Chapter Books

Franny Parker

| Tasha

Franny Parker by Hannah Roberts McKinnon

Franny has grown up in a small Oklahoma town surrounded by her loving family.  She has become known for rescuing baby animals and the entire town now brings her tiny furry bundles.  When Lucas moves in next door, Franny naively thinks that his past is similar to hers.  But readers will realize before Franny does that Lucas and his mother have serious problems that they are running from.  Rescuing Lucas proves much more difficult than rescuing animals, and Franny is not sure that they even want to be rescued at all.

McKinnon’s debut novel is very strong.  Her characterization of the rather naive Franny also shows Franny’s wisdom about certain things.  Lucas is portrayed as much more than a troubled teen with his own way with animals and children.  The adults in the small community are drawn with history, clarity and style.  This is a family that I loved spending time with.

Small touches in the novel make it even more grounded and real.  The annual reading contest at the library, the local fair, and a strong connection to the rural landscape bring the setting fully to life.  McKinnon has a strong sense of place and character.

And the cover!  Love it!  It has a freshness, a friendliness, that perfectly matches what is inside.

Franny is a character readers will love meeting.  She is inspirational, interesting and unique.  Highly recommended for ages 11-13.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by A Patchwork of Books.

Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally)

| Tasha

Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally) by Lisa Yee, illustrated by Dan Santat

Will be released in September 2009.

Bobby and Holly have been best friends for years, but now that they are in fourth grade, everything is changing.  Though they hung out together at the Labor Day Fiesta, they immediately separated when one of Holly’s girl friends appeared.  Bobby was left holding the fish that Holly had won with his last dollar.  Now Bobby finds himself always at odds with the girls in his class, especially Holly.  Plus, he now has a fish and not the dog he has always wanted.  What’s a boy to do?

Yee has struck the exact right tone here for children in 3rd and 4th grades.  She has incorporated just enough humor, friendly adults, and an age-old complication of grade school.  Bobby is a protagonist who finds himself constantly thrust into unexpected situations, and he manages to make the best of them in the end.  His dilemmas are funny, relatable and interesting.  Another touch that I appreciated was the subtle insertion of different races into the text.  Bobby is part Chinese, and one of his friends is part Indian.  It is referred to in passing and just as part of life.  Nicely handled and very important. 

My ARC copy of the book does not include the art except for rough drafts, so I can’t speak to that aspect though the number of illustrations will make the book welcoming to young readers.

A great book for young readers, this will speak to them and their lives.  Recommended for ages 7-10.

Reviewed from ARC sent by Scholastic.

Wild Girl

| Tasha

Wild Girl by Patricia Reilly Giff

Lidie lives with her aunt and uncle in Brazil, and now is being reunited with her father and brother in the United States.  In Brazil she spends her time riding horses and she hopes to be able to show her father, a horse trainer, and her brother, a jockey-in-training, that she can ride too.  Reaching America, she finds that so much is different.  From the language barrier, to her skills at school, to her relationship with her father.  Everyone expects her to be the small girl they left behind in Brazil, but she has changed.  Her father gives her an old horse to teach her to ride, not knowing that she can ride well.  But Lidie wants to ride Wild Girl, the new spirited and unbroken filly.  How can Lidie show everyone who she really is without betraying everything she once was and where she came from?

Lidie is a fantastic character.  Her voice is strong and consistent, her dilemma understandable and relatable, and her actions true to who she is.  I love having a heroine in books who is flawed, struggling and gloriously real.  Lidie is a voice for many girls who come to the United States, struggle with the language, and are bright, vivacious and fascinating. 

By combining girlhood and horses, Giff has created the perfect setting.  Everyone can relate to a love of horses and riding.  It is a language that translates across all of us.  A world we are all a part of.  It was a brilliant choice of setting and character melding together.

Giff has also excelled at creating a home filled with love where there are communication problems and misunderstandings.  She has written all of our homes into this one, a universal home for children who are seen as younger than they really are and are struggling to reveal who they have become. 

With her universal themes combined with a vivid characterization, Giff has created a book that should be in the hands of almost every pre-teen girl.  I guarantee that they will see themselves on the page no matter what their first languages are.  Highly recommended for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from copy provided by Random House.

