Book Reviews

Review: Turtle Island by Kevin Sherry

| Tasha

turtle island

Turtle Island by Kevin Sherry

The author of I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean returns with a picture book all about friendship.  Turtle is very big but Turtle is also all alone and getting lonely.  Then one day, a ship wrecked near him and he rescued a bear, an owl, a cat and a frog from the ocean waters.  They climbed aboard his shell and Turtle supplied them with fish to eat.  Happily, Owl could knit, Bear could build, Frog could cook, and Cat could draw.  The four quickly went to work and created a home aboard Turtle.  Turtle wasn’t lonely any more.  One might think the book would end there, but instead the four smaller animals got very homesick and missed their families.  They had to return home, leaving Turtle all alone in the big ocean again.  What is a big lonely turtle to do, especially now that he realizes the importance of having good friends?

Sherry has a way with simple storytelling.  He manages to convey complicated emotions using a combination of his storyline and his illustrations.  Here the impact of having friends is looked at with humor and through a unique relationship of a huge turtle and characters riding on his back.  It’s a very nice metaphor for needing to support friends in different ways.

As with all of Sherry’s books, his cartoony illustrations are child friendly and add to the humor.  They keep this story from becoming overly sweet, showing goggle-eyed animals in different colors and always clearly showing that Turtle is simply huge.

Gently funny, simple and honest, this picture book is a friend to any story time on friendship or turtles.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno

| Tasha

half life of molly pierce

The Half Life of Molly Pierce by Katrina Leno

Molly has memory problems, she will awaken driving her car on the highway miles from home.  She will find herself on the couch watching a show on TV with her little sister when she had just moments earlier been at school.  She wakes up with her homework half finished and she doesn’t remember even starting it.  So when an unknown boy crashes his motorcycle in front of her and then calls her by name, Molly knows that there is more to her blackouts than she might have thought and that it is time to come clean about them with her parents and therapist.  As she starts to sort out what happens to her when she isn’t there, Molly meets Sayer, the brother of the boy who crashed and someone who seems to know more about Molly than she does.  Molly has to figure out not only what is happening to her but how she is connected to Sayer and his brother.

In this debut novel, Leno skillfully crafts a book of psychological suspense and mystery.  Cleverly, it all takes place in a single person who can’t remember it at all.  The result is a riveting read, one that is emotional and raw.  Molly is a great example of the unreliable narrator, one who knows that she doesn’t have the facts but also one who is incapable of putting it all together.  Readers may guess what is happening in the novel before Molly realizes it herself, but the book won’t let you go until it is revealed in its entirety.

Leno’s writing is noteworthy too.  She beautifully captures falling in love through physical, tangible reactions and poetic language.  She also gracefully shows the physical reactions of Molly as she struggles to live a normal life, such as this passage from the beginning of Chapter 8:

The next day at school I move through the hallways like they’re flooded.  Like I’m swimming through them, coming up every so often for air and clawing my way through seaweed that would hold me down, choke me, suffocate me.  My lungs burn with the effort of breathing.  What I wouldn’t do for gills.

This startling puzzle of a psychological thriller will have readers riveted from the very beginning.  Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Edelweiss and HarperTeen.

Review: Thickety by J. A. White

| Tasha

thickety

The Thickety by J. A. White

Kara saw her mother killed for being a witch when she was just six years old.  Ever since then, she and her sickly little brother have been treated horribly by the village they live near.  Her father played a role in accusing her mother of witchcraft, and now he cannot function well at all, spending his days writing the same thing over and over again in a notebook.  So Kara at age 12 takes care of her brother and tries to keep their small farm functioning and her family fed.  The entire village lives in fear of the Thickety, a deep woods nearby.  So when a strange crow leads Kara deep into the woods right to the heart of the Thickety, she almost doesn’t follow.  There she discovers a book of spells that seems to promise great power, a book that will mark Kara as a witch in everyone’s eyes.  What is a witch’s daughter to do?

White creates a book that is just as dark and tangled as the Thickety itself.  Her writing is a treat to read, focused on creating characters that are complicated in their motivations in a world that is lush and vivid.  She doesn’t shirk away from truly frightening scenes in the book, including the opening scene of the mother’s death and Kara being accused as a small child of witchcraft.  That scene alone warns you of the horrors to come, horrors that are scary in a deep, dark way but ones that are also appropriate for the middle grade readers.

Kara is a strong heroine.  She is an outsider from a young age, shunned by her peers, beloved by her younger brother.  Even the adults in the community have abandoned their family, leaving them to fend for themselves.  Speaking of the community, it is another strength in this novel, a tight-knit and fanatical community on an isolated island that shuns magic.  White manages to stay away from any sort of Salem-type setting while still maintaining clear links to that puritanical rage. 

