Twelve year old Polly Madrassa talks like this: “I know just how to soothe a disturbed and distressed spirit, my dearest sister. Come along and we shall frolic together among the salty waves of the sea! We shall bask in the sun’s lovely rays.” For the entire book.

Ummm, yeah. It’s a little much for 309 pages. Polly’s favorites role models are Jane Austen’s Elizabeth Bennet and L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables. Hey, those girls are a couple of my favorite literary characters, too. But Polly takes her fan-girl admiration and imitation to the extreme. Her family and friends are sometimes charmed,sometimes confused, sometimes indulgent, and sometimes downright annoyed by Polly’s Austenite tendencies. Which was pretty much where I landed over the course of this book.

Polly is not only flowery talker and a drinker of tea, she’s also a matchmaker, a pastime that provides the plot of the story. Polly wants to find and facilitate “true love” for her dearest friends, Miss Wiskerton, Mr. Nightquist, and Mr. Fisk, and for her dear sister, Clementine. Polly pursues her matchmaking with all the zeal and finesse of another famous Austen character, Emma Woodhouse, which is to say much zeal and not much skill or tact. Of course, the course of true love doesn’t run smooth, to (mis)quote another famous author, and Polly’s matches turn into disasters, for the most part. But Polly has her heart in right place, and she learns eventually that her friends can not be manipulated like the characters in a book.

As I said, I became a little weary of reading Polly’s Jane Austen imitation, and I found it difficult to believe that any twelve year old could sustain such a personal drama for the length of time, about a month, that the book covers. However, on the other hand, the story was cute, and Polly’s misadventures are entertaining.

Scones and Sensibility would make a good evening’s diversion for the Pride and Prejudice/Anne of Green Gables crowd.

Other takes:
Young Adult Literature Review: Unfortunately, Polly’s speech wasn’t the only thing that wore on me but her interfering and meddling in the lives of other felt a little excessive. . . . However at this point in the story, I was pretty committed to seeing what happened with all of her matchmaking, and I kept reading. My persistence was rewarded.”

Frenetic Reader: “Though I wish some of the more minor characters and plotlines were explored more- Polly’s potential romance, for example-, I am completely enamored with Scones and Sensibility.”

One Literature Nut: “I really wanted to like this book, with its cute premise of a young girl infatuated with all things Jane Austen, the pastry shop, and multiple courtships, but I just didn’t.”

YABookNerd: “A cute tale that made me crave chocolate croissants and other goodies. Polly is sweet, funny, and hopelessly out of touch with her world, which only makes her more lovable.”

I had trouble getting past the initial premise of this story: loving father sends his three daughters (ages 11, 9, and 7) across the country on an airplane from Brooklyn to Oakland, California to spend a month with their crazy mother who deserted them seven years previously and doesn’t really want them to come. Negligent mother, Cecile, doesn’t even have a phone and may be living on the streets for all the father knows. How did he get in touch with her in the first place? How will he know if the girls arrived safely or if anyone met them when they did get there? What if Cecile is in jail (a real possibility considering the rest of the story)? Why would any decent parent send his young daughters on such a journey?

After I swallowed the implausibility of that opening gambit, I enjoyed reading about Delphine and her sisters Vonetta and Fern and their selfish, crazy mother, Cecile/Nzila, who in addition to being totally obsessed with writing poetry is also associated with the Black Panthers. The summer of 1968, the year in which the story takes place, saw the Panthers’ leader, Huey Newton, on trial for manslaughter, and the Black Panthers were holding rallies and demonstrations with the slogan “Free Huey!” The Panthers also ran a feeding program out of a church in Oakland, providing breakfast for poor children, a program which figures into the story of Delphine’s crazy summer.

