sisters

Review: Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan

| Tasha

Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan

Apple and Rain by Sarah Crossan (InfoSoup)

Apple has lived with her Nana for eleven years, ever since her mother abandoned her at age 3. Nana is strict and won’t let Apple even walk back home from school. When Apple’s mother returns, she is sophisticated and charming and not strict at all. She wants Apple to live with her and it seems like a great idea, after all she will let Apple wear makeup, walk home from school, and even shares some sips of wine. Apple agrees to move in, leaving Nana living alone, and then she discovers that she has a younger sister, Rain. Rain carries a doll around with her and pretends that it is a real baby. As the sisters grow closer together, Apple’s mother starts to spend more time away, leaving Apple caring for Rain and missing school. When tragedy almost strikes, it will take a serious choice by Apple to figure out what sort of family she really wants to be a part of.

Nominated for the British Carnegie Medal, this novel’s writing is clear and lovely. Throughout this novel, Crossan deals with serious situations and large emotions. She uses metaphors to show the depth of emotion and also ties Apple’s emotions into the poems she writes. The images she uses are strong and compelling, allowing the reader to truly understand what Apple is feeling even when her emotions are at their most turbulent.

Crossan also excels at creating relationships between characters and this book is all about relationships on a variety of levels. We have friendships both budding and decaying, maternal relationships that are troubled, and sibling relationships that are problematic yet positive. In each of these, the people are human and real. They are invested in the relationship in their own unique way, often either unable to speak to its importance in their life or unable to see beyond themselves to its importance. Apple is a strong protagonist, longing for a relationship with a mother who even after she returns cannot be the mother than Apple needs. Apple is capable, caring and wonderfully like her Nana in many ways, a touch that I particularly appreciated.

This novel about families, abandonment, and freedom will resonate with middle school readers who may be feeling their own need to be a little less monitored too. Appropriate for ages 12-15.

Reviewed from ARC received from Bloomsbury.

Review: The Forget-Me-Not Summer by Leila Howland

| Tasha

The Forget Me Not Summer by Leila Howland

The Forget-Me-Not Summer by Leila Howland (InfoSoup)

Marigold, Zinnie and Lily are sisters. They live busy lives in California where Marigold is hoping to have a real kiss for the first time, not one done on set. Zinnie is trying to get her curly wild hair under control and hopes to be able to spend time with Marigold and her friends. Lily is five and wants nothing more than to stay home with her nanny and eat great food. But then their parents get jobs out of town and the sisters are sent to spend the summer with an aunt they have never met across the country in Cape Cod. The three girls suddenly have to share a room with one another, live without a TV, not have cell phone service, and even the internet access is outdated and slow. Marigold is furious at losing a chance to be in a major film and having to spend time with her little sisters. Zinnie finds herself talking to trees for advice and watching for surprises created by special brownies. Lily longs for the food she had at home but also enjoys a good clambake too. Just as things seem to be starting to turn around, parts of California life appear and set everything askew again. These three sisters will have to figure out how to be themselves even when kisses, peer pressure and fame appear.

This book will inevitably be compared to the Penderwicks and rightly so. The sisters have that same spunk about them and the setting offers that timelessness that works so well. Though in this book, the girls chafe against the loss of TV and Internet, struggling to get along with one another. These sisters have fights, that are so well done that you understand both sides of the problem and can take the side of either one. The two older girls in particular both are human and far from perfect. Lily may look angelic but she too can throw tantrums and have horrible days, especially if baths are not negotiated properly.

It is that human quality that makes this book work so very well. The sisters are realistically portrayed and their relationships develop and change right in front of the reader in a way that makes sense. The unknown aunt turns out to be a very special person, kind and caring and someone who is a leader in the Cape Cod community. It’s a treat to see such a great female adult portrayed in a children’s book. One who is strong, enjoys children and gives them plenty of space to learn and grow without being overly odd or incompetent in any way.

A great summer read for fans of The Penderwicks, I’m hoping for another book featuring these girls. Appropriate for ages 8-12.

Reviewed from copy received from HarperCollins.

