I’ve been reading the Magic Treehouse books to the girls.  We’ve finished the first…quartet?  What’s the right term?  Anyway, I’m a little neurotic and decided we have to read them in order.  (We do while I’m the one doing the reading, anyway.)  As a librarian I read a lot of covers and book jackets, so I already knew who the “M-person” was.  But I’m not really interested in reading a book that talks about her, and then going back and reading one that’s like, hmm, I wonder who this could be?  So sequence matters.

Mummies in the Morning won for cutest misinterpretation of a title.  Before we read it, Rhys told my mom, “It’s called ‘Mothers in the Morning.’”  The cover had a picture of a pyramid and a cat on it, but apparently they didn’t provide enough context cues.  For story, I think Pirates Past Noon was the winner.  I could go the rest of my life never saying the word “lubbers” aloud again, but there was just enough excitement and suspense to keep them glued to the page, so to speak.

Small milestone:  Geraldine got to bring home her first school library book this week.  When I picked her up she told me it was in her bag, but that it was “a secret.”  I tried to get her to reveal some details, 20-questions style, but couldn’t guess it.  It ended up being The Gingerbread Boy, illustrated by Scott Cook.  I can’t comment on his version, because Geraldine read it to Rhys when I wasn’t in the room, and I haven’t looked at it myself.  We’ve got it until next Tuesday, though.

What My Children Are Reading This Week is over at the Well-Read Child today.

Patricia Reilly Giff.  The New Kids of the Polk Street School (series).  1988-1989.  Age 6 to 9.

The first chapter book I ever read was The Valentine Star by Patricia Reilly Giff.  I suppose I must have chosen it randomly at a book fair, but I still own it today.  I still remember the day I read it.

Me:  I really want to read this book.

Mom:  So read it.

Me:  But it’s a chapter book.  I don’t know how to read chapter books yet.

Mom:  Why don’t you just try?

Me:  (after reading it cover to cover at the dining room table)  Mom, I did it!

Mom:  (unimpressed)  See?

Whatever.  I was proud anyway.

So, when I decided to start exposing Geraldine (and, as it turns out, Rhys) to chapter books, I thought of the Kids of the Polk Street School series.  Then I thought that books about second grade might not be that satisfying for preschoolers, so I moved on to look at other series.  Then, a chance donation to the library clued me into the New Kids series, which focuses Emily’s younger sister, Stacy Arrow, who is going into kindergarten.  The text is even a bit easier—perfect.

In the first volume, Watch Out! Man-eating Snake, it’s the first day of kindergarten.  Stacy is determined to find a new best friend, and zeroes in on a target before they even get to the classroom.  Problem is, Jiwon doesn’t seem to care for being told not to cry, or having Stacy try to fix her drawing when she decides it isn’t good enough.  Plus there’s the man-eating snake that her classmates (who don’t know that it’s stuffed) are afraid of.  Everthing works out eventually, and Stacy and Jiwon hold hands and skip by the end.

In the second volume, Fancy Feet, Stacy’s class is having a school store.  The kids each bring in something to “sell,” and they earn play money for good behavior.  Jiwon brings in an old pair of her mother’s sparkly high-heeled shoes, and all the girls want them.  When Stacy is kept in for recess, she tries the shoes on, as she doesn’t think she’ll be able to earn them.  Then the whole uh-oh-someone’s-coming-I-need-to-hide-them-quick-hey-look-a-trash-can plot device unfurls.  The shoes are gone forever, and Stacy’s stomach is in knots, but by the end she knows she’ll feel better if she tells the truth.  Cop out ending!  What five-year-old is that self-aware?

Mini-rant aside, I love the Polk Street series.  The kids are just so real, dirty fingernails and all.  They get into trouble.  They struggle academically.  And while they learn episodic lessons, they never have epiphanies or experience complete behavioral turnarounds.  That’s not life.  It’s funny, when I read Pictures of Hollis Woods a number of years ago, I remember thinking, “Holy crap, Patricia Reilly Giff can actually write!” Revisiting the Polk Street books, though, I’ve realized she always could.  I was just blinded by the serial fiction stigma.

I think I like the books more than the girls do, but it keeps their attention, and when I offer to read more they always say yes.  It was only a six volume run, so it’s not like we’ll be reading them forever.

