Book Reviews

Review: Clementine and the Spring Trip by Sara Pennypacker

| Tasha

clementine and the spring trip

Clementine and the Spring Trip by Sara Pennypacker

In the latest installment of the Clementine series, which happens to be one of my all-time favorite series, Clementine is taking a spring field trip with her class to Plimoth Plantation.  Clementine has agreed to be partners with her friend Margaret on the trip, mostly because the fourth graders have a rule that you have to eat without making any noise.  Margaret wants to partner with Clementine too, since Clementine doesn’t mind dirty things at all and Margaret most definitely does.  Then a new classmate comes along and complicates things.  Olive has her own language that she teaches everyone and is well on her way to being very popular, when she is paired with Clementine for the field trip.  With all of their plans in disarray, what will happen on the field trip?

Just as with all of the Clementine books, Pennypacker has created a modern girl living in a modern family.  She merrily inserts levity throughout the book from the cleaning of the statues in the park to the stinky bus they have to take on the field trip.  The character of Clementine continues to be complex, artistic and monumentally creative.   This of course can lead to getting into trouble, but what jolly trouble it is!

This series belongs in every school and public library.  Get it into the hands of creative kids and those who want a good giggle.  Appropriate for ages 7-9.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Red Kite, Blue Kite by Ji-li Jiang

| Tasha

red kite blue kite

Red Kite, Blue Kite by Ji-li Jiang, illustrated by Greg Ruth

Based on the true story of a family friend, this book tells the story of a father and son separated during the Cultural Revolution in China.  Tai Shan and his father, Baba, loved to fly kites together from the roof of their home in their crowded city.  Then bad times come and the schools are closed.  Baba is sent to a labor camp and Tai Shan is sent to life in a small village with Granny Wang.  Both Tai Shan and his father continue to fly their kites, using them as a signal to one another and a way to maintain contact.  Eventually, Baba is taken further away to another labor camp where they cannot communicate with kites.  All that can be done is to wait until Baba is free again and their kites can soar together once more.

This picture book will be best understood by older children.  There is no need to have a background in Chinese history to understand this book because the story is so universal.  The use of kites as imagery of freedom and connection works particularly well, especially in the ending which is particularly uplifting after the tension and sorrow of the rest of the tale.  Jiang writes in prose that is filled with the emotion of the time.  He writes with deep compassion and doesn’t shy away from the pain that fills Tai Shan’s days separated from his father.

Ruth’s illustrations capture the mood of the story very effectively.  He moves from bright golds and oranges in the city to the dull colors of khaki and earth when the two are separated.  The color scheme is only alleviated by the pop of color from their kites.  When the two are together again, the color begins to return to the landscape.

This is a striking and universal look at families that are torn apart by war and the haunted time they spend apart.  Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

| Tasha

exclamation mark

Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld

The creators of Duck! Rabbit! return with another book filled with bold but simple illustrations.  This book is about an exclamation point that is just trying to be like every other very stable period around him.  He tries everything to be the same, but it just doesn’t work.  He meets a question mark who is also very different, but he’s really bothered by all of her questions.  So he yells at her to stop!  Then he tries out other exclamations, realizing that he’s suddenly discovered exactly what he’s made for. 

An immensely simple book, I really appreciated the occasional zing of puns that kept it from becoming stale.  The illustrations are done on lined paper giving the entire book a cheery aspect.  The message is not done heavy-handedly, rather it is delivered in a playful and light-hearted way. 

This will be welcomed in classrooms as a witty and jolly way to discuss punctuation.  Expect the exclamation mark kids in the class to find a kindred spirit!  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Scholastic.

Review: Just One Day by Gayle Forman

| Tasha

just one day

Just One Day by Gayle Forman

Allyson has always been the good girl, following her mother’s expectations of her completely.  That’s why she’s on a whirlwind tour of Europe.  Allyson is the girl who follows the rules, rarely goes out in the evenings with the others, and fades into the background next to her flashier best friend.  So when Allyson suggests that they go see an underground performance of Shakespeare and cut out of the tour, it’s very out of character.  When she discovers one of the actors, Willem, on their train the next day to London, the two of them just click.  Quickly, she and Willem decide to head to Paris together for just one day before they both have to return home.  As they travel together, the spark they had on the train becomes something even stronger.  So when Willem is gone the next morning, Allyson struggles to figure out what happened even as she returns home and starts college.  But the memory of Willem won’t leave her, coloring everything she experiences.

