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A Dragon Used to Live Here by Annette LeBlanc Cate

Oct17

Noble children Thomas and Emily have always known their mother to be sensible, the lady of the castle—if anything, a bit boring. But then they discover Meg, a cranky scribe who lives in the castle basement, leading a quirky group of artists in producing party invitations and other missives for the nobles above. Meg claims that she was a friend of their mother’s back when the two were kids—even before the dragon lived in the castle. Wait—a dragon? Not sure they can believe Meg’s tales, the kids return again and again to hear the evolving, fantastical story of their mother’s escapades.

~Amazon summary

 I thought this one was pure fun. It reminded me of telling my own children stories that I made up on the fly. “Once upon a time there was a princess named Maria who lived in a BIG castle with her mother the queen, her father the king, and her eighteen brothers and sisters . . .” My stories always began with those words and went on to ramble about in much the same way Meg’s stories do. Throughout the book Thomas and Emily are ambivalent and unsure as to whether or not Meg is telling the real story of her past friendship with their mother the queen or whether she is just stringing them along to get their help with all the pre-party preparations. Could there really have been a dragon living at their castle in the past? Were Mom and Meg really tennis partners? Are there alligators in the moat? Fairies in the woods?The reader is just as uncertain as the children are, and just as anxious to hear the rest of the story.

There is an ongoing question as to whether or not Meg might be a witch, but it’s never really resolved, and she doesn’t cast spells or do anything witchy. This middle grade fiction story is fun and adventurous, mildly ridiculous, with no really deep questions or themes, except maybe the reunification of old friends. I loved it.

Racing Storm Mountain by Trent Reedy

Sep28

I just finished reading this 2022 middle grade fiction novel, second in a series of middle grade adventure books set in the fictional town of McCall, Idaho near McCall Mountain (The series is called McCall Mountain, with a new book Fishing in Fire set to come out in February, 2023.). I liked the first book in the series, Hunter’s Choice, but I really liked this second book. It speaks to a demographic that is neglected in most contemporary children’s literature: rural, adventure-loving, lower class, flyover country.

I enjoyed it even though it’s about snowmobile racing, a sport that I didn’t even know existed. Folks, I’m from Houston now, originally West Texas; we don’t have winter sports. Therefore, I wouldn’t know whether the many details in the book about snowmobiles and avalanches and frostbite are perfect or not, but it reads as if the author knows what he’s writing about. To write an adventure sports survival story set in West Texas, you would have to include tornadoes, or deserts, or bucking broncos, and I might know a little more about the situation.

The writing is quite good, and the kids talk like middle school kids. The conflict of rich vs. poor, popular vs. loser, and the idea of privilege shown from a different than expected perspective make this a standout. I especially liked one scene in which the main characters discuss what it means to be privileged and whether or not we are responsible for our own plight or privilege in life. It’s open-ended, but meant to get readers to think without telling them what to think.

Bottom line, Racing Storm Mountain is just a good read: a survival story about three middle school kids stranded in a snowstorm on a mountain. Hunter, Swann, and Kelton must work together to survive despite their very different backgrounds and experiences.

Thanks, Mr. Reedy, for another solid and enjoyable reading adventure. Oh, Words in the Dust is another book, this one set in Afghanistan, by Trent Reedy that I recommend.

Haven: Small Cat’s Big Adventure by Megan Wagner Lloyd

Sep27

Haven the cat lives in a small house in the woods with Ma Millie, her elderly friend and rescuer. Haven is strictly an indoor cat ever since Ma Millie took her in, and her life is splendid. “Ma Millie’s house was wholly and completely home.”

But when Ma Millie becomes ill, Haven must figure out how to help her. How can a little cat, a cat who is afraid of and unused to the outside world, find help for her beloved human? And can Haven trust the fox without a name who offers to help?

