Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking by Erin Dionne

Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking: A 14 Day Mystery by Erin Dionne.

“Early in the morning of March 18, 1990, two men dressed as Boston police officers overwhelmed the security guards at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and then spent over an hour alone in the building, stealing thirteen pieces of priceless art. These masterpieces have yet to be found.”

51WX81hz2gL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_Now, if that’s not a set-up for a middle grade mystery adventure novel, I don’t know what is. I read this one just after reading Hold Fast by Blue Balliet, and I had to keep reminding myself that Balliet’s novel was the jewel heist. This one was by another author, Erin Dionne, and took place in Boston, not Chicago. Nevertheless, fans of Balliet’s Chasing Vermeer or The Calder Game would probably be drawn into this tale of Moxie Fleece and her friend Ollie and their dangerous, but exciting, search for the artworks stolen from Gardner museum more than twenty years ago.

I’ve read a couple of other books by Ms. Dionne, and I really think she’s hit her stride with this story. Moxie is a little too sassy for my tastes, but no worse than my own twelve year old gets sometimes. And Moxie’s friend, Ollie, is a delight: a science geek who’s into geo-caching. I wanted to adopt Ollie.

“It’s a race against the clock through downtown Boston as Moxie and Ollie break every rule she’s ever lived by to find the art and save her family.” (from the cover blurb)

516E9eC3peL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_Other “art theft” middle grade novels:
Masterpiece by Elise Broach. Marvin the Beetle and his eleven year old human friend, James, work together to foil an attempted art theft and forgery of priceless works by the great artist Albrecht Durer.
Chasing Vermeer and The Calder Game by Blue Balliet.
Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce. Framed is a kid caper comedy about Fine Art and Mutant Ninja Turtles. And small town life. And slate mines. And insurance fraud. And family unity.
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg.
Heist Society by Ally Carter. Katarina Bishop is determined to leave the family business behind, but when the family business is art theft, it’s hard to get away–with anything, including a law-abiding life.
Stealing Magic: A Sixty-Eight Rooms Adventure by Marianne Malone. “Ruthie and Jack thought that their adventures in the Thorne Rooms were over . . . until miniatures from the rooms start to disappear. Is it the work of the art thief who’s on the loose in Chicago?”
The Mystery of the Third Lucretia by Susan Runholt. “A never-before-seen Rembrandt painting has been discovered in Amsterdam. The mysterious man that Kari and Lucas observed must have been working on a forgery! Convinced that no one will believe them without more evidence, the teenage sleuths embark on a madcap adventure to find the forger. But is bringing the criminal to justice worth the price of their lives?”
The Mona Lisa Mystery by Pat Hutchins. “Class 3 of Hampstead Primary School takes a school trip to Paris and lands right in the middle of a mystery.”
Vidalia in Paris by Sasha Watson. “Teenage Vidalia’s summer in Paris studying art settles into a stimulating and enjoyable routine until she becomes romantically involved with a mysterious young man who seems to have ties to an art-theft ring.”
(Descriptions of books I have not read or reviewed come from GoodReads.)

A sequel featuring Moxie and her geo-caching friend Ollie is in the works: Ollie and the Science of Treasure Hunting by Erin Dionne, due out summer of 2014.

Becoming Ben Franklin by Russell Freedman

51texp1OeLL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_Becoming Ben Franklin: How a Candle-Maker’s Son Helped Light the Flame of Liberty by Russell Freedman.

I have several books about Benjamin Franklin in my library, including Franklin’s own autobiography. However, the other four Franklin books that I own are all written for younger readers. Becoming Ben Franklin, despite its relatively short seventy-seven pages, is written on a middle school or high school level as a basic introduction to the life of our most celebrated founding father.

Russell Freedman, of course, is quite well-known himself in the field of children’s nonfiction, having won the Newbery Award for his photobiography of Lincoln and Newbery Honors for books about Eleanor Roosevelt and about the Wright brothers. He begins his book on Benjamin Franklin with Franklin’s arrival in Philadelphia at the age of seventeen, a runaway apprentice “with a mind of his own.” In Freedman’s treatment, as in most other biographies of Franklin, Benjamin Franklin comes across as the quintessential self-made man. He asked for financial help from his father when he decided to set up a print shop in Philadelphia, but dad was not prepared to give such help without some proof that Benjamin was serious and likely to succeed. Pennsylvania Governor William Keith promised young Ben introductions and letters of credit and sent him off to England to pick out equipment for his new business, but when Ben arrived the introductions and the loans were nonexistent. So Ben was again on his own.

