Fat & Bones and Other Stories by Larissa Theule

Nov9

A one-legged, limping pig and a dancing pig and a pot-bellied fairy and singing maggots and a murderous tulip and a victorious daisy and a clumsy poet spider and a flat-as-a-pancake farmer’s wife (hung out to dry on the clothesline) and a whispering meat cleaver and a farmer named Bald and his son named Bones and Alfred the sneezing dog and a philosopher cat . . . Oh. my. goodness.

By the time I had wrapped my head around all those rather horrible and bizarre characters, this short 100-page book was over, and I was trying to go back and re-read to figure out exactly what happened. Sometimes I can compare the children’s fantasy books I read to others: this one might be like Harry Potter, and that one is similar to Tolkien or the dystopian novels or some fairy tale. Fat & Bones has the distinction of being unique in my reading experience.

It’s as if the author had a series of nightmares that she wrote into a series of interlocking tales, for children. To give them nightmares? It’s not exactly scary. No one would believe in and be afraid of the world that Ms. Theule has given us. It’s world in which a dog’s sneeze can move mountains. A world in which a maimed pig gives up her last foot to the whispering meat cleaver. And spiders give up their blood to make a Bluebell Blindness Inducer Potion. Frightening, no, but definitely creepy and surreal. The illustrations by Adam S. Doyle add to the hallucinatory, ink-blot atmosphere.

If any of that weirdness intrigues you, you should take a look at Fat & Bones. I can’t really say that I recommend it, but I am still thinking about it three days after I read the book. It’s a story that will stick in your brain, for better or for worse.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

The Orphan and the Mouse by Martha Freeman

Nov8

The blurb says that this story is “set in 1949 and tak[es] inspiration from E.B. White’s Stuart Little.” The mouse hero Stuart Little is certainly mentioned repeatedly and is an important role model for the mice in the story. However, even though she is not mentioned, the human fictional heroine Little Orphan Annie certainly must have been lurking in the background as an influence for the author of this orphan tale. Kirkus Reviews says the story is surely a tribute to Paul Gallico’s The Abandoned, a story I’m not familiar with although I know the author (The Poseidon Adventure, Mrs. ‘arris Goes to Paris). The plot also echoed Aesop’s fable of The Lion and the Mouse. So it’s a story of many sources and influences.

Cherry Street Children’s Home is the domicile of about thirty some odd orphans, including ten year old Caro McKay. Caro is not very pretty, and she has a severely scarred right hand from the house fire that took her mother’s life. Caro knows that her mother’s death was her fault, and she tries every day to make up for her cowardice in not saving her mother from the fire by being “too good, too studious, too obedient, too nice.” The orphanage director, Mrs. George, depends on Caro to keep the peace and to be a good influence on the other orphans.

Meanwhile, in “mouse territory” behind the baseboards and under the floors, a whole colony of mice forage for food, care for their families, watch for predators, and steal art. Art has become very important to this particular mouse colony, and the postage stamps that the Official Art Thief takes from the orphanage director’s desk adorn the walls of mouse territory and bring to the mice a sense of wonder.

When Mary Mouse, art thief, and Caro McKay, model orphan, meet, they immediately form a bond that transcends their inability to communicate completely. And when Caro helps Mary escape from the dreaded predator Gallico the cat, then Mary knows that she must return the favor by helping Caro, even though Caro doesn’t know the danger she faces.

I thought this story was a delight. The point of view alternates between that of Caro and her mouse friends, and both vantage points feel spot on and give the reader a different perspective on events in the story. The plot moves along at a good clip, but each development fits into a pleasing whole as Caro discovers her true self in terms of “a new story, a true story.” The villains get their just deserts, and the book ends with lasting friendships and more stories. What more could one ask for?

