and married to the owner of a sucessful social networking computer site, and who takes her in.

It's a tough adjustment. Even though the years of skipping out on rent, working after school, and trying to keep up at her tough inner-city school weren't easy, they were familiar, and the easy life Cora provides is confusing. Enrolled at a fancy prep school, Ruby finds it difficult to get to know her posh classmates, with the exception of her neighbor, Nate, who has more in common with her than she realizes.

There are problems here. Ruby still makes some bad decisions concerning behavior (some drinking and marijuana use), but these are dealt with effectively by her sister. So much goes on in this novel that I felt the same kind of controlled panic that Ruby felt. How WILL she make it through the nine months until she turns 18 and can leave?

In the end, she doesn't leave in the way she suspects, but there is nothing pat about the ending. There are still problems to work through, more than we suspected at the beginning, but Ruby has people who love and support her, and eventually, things will be okay.

This is a long novel (about 450 pages), but it kept me riveted. A definite purchase for me, because my 8th grade girls crave this sort of thing. Brava, Ms. Dessen.

Various reads on windy days

Central Ohio had big wind storms and lots of power outages, so we had two days off school, and I got lots of reading done!

My daughter has to read Orwell's Animal Farm (1954) for 9th grade English, and it wasn't bad. In fact, I think I've read it twice before, and it has weathered fairly well and is quite accessible. Students today would not know that it is a cautionary tale against communism, but will still find this tale of animals who take over a farm so that their work will be easier and they will not be oppressed by humans amusing. Class discussions will help them understand all of the human nature/society components.

Joyce Sweeney's Players (2000) was a great basketball tale. Transfer student wants to play on established high school team, no matter what the cost. He is an essentially evil boy, and causes dissention on the team by blackmailing and manipulating team members. Enough play by plays to keep the sports fanatics happy, and a little mystery to keep things fresh.

Temple's The Ramsay Scallop (1994) was an interesting historical novel. Elenor is leery of her betrothed, who has come back from the Crusades. Her priest knows this, and suggests that the two of them make a pilgrimage to Spain on behalf of the village, and not get married until their return. This had a good mix of adventure, ordinary life at the time, and intriguing characters. I will try to get some of Caroline Meyers fans of her princess novels to read this one. My die-hard Medieval fans will also like this.

Jan Terlouw's Winter in Wartime (1975) is not an appealing looking book, and has not gotten a lot of circulation, but it should. This is a nicely done tale (based on the author's own boyhood experiences) about a boy in occupied Holland during WWII. A friend hides an English pilot in the woods but is then jailed, so Michiel has to take care of him. An unflinching tale about the various horrors of war, this book was named the Best Dutch Juvenile book in 1973. If you have a copy, dust it off, because it's worth keeping.

Also got as far as the forward on The Silmarillion.

Petrucha's Teen, Inc.

Wow! Buying two copies! Teen, Inc. was fantastic. Funny, but with a mystery and a social message about environmental responsibility and corporate politics and greed.

Jaiden's parents were killed by an explosion caused by a faulty NECorp product. To limit their losses and look good to the public, NECorp gets custody and raises Jaiden by committee. He lives in an office, has focus groups decide what he should do, and is the subject of endless memoes and meetings whenever he messes up.

' "Remember what happened when you were failing math last year?"

How could I forget? (They)...decided I should be sent on a retreat with accounting. You haven't lived until you've had forced bonding with twenty high-level accountants." ' (page 13)

Jaiden tries hard to keep his upbringing a secret and live a normal life, but when he is encouraged to start dating and becomes involved in a school project with a classmate whose father is anti-corporation, things quickly dissolve into chaos. He finds out that NECorp is not being truthful about its mercury waste problems, and when trying to put this right, Jaiden is hunted down by executives and threatened with a foster home in Idaho.

This book is a marvelous mix of things, and laugh aloud funny. Stefan Petrucha's Time Tripper series is great for my fantasy loving fans, but this book is accessible to all. Petrucha's other titles seem to be predominately graphic novels or franchised series, but I think that teen boy comedy is really his forte. I will definitely be picking up a copy of the forthcoming The Rule of Won.

For more on this author, check out his web site at:

http://www.petrucha.com/

Last three Stine

Rather enjoyed Wrong Number, even if it was outdated-- with caller identifiction, does anyone make prank calls anymore? There aren't even any phone booths from which to make them. Still, a decent mystery about students who make prank calls until one call is answered by a woman who is being murdered. When they try to find the woman, they get in all sorts of trouble. The boy is blamed for the murder, and his sister and her friend do some dangerous detective work to try to free him. Wrong Numer 2 was not quite as good-- the bad guy is baaaaack. Phone Calls is another Stine that isn't horror (How I Broke Up With Ernie being the other one). It was supposed to be funny, but since it was all in dialogue, it was too annoying for me to enjoy.

That's it for the Stine, I do believe. And no, Frequent Blog Readers, I do not intend to read all of the nonfiction books after I am finished with the fiction!

Getting near the end.

Have about two more Stine books to go, must start my death march through the Silmarillion, and have several Sutcliffe books to read, but I'm heading on to the end of the alphabet. After six years of reading my way through the library collection, I'm nearing the end. It's a little sad, because there won't be any more surprises.

Not all of the surprises are good. For instance, why is there a copy of Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales on the shelf? In picture book format? No one has ever checked it out, and I can understand why. It's an odd book, very poetic (makes sense) but much too stream of consciousness for the lower level readers, who might be tempted by it. I think it will move on to a better home.

Theodore Taylor's Maria: A Christmas Story was rather nice. A Latina girl who is friends with the daughters of neighboring wealthy landowners feels bad because her family never puts together a float for the Christmas parade because of the expense. She enters the family in the competition, and although reluctant at first, they come through with a more spiritual and authentic float. This is a very short book, and one which my reluctant readers will appreciate. Taylor has been gone for almost two years, but his web site is still maintained at:
http://www.theodoretaylor.com/

I feel as if I should reread The Cay, but have very vivid memories of reading it in the fourth grade. It was only a few years old then!

William Shirer- The Sinking of the Bismarck

Sterling Point Press has some wonderful reissues of war related memoirs, including one of this 1962 account war correspondent turned historian Shirer (1904-1993). Told in an avulncular style, it brings immediacy to an event now long in the past. Complete with maps and photos, WWII buffs will find this very engaging. 

Also read about half of Stephen Alter's Ghost Letters, which sounded very cool ("Gil discovers a bottle that carries messages into the past, finds a genie is a letter, and three letters that were never delivered but would have changed the course of history." From book summary.) but didn't really engage me. Switching back and forth between Gil in the present and a scribe's apprentice in the late 1800's, too much of the book was taken up with lushly worded descriptions of making ink. This reminded me of fantasy books by the likes of Edward Eager, but my audience wants a little more action.

Also very contemplative and philosophical was Stephen M. Kelly's Symbala's River, which was loaned to me by one of my students. Symbala has never been far from her village, but when her caretaker dies and she must decide what job she will do, she decides to investigate the source of the river that leads to the sea near her home. There is a little action and adventure, but a lot of Symbala's journey is one of faith.

Just kind of icky was Baldini and Biederman's Unraveling. Suffice it to say that any book that starts with, erm, girls' biological issues and moves on to issues of sex is not one that is needed in my library at this juncture.

More Vampire High News

Okay, as much as I hate change, I've got to admit that the apprehensive look on Cody's face is pretty good on the new cover (far left). The spooky house is good, too, as is the blood red font. Since the book is humorous but not silly, the non-cartoon cover is a little better than the original, which I do still like.

