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The Gaither Sisters Series

Posted on February 23, 2016 by Katy K.

My friends have been raving about this series since the first book came out, but I waited until the whole series was out to dive in.

One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. Amistad/HarperCollins, 2010.
It’s 1968, and 10-year-old Delphine is in charge of flying her two younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, to California for the summer, to meet their mother, Cecile, who left shortly after Fern was born. Delphine is under strict instructions from Big Ma, who’s helped their father take care of the girls since then, not to let them be a “grand Negro spectacle”. She’s disappointed but not surprised when Cecile tells them to call her Nzila, and rather than taking them to Disneyland, sends the off to the Black Panthers for breakfast and summer camp so that she can continue her work of printmaking and poetry writing undisturbed. There they learn about the Black Rights movement for the first time, so different from Big Ma’s trying to fit in and be especially respectful to whites. The tension ratchets up as the Black Panthers get in trouble with the police and people start to go missing.

This won four awards when it came out, including Scott O’Dell, Coretta Scott King, Newbery Honor, and National Book Award Finalist. I am not surprised. You’d think, when dealing with heavy topics like civil rights and a neglectful mother, that this would be a depressing book, one that adults would want kids to read but that kids might not necessarily enjoy. But Williams-Garcia handles it with such a deft touch that this is also a completely relatable book of funny sibling squabbles, first crushes, and out-of-control go-kart rides. There are Symbols, Layers and Character Growth to this book, folks, found in things like Fern’s beloved baby doll and Delphine’s changing attitudes towards the neighborhood Safeway. I’d recommend this to fans of realistic and funny family fiction as well as to fans of historical fiction, and can’t wait to read it with my daughter.

P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia. Amistad/HarperCollins, 2013.
Back in Brooklyn, Delphine, Vonetta and Fern are trying to fit back into their old life – so hard when Big Ma hasn’t changed and they have. Their beloved Uncle Darnell is back from Vietnam, but instead of being the cheerful man they remember, always ready to play with them, he’s sullen and withdrawn and wants to sleep all the time. Even more momentous: their father has started whistling, and while it’s great that he’s happy again, all the girls are very suspicious about the cause. In the outside world, the Jackson Five are making waves, and the girls are determined to earn enough money to go see them when they come to New York. Delphine keeps writing Cecile back in California, even though the advice she gets back is hard to understand: “Be eleven.”

Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia. Amistad/HarperCollins, 2015.
First it was the plane, and now the girls are taking the Greyhound to visit family in rural Alabama. Delphine is almost 12 now, but even little Fern remembers their last visit to the tiny cabin where their grandmother Big Ma lives with her mother, Ma Charles. Just across the creek is their cousin JimmyTrotter and his great-grandmother, Ma Charles’ half-sister Miss Trotter. There’s Vonetta’s shock and being expected to drink milk that doesn’t come from a carton and and Fern’s at discovering where meat comes from. Delphine, meanwhile, is feeling oppressed by the mere idea of starching and ironing Ma Charles’s sheets in the Alabama heat. This book, besides bringing all the relationship problems in the immediate family to a head, delves deep into a tangled family history. It’s full of just as much heart and humor as the previous books.

I’ll now join my friends in loving this series, which would pair well with Christopher Paul Curtis’s The Watsons Go to Birmingham – 1963. Now I’m eagerly waiting for my daughter to be old enough to read it together.

Posted in books | Tagged African-American, award winners, diversity, historical fiction, multiculturalism, youth fiction | 7 Comments

A Pocket Full of Murder

Posted on February 20, 2016 by Katy K.

A Pocket Full of Murder by R.J. Anderson. Simon and Schuster, 2015.
Isaveth is trying her hand at baking spells from her mother’s old recipe. If she gets them right, they’ll be better quality than the factory-made spells, and she can earn some much-needed extra money for her family. Her father’s been having a hard time finding work recently, due to prejudice against their minory Moshite beliefs. But as she’s out selling them, she gets knocked over by a boy (with an eyepatch!) on a bicycle. Life goes from bad to worse as her father is wrongfully accused of murder and jailed. Her older sister wants to just try to keep things going and trust to justice, but Isaveth, though younger, is inspired by her radio drama heroine, Lady Justice Auradia. She and Quiz, the friendly if mysterious bicycle boy, set out to prove her father’s innocence. Isaveth’s initial optimism hits the ground hard as she uncovers deeper and deeper levels of corruption. Has she just opened up herself and the rest of her family to danger instead of helping?

