Jinx’s Magic by Sage Blackwood

May22

Jinx, apprentice to Simon Magus, is forced to explore and tame his own magic in an attempt to rescue his mentor, rescue Simon’s wife, Sophie, defeat the evil Bonemaster, stop the destruction of the trees in the Urwald, and learn KnIP (Knowledge Is Power) magic to strengthen his own. The themes are good vs. evil and using people (and trees) vs. helping and listening, but it’s hard to say whether the worldview is going to come out loosely Christian in the end or more dualistic, like a universe in which good must be balanced with evil. Jinx himself is “the balance” and “The Listener,” whatever those terms mean.

I thought this was a better second book in a trilogy than most. The first in the series, is called simply Jinx, and I wrote about it a few months ago. You should read the first book first, and if you like it as much as I did, then go on to read Jinx’s Magic. I did get some answers to my questions from the first book about the Urwald, Samara, Simon Magus, the Bonemaster, and generally the way Jinx’s world works. I also added a few more questions:

What does it mean that Jinx is “the balance” and “The Listener” and “a wick that burns”?

Are Jinx and the Bonemaster opposite sides of the same coin, so to speak, good and evil in eternal conflict and balance? (I hope not because I don’t really believe in that dualistic philosophy.)

Who are the elves and what is their role in the story of the Urwald?

Can Jinx defeat The Bonemaster and save the Urwald?

Definitely a cliff-hanger ending, and I’m definitely up for the third book in the series. Oh, it might be of interest to some people, in light of all the diversity talk around the kidlitosphere, that Jinx is a “person of color.” His skin color doesn’t really matter to the story, but it is there, for what that’s worth.

QOTD: Speaking of color, Jinx has the magical ability to see a shapes and colors around other people that indicate to him what they are feeling. For instance, when the girl he cares about is feeling admiring and romantic about someone else, Jinx sees pink fluffy thoughts and feelings surrounding her. Another character’s feelings are grey and sharp like knife blades. If we could see what you are feeling right now, what color and shape would your feelings be and what would that color/shape indicate?

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes

May21

Carolyn Haywood, ushered into the twenty-first century, gently. There were one or two annoying little references that I am not going to dwell on, but overall Mr. Henkes has written a story about second grader Billy Miller that reminds me of my beloved Carolyn Haywood books about Betsy and Eddie and Billy and Ellen. So I can skip the very brief annoyances.

Billy is worried about second grade. He’s afraid he isn’t smart enough for second grade. Ms. Silver, his teacher, assures him that he is smart. Billy then feels “as if he were filled with helium and might rise up like a balloon . . . [H]is mind was sending off sparks.”

Billy’s three year old sister, Sal, is sometimes a nuisance and sometimes an ally. When the two of them try to stay up all night long together, they, of course, don’t make it. But they do bond as siblings.

Billy’s papa is an artist. He’s “waiting for his breakthrough, waiting for things to click.” In the meantime, he makes art out of found objects. And he takes care of Billy and Sal at home while Billy’s mama teaches English at the high school. Billy’s mama is loving and kind. She likes chocolate and rainy days and coffee and quiet. Billy writes a poem about his mom for a school assignment.

Some people at Goodreads and Amazon complained that this book was boring. But I thought it was lovely, with just the right amount of action and second grade angst. If your children haven’t had an overdose of video games and TV and other technology at the ripe young age of seven or eight, The Year of Billy Miller may suit them just fine.

QOTD: What teacher have you had who encouraged you and made your mind send off sparks?

Almost Super by Marion Jensen

May20

“It’s not your power that makes you super. It’s what you do with that power.”

All of the Baileys receive their very own superpower on February 29th at 4:23 in the afternoon in the first leap year after their twelfth birthday. So now it’s time for Rafter Bailey, age thirteen, and his brother, Benny, age twelve to get their powers. It should be the best day of their young lives, but superpowers are unpredictable and Rafter and Benny are in for a big surprise.

This humorous look at a family of superheroes has great dialog, and is kid-friendly and funny, without descending to the stupid and crude boy-humor that some authors attempt (at least not much, just a little bit of burping and barfing). It made me laugh, and it had a good superhero moral: “Iron resolve. Ferocious courage. And a healthy dose of insanity. That’s what makes a superhero. Not some amazing power.”

Rafter and Benny act like kids, but they’re kids who are out to save the world. They mess up, but their hearts are in the right place. And as kids are apt to do, they sometimes see things more clearly than the grown-ups do. When some doubt arises as to whether the Baileys’ arch-rivals, the Johnsons, are really super-villains, Rafter and Benny decide to find out the truth once and for all.