More Graves girls read! posts

The one everyone is talking about…for good reason.

Rebecca Stead.  When You Reach Me.  Wendy Lamb, 2009.  208 pages.  Age 9 to 12.

Reviews of this book abound (some good ones are linked below) so instead of a trad review, I offer you my personal response.  Don’t worry, no spoilers.  I don’t think.  Maybe you should just play it safe and read the book now.  Come back and chat after, if you want.

Back/still with me?  Cool.

I think my reading experience was skewed by the fact that I knew it was a Complicated Book with a Lot of Plot Threads that Don’t Come Together until the End.  While my conscious mind was enjoying a good story, my unconscious mind was furiously trying to piece together a puzzle.  I had a couple things figured out halfway in—laughing man, for example—but it was mostly surprises.  The book answered questions I didn’t know I had.

Recursive time travel makes my head spin, but for the sake of good storytelling I make exceptions.  This one is worth the suspension of disbelief.  Speaking of disbelief, if you’ll pardon the lazy transition, I didn’t enjoy reading A Wrinkle in Time back when I read it.  (Characters with ridiculous names like “Ms. Whatsit” put me off, for starters.)  With all due homage, this book is much better.

Two things were awkward:  the intermittent use of the second person, and the ordinal list in the “this is what happened” chapter.  Otherwise, and all the same, it was clear that a lot of planning and calculation went into this novel.  It was a very measured need-to-know presentation.  The critical details were all in place, and yet the surprises kept coming.

And just a note about the cover:  I think it’s fine.  Seriously—the mailbox has the shadow of a person.  That’s a book I want to read.

other reviews:
100 Scope Notes | Educating Alice | A Fuse #8 Production | Kids Lit | The Reading Zone

An entire novel built around a pre-algebra lesson.  How inefficient.

Michael D. Beil.  The Red Blazer Girls:  The Ring of Rocamadour.  Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2009.  304 pages.  Age 9 to 12.

Let’s call this an almost-review.  I almost read the whole thing, but can’t comment definitively because I skipped out on the ending.  Not that my opinion is definitive.  That’s okay.  Neither is yours.

I picked up this book because its jacket promsied two things I love:  puzzles and math.  And it delivered, but I found the puzzles a little too

E
LV
SO
TO
SY
EA

Or should I say,

SYAE OT VOLSE

Admittedly, I’m 28 years old, and while not Mensa material, I’ve solved a few puzzles in my day.  I’m not the target audience.  All the same, I found the simplicity of the puzzles a little condescending.  Or maybe it was the fact that whenever they figured out one of these obvious “puzzles” it was all high-fives and accolades, like they cracked some impossibly complicated cipher.

And what’s with having an entire chapter dedicated to the Cartesian coordinate system, explained in painstaking detail?  There were—count ’em—seven graphs, not to mention a take home problem.  (“The solution is on page 197, but try it yourself before you peek.”  As if we’re so anxious to find out what x and y equal that we have to skip ahead…)

My conspiracy theory-oriented mind is half convinced that the whole mystery is an elaborate casing created to disguise a single math lesson.  (Its inefficency renders that improbable, but still.)  Considering the target audience probably hasn’t learned these concepts yet, an explanation is clearly necessary; but why couldn’t we get enough information to follow the plot and leave well enough alone?  Maintain the balance between creating interest and causing boredom.

Enough about the math.  I hope most readers will be sensible enough to skip the chapter rather than abandon the story.  You know, like I did.

The novel’s Catholic school girl detectives were exemplary, upstanding citizens—nod to Nancy Drew.  No rebellious smoking in the bathroom here.  There was one uncomplicated social/family problem per main character, which was a little too tidy for my taste.  The characters weren’t boring, though.  I love the narration.  Light, youthful, benignly sarcastic, and laden with parenthetical remarks.  (Not that I’m a fan of those.)

Quoatable—

“Undoubtably because she feels sorry for pathetic little me, Margaret agrees to put off going to the church to look for the sheep until we are finished at the museum.  (That sentence must sound totally bizarre to someone who just randomly opened up to this page to see what the story is all about.  Go back and start at the beginning!)” (p. 104)

This week we read a couple of the Daisy Meadows [Stupid Theme] Fairies books.  Hear me out.  I’m trying to transition Geraldine into reading chapter books—not to wean her off picture books, of course, but to expand her reading options—and I decided to start by looking for chapter books with pictures on every page.  Just to start.

