The Islands of Chaldea

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Katy K.

This is the last book by a much-beloved author, finished posthumously by her sister. It includes a very touching note by that sister on how she did that – though it doesn’t say where Diana stopped and Ursula began!

Islands of ChaldeaThe Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones. Completed by Ursula Jones. HarperCollins Children’s, 2014.
In a small group of islands of Celtic-like culture, 12-year-old Aileen has just failed her Wise Woman initiation by not seeing a vision. She is devastated, but expects to just try again next full moon. Instead, she and her Aunt Beck are sent on a mission to bring down the magical barrier that separates the island of Logra from the other islands and rescue High King’s son, kidnapped with an entire hunting party many years earlier. Their party starts off including the King of Skarr’s second son, Prince Ivar, whom Aileen has decided to marry despite his arrogance, stupidity and complete lack of interest in her, and a Logran boy, Ogo, who was stranded when the barrier went up and has been a servant ever since. They will have to travel to the other islands to gather a representative from each, and it’s quickly apparent that somebody doesn’t want their mission to succeed, as the money bag they are given turns out to be full of stones.

So there’s a quest, self-discovery and a magical cat. There is magic and betrayal and humor and a twist. Was it as great as DWJ’s classic Chrestomanci books, or Howl’s Moving Castle? I’d have to say probably not, but I still very much appreciated the opportunity for one more book from her, and I found it a nice satisfying story in its own right. It felt not too stressful to me, which probably means that people who like their books filled with Action would not be as pleased as I was. Fans of DWJ and of classic unappreciated girl comes into her own fantasy should enjoy it as well.

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The 26-Story Treehouse

Posted on November 28, 2014 by Katy K.

This is one that I read for the Cybils, and which my son sped through after I was done.

The 26-Story TreehouseThe 26-Story Treehouse by Andy Griffiths. Illustrated by Terry Denton. Feiwel and Friends, 2014.
The 26-Story Treehouse is a prose/graphic hybrid that falls in between Captain Underpants and the Wimpy Kids books on a difficulty scale. Our heroes/authors, Andy and Terry, have built themselves a giant treehouse, which has doubled in size since the first book. I haven’t read the first book, but the story is silly enough that I didn’t feel the need. The story follows a loose plan of explaining how the two boys and their friend Jill met each other. In between, there are adventures in the various rooms of the treehouse and battling against the fierce pirate with the dirty head. As a taste of the action, in one of the more memorable scenes of the book, one of the boys has really disgustingly dirty underwear. He comes up with the brilliant idea of putting the underwear and a fake guy in the shark tank, so that the sharks will get excited and churn the water enough to wash the underwear. Unfortunately, the sharks eat the underwear and get sick. The boys have to call in Jill, with her secret knowledge of where sharks keep their stomach zippers, to save the day.

As you can tell, this isn’t deep, high-quality literature. The artwork is simple line drawings designed to look like a child drew it. It is, however, excellent humor of the sort that kids like. The many illustrations make it easy to get through – it was very empowering for my dyslexic son to be able to read a 345 page book so quickly, when he’s used to taking weeks to finish a book. And so even though dirty underwear and friends making fun of each other is not actually my favorite topic in books, I wholeheartedly recommend these books especially to kids who need a break from more serious reading or who are normally intimidated by longer books. It’s just as important to have books for light recreational reading as it is to have books that will inspire deep thoughts – and this is a good choice for kids in the mood for high levels of silly.

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Ambassador

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Katy K.

I first heard about this book when Alexander wrote a guest post on John Scalzi’s blog. I was intrigued, and having enjoyed his Goblin Secrets in the past, I was eager for more.

AmbassadorAmbassador by William Alexander. Simon and Schuster, 2014.
Gabe Fuentes has discovered more about aliens in a single day than he had in his whole previous life. First, he learns that there is alien life in the universe – and the Envoy to Earth has decided that Gabe would be the ideal ambassador from Earth. That’s because Gabe is a second-generation Mexican-American, used to navigating between cultures, as well as being 11 years old and a middle child – old enough to have some sense, still young enough to be able to absorb very new ideas, and used to mediating the conflicts in his family.

