More Holocaust Books

Greif, Jean-Jacques. The Fighter.
Moshe has a difficult childhood in Warsaw and then Paris-- he is small and weak, and the children bully him because of this and also because he is Jewish. He learns to box, which helps things a little. Unfortunately, after he grows up, marries, and has a child, he is deported from Paris and sent to Auschwitz, where his toughness helps him survive. The beginning of this covers a lot of ground, but time slows down when Moshe is sent to the camps. Based on interviews with Holocaust survivors, this is an excellent addition to a Holocaust collection,and one of my reluctant readers said it was the best book ever. This was translated from the French by the author himself; I would love to see more of his titles in English.

Chapman, Fern. Is It Night or Day?
This is also based on interviews with survivors, this time the author's grandmother. I was not aware that before the war, over 1,000 German Jewish children were sent to the US, sponsored by various relatives and citizens. This is the story of Edith, who comes to live with an uncle and join her older sister. Adjusting to hew new life is difficult, and not made easier when she is identified as an "enemy alien". While the war and Holocaust are covered, this is more a story of a girl's adjustment to a new life. Like Lasky's Ashes, it is a facet of the war previously unknown to me.

Hobbs, Valerie. The Last Best Days of Summer.
Lucy, who is worried about entering middle school, looks forward all year to spending a week with her grandmother at the lake. When she gets there, she finds that her grandmother's memory is failing quickly. On top of that, Eddie, a boy with special needs to whom she is paid to be a companion, runs away from home and shows up at the lake house. Knowing this will be the last week with her grandmother, Lucy struggles to make the best of the situation. While I enjoyed this, it had a distinct 80s feel to it, from the cover to the serious writing. I'll see what Picky Reader thinks, but I'm not sure who the readers for this one are.

Later: Ms. Hobbs was kind enough to comment on this post: "Just curious: when did we stop writing "seriously"? Or about "serious" topics? Are we only entertaining our readers now?" This is a fair question. I think that there are many books on serious topics that also entertain readers. Jordan Sonnenblick's After Ever After is an excellent example. Students do like to be entertained when they pick up books for pleasure reading; to me, The Last Best Days of Summer reads more like something that a teacher would assign because of the number of problems that Lucy is facing and the manner in which they are worked out. It's a hard balance to strike, I know. Perhaps this is for a slightly younger audience, which I find harder to gauge.

Books at which I looked, but which weren't quite right for my collection: Scaletta's Mudville, Kephart's The Heart is not a Size, and McMullan's Sources of Light.

Guy Friday versus The End of the Year

I never count down the days until the end of school because I would far rather be here cleaning than at home. However, someone pointed out that we have just 12 days left in the year.

Anyone have a paper bag into which I can breathe?

Library renovation begins soon and the architects have not met with us, there are still 50 lost books I need to track down, I don't have orders in place for August, equipment needs to be inventoried, shelves mapped for the move, parents called about lost books, Summer Intervention books pulled, etc. etc. And then I need to pack up everything and move it into the cafeteria.

I think Guy Friday might because DYI Friday or something. Anyone but me care about my library renovation?

Oh, and so everyone knows, I think Betty White is stalking me:
http://www.wickedlocalparents.com/picketfencepost/2010/05/20/betty-white-continues-her-campaign-to-take-over-television-one-show-at-a-time/


I missed the episode of The Middle where she plays a librarian, but I swear she's wearing one of my cardigans, and I also refer to the library books as "my babies"!

It's going to get worse before it gets better, but I WILL continue posting a book or two every week day!

Different Facets of War

Morpurgo, Michael. The Mozart Question.
A young reporter is sent to interview a famous violinist on the eve of his fiftieth birthday, and is instructed NOT to ask "the Mozart question". Not knowing what this is, she blurts out that she is not to ask it, and the violinist gives her the entire story. As a young boy living in Venice, he finds his father's violin and starts to play it with the help of a street fiddler. Eventually, he discovers that the fiddler knew his parents when they were all in an internment camp during World War II. Their survival depended on their skills in a prisoner orchestra-- which was instructed to play Mozart to distract new arrivals from the dire fate that awaited them. This is a small but powerful book, short (70 pages), with illustrations, but I will buy a copy because it will be good for reluctant readers when the 8th grade studies the Holocaust.

Khan, Rukhsana. Wanting Mor.
Jameela's life is difficult not only because of the war in her native Afghanistan, but because her mother (mor) has died, she has a cleft lip, and her father moves her to the big city, where he marries and then abandons Jameela in the market. A kindly butcher takes her to an orphanage, where she gets schooling and better care than she has known. She helps with the younger students, has surgery to correct her lip, and makes an uneasy peace with her family and her fate. The details of daily life in regards to food, religion and customs are wonderfully done, and the inclusion of native vocabulary, with glossary in the back, lends immediacy to the story.Our sixth grade reads Deborah Ellis' The Breadwinner, and this is an excellent accompaniment to that title. Staples' Under the Persimmon Tree and Clements' Extra Credit also cover life in Afghanistan.

Viking Aliens Go Hunting

Jennewein, Jim and Tom S. Parker. RuneWarriors: The Sword of Doom.
Sequel to Runewarriors: Shield of Odin (Which had a WAY better cover.)
In a mysterical, quasi-Viking world (there are Norse gods and creatures, but the language is very modern) Dane is back, and this time he is is equipped with the magical sword of his father's, which he needs when his mother is kidnapped and he sets off with his ill-prepared band of goofy comrades to rescue her. The plot on this is predictable, and the language walks the line of appropriateness, but that is exactly why middle school boys love this series. Armpit lice, vomiting, and a romance with a kick-butt maiden warrior all make this a book that will keep boys going through the 413 pages.