I came a little late to the party on this book, which Brandy at Random Musings of a Bibliophile and Maureen at By Singing Light both adored. It was worth the wait, though! This is a detailed not-quite Earth world in what felt like Eastern Europe in the early 20^th century. The invented religions echo Judaism and Christianity while allowing freedom to talk about prejudices from outside that framework, a touch which I appreciated. I really enjoyed the magic system, which divided the Common Magic, only grudgingly admitted to be real magic by the elite, from the Sagery that the wealthy can use. I’ve rarely if ever read about magic being part of industrial revolutions, so the talk of magic that can be reproduced in factories, if not quite as well, was fascinating. But really, all of that is background for the characters and plot, and both of these aspects are quite strong. Isaveth and Quiz both strike just the right balance of brave and vulnerable, so enthusiastically setting off to do the right thing. The plot felt like Isaveth riding downhill with Quiz on his bicycle: starting off at a moderate pace, but picking up speed, with lots of bumps and the characters clinging ever more tightly together to stay on the bicycle. This is an exciting story with characters that pull at the heart-strings and enough depth to leave readers with something to think about afterwards. This was my first time reading R. J. Anderson, and it certainly won’t be my last.

Posted in books | Tagged youth fantasy | 2 Comments

Cybils Teen Spec Fic Finalists

Posted on February 17, 2016 by Katy K.

The Teen Speculative Fiction was the category of the Cybils where I’d already read half of the finalists (at least, half of the ones that I wanted to read). Naturally that makes it the one category I was trying to finish reading before the winner was announced but failed. But since they’re still good books, I’m sharing them anyway.

Here are the three finalists I’d already read:

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

Shadowshaper by Daniel Jose Older

Mortal Heart by Robin LaFevers

I loved all of them. I also went around annoying all of my colleagues with my excitement over my nominee making the finalist list.

I elected not to read Slasher Girls and Monster Boys, because horror isn’t really why I read spec fic, and I do need my sleep. So, on to the ones I did read:

Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet. Clarion Books, 2015.
16-year-old Hallie and her ten-years-older sister Marthe are struggling to keep their family farm running in the wake of the war which all the local men went off to fight. Marthe is pregnant, and her husband hasn’t come back. They’re also struggling with the heavy weight of inherited family abuse and dysfunction – Hallie is desperately afraid that this experience will be echoed in her generation. But when a broken soldier shows up at the door looking for work, she can’t turn him away, even as his coming brings a new flood of Twisted Things – deformed animals that catch burn everything they touch. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, this takes a deep look at inherited arguments, reconciliation, and a broken war. It’s tough and beautiful with the possibility of redemption.

The Walls around Us by Nova Ren Suma. Algonquin, 2015.
On the inside: Amber has been in a girls’ penitentiary for years. The night the power goes out and the guards are all gone, everyone goes crazy – and Amber sees echoes of the past and the future, knowing that a girl named Ori will be joining them soon or maybe already has. On the outside, Violet is an 18-year-old ballerina preparing to go to Julliard, remembering her best friend Orianna. With deliberate echoes of Chicago, this is a meditation the innocence under the guilt as well as the guilt under the innocence. There are also very tight relationships both in and out of the prison – this made Maureen at By Singing Light’s list of favorite book friendships. It’s told in poetic prose that deliberately left me not quite sure what happened at the very end. Definitely not something I would have picked up on my own, and then I couldn’t put it down and immediately passed it on to someone else when I was done. This was the final winner in the category!

