Before the Sword by Grace Lin

Oct13

Written as a sort of prequel to Disney’s Mulan (movie), Before the Sword takes Hua Mulan on a journey with the healer Jade Rabbit to save Mulan’s sister, Xiu, from dying from the bite of a poisonous spider. It turns out that the spider is more than a simple spider, and even Mulan herself might be something more than a clumsy, persistent, horse-loving, and unconventional village girl.

I’ve never watched the movie Mulan (can you believe it?), so I can’t say how well the book meshes with the characters and plot of the movie. However, Ms. Lin, a best-selling author of middle grade novels, easy readers, and picture books, with Disney’s permission and imprimatur. So, someone must have thought it paired well with the franchise.

The book read a lot like Ms. Lin’s previous non-Disney character middle grade novels—Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, When the Sea Turned to Silver, and Starry River of the Sky—which all have short legends and stories embedded in between chapters that tell an over-arching story. Before the Sword not only has short legends and folktales that illuminate and explain the main novel’s story, but it also switches point of view from time to time to tell the story from the perspective of the enslaved servant, the Red Fox, of the villain of the piece, who is Daji, the White Fox.

Fans of Ms. Lin’s previous novels of Chinese folklore and culture will enjoy this one, too. I actually liked it better than the others she has written because it seemed more approachable from my own cultural background. Maybe it’s more Westernized? Or maybe I’m just getting better at understanding how a story from a Chinese/Asian culture works? I’m not sure. At any rate, with the live-action movie version of Mulan already streaming on Disney+, this book should get some traction and should please a number of young readers.

Rival Magic by Deva Fagan

Oct12

As I began reading this middle grade novel about two rival magician’s assistants, I thought I could see immediately where the story was headed. The two girls, with different political interests, talents, and abilities, rivals so to speak, were going to need to learn to work together. And indeed, that’s exactly the point of the story. I thought that theme might be too obvious, even for a child reader. However, the more I read the more I was drawn in and intrigued by how the author got the girls to learn cooperation and peaceful political negotiation. It might even be a lesson in reconciliation and understanding that could be applied by adults in the current political and cultural moment.

Antonia and Moppe are dissimilar in many ways. Antonia comes from a rich, politically powerful family. Moppe is a servant girl from a poor background. Antonia has worked hard to earn her place as apprentice to the famous sorcerer Master Betrys and to learn all the magical words and intricacies that make sorcery work. Moppe happens to be a magical prodigy whose first attempt at spell-casting is amazingly successful. Antonia has read all of the magic books and memorized most of the grimoires in Master Betrys’ house. Moppe can’t read at all. Antonia believes her island is safe and protected by the powerful empire to which it owes allegiance. Moppe doubts the Empire has the best interests of their island nation at heart.

Of course, the girls are forced to go on a quest together to save the island of Medasia and its people from the dreaded Black Drake. They must find the crown which controls the monster and decide how to keep the island safe. Can Moppe and Antonia trust each other and their own complementary abilities enough to complete their quest? What if they have completely different ideas about what it means to be free and at peace? And what if the adults in their lives are manipulating both girls to get something that neither of them really wants?

I ended up enjoying this romp quite a bit. It’s well-written, if slightly predictable, and Antonia and Moppe were fun to get to know. Most fantasy readers will find it fun to read, and girls in particular will appreciate the emphasis on females in positions of political power and as the dual protagonists of the novel itself. Indeed, boys should appreciate the strong female characters, too. Recommended for those who like magic, sorcery, and peacemaking at the center of their reading adventures.

Cybils Nominations Open Through October 15th

Oct9

Nominations for the Cybils Awards for Children’s and Young Adult Books (winners chosen by book bloggers) are now open, and guys, anyone can nominate books in several different categories. Head on over to the Cybils website and check out the categories. Then, if you’ve read any good, worthy books published in 2020 or in the last couple of months of 2019, nominate them!

Charlotte (Charlotte’s Library) and Katy (alibrarymama) have suggested several titles in the Middle Grade Speculative Fiction category that have NOT yet been nominated. Any of these would be great to nominate, and I have a few more that you might want to consider. Or come up with your own ideas. But do nominate your favorites so that they can be considered for the Cybils Awards.

Middle Grade Speculative Fiction (not yet nominated):

What is the best middle grade fiction, fantasy or science fiction, you’ve read this year? Have your favorites been nominated for the Cybils Awards?