Thank you very much to Douglas Rees for sending me a copy. The secretary and principal at my school had to fight over who got to read it first. Mr. Rees is hard at work on the sequel to this book, and we can't wait.

(According to Mr. Rees' web site http://otterlimits.org/doug/books.html, Vampire Pride will be finished by the end of the year! Publication will be a bit longer, I'm sure.)

3/16/2009-- Mr. Reese said recently that there have been a few snags, so no publication date yet, I'm afraid!

The Adoration of Jenna Fox

Best thing I've read all summer, but I don't want to spoil it for others, since there are som eunexpected plot twists. Jenna wakes up after being in a coma for a year, following a horrible accident that kills her two best friends. She has trouble with memory, still can't quite move her body the way she could, and her grandmother and parents are acting weird. Her mother doesn't want her to leave the house, and her grandmother doesn't seem to like her. At first I thought this was another amnesia novel, but it quickly becomes clear that this is more in line with Unwind than Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac. Set in the near future, this brings up issues of identity, bioethics, and many issues that would make great class discussions. At first, both the cover and the title didn't seem to fit, but all becomes clear by the end. My son and daughter both read this one and liked it. Definitely buying a copy.

Robert Parker's The Boxer and the Spy was okay. A boy is found dead along the shore, and the presumption is that he jumped off a bridge in a steroid induced rage. Terry finds this implausible, and starts to investigate a number of suspicious activities around town. This gets him into trouble with the principal, the BMOC football player, and makes his training in boxing come in handy. The writing is spare, to the point where any discussions of sex are about as interesting and titillating as discussions of cornflakes. The sex isn't what stopping me from buying this-- the rest of the book just isn't compelling enough to merit justifying it.

Mary Stolz's The Noonday Friends (1965) was a flashback to the days when the poor bought hamburger 35 cents at a time, and had two shirts and a skirt to their name. Franny's father is an out-of-work artist who can't keep a job; her mother works (unheard of!) to help put food on the table. Franny watches her younger brother and tries to improve her family's lives. The New York City setting is also something reminiscent of books that I read in middle school. I think the book holds up well, and I can recommend this to 6th graders who want problem novels.

Golden's Poison Ink looked intriguing, but didn't quite draw me in. There are other books about evil tattooing that are done more cleverly, and this felt like I came in in the middle of a series and didn't know essential background. I'll check. Perhaps I did.

Yikes! and Eh.

Middle school librarians-- if you have R.L. Stine's The Sitter on the shelf, go pull it. Now. How did I not see the "Contains mature material" warning? It does. Liberal use of foul language and fairly graphic sex. I may have thought this was a compilation of several of the Babysitter books. It's going. Bad.

Rachel Chance, by Jean Thesman (1990) is from the Cynthia Voigt, late '80s school of angst. The book summary reads "When Rachel's illegitimate baby brother is kidnapped by a travelling band of revivalists in 1940, she sets out with her grandfather, a hired hand, and an eccentric neighbor in a desperate attempt to steal him back." Oddly, this has not appealed to my students. Throw in the reverend Billy Bong, a developmentally delayed cousin who constantly sings Camptown Races and a lot of home-spun epithets like "Judas Priest" and "Sneeze and go blind!" and the appeal to students is low. Not a bad read, but a tough sell.

Author/Illustrator Sean Ashby had an interesting post on how, when writing for young adults, it's hard to make a character who stands out, since all children do basically the same things. I thought a lot about this, and it's impact on teen fiction. Short of throwing characters into fantasy worlds, how can authors make their characters different. Sonnenblick does a good job creating quirky but believable characters who are different despite the commonality of their experiences. Something to mull.
http://sean-ashby.blogspot.com/

Finding Zola, Lawn Boy

Still working through the dreaded Permabound order, but had two nice surprises. The first was Marianne Mitchell's Finding Zola, which was a well-paced and understandable mystery. It took me several days to read it, because I was busy, and I was able to keep the story straight, which is something the students find difficult in mysteries. There were many additional features which made the book fun-- a southwest setting with Hispanic characters and some Spanish phrases, a community of older folks, and the best treatment of a wheelchair bound character that I've seen in a long time.

Crystal has lost her father in a car accident that has left her paralyzed and wheelchair bound. Her grandmother has recently passed away, and Crystal and her mother go to the grandmother's retirement community home to clean out her house. When the mother is called away, she enlists a neighbor to help Crystal-- but the neighbor, who may struggle with some dementia, never shows up. Crystal and her cousin see other suspicious activity in the neighborhood and set out to find Zola. Crystal's difficulties are clearly shown, but her independence and spirit are evident. She works through her grief in positive ways.

The only slightly discordant note is some supernatural activity-- there is a chill blue light in her room and she feels her father is speaking to her-- but this is not taken too seriously and is not overdone. A great addition for middle school mystery fans. To find out more about this author:
http://www.mariannemitchell.net/

Gary Paulsen's Lawn Boy was not bad, which was a relief after plowing through The Island, The Cookcamp, and other titles last year. Instead of the usual ruminating, Paulsen delivers a funny, almost silly book about a boy who inherits a lawn mower, starts a small business, and ends up, through a series of mishaps, getting a lot of money for his work. It was a quick read, and almost a fantasy for 12-year-old boys who are forced to mow lawns. Much better than the other lawn mowing book I can think of-- One Fat Summer.

Two perfectly nice books

America Street: A Multicultural Anthology of Stories, edited by Anne Mazer, is the sort of book I can see adopted by language arts programs everywhere. It reads like a unit of a text book, which is not a bad thing, it's just not what most of the students want. The stories are all heavy on lessons and deeper meanings of life, and would be great for class discussions. The only real stand out here is the Lensey Namioka "The All-American Slurp", which was engaging and amusing.

Also hitting a bit hard on the lessons and deeper meaning is Jacqueline Woodson's award winner, Feathers. A new boy joins Frannie's class. The class is mostly black; he's white; his parents are black. How does he fit in? Why is his hair so long, other than it is 1971? Why does he let the students call him Jesus? The most intriguing part of this book is the portrayal of Frannie's brother, who is deaf and communicates in sign language. The scene where two girls are interested in him until they find out he is deaf is very effective.

With the rush of children checking out books, I am constantly trying to find more sports books, more funny books, and more spy books with lots of action. We just aren't training the children properly. They should be asking for slow-paced, introspective novels about the deeper meaning of life.

Or should we be training authors to deliver their messages in a way that might entice children to actually want to read their books?

Random titles, again

Lois Gladys Leppard's Mandie series is at least 20 years old. I'd heard of them, but hadn't a chance to read one until the Perma-Bound order someone else made arrived at Blendon. It's a harmless enough historical mystery, (Mandie and the Hidden Treasure was the one I have; book 9) but I don't know that I would have bought it. There is a character named Uncle Ned, and he merits lines like 'The old Indian smiled again. "Must hurry before doctor son get hungry." ' and "Mother of Papoose not like dirt.'

There are also several African American characters who are drawn from the "sho 'nuf" school of dialect: 'You younguns gir in here! Food's on de table, and you keepin' it waitin!'" There is an African American who is a doctor, but given the time period of the book, it seems somehow anachronistic.

Vivian Vande Velde's Smart Dog was a little better-- experimental dog escapes from scientific lab, befriends young girl and doesn't want to go back because he will be dissected; complications ensue. From 1998, this is unlike this author's other works, which tend to be eerie and supernatural, but a fine funny read.