It seems from the narrative that although Benjamin Franklin was something of an eccentric with his “air baths” and his experiments in electricity, he won his place in the world by dint of hard work, experimentation with good ideas, and perseverance. Ben Franklin is a good subject for a children’s biography because the author can choose whether to emphasize Ben’s quirkiness, hard work, innovative ideas, or influence in politics or science or international affairs.

'JOIN, or DIE' photo (c) 2011, DonkeyHotey - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/As I said, this biography would be a good, solid middle school introduction to the life of Ben Franklin. Only one caveat: On page 28, there is a picture of this cartoon from the pen of Mr. Franklin. The caption reads in part: “The parts of the segmented snake are labeled for South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and New England (which was actually four colonies). Delaware and Maryland are missing.” Obvious mistake. I’m not sure what is missing (Connecticut? Or was it one of the four NE colonies? Maybe Georgia?), but Maryland is NOT missing. Picky, I know, but children’s informational books should be accurate to the nth degree. I wouldn’t buy it with that error in it. However, you may be willing to overlook it since the book is well-written and informative otherwise.

51kaQGvFQzL._SX258_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_Some other Ben Franklin titles for younger children:

Aliki in The Many Lives of Benjamin Franklin writes: “Benjamin Franklin was born with just one life. But as he grew, his curiosity, his sense of humor and his brilliant mind turned him into a man with many lives.” Aliki’s prism for Ben Franklin is the “man of ideas.” It’s good book that would fit right in to today’s popularity of “graphic” nonfiction with its cartoon panel pages, but it’s out of print.

What’s the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? by Jean Fritz takes much the same perspective as Aliki’s book, but with an emphasis on Franklin’s comical and entertaining side and his nonconformist, can-do attitude. “Benjamin would have liked to do nothing but experiment with his ideas, but people had discovered that he was more than an inventor. Whatever needed doing, he seemed able and willing to do it.”

Poor Richard in France by F.N. Monjo is narrated by Franklin’s grandson, Benny, and focuses on Ben Franklin’s time in France during the American Revolution when he was working to get the French to support the Americans in their fight against the British. In this story Franklin is a wise and indulgent old grandfather who always answers Benny’s questions and outfoxes both the British and the French. The emphasis is on Franklin’s wisdom. (This one is my favorite of the lot. The voice of young Benny and his interactions with his grandfather are a delight.) Unfortunately, Monjo’s book is also out of print.

Benjamin Franklin: Young Printer by Augusta Stevenson is one of the Childhood of Famous Americans series of fictionalized biographies of great Americans. Stevenson’s Ben Franklin is more serious and mature for his age. He gives good advice to his age mates, and he’s “the best apprentice in the world.” Stevenson tells stories about young Ben in the same vein as George Washington and the Cherry Tree, stories that emphasize how Ben was, even in his youth, a diligent, honest, and tenacious young man, a character to be admired and emulated.

Becoming Ben Franklin is a good addition to the stable of children’s biographies about the great man. It’s pitched for an older audience, but still quite accessible with an easy to read layout and design and lots of period illustrations, and at least one factual error that should have been noticed by a proofreader before it got into print.

KidLitCon: What There Was and What I Learned

KidLitCon in Austin was smaller than it has been in the past, but since it was my first time to be able to come, I didn’t really notice until it was called to my attention. It was also a great weekend for connections and friendships, old, new, and renewed.

At first, since I believe most bloggers are introverts at heart, we all did the slow, careful dance of introvert intersection: the one where you carefully introduce yourself, see if the other person has any idea who you are or even wants to know, talk about the weather and the setting, and then slowly but surely circle around to the real reason you’re there, blogging and reading. Well, ALL is a slight exaggeration. Not all bloggers are introverts, and Pam from Mother Reader and Melissa the BookNut both rushed up and gave me a big hug and made me (and everyone else) feel so at home that I didn’t want to leave on Sunday morning. Thank God for extroverts.