Secondly, he learns that his parents are in the United States illegally, as is his teenage sister Lupe. It’s suddenly urgent news, because his father is now being jailed until he’s deported, and his mother and sister need to hide to stay safe. He and his twin toddler siblings, Noemi and Andrés, are the only US citizens, which suddenly puts him in charge of the safety of his whole family. As a parting gift, his father leaves Lupe and Gabe gifts: a homemade vajra hammer of wisdom and truth and the ancestral cane sword of Toledo steel.

Things are heating up on all fronts, as it looks like aliens are about to invade Earth. Gabe will have to meet the other ambassadors and learn how things work quickly. Unfortunately, he can’t seem to help drawing the attention of Omegan, the Outlast ambassador that everyone else is afraid of. That alone might make it difficult for him to build relationships with any of the other ambassadors.

There was so much great stuff in this book, as well as some not so good. I loved the idea of child ambassadors meeting on a giant playground, and playing with the idea of different kinds of aliens. I loved how Alexander fleshed out all of Gabe’s family, including details like how his parents met in India and how his father still sings Bollywood music while cooking. The details of the aliens, too, while clearly imagined, also fit with what we know of modern physics. A lot of fast, tense action with imploding houses, strong characters and world-building is all fit into a relatively short book – only 222 pages. This is both strength and the book’s biggest weakness. On the plus side, the short length makes it more approachable to reluctant readers, like my own son – and this book has so much in the way of both appeal and thoughts to keep chewing on that I’d really like him to read it. On the other hand, fitting all of that into such a short package means that something had to be left out, and in this case, what’s left out is any kind of resolution, even temporary, to the problem with Gabe’s own family, and only partial resolution to the alien problem. Clearly it’s the first book in a series, but the ending was awfully abrupt even so. My mother and I both loved it anyway – but if you or the kid in your life are apt to be upset by cliffhanger endings, you may want to hold off on reading this otherwise excellent book until the series is complete.

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The Luck Uglies

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Katy K.

This is a fun, traditional fantasy with invading monsters, an evil earl, and mysterious cloaked people.

The Luck UgliesThe Luck Uglies by Paul Durham. Harper Collins Children’s, 2014.
11-year-old Rye O’Chanter’s life has been pretty much the same for as long as she can remember. She and her little sister Lottie live with their mother and an extra-fuzzy black cat in a small cottage on the edge of the village where her mother runs a charm and jewelry shop. They have a number of rules for keeping safe, all in rhyme – but mostly Rye has memorized them without knowing why they’re necessary. She and her best friends Quinn and Folly spend time tracking down forbidden books and racing around the town. The biggest problem is the constable trying to claim extra taxes from her mother, as he refuses to believe that she’s really married and thinks that a single mother makes a good target.

Then, of course, Strange Things start to happen. Rye, sneaking out after she should be in bed, catches her mother in the inn, wearing a very attractive dress and sitting with a mysterious tattooed stranger. There are rumors of the supposedly extinct Bog Noblins – monsters from the bog on the outskirts of town – coming back. The oppressive Earl’s reaction to this is to try squash the rumors and also any support in the village for the secret society which it believes defeated the Bog Noblins the last time they were around and he claims are simple thieves – the Luck Uglies. Things go from bad to worse, until it’s up to Rye, her friends, and the Mysterious Stranger to save the day.

This is a fun book with so many adventures that the 400 pages didn’t seem at all long. Rye is a likeable character, prone to making mistakes and muddling through anyway. I found myself wishing that things didn’t always work out so well for her when she was going directly against her instructions, or that she had had more ideas on her own and was doing less following instructions in the first place. Perhaps this is what kept me from loving the book, even though I quite enjoyed it. Otherwise, this is a well-rounded tale, with colorful characters in a nicely detailed environment. If you have a fantasy-loving kid that you’re having trouble keeping in books, this is a fine one to try.

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Saving Lucas Biggs

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Katy K.