The Six by Mark Alpert. Sourcebooks Fire, 2015.
Adam knows he has only a few more months before his muscular dystrophy will kill him. His father is a brilliant scientist who’s determined to save his son’s mind, even if Adam’s body is doomed. Adam and a bunch of other terminally ill teens join the military and become robot weapons, just after a super-intelligent AI has gone rogue and escaped, threatening the existence of humans everywhere. This could actually happen – it’s quite close future sci-fi, and I’ve just been reading articles about scientists’ fear of rogue AIs. I ended up not finishing it myself, as military sci-fi is something I often struggle to find interesting. I’d still absolutely recommend this to teens who are interested in military thriller sci-fi and not yet jaded by the whole rogue AI idea. I’ll stick with Sarah Zettel’s Fool’s War (published for adults) for a meditation on artificial intelligence and humanity.

Posted in books | Tagged Cybils, teen fantasy, teen science fiction | 2 Comments

Cybils announced!

Posted on February 16, 2016 by Katy K.

Just in case you were busy yesterday and missed it, the Cybils Award winners have been announced!

The winner of the Middle Grade Speculative Fiction is The Fog Diver by Joel Ross! Hooray! And it’s only a couple of months until the sequel comes out, so it’s a perfect time to read it if you haven’t already.

I’ll check in later with reviews of the remaining Cybils finalists I read.

Posted in books | Tagged Cybils | Leave a comment

Cybils Countdown – Easy Reader Finalists

Posted on February 13, 2016 by Katy K.

The winners of the Cybils awards will be announced in just a couple more days! My daughter is in first grade right now, and though she prefers to check out early chapter books for herself, easy readers are really her level right now. And as anyone who’s ever tried to find a good easy reader knows, it’s really tough to write a book simple enough for beginning readers to manage while still being fun to read. Here’s what we read from the Cybils Easy Reader finalist list:

A Pig, a Fox and a Box by Jonathan Feske. Penguin Young Readers, 2015.
A sly fox would really, really like to eat that cute and chubby pig. He keeps thinking of ways to do so, usually involving hiding in the large box nearby. Spoiler alert: in chapter after short chapter, he fails. The amusing part is how, and it’s more amusing the farther along the story goes. Funny enough for the whole K/1 class, for my 6-year-old to read to us more than one, and for the 11-year-old to enjoy reading to his sister. Oh, and it won a Theodore Geisel Honor, too.

Don’t Throw It to Mo! by David A. Adler. Penguin USA, 2015.
Tiny Mo loves football, but everyone is surprised when he actually makes the football team. Will he be able to do anything useful in a real game? The language is simple and the story is uplifting and funny – a perfect combination. I think the K/1 class enjoyed it, but unfortunately, my daughter is not the least bit attracted to football and wouldn’t pick it up. This was also the winner of the Theodore Geisel Award.

Ling and Ting: Twice as Silly by Grace Lin. Little, Brown 2015.
This one is a little more advanced than the first couple. It’s divided into short chapters, though I was still able to read the whole book aloud in 20-30 minutes. I read this one to my daughter while we were waiting at the library during a car repair that went longer than either of the kids wanted to wait, which I’m sure accounts for my daughter’s tepid reaction to the book. Ling and Ting are very silly, Lin’s artwork is delightful, and this story is perfect for kids who will enjoy books like Clementine in a couple of years.

Picture Perfect (Sofia Martinez) by Jacqueline Jules. Picture Window Books, 2015.
This is the book I bought for my daughter when I was at Kidlitcon in October. It’s nudging up just another step towards being a full-fledged early chapter book. Sofia is a vivacious girl growing up in a loving extended Latino family. Her adventures – losing a small pet, trying to distinguish herself from her older sisters – are very relatable. Spanish phrases sprinkled throughout were (I thought) easily understandable in context, and are defined in the back as well just in case. The pictures are bright and happy with a retro-modern feel. This is one we both enjoyed, and one I’ll add to my list of good birthday party gift books.

Have you read any of these? What were your favorites?

Posted in books | Tagged African-American, Armchair Cybils, Asian-American, Cybils, diversity, easy readers, Latino/a, multiculturalism | 4 Comments

Cybils Countdown – Picture Book Finalists

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Katy K.