Thank Him for the rest of us, too. I had wonderful, thoughtful conversations with Jennifer of 5 Minutes for Books who was so kind to provide my transportation from Houston to Austin and share her hotel room with me and share her love of books and kids and matching books with kids. (And she told me something about pictures that I didn’t know. I tried it on this post, and it works!) Then there were all of the other kidlit bloggers, who may or may not be extroverts or introverts, who did all the planning and the talking and the presenting and the socializing and the questioning. Thanks, everybody. (If you didn’t get to come, I’m sorry. You missed out.)

What I Learned at KidLitCon 2013 in Austin, TX:

51YjXKZS+mL._SX258_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_1. Cynthia Leitich Smith (Cynsations) reads 300 blogs a day! She’s also Native American, or part native Americand (although, side note, I’ve never understood how any of us can really be “part” some ethnic or racial group), and she’s a really, really good and engaging speaker. She also has a picture book that I want to read called Jingle Dancer.

2. Author Chris Barton (Bartography) is a real person and a really nice person, and his next book is going to be about the world of video gaming for outsiders to that world who want to get in, maybe, a little bit. Sounds cool.

3. Jen Robinson (Jen Robinson’s Book Page) and Sarah Stevenson (Finding Wonderland) are good at analyzing burnout and providing some possible solutions, and Jen gave me a great idea for responding to blog posts that I like when I don’t have time to comment. She tweets a link to stuff she likes. Simple, but I hadn’t really thought about it. I’m going to do that.

4. Author Molly Blaisdell (Seize the Day) is a delightful and inspirational person, and I want to read her (adult?) book, Plumb Crazy, when it comes out in May, 2014.

5. Molly also taught us the Japanese word “otaku”, which is sort of a fan club or a group of influential geeks in any area of interest who wield influence in that subculture.

6. If I take notes on the back of a piece of paper, and I don’t remember what the paper was, I willnot have the notes to refer to when I write this post.

7. Katy Manck (BooksYALove) knows about lots of stuff, and she says I should be tagging my posts. I sort of, kind of, thought so, but she assures me that I should and could.

8. Sheila Ruth (Wands and Worlds) and Charlotte (Charlotte’s Library) are NOT the same person in disguise, but they are both authorities on fantasy and science fiction, and we can all agree that fantasy fiction about albino animals and mutant tennis rackets is not going to make the bestseller list or the awards lists anytime soon. Not to mention picture books with crayon scribbled illustrations. Maybe you had to have been there.

9. Leila Roy (Bookshelves of Doom) is not the same person as author Lena Roy. Embarrassment. Don’t ask. But Leila is a lovely blogger, and she and her fellow panelists (Jen Bigheart, Lee Wind, Sheila Ruth) gave me a lot to think about as they discussed the future of kidlit blogging. Suffice it to say that despite changes and evolutions, there is a future as long as we bloggers are committed to helping children and parents and others find books, and it looks good.

10. Camille (Book Moot) is as wonderful an advocate for books in person as she is on her blog. And she leads a book club for older adults at her church, and they read Wolf Hall over the summer, then Wednesday Wars by Gary Schmidt this fall. Now that’s a contrast. I didn’t make it through Wolf Hall—too much of a challenge for me. Camille says the key is to listen to it on audiobook. Then you can tell who’s who because they use different voices for the different characters.

I learned a lot more from and about a lot more people, but I was told that what happens at KidLitCon stays at KidLitCon. So, except for the few tidbits of tantalizing information I have already shared here, you’ll just have to read about the experiences of everyone else—and come next year to KidLitCon, place and date TBA. But I think it’s going to be in California. (And if I didn’t link to you, I’m sorry, and I probably will soon in another post. Or I’ll tweet your post or something. But this one is getting too long, and I have to go to bed.)

Saturday Review of Books: November 9, 2013

“A book is a garden, an orchard, a storehouse, a party, a company by the way, a counselor, a multitude of counselors. A book is good company. It is full of conversation without loquacity.
It comes to your longing with full instruction, but pursues you never.” ~Henry Ward Beecher

SatReviewbutton

Welcome 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.