Forman is the author of If I Stay and Where She Went.  Here she explores the world of a sheltered teen girl who decides to take a huge risk and break free of her confines if only for just one day.  Forman captures the fatigue of travel where one day blurs into the others and the way that tours can dull the wonder of even the most amazing places.  She then shows the difference between that way of travel and the travel of discovery and serendipity where your entire being is caught up in experiencing things.  Forman writes of Paris and then also the Netherlands with a true affection, creating moments that are splendid and transformational. 

Forman’s writing is assured and skilled.  Upon opening the novel, the reader knows that the book will be solid.  They will be delighted to also find that her writing is romantic and beautiful, truly recreating the experience of falling in love as a teen.  She has also created a very compelling teen heroine in Allyson, who struggles mightily with the expectations set upon her.  One roots for her to find her way free and also to find her way back to what she lost.

This exceptional teen novel is a whirlwind romantic trip to Europe that will have you wrapped up in its arms much faster than just one day.  Appropriate for ages 16-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Dutton.

Review: A Little Book of Sloth by Lucy Cooke

| Tasha

little book of sloth

A Little Book of Sloth by Lucy Cooke

Welcome to the world of the Avarios Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica, the world’s only sloth orphanage.  Here you will meet the residents like the queen of the sanctuary, Buttercup, who started the entire thing.  Now over 20 years old, she is the oldest sloth living in captivity.  She was soon joined at the sanctuary by many others.  There are tiny baby twins and others who are so small they have to  have clothes made for them out of socks to keep them warm.  There are injured sloths who give incredible hugs.  The book describes the different kinds of sloths, how they live such chill lives, and the remarkable ways they survive in the wild moving that slowly.  This is a book that will enchant you with the fuzzy warmth of sloths.

Cooke writes in a frank and direct way, describing the sanctuary and its residents with plenty of humor.  After all, there is lots of to laugh at in a poo pole all on its own, add in confused little sloths and you have pure stinky magic.  She also makes sure that readers understand how special the sanctuary and these animals are.  It is a book of appreciation with a tone of wonder at times.

The illustrations are photographs of the sloths and their lives in the sanctuary.  You get to meet all sorts of personalities and ages throughout the book and their stories are told quickly but effectively.  The images help a lot, showing the place rather than having lengthy explanations slow things down. 

A great addition to library collections, this book has a great charm about it just like the sloths themselves.  Warm and welcoming, this book is all about being more chill.  Appropriate for ages 5-9.

Reviewed from copy received from Margaret K. McElderry Books.

Review: The World Is Waiting for You by Barbara Kerley

| Tasha

world is waiting for you

The World Is Waiting for You by Barbara Kerley

Another visually gorgeous book from National Geographic, this book ties together what kids do at a young age with what they can become as an adult.  The book invites children to get out into the world and explore.  After all, if you love getting wet, you could become a diver.  Love digging in the mud?  You could be an archeologist.  Love looking at the stars?  Climbing trees?  Digging into deep holes in the ground?  All of these and more are skillfully tied to careers in a book that is less about getting children to buckle down and more about getting them to open up and fly.

Kerley’s prose reads like a poem, each line designed as an invitation to be themselves and get into things that they love.  Even better, those same thrilling things are tied to life as an adult, offering options for turning their passions into careers.  Yet this book does not dwell there, instead it is a cornucopia of ideas, one after another meant to inspire thought and dreaming than to instruct on specific jobs.

As always in National Geographic books, the illustrations are crisp and colorful photographs.  Here readers will see children out in nature, interacting and loving it.  The images are from around the world and are filled with joy and motion.  At the end of the book, details on each image are given.

Bright, colorful and filled with inspiration, this is a career book that children will find thrilling.  Appropriate for ages 4-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Stung by Bethany Wiggins

| Tasha

stung

Stung by Bethany Wiggins

When Fiona wakes up in her bedroom, something is very wrong.  All of her clothes are faded and there is dust and trash everywhere.  The house has obviously been abandoned for some time.  When Fiona looks in the bathroom mirror, she is not looking into her own face.  Yes, those are her eyes, but she suddenly has breasts and hips, not the flat thirteen-year-old body she had been expecting to see.  She also has a strange tattoo on one hand, a black oval with ten marks around it.  Monsters are walking the city, attacking people and others have banded together to fight them off.  Fiona recognizes people she knows, but they are not friendly.  Chased through the ruined city, Fiona takes shelter in the sewers where she discovers help that comes with a price. 