The Sky Village

The Sky Village by Monk Ashland and Nigel Ashland was a book that I really wanted to like. It is a fantasy, but with an Asian setting (as well as one set of characters in Las Vagas), and a fresher, if dystopian, take than slew of the Harry Potter wannabes. This is the start of a series, and will be enjoyed by my fantasy fans, but it sat next to my chair for a month and I just couldn't get into it.

This from the description of the book on the Follett web site, since it's hard to form a coherent overview when it has taken so long to get through something: As animals and machines battle for control on Earth, twelve-year-old Mei is taken into the Sky Village, a web of hot air balloons flying above the ground, where she hopes to be protected from those who hunt her for her unique Kaimira gene, which blends human, animal, and machine traits and makes her a target for all three groups, who want to use her powers for their own good.

From the Files of Madison Finn

This is a generational problem. The book starts out with conversation in a chat room. I can't read this stuff; my reluctant 10 year old loved this book. Since it is part of a 20 book series (check out http://www.hyperionbooksforchildren.com/popular/display.asp?id=12), this is a good thing. Put out by the Volo imprint of Hyperion, this is not a bad buy (mainly in paperback or prebinds) for middle school students. Madison is a tech-savvy Millenial who is struggling with various middle school issues-- her parents are divorced, she is doing community service at a nursing home, she has lots of homework, and she has to deal with a mother who calls her "honey bear" way too often. Realistic, gently humorous, but fraught with prose in a tech format that the children love but I find distracting.

A Greast and Terrible Beauty

I'd read Libba Bray's book a while back but didn't get too far into it. I had it on my list to look at again because of the new popularity of supernatural books for girls. This one starts out well, with Gemma in India, longing to go to England. Her mother is brutaly killed, and Gemma has brushes with forces beyond her understanding, but before we know it she is in a boarding school filled with snotty girls. This part went on and on and was quite boring. The reviews claim that this is fast-paced and thrilling, but I wasn't getting it. I'll hand it to 9th grader if she has time to read, but I don't see this filling the needs of my students. Sigh. Looks so promising, too.

Random titles

Natale Ghent's Piper (2000) is a fine read if you have students who are very interesting in dogs who herd sheep. Wesley saves the runt of a litter and works hard to make Piper into a successful working dog. Wesley has issues in her life-- her father has passed away and she and her mother are living with a relative, she has a crush on a boy whose family also raises dogs, Piper does well in some herding competitions, but becomes badly injured, raising the question as to whether or not the dog will be able to remain. This was a perfectly fine book, but a bit trite in many respects.

Diana Hendry's Harvey Angell and the Ghost Child(1997) is the second in an English series. The first (Harvey Angell) is briefly summarized in the first chapter, so the book stands alone well enough. Hendry portrays a slightly mad English family that takes a trip to the beach and gets involved with a haunted house in a style reminiscent of Roald Dahl or Philip Ardagh. A bit over the top, but oddly engaging.

I did not purchase either of these books-- I am grateful to have them housed in my library but bought for a summer intervention program. Still, some of the choices were a bit odd, and I wish that the purchaser had asked for my opinion. These two I can move; Ginger Pye is a doubtful seller!

Welcome Back!

Back to school and a decent internet connection!

Picked up two books that looked similar and had titles that we much the same. Anne Fine's The Road of Bones is very different from her usual work, which tends to be contemporary and humorous. This work is set in a vague USSR setting about 50 years ago, and concerns a boy who is put to work at a young age, suffers a mishap on the job, and needs to run away. The bleakness of a government that is all too ready to conscript or imprison its citizens is made even sharper when we know that this boy is so young, and has really done nothing to deserve this punishment. While Fine intends this as a political statement, boys who like war or survival stories will enjoy this one.

Loved the cover on Robe of Skulls from French, but found it rather young and much less horrific than I hoped. If the character is evil enough to want a robe of skulls, why is she concerned about earning the money to buy one? Why doesn't she just torture the dressmaker? After that thought, I couldn't buy into the plot. This would be better in elementary schools for die hard fans of Lemony Snicker.

Finally-- Breaking Dawn

Spoiler alert: Don't read past the first paragraph if you don't want to know major plot element.'

I was very apprehensive about this book because of the reactions I heard from others. My daughter wanted to buy multiple copies--- to launch flaming through Meyer's windows! Her best friend thought it read "like bad fan fiction". My principal was concerned about the sex. Other mothers were grossed out by the fact that older adolescent werewolves were "imprinting" (choosing as life-long mates, although their roles are as protectors rather than as paramours) on very tiny girls. Since there are a ton of reviews out there, I will just say this: No worries.

I will go ahead and buy two copies, since the traffic will be constant on this one. I have no worries about the sex; it is hinted at and danced around. My only concern would be that it does romanticize it-- as long as you forget the part about her getting pregnant with an alien (sorry, half-vampire) baby who then tears through her insides at birth.

This was no worse than the others, but would have benefitted from intense editing. Weighing in at 625 pages, this could easily have been tightened up to 400, and the story would have been more intense. Do they battle the Volturi at the end? I was tired at that point and no longer cared.

Marissa Moss

My 5th grader is a big fan of the Amelia books, and Moss has continued these until Amelia is in 7th grade. These have been around for a while, and are sort of proto graphic novels. Not too bad, and I did enjoy the way they were done like notebooks (N.B. Not like a blog, although I have a fear that this is not far off!) with illustrations about all of the things that Amelia does.

Another thing 5th grader liked was the graphic novel version of Ann M. Martin's The Babysitters' Club. I don't think I have any of the original novels, since many were paperbacks and if I had them they ave fallen apart, but the story on the one I read was good and appeals to students in several ways-- the girls are portrayed as responsible, independent, and a central theme is usually misunderstanding between friends and how they mend their differences.

A book that I took out as a treat for myself was Cathy Hopkins' From Geek to Goddess, for the Zodiac Girls series. Hopkins has a great series in Mates, Dates, as well as one for older girls, but I wasn't keen aout this latest one. Gemma goes off to an exclusive boarding school (clearly English, but scrubbed of references so it could have been in the US) where she does not fit in. There are clear overtones that gods and goddesses are running around the place, and she gets picked to have a makeover so that she is more socially successful. The plot was hard to follow, I didn't like the characters, and the mythological link was not sufficient to interest fans of Rick Riordan, etc. It's interesting to see that there is so much interest in mythology now that books that are not particularly well done are being published.

Namioka's Half and Half

Like Hot Sour Salty Sweet, this is a book about one event in a girl's life during which ethnic identity is tested. Like the aforementioned book, even though it's a bit odd, it works.

Fiona Cheng has a Chinese father and a Scottish mother. She looks more Chinese; her brother looks more Scottish. How does she identify herself on forms? And more importantly, how can she understand both sides of her ethnic heritage and make all of her relatives happy?

Set against a multicultural festival, Fiona must choose between helping out her father when he is presenting a new book, and her Scottish grandfather, who needs another dancer. Both events are conveniently (for the plot) scheduled at the same time, and Fiona must come up with a clever solution to make everyone happy.

This is a short book, but I did enjoy it. Since middle school is so much about identity, many students will like this, even if their ethnicity does not exactly coincide with Fiona's.