The Orphan and the Mouse would be an excellent read aloud book. Fans of E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web or Stuart Little, Beverly Cleary’s Ralph S. Mouse, or Kate diCamillo’s The Tale of Despereaux should enjoy this book as another tale in that same classic tradition.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

Sparkers by Eleanor Glewwe

Nov8

The setting for this speculative fiction is an imagined world, but the feeling is Eastern European or former Soviet Union. The characters in the book have mostly Jewish-sounding names—Sarah, Marah, Caleb, Shaul, Miriam, Leah—with a few of the names (for a different ethnic group) sounding vaguely Persian or Arabic—Azariah, Melchior, Nasim. There’s a marketplace with a book stall and other small merchant stalls and stands, and the children go to a mysterious forest to find peddlers of rare herbs and spices. The main character plays the violin. Shades of Fiddler on the Roof.

However, this world isn’t exactly your babushka grandmother’s home back in Mother Russia. Marah Levi is halani, a member of the non-magical, servant class in the city-state of Ashara. She accidentally becomes friends with a younger kasiri girl, Sarah, but feels uncomfortable as Sarah and her brother Azariah invite Marah to their home and ask for help with projects. Kasiri, the ruling magician class of Ashari society, just don’t associate with “sparkers”, the pejorative term for the halani.

Again, the whole ambience reminded me of early twentieth century Poland or Ukraine with the halani as an unfairly treated lower class (Jews), and the kasiri as the ruling class with inherited power. Then, a plague called “dark eyes disease” comes to attack the city, and kasiri and halani both are desperate for a cure or at least some treatment that will be effective against the deadly disease.

SPOILER: I found it difficult to believe that Marah and Azariah just happened to have a very rare book with the cure for “dark eyes” in their possession—and they also, coincidentally, had the ability to read the almost forgotten language that the book was written in. Oh, and by accident, they happened to meet each other at just the right time for all this hidden knowledge to come to light, just in time to cure at least some of the victims of the “dark eyes”.

But if you can accept a lot of rather fortuitous events, then the story is rather intriguing. I enjoyed seeing how it would all come together, and I was surprised by some of the dramatic events at the close of the story. I got the sense that things were not really settled and happily-ever-after in Ashara, although the story ended with the main characters sorted well enough. I wouldn’t mind reading a sequel to see what happens to Marah and Caleb and the other inhabitants of Ashara.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

Saturday Review of Books: November 8, 2014

Nov7

“I’d leave all the hurry,
the noise and the fray
For a house full of books
and a garden of flowers.”
~Andrew Lang

SatReviewbuttonWelcome to the Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Here’s how it usually works. Find a book review on your blog posted sometime during the previous week. The review doesn’t have to be a formal sort of thing. You can link to your thoughts on a particular book, a few ideas inspired by reading the book, your evaluation, quotations, whatever.

Then on Friday night/Saturday, you post a link here at Semicolon in Mr. Linky to the specific post where you’ve written your book review. Don’t link to your main blog page because this kind of link makes it hard to find the book review, especially when people drop in later after you’ve added new content to your blog. In parentheses after your name, add the title of the book you’re reviewing. This addition will help people to find the reviews they’re most interested in reading.

After linking to your own reviews, you can spend as long as you want reading the reviews of other bloggers for the week and adding to your wishlist of books to read. That’s how my own TBR list has become completely unmanageable and the reason I can’t join any reading challenges. I have my own personal challenge that never ends.

Nonfiction November and Me

Nov7

OK, so Nonfiction November is a celebration of nonfiction during the month of November. Unfortunately, I’m busy during November reading pretty much the opposite of adult nonfiction: speculative fiction for middle grade readers. Well, not unfortunately, because I’m excited to be a judge for the Cybils, but unfortunately as far as nonfiction goes. I will be celebrating nonfiction with a post or two, and I really enjoyed adding more nonfiction to my totally unmanageable TBR list by visiting everyone else who is participating. However, I won’t be actually reading much nonfiction until January.

