Book Reviews

Review: The Apothecary by Maile Meloy

| Tasha

apothecary

The Apothecary by Maile Meloy

Janie and her parents have just fled California and headed to Cold War London.  There she meets Benjamin, a boy who stands up for himself.  As the two of them attempt to follow Soviet spies around London, they discover a real plot, a dangerous one.  When Benjamin’s father disappears as they hide in the cellar below, Benjamin and Janie must try to use an ancient book of potions and spells to try to find him.  But first they have to keep the book and themselves out of the hands of the enemies who are trying to find them.  It’s not that easy when you don’t know who to trust or what to believe in anymore.

When I opened this book, it was like tumbling into a world that felt like home to me, but at the same time surprised and delighted me too.  Meloy’s writing has a solid feel to it, hearkening back in tone to classic children’s books of adventure.  At the same time, she has created a wondrous world to explore, one that she brings to life with strong characters, memorable settings, and a lot of magic. 

The two protagonists are winning characters, filled with both whimsy and charm.  They are characters that readers will relate to instantly.  Their sudden friendship and mutual attraction is written in a way that makes sense.  Both characters are brave, inventive, and creative.  They are just whom one would want to take a grant adventure with. 

The ARC I read of the book only had a few of the illustrations in it, but those that I have seen are beautiful.  The design of the book plays with light and dark and so do the images, many of them capturing moments of action and importance in the story. 

A dazzling fantasy novel, this book also has a strong sense of period and setting that can be missing in magical books.  Appropriate for ages 10-13.

Reviewed from ARC received from Penguin Young Readers Group.

Also reviewed by:

Review: After the Kill by Darrin Lunde

| Tasha

after the kill

After the Kill by Darrin Lunde, illustrated by Catherine Stock

Explore what happens after the lioness kills a zebra on the Serengeti Plain.  While the hunt and the kill are part of the story, they are only the beginning.  After the zebra is killed, the lion pride comes to eat and then other species start to gather.  There are the vultures who share with the lions.  Then the hyena clan that is able to drive the lions away and claim their share.  Jackals use trickery to grab some food for themselves.  The lions reclaim the carcass and continue to eat until they are sated.  Other vultures arrive.  The small scraps of flesh that remain are eaten by meat-eating beetles until the bones are white in the African sun. 

Lunde, a mammalogist at the Smithsonian Institute, creates a compelling story here.  There is no shying away from predator and prey, just a frank description of the food chain.  Nicely, Lunde injects his narrative with plenty of detail, noises, and an obvious love of his subject.  He paints a verbal picture of what is happening, helping young readers better understand what is actually happening.  The pieces of the book in the smaller font have additional scientific information that readers will find fascinating. 

Stock’s illustrations have a bright, hot quality to them thanks to the yellow tones throughout.  The heat of Africa is built into every page.  She also embraces the kill, the scavenging, and the story, creating a book filled with action-filled images.

An unflinching look at the battle for food on the Serengeti Plain, this book will be riveting for young readers.  Appropriate for ages 5-8, though this is a book that some children may find upsetting, so it is important to be aware of the sensitivity of the child you are sharing it with.

Reviewed from copy received from Charlesbridge.

Review: You Are My Only by Beth Kephart

| Tasha

you are my only

You Are My Only by Beth Kephart

Emmy had one joy in life and that was Baby.  Otherwise she was trapped in a violent marriage at age 20.  So when Baby disappeared so did Emmy’s reason to live.  After she is saved from committing suicide by standing on the train tracks, she is committed to a state institution because of her breakdown.  Sophie is a teen who is kept hidden in her home by her mother.  They have moved often, running away from the No Good.  But as she looks out the window and meets Joey, his big dog, and his loving aunts, she is tempted to visit them for real.  Once there, she finds a home that is filled with warmth, love, sweet treats, good books, and everything that is missing from her own.  As their stories continue, readers will find themselves captured by the stories of a mother and daughter who lost each other long ago and are trying to find their way back to one another.