So as I said, somehow I’ve not been able to get to all the Cybils finalists I’ve wanted to. There were seven picture book finalists, and I have read only four of them. At least I very much enjoyed the ones I read!

Hoot Owl: Master of Disguise by Sean Taylor and Jean Jullien. Candlewick, 2014.
Besides being a Cybils finalist, Stephanie at Views from the Tesseract listed this as one of her top ten fantastical picture books from 2015. (It was also nominated by my fellow MG Spec Fic round 1 panelist Anamaria of Books Together – thanks, Anamaria!) In the story, an adorable and hungry young hoot owl searches for a meal. The art has mostly dark colors with black outlines that feel like they were painted with a thick brush, though they could be acrylic. The poor hoot owl is not as successful at hunting small critters as it would like, but the drama and the vocabulary are exquisite: “The night has a thousand eyes, and two of them are mine. I swoop through the bleak blackness like a wolf in the air.” “I am a master of disguise. I devise a costume.” We had so much fun with this, and ended up sharing it with my daughter’s class as well.

Mango, Abuela and Me by Meg Medina. Illustrated by Angela Dominguez. Candlewick, 2015.
I honestly can’t remember if I checked this one out because it was on the Cybils shortlist or because of the double Pura Belpré Honor medal – but this book is touching and funny and was a hit everywhere I took it. Abuela has come to live with Mia’s family. Abuela doesn’t speak English, and Mia doesn’t speak Spanish. In poetic language, Mia describes how she and Abuela find words to use together, with the help of a new parrot. “Cozy” might not be a word typically used to describe picture book art, but that’s how this felt to me, so that I could feel the love between Mia and Abuela even when their words couldn’t express it. My daughter asked for it over and over again, and I read it to her Girl Scout Daisy troop, who all loved it, especially and most happily for me, our girl who speaks Spanish at home herself.

Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña. Pictures by Christian Robinson. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2015.
I was thrilled when this book won the Newbury, and now I’m very curious to see what the Round 2 Cybils committee thinks! Young C.J. wants to go home and play after church, like all his friends, but his grandmother takes him on the bus with her to go serve soup at the soup kitchen. The journey is just as important as the destination here – C.J.’s grandmother finds beauty and community everywhere she goes. My daughter and I enjoyed this lots, though sadly, it wasn’t a hit when I read it to her class.

Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson. Illustrated by Sydney Smith. Groundwood, 2015.
This is one I brought home over the summer, I think, as I was hearing so much good about it. A young child and father walk through city streets. The child (referred to in most reviews as a girl, though there’s really no indication one way or the other) picks flowers from sidewalks and leaves them again in places that need them – for a homeless person, or a dead bird, for example. The art is mostly shades of gray, with spots of color for the child’s red coat and the bright yellow flowers. It is really beautiful, but unfortunately, not one that my daughter liked at all. Hopefully it will be more appealing to other kids, and even maybe to her in a different mood!

Here are the books I still need to read:

Blizzard by John Rocco.

Bug in a Vacuum by Melanie Watt.

In a Village by the Sea by Muon Van.

Have you read any of these? What are your thoughts?

Posted in books | Tagged African-American, Armchair Cybils, Cybils, diversity, Latino/a, multiculturalism, picture books | 7 Comments

Cybils Countdown – MG Graphic Novel Finalists

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Katy K.

Here’s me trying hard to have read all the Cybils finalists before the winners are announced February 14. I’m failing in most every category – somehow life never just lets me sit down and read the way I’d like it to. I came closest in this category, with six out of seven books read. (I’m amused now to see how many of the finalists were nominated by fellow mg spec fic panelists from this year and last.) Continue reading →

Posted in books | Tagged Armchair Cybils, Cybils, youth graphic novels | 9 Comments

Reading the World Challenge Update

Posted on February 7, 2016 by Katy K.