Klass, David. Stuck on Earth.
Fun science fiction! Ketchvar comes to earth and takes over the body of the ill-fated Tom Filber-- by crawling through his nose and implanting himself in Tom's brain. Ketchvar can access Tom' thoughts if he needs them while he is evaluating whether or not the earth should be destroyed, but does act and talk in decidedly alien ways while he isn't. Tom wasn't a good choice for a host-- his family life is impossible, and he is a target of bullies in his school. Ketchvar reports back to his planet, hiding his files under names no human would take the trouble to decode-- How to Saute a Skunk, Old Hip-Hop Songs That Sucked-- and comes to the eventual conclusion, helped along by his budding relationship with the pretty Melissa, that the inhabitants of Earth should not be destroyed. Klass already has big hits at my library with You Don't Know Me(2002), Danger Zone(1996) and Wrestling With Honor (1990), and I would LOVE to see him do more humorous books. This was great, and the cover is shiny and much more attractive in person.

Willis, Cynthia Chapman. Buck Fever.
When Joey turns 12, his father is very pleased that he will continue the family tradition of going deer hunting, and hopes that Joey (clad is his father's old, stinky hunting clothes) will shoot a buck. When he gets the chance, however, he freezes, misses, and enrages his father. The trouble is that Joey doesn't want to kill the deer; he wants to draw them. His father, one of the most annoying and dysfunctional father's in teen literature, is bent out of shape because Joey's mother is traveling for her job, and he has to take care of the children, cook AND do laundry. It's too much! Luckily, Joey's sister (who has cross country practice in December for some inexplicable reason) and neighbor are supportive, encouraging him to enter an art competition and helping his father understand (after Joey sneaks off to hunt and shoots himself in the foot) that hunting isn't the only masculine pursuit.

This was very well written and atmospheric, but I had two problems with it. One, Joey's father needs to suck it up. I could see a father having this much trouble taking care of children in a book written in the 1980s, but not now. Two, boys who want to read about hunting don't want to read a book about a boy who does not want to hunt, and boys who don't want to hunt certainly don't want to read about it. Thanks to the Toledo Lucas County Public Library for sending this one through SearchOhio for me.

Horses and Unicorns

Morpurgo, Michael. War Horse.
Albert's horse Joey is the delight of his life, so when his drunken father sells Joey to the army to help in World War I, Albert vows to find his friend. Joey travels widely-- he is sent to France to the front lines, where he befriends another horse and manages to survive many of his riders. He spends some time with a French family, hauls wagons for the Germans, and eventually ends up with an English unit again.

There are few books written about WWI, which always surprises me, since it was such a pivotal war from the point of view of weaponry, and was so devastating. This book is a good balance between descriptions of fighting, which the boys want to read, and details of how harrowing the every day life was and how difficult fighting in a battle really is. I was afraid that a book from the horse's point of view would be difficult to read ( like Kadohata's Cracker: The Best Dog in Vietnam), but Joey's perspectives are largely human. The scene where a German and English soldier flip a coin to see who gets Joey sent chills down my spine, and I must admit that I cried at the end (which was happier than one would suspect). I have this author's Private Peaceful, and do so wish that more of his titles made it to the US.

McKenzie, Nancy. Guinevere's Gamble. (Sequel to Guinevere's Gift)
Guinevere is still more interested in riding horses and meeting with Llyr, her guardian from the old ones, than she is in being a lady or marrying well, although her cousin Elaine is distraught at the marriage of King Arthur. When the two get a chance to visit the king, they're thrilled, but the king's sister, Morgan, takes a dislike to Gwen and makes things difficult for Llyr. Royal politics, intrigue abound in this excellent twist on Arthurian legend. One confusing point-- Guenwyvar of Ifray, the bride of Arthur, whom I do not remember from The Once and Future King. Gwen also marries Arthur, as a nice note in the back points out, and there are two more books coming in this series.

Coville, Bruce. Dark Whispers. (The Unicorn Chronicles, Book 3)
Warning: It helps to reread Song of the Wanderer (1999) and Into the Land of the Unicorns (1994) to get up to speed. Considering that I read both of those almost 3,500 books ago, most of my time was spent figuring out the characters and different worlds. This will not matter to students, who will also be eager for the conclusion to the series, The Last Hunt, due out 1 June 2010.

Beloved is still hunting unicorns because she thinks one killed her father, but Ian, Cara's father, has decided the unicorns are not evil and is trying to find Cara and free his wife from the Rainbow Prison, where Beloved has imprisoned her. Beloved is also trying to take over Luster, the land where the unicorns live. This is high fantasy, and very intense, but can't be beat for the unicorn lore.

Emperors, Queens and Pharaohs!

Korman, Gordon. The Emperor's Code (Book 8, The 39 Clues)
Dan and Amy are in China for this latest installment, hunting around the Forbidden City for clues as to whether or not they really ARE from the evil Madrigal Branch. Dan finds an important clue about uniting the branches, but is then kidnapped. When he escapes, he stays for a while with his Wizard cousins because he can't find Amy. Amy is torn-- does she look for her brother, or for the next clue? These are always good fun, and the students will be more apt to pay attention for clues to the circled words in the text than I was. Interesting that Dan has a little more 'oomph' in this one-- I guess Korman is fonder of him than other authors are!