Kephart’s writing is breathtaking.  She uses language that breaks through, explains, dances and delights.  She can also use her words to create such sorrow, to build angst and amplify emotion until the reader is feeling it directly in their own skin.  Here is one such paragraph on Page 13 just after Baby has been stolen:

My baby is gone.  My baby is gone, and I should have called the police first thing.  I should have had a decent, right-thinking thought in my head instead of growing desperate in the trees, draining the day of precious daylight with my every failing footstep.  Peter came home to the red circle of the law’s lights, to the house torn inside out and bright with every watt we own.  To dogs in the woods and yellow rivers of light.  They told Peter right at the end of his second shift.  He smells like refinery and trouble, like the smoke up and down the Delaware River.

She also builds characters in the same way, allowing us to see inside them and to understand them more deeply than they do themselves.  The two female characters are both fragile to the point of fracturing, but also immensely strong in a way that is compelling and never tough.  Their stories parallel one another, both being held against their will, both unsure of what the future will bring, and both of them recovering from loss.

I must also mention the wonderful characters of Miss Cloris and Miss Helen.  At first they are assumed to be two sisters, but they are actually a lesbian couple.  It is a story of love that is told in small moments, gentle connections, and the brilliance of their adoration for one another.  It is also a lifetime of love, because they are both elderly and one is nearing death.  They are exactly the sort of gay characters we need in our teen literature.  They are beautiful, warm, nurturing and normal.

Teens will pick this book up for the story of a stolen baby and the tension of the mother and daughter finding one another.  On the way, they will read a phenomenal book of loss, love, imprisonment and freedom.  Mostly freedom.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Egmont.

Also reviewed by:

Review: School for Bandits by Hannah Shaw

| Tasha

school for bandits

School for Bandits by Hannah Shaw

Ralph was not a normal raccoon.   He looked like any other raccoon, but he certainly didn’t act like them.  He was polite, clean, and tidy.  His parents were frustrated and so sent him to Bandit School where he could learn to be naughty, dirty and thieving.  Ralph had an awful time in school because he was just too nice.   When his teacher announced the Best Bandit in School competition, Ralph just knew that there was no way he would ever win.  He spent his break reading inside instead of causing trouble out on the streets like his classmates.  Can a nice raccoon ever come out ahead? 

Shaw captures the naughtiness of raccoons with glee.  They are shown with frizzy fur, bad breath, and are often playing pranks and taking other animals’ things.  Yet they are never frightening, despite the worry on other characters’ faces, they are rascals rather than being gang-like.  Children will love many of the touches here, including burping in class and brushing teeth with chocolate.

The text is simple and tells a good story, often crooked on the page.  The illustrations and text work well together, sometimes playing off of one another in style. 

This is a book that speaks to the importance of manners but in a way that remains fun and light-hearted throughout.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Alfred A. Knopf.

Also reviewed by:

New Halloween Books

| Tasha

Here are some newly released Halloween books that are sure to mix shivers and giggles:

skeleton meets the mummy

Skeleton Meets the Mummy by Steve Metzger, illustrated by Aaron Zenz

Sammy is looking forward to trick-or-treating with his best friend on Halloween night.  His mother catches him before he can leave and asks him to run some soup to his grandmother.  To get there, he has to head through the woods.  He gets scared along the way by a bat, the wind, and even a tree that looks like a monster.  So he’s already jumpy when he hears the footsteps behind him and sees the mummy chasing him!

Told in straight-forward prose, the illustrations are a large part of the appeal here.  They are crisp, clean and vivid.  The characters glow against the dark Halloween backgrounds.  This is a story with a funny twist, plenty of appeal and even a couple of bumps in the dark.

sleepless little vampire

The Sleepless Little Vampire by Richard Egielski

Little Vampire can’t figure out why he is having trouble falling asleep.  It could be the spitting spider.  It could be the flitting bats.  Maybe the cockroaches crawling on the floor?  Or the werewolf howling?  More and more Halloween characters enter the story and create their own noises:  a witch, skeletons, ghosts.  But none of them are the reason he can’t sleep.  Nope, it was just that he was trying too sleep too early.  It wasn’t morning yet!