Saving Lucas BiggsSaving Lucas Biggs by Marisa de los Santos and David Teague. Harper Collins Children’s, 2014.
Margaret’s father has just been falsely and deliberately convicted of murder. Victory, Arizona is a mining town, and anyone who protests the way the town or the company is run can expect heavy retaliation. On his way to prison, he reminds Margaret of the family vow – time marches on and on in one direction. But Margaret is desperate to save her father, and when her best friend Charlie’s grandfather Josh turns out to know about her family’s secret ability to travel through time, she decides to break all the rules. She will travel back in time to 1938, to a time when Josh was a boy and the corrupt judge who sentenced Margaret’s father was his best friend. Young Josh, back in the 1930s, tells the story of his family’s move to Victory and the peaceful labor protests, violently subdued, that arise when workers protest being fired and left unable to pay for medical care when they are injured in the mines. Margaret and Josh hope to unravel the events that twisted his best friend unrecognizably – but it won’t be easy. History resists changes, so that their best-laid plans keep back-firing. And Margaret can only stay for one or two days before history’s objecting to her presence makes her so sick she can’t function…

This is a nicely thought-out time travel book, thinking of things like the difficulty of Margaret finding clothes in the present day that will pass as normal in 1938. The very tight limits on what time travel could accomplish meant that Margaret and Josh had to be very creative in both the past and the present. Though there are tragic consequences when the mining company fires on the tent city where the striking workers and their families are living in 1938, this is mostly a quiet, thoughtful book. It’s a rare and hopeful fantasy take on worker’s rights and the importance of nonviolent activism. The ending might be disappointing for kids looking for lots of whiz-bang magical action, but it is (on the other hand) satisfying to know that non-magical effort can be just as important. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and would recommend it especially to those interested in historical fiction and social justice.

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Boys of Blur

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Katy K.

Here is an intoxicating blend of Beowulf with the Everglades and football, three things that sounded incongruous but came together beautifully.

Boys of BlurBoys of Blur by N.D. Wilson. Random House, 2014.
Charlie has just moved to swampy Taper, Florida (pop. 6000) because his stepfather, Prater Mack, is taking over as football coach. Football is close to religion here, so that the whole town turns out for the funeral of the old football coach, Mr. Wisdom. The churchyard is so swampy that the church itself is visibly sunk into the soil and the mourners’ feet sink in as they stand for the service. There, Charlie meets Cotton, his stepfather’s nephew, who says he’s Charlie’s cousin, as well as an older football player who goes by Sugar. Cotton introduces Charlie to the traditional sport of rabbit running: trying to catch the rabbits running out of the swamp when the sugarcane is set on fire, without being caught in the flames or tripping over the venomous snakes also running away.

Despite Cotton’s welcome, Taper isn’t a comfortable place for Charlie – his abusive father was also from the same town. People here only remember him as the high school football hero he once was, not the man who left visible scars on both Charlie and his mother. More than anything, Charlie wants to keep her and his new baby sister Molly safe from him. That doesn’t stop him from going back to the churchyard with Cotton after dark. There, things turn strange: an old warrior with a helmet and sword and panthers, digging up the fresh grave. And from the swamp come unearthly howls, the Stanks or Grens that roam in the disheveled bodies of long-lost boys, looking for fresh blood. The lines between the real and the magical start to blur as Charlie and Cotton find themselves drawn into the ancient battle between the warriors and the Stanks.

Younger readers may not recognize the references to Grendel and his mother, but monsters roaming at night in search of boys to devour are just as deliciously frightening now as they were 1200 years ago. This story adds layers of nuance to the classic, as well. There’s a lot of reflection on the meaning of family – Charlie’s (to put it mildly) rocky relationship with his blood father, his more solid relationship with his stepfather, who happens, like Cotton, to be African-American, and more. And while Beowulf has that classic black-and-white view of the world, Boys of Blur has villains who terrify without being Evil for its own sake. The magic is as reality-altering and shifting as smoke and the ground of the burning swamps. Many elements combine to make a book with both excitement and substance. I highly recommend it.

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Waiting on Wednesday: Smek for President

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Katy K.