Short (only 131 pages), sweet and poignant, this story is nevertheless well written and developed with a villainous bobcat, a helpful fox, and a tiny courageous cat. It’s reminiscent of Incredible Journey and even Charlotte’s Web, but the inclusion of human characters and animals with some human characteristics and language, makes it relatable and more than just another animal story. The plot is well knit together; the writing is good, but not too complicated; and the ending is satisfying. Sensitive children might need a warning or a pre-reader since injury and even death are elements of the story.

I highly recommend this one for cat lovers, fans of animal stories in general, young adventurers, and anyone looking for a readalike book after enjoying: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford, James Herriot’s Animal Stories for Children, Along Came a Dog by Meindert DeJong, A Wolf Called Wander by Roseanne Parry, or The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden. Alternatively, if you read Haven and want more animal friendship stories, one of these might fit the bill.

The Ogress and the Orphans by Kelly Barnhill

Sep12

I read Kelly Barnhill’s The Girl Who Drank the Moon a few years ago and liked it, although I probably wouldn’t have awarded it the Newbery Medal. However, I wasn’t on the committee, and those people who were, did think it the best of the year (2016). The Ogress and the Orphans is much better, IMHO, and should be a contender for this year’s Newbery Award.

Stone-in-the-Glen was once a lovely community, “famous for its trees”, with people who shared the fruit of those trees and spent a great deal of time “discussing literature or politics or philosophy or art” in a leisurely manner as they worked together to care for one another and to share ideas.

“But then, one terrible night, the Library burned.”

This middle grade speculative fiction book tells a very book-centric, literature loving story. As for characters, there are a gentle ogress, fourteen orphans who live in an orphanage with an elderly couple to take care of them, a menagerie of assorted townspeople, a murder of crows, a blinded dog, a charismatic mayor, and a very unpleasant dragon. Oh, and a mysterious, maybe magical narrator.

The writing in this book is beautiful, maybe a bit too precious at times, but I didn’t mind. And the story itself could have been hurried along a bit without losing much, if any, of its charm, but I didn’t mind that either. To tell the truth, I wanted it to last. I enjoyed spending time with the Ogress and with Anthea and Bartleby and Cass and all the other orphans. And all the book-love was, well, music to my ears.

. . . the Orphan House’s collection was surprisingly large–there were more books than the space seemed to allow.  This is not unusual.  Books, after all, have their own peculiar gravity, given the collective weight of words and thoughts and ideas.  Just as the gravitational field around a black hole bends and wobbles the space around it, so, too, does the tremendous mass of ideas of a large collection of books create its own dense gravity.  Space gets funny around books.

The world is filled with goodness, and our response should not be silence and suspicion. You have a responsibility to be grateful. You have a responsibility to do good as a result.

So maybe the Reading Room is magic because books really are magic. I read once that books bend both space and time, and the more books you have in one place, the more space and time will bend and twist and fold over itself. I’m not sure if that’s true but it feels true. Of course, I read that in a book, and maybe the book was just bragging.

Adventures with Waffles by Maria Parr

Sep2

Lena is Trille’s best friend, but he’s not really sure if he is Lena’s best friend. Lena reminds me of The Cat in Miranda and The Cat; she’s independent and feisty, full of ideas, not so prone to intimate confidences and expressions of affection. Lena is also reminiscent of Pippi Longstocking; she’s a bit of a rebel. Of course, the Scandinavian setting recalls Pippi, too. (Adventures with Waffles is from a Norwegian author, while Pippi Longstocking is Swedish. But the setting is similar.)

This book is funny, and I think there is dearth of truly funny children’s books being published these days. Lots of great quests and problem novels and bathroom humor crowd the shelves, but to find a good, funny read-aloud-worthy story, you almost have to go back to Ramona Quimby or Homer Price or Sid Fleischman’s western adventure stories (By The Great Horn Spoon, The Ghost in the Noonday Sun). What all of these disparate books have in common is a sense of humor that depends on ordinary, everyday absurdities instead of shock value and silly talk.