[Stupid Theme] Fairies seemed to fit the bill.  Pictures on each page, and she likes girly stuff like that.  To be honest, they’re less painful than I anticipated.  We’ve read two so far:  Storm the Lightning Fairy and Gemma the Gymnastics Fairy.  Storm was hard for her to get into at first.  She read a few pages, then claimed to be too tired to continue, so I read through the end of the chapter.  As soon as there was a little bit of excitement, I handed it back over, and she read three chapters straight.  Yay!  Then the action tapered off, and I got the same whiny excuse—I’m tired—so I finished it off. 

Gemma lacked excitement altogether, so I read most of that one, but it still kept their attention.  We got it because the girls do gymnastics, but the hula hoop that was central to the plot didn’t seem to have much to do with the sport.  And yet, it was Gemma’s “magic sporty object”—the source of her power.

One snag that I didn’t anticipate is how much Rhys enjoys hearing the stories, too.  That’s almost a good thing, except it’s hard for her to follow along when Geraldine does the reading; she doesn’t use intonation since she’s so focused on decoding.  And separate concurrent reading is not going to work out for us, because one inevitably puts down her book to follow along with the other.  They don’t want to miss a beat.

Because, let’s face it:  MASH is an unreliable way to predict who you’re going to marry.

Jessica Wollman.  Tell Me Who.  Dutton Children’s Books, 2009.  224 pages.  Age 9 to 12.

You know that old TV Grandma had?  The big wooden end table with the screen?  Now in color!  Best friends Molly and Tanna found one that’s even older…kind of like this one…only it’s got a typewriter keyboard attached.  While stylistically questionable, it serves an important purpose:  type in anyone’s name, and it tells you who he or she is going to marry.

No, really.  They tested it empirically by entering names of people who were already married, and it was accurate.  And it would be pretty cool if it said you were going to marry the son of English nobility, but not so much if it said you’d marry a kid with perpetually stained shirts who’s a grade younger than you.

Molly is a great narrator.  She kept me laughing with her wry sense of humor, and she earned my respect with her skepticism.  Ouija boards?  Tarot cards?  Rolls eyes.  (The “Who-Meter” only earns her confidence after repeated testing.) Plus there was a whole “maybe the future isn’t set in stone” line of reasoning that resonated with me.

My own inner skeptic kept trying to rationalize the Who-Meter.  Vital records.  Demographic statistics.  Complex probabilities.  Quite frankly, there is no suitable explanation, and the book doesn’t try for that. It’s a fantasy element in an otherwise contemporary realistic story, one that requires a reasonable suspension of disbelief.  If you’re going to read it, just go with it.

As much as I loved the book, I wasn’t feeling it when Molly started getting obsessed with breast development—hers and others’.  It’s probably because I’m an adult, and I got what I got a million years ago.  Or possibly because I’m a prude.  Still, I felt like I somehow found my way into one of Naylor’s Alice McKinley books.  Fortunately, Tell Me Who was not wholly comprised of a plot orchestrated entirely around ways to talk about female anatomy.

And, uh, holy product placement.  I seriously hope page space was rented to advertisers, with lines like this:  “The only thing I’m really in the mood for is a big bag of Doritoes.  I can practically taste the cheesy goodness.”  I mean, talking about Pop Tarts or Band Aids is one thing (those mean more than “toaster pastries” or “adhesive strips”) but we don’t need to know that it’s Elmer’s glue.  Or that the particular margarine spread they use is I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.  There were at least a dozen other name brands used without much reason in the book.  I’d list them, but no one’s paying me to.

Quotable—

“It would probably help if I learned how to read the cards myself, but I can’t.  I’ve tried.  All the symbols run together and I get them all mixed up.  Besides, the pictures make absolutely no sense.  I mean, what does a guy balancing seven swords have to do with being responsible?  It’s not like he’s polishing the swords or color-coding them or anything.”  (p. 10)

“[The champagne] looks sort of weird just sitting there, between the hamburger buns and a jar of pickles.  Way too fancy.  It’s like wearing a prom dress to go sledding.”  (p. 17)

“I’d definitely rather be Mrs. SpongeBob SquarePants.  At least he’s got a good sense of humor.  And a job.”  (p. 62)

other reviews:
Kidliterate | Presenting Lenore

A novel dealing with historical treatment of the mentally ill, and its unsatisfactory end note.

