Eleanor & Park

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Katy K.

I’d mentally flagged this as a book I wanted to read before it was even published, but things going the way they do, I didn’t actually check it out from the library until I had a gap in my listening schedule, after lots of other people had already fallen in love with it. It was a Cybils finalist in the teen section, an Odyssey Honor Book, a Printz Honor book, and a best teen (or children’s) book from Boston Globe Horn Book, Publisher’s Weekly, New York Times, Kirkus Reviews, and NPR. But I really did love it, too, so just on the off-chance that you haven’t heard about it, I’ll put down a few thoughts.

Eleanor & ParkEleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. Read by Rebecca Lowman and Sunil Malhotra. Print St. Martin’s Griffin, 2013. Audio from Listening Library, 2013.

Eleanor & Park is a bittersweet story of 1980s teen romance, happy ending not included. They meet on the school bus, forced to sit together, even though overweight, red-haired Eleanor gives off a weird vibe that Park is afraid will rub off on him, making his already precarious social position as the only half-Korean kid at their Omaha high school even more difficult. Gradually, though, they bond over the music and comic books Park brings for the bus ride – Watchmen is being newly released, and Park has lots of punk rock tapes for his Walkman.

Life is rough for both of them. Besides being a natural target for the school bullies, Eleanor lives in poverty with an abusive stepfather and must be careful to protect her cowed mother and younger siblings. Park’s father reminds him often that he’s a pansy in comparison to his taller, more athletic younger brother. Both Park and Eleanor cling to their relationship as the one thing that makes life worthwhile, even as they know it can’t last.

The book is told alternately from both character’s points of view, and the audio book has a different narrator for each of them. Rebecca Lowman perfectly captured Eleanor’s hard, snarky attitude, while Sunil Malhotra sounded just right for Park’s somewhat gentler nature. My heart melted and pounded and I cried actual tears over it. I loved Rowell’s Fangirl, too, but I think that Liviana at In Bed with Books is right that that is more geek girl wish fulfillment, where this is real, intense first love, good for geeks as well as traditional teen romance fans.

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3 Multicultural Picture Books

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Katy K.

Hooray for multicultural children’s books! I checked out several in preparation for Multicultural Children’s Book Day, and put more on my list from books that I found out about then. Here are three of our favorite recently found multicultural picture books. Also, it’s Kid Lit Blog Hop day – click on through and see what other great things my fellow kid lit bloggers have put together!

Kid Lit Blog Hop

Rainbow StewRainbow Stew by Cathryn Falwell. Lee & Low, 2013.
Fun, rhyming text and bright painted illustrations show siblings of African descent brightening a rainy day by picking vegetables of all colors in the garden and then making them into stew for lunch. A framed graduation photo in the living room and scenes of everyone curling up with books while the stew simmers make it clear that this is a family that values education. Growing your own veggies is really popular these days, and this book will appeal to those families with a story told in words simple enough for older toddlers and up. This one was recommended by Mia at Pragmatic Mom. I found my four-year-old going back to over and over on her own.

Say Hello!Say Hello! by Rachel Isadora. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2010.
In another book good for quite young children, Carmelita, her mother, and her dog walk through their multicultural neighborhood on their way to Abuelita’s house. They stop to say hello to their friends in the appropriate language (pronunciation guide included). The puppy always knows just what to say in every language: “Woof!” The cut-paper collaged illustrations perfectly illuminate the beauty of variety. (Even though this is the only one of the three with no food on the cover, there’s plenty on the inside, as they pass lots of ethnic food shops and go on to eat at Abuelita’s house.) My colleague Ms. J. used this as the focus book for a storytime series called “Multicultural Me” and it was also a hit with my preschooler.