Meyer, Carolyn. The Bad Queen: Rules and Instructions for Marie-Antoniette.
This is a lengthy book (420 pages), and I wasn't sure that I would like it, even though the other Young Royals books were very good. This turned out to be a fascinating look at a young woman who, because of her circumstances, became an evil and entitled villain. Betrothed at a young age to a man whom she at first dislikes, she is swept up in the glamorous life of the French court. Because her husband does not pay enough attention to her, she is unable to fulfill her most important role-- giving birth to an heir. The discussions of this are very discreet, but some might want to save this for high school. Because of these frustrations, and the strictures placed on her, she starts to spend money and act in ways that infuriate the impoverished French people, bringing about her own eventual demise. Learned a lot from this book, and enjoyed every minute.

LaFevers, R. L. Theodosia and the Eyes of Horus.
Just feel compelled to point out that Theodosia was dealing with Egyptian magic far before Rick Riordan picked it up with The Red Pyramid, not that there can really be too many books on the subject! Could it be that authors are looking at the middle school curriculum and actually writing books we NEED? Doesn't matter; I love Theodosia. As the only one in her family who can detect and remove curses from Egyptian artifacts, Theodosia is perpetually rolling her eyes at the clueless adults around her and then saving their necks. This time, several sets of evil doers are stalking Theodosia in order to get the Emerald Tablet from her, and she must stealthily remove curses, protect her brother, perform Egyptian burial rites on poor Tetley, and in general, keep things going, since her parents are so distracted by work that they can't even get dinner on the table. I enjoyed her grandmother stepping away from her imperious, disapproving role, and am looking forward to a trip to Egypt that must now occur.

If you haven't already purchased them, definitely pick up Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos (2007) and Theodosia and the Staff of Osiris (2008). They will be widely read. I would love to see LaFevers do a similar series with Greek or Roman archaeologists, perhaps concerned more with the digs than the magic.

My weekend with the Kindle

Two of our teachers wrote a grant to buy an Amazon Kindle, primarily to use the text-to-speech capacity with struggling readers. They were kind enough to let me borrow it for the weekend.

I do not buy books for myself. I check them out of the library to read before purchasing for my school library, and occasionally pick up books at the thrift store for a quarter, so a Kindle would make little sense for me personally. Since there is no way we're purchasing the $259 unit for general use, this was an exercise in the abstract.

The temptation is there. Being able to download sample chapters of books while sitting in my easy chair was awesome. I was also hugely intrigued by the number of Horatio Alger and Eleanor Porter titles that were available, and managed to read a sample chapter of Morley's The Haunted Bookshop, a paper copy of which I cannot locate (*sob*). I read quite a bit of Eight Cousins on the device, and was not bothered at all by the format. The big advantage of the Kindle over reading things off the computer is, no kidding, the easy chair!

There are some downsides. For example, the unit completely froze on me three times, and dropped the wireless connection frequently. This would not affect reading the books, but made looking in the Kindle store unwieldy, since I was always 56 pages into the 1,200 page listings of Children's Historical Fiction, and had to start over. I also had to call tech support just to find out how to see all of the books that were listed on my home page-- it was not readily apparent, and not written up in the paper instructions or the Kindle manual.

My biggest dislike was the Kindle store. The internet based version does not seem to be a vast improvement. Since I want text-to-speech enabled books, it would be helpful to see a listing of those and search for children's fiction among those titles. There may be a way, but I'm tired of spending time on it. That, and I think I accidentally purchased three books, for which I will need to make restitution. Drat.

The one compelling reason for me to buy a Kindle (or more likely, a Nook, which seems to be a little more user friendly)? If I could get just three major publishing houses to send me free copies of entire e books so that I could review them, I would purchase one. It would be cheaper for the publishers than sending ARCs, they wouldn't lose money because I would never normally buy an e book, and I could even sign an agreement to delete the title if they wanted.

Random House, HarperCollins, Simon and Schuster, Farrar, Stauss and Giroux, Penguin Putnam or Little, Brown and Co. (I know, you're really Hachette Group now)-- are you interested in sending me free e books? I have had publishers send me PDF files of books, and this would be about the same, except I would be able to sit in my easy chair instead of at the computer, which is too much like work!

Guy Friday-- Horror!

There are never enough horror books for my students. I've tried to find them, but even when I hand students Darren Shan's Lord Loss, they seem to think it's not horrific enough. This disturbs me just a bit, but I figure that horror is to boys what problem novels are to girls. Unfortunately, I have a very short list of books that boys claim are "horrific enough".
Carter, Dean. Hand of the Devil.
Ferguson, Alane. The Christopher Killer.
Pike, Christopher. Master of Murder.
Richardson, E.E. The Devil's Footsteps.
Shan, Darren. Lord Lord (Demonata series)
Yancey, Rick. The Monstrumologist. (Thanks, Jennifer!)
Zindel, Paul. Rats, Raptor, Reef of Death, Doom Stone, Night of the Bat, Loch

One might hope that there would be a lot of web sites with lists of horror books; most have about as many as I have listed, some of which are deemed "not scary" by my students.

Monster Librarian (Best site!)
Hebdomeros (short list)
Cuyahoga Falls Library (where they have all the books in the world!)