Gloria Whelan.  The Locked Garden.  HarperCollins, 2009.  176 pages.  Age 9 to 12.  On sale June 2nd.

Summary – Narrator Verna, her sister Carlie, their recently-widowed, forward-thinking psychiatrist father, and their jealous, needy, manipulative, passive-aggressive Aunt Maude have just relocated to the outskirts of an upscale, turn-of-the-20th century insane asylum, where dad has taken a new job.  Part of the treatment plan at the asylum is to offer the patients meaningful work, and so Eleanor comes to work in their household, becoming a mother figure to the girls and a thorn in Aunt Maude’s side.  Unfortunately, Maude’s jealous, needy, manipulative, passive-aggressive antics jeopardize Eleanor’s recovery, but Verna dedicates herself to finding ways to undo the damage.

No – Where to begin?  The dialog was stiff (and not just because of the Victorian setting).  I didn’t feel invested in any of the characters.  The end note didn’t do anything to suggest that this rosy picture of the asylum was probably not the norm (other than to say, “not all hospitals for the mentally ill adhered to these high standards”).  And I thought the father’s prediction that one day there would be “medicine for the mind as there is for the body” was a little too Nostradamus. ^[1]  I certainly wasn’t the one doing the research for the book, so I may be underestimating the theories of the day, but it seemed like his opinion was skewed based on what we know today about using medication to treat mental illness.

My least favorite passages were the ones with interjected moments of self-reflection about events that hadn’t happened yet.  For example, one chapter ended with, “I was thinking only about bringing Eleanor back.  I was not thinking about what my plan might do to Eleanor.”  Seriously?  Just tell the story.  If Verna does something that she’s going to regret after, we savvy readers will pick up on it as it happens.  You don’t have to announce it beforehand.

Mental health angle – Eleanor was portrayed very nicely.  She was kind and knowledgeable, but with a very vulnerable side.  The reader got a glimpse into her life before she was institutionalized, and it helped to put her illness in context.  There wasn’t a lot of exposure to other patients, but there was one, Lucy, who was a self-injurer who appeared to be out of touch with reality.  Despite being considered disturbed, she was portrayed with dignity, and showed signs of improvement by the end of the story.  Points for rehabilitation.

Positive reviews – The Book Report | Welcome to My Tweendom

^[1]  Nostradamus is the perfect example, because he was an apothecary and a seer.  Also, ten points if you can tell me why I link his name with the verb “predictiate” in my mind.

Disclosure:  An uncorrected review copy was provided by the publisher.  They neither paid nor pressured me to speak well of it.

Annie Richards’ obsession with bandages and protective gear makes sense once you find out about her brother’s sudden death, but—please—don’t give her that “dead brother look.”

Lisa Graff.  Umbrella Summer.  Laura Geringer Books, 2009.  240 pages.  Age 9 to 12.  On sale June 2nd.

Summary – No one is coping well with Jared’s death.  Mom won’t stop cleaning, Dad’s stuck in his own world, and Annie is obsessively worried about contracting obscure diseases and protecting herself from physical injuries.  She has a falling out with her best friend (who can’t distinguish the magnitude of losing a brother from that of losing a hamster) but finds friendship in an elderly neighbor who convinces her to close her metaphorical umbrella, maybe, a little.

Yes – I have almost nothing bad to say about this book.  I enjoyed the characters, and the story had just the right amount of conflict, and the right amount of resolution. Its biggest strength is in its small moments and incidental dialogue, which had me smiling a whole lot for a book about grief.

Points -

• +20 for arm-scrape tea
• +20 for pillow races
• +10 for a Junior Sunbirds hosing
• -10 for a last page that I was tempted to tear out
• -15 for an unconvincing “You’re not my best friend anymore!” element.  Kids fight and stop talking to each other, sure, but something about it didn’t feel right.
• +5 for Charlotte’s Web
• +50 for big dictionaries and the word wall

Quotable -

“It turned out there were about a million things I might have, the flu or a concussion or Colorado tick fever or even mono.  But I was pretty positive that out of all of them, I had Ebola.  And wouldn’t you know, there was no cure for that one.  It was all rashes and bleeding, and then you just up and died, and no one could save you.”  (p. 152)

“I didn’t know what was going to be in that box.  Something fragile! that’s all I knew for sure.” (p. 169)

Disclosure:  An uncorrected review copy was provided by the publisher.  They neither paid nor pressured me to speak well of it.