The book tries to present a balanced view of the Black Panthers and of the political and social climate of the time, and as far as I can tell, it does maintain some objectivity. While the Black Panther group is providing breakfast and a place of safety during the day for Delphine and her sisters, Delphine also becomes aware that that the Panthers have been involved in some serious violence, that they carry weapons, and that being close to the Panthers might not be so safe after all. The real villains in the book are not the “pigs” (police) or white people, but rather Delphine’s negligent mom and a traitor within the Panther group itself.

Final verdict: it’s a decent story, but I don’t think it should be the number one choice for the National Book Award. The ending is a little sudden and unbelievable.

Other takes:
Melissa at Book Nut: “There wasn’t enough of a happy ending to suit me; it almost felt like they were spinning in the same place all summer. The growth that does occur is very, very subtle. I sit and think about it, and the pieces fall together… and yet there seems something a bit off.”

Liz B. at A Chair, a Fireplace and a Tea Cozy: “I’m not satisfied. I want a second book. I want to spend more time with the Gaither sisters. I want One Crazy Summer to be the start of a new series.”

Six Boxes of Books: “Delphine’s voice is well done; she’s an eleven-year-old who’s had to grow up too quickly and help take care of her sisters, but she still has the emotional maturity of an eleven-year-old.”

One Crazy Summer has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.
One Crazy Summer is also one of five books shortlisted for the National Book Awards, Young People’s Literature division.

Betti on the High Wire begins with a circus girl whose mama is The Tallest Woman in the World with a Tail and whose dad is the famous bumpy Green Alligator Man. Big Mouth Babo, the circus girl, lives in a circus camp and sleeps in the lion’s cage. The circus animals and circus people and Babo’s mom and dad all disappeared when the soldiers came, but the circus ghosts still fly around and haunt the camp.

And all of the leftover children live in the empty circus camp with Auntie Moo who takes care of them. Babo, who is very brave, knows that her very tall mama and her green alligator daddy will come back to get her someday. In the meantime Babo is the leader of the leftover kids, and she doesn’t like Melons (foreigners) very much.

If you think that’s a confusing beginning to a realistic fiction book for middle grade readers, I must tell you that I’ve organized it and simplified it for you somewhat. I didn’t mention that Babo lives in an unspecified war torn country or that she’s “broken” with one fish eye and some missing toes. I didn’t tell you about One-Armed George and Sister Baroo and Old Lady Suri and the Teeny Tiny Puppet Man. As I read the book at first, I was completely confused and unsure of what was real and what was a figment of Babo’s very active imagination.

Strange to say the confusion works to show us, the readers, how confusing the world is for a young girl caught in a country ravaged by violence and war and then swept away to be adopted in the United States. Babo’s name changes to Betti. She gets new clothes. She eats new food. She tries to speak and understand English. Her life changes. And throughout all the changes, Babo/Betti remains a fierce little survivor; her new dad calls her their “little tiger.” She meets her new situation, new parents, new world with verve and tenacity. And since Betti is the narrator of the story, we get to see just how confusing life can be for a girl who’s taken away from everything she knows and loves, even though that familiar place is dangerous and violent, to a new place where everything is scary and strange and unpredictable.

I really loved this story once I got past the confusion of the first few chapters. I realized that the story was supposed to be confusing at first, to mirror the confusion that Babo/Betti felt and experienced. This book would be a wonderful resource for any child who is trying to understand a new adopted sibling or cousin or friend from another country. It would be great story for anyone who’s interested in bridging cultures and what it takes to bring about inter-cultural understanding. In fact, anyone who has never even thought about confronting and adapting to a new culture should read the book just to make themselves think about it just a little.

Or read it just for the fun of meeting Betti and watching her navigate the “high wire” of becoming an American girl. Good story.

Betti on the High Wire has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.

1932. Ludelphia Bennett is ten years old, and she’s never set foot outside of Gee’s Bend, her small town tucked into a bend in the Alabama RIver. Ludelphia is blind in one eye, the result of a childhood accident, and she can’t swim. She’s never been on the ferry that crosses the river over into the village of Camden. No one in her family has ever seen a real doctor.