As I wrote in my review of another middle grade superhero novel (Sidekicked by John David Anderson), superheroes, from Gilgamesh and Enkidu to Samson and Gideon to Hercules to Beowulf to Superman and The Incredible Hulk—–we weak mortals have always been fascinated with the adventures and exploits of men (sometimes women) with incredible talents, beyond human strength, and extraordinary intelligence. Superheroes are the stuff of legend and comic book—and nowadays middle grade speculative fiction. The superhero novel is in style, and as far as I’m concerned, Almost Super is one “super” entry in the genre.

Wanderville by Wendy McClure

May19

Inspired by The Boxcar Children books, Wanderville is a story of unwanted children making a place for themselves in spite of uncaring and inattentive adults. The believability factor in this story for younger middle grade readers is low, but it is a good adventure.

A group of orphans are sent west to Kansas on the Orphan Train. They escape before they are sent to a sugar beet farm to work as practical slaves, and they create their own (partly imaginary) town of Wanderville, a town that is “open to any child in need of freedom. No matter who they are.” It’s historical fiction with some near-fantasy elements. All of the events in the book could happen, but some of them are highly unlikely.

The story is very anti-adult, but it is the adults who unwittingly provide the food that the children “liberate” and who clumsily participate in the successful rescue effort toward the end of the book. Perhaps the author was taking a polite jab at the oft-repeated convention in children’s book that has children taking care of themselves without any adult intervention or help. Or maybe she was trying to “empower” children to take control of their own destinies. Whatever the author’s intentions, the adults in the story range from incompetent to slow-witted to downright cruel, with not a helpful adult in sight. Maybe that aspect will improve over the course of the series.

For fans of The Boxcar Children series, Joan Lowery Nixon’s Orphan Train Adventures, or even the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Wanderville might be a welcome follow-up. A series of Wanderville books is in the works. Book 2 is Wanderville: On Track for Treasure, due out in October 2014.

Tesla’s Attic by Neal Shusterman and Eric Elfman

May17

A very promising first book in The Accelerati Trilogy, this science fiction adventure follows the escapades of Nick Slate, the new guy in town, and his friends in Colorado Springs where they find that the legacy of genius and inventor Nikola Tesla, a bunch of weird old electrical and mechanical devices and appliances found in Nick’s attic, is more than a little dangerous. What’s more The Accelerati, whoever they are, are competing with Nick and his friends to gain control of the power of Tesla’s mad inventions.

The tone and style of this adventure were pitch perfect, with a little more adolescent boy/girl stuff than I would have liked, but still the clues were dropped and then picked up and tied together neatly with room left for the sequel(s). I really enjoyed the way these two authors worked together to foreshadow the coming action and warn the reader about what would or could happen while at the same surprising me with a few twists and turns I wasn’t expecting.

Oh, the book begins with a great first line: “Nick was hit by a flying toaster.” Doesn’t that make you curious?

QOTD: Some people think Nikola Tesla was one of the most fascinating geniuses who ever lived. Who fascinates you? What person or persons in history would you like to invite to your dinner party, just to hear what they had to say?

Saturday Review of Books: May 17, 2014

May16

“Let books be your dining table,
And you shall be full of delights
Let them be your mattress
And you shall sleep restful nights.”
~St. Ephraem Syrus

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.

The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton

May16

If there was ever a piece of fiction that should be adopted as a manifesto and banner for the conservative/libertarian movement in American politics, it’s not any of that nonsense by Ayn Rand. (I never could get through either of her most famous tomes although I tried . . once . . each.) Elmer Kelton’s The Time It Never Rained is a Western classic, a conservative classic, and a cracking good story. It should be recommended reading for all little conservatives-in-training.

So, in the 1950’s, about the time I was born, West Texas ranchers and farmers endured a seven year drouth. Seven years with little or no rain. Seven years. Charlie Flagg has lived through drought before, and he’s sure he can make through this one. But seven years is a long time, and no one, of course, knows that the drought will last so long or when or even if it will ever be over. Charlie, cantankerous and set in his ways even before the drought begins, only becomes more so as he faces the loss of his cattle, his sheep, his family and friends, and finally most of his land. Still, Charlie never gives up, never gives in to what he believes is wrong.