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano

| Tasha

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Practicing the Piano by Peggy Gifford

This third book in the Moxy Maxwell series continues with the same spirit and humor as the first two.  In this book, Moxy is getting ready for her piano recital, or she is supposed to be.  But she has a long list of things she has to do, which doesn’t include practicing her duet with her little sister Pansy.  So she must make a Green Grass Power shake for upper body strength, she must warm up her voice in case she is asked to sing, she must try on the cape that her grandmother is making for the recital, and much more.  Plus her mother expects her to practice the hard part of her song and her piano teacher expects her to stop at the end of the song and stop the banging in the middle.  Even with everyone’s great planning and expectations, things do not work out as Moxy envisioned them at the recital.

I adore Moxy’s character.  She is headstrong, unique and vivacious.  In each book, she remains true to herself and no one else.  Every other character is also written with great spunk, giving Moxy a canvas to really shine against.  All of the book feature the skilled photography of Valorie Fisher, who manages to take pictures just like a gifted young person would.  Her great eye mixes flawlessly with the great voice of the novel. 

Laugh-out-loud funny and a great hoot for this daughter of a pianist, I highly recommend you head out and read all of the Moxy books.  Right now!  If you are already a fan, this third novel will not disappoint at all.  Appropriate for ages 8-12.

Reviewed from copy sent by the publisher.

When You Reach Me

| Tasha

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Twelve-year-old Miranda lives in New York City and is facing a strange situation.  First, her best friend of all time Sal has stopped wanting to spend any time at all with her after he gets punched in the stomach by another kid.  Second, she has found a note that says that she must write a letter about what is going to happen in order to save her best friend and the writer of the letter.  Third, the emergency key that is hidden outside their apartment door is stolen and more the notes continue to arrive.  Miranda is not just solving this mystery.  She has a new friend to spend time with and a lunch-time job where she and two of her friends are paid for their work in sandwiches and soda.  The book is wonderful juxtaposition of strange and normal, fiction and reality.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time for children in late elementary school.  Its tone is just right, with good humor, mysterious happenings and friendship tensions.  One of those would draw young readers in, all three makes it impossible to put down.  Add to that the satisfaction of unraveling the questions in the novel and this one is a winner.

Each and every character is well-crafted.  Miranda is a fascinating mix of sleuth and denial as she navigates the tensions of the novel.  Her friends and the adults in the book have depth, humanness, and the ability to surprise while staying true to how they are depicted.

The pacing of the novel is deftly done.  Never slow or dragging, it changes with the pace of the story almost effortlessly.  Stead excels at letting the story tell itself.  Her hand is never obvious in the writing or the plotting.  Rather it is a book, a story that is so complete and nicely done that one can’t even imagine another way for it to have been told.

My only quibble is the cover.  This book is just so much better than the cover, more accessible, more fun.  So this wonderful novel may take some hand-selling to get it off of your shelves and into the hands of parents, teachers and kids.  It will make a wonderful read-aloud for classrooms, keeping everyone quiet and involved.  But it is also a great flashlight read, under the covers extending bedtime into the depths of the night.

Reviewed from library copy.

Leviathan

| Tasha

Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld

Released in October 2009.

The talented Westerfeld turns to steampunk in this first book in a new series.  Set in an alternate history on the eve of World War I, this book offers large walking mechs vs. man-made creatures that can be combined to form enormous flying and living blimps.  In this setting are two young people, Alek and Deryn.  Alek, son of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, is the sole surviving person in his family now that his parents have been killed.  He just may be considered the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne if he can survive long enough.  Deryn is a girl who has always loved to fly, but in 1914 girls are not allowed to become pilots.  So Deryn becomes Dylan, a tall, lean boy and proves she is born to fly.  The reader experiences the action through the eyes of both characters living completely separate lives until history brings them violently together.

Gorgeously imagined and written with a flair for battle and a sense of wonder, this book is a winner.  The pacing is fast, the action whirling, and the history deftly placed so that even teens and youth unaware of World War I’s basic timeline will understand the implications and importance of what they are witnessing in this alternate history.  Westerfeld’s characters are caught in the vortex of history and war and spend little time offering deeper insights about their psyches, but that is part of the pleasure here.  This book is more about the incredible war machines and creatures, the awe of flying, the amazement of running in a mech, and the biological magnificence of an enormous flying creature.  As readers, we too are swept up in the imagination on the page, happily believing in the most incredible creations.

Teens will pick this novel up simply because it is a Westerfeld novel, and happily this book will also offer an entry point for younger readers to enjoy Westerfeld’s work.  While much of Westerfeld’s work is for teens, this book could be offered to 5th and 6th graders without concern.  It is a rip-roaring and gripping look at both the future and the past that readers of all ages will have trouble putting down.