The Magic in Changing Your Stars by Leah Henderson

Sep30

When Ailey tries out for the part of the Scarecrow in his school’s production of The Wiz, he experiences an attack of panic and stage fright. Then, Ailey’s beloved Grampa ends up in the hospital after a nasty fall. How can things possibly get worse?

Well, when Ailey tries to carry out Grampa’s wishes in regard to a secret box in the closet at home, he somehow finds himself stuck in the past—trying to save Grampa in the present by encouraging Grampa-in-the-past, as a boy, to be brave and follow his dream. This time travel story includes real characters from American Black history: Bill Bojangles Robinson, Madame C.J. Walker, Paul Cuffe, James Van Deer Zee. And most of the other characters are named after notable Black Americans: Alvin Ailey, Benjamin Banneker, Mahalia Jackson, Josephine Baker, Canada Lee, and others. It’s fun trying to spot all of the names, which are listed in a “Black Excellence List” in the back of the book.

The time travel works pretty well. Ailey changes the past, in a good way, when he travels back in time, and thereby he also changes the present or the future, depending on how you want to think about it. Time travel is always somewhat mind-boggling. Themes and subjects are: tap dancing, performing, stage fright, regret, Black history, Harlem Renaissance, overcoming fear.

The Highland Falcon Thief by Sam Sedgman

Sep29

Trains. Mystery. Scotland. If you like any or all of those, The Highland Falcon Thief is the right book for you. And it’s the first in a projected series, called Adventures on Trains.

In this first book, Harrison Beck’s parents send him on a train trip, the last journey of the historic Highland Falcon steam train, with his uncle, while Harrison’s mother is giving birth to his new baby sister. Harrison, knowing nothing about trains, is expecting a boring journey with all adults, but he meets a stowaway his age on the train. And the two of them become friends and fellow detectives in order to solve the case of a jewel theft. Can Harrison and Lenny find the thief and the princess’s missing diamond necklace before the Highland Falcon retires from service?

Lots of information about trains and railway history is woven into this mystery. And the solution to the mystery is satisfactory, even if it’s a bit ugly. Harrison and Lenny are brave and intrepid characters, and Lenny’s Indian British heritage adds a bit of diversity to this middle grade mystery story.

“You would have to look for a long time to find an engine more impressive and downright beautiful than this one,” Uncle Nat walked toward the nose of the train and laid his hand on it, patting it as if it were a horse.

Copying his uncle, Hal laid his hand on the metal casing and was surprised to find it was warm and vibrating. The locomotive sighed out a puff of steam, as if it were alive—a dragon, ancient, powerful, and ready to fly.

Picture Book States: Massachusetts

Sep16

Massachusetts

  • Motto: Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem. By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty.
  • Nickname: The Bay State
  • State Flower: Mayflower
  • State Bird: Chickadee
  1. Letting Swift River Go by Jane Yolen. Illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Little Brown, 1992.
  2. Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. Viking Press, 1944.
  3. Bus Route to Boston by Maryann Cocca-Leffler. Boyds Mills, 2009.
  4. Comet’s Nine Lives by Jan Brett. G.P. Putman, 1996.
  5. Obadiah the Bold by Brinton Turkle. Viking, 1969.
  6. Pennies for Elephants by Lita Judge.  Disney-Hyperion, 2009.
  7. Bernard Sees the World by Berniece Freschet. Illustrated by Gina Freschet. Scribner’s, 1976.
  8. A Year in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau. Illustrated by  Giovanni Manna. Creative Editions, 2017.
  9. C Is for Cape Cod by Christie Laurie. Photographs by Steve Heaslip. Islandport Press, 2014.
  10. B Is for Berkshires by Joan Duris. Illustrated by Gillian Jones.  Islandport Press, 2015.

It seems as if there should have been more Massachusetts picture books that rise to the surface when I think about Boston and Cape Cod and Cambridge and all that kind of American heritage kind of stuff. I suppose if I had included the Pilgrims and Massachusetts Bay Colony, there would have been more. But I thought I’d concentrate on the many other sights and events and cultural artifacts that make Massachusetts interesting.

What picture books do you associate with the state of Massachusetts?

The Mystwick School of Musicraft by Jessica Khoury

Sep15

In the late twentieth century (1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s) all the fantasy books read a lot like Lord of the Rings. Well, not all, but there sure was a lot of high fantasy, as they call it. Nowadays, it’s all Harry Potter-influenced. Well, OK, not all, but a lot. The Mystwick School of Musicraft is HP-ish with music—and ghosts.