And one thing Charlie believes is wrong, at least for himself, is accepting government aid and price supports. As it turns out, the government aid offered to the ranchers to help them feed their animals and survive the drought comes with strings attached, and artificial prices confuse the free market so much that the ranchers can’t make a living even when the rains return. Charlie must change, accepting the idea of raising goats in addition to the sheep that have been his mainstay, but he never compromises his principles.

Charlie Flagg isn’t perfect, and the author shows us his faults as well as his strengths. Charlie and his wife have grown apart, mostly because Charlie is the strong, silent type, not much of a communicator (Charlie’s attitude: He told her he loved her when he married her, and he’d be sure to let her know if anything changed.) Charlie is an old-style patron to his Mexican American workers, and he sometimes patronizes them and treats them with the kind of “separate but equal” attitude that was the trademark of the fifties relationship between Anglos and Latin Americans, as we used to call them. Charlie doesn’t hire illegals, but he respects them for their work ethic and their willingness to cross the border to find work. He wishes the government would just leave everybody alone, including the Mexicans who come to work in the United States, and especially including the ranchers who are just trying to make a living raising cattle and sheep and goats.

That’s the typical attitude of the typical West Texan that I knew growing up. I grew up in San Angelo, Mr. Kelton’s hometown. And most people there, at least thirty years ago, would have told you they just wanted the government, state and federal, to leave them alone. Some older men and women I knew were “yellow dog Democrats” and others were newly-coined Republicans, but all of them shared the desire to be left alone to raise their families and do their work without interference or help from the government.

QOTD: How do you respond to adversity or failure? How do you want to see yourself respond to hard times?

The Windy Hill by Cornelia Meigs

May14
Big Hair and Books

I had intended to get a review written and posted about Cornelia Meigs’ 1922 Newbery Honor book, The Windy Hill, soon. I just read the book last night. However, I forgot about Rosemond’s Way Back Wednesday link-up, and of course, The Windy Hill is way back, almost a century back. So, here goes.

The very first year that the Newbery was awarded, Cornelia Lynde Meigs’ story of two young teens solving a family mystery at their cousin Jasper’s house in the country won a Newbery Honor. Ms. Meigs was a teacher whose first book, The Kingdom of the Winding Road, was published by Macmillan in 1915. Meigs’ books won Newbery Honors again in 1929 for Clearing Weather and in 1933 for Swift Rivers. I read and reviewed Swift Rivers a few years ago, and I still remember quite a bit about that story, something I can’t really say about many of the more recently published children’s books I’ve read. Finally, in 1934 Ms. Meigs’ biography of Louisa May Alcott, Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women won the Newbery Medal. Over the course of her career, Cornelia Meigs wrote over thirty books for children.

On to the book at hand, The Windy Hill tells the story of a family feud, a rather polite New England sort of feud, but a family quarrel nonetheless. The author tells her story from the point of view of fifteen year old Oliver and his sister Janet who have come to visit Cousin Jasper in his country mansion near Windy Hill. Unfortunately, Cousin Jasper is not himself. Something, or someone, is troubling him, and Cousin Jasper is not a very entertaining host. Oliver first decides to run away from the problem and return home on the next train. But on his way to the station, he meets The Beeman, a beekeeper with a penchant for storytelling, and as Oliver thinks and listens to the Beeman’s stories of the history of Windy Hill, he decides to stay and figure out what is wrong and do something to help.

The historical stories, one about an Indian named Nashola, another set during the War of 1812, and a third during the California Gold Rush, illuminate both the past and the present, and the main story comes to a climax when evil is revealed, good is rewarded, and all is made right. It’s probably unsuited for the internet generation, but I enjoyed the slower pace. The Windy Hill served as a good old-fashioned antidote to all the dark, weird, and twisted children’s books I’ve been reading for the past week or so. If my children were still young enough for read-alouds, I’d put it on the read aloud list.

QOTD: What’s your favorite Newbery Award or Newbery Honor book? What Newbery Award book do you think should definitely not have been chosen for the award?

The Riverman by Aaron Starmer

May14

The Riverman, by master storyteller Aaron Starmer, will leave you questioning the responsibilities of friendship, the boundaries of imagination, and the true origin –and ownership– of the stories we tell. ~inside front cover blurb for The Riverman

The book did leave me questioning, but my questions are not so philosophical. My first question is: what in blue blazes is this story about? Alistair Cleary keeps secrets. When his not-so-typical neighbor, Fiona Loomis, tells him her secrets about a land called Aquavania where everything she imagines becomes real, Alistair keeps her secret, too. But he’s not sure whether Fiona is telling the literal truth about Aquavania and about The Riverman who is stealing the souls of the children there, or whether Fiona’s stories are a way for her to tell him about what’s going on in the Real World. Are children being kidnapped or abused or even murdered? Or is Fiona just crazy? Or is Aquavania real?

