Book Reviews

Review: A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff

| Tasha

tangle of knots

A Tangle of Knots by Lisa Graff

Cady has a Talent for baking cakes and making just the right one for a specific person.  Miss Mallory’s Talent is matching children with the perfect home, but she hasn’t been able to find the right fit for Cady for years.  Will has a Talent for hiding, passing through walls and disappearing along with his pet ferret.  Zach has a Talent for spitting, something just right for a troublemaker.  Marigold is desperately searching for her Talent, trying all sorts of things with no luck.  Then there is the mysterious man who has a Talent for knots who seems to appear whenever he is needed most.  There is even a man who steals Talents and keeps them in jars, as he frantically searches suitcases for a slip of paper he lost over 50 years ago.  The stories of all of these characters are just a tangle at first, but slowly the stories come together into one gorgeously designed knot of a tale.

Graff has created a world like ours but with more than a touch of magic infused into it.  While most of the characters have Talents, there are some who don’t have any.  There are others who only discover their talent late in life like Marigold.  But in this book it is not the magical bits that make it special, instead it is the intricate storytelling, the puzzle.  Readers who want a straightforward book should not look here.  This is a book that hints, it rambles, it invites you in for cake and adventure, then wanders a bit more.  But the wandering is rather the point, the cake is particularly important, and one wouldn’t want to miss a ramble.

Give this one to the dreamers, the wanderers, and those who want a hint of magic, sweetness and frosting with their stories.  Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from ARC received from Philomel.

Review: Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909 by Michelle Markel

| Tasha

brave girl

Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909 by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Clara Lemlich and her family came to America planning to find jobs, but no one will hire her father.  The factories did want girls like Clara though, and so she started working in the garment industry.  She worked from dusk to dawn in rows with other young girls, sewing as fast as she could.  If they were late at all, they lost half a day’s wages.  If they pricked their fingers and bled on the cloth they were fined, if it happened again they were fired.  The doors were locked, there was no fresh air, and the girls were inspected when they left to make sure they weren’t stealing anything.  But Clara would not be held down, she went to the library and learned English, teaching the other factory girls on their lunch break.  Then Clara learned about unions and strikes, though some thought the girls were not tough enough to strike.  So began her transformation into a union leader, through beatings and hunger, these girls and Clara are the people we have to thank for fair hours and pay. 

Markel tells the story with a strong heart and a certain thrill.  Readers get to see a quiet girl get off of the boat and steadily transform through self-education and pure tenacity into an amazing person who had strength and energy enough for several people.  Markel manages to tell the story of the times without dedicating much of her brief story to background.  Instead she uses the situation at the mill to speak on their own.  She ends the book with more information about the garment industry, giving facts and figures about how many girls were working there and the abuses they suffered.

Sweet’s illustrations are a treat.  Her paintings are turned into collage with the addition of various textiles and trims.  On one page the buildings of New York are painted and then enriched by trimmings, stitches and swatches of material.  On another the painting is smaller and then framed by material.  Clara herself is often wearing a look of determination on her face, usually with a fist clenched as if ready to do battle at any time. 

This is a wonderful picture book biography about a heroine that children can related directly to, since she is so young.  It is also a very timely read with labor under such pressure right now.  Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

| Tasha

aristotle and dante

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz

This is one of the big winners of the ALA Awards this year.  It won the Stonewall Book Award, the Pura Belpre Author Award, a Printz Honor, and was on the YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults list.  So I’m not sure what I can say about it beyond that it is one incredible read!

Ari has his entire empty summer ahead of him so he one day he heads to the pool even though he can’t swim.  There he meets Dante, a confident boy just his age, who offers to teach him to swim.  Through that one act, the friendship between these two loners is formed.  They have very little in common except that they are both Mexican Americans.  Ari tends to be angry, is able and willing to fight, and can’t communicate with his father.  Dante, on the other hand, goes to a private school, reads poetry, sketches and actually gives his father kisses.  The two boys form a strong bond with one another, able to have long conversations and tell each other everything.  Well almost everything.

This book is an interplay of strength and fragility with Ari, the physically strong and more strident one, being actually the more fragile as you see deeper under the surface.  It is about the way that friendships form in unlikely places, flourish and potentially fall apart over small things.  It is a book of celebration, a book that wonders at the desert night filled with stars.  It is a book that explores what it means to be gay, what it means to have a best friend that is gay.  It is about being a hero, finding your truth and moving ahead past doubt.