So-- what's the general consensus? What do boys want in horror books, and what good books are out there? Take this three question survey if you have time!








Click Here to Take Survey

Klavan, Andrew. The Long Way Home.
In this sequel to The Last Thing I Remember, Charlie is still on the run from the Homelanders, a terrorist group that has framed him for the murder of his best friend. These terrorists are U.S. citizens who are recruited by "Islamists". While I appreciated the nonstop action (knife attacks in the library restroom, motorcycle chases, etc.), this got VERY preachy, to the point of being off-putting. I have a lot of students who are Muslims; how will they feel reading this? During the Cold War, there were a lot of spy novels with Communist bad guys; how many Russian immigrants did we have who were reading those? I don't remember the first book having so much emphasis on Charlie's Christian beliefs, and Klavan also loses points for the incredibly unflattering portrayal of librarian, ("She looked sort of bulky and shapeless in a dark flowery blouse. Her hair was short and dyed a kind of silvery blode. Her wrinkly features were kindly but distant, abstracted, as if she were far away inside her own mind. Page 21), that wasn't even clever-- if this librarian had sized up the situation and managed to fend off Charlie's attackers and let him escape, that would have been cool.

Kirkus reviews said "Skewed to an audience reading from the right side of the religio-political spectrum, it displays scant tolerance for nonbelievers. Even those comfortable with this viewpoint may well find themselves yawning as Charlie sludges on in his quest--suspended, of course, until the next book."

Book three is scheduled to come out 2 November 2010, and book four on 2 April 2011. I will probably buy them, if only so that Klavan doesn't accuse me of being a Leftist Librarian with An Agenda to Delude the Youth of the Nation. *Sigh* Why Thomas Nelson Publishing has chosen to put these in paper-over-board bindings is a mystery-- they will see hard use and not survive well.

Roy Morelli Steps Up to the Plate

Heldring, Thatcher. Roy Morelli Steps Up to the Plate.
Like Toby Wheeler, Eighth Grade Benchwarmer, this is another great sports novel for the middle grades. Roy is looking forward to playing on an All-Star team and then moving on to high school, where he is positive his stellar baseball skills will translate into renown. Why should he be worried about history and his other subjects in school? Unfortunately, when he gets a D in history, his divorced parents decide that this translates into playing only on a rec team AND being tutored by his dad's teacher girlfriend. Roy's slacker ways in school also are not attractive to Valerie, the girl he likes, and his egotism manages to alienate his two best friends. Roy, like so many middle school students, has to learn to learn to rearrange his priorities in order to get what he really wants out of life.

My only objections with this book? It's way too close to the book I want to write for middle grade boys! That, and back when I reviewed Toby Wheeler, I did say that Mr. Heldring should stick to basketball and football, and he didn't listen. Write faster, Mr. Heldring!

Alman, Ann. Brave Deeds: How One Family Saved Many From the Nazis.
This slim volume, told from the point of view of a fictional Dutch child who is separated from parents and sent to live in the country with the Braal family, will be excellent for my 8th graders when they are studying the Holocaust next year. The Braals had dozens of people whom they hid from the Nazis, but the charming part of this book is the actual family photos of the family and the people they saved going about their every day lives. There are good illustrations about other war time minutiae that are wonderful as well. My only question with this is whether to shelve it in the corporate biographies, as Baker and Taylor has deemed fit, or to change it to fiction. It's an odd amalgam-- the family was real, but Alma has embellished details that she got from Mies Braal, who was a neighbor.

Stop the presses! It's MotherReader's Fifth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge! I have alerted the children that I am out of commission on June 4-6, have constructed a huge TBR pile, (because my Blendon library books will be going in boxes starting June 2!) and will do laundry, cooking, and cleaning ahead of time so that I can read. I do not forgo sleep, because sleep is about the best thing in the world at this time of year, and I may need to read and walk at the same time so I don't become woozy from inactivity like I did last year. This is always an awesome weekend, and my students get excited, too-- I will never run a marathon, but at least I can READ a marathon!

Liberty Porter, First Daughter

Devillers, Julia. Liberty Porter, First Daughter.
Technically, this is too young for my students. The main character is nine, and she acts like a nine-year-old, but it is such a timely book that will eventually become hysterically funny in fifteen years. Wouldn't you love to have a dusty copy of a book about a girl bearing a strong resemblance to Amy Carter? Devillers is a facile writer with a good eye for girls' lit, and this simple story of the trouble Liberty gets into during her first day at the White House is very fun. There is a sequel, New Girl In Town, in which Liberty starts her new school. Details of the life of a president and places in the white house, as well as strong family bonds and an irrepressible main character make this a fun book. Has anyone sent Malia and Sasha Obama a copy?


Shea, Bob. Race to Bed.
I don't do picture books. Never been a big fan, but I was at a Book Look last night, and this book stayed on the table for a really long time. Every time I passed it, I wanted it, but it seemed unfair to the elementary librarians who were there, since it was hardcover. The only thing that would have kept people from snagging it was the bedtime theme-- a little young for most elementary schools. I finally picked it up, and it is adorable. Like all picture books, it's rather silly and not much happens, but the pictures remind me a lot of The Color Kittens. The funniest thing was that I took it home and both my 16-year-old and 12-year-old squealed "It's SOOOO cute!" when they saw it. The bunny is so fluffy. If I were in the market for picture books, I would certainly keep up on Shea's work.