Anyway, the writing prompt for this week is:

Your Year in Nonfiction: Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven’t read enough of yet? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

According to my list at Goodreads, I have read 169 books in 2014. Of those the following 16 have been nonfiction:

Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi.
Wild Things! Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature by Betsy Bird, Julie Danielson, and Peter Sieruta.
Everybody Paints! The Lives and Art of the Wyeth Family by Susan Goldman Rubin.
The Story of D-Day by Bruce Bliven, Jr.
Against All Odds by Jim Stier.
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson.
D-Day: The Invasion of Normandy, 1944 by Rick Atkinson.
Horrors of History: Ocean of Fire: The Burning of Columbia, 1865 by T. Neill Anderson.
Blue Marble by Don Nardo.
The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights by Steve Sheinkin.
The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child by Donalyn Miller.
The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History by Robert M. Edsel.
The Last Lion 2: Winston Spencer Churchill Alone, 1932-40 by William R. Manchester.
House Dreams by Hugh Howard.
The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown.
Agent Zigzag: A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love, and Betrayal by Ben MacIntyre.

By that listing, I’m reading about 10% nonfiction. My favorite book by far of those sixteen was the biographical book about Churchill, The Last Lion 2: Winston Spencer Churchill Alone, 1932-40 by William R. Manchester. There are a few historical people who fascinate me: Winston Churchill, Teddy Roosevelt, the apostle Paul, Corrie Ten Boom, Adoniram Judson, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Not all of these people are my heroes, but they are people who lived fascinating and colorful lives. I would love to read more about any of them.

My TBR list at Goodreads has over 200 nonfiction titles on it. (I told you it was unmanageable.) I’m seriously considering reading only nonfiction in 2015, or only nonfiction during the first six months of 2015. Why should I or why should I not try this experiment? I wonder what it would mean for my reading life to read only nonfiction. What is the best nonfiction book you can recommend?

Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett

Nov7

Sonya Hartnett’s Children of the King feeds into some of my fondest fascinations:

British history, especially kings and queens and all that jazz.

World War II stories about child evacuees.

Crumbling castles and the ghosts that inhabit them.

Old English houses full of old stuff.

Mysteries of history.

Homeschooling and storytelling.

Themes of courage and small victories and war and peace.

Cecily and Jeremy and their mother have come to the north of England to live with their Uncle Peregrine while London is under siege from Hitler’s bombers. Since Uncle Peregrine live in a big manor house, they decide that it would be only fair for them to take in an extra child evacuee from London. So May comes to live with them. But when Cecily and May find two mysterious boys hiding in the nearby ruins of Snow Castle, they beg Uncle Peregrine to tell them the history of the castle. And he does, even though “its story is as hard as winter” and “cruel” and “scary” and “long”. “Unfit for childish ears.”

Aye, there’s the rub. Although this novel had me enthralled as an adult with my particular fascinations and interests, and although I think it might very well have engaged my interest as a middle school or high school student, it may also very well be “unfit for childish ears.” The horror and unfairness and violence of war are a major topic for discussion, as it surely was in those times when war was so very near and terrible. The adults in the story are not perfect and neither are the children. All of them make annoying, and sometimes stupid or even dangerous, choices. And the history story part of the novel is meant as a mirror or an analogy for the events that are taking place in England in 1940 as war calls for sacrifices that are unfair and horrific and as even children are caught up in a quest for power and dominion that isn’t their fault or their responsibility.

I really loved this book, but you might want to take Charlotte’s review as well as my reservations under consideration before you read it or recommend it to your favorite young reader. I wish I could discuss the history mystery that forms a part of this book with you, but that would be a spoiler, sort of. Suffice it to say that particular slice of history is one of my fascinations, too.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