Beautiful, strong and incredibly brave, this book reads like a poem read aloud by a best friend.  Appropriate for ages 16-18.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: One Frozen Lake by Deborah Jo Larson

| Tasha

one frozen lake

One Frozen Lake by Deborah Jo Larson, illustrated by Steven Johnson and Lou Fancher

A boy and his grandfather head out on the frozen lake to go fishing.  They drill through four inches of ice and set up their canvas ice shack.  Inside they open their tackle box and have four watery holes to fish through.  Other join them out on the ice and cocoa is shared, but after seven hours they haven’t seen a single fish.  They play cards together and wait until night falls then, a fish!  A ten incher and a keeper!  But the boy has different ideas than a fish dinner.  This picture book captures the quiet times spent fishing out on the ice with a loved one.  It’s sure to appeal to children who have headed out themselves and waiting those long hours for just one bite.

Larson nicely weaves numbers and counting into her words in this book.  One frozen lake, two friends, three bundles of gear, four inches of ice, five hours to wait.  Then she starts again from one, building her poetic story upon the foundation of counting.  But this is not a counting book, instead it is a celebration of Minnesota winters and family.

The art here is exceptional.  The story above the ice is shown in realistic paintings that show with accuracy the relationship between grandfather and grandson.  The tones are bright, sun-filled but also cold as a northern winter should be.  Below the ice is a completely different world.  There the images are done as collages with whimsical old-fashioned touches taken from signs and flyers.  The result is a pairing that shows the stark difference between surface and depths.

Growing up on a Wisconsin lake, this picture book brought back many memories of walking the frozen lake and seeing the shanties.  It’s sure to do the same for many grandparents and grandchildren.  This is definitely a keeper!  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Midwinter Blood by Marcus Sedgwick

| Tasha

midwinterblood

Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

Intertwined stories that range from the near future of 2073 to the distant past of the Vikings, this book lures the reader in with dark promises, strange happenings, and dares you to follow your curiosity deeper and deeper.  When Eric Seven arrives at the island of Blessed to see if the claims that people have discovered how to live longer (if not forever) are true, he is greeted with warmth and immediately set up in house of his own.  No one lives on the western side of the island and the eastern side only has adults, no children.  Eric starts out with drive to discover what is wrong, but the longer he spends on the island and drinking the tea the community provides him, the less he wants to explore at all.  When he travels to the western side of the island finally, his story forms the door to those that follow.  Layer upon layer, the lives of the people on Blessed are told, each layer revealing something new and equally odd.  This impressive novel is impossible to put down until the final story and the real truth is revealed in all of its horror.

Immediately upon opening this book, the strangeness of the story was apparent.  As Eric slips into complacency, I was almost screaming at him with frustration.  It was the ideal way to open this book where so much hinges upon the moments of hair raising oddity that link the stories.  Sedgwick has built this book so exquisitely that there is no guessing at the ending until it comes.  It is a story of love but also of revenge, of brotherhood but also of murder. 

Set on a Scandinavian island that is remote, Sedgwick uses the unusual formation of the island as a large part of the story.  The two halves nearly severed from one another, they are two worlds connected only slightly.  So the island itself reflects the story of generations of people who remain connected as well.  The inclusion of the dragon orchid and the powerful tea it brews is also a great symbol within the story.  The orchids are powerful, strange but also beautiful and delicate. 

This compelling novel is amazing teen literature.  It has enough depth to be used in a classroom where the symbolism and incredible writing can be celebrated.  It is also a riveting combination of romance and horror that will thrill discriminating teen readers.  Appropriate for ages 15-18.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Review: Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle

| Tasha

flora and the flamingo

Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle

There are oh so many ballet books out there for little ballerinas who look for tulle and pointe shoes.  So it was with that bias and perhaps a cringe or two that I opened this book.  Inside it’s very pink cover is a very pink world that is pure pink fabulousness!  In this wordless book, Flora meets the flamingo and immediately imitates its stance and attitude.  Then the flamingo launches into a dance that Flora struggles to match in her swimcap and flippers.  It all goes well until Flora loses her footing and flops into the water.  What happens next speaks to what friends should do when they see someone take a flop.  Start again with plenty of support.  All this with no words!

Idle has a stunning simplicity in this book.  It has the draw of flaps to open, but that is all about the dance and the movement.  There is a pleasure in lengthening the dance by having the two of them dance movements again and again by opening and closing the flaps.  It turns readers into storytellers in a way that is engaging and free, just as this entire book is throughout. 

I love Flora and her lack of tulle and ballet outfit.  Instead wearing her swim gear, she is able to mimic the flamingo all the better.  It takes the emphasis off of the clothes of ballet and back to the dance itself.  Now all children need is a friendly flamingo.  Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from copy received from Chronicle Books.

