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Knight Owl by Christopher Denise

Jul11

Denise, Christopher. Knight Owl. Christy Ottaviano Books, 2022.

“Since the day he hatched, Owl had one wish. To be a knight.”

At first Owl is just a child playing dress up. But eventually he is accepted into Knight School where he learns to be a real knight, and upon his graduation he is assigned to the Knight Night Watch on the castle walls. Then, one night Owl confronts a real, live dragon. Can he act with bravery and cleverness like a real knight? Can he find a way to keep the dragon from eating him as a snack?

For the legions of children who are enamored of knights and castles and fire-breathing dragons, this picture book would be a real treat. Or it might be an introduction to the world of knights and dragons, a tame and rather peaceful introduction. Owl does indeed make peace with the dragon, and no owls are harmed in the course of this story. The illustrations are somewhat dark, because most of the story takes place during the night, but the stars and the fire and brave little Owl himself inject light into the pictures and make the illustrations and the story shine.

“Christopher Denise spent much of his childhood in Shannon, Ireland, exploring castles and dreaming of great adventures.” Denise is both the author and the illustrator of Knight Owl, and he also illustrated many of Brian Jacques’s Redwall animal fantasy books.

I think my grandson would like this one, and probably my granddaughter as well. I plan to add this 2023 Caldecott Honor book to my booklists in Picture Book Preschool, too, so that lots of other knight-loving and dragon-loving children can find it and enjoy it.

This Picture Book Preschool book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Ten (or Eleven) Best Nonfiction Books I Read in 2022

Jan4

The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler by William L. Shirer and The Mysterious Voyages of Captain Kidd by A.B.C. Whipple. These two Landmark books, written for children, tied for tenth place in my “best of nonfiction” list. Both were well-written, contained many interesting facts and stories that I didn’t know about before I read the books, and generated much conversation among the “Library Ladies” of whom I am privileged to be a part.

Mere Motherhood: Morning Times, Nursery Rhymes, and My Journey Towards Sanctification by Cindy Rollins (re-read) What I wrote a few years ago when I read this book for the first time still applies: “I laughed. I cried. I identified. Cindy Rollins, mother of nine homeschooled children, mostly boys, has written an honest, but also encouraging book about what it was really like to homeschool a large family in the 1980’s and 1990’s homeschooling culture. Cindy is honest about the things she’s learned along the way, but never jaded or dismissive of her younger self or of homeschooling families who work every day, although imperfectly, to get it right and teach their children to know the Lord.”

Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep by Tish Harrison Warren. Compline prayer from Prayer in the Night: “Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for your love’s sake. Amen.”

The God of the Garden: Thoughts on Creation, Culture, and the Kingdom by Andrew Peterson. “Solitude is a choice. . . Isolation is finding yourself alone when you don’t want to be.”

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis. (Re-read)

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang.

Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. Another memoir of the Cultural Revolution and the reign of terror under Mao in China. Both this book and Wild Swans were difficult to read, difficult to believe that man could be so inhumane, so cruel, and that a society could devolve into such chaos and horror.

Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey.

The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England’s Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus by Andrew Klavan.

Where the Light Fell by Philip Yancey. These last three books on the list are the best books I read in 2022. I will be thinking about and returning to all three many times, I am sure. Yancey’s spiritual autobiography is heart-rending at times, but ultimately hopeful.

Just Harriet by Elana K. Arnold

Dec27

Harriet begins narrating her book by telling the readers a few things about herself:

  • She just finished third grade.
  • She has a perfect cat named Matzo Ball.
  • She sometimes has nightmares.
  • She doesn’t always tell the truth.
  • And sometimes, when she’s embarrassed or mad or gets caught in a lie, Harriet becomes (what her Mom calls) “out of hand.”

Harriet really is a bit of (what I call) a pill. She frequently and impulsively tells little lies and obviously transparent lies either to get what she wants or to escape the consequences of her behavior. I don’t really have much of a tolerance for lying, so I had trouble sympathizing with Harriet at first. But . . . she kind of, sort of won me over in spite of myself. The author does a good job of telling this story from Harriet’s immature and emotionally unregulated point of view. I could have done a better job as a parent in understanding my own children’s immaturity and lack of impulse control. And maybe this story would be helpful to parents as well as comforting to children in that respect.

Anyway, Harriet has a lot on her plate. Her mother is pregnant, expecting a little brother for Harriet, even though Harriet thinks a family of three is just the right size. What’s more Mom’s been put on bed rest, and Harriet is being sent to spend the summer with her Nanu, who runs a bed and breakfast inn on Marble Island off the coast of California. Harriet refuses to go. But Mom and Dad don’t take no for an answer.