1. Thoughts of Joy (The Fifth Witness)
2. Becky (Mandy)
3. Becky (Olive and the Bad Mood)
4. Becky (Becoming Shakespeare)
5. Becky (The Bastard King)
6. Becky (The Lion of Justice)
7. Becky (The Passionate Enemies)
8. Becky (Allegiant)
9. Becky (When Breaks the Dawn)
10. Becky (Spunky’s Diary)
11. Becky (Prodigal Cat)
12. Becky (Almost Heaven)
13. C.S. Lewis and the Glory of God
14. Glynn (As Far As I Know)
15. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive (These Happy Golden Years)
16. SuziQoregon @ Whimpulsive [Fables Vol. 7: Arabian Nights (and Days)]
17. Seth@Collateral Bloggage (Still the Best Hope)
18. Sally @ Classic Children’s Books (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
19. Barbara H. (A Severe Mercy)
20. Barbara H. (The Chance by Karen Kingsbury)
21. Helene (A Cast of Stones)
22. Janet (Dr Thorne)
23. jama (Yes! We Are Latinos)
24. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Nobody’s Secret by MacColl)
25. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Counting by 7s)
26. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Doll People)
27. Amy @ Hope Is the Word (Thanksgiving book list)
28. Colleen@Books in the City (Rococo by Adriana Trigiani)
29. dawn (Ender’s Game)
30. Brenda (Starbounders by Adam Epstein and Andrew Jacobson)
31. Becky (Fortunately, The Milk)
32. Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies (The Tulip Eaters)
33. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (Sophia’s War: The End of Innocence)
34. Anna @ Diary of an Eccentric (The Queen of Bad Decisions)
35. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Snow on The Tulips)
36. Beckie @ ByTheBook (The Sparkle Box)
37. Beckie @ ByTheBook (Strait of Hormuz)
38. Beckie @ ByTheBook (To Know You)
39. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (Pathfinder)
40. Sophie @ Paper Breathers (Born to Run)

Powered by… Mister Linky’s Magical Widgets.

Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

My 80-year old mom, my sister, and I started a family book club in October. Our first book, chosen by my sister, was Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, a book I remember making rather a splash in the blogosphere when it first came out in 2010. I never got around to checking it out, so I’m glad my little sister chose it for our first read.

I did enjoy the story of Major Pettigrew, a British village widower, and his growing friendship with Mrs. Ali, a Pakistani widow and shopkeeper. The two share an interest in literature and tradition and tea and gardening. And slowly but inexorably, Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali become more than just friends, despite the fact that the Major is nominally Christian and Mrs. Ali comes from a controlling and traditional Muslim family. Village prejudice and family tradition interfere with the budding romance, but love wins in the end.

My mom said, “The Pettigrew book was fun. It’s nice to read a “light” one for a change, and it did keep me interested.”

Baby sister said, “I thought the author tied up the ends (especially the relationships among the club members and “friends”) a little too neatly. I was expecting more conflict. But, a pretty good read.”

I, of course, had to complain a bit, although it’s not really a complaint as much as an observation. The book implies that love conquers all, but also tries to give lip service to the idea that sometimes love is not enough. I especially thought that the author glossed over the religious differences, even though there is an interesting discussion between Major Pettigrew and the village vicar:

“All I’m really trying to tell you is that I see people get into these relationships—different backgrounds, different faiths, and so on—as if it’s not a big issue. They want the church’s blessing and off they go into the sunset as if everything will be easy.”

“Perhaps they’re willing to endure the hostility of the uninformed,” said the Major.

“Oh they are, said the Vicar. “Until it turns out the hostility is from Mother, or Granny cuts them out of the will, or friends forget to invite them to some event. Then they come crying to me.” He looked anguished. “And they want me to promise that God loves them equally.”

“I take it he does not?” said the Major.

Of course he does,” said the Vicar. “But that doesn’t mean they’ll both be saved, does it? They want me to promise they’ll be together in heaven, when the truth is I can’t even offer both a plot in the cemetery. They expect me to soft-pedal Jesus as if he’s just one of many possible options.”

“Sort of like a cosmic pick-and-mix?” said the Major.

“Exactly.” The Vicar looked at his watch, and the Major got the distinct impression that he was wondering whether it was too early for a drink. “Often, I think, they don’t believe in anything at all and they just want to prove to themselves that I don’t really believe anything either.”