Review: Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia

| Tasha

Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams Garcia

Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia (InfoSoup)

The third and final book in the Gaither Sisters trilogy is just as delightful as the first two. Delphine, Vonetta and Fern travel south to Alabama to spend the summer with their grandmother and great-grandmother, Big Ma and Ma Charles. After living in Brooklyn, they are surprised at how slow life is in the country with no stores to visit and little to do to pass the time. Their cousin JimmyTrotter lives on the other side of the creek with Miss Trotter who is the half sister of Ma Charles. But the two sisters don’t speak at all except in messages that the children carry back and forth across the creek. The Gaither sisters learn about their extended family and all of the sorts of people that are part of their heritage, including Native Americans and white people. Delphine is just as hard on Vonetta as she always is, but it may be too much when Vonetta runs away from home. When tragedy strikes, it is up to Delphine to rethink the way that she interacts with her sisters, even when they drive her crazy.

Throughout the trilogy, Williams-Garcia has used these books to offer young readers a glimpse at the lives of African-American people in different parts of the country as well as the discrimination they face. This third book celebrates the various parts of African-American history, including some lesser known pieces like Native Americans owning and selling slaves. Here we also see the KKK and the mixed heritage of some of the more hateful people in a community.

Rippling through these more serious parts of the book are the personalities of all of the characters from the three sisters at its heart to their extended family. There are moments of hilarity mixed into it, creating a book that is a pleasure to read but also has a solidity to it thanks to its clear ties to real history. The dynamics of the sisters and their families is also captured in a realistic and loving way. Themes such as forgiveness, anger and family commitments are all part of this gorgeous read.

Readers who loved the first two books will adore this southern country ending to the series, though we will all mourn not being able to join these three sisters in more adventures. Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from library copy.

Review: The Truth Commission by Susan Juby

| Tasha

truth commission

The Truth Commission by Susan Juby (InfoSoup)

There are books you never want to end, and this is one of those. These characters are so fresh and new and real that I wanted to spend even more time with them. This novel is about three teenage friends who attend a private art high school together. There is Dusk, the stunningly beautiful girl who creates tiny tableaus for stuffed shrews. There is Neil, a boy stuck in the 1970s and who paints portraits of beautiful women like Dusk. And then there is the protagonist, Normandy, who does tiny needlepoint work and is best known for being the younger sister of the famous graphic novelist. The three start The Truth Commission, where they decide to start asking everyone the truth about things they may be keeping secret. Nothing is off limits from sexuality to love to angry ostrich-raising school secretaries. But Normandy’s family survives on secrets and the question becomes whether she can face the truth about herself and those she loves.

Juby has created a witty and dazzling read for teens. Done entirely in Normandy’s voice and writing as “narrative nonfiction” the book offers footnotes that are often asides between Normandy and her English teacher. This framework creates a real strength of the story, allowing for not only the story to be told but for Normandy to be writing about the past and offer some perspective on what happened. Filled with plenty of clever humor, this book is an impressive mix of tense mystery and gentle romance.

The characters are the heart of the book. Normandy reveals herself on the page and hides nothing. She shows through her own reactions to her sister’s graphic novels, which depict Normandy as entirely useless and ugly, as the only one who is thoughtful and credible in her family. As she hides from the wrath of her sister, making herself small and quiet, she also becomes her sister’s confidante. Her best friends too are intriguing mixes of truth and denial. Dusk is the artistic daughter in a family of doctors, and yet one can see her own ties to medicine through her art. Neil seems to be the son of a stereotypical middle-aged man who hits on teen girls, but both he and his father are far more lovely than that.

Strongly written with great characters and a dynamic mix of humor, romance and mystery, this teen novel is one of the best of the year so far. Appropriate for ages 14-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Viking Books for Young Readers.

Review: Loula and the Sister Recipe by Anne Villeneuve

| Tasha

loula and the sister recipe

Loula and the Sister Recipe by Anne Villeneuve

The inventive Loula returns for her second outing in this picture book.  Here she is sick and tired of her three brothers who refuse to play with her.  So Loula decides that what she needs is a little sister, one who is just like her.  So she goes to her parents and requests that they get her one.  Her father explains that making a sister is a lot like baking a cake and needs special ingredients like a papa and a mama, butterflies in the stomach, a full moon, a candlelight supper, kisses and hugs, and chocolate.  So Loula sets off to shop for those things with her ever-helpful chauffeur Gilbert.  In the end, it all comes together in one amazing evening filled with candlelight, moonlight, and a sister surprise.