When I did my end-of-year stats earlier this year, I was really depressed by how few of the books I’d read were diverse, when I felt like I’d been trying to focus on reading that more accurately reflects the world around me. So I decided to set a goal: 60 diverse books this year, including both authors and characters, but trying to focus more on authors at least for ethnicity. (I’m finding myself hesitant to probe into author’s sexual preferences, so I’m going to stick with character diversity there, unless authors are really upfront about it themselves.) That would be a touch under a quarter of my reading, just because 63 seemed like an odd goal.

I further decided that to increase my accountability to myself, I’d post about it monthly. That way if I find I’m off-track, I can try to correct it.

I logged 21 books in January, (oops… I only logged one of the dozen or so books that I read for my Diversity for Daisies project.) If I include authors from countries other than the US and the UK in my diversity count, I’m close to a third of my reading being diverse. And if I look only at ethnic diversity but include character as well as author diversity, I’m very close to 50% of my reading. Those are number I’m much happier living with than the 13% diverse authors I had last year. I will keep trying!

Author Ethnicity/Nationality

Latino/a – 2
Black – 1
Other – 1
LGBT – 1
Non-American or British (French, mixed) – 2

Total Diverse Authors: 7

honorgirl Mango, Abuela and Me

Character Representation

Black – 3
Latino/a – 3
South Asian – 1
LGBT – 2
Other diversity, including dyslexia, low income, non-Christian religions – 5

kissinginamerica

Here are the books with ethnically diverse characters by white authors:

robosauce

Total ethnically diverse reading combined: 10

Total other diversity, including orientation, religion, non-neurotypical, low income: 7

As always, if you have any good diverse fiction to recommend, especially fantasy, please let me know!

Posted in books | Tagged diversity, multiculturalism, Reading the World | 5 Comments

Julia Child: an Extraordinary Life in Words and Pictures

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Katy K.

Julia Child: an Extraordinary Life in Words and Pictures by Erin Hagar and Joanna Gorham. Duo Press, 2015.

It’s true: I was convinced to read this book by chatting with the author at Kidlitcon in October, after which I asked the library to purchase the book so I could read it. I didn’t really know much about Julia Child – I haven’t read her book, though we have it on our cookbook shelf as a classic, nor have I seen her cooking show. I do have a vague memory of seeing her kitchen at a long-ago visit to the Smithsonian. But there is this: we are a family that cooks, and I’ve always had a deep if uneducated respect for Julia Child for re-popularizing real cooking in America as well as for having the guts to learn her cooking in a male-dominated world.

This is a short and very kid-friendly biography, perfect for both school reports and biography lovers. It’s done in a style that the author told me was inspired by Brian Selznick, prose chapters interspersed with full-page wordless illustrations that look rather like movie stills, which depict significant moments. (They look to me like colored pencil and watercolor, in a highly realistic style, though I could be entirely wrong about the medium.) After showing the moment in France when she ate the meal that changed her life, it goes back to her childhood, her awkwardness and height, explaining the expected role of women at the time and Julia’s difficulty fitting in with it. It talks about her spy work in WWII – something of which I was entirely unaware – before moving on to the part, much later in her life, where she falls in love with French cooking and starts on the journey that made her famous. I found the book very engaging, great at emphasizing Julia’s skills and her contagious enthusiasm. The final chapter covers her legacy and the lasting impression she made on food culture.

I’ve long recommended children’s nonfiction to adults looking for concise treatment of a topic as well as to kids. For reference, I looked up “Julia Child biography” on Amazon. There are several, the most popular of which is currently the 2012 book Dearie by Bob Spitz. It clocks in at 576 pages in paperback. This sounds great for the serious Child fan, or the dedicated biography reader (there are many of these). For me, preferring my steady diet of fiction as I do, I found this book to have just the right balance of depth and length – enough to leave me with more knowledge and a deepened affection for Julia. I’d definitely recommend it both to kids and to adults looking for a more casual but still engaging look at this cooking pioneer. I guess I’m not the only who felt this way, because this book developed hold list and hasn’t been checked in at the library since I brought it back.

Try pairing this with some of Jim Ottaviani’s more traditionally comic-book style biographies of ground-breaking women: Primates and Dignifying Science.