Egielski bridges the pages brilliantly, moving from one possible cause of being unable to sleep to another.  The final reason will surprise most readers, though as they see the sky lighten they will be able to guess the ending on the final page.  The illustrations get increasingly busy as more characters enter.  The detail makes this a better pick to use one-on-one or with a small group of children. 

frangoline

Frangoline and the Midnight Dream by Clemency Pearce, illustrated by Rebecca Elliott

Frangoline was a perfect child, neat and clean.  Until the deep of night, when she put on her black cape and escaped the house.  The moon tried to warn her about being in bed, but Frangoline replied, “I’ll do exactly as I please!  I’m Frangoline!”  She climbed down the tree outside her window, ran across the lawn, blew raspberries.  She woke the forest animals but then yelled so loud that she scared them all away rather than them ever scaring her.  She danced and pranced in the graveyard and woke up the ghouls.  When they chased her up the church steeple, she finally got worried.  But where can she go if she’s cornered up there? 

There is a wild delight in this book and in the naughtiness of a little girl having such fun alone in the middle of the night.  The moon plays a big role in the book, warning her of the dangers but also being a sort of parental figure on each page.  The story is silly, clever and has the dark night creepiness along with the ghouls.  But nothing is drawn in a particularly scary way, instead it stays inviting with a strong sense of fun.

All three books are appropriate for ages 4-6. 

All were provided for review by Scholastic.

Review: The Princess and the Peanut by Sue Ganz-Schmitt

| Tasha

princess and the peanut

The Princess and the Peanut by Sue Ganz-Schmitt, illustrated by Micah Chambers-Goldberg

Food allergies are booming in children today with nearly six million children in the U.S. suffering from food-related allergies.  Here allergies are merged into a fairy tale world to nice effect.  When a prince despairs of finding his perfect princess, a princess appears on his doorstep looking for shelter from the storm.  To test to see if the princess is indeed real, the queen places a peanut between her tower of mattresses.  But this princess doesn’t have trouble sleeping, instead she awakens with an allergic reaction!

Following the storyline of The Princess and the Pea, this book skillfully and with effective humor tells the story of having an allergic reaction and what should be done.  It is a book that reflects what children today are dealing with and also supports children who have allergies.  The book also has a question and answer section on allergies for adults and a glossary for kids.

The illustrations have the feel of an animated film with dramatic lighting, interesting perspectives, and touches of humor.  They will be an inviting style for children, who will enjoy the juxtaposition of modern allergies and fairy tale themes.

Make sure to check out Ganz-Schmitt’s first book that was about diabetes: Even Superheroes Get Diabetes.  Both books have a charm and an honesty about medical situations that children are dealing with.  Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from copy received from Raab Associates.

Review: Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? by Susan A. Shea

| Tasha

do you know which ones will grow

Do You Know Which Ones Will Grow? by Susan A. Shea, illustrated by Tom Slaughter

This interactive and engaging book will have children eagerly answering the questions inside.  The book is all about whether something is alive or not, whether it will grow or not.  Told in rhyming sets of questions, the final rhyme and answer is hidden beneath another flip-out page that makes it into a guessing game for the rhyme.  So in the first pages, “If a ducking grows and becomes a duck, can a car grow and become…”  Turn the page and you find “a truck?”  The flaps also have die cut holes in them that add to the appeal.  It’s a game and a book that will intrigue and fascinate young readers.

A large part of the appeal of this book is the rhyming couplets that create the guessing game.  Pairing living creatures and inanimate objects make for an appealing educational book.  Adding the rhyming guessing game takes it to another level.  The rhymes have a great humor to them, and will have children giggling at the thought that a stool could grow into a a chair or a sweater into a coat.

Slaughter’s illustrations are bright and graphic.  Using bold color combinations and strong lines, the cut-paper illustrations are very effective.  They have an colorful and inviting tone that is modern and striking.