So Major Pettigrew, with his “cosmic pick-and-mix” analogy, seems to understand and even acquiesce to what the Vicar is saying, but then on the next page the Major feels estranged from the Vicar because of his stand and “felt no rage, only a calm and icy distance.” And Major Pettigrew proceeds to ignore everything the Vicar has said, without really coming up with any justification or answer to the Vicar’s warning, in order to pursue his relationship with Mrs. Ali. The Major and Mrs. Ali face opposition from her family as well as from the village, but they push on, ignoring their religious and cultural differences.

I just don’t think people who really believe something about family responsibility and about God can ignore their deeply held convictions without some sort of self-justifiction or change in beliefs. Major Pettigrew, especially, is portrayed as very conservative and resistant to change, and it seems he would face more of a cognitive dissonance over culture and religion as he works through his feelings for Mrs. Ali. But his main issues are the disapproval of the villagers and the difficulties with Mrs. Ali’s family.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that in a post-modern romantic novel in which the main point is that we should overcome all of our prejudices and allow love to conquer all, the author shows an awareness of the difficulties that such a “tolerant” view holds for people who actually believe something specific—even if she doesn’t allow her protagonist to think about the difficulties of tolerance for very long.

I picked our book club selection for November, Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me by Karen Swallow Prior.

Well-tuned Fundamental Constants in a Highly Strange Universe

'2012_11_260021' photo (c) 2012, Gwydion M. Williams - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/Physicists are apparently having trouble explaining to themselves (much less the rest of us) what the Higgs Boson, for the theory of which two physicists were recently awarded the Nobel Prize, actually means.

“One possibility has been brought up that even physicists don’t like to think about. Maybe the universe is even stranger than they think. Like, so strange that even post-Standard Model models can’t account for it. Some physicists are starting to question whether or not our universe is natural. This cuts to the heart of why our reality has the features that it does: that is, full of quarks and electricity and a particular speed of light.

This problem, the naturalness or unnaturalness of our universe, can be likened to a weird thought experiment. Suppose you walk into a room and find a pencil balanced perfectly vertical on its sharp tip. That would be a fairly unnatural state for the pencil to be in because any small deviation would have caused it to fall down. This is how physicists have found the universe: a bunch of rather well-tuned fundamental constants have been discovered that produce the reality that we see.”

No comment. You probably know what this conundrum indicates to me, anyway, given my presuppositions.

Home Front Girl by Joan Wehlen Morrison

Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature, and Growing Up in Wartime America by Joan Wehlen Morrison

Joan Wehlen Morrison’s journal from 1937 (age 14) to 1943 (age 20) “allows us to eavesdrop on what everyday Americans thought and felt about” the years before and during World War II.

I’m not so sure how “everyday” Miss Wehlen was. She was, first of all, a prolific writer of poetry and essays and journal entries, of which only a selection are represented in this compilation. Joan was an intelligent young lady and quite aware of political and current events, much more so, I believe, than I was at her age. “As early as 1937, Joan believe[d] that the year 1940 will be a decisive year in history.” She was a pacifist, daughter of a “working class Swedish immigrant with socialist political convictions.” And, finally, she was a Catholic, who wove “personal reflections on love, nature, and God with commentary on contemporary political events.”

Some of her more insightful entries:

Thursday, September 29, 1938
Well—our mythical “peace” is again floating over the land of Europe while four statesmen pretend to come to an agreement. The headline says, “War Averted”—but I know—it should say “War Postponed”—I know.

Sunday, February 5, 1939
I have found beauty in color and line and life and the shadows our little red lamp makes . . . I shall not forget life even if I lose it. It is a lovely world: the sky is blue and the snow is melting and I can hear the Earth expanding. Spring only comes once when you’re 16. I must keep my eyes open for it or I shall miss it in the rush.

Wednesday, December 18, 1940
Oh, world—the years so quickly gone—all the nice boys with the nice shadows in their faces . . . the war could kill them all—

Sunday, December 7, 1941
Well, Baby, it’s come, what we always knew would come, what we never quite believed in. And deathly calm all about it. No people in noisy excited little clusters on the streets. Only silent faces on the streetcars and laughing ones in windows. No excitement. Only it’s come. I hardly knew it, never believed in it. . . . Today, Japan declared war on the United States. She bombed Pearl Harbor and the Philippines while her diplomats were talking peace to Roosevelt. This afternoon at 2:30. My God, we never knew! We were drying dishes out at Evelyn’s place, and I churned butter and went for the well water with Ruth like Jack and Jill. . . . And the earth was turning and it had happened.

Tuesday, January 20, 1942
Mr. Benet was talking about diaries in history and I believe I have written mine with the intention of having it read someday. As a help, not only to the understanding of my time—but to the understanding of the individual–not as me—but as character development. Things we forget when we grow older are written here to remind us. . . . I rather like the idea of a social archeologist pawing over my relics.

So we readers are transformed into “social archeologists,” who read Miss Wehlen’s “relics” and ponder what it was like to grow up in such a time. I was in high school during the Vietnam War, but I doubt my diary, if I had one, would be nearly so interesting or insightful as Joan Wehlen’s is.

She calls Winston Churchill “Pigface”; she was apparently not a fan.

Listening for Lucca by Suzanne LaFleur

This middle grade fiction book is an odd little ghost story about a girl who finds herself unexpectedly transported into the past and about her little brother Lucca, who’s three years old and doesn’t talk.

Siena’s family is moving from the city, Brooklyn, to coastal Maine in hope of jolting Lucca into talking again or somehow helping him. Lucca, when the story begins, hasn’t spoken a word for over a year.

I liked the story. Siena is a sympathetic character, fourteen years old, obsessed with abandoned things, a little prickly and stand-off-ish because her old friends in Brooklyn think she’s weird. As a matter of fact, she is weird: Siena sees visions of the past and know things about past events and places that she shouldn’t know. Since all of us feel a little awkward and weird at times, especially at fourteen, Siena’s visions and Lucca’s silence can be stand-ins for whatever is making the reader feel out-of-place and misunderstood. That aspect of the book worked really well.

I also liked that (minor spoiler!) we never do find out why Lucca quit talking. He simply tells Siena, eventually, that he just doesn’t want to speak. Sometimes, contrary to our psychologically fixated society, kids just do stuff and make decisions for reasons that make sense to them but to no one else. And if they make bad decisions or crazy decisions or even inexplicable decisions, it’s not always someone’s fault. I liked that Lucca just didn’t want to talk. Actually, I had a child who was not totally silent, but who didn’t want to talk to anyone outside our house for a long time, so she didn’t. She grew out of it.

One thing bothered me about the book: SIena, when she is in the past is able to talk to a young man named Joshua who is suffering from PTSD or depression or some combination thereof and get him to “come back” to his family who are suffering because of his illness and withdrawal. She says:

“What will happen if you don’t is what I told you: all the people you love are going to fall apart. Their lives will be full of the darkness you’ve brought home. They will remain faceless to you. But if you get up, if you try to let a little of it go, if you make new happy memories, you can have them back.”

So Joshua “comes back.” The same thing happened in another middle grade novel I read recently, The Absolute Value of Mike by Katherine Erskine. Mike gets mad at his great-uncle, an old man who is depressed and guilty because of the death of his adult son, and the words Mike says to his great uncle Poppy somehow snap him out of his lethargy and depression and bring him to full recovery.

It’s unrealistic and puts a lot of pressure on kids to imply that if they just talk to a loved one who is depressed or grieving and say the right words and tell the person to snap out of it, they can bring that loved one back from the brink. Yes, sometimes people who are experiencing a mild depression can bring themselves back and recover with the help of wise words from another person who loves them. But sometimes, often, it takes more than a good talking-to. It takes medication or time or therapy or many talks or prayer or?

Nevertheless, I liked Listening for Lucca, and I recommend it with the above caveat. It was a sweet book. (I liked The Absolute Value of Mike, too, but I never managed to get a review posted. Great book, quirky misfit characters, good story-telling, even though a bit unbelievable.)

The Runaway King by Jennifer Nielsen

Book 2 of the Ascendancy Trilogy. I’m about to make a rule for myself: no more trilogies, series, or maybe even sequels. I’m tired of half-finished stories. However, if I made that rule I’d have to make an exception for Jennifer Nielsen’s Ascendancy trilogy.