Waiting on Wednesday
Waiting on Wednesday is a long-running meme run by Jill at Breaking the Spine, which I’m participating in for the first time.

smekforpresidentSmek for President by Adam Rex
Expected publication date February 10, 2015

When my son and I finished reading The True Meaning of Smekday (way back in August), he sighed, “I wish there was a sequel! I would so read it!” At the time, I didn’t know of one – thanks to my friend and colleague Mrs. M. for cluing me in to this. Because now, eight years after the first book came out, there is! More wacky and hopefully insightful fun with Gratuity Tucci and her Boov friends! He literally jumped up and down when I told him, and while I didn’t actually jump myself, I am also very much looking forward to it.

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State of the Book Basket: November

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Katy K.

Halfway through November already – or it was when I started this post, and now it’s even later! The weather forecast here is predicting snow all week – I’m deciding to think about the extra opportunities for curling up with a good book and a mug of tea or hot chocolate, rather than how it really shouldn’t be snowing just yet.

princessinblackMy daughter’s favorite book of the last month was Princess in Black by Shannon and Dean Hale, with illustration by LeUyen Pham. This has an exciting story with short chapters and lots of full-color illustrations, which kept her hooked and worked beautifully to get her out of bed on school mornings. Now we’re reading (by request, no kidding) the Daisy: the Girl’s Guide to Girl Scouting – she is really enjoying the stories of the flower petal friends they use to illustrate the points of the Girl Scout Law. While maybe not great literature, I confess I’m excited about anything that gets her thinking about her behavior beyond what’s fun for her. It’s in rather stark counterpoint to her car listening, which has been a revolving selection of Junie B. Jones books. Junie B. is hilariously amoral in the way of five-year-olds – in fact, very similar to my own five-year-old – so that all of us are laughing at her in the car. Other picture books we’re enjoying right now are Winter is Coming by Tony Johnston (even though winter is here, quite early for us), A Bean, a Stalk and Boy Named Jack by William Joyce, Crabby Crab by Chris Raschka, Flashlight by Lizi Boyd, Sometimes You Barf by Nancy L. Carlson, and Annie and Snowball and the Thankful Friends by Cynthia Rylant.

jinxsmagicMy now ten-year-old son and I are still reading Jinx’s Magic by Sage Blackwood, which we started back in September. It’s slow going, as we can’t read every night, but he really loves it and was excited this week to find a classmate also reading it. We’re listening to The Iron Trial by Holly Black and Cassandra Clare in the car. The big excitement right now is that he’s decided to read The Ruins of Gorlan, the first book of the Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan. This isn’t a book that I loved myself, but it’s a) really popular with all his friends and b) much more advanced than he’s ever committed to reading to himself. Even when we told him how much more he’d have to read every day than he usually does to finish in time for it to be his school book project book, he was not interested in my offer of another, shorter but still exciting adventure book from. So far, he’s been keeping it up and enjoying it, which is just great.

rosemaryandrueMy love recently finished listening to Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire, which he liked just fine, if not as much as her Velveteen Vs. books, which could have been written just for him. He’s now re-listening to The Martian by Andy Weir. I also checked Best Lunch Box Ever by Katie Sullivan Morford out for – well, all of us except my son to look at, since my daughter actually seems to want something beyond plain unbuttered bread and a couple of spinach leaves in her lunch, and I thought we could use some inspiration.

I had to clear more room off on my library book shelf to hold all my Cybils reading, and the books keep on coming! I just finished The Eye of Zoltar by Jasper Fforde in print – still lots of fun, but not quite as much as the previous books. Next up (I think) is The Cat at the Wall by Deborah Ellis. I’m re-listening to The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett as a short break, and Pennyroyal Academy is next up in my Cybils audio queue. I am finally (hooray!) listening to Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater – which I actually had for a little bit and didn’t start because I wanted to finish the book I’d started while waiting for it to arrive. That was a new recording from Post Hypnotic Press, narrated by Colleen Winton, which was a free download through Audio File magazine over the summer. eyeofzoltarI’ve listened to Anne before and liked the narrator just fine, but Winton was the first narrator I’d heard with an actual rural Canadian accent – such fun to listen to! I haven’t been able to find any of the books I need to read in mp3 format from my libraries, so that’s my guilt-free regular break from Cybils reading. My other print library books right now, all Cybils-nominated, are Fat and Bones by Larissa Theule, Gabriel’s Clock by Hilton Pashley, Battle of the Beasts by Chris Columbus and Pathfinder by Angie Sage. I also have a stack of books that I couldn’t get through libraries that publishers have kindly sent me – but as I don’t have a list with me, I will just say that I am grateful to have them!