Have a new shipment of hi/lo readers in. On the plus side, Geoff Edgers' Who Was Elvis Presley and Who Were the Beatles were nice, succinct introductions to these influential musicians. Actual pictures would have been a nice addition, but students who do not know much about these artists might be inclined to learn more after reading these quick picks.

On the horrifying side, volume 2 of R. L. Stine's Goosbumps "Graphix" tales was included. I did not pick this out. There will be lots of traffic on this one, but it's .... everything that is morally repugnant to most librarians. Tacky, ill-done, stupid....I will let it stay as a testament to the fact that I will allow graphic novels in my library, although I usually go for ones that are MUCH better quality than this.

Eclipse (but not Breaking Dawn...yet!)

May I just say that Ms. Meyer is a lovely person who personally responded to some of my students a few years ago when they wanted to interview her. I wish her luck. Her books are popular. There are worse things.

There are also better. Twilight was okay, New Moon was okay but Eclipse really, really irked me. From a literary point of view, I think that all of the books could have been more effectively edited. They all seem to ramble, there are many phrases that are not quite properly turned, and if the books were shorter, I think they would be more coherent. Redundancies bog down the story. We know that Edward is very cold and Jacob is very hot. We know that Bella is conflicted. Please don't tell us again. Introduce some new conflict that isn't creepy, like a young adult werewolf "imprinting" on a two-year-old. Ewwww.

As an independent woman, I found this book irritating. Bella doesn't want to be the sort of girl who gets married right out of high school. But she will be because she looooooves him so much that she can't live without him. She wants to be "closer" to him, but he is traditional and wants to wait until they're married. Fine. But being married to a vampire gives a whole new meaning to "forever". Bella is young. She would rather get married, become a vampire, and follow Edward's family around than go to college, experience the world and, perhaps, outgrow Edward.

While this was an interesting springboard for conversation between my 9th grade daughter and myself, as an undiscussed message, it's alarming. Young girls already get obsessed with boys, and this book seems to be telling them that it's okay.

I'm borrowing Breaking Dawn as soon as possible, but an ardent fan described it as "bad fan fic". I don't have high hopes, but as much as I would like to see Ms. Meyer do well, I would not feel bad if girls get fed up with Bella's sniveling story of conflicted love.

Betsy's Busy Summer

Oddly enough, Carolyn Haywood did not include in Betsy's summer a trip to the St. Louis zoo when the heat index was 110 degrees. I, however, had that pleasure, but survived and am now back.

After years of pestering my youngest to read B is for Betsy, the first chapter book I checked out of my school library in the first grade, she got desperate enough to read it, and, predictably, LOVED it. This necessitated a trip to the library to stock up, since I long ago gave away the rest of the Heywood.

I read Betsy's Busy Summer, and must say that for a series that started in 1939, it has weathered very well. Children falling in fish ponds and trying to rig watermelon seed contests are still gently amusing. There was a description of the "parcel post wagon" arriving, and it was pulled by a horse. This seemed odd, as I suppose sending 8 year olds to the grocery to get a list of items might be, but all in all, it was enjoyable.

While Haywood is predominantly an author for elementary school students, struggling middle school readers will probably still enjoy the short chapters and easy to understand circumstances. Many of the books to not specifically mention the age that Betsy is.

For more on the author, consult the nice biography on this site:
http://pabook.libraries.psu.edu/palitmap/bios/Haywood__Carolyn.html

Let's Travel Abroad!

Oddly, both of these titles are the second in a series, so I will have to hunt down the first, but I did enjoy Sabine Durrant's Bon Voyage, Connie Pickles and Piper Banks' Geek Abroad. In the first, an English girl goes to France on a home stay visit and tries to track down her estranged grandparents. Pleasant and amusing. In Banks' offering, an American math whiz goes to London to visit her author mother, meets hot English boy, and then returns to the states. Best travel book EVER remains Maureen Johnson's 13 Little Blue Envelopes, and Rachel Hawthorne's trilogy-in-one-volume A Year Abroad has lots of travel details. These, along with the Students Across the Seven Seas books, have been very popular with my girls, so I will definitely purchase these.

R. L. Stine and other titles

Note: New R.L. Stine books are much nicer to read than yellowed, falling apart books. Not that this makes a real difference in circulation, but if you have very popular titles in your library, some might need to be replaced.

That said, the newest series, Fear Street Nights, is really quite horrible. Premise: High school seniors sneak out of their homes and run about Fear Street at night, takes artifacts from the ramshackle Fear mansion before it is torn down. Of course, these items are directly connected to Angelica Fear, about whom I last read in the Cheerleaders series. And here she is, back again, possessing teenagers so that she can kill those who stole from her in horrible ways, many involving cockroaches coming out of their mouths or blood spurting from their ears.

The teens manage to swill some beer, bully classmates, and engage in other unattractive and undesirable behaviours. After a while, I started to hope that the green gaseous cloud of Angelica Fear will just descend on the barkeep at the bar built on top of the mansion site. And really, with that sort of mortality rate, wouldn't people start to move away from the area? The titles are Moonlight Secrets, Midnight Game, and Darkest Dawn.

That said, I didn't mind The Rich Girl, which had a somewhat moral tone-- if you steal money that doesn't belong to you, the guilt might drive you mad before your friends gaslight you into believing you have killed one of them. Had its moments. There is a new copy available. The Perfect Date also was pretty good, and students who don't immediately understand that Rosha Nelson is really Sharon Noles will learn a little about anagrams at the end.

Denise Vega's Fact of Life #31 had way too much about midwifery and child birth for it to be all that interesting to middle schoolers, so I'll pass on that. L'Engle's posthumous publication of her 1940s novel, The Joys of Love also lacks appeal for this age. I would get that only for hard core L'Engle fans. Dobkin's Neptune's Children started out okay (freak plague kills all the adults, stranding a bunch of children in an amusement park), but I couldn't get into it. I'll recommend O.T.Nelson's The Girl Who Owned the City for students seeking postapocalyptic tales. Gloria Whelan's Parade of Shadows was a historical novel that addressed an odd time and place, and those move slowly in my library.

New titles from Rachel Vail and Caroline Meyer

I'll blame the heat and humidity on my opinion of these, since I will go ahead and buy them.

Vail's Lucky was a little too much like the Lisi Harrison Clique books for my taste. Girl lives in upscale community with all the amenities, and her friends are throwing a huge 8th grade graduation party. (For one, NEVER heard of such a thing, especially on the scale described. But this is Ohio.) Girl's mother loses job, and family has to cut back, including the party.

I usually can count on Vail to take a pink book and give it resonance, but I could not get into this one. Her big problem is a dress for the party? Hmmm. Did very much enjoy the fact that the mother was the high powered earner and the father was a school teacher. Still, didn't much like the main character.

Meyer's In Mozart's Shadow (Probably got that wrong-- high schooler has it in her room and I refuse to enter!) was interesting-- it follows the path of Mozart's sister, and covers her travails at not being given as many opportunities because she is a girl, and not quite as talented. The period costumes, mores, and prejudices are all well-portrayed, but the adventures of the Family Mozart all got to be a bit samey after a while. I'm sure this is an accurate portrayal, but some of the other Meyer titles are a little more exciting.

Have a Connie Pickles book to read now, and it looks quite fun. It's the sequel, but it's a British book. Don't know how I missed the first one.

Sic Transit Rosemary Sutcliff (again?)

7/21/2008--Thanks to Charlotte, who commented on which of the Sutcliffe are better. When I get back to the library, I will have to check. I'm glad I wasn't alone in disliking Frontier Wolf!