Wiggins has created such a compelling scenario here.  It is a story of human hubris, the death of the honeybees, human intervention and eventually the fall of society itself.  The details of society’s collapse is told tantalizingly slowly in the novel.  Readers learn of things as Fiona’s memories return, and the pieces click into a whole background that is believable and impressive. 

Fiona herself is a heroine who will appear immensely to teen readers.  She is completely out of place in the world, but through it all shows tremendous grit and determination.  The characters around her are equally fully depicted: her romantic interest, younger brother, and various villainous characters.  They are complicated enough that it is difficult to tell hero from villain at times, adding to the thrill of the read.

The writing is solidly done with a brisk if not breakneck pacing.  This book does not slow down, it simply moves forward from one evil to the next, slowing only for romantic moments that are natural and fully developed. 

Get this into the hands of Hunger Games fans who will find the same mix of romance, horror and action here.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from ARC received from Bloomsbury.

Review: Inside Outside by Lizi Boyd

| Tasha

inside outside

Inside Outside by Lizi Boyd

This lovely wordless book explores the changing seasons in a subtle and engaging way.  The book starts on the inside of a house with a young boy and a little black dog.  The boy is planting seeds in pots while the dog watches and two white mice play.  Through the die cut windows, you can see the snowmen in the yard.  Turn the page and you are outside with those snowmen, the birds eating the seeds.  Turn again and you are inside once more, this time able to glimpse flowering trees out the window.  The plants in the pots are green and growing too.  The boy is hanging pictures on the walls about birds and snowmen melting.  Keep turning and the seasons change, marked by activities, the pictures on the walls, and what you can see through the windows. 

There is a wonderful organic feel to this book, partly thanks to the textured brown paper that serves as the background for all of the images.  That feel is also helped by the color scheme of greens, blues and terra cotta.  The die cuts are used very skillfully throughout, offering glimpses from inside to outside and back again.  The wordless nature of the book makes it a universal story, ideal for being shared with families who may use another language at home. 

Filled with small details that will have children looking back at previous pages when they discover something new, this book is perfect for lingering over on long trips or snuggled in someone’s lap.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from copy received from Chronicle Books.

Review: The Sin-Eater’s Confession by Ilsa J. Bick

| Tasha

sin eaters confession

The Sin-Eater’s Confession by Ilsa J. Bick

Ben saw what happened to Jimmy.  Ben was the only witness except for the murderers who stoned Jimmy to death in the woods.  Ben shouldn’t even have been there, not after what Jimmy did to him by taking a sensual photo of him when he was sleeping. But Ben found himself drawn to Jimmy and understood that Jimmy had no one else to turn to.  His older brother was dead and his parents could not accept having a son who was suspected of being gay.  Ben wasn’t sure that Jimmy is gay, and he was not clear about himself either.  What he does know is that Merit, Wisconsin was not an easy place to be gay with prejudice still very evident throughout the community.  Ben had to decide what to do about what he witnessed, what to tell the police.  Now he has to grapple with the guilt that came from the decisions he made and what he intends to do moving forward.

Bick is the author of the Ashes trilogy and here writes a contemporary teen novel that focuses on several large issues.  Issues like parental pressures are huge in Ben’s life where his mother expects him to get into Yale and become a doctor.  Ben never goes out, has never dated anyone, and pours all of his energy into school and his part time jobs.  The book also covers prejudice and homophobia, along with domestic violence.  It’s a lot for a single book to deal with and at times some of the subjects seem to be there more for effect and to make a point than to really be part of the story itself. 

The book does suffer from slow pacing in some areas, though the underlying story is taut and almost mesmerizing.  Seeing into Ben’s thought process is interesting at first, but there are some layers to it that could have been left off to make the book even stronger.

What Bick really does well here is to create a compelling character in Ben.  Jimmy was interesting as well, but it is Ben who really is the soul of the story.  Through his eyes and his hindsight, readers are able to see the mistakes that Ben has made, the impossible decisions he has been forced into, and eventually his coming to terms with his own responsibility for what happened.  Bick has left large parts of Ben unexplained, which works well.  Readers will never be clear about his sexuality, which mirrors the questions about Jimmy as well, placing the reader right in the same place as the bigots in the community.  One has to start questioning why it matters so much to label someone.

A harsh and unflinching look at bigotry and one’s personal responsibility in a community, this book asks tough questions and then leaves the answers in the reader’s hands.  Appropriate for ages 16-18.

Reviewed from digital galley received from Netgalley and Carolrhoda Books.