The story involves a mysterious key, a look into Harriet’s dad’s boyhood, and a “gingerbread house” full of treasure. Harriet continues to be a handful throughout the story, but most of her lies and misadventures are good-natured misunderstandings, the result of confusion and inability to express her feelings properly. Harriet’s parents and grandmother don’t condone the lying, but they don’t really confront it either. I would probably be a bit more strict with a child like Harriet, but God didn’t give me a Harriet. Like all of the children, even the fictional ones, she’s one of a kind.

The book is 196 pages long with fairly large print, so about a second or third grade reading level. I’d recommend it, not as bibliotherapy for children who tell lies, but just as a good story.

A Rover’s Story by Jasmine Warga

Nov16

Resilience and his twin Journey are Mars rovers, built to be the best robots ever to explore the Mars surface. They have a mission, and Res is determined to complete that mission no matter what. However, as Res and Journey go through testing in the lab at NASA and learn more about what their mission is to be, Res develops something like feelings, human emotions like affection, worry, happiness, determination. Journey says that these human feelings are not useful and might very well impede the mission. But Res is determined and resilient.

I had a hard time, for some reason, believing in rovers in our own time period that had emotions and communicated among themselves. Res not only talks to Journey, he also talks to his little drone helicopter, Fly and to the large satellite in orbit over Mars, named Guardian. Each of these robots or machines has a distinct personality. Fly is flighty. Guardian is businesslike and rather grumpy. Journey is a bit conceited. And Res is persistent and lovable. And there never was any explanation for how the various robotic entities got their ability to communicate using human terms and to feel human emotions. In the world of the novel it’s odd, but it just happens. Still, when I was able to turn off the part of my brain that kept asking the same questions (did the programmers somehow program emotions into Res? how can a rover know what non-concrete words in English even mean?), I enjoyed the story.

The funny thing is I have no problem at all with books like The Runaway Robot by Lester Del Rey–because it’s set in the future? Do I think that robots in the future will be able to take on human characteristics, but not now? And the ending, although it’s happy, sort of reminds me of Klara and the Sun by Kashuo Ishiguro. What is to be done with a robot that’s completed its mission successfully? I know this is a children’s book about the exploration of Mars by a resilient rover, and I’m overthinking it.

About a third of the book is taken up with a series of letters from the daughter of one of the scientists who works on code for Res. This daughter grows and matures over the years that it takes Res to reach Mars and complete his mission, and she writes letters to Res that he never receives. It’s a bit odd as a device, but I suppose it’s meant to tie Res and his Mars mission into the world of children and humanity in general. The letters were OK, but they could have been left out, and the story would not have suffered.

I did enjoy this novel despite my questions and misgivings. If you are interested in robotics or space exploration or NASA or Mars, this one might be just the thing. Christina Soontornvat is quoted on the front of my copy of the novel, “Res taught me what it means to be fully alive.” So, there’s that.

Mini-Reviews: Middle Grade Fiction 2022

Nov15

Maybe I’m getting old and jaded, so take this with a grain of salt. However, most of the contemporary middle grade fiction books I’m reading these days seem to be what I call problem novels: books that are very obviously written to speak to some “issue” or “identity” or to encourage us to understand and have compassion for some specific sub-group of people. There’s certainly a place for these kinds of books, and some of them can be good (Anybody Here Seen Frenchie? by Leslie Connor, Everything Sad Is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri, Things Seen From Above by Shelley Pearsall). Nevertheless, I’m getting tired of reading the book versions of the ABC Afterschool Specials of my childhood. Your mileage may vary, especially if you are particularly interested in learning more about the particular issue dealt with in one of the following middle grade novels.