The Runaway King is just as good as (or better than) the first book in the Ascendancy Trilogy, The False Prince, which was the Cybils award winner last year in the Middle Grade Speculative Fiction category. In Book Two, Prince Jaren has become King Jaron, but his grip on the throne is none too secure. Both the neighboring kingdom of Avenia and the cutthroat Pirates are ready to attack Jaron’s rather weak little country of Carthya, and these two enemies may actually be in league with one another. Not only does Jaron doubt himself and his ability to be a good king, but the most of the Council also want to replace Jaron with a regent. And Jaron’s not sure whom he can trust, and there’s the unresolved quandary of a princess he’s required to marry versus a commoner friend he loves and wants to protect.

When Jaron’s past catches up with him in the form of an assassination attempt, he does the only thing he can: he disguises himself, runs away, and goes to confront Carthya’s enemies. Self-sacrifice is a big theme in this volume of the story, and Jaron is growing and learning as he tries to balance his responsibilities, his desire for justice, and his commitments to friends. It’s not an easy balance to maintain, and he has a kingdom to save while he’s at it.

The third book in the trilogy, The Shadow Throne, is due out in February, 2014. I may go back and read all three books together when I get my hands on all three. And I may just try to establish a policy of waiting until all three books in a trilogy are published and available before I start reading, instead of banning series altogether. If I have the patience for such a policy . . .

Breakfast on Mars, edited by Rebecca Stern and Brad Wolfe

Breakfast on Mars and 37 Other Delectable Essays: Your Favorite Authors Take a Stab at the Dreaded Essay Assignment, edited by Rebecca Stern and Brad Wolfe.

These 38 essays by children’s and YA authors such as Elizabeth Winthrop, Rita Williams-Garcia, Kirsten Miller, Laurel Snyder, and Wendy Moss, are not your average English assignment, get it written and turn it in, essays. These essays sparkle. From the introduction to this collection:

“For too long, we have held essays captive in the world’s most boring zoo. We’ve taken all the wild words, elaborate arguments, and big hairy ideas found in essays, and we’ve poached them from their natural habitat. We’ve locked essays in an artificial home.

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Essay, we must tame you We must squish you into five paragraphs, and we must give you so much structure that you cower in the corner, scared for your life.

The essay’s fate has long looked bleak. But do not despair, for change is brewing. In the following pages, you’ll catch a glimpse of something most people have never seen in the wild. We’ve let essays out of their cages, and we’ve set them loose. We’ve allowed them to go back to their roots.”

So, in this collection we have a variety of essays, all written with creativity and flair.

How about a personal essay: Ransom Riggs on “Camp Dread, or How to Survive a Shockingly Awful Summer”? It’s a new twist on “What I Did Last Summer.”

Or perhaps a persuasive essay on why we should (Chris Higgins) or shouldn’t (Chris Higgins again) colonize Mars or why the author (Kirsten Miller) believes “Sasquatch Is Out There (And He Wants Us to Leave Him Alone)” or “Why We Need Tails” by Ned Vizzini.

A character analysis essay on Princess Leia (Cecil Castellucci, who is a female, by the way) or Super Mario (Alan Gratz).

The authors take on subjects such as memories (Rita Williams-Garcia), time machines (Steve Almond), life before television (Elizabeth Winthrop), invisibility (Maile Meloy), humpback anglerfish (Michael Hearst) and names (Jennifer Lu).

Did you know you can write graphic essays with pictures (“Penguin Etiquette” by Chris Epting) or cartoons (“On Facing My Fears” by Khalid Birdsong)?

My favorite essay of the bunch, because it spoke to me as a parent, was Lena Roy’s “Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll”. I won’t tell you the details of Ms. Roy’s adolescent adventures with being “cool”, but I will refer you to the essay in which her dad makes some very wise parenting decisions and gives the young Lena some very wise words to live by:

“Words matter, Lena. What we say about ourselves matter. The words we use to represent ourselves matter. You know that. We only have so many ways we can express ourselves, and words are the most powerful.”

These essays are examples for teens (and adults) of how words can matter in a good way, how, to use the title of yet another essay in this collection, “A Single Story Can Change Many Lives” (Craig Kielburger). It’s time for us all to start writing those stories— in un-squished, wild, and powerful essays.

What a great tool for teachers and what a great illustration of what the essay can be for students of all ages!