Various Books

Cabot, Meg. Runaway.
Just when I thought I was tired of Em/Nikki enjoying her model's body and Nikki/Em complaining that she wasn't beautiful, Cabot threw in a curve and made me glad I had read all three of these. (Airhead, Being Nikki). At the same time, I was a little relieved that this was the last book in the series; three is good, more than five and I have trouble paying attention. Em (whose brain has been transplanted into the body of supermodel Nikki) spends some time in this book fighting with Brandon Stark, fighting with Christopher, making her parents angry, worrying about her sister, and going to parties, but it's when she uncovers Stark Corporation's evil plans for the kind of surgery they did on her that it gets interesting. Cabot is a solid writer always.


Devillers, Julia and Roy, Jennifer. Trading Faces.
Reading this would have helped with Take Two. Emma and Payton start middle school, which is a big change from their small elementary school. Emma is wary, because she's always been the brightest in the class, and she has a rough start when she runs into Jazmine, who is not only bright but is mean as well. Payton has difficulties, too; even though she's gotten in with the popular crowd, it's hard to keep up with dressing the part. When she accidentally gets burrito all over a popular boy, she convinces Emma to trade places with her, and the two discover that they have other talents and personality traits that they didn't previous realize. The only thing irritating about this was that the first couple of chapters were the same scenes from two view points, which got repetitive, but that soon ended.

Malley, Gemma. The Returners.
It seemed reasonable that this book was the sequel to The Declaration and The Resistance, but it's a completely different story. Set in 2016 (too close in the future; should always allow at least 50 years!), it concerns Will, whose mother has committed suicide and whose immigrant-hating father has become remote. After a neighbor boy is accused of a murder, Will starts to have blinding headaches and is followed by "freaks"; it turns out that Will is a "returner", who remembers past acts of horror and contributes new ones-- or will he. This was a rather British book, and I think I was so disappointed that it wasn't the third book in the other series that I had trouble concentrating on it.

Of note: Picky Reader's Girls Life magazine had ads for summer reading books, and mentions Scholastic's Poison Apple Books. First, I laughed hysterically, since the Candy Apple Books are so popular in my library, and then I realized that I needed to order every single one. Basically, they are vampire books for fourth graders who desperately want to read Breaking Dawn but are not allowed. As Picky Reader pointed out, one of the authors, Mimi McCoy, wrote The Accidental Cheerleader, which is our favorite Candy Apple Book.

The Red Pyramid!!!!!

Riordan, Rick. The Red Pyramid.
Broke down and bought my OWN copy, because I couldn't stand to wait. I was not disappointed! Carter Kane travels the world with his Egyptologist father; Sadie lives in London with her grandparents and sees him twice a year. This year, their visit includes a trip to the British Museum, where the father blows up the Rosetta Stone, summons the gods, and disappears. Sadie and Carter, helped by the human manifestation of Sadie's cat, Muffin, are plunged into an epic battle to keep the god Set from destroying the world.

No one does epic battles like Riordan, but what was truly impressive was the amount of Egyptian mythology that is covered. The Lightning Thief was easy for me, since I know my Greek myths cold, but this story managed to explain the different gods and their functions without bogging down the narrative. Add Riordan's wonderful style that has me chuckling to myself over some clever turn of phrase every couple of pages, and I think I liked this one almost better than Percy! The alternating viewpoints of the two characters are easy to follow, the different locations to which they travel fun, and the veiled references to troubles with other gods leaves way for this story to eventually connect to The Lightning Thief if need be. My only complaint? I think Sadie's name should have been Sophie, after Heinrich Schliemann's wife. I knew right away for whom Carter was named!

Telgemeier, Raina. Smile.
If all graphic novels were this well done, librarians would buy more of them. Like Hope Larson's Mercury, this book is well bound and has a compelling, unusual story. Picky Reader adored this one! Based on the author's own experiences, Smile tells the story of her fall that causes her two front teeth to be knocked out. Braces don't adequately fix the problem, so there is surgery and other interventions over a three year period. The effect of the disfigurement and braces shapes Raina's personality, friendships, and interests. Middle school problems such as crushes, family issues, changing friendships, and schoolwork are also covered. Telgemeier's work will be familiar to anyone who has read The Babysitters' Club graphic novels.

Atkins, Jeannine. Borrowed Names: Poems about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker, Marie Curie, and their daughters.
This was one of those books that won't fly off the shelf, but is so well done that I had to buy it. The three women named in the title were all born in 1867, and had such divergent experiences, but shared many qualities. Students who are familiar with these figures will learn something new, and this is fine for an introduction as well. The poetry is not that great (but I am extremely strict about rhyme and meter, and harsh when poems do not include this), but the stories are interesting. It's even got a beautiful cover. This will take some hand selling, but I have several girls who are on a Wilder kick who are sure to pick this up.

Literary Lunch Tables

It's Guy Friday, and the question of the day is this: Which characters from literature would you have sit at your lunch table?

I have been so enormously distracted by Kay Cassidy's wonderful post on O.W.L. Books, and I've bored countless students with this. There are obvious tables that one can make up with sporty boys, academic boys (would Harry Potter be there?), and boys who would be popular with the girls (like Alex Rider!), but we were trying to think who would be at a lunch table with Percy Jackson. He's kind of a goof. I came up with

Dan Cahill from The 39 Clues series.