Even though I was stranded in an orthopedist's office for an hour and a half with ONLY Sutcliff's Frontier Wolf between me and being so bored that would start making sculptures out of the cotton balls and tongue depressors, it was still excruciatingly hard to slog through. I read the whole thing with close concentration, and I still can't really tell you what it's about. Oh, sorta Roman Alexios does something bad and gets sent to a fort at the edges of the Empire dealing with various British natives while running the Frontier Wolves who are keeping the peace in the area. Peace is hard to keep. Various people keep stealing horses and shooting arrows at them, and then the Frontier Wolves have to slog through the mud. There are battles, and a lot of people get killed, and then they deal with some more tribes.

Is it any wonder that even though two copies of this book has been in the library since 1980, this one has only been checked out once? To a really heavy-duty reader on my recommendation? And he wasn't wild about it? In theory, these books should go out well, because they are about a time period the students enjoy, and about wars, but the details are so ponderous that the stories are tough going.

I'm going to start weeding them. I'll plow through them first, but unless something really strikes me as marvelous, they are moving on to better homes.

Mary Stewart's A Walk in Wolf Wood was somewhat similar, but with more magic thrown in, and somehow much better. From the same time (1980), this read more like a much older book because of the suspension of disbelief the reader is asked to take. John and Margaret are on a picnic with their parents when they see a man in medeival dress going through the forest. They follow him, only to end up back in time, and being the only people who can save the man from an evil sorcerer who has turned him into a werwolf and impersonated him back at the castle so he can kill the king.

This was charming instead of onerous. Fans of Dealing with Dragons and maybe Tamora Pierce would like this one. I will have to look up this author's Arthurian Saga, which I am surprised to say is not in my library!

Eleanora Tate's The Secret of Gumbo Grove was a fine mystery, but the very, very Southern quality of it irked me. Mystyer fans who don't mind that will enjoy the story of Raisin, who helps an elderly neighbor clean up an old cemetary and in doing so, finds out many scandals and stories of the past. When one of these stories might help save the cemetary from destruction, Raisin and her friends do some research and find out that sometimes people don't want the past to be known.

Obviously taking a breather from the Stine.

Paula Yoo's Good Enough.

Good Enough was quite good! Patti is finishing up her senior year in high school, and her parents have put a lot of pressure on her. Get the concert master position in the All-State orchestra, do really well on the SAT, get into Harvardyaleprinceton, be charming at church, help around the house. Patti has done all of these things for years, and comes to realize that while this makes her parents happy, it isn't doing a whole lot for her.

She meets Ben, otherwise known as Hot Trumpet Guy. She is so enthralled that she muffs her orchestra audition and ends up as assistant concert master. Parents are not pleased. She becomes friends with Ben, and sneaks off to play music with him. Again, parents are not pleased. She eventually does better at the SAT and looks to have the college application thing in hand, but will following her parents' choices of Ivy League schools make her happy? She applies to Juilliard without their knowledge and starts to think about what it is that SHE wants to do with her life.

The descriptions of Patti's interactions with Ben are wonderful and painful at the same time. She can hardly breathe in his presence, and yet knows that while he is being nice to her, he's going to keep dating the cute cheerleader types. The whole relationship is realistically played; they become friends again after Patti tells Ben she likes him, but not for a long time, and not forever. He moves on through her life, and that is the way relationships often evolve.

A big part of this book is the fact that Patti and her parents are Korean. This is evidenced throughout the book (who knew that Koreans were so fond of Spam?), and yet wasn't the driving force behind the book. I wanted to be friends with Patti-- I think we would have gotten along. I was never as smart or as musically talented, but I had many of the same frustrations and delusions. I was glad that things worked out in the end, especially when I read the back flap and suspected that this is a somewhat autobiographical tale.

I can buy this and pass it off as Pink, even though I will be buying it because it's a dead on description of how high school can be, and because I was glad to live through it with Patti.

Slow Internet, More Stine

Feel I should explain the poor quality of summer blogging. When I use the computer at home, I have incredibly slow internet (so High Schooler can't use MySpace-- it works quite well. She gets frustrated and gives up!), PLUS children who like to look over my shoulder. Stick with me, and things WILL improve in the fall.

Finished McNab's Meltdown (as well as the back of a cable knit sweater). I am looking forward to seeing if Danny gets books on his own, now that his grandfather, Fergus is out of the picture due to injuries. A great four book series.

Stine round up:
First Date: The stalker you suspect is never the stalker you should fear. Chelsea is shy and dateless until two boys appear in her life-- Sparks, who seems dangerous and impulsive, and Will, who is a nice boy from her school. When her life takes a frightening turn, Chelsea's instincts don't serve her well.

The Girlfriend: If your girlfriend goes out of town, don't date other girls, especially ones you find on the side of the road. Scotty makes this mistake and ends up with psychopathic girl who offs TWO pets. I find this a particularly disturbing facet of Stine's work, and of all the warped and bloody things in Stine's books, puts me off more than any of them. After all of the stalking and beating, things work out for Scotty when he comes clean to first girlfriend. There are local interests in this book-- Westerville is mentioned, and the school Scotty attends is in a neighboring town. (Stine is from Ohio and went to OSU.)

Killer's Kiss: Nice twist at the end, but in order to get to it, you had to read about Delia putting on her purple lipstick too many times. Delia and Karina compete for everything, especially Vincent. Bad things happen to everyone-- I really thought it was Delia's sister, so fooled me.

Next to read: Alfred Kropp, if I can find the copy in my son's messy room.

Reviewer X

Hey, I'm all for shameless self-promotion. The unusually astute Review X has posted a blogger profile of me on her site. She does great reviews, too, usually of slightly older stuff than I cover. Check it out! She has contests, too!
http://reviewerx.blogspot.com/

Scheduling Reading Time

Having trouble getting your children to read over the summer? Finding that you aren't getting any reading done over break either? It has come to light in our household that a lack of schedule, although a wonderful thing, is making it difficult to get books read even though there is more time to do so. During the year, we are all pretty much quiet, curled up and reading by 7 or 8 p.m. Now, I have books scattered all over the house and get distracted by the nine baby quilts I want to get finished today, or the back of my cable knit sweater. Or I need to walk the dog or dust the baseboards. High Schooler has not started reading Winterdance or Spite Fences for honors English, so I am not going to blame R.L. Stine for my lack of reading. We will blame lack of scheduling, and put procedures in place to remedy this!

That said, McNab's Payback, Avenger and Meltdown are still going slowly. They are very, with lots of action and more importantly, lots of intricate detail about international espionage, but since the covers are all very similar and I have them all over the house, I keep picking up the same one I've just finished.

If you have a fan of spy novels, these are great. There are a few bad words, but the books are so good that I have been turning a blind eye to them. This is one of the few times I've done this.

At 8:00 p.m., I have an appointment with.... The Girlfriend, First Date and Killer's Kiss. What fun!

Beneath My Mother's Feet

Amjed Qamar's first novel, set in Pakistan, is something that every malcontented 14-year-old U.S. girl needs to read. Not only is it an interesting depiction of daily life that is much different from the one we know, it is a wonderful example of the things that adolescents in the U.S. take for granted. Don't have a cell phone? Be grateful that you are allowed to go to school.