Book News

Nov6

Texas Bluebonnet Award 2015-2016 Master List
Auxier, Jonathan. 2014. The Night Gardener.
Brown, Don. 2013. The Great American Dust Bowl.
Bryant, Jen. 2014. The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus. Illustrated by Melissa Sweet.
Cammuso, Frank. 2013. The Misadventures of Salem Hyde: Book One: Spelling Trouble.
Cavanaugh, Nancy J. 2014. Always, Abigail.
Daly, Cathleen. 2014. Emily’s Blue Period. Illustrated by Lisa Brown.
de los Santos, Marisa and David Teague. 2014. Saving Lucas Biggs.
Eddleman, Peggy. 2013. Sky Jumpers.
Egan, Kate; with Magician Mike Lane. 2014. The Vanishing Coin. Illustrated by Eric Wight.
Ehlert, Lois. 2014. The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life.
Engle, Margarita. 2013. Mountain Dog. Illustrated by Olga and Aleksey Ivanov.
Gandhi, Arun and Bethany Hegedus. 2014. Grandfather Gandhi. Illustrated by Evan Turk.
Healy, Christopher. 2012. The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom.
Hill, Laban Carrick. 2013. When the Beat Was Born: DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop.
Philbrick, Rodman. 2014. Zane and the Hurricane: A Story of Katrina.
Schanen, Adriana Brad. 2014. Quinny & Hopper. Illustrated by Greg Swearingen.
Searles, Rachel. 2014. The Lost Planet.
Singer, Marilyn. 2013. Rutherford B., Who Was He?: Poems About Our Presidents. Illustrated by John Hendrix.
Tonatiuh, Duncan. 2014. Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez & Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation.
Turnage, Sheila. 2014. The Ghosts of Tupelo Landing.
I’ve read and reviewed six out of twenty of these nominated books, and I’d like to take a look at the rest. Links are to Semicolon reviews.

********************

Publisher’s Weekly: Best Middle Grade Books of 2014. I’ve read and reviewed five of the fourteen books on this list, and I need to read at least two more for Cybils. I’ll just say that it’s not my list, but it’s not too bad either.

The Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra by Jason Fry

Nov6


Good old-fashioned Robert Heinlein-style juvenile science fiction. The story takes place in our own solar system. The characters are all human (well, except for Grandpa who’s mostly cyborg by now). The unfamiliar words are mostly space travel jargon (fireship, grav-sled, transponder) and pirate talk (belay, burgoo, avast, barky). There’s politics and adventure and espionage, and girls and guys take part equally in the adventure and in the drudge work.

Twelve year old twins Tycho and Yana, and older brother Carlo Hashoone are the three probable heirs to the Hashoone family business: a privateering starship called the Shadow Comet. Their mom, Diocletia, is the captain, and dad, Mavry, is the first mate. However, since only one of the three siblings can become captain when mom retires, there’s a lot of rivalry mixed in with the teamwork as the entire family, including Grandpa, work together to find and take prizes, namely Earth cargo ships. Because the Jovian Union, where the Hashoons are from, and Earth are technically at war, the Shadow Comet operates under letters of marquee to capture and hold for ransom any starships from Earth that might cross their path.

Besides just being a lot of fun, the book might bring up some interesting class or family discussions:

What is the difference between a pirate and a privateer? (Reference and compare Sir Francis Drake and also U.S. privateers of the American revolution.) How are the crew of the Shadow Comet different from historical pirates like Jean Lafitte? How are they similar? Are privateers really just “pirates with papers”? Is it justifiable to be a pirate (or privateer) if you’re fighting for your country while you you take a little profit for yourself?

Can family members work as a team and also be rivals for the same position? How would that work in real life? Have you seen families pull together in a crisis? Do they always?

Did you think it was unusual to have the mom be the captain of the Shadow Comet, with the dad serving under her authority as first mate? What did you think of Captain Diocletia giving orders to her father, her husband, and her children? Why do you think the author wrote the characters’ roles this way?

Yana is impulsive and decisive, whereas Tycho is more thoughtful and indecisive. Which twin are you more like? Which one do you think would make a better captain someday? Or would you choose Carlo, since he’s older and a better pilot?

What do you think about Grandpa’s decision at the end of the book? Was he right? If not, do you understand why he did what he did?

