Middle School

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.

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Review: Level Up by Gene Luen Yang

| Tasha

level up

Level Up by Gene Luen Yang, illustrations by Thien Pham

As a child, Dennis was forbidden from playing video games.  When his father died, he played them all the time.  He was even good enough to consider playing on the professional circuit.  But that was before THEY showed up.  Four cute little angels with plenty of attitude and a lot of bossiness seemed to know exactly what Dennis should be doing with his life, and it certainly was not video games.  Instead, they pushed and insisted in his father’s name that he start studying hard and then go to medical school.  But will Dennis find happiness there?  Or will he return to his love of gaming?

Yang captures the tension between following your own dreams and following those of your parents.  The four angels serve as universal parental voices, insisting that the future path is set and that one must fulfill one’s destiny.  The writing is infinitely readable, down-to-earth and yet striking.  The book wrestles with important themes, using the graphic format to lighten things but still looking deeply at the choices that shape a life.

Pham’s illustrations are filled with simple lines, washes of color, and often have a play of light and dark backgrounds in different frames on a page.  But if one looks at the illustrations, they are well rendered, interesting and far more than the simple lines may originally seem.

This book has teen and gamer appeal galore.  Before I got to read it myself, my husband and two sons had to read it first.   Both the theme of video games and the graphic format made it impossible for them to pass up.  Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from library copy.

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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.

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Review: The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Carmen Agra Deedy

| Tasha

cheshire cheese cat

The Cheshire Cheese Cat: A Dickens of a Tale by Carmen Agra Deedy & Randall Wright, illustrated by Barry Moser

Skilley is an alley cat who is down on his luck, he has a broken tail, tattered ears, and has grown used to dodging brooms and wheels.  So when he hears that Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a local inn, needs a mouser, he concocts a plan to become that cat.  But Skilley has a horrible, shameful secret that he carries with him: he doesn’t eat mice.  Instead he prefers a good nibble of cheese.  Discovering this, a mouse named Pip strikes up a deal.  The mice of The Cheese will provide Skilley with the cheese he needs in exchange for him pretending to nab them and eat them.  The plan is perfection for a short time, until an evil cat named Pinch enters the inn and more secrets start coming out.  Add some historical British figures and you have an engaging romp of a novel for middle readers.

The authors have created a historical fiction novel that is also an animal novel.  It has figures like Charles Dickens and Thackeray, but mostly focuses on the animals themselves.  It is a novel that explores friendship and accepting yourself even if there are things that you might be ashamed of.  These messages are woven skillfully throughout the story and never become overbearing.

The pacing of the novel is also skillfully done.  There are quieter moments in the novel, but the foreshadowing makes even those uneasy ones.  Once the story really gets going, it reads quickly.  I couldn’t put it down in the last few chapters because I was so caught up in the story.

I’m not a huge animal story fan.  It seems that they tend to be tearful, overly emotive, and generally tragic.  That is not the case here.  Instead readers will cheer on the heroes, worry for their safety, and find themselves in the midst of a grand adventure in Elizabethan England.

Highly recommended, this book is one delicious read with a pleasing mix of sweet and savory.  Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from copy received from Peachtree Publishers.

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Review: Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge

| Tasha

page by paige

Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge

Paige has just moved with her family to New York City.  She is having trouble relating to her mother and had to leave her best friend behind.  Now she has to find people in the big city who can understand her.  But before she can do that, she has to start to understand herself.  Is she the quiet girl or can she become an extroverted artist?  As Paige struggles to find herself and to find her voice as an artist, readers are treated to an extraordinary look at the process of art combined with the process of finding friends and love.

Gulledge has created a graphic novel where the visuals are powerful and speak volumes.  She turns the comic format into one that is strongly artistic and very visual.  Here we see the emotions of Paige brought to visual life from her self-doubts to her most self-aware.  Paige is a character that readers with artistic interests will relate to easily.  Her yearning to create combined with her doubts and worries make for a book with plenty to inspire other young artists to take the risk of creation.

Get this in the hands of tween and teen artists and step back.  A truly inspiring read.  Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from library copy.

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Check out the trailer that gives a sense of the great art:

Review: Drawing from Memory by Allen Say

| Tasha

drawing from memory

Drawing from Memory by Allen Say

Released September 1, 2011.

This is a captivating look at the life of Allen Say and his journey to become an illustrator.  It begins with his childhood in Yokohama, Japan which he had to flee when the bombings started in 1941.  As a child, his mother kept him safe at home and not out playing near the water.  He learned to read early and fell in love with comics, deciding at a young age to become an artist.  His father dismissed his dreams, wanting him to follow a more respectable path.  Say lived with his grandmother while he went to school until at age 12, he moved and lived alone in a rented apartment in Tokyo.  Following his dream, he approached the famous cartoonist, Noro Shinpei in the hopes of becoming his student.  Say found his sensei and a new father figure in his life.  Readers will discover the long hours, hard work, and talent that made Say the artist he is.

Say weaves photographs, drawings and paintings together into an extraordinary look at his life.  The text blends humor  with  brutal honesty about his family’s lack of support for his endeavors.  Always the book is optimistic, exploring the dedication that it takes to attain greatness.  It will serve as inspiration for young artists who may themselves be being ridiculed for their dreams.

More than a graphic novel, this is an autobiography told in images and words that is surprising, moving and luminous.  Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic.