Well written with a strong protagonist and impressive world building, this dark fantasy is ideal for middle grade readers.  Appropriate for ages 11-13.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Hooray for Hat! by Brian Won

| Tasha

hooray for hat

Hooray for Hat! by Brian Won

Elephant wakes up very grumpy until he finds a present waiting for him on the doorstep and it has one amazing hat inside.  He puts it on and heads off to show Zebra, but Zebra is grumpy too, so Elephant gives Zebra one of his hats.  Soon they have helped Turtle and Owl be less grumpy too by sharing hats with them as well.  They came to Lion who was feeling sad and giving him a hat didn’t help because he was worried that Giraffe was feeling sick.  So they all came up with a great plan to help Giraffe feel better.  I bet you can guess that it involves…hats!

Won has created an entirely jolly book that shows just how small things can change a person’s mood or emotions.  The book is very simply written and repeats nicely as each animal is introduced.  This makes it a great pick for toddlers who will enjoy the repetition as well as the different animals in the book.  It is also a nice book to talk with the smallest children about feeling grumpy and also how important sharing things can be.

Won’s art focuses on the animals themselves with only touches of backgrounds or even ground around and underneath them.  The colors pop when the hats enter the pages, bright and vibrantly different, they are all a hoot.

Cheery and friendly, this book is a happy look at changing emotions and sharing good fortune.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: The Troublemaker by Lauren Castillo

| Tasha

troublemaker

The Troublemaker by Lauren Castillo

Told in the first person, this picture book is from the point of view of one bored little boy.  He and his stuffed raccoon decide to play pirates.  To do that you had to not only be sneaky but you also needed a prisoner, and his sister’s stuffed rabbit was quickly stolen and sent afloat in the lake.  The boy was scolded and the now damp bunny was returned to his angry sister.  The boy then spent time playing with his own toys, but soon his mother was asking if he’d taken the bunny again.  He hadn’t but no one believed him and then his stuffed animal went missing too!  It was a real mystery and now they had a real pirate on their hands.

Castillo takes a classic book of summer boredom and then picking on a sibling to a different and surprising place in this picture book.  Children who are paying attention will notice a furry face that appears on almost every page in the background, a lurking raccoon who seems to want to get involved or maybe is having his own dull afternoon and is looking for some fun.  This second little troublemaker adds a great amount of fun to the story.  Even better, having dealt with raccoons invading my house and stealing my son’s stuffed animals up into their attic den, this all rings completely true.

Castillo’s signature art style is on display here.  She manages to capture a timeless look on the page but also one that is modern and fresh.  The tinge of blue on the stuffed raccoon make sure that children will not mix up the real and stuffed animals.  The family’s home is well detailed, busy and filled with other natural touches.

A solid new title from Castillo that will work well for units or story times about pirates, siblings or raccoons.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Big Bug by Henry Cole

| Tasha

big bug

Big Bug by Henry Cole

Start with a close up of a ladybug in this picture book and then everything is put into perspective.  If you step back, the big bug on the first pages is not so big compared to the big leaf it is sitting on.  That leaf turns small when seen as just a part of a flower.  Then a big dog appears only to be dwarfed by the big cow on the next page.  This continues until the reader is looking at the big sky.  Then the book reverses and the perspective gets closer and tighter, returning in the end to that same dog now sleeping inside. 

This is a very simple book that is superbly done.  Cole plays nicely with perspective and with concepts.  The book can easily be used as a way to show the differences between big and small, but I think the real treat is showing children that perspective is important and understanding size is too.  With only a couple of words on each page, the book is imminently readable, especially by a child just starting to read on their own.

Cole’s art is clear and lovely.  The perspective changes are done vividly and the page where you linger with the big big sky for a moment is particularly lovely with its little farm and little tree.  It also serves as a very clear pivot point in the book thanks to the design of the page. 

Show this one to art teachers, preschool teachers, and kids who enjoy a huge insect.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Little Simon.

Review: Gravity by Jason Chin

| Tasha

gravity

Gravity by Jason Chin

In his latest book, Chin examines the theory of gravity and how it works on our planet and in the universe.  As with his previous books about redwoods and coral reefs, Chin takes a complicated subject and reduces it neatly to a child-appropriate level.  He also adds a touch of magic and whimsy.  The book begins with the book falling out of the sky and right in front of a boy on a beach, playing with his toy astronaut and rocket.  Then gravity goes away and his toys, bucket, shovel and banana head out into space.  From there, the effect of gravity on the earth is explained and eventually gravity returns and the objects fall back to earth.  But not exactly where you’d expect them to.