Ideal for classroom use or in any library, this book should be enjoyed by many children.  The flap structure is large and sturdy, meaning it will work well for public or school libraries.  This book tackles a subject I haven’t seen in many picture books too, adding to the appeal. Appropriate for ages 3-5.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by:

Review: Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

| Tasha

breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs by Anne Ursu

Hazel and Jack have been best friends for almost their entire lives.   They share a love of Harry Potter, Narnia, and comics.  But now Jack spends a lot of time with his friends who are also boys.  He still does special things with Hazel, but it seems like less and less.  Then one day, something horrible happened and Jack stopped being friends with Hazel.  He was rude and mean.  Soon after that, Jack disappeared.  His parents weren’t worried.  They insisted he had been sent to care for an elderly aunt, but Hazel felt that something was really wrong.  When Tyler, a boy Jack was friends with, told her that he had seen a strange woman take Jack into the woods, Hazel set out to find Jack and bring him back.  But even her love of books can’t prepare Hazel for the twisted world she finds in the woods and the hazards she will have to face to find her best friend.

Ursu writes with a tone of wonder and discovery.  She puts things in ways that they have not been said before, creating new ways of expressing emotion and attachment.  She takes her time, building a way of seeing the world that is quirky and compelling at the same time.  Here is a paragraph from page 44 which shows the care with which she has created her world:

There were some days, ever since the summer, when the whole feel of Jack seemed to change.  Like suddenly, instead of being made of baseball and castles and superheroes and Jack-ness, he was made of something scratchy and thick.  Hazel could tell, because he had been her best friend for four years, and you can tell when your best friend is suddenly made of something else.  And all she could do was try to remind him what he was really made of.

The two main characters are exceptional.  Jack is a boy dealing with a mother fighting severe depression, someone who has already been lost to the emptiness and cold.  Hazel is a girl who never sees her father any more, who has a mother who wants her to make new friends beyond Jack, and who loves her friend beyond bravery. 

Everything in this book just works.  The background of the two protagonists clicks into what they do in reaction to the magic that enters their world.  Jack embraces the cold and emptiness.  Hazel has been abandoned by her father and will not abandon her best friend.  It is all simply cohesive.

This is a magical, amazing, lovely read that will appeal most to readers who also love Narnia and The Snow Queen.  Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from ARC received from Walden Pond Press.

Also reviewed by:

Review: Pie by Sarah Weeks

| Tasha

pie

Pie by Sarah Weeks

When Alice’s Aunt Polly dies, the entire community of Ipswitch feels the loss.  Polly, the Pie Queen, left behind quite a void, one that had been filled by her pie shop and her incredible gift for baking pies.  Every resident had a favorite and with her death, they knew they would never taste them again.  But for Alice it is much worse, she has lost one of her dearest friends as well as the shop where she spent much of her time.  Her Aunt Polly left the recipe for her award-winning pie crust to Lardo, her ornery cat, and she left Lardo to Alice.  No one is really sure how someone can leave a recipe to a cat.  As the days pass, strange things start happening, but only Alice seems to notice.  She knows there is someone out there trying to get their hands on the recipe.  With her new friend, Charlie, Alice is determined to solve the mystery.

Weeks has written a book as light as meringue but that has plenty of depth as well.  The story is great fun to read.  It has the tang of a mystery combined with the sweetness of pie.   The pie recipes shared at the beginning of each chapter will have you drooling and determined to see if you could maybe be the next Blueberry Award winner.

Notice how that rhymes with Newbery Award winner?  Weeks has a lot of fun with her brief description of how the Blueberry Award is announced.  It closely resembles the Newbery Award process and had me giggling.  It’s a great insider joke to have in a children’s book.

Alice is a strong character, struggling with the loss of her aunt.  She is determined, creative and imaginative, singing little songs to herself all the time.   These are the things her aunt supported in her, but that her own mother doesn’t understand.  The family dynamic is an important piece of the entire book and is written with great honesty.

A delicious, fun read, this book of pie and mystery is a treat whether read with alamode or alone.  It’s an ideal book for classroom sharing as well, after all who doesn’t like pie?  Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic Press.

Also reviewed by: