2 Quick Reviews

I've returned from my first of two annual pilgrimages to Boston and that long bus ride provided plenty of reading time. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate this trip but the kids were terrific and real troopers in their ponchos and raincoats. I've managed to finish 2 new books since my last post and enjoyed both.

I finally got my hands on a copy of The Friendship Doll by my friend Kirby Larson. She shared the background of the book and even some of the story with the kids at Bailey when she visited and I was intrigued from the beginning. The book did not disappoint. Back in 1927 Japan sent a set of 58 traditional Japanese dolls to the children of the United States. The dolls then went on tour and over the years, most have gone missing. The Friendship Doll is told through the eyes of one doll, Miss Kanagawa, who calls herself an ambassador and carries herself in just that fashion. She starts in New York at the ceremony to present the dolls where she "interacts" with a young girl named Bunny Harnden who constantly feels left out, by her classmates and her wealthy family. She is chosen to be part of the committee to welcome the dolls, but not chosen to recite her speech. Even though Bunny feels hers was the best speech, the honor goes to Belle Roosevelt, the granddaughter of Theodore Roosevelt. Before the ceremony Bunny makes a connection with Miss Kanagawa even "hearing" the doll speak to her. The connection changes Bunny, making her less self centered and more willing to reach out an help others and understand their feelings and behaviors.

The book continues in a similar theme. Miss Kanagawa connects with a series of girls through the years. The girls' situations are all different and yet they all have things in common that provide the catalyst for the Kanagawa connection. In the last chapter, the doll actually makes a connection with a boy, Mason, who uses Miss Kanagawa to help an Alzheimer's patient remember things from her past. It's a very touching finish to a wonderful book. I'll be adding it to my list of great books that are less than 200 pages.

The second was an ARC of a fun mystery that I got from Sally at Cover to Cover after the Central Ohio Blogger breakfast. The Mystery of the Missing Everything by Ben H. Winters comes out in September and will be added to our library as soon as I can get my hands on a copy. It's actually the second book featuring the students of Mary Todd Lincoln Middle School, the first was The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman which I have already reserved at the library.

The detective in the book is Bethesda Fielding and she is put on the case when the gymnastics championship trophy goes missing from Achievement Alcove. This sets Principal Van Vreeland into a royal hissy fit and she cancels all extra curricular activities including the 8th grade trip to Camp Taproot. The mystery winds and weaves its way through the book with suspects changing all the time for detective Bethesda. The reader is introduced to plenty of very interesting characters like the wimpy vice principal Jasper Ferrars who moonlights in musical theater, Reenie, the new kid, who is a bit mysterious, maybe a little mean and always has her nose in a book, just to name a couple. The book is funny, fast paced and full of enough plot twists to keep a kid reading. In the end, just when I thought Bethesda had the case wrapped up, Ben H. Winters throws another twist and gave me an excellent ending.

ARC of Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt More than OK

I've been a fan of Gary D. Schmidt's books since I read Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. I was such a fan of that book that Joyce and I chose it for our very first Grand Discussion. Wednesday Wars always makes my list of favorite books and now one of the characters from that book, Doug Swieteck, takes center stage in Schmidt's newest book, Okay for Now.

On a recent trip to Cover to Cover, Sally asked if I'd like an ARC of the book and of course I said yes. According to the info on the book it will be released on April 18, don't wait, order it now, you won't be disappointed.

Doug Swieteck has a tough life. He is the youngest son of a father who is unhappy, beyond unhappy, he's miserable. Doug's father hates his job and constantly gripes about his boss and how much better he could do the job. When he comes home he takes his frustrations out on his family. Although the author doesn't specifically describe the abuse, it's clear that the three Swieteck boys and their mother have endured plenty and can only look forward to plenty more abuse from the "quick hands" of Mr. Swieteck.

Because he is the youngest, Doug also takes abuse from his older brothers. We learn in the beginning of the book that his oldest brother, Lucas, is in Vietnam, but the third brother Christopher is home and willing to dish out the verbal abuse when their father isn't around. All in all, Doug has a tough life. The only thing he ever had to take pride in, the hat given to him by Yankee player Joe Pepitone, is taken by his brother and lost. Fortunately for Doug, he is strong and resilient.