I never got answers to any of Alistair’s and my questions. Here are some review quotes lifted from Amazon:

“This blend of magical realism and mystery blurs the line between reality and fantasy, setting up a creepy unease that both disturbs and propels the reader forward.” ~BCCB

“In this dark, twisting tale, readers are never sure if Fiona’s story is true or not, and they won’t want to stop reading until they find out.” ~Booklist

“The novel’s strength is in the pervasive aura of unknowing that Starmer creates and sustains.” ~Publisher’s Weekly

The problem I have is that I’m not sure that the ambiguity and creepiness and darkness are strengths. The lack of even semi-definitive answers frustrated me, and the final twist of revelation about who The Riverman really was made no sense at all to me. The violence at the end of the story was also unexpected and unwelcome and rather mystifying. In fact, the ending was not so much ambiguous as it was baffling.

It’s not that I am completely opposed to ambiguous endings. Sometimes I have enjoyed making up my own ending to a novel or deciding for myself how the story continues. But The Riverman is too incomprehensible. I don’t even have a working theory about what was going on with Fiona and Alistair and especially Alistair’s friends, Charlie and Kyle.

Yet another odd book. At least I think I understood Nightingale’s Nest by Nikki Loftin and some of the other oddities I’ve read lately. This one has me stumped. Maybe I skimmed something I should have read more carefully. Maybe the book itself is at fault. If you’ve read this particular book, would you please, please enlighten me?

QOTD: Do you like stories with ambiguous endings? Can you name a novel or story that you have read that ends ambiguously? Did you make up a happy ending or a sad one in your mind?

Nightingale’s Nest by Nikki Loftin

May13

‘Tis the season of odd little children’s books–or else my brain is responding to everything I read lately with the one word assessment, “Odd.”

Take, for instance, The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech, in which a mute boy shows up one day asleep on the front porch of a childless couple named John and Mary, and then the boy just as mysteriously disappears a few months later, after having opened the couple’s home and hearts to needy children. He also paints on the side of the barn and rides a cow.

Or there’s the odd INSPY nominee, Doon by Carey Corp and Laurie Langdon, a young adult novel that tries to be “Christian” or “spiritual” and feminist and hip and happily-ever-after fairy tale all at the same time–in Brigadoon, Scotland. The combination was disjointed and not entirely successful.

Then, there’s Lemony Snicket’s latest series, All the Wrong Questions. But Mr Snicket’s weirdness is not really a recent phenomenon, and it’s kind of fun to get lost in for a season.

Anyway, Nikki Loftin’s new children’s novel, Nightingale’s Nest, is odd, or at least it felt odd to me. It’s sort of magical realism, I guess. Inspired by a Hans Christian Andersen story (according to the blurb)? Well, Mr. Andersen certainly had his moments of eccentricity.

Twelve year old “Little John” Fischer, Jr. has a lot of problems. His little sister died when she fell from a tree, so now Little John hates trees, all trees. Little John’s dad is working for the meanest, richest man in town, Mr. King, and Little John is his assistant. Their is cutting down and trimming pecan trees. And Little John’s mom is only sane on her good days; on her bad days she talks as if Raelynn, the little sister, is still alive. The family is out of money, and when Little John’s dad gets paid, he spends most of his pay of booze.

But if Little John’s problems are huge, they pale in comparison to the issues that Gayle (short for nightingale), the bird girl with the beautiful voice, is facing. Her parents are dead or missing. She’s stuck in an abusive foster home. She believes she can heal people with her songs. And Mr. King wants to take her voice away from her. When Little John and Gayle become friends and when Little John makes promises to protect and support her, promises he knows he can’t keep, the stage is set for disaster and tragedy.

I don’t know what else to say about this one, except that it is really odd, maybe even intriguing. There’s a situation in the book that is analogous to secret sexual abuse, but it’s not that–at least I don’t think it is. It’s never really spelled out, and it was uncomfortable. I was never quite sure whether Mr. King was a sexual predator, or just a maniacal opera fan. At any rate the ambiguity allows the reader to read into the story what he wills, and I’m not sure what kids will read into it–or not. Nor do I know whether that’s good or not, but it is definitely . . . odd.

QOTD: What is the oddest, most ambiguous and peculiar, story or novel you’ve ever read? Think Stephen King, Edgar Allan Poe, the afore-mentioned Lemony Snicket.