So when Ludelphia’s mama gets very sick after the birth of new baby sister, Rose, and Ludelphia’s friend, Etta Mae, recommends that Ludelphia fetch the doctor from Camden, the town across the river, it takes all the determination and bravery and quilting that Ludelphia can summon up to sustain her in her journey. That’s right, quilting. Stitching. Ludelphia sews on her patchwork quilt to tell her story, to calm her nerves, and to hold her world together.

The dialog in the book has just enough dialect to catch the flavor of the south in the 1930’s. And crazy Mrs. Cobb is a villain just scary enough for a middle grade book, and still not absolutely horrifying. The story itself twist and turns, but resolves in satisfying way as Ludelphia learns something about the world outside of Gee’s Bend and returns with not only help for her mama, but help for the whole town. And the ending is not an unrealistic solution to everything, just a way through for Ludelphia and her family to go on with their lives.

I started again with the needle. Mama always said you should live a life the same way you piece a quilt. That you was in charge of where you put the pieces. You was the one to decide how your story turns out.
Well, it seemed to me some of them pieces had a mind of their own.

I reckon when you grow up in one place you just naturally think every other place is the same as your home. I reckon it takes leaving to appreciate all the things about that place that make it special.
Dear Lord, I did want to go home.

Other takes:
Maw’s Books: “I enjoyed learning more about this real town of Gee’s Bend which is steeped in quilting history and was the inspiration for this novel. The book felt a bit slow near the beginning of the book but once Ludelphia began her journey, everything began to move along and I was fully invested in her story.”

Megan at Leafing Through Life: “Lu will meet both good and evil people and hopefully emerge on the other side with a better story for her quilt than she could have ever imagined. Drawing inspiration from the real Gee’s Bend’s rich quilting history, Irene Latham has crafted a beautiful story of her own. Leaving Gee’s Bend is a coming of age story set in a vividly drawn 1930s sharecropping community.”

Hope is the Word: “Irene Latham is not only a master at using dialect very unobtrusively, she also has a talent for figurative language. Again, Ludelphia’s voice is unforgettable.”

An interview with Irene Latham at Cynsations.

Leaving Gee’s Bend has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.

crunch: n. a crucial point or situation, typically one at which a decision with important consequences must be made.
a severe shortage of credit or money.

Or energy. A fuel shortage has stranded Dewey’s parents far away from home up north “almost in Canada” with their “eighteen foot box truck with a roll-up rear door.” No fuel available even for truckers with ration cards. Eighteen year old Lil is in charge of the family and the house, and fourteen year old Dewey is running The Bike Barn, a low-key bicycle repair shop that has become a hopping joint since the fuel crunch has put all the cars and trucks out of commission. Dewey has the help of his thirteen year old brother, Vince, who is an expert bike repairman, but the three older Marriss children also have responsibility for the twins, five year olds Angus and Eva.

Will they be able to keep up with all the business that’s coming their way since everybody needs a bicycle in good working condition?

When will Mom and Dad be able to come home?

Will The Bike Barn be next in the rash of thefts that has hit their small town, especially thefts of bicycles?

And what should they do about The Spive, Mr. Spivey next door who openly borrows (takes) their eggs, their grapes, the tools, and who knows what else?

The premise here was a little weak, but I didn’t care. In the book there’s absolutely no gasoline available, all over the country, but electricity still flows freely. Don’t they need fuel to produce electricity? Maybe it’s just down here in Texas that we use a lot of petroleum and natural gas to produce the electricity. I think that if there were no fuel at all for the trucks and cars, there would also be an electricity shortage. But you can correct me if I’m wrong.

Anyway, there’s no electricity shortage in Crunchworld. And the trains are still running. But the freeways are full of cyclists. And Dewey’s father’s bicycle repair shop is, as I said, doing a lot of business. One of the most interesting parts of this story was that it showed what’s involved in running a business. Like in the book Rocky Road, the young teen protagonist ends up running the family business, and Dewey, like Tess, is quite a capable business person. There are difficulties, but the difficulties are overcome with a combination of determination, hard work, and ingenuity. And they get by with a little help from friends.