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Hook’s Revenge

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Katy K.

While I loved Peter and Wendy as a child, the book seems so dated when I went back to it as an adult. Here’s a fresh take on the idea.

Hook's RevengeHook’s Revenge by Heidi Schultz. Disney-Hyperion, 2014.
Jocelyn Hook, daughter of the famous Captain James Hook, has been raised by her grandfather, who suddenly sends her off to finishing school to mend her wild ways. She finds the pink ruffled bedrooms and strict emphasis on grooming and etiquette stifling, but soon makes friends with Roger, the brown-skinned gardening boy. Just after their friendship is discovered and Roger dismissed, she receives a message by raven from Edgar Allen’s Mainland Delivery service: her father has been murdered. Immediately, she sets off to Never Land to reassemble Hook’s pirate crew and defeat the enormous crocodile that ate her father. She might teach that obnoxious flying boy a lesson or two as well. Filled with encounters with mermaids, cannibals and grown-up Lost Boys, this is a rollicking adventure fun both for readers of the original as well as new ones.

Jocelyn is a great character. While J.M. Barrie’s Never Land is justifiably beloved, his glorification of the feminine as mother feels misplaced now. Jocelyn openly refuses to play to either of the accepted roles for women of her time – she’s openly scornful of both romance and playing the role of mother to anyone, whether Lost Boys or pirates. She’s resourceful enough to hold onto her identity as a proud pirate even at finishing school and then use lessons learned there in Never Land. I loved the loyal friendship between Jocelyn and Roger, refusing to bend towards romance. The pirates, including Mr. Smee, all felt appropriate as caricatures. Unfortunately, one of the most problematic elements of the original Peter Pan, its treatment of the Natives, remains. Here, the natives have bright feathers coming out of their nostrils that I guessed were meant to make them feel less human and therefore not need to be treated politely. They are cannibals, set to eat Jocelyn for dinner. While the scene where she rescues herself is amusing, it doesn’t at excuse a modern book repeating and amplifying the racism of the past. This is a small scene in a book that otherwise does very well at correcting the egregiously offensive things in Never Land. It’s troublesome enough that I wouldn’t just hand it to my own child, but there are enough good parts to the book that I would consider reading it together with lots of discussion on the topic. I’d also recommend Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s Peter and the Starcatchers for young Peter Pan fans.

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Odin’s Ravens

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Katy K.

Yesterday’s post was all about gentle reads. This is just the opposite, a fast-moving book full of violence against monsters that’s sure to grab action-loving kids.

Odin's RavensOdin’s Ravens. Blackwell Pages Book 2 by K.L. Armstrong & M.A. Marr. Little, Brown and Company, 2014.
I read this for the Cybils, so I haven’t read book 1 yet. Spoiler alert: a kid died in the last book. Now, Matt Thorsen (yes, Thorsen means a literal descendent of Thor) and his friends Laurie and Fen Brekke are off to Hel to rescue Baldwin. All of them are descended from or current representations of the Norse gods in modern-day America. Our crew has been told that Ragnarok is on the way, but they’re hopeful that if they do things right, they’ll be able to stop it. If they can rescue Baldwin, maybe Matt can also find Mjolnir, which would be very helpful against the legions of monsters that keep coming up against them, including Viking zombies and deadly water horses. There are so many bad guys that they start to wonder who is behind them all – could it be that they haven’t been told the full truth?

The action here is a little too breathless for my personal taste, but that isn’t a shortcoming for most of the kids I know. Armstrong and Marr do an admirable job of fitting some character moments in between all the action, and there’s plenty of humor as well. This is an obvious choice for Rick Riordan fans (still more books for Percy Jackson fans here), although it has somewhat less ethnic diversity. I happened to have this with me when I was in need of something to read aloud to my son one day. Both he and the other somewhat younger boy in the waiting room with us were instantly hooked, and I’m keeping it on my list of good books to give him next time he has an opening in his personal reading schedule.

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