Stan from Beaudoin’s Going Nowhere Faster

Mitty from Cooney’s Code Orange

They are all sort of slackers but have the gumption when they need it. The other list I came up with was:

Boys who are always in trouble, but not in a good way

(I.E. No, you are not dating my daughter)

Iggy from Going’s St. Iggy

Ian from Harmon’s Skate

Matthew from Van Draanen’s Rules of Survival

Toby from McCormick’s My Brother’s Keeper

From Carter’s Walkaway

John from Klass’ You Don’t Know Me

It struck me that this would be a really good way to suggest books to kids, and would make an awesome bulletin board.

What lunch table would YOU be at? That'll give you something to do today while you're gluing books together.

Fever Crumb and Bad Cover Art

Reeve, Philip. Fever Crumb.
Ah, Steampunk. Tried to explain it to a group of teachers at my workshop this week and don't think I was that successful. Reeve is the master of this genre, with The Hungry City Chronicles and Larklight. Fever Crumb concerns a young girl in a futuristic London that feels like the 1800s. She was abandoned as a baby and raised by a group of engineers. She goes to work for an archaeologist who is working on a site, and she has odd memories of it, although she has never been there. There are enough gadgets (paper spy boys are fun!) to qualify it for Steampunk, and a lot of action and intrigue. Definitely buying. Interestingly, I thought this author's Here Lies Arthur was reminiscent of Rosemary Sutcliffe, and he lists her as one of his favorite authors on his web site. But what's with this awful cover? (See bottom for the much better, British cover.) It looks a lot like the one below.

Lynch, Janet. Addicted to Her.
Can't believe I didn't blog this author's Messed Up, because it was a riveting tale of a boy whose foster care arrangements go wrong, and he has to survive on his own. Used to making bad choices and not caring about the consequences, he begins to realize that bad choices could mean starving. Very popular. Addicted to Her is also good, but unfortunately has some rather graphicmaking out and too many descriptions of how hot the girl is, so I will pass. From the publisher: "After falling obsessively in love, high school wrestler Rafael Montoya must choose between a reckless young woman and responsibilities to his family and future."

Gray, Keith. Ostrich Boys.
This sat on my son's desk for weeks before I finally had to repossess it. He, like I, will read almost anything and he couldn't get into it. I blame the cover. It's not a bad story-- three boys are trying to come to terms with their friend Ross' death and decide to steal his ashes and take them to Ross, Scotland, where the friend had always wanted to go. This is, of course, a bit dark, since there is also a concern that the friend committed suicide, and it is very British as well. I liked it, but I think that it would be a hard sell in my library. Wouldn't mind seeing a copy of this author's Creepers.


This is a much better cover. I bet anything the skull is shiny.

Football Genius; High School Books

Green, Tim. Football Genius (2007).
Must admit that I bought all the Tim Green books and the AR tests for them without reading them. Luckily, I was pleased with Football Genius. Troy and his single mother are struggling a bit, but she gets a job with the Atlanta Falcons. This allows her to have a pass to games, and when Troy realizes that the players are not anticipating the plays the way he is, he uses his pass to try to get to the coach. This is not a good idea, and his mother is temporarily fired. Troy also makes the bad decision to steal an official football from a player's yard, but when the player comes to retrieve it, he realizes that Troy does have the ability to predict game plays, and the team can use this to their advantage. I didn't like this one as much as Dygard or Deuker; Troy was kind of a snot. Still, these are fine and popular. And who knew that the Falcons were a real team? Never heard of them. Some of the characters in the book seem to be real people, and Tim Green did play for the Falcons from '86-'93.

Wayland, April Halprin. Girl Coming in for a Landing.
This is a novel in verse, which I normally loathe, so when I say this is not bad, it is high praise indeed. The saving grace is that it is comprised of individual poems on a variety of topics. Not formal verse, but not horrible. The biggest problem for me was the inclusion of a fuzzy picture of a naked girl. This appears to be out of print, so I will have to pass.


Gramont, Nina. Every Little Thing in the World.
Can't say that I would choose to put a picture of a half-naked girl kayaking on the cover of a book about a 16 year old who is pregnant, but here we are. Teen pregnancy is certainly an issue middle school girls like to investigate, but this book's main character Sydney, makes such utterly poor choices all around that this is not the vehicle for them. Aside from the casual, unprotected sex, there's alcohol use, denial, and general bad behavior.


Friend, Natasha. For Keeps.
Picky Reader is such a huge Natasha Friend fan (Lush, Bounce, Perfect) that I was disappointed in For Keeps, but at least the cover style change makes it apparent that this is not a similar book. I liked the main premise of the book, that a girl whose single mother was abandoned by the girl's father meets up with him again when the girl is 16, but the girl herself is making decisions like making out with another girl's boyfriend and drinking. In fact, even the parents make poor decisions. I can't imagine taking my 16-year-old daughter to a party and telling her "'One beer each. No liquor. And absolutely no drugs.'...I know Pops is trying to be a responsible parent." No. No, he's not. I don't care if he will discuss anything with his children, this is not responsible parenting. I liked the matter-of-fact depiction of the family with two fathers, but this is not a book for middle school. Drat.