Crunch follows what I think is a good formula for middle grade fiction (maybe for any fiction): put your characters in a crunch, a hard place. Squeeze them a little, and make it even harder. Then, let them figure out how to solve/resolve their own problems and live happily ever after. I definitely recommend Crunch, especially since it’s both boy and girl-friendly.

Other takes:
Welcome to My Tweendom: “Leslie Connor has written a mystery that has an interestingly timeless feel to it. Dewey and his brothers and sisters are all memorable characters, and having the parents stranded far away made for adventures with a more important feel. There is equal boy and girl appeal with mechanics of bicycles given as much room as character interactions.”

Angela Leeper at Book Page: “The Mariss family’s teamwork and quirky lifestyle make readers want to join along as they play, laugh and dine on clam chowder after a busy yet rewarding day on the farm.”

Ms. Yingling Reads: “This was fun in the way that The Boxcar Children was fun– there seems to be more scope for adventure when parents are not in the picture.”

Crunch has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.

“Ice cream warms the heart, no matter what the weather.” That’s the Dobson family motto. So it should make perfect sense for the Dobsons—Ma Delilah, craft-loving twelve year old Tess, and turtle-loving Jordan–to open an ice cream shop in Schenectady, New York. Except they live in San Antonio. And they have no money, other than an emergency fund that’s only for, well, emergencies. And their old broken down car has no heater. And Delilah, who has wonderful, stupendous, fantastic ideas also deals with something that Tess calls “Shooting Stars.” Delilah goes full bore with boundless energy and endless schemes until she crashes so hard that she can’t even get out of bed. And Tess is left to pick up the pieces.

I enjoyed the characters in this story:

Tess, who loves her mom but is tired of get-rich-quick schemes and spending sprees that only end in disaster. Tess also loves her little brother Jordan, sewing and decorating and all sorts of crafts, and Rocky Road ice cream.

Delilah, whose “Bible” is The Inside Scoop, a manual on how to open a successful ice cream shop. Delilah knows she has mood swings, but she won’t go to a doctor because she doesn’t want those people trying to get inside her head and she can’t afford medical treatment anyway.

Senior Chief Petty Officer Fred Morrow, retired U.S. Navy who has a crusty exterior, an artificial leg, and a heart of gold.

Jordan, who’s hearing-impaired and loves turtles and sometimes throws tantrums when he has a hard time communicating.

Winnie, a loving senior citizen and retired nurse who sings with a group called THe Salty Old Dogs.

Gabby, Tess’s new friend who’s into peer mediation and vegetarianism and peaceful resolution to conflict and Chinese astrology.

So, the characters were fun, and the details on how to start and publicize and run a business were good to read. But the parts about Mom’s bipolar woes felt just a little forced, like an ABC Afterschool Special with a theme. Rocky Road, although it was a cute story, sometimes felt like a lesson in how to deal with a deaf little brother and a bipolar mom who’s running your family into poverty. Maybe it wouldn’t read that way to you at all.

By the way, every one of my children who saw the book lying on my bed pointed out to me, separately and without being asked, that Rocky Road ice cream is NOT pink. Why, they asked, is it called Rocky Road with strawberry ice cream pictured on the front? Children are very literal.

Other takes:
A Year of Reading: “I love the way that Rose Kent combines something as fun as ice cream with difficult life issues. A great combination that works well.”

Melissa at Book Nut: “The conflict is all with Tess and her mother; Tess feels so much older than her twelve years, mostly because her mother — due to an eventual diagnosis of bipolar disorder — is so unreliable. And the whole crazy mother thing is often so overdone. But in this case it worked . . .”

Rocky Road has been nominated for the 2010 Cybils Awards in the Middle Grade Fiction category.