Nazia is not so lucky. Her father, a construction worker, is injured in an accident and becomes ill-inclined to work, even after he recovers. Her older brother, Bilal, does not contribute to the family income and breaks into the home to steal Nazia's dowry. Without the dowry, her arranged marriage to a cousin is called off. Her mother pulls her out of school so that she can help watch her brother and sister while the mother cleans houses. The family situation worsens, and soon the family is living in an unused outbuilding at one of the homes that they clean.

This is a great book to give to students who like problem novel. Like Iqbal, this story brings another part of the world to life. I hope to see more from this author, who works in a nearby school system. Since it is so hard to get young adult books from other parts of the world, this is the next best thing.

In the same vein, I had great hopes for Zenati's A Bottle in the Gaza Sea, about an Israeli girl who gets to know a Palestinian boy via e mail. It didn't hit me quite right-- Nye's Habibi gave a much clearer picture of that part of the world.

Also working through the rest of the Andy McNab books still. Started to knit and do quilts, which is cutting into my reading time a lot!

Suddenly Supernatural by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel

Well, reluctant ten year old refused to read this, but I thought it was great fun. The best part was the characters-- Kat, Jac and Kat's mother were all people I would like to meet. The evil school mates were over the top in the way that most 8th graders really are, but even they had a human side. Especially appreciated-- Kat's mother is a medium, and a bit of a "hippie", but instead of just assuming that all parents are hippies, Kimmel describes the mother most delightfully.

Since Kat has to deal with "dead people" showing up at her house, she hasn't made a lot of friends until cello-toting Jac shows up. Right about this time, though, Kat starts seeing dead people, too, including a flute player who shows up in her school library. There is a mystery that must be solved, and some personal problems to be worked out, but it was a great book. I am still hoping to get Ms. Reluctant to read it. The words are nicely spaced on the page, and the book is blissfully easy to read.

Unlike R.L. Stine's...
Beware: R.L. Stine Picks His Favorite Scary Stories. Stine is a much better writer than I am, but he is not a better writer than Ray Bradbury, and Stine's work suffers being placed next to Bradbury's. The stories by other authors are very good.

The Dare. Was three chapters in before I realized I'd read this already.

The Dead Girlfriend. A decent whodunit with lots of false clues, as well as lots of violence. Who really is responsible for the death of Jonathan's old girlfriend? And will his new girlfriend suffer the same fate?

The Face. Repressed memories of trauma are a big theme in Stine's work, and this time a girl keeps drawing a boy's face and doesn't know why. How did this boy die, and what part did she play in it? There are some twists. Remember, check ski slopes for razor wire before heading down.

Goodnight Kiss. Summer time, seaside Vampire romance. Lots of people meet bad ends. Why is it easier when people meet bad ends? They usually do something to contribute to it. I'm still disturbed every time a pet wanders onto the pages of a Stine book. They usually meet gruesome and worrisome ends. In this one, though, it's vampires romping about, flying as bats and biting people's velvety necks.

Halloween Party. If you are invited to a party at a haunted house, don't go wandering around on your own. Again, people fake their own deaths for laughs and then end up dead, a character is exacting revenge for 30-year-old wrongs, and in the end, the evil person gets it. This is like a slasher film put on paper. On the upside, no pets are harmed.

Hit and Run. Okay, really, do people running morgues really let their friends borrow corpses for practical jokes? I don't think so. If I have learned nothing else from Stine, it's that I shouldn't take a dead body and stage an accident to get back at my friends, then stalk them and try to murder them all. Seemed silly to me, but I can see why students might find it intriguing.

Dangerous Girls and A Taste of Night. I had great hopes for these, since they were published in hard back, but they were more bat flying, wooden stake to the heart vampire books. Somewhat intriguing that one twin wanted to be a vampire and the other didn't, that the mother was bitten and then killed herself after turning her best friend into one of the undead, and that the father was now a vampire hunter, but I have little patience for vampire books that don't have some element of originality to the vampire myth, and these didn't. Plus, I felt really bad for the little brother, who was exhibiting a lot of signs of deep disturbance due to all of the deaths around him, but it wasn't a big part of the plot to get him help.

It has actually been very helpful to read these, if only so that when a student checks one out, I have some idea of what is being ingested. I did have to take a break and am working on the Andy McNab series, since the 4th one, Meltdown, has just come out.

The Compound by S.A. Bodeen

I'm not quite sure how to categorize this oddly compelling book. Is it science fiction? A problem novel? Hmmm.

Eli's wealthy father built a vast underground complex for his family to use to escape nuclear war. When they finally have to move into it, Eli's twin brother and grandmother are caught on the outside. Still, the five of them exist in the luxurious compound, working at the gym, learning to play instruments, doing lessons on computers. There have been some mistakes, and after 6 years the food is running a bit low, but with 9 more years until it is safe for them to leave, they make do.

Saying any more would ruin the great plot twist. The reviews call this a thriller. Okay. Considering the father's slow descent into a madness not caused by being locked up, I'll buy that. And I'll definitely be buying the book.

Won't be buying Julia Bell's Dirty Work, but only because a book about girls being sold into prostitution would not go over well in a middle school library. For high schools, this would be a good choice. Aside from the occasional f-bomb (maybe 2 or 3), it's an interesting story about an English girl who gets kidnapped and ends up on a seamy side of life she's never seen. This author's Massive, about eating disorders, was gripping and dark as well.

Not Buying It

Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping by Judith Levine was more interesting as a place to start a conversation with my children about our buying habits rather than as a book that might give me some useful hints. It was, in some ways, a ridiculous book. The author and her partner do have three cars as well as two residences, and they live in New York City, which immediately makes them suspect. There are a lot of political and literary references in the book, since the author makes her living freelancing articles on popular culture affecting imtimate lives.

Most of her experiment struck me as silly. She misses seeing first run movies. We always check things out from the library. She complains about the library. She misses eating out because they eat out all the time. She has three different kinds of salt in her cabinet. There ARE three different kinds of salt?

We're thinking about doing this experiment in our home. It's lead to interesting conversations. When asked what they would miss buying, my 14 year old said "Socks and underwear". The ten year old worried about school supplies. We agreed that those were necessary consumables.  A lenghthy discussion was had about whether or not postage stamps were a thing or a service.

In a way, this book was great, because it started these conversations. However, since we are debating whether or not Aldi's granola bars are a luxury (they are), and how we can break it to Grandma and Grandpa that we will no longer go out to eat on birthdays (about the only time we do eat out), the scope of this didn't speak to me on my level.

Also read The Fattening of America: How the Economy Makes Us Fat by Eric Finkelstein, and thought it was well done and insightful. When I couldn't quite grasp the economic theory because children wanted my attention, I could fall back on his explanations of how it affected his Uncle Al, who was a humanizing example throughout.

I really have to go back to YA literature instead of reading "preaching to the choir" books on life style choices!

More Stine, adult nonfiction

Stine's Curtains is not for the squeamish. Between the various bouts with fake and real blood (a dead swan in an upper bunk doesn't cause the camp to shut down while the perpetrator is found? Ew.), it's more of the same stuff as the other books but without redeeming qualities. Set in a drama camp, it has a psychopath on the loose, a girl with a scary past, multiple times when people look like they are dead but they're only "joking", and way too much blood. Sorry, after the swan I just wasn't interested.