Greene, Michele. Keep Sweet.
Got Ellen Hopkins fans? Then go right ahead and buy this book about a polygamist sect in Utah where a young girl, after she foolishly kisses the boy she likes, is forced to become the sixth wife of a violent, middle aged man who then repeatedly rapes her. I must admit that I read this entire book because it was riveting in a very disturbing way. Great stuff, just not for middle school. I do have this author's Chasing the Jaguar, which is a mystery popular with girl who normally like "pink" books, so I'll watch this author more closely. Maye she'll turn her hand to problem novels without quite so much graphic detail!

Aliens, influenza

Auseon, Andrews. Alienated.
Gene and Vincent are high schoolers with a mission-- they publish a small newsletter about real space aliens who live among us. Their parents humor them, no one really reads it, but they spend a lot of time interviewing these harmless and misunderstood creatures. When a popular guidance counselor turns out to be the nephew of the most evil alien overlord, their news does get some attention. The counselor is ousted and intergalactic complications ensue. This is a good book for students who like goofy alien books like Mackel's Can of Worms or Luzzato's Interplanetary Avenger. There's action, adventure and goop, but I didn't care for this personally. The prose seemed very wooden and inelegant. Since I usually don't notice thisI was surprised at how much less appealing this made the story for me. Students will probably not notice, because there are a lot of nonstop, goof, throwaway lines.

Williams, Sarah Deford. Palace Beautiful.
On the flip side, Palace Beautiful was beautifully written, but will be less appealing to students because very little happens and the prose does veer into the overly sentimental. Sadie and her sister Zuzu move with their father and pregnant step mother into an older house. In the attic, they discover the journal of a former occupant, a girl Sadie's age whose family was hard-hit by the influenza epidemic in 1918. This explains the 1985 setting-- the girls eventually meet this girl as an 80-year-old woman. Sadie, whose mother died when Zuzu was born, becomes very concerned about her stepmother's welfare. There is also a slightly odd, ongoing story line concerning a neighbor girl, Kristin, who wants to be called Belladonna Desolation, dress in black, and fights with her mother about being understood. There are hints that the girl from 1918 might be a ghost, so this started off with a Betty Ren Wright feel to it (complete with unfortunate cover), but the book really doesn't dwell on this possibility. I rather liked this one, but I think it would be a hard sell. I will definitely read any new books from this author, but may not buy this one.

And no, I don't have a copy of Riordan's The Red Pyramid yet. My vendor promised me the five I ordered would come on May 6th, but then called Friday to say it would be more like the end of the month. After the library is closed. *SOB*

More Horror, Etc.

Harvey, Alyxandra. Hearts at Stake.
Another vampire book, but this was not bad; it will certainly circulate well! Solange is the first female vampire who has been born rather than made in 900 years. Because of this, she has a vast number of suitors approaching her family now that she is almost 16. There are also vampire hunters about, one of them very attractive, and a lot of vampire politics that cause problems. Solange's best friend, Lucy, is human but very understanding (since Solange's family has stereotypical "good"vampire eating habits) and also oddly attracted to Solange's brother, Nick. Although this does have elements of many other recent vampire books, it is a fresh and engaging tale. The Drake Chronicles #2, Blood Feud, comes out in June, and I will definitely have copies of both ready when school starts. The only question is-- do I buy two copies of each?

Stewart, Paul and Chris Ridell. Legion of the Dead. (Barnaby Grimes #3)
I do wish that I had known about The Edge Chronicles by these two authors while the first in the series were still in print, because I have greatly enjoyed Barnaby. In this installment, Barnaby ends up in a bad part of town just in time for the funeral of a gang leader. Returning to this area later with his friend Professor Pinkerton-Barnes to investigate suspicious activity in the water, he passes by the graveyard where the leader is interred and hears the ominous jangling of a grave bell, and is shocked to see the mutilated corpse of the leader emerge from the ground. Since he was attacked by a venomous serpent in the water, Barnaby thinks that he was hallucinating, until he reads the news that the body of the gang leader has been stolen from the grave. As with the other adventures, the answer to the supernatural activity lies with ancient artifacts from exotic cultures. I’m not quite sure why I enjoy these so much; gruesome descriptions of rotting corpses are not usually to my liking, but there is something irrepressible about Barnaby and the light-hearted way he tackles all of these bizarre and inexplicable adventures. The language is also delightful and the vocabulary rich. My students have been a bit leery of these at first, but once they pick one up, they enjoy them.I ordered this one without reading it, but didn't know that the fourth book, Phantom of Blood Alley comes out on May 11, or I would have ordered that one, too.

Morris, Paula. Ruined. Rebecca is sent to live with a tarot card reading family friend in post-Katrina New Orleans from New York when her father is sent to China. She tries her best to fit in with the students at the private school she attends, but they are cliquish, and she is warned against mixing with them. Drawn to a local cemetery, Rebecca meets Lisette, who is a ghost who presumably died of yellow fever. It turns out that this is not the case, and that the students at the school are descendants of the Bowmans, who caused Lisette’s death. To make matters worse, there is a curse that causes the girls in this family to die before they are 17, and they can tell that the end is near when they can see Lisette. Why is Rebecca part of this? This was a very atmospheric tale that included a lot of interesting history of social mores in New Orleans. Girls who liked Bad Girls Don’t Die and other creepy ghost stories will like this one.