Cora Cooks PancitCora Cooks Pancit by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore. Illustrated by Kristi Valiant. Shen’s Books, 2009. 2/25/14
For a preschooler/early elementary audience rather than toddlers, Cora Cooks Pancit tells the story of a Filipina-American girl, the youngest of a large family, who’s finally allowed to provide real help cooking a traditional Filipino meal for her family. We watch as she’s first left out by her older siblings, then her delight when she’s told she can help, followed by an array of delicious food dancing through her head as she decides what to cook. Finally, she and her mother go step-by-step through cooking this traditional noodle dish and sharing stories of Cora’s grandfather, whose recipe they’re using. Though it feels like it’s meant specifically for Filipino children (and I really don’t see many aimed at this audience!), this is also a celebration of growing up enough to contribute to the family, a sentiment that children of any ancestry can relate to.

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Flora & Ulysses

Posted on March 3, 2014 by Katy K.

Flora & UlyssesI know I’m behind on my reviewing, but for the first and probably last time, I finished reading a book the very day that it won the Newbery, and for one glorious moment, I felt On Top of Things.

Flora & Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo. Candlewick Press, 2013.
Flora loves comics, especially the ones about the Amazing Incandesto, even though her mother, a romance writer, doesn’t believe that comics are Literature Worth Reading. Flora’s reading merges with real life when she sees a squirrel sucked into a vacuum cleaner. Ulysses comes out a superhero squirrel who can understand human speech, type poetry on Flora’s mother’s typewriter, and fly. The story is filled with flawed and colorful larger-than-life characters, including Flora’s quiet father (divorced, and in opposition to her loud mother), a temporarily blind boy named William Spiver, and an attack cat. The story is told mostly in prose with short section in comic panels, and the action takes place over the course of just a couple of days as Flora tries to save Ulysses from her mother (who is sure he’s rabid) and Ulysses helps Flora comes to terms with her parents’ divorce.

I was really prepared to love this one. I’ve loved many of DiCamillo’s books, and I was excited about the blend of comics and prose. Somehow, this fell a little flat for me. Maybe it was that the human characters seemed too close to caricature, or that the scope of the story wasn’t quite epic enough for a superhero premise. It also felt too magical for realism, but not quite magical enough for true fantasy, while the little magic that was there was too fantastic for magical realism – labels shouldn’t necessarily matter, but something, somewhere didn’t quite jibe for me. Sadness.

Obviously other people have felt very differently about this – the Newbery is the biggest, best-known honor for American children’s books, and I’ve read lots and lots of positive reviews of this. But for now, I’m going to stick with Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Desperaux as my favorite DiCamillo books.

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Save the Dragons

Posted on March 1, 2014 by Katy K.

Congratulations to Kim, the winner of my tenth anniversary giveaway, and thanks to everyone who entered!

I loved Seven Against Mars last year, so of course when Mr. Berman-Gorvine offered to send me a copy of his latest book, I was happy to accept.

Save the DragonsSave the Dragons by Martin Berman-Gorvine. Wildside Books, 2013.
Teresa is wandering around the streets of Philadelphia with a bad case of the teen blues, when she stumbles across Gloria’s Gateway Books. Inside is the most wonderful used book and record store imaginable, filled with books and records that shouldn’t exist. A steaming cup of hot chocolate, a note addressed to her, and a friendly cat are waiting on the counter for her. After a few visits, she starts leaving notes not just for the owner, but for a boy she finds has been visiting, too.

Actually meeting the boy turns out to be more difficult than either of them imagined, though – Tom lives in a Philadelphia that’s still part of Britain, where England itself has been part of the Napoleonic Empire for a couple of centuries. They are going to have to learn more about the magic of Gloria’s Gateway Books to be able to meet in person.

When they do, Gloria herself tells them that they haven’t been brought together just because they’re kindred spirits – the precious dragon that Tom’s father studies is in grave danger, and Tom and Teresa must save it. Exciting adventures across continents, traveling by train and airship ensue, and both teens gain enough self-awareness to feel less bleak about their normal life circumstances.

The violence is low and romance is mild, but with lots of kissing. For that reason, I’d say that kids young enough to find romance icky wouldn’t enjoy this, but that it’s otherwise appropriate for middle school and up.

There was a lot about this book that I loved and a few things that didn’t quite work for me. I loved, loved, loved Gloria’s Gateway Books, both a portal between worlds and a repository for rare books and music from multiple dimensions. I enjoyed the alternate history of Tom’s dimension, the natural history of dragons in it, and the interplay between Teresa and Tom as they negotiated between Teresa’s modern dating expectations and Tom’s old-fashioned and formal courting mores.

My lonely sixteen-year-old self would have loved the idea of a boy in an alternate dimension who was perfect for me, and I don’t think that an inter-dimensional matchmaker would have bothered me, either. As an adult, though, the romance didn’t quite ring true. It felt like Tom and Teresa were pushed into a romantic relationship, so that Teresa would help with Tom’s problems, when she could have helped just as well out of pure friendship and a sense of adventure. And on the topic of adventure, while it was fun, there was a lot of circuitous travel that wasn’t necessary to solve the problem at hand, and a little too much reliance on adults for a purely satisfying teen adventure. I’m guessing that only that last might bother the target audience. Issues aside, the blend of speculation, adventure and romance made for a very entertaining read, especially recommended for fans of magical bookstores and dragons.

Now I’m trying to remember other books I’ve read with magical bookstores. There’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, but I could swear I read a book as a young teen with a bookstore that, like this, appeared and disappeared on its own. Did anyone else read this?

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Texting the Underworld

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Katy K.

I first heard about this book from Charlotte and was intrigued enough to go reading multiple interviews (and enter giveaways) before I asked my library to buy it so I could read it. I’m glad I did!

Texting the UnderworldTexting the Underworld by Ellen Booraem. Dial Books for Young Readers, 2013.
Conor is a scaredy-cat, so afraid of change that he’s deliberately not-quite-failing pre-algebra, to avoid the risk of leaving his neighborhood school for the prestigious Boston Latin School and asks his little sister, Glennie, for help with spiders. One night he spots a banshee, Ashling, outside his bedroom window. He knows from Grumps’ stories that seeing a banshee means that someone in his family is going to die soon. But Ashling is vivacious and curious – she’s doing work as a banshee to earn a new life for herself after an early death over a thousand years ago. She wants to go to middle school with Conor before settling down to work. This leads to hilarious situations, as Ashling uses the knowledge gained from Conor’s Trivial Pursuit cards to make her way through school.

Conor is pretty sure, though, that Ashling’s there either for Grumps or Glennie, and losing a family member is even more unacceptable than going to Latin School. He’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect his family, even travelling to the Other Land to ask three questions of the Lady (with home back-up from his best friend, Javier.) Everyone is surprised when the Other Land is not just the Irish underworld they were expecting, but a massive clearinghouse for souls operated by the underworld gods of every tradition that has an underworld, including my favorite, the Babylonian god Nergal. The ending is bittersweet, with an unexpected twist.

Conor is a rare fantasy hero, a genuinely ordinary boy dealing with high-level supernatural powers. I loved the way he was able to face his fears to save his family. The humor and the thoughts about loss balance each other nicely, leaving a book that’s both funny and thoughtful without tipping either into heaviness or fluff. I also very much enjoyed Ashling, who stays unapologetic about her 9th century values even as she’s trying to make her way in the 21st. The message about the value of other cultures (in this case, other than Irish) is more subtle, but still there. The focus on death might make this a little difficult for younger middle grade readers – but I’d highly recommend it for older middle grade and up, especially to kids interested in mythology.

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Little Red Writing and No Pirates Allowed

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Katy K.

Two more picture books: the first was going around my blogs over the summer, and was popular enough here that I had to wait months to get it. The second was a random book picked off the new book shelf because we like pirates around my house.

Little Red WritingLittle Red Writing by Joan Holub. Pictures by Melissa Sweet. Chronicle Books, 2013.
Little Red is a sharp pencil who decides to write an adventure story for her class writing adventure. She’s both writing and experiencing this clever retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, in a way that’s confusing to tell but makes perfect sense in the book. Each page of her adventure illustrates another common form of bad writing, as she’s first trapped in the forest of too many adjectives, then trapped in situations with fearful run-on sentences and the dangers of straying off the story path. The ending, as Little Red uses one of the red words from her word basket to defeat the Wolf 3000 pencil sharpener, is – dare I say it – more satisfying than the traditional rescue by the woodcutter. This combination of story and writing lesson had the strong possibility of failing on one or both counts, but amazingly succeeds at both. I’d thought my four-year-old, too young for writing assignments, might not get it – but she and my son and his teachers all loved it. For me it’s love at a level where I’m happy checking it out from the library when we want it again, but it’s going in my son’s school library, and possible individual class libraries as well.

No Pirates Allowed! Said Library LouNo Pirates Allowed! Said Library Lou by Rhonda Gowler Greene. Illustrated by Brian Ajhar. Sleeping Bear Press, 2013
Stinky Pirate Pete and his parrot storm into the library with a treasure map showing that there’s treasure in the library. Lou the librarian initially shushes them, but after she’s straightened them out on proper library behavior, she teaches them to read. It turns out the library does have treasure – just not the kind Pirate Pete was expecting! This a fun story in bouncy rhyme. I loved watching the message play out – mostly exciting and only a tiny bit preachy. Tiny Library Lou’s stern facedown of Pirate Pete and her enthusiasm while teaching letters are both priceless!

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Locomotive

Posted on February 24, 2014 by Katy K.

Remember there’s still time to enter my Tenth Anniversary Giveaway!

LocomotiveLocomotive by Brian Floca. Simon and Schuster, 2013.

I checked this one out after reading Amy’s review over at Hope is the Word.
Gorgeous layered illustrations with expressive typography and poetic text tell the story of a family traveling west by rail in the 1860s. It was Cybils Middle Grade Nonfiction finalist and – more power to Amy for her prediction skills – won this year’s Caldecott. It is beautiful to look at and very informative with lots about the way the train works and the various people it takes to run it as well as the landscape it travels through. It’s also very long – more of an elementary school length than a preschooler length. I read it through, but couldn’t convince either of my kids to let me read it to them. That has much more to do with neither of them liking trains especially than the book itself. It would do very well for any train or history lover from kid through adult.

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Dewi and the Seeds of Doom

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Katy K.

Dewi and the Seeds of DoomDewi and the Seeds of Doom by Maggie Lyons. Halo Publishing, 2013

Dewi is an adorable Welsh red dragon. He’s peacefully going about his business one day when a rat falls out of the sky onto him and starts babbling nonsense. Adults don’t seem to thing anything of it, but Dewi is sure that something is wrong. Soon, Dewi and his pal Jones the toad have turned detective. They find that the evil Baron Doom of Castle Gloomsgor and his assistant dwarf, Peegor, has been running nefarious experiments on caged rats. Can they stop him before it’s too late?

The boy and I both (separately) read this early chapter book. He felt it a little too young for him – probably second graders and advanced first graders would be a better audience for this. Perhaps part of it feeling young was the mixing of characters who were mostly talking animals with some human characters. I felt like the characters were animals mostly to add to the fun factor, something that I think is done a lot in picture books and less often the older the age the book is aimed for. I felt like the characters would have worked just as well (and maybe better in some spots) if they had all been human. That’s a little sad to say when I love the idea of a book set in Wales starring a dragon! As a short chapter book, it would also have been helped a lot by illustrations. Still, with an exciting plot and quirky characters, this could be the perfect book for a mystery-and dragon-loving kid just graduating to chapter books.

This book was kindly sent to me by the author in exchange for an honest review, and will now be headed for the Summer Reading prize cart at my library.

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Ten (with Giveaway)

Posted on February 19, 2014 by Katy K.

It’s hard to believe, but today marks the tenth anniversary of this blog.

book10
My children made a 10 out of books to celebrate.

I started posting book reviews to Livejournal as sapphireone on this date in 2004.  The blog has changed some since I first started posting – I’ve changed platforms, my reviews are more detailed, and I’ve tried to join in the larger book blogging community rather than posting just for friends.  This last has really fueled my own reading addiction.  Reading so many other wonderful bloggers has led to longer want-to-read lists and more books out from the library at any given time than I’ve ever had before.  Best of all have been the new relationships with fellow bloggers, authors, and most of all, my readers.  What has stayed the same is my love for good books for all ages of reader.

As a thank-you to my readers, I’m offering a giveaway of one customized reading list – five books (or three books and two multimedia items) personally selected by me to match your mood.  Leave me a comment letting me know you’re interested; I’ll contact the winner and send questions to help me make your list.  You can enter for yourself or for a child in your life. If you like, I can also limit titles to those available from your public library, to make sure you can get them easily.  Leave a comment by midnight on February 28, and I’ll announce the winner on March 1.

Just for fun, here are my top ten posts of the 903 I’ve posted before this one (at least since I moved to WordPress.)  It feels a bit random, and if anyone has any insight on why, for example, my reviews of the poem The Microscope or movies about Mongolia are so popular, I’d love to hear it.  (Though the Mutu System isn’t book-related, I think it’s popular because I seem to be the only person who went all the way through the program and lived to blog about it.)

Thank you again to my readers, fellow bloggers, and to the authors who give us so many wonderful books to read.

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How to Catch a Bogle

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Katy K.

I love a good historical fantasy, and I was meaning to read this for a very long time before it actually made its way home from the library with me.

How to Catch a BogleHow to Catch a Bogle. by Catherine Jinks. Illustrated by Sarah Watts. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013
It’s Victorian London, and orphaned Birdie is proud to have a good job as an apprentice to Alfred Bunce, the bogle catcher. Bogles like to hide in dark places, like the insides of chimneys, from whence they will come out to eat unsuspecting children if they are not properly dealt with. Birdie’s job is to be the bait – her sweet, childlike singing voice draws the bogles out of hiding, so that Mr. Bunce can capture them. While well-bred adults are shocked at a child putting her life in danger this way, Birdie is just happy to have an honest job that supports her and that helps keep other children safe. She might not have enough money to buy new clothes, but she works hard to have at least something bright to be part of her otherwise drab outfits (that pink dress on the cover is not at all what she’s described as wearing). Two complications arise in her otherwise simple but satisfying life: Miss Eames, a lady scholar, who thinks that bogles are charming legends, and is willing first to pay to watch bogle-catchers at work, and then to pay to keep Birdie from working. Then, more children than usual start going missing, and the evidence points to it being an unscrupulous human rather than a bogle. Can Birdie solve the mystery and keep her independence?

This was a lot of fun! Thinking back at it, I could see that it did have some flaws. Birdie’s young friends in the street aren’t really developed fully, and maybe the overall plot could have used some smoothing out. I think (trying to get inside the Cybils committee’s heads) that this is why the similar-feeling Rose made it to the shortlist and this didn’t. When I was reading it, though, I didn’t notice any of those flaws. I loved cheeky, self-sufficient Birdie and was entirely caught up in her adventures and seeing if she would make it through to catch another bogle. I wish she wasn’t wearing that pink dress on the cover, because the story is action-oriented with lots of fighting of gruesome monsters as well as tracking down of dastardly criminals and I think that plenty of boys as well as girls would enjoy it. Now I’m pondering if this is a good fit for my Fantasy for Music Lovers list or not, as Birdie’s singing isn’t magical in and of itself, but this is a fantasy with lots of music in it.

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