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Book Review: A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

| Tasha

monster calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, from an original idea by Siobhan Dowd, illustrated by Jim Kay

Released September 27, 2011.

Conor awoke at 12:07, just after midnight, from his nightmare, the one he had been having for years.  Then he realized that something was calling his name.  It was a monster, but not the monster from his dreams.  It was another monster, a monster who came walking to tell him three stories and then Conor had to tell him the fourth and final story.  And it had to be the truth.  Conor had not told anyone the truth for some time, not since his mother had first gotten sick.  Now she was worse again.  So Conor turned to the monster in the hopes that he could save her, that that was what had brought the monster walking.

Ness has created a powerful book from the final idea that Siobhan Dowd left before she died.  It is gut wrenching on so many levels.  You have a monster who is breathtakingly real, a boy who is disappearing into his mother’s illness, and a story of cancer and all of the feelings and emotions it creates and doesn’t allow to be expressed.  This is a book about the time before the loss, the anguish of the waiting, the hollowness not only inside the surviving family but around them as well, and the anger that is a part of grief too. 

Ness does not duck away from anything difficult here, rather he explores it in ways I haven’t seen before.  He takes the darkness and makes it real, makes it honest, creates truth from it and lays it all bare.  It is a book that is difficult to read but too compelling to put down.

Kay’s art runs throughout the book, framing the text.  It helps create a mood for the entire work, one of darkness and lightness too.   He plays with such darkness in his art here that it is sometimes a matter of black and blacker.  The art, done just in black and white, speaks to the power of the monster, the blaze of life, and the fragility of it as well.

I simply can’t say enough good things about this book.  It is a stunning work that truly does tribute to Siobhan Dowd’s idea.  Appropriate for ages 12-14.

Reviewed from ARC received from Candlewick Press.

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Book Review: Addie on the Inside by James Howe

| Tasha

addie on the inside

Addie on the Inside by James Howe

Addie Carle, the only girl in The Gang of Five, is the center of this third story in The Misfits series.  Addie is an outspoken and opinionated person, but the verse here shows her to have many more doubts and concerns than she might show on the outside.  As her year of seventh grade continues, Addie has to deal with some big issues: the death of one of her cats, the breakup of her first relationship, teasing by other girls in school, and finding her own voice, even though she is talking all the time.  Addie shows herself to be thoughtful, caring, involved, and much more than others see on the outside, she just has to find the confidence to let her real self show.

Howe’s verse works on several levels.  First, it tells the story of Addie and her growth.  Second, it is poetry that truly functions as individual poems as well.  He plays with rhyme inside his lines at times, while other poems are more narrative and still others are haiku.  It is a fresh look at a verse novel that shifts from lighter to deeper tones easily.

Addie is a fascinating character, a girl who is smart, involved, vocal and entirely human.  While I’m not sure everyone will have this response, she was like listening to my own middle-school inner voice.  Addie’s point of view is uniquely her own, yet she spoke to me completely.  I finished the book with tears rolling down my face, just because of the understanding for my younger self I had found.

A beautifully written book featuring a strong yet human protagonist, this is one amazing read.  Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from copy received from Atheneum.

Book Review: Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

| Tasha

dead end in norvelt

Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

Released on September 13, 2011.

Gantos’ latest may just be one of his best, and with his successes before now, that is certainly saying something.  The book is an intriguing mix of memoir and fiction that has a protagonist named “Jack Gantos.”  Jack is a boy who loves history, war movies, and playing with his father’s war trophies, including a Japanese rifle.  When Jack takes a pretend shot at the outdoor movie theater screen from a long way away, the rifle actually goes off.  Jack gets caught in his parent’s feud over the use of a field, and ends up grounded for the summer.  The only way he gets to leave is to help a neighbor write the local obituaries.  Over the summer, he begins to help with more, including driving her on her other job of medical examiner.  When the original residents of their town start to die off, the question becomes if it’s murder or just old age.   One thing is for sure, you have to pay attention to history to figure it all out.

The writing in this book is clever and witty.  One never quite knows what is going to happen next, what new character will enter the story, or where it will go.  It’s a rollercoaster of a book, but one that is strong and steady as well.  Readers are in wild but good hands here.

Gantos has populated his story with all sorts of characters.  Jack is a boy whose nose gushes blood whenever he is scared, shocked, surprised, or emotional.  It becomes a barometer in the story of his emotions, and is just the first oddity of the book.  The neighbor lady who writes the obituaries is a character who is feisty, elderly, smart and sassy.  She is an unusual character for a tween/teen novel and one that enlivens the entire book.  Then there seem to be endless others that could be listed.  There is the police officer who rides a tricycle, the dead Hell’s Angels member who danced into town and could be carrying a plague, and Jack’s feuding parents too.

Norvelt is a great setting for a book.  It was a town created by Eleanor Roosevelt to give poor people a good start.  The economy was based on bartering, but that has fallen apart during these later years.  Now the homes are starting to empty, no new people want to move to town, and some homes are being sold and hauled away.  It is a town in disrepair that is not aging well.  Rather like the townsfolk themselves. 

A great read, this book has murder, some mayhem, and plenty of blood (though it comes out of Jack’s nose).   Get this into the hands of tweens and teens who enjoy humor and a bit of mystery.  Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Farrar Straus Giroux.

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