The book also deals with sadness and loss. A favorite character in the book dies, and at a certain point in the story Trille thinks his friendship with Lena is over. Both losses are told about in a compassionate and realistic way that would help readers to identify with Trille, the protagonist, in his grief. And there’s lots of trouble as Lena’s ideas for fun and adventure are not devoid of ridiculous and even dangerous consequences. A picture of Jesus becomes a sort of talisman for remembering what has been lost in terms of family and friendship and for renewing the relationships that remain.

I have been told by more than one friend that Ms. Parr’s other middle grade fiction book, Astrid the Unstoppable is even better than Adventures with Waffles. So, I plan to check that one out as soon as possible. In the meantime, I recommend Adventures with Waffles to fans of Ramona Quimby and Pippi Longstocking and Anne of Green Gables and other spirited and slightly wacky fictional girl characters.

Miranda and the Cat by Linell Smith

Sep1

Once there was a Cat. He was not a fat cat. He was not the lap-sitting kind of cat. He was a thin cat; so thin that you could count his bones. This Cat was marked with the scars of many battles. He lived in a turned-over box behind a garbage can in the alley of a big city. In fact, he was an alley cat. And proud of it.

Miranda and the Cat is the simple story of a girl who finds and befriends a cat, an independent, feisty, alley cat. The Cat is never named in the book, perhaps because The Cat doesn’t ever belong to Miranda or anyone else. No one has the right to name him or contain him. He’s The Cat.

Nevertheless, Miranda and The Cat do become friends, friends with boundaries, but friends who love and care for each other in times of need. Miranda and the Cat is just a lovely 44 page story of how two of God’s creatures can be friends–with both respect and love.

Linell Nash Smith, the author of this little story, was the daughter of poet Ogden Nash. Linell actually illustrated a couple of picture books of Ogden Nash’s poems. But for this book there is a separate illustrator. The illustrator, Peggy (Margaret Frances) Bacon, did such a good job of capturing the personality and moxie of The Cat. I’m glad someone decided have her illustrate the story. I’m going to be pushing this little book at all of the cat lovers who come to my library from now on.

Out of Range by Heidi Lang

Jul26

3 sisters: Abby, Emma, and Ollie McBee.

A months-long feud, trading pranks, insults, and put-downs, culminates in the girls being sent to Camp Unplugged. Their parents hope that some time together, away from internet, cell phones, and other distractions, will help the sisters to re-unite and forgive each other. But it’s not working. Abby, the oldest sister, has found a new friend at camp, and Emma and Ollie feel just as angry and left out as they did at home. So the malicious pranks–a frog in the tent, honey in the sleeping bag, and more–continue, and the girls’ camp counselor, Dana, is just as exasperated with them as their parents were.

So, Dana takes the girls on an all day disciplinary hike up a nearby mountain, and then when the three sisters are separated from Dana, they get lost and and injured. And they have to outrun a fire and navigate a raging river. And they meet a bear, and there may be a mountain lion stalking them. Can the sisters learn to work together, forgive each other, and survive?

The author shows the tangled relationships between these three sisters, their fears and their hopes and their growing pains, so well, as they trade insults and yet come to realize how much they really care for each other and need each other. It’s not an immediate or complete change that happens just because the sisters are in crisis mode. Abby is still the somewhat bossy and superior older sister, twelve years old and responsible but not sure she’s up to the responsibility. Emma is still the middle sister, ten, caught between Abby and Ollie, afraid of strong words, somewhat anxious, and longing for everything to go back to the way it was before the sisters broke up into “sides”—The Youngers against Abby. Ollie is still the baby (who isn’t really a baby any more), stubborn, impulsive, and slow to apologize. There are layers of personality and relationship and sisterhood here that are revealed a little at a time, like peeling an onion, as the three sisters come to know each other and themselves so much more deeply.

I liked this book a lot. The sisters have been rather cruel to each other, but they eventually, and realistically, find a way to forgive each other and move forward. I’m going to be recommending this books to sisters and to brothers, all siblings, who are forging their own sibling relationships, probably in less challenging circumstances than those the McBees face. I always told my kids when they were growing up that friends come and go, but family, sisters and brothers, are forever. Those sibling relationships are an important training ground for life, and sometimes they have to be mended–because we all say and do things to hurt each other.