This second picture book about Loula again shows her determination and ability to look at a problem positively as something to solve.  Infused with humor, young readers will know that her plan is probably not going to work out the way she thinks, yet few will expect the twist at the end when it comes.  Having adored Gilbert the chauffeur in the first book, I was very pleased that this second book has much the same structure with Gilbert helping Loula gather everything she needs, including live butterflies.

The illustrations in this book have a loose flowing quality that has lots of motion and energy.  Done in ink and watercolor, they vary from small illustrations with white backgrounds to two-page spreads filled with color.  My favorite is the leaping Gilbert attempting to catch a butterfly in a net.

A strong young heroine with plenty of chutzpah combines with plenty of humor in this picture book series.  Make sure to read both of the books because it’s even more time to spend with the amazing Loula!  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from copy received from Kids Can Press.

Review: Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

| Tasha

sisters

Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

Released August 26, 2014.

The exceptionally talented and incredibly popular Raina Telgemeier returns with a sequel to her beloved Smile.  This is the story of Raina and her little sister, Amara.  Raina was desperate to have a little sister, but Amara is not working out the way she had pictured.  Now Raina is stuck on a road trip with her sister, little brother and her mother.  They are all stuck in a van traveling from San Francisco to Colorado for a family reunion.  The relationship between the two sisters is tense, not only because they have very different personalities but also because they are both artists.  Then you add in the clear issues of Raina’s parents and you have a dynamic view of a family on the brink of big changes.  It’s just up to Raina and Amara as to how their relationship with one another will change.

Telgemeier has created another breathtakingly honest graphic novel for elementary and middle grade readers.  Through her illustrations and humor, she shows a family at the crux of a moment that could change things forever.  The book though focuses on flashbacks showing the family and how relationships have altered.  Readers may be so focused on the story of the two sisters that they too will be blindsided along with Raina about the other issues facing their family.  It’s a craftily told story, one that surprises and delights.

As always, Telgemeier’s art is fantastic.  She has a light touch, one that invites readers into her world and her family and where they long to linger.  Her art is always approachable and understandable, more about a vehicle to tell the story than about making an artistic statement on its own.  It is warm, friendly and fantastic.

Highly recommended, this book belongs in every library that works with children.  A dynamite sequel that lives up to the incredible first book.  Appropriate for ages 9-12.

Reviewed from ARC received from Scholastic.

Review: The Year of the Beasts by Cecil Castellucci

| Tasha

year of the beasts

The Year of the Beasts by Cecil Castellucci and Nate Powell

Told in chapters that alternate Castellucci’s writing with Powell’s graphics, this is the story of two sisters.  When the summer carnival comes to town, Tessa, her younger sister Lulu and her best friend Celina get to go to the carnival without their parents for the first time.  After meeting up with a group of boys they know, the three girls and the boys head to the sideshow tent with its darkness and opportunities.  But Tessa’s plans don’t quite work out, and the boy she has a crush on, Charlie, ends up entering the tent with Lulu instead.  Tessa is left to go in with Jasper, a boy who is known as a strange loner.  When they exit, Tess has rebuffed Jasper’s attempts to kiss her, but something has obviously happened between Charlie and Lulu that has sealed them together as a couple.  Now Tessa has to deal with her jealousies and their dark results.

Castellucci’s prose is lush and wild.  The emotions in the book sizzle, coming right off the page.  On page 97, there is a great example of this:

If there were such a thing as a dark cloud over someone’s head, Tessa had one.  It was a stormy little thing.  With hail and lightning and thunder.  And no silver lining.

She explores the feelings of confusing lust and potential love, the ability for those same feelings to alienate and discourage, and the intensity of sisterhood.  The book is character-driven with Tessa at its center in all of her confusion, desperation to not be jealous, and constantly feeling as if she is second best.  There are no easy answers here, nothing is let go of easily, and emotions twist and turn.  It is a beautiful storm of a book.