You can probably think of other avenues for discussion as you read the book. Jupiter Pirates: Hunt for the Hydra is the first book in a series about the Hashoone family and their piratical (privateering!) adventures. The second book is Curse of the Iris, due out December 16, 2014.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

Shipwreck Island by S.A. Bodeen

Nov5

WARNING: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO WAIT THREE YEARS TO SEE HOW IT ENDS!

A book like this one should come with a warning label. It’s not a whole book. It’s short, 184 pages, and it just ends . . . in the middle of the story. It ends like an episode of LOST. In fact, it reads a lot like an episode of LOST. Anyway, I felt cheated. The book should have something on the cover that says it’s the first installment in a series. And I find that there are to be four books in all, and the next book in the series won’t be out until July, 2015. Not. nice.

Publisher? Editor? Author? Whoever is in charge? If you have a story that is this unfinished, just wait and publish all four volumes at the same time. Or publish the whole thing in one book. Something. At least with LOST, we only had to wait a week to see what happened next. A year is too long for me, and it’s certainly too long for the ten and eleven year olds that this series is written for. Do you know how long a year is in a pre-teen’s life? It’s forever. (Yes, the kids waited for the next installment of Harry Potter—because each of those books told a complete story. And the HP kids grew as the series went along.) Shipwreck Island is not Harry Potter, although HP is a book that one of the characters takes along to the desert island, and no one is going to remember—or care—what happened in this book by next July.

In Shipwreck Island, we have three kids and a mom and a dad who are shipwrecked on a mysterious island. I don’t see how the kids can grow much older or have the books’ themes and plots become more mature as they progress unless the author plans to have them stay on this island for a very long time. The first book only covers about two days on the island. So in next year’s exciting episode, are we going to have a time marker that says, “One year later . . .”?

Shipwreck Island could have been a good solid read for middle grade students who like adventure and a bit of mystery and horror. Those ten and eleven year olds don’t even remember LOST, anyway. However, somebody blew it as far as pre-publication planning goes. If you really, really love desert island stories with weird and scary creatures, wait three more years and buy the complete book in four volumes.

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.

Sky Raiders (Five Kingdoms) by Brandon Mull

Nov4

Sky Raiders reads a lot like a video game, and my twenty-seven year old son says video games are responsible for destroying his generation—and the one after his. So, if you agree with Computer Guru Son, you might want to skip this first book in a new series by Fablehaven author Brandon Mull. Then again, maybe a book with characters, somewhat one-dimensional characters, but still people with names and personalities, would be better than another video game. You be the judge.

The story starts off with a bang. When middle school student Cole Randolph and his friends visit a haunted house on Halloween, they’re herded into the basement to experience the spookiness. Then, someone locks the door behind them, and things get really scary. Cole manages to hide himself in a corner, but his friends are being kidnapped before his very eyes. Should he follow and try to rescue them, or stay and try to get out of the basement and get help?

The choices Cole makes lead him to a place called the Outskirts, another world, not Earth, made up of the Five Kingdoms. Will Cole be able to rescue his friends? Or will he be sold into slavery by the slave traders he meets? Can he use the magical “items” he collects along the way to bring him closer to his goal of rescuing his friends and returning to Earth? Will Cole even be able to survive in such a dangerous world as the Five Kingdoms?

Definitely video adventure game-inspired, the plot leads Cole through a series of challenges and obstacles that must be overcome for Cole to survive and perhaps make some progress toward his objectives. He makes some friends in the Outskirts and then he must decide whether to help them or leave them in order to find his Earth-friends, from whom he has become separated. I enjoyed this book well enough, but four more books in this series would be too many for me. If you or your kids enjoy video games with a backstory, adventures with magical artifacts that help the adventurer succeed, and word and logic games, this series might be a good fit. Book 2, Rogue Knight, releases on November 18, 2014.

Note: I did find an egregious English usage error (“you’re” in place of “your”) in the book which made me want to fire the copy editor. Did the publisher even hire a copy editor? Bah! Humbug!

Amazon Affiliate. If you click on a book cover here to go to Amazon and buy something, I receive a very small percentage of the purchase price.
This book is also nominated for a Cybil Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.