Posted in books | Tagged biography, cooking, youth nonfiction | Leave a comment

Moon Rising, Valiant, and The Toymaker’s Apprentice

Posted on February 3, 2016 by Katy K.

There are only a few more weeks until the Cybils winners will be announced! I’ve been reading finalists in other categories trying to prepare, and I’ll try to get reviews of those up soon. In the meantime, here are more of the middle grade speculative fiction nominees that I enjoyed, including the last of the finalists.

Moon Rising. Wings of Fire Book 6 by Tui Sutherland. Scholastic, 2015.
This sixth book in the series starts a new sub-series, so that even though I haven’t read any of the previous books, I was still able to understand what was going on. Now that the war between the different types of dragons is over, work is underway to bring them together. The first step is to have young dragons go to school together, sharing rooms with dragons of other tribes. It’s really hard to break distrust, though, when dragons are asked to make friends with the very dragons they fought against and who killed their relatives. Our main point of view character here is Moonwatcher, a member of the hated Darkwing tribe, who was raised hidden in the rainforest and isn’t used to being around anyone at all. She has the gifts of the Darkwings that no one believes in anymore – the ability to read thoughts and have visions. This plays out as serious sensory issues – she’s immediately overwhelmed by all the dragons around her and their thoughts. Plus, will she ever make friends with her wingmates whether or not she tells them the truth about herself? Meanwhile, she’s overheard conversations about someone planning to attack the school, and the voice of an ancient, probably evil, but encouraging dragon that keeps talking in her head. I was quickly caught up in Moon’s story, and am now considering going back to the other books.

Valiant by Sarah McGuire. Egmont, 2015.
Hooray, a fairy tale retelling! The Brave Little Tailor is retold in a setting that feels like Eastern Europe in the 18^th century. Saville and her borderline abusive father are journeying to the capital city, Reggen, where her father is convinced that the innovative techniques that got him banned from the local guilds will make him the king’s favorite tailor. Saville isn’t happy about any of it, but when her father has a stroke and is unable to care for himself, it’s up to her to dress as his apprentice and try to earn the king’s custom herself. She also takes in a homeless boy, Will, and trains him to help a little, taking satisfaction from knowing that her father would disapprove. Trying to survive pretending to be a boy and taking care of two people ought to have been enough, but Saville also finds herself caught up in dangerous politics when the city is attacked by the giants no one really believed were real. The king is weak, his advisors divided, and his sister being prepped for use as a mindless pawn. There’s a touch of romance, and a lot of looking at the importance of diplomacy and real listening. There’s quite a bit of violence, and between that and discussion of marriage, I’d say this is better for the older middle grade to teen crowd. Lovers of fairy tale retellings will find this right up their alley.

The Toymaker’s Apprentice by Sherri L. Smith. Putnam, 2015.
Stefan is not dealing well with the death of his mother. He’s about to leave his father, a master toymaker, and head out to be a journeyman on his own – when his uncle Christian Drosselmeyer appears, with the Moorish Royal Astronomer of Boldavia. Christian is a master clockmaker, and offers to take Stefan on and travel with him, catering to Stefan’s wish to make brand-new toys that use clockwork. But Christian isn’t his own man, either – he’s bound to find the magical Krakatook nut, which will free the Princess Purlipat, who was turned to wood by the Mouse Queen’s curse some years before. His quest will now be Stefan’s as well. Meanwhile, we also hear part of the story told from the point of the view of the travelling rat tutor who is hired to train the monstrous seven-headed son of the queen mouse – each head named after a fearsome human leader, each with its own personality. Though the tutor doesn’t really believe this can end well, he still does his best to train the prince to take over the world of men. (Take Charlotte’s warning to heart: do not read this if you’re squeamish about rodents.) This is a story inspired by the Nutcracker – very faithfully, from what I remember from my childhood reading of the original novel – but without any touch of dancing snowflakes and candies. I quite enjoyed it, and kids interested in history, machinery, and epic inter-species battles should enjoy it as well.

Posted in books | Tagged dragons, fairy tales, youth fantasy | 1 Comment