Still, just as there were and still are some fun Tolkien-influenced books, the HP-influenced stories aren’t all bad. I enjoyed The Mystwick School of Musicraft mostly for the new twist(s) it put on an old plot. Amelia Jones has always dreamed of attending the Mystwick School where she can learn to be a Maestro, a master musician on her chosen instrument, the flute, who creates magic with her music. When Amelia messes up her audition, big time, her hopes are dashed, but she gets her invitation to enroll at Mystwick anyway. Can Amelia become the perfect magical musician that her deceased mother once was? Does she even belong at Mystwick? And who is this other Amelia Jones who died before she could take her place at Mystwick?

So, the theme of the story is all about being true to yourself, becoming the person you really are on the inside instead of trying to fulfill the expectations of others, not a theme I like very much. It’s overused and trite and not wholly true. Yes, we need to know ourselves and become independent, self-actualized persons, but we also need to learn to live in community with others and in obedience and worship of Something outside of ourselves. Nevertheless, the musical magic motif of the book and the details of how that worked along with the ghost story were enough to pull me in and make me suspend judgment for the duration of the story. In other words, short version, I liked it. It was a fun read.

The Time of Green Magic by Hilary McKay

Sep14

Hilary McKay writes about dysfunctional families that somehow are nevertheless endearing. The family in Green Magic is less dysfunctional than the Casson family in her more famous series, but still the three children in this story—Abi and her two step-brothers Max and Louis— are keeping secrets from their parents (about magic happening in their new house), and the oldest child, Max, age 14, has a not-so-secret crush on the French babysitter, Esme.

McKay tries and succeeds in straddling the line between actual magic and childhood nightmares or imagination, and I just found it fascinating to watch her do it. I was never quite sure until near the end of the book whether the seemingly magical events in the book would turn out to be all in Abi’s imagination (disappointing!) or whether they were really truly happening (really, truly scary!). Some things do turn out to be childish fears and exaggerations, but the magic in the vine covered house is real. I think.

The book is about more than just a magical house, however, It’s about the ups and downs of actually blending a blended family and of working to support that family. The parents in this family are quite involved in their children’s lives, unlike the Casson parents, and they are loving parents who work hard to help their children become bonded to one another, overcome their fears, and just have fun together. Nevertheless, as is true of real families, some things happen to the children that just can’t (or won’t) be shared with mom and dad. Some problems children choose to muddle through on their own, and Max, Abi, and Louis are certainly growing in their own interior lives and in their relationships with one another as they muddle together.

Some of the scenes in this book are rather scary, and I wouldn’t recommend it for really young or sensitive children, although the nightmarish aspects of the “green magic” are vanquished in the end. For those who like a tiny bit of horror or at least weirdness and a hefty dose of family growth and dynamic, The Time of Green Magic is a delightful story.

The City Under the Back Steps by Evelyn Sibley Lampman

Sep11

A friend on Facebook mentioned this book the other day, and I remembered that I owned a copy but hadn’t read it. So I set out to remedy that neglect.

Cousins Craig and Jill inadvertently offend the new Queen of the City Under the Back Steps, and it turns out that Queen has the power to shrink them down to ant size and keep them in the city of ants until she’s good and ready to make them back into Mashers (what the ants call humans) again. The laws of Ant City are simple and immutable: Eat without being eaten, and protect the babies. Everything the ants do is in obedience to one or both of these laws. And contrary to Craig’s ideas about boys being stronger and more useful than girls, the ants don’t have much use for males of any species. Male ants in this city are not worth much as workers, and they only live for a day or two at the most.

In this transformational fantasy tale, the children don’t actually become ants, but they do shrink to the size of ants. They find that their human characteristics–only two legs to walk on, a lack of antennae to sense direction, and their need for sleep and rest—make them unfit for life in the City Under the Back Steps. However, when the red ants attack the City and carry off the babies, Craig and Jill are able to think of a way to bring the babies back and restore the City to stability and law-keeping. Will it be enough to make the Queen return them to their proper size?

Craig learns that not all societies think girls are “dumb”, and Jill and Craig both learn to accept other cultural norms even though they don’t really understand them. The ants are very different in their values and actions from humans, and Jill and Craig find that their pride in being human might be a somewhat overweening. After all, they only have brute strength and size to be proud of while the ants, ever busy and always law abiding, have a society that withstands repeated calamity and builds again.