Leck, James. The Adventures of Jack Lime.
This book was an odd amalgam of Encyclopedia Brown meets Film Noir. Jack is a hard-boiled high school student who has decided to solve crimes to help win him popularity. Three are covered here—a missing bike, an academic scandal, and a missing student. Unlike Encyclopedia, the answers are addressed in the story itself instead of in answers provided in the back. The length of this volume (126 pages) would make it suitable for younger students, and there’s nothing wrong with the content, but I’m not sure that ten-year-olds really get the Film Noir type patter. (Case in point: Colfer’s Half Moon Investigations, which has been a slow mover.) Just not sure about this one, even though there is always a need for mysteries.

Krieg, Jim. Griff Carver, Hallway Patrol.
ARC provided by the publisher. Griff was a well-known safety patrol officer who got kicked out of his previous school after an unfortunate incident; he quickly tries to get into the patrol at his new school, but the leader is suspicious of Griff’s motives. There’s plenty of goofiness, hallway chases, and general boy antics. Add one hostile principal and underhanded middle school politicians, and it’s hard enough for Griff to survive, much less blend in with his new classmates. This will be HUGELY popular with the boys, but I had another I Am A Genius of Unspeakable Evil moment and could not get past the fact that middle schools no longer have Safety Patrols. No hall monitors, not kids in sashes playing in traffic, nothing. We also do not have student elections at my school, and both of these things play a huge part in this book. This might be more successful with elementary students who don’t know yet that middle school will not afford them unlimited access to roaming the halls, although my son, who is in 8th grade, ran off with this one and chuckled over it for quite some time. This is exactly why we don't let students be hall monitors!

And no, there is no discernable reason why I am willing to believe that Victorian era corpses can rise from the grave but I can’t take the leap that middle school students would be allowed to be hall monitors.

Just for fun: O.W.L. Books has a great post by Kay Cassidy on the characters in other books who would be friends with her main character! I am not the only one who thinks this way! I haven't read The Cinderella Society yet, but now am dying to. I wonder if Frankie Landau-Banks would also like to be part of this group? I thought that she and Cammie from I'd Tell You I Love You... would be great friends. Whether or not I like a book is so dependent on whether I like the character, and looking at this list of Ms. Cassidy's characters friends makes me think I will like her book, too.

Alternative Realities

Petrucha, Stefan. Split.
The reason Petrucha's writing is so brilliant is that he tackles material that falls in the high school range philosophically, but is middle school appropriate. Perfect for my 8th graders. In Split, Wade is torn between being a hard working student intent on getting a scholarship and keeping his alcoholic father from falling apart, and pursuing his music while living in a dive. Turns out, he's doing both-- after his mother's death, his reality has split. Which is the better course? There are problems in both realities, and soon his two worlds collide. Both scenarios have intrigue and suspense, and the idea of personal identity is investigated in a completely fresh way. This made my head hurt a little (Like the Time Tripper Quartet did), but in a good way. I'd love to have dinner with Mr. Petrucha and discuss time travel and alternative realities. Maybe he has these wonderful insights into the subject because he has really come here from the future...

Poblocki, Dan. The Stone Child.
I would love to know what authors Mr. Poblocki read as a child, because his book read very familiarly. It will be a huge hit, and I'm thrilled to see other titles in the works. Eddie and his family move to Gatesweed so that his mother can write and his father can open an antique store. But right away, something is not right in the town. After his car is attacked by a monster (which his parents think was a bear), Eddie finds out that Gatesweed was the home of his favorite author, Nathaniel Olmstead, who has been missing for 13 years. When he finds an unpublished manuscript by this author and starts to read it, the events in the book become real. It's up to Eddie and his friends to figure out how monsters are coming into their world and stop them from taking over. This was a hugely atmospheric book to read on a rainy day, and out me in mind of Betty Ren Wright and John Bellairs-- we are asked to suspend disbelief right away. Looking forward to The Nightmarys, coming out in August 2010. There is a huge need for horror books for middle grade students, and this hit the spot.

Unfortunately, there were three that just weren't quite right for my library.

Promitzer, Rebecca. The Pickle King.
Reminiscent of Canned and Grooves, this would be good for fourth graders who are really good readers. It has plenty of gross moments, but since I canned move the aforementioned books, I think I will pass on buying this one. From the publisher: "During an endlessly rainy summer in the town of Elbow, twelve-year-old Bea and her misfit friends solve an unlikely mystery involving an unidentified dead man who is missing an eye, an evil surgeon, a ring shaped like an old castle, a bag of smelly intestines, and a helpful ghost."

Lowell, Pamela. Spotting for Nellie.
To be honest, part of the reason I am not buying this one was the fact that it was about two sisters who get into a car accident, and their names are Claire and Nellie. My daughters are Claire and Nell. Argh! Also, this is more of a high school book. The accident is the girl's own fault-- drinking and driving and taking off one's seat belt rarely ends well-- and the introspection makes for a slower paced story than my students seem to want. From the publisher: "After a terrible car accident leaves her sister brain-injured, sixteen-year-old Claire struggles with guilt for the accident, helping her sister recover, and boyfriend problems."

Shimko, Bonnie. The Private Thoughts of Amelia E. Rye.
Went back and forth on this one. Liked the cover, liked the description, started it and couldn't get into it. Read a few reviews which sounded promising and picked it up again; didn't like any of the characters and although it was set in New York State, it felt very "quirky Southern". The 1960s setting will be a hard sell, so I think I'll pass. From the publisher: "Growing up in a small town in upstate New York during the 1960s, a young girl, unwanted by her mother, searches for love and acceptance."