When the family moves so that Mr. Swieteck and take a job along side his friend Ernie things don't look good. They move into a house in worse condition than the one they leave and the father's friend is, to say the least, not a good influence. Everything about the move spells trouble for Doug. As the story goes on it becomes clear that the move is really the best thing to ever happen to Doug.

When the family arrives in Marysville Doug stumbles on the public library where one librarian marks him as a thug right away, but another, Mr. Powell, spots him studying the original paintings of John Audubon and discovers Doug's hidden talents. Mr. Powell fosters these talents over the course of the book and the paintings give Doug a personal mission.

Doug also meets a girl, Lil Spicer, who sees redeeming qualities in him and helps get him a delivery job at her father's deli. Their friendship is charming and simple and helps give the reader hope that Doug will break the circle of abuse he is trapped in.

When he starts school, he's marked as a trouble maker before the first day by the principal, Mr. Peattie who has the strange habit of referring to himself as Principal Peattie in every conversation. All of his teachers also peg him as trouble because of his brother Christopher's troubles and won't even give the guy a chance. All but Mr. Ferris, who on the first day of class explains to Doug the scientific principle that "two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time." In other words Doug is not Christopher...SUPER TEACHER!

The book is amazing, I started reading in the morning and could not put it down until I had finished all 368 pages. Gary D. Schmidt is a wonder story teller, creating characters that the reader will love, some are completely unlikely, and some, like PE teacher Coach Reed who is totally unlikable until we learn his whole story and then, like Doug, forgive him his meanness.

Even with all of it's sadness and heavy story lines, Okay for Now is really a story of hope. The ending will leave you hanging and wondering, but for me, I believe Doug is going to be okay for a long time.

Other Reviews:
Fuse #8
Everyday Reading

Little Blog on the Prairie Fun Summer Vacation Story

I just realized that I never really wrapped up my 48 Hour Challenge, and honestly, I didn't do very well this year so maybe that's a good thing. I finished only 2 books, which is an average of a book a day, if I could keep that up all summer I might just get through my pile of books to read. While I won't be winning any of Mother Reader's prizes, I did manage to score some pretty cool ARCs from Cover to Cover and had awesome book conversation with my Central Ohio Blogger friends.

One of the ARCs I picked up was Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell. I hadn't heard anything about this book anywhere, I just loved the title so I thought I'd give it a try. I wasn't disappointed.

Gen's family is firmly planted in suburban life, mini vans, travel soccer, too many hours of work, beach vacations, and Mom decides they need a change. She books the family for a historical experience camp in Wyoming. The camp sends families back to the 1890s prairie and grades them on how well they survive. It sounds like a dream vacation to Mom since she loved the Little House books which have given her a somewhat romanticized view of life on the 1890s prairie.

When the family reaches camp, they are whisked of to the main house where they turn in all of their modern conveniences, phones, iPods, make up, deodorant, tooth paste, clothes, pretty much everything they brought with them. Imagine the distress this causes a 13 year old girl who is firmly planted in the world of shopping malls and electronic devices, Gen is not happy. At the first meeting, the rules of the game are explained by the hard core owner, Ron and his always smiling wife Betsy. I have to admit, when I heard the rules that the campers would basically be doing lots of hard labor to make each of their mini farms a success, only to leave when the crops were ready, I was ready to pack my bags and go home.

The story goes on with all of the hardships of being on a vacation that isn't fun, but hard work. Cathleen Davitt Bell includes teen characters from all groups, there are the jocks, the Goth/Emo girl Ka, a picture of teen angst trying to not act or look like her blonde California blended family, and there's the dream boat hottie boy Caleb. Throw in Nora, the daughter of Betsy and Ron who ,basically spends her life in the 1890s, as Gen's nemesis and you have a really fun tween novel with enough romance and plot twists to keep the middle school girls interested.