This book is out of print and quite expensive to purchase online. First published in 1960, the story and the characters hold up quite well. If you can’t afford to pay hundreds of dollars for a used copy, maybe you can get it from your library —or if you live in Houston, you can borrow it from my library.

The City Under the Back Steps would be a great story to read aloud during a study of insects and bugs or a study of different cultures. Different isn’t always wrong, and sometimes it pays to just listen and try to understand another person’s (or ant’s) thoughts and values. I’m trying to think of other books like this one, where a child enters an animal world and learns from the somewhat anthropomorphized animals who still carry some of the characteristics of animals as well:

In The Tune Is in the Tree by Maud Hart Lovelace, Annie Jo spends the day with the birds who use magic to shrink her to bird size and give her a pair of wings so that they can take care of her while her parents are away.

In The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling, Mowgli, the man-cub, lives in the forest with the wolf pack, but he is still a human boy. He learns to obey the law of the jungle, but eventually he turns to the community of village life.

T.H. White’s The Sword in the Stone has Merlin the Wizard turn young Arthur or Wart into a fish, an ant, a badger, and a wild goose, and each transformation is meant to teach him a lesson about the role he will play as king someday. So, although Wart still thinks more or less like a human when he is transformed into various animals, he has the body and skills of the animal he becomes.

I know I’m forgetting other books like these. What other books have children entering the world of animals, transformed into the size or body or community of a member of the animal world? And what does the child learn from the experience?

A Few Family Names for Your Consideration

Sep8

I would imagine that everyone has a few names on their family tree that are . . . unusual, maybe even peculiar or bizarre. But one of those old family names might just be the perfect fit for a twenty-first century baby who wants to distinguish himself or herself from the pack. So, here, presented for the consideration of my own family, and yours, if you’re looking for that special name for a special child, are a few names (first and middle) from my family tree:

  • Joseph Author. Not Arthur. This was my grandfather’s name.
  • Monger Stacy. This was my great-grandfather, whom I never met. He was born on New Year’s Day in 1885, so if you have a New Year’s baby . . .
  • Jimmie Quency. My grandfather, whom I also never met. If you use this name be sure to spell Quency with an “e”. I think it’s much more distinguished.
  • William Lafayette. They called him “Fate” for short. My great-great grandfather.
  • Newton Lafayette. My great grandfather. As far as I know he had no nickname. (Different family line) Why were these Southerners so fond of Lafayette?
  • Wilburn Scott. Another great-grandfather.
  • James Kemble. Yet another great-grandfather.
  • Larkin George. My third great-grandfather. I like the name Larkin. You could call him Lark as a nickname. There’s also a Joseph Larkin on the family tree.
  • Hampton Butler. Sounds southern. like something from Gone With the Wind.
  • Edom Robbinson. My husband’s great-great grandfather.
  • Robert Wallace Thomas. I have two Baptist preachers, father and son, on my family tree with this solid name.
  • Philemon Thomas. It would take a special boy to carry off the first name Philemon, but maybe you could switch the two and make it Thomas Philemon.
  • Carlisle Haines. My seventh great-grandfather.
  • Tristram Thomas. May be my original emigrant ancestor from Wales and also maybe my seventh great-grandfather.
  • Vespasian Kemble. My sixth great-grandfather. I’m not sure anyone could carry this name off, ever. I’m not even sure how to pronounce it.
  • Zuritha Chaney. Sometimes spelled Zooritha. My third great-grandmother.
  • Bonnie Leota. My grandmother, and a fine name she had, if I do say so myself.
  • Lorena Adair. My great-great grandmother.
  • Oleta Eudora. Engineer Husband’s mother. One of my children has the middle name Oleta.
  • Emily Alvira. Engineer Husband’s great-grandmother.
  • Icey Ann. My husband’s great-great grandmother.
  • Lula Perle. My husband’s grandmother.
  • Lula Mae. My great-grandmother.
  • Palmyra Jane. My husband’s great-great aunt.
  • Delana Faith. Called “Laney”. Husband’s great-great grandmother.
  • Narcissa Caroline. Another great-great grandmother.
  • Hattie Mae. My great-aunt.
  • Ida Mae. My great grandmother.
  • Ola Myrtle. Another great-aunt.

Feel free to borrow any of these. What are some beautiful or unusual names on your family tree?