My new frame of reference for moral issues: “What would Capability C. Craft do?”

Ellen Booraem.  The Unnameables.  Harcourt, 2008.  318 pages.  Age 9 to 14.

Summary – All that exists on the island (a utopia known as Fools’ Haven to outsiders) is by the book—A Frugall Compendium of Home Arts and Farme Chores by Capability C. Craft, to be specific.  Utility is their society’s most important value.  If a thing is useful, it is named after its purpose.  If it is not useful, it is given no name.  Even people are named after their vocations, and are expected to fulfill the duties of their names—no more, no less.

Refugee Medford Runyuin, who floated ashore as an infant, not only has a meaningless name, but privately engages in purposeless activities.  Not the “you’ll go blind” sort of activity; he makes ornamental wood carvings.  He worries about keeping his secret, but then a satyr blows into town (literally!) and, well, things change.

Kudos – Just featuring a flawed utopia is enough for a book to win favor from me.  A puritanical flawed utopia, at that.

Kudon’ts – I was tossing in bed the other night because there are body odor issues that were integral to the story, which were never resolved.  Those of us who work in urban libraries would describe it as the kind of odor that makes your eyes ache.  Acidic, offensive, impossible to ignore.  Does the goatman ever take a bath?  Does he wash his dog?  I don’t know why, but I need to know.

Points –

• +15 for the all-purpose “bweh-eh-eh”
• -50 for tangentially reminding me of Torgo and his annoying, repetitive, four-note theme song
• +30 for a quiet revolution, one of limited change that might actually be maintained

Quotable –

“So there she was, Mistress Prudence Learned, braider of braids, crusher of shells, speaker of Book Talk, listening to a Nameless, smelly man with horns talk about mountains and goats and the exact dimensions of his last winter shelter.” (p. 113)

Other reviews – Oops…Wrong Cookie | The Goddess of YA Literature

A fun, quirky, graphic-hybrid of a ride.

Peter Nelson.  Herbert’s Wormhole: A Novel in Cartoons.  Illustrated by Rohitash Rao.  Bowen Press, 2009.  304 pages.  Age 9 to 12.  On sale May 5th.

Summary – Once Alex beats AlienSlayer 2 he’ll have to make good on his promise to spend the rest of the summer outside, where a Safe-T-Kids Jump n’ Jammin’ Jungle Gym and playdates with his nerdy neighbor, Herbert, await.  Nope, he’s not six, but his parents don’t seem to know that.  But then one of Herbert’s odd inventions turns the jungle gym slide into a wormhole, sending them 100 years into a future where humans live side be side with G’daliens, whatever they are.  Suddenly summer is looking a little less boring.

Kudos – It’s genuinely funny!  Also, I love Alex’s below-the-surface crush on his neighbor, Sammi, that he doesn’t quite understand.

Kudon’ts – How they got the name G’daliens was never explained.  Is there an Australian connection, or does it just sound funny? ^[1]

Points –

• +5 for toupe-wearing octopus-looking aliens
• +25 for antigravi-T-ball
• +40 for “We’ll always have Meatloaf Mondays.”
• +40 for the Department of Human/G’Dalein Harmony Enforcement

Quotable –

Unstructured fun:

“Alex got up and approached the fence.  A weird feeling crept through his belly as he heard himself ask, ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’

“She thought for a moment.  ‘Tomorrow’s Friday.  I’ve got Crouching Ladybug Kung Fu in the morning, then hang-gliding lessons from eleven to one.  Fifteen minutes for lunch, then extreme soapmaking.’

“‘Jeez,’ Alex said.  ‘Don’t you get sick of having every minute of your summer planned out and scheduled for you?’

“Sammi shrugged, then offered, ‘I’m on a waiting list for a Mommy & Me class on unstructured fun.’”

Disclosure: An uncorrected review copy was provided by the publisher.  They neither paid nor pressured me to speak well of it.  Only about the first fourth had (unfinalized) illustrations, so my accuracy may be limited.

^[1] Unless it’s explained in the artwork.  I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.