Reviewed from an ARC received at ALA Annual Conference.

Also reviewed by Karin’s Book Nook.

Al Capone Shines My Shoes

| Tasha

Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko

Released September 2009.

Return to the world of Moose and his family and friends living on Alcatraz.  Moose’s sister Natalie is heading out to her special school that she got into after Moose asked Al Capone to help.  Now Moose finds a note in the pocket of his shirt after it has returned from the laundry.  The note says, “Your turn.”  Now Moose must decide whether to tell his parents what he did or to do exactly what Capone asks of him.  And where would the fun be in telling your parents?

Choldenko’s Al Capone Does My Shirts is used in classrooms across the country for historical fiction.  This sequel will make teachers across the country very happy, because it has all of the same things everyone loved about the first book.  This novel has the same strong voice of Moose as the first.  It is written with such a great tone and spirit as to make it unmistakably the continuing tale of Moose. The characters are vividly written and remain true to themselves even when they are developing and maturing.  As with the first novel, the setting of Alcatraz is integral to the story.  Choldenko has created another fine piece of historical fiction, expertly rendering a complex setting and large set of characters with such panache that she makes it seem simple.  Her writing is worthy of applause, especially with the challenge of a sequel.

Perfection for tweens, this book has a fleeting kiss but nothing more.  Great for historical fiction units and perfect to put right into kids’ hands without hesitation, this book will be gobbled up by anyone who opens it.

Also reviewed by Welcome to My Tweendom and Sarah Miller.

Goodbye Season

| Tasha

The Goodbye Season by Marian Hale

Released September 2009.

This is Hale’s third historical novel.  Set during the 1918 epidemic, it follows young Mercy.  The member of a sharecropper’s family, she is so poor that her family is forced to send her away to work for someone ten miles from them just to have her fed.  Mercy works hard and soon bonds with the couple she serves and their two hired men.  But after one trip to town, one hired man is dead and Mercy is sent away for her own safety.  She returns home to her family, finding the house empty and her mother and three siblings buried near the house.  Mercy is now alone and penniless.  She finds a job taking care of a woman and her two small children.  But something is strange about the family and Mercy finds herself drawn to the older stepson who may know the answer to the mystery.

An intricate tale of loss, grief, mystery, and love, this book is well plotted and filled with surprises.  Mercy is a heroine who never despairs, works incredibly hard, and makes her own way.  She is gentle, sweet and yet strong and resilient.  At the same time, she is conflicted and unsure often.  She is a character worth spending time with in her complexity.  The 1918 epidemic will fascinate teens who are hearing about swine flu around them.  The devastation of the epidemic is clearly evoked without becoming graphic or overwhelming.

One quibble I have is with the cover art.  Why, why, why is Mercy wearing lipgloss and mascara?!  Love the hair, the face, the look, the setting.  But the makeup just doesn’t work.

An historical novel that is sure to please, this book while about a 17-year-old character would be appropriate for readers as young as 12.

Season of Gifts

| Tasha

A Season of Gifts by Richard Peck

Released September 2009.

Head back to the wonderful character of Grandma Dowdel.  In this third novel, it is 1958 and a family has moved in next door to her.  They are poor as church mice, appropriate since the father is a Methodist pastor.  The children include Bob, who immediately falls prey to the town bullies in remarkable fashion.  There is his older sister Phyllis, who is obsessed with Elvis and with one of the bullies who bears a resemblance to The King.  And then there is his younger sister, Ruth Ann, who is a little lost until she meet Grandma Dowdel.  This delightful novel tells the story of the year the family spends next door to Grandma Dowdel who insists that she is neither neighborly or church going, yet manages to always be both.

Peck’s characterizations are as always clever and revealing.  He has such a gentle touch with his characters even as he is showing far more of their psyche and personality than one might realize.  Peck’s humor has a vintage feel as is appropriate to the time and place.  It is uproariously funny.  After reading two werewolf books (and setting both aside) it was a real breath of fresh cold air to read Peck’s novel.

Tightly plotted, humorous and beautifully wrapped up in the end, this book is a real treat.  Appropriate for ages 8-12, I can see entire families enjoying this one as a read aloud.  Classrooms would also enjoy the escapades and fun while learning a touch of history along the way.

Also reviewed on Sarah Miller’s blog.