The heart of the plot is when Gen gets out the cell phone she hid in her Clearasil box and begins to text her friends back home. Her texts are funny and sometimes mean but well written. One of her friends uses the the texts to create a blog for a summer computer camp she is attending and it becomes a nationwide hit. When it is discovered in the camp that gen has been using a cell phone, everyone is disappointed and there is the threat that her family will be expelled from the 1890s. I really liked how the author handled this, she wrote it in a way that was believable and it brought out the human side of all of the characters. It's revealed that Gen isn't the only one who can't live without her modern conveniences, including the adults. Very well done.

Overall, I liked the book a lot. There were some things that seemed a bit far fetched, for example Gen's father being able to take the whole summer away from it all with no access to the outside world, but I was willing to ignore this because I liked the story. I loved the humor of some of the situations and characters. I probably won't be buying it for the elementary library, a little to much romance, but would highly recommend it for the middle school library. I couldn't help thinking as I was reading that it would make a really great movie for the Disney channel!

More reviews:
Kids Lit
Semicolon
Kiss the Book

Wildfire Run Coming in August of 2010

I met Dee Garretson at the Kid Lit Bloggers Conference in October. Dee was there promoting her book which was then called Escape From Camp David was changed to Wildfire Run and will be released as book one of a series called Danger's Edge in September. Fortunately, the plot stayed the same, because as she described it in October, it sounded pretty exciting. I signed up to receive an advance copy when it came out, and, since we are fellow Ohioans, Dee sent a copy to Literate Lives a couple of weeks ago. The whole title switch thing is a bit confusing as blogged by Dee here. Notice the cover change!

Simply put, the president, his son Luke, and Luke's friend Theo are at Camp David. While they are there, a major earthquake strikes along the New Madrid fault in Missouri. The quake sets of a series of events that start two forest fires on either side of Camp David. The security team goes into action to evacuate the president back to the White House. Luke talks his dad into leaving him behind at Camp David along with his friends and the adventure begins. As the fire closes in, Luke and his friends get trapped inside the security fence with most of the security detail injured and out of commission.

Luke and his friends become like the old TV show MacGyver, minus the duct tape. They come up with all sorts of ways to make their way to safety including sending a golf cart down a zip line to get it across an electric security fence.


For kids who love to build things with Legos and create things on the computer, this book will be a hit. The three kids stuck inside Camp David are amazing engineers and have some pretty wild ideas to get themselves and the Secret Service agents to safety.

I enjoyed the book and the action kept me involved and turning the pages. I can't wait to get this into the hands of the kids who loved Swindle and Zoobreak since the action never slows down in those either.

The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis (I just couldn't wait!)

So the original plan was to read this advance from Barbara O'Connor on the bus to Boston, but I just couldn't wait. Rather than pack and get ready to go, I sat down and finished this gem in about 2 hours!

As usual, Barbara O'Connor's characters are strong and original. The main character, Popeye, is a boy living with his grandmother just waiting for something to happen. For him it's the beginning of summer and he's not looking forward to every day being the same as the one before. Growing up in the middle of a dysfunctional family, absent mother and father, an uncle who gets into trouble over and over, Popeye is being raised by his grandmother, Velma. Velma's big fear is "cracking up" and so she puts herself through mental exercises to keep it from happening. Her favorite is to recite the English royals in chronological order so the story is interrupted time and again by Velma's recitation. Another favorite brain exercise is to work crossword puzzles and so Popeye's vocabulary grows word by word at Velma's insistence. The reader will find periodic words and definitions throughout the book at appropriate places in the story.

Outside of Popeye's house, excitement shows up in the form of a family who lives in a big old Holiday Rambler that gets stuck in the lane. Six kids live with their mom and dad, the oldest is Elvis. Popeye is introduced to the kids when he invited to join the "Spit and Swear Club" whose main purpose is to spit and swear, of course. Elvis is an adventurer and is used to a lot less adult supervision than Popeye and so the two decide to have an adventure, a small adventure.

This is where Barbara O'Connor hooked me! The boys decide to wander down to the creek to look for an adventure. At first is seems that nothing ever changes until they spot a Yoo Hoo boat, a boat made from a Yoo Hoo chocolate drink box, floating downstream. When they catch it they discover a mysterious note inside and decide they will walk up the stream until they find out who sent the boat. For Elvis this isn't such a big deal, but Popeye has instructions to stay within hollerin' range of Velma, and he fears Velma's wrath, one of the vocabulary words he has learned.

I say this is where I was hooked because of the simplicity of the adventure! It's just a stream, in a typical wood, where boys play all of the time, but when a Yoo Hoo boat comes floating by it is transformed into just the small adventure two boys are looking for. It reminded me of my summers growing up when we would take a baseball bat and a flashlight and crawl into the storm sewer tunnel near my house. We would walk for what seemed hours even though we were warned to stay out, and somehow we always ended up at the same place, the corner right next to my house, but it was an adventure. On a recent visit back I noticed they had put chain link over the entrance to the tunnel, spoil sports, so much for adventure!

In the end the boys find the source of the boats and the meaning of all of the mysterious clues. I don't want to say too much because I don't want to spoil anything. The simplicity of the story make this an enjoyable quick read and Barbara O'Connor's word choices and descriptions are as strong as ever. She has done it again, a warm, inviting, story that kids are going to love. If you missed it on my earlier post, check out the book trailer here.

I was so excited about the book that I already created a mosaic that I won't be able to use for a while but here it is anyway. By the way in response to a question in the comments, Mandy, I don't have a pink bus in my backyard, deed restrictions or something, the pix all came from Flickr.
So now, I'm off to Boston...really!

Pippo the Fool is Coming to THE PIT

It's hard to believe that the start of school is only a little over a month away. OK, I wish I hadn't said that, but it's true and so I have begun a tentative list of things I want to be sure to read in THE PIT to start the year. The list is still very fluid because I know between now and then I'll find a lot more to add to my list. Pippo the Fool is one I'm sure of because of its wonderful story and beautiful, colorful illustrations.

Based on the true story of Filippo Brunelleschi, the architect of the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy the story is an inspiration to creative types everywhere. If you're like me, the whole Santa Maria thing may not have meant much to you, and even without any historical background, Pippo the Fool is a special book. The fact that author Tracey E. Fern (cool website) can base such a tale of perseverance on historical fact only serves to make it better.

Pippo, like Filippo the actual man the character is based on, is a talented goldsmith and jeweler. He is also a tinkerer and inventor, a mechanic and architect. When a contest to design and build the dome on the cathedral is announced, Pippo decides to enter. Immediately, the town begins to laugh behind his back and the most famous sculptor, Lorenzo, mocks him publicly. Pippo is not discouraged and begins to create a design for the dome that is unlike anything seen before with an interior means of support, and special interlocking bricks to make it even stronger. When all of the ideas are presented, the judges are disappointed in what they see. Even Lorenzo's idea is far fetched and not set in fact only in theory without detail.

When Pippo presents his plan without detail for fear of Lorenzo stealing his idea, he is carried out of the cathedral and dropped in the center of the piazza. He decides to show the judges his idea by building it in miniature. When it was finished, the judges were impressed and awarded the prize to Pippo and named Lorenzo his assistant. Of course, Pippo does all of the work to the point of exhaustion and when he needs to rest in bed, Lorenzo is unable to get anything done because he hasn't been there. Pippo works for 16 years until the dome is completed to the joy of the entire city from the market women to the judges. His nickname is changed from Pippo the Fool to Pippo the Genius and everyone has a new found respect for the goldsmith and jeweler, tinkerer and inventor, mechanic and architect.

Artist Pau Estrada's artwork is beautiful and compliment the story wonderfully. His rich colors and detailed drawings of the Florence architecture are a joy to study. Kids will find new things in the pictures every time they look at the book.
I know this book will be a hit with my students in THE PIT and I can't wait to share it with them...well...ok...maybe I can wait another month or so.

By the way, I'm leaving for my second trip to Boston on Thursday with 42 kids and 4 teacher friends so there won't be a new post for a while. I'm pretty excited today because when I went to my mailbox I found an advance copy of Barbara O'Connor's new book The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis. Is that a great title or what!? Hmmmm...I wonder what I'll read first on the bus?