Review: Peace by Wendy Anderson Halperin

| Tasha

peace

Peace by Wendy Anderson Halperin

A simple poem is at the heart of this picture book about peace.  Each line of the poem forms the basis of a page of the book and is also accompanied by other quotes about peace that bring a wonderful depth to the entire read.  As one reads, it almost becomes a chant about peace, a reverberation of the power of peace, and when one finishes that peace lingers for a long time.  When I finished the book, I immediately wanted to do two things:  start all over again and also research some of the quotes and people I had never heard of before.  There are quotes from all of the big names like the Dalai Lama and Martin Luther King, Jr.  but wonderfully, there are also quotes from others whose messages are just as powerful.

Halperin’s illustrations are detailed and wonderful.  The images are bright and speak directly to the sorts of peace being discussed.  In those images and in the surrounding quotes, children will see ways that they can personally work for peace on small and large levels.  There is a delicacy to the illustrations that works so well with the subject matter.  They are inclusive, warm and joyful.

As I was reading, I noticed a quote from Peace Pilgrim, a woman I was lucky enough to meet when she was alive.  My family hosted her for a night and she spoke at a small park in rural Wisconsin on the shore of a lake.  It was that sort of person being included in this book that meant so very much to me.  I also think about others searching for the new people they have found in this book and discovering her. 

A lovely and powerful book about peace, this belongs in every library.  Appropriate for ages 7-10.

Reviewed from copy received from Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Review: Chu’s Day by Neil Gaiman

| Tasha

chus day

Chu’s Day by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Adam Rex

This was not what I had been expecting from Gaiman and Rex, but sometimes surprises can be a delight.   Chu is a small panda who has a very big way of sneezing.  His parents are always concerned about him being about to sneeze.  So when they head to the library and encounter book dust, his mother asks if he’s going to sneeze.  Chu starts to “aah-aaah-Aaaah” but then “No.”  When his father takes him to a restaurant with pepper in the air, he asks too.  Chu goes “aah-aaah-Aaaah” but then “No” once again.  When they head to the circus everyone is too busy watching the show to hear Chu say that he thinks he’s going to sneeze and what a sneeze it is!

This is the first book that Gaiman has written for such a young audience.  It will be toddlers and preschoolers who adore this book and love the humor that is intrinsic in the writing and its rhythms.  The better you can fake the build-up to a sneeze, the funnier the little “no” at the end is.  In other words, this is a great one to read aloud.

Rex adds so much with the tight details of the world he builds here.  Chu is plush and fuzzy.  Whenever he starts to sneeze, his aviator glasses fall down over his eyes, adding an additional comic effect.  The detail of the scenes will have children lingering over them, identifying the various animals in the pictures.  Personally, the mice using the library card catalog drawers for computer use was the perfect mix of modern and retro.

A rather surprising straight-forward book from Gaiman that is a strong read aloud and filled with laughs.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

| Tasha

OutoftheEasy_BOM.indd

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Published February 12, 2013.

Josie knows that she wants to leave New Orleans behind.  She wants to leave her mother, a prostitute who works in a brothel.  Josie wants to leave behind her job of cleaning the rooms of the brothel.  But it’s not so easy to leave The Big Easy, especially when a wealthy man just turned up dead soon after meeting Josie in the bookstore she works in.  Josie is also caught up in lying about the mental condition of the bookstore’s owner so that he won’t be committed.  And there may just be romance flying with not one handsome young man but two.  Yet Josie has one specific dream and that is getting into Smith College.  The question is just how many people she may have to step on to get there and how she will have to compromise herself.  This vivid portrayal of a 1950s New Orleans takes us into the seedy world beneath the shiny beads and lovely architecture.

The setting of this novel is such an integral part of the story that it simply would not have worked anywhere else in the world.  Beautifully captured, readers get to really see the time period reflected as well as the city herself.  Add to that the wonderfully charged atmosphere of the story and you get a book that is impossible not to fall for, just like New Orleans.

Sepetys has created a complex heroine in this novel.  Josie is both ashamed of her background and yet defensive and proud about it as well.  As she gets deeper and deeper into the secrets and troubles of the storyline, her character is tested and Josie does not always react the way one might expect a heroine to.  Instead she is genuine, making wrong choices, correcting and then making others.  Often there is no right answer, just not the worst one. 

Well-written and compelling, this glimpse of New Orleans features a striking heroine and a tumultuous storyline.  Appropriate for ages 15-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Philomel.