Have found that when I go to the actual library instead of having the wonderful Westerville Public Library deliver books for me, I am not as focused on young adult literature. I read some adult "beach reads", but I pick up mostly nonfiction on popular culture, and memoirs. Read Be Happy or I'll Scream, even though it was sort of warmed over Bombeck (really, is it funny any longer when people can't keep their houses clean? And if the woman's husband is home with the children, why isn't he keeping it clean?). Skimmed through Why We Buy and The Way We Never Were, but they were both sort of dry. Miserly Moms was okay but I'm so miserly it didn't tell me anything new. Enjoyed Anytime Playdate, about television being marketed to preschoolers. It was interesting that all of that began being an issue when my Ms. 10-year-old was about three. None of my children watched much television, and I'm glad.  I'm looking forward to picking up Not Buying It today.

For some reason, I tend to dislike adult fiction, and young adult nonfiction. I think most of the nonfiction for young adults is very dull, or well-done but on topics students don't care about. (Like Murphy's great fire book that I can't get anyone to read.) Hmmm. Food for thought. (Probably chock full of high fructose corn syrup like everything else!)

Some NEW books

Made a mad dash into the public library and picked up a bunch after my Survival Spanish class. Here are two phrases that may be useful to librarians:
El libro es tarde. (The book is late.) La perdista? (Have you lost it?)

The best by far was Box Out by John McCoy, who wrote the fabulous Crackback. Liam makes the varsity basketball team, and is fairly happy about this until the coach insists on saying prayers during games and having the players come to a once a week prayer meeting. Liam's family goes to a Catholic church and prays before dinner, but it's still not the right thing for the coach to do, and when the coach lies to Liam and tells him it's okay for the coach to lead prayers, Liam quits the team and starts to practice with the girls' team to help them out. While the plot is driven by the prayer issue, the meat of the book is about basketball and the motivation for playing. Liam contacts an organization that writes to the school and tells them the coach has to stop praying or they'll take the school to court, but it all works out. I liked the fact that Liam was religious, but wasn't comfortable with the way the coach was handling things.

P.B. Kerr's One Small Step started out promisingly-- 13 year old is flying plane with father when they are hit by a goose and almost crash. I also liked the idea that the boy was approached to fly in a space mission because of his flying skills and his small size, but the book just moved too slowly and I lost interest.

Anne Cassidy's Looking for JJ had a riveting premise-- a girl kills a friend when she is ten, is incarcerated, and then ends up being released. While she is trying to set up a new life under an assumed identity, reporters start looking for her, and she relives the horrors that brought her to the point of murder. This is a book more for high school students. There's abuse and neglect, creepy boyfriends, and a lot of anger in this book that makes it too intense for middle school students' parents!

Hoped that Kevin Brooks' Black Rabbit Summer would fall on the side of Candy and Road of the Dead, but it went the way of Martyn Pig. Bleah. Maybe for high schools with a large number of Brooks fans, but it's liberally sprinkled with f-bombs, and just kind of ooky.

Reading, just not blogging. More Stine.

Blind Date was actually kind of complex, and more of a boy book. Boy accidentally injures teammate's arm in a football game, then is approached by hot girl to go out. She's a little mysterious, but this adds to the allure. Turns out, of course, that she's a pyschopathic nut job who thinks she is the sister of the girl who was killed when Kerry's brother was driving a car-- no, wait-- Kerry was really driving, and that's why he's blocked it from his mind. That is, until hot girl drugs him and ties him to a chair... hope I didn't ruin the plot for any of you.

Call Waiting also had some complexity, but it seemed a bit far fetched. Is girl framing boy, or boy really pyscho, or is someone really trying to kill her? I didn't care so much.

The Cheater was pretty good. Girl pays boy to take the SAT for her. He asks just for one date, but then of course wants money, etc. so that he doesn't tell her father. Is she desperate enough to murder him?

For sheer, cheesy fun, my top pick has got to be the Cheerleaders: The First Evil etc. Unfortunately, I don't have Cheerleaders: The Evil Returns, but I may try to check it out of the public library. Cheerleader is ejected from bus and lands on the grave of Sarah Fear (have to go back to The Fear Street Saga Begins for details) and is paralyzed, but then cheerleaders start having their minds controlled during pyramid building, and lots of cheerleaders get concussions. There's also a lot of scalding hot water as well as bubbling green slime, because the girl is really possessed by the evil spirit of Sarah Fear. Sarah likes to move around, and over three books, several cheerleaders get to play host. People die, which I never like, but the books are so over the top it is hard to take them seriously. My favorite line comes from The Second Evil: "'I've been attacked by an ancient evil force', she thought scornfully, 'and Mom thinks a bath will help.'" No wonder this is such a popular series.

Also picked up Lisi Harrison's The Clique. It's been in the book fairs, and girls have asked for it, but I'm not buying it. I'm not even sure I want to put the paperback in my collection, because none of the characters are likable at all. Even the "nice" girl who has to put up with the label conscious, obnoxious, snobby private school girls is not endearing. And these are supposedly 7th graders? Horrible. No good lessons or examples, and just incredibly mean spirited.

Finally read E.B.White's Stuart Little. Don't know how I missed it. Definitely shows its 1945 publication date, but is a charming tale of a mouse born into a New York City family. He has many adventures, but I can see the lack of a wrapped up ending giving modern students fits. "But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction." is a wonderful last line, leaving the ending up to all sorts of imagination, but I just wanted to know if he found Margalo or not. Not as good as Trumpet of the Swan or Charlotte's Web, but for fans of Cleary's Ralph S. Mouse, this would be a good follow-up.

A title for parents

David Sheff's Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction is not an easy book to read, especially when I am in the middle of fighting with my 14 year old about how she intends to spend her summer, and I certainly can't answer Sheff's question: Has he done the right things in raising his son? Give me another 15 years, and perhaps I'll have a better answer.

I wouldn't read this just for fun. It was fairly boring, with its endless details about the "happy" family life. Lots of this is delusional. Sheff thinks that his son Nic is a "good kid" even when he is caught smoking marijuana when he is 12. Trusting his son was the biggest mistake, and the reason that parents should read this book. I don't trust any of my children. Love them, yes; give them some freedom, yes; but I follow them about, check out their friends, and know as much about what they are doing as I can. Hope for the best, expect the worst and all that. I don't think that Sheff was at all prepared for the worst that came.

Aside from the liberal use of the f-bomb, this book would be okay for students to read, but I don't think they would be interested. Nic has also written a book, Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamine, that sounds far more harrowing and graphic in its depiction of addiction and the poor behavior choices that go along with it.

MotherReader, ABC TV, and more Stine

So excited! Was random winner in the MotherReader 48 Hour Reading Challenge! Get a book! Next year I will try to be much more organized about my approach. Many thanks, MotherReader!

Got an e mail from Sandra Solberg at Toasted Coconut Media about "Hot Tips from Cool Authors: How to Keep Kids Reading this Summer" --- a WABC-TV segment that aired on Sunday morning. Scott Westerfeld, one of the most consistently high quality, prolific young adult authors I've seen in a while. Of course, You Tube is blocked at my school, and slllooowww at home, but here's the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ8talx7vmE

My R.L. Stine for last night was:
Beach Party-- Karen is enjoying fun and romance on the beach until she realizes that someone is out to kill her. More involved than many of the other books-- took longer to read. Okay.

The Boyfriend-- Joanna cruelly dumps Dex, he fakes an accident, has a real one, Joanna has an accident, Dex comes back from the dead. Is he dead? Confusing and a little cheesy, but showcases why reluctant readers like Stine-- he discusses high school issues. The lower readers are tired of Junie B. Jones.