Then you have the other chapters done in graphic novel format that show Tessa as Medusa with her nest of snake hair.  The graphic portion moves along in advance of the text portion, foreshadowing things that are yet to come.  Medusa finds that her school is also filled with other monsters, her best friend is a mermaid, and Charlie is a centaur.  She has turned her parents to stone with her gaze and now must live with the consequences of that unless she is able to reawaken as a human again. 

The pairing of these two makes this book even more original and powerful.  It also makes the book much more welcoming for reluctant readers or those who have discovered Castellucci through her graphic novels. 

An emotional ride of a teen novel done with beauty and power, this book has an innate appeal thanks to its graphic novel portion and the dynamic writing.  Appropriate for ages 13-16.

Reviewed from copy received from Roaring Brook Press.

Review: Irises by Francisco X. Stork

| Tasha

irises

Irises by Francisco X. Stork

Stork explores the complicated relationship of sisters and family in his latest book for teens. Teenage sisters Mary and Kate are very different, though they have been raised in the same sheltered way.  Kate is planning to be a doctor and attend Stanford.  Mary is an artist, a painter, who has already received acclaim for her work.  But their plans are thrown into disarray when their father dies, leaving them only their mother who has been in a vegetative state for years.  While their father was loving, he was also very strict.  The girls are now free of his repressive ways, and they each respond to the new freedom in differently.  The freedom though comes with a cost of new worries, new relationships, and new pressures.  There are many decisions that have to be made, including one that is particularly heart wrenching. 

This is a complicated novel that does not summarize easily.  The characters are well developed and complex themselves, though I summarized each in a sentence, they are much more than that.  These girls are different from one another but far from opposites.  They are linked, closely and forever, together in sisterhood, a tie that strangles, binds and frees. 

Stork also looks closely at family in this book.  The cost of letting a family member go, the ways people deal with loss, and the process of recovery and reinvention are exposed here.  He weaves the lives of the girls with unexpected characters, including a gang-member who is also an artist and a young minister who has no shortage of ambition.  These characters too are complex and intriguing.

The minister is one of the pivotal characters in the book.  His ambition mirrors Kate’s and the two find themselves drawn to one another.  His logic about ambition and watching out for yourself rings true for a long time, until it changes and becomes hollow and crass.  The writing to take a character’s message and transform the way it sounds over the course of a novel without changing the tone or message itself is beautifully done, masterful.

This compelling novel is quiet, desperate, and riveting.  Appropriate for ages 15-17.

Reviewed from ARC received from Arthur A. Levine Books.

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Book Review: Emma Dilemma by Kristine O’Connell George

| Tasha

emma dilemma

Emma Dilemma: Big Sister Poems by Kristine O’Connell George, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter

Told from the point of view of the older sister, these poems show the intricacies of relationships between sisters.  Emma can be a very embarrassing little sister, especially at ball games where she is the one dressed in a feather boa and cheering loudly using Jessica’s name.  Emma copies everything Jessica does, but her hand also fits perfectly in Jessica’s when they hold hands.  Jessica is often the only one who understands what Emma is saying.  Emma can be naughty, stealing shoes, scaring people, filling Jessica’s room with loops of yarn.  But there are also the moments when the sisters connect over pet rocks, picture books, and jokes.  The climax of the story comes when Emma tries to reach Jessica and one of her friends when they are in a treehouse.  Emma falls and breaks her arm, and there is no doubt these sisters adore one another.

George captures the ins and outs of siblings with a skilled eye.  The book shows the complexity of the relationship, both the good and the bad, often right alongside each other.  Neither sister is the good or bad one, they are simply themselves.  The book’s tone is just right as well, never too dramatic or over the top.  Instead these are moments from what feel like real days, captured in poetry.  The touches of humor add to the appeal of the book as well.

Carpenter’s illustrations exude a warmth that works so well here.  Done in pen and ink and digital media, they retain their hand-drawn style with the bright washes of digital ink.  Each illustration is a picture of the lives of the characters, they reveal the emotions going on in that moment with a great clarity.

Highly recommended, this is a book of poems that any child with siblings will see themselves in and enjoy.  Appropriate for ages 6-8.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by Young Readers.