  • Wishing Upon the Same Stars by Jacquetta Nammar Feldman. Issues: Israeli-Palestinian relations, moving to a new place, immigration. Okay, so this book had more than just one major problem or issue to illustrate. Twelve year old Yasmeen Khoury moves with her family to San Antonio, TX, and finds that there are no other Middle Eastern classmates in her new school—except maybe one girl who turns out to be Jewish. But the Israeli Jews are the ones who have turned Yasmeen’s grandmother out of her home in Israel, and Yasmeen’s parents are set against her having anything to do with Ayelet, the Jewish girl, and her family. Can Yasmeen and Ayelet be friends even though their families and their heritage would seem to preclude even basic understanding and peace between the two girls? The story does a good job of showing Yasmeen inner struggle between honoring her family by obeying her parents and trying to make friends and fit into a new culture. However, some of the situations and characters are almost caricatures: the mean girl, Hallie; Yasmeen’s high vocabulary little sister, Sara; and Carlos, the Mexican American boy who is a charro in the rodeo. Wishing Upon the Same Stars was OK, but nothing to write home about.
  • The Summer of June by Jamie Sumner. Issue: anxiety. June is determined that this summer will be the summer that she becomes a lion instead of a mouse: so to beat her anxiety which manifests as hair-pulling, among other symptoms, June shaves her head. But a bald head doesn’t make the anxiety (that June has been living with for several years now) go away. June’s counselor, Gina, is nice, but the techniques Gina gives for June to calm herself and the different meds that they have tried also don’t magically make the panic attacks and sleepless nights and social anxiety go away. June does make a friend, Homer Juarez, and she does find ways to help herself deal with her anxiety. Nevertheless, this book paints a pretty bleak picture of severe anxiety in children, maybe realistic, but surely not all children with anxiety issues are as severely impacted as June. I would be hesitant to hand this book to an anxious child for fear it would make the problem worse instead of better. But friends who are trying to understand anxiety and panic attacks might benefit. Therapeutic fiction.
  • Solimar: The Sword of the Monarchs by Pam Munoz Ryan. Issues: girl power and preservation of (butterfly) species. Solimar, who is about to become an official princess, receives the gift of being able to see the future and realizes that she must use her gift to protect the monarch butterflies in their annual migration and also save the mountain kingdom of San Gregorio. All about can girls be ruling kings or queens or whatever. And can they be brave enough to complete a quest and save the kingdom?
  • Each of Us a Universe by Jeanne Zulick Ferruolo and Ndengo Gladys Mwilelo. Issues: parent with anger, parent in prison, alcoholism, immigration. Yeah, lots of issues to deal with in this story. Cal’s mom has changed because the cancer is taking her life away bit by bit, and Cal doesn’t even want to talk about what her dad did and the reason he’s in prison. Cal just wants to climb Mt. Meteorite, find the magical meteorite that landed there fifty years ago, and use it somehow to heal her mom and make everything right. Cal’s new friend, Rosine, an immigrant from the DRC, also has her own, secret, reasons for wanting to summit the mountain. But will Cal’s broken arm, an encounter with a bear, and the challenge of the mountain that no one has ever climbed before defeat them? OK, but it just felt off somehow. I could have used more about Rosine and her struggles and less about Cal and her temper tantrums.
  • Big Rig by Louise Hawes. Issues: single parent, mother deceased, life on the road. Hazmat (Hazel’s trucker nickname) and her dad have been living out of dad’s eighteen-wheeler (Leonardo) for years, ever since Hazel’s mom died and Hazel got old enough to be homeschooled by dad while criss-crossing the USA taking on loads and delivering them to their destinations. Life in the trucking industry is an adventure, and Hazmat loves “being homeschooled by my dad in a traveling classroom, meeting old friends at every truck stop, and swinging between coasts like a pendulum.” This book really ended me and brought me into the world of long distance trucking, but unfortunately, the minor instances of swearing and a brief mention of dad’s one night stand with a lady friend were a no-go for me. Dad won’t have a CB radio in his truck because he wants to protect Hazmat from “all the swears” the truckers on the radio use, but then he manages to use some pretty fine expletives himself?
  • This Last Adventure by Ryan Dalton. Issue: Grandfather with Alzheimer’s. Archie’s grandpa has always been his hero, but Alzheimer’s is taking away Grandpa’s memories and his personality. And Archie isn’t sure anymore what he should believe about Grandpa’s past. Was he a fireman hero or a soldier with terrible secrets—or both? And can the role-playing, imaginative games that Archie and his grandpa have played together in the past bring back Grandpa’s memories and stop the progression of his disease? I actually liked this particular problem novel. The fantasy elements give th book a bit of relief from the heaviness of what the family in the story is going through, and the characters and events in the story (except for the imaginative interludes) come across as real and believable.
  • Dream, Annie, Dream by Waka T. Brown. Issue: prejudice and racism. “Brown eloquently addresses the history of Asian immigration, microaggressions, the model minority myth, stereotyping, and the impact of the lack of representation.” (Kirkus)That’s a lot to take on in one middle grade novel, but the author manages to include all of those issues and still tell a pretty good story about a Japanese American girl with dreams. Annie wants to act in plays; she wants to be Annie in the musical of the same name, but some of her classmates don’t believe a Japanese American girl can portray red-headed Annie. Haven’t they ever heard of wigs?

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.

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.