Good book.

Hana Hsu and the Ghost Crab Nation by Sylvia Liu

Jul18

Hana Hsu can’t wait to be meshed: her brain tied into the multiweb by means of a neural implant that will enable her to communicate with everyone, thought to thought, brain to brain. AND she will be able to choose one of three areas of giftedness to be enhanced: intelligence, sensory powers, or physical strength. However, there are, of course, problems. Hana can’t get meshed for another year, not until she’s thirteen. And Hana feels she is losing touch with the rest of her family, especially her older sister and her Ma, both of whom are already meshed. Then, there’s Hana’s grandmother, Popo, who’s beginning to lose her memory. The only way Hana can see to help Popo and regain her family’s closeness and bond is to get meshed as soon as possible.

Enter the Ghost Crab Nation, a loosely organized group of underground protestors who are trying to, well, Hana’s not sure what their aims are or whether or not she can trust Ink, the girl she met in the junkyard, or Wayman, the old man who wants her to spy on her Start-Up program to see if something nefarious and dangerous is going on. But the Start-Up program is Hana’s way to get herself meshed early, maybe if she does well in as little as three months at the end of the summer. Should Hana trust the leaders of her Start-Up? Should she trust Wayman and Ink? Is there a downside to getting meshed? The entire book is a mystery inside a science fiction dystopian fantasy, and the world building is well done.

Other pluses:

  • Hana is a great character, concerned for her family, ambitious, and curious. She does some rather dangerous things, but all in a good cause.
  • The theme of asking questions about what our reliance on the internet and our interconnectedness is doing to us as individuals and as a culture is certainly relevant, but it’s not a didactic or propagandistic novel. The idea are presented by means of story and on a middle grade level.
  • The action is well paced, and the plot is believable within the confines of the world the author has created.

But . . . a couple of caveats:

  • When meshed (or maybe enmeshed) people meet they get a feed in their brains that tells them some basic stats about the other person, name, age, education, family status, and pronouns? Really, pronouns, like he/him, she/her. Luckily, no weird pronouns appear.
  • One of the characters, Ink, is a girl in the real world, but he’s a boy inside this virtual reality video game that everyone uses not only to play but also to communicate and move around and share information. That wouldn’t really be a problem, a girl choosing a male avatar in a game, except that it’s made very clear that Ink could choose to be male in the real world, too, if he/she wanted to. At least I think it’s clear, although nothing about this whole gender confusion era that we’re in right now is really very clear.

Were it not for the caveats, I would recommend Hana Hsu as a great story and a vehicle for exploring ideas related to the internet and social media and its effect on young, developing brains. It’s also got ideas and questions about family and how you maintain family bonds and how you fight injustice and solve social problems and how much is too much to give up in order to serve the community. But there is already enough gender confusion in this world as it is without adding to the mix. I enjoyed it, but I’m not recommending.

The Diamond in the Window by Jane Langton

Jul14

Edward and Eleanor, brother and sister, live in a big old house in Concord, Massachusetts, with their Aunt Lily, a piano teacher, and their uncle Freddy, an addled literary scholar who deeply admires the Transcendentalists, especially “Waldo” Emerson and Henry Thoreau. The problem is a financial one: the bank is about to repossess and raze their home. This impending disaster sets Edward and Eleanor on a quest to find the hidden jewels and treasures that their long lost Uncle Ned And Aunt Nora may have received from an Indian prince, Krishna, and may have left behind when they disappeared as children. Clues in the form of a poem etched into an attic window guide Eddy and Eleanor to enter into dangerous adventures in the form of dreams that really happen, all to find enough treasure to save their home.

This book reminded me of Edward Eager’s books, Half Magic and others, and of Elizabeth Enright’s The Saturdays and Spiderweb for Two. The adventures of Eddy and Eleanor are both real and dreamlike, and the dreams are dreams with a meaning where the two children participate in a joint-dream but learn life lessons along the way. The dreams and the adventures are all intertwined with the writings and lives of Thoreau and Emerson and Louisa May Alcott as well as Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell in a way that is child-friendly and yet speaks on a different level to adults, too.