Told in very brief sentences, the book will work for even the youngest scientifically-inclined children to enjoy.  More information on gravity in a wordier format is provided at the end of the book.  Chin keeps the body of the book light-hearted and still scientific even as toys float right past the reader in the vastness of space. 

As with any book by Chin, his art is exceptional.  He manages on a still page to capture the effect of items floating in space, weightless and free from gravitational pull.  He also succeeds in conveying clearly when gravity is turned off and when it is returned, something not easily done in illustrations.  The beauty of what he captures is magnificent.  He shows the sun from space, the earth, and it is all vast and lovely.

Another winner of a title from Chin, get this into the hands of little ones who dream of science and space.  This is a very readable science book that would make a great addition for sharing aloud in a story time or unit.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Review: The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson

| Tasha

vanishing season

The Vanishing Season by Jodi Lynn Anderson

After her mother lost her job in Chicago, Maggie and her parents move to Door County, Wisconsin to a home they have inherited.  Just as they move to the peninsula, teen girls start to disappear and are found floating in the water.  Maggie misses her best friend and all of the activity of Chicago, but she is also taken in by the quiet and the beauty of Door County.  She quickly makes friends with the unusual girl next door, Pauline, who is beautiful, wealthy but also ignores both those facts and is downright childlike most of the time.  There is also Liam, a boy desperately in love with Pauline, though Pauline just wants to remain friends forever.  Maggie enters their world of canoe rides, building saunas in the woods, bonfires and marshmallows, that is interrupted as the winter comes with more deaths of teen girls.  Soon a curfew is imposed and no one is allowed to travel on their own.  Maggie can still hang out with Liam and Pauline, but the isolated peninsula begins to become even more separated from the rest of the world.  Add to this a voice in the novel that speaks of death, of being dead, and you have a haunting teen read.

Anderson’s prose is incredible.  She has written a book where it is all about isolation, winter, and death.  Yet at the same time it is rather desperately and fragilely about life too.  There is warmth, first love, beautiful friendships, and the wonder of nature.  It is a novel of contrasts, one that hints at a ghost story but is not overtaken by it.  It is a book about love, but it moves beyond that as well, turning to life and death eventually.

As I said, Anderson’s writing is beautiful.  She captures moments with a delicacy and poignancy that makes even the smallest moments of life spectacular.  Here is one example from Page 61 in the digital version of the ARC:

If I could show you the lives of the people below me – the colors of what they all feel heading into this chilling, late fall – they’d be green and purple and red, leaking out through the roofs, making invisible tracks down the roads.

She plays with perspectives in the novel.  Maggie’s story is told in third person, while the voice of the ghost, as seen in the quote above, is told in first person.  Anderson is not afraid to create a book filled with tiny pieces that come together into one full work by the end.  She writes without the need for action to carry the book forward, instead capturing a place and a time with an eye for detail and discovery.

Haunting and wildly beautiful, this quiet book is not for everyone but those who love it will love it desperately.  Appropriate for ages 14-16.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Edelweiss and HarperTeen.

Review: The Midnight Library by Kazuno Kohara

| Tasha

midnight library

The Midnight Library by Kazuno Kohara

The Midnight Library only opens at night.  Then a little librarian and her three owl assistants help all sorts of animals find the right books.  The library was quiet and peaceful until a band of squirrels showed up looking for a place to practice.  Luckily, the library had an activity room where they could play music without disturbing anyone else.  It was quiet again until it started to rain, but it was raining inside the library.  It was Mrs. Wolf crying about something she read in a book.  The librarian and her assistants helped her finish the story and reach the happy ending.  Finally, it was time to close for the night and there was one very slow patron who would not leave, but the little librarian solved that situation happily too.  This is a clever and creative look at libraries and their services in a way that children will easily relate to.

Kohara is author of several other picture books all done in her signature style.  Here she cleverly takes a library and adds mystery by making it open at night.  The addition of animals as patrons also creates an interesting twist.  I also appreciated a library being depicted as a place that you can play music.  So often the focus is on the quiet and solitude, but this is one happening library!

Kohara uses the colors on the cover of the book throughout the story.  The deep blues and blacks are enlivened by the bright yellow-orange that forms most of the background.  Her use of printmaking techniques creates thick lines with an organic dappling effect.  These prints feel like woodblocks but have lines that swirl and curve unlike most block prints.

Clever, lively and great fun, this picture book is perfect for sleepy library fans.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.