The Betrayal-- Sets up the whole Fear Street Saga. Probably good to have the whole series of this one. Conveniently numbered on spine. (The Betrayal, The Secret, The Burning)

The Best Friend-- Weird new girl moves in next door and starts to take over Becka's life, claiming they were best friends in 3rd grade. Honey sneaks into Becka's house, steals her clothes, starts to dress like her, and then things get scary! I had to laugh because I think every middle school girl has an experience with someone who wants to be a friend but is just too annoying for words.

And again, R.L. Stine is really heavily skewed towards girls, although boys don't seem to mind.

Summer Stine-a-thon

Since most of my time recently has been spent limping about, dunning students for overdue books, telling teachers that I don't have any more DVD players and removing dust bunnies from overhead projectors, I'm not in a great mood. So! I'll work my way through the R. L. Stine books.

One nice thing-- Stine is easy to read. Even with mysteries, I know that I will find out eventually what will happen. The vocabulary is not a challenge. Sentence structure is simple. This is hugely important for some of our readers, and the fact that they can finish an entire book in a few days gives them a feeling of accomplishment.

That said, Attack of the Mutant is The. Worst. Book. Ever. Get this-- it's not really even R.L. Stine. It's adapted by Melinda Metz, from the screenplay by Brown and Angel, based on a novel by Stine. What? Oh. It's t.v. book #12. This book is described thusly: "It's exactly what you see on TV-- complete with pages and pages of photos from the show! It's spook-tacular." I can't go on. Reading it represents ten minutes of my life I will never get back. (It's 64 pages.)

Another Goosebumps book, The Abominable Snowman of Pasadena, was a little better. Children's father is photographer who goes to Alaska to snap pictures of the creature. They eventually find it encased in ice, take it back to California, and then the creature escapes. Ok.
All-Night Party does involve a murder, and students out on a dark and desolate island where they have taken a friend for a surprise birthday party. This one I could actually recommend, and my copy is fairly new, with a nicely done Sammy Yuen cover. There are lots of clues, running about the woods, and a few twists. Fine effort.

Bad Dreams was okay as well. Girls move to Fear Street after death of father, antique bed gives girl bad dreams. There is also a lot of swim team stuff involved, which was a little odd, and (not to ruin the plot here) since the house was unoccupied for so long, how did the insane girl stay in the attic until the new family moved in? Not as good as The Secret Bedroom but better than Beach House.

48 Hour Reading Challenge

This yearly event hosted by Mother Reader (http://www.motherreader.com) coincided with my third weekend off my feet, so I did get some reading done:

Kimmel, Elizabeth Cody. Spin the Bottle. Phoebe and her best friend Harper join the middle school drama club and discover the intricacies of social life at this difficult age. Diva girls, boys who render her incapable of speech, difficult parents-- it's all here, set against a production of Guys and Dolls. What makes this stand out is great turns of phrase. Must have for middle school libraries.

Lupica, Mike. The Big Field. Hutch is displaced as the team shortstop, and can't get out of his system that D-Will is usurping his position. Mollified a little by being elected team captain, and the fact that his team makes the play off, life is still hard because he is taking baseball too seriously, much like his father, who failed as a major league player. I'll buy, but the boys really won't care about the father's crises, and I can't agree with the bio that says that Lupica is "the sporting world's finest storyteller." No, no. That would go to Carl Deuker, hands down, or perhaps the late Thomas Dygard.

Don't be fooled by this cover-- Cabot's Airhead was a VERY interesting look at what would happen if a super smart, jeans and hoodie wearing feminist ended up in the body of a supermodel. Em Watts is killed by a falling tv at a megastore at the same moment that Nikki Howard suffers a fatal aneurysm, so Em's brain is transplanted into Nikki's body. While it's Em's thoughts and feelings that survive, it's Nikki's face that continues on, so she has to continue modeling and surviving in the world of high fashion, even though Em also insists on returning to high school to continue her AP studies. Again, a must have.

Yeah, okay. L. J. Smith's The Vampire Diaries was published in 1991, WELL before Twilight. I'll get these (Book I:The Awakening and The Struggle, Book II : The Fury and Dark Reunion) in prebind because they are clean, decently crafted, and will be popular. Elena is a pretty girl who meets hot new boy who happens to be a vampire; things get complicated when his brother shows up and fights over her. The brothers did this before, in medieval times, and it didn't end well then. Must be the bad boy taking control and loving the girl for all eternity that makes these so intriguing to teens.

Brian Meehl, on the other hand, did a creative spin on vampire lore by creating Morning McCobb and the International Vampire League in his cleverly titled Suck It Up. Even though most vampires are beautiful, there are some SangFU (Blood flubups) who are doomed to spend eternity as gawky teens. Orphan Morning is one, so he is recruited by the IVLeague (a good name on so many levels) to be a spokesman for the cause. He works with a PR agency to show the world that vampires are real, most are good (except for Loners who still prey on humans), and deserve to be treated more fairly. (Later: Accidentally ordered three copies of this: none have ever made it back to the shelf. A very worthy purchase.)

Scott, Kieran. Geek Magnet. KJ Miller doesn't have my sympathy-- I would have been more than happy to attract geeks in high school, but she is annoyed with the ones who cling to her because she likes hot sports boy, and he seems to have an interest in her. Set also during play practices (Grease), KJ befriends the star, who helps her find ways to scare off geeks and attract the other boy, but in the end, geekyish boy wins out. Interesting subplot-- alcoholic father who refuses to get treatment. This raises the book out of truly pink and gives it some depth. Like Jingle Boy, another good offering by Scott. (AKA Kate Brian.)

Those were the books I liked. I will pass on the following:
DeLa Cruz. The Ashleys. Very disappointed. Loved Blue Bloods, and thought it was well-written, clever, and worth having. This was a piece of annoying, name-dropping fluff. Bleah.

Pixley. Freak. Okay, literature like this does not help students who are different and who make themselves targets of bullying. No one else would want to read so much dysfunction. No.

Thompson. Fourth World. Fantasy that involves an annoying, autistic stepbrother and this much rail travel is just not what my fantasy fans are looking for. Read her Switchers instead.

Smith, Jennifer. The Comeback Season. Why so many baseball books involve girls, I don't know. It's sad her dad died, but I can't see to whom I would recommend this book.

Taylor. Mariah Mundi: The Midas Box. Another Victorian-ish horror-y book with quirky characters and evil villains. Eh. I have all the Joan Aiken books, which are better.

Total:2,870 pages, not counting finishing up Binchy's Evening Class. No idea how long I spent.

Hulme and Wexler's The Seems: The Glitch in Sleep

Ambivalent about this one. There is going to be a massive series, I'm sure, and it's an incredibly convoluted fantasy that will appeal to my hard-core fantasy fans. I am going to field test this on some students today. Miss Reluctant Reader, who got two pages in, thought it was "stupid". She thinks everything is. She did like the shiny cover.

Becker Drane's life is boring, so he applies to be a "fixer". To his surprise, he gets hired and starts going between his life in the regular world (where his devious language arts teacher has assigned I Am The Cheese) and dealing with the details that keep the world running-- rain, sunsets, and eventually, a problem with everyone's sleep. Many gadgets are involved. The book has several appendices and a glossary but surprisingly, no maps.

This requires lots of thought, and has a lot of details. It gave me a headache, but so did Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, which many of the boys adore. I need to ascertain whether this book makes this subgroup happy, or annoyed. Will report later on the field research.

There is a web site, but it's not as cool as the H.I.V.E. one:
http://www.theseems.com/