For example, in one chapter’s dream Eleanor and Eddy travel through a mirror, like Alice in Through the Looking Glass, and find themselves confronted with a long series of reflections of themselves stretching out to the left and to the right. The children must choose again and again which reflection to follow, and as they follow the sometimes more desirable but wrong path their choices narrow and narrow until the only reflection they can choose is a horrible, degraded and degenerate version of themselves. However, when they go back and choose the right path the land of reflections behind the mirror opens up into a multitude of wonderful choices of who each child could become.

Instead of two choices, there were many. They were unable to choose which was the best, so they picked one at random. And beyond that choice lay a hundred, and beyond the next a thousand. Just as the other maze had led them down a narrowing path until there was no choice left, this one opened out into wide and shining worlds of possibility.

And that scene in its turn reminds me of C.S. Lewis and The Great Divorce and Narnia and “further up and further in.” There’s another dream or vision that the children have at Christmas time of all of the light-bearers of history, from ancient times up through the present day, and one of them is Jesus, perhaps the brightest but only one of a multitude of greater and lesser “lights” who add to the accumulated light of the centuries. It’s not exactly right, but it’s close.

Anyway, I loved this book, and I’m pleased to see that there is are sequels, in fact eight books in all about the Hall family of Concord, Massachusetts, one of which is the Newbery Honor book The Fledgling. I’ve actually read The Fledgling a very long time ago, but all I remember is something about flying and perhaps geese? Anyway, The Diamond in the Window is the first book in the series (Hall Family Chronicles), and the second book, which I hope to read soon, is called The Swing in the Summerhouse. The other books are:

  • The Astonishing Stereoscope
  • The Fledgling
  • The Fragile Flag
  • The Time Bike
  • The Mysterious CIrcus
  • The Dragon Tree

I actually have The Fledgling and The Time Bike in my library. I purchased The Diamond in the Window from Purple House Press, so I have that, too. But it looks as if the others in the series are out of print, so I’ll have to find them used or from the public library if I want to continue reading about the Hall Family and their escapades.

Those Kids From Fawn Creek by Erin Entrada Kelly

Jun20

Fawn Creek, LA is a very small town–so small that the school has only 12 kids in the seventh grade class, and those kids have known each other pretty much all their lives. So, when a new kid comes to town, and she’s mysterious and stylish, with the name “Orchid”, everyone is immediately paying attention. Orchid Mason comes to Fawn Creek direct from Paris, or maybe New York City, and she has the most interesting stories to tell. And Orchid wants to be friends with Grayson and Dorothy, who feel like the misfits in Fawn Creek’s seventh class and in their own families.

This book was decently written, but it left a bad taste in my brain. The author, who grew up in Louisiana, seemed to have an axe to grind about small towns and small town life. The kids all call their little town “Yawn Creek”, and Grayson is ostracized and ridiculed because he is more interested in style, clothing, and fabric than he is in going hunting. Grayson’s own brother calls him “little sister” and worse names. Grayson’s father denigrates him and doesn’t understand him, even though the dad does sort of come through in a good scene towards the end of the book. Grayson’s best friend, Dorothy, is an only child who feels invisible, and her parents are uncommunicative and just odd. In fact, none of the parents in the book are very kind or helpful or in touch with their children’s needs or concerns, except maybe Grayson’s mom who grows some as a character.

I guess the gist of the story is that small towns are ugly and full of bullies and weird religious fanatics. There’s a group of three seventh graders who call themselves the “God Squad”, so poorly characterized that I never could remember which girl was which. There are also a couple of “mean girls” and some jock boys. It was all rather dingy and unpleasant, and I was glad to close the book and escape from Fawn Creek. If I lived in a small town, like Fawn Creek, I wouldn’t choose this book to help me see the good aspects of community. But it might make me even more anxious to get out.